Source: Gizmodo | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:03 am

Gallery: Gizmodo Shows Off Gadget Prototypes From the Past

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

NEW YORK – Popular technology blog Gizmodo has set up shop in a Manhattan art gallery to showcase some of the rarest and most intriguing gadgets from the past hundred years or so, including never-released Apple prototypes, the first Sony Walkman, a flying aerial surveillance camera and more.

The Gizmodo Gallery opened Thursday at the Reed Annex (151 Orchard St.), but we snuck in Wednesday night to photograph the most fascinating stuff on display here. The show runs through Sunday afternoon, giving New Yorkers, tourists and gadget freaks a chance to gaze upon important pieces of our technological history, and interact with some more recent gadgets.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Nico Reyes of the Reed Annex sits blissfully unaware of the Draganflyer X6, a flying surveillance device that "makes crane shots obsolete," according to its creators. That may be the case, but we can't fight off our initial impression that this could be the last thing we will ever see.

With an expert at the remote control, the aerial carbon-fiber shutterbug navigates tight indoor spaces with ease according to Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam, who said the beast is capable of holding steady in winds of up to 18 mph. A "failed motor logic" system keeps the system in operation even if two of the motors crap out.

Lam said the Draganflyer X6 accepts a night-vision camera or HD camera in addition to the vanilla flavor, and communicates its location to the remote using a GPS. As great as this gadget is for filmmakers and photographers, its potential application as a weapon is a bit worrying in a Terminator sort of way.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Here's the portable audio player that started it all: the original Sony Walkman, on loan from Sony's archives in Tokyo. Initially panned by critics, the Walkman became a worldwide sensation, eventually selling 340 million units.

Oddly, the device that kicked off the portable-audio revolution includes two headphone jacks for sharing music — surely, unintentional prescience on the part of Sony, which could never have predicted the later connection between portable music formats and music sharing.

Model Alyssa Miller holds the original-model Walkman.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Legendary Silicon Valley design firm Frog Design lent Gizmodo a couple of Apple prototypes to display, including this MacBook Tablet mock-up, modeled here by Paulo.

Apple and Frog Design conceived this prototype using their Snow White design language, according to Gizmodo's Brian Lam. Although this portable tablet computer never saw the light of day, echoes of its design can be seen in the Apple IIc.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Atari never released a portable version of the Atari 2600 game console, but if it did, it may have ended up looking a lot like this Atari 2600 VCSp, seen here in the hands of writer Lisa Katayama.

The Atari 2600 VCSp is the work of hacker extraordinaire Benjamin Heckendorn (better known online as Ben Heck). This model is the first Heck ever made; he went on to build scores of vintage gaming mods that earned him a following among geeks and fans of vintage gaming.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

This double-sided MIDI controller allows musicians to build loops of sound by pressing LED buttons arranged in a 16-by-16 grid.

This video explains how it works, but the gist is that you control which loops play, and when they start and stop, by activating and deactivating the lights.

Unlike some of the other gear on display, the Tenori-On will be playable by gallery-goers who can listen to their own performances through a pair of headphones.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Gizmodo’s Brian Lam told us that the original Dyson vacuum cleaner was initially crippled in the U.S. market because manufacturers were worried it would cannibalize the multimillion-dollar market for replacement vacuum bags.

Luckily for inventor James Dyson, this version of his design was manufactured in Japan starting in 1983, giving Dyson the financial wherewithal to start making them himself. Twenty five years later, the descendents of the original Dyson are probably the world's most coveted model — itself something of an accomplishment. Who would have predicted that vacuum cleaners could become such a hot topic?

Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan wields this original Dyson.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

One of the largest Lego sets ever released, this Death Star was destroyed on its way from Lego to the Gizmodo expo. Luckily, the company introduced Gizmodo to Lego enthusiast Jonathan Lopes of Brooklyn.

The self-described "Lego nerd" arrived on the scene to perform a reverse Luke Skywalker on the Death Star, rebuilding it in time for it to be displayed Thursday morning — no small feat, considering that it's made from 3,800 pieces and that he worked only from a picture of the fully assembled version.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Another Apple prototype loaned to Gizmodo by Frog Design, this early '80s conception of an Apple phone featured a handset and a monochromatic screen and stylus, allowing the device's potential owner to sign checks electronically over phone lines.

When Apple finally released its first phone in 2007, it didn't even come with a stylus, and the screen was much smaller.

Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan picks up the handset.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

One of the most useless pieces of electronics we have ever laid eyes on, Thanko's USB tie and gloves provide you with heat or cool when they're connected to your computer's USB port — perfect for commuting and outdoor sports, assuming your USB cable is long enough.

The gloves heat up, while a compact fan located in the necktie's knot generates a gentle breeze — worthwhile in theory, if not in practice. As Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan points out, "All USB gadgets are awesome in some way."

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

When this Bell Labs Picturephone debuted at the 1964 World's Fair, many of those who saw it in action, paired to an identical model in Disneyland, probably thought that every phone would feature video by the year 2000. They were close; instead, nearly every modern computer is capable of live videoconferencing, while home phones still largely resemble the models of the past.

A 1956 version of the Picturephone was capable of transmitting one picture every two seconds. This one apparently improved on that frame-rate by adding another two lines to the connection. This (nonfunctional) unit was borrowed from the AT&T Archives and History Center.

Adam Lam uses the Picturephone pictured here to attempt contact with gadget freaks of the past, or so we imagine.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Goggles that let you watch video on a little virtual screen have been around for years, but many of them are plagued by poor image quality, low resolution and headache-inducing optics.

This pair, from the widely respected camera-lens manufacturer Zeiss, is an exception, with 640x480 resolution and an individual diopter for each eye that allows eyeglass-wearers to use the goggles. Battery life is four hours — enough for all but the longest films.

In this shot, Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan watches a video stored on a video-capable iPod Nano.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

We wondered why two hunks of red foam and metal were included in the gallery, until Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam took a break from overseeing the construction of displays to demonstrate them.

With each step, a thunderous, robot-stomp sound emanated from his slippers, and by the end of his demonstration, we were convinced that they did in fact belong in the gallery. Sometimes, technology is as much about whimsy as it is about scientific progress.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

It's the All-Digital Future — $100 Netflix Box Streams 15,000 Films

Roku's Netflix Player has proved a revelation for the web-streamed movie-watching experience, with its low cost and breadth of selection.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

King of Frame-Processing Makes Fast Images Crystal Clear

The Sony TK adds interim frames to make up the difference between 24- and 60-fps sources and its native 120-frame refresh rate, which can make movies with lame plots at least visually more appealing.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Dec. 5, 1901: Disney, Heisenberg — Separated at Birth?

1901: Animation pioneer Walt Disney and nuclear physicist Werner Heisenberg are born. So, if you've ever thought the Uncertainty Principle was a bit goofy, you may be onto something.

Disney was born in Chicago, but spent much of his childhood on a Missouri farm. He sold his first sketches to neighbors at age 7. Rejected for military service because he was too young, he drove a Red Cross ambulance at the end of World War I. He covered the entire vehicle with cartoons.

Disney went to work after the war as an advertising artist in Kansas City and sold his first animated cartoons. He went to Hollywood and partnered with his brother Roy in 1923.

Mickey Mouse debuted to the public in the first sound-synch cartoon, Steamboat Willie in 1928.

Disney added Technicolor to animation the 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon Flowers and Trees. This first full-color animated cartoon — and first film of any kind to use the new three-color Technicolor process — won Disney his first of 32 Academy Awards. The 1937 cartoon The Old Mill was the first short subject to use the multiplane camera technique, with foreground, mid-ground and background on separate animation cels at different distances from the camera.

Disney's pioneering continued. 1937's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was the first full-length animated musical feature — produced at the outrageous cost of $1.5 million ($22.6 million in today's money).

In 1940, Fantasia combined some live action with animation, a process Disney had been working on since his Kansas City days. He used it extensively in The Three Caballeros, Song of the South and Mary Poppins.

Disney introduced time-lapse film photography to a wide public with films like The Living Desert and others in his award-winning True-Life Adventure series. Disney also produced pioneering TV programs in black-and-white and then color.

Southern California's Disneyland, opened in 1955, led the shift from generic amusement parks to theme parks. It included a futuristic sci-fi Tomorrowland. Disney conceived EPCOT, the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow near Florida's Disney World, as a showcase for applying technology to improving people's lives. It was under construction when Disney died Dec. 15, 1966, at age 65.

- - -

Heisenberg was born the same day as Disney, in Würzburg, Germany. He began playing the piano early, mastering difficult pieces by age 13. He taught himself calculus and then worked on a farm for three summers to earn tuition to study physics at the University of Munich.

He studied with Arthur Sommerfield, Max Born and James Franck and earned a doctorate in 1923, the year Disney went to Hollywood. Heisenberg went to Copenhagen to study under Niels Bohr.

Heisenberg described a method for calculating the energy levels of "atomic oscillators" in a famous paper, "On Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of Kinematic and Mechanical Relations." It brought him immediate fame.

A second paper, "On the Visualizable Content of Quantum Theoretical Kinematics and Mechanics," explained his famous Uncertainty Principle: It is impossible to specify both the exact position and exact momentum of a subatomic particle at the same time.

- - -

For his contributions to quantum mechanics, Heisenberg received the Nobel Prize for Physics at age 31. It was 1932, the same year Disney won his first Oscar.

During World War II, while Disney was making military-training and civilian-propaganda films for the U.S. war effort, Heisenberg was director of Germany's uranium project working on an atomic bomb. He was arrested in April 1945 and remained imprisoned in England until the summer of 1946.

After the war, Heisenberg worked on a unified theory of fundamental particles and on plasma physics and thermonuclear processes. He was director of the Max Planck Institute and headed a program to invite visiting scientists to work in Germany.

Heisenberg retired in 1970 and died Feb. 1, 1976, nine years after Disney.

Source: Norsknettskole, Nobel Lectures, Notable Biographies

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Gallery: Gizmodo Shows Off Gadget Prototypes From the Past

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

NEW YORK – Popular technology blog Gizmodo has set up shop in a Manhattan art gallery to showcase some of the rarest and most intriguing gadgets from the past hundred years or so, including never-released Apple prototypes, the first Sony Walkman, a flying aerial surveillance camera and more.

The Gizmodo Gallery opened Thursday at the Reed Annex (151 Orchard St.), but we snuck in Wednesday night to photograph the most fascinating stuff on display here. The show runs through Sunday afternoon, giving New Yorkers, tourists and gadget freaks a chance to gaze upon important pieces of our technological history, and interact with some more recent gadgets.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Nico Reyes of the Reed Annex sits blissfully unaware of the Draganflyer X6, a flying surveillance device that "makes crane shots obsolete," according to its creators. That may be the case, but we can't fight off our initial impression that this could be the last thing we will ever see.

With an expert at the remote control, the aerial carbon-fiber shutterbug navigates tight indoor spaces with ease according to Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam, who said the beast is capable of holding steady in winds of up to 18 mph. A "failed motor logic" system keeps the system in operation even if two of the motors crap out.

Lam said the Draganflyer X6 accepts a night-vision camera or HD camera in addition to the vanilla flavor, and communicates its location to the remote using a GPS. As great as this gadget is for filmmakers and photographers, its potential application as a weapon is a bit worrying in a Terminator sort of way.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Here's the portable audio player that started it all: the original Sony Walkman, on loan from Sony's archives in Tokyo. Initially panned by critics, the Walkman became a worldwide sensation, eventually selling 340 million units.

Oddly, the device that kicked off the portable-audio revolution includes two headphone jacks for sharing music — surely, unintentional prescience on the part of Sony, which could never have predicted the later connection between portable music formats and music sharing.

Model Alyssa Miller holds the original-model Walkman.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Legendary Silicon Valley design firm Frog Design lent Gizmodo a couple of Apple prototypes to display, including this MacBook Tablet mock-up, modeled here by Paulo.

