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0xff News - Future PSP releases; Time rewind in computer emulators

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- 19 hours and 11 minutes ago

News via http://0xff.akop.org/2010/03/18/futu...ter-emulators/

ColEm will be the next emulator to be brought up to the latest version of the PSP library. It will also include the Ã‚Â‘time rewind’ feature found in several other emulators.

I have not completely given up on Castaway PSP (I’m still poking it from time to time), but I am rather running out of options and patience.

For those of you wondering if/when the Ã‚Â‘rewind’ feature will make it to other emulators, especially computer emulators such as fMSX and Fuse, the issue is as follows.

Consoles have a fixed memory size, which means that state for every game takes up the same amount of space, and generally speaking, this space is relatively small. Conversely, computer memory can vary (for example, on MSX anywhere from 64 kB to 4 MB).

Ã‚Â‘Time rewind’ works by saving state once every few frames to memory. The feature usually dedicates 85% of the PSP’s remaining RAM for saving state, which generally adds up to about 12 MB or less on a ”fatÃ‚Â” PSP (PSP 1000). For console emulators this doesn’t tend to be a big deal, especially since save states are small, around 32 kB. While 12 MB/32 kB may seem like a lot of space, keep in mind that an emulator displays 60 frames per second, so if you only take a snapshot once every five frames, you will still exceed a megabyte after less than three seconds. The most common memory configuration for MSX is 128 kB, which is four times that Ã‚Â– not including VRAM (which is another 64 kB), CPU registers, etcÃ‚Â… Basically, on a computer emulator, this feature gives a much smaller bang for the proverbial buck.

The biggest issue, however, is not the size of the state footprint Ã‚Â– it’s the fact that one has to be very careful about changes to the emulated machine that affect the size of the state’s footprint. Not adjusting the Ã‚Â‘time rewind’ engine appropriately will likely result in hard crashes.

All said, however, this task is far from impossible, and you can look forward to computer emulators getting this feature at some point, starting with Fuse (to appease my buddy ewgf, who originally suggested the idea).

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Last Weekend at Emerald City 2010 (or, the Cartooning Class Reunion)

Albert Einstein: 'p.s. I'm a genius'

Guardian Unlimited

- 22 hours and 7 minutes ago

How Einstein told his ailing mother of his breakthrough on relativity

As an introduction to one of science's most revolutionary theories, one postcard from Albert Einstein â€“ now on display at the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Jerusalem as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations â€“ is gloriously incongruent. "Dear Mother!" he writes. "Today some happy news. Lorentz telegraphed me that the British expeditions have verified the deflection of light by the sun." So sorry, by the way, to hear that you are not feeling well, he adds.

Thus Einstein reveals to his ailing Jewish mother that he has become famous as a genius, a man who has been vindicated over his claim that gravity can distort the space-time continuum. All that is missing is her reply. "He never writes, he never calls, and suddenly he's cleverer than Isaac Newton," she might have written. Sadly, we will never know.

The rest of the exhibition is made up of cabinets that display all 46 pages of his great work, The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity, which forced scientists to redefine gravity, predicted the existence of black holes and revealed how galaxies are formed. Einstein wrote his theory between November 1915 and May 1916 in his Berlin apartment. Later it was presented to the Hebrew University and is now displayed so that visitors can attempt to follow the thinking of the great scientist. Each page has its own case, each lighted dimly in a room that has been darkened to protect the paper. "We have set [the pages] up like the Dead Sea Scrolls, to protect them but also to give the feeling of entering a kind of holy of holies, which is how we view it," says curator Hanoch Guttfreund. "You can see Einstein work as you look at the pages."

And this is probably the most fascinating part of the show. The pages have many cross-outs and insertions in meticulous penmanship â€“ with an open acknowledgment that some of the maths was beyond even him. His great idea, although startling at the time, has endured. His mother would have been proud.

Albert Einstein

Robin McKie guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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'A sandwich with your nose job?'

Guardian Unlimited

- 22 hours and 8 minutes ago

Lunch-hour cosmetic surgery â€“ 45-minute boob jabs, nonsurgical rhinoplasty â€“ is booming in the UK. But nightmare stories are also on the rise. So are the treatments safe? We speak to doctors to find out, and take a front-row seat at a no-frills nose job

Cosmetic surgery is changing. One advancement is the use of twilight surgery, where they send you only half to sleep. Clinics are alive with dazed facelift patients, who keep their eyes open, frowning and smiling on demand, who come to after the sedation's worn off, their skin tight but bruised, able to remember nothing of the knife at all. There are other patients who trip in off the street for a half-hour boob job under local anaesthetic, and still more who book a session of Botox in their lunch-breaks. The current excitement, in plastics, is not in the perfection of a newly sculpted nose but in the speed at which patients can recover, and the market for these fast, temporary procedures is growing wildly.

The Knightsbridge Laser Clinic is one of many that has recently started promising lunch-hour transformations, offering laser lipolysis to eliminate fat, the G-spot injection to enhance sexual stimulation, Macrolane breast injections, nonsurgical rhinoplasty and Botox fillers to remove wrinkles. A block away from Harrods, I climb their carpeted stairs to the waiting room as the lunch-time rush subsides. Outside a light rain is falling, and the smell of a wet fur coat, woody and dead, hangs in the air of the clinic's small landing. Its owner brushes past me, straight into one of three white and well-lit offices. In a corner room, beside a sheeted bed, I soon take my seat, an audience of one at a 15-minute nose job.

The patient, a young, elegant woman with jewelled shoes, had rhinoplasty in Harley Street as a teenager but now wants it still straighter. Her first operation, which cost £8,000 and required a week in hospital, had left her with a smaller nose, she says, but slightly wonky nostrils. "You might not notice it," she says apologetically, "but I do."

