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Monday, June 24, 2002 |
"Open source" video-format to be released. Slashdot reports that Xiph (the Vorbis people) is creating a BSD-licensed version of On2's video codec. For those of you who aren't free software or AV geeks, that means that the people who make a patent-free, royalty free file-format for audio have adopted a killer video format under the same terms. If this acheives acceptance in the field, it will likely kill the brutal patent-royalties associated with MPEG4 and other proprietary formats. Link Discuss [bOing bOing]
4:52:05 PM 
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Photosensitive bacteria art.  Denise sez: "This artist/scientist? (I don't know, it's in German) took a petri dish of photosensitive bacteria and projected a negative image of a partially submerged submarine on it. The bacteria moved to the light areas of the image forming this." Link Discuss (Thanks, Denise!)
[bOing bOing]
4:51:33 PM
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More Statewide Library Agencies And Programs In Trouble.
Roger Sween on the Minnesota State Library Smackdown
"An Open Letter to Minnesotans:
The Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning (CFL) has among its statutory requirements the responsibility for state level library services and development. As with its predecessor, the Minnesota Department of Education, such responsibility has been delegated to and administered by a unit in the department for nearly 100 years. Currently this unit is called Library Development and Services (LDS). Every state has a state library agency such as LDS, that is until now. In three weeks, LDS will be gone....
The state will have no designated agency for library leadership and coordination. Without a state library agency and state library director, Minnesota will lose its eligibility for federal library funds, currently at $2.6 million a year. When Congress funds the Literacy through School Media program at a level to require state administration, who will administer it? Federal programs require state level plans. The 2003-2007 plan for the Library Services and Technology Act is due July 30. How will it get in?
The state will lose many current services dependant on federal funds. This means no contract for backup interlibrary loan and reference service to public libraries. Tens of thousands of requests will go unfilled. Also gone will be the support to deliver education to front line library workers throughout the state who lack library degrees and cannot afford to travel to obtain them...." [Roger Sween in Library Juice]
There's more to this essay, so if you live in Minnesota you should read through it and learn more about what's happening to your State's libraries.
In Illinois, we were keeping an eye on the MnLINK project because, like our Virtual Illinois Catalog, it's using the old SiteSearch software to create a virtual catalog of libraries across a state. I personally like the regional, map-based approach MnLINK took, which is similar to something we're hoping to incorporate into the next version of VIC. In reading about MnLINK, it's difficult to tell exactly what impact the budget cuts will have, although it seems the effects will be more long-term (development) rather than short-term (having to shut down altogether). Certainly no LSTA money for future development, even though they're getting ready to implement interlibrary loan.
Public libraries in Arkansas are facing similar problems, but hopefully the legislators in these two states will come to their senses, as those in Washington did (even though Governor Gary Locke is still withholding some funds from the State Library). [The Shifted Librarian]
4:33:20 PM
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Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times: Security bill bars blowing whistle. "A provision in the bill seeking to create a Homeland Security Department will exempt its employees from whistleblower protection, the very law that helped expose intelligence-gathering missteps before September 11." [Jake's Radio 'Blog]
2:13:11 PM
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Shibuya Phone Box.
Every time I go to Shibuya I'm reminded of why I no longer go to Shibuya, at least not on Friday nights. Lots of people. I was there last Friday to meet some friends. This was after the Brazil vs. England game which I didn't get to see. Police were out in force expecting the worst (which never materialised) and gaggles of Brazilian and English fans walked the streets on their way to bars from other bars to celebrate or lick there wounds. The strange thing was that not one of the groups of fans I saw gave me any indication of who had won the game (I didn't know at that point). Any emotion, whether jubilation or despair, seemed to have been leached out of them by the game. The afternoon had taken everything and they didn't have anything left for the evening. [Antipixel]
2:07:54 PM
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Business Standard Pharma sector to rise 3-fold by 2005. "Also, India's success in information technology provides excellent opportunities in the field of bioinformatics. "Traditional IT companies are translating their strong capabilities in data mining and warehousing to business models based on biological data," says the report, citing examples of IBM's India Research Lab and Satyam's five-year agreement with the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad." [snowdeal.org > {bio,medical}informatics]
2:06:37 PM
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AI to Assist Alzheimer's Patients. The University of Washington is working on a wireless handheld device that will memorize an Alzheimer's patient's daily routine and offer directions when he becomes lost or confused. And that's just the beginning. By Mark Baard. [Wired News]
7:32:16 AM
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Static: The New Hearing Aid. In a twist that sounds counterintuitive, an ear doctor says the deaf will hear more clearly if their cochlear implants add random noise to the audio signal. Patrick Di Justo reports from New York. [Wired News]
7:31:54 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Mark Oeltjenbruns.
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Yamaha has shipped a new CD burner that can write images directly on the substrate, using unoccupied sectors. 