Apple and Frog Design conceived this prototype using their Snow White design language, according to Gizmodo's Brian Lam. Although this portable tablet computer never saw the light of day, echoes of its design can be seen in the Apple IIc.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Atari never released a portable version of the Atari 2600 game console, but if it did, it may have ended up looking a lot like this Atari 2600 VCSp, seen here in the hands of writer Lisa Katayama.

The Atari 2600 VCSp is the work of hacker extraordinaire Benjamin Heckendorn (better known online as Ben Heck). This model is the first Heck ever made; he went on to build scores of vintage gaming mods that earned him a following among geeks and fans of vintage gaming.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

This double-sided MIDI controller allows musicians to build loops of sound by pressing LED buttons arranged in a 16-by-16 grid.

This video explains how it works, but the gist is that you control which loops play, and when they start and stop, by activating and deactivating the lights.

Unlike some of the other gear on display, the Tenori-On will be playable by gallery-goers who can listen to their own performances through a pair of headphones.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Gizmodo’s Brian Lam told us that the original Dyson vacuum cleaner was initially crippled in the U.S. market because manufacturers were worried it would cannibalize the multimillion-dollar market for replacement vacuum bags.

Luckily for inventor James Dyson, this version of his design was manufactured in Japan starting in 1983, giving Dyson the financial wherewithal to start making them himself. Twenty five years later, the descendents of the original Dyson are probably the world's most coveted model — itself something of an accomplishment. Who would have predicted that vacuum cleaners could become such a hot topic?

Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan wields this original Dyson.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

One of the largest Lego sets ever released, this Death Star was destroyed on its way from Lego to the Gizmodo expo. Luckily, the company introduced Gizmodo to Lego enthusiast Jonathan Lopes of Brooklyn.

The self-described "Lego nerd" arrived on the scene to perform a reverse Luke Skywalker on the Death Star, rebuilding it in time for it to be displayed Thursday morning — no small feat, considering that it's made from 3,800 pieces and that he worked only from a picture of the fully assembled version.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Another Apple prototype loaned to Gizmodo by Frog Design, this early '80s conception of an Apple phone featured a handset and a monochromatic screen and stylus, allowing the device's potential owner to sign checks electronically over phone lines.

When Apple finally released its first phone in 2007, it didn't even come with a stylus, and the screen was much smaller.

Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan picks up the handset.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

One of the most useless pieces of electronics we have ever laid eyes on, Thanko's USB tie and gloves provide you with heat or cool when they're connected to your computer's USB port — perfect for commuting and outdoor sports, assuming your USB cable is long enough.

The gloves heat up, while a compact fan located in the necktie's knot generates a gentle breeze — worthwhile in theory, if not in practice. As Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan points out, "All USB gadgets are awesome in some way."

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

When this Bell Labs Picturephone debuted at the 1964 World's Fair, many of those who saw it in action, paired to an identical model in Disneyland, probably thought that every phone would feature video by the year 2000. They were close; instead, nearly every modern computer is capable of live videoconferencing, while home phones still largely resemble the models of the past.

A 1956 version of the Picturephone was capable of transmitting one picture every two seconds. This one apparently improved on that frame-rate by adding another two lines to the connection. This (nonfunctional) unit was borrowed from the AT&T Archives and History Center.

Adam Lam uses the Picturephone pictured here to attempt contact with gadget freaks of the past, or so we imagine.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

Goggles that let you watch video on a little virtual screen have been around for years, but many of them are plagued by poor image quality, low resolution and headache-inducing optics.

This pair, from the widely respected camera-lens manufacturer Zeiss, is an exception, with 640x480 resolution and an individual diopter for each eye that allows eyeglass-wearers to use the goggles. Battery life is four hours — enough for all but the longest films.

In this shot, Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan watches a video stored on a video-capable iPod Nano.

: Photo: Eliot Van Buskirk/Wired.com

We wondered why two hunks of red foam and metal were included in the gallery, until Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam took a break from overseeing the construction of displays to demonstrate them.

With each step, a thunderous, robot-stomp sound emanated from his slippers, and by the end of his demonstration, we were convinced that they did in fact belong in the gallery. Sometimes, technology is as much about whimsy as it is about scientific progress.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

New Oslo Opera House Is Really a Stealth Skate Park

For years, architects have gone to great lengths to protect their buildings from marauding skaters. But as aesthetic trends move toward folded planes that transition seamlessly from wall to ceiling and back to wall, designers have been looking to their former adversaries for a lesson in flow.

"We have this fascination with buildings becoming topography," says Alejandro Zaera-Polo, a partner at London's Foreign Office Architects, "and skateboarders have that physical experience." So for a park in Barcelona, his firm extended paving stones up the sides of small hills—to shield vegetation from salty sea breezes. At least that's what it told city officials. But skaters got the message. The resulting quarter-pipe landed on the March 2006 cover of Transworld Skateboarding.

Architect Zaha Hadid shares the love. She wanted her Phaeno Science Center in Germany to be an all-inclusive venue for pedestrians and skateboarders alike. Liability issues prevented skate-park designation—though you'd never guess it from the YouTube videos of pro skaters "visiting" the museum. "We design spaces that are flowing and continuous, and—just by coincidence—skateboarders look for that kind of continuity," Dillon Lin, an architect (and skater) at Hadid's firm, says with a wink.

And though the new Oslo Opera House (shown here) was inspired by the image of two glaciers colliding, the architects at Snøhetta didn't call on glaciologists to help fine-tune the details. They enlisted real experts in twisted planes: skateboarders. "We spoke to them about surface textures and the areas they prefer," architect Simon Ewings says. His firm followed up the conversation with a statement in stone.

Snøhetta used different finishes of marble to guide skaters looking for rideable surfaces. Acoustically sensitive parts, like above the auditorium, got rough marble that's unpleasant to wheel over. But other areas silently beckon skaters. Surfaces rise up all over the place to become ledges, curbs, and benches—like the jagged facets of a glacier (or skate park). One particularly tempting spot is a 3-foot-wide railing of smooth stone. Snøhetta architect Peter Dang is, ahem, absolutely sure it's skatable. "Just make sure to fall toward the inside," he advises.

Tricked Out

The new Oslo Opera House is much more than a temple to the vocal arts. It's a palace of thrash, with as many gnarly facets as the best skate parks. Here are some key features and suggested moves.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Imagining Tomorrow's Browsers — Oh, the Possibilities

It started with Google's Chrome. But where will it end? We may be entering a gilded age of browsers with special purposes and cool metallic monikers. Oh, the possibilities!

Browser	Optimized for	Wired	Tired
Perez Hilton Tintype	Celebrity news sites.	Delivers the juiciest gossip ("Lindsay did what?!") right to your desktop—no search necessary.	Draws snot and cocaine doodles on all the photos it displays.
Yahoo Rust Bucket	Surfing job sites.	Helps you find a new career at Google, Facebook, or anyplace else in Silicon Valley (other than Yahoo).	For internal use only; doesn't work outside of Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus.
Brody Jenner Iron Pyrite	Dudes.	Discovery tool for bars with VIP lounges, hot chicks, hair gel dispensers, and mirrors. Lots of mirrors.	Gets a little too friendly with your other apps, risking transmittal of a bad virus.
4chan Radium	Serious business (all of the Internet).	Turns absurdly mundane images into more than 9,000 hysterical bons mots skewering mainstream society.	Won't stop Rickrolling you or hilariously redirecting you to fecal porn.
Hannah Montana Gold	Tween girls.	Aids navigation of the treacherous adolescent social scene.	Weirdly sexualized look and feel.
Otaku Platinum	Lovers of Japanese nerd culture.	Provides translation from Japanese. Routes users to cute Sanrio stuff.	Tentacle porn.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

King of Frame-Processing Makes Fast Images Crystal Clear

The Sony TK adds interim frames to make up the difference between 24- and 60-fps sources and its native 120-frame refresh rate, which can make movies with lame plots at least visually more appealing.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

It's the All-Digital Future — $100 Netflix Box Streams 15,000 Films

Roku's Netflix Player has proved a revelation for the web-streamed movie-watching experience, with its low cost and breadth of selection.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Online Billpay Provider Loses Control of Domains

An anonymous reader writes "Several sites are running a story about a domain hijacking at Checkfree, the largest provider of online bill payment services to numerous banks and credit unions. According to Network Solutions, someone logged in to the domain administration page using Checkfree's account, and redirected its domains to a site in the Ukraine configured to serve up malware to unsuspecting users." Things like this make me nervous about switching to otherwise-tempting online bill payment, but checks are dangerous, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:51 am

Why Sony And MS Can Ignore Nintendo - PSX Extreme

TrustedReviews

Why Sony And MS Can Ignore Nintendo PSX Extreme - 8 hours ago So there are these two basketball teams going at it on the blacktop; at first, one team just continues to throw down rim-rattling dunks and continues to dominate. Sony PS3 news: 300000 units ahead in PAL territories Product Reviews 10 devices almost as cool as game consoles GamePro.com Gamasutra - 1UP.com - CNET News - PC Magazine all 333 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:31 am

Cyber Monday numbers in - 15% more spending than 2007

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, HDTV, Computers, Desktops, Laptops, Gadgets / Other, Gaming, Console

Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us, it’s time we enjoy those gadgets that we bought, whether it be a brand new HDTV, gaming system, MP3 player, or computer.  Of course for us techie people, we like to see how this year compares with previous years in terms of money spent.  With the economy in a slump, experts predicted this shopping season to be down, but Cyber Monday managed to persuade many consumers to open their wallets, punch in their credit card number, and eagerly await their arrival of their new gadget(s).

Statistically speaking, last year on Cyber Monday had bought in $733 million in revenue, and this year bought in a 15% increase - an astonishing $846 million spent, stated ComScore in a report.  This came as a relief to many retail stores because sales had dropped by 2% or $12 billion from November 1 to Cyber Monday of this year as compared to last year. 

Gian Fulgoni, Chairman of ComScore, had this to say about why Cyber Monday prospered:

“With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally begun to open their wallets, setting off a streak of four consecutive days of extremely strong growth.  This is an extremely encouraging development for retailers, and we can but hope that their aggressive discounting has still left room for profits.“

A bit of bad news - when retails formally announce their profits, it is expected to overall be down from last year, even though Black Friday and Cyber Monday both did exceptionally well In addition, it could be the overall worst holiday season in terms of profit in decades.  I noticed, and you might have as well, there are many more commercials and advertisements with deals in effort to promote the holiday season.  Also, holiday music that usually starts after Thanksgiving, I was hearing it on the radio a week before Thanksgiving, probably in efforts to make people spend more.

Cyber Monday has become especially big in the last few years because Americans are finding they can get as good as and in some cases better deals than on Black Friday.  All they have to do is click a buttons buttons, type in a few numbers, and let the website and its employees do the rest. 

Now, the big question that remains is how well will retailers do in the coming weeks.  Of course, it was nice to see this big shopping spree from Black Friday to Cyber Monday, but I don’t think customers are ready to splurge yet with the state of this economy. 

Read [Los Angeles Times]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:18 am

BoomTown Decodes Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s Memo on New Digital Guru, Qi Lu (So You Don’t Have To) [BoomTown]

BoomTown strives to bring readers the very best in internal memo decoding, and this one is just too good to pass up.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent a short memo to employees this afternoon about finally hiring someone to head the software giant’s lackluster digital efforts.

That someone, as this column reported earlier today before the official announcement, was former Yahoo (YHOO) tech star Qi Lu. He will become president of the Online Services Group at Microsoft (MSFT), right after the new year.

Thus, let us try to read between the lines:

What Steve wrote: From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 1:39 PM
To: Microsoft–All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: New Leader of Online Services Group

Search, advertising and online services are critical to Microsoft’s long-term strategy. To succeed, we need the right talent. Today, I’m pleased to announce that Qi Lu will join Microsoft as president of our Online Services Group. Qi will oversee all efforts in search, our online advertising platform, and all of our online information and communications services. Qi will join Microsoft on Jan. 5 and report to me.

