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Black Friday too early? Hot Cyber Monday dealsSection: Gadgets / Other Known as Cyber Monday, websites are popping up to direct shoppers to the latest deals. One such site, cybermondays.com is pointing to many deals from big names. Some deals are duds, such as Apple’s free iPod engraving - which you can get without being prompted by this site. Currently, the sites top listed deal is from HP, with free shipping on orders over $59.99. However, I went over to HP and was able to get free shipping on my own. So maybe the site is just alerting you to merchants that offer such a deal. The site promises to have hourly deals on Cyber Monday, and that may have some value.
So, who’s interested in web deals? Shopzilla conducted a survey to out the obvious:
I’d like to have a conversation with the 2 out of 10 that were not looking for discounts, but something tells me Shopzilla will cite privacy concerns over leaking those names to me. Sounds fishy for sure. Regardless of my views, the economy seems to be forcing many retailers hands this year. Many Black Friday deals were available early this year online. BFads.net cited many such examples of retailers not wanting to hold out until Black Friday to cash in. Places like 6ave.com and Walmart.com are already offering pre-sales. Cyber Monday site: [cybermonday] Shopzilla survey: [businesswire] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:00 pm iPod touch generation 2 faster than the iPhone?FROM APPLETELL - If the numbers from Handheld Games Corps. (makes of TouchSports Tennis) are to be believed, it would seem the iPod touch 2G is faster than the iPhone. MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 7:48 pm Gamertell Review: T-Mobile’s G1 as a game systemFROM GAMERTELL - T-Mobile’s G1 promises to be a decent gaming device with a touchscreen, mini trackball, accelerometer and mini QWERTY keyboard. It can even incorporate GPS into games but how well does it really perform as a game system? Head to Gamertell to find out… MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 7:10 pm Bluetooth Boombench - share your music in styleSection: Audio, Speakers, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle
Pretend for a second that you haven’t just looked at the picture, and imaging a modern, sleek minimalistic bench combined with a 80s/90s. Now open your eyes and see the epitome of minimalistic-cum-retro design: the aforementioned Boombench. The idea is that you will link up to the bench, which will be just on the street, through Bluetooth on your phone and play your music through the substantial speakers. They are twin 60-watt co-axial speakers with two subwoofers built into the seat which makes it vibrate while it’s playing—all of which was demonstrated at the Urban Play event in Amsterdam. I think this is a great idea and concept, allowing people to share music, liven up areas, create a community space, increase musical diversity and awareness and togetherness. Despite how good this idea is in principle, it won’t work and I think an analogy is needed. I think it will just end up being like a dictatorship: it will work as long as you’re in charge. The problem is people don’t like the same music, so conflicts will arise over what is played. Also, it will be dominated by the younger generation for two reasons: firstly, more of them have phones and also they are more likely to “claim” the bench and not let anyone else use it. This will result in a larger and noisier version of kids on street corners with loud music on phones. I can also imagine many people having complaints about noise pollution, and realistically how long will they be there before someone steals them? Not long. Unfortunately, I think this is something that will only work in principle, but nonetheless it is a good idea. It can go down along with millions of other things that are designed to improve a society, but will only work if society is already perfect. However, there is still hope for the Boombench as I can see this being made into a viable commercial product. Source [WooHome] Full Story » | Written by Christian Milsom for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 6:25 pm SanDisk to have huge saleSection: Audio, Accessories, Portable Audio, Video, Accessories, Portable Video, Communications, Accessories, Gadgets / Other, Miscellaneous, Imaging, Accessories, Peripherals, Storage
A Cyber Weekend sale is coming thanks to SanDisk. If you don’t want to wake up early and trudge through a mass of humanity to get some deals, you can check out SanDisk’s sale that will take place on the Saturday, Sunday, and Monday after Thanksgiving. SanDisk makes all kinds of products including SD cards, USB drives, and MP3 players. You can sign up to receive e-mails on this promotion over at SanDisk’s Cyber Monday page. Check out [SanDisk] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:02 pm NFL to broadcast game next week in 3D (but only to 3 theaters)
There will be an added dimension to next week’s Chargers-Raiders game. That is, there will be a third dimension. Yes, the NFL is going 3D. Can you feel the excitement? The NFL will broadcast a game in 3D live for the first time on Sunday. The 3D broadcast will only be available to three specially equipped theaters: one in New York, one in Los Angeles and one in Boston. NFL execs and industry insiders, retailers, etc. (read: horribly boring people) are expected to be in attendance. The companies behind the 3D tech include 3ality Digital LLC, Thomson and Real D. Real D is responsible for the 3D-ness of movies like Journey To the Center of the Earth 3D and The Nightmare Before Christmas. I’m decidedly anti-3D—I think it’s silly—but if it’s what the American people want, then so be it. We’ll all be doing our best Cinderella Man impression soon enough as it is. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 4:20 pm Sony’s Crackle going to try its hand at original online content
Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 4:05 pm HANNspree intros the HT09 - world’s first 28-inch 1080p LCD HDTV
Now that 1080p is the de facto standard for HDTVs, smaller sizes are slowly becoming available. HANNspree claims to have the world’s first 28-inch 1080p, full HD LCD with the HT09 that would be perfect for a videophile’s smaller rooms. Only a discerning eye should be able to pick out the differences between 720p and 1080p at this smaller size. That is if they aren’t distracted by the lackluster 500 cd/m brightness and 3,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio that proves once again to not shop just the resolution but also other specs too. Thankfully, the $499 price kind of makes the HDTV a bargain for gamers and computer users. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 4:00 pm Ballmer Ordered To Testify In 'Vista Capable' Casealphadogg writes "A federal judge in Seattle has ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for its Windows Vista operating system in which computers sold with an older Microsoft OS were labeled 'Vista Capable' when in fact they could only run a basic version of Vista. Ballmer has unique personal knowledge of facts surrounding the case, therefore he must face questioning, Judge Marsha Pechman of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle ruled, according to court documents released late Friday."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:57 pm Most frightening CES booth ad so far CES, the consumer tech show held in January each year, presents a few great new products and a lot of middling ones. Western purchasing officers chat with suppliers from far away, deals are cut, and LEDs furiously blink. And there are polyester laptop bags: more of them than you can possibly imagine.
Is MacWorld the same week as CES again next year? Why, yes, it is. A cyber-oreo goes to anyone who remembers what happened the last time these planets aligned. Product Page (website made of pure flash, of course!) [Golla] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:50 pm Citi Still Spending Money On Marketing; Facebook Will Get a Few Pennies [MediaMemo]
That’s because it’s a Facebook app campaign, which makes it very difficult for its sponsor to blow much dough, no matter how hard they try. In this case, Citi is sponsoring a “Magnetic Lyrics” app, a takeoff on the refrigerator magnet word games favored by vaugely literate folks. In this case you assemble lyric snippets to your favorite songs by either Nickelback or Mary J Blige. Don’t like either act? Me neither. But presumably lots of people do, and Citi is doing a broad deal with both of them. In any case, what’s relevant here are the economics, which are small-scale. I don’t have specifics, but I assume that Citi and its vendors — Atomosphere BBDO, a digital agency owned by ad behemoth Omnicom (OMC), and BuddyMedia, a startup that specializes in social media campaigns — are spending a modest amount to actually develop the app. I’m guessing it’s less than six figures. And Citi will likely pay a small bounty for each user that plays with it — perhaps $1 per user. So far, that’s about $5,400. And what does Facebook get out of this? Well, Citi (C) will need to buy some ad space to promote the app, so you can tack on a few bucks more to the campaign. But not much — Facebook has had a notoriously hard time convincing advertisers to pay up for its inventory. And it has a lot of inventory. The takeaway: Assume Citi continues to exist in some form, it’s going to have to continue to spend money on marketing, and most of that will still be on big blast campaigns like the ones you’re used to seeing on TV. But small, targeted plays like this could be an effective compliment. And if you get a lot of marketers investing a lot of money in these kind gimmicks, then Facebook has a real income stream, which it could use. Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:45 pm 2nd-gen iPod Touch's faster processor gives clue about Touch platform progressionOne of the presumptions about the iPhone and iPod Touch hardware is that the hardware is all essentially the same across the platform. (Ignoring obvious differences like the lack of a phone or camera in the iPod Touch, of course.) But Touch Arcade is reporting that the second-generation iPod Touch has a modestly faster CPU than its predecessors, a 532MHz ARM chip instead of the 412MHz version in the first-generation iPod Touch and the iPhone 3G. For day-to-day use, this extra 120MHz may not end up making that much of a difference, but Handheld Games CEO Thomas Fessler reports that internal testing at the company reveals that the faster iPod Touch can render about 1,500 polygons on each of their 3D TouchSports Tennis [above] models compared to around 1,000 on the iPhone 3G. Moreover, there are slight differences in rendering speeds across all models, with the original iPhone EDGE running slightly faster than the original iPod Touch. Details, perhaps, but it indicates an answer to one of my questions about the entire platform: Will Apple ever cut firm generational lines into the platform, removing compatibility for some software on older models, or will they continually make modest upgrades generation by generation? While we've only two generations of the platform to go by, the differences portend the latter will be the path taken by Apple. That's probably better overall, but it also implies that in the future — say, a couple of years from now — there could be iPhone and iPod Touch models with enough additional horsepower that some software, especially games, might have to be written for one generation or another. 2nd Generation iPod Touch Faster than iPhone [TouchArcade.com] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:44 pm Square traffic lights
It's about time someone responded to the inefficient spitefulness of round traffic lights. The shape of traffic lights has barely changed since they were invented—there have always been three round lights: red, yellow and green. Initially, the sections were round simply because this allowed the spherical bulp inside light the glass evenly. They're pitching the idea as a way for a city to distinguish itself without substantial extra cost. Luxofor traffic lights design concept [Art Lebedev via DVICE] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:44 pm Cops Eye Web Site's Role In Streaming Video Suicide - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:44 pm Zuberance Raises $4 Million, Lets Your Customers Work For You
Zuberance offers a suite of SaaS applications that enable companies to identify and track customer advocates, and mobilize them to automatically publish authentic content like reviews and testimonials to specific locations within shopping and review sites like Amazon.com, YouTube, TripAdvisor and Facebook. This effectively turns customers into a volunteer promotion workforce that shares offers with their friends and colleagues. Zuberance customers pay a flat subscription fee for access to its On-Demand software services, based on expected levels of system usage and “other related factors”. There is, however, a one-time system configuration fee, which the company claims is typically less than 10 percent of the total amount of the annual subscription. The Palo Alto-based startup was founded in 2006 by Rob Fuggetta, a marketer who used to advise companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft and Verizon in the past on marketing strategy, so we assume he knows what he’s doing. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:41 pm Zuberance Raises $4 Million, Lets Your Customers Work For YouZuberance has raised $4 million in Series A funding from Emergence Capital Partners, with general partner Gordon Ritter joining its board of directors in the process. Zuberance offers a suite of SaaS...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:41 pm Another deal from Amazon: Xbox 360 Elite, The Last Remnant, 4,000 M$ points
Oh goody, more Black Friday “deals,” this time from Amazon. They’ve got an Xbox 360 Elite (with 120GB HDD and Kung Fu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones), The Last Remnant and a card for 4,000 Microsoft Points. Grand total: something. I don’t know, you have to actually be prepared to check out the final price. Let’s just say it’s probably cheaper than it normally would be. Amazon’s gonna be running these types of deals till the big day, Black Friday, ensuring four days of non-stop excitement. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:40 pm Poetry goes Boing!The poetry competition announced in We can has games has been a huge success. We must have more of these, and soon.The game this time was to write verse poetry about one or more recurrent Boing Boing obsessions, with the winner to receive a Gears of War 2 Special Edition Zune 120 GB. Readers responded with a thread over two hundred messages long that's full of charming, surprising, and even impressive poetry. And if you don't read the whole thing, you have only yourself to blame. Picking the winner was tough. At great effort and expense, I brought in the head of the science fiction line at the world's largest English-language science fiction publishing house to help me judge it, but it was still hard to narrow the choice down to a single poem. Nevertheless … (picks up envelope) … the winner is: SpatulaLilacs @41, "Sestina of a Reluctant Copyfighter." Which, O my word, is a rigidly formal sestina that maintains both natural language and perfect iambic pentameter while developing a coherent argument about copyright issues. That's something you don't see every day. Sestina of a Reluctant CopyfighterThe top ten other poems from the thread, not in order of merit: JustKristin @28, "We heard a crunch before it died." Emily Dickinson does tech support. (You should get a look at Kristin's other pastiches. She has a fine ear.) Olof @29: Boing Boing does Jabberwock, or possibly Jabberwock does Boing Boing. Cloudform @74, "Annabel LED." A popular favorite, and definitely one of the poems that made it hard to pick a single winner. Madeley @80, "Web Zen." A small but very cute pantoum. (Note: Be impressed. Pantoums are hard, like villanelles only more so.) Rachelboing @84: a sonnet on feet. Lumi the Valiant @85, "The Charge of the Boing Boingers," with muttered apologies to Tennyson. ELloyd74 @114 had the sleekest rhymes. HKDailo @130 rapped, inventively. Jfaehnle @168, "Sex-Bot Villanelle; or, VW5yZXF1aXRlZCBMb3Zl.". Other notables achievements: Props to David Carroll @43, for constructing a crossword puzzle (and later, posting the solution). Props also to Shutz, at various points in the thread, for doing some real thinking about future games. As was only appropriate for a competition that started on 11/11, we got three notable pastiches of famous war poems: Mel Rodriguez @50 did Wilfred Owens' "Dulce et Decorum Est"; Jazzbo @134 did John Gillespie Magee's "High Flier"; and TaoArt @150 did John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields." Some of the best poems in the thread were written by first-time commenters. I don't yet have a complete list of them, so I'll put that in the comment thread. Kieran O'Neill @142, "Your country's gender disjunction," was the best poem written as a comment in a current thread. Second place in that category goes to MXJohnson @132 for From "Your shoe is jacked into my eye" and "Call to makers: woman wants webcam to replace lost eye". Oskar @33 is to be commended for his presentation, and his attitude. Entertaining your readers by showing off really well is at the heart of the game. Triscuit @72 wrote the best haiku. Foetusnail @187 wins for Most Improved. Second place for Most Improved: JanusNode @151, "Ode to Boing Boing." Frazbin @202, for the tidiest poem on the least hygienic subject. MinTphresh @91 and @183, for spiritual truth. Other poems that a different judge might have scored higher:
TangoBrain @152, "Encryptus." :: Chriziem @141, Chriziem @141, "Steampunk Elegy." ::
Jmanooch @167, "Carousel: On a Reading of Boing Boing." :: Aila @158, "Guerrilla Gardener." :: MFGG @48, a panegyric sonnet. :: CK @87, who is funny and accurate. :: Mr. Orion @104, who is also fun to read, and would undoubtedly have scored higher if he'd labeled his work as a haiku sequence rather than a series of one-offs. :: Deviant @107's heroic quatrains about a boy and his sexbot making a stand against the zombie apocalypse. :: Boba Fett Diop @111 doing Lucas via Homer via Richmond Lattimore. :: WillAlex @173, a zombie sonnet. :: Met Ower @131, "Lurker Lament." Source: Boing Boing | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:36 pm 3G internet on the HP Mini 1000 HP's Mini 1000 netbook supports 3G, but you have to install a hard-to-find WWAN driver. Instructions on how to get it running are posted at Pocketables by dplxy, who reports that speeds on AT&T are O.K. (about 1.5Mbps) and battery life sucks, but it's really HP's fault for only offering a cruddy 3-cell battery to begin with.
How to get 3G working on the HP Mini 1000 [Pocketables] Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:30 pm Beer bladder product shot expertly identifies its target consumer: the New Jersey guido Know your guido! Your life may depend on it. Look for the tell-tale signs: the torn, skin-tight blue jeans, boxer shorts clearly exposed. The puffy sneakers and sockless ankles. The orange skin and jutting teeth stained with bronzer. The grease-stained bandana. The waxed chest and ruddy areolae. And, of course, the $39.99 beer bladder crammed down the front of the slacks, its long plastic hose snaked suggestively out of the zipper.
Still confused? This is the North American guido's mating dance, as flaunted on the boardwalks of the New Jersey shore each and every day: The Beer Belly Beer Dispenser [Foolish Gadgets] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:28 pm Ricoh Americas Corporation Names Mark Minshull Chief TechnologistPromotion Highlights Increased Significance of Solution Technologies Across Ricoh's Business WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricoh Americas...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:28 pm MagnaChip Offers Industry Leading 0.18um and 0.35um aBCD (Advanced Bipolar CMOS-DMOS) Process TechnologySEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- MagnaChip Semiconductor Ltd., a leading Asia-based designer and manufacturer of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:26 pm Bruce Ontario Bruce 3 reactor back in serviceNEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) - Bruce Power LP's 750-megawatt Unit 3 at the Bruce nuclear power station in Ontario returned to service on Nov. 21, the company said in a release.Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:25 pm Artiklz Is A Great Conversation Starter (And Aggregator) - We Have InvitesI bumped into Artiklz at the Blog08 conference in Amsterdam last month, and got a rundown of what the LA-based startup was working on while the service was still in alpha mode. Today, Artiklz is releasing...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:23 pm Artiklz Is A Great Conversation Starter (And Aggregator) - We Have Invites
We have 500 invites for TechCrunch readers; all you need to do is sign up here and tell them we sent you. Artiklz aggregates comments around content from a variety of services (including Digg, Reddit, Yahoo! Buzz, FriendFeed, Mixx, Delicious, Diigo etc.). In addition, they offer plug-ins to track conversations on major blogging services like Blogger, TypePad, Movable Type, and self-hosted WordPress blogs and centralize what’s being said and referenced regarding your own content as well as discussions about it across the web. Artiklz enables you to get notifications by e-mail, SMS, IM or a web interface, whenever a new comment is made about your post on any given service, which is a great way to track conversations across the social web without the need to actively monitor different services. You can also add a badge to your blog that gives your readers the option to be notified when you post a new article, or when somebody leaves a comment on a given post, and you can even track a specific individual’s comments. The startup has added a Firefox toolbar and bookmarklet today that should make it easier and faster to track conversations even without being a registered user (demo video) and has also released an improved web interface. There are many startups in the comment tracking space (e.g. coComment, SezWho and Disqus) but Artiklz in my opinion doesn’t compete with them but rather with aggregation services like uberVu (see recent review) and search engines like Backtype. Testing the application reminded me of this blog post published earlier this year by Loïc Le Meur about the ‘(de)centralization of me’. If he stills feels the same way about the fragmentation of his social map, he might want to give Artiklz a try.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:23 pm Dell adds 32GB SSD option to Mini 9 netbook
So it’s not an official touchscreen option; this is better. Dell now allows Mini 9 buyers to spend $100 to upgrade from the standard 4GB SSD option to a 32GB solid state drive. Total price with SSD option installed: $449. Nice. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:20 pm Verizon's Buildout of Its FiOS All-Fiber-Optic Network to 27,000 Aimco Apartments in 11 States Nears CompletionAdvanced FiOS Services to Be Available to All Apartment Residents By Year-End NEW YORK, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Residents of 27,000 apartments in Aimco housing...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:19 pm Smut Wallpaper Universe removed from AppStore Apple removed another program from the AppStore over the weekend: Wallpaper Universe is the latest for the chop.
And so the 'net embarsk on yet another round of the exact same hand-wringing over Apple's policies. Why do people not understand that you are working for Apple when you develop for the iPhone? It's not even trying to trick people into thinking the ecosystem is open, or that devs aren't unpaid work-made-for-hire: Apple's right to make arbitrary and inscrutable decisions is right there in the contract you sign! This is not an argument for Apple's shiny golden godhood, but for "If you don't like it, don't do it." Photo: Venturebeat Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:10 pm Turkey-Making Secrets From Three Top Chefs - KNX1070
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:09 pm Hesco Bastion Wins Second U.S. Patent Infringement CaseWASHINGTON, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Hesco Bastion Limited, the manufacturer of patented Concertainer(R) units used in military force protection, homeland security and...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:08 pm SpaceX Successfully Tests Nine-Engine Clusterthe_other_chewey writes "At their test facility in Texas, SpaceX, the privately funded space-flight company, have successfully tested their nine-engine cluster which is planned to provide the heavy lifting capability for their Falcon 9 and Falcon 9 Heavy rockets. The firing lasted three minutes (a full 'mission duty cycle,' i.e. a simulated launch) under full power, delivering 3.8MN (or 855,000 lbs.) of thrust. SpaceX have made a video of the test available. The Waco Tribune has a short report about it, with comments by locals."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:08 pm HTC Touch HD ReviewReview of Astounding New HTC Touch HD Exemplifies What a Treo Pro Might Look Like Without Its Keyboard & Power Of Windows Mobile As you might know, the Treo Pro is designed by Palm and manufactured...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:07 pm Stinger Systems New S-200 AT Model to Outfit Arkansas DepartmentTAMPA, Fla., Nov. 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Stinger Systems, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: STIY), a leader in electro-stun technology, today announced that city of Ward,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:07 pm $100 32GB solid state drive for Mini 9 Dell now offers a 32GB solid state drive option for it's Mini 9 netbook. It's a $100 upgrade — a nice option, but pricey enough to make it worth researching similarly-priced alternatives if you're willing to get your hands dirty. Patriot's SSD drives, for example, offer blazing-fast write speeds and are frequently hankered for by netbook owners annoyed at the use of cheap flash to bring system prices down.
