Random factoid of the day:
Average time between filing a patent in the US and it being granted or abandoned, in 1995: 19.2 months.
Average time in 2005: 29.1 months
Year that, at current rates, patents will be pending for their entire 20-years-from-date-of-filing lifespan: 2198
From the Sydney Morning Herald:
Jane, from Coogee, was surprised to find three police on her bus asking to inspect mobile phones. Each took a phone at random and scrolled through messages for five or ten minutes. Everyone obeyed. “The people were perfectly friendly about it,” she said. “I thought it was a bit weird and a breach of privacy. But I didn’t say anything. Nobody did.”
No, it’s not about terrorism, it’s about potential racial violence, but it’s still that nasty abuse-of-rights-in-the-name-of-safety-from-unknown-boogeymen vibe. Of course, such flagrant violations of our rights without a court order could never happen in the US. In the US, we’d never even know they’d read our text messages without a court order until we read about it in the New York Times.
(Thanks to Omri for the link.)
Big Brother Down Under Read More »
Grand-illusions.com has just had a major face-lift. This is a great site for all things quirky, tricky or magical, especially if it has a science-twist (I got my Makyoh from them). Be sure to check out Tim’s toy collection page, which he’s slowly filling with videos of the 10,000-odd toys in his personal collection.
Grand Illusions website updated Read More »
Docbug Exclusive — Faced with a potential boycott from right-wing Christian groups, retailers Target and Lowes have agreed to reinstate their long-standing policy of using Christ’s name for cheap commercial gain. The companies were targeted by the American Family Association because they refer to the word “holiday” instead of Christmas in their advertisements and storewide decorations.
Conservative pundits were quick to call the move a victory for those who recognize Christ as an inherent part of the end-of-year buying season. Spokesmen for both companies say they intended no disrespect, and that they plan to institute policies to insure that religion will be more prominently exploited in the future.
(Update 12/15/05: fixed typo)
Bowing to pressure, retailers agree to take Lord’s name in vain Read More »
From Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-gram:
Two years ago, if someone asked me about protecting against identity theft, I would tell them to shred their trash and be careful giving information over the Internet. Today, that advice is obsolete. Criminals are not stealing identity information in ones and twos; they’re stealing identity information in blocks of hundreds of thousands and even millions.
On the plus side, he says so many identities are being stolen now that the thieves don’t have time to use more than a small percentage of them for fraud…
No need to outrun the bear… Read More »
Here I’ve been complaining about simply unbranding my Treo, when somebody’s managed to put Linux on a Treo 650.
(By way of Engadget, by way of Nerfduck.)
GMail has added Web Clips at the top of their page, showing RSS and Atom feeds plus “relevant sponsored links” to the top of your messages. Unfortunately, it looks like only the sponsored links are actually relevant (which I read to mean “related to the message you’re reading”). Clips from your own RSS feeds are still just random.
Hopefully they’re busy working on fixing that — I still think automatic annotation of email (and blog entries) with other related entries form a largish set of favorite RSS feeds is a seriously useful application that needs to be exploited. Honestly, I’ve been expecting it to be just around the corner for about three years now, and I’m not sure why I’m still waiting. (I know, I know… if I really want it done I’d sit down and write one myself…)
GMail “Web Clips” are still context blind… Read More »
Two interesting technologies have just been announced in the flexible-computing arena. First (via engadget) is NEC’s announcement of their Organic Radical Battery, a 300-micron thick flexible battery with an energy density of about 1 mWh/cm2 and recharge time of just 30 seconds. Then throw in Plastic Logic‘s announcement of a 10″ diagonal SVGA E-Ink display (4-level greyscale) that’s both flexible and less than 0.4mm thick. (Thanks to Kurt for the links!)
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| NEC’s ORB battery | Plastic Logic’s E-Ink based display |
Let’s hear it for flexibility… Read More »
Brian Toth’s Google Maps plugin is a cute integration for OSX that lets you lookup your Apple Address Book addresses using Google Maps and also get directions between your Address Book addresses. (Thanks to Noel for the link!)
Google Maps plug-in for Mac Address Book Read More »
My friend Brygg points out that Arthur C. Clarke’s 1963 two-page short story Dial F for Frankenstein starts with the Net gaining consciousness just two days ago with a baby’s cry on every telephone in the world:
At 0150 Greenwich Mean Time on December 1, 2005 , every telephone in the world started to ring…
I’m still waiting by the phone, just in case…