Source: Gizmodo | 3 Nov 2008 | 10:42 am

Geek Walking [Voices]

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 10:30 am

Obama Shows Bigger Lead in Polls That Include Cell Phones

Political polls that include cell phone users show Obama leading McCain by an average of 10 points, versus just over five points in land-line-only surveys, notes a Sunday survey put together by Nate Silver, founder of the electoral projections site FiveThirtyEight. The survey shows a snapshot of 15 polls conducted on behalf of media companies and by polling companies such as Gallup and Zogby. Six of those, including one released late Sunday by NBC and the Wall Street Journal, include cell phone users. The rest don't.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 10:23 am

Microsoft, LG sign mobile collaboration deal (Reuters)

Reuters - Microsoft Corp. and South Korea's LG Electronics Inc on Monday said they had signed a preliminary agreement on strategic collaboration in mobile technology.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 3 Nov 2008 | 9:48 am

Microsoft unveils 60 million dlr investment in SKorea (AFP)

AFP - Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer on Monday unveiled a plan to invest 60 million dollars in South Korea's software industry as part of the US giant's drive to strengthen its presence in the country.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:20 am

Netflix Extends "Watch Instantly" To Mac Users

CNet is reporting that Netflix has opened up its "Watch Instantly" feature to Mac users (here is Netflix's blog entry). They accomplished this by using Microsoft's Silverlight technology on both platforms, abandoning the Windows Media Player solution that had been employed in the first, Windows-only, version. Silverlight's DRM capabilities meet Netflix's needs, apparently. Netflix warns that this is beta software. Mac users can opt in here, then watch instantly with Safari or Firefox 2+, with the Silverlight plugin in place. Movie selection is somewhat limited.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:19 am

Why the Tech Crash May Have Been a Good Thing [Voices]

By Kevin Kelleher, Contributing Writer, GigaOm

Few people have good memories of the dot-com crash that crushed companies and ravaged stock portfolios between 2000 and 2002.

But as we slide into an even more dire correction, a silver lining is starting to emerge around those earlier bad times. By pushing a lot of froth out of the system several years ago, the dot-com crash has spared us from a true “Perfect Storm” of an economic crisis in 2008.

There are a lot of crises converging this year, most notably home foreclosures, weaker consumer spending and financial excess. But thankfully, a vast tech bubble isn’t among them. True, Silicon Valley was ground zero for a major financial earthquake seven or so years ago, but that shock also let off seismic energy that could have worsened the jolt now shaking the foundations of the world’s economy.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:04 am

Never Underestimate Microsoft’s Ability to Turn a Corner [Voices]

By Robert Scoble, Blogger, Scobleizer

This week Microsoft (MSFT) didn’t get much hype for its three major announcements. Certainly it didn’t stay on top of TechMeme as long as, say, if Steve Jobs gets a sniffle. But don’t miss what they did.

1. On day 1 of the PDC they announced Azure, which is a set of cloud services that competes with Amazon’s S3 and Rackspace’s Mosso and will radically change enterprises’ acceptance of cloud services for a whole lot of reasons.

2. On day 2 of the PDC they showed off Windows 7 which is getting high praise from my blogging friends who were lent laptops with it on there (I didn’t get Windows 7 yet).

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:03 am

Should Facebook be Tapping Users for Cash? [Voices]

By Sam Diaz, Senior Editor, ZDnet

It hasn’t even been a month since Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a German blog that growth, not monetization, was the priority for the social networking site. In fact, he even went so far as to say that he didn’t see a revenue plan coming into play for three more years.

But now, as TechCrunch digs up info on Facebook’s financials, it appears that Facebook may not even make it to 2011 unless they can drum up more cash–either through an accelerated revenue model or more investment dollars before the entire global economy erodes further. In response, Facebook basically responds by telling VentureBeat that it’s doing just fine–thank you very much–while other sources say that something must be wrong with the Techcrunch calculator.

Recognizing that advertising on Facebook has offered “dismal” returns, some bloggers (Techmeme) are suggesting that maybe a subscription model–nothing too crazy, mind you–might be in order. At least one has said that the only thing holding Facebook back from imposing fees is a lack of guts.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:02 am

30 Seconds to Boot Up? That’s 29 Too Many [Voices]

By Randall Stross, Professor, San Jose State University

New laptops that boot up in 30 seconds? Too slow for me. Five seconds? Better, but what I want is a machine that’s ready in about a second, just like my smartphone.

I’m fully aware that expressing any impatience with a computer’s boot time invites derision. When the entire globe is engulfed in an economic crisis, measuring the seconds required to start different computers may seem the most trivial of concerns.

Still, I’m not alone. Unhappiness with boot times, which commonly run 45 to 60 seconds, is shared by many computer users, as reflected in much online discussion of the issue.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:01 am

John McCain and Barack Obama Talk Tech [BoomTown]

In advance of tomorrow’s elections, here’s a pair of videos of the two presidential candidates, Republican Sen. John McCain and Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, talking about tech.

