Google BlogSearch beta is out. Clean UI, fast responses, not yet such a great index, but it is getting there. That’s what you should find in the much-awaited new Google service. Some say Technorati and friends have been having nightmares about this very day
Doctors working in hurricane-ravaged New Orleans killed critically ill patients rather than leaving them to die in agony as they evacuated hospitals
PC World spills the beans about a bunch of things technology companies would rather you didn’t know, including the lowdown on exploiting Windows’ bad security, unlocking mobiles, using an iPod to move music and useless specs. Nothing groundbreaking, but might be a good primer for the non-techie in your life — via Slashdot
A USB device called imFONE allows you to use your existing mobile as a VoIP. You simply plug the device into your PC’s USB port, pair it via Bluetooth to your phone, and you’re ready to go. Unfortunately it only works on a select few mobiles — via Gizmodo
There could soon be a new player in the telecommunications industry with Tasmanian energy company Aurora Energy and Mitsubishi Electric announcing a joint trial. The companies have launched the first commercial trial of broadband over power lines (BPL) in the Southern Hemisphere. The technology relies on existing power lines and connection is as easy as plugging a modem into a household power point. Aurora’s Piero Peroni says the new technology is faster than phone line and wireless services
James Randi has released the full text of his Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural online for free. James Randi hopes the move will boost sales of the print edition — via boingboing
When I decided to place the entire text … on the Internet, it was suggested to me that this could cut into the sales of the printed version. However, experience has shown that, in the publishing business, making a book available on the Internet only stimulates sales of the actual book! Another mystery
eBay agreed Monday to pay at least $2.6 billion for Internet-telephony company Skype Technologies SA in a deal that a deal that confounds many analysts not just for the lofty price tag but also for what some consider the companies’ dubious compatibility. Skype — founded by the creators of Kazaa, the free music-sharing program that riled the music business — gives away software lets people talk for free over the Internet using computers and microphones. A paid version, SkypeOut, allows those calls to be connected to regular phones
A restaurant in northeastern China that advertised illegal tiger meat dishes was instead found instead found to be selling donkey flesh — marinated in tiger urine. The Hufulou restaurant, located beside the Heidaohezi tiger reserve near the city of Hailin, had advertised stir-fried tiger meat with chilies for 800 yuan ($98), as well as liquor flavored with tiger bone for 600 yuan ($74) a bottle, the China Daily reported. Raw meat was priced at 7,000 yuan ($864) per kilogram. The sale of tiger parts is illegal in China and officers shut down the restaurant, only to be told by owner, Ma Shikun, that the meat was actually that of donkeys, flavored with tiger urine to give the dish a special
tang. The report didn’t say how the urine was obtained — via Warren Ellis
A flying reptile that lived 100 million years ago and had an 18m wingspan has entered the record books as the largest-known animal to have taken to the air. Scientists discovered the fossilised bones of the dinosaur-like creature at a site in Mexico and have calculated that its wingspan was nearly twice the length of a Spitfire’s
Apple stuff vs. anything always stirs some heated debate between the 2 camps. This one, Dell, have they no shame? is no different.
I’m glad to see that Dell monitors can finally compete with well, any ones basically. Majority of our office is Dell workstations with the worst cheap ass LCD monitors, and by the looks of it, the worst cheap ass graphics and video cards. People were actually asking for their previous cheap ass CRT ones because they couldn’t find a setting that wouldn’t ghost, or give them a headache.
I however managed to get a lovely Apple Cinema Display. I am the designer, I have to make judgements based on colour, placement and pixel perfect-edness both for screen and print on a day to day basis, so I refused to toil no longer on under par graphics cards, coupled with bad screens with colour casts you can’t get rid of. No I didn’t demand an Apple Cinema Display, but it was on the list of possibles, and I got lucky.
I don’t intend for this to turn into a Dell/Intel vs. Apple thing, (though it probably will, and especially after this: I’ve worked on a Dell laptop before, and it was very clunky and slow and bloody irritating and GRRRR! It’ll be a cold day in hell, before my CPU becomes a Dell!*).
I love my monitor, I’ve had it for almost a year now, I love it’s crystal clear-ness, I love it’s out of box colour accuracy, I love it’s wide screen proportions, I love how it looks, and yes, I am pre-disposed to the way of Apple.
I haven’t seen this new breed Dell monitor in real life, but hey, maybe it’s worth a look-see as a lower cost design quality monitor at home…
*Pre-emptive-anti-stoopid-comment-tactic: Yes I specifically stated the CPU part, not the monitor. Don’t comment and say this part and the last are inconsistent.
Read it again!
Activist’s Arrest Prompts Questions About Security Powers
Human rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC has questioned whether the Federal Government has abused its powers by planning to deport Scott Parkin, an American peace activist. Greens Senator Bob Brown has described Mr Parkin’s detention and probable deportation as an abuse of ASIO’s powers. To add insult to injury, John Howard‘s minions have charged Scott Parkin $11,000 for sending him back to the US
Two activists in Massachusetts are planning to create an online database of all the 65,825 people who signed a recent petition calling for a ballot question to ban gay marriages in the state. The activists say that the online list — which will include the names, street addresses, hometowns and ZIP codes of all the homophobes who signed — will help gay people to determine if their friends and neighbours are secretly bigots — via BoingBoing
Ghosts may be headed to court in Orlando to help settle a very human fight. The owners of Amura Japanese Restaurant say they don’t want to move into a renovated building at Church Street Station because it’s haunted, according to a lawsuit filed by the building’s landlord — via Neil Gaiman
A new architecture for a nanomemory chip could boost the capacity of flash memory cards to around 100GB. Engineers from Imperial College London, Durham University, and the University of Sheffield report on their prototype, called Magnetic Domain-Wall Logic — via BoingBoing
US authorities have backed off a proposed ban by the US military on journalists and photographers documenting the recovery of bodies in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. CNN filed a suit in the US District Court in Houston to halt government efforts to exclude the media, rejecting the official argument that the television images would not respect the privacy of the dead. A judge granted CNN a temporary restraining order, prompting the Government back off the zero access
policy
Australian researchers have patented a search method that they claim could revolutionise existing search engines, complementing searches conducted on services such as Google, Yahoo or MSN
The BBC has released the first TV clips from its archive onto the internet for people to rip, mix and share
. Almost 100 clips, from shows such as Walking With Beasts and Tomorrow’s World, are for the UK public to use for free in their own creative works. The BBC hopes to foster innovation by letting anyone re-use its material for personal and educational purposes under the Creative Archive Licence. BBC Radio 1 launched the scheme with a competition to produce a music video — via BoingBoing
Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, the world’s oldest unit dedicated to tackling political violence, is to disappear under a major reform of the way the Metropolitan Police deals with terrorism. The unit was established in 1883 to counter Irish Fenian
terrorism on mainland Britain and has remained an autonomous unit, with its own selection and promotion systems and a culture seen by some mainstream officers as high-brow and at times elitist
The beasties at my friends’ place in Inverell.
Miss Lily and Pepe giving the evil eye
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