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HTC claims to sell 600,000 G1s by end of 2008Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Predicting how many individual units of a device will be sold is difficult. However, many companies usually predict the amount based on how the product is doing, then they announce that number to the public. Usually, that number is somewhat low so when and if that company beats the predicted number, it makes them look good. If they sold less than the predicted number than it looks pretty bad. Recently, HTC’s CEO Peter Chou came out with a number of G1’s he expects to be sold by the end of the year - 600,000. In an interview with MercuryNews, Chou released this number as well as what he predicts to happen with the G1 in 2009. HTC is renowned for their smartphones using Windows Mobile, however, with the G1, they opted in using Google’s platform, Android. His reason was simply:
Unfortunately, he didn’t release any specific numbers for 2009, but he did say that he believes the G1 can compete against Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerry, and other big smartphones. When asked why he thinks the G1 is better than the iPhone he answered by saying:
Lastly, he added that the G1 would do better than the iPhone atleast in the United States because “Americans are very keyboard-oriented.” It will be interesting to see the end of the year numbers for the G1 as well as how they compare to the iPhone. Read [MercuryNews] Via [mocoNews] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:36 pm ValueClick executive joins start-up as CEOSAN FRANCISCO, Oct 27 (Reuters) - Gigya Inc, whose softwareSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 12:00 pm Wireless bolsters Verizon profit despite economy (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:57 am Motorola AURA gets poked, prodded, and photographed
The up-scale AURA might be Motorola’s last attempt to remain relevant in a post-RAZR mobile world and yet the dudes at Mobile Review got their grubby hands on the $2k cell phone. It sounds like they were impressed with the build quality and the round LCD, but Moto might have dropped the ball on the GUI by simply reworking a standard square LCD menu rather than, you know, designing something new. Still, we’ll hold our judgment ’till we can smudge up the screen on the so-called luxury mobile phone ourselves. Source: CrunchGear | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:49 am YouTube Votes Thumbs Down on Saturday Night Live Sans Tina Fey, Sarah Palin [MediaMemo]
That was fast. "Saturday Night Live"'s recent resurgence, spurred by Republican VP candidate and Alaska governor Sarah Palin and her comic doppelgänger Tina Fey, may already be over. How do I know? Well, there's the gut check--I watched most of Saturday's show, which didn't feature Palin or Fey, and it was a snoozer (the absence of new mom Amy Poehler probably didn't help either). But we can also gauge the reaction of Internet users, thanks to the good folks at TubeMogul, a small startup that specializes in tracking Web video views. While SNL's sketches this season have become water cooler hits in both legal form (NBC.com, Hulu) and not-so legal form (YouTube), this weekend's show isn't making an impact, at least so far: TubeMogul says YouTube users are only trying to post SNL clips at the rate of about one per hour, since the show aired Saturday night. That's down from an average of about six per hour for the other shows SNL has aired this season. Could it be that NBC--owned by GE (GE)--is just doing an extra-zealous job of keeping illegal copies of its clips off of a video site owned by Google (GOOG)? Mmmmmmaybe. But probably not: Last Thursday's SNL special, which featured not only Tina Fey, but also show veteran Will Ferrell as President George W. Bush, was a huge YouTube hit, generating 9.5 videos per hour and 1.85 million views in 24 hours. Meanwhile NBC.com's own data confirms that this weekend's show fell flat: The site says the two political clips posted below have generated a mere 460,000 views since Saturday. Compare that to Thursday's showstopper, currently at 1.5 million and counting. I'd bet the remainder of our 401(k) that SNL's staff and cast are going to vote Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama next month. But the beancounters behind the show are obviously rooting for the ticket of Sen. John McCain and Palin. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:47 am Netflix Movie Streaming Arrives on Macs
Netflix' "Watch Instantly" service has – at last – come to the Mac. What has taken so long? DRM. The "second generation" of the movie streaming service, which has begun a very slow rollout to some customers, uses Microsoft's Silverlight browser plugin. Silverlight supports "Play Ready DRM", which means that now Intel Mac owners (sorry -- no PPC support) can join the PC movie streaming club. And those PC users should see some improvements, too. Apparently the new Silverlight version runs faster, makes things easier and improves the herky-jerky fast forward and rewind suffered by some users. It's just a shame we need yet another browser plugin to make it all work, especially one laden with digital rights management. Seriously, have Netflix and Microsoft never heard of the "analog hole"? All this needs is a screen capture application and you have your free movies right there. Netflix finally brings 'Watch Instantly' to Macs via Silverlight [Engadget] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:44 am The $13 Stun Gun will "startle assailants, giving some pain."
"If price is your main concern, then this is the stun gun for you," writes Surplus Computers in its blurb for the cheapest stun gun known to man. "For 0.5 seconds, will startle assailants giving some pain." Customers who bought this item also bought the head magnifier w/bright LED and the eyeglass repair kit. Source [Surplus Computers via Gear Diary and Gizmodo] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:38 am Perfect World Announces Asset Transfer and License Agreement With InterservBEIJING, Oct. 27 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- Perfect World Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: PWRD) ("Perfect World" or the "Company"), a leading online game developer andSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:38 am UPDATE 1-CenturyTel to acquire Embarq in $11.6 bln deal* Deal represents 36 pct premium over Embarq's Fri. closeSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:35 am More Lawmakers Ask FCC To Delay White Spaces Vote - MediaPost Publications
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Tech companies offer loans as defaults rise - WSJOct 27 (Reuters) - Big tech companies are filling the voidSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Sanoodi Announces SMap, a Free GPS Route Recording Application for Mobile PhonesBANGOR, Wales, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Sanoodi announced the launch of SMap, an integrated and free route recording and sharing application for BlackBerry, Windows...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Wireless Phone Users in Columbus, Ind., Now Experience Even Clearer Reception and Fewer Dropped CallsVerizon Wireless Activates Two New Cell Sites COLUMBUS, Ind., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless has activated two new cell sites in Columbus that expand...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Qualcomm and Foxlink Sign 3G CDMA Module/Modem Card License AgreementSAN DIEGO, Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies and data solutions,Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Overland Unveils REO Compass Disk Appliance to Simplify Data Mobility for Improved Remote Data Protection and Backup ConsolidationPolicy-based, Capacity-Optimized Product Offering Features Integrated Encryption, Compression and Deduplication to Ensure Efficient Data Movement between Sites SAN...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:30 am Nintendo's Homebrew-Blocking Update HackedElementC writes "Team Twiizers, the group behind almost all of the Wii Homebrew scene, has released an update to the Homebrew Channel (and installer) that allows for installation on a Wii with the most recent update installed. While the team still recommends against installing the Nintendo update, those who accidentally updated or purchase games that require the update are no longer left out to dry. This update to the Homebrew Channel also adds SDHC support, a feature Nintendo has not implemented in vanilla Wiis. The community has also created an app that updates just the Wii Shop Channel — allowing users to purchase Wiiware and Virtual Console games without losing their homebrew. It took the team only two days to get the fix out."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:28 am Motorola's silvery steampunk Aura takes its first breath The odd and wonderfully-designed Motorola Aura gets a hands-on test at Mobile-Review, which points out that the "rotational" form factor is something Moto's tried before.
But never with such style. It goes without saying that the MOTOAURA is one unique phone - you can either love it or hate it, there is no room for some third option. ... It is way slicker than the Samsung S9500 Eccelso that feels somewhat edgy and cumbersome, plus packs in two SIM card slots, which isn't a major selling point by any stretch of imagination. Furthermore, the MOTOAURA's fashion cred is higher than that of all current iterations of the Nokia Arte. It's curiously steampunky: there's even a set of ornamental cogs on the rear. Click through for a vast gallery of close-up shots. http://www.mobile-review.com/review/motorola-motoaura-en.shtml [Mobile-review via Gizmodo and Engadget] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:25 am Verizon Reports Continued Growth in 3QStrong Sales of Verizon Wireless Services, FiOS Internet and TV, and Strategic Business Services; Continued Solid Revenue and Cash Flow Growth NEW YORK, Oct. 27...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:25 am Casio's Exilim Phone: Not yours That Casio submitted the latest version of its ultra-thin camera phone to the FCC is a cruel jape: the model line is only available in Japan.
Hope springs eternal. Who could not want a RAZR-sized phone with a 800x480 high-res, 3.1" OLED display, 8.1 megapixel camera and 30fps video recording? It's really quite disgusting—it even comes in green. Source [PC Watch via Engadget] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:17 am Is surfing the Internet altering your brain? (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:17 am Is surfing the Internet altering your brain?CANBERRA (Reuters) - The Internet is not just changing the way people live but altering the way our brains work with a neuroscientist arguing this is an evolutionary change which will put...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:17 am Cable co. Cox to launch its own wireless service (AP)AP - Cable TV provider Cox Communications Inc. is set to announce Monday that it plans to have its own cellular network up and running next year, a move that intensifies cable's competition with phone companies.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:14 am Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists - ABC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:13 am Wither not the four-track: Tascam's got a new one for you The humble four-track ain't so humble any more: Tascam Japan's latest has two line inputs, 16-bit audio, two USB ports and up to 32GB of storage thanks to an SD/SDHC card slot. It will be ¥24,000 when released next month.
