Bostonist was permitted to set foot in Boylston Street's gleaming ice palace of an Apple Store this morning, in advance of its Friday opening. An Apple spokespersonage gestured and informed us that the store's floor is from Italy and that the store's employees are from the Boston area. (Bostonist recognized and was recognized by a former Diesel barista.) The staircase, we're assuming, is from the future. Mayor Menino blessed the whole endeavor and laid hands......

It was Guy Fawkes versus L. Rob Hubbard yesterday on Beacon Street. More than 100 people were outside Boston’s branch of The Church of Scientology yesterday, protesting the practices of the church, Boston NOW reported. Led by the Anti-Scientologist internet group Anonymous, word was spread about numerous protests worldwide through You Tube, message boards, and e-mail. Anonymous had previously announced that February 10th would be a day of mass protest of all Scientology churches......

With over 20 million accounts, Second Life has become a pop culture phenomenon. An Internet-based virtual world, the metaverse in which we can be the person we've always wanted to be (without putting in the hard-work of exercise or educational training) have very few competitors. Currently, there is an exhibition going on in Boston called Mixed Realities - an exploration of real and synthetic places made possible by computers and networks. There's an exhibition......

Star Simpson, the MIT student whose light-up T-shirt caused a panic when she wore it to Logan Airport, appeared in court today. She asked for the charges to be dropped because the shirt was a form of free speech and that she had worn it days before without it causing a problem. Here's the update from the AP/WBZ: Thomas Dwyer Jr., a lawyer for Simpson, said his client didn't think her shirt would scare anyone.......

The Joint Committee on Transportation has approved a bill that bans the use of using a handheld gadget while driving, and the Massachusetts House of Representatives will vote on the bill next, the Globe reports. If the bill passes, drivers will be fined $100 if they are caught with a handheld gadget for the first time, $250 for the second, and $500 for the third. Theoretically, the police should confiscate the handheld gadget and make......

--A new company, FlexPetz, will let you rent a dog for a few hours so you can enjoy canine companionship without getting up in the cold to walk the critter. Wouldn't it be great if you could just rent human companionship for a few hours? Oh, wait. That's illegal. Nevermind. [Boston Globe] --Wondering why there are so many kids running around today? Seventy drivers called in sick or took a personal day today, and about......

Upon realizing that large chunks of Boston neighborhoods were left unmapped by Google Street View, Bostonist e-mailed Google HQ to find out why. We received a fairly standard response that the neglected areas would be mapped soon: We generally start collecting imagery at the metropolitan center (in this case Boston) and move out from there, which explains why the more outlying areas you mentioned are not covered in as much detail. However, we plan on......

Google Street View has been available in several cities but has now made its debut in Boston, according to the Globe. The process allows you to take a 360 view of an address. If you want to use it, just go to Google Maps, type in a Boston address, and click on the little yellow man that pops up at the address. A new window will appear with a street-level image of the area. You......

Ann Marie McNally died when her car and a BPD cruiser hit each other in South Boston in November. Yet she lives on because hackers, for some strange reason, are using her name as a way to draw people to their own sites. Louise Story at the New York Times spoke with McNally's friends and family because several of them thought they found a video for her memorial service on the web. The memorials were......

Billy Joel said "Only The Good Die Young," but let's just say he has no idea what he's talking about, and only the really good die at the ripe old ages of, say, 69. So goes the news for Friday, November 30th, as Evel Knievel - a legendary stuntman who's fame hasn't been succeeded by generations to follow. One can only wonder with the speed of technology and special effects if masters of amazement......

COLLISIONtwelve (12) Art Opening Tonight Friday, November 30th MIT Stata Center Balcony Gallery 32 Vassar Street, 3rd Floor Cambridge, MA 6p - 9p / FREE / All Ages COLLISIONcollective is a group of artists from MIT and the surrounding Boston area that explore new technologies through the filters of art. Founded in 2002, their intentions have been to showcase art that incorporates technology, but has since expanded into some of the most innovative and......

Tourfilter DJ Night River Gods (125 River St., Central Square) Thursday, November 29, 9 p.m. -1 a.m. Free! If you're not already a member, you should definitely join Tourfilter.com. It's a music fan's dream: a comprehensive site that lets you track your favorite bands and get e-mail updates when they're coming to town--or, in the case of local bands, playing near you. The site's also a great way to get to know new bands, since......

The Globe published a long piece about the mystery still surrounding Army specialist Ciara Durkin's death in Afghanistan in late September. Durkin, who was from Quincy, was shot in the head, although the Army called it a "non-combat-related incident." Her family is not satisfied with that explanation, and the Globe report provides evidence that someone on the base may have had it out for Durkin. In one event, Durkin wrote an e-mail saying, "Ok. so......

Online dating is becoming as big of a commitment as a serious relationship. The applications and endless profile-building keep you chained to your computer when you could be out meeting The One or at least adding to your repertoire of Hell-Date stories. Crazyblinddate.com, which is launching today in Boston, New York, and San Francisco, strips the online-dating process down to its bare bones. Crazyblinddate.com promises to get you interacting with as many people as......

--An 18-year-old screamed racist comments at BPD officers working Tuesday's Red Sox Rally. And then he tried to get out of it by saying he was a cousin of a State Representative. The BPD wasn't impressed. According to Michele McPhee, Peter Kouroujian was busted for drinking underage when he took out his anger on police: As police tried to remove Kouroujian, he allegedly screeched, “Hey, you (expletive). Why don’t you do some real police......

