Source: Gizmodo | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:45 am

Thanksgiving sky: Jupiter, Venus, moon together - KGAN

WNCT

Thanksgiving sky: Jupiter, Venus, moon together KGAN - 5 hours ago WASHINGTON (AP) -- On a holiday weekend full of gatherings, the three brightest objects in the night sky -- Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon -- are getting together for a rare one. Thanksgiving sky: Jupiter, Venus, moon together The Associated Press Looking Up: Jupiter, Venus, Moon do a dance Norwich Bulletin NewsOXY - WOWT - WTTE - Press of Atlantic City all 197 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:11 am

Young Entrepreneurs Bond On the Beach [Voices]

By Caroline McCarthy, Editor, The Social, CNET

They kept their Twitter feeds quiet and their iPhone cameras dormant. Most of them didn’t want their names to be used.

There was more than a little bit of paranoia in the air as the guests arrived at last weekend’s Summit Series event, formally the Young World Leaders Summit–not the most modest of names. It was a gathering of about five dozen under-35 entrepreneurs and executives at a beachfront luxury resort outside the glitzy vacation city of Cancun. Among those present at the retreat, which was fully paid for by sponsors, were a handful of executives from Facebook and other Silicon Valley start-ups, media and publishing entrepreneurs, young venture capitalists, edgy youth marketers, and jet-setting global issues advocates. As for an itinerary, there were snorkeling lessons, ample pool-and beachside chill time, and plenty of parties.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:04 am

YouTube goes widescreen

Section: Video, Web, Web 2.0, Websites, Online Music/Video, Google

If you go onto YouTube today you may notice something different and although you may be a regular visitor, you could still not notice for half an hour like me.  If you don’t want me to spoil it for you (assuming you didn’t read the title of this post) run off to http://www.youtube.com and see if you can spot anything different, but for those who don’t like a challenge, who are lazy, or never go on YouTube here it is…

YouTube has finally gone widescreen. 

Yes, after months of agonizing at the squashed figures on the YouTube videos, you can now sit back and use your entire 16:9 screen which will be great for some people.  But fear not if you still have a measly 4:3 screen as YouTube will still support this ratio, although you will have black bars down the side which can still be annoying.

But it gets better: they have also upped the width of the page to 960 pixels, which will increase the quality of playback thus making YouTube a more enjoyable experience.  This will give a cleaner image and will make YouTube much more practical for viewing videos with minute details (such as baseball) as well as movies, bringing it into line with other video services.  In fact, compared to sites like Vimeo they are back in the stone ages: Vimeo have had widescreen for ages, as well as having HD since October which is probably quite a long way off for YouTube due to the effort it would take to change anything on YouTube.

“We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them.  This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.“ - YouTube spokesman

However I do have a sneaky suspicion as to why they originally decided to do this, and I have a feeling it’s not because of home videos.  YouTube have been vying to host movies directly from the studios for quite some time, and deals with CBS and MGM mean that they are starting to show some of the archives on the website.  But if YouTube want to start showing movies, they needed to first get adequate quality (which they have now done) and with one obstacle down you can’t help but wonder how long it will be till you can watch new releases on YouTube.

Source [PCPro]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:03 am

Social Networking Traffic Up as Advertising Falls Flat [Voices]

By Mike Shields, Senior Editor, MediaWeek

More than half the country actively uses social networking sites, but so far advertising on these properties is nothing short of anemic, says a new report issued by market research firm IDC. In fact, IDC calls advertisers’ attempts to tap into these sites’ unique social nature “stillborn.”

According to IDC’s report (U.S. Consumer Online Attitudes Survey Results Part III), more than three quarters of social networking site users log on at least once a week, and 57 percent do so daily. And these folks are logging an increasingly large amount of time on these properties, as more than 61 percent of users spend more than a half hour on these sites per session, with 38 percent staying at least an hour.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:03 am

Silicon Valley’s Airline: XOJET Takes Off As Corporate Jets Lose Favor [Voices]

By Dean Takahashi, Writer, VentureBeat

When the chief executives of the Big Three automakers went to Washington, D.C. with tin cups in hand asking for a $25 billion government bailout, they triggered public outrage when it was revealed they’d flown in on luxury private jets. With shareholder and taxpayer frustration growing, companies are starting to see corporate jets as a liability.

That’s where Silicon Valley’s XOJET airline comes in. The San Carlos, Calif.-based airline provides a kind of private jet time sharing service for corporations. Sure, it’s not your typical Silicon Valley startup. But it’s an example of how innovative thinking can re-engineer an entire industry.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:02 am

12 Great Tales of De-Friending [Voices]

By David Spark, Blogger, Mashable

De-friending has always been awkward. Social networks offer one click “remove a friend” options, but it still doesn’t make the decision any easier.

What follows is a collection of stories about de-friending. In summary, what I discovered is that everyone approaches their social network differently and it’s impossible to communicate all those nuances when you choose to de-friend.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:01 am

Don’t Get Depressed, It’s Not 1929 [Voices]

By Daniel Gross, Moneybox Columnist, Slate

It’s difficult to avoid the comparisons between the current sad state of financial affairs and the Great Depression. “This is not like 1987 or 1998 or 2001,” Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain said at a conference on Nov. 11. “We will in fact look back to the 1929 period to see the kind of slowdown we are seeing now.” Time depicted President-elect Barack Obama on its cover as Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And in Washington, the buzz is all about what the new team will do in its first 100 days. What’s next? Show trials in Moscow?

All this historically inaccurate nostalgia can occasionally make you want to clock somebody with one of the three volumes of Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.’s history of the New Deal. The credit debacle of 2008 and the Great Depression may have similar origins: Both got going when financial crisis led to a reduction in consumer demand. But the two phenomena differ substantially.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 8:00 am

Rewriting a Software Product After Quitting a Job?

hi_caramba_2008 writes "We are a bunch of good friends at a large software company. The product we work on is under-budgeted and over-hyped by the sales drones. The code quality sucks, and management keeps pulling in different direction. Discussing this among ourselves, we talked about leaving the company and rebuilding the code from scratch over a few months. We are not taking any code with us. We are not taking customer lists (we probably will aim at different customers anyway). The code architecture will also be different — hosted vs. stand-alone, different modules and APIs. But at the feature level, we will imitate this product. Can we be sued for IP infringement, theft, or whatever? Are workers allowed to imitate the product they were working on? We know we have to deal with the non-compete clause in our employment contracts, but in our state this clause has been very difficult to enforce. We are more concerned with other IP legal aspects."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2008 | 7:57 am

A Gaming Report Card - Washington Post

ABC News

A Gaming Report Card Washington Post - 5 hours ago That might be a conclusion that you and your friends would reach, but you might be surprised that it's also the conclusion of the National Institute on Media and the Family, which this week released its annual report card on video games. NIMF gives top marks to ESRB, console-makers GameSpot Children Seem To Quit Playing Violent Games eFluxMedia ABC News - The Associated Press - Escapist Magazine - KARE all 139 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Nov 2008 | 7:45 am

Why CNN Struggles to Cover The Economic Panic

The current economic collapse is a difficult story for TV. It's a peculiar period in between an election and an inauguration. This most important story, this great-or-not-so great depression, is also the hardest for CNN to tell. I have more than enough reasons why in this late-night rant.

1) It's not a hurricane so Anderson Cooper of CNN is unable to position himself in the middle of the storm for optimal drama. In other words, TV anchors can't get wet and windblown, while viewers worry about their safety. The state of the economy is a disaster but not a natural disaster. Nobody's leaving the studio for this one. There's no place to go.

2) It's like a war and we keep losing ground each day. In the place of casualties, we have falling stock indices but it's hard to show the real damage. There's only so much you can do with oversized charts to tell a story. The war on terrorism featured a real enemy. We've just never been able to find them, no matter who goes after them. (Maybe it's not so different.) Campbell Brown ("No Bull, No Bias") should say that what the capitalism's finest did to themselves and to us was worse than any terrorist could have imagined.

3) Few CEOs, fewer economists, and almost no one in the financial industry, want to step forward and say with conviction what will happen. A year ago we couldn't get them to stop telling us what great things to expect in the next quarter. Not now. They don't know what's coming and they aren't willing to say even that much. They are MIA. Insider information is at an all-time low.

Memo to all American CEOs: don't presume in ten years' time to write business books about your leadership skills; maybe there's a gripping survival story to be told about how you held on to your job.

We want them to face the music. Even the Watergate hearings, which had a large cast of characters, were compelling to watch day after day.

4) There is not a President at the center. Bush is just not there. Like us, he's watching TV to find out what to think. Reporting from the White House doesn't have any relevance today. Moreover, the satisfaction in blaming Bush for everything is diminishing.

In addition, with the election over, reporters can't simply ask the candidates to react to the day's bad news. It seldom produced much insight anyway but it filled time. Now Obama is filling time, and he keeps repeating that "there's only one President" but there's really not a President. There's a leadership vacuum waiting to be filled by Obama. (BTW, this story is much bigger and more important than Obama's election and I think he understands that.) Bottom line is we're waiting for a central figure to emerge.

5) Real experts are hard to find, especially ones with big hair. So over-present talking heads such as Suze Orman ramble on and on in front of Larry King and others. Here's an incredible ramble from Suze Orman on CNN:

People feel they need medication because they are panicking. It’s as if the economy right now is in the I.C.U. unit of a hospital. We are in intensive care and they are throwing everything type of medication at us to cure what is going on. They are panicking because why? Nothing is working. They tried this, it didn’t work. They tried that medication, it didn’t work. They are running out of prescriptions to give it. We are going to be in the I.C.U. unit for a while. Eventually, I don’t know when that will be, six months, a year, year and a half, we will get out, we’ll be in the hospital then. We’ll stay in the hospital for about a year or two. After another year or two we will end up in rehab and then we’ll be okay. This is a long stretch. People have to stop panicking.
CNN link

Makes me think of Amy Winehouse singing "They try to make me go to rehab, I say no, no, no." Rehab is taking place over on CNBC.

6) Where are the winning and losing teams? We have learned more about Al Queda cells and Saddam Hussein's Elite Guards than about the people in power behind CITI, Goldman Sachs, Lehmann Brothers, AIG, etc. We know more about the New York Jets than we do about CITI Bank. Are the slow-moving Detroit Manufacturers competing head-to-head against the fast-talking Wall Street Financiers? Please tell us more about these teams as we're entrusting them with such large amounts of public money. Maybe we need to start thinking that, as with football, we care because we're betting on teams to win. We have our money at stake.

7) I can almost hear producers wondering each night if there isn't a better story to lead with. "Isn't there a story we can do on Sarah Palin? Like her or hate her, people can't get enough of her." At least that appears to be the thinking behind her getting the most air-time in the week following the election. Would you rather hear about Sarah Palin pardoning a turkey or David Gergen saying no one knows what to make of the economic mess? At least, the Palin piece will have something interesting going on in the foreground and the background.

8) "Why can't this be happening to Russia or China? If it was only happening there, and not here, we would know how to cover it." CNN would send Christiane Amanpour there. "Live from...". We don't have visuals like people knocking down walls, rushing into the streets or standing in lines. The Fall of the Berlin Wall is the Fall of Communism, the fall of Saddam's statue -- now these are stories of new freedoms. In America today, we have a big fall without a distinctive symbol, without a video loop, without an exotic locale.

Also, how do you explain that China is providing the bail for the bailout? As David Gergen said tonight on CNN, "China's become our banker." Even harder to tell that kind of "freedom" story.

9) The problems aren't going away and there's no timeline. So, where's the equivalent of "America Held Hostage: Day XN"? Nightline evolved from a special report to become a nightly hard-news program to follow the ongoing story of Iran holding American hostages during the Carter Administration. Why isn't this economic story played front-and-center in the same way? Isn't there a TV journalist saying "Holy Christ, this is the biggest story of my career and I'm going to bring it to you every night"? Ted Koppel, Edward R. Murrow, where are you?

Here's my list of names for a new Nightline-like special series on the economy:

• America's Panic Attack
• The Joke's on US
• Invisible Hand-Wringing
• Capitalism on the Ledge
• The Economy on the Couch
• Future Shock & Awe
• Hitting the Wall And Falling on the Street.
• America Sucks Right Now
• US: Out of Order

10) Lastly, the TV media is no better off than we are at understanding this complex crisis. On a gut level, viewers know what the story is, that it's about them, their future and their children's future. They have specific questions that are difficult to answer (see the Suze Orman blog on CNN where it is promised that she'll answer these many, many questions; she doesn't, of course.) and they have general worries (should I panic?) that are hard to resolve. While we try to absorb as much information as possible, we keep having the same conversation over and over:
Q. What's going on?
A. I don't know. It's hard to tell.

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2008 | 6:06 am

Verizon officially intros the new Samsung Omnia

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones

Around the holidays, many consumers typically buy new phones, either for themselves or as a gift.  It is important that cellphone carriers have a lot of new and exciting phones ready for the holidays.  One new phone Verizon has ready is the highly anticipated Samsung Omnia. 

Some main features of the Samsung Omnia include, TouchWiz, full QWERTY keyboard, Opera 9.5 mobile browser, as well as Windows Mobile 6.1.  In addition, it comes with a 5.0 MP camera, which comes with face detection technology, Panorama, and SmileShot, Bluetooth capability, Wi-Fi connectivity, VZAppZone access, ability to listen to MP3 songs, VZ Navigator, Instant Messaging, DivX and XviD support, 3.2i inch touch screen, and weighs only 4.34 ounces. 

Now, the Samsung Omnia is set to sell for $249.99 after a mail-in rebate of $70, and this is all after signing a two-year contract, of course.  The phone is set to be available on November 26 (online only), and available at all Verizon retail stores starting on December 8. 

Read [Verizon]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:55 am

BlackBerry Mobile Phones: If Exclusive is Your Keyword - ITworld.com

PC Magazine

BlackBerry Mobile Phones: If Exclusive is Your Keyword ITworld.com - 7 hours ago by Andrew Mathew A mobile phone is very common these days. It is in every hand, in every trouser pocket and in every ladies' purse. RIM Blackberry Bold PC World RIM BlackBerry Bold 9000 available on 17000 Internet hotspots NewsOXY PC Magazine - TMCnet - Daily Press - Brighthand all 10 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:29 am

Sending Secret Messages Via Google's SearchWiki

We discussed the advent of Google's SearchWiki when it was introduced a few days back. Now Lauren Weinstein offers a thought experiment in transmitting coded messages using SearchWiki, with a working example encoded into the results of this Google search.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:01 am

Gallery: Culinary Gadgets Make Thanksgiving a Geek Holiday

:

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of getting together with family and friends, cooking a delicious feast and showing off one's most over-the-top kitchen gadgets.

Forget the perfect garlic press you bought two years ago. The rabbit-ear cork puller? Passé. What you need to make this Thanksgiving special is, of course, some new, high-tech cooking gear. Read on for the top picks from Wired.com's Gadget Lab.

Left:

Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer

What’s the trick to a flawless Thanksgiving? Deep-frying a turkey to deliciousness without burning down your house and immolating your family in the process. Stop structure fires and spare your loved ones from third-degree burns with the Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer. This contraption uses propane heat, "infrared cooking technology" and not an ounce of oil to fry your favorite flightless bird to juicy completion.

$200, frontgate.com

:

Hotshot chefs like Thomas Keller (and Wired's Neil Gellar) are proponents of the sous vide cooking method: That's French for "under vacuum," and it refers to a process of cooking vacuum-sealed food at very low temperatures. Impress your guests with dishes made with devices like Clifton's Food Range, which uses a combination of low pressure and low cooking temperatures to slowly imbue vittles with unparalleled flavor and texture. Stuffing sous vide? There's a dish we can definitely, uh, gobble up.

