What ThruYOU tells us is that all bets are off on the Internet. The DNA of our media system has mutated so completely that it’s only a matter of time before our society changes as well.
Zero buttons. That’s as minimalist as it gets. Removing all buttons—or to clarify, moving them to the headset—shrinks down the size of the new iPod Shuffle dramatically, but it also creates control problems when running, snowboarding or doing anything other than sitting.
sciencehabit writes with this excerpt from a story about research into an unusual form of superconductivity:”Superconductors, materials that carry electricity without resistance, can be divided into two broad groups depending on how they react to a magnetic field — or so physicists thought. New experiments show that one well-studied superconductor actually belongs to both groups at the same time. The advance may not immediately lead to new gadgets and applications, but it suggests that superconductivity, which has already netted four Nobel Prizes, may be an even richer phenomenon that previously thought.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CWmike writes “The fallout from Thursday’s arrests of a District of Columbia IT security official and contractor quickly raised questions about the fate of Vivek Kundra, the new federal CIO who until recently ran the office now mired in bribery allegations. Appointed by President Barack Obama as CIO less than two weeks ago, Kundra was CTO for the District of Columbia. But yesterday, Kundra’s former office in a downtown government building was a crime scene. A White House official, speaking on background, confirmed today that Kundra took a leave of absence from his new CIO job shortly after federal investigators arrested two men in the DC government office on bribery charges. The official would not elaborate on the reasons for the leave; there were no indications yesterday that Kundra was involved in any wrongdoing. Kundra’s decision could slow his plan to create a ‘revolution’ in the federal government’s use of technology.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
arcticstoat writes “A new graphics company called Caustic Graphics reckons it’s uncovered the secret of real-time ray tracing with a chip that ‘enables your CPU/GPU to shade with rasterization-like efficiency.’ The new chip basically off-loads ray tracing calculations and then sends the data to your GPU and CPU, enabling your PC to shade a ray-traced scene much more quickly. However, the company adds that ‘if you’ve ever seen them demo their solutions you’ll notice that while results may be fast — the image quality is underwhelming, far below the quality that ray tracing is known for.’ According to Caustic, this is because the advanced shading and lighting effects usually seen in ray-traced scenes, such as caustics and refraction, can’t be accelerated on a standard GPU because it can’t process incoherent rays in hardware. Conversely, Caustic claims that the CausticOne ‘thrives in incoherent ray tracing situations: encouraging the use of multiple secondary rays per pixel.’ The company is also introducing its own API, called CausticGL, which is based on OpenGL/GLSL, which will feature Caustic’s unique ray tracing extensions.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A building materials company and its owner have appealed a .6 million verdict against them, alleging that a juror was posting related messages on Twitter.com while hearing the case.
After more than a century of striving to propel screaming riders ever faster, higher, steeper and longer, many roller coasters now hurtle to the limits of human endurance. So where is there left for the tracks to go?
We’ve seen traceable dots printed from laser printers, but now blank paper will be traceable too. Essentially, by scanning a piece of paper from several angles, it’s possible to use shadow readings to reconstruct the paper’s unique 3D ‘fingerprint’. Applications of this technology range from passport authentication to stopping counterfeit goods.
The next time someone suggests that open source can’t innovate, is not user-friendly, etc., point them to Adium. It’s simply incredible. What Adium isn’t, however, is a good Twitter client. That’s about to change, starting with Adium’s next version (1.4), when sophisticated Twitter functionality will be integrated into Adium.
Some say that web design without typography is like an orange without its peel, it just isn’t complete. Typography encompasses the reality of effective web design and achieves success in creating web page identity, eye-catching sites, and the enhancement of visual appearance. Typography is much more then the “art of text”, it’s the evolution…
