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Remember School House Rock? Schoolhouse Rock was essentially three-minute cartoons, which aired on ABC-TV from 1973 to 1985, and were designed as a catchy way to teach children the fundamentals of government, as well as math, grammar and science. Do you remember the "I'm Just a Bill" they would play to help educate kids on how a bill becomes a law? Ok, does this picture refresh your memory?

How bout this video? It's 2.2MB (compressed from >7MB), so it should be playable after a few moments. By the time you read this sentence, the Flash movie should have started playing, so scroll down and watch the Flash movie, then come back here. I'll be waiting...


Click 'Play' button above and wait a bit for it to download. If video doesn't play, you can play the audio of School House Rock's "I'm Just a Bill" here:


Click 'Play' button above and it should play "I'm Just a Bill" pretty quickly since a small .WAV file. Well, anyway, just last night I came across an interesting news post on Engadget about a new hard drive technology that piqued my interest and enticed me to check out the Flash movie.

Here's what I read on Engadget: (bolded part is what caught my eye)

First Hitachi, then Seagate and Toshiba, now it looks like Fujitsu’s hopped on the perpendicular drive recording bandwagon (dude, that flash movie is obviously having a seriously profound effect on the tech industry), announcing plans for a 200GB 2.5-inch drive by early 2007. Funny, we assumed we’d be seeing 200GB 2.5-inch drives any day now anyhow, can’t you at least try and totally blow us away with some vaporware hyperbole, guys?

[Via The Inq] (Ryan Block) Read more from this post.

(To view the animation you will need the Macromedia Flash plug in.)

Ah, the history of video games. Who hasn't reminisced about the good ole' days of Pong, Pacman, Super Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, Tank, Space Invaders, Asteroids, and all the other classic video games? Have you ever wondered how video games got their start? Have you ever wondered who invented the first video game? Who was responsible for the fond memories of going to local arcade and sticking in $10 into the coin changer and using a single quarter to play a video game?
(Later on it costs $0.50 for many games and some $0.75 or higher). I bet many of us asked our parents "Can I have a quarter, mom? Pleaaazzze?" Yes, begging for a quarter was an acceptable practice and you wouldn't be arrested for vagrancy. I miss the days of playing Pitfall or Adventure on the Atart 2600 or even Dungeons of Daggorath or Zaxxon (first 3D game?) on my TRS-80 Color Computer.

Unfortunately, my parents threw all my video games out along with all the nostalgia that these games bring. Fortunately, I've used some emulators such as MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator) to bring back the nostalgia and memories of my childhood. There's even a MAME version for Microsoft Windows Media Center Edition 2005 called GameEx. I've used it on my home PC hooked up to my 65" TV to play some classic games. I was even able to use my MCE 2005 remote control as a thumbpad to play the games! (Here's a screenshot of accessing the GameEx interface)



Anyway, a friend of mine wrote an interesting book review on the history of video games that also helped bring back the nostalgia of playing video games back in the 70's and 80's. I haven't read the book myself, but reading Evan's excellent book review certainly brought back memories, including the mentioning of the Odyssey video gaming system.

Evan actually received a review copy (pre-published copy) of Ralph Baer's new autobiography, Videogames: In the Beginning ($29.99; see the publisher's web site). In case you didn't know, Ralph Baer is the Father of Video Games. Or at least he thinks he is in his book. That is part of the debate that Evan has in his review of the history of videogames book. Regardless, Ralph Baer is one of the true pioneers behind video games - he helped design some of the earliest ones using his electronics and math background to do so. Although I still hate the design of Evan's site - it's too bland/boring, the content of his website is often very good. His book review of the history of video games is no exception. Go check it out.

Yet another city offering WiFi. Verizon can sue cities until they're blue in the face, but the domino theory is now in effect. Verizon has been attempting to stop Philadelphia from offering WiFi. Well you can add Minneapolis to the list of cities now planning to offer WiFi. Soon other cities will start offering WiFi along with VoIP and soon the evil phone companies will be out of business. <evil laugh> BWAAA HAA HAA! Just kidding.

Check out this news shared courtesy of Greg Galitzine.

