Saturday, February 24, 2007

Modbook

Now introducing the Axiotron Modbook, the first Mac table computer ever! This pen-sensitive Mac comes without a keyboard or mouse; instead, special hardware and software allow you to control the tablet via a stylus.

Simply put, the ModBook is a stock Apple MacBook that’s been given a radical makeover by Axiotron (and sold exclusively by OWC). As such, the guts of the system are basically the same as the MacBook. Each ModBook is built to order, so you’re buying a complete system. In other words, you won’t be able to buy a kit to make over your own MacBook into a tablet, and OWC won’t modify your current laptop into ModBook form.

For $2,279, you get a 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo processor, GMA 950 graphics, 512MB of 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM, a 60GB 5400-rpm hard drive, a Combo Drive, Apple Remote, and AirPort and Bluetooth. A ModBook with a 2GHZ processor, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD-burning SuperDrive, and built-in WAAS-enabled GPS receiver bumps the price to $2,579. And $2,849 gets you the same 2GHz system, but with 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. (There’s also an introductory special for those who pre-reserve by February 1, 2007.) All systems include a one-year OWC warranty; you can purchase two additional years for $349 for the base model, and for the same $249 price as AppleCare for the other configurations. And you’ll be able to customize your ModBook just as you would when ordering a MacBook from Apple.

Considering that MacBooks equipped with 1.83GHz and 2GHz processors sell or $1,099 and $1,299 respectively, what does that extra grand or so get you? A completely remodeled computer that goes from this…

Macbook

…to this:

modbook

modbook

Axiotron removes the top of the MacBook—including the display—and replaces it with a bezel made of an aircraft-grade magnesium alloy (it has a silver, MacBook Pro look to it). In place of the MacBook’s LCD screen goes a new display with the same 13.3-inch size and 1,280-by-800 pixel resolution as the original. But there are several key differences between the displays. The Axiotron ForceGlass covering the ModBook’s display is chemically strengthened and etched to improve longevity, scratch resistance, writing sensation, and reflection problems. The new screen has a 500-to-1 contrast ratio versus 400-to-1 on the MacBook, and it features a wider viewing angle than the MacBook.

Even with this rejiggering, the ModBook weighs in at 5.2 pounds—the same as the MacBook. The tablet is about .08 inches thicker than its laptop counterpart. Since the bottom half of the ModBook is a MacBook, the ports are the same. The ModBook has a MagSafe power port, Gigabit Ethernet port, Mini-DVI output connector, one FireWire 400 port, two USB 2.0 ports, combined optical digital audio input/audio line in, combined optical digital audio output/headphone out, built-in speakers, and a security slot.

Even though there’s no cover for the screen, it seems sturdy and strong, but you’ll probably want to get a sleeve for it.

Full specifications

for Axiotron ModBook w/ Built-in WAAS Enabled GPS (2GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD)

Manufacturer: Axiotron, Inc.
Part number: CNETMODBOOK2.0GHZB

General

  • Width
  • 12.8 in

  • Depth
  • 8.9 in

  • Height
  • 1.1 in

  • Weight
  • 5.2 lbs

  • Color
  • Black

Processor

  • Processor
  • Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz

Cache Memory

  • Type
  • L2 cache

  • Cache size
  • 4 MB

RAM

  • Installed Size
  • 1 GB / 2 GB(max)

  • Technology
  • DDR II SDRAM

Storage Controller

  • Storage controller type
  • Serial ATA

Storage

  • Floppy Drive
  • None

  • Hard Drive
  • 120 GB

  • Storage Removable
  • None

Optical Storage

  • CD / DVD read speed
  • 6x (DVD)

Display

  • Display Type
  • 13 in TFT active matrix

  • Max Resolution
  • 1280 x 800

  • Features
  • Glossy display

Video

  • Graphics Processor / Vendor
  • Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950

  • Video Memory
  • 64 MB

  • Max Resolution (external)
  • 1280 x 800

Audio

  • Audio output type
  • Sound card

  • Audio Input
  • Microphone

Input Device(s)

  • Input device type
  • Keyboard, Touchpad

Networking

  • Data link protocol
  • Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet

Expansion / Connectivity

  • Expansion Slots Total (Free)
  • 2 Memory

  • Interfaces
  • 2 x USB 2.0 - USB2.0, 1 x Ethernet - RJ-45, 1 x Mini-DVI, 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire), 1 x Line-in, 1 x Headphones, 1 x Microphone, 1 x Speaker

Miscellaneous

  • Cables Included
  • Power cable ( 1pcs.)

