5IT, 11/20 (This. Edition)
1. Forensic DNA tests in 90 minutes.
"The RapidHIT represents a major technological leap—testing a DNA sample in a forensics lab normally takes at least two days. This has government agencies very excited. The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Justice Department funded the initial research for 'rapid DNA' technology, and after just a year on the market, the $250,000 RapidHIT is already being used in a few states, as well as China, Russia, Australia, and countries in Africa and Europe."
"Apple released WatchKit yesterday, finally revealing its technical features. Developers can't build 'native' applications for the watch, meaning apps can't only exist inside the watch. For now, they'll have to build an app on iOS with a code extension to the watch. This confirms the company's previous statement that an iPhone is required to be used with the wearable nearly all the time. Another reveal was that there are two types of notifications. One is a 'short look' that comes up when a user raises his hand and includes a large icon with a brief name. The other is a 'long look' when the hand continues to stay up, minimizing the icon towards the left-hand corner of the screen and bringing up a description."
3. Based on this interview, this strange fanfic novel, Chubz, could be fascinating.
"It's about twin territories, an online social space and the city, and about how the two overlap, which is a preoccupation of mine. In this case it's Grindr, it's about how you can use Grindr to read the city and the city to read Grindr. They're two territories superimposed on each other, a digital augmentation of reality. I started writing fiction about it because the tools at my disposal for non-fiction just weren't sufficient, or I wasn't good enough at it. The way people use hook-up apps is too subjective, and I felt like the only way I could talk about it honestly was to talk about it partially, in both senses of the word. I talk to a lot of guys about how they use Grindr. I like to go for long walks through the city with people and it normally takes about an hour before guys stop talking about the things everyone talks about—the overt racism and homophobia, the aspects of timewasting and wanking and stuff—and start admitting to sometimes thinking quite deeply about how the whole process from download to hook-up affects the way they live in the city, and how they construct their own sexual desire within that."
4. The password as a textual, digital keepsake.
"But there is more to passwords than their annoyance. In our authorship of them, in the fact that we construct them so that we (and only we) will remember them, they take on secret lives. Many of our passwords are suffused with pathos, mischief, sometimes even poetry. Often they have rich back stories. A motivational mantra, a swipe at the boss, a hidden shrine to a lost love, an inside joke with ourselves, a defining emotional scar — these keepsake passwords, as I came to call them, are like tchotchkes of our inner lives. They derive from anything: Scripture, horoscopes, nicknames, lyrics, book passages. Like a tattoo on a private part of the body, they tend to be intimate, compact and expressive."
5. Google Loon balloon falls in South African sheep farmer's field, as translated by Google.
"The peculiar electronic pieces were not really useful for Botha. He is a sheep farmer who hours before computers spend. 'The huge piece of plastic has filled my whole skaapsleepwa. I might be able to good use as I shed repainting. The smaller pieces of plastic I threw away.' Botha to electronic parts and stared Stoffel Visagie, a neighbor phoned. The love new things from old parts to create. Visagie's daughter Sarita (20), the parts and solar panel look and took photos she emailed her older brothers, John (30) and Benny (27), sent. The trio saw there is 'Google [X]' to the parts - and ge-Google. Google [X] is Google's semi-secret testing projects. 'We realized the balloon and parts of Google Loon Project. It is a technology system to balloons above the earth hangs and permanent internet access to everyone on earth provides.'"
I'm traveling, so our usage dictionary entries are on hiatus until tomorrow. But I have a really good bonus for you instead. You may have heard of a new social network called This., which allows users to post only one link per day. It's in early beta and it's the most 5IT network out there. This. offers sharing without the pressures of The Stream(TM). Founder Andrew Golis has given me 20 invites for you all. If you'd like to check it out, just reply to this email, and I'll dole them out—first-come, first-served—until they are gone. (Also, you should know: I worked with Andrew some while we were both at Atlantic Media, where This. was incubated.)
The Credits: 1. motherjones.com 2. bizjournals.com 3. rhizome.org 4. nytimes.com 5. netwerk24.com / @whiteafrican
New Things From Old Parts to Create