ATM Reprogrammed and stipped of cash

Wired has a story with a moral to it and the moral is change your passwords from time to time, especially if you are an ATM owner. The perpetrator of the crime used an ATM administrator password, which had never been changed from the default '123456', to reprogram the machine and access all of the cash inside. If that weren't bad enough, he came back the next day and did it again! The Triton ATM's user manual is apparently readily available online.

Useful Google hack on video

The embedded video contains a tutorial by an enterprising young gentleman who has figured out how to use Google to find certain "files" on the Internet without using pier to pier networking. While it is obvious what the video producers motives are, the hack is really quite useful, if you watch the entire 8:53 minutes you'll see how he finds great content from University sites but the method works elsewhere as well.

Intel backs One Laptop Per Child initiative

Chip maker Intel has decided to take an active roll and support the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation that it once dismissed as a gadget. The foundation founded by Nicholas Negroponte, of MIT Media lab fame, has developed a laptop which was designed to be cheap to make, energy efficient and built to withstand rugged conditions. "It can be hand-powered so it will work in remote locations." Negroponte said in an interview "Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children," The machine which uses free and open source software and has other corporate backers, is meant to be offered in South America, Africa, and parts of Asia where children would otherwise not be exposed to the technology. They require 3,000,000 orders to make the foundations production plan work. 7000 prototypes have been tested and the price is expected to be about $175 US. CBC story here.

A noble cause indeed!

Government embraces free Wi-Fi

The Saskatchewan government is backing what is being touted as Canada's largest Wi-Fi network. The switch was turned on yesterday in the downtown, the 13th Avenue business district and in the historic warehouse area (Note: I'll try to dig up some more info and provide a google map). There are some restrictions, porn and hate sites will be blocked, and since it is open Wi-Fi it is suggested that you don't do any Internet banking or other sensitive transactions. The cost to the Province is $1.3 million in infrastructure and startup costs and $340,000 per year in operational cost. Later this month, similar networks will be opened in Saskatoon, Prince Albert and Moose Jaw, and the Province's University campuses will go live in the fall. See the CBC story here.

Walls made of water?

The CBC is reporting that MIT architects are planning to produce a building that has walls of water. The Digital Water Pavilion, will be created for Expo 2008 in Zaragoza, Spain, and will have walls of water created by thousands of computer-controlled jets. Using technology similar to an ink-jet printer, only on a much larger scale, the walls will be able to display images and be turned off or on in order to allow people to pass through them. The pavilion will house a cafe and at a cost of about $6000 per square meter, if my math is correct, I hope they sell a bunch of lattes! It's interesting in a technological sense but I don't think it would withstand our Canadian winters. Personally, I think this is a much better use of ink-jet technology and I'll bet it didn't cost $3,000,000.

Meet Runbot

The BBC has the scoop on Runbot a biped robot that was developed using the theories of a 1930's human Physiologist, Nikolai Bernstein. While other robots have achieved two legged walking, Runbot walks at a rate that is nearly the same as the fastest walking humans. The robot's gait is adjusted in real time which allows it to maneuver over uneven terrain, and learn from it's mistakes. Professor Florentin Woergoetter of the University of Gottingen says "When Runbot first encounters a slope these low level control circuits 'believe' they can continue to walk up the slope without having to change anything. But this is misguided and as a consequence the machine falls backwards. This triggers the other sensors and the highest loop we have built into Runbot - the learning circuitry - and from that experience of falling the machine knows that something needs to be changed." Have a look at this video, it's quite impressive to see the machine learn from it's mistakes. It really does move along at a pretty good pace!

Remember the Milk

I have a wife, 2 Children, a cat, a few friends, a job, a house, a car, a yard, a blog, and my 73 year old father who lives with me, all of which require my attention from time to time. My oldest has a job, both boys play baseball, and hockey, and live active teenage lives. How am I to remember to pick up the milk?

I have just signed up for rememberthemilk.com (beta release) and I believe it will be making life a little more organized, if not easier. I have always prided myself in being organized and in a lot of ways that is what I do for a living, I organize! But even the best of us can get a little caught up in life's bigger issues and fail to remember all of the little ones. Sometimes you just have to rearranged your priorities and the little things get dropped. RTM allows you to create to-do lists and has a whole host of features too numerous to list. The developers say "We created Remember The Milk so that you no longer have to write your to-do lists on sticky notes, whiteboards, random scraps of paper, or the back of your hand. Remember The Milk makes managing tasks an enjoyable experience." A few of my favorite features include the ability to share your tasks, task an item to a friend, make tasks private or public, and creating an rss feed for your tasks. Finally, as of this week you can integrate Twitter and Remember The Milk. It seems as though Twitter is finding it's way into my life more and more! Thanks RTM.

Microsoft keeping surface PC close to vest, for now

This Cnet blog post quotes a Microsoft official as saying that a Software Developers Kit (SDK) which will allow developers to write software for the newly announced Surface PC will be available "starting in April, I think the hope is...". For now the platform is only available to a few select developers and the focus of development is on the hospitality, gaming, and retail markets. The cost per unit is around $10,000 but I'd love to get my hands on one! I'm personally more excited about this than I am the iPhone, neither of which I can truly rationalize spending the money on or get a hold of even if I could.

Lightning strikes intensified by mp3 players

Both the Globe and Mail and the CBC are running this story and the main message is don't listen to your mp3 player outdoors during a lightning storm. The doctors are not necessarily saying that the devices, including cell phones and pagers, attract the lightning strike but rather the affect, on your body, of a strike nearby will be intensified by the metal in the devices and could cause greater injury. It is also noted that change in your pocket will have the same unwanted affect, but even so it's probably just good practice to put the devices safely away and head indoors if possible. The consequences chronicled in the news articles above sound rather unpleasant.

My Maps feature on Google Maps

Google has added a new feature to Google Maps called "My Maps" that lets you create and share personalized, annotated maps of places that are important to you. Add descriptive text, including rich text and HTML, embed photos and videos in your map, share your maps with others, and open it in Google Earth. Additionally you can apply mash ups to your map such as Google Real Estate Search, Our Earth as Art, and others including my personal favourite, Crop Circles.