From VentureBeat (via Gizmodo) comes this stunning photo of hundreds of people simultaneously photographing the Obamas at the Youth Ball last night.
Interestingly, VentureBeat makes no comment on the sea of cameras. Their article is about how people used the Internet to "experience" this year's Inauguration.
A woman wrote to the Apple Forum to ask, "I took my husband's i-phone and found a raunchy picture of him attached to an e-mail to a woman in his sent e-mail file (a Yahoo account). When I approached him about this (I think that he is cheating on me) he admitted that he took the picture but says that he never sent it to anyone. He claims that he went to the Genius Bar at the local Apple store and they told him that it is an i-phone glitch: that photos sometimes automatically attach themselves to an e-mail address and appear in the sent folder, even though no e-mail was ever sent. Has anyone ever heard of this happening?" This is, of course, followed by a long string of people saying "This does not happen," "I've never heard of such a thing," "He's lying," "Dump him," things like that.
The Phoenix lander has been blogging on Gizmodo as a lead-up to today's final installment -- the lander is going off-line, possibly never to return (excerpt only, tip of the iceberg -- go read the whole thing):
"If you are reading this, then my mission is probably over.
"This final entry is one that I asked be posted after my mission team announces they’ve lost contact with me. Today is that day and I must say good-bye, but I do it in triumph and not in grief.
"As I’ve said before, there’s no other place I’d rather be than here. My mission lasted five months instead of three, and I’m content knowing that I worked hard and accomplished great things during that time. My work here is done, but I leave behind a legacy of images and data. . . .
"So long Earth. I’ll be here to greet the next explorers to arrive, be they robot or human."
I think they could possibly have been a bit more explicit about the intended market for this item. Is this for elderly people? People with degenerative muscle diseases? People who want to erode their crotch into a Ken-like smoothness?
According to Gizmodo, Kim Cattrall (Samantha from "Sex And the City" will be one of the voices that can be downloaded to TomTom GPS devices.
According to the TomTom press release, "In global partnership with Navtones®, Kim Cattrall is the latest celebrity to join the growing line up of celebrity and character voices available for use on devices made by TomTom, the world's leading navigation solutions provider."
Gizmodo opines, "Not only will her voice remind you of that horrible show every time you need to make a turn, but it'll throw in annoying non sequiturs like 'This is the city, darling. Anything goes' or 'Don't touch my Manolos' at random times for added irritation. Why, oh god can anyone tell me why?"
The list of voice downloads for TomTom includes: * John Cleese ("Product contains language that some people may find explicit or offensive.") * Burt Reynolds ("Calm, cool, and irreverent, Burt's a veteran of the street scene.") * Dennis Hopper ("No self-respecting rider/driver would mount up without him, the original king of the road.") and * Mr. T ("Don't be a FOOL! Even if you're not, Mr. T disagrees, as only he could. Obey his directions, or else...")
"Renowned scientist Stephen Hawking is going to unveil a remarkable clock that has no hands and shows time with the help of light.
"Known as the Corpus Clock, the machine has been invented by and designed by Dr John Taylor for Corpus Christi College Cambridge for the exterior of the college's new library building.
"The Clock will be unveiled on 19th September by Stephen Hawking, cosmologist and author of the global bestseller, A Brief History of Time.
"Dr Taylor, an inventor and horologist, has put 500,000 pounds of his own money and seven years into developing the clock, which has been inspired from a design by a clock made by the legendary John Harrison, the pioneer of longitude.
"Of John Harrison's many innovations, he came up with the 'grasshopper escapement, explained Dr Taylor, referring to the device used by Harrison to turn rotational motion into a pendulum motion for timekeeping.
"No one knows how a grasshopper escapement works, so I decided to turn the clock inside out and, instead of making the escapement 35 mm across, it is 1.5 m across, he said.
"He calls the new version of the escapement a Chronophage (time-eater) a fearsome beast which drives the clock, literally eating away time."
YouTube has tons of videos by people in the crowd -- just search for "La Princesse," and you'll find many of them.
Here's the ever-changing Wikipedia entry on La Princesse, including several links to various stories about the event, including a BBC page linking to all their stories and videos about all the "Capital of Culture" events.
This video gives some of the backstory of the spider (known as "La Princesse"), stating that the "scientists" are going to wake up the spider using music, movement and light.
"Yesterday commuters arrived at Liverpool's Lime Street Railway Station to find a gigantic mechanical spider clinging to a derelict building next to the station. A group of French specialist researchers announced that they have been observing the creature, apparently made of steel and wood and a thousand times the size of anything in nature. It appears to be female, around 13 metres tall, and has been dubbed 'La Princesse' by the team. The scientists believe the creature may be about to hibernate, and are attempting to prevent it falling into an inert state, as they are concerned at the potentially catastrophic results of the spider laying up to 1000 eggs. Scientists have therefore removed the spider from the building and taken it to a research base established at the ACC, at Albert Dock in Liverpool. On Friday 5th September it is expected that they will attempt to wake it, under controlled conditions, at 11:30am."
And here is video from the BBC of La Princesse starting to walk through the streets of Liverpool (which can be linked to but not embedded). Here's the same video on the BBC player (better quality picture, but the player doesn't work for everyone). Here also is another BBC story from earlier today.
The European Capital of Culture is a city chosen by the European Union to spend a year showing off its arts and culture. For 2008, the city chosen was Liverpool
A fifty-foot mechanical spider has been hanging from Concourse House. Thursday evening, it will be moved to Liverpool's new arena, and on Friday, it will come to life and "explore the city."
According to a BBC story, "It will form part of a huge piece of street theatre throughout the city at various landmarks, culminating in what organisers are calling a 'spectacular finish' on Sunday.Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to flock to Liverpool to get a glimpse of the mechanical beast."
Artichoke was responsible for "The Sultan's Elephant," a theatrical event in the streets of London in 2006 in which a "vast, time-travelling mechanical elephant, and a giant girl, twenty feet high" that "visited the capital for four days, delighting up to a million onlookers."
La Machine's site also has an extremely large and detailed photo of the spider.
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