If you've got an image that you'd like vectorized, VectorMagic will do it for you online, free of charge. It's currently tuned to work best with photographs or icons. You answer a couple of simple questions (with sensible defaults) as you upload the image, then sit back and watch it being converted.

"This site is the result of a Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Laboratory research project by James Diebel and Jacob Norda.

We have strived to make the site as easy to use as possible, with a distinct and clear user-interface, while imposing a minimum of fuss. All that is required is a reasonably modern browser, Flash Player and an image you'd like to vectorize."

This site is Web 2.0 to the max and is one bad ass web app!

Gavin

VectorMagic The Online Tool for Precision Bitmap to Vector Conversion

On December 1, 2004, David Casiano was on trial, facing criminal charges relating to drug possession, when he noticed that an undercover police officer was present to testify against him. With camera-equipped cell phone in hand, Casiano exited the court room and acted as if he was taking photographs of the undercover officer and other police officers who were in the hallway outside.

Those officers complained to the judge, who ordered that the phone be confiscated. Casiano was reported saying, after his phone was seized: "What do you think I am...stupid? I already e-mailed the pictures to my house before you took the phone."

A court officer who was asked to inspect the cell phone could not find any photographs of either the undercover officer or any of the other police officers, and couldn't even determine whether the phone was capable of sending e-mail messages.

That led Casiano, 37, to be additionally charged with witness intimidation. (A local news report says he pleaded guilty to and went to jail for trespassing charges related to his original drug charges. Court records say the jury returned a not-guilty verdict on the original drug charge.)

During his subsequent trial on the witness intimidation charge, Casiano essentially invoked the I-was-just-kidding defense. He produced an affidavit from T-Mobile saying his cell phone wasn't even operational on the day of the incident. But the judge rejected it, saying the affidavit was not relevant, apparently on grounds that the threat of a photograph was what mattered. Casiano was found guilty, and he also lost on appeal.

This raises the obvious question: Under what circumstances should defendants--or members of the news media, for that matter--be able to publish photographs of undercover police officers or police informants? And when can merely taking a photograph constitute "intimidation?"

Police have already been alarmed at Web sites like Who's A Rat, which collect reports of alleged police informants and make them available publicly. Boston-area disc jockey Sean Bucci launched Who's A Rat when he was facing his own marijuana charges, and The Boston Globe reported that it outed at least one paid informant for the FBI in Boston.

But because the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of expression likely protects such Web sites, Who's A Rat remains online.

Can a cell phone camera intimidate a witness?

We're pleased to announce that we have acquired GrandCentral Communications, a company that provides services for managing your voice communications. GrandCentral is an innovative service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account, which can be accessed from the web. We think GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users.

GrandCentral offers many features that complement the phone services you already use. If you have multiple phone numbers (e.g., home, work, cell), you get one phone number that you can set to ring all, some, or none of your phones, based on who's calling. This way, your phone number is tied to you, and not your location or job. The service also gives you one central voice mailbox. You can listen to your voicemails online or from any phone, forward them to anybody, add the caller to your address book, block a caller as spam, and a lot more. You can even listen in on voicemail messages from your phone while they are being recorded, or switch a call from your cell phone to your desk phone and back again. All in all, you'll have a lot more control over your phones.

We're really excited to welcome the GrandCentral team to Google. While we're moving their technology over to Google's network, a limited number of invitations will be available to register for a GrandCentral beta account. If you have a U.S. telephone number, you can sign up for an invitation at www.grandcentral.com. Current GrandCentral customers will continue to have uninterrupted access to the service.

If you know me just ask and I will send you an invite... We had done something like this with AsteriskPBX a few years ago for use at home...

Grand Central

What is Android?

Android is a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications. This early look at the Android SDK provides the tools and APIs necessary to begin developing applications on the Android platform using the Java programming language.
Features

* Application framework enabling reuse and replacement of components
* Dalvik virtual machine optimized for mobile devices
* Integrated browser based on the open source WebKit engine
* Optimized graphics powered by a custom 2D graphics library; 3D graphics based on the OpenGL ES 1.0 specification (hardware acceleration optional)
* SQLite for structured data storage
* Media support for common audio, video, and still image formats (MPEG4, H.264, MP3, AAC, AMR, JPG, PNG, GIF)
* GSM Telephony (hardware dependent)
* Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G, and WiFi (hardware dependent)
* Camera, GPS, compass, and accelerometer (hardware dependent)
* Rich development environment including a device emulator, tools for debugging, memory and performance profiling, and a plugin for the Eclipse IDE

Android Architecture

The following diagram shows the major components of the Android operating system. Each section is described in more detail below.

Android System Architecture
Applications

Android will ship with a set of core applications including an email client, SMS program, calendar, maps, browser, contacts, and others. All applications are written using the Java programming language.
Application Framework

Developers have full access to the same framework APIs used by the core applications. The application architecture is designed to simplify the reuse of components; any application can publish its capabilities and any other application may then make use of those capabilities (subject to security constraints enforced by the framework). This same mechanism allows components to be replaced by the user.

