If Your Computer Won’t Acknowledge Your iPod

For anyone who can’t get their computer to recognise an iPod plugged into a USB port, the likeliest solution is to reset the iPod. This won’t remove any files from the iPod, though some settings may be lost. Here from the Apple website is how to do it, although the title, Resetting iPod if it appears … Read more

When Chatbots Go Bad

Richard Wallace of the A.L.I.C.E. AI Foundation, Inc. and creator of the Alice chatbot says his creation (sorry, can’t find a permalink) may have been lured to the dark side: I have received a multitude of emails recently from subscribers to MSN Instant Messenger services, from people who have chatted with a clone of ALICE … Read more

A Directory of Social Annotation Tools

Update July 24 2006: Diigo is now live, combining “Social Bookmarking, Web Highlighter, Sticky-Note & Clipping to make it a powerful tool for online research, collaboration and information discovery”. Looks good; I’d be interested in hearing how people get on with it. Social annotation, sometimes called web annotation, is back. Put simply, it’s software that … Read more

The Long Tail of the LongPen

Writer Margaret Atwood launched her LongPen invention over the weekend, allowing authors to sign books over the Internet. As CTV.ca, Canada’s CTV news reports, a technical glitch marred the LongPen’s first test: Atwood and fans had to wait while the invention got some final adjustments. When it came back to life, she used the LongPen … Read more