  • Features
  • AirPort Extreme card, Bluetooth, Camera

Power

  • Power provided
  • 60 Watt

Battery

  • Technology
  • Lithium ion

  • Installed Qty
  • 1

  • Mfr estimated battery life
  • 6 hour(s)

Operating System / Software

  • Software type
  • Drivers & Utilities, iLife 06 suite, Front Row, Photo Booth, iWork 06, Microsoft Office 2004

Manufacturer Warranty

  • Service & support type
  • 1 year warranty

{Sections of the above post has been borrowed from Macworld}

Second Google Desktop Vulnerability Reported

Google Desktop is vulnerable to a Web-based attack that could give an attacker access to data indexed by the software, say security researchers.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Google Desktop is vulnerable to a Web-based attack that could give an attacker access to data indexed by the software, say security researchers.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Friday, February 23, 2007 01:00 PM PST

Google's PC search software is vulnerable to a variation on a little-known Web-based attack called anti-DNS (Domain Name System) pinning, that could give an attacker access to any data indexed by Google Desktop, security researchers said this week.

This is the second security problem reported this week for the software. On Wednesday, researchers at Watchfire said they'd found a flaw that could allow attackers to read files or run unauthorized software on systems running Google Desktop.

How It Works

As with Watchfire's bug, attackers would first need to exploit a cross-site scripting flaw in the Google.com Web site for this latest attack to work, but the consequences could be serious, according to Robert Hansen, the independent security researcher who first reported the attack. "All of the data on a Google desktop can now be siphoned off to an attacker's machine," he said.

Cross-site scripting flaws are common Web server vulnerabilities that can be exploited to run unauthorized code within the victim's browser.

Hansen, who is CEO of Sectheory.com, did not post proof of concept code for his attack, but he said that he has "tested every component of it, and it works." He has posted some details of how Google Desktop data could be compromised on his blog.

Google said it was investigating Hansen's findings. "In addition, we recently added another layer of security checks to the latest version of Google Desktop to protect users from vulnerabilities related to Web search integration in the future," the company said in a prepared statement.

What Is Anti-DNS Pinning?

Anti-DNS pinning is an emerging area of security research, understood by just a handful of researchers, said Jeremiah Grossman, chief technical officer at WhiteHat Security. The variation of this attack described by Hansen manipulates the way the browser works with the Internet's DNS in order to trick the browser into sending information to an attacker's computer.

"Once you can re-point Google to another IP address, instead of Google getting the traffic, the bad guy does," he said.

Because this type of attack is so difficult to pull off and is poorly understood, it is unlikely to be used by the criminals any time soon, Grossman said. But anti-DNS pinning shouldn't be ignored, he added. "We should keep our eyes on it in case the bad guys shift gears."

Bad Timing for Google

News of the attack comes as Google is trying to enter the desktop productivity market. On Thursday Google launched a suite of Web-based collaboration software, called the Google Apps Premier Edition, which analysts say could become a competitor to Microsoft Office.

The troubling thing about the attack Hanson identified, which he calls anti-anti-anti DNS pinning, is that there is very little that can be done to avoid it, short of eliminating cross-site scripting vulnerabilities on the Web.

"This is really just fundamentally about how browsers work," he said. "If you allow a Web site to have access to your drive -- to modify to change things, to integrate or whatever -- you're relying on that Web site to be secure."

Hansen and Grossman say that Google is not the only company vulnerable to a growing category of Web-based attacks. For instance, MySpace.com was hit when a fast-moving worm spread through the MySpace community in early December, stealing MySpace log-in credentials and promoting adware Web sites.

"A lot of these new attack techniques are going to require the browsers to improve," Grossman said. "The users really have very little ability to protect themselves against these attacks" he said. "It's very bad. Even the experts are afraid to click on each other's links anymore."

- PC World

Upload Files in a Browser Using Drag and Drop

A typical file upload control in HTML looks like this:


You have to type the file path or can you click on "Browse" to get the path using a dialog provided by the operating system. This is usually cumbersome if you have a file manager like Windows Explorer that shows the file in the current view because you have to get the path of the file.

So it would be nice to drag and drop the file to the upload control and obtain the path. In Firefox, you can do this if you have an extension called dragdropupload. The extension should work in any site that lets you upload files using standard controls, but here are 3 examples of Google services where you can be more productive if you use it.

When you compose a message in Gmail, you can click on "Attach a file" and drag and drop one or more files in the input box. You can also drag and drop the files over the "Attach a file" link.

Another example: Picasa Web Albums lets you create albums and upload photos online. While in Internet Explorer you can do that easily using an ActiveX control, in Firefox you can add up to 5 photos at a time, one by one. The extension can save you time, because you can just select 5 photos in a file manager and drag-and-drop them to one of the upload controls.

