A new spectacle design from KT Optica anchors your shades’ to the whorls of your ears, which is meant to prevent your glasses from sliding down your nose — via boingboing
A Dutch company has introduced a small downloadable program for mobile phones, called SimWatcher, which sends out an SMS message when someone steals a mobile phone and replaces the SIM card. The software reveals the number of the person who stole the phone and will also display a message on the stolen phone, saying that it belongs to someone else
Daystartech has released a new type of photovoltaic cell which, unlike almost all the cells currently in use, does not silicon. This is based on a thin titanium film. Given the current shortage of solar-grade silicon, and all-time high oil prices, maybe titanium solar panels are here at the right time
Eddie Young created suspicion by collecting items from various department of K-Mart and taking them into the bathroom just before closing time. He was arrested after police said they found him operating a methamphetamine lab in the bathroom — via Warren Ellis
Pairs of shoes are mysteriously being dumped outside a farmhouse in Lincolnshire, England. Since December, more than a dozen have shown up on the side of the road, usually on Sunday. Some of the shoes are cheap, with price labels of £1.99 attached and some are more expensive designer brands. The (Foster family who live nearby) have video footage, which shows an elderly couple driving by in a green vehicle depositing the shoes. Mrs Foster said that although it was scary at first, she was rather hoping some of the pairs might fit — via BoingBoing
According to Chuck Jones, Road Runner and Wile E Coyote’s creator and chief director, he and the artists behind the Road Runner and Wile E cartoons adhered to some simple but strict rules — via Warren Ellis
Rule 1: Road Runner cannot harm the Coyote except by going
Beep! Beep!
Rule 2: No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme products
Rule 3: The Coyote could stop anytime — if he was not a fanatic
Rule 4: No dialogue ever, except
Beep! Beep!
Rule 5: Road Runner must stay on the road — for no other reason than that he’s a roadrunner
Rule 6: All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters — the southwest American desert
Rule 7: All tools, weapons, or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from the Acme Corporation
Rule 8: Whenever possible, make gravity the Coyote’s greatest enemy
Rule 9: The Coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures
Rule 10: The audience’s sympathy must remain with the Coyote
Ovid had an unfortunate brush with identity theft when he discovered that thieves had racked up thousands of dollars on his credit card. But he’s an intrepid and easily pissed-off soul, and by that afternoon had tracked the bastards down and had them arrested
A televised anti-piracy concert watched by 150 million included one performer asking; A copyrighted CD for 200 yuan [US$24], pirated one for 10 yuan, what will you buy?
— The pirated one,
answered the thousands of people in the stadium — via BoingBoing
Grafedia is hyperlinked text, written by hand onto physical surfaces and linking to rich media content — images, video, sound files, whatever. Grafedia can be written in letters or postcards, on the body as tattoos, on the street, or anywhere you feel like putting it. Viewers click
on these Grafedia hyperlinks with their mobiles by sending a message addressed to the word + @grafedia.net
to get the content behind the link
Two researchers, from the Florida Institute of Technology and Boston-based Security Innovation, surprised the audience at a computer-security convention last month with their finding that a version of Microsoft Windows was more secure than a competing Linux operating system. This week, the researchers released their finished report, and it included another surprise: Microsoft was funding the project all along
Clocky is possibly the world’s ugliest alarm clock, but it is also the most devious. An MIT research lab designed specifically for people who have trouble waking up.
When the alarm clock goes off and the snooze button is pressed, Clocky will roll off the bedside table and wheel away, bumping mindlessly into objects on the floor until it eventually finds a spot to rest. Minutes later, when the alarm sounds again, the sleeper must get up out of bed and search for Clocky. This ensures that the person is fully awake before turning it off. Small wheels that are concealed by Clocky’s shag enable it to move and reposition itself, and an internal processor helps it find a new hiding spot every day.
In the aftermath of India being forced/coerced to adopt patent law that quite literally kills people as a condition for joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO), US representatives at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) are moving to counter efforts by developing countries and numerous non-government organisations (NGOs) to bring public-interest considerations — like protecting human health — to its decision-making. Specifically, representatives have reportedly been circulating a draft paper that attempts to reframe the problem, arguing that WIPO is already addressing development issues and proposing merely a WIPO Partnership Program
— an Internet-based database to bring together donors and recipients of IP development assistance
— via BoingBoing
A woman bit into a partial finger served in a bowl of chilli at a San Jose Wendy’s restaurant, leading authorities to a fingerprint database to determine who lost the digit. Employees at the Wendy’s were checked and the fingertip didn’t come from any of them, officials said, adding that the well-cooked finger may have come from a food processing plant that supplies the company. The woman involved at since been charged with grand theft for concocting the hoax in an attempt to swindle money out of the restaurant — via Moonbeam
Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 and Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 have been released
The helpful people at 3M Canada have published detailed instructions for turning gaffer tape into a wallet — via BoingBoing
If you are using your limbs to disguise yourself, how do you flee danger without giving yourself away? The answer, when you have eight arms, is to use six arms for disguise and to walk across on the seafloor on the other two. Defying the notion that bipedal motion requires muscles attached to a rigid skeleton, the octopuses used the strong, flexible muscles in their back arms to walk across the seabed when pursued by camera-wielding biologists. The two species have slightly different strategies. Octopus marginatus from Indonesia wraps itself into a ball while walking, perhaps to imitate a coconut rolling with the current. Tiny Octopus aculeatus of Australia holds up six of its arms to disguise itself as a clump of seaweed, while walking at up to 14 centimetres per second — faster than it can manage using more than two arms
A Tyrannosaurus rex thigh bone fossil was reluctantly broken to fit in a transport helicopter, and inside soft tissue was found. It appears to include blood vessels and bone cells. Scientists hope to isolate proteins, and perhaps even DNA
The Canadian government has reportedly said no to the DMCA. It has released its plans for copyright reform with a limited anti-circumvention provision that would not cover the likes of DeCSS. It even avoided the US notice and takedown system
that has caused a big headache for US ISPs
Yahoo has announced that it will give users of its free web e-mail service 1GB of mail storage matching offerings of rival provider Google
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