Media marketers want better data about who’s watching what, and when, and for how long. A company called Integrated Media Measurement, Inc. has a novel if worrisome solution: cell phones that record 10 seconds of audio every 30 seconds, and upload the content to a server to be matched against the audio signatures of media broadcast in the area. [schneier]

A couple of weeks ago the Mars rovers (whose lifespan has far exceeded their design) got a software upgrade. Call me starry-eyed, but it’s just too cool that we live in a world where we’re running software installs on robots on Mars. [slashdot]

A court in Ontario has ordered allowed the listing of three parents on a child’s birth certificate. It’s a legal recognition of what is becoming a de facto reality for many people, not just gay couples with an involved biological parent, but also adoptive parents with birth mothers. [mefi]

This is what the relentless march of progress is all about: cheaper whole house music servers.

According to Wired, most toy designers are now creating three-dimensional models using haptic tools that give the illusion of working with clay or other materials. This is stage 1: allowing practitioners to map their existing skills to the digital medium. I’ll be really interested to see what’s happening in stage 2, when sculptors invent new skills to take advantage of the digital realm.