Glitter graphics

I hate glitter. It doesn't stick to what it's meant to stick to. But it sticks to everything it's not meant to. Oh, and it is common, cheap and tacky.

This site hosts a collection of animated gifs that 'glitter'. They're common, cheap and tacky. But they won't leave shiny bits of plastic on your skin, hair, furniture and carpets.
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Spelling it out

amaztype allows you to spell out your favourite recording artist or author with copies of their published work.

Yep, that's pretty much what it does.
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Toshiba releasing 128GB solid state drive

Toshiba reports: [edited]

Toshiba Corporation today announced its entry into the emerging market for NAND-flash-based solid state drive (SSD) with a series of products featuring multilevel-cell NAND flash memories.

Offered in a range of form factors and densities, Toshiba's solid state drives are designed primarily for notebook PCs. They will be showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, from January 7th to 10th. Samples and mass production will follow from the first quarter (January to March) of next year.

Moving NAND-based storage architecture forward, Toshiba's first solid state drives offer three densities: 32 gigabytes (GB), 64GB and 128GB.

Toshiba's new SSD integrate an original MLC controller supporting fast read-write speeds, parallel data transfers and wear leveling, and achieve performance levels comparable to those of single-level NAND flash SSD.

By applying MLC technology, Toshiba has realized a 128GB density in a 1.8 inch form factor. Toshiba expects the launch of its SSD line-up to speed up acceptance of solid state memory in laptops and digital consumer products, and to widen the horizons of the NAND flash market.

The maximum read speed is 100MB a second, and the maximum write speed of 40MB a second with the SATA2 interface (transfer rate of 3Gbps), which is compliant with high speed serial interface. The operating life is 1,000,000 hours.
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Figaro on the French train strike

The recent strikes have revealed something very interesting about the French rail system.

According to Figaro's Christian Gerondeau, not many people use it.

Politicians and media pundits warned darkly that the railway stoppage would bring France to its knees, but it didn't turn out like that. Parisian commuters found it a nuisance, but in the rest of the country, where most people drive to work anyway, 90% said they hardly noticed it.

This should make us think long and hard about the amount of taxpayers' money used to prop up our railways. Receipts from train travel account for just 5% of what we as a nation spend on cars and lorries, yet the state pumps an annual 12 billion Euros into it, more than it would cost to buy every single rail user a brand new car every year.

What's more, in the Ile de France, the French state actually bans coach services which compete with the trains: if that ban were lifted the number of train travellers would dwindle even further.

Yet we spend more money to sustain a transport service hardly anyone uses than we spend on our desperately underfunded universities. If the strike makes us see sense about this 'profligate waste' it will have done the country a service.
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Slowing down light

Wired.com reports: [edited]

Lene Vestergaard Hau can stop a pulse of light in midflight, start it up again at 0.13 miles per hour, and then make it appear in a completely different location.

"It's like a little magic trick," says Hau, a Harvard physicist. "Of course, in all magic tricks there's a secret."

And her secret is a 0.1mm lump of atoms called a Bose-Einstein condensate, cooled nearly to absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit) in a steel container with tiny windows. Normally — well, in a vacuum — light goes 186,282 miles per second. But things are different inside a BEC, a strange place where millions of atoms move — barely — in quantum lockstep.

About a decade ago, Hau started playing with BECs — for a physicist, that means shooting lasers at them. She blew up a few. Eventually, she found that lasers of the right wavelengths could tune the optical properties of a BEC, giving Hau an almost supernatural command over any other light shined into it.

Her first trick was slowing a pulse of light to a crawl — 15 mph as it traveled through the BEC. Since then, Hau has completely frozen a pulse and then released it. And recently she shot a pulse into one BEC and stopped it — turning the BEC into a hologram, a sort of matter version of the pulse.

Then she transferred that matter waveform into an entirely different BEC nearby — which emitted the original light pulse. Einstein may have set that initial speed limit of light, but he only theorized about BECs. "It's not breaking relativity," Hau says. "But I'm sure he would have been rather surprised."
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Invision G5

Reg Hardware reports: [edited]

The G5 weighs in at just 6g and measures only 3.3cm long and 1.6cm wide. It fits over the ear with what Nextlink calls a Soft Spring design, which means it’ll adapt to the contours of your ear.

The headset is charged by mini USB and users will get up to four hours' talk time, Nextlink claimed. The G5 will sit in standby mode for at least 30 days.

The company said the G5 will sport a 20-hour talk time but to get it you'll have to store the headset in a special Zippo lighter-like case. It has a built-in battery that's good to charge up the G5 five times before requiring a refresh itself. It's an optional extra.

Compatible with Bluetooth 1.2 and 2.0, and available now. The G5 is priced at £80.
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Droplet collation

darkroastedblend.com has put together a fascinating collection of liquid photography.
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Pong hits 35

Wired reports: [edited]

November 29, 1972: Pong, the first popular videogame, is released in its original arcade-game form.

Pong was the brainchild of Nolan Bushnell, a founder of Atari, who was inspired to develop it after playing an electronic table-tennis game at a trade show. But, having recently designed an arcade game he deemed too complicated because you had to read the instructions before you could play, Bushnell strove for utter simplicity.

"I had to come up with a game people already knew how to play, something so simple that any drunk in any bar could play," Bushnell said later. The first coin-operated Pong arcade game was installed at Andy Capp's, a tavern in Sunnyvale, California, where Atari was located. It was an instantaneous hit.

Four months after its appearance at Andy Capp's, there were upwards of 10,000 Pong arcade games scattered across the land. This caught the eye of Magnavox Odyssey, developer of the game that had inspired Bushnell to dream up Pong.

A lawsuit followed, resulting in an out-of-court settlement in Magnavox's favor. By then, however, Pong had moved to a home-console model, which was very different from the original.

Bushnell cut a deal with Sears to act as Pong's exclusive retailer, and the 1975 Christmas shopping season was a lucrative one. This can fairly be said to have ushered in the era of home videogaming.
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Flickr adds editing capabilities

If you have a Flickr account, click on one of your photos, and you will notice a new 'Edit Photo' button has been added between the 'Rotate' and 'Delete' functions. If you click on the 'Edit Photo' option, you will be asked permission to be connected to the company that provides the services, before being offered a number of basic editing options

The editing functions are provided by a company called Picnik, who have offered online editing for quite a while. However, integrating it with the Flickr site is an excellent idea.
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Trailer flash

Wired Magazine (Feb 2007) reports: [edited]:

It may be a mobile home, but the Glassic Soho won't be mistaken for any of the single-wides dotting trailer parks across the US.

Developed by San Francisco architect and furniture designer Christopher Deam, it's a sleek, modem alternative living space. At just north of $59,000 for the fully furnished house (wheels included), the Classic costs at least $10,000 more than a typical trailer.

