Most of you probably still remember what a Polaroid camera was, but I suspect that many of today’s tweens and even teens probably don’t. With the rise of the digital camera, Polaroids quickly faded into nonexistence. Strangely enough there actually hasn’t been anything that really takes its place, at least when producing near-instant pictures from the camera itself. Sure, you can buy a portable printer for peanuts these days, but it still isn’t quite the same. Well guess what folks, the Polaroid instant camera  is back, and updated for the digital age.

It seems only fitting that Polaroid be the company that rolls out a digital camera that can print instant pictures. The new Polaroid PoGo combines the best of the new and old. On one hand, it’s a regular digital camera with all of the usual benefits like an LCD screen and the ability to perform quick edits. Once you’re happy with the shot, just press a button and in 40 seconds you have yourself a 2”x3” picture to hand off to someone. The special paper is called Zink (short for Zero Ink) and is touted as “smudge-proof, water-resistant, fade-resistant and tear-proof.” You can pick up the camera for around $200, while the Zink paper can be bought in packs of 30 for $13.

[ Amazon ] VIA [ Technabob ]

The Iraqi television reporter who threw his shoes at President George
W. Bush at a news conference appeared before a judge Tuesday and
admitted “aggression against a president,” a judicial spokesman said.
The court may send him for trial under a clause in the Iraqi penal code
that makes it an offense to attempt to murder Iraqi or foreign
presidents

Read More

The closure of a web hosting firm that is believed to have had spam gangs as clients has led to a

drastic reduction in junk mail.

Two US internet service providers have pulled the plug on the firm McColo following an investigation by the Washington Post newspaper.

Anti-spam firm Ironport has seen junk mail levels drop by 70% since McColo was taken offline on 11 November.

But, it warned, it will be a temporary respite from the menace of spam.

“It is an unprecedented drop but will be a temporary outage as the networks move from North America to places where there is less scrutiny,” said Jason Steer, a spokesman for Ironport.

The Washington Post has been gathering data on McColo for the past four months and passed the information

to its internet service providers, Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric.

Both decided to pull the plug on the firm on Tuesday.

It is believed that it hosted gangs running botnets – networks of computers that have been taken over by criminals to send malicious software and spam.

According to MessageLabs, botnets are responsible for over 90% of spam.

Increasingly the tech industry is fighting back.

“All the US internet peering companies are under much more scrutiny. The authorities and the internet

community have woken up to the problem,” said Mr Steer.

But while it might make criminals think more carefully about what they do, it will not stop them, he thinks.

“Spam levels will come back to normal as we build up to Thanksgiving and Christmas,” he said.

A recent study by computer scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) found that spammers manage to turn a profit despite only getting one response to every 12.5m emails they send.

This Article Taken from BBC TECHNOLOGY

If you haven’t heard you probably live in a bomb shelter like we all should be, but Apple announced a new generation of iPod nanos yesterday at their “Let’s Rock Out With Our Mac Loving Cocks Out” event in San Francisco. The new nano is thinner, curvier, and comes in a bunch of different colors, as well as 8GB and 16GB capacities. It also has an accelerometer so you can shake it to shuffle your songs and turn it sideways for a wide-screen experience. The device has the new ‘Genius’ feature as well, meaning it can create playlists by finding songs in your library that go well together. Neato. 8GB’s are $150, 16GB’s are $200, and I’ll throw in some hand action for another $10. Toothless smiles are always free.

Official commercial:

Yes this is the latest in Dwarf news, apparently BBC Worldwide wants to
make a one hour special of the boys on the Dwarf, and who am I to say
otherwise. No story spoiler here and the script is close to being
finalized, so here’s to new Red Dwarf.

At the KTCS9 20th Anniversary evening tonight, Robert announced to a small crowd that a brand new, 1 hour Red Dwarf episode had been commissioned by BBC Worldwide, to be filmed in October 2008.

He wouldn’t spoil the storyline, but did mention that the script is being finalized right now.

I was in the audience, it was a good night, with not too many people, and plenty of chances for questions.

It was recorded by KTCS9 for a future DVD.

Thanks Robert, I enjoyed the evening and your Kochanski walk.