TASCAM JAPAN LAUNCHES A NEW 4 TRACK RECORDER, THE DP-004 [Akihabara News] Google Earth. On the iPhone. That is, I would imagine, all you need to know to send you careening off to the App Store, from where you can grab the free download of Google's Aerial Opus. What's surprising about this iteration of Google Earth is the speed at which it runs. A few years back my Mac notebook (an iBook) struggled to run Google Earth without glitching. This version speeds along at a fair clip, although a bad data connection will certainly slow things down -- like the desktop version, the application is constantly streaming data from the web. The iPhone niceties you'd expect are here. Pinch to zoom, twist to, well, spin the map. This should be a boon for German tourists in Barcelona, whose over-accurate maps depict the coastline as running on a diagonal, just as it is in real life. This leaves locals baffled when helping the Germans out with directions -- all our maps reference the sea as "down" and the mountains as "up" and sticks the blue strip of water straight across the bottom of the map, throwing everything off by an innacurate – yet easier to use – 45º. Tilting the iPhone will tilt the horizon and you can then use a finger to "throw" the landscape below you. There's also a compass in the top right corner which moves as you spin the maps. And of course, the app can find you using the location functions of the iPhone. The app lacks a lot of features of its big brother: No road markings, for example. But results for both Wikipedia and Panoramio pop up -- an easy way to find places of interest nearby. Go try it. It's free, and fun. Google Earth for the iPhone Released! [Google Earth Blog] Product page [iTunes]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:04 am Google Earth Comes to the iPhoneGoogle Earth. On the iPhone. That is, I would imagine, all you need to know to send you careening off to the App Store, from where you can grab the free download of Google's Aerial OpusSource: Wired: Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 11:04 am University of Tokyo unveils robot that does household chores, learns from mistakes
In cooperation with Toyota, the Information and Robot Technology Research Initiative, a research body of prestigious University of Tokyo, has developed a robot that handles household chores [JP, PDF]. The humanoid was demonstrated to Japanese media last week and was able to clean up rooms, put away dishes from tables, open and close doors and do the laundry. The so-called “Home Assistant Robot” stands 155cm and weighs 130kg. Moving on two wheels, the prototype is equipped with two arms (the hands have 3 fingers each), five mini cameras and six laser sensors. Its neck and head can be moved in 3 differenct directions, the lower body in two, the arms in seven each and the fingers in two. The robot, which the researchers involved in the development say can “learn” from mistakes it makes, can be operated for 30-60 minutes with one battery charge. Toyota and the University of Tokyo hope to commercialize the humanoid within the next ten years, aiming for a price tag of around $10,000. Via Asahi [JP] Source: CrunchGear | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:58 am We're about to get frosty - Knoxville News Sentinel
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:52 am Dell Mini Inspiron 12 isn't particularly Mini
Dell's Inspiron Mini 12 is coming, according to Laptop Mag, and it looks surprisingly similar (if less swanky) to Apple's MacBook Air. Joanna Stern writes: I couldn’t put the Mini 12 through the usual hands-on paces, but I was able to form some early impressions of the unique “netbook.”At less than an inch thick (according to Dell its .92-inches at its thinnest point) and weighing 2.7 pounds, I couldn’t help but look at the Mini 12 and think of $1,500+ ultraportables like the MacBook Air and Voodoo Envy 133. The keyboard's larger than the Mini 9's, and it comes with a 12" screen. The only problem is calling it a netbook. Stern puts the word in scare quotes once or twice in her piece, but otherwise plays it straight. So here's a little reminder: computers of this size, even at just $600, are named "laptops". I fear we fall victim to marketing, here. Watch as those who established "netbook" as a fashionable category follow Asus in applying that branding to cheap, nasty notebooks, little different to the bog-standard Inspirons and Averatecs that have been available for under $500 for years. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:40 am Sportline Heart Rate Monitoring Watches Dont Look Like Heart Rate Monitoring WatchesBy Andrew Liszewski Most watches that are capable of monitoring your heart rate look like they’re suited for athletes tackling the most grueling of marathons. They’re big, bulky and feature...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:38 am Tracks
When you're next in need of durable, long-lasting rubber tracks, don't forget to measure them. Radmeister [via Dan's Data] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:27 am Apple and Google oppose ban on gay marriage - Inquirer
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:24 am Emergency Simulations: UK University Teaches Paramedic Class In Second Life, But Is SL Ready For It?The woman with the appalling fashion sense is actually a virtual mannequin experiencing a drug overdose outside a nightclub; it's part of a paramedic simulation course recently created by the Faculty of...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:21 am Pratone Grass Chair Is The Perfect Place To Lose Pocket Change, Keys And Small PetsBy Andrew Liszewski Remember that movie Honey I Shrunk The Kids? Well this Pratone lounge chair looks like a section of gigantic prop grass taken from the film’s backyard set. Designed by the Gruppo...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:17 am Peter Kafka Takes On the Mediamorphosis in New ATD MediaMemo Blog [BoomTown]
BoomTown just could not resist making the obvious literary pun on the debut of Peter Kafka’s new daily blog, MediaMemo, on AllThingsD.com. (He is pictured here.) For those who were not dragooned into reading existentialist writers in college, I am referencing “Metamorphosis,” about a man who turns into a bug–except that the process is fraught with so much more meaning. And thus it will be in Peter’s column, as the most excellent writer and reporter, plunges into the topic–as he writes in his first explanatory post–of “the ongoing battle between the established media business and the technology that is reshaping it day by day.” It is transformative, to say the least, from someone who will lead you through it with the kind of standards, accuracy, great writing and insight that I hope you have come to expect from this site. While Peter’s impending arrival to ATD was announced in mid-September, he actually debuts today and will be posting many times daily. As I have previously written, Walt Mossberg and I have long wanted to bring in someone located on the East Coast and away from the echo chamber that Silicon Valley can be, because we both feel the ongoing digital revolution is taking place over a number of key industries all over this country and the world. With extensive connections across the media, advertising, entertainment and tech sectors, Peter will be doing original reporting, getting scoops, doing interviews, making videos and providing much needed and clear-headed analysis that he is so well known for. Peter has been working at Silicon Alley Insider, most recently as its managing editor, since mid-2007. The first hire at the start-up tech business analysis site, he has focused on enterprise and beat reporting, as well as breaking news. Previously, he spent 10 years as a reporter and editor at Forbes and Forbes.com covering media and technology. (You can read more of his bio here, along with his ethical statement.) Walt and I are thrilled that Peter is coming onboard to join the rest of the strong ATD team, which includes: John Paczkowski, author of the rocking Digital Daily column, who formerly wrote the award-winning blog, “Good Morning Silicon Valley” at the San Jose Mercury News; and Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Boehret, who writes the most excellent weekly Mossberg Solution column. And we hope you will soon find–via following Peter regularly–why we are so very excited to welcome MediaMemo to the site. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:10 am My Favorite Subject: You [MediaMemo]
Hi there. Welcome to a new blog/column/site/space carved out for me by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, who’ve invited me to join the AllThingsD.com team. I’m a pretty boring person, but if for some reason you’re interested in verifying that, you’ve got some options. I also hope that MediaMemo is descriptive enough of a name. But in case you’re wondering: I’ll be writing, frequently, about the ongoing battle between the established media business and the technology that is reshaping it day by day. It’s a pretty big beat, and an exciting one. But enough about me. Let’s talk about you. Specifically, let’s talk about how you can make MediaMemo a whole lot better: By giving me feedback. Tell me what I’m missing, what I got wrong, what I need to take a closer look at. Praise is fine, too. But I’ve got a thick skin, and what I really need is an honest, thoughtful input from the best sources out there: You folks. So please, drop me a line, as frequently as you’d like. You can sound off on any particular post by leaving a comment. Or if you’d like to be a bit more discrete, you can contact me directly: peter@allthingsd.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Now, let’s get to work. [Image credit: Oskay] Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:00 am Master Chief Costume Looks Great, Will Break The BankThis post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net If you don’t have a Halloween costume yet, then you’d better get on it, since the holiday is only just a few days away. Unless you...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 10:00 am Open source: How e-voting should be done
The Google Earth geographical software has been altered to make maximum use of the iPhone’s screen and functionality. You’re able to tilt the device to adjust your view when browsing mountainous terrain, use the ‘My Location’ feature to jump right to where you are in the blink of an eye, and use Google’s local search engine to look for information on cities, places and businesses. Google has also added additional layers to the application, namely Panoramio and Wikipedia, for geo-located high-quality photos and informative articles respectively. This marks the main differentiator between the official Google Earth app and the one Earthscape released last May. More recently, the Earthscape application dropped its price from $10 to free, but will most likely be trumped by the official app now. As CNET points out, Google Earth for iPhone has a small Webkit-based browser to show the specific information users click on, and includes a link to the Safari browser Apple builds into the iPhone. When you click the address of a business using the local search engine, the iPhone will intercept the command and show it on the Google Maps application, enabling you to get directions instantly. The app is free and available today in all languages the iPhone currently supports (18) and will gradually be released for 22 countries in total. Check the iTunes App Store to see if you’re among the lucky ones. Product Manager Google Earth Peter Birch, who is the one demonstrating the app in the video below, has also announced that a similar application running on Android is high on the priority list for the future, but that there’s nothing to announce at this point. More features, like integration of 3D buildings and advanced mapping functionalities, are in the pipeline. It’s likely Google is also looking at ways to monetize the mobile traffic. Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:43 am Google Earth Comes To The iPhone, And Its AwesomeColor me impressed: Google has released a custom Google Earth application for the iPhone, and it's stunning. The Google Earth geographical software has been altered to make maximum use of the iPhone's...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:43 am Project Playlist Gets Tangled In MySpace Music CEO SearchProject Playlist is one of the many online music services that have popped up over the last few years. It's both a search engine and a playlist generator - users search for music that's located on third...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:41 am Project Playlist Gets Tangled In MySpace Music CEO Search
The legality of music search engines is far from clear, as we’ve written about earlier. The company says they pay royalties for songs that are streamed, but that wasn’t enough to stop the RIAA from suing them for copyright infringement in April 2008. The reason for the lawsuit, which is aggressive even for the RIAA, is that Project Playlist has grown into one of the larger sites on the Internet. Worldwide Comscore stats say the site had 822 million page views from 9.3 million users in September, up from 446 million and 5 million, respectively, a year ago. The number of users is probably somewhere around 20 million. The company has raised around $3 million from venture capitalists as well as angel investors. They have been unable to raise a new round of financing, sources say, until the RIAA mess is cleaned up. And of course investors are unlikely to pour money into the company since those dollars will just run out the back door to the RIAA in a settlement. Own Van Natta (Facebook’s former Chief Revenue Officer), is one of the investors in the company. He was until recently being recruited by MySpace to run the new MySpace Music property. Knowing that the company was in a bad spot, Van Natta may have spearheaded efforts to sell Project Playlist to MySpace while simultaneously interviewing for the CEO spot at MySpace Music. The dual effort put some MySpace execs off of the candidate, our sources say, because they felt that they may have had to acquire the company to get him on board. Van Natta won’t return emails to discuss the issue, and MySpace isn’t commenting. But it’s clear that MySpace isn’t buying the company, and that Van Natta is no longer in the running to take the CEO role at MySpace Music. Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:41 am Round-up: Top 5 of the cutest Japanese gadgets of the last 2 weeksJapan released a number of super-cute gadgets and electronic devices in the last days. Here are the top five.