$700 and up, cliftonfoodrange.co.uk

:

If you want to give your turkey a smoky flavor this Thanksgiving, there's a much better option than locking it in a closet with your cigar-smoking Uncle Raul. With PolyScience's Smoking Gun, you can flavor virtually any food item by directly infusing it with smoke in a single shot, or you can trap the smoke in a bag to marinate meats and create more enduring aromas.

The Smoking Gun uses a pipe bowl to burn chunks of flavored sawdust. Once lit, an internal fan sucks air from the bowl and pushes the smoke out though the plastic barrel. The gun comes with a few chips of mesquite sawdust, but you can use a burr grinder to make your own woody flavors from whatever wood you like.

The best thing about the Smoking Gun is that it's relatively cheap at $50. The downside is that anyone can buy it, and we're sure not everyone has enough responsibility to take care of a contraption that sets fire to wood (or other cellulose substances — we're just saying) for the sole purpose of creating smoke.

$50, cuisinetechnology.com

:

The challenge of following a cookbook recipe is getting the execution and timing right while reading tiny, sauce-stained words on a page. The miBook, a portable video player, aims to solve that problem. The device comes preloaded with cooking video guides, walking you through recipes and stopping automatically after each step, giving you time to do what you just saw. If the company put Giada de Laurentiis clips on this gadget, I can guarantee it would have more male customers than female.

$130, mibook.com

:

The Spice Gun is a chef's deadliest weapon. You load the gun in the revolver with your spice bottles as if they were bullets; pulling the trigger shoots a burst of flavor into your dish. Pepper? Blam. Basil? Bang! Paprika? Kapow! Awesome — it'd probably be an effective weapon for torturing Guantánamo Bay prisoners, too. It's a shame the gun's still just a concept design. But maybe if we wish hard enough we'll be tucking this bad boy under our apron strings one day.

Not yet available, designboom.com

:

It's never advisable to place your whole hand in a fire, but the promise of a rich, juicy, deep-fried turkey will make otherwise smart people do really stupid things.

Enter the Litwin Turkey-Frying Safety System. This rig is a locking attachment used with turkey deep fryers (of 30 to 40 quarts). It holds the bird upside down as you crank it down into the oil. This is not only safer than trying to chuck it in by hand but also allows the cook to prepare the rest of the feast without worrying that the turkey will fall neck first into the fryer.

$50, litwinsafetysystem.com

:

If you're especially nervous about food-borne bacteria, this food sanitizer will put most of your fears to rest. The CulinaryPrep mixes up citric acid and basic salt powders (at $2 a package) with water in a washing machine/vacuum-style contraption that kills 99.5 percent of all food bacteria.

You can put in everything from chicken to fish (except chopped meat), and can even use the tumbler to marinate foods and speed up the prep process. Granted, it takes up quite a bit of space on the counter and its price is a bit steep given the state of the economy, but it might just be worth it: With this on your counter, you can rest easy about your food and go back to worrying about the germs on doorknobs.

$350, culinaryprep.com

:

Like magicians, experienced cooks can measure the temperature of a pan with the wave of a hand. But beginning chefs — and the extremely neurotic — will appreciate that ThinkGeek's pan has a digital thermometer built into it, along with a digital readout on the handle. Cooking is an art, sure — but it's a science too, meaning precision is key.

$50, thinkgeek.com

:

Yeah, you could be boring and toss your yams into a standard blender to puree them. Or you can bring the fight to the food with a device like the Immersion Blender. Basically the lovechild of a handheld drill and a Cuisinart, this 9-volt portable blender can chop, dice, slice or grind virtually any foodstuff you have at the ready.

$100, brevilleusa.com

:

Those Oakleys are so last year. For Thanksgiving, these onion goggles are the way to go with their hip wraparound frame. The idea is to help ward off the sulfuric compounds that sting and tear up your eyes when you're peeling and chopping onions. With fog-free clear lenses, they are handy for most kitchen prep work. It may sound hard to believe, but even Consumer Reports gave these specs a qualified recommendation. And when you're done, maybe you can even step out in them and start a new fashion trend. Then again, maybe not.

$20, rsvp-intl.com

:

Carving the bird is a job that few people look forward to. But if you are the man of the house and need to step up, then it's a good idea to be armed with an electric knife. The power tool promises to produce no-mess thin slices. Bonus: You can hold it menacingly when Uncle Jimmy and the rest of the family are driving you crazy.

$50, cuisinart.com

:

Sure, you are a great cook. Proof? The pie in the oven, the stuffing in the baking pan and the potatoes boiling on the stovetop. But occasionally — just maybe — something happens and you forget to take the pie out soon enough, the stuffing burns and the potatoes boil over. Suddenly, your Thanksgiving meal is toast. Worse, it's on fire. It's situations like this one when you need a handy — and stylish! — fire extinguisher like this one to put the blaze out in a hurry. And when you are done, head to Denny's.

$30, homehero.com

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Scott Brown on the Looming Deluge of Eco-Disaster Flicks

I love the movies. I love the environment. I love movies about the environment, especially ecological-disaster flicks—oh, the hilarity! From the atomic-paranoia-fueled Pandora's boxes of the '50s (Them!, Godzilla) and the hapless "nature's revenge" flicks of the Love Canal era (The Swarm, Piranha) to the budget-busting disaster epic (2004's The Day After Tomorrow, best remembered for a scene in which Climate Change implacably pursues Jake Gyllenhaal), commercial attempts to put a high-minded, hortatory gloss on schlocky genre cinema are always good for a guffaw. My favorite would have to be Frogs, the 1972 "thriller" whose trailer intoned, "Suppose nature gave a war ... and everybody came?" (That's good, but it should've read, "Suppose Hollywood covered aging Oscar-winner Ray Milland in confused, nonunion amphibians ... and everybody laughed?")

The dopiness of so-called ecotainment—environmentally virtuous entertainment—rises in direct proportion to its message-mongering. In this way, it's no different from the Christian inspirational flick. To be sure, many classics prey upon our ecological anxieties—The Birds, Jaws, and Jurassic Park come to mind. But these highlight the indomitable and inscrutable brutality of nature, not the need for better stewardship of a beleaguered planet. They're the children of Moby-Dick, not Silent Spring. Even in these jittery, post-Inconvenient Truth days of rising seas, killer storms, and T. Boone Pickens TV spots, blockbuster-scale ecotainment is still the poseur spawn of Towering Inferno-style disaster matinee and Silkwood-esque docudrama. The subject matter simply resists Hollywood idiocy: Environmental problems are complex and holistic, whereas mainstream movies thrive on conspicuous good/evil dichotomies that flatter our binary human minds. To oversimplify: Nature is Gore-ville; blockbusters are Bush country.

That said, explicit, heart-on-sleeve ecothemes are leaking into mainstream movies. Let us avert our eyes from the Superfund site that was M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (the crazed Claritin commercial Hitchcock never made) to consider the Seuss-meets-Kubrick trashscapes of Wall-E, the pissed-off pagan nature-spirits of Hellboy II, and the water-hoarding, greenwashing Bond villain in Quantum of Solace. And there are more storms brewing: The Thaw, about a deadly parasite unleashed by melting polar ice caps; Strays, which strands four Americans in a clicking-hot Russian nuke-opolis; Creature From the Black Lagoon, reimagined as a dying-ocean parable; and 2012, a world-ender from disaster-master Roland Emmerich, director of The Day After Tomorrow. As the headlines worsen and vague notions of fear and collective guilt harden into urgent, palpable catastrophes, the greenocalypse, as a premise, looks more and more muscular.

Before this beefed-up, camp-free ecotrend can continue, however, it must pass its ultimate legitimacy test: Keanu Reeves. He's starring in a Category 5 environmentally minded remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still—an antiwar-message movie from 1951—invading theaters in December. Fox has been "trying to remake this since the original," says screenwriter David Scarpa. "Ray Bradbury did a draft in 1980." Now that humankind has finally generated a worthy successor to nuclear Armageddon, the studio has pulled the trigger. Keanu plays Klaatu, the wise alien who, in the original, landed in DC with his chaperone, the chrome killbot Gort, and began counseling against atomic brinkmanship with the USSR. This time, he's an unearthly Earth-firster who chides our planet-raping ways—and backs up his critique with lethal action (Gort again—but updated).

Retributive genocide—pretty ballsy stuff. But it risks putting capital-M Message ahead of thrills and dramatic fireworks—a hazard of ecotainment that Scarpa calls the "on-the-nose thing." "People don't want to be preached to about the environment," he says. "We tried to avoid having our alien looking out over the garbage in the lake and crying a silent tear, like the Indian in that '70s commercial." In the original, Klaatu delivers a climactic speech to the world's top scientists. Scarpa scrapped it: "I don't think audiences today are willing to tolerate that."

Even if the environmental threat still hasn't achieved silver-screen credibility on a par with nuclear devastation or even terrorist attack, it's gaining. And that gives me hope. Hope that the species may survive to make bad movies about tomorrow's man-created crises. Hope that we'll someday remake The Day After Tomorrow as a campy commentary on our catastrophic overabundance of fresh air and bluebirds.

Email scott_brown@wired.com.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Kitchen Tech: Adria and Achatz Talk High-Tech Cuisine

World-renowned chefs Grant Achatz and Ferran Adria discuss the uses of technology in the kitchen, in two exclusive videos from Wired.com.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Kitchen Tech: Adria and Achatz Talk High-Tech Cuisine

World-renowned chefs Grant Achatz and Ferran Adria discuss the uses of technology in the kitchen, in two exclusive videos from Wired.com.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Gallery: Culinary Gadgets Make Thanksgiving a Geek Holiday

:

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time of getting together with family and friends, cooking a delicious feast and showing off one's most over-the-top kitchen gadgets.

Forget the perfect garlic press you bought two years ago. The rabbit-ear cork puller? Passé. What you need to make this Thanksgiving special is, of course, some new, high-tech cooking gear. Read on for the top picks from Wired.com's Gadget Lab.

Left:

Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer

What’s the trick to a flawless Thanksgiving? Deep-frying a turkey to deliciousness without burning down your house and immolating your family in the process. Stop structure fires and spare your loved ones from third-degree burns with the Frontgate Oil-Less Turkey Fryer. This contraption uses propane heat, "infrared cooking technology" and not an ounce of oil to fry your favorite flightless bird to juicy completion.

$200, frontgate.com

:

Hotshot chefs like Thomas Keller (and Wired's Neil Gellar) are proponents of the sous vide cooking method: That's French for "under vacuum," and it refers to a process of cooking vacuum-sealed food at very low temperatures. Impress your guests with dishes made with devices like Clifton's Food Range, which uses a combination of low pressure and low cooking temperatures to slowly imbue vittles with unparalleled flavor and texture. Stuffing sous vide? There's a dish we can definitely, uh, gobble up.

$700 and up, cliftonfoodrange.co.uk

:

If you want to give your turkey a smoky flavor this Thanksgiving, there's a much better option than locking it in a closet with your cigar-smoking Uncle Raul. With PolyScience's Smoking Gun, you can flavor virtually any food item by directly infusing it with smoke in a single shot, or you can trap the smoke in a bag to marinate meats and create more enduring aromas.

The Smoking Gun uses a pipe bowl to burn chunks of flavored sawdust. Once lit, an internal fan sucks air from the bowl and pushes the smoke out though the plastic barrel. The gun comes with a few chips of mesquite sawdust, but you can use a burr grinder to make your own woody flavors from whatever wood you like.

The best thing about the Smoking Gun is that it's relatively cheap at $50. The downside is that anyone can buy it, and we're sure not everyone has enough responsibility to take care of a contraption that sets fire to wood (or other cellulose substances — we're just saying) for the sole purpose of creating smoke.

$50, cuisinetechnology.com

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The challenge of following a cookbook recipe is getting the execution and timing right while reading tiny, sauce-stained words on a page. The miBook, a portable video player, aims to solve that problem. The device comes preloaded with cooking video guides, walking you through recipes and stopping automatically after each step, giving you time to do what you just saw. If the company put Giada de Laurentiis clips on this gadget, I can guarantee it would have more male customers than female.

$130, mibook.com

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The Spice Gun is a chef's deadliest weapon. You load the gun in the revolver with your spice bottles as if they were bullets; pulling the trigger shoots a burst of flavor into your dish. Pepper? Blam. Basil? Bang! Paprika? Kapow! Awesome — it'd probably be an effective weapon for torturing Guantánamo Bay prisoners, too. It's a shame the gun's still just a concept design. But maybe if we wish hard enough we'll be tucking this bad boy under our apron strings one day.

Not yet available, designboom.com

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It's never advisable to place your whole hand in a fire, but the promise of a rich, juicy, deep-fried turkey will make otherwise smart people do really stupid things.

Enter the Litwin Turkey-Frying Safety System. This rig is a locking attachment used with turkey deep fryers (of 30 to 40 quarts). It holds the bird upside down as you crank it down into the oil. This is not only safer than trying to chuck it in by hand but also allows the cook to prepare the rest of the feast without worrying that the turkey will fall neck first into the fryer.

$50, litwinsafetysystem.com

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If you're especially nervous about food-borne bacteria, this food sanitizer will put most of your fears to rest. The CulinaryPrep mixes up citric acid and basic salt powders (at $2 a package) with water in a washing machine/vacuum-style contraption that kills 99.5 percent of all food bacteria.

You can put in everything from chicken to fish (except chopped meat), and can even use the tumbler to marinate foods and speed up the prep process. Granted, it takes up quite a bit of space on the counter and its price is a bit steep given the state of the economy, but it might just be worth it: With this on your counter, you can rest easy about your food and go back to worrying about the germs on doorknobs.

$350, culinaryprep.com

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Like magicians, experienced cooks can measure the temperature of a pan with the wave of a hand. But beginning chefs — and the extremely neurotic — will appreciate that ThinkGeek's pan has a digital thermometer built into it, along with a digital readout on the handle. Cooking is an art, sure — but it's a science too, meaning precision is key.

$50, thinkgeek.com

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Yeah, you could be boring and toss your yams into a standard blender to puree them. Or you can bring the fight to the food with a device like the Immersion Blender. Basically the lovechild of a handheld drill and a Cuisinart, this 9-volt portable blender can chop, dice, slice or grind virtually any foodstuff you have at the ready.

$100, brevilleusa.com

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Those Oakleys are so last year. For Thanksgiving, these onion goggles are the way to go with their hip wraparound frame. The idea is to help ward off the sulfuric compounds that sting and tear up your eyes when you're peeling and chopping onions. With fog-free clear lenses, they are handy for most kitchen prep work. It may sound hard to believe, but even Consumer Reports gave these specs a qualified recommendation. And when you're done, maybe you can even step out in them and start a new fashion trend. Then again, maybe not.

$20, rsvp-intl.com

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Carving the bird is a job that few people look forward to. But if you are the man of the house and need to step up, then it's a good idea to be armed with an electric knife. The power tool promises to produce no-mess thin slices. Bonus: You can hold it menacingly when Uncle Jimmy and the rest of the family are driving you crazy.

$50, cuisinart.com

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Sure, you are a great cook. Proof? The pie in the oven, the stuffing in the baking pan and the potatoes boiling on the stovetop. But occasionally — just maybe — something happens and you forget to take the pie out soon enough, the stuffing burns and the potatoes boil over. Suddenly, your Thanksgiving meal is toast. Worse, it's on fire. It's situations like this one when you need a handy — and stylish! — fire extinguisher like this one to put the blaze out in a hurry. And when you are done, head to Denny's.

