Wired: Top Stories (21 unread)
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Hans Reiser Leads Police to Nina's Body
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 10:45pm EDT by Threat Level
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Police recover the body of Hans Reiser's murdered wife at a construction site in the Oakland Hills.
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Researchers Track Disease With Google News, Google.org Money
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 9:00pm EDT by Wired Science
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Epidemiologists are tracking global disease by parsing Google News sources and public health list-serves into data that could provide an early warning about the next big disease outbreak.
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Get Started With Movable Type
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:30pm EDT by Webmonkey
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The Movable Type blogging engine is easy to set up and customize. This Webmonkey tutorial covers the basics of templates, plug-ins and everything you'll need to inject some personality into a vanilla MT installation.
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ATM-Owner Cardtronics Issues Non-Denial Denial in Citibank Breach
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:30pm EDT by Threat Level
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The company that owns the 7-Eleven ATMs implicated in a massive leak of PIN codes issues a statement announcing that it doesn't anticipate issuing any statements.
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How to Check Yourself for Genetic Abnormalities
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:00pm EDT by How-To Wiki
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Curious about that wheat-gluten allergy that runs in the family? Wondering if you're more likely to develop cancer than your mate? There are several options for testing the stuff your genes are made of, ranging from online DNA-sequencing shops to home-brew basement kits. Grab your cotton swabs and confront your future.
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'Hellboy' Creator Mike Mignola Talks 'Language of Monsters'
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 7:18pm EDT by Underwire
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The Golden Army's creatures incubate in Guillermo del Toro's fertile imagination, then evolve from simple concept art to bizarre onscreen glory.
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Amendment Would Put Spy Lawsuits, Amnesty On Hold Pending Investigation
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 7:00pm EDT by Threat Level
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As the Senate takes up the FISA bill on Tuesday, an odd amendment from New Mexico Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman appears to be the last real hope for those who want a court to rule on the legality of Bush's spying program.
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Netroots Activists Mad at Obama for Spy Bill Flip-Flop
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 4:42pm EDT by Threat Level
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Netroots activists are using a wiki and Barack Obama's social networking tool to try and change the senator's mind on an upcoming vote on overhauling warrantless wiretapping legislation.
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Tumor-Targeting Nanoparticles Stop Cancer From Spreading
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 4:00pm EDT by Wired Science
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Scientists have been able to stop cancers in mice from spreading, using nanoparticles infused with cancer-fighting drugs. The technique allows for much smaller doses of the drug, which carries heavy side effects.
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Lawyers Claim Hans Reiser Is Competent, Incompetent
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 3:05pm EDT by Threat Level
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Is Hans Reiser competent or incompetent? Reiser, the developer of the ReiserFS filesystem, was convicted in April of killing his wife, Nina Reiser. Some of his lawyers think he's competent and others don't. The difference could mean the being sentenced to prison or a mental institution.
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Rising Fuel Prices Hit Transit Riders
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 2:30pm EDT by Autopia
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Think riding the bus makes you immune to rising fuel prices? Think again. Transit systems are getting hit hard, and they're raising fares to make up for it.
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'Futurama' Gets Medieval in 'Bender's Game'
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 1:25pm EDT by Underwire
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A thoroughly modern plague -- high fuel prices -- sends the Planet Express crew back in time. Catch a sneak peek at the third direct-to-DVD space adventure.
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Exclusive: Sneak Peek at the 3G iPhone OS
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 11:46am EDT by Gadget Lab
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The 3G iPhone may not be launching until Friday, but we've got an early preview of the OS now. Loaded onto a first-gen iPhone, the 3G operating system shows us some surprises in GPS tech, address book navigation and push e-mail.
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Google's Long Reach Muddles Boardroom Picture
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 11:10am EDT by Josh McHugh, Portfolio.com
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News from Portfolio.com
Also on Portfolio
Heroes and Zeros in Corporate America
Subscribe to Portfolio magazineLast month, Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, who sits on Apple's board of directors, revealed that he's been compelled to leave Apple board meetings on more than one occasion because Google's mobile-device platform, Android, poses a direct challenge to Apple's iPhone. If Google were to adopt a similar practice of asking its directors with conflicts of interest to step outside, its board meetings might start getting pretty small.
The first to get the heave-ho would be John Doerr, who finds himself on the other side of the Android-iPhone fault line: In March, Doerr launched the $100 million iFund to invest in companies writing applications for the iPhone. If Google's board went on to discuss App Engine, Google's cloud computing initiative, Doerr would again have to excuse himself since he sits on the board of Amazon, whose fast-growing Web-services business competes directly with App Engine.
