] PieSpy is an IRC bot that monitors a set of IRC channels.
] It uses a simple set of heuristics to infer
] relationships between pairs of users. These inferrences
] allow PieSpy to build a mathematical model of a social
] network for any channel. These social networks can be
] drawn and used to create animations of evolving social
] networks.

PieSpy - Inferring and Visualizing Social Network on IRC

"I don't think America is getting fat and lazy," Dr. Richardson remarked. But he added that if the nation failed to make the right investments soon, "we're going to be left behind in a cloud of dust."

National Science Panel Warns of Far Too Few New Scientists

] Robot venture Tmsuk yesterday held a press day to
] officially launch and demonstrate its massive
] tractor-with-arms rescue robot, Enryu. There is video of
] this all over the news sites, a few links to which are
] below. See Enryu rip the door off a perfectly good car!
] See Enryu pick up a steel girder with one hand! etc.

Just in case you didn't know what to get the hacker who has everything for his next birthday, one of these would be damn sweet.

dottocomu: Enryu rescue robot in action

* To help the incorporation of trust management elements in existing standards.

Ahh... Another interesting looking conference I can't afford to attend.

Second International Conference on Trust Management

] "These people don't tune into today's radio channels
] which are aimed at a young audience. Our service allows
] them to discover their own music," Ashcroft said.
]
] Consumers can tailor the music stream by pressing a
] button on their phone to indicate they like or dislike a
] song.
]
] "It's self-learning. The channel will adapt over time,"
] Ashcroft said, adding wireless carriers are expected to
] charge a monthly fee of between 10 to 15 euros for the
] service.
]
] Sony's service, for which it has no name yet, will work
] on advanced multimedia handsets running on the Symbian
] software system, available on phones from Nokia, Siemens
] AG, Sony Ericsson, Sendo and others.

Interesting. This was being worked on at MongoMusic back in 2000 at time of assimilation. Sony and Nokia were even the primary investors for its last round of funding. If I'm reading between the lines correctly, this means someone really does not want (or was unable) to work with Microsoft. They already put out the capitol to develop the technology they speak of here once before. Mongo's secret sauce was based on the "Sounds Like" technology, but MongoRadio did have a direct feedback mechanism for its playlist generation. MS re-implemented everything done at Mongo (it was all *nix based), and the radio player seems to exist in the Music section of MSN as "Radio Plus", however I can't use it. It requires MS as a platform.

What existed in 2000 fits the description made here. I wonder if the technology continued to be developed independently, if it would have gotten more use. I wonder if the company could have survived. Hrm..

Sony to deliver collaborative filtered music over cellphones.

No, officers, we're computer scientists and engineers.

All the pictures are really neat. An autonomous vehicle of every shape and size. I think some of the video's audio overdubbing got mixed up in a few places. Maybe it was the stream. Nevermind, its not important.

Elite soldier units supplied by autonomous vehicles, "really smart" land bombs disguised as SUVs and cars, robot scouts, and many more products of science fiction are on the way, given the will to proceed by taking some very natural steps. The armies of the future are going to include much enlisted metal and many officers bread by video games. I either feel terrified or safe. I am not sure which.

What I truly fear is what will happen if we wind up with too significant a portion of our overall R&D capability as a country focused on building weapons. When we decide to lay new ground, we wind up creating things like the atomic bomb. WWII showed some amazing examples of how we could leverage our manufacturing capability and ingenuity at the time. We know our high tech creation engine is capable of performing similar amazing feats today. If we turn that on, we better be aware that once its on, its going to be pointed at something. Just based on the fact that humans don't seem to practice much restraint in the face of threats, we should assume we will wind up using whatever we create. Lets be careful about what we create.

In terms of robots, I see us at being able to either reach beyond ourselves, or reach out and crush someone. I would really rather be making Mars Rovers then Robot Warriors even though I see reason for both. As long as certain other people are also thinking in that same direction, this is a very good thing. The work of NASA may be the most peaceful way to exercise the power of the state. We have China to compete with now, and I think we can see eye-to-eye just enough to complete peacefully.

At any given time, I'm not sure if I should be in awe or scared shitless of DARPA. I do have the Internet here to sit and pontificate on, so I guess it can't be that bad. I hope our future robot masters are benevolent. :)

Robot Race Is Giant Step for Unmanned Kind

] Google has been testing a new look with a small percent
] of visitors. I wrote a bookmarklet that lets you make
] Google show you the new look:

Works for me.

] It works by changing the ID in your Google cookie to
] 102c51875a8839e9, the ID of one of the visitors Google
] randomly selected to test the new look. If your ID is
] already 102c51875a8839e9, it sets it 0000000000000000
] (anonymous), letting you switch between the old and new
] looks quickly. Since the bookmarklet only changes the ID
] part of the cookie, it preserves your settings, such as
] the number of results per page.

No opinion on the new look yet. I don't dislike it. Does this have any of the key controls Google was testing? I've always thought something "a"/"d" like hotkeys for paging through search results would be nice.

They have a version of Google with shortcut keys linked from the Google Labs page, but I did not really like how it worked. I want to navigate through Google like a FPS. :)

Jesse Ruderman: Experience Google's new look

] The dispute over who controls key portions of the
] Internet's address system erupted into open conflict
] today when VeriSign Inc., the world's largest addressing
] company, sued the Internet's most visible regulatory
] body, charging that it has been unfairly prevented from
] developing new services for Internet users.

VeriSign's power grab attempts continue.

Verisign Sues ICANN to reinstate Sitefinder!

] There developers creating "virtual Earth"
]
] The Department of Defense is commissioning a re-creation
] of the entire planet from online-sim maker.
]
] As a rule, the developers of There prefer calling their
] creation a "virtual world" rather than a "game."
]
] Now it looks like that statement will no longer be
] hyperbole.
]
] According to a report on the BBC and HomeLAN Fed, the
] Department of Defense has commissioned the Menlo Park,
] California, company to create a replica of the entire
] planet. According to the report, the Earth sim will be to
] scale, featuring real-world distances--so if a user's
] avatar wanted to spend three months riding a bike around
] the Australian coastline, it could.

Dare I make a Matrix joke?

There developers creating 'virtual Earth'

] Today, the big issue is Java. Sun's insistence on
] continuing tight control of the Java code has damaged
] Sun's long-term interests by throttling acceptance of the
] language in the open-source community, ceding the field
] (and probably the future) to scripting-language
] competitors like Python and Perl. Once again the choice
] is between control and ubiquity, and despite your claim
] that "open source is our friend" Sun appears to be
] choosing control. Sun's terms are so restrictive that
] Linux distributions cannot even include Java binaries for
] use as a browser plugin, let alone as a standalone
] development tool.

Sun screwed up Java because they were trying to use it to become Microsoft. Java would have been much more successful as a programming language had Sun not made these dumb business decisions.

Many entities depend on Sun like a pillar when it comes to managed environments. Certain concepts of managing systems, are tied to closed source approaches. They can't jump in with both feet. Its not possible. They can stick one foot in at a time. By holding back Java, sun is polarizing the language situation in the way ESR describes, while we have Opportunity and Spirit going on over on our side. Maybe someone wants our work going on in the open..

The Open Source Community should keep casting clue at Sun. Sun will catch on, and believe me, Sun will stick around either way. In the meantime, it seems RedHat is becoming the new Solaris. Take note, I mean that in a good way for both RedHat and SunOS/Solaris.

And where the hell is perl6 anyway? :)

ESR to Sun: Let Java Go