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Domain: wonko.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wonko.com.
Stories · 11
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Discovered: High-Temperature Non-Metal Magnet
Wonko42 writes: "Russian scientists who were trying to produce high-temperature superconductors accidentally created the first non-metallic magnet that is magnetic at room temperature (and up to 200 degrees Celsius). Previously, non-metallic magnets tended to lose their magnetism at -255 degrees Celsius. The magnet was created by superheating and pressurizing buckyballs to join them together as a sheet. The technology is ideal for use in magnetic storage devices, and could also be used in chips. The material is also photo-sensitive, which means it could be used as an optical storage medium as well. Yay for buckyballs!" -
IBM Ships First 22" 200dpi Displays
wonko writes: "IBM has begun shipping new monitors that are as much as 12 times sharper than current displays, and 4.5 times sharper than HDTV. These new 22-inch active matrix liquid crystal displays use aluminum-based technology and have over 9 million pixels. IBM will soon be licensing the technology to other display makers, so you could soon see these screens in laptops, PDAs, cellphones, etc. Pardon me while I wipe the drool off my keyboard ..." This is the same high-definition display you read about here earlier. They are not yet in CompUSA, to put it lightly -- first examples are going to Lawrence Livermore -- but the trickle-down effect in a couple of years is promising. -
New Genetic Information Web Portal
Wonko42 writes "A new portal, DoubleTwist.com, has been opened which allows scientists and researchers free access to tons of genetic information and data. Just type in a gene sequence, and it'll spew data back at you. It'll even notify you by email when there's new information about the stuff you're studying. Very cool. " -
Torvalds Criticizes Open-Source Wannabes
Wonko42 writes "In his address at Internet World '99, Linus Torvalds threw some harsh words at Microsoft and Sun, criticizing Microsoft's thoughts of opening portions of Windows source and making his feelings known about Sun's restrictive new community license. He also spoke some about the future of commercial software, and dodged lots of Transmeta questions. " -
Red Hat Unveils Linux E-Commerce Server
Wonko42 writes "The subject pretty much says it all; Red Hat is now selling its new E-Commerce server for $149.99. The server is packaged with several other programs, including the Netscape Roaming Module, Squid proxy, and Webalyzer web server log analyzer. And of course, it's built to run on Red Hat 6.0. " -
Techno Bra will alert Authorities
Wonko42 writes "This is really strange. A British inventor has apparently created a bra that monitors its wearer's heart rate and can tell when she is in danger. Using its built-in wireless phone, the techno-bra calls the police (or the wearer's boyfriend) and, using the built-in GPS locator, it relates the exact position of the wearer. Um...interesting....and there's more in the article. " Unfortunately, I couldn't find any pictures of it, but I wonder how stylish it may be. -
AOL Considers Ending Mozilla?
Wonko42 writes "Netscape is thinking twice about continuing to use Mozilla.org as the main tool to develop Communicator, and well they should. The project has received very little support from the open-source community, and the delays have been astronomical. While Netscape isn't sure that they could undo the open-source status of the browser, they're considering their options carefully. Also, according to the article, Communicator 5.0 is set to ship in December. " -
Generation-long Internet Research Project Funded
Wonko42 writes "Microsoft and AOL have put aside their bickering for a moment and teamed up to fund a research project that will examine the effects of the Internet on modern society. " The results of will be quite interesting-they are looking at not only the effects of usage, but also non-usage, which is equally important, IMHO. It looks like UCLA will be the key institution, and the time span is "at least a generation". -
Cloned sheep shows signs of premature aging
Wonko42 writes "Everyone's favorite cloned sheep, Dolly, is showing signs of premature aging. Even though she's only three years old, her cells are acting like they're six years old. Scientists think this is because she was cloned using cells from an older sheep. " -
Do Something About Your Spam
Wonko42 writes "There's an article somewhere over here that talks about the Spam Recycling Center, an effort to prosecute illegal and fraudulent spammers. If you send your spam to them, they'll give you $5 credit at CDNow.com. Couldn't be a better deal, if you ask me. The results of this will be sent to CAUCE, the Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email, which will study the emails and figure out what evil things spammers are doing most and then send all the data to the Federal Trade Commission. " -
Apple Opening QuickTime Code
Wonko42 writes "Apple has apparently decided to make QuickTime open-source in order to beat the competition. The article is on News.com. " I sure hope so. Of course, the article leaves several questions unanswered: what kind of license? APSL? What about codecs? Since it's only the server, I assume nothing will happen in regards to opening codecs. I hope I'm wrong, but fear I'm not. Thoughts?