Serving Up Some Justice On Fake Twitterers... Tweeters!

A British judge has agreed to allow a blogger, who's identity was spoofed on Twitter, to serve legal notice via Twitter itself in the form of tweets. Blogger Donal Blaney (Blaney's Blarney), who happens to own a law firm, has apparently been victimized by a phony who has assumed his persona on Twitter by posting a photo of Blaney in the profile of blaneysblarney account and tweeting as if to be Blaney himself, without any notification to the contrary. Twitter does allow for parody type accounts but has policy against impersonating high-profile celebrities in a nonparody way, the question I guess might be whether or not Blaney falls into the category of high-profile celebrity (from a Twitter perspective)?

It will be interesting to see if the cease and desist order delivered 140 characters at a time will be effective... of course blaneysblarney could always just block Blaney's lawers Twitter account and then would never be served. Huh!

Source: Arstechnica

Cirque du Soleil Founder First Clown In Space

Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte along with crew members American astronaut Jeffrey Williams and Russian cosmonaut Maxim Surayev successfully reached orbit yesterday en-route to the International Space Station. The space tourist and crew of the Russian made Soyuz TMA-16 craft are expected to rendezvous with the ISS on Friday.

"Laliberte, an experienced stilt-walker and fire-breather dubbed the first clown in space, had donned a bulbous red nose and blew kisses to supporters before the launch. He has paid $35 million for the trip he plans to use to publicize the world's growing shortage of clean water."

Source: The Discovery Channel / AP

Google Opens To Limited Public Trial

Google Wave, which combines IM, email, and wiki-style editing goes on public trial today with 100,000 invitees, each of whom can nominate five more people to "join the Wave".

"It struck us that e-mail is still the main communication tool on the web, which seemed remarkable given that it is 20-year-old technology," said Lars Rasmussen, who, alongside his brother Jens, was the brains behind Google Maps. "We found we could build a flexible tool with a surprising amount of functionality," Mr Rasmussen told BBC News.

Watch the looooong video you'll understand why I'm so excited about Wave.

3-D Coming To Your Living Room

It came roaring back into the theatre! Nary a week goes by that does not have a title on the marquee, and now companies are hoping to bring 3-D viewing to your home. The upgrade is possible, Panasonic has unveiled it's 3-D TV and much time and effort has been spent by the industry to make it happen. The big question is, are consumers ready to make the leap so soon after jumping on the HD bandwagon? I don't think I'm ready to make the investment... However, “This is what people want,” said Luc Duchaine, a senior brand manager at game company Ubisoft who's hedging their bets on 3-D. “These things will happen very fast, we believe.”

Globe and Mail story here.

DARPA Looking For Ideas To Clean Up Space Junk

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week issued a request for ideas to clean up orbital debris. The space junk problem has intensified since 2007 when China intentionally blew up a defunct satellite as part of a weapons test and since earlier this year when two communications spacecraft collided.

"Since January 2007 we have experienced a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of cataloged debris objects," DARPA wrote in its solicitation.

The request has attracted interest from aerospace contractor Boeing, NASA's Space Science and Technology Center at Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and several small firms, even though DARPA has not promised anything more than considering the options presented.

Source: Discovery Channel

For No Particular Reason Whatsoever....

Other than it's cool...



Only happen in Japan!