Links for 23-03-2007
Bionic mitt crushes cans, NASA axes NIAC, UK gov’t probes surveillance society…
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1 – An Open Offer
“Yes, that’s right. Pay Linden Lab for the cost of a mainland region or an island [in Second Life], and we’ll do your build free.” Jason Stoddard believes sf writers belong in the metaverse.
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2 – Bionic hand with can-crushing grip
“…the world’s first electromechanical prosthetic hand with a grip strong enough to crush an empty beverage can.” Even better than the real thing. Kind of.
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3 – ESA Working To Build BepiColombo
“BepiColombo, ESA’s mission to explore planet Mercury, has been definitively ‘adopted’ [...] last Friday. The mission will now start its industrial implementation phase, to prepare for launch in August 2013.” That rocks.
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4 – Nasa grounds its ideas factory
“…now Nasa’s Institute for Advanced Concepts (Niac) has fallen victim to a very down-to-earth problem – a lack of money.” That sucks.
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5 – SpaceX’s Falcon 1 – successful launch video
“Cool bits at about 10 seconds after launch, and then at about T+3:04, 4:15 on the YouTube timecode, when the stages separate. By T+4:50, you’re in space, baby.”
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6 – MPs probe ’surveillance society’
“An inquiry into the growing use of surveillance in society is to be held by an influential committee of MPs.” Note to horse – please kick barn door shut on your way out. KTHXBAI.
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7 – Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) for Law Enforcement
“…a new police-car-mounted camera that can automatically recognise over 3000 number plates an hour, while police simply cruise through the district.”
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“…a roundup of reviews of the nominees for the BSFA Best Novel Award, leading off with the Vector review in each case.”
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March 23rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Re: Jason Stoddard’s offer. It strikes me there’s a market niche for social media PR consultants who can construct and maintain an author’s online presence – who know how to get the best out of MySpace, YouTube, del.i.cious… etc, and who can monitor and contribute to chat rooms and RSS feeds on the author’s behalf (after all, they should be busy writing). What do you think, Paul? Does that sound like a new business opportunity?
March 24th, 2007 at 11:37 am
More than possibly; a kind of social media consultancy, kinda like what I’m doing for a business type at the moment. I’d be hesitant to actually do significant posting on behalf of someone else, though – sock-puppetry gets slammed where and when ever it is discovered. Though, to be more general, the answer is ‘yes’ – and I think that sort of personalised PR service will become pretty big pretty soon. The music business is heaving with it right now.