While Obama has many more supporters in the tech and Internet sectors in terms of numbers, including Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt, McCain’s include Cisco (CSCO) CEO John Chambers, former eBay (EBAY) CEO Meg Whitman and former Hewlett-Packard (HP) head Carly Fiorina.

And while tech is not exactly issue No. 1 with either of them, here is McCain talking about it in the entire interview he did at the fifth D: All Things Digital conference in 2007 (he also discusses Iraq and other topics in the interview) and a new, much shorter three-minute video just posted by Obama on tech policy:

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:00 am

Apple Fanboys Vs. Microsofties: A Scientist’s Verdict [Voices]

By Chris Matyszczyk, Member, CNET Blog Network

Since embracing Incorrectness, I have noticed that the passion of those who love either Microsoft (MSFT) or Apple (AAPL) seems even to exceed a Goth’s passion for black eyeshadow.

The more I have come to know the two sides, the more their mutual stand-off resembles the kind of love-hate continuum embraced nightly by those two remarkably large-headed souls, Fox’s Bill O’Reilly and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.

Now, research led by Professor Semir Zeki of University College London may help to illustrate and explain the inflamed emotions that surround two mere technology brands.

It appears that, although love and hate seem to be rather opposing feelings, some of the same nervous circuits in the brain are responsible for both emotions.

The lovely thing is that the two radical heights of intensity both seem to involve two of the most pornographically named parts of the brain’s sub-cortex: the putamen and the insula.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 3 Nov 2008 | 8:00 am

Barack Obama On Tech Policy

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch | 3 Nov 2008 | 7:00 am

'60 Minutes' examines brain power (CNET)

CNET - In a 60 Minutes segment titled "Brain Power," the CBS TV news magazine follows Andrew Schwartz, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh who has implanted a grid of electrodes inside a monkey's brain in order to listen to the different brain cells (or neurons) in an attempt to decode the language of the brain.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:30 am

1/3 of Amphibians Dying Out

Death Metal sends in a Scientific American article reporting that 2,000 of 6,000 amphibian species are endangered worldwide. A combination of environmental assaults, including global warming, seems to be responsible. "... national parks and other areas protected from pollution and development are providing no refuge. The frogs and salamanders of Yellowstone National Park have been declining since the 1980s, according to a Stanford University study, as global warming dries out seasonal ponds, leaving dried salamander corpses in their wake. Since the 1970s, nearly 75 percent of the frogs and other amphibians of La Selva Biological Station in Braulio Carrillo National Park in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica have died, perhaps due to global warming. But the really bad news is that amphibians may be just the first sign of other species in trouble. Biologists at the University of California, San Diego, have shown that amphibians are the first to respond to environmental changes, thanks to their sensitivity to both air and water. What goes for amphibians may soon be true of other classes of animal, including mammals."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:29 am

Physics the Next President Needs to Know

From terrorism to space to climate change, the next president will need to have an understanding of the physics behind the headlines. Physicist Rich Muller talks with Wired.com about the science that will be critical to the president's success.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Nov. 3, 1900: The Grandmother of All Auto Shows

1900: The first major automobile show in the United States opens at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

It wasn't the first automobile show held in the United States. It wasn't even the first held at Madison Square Garden. But it is considered the first modern automotive show. The weeklong event, sponsored by the Automobile Club of America, featured 66 exhibitors displaying 31 newfangled autos and a variety of accessories to pimp the ride.

Even then, people were getting clipped to go to these things. It cost the outrageous sum of 50 cents (about $12.75 in today's money) to attend what was known as the "horseless horse show." Despite the usurious prices, 10,000 people attended throughout the week.

Besides the latest hot models, the show featured astounding feats of braking and acceleration, and a special ramp was built to demonstrate the hill-climbing prowess of the different cars.

Among the show's highlights was the appearance of Ransom Eli Olds' prototype for a new model known as the "runabout." The Olds Motor Vehicle Company of Lansing, Michigan, was the first U.S. automaker to build cars in volume, churning out 425 Oldsmobiles between 1897 and 1901.

It was Olds, incidentally, and not Henry Ford, who built the first operational automotive assembly line. His runabout, also known as the Curved Dash, was the world's first mass-produced car. Built between 1901 and 1907, it sold for $650 (that's $16,500 today).

General Motors bought Oldsmobile in 1908, and produced more than 35 million vehicles under that name before the last Olds rolled off GM's Lansing assembly line April 29, 2004.

In fact, none of the automobile makes on display at the Garden that week exists today.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Wired.com Photo Contest: Music

Your assignment for this photo contest is both simple and difficult: music. Move beyond the band and concert cliches and show us what music means to you.

Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best music photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. The 10 highest-ranked photos will appear in a gallery on the Wired.com homepage. Show us your grandpa's old dusty stacks of shellac, the piano in the backyard overgrown with moss and ivy, an exotic minstrel in the heart of a Mediterranean bazaar. Deliver us to psychedelic synesthesia by making us hear your vivid photos with our eyes.