Top 5: Fragrance case for earphones Marubeni Infotech has announced the “Fragrance Case for Earphone” [JP], a small box made of aluminum tailor-made for the “Y” part of any given earphone. The box is filled with scented cotton that emits a nice smell while the wearer listens to music. The Japan-only case costs $30 (release date: November).
Top 4: Doraemon Exilim camera Doraemon, the robot cat / hero of millions of Japanese kids, is featured on a special edition of the Casio Exilim EX-Z20 [JP]. The 8.1-megapixel camera will be sold in Japan only starting December for $340.
Top 3: Hello Kitty toaster Japan released a slew of Hello Kitty-powered gadgets and devices in the last few weeks. Now Twinbird sells a Hello Kitty toaster [JP]. The Nippon-only device is on sale now and costs $50. Oh, and it will burn a Kitty face into your bread.
Top 2: Green House’s heart-shaped microSD card reader Green House’s super-cute microSD card reader supports both microSD (2GB) and microSDHC (8GB) cards. Announced just today [JP], the reader will be available only in Japan starting next month (open price).
Top 1: iriver Japan’s Micky Mouse-shaped portable music player iriver Japan last Friday announced six different portable music players (Mplayer) for the Japanese market [JP], which have been designed in cooperation with luxury brand Swarovski and Disney. The 1GB-devices are already available but can only be bought through iriver Japan’s online shop [JP]. Pricing is moderate: $140. Source: CrunchGear | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:37 am Halo Light Concept Makes For Easier EvacuationsBy Andrew Liszewski We’d all like to think we’d remain calm, cool and collected in the event of an emergency, but I’m sure it wouldn’t take much for panic to set in, particularly...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:22 am World First Review of Dell's 12.1in NetbookAn anonymous reader points to what's claimed to be "the world's first look at Dell's 12.1" netbook," running at Australian Personal Computer Magazine. There's a bit of gushing at the beginning, but this is followed by some informative pictures, informal battery-life tests, and interesting background about the machine's components. Upshot: it's a well-made, decent-performing small laptop with a better keyboard than smaller netbooks and more wireless options than most. However, it's shorter on battery life (bigger screen, smaller battery) than Dell's smaller Mini 9, and less easily upgraded.Read more of this story at Slashdot. A large part of that's due to MSI's smart handling of the Wind. They haven't degraded the brand Eee-style with millions of iterations. And they keep adding cool new features. The latest Wind BIOS update, 1.09, adds the ability to easily overclock the Wind while it's running. Simply press down FN and F10 at the same time and you can cycle between an eight, fifteen and twenty four percent overclocking of the Atom chip. That's just very neat. I keep on waffling undecidedly on which netbook to buy (even though, deep down, I know it barely matters) but I remain surprised at how long the Wind has remained a frontal lobe contender. MSI Wind BIOS 1.09 [MSI] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 9:03 am Google Earth now available for Apple iPhoneGoogle has just announced on their blog that they have released Google Earth for Apple iPhone and iPod touch. The application is now available on iTunes App Store. [via Slashphone]Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:50 am Yamaha Teaching TrumpetBy Jonathan Kimak I used to play the trumpet in high school, at least until I got braces and ended up shredding my lips anytime I tried to play. This would have been a good thing for me to keep the training...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:39 am Paul Krugman on Charlie RoseEconomist - and recent Nobel-winner - Paul Krugman was on Charlie Rose last week. Worth watching.Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:35 am PluggedIn Connects With iJustine For Online Music Show
PluggedIn, a startup that we likened to a Hulu for music videos, has launched a new twice-weekly video program called “PluggedIn 5″ featuring popular video blogger iJustine. The site, whose investors include actor Will Smith, is looking to capitalize on the lack of music content on television channels like MTV and will be presenting a handful of music videos based on a weekly theme alongside originally produced content. PluggedIn has a large library of music videos secured through deals with the major record labels, many of which are presented in HD or near-HD quality that is much better than what can be seen on YouTube and most other music sites. While PluggedIn launched to the public last April, co-founder Brett O’Brien says that the last six months have primarily been spent on perfecting the site, and that the company is only now beginning to focus on generating traffic and awareness. Host iJustine has made a name for herself lifecasting and video blogging, and also scored major headlines when she posted her 300 page iPhone bill. The show will be putting on American Idol-like competitions to help choose more VJ’s in the future. It seems that music sites are increasingly using original video content as a way to differentiate themselves from the many well established sites that are already available. Earlier this month we saw the launch of LP33.tv, a music site/music label hybrid that has a heavy emphasis on studio produced and live concert video content. Alongside the show’s launch, PluggedIn is introducing a new homepage and is also releasing an Adobe AIR application that will allow users to automatically update their profiles with their favorite artists based on music files on their hard drive. Here’s a sample of the new series: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:26 am Gamer proposes to girlfriend by hacking Chrono TriggerNerd love at its finest, with a maximum allowance of creativity and a minimum of french kiss retainer entanglement or dual use pocket protector prophylactics. On October 17th, 2008, I proposed to my (now) Fiance. Originally I wanted to retun to the site of our first date, Mount Baker, near Bellingham Washington. Sadly, there was no discrete way to get her out there. So I turned to the next best thing, digitally recreating the mountain! I proposed by hacking Chrono Trigger [YouTube via MAKE] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:01 am SOHU.COM Announces US$150 Million Stock Repurchase ProgramBEIJING, Oct. 27 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sohu.com Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:00 am 012 Smile.Communications Announces Posting of Annual Report on Its WebsitePETACH TIKVA, Israel, October 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 012 Smile.Communications , a growth-oriented provider of communication services in Israel, today announced that it has posted its annual report containing its audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2007 on its website (http://www.012.net/).Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:00 am Telenity and CIS Join Forces for African Telecom MarketTelenity (www.telenity.com), a leading provider of next generation converged services platforms and applications for communications networks and CIS Group, a leading consulting and system integration provider, announced today that they have joined forces and signed a partnership agreement to mutually serve the Middle East & African market.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 Oct 2008 | 8:00 am iTunes UK asterisk censors H*t T**n K****r P****y Over the weekend, the iTunes UK music database began to inexplicably asterisk censor thousands of song titles, from Nirvana's "Smell's Like T**n Spirit", Queen's "K****r Queen, Katy Perry's "H*t and Cold" and Danny Kaye's "I Thought I Saw A P***y Cat."
Apple UK says it is a "database glitch..." which seems to be a euphemism for the overzealous data entry of a temp concerned by the dynamically generated rape playlist soundtracks Britain's insidious constabulary of pedophiles might put together after plugging "killer hot teen pussy" into iTunes. Via Gizmodo's own Jesus Diaz, whose early morning post about this debacle was a single fist thrust defiantly into the rainbow-spatttered sky of Apple oppression. Over the course of several spittle punctuated paragraphs, our good friend Jesus decried the asterisking of the entire Pussycat Dolls oeuvre as one of the most egregious violations of free speech this side of Kim Jong Il, before finally summing his potent arguments up with two powerful recruitment videos from the Che Guevara of guerilla free speech advocacy, Mr. Eric Idle. Jesus then observed that this was "a level of idiotic politically correct censorship that not even the FCC will apply here in the United States"... an excellent point, considering the fact that nothing about the censorship of the word "teen" could be characterized as "politically correct." A brave stand, indeed, Mr. Diaz! For in the immortal words of Martin Niemöller, "First they came for Devo's 'Pink Pussy Cat' and I did not speak..." iTunes glitch censors song titles [BBC] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:46 am Microsoft Brings Vista Service Pack 2 Into Beta - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:26 am Details about Microsoft's cloud computing expected at conference - Seattle Times
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:16 am Microsoft polishes Vista into Windows 7 - San Francisco Chronicle
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:11 am Spy Fears: Twitter Terrorists, Cell Phone Jihadists [Voices]By Noah Shachtman, Editor, Danger Room, Wired.comCould Twitter become terrorists’ newest killer app? A draft Army intelligence report, making its way through spy circles, thinks the miniature messaging software could be used as an effective tool for coordinating militant attacks. For years, American analysts have been concerned that militants would take advantage of commercial hardware and software to help plan and carry out their strikes. Everything from online games to remote-controlled toys to social network sites to garage door openers has been fingered as possible tools for mayhem. This recent presentation–put together on the Army’s 304th Military Intelligence Battalion and found on the Federation of the American Scientists website–focuses on some of the newer applications for mobile phones: digital maps, GPS locators, photo swappers, and Twitter mash-ups of it all. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:04 am For Tech, a Tale of Two Downturns [Voices]By Jon Fortt, Blogger, Fortune's Big TechIt would seem we’ve got all the makings of a tech shipwreck. In the past few days, Xerox (XRX), Yahoo (YHOO) and eBay (EBAY) each announced plans to cut thousands of jobs. Esteemed Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia Capital is warning entrepreneurs that it’s time to batten down the hatches because the good times are over. Startups Adbrite, imeem, Seesmic and Zivity are each laying off at least a quarter of their employees. We’ve been here before, and it looks ugly. Or does it? Listen to execs at some high-flying companies on the other hand, and you get a somewhat different outlook. Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs this week told investors he plans no job cuts, and he’s “not tremendously worried” about Apple’s outlook. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:03 am What Tim O’Reilly gets wrong about the cloud [Voices]By Nicholas Carr, Blogger, Rough TypeTechnology publisher and Web 2.0 impresario Tim O’Reilly wrote a thought-provoking post today about the dynamics of the nascent cloud computing business. He makes some important and valid points, but his analysis is also flawed, and the flaws of his argument are as revealing as its strengths. O’Reilly begins by taking issue with Hugh MacLeod’s contention that, thanks to “power laws,” “a single company may possibly emerge to dominate The Cloud, the way Google (GOOG) came to dominate Search, the way Microsoft (MSFT) came to dominate Software … We’re potentially talking about a multi-trillion dollar company. Possibly the largest company to have ever existed.” Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:02 am Horoscope: Oct. 27 - Los Angeles Times
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:02 am Power On Self Test: Vive La France! Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:01 am The Hitler Meme [Voices]By Virginia Heffernan, Television Critic, The New York Times; Blogger, The MediumOn YouTube (GOOG), we’re in a bunker, and the enemies are always, always closing in. The ceilings are low. The air is stifling. A disheveled leader is delusional. This is the premise of more than 100 videos on the Web–the work of satirists who for years have been snatching video and audio from “Downfall,” the 2004 German movie of Hitler’s demise, and doctoring it to tell a range of stories about personal travails and world politics. By adding new English-language subtitles, they transform the movie’s climactic scene, in which Hitler (played by Bruno Ganz) rails against his enemies and reluctantly faces his defeat, into the generic story of a rabid blowhard brought low. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:01 am CrunchGear Week in Review: Gift Trax Edition
New alarm clock shaped like a railroad crossing sign wakes you up with annoying signals Source: CrunchGear | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am Surprise, Surprise: E-Voting Glitches Found In Early Voting [Voices]By Mike Masnick, Blogger, TechdirtThe GAO had warned that there would be some pretty massive e-voting problems this year, as election officials were not properly trained on the already problematic machines, so it should come as little surprise that over in West Virginia, the “early voting” procedures have resulted in numerous complaints that the e-voting machines selected the wrong candidate. The scenario is depressingly similar to the one that The Simpsons predicted, where the voter selects one name, and the other one shows up as highlighted. Poll workers told them to just keep clicking until the right one was chosen, and noted that the machines have “just been doing that.” Source: All Things Digital | 27 Oct 2008 | 7:00 am TuneCore Takes $7 Million To Help Artists With Digital Sales
Basically, TuneCore is the place to go if you are unsigned but want people to have access to your music - a sort of CDBaby for the digital world. After a small setup fee, the artist keeps all proceeds from the sale. This model has also attracted established artists who’ve ended their label deals to the platform, too. Jay-Z, Keith Richards, Public Enemy, Nine Inch Nails, Ricky Skaggs, Paul Westerberg, MGM Studios, Warren G, Bjork, Moby, High School Musical cast members, Ali Lohan, Cirque Du Soleil, Starbucks, Joan Jett, Rockstar Games, David Byrne, MGMT and others use TuneCore today. The company took $7 million in a venture round from Opus Capital, they are announcing today. Gill Cogan from Opus and Marty Albertson, the CEO of Guitar Center, join TuneCore CEO Jeff Price on the board of directors. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 6:34 am Setbacks Cast Doubt on NASA's Ares Projectstoolpigeon writes with this excerpt from an Orlando Sentinel article about the Ares program, which paints a bleak picture of the program's future: "Bit by bit, the new rocket ship that is supposed to blast America into the second Space Age and return astronauts to the moon appears to be coming undone. First was the discovery that it lacked sufficient power to lift astronauts in a state-of-the-art capsule into orbit. Then engineers found out that it might vibrate like a giant tuning fork, shaking its crew to death. Now, in the latest setback to the Ares I, computer models show the ship could crash into its launch tower during liftoff. "Read more of this story at Slashdot. Qik, a startup that allows you to stream live video to the web directly from your phone, has launched support for RIM’s incredibly popular Blackberry platform. The software is currently available in an alpha state (so don’t be surprised if you encounter bugs), and includes support for the Blackberry Bold and Pearl (other phones, like the Flip and Curve, will be available in a later release that the company expects soon). This brings Qik to a much broader platform, and also helps cement Qik’s lead in terms of device support well ahead of competitors Kyte and Flixwagon, neither of which support Blackberry. However, Qik will have another competitor on the Blackberry platform: today’s news comes hot on the heels (and may have been prompted by) the launch last week of Next2Friends, the first streaming video application that supported Blackberries. Two weeks ago Qik also launched alpha support for the J2ME platform, which is found on a wide variety of phones. Unfortunately there’s still no word on when Qik will finally makes its way to the iPhone (it runs well under jailbroken phones, but isn’t yet available through the app store). At this point this isn’t because of technical difficulties (Qik has a version working for distribution through the iPhone’s ad-hoc beta service) - it’s a question of whether Apple will allow the app on its store. There haven’t yet been any applications that support video using the iPhone’s built-in camera, but it’s unclear if Apple has a broad ban on such apps or if it simply hasn’t come across any video applications that passed muster. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Refrigerator Case Cools Jets on Speed-Burner Gaming PCAt half the price of its closest competitor, the Velocity Micro Raptor takes the cake in the gaming-PC genre. Its design is uninspired, but who cares — this cold-blooded unit screams with a capacity of up to 4.28 GHz.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Oct. 27, 1946: And Now a Few Words From Our Sponsor1946: The first television show to have a commercial sponsor debuts. The show does not last long. TV commercials will. The Federal Radio Commission (later renamed the Federal Communications Commission) started issuing television licenses in 1928. These noncommercial licenses did not allow selling airtime or any other commercial use, but a few stations had begun airing advertisements nonetheless. The FCC began granting commercial TV licenses in May 1941. NBC's New York City station, WNBT-TV (now WNBC-TV), which had the first such license, ran the first official TV commercial on its first day of commercial operation, July 1, 1941. During a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, an image of a Bulova clock appeared with a map of the United States. The announcer intoned: "America runs on Bulova time." The ad lasted 10 seconds, and Bulova paid $9 (about $134 in today's money). The audience for that ad numbered 4,000 television sets. U.S. commercial television suffered a five-year interruption as the nation prepared to go to war, fought and won, and then re-geared the economy to civilian and consumer purposes. Geographically Speaking debuted in 1946. Audiences were still small and mostly local: The coverage area was limited to a few big cities, and few people in those cities had receivers. Consequently, television programmers were desperate for moving images. Mrs. Carveth Wells hosted the show, which consisted of showing 16mm home movies of her extensive travels around the world with her explorer husband. It was like watching your neighbors' home movies on a small, grainy black-and-white screen. And you didn't even get to enjoy their dinner and drinks. Such is the price of being an early adopter. NBC didn't actually get a sponsor for the primitive show until Nov. 11, when it enlisted Bristol-Myers (now Bristol-Myers Squibb and still advertising such products as Abilify and Plavix on TV). Geographically Speaking aired its last episode Dec. 1 after a six-week run. Wells had run out of her travel movies. Sponsors had not run out of money. Source: Various
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Coolest Costumes From a Geek Masquerade : Brace for shame multiplication, all you procrastinators struggling to pull together the perfect Halloween costume. These amazing getups were finished in time to flaunt this summer during the Comic-Con International Masquerade, the annual costume ball at San Diego's massive geekfest. Hundreds of costumed wonders strutted their stuff, singly and in groups, showing off the fruits of their labors and their dedication to sci-fi, comics and other geekish obsessions. Can you compete? Show us your own geeky Halloween costume. Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : See also:
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Refrigerator Case Cools Jets on Speed-Burner Gaming PCAt half the price of its closest competitor, the Velocity Micro Raptor takes the cake in the gaming-PC genre. Its design is uninspired, but who cares — this cold-blooded unit screams with a capacity of up to 4.28 GHz.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?Check this out," Massimo Banzi says. The burly, bearded engineer wanders over to inspect a chipmaking robot—a "pick and place" machine the size of a pizza oven. It hums with activity, grabbing teensy electronic parts and stabbing them into position on a circuit board like a hyperactive chicken pecking for seeds. We're standing in a one-room fabrication factory used by Arduino, the Italian firm that makes this circuit board, a hot commodity among DIY gadget-builders. The electronics factory is one of the most picturesque in existence, nestled in the medieval foothills of Milan, with birdsong floating in through the open doors and plenty of coffee breaks for the white-coated staff. But today Banzi is all business. He's showing off his operation to a group of potential customers from Arizona. Banzi scoops up one of the boards and points to the tiny map of Italy emblazoned on it. "See? Italian manufacturing quality!" he says, laughing. "That's why everyone likes us!" Indeed, 50,000 Arduino units have been sold worldwide since mass production began two years ago. Those are small numbers by Intel standards but large for a startup outfit in a highly specialized market. What's really remarkable, though, is Arduino's business model: The team has created a company based on giving everything away. On its Web site, it posts all its trade secrets for anyone to take—all the schematics, design files, and software for the Arduino board. Download them and you can manufacture an Arduino yourself; there are no patents. You can send the plans off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the circuit boards, and sell them yourself — pocketing the profit without paying Banzi a penny in royalties. He won't sue you. Actually, he's sort of hoping you'll do it. That's because the Arduino board is a piece of open source hardware, free for anyone to use, modify, or sell. Banzi and his team have spent precious billable hours making the thing, and they sell it themselves for a small profit — while allowing anyone else to do the same. They're not alone in this experiment. In a loosely coordinated movement, dozens of hardware inventors around the world have begun to freely publish their specs. There are open source synthesizers, MP3 players, guitar amplifiers, and even high-end voice-over-IP phone routers. You can buy an open source mobile phone to talk on, and a chip company called VIA has just released an open source laptop: Anyone can take its design, fabricate it, and start selling the notebooks. Banzi admits that the concept does sound insane. After all, Arduino assumes a lot of risk; the group spends thousands of dollars to make a batch of boards. "If you publish all your files, in one sense, you're inviting the competition to come and kill you," he says, shrugging. Then again, Linux sounded pretty insane, too, back in 1991, when Linus Torvalds announced it. Nobody believed a bunch of part-time volunteers could create something as complex as an operating system, or that it would be more stable than Windows. Nobody believed Fortune 500 companies would trust software that couldn't be "owned." Yet 17 years later, the open source software movement has been crucial to the Cambrian explosion of the Web economy. Linux enabled Google to build dirt-cheap servers; Java and Perl and Ruby have become the lingua franca for building Web 2.0 applications; and the free Web-server software Apache powers nearly half of all Web sites in the world. Open source software gave birth to the Internet age, making everyone—even those who donated their labor—better off. Can open source hardware do the same thing? Every open source project begins with an itch that needs scratching. Linux was launched when Torvalds decided he didn't like the operating systems available to him. The top three—Microsoft's DOS, Apple's operating system, and Unix—were all expensive and they were closed; Torvalds wanted a system he could tinker with. As it happened, a lot of other geeks wanted the same thing. So when Torvalds began working on Linux and sharing his code, other hackers were willing to pitch in and help improve it for free—creating a virtual workforce that was infinitely bigger and smarter than Torvalds himself. That is the central benefit of open source projects: They're like a barn raising in which everyone gets to use the barn. Somebody has a problem and creates a tool to solve it. And once the tool is created, hey—why not share it? The hard work has already been done. Might as well let others benefit. 
