Saturday, December 28, 2002

Not on my i705 Department PDA Translates Written Signs "In Chapter Four I mentioned IBM Research work on InfoScope, a device that could translate a sign via camera-PDA-shape-recogniton-machine-translation. Wired News reports on similar work at Carnegie-Mellon's Robotics Institute. Here's how it works: The baffled tourist takes a digital photo of the sign with a camera built into his PDA, and the sign translator software detects the text within the image. In a matter of seconds, the text is translated into English. The current version of the Sign Translator is fluent in Chinese. It can translate more than 3,700 Chinese characters into English." [Smart Mobs] Hey, Howard, any chance you can talk Perseus into making your book available via Audible? I really want to read it, but this is the only "reading" I do anymore. [The Shifted Librarian] 5:39:52 PM    comment []

The Eye's have it. The FBI has a new way of tracking terrorists.... (Requires Javascript.) [The Shifted Librarian] 5:17:36 PM    comment []

Speaking to soon department I guess I should have kept my trap shut about Sams and his phantom text. Here it is again. St. Nick. Robert Scoble: here's the truth about Coca Cola and Santa. [Sam Ruby] 5:06:43 PM    comment []

57 Channels and nothing on. Is it any wonder we spend so much time on line. Virtual Yule Log burns up TV ratings in NYC [bOing bOing] 4:50:04 PM    comment []

Beer - Micro Brews Enjoying some of Petes Wicked Red Rush American Red Ale, while doing this update. 4:47:49 PM    comment []

Privacy - Officials can't have it both ways. Trashing Portland's officials' privacy, tit-for-tat [bOing bOing] 4:45:51 PM    comment []

Wireless Hello, is anyone at any of the Telco's listening or reading this? This Will Eventually Happen Here, Too. 50 Million Text Messages Per Day in UK "According to the Mobile Data Association, over 50 million text messages per day were sent in the UK in November, 2002. (Thanks, Jim!) The total number of chargeable person-to-person text messages sent across the four UK GSM network operators during November was 1.5 billion. This figure takes the daily average to over 50 million compared to 40 million in November 2001 and 22 million in November 2000." [Smart Mobs] [The Shifted Librarian] 4:36:32 PM    comment []

I just ran this on my site and came up with two error's both in the imbedded code that comes with Radio. What gives guys? (ok, it's not a big deal and currently everything is working as advertized) Validate your RSS with SOAP. It's alpha, it's got bugs in it, but if you feel so inclined, give it a spin. If you followed either the SOAP by Example or the BDG to WSDL part III, then RSSValidator.wsdl is all you need to get started. Why a SOAP interface?  Suppose you have a site that is not published on the internet.  Or suppose you want to test your feed before you deploy it.  Of course, you can run it locally, but even though we made it real easy, not everyone wants to install and maintain another program.  Wouldn't it be nice if you could simply send your RSS feed off some place and have the results sent back? Well now you can.  Simply POST your feed to the RSS Validator.  Since this code is liberal in what it accepts, neither a SOAP Envelope nor a SOAP Body is required.  Since it is conservative in what it does, you will always receive either a fully compliant SOAP response or a SOAP fault back. Either that, or there a bug.  If so, let me know.  Once the bug smashing dies down, I'll write up information on how the client and server of this interface works as parts II and III of SOAP by Example. [Sam Ruby] 4:32:47 PM    comment []

Christmas Urban Ledgends Oh yes, thanks to Sam Ruby for allowing me to see his postings in the News Aggregator once again. St. Nick. Robert Scoble: here's the truth about Coca Cola and Santa. [Sam Ruby] 4:07:41 PM    comment []

Borg? No Borg? Discuss Baby Boomer Borg. I want to be interested in what Jef Raskin’s working on—but the Baby Boomer Borg picture just puts me right off. Note the image file name: cyborg_jef_under_j.gif. [inessential.com] 4:00:45 PM    comment []

Imperfections Deperfection. Good short homily in Joho the Blog this morning. The quotable excerpt: Q: How many human institutions exist to deal with our imperfections? A: All of them. "Always make new mistakes," Esther Dyson says. And give yourself some slack for making a habit of the old ones. [The Doc Searls Weblog] 3:53:19 PM    comment []

Weekends I spent the better part of the day doing all those things you can't get done during the week. We spent 3+ hours in Costco. An ongoing problem with the warehouse shopping places came to light again while we were getting our membership card. It seems that Costco doesn't accept credit cards from either Visa or MasterCard. They only accept American Express or personal checks. It seems to me that there is a great expense in processing all that paper. 3:20:30 PM    comment []

This Blog - New Title Ok, we've settled on a Name for this missive. For those in the know you'll know from where the title comes. 3:11:08 PM    comment []

Things heard from the front seat, while driving home from Christmas dinner with my parents Some things never change. So the boys are both here. Some of the earliest memories that I have of these two are us all riding in our VW Eurovan with the boy sitting in the back fighting and picking at each other with my step mom turning around yelling at them "Don't make me seperate you two!" Mike and I being the oldest sometimes got in the middle of them. They were like 8 and 11 at the time, what do you expect from them at that age? It is now 7 years later, a couple of worlds later and we are all back together for the holidays. Minus Mike who is still serving in the Coast Guard couldn't be with us but like I said some things never change. Conversation in the back of the car returning from Christmas Dinner. David: (leans over and sniffs) Tim, you stink. Tim: Shut up David David: Did you take a shower? Tim: Yes. David: Well you need to do a better job cuz you stink. Tim: Did you ever pay those guys back for that tree you hit? David: What does it matter? Tim: (thinking) How DID you hit that tree anyway? David: Tim, you stink. [Adam's Mile High Blog] 8:59:39 AM    comment []

iDisk A Tour of the iDisk -- Part 1 Your iDisk is the center of your .Mac account. From Photos to Movies to HomePages, everything for .Mac is stored here. In addition, you can use your iDisk to store and share files, and you can use it for offsite backup space. In this three part series, we'll give you a tour of your iDisk and explore what it has to offer. 7:12:00 AM    comment []

VoIP Overwhelming response to cheap overseas phone offer Keyworld Malta Independent Daily Dec 28 2002 7:32AM ET... 6:56:23 AM    comment []

Volunteer Match This is from the Slashdot story. You can put in your zip code and find local opportunities. Virtual Volunteering An anonymous reader writes "Virtual Volunteering is new to me, so I thought that I would pass the info. along. Given the downturn in employment and the need to ... 6:45:53 AM    comment []

VPN On a Mac OS X VPN on Mac OS X Virtual Private Networking is an excellent way to reduce the costs of multiple site and remote access networks, while simultaneously increasing the overall security of your network. Here's a detailed look at enabling VPN on Mac OS X. 6:38:58 AM    comment []

Jaguar Configuring Jaguar's Firewall There's more to Mac OS X's built-in firewall than what is initially observed in the System Preferences. Chris Cochella shows you how to unlock its protecting power with just a few command-line keystrokes. 6:33:58 AM    comment []

Toys and Gadgets Tech Trends and Toys. [base "]We survey the latest tech trends and showcase some high-tech gadgets. Moore's law shows no signs of letting up well into 2004, so we'll see smaller, faster, more capable devices for the near future. Wireless will catch on with security firms cashing in on wide open networks. Hybrid devices are... [Lockergnome's Bits and Bytes] 6:22:53 AM    comment []