The Globe and Mail is reporting that the Canadian government is tightening up it's laws regarding identity theft. Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced that Ottawa will introduce legislation targeting the gathering and trafficking of personal data for the purposes of using it deceptively. Fraudulent use of identity is already a criminal act in Canada, but the gathering and selling of credit card, banking, and other information is not, yet. “Our government will be giving police the tools to better protect Canadians by stopping identity theft activity before the damage is done,” the Minister said in a statement.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Robot love!
MSNBC has an interesting story about Roomba owners that appears to contradict a GigaOm post that I commented on recently. The article sites a report conducted by an associate professor at Georgia Tech, Beki Grinter. Here's an interesting quote "The third phase of the study, presented last week at the Ubiquitous Computing Conference in Austria, focused on more traditional users. Polling 379 U.S. users, it found that some would pre-clean their homes before using the machine, and that it seemed to make males more excited about the chore of vacuuming." Perhaps iRobot should market the little guys to women as a means of getting their man involved in the chores!
Heated blade, will it give hockey stars the edge?
Apparently Wayne Gretzky is a believer in the Therma Blade, a battery-warmed skate blade that melts ice to give its wearer more speed with less effort. The brainchild of former steam engineer Tory Weber, who has invested 5 years and $5 million in to the invention. Quoted in The Star as saying “It’s not super technical. We heat the blade and it creates a thin film of water between the skate blade and the ice and gives the user substantial performance benefits.” Weber provided The Great One a pair in 2004 and impressed him enough to get his endorsement. The only trouble is it's not Gretzky who needs convincing, though it probably helps, the NHL brass want to make sure the blade doesn't adversely affect it's ice. The Therma Blade will launch next month but the big league has not given the okay for them on it's ice, so we won't be seeing them on NHLers any time soon. No price point was revealed but they are said to fit any skate boot and are likely to be higher priced than traditional blades. Thanks to Engadget for this story.
Microsoft, Adobe chase Google online
Both Microsoft and Adobe made announcements on Monday that shows they are starting to take online services seriously. Adobe announced the purchase of Virtual Ubiquity, developer of the web word processor Buzzword, and launched a file-sharing service called Share. Microsoft on the other hand announced a web component for the Office suite of programs that will allow users to store, share and comment on documents. According to this CBC article "Microsoft Office Live Workspace, which launched as a test version on Monday, doesn't actually let users create new files from scratch online, but it is a step by the company towards bringing its suite of desktop applications to the web." Google has the lead but don't expect either of these giants to go down without a fight... competition is healthy!
Monday, October 1, 2007
Public curtain raised on Joost
Joost, the video dream site of Skype's Janus Friis and Kazaa's Niklas Zennström opened it's doors to everyone today, shedding it's beta status. Up until now the free, advertising supported, site was available only to those who could score a private invite. With content providers like Viacom, who brings MTV, BET, Comedy Central, and a limited selection of movies from Paramount, and CNN and MLB on board there is content worth looking at. ars technica's Jacqui Cheng thinks they have a challenge on their hands, particularly in signing on more content providers and finding a hardware partner to move the shows to the TV. This may be true, but it seems to me that the folks who know the television model will be all over this as it's virtually what they have now... easier for them to wrap their heads around than many of the newer ad models.
Scratching the Surface
Ars Technica writer, Jeremy Reimer, was given a rare opportunity for a personal demo of the Surface PC at Microsoft's campus. While his review offers no real news about the Surface's capabilities, it is interesting to read a 3rd person perspective of the experience. Reimer, it would seem, found the Surface an exciting new way of interacting with a PC, as indeed it is. In his conclusion Reimer writes "Although I already knew approximately what to expect when I was invited to the Microsoft campus to play with Surface, the experience of actually touching and using the unit exceeded my expectations. For a device still very much in development, it was remarkably smooth to use. " This sounds promising for those of us who are anxious to see the Surface... well, surface! Microsoft has said that it could be available for business applications as early as the end of '07 and at a cost of between $5,000 and $10,000 it will be a while before you see one in your living room, but it's coming!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Frankenstein Complex and iRobot's future
Kevin Kelleher at GigaOm has a theory about stagnant sales at iRobot, and it's called the Frankenstein Complex. Isaac Asimov coined the phrase to describe the fear of robots and Kelleher thinks it explains why we North Americans have not embraced the machines in our homes like the Japanese have in theirs. In his post Kelleher says "The Burlington, Mass., company went public nearly two years ago and its share price has spent much of last year below the $24 offering price. Revenue from consumer products –60% of iRobot’s revenue last year – fell 1% in the first half of 2007 from a year ago."
