19
Mar
Posted by Stephen In Other

This isn’t really computer related, but I thought this was very neat. See a digital hologram of Smart Grid technology come to life in your hands.
How it works is you print off a document on their website and use a webcam from your computer. It displays a digital hologram on your computer screen. You can even blow into the speaker and the hologram fans spin faster.
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05
Mar
Posted by Stephen In Other
I wrote a few weeks ago about changes Microsoft has made to Windows 7’s User Account Control (UAC) that make the component less secure than it was in Vista. Though the company has responded by saying it will change some of the problem behaviors, yet more problems have emerged that indicate that a real fix will be harder than first expected. But more than that, the flaws call into question the entire purpose of the Windows UAC feature, at least in its commonplace “Admin Approval” mode.
The decisions Microsoft has made not only make Windows 7’s Admin Approval mode less secure than Vista’s, they also undermine the entire purpose of the UAC system. Redmond maintains that UAC’s foremost objective is to ensure programmers update their programs to behave properly when users have limited access rights. But the way that the Windows 7 UAC “improvements” have been made completely exempts Microsoft’s developers from having to do that work themselves. With Windows 7, it’s one rule for Redmond, another one for everyone else.
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27
Feb
Posted by Stephen In Other
It looks like the Yahoo Briefcase is going away. I remember when it came out back in 1998. I thought it was one of the coolest features that Yahoo had at the time. Since then there are many companies that offer better and more storage services. Hopefully this isn’t a trend that we’re going to see with Yahoo services.
Here is a picture of the letter.
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25
Feb
Posted by Stephen In Other

While we were in Vegas earlier this month covering CES, we got a sneak peek at the New American Home, a posh house on town outskirts that Microsoft and a few other select tech companies were involved in designing. Built on the same block where Wayne Newton lives, the half-acre home has tons of whole-house electronics, including 10 Toshiba HDTVs, a 16-zone Nuvo distributed-audio system, and Anthem A/V processors — all controlled by Lifeware software that lets you access it from anywhere. You can start your bathtub (Kohler, of course), pick what music you want to listen to, and fire up the towel warmer… all from your phone. Read More