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| Notice: GeekPress is back up and running, thanks to Paul! It's still a not-so-serious tech news blog, but the format is significantly looser. Diana, having given up programming for philosophy, has her own philosophical blog NoodleFood. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. |
| A CyberHoax from Gatt.org |
| 5:46:30 am mst / 7 January 2001 found by diana / filed in humor / source NY Times 75 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Organizers for a conference on free trade thought that they were inviting the director-general of the WTO to speak at a conference in Salzburg. After all, gatt.org does, at first glace, look like it is run by GATT. However, that domain is owned by anti-free-trade activists, who managed to play an elaborate hoax on conference organiziers and participants. |
| Cream pies, fake deaths, and Italian vote selling: it's a pretty wild story! |
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| Star Wars Episode II photos |
| 12:22:41 pm mst / 7 January 2001 found by paul / filed in culture / source TheForce 130 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| TheForce.net has gotten a hold of some great pictures of the upcoming Star Wars Episode II from the French Insider. I especially like this picture of Natalie Portman. (Link from Fark.) |
| I'm also glad we'll get to see more of Samuel L. Jackson. "Hand me my light sabre -- it's the one that says 'Badmuthafucka' on it!" |
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| It's technostress! |
| 12:43:48 pm mst / 7 January 2001 found by diana / filed in inventions / source U.S. News 79 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| Gadgets like the walkie-talkie have endured because they are infused with a "sense of simple fun," whereas so many of today's tech toys are just "new instruments of mental torture." This article is a pretty serious look at the need for intuitive interfaces in hardware and technology. |
| Perhaps all user testing ought to be done with 8-year-olds. |
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| Brain scanning to detect lies? |
| 1:06:41 pm mst / 7 January 2001 found by paul / filed in legal / source U.S. News 46 hits / 1 comment / 0 e-mails |
| A fascinating summary of some of the scientific attempts to detect lies with direct brain scanning. There's also a discussion of the related technique known as "brain fingerprinting" and a link to its use in the Harrington murder case. |
| A couple of years ago, Diana and I read an excellent science fiction novel called The Truth Machine. It's set about 20-25 years in the future, and it shows the radical changes that unfold in our society when someone invents a 100% reliable lie detector. We may be closer to that world than we think! |
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| Goofy gadgets |
| 6:21:07 pm mst / 7 January 2001 found by paul / filed in inventions / source ZDNet 137 hits / 0 comments / 0 e-mails |
| At this week's Consumer Electronics Show, one reporter found a few vendors hawking goofy gadgets, including an electric shaver that looks like a pack of cigarettes, and a personal blood alcohol detector the size of one's thumb. |
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| Sony vs. Sony |
| 7:52:33 pm mst / 7 January 2001 found by paul / filed in digital media / source MSNBC 102 hits / 0 comments / 1 e-mail |
| Due to market pressures, Sony Electronics decided that they had no choice but to offer CD players that can also play MP3s burned onto CD-ROMs -- a product which they just unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show. This is not sitting well with the Sony Music division, which is part of the anti-MP3 Secure Digital Music Initiative coalition. One Sony Electronics employee sheepishly admitted, "They were pissed." |
| Sony Electronics is right to get in before they're completely cut out of the market. |
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