Friday, January 30, 2004

ABCNEWS.com : Commentary: Is IBM Missing the Linux Boat?

ABCNEWS.com : Commentary: Is IBM Missing the Linux Boat?: "Windows XP should sell for $29 not $299. This is why Linux has to be put on the fast track. Users cannot pay never-ending forced tributes to Microsoft as if it were the Roman Empire and we its slaves. Right now, the Linux alternative needs some consolidation. To continue my History Channel analogy, there needs to be a Genghis Khan of Linux uniting the warring tribes into one unstoppable force. IBM has the potential to do this.

IBM has tried everything to get Microsoft off the desktop. It tried OS/2, and was outflanked by Microsoft. It attempted to create a new platform based on a non-Intel chip. That went nowhere. It tried going heavily into Java, which had zero effect on Microsoft. Now it's going with Linux. If IBM were to roll out Blue Linux, numerous good things would happen for Linux."

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Tower of HP shows signs of crumbling

Tower of HP shows signs of crumbling: "HP's perilous slide down the rankings were only interrupted by the Compaq merger, and now they don't even place. If anyone knows the numbers for past years, or where HP ranked this year, let us know, and we'll put it up. I would guess that the numbers are not nearly as pretty as the bleak outlook from the presentations.

So what does all this mean? HP is in a tailspin. It announced positive numbers last November in a company Las Vegas love in, but inside word is this quarter is not nearly as rosy. The rumours are totally unsubstantiated at this point, but if I were a betting man, I would not put money on HP making its sales goals this quarter. Then again, word has it that specific goals were not set this quarter so they could not be missed. Clever little middle managers in the once proud ink peddler."

Monday, January 26, 2004

Ars Technica: Science Sunday (1/25/2004)

Ars Technica: Science Sunday (1/25/2004): "Distributed computing plant cells?

Utah State University researchers were investigating how plants regulate their uptake and loss of gases and ran into an interesting discovery. Plant leaves have structures called stomata which open to allow carbon dioxide in, but close to prevent water vapor from leaving. Across the surface of a plant leaf, the researchers looked at the distribution of open and closed stomata and discovered they open and close in specific patterns.

By studying the distributions of these patches of open and closed stomata in leaves of the cocklebur plant, Peak and colleagues found specific patterns reminiscent of distributed computing. Patches of open or closed stomata sometimes move around a leaf at constant speed, for example.

The patterning does not seem to be indicative of a single chemical signal propagating across the leaf and the Utah State group matched the behavior to single cells computing their state and integrating it with information from nearby cells. This method would be a more efficient way of regulating the cellular state of the entire plant than having individual cells opening and closing on their own. "

ESA - Mars Express - Europe's eye on Mars: first spectacular results from Mars Express

ESA - Mars Express - Europe's eye on Mars: first spectacular results from Mars Express

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

LaCie - Bigger Disk - largest hard drive capacity available

LaCie - Bigger Disk - largest hard drive capacity available: "The LaCie Bigger Disk, with the largest hard drive capacity available, is a unique innovation that packs an amazing 1 terabyte of storage space in a manageable 5.25' form factor."

Friday, January 16, 2004

OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum

OLD-COMPUTERS.COM : The Museum • The all-in-one (H/Z-120) version actually had three screen color options -- Amber, Green and white. However, in ten years of working at Heathkit, I have NEVER seen the white screen in operation, however I have two white tubes from the kit, new in the box (from our first shipment of Z-120! We got two green, two amber, two whites. The whites never sold...and are probably the best screen!). Going to have to install 'em one of these days in one of my H-120s. :)

• The Z-100 didn't run at 4.77MHz. because they were to freaking cheap to put more crystal oscilators in the PC, so they picked one frequency that could be divided down into all the frequencies needed on the board. The H/Z-100 had something like ten or so crystals and crystal oscilators in the box. The original machine ran at a flat 5.000MHz, the later one ran at 8.000MHz, and more than a few of the old ones were upgraded to 8MHz simply by replacing the processor and the processor crystal. Zenith later had an official upgrade to the later rev of the main board (which took 256K memory chips) which replaced a number of parts with "high-speed" versions, but my experience was that it wasn't needed.

• The keyboard was INCREDIBLE on these things. Several friends of mine consider it the best keyboard on a mass-market machine ever.

