Ever wonder what it would be like to have your entire online world babysat, censored and ultimately severed by the biggest brother you could possibly imagine?

And no, I’m not referring to the brazen site blocking efforts put forth by our friends at Panera Bread…

It should come as no surprise at the mention of the extreme and unrelenting efforts the Chinese government have gone through to make sure that its population remain “untainted” and live lifestyles that are “good for the national interest”.  No outside politics, no unfettered human rights declarations, and.. no religion too.

But as menacing and severe as this seems, Read the rest of this entry »

So there was this elephant on last week’s episode of “Survivor”. The Fang tribe discovered it. It was a pretty angry pachyderm, and it was busy tearing down large branches and their camp. The team sat there in bemusement, and even Ace and Matty took the kayak to get a closer look for absolutely no good reason. Sugar seemed afraid for Ace; GC was saying “leave the elephant alone”. And yet, this opening sequence was a metaphor of sorts. The “elephant in the room” for Fang is that they are rudderless and full of disarray. They are unable to deal with personality and management issues in their own tribe because they won’t face them. And this is to their own detriment, and once again, they were faced with doom: Tribal Council. Read the rest of this entry »

The scene: You notice the next love of your life sitting at the bar nursing a mixed martini.  Her eyes scan the room in an obvious attempt to find some companionship and conversation, only to be met by yours in an apparent act of fate.  Confidently you walk over to her and… snap a picture of the code on her shirt.

This is sort of the concept behind the new line of clothing put out by a Netherlands-based online apparel company called W-4. The clothing line features a technology developed by High Energy Magic of Cambridge University called ShotCodes, special 2d barcodes, to link people from offline materials to mobile Internet pages.

How does it work?

If you eye one of these unique logos while you’re on the town, quickly snap a photo of it with your camera phone and a tiny app directs you to the wearer’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace profile. Based on your findings, you can then decide whether to say hello or press delete. Read the rest of this entry »

190 mph for only $110K

Don’t expect to see the 2009 Confederate Fighter parked next to you at the next red light.  In fact, unless you’re willing to fork over the cash (and you have some great connections) odds are you’ll never get to see one up close. And too bad, for this is a street-legal sci-fi dream come true.

You must know you have something special when you have even non-bike enthusiasts drooling.  The Fighter joins the first 31 BMW 7 Series models and is featured in limited edition in the Neiman Marcus Christmas book.

And when they say limited edition, they mean it.  There will be 45 created and then there will be no more. Read the rest of this entry »

This past week’s CEATEC technology show just outside Tokyo is home to some of the most bizarre tech you’ll ever come across. One of the most notable devices (in the mobile technology category) is a phone that promises to allow its owners to see through walls.

Better than X-Ray Specs

It’s about time, isn’t it? We’ve seen enough spy flicks featuring FBI or NSA agents sporting heat-sensing, thermal imaging gear that can track a human target from floor to floor from a van parked on the curb.

The fancy software, ‘Real Space See-through Mobile’ comes from KDDI’s R&D laboratory and Tokyo University and is still just a prototype.

Using geomagnetic sensors, accelerometers, and GPS (ouch on the battery life front) the phone is able to determine its position and render its surroundings on the screen in OpenGL, including areas that are currently out of sight. Read the rest of this entry »