The photo must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc.

We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you log in will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg).

Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions!

Also, check out the winner's galleries from our previous contests: Fall, Holga, Red, Self-Portrait, Night, Macro, Transportation, and Black and White.

Vote on music photos submitted by other readers.

Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your music photo.

Submit your music photo.

(No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.)

Back to top

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Gamer's Radical Realization: I Prefer Playing With Myself

"Why do you want to play alone?"

A friend of mine recently asked me this, during an argument about Fable II. I'd recently begun playing the game — a classic, medieval-quest RPG world — and had devoted hours to leveling my character into a fearsome, beloved warrior. I'd amassed Ninja Gaiden-esque skillz, learned flesh-singeing lightning spells and won sacks full of bling. I'd explored the far ranges of the amazingly detailed land, and the townsmen were bowing and scraping for my favor. I had four different girlfriends.

But to my friend, this made no sense. He's a hard-core online gamer — a member of a long-running World of Warcraft guild — so single-player RPG worlds seem completely baffling to him. Not to mention antisocial.

In Fable II, you're the only "live" human around. Sure, it's crammed full of "non-player characters" — but they're all 'bots, spouting fairly crude dialogue lines, with none of the unpredictability and spontaneity of a multiplayer game. You have no friends with whom to share your feats, to brag to about your awesomeness, to marvel at the beautiful sights. There are no epic, wargasmic, 50-person raids that will be spoken of over mead, four generations hence, in a tavern.

So it's a good question, really. Why do we want to immerse ourselves in a world that emulates all the tropes of a vibrant world like World of Warcraft — but where we are, essentially, alone?

I told my friend he was looking at it all wrong. The reason we single-player fans love world-games like Fable II is precisely because there are no other "real" people around.

Because really, who needs people? People suck. I'm joking, of course — but only a bit. The truth is that, in online multiplayer worlds, dealing with the delightfully unpredictable behavior of "real" people can be an absolute chore. Teammates fail to show up for a raid, or they leave everyone waiting for an hour, or they log out in the middle of battle and leave you gored by a howling mob. Have you ever actually tried to play Age of Conan? It's like the Stanford Prison Experiment in there, my friend.

Indeed, the dirty secret of online multiplayer worlds like World of Warcaft is that the vast majority of people play solo in them. As Nicholas Ducheneaut discovered, players who are piloting characters below level 40 spend a stunning 70 percent of their time questing alone. That means that the vast majority of World of Warcraft players treat their other fellow humans like non-player characters — 'bots they glimpse wandering through the forest, but never talk to.

But I'm being too negative here. There is an upbeat side, too. One benefit of being the only live person in a game is that the illusion of immersion is never broken. The designers of Fable II have complete control over what everyone in the game does and says, so they can make sure nobody drops any l33t-spe@k or references to Barack Obama. The world is all medieval, all the time.

More subtly yet, there's a sort of weird, existential delight in being the only truly sentient human inside a huge world. The fact that I know I'm the only person actually alive makes the game seem all the more dreamlike, as if everything — those mountain ranges, those creepy beetles — really is taking place inside my head. Sure, there's a co-op mode for Fable II, so you could play with another person if you wanted to. But I never bothered to try it out, because I preferred the solipsism of a world where I'm the center.

Indeed, sometimes I wish there were even fewer characters inside Fable II — and even more isolation. Some of my favorite moments were between battles, when I'd roam through a desolate stretch of forest at night, looking at the shadows and ancient ruins. Hell, I just enjoyed the peace and quiet! I don't get enough of that in my real life. That's why people loved Myst so much back in the day: The game was completely deserted — not a single other person alive — so you were literally alone for hours with nothing but your meditative thoughts.

Maybe this could eventually become an entire category of entertainment: You're dropped into a huge, lush, gorgeous, sprawling world, and all you do is just sort of ... wander around. We could even give it a name. Radical singleplayer: The game of solitude.

- - -

Clive Thompson is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to Wired and New York magazines. Look for more of Clive's observations on his blog, collision detection.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

How to Vote, Even If They Say You Can't

If you show up at your polling place on Tuesday and you're told you can't vote, don't just walk away. If you're eligible to vote in your state and you're registered, you can still cast a provisional ballot. Don't get disenfranchised — learn your rights on Wired's How-To Wiki.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Top 10 Wired.com Yellow Photos, Decided by Us

:

Though Wired.com readers selected 10 excellent photos in our yellow photo contest, we here at the photo department like to fight for the underdog. Here are our 10 favorite submissions that we think deserved more attention.

Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is music. Show us photos so vivid they make us hear with our eyes. Check out the contest page for more information.

Left:

Yellow Menace
Submitted by Damir Ivankovic

Photographer's comment:

"Fićo. Legendary ex-Yugoslav car. In a mountain village."