$30, homehero.com

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Nov. 26, 1894: Cybernetics Pioneer Norbert Wiener Born

1894: Norbert Wiener is born in Columbia, Missouri. A child prodigy, he goes on to become one of the 20th century's most famous mathematicians and the founder of the discipline of cybernetics, the study of self-regulating systems.

Norbert's father, Leo Wiener, was a lecturer (and later professor) of Slavic languages at Harvard University, where the family moved shortly after Norbert's birth. Leo Wiener's interests, however, were wide-ranging. Leo educated his son at home according to his own eclectic (and harsh) methods, allowing young Norbert full access to his diverse library. The precocious Norbert showed an early aptitude for languages, mathematics and logic — although he later admitted that basic arithmetic caused him trouble.

Wiener graduated from high school and entered Tufts University at age 11. He graduated from Tufts at 14 and then earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard at age 18 with a dissertation on mathematical logic.

Wiener continued his studies of mathematics and philosophy at England's Cambridge University, studying with Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Josiah Royce, George Santayana and G.H. Hardy, and making the acquaintance of the poet (and fellow Missourian) T.S. Eliot.

Rebuffed from a teaching appointment at Harvard because he was Jewish (despite his father's having been a professor there), Wiener joined the mathematics faculty across town at MIT in 1919. He remained there for a remarkably productive 41 years.

Within a decade of his MIT appointment, Wiener made several enormous contributions to mathematics, including a mathematical explanation of Brownian motion (the random movement of particles in a fluid), a problem Einstein had first explained in terms of the movements of molecules in 1905. Wiener's discovery led to modern probability theory and has implications in understanding many situations where countless tiny inputs produce a single output, from the movements of the Dow Jones averages to the distortions that a noisy line introduces in an electronic signal.

Unlike some mathematicians, Wiener was sympathetic to the engineering applications of his work and focused much attention on providing mathematical foundations to engineering problems, including wave-form analysis, signal theory and noise filtering. He worked on ballistics computations during World War I and on techniques for automatically aiming anti-aircraft guns in World War II.

That latter work led Wiener to a theory of cybernetics, also known as systems theory. Cybernetics is not so much a defined discipline as an interdisciplinary approach to the study of complex systems and how they regulate themselves to remain in equilibrium or on target toward a defined goal. A key notion of cybernetics is the feedback principle, whereby a system constantly adjusts itself based on feedback from the environment and from its prior adjustments. Wiener noticed that this principle is active not only in automation, but also in living creatures.

The word cybernetics derives from the Greek work kybernetes, meaning "helmsman." The verb kybernan, to steer or govern, also gives us (through Latin) words like government, governor and gubernatorial. Cybernetics itself spawned a series of other neologisms, including cyborg, cyberspace, cyberpunk, cybercash, cyberculture, cybersex, and just plain cyber.

Cybernetic theory has been applied to the understanding of biological systems (organisms), ecological systems, neuroscience, society, economics and more, but has arguably had its greatest impact in computers. Wiener's work had a powerful influence on later generations of computer scientists and robotics engineers, including J.C.R. Licklider, a key figure in the early development of the internet.

Despite his fascination with cybernetics and robotics, Wiener was also a critic of automation, warning that it would lead to widespread unemployment. In later years, he also feared that the increasing power of computers would some day lead to a devaluing of human intellect.

Wiener achieved so much fame during his lifetime that he was widely recognized beyond academia, and his likeness was even used on billboards. The quintessential absent-minded professor, he was a cheerful and lively conversationalist but left something to be desired as a lecturer. His discoveries put MIT on the map as a first-rate mathematics institution, and his personality and interdisciplinary way of working helped establish MIT's distinctively collaborative culture.

He retired from MIT in 1960, and President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded him the National Medal of Science in 1964.

Wiener died just a few weeks later, in Stockholm, on March 18, 1964. An obituary for Wiener in Time attributed the following "gospel" to the pioneering mathematician and humanist:

"Render unto man the things that are man's, and unto the computer only the things that are the computer's."

Sources: International Society for Systems Sciences biography, the American Mathematical Society biography (.pdf), the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive and Tufts University, others.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Playlist: Colbert's War on the War on Christmas, Natural Disaster RSS, Left4Dead Zombie-Palooza

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A Colbert Christmas

Nation, we offer a tip of the hat to Stephen Colbert for declaring war on the war on Christmas. Our hero is trapped in his mountain cabin by a bear (what else?), unable to get to New York to film A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!, so the musical special comes to him. The self-styled broadcasting legend nails duets with dope-smoking wise man Willie Nelson, Hanukkah evangelist Jon Stewart, authorized prayer technician Feist, and Dickensian busker Elvis Costello. Don't miss the stocking stuffers: a video Advent calendar and book-burning Yule log. Take that, "Happy Holidays."

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Hurricanes in the Caribbean, earthquakes in Asia, wildfires in California — Mother Nature's can of whup-ass is set to stun, and it's hard to keep track of where her blows are landing. Which is why this comprehensive natural disaster RSS feed from the New Zealand Herald is such a welcome port in the storm. An exhaustive stream of global devastation is the perfect way to sate our rubbernecking receptors.

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Now playing at the new California Academy of Sciences Morrison Planetarium, Fragile Planet provides a fresh perspective on our place in space. Starting in San Francisco and pulling back to the edges of the universe, narrator Sigourney Weaver shows us other worlds that are likely to support life. Exquisitely visualized by vets of ILM, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, the show is jacked into a NASA database, and its universe will be updated whenever a new planet is discovered.

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Nonprofit group the Moth revitalizes the oral tradition with true stories told live—no notes allowed. Featuring fave authors like Neil Gaiman and unexpected confessors like ex-pickpocket O. T. Powell, the tales can be harrowing or humorous but always deliver satisfying epiphanies. Our own: What makes a good yarn is not necessarily the story but the storyteller.

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Tired of loading podcasts onto your iPod before a trip? Try Lexy. The easy-to-use service sends news and entertainment "quikcasts" to your cell phone. Sign up for free at Lexy.com to build a playlist; use the Share voice command to shoot a clip to a friend. Highlights include NPR's Story of the Day, NASA Feature Stories, Slashdot Review, and, of course, Wired's weekly quikcast.

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More art than advertisement, this Web video, directed by Acne Film for Chicago-based designer toy store Rotofugi, is a gem. In this quirky and magical piece, vinyl VIPs like Qee (designed by David Horvath), Gloomy Bear (Chax), and Smiling Malfi (Friends With You) flaunt their treasured "mint, in box" Homo sapiens. It was never released as an actual ad, but you can check it out at Acne.

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Finally, a game that breathes new life into the festering cadaver that is the zombie-horror genre. The latest from Valve pits four scrappy humans against hundreds of hyperaggressive corpses. It demands teamwork and coordination and delivers thrills on par with 28 Days Later. Blasting through a zombie horde is pure awesome concentrate, but one killer game mode lets players enlist in the army of the undead. Mmmm, brains.

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It's porn for LucasArts junkies. From the lenticular cover (Darth Vader morphs into Monkey Island's Guybrush Threepwood) to a collection of never-before-published Star Wars game logos, this fine-art-style book is manna for fans of the famous game developer. Flip through design documents from the early '80s, study storyboards and scripts for Star Wars: Rebel Assault 2, and preview concept art for the upcoming Indiana Jones game without leaving your basement lair. Power-up: The forward is by George himself.

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Each fall, the American Photography organization compiles the year's most powerful editorial images into a single exquisite volume. With brilliant work by the likes of James Nachtwey, Brent Stirton, and Plamen Petkov (right), this one's no exception, but it's also a most stylishly produced visual time capsule. And we're not just saying that because it was designed by Wired creative director Scott Dadich. We really are into naked ladies and fruit.*

* Other things we really are into: the nickname Captain Chaos, puerile Yule log jokes, hot rocket scientists.

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The real reason "Live Your Life" is the freshest jam off rapper T.I.'s Paper Trails isn't because of Rihanna's vocals or T.I.'s flow—it's the "Numa Numa" sample. Yep, the 2004 video virus of a pudgy 18-year-old lip-syncing to Moldovan boy band O-Zone has reinfected pop culture. No worries, though—this strain is benign. Ditching the original's Euro-rave vibe, producer Just Blaze tweaked the "mai ai hee" refrain into a midtempo "hey, oh!" party anthem we've had on repeat for weeks.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 5:00 am

Appletell review - iPod touch (2nd generation)

FROM APPLETELL - Carrying the iPod touch makes you feel like you’ve got the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on your pocket. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 4:47 am

Black Friday deals round-up

FROM APPLETELL - Over the past few weeks, the Dabbledoo sites have been reporting on numerous developer deals and “leaked” retail ads.  We’ve collected the best of them here for you in one neat article. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 4:04 am

Worm glue could repair human bones

University of Utah researchers say they've created synthetic sea worm glue that has potential for use in repairing shattered bones. The glue is a synthetic version of the glue that sandcastle worms use to build homes from bits of sand and shell.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:46 am

The most important gadget in your car

The stereo? The A/C? Dash wiring? Not even close.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:35 am

10-inch Acer Aspire One on track for Q1 2009 release

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops

It looks like the Aspire One from Acer will be the next netbook to make the jump up to a 10-inch display model.  According to some recent statements by Acer Taiwan president Scott Lin, the new 10-inch Aspire One will be available sometime in February or March 2009.  Of course, just because he spilled the beans on the estimated launch date, does not he gave any good information on the specs.  The 10-inch model is rumored to carry the same features as the original Aspire One, except with the display now being 10-inches in size the casing will be slightly larger.  Hopefully, we will begin to see some other features in this model, such as the inclusion of 3G support on models released here in the US, but it looks like we are going to have to wait a bit longer to get that information.

Via [DigiTimes]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:33 am

Oral health history used in heart screens

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:21 am

At Atlantic Records, Digital Sales Surpass CDs

The NYTimes reports that Atlantic is the first major label to report getting a majority of its revenue from digital sales, not CDs. Analysts say that Atlantic is out in front — the industry as a whole isn't expected to hit the 50% mark until 2011. By 2013, music industry revenues will be 37% down from their 1999 levels (when Napster arrived on the scene), according to Forrester. "'It's not at all clear that digital economics can make up for the drop in physical,' said John Rose, a former executive at EMI... Instead, the music industry is now hoping to find growth from a variety of other revenue streams it has not always had access to, like concert ticket sales and merchandise from artist tours. ... In virtually all... corners of the media world, executives are fighting to hold onto as much of their old business as possible while transitioning to digital — a difficult process that NBC Universal's chief executive... has described as 'trading analog dollars for digital pennies.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:20 am

The Entire MSN Rejiggering Memo [BoomTown]

Why settle for less, when you can have the whole enchilada?

Thus, here is the entire MSN rejiggering internal memo BoomTown wrote about earlier today.

It was penned by Greg Nelson, head of the MSN Global Media Group, who reveals in it–interestingly–that he has not yet filled the job of U.S. Executive Producer of Microsoft’s consumer online service.

But it does outline a series of chair-changings at the unit, which has struggled over the years to make a dent in the consumer online space.

Also, a note to “note taker” at the Town Hall meeting next Tuesday at Microsoft (MSFT) HQ to discuss the changes, who is mentioned below: You can email me those meeting notes you are apparently taking here at kara@allthings.com and I promise not to tell anyone (well, to tell you the truth, I will tell everyone).

In any case, here is the whole memo:

From: Greg Nelson (MSN)
Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 1:57 PM
To: Global Media Group Leadership Team; Worldwide EP Team; MSN Leadership Team; Online Audience Business Group FTE; Bill Shaughnessy Extended Directs; MSN US Media ALL
Cc: Erik Jorgensen’s Direct Reports; Satya Nadella; Yusuf Mehdi
Subject: MSN US Team

Team:

I am pleased to announce a new organizational structure for the US Media Group as well as the leaders who will fill these roles. I have spent considerable time with the US leaders over the past few months to hear their views on how to meet the challenges and opportunities we have, and I believe this leadership structure positions us for success in our near-term goals as well as our long-term strategy.

MSN US Media Leadership Team

The US Media Leadership Team will be structured as follows:

The group will be led by the US Executive Producer. I am evaluating a very strong field of both internal and external candidates for this role; until the role is filled I will continue to act as the interim US EP. Each of the leaders and teams in the structure share the overall network goal to grow network audience, engagement and revenue. But each has a unique commitment and responsibility toward that goal, as follows:

• Network Programming, led by Rob Bennett–This group will prioritize investments against Network priorities, shape audience strategy, set Network standards, and sponsor cross-network initiatives.
• Network Entry Points, led by Steve Cvengros–This group will focus on increasing exposure, distribution and discoverability of assets by optimizing and expanding entry points to the Network.
• Vertical Programming, led by Sandy Henson–This group will create content experiences to deeply engage the audience and grow Network value in vertical areas. All channels will move into this group.
• Monetization and Analytics, led by Dell Wilkinson–This group will focus on improving yield by making MSN easier for advertisers to buy and APS to sell through inventory insights and APS engagement.
• Chief of Staff, Eva Corets–This role is responsible for driving team processes and business rhythm, and assisting with prioritization of network projects and interaction with cross-division and cross-Microsoft teams.

In addition, Charles Tillinghast (President and Publisher of MSNBC.com) will continue to report directly to the US Executive Producer. The US Media Group will also have a close “dotted-line” partnership with Javier De Lucas and the US Planning Team and a new US R&D leader in the Global Market Delivery Team (to be hired). In addition to running the Global Business Development team for MSN, James McClamroch will also be a member of the US Media Group Leadership Team.

As I mentioned above, all of the channels will move into the Vertical Programming Team. I want to thank Lisa Tiedt, Mark Schnitzer and Scott Ehlers for their leadership of their respective teams, and for their contribution to the US Senior Leadership Team over the past 18 months. They remain an integral part of our organization and will continue to work with their teams and the new US Leads to ensure a smooth transition.

Next steps:

Each of the new network leaders will send follow-on mail soon to give more detail about their groups.

We will be holding an informal Town Hall meeting on Tuesday at 9:00 am in C/1089 to discuss these changes, for the leads to provide more details on their group priorities, and to give you a chance to ask any questions you may have. For those of you who are not able to attend, we will have a note taker and will distribute a recap after the meeting. In the meantime, please feel free to connect with your current manager, or any of the new leaders, to discuss any ideas and comments, or a specific interest you have in these newly defined areas.

Our goal is to finalize the new organizational structure quickly, while allowing enough time for the new leaders to sort out the remaining issues on how their teams work together and ensuring that each employee can be thoughtfully considered for new roles. I have asked the new leaders to make these design and employee discussions their top priority for the next two weeks, and we will send an update on our progress on December 17.

We plan to enter this new org structure in January (at which time we hope that office moves will be kept to a minimum). In the meantime, you will continue to report to your current manager and should keep driving toward your existing commitments. If you change managers in January, your current manager will be responsible for providing input to your mid-year career discussion and ensuring a smooth transition.

The US leaders and I believe this organizational structure will help us to deliver the best results for our business and offer great opportunities for our people. Even in our current challenging environment, it’s important to remember that Microsoft’s resource investment in MSN has never been greater than it is today. I’m inspired by the talent, passion and vision of the US team, and I want to thank you for your commitment to MSN.

Please join me in congratulating Rob, Steve, Sandy, and Dell in their new roles!

