The team behind the popular torrent site The Pirate Bay has started to work on a new encryption technology that could potentially protect all Internet traffic from prying eyes. The project, which is still in its initial stages, goes by the name “Transparent end-to-end encryption for the Internets,” or IPETEE for short. It tackles encryption not on the application level, but on the network level, the aim being that all data exchanged on your PC would be encrypted, regardless of its nature — be it a web browser streaming video files or an instant messaging client. As Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij (a.k.a. Tiamo) told me, “Even applications that don’t supporting encryption will be encrypted where possible.”

The Pirate Bay Wants to Encrypt the Entire Internet « NewTeeVee

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues.

Let me give you my experience from yesterday.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”

I'd never heard of this guy. Anyone got a link to the original source writings? Anyone read them before? Noteworthy?

The Mundaneum Museum Honors the First Concept of the World Wide Web - NYTimes.com

Most of the bots we've seen recently have either been targeted at performing human-like tasks or simply too adorable to actually fear, but SRI International's wall-climbing robot is doing its best to put some terror back in the bot game, using something called "electro-adhesion" to cling to nearly any building material and climb with surprising alacrity. Electro-adhesion is apparently relatively low-power, and SRI researchers say that the bots can even climb walls that are covered in dust or other debris. Interesting -- just don't give the thing any cameras or lasers, okay? Video after the break.

Woah! cool

Wall-climbing robot scales nearly any building material - Engadget

Get ready to pay atelier sneaker prices for these babies, because designer MSTRPLN (not to be confused with MSTRKRFT) and Ubiq (not to be confused with Ubiquio) teamed up to produce some straight black Nike Dunks with built-in WiFi detection. It's called A Step in the Right Direction, and we might actually agree.

Because when the internet's around, you should feel it.

Nike Dunks WiFi = A Step in the Right Direction - Engadget

Usually, our dystopian nightmares of robot domination involve big, substantive machines - man-sized, or better.� But many academics and military futurists believe the real power of 'bots won't be realized there swarms of tiny mechanical critters. (Think the spiders of Minority Report, instead of the Schwarzeneggers of Terminator.)
The massive defense contractor BAE Systems has announced that it will lead a team of academics and military researchers to try to create just those kind of machines. (The picture, below, is from a BAE release - not a Tom Cruise flick.)

We're building things Super villains are expected to make.

Army: Make Us a Mini-Drone Swarm (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com

Critics have contended that the machine could produce a black hole that could eat the Earth or something equally catastrophic.

Where can i get one?

Collider May End World! (Or Spit out Man Eating Dragons) | Danger Room from Wired.com

This incredible antique automaton, circa 1915-1925, just sold on eBay for $1,775. It's 32" high and 16" wide. The auction listing says it may have been "a knight from a King Arthur type of display." I think it'd look right at home in a crucifixion scene. I hope the buyer completely restores and revives the (holy) ghost in this machine. From the eBay listing:

ORIGINAL MECHANISM AND PAPER MACHE HEAD. ARMS ARE WOOD AND POSSIBLY MADE BY SCHOENHUT. GLASS EYES. ELECTRIC MOTOR CAM DRIVEN MULTIPLE ACTION MECHANISM. WORKS FINE, HEAD MOVES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT. EYES MOVE LEFT TO RIGHT, AND EYELIDS OPEN AND CLOSE. BREATHING ACTION AS A CHEST PANEL RISES AND FALLS. OUT OF AN ESTATE IN STATEN ISLAND , NEW YORK. POSSIBLY FROM HAPPYLAND AMUSEMENT PARK . BELIEVED TO BE A KNIGHT FROM A KING ARHTUR TYPE OF DISPLAY. THE MAKER IS SAID TO BE WILLIAM H AND CHARLES W COOK OF COOK STUDIOS AT 550 EAST DUPONT STREET,ROXBOROUGH PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA. MAKERS OF DISPLAYS, AND ADVERTISING DISPLAYS.

Amazing antique automaton on eBay - Boing Boing

For decades, the armed forces around the globe have tried all sorts of ways to keep its soldiers and pilots awake. During World War II, American, German, Japanese, and British troops were all issued rations of amphetamines. In the early days of the Afghanistan war, these "go pills" were blamed for a particularly ugly "friendly fire" incident. A newer drug, modafinil, is now being pushed in the U.S. military as a safer alternative.

DARPA, the Pentagon's way-out research arm, is funding scientific studies into more exotic answers to combat the effects of sleeplessness. Columbia University psychologists, working under a DARPA grant, are keeping people awake for 48 hours straight -- and then zapping their brains with focused magnetic waves, to keep their cognitive capacities intact. The researchers recently published a study showing that the transcranial magnetic stimulation was able to "improve the working memory performance" of the sleep-deprived. Lexicon Genetics has found genetic targets in mice that seem to make sleep itself more restorative, enhancing learning and memory. And Wisconsin professor Giulio Tononi is breeding a strain of fruit flies that gets by on just a third the normal amount of sleep.

Somehow, i dont imagine the long term effects of this would be very good

Israel Mulls Viagra-Style Drugs to Keep Pilots Up (Updated) | Danger Room from Wired.com

The Register has unearthed a research paper that shows IBM working on a computing system capable "of hosting the entire internet as an application."

Nice... one big target.

IBM explores 67.1m-core computer for running entire internet | The Register