InformationWeek > Robot Helicopters > Seiko Unveils Mini Flying Machine > January 13, 2004

InformationWeek > Robot Helicopters > Seiko Unveils Mini Flying Machine > January 13, 2004: "Weighing 0.35 ounces (10 grams) and measuring 2.8 inches (70 millimeters) in height, the Micro Flying Robot was unveiled recently as the world's lightest and smallest robot helicopter. The company hopes it will be used as a 'flying camera' during natural disasters."

Rob Galbraith DPI: Shooting the D1X for National Geographic

Rob Galbraith DPI: Shooting the D1X for National Geographic

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

ITtoolbox Emerging Technologies

ITtoolbox Emerging Technologies

Knowledge Base -- StoragePeerPublishing

Knowledge Base -- StoragePeerPublishing - pdf - White Paper Fluorescent Multilayer Optical Data Storage. By Ingolf Sander, Constellation 3D, New York, NY, USA.

Content Page

Content Page
Philips and MKM regard the introduction of dual-layer DVD+R technology as the next important milestone in the drive to continually improve and expand the optical data storage options available to consumers. Users will benefit from the additional storage capacity of the DVD+R disc as it will enable them to record 4 hours of DVD-quality video or 16 hours of VHS-quality video, without the need to turn over the disc. PC users will be able to archive up to 8.5 Gbytes of computer files on a single disc, which almost doubles the storage capacity compared with the 4.7Gbytes for the single-layer DVD+R discs currently available.

Content Page

Content Page

The main problem here is that getting DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) standards require money and NDAs, so that little detailed technical information about these formats

kind of information to the drive : tracking (so that the pits are correctly written along a track), addresses (so that the drive can write at the good location) and speed (so that the disc is spinned at the correct velocity). With CD-R(W), tracking and speed information are carried by the wobble, while addresses are contained in the ATIP data (Absolute Time In Pregroove, a frequency modulation of the wobble).
DVD-R(W) format uses a slow wobble (140,6kHz) for tracking and speed, and the addressing (and additional) information is carried by the land pre - pits ( pre - recorded

Content Page

Content Page

"3-dimension" disc

"3-dimension" disc

Trends 2003 A Look to the Future

Trends 2003 A Look to the Future

Trends 2003 A Look to the Future

Trends 2003 A Look to the Future

Fluorescent 75

Fluorescent 75: "Fluorescent Multilayer
The concept of multilayer, fluorescent cards/disks (FMD/C) is a unique breakthrough, solving the problems of signal degradation. Here the storage layer is coated with a fluorescent material. When the laser beam hits the layer, fluorescent light is emitted. This emitted light has a different wavelength from the incident laser light - slightly shifted towards the red end of the light spectrum - and is incoherent in nature, in contrast to the reflected light in current optical devices. The emitted light is not affected by data or other marks, and transverses adjacent layers undisturbed. In the read out system of the drive the light is filtered, so that only the information-bearing fluorescent light is detected, thus reducing the effect of stray light and interference. Theoretical studies, confirmed by experimental results, have shown that in conventional reflection systems the signal quality degrades rapidly with the number of layers. In fluorescent read out systems, on the other hand, the signal quality degrades much more slowly with each additional layer (see below). Research has shown that media containing up to a hundred layers are currently feasible, thereby increasing the potential capacity of a single card or disk to hundreds of Gigabytes. Use of blue laser techniques would increase the capacities to over 1 Terabyte. As the technology is developed, and the nonlinear mechanisms of light absorption are mastered, the objective is to reduce layer thickness toward molecular dimensions, potentially resulting in over 1,000s of layers per disk and capacities of 10s of Terabytes."

Plasmon News - Phase Change Recording in 12-inch TrueWORM Technology & Trade

Plasmon News - Phase Change Recording in 12-inch TrueWORM Technology & Trade

3D Volume Atomic Holographic Optical Disk Drive Storage - Colossal Storage Corporation

3D Volume Atomic Holographic Optical Disk Drive Storage - Colossal Storage Corporation: "Atomic Holographic Nanotechnology will Set the Pace for the Future


The FeDrive functions by Non - Contact Rewritable FeDisk using Ultraviolet / Blue LED in Non-Destructive reading of computer information from a 2D/3D ferroelectric disk."

The expected cost of the Atomic Holographic DVR disc drive will be from $ 570 to $ 750 with the replacement discs for $ 45.

