Hawaii Transportation Systems Get Digital

Hawaiian Airlines and Island Air now support etickets:

The state's BusLink system is the first use of smart card technology in a bus-only mass transit system in America. How about making a smart-card based SuperFerry pass?

Here's the latest on the $150 million high-tech University of Hawai'i medical school being built in Kaka'ako:

New airship satellites can provide cheaper wireless coverage:

Researchers find a new efficient way to convert water into hydrogen by using high temperature:

Lexar's new super-mini USB flash drive. I hope cameras incorporate this:

Flexible Technology

A neat photo of Hitachi's prototype color epaper, due in 2006:

New pliable solar cells means solar tents, clothing, etc.:

Tokyo U. invents a flexible plastic scanner, perfect for digitizing old and fragile material:

A detailed technical analysis of the BitTorrent file sharing protocol, which consumes 35% of ALL internet traffic:

The smallest P2P application:

Yahoo! Maps now overlays live traffic conditions on its maps. How about antialiasing those map lines first before doing any new, folks?

"When dot-com patents go bad"

About the sale of my old company's patents, which highlights a disturbing trend:

There are so many brands now, they're ignored. Although I design logos, I'm allergic to brands myself:

A nice-looking homemade iPod ad is the first true homebrew ad on the net:

Play twenty questions against this program. You may be surprised at how often it wins:

Technology that helps fight "griefers", or people in online multiplayer games that do nothing but kill and loot, frustrating everyone else. Implications for social systems:

A gamer buys a piece of virtual land for $26,500. I should enter the virtual holy cheese sandwich business:

A dialect map of American English. I had a suspicion that "San Francisco Urban" was a dialect, but didn't know it was official:

A nice series of photos on current life in China:

Construction on the world's tallest tower begins in Dubai, United Arab Emirates:

Self-service USPS stamp machines have been taking people's photos without their knowledge, courtesy of the FAA:

"20 Amazing Facts About Voting in the USA"

Here's one - 80% of all votes in America are counted by two companies:

"The disappearing dollar", by the Economist:

Grisly images of caring for the wounded in Iraq:

A New York art exhibition is stopped after showing a Bush portrait made of images of monkeys:

An Alabama judge wears the Ten Commandments on his robe:

Why the Portland REI store is one of the greenest retail stores in the U.S.:

Precast concrete walls that use recycled material and are up to 50% more energy efficient than regular walls:

Could methane burps result in runaway global warming?

100% corn-based packaging now in use:

Drinking green tea prevents Alzheimer's:

Real Artists Speak Out Against Mediocrity

Famous sci-fi writer Ursula K. Le Guin on how the Sci-Fi Channel turned her Earthsea trilogy into racist dreck:

An oldie but goodie - Pat Metheny on the "out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out" wonder that is Kenny G:

The most hated advertising techniques on the Web - background music causes "visceral reactions" in people:

An article on Web "design usability" that takes up only 20% of the page, surrounded by grievous clutter:

Punk rock flyers from 1982 to 1984:

Czech book covers of the 1920's and 1930's:

The ten most accurately rated artists in rock music history:

A slice of life - 48 favorite (digital) photos:

Create your own mini office cubicle hell with the Cubes plastic figure set:

Clever design by necessity - prisoners' inventions:

Japanese death poems, from a classic Salon article:

Recording Academy members voting for the GRAMMY awards will now be able to listen to all nominated songs in the "Record of the Year" category via iTunes: