Looks like we can add screen savers to the list of things we have and use that are completely unnecessary (like butlers or… your appendix).

See, just a few years back, the average computer screen used phosphors, which might suffer from “burn-in”, where images left on screen for too long would burn into the screen forever.   That’s why screen savers like the flying star field or the flying toasters were invented (why were early screen saver designers obsessed with flying things?)

But today’s flat-screen LCD monitors are made with completely different materials and “burn-in” is officially no longer a concern.

Yet people still use screen savers as though their life (or the life of their computer) depended on it.  This guy suggests that if you simply turn your monitor off when it’s not in use, instead of using a screen saver, you’ll save energy.  If everyone in your company does it… that energy savings might actually show up on the bottom line (depending on how many people work for you).

Even if you’re not concerned about saving energy, you can still deactivate your screen saver.  It’s not saving anything, preventing anything, or protecting anything.  It’s just… there.

Do you remember the security X-ray screeners in the movie Total Recall, where the passengers filed through a corridor and on the outside… security personnel could see their skeletons as they passed through?

Those are now a reality… sort of.

The TSA has begun deploying security screening devices which can see through a person’s clothing, exposing any metal, explosives, plastics, or ceramics that might be hidden underneath.

Ten US Airports are getting the machines, with a total of 30 screeners planned across the country by the end of 2008.

The controversy, of course, is that in addition to any guns or other contraband, these machines also apparently show off the passenger’s naked body.  The ACLU thinks that’s unacceptable:

“People have no idea how graphic the images are,” Barry Steinhardt, director of the technology and liberty program at the American Civil Liberties Union, told AFP.

Okay, is there anything the ACLU finds acceptable?  Isn’t it their mission to abhor and challenge pretty much everything?

But seriously, they have a point here.  How many of you, by show of hands, want the TSA screeners to see you naked?  Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Oh, but they won’t know who you are:

While it allows the security screeners — looking at the images in a separate room — to clearly see the passenger’s sexual organs as well as other details of their bodies, the passenger’s face is blurred, TSA said in a statement on its website.

Right.  Because they can’t see my face as I’m walking into the machine.  Somehow I don’t see the fact that the faces are blurred making Americans feel better about being so exposed.

The images are also not stored in any way, but are erased once the passenger is cleared through the checkpoint.  So that’s good, at least.

Look, not to be graphic or anything, but I really don’t care if the TSA wants to see me naked.  I’m all for doing whatever it takes to help make the skies safer.  And I’m no Adonis–it’s their loss, really, if they have to put me in one of these things.

But millions of Americans are going to cry foul.

Thankfully, the TSA is saying that travelers have some options:

Lara Uselding, a TSA spokeswoman, added that passengers are not obliged to accept the new machines.  “The passengers can choose between the body imaging and the pat-down,” she told AFP.

Sweet.  So if I don’t want strangers to see me naked I can choose to let strangers put their hands all over me.  Excellent choice.  I believe that’s what’s called a Catch-22.

Anyway, now that the TSA is blogging, you can head over there and leave them some feedback on this new development.

We’ve sort of been following the saga of Windows XP for some time now.  Clearly Microsoft would prefer all users to move on up to Windows Vista.  But for various reasons (mostly bad reviews and XP loyalty), a lot of users have resisted.

The availability of XP on new computer purchases has been reluctantly extended by Microsoft a few times already, and they were set to shutter it this month.  And whether it was due to user petitions or simply basic business math… Microsoft has decided to extend XP’s life yet again with a last minute stay of execution from Governor Gates.

Actually, they’re extending its availability through 2010–when the next Operating System from Microsoft (currently called Windows 7) will be released.

That’s right.  They’re going to let you buy XP all the way up to when Vista’s new baby brother arrives.

But… there is a catch (isn’t there always a catch?).  You can only get XP on new machines if you’re buying the lower-end computers.

From the article:

The extension Microsoft granted to XP for these low cost laptops, or netbooks, covered machines that have no more than 1GB of RAM; a hard drive up to 80GB in size; a processor running no faster than 1GHz; a screen no larger than 10.2in (25cm) and no touch screen.

So far Microsoft has laid down no specifications for the low cost desktops, called nettops, but it said it was working with 20 PC makers on these machines.

So, basically, if you want to buy a really slow computer that might have been top of the line 8 years ago, you can still get XP.  Sweet! It’s really kind of a bittersweet victory, though, isn’t it?

But seriously, if all you use your computer for is surfing websites and checking email, then you’re probably the target market here.  If you want to watch DVDs or play video games or do much in the way of multi-media… you’re stuck having to upgrade to Vista–which really isn’t as bad a thing as you might think.

