Scientific American is running a major article on Science 2.0, or the use of Web 2.0 applications and techniques by scientists to collaborate and publish in new ways. "Under [the] radically transparent 'open notebook' approach, everything goes online: experimental protocols, successful outcomes, failed attempts, even discussions of papers being prepared for publication... The time stamps on every entry not only establish priority but allow anyone to track the contributions of every person, even in a large collaboration." One project profiled is MIT's OpenWetWare, launched in 2005. The wiki-based project now encompasses more than 6,100 Web pages edited by 3,000 registered users. Last year the NSF awarded OpenWetWare a 5-year grant to "transform the platform into a self-sustaining community independent of its current base at MIT... the grant will also support creation of a generic version of OpenWetWare that other research communities can use." The article also gives air time to Science 2.0 skeptics. "It's so antithetical to the way scientists are trained," one Duke University geneticist said, though he eventually became a convert.

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A judge dismissed charges against Steve Kurtz, professor and member of the Critical Art Ensemble, who has been in a four year legal battle after police discovered biological lab equipment and harmless bacteria in his home. The cops were at his house because he called 911 to report that his wife had died of heart failure. He had the biological gear and specimens for an art project. Kurtz was initially investigated for bioterrorism but later indicted for mail and wire fraud. From the New York Times:

U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara ruled that the 2004 mail and wire fraud indictment against Steven Kurtz, a University at Buffalo professor, was ''insufficient on its face..."

''Obviously this is a weight off his back, but he still had to suffer through this for four years,'' said Kurtz's attorney, Paul Cambria. ''The last thing this guy is is a bioterrorist.''

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Buffalo said it was considering an appeal but otherwise declined to discuss the ruling.

Link (Thanks, Jody Radzik!)

Previously on BB:
• Art attack update Link
• Art of bioterrorism? RU Sirius interviews Steve Kurtz Link
• Case against Steve Kurtz continues Link
• Battling for bio art Link
• Art attack Link

theodp writes ""Caller: What is my account balance? The call handler responds by typing in the response '250 dollars.'" That's an excerpt from a pending IBM patent for cutting offshore call center costs further by hiring reps whose local accents make them incomprehensible to their U.S. customers without the magic of IBM text-to-speech synthesis, which Big Blue explains converts typed responses into "the native language and accent of the caller so that the outgoing voice sounds familiar to the caller.""

As Theodp noted in sending this in, you would think that Stephen Hawking's computerized speech system might count as a bit of prior art. Of course, while the patent covers more than just that, it's hard to see how the idea of letting someone type responses that are converted into speech deserves monopoly protection.

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Despite reports that PayPal may drop support for Apple's Safari browser because it lacks anti-phishing features, PayPal now says it ain't so. Though PayPal telegraphed displeasure with Safari last January, they're now unambiguous about their position: "We have absolutely no intention of blocking current versions of any browsers, including Apple's Safari, from our website."

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A portion of a talk I gave throughout much of last year had a little bit on typography, and quoted an article from October 2006, Web Design is 95% Typography (the percentage could be a little exaggerated, but the concept is solid):

During the Italian renaissance the typographer had one font to work with, and yet this period produced some of the most beautiful typographical work.

A perfect present-day example of working with one font + CSS to manipulate that to convey meaning and interest is the current one-pager for the Seed Conference in Chicago this June. Beautiful work. One font. All hypertext.

Oh, and it looks to be a great conference, too.

You may recall the well-hyped venture-backed startup named M2Z that wanted the FCC to hand over a segment of unused spectrum. Part of the plan was to offer a free ad-supported wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would be slow and "filtered" so that it was "family-friendly." It would also offer a higher-level paid tier, as well as priority services for public safety uses. The kicker, though, was that M2Z hoped the FCC would hand over the segment of spectrum for free in exchange for a piece of the profits down the road. The FCC turned down the request, but apparently that's not the last we've seen of it.

