Results tagged “technology”

KOMO reports that UW is testing out the use of the Amazon Kindle in their classrooms this fall. The University's Computer Science & Engineering Department will give every CS&E graduate student a Kindle DX, which will replace textbooks and research papers in their first-year courses. Kindle-edition textbooks and other materials will also be given to them free of charge. Amazon's sending Kindle DXs to six other universities throughout the United States. UW will be the first to get the book-killers.

Polling of grant funders revealed that they'd lost about twenty-two percent of their assets in 2008 and forecast losing another ten percent in 2009. Because they base their funding on rolling three-year intervals, artists and arts organizations can look forward to seeing the impact of these losses in 2011 and 2012 (in addition to an immediate ten-to-twenty five percent decrease in individual giving this year). God help you if you're a new organization, or are looking for funds from new sources, because the prevailing wisdom was that funders weren't looking for new opportunities.

If you really care about superfast internet or high definition TV service, don’t bother reading the rest of this post. It’ll only piss you off.

Another local will join Sims and Kerlikowske back East, now that Philip Reitinger--a senior infrastructure security guy at Microsoft--has been appointed to a leadership role with the Department of Homeland Security. He will take over next week as the deputy undersecretary of the National Protections Program Directorate. Wired points out that as Microsoft isn't exactly an industry leader in computer security, Reitinger's appointment "might be considered what some would call ironic." Hmm. Hackers, start your engines.

You no longer have to buy a Kindle or give Amazon.com any money in order to access the bulk of Kindle content and features, thanks to a new application (download here) released by the Seattle-based book giant today which allows you to read, highlight, and bookmark e-books Kindle-style on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Just last month, Seattlest got to handle our first Kindle; its owner had to gently inform us that the first-generation version did not in fact have a touch screen after a full minute of watching our grimy fingers scooting along the surface in vain. If you have one of the old Kindles and don't want to invest in a new one just for the touch screen feature, now you have options. iPhone-owning readers: will you be downloading this app? [MvB: Just did.]

A few genius University of Washington students created a new social networking application called Friendbo, and for once, this is an app you might find useful: it password-protects certain user-defined groups of photos using security questions you invent. This means you won't have to worry about potential new bosses examining last weekend's party pics on Myspace or Facebook, but you can still post them for your friends to see--as long as your friends know what you want to name your next dog, or what have you. Alternatively, you could use annoying riddles or Mensa questions. File under "Ways To Alienate People, Perhaps Intentionally."

Last night we were trying to watch House, M.D., and one of those terrible Microsoft "Mojave" commercials came on, which implied that the reason Vista hasn't sold well isn't because it sucks but because consumers don't know you can make panoramic photos with it. That's a feature on everyone's must-have list for a new OS, isn't it? So then we were like, Great, this is what intracranial bleeding feels like.

We haven't had the time to test out local software company Microsoft's PhotoSynth for ourselves, but have you? What do you think--is the new elaborate automatic panorama service more than or merely as useful as the Google Maps confirmation that cows prefer to stand aligned north/south? Warning: if you go to www.photosynth.com using an old-ish browser, you'll get chastised by a pop-up window. "Still using IE6 I see," is the (verbatim) message we received. Ouch! Straight to the heart!

It's true. Now, if you can't live without knowing what's happening on Seattlest as it happens, or just want to know in extremely short bursts what we're posting about, you can follow the Seattlest Twitter feed. Through the magic of modern technology, followers of Seattlest's Tweets can choose to receive updates via txt, IM or on the Web. So sign up for our Tweets, just don't call us Twits.

Hey there, lovely readers. We're taking a break from our usual Monday morning posting to make a little public service announcement. The time has come for Seattlest to add a couple of writers to our staff, and we're hoping you can spread the word for us. While "generalists" are fun and splendid, we're looking for someone who's turned on by sports and news from the tech world. If both those things float your boat, great! If not, we're happy to take two separate people. You should be able to write (or at least take some editorial criticism), be stoked about the opportunity to blog for free on a subject you love, and like sandwiches, folk music, and Hillary Clinton. (Okay, those last three things are optional.)

When we were dissing Clearwire the other day, we had no idea a deal this big was in the works. In fact, plenty of people thought the writing was on the e-tablet for Clearwire after its WiMAX deal with Sprint fell through six months ago. But you can't count Craig McCaw out.

