TechnoInfo is a collection place for news about technology; specifically cool new things, and how technology and man influence each other.
March 31, 2005
Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers
"Google has enabled results prefetching for Mozilla based browsers, which means that the top results of queries are being loaded in the background and pages will load faster. "
Google Prefetching for Mozilla Browsers
"Google has enabled results prefetching for Mozilla based browsers, which means that the top results of queries are being loaded in the background and pages will load faster. "
March 29, 2005
Danger Areas in Business Travel
"Here are three of the most severe danger zones lurking under the radar of most business travelers today."
Why don't we pay attention anymore?
"It may be the greatest irony of the information age. All of that data flying at you by e-mail, instant message, cell phone, voice mail and BlackBerry--it could actually be making you dumber."
3D Animated Ads
No mention in the article about how to make sure this never goes live, but I guess the old standby of pulling out your eyeballs with a spoon will have to do.
Beware phony ATM facades
"Apparently thieves are building fake front-ends for ATMs, complete with card readers, keypads, and mini-cameras, in order to capture your ATM card and PIN (most ATMs are so janky that it’s hard to tell when you’ve got a fake one on your hands)."
Toshiba’s new battery gets charged in 60 seconds
"... Toshiba’s just introduced a new Lithium-Ion battery that can be recharged (up to 80% capacity) in a mere 60 seconds..."
Net fingerprints combat attacks
"Eighty large net service firms have switched on software to spot and stop net attacks automatically."
March 28, 2005
U.S. Bows to Europe as New Spam King
"The United States has lost its position as the leading source of spam in the world, with Europe taking over the dubious lead. "
Ever need to phone 7,000 people at once?
"The service is mostly for those moments when other forms of communication may not work, said CEO Sanford Cohen. One customer, for instance, recently used it to ping board members who were on their way to the airport. They were headed for a meeting in Florida--but so was a hurricane. They canceled their flight. "
Ever need to phone 7,000 people at once?
"The service is mostly for those moments when other forms of communication may not work, said CEO Sanford Cohen. One customer, for instance, recently used it to ping board members who were on their way to the airport. They were headed for a meeting in Florida--but so was a hurricane. They canceled their flight. "
Mobile pizza trucks deliver fast food
"In fact, before your order is even completed your pie could already be rolling its way to your door, thanks to the wonders of wireless and a small fleet of Chrysler Sprinter vans outfitted with kitchen equipment. "
Amazon Knows Who You Are
"Amazon.com has one potentially big advantage over its rival online retailers: It knows things about you that you may not know yourself. "
Long life promised for laptop PCs
"Scientists are working on ways to ensure laptops can stay powered for an entire working day. "
March 24, 2005
Hardware security sneaks into PCs
"Millions of workers will get the latest in PC security this year--but they won't get the full benefit. "
Have hackers recruited your PC?
"More than one million computers on the net have been hijacked to attack websites and pump out spam and viruses. "
Spam Is All Your Fault, Says Study
"According to Radicati's survey, 31 percent of those polled have clicked on embedded links within spam at one time or another. "
The six dumbest ways to secure a wireless network
Trying to secure your wireless network from intrusion? Unless you have WPA, it's just wasted time.
Mozilla fixes risky Firefox flaw
"The Mozilla Foundation issued a patch for a major security flaw in its Firefox browser on Wednesday and advised people to update their software. "
OpenOffice.org 2.0 Looks Good
"Beta of free office suite adds a database app and tweaks existing tools."
March 22, 2005
A look at the latest security threats
"Some enterprising spyware distributors have managed to make browsing with Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape dangerous. "
Shocker: Spammers Don't Protect Privacy Of Buyers
"There are more stories every day about various companies not doing an adequate job protecting people's privacy. However, at least those companies act like they wanted to keep the data private. At the other end of the extreme are spammers, who are gleefully selling all of the private info they have collected from those ignorant people who buy from spam."
How Computers Make Your Stupid... Or How Stats Are Used To Mislead?
"There's a study that's getting a ton of press today saying that kids who have more access to computers tend to do worse in school, when backgrounds are normalized. If this sounds familiar, that's because this study actually came out last November when it was picked apart pretty thoroughly."
RFID Zappers
"For the incredibly privacy-conscious (or those with something to hide), the TagZapper by West End Laboratories is a handheld device to wipe RFID transmitting devices."