Congressional Representative Anna Eshoo has introduced a bill that would reserve the same slice of spectrum for a wireless service that would cover 95% of the country, that would have a free tier that was slower and filtered, as well as a higher-level premium tier, and which would offer priority services for public safety uses. The difference, though, is that it looks like this bill wouldn't involve just handing spectrum over, but would include an auction component towards how that spectrum is used. While it does seem like M2Z is well meaning in its plans, it's still hard to see why setting up all these rules makes sense. It still seems like it would make much more sense to create a much more open market system, to allow the spectrum to be put into the best use possible, rather than setting so many rules for each slice of spectrum.

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I just organized a bunch of snapshots from past Boing Boing tv shoots into a Flickr set. Link to photoset. Most of them I snapped and uploaded from my iPhone inbetween whatever we were shooting for the show, but the one above is kinda special. Here's the story, and the related episodes.

mike_diack was one of many readers to send word that Windows XP SP3 been released to manufacturing. It will be available to OEMs and enterprise customers on April 29. Here is a summary of features and changes. The company will wait till "early summer" to enable SP3 downloads through Automatic Updates.

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Jonathon Yule's Invdr features a lovely gallery of robots made from various sans-serif fonts. Link (Thanks, Jake!)

eldavojohn writes "The FCC & Stanford hoped to host an on-campus debate over Net Neutrality and invited AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Time Warner to take part. None of them showed up. Unfortunately, only one side of the issue was voiced despite Stanford being home to people opposing Net Neutrality. At the hearing, the FCC Commissioner stated: 'Consumers have come to expect and will continue to demand the open and neutral character that has always been the hallmark of the Internet. The Commission is currently examining several petitions and complaints according to which broadband providers have intentionally and secretly degraded applications in a way that undermines the open and interconnected character of the Internet.'"

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Adam Penenberg is a fantastic tech journalist whose work I've admired for many years. However, I simply can't figure out what made him write a huge fluff piece in Fast Company magazine that makes a number of stunningly bad claims. Mostly, the article is a love note to Marc Andreessen's Ning social network in-a-box startup that has had its ups and downs but has been able to raise a lot of money. You get the feeling that Penenberg is trying to pick up on a "trend" that can be flipped into a trendy business book. In this case, the trend is: "viral expansion loop," which Penenberg makes out to be a secretive "magic sauce" known only in Silicon Valley that will turn your startup into a huge success with investors shoving each other aside to throw money at you.

This is wrong for so many reasons, it's hard to know where to start. Rafat Ali at PaidContent goes through the piece bit by bit to trash it, while Owen Thomas at Valleywag dissects what Pennenberg got wrong about Ning. But much more important is the overall message that Pennenberg's article sends: that all you need to know is this "secret formula" and you'll build yourself "a billion dollar business."

The thing is, there's no secret -- and so far, there's been no billion dollar business based on these concepts. "Viral expansion loops" may be a new term, but it's just a repackaging of "the network effect," which has been widely known and discussed for ages. There have already been multiple books on it, so, if Penenberg thinks this is a book, he's late to the game. But, personally, what's even more dangerous to unwitting entrepreneurs is this thought that if you can create a product where each user gets new people to join, you're an automatic success that will grow forever. Penenberg promises that using such a system "almost guarantees a self-replicating, borglike growth" and that "you can build a billion-dollar business from scratch." Yet, he gives no actual proof to support either statement.

Sure, there are companies that have grown virally -- but that's nothing new at all. And, if you look at the most successful "viral" growth stories, almost all of them kicked off with well-known, well-connected or well-funded founders. Thay've had a lot less to do with some "engineering alchemy" (as Penenberg claims) than with a group of folks who seeded the process and got it running. I've seen tons of "viral" apps out there that went nowhere. And it wasn't because they lacked that "engineering alchemy" or a "viral expansion loop." It was because building a business is difficult and takes a lot of effort, and not everyone succeeds at it. Penenberg's article is the worst kind of business fluff article: not only is it wrong, but it will get people to think that it's easy to do something that's actually very, very difficult.

