Technology

The Google Chrome browser came out this afternoon, and after reading the comic book description of its features and innovations I wanted to give it a try. The ideas behind it seemed intriguing, and I’m willing to admit that I’m a bit of a Google fangirl. I used it for the afternoon and evening, performing a variety of tasks including working with my course management software and the college’s registration/enrollment system, checking email, and generally websurfing, for work and for pleasure. Installation, as you would expect, is easy, and, if you are using Firefox at least, if you let it … Continue reading Initial Thoughts on Chrome

Another reason to feel sorry for the aardvark – they probably get more spam than any other animal. A study was done showing that patterns in your username, such as the first letter, seem to impact how much spam you get. Actually, their title claiming that aardvarks get more spam than zebras is misleading. The pattern is more complex than that, with L, P, R, and S seeming to lead the pack in terms of spam versus non-spam messages received. Really, it seems like all this is saying is that spammers guess email addresses, and if your address occurs on … Continue reading Aardvark@gmail.com

In yet another RFID update (it’s funny how once you are thinking about something like this you see it everywhere) this is an interesting little video of Adam Savage explaining why Mythbusters won’t be debunking any more RFID myths anytime soon. In short, they had an entire show planned around RFID myths – how hackable they are, how easy it is to track someone with them, etc. – and legal counsel for various large financial institutions contacted Discovery and scared them into blocking the show. But it is more fun to hear it in Adam’s words so go watch! I’m … Continue reading All RFID, All the Time

Related to my post from last week, Scientific American has an article about how RFID tags are popping up in unexpected places and be able to be used to track individuals, including, due to poor security in the devices, by individuals unassociated with the tags. The main application that the article is concerned with is the desire to have border states issue drivers licenses equipped with RFID tags to simplify border crossings. Says the article: Although such “enhanced” driver’s licenses remain voluntary in the states that offer them, privacy and security experts are concerned that those who sign up for … Continue reading Tag You’re It

While I have played around with sed/awk and perl and shell scripting in the past, in recent years I’ve spent more time using programming languages than scripting languages. This summer I’ve been playing around with Python a bit, though I’ll probably get more into it once I think of a good problem to solve using it. I thought about picking up Flash, but between it being so closed and it being difficult to just see your code, I decided to pass on that bit of frustration. Somehow I didn’t think of Javascript at all, though I do not do much … Continue reading Have Language, Will Code

There are a lot of creepy uses for RFiD tags, but these robotic chairs that follow the tag in your library card to follow you around while you browse to provide anywhere seating is pretty cute [via Digg]. Watch the video for the example of using the same technology to easily put together group seating areas. There are tons of other neat applications for this – conference rooms or classrooms or really any large meeting space could benefit from easy chair (and table?) rearrangement. What about walking into an airport and having a tag in your boarding pass allow you … Continue reading R2D2 Seating

I am a pack rat when it comes to dead or outdated electronic gadgets. I have a box full of stuff in my storage closet that I figure one day I’ll rip apart for parts – or more likely give to students to use for projects. I am not very discriminating, though. I just thrown everything in there and figure I’ll sort out someday if it has anything useful in it or not. I think I have a few mice in there, though, so I’m thinking of working through this Hack-a-Day on how to scavenge a mouse for parts. As … Continue reading Squeak…

I’m a fan of the different cool uses of Google Maps that keep popping up around the internet. ThisNext is a sort of weird shopping guide site that uses a social networking approach to shopping recommendations. It is not clear to me if there is a limitation on what products are covered or particular source that the products recommended are from. A lot of the products seem random. The site sells itself though with the worldwide shopping map that overlays images of and links to products that people are browsing through the site at that time, showing where in the … Continue reading Someone in Spain is dress shopping…

If you are a student, like writing code, and are still looking for something interesting to do with your summer, you might want to check out Google Summer of Code 2008. Students are paired with mentoring organizations to participate in various open source development projects. The list of organizations interested in mentoring students has been recently posted, including summaries of the types of projects they may be interested in supporting. The program FAQ answers most of the key questions; student project proposals are due at the end of the month.

I was just notified [Thanks T!] that ESPN wants to sponsor a Collegiate BattleBots Championship and I am semi-seriously wondering if there is any interest among my students because WOW would that be fun. It doesn’t look like there have been any competitions since 2005, so they are still investigating whether there is enough interest to actually do this. It actually makes me wondering if there is some sort of tie in with Doonesbury – this week they are rerunning their awesome series from last January where Alex is off at MIT competing in a robot competition. Go check it … Continue reading Flames! Gears! Excitement!