Microsoft is allowing users to test-drive a beta version of Office 2007, currently in production and nearing release (someday). Users are able to take an interactive look into the newest version of Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and all of the other old favorites included in the Office suite. If you don’t feel like opening IE 6+ in order to take the interactive test drive, Microsoft also enables users to download the latest crippled beta release of Office 2007, with saving and printing functions disabled.

[Test-drive Office 2007 Beta]

Sven Grahn in Sweden has an amazingly interesting hobby. He’s a spy satellite tracker, born out of his desire to find out what really was going on in outer space during the Cold War. Other than tracking the satellites, Sven also records the radio signals that these spy machines, many not even having record of their existence, send back to earth. What appears to be white noise and random bleeps to some, is a symphony of cold war technology, outer space mystery and dreams to others (this coming from someone who’s other projects are all named after NASA space programs).

[Satellite tracking notes | Sounds of outer space] (Via The Coudal Partners)

June 17th was Rails Day 2006, an annual event where teams create new and interesting web applications in just 24 hours, using the Ruby on Rails web application framework. Recently, John from Burm.net has posted an unofficial project page, listing short descriptions and URLs to each of the projects. While his list isn’t complete, some of the projects listed still stand-out as solid web applications, albeit a little rough around the edges. We’re suckers for the social coffee “tasting” project Cuppin, although why anyone would bother taste-testing Starbucks coffee is beyond me.

[Rails Day 2006 Live Projects | Rails Day 2006]

CCP, the makers of online MMORPG Eve-Online, have opened their pre-order site for their upcoming collectable card game, Eve: The Second Genesis. Pre-orders are estimated to ship towards the end of July, meaning those placing their orders now will receive their card sets a full 8 weeks before they are released publically. The storyline of the game takes place in the current Eve timeline, with the player taking the role of the CEO of a new and aspiring corporation, struggling for market domination. A complete rulebook is also available in .PDF form directly from the site, for early-adopters to get into the mood as early as possible.

When the game begins, you control a single starbase, a steady income, and access to a market from which you
can buy anything in supply. The “ace up your sleeve” is the secret knowledge of valuable outer regions which can yield the fortune required to build up your corporate empire and defeat the opposition. Your greatest weapon is absolute control over your employees and other corporation assets. Plan the progress of your corporation well by constructing your deck of cards carefully. Rest assured that your opponents – the CEOs of rival corporations – have their strategy planned. In EVE, business is war, and the only thing that matters is winning.

[Eve: Second Genesis | Eve-Online]

Channel Chooser is a service which recently was gaining a little buzz for allowing users to watch select television stations online for free. While not covering everything completely and missing a lot of the major US and UK networks, there are some treats. You’re not going to get the latest episode of Lost, but with live feeds from BBC News, CSPAN, ESPN, Bloomberg and CCTV, those seeking their fix of English language news are covered. There’s also some good movie channels playing classic, horror and sci-fi (b-movies galore!) and sports fans are well covered with the Golf Channel, and almost every other sport having their own channel. There’s also some aggregate promo-feeds from E!, Comedy Central, and MTV and yikes, 18+ adult channels. HDTV full-screen streaming video this isn’t, but, this is a good time-waster when at work (you know, research) or for those who work from home. Catch it while it lasts and make sure your browser’s ad-blocker is enabled!

[Channel Chooser]

Mega Games, one of Europe’s largest online gaming communities, is keeping a live and exhaustive list of free video games. 52 pages of games, covering years of game design and covering all genres and many platforms (from Linux to to XP to OSX), there are hundreds of interesting (and some not so interesting) games free to play and enjoy.

[Free Games at Mega Games]

French artist, Space Invader, or someone close to him, has posted pictures giving Flickr users an inside look of his ‘invasion’ of Vienna throughout June 2006. Creating a mixup of art installation and social exploration game, the artist created tile-based pixel art recreating characters from the classic video games Pac-Man and Space Invaders, then pasted them to buildings around Vienna, Austria. Space Invader is currently at residence in Vienna’s Museumsquartier.

[Space Invader Flickr Gallery | Space Invader]

Can you imagine travelling to visit family, sitting down at their computer, starting up any web browser and having complete and secure access to your desktop, including your applications, messages and information? I sure can. Enter the idea of WebOS, a research project by various universities, which has resulted in the creation of EyeOS. EyeOS is an open-source web desktop environment, enabling the user to setup their own small (and easy) EyeOS server (a public server is also available) at home which they can then remotely connect to from virtually any internet-connected PC. Set it up with the many EyeApps available and the user is then able to easily and remotely access email, documents, files, photos, and much much more. This is known as the WebOS, a rich and powerful remote operating system available to the user from any location. Still a little rough around the edges, with a 1.0 release approaching, EyeOS is trying to simplify and revolutionize the way we interact with our data and the internet.

[EyeOS | EyeOS Public Server]

I’m not 100% what the story behind these tunnels or the photos are (I’m trying to find out more information), but they appear to be some sort of flood control and/or irrigation and drainage tunnels. Whatever they are, these photos are extremely amazing and remind me of a mix between Blade Runner and Alien 4 movie sets. If anyone has more information on these, please e-mail us [Email address: nerds #AT# bunchofnerds.com - replace #AT# with @ ] and we’ll be happy to update the post.

[Amazing photos of Japanese flood tunnel]

[Update 1. Thanks to the many people emailing us regarding this story! More information is coming to light and I'm happy to update the post with what I've learned. The infrastructure is named the G-Cans Project and is an underground system in Tokyo intended to collect floodwater. I've also been forwarded an interesting travel diary of someone who was able to take a tour of the facility! Thanks Jackson and everyone else mailing me on this.]

A little over 10 years ago, 41 international directors were asked to create a short film using an original Cinematographe created by the Lumière Borthers in 1895, as part of the Lumière et compagnie project. Part of this group was the man we know and love, David Lynch, who by many accounts created the most inspiring short of all included. There were 3 rules involved with the making of the short, 1) The film must be under 52 seconds (possibly due to a technical limitation), 2) no synched sound was permitted, and 3) the directors were allowed no more than 3 takes. David Lynch’s short was titled, “Premonitions Following an Evil Deed” and featured 52 seconds of beautifully framed and filmed images, which even today feels fresh and exciting. I agree with the original poster, imagine what could have been created by Lynch if given more time and more stock in this format?

["Premonitions Following an Evil Deed" by Lynch at Google Video | Lumière Cinématographe at Wikipedia]