- How The Great Firewall of China Shapes Chinese Surfing Habits
Can cultural factors be more important than censorship in shaping Chinese surfing habits? Two researchers argue that a new study of the way global websites cluster together supports this idea
- Home Tweet Home: A House with Its Own Voice on Twitter
A techie’s San Francisco home has its own Twitter feed. Will yours be next?
At first glance, you’d never guess there’s anything unusual about Tom Coates’s San Francisco home. Nestled at the end of a narrow passageway on a side street, it’s a peaceful, sunny house decorated with modern furniture and bright posters that say things like “Machines help us work” and “Make your own path.”
- Clawing From the Wreckage of Nokia Research
Jolla Mobile, formed by Nokia refugees, launches a phone with interchangable back-panels and the Sailfish OS
Almost one year after Nokia’s bloodletting, in which it cut 10,000 jobs and closed research and manufacturing facilities (see “Nokia Forced to Take Drastic Measures”), we’re starting to see new fruits of the startup culture that rose from the wreckage.
- Second Life Founder's New Virtual World Uses Body Tracking Hardware
Hardware that tracks your head, eyes and hands will make the follow up to Second Life very different to the pioneering virtual world.
The founder of once-popular virtual world Second Life, Philip Rosedale, is working on a new 3D digital world that looks like it will be operated using gestures and body-tracking hardware. Rosedale declined to talk about his new company, called High Fidelity, just yet. But videos and other material posted online by the company suggest it is working on an impressively immersive virtual reality experience where you control an avatar using head and hand movements.
- Exxon Takes Algae Fuel Back to the Drawing Board
A $300 million project seems to have failed to produce a cheap way to make fuel from algae.
In 2009, ExxonMobil announced that it would pay Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics up to $300 million to develop algae-based fuels.
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