"We're looking at creating an umbrella throughout the entire city of Minneapolis," Schiff said. "So if you're on a light rail train and you get on at 46th and you're going downtown you can pull out your lap top and do work, read the paper online and do some things that today you wouldn't be able to do."

WiFi is short for wireless fidelity. The network would consist of wireless access points on city owned buildings and light poles. The winning bidder would assume the upfront cost of the network estimated to be as much as $20 million. The city pays nothing. Schiff said the construction and administrative costs are among the reasons the city decided to not provide the Internet access on its own.

"The technology changes as well slightly," he said. "It's been evolving over the last couple of years. So rather than worrying about creating competition for other companies and competing with the private sector I think leasing it out is the best way we decided to go."

Under the plan, the city of Minneapolis itself would be an anchor tenant for the winning WiFi bidder. Currently the city's communications among employees is run through a patchwork of fiber optic lines and various services. Some city inspectors who provide on-site inspections, for instance, currently have wireless service through Sprint Cellular.

Minneapolis Director of Business Services Bill Beck said the new wireless plan allows all the city's business to come under one service, which is cheaper.

"Those are very costly services for us," he said. "What we will be doing is totally getting out of the business and essentially buying those services from the provider."

St. Paul officials are also discussing their options for WiFi service. Beck said the two cities have had ongoing discussions about making the network more than city-wide.

"Once they have the core capability in place expanding the reach of it is very economical," he said. "So St. Paul is very interested in the possibility that this could be expanded into their city as well."

The Minneapolis plan is different than wireless services in Chaska and Moorhead, where the city owns and operates the system. It's also different from Philadelphia's network run by a separate non-profit organization. In Minneapolis, the entire system would be privately owned and operated.

Esme Vos who runs the Web site muniwireless.com, which monitors cities efforts to provide wireless broadband access, said private systems are easy to start but could have cost down the line. She compares the deal to a cable TV franchise.

"The drawback of that model of course, like the cable model, is that it's a monopoly," she said. "There's only one company that's delivering service."

Vos said without adequate protections, the provider could get away with shoddy service or may have the ability to raise prices at a later time without input from subscribers.

If all goes as planned, the city expects to sign an agreement with the winning bidder by the end of the year. It could be another year after that before the service is available to Minneapolis residents.

One of my 2005 VoIP Predictions seems to be a step closer to becoming reality. I wrote:
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8) Cities become their own phone companies
You will start to see more cities not only offering high-speed wireless broadband using WiMAX and other high-speed wireless technologies, but you will start to see cities offering their own phone services as well. Just think of the loyalty they can build! If I have my choice between paying a private VoIP company based in New Jersey versus paying my local town, heck I'll give the money to my local town. My local town can simply send out an ad in one of those "coupon mailers" that most of us in the country receive and say, "Use us as your phone company and your property taxes will go down." SOLD! End of story. I'd drop my current VoIP provider in a heartbeat! I'd tell my neighbors to join so we could reduce our property taxes and they in turn would tell other neighbors in the town. The old "peer-to-peer" system if you will! : )


I predict if cities wise-up and become their own phone companies, this could be the most revolutionary changes in the telecom industry ever. Instead of a few dozen phone companies you could have thousands of phone companies - with each town being its own phone company.
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First a backgrounder. Back in November, I wrote about how Verizon lobbied to kill Philadelphia's plan to launch city-wide WiFi. Well, according to Reuters, Philadelphia is proceeding with their WiFi plans and will become the largest US Internet hotspot next year under a plan to offer wireless access at about half the cost charged by commercial operators.

Last year, officials unveiled a pilot scheme offering users of WiFi-enabled computers access to the Internet within a radius of about a mile of downtown's Love Park. This past Thursday's announcement expands the network to the city's entire 135-square-mile area, marking a US first.

The network, based on devices attached to city streetlight poles, is expected to cost the city $15 million to set up.


The service will cost subscribers $16 to $20 a month and will be available through a device costing about $80, city chief information officer Dianah Neff said.


The city hopes the plan will get 80 percent of Philadelphia's households connected to the Internet within five years, up from the current level of 58 percent.


City officials estimate it will create 3,000 jobs, mostly by creating the type of city attractive to tech-savvy people who want to be connected to the Internet at all times.

