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TAG: Friday fun

April 03, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Darts into data: Leveraging random action to competitive advantage

Ever get the feeling upper management is playing darts with the company's strategic direction? Well, thanks to new research from an IBM IT specialist and a 10th grader, you will soon have the technology to incorporate scatter-shot directives directly into the enterprise in real time.

In a paper entitled "Real-time data acquisition: Connecting your exercise bike to Informix or DB2," IBM IT specialist Marty Lurie and webmaster son Aron Y. Lurie outline the technical means for transforming pedal power into actionable data on the fly.

Equipping an exercise-bike pedal first with a modified computer mouse and later with a Zeemote Bluetooth game controller, Lurie and Lurie created an analog-to-digital converter to turn revolutions on the exercise bike into mouse clicks, which, when focused on a Java window listening for clicks, inserted a time-stamped row into an Informix database via JDBC.

The rest -- transforming the data into real-time reports via JSP, graphics generation, and AJAX -- is detailed in the report. But suffice it to say, by affixing sensors to various regions of a dartboard and tapping Lurie and Lurie's architecture, random courses of action can beget competitive advantage in the enterprise like never before.

Unsure how to weather a potential downturn? Just sharpen your dart tips, let fly, and watch the employment-status cells in your HR database flip to NULL until your cutback target is reached.

Posted by Jason Snyder on April 3, 2008 03:34 PM

January 16, 2008 | Comments: (0)

Microsoft 'spyware' to jack into your brain waves

A recently published Microsoft patent application should send shivers down the spines of those already paranoid about companies' employee-monitorning capabilities -- and once the technology in question is developed, companies will gain access to those shivers to trigger a little heart-to-heart with the spine owners' managers.

According to a report in The Times, the patent, which was last month published by the U.S. Patent Office after an 18-month filing period, describes a monitoring system that would enable computers to wirelessly pick up on a user's heart rate, galvanic skin response, brain signals, body temperature, facial movements and expressions, blood pressure, and respiration rate.

Although the sense of this sentient system would seem to be to provide nefarious means for employers to spy on employees, the patent describes a more empathic rationale. Detecting frustration by mapping biorhythmic changes against profiles corresponding to employee's weight, age, and health, the system would gently nudge managers to conduct a quick, how-are-we-doing-today pop in -- certain to ensure further off-chart trajectories for the monitored biorhythms that alerted the system in the first place.

Not surprisingly, such a patent, which could be granted within a year, according to the U.S. Patent Office, pretty much shakes the notion of privacy to its very core. And civil liberties groups and privacy lawyers are experiencing elevated heart rates and noticeably troubled facial expressions over the patent.

According to The Times, one such expert on data protection law, Hugh Tomlinson at Matrix Chambers, said, "This system involves intrusions into every single aspect of the lives of the employees."

Fortunately, brain signals will likely not have to spike to keep such a system out of employers' hands, should it even come to fruition. Yet, as an analyst speaking to this editor yesterday pointed out, people are becoming much more identified with their technology, as the iPhone and iPod phenomena suggest. How much longer before, culturally, we become accepting of computing-human emotive kinship going two ways?

Posted by Jason Snyder on January 16, 2008 11:04 AM

December 13, 2007 | Comments: (0)

'FoolTube': Jackass to launch user video site

Smack in the middle of a strike over digital intellectual property rights, one Hollywood studio is taking a two-footed approach to kicking striking writers in the crotch, as Paramount Pictures will debut Jackass 2.5 online, the first online premiere of a studio feature film, according to a report in today's New York Times.

Reality TV and the Web -- two ongoing sore points for scriptwriters these days, here, rolled up into one.

The famed LCD (least common denominator) franchise -- built in the main on filming the largely unthinkable -- will take its hour-long masochistic filth fest to the Web beginning Dec. 19 via Blockbuster's Movielink.

"There's more vomiting, nudity and defection," an anonymous executive told the Times, proving once again that standards-bearing quality content is fast finding its first home on the Web.

