Strategy is as strategy does. Instead of describing the Real ID program by quoting politicians, shouldn't we be talking about the outcomes? “Papers Comrade! You can't get aboard the Ambulance/buy food/get gas/cross state lines/get on a plane/cash a check without Papers.”
http://www.pogowasright.org/article.php?story=20071104172646222
Why states are resisting U.S. on plan for REAL I.D.
Sunday, November 04 2007 @ 05:26 PM EST Contributed by: PrivacyNews News Section: REAL ID
The federal government's efforts to create a standardized, secure driver's license that would also serve as a national ID card have hit some significant stumbling blocks.
Chief among them: Eight states have voted in the past year not to participate in the program. Nine others are on the record opposing the proposal. In total, legislation opposing the plan has been introduced in 38 states.
Behind much of the state legislative opposition to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plan is Missouri state Rep. Jim Guest, a conservative Republican. His primary concern: REAL ID, as DHS has dubbed the initiative, would not deter terrorists. Instead, he believes, it would be an unprecedented invasion of individual privacy, creating a databank of personal information to which officials on the local, state, and federal levels would have access.
Source - Christian Science Monitor
...and if your kids put pictures or 'home movies' online, you can make a 3D model of your house – perfect for those midnight SWAT raids.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/04/1945213&from=rss
Recreating Cities Using Online Photos
Posted by Zonk on Sunday November 04, @05:33PM from the taking-a-walkabout dept. Graphics The Internet Technology
Roland Piquepaille writes "The billion of images available from a site like Flickr has stimulated the imagination of many researchers. After designing tools using Flickr to edit your photos, another team at the University of Washington (UW) is using our vacation photos to create 3D models of world landmarks. But recreating original scenes is challenging because all the photos we put on Flickr and similar sites don't exhibit the same quality. With such a large number of pictures available, the researchers have been able to reconstruct with great accuracy virtual 3D model of landmarks, including Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and the Statue of Liberty in New York City."
Is it time to 'short' Microsoft? Okay, probably not, but there are an increasing number of articles that show how vulnerable Microsoft is in several areas. At minimum, we are seeing the impact of commoditization.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071104/ap_on_hi_te/bye_bye_pcs;_ylt=AiTQLUatXatjEqSwFD9YrSis0NUE
PCs being pushed aside in Japan
By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press Wrier Sun Nov 4, 4:28 PM ET
TOKYO - Masaya Igarashi wants $200 headphones for his new iPod Touch, and he's torn between Nintendo Co.'s Wii and Sony's PlayStation 3 game consoles. When he has saved up again, he plans to splurge on a digital camera or flat-screen TV.
There's one conspicuous omission from the college student's shopping list: a new computer.
The PC's role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, and digital video recorders with terabytes of memory.
Making the Operating System less important...
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2007/11/phoenix
Press F4 to Bypass Windows With Fast-Boot Technology
By Bryan Gardiner Email 11.05.07 | 12:00 AM
Say goodbye to excessive boot times. HyperSpace's secure embedded platform will let your basic applications fire up instantly.
There's absolutely no reason you should be waiting the three-plus minutes it takes your computer to boot up Windows, says Woody Hobbs, CEO of Phoenix Technologies. And indeed, if Hobbs has his way, you may not have to endure those waits much longer.
Phoenix says its new technology, HyperSpace, will offer mobile PC users the ability to instantly fire up their most used apps -- things like e-mail, web browsers and various media players -- without using Windows, simply by pressing the F4 button.
"As Windows gets more and more complex, we've seen startup times get longer and longer," says Hobbs. "If I go to the airport and try to connect to a Wi-Fi network, I'm waiting for five minutes just to connect. That's ridiculous -- people usually just give up and use their cell phones or PDAs."
Phoenix Technologies is the company responsible for many computers' basic input/output system, or BIOS, the firmware code that runs when your PC starts up. Usually, the BIOS identifies the hardware on your PC and initializes components, then lets the operating system handle everything else, from storing files to connecting with networks to running applications. In essence, HyperSpace is a simple operating environment, a layer on top of the BIOS, that runs side-by-side with Windows and can efficiently implement some of the most commonly used apps on a PC.
... Phoenix Technologies says content providers will be able to create "instant-on" applications like media players, and PC system vendors will be able to embed purpose-built apps into new computers. The quick-start apps will operate like self-contained appliances.
