"During the 90-minute hearing, Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs said that ICANN board members could not be denied their right under California law to review financial records, travel logs, legal contracts and other internal documents."

Whatever the big secret is at ICANN, its gunna come out now...

Court orders ICANN to open books - Tech News - CNET.com

"Features include infrared sensors for location and tracking, sophisticated sonar for navigation, directional microphones, motorized wheels, voice-recognition software..."

All for $100. This thing actually does some fairly neat stuff. Watch the video... You can do some fairly cool stuff with robotics now... I think the biggest barrier to real useful applications is battery life.

Walmart.com - Star Wars Episode II: R2-D2 Interactive Droid

"ZIFF DAVIS MEDIA, which was a major player in technology publishing with PC magazine and the now-closed Yahoo Internet Life, has been telling advertisers that it will be forced to enter a prepackaged bankruptcy by the end of this week, according to a major advertiser and two publishing executives who are close to the situation."

Ziff Davis Is Said to Plan a Bankruptcy

"Being a computer expert for the bikers themselves is no safer, even though the titles of Web master and hacker are now among the gangs' most vital and valued positions. Two Web masters for the Bandidos gang have been murdered since January 2001."

Canadian Biker Gangs have professional hackers. Violence ensues. This would make a good movie...

Thestar.com/Biker gangs putting Web to deadly use

" I think it is very definitely worth the struggle to try and do first-class work because the truth is, the value is in the struggle more than it is in the result."

If you haven't heard of Hamming you haven't done datacomm. This article is a nice collection of truths about what it takes to make things happen. Its not limited to science. The truths apply everywhere. They all should be obvious. You've heard them all before. The one quote above is the central tenet of Taoism. Its nice to have all these truths in one place. Its good to remind yourself of them. This is the sort of thing you keep around for inspiration every once in a while. I imagine it could be like one of those CDs you just never get sick of. I'm going to try to remember to read this again in a few months time.

You and Your Research

Hey, no market crash, maybe we have seen the bottom...

Qwest admits improper accounting - Tech News - CNET.com

... Let's get real. In the scheme of things, the amount of money involved here is kind of piddling. A lot of people that talk about this think a million dollars is a big deal.

I'm going to venture a guess that ICANN feels that the elections had too high a percentage of "hackers" participating, and this lead to the election of "hackers" to their board, whom they don't feel represent the real user community. They probably have no idea how to get the people they feel are the user community interested enough to participate, so they have concluded that elections don't work.

Its interesting that Dyson is trying to distance herself from ICANN, while still supporting it. Playing both sides? Or maybe she feels that the end may come, and doesn't want to be swept away with ICANN when it happens.

Salon.com Technology | Esther Dyson defends ICANN

Howard Rheingold has a new book coming out in October. (Amazon claims it will be November.) Included here is Howard's summary of the concept. There are links to a recent NYT article and a longer article at Edge.org. Also included is the table of contents for the new book. There is an entire chapter on "the evolution of reputation."

Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive.

The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible ...

Media cartels and government agencies are seeking to reimpose the regime of the broadcast era. Are the populations of tomorrow going to be users or consumers?

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution, by Howard Rheingold

7Gbps AES because they put a lot of memory on the CPU... There was an Intel concept product that attempted to do this for general purpose CPUs, but I think they ran into the usual difficulties with heat. In this application the requirements are different and it makes sense.

EE Times - Startup offers gains in multilayer security silicon

"Microbes that thrive on nuclear waste, that can scrub greenhouse gases from the air and turn toxic soil pure again are the targets of new federal research funds"

A box that goes on the exhaust pipe of everyone's car that contains microbes or nano-bots that convert the pollution into something clean. Edible plants that grow on the surface of Mars...

Yahoo! News - New Research to Find Environment-Cleansing Bugs