But its target market - think Eames-loving design sophisticates - seems shocked by how cheap the 400-square-foot abode is. "We're attracting a customer who says, 'We wouldn't buy anything else you sell, but we love this,'" explains Denise Walsh, a sales rep at Breckenridge, which manufactures the Classic.

Pick from three floorplans: one-bedroom, two-bedroom (no kitchen), or studio. All units come standard with a floor-to-celling wall of glass (motorised roller shades optional).
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The perfect guitar?

Gibson Guitars reports: [edited]

It took Chris Adams 10 years to perfect the auto-tuning system on the Gibson Robot Guitar. While he was at it, Adams developed the technology that allows it to switch effortlessly between multiple tunings, keep a guitar perfectly intonated, and even [allegedly, Ed.] change strings.

Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins loves it. Matt Bellamy from Muse puts it in his guitars. Steve Vai is telling everybody how great it is.

The only thing you have to do to start is pull a knob, strum the strings, and when everything on the display is blue, you are done.

In select stores December 7, 2007 as a first run limited edition, only 10 per store. £1,400.
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A possible niche for the 'MacBook Nano'

Rumours continue to grow that there will be an ultra-slim MacBook released early next year, with Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster being quoted as saying that the likelihood of one being released at Macworld San Francisco is about 85%.

Without wishing to try and work out how Mr Munster got to that figure, a couple of years ago I would have said that an ultraportable Mac would be a Very Desirable Thing (you'll need to scroll to the bottom of the article to see the 'nano' bit). However, a lot has happened since then, in particular, the iPhone, which for many people serves as a perfectly serviceable UMPC.

However, there are some things the iPhone lacks that a MacBook Nano could provide, including:

- Storage space
- Screen real estate
- Usable keyboard/trackpad
- Speakers
- OSX apps (Pages/Photoshop, etc.)

Now, here's a thought.

Suppose the MacBook Nano came with 128GB of flash-based hard drive space. Big enough to fit most people's entire digital life on. And a 1280 x 800 pixel screen, plenty big enough to browse the web and view the majority of OSX apps. And a full-size keyboard and trackpad. And that's about it. No CD/DVD drive. Not many ports. Not much of anything. It could be as thin as a very thin thing, and weigh less than a kilogram.

This beautiful thing is then carried around with you wherever you go, in your backpack or designer handbag. But there are times when using a laptop computer, no matter how small and sexy it is, really isn't practicable.

Now, here's the 'Brilliant Idea'. When you 'sleep' the MacBook Nano, you get the option of it being 'iPhone Wakeable'. In this mode, the MacBook Nano is intelligently paired with your iPhone, via the most appropriate method, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPRS (and next year, 3G!).

In this mode, the screen isn't illuminated on wake up, and the processor is controlled to use as little power as possible. So, when you want to play music, you're not restricted to your iPhone's storage capacity... you can stream it from your MacBook Nano's iTunes collection, either to Bluetooth stereo headphones, or to your home's Airport Express, using your iPhone to monitor and control the music.

When you want to check a Pages or Keynote document, you can browse your MacBook Nano's archive wirelessly on your iPhone without removing the MacBook Nano from your bag.

Your iPhone effectively becomes a 'thin-client', with your MacBook Nano hosting the majority of your data. The potential for symbiosis extends, because the MacBook Nano could use the iPhone as a wireless modem in those situations where you have the opportunity to browse the web on a larger screen, or even to perform regular iSyncs to your .Mac account.
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Never enough...

My iTunes collection has just reached 30,000

- 104 gigabytes of files

- 1913 hours of recordings

- Most played song, Say You Don't Mind: Colin Blunstone (43 plays)

- Earliest track added, Whole Lotta Rosie: AC/DC (Jan 2004)

- Latest track added, Days Of Armageddon: Songdog

- Longest music track, Haq Ali Ali: Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (25 mins)

- Shortest music track, Field Day for the Sundays: Wire (28 secs)

- Number of Bob Dylan tracks, 334

- Number of Jamiroquai tracks, 0
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Xdrive - 5GB of free online storage

Xdrive allows you to upload up to 5GB of your files to their servers with no individual size restriction, and allows you to send them in folders without forcing you to zip them first.

Xdrive also has a mobile interface for your smart phone.

Backup and folder syncing software is available for Windows-users.
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London, Lincoln, London 02-12-07

LONDON to LINCOLN
Shake It Shake It - Thomas Tantrum
Even Better Than The Real Thing (dance version) - U2
With A Little Luck - Wings
Fox on the Run - Dondero High School
The Wrath of Marcie - The Go! Team
Eddie's Gun - Kooks
Rendez-Vu - Basement Jaxx
California - Phantom Planet
Sha La La La Lee - Small Faces
White riot - The Clash
Love Me Like You - The Magic Numbers
Zambesi - Bert Kaempfert
American Idiot - Green Day
The Biggest Horizon - Clint Boon Experience
Achy Breaky Song - Weird Al Yankovic
Oh My God - Lily Allen & Mark Ronson
Rule the World - Take That
Backfire At the Disco - The Wombats
Juke Box Jive - The Rubettes
I Like the Way (Radio Edit) - Bodyrockers
Bend Me, Shape Me - Amen Corner
Maybe tomorrow - The Chords
We're All Going to Die - Malcolm Middleton
I'm Gonna Love You Too - Blondie
Long Road to Ruin - Foo Fighters
Saving My Face - KT Tunstall
I Loved the Way She Said - Spitalfield
Cold As Ice - Foreigner
Bring me Edelweiss - Edelweiss
Ready to Go (Dance Mix) - Republica
Daft Punk Is Playing At My House - LCD Soundsystem
Staring At the Rude Bois (feat. Lethal Bizzle) - Gallows
Have I Been A Fool - Jack Penate
What Ifs And Maybes - Bromheads Jacket
Godhopping - Dogs Die In Hot Cars
Back Of My Hand - Jags
Heartbeatz - Styles & Breeze
Needle In A Haystack - The Velvelettes
Week In Week Out - The Ordinary Boys
The Boys of Summer (single) - DJ Sammy
Joe's Head - Kings Of Leon
Bum Bum - Mabel
Summer - Sum 41
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! - Erasure
Don't Tell Me - Blancmange
She's A Rebel - Green Day
Hooked On A Feeling - Vonda Shepard
How Do You Do It? - Gerry & the Pacemakers
He's So Fine - The Chiffons
The Sweet Escape - Gwen Stefani
What you need is… (radio edit) - Sinead Quinn

LINCOLN to LONDON
Down In The Alley - Peter Case
Handclapping Song - The Meters
If You See Her, Say Hello (alt) - Bob Dylan
Reflection - Prince
Acrobat - U2
Cupid Must Be Angry - Nick Lowe
Radiation Vibe - Hem
Last Exit - Junior Boys
Look Over Your Shoulder - Randy Stonehill
Caterpillar - Lambchop
What Used To Be French - Secret Machines
Fire and Rain - Blood, Sweat & Tears
You've Been Gone Too Long - Ann Sexton
We Come in Peace - Bobby Conn & The Glass Gypsies
Lay Down Sally - Eric Clapton
That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart - Aimee Mann
The Other Side Of Summer - Elvis Costello
Paper Wings - Gillian Welch
The Distance - Cake
High Of 75 - Relient K
Motherland - Natalie Merchant
Perfect Blue - The Wedding Present
Rock N' Me - Steve Miller Band
Gloria (live) - Van Morrison
Voice Of My Savior - Jimmy Martin
When The Revolution Comes - The Last Poets
Catch My Disease - Ben Lee
I Think I'm Falling In Love - Bettye Swann
If It All Comes True - Chagall Guevara
Enjoy The Silence - Depeche Mode
Something Changed - Pulp
Sign O The Times (single) - Prince
Heart Of The Country - Paul McCartney & Wings
Ride Like The Wind - Christopher Cross
Isolation - Joy Division
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Oxfam unwrapped ads

These ads seem to have upset a lot of people.

They got my attention.

They kept my attention.

They didn't try to make me feel guilty.

They made me smile.

They made me think about how I spend my money.

Not many charity ads achieve that.
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London, Lincoln, London 01-12-07

LONDON to LINCOLN
30 Seconds Over Tokyo - Pere Ubu
For Heaven's Sake - Wes Montgomery
Automobile Noise - The Blue Nile
Mr. Mistoffelees (Cats) - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Pouring Water On A Drowning Man - James Carr
One Tree Hill - U2
If She Knew What She Wants - Bangles
My Shirt Looks Good On You - Catie Curtis
Get Up And Go - Cinerama
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da - The Police
Ghost of a Girl - Bluerunners
Strange Little Girl - Stranglers
Lying Is The Most Fun A Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off - Panic! At The Disco
Nutopia - Meg Lee Chin
I Mon Bitter (curfew time) - Mau Mau Chaplains
Just Like A Birthday - Kathryn Williams
Should've Been a Cowboy - Toby Keith
Cabin Essence - Brian Wilson
Mama, I Got A Brand New Thing - Undisputed Truth
Mr Blue - Garth Brooks
Any Road - George Harrison
Michelle - The Beatles
Souvenirs - Architecture in Helsinki
Flirt (With Me) - Zeromancer
Poppa Joe - Sweet
Lighten Up - Morcheeba
High Into The Sky - Pilot
City Of Chicago - Christy Moore
Shotgun - Jr. Walker and The All stars
Saturday Night - Kaiser Chiefs
Silverscreen Showerscene (Thin - Felix Da Housecat
teen angst - m83
Crazy Train - The Waifs
World Came Tumbling Down - Al Anderson
I’ll Come Running Back To You - Sam Cooke
My Heart Would Know - The The
Tonight - Ryan Adams & The Cardinals
Street Life - Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music
Where Does This Ocean Go? - Yoko Kanno
Five To One - The Doors
Outlaw Blues - Bob Dylan
Let Us Humbly Worship Jesus - Bryn Haworth
Stop Draggin' My Heart Around - Tom Petty & Stevie Nicks
Old Shit/New Shit - Eels

LINCOLN to LONDON
Just a Song About Ping Pong - Operator Please
I Want You To Want Me - Letter To Cleo
Freed From Desire - Gala
House Arrest - KRUSH
I Eat Cannibals - Toto Coelo
(Is This The Way To) Amarillo (2005) - Tony Christie
Love You To Death - Kill Hannah
Let The Day Begin - The Call
Memphis In The Meantime - John Hiatt
Charlie Brown - Coasters
Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That - Dolly Parton
Riders on the Storm (Fredwreck Remix) - Snoop Dogg feat. The Doors
Twist & Shout - Chaka Demus & Pliers
Crazy Angel - Kill Hannah
Aquarius - Let the Sunshine In - Dondero High School
Rockin' All Over The World - Status Quo
Last Train To London - Electric Light Orchestra
New Song - Howard Jones
Teddy Bear - Elvis Presley
I Found Out - The Pigeon Detectives
Soldier Girl (Album Version) - The Polyphonic Spree
Kill Your Television (album mix) - Ned's Atomic Dustbin
Honey Honey - ABBA
Brilliant Mind - Furniture
Heaven Is A Halfpipe - OPM
Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) - Erasure
Down On The Corner - Creedence Clearwater Revival
The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy
Any Way You Want It - Journey
The Box - Johnny Flynn
Confetti - The Lemonheads
The Pretender - Foo Fighters
Sailormoon (English Extended Dance Mix) - Sailor Moon
Land Of 1,000 Dances - Wilson Pickett
Good Morning Britain - Aztec Camera
What Dreams Are Made Of - Hilary Duff
Lipstick On Your Collar - Connie Francis
Shine Silently - Nils Lofgren
I Can't Wait - Nu Shooz
Breakfast at Tiffany's - Moxy Fruvous
Put A Penny In The Slot - Fionn Regan
Flux - Bloc Party
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Something for the weekend

Steve Lamacq's Radio 6 Show lists a number of helpful music discussion starters: [edited]

1: Can a cover version can ever be better than the original?

2: Is a mouth organ ever really necessary?

3: The Smiths are miserable.

4: Every song with whistling is brilliant.

5: Best Electric Light Orchestra song?

6: Miles Davis, creative genius, or competent bore?

7: The Beatles or the Stones?

8: New Order, fantastic pop, or just plain useless?
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Affordable solar energy moves closer

Nanosolar reports: [edited]

At Nanosolar, we have taken the highest-performance and most durable photovoltaic thin-film semiconductor, called CIGS (for "Copper Indium Gallium Diselenide"), and innovated on all seven critical areas necessary to reach a breakthrough cost reduction in solar cells, panels, and systems.

As opposed to using slow and expensive high-vacuum based thin-film deposition processes, we developed a proprietary ink to allow us to use much simpler and higher-yield printing for depositing the solar cell's semiconductor.

We use a highly conductive yet low-cost foil as a substrate, which allows us to avoid the need to separately deposit an expensive bottom electrode layer (as required for a non-conductive substrate such as glass).

Thanks to Sora for the link.
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Nintendo DS Lite sales record

Reg Hardware reports: [edited]

The Nintendo DS Lite has taken the record for the greatest number of games console units sold in the UK within a single week.

191,000 DS Lites were sold during the seven days up to 24 November.

The console took the crown from Sony’s PSP, which until now had held the record with 188,000 units during its launch week in September 2005.
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Eco Media Player

treehugger.com reports: [edited]

The iconic iPod music player has for many years been challenged by new so-called iPod Killer products entering the market. The Eco Media Player is unlikely to be one of those. But it does add a new dimension to the genre.

The media player bit comes into play as the unit is a video player, music player, fm radio, LED torch, photo viewer, hi-fi recorder, memo recorder, data storage device and a mobile phone charger. The eco prefix is applied because it does all of this without need of replacement batteries. Power comes simply from winding a fold-out handle on the rear of the unit (or, if you want, charging it via USB cable to your computer). 40 minutes of audio play requires one minute of self powering.

