Links for 08-12-2006
Personal RFID firewall, TV as open content platform, Big Apple bans trans fats, open source cell phones…
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“…a “firewall for RFID tags” — a device that sits on your person and jams the signals from all your personal wireless tags (transit passes, etc), then selectively impersonates them according to rules you set.”
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“Survivors talk about playing in fallout that landed like snow, of sand that melted like glass, of hair that fell out in handfuls…” A Metafilter round-up on the US’s nuclear tests in Utah.
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Niall Harrison gets his teeth into Blindsight and produces a probing review. That one’s going on the wishlist …
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Someone should do a writer’s version of this … via FF&F.
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“As we look ahead – say three years from now – TV viewing will become even more fragmented. But make no mistake, IPTV is going to make television even more relevant in our lives than it is today.” Pretty inevitable, really.
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“…spam now accounts for 91% of all email and that over the past 12 months the daily volume of spam has risen by 120%.” No sh*t.
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“Upending conventional wisdom, advocates of this approach argue that removing road signs, sidewalks, and traffic lights actually slows cars and is safer for pedestrians.” Just crazy enough to work.
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“New York City health authorities voted unanimously on Tuesday to ban the use of artificial cooking oils, known as trans fats, in the city’s eateries.” It’ll be interesting to see if this makes a difference.
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“People perceive different patterns in the same sound sequences depending on their native tongue, researchers have found.”
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“The new car, which includes a light-driven engine, opens the door to future development of more sophisticated nanomachines that could be used, among other things, for targeted drug delivery within the body.”
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“If all goes well, NASA could have a permanent moon base by 2020. This is hopeful, because it’s a step towards putting our eggs in more than one basket.”
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“…a fascinating glimpse into how far some parents may go to ensure that their children stay in their world — by intentionally choosing malfunctioning genes that produce disabilities like deafness or dwarfism.”
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The report runs the numbers on the financial value waiting to be extracted from dead mobiles: if all closet-sitting cell phones were recycled, they would yield $314 million worth of metal
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“The first order of business? Developing a completely open source model, called the TuxPhone, which anyone with soldering skills can replicate. DIYers will be able to download the schematic, order the parts for about $400, and assemble one in their own ga
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“Britain’s first on-street charging points for electric cars were unveiled in central London as part of a wider bid to encourage drivers to ditch gas-guzzling vehicles.” A step in the right direction or a canny PR stunt?
Tags: links

December 9th, 2006 at 2:44 am
[...] The Big Apple bans trans fats; restaurants have 18 months to comply (thanks, Armchair Anarchist). I wonder what kind of face Ronald McDonald can paint on that? Ba da ba ba ba..Not lovin’ it. [...]