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| Date | Headline | & a few words ... |
March 02 2010 | OpenCape Gets $32M BTOP Grant |
Today, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) awarded OpenCape Corporation a $32M American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Broadband Technology Opportunity Program (BTOP) grant... READ MORE |
February 24 2010 | Chatting a la Roulette Wheel
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Remember Spin the Bottle? Well, now you can play a sort Spin the Webcam though a new application called Chatroulette... READ MORE |
February 10 2010 | TV on My Time |
So now I'm totally addicted to this show called Bones. It's a Fox-produced drama show about a forensic anthropologist and a crime-solving science lab set in Washington DC... READ MORE |
January 26 2010 | Today an iPhone, Tomorrow ??? |
All the world is abuzz with rumors about tomorrow's anticipated announcement from Cupertino. If you've been living in a paper bag, that buzz would the sound around the unveiling of Apple's tablet/e-book/mystery device that may or may not change the world-as-we-know-it. So where did I spend my morning? No, not at the cool cutting edge of rumor and gossip. Instead, I took a totally different turn and looked at a decidedly tech-laggard industry, local real estate ... READ MORE |
January 13 2010 | It's a Wii, Wii World |
Nintendo also noted that the December Wii sales set a new monthly record for home game consoles. A game console is a piece of hardware whose primary purpose is the playing of games. Or is it? READ MORE |
December 30 2009 | The Twelve Days of Techmas |
On the Twelfth Day of Christmas, the techies gave to me, Twelve phones texting, Eleven applets running, Ten folks a-friending , Nine babies mousing, Eight apps a-moving, Seven tools a-wireless, Six accounts a-roaming, Five broadband paths, FourG networks, Three avatars, Two wii remotes , And an advanced-preview iphone in a leather case! READ MORE |
December 15 2009 | Happy Gutenberg Holiday |
Before the Google Books project ... before there was a Google ... heck, before Larry Page and Sergey Brin were even a gleam in their parents' eyes -- there was Project Gutenberg... READ MORE |
December 02 2009 | Deviance as the New Norm |
When something passes through my world multiple times, I tend to take it as a sign that I should take a look at it. And so it is that in this edition we visit DeviantArt... READ MORE |
November 10 2009 | A Book By Any Other Name |
Amazon, that first great e-tail success story started its run with books. Books go to the beach, to the bath, and to the bed. We dog-ear the pages and highlight phrases and scribble notes and comments in the margins... But the students at Cushing Academy, like students elsewhere, are of an age where they are technology natives... And that's why the big shift at Cushing happened. The Library has been transformed: its printed books have been replaced with electronic ones... READ MORE |
October 28 2009 | The End of the World |
In which we look at how the self-referential web proves that the world will end on precisely December 21, 2012. I mean, if it is online that means it must be true, right? READ MORE |
October 14 2009 | Monopoly Mash |
This holiday season Hasbro is releasing Monopoly City, an edition of Monopoly that lets players work with zoning and building permits to erect 80 3D building in the center of the Monopoly board. Hasbro thought a short-term online game would be a great lead-in for retail sales . . . READ MORE |
September 30 2009 | Net Neutrality |
There's a battle raging for a key 21st century resource, a push and pull over who controls it and what philosophies drive it. That resource is, of course, the Internet, the network of networks that is the pulse of modern life... READ MORE |
September 16 2009 | Seeing the Un-Seeable |
One of the greatest tools technology has given us is a suite of capabilities for creating photos, video, and renderings of things beyond the scope of our all-too-human eyes. From human cells gone mad to the force of water to the teensiest denizens of our world, it takes the art and science of visualization to make them appear in our line of sight... READ MORE |
September 02 2009 | Daytrader |
Fast forward a couple of decades to the ringing of the closing bell at NASDAQ in New York last week on August 25. Standing there - and projected out seven stories over Times Square no less! - were a group of software developers from the Cape, representing the Cataumet company Genevate... READ MORE |
August 19 2009 | Deadline! |
Much of the talk about the "digital divide" has focused on very surface level topics, like number of computers per household. But the real digital divide in our country is a split between entire regions, some of whom have digital infrastructure and some of whom have digital leftovers. ... READ MORE |
July 29 2009 | Brenda and Eddie Grown Up |
It almost seems anti-climatic. After endless flirtations, fights, and fits of founder pride, the on-again/off-again relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft was finally officially consummated this week ... READ MORE |
July 15 2009 | Lions and Tigers and Broadband, Oh My! |