This extension is also the magical way to upload more than one image at a time in Blogger. Just select the images you want to upload, and drag them to the standard control. Everything will look messy, like in the screenshot below, because the extension adds more upload controls at the bottom of the page, but the important thing is that it works and there's no limit for the number of images (the total size should be less than 8 MB, though).


- googlesystem.blogspot.com

Friday, February 23, 2007

Great Google Gadgets For your Personalized Page

Google AJAX Gadgets for News and Video Search

If you want to monitor the latest news about global warming, Google or your favorite basketball team, there's a newsbar gadget for the Personalized Homepage that shows the headlines at the top of the page and news snippets in the gadget container.



There's also a videobar that shows the top 8 search results from Google Video and YouTube for a list of queries. You could include a list of your favorite artists, TV shows or video series (like Google Techtalks) and the videos are always accessible from your personalized homepage (unless, of course, they are removed by the content providers).


These gadgets, but also Google mini search (that lets you search Google without leaving the page) and Google Map search were implemented using Google AJAX Search API. The API lets you build controls and gadgets centered around search, even if this isn't obvious.

Google tried to repeat the success of the Maps API. "We felt that the Maps API was successful because it was very easy to use, and very easy to explain, where you could show somebody a piece of HTML with some JavaScript, and most anybody could get a map on a webpage very quickly, and have some good eye candy, and some good utility by adding that to their page. What I was interested in is that Google is known for search, and we have search across a wide variety of backends. Could we make search as easy to integrate, and as useful, as we have done with Maps?" explains Mark Lucovsky from Google.

They build different solutions that could be just copy-pasted on a site and also these gadgets for Google Personalized Homepage. And because they use AJAX, you can search and see the search results on the same page that contains the gadgets.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com

Uneasy Changes

The highly popular provider of geeky news, Uneasy Silence.com, has been experiencing some changes. For instance, check out the (temporary) logo.



Also, Uneasy Silence is inviting visitors to remake the logo.


Here's what they have to say for themselves...

UES Rip?

"We interrupting normal posting to bring you this short message of some housekeeping / misc items:

  • Logo RIP?: After three years we are looking to clean up the logo a bit (more on that later today) to give us a modern look (The “beta” logo has actually been in place for the last three days now). But that logo is NOT necessarily final, matter of fact I open up the logo design to ANY uneasy reader. If you have any design skills and want to change the logo of the site drop us an email
  • Go Speed Racer: We recently upgraded to SSL and found that it had some real nasty side effects on the site, mainly hurting the commenting system. So it had to go! With much help from Mosso (basically undoing all the hacked up miserable coding I did), the site is back to its full potential. So all the technical goofs in the last week and a half are all my fault (Who knew that 127.0.0.1 caused a loopback :P)
  • You Got The Beat: The Beat comment page has quickly become almost the most popular page on UNEASYsilence. We are glad you liked it as much as we do
  • More means MORE: It took a long time for Derek and I to figure out how to get the “MORE” button to do what we want, but now when you click more - you actually get what you expect

This was just to tidy up a few changes over the last few days, and we have two other really exciting tidbits that we’ll divulge later today."


I think this is great and exciting and I can't wait to see what happens next. Also, I am SO gonna take up their challenge on the logo design thingy.

And You Thought Your Cell Plan Was Expensive

voce.jpg

If you think your cell plan is expensive, let us introduce you to Voce. They are a premium cell phone service sold by Neiman Marcus and the MVNO supposedly has agreements will all GSM phone providers ensuring coast to coast. There is a $500 start up cost which gives you a “premium handset” with full insurance, accessories (Bluetooth headset, extra battery and 3 chargers) and sync software. But, looking at the above cellphones they don’t seem so premium.

The contract is easy though. A flat montly fee of $200 which provides unlimited domestic calling and roaming, unlimited messaging along with free live directory assistance and a “voice personal mobile assistant” who provides everything from technical support to driving instructions.

- Uneasy Silence

Former Google Employee Now Works at Yahoo

Someone who worked as an intern at Microsoft, Google and now works at Yahoo describes his experiences. Regarding the Google period, he says:

The rumors about Google were mostly true: free gourmet food (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and kitchens with cereal and snacks nearby. The chefs would chat with you while you were filling your plate and answer any questions about the ingredients or cooking methods. Googlers are picky — I remember a > 100 email thread on the Mountain View misc mailing list discussing conspiracy theories about why our biodegradable recycled take-away food containers were replaced by cardboard ones. The variety of drinks was my favorite thing: you could get fresh squeezed juices of all kinds or whatever soft drink or tea you preferred. (...) Other cool things included famous people/authors coming in to give talks and giving us movie tickets or books they authored. There were so many great talks every day that I could have spent my whole day listening to interesting presentations by geek (and sometimes non-geek) celebrities. (...)