This is fantastic news, and I say that with not even an ounce of my traditional sarcasm.  Anytime I hear about a new WiFi hotspot in my area, I’m happy about it.  If I had my way, I would see every square inch of Sumner County covered in a giant net of WiFi.  (And I think that day will come… but not yet).

Hendersonville residents visiting Drakes Creek Park can now surf the web for free.

According to the article:

Its wireless Internet access has been available off and on since mid-May, parks Director Dave LeMarbre said. “Within the last week to 10 days, it’s been up and operational 100 percent,” he said. LeMarbre said it cost about $5,000 to install the Web access.

Now I can go to the park on Friday nights, and live-blog the pick-up volleyball matches.  Or check email while I sit in the Little League stands.  Or download White Castle nutritional information before walking across the street for some tiny square burgers.

Outstanding news.  The park is already a favorite spot in town for many–this news only makes it more attractive.  Instead of buying a Starbucks card just for the privilege of using their WiFi, I can just buy my grande latte and walk on down to Drakes Creek… and get my Internet for free… no hoops to jump through, no strings attached.  Thanks Hendersonville!

Time Warner and the other cable companies are trying to find a way to deal with the rise in bandwidth demand.

Their genius solution?  Let’s meter out how much Internet each person can have, and charge them extra when they go over.  For instance, if your plan is 50GB per month, and you hit 53GBs, you’ll have to pay overage costs on those 3GBs.

Wonderful.  Now my Internet service is becoming more like my cell phone plan.  Except, with cell phones, the industry trend lately has been the opposite:  they used to charge you for going over your monthly minutes, but more and more plans are becoming “unlimited minutes” plans.

Time Warner is testing this metered access approach in Texas as we speak.  Comcast is rumored to be looking into it as well.

How is this any different from the airlines saying, “You remember how we used to let you check 2 bags with every ticket purchased?  Yeah, we’re going to stop doing that.  Now you have to pay for every bag you check.”???

This is not going to sit well with Internet power users like myself, who are online for several hours a day.  In fact, there may well be some sort of revolt.

Metering out the Internet access is a giant step backwards, not forward.  Remember dial up?  Yeah, in the early days of the web, you had so many hours per month of dial up access.  Then the cable companies got wacky with the broadband and trained all their customers to expect unfettered access.

And now they want to take it away.

It’s like taking candy from a baby, after training the baby to think candy was a regular feature of baby life.

From the article:

Those who mainly do Web surfing or e-mail have little reason to pay attention to the traffic caps: a gigabyte is about 3,000 Web pages, or 15,000 e-mails without attachments. But those who download movies or TV shows will want to pay attention. A standard-definition movie can take up 1.5 gigabytes, and a high-definition movie can be 6 to 8 gigabytes.

And there’s the rub.  Movie and television downloads (legal or otherwise) have caught fire and are clearly the direction that industry is headed.  Very soon there will be more people downloading digital copies of movies than those buying DVDs in the store.  So it’s hard not to see this new metered Internet approach as anything but a way to make more money.

Maybe it would be easier to take if there wasn’t such a clear problem with monopolies in the cable/broadband world.  If I had any other cable company to choose from besides Comcast, for instance, I could at least go see if they’d offer me a better deal.  If I want broadband cable Internet, though, I have only one choice… and soon they’re going to be telling me how much Internet I can use.

Blockbuster is rolling out a gem of a new service:  Digital downloads of movies… available only in-store.  Sweet.

Between Netflix’s delivery-to-your-door model and the shrinking window between a movie’s theatrical release and its availability for cheap purchase in DVD format… Blockbuster has been taking hit after hit the last few years.  And that’s before all the digital download services cropped up at Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, & XBox Live.  Those services let you zap your favorite new movie directly to your PC with the click of a button.

So naturally Blockbuster wants to keep up, right?  So they’re launching they’re own digital download service.  Great, right?  WRONG !

The only people who will be able to use the digital download service from Blockbuster will be the people standing in their physical stores.  Because Blockbuster’s digital download service is an in-store kiosk.

Yup.  They are that stupid.

They think that you’re going to put your flash drive in your pocket, and drive down to their store, plug it in the machine, pay for a movie, wait for the download, then drive home and watch it.

From the article:

“The latest idea from Blockbuster can best be described as “Netflix meets YouTube, without the convenience.” That’s basically the pitch Blockbuster Chairman and CEO James Keyes made at his first annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday when he unveiled an in-store kiosk he hopes consumers will use to download movies.”

