cutting edge technology

wifi is not hifi

2006-08-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

high fidelity (hi-fi) isn´t that, what most open access points for wi-fi really are. often they are really slow, aren´t they.

infos for free wi-fi (original by wikipedia):

Free Wi-Fi

While commercial services attempt to move existing business models to Wi-Fi, many groups, communities, cities, and individuals have set up free Wi-Fi networks, often adopting a common peering agreement in order that networks can openly share with each other. Free wireless mesh networks are often considered the future of the Internet.

Many municipalities have joined with local community groups to help expand free Wi-Fi networks (see Mu-Fi). Some community groups have built their Wi-Fi networks entirely based on volunteer efforts and donations.

For more information, see wireless community network, where there is also a list of the free Wi-Fi networks one can find around the globe.

OLSR is one of the protocols used to set up free networks. Some networks use static routing; others rely completely on OSPF. Wireless Leiden developed their own routing software under the name LVrouteD for community wi-fi networks that consist of a completely wireless backbone. Most networks rely heavily on open source software, or even publish their setup under an open source license.

Some smaller countries and municipalities already provide free Wi-Fi hotspots and residential Wi-Fi internet access to everyone. Examples include Estonia which have already a large number of free Wi-Fi hotspots throughout their countries.

In Paris, France, OzoneParis offers free Internet access for life to anybody who contributes to the Pervasive Network’s development by making their rooftop available for the Wi-Fi Network.

Annapolis, Maryland is in the early phases (as of April 2006) of a pilot program to provide free, advertisement-financed Wi-Fi to all its residents. A private company, Annapolis Wireless Internet, will administrate the network. Users will only see local advertisements upon accessing the network. [4]

Unwire Jerusalem is a project to put free Wi-Fi access points at the main shopping centers of Jerusalem.

Many universities provide free Wi-Fi internet access to their students, visitors, and anyone on campus. Similarly, some commercial entities such as Panera Bread and Culver's offer free Wi-Fi access to patrons. McDonald's Corporation also offers Wi-Fi access, often branded 'McInternet'. This was launched at their flagship restaurant in Oak Brook, Illinois, USA, and is also available in many branches in London, UK.

However, there is also a third subcategory of networks set up by certain communities such as universities where the service is provided free to members and guests of the community such as students, yet used to make money by letting the service out to companies and individuals outside. An example of such a service is Sparknet in Finland. Sparknet also supports OpenSpark, a project where people can share their own wireless access point and become as a part of Sparknet and OpenSpark community in return for certain benefits.

Recently commercial Wi-Fi providers have built free Wi-Fi hotspots and hotzones. These providers hope that free Wi-Fi access would equate to more users and significant return on investment.

floyd landis doped during the tour de france

2006-08-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

On July 27, 2006 the Phonak Cycling Team announced Floyd Landis had an "A sample" test come back positive with an unusually high ratio of the hormone testosterone to epitestosterone after his famous ride in Stage 17 of the Tour de France. Landis denied doping when waiting for the results of his "B sample" to confirm the initial drug test. Landis was then suspended pending the results, with Phonak stating he would be dismissed should his B sample prove positive.^[14] Landis' personal doctor later revealed the test had found a ratio of 11:1 in Landis' blood. The permitted ratio is 4:1. Also, the carbon isotope test results indicated the presence of synthetic testosterone that would not be naturally produced.

Landis officially requested the testing of his backup urine sample on July 31, 2006. The result of his B sample test was announced on August 5, 2006, confirming the positive test for testosterone in the A sample. (Backup Sample on Landis Is Positive", New York Times, 2006-08-05.) Well I´m really interested, how landis will deal with his doping problem.

let me hit 2

2006-08-05T17:14:00.000-07:00

the other side of the track! (youtube most wanted video today):

fuel cell notebook from samsung and lenovo

2006-08-05T17:07:00.000-07:00

lenovo presents a fuel cell thinkpad. ThinkPad is the brand name for a highly successful range of portable laptop and notebook computers originally designed and sold by IBM. Since early 2005 the ThinkPad range has been manufactured and marketed by Lenovo, which purchased the IBM PC division.

furthermore also samsung presented their first fuel cell notebooks

The Samsung Group is composed of numerous South Korean business sectors including Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life Insurance. At the core of it all, the Samsung Group is helmed by its chairman Kun-hee Lee.