There were blue shirted security guards everywhere at almost every door of every building. They were like an army, and it would be funny to see recruiters sometimes ordering around a dozen or so blue shirts to prevent visitors from exploring. It always made me wary, and I was quite friendly with one of the security guards and she told us they would watch us at night when there was no one else in the building. Everything at Google was confidential and there were always cameras watching.

And here's a chart that summarizes his views on the three companies:


Ignoring the weird choice of favorite apps and cutting-edge apps (Outlook Express? Yahoo Answers?) and the fact that Google has a research lab, his comparison is interesting.

- googlesystem.blogspot.com

Power Book & Macbook




Yes folks, I take pictures of every mac I come across. Today I met two happy mac users who had a brief giggle when they saw my compaq. As interest grows in these beautiful machines, my wallet begins to twitch.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Google Earth - A Must Have

Jessica Pfund, a Google employee, talks about a program you may have heard about: Google Earth. The one-hour video takes you "through some of the most powerful, yet overlooked, features of this program and how people are using it".



Some notes:

* Google Maps is a 2D view of the world, while Google Earth is a 3D view of the world.

* Google Earth shortcuts: double click to zoom in, double right-click to zoom out. Double click on the zoom in button to zoom in to the maximum. Press N to recenter the view.

* Google Earth is a geobrowser, like Firefox is a browser for the web. It's also a way to search the world.

* Google Local is included in Google Earth. You can get local results by searching for a businesses or by enabling some of the layers (for example, the lodging layer).

* If you click on the pop-ups that describe a place, you'll find links to web search, images search, news. The search results pages open inside Google Earth.

* You can hide the left sidebar by clicking on a button from the toolbar or by typing Ctrl-Alt-B.

* Layers are displayed on top of the imagery and bring meaning to what you see in Google Earth. You can see the name of the populated places, the railroads or videos from different places.

* Create your own map: add pushpins, choose an icon and type HTML code in the description. Then post it at Google Earth Community, Google hosts it for you. Enable the Google Earth Community layer to see what people say about different places in the world.

* Content layers - provided by authoritative organizations, hand-picked. You'll find them in "featured content".

* KML files (XMLs used to display geographic data), network KMLs (link to external data that is dynamically generated).

* Create models in SketchUp, build KML files and share them in the 3D Warehouse. You can view models from the 3D Warehouse in Google Earth. The latest version of Google Earth (v4) added the ability to view texturized models.

* 1/3 of the world covered by high-resolution imagery.

* Google Earth is used for urban planning, education, disaster response and awareness, environmental activism, to share vacation photos. [Notes found on googlesystem.blogspot.com]

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

How To Replace Your iPod's Battery




Hacks


Most of our readers are surely aware that an iPod's battery, like any rechargeable battery, will lose its ability to hold a charge over time. If a given iPod happens to be your trusty companion long enough to start exhibiting this inevitability, you need not fear its utter demise. The time to replace its battery has arrived.

Many squeamish iPod users are frightened by the notion of performing iPod surgery and replacing the diminished lithium-polymer battery with a new part. The truth is, it's not such a bad procedure. Have a look at ifixipodfast.com's page of how-to videos for most every model of iPod to see how it's done. Beyond just battery replacement, the site's videos cover replacement of LCD screens, hard drives, logic boards, click wheels, and more. Handy how-to guides.


Found on iPod Hacks

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Firefox 3 + Offline Support?

Firefox 3 to support offline web application support
Posted in Tech, Cool by Derek at 5:00 pm

Read/WriteWeb [via] has an interesting and promising article that supports the idea that Firefox 3 will offer offline support for everyones favorite web apps including Gmail among others.

An interesting tidbit came out of the recent Foo Camp New Zealand (which unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend). Robert O’Callahan from Mozilla, who is based in NZ but drives the rendering engine of Mozilla/FireFox, spoke about how Firefox 3 will deliver support for offline applications. This is significant because you’ll be able to use your web apps - like Gmail, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, Google Calendar, etc - in the browser even when offline. I deliberately mentioned all Google web apps there, because of course this plays right into Google’s hands.

Looks like Firefox is going to play an integral role in squashing the idea that consumers should have to pay for productivity software. Farewell Microsoft Office, I won’t miss you. Will anyone else? Aside from the corp. zombies forced into using the MS line, who else is going to miss being locked to an application?

found on UneasySilence

Monday, February 12, 2007

What's it like to work at Google?

Ever wonder what it's like to work at Google? These guys get the biggest perks!