Thanks -
Greg

greg nelson . general manager global media group

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:18 am

Wii Sales Pass 7 Million Units in Japan - PC World

Game Guru

Wii Sales Pass 7 Million Units in Japan PC World - 10 hours ago As the second anniversary of the launch of Nintendo's Wii approaches sales of the console have passed the 7 million mark, according to figures released on Wednesday. Is the video games industry recession-proof? CNET News Wii sales slowing in Japan? CVG Online Shacknews - PC Magazine - Straits Times - Product Reviews all 164 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:14 am

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, we told stories. John recounted how he was a pre-teen Christian supercomputer:

Ever since I was ten, Colby has been a part of me, like a small, sentient circuit board lodged in my brain. He wasn't always like this. When I first met him, he was autonomous: a Moloch Machine, a literal deus ex. Beneath the brim of his red baseball cap, unblinking eyes bulbously stared, plunged, hypnotized.

Joel looked back to when he interviewed Bill Gates:

As CES 2005 rolled around, it was clear that Gizmodo was losing the gadget blog war. ... I was ready to lose, though. Although I had been running Gizmodo for less than a year I was already about to burn out. As I leaned back into the fake leather seat, my phone rang. "Hey, Joel? It's Larry Cohen from Microsoft. I know it's sort of last second, but would you be interested in interviewing Bill Gates at CES?"

Rob remembered finding a computer, a motorcycle and a giant pig in a forest clearing near Worthing, England.

A few feet away was a TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer, half-hidden by the ivy. ... The display glowed green in the dark. But this was the mid-1980s: one did not simply run into portable computers in the middle of the woods.

Don't miss the time a friend of John's met Steve Jobs—and his formidable temper.

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2008 | 3:13 am

HP’s Mini 1000 already supporting 3G?

Section: Communications, Broadband Cards, Mobile, Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Wireless

Originally, HP stated that a 3G-capable Mini 1000 would not be available until December.  However, at least one enterprising user seems to already have one in hand and already gotten the 3G working.  The details of this particular model are a little unclear, according to the forum posting, the user has a model #1033cl.  Based on some searching around, that model seems to be available only outside the US.  So, this is where it gets a little confusing, because he seems to be here in the US, as he mentioned that it is working on AT&T’s network. 

Now, is this a slip up on the part of HP, or are there more of these WWAN-equipped models out in-the-wild?  Fortunately, a quick check on the underside of your Mini 1000 will let you know if you have a WWAN-equiped netbook.  The slot (as pictured) can be found on the bottom and on the side of the battery slot. 

If you are one of the lucky ones, then getting it setup and running does not seem to be all that difficult.  You would have to download the HP Multi-WWAN Driver, then instead of installing it, just unzip the file.  Once unzipped, look for the Swisetup file and install that.  After that is installed, turn of your netbook, remove the battery, insert the SIM card and turn it all back on.  To check out the full set of directions, just click the read link below.

The one drawback here is that with the 3-cell battery, which is currently the only available option, the battery life is not going to be all that good.

Read [Pocketables]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 2:26 am

Sling Opens Up Its Hulu Competitor To The Public

Sling Media, the company behind the popular Slingbox TV-streaming hardware devices, has opened the gates to its video portal Sling.com. The site pits Sling directly against Joost and Hulu (though Hulu is a Sling partner), allowing users to stream a variety of television shows and movies for free through an intuitive Flash player.

Sling’s selection of media is pretty comprehensive, offering content from most of the major networks and studios including Warner, Sony, and MGM (Sling is licensing some of its content from Hulu). The site also offers movies from a number of smaller sources, like College Humor’s shorts. But there are a few notable exceptions: Comedy Central is nowhere to be found, which means The Daily Show and Colbert Report aren’t available (Hulu began offering both shows in June).

Sling.com’s biggest advantage over its competitors is its ability to stream content directly from any Sling boxes you own, giving access to both Live TV and premium content saved on your DVR. The service works very well, automatically detecting the contents of any Slingbox connected to your user account, and definitely makes me want a Slingbox of my own even more. That said, live content streaming from Sling.com won’t be a gamechanger yet, as it still comes with too many caveats.

First, live streaming is only available for Windows machines at launch - an acceptable sin but one that is irritating nonetheless (a Mac version is on the way, and the rest of the site works fine on all platforms). But what really hinders the live playback is the fact that it requires a browser plugin. Ideally, Sling.com would allow users to watch their content from any computer that supports Flash, even if they didn’t have the administrative rights required to download and install the native Sling application. Unfortunately this isn’t the case. And while the browser plugin may be only a fraction of the size of the native install, it will still likely be restricted on most public computers, which makes it far less useful. Fortunately the plugin is only required for live playback, as the rest of the site uses a standard Flash player.

Sling is off to a good start - its interface compares well to Hulu and Joost, and its selection of content is impressive if not unique. Once it nails down its live streaming (hopefully with full Mac support and no plugin needed), it could turn into my site of choice for consuming video. But until then, most people will probably stick with what they know.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2008 | 2:20 am

Gmail 'vulnerability' turns out to be phishing scam (CNET)

CNET - Reports that a purported Gmail vulnerability was being used by unauthorized third parties to hijack domains turned out to be nothing more than a phishing scam, Google announced Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Nov 2008 | 2:05 am

Online Xmas Spending: So Far, Not So Good [Voices]

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

You will not be shocked to learn that online holiday spending is not off to a good start.

ComScore today reports that for the first 23 days of November, e-commerce spending (excluding travel, auctions and large corporate purchases) was down four percent from the same period last year. ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said that “with consumer confidence low and disposable income tight, the first weeks of November have been very disappointing.”

ComScore’s forecast is that overall online spending this year will be flat versus a year ago. That compares with a 19 percent rise in spending online last year, and a nine percent rise in e-commerce for the year through October.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Nov 2008 | 2:00 am

Locusts Like It Cool

According to an article in New Scientist, global climate warming may actually suppress plagues of locusts. One less thing to worry about, eh?

Zhibin Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and colleagues have trawled through 1000 years of historical records documenting locust swarms and compared it with 1000 years of temperature, drought and flood data estimates.
image from wikipedia.

They found that the Oriental migratory locust (Locusta migratoria manilensis), which has been named as one of the most damaging agricultural pests in Chinese history, operates on a climate-driven cycle. Every 160 to 170 years, the swarms get bigger then subside again.

Counterintuitively, the timing of the largest swarms coincides with cooler periods.

"The popular view is that global warming may accelerate natural and biological disasters like drought and flood events, and outbreaks of pests, as predicted by the IPCC," says Zhang. "Our results suggest that warming reduced climatic extremes and locust plagues in ancient China."

That doesn't mean swarms won't happen. (Add this back to the list of things to worry about.) This month in Australia, drought followed by heavy rains in New South Wales has brought enormous swarms of locusts. One swarm is six kilometres long and 170 meters wide.

Here's a BBC video of the swarms. It's kind of like watching Hitchcock's "The Birds".

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:44 am

Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner

The size of the average American turkey has more than doubled in the last 80 years, at the expense of flavor. The corn, potatoes and likely everything else on your plate this Thanksgiving has also changed significantly since the Pilgrims sat down with Wampanoag Indians, and even since Lincoln invented the holiday in 1863.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:33 am

Sea slugs solar powered

A Texas A&M University biologist says research shows sea slugs are solar-powered and behave like a plant. Biology professor James Manhart says the sea slug's main food source is a type of alga that they digest while retaining the plastids in the plant cells.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:25 am

JVC promotes that which needs no promotion

Section: Audio, Home Audio, Video, Content, HDTV, Imaging, Camcorders, Peripherals, Displays

Chances are if you’re reading this you’ve probably seen The Dark Knight sometime this summer.  Or you at least heard of it.  If you haven’t, I congratulate you, it would have been nice to live in a cave during that media blitz.  Now, you may or may not know that the DVD and Blu-ray release of the movie is coming up on December 9th.  Well, if you haven’t, JVC wants to remind you.

JVC has announced a partnership with Warner Brothers to promote The Dark Knight, as if it needed help.  The company is holding a sweepstakes on its Dark Knight micro-site, offering for a chance to win a JVC home theater package, and Dark Knight DVDs. 

Headlining this grand-prize are the DLA-HD750 projector and Everio GZ-HD40 camcorder.  The projector has a 50,000:1 contrast ratio and is touted to be THX-compliant, while the camcorder can record 50 hours of 1080p content.  There is also a “Catch The Joker” game that you can play on the site for a daily chance to win Dark Knight DVDs, as well as behind-the-scenes footage from the film.

To advertise the campaign, there will be in-store promotions and print advertisements.  Oh yeah, that large HDTV in Times Square will also be showing Dark Knight-themed commercials when it goes live.  Nothing like 19’ tall images of Heath Ledger looming just one story above the street, and I suppose Batman will be there as well.  So, it’s another chance to win a home theater, and a movie with it.  Except this time it’s one of the largest grossing movies of all time, and a projector with an excellent contrast ratio.

Read [Virtual Press Box]
Read [JVC Dark Knight micro-site]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:14 am

90% of Gaming Addiction Patients Not Addicted

phorm writes "BBC is carrying an article which states that 90% of visitors to Europe's 'video game addiction clinic' are not, in fact, addicted. The problem is a social one rather than a psychological issue. In other words, the patients have turned to heavy gaming because they felt they didn't fit in elsewhere, or that they fit in better 'in the game' than elsewhere in 'the real world.' This has been discussed before, with arguments ranging from gaming being a good way to socialize, the clinical definition of gaming addiction, and claims than males are wired for video-game addiction."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:05 am

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld we discovered that the post-apocalyptic Wasteland in Bethesda's RPG Fallout 3 was about to get a little bit wider, got a glimpse of what a Criterion Collection for games might look like (props for the analogy, N'Gai!), and learned that -- happily -- the world's Guitar Heroes are picking up real guitars as well. We also looked at a photojournalist's project that shows us what it looks like when we're immersed in our virtual worlds, read about the people who got rich off those worlds, and listened to me live on national radio trying to explain the importance of those worlds.

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2008 | 1:00 am

Permission for Persimmons, please

Please allow me to sing the praises of persimmons. Bright orange persimmons are about the last fruit to ripen in the fall. There are two main types of persimmons, and I have both in my yard: fuyu and hachiya. Persimmons come from China originally but the common varieties that we find in California are from Japan. The fuyu persimmon is round, more like an apple, while the hachiya is distinctively acorn-shaped. Fuyu are ripe now, while the hachiya ripen later. [I've changed Fuya to Fuyu.]

Fuyu

The best thing about the fuyu is that it can be sliced and eaten like an apple or not-quite-ripe pear. You don't need to peel fuyus. My favorite use for fuyus is sliced or diced in salads. Last Thanksgiving, I created a relish with diced fuyu persimmons and pomegranate seeds mixed together.

Hachiya

The hachiya persimmon is more familiar to people, and the trees are also more commonly planted. Hachiya need to be very ripe before using them. [I have not eaten one but other report they are good eating when soft.] Putting them in a bag helps to force ripening.

Hachiya persimmons are very astringent - your mouth will be unusable after taking a bite. Just don't eat them off the tree, like a fuya. Typically, this kind of persimmon is turned into pulp and then used to make a sweet bread or a pudding. I saw a recipe for a persimmon sorbet, which I'll have to try, maybe for the Christmas holidays.

In short, you can't have enough fuyus but you'll easily have too many hachiyas.

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2008 | 12:12 am

T-Mobile G1 now in White and why it will sell like hotcakes

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile

You’ve waited.  You’ve fretted.  You lamented at the news a cargo ship was rerouted back to Asia thanks to paint chipping.  But now, dry the tears from your eyes and head to T-Mobile to pick up the latest phone, in the hottest color: white!  Heck yeah, no longer just representative of the iPod of 2002, no; white is the new black.

Or is it?  Basic black and bronze (ugh) must be selling well, as Peter Chou, HTC CEO says they are ramping up the numbers and expect to move 1 million of this gadgets by year’s end.  Did they pick white just to compete with that other phone?  Or is there something more?

I sought out senior colorologist Iyaz Akhtar who says, “white means clean slate in Aramaic, so HTC sees the Google Android OS as the perfect compliment to clean slate thinking.“  Since Iyaz is editing this, I am sure he’ll cop to not being a colorologist, likewise he’ll deny making that statement.  [Editor Iyaz note: I deny making that statement and leave the colors to Pantone.]

According to T-Mobile’s website the price for the white is still just $179 but is in “extremely limited supply.“  I also found it interesting the T-Mobile lists itself as the manufacturer of the G1, not giving HTC the props it richly deserves.

One last bit of interesting news: The tip from the PR firm on the G1 in white included an unrelated promo at the bottom:

Also, this coming weekend, Nov. 28 – Nov. 30, the MOTOZINE ZN5 will be available for a special Black Friday price. With a two-year service agreement and data plan, the MOTOZINE is free (includes $100 mail-in rebate)!

This means one of two things: The news of the G1 in white is not enough to stand on its own or they think so little of the Motozine that they don’t think its news could stand on its own.  Let’s battle which is the lesser story in the comments.

Product Page (T-Mobile)

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2008 | 12:06 am

Notify.me Offers Instant Updates On Your Favorite Topics Across The Web

RSS readers may make it easy to quickly browse through all of your favorite news sources, but they can quickly become overwhelming - many of the most popular blogs publish dozens of posts a day. Notify.me is looking to help cut through the noise by offering keyword filtering for blogs and other sites that support RSS (like Craigslist), and the ability to send immediate update notifications across a variety of services.

Notify.me allows users to create a list of RSS feeds they’d like to monitor for a set of specific keywords. Whenever one of these keywords appears in a story, Notify.me can alert them through SMS, Email, instant message, or through a desktop application. Users can also receive immediate updates from their social networks, including Facebook and LinkedIn, by switching their social network account’s email address to [user]@notify.me

While creating an account is easy, the site itself is more barebones than it should be. The default list of available RSS feeds only offers one source for each category - something that was likely done for simplicity, but sort of defeats the point of being able to monitor a wide variety of sources for a single subject. The site does offer a bookmarklet for adding more feeds to your account later, but it would benefit from a broader selection and more intuitive interface.

Notify.me shares many similarities with Yotify, another customizable alert startup that we covered in September that was described as “Google Alerts on Steroids’. For more on Notify.me, check out its profile on Go2Web20 here.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2008 | 12:01 am

How to Turn a Desktop Scanner Into a Camera

Got an old scanner kicking around? You can easily repurpose it for use as an artistic and experimental digital camera using some black foam-core board, a roll of light-proof tape and a cheap lens. Learn how in Wired.com's How-To Wiki.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Nov 2008 | 12:00 am

Kitchen Tech: Ferran Adria and Grant Achatz

Wired sat down recently with two of the world's top chefs: Ferran Adria of El Bulli and Grant Achatz of Alinea, and we've got videos of each. As you head into your Thanksgiving preparations, take some inspiration from these two culinary masters.

In the first video, Ferran Adria discusses the most essential, versatile kitchen gadget: A knife.

(Running time: 1:12)

In the second video, Wired's Mark McClusky talks with rising superstar Grant Achatz during the recent Wired NextFest. Achatz talks about how he uses innovative technologies (and a cooking-and-serving staff of more than 50) to produce intense, intimate and emotional experiences through food. For more on Achatz, read "My Compliments to the Lab" from issue 14.05 of Wired, or head on over to the companion website to Achatz' book, Alineamosaic.com.

(Running time: 8:42)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 25 Nov 2008 | 11:52 pm

It’s Official: MTV Exec Courtney Holt Leaves To Run MySpace Music

MySpace Music’s long awaited leader has arrived. As expected, MTV Networks’ EVP Digital Music and Media Courtney Holt has taken the job, says the LA Times.

Until today Holt was EVP of Digital Music for the MTV Networks Music and Logo Group. Prior to joining MTV, Holt was SVP of New Media, Creative and Strategic Marketing at Interscope Geffen A&M.

This is the second MTV exec MySpace has hired in the last few months. Angela Courtin, previously MTV’s Vice President of Integrated Marketing, joined MySpace in July.

