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Scary Deal: The Darkness for Xbox 360 only $5 on AmazonFROM GAMERTELL - Yep, for less than a typical value meal at your favorite fast food establishment, you can be the proud owner of The Darkness for Xbox 360…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:04 pm Ignoring Downturns Is Unhealthy And DangerousOk, here we go again. As soon as people get tired of blaming the venture capitalists for the downturn and layoffs, they start to point the finger at bloggers and journalists who write about them. In a...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 11:08 am Ignoring Downturns Is Unhealthy And Dangerous
Fred Wilson brought this up almost two years ago when he criticized our coverage of failed companies as well. A year ago Louis Gray said similar things. Our response is the same now as it was then: Don’t shoot the messenger. Reporting on layoffs or a dead company isn’t tabloid journalism. We do not take pleasure in seeing companies fail. But it’s inevitable that most will. And not only is it news, but readers have a right to know about it. I also think it’s important to look at the balance of our reporting, which focuses on the positive: new ideas, new technology, new startups and the success stories that follow. Nothing makes me happier than when a company that we launched on our blog, or at TechCrunch50, becomes profitable or gets acquired. But when a company stumbles, it’s important to note that too, and talk about why it may have happened. It’ also important to remember that real lives are being affected, notably those who no longer have jobs. In the U.S. there are very few restrictions on letting employees go, which allows companies the freedom to hire quickly in an upturn, knowing that they aren’t married to these employees forever and can trim down in hard times. But that doesn’t mean those companies shouldn’t have to think twice before laying people off (and over hiring to begin with). If they’re called out for it when it happens, other companies may weigh that cost and be more careful in the hiring to begin with. To ignore layoffs and other bad news is to pretend that there’s no downside to starting a company, or going to work for one. That’s not the reality of startup life. And it would be irresponsible of us to lead people to think otherwise. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 22 Oct 2008 | 11:08 am VLP-100: Scitec Japan releases palm-sized video projector
Osaka-based electronics company Scitec Japan today announced [JP] it will start selling the VLP-100, a mini video projector, on the Japanese market at the end of this month. Scitec says the main selling point is the size of the product. The VLP-100 is sized at just 180×110x55 mm and weighs 1kg. However, the projector’s resolution is just 320×240 (QVGA), which is - according to the company - still enough to enjoy games and DVDs on a 50-inch screen (sold separately for $80). The VLP-100, which uses 4 OSRAM LEDs as a lighting source, features built-in stereo speakers (2×2W), a contrast ratio of 150:1 and a maximum brightness of 350 lumens. The device will be available for $320 but probably not find its way outside Nippon. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:53 am UK camera in India Moon mission - BBC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:49 am Board's Resolution to Issue Shares Held by the Company; Changes in Nokia Corporation's own SharesESPOO, Finland, October 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Nokia Board of Directors has resolved to issue 2 110 000 Nokia shares (NOK1V) held by the Company as settlement...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:48 am Will iPhone envy fuel open-source mobile development? - CNET News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:45 am Jury: Boeing must pay at least $370M to ICO
It's entirely possible that Mike Brown overdosed on ADD meds: These brass goggles scream "attention to detail". And they're frickin' awesome. Some numbers: The leather is actually bolted to the eyepieces, using 48 tiny bolts plus another four for the nosepiece. The leather was chosen for the tanning process which should give it a klife of a few thousand years. Ditto the eyepieces, which are machines from titanium and coated with Titanium Nitride. Predicted lifespan: 500 years plus. There are even brass eyelets in the leather eyecups to stop the lenses steaming up. Mike put in a few nice extras, too. The sliders in each eyepiece close the leaf-apertures inside, which will cut out light and also sharpen your eyesight, just like a pinhole camera. The lenses themselves react to light and get darker the brighter it is. Want to buy them? You can't, unless you have a lot of cash lying around. Titanium doesn't come cheap:
Check out the full gallery, and marvel at one man's obsession to make a beautiful object that will outlive him by hundreds of years. Project page [Smugmug. thanks, Mike!] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:26 am Elbit Systems to Supply $100 Million of Military Communications Systems to Customers in Europe, South America and AsiaSystems to be Delivered by the end of 2009 HAIFA, Israel, October 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Elbit Systems Ltd. (NASDAQ:ESLT) announced that it has recently been...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:19 am Video gallery: Watch the Augmented Reality Tuttuki Bako Box in actionTwo weeks ago, I blogged about Bandai Japan’s Tuttuki Bako augmented reality-ish toy box, which is due out in Nippon on November 15 (price: $30). Bandai has set up a dedicated web site for the product in the meantime. The site is Japanese only but quite easy to understand. In addition to the strange (but official) video above, a few other clips cropped up in the last 24 hours, visualizing Tuttuki Bako’s “gameplay”. This video shows the slimeball: This clip shows how you can annoy the girl in the box: Bandai itself has made two additional videos. This clip shows how Bandai thinks the Tuttuki Bako will be used by foreigners, while this one shows how men in general will react to the toy. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:11 am Lee Williams Nominated as Executive Director for the Symbian FoundationIndustry Veteran to Lead the Foundation That Will Drive the Future of the Leading Open Mobile Platform for Smartphones LONDON, October 22 /PRNewswire/ -- The ten...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 10:09 am BMW Squeezes Wallet into Car Keys
The obvious use is for paying road tolls as you drive, but BMW's bofffins see the keys being loaded up with public transport tickets (think Park and Ride schemes) and re-registering the actual key part with other cars for rental purposes. The irony is that, as the "key" doesn't actually fit into a hole to start the car, it could in fact be shaped like a credit card. The strength of BMW's system is that it can be read from afar, making in-car payments easy. But that is also the weakness. We like the whole reprogrammable key idea, but do we need it to keep our money (metaphorically) inside? A real credit card sits safely in your pocket and can't be hacked from afar. However "secure" the smart key is claimed to be, there will always be a way to hack the system. Happily, it also puts a whole new slant on our favorite after party game. Now, when we throw our keys into the middle of the room and pick another set at random, we won't just be going home to sleep with the owner's wife. We'll also get to spend his money. Press release [NXP. Thanks, Melissa!] Photo: blueoneiam/Flickr
HUGE LIVING DEAD ZOMBIE ATTACK WALL ART VINYL DECAL!
(Thanks, Chip!) Source: Boing Boing | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:25 am Henry Paulson on Charlie Rose ShowU.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was on Charlie Rose tonight.Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:17 am Poor staffing and surveillance lead to influx of cell phones in Texas jailsPoor surveillance, inadequate staffing and underpaid, easily corrupted corrections guards have allowed Texas prison inmates to easily obtain phones and other contraband, criminal justice officials acknowledged...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:16 am Opera Wedges Widgets Into Mobile Browser Beta - TechNewsWorld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:09 am The Centripetal Web [Voices]By Nick Carr, Blogger, Rough Type When I started blogging, back in the spring of 2005, I would visit Technorati, the blog search engine, several times a day, both to monitor mentions of my own blog and to track discussions on subjects I was interested in writing about. But over the last year or so my blog-searching behavior has changed. I started using Google Blog Search to supplement Technorati, and then, without even thinking about it really, I began using Google Blog Search pretty much exclusively. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:01 am Did Apple Reboot an Important Product Announcement? [Voices]By Robert X. Cringely, Columnist, PBS Apple last week introduced a pair of very nice notebook computers that, not at all surprisingly, looked like riffs on the MacBook Air. The company in a separate announcement released 600 high-definition television episodes through the iTunes Store. This week Apple will reportedly release new 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs, also for the Christmas season. Two weeks, three announcements, but what strikes me is what won’t be announced — the big surprises that are missing. What happened? Source: All Things Digital | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am Microsoft Xbox: Not Ready For Primetime [Voices]By Chris Morris, Staff Writer, Forbes There’s a new member of the “Not Ready for Primetime Players”: The Xbox 360. Microsoft as delayed the launch of “Xbox Live Primetime,” its programmed series of interactive games with real-world prizes, until the spring. Microsoft managers say the delay is necessary in order to ensure a smooth launch of the system’s new user interface. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am Daily Crunch: Train in Vain Edition
Q-Train: Takara Tomy sells super-cute, remote-controlled toy trains Source: CrunchGear | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am Want to Know Just How Bad Security is For E-Voting Machines? [Voices]By Mike Masnick, Blogger, Techdirt You may recall earlier this month that a judge in New Jersey barred some researchers from releasing their report into the security vulnerabilities found in e-voting machines from Sequoia that were being used in the state. Sequoia had fought hard to stop the research from even being done in the first place, let alone released, even threatening the researchers with lawsuits. Now, one of the researchers who did the research, Andrew Appel, has released a long report detailing a ridiculous number of security problems with Sequoia’s machines. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am Apple’s Next Act: Changing PC Buying Habits [Voices]By Jon Fortt, Blogger, Fortune’s Big Tech With all the presidential campaign talk about American exceptionalism, it might be easy to forget that we do a pretty unexceptional job at some things — like shopping for computers. No question, we Americans buy a lot of them – the latest estimates say more than 75% of U.S. households have at least one PC, among the highest ownership rates in the world. The problem is, we are hooked on the underpowered, bargain-bin variety, the sort that putter around on the Internet, choke on high-definition video, and struggle to render 3D games. Read the rest of this post
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Slashdot | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:05 am Today at Boing Boing Gadgets Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, there was a a vintage typewriter turned noise machine; the Motorola Aura, a mobauble; and an amazing cell phone called "The King of Cigarettes."
Rob spotted a dollar store LED Lament Configuration; Microsoft's Arc Mouse; the Eye-Fi Compact Flash adapter; and a really quite mesmerizing Google Android fan rap.
There was acheap USB microscope; an unpleasant EULA from Sony; the iKit, a handheld computer like the old Sharp Zauruses; and jewelry made from old Sinclair/Timex computer keys.
John found a fork designed for spaghetti twirling; a portable memo-writing device that requires the attention of hackers; plus a cleaning "gak" for computer keyboards. He also spotted the startling LittleBigPlanet recall, apparently inspired by a single forum post.
Joel ogled the Hardcore Computer Reactor, which has its hot innards suspended in mineral oil. There was also a suede sleeve for your notebooks; a Red Jack O' Lantern of Death; a knife-cleansing knife block; 16:9 laptops from Gateway; and the Lockwasher Imperial HD 700. Rest in peace, Mac mini?
Boing Boing GadgetsSource: Boing Boing | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:04 am Star Wars MMO Lead Writer Talks Story Details - Shacknews
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:03 am Fire Consumes Acres of N.J. State ForestA wildfire in Wharton State Forest in the New Jersey Pine Barrens spread through several hundred acres of pine and oak woods Tuesday. Route 206, a major north-south route through the pines, was closed over night, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am Samsung: fine then, SanDisk! Be like that! Never mind on that offer to buy you
Romantic conceits aside, it looks like SanDisk just wasn’t willing to give in and give up control of such a strong brand to the beast that is Samsung. They held out after rejecting the offer initially, and now Samsung is walking away, too. SanDisk would rather sell off some expensive assets and introduce some bad-ass new products to invigorate the company than become another head of the Samsung hydra. SanDisk doing it for herself! Check out the whole release — plus saucy letter — after the jump.
What — is the image too much? Probably, yeah. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am Toshiba Expands Industry-Leading Automotive Storage Line With 80GB Serial-ATA Hard Disk DriveIRVINE, Calif., Oct.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am AdMob Raises $15.7 Million in Series C Funding to Grow Worldwide Leadership in Mobile AdvertisingAdMob, the world's largest and fastest growing mobile advertising marketplace, today announced it has achieved cash flow positive results and secured a new $15.7 million Series C investment round, led by Sequoia Capital's Growth Fund with existing investor Accel Partners participating, to expand its global leadership position.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am NowMessage.Com Service Expanded to Support Alltel and U.S. Cellular Blackberry UsersCommon Voices, a leader in IP voicemail systems, announces the immediate availability of NowMessage.com for Blackberry(R) users on Alltel Wireless and U.S. Cellular networks. A free service, NowMessage.com releases users from the restrictions of conventional voicemail.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am Research and Markets: Explore the Motherboard and PC CEM Markets in China and Taiwan As the Industry is Faced With a Slow Growth Rate With Desktop PCs Being Replaced With NotebooksResearch and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fb36df/motherboard_and_pc) has announced the addition of the "Motherboard and PC CEMs in China and Taiwan" report to their offering.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am Resident Evil: Degeneration slumping into stores December 30, 2008FROM GAMERTELL - Yes, it’s a big let down that Resident Evil 5 won’t be coming out this year along with all the other big games, but we will still get our yearly Resident Evil fix. It won’t be a game this time around, but instead the animated feature Resident Evil: Degeneration is… MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Oct 2008 | 5:00 am SC prisons take on feds over jamming phone signals (AP)AP - South Carolina might already have started jamming cell phone signals in prisons to prevent convicts from committing further crimes, if it weren't for one significant problem with the plan: It's against the law.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:58 am Playing the Presidential Election Dozens (aka yo mama political fights on Twitter)There is an epic presidential election themed Yo Mamma Fight going down on Twitter right now. I follow Matt Haughey and Anil Dash, so I saw bits of it in their tweets and, thinking myself clever, tossed out a few and foolishly tried to keep up. But then Anil pointed to the super duper momma-lode, between Fernando Rizo and Lore Sjöberg. Realizing I was out of my league, I gave up and am blogging some of theirs instead:# Yo mama so fat, she authorized a $700 billion bailout of Dairy Queen.Well played, dudes. Matt suggests this time-stamped Twitter search link to get you started in the relevant part of @anildash's feed. Source: Boing Boing | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:50 am AdMob Closes $15.7 Million Series C Round Led By Sequoia - Washington Post
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:50 am Apple's profit up 26 percent on iPhone boom (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:35 am Yahoo to dump 1,500 workers as slump deepens in 3Q (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:25 am Rumor: Sony may soon offer more rewards than just pixelated TrophiesFROM GAMERTELL - US Official PlayStation Magazine reports that Sony Computer Entertainment of America is “mulling over some sort of Trophy reward system...”
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:19 am Steve Jobs: Apple Will Be 'Fine' - BusinessWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:10 am Gallery: Top 10 Wired.com Motion Photos, Decided by Us : Though Wired.com readers selected 10 excellent photos in our motion photo contest, we here at the photo department like to fight for the underdog. Here are our 10 favorite submissions that we think deserved more attention. Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is yellow. Check out the contest page for more information. Left: Aswan Photographer's comment: "Egypt. Aswan. Night. Boy. Bike. 2008. Pentax K100d + 18-55/3.5-5.6."  : Untitled Photographer's comment: "Bird. Seattle. 2006."  : In the Center Lane Photographer's comment: "Approaching the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, California. Motion blur visible on tunnel, cars and Bay Bridge appear static. D300, Nikon 17-55/2.8, f/1.8 exposure 1/10s, ISO 400, handheld, manual."  : Buses and Builders Photographer's comment: "Taken on my Iskra, a fantastic Russian medium-format camera made in the 1960s. This photo was taken on 400 ISO slide film, then cross-processed."  : Osaka, Sunday Night Photographer's comment: "A Sunday night in August in the Minami district of Osaka, Japan. Photo taken with a Mamiya 7II + Fujifilm Provia 400X."  : Pace Photographer's comment: "I give people permission to watch. In most cases, when we are presented with an unusual person, we avert our eyes. I show people that our bodies are beautifully and authentically fragile — not in the sense that life is temporary, but life is mutable. Through visual representations of routines and demonstrations of physical abilities, we find ourselves examining the ordinary but witnessing the extraordinary."  : Red Canyon Photographer's comment: "A nighttime ride in the Utah desert."  : Siamese Glow Photographer's comment: "Flashlights, speed lights and tripod on B."  : Boarding Action Photographer's comment: "Self portrait I took last year. Set the timer for 15 sec, set the camera on the ground and ran to my skateboard. I'm not really that good at skating."  : True Photographer's comment: "London"
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Pyro Geek Hobbyists Experiment With Homebrew RocketsMounted horizontally on a launch rail, the long, slender rocket exudes such papable menace that you cant' help but feel sorry for the poor bastards on the receiving end. Except that this isn't a wapon of mass destruction. It's a glorified toy built by middle-aged hobbyists moonlighting as rocket scientists. The only people in imminent danger are the guys standing around the makeshift launchpad. We're in the middle of Black Rock Desert, the vast, dry lake bed in Nevada (best known as the site of the annual Burning Man bacchanal), and at the moment there's nothing to hit for miles in any direction. But there's a very real risk the thing will blow up before it leaves the ground. "All right, listen up," says Wedge Oldham, a sturdy, take-charge ex-Navy submariner, now a software engineer, who launched his own 30-foot-tall, 700-pound monster during a previous visit to the playa. This morning he's responsible for inserting the igniter into the motor of the rocket. The solid-fuel propellant is inert, so there's almost no chance it will catch fire prematurely, but the pyrotechnic compound around the igniter is notoriously flammable. "If something goes wrong, the thermite will go off instantaneously," Oldham says. "There will be no ducking or running out of the way. So make sure you're in the position you want to be in when you're incinerated." On this scorching summer weekend, 75 amateur rocketeers and a few indulgent friends and family members have gathered in the desert to play Wernher von Braun for a day. Known as the Association of Rocket Mavericks, they're the top guns of model rocketry—and perhaps the shade-tree innovators- to-be of the aerospace industry. If NASA is the establishment, and upstarts like Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites are the contenders, then these guys are the hardcore wannabes—enthusiasts who pour their time, money, and considerable knowledge into these launches and even harbor dreams that their experiments will change the course of rocketry. The ground crew tilts the rocket until it's vertical. Tom Rouse, a 53-year-old general contractor, looks on nervously as Oldham kneels in the silt and carefully slides the igniter into the engine. A compact man with a trim mustache, Rouse builds high-end spec houses by day and high-flying rockets at night. He's got $3,000 and innumerable hours invested in the missile on the pad, and he's more concerned about its immediate future than his personal safety. "There are so many things that can go wrong," he says. "The motors could be strong but the flight computers fail, or the computers could work fine but an O-ring fails. All it takes is one little problem and it's over in a second." 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
Technically, Rouse is launching a hobby rocket, but don't confuse it with the cardboard- and-balsa-wood kits fired off by kids since the dawn of the space age. This 13-foot scratch-built beauty features a carbon-fiber fuselage that houses four flight computers, four parachutes that will be deployed by compressed carbon dioxide canisters, and four solid-fuel motors that pack more thrust than a cruise missile. The rocket fires in two stages to maximize speed and altitude: Once the first three motors have burned out, they fall away and the fourth ignites. According to the simulation software Rouse used to plan the flight, the rocket should shoot straight up at least 12 miles before drifting, intact, back to the ground. Hobby rocketry is divided into two major camps: one devoted to smaller model rockets and the other, epitomized by Rouse, dedicated to high-power numbers. A subset of this more ambitious world focuses on experimental motors, so called because they're built not by commercial vendors but by individuals who can make them as big and as aggressive as the laws of chemistry and physics permit. Three years ago, Rouse formed the Association of Rocket Mavericks to push the envelope. "For some guys, it's simply a matter of packing as much propellant as will fit in a container, lighting the fuse, and running away as fast as you can," says Tom Atchison, who sits on the Rocket Mavericks board. "There's nothing wrong with that. But we want to raise the technology to a level where we can address some of the challenges faced by the aerospace industry. We're the early adopters. We're in a position to take risks that companies can't when they're fulfilling government contracts. We can work on alternative propulsion systems and innovative recovery techniques. We're saying, 'Let the unwashed masses play with these things and conduct experiments and see what they come up with.'" 
Tom Atchison carries his rocket to the launchpad with his son, "We're the early adopters."
Photo: J. Bennett Fitts The closest thing the Rocket Mavericks have to a celebrity is Gene Nowaczyk, who last year launched a gigantic rocket to nearly 100,000 feet. (For hobbyists, anything over 10,000 feet grabs people's attention, and flying into the troposphere, which starts at around 25,000 feet, requires some serious engineering. Thus far, only one amateur has made it beyond the threshold of space, defined as 62 miles, or roughly 330,000 feet.) Nowaczyk isn't here yet, but for the past few days his progress has been the subject of word-of-mouth updates ("Gene's on his way." "He's in Winnemucca." "He'll be here tonight."). Until Nowaczyk's follow-up project is ready to fly, though, Rouse is top dog. At mission control—a folding table 1,500 feet from the launchpad—all eyes are on his rocket as he presses the red button. The thermite igniter generates 4,000 degrees of instantaneous heat, and Rouse's craft shoots skyward with none of the slow-motion gravitas of a space shuttle takeoff. There's enough smoke and fire to satisfy the most jaded pyromaniac. Then an audible pop!—a sonic boom—as the projectile breaches the sound barrier. After a six-second burn, the white plume shuts off, like a skywriting airplane between letters. The booster separates from the second stage, and after three seconds of coasting, the fourth motor lights. Shortly after the flame winks out, the rocket disappears in the blue haze. 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
The crowd breaks into a ragged cheer. But Rouse is apprehensive. "I don't see a chute," he says. "Does anybody see a chute?" High-power rocket wisdom, engineering department, has it that going up is the easy part. The real challenge is recovery. Unlike NASA's onetime-use vehicles, model rockets are designed to be launched repeatedly. This requires an intricate in-flight ballet in which the rocket splits into several pieces after reaching maximum altitude and then deploys a series of parachutes to progressively slow the descent of each section. Due to a packing snafu, Rouse's rocket descends too slowly and is buffeted off course by gusty winds. But thanks to the GPS signal beamed from the nose cone, he recovers it unbroken about 10 miles from the launchpad. He drives back to mission control in his pickup with a broad smile on his face. When he downloads the data logged by the flight computers, he determines that his bird flew to an altitude of 13 miles and reached a speed of Mach 3.47. "How many people have launched a rocket that went to 70,573 feet?" he asks an hour later, still stoked. "I can probably count them on my fingers." 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
Black Rock Desert is 400 square miles of forbidding wasteland ringed by modest mountains that are largely obscured this morning by the smoky haze from distant wildfires. The khaki-colored playa, parched and cracked by the relentless summer sun, is brittle on top and soft underneath, like a birthday cake gone stale, and each step elicits an audible crunch. In the bleak, seemingly lifeless terrain, the dozen or so RVs and tents look like a moon base. At the center of the camp is the Rocket Mavericks trailer. A supersize satellite dish positioned to pick up a GPS signal looms overhead. Inside the trailer are a 24-megabit satcom unit able to pump out live webcasts, a pair of Wi-Fi systems that can light 4 square miles of playa, and a Silicon Graphics workstation. Two men sweat in the cramped, un-air-conditioned space as they wrench on a black rocket 7 1/2 feet long that looks like a scaled-down cross between a '60s-vintage X-15 rocket plane and a surface-to-air missile. The elder one is Tom Atchison, gray-haired, energetic, and upbeat. Atchison, 47, discovered rocketry as a child while tinkering with gunpowder his father had given him to make fireworks. After engineering stints at NASA and HP Labs, he earned his fortune running tech companies in Silicon Valley. When his friend Dirk Gates, founder of computer component maker Xircom, mentioned that he was flying high-power model rockets, Atchison felt his old passion reignite. "I said, 'Wow! That's so cool!'" he recalls. "'Is it legal?'" Space-going vehicles rely primarily on liquid fuel. But liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen are don't-try-this-at-home propositions—too expensive, too complicated, and too dangerous for most amateurs. Gunpowder propelled early generations of hobby rockets in the '60s, and it's still used for puny models. But by the '80s, amateur rocketeers were dabbling with bigger, much more powerful motors packed with solid fuels similar to the propellants found in Cold War ICBMs and the space shuttle's strap-on boosters. 
Gene Nowaczyk (left) and Gary Stroick assemble the 17-foot, 375-pound Piperr-8. It's designed to fly 18 miles into the sky and return to Earth intact, ready for another launch.
Photo: J. Bennett Fitts Rocket engines are rated on a letter scale from A to Z, and each letter is twice as powerful as the preceding one. Thus, a C motor is twice as powerful as a B and four times as potent as an A. Generally, model rocketry runs from A to G. Everything else is considered high-power rocketry. The largest off-the-shelf engine is rated O. Here at Black Rock, a couple of rockets are flying on experimental P motors, and the star attraction is Nowaczyk's king-size Q. When Atchison rediscovered rocketry in 2001, the scene felt like the early days of computing, when the big companies—and big money—were in mainframes but the innovations came from geeks working out of their garages. He gravitated toward the Rocket Mavericks, who were more serious- minded than some of the other tinkerers, and quickly imbued the organization with a vision that transcended hobbyism. "The challenge is cheap, repeatable access to space," he says. "I could definitely see us doing orbital flights by 2015. We're focusing on the suborbital piece first because we have to develop the skills of the early adopters." 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
Atchison's pitch resonates especially well with techies. It's no coincidence that the Rocket Mavericks' roster is heavy on Silicon Valley stalwarts. Exhibit A is the owner of the black rocket that Atchison is helping to prep. Looking boyish in his floppy hat and baggy shorts, Steven Jurvetson is a 41-year-old managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson. As one of the most tech-savvy venture capitalists in the world, he's a celebrity around Sand Hill Road. He and his young son had been launching model rockets when Atchison introduced him to high-power models, and Jurvetson's first taste of the hard stuff—a launch on the playa in 2006—hooked him. "Blowing things up is inherently fun, and there's something about a rocket roaring into the air that excites you on a visceral level," Jurvetson says. "But along with the pyrotechnic appeal, rocketry makes the science tangible and allows you to engage it on a personal level." Jurvetson is putting his money where his mouth is. His $10,000 Draper Fisher Jurvetson J-Prize will be awarded by Rocket Mavericks to the first rocketeer who makes two or more successful flights to 30,000 feet while carrying a 4.4-pound payload—a useful capability for academic research. Also, he has built his own rocket to go after what's known as Level 3 certification, the highest "degree" in hobby rocketry, which will allow him to play with engines rated class M and greater. Jurvetson has come to Black Rock in a rented RV carrying all his rocket gear, his son, and his high school buddy Erik Charlton, a marketing executive at Logitech who's here to make an L3 cert flight of his own. 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
Jurvetson is ready to assemble his motor. The solid-fuel propellant is molded into grains, also called slugs or chunks, that look like spools of thread and feel like pencil erasers. He loads them into a cylindrical case, much as he might slide batteries into a tubular flashlight. Then he screws everything together and walks his rocket out to the launchpad. There he discovers a problem: He can't switch on one of the two onboard flight computers—essentially a microcontroller that serves as an altimeter and orchestrates engine stages and parachute deployment. After a quick-and-dirty fix with superglue and a soldering iron, the rocket is ready for liftoff. Jurvetson lets his son press the red button. The launch is perfect. Five seconds into the flight, as the rocket carves into the clouds, his son asks plaintively, "Can I let go now?" The rocket tops out around 6,000 feet. But this flight isn't about altitude; it's about a safe launch and intact recovery. Jurvetson meets both goals, satisfying the certification requirements. Following his flight, he's as amped as Rouse was after flying 10 times higher. Armed with his L3, he's ready for, well, just about anything. "In many industries," he says, "great ideas get lost in large bureaucracies, and it's people at the low end of the market who push the envelope. Who's going to explore crazy ideas like airbag landings on the moon? Rovers, pod racers, glider reentry?" The answer, unspoken, is clear. 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
Gene Nowaczyk, with his salt-and-pepper Van Dyke, muscle T, and cargo shorts, looks more like a tourist on a Las Vegas bender than a rocket scientist on a launch site. He smokes a Marlboro Light as he works on his rocket; a gallon bottle of Jose Cuervo is close at hand. For the record, though, he's not actually drinking the tequila, just swirling it around in his mouth and spitting it out. "I've got a toothache," he says. Nowaczyk, 40, is a mechanical engineer who came to rocketry by chance. "My daughter wanted to do this," he says. "Then she turned into a girl, and Daddy turned into a boy." He formed a company—Payload Specialties—to develop so-called sounding rockets, which are designed to take instruments aloft on research-gathering suborbital flights, and next year he plans to fly his rocket into space. Eventually, he hopes to turn Payload Specialties into a moneymaking proposition. But today's task is to replicate the 100,000- foot flight he made here last year. Nowaczyk, his partner, Tim Covey, and their friend Gary Stroick arrived last night after towing their trailer 30 hours from Missouri. They worked on the rocket until 2 am, and they were back at it by dawn. Watching them check the wiring, pack the parachutes, and screw the pieces together spotlights a fundamental but often overlooked truth: Rocketry is hard. Inspired entrepreneurs with deep pockets, like Elon Musk and John Carmack, have suffered countless failures despite spending millions of dollars on their rocket programs. Even NASA gets things catastrophically wrong every now and then. Nowaczyk's rocket is a monster by hobby standards—17 feet long and 375 pounds. It looks like a big white cigarette with a silver needle nose on one end, three badass fins on the other, and a black section near the top that houses the flight computers. The homebrew Q-class motor is rated at 9,000 pounds of thrust. (The Redstone that propelled Alan Shepard into space in 1961 pumped out 78,000 pounds.) Nowaczyk has made room for a payload compartment to hold various pieces of memorabilia, including a baseball signed by members of the Chicago Cubs, and an experiment he's ferrying on behalf of a Missouri high school that will correlate altitude with temperature. 
Photograph: J. Bennett Fitts
The rocket is so big that Nowaczyk transported it to Black Rock in dozens of pieces, planning to assemble it on the launchpad. Now he trucks it to a 22-foot-high hydraulic launch rail he fabricated himself. For six hours under the broiling sun, Nowaczyk, Covey, and Stroick piece everything together. Twenty minutes before liftoff, they power up the onboard video cameras. Nowaczyk turns his attention to the flight computer. Suddenly he murmurs, "We've got issues. It isn't arming." Unflustered, Nowaczyk methodically prods the computer. Covey is concerned that the power will run out before reentry. "You've got 15 minutes," he tells Nowaczyk. "Twelve and a half ... Gene, you've got 10 minutes." After consulting the computer manual, Nowaczyk is finally able to boot the machine, and he calmly buttons up the rocket with four minutes left on the clock. The team hustles into a pickup truck and reaches launch control at T-minus two minutes. Wedge Oldham counts it down: 10, 9, 8, 7 ... Nowaczyk punches the launch button and the rocket streaks skyward on a white plume that sends dust clouds roiling away from the pad. A second later, a white light flares and the fuselage explodes in a fireball that showers debris over the playa. There's a moment of silent shock and awe. Then come the groans. High-power rocketry wisdom, black-humor department, holds that the only thing cooler than a successful launch is an unsuccessful launch. But nobody's laughing now. Nowaczyk has sunk too much sweat equity and too many dreams into this project. Still, he manages a grin. "Negative launch angle detected," he jokes. Then he drives off to collect the wreckage. Preston Lerner (plerner@pacbell.net)profiled auto-racing prodigy Colin Braun in issue 15.10.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Oct. 22, 1938: Xerox This1938: Inventor Chester Carlson produces the first electrophotographic image. It's the precursor of the Xerox machine. Carlson was an engineer who couldn't get a job in his field during the Great Depression, so he took work in the patent department of battery-manufacturer P.R. Mallory. A bottleneck in the work was making copies of patent documents: You had to copy them by hand (time and labor) or send them out to be photographed (time and expense). Carlson set out to make a dry-copying process. He got his inspiration from the new field of photoconductivity: Light striking the surface of certain materials increases the flow of electrons. Carlson knew he could use the effect to make dry copies. Project an image of the original document onto a photoconductive surface, and current would flow only where light stuck. Four years of tinkering in his kitchen and in his mother-in-law's beauty salon in Astoria, Queens, in New York City finally produced results in October 1938. Carlson's research assistant, Otto Kornei, put a sulfur coating on a zinc plate, which was rubbed with a handkerchief to give it an electrostatic charge. A glass slide with the words "10-22-38 ASTORIA" was placed on the plate in a darkened room and illuminated with a bright incandescent lamp for a few seconds. Lycopodium powder (made from waxy moss spores) was sprinkled on the sulfur and then blown off. There it was: a near-perfect mirror image of the writing. Carlson and Kornei heated wax paper to fix the image. Carlson had taken law courses at night while working at the Mallory patents department, and he protected his new invention with a web of patents. He needed development money to make the process commercial, but World War II made funding tough. More than 20 corporations, including IBM, Kodak, General Electric and RCA turned him down between 1939 and 1944. He finally struck a deal with the nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute in 1944. Battelle gave Carlson a 40 percent stake in the invention and assigned physicist Roland Schaffert to work on perfecting electrophotography. Battelle licensed the technology in 1947 to Haloid, a Rochester, New York, photographic-supply manufacturer founded in 1906. Battelle and Haloid publicly demonstrated the process Oct. 22, 1948, precisely 10 years after Carlson's first successful experiment. The photocopiers introduced in 1949 were a logistical mess: The user had to follow 14 steps, it took 45 seconds to make one copy, and you couldn't make more than a dozen copies from one exposure. More work was in order. Haloid also asked a professor of Greek at Ohio State University to coin a better name than electrophotography. He devised xerography from the Greek for "dry writing." In 1958, Haloid officially changed its name to Haloid Xerox, more than coincidentally parallel to another Rochester firm, Eastman Kodak. Haloid Xerox had its first big hit the following year with a pioneering automatic photocopier, the Xerox 914 — named for its ability to handle paper up to 9 inches by 14 inches. The company simplified its name to Xerox in 1961. Revenues reached $60 million that year and $500 million (about $3.5 billion in today's money) by 1965. The Xerox machine and its eventual xerographic competitors had a profound cultural influence. The machines increased the efficiency (or perhaps the paper-wastefulness) of offices around the world, but cheap copying was also an early step in the democratization of publishing. If you wanted to publish a fanzine or any of the new generation of zines, no longer did you need to run the copies on the sly on the school, church or office mimeograph, or take them to an expensive print shop. Likewise for posters announcing band gigs, political demos and missing pets. On the serious side, the Soviet Union tightly restricted access to photocopying machines lest they provide a new technology for distributing forbidden samizdat (self-published) literature and nonfiction. On the lighter side, in less-controlled societies, before there were office printers and before there was e-mail and internet humor, there was xerox humor: Copies of unofficial and often off-color cartoons and jokes circulated hand to hand and through postal mail. Xerography also presented a serious, pre-digital challenge to the practical enforceability of copyright laws. Why laboriously hand-copy the terrific summary page from a library book when you could just photocopy it for a dime? Why indeed pay $8.95 to buy the 72-page monograph your prof assigned, when you could get a copy photocopied on 37 pages for just three bucks? Using a cassette recorder to copy your friends' LPs was just around the corner. The floodgates were open. Chester Carlson collapsed and died while walking on New York City's 57th Street in 1968. He'd earned an estimated $150 million ($950 million today) from Xerox and had given two-thirds of it to charity. Source: Steve Silverman's Useless Information
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Rocketeers Pack Tech Muscle Into ModelGene Nowaczyk's Piperr-8 is a flying laboratory capable of ferrying science experiments higher than 100,000 feet.
