Smaller Magnetic Materials Push Boundaries of Nanotechnology
New York Times:
Researchers at I.B.M. have stored and retrieved digital 1s and 0s from an array of just 12 atoms, pushing the boundaries of the magnetic storage of information to the edge of what is possible.
Stopped they must be; on this all depends
Reddit will shut down on January 18th to protest SOPA:
Instead of the normal glorious, user-curated chaos of reddit, we will be displaying a simple message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation would shut down sites like reddit, link to resources to learn more, and suggest ways to take action. We will showcase the live video stream of the House hearing where Internet entrepreneurs and technical experts (including reddit co-founder Alexis “kn0thing” Ohanian) will be testifying. We will also spotlight community initiatives like meetups to visit Congressional offices, campaigns to contact companies supporting PIPA/SOPA, and other tactics.
Lockdown: The coming war on general-purpose computing
Good read of Cory Doctorow’s keynote speech to the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin.
Google's Social Move Attracts Critics
Criticism of Google’s announcement today of Search Plus Your World:
Google is adding a feature it calls Search Plus Your World, where Google searches will turn up Google posts from friends. Of course, these Google results will stand higher on the page than information from other social networks. Searching someone’s name, for example, will put their Google page directly at the top of the Google search box. James Grimmelmann, an associate professor at New York Law School who specializes in Internet law, wrote on Twitter, “Today is a good day to turn off Google and delete your Google Profile. I just did.”
Who Word-Processed First? Professor's History Has Writers Staking Their Claim
Follow-up to the New York Times story last week on Matthew Kirschenbaum.
The Utopianism of the Digital Humanities
Andrew Hartman, a participant at THATcamp AHA, isn’t so sure about digital humanities:
I came away somewhat skeptical of what I sensed was a utopianism among many of the digital humanists and historians at THATCamp. In one session that I attended—on the question, “What Are the Digital Humanities?” (still debated, not surprisingly, since the much older question, “What Are the Humanities?” has yet to be resolved either)—some of the participants made claims that digitalization has created a fundamental, even epistemological shift in how we think about history. I am underwhelmed.