The doctor, Salinda Johnson, a slight and surgically tweaked woman who studied cosmetic dermatology in Thailand, warns of the possible side-effects of today's procedure as she applies a numbing cream to the patient's face. "Soreness, redness, bruising," she chants, "which will settle down within two weeks and break down completely within a year." Johnson rereads the patient's notes and holds up a pink-nailed hand. "There is a problem â€“ we can't do the procedure on a pregnant woman." Her nose glossy with anaesthetising cream, the patient exchanges hurried words with the doctor, and I look pointedly out of the window. An unwanted pregnancy. A sense that the risk is welcome. Minutes later, she is gone.

"Don't worry!" the doctor chirps. "We'll show you the procedure on our receptionist!" Diane has worked at the clinic for four months and, at 23, has already had Botox to fill in a frown line between her brows. Her nose is small and straight, but she has self-diagnosed â€“ she feels there's a dent. She asks the doctor if she thinks rhinoplasty's necessary. "Nothing is necessary," Johnson says, applying the numbing cream. "So can you do my lips, too?" Diane asks, pouting. Johnson shows me the syringe, prefilled with a mixture of anaesthetic and Restylane filler, a hyaluronic acid. The needle is long, and she pushes it firmly into Diane's nose before using both hands to massage the filler into place. The air-conditioning system screams on, and dies just as quickly â€“ the only sounds are Johnson's gloves, baggy on her tiny hands, squeaking.

I gather myself. Does it hurt, I ask Diane, who's breathing calmly, her fingers gently worrying the sleeve of her sweater. "No, I can't feel anything. I can just smell the rubber gloves." Were you interested in getting cosmetic surgery before coming to work here? "No!" she says, through the doctor's fingers, her nose changing shape, delicately, before my squinting eyes. "But I see so many people coming in at lunch time and leaving looking... fresher, and you can't even tell what they've had done. So I had laser hair removal, which feels like being slapped, and Botox, which was really nothing, and then I saw that you could make your lips look more defined with filler, so I've been pestering Salinda to do me."

Dr Johnson wipes around Diane's mouth with a small antiseptic cloth, and warns her that, on a pain scale, this will hurt a seven. She injects Restylane into the lips, and Diane's eyes flicker backwards. With her fingers, Johnson pushes the filler into a cupid's bow â€“ the effect is that of a mother wiping chocolate smears off a child's mouth.

The Harley Medical Group, the UK's largest cosmetic surgery provider, published figures in January revealing the nonsurgical cosmetic surgery market (which includes the Macrolane boob jab, an injection that increases your bust size, and Restylane rhinoplasty, the injection that straightens your nose) saw continued growth in 2009, with dermal fillers and chemical peels driving the increase by 26% and 306% respectively. Last year also saw a continued rise in the number of male patients (up 5%), with "Boytox" (male Botox) and "Sweatox" (anti-sweat Botox) both contributing to the leap.

"Minimally invasive procedures rule today â€“ and this is what consumers, and especially men, want most," says Wendy Lewis, independent cosmetic surgery consultant and author of Plastic Makes Perfect. "The benefits for consumers are: subtle improvements over time; nothing radical; less risky; definitely cheaper than big surgeries; no need for anaesthetic or going to hospital and catching MRSA; and no scars."

"There are many reasons why day surgery is becoming more and more popular," Dr Johnson tells me after Diane has floated back to her desk, swollen but smiling. "People who thought they didn't want to get surgery because they were not brave enough, or not rich enough, are interested in these temporary and non-expensive procedures â€“ our nonsurgical rhinoplasty starts at £350. And it's so quick! The talking takes longer than the treatment. We have a lot of clients who work at Harrods and really do just pop in on their lunch breaks."

The market continues to swell, imperceptibly smoothing the faces of colleagues, relatives, local hairdressers. A study carried out for the Girl Guides last November found almost half of secondary school girls said they planned to have plastic surgery. "Girls and young women are telling us that they are finding it quite hard to accept their appearance, and it is starting at a much earlier age than we had previously thought," says Nicola Grinstead, a trustee of Girlguiding UK. "The survey shows girls as young as 11 are dissatisfied with how they look and are prepared to use surgery to make a change."

All the women I talk to in the clinic's waiting room flicking through OK! magazines agree that today Botox, and increasingly cosmetic surgery, really is "no big deal". They nod, eyes wide, and reel off names like a BBC3 news bulletin. Last year Kylie Minogue, Geri Halliwell, Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox all gave interviews about their Botox use, while a film critic compared Nicole Kidman's facial skin to melamine. This month Cheryl Cole was photographed walking through a London airport with lips like salted slugs, and reality star Heidi Montag, 23, underwent 10 procedures in one day and ended up looking just like lingerie model Caprice, who is 38.

In a culture that celebrates youth, the appeal of an injection that appears to shave a little time off your age is clear, especially for the famous and often-photographed. As the demand for surgery has grown, academics have increasingly discussed the democratisation of beauty. If everybody could, in the space of a lunch hour, become symmetrical and clear-skinned, would the power of prettiness be weakened? If we accept that we will be judged on our appearance, is the fact that we can control it almost liberating?

Two years ago, Observer beauty journalist Alice Hart-Davis was one of the first women in the country to try the Macrolane breast enhancement jab. "I had never seriously considered having a proper breast enhancement. I don't feel surgery is something to be undertaken lightly," she tells me. "But I've always wished there was something I could do to boost my bust just a bit that didn't involve surgery."