Infographic: Charlie Kinks
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Wired.com Photo Contest: YellowWe see you there, Wired.com readers, shaking in your black Filas in fear of this week's photo contest. What's the matter, feeling a little yellow? Good, then you've already started. Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best yellow photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. The 10 highest-ranked photos will appear in a gallery on the Wired.com homepage. Show us sunflower fields, hay mazes and Scotch broom. Gold fish, gold teeth and gold bullion. We want to see rubber gloves in a sink of dishes, lemon-meringue-pie-eating contests and armies of rubber ducks. You get the point, now get shooting. The photo must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc. We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you log in will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg). Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions! Also, check out the winner's galleries from our previous contests: Fall Holga, Red, Self-Portrait, Night, Macro, Transportation, and Black and White. Vote on yellow photos submitted by other readers.
Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your yellow photo. Submit your yellow photo.(No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.)
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Gallery: Top 10 Wired Motion Photos, Decided by You : Sometimes the implied motion of a still photo can be even more thought-provoking than the motion itself, as shown by these 10 outstanding motion photos voted the best by readers from our contest submissions. Lars Larsen takes home the gold with his photo "Flaming bullwhip" at left. Larsen will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk. Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Motion Photo Gallery. Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is yellow. Check out the contest page for more information. Left: Flaming bullwhip Photographer's comment: "The title says it all. Fire performer cracking a flaming bullwhip. One second handheld ISO 400 f/13."  : Pop!!! Photographer's comment: "Water balloon vs. a needle. Guess who won?"  : Pyrogirl Photographer's comment: "After-dinner fun in Fiji."  : Flamenco Dancer Photographer's comment: "Flamenco dancer twirling the manton at a show in Jerez, Spain."  : (Not a) Pig Photographer's comment: "And you thought the phrase 'hungry hungry' could only apply to hippos. During lunchtime for these not-pigs at the Pelican Hideout, the bird keeper mentioned that the pelican's mouth can effectively hold up to 40 soft drink cans worth of liquid. That's a lot of beer and would probably make for one heck of a drunk pelican. 1/800 sec at ISO200, f/5.6 | 154mm on Canon 55-250mm | Canon EOS 20Da. Pelican Cove, Jurong Birdpark, Singapore."  : Traffic on Interstate 65 Photographer's comment: "Taken on a country road overpass of I-65 near Tanner, Alabama. I was driving home from a long night shift at work and noticed a lightning storm, and happened to have my camera gear in my car. The taillight trails are northbound traffic. Sadly, with progress comes a price. Due to new billboard signs and construction for an interchange, this type of shot will never be possible at this location again."  : Orange Ghost Train
Photographer's comment: "Camera: Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi # Exposure: 8.0 sec # Aperture: F5.6 # ISO: 100 # Lens: 85.0 mm."  : Uncaged Photographer's comment: "Trained pigeons on a rooftop in Delhi."  : Long Jumper  : Pariiiiiiiis Photographer's comment: "Picture from the Arc de Triomphe in a small French town. Canon EOS 400d."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am E.O. Wilson Returns to the Hive With Superorganism TomeWith a new book on bugs, E.O. Wilson reignites the superorganism debate.Today, E. O. Wilson is thinking small. He wants an ants-only conversation. Usually the Harvard biologist engages in big-think — ideas that have shaken up biology, evolutionary theory, psychology, and more, often embroiling him in heated debates and controversies. The hottest was after the publication of his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. His theories on genetic determinism got him tagged as a social Darwinist (technically accurate) and, worse, a crypto-fascist (not so much). But right now butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. In November, he and Bert Hölldobler are publishing a monumental sequel to their Pulitzer-winning 1990 best seller, The Ants, and Wilson says he doesn't want any trouble. Really? Because there's controversy right there in the book's title: The Superorganism. It seems Wilson's troublemaking days are far from over. Wilson and Hölldobler first explored the concept of superorganisms in The Ants. Could large groups of animals function together as a single entity with distributed intelligence? Did evolution work through such groups, selecting at the group level rather than the individual? The implications were staggering, not only for bugs but also for humans. Group evolution meant that altruism and self-sacrifice — i.e., morality — might be as much a part of our genetic heritage as hair and eye color. Many prominent biologists, led by Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene, said no, there was no such thing as a superorganism: Evolution worked on the genes of self-serving individuals only, not groups. But the idea struck a chord outside the biological sphere. It became a powerful meme among computer geeks, as any Google search reveals. Programmers got to work building "ant-based" search and scheduling-optimization algorithms modeled on the foraging patterns of real-world ants. Cybervisionaries saw in the superorganism an ideal way of describing the networked global brain that they were just beginning to imagine. The idea meant the singularity might be nearer than anyone thought. Wired's Kevin Kelly drew on Wilson's theories for the conceptual framework of the Hive Mind, humanity's emerging cognitive interconnectedness. Even today, Kelly is writing about the One Machine and the Technium, a neologism he defines as "a superorganism of technology." The Ants became a hard-science blockbuster, probably with more buyers than actual readers, like Hawking's A Brief History of Time. This time around, Wilson and Hölldobler have seemingly irrefutable proof that superorganisms exist. The new book is even more dense and less accessible to the layperson, but the renewed controversy will help sell it. Not only will it reignite the war with Dawkins, but it will also breathe new life into the beloved geek meme. Expect the term superorganism to start popping up again in every discussion of Web evolution. Mechanical Turk? Wikipedia? Hello! Kelly is a bit disappointed with The Superorganism — "It's very ant-y," he says — because it doesn't explicitly address the application of social-insect insights to human pursuits. Wilson prefers to leave that to others. For now. When I press him on how the lessons from the pheromone-based ant language apply to humans using asynchronous messaging across social networks, he flicks me away as one might an ant crawling up their lapel. That'll all be covered in his next book (working title: The Forces of Social Evolution The valuation was north of $100 million, says a source close to the company. All employees with vested shares had the opportunity to sell shares in this round as well, although I don’t know what percentage of the $32 million went off the table. Like.com is a visual search engine that matches pictures of things to items for sale that look similar. The service launched in November 2006, and revenue has steadily grown. The company took a year to reach a $1 million annual run rate. Today, we’ve heard, they are over a $20 million revenue run rate. The company is launching a UK version of the service this week at like.co.uk. They also have an iPhone application called LikeThis that lets users take a picture of an item and receive an email with results for similar items for sale. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. "We'll wait and see how that nascent category evolves, and we've got some pretty interesting ideas if it does," Jobs said. He added that to the company's knowledge, netbooks aren't selling all that well. However, recent reports strongly disagree. Netbooks -- low-powered, inexpensive mini notebooks made primarily for internet use -- are soaring in popularity. ABI Research forecasts that manufacturers will ship 200 million ultra-mobile
devices, including netbooks by 2013 -- which is about the same
anticipated size as the entire laptop market worldwide. Also, IDC Research recently said
the rise of netbooks "coincided perfectly with market conditions." In
its report, IDC noted that Acer is now the third largest computer
manufacturer in terms of market share because of its netbook offerings.
To Apple's credit, new MacBooks and MacBook Pros currently crowd
several of the top spots on Amazon's list of 25 best-selling notebooks.
However, all the other devices on that list are netbooks, and the $400
Acer Aspire netbook sits at number one. Also, before Apple announced new MacBooks on Oct. 14, netbooks claimed nine out the top 10 spots on Amazon's list of best sellers for several weeks. Jobs
said in the mean time, the iPhone is a solution, since it fits into the
category of a pared-down, internet-enabled device. However, many would
likely disagree since the handset lacks a physical keyboard and its
screen size is only 3.5 inches, while netbook displays are typically 8
to 10 inches. Nonetheless,
Jobs only said Apple isn't ready to step into the netbook category; he
implies the company has already thought about what its netbook would
be. Meanwhile,
Macworld Expo, where Jobs typically launches brand new products, is
coming January. It's unlikely the company will unveil a netbook so soon
after Jobs said he wasn't ready for one. But even if Apple were releasing one, Jobs probably wouldn't call it a netbook anyway, right? Then again, if you can't wait any longer for Apple, you can always hack a netbook to run Mac OS X. Section: Computers, Hardware, Peripherals, Displays
Asus has just announced that they will soon be releasing four new high-end displays. The new models are the VK246H and VW246H at 24-inches as well as the VK266H and VW266H at 25.5-inches.
All four new additions will feature the “Splendid Video Intelligence Technology,” which according to Asus will offer users “unparalleled color fidelity for utmost visual realism.” As for other features, they will all have a 20,000:1 contrast ratio, DVI-D and D-Sub PC inputs, a PC audio input, HDMI and an earphone jack.
The 24-inch models will have a 16:9 aspect ratio with a 1920 x 1080 max resolution and the 25.5-inch models will have a 16:10 aspect ratio with a 1920 x 1200 max resolution.
Each of the sizes will offer one model with a built-in webcam and one without. On the 24-inch models, the VK246H will have a 1.3-megapixel webcam and the 25.5-inch VK266H will have a rotatable 2.0-megapixel webcam.
While these certainly seem like nice additions to the current Asus display lineup, they still have not had any pricing information announced. That means time will tell just how nice these will be in terms of how much you will have to shell out. As for availability, you can expect them sometime in the second half of October.
Read [Asus]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » AdMob, a popular mobile advertising platform, has closed a 15.7 million Series C funding round led by Sequoia’s Growth Fund with participation from Accel Partners. The company says that it will use the money to help expand abroad in India, South Africa, and Europe. The round is a strong vote of confidence from Sequoia, especially given the fact that the famous firm recently presented its portfolio company CEOs with a 56 Slide Presentation of Doom that forecast dire economic conditions in Silicon Valley for years to come. AdMob has seen tremendous growth since its launch two years ago, and now bills itself as “the world’s largest mobile advertising marketplace”. Mobile advertising is clearly going to be a huge market in the next few years as highspeed smartphones become more common (you can see our story on the network’s integrations with the iPhone here). Phones with geo-location abilities are especially exciting, as they could conceivably allow advertisers to target potential patrons as they pass their stores or enter a nearby parking lot. AdMob will be competing in this still-fledgling space with ad networks from the likes of Google, Nokia, and Yahoo, as well as a number of startups. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. It's official! The HTC T-Mobile G1 phone powered by Google's Android mobile operating system is here. T-Mobile's downtown San Francisco store became the first in the country to sell the G1 phone Tuesday evening.
