Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED
THE iPhone HAS BEEN TRADED
Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones.
Here are more details
http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/
Terry Daidone, the founder of Certicell contacted me this morning, and offered to make a trade for the iPhone. I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones.
Here are more details
http://iphonejtag.blogspot.com/
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Panasonic "Pixi" cellphone picture dock is designed for social networking, idiots
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
How the FBI spies on suspects
Details of a nifty piece of kit used by the FBI to spy on the internet activities of suspected criminals have emerged during a court case in the US.
CIPAV, which stands for Computer and Intenet Protocol Address Verifier, allows agents to track what connections a suspect's computer has made with other machines, for instance by e-mail or browsing the internet.
Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?
Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?
There's nothing like a tiff between image processing experts to put a few extra pixels in your Monday.
Last week Wired.com ran a story in which a computer scientist claimed he could establish whether al-Qaeda had altered a video prior to posting it on the internet.
Neal Krawetz said he had written a program which would enable investigators to establish whether a background had been added to disguise the true location in which an al-Qaeda video was recorded, and, if the image had been altered, which editing software was used. (Of limited significance, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless.)
A video by a prominent al-Qaeda spokesman posted last year, had, for instance, had a desk, computer and some books added after the original recording, Mr Krawetz said.
A computer security expert at Cambridge University last week took issue with Mr Krawetz's claims, however, claiming that his analysis was flawed.
Continue reading "Al-Qaeda's pixels popped?" »
The environmental cost of chat sessions and the paperless office
The rise of the paperless office, online banking, VOIP calls and e-commerce is not as green as you might think. The demand for electronic services is creating a boom in the construction of data centres to store and process these digital details on countless computer servers, and the need to keep these server farms cool and always-on is having a noticeable effect on the power grid.
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
According to a recent report by America's Environmental Protection Agency, America's data centres require more power than all the television sets in the 50 states, combined. Put another way, the energy consumed is equivalent to 5.8 million homes – that's a lot of Amazon orders and Skype chat sessions. Put in monetary terms, it's $4.5 billion (£2.2 billion) worth of electricity consumption per annum, says Greenbang.com.
Continue reading "The environmental cost of chat sessions and the paperless office" »
Microsoft pipped in Beijing Olympic race?
Some confusion this week about whether the organisers of the Beijing Olympics had taken a swipe at Microsoft, or not.
Reports surfaced in the past couple of days that Lenovo, an official supplier to the Beijing Olympics, was to ship the majority of its computers to the games with XP, rather than Vista, installed.
This - the chairman of Lenovo, Yang Yuanqing, suggested, in remarks that were taken slightly out of context - was because the Olympics needed stable technologies and "if it's not stable, it could have some problems."
Implication: Vista was unstable.
Cue a series of rather unflattering (for Microsoft) headlines, including 'Unstable Vista Dumped for Olympics', 'Windows Vista Snubbed by Olympics organisers', 'Vista loses Olympics race', and, perhaps the most inspired, '2008 Olympics to run on XP'.
Continue reading "Microsoft pipped in Beijing Olympic race?" »
Germans aim to build laptop powered by body heat
Face it, batteries just aren't very reliable, I type with gritted teeth as I spy the rapidly dwindling battery power indicator on my MacBook. And, as we learned recently, lithium-ion batteries have a tendency to overheat, triggering expensive recalls from Nokia and Sony in the past year. Perhaps the researchers at Germany's Fraunhofer Institute, the same group that brought us the MP3 audio format, have found a solution: a new method of drawing electrical current from our body heat that could some day power laptops, mobile phones and gadgets.
Continue reading "Germans aim to build laptop powered by body heat" »
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
Razr2: Motorola's hope in a handset
The follow up to Motorola's legendary Razr has shaved 2mm off the width of its predecessor, but still lacks a 'killer app'
To say Motorola has a fair bit pegged to the success of the Razr2 is a little like saying that our planet has a fair bit pegged to the sun continuing to combust.
Edward Zander, Motorola's chief executive, has himself acknowledged that the company didn't deliver many "really new 'wow'" products in the first half of the year, so it will be hoped – rather fervently – along the Motorola corridors, and those of its investors, that in the third and fourth quarters the handset maker can recover some ground.
There is a fair bit of ground to make up. Last month, the company posted a deficit of $28 million (£14.2 million), its second straight quarterly loss. Overall revenues for the second quarter of this year were down 19 per cent, from $10.8 billion to $8.7 billion (£5.5 billion to £4.4 billion), compared with the same quarter last year, while handset sales dropped by 40 per cent over the same period.
Motorola's hopes are in fact pinned to two devices. First came the Z8, a 'movie phone' which came pre-loaded with The Bourne Identity, and which was released a couple of months ago.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article2308099.ece
Move over geeks, women are top web users
Women aged between 25 and 49 are now spending more time on the internet than men as they become hooked on keeping in touch with friends online, according to figures published yesterday by the communications regulator Ofcom.
The figures are particularly pronounced in the 25 to 34 age group, in which women now account for 55 per cent of time spent online – demon-strating that the medium once thought of as dominated by solitary, glass-wearing male nerds is rapidly being feminised.
James Thickett, director of research with Ofcom, said: “Young women are finally finding content relevant to them on the internet. Social networking is what is driving a lot of usage; websites like Facebook and Bebo have a much higher female profile”.