Macrolane, which arrived in the UK in 2008, is a gel filler which is injected into the breast with a long blunt needle. It increases the bust by one cup size, lasts a year and costs around £2,000. "The procedure was amazing," says Hart-Davis, "an instant result. I was beyond thrilled with it." Though clinics advertise boob jabs in their list of lunch-time treatments, and the injections are over in 10 minutes, she warns: "It's by no means a 'lunch-hour lift' type procedure; it doesn't take long, but I reacted strongly to the local anaesthetic: it didn't hurt, but I could hardly speak straight for the rest of the day. And your body and brain go into a kind of post-traumatic shock after any procedure like this. You need to take it quietly afterwards."

Three months after her injections, one breast deflated â€“ she settled for stuffing her bra with a sock â€“ and the other went rock hard. Her surgeon broke up the gel under anaesthetic, then injected more to balance her bra. A few weeks later, she felt a lump in her right breast. She panicked and returned to the doctor, who reassured her that it was nothing to worry about â€“ just a lump of hardened gel. "That experience," she concludes, "alongside discovering that the research conducted on the product was not half as extensive as I'd been led to believe, and talking to several surgeons who strongly disapprove of the procedure, has put me off trying it again."

One such surgeon is Mr Charles Nduka, who runs the not-for-profit patient information website safercosmeticsurgery.co.uk. "There's so much misleading information being published about 'lunch-time' procedures," he says, "leading, at best, to unrealistic expectations and disappointment and, at worst, complications. Facial procedures such as Botox may leave localised swelling, redness and in some cases bruising, even in the best hands. This means that if you wanted to keep your treatment secret, lunch time may not be the best time.

"A major issue in the UK," he continues, "is that because fillers are classified as medical devices â€“ the same as implants â€“ rather than drugs, the regulations about who can administer them are among the most lax in the developed world. The recently introduced guidance from the Ihas [Independent Healthcare Advisory Services] is a mockery. It's a system of self-regulation which means that the very practitioners who should be regulated will not sign up. There have been more than 100 fillers introduced in the UK and in many cases they were withdrawn due to side-effects. Essentially the UK becomes a testing ground for new products."

So would he recommend traditional plastic surgery over the lunch-hour treatments? "Few people have social lives so hectic that they cannot give themselves the luxury of having a treatment in an unrushed fashion," Mr Nduka says, "without the anxiety that swelling might show."

Dr Mike Cummins, a GP and cosmetic surgeon who, after requests from patients, agreed to carry out group treatments at Botox parties, agrees that the "lunch-time" label can be misleading, but says that as doctors' experience of anaesthetics increases, "there continue to be more and more advantages to daycare procedures, both for the patient and the client. Laser-assisted liposuction is getting to the point where it's more than reasonable to do it under twilight sedation and cosmetic surgeons are all working to get the least trauma to tissue under local anaesthetic as possible."

In Jeanette Winterson's novel The Stone Gods, published in 2008 but set in a futuristic dystopia, people alter their genes to preserve their youth and get plastic surgery to amplify what's left. Only the protagonist, Billie, chooses to age naturally, wrinkling slowly among the smooth foreheads and perky breasts. Winterson worries about the normalisation of cosmetic surgery. "What really bothers me," she says, "is that women used to be made to believe that their minds were inadequate, but we were allowed our bodies. Now that we can't be told our minds aren't up to it, our bodies are paraded as defective. It is the same old control. It is not just an assault on women â€“ it is a war on feminism."

She emails me later that day. "I find 'lunch-hour surgery' savage and cynical. An insecure woman is a woman who will pay to feel better about herself. Disguising insecurity and feelings of inadequacy as empowerment is part of the usual twisted message of consumer advertising, but where women are concerned the strategy asks us to fund our own oppression. We pay to feel better instead of asking why we are made to feel defective in the first place... We need to understand that what is happening to women now is part of a disturbing bigger picture and not just a question of: 'Does madam fancy a nose job?'"

How does Winterson see society progressing in this era of perfectibility? Does she predict new lows, new depths? "We'll all get fixed eventually. Parents will do it to their kids. It will become routine. The Stepford Wives world of the 1950s was made impossible by feminism. We are heading back that way by another route. Women made in the image of men."

After Diane's 15-minute nose job, I take a walk through Harrods' beauty hall. I feel a little drunk. I had gone into the clinic expecting gore, or at least tears, but I left shocked only at the dry eyes, lack of fuss, the ease, the speed and gentle effectiveness. The women in Harrods testing the perfumes are largely blondes, largely wrinkleless, and largely slim. I see three people who look like Caprice, but as reflected in varying fairground mirrors. I watch a mother pick out scented candles for her granddaughter's wedding reception, and admire her shiny still forehead as she quietly exclaims over jasmine perfumes. I'm suddenly aware, looking discreetly from face to face, of all the "work" done and all the work yet to be done. It is an awakening of sorts. A half-awakening, maybe, to an odd new twilight world.

QUICK FIXES The most popular nonsurgical procedures

MACROLANE: BOOB JAB Created by Q-Med, the Swedish company behind the wrinkle-filler Restylane, Macrolane was launched in Europe as a correctional filler for body indentations. It wasn't until it was used in Japan in 2004 that it took off as an alternative for breast implants â€“ by January 2008, when it launched in the UK, about 30,000 Japanese women had had the boob jab. The procedure, which takes 45 minutes, involves a gel filler made of hyaluronic acid being pumped into the breast through a flexible knitting needle-sized canula. PRICES from £1,800

RESTYLANE: NOSE JOB Restylane, a water-based filler, is a synthetic reproduction of hyaluronic acid, a substance found in living organisms. Until recently its main use has been to plump lips and fill crow's feet, but the new procedure involves injecting the bridge of the nose to fill in dents, and the tip, so it appears perkier. Effects wear off within 18 months. PRICES from £350

BOTOX An injection of Botulinum toxin A (a diluted and purified form of the bacteria which causes botulism) softens and prevents frown lines. The jab, 22 years old this spring, changed the face of cosmetic surgery, with celebrities including Simon Cowell admitting to relying on it to look younger. Each year it is estimated to make its manufacturers around £800m from more than 60,000 injections. PRICES £230 to £390

