Late Night Thoughts About an Index Really Worth More Than a Thousand Words

What if a photograph could be, in of itself, a search query?

A photo could be uploaded and links with descriptions fed back based on what the algorithm detected the photo to be. The perfect match might tell you who an unknown person is, or when the photo was taken. Perhaps it could detect and reference location based on skyline patterns or landmark geometry. Perhaps similar photos could be be fed back, giving say, more photos of the same person or place.

What if our Voice communications, like IP telephone conversations, were recorded and indexed and could be searched like emails are with Gmail? Not in a "big brother" sense, but say for mutually accepted and practical reasons. I think of business conversations, teleconferences, and presenations.

It seems so rudimentary, so simple, but its very powerful and some might say frightening: When everything is completely digital, it can all be, at least theoretically, indexed and searchable. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that algorithims could be developed to do it. That kind of index would really be worth more than a thousand words.

Conan O'Brien begs Google to buy His Tube

In one of the funniest, laugh out loud bits I've seen in a while, Conan O'Brien begged Google to buy his show too last night. He said the creators of YouTube were just 20-somethings with soul patches and bongos, and that he wanted some of that 1.6 billion "scratch" too. His reasoning -- YouTube has a bunch of funny yet ridiculous video shorts ...and so does his show! He then played a few that were hilarious. (I so wish a tuner card hooked up to my PC) His offer price for the nationally syndicated late night NBC show: $44,000. La Bamba comes for free.

Sun Microsystems to do press conferences in Second Life

Computer company Sun Microsystems has announced that they are going to conduct online press conferences in the virtual world of Second Life. This comes after their CEO, Jonathan Schwartz has announced his request to the SEC for permission to disclose & disseminate official company info via his blog. Business/Tech Journal Red Herring has a good piece on why this is a major shift for the way public business information is distributed.


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University (literally) Tests Students' Sanity

"More than 5,000 first-year students at Shanghai University were asked to rate their feelings on a five-point scale in 90 situations, including 'hearing voices that others can't hear' and 'having the idea that someone can control your thoughts.'

Makes me wonder if it's "pass/fail" -or- graded?

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Life on the Grid is, er,back to beta

Ok, so in the hopes of adding cool new features to this blog, I signed up for Blogger's "beta" service. Big mistake for me. I love to blog about things I find on Digg.com and I use the Firefox plug-in to blog while Im surfing and now both are broke! This is my own fault...I should've left well enough alone, but I had to go and mess with things. (one would've thought I would have learned after downloaded IE7 beta and subsequently destroying and preventing ever getting back IE6)

Take it from me, if you use Blogger with Digg or other tools...don't go Beta. You can't go back :(

The {animated} Art of Excel Spreadsheets.

Check out this montage of 8-bit interpretations of landscapes, words, and psychedelic abstracts rendered in Microsoft Excel. From "58 Days Worth of Drawing Exercises in Microsoft Excel" See also danielleaubert.com

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McDonald's tags food with high-tech nutrition information

McDonald's in Japan is printing QR Code bar codes on the food wrappers for 32 products. These can be scanned with camera-equipped cell phones to pull up a web page with the nutritional information for the product. QR Codes are being used by many companies in Japan in advertising and on business cards. The story links to a page with all the codes.

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Auto Makers working on Car-to-Car Communications

As part of an effort by the Japanese government to create a nationwide intelligent transportation system, Nissan and other automakers are testing advanced Car-to-Car communications that could do things such as send signals between vehicles and roadside structures including traffic lights and utility poles. They are working on ways to gauge vehicles' relative speed, distance, and acceleration... sending a warning signal if a car is in danger of running a red light or colliding with another vehicle in low-visibility conditions.

Seperately, GM and Toyota have already shown some of their work on collision detection technology that broadcasts information such as the speed and braking status of other vehicles.

In Europe, manufacturers are have also been working on their own Car2Car initiatives comprised of manufacturers such as BMW and others.

Now if they could get them to change their own oil...

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Digital Media Server Stores Up to 3 Terabytes of Digital content

Infrant Technologies, a leader in network-based storage for home and small business use, announced the ultra-high-capacity and virtually silent Infrant Repertoire(TM) Digital Media Server, designed exclusively for the audio/visual enthusiast home theater market.