In an email to MTV staff today, President Van Toffler wrote:

I wanted to let you all know that Courtney Holt, our EVP of Digital Media for the Music & Logo Group, and owner of arguably the most extensive vinyl record collection at MTV Networks, will be moving on at the end of the year.

We’re sorry to see him go, and there’s been lots of buzz about his potential next moves, but I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for his hard work, and determination, as well as his musical and technological prowess.

Courtney championed and drove through several important initiatives during his tenure here. He kick started the re-imagination of MTV.com when he first got here in 2006, paving the way for future innovation and growth of the site. He was instrumental in seeing through and launching our joint venture with Real Networks to create “Rhapsody America” and most recently, he and his team persevered to design and launch a beta version of mtvmusic.com, where we can finally showcase our incredible history of music video and exclusive content in one place. It’s sleek and simple to browse and is being met with rave reviews even though we haven’t even officially launched or turned our spotlight on it. Courtney has been a true champion of mtvmusic.com since day one and I am thankful to him for all his creativity on this and everything else he touched during the time he’s been with our company. We wish him the best.

In the meantime, Courtney and I are working on the transition plan and I will be communicating more details very soon. We truly have great momentum on all digital fronts including continued growth and innovation at each of our branded .coms with MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com and LOGOonline.com and killer success with our music video game Rock Band. We’ve only just begun to unlock our precious music vaults on mtvmusic.com, making us the pre-eminent place to not only see music videos, but a wealth of content that no one else has anywhere…more than 27 years worth. We also have more than 30 verticals and ancillary sites that connect to our on-air content and drive traffic online.

So look for more from our digital music space — there truly is so much opportunity for us. And again, a thank you to Courtney for serving us so well.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 11:45 pm

Searching DNA For Relatives Raises Concerns

An anonymous reader calls our attention to California's familial searching policy, which looks for genetic ties between culprits and kin. The technique has come to the fore in the last few years, after a Colorado prosecuter pushed the FBI to relax its rules on cross-state searches. "Los Angeles Police Department investigators want to search the state's DNA database again — not for exact matches but for any profiles similar enough to belong to a parent or sibling. The hope is that one of those family members might lead detectives to the killer. This strategy, pioneered in Britain, is poised to become an important crime-fighting tool in the United States. The Los Angeles case will mark the first major use of California's newly approved familial searching policy, the most far-reaching in the nation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 25 Nov 2008 | 11:37 pm

Amazon Kindle 2 now rumored to be launching early-2009

Section: Gadgets / Other, Miscellaneous

This certainly is not the first we are hearing about the Kindle 2, however it looks like anyone who was holding out is going to have to wait a little longer.  Initially, the Kindle 2 was expected to hit the market this past October, which would have given it a good launch to pick up some holiday sales.  According to the reports, the delay was caused by Jeff Bezos in order to make some last minute changes to the software. 

So what we do know, is that the image of the Kindle 2 (pictured here) is the real deal; you can tell has gotten a slight makeover.  The Kindle 2 is said to be a little bit thinner and also has a slightly redesigned keyboard along with some changes to the buttons on the sides.  Additionally, the device is said to be a little taller than the original.  As for when we can expect the Kindle 2, according to the latest report, it’s “tentatively scheduled” to be available early next quarter.  Judging from the looks of the new model, it seems to be a nice design improvement, but still unknown is what improvements have been made on the software side.  In the meantime I am going to continue enjoying my current Kindle.

Via [TechCrunch]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 25 Nov 2008 | 11:08 pm

TiVo reports profit in fiscal 3Q (AP)

AP - TiVo Inc. recorded a profit for its latest quarter because of a $105 million settlement it received in a patent suit, but revenue declined, the maker of digital video recorders said Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 25 Nov 2008 | 11:00 pm

Want to listen to some music on the AT&T Quickfire? Good luck with that.

It’s not all that uncommon for handset manufacturers to forego the simplicity of a standard 3.5mm headset jack, instead opting for some clunky proprietary port. To take off a bit of the sting, they’ll generally include some sort of crappy-port-to-3.5mm adapter - or at the very least, they’ll stick a cheapo pair of compatible headphones in the box in hopes that no one cares that they sound horrible.

Not the AT&T Quickfire, though. Sure, it’s got that nasty proprietary port (pictured above), and a relatively solid set of music functionality (Music playback in at least 8 formats, music purchases, music identification, XM music, etc) - but they included neither an adapter nor crummy headphones in the box. To make things worse, it doesn’t look like AT&T even sells the required adapter. If you want to make use of the Quickfire’s music features without annoying everyone around you, you’ll have to turn to third-party resellers.

Of course, you could always use a pair of stereo bluetooth headphones - but if you’re using a $70 dollar pair of headphones with a $99 dollar phone, you’re 10 kinds of weird. Get it straight, handset manufacturers: If you’re going to push audio out through a crappy proprietary format, include a 3.5mm adapter. If you don’t, every single music feature on the device is pretty much useless.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: MobileCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:59 pm

Sound-proof Rooms Drown Out Pesky Sounds of Humanity

In another example of companies catering to people that need to justify their anti-social behavior with a need for absolute silence, Yamaha is coming out with a simple one-person room called My Room II.

The new My Room is a soundproof block with all the amenities of a cardboard box, but with less room and a little bit more technology. Inside the Room, a touch panel control allows the user to control the air-conditioner and overall temperature, and comes with an embedded 66-watt fluorescent light. It’s also lined with a flame-proof carpet that further quiets the space.

We couldn’t find the decibel level the insulated panel walls can suppress, but if it’s presumably good enough to use as an office within an office as Yamaha suggests, it’s likely to be able to handle between 60 (normal conversations) and 80 decibels (city traffic).

But most critically, the room deludes the user into thinking about something other than the depressing fact that the human population is increasing to such a degree that suffocatingly tiny rooms are necessary to get some peace and quiet.

Overall, the popularity of miniaturized personal spaces is growing. Earlier this year, we featured mini houses that adjusted the American dream of owning a home down to a simple, spruced up RV shack featuring only the most necessary amenities.

Yamaha is not getting into the mini-house craze just yet, but they are also selling an even quieter personal room called the Cefine II. It’s a slightly larger room for jamming and practicing music, with better acoustics and thicker walls.

The My Room II is currently available in Japan for $6,500, and the Cefine II comes in at $15,000.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:58 pm

Bay Area To Install Electric Vehicle Grid

Mike writes "Recently San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland unveiled a massive concerted effort to become the electric vehicle capitol of the United States. The Bay Area will be partnering with Better Place to create an essential electric vehicle infrastructure, marking a huge step towards the acceptance of electric vehicles as a viable alternative to those that run on fossil fuels." Inhabitat.com has some conceptual illustrations and a map showing EV infrastructure, such as battery exchange stations, stretching from Sacramento to San Diego — though this is far more extensive than the Bay Area program actually announced, which alone is estimated to cost $1 billion.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:50 pm

Boing Boing tv Update: Virgin WiFi, Obfuscated Code, Comment Poetry, Downfall Housing Remix

In this week's Boing Boing TV update:

* VIRGIN AMERICA LAUNCHES IN-FLIGHT WIRELESS: Our wireless tech reporter pal Glenn Fleishman was on the first Virgin America flight with airborne WiFi service. BBtv caught up with him over video chat from a Virgin America Airbus A320 aircraft (named "My Other Ride Is A Spaceship") 35,000 feet above San Francisco. Also joining us: Jack Blumenstein, the CEO of Aircell, the company providing the "GoGo" air/ground 3G connectivity. The bottom line: no content filtering on Virgin, so you can visit any blogs you like, and they will not block streaming content or video. But, voice over IP will be blocked because the general consensus among airlines and travelers in the US seems to be that nobody wants other people on the plane to be talking on the phone when you're all confined to close quarters. Disclaimer: we really like Virgin America, in part because they carry Boing Boing tv in their in-flight entertainment system.

* BB COMMENT THREAD POETRY CONTEST: Teresa Nielsen Hayden, aka She Who Disemvowels, announced a fun game/contest recently -- write some poetry inside the comment threads using "natively BoingBoing" themes. We can has a winner.

* OBFUSCATED CODE CONTEST: here's Joel's blog entry announcing the Safari Books / Boing Boing contest. The idea: write a string of "obfuscated code" that generates the words "Boing Boing." Here's the winner, and here's another example we thought was rad.

* DALE DOUGHERTY IS GUEST BLOGGING: He's been checking in from Banff, and I've particularly enjoyed his posts from there about snow, glaciers, and snowman newlyweds.

* DER UNTERGANG HOUSING BUBBLE REMIX: Mark spotted it last week, and lulz rang out throughout the land. One of many we dug.

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Here's a downloadable MP4, and here is the BBtv blog post with instructions for subscribing to the Boing Boing tv podcast.

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Special thanks to Q Burns Abstract Message for the track that appears in today's ep, UNCERTAIN T, courtesy Eighth Dimension Records.

Below: a snapshot from that Virgin America WiFi flight. I spy Brian Lam of Gizmodo, and Glenn Fleishman, and a few other familar blogging faces!

UPDATE: Hey, what kind of sites exactly was Gizporno's Brian Lam websurfing on that plane? Zoom in a little... wait.. there we go. AHA. Below, the reveal.

Source: Boing Boing | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:38 pm

Italy heads European Space Agency

The 18 member states of the European Space Agency plus Canada have decided in the Netherlands that Italy will head the agency until 2011. The countries decided during a two-day meeting that began Tuesday that Italy, a founding member of the ESA and currently the third-largest contributor to the 33-year-old agency, should run the space program until a new country is chosen in 2011, the Italian news agency ANSA reported. Italian Education and Research Minister Mariastella Gelmini said after her appointment as head of the ESA's Council of Ministers that the agency needs to continue pursuing space research as Chinese and Indian space programs emerge as competitors. ''I think our priority goal is to show the world that Europe has the maturity and capacity to share a policy and strategy for space use ...
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:07 pm

The Real Monsters Behind Godzilla

eldavojohn writes "A Wired blog looks at the real monsters behind Godzilla: his lawyers. Do you think Godzilla is basically a glorified T. Rex? Guess again, as his lawyers have tirelessly argued: 'He's erect-standing. He's got muscular arms, scaly skin and spines on back and tail and he breathes fire and has a furrowed brow, he's got an anthropomorphic torso. The T. rex has emaciated bird-like arms and stands at a 45-degree angle.' Read on to find out why they targeted the site davezilla.com but not mozilla.org. Another abuse of the American trademark & copyright system? You decide — just don't make a float of him or you'll find yourself paying an undisclosed sum to Toho Co. Ltd."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:07 pm

YouTube Goes Widescreen, Paves the Way for Hollywood Features

The grand-daddy of video sharing sites has finally moved to a default widescreen player with an HD-friendly 16:9 aspect ratio, a feature most other video sharing sites have had for many moons. The move to widescreen playback comes just after YouTube's announcement that it will soon begin hosting full-length Hollywood movies.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:00 pm

Hubble Captures Images of Rare Mammoth Stars

The Hubble Space Telescope captures images of giant stars 7,500 light years away from Earth in our galaxy. The stars are actually clusters of two and three stars that emit ultraviolet radiation, which gives them a blue cast.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 Nov 2008 | 10:00 pm

Cisco plans 4-day shutdown to cut costs (AP)

AP - Cisco Systems Inc. will close most of its U.S. and Canadian offices for 4 days over the holidays as part of a plan to cut $1 billion in costs in the current fiscal year, the company said Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:58 pm

Motorola Hint QA30 launched; where’s the rest?

Overheard in the Motorola mobile development building:

“Sanjay! I’ve got it! I’ve got the idea that will be our next RAZR-level success!”

“.. Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, spec-wise, nothing too spectacular. 2.5 inch screen, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD support, QWERTY keyboard, blah blah blah. Here’s the stunner.. you ready for this? Drum roll, please!”

“…”

“… We’ll make it awkwardly proportioned! Can you believe that? It’s like a normal phone, but shorter! No, no, wait. Not ’shorter’. It’s squat.. People will eat it up!”

And that, my friends, was how the Motorola Hint QA30 was born. Take a standard QWERTY candybar slider, screw with the scaling, and kerplow - you’ve got a new device to sell. Coming to Alltel, pricing and launch date unmentioned.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:56 pm

Technorati Lays Off Six, Cuts Pay For Rest

Technorati just announced on its official blog that the company has decided to lay off six employees as the result of generally poor economic conditions. Management is also taking a 10-15% pay cut, while all other surviving employees are getting their paychecks cut down by 10%.

Two of the six departures are from management positions, although no names have been released yet.

CEO Richard Jalichandra described those who have been laid off as “high performers who have worked long hours to get us where we are now. They’re also friends, and we’re very sad to see them go. We simply need a leaner and reconfigured mix to get us through 2009.”

The layoffs come just over a month after Technorati acquired ad network AdEngage for an undisclosed amount.

Technorati is now listed on our Layoff Tracker, which we continue to update with all the most recent layoffs in the tech industry.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:53 pm

Awethumb Claims Cure For BlackBerry Thumb

In a world where dumb accessories are plenty (gadget shoulder holster anyone?), the Awethumb can put many to shame and that's no easy feat.

These plastic thumb guards are ostensibly designed to make typing easier and prevent repetitive stress syndrome from constant tapping on tiny phone keypads. The rubber pad at the tip of the finger "cushions" the thumb or index fingers, says its website, protecting from what has come to be known as the 'BlackBerry Thumb.'

But one look at these plastic finger guards and you know they aren't going to help with anything.

Don't miss the little sign at the bottom of the website indicating patent pending worldwide. Yes, the Awethumb is that innovative. One Awethumb set costs $8 plus shipping and handling.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:51 pm

Off-label drug testing needed, study says

Doctors and patients should be concerned about antipsychotic and antidepressant drugs being prescribed for unapproved conditions, U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:47 pm

Light pollution can measure reef health

Light pollution can offer a new measure of coral reef health and how humans impact the planet, a U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:33 pm

Compulsive Gamers Not Addicted

The first ever clinic developed to treat people addicted to computer gaming says 90 percent of the young people who seek treatment for compulsive gaming are not addicted.That’s according to Keith Bakker, the founder and head of Europe's first and only clinic to treat gaming addicts.Since opening its doors in 2006, the Smith & Jones Center in Amsterdam has treated hundreds of young gamers.However, the clinic is changing its treatment after realizing that compulsive gaming is a social rather than a psychological problem.The clinic shows high success rates treating people with other addictive behaviors such as drug taking and excessive drinking, using traditional abstinence-based treatment models.But this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers, Bakker said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:30 pm

Cars and Guitars — Autopia's 10 Best Songs About Cars

We're putting together a playlist for the long drive to grandma's house. Tell us what to put on it.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:24 pm

Spontaneous gadget generation amid mushroom rings in woods near Worthing, England.

When I was a kid, I found a TRS-80 Model 100, a motorcycle and a giant pig in a forest clearing.

My father and I used to roam the south downs, hills that sloped down to a chain of senescent resort towns on the English Channel. We'd head out at the weekend for a hike around a bronze age hill-fort here or a berried copse there. These were brief idylls of childhood: birdsong and breezy trees, a maze of ancient flint walls and bridle-paths.

Over the years we visited many places, but none so odd as a patch of woodland northwest of Worthing, the town where I grew up.

Details of the trip now escape me. The forest was denser and quieter than most of Sussex's well-groomed wildernesses. Its old trees seemed to absorb sound, heightening the senses, making you pay attention. Perhaps that false sense of stillness is an echo of instict, a deep memorious part of us that wakes up in any primal environment.

