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02 June 2009

News from the Net

I know some of you (ahem Will) are disappointed that I have not done a News from the Net in awhile... so without further ado....

A study comes out showing (as all the anti-authoritarian members of my generation would already assume) that DRM encourages copyright violations.

It appears that Oracle has already started screwing over the Java platform. Where it had been completely free before -- they are now installing features that you can't use without paying for them. Of course, the biweekly OpenSolaris updates have ceased since the acquisition as well....

The infamous L0phtCrack is one again being revived by the original developers...

They are now using software to recreate musical instruments that no one has ever seen.

The team that made Google Maps is coming out with a new product, Google Wave. The basic idea behind it is a p2p collaborative environment. The platform itself also has a very interesting license. Although currently of no use to me, I also ran across Google Radio Automation. Google Docs now supports .xslx and .docx. Now something that does have some potential uses for me -- Google Scripts -- supporting server side scripting! There was also Google Site Search, but as Google is hosting all my stuff, I don't think I really need it.

M$ is taking a stab at fixing the Wii Couch Bowlers with a controller-less sensor bar.

For those of you that haven't seen Alice yet [not the game], you should watch the video on the bottom. Definitely better than the LOGO they taught us in elementary school.

How about a clean 1959 Lincoln Continental?

On the Java front, JDK7 has added a new NIO-based File I/O library and a SDP library (Sockets Direct Protocol).

Some cool new memory techniques would allow storing 1TB per square inch (nanoparticles in a nanotube)...

Wolfram Alpha vs Google search result comparison. More Alpha tests. Or try it yourself.

As expected, the US Military is preparing for the next fake attack.

The courts have decided that looking at something inappropriate counts as a crime... so if your boss decided checking your email from work was against company policy, expect to be imprisoned for hacking.

Some updates to the invisibility cloak. Now instead of not being there, you can be someone else ;)

Bloomsbury plans to start providing science books for free.

We all know the concept of 'if anything happens to me, this will be released to the media'... Well, someone did it - with a video posted to youtube upon his death.

Perhaps you'd like some additional senses? Like orientation-awareness? Kinda makes me wonder if that could be used for giving us elf-like abilities so we can build a DreamPark.

A gift for the real geek... how about installing anti-virus software with the interface all in Klingon? Or set them up with some face recognition software that works on videos... Or anything from the recent DARPA project list. Of course, the Espresso Book Machine was finally released - so if you are getting something for me, you can get me that.

How about Project Kenai? Per their page:
Sun Microsystem's onramp for the developer cloud experience of tomorrow, where you can host your open source projects and code, as well as find and collaborate with developers of like mind.
One of the projects on Kenai is how to do ZFS snapshots to the Amazon S3 cloud. Too bad Amazon charges more than Rumpelstiltskin.

In case you missed the terrible news last month, Wardenclyffe is being sold as well :(

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