Archive for the 'Technology' Category

Obama Raised $55M In February

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, Money, Technology

Here are the stats…
* Contributors: 727,972
* First Time Contributors: 385,101
* Total Contributors – Campaign to Date: 1,069,333
Online Fundraising:
* More than $45 million raised online in February
* More than 90% of online donations were $100 or less
* More than 50% of online donations were $25 or less
* More than 75% of online donors in February were [...]

March 6th, 2008 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

MIT Maps NYC’s Communications For 2 Months. Here’s What It Looks Like.

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Technology, Video

Amazing…

Here’s more background…
The information reveals a trove of interesting population patterns. By looking at the neighborhoods where the data came from, researchers determined that New Yorkers who engage in global gab tend to be on the high end of the socio-economic scale or struggling to make ends meet. Translation: international business and professional people or [...]

March 2nd, 2008 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Lessig Isn’t Running

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Technology, Video

Damn.
He explains why here.

Let’s hope the Change Congress movement can actually gain a foothold.

February 25th, 2008 | Permalink| No Comments »

Want To Know Where Your Money Goes?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Technology

Here’s more “talk” from Obama…USASpending.gov:
Have you ever wanted to find more information on government spending? Have you ever wondered where federal contracting dollars and grant awards go? Or perhaps you would just like to know, as a citizen, what the government is really doing with your money. The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of [...]

February 22nd, 2008 | Permalink| No Comments »

Lawrence Lessig May Run For Congress

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Smart Things Said By Smart People, Technology, Video

When it comes to fair and open standards that benefit all, Lessig has to be one of the more brilliant minds you’ll ever read or listen to on the subject. Now he’s thinking about running for Congress, but he doesn’t want to just serve…he wants to change congress.
He has 3 things he’s basing that change [...]

February 20th, 2008 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

MSNBC’s “Super Dashboard”

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Media, Technology

That’s how I’m watching the coverage tonight online. It has live video and a very clean layout that features everything you might want to know.
Check it out (note: launches a pop-up window).

February 5th, 2008 | Permalink| No Comments »

McCain: The Only Viable Green President?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Environment, McCain, Science, Technology

Found over at Sully’s place:
One might even wonder if a McCain presidency, combined with a Democratic Congress, offers the best chance for a bipartisan-yet-still-decent emissions-reduction bill to get enacted and stay enacted. (Think Schwarzenegger and health care in California.) I’m skeptical, but it’s not an outlandish argument.
I think we’re all very well aware that the [...]

January 15th, 2008 | Permalink| 11 Comments »

The USA Wants To Monitor All Internet Traffic?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Homeland Security, Technology

That’s right. Capture all of it so they can protect us. Jeezus…
From WSJ:
Spychief Mike McConnell is drafting a plan to protect America’s cyberspace that will raise privacy issues and make the current debate over surveillance law look like “a walk in the park,” McConnell tells The New Yorker in the issue set to hit newsstands [...]

January 14th, 2008 | Permalink| 6 Comments »

Brits Say Goodbye To “War On Terror”

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Military, Money, Science, Technology, The War On Terrorism, The World, War

And by the way, we should too…
The words “war on terror” will no longer be used by the British government to describe attacks on the public, the country’s chief prosecutor said Dec. 27.
Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless “death cult.”
The Director of Public [...]

December 31st, 2007 | Permalink| 7 Comments »

Solar Power Now Cheaper Than Coal?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Technology

A company called Nanosolar says they’ve cracked the code by creating a way to manufacture solar cells 100x faster and 100x thinner.
From solve climate:
While other companies have been focusing their efforts on increasing the efficiency of solar panels, Nanosolar took a different approach. It focused on manufacturing.
Essentially, they’ve figured out how to print solar cells [...]

December 23rd, 2007 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Why Does FBI Collect Our Iris And Facial Recognition Info?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Civil Liberties, Technology

They say it’s to stop terrorists.
Well…or empower corporations to keep a closer eye on you.
Either or…
Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric [...]

December 22nd, 2007 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

House Outlaws Free Wi-Fi Connections

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bad Decisions, Law, Technology

That’s not technically correct, but it might as well be.
From CNET:
The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a bill saying that anyone offering an open Wi-Fi connection to the public must report illegal images including “obscene” cartoons and drawings–or face fines of up to $300,000.
That broad definition would cover individuals, coffee shops, libraries, [...]

December 6th, 2007 | Permalink| 15 Comments »

Get Married For The Environment

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Energy, Environment, Science, Technology

Well, not exactly, but it might help.
This according to a very interesting article in the Wash Post today that details how divorce is hurting the environment…
The analysis found that cohabiting couples and families around the globe use resources more efficiently than households that have split up. The researchers calculated that in 2005, divorced American households [...]

December 4th, 2007 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Global Incident Map + Find The Muslims

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Technology, The War On Terrorism, The World

Hey kids, do you like to track suspicious activities and potential terrorist acts?
Then look no further than the Global Incident Map, a Google Maps mashup that shows you where the bad stuff could be going down. Stress “could be.” It also updates ever 420 seconds, and all in all it’s not such a bad [...]

November 21st, 2007 | Permalink| 12 Comments »

IAEA: Iran Is Cooperating

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Iran, Science, Technology, The World, United States, War

The war drums just started getting a little quieter.
From US News:
In a report sure to further complicate the U.S.-led drive for additional sanctions against Iran, the atomic watchdog agency of the United Nations has given Iran relatively good marks for its recent cooperation in clearing up suspicions over past nuclear work. [...]
The IAEA said it [...]

November 16th, 2007 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

The Outsourced Brain

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, 3rd Party, Technology

David Brooks has an awesome editorial on the growing reliance on technology to remember for us, and after the quote below, I’ll have some thoughts about what that means to us as citizens and voters.
From NY Times:
Memory? I’ve externalized it. I am one of those baby boomers who are making this the “It’s on the [...]

November 1st, 2007 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

The 1st World Wide Web Page

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in History, Technology

You can click here to see what it looked like. Just text and links, but it’s interesting to see where it all came from.
So what was the first sentence?
The WorldWideWeb (W3) is a wide-area hypermedia information retrieval initiative aiming to give universal access to a large universe of documents.
And so it did…

September 1st, 2007 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Barack Obama, Ron Paul Lead Wikipedia Readership

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in 2008 Election, Technology

Interesting numbers because this is where Obama begins to show his grassroot chops against Hillary. He had 41,007 readers, compared with Hillary (the nearest Dem) at 18,555. That’s a massive gap.
What’s more interesting though, is Ron Paul would dominate the field with 30,960 readers but Fred Thompson is nipping at his heels with 24,160. Sure, [...]

August 31st, 2007 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Video: The iPhone Hacker Speaks

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Technology, Video

You know the iPhone was supposed to only work on AT&T’s network, right?
Well…that just changed today.

Video courtesy of TheNewsRoom.

August 24th, 2007 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

What Is Frozen Smoke?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Science, Technology

Apparently a highly usable, remarkably light solid that’s made up of approximately 99.8% air.
From TimesOnline:
Aerogel, one of the world’s lightest solids, can withstand a direct blast of 1kg of dynamite and protect against heat from a blowtorch at more than 1,300C.
Scientists are working to discover new applications for the substance, ranging from the next generation [...]

August 20th, 2007 | Permalink| 8 Comments »