JUVEDERM: LIP ENHANCEMENT A series of injections of Juvederm filler around the mouth can make the lips fuller and reshape ageing pouts. Juvederm contains hyaluronic acid which, by attracting water, plumps up the skin. Results last for up to a year. PRICES from £250

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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Autoscanning The Names People Choose For Their Wireless APs

Augmented reality

Guardian Unlimited

- 22 hours and 11 minutes ago

Charles Arthur investigates how the ways in which we watch sport, read magazines and do business with each other could change for ever

Don't act too surprised if, some time in the next year, you meet someone who explains that their business card isn't just a card; it's an augmented reality business card. You can see a collection and, at visualcard.me, you can even design your own, by adding a special marker to your card, which, once put in front of a webcam linked to the internet, will show not only your contact details but also a video or sound clip. Or pretty much anything you want.

It's not just business cards. London Fashion Week has tried them out too: little symbols that look like barcodes printed onto shirts, which, when viewed through a webcam, come to life. Benetton is using augmented reality for a campaign that kicked off last month, in which it is trying to find models from among the general population.

Augmented reality â€“ AR, as it has quickly become known â€“ has only recently become a phrase that trips easily off technologists' lips; yet we've been seeing versions of it for quite some time. The idea is straightforward enough: take a real-life scene, or (better) a video of a scene, and add some sort of explanatory data to it so that you can better understand what's going on, or who the people in the scene are, or how to get to where you want to go.

Sports coverage on TV has been doing it for years: slow-motion could be described as a form of augmented reality, since it gives you the chance to examine what happened in a situation more carefully. More recently cricket, tennis, rugby, football and golf have all started to overlay analytic information on top of standard-speed replays â€“ would that ball have hit the stumps, the progress of a rally, the movement of the backs or wingers, the relative flights of shots â€“ to tell you more about what's going on. Probably the most common use is in American football where the "first down" line â€“ the distance the team has to cover to continue its offence â€“ is superimposed on the picture for viewers.

But those required huge systems. AR took its first lumbering steps into the public arena eight years ago: all that you needed to do was strap on 10kg of computing power â€“ laptop, camera, vision processor â€“ and you could get an idea of what was feasible. The American Popular Science magazine wrote about the idea in 2002 â€“ but the idea of being permanently connected to the internet hadn't quite jelled at that point.

"AR has been around for ages," says Andy Cameron, executive director of Fabrica, an interactive design studio which works with Benetton, "maybe going back as far as the 1970s and art installations that overlaid real spaces with something virtual." He mentions in particular the work of pioneering computer artist Myron Krueger.

What's changed in the past year is that AR has come within reach of all sorts of developers â€“ and the technology powerful enough to make use of it is owned by millions of people, often in the palms of their hands.

The arrival of powerful smartphones and computers with built-in video capabilities means that you don't have to wait for the AR effects as you do with TV. They can simply be overlaid onto real life. Step forward Apple's iPhone, and phones using Google's Android operating system, both of which are capable of overlaying information on top of a picture or video.

Within the small world of AR, one of the best-known apps is that built by Layar, which â€“ given a location, and using the iPhone 3GS's inbuilt compass to work out the direction you're pointing the phone â€“ can give you a "radar map" of details such as Wikipedia information, Flickr photos, Google searches and YouTube videos superimposed onto a picture you've taken of the scene. For Americans, it will also pull in details from the government's economic Recovery Act â€“ so that if you're on Wall Street and want to see how many billions went into which building, it will show you.

Or, more usefully, Yelp offers an augmented reality application that will show you ratings and reviews for a restaurant before you walk in â€“ the sort of thing that could make restaurants quiver with delight, or shudder in horror.

Or maybe it wouldn't need to know where it is; only who it's looking at. A prototype application demonstrated at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February took things a little further again. Point the phone at a person and if it can find their details, it will pull them off the web and attach details â€“ their Twitter username, Facebook page and other facts â€“ and stick them, rather weirdly, into the air around their head (viewed through your phone, of course). "It's taking social networking to the next level," says Dan Gärdenfors, head of user experience research at The Astonishing Tribe, a Swedish mobile software company.

And there are fabulously useful applications: at Columbia University, computer science professor Steve Feiner and PhD candidate Steve Henderson have created their Augmented Reality for Maintenance and Repair (Armar) project. It combines sensors, head-up displays, and instructions to tackle the military's maintenance needs: start working on a piece of kit, and the details about it pop up in front of you. Imagine if you could put on a pair of special goggles when you needed to investigate your car's engine, or a computer's innards, and the detail would pop up. That's the sort of idea that Armar is trying to implement, though for the military at first..

Yet it's fashion which seems to have leapt quickest into this technology. The T-shirt with AR in London Fashion Week was developed by Cassette Playa, a label that has been worn by Lily Allen, Rihanna and Kanye West. Carri Munden, who designed it with the Fashion Digital Studio at the London College of Fashion, described it as "mixing reality and fantasy". Adidas, too, has launched trainers with AR symbols in the tongues: hold them to a webcam and you are taken to interactive games on the Adidas site.

The process by which the strange symbols get translated into images is simple enough: the website takes the feed from your webcam (you have to explicitly allow it to do so, so there are no security worries) and analyses it for the particular set of symbols that the program is looking for. (Some easy calculations mean the symbols can be detected whichever way up you hold the item.) Videos and pictures are then sent back to you.

Andy Cameron says that the arrival of an open-source, hence free, AR tool kit has let companies build their own AR applications, using Flash â€“ the pervasive animation and video technology used for many online ads and YouTube's videos â€“ "which immediately meant you had huge penetration, because Flash is everywhere". (Something like 98% of all computers are reckoned to have Adobe's Flash Player installed.)

