RTFA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLLzV5qeKyk

How can we take thousands of photos from Flickr and generate the experience of being at a famous place?

Wow - very impressive video demonstration of literally flying through a world created out of collections of 2D images. This is a great watch!

RTFA: http://techdirt.com/articles/20080103/001028.shtml

theodp writes “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. But making a list for him may now constitute patent infringement. USPTO officials were busy over the holidays wrapping up the paperwork to grant Microsoft its wish for a patent on the Wish List, which was issued to the software giant on New Year’s Day.” Admittedly, the actual patent goes into a bit more detail than theodp’s summary. It involves making a wishlist that goes beyond just a single store, which can include categories rather than just products and which also pulls in additional shopping info. Even with that additional info, it’s difficult to see why this is deserving of a patent, as it really just seems to be combining a bunch of things that were easily done before online — and we had thought that the Patent Office had issued new guidelines, as per the Supreme Court’s ruling, to avoid such combinations.

It’s a good headline… and this patent is totally bogus.

RTFA: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/1372…

“Windows Update is a service that primarily delivers updates to Windows,” said Nate Clinton, program manager in the WU group on the team’s blog Thursday. “To ensure ongoing service reliability and operation, we must also update and enhance the Windows Update service itself, including its client-side software.”

Microsoft was moved to respond after the popular “Windows Secrets” newsletter looked into complaints that WU had modified numerous files in both XP and Vista, even though users had set the operating system to not install updates without their permission. In many cases, users who dug into Windows’ event logs found that the updates had been done in the middle of the night.

Whatever - shady is shady.

RTFA: http://youtube.com/watch?v=RgriTO8UHvs

Bill Gates is giving a news broadcast for the functionality of the “new” Windows 98 OS, and he gets the blue screen of death (BSOD) during the presentation!!!

To be completely clear, this video models the behavior of a computer, generally, during some sort of crash.