Web Hosting VoIP Firm, Covad, Honored by California Governor Commission
... : Web Hosting VoIP Firm, Covad, Honored by California Governor Commission ) - May 25, 2007 - ...
iPhone: Apple's Make-or-Break Bet
Even for Apple, which has thrived on taking risks, the iPhone represents an audacious bet -- possibly its biggest ever. When the new smartphone hits store shelves June 29, the company will have a lot more on the line than the success or failure of one product. With a hit, Apple will revolutionize the mobile phone industry.
Buffalo: UB Stadium
First one to explain what this sign says wins "Greatest Reader of Forever" Recognition. It was up in the stadium. University of Buffalo Stadium was part of the "Drive to Division I" that the school commenced after Buffalo was relegated all the way into Division II. The trick eventually worked as the Bulls moved up through I-AA into Division I-A. ... (Read on Source)
Georgia wins LLWS on walk-off homer - MLB.com
 The Decatur Daily | Georgia wins LLWS on walk-off homer MLB.com - By David Briggs / MLB.com Dalton Carriker lined a game-winning homer over the right-field wall in the bottom of the eighth inning to lift Warner Robins, Ga. Georgia Beats Japan to Win Little League World Series Walk-off homer in 8th gives Georgia kids title |
Nokia's big day
Nokia announces new N series phones, two news Xpress Music handsets and new gaming and music platforms.
4. Firefox downloads top 400 million
... at only 17.4 per cent market share. Even Janco admits, however, that the Vole's Internet Explorer market share lost 9.6 per cent last year, falling to 63.9 per cent market ...
Images: Microsoft's Office Live Workspace
Company shares screenshots of what the free tool for viewing Microsoft Office documents online will look like when it goes into beta later this year.
Symantec recommends users tighten security on Macs
Apple's operating system has a reputation for being secure and free from malicious users causing headaches, but with Apple's popularity on the uprise, users should learn basic maintenance and security procedures for their favored operating system. Tech news site CIO recently spoke with Ollie Whitehouse, architect for Symantec's Advanced Threat Rese...
Looking back at a computing icon
Games developer David Braben looks back at the role of the BBC Micro in the UK computer industry.
Sex Drive: How to Keep the Fireworks Going From Afar
Many long-distance lovers have become experts in how tech can augment sexuality.
No commuter couple should go without Skype, Twitter and mobile phones, while sex toys can take the repetitive stress injury out of a long-distance affair.
But it's not much of a stretch to think that there's a bigger need (read: market) for "tele-amore" devices than there ever will be for teledildonics (online sex toys controlled by a lover from anywhere in the world). And yet we don't have a lot of options when we're looking for devices designed to arouse our emotions.
Not everyone is comfortable enough with both sex and computers to get internet-enabled vibrators working, but we all want to interact with our partners in special ways. Despite the frenzy around social media applications, we still don't have sensual devices that extend that functionality beyond virtual space.
All it would take is something like the Ambient Orb hooked up to a desktop dot to get my heart racing.
Joseph Kaye, a Ph.D. candidate at Cornell University studying human-computer interaction, developed the Virtual Intimate Object, or VIO, to study the effect of low-bandwidth applications on long-distance intimacy.
The VIO is a dot that sits in your system tray (Windows) or desktop (Mac) and monitors an identical dot on your partner's computer. When your partner clicks his or her dot, yours fills with color; as time goes by without a click, the color slowly fades until the circle is just an outline.
In Kaye's 2004 study (.pdf), five long-distance couples kept journals of how often they clicked the VIO and how using it made them feel. He notes that while he originally thought of the VIO as the source of intimacy, he realized that the journals quickly became an integral part of the experience for the couples.
Just as dancing leads to necking which leads to spanking and then to the oral sex, what was enough on day one was merely adequate by day five of the study.