Inspiron Mini 9 [Dell via Engadget and Gizmodo] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:06 pm Ballmer's bid to swerve 'Vista Capable' row comes unstuck - Register
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:03 pm El Paso, Salt Lake City, Dallas and Memphis are the Top Text Messaging Markets in the U.S.Text Messaging Delivers Coveted Young, Multicultural Demographic Texters are Top Spenders on Cellular Service, Avid Hi-Tech Buyers NEW YORK, Nov. 24 /PRNewswire/...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:03 pm Microsoft Turning Japanese with Kumo? - eWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:02 pm CORRECTED - Ex-Siemens manager gets two-year suspended sentence(Corrects fourth paragraph to show Wilhelm Schelsky has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison, not four years)Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 3:01 pm A mesmerizing look at the Hatfield Hotdog LauncherWow. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the Hatfield Hotdog Launcher that’s brought out in between innings at the Phillies’ games. A lot of work went into getting all the science-y stuff right and even then, sometimes the hot dogs fly out of their wrappers mid-flight (watch at about the five-minute mark). Very cool. Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:50 pm Probe to Scout Earth-Made BlastsA new mission will study gamma ray bursts above Earth that may be tied to lightning.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:48 pm Hello Kitty charges $891 for a netbook
Manufactured by the same mysterious and omnipresent Taiwanese company that makes and markets all spec-identical netbooks, the HK C1 does not deviate a jot from the standard paradigms: an Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 120GB hard drive and Windows XP in a 10-inch chassis. Value: $350, give or take. But slap a Hello Kitty decal on the lid — the mute, anthropomorphic swaztika of Japan's character culture — and you can apparently get away with charging almost $600 more. Hello Kitty C1 [Geekstuff4u via Slippery Brick] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:47 pm Max Burnets Private Computer MuseumBy Andrew Liszewski I can’t think of a better way to waste a Monday morning than by clicking your way through an online gallery of classic computers. Particularly if it happens to be the collection...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:47 pm Screw $10k MAME cabinets
Class warfare time! The cigarette-burned, peeling plywood contraptions of yesteryear have been transmuted into sanitized fashion accessories for the rich. Born Rich assembles a selection of twelve luxurious table-top arcade games. At first sight, it's another paean to MAME, the software that allows anyone to play these old games on commodity PC hardware. But on second thoughts, all of these things are as obviously unplayable as they are expensive. For the price of just one of these, you can grab half a dozen classic cabinets — including table-tops — in perfect nick. Top 12 luxurious arcade gaming tables [Born Rich] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:38 pm Samsung foldable OLED helps us live the dreamNo real data on what appears to be a prototype FOLED screen that can fold into a smallish cellphone but I want. Every since William Gibson described a computer that folded out like a butterfly in Count Zero I’ve wanted something like this.
That skinny, wonderful man sure was prescient. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:36 pm Video: David Cross for AOL (1995)If only this were funny. Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:27 pm A Quick Peek at the Internet Growth Charts[qi:109] The growth of the Internet is both true and greatly exaggerated depending on which web you look at, according to a rundown of data offered last night by Prof. Andrew M. Odlyzko of the University...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:26 pm South Carolina Wants To Jam Cell Phone SignalsCorey Brook writes "The South Carolina state prison system wants the FCC to grant them and local officers permission to block cell phone signals. News has been out about the growing problem of them perps smuggling cell phones into prisons for a while now. Inmates use cell phones as commerce, to implement fraud, smuggle drugs and weapons, and to order hits. Of course, some may use it to just talk to a loved one any time they can." Hopefully movie theaters and restaurants do it next.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:22 pm Yubz Talk Mobile: Possibly the biggest telephone receiver for cell phones ever
I am not really sure if anyone needs this but Tokyo-based design company Powershovel is selling a very special kind of telephone receiver [JP], you know, the ones you can only see in old movies. The devices, probably last used in the free world in the 1980s, are called Yubz and can be connected to most Japanese handsets. In fact, in the online shop [JP], Powershovel even claims the earpieces can be used with all existing cell phones except for Nokia and Motorola models.
The receivers cost $65 each and are available in black, yellow, pink, red, white and orange ($380 for the whole set). And they are Japan-only, which might not be too bad in this case. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:16 pm IBM joins party in the clouds (CNET)CNET - IBM on Monday unveiled consulting and implementation services for cloud computing, as well as a related validation program.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:14 pm VTech WALL-E Learning LaptopBy Andrew Liszewski I’ll keep my thoughts about WALL-E the movie to myself, since I don’t want the comments for this post to be taken over by the Pixar fanboys, but if you’ve got kids,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:12 pm Art Lebedev Reinvents the Traffic Light
We always thought that the design of the traffic light was just about perfect. But then, we also thought that the boring old keyboard had reached the zenith of its existence until Art Lebedev came along and glued on a bunch of expensive OLEDs, giving the world the Optimus Maximus. Above you see the Luxofor Traffic Light, a rather smart update to the traditional traffic signal. Lebedev moves away from the circular lamp, which was designed for illumination by light bulbs, and places the LEDs found in most new lamps onto a square panel. And that's it. Lebedev says you get more space for the signals, and that they are easier to see. The Luxofor page helpfully has mockups of designs tailored to different cities around the world: New York gets yellow cases, and Tokyo gets a couple of speakers on stalks to, presumably, shout instructions at the crowds of milling pedestrians. Britain, the home of the traffic light, is curiously excluded. We assume that it would come weighed down with extras -- speed detectors, security cameras and child-scaring noise emitters. Lebedev also left out Naples, Italy, presumably because traffic lights there are universally ignored. In fact, their only purpose seems to be to lure unsuspecting tourists into the path of speeding scooters where they will be crushed in a hideous scene simultaneously reminiscent of both Ben Hur and Mad Max. How do I know this? I was there this weekend, and narrowly escaped with my life. Luxofor traffic lights design concept [Art Lebedev via Design Launches] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:11 pm Sea Eagles Might Be Re-Introduced To Native EnglandConservationists are preparing to bring the sea eagle, the UK's biggest bird of prey, back home to England. The bird, nicknamed the "flying barn door" due to it's size, may be reintroduced to Norfolk next year if the plan is approved.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:06 pm iPhone Dev Team Successfully Jailbreaks 2.2 Update - dBTechno
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:03 pm Dell Post-Mortem: Sales Going Down, but Hope for Profit Springs Eternal [Voices]By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily Dell (DELL) hit a new 52-week low today, $8.72, before closing down 51 cents, or 5 percent, at $9.30, after last night reporting sales that missed estimates by a billion dollars and called the global IT demand outlook “challenging.” The stock was downgraded from “Outperform” to “Market Perform” today by Friedman Billings. But at least a couple of analysts are willing to hold onto a “Buy” on the stock, impressed by the company’s ability to cut costs and boost margins last quarter: Citigroup’s Richard Gardner maintains his “Buy” rating while lowering his price target on the stock from $14 to $15, but actually raised his earnings per share estimate for $1.12 to $1.17, noting that Dell’s margins increased in the quarter and the company is in “margin preservation mode.” Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:03 pm Army to utilize $50M, next-gen FPS training system; 24-hour LAN parties imminent
The Army has been using video games to train, and recruit, for years now but in true government fashion, the system is a tad outdated. The $50 million dollar upcoming shooter however, should feature all the goodies found in today’s latest games and more. The virtual worlds are going to be huge - like 100×100 kilometers - and will allow solders to drive vehicles, pilot UAVs, and do “most anything a soldier does.” The new system has a Internet-enabled multiplayer function and can train a platoon or even a single soldier. Plus, there is the video review mode, multi-terrain options, and all the standard features us gamers have been using for years. You know what this sounds like? Battlefield. Just saying. Did the Army spend $50M on an embellished version of Battlefield? Probably. Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:45 pm Mellotron: Eezer Goode even in the 60sBBG found this great video the Mellotron, a tape-based synthesizer that was all the rage with besuited musicians who probably finished this commercial and sat down for a drink or two and thought fondly of their days fighting Jerry. It’s abundantly clear, however, from this video where the Mellotron fits in the modern pantheon - squarely between the Hammond Organ and the 808. It’s quite amazing what a bunch of tape heads, some fragile tape, and a bit of whiskey can do to the entire canon of Western Music. Source: CrunchGear | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:44 pm Surviving Whales Released After Mass StrandingAustralian wildlife rescuers announced Sunday that they effectively released a group of pilot whales back to the ocean following a large stranding of the mammals in Tasmania.Chris Arthur, who led the rescue attempt, stated that 11 of the 64 animals discovered to be stranded on the island's north coast Saturday were freed after a strenuous endeavor that included moving them to another beach."We have successfully released 11 animals out to sea," Arthur said.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:42 pm 'Oil-Less' Turkey Fryer Defies Laws of Physics
The “Oil-Less Turkey Fryer” is a device which looks just like a normal turkey frier, but, as the name suggests, cooks it without oil. This can only be described as a lie. To fry, you need oil. That is the meaning of the word fry. Misleading semantics aside, how does the “fryer” shape up against a real deep-fryer, or even a standard oven? Not very well. My copy of the Larousse Gastronomique recommends cooking the bird for 25 minutes per pound in a 325º F oven. The Perfect Turkey website tells us that in a 425º F oven, an unstuffed 14lb turkey will cook in 112 minutes, or around 8 minutes per pound. The Oil-Less Turkey Fryer claims 8-10 minutes per pound, or roughly the same as your kitchen oven. Real deep frying gets the time down to around 3-5 minutes per pound. The “fryer” uses a propane tank to cook the meat, although judging by the product blurb it does so indirectly, possibly by heating the walls of the container:
That part about sealing in the juices is also wrong. The only way to seal meat is to coat it in plastic or, perhaps, carbonite. Further, the product promises “less fat and cholesterol”. Again, not quite true. Deep frying in hot oil turns water inside the food into steam, creating an outward pressure that will stop oil from penetrating. The only fat that is added is a thin coating on the outside, most of which will drain away when the meat is resting. So, should you buy this device? It might be handy to free up the oven for roast potatoes and other accompaniments, but if you already have a gas-fired barbecue, you could put an unglazed floor-tile or pizza stone inside and just use that instead. Or use a real turkey frier. Or flatten the turkey out and grill it. Anything, really, other than spending $200 on yet another pointless kitchen gimmick. Product page [Frontgate via Uncrate]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:38 pm Competition Causes Cutbacks At PalmAs rivals gobble up bigger pieces of the smart phone market share, struggling phone maker Palm Inc. is cutting its workforce to stay competitive.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:37 pm Has HavenCo's Data Haven Shut Down?secmartin writes "HavenCo, the self-proclaimed data haven located on the micronation Sealand, appears to be offline. Their website is down, and there have been no announcements from either HavenCo or Sealand. HavenCo has been covered here before; it was mostly known for offering hosting of content that might be illegal in other countries. Does anyone have news about what happened to them?" Link To Original SourceRead more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:29 pm Sony Rolls Out Online EntertainmentAn entertainment website backed by Sony Corp is borrowing a television tradition as it unveils a slew of new programs found only on the Internet. Crackle.com is the latest move by a division of a major media company to bolster online entertainment; sketches include L.A.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:15 pm Modern Networking Tools: Swapping Bits, Not Cards
Source: Gizmodo | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:58 pm Glass molecule reproductions from Erowid.org
Above is a picture of the hand-blown recreation of the LSD molecule that I received for making a donation to the Erowid Center, the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization behind Erowid.org. Erowid has been a measured, sane repository for chemical and counterculture information online for twelve years and relies on donations to continue its operation.