Translation: Really, taking five months to pick someone to head Microsoft’s most critical arena for the future is not a long time. If you’re counting in dog years, that is! Woof!

But, I digress, we have a winner and, best of all, he’s from Yahoo, costing us $39.9 billion less than it would have cost to get Lu with the whole company.

What Steve wrote: Qi is one of the most respected technical minds in the industry. He comes to Microsoft after 10 years at Yahoo, where he most recently served as executive vice president of engineering for all of Yahoo’s search and advertising development efforts. Before joining Yahoo, Qi was a researcher at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. He has a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, and he holds 20 U.S. patents.

Translation: Did I mention that Lu is from Yahoo? Let me say it again: Yahoo. The YAHOO that refused to take our $31 a share offer. That Yahoo. The Yahoo where–at one time–engineers would never consider leaving the Jedi forces of Silicon Valley to join the Death Star.

Jerry Yang, I am your bother.

Also, did I mention 20 patents?

What Steve wrote: Qi’s combination of deep technical expertise, proven leadership capability and broad business knowledge is rare in our industry. There is no one better qualified to guide our work to reinvent search and online advertising.

Translation: By “reinvent,” I mean, stop the endless flow of cash out of Microsoft pockets, even as Google (GOOG) is minting money in the basement of that irksome Googleplex in the search business.

If Lu manages not to lose, say, $3.23 trillion dollars, I will consider it a job well done!

What Steve wrote: While I’m excited that Qi is joining Microsoft, I’m sorry to share the news that Brian McAndrews has decided to transition out of the company. Brian came to us with the acquisition of aQuantive in 2007. Since then, he has helped build a world-class business in online advertising that provides a solid foundation for future growth. I have great respect for the important contributions Brian has made to Microsoft, and I wish him the very best in the future.

Translation: Ok, so I dragged my feet on this selection process long enough to make Brian feel really badly, given he wanted the job too.

But, he’s an “ad” guy and Microsoft’s track record with those who don’t consider pocket protectors the height of fashion is, shall we say, rocky.

But don’t feel bad for Brian–Microsoft bought aQuantive for $6 billion last year, and he was CEO. You do the math.

Of course, it would be deeply ironic if Brian suddenly was in the running for the now-open Yahoo CEO job and I was facing him over the negotiating table over the search deal Microsoft has been salivating over, despite trying to seem only mildly interested.

Brian, honey, don’t take it personally that I went for the geek. It’s in my DNA.

What Steve wrote: On Monday at 4 p.m. Pacific Time, Qi will join me at Café RedWest for an Employee Town Hall. I encourage you to attend or to watch the webcast. If you have questions for Qi or me, please send them in advance to and we’ll try to answer as many as possible.

Steve

Translation: Free nachos and unintelligible discussions about algorithms for all!

Source: All Things Digital | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:18 am

Jeff Smith's comic RASL

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Ed. Note: Boing Boing's current guestblogger Clay Shirky is the author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. He teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where he works on the overlap of social and technological networks.

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One day, back when I was 17 and a Zep-head, my girlfriend popped a tape into the car dash, and this sound came out. It was my first time hearing the Violent Femmes, and their songs were everything that Led Zeppelin's had stopped being -- simple, direct, urgent, short. I was reminded of that moment when I came across Jeff "Bone" Smith's new comic RASL.

In the year of "Watchmen: The Movie", it's great to see something this simple. It's a cat-and-mouse story whose protagonist is an art thief with a getaway device that is part teleporter, part subtle knife, being pursued across various universes by a lizard-like human with a gun but not, so far, very good aim.

The back story would fit on an index card, there is about as much sub-plot as there is vermouth in a martini, and the graphic style looks like something you'd draw on a napkin, if you were really good at drawing on napkins. (The gun, for further old skool cred, even goes "Pow Pow Pow".)

It's a black and white rendering of a very 'shades of gray' world; by my count, every character but one is deeply morally compromised, and the one exception suffers because of it. It's also written and drawn by the same person, and an issue costs less than a Grande Frappuccino (there are three out so far; the next one is in Spring 09). In an era when creating a graphic novel can occupy a staff the size of a B1 bomber crew, its great to see a single person trying to tell a simple story well.

Smith's Site | RASL on Heavy Ink

Clay Shirky Boing Boing Guestblog posts:

* Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division
* Jeff Smith's comic RASL
* Publish Without Perishing
* Here Comes Clay Shirky (The Changing of the Guestbloggers)

Source: Boing Boing | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:12 am

Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division

My fall class at ITP has been tracking the creation and distribution of video produced by people other than political professionals, and I wanted to share some of the things they found here. The story of 'Obama <3s teh internet <3s Obama' has been told many times; less well appreciated is the effective Republican/Conservative use of video.

There is a certain (inevitable/dangerous) triumphalism in the Democratic win, because losers always take better lessons from the battlefield than winners. (It's hard to remember now, but before the 2004 election, much the political conversation was around describing the dominance of the warbloggers.)

Looking at Republican uses of video that my students analyzed was quite instructive in this light, because a) those strategies weren't just weak mirrors of the Democratic camp, they were strong but different ones and b) these strategies are going to become much stronger in 2010 and then again in 2012. I'll point to a few of these examples while I'm guest blogging.

First up, and my vote for the single most affecting video of the election, is Dear Mr. Obama, above. I am an anti-Iraq-war Democrat, and it nevertheless brought tears to my eyes (and I don't cry easy -- will.i.am's Yes We Can left me fairly cold.) Watch it all the way through, or, if you can't, skip to the end before you close it.

This is a video made by people who knew exactly what they were doing. Stuff like the American flag draped just in frame looks hokey to the godless/ sodomite/ baby-killing wing of the Democratic party (my people), but is part of a "plain speaking and right thinking" package that clearly hit just right with the target audience. It was seen 13 million times in 3 months, which topped Obama Girl in absolute views, and I've got a Crush...on Obama was up a year and a half.

This is why this video is really really important: the simple message and Blair Witch production values (good enough to be effective, bad enough to seem unplanned) made this video like Democratic kryptonite. The video was largely circulated via homophilous forwarding along conservative channels. Despite the incredible viewership, I'm betting that the ratio of BoingBoing readers who have seen Obama Girl to those who've seen Dear Mr. Obama is at least 10:1. (When my students presented it to ~100 NYU students on election eve, something like 3 of them had seen it.)

The lovely non-partisan view of voting -- make your case to everyone, see what happens on election day -- masks the fact that there are really three different voter games being played in elections. The first is 'Mobilize the base' -- at ~50% voter participation, there's a lot of juice in just being able to get people who want you to win out to actually get to the polls. The second game is 'Swing the undecided.' There is, to a first approximation, no such thing as an 'independent' voter. People who don't make up their minds until late in an election are less political, less involved in the issues, and less likely to vote overall than partisans, so their minds have to be changed with something emotionally engaging. And the third game is 'Depress the turnout of your opponent' or, at the very least, to avoid enraging them to the point that they are willing to do something rash, like vote.

And in that regard, Dear Mr. Obama was a trifecta. For the base, a muscular but polite attack on the very issue that brought Obama into the spotlight. For the undecided, the emotional charge is much likelier to sway them than argumentation. And for the Dems -- nothing. The video might as well not have existed for all it was seen in Democratic circles. Since the video's sole speaker can't be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.

For most of the life of the Republic, it was not just possible but imperative to say different things in different places -- what politician would tell auto workers and orange pickers the same thing! That old world had a stake driven through its heart by the Macaca Moment; every politician knows that anything they say to anyone, they say to everyone everywhere.

Now, the job of saying one thing to one group, and something different to another, falls to the supporters. The social solidarity of weblogs and mailing lists replaces the old world of media buys and Chamber of Commerce speeches, recreating through the echo chamber what was once the province of geography and cost. Dear Mr. Obama was music to Republican ears while being inert in Democratic hands; expect it to be a template for 2010.

Source: Boing Boing | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:06 am

A perfect, no-bullshit black rotary telephone that works

So you want a rotary telephone.

You don't want a cheap plastic copy. You don't want it to be $300. You don't want it to be a sickly green, to have a nicotine patina, or be otherwise ghastly. You want the real thing. In enamel black.

But you do want it to Just Work with modern exchanges. And you want it to ring a real damned bell.

Well, for seventy bucks, here you go: Retro 1970s Style Desktop Telephone - Upgrade Ver [Brando] Thanks, Mark!

P.S. How hard would it be to wire it up to a cellphone concealed within, with a gigantic battery that lasts for months?

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 4:06 am

Listen to your Waveform ring

Japanese artist Sakurako Shimizu designed some cool waveform jewelry. He takes a sound wave from a sound editing software and cuts it into silver with laser. There are various forms, such as necklaces, brooches and earrings. You can even listen to the sounds if you can figure out a way to decode the waveform. I smell great nerd engagement present!

Source: CrunchGear | 5 Dec 2008 | 3:56 am

Square makes pass at Lara Croft, Warner laughs heartily

Earlier today, gaming news site MCV learned that Square Enix is preparing to bid against Warner Interactive in an attempt to purchase Eidos, or at least a part of it. Given the fact that Warner Interactive already owns a percentage of Eidos, and last month they were given the opportunity to buy more shares, industry pundits still expect Warner to close the deal.

Given the financial problems that Eidos has experienced in the last 12 months, this may be the only way for them to continue to exist. While Tomb Raider: Underworld has been released recently, it has been met with underwelming reviews and may not be enough to help them recover from the last year. Whether they’re swallowed whole by Warner or torn into pieces to be sold to the highest bidder, it doesn’t look like they’ll be their own company for long.

Source: CrunchGear | 5 Dec 2008 | 3:46 am

War vets face long-term brain risk

A U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 5 Dec 2008 | 3:28 am

Another bag with speakers. This time from Sharper Image

Sharper Image (actually ENE, a company that sells under the Sharper Image brand) has just released what they call the SoundBag. It is a backpack that is said to improve the listening experience for people on the go. It incorporates a detachable flat panel speaker system that
is made from fabric, making it hard to distinguish from other parts of the bag.

The bag features an adjustable shoulder strap that includes a 3.5mm plug, a built in stand so that the speaker can be used separately and an auxiliary input. It runs on 3 AA batteries that should provide 8-10 hours of playback.

The SoundBag retails for $99, and is now available in many colors from major retailers.

Source: CrunchGear | 5 Dec 2008 | 3:15 am

Shuttle bringing touchscreen all-in-one, Core i7 shoebox to CES

Shuttle, purveyor of the shoebox-sized gaming PCs that can, announced its CES itinerary today. Here are the highlights:

• The first Intel Core i7 small form factor: Shuttle’s H7 5800 was first unveiled at Intel’s recent press event, and will be officially released at CES 2009. It’s built on the Shuttle SX58H7 barebone – the new extreme flagship.

• The new touch screen all-in-one: Now with integrated touch screen monitor, available in classy black or elegant white, and 10.2 and 15.6 inch version. The new twist on the X Series will be unveiled to media and industry insiders for the first time at CES 2009.

• The concept portable 7” touch panel: Catch a glimpse of the mystery concept product in its pre-release glory. It looks like a portable gaming console, but is actually much, much more. It’s designed to control your home entertainment, play simple games, and can even act as your future home automation remote.

• The next generation SDXi Carbon: Water-cooled with the first-ever Liquid I.C.E. cooling technology and custom wrapped and painted in a premium automotive level finish.

The SX58H7 appeared a couple of weeks ago -- here's the specs -- and the H7 is its off-the-shelf sibling.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 3:05 am

What Exactly Is Adult Content? Google Forces Ning Onto A Slippery Slope.

On Tuesday Ning changed its long standing policy on allowing networks that show pornography and adult material. “Adult social networks don’t pull their own weight,” Ning CEO Gina Bianchini said, and “our ad partners aren’t big fans of the adult networks.”

As far as I can tell, at this time Ning has only one advertising partner - Google. Google won’t put adsense on sites that contain “Pornography, adult, or mature content,” so Ning was at risk of being banned by Google despite the fact that only a very small portion of the networks on Ning are adult oriented.