By week's end, participants had several suggestions for additional functionality: a choice of colors, the option to play a sound, and the ability to replace the circle with their own set of graphics. They had become emotionally engaged not just with their partners, but with the application.
If you can get all that from a 2-D dot, think what you could do with an object you can touch.
Unfortunately, the closest thing I can find to that type of technology for consumers is the Nabaztag rabbit, a wireless device that connects with other Nabaztag rabbits over the internet. From a strictly romantic standpoint, they one-up the Chumby and the Tux Droid in that the rabbits can "marry" each other, so that when one partner moves their rabbit's ears, the paired rabbit's ears move the same way.
Chat acronyms, make way for the semaphore signs of love.
The Nabaztags are excruciatingly cute. I've wanted a set for years, but they weren't specifically designed for suitors. (Nor are they the seamless technical experience they claim to be, apparently: The Nabaztalk user forums provide a sobering counterpoint to the Nabaztags' slick product marketing.)
The human-computer interaction folks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology seem to understand the connection between technology and emotion, but their clever projects -- like the Lover's Cups that light up when a far-away partner takes a sip or the Mutsugoto interactive art bed -- have yet to break free of academia and museums.
Gadgets like teledildonics and sex machines that stimulate the body but shouldn't be used at work or in public only go so far. Sex tech doesn't have to be explicit to be effective: If you and your distant partner have been together long enough, you realize that tech that fosters intimacy, playfulness and common experiences has a much greater impact on the quality of your union than just having orgasms now and then.
I want to glance at the shelf and see an object glowing warmly because someone special sent me a message. I want to let someone know I'm thinking about him, simply by stroking my fingers over a smooth surface.
I know I'm not the only one who wants to interact through something sensual and swoopy and erotic that has no connection to business, chores or taxes.
I want my ambient intimacy object. Are you listening, developers? There's a mountain of money to be made keeping long-distance lovers connected in our increasingly complicated world.
See you in a fortnight,
Regina Lynn
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Regina Lynn is the author of Sexier Sex: Lessons From the Brave New Sexual Frontier. She blogs at reginalynn.com.
New Approach To Cancer: Find Most Tightly Controlled Genes
Scientists have found a new way to study cancer that could be very useful for developing targeted therapies against tumors and possibly many other diseases. A data analysis revealed which genes are most tightly controlled in the cancerous tissues studied, yielding a new class of genes, in which only slight changes could affect gene function to elicit a sizable effect on a tumor.
Eight Reasons to Worship Generic Keyword Domains
It has been virtually been 15 years now since the Internet first took off and I still find that some marketing people still don't give domain names any importance. They just think that they can get aw...
Looting of Iraq sites destroys history, distresses scholars
The fate of Iraqi antiquities still torments scholars who believe the cradle of civilization has been ransacked. (Read on Source)
Ed Boyajian, President and CEO, EnterpriseDB
Internet News: "Along the way, the company developed a very deep competency in PostgreSQL, and we discovered that there are a lot of companies that need those capabilities and needed help. The myth about the company is that it's an Oracle compatibility company. In fact, what we're intent on promoting is our role in helping enterprises to adopt PostgreSQL."
Will HTC and T-Mobile Get Android's Gears Spinning?
T-Mobile may be partnering with cell phone handset manufacturer HTC to deliver the first smartphone running Google's Android platform, according to reports. Unnamed sources briefed on T-Mobile's plans have said the carrier could announce the phone as early as September -- and would almost certainly have an offering out in the wild as early as October, in time for the holiday selling season.
Why Xbox Live gaming should be free for all
Don Reisinger thinks Microsoft should offer Xbox Live gaming for free. Should it?
Asustek Aims New Eee PCs at Emerging Markets
Asustek's latest Eee PCs, the 904HD and 1000HD are aimed at emerging markets.
Really Big Things
Linux Magazine: "How does one manage really big clusters? Perhaps nature can give us a clue."
'We' Climate Campaign: Glossy, But Will It Work?
