ABC News: Silicon Insider: Now Media 12/18/2004
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ABC News: Silicon Insider: Now Media: “In these five stories I see three trends � rear-guard actions by established institutions, the flow of investment money to a new market and an industry visionary jumping into a new venture � that converge to signal that a major transformation is about to take place. Add to this the kind of exponential numbers that suggest the presence of Moore’s Law, and you’ve got all of the ingredients of a major tech-driven revolution. And if the past is any indication, where that shift will take us may surprise everyone � especially those leading the charge, who may find themselves facing extinction.”
BBC NEWS | Technology | Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land 12/17/2004
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BBC NEWS | Technology | Gamer buys $26,500 virtual land: “‘This is a historic moment in gaming history, and this sale only goes to prove that massive multi-player online gaming has reached a new plateau,’ said Marco Behrmann, director of community relations at Mindark, the game’s developer.
ISLAND PACKAGE
A unique castle (furniture not included)
Hunting
Mining rights
Taxation rights on hunting and mining activities
Income from the sale of land lots
The virtual island includes a gigantic abandoned castle and beautiful beaches which are described as ripe for developing beachfront property. “
OhmyNews International | Dan Gilmore 12/17/2004
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OhmyNews International | Dan Gilmore: “That’s what we’re figuring out (laughter). I’m not saying this to be evasive, but it’s so early that I just don’t have the specifics in place. But I do know that I want to avoid ‘left vs. right’ and I do hope to work on something that involves our economic system and how we can work out some of the problems we have. But it just feels to me like it’s a trap to get into a leftwing-rightwing debate right now. “
Will Microsoft’s Spyware Buy Cast a ‘Giant’ Shadow… 12/16/2004
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Will Microsoft’s Spyware Buy Cast a ‘Giant’ Shadow?:
“Roger Thompson, director of content research security management at Computer Associates, described the Giant acquisition as ‘confirmation that the spyware industry cannot be ignored.’
‘This confirms what we’ve been saying all along. You can’t expect anti-virus products to adequately handle spyware. You simply can’t make it work. It has to be done with a dedicated anti-spyware product, and clearly Microsoft recognizes this,’ Thompson said.”
news@nature.com | Celebrity shots probe face recogognition 12/14/2004
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news@nature.com | Celebrity shots probe face recognition:
“Neuroscientists already know that certain spots in the brain play a vital role for recognizing a familiar face, even as it changes with age or a new hairstyle. But they have not been clear precisely what each area does.”
Slashdot | 3D User Interfaces 12/13/2004
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Slashdot | 3D User Interfaces:
“This book contains a lot of information and is probably the most comprehensive book on 3D user interfaces I have seen to date. Pretty much every aspect of 3D UIs is covered in the book somewhere, with some topics being covered in more detail than others. If you’re not familiar with 3D UIs at all, this book gives you an excellent introduction to this active field of research. “
XEngine – The Platform- and API-Independent 3D Eng… 12/13/2004
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XEngine – The Platform- and API-Independent 3D Engine:
“XEngine is a platform- and rendering-API-independent 3D engine for real-time visualization with support for programmable graphics pipeline architectures and is implemented in C . The engine aims at flexible support for many of the shading languages available today, so that existing shaders can easily be re-used. This includes current assembler-like languages as well as high-level languages, such as NVIDIA’s Cg. In addition, integration of new shading languages should be easily possible with the engine’s design.”
Teeny Module Runs New ‘.NET Embedded’ Software Stack 12/12/2004
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Teeny Module Runs New ‘.NET Embedded’ Software Stack:
“A small startup in Microsoft Corp.’s backyard is poised to begin shipping a tiny, 32-pin chip-like computer module that runs ‘.NET Embedded,’ a new Microsoft embedded software platform developed for use in watches and other ’smart personal objects.’”