The problem is that it isn’t clear exactly what networks are being banned. In the blog post, Bianchini said that “adult social networks” are being discontinued. In response to inquiries by some network operators, Ning clarified their policy today in a new blog post. “As it relates to the Ning Platform, adult networks include, but aren’t limited to pornography and depictions of sexual acts,” Bianchini says.

Examples of adult content, says Bianchini, include Pornography or images of sexual acts, Nudity intended to sexually arouse the viewer, Graphic photos or videos and Fetishes.

Ah but wait. Examples of sites that are outside of the ban include Networks for heterosexual, gay, lesbian or transgender individuals, Nudist networks, Networks for educational, medical, or clinical purposes that contain nudity, Breast Feeding networks, Art containing some nudity, Travel networks that include content on nude beaches and Networks promoting safe sex.

Ok, so nudist networks and pictures of lactating breasts are fine (as long as it isn’t a fetish). But basic nudity for erotic purposes isn’t. I guess I understand where the line is, but Google’s definition is much more subjective and general (Pornography, adult, or mature content). Is a transgender social network mature content? seems like it is to me.

And how does violence fit in to all of this? Is there any amount of human carnage that would qualify as adult content?

Good luck with this, Ning. Perhaps that’s why Google turned YouTube PG.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 5 Dec 2008 | 2:55 am

Livestation aims to bring live TV to your iPhone

FROM APPLETELL - Skinkers wants to bring live TV to your iPhone via their Livestation broadcasting platform. Although this isn’t a finished product yet, it sure does look promising. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 5 Dec 2008 | 2:37 am

Flickr mobile updated; videos now work on iPhone

According to a post at the Flickr blog, a new version of m.flickr.com has been released today, and one exciting development is that videos at Flickr should now work on the iPhone. I’ve got a video loading right now on my G1 but it’s taking ages so… yikes, what a terrifying racket! There appears to be some sort of problem with the G1’s native browser. They do say it’s only for the iPhone and 3G at the moment, but I am getting sound, and some very pretty static.

Any readers want to give it a shot and tell us if it works on your mobile?

[via Daring Fireball]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 5 Dec 2008 | 2:33 am

Flickr mobile updated; videos now work on iPhone

According to a post at the Flickr blog, a new version of m.flickr.com has been released today, and one exciting development is that videos at Flickr should now work on the iPhone. I’ve got a video loading right now on my G1 but it’s taking ages so… yikes, what a terrifying racket! There appears to be some sort of problem with the G1’s native browser. They do say it’s only for the iPhone and 3G at the moment, but I am getting sound, and some very pretty static.

Any readers want to give it a shot and tell us if it works on your mobile?

Source: CrunchGear | 5 Dec 2008 | 2:33 am

Barack Obama: Zune user

What if — bear with me here — What if this entire election was bought by Microsoft? No, stay with me. They went to Diebold and bought themselves an election, and now the viral starts. First Obama is spotted using a Zune at the gym. Then maybe there are candid shots of him sharing songs with his daughters’ Zune 16s in the presidential limo. Then, come January 20th, he takes the oath, turns to the people, and says:

“Citizens of the United States of America…

Welcome to the social.”

Now that’s change we can believe in.

[via Crave]

Source: CrunchGear | 5 Dec 2008 | 2:05 am

Warner Music Pushing Music Tax For Universities

An anonymous reader writes "Warner Music is pitching the idea of a 'music tax' for various top universities. The idea is that students would be free to file share, but the university needs to monitor and track everything, create a pool of money, hand it over to a recording industry entity that promises to distribute the proceeds fairly. In exchange, the university gets a 'covenant not to sue' from the music labels. It's not a full license, just a basic promise that they won't sue. It's also claimed that this is 'voluntary' but the Warner Music guy says that they need to include all universities and all ISPs to really make it work. It's basically a music tax, where the recording industry gets to sit back and collect money."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:30 am

RealDepressing: The Entire RealNetworks Layoff Memo [Digital Daily]

Earlier this afternoon, Peter Kafka reported in Media Memo that RealNetworks (RNWK) was “next up in today’s layoff parade.” Here’s the official internal memo from RealNetworks founder, chairman and CEO, Rob Glaser:

Team –

I’m writing to share some important but not happy news.

Today, we’re implementing a reduction in force affecting about 130 employees, representing about 7.5 percent of the company’s work force. This is a world-wide initiative; about one-third will be in Seattle, approximately another third in other U.S. locations, and the rest outside of the U.S. This is roughly proportionate to the overall number of people we have in each region. All divisions are affected in varying degrees.

Many of the reductions are a result of consolidations of operations of companies we’ve acquired in the past year or so that are being integrated with other parts of our business. We also have looked across the company to integrate similar functions and groups to achieve better efficiency.

Having said that, this is also a reflection of the economy. While our business has not been affected as much as many, we are not immune to what’s going on in the wider economy. In addition to these staff reductions, we’re also tightening our belt in other ways–watching travel expenses even more closely, for instance, and canceling the Seattle HQ holiday party.

Because of the unusually difficult economic environment, we’re taking extra steps to help affected employees. For instance, every affected staff member in the U.S. will receive six months of Cobra healthcare coverage, which is double what we have done in the past. We’re making similar adjustments internationally.

Despite the changes being made today, which I and the rest of the management team deeply regret, the company is well positioned to weather the current economic storm. As per our last earnings call, we expect to achieve record revenue for the year, and we still see opportunities for growth and investment across the business. In order to stay healthy, we need to get our costs in line with the business as it looks today. This will enable us to continue investing in the areas that set us up for growth and success in the future.

Below is a brief video that goes into additional detail.

• Video
• Audio only

I’ll have more to say at our next company meeting early in 2009. Until then, take care.

Rob

Source: All Things Digital | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:25 am

The new pirate busting idea: second hand music

Section: Audio, Web, Websites

Piracy is a massive problem in the music industry as it is getting easier and easier to get your music free off the Internet.  Obviously the music industry is trying to keep up, and the people at Bopaboo (what a weird name!) think they have come up with a solution: second hand music.  But not any old music, oh no, you can now buy used digital music.  “How on earth does this work?“ I hear you cry, and that is exactly what I thought, but let me first explain the idea behind this and what is supposed to happen. 

The theory is that people will go onto the website and tell people that they have digital music to sell, and Bopaboo puts a price on it.  Then someone comes along who wants that music cheap and buys the second hand digital music off them and the seller gets 80% of the profits with Bopaboo stashing the other 20% for themselves.

This is (in theory) a great idea, if you buy music digitally which is awful/boring you can sell it to someone who wants it: you sell it legally and they get cheap music.  It is a way to get people out of the habit of downloading illegally, you get money for your old music and everyone gets a good deal without feeling bad.  However as I am sure you have noticed right from the start there are some massive problems with this, and ones that will probably make this completely flawed.

Here is a small quote from the terms and conditions:

“You will delete any remaining copies of the Used Published Item that may exist in your possession, custody or control” and goes on to say that “...you agree to indemnify and defend bopaboo against any and all claims arising out of any transaction in which you are the seller”.

To be honest this is ridiculous, firstly they are expecting people to be honest and secondly they are using the general public as a legal backup: I don’t think that will hold up in court.  Firstly, they will have an overload of music for sale as people copy illegal music again and again so they can upload more and thus get more money, and noone is really going to delete any remaining copies, are they?  You will find a lot of people buying off it: it is a good idea for cheap music, but the idea that people will sell it is one that just won’t work.

All in all if 50% of users aren’t downloading illegally it is progress, but it is by no means the miracle that it promises to be.  Unfortunately I cannot see a day where music will be safe from pirates, but at least this is a step, however small, in the right direction.

Source [Gizmodo]
[Bopaboo]

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

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Source: Gizmodo | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:20 am

Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket

Rob Spence looks you straight in the eye when he talks. So it's a little unnerving to imagine that soon one of his hazel-green eyes will have a tiny wireless video camera in it that records your every move.

The eye he's considering replacing is not a working one -- it's a prosthetic eye he's worn for several years. Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, is not content with having one blind eye. He wants a wireless video camera inside his prosthetic, giving him the ability to make movies wherever he is, all the time, just by looking around.

"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" he asks.

Spence, who calls himself the "eyeborg guy," will not be restoring his vision. The camera won't connect to his brain. What it will do is allow him to be a bionic man where technology fuses with the human body to become inseparable. In effect, he will become a "little brother," someone who's watching and recording every move of those in his field of vision.

If successful, Spence will become one of a growing number of lifecasters. From early webcam pioneer Jennifer Kaye Ringley, who created JenniCam, to Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell, to commercial lifecasting ventures Ustream.tv and Justin.tv, many people use video and internet technology to record and broadcast every moment of their waking lives. But Spence is taking lifecasting a step further, with a bionic eye camera that is actually embedded in his body.

"The eyes are like no other part of the body," says Spence. "It's what you look into when you fall in love with somebody and [influences] whether you trust someone or not. Now with a video camera in there, it will change how people see and perceive me."

It's an interesting and innovative idea, says Yonggang Huang, a professor in the departments of civil and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. Huang, along with University of Illinois professor John Rogers has developed a web of micro-sensors to enable eye-shaped cameras. Huang is not involved in Spence's project.

"It's very clever," says Huang of Spence's quest. "It is not a true eye but it provides the way for people to record images in life as they see [them] and store [them]."

Spence lost his right eye at 13 while playing with his grandfather's gun on a visit to Ireland. "I wanted to shoot a pile of cowshit," he says. "I wasn't holding the gun properly and it backfired, causing a lot of trauma to the eye."

After the accident, he returned to Belleville, a small town two hours east of Toronto, where he grew up. Spence became technically blind in the eye, and over the years, his vision deteriorated completely. Three years ago he had his eye removed and a prosthetic one inserted. Ever the filmmaker, he even made a movie out of his surgery. But it wasn't an easy decision.

"When you completely lose an eye it is a difficult thing to let go of," he says. "The eye has an emotional attachment. It is a window to your soul."

Spence wore an eye patch for a while, which he says looked cool. But once he started thinking about having a camera in his eye, Spence got in touch with Steve Mann, a professor at the University of Toronto. Mann is one of the experts in the world of wearable computing and cyborgs -- organisms that blend natural and artificial systems.

"There are a lot of challenges in this," says Mann, "from actually building a camera system that works, to sending and receiving images, to getting the correct shape of the camera."

Even in the age of miniaturization, getting a wireless video camera into a prosthetic eye isn't easy. The shape of the prosthetic is the biggest limitation: In Spence's case, it's 9-mm thick, 30-mm long and 28-mm high.

While that might seem like plenty of room in an age when digital cameras are squeezed into unimaginably slim and compact phones, it actually isn't. The average area available inside a prosthetic eye for an imaging sensor is only about 8 square mm, explains Phil Bowen, an ocularist who is working with Spence.  Also, a digital camera has many more components than the visible lens and the sensor behind it, including the power supply and image-processing circuitry. Getting a completely self-contained camera module to fit into the tiny hollow of a prosthetic eye is a significant engineering challenge.

That's where Professors Huang and Rogers' research could come in handy. Three months ago, the duo published a paper that showed how a new sensor built out of a flexible mesh of wire-connected pixels could replace the traditional flat imaging chip as the light sensor for a camera. The mesh is made from many of the same materials as a standard digital-camera sensor, but it has the ability to conform to convoluted, irregular surfaces -- like the back of a synthetic eyeball.

"Our cameras might more naturally integrate with a prosthetic eye, due to their hemispherical shapes," says Rogers. "One might also argue that they can provide a more human-like perception of the world."

Then there's the question of how the prosthetic eyeball (the outer shell for the camera) will be made. The eyeball chassis has to close shut and be watertight.

Traditional prosthetic eyes are single pieces made with polymethyl-methacrylate (PMMA), a flexible polymer that is also used in dentures. To fit a camera in, Bowen redesigned the prosthetic eye into two pieces that could snap shut.

