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Luxury Date Movies - $35 Ticket Comes to Southern California(TrendHunter.com) Wait, $35? Yep. A movie theater in Costa Mesa, CA wants to open a movie theater that will charge up to $35 per tic. Buy your ticket online, pick your seat, valet park your car and...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 10:20 am Sarah Palin Lookalikes - Tina Fey, Peggy Hill & Other Sightings (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) These days, it seems like Sarah Palin is everywhere. Of course, that could just be your eyes playing tricks on you. In the midst of all the political chaos, people...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 10:06 am Google takes Web browser rivalry to whole new level - Waukegan News Sun
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 9:07 am What Vendors Do You Trust For PC Parts?CaryTheSane writes "After six years, it's finally time for my old Pentium 4 to retire to web browsing duties, and I want a new gaming PC. I'd like to build my own this time, and I've scoped out most of the parts I want for a moderately high-end system. What online vendors have you used before that you trust for parts? I've dealt with NewEgg, and I like them, but I live in Tennessee, a state in which they have a presence. Unfortunately, this means they have to hit me up for 9.5% sales tax. That really eats into my system build budget, so I'm looking for alternatives. I'd like to use the fewest number of vendors (preferably only one), so that all the parts arrive at the same time and I don't have one part's 30-day return policy run out while I'm waiting for parts from another vendor to show up. So, what reliable and economical parts vendors do you recommend?" Conversely, are there any you'd recommend avoiding?Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 6 Sep 2008 | 9:06 am RNC/DNC: Crisis? What Crisis?Now they're planning the crime of the century Well what will it be? Read all about their schemes and adventuring Its well worth a fee ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:59 am Mad Magazine on Sarah Palin Mad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too. Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin Edition Source: Boing Boing | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:13 am Mad Magazine on Sarah PalinMad Magazine has leaked its satirical Sarah Palin spread to the HuffPo -- a good 'un, too. Exclusive: MAD Magazine's Election Coverage, Sarah Palin EditionSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:13 am Typhoons Bury Tons Of Carbon in the OceansBy Anonymous A single typhoon in Taiwan buries as much carbon in the ocean in the form of sediment as all the other rains in that country all year long combined, impeding the carbon cycle, a study by Ohio State University (OSU) said.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Roots in BiodegradablesBy Anonymous Nature Friendly Products (NFP) directly manufactures more than 200 compostable items that break down in 50 to 100 days, meeting U.S. standards for compostability.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am California Gets Aggressive on Organics and Climate ChangeBy Brown, Margo Reid Getting organics out of landfills is critical. Connecting that mission with greenhouse gas emissions will make that happen. THE ENVIRONMENTAL outlook is bright throughout California, and we're doing everything we can to keep the momentum going forward.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Integrating Charting and Acoustic Habitat ResearchBy Lomnicky, Jay McConnaughey, Robert NOAA Hydrographers and Fishery Biologists Collaborate on Multi- Mission Projects in Alaska The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) line office responsible for managing the fishery resources of the United States according to mandates in the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act (MSFCMA).Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Food Composting InfrastructureBy Olivares, Cristina Goldstein, Nora BioCycle survey senes provides region by region listing of food waste composting projects in the U.S. FROM 1995 to 2000, BioCycle published an annual national survey of food waste composting projects in the United States.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Logistics of Composting Urban Yard TrimmingsBy Diaz, L F Eggerth, L L Grover Landscape Services processes up to 800 tons/day of yard trimmings and source separated food waste, producing high quality compost for landscape and agricultural markets. GROVER Landscape Services, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am While Some Coral Reefs Have Recovered, Others Still DeclineBy Anonymous Coral reefs in the Indo-Pacific Ocean have largely recovered from the devastating hot water the off, or "bleaching event," that killed up to 90 percent of corals on some reefs in 1998, researchers announced last month.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Environmental Problems in Coastal Regions VIIBy Anonymous Environmental Problems in Coastal Regions VII Edited by CA. Brebbia. Hardcover. 256 pp. WIT Press. $ 168.00.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am From Sludge To Compost In Eastern EuropeBy Runge, Karsten Trends and practices in biosolids composting in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. OVER the past few years, composting of biosolids has become very popular in some Eastern European countries.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Sta Program Formally Accepts Vermicompost and DigestateBy Anonymous Several modifications have been made to the Seal of Testing Assurance (STA) Program, a national compost certification program administered by the U.S. Composting Council.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Sep 2008 | 8:00 am Brave New World of Digital IntimacyClive Thompson's article for The New York Times titled "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy" is a must read. Thompson describes the experience of using Facebook and Twitter and explores several theories...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:59 am Microsoft's Xbox price cuts are welcome, but make sure you do the math - Dallas Morning News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:38 am UC Berkeley starts cutting controversial grove - Los Angeles Times
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:01 am Ice shelf breaks away in Canadian ArcticThe 19-square-mile Markham Ice Shelf is now floating in the Arctic Ocean. An Arctic ice shelf specialist says 83 square miles of ice has been lost from shelves this summer. ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am Hanna-Ike-Josephine storm trio isn't an anomalyGlobal warming can't be blamed for the trifecta -- headed toward the Southeast U.S. -- meteorologists say. It's just 'peak season in an active hurricane cycle.' ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am Tropical storm may delay nation's first test of digital TV conversionWilmington, N.C., which is scheduled to make the switch Monday, is in Hanna's path. Rumbling toward the Carolina...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am Electronic Arts spawns Spore -- which may be a benevolent godThe unconventional video game could usher in a new golden age for the once undisputed industry giant, which has slipped in recent years. ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 7:00 am 35 Design Trends Inspired by Plants (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) At Trend Hunter weve seen plants being used as the inspiration for many innovations. As the green movement gains steam, plants and foliage are everywhere in the world of design. Designers...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:40 am Sexy Stewardess Fashion - From Airline to Runway (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Its a hot and spicy trend that started long ago and has never fully faded...sexy airline sterwardesses. With their tightly fitted blouses and curve-hugging skirts, these women have...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:20 am Ice shelf breaks away in Canadian Arctic - Los Angeles Times
