Links for 13-02-2007
Palmtop windfarms, Henry Jenkins looks at fan-fic, Prometheus Award nominees, Schneier knocks Vista…
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1 – Massively Multitouch Operating
Via Warren Ellis, the future of touchscreen interfaces, video clip. This looks undeniably awesome, and I demand to be a beta tester forthwith.
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2 – Why, Singularity, We Scarcely Knew
“This Thursday evening [Vernor] Vinge will challenge his own idea for the first time: ‘I have some plausible, non-singularity scenarios that get us into a human-scale world with long time horizons.’ ” Blimey.
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The redoubtable Henry Jenkins takes a long two-sided look at the fan-fic / participatory culture debate.
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4 – Poco a Poco
A resurrected Niall Harrison reports on a lecture by Philip Pullman on the ‘fundamental particles of story’.
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5 – Cosmic Rays, Not Human Activity May be Accelerating Climate Change
“Henrik Svensmark [...] believes that the planet is experiencing a natural period of low cloud cover due to fewer cosmic rays entering the atmosphere, which is responsible for much of the global warming we are experiencing.” Good science or new denial ang
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“To see heat, you’d better be cold. In space, at least, because when you’re looking in infrared wavelengths, the heat of your instrumentation can overwhelm the image you’re trying to get.” Centauri Dreams talks telescopes.
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7 – Prometheus Awards 2007, preliminary nominees
Does what it says on the tin. Some good writers on there … but no David Louis Edelman? ‘Infoquake’ is surely a candidate – any members of the Libertarian Futurists wanna put the guy forward?
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8 – New Scientist Invention blog: Edible RFID
“The tags would be covered with soft gelatin that takes a while to dissolve in the stomach. After swallowing a tag a patient need only sit next to a radio source and receiver.” I predict paranoiacs on diets.
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9 – Schneier on Security: DRM in Windows Vista
“Windows Vista includes an array of “features” that you don’t want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They’ll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems.”
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10 – Handheld windmills serve as electric generators
“It’s not quite nanotechnology, but these inches-long windmills can generate small amounts of electric energy to power a variety of low-voltage applications.”