One 10 terabyte to 100 terabyte 3.5 in FEdisk would be EQUAL to a 10,000 to 100,000 Gigabyte FEdisk.

Thats 1,000 times any State of the Art hard disk technology with 100 Gigabytes on one disk. Hard drive technology will never exceed 500 Gigabytes on a disk.

Atomic Holographic optical image data storage bandwidth is 400,000 times faster than binary bit text processing bandwidths used in todays storage technology.

Friday, January 09, 2004

TrustedReviews.

TrustedReviews.: "DVD recorders with integrated hard disks seem to be part of every manufacturer's product line up right now and it’s not difficult to see why. With an HDD and DVD recorder setup, you can record everything to the hard disk and then edit and transfer the video you want to keep to DVD."

Tuesday, January 06, 2004

a whore of a different color | "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

a whore of a different color | "Lord, what fools these mortals be!"

heather corinna: pure as the driven slush

heather corinna: pure as the driven slush

The Quirky Girl Speaks - Amateur Sex Talk With Kristy Tyler

The Quirky Girl Speaks - Amateur Sex Talk With Kristy Tyler

Pussy Ranch

Pussy Ranch

The Register

The Register: "Darkness will fall on legendary webcam site JenniCam at the end of 2003 after seven years of chronicling the everyday life of Jennifer Rigley.

Since 1986 web voyeurs have enjoyed no-holds-barred 24/7 coverage of Jenni going about her daily business - from watching TV to conducting her ablutions, and it's the latter which has apparently forced the shutdown.

The site is tight-lipped on the matter, noting merely that 'JenniCam will be closing on 12/31/03. All existing member accounts will expire no later than 12/31/03'. However, Yahoo! News reports that the closure has been forced by PayPal because 'the frontal nudity on her Web site violates the company's acceptable use policy'. "

Belle de Jour

Belle de Jour

Fazi Editore - Catalogo

Fazi Editore - Catalogo

My Way News

My Way News: "LBV1806-20, however, formed near where a supernova exploded in the past. Eikenberry said this explosion may have compressed gas and dust, enabling the star to grow far beyond the usual size of stellar giants. He said the same area contains a baby star in the process of formation, along with several other large stars, all of which may have formed as the result of the earlier supernova.

Eikenberry said massive stars generally only shine for about 2 million years, and LBV1806-20 is now middle-aged, about a million years old. Eventually, he said, such stars blow themselves apart and that without such explosions there would be no planets like the Earth teeming with life."

My Way News

NASA Unveils Color Snapshot of Mars

The new color image is the sharpest photograph ever taken on the surface of Mars. NASA scientists called the picture a "postcard," sent across 105 million miles of space to Earth from its Spirit rover.

The image is actually a mosaic of 12 separate pictures shot by Spirit's high-resolution panoramic camera, or Pancam. It covers a 45-degree field of view of the terrain in Gusev Crater, where Spirit landed late Saturday.

ScienceDaily News Release: Working On The 'Porsche Of Its Time': New Model For Species Determination Offered

ScienceDaily News Release: Working On The 'Porsche Of Its Time': New Model For Species Determination Offered: "Novak investigated a Postosuchus specimen excavated from the Coelophysis Quarry of Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, a famous locality teeming with dinosaur fossils (mainly Coelophysis bauri) as a result of a mass death. While comparing the Ghost Ranch specimen with the two specimens of Postosuchus kirkpatricki from Texas, she noticed some differences in the bones. Not sure whether these differences were numerous enough or skeletally important enough to make the Ghost Ranch Postosuchus a new species, she decided to do a little more research before making a final decision.

Because the Rauisuchian fossil record is generally sparse, Novak instead dove into the dinosaurian fossil record in attempts to quantify the amount of skeletal difference historically regarded as valid to erect a new species within the same genera. She analyzed 28 genera containing 68 species from both the saurischian (lizard-hipped) and ornithischian (bird-hipped) orders. Using the fact that the skeleton of a dinosaur generally contains approximately 338 different bones, she catalogued the number of differences as well as where the differences were found on the skeleton. Calculations indicated that, on average, two species of dinosaur that are members of the same genera varied from each other by just 2.2 percent. Translation of the percentage into an actual number results in an average of just three skeletal differences out of the total 338 bones in the body. Amazingly, 58 percent of these differences occurred in the skull alone.

