bees

BeeTV delivers personal TV recommendation system

SAN DIEGO--The TV guide may no longer be necessary.

That's the message a company called BeeTV delivered at DemoFall Monday morning.

The company's platform is essentially a personal TV suggestion engine, the idea of which is to make it easier for people to find the kind of TV content they really want to watch instead of having to pick and choose randomly through the enormous number of movies, shows, games and so forth that are always on.

It's basically a personal content channel, the company says, that is designed to learn from users' behaviors and tastes.

The … Read more

A Chico newspaper decides to "leave Britney alone"

At the time of this writing, a search for "Britney Spears" at news.google.com reveals 23,600 articles. By comparison, Britney's friend, Lindsay Lohan, who appears nude in in this month's issue of New York Magazine, and has also had significant personal drama in the past, has a paltry 4,028 articles currently linked to from Google News.

Last month, David Little, the editor of the Chico Enterprise-Record, decided that he had had enough. In a column published on January 20, titled Sit back and enjoy a Britney blackout, Little announced that "This is the last mention you'll see of Britney Spears in the E-R until Feb. 20. If we find this newspaper can exist without her, we may go even longer." It's now February 21st and the E-R is still running Britney free. I e-mailed Little to find out how long he plans to continue the blackout and will update this blog when I hear from him.

( Update here) In his column David Little describes the impetus for the "Britney blackout:"...an assistant bureau chief for the Associated Press sent out a memo to all Southern California AP reporters. It said: "Now and for the foreseeable future, virtually everything involving Britney is a big deal. That doesn't mean every rumor makes it on the wire. But it does mean that we want to pay attention to what others are reporting and seek to confirm those stories that WE feel warrant the wire."… Read more

Killer Download: Top free CD/DVD burning apps

Just about every computer available these days comes with a CD/DVD burner as part of the package. Whether your primary use for this drive is to make mix CDs for the car, backup data, or burn DVD backups for your movies, you need a good program with the right type of features for the job. Though Windows offers some burning features, you're not going to get the options you'll find in a stand alone app.

There are many paid CD and DVD burning apps to choose from and some of the most popular in this category--like Nero … Read more

Amadana brings back the '70s, in stereo

Japan's Amandana may eventually give the Italians and the Dutch a run for their money in the design department. The brand first got our attention nearly a year ago with a decidedly crushworthy bamboo DVD player, then an all-in-one audio cube and even some cheeky leather land-line phones.

Now it's taking on the retro trend with '70s-style stereo that could be right out of a Marantz catalog at the height of the disco era (but better). It should be noted here that there's good '70s and bad '70s retro, by the way.

Clean lines are an understatement … Read more

Because the world needed a flying bee toy

There obviously aren't enough flying robotic animals in the world, and we surely need more product merchandizing tied to major motion pictures. So we're thrilled to learn of the "FlyTech Barry B. Benson," the official toy based on a character in Dreamworks' Bee Movie.

The toy is billed as "the world's first radio-controlled flying bee" (who knew there was such a demand?) and is naturally made by Wowwee, creator of the "Robosapien"--Hollywood's favorite robot. With its flapping wings, Barry supposedly can reach 18 miles per hour as it maneuvers … Read more

Bomb-detecting bees work for food

Another member joins the anti-terrorism team: working bees.

Bees--or rather, bee tongues--are the olfactory key to the new "Vapor Detection Instrumentation" developed by a company called Inscentinel. The "instrument" detects explosives, cancer, drugs and pretty much anything else that stinks, according to the U.K. company.

Inscentinel uses Pavlovian principles to train the bees, the same way it's done with canines. For every successful sniff of contraband, the little guys are rewarded with food. The bees are taped to the "measurement device," and a camera alerts the operator when they stick their … Read more

When all else fails, read the enemy's mind

Every morning, generals across the world wake up and wonder what the enemy is thinking. Well, it depends: Are they "chicken" or "Rambo"?

That's the bottom line for a new DARPA-funded software program based on the child's game "Capture the Flag." The strategy-predicting software BEE (Behavioral Evolution and Extrapolation) is designed to anticipate enemy actions and deceptions--ideally in time to do something about them.

BEE works by replacing large numbers of combatants with digital avatars on a simulated battlefield, assigning them individual personalities (e.g., alive enemy, injured friendly), factoring in beliefs … Read more

'Armchair Cruisers' are a potato's dream

Sure, we can see some advantages to luxury travel like that envisioned in Boeing's latest VIP binge. But we really hate flying, in case you hadn't noticed, and would much prefer to travel by terra firma, or as much of it that West Coast seismology will allow.

So imagine our barely containable excitement upon seeing the "Armchair Cruiser," the ultimate in personal vehicles. These are no makeshift Barcaloungers on skateboard wheels--check out the photos of the latest "Rumble Bee" model to witness the care in craftsmanship, which explains the price range of $3,995 … Read more

A projector (and price) fit for a museum

Usually, conventional wisdom would hold that image quality is more important than the appearance of the projector itself. But in the case of DreamVision's latest line, it's hard to look beyond the hardware alone.

Sure, it projects in full 1080 HD resolution and uses something called "Direct-Drive Image Light Amplifier" technology that supposedly does away with flickering, according to Shiny Shiny, as well as an external processor for "advanced video source management." But the real eye-catcher is the "DreamBee Pro" projector itself, which looks like a mid-century piece right out of a … Read more