We will create the greatest digital festival in the history of Nashville. We will bring together entrepreneurs, technology visionaries, digital creators, music revolutionaries and marketing gurus under one roof for twelve hours of education, innovation and recreation.

Is anyone going to this? It seems more art/marketing focused than the barcamp run by O'Reilly, but it might be interesting.

BarCamp Nashville - What's this all about? What's a BarCamp?

A MOVE to arm police robots with stun guns has been condemned by weapons researchers.

On 28 June, Taser International of Arizona announced plans to equip robots with stun guns. The US military already uses PackBot, made by iRobot of Massachusetts, to carry lethal weapons, but the new stun-capable robots could be used against civilians.

"The victim would have to receive shocks for longer, or repeatedly, to give police time to reach the scene and restrain them, which carries greater risk to their health," warns non-lethal weapons researcher Neil Davison, of the University of Bradford, UK.

"If someone is severely punished by an autonomous robot, who are you going to take to a tribunal?" asks Steve Wright, a security expert at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK.

Armed autonomous robots cause concern - tech - 07 July 2007 - New Scientist Tech

Palindrome says:

This video is rad!! They are playing video games and showing short videos using the lights in highrise buildings!!

Blinkenlights Arcade

Really neat.

The Robotarium X at Jardim Central, Alverca (Vila Franca de Xira), Portugal, is the first of its kind in the world.

Conceived for a public garden it is constituted by a large glass structure containing 45 robots, most powered by photovoltaic energy and a few plugged to the ceiling or to the ground.

The robots are all original, created specifically for the project, representing 14 species classified by distinct behavior strategies and body morphologies. Obstacle avoidance, movement or sunlight detection and interaction with the public are some of the robots skills.

Robotarium X, the first zoo for artificial life, approaches robots very much in the way as we are used to look at natural life. We, humans, enjoy watching and studying other life forms behavior and, sadly, also to capture them. However, in this case, although the robots are confined to a cage it can be said that, not like animals, they enjoy it. In fact the Robotarium is their ideal environment with plenty of sun, smoothness, tranquility and attention. There are no fights or aggression and the only competition is to assure a place under the sunlight.

Robotarium X is also an art work of a new kind of art that realizes a critical questioning of knowledge and culture. Notions like nature, life, the artificial, machine, art, culture and science, are challenged by this display.

Robotarium X

I can tell you that in the first hour it works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard.

The iphone looks really slick, but every time one of my friends says "you know, I think I'm going to get one" I caution them about the keyboard. I have a Sidekick. I do a LOT of chatting and texting on it. The reason is that the keyboard is big. Big enough to efficiently type with two fingers. Often I talk to people who say "Oh, I don't care, I don't do a lot of texting." Then I look at their phone. They have a 9 digit keypad. Of course they don't do a lot of texting. Texting on a 9 digit keypad is extremely tedious. If they had an efficient interface, they'd do more of it. Once you have an effective way to use it, it becomes a very valuable tool and you don't want to give it up. It is often very helpful to be able to send short, asynchronous messages to someone instead of bothering them with a call.

Now, sure Apple's phone might not be marketed at me. They might be going after the users who never have never had a real keyboard on their phone and don't know what they are missing. But Apple is a computer company, and their whole story is that their phone works great with the Internet. The Internet is about transmitting and not just receiving, and nothing "works great" with it if it doesn't have an efficient transmitter.

Add to this the prospect of downgrading your ipod hard drive or having your ipod hard drive size directly connected with phone upgrades, and I'm just not sure I see anything here that I really want. Sure, it looks slick, but it will make it harder to do what I need to do with my phone and my ipod.

I'm not saying it won't be successful. LOTS of people will be willing to sacrifice substance for form. I'm just saying those are not the kind of people that talk to me about purchasing an iphone.

Here is a telling quote:

The new phone may resonate with a new kind of mobile user, said Donald Norman, a product designer who is co-director of the Segal Design Institute at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.

"Apple says, 'We're not selling to the person who lives on his Blackberry, we're selling to the person who listens to music and surfs the Web,'" he said.

Apple, you don't understand the Internet.

Apple 2.0: Apple iPhone: All Eyes on the Keyboard (Or Lack Thereof)

AS3O is an open coffee group for entrepreneurs, freelancers, renegade venture capitalists, creative types, developers, etc. – anyone who would like to get together outside of the office/house on a laptop – to work.  We looked around Atlanta for a community of startups, artists, small businesses, etc., and not finding the exciting, entrepreneurial nexus of our dreams, we figured we’d start one of our own.

Wish I didn't have a day job. :) You guys hang out down there on Saturday?

Atlanta Seed-Stage Second Office

The most important social engineering technique is to shut up.

Your success often depends upon how well you deal with objections by others. Your instinct is to respond like you've been attacked, to go on the defensive, and respond with an argument. Resist that urge.

Errata Security: How to become a Guru.

The latest technical advance out of MIT could dramatically change the drudgery of recharging portable devices: An MIT research team has figured out how to wirelessly illuminate an unplugged light bulb from seven feet away.

This must be something other than microwave induction, right? My recollection from school was that this sort of thing has been understood for a long time and the cheif problem is that if you walk into the beam it will burn you. Is this safe?!

Need feedback from nerds...

Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them

Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too

Worthersee wrote:

Please don't support the paranoid rantings of deluded cat fanciers who want to have public data censored to serve their own psychosis.

Is that too big for a bumper sticker? Just like there were nude sunbathers caught with the satellite pictures there will surely be other interesting things found in these pictures. Possibly significant others soliciting prostitutes or drug dealers commencing in their daily business. However all pictures are taken from a public place, and privacy concerns shouldn't out weigh the benefits of the service.

This is at the crux of present privacy battles. Yes, if you walk out of a strip club and your girlfriend is driving by, its not like she was doing anything wrong. She didn't violate your privacy. But if everything you ever do outside is always recorded all of the time, then in a very real sense you've lost something, even though you can't put a finger on the quantum recordings as being inappropriate, or the access to the quantum recordings as being inappropriate. Its the same thing in numerous contexts. You've no 4th amendment right to privacy in regard to the phone numbers you've dialed, because the phone company presumptively knows them, and you have to presume that they might tell the police. However, generally you wouldn't. Generally you'd think the phone company wouldn't tell the police who you are calling unless they suspected you of something. Its possible that the phone companies have been providing every number that everyone ever dials to the NSA. There is a difference. We better get good at recognizing it.

RE: Boing Boing: Google Maps is spying on my cat, says freaked out BB reader