Along with desktop and laptop computers, Lenovo sells servers, handheld computers, imaging equipment, and mobile phone handsets. Lenovo also provides information technology integration and support services, and its QDI unit offers contract manufacturing. Hoping to reach the many Chinese not yet online, Lenovo also offers Internet access through its FM365.com portal.

making pictures with a canon eos

2006-08-04T02:18:00.000-07:00

if anybody of you thinks about buying a digital camera i recommend a canon EOS. I worked with one last weekend and fell just in love with it. all eos' digis work with flash technology.

The photographic flash mechanism used on Canon's EOS single-lens reflex cameras, whether 135 film or digital, from their 1987 introduction until the present day — has gone through a number of revisions over the years, as new flash exposure metering systems have been introduced. The main technologies are known by the names "A-TTL", "E-TTL", and "E-TTL II". These technologies involve both the EOS camera bodies and the flash units themselves, which are sold under the trade name of Speedlite (confusingly similar to Nikon Corporation's "Speedlight" brand for their flashes).

The EOS flash system is capable of wireless multiple flash control, whereby a master flash unit or IR transmitter mounted on the camera body can control up to 3 groups of flash units through infrared (IR) signals.

EOS D30	October 2000
EOS-1D	December 2001
EOS D60	March 2002
EOS-1Ds	November 2002
EOS 10D	March 2003
EOS 300D/Digital Rebel	September 2003
EOS-1D Mark II	April 2004
EOS 20D	September 2004
EOS-1Ds Mark II	November 2004
EOS 20Da	February 2005
EOS 350D/Digital Rebel XT	March 2005
EOS 5D	August 2005
EOS-1D Mark II N	August 2005
EOS 30D	February 2006

there are different types of the canon EOS digicams:

advantages of hdtv

2006-08-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

All commercial HD is digital, so the signal will either deliver an excellent picture, a picture with noticeable pixelation, a series of still pictures, or no picture at all. You would never get a snowy or washed out image from a weak signal, effects from signal interference, such as herringbone patterns, or vertical rolling.
Most HD programming and films will be presented in the 16x9 proportioned, semi-widescreen format (though some films created in even wider ratios will still display "letterbox" bars on the top and bottom of even 16:9 sets.) Older films and programming that retain their 4:3 ratio display will be presented in a version of letterbox commonly called "pillar box", displaying bars on the right and left of 16:9 sets (rendering the term "fullscreen" a misnomer). Or, one can usually choose to enlarge the image to fill the screen, however this option will display a distorted, stretched-out picture.
The colors will generally look more realistic, due to their greater bandwidth.
The visual information is about 2-5 times more detailed overall. The gaps between scanning lines are smaller or invisible. Legacy TV content that was shot and preserved on 35 mm film can now be viewed at nearly the same resolution as that at which it was originally photographed.
Two new pre-recorded disc formats support HDTV resolutions, namely HD DVD(which now up to supports 720p and 1080i) and Blu-ray (which supports up to 1080p). Players for both systems are expected to be backward-compatible with DVDs, however the two formats are not compatible with each other.
The increased clarity and detail make larger screen sizes more comfortable and pleasing to watch.
Dolby Digital 5.1 sound is broadcast along with standard HDTV video signals allowing full surround sound capabilities. (standard television signals broadcast basic stereo audio signals)

these advantages i figured out in the hdtv article on wikipedia!

more infos at:

High Television Information and Directory about High Definition Viewing
ATSC
CDTV Canadian Digital Television official website
HDTV Lounge HDTV Reviews, News & Information]
HDTV News, Reviews and Information
HDTV Ready models

apple mighty mouse

2006-08-04T01:29:00.000-07:00

Hello together, can somebody by me the apple mighty mouse. i´m not sure if working with it is as nice as the mouse looks, but 100 percent stylish! http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

my ipod is as stylish as this mouse and 100 percent functional! so buy it!!!

is hezbollah a terrorist organization

2006-08-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

is hezbollah a terrorist organization. i found some information about this discussion in the internet:

The United States, Canada and Israel consider Hezbollah a terrorist organization, claiming that the organization initiates attacks against civilians and ideologically supports such attacks by other similar organizations.