... Those problems don't just entail slow boot times. At a basic level, they also have to do with Microsoft dictating user experience as a whole, regardless of what machine you're using. In that vein, Phoenix says its HyperSpace platform could very well usher in a new era of ultrapersonalized PCs and laptops, even upending the way the industry does business.
... A student-aimed laptop, for instance, could come with apps like word processing, e-mail and IM preloaded into HyperSpace. Companies could even start releasing HyperSpace versions of applications specifically for the embedded platform, he says.
Getting paid to get rid of your servers...
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/05/0325243&from=rss
Move to a Mainframe, Earn Carbon Credits
Posted by Zonk on Monday November 05, @03:35AM from the trade-and-process-process-and-trade dept. Power Supercomputing IBM Science
BBCWatcher writes "As Slashdot reported previously, Congress is pushing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop energy efficiency measures for data centers, especially servers. But IBM is impatient: Computerworld notes IBM has signed up Neuwing Energy Ventures, a company trading in energy efficiency certificates, in a first for "green" computing. Now if your company consolidates, say, X86 servers onto an IBM mainframe on top of slashing about 85% off your electric bill each megawatt-hour saved earns one certificate. Then you can sell the certificates in emerging carbon trading markets. IBM's own consolidation project (collapsing 3,900 distributed servers onto 30 mainframes) will net certificates worth between $300K and $1M, depending on carbon's market price. Will ubiquitous carbon trading discourage energy-inefficient, distributed-style infrastructure in favor of highly virtualized and I/O-savvy environments, particularly mainframes?"
Even if the simply aggregate existing tools, this could be useful. (The concept will translate to other areas as well...)
http://www.bespacific.com/mt/archives/016418.html
November 03, 2007
Article Details Text Mining Services for the UK Academic Community
The National Centre for Text Mining: A Vision for the Future: "Sophia Ananiadou describes NaCTeM and the main scientific challenges it helps to solve together with issues related to deployment, use and uptake of NaCTeM's text mining tools and services."
"One of the defining challenges of e-Science is dealing with the data deluge information overload and information overlook. More than 8,000 scientific papers are published every week (on Google Scholar, for example). Without sophisticated new tools, researchers will be unable to keep abreast of developments in their field and valuable new sources of research data will be under-exploited. The capability of text mining (TM) to find knowledge hidden in text and to present it in a concise form makes it an essential part of any strategy for addressing these problems. As text mining matures, it will increasingly enable researchers to collect, maintain, interpret, curate, and discover knowledge needed for research and education, efficiently and systematically. The National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTeM)"
For my small business class. Plan and start your own small business FOR REAL! Convert your passion for rap-bluegrass fusion to an online store where customers rely on your expertise.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/mediastores--Shared-Profit-Retailing/
Mediastores.com - Shared Profit Retailing
Mediastores is exactly what their name implies: a site where you can create your own store, selling the books, DVDs, CDs, and downloads that you choose. You can personalize the color scheme of your online store and add your company’s logo, and the best part is that you earn a 20% commission off of any purchases made from your store.
Another niche, but are there enough nichettes to use it?
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/fawnt--Attractive-Spot-to-Discover-Fonts/
Fawnt.com - Attractive Spot to Discover Fonts
Fawnt is an easy way to find the new and creative fonts that you are looking for. The various fonts they display are shown in a way that makes it easy to view what they look like and see how popular they have been with other site users. It’s easy to scroll the different font options without ever having to reload the screen or sort through categories to find a design appealing to you. This is also a good place for font designers to show their work and gain coverage of their fonts.
Could there be a market for this at all? Aren't kids addicted to YouTube enough already? (Perhaps a video from Mom & Dad: “Get up! Go to class! Study hard! Get a great job!” ...Naaaah.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/alarmtube--Wake-up-to-YouTube/
AlarmTube.com.highimpactnoise.com - Wake up to YouTube
AlarmTube is an online alarm clock that allows you to wake up to the YouTube video of your choosing.
http://alarmtube.highimpactnoise.com/
Now this might find a market.
http://www.killerstartups.com/Web20/bitbomb--Text-Message-Reminders/
BitBomb.com - Text Message Reminders
... BitBomb.com could help us remember certain tasks by reminding us with text messages. BitBomb.com is a text messaging service that reminds us of when we need to do something.
No comments:
Post a Comment