Via BBC:
When Wanda, a white woman, is in front of the screen, the camera zooms to her face and moves as she moves. But when Desi, a black man, does the same, the camera does not respond by tracking him.

The clip is light-hearted in tone but is titled “HP computers are racist”. “HP has been informed of a potential issue with the facial-tracking software included on some of its systems, which appears to occur when insufficient foreground lighting is available,” an HP spokesman told BBC News. “We take this seriously and are looking into it with our partners.”

Desi notes he just bought a HP computer for himself partly to use its webcam to chat with his family.

…Apparently, optimism this big can be found only in Russia.

From National Geographic peeps comes a great multimedia piece on alternative energy. “Biofuels Compared” interactively illustrates how emerging biofuels size up and the benefits and costs of producing each one. It also shows comparison of each source’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy balance (ratio of the amount of fossil fuel required to make each biofuel to the amount of energy the biofuel itself can produce). Naturally, it uses gasoline cost and output as benchmarks. Concise audio commentary provided on each source rounds out the snapshot analysis.

For those keen to know more, there is a lot of supporting text available, which offers more interesting nuggets and views from various sources. For instance, while sugarcane yields more than twice as much ethanol than corn, every biofuel consumes crops that could be used for food (UN says 25,000 people die of hunger every day, most under age five). However, non-food source of ethanol (eg grass as opposed to sugarcane) is currently just 45% efficient (amount of energy extractable per unit) compared to 85% for crude oil. Others see biofuels as a total waste that deters from what should be the real goal; conservation.

And the scum of the earth may rise: While there’s no “magic-bullet fuel crop that can solve our energy woes without harming the environment”, algae (pond scum) apparently comes closest because it grows in wastewater or seawater, it merely needs sunlight and carbon dioxide to flourish.� Click on pictures for larger views. Better yet, check out the National Geographic site and try out the interactive module.

Chinese authorities have blocked most domestic users from the main Google.com search engine, a media watchdog said. … But Google.cn, the controversial Chinese language version launched in January, has not been affected. The site blocks politically sensitive material to comply with government censorship rules. … On Tuesday, Google co-founder Sergey Brin defended his company’s decision to launch the censored Google.cn service, a move which drew heavy criticism. “We felt that perhaps we could compromise our principles but provide ultimately more information for the Chinese and be a more effective service,” he said (BBC).

Awww, don’t it just remind you of them good ol’ days of apartheid? You know, when people like Margaret Thatcher refused to impose economic sanctions on South Africa because her country’s business interests there were too important to risk by taking a stance against one of the worst eras of endemic human rights violations in history. Then again, her views are hardly surprising in retrospect; she was afterall, a true born and bred of the super-colonial, evidently with certain discrimminatory instincts of the earlier days ingrained. Even Winston Churchill was also one of those against the notion of anti-apartheid amongst other ‘greats’. Although, one would have expected an opposing view from an ex-colony like the US, but until the late 80s, the Reagan administration joined the UK in vetoing sanctions on South Africa, as they both believed in “free trade“.

If you missed that episode, well tune in, because we’ve got a remake going on now! Today it’s China (amongst others), and the focus is still human rights/freedom of expression. And Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Cisco, et al are all hiding under the banner of “obeying the law” while ignoring human rights violations, censorship, etc. in exchange for a slice of that juicy market to further fatten their coffers, a few oppressed souls be damned. In this case, what can Google give Chinese surfers that they can’t give themselves? Nothing unique. It’s not like China lacks the smarts or technology to provide such tools themselves, as proven by their highly sophisticated surveillance tools. So how is Google helping the plight of lack of free expression by providing censored search or information? Obviously, what Brin’s statement above really means is that they just wanted to penetrate that lucrative market at any price. “Don’t be evil” indeed. They might want to change their slogan to “Evil when necessary”. History does repeat itself; different faces, same underlying issues.

