Japan’s top camera maker, Canon Inc., will stop developing new single-lens reflex film cameras as more people abandon film for digital, company officials said Thursday. The Tokyo-based Canon’s move followed a similar move by its closest Japanese rival, Nikon Corp., which announced earlier this year it would stop making seven of its nine film cameras…
In classroom after classroom, all across the nation, students are being asked to memorize and regurgitate trivia at the expense of time spent learning what is essential in the 21st Century. As one letter to the Times editors asked, “In today’s information age, where a body of information in all but the narrowest of fields…
Most plagiarists don’t expect to get caught and, when they do, they generally go along with the demands to avoid escalation. Many will do so silently, never writing back and others will write back to apologize or make excuses. A few bold souls might even blame the infringement on a friend who gave them the…
IRobot Chief Executive Colin Angle said one group of soldiers even named its robot “Scooby Doo” and grieved when it was blown up after completing 35 successful missions defusing improvised explosive devices. “Please fix Scooby Doo because he saved my life,” a soldier told repair technicians, according to Angle‘saccount at last week’s Future in Review…
—$100 Laptop Working Prototype Unveiled (One Laptop Per Child) Similar:Astronauts cloaked Klingon space patch: Star Trek-inspired emblem revealed The current commander of the Internati…AestheticsThe eagles in Lord of the Rings are a plot hole, but also an us problemPart of my enjoyment of genre franchises…BooksRemember Who The Enemy IsGood article on Catching Fire. (I haven’…BooksIn July,…
— Bob Coyne and Richard Sproat —WordsEye: An Automatic Text-to-Scene Conversion System (PDF)AT&T Labs — Research) The text in the caption is what told the computer to assemble these objects in this order. Of course, someone had to tell the computer how to draw these objects, tag each object so that the computer knows where…
Illegal or inappropriate blogging or social behavior over the Internet is now a violation of District 128’s student code of conduct at both Libertyville and Vernon Hills High Schools and can lead to denial of extracurricular student privileges. —Ed Collins —Schools crack down on inappropriate blogs (Sun Times) According to the article, the new school code…
In essence, it was classic libel against video games: That they encourage isolation, with each player staring glassy-eyed at the evil, hypnotic screen. The irony here, of course, is that these complaints were coming from players who themselves were spending hours staring at their own computer screens while they played Second Life. Dig it: People…
>look You are on a red leather sofa facing a very large and very tempting flat-screen TV. A sheltie puppy is chewing through your shoelaces. There is a laptop in your lap. You have five Word documents open. >look at Word documents They are titled “Chapter 3 The Ubicomp Games”, “Chapter 4 The Pervasive Games”,…
Early on, the visionary geeks among us at these institutes of higher education realized that these computing machines were great for games, and a whole lot more fun than a slide rule. These side projects took on a life of their own, and resulted in the popularity of games like “Adventure” and “Colossal Cave.” —Tom…
Youth and alienated populations are inclined to spend more time going through identity development processes because they are trying to “figure out who they are.” Blogs and profiles are particularly supportive of this. Of course, blogs require having something to say while profiles let you write yourself into being via collage. People do grow out…
“Students have told us that eMail is still valuable–mainly for storing and transmitting documents and for communication with adults,” said Julie Evans, chief executive officer of the nonprofit group NetDay. “IM is more valuable to them because it is instant, and they can speak with multiple people at the same time. I believe that this…
According to Jankowski, the move offers the opportunity to escape an oppressive regime. “Mom and Dad watch everything I do,” Jankowski said. “But now, I’ll be able to hear them coming down the stairs. And, if I’m slick about it, I’ll be able to sneak out the basement window and, like, party.” Across the country,…
Trekkies will be setting their phasers to “bid” this fall when Christie’s holds the first official studio auction of memorabilia from all five “Star Trek” television series and 10 movie spin-offs. —Christie’s to hold “Star Trek” garage sale (Reuters) I’m proud — or, more accurately, nerdy enough — to say I recognized every one of the…
—Pope John Paul II and jerz My sister sent me a link to the Amazon.com page for this book… I’m honored. Similar:Apparently Facebook Doesn't Know Me Very WellI’m actually rather happy at the thought…AmusingDeath Comes for the Microbot — Flash Fiction by Aimee PicchiBee walked on six spindly legs to the sp…CultureTevye from Fiddler on…
But even still I wrote about work inbetween pictures of me drinking, opiononated rants on creationism and conservation, I use the words cunt and twat and fuck. I joke about kicking babies and coat hanger abortions. I wax poetic about spring breaks past and Zombie movies. Once I made it up to the meeting they…
In what might be a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, a Pennsylvania lawyer is suing the publisher of the rapidly growing online world Second Life, alleging the company unfairly confiscated tens of thousands of dollars worth of his virtual land and other property. —Kathleen Craig —Second Life Land Deal Goes Sour (Wired) Similar:New Ground (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5,…
Sure, Leonardo studied birds in order to design a flying machine. But if you built it and jumped off the side of a mountain, they’d be scrapping you off the bottom of the valley. Of course very few people could have painted “Mona Lisa.” But hell, anybody can come up with a device permitting you…
Casual Game: The Game uses a special wireless-control wand covered with buttons. Using this control, your job is to scan through a large number of audio-visual “entertainment streams” to find the one you enjoy the most. Once you’ve picked one, you can control the volume of the audio, the brightness of the screen and, for…
If you’re stuck, shut down the word doc you’re working on and start again, from scratch, in an email (putting the name of a close friend in the “To:” field can help). —Matt Weston —Write how you speak (Business Bricks) While I don’t think the adage “write how you speak” applies universally, it makes good sense…