Building a Better Cat: "The first robot pets were very cool-looking, but a child doesn't relate to a shiny surface. A child can relate to a furry cat.'' [NY Times]
3:27:06 PM  #   your two cents []

Worshipping at the Altar of Mac. The Mac community is like a new-age religion, one expert argues, but is it truly a cult? [Wired News]
12:53:45 PM  #   your two cents []

Price Is Limiting Demand for Broadband. Only about 15 percent of American households currently subscribe to broadband service despite the fact that 70 percent of households have the technical option of doing so. [New York Times: Technology] ...I spoke with an analyst this week about the Korean situation and she noted that low price and lots of competition is what helped push Korean broadband into the mainstream (70% of households have a b/b connection, which costs about $35 monthly). Plenty of government intervention and high density housing helped too, of course, but she thinks the West could do worse than find ways to put downward pressure on b/b pricing to jumpstart this market again.
12:52:14 PM  #   your two cents []

Bush fails to win over sceptical Europeans. Iraq: Poll on war with Iraq shows France, Germany and Russia opposed, UK divided. [Guardian Unlimited]
12:47:09 PM  #   your two cents []

From Boing Boing Blog: Lab Notes. Pocket-size DNA detectors, globally-distributed storage for billions of users, and injectable bioengineered band-aids for broken hearts... all in this issue of Lab Notes, my research digest from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. Please take a peek! Link
12:46:43 PM  #   your two cents []

A wonderful annual competition run by one of my other employers [grin]: Text poetry competition: the winners. The winner of our text poetry competition was just waiting for a lucky break, writes Victor Keegan. [Guardian Unlimited]
12:44:50 PM  #   your two cents []

Jury indicts pair in trade secret theft. A federal grand jury indicts two men on criminal charges of stealing trade secrets from Sun Microsystems, Transmeta and other computer technology companies. [CNET News.com]
12:43:27 PM  #   your two cents []

Holiday E-Cards: Handle With Care. Online greetings were once considered a free and relatively harmless alternative to paper cards. Now companies are charging users to send them, and recipients have to worry about fake e-cards that carry viruses. [Wired News]
12:42:17 PM  #   your two cents []

I was thrilled this morning to get a box from Amazon.co.uk -- and in it was an early Christmas gift, a wireless mouse from a dear friend in Boston (thanks, Fran!)!! Then it occured to me that if anyone had told me when I was 16 and silly and spending all my money on albums and rock concerts and clothes from Macy's, that I would get overly excited at receiving a computer peripheral, I would have committed myself to an institution right then. (On the other hand, had I done so, the upside would have been sparing myself an XP reinstall or two... hhmmmmm.)  At any rate, we do change in the most unpredictable ways as we grow up, don't we?
12:40:45 PM  #   your two cents []

One of my favourite competitions! Send Wired.com your nominees...: Vaporware: Call for Submissions. Every year technology companies talk up products just about to hit store shelves. And every year, a bunch of them fail to appear. It's that time again: Wired News' annual Vaporware Awards. [Wired News]
12:34:29 PM  #   your two cents []

E-Fabrics Still Too Stiff to Wear. While sensor-laden e-textiles show promise for protecting soldiers in the field and creating roll-up computer screens, they don't quite look or feel like a comfy pair of khakis. [Wired News]
12:32:58 PM  #   your two cents []