"If you build your AR application with Flash, then you can get it out to everybody in the world with a computer with a webcam," says Cameron.

Benetton is using AR in its latest campaign, called "It's My Time" which aims to get members of the public to put themselves forward as potential models, and uses AR to show more details about existing models. But its first most visible use of AR was last year in issue 76 of Benetton's Colors magazine, a quarterly fashion product. Dozens of pages have AR symbols: hold the page up to a webcam, and you see film and more photos of the person on the page. "The Colors editor and the creative director of Fabrica got very excited about it," says Cameron.

Cameron can see huge potential which could even revive the fortunes of print advertising. "Think of a commercial page, an advert, in a fashion magazine. It's pretty expensive. With this â€“ and this is the way that the more hard-nosed people in Benetton saw the advantage â€“ it means that you can get more products on the page." Print an AR code, get people to come to the site, and you can show them so much more, while measuring the return from your effort.

The technical cost is a tiny part of the overall effort. "The printing and photography cost [of the advert] is the same. And the development cost is pretty small."

And of course where advertisers go, the publications that house them are sure to go as well. Esquire magazine in the US and Wallpaper* in Europe have done "augmented reality" editions, with Robert Downey Jr coming to life on the cover of the former, and AR text providing videos and animation in the latter. But there are more possibilities for journalism using AR: for example if you "geotag" newspaper articles (so that you say that an item relates to a particular place) then someone visiting a site could learn about events relevant to the area via their smartphone.

Book publishers too are leaping in: Carlton Publishing will release an AR book in May, featuring dinosaurs that pop out of the pages when viewed, yes, through a webcam. Future releases include war, sport and arts titles which will also have extra AR elements.

Yet in media it's the advertisers who are most excited. The possibilities of geotagged, targeted adverts â€“ which in effect hang in the air until someone comes along to find them with a smartphone â€“ or of AR adverts which open up a whole new world of opportunities (and perhaps discounts or loyalty bonuses) when you follow them through â€“ are yet another glimpse of the holy grail ofads that know exactly who and where you are.

Is there a risk that we'll all become AR'd out â€“ that it will become boring as advert after advert invites us to hold it up to a webcam? "What's hot today is ancient history tomorrow," says Cameron. "There have been a lot of bad uses of this technology with a rush to use it. We have had the chance to reflect on what it means and how to use it. The key is that it should be an enhancement of the stuff on the printed page."

Even so we're still in the early stages, he argues. "It's very primitive â€“ having to use a webcam, holding a magazine up to it. Obviously we're really interested in the opportunities with handheld devices. It's very frustrating that the iPhone doesn't allow access to the live video stream." (Nor does it run Flash, another problem for would-be AR designers.) "People in design are very annoyed with Steve Jobs," he observes. "We don't really understand why Apple won't allow that."

Given that access, he says, "you could hold your iPhone up to a billboard and get something amazing right there". What about the alternative, such as Google's Android-based Nexus phone? "It looks like you could do it on that," he says. But of course the iPhone is a target market. "Maybe Apple wants to keep that for itself," Cameron says. "Maybe they're lodging patents. Or maybe the processor on the iPhone isn't fast enough."

Yet there are some who think that AR has already had its brief time in the sun. At the Like Minds conference in Exeter at the beginning of March, Joanne Jacobs, a social media consultant, described an AR application that demanded you buy a T-shirt and then go and sit in front of your webcam â€“ so you could play Rock, Paper, Scissors. By yourself.

"It's hopeless," Jacobs said.

Cameron admits to some uncertainty about AR's measurable impact. "I don't know if it sells more things, but it seems clearly a good thing if we can get people who may be customers to participate in the adverts." But, he adds: "If people start to play with the adverts in a way that exposes them to more products, that's got to help bring a commercial return."

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France 12-10 England

Guardian Unlimited

- 1 days ago

France 12-10 England

France duly won the grand slam, but not in the manner to which their supporters had become accustomed. It was England, gallant in defeat, who showed the ambition and enterprise with Ben Foden and Chris Ashton damning the national management for not being bolder sooner, but once again they were outsmarted. A rainy night in Paris was not the time to discover that handling was not taboo in rugby.

England scored the only try and came close to adding three more while France barely threatened their line, but the conditions demanded a territory game, something England belatedly came to realise and they brought on Jonny Wilkinson for the shoot-out. He kicked one penalty but was never in range for a drop goal as France claimed their fourth consecutive title in seasons after a Lions tour.

France had already won the championship courtesy of Scotland's victory in Ireland a few hours before, but they had made it clear all week that the title would be a mere consolation and that it was the grand slam and England's scalp they craved.

They were presented with two early opportunities to attack after Dylan Hartley's crooked throw into a line-out in his own 22 led to France being awarded a free-kick at the subsequent scrum. They took it quickly but settled for the very English option of a drop goal from the fly-half François Trinh-Duc.

England then decided to play like France. Toby Flood launched his back line from deep and Mike Tindall freed Mark Cueto with a long pass. The ball was quickly recycled, Flood threw a cut-out pass to Flutey who gave the ball in one movement to the debutant, Chris Ashton. He in turn shipped it quickly to Ben Foden on the left wing who had an unopposed 30-metre run to the line for Flood to convert, an example of how to create space without making a break.

The last time England had shown any swagger was when Flood played in the centre against Wales, and then only off turnover ball. Not even the rain put them off last night, Ashton twice breaking tackles only for his kick to be charged down by Clément Poitrenaud before England surrendered possession at the breakdown.

England's catharsis left France stunned to the point of catatonia. Flood went on a mazy run just outside his own 22 and it was Les Bleus who were applying the brakes, Trinh-Duc's long touchfinder winning applause from the crowd before Morgan Parra missed a long-range penalty.