:

Aerial Photo of Sulfur Plant at the Port of Stockton, Stockton, CA
Submitted by Adrian Mendoza

Photographer's comment:

"Aerial photograph of a large sulfur pile at the Port of Stockton in Stockton, California, in June 2008."

:

Coney Island Buses
Submitted by brie987

Photographer's comment:

"Buses at Coney Island. Lumix FX35."

:

Beach House
Submitted by Steven Kamenar

Photographer's comment:

"On a beach off of Marco Island, FL."

:

Young Ducks @ the Market
Submitted by J.S Labrie

Photographer's comment:

"Young ducks at the Chilean market in Chile."

:

The Sea Night
Submitted by turoturok

Photographer's comment:

"Los Cabos yellow night."

:

Trondsvej
Submitted by Klaus C

Photographer's comment:

"From Skagen, Denmark, summer 2008."

:

Treasure Island
Submitted by Drew Halley

Photographer's comment:

"Old Minolta SRT-201, 35mm 400-speed film (expired), and sunglasses for a filter."

:

Blue Tarp...Green Tarp...Yellow Tarp...
Submitted by Casey Cramer

Photographer's comment:

"High above Leh, Ladakh."

:

Cruisin'
Submitted by cruisin'

Photographer's comment:

"A day at the Montgomery County (Texas) fair."

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Top 10 Wired.com Yellow Photos, Decided by You

:

After weeks of excellent submissions in our yellow photo contest we at the Wired.com photo desk have a new favorite color. Here are the 10 highest reader-voted submissions. Mikage Rinoa takes home the gold (ahem) with his photo "Yellow Dew Drop" at left. Mr. Rinoa will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk.

Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, and because we love to anger readers with our selections, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Yellow Photo Gallery.

Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is music. Show us photos so vivid they make us hear with our eyes. Check out the contest page for more information.

Left:

Yellow Dew Drop
Submitted by mikage14

Photographer's comment:

"Experimenting with refraction."

:

Broken Window
Submitted by Paul Scrafton

Photographer's comment:

"Broken window on train awaiting refurb at Tanfield Railway, County Durham, United Kingdom."

:

Walkway Tunnel
Submitted by HK

Photographer's comment:

"Taken in Lodalen Valley, Oslo, with a Canon XSi. 20mm, F/3,5, ISO 1600."

:

The Yellow Umbrella
Submitted by Kreego

Photographer's comment:

"A yellow umbrella travels in France and Switzerland, inspired by the American adventures of a famous red velour sofa in the 1970s … "

:

Jin Mao
Submitted by Dana Underwood

Photographer's comment:

"Looking up 56 stories in Shanghai's Grand Hyatt lounge."

:

Blue Sky Yellow Wall
Submitted by Paul Scrafton

Photographer's comment:

"The Centre For Life, Newcastle Upon Tyne, United Kingdom."

:

Caboose
Submitted by MojoPhotoCo

Photographer's comment:

"The historic Heber Creeper's yellow caboose reflected in a lot of melted snow."

:

Ulica Kanonicza
Submitted by parisa.tabriz

Photographer's comment:

"An especially yellow alley in Kraków, Poland.”

:

Duck Race
Submitted by Anonymous

Photographer's comment:

"Trondheim, Norway"

:

Golden Fog
Submitted by Franc

Photographer's comment:

"Early morning soccer warmups in the Houston area."

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here's some friendly advice: Don't. And if you've already got one, pull the plug.

Writing a weblog today isn't the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It's almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it takes to craft sharp, witty blog prose is better spent expressing yourself on Flickr, Facebook, or Twitter.

If you quit now, you're in good company. Notorious chatterbox Jason Calacanis made millions from his Weblogs network. But he flat-out retired his own blog in July. "Blogging is simply too big, too impersonal, and lacks the intimacy that drew me to it," he wrote in his final post.

Impersonal is correct: Scroll down Technorati's list of the top 100 blogs and you'll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can't keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.

When blogging was young, enthusiasts rode high, with posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google's search results for any given topic, fueled by generous links from fellow bloggers. In 2002, a search for "Mark" ranked Web developer Mark Pilgrim above author Mark Twain. That phenomenon was part of what made blogging so exciting. No more. Today, a search for, say, Barack Obama's latest speech will deliver a Wikipedia page, a Fox News article, and a few entries from professionally run sites like Politico.com. The odds of your clever entry appearing high on the list? Basically zero.

That said, your blog will still draw the Net's lowest form of life: The insult commenter. Pour your heart out in a post, and some anonymous troll named r0rschach or foohack is sure to scribble beneath it, "Lame. Why don't you just suck McCain's ass." That's why Calacanis has retreated to a private mailing list. He can talk to his fans directly, without having to suffer idiotic retorts from anonymous Jason-haters.

Further, text-based Web sites aren't where the buzz is anymore. The reason blogs took off is that they made publishing easy for non-techies. Part of that simplicity was a lack of support for pictures, audio, and videoclips. At the time, multimedia content was too hard to upload, too unlikely to play back, and too hungry for bandwidth.

