Tag Archives: technology

The NYPD is asking for federal permission to disrupt cell phone service in NYC in the event of another terrorist attack, citing the use of mobile devices to coordinate last year’s bombings in Mumbai. A draft copy of [NYPD Chief] Kelly’s statement to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security says the NYPD believes the Mumbai attacks could be a model …

If you suspect that your local barrista is not giving you the decaf you ordered, test strips are now available. Whether accidentally or on purpose, for some, this unexpected addition of caffeine could be a serious health threat–at least serious enough to warrant caution. Those who have high blood pressure or a heart condition should probably be avoiding caffeine. However, …

And man, is it ugly. Is it a car? Is it a plane? Actually, it’s both. The first flying car, equally at home in the sky or on the road, is scheduled to take to the air next month. If it survives its first test flight, the Terrafugia Transition, which can transform itself from a two-seater car to a plane …

Advertising wonks say that Barack Obama’s public devotion to his Blackberry would be worth as much as $50M if the president were able to sign an endorsement deal. President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly said how much his BlackBerry means to him and how he is dreading the prospect of being forced to give it up, because of legal and security …

Guesses?

If you follow the tech blogs, you’ll know that for weeks they’ve been buzzing about Apple head Steve Job’s health and that he won’t appear at this year’s MacWorld, which begins tomorrow. Apple’s PR flacks have been insisting that Jobs is fine, but Apple stock has suffered from the speculation. Today Jobs came out with the truth. As many of …

Gizmodo is reporting that the nation’s 30GB Zune owners are waking up today to find their devices “frozen” in some apparent Y2K-ish programming glitch. The problem is being reported by thousands of Zune owners across numerous user forums. Apparently, around 2:00 AM today, the Zune models either reset, or were already off. Upon when turning on, the thing loads up …

Coolness from Google Earth Blog: Google has updated the 3D buildings in Google Earth for New York City! This is a HUGE update with at least hundreds (if not thousands) of new 3D buildings with photo textures applied. Basically, Google has completed nearly every building in Manhattan Island for Google Earth. Just fly to “New York City” and turn on …

One of the world’s largest and brightest LED billboards lit up in Times Square last night. Via New York Times: The new Walgreens sign going live in Times Square Thursday is not the largest LED-based sign in the world, but its developers believe that it is the most complex, both in terms of its construction and operation. Rising 340 feet …

While CNN’s much-ballyhooed “hologram” gimmick last night was interesting, it wasn’t an actual hologram. Wolf Blitzer wasn’t seeing those people in front of him, it was all done in the computer. Meh.

A broad coalition of Silicon Valley tech companies have formed “Silicon Valley Leaders Says No On Proposition 8” and will publish a full-page ad in tomorrow’s San Jose Mercury-News urging opposition to Prop 8. The honorary co-chairs of “Silicon Valley Leaders Say NO on Proposition 8″ include: Brin; Bill Campbell, Chairman, Intuit; David Filo, Founder, Yahoo; Chuck Geschke, Founder and …

Last night’s cyber-attack on No On 8’s site is continuing. The denial-of-service (DoS) attack on NoOnProp8.com that started last night continues. When you attempt to go to the URL, it either will time out or, perhaps, eventually load after a long delay. How does this happen? In one common DoS scenario, it would be this: Botnets of infected Windows computers …

The No On 8 and Say No 2 sites were the apparent victims of a cyber attack last night. Via press release: Today the NO on Prop 8 campaign’s Web site was the victim of what appears to be a coordinated attack designed to bring the system down. According to http://www.responsetrack.net/lnk/calitics/1855212/?14LGF0093D5/ , the denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the NO on …

A nightclub in Rotterdam is using a dance floor that generates energy from the movements of the dancers. If you felt that the atmosphere in the new hip Club Watt was somehow electric, you would be right: Watt has a new type of dance floor that harvests the energy generated by jumps and gyrations and transforms it into electricity. It …

Gizmodo has posted a detailed review of Google’s new Android phone. Summary: It’s not the iPhone. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. Reportedly, Google has already sold out of the 1.5 million units it stocked for advance orders. Another 2 million are set to ship to retailers this week.

Sometime in the 50’s, mathematician Alan Turing predicted that one day computers would converse with humans so easily, humans would not know they were speaking with a machine. The so-calling Turing Test, the ability of a computer to fool a human 30% of the time, has not yet been achieved. But Sunday, one computer came very close. On Sunday, a …

Via Jalopnik: Barack Obama has begun advertising on billboards within the virtual world of an online video game in what appears to be a first for a presidential campaign. Players of the online racing video game Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360 Live network noticed billboards promoting Barack Obama and the website VoteForChange.com, which helps people determine how to register …

How about a handheld detector for a slew of diseases, including HIV? Testing for diseases such as cancer and multiple sclerosis could soon be as simple as using a pregnancy testing kit. A team led by scientists at the University of Leeds has developed a biosensor technology that uses antibodies to detect biomarkers – molecules in the human body which …

Scientists at Purdue University are lobbying Congress to require that radiation detectors be installed in cell phones, allowing the government to instantly triangulate the location of a potential dirty bomb. “We have to fight this American knee-jerk toward the highest tech,” says Andrew Longman, a project leader. The Purdue team is designing a detection system that’s so small it could …

Adobe has just released a Flash update that will resolve an intermittent problem some are having with embedded videos playing in Firefox, Chrome, and Safari (but not IE, for once.) If embedded videos are freezing at the 2-second mark, the recommendation is to uninstall Flash and either revert to an earlier version or update to the beta version of Flash …