An onboard lithium ion battery has a maximum playtime of 20 hours. Audio will play back in mp3, wma, asf, wav, ogg formats (no mention of aac, the iPod default). The 1.8" colour screen shows videos in asv (and wmv, avi, mpeg, after conversion) and photos as jpeg, bmp, gif images. With 2GB of built-in memory the media reader supports SD cards to increase this. Microsoft Windows seems to be the supported operated system when connected to computers with no indication of compatibility with Macs. Sells for £155 in the UK, and $425 in Australia.

If you’re wondering who Trevor Baylis is, he was the British inventor that created the original wind-up radio, as a way of getting information on HIV/AIDS to remote African villagers. The success of that project spawned the brand Freeplay, who have dominated the self powered device market for the past decade.

Trevor looks like he is re-entering that market with this product. Inventors John and Tony Davies approached his ideas incubator company and Trevor so liked what he saw he lent his name to not only the Eco Media Player, but an accompanying line of self-powered eco-products under the moniker of New Generation. There are lanterns, head torches, radios, bicycle lights, etc. Tango in the UK carry the full range.
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World's first jukebox

Wired reports: [edited]

The first jukebox was constructed by the Pacific Phonograph Company in 1889. Four stethoscope-like tubes were attached to an Edison Class M electric phonograph fitted inside an oak cabinet.

The tubes operated individually, each being activated by the insertion of a coin, meaning that four different listeners could be plugged in to the same song simultaneously.

Towels were supplied to patrons so they could wipe off the end of the tube after each listening.

The success of the jukebox eventually spelled the end of the player piano, then the most common way of pounding out popular music to a line of thirsty barflies.

The machine was originally called the “nickel-in-the-slot player” by Louis Glass, the entrepreneur who installed it at the Palais Royale. (A nickel then had the buying power of $1.08 today.)

It came to be known as the jukebox, although the origin of the word remains a bit vague. It may derive from “juke house,” a slang reference to a 'bawdy house', where music was not unknown.
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Buffalo release 320GB pocket hard drive

Reg Hardware reports: [edited]

Dubbed the MiniStation TurboUSB [what, no 'super', no 'nano'?, Ed.], it is protected by a tough outer case. The 5400rpm hard drive is powered through a USB 2.0 connection, with the cable wrapping around the device’s outer rim.

The 320GB drive will be available from next month for £155.
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The West Wing

On Sunday evening, I watched the 154th episode of The West Wing, the finale to the best television series I have ever watched.

Aaron Sorkin, its creator and primary writer for the first four seasons, creates scripts that are intelligent, inventive, challenging and entertaining. The dialogue is sharp, informed and involving, moving you through issues that impact millions of people as it chronicles fictional, but believable days in the life of the White House administration.

The actors are perfectly cast, and they are obviously enjoying living out their characters. And the interaction between them is so dynamic that I often found myself replaying sequences of dialogue in a similar way to which I might re-read a particularly complex, or enjoyable, section of a novel.

Martin Sheen plays the charismatic polymathic Democrat, President Josiah Bartlet (think of a hybrid of John Kennedy and Bill Clinton). Stockard Channing (remember Betty Rizzo in Grease?) plays his equally brilliant, sparky and headstrong doctor wife.

Equality between males and females is assumed. Sexuality is acknowledged but not exploited. Individual's strengths are recognised and rewarded, and weaknesses acknowledged but kept in perspective and rarely despised.

In a single episode you can find yourself laughing out loud, marvelling at the complexity of the American political system, wrestling with a massive military dilemma before bursting into floods of tears at a random act of kindness.

As Sorkin moves away from the writing, the mood of the series does change, with a harder and more negative edge becoming evident. But this never degenerates into 'soap-opera', there is always plenty of respect for honourable behaviour and examples of careful handling of 'real-world' dichotomies and decisions.

If you're thinking of a 'watching project' for next year, why not treat yourself to Series 1 on DVD (available from amazon.co.uk for under £18.00 including delivery). Or if you're feeling rich, the complete DVD box set for £121. That's 154 episodes (112 hours of viewing), on over 44 discs. That's less than a £1 per episode. And you get a bucketful of other stuff thrown in, if you're interested in 'extras'.

If you rationed yourself to 3 episodes a week beginning 1 January that would keep you going through 2008 - although my guess is that you'll have watched the last episode before June is out!
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Gentium redux

I've featured Gentium in a previous blog.

It is now available, in beta form, as two families, Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic from the Summer Institute of Linguistics web site.

Each family features regular, italic, bold and bold italic. Gentium Book Basic is a little heavier in feel than its sister typeface.
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Nokia N810

MobileBurn.com reports: [edited]

The Nokia N810 has a large colour display, touchpad screen, slide-out keyboard, 400 MHz processor and up to 10GB of memory (an optional 8GB memory card combined with 2GB internal memory). To access the Internet, users simply connect via the nearest Wi-Fi hotspot or over Bluetooth on a mobile phone.

The Nokia N810 also features GPS, with free maps preloaded for users to browse detailed locations, search for street addresses, find points of interest (POI) as well as nearby Wi-Fi hotspots.

The maemo Linux-based OS2008 features a highly customizable user interface and a Mozilla based browser with Ajax and Adobe flash 9.
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Dondero A Capella Choir (& Instrumentalists)

comfortstand.com reports: [edited]

"For me, it started one Saturday morning in 2002. On a whim I picked up two Dondero A Capella Choir cassettes at a thrift store, something to listen to in the car as I went about my errands.

"I got in the car, popped in a tape and "Black Water" started to play. As with so many ubiquitous pop songs, the Doobie Brothers' original never did much for me. It was just another pretty sound that might come over the loudspeakers at the supermarket. The Dondero version, however, pulled the song out of the background and shoved it right in front of me. Now I had context: knowing that high school students learned this song, rehearsed this song, performed it in front of family and friends finally made "Black Water" real to me as a piece of music.

"This ability to make tired old pop songs fresh is only part of what makes these concerts a such a pleasure to hear, however. There's real skill demonstrated here, and a palpable sense of excitement in this music. The students sound like they're having a great time on stage, and the audience is cheering and shouting with equal - if not more - enthusiasm."

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Visit the link for a chance to listen to, or download, the 'greatest hits' compilation. Or download one of the annual concerts complete with intros and outros.

Relax into the shaky timings and dodgy notes. Think Polyphonic Spree meets The Go! Team. Immerse yourself in the moment and find yourself smiling out loud at the enthusiasm and joy that these people are experiencing in playing, singing (and listening to) some of their favourite songs.
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Free fonts

Billy Argel has released a luxurious, surprisingly legible distressed script typeface. Olho de Boi was inspired by the first Brazilian postage stamp, released on August 1, 1843.

