The videoconference comes of age
The Cisco TelePresence Meeting Solution combines life-size, ultra high-definition video images, spatial audio, a specially designed environment, and interactive elements.
Cisco’s new, $300,000 system, for instance, features three 60-inch video screens, lined up so that meeting participants on the other end of the line appear to be sitting across a conference table that blends seamlessly into the video image.
Source: Eric Pfanner, International Herald Tribune, October 22, 2006
Putting blogs to work for Wall Street
Collective Intellect has a goal: Make bloggers work for The Man. The company has created a service that combs through thousands of blogs, news sites, chat rooms and other Web sites every day and then surfaces rumors and news reports that might be of interest to traders or corporate public relations executives.
The system examines about 150,000 new postings a day. Then it analyzes them for sentiment–is it causing a stock to go up or down?–and credibility.
Source: Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com, October 23, 2006
Electronic Jeeves to smooth your social interactions
“One of the reasons why we hate computers today is because they are essentially a black box on the desk, and we have to engage with them in a rigid way,” says Alexander Waibel of the University of Karlsruhe. As project coordinator for the IST project CHIL, he is explaining why the project participants decided to put human needs first when researching new technologies that could assist human communication.
Source: IST Results, October 24, 2006
Despite security and privacy concerns, all but three of the countries required by the U.S. to issue passports with radio tags are now doing so, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday.
Except for Andorra, Brunei and Liechtenstein, all of the 27 countries whose citizens can travel to the U.S. without a visa are now issuing “e-Passports,” the department said in a statement.
Source: Joris Evers, CNET News.com, October 26, 2006
Cameras catch speeding Britons and lots of grief
To drive in Britain is to measure out your trip in speed cameras. As inevitable as road signs and as implacable as the meanest state trooper, they lurk everywhere, the government’s main weapon against impatient drivers.
It is a shame that so many people hate them. Among the ways that motorists have made this clear: spraying the cameras with paint; knocking them over; covering them in festive wrapping paper and garbage bags; digging them up; shooting, hammering and firebombing them; festooning them with burning tires; and filling their casings with self-expanding insulation foam that, when activated, blows them apart.
Source: Sarah Lyall, The New York Times, via CNET News.com, October 27, 2006
Breaking through Apple’s FairPlay
Jon Johansen, the 20-something hacker widely known for helping crack the piracy protections on DVDs several years ago, is taking on Apple Computer again. He has reverse-engineered Apple’s FairPlay, the digital rights management technology used to make iPod and iTunes a closed system.
Source: Joris Evers, CNET News.com, October 26, 2006