But with a camera inside there's something new to worry about. The modified prosthetic eye will be heavier than traditional ones and that could affect the eye socket, says Bowen. "The weight might stretch out the lower lid," he says, potentially disfiguring the face.

Assuming the size, weight and water-tightness issues can be solved, Spence has a vague idea of how he thinks it can work. A camera module will have to be connected to a transmitter inside the prosthetic eye that can broadcast the captured video footage. To boost the signal, he says he can wear another transmitter on his belt. A receiver attached to a hard drive in a backpack could capture that information and then send it to another device that uploads everything to a web site in real time.

If it sounds rather cumbersome and complicated, it is. Spence and his team are still working to find the right answers.

He hasn't been able to get the bigger camera companies to work with him. "Part of problem is if you cold call somebody it sounds like there is a maniac on the other end of the phone," he says. "This whole idea confuses and overwhelms most people."

"Right now I am begging, borrowing and stealing camera modules from different cameras to make a stage one prototype," says Spence.

Spence is not the only one attempting to implant a video camera in his eye socket -- artist Tanya Vlach is working on a similar project -- but if he's successful he will be more than just another cyborg. The documentary film he's making about his efforts, plus the experience of living with a video camera in his eye, could help build greater awareness about the culture of surveillance in our society today, he says.

"No one is going to ban surveillance cameras," says Spence. "It's more about being aware of it. It's about giving a shit in the first place."

Having a bionic eye doesn't mean Spence will be recording all the time, he says. Unlike lifecaster Justin Kan, Spence is not promising to broadcast all of his life's moments. (Even Kan reneged on his promise within a few short months, as soon as a romantic opportunity presented itself.)

Spence is willing to turn off his camera in spaces such as gyms, theaters or private events. But he will be making many of those decisions on the spur, every day. "I wouldn't behave that differently than someone with a cellphone today," he says.

Even though his project is still in its early stages, Spence says many people have already told him they wouldn't be comfortable being filmed.

"People are more scared of a center-left documentary maker with an eye than the 400 ways they are filmed every day at the school, the subway, the mall," he says.

He hopes he will help  get people thinking about privacy, how surveillance cameras and the footage they record are being used and accessed.

"Sometimes I run a little experiment," he says. "I tell people around me, 'Did you know there are 11,000 new video cameras being installed in our country every day?' Then I will exaggerate and say there are 50,000 new video cameras going in everyday," says Spence. "Most of the times I get the same answer: 'That's interesting. Now what's for lunch?' or 'The weather is nice today.'

"I wonder what those people will say when they are staring back into the video camera in my eye?"

Photos: Steve Mann

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:18 am

Canadian Filmmaker Plans for Wireless Video Camera in His Eye

Rob Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, works with a wearable-computing expert to get a wireless video camera fitted in his prosthetic right eye. It won't restore his vision but it will help him record the world around him as he sees it.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:18 am

Canadian Filmmaker Plans for Wireless Video Camera in His Eye

Rob Spence, a 36-year-old Canadian filmmaker, works with a wearable-computing expert to get a wireless video camera fitted in his prosthetic right eye. It won't restore his vision but it will help him record the world around him as he sees it.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:18 am

Online Auction Sites Hang in Legal Limbo

Upscale jeweler Tiffany says online auction houses must police their sites to forbid auctions of counterfeit goods in a lawsuit threatening to derail internet retailing. A lower court sides with eBay, and the case awaits arguments before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:11 am

Zunegate, Day Two: Obama Advisor Says He's an iPod Man

Barack Obama won't be taking the mantle of Zune Brother No. 1 from Bill Gates after all.

In a stunning reaction that suggests the President-elect's ability to quickly turn around difficult public relations problems, an advisor has officially rejected the earlier suggestion that he used a Zune as his primary music player. Instead, he clarified Obama's position as an Apple fan and an owner of an iPod, which he most often uses when working out.

It is a crushing blow to Zune fans everywhere.

Judging by the hosannas of gratification they bestowed upon the President-elect in the hours following the initial report, the jilted fans might end up inconsolable and might need a hand walking the streets.

Some had even suggested that his use of the Microsoft player was the beginning of new era of 'bipodinsanship' and others were predicting a new rise in the player's popularity: "Look at what President Reagan did to the sales of jelly beans! This is great news!” said one excited forum commenter. Linuxlsrjd said in a twitter post: "2day has been a good day. I found out Obama n sum1 in my Hist group use a zune . . . Woot!"

But in hindsight, the saddest one comes from notorious twitter user MSWindows: "Barack Obama Uses a Zune. Who is the Maverick now?"

While news of the Obama response is too new to determine the reaction from the Zune lovers, we still expect it to be healthier than that of the Apple fanboys who needlessly and immediately mocked the President-elect when the initial Zunegate allegations were reported.

Many shocked Apple fans went to their forums and unleashed their customary vitriol, with some of them demanding an apology from the President-elect while others vowed to uncover any other questionable decisions of taste.

Unfortunately, it appears that some of these quests have already proven successful. Some Apple fans have uncovered fake-looking pictures of Obama buying or endorsing second rate products all over the land. Check them out after the jump and make your own decision.

As for us, we're still standing firm behind last year's Zune Vs. iPod Smackdown decision and think that the President-elect can use whatever he wants as his music player of choice, as long as he beats the economic recession, kicks the car industry in the behind, and occasionally challenges Heads of State to games of twenty-one.

Source: WSj, BuzzFeed

Lead image: Bess Kalb

Photoshop Images are provided by BuzzFeed users.   

See also:

• Barack Obama Uses a Zune

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:06 am

Food vs. Fuel: Saltwater Crops May Be Key to Solving Earth's Land Crunch

Crops that thrive in salt water could alleviate the tension between food and biofuel farming. The salt-loving plants could grow in 480,000 square miles of land that is unfit for regular crops.


Source: Gizmodo | 5 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am

Icahn facing huge loss unless Yahoo stock rebounds (AP)

AP - If activist investor Carl Icahn is going to profit from his $1.8 billion bet on Yahoo Inc., the billionaire needs the struggling Internet company's stock to more than double in value.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:54 am

Gadget Picks Fit For Outdoor Enthusiasts

It's nearly the end of the year and that means its time for the lists to begin. National Geographic has picked what it calls as must-have gear for outdoor enthusiasts for 2009.

Included are the Suunto’s wrist-watch navigator the X10 ($599), the Sony Xperia X1, the Black Diamond Enforcer gloves ($170) and the very cool looking Kor One water bottle ($30). They have also listed their choice for camera, handheld GPS, jackets and a laptop made of bamboo.

Complete National Geographic gear gallery

Photo: Joshua Scott / National Geographic Adventure

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:54 am

Appalanche: A Snazzy Recommendation Engine For The App Store That Sort Of Works

Apple’s App Store recently hit the 10,000 application mark, and while the store does a pretty good job at turning up impressive new applications through its Top App lists and on banners that scatter the store, most users are only exposed to a tiny fraction of the applications that are available. Now Y Combinator startup AdPinion has leveraged the technology behind its advertising voting engine to create a recommendation service for iPhone apps called Appalanche, hoping to surface the gems that are most appealing to users and might otherwise go unnoticed. To use the web app, visit this site from your browser.

The interface is sleek and intuitive, and looks great on the iPhone’s screen (the web app is also compatible with standard PC web browsers). The site presents users with six applications at a time, asking them to drag them into either a green “Like” section or a red “Don’t Like” area”. After making a few choices, users can hit “More recommendations” to see six new applications. Users can associate their recommendations to an Email address, so they can build up a larger (and hopefully more accurate) database over time.

While the site looks very nice, it still has some shortcomings. Unless you have a comprehensive knowledge of the applications on the App Store, most of the applications displayed by Appalanche will be totally unfamiliar, which makes it hard to categorize them under ‘like’ or ‘dislike’. The icons and names for each app aren’t particularly informative, and while you can see a brief description of each app by clicking on it once, the process is tedious, especially on the iPhone’s small screen. And because it’s so tough to figure out which applications you’re actually going to be interested in, the engine isn’t as helpful as it could be. That said, I’d love to see a recommendation engine and AdPinion certainly has the technology to do it - they just need a better interface.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:53 am

Glimpse at the iPhone of 2012

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Mobile

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: this phone runs on something not invented yet.  In the future, let’s assume we can make anything clear or invisible.  Very well, with that caveat out of the way, let’s take a look at the future of phones: GlassyGlassy.

As you can see, or see-through, this phone is conceived in a variety of form factors, each as elegant as the next.  The impressive concepts are created by Mac Funamizu.  Sadly, Mr. Funamizu doesn’t believe we’ll discover a new form factor as he iterates his design in the usual suspects: flip, slider and candy bar.  Certainly we can come up with something new, yes?

Presumably finger prints, grease and grime will not be an issue either as a new film will prevent these from smudging the view.  In the concept, the clear panels are touch sensitive and allow for an almost unlimited array of inputs and screen configurations.  This things just oozes style.

Is clear the next frontier for phones?  Will we tire of black and silver?  If only the future was so clear…

Read: [Yanko Design] via [JoshSpear]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:40 am

UserVoice Drops Beta Tag, Lets You Capture User Feedback

When UserVoice launched its hosted solution for companies looking to harness user feedback a little over 7 months ago, we wrote it could well be a replacement for e-mail when it comes to aggregating opinions, ideas and suggestions from user / customer bases. Now, UserVoice says its offering is solid enough for enterprise usage and is consequently dropping the beta tag.

Billing itself as an ‘online suggestion box that sorts itself’, UserVoice enables companies to embed widgets onto websites and applications to sollicit feedback from users in combination with a Digg-like voting feature. The idea behind that approach is that it’s easier and more scalable to crowdsource user opinions, ideas and suggestions than other ways of communication.

You can use the UserVoice service for free, but with a rather big limitation on features. More advanced packages are available starting from $289 per month, and there are also special packages for startups, non-profit organizations and educational institutions. If you want to take a look at alternatives, you might want to check out similar service providers such as CrowdSound, Suggestionbox and Get Satisfaction.

UserVoice has attracted customers from various sizes so far, including nice references like Sun Microsystems, Nokia and MySpace but also smaller web application providers like Blip.fm, 12seconds and Alert Thingy. According to the announcement, over 120 million widget impressions have already been served, with over 530,000 votes logged to date. Not bad for a startup that operates without outside financing apart from a small seed round from Nuvoiz raised back in 2007.

Bonus points for using Initech as the company for the live demo. Marvellous touch.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:31 am

Today on Offworld

As previously mentioned, today Offworld moved just a little closer to that long-stated goal of bringing in more influence from outside the games industry proper with its first new feature from Ignatz Award winning and Eisner nominated comic artist James Kochalka, who will be creating new monstrous Miis for the site which you can bring home to your own Wii. We also saw that Rock Band is about to get a little bit country, made a plea for more developers to praise rather than scold their players, found new iPhone games based on bondage and argument-settling by music, and saw Sega racing classic Outrun re-made for Nintendo's Virtual Boy. Finally, we saw a very Weezer Christmas coming to iPhone and a Sega Master System's circuits bent to create real-time guitar effects, got jealous over a fantastic scheme to bring freelance illustrator work into LittleBigPlanet, and got ready to take a ride on the Raptor Copter, a brilliant looking and literally-named new iPhone game.

