Layar: Layar is a mobile augmented reality browser, developed by the Amsterdam-based company SPRXmobile. It displays real time digital information on top of reality in the camera screen of your the mobile phone. Layar was first released on June 17th 2009 in the Netherlands for Android phones. A version for the iPhone 3GS will be released end of summer; any other mobile phone with a GPS and compass will be considered. Via The Future is Awesome.

I’m sick of all the attention the media is giving Michael Jackson, too, but I promise you this is absolutely brilliant: Studio Brussel, a publicly funded radio station in Belgium also known at StuBru, has created a very unique website as a tribute to Michael Jackson. The site is called Eternal Moonwalk and is a video slideshow of people, animals and inanimate objects doing Michael Jackson’s signature move. Each video clip is about 6 seconds long and a counter keeps track of the number of...

MGSeigler says that’s why Google’s announcement of the Chrome OS came randomly in July, well before they had anything ready to show off: On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference...

So much is being written about Bing I can hardly keep up. Virtually all of it grudgingly good. Take, for example, David Pogue’s rave in the NYTimes today. He kicks it off with this: For the last 15 years, Microsoft’s master business plan seems to have been, “Wait until somebody else has a hit. Then copy it.” I know that sounds mean, but come on — the list of commercial hits/Microsoft knockoffs is as long as your arm. PalmPilot/PocketPC. Netscape Navigator/Internet Explorer. Mac OS...

Inside Higher Ed: [Some students at New York University’s law school] are upset that a visiting professor in the fall semester, slated to teach human rights law, is Thio Li-ann of the National University of Singapore, an outspoken opponent of gay rights. Thio has argued repeatedly and graphically that her country should continue to criminalize gay sexual acts. In a speech to lawmakers in Singapore, Thio said that gay sex is "contrary to biological design and immoral," argued that gay...

Daily Finance: Oscar G. Mayer, who transformed his family business into one of the the world’s largest meat processors, died Monday. He was 95. The fact that most of the public probably did not know that “Oscar Mayer” was a real person — actually he was the third member of his family to have that name — was fine with him, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. He liked his anonymity, even as his company was at one time the largest private employer in the Madison...

While Michael Arrington revels in I told you so, deservedly, his colleague, MG Siegler, rockets to the top of the techmeme heights with his post, Google Drops A Nuclear Bomb On Microsoft. And It’s Made of Chrome: Wow. So you know all those whispers about a Google desktop operating system that never seem to go away? You thought they might with the launch of Android, Google’s mobile OS. But they persisted. And for good reason, because it’s real. In the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch...

Just imagine. Even more omnipresent than the camera phone. Underexposed: Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a fabric made of a mesh of light-sensitive fibers that collectively act like a rudimentary camera. The fibers, which each can detect two frequencies of light, produced signals that when amplified and processed by a computer reproduced an image of a smiley face near the mesh. “This is the first time that anybody has demonstrated that a single plane...

With time to prepare, video sites and social networks appear to have kept running smoothly during the Michael Jackson memorial service and tribute: “Overall, the Internet is holding up great,” said Jennifer Donovan, a spokeswoman for Akamai, a company that handles Internet traffic for a variety of large clients. “We have not heard of any sites being down during this event.” Traffic to news sites supported by Akamai peaked at 3.9 million visitors a minute at the start of the memorial service...

US News: 35: Percentage who consider buying and wearing fur wrong 30: Percentage who consider the death penalty wrong 30: Percentage who consider divorce wrong 36: Percentage who consider medical testing on animals wrong 36: Percentage who consider human embryonic stem cell research wrong 36: Percentage who consider gambling wrong Data drawn from Gallup: Extramarital Affairs, Like Sanford’s, Morally Taboo Via Jezebel, “Even worse: Having a baby outside of marriage (45% opposed), homosexual...

The big three lighting companies — General Electric, Sylvania and Philips — are all working on energy efficient incandescent bulbs, as is Auer Lighting of Germany and Toshiba of Japan. The NYTimes: Indeed, the incandescent bulb is turning into a case study of the way government mandates can spur innovation. “There’s a massive misperception that incandescents are going away quickly,” said Chris Calwell, a researcher with Ecos Consulting who studies the bulb market. “There have been more...

From Studio360’s Gay Flag Design Challenge comes The Flag of Equal Marriage, an evolving protest flag for equal marriage rights in the United States: The stars on the Jan 1, 2010 flag represent the states that actively perform same-sex marriages. Stars are arranged on the blue field in order of each state’s admission into the union. The stars are: Massachusetts – #6 – May 17, 2004 Connecticut – #5 – Nov 12, 2008 Iowa – #29 – Apr 24, 2009 Vermont...

NPR: Rep. Peter King may be speaking for a lot of people with his tirade against the media for devoting so much time to Michael Jackson’s death. Even some of us media people are wearying of the some of the excessive cable TV coverage. King, a Republican congressman who represents a conservative Long Island, NY district, is especially ticked because all this attention is being bestowed on a man he calls a “pervert” and “low-life” who, he allows “had some talent”...

