November, 2008

Nov 30 2008   5:38PM GMT

Who could resist Fennec? It’s so cute!

Posted by: Ivy Wigmore
Uncategorized, messaging, wireless, Mobile, applications, video, social bookmarking, design, gadgets, social networking, CIO, demonstration, Mobile Computing, browsers, Fennec

Site director Margaret Rouse and I were IMing a couple of weeks ago, which we do a fair amount of because our “office” spans about 800 miles. We were discussing a definition for Fennec, Mozilla’s mobile version of the Firefox browser when suddenly she said, apropos of nothing I could discern, “It’s so cute!”

As you probably know, IM conversations are prone to the occasional missed step or dropped thread. I wondered briefly what she was talking about. A cute browser, I wondered? But I had faith… and then there it was, a link.  Here’s what I saw:

No denying, it’s cute. But I was still none the wiser. I knew that Margaret is a dog person and, in fact, has raised guide dogs. That’s a cute pup, I said. “What kind is it?” It’s a fennec, she told me. A little fox. (Comprehension was, you’ll be glad to hear, swift and, well, comprehensive: Big Firefox: full-sized fox mascot. Small verson: small fox mascot. Gotcha.)

At least at this point, the mobile adaptation of Firefox is named for a small, desert-dwelling fox. Here’s a video demo:

All clear? Me too. Now I wonder what this week's IMs will bring...

~ Ivy Wigmore 

Nov 20 2008   9:08AM GMT

Windows Azure video demo

Posted by: Ivy Wigmore
Uncategorized, Microsoft, Virtualization, Web 2.0, programming, operating systems, Web services, WhatIs.com, Web applications, software development, cloud computing, utility computing, the cloud, Windows

Here’s Manuvir Das’ presentation about Windows Azure, from Microsoft’s 2008 Professional Developers’ Conference:

Nov 15 2008   4:21PM GMT

g-speak: Oblong brings the “Minority Report” operating system to science reality

Posted by: Alexander Howard
operating systems, virtual, media, data, Technology, fun, video, Internet, multimedia, innovation, cool, culture, interesting, futurism, invention, creativity, entrepeneurship, interactive media, tool, buzz, science, virtual reality, interface, display, geek, demonstration, immersive 3D worlds

William Gibson noted recently that the cyberpunk fiction he’d been writing over the past quarter century has now become science fact. Pattern Recognition and Spook Country are both set in near-futures with technology and social norms that are only a slight extension of the complex technological realities of the present. The neural shunt that jacks you into the network he imagined in Neuromancer hasn’t quite have arrived yet but some humans now have direct brain-computer interfaces implanted in their brains.

Brad Feld appreciates this relationship between science fiction and fact as few others do. As he writes in ‘Science Fact‘ on Oblong’s web blog, the future of human-computer interaction is looking breathtaking. And, while the genetically-engineering precognitive humans Philip K. Dick imagined in “Minority Report” in 1956 haven’t arrived yet, g-speak certainly has.

g-speak is a spatial operating environment from Oblong Industries that combines a gestural interface, DLP projectors and ‘recombinant networking.” It’s modeled upon the virtual OS operated by Precrime Agent John Anderton in Minority Report, the film adaptation of Dick’s short story.

That connection is no accident. The science adviser that Spielberg consulted for the film, John Underkoffler, has been quietly busy since the film’s premiere in 2002. A few stories have popped up over the years, to be sure, but since Oblong Industries was founded in the research in 2006 he and other technologists have advanced the technology considerably, as you’ll see in the video below.

Once you’ve watched it, read g-speak in slices and about the origins of Oblong in the MIT Media Lab to learn about the potential for this human-to-machine interface and the long road to bringing it into reality..

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

[Hat tip to Engadget's Josh Topolsky and Jamie.]

Embedded below is a 2007 report on g-speak featuring an interview with Underkoffler.

Nov 6 2008   4:56PM GMT

Will buckypaper cars fly — or will we need buckypaper airplanes?

Posted by: Ivy Wigmore
Uncategorized

From the Associated Press:

It’s called ‘buckypaper’ and looks a lot like ordinary carbon paper, but don’t be fooled by the cute name or flimsy appearance. It could revolutionize the way everything from airplanes to TVs are made.

See the video: