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Friday, March 15, 2002

Centuries-Old Longitude Clock Runs Again "BBC News has published a story about John Harrison's H4 chronometer and how it has been wound up for the UK's National Science Week. After 40 years of work [Harrison] proved in 1764 that a clock could be used to locate a ship's position at sea with extraordinary accuracy." Ah, the GPS system of its day. T. adds: This is the timekeeping device which Dava Sobel wrote about in Longitude. [Slashdot]
4:58:51 PM

rsync 2.5.4 (Development-2.5) This release includes a fix for the zlib double-free bug. [freshmeat.net]
4:56:49 PM

The Latest ICANN Goings on...

4:52:47 PM

ICANN in for a Domain Change. Couple the elimination of democratic elections with looming hearings by the U.S. Congress, and what have you got? Not the old ICANN, that's for sure. By Declan McCullagh. [Wired News]
4:50:10 PM

ICANN abolishes Net democracy, but Esther steps in. The old fruit's back [The Register]

As expected, the domain name quango ICANN yesterday affirmed its commitment to "meaningful participation and representation for individual users" by abolishing the board elections in which you or I could vote for who sets key Internet policy.

The British chair of ICANN, Stuart Lynn, had outlined the proposal a fortnight ago, so it was sure to supersede the old, Mugabe-style policy of holding "elections" in which a) the ruling party is assured of a majority b) voting systems break down just when they start to be used and c) the opposition and journalists are intimidated not, as in Zimbabwe by violence, but by bureaucratic ennui.

4:48:55 PM

Computers Summarize the News "is a project at Columbia University by the nlp group that attempts to generate computer summaries of all of those news articles on different web sites. The project is called Newsblaster and the summaries are excellent. You can read about the project on regular news sites like Online Journalism Review or USA Today." [Slashdot]
4:44:07 PM

CeBit: USB tokens offer pocket-sized security That's the hope of a growing number of companies offering security tokens: cheap devices about the size of a house key that plug into a USB (universal serial bus) port in order to verify a user's identity.

The tokens, also known as dongles, are intended for individual laptop users, for employees accessing company networks, or for software makers seeking to prevent pirate use of their products. A number of companies are showcasing their versions of the tokens here at the CeBIT trade show.
[IDG InfoWorld]

I already carry around a Disk-on-Key. A cool idea especially useful in that USB is everywhere. Even better if the USB port is on the front. Smartcards and bio-metrics require add-ons.

3:38:49 PM

Site plans to put TV shows on the Web. A short-lived experiment delivering copyright TV shows over the Internet is being revived, according to a Web site that promises to begin service in a few weeks. [CNET News.com]

Startup claims to have overcome rights issues and will broadcast over the web.

3:33:29 PM