It's a little disconcerting that so many of these "nothing to see here citizen, move along" posts are made by anonymous cowards.
Well maybe some think they're protecting you from the negative health effects of anxiety (even if what brings it on is all or partly true), or trying to mitigate the economic / environmental consequences that opting to use more fossil fuel brings.
My take is that we all should know the whole story, and make fully informed choices. Democracy can't function properly if people aren't well educated and informed. If what turns out to be a better path turns out to have a downside too (isn't there always one?) we should be able to accept that. If there isn't full transparency more doubt is planted, as that setting is also the cloak that masks greed and corruption.
A problem with using "background" as a reference is that it gives the illusion that those levels are natural and harmless when generally neither is true. The "background" in many areas of the U.S. was left higher than it would have otherwise would have been by the era of above ground testing. Half the levels are seen in places like Australia. It's an odd coincidence that some the parts of the U.S. said to have the highest background from "altitude" also happen to include the regions that historically had the greatest mining for offending materials. (see the government publication from 1951 "Prospecting for Uranium". The average individual risks of health consequences from our elevated background are generally small, but out of a large population the added disease and death is certainly real. There's reason to care, but not reason to panic. While there is dispersion after large releases, air and rain patterns can lead to localized hotspots even at great distance and some of the materials are a long term problem. That means the impact from exposure may differ greatly with location to a degree few are informed enough to expect.
Maybe some of the uncomfortable truths can be used positively. If people in areas with high radon in the water levels in the water knew that their greatest exposure was from what they inhale while taking a shower, they might actually take shorter showers cutting fossil fuel use. If fracking or other operations increase what's in the water, people should know to reduce exposure through usage patterns and to make sure that any added treatment needed is implemented.
Transparency and understanding is needed to foster making the best choices both in terms of consumption and what/how-much we consume. It's not hard to see how wrong things could go if we blinded ourselves (or others do it for us) to the full story. Striking the best balance between current economic/lifestyle and long term concerns isn't easy. We need to stay level-headed and be using our heads.
Some of those not so old "slow" computers that were simply suffering from malware certainly are good candidates for recycling. It's always good to know just what some are capable of.
I was wondering if anyone would ever figure out how to modify the early Macbook fireware, as Apple had done with the Macbook Pros, to enable the SATA II 3 megbit/s data rate instead of the 1.5 megabit/s rate they supported out of the box. It was after feedback from users that the Pros got the patch. Even at the lower rate the early machines were quite a bit faster with later/bigger/faster drives. Maybe someone can copy some code from the Pro firmware to unlock the dull potential of the ports in the Macbooks.
An early MacBook with a Core Duo is IRC limited to 2 gig. Should someone need to upgrade just to run a browser? I would hope that a browser could get by alright on an older machine with 512 meg. Is there a really good reason why it shouldn't?
It seems that if a machine is getting old it may be time to stick a fork in it.
I suppose the smart executives can leak the address of their conferencing system, then let some mis-info leak so the would-be insider trader ends up with a bad deal.
Me? If I saw such a thing, watching the chairs fly would be purely for entertainment. No chair-futures trading for me.
With MS getting money out of Android vendors, I wonder if they'd go so far as to demand likeness-licensing fees for a chair-throwing app?
Will the people who are not using a script in ABE (the Application Boundary Enforcer) in NoScript to prevent Facebook from doing things to you on other sites kindly make yourselves known by raising both feet?
The script to enter looks something like this (see NoScript website):
# This one allows Facebook scripts and objects to be included only # from Facebook pages Site.facebook.com.fbcdn.net Accept from.facebook.com.fbcdn.net Deny INCLUSION(SCRIPT, OBJ, SUBDOC)
Whatever happened to the NoScript feature for dealing with Web bugs or as AT&T / Yahoo call them, web-beacons? IRC there was a feature for that on untrusted sites. It seems like one to have all the time. Maybe something to avoid loading ANYTHING from other domains would be a good default much of the time too. If other content is that important, the host could be a proxy or users can grant permission. Ebay surely needs something like that.
Use what amounts to a UPS (the inverter section), but keep the batteries charged up with a couple of solar panels. Feed the panels into a switching regulator, but change the regulators feedback voltage sampling point to the INPUT and set it to load the panels down to the optimum voltage where they deliver maximum power output. There needs to be a kill mode to prevent overcharging, or perhaps divert some D.C. into other loads like a PC that's always on (also with a kill mode for when the main supply is off).