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:17 am FDIC Bank Closure Streak: Hitting 0.667 with Silver StateAfter a cold streak in early August where it missed closing banks two Fridays in a row, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is on fire. It has closed U.S. banks three of the last three Friday nights,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:16 am Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.1 Alpha 2daria42 writes with news that Mozilla has released the second alpha build for Firefox 3.1, codenamed "Shiretoko." The new build includes "support for the HTML 5 <video> element" and the ability to "drag and drop tabs between browser windows." ComputerWorld is running a related story about benchmarks shown by Mozilla's Brendan Eich which indicate that Firefox 3.1 will run Javascript faster than Chrome.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:03 am 33 Rockin' Speaker Designs (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) The speaker is a basic component of every audio system; after all, what fun is music without some sort of amplification of sound? These 33 speakers deviate from the standard black...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 6:00 am Celeb Fashion Week Collections - Victoria Beckham Rocks New Yorks Elite(TrendHunter.com) Victoria Beckham has been hinting for months that she may show at New York Fashion Week. Now that its just around the corner, its been announced her signature collection will be shown...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:40 am Sony recalls 4,38000 Vaio TZ laptops - Techtree.com
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:31 am Retro double kitchen-timerThe Twice as Nice Double Timer is a great-looking and practical little gizmo:Twice As Nice (via Cribcandy) Source: Boing Boing | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:28 am Google reigns as world's most powerful 10-year-old (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:23 am More copyright for European sound recordings will net performers a whopping $0.50/yearGlyn sez, "In response to a consultation on the European Commission's proposal to almost double the term of copyright protection on sound recordings, the Open Rights Group have responded that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as "much" as €26.79 each year. That's because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year."Our submission shows that for the vast majority of performers the projected extra sales income resulting from term extension is likely to be meagre: from as little as 50¢ each year in the first ten years, to as “much” as €26.79 each year. That’s because most of the gains (89.5%) will go to the top 20% of recording artists. Meanwhile the major labels will be dividing up millions in extra handouts every year.Performers likely to get as little as 50¢ a year from increased term of copyright (Thanks, Glyn!) Source: Boing Boing | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:18 am HOWTO Make Tetris browniesFraske Design's got a great, simple tutorial for making your own Tetris brownies for hours of fun and pounds of flab:How to Make Tetris Brownies (or Tetris Cookies) (via Craft) Source: Boing Boing | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:13 am Comcast Challenges FCC RulingComcast Corp. is appealing an FCC ruling that the company is improperly blocking customers' Web traffic, triggering a legal battle that could determine the extent of the government's authority to regulate the Internet.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:00 am Internet Marketing Helps Businesses Cope With EconomyTo: TECHNOLOGY EDITORS Contact: Linda Sheetz, +1-949-476-1000, lsheetz@prstore.com NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a recent data from PRstore, small businesses are fueling a surge in Internet marketing.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:00 am The Razz: SINGER KATY GETS SHIRTYBy BEVERLEY LYONS AND LAURA SUTHERLAND I KISSEDA Girl singer Katy Perry has a message for those who take her song too literally. She wore a T-shirt saying "I Love Boys", perhaps trying to please those who have criticised her lyrics.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:00 am The Fat Lady Sings OK, It's Not the Knicks, but Woody Allen Takes a Shot at Directing Live OperaBy Bob Strauss At the moment, Woody Allen is enjoying his most popular, best- reviewed movie in years, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona." So, in typical self-sabotaging fashion, the next thing up for the 72-year-old comedian and film auteur is something he could likely get crucified for.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:00 am Google's Chrome Browser Isn't All That ShinyBy JUSTIN WILLIAMS For the past five years, Google has built an impressive array of Web-based applications that are used by millions around the world. Gmail is one of the premier e-mail services today.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 5:00 am Napster faces challenges within and without - Reuters
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:17 am Napster faces challenges within and without (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:13 am Napster faces challenges within and withoutDENVER (Billboard) - When Napster reported its fiscal first-quarter results in August, it tried to paint a positive picture to investors who were growing increasingly nervous about the...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:13 am Cassini detects partial rings with Saturn's moonsThe latest images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft show faint, partial rings orbiting with two of Saturn's small inner moons, scientists said Friday. Cassini detected a partial ring, or...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:11 am Mashup DJ Girl Talk Deconstructs Samples From Feed the AnimalsPittsburgh-based computer maestro Girl Talk (aka, Gregg Gillis) turns the cut-and-paste process of mashups into a jams-packed jigsaw puzzle. His latest release samples 300 songs.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:00 am Safe and Sexy: Motorcycle Helmets With Bluetooth, MP3 Players, and GPSRiding a motorcycle while talking on the phone is just plain dumb. But if you really must take that call, Mr. President, please consider a Bluetooth helmet. Some connected headgear can even tie in to your GPS and MP3 player, pausing tunes for directions on long trips. Might we suggest "Freebird"? Nolan N102 N-Com
Garmin Zumo 550
Dainese Airstream Course D-Nect
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:00 am Gallery: Cosmic Motors From Another Galaxy : Image: Daniel SimonDaniel Simon is an automotive futurist. He's interned with Lamborghini and worked on concept cars for VW. But the auto industry -- indeed, the galaxy -- could not contain his imagination. In a time of all talk and no action by car companies promising us the car of the future, Simon's new book Cosmic Motors: Spaceships, Cars and Pilots of Another Galaxy satisfies our future-lust with hyper-real fetish vehicles. Most artist renderings of futuristic vehicles are so outlandish they verge on cartoonish. Simon avoids that trap by incorporating automotive and industrial touchstones -- steering wheels, rivets, turbines -- everyone can recognize. It feels like you could reach out and touch them. Click through the gallery to check out these amazing vehicles and the stories behind them. Left: Simon hasn't just created cool vehicles, he's created an elaborate back story for them. Most are built by Cosmic Motors, which could be called the General Motors of Nembi, a planet in the distant galaxy Galaxion. The Camarudo is CoMo's first vehicle, built from parts salvaged from wrecked cargo ships. Its small size and nimble handling made it the perfect vehicle for hunting, and CoMo adapted them to racing. Many famous pilots started their careers flying them on Oosfera.  : Image: Daniel Simon"A 'real' futuristic ship does not need anything but a seat and a plug," says Simon, who worked in the auto industry before launching Daniel Simon Studios two years ago. "The pilot steers via mind and feels the input via brain injections. Design-wise, that's dead boring. Without all these real-world details, my fantasy vehicles would be less desirable because they're less recognizable." Left: Here's a different Camarudo, shot from above. The first Camarudos were assembled by farmers, a heritage reflected in its simple design. A turbine provides thrust, and forward visibility is by means of a virtual 3-D display, rendering a windscreen unnecessary. Despite its humble beginnings, Camarudos often are customized to reflect the personalities of its pilots.  : Image: Daniel SimonSimon, now 33 and living in Germany, is a lifelong gearhead who's been drawing since he was 4. He got serious about it when he was 17 and earned a degree in transportation design from the University of Applied Science in Pforzheim. He kicked around the auto industry for six years before launching his own design studio because, "I have to experience much more than car design." Working in the auto industry "is a boy's dream come true," he says, "but there is much other cool stuff, like jets, rockets, boats or movies." He's done some consulting and design work and he's currently in Los Angeles working on an undisclosed movie. Left: The Detonator was a styling exercise never meant for production, but it proved so popular at CoMo's annual party that the brass approved a limited run of 10. Each has a 6-liter V8 engine good for 155 mph. Most are owned by collectors who display them on the show-car circuit, but the fate of No. 5 remains a mystery after it vanished without a trace.  : Image: Daniel SimonThe 700-foot-long Incisalis is the centerpiece of the Djado fleet that carries the princess of Pangha-Ipoh, a desert planet of simple technology. The Incisalis travels with an identical decoy ship and is always accompanied by a fleet of smaller, lighter-than-air ships and ground caravans that carry servants, cooks, mechanics and others in service of the princess.  : Image: Daniel SimonThis drop-dead gorgeous coupe is the Galaxion 5000, the most technologically advanced vehicle in the CoMo lineup. A xenoramium fusion reactor provides blinding acceleration to 330 mph. Available only in translucent white, unauthorized "Black Edition" models with mile-deep black paint and extensive weaponry have surfaced in the underworld of Tarra 1.  : Image: Daniel SimonThe Gravion was built to dominate the Gravion Cup races of Glancory. The asymmetrical design accommodates the massive engine used in the Sexy Magrela aerial racers, creating a vehicle capable of 1,300 mph. Taking turns at that speed generates huge G-forces, so the off-center cockpit rotates to keep the driver from snapping his neck. Heated coils in the rear tires keep the rubber hot for optimal adhesion.  : Image: Daniel SimonPatrolling the trade routes of the ice planet Nala is nasty work best done in an Ice Train Series 3. The huge vehicles -- the entry door is 24 feet above the ground -- feature giant heated wheels that cut through the ice and snow to solid ground. Much of the space inside the vehicle is reserved for the massive turbine engines, leaving just enough room for the captain, the navigator and a crew of 12 dwarfs.  : Image: Daniel SimonThe ultra-luxurious Nembiquarer started out as a military vehicle developed by CoMo's main competitor, Astrocon, but the project was abandoned when peace came to Tarra III. CoMo bought the blueprints and created a go-anywhere, do-anything vehicle favored by the obscenely wealthy. Two versions of the 45-foot-long truck compete in the Trans Terra Rally.  : Image: Daniel SimonThe Sexy Magarella is an aerial racer based on Astrocon's Railton Bomber military ship. The powerful bombers are popular among racers who strip them down and trick them out for the daring -- and dangerous -- Railton Cup races on Oosfera. This particular model is flown by Roketa Fleetza and Lagata Donner, the daughters of CoMo founder Osni Redooa and two of the cup's most-successful pilots.  : Image: Daniel SimonOf all the planets of Galaxion, only Mujofa remains wracked by war. Taooa are powerful laser gunships that feature two 505-mm light rays capable of destroying anything that might give it trouble. The warships often sport nosecone art similar to those that graced warplanes on a distant planet called Earth.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:00 am Safe and Sexy: Motorcycle Helmets With Bluetooth, MP3 Players, and GPSRiding a motorcycle while talking on the phone is just plain dumb. But if you really must take that call, Mr. President, please consider a Bluetooth helmet. Some connected headgear can even tie in to your GPS and MP3 player, pausing tunes for directions on long trips. Might we suggest "Freebird"? Nolan N102 N-Com
Garmin Zumo 550
Dainese Airstream Course D-Nect
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 6 Sep 2008 | 4:00 am Canadian DMCA Proposal About To DieAn anonymous reader writes "Like the previous Bill C-60 before it, the proposed Bill C-61 that would bring DMCA-like laws to Canada is poised to die on the order table, never to receive a vote, as the current minority government falls. An election call is expected in days. Everybody expects that some form of these laws will be back yet again (third time's a charm?). There are too many interests pushing for change to let it go. But here's a chance for Canadians to influence politicians about it in an election campaign, and hopefully strike a better balance. And for those of you in the rest of the world who are laboring under a DMCA-like copyright law, let's hear your stories about why such laws are a good or bad idea, and if bad, how you would amend the law to make it tolerable. With the polls probably on Oct. 14th, Canadians will be looking for a few good ideas."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 6 Sep 2008 | 3:59 am NASA adjusts launch dates - United Press International
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 3:42 am Has the head of MySQL left Sun? - Computerworld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:34 am Internet Marketing Helps Businesses Cope with Economye-Commerce, Social Media Spur New Growth NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- According to a recent data from PRstore, small businesses are fueling a surgeSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:19 am Comcast Appeals FCC “Data Discrimination” Ruling - DailyTech
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:17 am Hurricane Watch Expands Through The "Eyes" of Internet WebcamsEarthCam, the world premier global webcam network, today invited webcam owners in the path of possible hurricanes Hanna, Ike and Josephine to post live views of their local areas.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:00 am Police Back Off Blogger Pursuit -- Subpoena for Critic's ID Pulled; Logo Use Still IssueBy Amos Maki In a case that drew broad attention to free-speech and privacy issues unleashed by the Internet, the city has dropped its efforts to unearth the identity of a local blogger highly critical of Memphis Police Department leadership.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:00 am Golisano Group Tied to Attacks on HoytBy James Heaney Responsible New York -- the B. Thomas Golisano-funded, G. Steven Pigeon-managed political organization -- has been linked to a spate of political attacks against incumbent Assemblyman Sam Hoyt despite efforts to hide their involvement.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:00 am Samsung Shows Interest in SanDiskBy David Morrill Rumors swirled Friday that Milpitas-based SanDisk has drawn possible takeover interest from Samsung Electronics sending investors towards the flash storage product company.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:00 am In-Flight Internet Access Set to LaunchBy Anna Marie Kukec Business and leisure travelers soon will be able to go to their home Web pages, check e-mail and surf the Internet - all while on a transcontinental flight. Itasca-based Aircell LLC (www.aircell.com) has finished its continental U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Sep 2008 | 2:00 am A History of the Xbox Red Ring of Death FiascoVentureBeat has a lengthy story about the situation surrounding the Xbox 360's "Red Ring of Death." It starts with the developmental phases for the 360, looks at the marketing decisions that drove Microsoft to aim for a release ahead of the PS3, and talks with sources and engineers within Microsoft about what could have been done to prevent the problems. Quoting: "Leading up to the launch in the fall of 2005, the number of defective units would soon grow to tens of thousands. Any other consumer electronics company would likely have postponed a launch with such low yields. But Microsoft had more money in the bank than anyone else. The decision this time would fall to Bach and Moore. The costs of launching with low yields -- where you take big losses on every product sold -- could bankrupt other companies. But Microsoft could afford to do so. Microsoft did delay the launch date from October until November. But some inside the company still believed returns would be out of control."