[For the record,the release date for Jackass 2.5, an unscripted, non-WGA film, was set prior to the writer's strike, according to a company representative.]

But the opportunity to watch Johnny Knoxville and Co. explore the boundaries of the body's ability to withstand creatively induced pain is only the first stage of this potential Web phenom rocket.

Not deaf to the clamor for community, MTV will launch jackassworld.com [Not an IDG affiliate. --Ed.], a site devoted to your idiocratic 2.0 needs, including blogs, archived content, and -- you guessed it -- user-generated video.

That's right, you will no longer have to troll through "in-the-nuts" YouTube meta tags to fulfill your at-work cringing fix.

And whereas Netflix continues to pursue Web 2.0-minded approaches to increasing its online DVD rental lead, tapping crowdsourcing to improve its peer-based recommendation engine, Blockbuster is parrying here with an old-guard favorite: exclusive rights to air Jackass 2.5 online for a week, thanks to corporate-to-corporate dealings between it and Paramount.

And for those of you who don't get that Sun Microsystems Project Sun Spot Development Kit sensor and robotics kit off InfoWorld's "Must-have gadgets for the discerning geek" gift list, Jackass 2.5 will be available for download ownage on Dec. 26 via iTunes and Amazon.com, according to the Times.

We may have to wait impatiently for the continuations of Battlestar Galactica and The Office, but in the meantime, at least we know those Hollywood bigwigs have an eye on "[opening] up and [changing] the game about additional content studios can create," as Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment President Thomas Lesinski told the Times.

And that, of course, is a potential cash cow for them, based on your interest in taking a server blade to the crotch.

What sort of IT-related jackassworld.com contributions do you anticipate seeing?

Posted by Jason Snyder on December 13, 2007 10:59 AM

September 06, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beers vie for CPU-coolant title

Despite a seemingly multimillion-dollar ad campaign to convince the world that its mere presence can frost away the heat, Coors Light came in distant last in what amounts to the world's first International Beer CPU Coolant Competition hosted by the ever-curious folks at Tom's Hardware.

For those late to the beer-as-CPU-coolant craze, Shelton Romhanyi and company pitted Molson's Canadian Beer against three industry-leading CPU coolants and a diluted solution of antifreeze to determine the best means possible for cooling an overclocked CPU. Shocking to some, the flat, warm libation from the Great White North took home second place.

Not to be outpaced de facto by their Canadian co-workers, the folks at Tom's sites in Germany, Ireland, and the United States proferred their own quaffable contenders to attempt to knock Molson's off the block as the world's best beer CPU coolant.

Guiness, Franziskaner Hefe-weissbier, and Coors Light were put through the beer-bong-tubing CPU-cooling ringer to varying efficacy.

Viscosity may have played a role in Guiness's pasting of the pathetic showing of the American frost-brewed light. And the unfiltered yeast present in the Hefe-weissbier may very well have proved the key cooling ingredient in Franziskaner's tipping the CPU temperature scale further to the cool end of the spectrum than Guiness did.

And yet at the end of this installment, nothing cooled to the extent of the original, as Molson's remained the top beer for whisking CPU heat away.

Posted by Jason Snyder on September 6, 2007 12:18 PM

August 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Beer declared second-best CPU coolant

For gamers and other process-hungry PC users seeking to eke out an extra cycle or two from an overclocked CPU, the answer may reside in the cozy in your hand.

Shelton Romhanyi and crew over at Tom's Hardware have taken it upon themselves in a two-part video to put three industry-leading liquid coolants to the ultimate test: Can they outcool Molson's Canadian Beer in a CPU cooling comparison?

Each of the liquid contenders -- which included Thermaltake Standard UV Sensitive High Performance Coolant, SilverStone Thermal Fluid, and Koolance Computer Liquid Coolant, as well as a diluted solution of Zerex automotive antifreeze, and, of course, a flat, room-temperature bottle of Molson's -- was passed alongside an an X6800 CPU overclocked to 3.63GHz through a system of beer-bong-esque tubing. Temperatures were taken just before the coolant reached the CPU, under the premise that, the cooler the liquid when hitting the CPU, the more effective it is at cooling.

