More Reasons To Love Chrome

The latest beta version of the Chrome web browser, Google Chrome 5.0.375.29, is breaking speed records according to Google and it's testing. The performance has improved by 30 to 35% and the browser will support HTML 5 features such as geolocation APIs and drag-and-drop. The beta version is available for Linux, Mac and Windows and has integrated Flash support.

Source: computer world

Teat Tweets

Ontario farmer Chris Vandenberg runs a hi-tech dairy farm where the cows are robotically milked and are monitored by RFID (radio-frequency identification) tags attached to their ears. The system allows Vandenberg to maximize milk productivity by denying access to the milking area until a cow is ready for optimal performance. If that weren't cool enough the University of Waterloo's critical media lab has tapped into the system to create Teat Tweet Dairy Diary, a Twitter account from the cows perspective.  

"I just squirted 20.4 kgs of milk out of my teats in 10:28 seconds. What did you do today?" offers Charge Gina (@chargegina) while Montgomery Mae (@montgomerymae)says "My RFID transponder must be dirty. I'll give it a lick and see what happens."

12 cows in all are participating. Got milk? 

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/05/03/tech-twitter-cows.html?ref=rss#ixzz0mugKqLYN

Waiting for Stephen Hawking Documentary... Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid.

"If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn't turn out very well for the Native Americans," says Stephen Hawking in "Stephen Hawking's Universe." a documentary film to be broadcast in May on Discovery Channel. "I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach." That's a pleasant thought...

All may not be lost however, Professor Hawking also expects that we'll some day build space ships that will travel through time. Hopefully that happens before the alien's arrive, if they're not already here!

Source: c|net's Chris Matyszczyk - Technically Incorrect blog.


UPDATE: cartoonist proves Hawking to be wrong.

Video Of Apollo 11's Saturn Rocket Ignition With Narration

Here is awesome footage of the Apollo 11 Saturn V rocket, ignition of the first manned flight to the moon... incredible video! From Gizmodo via Geek's Are Sexy.

Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch (HD) Camera E-8 from Mark Gray on Vimeo.

Just What Is Facebook Sharing About You?

In case you haven't heard, Facebook has made some changes and it's got a lot of people worried about what information exactly is being shared about them, between Facebook and app developers through the new open-graph API? Thanks to a developer by the name of Ka-Ping Yee, there is now a simple tool that shows you everything that Facebook sends to any developer whose app plugs in to the new API. Simply feed the tool your user ID or user name, which can be found in your Facebook profile, Yee tells you how to find it, and you will be presented with the data that's collected and shared. It's worthy of a look...

Police Seize Gizmodo Editor's Computers

Gizmodo editor, Jason Chen, who blogged about the mysterious nextgen iPhone found in a bar has had his computers seized by a technology related police task force. The investigating officers as well as the San Mateo County’s chief deputy district attorney, Stephen Wagstaffe, have declined to comment on the matter. 

I would say it's looking less likely that this was an Apple publicity stunt... authorities acting on a court order apparently entered Chen's home and removed four computers and two servers. 

More at the NYTimes Bits Blog.

Adobe Will No Longer Support iPhone Development Tool

It would appear as though Adobe has given up it's fight with Apple over developer tools ,after Apple updated the terms and conditions of the license that software developers must sign to create and sell apps for the iPhone and iPad shortly before Adobe's release of Creative Suite 5 earlier this month. CS5 was Adobe's tool that would open up the path to iPhone and iPad for Flash developers, Apple however wants full control over it's platform and is playing rough.

Mike Chambers, Adobe's principal product manager for developer relations has written on his blog "...as developers for the iPhone have learned, if you want to develop for the iPhone you have to be prepared for Apple to reject or restrict your development at any time." 

It's as if Apple has a burly bouncer at the door to an exclusive club, and that's why I love my android powered phone! 

Sorce: BBC

Bad McAfee Update Takes Down PCs

An update to antivirus software for corporate customers of McAfee Inc., caused much difficulty for customers running Windows XP with Service Pack 3 installed. The company has released a statement via it's blog saying:

In the past 24 hours, McAfee identified a new threat that impacts Windows PCs. Researchers worked diligently to address this threat that attacks critical Windows system executables and buries itself deep into a computer’s memory.

The research team created detection and removal to address this threat. The remediation passed our quality testing and was released with the 5958 virus definition file at 2.00 PM GMT+1 (6am Pacific Time) on Wednesday, April 21.

McAfee is aware that a number of customers have incurred a false positive error due to this release. Corporations who kept a feature called “Scan Processes on Enable” in McAfee VirusScan Enterprise disabled, as it is by default, were not affected...

Guess it's damage control time! I'm amazed that this sort of thing doesn't happen more frequently considering the frequency of updates issued and the nature of the files that are potentially affected.

Gizmodo Asked To Return Nextgen iPhone Prototype To Apple

Whether they found the device as they claim, or they paid $5,000 for it as has been reported, Apple just want's their prototype next generation iPhone returned to them by Gizmodo. The popular tech blog had earlier posted photos and video of the device that some speculated was a knock off, but it would appear by Apple's reaction that it is the real deal. Gizmodo shared a letter received from Apple lawyers stating in part that "This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple," to which Jason Chen of Gizmodo writes "Now that we definitely know it's not some knockoff, and it really is Apple's, I'm happy to see it returned to its rightful owner,"

Perhaps a third scenario exists where this is a new tactic by Apple to generate hype about the new product!

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/04/20/tech-iphone-4-gizmodo.html?ref=rss#ixzz0ljNiNsqf

iPad Not Ready For Higher Education?

It seems that the iPad is attracting the wrong kind of attention from a number of high profile universities for reported issues with connectivity and degradation of the school's networks when a number of the devices are connected. The Wall Street Journal is reporting "The tablet, lauded by many as the next wave in education technology, is having difficulty being accepted at George Washington University and Princeton University because of network stability issues. Cornell University also says it is seeing connectivity problems with the device and is concerned about bandwidth overload."

In addition to the networking woes, some educators are also complaining about a lack educational content available via the iBookstore application. Regardless, I am sure that Apple will be working hard to solve the hardware issues and attract more content. Not to mention, too many consumers Apple products are simply irresistible!