Source: Boing Boing | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:27 am

Obama's Transportation Secretary Must Be a Visionary

The president-elect and his transportation secretary face a daunting list of issues, from crumbling bridges to gridlocked freeways to an archaic air-traffic control system. Addressing them will require big ideas and bold moves.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:27 am

Nintendo's Miyamoto On Innovation, Wii Ambitions

Edge Magazine is running an interview with Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto about some of the company's recent projects, such as Wii Music and Wii Fit. Miyamoto talks about his ambitions for the titles, as well as the difficulty in continuing to entertain players by surprising them. He refers to Wii Music as "music software" rather than a game, and says the primary intent was to bring music to families and assist in music education. The conversation then turns to where Nintendo can go in the future; Miyamoto discusses integrating new technologies into popular game franchises, and the dilemma Nintendo will face when designing its next console — do they stick with updated versions of their innovative controllers, do they return to a more standard build, or do they bring a completely different input device to the table?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 5 Dec 2008 | 12:26 am

Microsoft taps EMC for data protection - VNUNet.com

CNET News

Microsoft taps EMC for data protection VNUNet.com - 13 hours ago The two companies have agreed to a deal in which the RSA Data Loss Prevention (DLP) software will be preinstalled or bundled with Microsoft's security offerings. Microsoft, RSA Team Up on ... InternetNews.com Microsoft, EMC partner on data-loss prevention NetworkWorld.com CNET News - CRN - Register - Dark Reading all 65 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:46 pm

Nokia makes (patent) offer RIM can’t (legally) refuse

Mobile technology juggernaut Nokia has renewed a multi-year patent license agreement with Research In Motion, the company behind the BlackBerry line. In return for an undisclosed up-front payment and on-going royalties, Nokia has granted RIM worldwide use of standards essential mobile network patents, specifically relating to GSM, WCDMA and CDMA2000 technologies.

For a minute there, I thought RIM might have another patent fight in ‘em, especially after seeing Qualcomm successfully defeat the Finnish giant in an unrelated patent dispute earlier this year.

Looks like your precious CrackBerries are safe…for now.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:46 pm

Next G8 President Wants To "Regulate the Internet"

antispam_ben writes "The President of Italy, which will have the Presidency of the G8 starting January 1, says he wants to use the future position of Italy to 'Regulate the Internet.' Italy's President Berlusconi appears to be a cantankerous character, prompting riots when Italy last had the G8 presidency in 2001. This will no doubt be a serious effort, but knowing the fundamental design of the Internet involves routing around damage, the efforts could be more amusing than threatening." Update — 12/5 at 00:04 by SS: Reader fondacio noted that Silvio Berlusconi is Italy's Prime Minister, not its President. He is Italy's G8 representative, and Italy will hold the presidency in 2009.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:38 pm

The disruptive spectre of a $99 Wal-Mart iPhone

Section: Apple, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile

The boys at BGR announced they are hearing word that Wal-Mart will have a 4GB version of the iPhone and sell it at a Wal-Mart-y low low price of $99.  A couple of commenters suggested they’d heard the same thing inside Wal-Mart.  If this is true, we are about to see some major changes.

Certainly there are those that suggest the data is fee is too high for Jonny Consumer, and that may be for some, but not most.  Here are the facts: the iPhone currently bests the Razr in volume; the iPhone is outselling Windows Mobile phones; 10,000 apps in the app store is a big draw all on its own.  Now, drop the entry fee to play and this party gets rolling.

4GB is what my first iPod Mini sported for memory.  It is still going, though handed down after purchasing 3 more iPods.  4GB is enough for those seeking a cheap iPhone.  We suspect, the current iPhone costs $173 to manufacture.  But it wouldn’t take much to strip out GPS or perhaps a 3G radio?  And in the shady world of telecom phone deals, who knows what AT&T would be willing to cough back to get the lions share of new phone activations.  And that is just the impact a $99 iPhone would have.

We all are forced to sit through (or at least fast forward through) iPhone advertising.  The reach is there, all they need is a low dollar entry and away it goes.  Forget AT&T’s line of texting phones like the Matrix.  Forget silly little flip phones.  Who won’t be drawn like moths to the flame to be able to swipe, pinch and tilt?  If this happens, other makers have just been put into a corner they may not be able to come out of.

Jobs and the Apple marketing team don’t even need to hold a conference for this.  Just put the products out on the shelf at Wal-Mart complete with the security cord (maybe two) and stick the $99 price above.  The lines are going to be huge.  Mark your calendar for December 28, Christmas may really be a few days late this year.

What do you say?  $99 iPhone to take over the world?  Let us know in the comments.

Source: [BoyGeniusReport]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:30 pm

The Votes Are In: BlackBerry Storm Sucks

Though Verizon says the Storm is its fastest selling handset yet, the touchscreen phone is also generating more negative buzz than any BlackBerry before.

Consumers and journalists are beating the Storm to a bloody pulp, with very few defending Research In Motion's response to the popular iPhone. 

The most vicious review on the Storm comes from New York Times columnist David Pogue. He ripped the Storm to oblivion last week, calling it the "BlackBerry Dud." And on Thursday he published some reader responses that couldn't agree with him more.

"Having tried the Storm on two different days to make sure it was really as bad as it seemed the first time, I too find it unbelievable that these are for sale," a reader wrote to Pogue. "Verizon should just box all these Storms up and send them to Toys R Us, who can sell them in the Brainteaser section, right next to the Rubik's Cubes."

Verizon and RIM unleashed the Storm on Nov. 21. Sporting a 4-inch touchscreen, the handset is Verizon's attempt to compete with Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone. The resonating complaints about the Storm suggest the handset is not going to pose a threat to Steve Jobs' revolutionary phone.

Wired.com's Danny Dumas wasn't too pleased with the Storm, either: His major complaint was the operating system is a piece of garbage that doesn't do justice to "a piece of hardware this gorgeous."

And a quick Twitter search doesn't display much love for the Storm.

"Coworker just got a new Blackberry Storm," tweets Jeff Casemier. "It is a wonky P.O.S. Just F.Y.I."   

The complaints are likely only to get worse and more widespread: The phone's only two weeks old, and Verizon says the Storm is selling as fast as bacon-wrapped hot dogs outside a bar.

We're eager to hear what Gadget Lab readers have to say. Any of you out there with a Storm? How's it treating you? Let us know in the comments below.

See Also:

• Showdown: BlackBerry Storm VS. iPhone 3G
• Hands On With The BlackBerry Storm
• BlackBerry Storm Hits Vodafone
• Review: RIM BlackBerry Storm

 

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:11 pm

Mattel gets judge to ban Bratz on intellectual property grounds

One maker of sexualized children's toys has gotten a judge to crush another, on the grounds that Bratz' creator violated its copyright and probably came up with the idea on Mattel time.

A judge on Wednesday granted an injunction sought by toy maker Mattel Inc. that bars rival MGA Entertainment Inc. from manufacturing or selling its popular pouty-lipped Bratz dolls. The ruling, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Riverside, follows a federal jury's finding that Bratz doll designer Carter Bryant came up with the edgy concept while working for Mattel.

The same jury later awarded Mattel $10 million for copyright infringement and $90 million for breach of contract after a lengthy trial that ended in August.

Could Mattel have ever dreamed of manufacturing these revolting post-anime whore-kachinas by itself?

Regardless, this is an unpleasant result that favors intellectual property over innovation, assigning Mattel an entire category of toy as its proprietary sandpit.

On the other hand, there will be no more Bratz until it's free and clear of appeals. For once, it's almost worth it.

Gadget blog justifaction: grotesque dolls are articulated and capable of mechanical failure, esp. when put to non FDA-approved use by older youngsters.

Judge bars MGA from selling Bratz dolls [AP]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:53 pm

Sun Releases JavaFX

ink writes "Sun released JavaFX 1.0 today, in a bid to take on Adobe's Flash and Microsoft's Silverlight technologies. It is Sun's first Java release to include standardized, cross-platform audio and video playback code (in the form of On2 licensed codecs). The lack of a Linux or Solaris release is a notable absence. The development kit currently consists of the base run-time, a NetBeans/Eclipse plug-in and a set of artifact exporters for Adobe CS 3&4." An anonymous reader adds a link to several tutorials accompanying the new release.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:50 pm

Smibs Enters Public Beta

Smibs Inc, the Candian startup behind SmibsNet has launched the service to the public. The site offers a set of tools that resemble LinkedIn, but are supposed to be more focused on project and task management than personal connections and resumes. The public beta will also open the network’s directory up to users who are not members of Smibs, allowing them to search for members involved in specified professions (much as they would on LinkedIn).

Besides SmibsNet (which is the social networking side of the site), Smibs will be releasing applications running on its platform. Currently available is Doorbell, an app similar to Highrise that is designed to be a sales application for workers who aren’t typically involved in sales (it essentially allows smaller businesses to complete sales-oriented tasks without a dedicated staff). The service was originally annouced in June, and released a small private beta in October.

CEO Peter Urban has also given us a document that he has forwarded to a number of major VCs in an attempt to entice them to use the service (you can see it below). Judging from the responses (one VC replied “I apologize for being dense, but what is that you want?”), it is probably wise not to mimic this strategy if you’re looking for funding (Smibs isn’t).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:45 pm

Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T temporarily free

FROM APPLETELL - Simplify the process of logging into AT&T hotspots with Easy Wi-Fi for iPhone, now available for free in the App Store. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:40 pm

Video: RAF Harrier does low altitude fly-by pass in Afghanistan

There is some cursing by soldiers in this video, which you'll want to watch with sound to hear the tremendous whoosh.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:38 pm

Google Reader Gets A Refresh; Adds Algorithmic Content Bundles

If you use Google Reader as your primary feed reader, you might notice that it has a different look today. The corners are less rounded all the drop shadows are gone. Overall, it has a more featherweight feel, and the sidebar sections are now collapsible. It’s a bit faster too.

Shared content from friends is now given more prominence. (FriendFeed envy, perhaps?) You can hide the counter telling you how many posts are unread, in case that just makes you feel like you can never keep up with everything. Sometimes you just don’t want to know how much you are missing.

But the biggest change is one hidden in the browse tab. It will generate some feed bundles for you that you can add all at once. And if you select “browse all bundles,” you can see all of the bundles. These are algorithmically generated, unlike in the past when bundles were edited by hand. You can find TechCrunch in the Technology bundle.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:30 pm

Email From Steve Ballmer To The Microsoft Troops: Yahoo’er Qi Lu To Run Online Services

Microsoft announced the hire of former ten-year Yahoo exec Dr. Qi Lu today as President of their Online Services Group. He’ll report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer.

Here’s the email Ballmer sent to all Microsoft staff forty minutes ago:

From: Steve Ballmer
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2008 1:39 PM
To: Microsoft - All Employees (QBDG)
Subject: New Leader of Online Services Group

Search, advertising and online services are critical to Microsoft’s long-term strategy. To succeed, we need the right talent. Today, I’m pleased to announce that Qi Lu will join Microsoft as president of our Online Services Group. Qi will oversee all efforts in search, our online advertising platform, and all of our online information and communications services. Qi will join Microsoft on Jan. 5 and report to me.

Qi is one of the most respected technical minds in the industry. He comes to Microsoft after 10 years at Yahoo, where he most recently served as executive vice president of engineering for all of Yahoo’s search and advertising development efforts. Before joining Yahoo, Qi was a researcher at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. He has a doctorate in computer science from Carnegie Mellon, and he holds 20 U.S. patents.

Qi’s combination of deep technical expertise, proven leadership capability and broad business knowledge is rare in our industry. There is no one better qualified to guide our work to reinvent search and online advertising.

While I’m excited that Qi is joining Microsoft, I’m sorry to share the news that Brian McAndrews has decided to transition out of the company. Brian came to us with the acquisition of aQuantive in 2007. Since then, he has helped build a world-class business in online advertising that provides a solid foundation for future growth. I have great respect for the important contributions Brian has made to Microsoft, and I wish him the very best in the future.

On Monday at 4 p.m. Pacific Time, Qi will join me at Café RedWest for an Employee Town Hall. I encourage you to attend or to watch the webcast. If you have questions for Qi or me, please send them in advance to and we’ll try to answer as many as possible.

Steve

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

Source: TechCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:21 pm

Xbox 360 Arcade units confirmed to include 256MB onboard memory

FROM GAMERTELL - A Microsoft spokesperson confirms that Arcade bundled Xbox 360 units will feature 256MB internal memory rather than a memory card… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:17 pm

Sorapot design contest:

Joey Roth, creator of the excellent Sorapot tea-brewing tube, is hosting a design contest.

