Technobriefs

by Craig Reynolds

Apple's new toys: before the It's Showtime event last Tuesday it was widely assumed that there would be announcements of new iPods and movies being sold at iTunes. There was even some speculation that Jobs would announce a video version of AirPort Express, a device that would stream video from your computer into your home entertainment system. Prognoticators of the second sort get an extra point for insight, but lose half a point because Apple took the rare (for them) step of announcing a product before it was available for sale. The new device, called iTV for now, provides an end-to-end solution for delivery of video content from the online store to your digital TV. To me this seems huge. Both Blockbuster and Netflix ought to be worried about this: forget schlepping around plastic disks, just download your DVD quality movies over your broadband connection. But wait, since you can buy TV shows at iTunes too, do you really need that TiVo? Heck, do you really nead that cable TV feed? There may be a time soon when all the movies and TV shows you want to watch can be bought or rented at iTunes. The money that you now pay to Netflix, TiVo and the cable company could be used to buy individual shows at iTunes. Now thats convergence! See also: Apple 'It's Showtime!' event and New UI Showdown: Apple vs. TiVo. This guy had it almost right in 2005: Apple, Tivo, and the iConcert.

Orbital Be-Bop: Astronomers name 'world of chaos' the KBO that dethroned Pluto: "the object has been called Eris, after the Greek goddess of discord. Eris is larger than Pluto, which put scientists in the fix of having to call them both planets - or neither. Both bodies have now been put in the new classification of 'dwarf planets'" Elsewhere in the cosmos this week: Huge ethane cloud discovered on Titan and Puffy planet poses pretty puzzle. It could be the end of the world as we know it, and CERN feels fine: Concern Over Creating Black Holes. (And yes, if you are keeping score at home, those were references to Q-Feel and REM.)

Pigments on parade: OK, this is two-thirds rehash, but what is it lately with new applications for old dyes? First it was cobalt green for room temperature spintronics, then it was woad blue as a source of the potent cancer fighter glucobrassicin, and now its phthalocyanine. the blue dye in blue jeans being inserted directly inside cancer cells using tiny gold balls as Trojan horses.

Technobits: AG threatens criminal charges as HP reshuffles its board --- Wikipedia defies China's censors --- Helping Big Brother Go High Tech (via) --- Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007 (via Project Censored, endorsed by Walter Cronkite, via my non-techno sister) --- EU software patents: How an avid computer geek bested Microsoft --- U-HDTV --- worried about being stuck at Web 1.0?: I'm ready to move to the Web's next level --- bicycle pump viral marketing (via) --- South Carolina Pushes Hydrogen Economy --- clean French coal, good news or bad? --- Making India a hub of venture capital --- Stemming Spam: better data leads to better filters --- Why men at war will pull together --- One small step for robots -- jumping (via) --- fly eye exposure equalization (via , via) --- anti-antibiotic: Wait-and-See Approach Works for Children's Ear Infections --- New Bird Discovered in India --- Beetle spawns new material: a super-efficient biomimetic vapor collector --- yikes!: Sex Baiting Prank on Craigslist Affects Hundreds and The Jason Fortuny Affair: Social Software and Griefers --- don't let anyone tell you electric cars have lame acceleration: Wrightspeed X1.