AdamSmith
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The Chemical Brothers bring Hollywood special effects to dance music
I look around at the sea of glowing faces surrounding me in the dark of Randall's Island in New York. There's no fist pumping. Their feet aren't shuffling. Instead, they're looking straight ahead at a large hand-drawn figure on a black screen. The frame, shaped like a human body, is filled with an entangled web of white lines. It appears to stand behind a barricade of light beams that shoot up from the stage. When the rapper Q-Tip's voice booms -- "World, the time has come to galvanize"-- the figure shakes furiously as if trying to break free from its enclosure. With every beat of the iconic Chemical Brothers track, the abstract form pushes back with swift choreographed moves. It struggles for a while before it breaks down the light-built cage and spins freely with the elegance of a trained contemporary dancer.
Google Fiber is growing slowly, by design
"Keep Austin Weird." It's the proud slogan of the Texas capital, and it wears it well, especially with its eclectic mix of culture, history and technology. Pretty soon, Austin will have one more reason to be proud: it'll be one of a few cities in America to carry Google Fiber, the search giant's experimental foray as a broadband provider. "It is, as always, step by step," Google Fiber head of project management Adam Smith tells me. Smith is sitting across from me in Austin's new Google Fiber space, hesitantly explaining how Google isn't very experienced at this whole "internet provider" thing it's been doing. On paper, Austin is the third city to support Google's internet service, but reality is less black and white. "Provo was an acquisition," Smith reminds me. "This is really the second organic city... ...it's sort of also saying that this is also new for us."
Congressmen tell ITC to lay off Microsoft in Xbox patent litigation
If the ITC didn't enjoy being told what to do by the FTC, it's probably less thrilled that Congress (and Apple) has joined in. The ITC found that the Xbox 360 violated four of Motorola's patents back in April, and when a final ruling is made, could see the console banned from sale. Several members of the chamber have voiced their disapproval of any such ban, with similar words of support coming from Apple's lawyers, accusing Motorola of abusing FRAND patents. After this deluge of letters, we're half expecting ITC chief Deanna Okun to start shouting "Don't tell me what I can't do!" at passers-by.