England were missing Steve Borthwick in the line-out, even if their general demeanour more resembled that of his successor as captain, Lewis Moody. Simon Shaw's right shoulder gave out again after 15 minutes and he was replaced by the Stade Français lock Tom Palmer, one of five France-based players in the squad.

England's scrum started to go backwards, missing Shaw's ballast, and the role reversal continued as France, growing ever more cautious, crept back into the lead with two Parra penalties, the second after England's's front row collapsed a scrum after being shoved ignominiously backwards. The referee taking such a disdainful view of England's scrummaging was Bryce Lawrence, the New Zealand official who contentiously blew Phil Vickery off King's Park during the first Test between the Lions and South Africa last year.

The rain fell ever harder but still England looked to keep the ball in hand. It was, perhaps, another example of the one-dimensional approach that has been their ruin since the 2003 World Cup, over-reliance on a gameplan. Too much of the match was being played in their half and two more penalties for scrum collapses gave France the position from which Parra kicked his third penalty.

Both England's props were feeling the squeeze and the hooker Hartley had been warned after his knee connected with the prop Thomas Domingo's ribs. It was one way of trying to sort out the problems in the scrum, but England conceded 10 penalties and free-kicks to two in the opening period, indiscipline undermining their new-found ambition and they went into the interval 12-7 down.

England made two changes in the front row at the start of the second-half, Steve Thompson and David Wilson adding bulk up front and getting the scrum out of reverse gear. England continued to seek space but they were most threatening when turning the defence by kicking: Care's chip to the line would have been taken by Foden had it not bounced into touch, while Ashton, a right-footer playing on the left wing while Cueto was a left-footer playing on the right, lost the race for his chip ahead with Poitrenaud.

England had clearly been told to play more in their own half, but kicking is not Flood's forte. He was hopelessly short with a long-range drop goal attempt and sliced a weighted kick towards the France 22 directly into touch. The visitors had at least stopped haemorrhaging penalties and their defence, apart from one move that saw the wing Marc Andreu threaten down the right, did not suffer from doubt.

Foden and Ashton, in contrast, were causing the defenders grief with their angles of running and footwork, but England were not turning pressure into points. Cueto's run into the midfield was not picked up and he had a clear run into the home 22: Flutey was outside him, but Cueto tried to step Poitrenaud and was nailed.

As the game entered the final quarter, France's nemesis over the years, Wilkinson, was brought on. He went to outside-half with Flood shifted into the centre in place of Flutey. It was now about points and when Julien Bonnaire boneheadedly took out Care at a ruck near halfway, Wilkinson brought England back to within two points with a 50-metre penalty.

England were now within a drop goal of winning. France had been 9-8 ahead in the last five minutes of the 2007 semi-final against England at the Stade de France when a Wilkinson penalty and drop goal turned the game. The crowd tried desperately to rally their side as Les Bleus looked to set up camp in England's half, but nerves and hands betrayed the new champions.

Wilkinson kicked deep, hurting his shoulder after leading the chase, and France four times ran from deep. Bonnaire blatantly entered one ruck from the side but was not penalised, though after Julien Malzieu had been hauled down on his own 10-metre line, James Haskell, not long on, flopped over the top.

France gave away a penalty of their own through Jean-Baptiste Poux. Wilkinson's kick only made the halfway line as the countdown clock reached zero. England were forced to move the ball, but Cueto's knock-on ended the game to the relief of France and the anger of the England manager, Martin Johnson, who came on to the field to remonstrate with the officials over a quick line-out four minutes from the end, which saw Wilkinson gain 60 metres, but that was not the reason England lost.

Paul Rees guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

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7,paris,james,how tos,nationals

Killer Klowns From Outer Space!

ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 20 March 2010

Read/WriteWeb

- 1 days and 2 hours ago

In the next few weeks, the ReadWriteWeb events guide will take you from New York City, to San Francisco, to Portland, Oregon. Along the way you'll find a conference on search engine strategies, a showcase for startups, an in-depth look at the freemium business model, and a day filled with of social media case studies.

How do you like your events calendar? As a world map? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.

Sponsor

22 – 26 March 2010: New York City

Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo

Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include:

Digital Asset Optimization
Deep Dive Into Analytics
Augmented Reality: It's a Brave New World
Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons
Advanced B2B Search Marketing
Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

23 March 2010: San Francisco, California

S.F. Beta 4.0

After a long winter's hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they're going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you're building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.

26 March 2010: San Francisco, California

Freemium Summit

The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.

Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.

March 29, 2010: Portland, Oregon

Social Fresh Portland

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day, you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more, as well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

4 April 2010: Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania

ConnectNow

TEDx CMU is an independently organized TEDx event that will be held on April 4th, 2010 at Carnegie Mellon University and will feature a full day of talks by prominent speakers as well as recorded videos from past TEDTalks. Confirmed speakers include Jonathan Fields (author, blogger and entrepreneur), Stacey Monk (founder of Epic Change, a startup nonprofit), Chase Jarvis (photographer, director and social artist) and Nathan Martin (CEO of Deeplocal, an innovation studio in Pittsburgh).

The theme of the event is "Fearless", and we are inviting speakers from cross-disciplinary backgrounds to talk about their experiences, and tell us a little about what inspires them to be fearless in the pursuit of goals. We hope to spark discussions and foster connections between participants, encouraging aspiring individuals to follow their dreams and make a difference. The event is free to attend, and the application deadline is March 21, 2010.

For more information about the event, visit tedxcmu.com or email info@tedxcmu.com. You can also find TEDx CMU on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia

ConnectNow

ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is "social currency". For more info email info@connectnow.net.au.

13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas

PubCon South

events pubcon dallas PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry's biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world's top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry's most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here.

16 April 2010: Mountain View, California

Under the Radar: Cloud

Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world's most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.