My experience with robots is more in the software realm of chat robots, but I tend to agree that they can be seen as a little creepy by some. I have found that the more human looking, the creepier they get. I just don't think that we (collective) are afraid of the Roomba, it's probably more to do with the fact that they are not as easily obtained as say a Dyson, and also not really mass marketed. I'd venture a guess that most people have never heard of them! I'd love one, but until my old upright throws in the towel I'm not motivated enough to purchase. On the other hand, the ConnectR and perhaps even the Looj are both something that I don't already have, fill a gap that is not met by any other device, and therefore I might be convinced to purchase.
Interesting theory though.
My experience with robots is more in the software realm of chat robots, but I tend to agree that they can be seen as a little creepy by some. I have found that the more human looking, the creepier they get. I just don't think that we (collective) are afraid of the Roomba, it's probably more to do with the fact that they are not as easily obtained as say a Dyson, and also not really mass marketed. I'd venture a guess that most people have never heard of them! I'd love one, but until my old upright throws in the towel I'm not motivated enough to purchase. On the other hand, the ConnectR and perhaps even the Looj are both something that I don't already have, fill a gap that is not met by any other device, and therefore I might be convinced to purchase.
Interesting theory though.
LAPD use laser targeted bug to end high speed chases
G4's The Feed has a story about the Los Angeles Police Department's use of the StarChase system, a laser sighted projectile that mounts to a police cruiser and when deployed fires an adhesive gps bug that sticks to the bad guys car allowing the police to back off and track from a safe distance. StarChase says "It’s comprised of a tracking projectile with a miniaturized GPS receiver, radio transmitter, power supply and a launcher which can be hand-held or mounted on a police car." Their site, which may not have been updated in a while, has a video of the system in action... cool!
Bricked your iPhone? These guys might still want it
The guys at TechCrunch have found a site that's looking for your old iPod, working or not! According to this post, buymybrokenipod.com will buy working or otherwise ipods and will give you a quote before you decide. You have to pay the shipping, but if you've just bricked your iPhone like Michael Arrington, $213 for an otherwise useless (but pretty) piece of technology might not seem so bad... the broken ones are taken apart for parts and the working ones are refurbished for resale, a nice green alternative to the trash bin!
NASA to offer history lesson on NASA TV to commemorate 50 years in space
NASA, in a press release on Friday, said it will air a 50 year retrospective of space craft, space travel and the space agency starting tomorrow on NASA TV. The show airs just ahead of the 50th anniversary of Sputnik the first craft put into orbit, by the Russians on October 4th, 1957. The Americans followed with the launch of their first satelite, Explorer I, on January 31, 1958 and NASA was born October 1, 1958.
The release says "NASA TV news feeds and a special interactive web presentation on www.nasa.gov will feature interview excerpts with former astronauts, engineers, scientists, flight directors and other NASA employees who offer historical perspectives on the Sputnik launch. Also provided will be file footage of Explorer I, the first satellite launched by the United States on Jan. 31, 1958, 3-D spacecraft models, and the subsequent announcement by NASA's first administrator T. Keith Glennan on the establishment of the agency on Oct. 1, 1958."
The release says "NASA TV news feeds and a special interactive web presentation on www.nasa.gov will feature interview excerpts with former astronauts, engineers, scientists, flight directors and other NASA employees who offer historical perspectives on the Sputnik launch. Also provided will be file footage of Explorer I, the first satellite launched by the United States on Jan. 31, 1958, 3-D spacecraft models, and the subsequent announcement by NASA's first administrator T. Keith Glennan on the establishment of the agency on Oct. 1, 1958."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)