"A Web forum where cryptographers collaborate on the puzzle went from attracting about 50 hits a day to thousands of hits a day, according to its moderator Elonka Dunin."

Way to go Elonka! :)

Elonka on CNN.com!!!

"Ever wonder how Google's site ranking works? Wonder no more. Google recently filed United States Patent Application 20050071741 on March 31, 2005."

The engineer in me wants to run out and read this patent right now.

The realist in me knows that if I have implemented a technology covered by this patent and I know it, I have to disclose it and pay a royality, so I'm better off not reading it... Not knowing.

The cynic in me thinks that the fact that lawyers advise engineers to never, ever read patents is another brick in the mound of evidence that our IP laws are not serving their original purpose.

Slashdot | Google's Site Ranking Secrets

The huge influx of cash at the turn of the millennium led to the whole Web being built in the image of the Bay area. The website patterns that started there and - just by coincidence - happened to scale to other environments, those were the ones that survived.

Absolutely true...

California's subtle influence on computer culture

flynn23 wrote:

If Apple has licensed QuickTransit for an Intel-powered Mac, all current applications should just work, no user or developer intervention required.

If this is indeed true, then the world will be turned upside down on Monday.

Well, it appears half true. Apple is making an Intel powered mac. The QuickTransit Tangent seems a figment of this reporter's imaginination though... at least without anything to substaniate it.

o Since no OS will be married to any hardware platform, all bets are off.

I think this decision is a lot less important then most people are making it out to be. Even if I had QuickTransit it doesn't mean my commodity PC will instantly run OSX. OSX depends on lots of particular hardware being present. If I'm going to make computers that have all the right hardware, along with a QuickTransit chip... Well why don't I just go ahead and do that right now with a PowerPC chip? I think there is some sort of legal reason why people don't make cheap OSX compatible computers, and I don't think its likely to change. Even if Apple goes to Intel procs in its computers this does not mean I'll be able to run OSX on non-apple hardware. From a consumer perspective, nothing has changed.

RE: Hollywood Orders: Apple Wed Intel

The creation of the .xxx net domain has come under fire from net veterans.

The decision was called "obscene" by Karl Auerbach, former board member of Icann which approved the .xxx plan.

The controversy over the XXX domain is getting MSM coverage. The thing that goads me is that while this is a really bad idea, so are the whois requirements. In fact the whois requirements are about 1000 times worse. And yet no one cares. People have been taught to believe in freedom of speech, but not in privacy.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Net porn plan labelled 'obscene'

The Internet's primary oversight body approved a plan Wednesday to create a virtual red-light district, setting the stage for pornographic Web sites to use new addresses ending in "xxx"

Lauren Weinstein has observed that this may open pandora's box as conservative groups move to push content into this TLD and ban it. Legislatures will write laws requiring ISPs to block it, as well as requiring sites with certain content to be listed under it. Some sites which are clearly not porn sites but which have some content which may be inappropriate for children will be forced into this box under duress, and they'll fight back. And then there is the matter of interstate commerce. In sum, this is going to start a constitutional fireworks show.

Furthermore, I want to point out that ICANN is totally inept at choosing TLDs in general. I don't think that they should be allowed to do it. They have too much power to shape the internet, they are really not accountable to anyone, and they are terrible at it.

Consider .BIZ. Self respecting people do business, not "bizzzzzz." Bizzzz is what people who fence stolen goods do. No one uses that tld.

.XXX is simply a bad choice for a domain name. They should have used .SEX. XXX implies hard core porn. SEX is far more likely to be acceptable to a wider range of websites and I think would result in fewer legal battles. For example, sites about sex education would love to be listed under .sex, but would refuse to be classified as XXX. However, the conservative christians will want them clumped into the red light district so they can block them more easily, and so the fireworks...

Not to mention that .KIDS, which I think is a great idea, and presents fewer legal difficulties, is still considered a bad idea by ICANN. Obviously some people might have different opinions about content that is appropriate for the .kids tld, but the issue is likely to be less contentious as no one will be forced into the domain.

I actually considered applying for a position at ICANN, but I am not Joi Ito. Yet.

CNN.com - Stage set for '.xxx' Internet addresses - Jun 2, 2005

] We present a novel photographic technique called dual
] photography, which exploits Helmholtz reciprocity to
] interchange the lights and cameras in a scene. With a
] video projector providing structured illumination,
] reciprocity permits us to generate pictures from the
] viewpoint of the projector, even though no camera was
] present at that location. The technique is completely
] image-based, requiring no knowledge of scene geometry or
] surface properties, and by its nature automatically
] includes all transport paths, including shadows,
] interreflections and caustics.

!!!

The photo stuff from BladeRunner is real...

The BBS Documentary is shipping...

BBS: The Documentary

] Mashing up Google maps and Gasbuddy = locations of cheap
] gas in your area on a Google map (map or satellite view).
] Just choose a city- then the data on the right side is
] updated cheapest gas prices. If you have mobile high
] speed access you could add a GPS and have this running
] while you drive. In the future, maybe our cars will do
] this for us.

This is pretty useful, although there is nothing where I live. :)

Find Cheap Gas with Google Maps

] In the next few months, after being patiently nurtured
] for 22 years, an artificial brain called Cyc (pronounced
] "psych") will be put online for the world to interact
] with. And it's only going to get cleverer. Opening Cyc up
] to the masses is expected to accelerate the rate at which
] it learns, giving it access to the combined knowledge of
] millions of people around the globe as it hoovers up new
] facts from web pages, webcams and data entered manually
] by anyone who wants to contribute.
]
]
] Crucially, Cyc's creator says it has developed a human
] trait no other AI system has managed to imitate: common
] sense. "I believe we are heading towards a singularity
] and we will see it in less than 10 years," says Doug
] Lenat of Cycorp, the system's creator.

It's about time. Cyc has been perported to be on the verge of taking off for five years now. It would be really exciting if Lenat's decades-long effort were to be successful.

New Scientist Whatever happened to machines that think? - Features