Microsoft Research’s new “sphere” display, is being shown today at Microsoft’s Faculty Summit, according to the Seattle P-I.  It is purely a research development, not yet envisioned as a product.  See the article for a video demonstration.

The idea is to see what the technology can do, and how people will use it.  People can touch the surface with multiple fingers and hands to manipulate photos, play games, spin a virtual globe, or watch 360-degree videos.

“It’s really an exploration of ideas,” explained Hrvoje Benko, the Microsoft researcher spearheading the project, during a sneak preview Monday afternoon.

Sphere is a “cousin” of the Microsoft Surface tabletop computer, already being used in some retail and hospitality settings.

I confess that not being a professional IT-type, I don’t always pay enough attention to some issues I should notice.  I first became aware of DNS vulnerability and the OpenDNS solution reading this post a few days ago.

The recommendation was to start using OpenDNS because it is free, it speeds web surfing a bit, and it helps protect you against phishing and other nasty stuff.

Then when I saw Lifehacker’s post today, I got a bit more of a kick-start from its links to a place where one can check one’s own DNS server (see image from my test) and also to get a tutorial from Webmonkey on how to set up OpenDNS.

Yes, web surfers, we should all be paying attention.  Despite being largely transparent, the DNS system is not without its problems, says the Webmonkey post.

A recent flaw allowed the attacker to fool a DNS server into redirecting web surfers to malicious web sites.  A patch was developed, but how do you know your ISP has applied the patch?  You can bypass your ISP’s DNS server and use a service like OpenDNS.

Lifehacker editors’ favorite apps
Various LH editors talk about the tech they use, including the “basics,” hardware, peripherals, and webapps.

It is an interesting list, even though most of us don’t build our own hardware.

30+ tools for synching files and folders
A Mashable post lists tools for synching digital information on desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and PDA’s.

The list of file synchronization tools is in three main categories: open source, freeware, and commercial. The tools are not data backup solutions. “File synchronization means that when you add, change, or delete a file from one location, the program will perform the same operation at the other location. Hence each copy of the data is the latest copy.”

Includes Open Source Software, Freeware Apps, Commercial Software, and Beta Software.

100+ RSS tools
iLibrarian points to The Ultimate RSS Toolset: 100+ Online Apps and Resources from OEDb.

Categories inclue:

• Readers
• Personalized Homepages
• Browser Extensions
• Blog Tools and Plugins
• RSS Directories
• Mobile Tools
• RSS Email Tools
• Feed Validators
• RSS Feed Editors
• IM RSS Tools
• Miscellaneous Tools

A new search engine named Cuil, an old Irish word for knowledge, was introduced today.  Wikipedia says the word is pronounced like “cool.”  There is already a brief entry about the search engine.

Cuil claims to search more pages on the Web than anyone else — three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.  Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance.

“When we find a page with your keywords, we stay on that page and analyze the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency,” states the engine’s “about” page.

Cuil’s goal, they say, is to solve the two great problems of search: how to index the whole Internet — not just part of it — and how to analyze and sort out its pages so you get relevant results.

It has some interesting features such as drilldowns, roll-over definitions, tabs, and more.  You can see an example of a search on “libraries” in the image below.

There are, of course, some early blog reactions.  For example, Slashdot, Quick Online Tips, and TechCrunch.

A huge collection of historic photographs, film and video is available to the public for the first time as NASA partners with the non-profit Internet Archive (press release), according to an article in PC Authority.

Twenty-one major Nasa imagery collections are merged into a single searchable online resource.   The content of the site covers all the diverse activities of America’s space program, including imagery from the Apollo missions, Hubble Space Telescope views of the universe and experimental aircraft past and present.  Mouse over the timeline and its clickable images to get a quick historic overview.

For those interested in using some of the images, especially for educational purposes, check out the Terms of use:  “The NASA imagery offered on NASAIMAGES.ORG is generally not copyrighted.  You may use this NASA imagery for educational or informational purposes, including photo collections, textbooks, public exhibits and Internet Web pages (personal or otherwise).”  Read about use for commercial purposes or use of images containing identifiable people, if applicable.  [via Slashdot]

I read about this source at Librarian in Black and have been enjoying exploring its features.

FictionDB has a searchable database of 50,000 book lists and 200,000 titles which can be searched free in a number of ways.  Simple title, author, genre, and series searches should be expected, but the addition of summaries, reviews, new release information, and links to other sites of interest to fiction readers are bonuses.

