filters

This free browser works, but doesn't offer users any compelling reasons to replace their current program. GreenBrowser is set up in the basic style of popular browsers like Firefox and Internet Explorer.

The good news for new users is how intuitive the buttons feel and how quickly anyone familiar with those systems can adapt to GreenBrowser. Its homepage offers a variety of links to entertainment, technology, and news sites. The program also touts "special" features to auto-fill forms and prevent ads, but these have become standard in many browsers.

While GreenBrowser searched for sites and functioned properly, … Read more

I always believed the future to be a wonderful place filled with lots of flying things and robots who enjoyed working for humanity. While much of that hasn't happened, at least our food hasn't turned into bland tasteless pellets that we consume once a day for all of our nutritional needs. That would be a very bleak future indeed. While we may not be flying around in jet packs just yet, we still have a rich and diverse food culture that seems to have no end. If there were a future in which we all had to eat … Read more

By now everyone should have the new Facebook, a redesign the company is touting as a leap forward from the previous version. In case you missed Rafe's hands-on with it last week, and our report from the press briefing the week before, the gist is that you can now filter the flow of information by groups of friends, and by application. The problem is that as a main feature, the application filtering isn't quite polished--and it shows.

Instead of putting all the information into one big stream and letting users pick how much of each type of news … Read more

Ahoy, GPS-stranded motorist. Stop banging the dashboard, and consider this timely reincarnation of dead reckoning to help you find your way out of "GPS-denied environments," or at least alert others to where you can be found.

Seer Technology is offering a miniature, self-contained, electronic navigation unit called NaviSeer that mixes GPS and DR in a complex gumbo of hardware and proprietary algorithms to deliver user location in real time.

It does this by blending the output from three gyros, three accelerometers (one at each axis,) a magnetometer, and a baro altimeter, and then running it through a Kalman filter.

The result: coordinates accurate to within less than a yard, according to Seer. And no, it "does not require sensors to be worn on the legs or feet."… Read more

Let's be clear: we don't know how to cook a Mammoth. But Natali would like to know, because apparently she eats her pets. That is not true at all. But what is true is Google turned the whole Internet into malware this weekend. And that we can tell you why. And will. So listen in.

Google flags whole Internet as malware http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/31/google-flags-whole-internet-as-malware/ http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/01/google-broke-the-internet-malware-detector-went-haywire.ars http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10153942-92.html

Gmail spam filters broken http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/this-mornings-spam-filter-issue.html… Read more

Jumping through the preinstall registration hurdles may turn off some users, but those extra steps demonstrate this user-monitoring utility's attention to detail.

Sentry Total Family Protection is a client-server based application for filtering and monitoring PC use--ostensibly to protect children and other family members from visiting inappropriate sites or making inappropriate connections through IM and other methods. All settings and logs are accessible through the developer's Web-based control panel. The application's link requires you to register before you even download the executable, and installation is a multistep process involving a system reboot, so many users may get … Read more

This snooping utility provides almost all the features essential for monitoring a PC, but we were especially impressed with its stealthiness. System Surveillance Pro logs keystrokes, IM chats, applications used, and Web sites visited, and can capture screenshots at user-defined periodic intervals.

The interface makes it easy to locate any log file you need to access. System Surveillance Pro can block Web sites via URLs or detected keywords, and includes a scheduler in case you don't need to monitor PC usage at all times. Like most respectable spying applications, it will send you e-mail reports so you can keep … Read more

I didn't attend the Web 2.0 Expo in New York last year, and so the exceptional keynote speech of Clay Shirky, a New York University new-media professor, writer, and consultant on the social and economic effects of Internet technologies.

The keynote, "It's not information overload. It's filter failure," is an insightful exploration of Internet economics and an intelligent response to Nick Carr's "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" argument.

If you haven't watched it, you must. It does more to explain the dearth of effective information filters that we wade through today. It has application to open source (180,000-plus projects on SourceForge, but which are useful?), but far broader implications.

You can watch it here:

But here is where he lays out the crux of the problem, which I've transcribed:

The other problem that Gutenberg introduced into intellectual life was the problem of risk. If you owned a printing press, you could make money, if people bought your books, but you could lose money if people (didn't) buy your books. And since you had to print the books in advance, you were taking on all the risk of whether or not those books would sell....This is the problem of publishing.

The economic solution was pretty simple: make the publisher responsible for filtering for quality. There's no obvious reason that someone (who) is good at running a printing press also ought to be good at figuring out (which) books to print.

But the economic logic of print in advance, then sell it--high up-front cost and then recoup when you reach the people--that economic logic has come to mean that the word "publisher" has come to mean two things: people who decide what to publish and people who do the publishing.… Read more

With online video and audio becoming more popular every day, most have experienced the frustration of not getting a podcast or video to work because of codec issues. Fortunately, this little utility helps let you know what's installed on your machine.

InstalledCodec offers a basic functionality: It lists all the codec drivers and Direct Show filters currently installed on your system. The interface isn't flashy or ostentatiously designed, but simply a functional pane that lists items according to a variety of categories. These categories include the driver or filter's name, type, whether it's disabled, its install … Read more