Sunday, February 11, 2007

The Pirate Bay launches Oscar Torrents

The Pirate Bay launches an interesting downloading service dubbed Oscar Torrents. News of the service comes by way of BoingBoing. Based on the title alone, I think it’s safe to assume that come Oscar week, bittorrent traffic will definitely have a serious boost as internet users catch wind of how easy it is to snatch downloads.

To those worried about downloading in case they get sued: by our calculations, your chances of getting nailed are way less than your chances of winning the lottery. Don’t think twice about it.

To all intellectual property landlords: we are aware that OscarTorrents might annoy you — but contain your righteous indignation for a while, and think: we’re only linking to torrents that already exist. Face it: your membrane has burst, and it wasn’t us who burst it. Your precious bodily fluids are escaping.

“your chances of getting nailed are way less than your chances of winning the lotter”. Thoughts?

found on Uneasy Silence

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Google Sets? What the hell is that?

Google Sets is the oldest Google product that never graduated Google Labs. Using Google Sets, you can create sets of items from a few examples. With this very interesting tool you can type in the names of 3 or more major cities and google will show you the names of a bunch of other major cities. Or you can type in the names on a few cars like bmw, honda, and mercedes benz and google will display Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Audi, Volvo, Jaguar, Mitsubishi, Chrysler, Lexus, and etc. Great tool for making lists. It's a simple tool, but it's pretty nice and not very well known at all.

Other little known google pages include:

Google WiFi
Google provides free WiFi in Mountain View through Google Secure Access, a client that makes the WiFi connection more secure.

and..

Google Newsletter
You knew Google has a blog, but you didn't know they have a newsletter called Google Friends. You can read the full archive.

But there are so many Google Pages that most people don't even know about. Check out this link to see a whole big list of them and be sure to click "more strange google pages at the bottom of that post cuz there's some interesting stuff.

Google Myths

I've heard many inaccurate things about Google this year, and most of them are spread by word of mouth. Maybe Google should do a better job at explaining things that may seem trivial to computer experts, but difficult understand for other people.

1. Google Desktop indexes your files and uploads the index to Google's servers. (Michael Arrington)

No. Google stores the index on your computer. If you enable a feature called "search across computers", Google will securely send copies of your indexed files to Google servers. The feature is disabled by default.

2. Gmail indexes your emails and makes them available for everyone. (Darbacour)

No. Google indexes your messages so you can search them. This feature is now available in other webmail applications (Yahoo Mail, Windows Live Mail). Google doesn't make your messages or the indexes public.

3. Google doesn't delete my Gmail messages.

In order to keep your email safe, Google needs to have multiple backups of your data. "You may organize or delete your messages through your Gmail account. (...) Residual copies of deleted messages and accounts may take up to 60 days to be deleted from our active servers and may remain in our offline backup systems." (Gmail Privacy Policy)

4. Google doesn't improve search anymore to increase its earnings from ads.

You may not perceive too many changes in Google search, but Google tweaks its algorithms often to improve search results quality, removes spam sites and tries to add more fresh results. On the visible side, Google added search refinements, more direct answers, malware warnings and address recognition.

5. Search results should be ranked by people, not by algorithms.

Google uses the links from other pages the determine the importance of a page, and those links were placed by humans. Google also monitors user's clicks to determine if the search results are relevant.

6. Google is spyware.

"Spyware is software that reports on your activities or gathers personal information about you and sends it via the Internet to third parties without your knowledge or consent." If you use software like Google Toolbar or Google Desktop, some features may send personal information to Google, but most of them are either turned off by default or require your explicit approval. Google also uses cookies to save your preferences and records queries, clicks, usage patterns to deliver better results. The problem is not that they record it, it's what they do with it. And Google tries to protect it from third parties (like US Government).

7. Google Earth shows real-time images.

No, what you see "are photographs taken by satellites and aircraft sometime in the last three years".

8. Google is the best search engine that will ever be built.

Google is far from a search engine that "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want". But its goal is to reach that state. (Google's philosophy)

9. Google favors Wikipedia, Technorati, blogs.

Well, not exactly. These sites happen to have many backlinks, and oftentimes quality links. I know many people that link to Wikipedia to show an explanation for a concept or an acronym, link to Technorati to tag their blog posts or link to blogs because they are infectious.

10. Google will take over the world.

Those who control information, control the world. Hopefully Google will be a benevolent dictator (guess what? I linked to Wikipedia).

Found on googlesystem.blogspot.com

Friday, February 09, 2007

Let's have a Picnik!

What's Picnik you say?

With Picnik you can quickly edit all your online photos from one place. It's the easiest way on the Web to fix underexposed photos, remove red-eye, or apply effects to your photos.
It's fast, easy, and fun.