Join us on a tour of the alphabet soup of federal broadband funding -- ARRA, NTIA, BTOP, RUS, BIS, and the all important NOFA -- as we spend a day at the technical grants workshop. READ MORE |
June 30 2009 | Rrroooom Roomba |
As frequent readers know, one of my online obsessions is Overstock. I love Overstock and when I can't sleep at night I surf random product categories there. So prior to migration week, but with cleaning on m mind in the wee hours of the morn, I came across my new friend Sally. She's round and white and cute in a robotic sort of way. She's about the size of a serving platter and makes little chirping noises. Of course I ordered her.... READ MORE |
June 16 2009 | Live Long and Prosper Day |
I liked the new Star Trek movie. This past week, we watched it in the best way possible for watching a space adventure - at a drive-in theatre in Wellfleet ... Then I went home and dreamed of heroics in finding new worlds and woke up pondering how well we understand our own home planet... All of which put me in the right frame of mind to celebrate a very special space birthday - the 10-year marker of the Earth Observatory. ... READ MORE |
May 26 2009 | Memorial Day Memories |
When people and technology come together, the results can move you in unexpected ways, ways that make you say 'ah, this is the potential, this is what it can be." I had one of those 'ah' moments this weekend. But before I tell you about that, let's talk about Web 2.0 for a moment... READ MORE |
May 12 2009 | Beached Balloons in Yarmough |
In which we meet a balloon that traveled from Missouri to Cape Cod, the newspaper that wrote about it, and the service that aggregate it, and ponder what the world will be like without newspapers when they have all shut their presses... READ MORE |
April 28 2009 | Time Travel (or, introducing the World Digital Library) |
Wherein we visit the World Digital Library project and the global process of collecting our shared world heritage and publishing it to the web - in a really cool interace... READ MORE |
April 14 2009 | Underpinnings |
It's funny how the seemly invisible things provide the underpinning to potential. I mean, every time one starts on a 'what if' dream line, it's infrastructure that snaps us back to reality. The foundation of a house. The availability of gas lines. The existence of a road. Power sources. And all types of capacity-carrying systems. . . . As you can probably guess, from home to work to regional development, infrastructure has been on my mind. While surely not as sexy as having, say, a trip to Kauai on the mind, the unrelenting topic has certainly provided a lot of space for thought. ... READ MORE |
March 31 2009 | CrimeOnline |
Wow, I have a new friend in Hong Kong. And he's emailing me! And, he's making me this amazing offer. Wow. It's just too good to be true! How timely that this email arrived the same day the 2008 Internet Crime Report! The report, issued on Monday by the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a US agency that tallies reports of Internet crime, says that the news is apparently glad tidings for today's online snake oil salesmen and scam artistes, with a 33% rise in reported online fraud activity last year ... READ MORE |
March 17 2009 | Augmented Reality Baseball |
In the chaos that defines my construction-zone home, I just knocked over two long boxes of baseball cards, sending hundreds of cardboard players from the past decade or so flying across the floor. Nothing else says Spring quite so definitely. Of course, this Spring the cards are getting a little scary. That's because they are no longer happy to remain as four color printed images on two-dimensional paper. Seriously, the Topps cards are now like something out of Hogwarts. Thanks to a partnership between Topps and a software company called Total Immersion there's a new line of cards that feature walking, throwing, batting three-dimensional avatars. ... READ MORE |
March 03 2009 | Money, Money, Money |
Banks have been sporting an ugly black eye lately. So when you hear about double-digit millions being invested in banking technology for Africa, southeast Asia, and India you can't help but ask ... why? In this case the application is mobile banking, and the millions are coming from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), in three separate projects... READ MORE |
February 17 2009 | Sexting in Falmouth |
Got a new craze that showed its pimply face here on the Cape last week. It's called "sexting" and if you believe the overblown hype in the mass media outlets, it represents the latest evil incursion of technology on the innocent minds of the young. Over in Falmouth a group of middle schoolers at the Lawrence School got their jollies by using cell phones to make and send photos that should never have been made... READ MORE |
February 03 2009 | Live Search for a Charleston Chew Pony |
When I was eight, I wanted a pony. So I did what any hopeful child would do: I started eating mountains of Charleston Chew bars... ... READ MORE |
Jauary 20 2009 | Happy MacDay (or 25 years and still counting) |
