m

"The magnetic waves in the pigment exist in a unique state of matter called a Bose Einstein condensate (BEC), so named for its theoretical postulation by Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein. In the BEC state, the individual waves (associated with magnetism from pairs of copper atoms in BaCuSi206) lose their identities and condense into one giant wave of undulating magnetism. As the temperature is lowered, this magnetic wave becomes sensitive to vertical arrangement of individual copper layers, which are shifted relative to each other – a phenomenon known as "geometrical frustration." This makes it difficult for the magnetic wave to exist in the third up-down dimension any longer, and leads to a change to a two-dimensional wave, in very much the same way as ripples are confined to the surface of a pond. "

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I think that this new development is cool, and great for those who need to run applications on Windows now and then without needing a program such as VirtualPC, but I can't help feeling that there is a tremendous amount of space wasted on installing Windows on a Mac.

Now, I will admit that the way I use a computer is likely very different from most people. In my lifetime, I've owned more than a dozen different computers with a good half dozen or so being laptops. But since purchasing my Mac in 2002, I've found less and less of a need for having Windows around. (My PC functions solely for games).

Posted by Michael Huang at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was at the dentist's office today and I saw the latest issue of Discover magazine. I've always liked the paper version of Discover, and while it's definitely on the pop-sci side of science journalism, they manage cover things that I might otherwise not hear about. Take for example, the mimivirus, a giant virus with more than a thousand genes. This discovery was published in Science in 2003, but I was completely unaware of it. This article also made me aware of the Archaea for the first time. I'm realizing now that my high school biology books must have been really old -- they classified by the 5 kingdoms (Monera, Protista, Plantae, Animalia and Fungi) rather than the 3 kingdom method.

It's looking like some viruses may soon be classified as life, which may make some biology teachers need to update their tests. In every biology class I ever took, I always got a question which looked like this:

Which of the following is not classified as living?
A. HIV. B. Chicken Pox. C. Ebola. D. All of the above. E. None of the above.

I need to upgrade to the '06 version of Biology. I think I'm still running Biology '93.

Posted by Michael Huang at 06:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stellarium Astronomy Software

Posted by Michael Huang at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wonder if it'll be the same with cellphones -- if 10 years from now people will reminsce about a time when cellphones weren't available on planes, and you didn't have to hear the jibber jabber of the person behind you. The thing is, they've tried the inflight phones before -- they didn't sell, even when they offered modem and fax services. Still, if it does become commonplace on flights to have a plane full of people chatting, then I definitely be putting noise canceling earphones to good use when I fly.

Bad Reception Awaits in-flight phones

The other article is about why we catch colds on planes. I've always thought it had to do with the poor circulation of air, but this latest research shows that while it certainly is a factor humidity plays a much more important role.

"Commercial jet airplanes fly typically fly at altitudes ranging from 27,000 to 39,000 feet. The air is extremely dry at these high altitudes. Therefore, when fresh air is brought into the plane to supply the passengers ands crew, it is very dry air.

Very dry air dries up the mucous system that captures and expels bacteria and viruses from our noses. This may be a key reason why airplane passengers catch more colds."

The Citizen Scientist: Do frequent flyers catch more colds?

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The latest virus threat called Blackworm has a rather destructive payload which destroys files and activates on Feb. 3.

"At 5:00 p.m. on Jan 24, more than 700,000 computers had already been infected by the worm, according to a stats counter used by the worm author. Finnish anti-virus vendor F-Secure, said the worm accounts for more than 17 percent of all virus infections in the last 24 hours.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that anti-virus vendors are all using different names to identify the worm. In addition to Kama Sutra, the worm has been named Blackworm, Blackmal, MyWife and Nyxem.

According to F-Secure virus researcher Alexey Podrezov, the mass-mailing worm also tries to spread using remote shares. Once a machine gets infected, the worm completely disables anti-virus and other security software before delivering a payload that destroys certain file types.

Once the worm's UPDATE.EXE file is run, it destroys all Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, ZIP and PSD files on all available drives."

