Entries Tagged 'Technology' ↓

On July 1, 2008, Bill Gates, above, stepped down from full-time work at Microsoft Corporation, the company he founded with friend Paul Allen in April 1975. How does his departure affect the now-and-future direction of this corporate behemoth, a company whose software runs over 90% of the world’s computers, with assets of over $70 billion, and whose market capitalization approaches a quarter of a trillion dollars?

This is the fundamental question Mary Jo Foley provocatively addresses in her new book, Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the Post-Gates Era. Foley is a guest, today, on my WBAI-NY / 99.5 FM radio show, NONFICTION, this afternoon, Friday, November 7, 2 pm ET.

Then, Alisa Lagamma, curator of a show running at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, “The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End,” will talk about the exhibition and the wide universe of visual materiel the continent’s cloths present.

You can hear their ideas by tuning in at 2 pm. If you’re outside of the New York tri-state, you can check out our stream on the web. If you miss the live show, check out our archive for up to two weeks after broadcast.

Richard Noble OBE, project director of the October 1997 ThrustSSC land speed run which still holds the world record—763 mph—has announced his intent to break the 1,000 mph mark in 2011 with a new, yet-to-be-built car called the Bloodhound SSC, depicted in the computer rendering, above.

Requiring only 40 seconds to reach its top speed of 1,050 mph, the planned 42-foot-long, 7-ton vehicle will be blazing past onlookers at more than a mile every four seconds, faster than a handgun bullet. At that point, downward air pressure alone on the car will be higher than one ton per square foot.

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I don’t know about you, but, as an Apple true believer, it’s got to be the fastest decade I’ve ever experienced: This month marks ten years since the original “Bondi blue” iMac, above, first shipped.

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When director James Frost decided that he wanted to make a music video without cameras or lights, but instead using ultra-high bandwidth laser scanners, he wrote up a concept and sent it to the group he thought would be most responsive: Radiohead.

They bit. The result, “House of Cards,” is as eerie and emotionally unraveled as you’d expect from the R. (Thanks to Core 77 for the tip.) Special bonuses include a “how they did it” short, as well as frames you can roll under your mouse and see interpolate in real time.

Hopefully, you saw it here first: An ear-mountable “oral sex light,” so that, when engaged in said delicate act, you can do so with utter clarity and attention to detail.

Look at the happy people on the package. Check out the tag line: “Don’t Go Down Without It!”

Available for $7.05 from sextoy.com and other e-tailers.

There: I think I just solved all of our problems.

mental_floss’s Ransom Riggs points out with several examples what was obvious to most, but undocumented until now: With the possible exception of the Flaming Lips, both cats and rock stars are united in their hatred of laser pointers.

Last ones out the lab, turn off the lights: Japanese engineers

You know the way Americans always talk about Japan as the epitome of engineering? Apparently, that illustration is about to be permanently outdated.

According to The New York Times, “Japan is running out of engineers”: Fewer and fewer young people are entering the field.

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From his Steampunk Workshop web site, Jake von Slatt not only talks the steampunk talk, but walks the steampunk walk. Here, he delivers step-by-step low-down on how he built this gorgeous Victorian desktop PC mod. You won’t believe your pince-nez as you eye the finely crafted detailing, below. Continue reading →

As opposed to getting back at cheating S.O.’s the old-fashioned way, above, more and more women are choosing to take “e-venge,” says this Daily Mail piece, serving the cold dish digitally. Continue reading →

I missile you much: GTA IV‘s Niko Bellic sends his regards

The worst job I ever had was working in the car loans department of the now defunct Chemical Bank, at the Huntington Quadrangle in Melville L.I. It was a small office of about ten to twelve mutually limited, small-minded people, held under the managerial thumb of a doughy, mouse-faced, unsmiling, bespectacled woman with yellow smoker’s fingertips and a bad perm.

Our task was taking in loan requests by fax or phone from GMAC finance dealers, processing them, and passing them up the chain for approval. What I remember most was how tense this office was, as this woman kept us under the grind to turn out precious loan apps. My solace was ducking into my ’75 Impala at lunch time, loudly playing Grandmixer DXT and Herbie Hancock’s Future Shock album, and sleeping.

But pristinely nested on the other end of my employment karmic balance is the job I loved the most: The 2 1/2 years I spent, from 2004 – 2006, working in public affairs at Rockstar Games, maker of the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) series of video games.

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