Wired's Geek-o'-Lantern Contest

Having been born in October I've always loved Halloween, and traditionally it's been my task to carve the family pumpkin. From humble beginnings of jagged teeth and triangle eyes, I've really tried to step it up a notch or two as I've garnered some experience. I've done some good ones ,and some not so good ones, but I'll have to bow to the greatness that is present in the submissions to Wired's "Show Us Your Wired Geek-o-Lanterns". You've got to check out Yoda, The Deathstar, Venom, and Frankenstien for all of their intricate beauty, but perhaps my favorite is Cannibal! It's not all that geeky but it certainly looks like Jack-o-Lantern that I might be able to re-create.

Gmail Labs Roll Out Canned Responses

The Official Gmail Blog has posted about a new feature in the Labs called "canned responses". Turning the feature on allows you to save pieces of text as canned responses that can easily be sent in reply to common questions. To take things one step further, combine canned responses with the already available "filters" option "Gmail already lets you create filters based on a combination of keywords, sender, recipients, and more in your incoming messages. Turn on Canned Responses in Labs, and you can set a filter to grab one of your saved responses, create an automated reply, and hit the Send button for you." This duo of features seem like a great solution anyone who receives a relatively high volume of mail. The canned response does not include text from the originator's e-mail but it's a time saver and it's free.

Skipping Work? Don't Let The World Know

There's a lesson to be learned in this story... According to the Register an Australian call centre employee was tripped up by his social networking updates. Kyle Doyle apparently has a contract with his employer stating that he does not require a medical certificate for 1 day leaves of absence if he has stated that the leave was for medical reasons. The Register has published an interesting e-mail exchange between Kyle and his employer where each states their position and Kyle is eventually done in by his Facebook status on the day in question. "Kyle Doyle: is not going to work, f#$% it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!" (expletive removed). Perhaps Facebook should talk to Google about licensing Goggles or allow updates to be e-mailed in so that Kyle can use his G-mail account next time.

SMART Table Targeting Education Market

SMART Technologies, the Calgary based maker of the SMART Board has gone horizontal with its technology producing a SMART Table aimed initially at the education market (preschool to sixth grade). The company describes the product as "... brightly colored table with a touch-sensitive surface where groups of students can simultaneously interact with digital content." The SMART Table comes complete with a PC and Projection system and is expected to have an educational price of US$8000.



Mean while Microsoft is experimenting with the Surface PC and making sure that your glass remains full while at the night club.

British UFO Files Opened

Britain's National Archive has released a second set of UFO files to the public. This batch represents 19 files reported between 1986 and 1992 but there is a promise to release a total of 160 files over the next few years. I'm particularly curious about "legendary 'feathered serpents"' who are supposedly awaiting our permission to land on earth? Most of the released files are explained by the authorities as weather balloons, satellites, or meteors but a few are yet to be explained.

Sony Delays Global Release Of LittleBigPlanet

Sony has recalled all of the copies of LittleBigPlanet and is delaying the global release because a music track that was licensed for the game contained two phrases that can be found in the Koran. "We're sure that most of you have heard by now that one of the background music tracks that was licensed from a record label for use in the game contains two expressions that can be found in the Koran. We have taken immediate action to rectify this and we sincerely apologise for any offence this may have caused."says a statement on the LittleBigPlanet website. The company now plans to begin shipping in North America the week of October 27th. Described as a game about making games, the title has been highly anticipated.

Google Gadgets Get Room To Grow With Canvas View

This past week Google refreshed it's iGoogle pages and to be frank I didn't really care for the changes that much. When you get used to a UI and it suddenly changes on you it takes a little getting used to, and I'm still trying to do that. What I hadn't noticed was a new option called "canvas view" that enables you to maximize any given gadget within the iGoogle page. Though I'm not in love with the left hand navigation changes yet, I do like canvas view. In particular I like what it does for my Gmail gadget, maximizing Gmail allows me to view messages and create new ones right in the gadget where previously it only displayed a quick snippet view of my Gmail messages. Check out this guided tour of the new iGoogle features. According to the Official Google Blog the changes where for users in the US, however they seem to have crept over the northern border to us in Canada as well.

Smart Appliances That Adjust To Power Demands On The Grid

Engineers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have been developing a technology known as "Gridwise" that enables household appliances to adjust themselves on the fly in response to the overall power requirements of the power grid. When the grid is reporting high demand a controller sends orders to the appliances to cease some of the appliance’s high-energy operations that could be temporarily delayed, such as a refrigerator's defrost cycle. Their studies show that the Gridwise system could potentially reduce power requirements by 15%. Check out this video from Sciencentral.com, my favourite quote is from Pacific Northwest's Rob Pratt, who I envision as somewhat of a Star Wars fan, when he says the the controllers "... sense a disturbence in the power grid all on their own, and they can just take themselves out of action just very temporarily"

Lottery Under Fire For Free Music Download Plan

The provincial lottery corporation in British Columbia (BCLC) is drawing fire from politicians and social activists over a plan that would offer free music downloads to some online gambling players. The scheme seems aimed squarely at young adults and is being seen as a ploy to hook them early. “It does sound like it would be something that would attract the college and university-aged student,” Amanda McCormick, who wrote the report on online gambling for the B.C. Centre for Social Responsibility said. “They are the ones who are probably more likely to be online and be familiar using these downloading programs. So I would think it would definitely encourage those people to visit the site.” While BCLC spokesman Trevor Miller says "It's a bit of a much ado about nothing,” and “We think the idea of having music downloads offers our players another form of excitement. Music is a form of entertainment, as is gaming. We think they kind of go hand in hand. It's something that will give our players a little more excitement to their online experience.” Globe and Mail story.

YouTube Not A Big Fan Of McCain / Palin Content

It seems that the McCain / Palin camp has hit a brick wall with YouTube / Google. The campaign had asked that YouTube more carefully scrutinize the McCain / Palin advertisements that were being pulled from YouTube because they contained copyrighted materials, mostly news clips from sources like CBS. The McCain team is arguing fair use and wants the ads to remain on YouTube. YouTube's Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine has responded:

"While we agree with you that the U.S. presidential election-related content is invaluable and worthy of the highest level of protection, there is a lot of other content on our global site that our users around the world find to be equally important, including, by way of example only, political campaigns from around the globe at all levels of government, human rights movements, and other important voices. We try to be careful not to favor one category of content on our site over others, and to treat all of our users fairly, regardless of whether they are an individual, a large corporation or a candidate for public office.

The real problem here is individuals and entities that abuse the DMCA takedown process. You and our other content uploaders can play a critical role in helping us to address this difficult problem...You can file counter-notifications. You can seek retractions of abusive takedown notices. You can hold abusive claimants publicly accountable for their actions by publicizing their actions...

We look forward to working with Senator (or President) McCain on ways to combat abuse of the DMCA takedown process on YouTube, including by way of example, strengthening the fair use doctrine..."

G4TV story here.