Naïve as this hypothesis may be regarding the principles of thermal physics, the tests show unequivocally that in a crude setting nothing beats a beer when it comes to cooling your computing jets. Well, except for SilverStone, which under-termperatured Molson's by a fraction of a degree Celsius.

Posted by Jason Snyder on August 10, 2007 05:14 PM

July 27, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Cell phones bring bees to knees?

Forget the fears that cell phones are killing you. On a recent trip to Oregon with my family, in part a break from technology, I could not get away from the news that cell phones were killing bees.

This fear came to a head when my niece was stung on the nose, not by a threatened bee, but by a hornet while picking berries at Sauvie Island in Portland. (Mind you, she and my 5-year-old son were chasing insects with a miniature bug-catching vacuum for this Habitrail-for-insects thing at home.)

But if cell phones causing bee population declines -- and, as a result, flowering plant population declines -- were not enough, the curse that is modern telecom was slighted again with the news that cell phones were erasing hotel security keys. This was the word from a hotel in Yreka, Calif., where we were staying on our way home.

So, the question raised by these stories becomes: Is all this anti-cell phone news an attempt to claw back to the day when mobile phones did not run our lives? Or is it for real?

Posted by Mike Barton on July 27, 2007 02:02 PM

December 01, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Fake MySpace friends for sale

Are bullies over on Second Life kicking virtual sand in your face because you don't have hundreds of hot friends on your MySpace or Facebook page?

Well, here's some good news to pump up your deflated ego: A new service called Fake Your Space launched a couple of days ago that allows you to essentially rent some "hot" faux cyberbuddies you can add as friends and who will leave comments on your page each week. (I should add that as ludicrous as this service sounds, it doesn't appear to be a hoax.)

How does it work? Well, first you get to browse through catalogs of potential male and female "friends," all of whom look like average, run-of-the-mill models and will undoubtedly blend into your existing Friends page about as subtly as a Carrot Top fits in at a Mr. Universe pageant.

The catalogs aren't bogged down with any real information about your pseudo rent-a-friend, such as where they live, what they do, or what grade level they've completed. You make your "purchase" decision based strictly on their mug shots and first names -- though the site does emphasize that it offers "all different kinds of ethnicities, sexual preferences, and body types." (Notably, body types such as "Rubenesque" and "gaunt" don't appear to be in the mix.)

Once you've decided on a new friend, you simply add him or her to your cart and check out. The cost of the service currently starts at 99 cents per month per friend, which gets you two "personal comments" on your page per week. That's a special trial price, though, so you should definitely order now. Maybe toss a couple of friends in your cart for your unpopular sibling who still lives in your parents' basement, too.

The real question is, how effective a ruse will this be? The site eloquently claims that your real Internet friends won't be fooled. "We understand that you want your friends to look as normal as possible and as far from fake as possible. This is what we specialize in. We actually do make you look more popular." Well, I suspect your real friends would probably have to have brains the size of kumquats not to be fooled, but perhaps I'm just a little bit jaded.

Plus, the site does have actual testimony from "Lindsay in San Diego" who proclaims "FakeYourSpace changed my online life. I have never been so popular!" Quite a remarkable feat, considering the service has been up for about 48 hours.

Posted by Ted Samson on December 1, 2006 09:47 AM

October 20, 2006 | Comments: (0)

WoW addicts duke it out

Internet addiction is the latest "hot topic" in the social research crowd. Exhibit 1 is a new study out from the Stanford University School of Medicine that suggests there are similarities between Internet addiction and alcoholism, with 8 percent of the 2,500 people surveyed admitting they hid Internet use from family members. ("Hello, my name is Paul, and I'm an Internet addict.") So if you find a little WAP tucked into your spouse's closet, now you know why. ;-)

On a more personal note this week, there have also been duelling accounts of the salutary (or is it deleterious) effects of World of Warcraft, the massively popular massive multiplayer online rollplaying game (MPMMORPG) that counts none other than Bill Gates as a devotee.