Urgent Alert Raised for Blackworm D-Day

Posted by Michael Huang at 04:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For just under 50,000 yen (240 pounds) a month, a fraction of the cost of a human temp, the PeopleStaff agency will despatch Hello Kitty Robo, a robotic receptionist capable of sensing a visitor's presence, greeting him or her and holding simple conversations.

I get angry enough at voicemail, not quit sure how I could handle a robotic Hello Kitty receptionist.

Robot Receptionists debut in Japan

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A few days ago, I predicted that Blu-ray was likely to become the new standard in high-definition media, while HD-DVD was likely to befall the same fate as Circuit City's DivX format. Today, there are whisperings that both Blu-ray and HD-DVD will need to downconvert HD signals for analog inputs.

Instead, the affected analog signal must be “down-converted” from the full 1920x1080 lines of resolution the players are capable of outputting to 960x540 lines—a resolution closer to standard DVDs than to high-def. Standard DVDs are typically encoded at 720 horizontal by 480 vertical lines of resolution.

The 960x540 standard stipulated in the AACS agreement represents 50% higher resolution than standard-def, but only one-quarter the resolution of full high-def. Whether a particular movie is down-converted will be up to the studio.

Clearly this option will not be popular amongst those early adopters whose first generation HDTVs were manufactured without digital inputs since a standard had not yet been decided on at the time of production. The down converted signal would be a little bit better than DVD quality.

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NASA is asking for participation from people to help observe Stardust's descent.

"If somebody could see that line, that would be fantastic, because it would tell us how much carbon is being lost by the heat shield at that moment," observed Jenniskens. "It would be better yet if several observers at different locations were to videotape the entry of the capsule appearing in front of the moon because then we could trace the ablation of the carbon along the capsule's trajectory, especially at locations between Carlin and Elko," he added. Videographers should fix the focus of their cameras at 'infinity,' because auto focus may be unreliable for nighttime recording, according to mission technicians.

The best way to see the capsule pass in front of the moon would be with a large telescope at high magnification, according to Jenniskens. Due to the long viewing distances, the tiny capsule will appear as a dark dot, only 1-2 arcseconds across, but darker if the capsule is clearly visible. One arcsecond is 1/3600th of a degree.

Moving at many times the speed of sound, the capsule will take only two to three video frames to appear to pass by the moon. In addition, once Stardust lands, people can help analyze the stardust with Stardust@Home

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

At the CES keynote, Michael Dell had some choice words about this red machine covered with flame graphics. I guess Dell is trying to target the gamer audience, because in addition Dell questions XBox360s street cred, calling them poseurs because Dells are "much faster than any gaming console you can buy". And while that may be true, game developers are exiting the PC market and going to the consoles to bring their game experience to the widest audience possible. The future of games on the PCs are MMORGs and FPS. The consoles will have everything else.

Posted by Michael Huang at 03:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What is an ExpressCard/34?
The ExpressCard is a way of getting a PCI-Express expansion slot onto a laptop. It's a new format of I/O device card designed to replace the PC Cards of yesteryear.

How fast is an ExpressCard?
It's much faster, theoretically capable of a throughoutput of 500MBps (250MBps in each direction) when compared to the PC Card (132MBps) The speed of the ExpressCard makes it ideal for doing data transfer without compression (useful for harddrives and other detachable media devices). For comparisson, USB 2.0 is 60MBps, Firewire 800 is 100MBps, Gigabit Ethernet is 125MBps.

What else is new in an ExpressCard?
There's two formats for ExpressCards at this moment, the ExpressCard/34 with a width of 34 mm and the ExpressCard/54 with a width of 54mm. Unlike the PC Card, instead of relying on an ejection button, the ExpressCard sticks out a little bit so one can just pull it out with their fingers.

What can we see in the future for ExpressCard?
I expect to see ExpressCard addons to include HDTV tuners (HDTV quality video display would choke a PC Card) and as the replacement for the PC Card, so we can expect to see any device produced for the PC Card to make its way onto the ExpressCard as well. Already available are some memory card readers and network adapters.