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 6 Sep 2008 | 1:55 am Aid slowly reaching hurricane-battered Haiti as toll mountsInternational emergency aid was providing a tentative lifeline to hundreds of thousands of displaced Haitians without food or water who faced "catastrophic" conditions after a trio of...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 1:44 am Peace laureate fights Telenor over GrameenphoneOSLO (Reuters) - Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh turned up the heat in battle for control over Bangladesh's Grameenphone on Friday, warning Norwegian co-owner Telenor ASASource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 1:30 am Dell outsourcing plan may be tough to executeNEW YORK/BOSTON (Reuters) - Dell Inc plans to make fewer computers itself and rely on contract manufacturers to cut costs, but the company could find it hard to get rid of its North...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 1:13 am Jobs E-Mails: Are They Real?A close look at e-mails supposedly sent by Steve Jobs to customers shows inconsistencies that make it likely that some are fakes.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Sep 2008 | 1:00 am Photon Dynamics' Shareholders Approve Merger With OrbotechSAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Photon Dynamics, Inc. (Nasdaq: PHTN) announced that shareholders have voted in favor of Orbotech Ltd.'s proposed...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 12:39 am Verizon Wireless Seeks to Expand Local Workforce at Job Fair in Bergen CountyGrowth in Hispanic Population and Customer Base Fuels Search for Bilingual Employees MORRISTOWN, N.J., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless, the leading wireless...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Sep 2008 | 12:09 am Today on TokyoMango Today on TokyoMango, I wrote about a newly found stack of Occupation-era letters written by an American woman in 1940s Japan; a robot that will help you find cool t-shirts at Uniqlo; and a guitarist from a famous heavy metal band who now lives in Japan. I also celebrated my blog's two-year anniversary and revisited some of my first blog posts ever. ( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)
Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:58 pm Straying mate? His genes may be to blameThat cheating husband could have a gene variant that scientists have linked to higher risks of marital discord and divorce. (He could even have two.) ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:58 pm CIA, FBI Push Social Networking for Spiesnode7 writes "The FBI, NSA, and CIA are jointly supporting a newly created 'MySpace' for the intelligence community. Named 'A-Space,' the site will contain highly classified material, so naturally, it won't be available to the public. From CNN: '[Michael Wertheimer, assistant deputy director of national intelligence for analysis] demonstrated the program to CNN to show how analysts will use it to collaborate. "One perfect example is if Osama bin Laden comes out with a new video. How is that video obtained? Where are the very sensitive secret sources we may have to put into a context that's not apparent to the rest of the world?" Wertheimer said. "In the past, whoever captured that video or captured information about the video kept it in-house. It's highly classified because it has so very short a shelf life. That information is considered critical to our understanding."'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:52 pm Gulf and East Coasts Rely on Cooper Notification's Emergency Text Alerting SystemTo Coordinate, Inform, and Evacuate and Return Residents during Hurricanes Gustav and Hanna SARASOTA, Fla., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- As Hurricane Gustav threatened ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:49 pm Meet the Latest Copyright Scofflaw -- the GOPAs the Republican Party seeks to control the Oval Office, it has become a copyright scofflaw along the way. On Friday, the publishers for the Seattle rock "Heart" sent the party a cease-and-desist order to stop it from using the band's hit song "Baracuda," which was blaring at the Republican National Convention late Thursday. That marks the third time in as many months the GOP has been accused of hijacking intellectual property.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:40 pm Large Hadron Collider scientists receiving death threats - TG Daily
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:27 pm Free petrol stunt ends in gridlock as hundreds queue to fill tanksThe opportunity to fill up with petrol for free caused gridlock yesterday after hundreds of drivers queued for up to an hour to get £40 of free fuel.Computer games publisher Electronic Arts took...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:08 pm Ten tomorrow! Google celebrates birthday with plan to sink MicrosoftAs Google prepares to blow out the 10 candles on top of its birthday cake this Sunday, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin can be forgiven for cracking a wry smile as they reflect upon the fire they have...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:08 pm Bad science: Cheer up: it's all down to random variationBen Goldacre: Britain's happiest places have been mapped by scientistsSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:07 pm Mainstream TV fights back against invadersDafydd Thomas, Ant and Dec, Merlin, and Tess Durbeyfield will be on the front line in the battle for viewers this autumn, as figures today reveal the scale of the decline in audiences on mainstream television...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:05 pm Rick or treat?Before the crying, lump of peroxide that begged "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!" and the Day-Glo, gay Valhalla of Planet Unicorn, "Rick rolling" was the internet viral that kept on giving. Before you could say "Bye...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:04 pm NASA To Explore "Secret Layer" of the SunSpaceAdmiral brings news that NASA will be launching a telescope next April, called Solar Ultraviolet Magnetograph Investigation (SUMI), which will examine what is called the "transition region" between the Sun's corona and the chromosphere. Scientists have studied characteristics of the Sun around this region before, but never within it. NASA notes: "It is a place in the sun's atmosphere, about 5000 km above the stellar surface, where magnetic fields overwhelm the pressure of matter and seize control of the sun's gases. It's where solar flares explode, where coronal mass ejections begin their journey to Earth, where the solar wind is mysteriously accelerated to a million mph. It is, in short, the birthplace of space weather."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 11:03 pm Explorer highlights melting Arctic ice capBritish explorer Lewis Gordon Pugh declared Friday he had kayaked further to the top of the world than anyone else ever has, as his bid to reach the North Pole failed -- much to his...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:47 pm Trends & Innovations - Friday (Investor's Business Daily)Investor's Business Daily - Teachers and professors are starting to use cell phones as educational tools in their classrooms, after previously banning them as distractions. Abilene Christian Univ. in Texas is giving two-thirds of its freshmen a smart phone that they're expected to use for receiving handouts in class and brainstorming. About 100 high school freshmen in N.C. are using phones during their math classes in a program sponsored by handset gear maker Qualcomm. They use the phones to play math games, network among themselves on problems and watch animation showing problems being solved.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:43 pm Teach Your Kids the Basics of Hydro Power By Building a WaterwheelWater wheels have been powering factories and mills for centuries, and now they can power your kids' weekend activities. Follow our guide to build a water wheel out of cups and picnic plates. It's a simple enough project for kids of all ages; more ambitious minds can modify the design to generate electricity or power more complex machines.