Team Arduino: Gianluca Martino, Massimo Banzi, and David Cuartielles
Photo: James Day Arduino began the same way. Banzi was a teacher at a high tech design school in Ivrea, Italy, and his students often complained they couldn't find an inexpensive, powerful microcontroller to drive their arty robotic projects. In winter 2005, Banzi was discussing the problem with David Cuartielles, a Spanish microchip engineer who was a visiting researcher at the school. The two decided to design their own board and enlisted one of Banzi's students—David Mellis—to write the programming language for it. In two days, Mellis banged out the code; three days more and the board was complete. They called it the Arduino, after a nearby pub, and it was an instant hit with the students. Almost anyone, even if they didn't know anything about computer programming, could use an Arduino to do something cool, like respond to sensors, make lights blink, or control motors. Then Banzi, Cuartielles, and Mellis put the schematics online and spent 3,000 euros to make the first batch of boards. "We did 200 copies, and my school bought 50," Banzi says. "We had no idea how we'd sell the other 150. We didn't think we would." But word spread to hobbyists worldwide, and a few months later there were orders for hundreds more Arduinos. Turns out there was a market for this thing. So the Arduino inventors decided to start a business, but with a twist: The designs would stay open source. Because copyright law—which governs open source software—doesn't apply to hardware, they decided to use a Creative Commons license called Attribution-Share Alike. It governs the "reference designs" for the Arduino board, the files you'd send to a fabrication plant to have the boards made. Under the Creative Commons license, anyone is allowed to produce copies of the board, to redesign it, or even to sell boards that copy the design. You don't need to pay a license fee to the Arduino team or even ask permission. However, if you republish the reference design, you have to credit the original Arduino group. And if you tweak or change the board, your new design must use the same or a similar Creative Commons license to ensure that new versions of the Arduino board will be equally free and open. The only piece of intellectual property the team reserved was the name Arduino, which it trademarked. If anyone wants to sell boards using that name, they have to pay a small fee to Arduino. This, Cuartielles and Banzi say, is to make sure their brand name isn't hurt by low-quality copies. Members of the team had slightly different motives for opening the design of their device. Cuartielles—who sports a mass of wiry, curly hair and a Che Guevara beard—describes himself as a left-leaning academic who's less interested in making money than in inspiring creativity and having his invention used widely. If other people make copies of it, all the better; it will gain more renown. ("When I spoke in Taiwan recently, I told them, 'Please copy this!'" Cuartielles says with a grin.) Banzi, by contrast, is more of a canny businessman; he has mostly retired from teaching and runs a high tech design firm. But he suspected that if Arduino were open, it would inspire more interest and more free publicity than a piece of proprietary, closed hardware. What's more, excited geeks would hack it and—like Linux fans—contact the Arduino team to offer improvements. They would capitalize on this free work, and every generation of the board would get better. Sure enough, that's what happened. Within months, geeks suggested wiring changes and improvements to the programming language. One distributor offered to sell the boards. By 2006, Arduino had sold 5,000 units; the next year, it sold 30,000. Hobbyists used them to create robots, to fine-tune their car engines for ultrahigh mileage, and to build unmanned model airplanes. Several quirky companies emerged. A firm called Botanicalls developed an Arduino-powered device that monitors house plants and phones you when they need to be watered. In one sense, Arduino's timing was perfect. There's a resurgence of DIY among geeks interested in hacking and improving hardware, fueled by ever-cheaper electronics they can buy online, build-it-yourself publications like Make magazine, and Web sites like Instructables. In recent years, hackers have been aggressively cracking consumer devices to improve them—adding battery life to iPhones, installing bigger hard drives on TiVos, and ripping apart Furby toys and reprogramming them to function as motion-sensing alarm bots. Inexpensive chip-reading tools make it possible to reverse-engineer almost anything. That's how Chinese hardware copycats rip off products so quickly. Want to join the world of Arduino developers? Wired editor in chief Chris Anderson already has, designing two Arduino-based autopilots for unmanned model aircraft: ArduPilot and BlimpDuino (you can find them at diydrones.com). Here's his formula for getting your creation out and into the world.
This is the unacknowledged fact underpinning the open hardware movement: Hardware is already open. Even when inventors try to keep the guts of their gadgets secret, they can't. So why not actively open those designs and try to profit from the inevitable? "Apple never open-sourced the iPod, right? But if you go down to Canal Street in Manhattan, there are copies all over the place," says Limor Fried, founder of Adafruit Industries, a Manhattan company that makes and sells open source hardware ranging from the Arduino board to devices Fried designs herself. "It doesn't matter anymore whether your product is open source. Someone in another country is going to open it up and reverse-engineer it anyway." 
The open source Arduino circuit board is cheaper than non-open source microcontrollers.
Like the Arduino team, Fried has found that when people have access to the plans of her inventions, they suggest improvements; they almost can't help themselves. In 2006, when Fried released the design for MintyBoost—an Altoids tin crammed with AA batteries you can use to recharge your MP3 player or phone—some users complained on her forum that it wouldn't charge their devices. Other posters jumped in to analyze the problems and devise fixes; some even sketched out replacement circuitry. (MintyBoost is now Fried's most popular invention; she has sold 8,000 of the gadgets for about $20 each.) In essence, her customers are also her tech support—available 24/7, at no cost to her. "But how do you make any money?" Whenever Banzi or Cuartielles describe their Arduino strategy, they're inevitably asked this question. And it's a genuine puzzle, because open source hardware isn't quite like open source software. Software costs almost nothing to reproduce; Torvalds didn't need to spend money every time someone downloaded a copy of Linux. But the Arduino team has to pay to produce its boards before it can sell them. Under traditional economic logic, this requires a patent; nobody is going to risk money inventing and selling hardware unless they can prevent competitors from immediately ripping off their designs and pouncing on their market. So how do you make money in a world of open hardware? Right now, open design pioneers tend to follow one of two economic models. The first is not to worry about selling much hardware but instead to sell your expertise as the inventor. If anyone can manufacture a device, then the most efficient manufacturer will do so at the best price. Fine, let them. It'll ensure your contraption is widely distributed. Because you're the inventor, though, the community of users will inevitably congregate around you, much as Torvalds was the hub for Linux. You will always be the first to hear about cool improvements or innovative uses for your device. That knowledge becomes your most valuable asset, which you can sell to anyone. This is precisely how the Arduino team works. It makes little off the sale of each board—only a few dollars of the $35 price, which gets rolled into the next production cycle. But the serious income comes from clients who want to build devices based on the board and who hire the founders as consultants. "Basically, what we have is the brand," says Tom Igoe, an associate professor at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, who joined Arduino in 2005. "And brand matters." What's more, the growing Arduino community performs free labor for the consultants. Clients of Banzi's design firm often want him to create Arduino-powered products. For example, one client wanted to control LED arrays. Poking around online, Banzi found that someone in France had already published Arduino code that did the job. Banzi took the code and was done. Then there's the second model for making money off open source hardware: Sell your device but try to keep ahead of the competition. This isn't as hard as it seems. Last year, Arduino noticed that copycat versions of its board made in China and Taiwan were being sold online. Yet sales through the main Arduino store were still increasing dramatically. Why? 
Arduino gadgets: WineM coaster; Snail Light Seeker; interactive embroidery with conductive threads; and Botanicalls, which tells you when your plants need water.