Rather than focusing on scary symptoms, the We Campaign focuses on the cure for global warming -- and motivates people to support sweeping change. Question is, will it be enough to effect any real change at all? (Read on Source)
Palin e-mail hack details emerge
Online data sources may have aided an attack on an e-mail account of US Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. (Read on Source)
Grand Theft Auto DS Sports Drug Dealing Mini Game
The forthcoming Nintendo DS debut of Rockstar's oft-controversial Grand Theft Auto franchise will allow players to sell a variety of real-life drugs for in-game profit, according to a CVG report citing the latest issue of print magazine Edge.
When Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars arrives before February 2009, Nintendo DS owners will be able to traffic six types of drugs--heroin, cocaine, weed, ecstasy, acid and downers--to their in-game counterparts as supply and demands shapes the market.
"We wanted to have a drug-dealing mini game in lots of the GTA games," Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser explained. "We played with it a little in Vice City Stories, because it worked really well juxtaposed with the main story."
"Nintendo wanted us to make GTA...they didn't want us to make a GTA for kids," Houser added in a separate report on ...
How to Add hCards to Your Site
We've talked about how microformats like hCard add semantic information to your content. Despite our talk, it took us a nudge by microformat evangelist Chris Messina to add hCards to Webmonkey. While we were at it, we whipped up a quick how-to tutorial. Follow along to make your own digital business cards.
Wired.com
U.S. Navy Sonar Linked To Whale Strandings, Environmental Scientists Argue
With the U.S. Supreme Court due to review a series of lower court rulings that restrict the Navy's use of sonar in submarine detection training exercises off the coast of Southern California, George Mason University professor Chris Parsons discusses the links between mass strandings and military exercises worldwide in a paper in the Marine Pollution Bulletin.
IBM invests in business partners' training
A business development fund aims to encourage its largest partners to take up more skills training around data centers.
Stem-cell Sentry Sounds The Alarm To Maintain Balance Between Cancer And Aging, Researchers Find
Like a sentry guarding the castle walls, a molecular messenger inside adult stem cells sounds the alarm when it senses hazards that could allow the invasion of an insidious enemy: Cancer.
Florida Business Gives You $10 to Recycle Your Old Sex Toys
Images via Dreamscapes Well over a year ago we brought news about Love Honey, a UK company that launched a sex toy recycling campaign to help keep e-waste from sex toys out of landfills. Their campaign collected over 1 ton of used toys. Now a Florida-based business called Dreamscapes wants to do right by the earth and has launched one of the US? (Read on Source)
Cisco Disappointed by FSF Law suit
InternetNews: "Since at least May 12, 2006, Cisco has distributed to the public copies of firmware containing the FSF's programs in its products "without providing complete and corresponding source code or an offer for source code as required by the Licenses," the complaint charged. It listed 13 Linksys products as offenders, including its popular wireless routers for setting up Wi-Fi networks."
'CHE' IT AIN'T SO
MEET Che Guevara. Just think of him as Jesus plus Abraham Lincoln with a touch of Moses and Dr. Doug Ross. After 4½ hours of watching Dr. Ernesto "Che" Guevara heal the sick, teach the illiterate, daze the women, execute the lawless, defeat the corrupt, uplift the peasantry and spew the sound bite, I was convinced there would be ... (Read on Source)
Watchdog Group Asks Google to Create Personal Data "opt-out" (PC World)
PC World - The nonprofit group Consumer Watchdog asked on Friday that Google give users of its search engine the ability to "opt out" of leaving personal data, such as IP addresses, on Google's servers.
Who the Heck Is George Johnson?
A few weeks ago I wrote about Epigenetics at SEED. The article in SEED was written by a scientist who wants to change evolutionary theory in order to accommodate epigenetics. I pointed out that this was a poorly written article. One of the worst problems was the definition of epigenetics, which was broad enough to include the kitchen sink. (Read on Source)
Name: SyroBro