Heading from one end to the other, we traipse into a clearing and find a huge pig in the middle of it. It minded its own business, neither fearing us or angry at our presence.

My dad laughed and, as is his wont, crafted a corny story about how it came to be there.

A few yards away, however, we also found a motorcycle, laid down in the bushes. Bear in mind that this is probably a hundred feet from a muddy path, and half a mile from anything one might actually be able to reasonably traverse on motorcycle.

And then, a few feet from that, a TRS-80 Model 100 portable computer, half-hidden by the ivy.

Turned on.

Perhaps memory plays tricks. The display glowed green in the dark, but I'm pretty sure those things didn't glow the way calculators and alarm clocks do. It could have been any of dozens of clones, or some kind of fancy electronic typewriter. But it was something that looked much like this:

Nothing ran on it. Just some menu options on screen, as if it had just been powered up.

There was no shiver up the spine, or creeping of the flesh, just a quiet murmur of something nasty, as if the sky dimmed imperceptibly at the precise moment we saw it, and it knew we had found it. This was the mid-1980s: one did not simply run into portable computers in the middle of the woods. In the fraction of a second it took to simply realize "Oh, battery powered," a soundless crackle danced around the space, a feeling I know my father and I shared.

Being a grown-up and all, my dad's more sensible instincts kicked in, and the next thing I remember is us at the side of the nearest road, with him calling the police at a payphone to inform them of the odd find. Of course, many other items were discovered thereafter. The bike and notebook were stolen from a nearby farm and abandoned, with most of the swag, by over-encumbered thieves.

Maybe realizing something is mundane is what makes it so, and maybe things would have been different if I had been by myself: Alone with me in that silent place, free to conjure a human mode of communication in fungus and shadow, a vague and imperiled presence induces current just so to deliver its summons.

I certainly wouldn't have been the first kid to simply vanish in the woods near Worthing.

As for the pig, how it got there is anyone's guess.

Photo: Sorbus Sapiens

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:22 pm

Entertainment Software Association Following RIAA?

cavis writes "My organization just received an e-mail from the Intellectual Property enforcement division of the Entertainment Software Association. It accuses one particular IP address with 'infringing the copyright rights of one or more ESA members by copying and distributing unauthorized copies of game products (through peer-to-peer or similar software/services).' It goes on to name the filename and the application: Limewire. Has anyone had any contact with this group? Are they following the RIAA's lead and pursuing litigation for peer-to-peer piracy? I'm just trying to evaluate what I am in for as I try to battle P2P within my network." Read on for more details.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:21 pm

Web sites help soothe everyday stress

Web sites showing too-cute puppies and offering too-precious pet humor provide an antidote for U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:16 pm

Europe’s Tuna Trade Called 'Mockery Of Science'

In a move environmental groups called a “mockery of science”, nations with involvement in trading Mediterranean bluefin tuna voted to maintain catches at levels nearly 50 percent above “safe” levels.The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICAAT) vote was blamed primarily on the European Union, who environmentalists say used trade issues to pressure smaller nations into supporting the measure.ICAAT's scientists initially said the total allowable catch (TAC) for next year should not exceed 15,000 tons.  The scientists warned the commission that "a collapse in the near future is a possibility" considering the large number of boats involved in the lucrative trade.However, the figure was set at 22,000 tons during the final day of the commission’s annual meeting, with the nations rejecting scientists' plea for a closure of the fishery during the spawning months of May and June."The spawning closure was probably more important than the TAC issue because actually the TAC was never respected," Sergi Tudela, who leads the fisheries program at the environment group WWF, told BBC news from the ICAAT meeting."It was the one thing that might have stopped overfishing", he said."The decision is a mockery of science and a mockery of the world; ICCAT has shown that it doesn't deserve the mandate to manage this iconic fishery."Numbers of the East Atlantic stock of bluefin have fallen so rapidly that there is now the possibility it could be classified as a threatened species.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:15 pm

Lunascape Browser: Firefox, Internet Explorer And Chrome All-In-One

Lunascape is a new web browser that handles all three major web rendering engines — Firefox’s Gecko, Internet Explorer’s Trident and WebKit (which is used by Safari and Chrome). Lunascape Corp., a Tokyo-based web software company, offers the browser as a free download. Lunascape 5 Alpha is Windows-only and the first English version of the browser (a Japanese version dates back to 2001).

Lunascape 5 is an interesting alternative for people (like me) who primarily use Firefox but keep Internet Explorer as a second browser when they encounter rendering problems (i. e. on some of the few IE-only and IE-optimized web pages out there).

This is how Lunascape works: Users can toggle between rendering engines by either right-clicking tabs or by clicking on the engine switcher button on the bottom left of the screen. If you have figured out which engine works best for a page, Lunascape lets you force the page to use that engine for future visits via a pull down menu (Lunascape CEO Hidekazu Kondo calls this “semi-automatic” engine switching).

I tested Lunascape 5 for some hours now and apart from a few bugs (under the Gecko engine, saving a picture prompted a Japanese confirmation box, for example), it’s pretty stable.

The browser is mainly appealing to geeks and web developers. It comes with an abundance of features: Native support for RSS and podcast feeds, tab crash protection, support of mouse gestures for easier navigation, a library of Lunascape-exclusive plug-ins (Japanese only at this point) and skins, a form auto saver (which saves passwords and texts written in blog posts or webmails) and a huge number of tweaks and settings in the default menus.

Lunascape claims on the company website this browser is the fastest in the world (under the SunSpider Javascript Benchmark, at least) but I didn’t recognize any discernible differences in load speed when comparing Lunascape using the Gecko engine to Firefox 3, for example.

Unfortunately, the alpha version is currently not supporting Firefox add-ons (although IE add-ons do work). At this point, the browser isn’t automatically able to recommend to you which engine works best for which page, a feature that might be integrated into future versions.

But Lunascape is still in alpha phase so it being a little rough around the edges is acceptable. Kondo promises an improved beta version to be released “very soon” and hopes for feedback from international users in particular.

The company says the Japanese version of Lunascape has been downloaded 10 million times since 2004 and wants to capture a 5% share of the global browser market. (Get in line). In order to step up efforts to promote the browser outside of Japan, Lunascape has established a subsidiary company in San Jose in June of this year.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:02 pm

Court Awaits Decision On MySpace Suicide Case

Prosecutors argued on Monday that the tragic suicide of a Missouri teen could have been avoided had she not been tormented online by a mom who lived a few houses away.A federal case was brought against Missouri woman Lori Drew, who is accused of posing as a teen boy on the MySpace social networking website to tease and humiliate 13-year-old Megan Meier, who later committed suicide.The jury will begin deliberating on Tuesday after prosecutors told jurors that Drew, her daughter and a teenage employee created the profile in a plan to publicly embarrass Meier and get back at her for saying bad things about Drew's daughter.U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 9:00 pm

Internet Ad Revenue Expectations Drop Due To Economic Crisis

Marketing research firm eMarketer on Tuesday cut its predictions of how much U.S. advertisers would spend on the Internet next year by nearly ten percent.The dim outlook was spurred by the United States’ worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:55 pm

Haunted Mansion Counterstrike level

ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG. Nipper, a Counterstrike map-hacker, has devised an incredibly detailed reproduction of the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World, a ride so fine I wrote a novel about it. Nipper's packed a jaw-dropping amount of detail into the map, even down to various behind-the-scenes sections, and has creatively improved some of the slacker moments in the ride, such as a set of Eschereqsue staircases to one side of the otherwise boring stair-climb. The only thing that could make this better would be modelling ALL the backstage areas, so you could tear through the break rooms and maintenance areas with your giant guns, hunting your fellow players.

YouTube: A ride-through of NIPPER's de_haunts (a "The Haunted Mansion" Counter-Strike: Source map), Download the map (Thanks, David, Nick, Jeremy, Dreambank, Waxy, and Justin!)

Source: Boing Boing | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:48 pm

HP Shows Positive Gains During Rocky Economy

Despite a staggering economy, Hewlett-Packard has made some impressive gains in computer sales.Even with industry wide warnings of a sharp slowdown in PC sales growth, laptop figures soared 21 percent to $6.3 billion in the latest quarter.HP's total revenue rose 19 percent to $33.6 billion, aided by the mega-acquisition of Electronic Data Systems Corp., which added $3.9 billion in sales.The company’s better-than-expected results show how a diversity of business lines helped them absorb weakness in specific parts of its business.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:46 pm

Five Ways To Slash Your Cellphone Bill

Let's face it: Times are tough and you're not likely to qualify for a multi-billion-dollar bailout. You've probably already cut back on shopping, eating out, movies and junk gadgets.

Still not saving enough money? Take a second look at your cellphone. The average cellphone user ends up spending $600 a year on wireless phone service, which means there's plenty of room in there for some scrimping. While there may be some crazy texters and manic talkers around, it is likely most of us use much less than what we paid for.

Here are five ways to slash your cellphone bills and save more of that scarce moolah:

Unlimited isn't always good
News flash: Cellphone companies don't really care about you as a person. What they really care about is ARPU, or "average revenue per user," and how to make it bigger. That means finding clever ways of getting customers to sign up for larger monthly contracts. While Sprint, Verizon or AT&T's unlimited voice and texting package for $99 a month may seem great, it is likely you will use less than half of what you paid for. How much are you really texting? What about voice calls? Do you yap that much? Sure, if you run over your usage it can be expensive but a lot of us don't.

As a first step analyze your cellphone usage by looking at the past few months' statements. Find out how many minutes you really use and then match your plan to that. Or try Billshrink, a new website that claims to help you find the most optimal plan. Instead of the $40 plan go for the $20 plan if that's all you really need. Less is more.

Go prepaid
Service providers like long-term contracts because they lock you in as a customer for two years. While contracts are often the only way to get the best phones, they can get pretty expensive. For example, $200 for a phone and $60 a month on contract adds up to $1,640 over two years.

Check out prepaid phones that you can buy for just about $15 and use with a prepaid card. If you are not a power user this could really help cut your bills down. Some service providers even offer rollover minutes on their prepaid plans, with the condition that you top up to a minimum every month.

Prepaid plans work well for cell phones users who talk 200 minutes or less a month, says the Telecommunications Research & Action Center, a non-profit organization. And if you have more than once cell phone in the family, try substituting one pre-paid cell phone for at least one post-paid cell phone, they suggest.

Cut out the bells and whistles
Do you really need that data plan? Take another look at your phone, too. It's nice to have the latest phones but you can save money if you are willing to give up on having the current talk of the town. Cut out downloads of ringtones, games and other online services that your service provider may be doing a hard sell on. Cut! Cut! Cut! Tough times call for tough measures.

Don't cut the cord just yet
About 16 percent of Americans have only cellphones and no landlines. That means for the other 84 percent, it is time to take another look at the black box sitting at your house or work.

When at home use your landline phone instead of burning up minutes on your cellphone. Instead of calling friends and family during your commute, head home and use your land line. Long distance calling? Don't touch that cellphone!

Buy online
Websites of most service providers offer an extensive range of phones that often come free with a one-year contract. Some of those phones could cost about $50 in-store with a contract or even more. If you really want your latest phones try sites such as Wirefly or Amazon.com for some good deals. In-store isn't always the best.

Photo: (Milica Sekulick/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:37 pm

Triple-Engine Browser Released As Alpha

jcasman passes along a heads-up on Lunascape, a Japanese browser company that is releasing its first English version of its Lunascape 5 triple-engine browser. It's for XP and Vista only. There are reviews up at CNET, OStatic (quoted below), and Lifehacker. Both the reviews and comments point out that, in its current alpha state, the browser is buggy and not very fast; but it might be one to watch. "How many web browsers do you run? If you're like me, you regularly use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Each of those browsers, of course, has its own underlying rendering engine: Gecko (in Firefox), Trident (in Internet Explorer), and Webkit (in Chrome and Safari). Today, a Japanese startup called Lunascape has released an alpha version of its Lunascape browser... that allows you to switch between all three of these prominent rendering engines. The company says that the Japanese version of Lunascape has been downloaded 10 million times and touts it as the fastest browser available."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:37 pm

Boing Boing Gadgets: Joel Reviews T-Mobile Cameo Picture Frame (BBtv video)

In this week's Boing Boing Gadgets review episode on Boing Boing tv, Joel Johnson reviews the T-Mobile Cameo Picture Frame, which displays digital photos but also sort of works like a phone. Joel's thumbs were neither decisively up nor down, but rather pensively wrapped around a scotch SORRY, *BOURBON* tumbler.

Link to post on Boing Boing Gadgets where you can discuss (and by "discuss", I mean make fun of Joel's holiday sweater). Here is an MP4 for your downloading pleasure.

Below, a slide show of images submitted by Boing Boing Gadgets readers to Joel, for use in preparing this video review of the Cameo Picture Frame.

Update: Joel here. One correction from what I said in the video. There is a way to copy all the images off of the device onto an SD card at once. It didn't work for me the first time, but I then I tried it again later and it did. Don't know what I did differently, but it makes a big difference in how easy it is to get images from the Cameo to your computer.

Source: Boing Boing | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:33 pm

Reports Show Facebook Targeted Twitter

Image Caption: Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, California. Courtesy Wikipedia
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:33 pm

Kindle 2.0 to Hit Stores Early 2009

Amazon has slated the next version of its popular Kindle reader for the first quarter of 2009.

The second Kindle, which will be longer, thinner and more ergonomically friendly than its predecessor, is tentatively scheduled to go on sale "early next quarter," sources told TechCrunch.

Shortly after releasing Kindle 2.0, Amazon will push out a student version of the reader with a larger screen -- more suitable for displaying textbooks. The student version will hit stores sometime in the first half of 2009.

Previously, speculators predicted an October 2008 release of Kindle 2.0, but Amazon quickly dispelled such rumors. It's understandable why Amazon is taking its time and being careful with the new Kindle: The reader is the company's first attempt at a hardware device. However, many other companies have similar products in the works that could steal the Kindle's thunder. For example, Plastic Logic is working on a touchscreen reader that already looks more promising -- and it's due first half of 2009. Also, some are already arguing that consumers are preferring the iPhone as a book reader over the Kindle.

Amazon Kindle 2 Slated For "Early Q1" [TechCrunch]

Photo credit: troyh/Flickr

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:15 pm

Cyber Monday Expected To Have Big Sales

There will be more Internet retailers offering special promotions on Cyber Monday, the day after the Thanksgiving weekend, for online holiday shopping.According to a survey by online shopping site Shopzilla, nearly 84 percent of online retailers plan to have a Cyber Monday promotion.  About 25 percent of the surveyed plan to offer free shipping to help entice sales.The reason the Monday following Thanksgiving weekend has been dubbed Cyber Monday is because many consumers return to work and use their high-speed Internet connections to search out deals not found at non-Internet retailers.The U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:14 pm

Bacteria move between species, study finds

Mountain gorillas in Uganda are at increased risk of getting gastrointestinal bacteria from humans, researchers found. The study, published in Conservation Biology, examined the exchange of digestive-track bacteria between humans, mountain gorillas and domesticated animals living in overlapping habitats. The findings indicated the presence of identical, clinically resistant bacteria, in gorillas, implying that antibiotic-resistant bacteria or resistance-conferring genetic elements transfer from humans to gorillas, the researchers said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:13 pm

Joel Reviews T-Mobile Cameo Picture Frame (BBtv Video)

Ahoy, readers -- Xeni Jardin sneaking in a BBtv post here. In this week's Boing Boing Gadgets review episode on Boing Boing tv, Joel Johnson reviews the T-Mobile Cameo Picture Frame, which displays digital photos but also sort of works like a phone. Joel's thumbs were neither decisively up nor down, but rather pensively wrapped around a scotch SORRY, *BOURBON* tumbler. Here is an MP4 for your downloading pleasure. After the jump: a slideshow of the images Boing Boing Gadgets readers submitted to Joel for use in this video review of the Cameo picture frame.

