Catch up on this week's tech and science news with the latest TowleTech from our correspondent Daniel Williford.
After word spread across the web in the past week about Play Station Portable's offensive Dutch ad campaign, Sony officially apologized and removed the ads (although as of this writing, images on the website still conflate race with the color of the device, but at least in a less confrontational way). The ads showed a white woman fighting with a black woman, and read "White is coming" in order to promote the new "ceramic" color option of the typically jet-black player. Here's hoping they don't follow Nintendo's lead and offer a pink version, or we're in trouble.
Photos surfaced on internet sites this week of what could be Microsoft's answer to the iPod. There is little other information about the device (including its size), reportedly part of Microsoft's Argo project.
The Washington Post notes that a year ago Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff created a high-level position to prepare for technology-related disasters that might affect things like communications or sensitive-data infrastructures, yet that position remains unfilled. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) put it starkly: "I think DHS is pathetic and incompetent. It's a complete mystery what's happening over there."
Wired Magazine's editor Chris Anderson has been making the rounds this week to promote his new book The Long Tail, which was the result of an article that evolved into a blog. Anderson's thesis is that the blockbuster hits and mass-culture distribution channels are fragmenting into a much larger number of small, niche successes and outlets. The Internet, of course, is the exemplar, if not the impetus, of this phenomenon. Currently, the Long Tail blog follows the thrill of an [ironically] mainstream book launch and engages with its positive and negative reactions from critics.
A new web browser was released this week with a very specific online activity in mind: lookin' at porn. Heatseek is a downloadable web browser that requires a password to log in, keeps all of your porny surfing history private and separate from your regular browser, and helps you to download and bookmark all your favorite porn so that you can look at more porn. It also allows you to view all of your saved goodies within the browser, so that you don't risk leaving traces of your naughtiness in other applications. Being diligent journalists, we were sure to try out the product. …Yep, works! [via techcrunch]
Microsoft and Yahoo teamed up this week to allow users of their instant messaging networks to chat with one another. While AIM remains the single most popular chat service by far, the Microsoft and Yahoo combined user base beats AIM's.
Yet, now that MySpace is the most popular website online, the recent launch of their own IM service might be something to keep an eye on.
This week a Stanford University Neurobiologist published a harsh criticism of a controversial study that attempted to show that men may be more biologically apt at math and the sciences than women. Dr. Barres drew on his experience as a transgender person as well as his expertise in the field to debunk the study as biased. "In his article, Barres offers several personal anecdotes from both
sides of the gender divide to prove his own hypothesis that prejudice plays a much bigger role than genetics in preventing women from reaching their potential on university campuses and in government laboratories."
Visit our correspondent Daniel Williford at his blog, Until Today…