Social multimedia sites like YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook have since made publishing pics and video as easy as typing text. Easier, if you consider the time most bloggers spend fretting over their words. Take a clue from Robert Scoble, who made his name as Microsoft's "technical evangelist" blogger from 2003 to 2006. Today, he focuses on posting videos and Twitter updates. "I keep my blog mostly for long-form writing," he says.

Twitter — which limits each text-only post to 140 characters — is to 2008 what the blogosphere was to 2004. You'll find Scoble, Calacanis, and most of their buddies from the golden age there. They claim it's because Twitter operates even faster than the blogosphere. And Twitter posts can be searched instantly, without waiting for Google to index them.

As a writer, though, I'm onto the system's real appeal: brevity. Bloggers today are expected to write clever, insightful, witty prose to compete with Huffington and The New York Times. Twitter's character limit puts everyone back on equal footing. It lets amateurs quit agonizing over their writing and cut to the chase. @WiredReader: Kill yr blog. 2004 over. Google won't find you. Too much cruft from HuffPo, NYT. Commenters are tards. C u on Facebook?

Paul Boutin (paul@valleywag.com) is a correspondent for the Silicon Valley gossip site Valleywag.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Review: Smart Room Sensors Guide TV's Wicked Blacks, Brilliant Colors

It's like a digital interior decorator in a box. The set measures your room with color and light sensors, then tweaks the TV's zillions of settings to make whatever you're watching look its best.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 3 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

MySpace, Auditude, And MTV Have Just Figured Out How To Monetize Online Video

Since YouTube heralded the era of user-uploaded videos, media corporations have been fighting a hopeless battle to regain control of their content, sending out endless waves of DMCA notices in a vain attempt to take down countless clips scattered across the web. In the last year sites like Hulu have made progress - it’s finally possible to legally embed a clip of The Office in your blog, but publishers continue to lose out on millions of video clips that were uploaded without permission.

Now MySpace - a site that once seemed the antithesis of innovation - has implemented an exciting new ad platform called Auditude that may change the way content owners treat uploaded video entirely. The new platform will automatically identify any uploaded video clips from a number of shows produced by MTV Networks (including my personal favorite “The Daily Show”), and will display an overlay when the clip is played that shows which episode the clip originally came from, its original air-date, and links to online stores where users can buy the entire episode.

In the past it has been nearly impossible to effectively monetize user-uploaded videos because they are typically tagged with such informative titles as “REally cool!” and “hilarious”. The Auditude platform ignores this information, relying solely on fingerprints taken from the clip’s audio and video data. These fingerprints are matched to prints in Auditude’s massive database, which spans over 250 million videos and 4 years of television content, all sorted by show and air date.

Even more impressive: Auditude can fingerprint a portion of a video that is only a few seconds long and identify which show it was originally taken from. Once the clip is identified Auditude will overlay an ad within the video, allowing publishers to monetize their content even when it was uploaded by someone without permission and without any legible tagging information.

MySpace will be implementing the system with initial support for content from MTV Networks, with shows including The Colbert Report, Punk’d, and Sarah Silverman. So every time you post a clip of Jon Stewart ripping on the presidential candidates, someone is going to get paid, and users won’t have to deal with the often-clunky proprietary video players offered by each network. And instead of trying to prevent these clips from making it onto MySpace in the first place, content owners will want users to upload as many as possible.

Unfortunately, this may prove difficult: after years of being told not to upload these videos, users will probably take a while to warm up to the idea. But if it catches on (and it probably will), expect to see content owners flock to form partnerships with MySpace - there isn’t currently another video platform out there that is able to identify and monetize content this effectively. We’ll probably also see the Auditude platform implemented elsewhere as other sites try to catch up.

Last year YouTube launched a similar service called Video ID that gives publishers the option of either taking down illegal content or placing ads on it.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: TechCrunch | 3 Nov 2008 | 3:29 am

D.I.Y. Home Security

theodp writes "The NYTimes reports that pre-wired home security installations by alarm companies are on the way out. Thanks to wireless window and door sensors and motion detectors, installing and maintaining one's own security system is becoming a do-it-yourself project, with kits available from companies like InGrid and LaserShield. Time to start cranking out some new iPhone and Android apps, kids?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Nov 2008 | 3:10 am

Reports: Circuit City to close 155 stores

Days after being threatened with delisting from the stock exchange, Circuit City is to shut 155 stores after Christmas, according to tips send to The Consumerist.

This will be officially announced tomorrow at 8am, says our source. A scan we received of a letter distributed to CC employees helps corroborate the story. The tipsters say that store employees were told this morning. No information was provided at that time about severance pay. Employees in certain departments, like car installation, and Firedog, will likely be out of a job within 48 hours.

First CompUSA, now CC. I hope you like Best Buy! The liquidators are already in, according to more insider gossips, winding things up.

