Devoted to testing, reviewing & rating LED flashlights (torches) & other illumination products plus discrete LEDs & lasers.

The Led Museum

The goal of the GNU PDF project is to develop and provide a free, high-quality, complete and portable set of libraries and programs to manage the PDF file format, and associated technologies.

GNUpdf

The iPod Notes feature allows the iPod to support interactive personal multimedia presentations. Such presentations can be used, for example, as directed lessons or self-paced electronic guided tours. The Notes feature supports the use of text, audio, and album cover graphics for iPod models beginning with third-generation iPod (dock connector) models with touch wheel. Support for photos (JPEG files) and videos is also available for 5th generation iPods running iPod software version 1.2 or later, and requires iTunes 7.0.1 or later.

You should read this document if you want to develop such interactive guided content for presentation on iPod. If you are considering podcasting your multimedia content, or if you anticipate delivering your content through iTunes U, you should read the first chapter, “iPod Notes Concepts” (page 9), and especially the section “Podcasting As an Alternative” (page 17) to better inform your choices.

iPod Notes Feature Guide

Next to measured readings, their history data, extreme values and the permissible limits for the sensors, other information about your computer can be displayed as well. This includes the processor type, processor and bus frequencies, manufacturing data, the S.M.A.R.T. verification state of your hard drives, connectors on Intel mainboards, and many other items.

Temperature Monitor: Learn more about your Mac

In recent work, various fractal image coding methods are reported, which adopt the self-similarity of images to compress the size of images. However, till now, no solutions for the security of fractal encoded images have been provided. In this paper, a secure fractal image coding scheme is proposed and evaluated, which encrypts some of the fractal parameters during fractal encoding, and thus, produces the encrypted and encoded image. The encrypted image can only be recovered by the correct key. To keep secure and efficient, only the suitable parameters are selected and encrypted through in-vestigating the properties of various fractal parameters, including parameter space, parameter distribu-tion and parameter sensitivity. The encryption process does not change the file format, keeps secure in perception, and costs little time or computational resources. These properties make it suitable for secure image encoding or transmission.

Secure Fractal Image Coding

Mitch Kapor takes a comparative look at the origins, development, and impact of major information technology platforms of the past three decades from the perspective of a leading entrepreneur and software designer who has played a major role in each of them.

Disruptive Innovations I Have Known and Loved - Part 1: The Personal Computer

From Maja J Matarić:

The Robotics Primer offers a broadly accessible introduction to robotics for students at pre-university and university levels, robot hobbyists, and anyone interested in this burgeoning field. The text takes the reader from the most basic concepts (including perception and movement) to the most novel and sophisticated applications and topics (humanoids, shape-shifting robots, space robotics), with an emphasis on what it takes to create autonomous intelligent robot behavior. The core concepts of robotics are carried through from fundamental definitions to more complex explanations, all presented in an engaging, conversational style that will appeal to readers of different backgrounds.

The Robotics Primer covers such topics as the definition of robotics, the history of robotics ("Where do Robots Come From?"), robot components, locomotion, manipulation, sensors, control, control architectures, representation, behavior ("Making Your Robot Behave"), navigation, group robotics, learning, and the future of robotics (and its ethical implications). To encourage further engagement, experimentation, and course and lesson design, The Robotics Primer is accompanied by a free robot programming exercise workbook.

The Robotics Primer is unique as a principled, pedagogical treatment of the topic that is accessible to a broad audience; the only prerequisites are curiosity and attention. It can be used effectively in an educational setting or more informally for self-instruction. The Robotics Primer is a springboard for readers of all backgrounds--including students taking robotics as an elective outside the major, graduate students preparing to specialize in robotics, and K-12 teachers who bring robotics into their classrooms.

Praise for the book:

"As with electronics and then computers, the world is about to be transformed yet again by the age of robotics. Every age needs its technology to be adopted by smart kids and dedicated hobbyists to provide the tide of people who will carry out the transformation. The Robotics Primer is a bridge between academia and everyperson, and its readers will become the crucibles of the new age."
--Rodney Brooks, Director, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab

"Dr. Mataric has made a complex subject accessible to students of all ages. Students can learn in conjunction with hands-on experience using the robot workbook available online. This primer and workbook will give the student a first glimpse at the incredible possibilities of robotics."
--Helen Greiner, Chairman and Co-founder of iRobot

"This book is a very enthusiastic introduction to robotics. It is an excellent textbook for anyone designing or taking an undergraduate introductory course, and great reading for those interested in learning about robots."
--Daniela Rus, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, MIT

The Robotics Primer (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents)

Can human beings, with the help of smart machines, not merely avoid “collective idiocy” (in Sandy Pentland’s words), but actually achieve a degree of intelligence previously unattainable by either humans or machines alone? Three panelists study the possibilities from different angles.

Collective Intelligence | MIT World

"The Exploit is that rare thing: a book with a clear grasp of how networks operate that also understands the political implications of this emerging form of power. It cuts through the nonsense about how 'free' and 'democratic' networks supposedly are, and it offers a rich analysis of how network protocols create a new kind of control. Essential reading for all theorists, artists, activists, techheads, and hackers of the Net." —— McKenzie Wark, author of A Hacker Manifesto

The network has become the core organizational structure for postmodern politics, culture, and life, replacing the modern era’s hierarchical systems. From peer-to-peer file sharing and massive multiplayer online games to contagion vectors of digital or biological viruses and global affiliations of terrorist organizations, the network form has become so invasive that nearly every aspect of contemporary society can be located within it.

Borrowing their title from the hacker term for a program that takes advantage of a flaw in a network system, Galloway and Thacker challenge the widespread assumption that networks are inherently egalitarian. Instead, they contend that there exist new modes of control entirely native to networks, modes that are at once highly centralized and dispersed, corporate and subversive.

In this provocative book-length essay, they argue that a whole new topology must be invented to resist and reshape the network form, one that is as asymmetrical in relationship to networks as the network is in relation to hierarchy.

Alexander R. Galloway is associate professor of culture and communications at New York University and the author of Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (Minnesota, 2006) and Protocol: How Control Exists after Decentralization.

Eugene Thacker is associate professor of new media at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the author of Biomedia (Minnesota, 2004) and The Global Genome: Biotechnology, Politics, and Culture.

Galloway also wrote a chapter for Processing.

The Exploit: A Theory of Networks

Portable hard discs sold locally and produced by US disk-drive manufacturer Seagate Technology have been found to carry Trojan horse viruses that automatically upload to Beijing Web sites anything the computer user saves on the hard disc, the Investigation Bureau said.

Taiwan finds Chinese Trojans on Seagate Disk Drives Produced in Thailand