Blogtoberfest Tonight, Thursday, October 25, 2007, 6:00-8:00 pm The Pour House, 907 Boylston St., Boston Official site Jenny Frazier is holding a gathering of the Boston bloggers tonight, and it promises to be a blast, if last year's event was any indication. Well, there might be a few awkward silences as bloggers (Bostonist included) make the scary transition from online friendship to in-person friendship, but that's what beer is for! If you are a......

PodCamp Boston 2 Friday, October 26 through Sunday, October 28 Boston Convention & Expo Center Free, but registration required Official Site PodCamp Boston 2 promises to teach you more than how to bedazzle an iPod, as witnessed on the reality-show I Love New York 2. The days are packed with practical seminars on creating your own web-media empire. Seminar titles include "Web 2.0 Tools That Are Actually Useful" and "Intellectual Property Law for the Creative......

Honest-to-goodness Nobel Laureates, along with a few non-Laureates, indulged their silly sides on Thursday night when Harvard University hosted the 2007 Ig Nobels ceremony. The Annals of Improbable Research magazine (that sounds like something Dave Eggers would have thought up) grants the "Ig Nobels" for achievements in "unusual and imaginative scientific discovery." Here's a list of this year's winners in all the Ig Nobel fields from the Guardian UK: Medicine: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester and......

Lots of Romney news going around today … Former Massachusetts governor and presidential aspirant Mitt Romney had a bright idea--giving regular voters the chance to make his campaign commercials. The voters could paste together elements provided by Team Romney and their own ideas, and Team Romney has picked the top nine. The winning ad will air on television. Despite Romney's excellent grasp of cutting-edge technology, he put himself in a vulnerable position. Slate.com quickly assembled......

WGBH held a ribbon-cutting yesterday morning to commemorate its new studio space in Brighton. After president Henry Becton cut a bright orange ribbon in front of a stage inside the complex, a digital mural along the side of the building facing the pike made its debut. The gigantic, 30-by-45-foot mural might outdo the Citgo sign, which can be always seen looming over the city. Anyone driving east on the Pike will be able to see......

Watch your back MIT, the nerds across the river are gaining ground. The Rubik's "Magic" Cube achieved instant classic status when it was introduced in 1980. There's probably one, unsolved, somewhere in your house right now. There are, of course, some people who have mastered the secret patterns of twists and turns that will solve the puzzle quickly – computer scientists at Northeastern have managed to create a method to put all sides to single......

Will the real Fake Steve Jobs please stand up? Yes, he will. And he'll do it in Boston. The New York Times outed the blogger who's been blogging as a Steve Jobs iMpersonator (can we trademark that?) for over a year. His real name Daniel Lyons a Medford resident. He's been impersonating the Apple chief and lampooning his persona on the blog fakesteve.blogspot.com. In the last year it's gotten the attention of the tech elite......

The latest hot YouTube video comes from the Tweeter Center parking lot, where some fans started beating the ever-loving hell out of each other before a 311 concert. Watch and learn the physical signs of the bonehead - their shirtless, tattoed torsos, their sweaty flesh, and their ability to take a punch: As WHDH notes, a guy kept yelling, "This is going on YouTube, baby!" That must be a sign of bonehead evolution. They've discovered......

According to the Associated Press, Gov. Deval Patrick called for a review of local bridge inspection records today. It turns out that Massachusetts has 27 steel truss bridges similar in design to the one that collapsed in Minnesota, but none is considered in danger of collapsing. WBZ news posted a Mass Mass Highway Dept. spreadsheet which lists 23 bridge rehab/replacement projects that are in design, under construction or recently completed. Gov. Patrick says he plans......

We've been following the One Laptop Per Child project ever since it spun out of the MIT Media Lab and into its very own organization. The project has secured foreign governments and significant investment commitments to purchase the laptops and the infrastructure to support them. Launch of the project has still sits in a testing phase, reportedly the final beta test stage. Much information is available about the laptops – including the standard operating system......

Attention, Brookline web surfers – Brookline has wireless Internet starting yesterday, and you now have free wi-fi for a month. Alas, after that, you have to subscribe, but if you have a subscription, you can still hop online and surf if you are in Brookline. The SSID is Brookline Wireless. The Brookline TAB has details on how the wireless works if you're just passing through Brookline and feel the urge to check your e-mail: Other......

A team of MIT students and professors have completed the preliminary round in the Defense Advanced Recearch Projects Agency's Urban Challenge competition. Representatives from DARPA visited with the team and their vehicle to see if they would be one of the 30 teams of the current 53 who will compete in the semi-finals in October. From the Urban Challenge website: the Urban Challenge features autonomous ground vehicles maneuvering in a mock city environment, executing simulated......

An employee of the Cambridge AT&T store, which was selling iPhones, said his store sold out of the fascinating new gadgets in one hour flat, between 6 and 7 pm last night. He said that people didn't get too crazy, but a few people started their iPhone vigil at 11pm Thursday night. Boston NOW asked local comedian and Dig columnist Baratunde Thurston, who is kinda pissed with his iPod right now, what he thought of......

Yesterday Massachusetts and Texas were recipient of a whole heap of grant money to test new wind turbines. This isn't part of Cape Wind at all, the grant provides funding for massive wind power blades to be tested in East Boston in Charlestown, not in Nantucket Sound. The Cape Wind project has created a bunch of flap from aristocrats griping about the potential for an oceanic wind farm to obstruct their view, this $2 million......

The Boston wing of the FBI met with leaders of local schools because they think spies might try to steal research. The Herald writes, "Boston FBI Special Agent in Charge Warren Bamford recently met with officials at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, among other schools, to train academics on what sort of research could be used by terrorists." The FBI wants academics to watch their laptops and note any overenthusiastic......