Just a quick update on the button. We assembled the revision 3 parts of the button and have made significant improvement over the previous revision. Mathew and Brian got the button hardware up and running on the non-form factor board. Great work!

Anyone with children has had the experience of waking in the middle of the night to a very sick child. I can remember one particular night, waking up to my child’s cries and feeling the intense heat radiating from his forehead. A tiny little body helplessly overheating. No thermometer was necessary – I knew by the temperature and his fast breathing that his body was waging a war against infection.

The Earth, like a small baby, is also helplessly overheating. We do not need a thermometer to know that the Earth has a fever. (more…)

I chuckled on hearing a story on NPR this week about a publishing company from Iceland — yes, ICELAND! — that plans to launch free daily newspapers in 10 US cities. Apart from the Iceland connection, nothing unusual about that. The rub is that the newspaper content will largely come from selected web bloggers. Its a sort of vanity press — on paper — for the digerati. The publisher will pay the bloggers for their content, but obviously at a lower rate than, say, the NY Times pays Tom Friedman.

The really interesting thing to me is that the whole idea turns on its head the notion that news in physical form is a dinosaur and that everything good is going digital. Not so, it seems; people still like to hold a newspaper, or book, in their hands. Another thought of possible interest to bloggers whose content might be selected for print publication (“Anablogs”?): the Pulitzer Prize awards for journalism haven’t (yet) favored digital journalists. If ya wanna be famous, ya gotta be in print!

NY Times columnist Tom Friedman has a great talent for breaking through the thick crust of partisan political rhetoric that attaches itself inexorably to every major issue (war, religious fundamentalism, economic development, emerging democracies, etc.) and obscures the facts needed to make intelligent decisions. With his cover story in the April 15, 2007 NY Times Sunday Magazine (”The Power of Green”), he has clearly seized the thought leadership role in describing the enormous opportunities – economic, political and social – presented by “green technology.” (more…)

On the software side, we’ve also undergone quite a bit of evolution.
In its previous incarnation, the Exbiblio system comprised components written using a variety of computer languages and technologies, such as C, C++, Objective-C, C#, AppleScript, Visual Basic for Applications, and Java (many or all of which will resurface over time). We were trying to leverage each contributor to their fullest by keeping them working in their most familiar environment, at the cost of more complex communication between the components. We were also trying to build in a lot of flexibility by having separate processes communicating with each other, at the cost of simple installation and maintenance. (more…)

Some people know how to decorate their office.

I feel a bit intimidated by the idea of presenting what we’ve done since we last posted updates on the software and hardware development. I think I’ll let the overview slip a bit, and get started with a few recent tidbits.
We just reached some very exciting milestones on the hardware side, in that we got our first form-factor boards in, as well as early samples of the case. The boards don’t yet have the components placed on them, but they will be “stuffed” shortly. (more…)

“Until now, in most parts of the world, Web surfing has been separate from everyday activities like riding the train, watching television and driving. But the new technology may erode that distinction.

““You’ve picked up this product, and you don’t want to go back to your PC,” said Tim Kindberg, a senior research at the Bristol, England, lab of Hewlett-Packard. “Or you’re outside this building, and you want more information. We call it the ‘physical hyperlink.’ ””

So read some quotes from, well, let’s try what we’re calling the Exbiblio Eureka: 6 words in sequence are a URL (in this case 8 works slightly better):

A a search on Google reveals that the article appeared in

What’s so exciting about Exbiblio and the oPen™, is that you don’t need the bar codes. You can do the same thing without them, using the Eureka and a great capturing device.

by Hilary Franz

In the next week leading up to Earth Day we will be posting a list of ways that you can take action in your own life to reduce your carbon emissions footprint. These conservation technology changes if made in your life will have an impact on cutting carbon emissions. But as I stated in my last blog, what is also needed is bold leadership from Washington D.C. to drive the large scale changes needed to stave off the the catastrophic effects of global warming. To this end, we urge everyone to take the first step towards reaching Congress by participating in Step It Up 2007 this Saturday, April 14! (more…)

by Exbiblio

Come check out our new look for Exbiblio.com. We loved our old site, but we could not resist the opportunity to improve the accessibility, navigation, and let people know about our new focus. We plan to update it often, and have lots more in-store for later this year, so let us know what you think.