Update: Joel here. One correction from what I said in the video. There is a way to copy all the images off of the device onto an SD card at once. It didn't work for me the first time, but I then I tried it again later and it did. Don't know what I did differently, but it makes a big difference in how easy it is to get images from the Cameo to your computer.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 8:11 pm

Diddy Wants To Be The Next James Bond

Sean Combs releases a “movie” on YouTube promoting his new men’s fragrance and announcing his desire to be the next James Bond:

I am debuting my new movie “I Am King” for my new fragrance “I Am King” which is available exclusively at Macy’s. This fragrance is dedicated to Barack Obama, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King and all you men out there who take care of your families and respect and treat yourself like the Kings that we are all. I would like to also announce that this is my audition tape for the next James Bond. There is a black president and it’s time for there to be a black Bond. God Bless.

This is, officially, the worst thing I have ever seen on the Internet, if only because he’s taking himself so seriously. The man is riding a wave runner while wearing a tuxedo. And I don’t think it’s a joke.

Update: Well, the YouTube video is down, but you can watch it here.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:54 pm

Boing Boing Gadgets Astroturfed By Viral Marketer Working for Motorola

Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel has an extremely funny and acidic post up about a viral marketer who appears to be astroturfing in our comment threads on behalf of Motorola. Boing Boing Gadgets commenters respond in kind, and a comment war of wall-to-wall LOL ensues. Go read the whole thing, please: Motorola, could you please tell your viral marketer to get out of our comments? (gadgets.boingboing.net)

Oh, and hey, Joel -- I'm so glad my boss isn't like that! I'm working for Boing Boing right now, and became a huge fan of the Yeti Robot Sex blog post genre. I especially like YouTube dance remix. It's awesome!

Source: Boing Boing | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:44 pm

Divers Find Remains of Illegal Slave Ship

The wreck of an illegal slave ship is found off Turks and Caicos Islands.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:43 pm

Findings spark debate about breast tumors

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:37 pm

Interviewing Bill Gates

I still can't look Peter Rojas in the eye.

In 2004, Rojas left Gizmodo, the blog he had founded at Nick Denton's Gawker Media, to start Engadget. Denton asked me to step in to blog at Gizmodo while they searched for a full-time replacement. My two-week temporary position turned into a four-week one, then a six-week one, until Denton finally realized that my special brand of cock jokes were as good as Gizmodo deserved and made me the full-time editor.

But I was floundering. Rojas had hired a small team of writers to work at Engadget, while I was running Gizmodo by myself. I planted myself in front of my computer from five in the morning until midnight, breaking only to shovel General Tso Chicken and delivery fajitas down my gullet. I gained thirty pounds. I couldn't sleep at night, my back contorted with worry. My girlfriend and I barely slept together; she would gently try to coax me into relaxation, but I'd be too preoccupied with conceiving my next linkbait story to register her supplications.

I'd post 30 stories a day. Engadget would post 45. I'd post 45. Engadget would post 60. They were winning.

Rojas — a person who I still don't know in the least; someone whose sitting down amicably at my table at last year's SXSW prompted me to spring up, sputter a drunken unintelligible excuse and literally run away — haunted me, a fiendish specter who outwitted me at every move, whose machinations I saw behind every bad turn.

I was fucking nuts.

As CES 2005 rolled around, it was clear that Gizmodo was losing the gadget blog war. Although they never publicly exposed their readership numbers, it was clear that Engadget was pulling ahead in traffic. And I knew through various channels that they were going to be heading to the Consumer Electronics Show in force, while I was going to be out there by myself.

I was ready to lose, though. Although I had been running Gizmodo for less than a year I was already about to burn out. If I'd had any inkling of the outcome over the next few years — Engadget's sale to AOL, the growth of Gizmodo with a proper staff, and eventual irrelevance of any sort of "win" between the two sites — I might have been able to keep my head on straight. But instead I saw the end of my short career in blogging, the first job I'd ever truly loved, about to end.

Susie and I sat in the back of towncar on the way to La Guardia to catch our plane to Vegas. She'd waited patiently by my side over the past few months. I thought perhaps we'd be able to catch an evening or two alone in Las Vegas in between all of the madness of the trade show. We needed it.

As I leaned back into the fake leather seat, my phone rang.

"Hey, Joel? It's Larry Cohen from Microsoft. I know it's sort of last second, but would you be interested in interviewing Bill Gates at CES?"

It may seem strange now, but four years ago we bloggers were treated as somewhat mythical, dangerous creatures. We were going to kill the old media, the old media kept telling us, despite the fact that most of us were gaining newfound respect for the process of journalism and reporting practiced by the old guard. There was a strange line between bloggers and the rest of the media and a fraternity naturally developed those few of us actually blogging for a living. Every time something happened to one of us all the other bloggers took it as a sign of legitimacy for the entire endeavor.

And I was about to be the first blogger to which Bill Gates would grant an interview.

In retrospect it isn't that big of deal. Gates has been interviewed hundreds of times. The only difference was that this time he was about to be interviewed by someone who wasn't really a journalist, hadn't put in his dues, and more or less happened to be in the right place at the right time. Others would come to view the interview as a hallmark of blogging's legitimacy in the world of online journalism, but for me it mostly reinforced the same rule that governs media old and new: whoever has the largest audience gets the most favor.

But fuck it: Bill Gates!

I looked over at Susie, who could tell from the look on my face that the person on the other end of the wireless was blowing my mind. I hung up.

"I think I'm going to interview Bill Gates." She punched me.

A couple of days later, I met Cohen in the lobby of the Las Vegas Hilton. He kept me occupied while we waited for Gates' to finish a previous interview in his hotel room.

"So what's up with that Engadget site?" he asked. "They seem to be doing pretty well." We shared a look that I interpreted as acknowledgement that he may have reached out to the wrong site. Too late now, I thought, but there's no reason not to be gracious.

"I think they do good work," I said. "If you like your technology news terminally dry." Burn! Engadget might have a small team of hardworking, talented reporters out-writing the rest of the industry and transforming the face of technology journalism, but could they insert penis references into thirty posts a day? I and my penis think not.

Cohen got a call on his hulking Windows Mobile smartphone and said it was time. I was nearly sweating through my barbarously ugly Old Navy thermal shirt, the same one my mother would gently ask me about later, questioning if I had enough money for clothing.

Up we went. I was led into a small hotel room. A door connected my room to an adjacent suite. Gates was inside, waiting. Three executives milled around, trying to put me ease. Handing me water, suggesting helpfully that I drink some.

The door opened. Gates was ready.

I lumbered inside. Gates stepped around a couch and smiled, extended his hand. He was small and almost ashen, but seemed lively. He seemed alive. Perhaps after all the jibes and scorn, Bill Gates was not a robot after all. (Speaking to the richest man in the world and discovering him just another guy ended up being a deeply humanizing influence on my worldview. I recommend everyone try it.)

We exchanged pleasantries which have been obliterated from my memory by terror. I sat down on the couch and removed my laptop — my brand new 12-inch PowerBook — and placed it on the coffee table between us. I will not lie and say that it did not seem like a small act of rebellion to record an interview with Bill Gates with my Apple laptop; it also felt like the twerpiest thing I could ever do and I regretted it immediately.

That sudden shame also knocked out a large portion of my snarkiest prepared questions. I literally scratched out "Does Steve Balmer eat babies?" from my notepad, leaving me with precious few questions to ask.

I'd called Xeni an hour before the interview. I felt like this was a huge opportunity, a huge responsibility for all bloggers everywhere, and I was at a loss as to what questions I could ask. Should I try to nail him on DRM? Should I make fun of him? Should I call Microsoft uncool?

Xeni told me, more or less, just to roll with it and that I'd do fine — but asking him about DRM probably wouldn't hurt.

The beginning of the interview was about blogs and RSS, which seemed important at the time. (Remember, this was four whole years ago, when RSS was an exotic new technology.)

Gates was rocking. I didn't notice it at first, my mind preoccupied with the ways in which I would nail him and become a hero to thousands of Slashdot readers. But as his mind would warm up to answer a question, he would fade out just a bit and begin a slow but unmistakeable autistic full-torso rock.

I'd never seen Gates do this before in any televised interview. What could it mean? It was something he was obviously aware of if he didn't do it all the time. Did the fact that he was doing it now mean he was comfortable around me? Uncomfortable around me? Were my questions actually challenging enough that he had to give real consideration to his answers? This was terrifying. Why hadn't anyone mentioned that Gates was like this before? Should I mention it?

He'd soon answered my question, which meant I was supposed to ask another one. It all seemed so natural. We were having a conversation. I'm having a conversation with the richest man in the world and I'm totally doing fine.

Except I wasn't.

Bill Gates may be a lot of things, but he isn't stupid. No matter what you think of Microsoft and the technical and business moves that Gates made to grow it, there's no denying that the guy is sharp. And while I'd waltzed into the room with my stupid greasy blogger hair and my stupid greasy blogger shirt ready to pin Gates to the wall with some pointed repartee, I realized with a sinking feeling that not only was Gates respectfully taking the interview seriously, he actually cared about his answers. Cared enough to try to prove me wrong.

I was in a battle of minds with the richest man in the world! I wanted to leave the room immediately, but his handlers were blocking every exit. I'd have to stick it out.

Actually, I did okay. I even managed to get in a couple of rhetorical zingers at the end.

The very last question I asked, to which Gates gave a weak (but in retrospect telling) answer, I excised from the transcript: Do you worry about the fact that Microsoft isn't cool?

Our time was nearly up by the time I'd asked. I could tell from the look on Gates' face that it wasn't a question he felt worth answering, and he snapped instantly back into his stock-standard PR spiel. "Oh, I think our products are very cool." (Or some such. I've lost the MP3s of the actual interview.) I'd clearly been referring to Apple. He knew I was talking about Apple. But at the time I had an inkling that Apple's style would be a factor in the still-ongoing iPod war, but I wasn't confident enough in my opinion to try to convince Bill Gates that his company just wasn't cool.

We shook hands, took that dreadful picture*, and I stepped back into the staging area to compose myself. As it happened, Bill and his entourage were leaving their room as I left the one next door, so we shared an awkward elevator ride to the ground floor. He asked me what my favorite device of the show so far had been. I believe I had an answer, but like everything that day, it wasn't recorded to a device so it's a all a bit murky.

I do remember the looks on the faces of the people waiting for the elevator when it opened and they recognized Gates inside. I looked at them, looked back at Gates, and said "Talk to you later!" Then I gave those innocent, hapless people the rudest smirk of my life and walked away.

I stayed up all night and typed up the transcript myself. It was a moderately big deal when we published the story — Denton called it our "CES Hail Mary" — but Engadget did such a bang-up job that year that it was clear they were going to be the dominant gadget site for a while. A few months later Gates granted Rojas an interview and my brief claim to fame was over.

I couldn't have been more relieved.

* I'd wanted to throw the horns, but I chickened out. One of my life's greatest regrets and one I hope I have a chance to remedy in the future. Maybe this year?

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:32 pm

Iran, a Nation of Bloggers (video essay)

My friend Elizabeth Stanley writes in to Boing Boing to share the video above, which explores how the digital world "allows many Iranians access to ideas and freedom of expression they haven’t had for close to thirty years." Elizabeth explains:

Kate Tremills wrote a "video essay" script for the Digital Design department at the Vancouver Film School (VFS) several months back. They turned it into this amazing piece – which has received attention from Motionographer. Here's the link on the VFS site and on the Motionographer site.

Source: Boing Boing | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:25 pm

YCombinator Startup Creates A Better Download App Store For Windows (BaseShield)

When Microsoft opened up its own online store for software downloads earlier this month, it signaled that packaged software is not long for this world. The problem is that the store offers only Microsoft products. Patrick Swieskowski, co-founder of YCombinator startup Secure by Design, points out:

You can basically only download Office or Vista. Leave it to MS to pitch an app store that sells mice and keyboards and Zunes…

Swieskowski and his co-founder Sascha Kuzins, both serious open-source hackers, had a better idea: a download app store for Windows PCs that could distribute any third-party software, just like the iTunes App Store does for the iPhone. So they created the BaseShield App Store, which launched about an hour ago.

Once you download the BaseShield App Store to your Windows PC (no Mac or Linux versions), you can download and launch an app with a single click. The apps run on a virtualization layer on top of the OS, so there is less chance for malware to infect the rest of your PC. Each app can also be removed with a single click. The apps can take advantage of the full power of the PC, including 3D graphics chips, but BaseShield creates a sandbox for each one so that they can only access the files necessary to run the program.

BaseShield is not much more than a technology proof of concept at this point. At launch, it offers about two dozen free, open-source apps, including Neverball (open-source version of Super Monkey Ball), Inkscape (open-source version of Adobe Illustrator), AbiWord (word processor), Celestia (”like Google Earth for the universe”), and Frets On Fire (Guitar Hero clone). Developers who want to get their software in the store fill out a form and provide a link to their software, and BaseShield does the rest.

While the technology is intriguing, the company still hasn’t settled on its business model. But it will likely be similar to the iTunes App Store, where BaseShield takes a percentage of every app sold.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:19 pm

Motorola, could you please tell your viral marketer to get out of our comments?

In John's post about Steve Jobs' purported tantrum, a commenter "MGOODE08" made this remark:

I'm so glad my boss isn't like that! I'm working with Motorola right now, and became a huge fan of the Krave (motorola.com/krave). I especially like the full touch screen display and html web browser. It's awesome!

On the 14th, he made this comment:

Oh man this looks awesome! I hope they release a version for the Krave by Motorola. Ever since I started working with Motorola I have became a huge fan of the phone (motorola.com/krave). With a full list of features, like a full touch screen, I can't stop obsessing over it.

"M Goode" loves this phone so much that he posted this at GigaOm:

This is a very good idea. I think it could be applied to any phones with a similar format. Ever since I started working with Motorola I have become a huge fan of the Krave. It has some of the same features, and I think a built in micropayment system would be great. It’s a fairly new phone, so if you haven’t seen it yet it’s online at motorola.com/krave. I wonder if they will jump on the bandwagon when/if a micropayment system is implemented.

When he's not on tech sites, though, "M Goode" loves to relax with a good game:

I wish this game would get released for a mobile gaming platform, especially the Krave. I have been a fan of this franchise since it’s first release, and would love to have it on a cell phone, especially the krave. Ever since I started working with Motorola, I have become a huge fan of the krave. Has anyone else seen it?(motorola.com/krave) It’s so loaded with features, most important of which is the full touch screen layout. It’s DEFINITELY worth checking out.

He's also really into the indie gaming scene:

I can’t wait to see this on a mobile phone platform! it would be so cool to see ti on a Krave! Has anyone else seen it? (motorola.com/krave) It’s a flip phone with a touch screen, 2 MP camera, full html browser and bluetooth functionality. Definitely worth checking out.

But uh oh! He might be considering switching from a Krave to the new Nokia:

My favorite phone right now is the Krave by Motorola. I became a huge fan of the Krave once I started working with Motorola. You can check out the full spec list online at motorola.com/krave. It’s definitely strong competition with it’s full touch screen

(He is also apparently working for Cirque Du Soleil, but we'll let them pass for the moment because I love acrobats.)

"Follow the money," they say, but in this case we don't have to, because all we have to do is follow the link. Motorola, if you could be so kind as to tell your viral marketer to fuck right off we'd sure appreciate it. Perhaps you could spend the money instead on making your phones something that people actually want to buy.