Wired shoe helps gambler cheat at roulette
"We want to meet Laszlo Kovacs’ shoemaker. The Hungarian gambler was recently arrested in Australia, after authorities discovered he was using a shoe-based computer, connected wirelessly to an earpiece, to cheat at roulette. "
Needle Free Injections With Microjets
"In the near future, the fear of needles would be a thing of a past. "
Are Your Visitors Seeing What You Think?
"You may think visitors to your company's Web site are carefully reading every word on your home page. But they're not. People glance at a fragment here, a fragment there, and decide within a matter of seconds whether to stay or leave. "
March 21, 2005
How To Talk To Aliens
"For instance what if the aliens do not see in pictures at all, or if they think in vector graphics rather than bitmap?"
PowerBook As A New Kind Of Human Interface Device
"... Singh has taken the idea all the way and released software which lets you use a PowerBook with a motion sensor as a general purpose input device which works with existing apps."
Students Do Better Without Computers
"The Telegraph is reporting a large study that shows that the less students use computers at school and at home, the better they do in international tests of literacy and math."
March 18, 2005
The Audi that sees for you
"Audi’s currently testing a new prototype system equipped with what they call an anticipatory optical proximity sensor system—a real fancy way of saying the car can 'see'..."
13 things that do not make sense
""New Scientist is reporting on 13 things which do not make sense. It's an interesting article about 13 areas in which observations do not line up with current theory. From the placebo effect to dark matter, it's a list of areas in need of additional research. "
Search Rank Easy to Manipulate
"Greg Boser manipulates search engines for a living, and there's little the Googles of the world can do about it. "
March 15, 2005
GLAT
"But what if there were a standardized test that led, like, immediately to the really cool job? What if, for instance, there was a Google Labs Aptitude Test? There is."
The Peculiar World of Web Photo Sharing
"Can't get enough pictures of dogs' noses? Circular objects framed within squares? Newsweek reports on photo-sharing sites and picture blogs, where amateur shutterbugs looking to share their passions with the world happily blast their photos out to millions of people."
Compare Cities
Compare the cost of living in two cities (where you live now, and where you can't afford to move to).
Clip Path
Software of the day: after loading this utility, you'll have a new context menu (right-click) item for files and folders, that will copy the path to the clipboard for use in emails, documentation, etc. The cool things: 1) it automatically resolves mapped drive to the full address; and 2) one of the options surrounds the path in pointy brackets (<>) to keep the path whole in emails (a problem if the path has spaces in it). Free!
Tips for Wireless Home Network Security
"Many folks setting up wireless home networks rush through the job to get their Internet connectivity working as quickly as possible. That's totally understandable. It's also quite risky as numerous security problems can result. "
Stretching Wi-Fi
"New Wi-Fi products use smart antennas to boost the range of 802.11b and 802.11g wireless networks--even if you upgrade only your router."
Hitachi's humanoid robots can chat, zip around
"Pal and Chum look a little bit like first-graders on wheels, chatting up a storm and racing around the room."
Zombie PCs being sent to steal IDs
"Bot nets, collections of compromised computers controlled by a single person or group, have become more pervasive and increasingly focused on identity theft and installing spyware, according to a Honeynet Project report."
March 14, 2005
Virtual Reality Helps to Make Reality Better
"VR technology being used to treat burn victims and others."
Hack most wireless LANs in minutes
"In the past, a hacker was at the mercy of waiting long periods of time for legitimate traffic on a wireless LAN to collect 10 million of packets to break a WEP key. "
170Mbps data transfer via home power lines
"Sony, Mitsubishi and Panasonic are promising speeds of up to 170Mbps around the home via infrastructure you already have in place: power lines."
NY Times Discusses NY Times' Thoughts On Charging For Access
"A few months back, the folks at the NY Times admitted they were thinking about charging for access to their website. This is a bad idea for a ton of reasons -- including the decreasing relevance the publication will have on future news readers."
March 11, 2005
Robot Greeters at 2005 World Expo
"The Actroid greeting robots speak to visitors in their native language, entertain their children and perform rap music spontaneously while understanding 40,000 phrases each in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. "
Emergency Keyboard Airbag
"The Keyboard Emergency Airbag is designed to keep you from sending off a string of volatile, bridge-burning expletives to your deserving boss, coworker, loved one or intern and provides you with a moment to relax and cool off by preventing you access to the keyboard."
Beyond Bullet Points
"In a classic 2003 cartoon in The New Yorker, the Devil is sitting at a desk, apparently interviewing a new conscript for Hell:
Lucifer asks ... 'I Need someone well-versed in the arts of torture -- do you know PowerPoint?'"
