Hiatus

OK,
We've decided to stop posting. It was fun while it lasted, but there doesn't seem to be enough readers to keep going.

Thanks for the 15 minutes of fame, and perhaps with a little encouragement, we will restart this tabloid. =)

Love,
HotfixUpdate Blogger

Computer chips becoming as common as potato chips

Everyday new ways of harnessing computer processors are being created around the world. Crafty inventors are finding new ways of harnessing the power of computers in items as mundane as umbrellas and clothes.

Here's one example from a New York Times article:

The umbrella might be free — if you’re willing to listen to it whisper advertising offers in your ear: “Psst. You know that raspberry-pimento-vanilla coffee you like? The store you’re about to pass just took a fresh batch out of the roaster 12 minutes and 34 seconds ago. Oops. 35 seconds.”

Has the world become so disconnected that people have to hope it rains to get a decent conversation?

Los Angeles residents can drive free and clear through the purple skies

Microsoft plans to introduce a Web-based service for driving directions that incorporates complex software models to help users avoid traffic jams. Using artificial intelligence,

[t]he system is intended to reflect the complex traffic interactions that occur as traffic backs up on freeways and spills over onto city streets.

Now Angelinos can drive 80mph through the purple hazy fog of pollution. Sounds a bit dangerous.

If the residue fit, you must convict

Scientists in Texas are reporting development of a highly dependable, rapid and inexpensive new method for identifying the presence of gunshot residue.

It extracts almost all components of gunpowder residue from particles about 15 times smaller than the width of a human hair, without the use of chemical
reagents.

OJ Simpson is probably loving those double jeopardy laws.

"Say Cheese" will be a thing of the past

New technology from Omron Corp. is able to analyze the curves of the lips, eye movement and other facial characteristics to decide how much a person is smiling.

Sony already has a similar Smile Shutter function for its digital cameras which automatically clicks the shutter when people in the image break into a smile.

The problem is, parents of pouty teenagers will not only face kids who won't take pictures, but will also face cameras that won't take pictures of pouty teenagers!

Free speech is not for all on eBay

In mid-May, only buyers on eBay will be able to give feedback ratings in order to prevent sellers from retaliating against buyers who speak out.

This change has upset many of eBay's 82.3 million active users. But it might also be a lesson for sites trying to encourage strangers to get along.

Seems like just another take on the ol' adage, "good fences make good neighbors."

Hummer greener than Prius

Disclaimer: the source of this entry is an editorial.

But if it is true, the Toyota Prius, the ultimate "green car," is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Photo credit: Marcin Rolicki

Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

Boy, we can just see all the guppies, yuppies, hipsters, and hippies having a ball with this.

Beauty is in the eye of the computer

Scientists have successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women.

"The computer produced impressive results -- its rankings were very similar to the rankings people gave." This is considered a remarkable achievement . . .

Psychological research has shown that there is less agreement as to what defines "male beauty" among human subjects.

This either means that women are less superficial or that male beauty is more exciting. It's also common knowledge that men never give out "10s." Can this computer program change that?

Goodbye to cheap Chinese goods.

The era of cheap Chinese consumer goods may finally be ending, thanks to irrepressible inflation. In addition to the rise in prices for raw materials and oil,

China is rolling out wage increases around the country and tightening its labor laws.

Don't get too outraged. This means a whooping $160/month for workers there. I don't know about you, but I'd pay an extra dollar or two for my crisp polo shirt so that a few families across the world are fed.

You blink and they're already millionaires

Steven Levy, a columnist for the Washington Post, reports the phenomenon of start-up kids becoming millionaires or even billionaires. A 24-year old kid made his money starting up Auctomatic, a web-based helper that automates the chores of running auctions for power-sellers on eBay.

The Auctomatic story is a parable of the Internet's start-up culture, where it's cheap to begin companies, possible to become a billionaire and fairly common to bail out as a millionaire -- all before you're barely old enough to shave.

Even in the growing popularity of reality TV, Paris Hilton, and prescription drug abuse, it looks like our youth might be pretty darn capable.

Single and want to mingle?

For those scared to flirt in person, there is now another medium (in addition to Facebook, MySpace, etc.) to use. The iFob merges the concept of meeting people at a coffeeshop with the modern trend of making friends through technology.

It sends out a "homing beacon" at wireless hotspots, alerting other users that you're nearby and receptive to socializing. Someone might broadcast a single line, "I love snowboarding" and see if anyone replies. Eventually, the messaging could lead to a conversation. The software allows people to just "listen" at a hotspot.

Soon, Britney Spears' future husbands won't even need to crowd around her; they just need to be within a comfortable radius of her iPhone.

Google to the Rescue!

