Online word processors

Source: http://freebies.about.com/od/freesoftware/tp/freeonlinewp.htm

Virtual Ubiquity - http://www.virtub.com/
Zoho - http://writer.zoho.com/
AjaxWrite - http://ajaxwrite.com/
Writely - http://www.writely.com/
gOffice - http://goffice.com/

I've only tried Writely (aka Google Docs) but that one seems to work fine. gOffice apparently generates PDF documents while AjaxWrite tries to emulate MS Word both in appearance and by generating documents in Word format. Virtual Ubiquity apparently has reinvented itself as a full WYSIWYG interface that generates PDF documents. Many of these sites also allow you to generate spreadsheets, presentations, even an operating system (in the case of Ajax).

If anyone has used any of these (or wants to give them a go), I'd be interested in seeing your impressions of these (or other) online word processing applications.

It's like the mainframe years all over again (Anyone remember PrettyPrint? Batch-mode TeX?)

Invisibility cloaks and Alien Sightings (only in Canada, eh?)

Source: EurekAlert A group of scientist have been exploring models of Earth-like planets around other suns and theorize that, in some cases, plants that evolve on those planets will not necessarily be green. Earth plants are green because the combination of the gases in the Earth's atmosphere and the spectral distribution of the sun means that more red light than blue or green reach the surface (the sun emits most of its energy in the green part of the spectrum but ozone absorbs most of it). Plants, therefore, became optimized to absorb red light and, to a lesser extent, blue, so reflect predominantly green light. On other planets, the dominant wavelengths may be different, so they may reflect a different set of colours. In a related article [Space.com] early Earth may have appeared more purple than green because ancient microbes used retinal, not chlorophyll, to perform photosynthesis. Retinal absorbs green light most strongly and reflects mostly red and blue. Later microbes utilized chlorophyll and eventually were able to out-compete their ancient brethren.

Source: Technology Review A cloaking device has been designed that should, in theory, render the object invisible to light. The device would use nanowires to bend light around the object. The developers hope to build a version of the device soon. One application they foresee is to warp infrared light around an object, effectively creating a heat shield. The design would not be perfect; a small amount of light would still be reflected so the object would only appear transparent, not invisible. It would also work only for a narrow band of visible light.

Source: Globe and Mail Apparently, Canada is still among the favour vacation spots for extra-terrestrials. Last year there were more than 736 reported UFO sightings in Canada. Most of the sightings were reported in BC and Ontario. This make 2006 the year with the third-highest number of reported sightings in the last 17 years. Probably means an election is on the way.

Source: Globe and Mail Ontario has decided that its time to update the security on its drivers licenses. They have recently announced that the new licenses will be able to carry embedded citizenship data but will not be preloaded with the data yet. The card's security will feature"...fine-line background, 2-D bar code, micro and rainbow printing, a secondary photo, signature images and ultraviolet features..." which they hope will be better able to combat identity theft. It is hoped that the card will be considered secure enough to be accepted in place of a passport at the US border, although US officials have yet to offer comment on that idea. The new cards cost no more than the old ones and will be phased in over the next 5 years. Drivers can opt to have their drivers license updated to the new card immediately if they so choose.

Source: USA Today For those of you who enjoy internet video, YouTube has announced the winners of this year's video awards (see http://www.youtube.com/ytawards for the complete list). The band OkGo won most creative video for their treadmill antics, while Ask A Ninja won best series. I've never heard of the rest of them, which only goes to show that I may be in danger of losing my Geek status. Or maybe its because I have a life.