Should the conversation turn to Google's vigorous efforts to optimize its services for the iPhone, Doerr could return to the meeting. But if talk veered toward Google's plans to acquire wireless spectrum, John Hennessy, who sits on Cisco's board, might have to recuse himself, since Cisco has scrapped publicly with Google over who deserves to get the biggest slice of the new wireless broadband spectrum being auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission.
Google's venture-capital investments? Sergey Brin should take a walkâafter all, his new bride, Ann Wojcicki, is a founder of bio-info startup 23andMe. After Brin returns, perhaps the board would like to address tactics in the pitched battle between Google's Checkout payment service and eBay's PayPal. Might director Ann Mather, who served as a board member for Shopping.com before eBay acquired it for $634 million in 2005, care to head to the cafeteria for a coffee?
Of course, Google isn't deliberately stacking its board with representatives from its competitors. It's just that, as anyone whose business Google has targeted with its ever-expanding arsenal of services knows, there's no escaping the Googleplex. One suggestion: Rather than asking its directors to run hither and thither, Google could have its engineers build a boardroom version of the Cone of Silence from this summer's film version of Get Smart.
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'Force Unleashed': Destroying TIE Fighters With My Brain
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 11:00am EDT by Game|Life
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The Star Wars galaxy comes alive in an upcoming battery of games. Each version is artfully tweaked so the gameplay makes the most of the platform.
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Microsoft to Yahoo: Ditch the Board and Let's Dance
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 10:35am EDT by Epicenter
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Microsoft adds insult to injury by telling Yahoo it won't deal at all with the current board -- but that anything is possible if the Carl Icahn slate is installed at the Aug. 1 shareholder meeting.
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NBC To Use Olympics as a 'Billion Dollar Research Lab'
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 8:52am EDT by Associated Press
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NBC is using the Beijing Olympics as a "billion-dollar research lab" to get a sense of how people are using such platforms as video streaming, video on demand and mobile phones. The company will use about 10 methods for measuring audience beyond the broadcast.
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Ride the World's Best Motorcycle Roads
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 12:07am EDT by Autopia
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Anyone who's spent any time on a motorcycle has a favorite road. Here are some of ours. Tell us some of yours.
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Top 10 Hottest Digital Music Websites
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Listening Post
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Change is the only constant in the music business, and that goes double for the digital music business. So, for the moment at least, we've assembled a list of the 10 hottest digital music websites ... in the world!
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July 7, 1936: Get a Grip — Phillips Screws Up the Toolbox
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Randy Alfred
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1936: Henry F. Phillips receives patents for a new kind of screw and the new screwdriver needed to make it work. It changes the worlds of mass production and machine repair, not to mention your home toolbox.
Phillips was a Portland, Oregon, businessman who invented something to solve a problem that few home repair folk or do-it-yourselfers even knew existed. In those days, if you wanted to drive a screw into a hole, you just grabbed the right-size slotted screwdriver and did the deed. The only thing you needed to puzzle over was the size. Too big wouldn't fit; too small wouldn't give you enough torque.
So why do you now need to grab the right kind, as well as size, of screwdriver? It's enough to make you cross.
Phillips wasn't trying to make life with hand tools easier. He was trying to solve an industrial problem. To drive a slot screw, you need hand-eye coordination to line up the screwdriver and the slot. If you're a machine -- especially a 1930s machine -- you ain't got no eye, and your hand coordination may depend on humans.
The Phillips-head screw and Phillips screwdriver were designed for power tools, especially power tools on assembly lines. The shallow, cruciform slot in the screw allows the tapering cruciform shape of the screwdriver to seat itself automatically when contact and rotation are achieved. That saves a second or two, and if you've got hundreds of screws in thousands of units (say, cars), you're talking big time here.
And not only does a power Phillips driver get engaged fast, it stays engaged and doesn't tend to slide out of the screw from centrifugal force. Another advantage: It's hard to overscrew with a power tool. The screwdriver will likely just pop out when the screw is completely fastened.
It turns out that Peter L. Robertson had patented a self-seating, square-socket screw in Canada in 1907. Some Canadian factories adopted it, but Robertson was vexed by the onslaught of World War I and his own insistence on maintaining tight control of the technology.
Phillips applied for his own patents in 1934 and '36. After years of rejection, he got the American Screw Company to spend $500,000 ($5.7 million in today's money) to develop a manufacturing process. Then they convinced General Motors to try the new-fangled fasteners on the 1936 Cadillac.
Presto, change-o. Nearly all American automakers had switched to Phillips screws by 1940. The American jeeps and tanks of World War II, not to mention the aircraft, were assembled with speed and efficiency, thanks in a small part to Henry Phillips.
Today, manufacturers can choose from a wide array of screws -- including the Robertson square, the Allen hex and some exotic varieties developed by the Phillips Screw Co.