16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan

FutureMidwest

FutureMidwest is the region's largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 - the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow.

Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.

April 19, 2010: St. Louis Missouri

Social Fresh St. Louis

The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. Over the course of the day you'll hear from 35 speakers from companies like Ford, Best Buy, Scottrade, Hardees, CMT and many more. Register now and use coupon code RWW15 for 15% off.

19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California

DrupalCon

DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts.

Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management.

26 April 2010: San Francisco, California

Future of Money and Technology Summit

The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O'Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more.

Use discount code "rww" to get 10% off registration.

7 May 2010: Mountain View, California

ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010

The ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit 2010 will be an exploration of the latest Mobile development trends - both the technology and the emerging business applications. Get ready to explore, think and create the future of Mobile with the brightest in the industry, your peers! As in our last Summit, The Real-Time Web, the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit is an unconference.

An unconference is a participant driven conference where the agenda is created on the day, in real-time and discussions are lead by conference participants. Read about the history of unconferences.

We will have two main tracks at this Summit - Development and Business - so the Summit will be of interest to managers, marketers, developers, innovators, entrepreneurs and thought leaders alike. Here's a sample of some of the topics we'll explore in both of these tracks.

Geo-location services - what can you do using location as a platform?
Commerce & Marketing - as more and more consumers use smartphones, how can businesses utilize this channel?
Content, Publishing & Recommendations - the technologies and best practices.
Mobile Social Networking - how to tap into communities on mobile devices.
Internet of Things - the emerging opportunities from sensor and RFID data.
Augmented Reality - the technology and business applications of AR.
Native App vs. Browser Based - Including iPhone, Android, RIM, Palm, Windows Mobile and Symbian.

Click here to register now, or to become a sponsor, or to help shape the conference.

11 May 2010: San Francisco, California

FinovateSpring

FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate's signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day.

Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available.

May 17 2010: San Francisco, California

SF MusicTech Summit

The SF MusicTech Summit will bring together 700-plus visionaries in the music/technology space - the best and brightest entrepreneurs, developers, investors, service providers, journalists, musicians and organizations who work with them at the convergence of culture and commerce. We meet to discuss the evolving music, business and technology ecosystem in a proactive, conducive-to-dealmaking environment. Enter the discount code "rww" to get 10% off.

25 – 27 May 2010: Denver, Colorado

Glue

Glue is the only conference devoted solely to exploring the problem-sets facing architects, developers and IT professionals in a "post-cloud" world. Glue focuses on the APIs and protocols (Twitter, Facebook, Websockets, PubSubHubBub, XMPP), formats and standards (RDF/Linked Data, JSON, Microformats, HTML5), platforms and providers (Amazon, Rackspace, Google App Engine, Salesforce.com, Eucalyptus), Identity Protocols (OAuth/WRAP, SAML, OpenID, SPML) emerging NoSQL data models (Cassandra, CouchDB, MongoDB, Riak, HBase), and other mechanisms that are building the post-cloud world.

ReadWriteCloud will be blogging live from Gluecon and CloudCamp, and ReadWriteWeb's Alex Williams will be moderating the "Managing Complexity in the Cloud" session. Please join us May 25-27 in Denver, Colorado. ReadWriteWeb readers can receive 10% off of registration by using the code "RWW12".

15 – 16 June 2010: New York City

Corporate Social Media Summit

The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:

Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald's, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business
A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media

Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here.

29 – 30 June 2010: London

Cloud Computing World Forum

The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include:

Co-located with CloudCamp London
Co-located with Green IT conference
Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
Free-to-attend evening awards presentation
Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices
Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services
Evening networking party for all attendees

5 October 2010: New York City

FinovateFall

FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders(...)

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pittsburgh,4,2,new york,new yorks

'Misunderstanding Darwin': An Exchange

Beautiful short term rental tourist apartment in a great neighbourhood for 2, 5 people.

Sky Checkers 1.0.2 - Free multiplayer game inspired by old Kirby mini game. (Free)

Protecting Earth and space from people

BEST DEAL. LONG OR SHORT TERM. FREE UTILITIES. GOOD AREA. IMMEDIATELY.

Montreal Classifieds at eClassifieds4U: Free Classified Ads in Montreal

- 1 days and 7 hours ago

Ideal shared housing. Nice room available immediately! For personal occupancy.

Reasonable $600 a month, truly all inclusive! NOT ONLY electricity, hot water, heat, BUT ALSO laundry, telephone, furniture, AND EVEN high class appliances, high speed Internet, high quality satellite TV!

Yes! FREE utilities (real savings for you). FREE laundry (washer & dryer at home). FREE Internet (unlimited Wi-Fi). FREE television (over 120 channels). FREE phone line (no-limit local calls). FREE parking. One of the best neighbourhood -- friendly and safe -- priceless!

No matter where your are from (student or professional, welcome!). No matter long or short term stay (monthly). No matter when you like to move in (flexible starting date). No hidden fees. No bills to pay. No surprise rate-hikes. No deposit needed. No smoking. No pets. No problem!

Your private bedroom is fully FURNISHED: single size bed, comfortable mattress, study desk, deluxe chair, closet space, floor lamp, reading lamp, chest of drawers, duvet, pillow, bed sheet, drapes/curtains. Second floor of a charming triplex in great condition. Stylish stone wall. Hardwood floors, high ceilings, spacious house, huge windows. Sunny, bright, and most importantly, very clean!

TWO bathrooms with shower/bathtub and twin sinks. Modern kitchen/dining room completely equipped with top-of-the-line appliances: stainless-steel refrigerator, smooth-top stove, range hood, microwave oven, toaster, coffee maker. What's more? Rice cooker, dishware, utensils, lots of cabinets. Extra: dining table set. Plus: premium smoke alarm. Bonus: a terrific terrace!