NO INSTALL NECESSARY!!! Easily edit your photos online on any computer!

  • One-click photo fixing or in-depth tweaking
  • Crop, rotate, and resize in real-time
  • Tons of special effects, from artsy to fun
  • Amazingly fast
  • Works directly with many photo sharing sites
  • No download required, nothing to install!
  • Works on Mac, Windows, even Linux
  • Free and premium versions
Try it Now!!!

Honestly the best online photo editor I've seen yet!

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Instant Productivity - Get IMified



Imified is the answer to all our prayers! Not only does it provide easy access to all your favorite services such as blogger, basecamp, google calendar, backpack, etc. but it does so without making you launch a single browser. View all you favorite services in a single user interface. Imified is an instant messaging buddy that runs on all majorIM networks and offers access to an ever growing number of web apps and tools.



Best of all, IMified is 100% FREE!!!!



I guess the only question left is ...

HOW DO I SIGNUP?

Signing up is easy. Just send a message to the imified buddy on your favorite network to create an account:



AIM
AIM: IMified


Yahoo
Yahoo: IMified


MSN
MSN: imified@imified.com


Google Talk
Google Talk/Jabber: imified@gmail.comI will personally be getting IMified this evening and report back about everything that blows my mind. So stay tuned internetters.



Try This!

Make Google (or any other web site ) go crazy


Step 1. go to any website (try it out on google first, way cool)

Step 2. delete everything in the address bar

Step 3. paste the following code in the address bar:

javascript:R=0; x1=.1; y1=.05; x2=.25; y2=.24; x3=1.6; y3=.24; x4=300; y4=200; x5=300; y5=200; DI=document.images; DIL=DI.length; function A(){for(i=0; i-DIL; i++){DIS=DI[ i ].style; DIS.position='absolute'; DIS.left=Math.sin(R*x1+i*x2+x3)*x4+x5; DIS.top=Math.cos(R*y1+i*y2+y3)*y4+y5}R++}setInterval('A()',5); void(0);


Step 4. press enter and have fun

YES, it's cool code - NO, it will not harm your computer....
- http://www.retrogismo.com

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Anyone Can Sign up for a Gmail Account

Gmail is now a public beta. Go to Gmail.com, and look for "Sign up for Gmail" or go to this page. After almost three years of invitation-only access, Gmail gradually opened in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Egypt and now everywhere.

Also Gmail's mail fetcher seems to be available for everyone.


Update: The information is official, but not everyone can see the sign-up page yet.

- http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Strange Cameras You Don’t See Everyday










Who knew they actually made a 160-megapixel camera? Find that and more in this strange list. Which ones are your favorites?



Zippo-Style Camera Lighter



At
first glance, this may look like your typical Zippo lighter, but a 640
x 480 VGA camera is revealed when you flip the lid. Other perks include
64MB of built-in memory, USB connectivity, and a photo timer +
continuous shooting functions.


Just plug
one side of the cord into your camera, and the other into your USB
port. The software then gives you the options of printing, formatting,
cropping, archiving, and manipulating your photo


[Source]


Seitz 160-Megapixel Camera



That’s
right, this camera by Seitz “shoots at 160 megapixels to create a
native 6 x 17-cm image.” Plus, it boasts a shutter speed of 1/20,000th,
300MB/second read-out, and a ISO 500-10,000 range. One drawback, the
mobile version (pictured) costs a whopping $32,266, while the studio
version is priced at $33,715. This camera goes on sale in 2007.


[Source]


Thanko’s Camera Binoculars



Thanko’s
BINOCA01 combines the functionality of a 2.0-megapixel camera and
binoculars into one device. It’s powered by two AA batteries and
features 32MB of built-in memory. A few caveats: there’s no LCD to
preview your shots and it’s lacking a memory card expansion slot. This
device measures 116 x 67 x 37mm and weighs in at 215g. Expect to shell
out $145 for this multi-purpose gadget. Available now in Japan.


[Source 1 - 2]


Wrist-Mounted Camera



If
a cameraphone just isn’t good enough, check out this “waterproof (up to
30m) wrist-mounted GoPro Digital Hero Camera”. It’s capable of shooting
648 x 480 digital stills / 320×240 video and has 32MB of internal
memory. Available now for $79.95 here.


You
lock it down as flat as possible against your wrist when you’re not
using it, and when you want to take a picture, just swivel it up in a
perpendicular position and you’re ready to shoot


[Source]


Lego Pinhole Camera



This
person took a Polaroid 95a, stripped it down, and than reassembled the
camera with all Lego parts. Like a real mechanical 35mm camera, it
includes a manual crank which takes 23 clicks to advance one frame.


