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MonthApril 2010

Augmented Reality diving application

April 28, 2010 /

augmented reality diving

The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT just presented an Augmented Reality system for use under water. A diver’s mask with a special display lets the diver see his or her real submarine surroundings overlaid with computer-generated virtual scenes.

In the pilot application, an AR game, the player sees a coral reef with shoals, mussels and weeds, instead of a plain indoor pool. Applications for professional divers are being investigated.

Science Daily: Augmented Reality Under Water

(via ???)

Cape Wind, first U.S. offshore wind farm, approved

April 28, 2010 /

offshore wind

The first U.S. offshore wind farm, a giant project 5 miles/8 km off the Massachusetts coast, was approved on Wednesday after years of opposition involving everyone from local Indian tribes to the Kennedy family.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave the green light for the historic 130-turbine, 420-megawatt Cape Wind project in Horseshoe Shoal, Nantucket Sound, in what supporters considered a huge step forward for renewable energy in the United States.

Reuters: Cape Wind, first U.S. offshore wind farm, approved

LA Times adding paid links to certain content

April 28, 2010 /

LA Times

The Los Angeles Times will begin selling e-commerce links in selected stories and blog posts — but not in news stories or columns — as “both a reader service and a revenue opportunity for the company,” editor Russ Stanton announced to the newsroom in a memo this morning. The ads disguised as links will be marked in green, to distinguish them from editorial content links, and the articles where they appear will carry disclaimers.

LA Observed: LAT to add paid links to stories, blogs

(via Mediabistro)

21C Magazine is back with Apocalypse Noir

April 28, 2010 /

21C

21C is back with new material, plus archival material by or about Hakim Bey, William S. Burroughs, Erik Davis, Philip K. Dick, Ashley Crawford, Mark Dery, Verner Vinge, William Gibson, Rudy Rucker, Jack Parsons, Richard Metzger, Genesis P. Orridge, Kath Acker, JG Ballard, John Shirley, Robert Anton Wilson, Iain Sinclair, Terrence McKenna, Buckminster Fuller, R.U. Sirius, Timothy Leary, Bruce Sterling and more.

Sadly, in 1999, the company went bust, somewhat ironic given that 21•C in that form never made it into the Century after which it was named – the 21st. 21•C stalwart Mark Dery and I made some attempt to resuscitate the title early in the new millennium to no avail.

Yet many of the ideas and issues raised in the original magazine continued to arise, and with them perpetual queries as to how to get copies of the original articles, a nigh impossible task. With the prompting of two other 21•C stalwarts, Darren Tofts and Murray McKeich, it was decided to resurrect a core selection of articles in an archival on-line format. With Mick Stylianou’s wizard like help this was fairly painless. It didn’t take long to decide to add new material and it is hoped that new issues will be posted at semi-regular intervals.

This inaugural on-line issue takes as its theme Apocalypse Noir – the trend toward the apocalyptic, or at the least extremely dark – in contemporary writing. If earlier 21•C’s tended toward the darker aspects of cyberpunk, then the newer crop of writers have given up any pretense of a happy ending. Good luck!

21C Magazine

(via Alex Burns)

Coca Colla: the new ‘real thing’ in Bolivia

April 27, 2010 /

Coca Colla drink Bolivia

A certain US soft drinks giant may disagree, but Bolivia has come up with a fizzy beverage it says is the real thing: Coca Colla.

The drink, made from the coca leaf and named after the indigenous Colla people from Bolivia’s highlands, went on sale this week across the South American country.

It is black, sweet and comes in a bottle with a red label – but similarities to Coca-Cola end there. One is a symbol of US-led globalisation and corporate might; the other could be considered a socialist-tinged affront to western imperialism.

Guardian: Coca Colla: the new ‘real thing’ in Bolivia

(Thanks Paul)

Calculus created in India 250 years before Newton

April 27, 2010 /

infinite series

Researchers in England may have finally settled the centuries-old debate over who gets credit for the creation of calculus.

For years, English scientist Isaac Newton and German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz both claimed credit for inventing the mathematical system sometime around the end of the seventeenth century.

Now, a team from the universities of Manchester and Exeter says it knows where the true credit lies — and it’s with someone else completely.

The “Kerala school,” a little-known group of scholars and mathematicians in fourteenth century India, identified the “infinite series” — one of the basic components of calculus — around 1350.

