Articles


MacMice releases stands for iSight

The first accessories to show up for the new Apple iSight camera have come from MacMice Workspace Products (makers of a wide variety of physical accessories for the Macintosh). The $39.95 set of three SightClips (also available individually for $14.95 each) includes clips that clamp to the desktop …

Hacker "defacement" contest a flop

It appears that a web-site defacement contest that was organized for this past Sunday passed without the big disruption predicted by some, according to an article from MacCentral. There were a multitude of reports about the upcoming contest last week and some security experts were encouraging extra vigilance going in …

Apple to exclusively publish LXG soundtrack

The soundtrack for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen will be exclusively released on the Apple Music Store, according to an article from CNet. Granted, it is only a soundtrack, but given that no CDs will be pressed in the US, it is an interesting marketing maneuver.

Nemo finds Matrix at box office

Only six weeks into its run, Finding Nemo has shot past The Matrix Reloaded to a total of $275M (to Reloaded's $271M). With this past weekend's $11M gross, Nemo is sitting in second place for 2003, behind The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (which is pretty secure …


Adobe to drop Premier on the Macintosh

An article from CNet quotes Adobe executives as saying that it "would have taken a lot of work to have cross-platform support" and that in a small and crowded market for video products, Adobe was not interested in making the investment to release a new version of Premier Pro for …

Is information addictive?

The New York Times has an article that describes a "disorder" shared by many of us who spend too much time online. I'm not sure that I agree with the "diagnosis" that what people are experiencing is an addiction, but there is certainly an allure to having the constant ability …

Gator overlay adds legal, says Virginia Court

An article from CNet relays information about a ruling by the Eastern District Court of Virginia that recently ruled that pop-over advertisements by Gator are legal. The summary judgment was handed down last week, but a complete ruling is expected in the upcoming weeks. The plaintiff in this case was …

Review: Whale Rider

As part of our July 4th celebrations, we went to see Whale Rider, a fine new import film from New Zealand, starring a cast of mostly untested, mostly Maori actors. In short, unless you hate dramas with a passion, find a theater that is showing this film and go and …

Swiss teacher finds teaching too restrictive

According to an article from The Age (Australian newspaper), a Swiss school teacher decided to quit being a teacher rather than follow the edict of the school and take down nude photos on her personal web site. It appears that the woman is an aspiring model and was hoping that …

VoIP to help African's call

An article in the New York Times reports on the use of VoIP to get calls in and out of Africa and the response of the local telecommunications companies (which, of course, is to oppose anything that may take their monopoly away). In a typical response of many entrenched governments …

Screensaver hack provides access to MacOS X desktop

An email from the Full Disclosure security mailing list indicates that the MacOS X screen saver will quit itself thus exposing the Macintosh desktop. There is no patch to fix this at of right now, and the individual who published it says that he gave Apple 3 days before posting …


Virginia NASA researcher benchmarks G5

Thanks to a pointer from SlashDot, I found this article by NASA Langley Research Center researcher Craig Hunter. The study compares the G5 against a P4 (and a pair of G4s) in a single processor configuration (done by turning off the second CPU using Apple's CHUD tools) on scalar operations …

DC puts on a capital show

For the first time in a number of years, I went down to the mall with friends for the fireworks display, and I have to say, it was great. Despite the increased crowds (Metro was calculating an additional 60,000+ people over last year), we had little difficulty finding what …

Rutan files request for launch license

Burt Rutan (of Scaled Composites) has filed for a launch license for Space Ship One, according to an article from SpaceToday.net. The application requires a response from the FAA within 6 months. Although Rutan believes that he should be allowed to launch the vehicle because of its experimental status …

British researchers working on smart seat

From the "uh, right" files comes a story from the New York Times about a group of researchers in Farnborough, England company called QinetiQ that are working on an airline seat full of sensors. The seat is designed to tell the crew about passengers who haven't moved, and therefore may …

Iraqi museum reopens

After a significant international outcry over "hundreds of thousands" of artifacts being stolen, and the revelation later that the number was closer to 12,000 (3,000 of which have been recovered), the now-famous Iraq Museum in Baghdad reopened for a few hours on Wednesday. An article from the New …

New Xbox exploit available

Declaring "Xbox independence day", a group has released information about an Xbox security exploit that allows the machine to run code that is not signed by Microsoft. People familiar with the game console will know that the Microsoft has locked it up by using hardware and software security methods in …

Air & Space Museum to be captured in QT VR

The National Air and Space Museum (the worlds most visited museum) is not only getting a new Annex this year, but it is also going to be captured via QuickTime VR. A page from WorldVR describes the project, which is being sponsored by Apple, Nikon, Hyatt, Lexar, Sony, and others …