Summary of this week:

Google forbids MS Windows for its employees
Book publishers want a common eBook format
Google Chrome to be released before January 2011
Apple sells over two million iPads in only two months
SpaceX puts a rocket into low-earth orbit

Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday - Thursday - Friday - Saturday - Sunday

Monday May 31, 2010

Today is Memorial Day. It seems that many people confuse it with Veterans Day - "all veterans rise so we can honor you."

Oh well, no viewing today.

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Tuesday June 1, 2010

Intel shows off its newest Atom processors. What is smart is that Intel puts their latest chips into computers that they build themselves. These prototype computers aren't for sale (rats), but instead show everyone what they could do. Intel showed several portable computers that were only 1/2-inch thick. I am not sure why thin is so important, but it is impressive.

Book publishers want a universal eBook format. And I want calorie-free ice cream. We'll probably both be disappointed. It makes sense to have one eBook format where all the eBook readers use it. I don't know why we haven't figured out this one yet.

This news aggregator could be one of the apps that makes the iPad worth owning.

Qualcomm is shipping its own dual-core processors.

A look at the speech recognition software that comes with Windows 7. If I only had the time, I would try this at home.

Some life lessons from running a marathon. The biggest one? Take care of your body, your health. We are each issued one body. The end.

Google forbids its employees to run Microsoft Windows. They cite security issues. Also, they want their employees to run the new Chrome OS when it is ready.

HP is cutting 9,000 employees. They are changing their data centers, reducing here and there, moving to "the cloud," and all such.

The FAA is supposed to have a GPS-based navigation system in 2020. Here is a rule of thumb: if a government agency promises something in ten years, forget about it. They will change their mind a dozen times before they even finish the study. See, e.g., NASA.

Here's a look at the next Panasonic Lumix camera. I own and love a Lumix that is one or two or three generations older than this. This model looks great.

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Wednesday June 2, 2010

eBay and Craigslist are working so well that the IRS is on the job, hounding people to pay taxes. Oh well, survival of the bureaucracy is paramount.

This blogger is attempting to ride every train and bus in the DC-area public transportation system in one year. That will cost a lot of money. The DC Metro is expensive to use.

Ed Yourdon is posting an excellent series of articles on "Whither IT."

I don't like this one. AT&T will start charging extra for data access on the iPhone and iPad. Apple has sold more than two million iPads. AT&T's network supposedly cannot keep up with the data demand.

The iPad has more assistive technology than any computer to date.

Apple has sold more than two million iPads in two months. I guess that makes it successful. Now where is the handwriting recognition software?

Whoa, this impresses me - a video camera tied to really smart software outputs text of what is happening in the video.

The gasoline engine gains some efficiency - 30%. There is a reason why people all over the world use the internal combustion engine to move about - IT WORKS.

43 years ago - even before Sesame Street - the Muppets made training films for IBM. Wonderful.

The FCC wants 10,000 volunteers to help measure broadband speeds. I hope they have anticipated the fraud here.

An iRobot with a weapons system. I wish people would stop calling radio-controlled devices "robots." Excellent video here.

Google is to launch its own operating system before January, 2011. We shall see.

I love this, four geeks in a garage build an open-source Facebook replacement. Now all they need is some marketing and momentum. It is possible, ya know.

Soon there will be a trillion sensors connected to the web. Who knows, maybe there will be some valuable information in there somewhere. Someone is about to make a lot of money in analysis software.

This fascinates me - The seven regions of America from an analysis of Facebook. A generation ago I loved reading "The Nine Nations of North America." I wish someone would take off with this and write a new book.

A couple of featured workspaces from LifeHacker. I love these things.
First, dark gray can be lovely. Really.
Second, a simple loft bed and desk. Simple is an oft-used adjective in my favorites.

James Cameron volunteers his deep sea expertise (he does have a lot of it) to help with the gulf oil spill. Finally, a rich person who is actually doing something.

Oh, by the way, although terrible, the gulf oil spill hardly breaks into the top ten oil spills in history. See this chart.

Something awful is happening at the Foxconn factory in China. I fear that although this factory is garnering all the publicity, it is not the only place in China experiencing this type of thing.