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:30 pm Update on CIA drug plane owned by “Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc”Here's an update on the strange story of the Gulfstream II jet filled with 3.7 tons of cocaine that crashed in the Yucatan last year. The Mexico City newspaper El Universal reports that European Parliament was investigating the circumstances surrounding the plane, which had previously been used by the CIA for "extraordinary rendition" flights.The daily said it had obtained documents from the United States and the European Parliament which "show that that plane flew several times to Guantanamo, Cuba, presumably to transfer terrorism suspects." It said the European Parliament was investigating the private Grumman Gulfstream II, registered by the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, for suspected use in CIA "rendition" flights in which prisoners are covertly transferred to a third country or US-run detention centers. Last October, the Austin American Statesman reported the plane had previously flown to Guantanamo Bay. Here's a Chicago Public Radio story from October 31, 2007 about the crashed CIA drug plane. The crashed drug plane also has been linked to a Bush fundraiser. Mad Cow Morning news has been covering stories about the CIA and drug smuggling. The plane was owned by Donna Blue Aircraft, Inc. Mad Cow visited Donna Blue's offices and took photos of what appears to be a sham company. Here's a photo of some unmarked police cars parked in front Donna Blue Aircraft's empty suite:
Drug plane used for US rendition flights Is this a video of the plane? (from this German website) Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:18 pm Researchers Build Malicious Facebook Appnarramissic writes "Back in January, a team of researchers uploaded a malicious program to Facebook to demonstrate the possible dangers of social networking applications. Called 'Photo of the Day,' the app serves up a new National Geographic photo daily, but every time it's clicked it sends a 600 K-byte HTTP request for images to a victim's Web site. Photo of the Day is still listed on Facebook, with its authorship attributed to Andreas Makridakis, one of the researchers. The application has 514 active users now, with several comments praising it. The study was published by the Foundation for Research and Technology in Heraklion, Greece, and the Institute for Infocomm Research in Singapore."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:18 pm Weekend of Web Apps, Tech Talks Awaits at DjangoConThe open source Django web framework gets its very own coming out party this weekend at the first-ever DjangoCon. More than 200 web developers will converge on Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, on Saturday and Sunday to mingle and discuss the future of the fast, flexible web app framework with the funny name.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 10:15 pm EIC Squared: Chrome, iPods, and a Dell-Salesforce union (CNET)CNET - On this week's EIC Squared podcast ZDNet's Larry Dignan and I discuss Google's latest disruption in the Web 2.0 field, the Chrome browser, as well as Apple's product launch event on September 9.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 9:52 pm 5 Years of RIAA Filesharing LawsuitsNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "David Kravets of Wired.com, who provided in-person gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Capitol v. Thomas trial last year, takes stock of the RIAA's 5-year-old litigation campaign, concluding it is 'at a crossroads', and noting that 'billions of copies of copyrighted songs are now changing hands each year on file sharing services. All the while, some of the most fundamental legal questions surrounding the legality of file sharing have gone unanswered. Even the future of the RIAA's only jury trial victory — against Minnesota mother Jammie Thomas — is in doubt. Some are wondering if the campaign has shaped up as an utter failure.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 9:37 pm SF artist makes a temple to science Do you feel like biology and physics have done more for you than Allah or Jesus? Observing that "the essence of religion is stained glass and song," San Francisco-based artist Jonathon Keats is transforming a two-story Berkeley building into a makeshift temple for people who worship science called the Atheon.Instead of telling the story of baby Jesus, the Atheon's stained glass windows will show cosmic microwave background radiation made from NASA satellite data. And since the interior of the building is still under construction, templer-goers will have to either pray from the sidewalk or in front of a glowing web site from their computers at home. Keats even made a song of worship; he collaborated with Virginia astronomer Mark Whittle to come up with a canon of sounds from three hypothetical universes called Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? They won't be playing it live at the temple, but you can listen to it on your cell phone by calling a special phone number. Church service starts on September 27. Listen to Keats' scientific hymnThe Magnes Museum main page (Thanks, Mark R!) ( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)
Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 9:36 pm Code JavaScript Shortcuts With JQueryCoding animated selection tools and text effects can be a nice but time consuming task. Why reinvent the wheel? JQuery is a library of code which sits on top of JavaScript to quickly and easily insert useful functions into your web site. Blow your mind with JQuery shortcuts with Adam Duvander's tutorial.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 9:00 pm Crowdsourcing Book Excerpt: The Canary in the Coal MineFirst identified by journalist Jeff Howe in a June 2006 Wired magazine article, "crowdsourcing" describes the process by which the power of the many can be leveraged to accomplish feats that were once the province of the specialized few. Howe reveals that the crowd is more than wise -- it's talented, creative and stunningly productive. Crowdsourcing activates the transformative power of today's technology, liberating the latent potential within us all. It's a perfect meritocracy, where age, gender, race, education and job history no longer matter, where the quality of work is all that counts and every field is open to people of every imaginable background. If you can perform the service, design the product or solve the problem, you've got the job. But crowdsourcing has also triggered a dramatic shift in the way work is organized, talent employed, research conducted and products made and marketed. As the crowd comes to supplant traditional forms of labor, pain and disruption are inevitable. When the original article was published, crowdsourcing still constituted a nascent business model. A few small companies had achieved limited successes with it, and large companies had only begun to test the waters. In this excerpt, Howe argues that in just two years crowdsourcing has revolutionized an entire industry -- stock photography -- and may well be poised to create disruption in other fields as well. - - - Adapted from Crowdsourcing: How the Power of the Crowd is Driving the Future of Business, by Jeff Howe. More at Howe's Crowdsourcing Blog. Chapter 7: The Canary in the Coal Mine There's a story people like to tell about Bruce Livingstone. In late 2005, Getty Images, the world's largest photo agency, was looking to acquire Livingstone's company, iStockphoto, the world's most successful crowdsourcing company. Long before the contracts were drawn up, Livingstone, to show his commitment to the deal, tattooed the word "Getty" in cursive across the tender flesh on his inner wrist. Then he e-mailed Getty CEO Jonathan Klein photos of the tattoo under the message: "Don't make me write another word after this!" It's just the kind of tale -- emblematic of determination and just the right amount of quirky eccentricity -- that tends to burnish the reputation of its subject. In Livingstone's case, it has the added benefit of being demonstrably true. With his penchant for muscle cars, rockabilly haircuts and, yes, tattoos, it's tempting to call Livingstone an unlikely CEO. But I prefer to think of Livingstone as a perfectly reasonable chief for some corporation from, say, the year 2020. A company not unlike iStockphoto. Located in a single, cavernous room inside a former factory in downtown Calgary (Alberta, Canada), iStockphoto houses a tiny fraction of its actual workforce. And Livingstone, dressed in T-shirt and jeans, occupies a desk -- chosen, it would seem, at random -- in the middle of the floor. The corner office clearly loses significance in a company that thrives on decentralization. Jeff Howe explains crowdsourcing, which activates the transformative power of today's technology, liberating the latent potential within us all. Video: Courtesy of Jeff Howe