CBC: Calculus created in India 250 years before Newton

(via Fadereu)

iPad, but not e-paper based e-book readers, may disrupt sleep

April 27, 2010 /

ipad ebook reader

Devices like the Kindle, the Nook (the top part of the screen that displays books) and popular e-readers from Sony use a technology called e-paper. It simulates the look of an actual printed page and does not emit light. That means, unlike the iPad, you can effectively read in direct sunlight. (Beach, anyone?)

The iPad, however, contains a touchscreen liquid-crystal display that, like computer screens and television sets, emits light. On the plus side, you can sneak the device under the covers while your significant other sleeps beside you and flip through a couple pages of a book without a flashlight.

But staring at the screen before bed could leave you lying awake. That’s because direct exposure to such abnormal light sources inhibits the body’s secretion of melatonin, say several sleep experts.

LA Times: Reading on iPad before bed can affect sleep habits

Reading on iPad before bed can affect sleep habits

Faster Times blurs the line between citizen and professional journalism

April 27, 2010 /

The Faster Times

The Faster Times, an online newspaper launched in July 2009 (tagline: “A new type of newspaper for a new type of world”), has introduced a new kind of investigative model for that new world. The initiative allows readers to vote on one of three topics they want to see taken up by a staff reporter, and then help shape the investigation itself. […]

After the readers select the topic, Apple aims for an open-source investigation unfettered by newsroom walls that, while it will not necessarily compel contributors to post their findings publicly if they’d rather e-mail the tips in privately, the fact that the investigation itself is ongoing will obviously not be top-secret. By making their reporting visible along the way, they hope to attract more reader-contributors.

Online Journalism Review: You Pick It, You Report It

Facebook steps up lobbying, deepens ties with intelligence agencies, FTC

April 27, 2010 /

Facebook by _Max-B

Facebook has been gradually boosting its profile in Washington D.C. over the past year and is on the hunt for a second senior lobbyist to add to its office of four. Disclosures released a few days ago show that, on top of lobbying the usual suspects Internet companies reach out to like the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. senators and representatives, the fast-growing social network has also been busy deepening ties to government intelligence and homeland security agencies. […]

At the very top of Facebook’s agenda in D.C. is privacy, he said. There’s much at stake. The ease of data collection and sharing on the web is on a collision course with privacy. The suite of projects the company unveiled yesterday at its f8 conference in San Francisco may spark further privacy concerns about the mass of data it will now be tracking on users as they traverse the web. To head off concerns that it is too cavalier with pushing users to be more public, Facebook made a savvy move when it brought longtime privacy advocate Tim Sparapani from the American Civil Liberties Union on-board last year.

Venturebeat: Facebook steps up lobbying, deepens ties with intelligence agencies, FTC

See also Facebook May Not Be Skynet, but It Is Getting Smarter, and That’s Bad for Google:

This is all a very big deal if it’s successful. Bigger than you think. And It makes Facebook a direct competitor to Google. Facebook has managed to succeed where Google has failed — turning your social behavior into actionable intelligence. Google’s major attempts at insights into web-wide consumer behavior (Orkut, FriendConnect, Checkout, Buzz) have not had anything close to the success that the Facebook platform has had. The intelligence collected from relationships with others, social micro-interactions (e.g., “likes,” “shares,” comments, updates), location (yup, Facebook’s working on that) and even transactions (see Facebook Credits) will be inherently more valuable to advertisers than click-through and search behavior (as advertisers get smarter themselves about what those kinds of behaviors mean to their bottom lines). And make no mistake, this data will be collected en masse. Facebook expects to serve 1 billion “likes” in just 24 hours. By applying this kind of statistically significant intelligence to its Engagement Ads, Facebook can deliver even more efficient, impression-generating advertising for its customers.

And also: EFF sues CIA, DOJ, others over Facebook surveillance

(Photo by _Max-B / CC)

Why the open source way trumps the crowdsourcing way

April 27, 2010 /

crowd sourcing vs. open source

Left: crowdsourcing Right: open source. By Chris Grams

Chris Grams hates it when people confuse open source and crowdsourcing. He explains the difference:

It finally hit me the other day just why the open source way seems so much more elegantly designed (and less wasteful) to me than what I’ll call “the crowdsourcing way.”

1. Typical projects run the open source way have many contributors and many beneficiaries.

2. Typical projects run the crowdsourcing way have many contributors and few beneficiaries.

opensource.com: Why the open source way trumps the crowdsourcing way

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