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Stop sign cameras are the new red light cameras

Consider yourself warned. You've probably heard of traffic cameras that capture photo evidence of cheeky drivers blowing through red lights at intersections. You may have been one of the hundreds of thousands of people who received such a ticket in the mail each year.

But you may not realize that Redflex, the company that helped pioneer the photo cop industry, has also expanded into stop sign cameras.

In California's Santa Monica Mountains parks are are seven stop sign cameras that the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) use to help it govern the roadways of its 60,0000 … Read more

Remote viewing tool

Parents, business owners, and anyone concerned about keeping the worst of the Internet at bay will appreciate Remote Authority. It's a compact, inexpensive, easy-to-use tool that takes a screenshot every minute of whatever is being viewed on the host machine (i.e., by your kids) and displays it on a secure Web site so that you can monitor it anywhere there's an Internet connection, which is pretty much anywhere these days. Just to be clear, it shows you what someone else is looking at on whatever computer it's monitoring, so none of the usual excuses will fly. … Read more

Former Google CIO back with book, start-up

Who better to show people how to handle information in the digital era than a former Google chief information officer?

Douglas Merrill, Google's CIO until leaving in 2008 to steer EMI Music's digital unit, is raising his profile again a year after leaving the record label. He's written a book that he says can help people improve their cognitive skills and he's also founded a new start-up.

Merrill is the co-author of "Getting Organized in the Google Era," a book that offers advice to people who wish to improve their memories and sharpen their … Read more

iTunes 9.0.3: Error 42408 or Error 42404 possible resolutions

When downloading purchases from the iTunes Store or authorizing those purchases on your machine, you may encounter either Error 42408 or Error 42404, stating that the action could not be completed. The following are some troubleshooting steps you can use to help resolve these error messages.… Read more

Ford shines bright in the sunshine state

Ford Motor Co. today announced that it's expanding the range of its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) research program Progress Energy expands its role by adding a Ford Escape PHEV to its Florida operations.

Ford and Progress Energy will work together advance the commercialization of electric vehicles under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy. Progress Energy is already road-testing Ford Escape PHEV in Raleigh, N.C. The new agreement will expand these efforts into Florida.

In Florida, Progress Energy will road-test a 2010 Escape PHEV equipped with one of the industry's first vehicle-to-electric "… Read more

IBM touts Smarter Buildings push

IBM is hoping to use technology to create greener, smarter buildings.

Big Blue announced Monday that it will team up with partners and customers to venture into the next phase of its Smarter Planet initiative: Smarter Buildings. The goal is to help buildings, manufacturing plants, and other facilities consume less energy and water and make them easier to operate.

Announced Monday, one of IBM's new partnerships is with Johnson Controls, a manufacturer of products that optimize energy use in buildings. The two plan to combine Johnson's energy-efficient technologies with IBM's Tivoli software to offer customers a way … Read more

Authors Guild: We don't want to be the RIAA

The Authors Guild agreed to a controversial settlement with Google because it feared repeating the mistakes that the music industry has made in dealing with digital works, it said Friday.

Google and the Authors Guild have struggled to get final approval of a settlement granting Google the right to continue a six-year book-scanning project than has digitized 12 million titles. Objections to that settlement from authors and academics have been heated, and despite revisions, the U.S. Department of Justice continued to object in principle to the settlement on Thursday, saying "the (revised agreement) purports to grant legal rights … Read more

DOJ not pleased with latest Google Book agreement

Although the amended settlement agreement for Google's Book Search addressed some concerns the U.S. Justice Department had, it still could give the company anticompetitive advantages in the digital book marketplace, the agency said on Thursday.

The Department of Justice advised the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that "class certification, copyright, and antitrust issues remain" in a court filing.

The settlement--reached between Google and the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers--would allow Google to partially display in-copyright but out-of-print books alongside books authorized by publishers and public domain works … Read more

New York eyes offshore wind farms on Great Lakes

NEW YORK--New York State is looking for developers to build wind farms on its Great Lakes that could generate 120 to 500 megawatts of power to boost the amount of electricity that comes from renewable sources by 2015.

The New York Power Authority would buy all the power generated from the offshore projects, which could be located in either Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.

Offshore wind power costs about twice as much as land-based wind projects, according to industry estimates. Offshore wind farms cost about $4 million per megawatt if no interest accrued during construction.

However, typically offshore wind farms … Read more