CNet on the Twitter-inspired rise of URL-shortening services: URL-shortening services are abundant and becoming more so. They’re usually designed with a priority on minimum character length, not easy reading: Is.gd, Bit.ly, Twurl.nl, Tr.im, Sn.im”, Cligs, and TinyURL. If you want to see dozens more, Mashable has a long list. And the traffic they handle is large. On a typical day right now, Bit.ly is used to create 5 million to 7 million shortened URLs each day, and it handles 25 million...

The Telegraph: While the Potter films were earning him millions of adoring fans around the world, Radcliffe’s role as the bespectacled boy wizard was causing resentment at school. However, with an estimated £30 million fortune in the bank and Hollywood at his feet – all before his 20th birthday – Radcliffe said his life is proof that that ‘uncool’ kids come out on top. Your typical celebrity fluff. Then this: Radcliffe has been reticent on the subject of religion in...

I suggest you watch full screen… Web Site Story is a beautifully shot & acted, wonderfully witty parody of West Side Story that’s burning up the internets. It was written and directed by Sam Reich for CollegeHumor. On his blog Sam says it’s a tribute to his three big loves — film, theater, and the internet: Jeff Rubin, king of puns, thought of the title. The opening Google Maps shots are analogous with the rooftop shots that open the “West Side Story” movie. ”The...

I did not say yesterday that I believed there would be paid content on the web. I do. As does Fred Wilson, a VC who puts his money where his mouth is. Says Fred: [L]et’s talk about freeconomics. I don’t believe everything will be free on the Internet. There will be plenty of paid business models. For example, if you want to watch Major League Baseball games live over the Internet, you’ll pay for that. If you want to use services like the FT and the WSJ frequently (more than 10x...

Leaders in the news field joined Aspen Institute president Walter Isaacson for his “the Future of Journalism” panel at the Institute’s Ideas Festival in Colorado last week. Politico’s report on it is headlined, Save journalism? Beats us, panel says: As is usually the case with such discussions, the group didn’t break any serious ground in determining how to save a troubled journalism industry. In fact, many had to admit that they had no idea what to do. “We will look at...

Of the available choices… Scandal – public records revealed that SBS supplied the materials for her Wasilla house OR last week Alaska blogger Linda Kellen-Biegal successfully raised roughly $6,000 to pay the cost associated with a freedom of information request for email; Money & Fame – Anchorage Rep. Hawker noted that Palin’s decision to quit “gives her unfettered ability to pursue her economic interests” and Larry Persily, a former aide to Palin, observes...

Wired: A federal judge on Thursday overturned guilty verdicts against Lori Drew, issuing a directed acquittal on three misdemeanor charges. Drew, 50, was accused of participating in a cyberbullying scheme against 13-year-old Megan Meier who later committed suicide. The case against Drew hinged on the government’s novel argument that violating MySpace’s terms of service was the legal equivalent of computer hacking. But U.S. District Judge George Wu found the premise troubling. “It basically...

Some recent changes at YouTube… They’ve doubled the allowable size of uploads: We’re happy to announce that the size of standard uploads has doubled from 1GB to 2GB. The increase means you can upload longer videos at a higher resolution as well as large HD files directly from your camera. In addition, the team’s implemented some new features to make it easier for you to show these videos off to the world. The changes allow you to share links directly to the HD version of your...

Michael Masnick provides a link-filled road map to the star-studded fire touched off by Malcolm Gladwell’s critical review of Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Masnick rolls in his own critique of the book and concludes: Gladwell’s review…does Anderson’s book a disservice. It criticizes it because it doesn’t answer questions the book didn’t set out to answer, and then attacks the picture today without acknowledging the trendlines and...

In America, commerce trumps speech: In a 37-page ruling, [Judge Deborah A. Batts, of the United States District Court in Manhattan] issued a preliminary injunction — indefinitely barring the publication, advertising or distribution of the book in this country — after considering the merits of the case. The book has been published in Britain. In a suit filed on June 1, lawyers for Mr. Salinger in the copyright infringement lawsuit contended that the new work was derivative of “Catcher” and...

Andrew Sullivan takes a break from the Vanity Fair fuss to point to Sarah “I’m a runner” Palin in Runner’s World. The photo above is from photographer Brian Adams’ slide show. Sullivan quotes a Dish reader: It’s not proper to display the flag to have it draped over a chair. Just imagine the outrage on Fox News if there was a photo of Obama and an improper display of the Stars and Stripes! He points to an online guide to flag etiquette “which Palin clearly...

From Woot: New mascot: a wide-eyed lemur voiced by Justin Timberlake DRM limitations require biometrically encoded MP3s audible only to the purchaser Each torrent will include a 4GB “bonus pack” with different versions of Solitaire and a playable demo of “Dinosaur Alphabet Learning” Seeders get points that can be redeemed for novelty pencil erasers or plastic whistles Before you can get any torrents, you have to scroll through several pages of idiotic quizzes taken by “friends”...