[Source]


Two-in-One Film/Digital Camera



Here’s
a first: “a 35mm motorized compact camera with auto-rewind/power-rewind
combined with a digital cam that takes 26 pictures at high resolution
and 99 at low.” One drawback, it’s only avaliable on eBay. Check out
the auction here.


For
a price of only £19.99 ($38), you can own your own hybrid camera that
isn’t really good at either digital or film photography


[Source]


The 360 Camera



Using a unique ergonomic cylindrical design, the “360 Camera
by Cedric Tay allows users to easily take panoramic images by just
holding the device with one hand. Rounding out the specs on this camera
is a built-in inclinometer and angle indicator.


“The
360 is designed with much emphasis on the user interface, with the main
operating function designed as a touch sensor, thereby maintaining a
flushed surface on the exterior.”

Found on TechEBlog






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Monday, February 05, 2007

Washington Defense of Marriage - procreation required

Posted by Derek at 5:37 pm

Defense of Marriage Alliance announced an interesting proposed initiative to make procreation a requirement.


The Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance (WA-DOMA)
announced on Thursday that their proposed initiative to make
procreation a requirement for legal marriage has been accepted by the
Secretary of State and assigned the serial number 957. The initiative
has been in the planning stages since the Washington Supreme Court
ruled last July that the state’s Defense of Marriage Act was
constitutional.


“For many years, social conservatives have claimed that marriage
exists solely for the purpose of procreation,” said WA-DOMA organizer
Gregory Gadow in a printed statement. “The Washington Supreme Court
echoed that claim in their lead ruling on Andersen v. King County. The
time has come for these conservatives to be dosed with their own
medicine. If same-sex couples should be barred from marriage
because they can not have children together, it follows that all
couples who can not or will not have children together should equally
be barred from marriage. And this is what the Defense of Marriage
Initiative will do.”


Who wants to be the first time chime in with their thoughts
concerning the proposal? The initiative is the first of three including
one that would prohibit divorce when married couples have children and
to make having children the same as marriage.

Found on Uneasysilence

ALERT! NEW GOOGLE SERVICE

Google is preparing a web based presentation service
Posted in Tech by Derek at 3:40 pm

The Google Operating System blog uncovered an interesting bit of code which hints at a future project dubbed Presently. The web based service will convert a document into a presentation, create slides, and view the presentation in fullscreen. The proof is in a series of lines of code which were uncovered in a Google File.

var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION=”Convert document to presentation”;
var MSG_DOC_TO_PRESENTATION_HINT=”Once your document is converted to a presentation, you can insert slide breaks using Insert > Slide from the main menu.”;
var MSG_PRESENTATION_TO_DOC=”Convert presentation to document”;
var MSG_POPUP_BLOCKER=”Presently is unable to launch your presentation in full-screen mode. Check your pop-up blocker settings.”;
var MSG_NEW_SLIDE_TITLE=”New Slide”;
var MSG_UNSUPPORTED_BROWSER=”Unsupported Browser Presently doesn’t support Opera and will not function properly. Would you like to continue anyway?”;
var MSG_SLIDE_INDEX=”Slide %1 of %2: %3″;
var MSG_NEXT=”Next”;
var MSG_NEXT_HINT=”Space, Enter, N”;
var MSG_PREV=”Previous”;

The file goes on-and-on. Feel free to peruse the rest of the document at your liesure if you’re hesitant to believe in such an application coming from the Google Team.


Found on Uneasy Silence

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Top 10 mobile phones of 2007



Everyone's been talking about it the last few weeks - the blogs haven't buzzed this much since the Lonelygirl15 scandal; the chippies are wrapping pieces of cod in newspapers' sycophantic gushings about it, heck, even your own Aunt has asked you how integrated the OS X will be in it. Yep, we're talking 'bout the iPhone. However, in the shadow of Steve Jobs's phallic phone, many worthy mobiles have been cast aside - until now. Take a look under the jump for Tech Digest's list of the Top 10 Mobile Phones Of 2007 We Can't Wait For. And, err, admittedly the iPhone is on the list, not just to sate the Apple fans' thirst for More, More, More Pictures of The Great Shiny Object, but because it's actually a pretty great phone once you ignore all the buzz. Read on, fellow mobile geeks!

phones1.jpg

1.) LG Shine. A favourite amongst us Tech Digestians, and not for the obvious reasons, this Black Label mobile (our beloved Chocolate is also part of this range) features a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth, MP3 playback, 1GB of onboard storage space, and is also able to set user-recorded video as the phone's wallpaper. Pure bliss on a stick. Available in the UK 7th February, expect our full review shortly.