Sorapot has been out for half a year now, and many of my customers are designers, artists, engineers, and other creative people. You’ve given me extremely valuable feedback on my design, but I’ve always been curious to see your thoughts expressed the way you usually express them: visually. With the holidays here, a Sorapot Art Contest seemed like the only way to go. To enter: create an image inspired by Sorapot.

Your image can be a sketch, a painting, a photo collage, a rendering- anything that can be reproduced as a 1024 x 768 JPEG.

The only rule: your image must visually represent Sorapot in some way- the teapot doesn’t have to be front and center, nor does it have to be photo-realistic, but it must be there.

Email your image to contest@sorapot.com by Sunday, December 14th. I’ll post all images in a gallery here after the judges choose a winner.

International entries are welcome! I will ship the winner’s Sorapot anywhere in the world, and make sure that it arrives before Christmas

I will supplement the winner's reward with $10 cash if that winner's entry could be reasonably given the caption, "Challenged by Klingons, Nigel realized his Sorapot would make a splendid Baat'leth"

Design contest [Sorapot.com]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:14 pm

Netflix Comes to Boxee But Not In the AppleTV Version (Yet)

Boxee, the excellent, multi-platform, FOSS social media frontend has received a major upgrade: it now supports Netflix and all its functions — queue, watch instantly, and so on. In addition to that and all the regular bugfixes, they've updated the look and feel of some of the major media sites: Hulu is now a little more native-looking, Youtube supports "higher quality video playback" (whether it was a Boxee or Youtube limitation before is not clear), and also updates integration with Apple movie trailers, Flickr, MTV Music, and a host of other sites. Not bad at all! If I had a TV, I'd definitely be using Boxee or a Popcorn Hour.

Source: TechCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:10 pm

Why Use Virtual Memory In Modern Systems?

Cyberhwk writes "I have a system with Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit) installed on it, and it has 4GB of RAM. However when I've been watching system performance, my system seems to divide the work between the physical RAM and the virtual memory, so I have 2GB of data in the virtual memory and another 2GB in the physical memory. Is there a reason why my system should even be using the virtual memory anymore? I would think the computer would run better if it based everything off of RAM instead of virtual memory. Any thoughts on this matter or could you explain why the system is acting this way?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 4 Dec 2008 | 10:00 pm

Microsoft Officially Confirms Qi Lu Hired as Digital Chief; McAndrews Out [BoomTown]

Microsoft moved up its official announcement of former Yahoo (YHOO) tech star Qi Lu to be the head of its Online Services Group.

BoomTown reported on the selection earlier this morning.

As part of the changes, Microsoft digital ad head Brian McAndrews, who had also wanted the job, is leaving.

Here’s the full announcement from Microsoft (MSFT):

For Immediate Release
Dec. 4, 2008
Microsoft Appoints Dr. Qi Lu to Run Online Services Group
Yahoo! veteran to oversee Internet offerings for consumers, advertisers and publishers.

REDMOND, Wash.–Dec. 4, 2008–Microsoft Corp. today announced that Dr. Qi Lu will join the company as president of the Online Services Group. Dr. Lu will lead Microsoft’s efforts in search and online advertising and all the company’s online information and communications services. Dr. Lu will report to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer.

Lu most recently served as executive vice president of Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group at Yahoo!, where he was responsible for development efforts around Yahoo!’s Web search and monetization platforms. Dr. Lu left Yahoo! in August 2008 after 10 years of service.

“I am tremendously excited to welcome Qi to Microsoft,” Ballmer said. “Dr. Lu’s deep technical expertise, leadership capabilities and hard-working mentality are well-known in the technology industry, and Microsoft will benefit from his addition to our executive management team.”

“I am genuinely excited about the opportunities ahead for Microsoft to make an enormous impact on the online industry,” Dr. Lu said. “Microsoft has built a great foundation for its search and advertising technologies and put an amazing team of researchers and engineers in place to drive the next wave of innovation in online services. I’m looking forward to working with them to help transform the way people and businesses use the Internet to find and share information.”

Before his most recent role at Yahoo!, Lu was vice president of engineering responsible for the technology development of Yahoo!’s Search and Marketplace business unit, which includes the company’s search, e-commerce, and local listings of businesses and products.

Before joining Yahoo! in 1998, Dr. Lu was a Research Staff Member at IBM Almaden Research Center. Before IBM, Dr. Lu worked at Carnegie Mellon University as a Research Associate, and at Fudan University in China as a faculty member. Dr. Lu holds 20 U.S. patents, and received his bachelor of science and master of science in computer science from Fudan University and his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Lu’s first day at Microsoft will be Jan. 5, 2009. In his role running the Online Services Group, he will oversee several groups including the Advertiser & Publisher Solutions business, managed by Scott Howe who was promoted to corporate vice president; the Online Audience business, managed by Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi; OSG Research & Development, managed by Senior Vice President Satya Nadella; and OSG Finance, managed by Rik van der Kooi who was promoted to corporate vice president.

With the successful integration of aQuantive now complete, Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive and senior vice president of Microsoft’s Advertiser & Publisher Solutions Group, has decided to transition out of Microsoft, and will do so over the next several months, serving in a consultative capacity to Steve Ballmer and Qi Lu during that time.

“Brian McAndrews built a world-class business for advertisers and publishers and led the successful integration of aQuantive into Microsoft, setting the foundation for our next phase of growth,” Ballmer said. “While I am sorry to see Brian leave the company, I respect and understand his decision and wish him nothing but the best in the future.”

“I also want to congratulate Scott and Rik on their well-deserved promotions and look forward to their leadership in the Online Services Group alongside Qi, Yusuf and Satya,” Ballmer said.

As part of today’s announcement, several teams will move to further align resources. The field sales organizations in the Online Services Group will move to Microsoft’s centralized Sales, Marketing and Services Group led by chief operating officer Kevin Turner. This group, called Consumer & Online, will be led by Corporate Vice President Darren Huston and will include the Global Advertising Sales and Services organization, led by vice president Bill Shaughnessy.

Source: All Things Digital | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:36 pm

Scientists create body swapping illusion

Swedish neuroscientists say they have demonstrated, for the first time, that people can perceive another body to be their own. Valeria Petkova and Dr. H.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:31 pm

New Dry Wipe Can Clean Up Battlefield Chemical Agents

Researchers at Texas Tech University in Lubbock said Wednesday that they have developed a new type of dry wipe that can clean up chemical agents such as mustard gas and other toxins.The wipes may provide soldiers on the battlefield a more convenient way to handle toxic materials.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:25 pm

USDA report allegedly shows abuse

An animal rights group says a recently released U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:20 pm

RealNetworks Cuts 130, 7.5 Percent of Workforce [MediaMemo]

Next up on today’s layoff parade: RealNetworks (RNWK), which is cutting 130 jobs, or 7.5 percent of the workforce. Standard explanation: The company is trying to “bring expenses in line with revenues in a time of economic turmoil.”

Other details relevant to laid-off employees:

• All are on payroll through the end of the year
• Each will be offered a cash severance package based on length of service
• Said severance package will include six months of paid COBRA
• Etc., etc.

Real PR boss Bill Hankes has more details at the company’s blog.

Source: All Things Digital | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:10 pm

“20% of pizza orders coming from SMS and online” - Papa John

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Web, Web Apps, Websites

Genius.  Why trust the ability of the pizza franchise worker to jot down your order correctly when you can simply SMS your order in and be assured you get mushrooms and meatballs, not anchovies and steak tartar?  Apparently one out of five of us already are and this has forced Papa Johns, pizza purveyor, to start to focus on their new mobile site.

The mobile site is now optimized for the iPhone (boy, what isn’t these days?) and brings pizza, coupons, and directions all in one spot.  Papa John says $1 million in sales has come from mobile devices so far so there is considerable excitement from the Papa Johns team:

“As these devices are getting more powerful browsers, we’re able to take advantage and offer upgraded features and better designs,” said Richard Wise, vice president of operations at wiseOutlook, the company that developed Papa John’s mobile ordering service.

Convenience is big in the pizza business and this trend shows a good application of our devices and technology to advance it even more.

Source [Intomobile]

 

 

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Source: Gadgetell | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:06 pm

Could These Weird Ideas Save the Planet?

It's every harebrained scheme for itself at the U.N. climate conference's "Mini Sustainable Club."
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:05 pm

Scientists Pave Way For Nano-Scale 'Self-Powered' Devices

Scientists at Texas A&M University have successfully doubled the efficiency of piezoelectric devices that gather energy from movement and vibrations.The work could mean that devices such as "self-powered" phones that charge when you speak into them are one step closer to reality.The piezoelectric effect occurs in some ceramic and crystalline and materials.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 9:05 pm

HP Mini 1000 now comes with 3G on any carrier out the gates

HP now officially offers its Mini 1000 netbook with mobile broadband, through its online store's configurator. From its press release:

The method of activating WWAN on the Mini 1000 is with HP Connection Manager 1.1. HP Connection Manager provides a single connection solution for 2008 HP mobile broadband minis and notebooks, and supports multiple operators on both GSM and CDMA based networks with self activation capabilities on select partner operator networks.

The modem is included on earlier models, but it took some work to get it running. The dual-technology radio is an excellent decision, I think, and sets a precedent that will hopefully prevent particular brands of 3G netbooks ending up tied to specific carriers (and ultimately to subsidies) as the segment matures.

Good job, HP.

Online store [HP Direct]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:54 pm

Join Rob and Joel and CDM's Peter Kirn for a drink and mobile music making Friday night in pre-BLIP Festival Brooklyn

If you need a break from the 8-bit sounds of this year's Blip Festival, here's a great suggestion: come meet Peter Kirn (of Create Digital Music), Rob Beschizza and me at our quite unofficial "32-bit Drinkup" on Friday night before the Blip Festival in Brooklyn, NY, where we're use 32-bit PSP and Nintendo DS to...make a lot of music that probably will end up sounding quite a bit like 8-bit.

Peter's got the details over on CDM. Join us! Bring your PSP and tiny music making thingers!

NYC: Blip Festival Thurs-Sun; Join Our 32-bit Meetup with Boing Boing Friday 6p [Create Digital Music] [Facebook Event]

Image: Rabato

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:53 pm

Biology expert Ralph Lewin dies

Professor Ralph Lewin, known as the father of green algae genetics, died in his sleep Sunday at his California home from esophageal cancer. Lewin, 87, a scientist, poetry author and professor, spent nearly 48 years at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California-San Diego and was considered a leading authority in multiple areas of marine biology, Scripps said in a statement Thursday. Lewin joined the Scripps institution as an associate professor of marine biology in 1960 and retired from that position as a full professor in 1991, remaining extremely active in laboratory and field research and lecturing nationally and internationally.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:49 pm

QOTD: Change We Don’t Need [Digital Daily]

QOTD: Change We Don’t Need

Not true, the President-elect uses an iPod.”

– An Obama spokesman makes quick work of the Zunegate scandal

Source: All Things Digital | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:45 pm

Easter Egg hidden in Helio Connect press image

When I clicked my way through to the image attached to this morning’s Helio Connect announcement, I couldn’t help but laugh. Not because I find social news site aggregators inherently funny, mind you - but because there’s a little Easter Egg hidden inside and, oddly enough, it’s somewhat related to yours truly.

If you haven’t spotted it by now, take a glance at the second item on the list. “Secret handset”, it reads. Now, before you get too excited that you’re getting a sneak peak at Helio’s next big thing, read on after the jump for the history of this image.

As did many kids of my generation, I pretty much grew up on the internet. Having spent what was probably far too much time in IRC chats and forums, I’d grown accustomed to being able to find a group of people dedicated to rot away hour after hour talking about whatever little niche it was we were collectively interested in. After being a Helio customer for some time and realizing that there was no such group of people available to talk about all things Helio, I decided to get the ball rolling. In May of 2007, Heliocity was born.