About 150 buyers lined up ahead of the launch at the 699 Market Street store, which sported a festive look with a juggler, a stiltwalker and a small band. The G1 will be available nationwide starting Wednesday. Christopher Laddish, 26, a journalism student at the San Francisco State University was the first in line, after waiting for nearly 7 hours. "I am in the market for a new device and I have been waiting months for this," he says. Laddish's contract with Verizon, his current service provider, is set to expire today. Laddish who seemed to bask in the media attention along with many of the other potential buyers says he have never waited in line for anything else, not another gadget, movie or video game. For many buyers, the thrill of getting a new, exclusive device seemed to be a big draw. "I like to have cool, topical stuff that everyone's talking about," says Jessa Castaneda, 21, who claims the only other line she has waited for hours is that of amusement park rides. Castaneda who currently has a BlackBerry Pearl on the T-Mobile network says she just wants to trade it in for something new and shiny. The iPhone doesn't appeal to her because she is big on texting. "The touchscreen on the iPhone is just too sensitive," says Castaneda. "G1 has a keyboard so I can send like 100 texts a day." Many of the other buyers too were no Apple fans. Ko Ihara, 25, a hardware engineer says he wants the G1 because it is a good smartphone at a great price. Ihara, who was wearing one of the few wearing the black "I was the first to get it" t-shirts handed out by T-Mobile, says he couldn't pre-order the phone since that was limited to current T-Mobile users. Ihara is switching from AT&T to T-Mobile for the G1 phone. Other freebies at the launch included a 4GB memory card for the first 100 G1 buyers and a raffle draw offering $1000 and a free phone to a winner. More pictures from the launch Read more of this story at Slashdot. Well here’s the first multi-touch, multi-user device for teaching early childhood skills. Like the surface, you can drag things around the surface and play word and picture games with multiple people just by dragging images around the screen. The table launches on Thursday and will cost an actually amazingly inexpensive $7,000. • What is the SMART Table? It has multitouch, multiuser capability, it has gesture recognition and it’s really customizable. SmartTech, the creator of the table system, is well-versed in gesture recognition thanks to their Smart Board whiteboard that scans images drawn on a whiteboard and prints them on demand. This isn’t a Surface product. Instead, it uses Smart’s DVIT (Digital Vision Touch) system to watch for fingers on the screen. Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops
It turns out that they have already sold nearly four million Eee PCs, and have plans to reach the five million mark by the end of 2008. Given the lower pricing that we have been seeing lately, coupled with the never ending lineup of new models, it seems only safe to believe they will reach that goal of five million. Of course, that belief is coming from a regular netbook user. I cannot help but wonder how many of those four million sales came from buyers (like myself) who started with an Eee PC 701 and moved on to other models in the Eee PC lineup as they were introduced.
According to Shen those totals include sales of the Eee PC netbook, and not any of the other Eee branded products such as the Eee Box. As for which models of the Eee PC did the best in terms of sales, the smaller 7-inch did well, in part because that was the only model available during the first quarter.
Otherwise, Shen has said that the 900, 901, 1000 and 1000H are all doing well thanks to their 9 and 10-inch 1024 x 600 resolution displays, but the smaller 7-inch models continue to be in demand as well.
Read [Laptop Mag]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Reader Billy May sent us these concept sketches for the Nike Hindsight, specially design biking glasses with specifically tuned Fresnel lenses for keeping an eye on approaching taxis/cars/baby strollers. Writes Billy: Nike Hindsight is, put simply, like giving bicyclists a pair of bifocals for their peripheral vision. By using Fresnel lenses on the sides of eye wear, riders can detect motion in a field of view beyond the normal human limit of 180º. To get technical, high power, diverging Fresnel zones aligned vertically distort into view an extra 25º of view on either side. In doing this, vision is radically distorted in the periphery, but as the eye detects only motion in that area, little clarity is lost in the process. A rider’s clear benefit is in the early warning of approaching vehicles, but a less obvious advantage is reducing the necessary head rotation to check completely behind oneself. Moreover, while the project was directed towards bicycling for the sake of simplicity, there’s a myriad of sports and activities where a greater field of view becomes an advantage, so feel free to speculate. On a final note, although only a concept, no element of Hindsight makes use of futuristic nano e-ink robots that will only be available come 2018. It is, at its core, a pair of sunglasses and a century old lens technology. FROM APPLETELL - Yesterday, Boxee was chosen for “America’s Next Top Gadget” by a panel of judges from around the Internet.
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
We have almost $25 billion safely in the bank and zero debt. This provides us tremendous stability and the ability to invest our way through this downturn. This is what we did during the last downturn–we increased R&D investments and created some of our best new products and businesses, like the Apple retail stores, for one. This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them, like Apple does.”
What was that again? “This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them, like Apple does.” Sanford Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi noted that remark as well and followed up on it during the Q&A. “Steve, you mentioned a couple of times that you thought there were extraordinary opportunities for companies with cash,” he said. “I think you could hire almost every engineer in Silicon Valley on a lifetime employment contract and not really dent that significant cash horde that you have. When you made that statement, are you suggesting that there are significant opportunities for Apple outside of Apple, specifically in terms of acquiring companies?” Jobs’s reply: “I just meant exactly what I said, which is I think there’s going to be some significant opportunities.” Could this mean that Apple is considering an acquisition–a major acquisition? It’s hard to say, but the fact that Jobs dropped such a hint at all is certainly interesting. Perhaps it’s time for that long-rumored merger with Adobe (ADBE). Incidentally, Adobe’s market cap is $14.65 billion. … Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Namely: touchscreen and voice dialing. Oh, thank the higher powers! For those of us on corporate phones, the BlackJack was a safe bet. It did most of the things you needed, though none too well. We all missed voice dialing. This version finally brings it all home.
The Epix runs Windows Mobile 6.1, features a 2 mp camera and runs on the 3G network. The phone is on AT&T’s site now for just $99; $20 more than the BlackJack 2. Sounds like a pretty good deal. I’ll have one to play with soon, so expect an update on how it really performs.
Product page [AT&T]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » By Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily This evening, $1.64 billion (market cap) light-emitting diode chipmaker Cree (CREE) reported sales and profit for its fiscal first quarter ending Sept. 28 ahead of expectations. The company forecast sales slightly light of expectations but profit in line for the fiscal second quarter. Sales in Q1 rose 24 percent to $140.4 million, the company said, ahead of an average estimate of $139.6 million, while profit of 15 cents per share, excluding some costs, was ahead of the average 14 cent consensus estimate. For the December-ending second quarter, Cree is looking for sales in a range of $142 million to $146 million, with profit, excluding some costs, in a range of 15 cents to 16 cents per share, it said. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
IT TRULY ISN'T. For I have no direct connection (and very little contact) with the army of brilliant obsessives who are illustrating the list of 700 Mole-Men that appears in my new book.
ANY MORE than I was connected to them when they illustrated the 700 HOBOES from my last book.
OR TO Boing Boing back when Mark Frauenfelder put them up to it.
IT IS ALL GENUINE, GRASS ROOTS madness. And I am delighted and awed and scared by it. It's sort of the same way I feel about grass and roots.
That is all.
Gizmodo received the tip this morning from European Apple retailers who said they were told to cease ordering the mini computers. Because Apple didn't announce discontinuing the product, this might indicate the company plans to roll out an upgrade for the device soon. It's certainly understandable why some would suspect Apple was killing off the Mac mini: The device hasn't seen an upgrade in 441 days; before the stagnation, Apple refreshed the computer after 188 days, according to MacRumors. Many have been predicting the Mac mini's impending doom for months. We'll look into this further Wednesday and provide an update. Meanwhile, check out Wired.com's coverage of Apple's quarterly earnings call, where Steve Jobs made a rare appearance to announce that Apple has become the third largest handset maker in the world thanks to the iPhone. Apple Stops Mac Mini Shipments to Retailers, Says to Expect No More [Gizmodo] Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Users will have to navigate PayPal for the purchase of apps, which could make the ride a little bumpy from a diminutive screen (assuming everyone isn’t upgrading to the Storm if it shows). What’s more, in a move to be uber-business friendly to your corporate IT, running BlackBerry Enterprise Server or BlackBerry Professional Software, can make sure you can’t get any games, just like on your laptop. Hmmmphf.
Oddly, RIM is making a point in trying to get the App Center on phones at their carriers. It is not a given that just because RIM is putting time and money into this that the carriers will go along. Always the, “what’s in it for me” from the Telecoms. So, unless RIM cuts the carriers in or wows them with a better value proposition, the App Center may not be something we see on phones from the likes of Verizon and AT&T.
Despite my tongue-in-cheek remarks above, I love what RIM is trying to do as of late. More devices, more styles, more choices. The App Center is a natural progression of these concepts and the devices will be better for it. It bears repeating to all the RIM/Apple/WinMo haters: a rising tide lifts all boats.
