2002 December

In my city, Winnipeg, Manitoba, there are now three wireless providers. MTS, the local telco, Roger’s/AT&T, and Telus, from Alberta. I like my Telus number, which is fairly memorable and personalized after all. This story tells that in the US wireless providers will have to allow their networks to support Wireless Local Number Portability, which […]

This is a real good blog post about what has been done and what has changed in the last year as far as Windows customization (skinning) is concerned. He talks about breakthroughs in skinning, the GUI Olympics and takes a look at what is up in coming in customization. I believe I first heard about […]

Some historians claim the Internet was born in 1961, when Dr. Leonard Kleinrock first published a paper on packet-switching technology at MIT. Others cite 1969, when the Department of Defense commissioned the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, known as ARPANET, to research a communication and command network that could withstand a nuclear attack. The 1970s […]

“The sequel to The Matrix, due out in 2003, will feature numerous groundbreaking technical effects. Among these effects will be digital humans indistinguishable from real humans.”
Yes! I can hardly wait.

From vibrating arms to security-busting jelly babies, 2002 has had its fair share of adventures on the weird side. Too much of a good thing truly can be more than enough, one young gamer discovered this year. His overuse of his PlayStation console earned him a bout of hand-arm vibration syndrome, more common to those […]

After you’ve unwrapped and fired up that new electronic gadget, you have to figure out what to do with the device it replaces. Before you shelve that old phone or notebook alongside your 8-track and Betamax, you might consider properly recycling it instead. It’s not tough to protect the environment, help a charity, and possibly […]

“…the USA Patriot and Homeland Security Acts include some elements that are arguably appropriate for national security in today’s world. But they also include measures that have nothing to do with the fight against terrorism, and that are likely to have wide-ranging and chilling effects on privacy and liberty.”

“A study released Friday found that while online shopping rated favorably with the majority of holiday shoppers this season, overall satisfaction is down when compared with a similar study last year.”
I wonder what the correlation is between sales being up and satisfaction being down? Is it because the newbies have a higher expectation?

“Amazon, MSN had record-breaking online sales this season, remain optimistic.”
Can internet taxation be far behind?

Over at Certcities they have compilied a list of what they feel are the hottest certifications for the next year. They have combined reader interest along with what they call ‘Industry Buzz’ to give each cert two ratings. Not exactly prognostication, but it does give you an idea where the masses are headed.

I think this has got to be my project for the new year, building a nuclear reactor in my backyard. (Oops, editorial note, my wife reading this over my shoulder is asking if I’m nuts. Oh well, maybe next year.) However, should you decide to try for yourself, there are a large group of enthusiasts […]

Apparently every version of Excel has a different 3D game in it. The instructions listed in the link are for Excel 2000 (which I currently have installed). The one caveat, however, is that it also requires DirectX to be installed (which I don’t, although I am getting really tempted as I write this). While getting […]

This one just falls under the heading of… well, I’m not really sure, but I do think it is worth noting. In the past month scientists have received signals from Pioneer 10, originally launch in 1974. Although too faint to transmit any significant data, the signal was verified by multiple observatories. On second thought, I […]

If you did you might want to check the box. Apparently a company called Bandlink is selling a technology to CD manufacturers which causes CDs to “phone-home” when played in a personal computer. Unfortunately the story on Slashdot.org isn’t specific about which manufacturers are doing this. Even worse is the fact that, other than a […]

Although I always take anything I read on the web with a grain of salt, this seems a little too serious to be a joke; not to mention the site has been up for a while (sorry for not informing you sooner, but I didn’t want to do so only to find out the it […]

On Friday, Bridgeville, CA became the first town to be sold on eBay - for a whopping $1.8 million. Almost 250 bids were placed on the auction for the 82 acres of Bridgeville, which is 260 miles north of San Francisco.

We survey the latest tech trends and showcase some high-tech gadgets. Moore’s law shows no signs of letting up well into 2004, so we’ll see smaller, faster, more capable devices for the near future. Wireless will catch on with security firms cashing in on wide open networks. Hybrid devices are evolving, with eBook devices coming […]

“China has closed down over 3,300 Internet cafes nation-wide during the past six months for safety reasons, a senior Chinese official has said.”

Continuing our theme tonight (which is loosely based on the impending New Year) we have a set of suggestions for website designers. However, most of the mistakes listed fall should under a single heading; i.e., people expect consistency from computers and by extension, websites. Paraphrasing one, ‘If you have a FAQ on your website, it […]

Mind you this list is written by Time Magazine and frankly if these are the best invention of the last year… well, I really shouldn’t say that many of these inventions are based on really incredible technology. Always easier to criticize than create, but still I have to wonder what what criteria they used.