Nearly anyone who has looked up drug and entheogenic plant information online has stumbled across — and subsequently been edified by — Erowid. For a subject as politically and personally charged as ingesting chemicals, Erowid remains one of the few rational sources of real-world experience reports, safety warnings, and advocacy of safe but individually accountable drug use available online or elsewhere.
If you're like me, your recreational and experimental drug use has tailed off over the years, but even so, I still use the site as a reference and source of entertainment. (I probably shouldn't laugh, but some of the negative experience reports can be hilarious. Hang on, lil' cowboy!) Moreover, "check out Erowid" is the first advice I offer to a young head. Kids are going to experiment — better they get unbiased information about the risks and rewards of their drug use than rely exclusively on well-meaning but often ignorant peers.
I am proud to give Erowid my money. Throw 'em a buck!
Art Glass Molecules incentives [Erowid.org]Source: Boing Boing | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:57 pm Han Solo Carbonite Thumb Drive
The Han Solo Carbonite USB Flash Drive is possibly the best USB thumb drive ever made. Created by Jasoncreations and sold through the craft site Etsy, the drive is currently sold out. This doesn’t matter. The carbonite slab is just a piece from a commercially available playset, and anyone with a Dremel (or an X-Acto knife and the will to loser a finger) could whip one of these up in a few minutes. The real reason for this post, though, is to spread the word. Hopefully it will get back to Skywalker Ranch, and George Lucas can take time off from ruining the Star Wars franchise to put this into production. And George — while we have your attention, could you do us one more favor? It involves Jar Jar Binks, an old bathtub, a sack of lime and a gun. Product page [Etsy via the Giz]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:51 pm The Dangers of Google Voice Search [Voices]By Nitrozac and Snaggy
Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:44 pm Random House to digitize thousands of books (AP)AP - With e-book sales exploding in an otherwise sleepy market, Random House Inc. announced Monday that it was making thousands of additional books available in digital form, including novels by John Updike and Harlan Coben, as well as several volumes of the "Magic Treehouse" children's series.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:42 pm Hundreds wait at Verizon stores for BlackBerry Storm - Reuters
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:36 pm Hundreds wait at Verizon stores for BlackBerry Storm (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:31 pm IPod Cigarette Case
The iPod is often associated with fitness -- the iconic white headphones dangle from the the ears of joggers around the globe. As a smoker, I have often felt left out. Sure, I have an iPod, but what good is a portable entertainment device if you never leave the house except to walk, wheezing, to the nearest bar for the first carajillo of the morning? Thankfully, I can now take my old iPod and fashion it into a case for my cancer-sticks, just like the one above made by Tara of the Tulip Society blog. Tara doesn't smoke, but made this case from a dead, dropped iPod with a cracked screen to "to impress people at bars and such." She actually painted the screen black, presumably to symbolize the tar-coated lungs of a committed puffer. I'd keep it clear to see the fags inside. I'd also hinge it for quicker access -- the picture seems to show that Tara's mod simply snaps together like a vanilla iPod. Still, who knew that an old classic iPod was just the right size for holding cigarettes? There even seems to be space at the top for a small lighter. This is a lot cooler if you smoke [Tulip society via BBG]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:24 pm Hands-off hackers: Crooks opt for surgical strikes (AP)AP - Internet criminals have been getting more "professional" for years, trying to run their businesses like Big Business to get better and more profitable at selling stolen data online. Now the bad guys of the cyber-underworld are exhibiting other unexpected traits: remarkable patience and restraint in stalking their victims.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 12:16 pm Wii Boxing Gloves: Score Virtual Points for Real Violence
This reminds me of the boxing games I used to play with my brother, back before these new-fangled games consoles existed. We had one pair of gloves. Because they were owned by my brother, he always took the right-hand glove. This left me with a glove on my left hand, but because we are both righties, this meant any blow he landed was softened by his foamy gauntlet, whereas any whack that I managed to connect to his head was made with the full force of my meat and bone fist. He never seemed to learn. Enough of such pleasant reminiscences. If you want the excuse to pummel your pals in the name of fun, the 3.8 oz synthetic-leather gloves are available now for $30 a pair. Product page [Everlast. Thanks, Don!]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 24 Nov 2008 | 11:45 am How About an iPhone OS or Android-based Netbook?perlow (Jason Perlow of ZDNet) suggests that the current crop of netbooks might be missing the boat, when it comes to getting maximum battery life and small-screen usability, and asks "Could Mac OS X iPhone or Google's Android be the key to mass adoption of the next generation of netbooks?" Android looks pretty nice, I admit, but so far I like having full-fledged Ubuntu on my own small computer. He's not the first one to think that the iPhone would be well-employed as the guts of an ultra-portable, though. (Note: it's only a model.)Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 11:31 am Astronauts Venture Out on Final SpacewalkIn this mission's final spacewalk, astronauts hope to finish unjamming a huge joint.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 24 Nov 2008 | 11:18 am Online Holiday Sales: Grim [MediaMemo]
MasterCard Advisors, a unit of the credit card company, says sales in categories like apparel and electronics have dropped more than 19 percent in the first two weeks of November compared to the same time a year ago. E-commerce sales are comparatively better, but they’re still grim–down 7.5 percent, the company says. Bad news, obviously, or Amazon (AMZN), eBay (EBAY) and everyone else who sells stuff online for a living. If you’re looking for a sunnier take, you can cling to more optimistic predictions from the likes of eMarketer, which thinks that e-commerce will eke out a four percent gain in November and December. UPDATE: Fresh prognostication from Barclays Capital (i.e. the investment bank formerly known as Lehman): three percent growth during the holiday season, which is down from the eight percent the research group had previously predicted. Too unpleasant to contemplate early on a Monday morning? Agreed. Let’s think about something more upbeat. I’m pretty sure, for instance, that I am going to be able to buy a very nice television for not much money in the next couple months. I just hope I have a wall to hang it on. [Image Credit: woohoo120] Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 11:00 am Killer open source monitoring tools (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - In the real estate world, the mantra is location, location, location. In the network and server administration world, the mantra is visibility, visibility, visibility. If you don't know what your network and servers are doing at every second of the day, you're flying blind. Sooner or later, you're going to meet with disaster.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 11:00 am Acquisition Dance Between Facebook And Twitter Over For Now?
Apparently talks, which were reportedly initiated by privately-held Facebook, broke down because of doubts on behalf of Twitter investors and executives about the stock’s actual worth, the usual concerns that arise when acquisitions are made (like integration, duration, costs, etc.), and a strong belief that Twitter will ultimately be able to weather the economic downturn on its own. Also noted is Facebook’s concern over Twitter’s current burn rate and future revenue potential. At the recent Web 2.0 Summit, moderator John Battelle asked Mark Zuckerberg on stage if Facebook would be interested in buying Twitter. The young Facebook CEO’s response was: “we’re really impressed by what they’ve done”, and that they have “a very elegant model”. We’re trying to get more out of the companies and will update this post if there’s anything else to add. For comparison: Facebook has raised $516 million in funding to date, while Twitter is backed by $20 million in investment. Twitter boasts 6 million active users, while Facebook reports more than 120 million. Noteworthy caveat: serial entrepreneur and angel investor Marc Andreessen is sitting on both sides of the fence, being both an early investor in Twitter and a member of Facebook’s Board of Directors. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 10:39 am Sony’s Crackle Adding Web Shows, More Professional Content Comes Directly To The Web
Sony’s media business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, will be using the types of production techniques that it puts into movies and TV to resemble other online programming by staying short, often no more than five minutes long, reports Reuters. Crackle’s season begins December 1. Last August, Sony Pictures partnered up with Rocketboom, acquiring the worldwide distribution rights to Rocketboom.com in all media, putting the daily show on Crackle.com, presenting the show with a Crackle player on the Rocketboom.com website and distributing it over its syndication network. See RocketBoom founder Andrew Baron’s take on the upcoming announcement here. Crackle used to be Grouper, before Sony bought the startup for a reported $65 million in the Summer of 2006. The Reuters report cites 2.4 million visitors in October, according to research firm The Nielsen Online Co., while Compete shows higher number and a nice growth pattern.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 10:22 am Why Did Google Discontinue SearchMash?Whether you like SearchWiki, the new voting and commenting feature for search results Google introduced last week, or not, it was undeniably a bold move for the company to turn on the feature for everyone with a Google account at once instead of gradually releasing it.
