FlashApe

So while Internal Server Error was down again…err, sorry, while MXNA was down again, I went and checked in over at Web Worker Daily and found this gem: Simple Spark, a catalog of over 8500 Web Apps, broken down by category with reviews and ratings for each. It’s pretty impressive, I’ve already found a few I would probably have never heard of that look pretty interesting.

(side note: does this now mean that web 2.0 has folded over onto itself and has begun to implode?)

I hate when I go someplace that offers Wifi and have to pay for it, simple as that. Most of the time when I have been forced to pay for Wifi access, t’s been those damn T-Mobile hotspots. I heard about this story, and I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one who had that ‘yeah, screw you t-mobile!’ feeling.

NewsTrust : Found this site via boingboing, it’s a non-profit news site that actually focuses on quality content and “news you can trust”. This is a huge breath of fresh air for me, as someone who is completely turned off by the garbage and fluff on sites like digg and reddit, and the completely biased propaganda on ‘media machine’ corporate news sites like cnn and fox.

It’s rating system works different than digg and others. Whereas digg would have one button to approve a story, NewsTrust asks readers to rate stories on a scale of 1-5 in six different categories: Recommendation (Is it a good story?), Information (Is this story informative?), Sources (Is it well sourced?), Trust (Do you trust this publication?), Fairness (Is this story fair?) and Contect (Does it show the “big picture”?). In addition, readers can leave comments and tags for an article.

Here’s some info picked from their site:

NewsTrust is a citizen news service that helps people find good journalism online. This next-generation social network features some of the best news and opinions from hundreds of trusted online sources. NewsTrust members rate news stories based on journalistic quality, not just popularity.

It’s a great way to get “news you can trust” all in one place. NewsTrust offers a fine selection of quality journalism on their free web site, which is now open to the public: http://beta.newstrust.net/

NewsTrust encourages both media literacy and civic engagement. NewsTrust review tools guide members through careful news evaluations, based on key journalistic principles such as fairness, balance, evidence, context and importance. Independent research studies show that citizen reviewers using these review tools can evaluate news quality reliably - and as effectively as experienced journalists.

NewsTrust publishes a quality ratings database for hundreds of mainstream and alternative news sources, to help the public identify trustworthy publications. This valuable online knowledge base about the news media was created to help citizens make more informed decisions about our democracy.

NewsTrust is non-profit, non-partisan and member-driven. NewsTrust’s Executive Director, Fabrice Florin, is a former journalist and a digital media pioneer at Apple and Macromedia. The NewsTrust team includes award-winning journalist and media executive Rory O’Connor and former Lucasfilm project manager David Fox, who bring extensive track records in content and technology development. NewsTrust advisors include Dan Gillmor, Howard Rheingold and other digital media innovators from organizations like Google, Poynter Institute and the University of California.

Whoa..this is pertty cool. I just found this today, it’s a few months old already though. Sony came out with this new eBook reader (i had no idea there were so many in existance) called LIBRIé, that reads from a new technology called electronic ink. The result is a reading experince more on par with reading a newspaper than a computer screen.

from the press release:

The Electronic Paper Display is reflective and can be easily read in bright sunlight or dimly lit environments while being able to be seen at virtually any angle - just like paper. Its black and white ink-on-paper look, combined with a resolution in excess of most portable devices at approximately 170 pixels per inch (PPI), gives an appearance similar to that of the most widely read material on the planet - newspaper.

Ok, this is wierd. I was listening to KFI 640 AM radio on the way home last night. The show was Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell and they were talking about the confirmation of methane on and ammonia on mars.

According to that article, this discovery had been made some 35 years ago by a guy by the name of Dr. George Pimentel, who had made the historic announcement, then a few weeks later had a sudden “change of heart” and retracted his statements. Now it appears that three separate groups have also made these confirmations, most notably one led by Professor Vittorio Formisano of the Institute of Physics and Interplanetary Science in Rome and creator of the Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS) on Mars Express. This was the part that got me thinking: Dr. Formisano was supposed to hold a press conference yesterday to discuss his new findings, but from what I had heard on Coast to Coast, he has gone MIA and his office is not returning any calls.

Not trying to be a conspiracy buff or anything like that, I’m just saying it looks like someones got some information to protect.

Here’s the story that ran on BBC News last week that i totally missed.

Terror in the Skies, Again?

You’ve probably heard this story already if youre up on your current events news. This is the story of the woman who was on a flight with 14 syrians acting extremely suspicious. It’s a messed up story, and will make you realize a few things: first, we are not safe, and we cant really do anything about people wanting to call mass amounts of americans; and second, the airline screening process is a complete joke.

Under the banner, “America Votes 2004 special report”:

Jenna Bush jokes with photographers

I am pretty sure the title of this article has changes since the first time I read it…i think it used to say “Jenna Bush sticks tongue out at photographers”. Such a sad state american media is in. I need to find a good news source besides cnn and google. I’m so tired of the crap I’m being fed.

Trillions more internet addresses may emerge | New Scientist

ICANN lays down the foundation for IPv6 by upgrading the 13 root internet domain servers.

ntp server

This is pretty wierd, an dapprently its not the first time its been done. A city in Japan has decided to tag it’s school kids with RFID chips. Read about it here.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I mean, I can see where they are coming from with the idea, it would be a lot easier to keep track of the kids in case something happened…but on the other hand it just makes it too easy to keep track of people. I think this is more than likely how we’ll see the situation come about in “minority report”…where people will start seeing ads specifically targeted to them and referring to them by name.

This article on CNET talks about a new emerging type of broadband connection, called Broadband over Power Lines, or BPL, which sends internet traffic over (you guessed it) power lines.

from the article:
“…broadband over power line (BPL) technology makes it “theoretically possible to reach every power outlet in America with a broadband connection.”

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