Still on the fence about buying it? There is a free HTML version available on the book’s website for you to preview and read, and 25% of the revenue from book sales will go to Engineering Without Borders. The book is also available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike license.

Add the OurFaves – Toronto engine.

Microsoft is being helped out by media companies (Music, Television, etc.). Because Apple dominates the digital music player and music download markets, they are able to strong arm the content providers and set the prices. Music labels and other media providers would like to see a more balanced market to be able to gain more control over their pricing.

For those of you who don’t know, iTunes and Microsoft-backed stores sell their songs with digital restrictions. These restrictions on the files prevent them from being copied a certain number of times, or can even cause the songs to “expire”, and stop working when the music store owner chooses. This also prevents music downloaded from iTunes from playing on Microsoft “Plays for Sure” players, and music from most other stores working on iPods. So any music you have downloaded from the iTunes music store will probably never work on Microsoft’s new player.

Rather than forcing you to re-buy your iTunes music at their store, Microsoft is planning to automatically buy it for you from their store, and pay for it, as well.

Would you be willing to switch to a new music player, if they re-bought all of your music for you? Will Microsoft be able to avoid previous traps and create a compelling product? I’m not betting on it, but if they throw as much money at it as they did for the XBox, there might be something that at least will have some presence.

Don’t you just love misleading pictures?

It’s all about the hearing these days. I remember those crazy sound-tests when I was a little kid. They put these enormous headphones on you, and told you to raise your hand whenever you heard something. Fun at first- but simply annoying after listening to high-pitched frequencies for a full ten minutes. I remember going back to class with the ringing still in my ears.

Little did I know that I was hearing frequencies most adults probably could not of. According to research, children and young teenagers can hear higher frequencies then adults. Well, a shopkeeper in Wiltshire, England has decided to utilize this information. The man developed a mosquito-type noise that plays outside of his shop to keep away troublemakers. Apparently, the noise is unbearably annoying for anyone under the age of 25. You can even try listening to the soundwave yourself.

(Something to note about the BBC article above: The caption on the picture of the mosquito reads, “A Mosquito, yesterday”. Whatever happened to pictures actually relating to the articles?)

Anyways, someone who noticed this article decided to create a sample of different frequencies to test their own hearing. Test it on their website for yourself. See how high up you can get before you can’t hear anything at all! The highest I can hear is 17,000 Hz- and I challenge you to beat it.

(Note: Try this around animals for extra fun )

Don’t you just love documentaries? I mean, we’ve got everything from Corporations, to Presidents, and even McDonalds.

Well, a new trailer has just hit the web for the new documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? It seems yet another film focused on blaming the giant car-manufacturer, General Motors.

The official site provides this small tagline to go with the movie: “In 1996 Electric cars began to appear on roads all over California. They were quiet and fast, produced no exhaust, and ran without gasoline. Who Killed the Electric Car?”

The movie will be hitting this summer. Stay tuned for details.