And if you're in the market for typefaces of this ilk, another Argel creation Santos Dumont might be worth a browse.
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Kindle

c|net reports: [edited]

Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos believes the Kindle will be to reading what the iPod was to music, according to a report published on the online edition of magazine.

In what appears to be the Bezos' first interview about the company's upcoming electronic reader, Amazon's chief told the magazine that the Kindle can store up to 200 books and connect to the Web with the help of a system called Whispernet. Amazon, a company that has become synonymous with buying books online, will also offer Kindle owners a selection of more than 88,000 digital books at launch time, according to Newsweek.

Last week, CNET News.com reported that Bezos will unveil the Kindle at a media event in New York on Monday. An industry source said that the device will retail for $399 and receive automatic downloads from major newspapers, magazines and other publications. The source also said that Kindle features e-mail.

The e-mail service enables owners to receive word documents or PDF files that can be stored in the device's library just like a book, Newsweek reported. But what makes the handheld truly unique is that it downloads books off the Web - and it can do that "in less than a minute," Bezos told the magazine.

E-readers used to confine e-book buyers to wherever their computers were located. Digital books had to be first downloaded to a PC and then synced to an e-reader. Amazon is freeing them to buy wherever they can connect to the Web and this could lead to more impulse purchases.

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Amazon have now officially launched it, visit this page for more details, including a video ad/demo
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Be prepared

Stephen Fry's excellent blog is always worth a read, but his latest (long) article is particularly enlightening. Here are some excerpts:

I expect all of you have heard of the risks posed by the various forms of attack code that go under names like virus, Trojan horse, worm, malware and so on. These are little bits of clandestine code that your computer picks up, usually through email attachments, designed to infect the host (your PC), raid its address books, send out copies of themselves to all your friends and contacts and then either spitefully screw with your operating system, rendering it inoperative or, more likely these days, record your keyboard input and send back to the malicious code’s originator a log of such keystrokes which can be used to determine your passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive data.

But, and here I come to my nightmare scenario, imagine malicious code written by cunning, ruthless criminals that could turn your computer into a kind of slave machine, a zombie PC which can connect with other zombie PCs to create a whole network of robot computers which would grow almost exponentially in power and bandwidth. Such a robot network, or ‘botnet’, would soon overtake all the supercomputers on earth in might and reach.

Let us further imagine that this botnet learned to defend itself against the security forces by moving the location of its command and control centres so fast and so randomly that the head could never be cut off. Let us even further imagine that the criminal masterminds in charge of this colossal entity divided it up into sections which could be sold, leased or rented to other criminals (along with instructions for use) who could use it for spamming, share scamming, phishing, identity theft, fraud, DDoS and any other kind of lucrative enterprise they chose.

The fiendish nature of the code would mean infected PCs wouldn’t freeze or slow down noticeably, so individual computer users like you and me would have no idea that we were enslaved players in this vast criminal conspiracy, the transmission routes would change literally daily from porn sites to cheerful links or witty birthday cards and friendly pointers to interesting blog pages – anything. Those profiting would be almost impossible to catch and the entity itself, the botnet, would grow and refine itself until it became the very stuff of science fiction: the neural nets of William Gibson, Skynet in The Terminator films, the Borg collective in Star Trek, you know the genre.

Well, my (not very surprising) kick in the teeth is this. Such botnets exist and one of them, the Storm botnet, has grown so fast, so terrifyingly and so cunningly, that in the last eight months it has overtaken all the others. Storm is an amalgam of millions (no one knows quite how many) of slave PCs.

It sends out billions of spam messages, stock market scam mails and appears to be behind many examples of what are known as Distributed Denial of Service attacks, which for reasons of malice, politics or criminal extortion close down or threaten to close down legitimate servers by flooding them with more data traffic than they can handle. Using sci-fi sounding techniques like Fast Flux, Storm evades capture and surveillance and recent evidence leads those who know about these things to conclude that parts of it have indeed been leased or sold as ‘botkits’ to less technically savvy criminals.

Storm began life early this year, but as of a couple of weeks ago it had grown into easily the biggest and most sophisticated botnet the world has seen.

But according to The Honeynet Project, Dark Reading and other reliable sites that monitor this subject, Storm is only the beginning. In a year’s time it will in all likelihood seem naïve, clumsy and harmless. Slashdot carried this headline only the other day: “There’s a new peer-to-peer based botnet emerging that could blow the notorious Storm away in size and sophistication.”

So... Don’t trust those you don’t know. Don’t click on that alluring headline, that tempting YouTube link, that interesting ad, that funny sounding birthday card or joke unless you are one hundred percent certain of its origin.
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London, Lincoln, London 18-11-07

LONDON TO LINCOLN
Big Girls Don't Cry - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Duel - Propaganda
Genie in a Bottle - Christina Aguilera
Johnny reggae - The Piglets
Philadelphia Freedom - Elton John
Hold Me Close - David Essex
Stuck In The Middle With You - Stealers Wheel
Smoke You Out - The Donnas
Rock Lobster - The B-52's
Hyperactive! - Thomas Dolby
I Only Want To Be With You - Dusty Springfield
It Doesn't Have To Be This Way - Blow Monkeys
We Built This City On Rock And Roll - Jefferson Starship
I Should Have Known Better - Jim Diamond
Cherish - Madonna
Locomotion - Kylie Minogue
Sweet Little Mystery - Wet Wet Wet
Beauty Queen - Lash
Sugar and Spice - The Cryan Shames
The most beautiful girl in the world - Charlie Rich
Ring My Bell - Anita Ward
Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
John, I'm Only Dancing - David Bowie
A Chicken with Its Head Cut Off - The Magnetic Fields
Let The Music Play - Shannon
The Wrath of Marcie - The Go! Team
Getting To Know You - Julie Andrews
National Express - The Divine Comedy
One vision - Queen
Martian Hop - The Ran-Dells
Silence (DJ Tiesto's In Search Of Sunrise Remix) - Sarah McLachlan
Sign Of The Times - Belle Stars
Down Under - Men At Work
My Boyfriend's Back - The Angels
You Spin Me Around - Gigi D'Agostino
Together In Electric Dreams - Human League
Lovin' each day - Ronan Keating
I Think I Love You - Partridge Family
Stacy's Mom - Fountains Of Wayne
pizza day - Aquabats
Little Yellow Spider - Devendra Banhart
Wannabe - Spice Girls
Mixed Up World - Sophie Ellis-Bextor
What Is Love - Haddaway

