Sorry I had to post this. Its just too funny.

Anyone remember this keynote? I do.

The site theme might be funky for the next few days as we work on getting a better theme online. Sorry for any issues you might have.

A little over a year ago I was wishing I could get a invite to TED. Obviously that did not happen. But I did not cry, mainly because they now stream mostly all of the keynotes, and they offer a full commentary. So it is no longer a secret from the public. If you don’t know what TED is then just click here. You are in for a treat!

The main reason I wanted to go to TED is because I knew Blaise Aguera y Arcas was speaking. He is a Microsoft Live Labs Architect. He was there to speak about his two babies SeaDragon and Photosynth. Which in words I just cannot explain.

Video: Take the Photosynth Tour

Well the people at Microsoft’s Live Labs have been working away at content to make the experience even more enjoyable, and when I say an experience I mean it. This software blows my mind. So

Microsoft and NASA have teamed to create a 3d image of everything NASA, including the next launch shuttle Endeavor. You’ll need to download the Photosynth viewer to see the images (sorry Mac users, for now Photosynth is only available for Windows XP and Vista — running either IE6 or IE7).

NASA says it hopes this joint project will lead to more collaborative initiatives with Microsoft. And Microsoft is no doubt hoping the same, especially since most recent NASA collaborations have been with rival Google, which gets some of its Google Earth data from NASA.

Video: Photosynth meets NASA

Also worth noting is that, near the end of the promotional video pictured above, Blaise Aguera y Arcas says that Photosynth with soon offer features which allow users to stitch their own photos together.Given that Photosynth relies on image data from a normal SLR camera, it might soon be possible for even you and I to stitch together some impressive 3-D tours, provided you take enough images.

I don’t want to get into the Console war thing (XBOX360 owns on content) but they are still over priced. $599 for 80GB, granted they have the 20 GB model for $450 which is not bad. I would buy the 60gb model though for $499, seems like the best deal to me. But the question I have still is what kind of content can you download to fill that large Hard drive. Its not like you can download movies now from the Playstation Store. They have trailers for games and movies, and they have music. But the real lump of stuff is Movies. That is why the 360 is still better to me. Not because of the graphics, not because of the controllers, or really even games. Its all about the online content. The 360 would be useless to me if I was not able to use it online. Granted the one great thing about the PS3 is that you can browse the net, which you cannot do with the 360. But whenever MS decides to release IPTV for the box is the day that the 360 will solidify itself in console greatness.

But this is me. Not anyone else, I love gaming but I do have to say I am not that hardcore as some. I am only good at sports games, I love all games but those are the only ones I care to play. Sometimes I do need a little “boom head shot” action but other then that I love the sports games. So what do the PS3 owners think, its a beautiful device I think when it comes to performance it wins by a hair, but the lack of online content must bother a lot of you. I know this topic has been touched on by so many people. But after the release of this model and pricing it just makes me ill.

Now I am not trying to bash the ps3, but I want to know what you PS3 owners think.

So I read this morning over on engadget that Best Buy was offering the XBOX360 HD DVD players for $149.99. Then Brandon my counterpart wrote about it here at The Geekery. Then a saw a counter post by engadget saying that they were wrong. So I hop on over to Best Buy’s site and I see them for $179.99. I was all like WTF govna! So I called my good pals at the local Best Buy and probed them with a good amount of questions. So in the end I am picking up an XBOX360 HD DVD player tonight for $149.99. He said he read $149.99 on the internal site. So I don’t think it was a mistake, I just don’t think they are ready to sell them in the wild yet for $149.99. But the nice gent stamped my name on the thing and took it to the front counter. Plus get this, Toshiba is upping the ante with the HD DVD give-away, the nice chap at Best Buy told me today that whenever you buy a HD DVD player from Best Buy you will receive a form, you fill out this form with your choice of 5 HD DVD movies you would like and Toshiba sends you those movies for free. WOW!

Now I am not sure if this is just the XBOX HD player and if it is just with Best Buy that you receive this offer from Toshiba, I didn’t want to barrage him with anymore questions. Hopefully he was not feeding me lines just to get into the store.

“So tonight we dine in hell!!”, because I am watching 300 in HD tonight!!!

Well the “genius’s” at MIT have came up with another “Idea” on sustainable energy. They want to harness your energy and create power. You are probably wondering how in the world they got Captain Planet to sign on to this project, since to this day he is the only one being that I know of that can harness the power of others. But no, no, the high top fade superhero is not helping out on this one.

Here is how they want to do it.

“A Crowd Farm in Boston’s South Station railway terminal would work like this: A responsive sub-flooring system made up of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps would be installed beneath the station’s main lobby. The slippage of the blocks against one another as people walked would generate power through the principle of the dynamo, a device that converts the energy of motion into that of an electric current.” Huh?