Underlying all applications is a set of services and systems, including:

* A rich and extensible set of Views that can be used to build an application, including lists, grids, text boxes, buttons, and even an embeddable web browser
* Content Providers that enable applications to access data from other applications (such as Contacts), or to share their own data
* A Resource Manager, providing access to non-code resources such as localized strings, graphics, and layout files
* A Notification Manager that enables all applications to display custom alerts in the status bar
* An Activity Manager that manages the lifecycle of applications and provides a common navigation backstack

For more details and a walkthrough of an application, see Writing an Android Application.
Libraries

Android includes a set of C/C libraries used by various components of the Android ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

What is Android?

Google on Monday released programming tools for its Android mobile-phone alliance for download, giving developers the ability to start writing software for phones due to start shipping in 2008 and $10 million in prizes to lure them.

The software development kit (SDK), an open-source package available for download for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X machines, shows that Java is indeed the programming language for software running on the Linux-based phones.

Accompanying the SDK is a raft of details that wasn't available when Google and its partners announced the Open Handset Alliance a week ago. The Android software includes the Google-created Dalvik virtual machine for running Java programs, a browser based on the WebKit engine, and support for many media and image file formats. (Note: I clarified that the browser is only based on the WebKit engine.)

And hardware abilities permitting, it also supports wireless communications using GSM mobile-phone technology, 3G, Edge, 802.11 Wi-Fi networks. Conspicuously missing from the list is the widely used CDMA mobile-phone technology developed by Qualcomm.

To jump-start the Android programming effort, Google is offering $10 million total in prizes, each ranging from $25,000 to $275,000, to programmers picked by a panel of judges.

Memestreams enabled phone for real world (live) social blogging?

Google releases Android programming tools

On Monday, Google released the software developer kit, or SDK, for Android and announced that it would set aside $10 million to give out as prizes to developers who create programs for the new platform.

Android is based on the work of Andy Rubin and several other founders of Danger. Google acquired their newer venture, Android, in 2005.

Rubin, director of mobile platforms at Google, talked to CNET News.com about what Android phones will look like, whether they will compete with Apple's iPhone, and why the software took so long to build.

From Danger's realm come Android's makers ...

Good news for companies looking to refurbish and resell their dust-collecting PCs -- as of Friday, Microsoft has broadened its refurbishing rules in order to give outfits with heaps of not-quite-antiquated computers a way of offloading them with genuine copies of Windows XP. More specifically, Redmond will now be offering up a license for refurbishers "that is only available through the MAR program," and PCs that get equipped with Windows XP Home for Refurbished PCs or Windows XP Professional for Refurbished PCs will need to have a Certificate of Authenticity, too. Essentially, Microsoft is attempting to make the lives of those looking to deliver preinstalled Windows XP licenses on refurbed rigs a bit easier, but of course, there's a pretty rigid list of requirements that you'll have to meet before the MAR welcomes you in.

Microsoft offers up new Windows XP license for refurbished PCs

The Eye-Fi WiFi Secure Digital flash memory card is probably the coolest device to come out this year. What does it do? Well, it does just what it sounds like it does. The Eye-Fi allows you to take pictures with a camera that supports SD cards and then wirelessly transfer them to your computer or upload them directly to your favorite photo sharing site without connecting any cables or even popping the SD card into a reader. What’s even better is that it also comes with 2GB of storage on-board.

While 2 gigs is starting to look a little paltry compared to the higher capacity cards more and more cameras are beginning to support these days, most folks can take quite a few pictures on two gigs without running out of space. On top of that, the ease in which you can then dump the pictures onto your PC (or Mac!) really makes this card an incredible device. What is very frustrating is the incredible potential this little guy sports that is simply not being exploited.

They will get with it... As someone else stated they are probably getting some kind of support for the sites that they support...

Makes me want to get one to see how thus little card might be hacked if not already....

Eye-Fi WiFi SD Card Represents Limitless Potential…but…

A Los Angeles security professional has admitted to infecting more than a quarter million computers with malicious software and installing spyware that was used to steal personal data and serve victims with online advertisements.

John Kenneth Schiefer, 26, variously known online as "acid" and "acidstorm," agreed to plead guilty to at least four felony charges of fraud and wiretapping, charges punishable by $1.75 million in fines and nearly 60 years in prison.

Investigators say Schiefer and two minors -- identified in the complaint only by their online screen names "pr1me" and "dynamic" -- broke into about 250,000 PCs. On at least 137,000 of those infected systems, Schiefer and his cohorts installed programs that allowed them to control the machines remotely. The malicious "bot" programs also allowed the attackers to steal any user names and passwords that victims had saved in Internet Explorer.

FUD or Fact?

Security Pro Admits to Hijacking PCs for Profit

am easily amused I suppose. Trying to find a use for the old compact Macs I have around (Macintosh 128K, 512k, SE, SE/30), I set up a connection (see below) to my G3 and ran the LCDproc daemon from the old Mac using curses as a display. Using my GrowLCDprocDisplay, you can even display your currently playing iTunes songs!

Basic steps for a serial connection:

1. Get a USB serial adapter and the appropriate driver for Mac OS X
2. Use a null modem cable to connect the old Mac and your new Mac
3. Run an old terminal emulation (Zterm, MacTerminal, MicroPhone) program on the old Mac
4. Set up the /etc/ttys file to allow you to login over the serial connection. for instance:
tty.usbserial "/usr/libexec/getty local.9600" vt100 on
5. Restart launchd: sudo killall -HUP launchd
6. Login from the old Mac and run LCDd with curses as the display

doork!

LCD + old 68k mac = LCDproc Fun!