WSJ:
A novel plan to develop a $100 laptop computer for distribution to millions of schoolchildren in developing countries has caught the interest of governments and the attention of computer-industry heavyweights.
…
Although no contracts with governments have been signed, Mr. Negroponte says current plans call for producing five to ten million units beginning in late 2006 or early 2007, with tens of millions more a year later.
BBC:
Aerospace giant Boeing is attempting to break the world record for the longest non-stop passenger airline flight.
A Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner jet is due to take off from Hong Kong at 1030 local time (1430 GMT) and will arrive in London on Thursday at 1330 GMT.
The 23-hour flight will cover about 12,500 miles (20,300 km), taking the plane over North America rather than the shorter route to London via Russia.
Boeing hopes to challenge arch rival Airbus with its new long-haul jet.
CSM:
BOSTON – Carolin E. has no Social Security number, little financial security, and, a few months from now, no place to call home. Credit card companies and banks would turn her down.
As an illegal immigrant, she must live without a lot of things. But there’s one thing she won’t live without: her cellphone. Indeed, when it comes to mobile phones, millions of Latinos in America like Carolin are among the industry’s best customers.
Hispanics are outpacing others in navigating the newest horizons of the wireless world. They’re placing greater importance on taking pictures with their phones and sending text messages far and wide, according to market research companies. They are more likely to have unplugged their land lines altogether. And compared with the general market, they shell out 10 percent more money for their wireless bills, according to some estimates.
Everyone’s favorite search engine appears to marching steadily toward its goal of indexing every piece of digital content in the universe.
Welcome to Google Base:
Google Base is Google’s database into which you can add all types of content. We’ll host your content and make it searchable online for free.
Examples of items you can find in Google Base:
• Description of your party planning service
• Articles on current events from your website
• Listing of your used car for sale
• Database of protein structuresYou can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.
Because, you know, when you gotta have a working database of protein structures like yesterday man, it’s great to be able to turn to Google.
UPDATE: The Google Base subdomain I linked to above is only intermittantly available at this point; Google’s expected to make the official announcement and make the service go live later today. More info here.
Wow. Google’s just released a new RSS feed reader.
I’ve only just poked around a little bit, but it looks very, very cool. You’ve heard me wax elegiac about Bloglines before; will this be a Bloglines killer? The main advantage I can see now is that Google’s feed reader doesn’t use frames, like Bloglines does, and it appears to be more responsive. Bloglines, however, allows users to create folders for various feeds, and you can’t do that with Google’s service.
One interesting thing to note: Google doesn’t call this an RSS service; they call it a feed reader. Which is smart — RSS sounds intimidating, and “feed” is a more tangible, intuitive way to describe RSS.
If you think I’m a paranoid tight-ass when it comes to traffic cameras (and don’t miss Ben P. issuing me a cerebral beat-down in the comments) , you can only imagine how I feel about the privacy implications involved in Korea’s plan to build a high-tech utopia.
NYT:
Imagine public recycling bins that use radio-frequency identification technology to credit recyclers every time they toss in a bottle; pressure-sensitive floors in the homes of older people that can detect the impact of a fall and immediately contact help; cellphones that store health records and can be used to pay for prescriptions.
These are among the services dreamed up by industrial-design students at California State University, Long Beach, for possible use in New Songdo City, a large “ubiquitous city” being built in South Korea.
A ubiquitous city is where all major information systems (residential, medical, business, governmental and the like) share data, and computers are built into the houses, streets and office buildings. New Songdo, located on a man-made island of nearly 1,500 acres off the Incheon coast about 40 miles from Seoul, is rising from the ground up as a U-city.
But seriously, to clarify my stance: I’m all for gadgets in instances like this, when they promise to make our lives easier. But when techno-wizzardry increases the chance of me getting a traffic citation, I’m all like “down with the autoritarian surveillance state, yo!”
CNN:
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — The airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while inside its cabin 140 passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television.
While satellite TV sets aboard JetBlue Flight 292 were tuned to news broadcasts, some passengers cried. Others tried to telephone relatives and one woman sent a text message to her mother in Florida attempting to comfort her in the event she died.
“It was very weird. It would’ve been so much calmer without” the televisions, Pia Varma of Los Angeles said after the plane skidded to a safe landing Wednesday evening in a stream of sparks and burning tires. No one was hurt.
Funny: I thought TV sets in airplanes had “off” buttons.
To all you gearheads out there who’re in search of a faster way to skip through the ads during The OC: Jack W. sends along this promising TiVo hack.
Google has just launched a new service called Blog Search. Early tinkering reveals that it works very well. And you can subscribe to RSS feeds for searches. Which is extremely useful. You have to wonder what sort of new features they plan to roll out in the future, as well.
Hello Google Blog Search, goodbye Technorati?