March 10, 2005
At Least The Data ID Thieves Have About You Is Wrong
"Of course, the best part is that if you ask ChoicePoint how to fix these errors, the answer is "sorry, you can't do that." "
March 09, 2005
Better Alternatives To Red Light Scameras -- Increase Yellow Time
"The researchers found that adding one second to the current ITE formula for yellow signal timing yielded a 40% reduction in crashes, but shortening the timing by one second caused violations to skyrocket 110%."
Database Used By Government To Spy On You... Hacked
"Once again, this shows that no matter what you do personally to protect yourself against identity theft, you're at the mercy of a bunch of big companies who are always going to leak data. Isn't it about time we started to think of better ways to deal with this sort of thing?"
Would you pay 5 cents for a song?
"An academic at McGill University has a simple plan to stop the plague of unauthorized music downloads on the Internet. But it entails changing the entire music industry as we know it, and Apple Computers, which may have the power to make the change, is listening."
Rocky road for car 'black boxes'
"... others say such technologies contribute to an increasingly Orwellian society where individuals' every move is monitored"
Self-destructing USB Drive
"But for the truly paranoid among you, the DiskOnKey is will turn self-destructive after too many failed login attempts ..."
Puppy Linux Lets You Run From, Save To The Same CD
"The PC boots with a multi-session CD inserted in the CD-burner drive -- thus, Puppy Linux automatically knows which drive is the CD-burner, in case you have more than one CD/DVD drive. "
Virus Threatens Mobile Phones Again
"Security experts say they have detected the first mobile phone virus that replicates via Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and Bluetooth could spread around the world in a matter of minutes."
The cell phone industry: Big Tobacco 2.0?
"Unfortunately, he now says his findings show an increased rate of brain cancer deaths, development of tumors, and genetic damage among heavy cell phone users."
The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
"There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my personal pick of the 'best of the best.'"
March 08, 2005
MyWebEx PC review - Remote Access
"Secure, remote access to your PC; easy installation; many features available for free; true color support."
Breaking Down P2P End User License Agreements
"The EULAs include the standard, super long, impossible read kinds -- but the two that stand out are Kazaa and Limewire. "
Miniature Saliva Lab
"have developed a system to analyze oral samples for everything from alcohol, drugs, bacteria, viruses, hormones, antiobodies and more. "
Philips promises foldable paper displays ready within 2 years
"The monochrome display is easy to read even in full daylight thanks to a high 10:1 contrast ratio."
Researcher develops technique to track PCs behind firewalls
"The research, by Tadayoshi Kohno, concerns “exploiting small, microscopic deviations in device hardware: clock skews,” which are transmitted in outgoing packets, even when a computer is behind a firewall. "
New Zealand Business Fined For Out-of-Date Website
"By having out-of-date menus and prices on its website, it has breached the Fair Trading Act, according to the New Zealand Commerce Commission." "
Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond
"If you are in the state and selling on eBay, you will need to pay $200 for a license and post a $50,000 bond or face possible fines and jail time."
Google Updates Desktop Search Tool
"Google plans to launch on Monday an updated version of its desktop search tool with enhancements including the ability to search the full text of Adobe PDF files and the metadata of multimedia files, a Google executive says."
Charge a battery in just six minutes
"A rechargeable battery that can be fully charged in just 6 minutes, lasts 10 times as long as today's rechargeables and can provide bursts of electricity up to three times more powerful is showing promise in a Nevada lab. "
March 07, 2005
Talking Treat Ball
"The Treatball allows you, the often-absent owner, to record a message that will play for your dog whenever he bats at the ball."
Microsoft wants to watch your whole family
"Not content to rest on their laurels with the creepy bear, they’ve also got a creepy clock in development that, like the Weasley’s clock in Harry Potter, can tell the present location of any family member."
Japan’s virtual bus tour guides
"The Japanese figured out a long time ago that real people cost real money..."
Why Your Broadband Sucks
"You'll be pleased to know that communism was defeated in Pennsylvania last year. Governor Ed Rendell signed into law a bill prohibiting the Reds in local government from offering free Wi-Fi throughout their municipalities. "
What The World's Poor Watch On TV
"Today, America is threatened by a hatred that is inflamed by its seduction of television audiences across the world."
Stupid Security Tricks
"You'd think that with all the focus on security, such things wouldn't happen. But if you think that, you'd think wrong."
