Avaya, 3Com embrace IP telephony [IDG InfoWorld]

5:33:45 PM    

Robo-Therapist Helps Ailing Limbs. Stroke patients who lose the use of a limb may soon have a robot to assist their human physical therapist during rehab. By Louise Knapp. [Wired News]

1. Teaching tool to promote proper body mechanics when (re)learning new physical skills
2. Intelligent full body warm up and stretching machine for patients in comas or otherwise rendered sessile.
3. Ultimate strength traininng machine using systems built in adjustable resistance.
4. First step in feedback system for intelligent exoskeleton system.
5. Full on resistance training for long term deep space flights. Would aid in maintaining muscle mass and bone density over course of long voyages.
6. Restraint system for prisoners in maximum security prisons. True lockdowns, TAKE NOTE: People can (and have) died from being held stationary for too long. It was the cause of death in a recent "air rage" case.
7. Preparation for high gravity environments by mimicing the greater weight that will be encountered on the new planet.

9:36:52 AM    

Dave says: "I want a way to do a query on DirecTv's listings. Show me all commercial-free movies on channels I subscribe to airing in the next 30 days that were nominated for or won an Academy Award." And this is exactly where the axis of interactivity lies between traditional broadcasters and whatever it is we do. The European high court recently passed a series of laws determining TV listings are 'content' until the day of broadcast when the information suddenly necomes 'news'. Perhaps we can turn the tables here, create our own TV Guide, with our own ratings system. Weblogs certainly have all this functionality debugged and working. Think of the possibilities of producing xml feeds to achieve scenarios like the one Dave wants. Feed it to your TiVo, RePlay, VCR, Blog, email etc. This has been one of the main reasons I'm so into the Calendar plugin. Must think more now. [Adam Curry: Adam Curry's Weblog]

OK, so we need the following:

1. A feed from either TV guide (in the US anyway) or your provider that gives us a base for what  is going to be on.
2. A feed to pull from so that we can get a list of award winning films (let's include academy Awards, Golden Globes, Cannes Palm d'Orr, SAG, etc)
3. Next we need  aset of rules or GREP patterns that will help sort through the data, culling films that do not match up to an award win.
4. Do you want to have a list of favorite Actors, Screenwriters, Composers,  Characters, genres, or Directors? Then we need another optional list that serves to weight what gets listed, effectively moderating the list.
   Example: You hate Alan Smithee (Director) [-5], Love Theo Sbian (actor) [+4], Sid Matographer (Cinematographer) [+2] and dislike Westerns [-1]. If these three worked on a western, themed film  together, you would see it scored as a [0]. If the director worked on a western witha bunch of people that you did ot rate [0], it would almost never show up [-6] in your directory.

Perhaps I've taken this too far and have been reading too much Slashdot. Ah well.

8:57:49 AM    

Pirate TV is hitting Iran, hard. [NY Times registration required]

It would be great if someone would step in and support this effort, as the costs are mounting, but anyone who did would likely end up on a hit list. This is a fantastic way of winning over hearts and minds, and it is difficult to stop. I hope someone steps in and helps him out.

8:21:24 AM