Flash forward a few months. Helio’s flagship device, the Ocean, hadn’t even been on the shelves all that long, but folks were already starting to whisper that a followup “Ocean 2″ was in the works. The rumors started pouring in and, as with anything that people are even remotely interested in, so did the photoshops.

In July of ‘07, a Heliocity member going by “ingoljosh” crafted up this one (forum post here):

Though it certainly tricked plenty of people, it was generally dismissed as a fake - but not before it had already been spread around the internet as a “leaked shot” of the Ocean 2. After it made its way to a few high-traffic blogs, a surprise guest stopped by Heliocity and a few of the blogs that had posted it to kill it once and for all: the Chief Designer of Fujitsu Japan. Turns out the hardware was Fujitsu’s design and, while it existed as a concept phone, it had nothing to do with Helio.

Now, look at that image, and look at the “Secret Handset”. Ta-da! One in the same. More than a year later, and even after we positively know what the Ocean 2 will look like, that image still pops its head up every few weeks. Even with a large (read: huge) chunk of Helio’s staff now employed elsewhere, there remains at least one person in the graphic department with enough insight to throw in a little shout-out to the Helio community of yesteryear. Much love and a high five to whoever that may be.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:43 pm

Zimbabwe Cholera Outbreak Declared Emergency

A cholera epidemic blamed on broken sewage pipes has killed more than 500.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:34 pm

UN Panel Says Global Financial Crisis May Curb CO2 Emissions

Delegates at a United Nations meeting to discuss the world’s climate said Thursday that the global financial crisis will likely provide a reprieve from the spike in recent years of greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:25 pm

Pogue turns the screw on RIM's BlackBerry Storm

David Pogue at the NYT was among the most blunt of those who slammed the Storm. The response, he writes, is denial from RIM itself and a hundred-ish letters in his mailbag from customers who agree with him. Here's just one:

"I too find it unbelievable that these are for sale. Verizon should just box all these Storms up and send them to Toys R Us, who can sell them in the Brainteaser section, right next to the Rubik's Cubes."

About a dozen wrote in to disagree.

"Having you comment on technology is like having Tom Cruise comment on religion,"

That is, it must be said, a spicy rejoinder.

Here's the interesting thing about all this: everyone has made touchscreen-only phones that would have seemed revolutionary were it not for the one they followed. But while the likes of Samsung's Instinct and T-Mobile's G1 can impress us by offering 80%, RIM can't. RIM's gear must always be more-or-less perfect, with only the slightest of give for price-range context. They are tools, and must perform the functions not just of a phone, but a BlackBerry, and anything less will only fail in sharper relief because of it.

MSNBC covers the situation in more traditional fashion.

Pogue's col [NYT]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 8:20 pm

EU Approves Genetically Modified Soybean

The European Union on Thursday approved the use and sale of a genetically modified soybean across its 27 national markets over the next decade.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:55 pm

Court Ruling Against British Police DNA Database Raises Privacy Issues

Europe’s human rights court ruled on Thursday against practices in Britain that retained DNA information for two individuals whose cases had been dismissed. One of the individuals was an 11-year-old boy who had been accused of attempted robbery, and was later acquitted.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:50 pm

Gene found to protect against lung cancer

British and U.S. medical scientists say they have identified a gene that protects the body from developing lung cancer. Researchers from the University of Nottingham and Washington University in St.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:34 pm

Virgin Mobile launches “Connect”, a social networking dashboard for Helio

(Disclosure: I’ve done consulting work for Helio, prior to their acquisition by Virgin Mobile)

With the almost silly number of social networking applications available for the major smartphones, it’s easy to forget how much of a pain it can be to scratch that social itch on a feature phone. Sure, you can generally use a feature phone’s built-in browser to navigate to each site - but that’s one hell of a process, compared to “Tap, tap, done” process of native applications available on most smartphone platforms.

As the first major change (that we know of) for Helio from Virgin Mobile, they’ve announced Connect, a browser-based social site and news aggregator. Once users plug in the account info for their Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or YouTube accounts, updates are automatically pulled and rolled out in one long list alongside their favorite RSS feeds.

It’s a concept not unlike Yahoo’s oneConnect Pulse - but until Yahoo gets around to rolling out the Mobile Frontpage changes we wrote about a few weeks ago, Pulse is irrelevant for anyone not carrying an iPhone.

Though it’s browser-based, this can be seen as an upgrade from Helio’s H.O.T (”Helio On Top”) application. Where as H.O.T lacked support for Helio’s flagship device, the Ocean, Connect currently supports the Ocean, Mysto, Fin, Heat and Drift. Support for non-Helio Virgin Mobile devices is planned for Q1 of 2009.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:32 pm

Piper Sees ’09 E-Commerce Down 10 Percent; Online Ads Up 2 Percent [Voices]

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

While I noted earlier his reduced estimates for both Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster today actually cut estimates on 33 Internet and online content companies, citing “the significant deterioration in the economic and consumer spending outlook.”

Munster says he expects the U.S. savings rate to increase significantly over the next few years, following 25 years of increasing leverage and a declining savings rate. The good news is that will allow households to rebuild savings, home equity and investment portfolios. The bad news is that it means less consumer spending.

“Nearly all drivers of consumer spending, including employment, employee earnings, consumer credit, household wealth and consumers’ propensity to save, are all moving in a direction to drive spending lower over the near-term,” he writes in a note.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:27 pm

Parking Meter Fail

Photo: Matt Beldyk, who is also Captain Otterpants.

Another Failmeter, courtesy of commenter Boycat:

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:25 pm

Breathing Books, swiped by TSA, now at gallery

Things - Edith Kollath Creates Books that Breathe from Bre Pettis on Vimeo.

These wonderful heaving tomes, like props from a Harry Potter movie, were created by Edith Kollath. They are on view at the Dam, Stuhltrager Gallery.

She relates her own story of TSA incompetence and wickedness: guards confiscated these books in Newark Airport on a return trip to Germany, made humiliating remarks about her, and finally damaged them.

They have been encarcerated in the EVIDENCE ROOM for over three month now, they seemed to be lost forever but they survived all procedure: my breathing books. In June I had been detained by TSA, Police, FBI and CIA in Newark Airport on my way back to Germany for more than 4 hours. The reason for the official’s irritation was that I tried to carry a fully assembled electronical mechanism hidden in books. Given that that is not the smartest idea ever, it escalated over the top. I had been questioned, examined and interrogated, they ran a test on me and offered their result afterwards: “we think by now you must be a good person, ’cause now we know how often you change your underwear."

Breathing Again! [Resistor via Bookpatrol]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 4 Dec 2008 | 7:06 pm

Humans Susceptible To Hidden Feelings Of Sex And Fear

For anyone who has experienced a sudden unexplained rush of feelings, such as sparks upon meeting someone for the first time or impulsive fears when boarding a plane despite being totally at ease with air travel, scientists have a possible explanation.These seemingly illogical and disparate feelings may be reactions to other people's pheromones.Although pheromones are found across the animal world from insects to mammals, research into human pheromones has been hampered by bungling experimental designs and dubious commercial connections.  As a result, the entire field has been clouded with a tinge of disrepute."It's not so much that the jury is out, but that the jury has been dismissed before the trial has begun," Mike Meredith, a neuroscientist at Florida State University neuroscientist, told New Scientist magazine.However, this is beginning to change with new evidence emerging that pheromones work differently than previously believed.  The evidence is supported by a growing number of brain-imaging studies in humans, and is convincing some scientists that humans do indeed make and respond to pheromones.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Dec 2008 | 6:50 pm

Next Mars Mission Delayed

The next Mars mission has been delayed until at least 2011.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 5:34 pm

AT&T laying off 12,000 more employees

Following the announcement of 4,600 “job reductions” back in April, AT&T has announced 12,000 more layoffs this morning. The first notes should start hitting desks sometime this month (”Merry Christmas! Oh, and also, you’re fired.”) and continue trickling out through 2009.

As for who’s at risk:

While AT&T is reducing jobs in some areas, it continues to add jobs in other parts of the business – such as wireless, video and broadband – to meet customer demand.

While they don’t outright name it, there’s not much to AT&T outside of “wireless, video and broadband” besides landlines and the Yellow Pages - neither of which are exactly booming technologies. As a small morsel of good news for those handing over their RFID security badges, AT&T will be allocating about $600 million for severance packages.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 5:26 pm

Apple’s iTunes Overly Aggressive Against Competition

It’s no secret that Apple Inc’s iTunes store has revolutionized the way consumers get music, but some of its competitors and one technology rights group has accused the company of being overly aggressive in blocking out any new competition into the market which it currently dominates.ITunes store sales currently account for four out of every five songs sold on the Internet in the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 5:20 pm

Samsung Instinct gets Exchange/Lotus Notes calendar sync

Are you an Instinct owner on Sprint, constantly living in fear that Friends re-run schedule on your handset may not be perfectly up-to-date with the one lingering on your Exchange server? I understand. Ross and Rachel are serious business.

Fortunately, Sprint’s got a little something to help you with your anxiety. This morning, they pushed an update to their Mobile Email Work application which adds support for calendar synchronization with Microsoft Exchange (2000, 2003, 2007) and IBM Lotus Notes. If you’ve got Mobile Email Work enabled, you should be seeing a software update prompt soon. It’s included in all of Sprint’s “Everything” plans - so if you’re on one of’em and you’ve got a server to plug in to, you’ve got nothing to lose.

(And yes, I made a Friends reference in 2008. While I could substitute in a slightly more relevant sitcom, you should have seen all of Scrubs already anyways.)

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 5:11 pm

Vodafone lets loose OS 4.7.0.78 for BlackBerry Storm

The 103MB OS update is available now for BlackBerry Storm users in Germany. The update likely fixes the Storm’s horrendous battery life and touch-screen woes among other tweaks. Anyone in Germany on Vodafone care to share their story? Thanks!

Vodafone Germany

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Dec 2008 | 4:43 pm

Turtle Egg-Laying Season Thrown Off by Warming

American turtles are changing their nesting habits thanks to rising temps.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 4:34 pm

DOUBLE TAKE: To Bury or Not to Bury CO2

Experts debate whether burying CO2 makes sense.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 4:07 pm

Walruses Threatened by Shrinking Ice, Group Says

Conservationists go to court for the declining Pacific walrus.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 2:34 pm

A Smartphone Might Be Under Your Christmas Tree

With the U.S.’s economy recession crisis being compared to the depression in 1930's, some consumers may question the wisdom of purchasing an expensive new cell phone, but for those who want one now, there are some terrific deals out there.Even though iPhone, BlackBerry Storm and G1 are at their height of popularity, bargain hunters may choose the less famous and more wallet friendly smartphones like the Centro, BlackBerry Curve and the BlackJack II.The latest phones with touch-screens or computer-type keyboards are a lot less expensive than in the past, as AT&T Inc made headlines for putting a mere $199 price tag on Apple Inc's latest iPhone.However, smartphone purchasers should consider the service charges they must pay for at least two years, as the cheaper phone come with a commitment, as companies look to make back a piece of the phone's cost.In addition, the companies refuse to sell the smartphones to you unless a commitment is made to pay monthly fee the data services like Web surfing.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 2:25 pm

No Such Thing as a 'Voice Print'

Speech recordings may guide investigators, but they can't ID a person.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 4 Dec 2008 | 2:15 pm

Robot That Jumps Like A Grasshopper

The ‘Jollbot’ has been created by Rhodri Armour, a PhD student from the University of Bath.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 2:05 pm

Cell Phone Market Taking Another Hit

On Wednesday, cell phone makers LG Electronics and Research in Motion warned on profit growth, the newest sign that the market is drying up amidst economic fears.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 12:20 pm

Technology May Be Changing How We Socialize

Some scientists are concerned that time spent online is rewiring teenage brains.   Current concerns go beyond violent video games, which often become the center of public attention.  Some researchers believe the virtual world could be affecting the way humans learn and interact with each other.Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Dec 2008 | 11:55 am