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Gamebridge AVC-1400 USB 2.0 Cnct Xbox PS2 To Pc Xp SP2 2K SP4

by ADAPTEC

PC monitors don't do the color blending that a television set does, so the resultant image had brighter colors and a crisper image. Before the GameBridge, the only way to play console games on your monitor was to custom design a cable specifically for that system and that monitor, or to invest in a expensive video card that had RCA inputs. Even with all that, one could only play the game on the monitor, it couldn't do what the GameBridge does, which is to record your gameplay in realtime.

My evaluation unit was the the 1400, the version without the TV tuner.

Package Contents:

• USB 2.0 cable
• Video Input Cables
• Adaptec GameBridge
• Case for the GameBridge
• Install CD

What Exactly is the GameBridge?
The GameBridge is a new video capture device specifically aimed at gamers. It takes in standard RCA inputs and outputs it to your PC monitor through a USB 2.0 interface.

Device Size and Weight The GameBridge device is small and incredibly lightweight. This device is smaller than an iPod and probably smaller than your cellphone. It's easy to just shove the GameBridge in your pocket with the cables to take it on the go. The GameBridge uses software encoding to transform your video input to MPEG-1/2, which means the faster your PC is, the less you'll notice the video encoding process churning away in the background.

Software
The GameBridge includes a program to output and record the video from the device, which has a large and easy to use interface.

Conclusion

I'm quite impressed by this little device -- being able to record video has never been so easy or so quick, and I can see a lot of possibilities for this device, as people not only use it to share movies of their favorite game moments, but as a quick and easy way to transfer their old home movies into a digital format. Adaptec's new GameBridge is the best device I've found for connecting and playing console video games on the PC. As a bonus, it can record both screenshots and video while you're playing. It's small, affordable and simple to use, and will be a valuable solution for those gamers looking for an all-in-one media entertainment system for their PC.

Continue reading "Review: GameBridge AVC-1400" »

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UPDATE:I missed Keyhole the first time glacing through.

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Detailed list of what's new in Firefox 1.5

I've only been using it for a couple of hours now -- I haven't noticed anything earth-shattering yet, but it does seem to do a better job stopping pop-unders.

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back when the N-Gage was announced to us game developers, we all felt that the N-Gage was going to be a horrible failure. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy in a way -- without the developer support, the platform languished -- but the N-Gage phone was a game platform first, which made the phone portion mostly unusable -- for one thing, using the N-Gage as a phone made you look like a techno-neanderthal because of the particular way you had to hold the phone (the mic and earpiece were on the side of the phone, rather than the face or back of the phone).

I'm trying to think of other devices I'd like to disappear, but natural selection has already rendered most of them extinct.

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The story to pay attention to here is the collusion between big media companies who try to control what we do on our computers and computer-security companies who are supposed to be protecting us.

Initial estimates are that more than half a million computers worldwide are infected with this Sony rootkit. Those are amazing infection numbers, making this one of the most serious internet epidemics of all time -- on a par with worms like Blaster, Slammer, Code Red and Nimda.

What do you think of your antivirus company, the one that didn't notice Sony's rootkit as it infected half a million computers? And this isn't one of those lightning-fast internet worms; this one has been spreading since mid-2004. Because it spread through infected CDs, not through internet connections, they didn't notice? This is exactly the kind of thing we're paying those companies to detect -- especially because the rootkit was phoning home.

But much worse than not detecting it before Russinovich's discovery was the deafening silence that followed. When a new piece of malware is found, security companies fall over themselves to clean our computers and inoculate our networks. Not in this case.

Posted by Michael Huang at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You control it with a remote control, and it does various tricks, such as head stands, bowing and the typical doggie commands. It'll also wander on its own, and guard (though none of us have figured out how to trigger the guard). I'm impressed by the joint system on the pup, but ultimately the i-Cybie is one of those toys that's essentially very expensive and somewhat useless.