Why Johnny can't code
"Imagine being the parent of a 15-year-old sophomore at an elite high school who comes home with a report card ranking him near the bottom of his class in math. Knowing your child will soon enter the same job market as his classmates, would you be concerned? Would you work with him to improve? Would you begin to question the way math is taught in school? The United States got such a report card in December, when an international test ranked our 15-year-olds 24th in math out of 29 industrialized nations that belong to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development."
Microsoft takes a patch breather
"Microsoft plans to forgo its regular monthly patch release next Tuesday, after having taken the more unusual step of issuing a dozen updates in last month's release."
CCleaner - Crap Cleaner software download
"CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. " Also does a nice job on the registry.
The D2 tools for Microsoft FrontPage - CSS menus, dynamic html and pop-up windows and more.
"D2 Tools for FrontPage is my add-in that extends FrontPage with Page Building, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and Time Management tools. " Not free, but contains some cool features.
March 04, 2005
Wireless USB killed the Bluetooth star
"The wireless USB protocol will be finished by the end of March, and products for the retail sector will start rolling out within a year’s time. Designed to operate at a range of 10 meters or less, data transfer speeds will top off at 480 Mbps. "
Digital Gallery Open to Public
"The NYPL Digital Gallery provides access to over 275,000 images digitized from primary sources and printed rarities in the collections of The New York Public Library, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints and photographs, illustrated books, printed ephemera, and more."
Phishers Face Jail Time Under New U.S. Bill
"Democrat Patrick Leahy has introduced a new federal anti-phishing bill that would impose jail terms up to five years and fines up to $250,000 for criminals creating fake web site designed to con consumers in to giving them their personal information."
March 03, 2005
Media Sites: Say No to Pop-Ups
"A study conducted last year by Dynamic Logic found that almost 80 percent of those surveyed had a "very negative" opinion of pop-up ads."
Adidas puts computer on new footing
"The Adidas 1 uses a sensor, a microprocessor and a motorized cable system to automatically adjust the shoes' cushioning. The sensor under the heel measures compression and decides whether the shoe is too soft or firm."
Next iPod to get a big boost in battery life?
"... make it possible to make a hard drive-based digital audio player with triple the battery life ..."
Sony offers pizza feature for hungry gamers
"Sony has built the ability to order pizza into its latest online multiplayer game."
Call centers aim to make Nice with customers
"Calling a complaint hotline can cause some people's blood to boil, even leading unsatisfied customers to terminate their business. Trying to avoid these problems, many call centers are enlisting new technology to help listen to consumer complaints and respond more quickly."
Google's secret of success? Dealing with failure
"The technical wizardry behind Google's successful search engine may come down to a blindingly obvious insight: PCs crash. "
Microsoft TechNet: Tweakomatic Scripting Tool
A useful-sounding tool; but even more importantly, excellent funny documentation. Not what you usually get from Microsoft.
Could recent Microsoft clamp-downs, missteps accelerate Linux adoption?
"Is it me, or has there been a recent wave of headlines from Redmond that add up to a Microsoft clamp-down of the sort that could easily drive people away from destkop Windows?"
March 02, 2005
CNET's quick guide to TV types
"Once upon a time, when only analog, tube TVs were around, buying a new set used to be a whole lot less of a nerve-racking experience. Now, there are all sorts of questions. Do you go wide or not? Is LCD better than plasma? And what's the difference between new rear-projection LCD, LCoS, and DLP HDTVs? "
Coming Soon: Displays on Your Car's Windshield?
"Transparent transistors, currently in development, could change the way you see technology."
Smile and Secure Your Cell Phone
"Omron's facial-recognition system uses a snapshot of your face to secure your handheld device."
The Print Shop: Sci-Fi Inkjet Printers
"Inkjets are printing food, OLED displays, ultra-thin circuit boards--and even living tissue."
The Couch Potato Tormentor
"...it randomly changes the channel, or screws with the CD or DVD currently playing..."
March 01, 2005
'Perfect storm' for new privacy laws?
"A series of security break-ins is kick-starting a political drive to reshape federal laws that dictate how companies protect personal information--and what they have to do if that data leaks out. "
SIW - System Information for Windows
Very nice free stand-alone (no installation) system profiler; reports on hardware and software and many other things.
How to keep your HP ink cartridges going when they just say no
"Fortunately, there are ways to force some of the cartridges to keep working even after they tell your printer they’ve run out of ink."
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