I’m not the smartest bloak in the pub but what they are saying they want to do is lay down squishy mats that you walk on that create friction through IC’s and are centrally connected to one hub, thus creating a electrical current that can be moderated through a power station and delegated through the central hub. Seems like a good idea. But lets break it the whole human power element down. According to Graham and Jusczy the MIT students that developed this idea says, a single human step can only power two 60W light bulbs for one flickering second. But get a crowd in motion, multiply that single step by 28,527 steps, for example, and the result is enough energy to power a moving train for one second. So whenever the Stones roll into town will be the day our trains will run on time??

I know I am going a bit overboard and being overly sarcastic in my judgement, but honestly I really enjoy these types of “Ideas”, but the thing that really gets under my skin are guys like these two. They likely are in the higher echelon for IQ, and they come up with ideas that most likely will never happen in our lifespan. Why not convert all that energy and time into something we can use today. The whole plan they have is great, getting people to generate power, getting people out and about, its all great.

But I am so tired of people coming up with ideas for sustainable energy that could never be adapted in out lifetime. The only way for any of us to see this in our country or really any country would have to start with the politicians, we would have to abolish them. 2nd, corporations would have to stop being greedy, and so many people would go against the grain, not for any reason just because.

I commend them on the cool idea, but now take your ideas and transform them to something we can use today.

I am not one to pre-judge someone, ok, I am. But this DIY project seems like it comes from the hands of someone with way way to much time on their hands. But you know what thats ok. Only on the interweb can this person be held to the highest regards, a hero in some eyes. The cunning lad “Joe” had a little extra time to wait for his potion macro to compile so he could raise his manna by 50%, so what did he decide to make. An automatic toilet flusher to impress his guests. But wait it records how many times you secrete your bodily functions as well, I am really surprised their is no “load” leveling option, but I tip my hat to this guy, because honestly I could not do it. But just maybe if I was unemployed and received monthly welfare checks, lived in my aunts basement, (because my mom kicked me out because the smell and the heat rose too much, for a women even with anosmia it was just to much) made dooty way too much, I think I could maybe pull it off.

Click pic to see this thing it its full glory.

Joe built this thing to save him from holding down the toilet handle for 10 seconds every time he flushes.

Upon further research its not just one guy its two, and these guys are pretty advanced sorry for the negative words, check out there site they actually have developed some pretty cool stuff. Good luck with the projects.

A lot of people know how much I hate Google’s Adword system, but the thing is they make money and they help business’s make money, thus it is good business. I just don’t like the whole process probably because we here at TheGeekery are poor, their are lot of rumors around the net about foul play with Adwords and how Google manipulates the system as well but that is still under investigation. But I simply don’t understand this one….

Google is in the process of acquiring DoubleClick for $3.1 billion, but for some reason the FTC is already investigating them on antitrust violations just for this attempted acquisition. I understand that Google already has the largest market share for ad based e-marketing, but when Yahoo proposed its acquisition of Rights Media was proposed not to long ago it flew through the antitrust regulators stamp of approval process. The same thing happened when Microsoft proposed the acquisition of aQuantive a DoubleClick rival, no one complained no one whined. Why is Google taking so much flack for this, this is capitalism, this is big business.

The answer is in this quote

“Google, which dominates the business of placing text ads alongside search results and on sites across the Web, is expected to capture 27.4 percent of the $21.7 billion in United States online advertising in 2007, according to eMarketer, a research firm. The acquisition of DoubleClick would turn Google into a dominant player in the business of serving banners and other graphical ads that appear on Web sites.”

Yahoo, AT&T and dare I say Microsoft are afraid, very afraid. Google is starting to scare me as well, I just don’t understand how a company can spread the spectrum so wide across so many industry sectors.

Google, even though I do not enjoy some of your business models I do salute you for the massive kahoneys you have.

-TheGeek

Well kind of lame first post but who cares, we are slowly churning out info. Graphics should be up soon. But your here for the info.

So about a week ago at work I noticed someone was running a phishy “Free public wifi” ad hoc wireless signal over my air. You see if I worked in the middle of a city or suburban area I would not think twice about it, but you see I work out in the boonies, way way out in the middle of no where. I have a pretty large network out in the country, its about a 450 node network with 7 wireless bridges granted they are all locked down very very tight. But the problem arose when I saw this SSID come across my office, you see we have outside sales reps come in with there laptops and they see a couple SSID’s and they try to connect to anything that has a signal.

So to end this long story quickly I ordered a very mild spectrum analyzer. It is the WiSPY 2.0 with external antenna from METAGEEK, it just came today so I have not even had a chance to use it at work, but I am having a ton of fun with it at home. The channalyzer software built into it is great, its a very cool little tool to have for anyone interested in the hidden world of RF frequency. On a side note this only works with the 2.4ghz range.

You can attach any SMA compatible antenna to the device making it even more versatile.

The Channalyzer software is easy to use and very effective.

Overall this is a great product, kind of on the high side for pricing coming in around $399.99 but at the same time most spectrum analyzers run about $2500-3000.

I cant wait to use it at work.

-thegeek out