Surface ...Surfaces, from Microsoft

Now I know the reason for the TV series "Surface" being cancelled.

It was the name of a new Touchscreen "GIZMO" from Microsoft. Here's a link to Demo on Popular Mechanics Website.

(http://news.filefront.com/microsofts-surface-changes-the-way-we-use-computers/)

Link to Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel Remapping the Universe Demo



The Surface from Microsoft (codenamed: "milan") was demoed for Popular Mechanics (link above). It's touch screen "surface' can pick up multiple touch points and interact to items placed on the surface. Wireless devices can also 'communicate' with the "Surface" interface.

Kind of nifty, but at $10,000 a "Desktop" pop, rather put that into 5 state-of-the-art Linux boxes (3 Dual-Core, 64 bit Desktops running Fedora, Ubuntu and Open SUSE, and 2 similar spec'd laptops, running Ubuntu and Fedora).

Getting to look more like
Philip K. Dick's Minority Report all the time.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/

memorial day weekend:

In honor of Memorial Day I had planned to read an article in Wired Magazine, the one with Heroes' Masi Oka on the cover. The article: "Escape from Iran: Inside a CIA Covert Op."

But as you know, the Best Laid Plans...

Instead, I read about a Green City/Urban Development project near Shanghai, on the island Dongtan, by ARUP's Chilean architech and Urban Designer Alejandro Gutierrez.

Like a PBS show about a subject you know little about, it open my eyes to the problems of Urban Planning. A good Article, from one of "My Favorites" magazine.

I also did a bit of Online Programming Study on Python's number and list handling ideas.

And speaking about numbers, Jack Sparrow (aka Johnny Depp) took care of business on the holiday weekend with these numbers:

The Top Five

#1 "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" ($142 million)
#2 "Shrek the Third" ($69 million)
#3 "Spider-Man 3" ($18 million)
#4 "Bug" ($4.2 million)
#5 "Waitress" ($4 million)

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A handful of Heroes against Jack Bauer...

2007, the year when comic book heroes was King. The Big Screen is Boasting it's Best Summer EVER with back-to-back boxoffice megahits for Spiderman 3, Shrek, the Third, and the upcoming Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Carribean's THIRD installment.

Well, the Little screen has it's Heroes Too.

Two of which go head-to-head in season finales tonight.

Agent Jack Bauer gets sent off into summer hiatus with a two-hour cliff-hanger to end its award-winning sixth season tonight starting at 8:00 on Fox channel 11.

On NBC, channel 4, Heroes ends part 2 of it's first year with Sylar's explosion destroying half of New York, and band of fledgling heroes trying to stop it.

How to stop and exploding man on IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988307/

The Hit series on NBC is set to spin-off a sequel about the histories of individual heroes next fall.

Comic books are alive and well on the big screen and the small.


Tune In to the FUN...
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Old FUD's Ugly Head

Microsoft showed it's Ugly FUD Head again this week with an attempt to intimidate Open Source and Linux with allegations of Intelleectual Property Rights violation.

Now remember, I really hate the PC - Apple commercials that the Mac has been rubbing in our windows-faces lately.

Particularly since I remember, not that long ago, Microsoft helped Apple out with some loose change when the Mac seemed on the brink of extinction, again.

That Was nice of Microsoft.

This meaning, that I'm not an Mac or Windows Basher by preference. Only when then continue to "Do Stupid Things". But I guess, old bad habits die Very Hard.

For the uninitiated, the NEW tactics of FUD (Fear,Uncertainty and Doubt) is so interwoven into the fabric of Microsoft that I must refer you the Wikipedia entry on the subject.

This seems to be Microsoft's modus operandi of late, when they feel they're losing mind-share.

These Peckinpah-Matrix slow-motion ambush shots hide the the Facts that if you can't compete technologically (vista), sick the lawyers on them.

FUD can obscure a multitude of innovation shortcomings.

This is not what someone who wants to be remembered as a humanitarian should be doing.

Stop it Bill.

It's not Open Source or Linux's fault it took five (5) years to push Vista out the door.