LINCOLN TO LONDON
Your Excuse - Slobberbone
Screwdriver - The White Stripes
Backlash Blues - Nina Simone
Trouble - The Jayhawks
I'm Free - Soup Dragons
Shadow Blues - Laura Veirs
Awesome God - Rich Mullins
Swamp - Télépopmusik
Turning Away - Shakin' Stevens
Imagine - T.T. Ross
Broken Butterflies - Lucinda Williams
We Both Go Down Together - The Decemberists
Crazy Dreams - Lucy Kaplansky
Home (Air "Around the Golf" Mix) - Depeche Mode
Hazy Jane II - Nick Drake
Warm Love - Van Morrison
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer - John Lee Hooker
When Tomorrow Comes - Eurythmics
A House For Sale - Millie Jackson
More Than a Feeling - The Moog Cookbook
I Think You And I - Skip Spence
Vampire - Juliet Turner
Plan 9 Channel 7 - The Damned
Stumblin' In - Suzi Quattro & Chris Norman
Drops Me Down - Lisa Loeb
Biological - Air
Had Me A Real Good Time - The Faces
Big Area - Then Jerico
Unemployed In Summertime - Emiliana Torrini
Los Endos - Genesis
Hardin Wouldn't Run - Steve Earle
Rednecks - Randy Newman
On The Beach - Neil Young
Big Wheel - Laura Cantrell
Hard Life - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Comanche - Cake
Surfin' USM - Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine
Homeless - Paul Simon
Jupiter Rising - Emmylou Harris
The Things That Dreams Are Made Of - Human League
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London, Lincoln, London 17-11-07

LONDON TO LINCOLN
You Will Always Be The Same - Ryan Adams
Green Summer Lawn - Vigilantes Of Love
Maundering - Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Jack Shit George - Ian Dury & The Blockheads
Kanon - Enon
I'm The Leader Of The Gang - Gary Glitter
Never Knew Love Like This Before - Stephanie Mills
Taxman - The Beatles
Big Girls Don't Cry - Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
Memphis Pearl - Lucinda Williams
Paralyzed - Bob Mould
It Must Be Love - Labi Siffre
Taa Deem - Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
Live Bed Show - Pulp
The Beauty Of The Days Gone By - Van Morrison
Stuck In The Middle With You - Louise
Green, Green Grass Of Home (live at Folsom Prison) - Johnny Cash
Troubled So Hard - Vera Hall
Listen To The Radio - Nanci Griffith
I Got A Feeling - Barbara Randolph
Down To Zero - Bettye Lavette
Is it Peace or Is it Prozac? - Cheryl Wheeler
Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Rex Hobart And The Misery Boys
Girls Dem Sugar (feat Mya) - Beenie Man
I Am Your Tambourine - Tift Merritt
Liar - Deana Carter
Nu Rip Off - The Kleptones
Born To A Family - The Go-Betweens
Merry-Go-Round - Gunilla Thorn
Sonny Could Lick All Them Cats - Chuck E. Weiss
Shting-Shtang - Nick Lowe
She Came In Through The Bathroom Window - The Beatles
In The Midnight - Van Morrison
Hallelujah Jordan - Hothouse Flowers
Inside - Patti Rothberg
There Was Love - Charlie Peacock
Reefer Madness - UB40
The Nursery Walls - The Lilac Time
Ireland For Losers - Jackie Leven
Computerlove - Kraftwerk
Terminator X To The Edge Of Panic - Public Enemy
Kiss - Prince
High Water - Bob Dylan
One Moment More - Mindy Smith

LINCOLN TO LONDON
Are You Ready for Love - Elton John
What's New Pussycat? - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs & Fishbone
Working My Way Back To You Babe - Spinners
I Love You 'Cause I Have To - Dogs Die In Hot Cars
Rawhide - The Blues Brothers
Breakthru - Queen
(excerpt from) Jack and the Beanstalk - Children's Disco Musical Stories
Fast Food song - Fast Food Rockers
I Don't Care - 7" Remix - Shakespear's Sister
Breakin' Up - Rilo Kiley
Don’t Look Back Into The Sun - The Libertines
Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini - Frankie Avalon
Queen of the World - Ida Maria
Don't You Want Me - Human League
Self-Defence - Monty Python
Give Him A Great Big Kiss - Shangri-Las
Still Alive (credits to Portal) - Ellen McLain
Redneck Girl - Gretchen Wilson
Better When You're Naked - Ida Maria
I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman - The White Stripes
Happy People - R. Kelly
Mansard Roof - Vampire Weekend
Foundations - Kate Nash
My Life - Billy Joel
Babylon's Burning The Ghetto - Lethal Bizzle
Voyage Voyage - Desireless
Feel the Beat - Darude
Letter from America - The Proclaimers
Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance With You - Black Kids
Yoda (parody of Lola, kinks) - Weird Al Yankovic
I Can't Go For That - Daryl Hall & John Oates
Everytime We Touch - Cascada
Monsters and Angels - Voice of the Beehive
N Apostrophe T - Tom Lehrer
Only You Can - Fox
Up The Bracket - The Libertines
Shang-A-Lang - Bay City Rollers
A Glass Of Champagne - Sailor
The Duel - Giorgio Moroder
Shake ur body - Shy FX & T-Power feat. Di
Sugar Sugar - Archies
Brother Louie - Modern Talking
Louie - Ida Maria
Ladies Of Cambridge - Vampire Weekend
Staring At The Rude Boys - The Ruts
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Asus Eee PC 4G 701 micro-laptop

Reg Hardware reports: [edited]

Asus' new micro-laptop runs on Linux, has Wi-Fi and 4GB of flash storage, of which around 2.9GB is consumed by the OS, bundled apps and sample files.

An advantage to using Linux is that it's easier to make the OS fit the screen. The 701's 7in, 100dpi, LED-backlit, 800 x 480 screen isn't a standard resolution, but there are pixels aplenty to ensure dialogue boxes don't disappear off the bottom of the screen as they almost always did with early Windows-based UMPCs. Any that do can usually be resized to fit the screen with just a click. Windows, rather than dialogue boxes, open full-screen by default, but it's easy to switch between them using the tabs in the status bar at the bottom of the screen.

Typing on the 701 is certainly possible, but if your fingers aren't those of a five-year-old, it'll take a bit of practice to make sure you hit the letter you want and not the adjacent keys as well. But all the keys you'd get on a full-sized model are present.

If the keyboard's hard to use, that goes double for the touchpad. A mere 45 x 30mm, it's got a scroll space over on the right-hand side, but that just makes it ever fiddlier to use.

The 701 has three USB ports, a VGA port and SD/SDHC card slot. The other side is home to 3.5mm headphone and microphone sockets and a 10/100Mb Ethernet port.

Closed, the 701 measures 225 x 165 x 25-35mm, but in real terms that means it's the size of a typical hardback novel. It weighs about the same, 890g. In other words, eminently portable, and a perfect size to close up and stash away in your backpack or briefcase when you've finished surfing, writing the latest chapter of your magnum opus or whatever.

At just £220 [camera, model and straw mat not included, Ed.], the Asus Eee PC is a steal. This is a fun, cheap machine.

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Editor's postscript: Someone has managed to install Mac OSX on one of these. Bet he doesn't have much room for his iTunes collection.
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Nokia N82

Mobile Burn reports: [edited]

Nokia have announced the N82, featuring a 5 megapixel camera with Xenon flash, autofocus, and a Carl Zeiss lens. It is also capable of recording video at VGA resolution, at 30 frames per second.