Note that while a c.r.t display has power consumption that varies with scene brightness, an LCD generally doesn't except when dynamic contrast enhancement as active (dimming of backlight to reduce visibility of bleed-through on dark scenes)
Note also that many c.r.t based televisions, especially older ones, had poor d.c. restoration. With capacitor-coupled video, peaks of sync or blanking pulses have to be clamped to fixed levels to restore the d.c. or very low frequency video (average brightness) variations. If any remember sets where it seemed like the contrast (gain) had to be changed from scene to scene for things to look right, that's why. Bright scenes wouldn't be bright enough causing the should-be darker areas to become black, dark scenes wouldn't get dark enough making them look somewhat grey or like a smoggy day.
Be really different, and use fiber-optics to pipe-in outdoor light to supplement the backlight. Ideally it'd be tied to smart software adjusting for variations both by controlling the backlight contribution, and changing video parameters on the fly to help with color temperature as well as light output. (No doubt Apple could easily do that right...) If it were me, besides the usual brightness controlling, I'd also shift the black point based on ambient light (elevate the dark parts that would be masked), and have a low-energy mode that adjusts gamma to improve perceived brightness when running at reduced backlight intensity.
I suspect that with some tweaking, some of the algorithms used for song recognition could do processing of consumption data. They'd work at much lower frequencies and over longer time intervals of course. Have fun building the database though.
Yes, I know all this energy-use/saving techno-babble may at first seem a bit off-topic, but wasn't reduced energy use supposed to be a major justification for smart meters?
At least the meters don't sniff RFID tags in nearby car tires, your flu shot, or things you've purchased?
The FCC is beginning a test Monday that will give public access to a database to be used to identify frequency bands available. This database will be used to determine what frequencies are available when the 'white spaces' go public.
It's a public test of the database system which white-space equipment must use to determine what channels (current but locally available tv channels, not the former ones above 51, or frequencies between tv/radio channels) are available for use without causing problems.
It's a bit strange that viewing the maps requires Silverlight. Something new shouldn't be using dying tech.
For security, no one is allowed to see the captured imagery. You can digitize and store at as high of a resolution as you like, limited only by how much memory you allocate. Special memory is needed.
GIRL: It's sort of like URL, except the resource is "generally infrequent" and possibly difficult to locate.
If you think about it, isn't a Freedom Day event a safer place to bring a date than a wild party? In which setting is a date more likely to run off with someone else?
Whether it be a girl, the Dell Dude, or just Hands Solo, bring your date along.
Leave it to goo to be insightful enough to realize that intelligence can be overrated. Maybe it thinks the comparative youngster would have been an ideal backup if John McCain got ill: Spare parts!
A less than 7% change in the aspect ratio is negligible. And they're complaining about the size of a picture too? Good grief. The point is how similar the products look to consumers. Of course it's best to have things displayed at the same size to best see similarities in the design, any border width, curvature of corners etc.
If someone wants to fuss about small differences in size, please do something about those containers of ice cream that aren't a half-gallon any more. That's a crime against humanity!
There is a notice at the bottom of the related web page acknowledging the license. Hopefully that's a sign that they're working towards complying. The app is free - so not a very hard core criminal unless there's malware? http://ebook.hamstersoft.com/
"Hamster Free eBook Converter made by HamsterSoft and based on Calibre-engine created by Kovid Goyal and inherits all GNU GPL 3.0 restrictions."
Hopefully there is no incompatible code in there from others. I looked at the binary with a text editor and saw a comment near the end that may be part of code signing:
"thawte, Inc. Certification Services Division/(c) 2006 thawte, Inc. - For authorized use only" (I don't know for sure if that's a problem, I don't do windows. No Linux, OS X, or iOS versions visible)
Maybe someone should see if there's FFMPEG or MPLAYER code in their video conversion utility?
Even though the waves from the tsunami following the recent 9.0 Japan earthquake were not very large when hitting Antarctica, about 50 square miles of ice broke off. Some of the many factors are not linear, so a simple loss multiplier or even one based on monotonically increasing loss will have limited accuracy. That's no excuse for denial, as what's happening is quite clear.
Bigger has well known advantages, but beyond a certain size pain is more likely.
It'll be interesting to see how smoothly Foxconn ramps up operations in Brazil. While some excellent work is done in China, competition and diversity is a healthy thing. Multiple sources certainly reduces vulnerability to disruptive events too. It's too bad they can't open a factory in Utah or someplace, even if mostly run by robots. (Utah... not just for nuclear waste anymore... What do they make there??)