Photos: James Day Partly because many Asian knockoffs were poor quality, rife with soldering errors and flimsy pin connections. The competition created a larger market but also ensured that the original makers stayed a generation ahead of the cheap imitations. Merely having the specs for a product doesn't mean a copycat will make a quality item. That takes skill, and the Arduino team understood its device better than just about anyone else. "So the copycats can actually turn out to be good for our business," Igoe says. NYC Resistor,a club for hardware hackers in Brooklyn, looks like a madscientists' lab, strewn with motorized doll parts, hot-rodded electric guitars, and Tupperware containers crammed full of electronic junk. I'm here to meet with Raphael Abrams, a cofounder of the group. Abrams, 33, is well known in open source hardware circles for developing the Daisy, an open MP3 player. It earned him so much acclaim that he now works more or less full-time designing open projects and customizing audio hardware for other businesses, including hunting companies that hire him to develop duck and deer calls. ("I'm the go-to guy for digital animal-caller designs," he says. "It's the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.") Abrams is deep in conversation with Alicia Gibb, a grad student who hacks hardware in her spare time. She's talking about a matchbox-sized widget that museums use to monitor humidity and temperature in their galleries. It's made by Masterpak and retails for $115 (similar devices can cost $400). A single institution might need hundreds of them, so it's a lucrative little market. But as Abrams and Gibb pick apart the gadget, they realize that the price carries a huge markup. "This is worth about $15 in parts," Abrams says, whistling as he pokes at the tiny electronics board inside. "It has a really cheap low-end chip. And they charge $400 for this? Someone is getting robbed." He tosses it on the table. "You could sell it for $80." Gibb gets a playful look in her eye. "I'm gonna do an open source version of this thing," she says. "Wait a minute," I say. "That means any museum will be able to take your free design and fabricate copies itself? Or someone who isn't even an inventor—like me—could send your design to a Chinese factory, produce a couple of thousand devices for $20 apiece, and sell them to museums for $50?" "Sure," she says, grinning. I hear the sound of a thousand business models crumbling. If Gibb actually pulls this off without violating any patents, the company that makes the overpriced widget is in for a shock. No more easy profits based on the obscurity of its intellectual property. It will immediately have to offer a better product or improved service—or risk going out of business. This may be destruction—but it's creative destruction. Business models will crumble, sure, but others will be born. Open source methods illustrate a hard, cold fact about hardware: It's increasingly becoming a commodity. It is not merely that China has massively decreased the price of producing goods. It's that the price of designing goods is dropping through the floor. As Eric von Hippel, an MIT professor of entrepreneurship, points out, that drop is the result of the emergence of cheap or free tools for chipmaking, 3-D modeling, and online collaboration. "In a sense, hardware is becoming much more like software, up to the point where you actually fabricate an object," von Hippel says. "That's why you're starting to see open source techniques in hardware. Design is largely going to shift out from manufacturers to the communities." To thrive in this next wave, hardware manufacturers will have to switch their thinking. Their job is no longer just to dream up ideas—it's equally important, maybe even more vital, to seek out innovations from users. Manufacturers used to have to guess what their customers want, but the customers already know what they want, so it's more efficient to have them design it. The value of manufacturers isn't in cool designs but in economies of scale: They produce high-quality objects cheaply or offer superb shopping and support experience. I can't help but think there are limits to this. Passionate amateurs can create an MP3 player or a synthesizer. But what about a jet engine? Or a car? To pass regulatory tests, these products require expensive laboratory equipment, like wind tunnels for car shapes and airplane parts, or crash labs. That can't be accomplished by a bunch of loosely connected designers surfing on their laptops in a Starbucks. Yochai Benkler isn't so sure. The Harvard professor and author of The Wealth of Networks predicts that smart commercial firms will share resources with open source communities. "If you want to design a car in an open source way, maybe you'll work with a corporation that has access to an expensive wind tunnel," he says. This sort of cooperation has become common for open source software. IBM and Sun Microsystems pay staff members to contribute to Linux because it's in the companies' interest to have the software grow more powerful, even if competitors benefit. Consider the WRT54G wireless router made by Linksys. It was released in 2002 as a simple $150 router for home use. But hobbyists quickly discovered that its firmware—the software that determines the device's abilities—was based on Linux and thus legally open source. Within months, hackers had written new code that gave the device radically new features: They boosted the antenna power, turned it into a signal repeater, and constructed self-healing neighborhood mesh networks. Most of these capabilities are normally found only in devices that cost 10 times as much. Suddenly, the WRT54G market expanded. Based on the free work of amateurs, the router is now one of Linksys' all-time best-selling products. Mani Dhillon, director of product marketing for Linksys, says the hacking has boosted the router's sales by opening up new uses. "It's a pretty strong and vocal community," he says. "We definitely credit a certain amount of the success to them." Still, while open source hardware may be exciting, it's also confusing—even terrifying. Pioneers in the field admit they have no idea how to make the jump from small boutique hardware to mass-market devices. Banzi occasionally wonders whether he is simply being a fool by giving away some of his best work on the Arduino. "If the Arduino chip gets bigger and better and more well known, someone in China will make it for 50 percent less. That is clear," Banzi says over dinner at a late-night Milanese restaurant famous for its coastal Italian cuisine. He stabs at his enormous bowl of orecchiette and sips some red wine, half smiling, half wincing as he imagines his work being plundered by a cut-rate offshore outfit. "I think there's a fine line," he says, sighing, "between open source and stupidity." It's possible that open source hardware buffs will ultimately focus not on competing with the for-profit world but in filling niches otherwise ignored. That's what David Rowe did. Rowe is an Australian engineer who founded and then sold an Internet telephone business. He decided he wanted to help the developing world produce low-cost, high-quality telephone routers. He wanted something that would allow a company to plug in cheap, old-fashioned analog phones and place calls on inexpensive voice-over-IP networks. "It's a huge need in Africa, but all the hardware that currently does this is, like, $2,000 a pop," Rowe says. "African companies can't afford that." He wanted to design a device many times cheaper than that, but no existing phone-router company was interested in servicing such a low-margin market. Rowe didn't think he could do it alone, so he organized it as an open source project. In 2005, he found a cheap chip that managed voice and data, and he wrote software for it. Sure enough, once he put the schematics online, word spread and interested hackers in Canada and Bulgaria began offering improvements. Some optimized the software; others figured out how to tweak the hardware to handle extra phone lines or how to collapse the box into a single super-powered phone line. "We'd get stuck on a problem, and I'd hop on instant messenger and talk to the other guys and say, 'What's going on here?' I discovered that the community can figure it out a lot more quickly than I can," Rowe says. When the time came to manufacture the device, Rowe didn't know how to find a factory. But it turns out he didn't need to. Early last year, he received a message from a Chinese firm saying it had read about the project and was interested in producing it for him. A few weeks later, the routers arrived in the mail and worked practically perfectly. Rowe commissioned the plant to begin making batches of 50. He was able to keep the unit price down to $450 and still turn a small profit on each one. By summer 2008, he had sold a few hundred of them. As you'd expect, Chinese competitors have already begun to manufacture routers that compete with Rowe's. He doesn't care; on the contrary, he's happy about it, because his primary goal for the devices is for them to be as cheap as possible, and fierce competition will accomplish this faster. (He and his competitors also share advice on how to improve the hardware.) A group of high tech consultants have begun selling support services to anyone who buys the router. Ideally, Rowe would like to see factories in African countries manufacture the routers, since this would bypass the punishing tariffs that make importing hardware so expensive for Africans. Meanwhile, Rowe has become a star in high tech international-development circles, getting flown around to speak at conferences. "There's no way I would have gotten this far—and so quickly—had it been closed," he says. "This would have been a typical $4 million or $5 million startup if we had done it the usual way." Rowe isn't sure how the project will evolve. Will he wind up getting outcompeted, pushed out of business? Will some major hardware company offer to make the product on a massive scale? "A lot of people got scared when I told them I was going to do this open. They were like, 'Is this going to work?'" Rowe says. His answer: "I'm not sure." Contributing editor Clive Thompson (clive@clivethompson.net) wrote about the making of Halo 3 in issue 15.09.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 27 Oct 2008 | 4:00 am Russian Regulators Block Google Online Advertising AcquisitionAn anonymous reader writes "Russian regulators will not let Google buy a local online advertising company, halting a $140 million deal agreed to in July. Google had planned to acquire Zao Begun, which has a search and contextual video and text advertising business. Begun is owned by Rambler Media, a Russian company that own various Web sites and runs a search engine. Google said it is reviewing the decision of Russia's Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and hasn't decided how to react. Slashdot has previously covered some of the issues surrounding Google's muscle in the advertising market."Read more of this story at Slashdot. MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Oct 2008 | 3:16 am Glad this one’s not guys against girlsSection: Web, Web 2.0, Websites
Since putting their fundraising products on the Internet, the Boy Scouts have seen a 700% increase in sales. Yes, I said 7. 700%! Now that’s a great return on your investment. Weaver Popcorn, the Boy Scouts’ supplier of popcorn changed their ecommerce provider to LaGarde and updated the Boy Scouts’ fundraising site. They will still sell door-to-door, but now you can get that yummy popcorn easier and faster by ordering online. If you have never experienced the scrumptious treats they sell, you must get some of the chocolaty caramel crunch popcorn and experience heaven on earth. It is worth every penny – and you help out a good cause. It pays to focus on ecommerce and update your website. Why didn’t the rest of us think of that? Oh, wait, we did. About ten years ago. Maybe the Girl Scouts will follow suit – because I get tired of trying to find someone to buy cookies from. But, according to their website, “*** For the safety and security of the girls who are selling cookies, Girl Scout Cookies are not available for purchase online. (policy of Girl Scouts of the USA)***” With 700% increase, I think the girls have some catching up to do. LaGarde offers ecommerce solutions to businesses of all sizes. They have worked with names like Hitachi, Lee, and the Detroit Pistons.
Read [Press Release]
Full Story » | Written by Heidi Crossman for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Oct 2008 | 2:29 am Macs to Get Netflix “Watch Instantly” With Silverlight
Remember Silverlight? Well, Netflix is putting Microsoft's video playback system to good use by offering "Watch Instantly" functionality under OS X "by the end of the year."
Since "Watch Instantly" was introduced about two years ago Macintosh and Linux users have been complaining bitterly about Netflix's failure to offer the service on their browsers of choice. The company has already offered streaming via dedicated hardware and specially programmed home theater and gaming devices.
Source: TechCrunch | 27 Oct 2008 | 2:26 am Macs getting Netflix “Watch Instantly” with Silverlight
Since “Watch Instantly” was introduced about two years ago Macintosh and Linux users have been complaining bitterly about Netflix’s failure to offer the service on their browsers of choice. The company has already offered streaming via dedicated hardware and specially programmed home theater and gaming devices. The release, below, tells us to expect the Silverlight-powered service to go live by the end of the year.