I would think this was hilarious if it wasn’t so insultingly backward in its conception.  Consumers will pay for convenience. That is proven.  I would rather pay twice as much through Netflix or Amazon (and get my movies to my home, from my home, on demand) than get in my car and drive to your physical store to tap my toes while your stupid kiosk downloads my movie.  And for the record, it’s pretty cheap to download a digital copy of even a new movie.  Most movie downloads on iTunes, for example, are $9.99 or so.

Blockbuster’s new service is basically the equivalent of Coke creating a new kind of vending machine… that allows you to put in your dollar… but instead of receiving in return a 20oz. bottle of Coke,  you get a coupon that says “take this coupon to the nearest grocery or convenience store to redeem for a refreshing bottle of Coke.”

It’s like the library announcing that checked out books can no longer be taken out of the building.

I can only conclude that the executives at Blockbuster are a cave-dwelling lot.  Can you think of a Fortune 500 company with less of a handle on where their industry is heading?  Because I can’t.  It’s seriously one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in years.

Listen, I get that they’re trying to drive traffic to and through their physical stores to try and sell more product (and pay their rent).  But seriously… you’re supposed to take what your competitors are doing and improve on it (or at least leave it the same)… not make it worse.  A roving balloon-animal magician would be a bigger draw and would probably cost less too.

I tried to come up with my own headline… something sensational and strange… but then I realized that CNN’s headline for this story was really as good as it gets.

And you might think that with a headline like “Monkeys Control Robots With Their Minds,” that I’m about to write some goofy or sarcastic article that is barely related to technology.

But you’d be wrong. There’s actually real science at work here, and it has some pretty awesome implications for the future of medicine.

Some scientists at the University of Pittsburgh have implanted electrodes inside the brains of some monkeys. And those electrodes have allowed the monkeys to control a robotic arm with their thoughts. Yes… their thoughts. (Man, is there anything monkeys can’t do?)

From the article:

The arm is controlled by a network of tiny electrodes called a brain-machine interface, implanted into the motor cortex of the monkeys’ brains — the region that controls movement.

It picks up the signals of brain cells as they generate commands to move and converts those into directional signals for the robotic arm, which the monkeys eventually used as a surrogate for their own.

The scientists are talking about some incredible applications for this, chiefly the ability for disabled people to control robotic or prosthetic limbs… with their minds.

Think about that for a second. Let it sink in. In the not-too-distant future, a paralyzed person might be able to still have complete mobility and autonomy using this technology.

Of course, the non-scientists among us are thinking about evil schemes and world domination, where some psycho controls an army of robot soldiers in a bid to take over the Earth. I mean… Terminator anyone? What’s that? You weren’t thinking that? Hmmm, maybe it’s just me. I do watch a few too many sci-fi movies.

But seriously, this is kind of a big deal, though they have yet to test their electrodes in humans. There will, of course, be several more years of testing before anything can be known for sure or be made available to the public. And even longer before able-bodied people like me can buy it at Wal-Mart… but I’m going to start saving my money now, because I’d sure love to have a robotic arm laying around that I can order to change my TV channels or bring me a glass of water by simply thinking it.

(photo credit to Andrew Schwarz & CNN)

Surely you’ve heard the radio ad for LifeLock sometime over the past few years. It’s the one where the guy sounds all serious and says, “I’m Todd Davis, the CEO of LifeLock, and what I’m about to say is true. My Social Security Number is…” and then he goes on to give you his real SSN.

I’ve always thought it was a pretty slick marketing gimmick… and simply assumed that it was likely a fake number anyway. Even if you’re pretty confident in your company’s services, identity theft isn’t something you want to go messing around with. I generally assume that identity thieves are sort of a lot like computer hackers–they probably have some pretty good ideas and technical know-how. And you wouldn’t go daring hackers to infiltrate your website, would you?

Well apparently the number quoted in the radio spot is Davis’ real Social Security Number. And apparently it’s inspired at least 87 identity thieves to attempt stealing Todd’s ID. And at least one guy succeeded, convincing a payday loan company to send him $500 after using Davis’ SSN.

Oh, there’s also this part, from the article:

“Attorney David Paris said he found records of other people applying for or receiving driver’s licenses at least 20 times using Davis’ Social Security number…”

Hmmm. Okay, let’s take a poll. Raise your hand if you are really, really surprised to learn that giving out one’s Social to millions of people could lead to your identity being stolen.

You don’t see armored car services challenging the public to test their security prowess by robbing them. You don’t see the CEO of DuPont–which makes Kevlar–daring Americans to test his product’s effectiveness by randomly shooting him on the street. You don’t see Honda commercials that say “We’ve got the highest crash-safety rating in our class, and we invite you to test that by ramming your Accord into the next tree you see.”

Sometimes there’s a really thin line between killer marketing ideas and abject stupidity. And it’s up to me to point out when that line has been crossed.

