One of the coolest uses of interactive technology around. Its called the 4D2U (four dimensional digital universe) project. Its an online project hosted by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. Its essentially a 3D interactive map of the the known universe. I played with this for over a half hour touring the images and the mind blowing movies. One of the top 5 amazing and interesting sites I’ve ever used on the web. Check it out here!
According to the Money.co.uk, wired computer keyboard entry can be decyphered and translated in realtime using radio technology. From the article:
Researchers from the Security and Cryptography Laboratory in Lausanne, Switzerland, have discovered that by using a simple radio antenna it is possible to remotely identify the key strokes entered into a wired computer keyboard from a distance of up to 20 meters away.
Martin Vuagnoux and Sylvain Pasini, doctoral students at EPFL, are the brains behind the research. They discovered that by analysing the electromagnetic waves produced by individual keystrokes it was possible to interpret exactly what was being typed in real time.
Now I’m waiting to see how long it takes for some wise guy to design a government grade “stealth” keyboard.
Here I come Vegas!
From ITwire:
Microsoft Australia issued a week long coding challenge called “DevSta” looking fo the next generation of star developers. The grand prize includes airfare to Las Vegas, accommodation at the Venetian and tickets to the MIX09 Developer Conference in March next year, along with Visual Studio 2008, an Xbox 360 Elite console pack and a Samsung Omnia mobile phone. Runners up win various combinations of Visual Studio, Xbox 360 Elite packs and Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000 keyboard and mouse combos.
Even with the lure of Microsoft riches it looks like the turn out is abysmal at best. In addition to lukewarm submissions, the contest was hacked by several members of a Turkish hacking group (from the article).
Even though the identities of Lamerdir and Ov3rlord aren’t clear, one thing is certain: Microsoft won’t be forgetting the embarrassment caused to their DevSta challenge. And unless the volume of submissions increase dramatically within the next 19 hours someone may be awarded an Xbox for doing nothing more than rewriting the Windows calculator as a .NET app.
.Read the whole article and view the screenshots here.
If your bored and would like to kill some time, head over to fantasticcontraption.com and try out this physics based flash game. I played with this for a few hours and was immediately addicted.
Money.co.uk is reporting that America’s Copyright Royalty Board will meet to discuss the raising of royalties for digital music purchases from 9 cents to 15 cents per song. THis leaves the “middlemen” of the digital music peddling business stuck with the bill. Eddy Cue, the VP of the itunes store said,
“If (the iTunes store) were forced simply to absorb any increase in its mechanical royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss. Apple has repeatedly made clear that it is in this business to make money and most likely would not continue to operate (the iTunes store) if it were no longer possible to do so profitably”
With other apple products like the iphone depending on itunes activation and syncing, I wonder how this will affect the procedures if the store shuts down?
Read the full article here.
UPDATE: Looks like the appeal failed. Marketwatch is reporting that the rates will remain the same. The itunes store is safe.
Today’s top 25 brought to you by projectcensored.org. The top 25 big stories that the corporate controlled media have failed to inform the American people of. Such unimportant minutiae such as “over 1 million Iraqi citizens killed during the U.S. occupation” and “the seizing of assets of war protesters”. Check out the full list here.
Wow what a great usage of web technologies. Check out Stormpulse.com.
You can view interactive projections and also determine distance measurements from population centers in relation to the storm.
With the host of problems and hidden costs with Apple’s 3G iphone as of late, T-Mobile is reportedly releasing the G1 phone next month. There are several designs from different manufacturers but this particular device looks like the HTC design. Here are the specs from Conceptpop:
Im a sucker for charts, especially dynamic charts! This is a cool little informative tool called gasbuddy.com showing gas prices nationwide on a county by county basis. It displays a “heat map” to denote price levels.