Unknown two years ago, social networking sites – a combination of communication, information and gossip – have become particularly popular with women. Such sites are visted by more than six million Britons a month, and are still growing rapidly, according to figures complied by Ofcom in its annual audit of media consumption, the Communications Market Report.
Facebook and Bebo, as well as MySpace, which is owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, all have more young female users. Nearly a third of all Facebook users are women aged 18 to 34; only a quarter are men in the same range.
Adam Baum, media analyst with Gartner Group said: “I have no doubt that the reason behind the swing [towards women] is the rise of social networking sites. The time people spend on sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook is by some magnitude higher than on ‘traditional’ websites and these new sites, which allow people to talk to each other, engage in friendships and share tastes, appeal to women.”
Internet usage shows marked gender divides. Forrester Research, the technology specialist, describes the net as “just another channel for women to do what they enjoy: shopping, talking, and caring”. Its data, based on research of young people across Europe, shows that 55 per cent of women aged 18 to 34 – or 4.13 million – use the medium regularly compared with 45 per cent – or 3.49 million – of men. Women are also likely to spend more time on networking sites when they are there.
Sharon Bailey, general manager for MSN, Microsoft’s online business, said that 78 per cent of the users on the company’s health and wellbeing site were women.
She said: “If learning how to use the technology was ever a barrier to women getting online, it isn’t today and, frankly, there are more interesting things for women to do on the web than in the past – especially when it comes to socialising.”
However, older men are still more prolific users of the internet than older women. Of those aged over 65, men account for 79 per cent of time online. Boys go online more than girls.
If the trends continue, analysts believe that they could eventually have an impact on television viewing. “The knock-on effect will be on traditional media,” Mr Baum said.
Female favourites
1 Google – 1.8 million unique vistors
2 MSN/Windows Live – 1.56 million
3 Yahoo! – 1 million
4 BBC – 882,000
5 Facebook – 855,000
6 eBay – 839,000
7 MySpace – 722,000
8 Microsoft – 702,000
9 YouTube – 661,000
10 Google Maps – 654,000
Source: Nielsen/NetRatings surveyed women aged 18-24
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article2310548.ece
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
Google turns its attention to the stars
Google, having brought the earth into the living room, has turned its eye to the heavens to bring the sky at night indoors.
More than 250 million people have used Google Earth’s satellite pictures to look at their own homes from space or into their neighbours’ back gardens or viewed weird and wonderful geological features.
The internet facility has now been expanded to offer a glimpse of 100 million individual stars and 200 million galaxies as part of the Google Sky initiative.
The system has been designed to show the night sky from any point in the world and to explain what it is the user would see were they to peer up at the stars on a clear night.
Information on 20,000 celestial bodies, including stars, planets, galaxies, constellations and comets are available at the click of a mouse.
Just as Google Earth showed the planet in close up by providing access to satellite pictures, Google Sky offers photographs from a range of observatories, including the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
Thousands of images have been put together to provide a comprehensive view of the night sky with the ability to zoom in on cosmic features of interest.
The pictures were already available to the public through the internet but the Google site is designed to bring them together in an organised, easy-to-access manner.
The facility was created in partnership with a range of organisations including Nasa, the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre and the Anglo-Australian Observatory.
Among the cosmic subjects with dedicated areas on the website are the constellations, photographs from Hubble, the moon and the planets.
Users can also take virtual tours through galaxies such as the Ursa Minor Dwarf and the Milky Way, and watch the life of a star from formation to supernova and beyond.
Information and pictures provided by Google Sky have been verified by professional astronomers but additional details can be added to the site in ‘layers’.
In one layer a professional astronomer has included details of dozens of solar systems which are known to have planets.
Enthusiasts can add their own information, whether to note the discovery of an exploding star or simply to offer a photograph of the sky from their own back garden, in associated layers. Some, after being checked for accuracy and suitability, will eventually be incorporated within the main site.
Dr Fransisco Diego, an astronomer at University College London, said at the launch at Google’s officies in London that the internet facility will be an aid to professionals and amateurs alike. He described it as “an amazing facility” and said: “It opens a window on to space for the general public that will let them explore the sky.”
Dr Carol Christian, of the Space Telescope Science Institute in the United States, was part of the team that created the site that she said would allow everyone to see “the wonders of our universe”.
She added: “Never before has a roadmap of the entire sky been made so readily available. Sky in Google Earth will foster and initiate new understanding of the universe by bringing it to everyone’s home computer.”
Jason Chuck, of Google, said the aim had been to create a system that offered an introduction to astronomy rather than a comprehensive database. He hope it would serve as a teaching aid as well as being a site to be browsed purely out of interest.
It also, he said, surmounted the problem of trying to stargaze during cloudy weather, especially during the current damp spell, and in cities where light pollution hides many stars.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article2308536.ece
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
Madden NFL 08
Most platforms, £35-£50. Ages 3+
Madden is the best known series of American football games and this is its meatiest incarnation. The graphics have been overhauled and the controls improved. Gone is the frenetic gamepad bashing, replaced by sensible and intuitive key combinations.
The players are superbly responsive. Indeed, star players are able to perform exquisite manoeuvres that set them apart from the rest of the team. However, this complex sport has limited appeal outside the US – a bit like serving hot dogs to a stadium of vegetarians.
http://rohitbrt.blogspot.com/
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