I was going to trot out the old gamer standby for this sort of thing, "Welcome to your Doom!" but it suddenly seemed terribly odd. Surely doom isn't a particularly welcoming thing, even as the greek allusion to predestined fate rather than its modern sense of apocalyptic destruction. Can't we welcome something to something nice, for a change? Then again, "Welcome to your puppies" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

UPDATED: Breaking: Circuit City Closing 155 Stores [Consumerist]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 3 Nov 2008 | 2:56 am

Overaggressive spam filter

A housekeeping note:

Our assistant moderator Antinous has noticed an increasing number of legit comments getting caught in the spam trap. Previously, it was only catching an innocent comment about once a month. Now he's fishing three or four comments a day out of it. We'll try to sort this out.

For now, Antinous says that having multiple links to the same domain seems to be the trigger, even if the links are to different pages in that domain. For example, a comment containing links to three different Wikipedia articles runs some risk of getting snagged. Avoiding that pattern isn't an absolute guarantee of safety, though; he's found a few comments in the spam trap where all the links were to different domains.

What we know for sure is that several commenters have complained that we unpublished their long, thoughtful, citation-filled comments, when in fact they'd been grabbed by the spam filter. If you have a comment go missing, let us know. In the meantime, Antinous will keep checking the trap.

Source: Boing Boing | 3 Nov 2008 | 2:55 am

The Battle for Microsoft’s Soul

So much of this long protracted struggle for political change has rubbed off on the tech community. In the partisan windup to this long election process, we've become almost inured to the fact that as much as things will continue to be the same, already the "choice" between the two candidates has produced one sure thing. That is, either of the two candidates represents fundamental change from the status quo, no matter how much you want to differentiate further. So it is with the shift to the Cloud. Whether you're betting on Google, or Amazon, or Microsoft, or less obviously Apple, IBM, Oracle, or Cisco, the sure thing is that Web services has gone main stream. If this is a horse race at the vendor level, it's about each company's ability to harness its innate strengths and migrate its weaknesses. Put another way, the battle is within, not between.

Source: TechCrunch | 3 Nov 2008 | 1:54 am

Behind the Cogent-Sprint Depeering

An anonymous reader brings an update to Sprint's depeering with Cogent, which we discussed a few days back — namely, Sprint's side of the story. According to them, no free peering contract had ever existed, Cogent refused to pay the bills to exchange traffic, and after a year Sprint gave Cogent 30 days notice of their intent to disconnect. During this 30-day period, when one or two connections (out of ten) per week were shut down, Cogent made no alternate arrangements to alleviate the impact on their customers — but they had a press release ready when Sprint snipped the final wire. It will be interesting to see how Cogent responds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 3 Nov 2008 | 1:43 am

Netflix “Watch Instantly” for Mac Beta Now Live

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 3 Nov 2008 | 12:45 am

DECT: A reason to get excited about cordless phones again

Section: Communications, Accessories, VoIP, Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Originals

Today we’ve got a guest post by Scott McGrath.  Scott has worked in the IT industry as a consultant and Sysadmin for 12 years, and has enjoyed communications gadgets since he got his Fisher Price telephone at 2 years of age.  Like what he said?  Hate what he said?  Go over to Scott’s blog at http://www.scamwagon.com and let him know.

Believe it or not, I’m in the market for a cordless phone.  Before you laugh, there’s actually plenty of reasons I maintain a land line, not the least of which is the fact that I have poor cell coverage at my home, and not the most of which is the fact that cellular usually can not hold a candle to the real deal PSTN or good VoIP line, in terms of quality.  Cordless phones still have life since some can pair to your cell phone so you don’t have to rush to find that tiny handheld when it rings.  If you’re a Skype user, you can be untethered with some cordless phones.

Over the years, cordless phones have been through some changes.  Here’s a brief history:

The beginning: 49MHz (1986)

Cordless phones really start to hit the scene.  Sharing the band with just about every consumer device under the sun (walkie talkies, RC cars, baby monitors), these phones were prone to static and terrible range, and eavesdropping by anyone with a scanner.

Better signals: 900MHz (1990)

This was a major breakthrough.  The radios use far less power to achieve better range, and operate on a band that is reasonably clear of other devices.  The signal propagation at 900 MHz is great - similar to cellular phones.  In my opinion, these phones are still the least annoying to have around, but they’re usually still analog, and that’s a security risk.

Phones vs. Wi-Fi: 2.4GHz (1998)

Finally phones started getting really high tech.  Digital phones hit the scene with frequency hopping, encryption. Unfortunately they are often rendered useless with wireless access points around.

Higher is better, right?  5.8GHz (2003)

The cordless manufacturers had no place to go but 5.8GHz.  They took advantage of the rampant notion that higher frequency is better.  In reality, 5.8GHz behaves more like a beam of light, and consequently doesn’t like obstacles.  Yuck.  Their only saving grace is that they don’t compete with 802.11 B/G WAPs.