But seeing this robotic dog got me thinking... why are people making robotic dogs and cats when the market could be so much bigger for other animals? I mean, I can see lions, tigers and bears being just as popular as the cats and dogs. Open it up to mythical and extinct creatures like unicorns and dinosaurs, and I think you've got something that could be popular. A robotic pikachu? I think kids would go nuts for it.

i-Cybie available at Amazon.Com

Posted by Michael Huang at 04:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

1. My trip to Taiwan has been postponed. I've already had hours of fun playing with the new lenses. I'm really enjoying the 50mm as a general purpose lens and the 16-35 for the wide angle capabilities (although at 16, there's quite a bit of fisheye effect). I've also been using the 75-300 lens quite a bit for taking photographs of celestial objects.
2. 3 Mini-Flickr Sets:
   • Stargazing on a Cloudy Night
   • Trees and Leaves
   • Venus
3. The first two sets were taken from my driveway, while Venus was taken from the parking lot at work.
4. I'm struggling with my writing. I want to just throw it all away, but at the same time, I know I can do this.
5. I played electrician with my car for 3 hours today -- the GPS still doesn't work. All the electrical appears to be working. $70 dollars to diagnose the problem if I send it in to Pioneer.
6. I didn't vote this year. My absentee ballot never came.
7. I just found out about geeks.com, and now I want to be like 'Q' (from James Bond) and create interesting new stuff.
8. It's definitely quota time. I saw 5 cops cruising about today.

Posted by Michael Huang at 09:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm most excited about the iPod with TV out, and iTunes selling TV shows online -- I've often said that the best shows on TV typically make their way onto DVD where I can enjoy it commercial free. At a 1.99 a show, that's a pretty good deal, considering the price of cable or the cost of DVD.

Posted by Michael Huang at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

*"At Carnegie Mellon, students will have to take classes such as Intro to Entertainment Technology, Building Virtual Worlds and Game Design, as well as many others. But it's hard to measure the significance of these sorts of degrees. "*

It seems to me that the value in these classes is as preparation for the games industry -- these are the basic principles that one should know, and that one may even know intuitively. Like any other academic field, it's important to know the basic concepts at work, and to get a general introduction to games. Classes in this subject matter are at least as useful as "The Works of Shakespeare" or "Writers of the 19th Century" would be to a magazine editor -- that is to say, it provides helpful background, but is by no means a requirement.

I would think however, that anyone who wants to make a career in the video industry would naturally be an avid game player, and would have played as many games as they could have. I think there's a lot of value in playing the games, particularly in the games industry.

*"The idea of a video game education is so new that, even within the gaming industry, the jury is still out on whether these degrees are worth the sheepskin they're printed on."*

It's very true that the jury is still quite out on it -- and it seems to me, from the applicants I've seen that what matters most is not where you went to school, or what degree you attained or majored in, but rather what your abilities are. Going to one of these schools and getting a degree won't ensure a job in the games industry.

In the games industry, I've seen people who didn't finish high school and I've seen people with Ph.Ds. It really comes down to two things and I think it's true in anything that people work towards: patience and perserverence. If games is really what matters to you, then you'll find a way into it. The degree may help opening some doors a bit easier (the value of networking) but there's no substitute for experience or ability. The article has a quote from Mark Jacobs, founder of Mythic Entertainment Inc who said: "Degrees are good, experience is better."

The article ends with Ahmed, a games industry job seeker, saying about doing it on his own: "I need a team of 100 people and millions of dollars, I don't have that."

I don't agree with that. Anyone can make a game on their own. I was making my own when I was 14. Getting it published and selling millions of copies, that's another matter entirely.

The extended entry includes tips on how to get a job in the industry without experience.

Continue reading "Video Game Degrees and Breaking into the Video Games Industry" »

Posted by Michael Huang at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It also has a handy article on Turning DVDs into Audiobooks.

Posted by Michael Huang at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When he bought a computer parts to put together a machine by himself, he found that the computer that resulted from his craftmanship was quite possibly the only brand new AMD that was slower than a Tandy TRS-80. When he bought a cellphone, it was only 2 months before the cellphone took a suicidal leap off his belt clip (remember folks -- phones on belt clips are NOT a fashion accesory) and into the toilet. A year ago, when he bought a 4G iPod, it had to be exchanged the next day due to inexplicable problems.

