Technology, Books and Other Neat Stuff

Cory's in the UK in a couple of weeks, and is giving a talk and taking part in a debate at The Work Foundation on Open Spectrum policy as part of their iSociety project on the 24th of June - it's a lunchtime event. You can sign up by email.

Sounds interesting...

(Noted from Boing Boing.)

Ever wondered what's inside a DLP video projector? The key component is a chip that contains a host of micromachines tilting an array of tiny aluminium mirrors (bugshaw will be able to explain it far better than me!).

marypcb went to a launch yesterday of LG's new home DLP system, and came back with this sample Texas Instruments mirror array. So I stuck it in the scanner...



The sealed vacuum casing solders onto a circuit board (there's a lovely pad grid array underneath, if you like that sort of thing), and under the big glass window is the mirror array chip. It's all surprisingly small. It's a pity that the scan of the chip can't show just how good the mirror is, expecially when you consider just how many thousands of elements go to making it up.

One of my favourite comics, Jill Thompson's Scary Godmother, is being turned into a 3D-animated TV special - by the folks who did Reboot...

See the Quicktime promo.

Travelling home on the tube this evening, I was on the look out for a dumped copy of the Evening Standard's "Homes and Property" supplement (not for me, for marypcb, who is an avid consumer of design supplements and what I call "house porn").

A chap opposite me dumped his copy, leaving it perched behind a snoozing salaryman. So, as I left the tube at Earl's Court, behind the gentleman in question, I picked up the copy. As I did so, he left the carriage and stepped on to the platform. As I was folding the paper up to put into my bag, he turned and asked for it...

Should I have given it to him?

( What I actually did, and what I'm still thinking... )