In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

I'd never heard of this guy. Anyone got a link to the original source writings? Anyone read them before? Noteworthy?

The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web - NYTimes.com

Most of the bots we've seen recently have either been targeted at performing human-like tasks or simply too adorable to actually fear, but SRI International's wall-climbing robot is doing its best to put some terror back in the bot game, using something called "electro-adhesion" to cling to nearly any building material and climb with surprising alacrity. Electro-adhesion is apparently relatively low-power, and SRI researchers say that the bots can even climb walls that are covered in dust or other debris. Interesting -- just don't give the thing any cameras or lasers, okay? Video after the break.

Woah! cool

Wall-climbing robot scales nearly any building material - Engadget

Get ready to pay atelier sneaker prices for these babies, because designer MSTRPLN (not to be confused with MSTRKRFT) and Ubiq (not to be confused with Ubiquio) teamed up to produce some straight black Nike Dunks with built-in WiFi detection. It's called A Step in the Right Direction, and we might actually agree.

Because when the internet's around, you should feel it.

Nike Dunks WiFi = A Step in the Right Direction - Engadget

Usually, our dystopian nightmares of robot domination involve big, substantive machines - man-sized, or better.� But many academics and military futurists believe the real power of 'bots won't be realized there swarms of tiny mechanical critters. (Think the spiders of Minority Report, instead of the Schwarzeneggers of Terminator.)
The massive defense contractor BAE Systems has announced that it will lead a team of academics and military researchers to try to create just those kind of machines. (The picture, below, is from a BAE release - not a Tom Cruise flick.)

We're building things Super villains are expected to make.

Army: Make Us a Mini-Drone Swarm (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com

Critics have contended that the machine could produce a black hole that could eat the Earth or something equally catastrophic.

Where can i get one?

Collider May End World! (Or Spit out Man Eating Dragons) | Danger Room from Wired.com

This incredible antique automaton, circa 1915-1925, just sold on eBay for $1,775. It's 32" high and 16" wide. The auction listing says it may have been "a knight from a King Arthur type of display." I think it'd look right at home in a crucifixion scene. I hope the buyer completely restores and revives the (holy) ghost in this machine. From the eBay listing:

ORIGINAL MECHANISM AND PAPER MACHE HEAD. ARMS ARE WOOD AND POSSIBLY MADE BY SCHOENHUT. GLASS EYES. ELECTRIC MOTOR CAM DRIVEN MULTIPLE ACTION MECHANISM. WORKS FINE, HEAD MOVES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. EYES MOVE LEFT TO RIGHT, AND EYELIDS OPEN AND CLOSE. BREATHING ACTION AS A CHEST PANEL RISES AND FALLS. OUT OF AN ESTATE IN STATEN ISLAND , NEW YORK. POSSIBLY FROM HAPPYLAND AMUSEMENT PARK . BELIEVED TO BE A KNIGHT FROM A KING ARHTUR TYPE OF DISPLAY. THE MAKER IS SAID TO BE WILLIAM H AND CHARLES W COOK OF COOK STUDIOS AT 550 EAST DUPONT STREET,ROXBOROUGH PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. MAKERS OF DISPLAYS, AND ADVERTISING DISPLAYS.

Amazing antique automaton on eBay - Boing Boing

For decades, the armed forces around the globe have tried all sorts of ways to keep its soldiers and pilots awake. During World War II, American, German, Japanese, and British troops were all issued rations of amphetamines. In the early days of the Afghanistan war, these "go pills" were blamed for a particularly ugly "friendly fire" incident. A newer drug, modafinil, is now being pushed in the U.S. military as a safer alternative.

DARPA, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, is funding scientific studies into more exotic answers to combat the effects of sleeplessness. Columbia University psychologists, working under a DARPA grant, are keeping people awake for 48 hours straight -- and then zapping their brains with focused magnetic waves, to keep their cognitive capacities intact. The researchers recently published a study showing that the transcranial magnetic stimulation was able to "improve the working memory performance" of the sleep-deprived. Lexicon Genetics has found genetic targets in mice that seem to make sleep itself more restorative, enhancing learning and memory. And Wisconsin professor Giulio Tononi is breeding a strain of fruit flies that gets by on just a third the normal amount of sleep.

Somehow, i dont imagine the long term effects of this would be very good

Israel Mulls Viagra-Style Drugs to Keep Pilots Up (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com

The Register has unearthed a research paper that shows IBM working on a computing system capable "of hosting the entire internet as an application."

Nice... one big target.

IBM explores 67.1m-core computer for running entire internet | The Register

Swarms of robots that use electromagnetic forces to cling together and assume different shapes are being developed by US researchers.

The grand goal is to create swarms of microscopic robots capable of morphing into virtually any form by clinging together.

Shape-shifting robot forms from magnetic swarm - tech - 29 January 2008 - New Scientist Tech

The attack on Scientology, which Anonymous has dubbed Project Chanology, started in recent days, set off by the Church's most recent attempt to censor the internet by forcing sites to remove a creepy Tom Cruise Scientology video. A wiki set up for the project directs Anonymous members to download and use denial of service software, make prank calls, host Scientology documents the Church considers proprietary, and fax endless loops of black pages to the Church's fax machines to waste ink.

Hahaha

Heh... From the wikipage:

Church spokeswoman Yvette Shank told Sun Media that she thought the "Anonymous" members were a "pathetic" group of "computer geeks".[15]

Right.. Those computer geeks are real pathetic. Go worship xenu.

Anonymous VS Scientology : war on the intertubes - The Something Awful Forums