Porn Quietly Leads Way In Tech

Many people don't realize that the 'adult entertainment' industry is often the innovator of or first to adopt new technologies, particularly in home entertainment. Although this article leads with sites converting to be iPad friendly (not that big of a deal, they simply converted videos to HTML5 and made sure their sites render ok on the device) in particular the adoption of VCRs around 1980, the development of streaming video on the web, and the integration of secure internet credit card transactions were all led by this industry. One hopes the adoption of 3-D TV will not.

Whenever there's a new content platform, the adult-entertainment industry is one of the first to adopt it -- if they didn't help create it in the first place.

"It's not necessarily that the porn industry comes up with the ideas, but there's a huge difference in any technology between the idea and the successful application," said Jonathan Coopersmith, a professor at Texas A&M University who teaches the history of technology.

"They're kind of the shock troops, and one of the nice things for them is that they can claim, 'Hey, I'm advancing technology.' "

From the printing press to instant cameras, from pay-per-view to VCRs, pornographers -- both professional and private -- have been among the quickest to jump on board with newly developed gadgets.

The first public screening of a movie was in 1895. Less than two years later, Coopersmith notes, the first "adult" film was released.

"The classic example is the VCR," said Oliver Marc Hartwich, an economist and senior fellow with Centre for Independent Studies, a conservative Australian think tank. "When it was introduced, Hollywood was nervous because the big studios feared piracy. They were even considering suing the VCR producers. "Not so the adult industry. They saw it as a big new market and seized the opportunity."

On the internet, streaming video, credit-card verification sites, Web referral rings and video technology like Flash all can be traced back to innovations designed to share, and sell, adult content.

[via CNN]

Stephen Hawking Warns Against Contacting Aliens

This sounds alot like the plot of V...

The aliens are out there and Earth had better watch out, at least according to Stephen Hawking. He has suggested that extraterrestrials are almost certain to exist — but that instead of seeking them out, humanity should be doing all it that can to avoid any contact.

Alien life, he will suggest, is almost certain to exist in many other parts of the universe: not just in planets, but perhaps in the center of stars or even floating in interplanetary space.

Hawking’s logic on aliens is, for him, unusually simple. The universe, he points out, has 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars. In such a big place, Earth is unlikely to be the only planet where life has evolved.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

The answer, he suggests, is that most of it will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals — the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history.

....He suggests that aliens might simply raid Earth for its resources and then move on: “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet. I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach.”

He concludes that trying to make contact with alien races is “a little too risky”. He said: “If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.”

[via TimesOnline]

Stunning New Images Of The Sun

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Photo by NASA/Goddard/SDO AIA Team

While many people celebrated Earth Day on Thursday, NASA had its eye on the sun.
The space agency released stunning new images of the sun that have been sent back by its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which was launched into space on February 11.
The craft is just beginning its five-year mission, which will help scientists learn more about our sun's dynamic processes, examining the sun's magnetic field and researching the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate.
This full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun was taken by the SDO on March 30. The false colors denote different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (at least in terms of the sun) at about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 degrees Fahrenheit, while the blues and greens are hotter, at more than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 degrees Fahrenheit.
[via cnet]

Heads in the Cloud - episode 9- Ashmageddon

Controversy Over New Film Kick-Ass

Confirmed, Gizmodo has their hands on Apple's next iPhone

Wow, this is highly unusual for Apple to lose track of a new product prior to release. I wonder if they're doing it on purpose? Check out the videos and pictures before the takedown notices ensue.

images courtesy of Gizmodo.

Read the whole scoop here: Gizmodo

Wisconsin Meteor Fragment Discovered by Farmer

A small chunk of rock believed to be a fragment from a meteor that burst into a stunning fireball over Wisconsin Wednesday night was discovered by a farmer after it fell on the roof of his shed.

The meteor fragment is peppered with gray, white and reddish minerals, though one side is covered in what scientists called a "fusion crust" – a layer of dark material forged during the meteor's fiery passage into Earth's atmosphere. It weighs just 0.2 ounces (7.5 grams) and is about 2 inches (5 cm) long and less than an inch wide.

A camera mounted to a campus building at the University of Wisconsin-Madison caught the Wisconsin meteor's explosive demise. The meteor's sonic boom and explosion were also seen and heard by numerous witnesses, and sparked frantic 911 emergency calls across six different states, according to the Near-Earth Object Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif.

When the meteor exploded, it unleashed as much energy as the detonation of 20 tons of TNT, NASA scientists said. Their analysis found that the parent meteor was about 3.3 feet (1 meter) wide before it blew apart.

The first reported piece of the space rock was discovered by a Wisconsin farmer Thursday morning and brought to the University of Wisconsin-Madison for analysis.

The space rock was not associated with the Gamma Virginids meteor shower, which was under way at the time. Instead, it most likely came from the asteroid belt, NASA scientists said.

[via space.com]

School District Took 'Thousands' Of Webcam Images

In an update on the ongoing Webcamgate saga, lawyers for 15 year old Blake Robbins have dropped a bombshell. Their latest motion asserts that the Lower Merion School District secretly captured 'thousands' of webcam images using software designed to track stolen school issued laptops. LMSD has asserted the software had only been activated 42 times for this purpose. 400 photos and screen captures are said to exist from Blake Robbins' laptop alone. The photo to the right is purported to be one of them.