Westeel Rosco built the factory in 1925 to manufacture nails, screws and other bits of hardware. Unlike Westeel Rosco, iStock's products -- stock photos, illustrations and videos -- aren't manufactured on-site. They're created by a global, fluid workforce of 60,000 part-time photographers and artists, only a fraction of whom make a living from the work they sell on iStock. Yet they have a devotion to the company matched by few traditional firms. The full-time staffers who spend their days in the old Westeel Rosco plant play a support role for the community -- and community is the only applicable word -- that is making the product iStock brings to market every day. And that community has been very, very good to Livingstone and his investors. In the course of several years iStock has grown from a hobby to the third-largest purveyor of stock images in the world. When Getty purchased iStock in early 2006, Livingstone took home more than half of the $50 million Getty paid for the company. The first stock photo agency was founded in 1920, and for most of the 20th century the industry was an afterthought, trafficking in the outtakes from commercial magazine assignments. Very few photographers tried to make a living off the market in preexisting images alone. This changed after the desktop publishing revolution of the mid-1980s led to a rapid growth in the publishing industry, and to a commensurate demand for images. Suddenly photographers were making six figures a year selling photos they'd already been paid to shoot. It was like minting money. Stock photography is, in relative terms, a tiny industry. The annual global gross for the entire business is estimated to be around $2 billion, which makes it a bit bigger than the market for gift baskets, but a little smaller than the annual sales of orchids. But this little industry has undergone big changes, and could well be a case study in how the crowd will impact much larger businesses. In just the last few years the influx of talented amateurs armed with inexpensive, high-resolution digital cameras has upended the economics of stock photography. Five years ago, a professional-quality image was still a scarce resource. No more. This isn't to say the market for high-end photographs has disappeared. A gifted photographer will always find work. But the professional no longer has a lock on the middle and lower ends of the stock photo business. With a modicum of training, just about anyone can take a decent shot. Sophisticated cameras and photo-editing software do the rest. iStock exploits this fact. Design firms and other small companies working on a budget quickly embraced what became known as the "microstock" model. One graphic designer told me he went from paying hundreds of dollars an image to less than $10. "I pass on some of the savings to my clients and keep the rest. We're both delighted." iStock might be great for buyers, but it's caused all sorts of headaches for professional stock photographers. In my original Wired article about crowdsourcing I quoted a Los Angeles-based photographer, Mark Harmel, saying that this influx of cheap images had caused a slight decline in his income from stock photo sales, which had dropped to $60,000. But in the two years since that decline has fallen off a cliff, to $35,000 in 2007. "If I look at the trend line, it just keeps going down. I'm really concentrating on getting assignments now," says Harmel. "I recently came back from London with 70 really wonderful shots. I'll probably use them on my website, but it's not worth my time to bother submitting them to a stock agency. They won't sell." Harmel's far from alone. In fact, Getty's other businesses have struggled in the crowdsourced era. In the year I spent writing this book the company's stock slid 60 percent, falling to just under $22 by February 2008. That month Getty was acquired by the private equity firm Hellman Friedman for $2.4 billion, a considerably lower figure than the company had originally sought. According to a report released at the time of the sale, Goldman Sachs estimates that Getty's core business -- the sale of rights-managed, professionally produced images -- will continue to suffer an irreversible decline, falling to just 29 percent of its revenues by 2012. In the same period the investment bank projects iStock to continue its rapid rate of growth. iStock sold $72 million worth of images in 2007, a figure expected to jump to $262 million by 2012. In this light, paying $50 million for a crowdsourced photo company looks like the smartest decision Getty ever made. The company is in the midst of transforming its business, from one reliant exclusively on professionals to one that is at least equally reliant on amateurs. As the Goliath of the industry, where Getty goes its competitors are sure to follow, which is to say, stock photography itself has been utterly transformed through crowdsourcing, in which a once-scarce commodity has become abundant. The question to ask is whether the upheaval roiling stock photography is only a leading indicator, like the minor volcanic eruptions that can precede a catastrophic earthquake. Already the trend is migrating to other fields. Most immediately, the same dynamics that made the stock photo ubiquitous -- affordable digital SLR cameras and burgeoning communities of enthusiastic amateurs -- are affecting other markets for visual images. So-called "citizen paparazzi" use cellphone cameras to snap impromptu shots of stars and then sell them to new photo agencies such as Scoopt, which specialize in buying up and marketing their work. Amateurs can beat professional paparazzi for the simple reason that they vastly outnumber them. It's a question of probability: The throng of pedestrians in Greenwich Village, for instance, have a much better chance of catching an unkempt Gwyneth Paltrow than a single paparazzo. And photography may well be just the beginning. iStock itself is doing a burgeoning business in the sale of stock video footage, and the crowd is also making commercials, collaborating on TV scripts, and recording and distributing their own music. They're writing political analysis, creating their own video games, and making feature-length movies. For the time being, all this activity has taken place in something of a parallel universe, without causing any of the economic upheaval visited on the stock photo or pornography industries. But those universes are beginning to collide as more companies attempt to package all this outpouring of creativity into a marketable product. While crowdsourcing has already emerged as a potent force in the media and entertainment industries, it's also profoundly influenced the way even Fortune 100 companies like Procter & Gamble do business. Once famous for its insular culture, Procter & Gamble now crowdsources much of its R&D process, using global networks of scientists such as InnoCentive and NineSigma, which boast a combined membership of 2 million professional and amateur researchers. Even companies operating in a conventional field such as mining have found crowdsourcing applications. The Canadian gold-mining group Goldcorp put geological survey data online and offered a $575,000 prize to anyone who could identify likely areas for exploration. Goldcorp says the contest produced 110 targets that yielded $3 billion in gold. Following its lead, the mining giant Barrick Gold Corporation recently offered $10 million to anyone who could improve its silver-extraction process. The open call of crowdsourcing is also being used by companies such as Google (to develop applications for its Android mobile platform) and Netflix (to improve its recommendation system). The question is whether the iStock secret sauce can be applied to industries like television and journalism and, possibly, even beyond to any business that traffics in bits and bytes. To answer that question, it