Anything Can Be A Touch Screen Thanks To Disney Research’s ‘Touché’

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The system, called Touché, has already been demonstrated in a number of impressive practical prototypes created by the researchers — from a “smart doorknob” that can sense precisely how it is being gripped and lock or unlock itself accordingly, to a container full of water that can detect when a person’s hand is skimming the surface or completely submerged to even a person’s own body, which can be turned into an input for controlling the volume of a smartphone or other digital music player.

via Anything Can Be A Touch Screen Thanks To Disney Research’s ‘Touché’ | TPM Idea Lab.

The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers

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I can tell just from the press shots, this thing is a Samsung lawyer’s dream. I’m sure you must be thinking,”Hmm, that’s a weird assumption to make.” but don’t worry, an explanation is forthcoming. We’re going to take a trip, way, way back to the prehistoric times of April 18, 2011: The day Apple claimed ownership of the rectangle.

via The Samsung Galaxy S III: The First Smartphone Designed Entirely By Lawyers.

For world’s most wired country, breaking Internet monopoly is hard

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At the end of the 1990s, Korea developed its own encryption technology, SEED, with the aim of securing e-commerce. Users must supply a digital certificate, protected by a personal password, for any online transaction in order to prove their identity. For Web sites to be able to verify the certificates, the technology requires users to install a Microsoft ActiveX plug-in.

via For world’s most wired country, breaking Internet monopoly is hard.

But mandating the technology had a host of side effects that, according to Kim, the FSS either largely ignored or didn’t predict. It forced consumers to use Internet Explorer because it was the only browser ActiveX plug-ins were compatible with. By default, Web developers optimized not only banking and shopping Web sites for Internet Explorer, but all Web sites. For developers, this just seemed logical.

The result has been a decade-long monopoly in the Korean market, where virtually all Korean Web sites are optimized for Internet Explorer.

Proposition to change the prefixing policy

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The web is meant to be a universal medium, agnostic in terms of device or UA. Of course, testing in several browsers is needed to iron out bugs. But when authors have to write for one browser, then port to a few other selected ones, something is wrong.

All in all, there is no simple right way for authors to use prefixes as they currently are.

via Proposition to change the prefixing policy from Florian Rivoal on 2012-05-04 (www-style@w3.org from May 2012).

From: http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/05/new-proposal-could-end-the-css-prefix-madness/

CSS vendor prefixes were designed to help web developers by giving them a way to target CSS to specific browsers and use proposed standards before they were finalized. The idea was to move the web forward without rushing the CSS standards process. Unfortunately, it hasn’t always worked out that way.

Stealth wallpaper keeps company secrets safe

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A type of wallpaper that prevents Wi-Fi signals escaping from a building without blocking mobile phone signals has been developed by a British defence contractor. The technology is designed to stop outsiders gaining access to a secure network by using Wi-Fi networks casually set up by workers at the office.

via Stealth wallpaper keeps company secrets safe – 08 August 2004 – New Scientist.

Copper coated

Solid metal antennas normally give a very strong reflection to enemy radar scanners. To hide them, FSS sheeting can be electrically set to allow through only the precise frequency the antenna wants to transmit and receive, while absorbing all other frequencies including those of the incoming radar.

BAE’s anti-Wi-Fi wallpaper is made from a 0.1-millimetre-thick sheet of kapton, the same plastic used to make flexible printed circuit boards in lightweight portable gadgets like camcorders. The kapton is coated on each side with a thin film of copper.

SmartDeco

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SmartDeco was founded in 2011 and is based in LA with manufacturing in Northern California. We believe in making supreme & eco-friendly products right here in the USA. When you open a box of SmartDeco, you’ll find handsome furniture that is refreshingly easy to assemble and 100% recyclable. No tools and no stress, just smart furniture for smart living.

via SmartDeco.

I find this idea fascinating.  It’s a new way to sell boxes and I think for people who move a lot it’s  just throw everything in the recycling — keep the move short and simple.

I do find their prices kind of steep.  $63 for a desk?  I think I paid  less than that for some particle board piece of junk on sale from Office Depot a bunch of years ago.  That this is just a fancy box if this idea takes off I’m sure people could make money selling desks for, say $20?  $10?   What does a cardboard box cost to make and fold?   Also, most office furniture sold at office big box stores are made of particle board which isn’t long lasting either.

File cabinets are absolutely perfect for this concept.  No need to box up the filing cabinet because the filing cabinet is a box.  🙂

Google makes plans to move Motorola Mobility to Chicago

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Among the handful of sites under consideration are upper floors of the landmark Merchandise Mart in River North and Fulton Market Cold Storage, a large warehouse that’s slated for redevelopment in the West Loop, according to a source familiar with the matter.

via Google makes plans to move Motorola Mobility to Chicago – Technology News – Crain’s Chicago Business.

Motorola opened the campus at 600 N. US 45 in the early 1990s, and employed about 5,000 people at its peak.

Ethernet over Copper

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ADTRAN’s Ethernet over Copper (EoCu) products enable service providers to extend packet-based business-class services beyond the reach of their fiber networks by leveraging the existing investment of copper-based TDM business services assets. This means leveraging the full advantages of TDM, the most understood, successful, and ubiquitous business service infrastructure. Due to budget restrictions and time to market requirements, deploying fiber to address nascent or disperse service demand is not feasible. This leaves a large percentage of businesses to rely on copper business access.

via Ethernet over Copper | EoCu Products | TDM Business Services from ADTRAN.

GoGo to buy Airfone to boost in-flight Wi-Fi

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Airfone has been around for decades as an in-flight telephone service provider and has passed through a long string of corporate ownership, including GTE Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc. In 2008, Verizon sold Airfone to LiveTV. Now Gogo will acquire Airfone’s network infrastructure, as well as a 1 MHz spectrum license currently held by LiveTV. Gogo already has a 3 MHz license. The company’s network is air-to-ground, meaning it has cellular towers that beam signals to aircraft. The network covers the contiguous U.S. and portions of Alaska.

via GoGo to buy Airfone to boost in-flight Wi-Fi – chicagotribune.com.

Raspberry Pi Review & Initial How-To Setup Guide

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We received a Model B ($35), which is powered by a Broadcom BCM2835 SoC that includes a 700MHz ARM1176JZF-S CPU core, 256MB of RAM and a Broadcom VideoCore IV GPU with OpenGL ES 2.0 that supports 1080p at 30FPS as well as H.264 and MPEG-4 high-profile decoding for smooth Blu-ray playback. Connectivity includes two USB ports, Ethernet, HDMI, RCA video, an SD card slot, a 3.5mm audio jack and two rows of 13 General Purpose Input/Output (GPIO) pins for further expansion.

via Raspberry Pi Review & Initial How-To Setup Guide – TechSpot Reviews.

Once the process is finished, a popup will notify you that the write was successful. Close the box, exit the application, unmount the SD card from your PC and attach it to the Raspberry Pi. Assuming everything went well, you’re ready to fire the device up. The first time the computer boots from the SD card it will automatically configure itself. It will then reboot and load up once again to the login screen.

The default username for Debian is pi and the password is raspberry. You can then load the LXDE desktop environment by entering startx. A few moments later, the desktop will load up as below: