Boingo , a company that provides internet access over WiFi networks in places like airports and hotels, has developed “sniffing” software for the Pocket PC operating system. Previously Pocket PC users often had to know the SSID and other information about available networks before logging on, but with the Boingo software, sniffing for networks is free and easy. Not only does it find commercial Boingo networks, it also finds free and corporate networks as well. Warchalking just got a whole lot easier.
Ultimate Entertainment PC from Alien
Alienware‘s got a new computer that looks absolutely to-die-for. The Alienware Navigator is a computer designed for living-room entertainment rather than office work; running the Microsoft XP Media OS, the Navigator sports a P4 2.53 GHz chip with 512 meg of RAM, 80 gig HD, universal memory card reader, TV tuner card, optical audio out, NVIDIA eForce4 Ti 4200 w/64MB, CD-RW/DVD combo drive and remote control. The higher end Navigator Pro adds DVD-RW, a slightly faster chip and 120 gig HD. Both come housed in an enclosure just 7.4″ x 7.88″ x 11.82″ in ubercool Alienware black. Price is $1700 or $2000 for the Pro.
My wife, the rock star
My wife, Pam Bricker, and her band Thievery Corporation performed on KCRW in LA yestersday morning. The webcast is available here. Pam’s singing the 2nd and 3rd and the last tune. Pappa’s so proud.
Kamen’s Day in the Sun
The FDA has approved a Johnson and Johnson wheelchair based on inventor Dean Kamen’s design 
— the iBOT is a wheelchair that can both climb stairs and stand upright, allowing much greater mobility for the wheelchair-bound. It’s available only by prescription, and costs about $30,000.
In other Kamen news, the overhyped Segway scooter is now on sale from Amazon for $5000, with a $500 non-refundable deposit. Not due for delivery until March though, so you won’t find one in your x-mas stocking.
“1984” Two Decades Off?
I knew that the ’80s were back in a big way, but who knew that 1984 (in the Orwellian sense) would be among the “retro” trends. “Total Information Awareness,” people, Big Brother by any other name, is HERE, or will be soon. Chris Matthews, on Jay Leno last night, said (giggling): “When you go to the video store to rent a film, you better make sure that it’s a film you’d show your grandmother.” What’s shockingly un-American about this picture? I’m ashamed and horrified for my country — and for all those freakin’ couch potatoes who don’t vote, don’t raise their voices, are more interested in who The Bachelor’s gonna pick than who’s gutting their civil liberties. Time to shore up the ol’ crypto.
Here’s a quote from a John Gilmore piece on the subject (via bOINGbOING):
The US government’s moves to impose totalitarian control in the last year (secret trials, enemies lists, massive domestic surveillance) are what some of the more paranoid among us have been expecting for years. I was particularly amused by last week’s comments from the Administration that it’ll be too hard to retrain the moral FBI agents who are so careful of our civil rights — so we’ll need a new domestic-spying agency that will have no compunctions about violating our civil rights and wasting our money by spying on innocent people…
Now’s a great time to deploy good working encryption, everywhere you can. Next month or next year may be too late. And even honest ISPs, banks, airlines (hah), etc, may be forced by law or by secret pressure to act as government spies. Make your security work end-to-end.
Palm on Your Wrist
A new Palm OS device has just been announced — no, I’m not talking about the Zire or the Tungsten, I’m talking about the Fossil Wrist PDA with Palm OS. It has basically the same functionalilty as a Palm V, with full 16-shade grayscale 160×160 res touch-screen, 33MHz processor, 2 megs of RAM, Infrared port, USB sync, rechargable batteries (4 days of use) and the smallest stylus you’ve ever seen built right in to the watchband. It runs all programs for Palm OS4.1 or earier, so it’s possible to do full spreadsheet and wordprocessing on it. Not only that, but it should even be compatible with the PocketTop infrared PDA keyboard. Amazing. Price is unknown, but I’ll predict $200 retail. Click “Read More” for bigger pic.
Spam filtering on the desktop
A number of anti-spam initiatives are underway using Baye’s Theorem to analyze email contents to classify incoming email and recognize spam. I’ve been using POPFile, which is a cross-platform Perl script that you train. POPFile runs as a proxy on your desktop — useful if you don’t own/control your mail server. More Thoughts and Background
It Came From Outer Space
Just a reminder — the Leonid meteor shower has officially begun, and will be going strong all weekend until it peaks sometime on Tuesday. This year is supposed to be a spectacular show, especially on the East Coast which should have the best viewing for the peak. Go to Space.com for more information on where and when to best see the Leonids.
New Software for Scooping Internet News
UNIC (Universal News Internet Collector) software is designed for the efficient online collection of the latest news that matters to you, so that you can read it offline, any time. A key feature of UNIC is that you can read the news digests on either your desktop PC or your PocketPC by creating .lit files for use with Microsoft Reader. Check it out at Softaura
[Please Note: This “news” item was posted by the developer of the software, NOT an impartial user. – The Mgt.]
Street Tech Muse Gets His Due
Jim Leftwich, a grossly underappreciated artist, big thinker and interface designer, gets a bit of his due today at Wired News. His WAY before its time CyberPort Desktop (painstakingly built, pixel by pixel, with Mac II-era SuperPaint) was one of the big inspirations for our Beyond Cyberpunk! HyperCard project. Jim got on board with BCP in a big way and continued to do bleeding edge art that blew our minds on a nearly daily basis. You can see a number of images of his CyberPort with the article.
Congrats, Jim! You deserve it (and LOTS more).
[Thanks to Jay Townsend!]