Rough Drafts

Got my first Mac this week: a refurbished G4 iMac, with a 17″ screen, from Apple.com. Everyone around me seems amazed that I’d buy a Mac, as if I just converted to Catholicism or something, but to me it’s a fairly practical decision, and it’s based entirely on the software available for the Mac plat

Wikipedia is approaching 200,000 entries, all contributed, edited, and vetted by volunteers. Who would have thought the Internet would not only destroy the business model for encyclopedias, but would also come up with a better, faster, cheaper way of making them?

On newsstands today: The first issue of Mobile PC. Inside: more than 50 products, reviewed in-depth and with sass, style, and smarts. A Wi-Fi makeover of 3 different houses. Maps showing national coverage for the top 6 cellular carriers. A guide to keeping your wireless and mobile devices secure. An

Futurist Peter de Jager penned this thoughtful essay [http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20031007.gtdejageroct7/BNStory/Technology/] about what happens when technology creates abundance where there used to be scarcity. It’s not always a good thing: Think of obesity, traffic jams, spa

A Reuters story this morning discusses photocatalysts, substances that react with light and oxygen to break down organic compounds, such as soot particles. Coat a wall or a window with these substances, and you’ve got a self-cleaning surface. They’re attracting a lot of attention in Japan, but haven

Water-cooled CPUs coming soon from Cooligy.

The FBI has been telling some journalists to turn over their notes, email messages, and sources, secretly — and we have the Patriot Act to thank for this new attack on the First Amendment.

Poetically fractured English from a Japanese catalog site, for a video game / vibrator: “There are a color, a form, and a motion in all sound.”

Exposure to 3G radiation can cause nausea, headache — and improved alertness.

A Tablet PC, with its direct stylus-to-screen interface, is ideal for toddlers. Just make sure you keep the spray bottles hidden away.

I’ve posted a new issue of the tweney report: Spamfighters. This issue also went out via email to 2,647 subscribers. Although I’ve not published much lately, the bounce rate is pretty low — only a handful of defunct email addresses on the mailing list this time.

According to a research firm called Strategy Analytics, sales of digital camera-equipped cell phones have, for the first time, exceeded sales of standalone digital cameras: Mobile Commerce World.com “Mobile phone makers shipped 25 million handsets with built-in cameras worldwide in the first half of