'This is a lot less variation than I'd expected,' said Novak, whose advisor is Josh Smith, Ph.D., Washington University assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences. 'As a concept, this is not statistically perfect. But I think it's something taxonomists can consider if they are in doubt over classifying something. It's a kind of benchmark with historical validity.'"

ScienceDaily News Release: Plasma Combustion Technology Could Dramatically Improve Fuel Efficiency

ScienceDaily News Release: Plasma Combustion Technology Could Dramatically Improve Fuel Efficiency: "Kerosene, propane, gasoline and diesel fuel are all hydrocarbons, all made up of the same basic chemical constituents but separated by the size of their individual molecules. The more efficient fuels, and therefore more highly refined and expensive kerosene and propane, consist of fairly small chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms, whereas the less efficient and cheaper fuels, gasoline and diesel, are made of long chains of molecules. According to Coates, when electrodes attached at the spray nozzle of a fuel injector apply enough voltage to the fuel, energetic plasma electrons from voltage-induced breakdown of the fuel cause reactive species to be created, changing the basic chemical composition as the fuel becomes a plasma."

Sunday, January 04, 2004

HoustonChronicle.com - First photos arrive from Mars

HoustonChronicle.com - First photos arrive from Mars: "'We got lucky. We landed in the sweet spot,' said Steve Squyres, the Cornell University astronomer who leads Spirit's science team. 'We see enough rocks to do great science, but not so many they will get in the way. We are going to be able to really motor around the place.'

Scientists expected Spirit to transmit its first color images late today."

HoustonChronicle.com - Spirit rover lands on Mars

HoustonChronicle.com - Spirit rover lands on Mars

HoustonChronicle.com - Hundreds see fireballs fall from sky in Spain

HoustonChronicle.com - Hundreds see fireballs fall from sky in Spain: "'I left the house at around 12 minutes to six. I heard a big explosion, like an earth tremor, and a white cloud of smoke formed around a nearby mountain which took a long time to disappear,' a local official from the northern region of Palencia told the radio."

Quarantining dissent / How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech

Quarantining dissent / How the Secret Service protects Bush from free speech: "When Bush went to the Pittsburgh area on Labor Day 2002, 65-year-old retired steel worker Bill Neel was there to greet him with a sign proclaiming, 'The Bush family must surely love the poor, they made so many of us.'

The local police, at the Secret Service's behest, set up a 'designated free-speech zone' on a baseball field surrounded by a chain-link fence a third of a mile from the location of Bush's speech.

The police cleared the path of the motorcade of all critical signs, but folks with pro-Bush signs were permitted to line the president's path. Neel refused to go to the designated area and was arrested for disorderly conduct; the police also confiscated his sign.

Neel later commented, 'As far as I'm concerned, the whole country is a free-speech zone. If the Bush administration has its way, anyone who criticizes them will be out of sight and out of mind.'

At Neel's trial, police Detective John Ianachione testified that the Secret Service told local police to confine 'people that were there making a statement pretty much against the president and his views' in a so-called free- speech area.

Paul Wolf, one of the top officials in the Allegheny County Police Department, told Salon that the Secret Service 'come in and do a site survey, and say, 'Here's a place where the people can be, and we'd like to have any protesters put in a place that is able to be secured.' '

Pennsylvania District Judge Shirley Rowe Trkula threw out the disorderly conduct charge against Neel, declaring, 'I believe this is America. Whatever happened to 'I don't agree with you, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it'?'

Similar suppressions have occurred during Bush visits to Florida. A recent St. Petersburg Times editorial noted, 'At a Bush rally at Legends Field in 2001, three demonstrators -- two of whom were grandmothers -- were arrested for holding up small handwritten protest signs outside the designated zone. And last year, seven protesters were arrested when Bush came to a rally at the USF Sun Dome. They had refused to be cordoned off into a protest zone hundreds of yards from the entrance to the Dome.'"

Spirit's First Light :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe

Spirit's First Light :: Astrobiology Magazine :: Search for Life in the Universe: "First images show spectacular camera views from nearly a quarter billion miles away, on the surface of Mars. The rover, Spirit, landed 'petal-down' meaning images could be uplinked within hours of landing--a fortuitous one-in-four chance of happening. The geology of this ancient lake bed presents geologists with a multitude of sampling opportunities, as the rover makes its way in nine days to a distance of up to a 100 meters per day. "

Welcome to TechBuilder.org

Welcome to TechBuilder.org: "The good news is that you don't need to be a music specialist to build music systems. From the system-builder's perspective, a Digital Audio Workstation has a lot in common with other data-intensive applications, such as file servers and video-editing systems. In fact, with just a little knowledge of current state-of-the-art audio interfaces and software, a knowledgeable system builder can assemble a Digital Audio Workstation with readily available, off-the-shelf components. The system will work reliably and produce great results."