Sign up to learn more about the Center [RIM]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » It’s been some time since we last covered Startup Weekend, a series of events that bring a roomful of developers and entrepreneurs together to develop new startups in only 54 hours. When the program originally launched last year, each weekend was geared towards building a single application, of which every participating member was a cofounder. Since then the format has changed - multiple companies are created at each event, and they don’t have to incorporate at the end of the weekend. Here’s a handful of the companies founded at last weekend’s event, which was held in Phoenix (you can see the event’s blog here). ReserveChute With so much of our essential data making its way to the cloud, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to quickly make a local backup. Reserve Chute, an open source web app that will be available for use in the next few weeks, will automatically make backups of popular cloud based services including Gmail, Twitter, and Basecamp. It’s unlikely that any of these services will be going out of business in the foreseeable future, and they almost certainly have redundant backup systems in place. But the prospect of having my entire photo collection or Email history wiped out is unnerving - having an easy way to back up these services would definitely give users some peace of mind, even if they never had to use it. My Shelter Helper My Shelter Helper is web page builder aimed to help animal shelters establish a presence on the web. Shelters can logon and after entering some basic information like their address and telephone number will be presented with a functional and good looking website. It’s a great idea, and I love the tagline: “Helping save animal’s lives.” For now the service is generating some pretty barebones sites, but will introduce support for donations so that shelters can easily collect from benevolent animal lovers worldwide. I hope the team keeps working on this - anything that helps animals is a good thing, and plenty of people (like my mother, for example) would love to donate to their local animal shelter along with the national organizations. Twitrratr Awful domain name aside, the Twitrratr team has actually built a pretty cool Twitter site. After entering any keyword, Twitrratr will find related tweets and attempt to figure out if the subject is being spoke about in a positive or negative light. It’s a good idea but unfortunately it doesn’t work very well - oftentimes words that Twitrratr associates with a negative tweet aren’t being used to describe the keyword that was searched for. The team acknowledges that the system isn’t perfect and is open to suggestions (it’s still pretty impressive for 54 hours from conception to launch). Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Update: Friendfeed today released support for its Beta Real-Time feature. The API adds the ability to fetch realtime streams based on the Home, Room, and Friends List updates as they occur. While Friends Lists offer a way to port social graph data of your Twitter Follows to the Friendfeed platform, co-founder Bret Taylor said that was not yet available through the API “though we should add those methods in the future.” Friendfeed’s launch of realtime services has set off a serious horse race on the micromessaging platform. While the New York Times contrasts Twitter and Yammer as eyeballs versus revenue, or consumer v. enterprise, Friendfeed finds itself positioned as an attractive candidate for building scoped message hubs without an IT oversight requirement.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Today, people interested in seeing the first Google-branded consumer-hardware product will get to satisfy their curiosity as the company, joining with T-Mobile (DT), unveils its $179 G1 handheld computer. This touch-screen device will compete with Apple’s iPhone, and it includes a key feature missing in the iPhone: a physical keyboard. The G1 is built around a model of openness, enabling developers to create applications — software programs, called “apps” for short — that will succeed or fail according to the feedback from the online community. Naturally, these community-contributed programs need a marketplace where G1 users can find them, and the Android Market provides just that. This week, I installed various applications from the Android Market on a G1 and tested them out. Google (GOOG) says it will launch with around 40 to 50 applications in this virtual store, and these and all other apps will be available free of charge from now until at least the start of next year. I found these apps to be useful, entertaining and mostly straightforward. There were a few that I felt tried to jam too much into one application, such as BreadCrumbz, an app that asks users to add pictures, instructional arrows and labels to maps that they make for friends. Other apps kept it short and sweet, like Wi-Fi Toggle — a one-touch button that turns wireless capability on or off to save battery power. The G1’s apps are more utilitarian than most apps I’ve tested for Apple’s iPhone — and not quite as visually pleasing. I even compared one G1 program, Plusmo College Football, directly with the same app running on the iPhone, and I missed the artsy touches of the Apple (AAPL) version — like menus that flipped 180 degrees when selected rather than simply opening. One downside: Only a measly 70 megabytes of internal flash memory are reserved on the G1 for storing these third-party applications. Once you fill that limited internal storage space, you have to delete some of your apps to add more. You can’t currently store apps on the phone’s roomier removable memory card. (A one-gigabyte microSD comes with the G1.) The iPhone doesn’t set such an arbitrary limit on application-storage space. The Android Market, like Apple’s iTunes, keeps a record of each user’s installed apps so they can be easily downloaded again later at no extra charge (if they carried a fee). But, unlike the iPhone, the G1 can’t back up your apps to a PC or Mac. The G1’s open model means extra setup steps during app installation. For example, if an application will access certain information — such as a user’s Internet connection, location data (as identified by GPS) or other personal information (calendar, contacts, etc.) — warnings appear during installation, and the user must grant permission. In addition, many apps come with license agreements that must be okayed before users can continue. If something goes wrong with an app, people can post complaints on community boards or email developers, whose email addresses appear during installation. To offer a general idea of what’s available, I’ve highlighted a handful of apps that I like. I broke the applications into three groups: Functional, Fun (if occasionally kitschy) and Frills. Wi-Fi Toggle: This does what it says. Once installed, it adds an icon to the G1’s desktop that provides a quick way to turn Wi-Fi on and off without digging into the settings menu. Locale: Like Wi-Fi Toggle on steroids, this app allows a user to set up a G1 so it dynamically changes its settings in specific conditions. The settings can respond to calls from certain people or changes in the phone’s battery power, calendar, the user’s location or the time. For instance, the Wi-Fi can automatically turn off, ringer volume can go up or down, desktop wallpaper can change or a post can be sent. Just think of all the churchgoers who could ensure their cellphone ringers are turned off on Sunday mornings or when the church’s location is sensed. Ringdroid: Make ringtones from your own songs by adjusting bars to mark the start and end of each ringtone. Hitting Save automatically keeps the ringtone, labeled with the song’s name by default, for use on the phone. Video Player: The G1 doesn’t have a built-in way to play videos, and this app does the trick in a clear-cut, reliable way. Movie ShowTimes: This lets people use a finger to flick across the G1’s touch screen to page through movie poster images, titles and brief descriptions. Below each movie description, an on-screen button labeled “Showtimes Near You” uses GPS to generate lists of nearby movie times. Pac-Man: The classic arcade game never gets old. You can move Pac-Man through his maze with one of three methods: tilting the G1 so its accelerometer moves the Pac-Man, swiping with a finger to point Pac-Man in the right direction or using the trackball to move him around the screen. I preferred the trackball. Cooking Capsules: This program demonstrates food-making without being either too intimidating or too dull and simplified. Though there were only six “capsules” when I tested it, each includes steps for watching (an instructional video), shopping (using an on-screen list of items) and cooking (with numbered instructions on how to cook the food). Bonsai Blast: This colorful, Asian-themed game directs people to shoot colorful marbles at other chains of marbles, with a goal of getting three matching marbles lined up beside one another so they’ll disappear. Krystle II: Turns your G1’s entire screen into a picture of fur that purrs and vibrates as you touch it. There’s no real point, but Krystle II is addictive and strangely comforting during long conference calls. Ecorio: This well-intended app aims to track users’ travel carbon footprints in order to make them more responsible for the environment. It asks users to enter things like recent transit routes and carpools and suggests ways to reduce and offset people’s footprints. Maverick: An IM program that allows people to add scribbles, location data or even photos to active instant-messaging conversations. Maverick signs users into Google Talk and Picasa simultaneously, adding IM images into an auto-generated Picasa album for later viewing. PicSay: Add word balloons, titles, props and effects to digital photos captured and/or stored on the G1, then send the images via multimedia messaging service or email, or save one as a caller ID. There are many more G1 apps to try, and developers are expected to keep making them for this new device. As with the iPhone, apps obtained for the G1 from the Android Market enable it to morph into a different device with different tools every day. – Edited by Walter S. Mossberg Google's Android applications marketplace is ready for prime time again.
Two days before the retail launch of the first Android-powered handset, the HTC T-Mobile G1, some users found a stripped out Android store with just about 13 apps. It came as a shock to users because earlier reports suggested a vibrant marketplace with nearly 50 applications. Now Google says those 50-odd apps will be back in time for the nationwide launch of the G1 Wednesday. A Google spokesperson explained that Android developers are making some last minute changes to ensure final versions of the applications are on the store before thousands of customers get their phone. But along the way, many apps temporarily disappeared from the store. "We needed to be sure that a few of the third party apps are final for consumer use," said Google in an emailed statement. "We're replacing the preview applications with the final versions today." Starting Wednesday, once the phone is available nationwide, developers will be managing their own applications, said Google. Since Apple launched the first App Store with the iPhone, the idea has become the rage among major handset makers. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion joined the fray Tuesday by announcing it will have a new application storefront. With the Android marketplace, Google may have gotten ahead of itself in a bid to ensure the device was ready for reviewers ahead of the launch date. But developers aren't complaining. "Android is more open than iPhone in many ways," says Deepen Shah, chief technology officer for Buzzd, a location sensitive city guide. Buzzd is one of the 13 applications that stayed on the Android marketplace through yesterday and has a version also available on the iPhone App store. "Android allows developers to more easily interact with the native capabilities of the handset and every app does not have to be approved," says Shah. Buzzd created an Android version of its application in a month compared to the nearly five months it took to create one for the iPhone App store. Photo: T-Mobile G1 (Jon Snyder/Wired.com) A year after launching its beta, Twine opened up today to the general public with a completely redesigned site. The relaunch got lots of coverage. Maybe you read some of it. Even if you did, you probably still don’t know what Twine does. Some semantic shit, right? Exactly. Twine’s marketing department made the video above as a joke for their staff meeting today. (Warning:Turn the volume down, NSFW). In the voiceover, Candice Nobles, director of marketing at Radar Networks (which operates Twine) explains: I think that is the best explanation I’ve heard yet of what Twine does. Click here to see the original version of the video. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 It looks like Walmart has soft-launched it’s DRM-free MP3 store. The company decided to ditch its DRM approach, but then got into hot water with consumers once they figured out that Walmart was going to be taking down the servers they used to manage all the DRM rights. No servers, meant that they wouldn’t be able to listen to the songs they had legally purchased. So Walmart had to reverse course and is now keeping those servers up. I love it. DRM servers are already a legacy technology. (They should just swap all of their previous customer’s DRM songs for new MP3 versions). Anyway, the MP3 store is now up without any announcement that I could find. Did they change the look? I seem to remember it being a little different. Come on, it’s okay to admit you shop for MP3s at Walmart. I do. Each song is five cents cheaper there! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 I’m sure these will only be used for perfectly constitutional, warranted searches! They will not be fired into the kitchen windows of known dissidents. I have Cheney’s word on that. Read more of this story at Slashdot. Reflexive Entertainment CEO Lars Brubaker has announced that Amazon has agreed to acquire the company he co-founded. Reflexive isn’t particularly new to the game. The Orange County, California based company was founded in 1997 and produced games like Wik and the Fable of Souls, Big Kahuna Reef, Music Catch and the Ricochet series. The company also set out to build a development and distribution platform for PC, Mac and free web games dubbed Reflexive Arcade, which is likely the main reason why Amazon was interested in an acquisition. The blog post mentions the fact that Reflexive will now be able to tap into the Amazon distribution channel for its own games. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Nice caveat: according to an old interview GameZone did with Brubaker, the start-up capital for getting the company off the ground was secured in the form of a loan from Microsoft veteran Marlin Eller. (Hat tip to CenterNetworks). Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Staggering. The company is now the world’s third largest mobile phone supplier in terms of revenue after Samsung and Nokia. “Apple beat RIM,” Jobs said. “In their most recent quarter, Research in Motion, or RIM, reported selling 6.1 million BlackBerry devices. Compared to our most recent quarter sales of 6.9 million iPhones, Apple outsold RIM last quarter and this is a milestone for us. RIM is a good company that makes good products and so it is surprising that after only 15 months in the market, we could outsell them in any quarter. But even more remarkable is this — measured by revenues, Apple has become the world’s third-largest mobile phone supplier. I know this sounds crazy, but it’s true — as measured in revenues, not units, Apple has become the third largest mobile phone supplier.” Read more of this story at Slashdot. My second Monster Central Control System AVL 300 universal remote just died shortly after one year of use. The first one did the same but sucked it up then and purchased a second one; not anymore. To be honest, the remote seemed nice at first (my original review), but shortly after a month or two of use, it began to show it’s true evil Monster Cable side. The charging system sucks, the remote is fragile and frail, the PC software is pathetic joke, and worst of all now, it won’t do anything. I just called Monster Cable for advice, but because I was 2 months out of warranty, they simply told me to buy a new one. Sorry, Noel Lee, I did that last time and I won’t do it again. I’m growing up and will purchase a real remote from a company that doesn’t own a NFL stadium and sue the little guys. Along with its third-quarter results released today, Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang sent a memo to Yahoo’s staff about the streamlining the company would be undertaking. That would be about 1,400 to 1,500 employees, or 10 percent of Yahoo’s global workforce. As usual, his kindergarten punctuation was in full force, despite the sad tone of the missive. At least, Yang is consistent. Here’s the memo: From: Jerry Yang yahoos, i feel it’s important for me to reach out to you after our earnings announcement, and before our all hands meeting tomorrow. we as a company have been through a tremendously challenging year; and managing the increasingly turbulent global advertising climate has been an important focus for the last three months. throughout the first three quarters of 2008, we have been balancing between investing in our top priorities, and managing our cost structure. beginning in september, with the help of Bain & Co., we initiated a series of steps to determine how we can become more efficient and productive as an organization. we heard from you through the YEES survey, and through your suggestions on backyard, and we’ve identified many areas that we all feel we can improve upon. our productivity efforts, based in part on what we heard from you, will involve initiatives such as streamlining our organizational structure through reducing layers and increasing spans of control, and eliminating redundancies. longer term structural efficiencies include consolidating facilities, improving procurement, and standardizing our global technology platforms. today as part of our q3 earnings release, we said that our goal is to reduce our current annualized cost run rate of roughly $3.9 billion by more than $400 million before the end of 2008. we are targeting non-headcount expenses wherever possible, such as facilities and outside services. however, because compensation expenses are the single largest part of our costs, we anticipate a reduction of at least 10% of our global workforce by year-end. affected employees will be notified of layoffs in the next several weeks. we understand that hearing this news now creates uncertainty, but we are moving ahead in a way that balances speed with a clear focus on accomplishing what is necessary to set the organization up for long term success. going forward it will continue to be important for us to make the right decisions to keep our business efficient and strong. having layoffs is very difficult, particularly in light of all we’ve experienced this year. but we don’t take these decisions lightly, and are committed to treating affected employees fairly, offering severance and outplacement services. the steps we are taking are not easy for us as a company, but as we become more fit as an organization, decision-making will be faster and it will be easier for us all to get more done and stay focused on our strategy. these changes will also prepare us to better deal with the macroeconomic downturn. as with previous downturns, yahoo! continues to be a place where consumers turn for information and communications, and is an integral part of their internet day. as the global economy improves in the future, i certainly believe that we will be stronger and benefit from the actions we are taking now. as always, i thank you for all you do as yahoos. best, I tend to take story promises of MMOs with a boulder of salt, as there’s simply no way, fundamentally, that a hundred thousand people can all play a decisive part in any kind of virtual galactic struggle. Still, it’ll be fun to visit the dozens of planets and take down some goody-two-shoes in-character Jedi. Lots of information here (probably a little too much), and the full press release is after the briz-eak.
