August 27, 2002
OEone

HomeBase DESKTOP

"... HomeBase DESKTOP is a fully-integrated Operating Environment that offers all of the facilities traditional OSs offer. The difference? A UI that is user-centric rather than window-centric. A wide range of Linux applications to manage your information and increase your productivity. And an innovative "personal portal" that pulls it all together. ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 09:23 AM
August 26, 2002
Tangible Media at MIT

Tangible Media Group | PROJECTS | Tangible Bits Exhibition

".. Tangible Bits is our vision of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) which guides our research in the Tangible Media Group. People have developed sophisticated skills for sensing and manipulating our physical environments. However, most of these skills are not employed by traditional GUI (Graphical User Interface). Tangible Bits seeks to build upon these skills by giving physical form to digital information, seamlessly coupling the dual worlds of bits and atoms. ..."

This morning Charles Yun sent me a pointer to the laptop deck posted below. I was quickly reminded of the work of the MIT TMG. Nifty!

Posted by ghbrett at 06:58 AM
the Laptop? the Deck

viridian global civil society design contest

"... Then, in that classic wonk moment, you pull your Global Civil Society Designer Laptop from your ballistic-nylon shoulder bag and you boot it up. "Whoa!" is the instant response from a stunned and impressed public. "Where'd you get *that*?" "Oh, this? We've *all* got these now! They're *everywhere!*"

But it isn't really a laptop per se. It's more like your portable office network. Or maybe it's more like a collection of PDAs. Let's call it a Deck (as in a deck of cards, not a Gibson SciFi deck) ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 06:50 AM
August 23, 2002
Gesture based writing

NYU Media Research Lab -- QuikWriting

"... ...a shorthand designed for use on pen-based computers. Quikwriting is significantly faster and less stressful to use than Graffiti, and lets you write very quickly without ever picking your stylus up off the surface, although it has the disadvantage that you need to learn a special alphabet. For further info, you can preview a Technote in either PDF or PostScript, which was published at the ACM UIST'98 conference. ..."

This was demo'ed at Microsoft Research Faculty Summit.

Posted by ghbrett at 09:40 AM
August 19, 2002
Media giants demand ISPs block Web sites

The Register

"... They've sued Napster and Scour into submission; realizing that this is expensive, they've bought numerous Congressional lapdogs to force the DoJ to become their personal 'Copyright 911' so that challenges to their production and distribution monopoly can be hounded down and eliminated at the taxpayer's expense rather than their own; they've lobbied Congress to impose DRM controls on virtually all media and virtually all devices, including your computer; and now, for a final assault on human dignity, the Recording Industry Ass. of America has sued for the right to determine which Web sites you and I will be permitted to visit.

Taking a page from the book of totalitarian regimes, the media industry is suing major ISPs, demanding that the foundations of a Chinese-style Great Firewall be laid to protect their precious copyrights, Reuters reports. ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 03:28 PM
August 16, 2002
on the brighter side

A Plan for Spam

"... I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that. ..." Paul Graham, LISP Guru

Posted by ghbrett at 09:54 PM
August 15, 2002
thoughts on Google....

"Anchor Votes" -- an article on Google by Dennis Forbes 8/13/2002

"... some meanderings about search engine technology ..." - Dennis

Posted by ghbrett at 08:16 AM
August 14, 2002
New TAM page

Trans-Atlantic Model Airplane pages have moved due to heavy traffic. The model is still in Newfoundland -- winds not cooperating.

Posted by ghbrett at 03:06 PM
August 09, 2002
Semantic vs Services

OReilly article: XML.com: The True Meaning of Service [Jul. 17, 2002]

"... At some point over the past 18 months the future direction of the Web began to be seen widely as a struggle between "Web Services" and the "Semantic Web". The latter was thought to be rooted in the W3C and academia, the former in IBM-Microsoft-Sun and industry. Since the significance of any debate of the form, "the future of x", depends almost entirely on the present value of x, debates about the future of the Web are often heated, primarily because the present Web is so valuable. There is too much at stake for half measures. ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 08:15 AM
Semantic Web info

DAML.org

"... The DARPA Agent Markup Language (DAML) Program officially began in August 2000. The goal of the DAML effort is to develop a language and tools to facilitate the concept of the Semantic Web. ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 08:13 AM
August 08, 2002
More TAM

Society for Technical Aeromodel Research

"... Our TAM will cruise at about 42mph airspeed. These winds would add about 22mph. and the resulting average ground speed would have been 64mph. The distance between St. John's, Newfoundland, and Round Stone Bog, Ireland, is about 1900 miles as the crow flies. We have reason to believe that Joe Foster's software will make "The Spirit" fly straight as a crow. The bottom line is, it would have taken about 30 hours to cross. ..."

This site has fotos, background, and tech info about the model airplane.

Posted by ghbrett at 02:29 PM
Model Airplane Trans-Atlantic

Trans Atlantic Model tracking site

Posted by ghbrett at 02:25 PM
August 07, 2002
Governance Models

Carver's Policy GovernanceŽ Model in Nonprofit Organizations
by John Carver and Miriam Carver

"... Over the last decade or two, there has been increasing interest in the composition, conduct, and decision-making of nonprofit governing boards. The board-staff relationship has been at the center of the discussion, but trustee characteristics, board role in planning and evaluation, committee involvement, fiduciary responsibility, legal liability, and other topics have received their share of attention. Nonprofit boards are not alone, for spirited debate about the nature of business boards has been growing as well. Whatever the reasons for this intense interest in governance, the Policy Governance model for board leadership, created by the senior author, is frequently a primary focus of debate. ..."

Posted by ghbrett at 07:12 AM
August 02, 2002
New Google Tool

Google Sets is a way to explORe groups of things that Google says are related.... nifty.

Posted by ghbrett at 06:38 PM