Dardoz gets stuck in

In a bold move to anticipate google’s next move, Adobe are to offer users a free web based version of their market leading Adobe Photoshop tool. Much like Microsoft, Adobe has until recently been a creator of software packages. Both now are seeing the benefits to offering consumers web based software with the increased adoption of broadband use.

The revenue for these forthcoming web based applications is due to come from advertising, so don’t expect it to be as clean as using the full version. Add to that the lag in processing filters, rendering images etc, and it looks set to be quite a feat if they pull it off. Then again, they have said basic, so maybe it will just resize images and add text. Let’s see.

There was a documentary about healers which a friend alerted to me on Channel 4 recently dealing with harnassing the power of Qi Gong, or one’s aura. It is quite amazing to be honest, but also quite believable when you consider that an electric eel makes electricity the same way. Have a look yourself.

Microsoft are to release the follow up operating system to Vista, codenamed Vienna in late 2009. Remarkably this would be just over 2 years after the release of Vista. Quite strange you might say but let me explain.

Through conversations with a Microsoft insider, I was informed that all along Vista was supposed to be what Vienna will now be: a totally new operating system, not only in terms of looks, but in terms of how it works. It was supposed to be an operating system that was as huge a leap as Windows 95 was from its predecessor, an operating system we would all have to learn from scratch. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, it became apparent that time was running out and Vista could no longer be delayed. Very late in the development cycle they decided to seperate the whole new OS, that which we will see with the release of Vienna and simply make Vista predominantly a huge security update. Ok, fair enough, there are a few graphic enhancements, most of which are worse than XP in my opinion but the OS itself is very little different to XP.
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I was sitting down on a rare occasion watching TV on Saturday flicking through the channels as you do when something caught my attention: Sir Richard Branson talking about the ozone layer on the Richard & Judy Show of all places.

It turns out Sir Richard Branson or Virgin, his company to be more specific is offering €25 million to any scientist who can come up with a way of sucking the carbon dioxide greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

Branson talked about how some scientists believe we have already gone past the point of no return. That even if we drastically reduce the amount of gases we omit into the ozone, that the damage is irreparable.
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Net Neutrality deals with the issue that all traffic travelling across a network should be given equal treatment. The network must be non discriminatory or ‘neutral’.

To this point, I was totally against the ISP’s who had proposed segregating certain “high priority” traffic according to a “tiered services” (TS) model, which they claim will allow them to provide advanced functionality and higher quality for customers. Tiered service proponents claim that there are valid uses for a “high priority traffic” model, and that these would not impose substantial bandwidth or quality of service restrictions on the general public. The tiered service would obviously make the consumer pay extra for services that used a high amount of bandwidth. And of course, everyone at this point, myself included has screamed and shouted and the thought of raised prices for the consumer. After all, shouldn’t increased usage of the internet the world around lead to lower prices?
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A NASA astronaut, Lisa Marie Nowak has been held accused of attempting to murder a rival for the affections of her fellow shuttle pilot Navy Commander. William Oefelein. Although they had never flown together, I’m guessing Lisa Marie Novak was hoping they would, and didn’t want him being tied up in a relationship being the cause of a nookieless voyage.

Originally charged with attempted kidnapping, things changed when she found in possession of some rather obscure items. Orlanado police Sgt. Barb Jones said in a statement.

“The intent was there to do serious bodily injury or death,” Jones said, referring to a new steel mallet, knife, rubber tubing and large garbage bags that police found in Nowak’s possession.

The construction design for a $5 million Doomsday vault funded by the Norweigan government has been unveiled by the Global Crop Diversity Trust to ensure the “conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity”.

Built 120m into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole, the Svalbard International Seed Vault on the Svalbard islands will open in 2008 and house 3 million seed samples. Carefully chosen in a location safe from even the worst anticipated rises in sea level, it will also safeguard against nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change.

The US alone accounts for about a quarter of the total man made global carbon dioxide emissions or other gases such as methane that can exacerbate the earth’s greenhouse effect, which traps sunlight and heat. So it’s good to see at least someone is stepping up to the plate to try to eradicate the some of the problem. Tesla Motors, made famous by their revolutionary 100% electric sports cars is asking for millions of dollars from various state legislatures in an effort to bring electric family cars to the masses.

They are currently in negotiations with the Governor of Michigan to build a car assembly factory in the state. They would from there, begin the manufacturing of the company’s passenger vehicles, code-named White Star which are due for debut in 2009.

The interesting part is in where they hope to raise the money.
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What an amazing invention this is. Researchers at the University of Wisconsin ­Madison are developing a tongue-stimulating system which translates images detected by its camera into a pattern of electric pulses that trigger touch receptors on your tongue. The user can gradually learn the meaning of each different sensation until as you can see in the video, they can eventually see using the device. Quite remarkable!

Last week I reported how a man called Bardia Persa had made quite the little business investment. Through a broker he had bought a treasure trove of personal belongings formerly own by hotel chain heiress Paris Hilton. I’m sure at the time, he thought that over a year or two he would easily make the €10 million he spent to aquire them.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bardia Persa, a federal court has now slapped a temporary injunction on his website, parisexposed.com. If only Persa had have been a little more selective about which of her items he put online for public viewing he may not be facing the loss of his €10 million investment. Lets face it, no judge was ever going to allow medical records and credit card details to remain online.
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