Survivor Gabon Week 1

In terms of production value and sometimes suspense, “Survivor” is in a class all its own for reality shows. Many have tried to emulate its format, but no one has learned how to capture what it means to haul 18 complete strangers to some exotic locale, force them to create a “society”, perform difficult physical or mental challenges, and, as its fabled slogan says, “outwit, outsmart, outlast” the elements and the other contestants for 39 days. Since its start in 2001, there have been cult favorites like the first winner, the ornery Richard Hatch (now serving time in prison, incidentally, for evading Uncle Sam with his prize money), professional soccer player Ethan Zohn, who won the otherwise uninteresting season three, Survivor: Africa. That was even the season that introduced Elizabeth Hasselbeck to the world, and now we can take in her Republican cheerleading on the “View”. The locales for the show was visually stunning, and the show is paced in such a way to guarantee that there will be some level of intrigue in every episode, and as the season goes on and there are fewer survivors, things get pretty intense. Of course, this is the show that brought the term “tribal council” to American cultural lexicon, and it’s the centerpiece of each episode. Survivors arrive here ready to vote out someone with lit torches. The erstwhile (and recently Emmy-winning) host Jeff Probst reads out the votes, and when your name is called, your torch is symbolically snuffed out. The prize at the end of 39 grueling days? A cool million bucks. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the skinny on Ed McMahon, in case you didn’t know this: he is a professional sycophant. Always has been. Most famous as Johnny Carson’s sidekick for more than thirty years on the “Tonight” show up until 1992, McMahon has not had a whole lot of jobs since then that bring cash home. He has been the Publisher’s Clearing House host for some years; you know, that bogus sweepstakes mailer you get that promises millions when the prize van comes-a-knockin’ on your door. Ed will be there –well, at least until some financial troubles set in.

See, Ed is 85. He went to the press this past July asking the public for help essentially and give a face to the current home foreclosure meltdown that has been gripping this country this year. Ed McMahon, the familiar face who created the “Heeeere’s Johnny!” line and a host of other dopey expressions (“Heyo!”, “You are correct, sir!”) while sitting on his ass at NBC Studios in Burbank all those years, is still in the news. Now you might think that an octogenarian would be taking it easy, relaxing, lucky to be alive and praying that each day is pain free and that you’re limber. That’s what a typical 85-year-old would do. Some would reflect on a long life with grandkids, passing on some wisdom and leaving some kind of proud legacy, knowing that your life is ebbing and that, bless your heart, you’ll be gone soon. Such a life is not Ed McMahon. Read the rest of this entry »

Who says Mountain View has all the fun?

The good folks at Meraki are making news again.  As some of you have heard, this San Francisco company has been busy putting a repeater-based network in place to provide the city of San Francisco with FREE Wifi Internet.

To date, Meraki has provided its Wi-Fi gear and free Internet access to residents in 80 percent of San Francisco’s major neighborhoods. The company plans to continue building the “Free the Net” network in 2009, deepening coverage in each neighborhood.

Recently, Meraki held a press conference with mayor Gavin Newsom, to launch its latest project, which will add wireless coverage to twelve low-income housing projects in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. The company also plans to provide Wi-Fi Internet access to low-income housing owned by the city in other neighborhoods as well as provide free Wi-Fi to senior centers throughout the city by the end of 2008.

You can sign up here to help expand the ever-growing network: Read the rest of this entry »

If you use a cellphone, you use voicemail.  And if you use voicemail, you know the unfortunate pitfalls involved in its daily use:   dialing in costs you minutes, it takes time to wade through multiple messages (you’re forced to listen to the messages that are drivel or spam in nature), and you are forced to press your ear to your mobile device or have your bluetooth headset on in order to retrieve your messages with any degree of privacy.

SpinVox has an answer for those of us who dread the daily doldrums of message retrieval.  It’s a voice-to-text program that makes voicemails easier to use.

The service monitors your calls and turns what’s spoken into a text message.  It then Read the rest of this entry »

Don’t Kick Those Treads Too Hard

Is this a new set of tires or a four-piece set of ticking time bombs waiting to explode?

The answer may surprise you…

That new set of Bridgestones you just purchased from Sears could be six, eight or ten years old and just waiting to disintegrate some time during your morning commute.   The rubber that tires are made from dries out after six years, but unlike Europe and Asia, American companies may sell “expired” tires long after they have aged to the point of becoming deathly dangerous.

A recent 20/20 investigation found that the “new” tires on sale at Sears and Walmart can be up to 12-years-old. [See the video below] Read the rest of this entry »

With about 60 days to go before the general election, the US Presidential race is officially on.

We have the prospect of history before us. We will elect either the first Black President or else the first female Vice President. Attention to the race is heightened after two straight weeks of political conventions, high profile appearances and speeches.