On this Inaugural Day of looking forward, I'm going to look back for a few minutes wearing my happy geek hat. That's because this week features a 25th anniversary that doesn't seem possible. File this under: how time flies. And: how far we've come. The event was Super Bowl XVIII. The date was January 22, 1984... READ MORE |
December 30 2008 | Santa Claus and Peanut Butter (or NORAD Mashes it Up) |
Peanut butter and jelly. Ham and eggs. Maple syrup and pancakes. Ah, these are phrases that roll off the tongue, the product of natural and expected pairings. But Google and Santa Claus? ... READ MORE |
December 16 2008 | CTO for USA (or Maybe the Government Gets It) |
Memo to all those who are proud to be technology know-nots, who refuse to open a digital document, and who are completely ignoring the technically-driven culture shifts of the past 20 years: WAKE UP! We live in a digital era. Period. And we now have national leadership that acknowledges this: President-elect Obama's plans call for a national Chief Technology Officer... READ MORE |
December 02 2008 | Exclusive Coupon Code FROSTY (If Black Friday Wasn't Enough, CyberMonday Lets You Buy More Stuff) |
If you are reading this, you presumably were not squashed by a maddened crowd at a WalMart and flattened into an EMT's nightmare by a bargain-drunk mob intent breaking down the door to shop shop shop. ... READ MORE |
November 18 2008 | Gone to the Dogs (or how puppies are the killer app of online mass media |
Oh we love our doggies. I mean, the biggest news about our president-elect is conjuncture over -- no, not the cabinet, not the policy plans, not even the sit-down with former rivals - but WHAT KIND OF PUPPY WILL THE GIRLS GET ... READ MORE |
November 05 2008 | Pixelated Reality (or the case of the murdered avatar) |
In today's column we're going to visit Japan. And MapleStory. And the weirdness where the virtual world and the state known as Reality are bumping against each other. The Matrix, anyone... READ MORE |
October 21 2008 | Accessorize! (or when small things matter in big ways) |
So, I am pondering all this as I wandered around the store looking at the current selection of routers and gazing at leather computer/business bags and checking out the software inventory and ... counting the walls and shelves of iPod accessories. Not just the cases and covers, but the speakers and docks and even (yes!) color-coordinated desk lamps ... READ MORE |
October 07 2008 | Musical Week (or a Whole Lot of Digital Shakin' Goin' On) |
Music is a microcosm for so much that is human. It touches us in ways that are globally, generationally, and culturally overarching - and at the same time is deeply personal. It is singular and social in the same beat. We love it, hate it, hum it, use it, make it, buy it, and let it be the soundtrack of our lives. No wonder each disruptive technology creates a storm around it! The last few weeks have seen the latest chapters in the current saga unfold. In the news... READ MORE |
September 30 2008 | Vote Twitter (or The Cacaphous Community on Election '08) |
There's been lots of chatter - or should I say twitter? - this week. No doubt the debut of Election 2008, powered by Twitter, is warming the hearts of Twitter's investors as the service takes a step onto Main Street and into a higher level of public awareness. And if anyone still thinks we haven't crossed a divide in political media in this election, spend a few minutes just watching the words wrap at http://election.twitter.com/ ... READ MORE |
May 16 2008 | Everything Old is New Again |
So this week CNET, the online technology industry news source and related sites, said it was being acquired by CBS in a $1.8 Billion dollar deal. CBS said this acquisition, when combined with its existing online elements, would put it in the top 10 of online content companies with some 540 million unique reader each month. Everyone is publicly happy. READ MORE |
May 03 2008 | A Tiny Mustard See of a Document (or a CERN moment) |
In some ways, it was the equivalent of a mustard seed. It was just a document, just some words on paper, words that reflected the ongoing operating principles of CERN, the European research center for understanding how the universe works. The date was April 30, 1993. The document put an information management system CERN developed into the public domain. And that small act changed history... READ MORE |
April 08 2008 | On Being Geek (or how to make the world an endlessly interesting place) |
I admit it. Sometimes I jump up and down with excitement because some new gadget or application or tidbit of knowledge is so cool that I just have to learn more. I probably look pretty silly at that moment but ya' know what? I don't care. I'm a geek girl and proud... ... READ MORE |
April 04 2008 | Yahoo Takes a Shine (an easy way to burn that pesky fat, get your man, and live happily ever after with the best shoes in the world) |
So Yahoo has launched its newest product - Shine. It is designed to appeal to what Yahoo says are the approximately 40 million women ages 25 through 54 that use Yahoo monthly. "Yahoo Shine speaks to you as a friend, telling you the secrets and tips to simplify your life," website editor-in-chief Brandon Holley is quoted as saying in the launch press release. Something novel and new? A new direction for Yahoo, showing the path that will lead to its continued independence from Redmond? Well, not exactly...READ MORE |
