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From Antivirus to Antibiotics, McAfee Searches for a Last Cure
by Joel Johnson

A great article appeared in gizmodo yesterday, in which author Joel Johnson explains Quorum Sensing technology (with rad illustrations taboot, by Wendy MacNaughton).  The article does a good job of digging into the science and efficacy of  Quorumex‘s first anti-quorum sensing product: Topic-QX.  What may be even more intriguing is how much McAfee’s current work with quorum sensing mimics his work of 20-some years ago with computer virii.  Johnson cleverly ties the two worlds together in the title of his piece, but doesn’t explore the connection much beyond that.  The similarities are significant, imo.

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via NewerTech® Mini DisplayPort w/ 5.1 Channel Digital Audio to HDMI Adapter.

FastCompany did an expose on John McAfee in the May 2010 issue – sadly they didn’t really seem to live up to their name with this piece, they didn’t even mention McAfee’s newly formed, anti quorum sensing company, QuorumEx.  The language used by author Jeff Wise seemed to be rather polemic throughout, presenting just one side of McAfee’s legal woes.

Fantasy Island

John McAfee, the antivirus-software pioneer, says he’s lost most of his fortune — but doesn’t care. To the contrary, he now hopes to give something back by deriving antibiotics from jungle plants in Belize. Really?

On that day, what had started out as a sympathetic profile for Fast Company would slowly evolve into something more like a take-down…

Lots of doubt sprinkled through the article – nothing wrong with that, but the author questions McAfee’s intent with ending his snippet with the snide question “Really?” and admitting his piece was a “take-down.”   What Mr. Wise failed to realize is how much the rapidly evolving field of anti quorum sensing technology today is a reflection and type of “deja vu all over again” of the anti-computer virus technology, the then newly developing ecosphere in the mid to late 1980s, when McAfee created the software which made him famous.  Becoming famous and successful primarily due to giving his software away, yet Mr. Wise seems to doubt McAfee’s intents by suggesting he’s simply running away from lawyers and lawsuits.  Did the author even bother to contact McAfee’s lawyers, or read the QuorumEx site, and the thought, concepts, dedication and thinking behind McAfee’s anti-QS ideas?  If QuorumEx is truly able to interrupt certain bacterias’ ability to communicate and thus turn pathogenic – this would be a major discovery in modern medicine. (and may prove why some known natural remedies are effective).

Phish “I get up in the morning and I write. I do it all the time,” he says. “The greatest thing that’s happened to me over the past two years is the invention of the iPhone. There’s an app you can get called FourTrack. It’s a multitrack studio on your phone. Writing on this thing is unbelievable. Everywhere I go, 24 hours a day, I have this functioning multitrack studio with drum machines, and you sing right into it. That’s all you need.” -Miami Herald

“I’m obsessed with this recording app on my iPhone- the Sonoma Wire Works FourTrack. It’s like you have a superpowerful studio in your pocket. I can record basically anywhere. Like, I was having lunch with a friend Steve Pollak in New York recently; he brought a bunch of lyrics, and we stared writing on the spot-we were on the corner of 94th and Amsterdam, singing harmonies and bass lines at the top of our lungs into the earpiece. People eventually started gathering around us. The demo captured that whole vibe-the excitement of being out on the street. I don’t think I would’ve even remembered the melody by the time I got home. We took it to band practice, learned the tune right off the demo, didn’t change one thing. And now we’re going to play the song, “Show of Life,” on this summer’s tour.” -Rolling Stone Magazine

via Artist Using FourTrack.

The uncanny valley (or divide) still has a way to go, but it seems this software has brought it a bit closer.

Boeing’s Latest Mobile Laser Weapon Tracks and Shoots Down Drone

By Clay Dillow Posted 11.18.2009 at 11:49 am 13 Comments

Laser Defense: Boeing's MATRIX high-energy directed weapon knocks a UAV out of the sky. U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory

via Boeing’s Latest Mobile Laser Weapon Tracks and Shoots Down Drone | Popular Science.

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