If you're a weekend handyperson who has to keep your toolbox stocked with all kinds of screwdrivers (or driver bits), the variety may be annoying. The Phillips cam-out -- when you've gone far enough and the tool pops out of the screw -- has led to plenty of workshop profanity. And loosening a machine-driven Phillips screw with a hand-held screwdriver has apparently reminded many, judging from their language, of the tenacity of a female dog protecting its newborns.
Still, remember Henry Phillips gently. His screws are holding your life together.
Source: American Heritage Invention & Technology
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Gallery: Japan's Hottest Celebrity Bloggers
Posted: July 7th, 2008, 12:00am EDT by Lisa Katayama
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: If you go to Japan and tell people you're a blogger, they might assume you're a celebrity. While blogs are making incredible headway as a source of credible information in the United States, in Japan they are mostly thought of as high-profile diaries.
"It's an evolution of Japan's diary culture," which dates back to the 8th century, says Ichiro Kiyota, an editor at Gizmodo Japan. "Celebrities say things on blogs that they can't tell the mainstream media, and we all read it so we can get to know them better."
Japan's celebrity bloggers run the gamut in terms of popularity and topics they write about, but they have several things in common: They're good-looking, they're geeky and they love to blog. Here are our 10 faves.
Name: Shoko Nakagawa
Age: 23
Blog: Shokotan blog
Claim to fame: Japan's new Queen of Blogging makes geeks go wild with her impressive otaku cred.
Traffic: By some estimates 100 million pageviews per month.*
Day job: Actress, singer, etc.
Favorite topics: Nails, cake, cats, cosplayers, cellphone bling, sexy figurines. Most recently, she created worldwide buzz when she put a cat in her mouth.
*Traffic is self-reported unless otherwise specified.
: Name: Kaori Manabe
Age: 27
Blog: Kaori Manabe's Between You and Me
Claim to fame: The original Queen of Blogging was one of the first celebrities to exploit the influencing power of the web.
Traffic: N/A
Day job: Actress, book author, former swimsuit model.
Favorite topics: Food she cooks; getting drunk.
: Name: Chiaki Kyan
Blog: Kyanchi Everyday
Location: Tokyo
Traffic: 25,000 pageviews per day.
Day job: Bikini idol
Favorite topics: Gundam; her cat; web video sites like Nico Nico Douga and YouTube.
: Name: Noriko Saito
Blog: DropB
Location: Tokyo
Age: 25
Traffic: 250,000 pageviews per month.
Day job: Web director of a media company.
Favorite topics: Programming languages, iPhones, 12 reasons why she'd make a good wife (she can program; she's funny; she knows everything about 2channel).
: Name: Asami Shinohara
Blog: iGirl
Age: 26
Location: Osaka
Traffic: 120,000 pageviews per month.
Day job: TV show host, manager of AuPair Japan.
Favorite topics: Her blinged-out cellphone; her snack addiction; books she's reading (The Age of Turbulence by Alan Greenspan, Speed Reading Skills for Kings); her desire to be as beloved as a Mac product.
: Name: Yumi Fukuda
Age: 25
Blog: Yumiking Diary
Location: Tokyo
Traffic: 13,000 pageviews per month.
Day job: Freelance journalist
Favorite topics: Her new FOMA F906i mobile phone; pictures of her breakfast.
: Name: Johnny Kusakabe
Age: 27
Blog: Johnny Kusakabe's Case File
Location: Osaka
Traffic: 3,000 pageviews per day
Day job: Salaryman
Favorite topics: Videogames; outrageous 2channel threads about eating cockroaches. He also has a parody blog called the Shoutan blog.
: Name: Yuko Matsumaru
Age: 29
Blog: Matsu-You's Eye
Location: Tokyo
Traffic: N/A
Day job: TV MC, designer, model
Favorite topics: Lacy, romantic pink things (a pink Care Bears pouch, a shiny pink Zima).
: Name: Benijo
Blog: Do You Like Geeky Women?
Traffic: N/A
Day job: R&D at a social media consulting firm.
Favorite topics: PHP and MySQL, debugging, making Japan's No. 1 geek databases.
: Name: Shuho Saito
Age: 32
Blog: Shuiro Note
Location: Tokyo
Traffic: 5,000 pageviews per day
Day job: Homemaker who used to work at Six Apart.
Favorite topics: Fancy homemade lunch boxes; affiliate links to household items like pots, pans and mixers.
: Name: Kamiji Yusuke
Blog: Kamiji Yusuke's Official Blog
Claim to fame: He holds the Guinness World Record for "most unique users on a personal blog in 24 hours."
Traffic: 6 million pageviews per day.
Favorite topics: Posts titled "Um," "Ah" or "Last Night" trigger an instant wave of thousands of comments by fawning fans.