LUCASARTS AND BIOWARE OCTOBER 21, SAN FRANCISCO – LucasArts and BioWare™, a division of Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS), today announced the development of Star Wars®: The Old Republic™, a story-driven massively multiplayer online PC game set in the timeframe of the Star Wars®: Knights of the Old Republic™ franchise. Star Wars: The Old Republic, being developed and published by BioWare and LucasArts, represents an innovative approach to interactive entertainment, featuring immersive storytelling, dynamic combat and intelligent companion characters. In Star Wars: The Old Republic, players will explore an age thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy. Players can choose to play as Jedi, Sith, or a variety of other classic Star Wars roles, defining their personal story and determining their path down the light or dark side of the Force. Along the way, players will befriend courageous companions who will fight at their side or possibly betray them, based on the players’ actions. Players can also choose to team up with friends to battle enemies and overcome incredible challenges using dynamic Star Wars combat. “Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is the most critically acclaimed Star Wars game in LucasArts history and a preeminent example of our company’s interactive storytelling heritage,” said Darrell Rodriguez, President of LucasArts. “For a long time, we’ve wanted to return to the franchise in a grand way, and we felt that the best setting for it was an online world that would allow millions of people to participate in the experience together. We knew that the developer capable of working with us to deliver an engrossing story with a fully-realized online world was BioWare.” “Traditionally, massively multiplayer online games have been about three basic gameplay pillars - combat, exploration and character progression,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder and General Manager/CEO of BioWare and General Manager/Vice President of Electronic Arts Inc., “In Star Wars: The Old Republic, we’re fusing BioWare’s heritage of critically-acclaimed storytelling with the amazing pedigree of Lucasfilm and LucasArts, and adding a brand-new fourth pillar to the equation – story. At the same time, we will still deliver all the fun features and activities that fans have come to expect in a triple-A massively multiplayer online game. To top it all off, Star Wars: The Old Republic is set in a very exciting, dynamic period in the Star Wars universe.” Added Dr. Greg Zeschuk, Co-Founder and Vice President Development Operations, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts Inc., “Star Wars: The Old Republic is set roughly 300 years after the events of Knights of the Old Republic, a timeframe that is completely unexplored in the lore. BioWare has been able to add to the Star Wars history in developing the game’s story and has created an overarching narrative that players can enjoy, regardless of their play style. Our goal is to offer players an emotionally rewarding experience that combines the traditional elements of MMO gameplay with innovations in story and character development.” Additional details on Star Wars: The Old Republic features, gameplay and release date will be announced at a later time. For more information about Star Wars: The Old Republic and to sign up for future product updates, please visit www.StarWarsTheOldRepublic.com. Feeling a bit spunky, Jobs’ mentioned that they’ve outsold some significant competition, saying “We’ve sold more phones than RIM.” While they’ve yet to figure out “how this economic downturn will affect Apple,” they’ve got “$25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt” saved up for a rainy day. Read the rest of this entry Read more of this story at Slashdot. With the HTC G1, the first Google Android mobile operating system powered phone, set for its debut Tuesday evening it is interesting to see more handset manufacturers jump on to the bandwagon. Kyocera Wireless is the latest to announce that it has begun "development of a new product platform incorporating Android
mobile software." The company is working with device optimization software specialist Wind River for the project. "Our goal is to make Kyocera the leader in Android
integration among CDMA device manufacturers in the markets we serve," said Dave Carey, vice president and general
manager of the Consumer Products Group at Kyocera in a statement. Interestingly, Kyocera was not one of the original members of the Open Handset Alliance, which backs the platform. Kyocera's support shows more handset makers are getting on board the Google Android train. Earlier this week, reports suggested Motorola is working to develop a phone based on Android that will integrate social-networking features. Other companies such as LG and Samsung, both members of the Open Handset Alliance, are expected to release a Android-powered device next year. The holdouts - Nokia and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion - have their own mobile operating system. But how long before Palm announces it too will have an Android-based phone. And is Microsoft worried for Windows Mobile yet? Photo: T-Mobile G1 (Jon Snyder/ Wired.com) Feeling a bit spunky, Jobs’ mentioned that they’ve outsold some significant competition, saying “We’ve sold more phones than RIM.” While they’ve yet to figure out “how this economic downturn will affect Apple,” they’ve got “$25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt” saved up for a rainy day.
With growth up across the board, how much of Apple’s business is made up by the iPhone? A fairly crazy 39%. This makes Apple the 3rd largest mobile phone supplier in the world, behind only Nokia and Samsung (and followed by Sony Ericsson, LG, Motorola, and RIM, in that order.) Growth has been monumental on the hardware front, and things are looking just as good on the software end of things. In August, Apple had pushed over 60 million application downloads since the launch of the App Store. By September’s MacBook event, that number had reached 100 million. By Apples estimates, the store will click past the 200 million download mark tomorrow. Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
The solution: New homes built under the adequate wiring code of the National Association of Home Builders provide at least 100-ampere cable into the home—and adequate inside circuits. In older buildings— the answer is rewiring.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I don't blame you, guy. I blame SonicWall. They're most anal about the smallest things. Only recently has my office gotten access again to MySpace, which was also listed as "Adult/Mature". principiadiscordia.com was listed as "Occult"; now it's still blocked, but listed as "Other". My best guess is that what did it for XKCD was the sexual positions strip...as far as I can tell, these people have little brain and less sense of humor.
A few weeks back, a sneak peek of a still-in-the-works BlackBerry App Center made its way out. Now RIM’s gone and given it the official treatment by way of press release. Unfortunately, there’s a bit of bad news right off the bat: While the BlackBerry Storm is expected to launch in November, the BlackBerry App Center won’t debut until March of 2009 - nearly five full months after the device’s release. Developers won’t have to wait quite as long to get their apps approved, with RIM opening the submission process come December of 2008. Developers can set their own prices via the Application Center Storefront, retaining 80% of the revenue for each sale (Compared to the 70% offered by Apple). While they don’t specify what will be done with the remaining 20%, we assume that it’ll be split between RIM, the carrier, and Paypal (who will be handling the financial parts of the transaction). That the launch of the App store is so late after the launch of the Storm is absurd. With a number of third-party groups (e.g Handango, BerryStore) already competing in the BlackBerry app-peddling arena, RIM’s going to have to buck for attention on their own platform.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Read more of this story at Slashdot. T-Mobile's downtown San Francisco store will be the first place in the country you can buy a G1 phone. But the excitement surrounding the first phone to feature Google's Android operating system is decidedly muted: No one is lining up to buy the thing. The store at 699 Market Street is expected to have about 400 G1s for sale starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday evening. The phone will be available nationwide starting Wednesday morning. A retail executive at the San Francisco store says he expects the phones to sell out completely. But, so far, anticipation for the G1 is nowhere near what it was for Apple's iPhone launches in June, 2007 and July, 2008. Unlike the long lines outside the Apple store, where some fans camped overnight, T-Mobile's store was completely empty. Worse, it didn't even have a working phone to play with. The three G1s on display were dummies. Very lame-o! The store is likely to get busier closer to the 6 p.m. PST launch time but for now its all quiet. Maybe it is time for T-Mobile to step up the marketing. Are there lines for the G1 at T-Mobile stores near you? Send us a photo. Also see: Read more of this story at Slashdot. In this week's Wired Gadget Lab podcast, Daniel Dumas, Brian Chen, and I review the HTC G1, the first phone with Google's Android software. We'll go over the reasons why the phone's fine operating system mostly overcomes the odd hardware design and why we should expect better phone applications from the Android open source community in the future. Thanks for listening to the podcast. Please remember, if the embedded player above doesn't work, you can download the Gadget Lab podcast MP3 file. Use iTunes? Subscribe to the Gadget Lab Audio Podcast in iTunes. Also be sure to check out the Gadget Lab Video Podcast -- on iTunes and on the Gadget Lab blog. Android’s first handset, the G1, will be hitting the market tomorrow and with it comes a slew of useful and useless apps. One of those useless apps happens to be from MySpace. Being the first major social network to do so means nothing when it brings nothing to the table. It’s essentially a mirror image of the iPhone app, but it’s nowhere near as fast when loading your inbox or pulling up photo galleries. So why do we even bother informing all of you about it? To point out the flaws, of course. MySpace has been able to stay relevant because of their recent push into the music space and they were able to stream well over a billion tracks within a few days of launching back in September. That’s no small feat and it was executed well, but why not bring that to mobile handsets? If Last.fm, Pandora and even Imeem can do it then why not MySpace? Is it in the works? More than likely, but Imeem is already in the Market and the rest are sure to follow. This looks like too little/almost too late.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Love it or hate it, it’s pretty safe to assume that just about all of the big boys in the handset world are tinkering with the idea of bringing an Android device to the market (Well, except for Sony Ericsson. Or Apple.) Joining the confirmed list today is Kyocera, with an announcement that they are working with software optimization house Wind River to adapt Android to their needs. According to today’s announcement, Wind River’s job is “to provide software systems integration services, including middleware and user interface integration, optimization of Android, and custom integration for technologies from other Open Handset Alliance members and third-party developers.” Based off of Kyocera’s lineup history, I’d wager that this means much of Wind River’s job is to prep Android for use on the smaller screen of a flip phone, or one of Kyocera’s QWERTY folders (a la Wild Card). Kyocera’s not exactly known for wallet-destroying handsets, so it’d be surprising to see any devices come out of their labs with specs rivaling that of the G1 - we probably won’t see a touchscreen, at least. If nothing else, this solidifies the idea that we’ll be seeing CDMA Android handsets in the low-mid range market before too long.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Motorola's going upmarket with its latest phone Aura, a luxury model featuring what the company claims is the world's first circular display on a mobile device. The phone certainly has a 'Wow' factor to it in terms of the quality of construction and the materials used. The switch-blade design comes with an aluminum keypad, 2 megapixel camera, 2 GB memory, video capture and streaming capability and about 7.3 hours of talk time. Its biggest selling point, though, is the circular LCD display, which is 16 million color and 300 dpi resolution. The phone also has a 62-carat sapphire
crystal lens, which is among the most scratch-resistant materials, says Motorola. "The
hand-sculpted richness of Aura can literally be felt in its stainless
steel housing, textures and patterns chemically etched into its
surface," says Motorola. For once that may not be too much of an overstatement. The front piece of the phone takes nearly two weeks to create, says the company. "In that time, the stainless steel is sculpted, electro and hand
polished, chemically etched and coated," says Motorola. All this luxury doesn't come cheap. At $2000, the phone is super pricey and only available for pre-order through the Motorola online store. The Aura is expected to be available worldwide in December but would you pay this much for a phone, especially in this economy? Aren't even the rich supposedly feeling the pain now? Complete Specifications and Photo Gallery A number of Boing Boing tv viewers asked for a higher-rez still of the Hodgman slashfic chartporn, a disturbing piece of fan-art which appears at the end of today's episode. And here you are: hi-rez image. Previously: (BBtv) John Hodgman: More Information Than You Require. This is not a book trailer, part 2.
