mrcgran writes "Space.com reports, "Almost one month after Japan's successful launch of the Kaguya lunar probe, the unmanned observatory has begun its first major activities in orbit around the moon. In addition to snapping its first lunar images, the probe jettisoned one of two 110-pound (50-kilogram) "baby" satellites that will help create a detailed gravity map of the moon." The major objectives of the "KAGUYA" mission are to obtain scientific data of the lunar origin and evolution and to develop the technology for the future lunar exploration. "KAGUYA" consists of a main orbiting satellite at about 100km altitude and two small satellites (Relay Satellite and VRAD Satellite) in polar orbit."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By placing ads on its pages, eBay was able to make approximately $76 million in revenue during the second quarter of this year. However, in doing so, eBay has drawn the ire of it sellers, who complain that the ads distract buyers from placing bids on their listings. eBay claims that their analysis shows that the advertising on the site "does not get in the way of people who intend to buy or sell items on the site." Considering that eBay's advertising revenue has doubled in 2007 as compared to 2006, the ads are a good way to monetize traffic that does not end up making a purchase. Furthermore, since the ads are contextual, eBay argues that the product experience is improved since the ads are relevant to the user's query. eBay's findings make sense; if a buyer really is interested in placing a bid, it seems quite unlikely that they would be derailed simply by viewing an ad. In any case, sellers are not convinced; they continue to fear that the ads distract potential buyers, despite not having any studies that indicate such a trend. Perhaps this fear is actually symptomatic of the true problem that eBay is facing today: sellers are no longer ecstatic to be on eBay. And, there's data to back that hypothesis up: the number of items listed in the second quarter of this year was 2 percent lower than the previous year.

As a teaser for Maker Faire Austin, October 20-21, MAKE: bloggers Phillip Torrone and Bre Pettis created a delightful old-timey short film about the upcoming DIY extravaganza. Take a gander at "Adventures In Time" starring Baron Von PT and Brebot.
Link to video, Link to Maker Faire site

The winners of the Nikon Small World photography contest have been announced and they are breathtaking. Seen here is the 1st Place winner, "Double transgenic mouse embryo, 18.5 days (17x)," taken by Gloria Kwon of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute. To create the image, she used brightfield, darkfield, and fluorescence (GFP and RFP) microscopy techniques.
Link (Thanks, Mike Liebhold!)

Previously on BB:
• Scientists: Nikon wants your tiny photos Link
• Small World photo winner 2004 Link
• Photos through a microscope contest winners 2005 Link
• Micropolitan Museum of Microscopy Link

TaeKwonDood writes "We all know language has evolved but mathematicians are trying to take how it has changed in the past to predict what it will be like in the future." From the article: "Mathematical analysis of this linguistic evolution reveals that irregular verb conjugations behave in an extremely regular way -- one that can yield predictions and insights into the future stages of a verb's evolutionary trajectory," says Lieberman, a graduate student in applied mathematics in Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and an affiliate of Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. "We measured something no one really thought could be measured, and got a striking and beautiful result.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Markus Kison's VanityRing is a prototype ring that displays how many hits you get when you search for the name of the wearer. (Or anything else you type into Google, I presume.) Kison says it's an "update of the ring as a status symbol." Now, if it displayed the wearer's Twitter updates, it would be a real status symbol. The project page also contains a demo video. From the VanityRing page:

Rings are well known status symbols, and the included jewel's weight in carat is a comparable value for the personal ranking of its owner (the largest two diamonds are in the British crown jewels). The VanityRing doesn't have a jewel, instead it shows the number of hits one gets, when he searches Google for the name of the person who wears it, a more adequate value in our time. It is personalized using a custom software, and after the name is typed the ring will change its display to show the personal "attention carats", while every night, when it is inserted into its docking station the ring is reloaded and updated.

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

Last week, in writing about how Viacom boss Philippe Dauman appeared to be wrong on almost every one of his assumptions about the trends and economics facing his business, someone challenged my thoughts in the comments, saying something to the effect of that it is "illegal interrupt a business model." That's a laughable statement -- but it seems to be one that pervades many of the stories we write about on Techdirt. Rather than recognizing that markets change, many companies seem to think that there's something illegal about changing the model a market works on, just because it makes it harder for them to make money -- even if it actually improves things for everyone else. Reader tom mcmillan writes in to point to a blog post that does a great job making this point, sarcastically referring to the practice as claiming "felony interference with a business model." The point, of course, is that there's nothing illegal about interfering with a business model. It's called competition and both history and economics has shown that it tends to not just lead to better products for consumers, but also opens up new markets for producers to make even more money. If interfering with a business model was illegal, any competition would be illegal.

Teresa, Boing Boing's community manager says:

If you've been unable to register as a user at Boing Boing, you're not alone. Apparently there was an error in our platform that kept some registrants from getting their e-mail confirmations. This state of affairs ran from Friday, October 5, through Monday, October 8.

Sorry about that.

Anyway, it's fixed now. If you tried to register while the problem was in force, you'll automatically be receiving your notification when we get our script running, so there's no need to re-register. In fact, if you try to re-register now, our software will tell you that your username is already taken -- which it is, only we haven't sent you your confirmation yet.

The notifications will be sent from noreply@boingboing.net.

Monte Beauchamp's Blab! art show is coming to St. Louis. The show opens at 6pm on October 12, 2007.

Philip Slein Gallery
1319 Washington Avenue
Saint Louis MO 63103

BLAB! is an annual coffee-table publication and showcase of fine arts, illustration, and sequential art, and a gold-standard in the world of the professional visual arts. Many of BLAB!'s contributors through the years have gone onto huge success in the gallery world.

