Do-it-yourself Halloween hologram

Thanks to boingboing for this link. An instructables contributor shows you how to create a spooky hologram illusion that will delight your trick or treaters! You even get to use your PC!

Make A Cool Hologram Illusion! - video powered by Metacafe

Breaking the black market

Here is a really interesting story from ars technica. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, the International Computer Science Institute, and the University of California, San Diego are collaborating to disrupt the trade of malware and credit card information on black market web sites. Using economic theories the researchers are messing with the reputations of the traders and creating false identities to inject doubt into the market. It seems that those who trade in such commodities place as much stock in a black market traders reputation as you or I might in an eBay sellers reputation. Using this as a tool against the traders the researchers are injecting damaging misinformation about sellers into the markets and creating false identities so as to drop the trust levels and place doubt in the minds of the traders. I love it! It's kinda like stringing along those Nigerian scammers... well done.

Princeton scientists bend light backwards

Scientists at Princeton University have created a new material from semiconductors that bends light in a direction opposite to the way it naturally does. I don't pretend to know anything about what these guys are doing here, but the thought of these so called metamaterials "raising the prospect that they might be used to create invisibility cloaks", is just cool! The CBC has more of the technical stuff here.

Apple drops price of DRM-free music

Feeling the pressure of new rival Amazon, Apple has decided to drop the price of it's DRM-free music from $1.29 to $0.99, bringing it's prices in line with the competitors offering. In this Globe and Mail article an Apple spokeswoman is quoted as saying "It's been very popular with our customers and we're now making it available at an even more affordable price,". While they may deny that the move is motivated by competition, it's hard to ignore the fact that the music industry is in flux and with more competition and bands going it alone, it will be interesting to see what happens over the next little while.

Led Zeppelin to sell back catalog online

One of the last big holdouts, Led Zeppelin, said their back catalog, including "Communication Breakdown," "Whole Lotta Love" and "Stairway to Heaven," will be available from online music stores Nov. 13th. The two-CD retrospective, "Mothership," will be released the same day. It appears as though they are going digital in a big way, also signing a deal with Verizon Wireless to offer their songs as ringtones and downloads to mobile phones. Wired News story here.

YouTube creates filters to identify copy righted video

YouTube has created new tools to help clamp down on the posting of copyrighted materials without permission on the site. Dubbed "Video Identification", the tools "also give copyright owners the chance to leave their video on the service and to sell advertising around the content" according to this BBC article. Until now YouTube had no automated means of determining what is copyrighted and what is not, and relied on copyright owners to identify their works which would then be removed from the site. The new tools still rely on buy in from the owners, as they are required to provide copies of their works to be used for comparison by Video Identification, but at least it is a more proactive stance. YouTube is currently being sued by Viacom for allowing that companies copyrighted content to be viewed on the site.

Proof now available, politicians are zombies!

With titles like "Mindless Liberal Zombies Rise From The Grave!" and "Brainless Conservative Ghouls Attack!", JibJab.com allowes you to put your face on a monster killing character and take on the ghastly political party of your choice in their latest "Starring You!" video production. If you are not politically charged, "you and four friends can-can do the Can-Can, and you will-will. Petticoats optional!" Share the fun, and laugh until you wet yourself!

Britain starts digital switch over

Britain will start the switch away from analogue television signals on Wednesday, when residents of Whitehaven are turned off. The process will take 4 years to complete with the entire country being digital by 2012, which will see the project completed just as Canada's switch over begins in the summer of 2011. Finland has lead the way completing its Digital implementation in August of this year. Governments are mandating the change because digital cable is a more efficient use of the broadcast airwaves, with several digital channels using the same transmission space as one analogue channel. Cable companies and television manufacturers are no doubt pleased with the change as well, as new equipment is required and higher premiums are involved. The CBC has more details here.

Note taking advice from lifehacker

Here is an interesting article from lifehacker.com with some practical note taking tips. There are a couple of different strategies represented and for those who wish they'd taken better notes, it's not important which one you chose. Pick a system you like and put it to good use! I expect it might take a little practice to get you away from your old system, if indeed you had one, but in time you too can take notes like Bill Gates! They even have links to a few webapps that might help...

What's in a domain name?

The Globe and Mail is reporting about the intentions of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to launch 11 test sites today in languages that don't use the Roman alphabet. "Until now, addresses on the World Wide Web used Roman alphabet-based suffixes – .com, .org or .net – even if the rest of the domain name appeared in a language such as Japanese, Russian or Arabic." The move makes sense for those in countries that don't use the Roman alphabet but is it a decision based on pure motives or is it a chance to sell more domain names?

“If I don't do it, and somebody else does it, people will be misguided,” Vadim Sloutsky of torontovka.com, said.

“It forces me as a business owner to go out and book that domain and pay that additional money for that domain name.”

Failing to secure his domain name with Russian Cyrillic letters would open the door for squatters to set up a competing site that could leach traffic from his site. It's always been a bit like the wild west out there, looks like another gold rush might be looming.