Hopefully every operation can be well run and supervised. After hearing that another 22 clones of Apple stores have been uncovered in China, I start to wonder how legitimate the product sources are. When pirates hijack a cargo ship, who buys what they stole? And who will step in if some factory starts shipping out extra products under the table? I guess there's something to be said for using custom CPUs made somewhere else and closely tracking inventory.
Well maybe the employees that work for Intel can decide that if they're not getting wages that seem fair in proportion to what managers are getting, they can just move a little slower. No need to have different employees, they can just adjust their productivity to match the price. How efficient that would be. Management has already set a precedent, so they shouldn't have any ground to complain, right?
Burger stands could just use some slightly foul dressing to offer lower priced options without having to cook differently otherwise. I wonder if Intel is violating some prior art, like spit in the soup for customers that don't tip well?
If chips have a back-door to control one feature, what else is in there? Can they be really secure if they've got hidden controls or debug modes? People were upset when Intel was going to digitally serialize their chips. Whatever happened with that? Of course if chips can be uniquely upgraded it seems we know.
I hope Intel products get more serious competition. Also, the fuss about power consumption should be just for laptops. Feel the top of a recent iMac sometime. Hopefully Steve pressuring them will help. Did Intel ever come up with some answer to small geometry leakage currents besides lowering the voltage? Shutting down sections helped too, but a process that isn't prone to the problem is needed. The Core series was a huge leap from the Pentium 4, but it doesn't really seem like we've seen that much since considering how long it has been. It could be worse. At least CPUs aren't licensed by the year, waiting to expire after some freshness date. (the way it feels with Apple expiring old apps by omitting Rosetta in Lion)
Strictly speaking, the wording of the summary is wrong. One doesn't have to go 400 miles on the bike instead of a car to cover the carbon footprint. One simply has to avoid 400 miles of driving. If you really had to get somewhere, sure, some of those miles will be replaced by bike riding. But not all travel is like that. The urge to get out and go somewhere on a nice day might be satisfied with far fewer miles of travel, or bad weather or simply not feeling up for the ride might cause some to opt out of a few outings.
Of course staying home has some footprint too, and with huge screens many of our entertainment systems now us more energy than the vacuum tube powered color televisions of the 60's.. Even those big iMacs feel pretty toasty on the back. Maybe one of these days some innovative company will put light-pipe connections on computer and television displays to allow supplementing or replacing back-lighting with light piped in from outside. Surely someone like Apple would have no trouble with on the fly adjustment of the monitor color profile (compensating for some changes in back-light intensity and color temperature) and many systems (TVs at least) already dynamically control back-light output (and adjust video to compensate) to make bleed-through less noticeable on dark scenes and to save energy. Yes, in not actually reflecting how good the screen is, those dynamic contrast numbers are somewhat bogus, but at least there's an upside to the tech behind it). Monitors could have an optional energy-stretching mode where gamma is altered on marginal light-pipe input or when ambient light is high to reduce the contrast in darker areas effectively making them more visible without more back-light power. The energy savings could be huge.
Maybe our bikes could be fitted with disc magnets on the wheels and stationary coils on the frame to produce power when going downhill, possibly charging mobile devices or a battery for a light, or even warming the seat in winter.
Luckily Microsoft have once again innovated, and started to fight this monopoly by monitoring how their customers interact with Google
How? Citations please. Whose scripts load on most web pages? Are they running people through proxies and their own DNS?..MS web bugs/beacons/cleargifs, LSOs, Silverlight or?
(and do you mean on the desktop/laptop? There are hardly enough MS phone customers for the related ad/search traffic to match much at this point.)
Slashdot Mirror
It's a little disconcerting that so many of these "nothing to see here citizen, move along" posts are made by anonymous cowards.
Well maybe some think they're protecting you from the negative health effects of anxiety (even if what brings it on is all or partly true), or trying to mitigate the economic / environmental consequences that opting to use more fossil fuel brings.
My take is that we all should know the whole story, and make fully informed choices. Democracy can't function properly if people aren't well educated and informed.
If what turns out to be a better path turns out to have a downside too (isn't there always one?) we should be able to accept that. If there isn't full transparency more doubt is planted, as that setting is also the cloak that masks greed and corruption.
