Neuroscience and Meditation (and the Dalai Lama!)

NPR ran a story on the 11th about research into the long term effects meditation has on the brain.

From the article:

"Some small studies have suggested that meditating on compassion can affect parts of the brain associated with positive thoughts. The Dalai Lama's talk will discuss meditation as a way to promote well-being and compassion."

Component ''tower'' for Mac mini

This is neat: Green House, a Japanese company, has released a series of "extensions" for the Mac Mini. Speakers, hubs, external drives etc... I like it!

Google Sighting..

Google's Urchin division is about to offer their services for free: Google Analytics.

Ultrazoid Keyboard

From Gizmodo

Ultrazoid Keyboard:

I have something of a penchant for acting out scenes from '80s movies in real life. Whether it is using my favourite chat up line, "come with me if you want to live" at bars, instinctively contorting my body into a wobbly "crane" position when faced with impending violence, or coaxing drunken fat friends into doing the "truffle shuffle" — my life is a veritable what's-what of how to act like you are still a teenage boy in love with Belinda Carlisle or any member of The Bangles.

So imagine my elation upon stumbling across Suzuki Instruments' "Foot Note" — a giant musical keyboard that you play with your feet, a little like the contraption Tom Hanks uses in the pivotal scene of "Big" where he plays chopsticks with his boss and ends up getting a massive promotion in exactly the kind of way that would never happen in real life.

Foot Note (or "Bigfoot" in the US) comes in 3 sets for 3 different octaves and you can connect the sets together to form Ultrazoid Board (a name which I have made up) — a four meter long 3 octave jumbo keyboard, which I have decided that every house party from now on ever must have.

Suzuki Instruments' Foot Note [Product Page]
Suzuki Instruments' Big Foot (Western Version) [Product Page]

Darknets Are Inevitable

Slashdot has a posting about Darknets. I consider them an inevitable evolution. Tightly knit groups of users with their own private networks, tunneled over the available commercial Internet via tools like m0n0wall for example... The title of the /. article is Darknets Coming Soon?^(below), but I would think the real question is how long have they already been here, and how many are there?

Darknets Coming Soon?:

Anonymous Stalwart writes "CIO.com is running a story on darknets and their implications for security. With the ruling against Grokster, darknets seem poised to become a reality. How this will impact the future of the workplace, from top-level IT/IS managers all the way to non-IT jobs will depend on how the tech community that is developing this technology treats it."

Rumored? Circuit City Will Sell The Xbox 360 On Friday

Rumor and speculation? Maybe not, you -could- get one early. XBox 360 to be sold on Friday at Circuit City. [Mobility Today]

Circuit City Page

Kool KITTY Keyboard Kontraption

From Gizmodo

Kool KITTY Keyboard Kontraption:

No we aren’t talking about the fact that cats love to lie on top of keyboards (cat owners know what I'm talking about) but this is a revolution in wearable input device technology. KITTY TECH, the manufacturer, is an acronym for Keyboard Independent Touch Typing Technology and if it is kitty-related we here at Gizmodo fully endorse it. This peripheral was designed from some smarty pants at the University of California and the overall idea is somewhat simple. Wear these electric circuit thing around your fingers and you type by holding your fingers and thumbs in various positions. Neat stuff, lets hope it actually gets fully developed and not trashed as another farfetched keyboard gadget.

Keyboard Begone. [Red Ferret]