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February 2008
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The state of Utah has launched an interesting new program, one that lets residents sign up for daily e-mail alerts that list all the crimes that took place near them over the previous day. Those e-mails provide link to a free site, www.crimereports.com, that maps crimes and tracks when they occur. The site also provides up-to-date information about where sex offenders live, along with offender photos. "This website will give Utahns an important tool to learn if their neighborhood is safe. A better informed public will also help individual neighborhoods work with law enforcement to tackle crime problems," says Speaker of the House Greg Curtis. Sadly, the site will not be comprehensive, according to a press release from the state's attorney general: CrimeReports.com has 38 different law enforcement agencies signed up for the program and hopes to have all agencies on board during the first year of service. Local agencies will still have the ability to control the data that is released to the web site. Washington, D.C., San Jose, California and several other cities are already using the Web site. Utah will be the largest geographic area ever to use the service. There's also a similar service here in Dallas, which Victor wrote about last month.
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E-mail entryThe entry "Utah to e-mail crime reports" is tagged: crime , maps , utah
So my ThinkGeek.com newsletter lands in my inbox this morning (what, you don't subscribe?) and I see they're pitching the ultimate in nerd couture. The "8-Bit Dynamic Life Shirt" is designed to recall old-school, 8-bit video games, when your character's health status was measured in pixelated hearts, but really any geek should appreciate these threads. You wear one shirt, and your main squeeze dons the other. As you get closer, the hearts on the chest actually light up. Nerds, your Valentine's Day shopping is over.
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E-mail entryThe entry "Nerd shirt lights up when other nerd approaches" is tagged: 8-bit , shirt , ThinkGeek
How do you announce your presence when you invade a colleague's cubicle? Most of us knock on the wall or make a meaningless noise of the "ahem" variety. But a company called RingDing Electronics apparently hopes to change that with a doorbell that attaches to the wall of your cubicle. Dubbed the CubiCaller, the device costs $15, runs on batteries and lets you select from 12 different rings. I guess I can see the thinking behind this thing, but I'd hate to work at an office where everybody used these things. I find ringing cellphones annoying enough. Doorbells could drive me over the edge.
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E-mail entryThe entry "A doorbell for your cubicle" is tagged: cubicaller , cubicle doorbell
The Fort Worth Museum of Science and History will be offering on February 17 and 23 a hands-on engineering display for students and guests. The display is sponsored by Lockheed Martin and IBM and includes activities like an F-35 computer flight simulator, Lego Mindstorm construction sets and other nifty stuff. Full details below.
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E-mail entryThe entry "Fort Worth Museum of Science entices aspiring engineers" is tagged: engineer , Fort Worth Museum of Science and History , IBm , Lockheed Martin
The new feature doubtless reduces the amount of information you generate online, but privacy advocates complain that Ask still sends partners such as Google (and possibly federal agencies) enough info to track of your searches. As someone who worries little about whether advertisers get a lot of info about me, I can't say Ask Eraser will make me abandon Google, but folks who'd like a bit more privacy may wish to give it a try. Just go to the main Ask site and click at on "Ask Eraser" at the upper right. Other folks may enjoy reading some of the back-and-forth between Ask and its very outraged critics. Here's a combat-laden article from Wired. Here's a Cnet story that says the privacy advocates went a bit overboard with some of their claims.
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E-mail entryThe entry "Ask debuts new privacy feature" is tagged: ask eraser , ask.com , askeraser , google , privacy , search |
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