News.com Extra

Writers over at CNET News.com's sister site TechRepublic have a highly developed sense of sass, which they're gleefully applying to movie reviews and in-depth commentary on the cultural thicket surrounding tech producers and IT types.

This week they've rounded up remarks on the summer's best movies for geeks. Technologically-updated nostalgia (Speed Racer), favorite video games (Hellboy 2), and adorable post-apocalyptic robots (Wall-E) are all contenders.

Make your own forecast at "Rundown: Geek movies of summer 2008"

Question: What kind of machines do Google's thousands of engineers use? Which OS? And how do they keep a gigantic infrastructure protected from security risks, without impairing their famous creativity?

Answers: Several, numerous, and some sound planning ahead.

Read the interview with Google CTO Douglas Merrill at The Wall Street Journal: "Pleasing Google's Tech-Savvy Staff"

Japanese satellite Ajisai

(Credit: JAXA)

Secure quantum communication apparently demands some mighty groovy dance floor decor. With its spherical array of 318 mirrors, the Japanese satellite "Ajisai" looks exactly like a humongous disco ball. ("Ajisai" means "hydrangea," which is a lovely spherical flower. Why it wasn't named "mira bo-ru," or "mirror ball," is unknown; perhaps its engineers had a more refined aesthetic sense than Yours Truly's.)

Ajisai's mirrors aid in mapping the precise locations of isolated archipelagos and other terrestrial features like crustal movement. They have the additional benefit of looking really cool, as you can see in this photo from Japan's space agency.

Wednesday's Ars Technica reports that the disco ball satellite is also proving useful in determining variations in our planet's gravitational field. But its most unexpected application turns out to be in the field of encrypted quantum communications, which requires a satellite to detect (and reflect) packets of single photons sent from Earth.

Read more about those photon packets at Ars Technica: "Mirror balls in space lead to quantum communications advance"

The oldest surviving satellite turned 50 years old Monday. It's traveled more than 6 billion miles over the years, it's only as big as a grapefruit, it's solar-powered, and it has played a central role in studying the Earth since its launch in 1958. Should it stay in orbit for sentimental or teaching reasons, or should it be retrieved and installed in a museum?

Read the full report on MSNBC: "Satellite turns 50 years old...in orbit!"

We couldn't resist passing along these examples of horribly executed sound design: Wired ran a blog on Monday that outs all the poorly manufactured talking toys that end up sounding like they're saying evil, vile, or otherwise inappropriately suggestive things to their young masters.

It's kind of like watching "America's Scariest Serial Offenders," but with Furby instead of Charles Manson.

Read the roundup and watch the videos on Wired: "Attack of the Trash-Talking Toys: Nine of the Nastiest"

In a field known for instantaneous response and constant updating, what really stands the test of time? Whose technology writing will make it into the collective unconscious, defining a whole generation's relationship to inventions and improvements? Newsweek's editor in charge of the Technologist column takes on this question in a book analyzing and ranking tech coverage.

Read the full review on Ars Technica: "Ars Book Reviews: The Best of Technology Writing 2007"

What's half deer, half dog, and half robot? Give up? It's Boston Dynamics' DARPA-funded "BigDog," a four-legged, all-terrain creature designed to go anywhere, carry heavy loads, and, presumably, perform dangerous tasks.

Watch the video on Gizmodo of the BigDog prancing its way up a wooded hillside, regaining its footing on icy asphalt, and clambering over obstacles: "New Video of BigDog Quadruped Robot Is So Stunning It's Spooky"

Was Steve Jobs right when he said, in critiquing the Kindle Reader, that people just don't read anymore? Well, no, as it happens. According to a recent study, there's no drop in people reading. There's just a decline in people reading print media. People of all ages seem to be gravitating to online news, commentary, and fiction.

What are some other trends affecting the way people find engaging, useful content? Read the full story on Read Write Web: "Steve Jobs was only half right: People do read--even kids--they just do it online"

Just about every day brings new advances in using computers to customize medical treatments. How are chips and bodies interfacing to change disease treatment, repair damaged brain tissue, and even manufacture micro-specialized drugs to be released directly into the bloodstream?

Read the full story on MSNBC: "The future of biomedicine: virtual humans"

You might already know what your DNA looks like, at least approximately, but what about your RNA and the enzyme that crawls along each strand, determining its precise length? Never thought about that, did you? The "Design for the Elastic Mind" exhibit at MOMA in New York did. The program is displaying a handful of new films depicting the micro-details of your innermost cell life. Designed for science classrooms, the films make use of beautifully rendered digital images, and are a mighty far cry from the "film strips" of yore.

Now you can be at least as caught up as a grade-schooler. Check out the images and notes on science fiction blog i09: "Macrophages Squirming Along the Outside of Your Capillaries"