The Age of DECT

Now for the latest technology on the scene: DECT.  This is exciting stuff.  DECT is 1.9 GHz, which is definitely in the sweet spot for signal propagation.  Another benefit is reduced interference, as the 1.9 GHz band is reserved for cordless phones only!  What’s more, the DECT standard allows you to have multiple handsets per base, incomparable range and talk time, and more.

You’d think with all this baked-in goodness, it’d be pricey… But they’re very affordable.  A basic, single handset DECT cordless, such as the Panasonic KX-TG6311S, is available for under $40.00 at Amazon.com.

Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 3 Nov 2008 | 12:33 am

Google Apps Gets a 99.9% Guarantee

David Gerard passes along a posting on Google's official blog announcing that they have extended the three-nines SLA for the Premier Edition of Google Apps from Gmail alone to also cover the Calendar, Docs, Sites, and Google Talk services. 99.9% uptime translates to 45 minutes a month of downtime, and the blog post puts this in context with Gmail's historical reliability, which has been between three and four times as good over the last year (10-15 min./mo.). It also claims, based on research by an outside group, that Gmail's historical reliability beats that of in-house hosted solutions such as Groupwise and Exchange, on average. Reader Ian Lamont adds an article in The Standard that digs down into the details of the SLA, revealing for instance that outages of less than 10 minutes aren't counted against the monthly 45 minutes.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Nov 2008 | 11:46 pm

Western Digital releases WD TV HD Media Player

Section: Video, Accessories, HDTV

Unlike most product releases today, Western Digital has released their TV HD media player with no extravagant advertising.  The tiny device allows you to plug in external USB hard drives, up to two simultaneously, and play any video content stored on them, on your TV. 

It outputs video to your TV in either plain old 480i format via the composite interface (and included cables) or in 1080p HD via HDMI.  The TV HD Media Player ships with “media converter software” leaving it suspect as to what formats the device actually supports.

For $129.99, you can get an easy way to watch your movies on your gorgeous HD TV.

Buy [Best Buy]

Full Story » | Written by Indraneel Purohit for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 2 Nov 2008 | 11:12 pm

The Gym Arcade

theodp writes "Cross Halo with an exercise bike, and you get Expresso Fitness' S3, which lets you blow away dragons by squeezing handlebar-mounted triggers as you pedal hard through the Chinese countryside. Portfolio notes that a new generation of Wii-like workouts is hitting gyms and homes, with companies like GameRunner incorporating treadmills into First Person Shooters and Kickstart offering mini steppers and cycles for popular game systems."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Nov 2008 | 10:37 pm

Sunday Special: $99 One-Day Pass To Dreamforce

Wanna go to this week's Dreamforce conference but don't have $1,200 bucks to spare for a full three-day pass? TechCrunch scored 100 one-day passes at $99 each (these are exclusive for TechCrunch readers—you cannot get a one-day pass anywhere else). These will let you attend the conference any one day (November 3rd, 4th, or 5th), see all the keynotes that day (Marc Benioff, Michael Dell, Facebook's Sheryl Sandberg, and Google Enterprise's Dave Girouard), check out the booths and schmooze at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. And if you go on Monday, you can catch the Foo Fighters. Anyone interested should call Dreamforce ‘08 Registration Headquarters at 888.382.7112 and reference the "$99 Tech Crunch Day Pass." The promotion code you need to give is: DAYTCB99

Source: TechCrunch | 2 Nov 2008 | 10:25 pm

Dane-Elec announces four new MP3 players

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video, Gadgets / Other

You may know of Dane-Elec has one of the main distributors of Meizu’s M6, which is a phone similar to the iPhone.  Now, they have decided to venture into the PMP market themselves and they recently introduced 4 of their first PMP’s - the Music Mediatouch, the Music Touch, Music Pix and the Music.  Definitely some interesting names for PMP’s, in my opinion.

First, let’s talk about the Music Mediatouch.  It comes with a 4.3-inch touch screen with 480 x 272 resolution, TV out, FM Tuner, and support for many audio and video formats including AVI, WAV, and MP3.  It also comes with support of WMA, WAV, APE, FLAC, JPG, GIF, and BMP.  The Music Mediatouch will be available in 2 models, a 4GB and an 8GB.  The 8GB will sell for 150 Euros, or $202.  I imagine the 4GB to sell a bit less than that.

Moving on, we have the Music Touch.  It comes with a 2.9-inch and even though it has the word “touch” in its name, it uses buttons instead of actual touch technology.  In addition, it comes with a nice 1.3MP camera, and FM Tuner.  Similarl to the Music Mediatouch, this PMP also comes with support for a LOT of formats.  It supports RM, RMVB, AVI, FLV, MPG, Flash, and DVD.  Additionally, it supports MP3, WMA, WAV, ADPCM, JPG, GIF, BMP, and WAV.  With all this format support, you’re almost guaranteed to play music or video in a format you currently have it on.  Lastly, it sells for 120 Euros or $161.  It doesn’t say how much hard drive it comes with, but I’d imagine it to be 4GB. 