He also tends to be an early adopter of new gadgetry, so it did not surprise me in the least that when his cell phone contract expired last month that he traded in his old Nokia for a Motorola RAZR V3. After a month of use, his RAZR was malfunctional. The buttons with the exception of power on/off refused to accept input.

The replacement phone arrived fast enough, but he had saved all of his phone numbers to the phone's internal memory, not to the SIM card -- so then began the process of extracting the numbers off the phone without the use of the keypad. Luckily for my co-worker, Motorola has a USB mini-B plug on the side of the RAZR, and I happened to have a USB cable that would fit. After looking on the web for some installation instructions for Motorola phones, I stumbled across a step-by-step tutorial for installing the Motorola Mobile Phone Tools.

No sign yet of any problems, but we did notice that the phone tools did not allow us to access wherever the commercial ringtones were stored.

I do have to give Motorola credit for having the foresight to have a USB port that uses a standard wire connector rather than some proprietary connection method like other cell phone companies.

Which brings me to my gripe. Why is it that cell phone companies feel the need to not include software with their phones? I ask this rhetorically because I know the answer: it's because phone companies want you to pay for the ringtones, graphics and games that you put on there, and if it was easy to do through included software, they'd lose out on revenue.

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The article goes on to reveal that the research was done in Australia, and although they did try to get the study done in the United States, North American cellphone companies would not make the billing records available, even with the permission of the cellphone owner.

Since this study is published by the Insurance Institute, Insurance companies will find some way of raising rates based on this new data (just as crash ratings and airbags have factored into the price of insurance).

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In the 80s, Teddy Ruxpin was basically a teddy bear with a small amount of animatronics built into the face with a cassette player jammed inside. While Teddy Ruxpin looked like a stuffed bear, he was also quite heavy (due to the mechanicals and the batteries needed to power him). I don't know too much about this new bear -- except that they've decided to use Memory Cards for the stories rathern than cassettes. With 20 years of technological advancement, it shouldn't be a brick to lug around anymore.

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15,000 year old rice grain found

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Skip meals, live longer?

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A National Tragedy. The worst part of all this, of course is that this is the end of the space program. As the government investigates what went wrong, the space program will be on hold for about 2 years. The one silver lining to this, is that if Bush is clever, he has a chance now to avert war, to refocus on issues internal to the nation, to not worry about the war with Iraq. But that won't happen.

I can see some interesting events coming from this though... an evacuation of the International Space Station, running it remotely for 2 years until some other nations decides to take over the ISS. We will see America shy away from future space exploration. I'm trying to figure out what this is like, and I'd actually have to point to the exploration of the New World.

Happy Chinese New Year.

Video game inspires crime

I've really changed over the past 5 years. I've gone from being a hard-core gamer to being an anti-gamer. This generation of children growing up now have never known a world without video games. We used to blame crimes on music, movies and television. Video games today are the popular scapegoat, as it supposedly trains these children to commit these crimes. The reason I despise games these days is not because of the crimes attached to video games, but rather the impact of video games upon society. I find it odd that we have specific sections of law to deal with crimes when alcohol is involved. Will video games get a section of law too?

Posted by Michael Huang at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." -Dr. Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Truth is stranger than fiction: First Human Clone. I knew when Dolly was created that inevitably, there would be human clones. Just a matter of time. In science fiction, there's long been talk of clones and genetic engineering. I never would have suspected that the first people to do it would have been alien worshipping cultists though. I would have thought it would have been some megacorp somewhere, more akin to what we see in Jurassic Park or Blade Runner. Blade Runner interestingly enough is about genetically engineered humans who are trying to escape their genetic destiny (since they have built in expiration dates) and because they are denied some human rights due to the fact that they were constructed.

Posted by Michael Huang at 04:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Too cool. Real Optical Camoflage. Of course, at the moment, it's just a fancy projection system.

Posted by Michael Huang at 07:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)