November 6, 2006, 8:20 PM CT

Pseudo French iPod Cases

What to do if you feel your cool factor on the wane? Get your Francophilia on. Le Pod by Your Sister's Mustache is a kicky little iPod holder with four designs to choose from. But be forewarned: none of them has anything to do with France, French culture, or anything remotely French-related. Or at least I don't think so. (hmm). Seriously though, who cares about the throwaway Franglish used to promote this product.

The important thing is you will feel that special je ne sais quoi when, instead of scrounging in your bag for your iPod, you slide it out of one of these colorful holders conveniently tucked around the strap of your cooly ironic, yet sartorially astute hipster handbag or tote.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

November 6, 2006, 8:16 PM CT

Productive fun with Wacom's Cintiq

Kevin Kelley recently picked up a 21 inch Cintiq drawing display, and he's in love with it. The Wacom Cintiq is an LCD monitor with a touch screen sensor embedded over the image. Essentially it's a cross between a graphic artist's drawing tablet and an LCD monitor. Differing from standard touch screen monitors is the 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity that the input area is able to discern, and the unique "pen on paper" texture of dragging a pen across the surface. Kelly bought his $2,500 Cintiq on the recommendation of artist Scott McCloud who has said that the input method made him more productive, and completely eliminated the symptoms of his hand strain malady.

Wacom released the first Cintiq tablet seven years ago. It was a 15 inch flat panel touch screen display, and a lot of geeks discounted it as a one shot gimmick. Personally, I thought that it was a glorious evolution in computer hardware, and I remember dreaming of when the technology would be the standard for all computers. Sadly, prices of desktop tablet monitors have remained high enough that only professional interests, such as design houses and graphic artists, can justify the expense. I'd love to install one at home, but it's a hard sell when I didn't even spend $2,500 on my tricked out desktop!

We're just now sorting through the interface issues of tablet computing, but progress is being made. slowly. Some industries will have an easier time making a move to an alternative input scheme: video game controls are well suited to this type of human interface. The Nintendo DS has been an overwhelming success in part because of the novelty and utility of the touch screen, and the hands-on Starcraft video floating around is nothing short of sexy. Ben Kuchera disagrees with me, but I think that this is the direction that all computer interfaces will move towards if the public can ever afford to adopt the hardware en mass.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

November 6, 2006, 8:09 PM CT

How to disassemble iPod Shuffle 2

iFixit recently published a complete guide on how to disassemble the world smallest MP3 player - iPod Shuffle 2. All you need are just a spudger and a Philips screwdriver #00.

Well, let skip all the dissassembling process. What I want to know is what the heck inside this tiny thing!

On the top of its circuit logic board, you can see five button sensors, ARM chip and data cable ribbon. No idea about the ARM chip, but it has the number: 337S3300 844A N05WDK01 0642 ARM.

The bottom of the board has a Li-ion polymer battery and headphone jack plug, which is most impressive part of iPod Shuffle 2. The plug is multi-modal and switches between USB, analog audio, and possibly power modes.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source

November 6, 2006, 4:39 AM CT

School Bus Safety Decreasing

Each year in the United States, 23.5 million children travel 4.3 billion miles on school buses. A study out of the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) in the Columbus Children's Research Institute at Columbus Children's Hospital is the first to use a national sample to describe nonfatal school bus-related injuries to children and teenagers treated in emergency rooms across the country.

As per the study, reported in the recent issue of Pediatrics, from 2001 to 2003 there were an estimated 51,100 school bus-related injuries that resulted in therapy in an U.S. emergency room. That is about 17,000 injuries annually.