SearchMash was an experimental, non-branded search engine that Google used to be able to play around with new search technologies, concepts and interfaces. It was first introduced in October 2006, and unveiled to the public exactly one year after that. Some people actually traded in Google’s search engine for SearchMash, were apparently quite pleased with the experience and are now sad to see it go. The service wasn’t meant to attract a mass of users, but rather for Google to play around with meta-search features (results for web, images, video and Wikipedia were blended together), third-party integration (it used Snap for previewing landing pages of outside links), user interface experiments (like ‘infinite scroll’ that allowed you to view as many search results on the same page) and technologies (it had an Ajax and Flash / Flex version). There’s something inherently strange about Google not having used SearchMash as a playground for trying out the SearchWiki features, and even more so that they decided to quietly kill it while at the same launching the latter.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 10:02 am When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled [BoomTown]
About three weeks ago, Facebook and Twitter ended several weeks of serious talks, in which Facebook was offering to acquire Twitter for $500 million of its stock. While rumors of Facebook’s interest were brought up in an interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Web 2.0 Summit a few weeks ago, some shot down the idea as silly. Quite incorrectly, as it turns out, since top execs at both Facebook and Twitter were right then at the tail end of discussions, which were initiated by the privately-held Facebook in mid-October, about bringing the two together. Those talks, sources on both sides said, are now over. So why did the deal break down? Well, as is usually the case, over price–was $500 million worth of Facebook stock actually worth $500 million?–and the typical concerns about integration and costs. But, more important, it seems, was a feeling among Twitter investors and execs that the start-up should still take a shot at building its revenues–there are none right now–as well as it had done at building its growth.
“It’s more about timing,” said one person familiar with Twitter’s motivations. “There is a strong feeling that there is still an opportunity–even with the economic downturn–to blow this thing out.” Still, combining the world’s fastest-growing social networking site with what is quickly becoming the best-known microblogging service is actually a natural fit. That’s especially true, given that Facebook–for all its powerful online social connections–has seen Twitter race past it in innovating in the “status update” arena. While some sources at Facebook said Zuckerberg was becoming frustrated by the buzz Twitter was getting–a market that should have been dominated by Facebook–others at the company said he was interested in buying Twitter because of his respect for its progress.
Indeed, at the Web 2.0 interview, Zuckerberg called Twitter an “elegant model” and that he was “really impressed by what they’ve done.” Indeed, with about six million registrations, as reported in October, up 600 percent over the last year, the San Francisco-based Twitter–launched in 2006–has had impressive growth.
(It has also been plagued by technical issues, which are–to be fair–decreasing.) In any case, for those not familiar with it, the premise of Twitter is dead simple: A registered user logs in via the Internet or a mobile phone and answer the “What are you doing?” question the service asks in only 140 characters or fewer. It’s quite a clever idea, although–so far–not a money-making one. To try to goose that, Twitter’s board replace the engineer who created Twitter, Jack Dorsey, with another founder, Evan Williams, who had served as its chairman and chief product officer.
The more experienced Williams (pictured here) had already built one company–Pyra Labs, which created the Blogger blogging service–that he sold to Google in 2003. He also started the audio and video search site Odeo, where Twitter was actually born. Still, its investors have not come down on Twitter to hold back its growth efforts, and have handed over $20 million to the start-up so far. In its last round, Twitter was valued at $98 million. Its funders include: Union Square Ventures, Charles River Ventures, Digital Garage, Spark Capital and Bezos Expeditions, backed by Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. In addition, well-known Silicon Valley figures, such as Marc Andreessen and Ron Conway, have also invested. Interestingly, Andreessen is also on Facebook’s board. Other private investors include FeedBurner Co-Founder (and now Googler) Dick Costolo, former Epinions Co-Founder Naval Ravikant and former Googler Chris Sacca. Twitter needs all the investors it can get, since it has no revenue, although it has been exploring things like charging business customers and adding advertising into the consumer service. Lack of revenues was an issue for Facebook, said sources, especially related to fees Twitter pays for delivery of its messages to cell phones. While the issue has been manageable in the U.S., Twitter cut off its SMS support in some international markets this summer because of too-high costs. But, if Twitter was offered to Facebook’s 120 million users, Facebook execs estimated that it might have to deal with huge SMS fees–up to $75 million annually. “Facebook has its own revenue-generating challenges,” said one person close to the company. “As much as Twitter would give them a lift in the status area, it was still a worry.” Not enough, said several sources, to stop Facebook from making another approach at some point in the future. “We’d hate to see Twitter go to another company,” said one source. Indeed, while all are even more price-conscious than Facebook, large companies that could also be interested include: Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT) or a large telecom company, such as Verizon (VZ). If it had completed the deal to buy Twitter, it would have been Facebook’s most significant acquisition by far. But in this time, at least, the Twitter side was still not interested in selling at the price Facebook had offered.
The $500 million offered was in an all-stock form, said sources on both sides, at the $15 billion valuation that came from the Microsoft investment in the company last October. The Twitter side felt that figure was inflated and the shares should be valued at the lower figures that have also been reported for Facebook’s true valuation, more in the $5 billion range. That would have given the deal a $150 million price tag, which was seen as too low, especially since it was in Facebook stock and not cash. In fact, Twitter wanted cash, which was not possible for Facebook, or Facebook stock at an even lower valuation that $5 billion. But, said several sources close to Twitter, the primary reason for not selling was because its board simply did not want to yet or perhaps ever. Said one source: “The question is, is it really a good idea to sell on the first chance you get?” Well, for Twitter, we’ll just have to wait and see about that, of course. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:45 am Dell Post-Mortem: Sales Going Down, but Hope for Profit Springs Eternal [Voices]By Tiernan Ray, Blogger, Tech Trader Daily, Barron\’s Dell (DELL) hit a new 52-week low today, $8.72, before closing down 51 cents, or five percent, at $9.30, after last night reporting sales that missed estimates by a billion dollars and called the global IT demand outlook “challenging.” The stock was downgraded from “Outperform” to “Market Perform” today by Friedman Billings. But at least a couple of analysts are willing to hold onto a “Buy” on the stock, impressed by the company’s ability to cut costs and boost margins last quarter. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:29 am Australia's Largest Private Computer Collection in PicturesDa Massive writes "UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, Commodore's C64, Apple's Lisa, a MITS Altair 8800 made famous by Bill Gates, through to a working PDP-11 that plays the ADVENTURE and DUNGEON games. Max Burnet has got it all. Burnet has turned his home in the leafy suburbs of Sydney into arguably Australia's, if not the world's, largest private computer museum. Since retiring as director of Digital Equipment Corporation a decade ago, Burnet has converted his home into a snapshot of computer history. Every available space from his basement to the top floor of his two-storey home is covered with relics from the past. On top of his hardware collection are numerous punch cards, tape machines (including the original paper tape) and over 6000 computer reference books. So in demand is his collection that one Australian film called on him to recreate a computer setting (PDP-9) for a movie about the moon landing in 1969."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:18 am A Call for Revolution Against Beta Culture [Voices]By Jesus Diaz, Senior Associate Editor, Gizmodo I’m tired of this. This sense of permanent discomfort with the technology around me. The bugs. The compromises. The firmware upgrades. The “This will work in the next version.” The “It’s in our roadmap.” The “Buy now and upgrade later.” The patches. The new low development standards that make technology fail because it wasn’t tested enough before reaching our hands. The feeling now extends to hardware: Everything is built to end up in the trash a year later, still half-baked, to make room for the next hardware revision. I’m tired of this beta culture that has spread like metastatic cancer in the last few years, starting with software from Google (GOOG) and others and ending up in almost every gadget and computer system around. We need a change. Take the iPhone, for example, one of the most successful products in the history of consumer electronics. We like it, I love mine, but the fact is that the first generation was rushed out, lacking basic features that were added in later releases or are not here yet. Worse: The iPhone 3G was really broken. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:04 am When Everyone Can Mine Your Data [Voices]By Taylor Buley, Staff Reporter, Forbes Roelof Temmingh has a knack for stirring up trouble. The 35 year-old South African electronic engineer has fought legal battles with financial institutions, developed theoretical models for cyberterrorism and served as a technical adviser for a book about how hackers could take over the continent of Africa. But Temmingh’s latest exploit could make the most last impact. He has created a tool he calls Maltego that lets just about anybody do the kind of data mining that in the past only fraud investors, government specialists and hackers typically could do. Since Temmingh released the first commercial version of Maltego this past summer, even several national intelligence agencies have made use of the software, he says. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:03 am Second Life’s Death Knell [Voices]By Owen Thomas, Managing Editor, Valleywag Google (GOOG) has shut down Lively, a service where people log on to chat and explore 3D virtual spaces, after a few short months. The MBAs of Silicon Valley have a pat phrase for the arrival of a competitor on the scene: They say it “validates their space.” What does it say, then, that Lively is gone? It means that Second Life, the best known of these unreal universes, is doomed, too. The notion of a metaverse has long fascinated geeks. The idea of “avatars”–three-dimensional representations of the self rendered in pixels, often fantastical or surreal in nature–wandering through a computer-generated environment has been explored in the science-fiction novels of Neal Stephenson, William Gibson, and Bruce Sterling, among others. The Matrix trilogy introduced the idea at multiplexes from coast to coast. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:02 am Is Apple scared of RIM? [Voices]By Don Reisinger, Blogger, The Digital Home, CNET Is it a coincidence that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 2.2 update was released on the same day the BlackBerry Storm hit stores with a touch screen, 3G connectivity, and enterprise-friendly functionality that rivals anything Apple has on the market? I think not. Today’s iPhone update is Apple’s first salvo of many in its fight against Research In Motion (RIMM) for dominance over the cell phone industry. Some might say Apple’s decision to update the iPhone is pure coincidence, but I don’t think that the company is that naive. Apple realizes that RIM is releasing a major offering that could shake Steve Jobs and Co. to its core, and it doesn’t want anyone to think it’s not doing everything it can to continually update its own product. Source: All Things Digital | 24 Nov 2008 | 8:01 am Be-A-Magpie Is PayPerPost For Twitter
Advertisers pay on a cost-per-thousand-impression basis, and the ads are promised to be delivered to relevant audiences based on keywords. That means Be-A-Magpie will analyze the content of your Twitter messages to see if there is a match to particular advertisers. The TechCrunch Twitter account, with 31,000 followers, can earn a whopping €14,410.51 per month, it says. The service auto-determines the number of ads to insert per legitimate Twitter message - the default is one ad for every five Tweets. The service inserts the ads automatically by storing your Twitter credentials. As for disclosure - well, there really isn’t any. A #magpie hashtag is added to each Tweet, but that’s it. It’s not clear if Twitter will object to this. Their terms and conditions don’t specifically exclude it, but an amendment may be in order. There is a good discussion here, started by Robert Scoble, on whether it should be banned. Users may not be so forgiving though. I imagine anyone who starts to use this will see a sudden decline in followers rather quickly. You can tell who’s already signed up for the service - the company is using those accounts to spread word about itself virally:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 7:51 am Someone left a piano in the woodsI hope that whomever left this working piano in the woods of Harwich, Massachusetts was planning on coming back every night and beating the hell out of the keys with some kind of all-night swing session, playing and playing as the piano deteriorated through the fall and winter, going mushier and wetter, until all that would come out of it was its own funeral march.