The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo’s D… 12/12/2004
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“Margret was kind enough to answer ten questions about how TiVo’s UI was originally developed, how new features are added, and how the sound UI came to be, among others. I’m grateful for TiVo and Margret taking the time to do this, so without further adieu, here’s the interview:”
John Battelle’s Searchblog | Majestic on GOOGLE: Brother can you spare a dime? 12/10/2004
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John Battelle’s Searchblog: Majestic on GOOGLe: Brother, Can You Share a Dime?: “Today’s insights have to do with Google. My headline? On average, Google gets nearly a dime for every search it serves in the US. A recent report from Majestic, based on proprietary Comscore data as well as Majestic’s own panels and other sources, notes:
- 98 percent of GOOG revs are from paid search. 65% of revs are domestic.
- Q3 domestic growth driven by 7% quarter to quarter increase in paid introductions (paid clicks), to 964 million, and a 2% quarter to quarter increase in average price per click, to 5%.
- Average CPC: 54 cents, up a cent quarter to quarter.
- Revenue per query grew 8.3% quarter to quarter to nine cents. (That’s right, every search we do on Google makes them nearly a dime, on average).
- Overall US searches grew 6% quarter to quarter, Google powered searches grew by .2%.
- In Q2, 51.9% of all searches on the Google Network included at least one paid listing.
- Of those, 32% include at least one paid introduction.
That’s nearly 17% of all searches ending up with a click on a paid link. “
The Corner on National Review Online |DOZENS 12/06/2004
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The Corner on National Review Online
“DOZENS [John Derbyshire]
Rich: Why dozens instead of tens? I’m going to throw out some guesses here.
(1) In the days before Hindu-Arabic numerals made computation easy, everyday-size numbers (less than 1,000) were easier to handle — especially to divide up — if they were as ’round’ as possible — that is, had the largest possible range of different factors. Hence the popularity of 12 (which divides by 2, 3, 4, and 6) compared with 10 (which merely divides by 2 and 5). It was perhaps for similar reasons that the ancient Mesopotamians settled on 60 as the mainstay of their number system. The number 60 has an awesome array of factors: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30.
(2) Ancient astronomy may also have been a factor. The earliest systems for organizing time took 360 as the number of days in a year (regarding the extra 5.2422 as an inconvenience to be conjured away with intercalary adjustments). Once you start doing arithmetic with 360, you are back in the world of 12 and 60 very quickly — especially as there are, to a first approximation, 12 months in your 360-day year…”
A technologist looks back, looks ahead | Perspectives | CNET News.com 12/06/2004
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A technologist looks back, looks ahead | Perspectives | CNET News.com:
Ray Ozzie has 20 years in, looking twenty years out…
“In a 2001 article he wrote for The Economist called ‘The next society,’ Peter Drucker projects the future of the corporation to be an extreme confederation of businesses–from the large to small to very small. These loosely knit confederations are held together by a common strategy–local economics–and a web of fine-grain alliances.
In October, The Wall Street Journal observed that the current economic expansion is markedly different from those in the past. New jobs are being created, but they’re in different organizational forms than the ones we’re measuring. The newspaper suggested that the U.S. economy is undergoing a structural change as more people, by choice or necessity, ‘become self-employed or form partnerships, rather than working for large corporations.’ “
MS Rolls Out Second Interim Beta of SQL Server 2005 12/04/2004
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MS Rolls Out Second Interim Beta of SQL Server 2005:
“In addition, the company rolled out a technical preview of SQL Server 2005 Express Manager, a free database management tool built on top of Windows .Net Framework 2.0.
Express Manager can manage SQL Server 2000, SQL Server 2000 MSDE, and SQL Server 2005 Developer and Express Edition databases, whether they’re remote or local. The tool is downloadable from the company’s Download Center. “
Berners-Lee Maps Vision of a Web Without Walls 12/02/2004
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Berners-Lee Maps Vision of a Web Without Walls:
“That’s one small example of the futuristic architecture called the Semantic Web. The new Web paradigm provides a common framework for data to be shared and reused across applications, enterprises and community boundaries. It’s founded on XML-based integration of applications as well as URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) for naming. “