The handset has quad-band GSM and WCDMA (2100MHz) support. Data connectivity options include HSDPA and WiFi.

The N82 sports a GPS receiver in addition to Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support for stereo headsets. The 3.5mm audio jack accommodates standard headphones and can be used with a TV-out cable for displaying videos and photos on a television.

The Nokia N82 measures 112 x 50 x 17mm and weighs 114g. There is a microSD memory card slot with support for capacities up to 8GB. The display is a 2.4" 16 million color TFT screen, with 240 x 320 pixel resolution.

A second front-facing VGA camera is included for video calls. The Nokia N82 costs around £300.
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Drobo - intelligent, expandable backup

drobo.com reports: [edited]

As rich media (photos, video, movies, music) continues to devour your storage capacity, you need a solution that allows you to easily manage, protect, and scale storage for your PC or Mac. For you, we've created Drobo, the first fully-automated storage robot to take the pain out of keeping your important digital content safe.

Drobo guards everything on it.
Drobo combines up to four hard drives into a big pool of protected storage. Start with two, grow to four, then upsize smaller drives-get Terabytes of protection.

Drobo manages storage, so you don't have to.
Just connect Drobo to your Mac or PC. No RAID levels. No management or configuration. Drobo does everything for you. Get rid of multiple external drives. Avoid the complexity of RAID. Attach a Drobo storage robot to your system and let it manage your storage so you don't have to.

Drobo upgrades capacity on-the-fly.
Add drives to Drobo at any time. Mix 'n match capacities, brands or speeds. No downtime, data migration, or waiting to access new capacity. Drobo works the way you do.

Drobo lets you "pay as you grow"
Hard drives get bigger and cheaper all the time. Don't buy storage capacity until you need it.
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Dorothy gets a laptop

kansascity.com reports: [edited]

A new era began Tuesday when the Kansas City School District launched the largest distribution of laptops in the metro area.

The school board earlier this year agreed to purchase Apple MacBooks for all of its 5,000 high school students to use at school and at home.

The project aims to better prepare students for college. Principals have lamented for years about their students not having computers at home, fearing they will be behind their peers by the time they get to college.

“Laptop computers will help us to teach each student at their instructional level, so that they can find success,” said Susan Engelmann, a district administrator who oversees the high schools.

The school district required parents and students to attend an orientation session about the rules and expectations for using the laptops.

The school district paid about $6.4 million for the lease. Parents are responsible for the $25 insurance fee. For those unable to pay, the district allows community service as a substitute payment.

The laptops are equipped with software to prevent students from viewing pornography, but parents are also expected to help keep track of Internet usage.

District officials have taken several measures to prevent theft. All of the laptops have stickers clearly identifying them as the property of the Kansas City, Kan., public schools. The sticker will not come off without virtually destroying the laptop.

If thieves find a way around that obstacle, a GPS tracking device will help locate it. If all else fails, district officials said, they could also use a remote device to destroy the hard drive.
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Strapline for Britain

As Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown is seeking to set the agenda by choosing a 'Motto for Britain', chosen by a "citizens' summit" of 1,000 people, allowing it to be "truly representative" of Britishness rather than have it imposed by ministers or a team of highly-paid consultants.

Members of the public will be asked to come up with five or six-word slogans, perhaps based around ideas of fair play or national pride.

Sources described the plan as a "once in a lifetime chance" to capture Britishness in a few words.

Times Online readers have responded with a few of their own, including...

"Great people, great country, Great Britain"

"Courage, reason, humanity, democracy, monarchy"

Some are wary of any sign of nationalism, warning:

"Pride comes before a fall".

And others have grabbed the chance to have a dig at Brown:

"Taxation without Representation is Tyranny"

"Created by heroes, destroyed by Labour"

"Our government no longer listens".

Nostalgia for the empire also runs deep, with suggestions such as:

"Wallowing in a post-colonial miasma"

"Once mighty empire, slightly used".

But most contributors seem to favour engaging in the popular national sport of self deprecation.

"Drinking continues until morale improves"

"Our glass is half empty"

"Dipso fatso bingo ASBO Tesco".

"Sorry it's all our fault"

"We apologise for the inconvenience"

and the one that made me laugh out loud...

"At least we're not French"
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Feed the world while feeding your head

freerice.com is:

"a vocabulary-testing multiple-choice website. Click on the answer that best defines the word. If you get it right, you get a harder word. If wrong, you get an easier word. For each word you get right, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program."

And it would appear it isn't a scam. However as LanceWiggs reports: [edited]

There have been 1.2 billion grains given out so far. That’s 120m correct answers - call it 130m page views.

At a CPM ($ per 1000 impressions) of, say, $20, that’s $2.6 million in income. At a CPM of 10 that’s $1.3m. They feel like a good range, but really I’m just guessing here. I’m confident that the revenue is at least $1m.

Rice is light: 1000 grains is about 26 grams, so 10 grains is about 0.26 grams.

Rice is cheap: 1 bagged metric tonne is $350. So 1.2 billion rice grains is about 3,120 tonnes, or $1.09m FOB. Therefore the site owners are making everything above a CPM of about $8.

Advertisers - if you are paying more than that, then you are enriching one John Breen, who is a very smart cookie who just happens to have also collected $1m for global poverty efforts.

I love this, and I love the moral dilemma aspect as well. Is it right to enrich John Breen while you are enriching poor children?

My answer is yes - as the $1m worth of rice is $1m more rice than the UN had before, and you’ve had some enjoyment along the way. Your opinion may differ, and perhaps John Breen is a non-profit, and the funds channeled to worthy causes or business building?

Thanks to photogabble for the original link to the free rice site.
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Artificial brain falls for optical illusions

New Scientist reports: [edited]

A computer program that emulates the human brain falls for the same optical illusions humans do. It suggests the illusions are a by-product of the way babies learn to filter their complex surroundings. Researchers say this means future robots must be susceptible to the same tricks as humans are in order to see as well as us.

For some time, scientists have believed one class of optical illusions result from the way the brain tries to disentangle the colour of an object and the way it is lit. An object may appear brighter or darker, either because of the shade of its colour, or because it is in bright light or shadows.

The brain learns how to tackle this through trial and error when we are babies, the theory goes. Mostly it gets it right, but occasionally a scene contradicts our previous experiences. The brain gets it wrong and we perceive an object lighter or darker than it really is – creating an illusion.

Until now there has been no way of knowing whether this theory is correct. Beau Lotto and David Corney at University College London, UK, think they have finally done it. They created a program that learns to predict the lightness of an image based on its past experiences – just like a baby. And just like a human, it falls prey to optical illusions.

They trained it using 10,000 greyscale images of fallen leaves that animals might face in nature. It had to predict the true shade of the centre pixel of the images, and change its technique depending on whether its answer was right or wrong.