According to Reuters, the plan is opposed by some city lawmakers who say the network will cost more to build than estimated and that the work should be given to telecom companies such as Verizon Communications or Comcast. In other words, city lawmakers are receiving bribes from Verizon and/or Comcast to keep their monopoly. Did I just say that? Ignore the last few sentences.

Gene Kimmelman, senior director for public policy at Consumers Union, a consumer watchdog group, said the plan will provide Internet access to low- and moderate-income communities for about half the rate charged by phone and cable companies, and will break what he called their monopolistic practices.

I couldn't agree with Gene more. Once Philadelphia goes live with their WiFi offering they will be 1 step closer to offering VoIP phone service as well. Then my prediction that cities will become their own phone companies will come true. And then perhaps, just perhaps, one day my town will offer WiFi + VoIP and as as result of the increased revenue they can reduce my property taxes. I can dream can't I?

Google launched a version of Google Local that’s specifically designed for cell phone browsers PDAs, or Smart Phones such a the popular Treo 650. It's similar to Yahoo’s mobile local search, but the integration with Google Maps is pretty cool. Google Local mobile search is pretty simple to use, you simply key in your search term as well as location or zip code and Google sends back a nice compact, mobile-screen-sized Google Map. As with all things Google, this info is free of charge - the one exception is if you pay Google to display Google Ads of course via their Google Adwords program.

While DSL technology has steadily improved resulting in an increased distance from the CO and increased bandwidth, for instance, ADSL2+ has 25Mbps downstream, the news about coax cable improving its throughput has been notably absent - until now. The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) is announcing the successful results of its large-scale field trial at the National Show (see release below).

Conducted by MoCA's founders in 15 cities, the trial validated performance of 100 Mbps in real world condition over typical coax cable. Most highspeed broadband solutions over coax solutions, such as Charter's High Speed Internet max out at 3Mbps or roughly 33X times slower than MoCA. These results evidence MoCA's capabilities as both the highest-speed technology for home networking, and according to MoCA's founders, the only technology field-proven to be capable of transporting multiple HDTV streams.

MoCA's founders are Comcast, EchoStar, Entropic Communications, Motorola, Cisco/Linksys, Panasonic, Radio Shack, and Toshiba.

Here's the release:

MoCA Concludes Successful Field Trials for Home Networking of Digital Entertainment Using Coax

-- Large-scale tests validate performance of 100 Mbps in real world conditions

San Francisco, CA-April 4, 2005- Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) today announced a major step forward with the completion of successful field trials of the core technology to provide networking of digital home entertainment throughout the home on existing coax cabling in cable homes at NCTA - The National Show (Booth 6490 - CableNET). The field trials showed MoCA technology consistently delivered 100 Mbps of usable throughput under real world conditions throughout the home.

The large-scale trial, conducted by MoCA's founders in multiple locations, validated the capabilities of the MoCA technology as both the highest-speed home networking backbone technology and the only one shown in a large-scale field trial as being capable of transporting multiple streams of HDTV. In fact, these results show that even under field conditions, a MoCA network is significantly faster than the stated speed of many competing technologies under favorable lab conditions.

"The field trials demonstrated the MoCA technology provides a tremendous avenue for distribution of digital entertainment and broadband data throughout the home," said Yoshiaki Hirao, Director of Panasonic AVC Liaison Office.

Tests also showed that the core technology provides the level of performance necessary to deliver digital entertainment to every coax outlet in the home, with at least 100 Mbps throughput being delivered to 95% of coax jacks tested. The stringent level of testing makes sure that the high speeds delivered by a MoCA home network are consistently available throughout the home.

"We are pleased with the performance of MoCA technology under the real world conditions found in homes across the USA," stated Carl Vassia, Senior Director, Product Management, Consumer Entertainment Solutions, Motorola Broadband Communications Sector.

MoCA founding members performed multiple tests in over 200 homes and multi-unit dwellings to validate the MoCA technology will meet the requirements set in the Market Requirements Document approved by the MoCA Board of Directors. Entropic Communications' c.LINK technology, the core technology behind the emerging MoCA standard, was used in the field trials.