Oh man, this is deeply nerdy. This fellow Phill’s girlfriend was playing Chrono Trigger using an SNES emulator, and he hacked the ROM she was using, adding an entire new area (”Koma Kulshan,” an old name for Mt. Baker, I’m guessing this guy is from the NW like me) filled with NPCs acting out the couple’s favorite memories. At the end, there is apparently going to be a boss battle, but it comes to a peaceful (and romantic) conclusion. Awww! One thing I wish was that after the proposal dialogue, there had been a “Accept proposal of Marriage? Yes/No” box that popped up. That might have been a little too much pressure, though.
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Oct 2008 | 1:08 am Show Us Your Best Geeky Halloween CostumeTo celebrate this year's Halloween we want to see what Wired.com readers are wearing around their neighborhoods and to costume parties. For inspiration, we've compiled a gallery of the Coolest Costumes From a Geek Masquerade. Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best geek costume photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. If we like your photo, we'll include it in a gallery on Wired.com. 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 so that other readers know what they're looking at. 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, send it to your friends and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions! Vote on costume photos submitted by other readers.
Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your costume photo. Submit your costume photo.(No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.)
MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Oct 2008 | 12:41 am Google Earth brings virtual tourism to iPhone (CNET)CNET - SAN FRANCISCO--Google already has customized some of its Web sites for display on the iPhone, but now the company also dived headlong onto Apple's highly regarded mobile phone with a full-fledge application, a handheld version of its Google Earth geographical software.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Oct 2008 | 12:39 am Game-Related Education On the Rise At CollegesThe LA Times has a story about the increased interest in learning how to make video games amongst college students, and the subsequent rise in game-related education as the schools respond to that demand. Some programs are gaining legitimacy, while others do perhaps more harm than good. Quoting: "The surge in interest has led schools to add games to their menu — but not always to the benefit of its students. Recruiters say they often see 'mills' that run around-the-clock sessions to quickly churn out as many students as possible. Other programs teach specific skills but not how games are pulled together. 'It's a very hot academic growth area,' said Colleen McCreary, who runs EA's university relations program. 'I'm very worried about the number of community colleges and for-profit institutions, as well as four-year programs, that are using game design as a lure for students who are not going to be prepared for the real entry-level positions that the game industry wants.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 27 Oct 2008 | 12:22 am MySpace Gives Up On The Netherlands
According to several sources, MySpace has decided to throw in the towel with regards to its expansion in The Netherlands. The social networking site had opened up an Amsterdam office merely 9 months ago but has now announced it will shut it down and move the Benelux operations over to its Berlin office. In February 2008, shortly after its official launch in Holland, word got out that MySpace had tried to acquire leading Dutch social networking site Hyves. The acquisition fell through and MySpace declared it was confident that it would be able to obtain sufficient growth on the market on its own. According to country manager Derek Fehmers, the site did attract 250,000 extra users adding up to 650,000 in total since it launch, but apparently Hyves (which cites over 5 million registered users, representing about 33% of the nation’s population) was much harder to beat on its own turf than anticipated. Fehmers also added that MySpace knew it was entering the market quite late and faced an extremely well established competitor (Hyves), and ultimately decided the added value of a local presence could no longer be supported from a business standpoint. Facebook and Netlog are now the only major players trying to obtain a piece of the pie. In an onstage interview with Michael Arrington at TC50, MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe stated that their international strategy was to focus on the 9 countries that bring in 95% of the advertising revenue and where it would be able to become the market leader by a margin. I guess The Netherlands wasn’t one of those nine. Another caveat from the interview, which was republished by many Dutch news sites: MySpace is focusing its efforts in launching MySpace Music across Europe in the first quarter of 2009. (Hat tip to The Next Web blog, photo credit Peter Evers) Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: Boing Boing | 26 Oct 2008 | 11:35 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of October 19, 2008Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 Oct 2008 | 11:33 pm One of HST's Cameras Is Back In ActionStupendousMan writes "One of the two big cameras aboard the Hubble Space Telescope is the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, or WFPC2 for short. As the most recent HST status report indicates, the camera was recently powered up again and sent commands to take some test images. Today (Sunday, Oct 26), I received E-mail from a colleague at STScI indicating that the calibration images were 'nominal.' That's NASA-speak for 'fine and dandy.' The E-mail goes on to say 'The data look nominal, indicating that Hubble optical imaging capabilities are in fine shape. (We can expect more glorious Hubble images in the near future.) ... Science with WFPC2 has resumed, and plans are underway to restore ACS/SBC to service this coming week.' Let's hope that the other big instrument, the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), also comes back to life successfully. We should find out in just a week or so."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 26 Oct 2008 | 11:13 pm Microsoft to Preview Windows 7Microsoft Corp.'s release of its Windows 7 operating system could be vital to the U.S. company's future success, experts say. Michael Cherry, an analyst for Directions on Microsoft, a firm that monitors developments at Microsoft, said increased competition from Apple Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Oct 2008 | 11:00 pm U.S. Stages Raid Inside Syria?Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Oct 2008 | 10:36 pm Is Your Username Taken? Usernamecheck Will Tell You.Most people tend to register the same username when signing up for services, for obvious reasons. Your username is your personal identity and most people don’t need more than one. It’s also easier to remember. But one thing that is becoming increasingly difficult to remember, with so many new Web services sprouting up ever day, is which services you have signed up for exactly. A recently launched application called Usernamecheck gives you a great overview at which Web 2.0 services your ‘default’ username has already been registered. In just a couple of minutes, you’ll know just how hung up you have been on trying out every new service on the block, and which one you’ve once signed up for but have long forgotten about. Or, alternately, where your username has already been taken by somebody else. Update: the service returned correct results when I tested it, but several commenters are pointing out inaccuracies. Usernamecheck currently pings 68 services for the username you want to look up, and lets you know instantly if it is still available or not. According to the counter at the bottom of the homepage, over 110,000 user names have already been checked with the service. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some holes to fill.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 26 Oct 2008 | 10:20 pm Sling.com To Launch On November 10
SlingMedia’s ambitious new video portal, Sling.com, is set to launch on November 10, we’ve heard (the original launch date was November 3, but was pushed back for some reason). The site, which is currently in private beta, brings in videos from Hulu, CBS and other sites, providing a very comprehensive group of TV shows and films. And users can also access their own home cable/satellite via their SlingBox. More details soon. See our previous post on Sling.com here. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 26 Oct 2008 | 10:08 pm Gov't Computers Used to Find Info on "Joe the Plumber"After Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio gained fame as "Joe the Plumber" in the course of the current presidential campaign, it seems that he's drawn more than idle curiosity from people with access to what should probably be confidential information. An anonymous reader writes with a story from The Columbus Dispatch that "government insiders accessed Joe the Plumber's records soon after the McCain-Obama debate. 'Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.' Welcome to 1984."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 26 Oct 2008 | 10:00 pm 100x Denser Chips Possible With Plasmonic NanolithographyRoland Piquepaille writes "According to the semiconductor industry, maskless nanolithography is a flexible nanofabrication technique which suffers from low throughput. But now, engineers at the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new approach that involves 'flying' an array of plasmonic lenses just 20 nanometers above a rotating surface, it is possible to increase throughput by several orders of magnitude. The 'flying head' they've created looks like the stylus on the arm of an old-fashioned LP turntable. With this technique, the researchers were able to create line patterns only 80 nanometers wide at speeds up to 12 meters per second. The lead researcher said that by using 'this plasmonic nanolithography, we will be able to make current microprocessors more than 10 times smaller, but far more powerful' and that 'it could lead to ultra-high density disks that can hold 10 to 100 times more data than today's disks.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 26 Oct 2008 | 8:43 pm Scientists Create Purple TomatoesImage 1: Purple, high anthocyanin tomatoes and red wild-type tomatoes. Credit: John Innes CentreImage 2: Purple tomatoes high in anthocyanins. Credit: John Innes CentreSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Oct 2008 | 8:35 pm PC Makers Cutting Start-Up TimesPC makers say they're introducing a new generation of machines that can start up in 30 seconds or less. "It's ridiculous to ask people to wait a couple of minutes.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Oct 2008 | 8:00 pm OpenOffice.org V3.0 Sets Download Record, 80% Windowsthefickler writes "The newest version of OpenOffice, version 3.0, has set a download record in its first week of availability. Most surprising is the fact that over 80% of downloads were from Windows users. As one commentator noted, when it comes to a choice between almost identical software (e.g. Microsoft Office and OpenOffice), price is the determining factor."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 26 Oct 2008 | 7:31 pm T-Mobile G1’s POP3/IMAP e-mail going haywireSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Web, Google
As with any launch of an intricate smartphone, there are always some problems. However, it is important that the manufacturers of the phone work quickly to solve the problems of their users. Within a couple of days of the official T-Mobile G1 launch, there have been several problems, and now many users are posting on the T-Mobile forums saying they are having trouble accessing their e-mail. Whenever a user tries to send an e-mail, it either doesn’t send or sends as null. In addition, it is nearly impossible to receive e-mail and this isn’t just associated with one e-mail service, it’s practically tied to all of them, except for one - Gmail. Of course, Google would make sure their own e-mail service functions the best. Fortunately, a T-Mobile representative, Will, commented on the forums in effort to calm the people and work with them through this difficult time for T-Mobile. He states that this e-mail problem is being looked into by T-Mobile in high priority, and he goes on to add:
He seems to think that by saying T-Mobile has encountered such problems before, people will be reassured that T-Mobile has fixed it before and they will fix it again. Feel free to let us know if you are encountering any similar problems with your G1. Read [T-Mobile Forums] Via [BGR] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 Oct 2008 | 6:48 pm US Army Sees Twitter As Possible Terrorist "Operation Tool"Mike writes "A draft US Army intelligence report has identified the popular micro-blogging service Twitter as a potential terrorist tool. A chapter titled 'Potential for Terrorist Use of Twitter' notes that Twitter members reported the July Los Angeles earthquake faster than news outlets and activists at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis used it to provide information on police movements. 'Twitter is already used by some members to post and/or support extremist ideologies and perspectives,' the report said. The report goes on to say, 'Terrorists could theoretically use Twitter social networking in the US as an operation tool.' Just wait until the Army finds out about chat rooms and email!"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 26 Oct 2008 | 6:18 pm BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 10-19-2008Section:  We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 Oct 2008 | 5:40 pm MySpace Tests Profile 2.0 With Drag And Drop Interface
This is the next stage in their ongoing effort to make the site more usable for people who aren’t comfortable with a no-rules, add-your-own-html interface. In June they launched the first part of MySpace 2.0, which reduced clutter on the site significantly. The new changes give users much more control over their profile. Instead of having to add html and Javascript to the site directly, or using third party profile editors like SnapLayout, users can simply view their profile in a Flash tool that lets them set a variety of templates, drag and drop modules, and customize the site. Users can also set each specific module’s privacy so that only certain groups of friends see it, so work friends can see a different site than college buddies. I’ve been trying out the new tool, you can see my MySpace page here. You don’t have to be Canadian to try out the new profile and editor. Just visit MySpace Canada directly and sign in. You’ll see a link to try the new Profile 2.0 on the home page. Just a note - it won’t work with IE6.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 26 Oct 2008 | 2:59 pm Hackers Exploit Microsoft BugJust one day after Microsoft distributed a rare emergency security patch, hackers have found new ways to exploit the bug. Security researchers identified a new worm called Gimmiv on Friday, after a hacker had posted an early sample of code that could be used to take advantage of the flaw on the Internet.Since the bug could be used to create an Internet worm attack, Microsoft issued the patch more than two weeks ahead of its next security update. In fact, the software giant said it had already witnessed a small number of attacks that exploited the flaw.According to a New York Times report, the vulnerability lies in the Windows Server service used to connect with other devices on networks. And while the Windows firewall software will block the worm from spreading, experts worry the flaw could be used to spread infections between machines on a local area network (LAN), which are typically not protected by firewalls.Indeed, that's precisely what the Gimmiv worm intends to do, said Symantec’s senior research manager Ben Greenbaum."It is downloaded onto a target machine via social engineering and then proceeds to scan and exploit machines on the same network, using this newly disclosed vulnerability in the Server service," he told the New York Times.Experts believe the worm then loads software that steals passwords.Both Symantec and McAfee said Friday that they had only seen a very small number of attacks based on Gimmiv. However, Symantec reported a 25 percent jump in network scans searching for vulnerable machines beginning Thursday evening. The searches could signal that more attacks are on the way, Symantec said.It’s a scenario that becomes more probable as additional tools are released to the broader public. For instance, sample exploit code was posted to the Milw0rm.com hacker site on Friday, and security experts expect hackers to move the code into easy-to-use attack tools over the next few days.Greenbaum predicts the attack code will soon be used to create botnet networks of infected computers.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Oct 2008 | 2:35 pm Oprah Endorses Kindle E-book ReaderAmazon.com’s Kindle just got a big boost on Friday when the $359 e-book reader received a rousing endorsement by popular media mogul Oprah Winfrey.Calling the Kindle her "favorite new gadget," Winfrey’s endorsement was hinted at during a 24-second video advertisement displayed on Amazon’s homepage. The ad, which was shown directly above a Kindle promotion, directed viewers to Winfrey’s show by saying she would be announcing a "life-changing" device on her show.Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was on hand during Winfrey’s show as she endorsed the Kindle by calling it the "wave of the future."Although the device is pricy, Winfrey said she viewed it as an environmentally friendly investment.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Oct 2008 | 2:35 pm Awesomely Bad Defense Trinkets, Part IIIn response to an earlier post, Danger Room readers have raided their collections for more examples of defense trinkets -- the good, the bad and the bizarre. Next week, we'll run a contest to pick the best contribution.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Oct 2008 | 2:23 pm US Army discovers Twitter, sees terrorist ties, wonders why @JasonCalacanis won’t follow it
A report by US Army Intelligence points to Twitter, GPS devices, and voice changing software as potential “terrorist tools.” Friend of CG, Noah Shachtman, posted the report on Danger Room noting that intelligence services have said that everything from MMORPGs to garage door openers could be potentially dangerous to Americas precious bodily fluids. They note:
Look: Twitter can’t even keep the Fail Whale at bay most days, let alone create a command and control structure for young men and women with a penchant for Anchor Steam beer and trail mix. As Shachtman notes in his piece, this report is good and bad. It’s good in that explores something most Army Intelligence employees probably know nothing about but bad in that it wastes valuable brain time on tools that are pretty much secondary to terrorist aims. Twitter contains no havok-making tools per se and its functionality could easily be recreated using SMS, carrier pigeons, and smoke signals. But at least now a bunch of US Army Intelligence officials probably have Twitter accounts, exposing them to possible surveillance. Information provided by CrunchBase
Source: CrunchGear | 26 Oct 2008 | 1:40 pm MacBook Pro Tradeoffs [Mossblog]When Apple redesigned its laptops earlier this month, most of the attention, including mine, was focused on the entry-level MacBook. That was because of its popularity, and because Apple managed to make over the machine in a way that added some oomph and lots of style while actually making it thinner and lighter and preserving battery life. But what about the MacBook’s big brother, the 15 inch MacBook Pro, a powerful, if pricey, laptop favored by many power users? My verdict on the Pro’s makeover isn’t nearly as favorable, because there were more tradeoffs. But some of the new model’s design features that were a dramatic upgrade on the entry MacBook were already present on the older Pro — an aluminum case, a bright LED screen, and the ability to perform some iPhone-like gestures on the trackpad. And the new MacBook Pro is actually a downgrade from the old model in a few areas. For one, it has grown slightly larger and heavier, with a 4% bigger footprint and a bit more weight (5.5 pounds versus 5.4 pounds for the old one.) These aren’t huge sacrifices, but I believe that when companies strive to redesign laptops without increasing screen size, they should try for smaller and lighter, not the reverse. Much worse is the loss of battery life. When used with its discrete graphics processor, the natural mode for the kind of audience at which the Pro is aimed, Apple claims it will get just 4 hours of battery life, versus the 5 hours it claimed for its predecessor, which also used a discrete graphics processor. That’s a whopping 20% reduction in battery life. To compensate, Apple built in a second, alternate, graphics system, the same wimpier integrated graphics chip that’s used in the lower-end MacBook. Only when you switch to this alternate chip — a clumsy process that involves changing a preference in software — can you hope to retain the old 5-hour battery life. Because I didn’t do a full review of the MacBook Pro for my Wall Street Journal column, I didn’t run my own battery tests on it. But MacWorld magazine did, and the magazine declared that battery life diminished to a significant degree compared with the previous model. In addition, Apple now offers the 15 inch MacBook Pro only with a glossy screen, having removed the option for a matte screen that is often preferred by pros who work heavily with photos and videos, because of the glare and fingerprints it can attract. This glossy-only choice is also present on the MacBook, but it matters less there, because that machine isn’t usually the choice of graphics pros. My bottom line on the new MacBook Pro is that it still provides a satisfying upgrade for power users willing to spend the money to move up from the MacBook or from a less powerful, or similarly powerful, Windows machine running the inferior Vista or XP operating systems. But, for owners of the most recent prior MacBook Pro, the new model’s tradeoffs make an upgrade an iffy choice. Source: All Things Digital | 26 Oct 2008 | 1:37 pm iPhone 3G baseband almost cracked, carrier independence imminentThe wizards at the iPhone-Dev Team have just about cracked the iPhone baseband which means carrier unlock is almost upon us. What does this mean? Sadly, not much. The iPhone is still physically - at least in theory - locked to purchase and activation at AT&T and Apple stores so those heady days of buying an iPhone to crack at home are long gone. It is my suspicion that lots of 3Gs will soon be falling off the back of trucks around the world, especially in Russia and Asia, as folks dedicated to one G.S.M. carrier or the other decide they don’t want to switch. Baseband unlocks essentially cede control of the phone’s telecomm portions to hacked code. Usually it’s impossible to run hacked baseband code but the iPhone Dev folks have patched the baseband without alerting the phone itself, resulting in the Great iPhone Unlocking of 2007 and the future iPhone unlocking of 2008/2009. Source: CrunchGear | 26 Oct 2008 | 1:21 pm HOWTO Make a purse out of a stack of old books LiveJournaller Penwiper337 set to explore the "librarian side of steampunk" by turning a stack of old crummy hardcover books into a beautiful purse: I had my eye on some attractively bound Reader's Digest Condensed Books (I have no pity for them) that were in the local library book sale, but wanted a little more space than one book could give me. So I made a box-type purse out of three.Book purse (via Craft) Source: Boing Boing | 26 Oct 2008 | 11:01 am Bruce Schneier's election night analysisI'm about to go off-blog until November 17* (I'm off on my honeymoon!) but I'd be remiss if I failed to mention that Bruce Schneier will be doing mathematically oriented election coverage on the Making Light blog on election night. If it wasn't for the fact that I'll (literally) be on a tropical island with nothing higher-tech than a scuba-regulator to hand on that night, I'd be all over it.Dissect the exit polls, debate statistics, ridicule pundits, advance theories, and—hopefully—repeatedly celebrate. So wherever you are, alone in front of the computer, at a party in front of a television, or at one of the zillions of parties around the country, spend the night here as well.Watch the election results with Bruce Schneier—at Making Light
* Though I do have some killer book reviews lined up for next week that'll robo-post while I'm gone, and of course my lovely co-editors will still be posting totally awesome stuff here in a merciless torrent of total awesomeness. Source: Boing Boing | 26 Oct 2008 | 10:47 am
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Despite our 
What is the strongest thing in the world? The Boy Scouts know the answer. The Internet.
MySpace continues to clean up the look and feel of its site with the launch of a new profile and editor. It’s not ready for mainstream U.S. use yet, so they’ve unleashed it on Canadian users for testing (anyone can try it out though, see below).