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gurubaba writes "Google has announced the launch of iGoogle Developer Sandbox which will allow developers to build and test applications. The Sandbox provides support for building social applications using the OpenSocial API. 'The iGoogle OpenSocial container will allow developers to build full page applications, just like the ones on Facebook, using the Canvas View. The applications built using the developer Sandbox can display profile information, post activity updates, send messages and gadget invites and add friends. The developers will also be able to monetize the applications through ads.'"

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My next novel, Little Brother, is coming out in a couple weeks -- it's a young adult novel about hackers who use technology to challenge authority. The folks from Instructables saw an early copy of the book and were really inspired by all the ingenuity demonstrated by the book's heroes, so they've made a series of HOWTOs in the voice of M1k3y, the techno-guerrilla who tells the story in Little Brother.

The first one has just gone live: Photo-Emulsion Screen Printing, a HOWTO for making t-shirts for your movement's wardrobe needs.

The general idea: After stretching fine-mesh cloth over a wooden frame, you spread a thin layer of photosensitive emulsion on the screen and let it dry. You then take a black image on transparent or translucent surface, place it against the screen, and then expose the screen to light. The light causes the emulsion to harden and bind to the fabric. Where the light strikes the screen, the emulsion will bind, making a solid layer. Where the light is blocked (ie where your black image is placed) the emulsion remains water-soluble. After exposing the screen, you spray down the screen with water, washing off the emulsion only where your image was placed; this clear area is where ink will be pressed through the screen when you print. Finally, you lay the screen on your t-shirt, other fabric, or paper, spread ink on the inside of the screen, and press the ink through the screen. If you use textile ink, you can heat-set the ink after it dries, and it'll be permanent and washable.

Link, Link to RSS feed for Little Brother Instructables

Roman sez, "When I was a kid in the USSR, my parents got me a fun comic book about how robots work. It's a translation of a book by a french roboticist, and it's remarkably accurate even now (the first chapter describes a Roomba). Recently, I found it again, scanned it in, and wrote a translation into english. After getting permission from the author, I put it up online, so enjoy." Link (Thanks, Roman!)

WFMU's Beware of the Blog has seven peppy tunes from a 1960s LP designed to perk up employees. I'm listening to it now, and my fingers are blazing over the keyboard.

Employers came to realize that perks could be as effective as threats in motivating the workplace. Vending machines became a common site in lunchrooms, many of them built by Automatic Canteen, one of the first large-scale producers of cigarette and snack machines.

Automatic Canteen began looking to add music to its list of vending machines, and in 1959 it bought William Rowe's jukebox company, naming the new enterprise AC Rowe. With an established list of corporate clients (Automatic Canteen exists today simply as Canteen), they sought to tap the motivational music business with a product called Customusic. This could be run from a dedicated jukebox in the supervisor's office and pumped out to the rest of the building.

Customusic was a direct competitor of MUZAK and offered the same variety of sonic atmospheres. Today's selections come from the "Productivity" portion of the sampler. Year unknown for this one, but the line art and lettering on the cover suggest the early1960s. These are bright, fully orchestrated covers having more in common with the "Beautiful Music" format than the horn-heavy (yet scrupulously recorded and engineered) offerings of MUZAK. Also absent is MUZAK's trademark Stimulus Progression concept, where tracks are arranged to enhance and heighten the positive effect of the music.

Link

Bibek Paudel writes "Comcast on Tuesday announced that it would partner with Pando Networks to create a P2P bill of rights for file-sharing networks and Internet service providers. Comcast and Pando will meet with industry experts, other ISPs, and P2P companies in order to come up with a set of rules that would clarify how a user can use P2P applications and how an ISP can manage file-sharing programs running on their networks. Last month, Comcast announced that it had reached an agreement with BitTorrent whereby Comcast agreed to alter its network management practices, and BitTorrent acknowledged that Comcast has the right to police its own network. Comcast's battle with P2P networks started last year after the Associated Press published an article that accused Comcast of blocking peer-to-peer services like BitTorrent. Comcast admitted to delaying P2P traffic during peak times, but denied that any file-sharing applications were being completely blocked."

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