Next, we have the Music Pix.  It comes with a 2.4-inch screen with a 320 x 240 resolution.  This one, however, doesn’t come with support of as many formats as the above two, but a sufficient amount.  Formats include MP3, WAV, ADPCM, WMA, MTV, JPG, and BMP.  It will be selling in only a 4GB model, and will retail for 60 Euros, or $80. 

Lastly, we have the Music.  The Music is a screenless MP3 player, similar to the iPod Shuffle.  This one supports only MP3 and WMA and sells in a 2GB version for 35 Euros or $47.

Whether you want a device with a big screen and video playback, or just a simple player, you are sure to find one offered by Dane-Elec.  Since they listed the Euro cost first, I would assume that they will be available in the European market before the American market, if at all. 

Via [PMP Today]

Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 2 Nov 2008 | 9:47 pm

OpenBSD 4.4 Released

Linux blog writes "The new version of OpenBSD is available for download. There are lots of nifty new features to try out including OpenSSH 5.1 with chroot(2) support, Xenocara, Gnome 2.20.3, KDE 3.5.8, etc. Machines using the UltraSPARC IV/T1/T2 and Fujitsu SPARC64-V/VI/VII are now supported. It seems amazing to me that they keep delivering these new results on a six-month release cycle."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Nov 2008 | 9:31 pm

The coolest keyboard just got hotter

Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards

You may remember earlier this year Thanko, a Japanese company, released the imaginatively named ”Thanko Cooler USB keyboard.”

For those that don’t, here is a brief recap: it is essentially a solidly build keyboard complete with three fans that are designed to keep your hands cool whatever the weather.  So, what now?  Well, in keeping with their unimaginative naming method, the new “USB Hot Cooler Keyboard” does exactly what it says on the tin.

This is an incredibly good idea, how often do you come in from the cold outdoors, turn on your PC and find yourself unable to move your fingers quicker than an asthmatic snail?  This will gently warm up your hand increasing comfort and effectiveness of the hand, which on a cold day is very nice.  The same can be said of the cooling function, which keeps your hand cool and thus less sweaty (which is really horrible if you have a long day in the office).

From an ergonomics point of view it looks incredibly sturdy and well made with a sleek almost industrial design.  It has a switch to alternate between heating and cooling, and another to define how powerful you want the temperature change.  Currently available in Japan, it is selling for 4,980 Yen ($51) which is well worth the money if you are the outdoor type. 

It is also quite a competitive price for those who just like the extra comfort.  The only two real downsides are that it is quite large (on a small desk it will be fairly overwhelming) and it is also fairly USB hungry, taking up two ports for power and data.  Perhaps using a PS/2 for the data would have been a good idea, but apart form that it is a useful piece of kit.

Source [akihabara news]

Full Story » | Written by Christian Milsom for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 2 Nov 2008 | 7:31 pm

HTC Touch Pro now available on Sprint.com

The HTC Touch Pro is now available on Sprint’s website for $299 after a $100 mail-in rebate and a two-year contract. The rebate requires that you have the Everything plan, Data Premier add-on, or PRO Pack add-on. If you’re going to use the data feature on this phone, you’ll likely have one of those anyway.

Sprint sent me a review unit on Friday and I’ve been using it for a couple days now. I’ll have a full review next week but if you’ve been waiting for this particular phone, go ahead and buy it.

It’s one of the nicer Sprint phones I’ve ever used, and the keyboard makes a world of difference over the HTC Touch Diamond. It’s definitely a bit thick, though. Kinda reminds me of having an average-sized point and shoot camera in my pocket. If you’re concerned about the size, try to find something that’s 4 x 2 x .71 inches to see what you’ll be getting into. But try not to let it be deal-breaker, it’s still a great device.

Sprint HTC Touch Pro [Sprint.com via BGR]

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: MobileCrunch | 2 Nov 2008 | 6:30 pm

BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 10-26-2008

Section:

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…

• A Storm in the Horizon, should Apple and their iPhone be worried?
• Apple killing off Firewire on iPods
• A long, long list of iPhone naysayers
• Updated Maps application to make debut in iPhone 2.2
• First Look: Google Earth for iPhone & iPod touch

Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 2 Nov 2008 | 5:10 pm

Historian's Arctic Research Puts Him On Top Of The World

Image 1:  Arctic iceberg. Credit: Florida State UniversityImage 2: Associate professor Ronald Doel in Reykholt, Iceland. Credit: Florida State UniversityImage 3: Arctic satellite image. Credit: Florida State University
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 2 Nov 2008 | 3:00 pm

NY's Plans For Eco-Friendly Taxis Halted

The plan to turn New York City's entire fleet of yellow cabs green by 2012 was halted Friday by a federal judge who ruled that regulation of fuel emissions standards fall under federal, not city, authority.The plan called for every new taxi to have a minimum standard of at least 30 miles per gallon, a target now met by hybrid and clean diesel cars.U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 2 Nov 2008 | 1:10 pm