The system that Lower Merion school officials used to track lost and stolen laptops wound up secretly capturing thousands of images, including photographs of students in their homes, Web sites they visited, and excerpts of their online chats, says a new motion filed in a suit against the district.

More than once, the motion asserts, the camera on Robbins' school-issued laptop took photos of Robbins as he slept in his bed. Each time, it fired the images off to network servers at the school district.

Back at district offices, the Robbins motion says, employees with access to the images marveled at the tracking software. It was like a window into "a little LMSD soap opera," a staffer is quoted as saying in an e-mail to Carol Cafiero, the administrator running the program.

"I know, I love it," she is quoted as having replied...

In the filing, the Penn Valley family claims the district's records show that the controversial tracking system captured more than 400 photos and screen images from 15-year-old Blake Robbins' school-issued laptop during two weeks last fall, and that "thousands of webcam pictures and screen shots have been taken of numerous other students in their homes."

Robbins, a sophomore at Harriton High School, and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, contend e-mails turned over to them by the district suggest Cafiero "may be a voyeur" who might have viewed some of the photos on her home computer.

The motion says Cafiero, who has been placed on paid leave, has failed to turn that computer over to the plaintiffs despite a court order to do so, and asks a judge to sanction her...

Since the Robbinses sued in February, district officials have acknowledged that they activated the theft-tracking software on school-issued laptops 42 times since September, and a number of times in the previous school year - all in order to retrieve lost or stolen computers.

But they have stopped short of specifying how many students may have been photographed and monitored, or how often - information that could shed light on whether Robbins' experience was unique or common...

Also Thursday, Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) introduced legislation to close what he said was a loophole in federal wiretap laws and prevent unauthorized monitoring. Specter recently held a hearing in Philadelphia on the issue.

"Many of us expect to be subject to certain kinds of video surveillance when we leave our homes and go out each day - at the ATM, at traffic lights, or in stores, for example," Specter, who is running for reelection, said on the floor of the Senate. "What we do not expect is to be under visual surveillance in our homes, in our bedrooms and, most especially, we do not expect it for our children in our homes."

[via Philly.com] 

Fireball Over Wisconsin Sky

William Katt Interview At WonderCon 2010

Son Sues Mom Over Facebook 'Hacking'

Suing your parents isn't just for celebrities anymore--a 16-year-old Arkansas boy is suing his mother for hacking into his Facebook account and allegedly posting slanderous remarks.

Denise New of Arkadelphia is facing harassment charges from her 16-year-old. Her son, who lives with his grandmother, also requested a no-contact order. Prior to this issue, New and her son reportedly had a "great relationship," despite their living arrangements.

According to the boy, his mother hacked into his Facebook and email accounts, then changed both passwords. She also allegedly posted remarks that involved slander and information about his personal life...

New plans on fighting the charges, as she believes she was fully within her legal rights as a parent to monitor her son's online behavior.

I hardly think parent's rights extend to accessing your kids social media and email accounts and changing the password on them. If they are old enough to have such things, let them have them. The boy in question is 16, not 6.
The mom claims he left his accounts logged in on his PC...let this be a lesson to those of you that don't log out of your accounts.

More People Connecting PC To TV

I have to wonder how many people are just eschewing the TV set entirely and simply consuming all video content on their computer monitors. Between the DVR functionality of Windows 7, Hulu Desktop, and Netflix's watch instantly service, one hardly misses cable TV. My seven year old HDTV just blew up and I have no current plans to replace it.

Interest in viewing the Web on television sets is so strong that consumers are making their own connections through PCs and video game consoles, a research firm says.

Last year, the number of U.S. households using Web-connected game consoles rose by 64% from 2008, while the number of households connecting a PC to a TV increased by 36%, according to a report released Tuesday by Parks Associates.

"Many households are working with devices they already have to get the connected-TV experience, which shows strong future demand for connected TVs, Web-enabled Blu-ray players, and networked digital media players such as Apple TV and Roku," Parks analyst Kurt Scherf said in a statement.

More than three in four households with PC-to-TV connections and a third of households with Microsoft Xbox 360 consoles are using the technology to stream online video, the research firm said. These households are laying the foundation to study consumer behavior with connected consumer electronics, as well as people's use of entertainment services.

[via InformationWeek]

Apple iPad Goes On Sale

Thats No Moon...Oh, Wait-It Is

The highest-resolution-yet temperature map and images of Saturn's icy moon Mimas obtained by NASA's Cassini spacecraft reveal surprising patterns on the surface of the small moon, including unexpected hot regions that resemble "Pac-Man" eating a dot, and striking bands of light and dark in crater walls.


"Other moons usually grab the spotlight, but it turns out Mimas is more bizarre than we thought it was," said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It has certainly given us some new puzzles."


Cassini collected the data on Feb. 13, during its closest flyby of the moon, which is marked by an enormous scar called Herschel Crater and resembles the Death Star from "Star Wars."
[via scifiwire]