Why do most people tilt their heads to the right when they suck face? According to a report published today in the journal Nature, people are nearly twice as likely to lean right instead of left when puckering up. The findings suggest that the tendency stems from head-tilting preferences established …

MusicBrainz is here to help you with your music selection: MusicBrainz, an open-source music meta-data service, has announced the formal launch of its music recognition service designed to provide an open standard for recognizing and identifying digital music files, while providing an alternative to costly proprietary offerings. Supporting this effort, …

My beloved Valentine (who has a cold – get well) has an on the scene report from a protest where a dangerous social rift seems to be developing along the fault line of support for the war: As an impending war with Iraq looms like an outbreak of herpes on …

Half Mast, the first novel from FilmCritic.com founder Christopher Null, is a stunning accomplishment, achieving several difficult tasks simultaneously: gripping caper yarn, perceptive coming of age story, keen observation and commentary on drastic Darwinian social stratification in school (with echoes of Columbine, et al), and a devastating look at the …

Inside Digital Media audio interview with Eric Garland of BigChampagne, the P2P measurement company. Highlights of the interview include: – Music that is popular on KaZaa differs from the SoundScan data – Billboard popularity charts also don’t match KaZaa. – New releases that are heavily traded on KaZaa become best …

By an overwhelming vote of 418 to 7, the House voted yesterday to create a “do not call” registry for people who want to be left alone by telemarketers: The House measure would allow the Federal Trade Commission to collect fees from telemarketers to pay for the registry, which would …

Ample finalists - unintentional irony - popular semi-finalist dumped.

Six indicted on pay-TV satellite transmission hacking charges: The defendants allegedly created software and hardware designed to unscramble transmission signals sent by satellite TV operators, such as DirecTV and Dish Networks, said IDC with the computer crimes section of the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for the Central District of California. …

Ultrawideband, a new short-range wireless standard, is causing concerns about interference: UWB operates across a wide range of these so-called frequencies all at once. The “flooding” of the airwaves creates a short but powerful signal–about 100 times faster than Bluetooth, another short-range wireless standard. Beginning last February, the Federal Communications …

Maybe this is part of the answer to this foolishness: Australian researchers unveiled a chip that lets cell-phone users receive high-quality face-to-face video and other streaming media at rates faster than a home broadband connection. Developed at Bell Labs in Australia, the chip works on a next-generation cell-phone network like …