First, on Tuesday, there was this soul bearing from a "council member on one of the oldest guilds" in World of Warcraft's virtual world. According to this person, "Andy" who has been playing the game for 30 hours a week for an entire year. At what cost? According to Andy, he put on about 30 pounds, lost most of his friends and generally withdrew from the "real world" in favor of his farming and guilding responsibilities in WoW. Typical of the post is a passage like this one:

"I remember clearly after fumbling around life for a few weeks that I dragged myself into the bathroom to get ready for work. I was tired because I was up until close to 2 AM raiding. Every week I read though email or I would run into one of my "real" friends and I'd hear "Andy, what's up, I haven't seen you in a while." I looked in the mirror and in a cinemaesque turn of events and a biblical moment of clarity, told myself "I haven't seen me in a while either"

But hey, at least this guy was single and unemployed...

"The worst though are the people you know have time commitments. People with families and significant others. I am not one to judge a person's situation, but when a father/husband plays a video game all night long, seven days a week, after getting home from work, very involved instances that soak up hours and require concentration, it makes me queasy that I encouraged that. Others include the kids you know aren't doing their homework and confide in you they are failing out of high school or college but don't want to miss their chance at loot, the long-term girl/boyfriend who is skipping out on a date (or their anniversary - I've seen it) to play (and in some cases flirt constantly), the professional taking yet another day off from work to farm mats or grind their reputations up with in-game factions to get "valuable" quest rewards, etc... I'm not one to tell people how to spend their time, but it gets ridiculous when you take a step back."

That post produced a whole lot of comment and "me too" stories, not to mention some backlash like:

"2 characters 2 years 60th & 49th level 8 hours a week at the most. Seriously, balance is easily achieved. If you do so, you don't have to get burnt out on it." (How many of us haven't heard that line from our boozing friends?)

A more thorough response, on the same blog, came this response from a fellow guild member in favor of WoW.

The main argument seems to be that in WoW you can: 1) meet cool people you wouldn't otherwise meet and make friends, 2) practice being a better human. No kidding. Consider the following passage from the "Pro" camp:

"I got a Masters degree in policy from one of the most difficult schools in the country while at the same time playing WoW and working a part time job. I would come home from a busy day and think about how to use what I learned to make the guild work better."

Or:

"I like being the very best player I can be; whether I'm playing a priest or a mage or a twink druid, you can bet that I'm crunching numbers and reading theory and strategy and trying to make every action or every cast more efficient."

To which I say, "Twink druid???"

Honestly, speaking as someone who enjoys PC gaming, but never bought into the whole WoW thing, just listening to these two dudes debate whether WoW is addictive and harmful at least convinces me how seductive and consuming the game must be. I mean, these guys are totally checked out!

How about this little gem from the Con camp:

"I miss at least one raid a week to go out with friends, go clubbing, or watch a movie with my family. I hardly ever farm. I usually play the auction-house for fifteen minutes before I go to bed at night. I actually gave up herbalism because I didn’t have time for it (and I wanted to DE the stuff my ex gave me when we broke up >.>). If I start feeling frustrated, that the demands of people in the game are getting to high, or that I don’t have anything else to do … I walk away. I go for a walk, pursue one of my other hobbies, or call a friend. Soon enough I’m happy to come back, because I enjoy it and because there are people in the game whom I love and who make it worthwhile for me to play."

Anyone who considers squeezing a hour or two of "reality" around his day job and a fantasy roll playing game moderation is off the reservation. IMHO.

Diagnosis: Dude, you're hooked!

Posted by Paul Roberts on October 20, 2006 11:56 AM

August 25, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Internal video slips out of Redmond

A couple of spoof versions of Office have leaked out of Microsoft.