Just the other day, I was thinking it would be so crazy-cool if some company bust out a new technology that allows cars to run on a dirt-cheap gasoline alternative thus banishing the great oil dependency for good. Unpurified water, sand, who knows? The kicker would be that pre-existing cars could also be converted at little or no cost to run on the new fuel. Well, beggars may dream, but in the meantime, one company has created a car that can run on air, and is now in production. The Discovery Channel has a short video on this online. Although the video takes a few minutes to load and starts with a Loewe’s commercial, it’s worth waiting to view it to see it in action.

If you’re like me, you probably think information is sexy. Or even worse, you realize that information is addictive and you’re always on the lookout for new pushers in places you shouldn’t be when you should be twelve-stepping towards normalcy instead. Ok, you’re not abnormal, you just always like to know stuff even if of no use whatsoever in the immediate, near, or far future. A lot of times, you literally hoard it. In fact, the only thing differentiating you from those crazy dudes with floor-to-ceiling junk in their houses that you read about is that your junk is mostly meta-junk, especially of the electronic type. Meta-junk meaning info-junk about junk, e.g. an archive of articles about or pictures of antiques/stamps/cyclones/whatever the heck it is that you find fascinating. All sitting on your computer. Unlike physical junk that may be harder to acquire (due to rarity, cost, etc.), info-junk is everywhere. And you aren’t complaining.

If that sounds like you and if you have an iota of resistance, you’d turn away now. But you haven’t, so you’re going to go on to read about one of the latest pushers:

Clipmarks – a small Firefox browser extension with a huge footprint. In the same way that you’d cut out a newspaper or magazine article to keep or show others, Clipmarks empowers you to find information online, “clip” it (select and save specific parts or all of the text or images as they appear on a webpage), archive, share, discuss with an international community, all in real time. It also allows you to simultaneously post to delicious, digg, blinklist, and magnolia. However, the ability to see new commentary on something you just clipped 2 seconds ago pop-up right before your eyes (no screen/page refresh needed) makes other social bookmarking sites look soo 1.0 or so 5 minutes ago in comparism.

What would really blast it out of orbit for me though, would be the ability to simultaneously publish to/integrate Clipmarks with your blog, especially if its a brain-clip (editorial/original content/written from scratch), and you’re not interested in having to post the same information twice.

That and a more collapsible interface; e.g. ability to remove the leftmost column and relocate its elements to appear only on-demand from top bar. That would give more screen space to actual clip content. I don’t say this just because I’m so seduced by inline/collapsible AJAX implementations. I also say it because I shy away from visual clutter and like content to take precedence so the less visible buttons/controls, the better (for me anyway).
CAVEAT EMPTOR:

Beware, for the creators/founding pushers of Clipmarks truly believe in their product. Hence you’ll find them in the sand box at all times, hollering out welcomes, being nice (most unexecutive-like behaviour given that the press isn’t looking), exchanging clips, sharing opinions.

For example: Say the sky is falling and Chicken Little wasn’t just high/drunk/whatever her original problem was. Meteorologists confirm that the cloud/candy floss layer of the sky is 2 feet lower than it should be, especially in Ireland. They say its falling at a rate of 2 inches per year and if it isn’t halted, it’ll touch the ground by the year 2050 and snuff out all mankind.

So, I decide to use Google news alerts to track any update on this topic. Currently, Google news alerts collates all new information from avenues like news outlets (e.g. Reuters, AP, etc), analysis (e.g. evaluation by cloud expert), and opinion pieces (e.g. editorials by newspaper columnists sharing their perspective on the issue).

But in this case and practically whenever I seek a news update, I want word on changes or developments in the issue at hand, not in the opinions being voiced on the issue. I.e. I want to know if/when the sky falls another few inches, not what Joe Schmo now thinks about it.

If any Google’s or any other news alert utility could implement that, it would make my web world feel so 3.0 that I would consider getting Chicken Little off the drugs.