"The success of the field trials showed the MoCA technology will support the type of advanced digital entertainment services the cable industry envisions for the future," said Mark Francisco, Senior Director of Advanced Technology Products, Comcast New Media Development.

With the completion of the field trial, MoCA will now focus on finalizing technical specifications and a certification process for MoCA products.

"This large-scale field trial demonstrates that MoCA technology can deliver high quality digital entertainment throughout the home in real world conditions," said Ladd Wardani, President of MoCA. "The ultimate beneficiaries of this effort are the product developers, service providers, and end-users who can embrace the MoCA technology with confidence."

MoCA technology was developed from the ground up to address the key requirements for networking digital entertainment: high throughput, quality of service, security, and ease of use.By tapping into the vast amount of unused bandwidth available on coaxial cables installed within homes, MoCA's technology is the only one that can deliver multiple simultaneous streams of HD and DVD quality digital entertainment and high speed data to consumers without glitches or freezes. These field trials evidence the technology's ability to meet these important standards.

MoCA was founded in 2004 by Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO), Comcast (NASDAQ:
CMCSA, CMCSK), EchoStar (NASDAQ: DISH), Entropic Communications, Motorola
(NYSE: MOT), Panasonic (NYSE: MC), Radio Shack (NYSE: RSH), and Toshiba.
###
About MoCA
The Multimedia over Coax Alliance was formed to provide the solution for home networking digital entertainment without compromise. The mission of the alliance is to develop industry specifications and interoperability certification for delivering high bandwidth digital content over in-home coaxial cables. For more information on MoCA, please see www.mocalliance.org.

So you wanna be a journalist eh? Well, these days, just start a blog and you're good to go! Unless of course you're Apple and you don't classify bloggers as journalists. (See Apple suit against blogger) In any case, the good bloggers tend to be great writers and researchers - traits of any good journalist, but do they have the verbal interviewing skills of a no-nonsense, go-getter journalist hound? After all, many bloggers write more words using their keyboard daily than the number of daily words they speak!

Well, someone emailed me an interesting article last week explaining how Skype can be used as a low-cost tool for community media production. The interesting premise goes as follows:

I'm a big fan of the Charlie Rose interview show on public television. Charlie Rose has a knack for drawing people out, getting them to share their ideas and views in a way that illuminates. But did you ever stop to think that the only people who appear on his show are celebrities? And that 99 percent of the interesting people in this world are not celebrities?

So who's going to interview all those people? Answer: the people will interview the people. What tool will they use to do this? Skype. How will these interviews be shared? Over the Internet, via public access television stations, via podcasting and via various computer media.

Now here's a scary thought. This website: "www.RFID2VIN.com" proposes the use of RFID chips that would be left at the scene of "hit and run" accidents. According to their email to me, these unique identifiers would then act as a sort of "automotive DNA," providing the registration information for that particular vehicle.

I perused their website very quickly (could use a web designer IMO) and it appears this involves embedding RFIDs in the paint, bumpers, headlamps, etc. Then when you get into an accident, the RFIDs are dislodged and left at the scene which can be used to determine the car's position at the time of the accident to determine fault, as well as whose car it is in the event of a "hit and run".

I'm sure the ACLU will be all over this...

Scientists have apparently found a "backup" to our DNA. According to the journal Nature, one plant was able to revert to genetic code that doesn't contain a genetic mutation that its parents had, (using a previously unknown "backup" copy method), and it reverted to the genetic code of its grandparents. The authors of the paper theorize that the backup may reside in molecule RNA somewhere and that stress may trigger the genetic reversion. If this turns out to be true in humans as well, not only will we have to rewrite the genetic textbooks, but this could lead to cure of diseases caused by genetic malformities.

According to the article, the finding challenges textbook rules of inheritance, which state that children simply receive combinations of the genes carried by their parents. The principle was famously established by Austrian monk Gregor Mendel in his nineteenth-century studies on pea plants.

The study, published this week in Nature, shows that not all genes are so well behaved. It suggests that plants, and perhaps other organisms including humans, might possess a back-up mechanism that can bypass unhealthy sequences from their parents and revert to the healthier genetic code possessed by their grandparents or great-grandparents.

Pretty amazing that even "nature" keeps backups.

Check out the full article.