CONVENIENT location! Corner of major street in the heart of Montreal island. 5 minutes bus to Rosemont metro station; 15 minutes to get to downtown or universities. Easy access to public transportation: main bus routes 197, 45, 10, 18...

Close to all: convenience store downstairs, cafe bar across the street, bank on next block, 24-hour restaurants around the corner, supermarket within walking distance. Relax at the beautiful Parc Père-Marquette, or enjoy the nearby recreation center (FREE indoor swimming pool, FREE ice-skating arena).

Call (or text) now: 514-831-7788 Gordy. Reference preferred.
____________________

Disponible dès maintenant! Une belle chambre meublée. Pour une seule personne. Grande maison à partager. Date et durée flexible selon vos besoins. Location long ou court terme. $600/mois tout compris, même internet et télé-satellite! 2 salles de bain communes. Cuisine complètement équipée. L'endroit est propre et calme. Un des plus beaux quartiers de la ville. Situé en plein coeur de l'île de Montréal. 5 minutes en autobus à station métro Rosemont, ligne orange. Non fumeur. Pas d'animaux.

Très confortable. Très abordable! Inclus dans le prix: électricité, eau chaude, chauffage, internet sans-fil haute-vitesse illimité, télévision satellite (120 canaux), téléphone. En plus: laveuse, sécheuse, réfrigérateur, cuisinière, four micro-ondes, grille-pain, cafetière, vaisselle, verrerie, ustensiles, serviettes et table. Aussi, entretien ménager des parties communes.

Au 2e étage d'une maison triplex charmante. L'espace privée, soit votre chambre, est entièrement meublée et comprend d'un lit simple, literie, bureau de travail, chaise, commode, garde-robe. Grandes fenêtres de qualité supérieure. Beaucoup de soleil. Puits de lumière. Propre et éclairé. Bien décoré. Planchers de bois francs. Hauts plafonds. Accès à une grande terrasse extérieure.

Découvrir et profiter pleinement le Montréal. Vers l'université, centre ville, etc: 15 minutes. Proche de les transports publics, choix lignes d'autobus: #197, 45, 10, 18... Secteur paisible et agréable. Quartier résidentiel plaisant, tranquille et sécuritaire. Stationnement facile.

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2,restaurants,speed,ligne,pets

Review: 'Hubble 3D' Takes You on Beautiful, Brief Space Journey

Android This Week: Nexus One for All; Buzz Hits Android; Google TV

GTA IV DLC, whats best, download or dvd?

Drift compensation of gas sensor array data by common principal component analysis

Comparing the performance of different features in sensor arrays

Project Natal needs you to stand at least 13 feet away

Melissa Draper: Useful and usable trumps pretty for me

Planet Ubuntu

- 1 days and 9 hours ago

No really. I prefer GNOME, so clearly pretty isn’t the biggest factor here. When I first started using Ubuntu, I would drag the top GNOME panel to the bottom and haveÂ it sit under what is normally the bottom panel. It looked ugly as sin, but this is how, as (back in 2005) a recent Windows refugee, I was used to working and so this is how I chose to organise my space.

Most importantly, it wasn’t hard for me to do this. My most recent installs, almost 4 years later, primarily on laptops rather than desktops tended to be left as is — a panel at the topÂ and a panel at the bottom. I find this seems to suit laptops better, and I’ve become accustomed to it. However, had I not been able to move the panel from the start, I might even have ended up on Kubuntu. Well, if it were not for the silly single-click thing that fires stuff off even when you don’t want it to, like when you bump the mouse accidentally. Ok, truth be told, I probably would have stuck with Ubuntu, because, well, all the functionality was still there. Just in a different place to where I was expecting

As with most computer users, I’ve never owned a Mac. When I was little, my school had a some (iirc) Mac II’s but I am pretty certain that the number of times that I, at 28, have used a Mac since would barely exceed the number of digits on my hands, and OS X is nothing like the first Macs I used. I think the last time I used a Mac was in 2005; for about 20 minutes.

But now with the sneaky Lucid UI changes, I might as well be using OS X as far as my learned behaviours are concerned. And lets just hope that my laptop trackpad doesn’t jump at an inopportune time — like it does sometimes when I go to open the system menu and instead hit the firefox icon right next to it instead — as trackpads are prone to.

I work 100% from a laptop and use the trackpad 90% of the time. The chance this ridiculous UI change will not bite me hard is pretty slim. The only plus I’ve come across so far is that it made it easier to close out of the awkwardly oversized evolution setup wizard that launched on my eeepc701.

However, putting even that glaring risk aside, the one thing that I am absolutely hating the most about these sneaky UI changes is the abolishment of informative tooltips. This is a loss of functionality.

My battery icon, my wifi connection icon, my xchat icon — they now tell me nothing when I merely nudge them, I now have to smack them over the head with the cursor. I cannot tell at quick glance if I have enough charge for something, on the wrong wifi network, or whether I can ignore that xchat message I missed the notification for. I have to exert time, energy, and most importantly brain focus to get what used to be a simple matter of an effortless enlightenment. I now have to go through what is sometimes several clicks. Extra clicks are bad. Clicks add obscurity. Extra clicks are effort.

This bleeps me right off. I can learn to move a mouse in a different direction (though I’m not at all believing that new windows migrants will cope), but I really do not have the capacity to circumvent the application to read the bytes from the disk myself to find out what my battery level is without clicking through some dialogs. The software is supposed to do that for me.

Alas, my software no longer does this for me, and ergo, my software no longer works for me.

To get this information, I now have to do stuff for my software. I should not be working for my software.

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4,cope,truth,wifi,littles

Universal betting on lower prices to boost CD sales

Sociotoco Search

'Second Sight' turns PSP camera into an augmented reality learning tool