When my car acts up, I try to ignore it, hoping it will fix itself. (And it sometimes does!) The driver of this car shares my sense of optimism in spades. I hope it works out for him. (Via Arbroath) You'll be hearing a lot about Android devices. We've all put a lot of effort into the first Android device, and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. But one device is just the beginning. Android is not a single piece of hardware; it's a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations. Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications. And with an Android device already on the market, it has proven that it has what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena. Somewhere else, Joel said he's a bit cynical about Android, since "Google seems so unconcerned with the project." Hopefully, it being open source will make that unconcern irrelevant. I don't know, though. I still have probably insane visions of a dual-boot, jailbroken iPhone dancing in my head. Android is now available as open source [Official Blog] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:40 pm The death rattle in the Mac Mini's throat
According to Gizmodo, the Mac Mini's dead as a donkey. A dead one, I mean. The Mac mini may be pronounced dead as soon as today's Apple earnings conference call, as two major retailers in Europe have confirmed to me that they can't order any more of the little computers. While this could signal an updated model coming in, they have been told by Apple to expect no more of it. Their impression is that—once again—the Mac Mini may be dead dead DEAD for real, even while you can still order it at the Apple Store. I never bought one — for some reason, it being Apple's cheapest Mac somehow made it seem more over-expensive, not less — but this is still something of a shame, if only because I still think the form factor is gorgeous. And if I were sticking with an Apple only house, I'd still pick the Mac Mini as a theater PC over the Apple TV. Apple stops Mac Mini shipments to retailers, says to expect no more [Gizmodo] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:30 pm The Internet as Confessional at PopTechFrank Warren's PostSecret website is a place where people can bare their souls anonymously. Warren will talk this week at PopTech about the how the internet brings people together in new ways and offers everyone the opportunity to make an impact on the world.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:08 pm New MacBook, MacBook Pro Have Super Speed, Foxy FacadesThe new MacBook and MacBook Pro show up at Wired and we review the hell out of them. The MacBook Pro? Pretty, pricey and fleet footed. But the new MacBook? A powerhouse. In our benchmarking scores, it nearly doubled the speed performance of its predecessor.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 5:00 pm Right before launch, Google strips down the App Market for a bit of polish
Yesterday morning, a sizable chunk of the T-Mobile G1 pre-orders showed up prior to their expected arrival date of October 22nd. Filled with new-toy glee, the new Android users tore their boxes open, poked and prodded at the screen.. but something was wrong. Reviews said something about there being 50+ applications already available in the Android App Market. Even immediately after the device was announced, there were 18. By a count yesterday morning, there were only 13. As was to be expected, the internet quickly filled with conspiracy theories. Was Google shaving down the list to save bandwidth? Were they pulling off a significant chunk of the applications so that they could be rolled out over the days after launch, making the content stream seem torrential?
Nope - turns out, they were just giving things a quick once-over before the big day. By mid-day yesterday, the count was back up to 20. This morning, it’s hovering right around 30. Google’s official statement on the matter:
Update: T-Mobile’s response:
With that, the panic bells are slowly fading, and all is returning to normal. When the G1 officially launches tomorrow, all should be well in the world, with at least the majority of applications nestled right back in their original spots, now with that final stamp of approval. Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Oct 2008 | 4:57 pm Video: Two firetrucks crashingI like firetrucks. I don't like crashes. That is all. Update: Bennyhillisation was requested in the comments. We live to serve. - Rob Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 4:04 pm Sony PSP-3000 screen has ugly interlacing issues
The only toted advantage to the PSP-3000, the latest revision in Sony's PlayStation Portable line, is its more vivid, brighter, colorful screen. Brighter and more colorful it may be, but early user reports are hovering question marks like vultures above the "vivid" claim. According to multiple users on the PlayStation forums, PSP-3000 owners are experiencing scanlines and ugly interlacing problems with a huge number of games... to the point that in a game like Disgaea (above), the PSP-3000's screen is noticeably inferior to the PSP-2000. Sony's early response? It's a "feature." Worse, there are no plans to fix it with a patch, because it's not a "feature" of the software, but of the hardware. In truth, until the PSP-3000 is hackable, there was little reason to buy one anyway. But messing up the 3000'S only advantage over more hackable models is a supreme FUBAR. PSP-3000's screen has scanlines, games have odd interlacing problems [PSP Boards via Engadget] Update: Sony Japan's full explanation: PSP-3000 has a new LCD device with vastly improved picture quality, achieving a more natural and vivid picture than older models. By improving LCD response time to reduce ghosting, the horizontal-line phenomenon becomes more visible… Since this is caused by hardware characteristics, there is no plan to fix it with system software update. Personally, I'd be happier with marginally less vibrant colors. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:58 pm SLIDE SHOW: Crystals, Flakes Grown in LabResearchers grow nano crystals and flakes to advance energy harvesting devices.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:26 pm Hang your living room from the ceiling with Gecko Glue One of my favorite books as a child — hell, even now — was Roald Dahl's The Twits, about a horrible couple of ugly, smelly, hairy, nasty, bird-killing, cannibalism-aspiring, troll-like Brits. I don't want to spoil the book for anyone, but the finale of the novel involves a group of monkeys gluing all of the Twits furniture to the ceiling, prompting the Twits to believe they have been turned upside down and standing on their heads until they "compress" and eventually disappear.
I was always troubled by this scene. Certainly, it is common knowledge to the 4 year old that standing on your head too long will cause your organs to compress into your brain pan, and it certainly makes sense that this would eventually cause you to blink out of existence. But what super glue could possibly hold a couch, or carpet, or grand piano to the ceiling? Impossible! Perhaps I should have been more credulous. I should have trusted Mr. Dahl: an admirer of Gustave Flaubert, Dahl is most often grouped in the school of 20th Century Literary Realists, and is not considered an author known for his gifts of hyperbole or exaggeration. Surely, when he wrote The Twits, he was thinking of Gecko Glue, which can can support 220 pounds of weight with one square inch. It can even be scraped off and re-used. Of course, it's not available commercially yet, but I look forward to the day it is. Several horrible, smelly older relatives will be in for a surprise. Sticky glue out-geckos the geckos [MSNBC via Crunchgear] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:15 pm Motorola Aura fashion phone defines "mobauble"
Motorola today announced the "Aura", a peculiar high-end phone that is trumpeted as a piece of precision engineering. At its center is a circular LCD screen around which the top swings open on a "Swiss-made main bearing". Flip the phone over and a small window shows the gears turning. Even though it's clearly being marketed as a luxury item, the Aura still has what is fair to consider as basic smartphone features: Email, audio and video playback, and all the Bluetooth connectivity you might desire. It's a quad-band model, but limited only to EDGE data speeds — not a huge deal since there's no web browser. (And who'd want to use one on that circular screen anyway?) No price has yet been announced, but rest assured that it's pricey. I'm not knocked out by the overall designed, but elementally there's quite a bit of craftsmanship apparent. Motorola Aura product page [Motorola.com via Phone Scoop] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:13 pm Magnet Approved to Treat DepressionA device that beams magnetic pulses through the skull could treat chronic depression.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 3:12 pm Hardcore Computer Reactor PC puts videocards in mineral oil dunk tank Previously the domain of adventurous overclockers, Hardcore Computer is now selling the "Reactor", a PC case filled with mineral oil in which videocards are submerged. Because oil absorbs heat better than air, the videocards can be overclocked far beyond what would otherwise be safe operating temperatures.
The price will vary depending on configuration, but a mid-range machine with dual GeForce GTX 260s will cost around five grand. Not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but not completely ridiculous considering the outre nature of the case, either. Reactor product page [HardcoreComputer.com] Related • Strip Out The Fans, Add 8 Gallons of Cooking Oil : Dousing Your Athlon FX-55 With Eight Gallons Of Cooking Oil? [TomsHardware.com] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:52 pm Lucky Charms Leprechaun Goes Goth: Rainbow-Colored USB Flash Skull Rings
There isn't a single thing about these USB skull rings that makes a lick of sense. Yes, I have been known to apply the pewter washer of an ineptly molded skull to the thick porkjam fingers of my youth, but not in a color scheme favored by, say, Glenn Danzig's gay doppleganger or a particularly emo Keebler Elf. Then there's the skull design itself: surely, that puckering sphincter in the middle of the forehead must be the third eye itself, the human pineal gland, capable of viewing the eldritch things from beyond when properly stimulated by a dimensional resonator? But then you look at the price: $145 for a 2GB flash drive. After the staggering, the throat clogged with unutterable WTFs, it all makes sense: the skull is meant to be the mirror X-Ray of its own buyer's coconut, and the "third eye?" The trepanation hole of the one person idiotic enough to buy it. USB Key Skull Ring [Geek Stuff 4 U via Giz] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:48 pm Inkjet Printers Eyed to Make Human HeartA researcher believes a 3-D inkjet printer could be used to make human hearts.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 2:12 pm The Lockwasher Imperial HD 700
Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this gorgeously industrial macro cam created by Flickr user Lockwasher: Introducing the new Imperial HD 700. Weighing in at a hefty 7lbs this Macro Lens monstrosity is ready for what every you can dish-out! From it's Frankenstein-ed shutter release to it's retractable stability sensored aluminum kick stand this baby's got it all and then some! And the handle on the side makes it the perfect paparazzi knuckle duster. new lockwasher "industrial strength" camera [Flickr via MAKE] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:50 pm Knife block kills bacteria with UV rays
It doesn't even have the charm of a $20 IKEA knife block made out of 90 percent recycled balsam pap, but this germ eliminating knife block by Hammacher Schlemer ciijs the e.coli off of your butchering utensils with a UV-C light that kills surface bacteria when the knife is inserted. And for the sort of ultra-germaphobes who stay awake late in the night, staring in the dark, contemplating the millions of protozoa sloppily fornicating in their mouths with existential horror, the block can even be set to automatically flash-fry your sheathed knives every three hours. $89.95. Germ Eliminating Knife Block [Hammacher Schlemmer via OhGizmo!] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:43 pm Scientists to Make Personal Genomes PublicThe "Personal Genome Project" will be a resource for scientists studying genetic diseases.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:18 pm Tropical Cyclones Wash Away CarbonNew research finds that tropical cyclones may sequester carbon.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Oct 2008 | 1:10 pm
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Ok, here we go again. As soon as people get tired of 
Silicon Valley based Like.com managed to raise a monster round of financing at just the right time: 
Despite any feelings that you may have regarding netbooks, it is hard to argue against their popularity. And if there is any doubt as to how popular they really are, you may want to ask Asus. The whole netbook revolution is just 
Reader 
With $25 billion in cash and short-term securities stored away on its balance sheet, Apple (AAPL) is in 
E-mail, messaging, Internet, touchscreen all for under $100. That is what Samsung has been bringing to AT&T now for about 2 years under the BlackJack name. Today, Samsung changes things up and rolls out the Epix name for what looks to be the 3rd installment in the BlackJack family. Thankfully, its got two big additions its supposed siblings were sorely missing.
Sitting in as a very special guest during Tuesday afternoon’s fourth-quarter earnings call — something he hasn’t done in years, Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a few interesting things to say about the company’s mobile phone business. Since the iPhone 3G’s July debut, Apple (AAPL) has sold 6.9 million of the devices.
Hot off of Apple’s Q4 earnings call comes a bit of iPhone news: Alongside 2.6 million Macs and 11 million iPods, Apple managed to sell 6,892,000 iPhones in the fourth fiscal quarter of 2008. In contrast, they sold just 1,119,000 iPhones in fiscal Q4 of 2007.