The United Kingdom, Australia and the Netherlands officially list only the External Security Organization of Hezbollah (ESO) as a proscribed organisation.^[24]^[25]^[26]

The European Union does not list Hezbollah as a 'terrorist organization',^[27] but does list Imad Mugniyah,^[28] who is widely believed to be heading the international branch of the Hezbollah.^{[citation needed]}

Russia does not list Hezbollah as a terrorist organization^[29], but it does list other radical Islamic Shi'a groups, such as Islamic Jihad which has assimilated into the organization,^[30] as well as al-Qaeda which is believed to be linked with Hezbollah.^[31]

UN Mission in the Congo

2006-08-03T07:28:00.000-07:00

its really interesting what actually happens in the congo. read what wikipedia told us:

The Mission of the United Nations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), abbreviated MONUC (a French acronym for Mission de l' Organisation des Nations Unies en République démocratique du Congo) is a United Nations peacekeeping force established on February 24, 2000, by Resolution 1291 of the United Nations Security Council to monitor the peace process of the Second Congo War, though much of its focus subsequently turned to the conflict in the Ituri. The headquarters of this mission are in Kinshasa, DRC. The mission views the DRC as consisting of 6 sectors, each with its own staff headquarters. The approved budget from July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006 is US$1,153.89 million. In July 2004 there were 10,531 UN soldiers under MONUC's command. On October 1, 2004, the UN Security Council decided to deploy 5,900 more soldiers to Congo, although UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had asked for some 12,000.

On 25 February 2005, nine Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed by members of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front militia in Ituri province. The FNI killed another Nepali peacekeeper and took seven captive in May 2006. Two of the seven were released in late June and the UN was trying to secure the release of the remaining five.^[1] In total, 83 members of MONUC have been killed since its establishment. ^[2] By November 2005, MONUC consisted of 16,561 uniformed troops. MONUC's mandate has been extended to September 30, 2006.

additional thematic links:

techn-o-logy

2006-08-03T07:05:00.000-07:00

Opponents of CCTV point out the loss of privacy of the people under surveillance, and the negative impact of surveillance on civil liberties. Furthermore, they argue that CCTV displaces crime, rather than reducing it. Critics often dub CCTV as "Big Brother surveillance", a reference to George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which featured a two-way telescreen in every home through which The Party would monitor the populace. A more realistic depiction of CCTV is in the V for Vendetta series, which anticipated the current situation.

The recent growth of CCTV in housing areas also raises serious issues about the extent to which CCTV is being used as a social control measure rather than simply a deterrent to crime, especially with the relationship to ASBOs.

Quite apart from government-permitted use (or abuse), questions are also raised about illegal access to CCTV footage. In May 2005 four were charged with use of CCTV for the purposes of voyeurism in Merseyside [10]. In December 2005, three of them were convicted. [11]

Previously a CCTV operator in Glamorgan was convicted on obscenity charges after making obscene phone calls to people he had been spying on. Other specific examples include a video Caught in the Act, released in 1996 which featured various couples having sex, captured on CCTV, and broadcast of footage of a man, Geoff Peck, attempting to commit suicide. [12], [13].

The Data Protection Act 1998 in the United Kingdom led to legal restrictions being imposed on the use to which CCTV footage can be put, and also mandated their registration with the Data Protection Agency. The successor to the DPA, the Information Commissioner in 2004 clarified that this required registration of all CCTV systems with the Commissioner, and prompt deletion of archived footage. However subsequent case law (Durant vs. FSA) has limited the scope of the legal protection provided by this law, and not all CCTV systems are currently regulated. [14]

In the United States there is no such data protection mechanisms. It has been questioned whether CCTV evidence is allowable under the Fourth Amendment which prohibits "unreasonable searches and seizures". The courts have generally not taken this view.

In Canada the use of video surveillance has grown exponentially. Disturbingly to some, corporations may legally record video even in changerooms. The Talisman Centre in Calgary, Alberta a fitness centre, has numerous video cameras in the men's changeroom that record men changing and showering.

thats what wikipedia also say´s!!!

2006 Qana airstrike

2006-08-03T06:44:00.000-07:00

The 2006 Qana airstrike was launched by the Israel Air Force (IAF) on the South Lebanese village of Qana, on 30 July 2006, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. ^[1] The attack is blamed for the collapse of a three-story building onto its bomb shelter, where at least 63 people were reported to be hiding. Most media reports from July 30 have indicated the casualties to be more than 50, including 37 children,^[2]^[3] though a Human Rights Watch report of August 2 cites a lower figure of 28, including 19 children, with a possible 13 buried under the rubble.^[4] IDF claimed that the airstrike was in response to over 150 Katyusha rockets fired from the village into Israel in a two week period. The event was reminiscent of the 1996 shelling of Qana in which over 100 civilians were killed a decade earlier.

ujnuinuin