The Minority Report

I admit it, I might have been wrong…but probably not. Microsoft Silverlight has had a topsy-turvy year. Apparently doomed or at least marginalized by HTML5, Silverlight found a foothold in Windows Phone and has more recently emerged as a key component of the Jupiter application framework and programming model for Windows 8. If Silverlight has [...]

Long time readers of this socially bookmarked blog, The Minority Report, know that I don’t shy away from controversy and once again the sparks are flying. Days ago, I posted an insightful and thought provoking piece on why it might not be in your best interest as a developer to be developing for the Myspace [...]

Defective Storage (from Chaz) A defective thumbdrive. It happens every now and then in the company, so I sent a new one to the user. A second defective thumbdrive. That’s pretty rare. Better make sure the user is actually plugging it in. Yep, it’s plugged in. Does the USB port work? Yep, the mouse works [...]

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Ethernet… Update (4/13/2011): here is the linky to the NSS Labs website discussing the test.  I didn’t include it yesterday, cause I’m a lazy bastard. SHUT UP! YOU try running the worlds greatest blog… NSS Labs: Network Firewall Remediation Brief for TCP Split [...]

There has been quite some buzz about the Chrome touch UI lately. Following our initial report from March 20, Cnet recently uncovered more evidence that Chrome (OS) will be getting a touch tablet version and now we are seeing a screenshot (?) of the onscreen keyboard. Oh, and Google has quietly reduced the page load [...]

After reading this, it seems like a shitty time for President Obama to be pissy off the Israelis. Imagine for a moment what the battlefield will look like in the future. Unmanned planes flying through the air; robots fighting on the ground; smart missiles hunting down targets. Now imagine that none of this can be [...]

Sweet. Scientists in China have succeeded in teleporting information between photons further than ever before. They transported quantum information over a free space distance of 16 km (10 miles), much further than the few hundred meters previously achieved, which brings us closer to transmitting information over long distances without the need for a traditional signal. [...]

Now you can have your nuggets and eat them too! Scientists reported the development of a “smart” roof coating, made from waste cooking oil from fast food restaurants, that can “read” a thermometer. The coating automatically switches roles, reflecting or transmitting solar heat, when the outdoor temperature crosses a preset point that can be tuned [...]

When even leaving a note is too direct…you folks with wireless networks still named “linksys” or “trendnet” are clearly missing out on a priceless opportunity to piss off your neighbors. Wi-Fi for Passive-Aggressives | PassiveAggressiveNotes.com — funny (if not necessarily “passive-aggressive”) notes from pissed-off people

I suppose this would work equally as well with a potato. It goes along with my comments earlier today that the iPad seems to not be getting the normal Apple product release reaction. Now this is funny. I found this posted over at TechCrunch and thought I would share this. iPad vs A Rock – [...]

Darren Beckett put together this cool graphic comparing various ereaders and their cost vs. the iPad. Kinda puts things in to perspective. It is my unscientific opinion that the iPad has been slammed in the media but I put my faith in Steve Jobs. The man is a genius, a billionaire and all around good [...]

I’m pretty sure that rig doesn’t come with Halle Berry but it’s still pretty sweet. Price tag is $3600 which is really nothing compared to my first rig 15 years ago at $5000. I’m also pretty sure that you are going to have to supply your own hydra worm to hack the Department of Defense [...]

We already know that Lenovo are something of the fastidious scientists when it comes to keyboard design. Last time they fiddled with the age-old key layout, it was after painstaking research to count exactly how many times users press the Delete and Escape keys. Result? They made the Delete and Escape keys a bit bigger. [...]

October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used for information management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is regarded as the foundation of modern time-sharing systems. Multics was the catalyst for the development [...]

Armies of robotic drones may be just around the corner. Taking a cue from The Terminator films, the U.S. Navy is developing unmanned fighting vehicles that network together and operate in “swarms.” The U.S. military’s unmanned drone planes have proven one of the most effective — and most controversial — weapons in the arsenal in [...]