The artists in this exhibition include: Gary Baseman, Greg Clarke, Drew Friedman, Fred Stonehouse, Travis Louie, Tom Huck, Ryan Heshka, Esther Pearl Watson, Teresa James, Chris Pyle, Walter Minus, Laura Levine, Richard Beard, Travis Lampe, Kevin Scalzo

(Shown here: "Saul," by Travis Louie) Link

Stony Stevenson writes "Security accounted for 20 percent of technology spending last year and it's expected to rise, according to a report released Tuesday. The Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) surveyed 1,070 organisations and found that on average, they spent one-fifth of their technology budgets on security-related spending in 2006. That's up from the 15 percent of IT budgets spent on security in 2005, and the 12 percent spent in 2004."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's a pretty common refrain from folks who are against patent reform that all the problems of the patent system could be easily solved by hiring some more patent examiners. Even some people who do support patent reform think that hiring more examiners would help deal with the problems of the systems. Last week, the GAO, who we often agree with in its analysis, came out with a report also suggesting that hiring more patent examiners, and now existing patent examiners are agreeing with the analysis. The problem, though, is that this hides the real issue. The patent office isn't inundated with such a huge backlog of patents because it doesn't have enough patent examiners -- but because the system is fundamentally broken. As the courts have continually expanded the reach (and value) of patents, it's simply encouraged more and more applications to be filed, no matter how ridiculous. Hiring more patent examiners doesn't solve that. The real trick to solving the problems the patent office is facing is in realizing that patent examiners don't scale. You don't just hire more as more patents are being filed -- you figure out why more patents are being filed and if there's a better way to do things. That means looking at the fundamental nature of the patent system and realizing how far the current patent system has drifted from those ideals -- and then solving those problems. If they did that, they'd realize that they probably don't need more patent examiners -- they just need a better patent system.

apsmith writes "About a year ago some of the people at the US National Security Space Office began looking into space-based solar power (SBSP) as a technology in the near-term strategic interests of the United States. At first the participants were skeptical, and the "phase 0 study" went along with no official funding. In a rather innovative move, they organized the study as a series of internet-based (bulletin-board and email) discussions, with the wordpress site open to the public, and a closed experts-only discussion using Google Groups. Initially expecting only a dozen or so interested parties, the discussion grew to include over 170 people with past expertise and interest in the issues. The final report was released Wednesday morning; it provides an excellent broad-brush review of the status of SBSP, showing immense potential, but also a number of challenges that appear only surmountable with a strong government commitment to the project. The big question is where it goes from here — NASA? DARPA? The new ARPA-E? Or something new? I was able to attend the press conference, which included Buzz Aldrin in an announcement of a new alliance to push for implementing the recommendations of the report."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Big Happy Funhouse posted this photo of Father Rolaids and Mother Tums' CB Radio card. They were the life of Channel 20 on Mondays in North Bend, Oregon. Link

Unica Home is taking pre-sales orders on the long-out-of-production Diana camera, due later this month. The price is $50.

They are back! The Diana, considered a toy by some and the simplest camera by art school students is making a comeback. Unsophisticated at best, the Diana has been out of production for over 25 years. We have them once again. Explore your inner art school studentî with a new Diana!"

Originally produced by the Great Wall Plastic Factory in Hong Kong in the 1960's the Diana has become a cult classic, known for producing soft and dreamy images due to light leakage. Given away by Reader's Digest as a freebie, the Diana has been out of production for almost 35 years. A light, inexpensive medium (120 film) format camera, the "new" Diana has 4 f-stops and comes with a booklet, camera strap and lens cover. An additional change is that the camera has a removable lens, allowing for pinhole camera action!

Link (Via Bedazzled)

kurmudgeon writes "The Register is fielding reader tips that Hotmail has placed Draconian limits on the number of Hotmail recipients who can receive an email. The first 10 Hotmail addresses included in a mass email go through just fine, according to these reports. But any additional addresses are returned to sender with a message that reads: "552 Too many recipients." (Microsoft denies it has placed any such restriction on the number of senders.) This would appear to be a violation of RFC 2821, which states: "Rejection of messages (for excessive recipients) with fewer than 100 RCPT commands is a violation of this specification."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apparently the maker of the famed Aeron chair, Herman Miller, has joined Second Life... and discovered that there were virtual Aeron chairs created by others. To its credit, the company didn't go sue crazy... yet. Instead, it offered those who had a "fake" a free trade-in program to get official virtual Aeron chairs (yes, official virtual chairs... what is this world coming to?). However, it has started sending cease-and-desist notes to the makers of the unofficial virtual Aeron chairs, which they note are "firm, but polite." The company claims that these virtual Aeron chairs violate both copyrights and trademarks, but it's an open question whether or not that's necessarily true. The trademark claims may be somewhat stronger, but there's a point at which you need to take a step back and simply ask what's the harm being done here? It's a virtual world. The fact that people are making fake Aeron chairs should simply be seen as flattery and a sign of just how iconic the chairs have become.

johannacw writes "Would you house a data center in a diamond mine or an old chapel? These organizations did, with great success; many of these facilities offer the latest in cooling and energy technology, among other advances. 'If you want an even more hardened environment for your data, you might look at the aptly named InfoBunker in Boone, Iowa, about an hour outside Des Moines. [...] The 65,000-square-foot, five-story site is dug deep into the ground. No one gets in without passing though the 4.5-ton steel door and then a three-step process. A scanner uses radio frequency to read the would-be entrant's skin as a biometric identifier. He then needs to use a keycard and enter a code on the keypad. This three-tier security is standard for high-level military installations, McGinnis explains.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Miro project -- overseen by the charitable nonprofit Participatory