Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Wednesday - tech/news
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Touchscreen Computer Display Floats in Mid-Air
Ok,l this is kind of cool. We have the holo-display. Basically its an interactive non-holographic screen thats projected in mid air. very sci fi. Now, they've had these misted holographic displays for a long time, but this one is different because its interactive.

As the manufacturer describes it:

"Heliodisplay images are not holographic although they are free-space, employing a rear projection system in which images are captured onto a nearly invisible plane of transformed air."


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First Mountie Gay Marriage!
Brokeback Mounties. (I love it!)

Well, it looks like the first ever same sex marriage in the Royal Canadian Mounted police is happening in my neighborhood!


On a Friday night in Yarmouth Nova Scotia on June 30th, Const. Jason Tree and Const. David Connors will don their red dress uniforms, stand before family, friends and co-workers and wed in the first same-sex marriage in the RCMP?s storied history.

Provincial RCMP spokesman Sgt. Frank Skidmore said the force was happy to hear about the union, adding that they?re proud RCMP officers reflect all aspects of the community.

"This is a first for us," Sgt. Skidmore said Wednesday. "Certainly, the RCMP welcomes a workforce that is representative of Canadian society, and that is the case here."

Via Halifax Herald

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Software as a service

Ok, this is kind of a rant here. THere is currently a move with microsoft to create the whole Microsoft "Live" line of services. This includes, as of now, messenger, email, soon Office. THe thing is I've seen this coming for awhile. The old marketing strategy of selling people software as a product, something that you purchase online, or by CD and own isnt making enough money for microsoft, and allows people to feel too much power over the software. Basically with the live structure Microsoft will be charging you monthly fees for its software. You won't buy office, you will pay Microsoft a monthly fee to use it, the same with other programs. A good example of this is the windows onecare. Technically its software, like any other piece of antivirus/antispyware/firewall but you don't own it, its a service.

Personally I don't like it. It takes away a lot of power, is going to cost the customer more over the life of the program. That's where the million flavours of Vista come into play. It will be that you purchase the base version, and any other features you want you "subscribe" to. Basically changing Microsoft into something akin to a cable or sattelite company.

When that's the case I'm simply going to delete the partition that contains windows and move completly over to Linux.

http://ideas.live.com/

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