Wait, no. That's a couple of spoof versions of "The Office," the popular British sit-com.

Titled "The Office Values," two internal Microsoft training videos, written by and starring Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant of "The Office," have found their way onto the Wild Wild Web, ZDNet UK reports.

Microsoft UK reportedly commissioned the videos in 2004 and at the time, refused to acknowledge their existence. The company is now trying to weed out who leaked them.

Speaking to ZDNet UK earlier this week, "a spokeswoman for Gervais explained that the comedian was concerned that the appearance of the videos could make fans think he had reversed his decision to retire the [David] Brent character for good."

She said that Gervais will not file charges against Microsoft.

"The Office Values" videos are available on some blogs and popular video-download sites such as Google Video. It was on YouTube, but now the site says "this video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Microsoft because its content was used without permission."

The videos, which run a total of 37 minutes, have sparked all sorts of weighty debate on the Net, including which is superior: the American version or the British version of "The Office."

Posted by Ted Samson on August 25, 2006 03:59 PM

June 15, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Japanese tech gear cranks out

It's not Friday yet, but we know gadgets are part of most IT pros' daily lives, so check the latest tech gear from Japan in June, such as ultra-portable PCs, HD-DVD laptops, and flexible e-paper displays.

There's a lot of high-tech in there, but Sony's hand-cranked Disaster Radio is one low-tech item that is on my list. Too bad it does not do streaming Net radio.

In Japan the threat of a major earthquake is always present so it pays to be prepared. Stores have entire sections of earthquake-related goods and soon Sony's ICF-B01 portable radio will likely join the displays. The radio has a large hand-crank on the front so that you don't need batteries. Turning the handle for a minute (about 120 turns) will power the radio for an hour on an AM station or 40 minutes on an FM station. There is also an LED light that will run for 15 minutes on a minute of cranking and a charger cable for cell phones. This latter feature lets users charge-up their cell phone batteries through the radio's handcrank. It's on sale now in Japan and costs around ¥6,000 ($52). It won't be available outside of Japan.

Posted by Mike Barton on June 15, 2006 11:24 AM

June 02, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Web-cams to patrol borders

President George Bush's home state of Texas will "enlist web users in its fight against illegal immigration by offering live surveillance footage of the Mexican border on the internet", reports BBC News online.

The report said:

The plan will allow web users worldwide to watch Texas' border with Mexico and phone the authorities if they spot any apparently illegal crossings...
The Texas governor announced his plans for streaming the border surveillance camera footage over the internet at a meeting of police officials late this week.

The cameras will cost $5m to install and will be trained on sections of the 1,000-mile (1,600km) border known to be favoured by illegal immigrants.

Web users who spot an apparently illegal crossing will be able to alert the authorities by telephoning a number free of charge.

Are you ready to become Big Brother for the government?

Posted by Mike Barton on June 2, 2006 05:12 PM

May 26, 2006 | Comments: (0)

25 worst tech products

PC World has gathered 25 products so bad that they belong in the high-tech hall of shame. IDG contributer Dan Tynan writes:

At PC World, we spend most of our time talking about products that make your life easier or your work more productive. But it's the lousy ones that linger in our memory long after their shrinkwrap has shriveled, and that make tech editors cry out, "What have I done to deserve this?"

You'll find AOL at the top of the list: "How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways."; but RealPlayer and Microsoft take hist for some versions of their core software.

Ahh, it is fun to relish the real duds. Care to share any of your favorite flunkies? Talk back to us below

Posted by Mike Barton on May 26, 2006 09:41 AM

May 12, 2006 | Comments: (0)

Skype-mouse flip-phone

This one is sure to impress the office colleagues, if one can procure one from Japan apparently.

Enter Sony's MouseTalk, an optical mouse that flips open to act as a VOIP or Skype phone.

Don't say we never break out of the business IT space here at Tech Watch. Count on a bit of frivolity and cool factor every Friday.

Posted by Mike Barton on May 12, 2006 03:53 PM

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