Whether you've Googled a date to see if he/she is a psychopath or Googled how to stop a leaking toilet, or read a blog on Google to rid you of workplace boredoms (ahem, hopefully this site), you know that Google always comes to the rescue.

Now, Google has created a mapping program that will aid humanitarian operations as well as help inform the public about the millions who have fled their homes because of violence or hardship.

Users can download Google Earth software to see satellite images of refugee hot spots such as Darfur, Iraq and Colombia.

Pretty awesome! With this suckup post to Google, will it start putting our blog higher on the searches? Please? Pretty please?

GWB may have been right about the recession (or lack thereof)

. . . for scientists and engineers, that is. Three newly published reports show increasing supplies of scientists and engineers, as well as a strong labor market.

Overall unemployment for scientists and engineers in the United States dropped to 2.5 percent in 2006.

Maybe scientists and engineers are simply more capable of recognizing a downturn so they weren't as picky when accepting jobs. I guess the question is, has the salary of scientists and engineers decreased?

Shrinking workforce? Ugly receptionist? No problem!

Whether you can't find enough caregivers or would like stunning receptionists, Japan has the answer: robots.

Robots could fill the jobs of 3.5 million people in graying Japan by 2025, a thinktank says, helping to avert worker shortages as the country's population shrinks.

A woman walks by a Japanese-made robot receptionist at Ben-Gurion University in Israel, February 5, 2007.

We may never stop men from hiring hot receptionists, but maybe they'll stop sleeping with them!

Futuristic technology

Here is an article that shows what laptops might look like in the future.

If we have to get old, we might as well have some nice gadgets to look forward to.

What happens when a computer programmer never grows up

Attendees at the annual Game Developers Conference found out what happens when a computer nerd plays like a third grader. The result is an amazing game called Crayon Physics Deluxe.

Why all the love for a game that looks a bit like something your third-grader might ask you to stick up on the fridge?

Just watch the embedded video in the article.

We are wowed by Wii

Occupational therapists are using Wii in a Parkinson's study.

Because the Wii is interactive and you have to do certain functional movements to be successful, it's an effective modality for working with Parkinson's patients.

Now Nintendo should feel even worse if the Wii shortages were in fact intentional.

From blood diamonds to mobile phones

In the aftermath of Kenya's violent political spasm, the mobile phone service provider Safaricom had its initial public offering.

The company's pre-tax profit of $370 million was surprising and upended the

. . . conventional wisdom that sub-Saharan Africans, especially in places like Kenya where income averages out to a dollar a day, had no interest in a mobile phone.

The founders of Safaricom must have heard the ol shoe salesman story. (Two shoe salesmen found themselves in a rustic part of Africa. The first salesman wired back to his head office: “There is no prospect of sales. No one here wears shoes!” The other salesman wired: “No one wears shoes here. We can dominate the market.")

The Satellite Shoot-Down

The United States has decided to mount a $74 million effort to fragment satellite USA 193 before it lands.

So little is known for certain about USA 193. But we do know it was a test vehicle for the next generation of American spy satellites.

Is Tupac still alive? Did LBJ kill Kennedy? What's in this satellite shot down by the US? Some things we will never know.

Dumb criminals on Craigslist

A man returned home to find his house being emptied out and his horse being carted off because scammers posted a phony Craigslist ad claiming everything on the property was free for the taking.

This wasn't just a prank. After stealing some horse saddles, the criminals later posted the "everything must go" ad on Craigslist as a means of covering up what they'd already done.

Unfortunately for them, they posted the ad from their own computer, and working with Craigslist, the authorities were able to track down the perpetrators based on the IP address used for the posting.

Nose hair featured at world's largest invention convention

More than 700 of the world's most creative minds have set up stands at the International Exhibition of Inventions to show off brainchildren ranging from heavy-duty engineering feats to wacky little gadgets like the running alarm clock that will make sure you get out of bed in the morning.

Among the simplest is artificial nose hair. . . . A wacky invention is also an e-mail analyzer to determine whether the person you meet in the chat room is not a man pretending to be a woman or the other way around.

Men who have always worried about balding may now rest easy. . . balding nose hair, that is.

Corporate employees so bored that they seek second life

IBM and the creator of Second Life have started a joint project to run Second Life technology behind corporate firewalls.

Second Life has plenty of corporate users already, more than 100. . . running the gamut from Ben & Jerry’s to Toyota.

Sure the only tan we actually get is from the florescent lights above our office cubicles, but now we can play with our Second Life avator at work (who happens to looks eerily similar to Tom Brady

Job cuts at tech companies

Google announced that it is cutting 300 jobs from the American operations of DoubleClick, the advertising technology company that it acquired recently.

Dell is also "committed" to cutting more jobs than the 8,800 previously announced.

