Author Archives: DigiDave

As I’ve posted in the past, I’m a big fan of retro video games. I think all of us are at one point or another. There is a certain awe that comes with gazing at a piece of technology that is 20 years outdated.

My favorite store is in New York’s East Village. They even have a copy of the Nintendo World Championship 1990 Cartridge, which some estimate to be worth over $6,000 (only 90 copies exist).

Keep an eye out for you local retro store. Baseball cards are so 20th century, when I have a son I am going to pass down to him my old video games.

It isn’t easy to keep up with all my RSS feeds. If I go on vacation when I come back I have a virtual bible to read through. With all the content to keep up with it’s hard to go through my RSS feeds in a convenient manner. Luckily there is the rsstroom reader. It prints out, on toilet paper, my rss feeds for the day. Goodbye bathroom books and magazines, when I’m on the pot I’ll be surfing the Internet. Best of all, it’s environmentally friendly, all the paper gets, well…. used.

Next week I plan on winning the lottery. After making all my loans disappear I am going to Geek My Ride.

I have my own personal preference in how my car is going to get tricked out. Chrome 18 inch rims, tinted windows etc. But having a nice car isn’t only about bling anymore. Today a souped-up car has to bring in technology.

I’ll take my pointers from this Boston team of car lovers. Continue reading →

Not too long ago there was an AP story about Wal-Mart and RFID technology. With RFID technology Wal-Mart has found ways to keep stores stocked up in an efficient and productive manner. While that’s great for Wal-Mart it means nothing for smaller business’ because none of them can buy RFID chips and software in bulk packages the way Wal-Mart can. RFID can do a lot for a business (Wal-Mart has proven that), but right now only a mega-business can afford it.

Enter: Open Source RFID
A group RadioActive is the first and only open source platform for RFID applications. Currently in the design stages these applications will allow for RFID technology to reach its fullest
potential. “We have a philosophy that RFID technology..is going to be as big as the Internet where RFID tags are like URLs.

The consequences of an effective open source application for RFID
would be pretty interesting. Here are some things I would do for fun.

On a serious note, it would greatly increase the ability of regular people to have RFID technology (is this a security issue of any kind?). But more practically, open source RFID would help small business’. Now your local hardware store could use the same tech as Wal-Mart, and don’t they deserve the same technological advantages.

Having recently witnessed Nintendo’s 20th anniversary, I’ve gotten into retro gaming. I wander around electronic stores that specialize in 80’s collector gear, be it Atari games, large computer-like systems or accesories like Nintendo’s long-forgotten Power Pad. Perhaps I’m feeling nostalgic, but I find a beauty in their simplicity and planned obsolescence.

Yes, buying classic games and such can be done online for relatively the same prices, but actually going to the retro store, browsing throug their treasure trove of archived games, it’s like going into a techie pirate shop. There is no greater satisfaction like breathing in 20 year old dust off a long lost Atari game.

Instead of going on with this post in an attempt to remind you of your gaming youth, I’ll just direct you all to a great Flickr collection based on 80’s video game advertisments.

A picture is worth 1,000 words.

It is a global village. With Avian flu it has become a global barnyard. But with Sony’s rootkit, well, it’s a less friendly place to compute.
Continue reading →

That’s right, yet another interesting Beta from the company that just won’t quit. We all know about their plan to scan libraries into their database. Some of us even watch the new T.V. show “Google Current” (even though it sucks). But Google just won’t stop stretching. Now it wants to take its adsense program and apply it to print magazines. Can the model that now defines Internet advertising be exported?

I love hearing crazy future Google talk. You know what I mean. People pontificate on the idea that Google will merge with Wal-Mart or buy-out Time Warner. Truth is, it’ll never happen. But it is interesting to see the ways that Google is stretching itself out. Perhaps like the Roman army it will go too far. I mean, it’s one thing to dominate Internet searches and advertising, but to now go to print?

