Monthly Archive for May, 2006

Tech Bites

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 17, 2006
in News from the Web
. 0 Comments

Creative Labs X-FI popping: Sign the online petition now.
Help try to put a stop to the TERRIBLE support provided by Creative Labs

JAVA to go Open Source! - Just a matter of when

Google Web Toolkit
Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications easy. With GWT, you can develop and debug AJAX applications in the Java language using the Java development tools of your choice. When you deploy your application to production, the GWT compiler translates your Java application to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

IO2 Technology creates floating touchable mid-air display

Great article that talks about the glossy versus matte laptop displays
Which do you think is better? Maybe it’s just me but on a laptop, I really do like the glossy but on a larger desktop LCD, I prefer the matte.

New Lexus LS-460 the most Techie car

News From The Web

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 16, 2006
in News from the Web
. 0 Comments

The Spring Framework takes First Place at the JAX 2006 Conference
If you are a JAVA programmer, you absolutely have to look into this framework. It is by far the best OSS lightweight framework out there today. 

JAVA inches closer to being Open Source 

Great article on why so many e-mails are misinterpreted. It just goes to show how important face to face communication is in today's world of technology

Google Notebook launches (with Firefox plugin)

Robin Williams plays Spore

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 15, 2006
in You Tube
. 0 Comments

This is an awesome video of Robin Williams creating a creature in the upcoming game: Spore. This is HILAROUS!!

Tech Bites

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 15, 2006
in News from the Web and Technology
. 0 Comments

X-Bit Labs does an awesome comparison of the AMD 4800 X2, Intel Core Duo, and the Intel Pentium D 960. What is amazing is that all 3 chips are within about 5% of each other on speed but the power consumption comparison is where it gets interesting. Look at this:

John Carmack disses Playstation 3
… in an interview that the PlayStation 3 game console is not as optimal as Microsoft’s Xbox 360

NEAT! — A musical realization of the motion graphics

Treo 700p announced. YAWN!
With a weight of 180 grams, it runs on a 312 MHz Intel XScale processor and features a high-res, 320×320 TFT colour screen like the Treo 650 - up from the 700w's limited 240×240, 128MB of memory -60MB free for PalmOS apps and data-. The 700p runs PalmOS Garnet v5.4.9., and supports Bluetooth v1.2 and dual CDMA digital (800/1900Mhz) plus CDMA2000 EvDO to complete the feature set. As usual, compatibility with Office, Excel and Powerpoint files is provided via the bundled software. MultiMediaCard, SD & SDIO cards are supported, up to two gigabytes, according to Palm. The digital camera sports 1280×1024 resolution and automatic light balance, capturing video at 352 x 288.

Online nightclub for teens. What's next?
The club is a cross between MySpace.com, the Web's biggest networking site, and "World of Warcraft" a multiplayer online game. Both are successful at building Web communities, and Littlefield and his company, Doppelganger, hope they've built a hybrid.

Awesome article on the "singularity debate"
Sometime in the next few years or decades, humanity will become capable of surpassing the upper limit on intelligence that has held since the rise of the human species. We will become capable of technologically creating smarter-than-human intelligence, perhaps through enhancement of the human brain, direct links between computers and the brain, or Artificial Intelligence. This event is called the "Singularity" by analogy with the singularity at the center of a black hole - just as our current model of physics breaks down when it attempts to describe the center of a black hole, our model of the future breaks down once the future contains smarter-than-human minds. Since technology is the product of cognition, the Singularity is an effect that snowballs once it occurs - the first smart minds can create smarter minds, and smarter minds can produce still smarter minds.—Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

The "right" way to eat a Reeses Peanut Butter cup.. in New York

The right man, at the critical time — Says Bush

TGIF News!

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 12, 2006
in News from the Web
. 0 Comments

New Zealand company products Bio-diesel from waste. World's first
It is believed to be the world's first commercial production of bio-diesel from "wild" algae outside the laboratory - and the company expects to be producing at the rate of at least one million litres of the fuel each year from Blenheim by April. 

More anger towards Bush over surveillance report 
Approval rating at new low: 29% 

Brain merging with microchips
Numenta is building a computer memory platform called the Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) platform, which is modeled after the human brain. Hawkins said this week that Numenta's open-source software toolkit will debut later this year or early 2007, and it will let developers create applications for computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics and machine learning.

NVIDIA reports record earnings
For the first quarter of fiscal 2007, revenue increased to a record $681.8 million, compared to $583.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2006, an increase of 17 percent. Net income computed in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 was $90.7 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, compared to GAAP net income of $64.4 million, or $0.18 per diluted share, for the first quarter of fiscal 2006.

Tim Sweeney Interview video via bittorrent and direct download

Sony and Panasonic announce a new HD format (for camera) 

Intel Core Duo 2 will be 40% faster than Intel's fastest Extreme CPUs out today

Light so fast, it actually travels backwards?!
In the past few years, scientists have found ways to make light go both faster and slower than its usual speed limit, but now researchers at the University of Rochester have published a paper today in Science on how they've gone one step further: pushing light into reverse. As if to defy common sense, the backward-moving pulse of light travels faster than light.

GMAIL adding pictures

7 minute XMEN 3 Trailer 

Think your phone calls are private? Think again

Published
by
GrantGochnauer
on May 11, 2006
in Politics
. 0 Comments

It was revealed today that the NSA has been creating the world's largest database of phone calls and phone records in the history of the US. Not only that, but they have also prevented the Justice Department from looking into the program at all to check for illegal activity. What is going on with this administration? What is scary is that if this program was just revealed, which started in 2001, what other programs might the government be doing without us knowing?

USA Today Article

"It's the largest database ever assembled in the world," said one person, who, like the others who agreed to talk about the NSA's activities, declined to be identified by name or affiliation. The agency's goal is "to create a database of every call ever made" within the nation's borders, this person added.

Justice Department turned away by NSA. HUH?

"We have been unable to make any meaningful progress in our investigation because OPR has been denied security clearances for access to information about the NSA program," OPR counsel H. Marshall Jarrett wrote to Hinchey. Hinchey's office shared the letter with The Associated Press.

NEWS.COM Coverage