Category: technology

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Teens Fight Back

Remember the Mosquito anti-teen device that was supposed to deter kids from hanging around by emitting a high pitched sound that only folks under 20 can hear? Well students have turned lemons to lemonaide with the technology. According to a news article from Metro.co.uk students have highjacked the high-frequency sound out of adult hearing range and are using it as a ringtone in a defiant challenge against authority.

From the article:

Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology.

Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.

Clever. Here is a clip of the Mosquito Anti-teen device sound and a clip of just the ringtone—or so I’m told because I can’t hear anything.

(via Waxy)

Update: According to BoingBoing, using a 20hz sound as a cell phone ring is not possible. I suppose we are left to assume that the students have just pulled the wool over the teachers’ (and reporters’) collective eyes making them believe that there is something happening which they cannot hear.

Update: It’s now been pointed out that since new phones can play MP3’s and apparently people under 20 can hear the sound on the mp3’s it’s likely not a bogus story.

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Are Software Patents Evil?

One of the things I think I would enjoy most if I were an employee at Google would be listening to all the great speakers the company pays to come in and give lectures. Here is an tremendously interesting talk about the pros and cons of software patents and the related trappings: Are Software Patents Evil?

Because there’s so much scope for design in software, a successful application tends to be way more than the sum of its patents. What protects little companies from being copied by bigger competitors is not just their patents, but the thousand little things the big company will get wrong if they try.

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PC World Busts the Biggest PC Myths

PC World Logo
PC World published an article revealing the truth behind some common computer myths. Have you ever wondered:

  • If magnets will damage your data?
  • Does using a cell phone on a plane actually interferes with the navigation and communications systems of the aircraft?
  • If you don’t “eject” a USB device before unplugging it from a PC, will you really screw things up?
  • Do cookies track everything you do on the Internet?
  • What terrible things happen if you turn off your PC without shutting down Windows?
  • Does opting out of spam gets you even more spam?
  • If you don’t periodically run your laptop batteries down to zero, will you lose battery life?

Find out the answer to these questions and more as PC World exposes the myths that waste your time and money.

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Google and Firefox

Google adsense users can now get $1 everytime someone uses a link from their site to download the google toolbar for Firefox. Can you see what I’m saying? It’s time to upgrade to a better browser with the worlds best toolbar! See the side-bar for details.

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Youtube Video About the I/O Brush

I’ve heard a little bit about a new video streaming service called YouTube. Apparently you can host your files there and link to them via your blog. Check out this popular video that I have embedded on my page from youtube.com: (you will need the flash player plugin to see the video)

I first saw the I/O brush featured on a rocketboom clip a few weeks ago. Here is some extra information about it:

“[The] I/O Brush is a new drawing tool to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by “picking up” and drawing with them. I/O Brush looks like a regular physical paintbrush but has a small video camera with lights and touch sensors embedded inside. Outside of the drawing canvas, the brush can pick up color, texture, and movement of a brushed surface. On the canvas, artists can draw with the special “ink” they just picked up from their immediate environment.”

More information here: http://web.media.mit.edu/~kimiko/iobrush/

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The $100 Laptop

100 dollar laptop

A research project at the MIT Media Lab has a plan for getting $100 laptops in the hands of millions of people around the world.

The laptops will have a 500 Mhz CPU, 1 gig of RAM, run on Linux, and will be optionally powered by a hand-crank or traditional power sources.

The goal of the project is to make the low-cost PC idea a grassroots movement that will spread in popularity. Nicholas Negroponte, the co-founder of the Media Lab at MIT, said the idea is that governments will pay roughly $100 for the laptops and will distribute them for free to students.

“This is the most important thing I have ever done in my life,” Negroponte said on Wednesday during a presentation at Technology Review’s Emerging Technologies Conference at MIT. “Reception has been incredible. The idea is simple. It’s an education project, not a laptop project. If we can make education better–particularly primary and secondary schools–it will be a better world.”

(via News.com article)

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