There is now a class-action lawsuit against LifeLock… of course. Seems that some customers feel they were mislead as to the company’s ability to actually provide identity protection. Hmmm, where would they get that idea?

I almost feel bad for the guy. But then I remember that he gave out his Social Security Number to millions of people and I don’t feel quite as sorry for him.

In the world of Technology and the Internet, mergers and acquisitions are fairly commonplace. You won’t hear about most of them, because the lion’s share are concerning companies and services you probably haven’t heard of.

Every once in a while, though, there’s a “Google Buys YouTube” or a “Microsoft Makes Bid for Yahoo” story that sort of grabs everyone’s attention.

Today there were three major acquisitions in the world of tech.

• First, CBS is buying C|Net for $1.8 Billion.
• Second, Comcast has purchased Plaxo for a rumored $150-$170 Million.
• Lastly, Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) has bought Dictionary.com (actually, they purchased Dictionary.com’s parent company, Lexico, which means they also bought Reference.com and Thesaurus.com) for a rumored price of around $100 Million.

Now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Dictionary.com, as most moderate Internet users have. So that’s kind of an interesting purchase.

The Comcast deal is surprising, considering that no one in my office could even tell me what Plaxo is or what they do. Plaxo is a “social contact list” service that promises to help you “stay in touch with the people you care about most.” It’s kind of a mash-up of your address books and all your favorite websites.

The CBS/C|Net deal is the most astounding to me, purely from a dollar amount standpoint. $1.8 Billion is a heck of a lot of money for a site that offers tech news and reviews. Granted, C|Net has a stellar reputation, and is one of the most cited sources for Tech news on the web.

That being said… how many of you reading this recognized the name C|Net? It’s kind of amazing that a website you’ve never heard of is worth as much as a small country, isn’t it? Now I know that the bulk of our readers, while Internet-savvy, are not as plugged in to the latest services and hot companies online–hey, you’re busy running your small business. We get that. That’s why we’re here to keep you abreast of what’s going on.

But even if their business name doesn’t ring a bell, some of their subsidiary companies probably will:

CNet is an early pioneer in the Internet, and now includes a large stable of businesses in the entertainment, news and music areas such as ZDNet, GameSpot.com, TV.com, mp3.com.

The world wide web is a crazy place, where dollars are thrown around like candy. I’m sure next week we’ll read that Ask, CBS, and Comcast have all merged and that they’ve been bought by Google for $4.6 Quadrillion.

I’m currently trying to pinpoint exactly which website I want to buy today. Hey, why should the big guys have all the fun? I don’t have $1.8 Billion, but I have enough to buy someone’s dormant blog. Maybe I’ll do that. Or maybe we could pool our money, you and I, and buy a MySpace account or something. How much you got? I just want to get in on the action… because today is definitely THE day to buy a web property.

(photos by AP)

A robot built by Honda has conducted the Detroit Symphony.

I know.  Hard to believe, right?  Who knew that Detroit even had a symphony?

It’s also hard to believe that a robot conducted that symphony.  Does this mean that conducting isn’t all that hard after all… or that the robot is just super-duper advanced?

The Honda-bot, named ASIMO, is a multi-talented guy.  At 4′ 3″–hey, just like Tom Cruise–he can walk, run, and respond to simple voice commands–hey, just like Tom Cruise!

But seriously, this is the first time ASIMO or any other robot has ever conducted a symphony, so I guess it’s a pretty big deal.  However, the story is a bit deceiving.  Seems that ASIMO isn’t quite as advanced as you might think.  He was only  mimicking what he had seen a human conductor do.  From the article:

As it conducted, it perfectly mimicked the actions of a conductor, nodding its head at various sections and gesturing with one or both hands. ASIMO took a final bow to enthusiastic shouts from the audience.

ASIMO has its limits. ASIMO’s engineers programmed the robot to mimic Charles Burke, the Detroit Symphony’s education director, as he conducted the piece in front of a pianist about six months ago. But it can’t respond to the musicians.

So it’s not as though ASIMO is thinking for himself.  Rather, he’s just regurgitating behaviors that have been modeled for him.  (Tempted to go for a third time on the “Hey, just like Tom Cruise” joke… but I’m worried that would be one time too many).

ASIMO stands for Advanced Step in Innovative Mobility.  Boy, that just rolls off the tongue.  Maybe we should add that as a possible name in our Name Our Robot poll.  Or not.

Look, if robots are conducting symphonies, and that’s national news, I think we can all breathe one big sigh of relief about the whole “robots taking over the Earth” concerns.  Of course, if ASIMO is so good at mimicking, I guess all that needs to happen is for some idiot to show him The Terminator or The Matrix and we’d all be in serious trouble.