March 22 2008 | Mastadon in the Closet |
I totally love eBay. Those who have been followings my columns for lo these many years have heard how I love the way eBay reflect humanity in all sort of ways. And how it connects people in unlikely places. Well, today dear readers, there's another great eBay listing that I jut have to talk about. A mastodon. Well, a three million year old mastodon skeleton, actually. No, I am not making this up...READ MORE |
March 08 2008 | Crossing THAT Bridge |
Crossing the bridge matters. Ow! I can almost hear the backlash to that comment right now, the singe of the flame that burns from the torch that says how self-sufficient and special our region is. But if we want to be taken seriously, cross the bridge we must...READ MORE |
March 08 2008 | Twitter Tweet Sweet |
Here's a secret - writers know that the column they write when they are feeling blocked and can't write on deadline is called "I was just thinking..." Or something along those lines. It's an idea that's been around for a very long time. In the hands of good writer, these columns/essays/articles become good reads. The seemingly random somehow knit together, the phases are a delight to read, the words invoke vivid imagery. It's a sort of prose poem ... Which leads me to Twitter. When I look at the lines of seemingly disconnected moments in life generated by Twitter postings, I can't help but think of this column format. Some of the Twitter strands are entertaining, visual, poetic, amusing, and enlightening. Most of them are, well, more like eavesdropped moments ...READ MORE |
Feburary 23, 2008 | Online Purrfection? |
I have a new man in my life. When he stretches up on his tippy toes he's about 2' 2" and he's got the most gorgeous green eyes. He likes to snuggle in bed and run his claws through my hair. And then purr. And purr. And purr. You can find anything online -- And those findable objects include live cats and dogs... READ MORE |
Feburary 16, 2008 | Do You Yahoo? |
Do you Yahoo? I used to, long ago. Back when it was the cleanest easiest search around. Then Alta Vista grabbed my love. Then it was Google. For other people, it was Ask Jeeves, perhaps. Or MSN. Or even GoodSearch to support your favorite nonprofit. In any case, I rarely Yahoo anymore. These things happen. And that's why one of this week's tech spectator sports is watching a former star fall to earth... READ MORE |
Feburary 08, 2008 | Get a Business Card! |
Conversations in my world this week clustered around the topic of "economic development" - whatever the heck that is. Related topics were "economic stimulus" and "innovation economy" and "business growth". Which are just about as clearly defined. Long story short - there's a bunch of people (who don't necessarily talk to each other!) - wanting to find ways for the Cape to grow into its next stage of being. But no one quite knows how except that the words innovation and technology are somehow involved... READ MORE |
Feburary 02, 2008 | From the shelves of Amazon (hint: this earning report tells a story far beyond retail) |
Spend a little time with the company's earning report and Amazon reveails itself as an infrastrucure company with a real sweet spot in something called cloud computing and a reality as much more than just the big retail store in the sky ... READ MORE |
January 25, 2008 | All Politics are ... Digital? (or Whatever Happened to Local?) |
I stood in the 34-degree outdoor refrigerator today, holding my sign and waving at cars passing by. We were a clustered group of a dozen or so, ranging in age from grade 4 to retired, and we spread ourselves on a frozen grassy slope between Rte 132 in Hyannis, K-Mart, and the mall... READ MORE |
January 11, 2008 | Earth Finder to Earth Science (or my further adventures in GPS-land) |
Frequent readers know that GPS is my newest toy. And this week I learned the pros and cons of coming to rely on ... and got to ponder the meaning of sea level -- and how one of the surprises of GPS has turned out to be how level the sea isn't. But first things first ... READ MORE |
January 04, 2008 | A to B the digital way (or in which I enter GPS-land) |
I get lost a lot. Directionally challenged, they call me. It doesn't usually fluster me that much. I mean, when you expect to get lost you aren't terribly surprised when you do and you always try to factor in a little extra time for taking the scenic route. As a plus, it means you aren't afraid to venture to new places, either. Fear of getting lost is the reason most people hesitate - but when you KNOW you'll get lost anyway, a little detail like that doesn't stop you. However, the hot holiday gift this year was a balm for that very fear. This was the season in which the GPS receiver was finally in reach for average consumers... READ MORE |
Thank you for visiting Eyes About, Teresa's quirky collection of columns ... about technology and, well, the world. Want to have EyesAround delivered to you inbox? Just drop me an email - teresa@capeeyes.com - and say "sign me up!" | © 2008 teresa a. martin |