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Nokia announces new blackberry style handset, content deal with Warner Bros

Overshadowed by Apple today, Nokia announced a new phone: the E62, reportedly the lowest priced blackberry/treo style handset yet ($149.99 US) Not to be outdone by the Apple/Disney alliance, They announced an exclusive content deal with Warner Brothers. Now if you're so inclined, you can check your email and watch Tom & Jerry or something.

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Danger Mouse Remixes Paris Hilton!!

Courtesy of Sandford Sweet on Digg.com, Nice find man, nice find..."As good as Gnarls Barkley, DangerDoom, and Gorillaz are, Danger Mouse's latest collaboration has probably produced his most amazing work to date. With the help of Banksy, an infamous British graffiti artist, Danger Mouse recently produced and distributed a shocking mock-remix of Paris Hilton's self-titled debut album."

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Random Tunes and Retro Video Games -- Online

I was at a party this last night when one of the guests commandeered the sound system with his iPod. He had put together a mix of various styles and eras to intentionally sound eclectic, like it was set to shuffle. I thought this was cool (it was a good mix of tunes) and upon my recuperation today I was surprised to find out that there's officially a phenomena in the FM Radio business based on this concept called JackFM. Jack FM is essentially music from the 60's, 70's, 80's, and some 90's thrown together in a completely (or seemingly) unpredictable and random way. Usually there's no live DJ's and the ads & talking is shorter than regular radio. JackFM can be heard on the web and has stations & knock-offs all over the counrty. What does this have to do with Retro Video Games Online?

One of the stations, 1055jackfm.com has Asteroids, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunt, Frogger, Moon Patrol, Pac Man, Pong, Simon, Space Invaders, Star Castle, Tetris, and Tic Tac Toe. Hosted on their site for play!!!! *Quarters not required*



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Computer Scientist Creates 'Nature' Art

John Maeda, Professor at MIT, has a new exhibit at the Lentos Museum of Modern Art called "Nature". Each "motion painting" is made up of several short sequences depicting intensely colored abstract shapes and patterns that constantly move, expand and evolve.




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Gmail as an MP3 jukebox

Email yourself an MP3 to your gmail account and play it from within Gmail! The Gmail system embeddeds a play button directly in the mail item. Clicking on it brings up a Google Video style player that streams your MP3 from Gmai's server...now if only there wasn't a Gmail-box memory limitation...

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Rescuers to Carry Oxygen Masks for Pets

The pets here will be breathing a little easier now that local rescuers will be carrying oxygen masks designed for animals. Six Appleton, Wisconsin fire trucks and 13 ambulances will be equipped with masks intended for use on dogs, cats and other small animals...Mouth-to-mouth no more.

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The Crown Jewel of Fan Performances: Zelda on Theremin

It's hard to get any better than this: The Legend of Zelda main theme played on theremin with synth backing. This video is for anyone that loves the Legend of Zelda. If you do don't know what this "instrument" is, click here to learn more. Thanks Novatech:



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Sirius Stiletto available for pre-order

Sirius's Stiletto, the do-it-all portable satellite radio, is available for pre-order from Crutchfield as of yesterday afternoon (9/1). Although there's no information on when the player will ship, the new higher-resolution shots of the device should keep Sirius fan's appetites for pics sated for now. From Endgadget.com

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AT&T and Security: Those who Can't Do, Teach.

I couldn't help but almost literally LOL when soon after the news of 19,000 AT&T Customers having their Identities hacked hit my inbox, I got my latest installment of ZDNet white papers with the headline article being from AT&T, on, you guessed it: "How To: Security and Remote Access". The white paper was written before the incident, but the timing of it release couldn't be funnier.

Blogging Childbirth

Mobile device and culture blogger Josh Bancroft is live-blogging the birth of his second child. He's using a Windows Mobile phone, a Canon Digital Elph and the YoMoBlog mobile blogging service to do the trick. (Don't worry, he says he's not doing a play-by-play...I'm sure his wife is relieved)

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The 20 smartest companies to start now

Move over, Jason Calacanis...Silicon Valley & the "smart money" VC's are making their own offer: Execute their best startup ideas... And they're willing to give a collective $100 Million to the entrepreneurs who can make them happen. This is pretty cool, they literally lay out what they're looking for and how much they would invest ~ Contact Info included!

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