2.) Sidekick 3. Already available in the States, this baby was set to descend on Blighty back in December, but has been pushed back to late January. Featuring all the goodies we're used to in Paris and Nicole's phone du jour, it's got email, a 1.3 megapixel camera, MP3 player, miniSD slot, and T Mobile's Web'n Walk feature. Available late January 2007 in the UK, expect our full review shortly.phones2.jpg

3.) Nokia N93i. The hugely-antipicated update to the N93, it possesses MPEG-4 VGA video capture at up to 30 frames per second, a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 3x optical zoom, 1 GB miniSD card (hurrah!), Wi-Fi, and an MP3 player. Thankfully, it's been on a diet, and is much slimmer than its predecessor. Available in 2007's first quarter.

4.) Apple iPhone. You knew it was going to be included in the top 5, but are you surprised it's not at number 1? As you no doubt know, it will have a 3.5 inch diagonal touch screen, 2 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, and run Apple's Mac OS X system. There'll be two versions available, a 4GB, and 8GB, handy for all those tunes you're likely to store. Available in UK Winter 2007, if that.

phones3.jpg

5.) LG enV. Another phone which has been available in the US since November, we're including this on our list due to its smartphone capabilities - it's got a full qwerty keyboard, 2 megapixel camera, integrated GPS, wireless synchronisation for emailing purposes, and of course, Bluetooth. Check out our video of it at CES. No word on UK availability, but we guess around Spring 2007.

6.) LG KE850 Prada. The recently announced mobile from LG, made in conjunction with the fashion house Prada, will pip the iPhone to the post to being the world's first completely touch screen mobile. It's got a 3 inch display, with a 2 megapixel camera, LED flash, Bluetooth, and a player supporting MPEG 4. Due February 2007 in the UK.

phones4.jpg

7.) Sony Ericsson SO903iTV Bravia. Based on Bravia technology (you remember those telly ads with the bouncing balls, right?) the SO903iTV boasts a 3 inch screen, with a slide function for horizontal viewing. It's got a 2 megapixel camera, and microSD card slot for storing those all-important pics of your friend downing three Sambuca shots in a row. Available in Japan in June, let's hope it launches here sometime this year.



8.) Samsung Ultra Edition 12.9. Formerly known as the D900, this new model is only 12.9 mm thin, with a 3 megapixel camera, 2.1 inch screen, quad-band, and not only that, claims it's the world's slimmest slider phone with a 3 megapixel camera. Due out sometime late 2007

.phones5.jpg

9.) Google's Switch. Ok, so it hasn't been announced yet, but with shady photos cropping up all over blogs, and stories about it being made by Samsung, yet branded as Google, we will hold our breath for a 2007 launch UK-side. It's rumoured to have GPS with Google Maps based navigation features, a contact application using Gmail, Google Talk, and traditional messaging, and absolutely no internal memory, as everything will be served up over the network. No word on availability, as it's still just a rumour, d'oh!

10.) Samsung SCH-W559. It's the first touchscreen mobile to use Immersion's VibeTonz, a technology which provides tactile feedback for touchscreen interactions. This is good news, as there isn't a traditional keypad on the mobile, it's an LCD display, and with the VibeTonz feature, it ensures your touches will feel real, like actual keys. Not only that, it's got handwriting recognition, Bluetooth, a 1.3 megapixel camera, and audio and video playback. No word on availability, but it's sure to launch in 2007.



Tech Digest


Posted by KatherineHannaford on January 23, 2007 in Mobile phones | Permalink





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Saturday, February 03, 2007

Kaiser Chiefs - Brilliant!

Okay , so I don't know if this is really the great Kaiser Chiefs before they were famous or if it's highschool students who re-enacted the music video but either way it's a great video! Watch how the people scream.



And below is the video we all know and love! Damn creative!

STUPID, STUPID, STUPID AMERICANS!

Friday, February 02, 2007

Goobuntu? True or False?



Last year around this time there was a lot of talk about a Google Operating System. There were several sites claiming confirmation from Google before there had been any confirmation and there were ample sites speculating about the look and features of the OS.


Now with at least five BIG new flavors of Linux, some internetters are disappointed that there's still no Goobuntu. Goobuntu does exist, just not how we'd like it to exist. Some Google employees are running a modified version of Linux on their work pc's and it's been modified to make their work easier. However, Google has not announced any plans to release the OS to the general public. Still, it does make some anxious young geeks like myself wonder.

This post is for keven, someone who commented on one of the other posts on here and asked about a Google OS. So for him and the rest of you, below you should find some more concept art that I found online, the one at the start of this post I actually made myself and while I would have liked to go more all out, frankly I'm not willing to spend more time on it.






Thursday, February 01, 2007