Technobriefs
Jobs report: it looks like Disney has decided that there is only one successful feature animation company left...so they decided to buy it: Disney Board Set to Meet Amid Pixar Merger Talk . The price being bandied about? $6.7 billion dollars. This would make Steve Jobs (of Pixar and Apple) into Disney's largest stockholder and a prime candidate for its board of directors. Talk about a tipping point in the convergence of computers, the Internet and the entertainment industry! Speaking of the Stevester, he had a message for Michael Dell: Apple v. Dell.
Google takes a stand: Privacy experts condemn subpoena of Google, Google Resists U.S. Subpoena of Search Data, Feds take porn fight to Google and this FAQ. This hare-brained scheme: Putting The Screws To Google make me wonder: even if the "Content Consortium" pulls it off, who would ever find the content if it wasn't indexed by Google? Other Google news: from the "MIT Advertising Lab": Advertising with Google Maps, update on Google Video and sorry to be late with last week's news: Google Earth now available for Mac.
DRM dos and don'ts: from the sublime: Chumbawumba: Why we don't use DRM on our CDs, to the ridiculous: DRM keeps Spielberg's Munich out of award-voters' hands. Lets not to forget our poster child of bad DRM: Sony Snafu Brings DRM to the Fore. For a serious issue like this, we will not stoop to using "plugging the anal hole" jokes here: Congress Takes Aim at 'Analog Hole'. While up north: Hollywood's MP caught lying on tape.
Image search, auto-edit: in PCWorld's New Ways to Wrangle Video and Photos one thing that jumped out at me was Pictureal which is apparently a largely automatic process for editing down your home videos. You give them the raw video from your camcorder, they send you an edited DVD. Also using facial recognition along with text recognition is a new photo search service called Riya. Its currently in alpha test but opening soon: Riya photo search site open to public February. Along these lines AOL bought the video search engine Truveo which claims to find content from visual data.
New medical research: novel therapies and insights: Gene Therapy 'Turns Off' Mutation Linked To Parkinson's Disease, Researchers Find Another Origin for Alzheimer's and Utah Researchers Confirm Chromosome May Harbor Autism Gene.
Technobits: The Softening of a Software Man (Like the robber barons, Bill Gates has moved from trying to take over the world to trying to save it. No wonder no one’s afraid of Microsoft anymore) --- Apple to Sell S.N.L. Skits for iPod Use (its a nice idea, and while I like iTunes flat price for all songs, isn't $2 for a single SNL skit a bit steep?) --- Hey, Baby Bells: Information Still Wants to Be Free --- Math Will Rock Your World --- Science's 10 most beautiful experiments --- beautiful Hubble image: Best Orion Nebula Image Ever Taken --- Ants build their own medicine cabinet --- slide rule nostalgia --- Find Music You'll Love: Pandora --- Using Color Codes To Browse the Web --- Reboot your computer, be anonymous --- help analyze comet dust: Stardust@home --- artificial intelligence is 50 years old --- top ten reasons why nobody reads your blog.
