This may be old news, but I just noticed myself and thought I'd report it. I've been using the "New Version" of GMail for a couple of weeks (I hardly notice the difference from the "Old Version"), and happened to notice today that the inbox URL still used "http://", even after all the complaints that they didn't maintain "https://" after login. I decided a quick test was in order, and added the all-important "s" to the protocol indicator. It worked fine. After clicking around some, opening mail, using filters, etc., the "https://" protocol remained. This is great news for those of us who use GMail heavily and want some modicum of security while doing it.

The Apple subsidiary Filemaker has released a Leopard-specific personal database app named Bento that promises to bring cross-app data syncing (Address Book, iPhone, .Mac, etc.) to the masses in an easy-to use, iTunes-like way. At $50 for a single seat and $100 for a five seat family pack, it's certainly affordable. Is this the first foray into what will one day become a business productivity tool a la Access?

Something's going on over at Digg, the "other" news site for nerds. Or not, as the case may be. As of right now, the last story on the front page is "Concorde parts go under the hammer" at just over two hours old. Considering the stories previous to it at a rate of one every ten minutes or so, I figure something's going on (or not) behind the scenes. I hope no one died.

A Penn State University chemist seems to have stumbled upon a way to burn salt water by applying an RF field. More study is required to verify and fine-tune the phenomenon into an industrial process, but there seem to be quite a few applications of the technology if it's even modestly efficient. Mr. Kanzius evidently made the discovery after an observer of his cancer-fighting microwave prototype showed condensation in the test tube and suggested that Kanzius use the device for water desalination. During the desalination attempt, he noticed a spark in the test tube. That's quite a chain of discoveries for one invention.

After months of reading it online, with my inner voice sort of munging the sound in a faint echo of something verbally pronounceable, I decided to check out what that vast knowledgebase of society, Wikipedia, had to say about this maddening bit of online vernacular. Unfortunately, what I discovered is that pretty much whatever you think is the way to pronounce it is on the list. So, how do you pronounce it?

As a teen in the 80's, we spent many hours designing paper-based aids to take some of the burden out of role playing, freeing us up to dive deeper into the scenarios. Twenty-five years later, there have been significant advances in three things: game mechanics, technology and our disposable incomes. Most members of our campaign group have six figure incomes, and several of us are technologists by trade. Lately we've been discussing the idea of custom building a gaming table. But where to start? Our campaign's host is willing to completely remodel the gaming room, which is about 12x15. Power, water and broadband Internet are all available. We have skills in electric wiring, plumbing, networking, cabinet making, house remodeling, software design, programming and engineering. We can probably commit a couple thousand dollars to the project overall, probably leaving out advanced technologies like that found in Microsoft's Surface, but not flat screens, individual displays, comfortable chairs or refrigerators.

So, what features would you put in? If there's a computer involved, what software? What should the shape be like?

A Vermont farmer and his business partner have created a mushroom-based insulation board that is grown in a form, taking about two weeks. Early tests indicate that the material insulates slightly better than the typical pink fiberglass batting found in homes today. To date, the two inventors have been growing samples under their beds while searching for affordable lab space and some venture capital. If nothing else, talking to venture capitalists should give them plenty of feedstock for further tests...

The startup R&D organization "Team SmartFish" has come up with a design for a performance aircraft that's inspired by a tuna fish, which is evidently (one of?) the fastest fish in the sea and has been clocked at 85 km/h. Their model-sized prototype is powered by a fuel cell stack with a pusher prop. The full scale version calls for a 900-1000# turbofan in the tail.

If this thing works out, I wonder if a small modification to put one of Rutan's rocket motors below the turbofan output would make this a viable sub-orbital launch vehicle.

Boeing is working with development partners on a fuel cell-based small aircraft as a technology demonstrator. It seems like a logical use of the technology. From the article, a Boeing research director was quoted as saying, "While Boeing does not envision that fuel cells will provide primary power for future commercial passenger airplanes, demonstrations like this help pave the way for potentially using this technology in small manned and unmanned air vehicles." Now if they can come up with a quiet, personal-sized VTOL craft a la Paul Moller's Skycar (which is anything but quiet), we'll really have something.

Stories are starting to pop up all over the web about the AppleTV, which evidently means that Apple has set loose the hounds of marketing and the units are (or will be tomorrow) available in Apple stores. Still no word on whether or not it plays DivX files. That will be the key to me purchasing one.

The U.S. Army has a new tactical system in the test phase that combines an X-Box controller, an iRobot, and five million lines of code to provide remote sensing, communication and collaboration to ground units. Next up: getting Beowulf to run on the Army Grunt platform.

eWeek is running an article on Sun's SPOT (Small Programmable Object Technology) that looks to be the start of something good, at least from the perspective of every geek that wished they had the tools to develop "the next big thing (TM)" in their basement.

On Sun's product site, the about Sun SPOT page has a few crunchy bits worth chewing on, such as:

We've created a platform that greatly simplifies development and experimentation with small wireless devices, and we've opened it up to the development community...

Open is almost always good. The one that really got me was:

And the jaw-droppingly cool "migratable application" functionality enables applications (with their complete state information) to be dragged from one Sun SPOT device to another while they're still running. So you could, for example, move software off a SPOT device with low battery power onto another device with more battery life, avoiding loss of state information.

I'm not sure how I feel about software being able to statefully leap from one computing device to another. Worms come to mind. I hope there's protection in the devices themselves, since the JRE seems to be the OS.

The initial price of the development kit (US$550) isn't cheap, but it's not out of the reach of the average hobbyist, either. If this platform takes off the way Sun hopes it does, basic components will be available to grow the "implementation space" of SPOT technology. If Sun opens the hardware to the point that manufacturers can produce their own devices to a standard, this new technology may be the enabler of many of the things we've been promised for years.

Holy crap, will wonders never cease? If this thing really works, we're definitely on the short path to witnessing some amazing surgical recoveries. Clogged arteries? No problem. My only question is whether it can get caught in a blood cell in the brain and cause a stroke.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/19/1341247

Forget the iPhone. I, for one, am waiting for the iSlate. It's Apple's forthcoming ultra-cool personal computer. In essence, it's an iPhone with a larger screen (8.5" diagonal) and no cellular component. The base model has 8 gigs of flash on board, two memory card expansion slots and a USB port for iPod connectivity. Bluetooth allows you to use a keyboard, but Apple's MultiTouch technology makes it mostly unnecessary.

From its release at MacWorld '08, couch surfing will never be the same. The entire family can sit in one room or many, streaming content off of their AppleTV, surfing the web, doing homework or playing games. But the real killer app is in the corporate world. It's the ultimate day planner. WiFi, penetrating nearly every meeting room, connects to corporate e-mail and CRM apps. Large-footprint applications can be comfortably run through a remote-desktop client, but basic Office-like productivity apps run locally (including Office). Suddently, meetings are a place where work actually gets done. Decisions can be made and acted upon all at once. Corporate productivity is up, making it easy to justify the $899 price tag. Laptops have become "old school."

So, c'mon Apple, get with me. Bring my dream to reality as only you can. There's nothing to stop you, and the market is ripe.

In a very strange move, the company Axiotron is planning to unveil at MacWorld tomorrow a tablet-style Mac "notebook" computer named the ModBook. Astute readers will note that Axiotron != Apple. Given Apple's secrecy on to-be-released products, combined with long-standing rumors of a Mac tablet, how can a company hope to survive with a product that's doomed to failure the minute that Apple releases a self-branded tablet? Of course, if Apple doesn't release a tablet soon, this re-packager might grab a share of the market from those desperate for this type of technology.