"The findings from this study indicate that motor vehicle crashes are the leading mechanism of nonfatal school bus-related injury for children in the U.S.," said CIRP Director Gary Smith, MD, DrPH, one of the study's authors and a faculty member of The Ohio State University College of Medicine. "In addition, this study identified several other important mechanisms of school bus-related injury. Further research is needed to determine the relative contributions of structural and operational components of the school bus, supervision, and rider behavior to the occurrence of these injuries and the effectiveness of occupant restraint systems and other strategies to prevent these types of injuries".........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

November 2, 2006, 9:08 PM CT

Which Is More Annoying, Spam Or Direct Mail?

You open up your e-mail inbox and are inundated with spam that offers everything from inkjet cartridges to "investment opportunities" that are obviously too good to be true. You open up your mailbox at home to find more unsolicited ads, everything from pizza coupons to credit card offers.

Ever wonder which is more annoying?

According to a new study by a researcher in the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, most people find spam more intrusive and irritating than direct mail. The study, published in the fall issue of the Journal of Interactive Advertising, also explores why people find spam so annoying.

"Overall, spam definitely is regarded as more annoying, irritating and intrusive than postal direct mail," said Mariko Morimoto, assistant professor of advertising. "That was pretty much our hypothesis. And while it's easy to figure out that spam is more annoying, I also wanted to know why".

Morimoto and study co-author Susan Chang, assistant professor of advertising and public relations at the University of Miami, randomly assigned 119 college students to a survey that asked about either spam or direct mail. On a scale of one to seven, where one is most intrusive and seven is least intrusive, students gave spam an average intrusiveness score of 1.93 compared to 4.24 for direct mail. For irritation, the average score was 2.46 for spam compared to 3.87 for direct mail.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

November 2, 2006, 8:38 PM CT

human-Neandertal mixing

A reexamination of ancient human bones from Romania reveals more evidence that humans and Neandertals interbred.

Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., Washington University Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences, and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated and analyzed the shapes of human bones from Romania's Pe?tera Muierii (Cave of the Old Woman). The fossils, discovered in 1952, add to the small number of early modern human remains from Europe known to be more than 28,000 years old.

Results were reported in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The team observed that the fossils were 30,000 years old and principally have the diagnostic skeletal features of modern humans. They also observed that the remains had other features known, among potential ancestors, primarily among the preceding Neandertals, providing more evidence there was mixing of humans and Neandertals as modern humans dispersed across Europe about 35,000 years ago. Their analysis of one skeleton's shoulder blade also shows that these humans did not have the full set of anatomical adaptations for throwing projectiles, like spears, during hunting.

The team says that the mixture of human and Neandertal features indicates that there was a complicated reproductive scenario as humans and Neandertals mixed, and that the hypothesis that the Neandertals were simply replaced should be abandoned.........

Posted by: William      Permalink         Source

November 2, 2006, 5:03 AM CT

Serotonin Child Abuse Link

A research team found that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Low levels of serotonin are associated with anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.

Abused females who became abusive mothers in adulthood had lower serotonin in their brains than abused females who did not become abusive parents, the research showed.

Because the biological make up of humans and monkeys is quite similar, the findings from the monkey research could be valuable in understanding human child abuse, said Dario Maestripieri, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.

"This research could have important implications for humans because we do not fully understand why some abused children become abusive parents and others don't," Maestripieri said. The research suggests that treatments with drugs that increase brain serotonin early in an abused child's life could reduce the likelihood that the child will grow up to become abusive, Maestripieri said.

Maestripieri is lead author of a paper reporting the research, "Early Maternal Rejection Affects the Development of Monoaminergic Systems and Adult Abusive Parenting in Rhesus Macaques" published in the current issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.........

Posted by: Sean      Permalink         Source

November 1, 2006, 8:22 PM CT

New Study Forecasts Democratic Takeover

A new study, "Forecasting House Seats from Generic Congressional Polls" authored by Dartmouth Professor of Government Joseph Bafumi and colleagues at Columbia and Temple universities, predicts that based on current ballot polling data, the Democratic Party can expect to gain 32 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in the Nov. 7 mid-term congressional elections. Such a gain would guarantee the Democrats a House majority and exceed many current forecasts for Democratic gains in the House.

