Sunday, July 08, 2007

open source Open Source Linux Phone Goes On Sale. An anonymous reader writes "Sean Moss-Pultz has just announced on the OpenMoko mailing list that the Neo1973 is finally available for purchase. OpenMoko.com is now taking orders via credit card. OpenMoko intends to 'free your phone' through a hardware-independent and open source user interface backed by the Linux kernel. This device could very well stand as a competitor to the more expensive Apple iPhone, but at a fraction of the price and with no vendor lock-in. Although the devices in this release cycle (GTA01) are mainly intended for developers, the up-and-coming devices targeted to the consumer market (GTA02) will also feature WiFi capabilities, a 3D acceleration unit, and 256MB of on-board flash. Both units will use the MicroSD card interface for removable storage and have USB client / host capabilities. For a full feature list, check out OpenMoko.com or the OpenMoko Wiki."Read more of this story at [Slashdot] 11:48:24 PM    comment [] ecology Floating Wind Turbines. The Great Pulgoso sends us word that Norwegian energy group Norsk Hydro has signed an agreement with Siemens to develop floating wind turbines. The companies agreed on a schedule that would see a prototype in the North Sea by 2009 and a working wind farm using 5-megawatt generators by 2013. (Norsk Hydro unveiled the design in 2005.) Inhabitat.com has taken the giant illustrations from the Norsk Hydro site and reproduced them at a reasonable size. The design features a steel tube 200 meters long. It extends 80 meters above the sea surface and has three 60-meter blades. The whole thing is anchored to the sea floor by three tethers. The developers expect to be able to install the turbines in waters up to 700 meters deep.Read more of this story at Slashdot. [Slashdot] 7:36:12 PM    comment [] social networks Social network analysis in Facebook. From time to time I like to dabble in social network analysis. Now that Facebook has opened itself up to programmatic access, I thought I’d do some spelunking to see what I could learn. Here are a couple of questions I’d like to answer about the “clubbiness” of tech-company Facebookers: 1. Looking at the tech-company population [...] [Jon Udell] 7:35:10 PM    comment [] synthetic biology Second Life, or Not?. An activist group is raising a ruckus about what it says may be the first effort to patent an entirely synthetic free-living organism. It says the patent application, filed by maverick genome sequencer Craig Venter's institute on an idea that has lik... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:41:51 AM    comment [] security Patent Awarded On Robot That Watches You. The Autonomous Personal Service Robot would "monitor its owner for symptoms of distress," with sensors to detect smoke, heat, temperature and carbon monoxide.... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:40:37 AM    comment [] brain implant New implant may 'bring music to the deaf'. A simple change to the design of "bionic ear" implants dramatically improves the quality of sound they provide, say University of Michigan and University of California, San Francisco researchers who have tested a prototype on cats. The new device ... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:39:23 AM    comment [] search More-Accurate Video Search. EveryZing has launched a search engine that it hopes will change the way that people search for audio and video online. Formerly known as PodZinger, a podcast search engine, EveryZing is leveraging speech systems developed by technology company BBN t... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:38:42 AM    comment [] reflection How Great Leaders Juggle Ideas. Successful leaders process information differently, says Roger Martin, dean of the University of Toronto Business School. "They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their head two opposing ideas at once, and creatively resolve the t... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:38:03 AM    comment [] second life Second Earth. The World Wide Web will soon be absorbed into the World Wide Sim: an immersive environment combining Second Life and Google Earth.... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:37:15 AM    comment [] brain control Virtual world sharpens mind-control. A simulated world that can be explored simply by thinking about putting one foot in front of the other might offer new rehabilitation possibilities for disabled patients. This is the vision behind a project that connects a brain-computer interface... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:36:34 AM    comment [] speed IBM creates world's most powerful computer. The first supercomputer capable processing a thousand trillion mathematical operations every second (1 petaflop) has been announced by IBM. Blue Gene/P will be capable of a peak performance of 3 petaflops. The first Blue Gene/P machine will be in... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:35:51 AM    comment [] search plus Google: You ain't seen nothin' yet. Google Inc. has been putting together a massive cable network that could provide customers around the world with telecommunications services ranging from broadband Internet to home and mobile phones. Google has reportedly approached the Federal Co... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:34:51 AM    comment [] search What's next for the Internet. If you think of the World Wide Web as a cloud of largely undifferentiated information, the mission of Radar Networks is to take that cloud and impose order on it via the semantic Web -- moving from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0. ... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:34:04 AM    comment [] security Plague of bioweapons accidents afflicts the US. There are now 20,000 people at 400 sites around the US working with putative bioweapons germs, says Ed Hammond of the Sunshine Project, 10 times more than before the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Some scientists have warned for years that more peopl... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:32:27 AM    comment [] AI Swarm Theory. The study of swarm intelligence is providing insights that can help humans manage complex systems, from truck routing to military robots.... [KurzweilAI.net Accelerating Intelligence News] 11:31:02 AM    comment [] evolution Politically Incorrect Observations About Human Nature. gsa writes "Why do men prefer blonds? Why are most suicide bombers Muslim? Psychology Today analyzes some of these non-politically-correct questions in this essay about ten politically-incorrect truths about human nature. It turns out there may be an evolutionary or psychological explanation for all of these observations. For example, 'Sociologists and demographers have discovered that couples who have at least one son face significantly less risk of divorce than couples who have only daughters. Why is this? ... There is relatively little that a father (or mother) can do to keep a daughter youthful or make her more physically attractive. The continued presence of (and investment by) the father is therefore important for the son, but not as crucial for the daughter. The presence of sons thus deters divorce and departure of the father from the family more than the presence of daughters, and this effect tends to be stronger among wealthy families.'" Update: 07/08 05:51 GMT by Z :Removed sentence that misquoted article. Read more of this story at Slashdot. [Slashdot] 11:29:04 AM    comment [] violence Armed Police Bots with Stun Guns. foniksonik writes "'On 28 June, Taser International of Arizona announced plans to equip robots with stun guns ... the new stun-capable robots could be used against civilians.' Non-lethal weapons experts are concerned that the robots will have to stun the suspected criminal for longer periods of time while awaiting human police to come make the official arrest. "If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?" asks Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK." Read more of this story at Slashdot. [Slashdot] 11:26:56 AM    comment [] wireless AT&T sets up 'Muni' WiFi in California (FT.com). FT.com - AT&T, the largest US telecommunications group, is launching its first WiFi wireless broadband internet service on Monday in Riverside, California. [Yahoo! News: Technology News] 11:10:21 AM    comment [] search plus Google Deal of the Day. Google buys Grand Central, the service that rings all your phones with one number. [Bits] 11:07:28 AM    comment [] New Faces Part 2: Chasing MySpace. Facebook is growing more than twice as fast as MySpace. But the News Corporation site is still far bigger. [Bits] 10:42:55 AM    comment []

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