According to the TV bean counters, ratings for John McCain and Sarah Palin’s speeches matched or even exceeded those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden the week before. 40 million viewers in prime time. That’s more than the audience for the David Cook/Little David Archuleta showdown on American Idol in May, and more than those who witnessed Daniel Day-Lewis cop an Oscar in February. America, not only are you really into this election, but you have made these people very famous.

And that’s a major thing here: recognition. For a lot of people who may know Read the rest of this entry »

So it looks like the revolutionary “One Laptop Per Child” XO computer is finally going to make its way into the hands of general consumers on a grand scale. And as it happens, the behemoth retailer Amazon.com will be delivering the device and managing the much-discussed G1G1 program, where consumers will purchase one device for personal use, while the other unit is donated to a child in need.

This seems like a match made in heaven given the disappointing turn of events during the last G1G1 disbursement, where things didn’t go as smoothly as planned.

“Many things in the last G1G1 did not run as smoothly as we would have hoped,” Negroponte said. “Those things, mostly related to fulfillment, by their nature, are what Amazon can fix.”

The Boston Globe reported Friday that OLPC founder and chairman Nicholas Negroponte confirmed Read the rest of this entry »

Ever wonder what people do with their free time in other parts of the world? Earth Album allows users to navigate photos taken from around the globe, all from the comfort of their own homes.

It’s quite an interesting concept. The site actually doesn’t host any of its own pictures, but instead references them from Flickr. Earth Album uses Google Earth in its Hybrid Satellite View to “mashup” said images with the coordinates on the earth. Simple in theory, beautiful in execution.

Using Earth Album, it becomes immediately clear that you’re not just getting the watered-down, stock images of the mainstay temples and pyramids in other lands (sights we’ve become all-too-accustomed to seeing when viewing such photos).

In my first few minutes of exploring, I was pulling up images of lightning striking outside the bedroom window of one lucky Finnish photog. I witnessed people diving from Read the rest of this entry »

Fundrace 2008

Care to know if your well-off stepmother is playing a blue or red card? Has your office mate led you astray by donating to the “other” side? Want to know at which party your favorite celeb has thrown millions?

Find out by using this fully interactive Fundrace 2008 map detailing campaign contributions and their sources.

Drag the map to find the hotspot of your choice, and then click to find the juicy details.  You can search Fundrace by name, address, zip code, occupation or employer.

Interesting sidenote: Barack Obama donated $4,600 to Hillary Clinton, then Hillary donated half this amount ($2,300) to Barack.

Wow, this can become addictive.

[Via The Huffington Post]

The Class Action

In the Class Action filed in 2007, Plaintiff alleges that VW knowingly concealed, suppressed and omitted to disclose to consumers that Class Vehicles contained defectively designed timing belt tensioners, timing belts and/or associated parts (”timing belt system”), and that VW failed to disclose and/or misrepresented the appropriate service interval for replacement of the timing belt system in Settlement Class Vehicles. VW has denied any defect, wrongdoing or liability whatsoever and deny that this lawsuit could properly be certified as a class action for trial.

Has yours snapped yet?

Mine did. And it was a thoroughly sickening and indignant episode that occurred during an extremely heavy commute time, on a dangerous and well-traveled curve in the road, along one of the most congested streets in all of Read the rest of this entry »

The Scenario

So you went a little nuts on your MySpace profile - you posted your age, your interests, some of your funniest home movies and the secret spots you like to frequent on Saturday following your morning dog walk. It felt freeing and liberating to tout your spot in this world and advertise your status to your online “friends”.

And it exploded from there: you started posting in public forums without hesitating to include your full, given name (so you can get credit for your impassioned responses), then proceeded to open numerous accounts on the Facebooks, Friendsters, LinkedIns and Meebos of the world. You even dropped your digits at one point on Craigslist, where they remain cached to this day on Yahoo!. There’s no question about it: you’re now officially “out there”.

But as your friends began to accumulate and as your forum posts became popular (and distributed), your online presence began to balloon to uncontrollable (and uncomfortable) proportions. Personal commentary, asides and intimate information usually reserved for loved ones was now on public display - an inadvertent consequence of your own making.

And with the recent advent of employers checking potential job candidates online before making their hiring decisions, it might be wise for the current job-seeker to Read the rest of this entry »