Thought-Controlled Computing Will Light Up Vancouver Olympics [Thought Control]. Figure skating? Please. The main attraction for many visitors to the Winter Olympics will be an installation letting them control the lights at Niagara Falls with their minds. That's right: we're all... [Gizmodo]
11:22:01 AM

Apple iPad Just Tried To Assassinate Laptops [Apple]. Only way to interpret the launch of the iPad? Apple has declared the PC dead. Well-crafted but closed devices are their future of consumer computing. And if no one else can match the iPad experience,... [Gizmodo]
7:02:06 PM

Dying news media looks to Apple tablet for hope (AFP).

AFP - Struggling US newspapers and magazines may seek Internet Age resurrection in a so-called "Jesus tablet" -- a computer expected to grab the spotlight Wednesday at a much anticipated Apple event in San Francisco.

[Yahoo! News: Technology News]
7:41:17 AM

'Cult of Apple' awaits mystery product. No matter what type of new product Apple unveils at its much-anticipated press event later this week, Xavier Yaffar says he will buy it. Whatever the cost. [CNN.com]
6:38:14 AM

'Microraptors' shed light on ancient origin of bird flight. Researchers in the United States and China say that they have settled the long-standing question of how bird flight began. [ScienceDaily: Latest Science News]
6:29:51 AM

NASA's Puffin Is Way Cooler Than a Jetpack. It has every one of our geeky transportation ideas in one vehicle.

[Wired Top Stories]
6:57:03 AM

NASA Garage Sale Includes Shuttles, Engines, Space Suits. NASA looks for new homes for its retired shuttles, as well as thousands of other artifacts from the space program.

[Wired Top Stories]
6:55:16 AM

Hey, That's Not How You Build a Log Cabin [Architecture] . Your ordinary log cabin is laid out with lengthwise logs stacked to make its outer walls. Piet Hein Eek, charged with building a cozy recording studio for friend and musician Hans Liberg, did not... [Gizmodo]
7:28:51 AM

Wendy Carlos and color perception.

In addition to being one of the most historically significant pioneers in electronic music, Wendy Carlos is fascinated with how people see and hear. I am, too. She has been conducting experiments on color perception for over 50 years. Wendy created a cool little red/green color lightbox and a series of pages that show how two monochrome images can create full-color images when combined. She explains the origins of her interests:

Interestingly enough, most primates which evolved in Africa, Europe and Asia and environs posses a similar wide range as ours, while those which evolved later in "The New World" of the Americas usually have the narrower range of human color deficiency. The technical distinction is between: "trichromats (human and old-world primates)" and "dichromats (new-world primates and the common human color deficiencies)." Anyway, I built a lot of amusing devices way back in grade-school that allowed me to tinker with mixing various colors, both with paints (subtractive mixing of: magenta, yellow and cyan) and with colored lights (additive mixing of: red, green and blue). I read everything on color I could get my hands on, and with many years of more or less scientific experimentation, I thought I knew a bit about the subject. But I was wrong.

Experiments in Color Vision (Wendy Carlos)

Wendy's music (recommended: 'Tron' and 'A Clockwork Orange' soundtracks, Swiched-On Bach, and The Well-Tempered Synthesizer)

Image: Another amazing Andy Gilmore design via bridbird.com.

[Boing Boing]
4:31:25 PM

Google unveils its 'super phone' (photos). A recap of Google's Tuesday press event, in which it took the wraps off its much anticipated Nexus One smartphone designed by HTC. [CNET News.com]
4:24:30 PM

Are pico projectors the next big cellphone trend? (Reuters). Reuters - Large flat-screen TVs were all the rage at the Consumer Electronics Show, but companies like Microvision Inc are putting their bets on image viewing of a much smaller scale: projections from devices as tiny as cellphones. [Yahoo! News: Technology News]
4:23:32 PM

RCA Airnergy Charges Gadgets with Nothing But Wifi Signals [Chargers] . Forget PowerMats and wireless charging and the like, because the Airnergy wi-fi signal harvester is my new front runner for the future of gadget charging. It's not exactly new tech, as ohGizmo... [Gizmodo]
4:19:06 PM