A problem with using "background" as a reference is that it gives the illusion that those levels are natural and harmless when generally neither is true. The "background" in many areas of the U.S. was left higher than it would have otherwise would have been by the era of above ground testing. Half the levels are seen in places like Australia. It's an odd coincidence that some the parts of the U.S. said to have the highest background from "altitude" also happen to include the regions that historically had the greatest mining for offending materials. (see the government publication from 1951 "Prospecting for Uranium". The average individual risks of health consequences from our elevated background are generally small, but out of a large population the added disease and death is certainly real. There's reason to care, but not reason to panic. While there is dispersion after large releases, air and rain patterns can lead to localized hotspots even at great distance and some of the materials are a long term problem. That means the impact from exposure may differ greatly with location to a degree few are informed enough to expect.
Maybe some of the uncomfortable truths can be used positively. If people in areas with high radon in the water levels in the water knew that their greatest exposure was from what they inhale while taking a shower, they might actually take shorter showers cutting fossil fuel use. If fracking or other operations increase what's in the water, people should know to reduce exposure through usage patterns and to make sure that any added treatment needed is implemented.
Transparency and understanding is needed to foster making the best choices both in terms of consumption and what/how-much we consume. It's not hard to see how wrong things could go if we blinded ourselves (or others do it for us) to the full story. Striking the best balance between current economic/lifestyle and long term concerns isn't easy. We need to stay level-headed and be using our heads.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gasbuggy
Some of those not so old "slow" computers that were simply suffering from malware certainly are good candidates for recycling. It's always good to know just what some are capable of.
I was wondering if anyone would ever figure out how to modify the early Macbook fireware, as Apple had done with the Macbook Pros, to enable the SATA II 3 megbit/s data rate instead of the 1.5 megabit/s rate they supported out of the box.
It was after feedback from users that the Pros got the patch. Even at the lower rate the early machines were quite a bit faster with later/bigger/faster drives. Maybe someone can copy some code from the Pro firmware to unlock the dull potential of the ports in the Macbooks.
I wonder what the company that wrote the effects software has to say about this.
Motorola made the first car radio and the first under $100 television set. There was a time when their semiconductors seemed to be in everything.
$13 billion may sound like quite a bit, but rounding to the nearest 100 billion it is still zero. MS can still call the iPhone a rounding error?
An early MacBook with a Core Duo is IRC limited to 2 gig. Should someone need to upgrade just to run a browser? I would hope that a browser could get by alright on an older machine with 512 meg. Is there a really good reason why it shouldn't?
It seems that if a machine is getting old it may be time to stick a fork in it.
I suppose the smart executives can leak the address of their conferencing system, then let some mis-info leak so the would-be insider trader ends up with a bad deal.
Me? If I saw such a thing, watching the chairs fly would be purely for entertainment. No chair-futures trading for me.
With MS getting money out of Android vendors, I wonder if they'd go so far as to demand likeness-licensing fees for a chair-throwing app?
Will the people who are not using a script in ABE (the Application Boundary Enforcer) in NoScript to prevent Facebook from doing things to you on other sites kindly make yourselves known by raising both feet?
The script to enter looks something like this (see NoScript website):
# This one allows Facebook scripts and objects to be included only .facebook.com .fbcdn.net .facebook.com .fbcdn.net
# from Facebook pages
Site
Accept from
Deny INCLUSION(SCRIPT, OBJ, SUBDOC)
Whatever happened to the NoScript feature for dealing with Web bugs or as AT&T / Yahoo call them, web-beacons? IRC there was a feature for that on untrusted sites. It seems like one to have all the time. Maybe something to avoid loading ANYTHING from other domains would be a good default much of the time too. If other content is that important, the host could be a proxy or users can grant permission. Ebay surely needs something like that.
Use what amounts to a UPS (the inverter section), but keep the batteries charged up with a couple of solar panels. Feed the panels into a switching regulator, but change the regulators feedback voltage sampling point to the INPUT and set it to load the panels down to the optimum voltage where they deliver maximum power output. There needs to be a kill mode to prevent overcharging, or perhaps divert some D.C. into other loads like a PC that's always on (also with a kill mode for when the main supply is off).
Note that while a c.r.t display has power consumption that varies with scene brightness, an LCD generally doesn't except when dynamic contrast enhancement as active (dimming of backlight to reduce visibility of bleed-through on dark scenes)
Note also that many c.r.t based televisions, especially older ones, had poor d.c. restoration. With capacitor-coupled video, peaks of sync or blanking pulses have to be clamped to fixed levels to restore the d.c. or very low frequency video (average brightness) variations. If any remember sets where it seemed like the contrast (gain) had to be changed from scene to scene for things to look right, that's why. Bright scenes wouldn't be bright enough causing the should-be darker areas to become black, dark scenes wouldn't get dark enough making them look somewhat grey or like a smoggy day.
