Daniel Williford catches us up on the latest tech and science news with this week's TowleTech report.
With the World Cup buzz never-ending, Wired compiled a list of soccer-related gadgets. Pictured above is the Football Remote Control, officially licensed by English Football Association. It's made to be kicked around like a real ball, but it can also be programmed as a universal remote. Rewind…rewind again…oh yeah…
Other highlights in the roundup include T-Mobile UK's special edition 2006 World Cup edition Samsung phone and Microsoft's free Soccer Scoreboard downloadable application, for keeping up with real-time stats.
A new study shows that the earth is likely the hottest temperature that it's been in the past 2,000 years. As more and more soccer players remove their shirts in Germany, scientists warn of a ominous warming trend. “Their research was known as the ‘hockey-stick' graphic because it compared the sharp curve of the hockey blade to the recent uptick in temperatures and the stick's long shaft to centuries of previous climate stability.” Laugh all you want, but the ice caps are totally melting.
PlanetOut.com, the owners of the mega-portal/community site Gay.com (and owners of the NASDAQ stock ticker symbol LGBT) have finally entered the blogosphere with the recent launch of two new blogs. PlanetOut's Politics & News & Things of Grand Compelling Interest, Etc. by Michael Cavadias will cover GLBT politics and PlanetOut's Personality Machine of Pop Culture & Celebrities & Movies &TV & Gossip, Etc. by Jason Rowan will cast its queer eye on the entertainment industry.
Windows officially released its first Live product out of Beta testing: Windows Live Messenger. The instant messenging program will replace MSN Messenger and is upgraded with new features such as shared folders for file collaboration, the ability to make free voice calls, and a slick new look. It's the first of many more Live products to come, just in time for the arrival of Vista. Windows Live Messenger is the sponsor of an online game to promote the next chapter of Pirates of the Caribbean. Add “Billy Bones” to your Messenger buddy list and start chatting to solve the puzzle. Or just be reminded that Johnny Depp is still really hot.
E-paper is on it's way. Seiko Epson released details of a prototype of a 7.1” high-resolution screen made of a thin sheet of plastic that acts like digital paper. The “ink” could update in real time and display video images. Remember, in Minority Report? How cool was that?
Digg.com announced that it will released version 3.0 of it's web portal on Monday to a further-reaching audience than the techie set that's proven the sites success so far. The site uses user feedback to promote stories published around the web. Anyone can add a story, but it takes many other users to give it a digital thumbs-up, or “digg,” to push the story to the front page. Version 3.0 will expand the topics of stories listed on the site to include World/Business and Entertainment. Last week, Netscape.com re-branded its site to a Digg-like user-reviewed portal.
This week ebuddy.com launched, offering a useful free service that allows users to chat through AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and Google Talk, all through a secure web-page. This means that you can chat with all of your various contacts at once without installing a chat program on your computer or worrying about Firewall interference. It's the Safe
For Work way to waste time at work. [via techcrunch]
Is your cutting edge cell phone technology weeks outdated? Get excited about two hot previews of the latest offerings from Motorola and T-Mobile. The long anticipated Sidekick 3 has hit the internets, and Mobile Burn has photos and a review. PhoneScoop, meanwhile, claims to have a prototype of the next device in Motorola's successful line of slim and sexy phones: an as-yet-unnamed slider phone (we'll put our name on it being called the SLIDR). It's a marriage of the RAZR, with its protected keypad, and the SLVR's slim, bar shape.
A new social networking site called MOG combines MySpace with Rhapsody by allowing users to create a profile centered on their music collection (with sections like "Songs You Should Be Listening To" and "Best Music I've Recently Seen," and then explore new music by browsing the collections of other users with similar tastes. The site will use its own engine to point you to new music it thinks you'll like. It also supports full blogging. Music snobs have a new home!
An influential British art gallery owner has launched a virtual art gallery that allows any artist to showcase their work online. Saatchi's Your Gallery also has an accompanying online magazine with “news, reviews, diaries, events, and photojournals.” The site is completely free for artists to use, and in only a few weeks has amassed thousands of galleries and 6-digit transactions from sale of the work. [image is 26 Gum Blonde XXVI by Jason Kronenwald]
You can visit our TowleTech correspondent Daniel Williford on his blog, Until Today…
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