helps to know what's in the secret sauce. The Community Is the Company iStock has been compared to a cult, and the analogy isn't entirely unfair. It's no accident that the most successful companies in the web's second coming -- most of whom traffic in the crowd's creative output -- are led by outsize personalities. "Bruce is to iStock what Tom is to MySpace," notes Garth Johnson, iStock's VP of Business Development. (Johnson resigned his position after this book went to press.) For those readers over the age of 30, Tom is Tom Anderson, the president of the social networking behemoth MySpace and the first "friend" to greet any new user. Under this new archetype of a company -- in which the community, as much as the customer, comes first -- the cult of personality plays a crucial role in community building, and Livingstone has been as essential to the growth of the iStock community as Anderson has been to MySpace's. "Bruce has a really strong, extremely charismatic personality online," says Johnson. "And that's really helped us build the community." It's safe to say that iStock has left the community-building phase behind: Sixty-thousand people have combined to create an enormous portfolio of over 3.5 million images and 100,000 videos. By contrast, Getty's other divisions combined only use 2,500 photographers. The iStockers offer the company their artwork, and in return iStock goes to extraordinary lengths to keep the iStockers happy. The site offers the budding photographer all manner of free tutorials, and the forums buzz -- at a rate of 38 posts per minute -- with questions about lens sizes, polarized filters and F-stop settings. iStock doesn't offer a chance to get rich. It offers the chance to make friends and become a better photographer. "We don't own anything, the community does" says Johnson. "Everything we do affects these people, whether they're just earning enough to pay for their equipment, or they're making mortgage payments from their photo sales. They all want a voice, and we have to give it to them, because really, the community is the company." The upside to this state of affairs should be obvious -- a dedicated, efficient workforce with no expectation of receiving a living wage -- but there are downsides as well: Even the smallest changes can roil the fickle, passionate community of iStockers. In March 2006, iStock launched a new feature on its web forums, a "forometer" which measured an iStocker's popularity through "bafflingly complex scientific methods" including the date and number of posts to the forum. The forometer displayed its results through a set of red, yellow or green bars. It did not go over well. The community questioned the principles behind the feature, as well as its functionality. Not long after its launch, the feature had been removed. Employees may be hell on overhead, but they're paid to accept all but the most draconian policies with a polite nod. Communities, on the other hand, aren't paid to stick around, and nothing stops them from selling their photos to one of iStock's many competitors. "They don't work for us," Livingstone laughs. "We work for them." If the iStocker feels a sense of ownership over the site, that's understandable: The iStock community predates iStock the company. Livingstone didn't set out to revolutionize an industry, he just wanted to fill a personal need and help a few friends at the same time. In 2000 Livingstone was running a small graphic design and web-hosting firm in Calgary. Bruce is an avid photographer himself, and over the years he had developed an extensive network of photographers and designers. Early in the year he took 2,000 of his images and put them online. Anyone could download his photos in exchange for giving him an e-mail address. Livingstone's friends decided they wanted to share their images with the public, too. That June the budding community instituted a credit system: A user could download one image for every image of theirs that had been downloaded by someone else. It was a classic example of the gift economy, the non-monetary exchange that grew up alongside the internet. During iStock's early years, everyone took something and gave something in turn. "The feeders and the eaters were the same people," as Livingstone puts it. Everyone profited by acquiring new images, though no one made (or spent) a dime. Soon friends of friends heard about Bruce's nifty idea and started uploading their images, too. Then around 2002 a wider public got wind of iStock, and the site began to hit critical mass. Soon Livingstone was paying $10,000 a month for the bandwidth to support it. He could have taken advertising to cover the cost of hosting, but he felt that would violate the spirit of the site. "The focus was on the community, and good design. Advertising would have cluttered the site," says Livingstone. Instead, he started charging a quarter for each image, and he opened the system up to the public. This proved to be a momentous decision. Word quickly spread among publishers that there was a site offering cheap, usable images, and photographers began flocking to iStock to upload their portfolios. Traffic to the site skyrocketed, and soon Livingstone raised the price to $1 per image. "I thought it might become a sideline business," he says. It quickly became much more than that. The quality of the images wasn't always as high (or as consistent) as a traditional stock agency's, but the differences were indiscernible to the general consumer, and after all, you couldn't beat the price. By 2004 a host of other so-called "micro-stocks" had sprung up with strategies similar to iStock's. The professionals panicked. Microstock photos, they charged, were flooding the market with subpar images. At first, the industry aligned itself against iStockphoto and other microstock agencies such as ShutterStock and Dreamstime. Then in early 2006, Getty announced it would buy iStockphoto for $50 million. "If someone's going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other businesses," Getty CEO Jonathan Klein told me shortly after the sale. Smaller magazines, nonprofit organizations, and all manner of websites have continued to flock to iStock's high-volume, low-cost model. As of February 2008, iStockphoto had 2 million regular customers purchasing photographs, video footage, illustrations and animations. "Bruce's brilliance," Jonathan Klein once told me, "is that he turned community into commerce." Livingstone uses a slightly different formulation: "I turned commerce into community," iStockphoto has perfected the Jedi Mind Trick that's at the heart of crowdsourcing. It's an incredibly cost-effective strategy -- iStock boasts a 55 percent profit margin. And yet, Livingstone stumbled into this business model by creating a context -- a community of like-minded enthusiasts -- in which financial measures take a backseat to considerably less tangible concerns. Ask someone in the office, and they'll tell you: It's not about the money. Ask an iStocker and they'll tell you the same thing. In fact -- would-be crowdsources take note: If it is about the money, it won't work. It will fizzle, not sizzle, as one of iStock's designers put it. "What's funny is, the money people, they pretty quickly get pulled aside in the forums by the core people. Or they just don't have a voice. People will ignore them, like 'Oh, that's just so and so, they're just here to make money.'" That doesn't mean the iStockers are unmotivated by self-interest. The more a photographer's images are downloaded, the more recognition they receive in the community, and the more credits they earn to download other people's photos to use in their own designs. And the additional income is also welcome, of course. Unlike other cases in which large corporations have attempted to monetize community, iStock does reward its contributors. It paid out $21 million in 2007. It's significant that people in online communities like iStock's react with great hostility to the idea that crowdsourcing is a form of cheap labor -- despite the fact it demonstrably is. After all, no one wants to feel exploited. In the end, what iStock provides is an invaluable if impossible-to-measure currency: meaning. The crowd will give away their time -- their excess capacity -- enthusiastically, but not for free. It has to be a meaningful exchange.