Technology

Shortly after learning of the New Orleans plan for free city-wide wireless internet, Bellsouth withdrew an offer to donate a damaged building to be used for police headquarters

A BellSouth executive is arguing for his company’s right to degrade Internet services coming from people he doesn’t like. If they like Yahoo, they should be able to slow down Google — via digg

Apple disables the OSX screenshot capability while a DVD is playing. There is a work-around, though, for those times when you want to make a screenshot of your DVD player — via Boingboing

1. Put your DVD in your computer and open DVD Player (Applications < DVD Player) if it does not open automatically. Go to Video < Maximum Size, or hit Command-3. Fast forward to the frame you want to capture, or select the scene to start at.
2. Open the Terminal (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal). Type this, or copy / paste it right in the Terminal:
   screencapture -i ~/Desktop/dvd.jpg
   Your mouse should turn into crosshairs. Now hit the space bar. Your mouse should now be a camera. Click the window the DVD is playing in. A file called dvd.jpg will appear on your desktop.

Scratch-Less Discs are blank CDs with small raised bumps around their perimeters that keep the disc’s data from coming into contact with your desk when you set it down, reducing the likelihood of scratches that render discs unreadable. The discs have some other clever features, like a bevelled edge to make it easier to lift them off of flat surfaces. The manufacturer claims compatibility with 99% of CD burners and says that the remaining 1% merely have some problems ejecting the discs — via Boing Boing

Sun has announced that it will bundle much of its software and provide it free to customers. Sun said that it would make its Java Enterprise System, Sun N1 management software and developer tools available at no charge. A year ago, Sun started offering its Solaris version of the Unix operating system for free

A device called the Mosquito, invented by Howard Stapleton, is designed to drive teens away by emitting a high frequency noise at 75db. Apparently most older people can not hear the sounds, but teens cannot stand it. Reports are that it works quite well, but some older people can hear it too. He found the prefect irritating sound by experimenting on his children

In the new war of the Internet based applications, Yahoo is testing creating an email folder as the hub for RSS instead of using a web page for the feeds

Apple has issued highly critical security updates to address more than a dozen vulnerabilities in its Mac OSX operating system

The latest iteration of the open-source browser Firefox is now available for download, featuring upgrades designed to speed page loads, improve navigation, and boost security

iiNet has ended its protest over Telstra’s wholesale ADSL prices and has started signing up customers in regional areas again

Holographic Versatile Discs (HVDs) have been in the works for some time now by various companies, including InPhase Technologies (formerly part of Lucent) and Japan’s Optware. InPhase’s HVDs, scheduled for release in 2006, are said to hold 300GB of data, 60 times that of a conventional DVD with only a slight increase in size. That translates to more than a day’s worth of HD-quality video. Not to mention the drives themselves can read and write at ten times the speed a normal DVD drive. One of InPhase’s partners in HVD research, Maxell, is working towards even more storage on a 1.6TB disc

Google is testing a service to get advertisers and consumers talking on the phone. The system works by putting a phone icon next to some search results. Clicking on the graphic lets you enter your phone number — Google will then connect you, for free, to the advertiser. Your phone will ring and when you pick it up you will hear it ringing at the advertiser’s office. The advertiser won’t get your phone number — Google keeps that encrypted

Google doesn’t like to do things traditionally. Right from their IPO, when they dumped Goldman Sachs for secretly trying to deal with their big investor, Kleiner Perkins. Business Week covers the Google Caste System: in which business types are second-class citizens to Google’s valued code jockeys… They deem the corporate development team as underpowered in the company, with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers. At last a company is shouting at the top of it’s voice, engineers make the world — via Slashdot

Google commissioned a research on the amount of dead time spent by passengers at airports. An average airline passenger spends over 9 hours a year waiting for flights. On the basis of the survey, Google launched Google Space at London’s Heathrow Terminal One, it is scheduled to run until 17 December. Google Space is a laboratory with Google pods, which travelers can access free-of-cost, log onto the Internet, check their mail, and find out more about their destination using Google tools