Apparently we're not the only ones with hope for Microsoft! Wired Magazine published an interview this morning with Mary Jo Foley, author of the cutely-titled book Microsoft 2.0, about the future of the company as Bill Gates leaves the day-to-day ops in the hands of Steve "I walked away from Yahoo" Ballmer.

"Mac vs. PC" by Etchasketchist, with permission. Cool!

Anyone want to start taking bets on how far Yahoo stocks will drop this morning? Double your winning by guessing the proper amount of time it takes for the descent to begin.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a pretty cool new online service that will take the Google Documents concept to the next level: users of Live Mesh will be able to sync content from their computers, handhelds, cell phones, and potentially even their Zunes with that of other users in the same mesh, via the internet. As we understand it, the service is like an inter-office computer network, but users can upload/download content at any time and anywhere they have access to one of the "enmeshed" devices.

Yahoo has denied Microsoft something it wants, and Microsoft is none too happy. Today Yahoo Corporation officially rejected Microsoft's 45 billion dollar unsolicited buy-out offer as insufficient. 45 Billion?!? Every time we heard the offer, we thought to ourselves, that reporter must have made a mistake - he must've meant 45 million. Guess not. Even that astronomical number, according to Yahoo "significantly undervalues [the company's] worth."

Since there's a "Blogger Lounge" here at MacWorld, we figured we'd use it. What the hell.

We appreciate your patience while they re-implement the SQL coding process for optimal FTP performance or whatever the hell they do.

The Program (Dec. 18-22) will be way cooler than we initially thought, folks. Not only will some of the biggest names in NW hip-hop be on stage for your entertainment five nights in a row, but the latest news is that there are all kinds of technological tie-ins that will make this event very, very 21st-century.

Redmond native and actual Guitar Hero Carrie Brownstein did some work on the advertising of the game Rock Band. You might have seen these commercials; four rocker-lookin types sit around and cut on each other in the jaded and weary fashion of musicians on the road. That's not her work, thank god. She was on a different team pushing a different concept. Anyway, she's got an article up at Slate today about her experiences with the game, which, ultimately, she ends up kind of liking in an "it's not as evil and fake as American Idol" kind of way. Of course anything less than an absolute trashing of the game leads us to suspect she's still on the payroll, but she's a music writer so we'll say no. It's an interesting take on the game either way.

This has probably already circumnavigated the Internet, but it's new to us:

If you were here right now, you'd see us looking around suspiciously like we don't quite trust we're awake because we just read Knute Berger's latest deep thought over at Crosscut and we...agree with him.

While promoting green consumption might be politically more palatable than getting people to change their habits and expectations, promoting consumption still offers an answer that doesn't solve the bigger problem. Global warming's hawks have to be honest with us: Fighting the good fight isn't all economic upside. We're going to have to do more with less.

Amazon released an eBook reader today, it's three years in the making. They call it Kindle. Here's a big 'ol Newsweek piece about it.

Here are three vaguely computer-related crimes taken from recent headlines in Seattle, Chicago and New England.

Mac released its new Leopard operating system on Friday, and low-tech Seattlest wonders what's up. So we asked Aron Beal, a Web applications developer and genuine Mac nerd, to tell us.

Will every software guy in the audience who's ever thought about cashing in the badge and putting on a chef's coat raise your hand? Wow, a lot of you, great! Some of you aren't so sure... You there in the front, did you read Kitchen Confidential? Yeah? Did that help push you out the door or keep you in front of the keyboard? OK, keep them up there. Now, keep them raised if you've actually done it. Alright, not so many.

Oh, Apple, Inc. America hates you 'cuz you're beautiful (it's all that plastic surgery!). Seattlest mostly just hates you because you won't let us tinker with your products. You're even getting charged with monopoly, along with AT&T, and Seattlest couldn't have been more smug when we heard about that news.

We forgot to mention one important fact about the Thingamajiggr tech party coming up this weekend: It's being held in what used to be Seattle's speakeasy, the Cafe (un)American, and it'll probably be the last event held there before the building is torn down. There are still some tickets available (discount code "thingamaparty").

The trio of authors Akashic's showcasing includes the novelists Felicia Luna Lemus and Joe Meno, neither of whom we've read and therefore can't comment on. But trust us--it's worth going for Chris Abani alone. An exiled Nigerian playwright and novelist, Abani was such a thorn in the military regime's side that they even tried to assassinate him in London (prompting his move to the US, where he currently teaches at UCLA).