Saturday, January 03, 2004

GearPreview | Online Reviews for Music & Filmmaking Equipments

GearPreview | Online Reviews for Music & Filmmaking Equipments

Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ

Digital Camera Reviews and News: Digital Photography Review: Forums, Glossary, FAQ

Technology Tuesday 12/16/03

A HUD On Every Helmet

In the past few years, the technology to manufacture a wearable HUD has dropped significantly in price--so much, in fact, that Seattle-based Motion Research has been able to develop the low-cost SportVue, a lightweight visor-mounted display unit that gets its data from a GPS "pod" mounted on the back of the helmet. The system adds less than 6 ounces to a helmet and won't weigh you down with a second mortgage, or two.

The SportVue display and the GPS unit communicate via a custom RF link, eliminating the need to run wires between the two. That means easier, cleaner installation. The display unit attaches to the helmet using a Snell-approved "break away" clip, while the GPS transceiver pod is bonded to the helmet.

Once installed, the display projects real-time data into the rider's field of vision. The data appears at a distance so refocusing your eyes is not an issue, allowing your attention to stay on the road. Real-time information such as speed and distance are continually updated.

Motion Research plans to make a bicycle-helmet version available sometime after the initial rollout of the motorcycle model. That system will display the rider's speed, distance traveled and heart rate, all for an estimated price of $150 to $199.

Extreme Machines: World's Largest Digital Camera

Extreme Machines: World's Largest Digital Camera

SCO Owns Your Computer

SCO Owns Your Computer

Friday, January 02, 2004

Palm Digital Media: eBook Primer - Introduction

Palm Digital Media: eBook Primer - Introduction

Masquerade

Masquerade: "Masquerade is a full-featured Integrated Development Environment (IDE) on the BeOS/Zeta platform, for the C/C programming language, but with support for language add-ons. It uses GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) as it's compiler.
"

Reuters | Breaking News from Around the Globe

Reuters | Breaking News from Around the Globe: "They trampled on the holy Koran, beat up some of the worshippers and stole computers and a donations box,' he said. Others claimed that a page was torn from the Koran.

Protesters screamed and cried, chanting: 'God is great' and 'America is the enemy of God'.

Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, a U.S. military spokesman, said U.S. troops had conducted the operation after a tip off from Iraqis and netted a wide array of weaponry to be used against occupying forces facing a relentless insurgency.

'Over recent months, the U.S. 1st Armored Division has received numerous reports from Iraqis that the al-Tabool mosque was being used for criminal and terrorist activities,' Kimmitt told a news conference on Friday.

'U.S. forces, led by the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and the Iraqi police therefore conducted a cordon and search.'

He said troops had found several sticks of high explosives, hand grenades, AK-47 rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

'There is clear evidence from what we seized that this mosque was being used for things other than free religious expression,' Kimmitt said."

Astronomy

Astronomy: "Astronomy's New Grail: The $1 Billion Telescope
By DENNIS OVERBYE

Published: December 30, 2003"

Firm releases MPEG-4 digital recording software

Firm releases MPEG-4 digital recording software: "A US FIRM, PC DTV Technologies, has claimed a first by releasing HDTV MPEG-4 digital recording software for Windows multimedia PCs.

It said that it is shipping a beta public version of its Countdown HD software today.

The software, it claims, will give users of hardware decoded HDTV tuner boards to record two hours of HDTV to one 4.7GB DVD disk using the MPEG-4 compression format.

The software includes a digital video transcoder that will convert between MPEG-2 and MPEG4, direct transcoding burning to DVD-R/W, DVD R/W, DVD RAM or CD-R/W drives, and direct transcoding to PC hard drives.

The software includes a DiVX Pro 5.1.1 Codec, support for Windows Media 9, Xvid/Koepis COdec support, background trancoding, and crpping and resizing of videos.

The firm doesn't say when the full version is available, but is charging $150 for the public beta, which it said will be available today. µ"

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Robot Tarzan' helps forest work

BBC NEWS | Technology | 'Robot Tarzan' helps forest work

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