In 1957, semi-retired from commercial illustration, Radebaugh brought samples of an an ambitious cartoon about the future to a major news syndicate. Shortly afterwards, Sputnik was launched, confirming the sense of what Radebaugh was proposing in several of his panels. The syndicate was suitably impressed, and in early 1958, Radebaugh’s ambitious syndicated column, Closer Than We Think, was launched to an audience of over 19,000,000 metropolitan newspaper readers. “Halfway between science fiction and designs for modern living” said Radebaugh of his strip. From streamlined flying cars to glamorous skyscrapers, his renderings were both pragmatic and fantastical, showing possibilities unimagined, derived from the technology of the day. “believe-it-or-not”-style cartoon strips represent an alternative technological, architectural and social history of the 20th century.
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Since the recording industry sued Napster in December 1999, the P2P community has tried to evade persecution by making their systems more autonomous and less traceable. Unfortunately this process has also adversely affected the user experience. This may not be so obvious when we look at P2P just from a technological perspective. Today's networks serve many more users than the first generation of file sharing platforms. They also enable us to move bits around the network much faster than before.
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Today, the whole display industry loves plastics. Every maker of TV sets and computer monitors is working on OLED screens..

Displays, though, barely scratch the surface of what's coming in plastic electronics. A typical home probably has only a handful of displays, but it has hundreds of food containers, toys, medicine bottles, and other items, each of which could be endowed with a modicum of computer smarts if brittle and costly silicon and glass can be replaced with plastic. With the advent of cheap plastic circuits, food packages could sport a "sell by" imprint that keeps track of time and turns bright red when the limit is reached.

Moreover, in a world of polymer electronics, virtually any company could become a chipmaker. Thanks to inks made from conductive and semiconductive polymers, it will soon be possible to print proletarian circuits on almost any surface using an inkjet printer or offset press. A billion-dollar semiconductor factory isn't needed [Read More!]

Transfers data between USB devices (slaves), without requiring a USB host (master) or a computer. Use the Bridge as a link to copy files between a variety of USB peripherals such as an iPod (and other MP3 players), USB Flash “Thumb Drives”, external hard drives, CD-R burners and memory card readers. Supports USB/USB 2 and are Battery powered.
se also Macally's SyncBox

Spillebørser er i fœrd med at køre den traditionelle bookmaker ud på et sidespor.
Kort fortalt er Betfair en internet-automatiseret spillebørs. Her spilles ikke mod en bookmakers vedtagne odds, men spillerne indbyrdes mod hinanden Hver gang, der findes en tabende spiller, er der i samme system en vinder, og i modsœtning til traditionelle bookmakeres odds-indbyggede profit-margin, består Betfairs fortjeneste af en "kurtage" på mellem to og fem procent af vindernes fortjeneste. Størrelsen afhœnger af, hvor meget den enkelte spiller omsœtter i en periode.

Så beskedne provenuer har traditionelle bookmakere svœrt ved at matche, så Betfair har ikke vœret velset på markedet. "Bookmakere ser Betfair som en trussel, fordi vores forretningsmodel har lavere faste omkostninger og kan tilbyde spillerne langt mere. Betfair adskiller sig fra bookmakerne ved, at alle odds er blevet udbudt af andre spillere. Det betyder, at odds typisk er 20 procent bedre. Til at begynde med kœmpede de store bookmakere virkelig imod," siger Julia Tasker, International Development Manager hos Betfair.

Velrenommerede firmaer forsøgte sig med smudskampagner, lobbyisme og beskyldninger, bl.a. om, at spillebørser ville gøre det enklere for korrupte sportsudøvere at tjene penge på fiksede resultater. Tvœrtimod hœvder Betfair, fordi mistœnkelige pengestrømme bedre kan følges hos Betfair end ved traditionel anonym bookmaker-handel. "Betfair har altid vœret åben omkring vor virksomhed og gjort vort bedste for at sikre, at tingene går rigtigt til," siger Julia Tasker. Hun henviser til aftaler med britiske hestesportsorganisationer og tennisforbund for at sikre rapportering af uregelmœssige spillemønstre. Det har medvirket til at gøre Betfair til en accepteret og voldsomt ekspanderende del af det britiske spillelandskab med en ugentlig omsœtning over 50 mio. pund - mere end en halv mia. kroner.

Baggrunden for det kolossale pengeflow er, at der indgås mange store handler til marginale fortjenester. Nogle ser ligefrem Betfair som et forum for spekulation, som gjaldt det vœrdipapirer.

Den unikke kerne i spillebørsers succes er, foruden de attraktive odds, at spilleren ikke alene har valget mellem at købe et oddstilbud eller ej. Her kan man også sœlge et vœddemål i det omfang, der findes interesserede købere til det odds, man udbyder. Eller som et af selskabets reklameslogans lyder: "See a winner in a loser".

Lœg dertil sofistikerede faciliteter som muligheden for at købe/udbyde spil undervejs i en sportskamp. Ifølge Betfair fordeler omsœtningen på en fodboldkamp sig typisk med halvdelen før kampstart og halvdelen under kampen - det såkaldte "inplay-spil" - mens fordelingen ved hestevœddeløb typisk er 80 procent før løbet og 20 procent, mens løbene pågår.

Mange iagttagere er enige om, at Betfair og lignende mindre aktører på markedet, Betdaq og Sporting Options er i fœrd med at gennemføre en stille revolution, der vil forandre markedet for sportsspil for tid og evighed.
Lœs fuld artikel på jp.dk "Stille revolution på spillemarkedet"

Because free will is the very thing that makes us human, we naturally assume choice is a good thing. And from there, it's logical, perhaps, to think that because having options is good, the more choice we have the better.

Well, stop the presses. Scientific American is reporting that recent research "strongly suggests" that, psychologically speaking, that assumption is wrong.

In an article titled, 'The Tyranny of Choice', Barry Schwartz, professor of social theory and social action at Swarthmore College, wrote: "Although some choice is undoubtedly better than none, more is not always better than less."

Schwartz points to studies by David Myers of Hope College and Robert Lane of Yale University, who conducted surveys on individual well being.

They found that increased choice and increased influence have been accompanied by a decrease in well-being.

Schwartz conducted his own research and, in doing so, categorizes his subjects into "maximizers" and "satisficers."

Maximizers are "those who always aim to make the best possible choice" and satisficers are "those who aim for 'good enough'."

Through Schwartz's study, it was found that maximizers are the least happy. "Naturally, no one can check every option, but maximizers strive toward that goal, and so making a decision becomes increasingly daunting as the number of choices rises.

"In the end, they are more likely to make better objective choices than satisficers but get less satisfaction from them," Schwartz writes. copy and pasted from Mahalanobis