Mystery piano in woods perplexes police Source: Boing Boing | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:46 am Little Brother German fan-translation Christian Wohrl undertook a German fan-translation of my novel Little Brother, working on his daily train-commute. He's just finished the work and posted "version 1" on his site. The whole text is CC licensed, of course!
"Little Brother" auf Deutsch
(Thanks, Christian!) Source: Boing Boing | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:42 am Autumn leaves stuck in fresh tarmac Susan sez, "On one of the roads I walk by on my morning commute, the ground was re-paved and a bunch of leaves got stuck into the pavement. It is so beautiful!" Leaves stuck in the pavement on Cromwell (Thanks, Susan!) Source: Boing Boing | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:36 am American youth trail in Internet use: survey (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:19 am Multi Theft Auto - San Andreas Goes Open Sourcedan writes " Multi Theft Auto is a third-party modification for Rockstar's hit title Grand Theft Auto San Andreas — and it has become open-source after over four years of closed source development. As a (somewhat) regular player of MTA since the early days of GTAIII, this hit me by surprise, somewhat." (The news is on the project's front page, from which dan extracts more details, below.)Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:10 am New Longevity Drugs Poised to Tackle Diseases of AgingA new class of drugs catching on with research labs across the country promises to tackle diseases of aging at a common root. The result could be a true silver-bullet cure for diseases including cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer's.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am Nov. 24, 1903: Starting Your Car Gets a Bit Easier1903: Clyde J. Coleman is issued a patent for an electric automobile starter. Coleman originally applied for the patent in 1899, but his early designs proved impractical. The need for this kind of starter for an internal combustion engine was obvious. Automobiles were getting larger, and hand-cranking — the method used to get the pistons moving in order to make ignition possible — was not only cumbersome, but physically demanding and potentially injurious. The hand cranks in use at the time were built with an overrun mechanism meant to disengage the crank from the spinning drive shaft, but it was designed to work in forward drive only. If the car backfired, the engine could slip into reverse, forcing the crank backward sharply. The result could be a broken thumb, or worse. The electric starter motor, when perfected, meant the end of the hand-cranked automobile. Coleman sold his patent to the Delco Company, which was taken over by General Motors. Charles Kettering, a Delco engineer who joined GM, did some tinkering with Coleman's design and received his own patent for an improved version. The 1912 model Cadillac became the first car to replace the hand crank with an electric starter motor. Most automobile manufacturers switched over to the electric starter during the teens, although Ford's Model T continued using the hand crank through 1919. With the exception of those old Model T's, almost every car on the road boasted an electric starter by 1920. Source: GM, Wikipedia
Source: Wired Top Stories | 24 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am Japanese Import: Hori Classic Controller for WiiFROM GAMERTELL - Hori “Classic Controller” for Wii coming Nov. 27 MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:45 am Psystar Case Reveals Poor Email Archiving At AppleIan Lamont writes "Buried in the court filings of the recently concluded Psytar antitrust suit against Apple is a document that discussed Apple's corporate policy regarding employee email. Apparently, Apple has no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting email. This could potentially run afoul of e-discovery requirements, which have tripped up other companies that have been unable to produce emails and other electronic files in court. A lawyer quoted in the article (but not involved in the case) called Apple's retention policy 'negligent.' However, the issue did not help Psystar's lawsuit against Apple — a judge dismissed the case earlier this week."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:03 am Gallery: On the Job With Wired.com Readers and Their High-Tech Toys : We always knew our readers were tech-savvy, but the submissions to our call for company gear photos left us humbled. Click through the gallery to see the badass gear that our readers work with everyday. Jeremy Chittenden, 29, from Bradenton, Florida, and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana Job: Diving Tender/ROV technician at Divecon Services About the equipment: "We use the Hysub 20, aka 'Victor,' to do underwater inspection and survey. It has 1 high-res color video camera and two silicon-intensified tube video cameras. We use these cameras to document underwater structures visually as well as Cathodic Potential measurements, water temperature, salinity and pH measurements. "All these measurements are recorded onto DVD through the ROV's heads up display. Victor has two hydraulic manipulators we can take samples with and remove debris from structures. The work spans from pipelines, platforms, communication cables, dams, biological-geological surveys, as well as search and recovery."  : Job: Film director/producer for Junco Films (2 years) and former IT consultant About the equipment: "The equipment is principally a film-editing platform. I designed it to solve the high-demanding capabilities of a high-definition-editing desktop computer in a semi-transportable and resistant option."  : Job: Freelance photographer specializing in advertising (still life and special effects) and fashion (38 years) About the equipment: "The rig in the photo was for an extreme close-up while shooting a series of images I'm working on. Inset is the whole thistle in the shot and the other of the macro image so you can get a sense of magnification."  : Job: Instrument technician for analytical lab equipment, mostly HPLCs and MS systems, at Isotechnika (1½ years) About the equipment: "This piece of equipment is a 400-MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. It helps determine the purity of a chemical compound, some structural information of an unknown or verify it is what we thought it should be. "It operates by having a very large superconducting magnet (which is cooled by liquid helium inside another dewar of liquid nitrogen) that aligns all the paramagnetic atoms in a molecule (such as H-1, C-13, P-31). Then it probes at them with a smaller, controlled magnet and records how they respond through things like spin coupling. The 2 Varian Mercury boxes on the left side control the probe and record all the spectral information."  : Job: Self-employed IT jack-of-all-trades and web host About the equipment: "It is a StorageTek (now Sun) Timberwolf 9730 robotic DLT tape library. A robotic arm takes all of the tedium out of changing tapes for huge backup jobs. I can set a backup to go and come back days later and the job has completed without ever having to touch a tape or even open the tape vault."  : Job: Programmer and analyst with UCO/Lick Observatory, specializing in human/computer interfaces and the handling of real-time pixel streams from the telescope detectors (20 years) About the equipment: "It is the cryogenic dewar containing the mosaic of eight 2048 x 4096 CCDs along with its support electronics. All used for the Deimos spectrograph now operating at the Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. View Keck's operational pages for Deimos here. "The dewar is now inside Deimos, the silvery thing seen here sitting on the railroad tracks that roll it up to the white Keck 2 telescope. More photos here."  : Job: Marketing and sales for Air Methods Corporation (7 years) About the equipment: "The equipment in the picture is our custom instrument panel for the Eurocopter EC145 helicopter. Our company takes 'green' aircraft from the factory and performs very complex modifications, converting the cabin into a flying trauma center, and installing the latest equipment to help the pilot navigate the aircraft safely in all types of weather."  : Job: Research assistant (1 year) About the equipment: "The equipment is a DNA synthesizer. It uses DMT amidite chemistry to synthesize oligonucleotides. There are bottles of chemicals in the front of the machine. One for A, C, T, and G. There are also eight or so other chemicals that are used in the synthesis. You can basically type in a sequence, such as: ATTCGGATACG, and hit go. If you have all the right chemicals etc. you will have a strand of DNA at the end."  : Job: Owner of Digital Capture Systems, a digital-tech company for photographers (2 years) About the equipment: "The van is for onsite digital support for photographers. The equipment inside consists of two 8-core Mac Pros with 16 GB of RAM and 6 interior hard drives. Each Mac Pro has a 30" Apple Cinema Display and each has the ability to run both displays in dual display mode. There is also a 5-disk MacGurus SATA Burly Enclosure that each Mac Pro can share. "The first workstation is used primarily for capture, whether tethered to a Medium Format Digital Back, a 35mm DSLR or downloading from memory cards. The Digital Tech on this workstation makes sure the images are checked as they come into the computer for the desired exposure, sharpness, etc. The selects are then processed out to be retouched on the second workstation and/or placed into a layout. The layouts or finished files can then either be printed out, e-mailed or placed on a hard drive for delivery. "All this is powered by two 4D lead-acid batteries that are energized by a solar panel or a 150-amp alternator on the engine. When we need to run the air conditioning unit or power additional power outlets, we have a 5000-watt generator under the back of the van. Both the engine and generator run on biodiesel and we plan to switch to 100 percent waste vegetable oil in the near future. "In addition to the AC unit, there is a three-person-wide sofa in the back for clients to relax on with a modest-sized desk for laptops as well as 3Gx2 WiFi, a fridge/freezer combo, a microwave, and we are planning on the addition of a espresso maker."  : Job: Defense researcher at the National University of Singapore working on the development of armor materials and systems (1½ years). About the equipment: "The equipment is a Claymore antipersonnel mine, it is one of the most widely used antipersonnel weapons in the world and poses a great threat [to] soldiers and civilians. My job is to design armor materials and systems to protect people against such mines and I use them to test the effectiveness of the prototypes."  : Job: Air traffic control trainee for the Federal Aviation Administration (1½ years) About the equipment: "The main displays are our ARTS IIe scopes that present aircraft under our control in the form of datablocks. Each datablock includes the aircraft's call sign (such as DAL123), altitude, speed, aircraft type, destination and which sector is talking to that airplane. We have nine of these scopes, allowing us to delegate sectors (and the traffic within those sectors) as it gets too busy for one person to handle. Depending on the time of day, we'll have around five or six scopes going, sometimes more. "The items surrounding each scope include:  : Job: Research associate at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (2 years) About the equipment: "The equipment shown is a cryostat in a clean-room facility, 2500 feet underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. This is part of the EXO-200 experiment, which is a search for a rare nuclear decay called neutrinoless double beta decay. The cryostat holds the main detector, which we use to 'look' or detect the decay, if and when it happens."  : Job: Ph.D. student at the Laboratoire de l Accélérateur Linéaire, or LAL, Intranet in Orsay, the biggest particle-physics lab in France — including the Atlas experiment, one of the two general-purpose experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva (2½ years) About the equipment: "The equipment in the photo is the Atlas detector. Its aim is to detect and record the outcome of head-to-head collisions of protons at very high center-of-mass energy in the LHC. Those will help probing the mysteries of modern physics among which [are] the existence of the Higgs boson, dark matter, supersymmetry, extra-dimensions and more." Source: Wired: Gadgets | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:00 am Gallery: On the Job With Wired.com Readers and Their High-Tech Toys: We always knew our readers were tech-savvy, but the submissions to our call for company gear photos left us humbled. Click through the gallery to see the badass gear that our readers work with everyday. Jeremy Chittenden, 29, from Bradenton, Florida, and currently living in Lafayette, Louisiana Job: Diving Tender/ROV technician at Divecon Services About the equipment: "We use the Hysub 20, aka 'Victor,' to do underwater inspection and survey. It has 1 high-res color video camera and two silicon-intensified tube video cameras. We use these cameras to document underwater structures visually as well as Cathodic Potential measurements, water temperature, salinity and pH measurements. "All these measurements are recorded onto DVD through the ROV's heads up display. Victor has two hydraulic manipulators we can take samples with and remove debris from structures. The work spans from pipelines, platforms, communication cables, dams, biological-geological surveys, as well as search and recovery." : Job: Film director/producer for Junco Films (2 years) and former IT consultant About the equipment: "The equipment is principally a film-editing platform. I designed it to solve the high-demanding capabilities of a high-definition-editing desktop computer in a semi-transportable and resistant option." : Job: Freelance photographer specializing in advertising (still life and special effects) and fashion (38 years) About the equipment: "The rig in the photo was for an extreme close-up while shooting a series of images I'm working on. Inset is the whole thistle in the shot and the other of the macro image so you can get a sense of magnification." : Job: Instrument technician for analytical lab equipment, mostly HPLCs and MS systems, at Isotechnika (1½ years) About the equipment: "This piece of equipment is a 400-MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. It helps determine the purity of a chemical compound, some structural information of an unknown or verify it is what we thought it should be. "It operates by having a very large superconducting magnet (which is cooled by liquid helium inside another dewar of liquid nitrogen) that aligns all the paramagnetic atoms in a molecule (such as H-1, C-13, P-31). Then it probes at them with a smaller, controlled magnet and records how they respond through things like spin coupling. The 2 Varian Mercury boxes on the left side control the probe and record all the spectral information." : Job: Self-employed IT jack-of-all-trades and web host About the equipment: "It is a StorageTek (now Sun) Timberwolf 9730 robotic DLT tape library. A robotic arm takes all of the tedium out of changing tapes for huge backup jobs. I can set a backup to go and come back days later and the job has completed without ever having to touch a tape or even open the tape vault." : Job: Programmer and analyst with UCO/Lick Observatory, specializing in human/computer interfaces and the handling of real-time pixel streams from the telescope detectors (20 years) About the equipment: "It is the cryogenic dewar containing the mosaic of eight 2048 x 4096 CCDs along with its support electronics. All used for the Deimos spectrograph now operating at the Keck Observatory on the summit of Mauna Kea. View Keck's operational pages for Deimos here. "The dewar is now inside Deimos, the silvery thing seen here sitting on the railroad tracks that roll it up to the white Keck 2 telescope. More photos here." : Job: Marketing and sales for Air Methods Corporation (7 years) About the equipment: "The equipment in the picture is our custom instrument panel for the Eurocopter EC145 helicopter. Our company takes 'green' aircraft from the factory and performs very complex modifications, converting the cabin into a flying trauma center, and installing the latest equipment to help the pilot navigate the aircraft safely in all types of weather." : Job: Research assistant (1 year) About the equipment: "The equipment is a DNA synthesizer. It uses DMT amidite chemistry to synthesize oligonucleotides. There are bottles of chemicals in the front of the machine. One for A, C, T, and G. There are also eight or so other chemicals that are used in the synthesis. You can basically type in a sequence, such as: ATTCGGATACG, and hit go. If you have all the right chemicals etc. you will have a strand of DNA at the end." : Job: Owner of Digital Capture Systems, a digital-tech company for photographers (2 years) About the equipment: "The van is for onsite digital support for photographers. The equipment inside consists of two 8-core Mac Pros with 16 GB of RAM and 6 interior hard drives. Each Mac Pro has a 30" Apple Cinema Display and each has the ability to run both displays in dual display mode. There is also a 5-disk MacGurus SATA Burly Enclosure that each Mac Pro can share. "The first workstation is used primarily for capture, whether tethered to a Medium Format Digital Back, a 35mm DSLR or downloading from memory cards. The Digital Tech on this workstation makes sure the images are checked as they come into the computer for the desired exposure, sharpness, etc. The selects are then processed out to be retouched on the second workstation and/or placed into a layout. The layouts or finished files can then either be printed out, e-mailed or placed on a hard drive for delivery. "All this is powered by two 4D lead-acid batteries that are energized by a solar panel or a 150-amp alternator on the engine. When we need to run the air conditioning unit or power additional power outlets, we have a 5000-watt generator under the back of the van. Both the engine and generator run on biodiesel and we plan to switch to 100 percent waste vegetable oil in the near future. "In addition to the AC unit, there is a three-person-wide sofa in the back for clients to relax on with a modest-sized desk for laptops as well as 3Gx2 WiFi, a fridge/freezer combo, a microwave, and we are planning on the addition of a espresso maker." : Job: Defense researcher at the National University of Singapore working on the development of armor materials and systems (1½ years). About the equipment: "The equipment is a Claymore antipersonnel mine, it is one of the most widely used antipersonnel weapons in the world and poses a great threat [to] soldiers and civilians. My job is to design armor materials and systems to protect people against such mines and I use them to test the effectiveness of the prototypes." : Job: Air traffic control trainee for the Federal Aviation Administration (1½ years) About the equipment: "The main displays are our ARTS IIe scopes that present aircraft under our control in the form of datablocks. Each datablock includes the aircraft's call sign (such as DAL123), altitude, speed, aircraft type, destination and which sector is talking to that airplane. We have nine of these scopes, allowing us to delegate sectors (and the traffic within those sectors) as it gets too busy for one person to handle. Depending on the time of day, we'll have around five or six scopes going, sometimes more. "The items surrounding each scope include: : Job: Research associate at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (2 years) About the equipment: "The equipment shown is a cryostat in a clean-room facility, 2500 feet underground at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. This is part of the EXO-200 experiment, which is a search for a rare nuclear decay called neutrinoless double beta decay. The cryostat holds the main detector, which we use to 'look' or detect the decay, if and when it happens." : Job: Ph.D. student at the Laboratoire de l Accélérateur Linéaire, or LAL, Intranet in Orsay, the biggest particle-physics lab in France — including the Atlas experiment, one of the two general-purpose experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva (2½ years) About the equipment: "The equipment in the photo is the Atlas detector. Its aim is to detect and record the outcome of head-to-head collisions of protons at very high center-of-mass energy in the LHC. Those will help probing the mysteries of modern physics among which [are] the existence of the Higgs boson, dark matter, supersymmetry, extra-dimensions and more."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 24 Nov 2008 | 2:00 am Microsoft To Rebrand Search. Will It Be Kumo?
Now LiveSide is saying there’s evidence the new search brand will be Kumo, which means “cloud” or “spider” in Japanese. Why would Microsoft go through yet another rebranding effort? Live.com has a lot of different services under its umbrella (some server software, some client software) in addition to search. It’s also a burgeoning social network. Over time, we’ve heard, Live.com will become a pure social network and personal productivity portal. You’ll go there to access email, calendar, photos, activity streams, etc. But search belongs somewhere else, and it definitely needs a fresh start. Microsoft won’t comment on the name change, or even if there is a name change. But our sources caution us that nothing has been finalized, and the fate of Yahoo could swing this one way or another as well. So Kumo may very well be the name Microsoft is planning to use, but that decision may change. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:50 am PC Magazine goes digital, might Electronic Gaming Monthly be next?FROM GAMERTELL - Ziff Davis has announced that PC Magazine will no longer exist in print after its January 20090 issue, ending its 27-year legacy. Ziff Davis won’t make a decision about EGM’s print fate this year… MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 24 Nov 2008 | 1:05 am Dropped Shuttle Toolbag Filmed From Earthcathector writes "An article at spaceweather.com reports that the toolbag dropped during Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper's spacewalk has been recorded on film from earth: 'When Endeavour astronaut Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper dropped her toolbag during a spacewalk on Nov. 18th and it floated away, mission controllers probably figured they'd seen the last of it. Think again. Last night, Nov. 22nd, veteran satellite observer Kevin Fetter video-recorded the backpack-sized bag gliding over his backyard observatory in Brockville, Ontario. "It was easily 8th magnitude or brighter as it passed by the 4th magnitude star eta Pisces," he says. Spaceweather's satellite tracker is monitoring the toolbag.'" The actual loss of the bag was filmed, too; reader Kagura links in a comment on the original story to this YouTube clip of the bag's escape.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Nov 2008 | 11:49 pm Gadgetell Listens: Gibson Presents: Hot Tones on HDtracksSection: Audio, Computers, Desktops, Reviews, Originals, Web, Downloads, Websites, Online Music/Video, Features
Recently, Gibson partnered up with HDtracks to offer their own special album in HD and I quickly jumped on the opportunity to listen to the music in HD. Before I start talking about the quality of the music, I want to briefly go over the download and installation process. This way if you want to purchase something off HDtracks, you will know how it works ahead of time. Installation
HD Music - is it really worth it?Music, just like videos, come in different quality standards. Some are specially encoded to take up less space on your hard drive, meaning that such music won’t be as of high quality as music that is fully uncompressed which would take up a lot of space. Now, when I downloaded the Gibson album, I went with MP3 format encoded in 320kbps, I figured that most people would download it this way as well. However, you can also download it in AIFF and FLAC formats. Once the music started playing, I could definitely hear the difference between this and my normal music. The song seemed to have much more “life,“ if you will, as well as a lot more clarity. It was possible to hear the individual notes and instruments during the song.
