From the "uh, right" files comes a story from the New York Times about a group of researchers in Farnborough, England company called QinetiQ that are working on an airline seat full of sensors. The seat is designed to tell the crew about passengers who haven't moved, and therefore may …

After a significant international outcry over "hundreds of thousands" of artifacts being stolen, and the revelation later that the number was closer to 12,000 (3,000 of which have been recovered), the now-famous Iraq Museum in Baghdad reopened for a few hours on Wednesday. An article from the New …

Declaring "Xbox independence day", a group has released information about an Xbox security exploit that allows the machine to run code that is not signed by Microsoft. People familiar with the game console will know that the Microsoft has locked it up by using hardware and software security methods in …

The National Air and Space Museum (the worlds most visited museum) is not only getting a new Annex this year, but it is also going to be captured via QuickTime VR. A page from WorldVR describes the project, which is being sponsored by Apple, Nikon, Hyatt, Lexar, Sony, and others …

On Tuesday, before T3 and the other holiday films got into the theaters, we went to see 28 Days Later. Any film that is described as a "zombie movie" starts out with big question marks, but this film stands out in the genre as having some real thought put into …

I have to admit that I entered the theater for Terminator 3 with a somewhat heavy heart. As usual, I had avoided most of the reviews, but there was something about the advertising campaign (or lack thereof) that concerned me about this film. I'm not sure if it was the …

An article from CNET, written by security expert Kevin Hanrahan, suggests that instead of throwing out private information to enhance privacy, yet more information should be retained. In particular, he suggests retaining information about access to you information. The idea isn't new, it is required by the recently-effective Health Insurance …

BAR drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button will spend the next day on pins an needles until a French court can decide Friday if their cars will be released in time for them to start practice tomorrow at 11am. An article from BBC News details the dispute between the team …

For those of you who wonder what some of us are talking about when we talk about the "good old days" of MMORPGs, here is an article (including a screen shot) about Avatar, an early MMORPG on the University of Illinois' PLATO system. Avatar was the first computer game that …

In the "better late than never" category, I just read in a UIUC alumni newsletter that Don Bitzer (famous around the University for his work on PLATO) had won an Emmy Award for his work in developing plasma display technology in the 1960's. There were actually quite a few stories …

I can't say that I'm surprised, based on some of the anecdotal evidence that I've heard from places that offer WiFi services for free in order to attract customers, but Starbucks has now stated that they have benefited from their WiFi partnership with T-Mobile. An article in the Edinburgh Evening …

I wouldn't have thought of this, but apparently in Japan (where picture phones have been available for years), people are walking in to book stores and kiosks and sending photographs of pages or entire magazines to themselves or their friends, all from their cell phones. This article from IOL (a …

Popular Science has an article this month about Chuck Cramer, a man who works for Underwriters Laboratories doing product testing, and I want his job. OK, maybe not seriously, but I wouldn't mind filling in for a few weeks if he needs to take a sabbatical. Chuck gets to blow …

An article from BBC News this morning talks about a new law (taking effect in a little over a year) that will call for significant pay-outs to customers whose flights are delayed or canceled or who are forced off due to overbooking. It remains to be seen what the direct …

According to an article from BBC News, which I'm a bit surprised I couldn't find references to anywhere else this morning, US researchers at the Center for Human Reproduction have created an embryo with both male and female characteristics from one male and one female embryo. The combination was destroyed …

The CDC has decided (according to an article from the Washington Post) that the source of the current Monkey Pox outbreak in the US is a set of imported rodents from Ghana. In order to quell the outbreak, it has ordered that the 818 rodents in the shipment (including Gambian …

I was completely taken aback by this article from the New York Times this morning about a fashion show in Milan showcasing European and other designers. It appears that after all of the US/Europe tension over the War in Iraq, fashion designers are calling on a touch of America …

An article from the San Francisco Chronicle (originally from the Associated Press) indicates that security experts and law enforcement officials are worried about a coordinated web defacement campaign set for July 6. The symptoms so far include a web site (since taken down by the web service provider) and a …

The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Green Day, Linkin Park (among others) are declining to put their music up on Apple's iTunes. The dispute, according to an article from Reuters via Yahoo! is about the ability to sell single songs. The bands say that they will not bend their "art …

Following up on a discussion earlier this week, I wanted to lay out some additional performance comparisons between the IBM PowerPC 970 and the AMD Opteron. Thanks to Dmitry for the pointer to this AnandTech article about the Opteron architecture. Opteron memory philosophyThe design of the Opteron memory and …