Be really different, and use fiber-optics to pipe-in outdoor light to supplement the backlight. Ideally it'd be tied to smart software adjusting for variations both by controlling the backlight contribution, and changing video parameters on the fly to help with color temperature as well as light output. (No doubt Apple could easily do that right...) If it were me, besides the usual brightness controlling, I'd also shift the black point based on ambient light (elevate the dark parts that would be masked), and have a low-energy mode that adjusts gamma to improve perceived brightness when running at reduced backlight intensity.
I suspect that with some tweaking, some of the algorithms used for song recognition could do processing of consumption data. They'd work at much lower frequencies and over longer time intervals of course. Have fun building the database though.
Yes, I know all this energy-use/saving techno-babble may at first seem a bit off-topic, but wasn't reduced energy use supposed to be a major justification for smart meters?
At least the meters don't sniff RFID tags in nearby car tires, your flu shot, or things you've purchased?
Sometimes what defines malware for some is a wanted "feature" for others.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T110918002842.htm
I think summary need to be clarified.
The FCC is beginning a test Monday that will give public access to a database to be used to identify frequency bands available. This database will be used to determine what frequencies are available when the 'white spaces' go public.
It's a public test of the database system which white-space equipment must use to determine what channels (current but locally available tv channels, not the former ones above 51, or frequencies between tv/radio channels) are available for use without causing problems.
It's a bit strange that viewing the maps requires Silverlight. Something new shouldn't be using dying tech.
trial site:
http://whitespaces.spectrumbridge.com/Trial.aspx
The F.C.C. blog posting:
http://www.fcc.gov/blog/fcc-announces-public-testing-first-television-white-spaces-database
Direct youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mhQyuyELQ
For security, no one is allowed to see the captured imagery. You can digitize and store at as high of a resolution as you like, limited only by how much memory you allocate. Special memory is needed.
http://www.national.com/rap/files/datasheet.pdf
GIRL: It's sort of like URL, except the resource is "generally infrequent" and possibly difficult to locate.
If you think about it, isn't a Freedom Day event a safer place to bring a date than a wild party? In which setting is a date more likely to run off with someone else?
Whether it be a girl, the Dell Dude, or just Hands Solo, bring your date along.
Give your congressman a bj in an airport bathroom. He'll be far more receptive after that.
So much for the one size fits all solution. Some congressfolk are women!
Leave it to goo to be insightful enough to realize that intelligence can be overrated. Maybe it thinks the comparative youngster would have been an ideal backup if John McCain got ill: Spare parts!
A less than 7% change in the aspect ratio is negligible. And they're complaining about the size of a picture too? Good grief. The point is how similar the products look to consumers. Of course it's best to have things displayed at the same size to best see similarities in the design, any border width, curvature of corners etc.
If someone wants to fuss about small differences in size, please do something about those containers of ice cream that aren't a half-gallon any more. That's a crime against humanity!
Don't forget those hijacked cargo ships and the pirates as a possible source too!
Ironically, there is a pirate flag in the history of Apple.
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt
Surely the behaviour of a criminal...
There is a notice at the bottom of the related web page acknowledging the license. Hopefully that's a sign that they're working towards complying.
The app is free - so not a very hard core criminal unless there's malware?
http://ebook.hamstersoft.com/
"Hamster Free eBook Converter made by HamsterSoft and based on Calibre-engine created by Kovid Goyal and inherits all GNU GPL 3.0 restrictions."
Hopefully there is no incompatible code in there from others. I looked at the binary with a text editor and saw a comment near the end that may be part of code signing:
"thawte, Inc. Certification Services Division/(c) 2006 thawte, Inc. - For authorized use only" (I don't know for sure if that's a problem, I don't do windows. No Linux, OS X, or iOS versions visible)
Maybe someone should see if there's FFMPEG or MPLAYER code in their video conversion utility?
Even though the waves from the tsunami following the recent 9.0 Japan earthquake were not very large when hitting Antarctica, about 50 square miles of ice broke off.
Some of the many factors are not linear, so a simple loss multiplier or even one based on monotonically increasing loss will have limited accuracy. That's no excuse for denial, as what's happening is quite clear.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=51665&src=eorss-nh
Bigger has well known advantages, but beyond a certain size pain is more likely.