P.S., I love our readers. Check out the replies they immediately started making:

I'm so glad my boss isn't like that! I'm working for Burger King right now, and became a huge fan of the Mushroom and Swiss Steakhouse Burger. I especially like the cheese and mushrooms. It's awesome!

I'm so glad my boss isn't like that! I'm working for a pimp on the corner of wellwood and barrington and became a huge fan of Allie and her turrid backstroke technique. I especially like the pop and rock. It's awesome!

I'm so glad my boss isn't like that! I'm working with Cryptozoologia right now, and became a huge fan of the Trepanasaurus (Cryptozoologia.com/ Trepanasaurus). I especially like the way that, after the dinosaur-anteater hybrid rips off the top of a person's head with its sharp teeth, it can suck out its victim's brain with its nose. It's awesome!

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:18 pm

Increasing The Power Of Solar Cells

New ways of squeezing out greater efficiency from solar photovoltaic cells are emerging from computer simulations and lab tests conducted by a team of physicists and engineers at MIT.Using computer modeling and a variety of advanced chip-manufacturing techniques, they have applied an antireflection coating to the front, and a novel combination of multi-layered reflective coatings and a tightly spaced array of lines — called a diffraction grating — to the backs of ultrathin silicon films to boost the cells' output by as much as 50 percent.The carefully designed layers deposited on the back of the cell cause the light to bounce around longer inside the thin silicon layer, giving it time to deposit its energy and produce an electric current.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:15 pm

BlackBerry Storm online orders to ship earlier than expected

After braving the cold air and riotous enviromnents of the BlackBerry Storm launch only to go home empty-handed, many Storm-hopefuls returned to try to get their new handset online. Sure, they’d have to wait a day or two for it to be shipped to them but how bad.. wait, what? They wouldn’t arrive till December 15th? Shenanigans! RING THE ALARM!! RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE.

If people could figure out a way to throw e-bricks through Verizon’s virtual storefront windows, I’m sure they would have done it.

Realizing that making people wait 3+ weeks for a device that they’ve hyped up to absurd levels probably isn’t a good idea, Verizon has managed to cut a week off of the wait time. It’s still sort of crazy, but those looking to nab up a Storm can expect the delivery man to show up sometime around December 8th be it that they get their orders in quick.

[Via BGR]

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Source: MobileCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 7:13 pm

Verizon Omnia announced, coming December 8th

At long last, the Samsung Omnia has made its away across an ocean, through the torture labs of the FCC, and onto the delivery trucks en route to a Verizon store near you. VZW announced today that the Omnia will be hitting shelves in just under two weeks (December 8th), with orders starting now for $249.99 on a 2-year contract.

If Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional is your thing, it’s a pretty tough toss-up between the Omnia and the HTC Touch Pro. Both are solid pieces of hardware running custom interfaces on top of Windows Mobile; while I prefer HTC’s TouchFLO interface over Samsung’s TouchWiz, the Omnia has that big ol’ screen.

It’s really too bad it takes so long for phones to make it through the US vetting process; in the many months it took for the Omnia to make it stateside, they already blasted out a revised model with pumped up specs for Korea.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 25 Nov 2008 | 6:20 pm

Hubble Spills Star's Secret: They're Triplets

New Hubble Space Telescope images reveal a massive star is actually three.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 5:43 pm

Mega Wind Farms Could Steer Storms

Vast wind farms planned in the United States could play a role in modifying weather.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 5:01 pm

New Research Looks Into The Physics Of Explosives, Blast Helmets

Image 2: Pressure contours show the effect of a front-facing blast at various times after detonating 1.5 kg of C4 explosives from a distance of three meters. Black represents 1.0 atmosphere of pressure, and red indicates pressures over 3.5 atmospheres. Credit: NRL's Laboratory for Computational Physics and Fluid Dynamics
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 4:50 pm

Broadband Could Create Energy Bottleneck

"Increased services like Video on Demand will put pressure on the system and create an energy bottleneck," said Dr Kerry Hinton of the University's Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and the ARC Special Centre for Ultra-Broadband Information Networks (CUBIN).In a world-first model of internet power consumption, University of Melbourne researchers have been able to identify the major contributors to Internet power consumption as the take-up of broadband services grows in the coming years."It has now become clear that the exponential growth of the Internet is not sustainable, "said Dr Hinton.The result indicates that, even with the improvements in energy efficiency of electronics, the power consumption of the Internet will increase from 0.5% of today's national electricity consumption to 1% by around 2020.Dr Hinton says the growth of the Internet, IT broadband telecommunications will provide a wide range of new products and services.New home services include Video on Demand, web based real-time gaming, social networking, peer-to-peer networking and more.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 4:44 pm

A private moment with Steve Jobs

My friend Mark Harrison is an intriguing sort: a globe-trotting alpha male who spends winters rubbing elbows with bikini models down in Mauretius and summers either indulging in sport in Berlin or piloting yachts around Cape Horn. He's also got some fantastic stories about his run-ins with various eccentric business tycoons. One of those tycoons is Steve Jobs.

According to Mark, the year was 2000, and the company he worked for had set up a meeting with Jobs. Their pitch was simple: while Apple at that time owned the educational market up until the end of grade school, they completely lost all of their users by the time high school started, where computer labs became dominated by PCs. Their proposition was simple: team up with Apple and leverage their presence in thousands of schools to expand Apple's educational market share.

From the very second he sat down with them, Jobs seemed agitated. The second his ass hit the chair, Jobs began rocking back and forth autistically. But as Mark's colleagues made blunt and undeniable appraisals of Apple's presence in high school computer labs, the rocking dramatically increased, then exploded... along with Jobs.

A purpling shade of apoplectic, Jobs launched to his feet, flecking the table with spittle. "You're shit! Your company's shit! It's nothing compared to mine!" he screamed, an outstretched finger jutting accusingly up and down. Eventually, his fury was spent, and the situation was defused by some politically expedient cooing noises.

Still, it's all just so Jobs, isn't it? Ever since I heard the anecdote, I can't help but think of Jobs that way. Turgid with rage and quivering in front of a PC or DAP or mobile phone, spraying its display with spittle: "You're shit! SHIT! DO YOU HEAR ME? Your operating system's nothing compared to mine."

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 4:33 pm

Blockbuster Introduces On-Demand Feature

Blockbuster on Tuesday released details of a new digital media player that will give consumers the ability to rent movies and TV shows from their home television set. The player, made by San Jose-based 2Wire Inc., is built on the same concept as storage devices made by Apple Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 25 Nov 2008 | 4:10 pm

Space Station's Urine Recycling Unit Passes Test

Astronauts finally get their urine recycling unit working on board the space station.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 3:40 pm

I Was A Pre-Teen Christian Supercomputer!

Let me tell you a little bit about Colby.

Ever since I was ten, Colby has been a part of me, like a small, sentient circuit board lodged in my brain. He wasn't always like this. When I first met him, he was autonomous: a Moloch Machine, a literal deus ex. Beneath the brim of his red baseball cap, unblinking eyes bulbously stared, plunged, hypnotized. In a contractionless castrati monotone, he sing-songed his teachings, and over many weeks and months, I memorized them until some remnant of his programming seeped into my own.

And who was Colby? A giant Christian supercomputer, of course.

When I was in fourth grade, I was sent to attend North Shore Christian School in Lynn, Massachusetts. The decision was not taken lightly by my parents. On his part, my father could never believe in something as comic as an ephemeral old man who lives on a cloud and whom — after a brief burst of creative creationism in his early twenties — has been spending the last six thousand years of his early retirement kookily obsessing about where and how people are mashing their genitals together. My mother, on the other hand, is culturally Catholic. She is fascinated by the ritual of faith, but otherwise seems to believe that the afterlife will sort itself out with a minimum requirement from her either of guilt or hysterical self-justification. They are both exquisitely good people, and as such, they measure other people's goodness by their kindness. Both, when asked, would agree that any faith that gloats about the eternal suffering of billions is inherently unkind. As such, they are inherently distrustful of many of the permutations of North American protestantism.

Still, at the end of my third grade year, it was decided I would be sent to N.S.C.S. My hometown's public schools were commonly reviled, and North Shore Christian School was well known for its excellent reading and math programs at the time, which was very important to my family. The science curriculum was also excellent... with one notable, glaring exception. Classes were small and the teachers were said to be young and focused. Additionally, the music director, Larry Kamp, was a family friend who was well respected by my father for being driven out of the neighborhood church for not being fundamentalist enough: they both shared a love for John Zorn and horror movies. There would be a friendly teacher there to keep an eye on me.

But there were some notable drawbacks. None too surprisingly, the science program completely ignored evolution, although it did not go as far as to claim the universe was only six thousand years old. There were also Bible classes and prayer sessions. There was nothing to be done about the prayer sessions, but my father spent a lot of time in the evenings unraveling the mysteries of evolution for me at home — King Kong was once used as a whimsical teaching aide — and my mother, who admired the philosophical problem-solving of Catholics, tried to get me to approach the Bible more critically.

Ultimately, with some reservations, my parents enrolled me. And this is where Colby comes in.

In the beginning of my fourth grade year, when I was just settling into my new school, my teacher Mrs. Betts announced that we would be doing a class play, called "God Uses Kids." The play sounded exciting, mostly because it had a robot in it named Colby. I repeat: some lucky kid was going to get to be a fucking robot in the school play. Every one else had to play a member of Colby's backyard Bible-study group, the Colby Gang, all of whom wandered around the stage wearing a t-shirt clearly identifying his or her character by name.... not the way Tennessee Williams might have accomplished things, but hey, it worked for the audience.

But I digress. That's not the point. The point is: ROBOT. Let that word sink into your inner ten year old for a second. Take any kid on Earth and ask them what they'd rather pretend to be: the robot overlord of each and every one of his classmates or some doofus Christian kid so dumb he not only allows an 8086 to advise him on the affairs of his soul, but walks around with his name airbrushed on the front of his t-shirt. Everyone wanted to be Colby. The competition for the role would shed blood and sweat and — in the case of our class' tearful prima donna, Jonathan — tears and temper tantrums. But no one wanted the role more than I did.

I took the script home and started memorizing. The plot seemed no more demented than many of the things I had been exposed to at North Shore Christian School, but as my parents helped me learn the lines, even I couldn't ignore the incredulous arching of their eyebrows. As I sit down to describe the plot now, I find mine following the same upwards trajectory.

The play centered around Colby, a sentient Christian super-computer who — for some reason — had set up a secret neighborhood enclave for the Christian kids in the neighborhood. It was called Colby's Clubhouse, and inside, it was a Jim Jones phantasmagoria, in which a dancing, singing Christian robot led a gaggle of Bible-thumping kids in elaborate dance numbers, pausing only occasionally to recite scriptures. The main dramatic arc of the play concerned the arrival of new kid Eddie in the neighborhood: he cracked wise about Jesus, never read the Gospel, and was dismissive not only of the Colby Gang's impromptu hymnals but openly professed an admiration and affinity for that year's hot R&B supergroup, the New Kids on the Block. Eventually, Eddie is shown the error of his ways through the tireless proselytizing of the Colby Gang... as well as the direct intervention of Colby himself, who bluntly informs Eddie that he's going to hell if he doesn't mend his ways. Eventually, Eddie breaks down, falls to his knees, and welcomes Jesus into his heart as his Lord and Savior. At that point, Eddie is welcomed into the Colby Gang as an honorary member, presented with his very own pastel-colored, self-identifying t-shirt, and takes part in the exiting performance of the play's title song, "God Uses Kids." Curtain and applause.

As an adult, Eddie's plight concerns me. He was openly referred to as a "jerk" and "bad kid" in the play character notes, and that never bothered me at the time. But let's more closely dissect the plot by placing ourselves in poor Eddie's shoes for a minute.

At the beginning of the play, Eddie moves into a new neighborhood. He's alone, depressed and friendless. Worse, he quickly discovers that none of the kids in the neighborhood like to play video games or watch movies or listen to records or play with action figures or throw the football around — you know, normal kid stuff. All they ever want to do is sing about Jesus. Raised non-secularly, poor Eddie finds himself ostracized from his newfound peers from the very start, and understandably compensates by adapting the defense mechanism of a smart aleck personality. He acts out. He differentiates himself through cynical non-conformity, but is soundly hated for it.

That's all bad enough, right? Poor Eddie. But consider what happens next. Eddie is invited to the neighborhood clubhouse. Hoping for the acceptance and friendship of the neighborhood's unseen but popular alpha dog — the mysterious but charismatic Colby — he goes, but instead of meeting another kid, the door is locked behind him and a giant metal monster lumbers out of the shadows. Its eyes spit sparks; its servos gnash like rusty teeth. It grabs Eddie by the arms and in a shrill falsetto scream that reverberates with metallic soullessness and the sounds of gears grinding, it inexorably begins to paint Eddie a picture of hell straight out of Bosch. Mewling, fleshless bird things with scissors for beaks. Oceans of boiling feces in which billions bob and drown. Bodies crawling with insects and scabs that never heal. Forced sodomy by impossible geometric shapes. The sound of infants screaming forever and ever and ever and ever. Eddie's mind breaks... as, in fact, had the mind of each and every member of the Colby Gang's under the same nightmarish duress. It is the initiation. He's been accepted. One of us. One of us.

For those who have not been exposed to the children's media of fundamentalist Christianity, this will all seem absolutely perverse, even in abstract. Colby is one of many surreal horror shows adopted by North American churches as Christian mascots: another is Salty, a talking, magical Bible with a similar constabulary of prepubescent minions to do his bidding. For atheist adults, the adoption of these soulless anthropomorphisms as prophets of Christ doesn't seem Christian... it seems positively Satanic.

But as a kid, I never noticed. In fact, I inexhaustibly pursued the part of Colby, and eventually won it... mostly by dint of being the new kid. About my actual portrayal of Colby, there's little to say: the dad of one of the kids in my class made a wonderful cardboard robot suit for me, and my performance was hailed in the school newspaper as positively Shakespearean. All in all, it was a happy time.

Still, as the years have passed, I have become more and more disturbed by the way my childhood, all so briefly, was caught up in the cult of Colby. As an adult, it seems insane and monstrous. How could my teachers not recognize that their play could easily be interpreted as being about a demonically-possessed IBM clone? More importantly, how could my teachers so cavalierly adopt a soulless machine as a prophet for Christ?

But it was no accident. In my own accidental embracement of method acting, I once asked my teacher, Mrs. Betts, about Colby's motivation.

"Mrs. Betts," I asked. "Is Colby a cyborg?"

"What do you mean, cyborg?"

"Is he like a human brain inside a robot? Like Robocop?"

"Oh, no, John..." Mrs. Betts laughed. "He's just a computer."

I was puzzled. "But he believes in God."

"Well, of course! We wouldn't be doing the play if he didn't."

"If he doesn't have a soul, how can he believe in God?"

"Ah, I see where you're going..." Mrs. Betts mused. Then she paused and thought for a second. I'll never forget what she said next. In a few words, Mrs. Betts perfectly expressed something: an ideological contempt for personal meaning that has come to define for me both the Fundamentalist whack job and militant atheist alike.

"No, you're right, Colby doesn't have a soul," Mrs. Betts explained. "He's just been programmed to think he does."

---

If you want to know more about Colby, Wikipedia has an entry about his television show, Colby's Clubhouse, which was on the air for fourteen years. You can also see clips of the show on YouTube.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Nov 2008 | 3:23 pm

Ocean Acidity Rising at Surprising Pace

Oceans off the Pacific Northwest are increasing in acidity ten times faster than predicted.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 3:07 pm

Male Lizards Do Push-Ups to Get Attention

When a male anole lizard wants to alert others he does four-legged push-ups.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 25 Nov 2008 | 2:07 pm