News and other tidbits that Chad Cloman finds interesting enough to share
The linked article is primarily about Nokia’s Wibree wireless standard, but there is a section that nicely summarizes five other standards. Look for “The Wireless Zoo,” about a quarter of the way down the page.
Link: http://www.tfot.info/…
This is an insightful article about the clash between fair use and the DMCA. The MPAA is suing a company that will copy your DVD to an iPod for you. The MPAA contends that circumventing the DVD copy protection is illegal, and that users must re-purchase the movie via the iTunes store in order to watch it on an iPod. The worst part is that they may be right.
Link: http://arstechnica.com/…
Sony released its much-anticipated PS3 game console on Friday. They only manufactured a limited number and did not even come close to satisfying the demand. Experts predict the PS3 will be difficult to obtain until next March. With this in mind, gamers starting lining up 11 days early. Enterprising criminals robbed entire lines. Some wackos desperate for attention bought one and smashed it with a sledgehammer. And, of course, the consoles are going on eBay for absurd prices. What I found most interesting, however, is that Sony is selling the consoles for a significant loss.
These men have put a wooden stake through the heart of chivalry.
I’ve been using blogger.com for some time now, but it’s become increasingly unreliable. So over the last few weeks I’ve been porting Chad’s News to WordPress, and I made the official switch tonight. There are new features, such as categories, as well as a much better search function. I’ve tried to make it as transparent as possible, but old links may not work. If you catch any problems, please let me know.
Someone in Florida used a very rare “Inverted Jenny” stamp to mail an absentee ballot. There are only a hundred of the stamps in existence, and they’re worth an estimated $500,000 apiece in mint condition. What’s worse is that the ballot had no identifying information, so the vote wasn’t even counted.
UPDATE: Just heard a piece on the radio today. This stamp is a fake.
This is a wooden machine gun that shoots 144 rubber bands from 12 rotating barrels. A finely-crafted work of engineering, and a definite must-have for the true geek. Apparently they’re quite popular, as they’ve sold out despite the $395 price tag.
Researchers for the Cambridge-MIT Institute’s ‘Silent’ Aircraft Initiative have developed a conceptual design for a “silent” aircraft, which will greatly alleviate airport noise. As an added bonus, the design will increase fuel efficiency by about 25%. Because the initiative has quite a few partners from the aircraft industry, I think we may actually see this plane developed at some point.
Details on how it works: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…
(via Neatormama)
The dog in this video thinks he’s being attacked by his own foot—and he fights back to the point of biting himself.
The official release dates for Windows Vista are Nov. 30th (for corporate customers) and Jan. 30th, 2007 for everyone else. Office 2007 will also be released at the same time.
