KOPN Tech Radio

Follow-up: Investigators suspect computer problems on doomed Air France Airbus jet

Follow-up: Bozeman, MT backs down and apologizes over request for job applicants’ personal social media account info

Follow-up: China not backing off on requirement for “Green Dam” filtering software on all PCs sold there, despite leaking of the software’s source code to Wikileaks

Associated Press issues strict Facebook, Twitter guidelines to staff

US Court of Appeals Judge thinks linking to copyrighted material should be illegal

Email patterns may be able to predict impending corporate doom

Financial shenanigans have officially wiped out any/all gains in economic productivity made from digital technologies since 1965

Adam Savage charged $11k for a few hours of web surfing using phone in Canada

US electric car company Tesla scores $425 million in DOE low-interest loans, but may make play to become supplier of electric powertrains only

Wind power has the potential to yield 23x the current energy needs of the US

Scientists in Berkeley, CA working on non-volatile digital memory built to last a thousand years

Researchers expand clinical study of neural interface brain implant

New lithium battery delivers 10x the energy density of today’s rechargeables

If you want results, talk in a person’s right ear

Pre-corrupted Word files now being sold to students who need more time on assignments

Twitter, circa 1935

FTC to monitor blogs for paid claims and reviews

Google, Yahoo, Genentech, and others investigated for hiring practices

Facebook ‘fans’ claim hack that exposes private profile information

City of Bozeman, MT instructs job applicants to divulge usernames and passwords for personal social media accounts as condition of employment

Mayo Clinic reports dramatic outcomes in prostate cancer treatment

Half of your real-life, offline friends are replaced every seven years

MIT scientists reverse-engineer the human inner ear to create ultra-broadband, low-power RF chip

Toshiba and Intel enter unofficial race to 32nm and 28nm chip manufacture

One million phone numbers strong, Google Voice prepares for takeoff

Kodak ending Kodachrome’s run after 74 years, can’t get Paul Simon song out of its head

Three nerds track down stolen iPhone using new 3.0 software feature, confront thief on the street

View this fun graphic on Power draining vampires.

Some appliances unplugged will save you some bux.

Iran’s SMS networks “mysteriously fail” right before elections

Air France replaces speed sensors in long-haul airplanes

Microsoft issues record 31 patches for bugs in Windows, IE, Office

Golden Parachutes for top Sun execs are revealed

Web sites can now uncover from your browser what sites you visit without using JavaScript

Missouri family’s Christmas photos from blog used to hawk groceries in Prague

Number of iPhone subscribers is 6.4 million

GPS coordinates lead demolition crew to destroy the wrong house

More MacOSX malware discovered

Teen decomposes plastic bag in three months, identifies bacteria responsible

Lifeform awakened by scientists from 120,000-year Arctic slumber (this can’t end well)

German lad hit in the hand by a meteorite is doing fine

It went mostly smooth. The FTA (Free-To-Air) television in the U.S. is now all digital.

The only well documented hiccup is from a surprising source: Windows Media Server users got a gliltch.

12 millions folks were not ready. But, really, would they ever get ready? A certain percentage of the population are procrastinators. I’m one, so consider that insider information :).

Prediction from John: expect the conversion boxes to drop in price to about $15 in about 6 months. That’s what they are worth. That is what they were always worth at that volume. But a $40 coupon pretty much guarantees that nobody went below $40.

From Mike: it’s sucks for those at the edge of coverage. It just does. Digital does not degrade well. So if you are on the “border” of getting analog signal, you will probably lose digital signal. For some, a better antenna helps. For others, the only way around it is with a tower. (examples)

Good luck with the launch. This will be mission STS-127.

It was delayed earlier to yet another hydrogen leak. Hydrogen is very hard to keep contained in general. It’s corrosive. The molecules are so small they can penetrate metal (slowly hopefully) in most circumstances.

And, let’s face it, the shuttles have been due to retirement for a long while.

After a month in space, the Herschel Telescope finally opened it’s doors and is in place to start seeing the universe.

It was critical step, because if it failed to open, there really is no way to repair something that far into deep space. Space shuttle simply can’t get that far.

I brought home the new Palm smartphone over the weekend– the Pre. The iPhone has been called the “Jesus Phone,” which makes the Pre a sort of “hail Mary.” I’m not sure how many of these Palm has to sell to stay in business, but it’s probably more than were sold its debut weekend.

The screen really is a looker– I think it may look better than the original iPhone’s display, though it is smaller. Many of the phone’s physical and software touches look like Apple ideas, and the card in the packaging that declares “Designed In and Inspired By California” is definitely an Apple out-take. Check out how many on the Palm team came over from Apple.

The handset is rugged enough– better build quality than my last Sprint phone, the Mogul. A recent tear-down article puts the per-unit build cost at $170.

What I like so far– quality of the camera, real multitasking, the interface. What I don’t like — lack of snappiness when starting apps & changing orientation of the display.

Construction crew severs secret ‘black line’ in Virginia in 2000

Cisco joins the Dow, GM leaves

Information-dense infrared fuse transmits complicated messages as it burns

Bottle innovation– water bottle from Coca-Cola Japan twists into compact shape when empty

‘Embarrassing’ mistake puts US civilian nuke list on public web site

Tetris turns 25, Unix turns 40

MS issues fix for unwanted Firefox extension

Hospital turns away ambulances when their computers go down

FTC shuts down ‘worst ISP in the US’

Monticello, MN beats the phone company; Internet is ruled a ‘utility’