Tuesday, November 16, 2004

In Texas, 28,000 Students Test an Electronic Eye. Hoping to prevent the loss of children, a few schools have begun monitoring student movements using technology similar to that used to track livestock and retail shipments. By By MATT RICHTEL. [NYT > Technology] 9:17:54 PM      Google It!.

Is The Lone Coder Dead? [Slashdot:] in the patent forest created by the USPO is more a home to lawyers than lone coders --  BL 6:14:42 PM      Google It!.

Mach 10 X43A flight Successful [Slashdot:] 4:02:02 PM      Google It!.

Firefox News Roundup [Slashdot:] 1:17:34 PM      Google It!.

SBC to Launch Local Internet-Based Calling in 2005. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - SBC Communications SBC.N will introduce an Internet-based calling service for its local telephone customers early next year and will consider offering the service nationally later, the company said on Tuesday. [Reuters: Technology] 12:16:50 PM      Google It!.

RESTful Flash. In response to my question -- Can rich Internet apps be web-friendly? -- Macromedia's Kevin Lynch has put together an example showing how to achieve RESTful Flash: This weekend I created an example showing how rich internet applications can display their current state in the URL as the user interacts locally. This enables a user to bookmark a particular state in the local application, and also enables rich internet applications to be composed with others through REST. I've also posted the source code for the example, so you can see how it works. If you're developing applications in Flash or Flex I encourage you to display useful state information in this way so others can easily integrate and leverage your application with theirs across the internet. [Kevin Lynch] ... [Jon's Radio] this has profound implications for enhanced usability by reducing the memory load by using natural bookmarks to interupted tasks such as eLearning -- BL 9:44:45 AM      Google It!.

Microsoft Expands Operations in India. Microsoft is significantly expanding its software development operations in India as it opens a new campus near Hyderabad, its second-largest campus after its headquarters in Redmond, Wash. By By SARITHA RAI. [NYT > Technology] 9:39:07 AM      Google It!.

Web Comics Make The Small Screen [Slashdot:] competition for the big studio -- BL 9:37:22 AM      Google It!.

RSS Edges Into the Bureaucracy. Really simple syndication is worming its way into the heart of the U.S. government, as agencies discover it's a good way to distribute information. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 9:34:43 AM      Google It!.

EverQuest II Hunts Newbies. The latest massively multiplayer game is aiming to provide a softer, gentler experience for those intimidated by the original EverQuest. For the most part, it succeeds. Review by Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 9:34:08 AM      Google It!.

Education Portal Serves One Million Students During SARS Outbreak - Wayne Hanson, Government Technology. 'We reduced the danger of person-to-person contact and hence possible infection when SARS was spreading like wildfire.' When Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) attacked Hong Kong last year, schools closed for more than a month. But a million stud [Online Learning Update] 9:31:44 AM      Google It!.

Try Some A9 Sauce On That Next Web Search. I give credit to "Thomas" , a participant in one my recent workshops at Manukau Institute of Technology here in Auckland, NZ for turning me on to a new search site- A9. It is a whopper. It's been about a Google years since I got interested or even raised an eyebrow at a new search engine, but this one is worth a click. If I can scan the docs right, it is "powered by Amazon" (uses Amazon logins and likely for looking among books). Yup just clicked the A9 sign in link, and was prompted for my Amazon.com user name, the sanem familiar Amazon interface. Niiiiiice integration. And A9 uses Guru.net for looking up reference queries, it uses Google for doing web and Image searches. Internet Movie Database provides movie results. Alexa comes into play somewhere- I think for the recommending or "Discover" feature. Accounts allow you to save searches or recall a search history, and I think add notes via a "diary" (??) The A9 Diary is a feature that allows you to easily take notes on any web page, and see them whenever you visit that page, on any computer that you use, as well as find them through search or through a list of all your diary entries maintained at diary.a9.com The default search brings results in for Google web and image search- clicking the buttons on the right expands the search (without a screen refresh!) to add another column of results. You can also dynamically change the size of the search results. So when all else fails, reach for a vanity search: http://a9.com/Alan%20Levine (look at that tidy, compact, re-usable URL!) See if you can figure out which results are mine, and which belong to the "Memorabilia Collector", "Recruitment Specialist", "Math professor", "Lawyer". [cogdogblog] 9:20:43 AM      Google It!.

China Plans to Have Over 100 Eyes in the Sky by 2020. BEIJING (Reuters) - China plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to watch every corner of the country, state-run China Central Television quoted a government official as saying Tuesday. [Reuters: Science] 9:18:47 AM      Google It!.

Bill Gates Proclaims End of Passwords [Slashdot:] 9:17:45 AM      Google It!.

Ex-Britannica Editor Reviews Wikipedia [Slashdot:] 9:16:27 AM      Google It!.

Computers Linked to Glaucoma? [Slashdot:] 9:14:56 AM      Google It!.

Speedy Plane Check-In by Mobile Phone Set for 2005. LONDON (Reuters) - Passengers wanting to skip airport queues will be able to check in for flights using their mobile phone beginning next year, two European firms set to offer the service announced on Tuesday. [Reuters: Technology] 9:13:00 AM      Google It!.

Top Researchers Ask Web Users to Join Science Grid. NEW YORK (Reuters) - IBM and top scientific research organizations are joining forces in a humanitarian effort to tap the unused power of millions of computers and help solve complex social problems. [Reuters: Technology] 12:35:19 AM      Google It!.