Google print ads seems simple enough. Just find the magazine (or price) that fits what you are looking for, click in your design and poof…..you’re in the paper. Let’s wait and see if it takes off.

The Internet is more than just a place to blog your own personal rants. It has also become the place for hard facts and information when you know how to find it. Problem is, there is just so much out there that it is becoming increasingly difficult to sift through the mud. The post on Wikipedia just a few days ago gets right to the point (although I have a personal hard-on for Wikipedia, the point is well taken).

But there is another field where people go online (almost exclusively) to get information. If you aren’t logging in to get an encyclopedic definition, you are probably getting directions to the airport, party restaurant etc.

But just like online encyclopedias you can’t just take the first site that comes up as the holy grail of online maps. There are tons of mapping services from Google to Mapquest and Yahoo. So what works best? Cartography, a blog dedicated to maps has just finished a 9 part series analyzing which mapping systems work the best under different circumstances. Enjoy and happy traveling.

Pajamas Media is trying to build an association of political bloggers, creating one of the largest business association for bloggers to join and make money. Here is the story for I wrote for Wired.

But here are some details I had to leave out. First off, from my personal interactions with him over the phone, Roger Simon seemed very passionate about this project. While I think its a good thing to try and empower bloggers, I came across a few in the blogosphere that think this is the first step towards the corporatization of the blogosphere, not its empowerment.

Blogs are set to evolve. Pioneers like Nick Denton of Gawker Media have paved the road (and us geeks have made him succesfull at it), but I think in the near future we are going to see a wide variety of platforms all trying to create corporations out of blogging. Pajamas, which will soon change its name, could be a successful one. It certainly has a strong blogroll and is already looking to expand.

One aspect that I find most intriguing was Simon’s intent on actually syndicating blogs to main stream media outlets like the Times. Would the New York Times or a Knight Ridder newspaper actually print material from a blogger? We will have to wait and see.

It’s not just a clever name. Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere is a quick roundup of how the new media force is developing. What’s poignant about this lecture isn’t the analysis but the fact that it has to occur every 6 months; that’s how fast the blogosphere seems to be developing.

In fact there is a new blog created every second. Which means right now there is a brand new blog waiting to be indexed, and now, and now, and now.

But the most interesting part of this State of the Blogosphere is the acknowledgment of Splogs. In the last week many bloggers have been complaining about splogs. As the blogosphere continues to double, it’s difficult to tell how much is real healthy growth and how much are hollow splogs that are keyword stuffing.

I am never amazed at how relentless spammers are. The graph below shows the rate of growth for the blogosphere, but how much is it inflated? More importantly, how will we regulate the blogosphere to make sure content doesn’t get clouded in a haze of splog.

Most of the time natural disasters lie in the back of our minds. But current events have brought them to the forefront. An ongoing theme in the coverage of Katrina and the Pakistani earthquake is the role technology will play in helping cope with disasters like these in the future.

One example is how blogs responded in the aftermath of Katrina (or will respond with future Katrinas), but another theme is with good old fashion gadgets.

A Japanese research firm Oyo has made a gadget that can pinpoint the exact location (and depth) of a person buried alive in a natural disaster.

The gadget works like a radar and bounces off a breathing chest, so even if the person cannot move under rubble, as long as they can breath, this gadget will detect them.

Hopefully we won’t find any use for it soon, but I’m glad to know that energy is being spent in this field.

Punk kids and their spray-paint. Graffiti started in New York in the 80’s as a way for kids to try and create a street persona. Since then it has become synonymous with street gangs claiming territory. But dorks have now redefined what graffiti is with Grafedia.

If you ever come by some blue graffiti it could be a hyperlink. The blue marks on a stop sign have within them instructions. Usually they are a name @ Grafedia dot net. So follow the instructions and go to Grafedia and find the name. Within that name you will find links to video or music content. Their graffiti becomes a means to communicate digital art with you via the real world. Crazy no?