Final opinionsI love music, but all I really need are normal songs, it doesn’t have to be high quality or HD. For me, I would spend my $2.49 on a single song or $15.98 for an album somewhere else. That being said, if I really cared about my music and wanted the absolute best quality, I might be inclined to purchase my music from HDtracks. If they lower their prices a bit, I could see them becoming pretty popular. Download the Album [HDtracks] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 23 Nov 2008 | 11:13 pm Astronauts work on urine recyclerU.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 11:13 pm Video: Multi-touch on the G1Caution: Pink Floyd blasting as soon as you hit “play” I’m pumped about this because I just got a G1. This video shows a pretty basic paint program tracking two inputs at once — it’s pretty hacked together but it clearly works okay. We knew it was possible technically, now we see it’s possible practically, and hopefully soon we’ll see it supported officially. More info at the developer RyeBrye’s blog. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: MobileCrunch | 23 Nov 2008 | 10:51 pm Sparechange.govWhile we're waiting for the new economic stimulus plan to be unveiled on change.gov, or while we're waiting for it to kick-in, how about developing a backup plan at sparechange.gov?
Here's Tom Waits in a YouTube video singing the Depression-era "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", lyrics by Yip Harburg, music by Jay Gorney (1931). It's a little rougher than the traditionally smooth Bing Crosby version.
There are more and more people all around us needing our help.
Source: Boing Boing | 23 Nov 2008 | 10:45 pm A Computer Composing and Playing JazzRoland Piquepaille writes "The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has some unusual teaching programs. One PhD student, Øyvind Brandtsegg, is a graduate of the jazz program and this article describes how has developed a computer program and a musical instrument for improvisation. The PhD student is 36 years old and is at the same time a composer, a musician and computer programmer. His 'computer instrument' can take any recorded sound as input and split it into a number of very short sound particles that can last for between 1 and 10 milliseconds. 'These fragments may be infinitely reshuffled, making it possible to vary the music with no change in the fundamental theme.'" Brandtsegg improvisational software is called ImproSculpt; his site contains several selections from his musical output, including "some pieces made with the predecessor of ImproSculpt," called FollowMe.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Nov 2008 | 10:40 pm iPhone status indicators tell you about your phone, save battery lifeFROM APPLETELL - Apple wants to incorporate some sort of dual backlight system into their devices like the iPhone and iPod Touch in order to show the user the status of their phone without killing battery life. MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 23 Nov 2008 | 10:02 pm Rats trained to sniff landmines, TBRats in Africa have been trained to use their sensitive noses for the benefit of humankind by sniffing out landmines and diagnosing tuberculosis. The rats involved in finding landmines in Mozambique have been bred to be the size of raccoons, The Boston Globe reports.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 8:47 pm Molecular Memory A Game-ChangerA team at Rice University has determined that a strip of graphite only 10 atoms thick can serve as the basic element in a new type of memory, making massive amounts of storage available for computers, handheld media players, cell phones and cameras.In new research available online in Nature Materials, Rice professor James Tour and postdoctoral researchers Yubao Li and Alexander Sinitskii describe a solid-state device that takes advantage of the conducting properties of graphene.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Nov 2008 | 8:15 pm Wal-Mart leaks out full Black Friday dealsSection: Video, HDTV, Computers, Desktops, Gadgets / Other, GPS/Navigation, Imaging, Camcorders, Digital Cameras
CamcordersThey only have 2 camcorders listed for sale and one is the Pure Digital F230 camcorder which is selling for $79.00. The other is the Samsung SC-DX103 Black DVD Camcorder. It comes with a 2.7-inch wide LCD screen, 34x Optical Zoom, and SD memory expansion. This camcorder will be on sale for $179.00. CDs and DVDsI won’t go through all the CD’s and DVD’s that they have on sale, but most of them range from $2-$15. Desktop ComputersFirst off, they are selling HP’s A526 photo printer for $49.00. Need more storage space? Wal-Mart has the Seagate’s 3.5-inch 500GB external hard drive for $69.00. Next, we have Dell’s I531S-115W, which comes with a 19 inch LCD screen, 4GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive all for $598.00. The other computer they have for sale is HP’s Pavilion a6683w-b computer which also comes with a 19 inch monitor, 2GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive - all for $398.00. Digital CamerasFirst, we have Kodak’s CD1013 10 megapixel camera, which is selling for $79.00. Next, we have Kodak’s ZD8612 Big Zoom 8mp camera, which is selling for $149.00. Lastly, we have Samsung’s 10.2mp camera which is an early bird special selling for $69.00. GPSLet’s talk about the Garmin Nuvi 200. It comes with a 3.5-inch touch screen, preloaded maps of the U.S., Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, 2D or 3D maps, and turn-by-turn voice guidance. This GPS will be selling for $97.00. Next, we have the Magellan RoadMate 1412 for $147.00. Also from Magellan is the Triton 400 handheld GPS for $168.00. HDTVsFor HDTVs, I will list them from the smallest screen to the largest screens. First, is the Sansui 19 inch LCD HDTV, which is an early bird special and will be selling for $178.00. Next up is Samsung’s 32 inch 720p LCD HDTV, which will be selling for $498.00. Next, we have the Samsung 40 inch 1080p LCD HDTV, which will be selling for $798.00. Now, we have the Polaroid 42 inch LCD 1080p HDTV, which is an early bird special and will be selling for $598.00. We have another 42 inch HDTV from Samsung, which is a 720p plasma and sells for $698.00. Now, we are at 46 inches with Samsung’s 1080p LCD HDTV, which will be selling for $1098.00. Lastly, we have the biggest and arguably the best HDTV from Wal-Mart - the Samsung 50 inch Plasma HDTV, which is an early bird special and will sell for $798.00. Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 23 Nov 2008 | 8:14 pm Renewable Energy Drawn From Slow Water CurrentsSlow-moving ocean and river currents could be a new, reliable and affordable alternative energy source.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Nov 2008 | 7:45 pm Scientists See New Mechanism for SuperconductivityLaboratory researchers have posited an explanation for superconductivity that may open the door to the discovery of new, unconventional forms of superconductivity.In a November 20 Nature letter, research led by Tuson Park and Joe D.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 7:30 pm Understanding Europe's TopographyEurope's shape is in a constant change: The Mediterranean basin is shrinking, the Alps are rising and pushing North, and Scandinavia is still rebounding after having been crushed by the weight of a thick and huge ice sheet in the ice ages.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 7:21 pm Study Shows Bird Population Estimates Are FlawedMost of what we know about bird populations stems from surveys conducted by professional biologists and amateur birdwatchers, but new research from North Carolina State University shows that the data from those surveys may be seriously flawed – and proposes possible means to resolve the problem.Bird populations are the focus of thousands of environmental research and monitoring programs around the world.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 7:15 pm Quantum Computing Spins CloserThe promise of quantum computing is that it will dramatically outshine traditional computers in tackling certain key problems: searching large databases, factoring large numbers, creating uncrackable codes and simulating the atomic structure of materials.A quantum step in that direction, if you'll pardon the pun, has been taken by Stanford researchers who announced their success in a paper published in the journal Nature.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Nov 2008 | 7:10 pm Listeria exposure possible in CanadaCorrectional institutions in the Canadian province of Ontario may have been exposed to Listeria bacteria through food products, a company says. The operator of Eurest Dining Services said while so far there have been no reported listeriosis cases in Ontario prisons, random surveillance samples of products from its food-production facility indicated traces of Listeria monocytogenes, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 5:34 pm Hacking down on video game energy use (CNET)CNET - Individual gamers and console makers could significantly reduce energy use from video games, according to study that identified the Nintendo Wii as the industry's most efficient "juice sipper."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Nov 2008 | 5:27 pm Can Viagra improve athletic performance?The World Anti-Doping Agency has begun studies at two U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Nov 2008 | 5:10 pm PhotoJoy: Perfect for Sappy Bloggers with Kids
PhotoJoy is a free downloadable application that uses your photos to produce neat desktop widgets, 3D photo screensavers and wallpaper collages. You can either use photos located on your computer, or ones uploaded to your Flickr account. PhotoJoy can also use your Flickr stream to keep your photos fresh. Notably missing is the ability to import photos from your Facebook account, which is where I for example keep all my online photos on. The application should run on most Windows XP setups. Sorry, no Mac support at the moment. I’ve been running it on my machine for a week and have noticed no negative performance impacts. To see PhotoJoy in action check out the video embedded on the bottom of this post for a demo the company whipped up using some photos of my kids. In many respects the product is similar to long gone Filmloop (remember them?) which both had a hard time dealing with increasing competition courtesy of Slide and RockYou and a blatant lack of support from one of its VC’s. Filmloop was also a one-trick-pony, whereas PhotoJoy is just one of several IncrediMail products—HiYo is another one. Seeing no immediate business model and with the company’s history in mind, I requested a clarification on PhotoJoy’s ad-ware practices and its business model strategy. IncrediMail’s CEO, Ofer Adler, addressed my concerns:
So go ahead and call me a sap, but PhotoJoy puts a smile on my face and sometimes that’s not only good enough, it’s plenty! Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 23 Nov 2008 | 4:34 pm TIGdb: The Indie Games Database
If you're bored and want something new to play today, but it's not dark out yet so you can't load up Left 4 Dead, consider checking out some excellent independently developed games (free and otherwise). Although World of Goo made headlines due to its high piracy rate, it's only one of hundreds of great indie games that get released every year. TIGSource's database of games is fantastic, providing screenshots, download links, and powerful sorting tools: here are free Windows games from 2008, for instance.
Source: TechCrunch | 23 Nov 2008 | 2:55 pm Endocrinal economics: hormones versus the marketForget behavioral economics -- the Naked Scientists science podcast interviews a scientist who is investigating the hormonal basis for bubbles and crashes. It's endocrinal economics!John - We found that the traders, if they had high testosterone in the morning relative the the median levels, they made a lot more money for the rest of the day than they did on the days when they had low testosterone.Hormones and the Money Markets Presented By:
Source: Boing Boing | 23 Nov 2008 | 2:38 pm
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Sony is set to announce a re-launch of video entertainment network site 
I bumped into 
It’s not the first time we’ve heard rumors about 
Granted, they had been bucket-testing the feature for a while, but for Google to let users mash up the results they are presented with when searching is a big deal. So it’s a bit of a surprise that while everyone was focused on SearchWiki and what it means for the company, Google 
Like much-criticized 
Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in tune.
Microsoft will relaunch Windows Live Search under a new brand sometime early next year, says a source within the company. What we don’t know is what that new brand will be, although a 
I first wrote about 
They used to tell me,
I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead.
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad,
I made it run
I made it run against time
Once i built a railroad,
and now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime? ...
Once in khaki suits,
Ah, gee we looked swell
Full of that yankee-doodle dee-dum!
Brother, can you spare a dime?
You may remember about a week ago when Gadgetell posted the doorbuster/main sales from 
Having kids is clearly impacting my assessment of applications… And there is no greater proof for this than a new product by 
