Microsoft have just launched an MSN Messenger bot which allows you to translate text using their Live Translator directly from the Messenger window. All you need to do is add mtbot@hotmail.com to your contacts list, and say hi - it seems to work really well

Translation Bot

LucyandBart is a collaboration between Lucy McRae and Bart Hess described as an instinctual stalking of fashion, architecture, performance and the body. They share a fascination with genetic manipulation and beauty expression. Unconsciously their work touches upon these themes, however it is not their intention to communicate this. They work in a primitive and limitless way creating future human shapes, blindly discovering low – tech prosthetic ways for human enhancement.

Lucy and Bart

One of the rooms at dConstruct had a load of massive Sumo Omni bean bags/pillows, which were up for grabs at the end of the night, and which, of course, were snaffled by the people nearest the exits in the main auditorium. Gits. Never mind, not convinced I have the space for one right now anyway. Still.

Sumo Omni

Liu Bolin

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Google have just released a comic explaining the rationale behind a brand new Webkit-based browser, named Chrome, which they’re just about to release. They’ve really kept this under their hats - I’m really looking forward to trying it!!

Chrome screenshots

Google Chrome intro comic
Some official screenshots

This is the story of the oldest recorded Koi Carp, Hanako, who lived to 226, her birth pre-dating the Declaration of Independence

There did not exist in this world any such country as the United States of America yet at the time when this carp was born. It was 25 years later that America made public the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It is very interesting to think that during the long years that this carp has continued to live, a country by the name of the United States of America came into existence and has built up her present culture of high standard. To speak in Japanese fashion, it was born in the 1st year of Horeki, that is, in the middle of the Tokugawa Era. Please consider how long her life is, surviving the shogunate and later the national advancement of Meiji and Taisho, and still continuing to live to this day of Showa.

This “Hanako” is still in perfect condition and swimming about majestically in a quiet ravine decending Mt. Ontake in a short distance. She weighs 7.5 kilograms and is 70 centimeters in length. She and I are dearest friends. When I call her saying “Hanako! Hanako!” from the brink of the pond, she unhesitatingly comes swimming to my feet. If I lightly pat her on the head, she looks quite delighted. Sometimes I go so far as to take her out of the water and embrace her. At one time a person watching asked me whether I was performing a trick with the carp. Although a fish, she seems to feel that she is dearly loved, and it appears that there is some communication of feeling between us. At present my greatest pleasure is to go to my native place two or three times a month and keep company with “Hanako”.

Hanako’s story

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By snowdosker on Livejournal

You really can’t beat a camera trained on Bush for outlining the inately honest boredom of a man trapped in a situation he really doesn’t want to be in

Science is beautiful - and so are you

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 27 kilometer (17 mile) long particle accelerator straddling the border of Switzerland and France, is nearly set to begin its first particle beam tests. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) is preparing for its first small tests in early August, leading to a planned full-track test in September - and the first planned particle collisions before the end of the year.

Science - beautiful