FictionDB also has a subscription option for $29.99/year that opens “premium” features such as advanced searching, your own bookshelf, wishlist, archive, and access to book buying and selling.  You can sign up for a free trial to see what works best for your situation.  Check out the FAQ and the Blog.

Google’s “Knol” is now open to everyone, The Official Google Blog announced yesterday.

The idea is to help capture the expertise residing in people’s heads and provide a place for them to author a variety of articles.  For instance, early entries range from “How to Backpack” to information about lung cancer from a thoracic surgeon.  Authorship is known and those who would like to make contributions or edits may make their suggestions to the author, who retains control.  Google is calling this “moderated collaboration.”

Google also has done a deal with the New Yorker which allows any author to add one cartoon per knol from the magazine’s extensive repository.

Knol says it offers:

• Ease of use — All you need is an account, a name and a desire to write and we’ll take care of the rest.
• Control — You specify the level of collaboration you want with the community. Your knol, your voice.
• Community — You can connect with other experts in your area of interest to share and grow knowledge.
• Visibility — We value and promote authorship. Great content will be visible on any search engine.
• Growth — Sharing your knowledge with the world is rewarding for everyone.

Originally passed by Congress and signed into law in 1998, COPA was supposed to protect children from “harmful” Internet content.  The wording of the law was very broad and would have required website operators to implement a number of measures to enforce “contemporary community standards,” reports Ars Technica.  According to the ACLU blog, it would have even barred adults from seeing material that was not appropriate for a child and would have affected, among other things, the online availability of sexual health information.

The law has been struck down again and again and never enforced in its 10 years of existence.  For instance, in 2007, the District Court ruled it unconstitutional.  It found that COPA violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, ruling that “COPA prohibits much more speech than is necessary to further Congress’ compelling interest.”  The government appealed once again, bringing us to yesterday’s development.

“In a unanimous decision, the court ruled (PDF) that COPA was ‘not narrowly tailored’ enough to serve the government’s goal of protecting children from content on the Internet, it was not the least restrictive means available, and was substantially overbroad.

The government now has the same decision to make as it has many times in the past: whether to appeal to the Supreme Court (again), or let it die.  It wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see the case appealed one last time.”  Enough already!

Another new feature for Google Maps: get walking directions for fairly short trips and Google Maps will try to find you a route that’s direct, flat, and uses pedestrian pathways when they know about them.

The app is in Beta since there are naturally some unknowns, such as whether sidewalks or pedestrian bridges are available.  You are reminded to use caution.  But there is an advantage in many places because driving directions will attempt to guide you the right way when one-way streets exist.  That is a factor that walkers don’t need to consider.

Google Operating System Blog offers this tip:  if you only see driving directions, copy the permalink of the page by clicking on “Link to this page”, append &dirflg=w and paste the new URL in the address bar.

Directions can be printed, emailed, bookmarked or embedded in a site.  You can also save them as a custom map,  just click on “Link to this page”, copy the link, add &output=kml at the end and then create a new map in the My Maps tab by importing the KML file.

If you’ve been watching the development of free online office suites but haven’t left your desk-top based product (e.g., Microsoft Office) yet, you’ll find Computerworld’s reviews of three popular online office suites instructive.  Office suites typically include at least word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps.

Three major competitors in the field — Google Docs, ThinkFree, and Zoho — have all made major moves in recent months, significantly improving the products by adding more applications, features, and functionality.

But how do they shape up against desktop suites like Microsoft Office, known primarily for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications?

“While Google Docs, ThinkFree and Zoho vary in the breadth of the applications they offer, their features and their usability, they are all capable of doing real, useful work. They do what you expect of productivity apps — create documents, spreadsheets and presentations — in sophisticated fashion,” says reviewer David DeJean.  Developments in open source, AJAX, and browsers have helped online suites to compete.

A really big advantage is that all three are free and offer free storage space, as well. Since they work in a Web browser, they also work across different platforms.  It doesn’t matter whether you create, view, or use them with PCs, Mac’s, or a Linux box. Since they are designed with collaboration and sharing in mind, that is especially important.

Computerworld reviews the three online suites’ capabilities as word processors, spreadsheets, presentations, and how they “leverage the web.”  Each product has its strengths, although they have developed from different points of view.

There is no clear winner here, but the reviewer concludes, “Web-based productivity suites have made a transition. While at first they simply imitated desktop applications in a Web browser, the current versions add features that begin to integrate the social computing features of the Web. At the same time, they’ve begun to grow away from simply imitating Microsoft Office to developing personalities of their own.”  Check out the article for details.  [via Slashdot]