To accomplish the cost cuts, Dell said the company is taking the approach that the company has no fixed costs.

If any laid-off folks want to come work for hotfixupdates.blogspot.com, you can work from home surrounded by warm cookies and milk. Or you could stay unemployed and simply be entertained by our blog. Either way, you're loved.

Public officer exposed to public scrutiny

Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), revealed yesterday that he is among approximately 3,000 heart patient whose medical information was potentially exposed to public scrutiny when an unencrypted government laptop was stolen from the car of a National Institute of Health researcher.

Several questions remain:
- Whether the NIH has an adequate system for contacting affected patients
- Why the computer was not encrypted
- Why the NIH's tally of affected patients was initially short by more than 500.

Michael Cronin . . . said the agency had sent him mail in 2006 and that he had not moved since then. "And today they say they had an incorrect address?" he asked.

Surely, whoever stole the laptop has better things to do than look up who has been using Viagra.

Just another thing to blame your parents about

A new study shows that more than 50% of the time, lean body mass can be predicted based on genes.

It may help pave the way for a "skinny gene test," which one day may help women trying to lose weight understand what kind of battle they can expect

Hollywood celebrities have found another way to fit into good jeans despite bad genes: plastic surgery.

Tivo your software crashes

Tivo inspired a group of programmers to create a tool that is useful for helping programmers fix pesky bugs in their applications. The tool records the code that an application executes and provides the ability to replay it back.

Mr. Lindo says he and Mr. Daudel found themselves overwhelmed by bugs they couldn’t find while working together at an Internet start-up in 2002. “We were spending almost all of our time not fixing the issues, but trying to get to the point where we could just see the issue, and we said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we could just TiVo this and replay it?”’ Mr. Lindo recalls.

Seems like a pretty useful product. Once they get the fast-forward feature ready maybe we can use it to skip all those pop-up ads and annoying internet commercials.

Gaming Degree?

Gaming is now big business and universities across the nation have started to notice. Game design programs are springing up across the nation at places like Carnegie Mellon University, Georgia Tech, and University of Southern California.

Officials at Southern Methodist University have also noticed the trend:

We believe that in 5 to 10 years, every university will have some form of interactive media or gaming education program in their curriculum,” said Ron Jenkins, the deputy director of external affairs and development at Southern Methodist University, where students can earn a master’s degree in interactive technology and video game development. “This is the 21st century’s new media of expression. It’s like making movies or writing books, but done now with pixels.

Seems a bit more interesting than accounting!

Teenager convicted of global cyber crime case

A New Zealand teenager accused of leading an international cyber crime network was convicted of illegal computer hacking after pleading guilty to six charges. The article is reported here.

Owen Thor Walker, 18, known by his online name "AKILL," was involved in a network accused of infiltrating 1.3 million computers and skimming millions of dollars from victims' bank accounts.

We're willing to bet that security software companies will be waiting outside the jail with an employment offer in hand as soon as this kid gets out.

Just don't buy it from a breeder

A new breed of cognitive robot functions like a puppy by combining the classical rule-based artificial intelligence and the artificial neural networks. Read it here.

During the testing, scientists adopted a trial-and-error learning approach

by making the COSPAL robot complete a shape-sorting puzzle, but without telling it what it had to do. As it tried to fit pegs into holes it gradually learnt what would fit where, allowing it to complete the puzzle more quickly and accurately each time.

Next time your child begs you for a puppy, just get him a COSPAL robot!

Border patrol

The nation's giant technology firms are competing this week in the annual government lottery for visas allowing them to hire highly skilled foreign workers, and few are expecting to get what they want. The story is reported here.

Microsoft is petitioning to hire 1,600 foreign engineers. But company
officials said they would be lucky to gain 40 percent of those requests in this
year's contest, which begins today and ends April 7.

If Microsoft set up an all-inclusive office in Mexico, it would not only solve this problem, but Americans would also be lining up to transfer offices.

Where do you fit in?

Now that it's closing in on summertime, you might decide to take advantage of the fact that people are generally happier in the summer and ask your boss for a raise. To help you, we decided to compile this list with rough estimates of average salaries. Where do you fit in?

Museum curators -- $26,000
Police patrol officers -- $40,920
Teacher -- $48,000
Accountant -- $49,000
Trash collector -- $60,000
Mechanical engineer -- $65,000
Pharmacists -- $80,000
Computer scientist -- $70,000
Wedding photographer -- $75,000
Chemical engineer -- $78,000
Physician assistant -- $78,000
Electrical engieer -- $81,000
Veterinarians -- $88,000
News anchor in major city -- $130,000
Lawyer -- $135,000
Airline pilots -- $140,000
Orthodontists -- $369,000
Mutual fund manager -- $400,000
CEO of Fortune 500 co. -- $10 million