Captchas

The NY Times on ‘captchas’. At the time of Turing, we were wondering if computers would pass the Turing Test. Today, these captchas stop computer programs from fooling us into thinking they’re humans. We’ve come a long way! via missing matter

Writing software that pirates DVDs is legal

This one is funny. It’s legal to write software that pirates DVDs.

War reporting through blogs

Reuters on war reporting through blogs.

The Memory Hole

“The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known.” via RobotWisdom

Open CD project

Several cool Linux programs available on Windows via The Open CD project Celestia looked particularly interesting.

Internet on flights

Insight from a NY Times article on how the Internet can be accessed from flights: the reason you shouldn’t use a laptop on a flight during take-off and landing is not because of electrical interference; it is that the laptop could be a dangerous loose flying object in case of turbulence. Now, that makes more sense.

Free PDF creator

Free PDF creator. Wonder how they manage to make money. More importantly, how did they get permission from Adobe? via andersja

Wiki Weblogs

Wiki Weblogs. This is a feature that I could use. You can have a weblog organised around dates (or whatever), and around keywords. Several blogs already use this. Question: how should I transition from my (currently 100% manual) blog to one of these?

Quantum computing

Quantum computing takes steps forward. First, we improve our storage ability with 1000 bits in 1 molecule. Then we perform the Grover algorithm using molecules. Now, all that’s needed is a good set of problems to solve.

Portable solar charger

Geeky gadget of the day: portable solar charger. I can charge your cellphone / CD / digital camera. It will also add a pound to my pocket, in addition to my purse, and cellphone, and digital camera, and office keys, and … my laptop case. Still, might be worth it. And maybe, some day, all my gadgets will fit in my pocket without making me look bloated.