The researchers then tested the program on lightness illusions that would fool humans. First, it was shown images of a light object on a darker background, and vice versa. Just like humans, the software predicted the objects to be respectively lighter and darker than they really were. It also exhibited more subtle similarities – overestimating lighter shades more than darker shades.

Next, the researchers tried White's Illusion. Again like a human, the program saw areas of grey as darker when placed on a black stripe, and lighter when placed on a white stripe.

Previous computer models tried to directly copy the brain's structure. They could fall for either of the two illusions, but unlike a human, not both at once.

Lotto's programme was instead just designed to judge shades through learning, without being modelled on the brain. He says that suggests our ability to see illusions really is a direct consequence of learning to filter useful information from our environment. "We didn’t evolve to see things accurately, but to see things that would be useful." Lotto points out.

That has implications for robot vision. Most creators of machine vision try to copy human vision because it is so well suited to a variety of environments. The new findings suggest that if we want to exploit its advantages, we also have to suffer its failings. It will be impossible to create a perfect, superhuman robot that never makes mistakes.

Thomas Serre, a vision expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, US, is impressed with the team's results. "It's a very neat and elegant way of showing that [learning experiences] alone can explain illusions," he says.
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Vector Magic

Vector Magic allows you to convert bitmap images to vector images, online. If that doesn't make any sense to you, skip this blog. If it does, then it is worth a visit.
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Leopard's Time Machine. It works!

Reg Hardware reports: [edited]

"I was planning to leave my appraisal of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard's Time Machine feature until the end, but necessity has just forced me to look at it in depth straight away. Put simply, if it wasn't for Time Machine, you wouldn't be reading this article.

"Earlier today, I experienced one of about three kernel panics I've encountered since I installed the first Mac OS X Public Beta release back in the later 1990s. I've owned three Macs in that period, and that's the number of kernel panics I've had. But today's did for my MacBook Pro..."

If you own a Mac, the rest of the article makes worthwhile reading.
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Why I won't be joining the iPhone queues tomorrow

Since the iPhone's announcement in June, I've been pondering whether I should get one. It looks beautiful. The interface is pure Apple. Intuitive. Clever. Fun. And my first hands-on (with the iPod Touch) reinforced these impressions.

The iPhone is a huge success in the US. And it will continue this success across Europe. For the majority of purchasers it will provide them with a...

- mobile phone
- sms system
- camera
- calendar
- address book
- web browser
- email client
- photo manager/display
- music manager/player
- video manager/player

in a unit that is only a little larger than a conventional mobile phone, and that is a pleasure to look at and use.

But...

The O2 contracts don't suit my usage. I hardly do any voice calls, and very little texting. There's no 3G. I could purchase a 'hacked' iPhone, but I would be at the mercies of the next Apple 'update' turning my expensive PDA into a 'brick'.

The primary use for my iPod is in my car, where it is mounted on my dashboard. The touchscreen interface is not suited to being used 'on the move', and the track information text is too small to be read at a distance.

The video playback is excellent, but it can't handle Quicktime movie trailers. So, just like with my Nokia E65, I would still have to convert them to a suitable format. Or watch the low-res 'Podcast' versions.

I can hook my E65 up to my PowerBook via Bluetooth and use it as a 3G modem. And it browses my Gmail account (using Google's excellent Symbian app) as well as allowing me to check the latest news via various 'mobile-orientated' sites.

Although using the numeric keypad to type messages is clumsy, I can do it without looking at the screen. And when I want to send an SMS message from work or home I use a program called BluePhoneElite on my PowerBook that allows me to use a proper keyboard.

Oh, and I like the fact I can check the time/calendar on my Nokia without switching the phone on.

The camera quality on the iPhone is acceptable, but no match for my Fuji F30. And when you only get one chance to take a photo, I don't want it to be an image that isn't good enough to enlarge and print some time in the future.

And why, oh why, oh why, didn't Apple implement stereo Bluetooth on the iPhone? And WiFi streaming of music to my Airport Express? A micro-SD slot? I'm guessing for the same reason they didn't put a better camera, 3G, etc on it. So they can sell a load more 'new-improved' iPhones in 2008!

For more on my wishlist for iPod touch v.2, read my previous blog.
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Non-stick gum

University of Bristol reports: [edited]

Revolymer, a spin out company from the University of Bristol, has completed development of its new Clean Gum that can be easily removed from shoes, clothes, pavements and hair. Preliminary results also indicate that the gum will degrade naturally in water.

The company has completed initial trials on pavements in local high streets as part of a collaborative agreement with local councils. In the two trials, leading commercial gums remained stuck to the pavements three out of four times. In all tests the Revolymer gum was removed within 24 hours by natural events.

Professor Terence Cosgrove, of the University of Bristol and Chief Scientific Officer of Revolymer said: “The advantage of our Clean Gum is that it has a great taste, it is easy to remove and has the potential to be environmentally degradable”.

“The basis of our technology is to add an amphiphilic polymer to a modified chewing gum formulation which alters the interfacial properties of the discarded gum cuds, making them less adhesive to most common surfaces.”

The irresponsible discarding of gum cuds costs local councils in the UK £150 million pounds a year to clean up.
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Proof that Steve reads my wish lists...

Upgraded to iTunes 7.5 today. Went to add my latest purchase to the 'kidz journey' list, only to get reminded that I'd already done it.

I've been asking for this feature since iTunes got playlists!
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Battle of the games

Wired reports: [edited]

Forget about Xbox vs. Wii. This Christmas, the fiercest videogame rivalry is a battle of the bands.

The makers of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock pulled out all the stops to defend their turf against rival music game Rock Band. They enlisted actual rock stars to write new riffs, and hired six guitar experts to turn dozens of real-world rock anthems into engaging game fodder.

The first incarnation of Guitar Hero quickly won fans after its 2005 release with its simple concept - play rock songs with a plastic guitar. That game, which turned popular tunes into virtual notes that players slammed out on guitar-shaped controllers, spawned a huge-selling sequel, Guitar Hero II.

But now the franchise faces its first real challenge in the form of Rock Band, a multiplayer game that extends the "let's pretend we're rockers" strategy beyond the guitar to let players tackle drumming and vocals. The fact that Rock Band was created by Harmonix, the original maker of Guitar Hero, makes the struggle all the more personal.

The new song list is packed with well-known hits, from The Killers' "When You Were Young" to Cream's "Sunshine of Your Love." The developers also added "boss battles" against virtual versions of real-life guitarists, bringing in Velvet Revolver's Slash and Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello to motion-capture their signature stage moves. Both composed original guitar duets for the battle stages.

In contrast, Rock Band adds drumming and vocals to the mix, creating three distinct single-player experiences - and one crazy four-player mode - but doesn't deepen the guitar experience very much.

Perhaps most importantly, Guitar Hero III will be the only music game on Wii this year. Huang says the Nintendo console's casual game audience makes Wii a "phenomenal platform" for Guitar Hero III.
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