17 things that Bob Sutton believes about management. An excellent piece. I especially like the one about taking more naps. Ahhhh.

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Thursday June 3, 2010

Spent the night in a motel in Maryland. The Internet service was knocked out by a thunderstorm.

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Friday June 4, 2010

The story of Ron Wayne. He helped found Apple Computer and owned 10% of it until he tired of Jobs and Woz 12 days later and sold his share for $800.

Charge your cell phone while you ride your bike. This is simple, and I don't know why it has taken this long for one company to sell one of these. It seems that everyone would have these by now to charge all your devices.

Commercial space launch may actually happen.

Clearwire brings WiMax to Washington D.C. The coverage doesn't come anywhere near my suburb.

"Hardcore" "gamers" play 48 hours a week - that is about seven hours a day.

This isn't surprising, actually aggravating that it hasn't come sooner, but big gains in fuel efficiency via better traffic flow. If people would just drive when the lights are green...

Augmented reality is here. Actually, it has been here for about ten years, but now it is here here.

Panasonic has a new HD video camera. They claim it is the world's lightest such camera and they are targeting the female market.

Coming soon, a full-body exoskeleton as a game controller. This may sound silly, but I find it exciting. What we do in games today we do in "real life serious things" later.

Further exciting news, a 13-inch ePaper color display for an "eMagazine" tablet. The neat part is the display technology.

You never know what bills are circulating these days in the halls of Congress. The latest is a Senate bill that would allow the Federal government to seize control of the Internet if the President deems that a cyber threat is "imminent." Such a situation is subjective and the President gets sole authority to decide. Oh well. Congress has passed nutier ideas.

An airline is renting iPads as in-flight entertainment systems. The challenge here is to make this simple enough for the flight attendants to administer. Seriously folks, I have been on flights where the attendants couldn't put a movie in the tape player.

The supply of Apple's Mac mini is running short. This leads to speculation that an update is coming in June.

I find this concept of interest: own two computers - a Mac Mini and an iPad.

The U.S. Patent and Trade Office will give Google tons of patent and trademark information to distribute.

Some information about Intellipedia - a wiki inside the intelligence community. I know the two guys being interviewed. They are good people and more than earn their tax-payed salary.

I like this editorial by George Will on James Madison, Woodrow Wilson, and the "progressive" movement away from the U.S. Constitution.

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Saturday June 5, 2010

The Internet makes you smarter. Well, it can make me appear to be smarter - no doubt about that.

Tablets - it is Apple vs Google - Apple OS vs Android - MS Windows missed out. By the way, Apple is selling an iPad every three seconds.

Some interesting notes from Jef Raskin in 1981 working on the Macintosh project.

It looks like Minneapolis will succeed where everyone else failed - city-wide WiFi.

SpaceX put its Falcon 9 rocket into low-earch orbit today.

MLB.com is suing commentators who it doesn't like.

Bold predictions here - in 1959 there were 63 million televisions in America. By the end of 2010 there will be 90 million Apple mobile devices here and there. Might Apple broadcast television rule the world?

I love this advice - write nothing instead, it is shorter.

Stowe Boyd provides some definitions of his concept - publicy.

The number of students falls, the number of teachers rise, and government-funded education is in crisis. I guess this makes sense to some people.

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Sunday June 6, 2010

A mother finds her kidnapped kids via Facebook. I cannot imagine how terrible the 15 years of separation were for the mother and how bad trying to be together again is going to be at times. Social media can help some people in some good ways.

This vehicle makes a lot of sense, which means we will probably never see it on the market. It goes 35 miles on a charge at 35 mph. And that fits the vast majority of driving that people do. Now add all the needless government regulation and it will cost $10,000 - that is NOT practical.

This could change things. This "robot fish" leads schools of fish, i.e., fish follow it. I can see commerical fishermen using it to draw fish to their boats. I can also see environmentalists using it to lead fish away from an oil spill.

I had to smile while wathcing this. Someone took the cover art of romance novels and morphed them from one to the next.

Some good writing tips. The one I like best, after listing a few good books on writing, he concludes: But remember, if you want to write, it’s more important to just start writing.

And some good tips on writing short stories.

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