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 9:00 pm Simplified spelling lesson from former president of the American Literacy Council Ed Rondthaler, age 102, gives a very cool lesson about how odd the written English language is. Andy Cruz of House Industries says: We had the privilege to spend a day filming Ed Rondthaler, the founder of Photo-Lettering, Inc., former president of the American Literacy Council and author of The Dictionary of Simplified American Spelling. Another living legend, writer/director Erich Weiss, is in the process of editing down all of the film we shot. Click here for the “trailer” he put together for us.Ed Rondthaler Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:54 pm Mr. Bus' bus buzzer collection In Japan, when you want to get off a bus, you press a little button with the words "will stop next" on it. The button lights up, a beep goes off, and a robotic woman's voice says: "We will stop next." Mr. Bus is a quirky guy who dedicates all his free time to collecting these bus buzzers. He started 25 years ago and now has over 200 different ones, some of which he has wired into this giant billboard so he can light them up. He finds them at bus depots and by scavenging through discarded vehicles at dumpsters. "It's a very Japanese thing, the polite exchange between passenger saying 'I pushed it' and the bus buzzer saying 'I have received your request,'" he says. "It's such a thoughtful invention." Mr. Bus' web site (via The Almanac of Weird Hobbies) ( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.) Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:53 pm iPhone Gets EA's Spore Origins, More Mobile Titles (NewsFactor)NewsFactor - If you can't manage to occupy yourself Web surfing, e-mailing or listening to tunes on your iPhone, EA Mobile has just announced a raft of games for the iPod touch and the iPhone. Phone games have become a real phenomenon as more and more mobile devices have enough screen real estate and processing power to become a viable game platform. The EA announcement Friday focused on the release of Spore Origins for the Apple mobile market, but the company also released details of nine other upcoming mobile game titles.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:53 pm Google Turns 10Ian Lamont writes "It was on September 7, 1998 that Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google Inc., aiming to provide a better search engine. You can see what it looked like here. Google had a relatively good search engine technology that succeeded in burying many late 1990s competitors, and it eventually developed a successful advertising model and pledged to "do no evil." The company now has nearly 20,000 employees and a $150 billion market value, and has been acquiring or developing a host of groundbreaking technologies. When did you start using its search engine? Is the world a better place because of Google?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:53 pm Fears Swirl Over Whether FCC Will Enforce Comcast Throttling DecisionFears abound whether the Federal Communications Commission will enforce its Aug. 1 order demanding Comcast stop throttling BitTorrent traffic. The non-profit law firm Media Access Project is asking three federal appellate courts to enforce the decision now. The FCC gave Comcast, which denies any throttling, until year's end to comply.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:51 pm Nokia warns 3Q market share will fall; shares dive (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:36 pm Adobe sets Genesis mashup pilot (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Adobe Systems in October plans to launch a private pilot program for its "Genesis" mashup technology, which provides a desktop client uniting multiple tasks in a single workspace.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:30 pm Tech firms fare better than most in jobs slump (AP)AP - Technology appears to be one of the least hard-hit sectors in an economy beset by unemployment at a five-year high.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:21 pm Seinfeld-Windows TV Ad Anything But 'Delicious'CWmike writes "Microsoft's $300-million ad campaign for Windows starring comedian Jerry Seinfeld launched Thursday with a long TV commercial almost entirely devoid of any talk of Windows, Microsoft or anything, really. With co-star Bill Gates, the scene is set in a shopping mall. Seinfeld, who did most of the talking, helps Gates buy a pair of shoes called the Conquistador. The commercial ends with Seinfeld asking Gates if Microsoft will "come out with something that makes our computers moist and chewy like cake so we can just eat them while we're working." Gates wiggles his rear to answer in the affirmative. The commercial ends (see video inside the story) with the Windows logo and the phrase 'Delicious.' Preston Gralla writes, 'I just saw Microsoft's much ballyhooed Jerry Seinfeld ad, and can say without equivocation it's one of the worst, most pointless ads in history. If this is Microsoft's response to the 'I'm a Mac' ads, it should fold up its tent and tell the world to switch to Apple."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 5 Sep 2008 | 8:07 pm Kevin Kelly on the history of WiredWired magazine went around to interview the founders of Wired. Here's Kevin Kelly talking about Wired and HotWired. (In this video, you can see the back of my head at 1:32. Boing Boing manager John Battelle is in the blue t-shirt across from me.) To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Wired sent a film crew around to some of its former co-founders so we could reminence on tape. They came to my studio this spring and I talked about why the magazine was started and why I still read it and write for it. They edited the footage as a commercial for their ad sales efforts. I just noticed it was up on YouTube. (Louis Rossetto's is here.) Naturally they cut out the interesting stuff, but I did enjoy the little fragments and glimpses of the early Wired days.History of Wired Source: Boing Boing | 5 Sep 2008 | 7:31 pm Microsoft deploying in-store customer-service reps (AP)AP - NEW YORK As part of its new $300 million marketing campaign and image makeover, Microsoft Corp. plans to deploy its own customer-service representatives at retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City to help people with their PC purchases.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 6:46 pm Saturn Moons Sport Rings, TooTwo of Saturn's smallest moons are circled by faint rings of their own.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Sep 2008 | 6:20 pm Chrome Hints Google Aims To Become 'Big Brother' (NewsFactor)NewsFactor - What's behind Google's release of its new Chrome browser? While the software boasts some impressive technology, does Google seriously mean to reopen the browser wars, even against its open-source partner Mozilla?Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Sep 2008 | 6:11 pm Iraq's 'Garden of Eden' May Get Global ProtectionIraq's restored swampy southern region will likely become a World Heritage site.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Sep 2008 | 5:50 pm Protective 'Skin' Could Herald Tiny Satellite FleetA skin that can protect satellites from extremes may usher in nanosatellites.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Sep 2008 | 2:13 pm On Mars, Does Fire Plus Ice Equal Life?If life on Mars exists, it may dwell where volcanoes and glaciers coalesce.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Sep 2008 | 1:40 pm Helicopters Learn Tricks 'Watching' Other HelicoptersA computer algorithm lets helicopters learn new tricks by "watching" others.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 5 Sep 2008 | 1:20 pm
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Now, were you supposed to boil the pasta for 10 minutes and simmer the sauce for 30? Or was it the other way around? Keep track of all the dishes in your kitchen with this handy timer that lets you time two dishes at once. With a wonderful retro look, these standing timers can be set for up to 55 minutes. Available in mint or red.
The fullest-featured, most motocentric GPS on the market, the Zumo 550 can do it all: MP3 player, Bluetooth integration with your cell phone, traffic monitoring (optional), satellite radio (optional), and many other functions to explore before you hit the road. It's also water-resistant, so if you're brave enough to ride in a deluge, your GPS will be there to guide you, turn by slippery turn.
