Digital Domain - Apple Wouldn’t Risk Its Cool Over an Ad Gimmick, Would It? - NYTimes.com

Apple has filed a patent for technology that would cause a device to administer periodic tests that would require the user to, in some way, indicate they have paid attention to an advertisement before they can continue using the device. The inventors say that the technology could be used in devices offered for free or a low fee in return for agreeing to view the advertisements, after which the device owner could pay extra to have the advertisements temporarily or permanently removed. Examples of tests included a series of progressively smaller pop-up boxes that must be pressed within five seconds, or entering the current date or name of the advertiser. Apple has declined to comment on the application.

Finally, after various software gymnastics, I was able to back up my LJ account and the now-defunct fact2fiction community. I opted for using ljArchive on my windows laptop rather than try to get something to work on the Mac. The software uses Microsoft .NET so it is unportable to non-microsoft systems. Also, the version on SourceForge doesn't appear to work, but someone on the ljArchive community fixed the problem and is hosting the working version of the software. All-in-all, the software appears to work pretty well, and has a synch function to allow me to update the archive periodically.

One of the United States' intelligence councils issued a report that over the next few decades the world dominance of the US will fade, although it will remain to be a force with which to be reckoned. China, India, and Russia were noted as countries that will continue to have more and more impact on the world stage.

Last Thursday, a group of Islamist militants has said "enough is enough" with regard to Somali pirates taking their supertanker. The are now en route to the port where the tanker is being held with plans to attack and retrieve the tanker. So far, the pirates say they'll fight back, but some sources report that they have lowered their ransom demand from $25 million(US) to $15 million(US) while others say the random is still $25 million(US). It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Etherpad is a new online wordprocessor that allows multiple people to edit the same document in real-time. Each person's changes show up in a different colour so you can see which person has made or is making changes. A sidebar contains a real-time chat window so the collaborating authors can discuss changes. TechCrunch provides a review of the program.

For those who enjoyed Iron Man, Jeff Bridges published an online photo diary taken while he worked on the movie, complete with commentary.

Scientists say they have identified a set of biomarkers that are highly predictive of physiological and chronological age, at least in nematodes. They hope to find similarly predictive biomarkers in humans that could then predict whether a person was aging more slowly or more rapidly than the norm.

NASA has discovered ice sheets almost 1/2 a mile thick far closer to the equator that previously thought. These may provide a ready source of water for future Mars missions.

Monty Python has gotten sick of people posting clips of their shows online without permission, but rather than fight it they decided to post the clips themselves, but added a link to where you can purchase the high quality versions of the originals. The link takes you to the Monty Python YouTube channel where you can get all of your Pythony-goodness.

DenOfGeek lists 75 84 comics that are in the process of being made (maybe) into movies.

Swiss researchers have developed the most water-resistant fabric ever made. In addition to being self-cleaning, it reduces the drag from moving through water by up to 20%, making it ideal for high-tech swim suits.