The study, co-authored by Robert Erikson of Columbia University and Christopher Wlezien of Temple University, translates the results of generic congressional polls conducted by CNN, USA Today/Gallup, ABC/Washington Post, Fox/Opinion Dynamics and Newsweek into the partisan midterm swing. The polling data they used asked respondents which party they would choose in the next election. According to that analysis, Democratic congressional candidates are predicted to receive 55 percent of the votes cast, plus or minus a few percentage points.

The study then goes on to analyze whether that majority of votes is likely to translate into a majority of House seats. Combining the partisan swing, estimated from the generic congressional polls, with historical data at the congressional district level, they predict which party will win each district race. The researchers found that if Democrats receive even 53 percent of votes cast, the probability that they will win enough seats to take over the House increases to more than 90 percent.........

Posted by: Tom      Permalink         Source

November 1, 2006, 8:03 PM CT

Climate Change Tops Environmental Concerns

As per a recent MIT survey, Americans now rank climate change as the country's most pressing environmental problem--a dramatic shift from three years ago, when they ranked climate change sixth out of 10 environmental concerns.

Almost three-quarters of the respondents felt the government should do more to deal with global warming, and individuals were willing to spend their own money to help.

"While terrorism and the war in Iraq are the main issues of national concern, there's been a remarkable increase in the American public's recognition of global warming and their willingness to do something about it," said Stephen Ansolabehere, MIT's Elting R. Morison Professor of Political Science.

The survey results were released Oct. 31 at the seventh annual Carbon Sequestration Forum, an international meeting held at MIT that focuses on methods of capturing and storing emissions of carbon dioxide--a major contributor to climate change.

Ansolabehere's colleagues on the work are Howard Herzog, principal research engineer in MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment (LFEE), LFEE research associates Thomas E. Curry and Mark de Figueiredo, and Professor David M. Reiner of the University of Cambridge.

The findings are a result of two surveys, the first administered in September 2003 and the follow-up in September 2006. Each survey included about 20 questions focusing on the environment, global warming and a variety of climate-change-mitigation technologies.........

Posted by: Tyler      Permalink         Source

October 31, 2006, 9:03 PM CT

Productive fun with Wacom's Cintiq

Kevin Kelley recently picked up a 21 inch Cintiq drawing display, and he's in love with it. The Wacom Cintiq is an LCD monitor with a touch screen sensor embedded over the image. Essentially it's a cross between a graphic artist's drawing tablet and an LCD monitor. Differing from standard touch screen monitors is the 1024 levels of pressure sensitivity that the input area is able to discern, and the unique "pen on paper" texture of dragging a pen across the surface. Kelly bought his $2,500 Cintiq on the recommendation of artist Scott McCloud who has said that the input method made him more productive, and completely eliminated the symptoms of his hand strain malady.

Wacom released the first Cintiq tablet seven years ago. It was a 15 inch flat panel touch screen display, and a lot of geeks discounted it as a one shot gimmick. Personally, I thought that it was a glorious evolution in computer hardware, and I remember dreaming of when the technology would be the standard for all computers. Sadly, prices of desktop tablet monitors have remained high enough that only professional interests, such as design houses and graphic artists, can justify the expense. I'd love to install one at home, but it's a hard sell when I didn't even spend $2,500 on my tricked out desktop!

We're just now sorting through the interface issues of tablet computing, but progress is being made. slowly. Some industries will have an easier time making a move to an alternative input scheme: video game controls are well suited to this type of human interface. The Nintendo DS has been an overwhelming success in part because of the novelty and utility of the touch screen, and the hands-on Starcraft video floating around is nothing short of sexy. Ben Kuchera disagrees with me, but I think that this is the direction that all computer interfaces will move towards if the public can ever afford to adopt the hardware en mass.........

Posted by: Gina      Permalink         Source