It'll be interesting to see how smoothly Foxconn ramps up operations in Brazil. While some excellent work is done in China, competition and diversity is a healthy thing. Multiple sources certainly reduces vulnerability to disruptive events too. It's too bad they can't open a factory in Utah or someplace, even if mostly run by robots. (Utah... not just for nuclear waste anymore... What do they make there??)
Hopefully every operation can be well run and supervised. After hearing that another 22 clones of Apple stores have been uncovered in China, I start to wonder how legitimate the product sources are. When pirates hijack a cargo ship, who buys what they stole? And who will step in if some factory starts shipping out extra products under the table? I guess there's something to be said for using custom CPUs made somewhere else and closely tracking inventory.
Well maybe the employees that work for Intel can decide that if they're not getting wages that seem fair in proportion to what managers are getting, they can just move a little slower. No need to have different employees, they can just adjust their productivity to match the price. How efficient that would be. Management has already set a precedent, so they shouldn't have any ground to complain, right?
Burger stands could just use some slightly foul dressing to offer lower priced options without having to cook differently otherwise. I wonder if Intel is violating some prior art, like spit in the soup for customers that don't tip well?
If chips have a back-door to control one feature, what else is in there? Can they be really secure if they've got hidden controls or debug modes? People were upset when Intel was going to digitally serialize their chips. Whatever happened with that? Of course if chips can be uniquely upgraded it seems we know.
I hope Intel products get more serious competition. Also, the fuss about power consumption should be just for laptops. Feel the top of a recent iMac sometime. Hopefully Steve pressuring them will help. Did Intel ever come up with some answer to small geometry leakage currents besides lowering the voltage? Shutting down sections helped too, but a process that isn't prone to the problem is needed. The Core series was a huge leap from the Pentium 4, but it doesn't really seem like we've seen that much since considering how long it has been. It could be worse. At least CPUs aren't licensed by the year, waiting to expire after some freshness date. (the way it feels with Apple expiring old apps by omitting Rosetta in Lion)
Strictly speaking, the wording of the summary is wrong. One doesn't have to go 400 miles on the bike instead of a car to cover the carbon footprint. One simply has to avoid 400 miles of driving. If you really had to get somewhere, sure, some of those miles will be replaced by bike riding. But not all travel is like that. The urge to get out and go somewhere on a nice day might be satisfied with far fewer miles of travel, or bad weather or simply not feeling up for the ride might cause some to opt out of a few outings.
Of course staying home has some footprint too, and with huge screens many of our entertainment systems now us more energy than the vacuum tube powered color televisions of the 60's.. Even those big iMacs feel pretty toasty on the back. Maybe one of these days some innovative company will put light-pipe connections on computer and television displays to allow supplementing or replacing back-lighting with light piped in from outside. Surely someone like Apple would have no trouble with on the fly adjustment of the monitor color profile (compensating for some changes in back-light intensity and color temperature) and many systems (TVs at least) already dynamically control back-light output (and adjust video to compensate) to make bleed-through less noticeable on dark scenes and to save energy. Yes, in not actually reflecting how good the screen is, those dynamic contrast numbers are somewhat bogus, but at least there's an upside to the tech behind it). Monitors could have an optional energy-stretching mode where gamma is altered on marginal light-pipe input or when ambient light is high to reduce the contrast in darker areas effectively making them more visible without more back-light power. The energy savings could be huge.
Maybe our bikes could be fitted with disc magnets on the wheels and stationary coils on the frame to produce power when going downhill, possibly charging mobile devices or a battery for a light, or even warming the seat in winter.
Then there's the low-methane diet...
Luckily Microsoft have once again innovated, and started to fight this monopoly by monitoring how their customers interact with Google
How? Citations please. Whose scripts load on most web pages? ..MS web bugs/beacons/cleargifs, LSOs, Silverlight or?
Are they running people through proxies and their own DNS?
(and do you mean on the desktop/laptop? There are hardly enough MS phone customers for the related ad/search traffic to match much at this point.)
The lists say they're Android. The look and name is copied, but not the guts.
Here's a 4gs, the most expensive one I saw:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://item.taobao.com/item.htm%3Fid%3D9120630419
The cheaper ones are even stranger. Here are two. Crummy camera specs, no OS listed.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://item.taobao.com/item.htm%3Fid%3D10280876140
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://item.taobao.com/item.htm%3Fid%3D12360214272
Better than the real article would be the real product listings. It's here somewhere:
http://www.taobao.com/