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Redanyway Is Like MyBlogLog On Steroids (Invites)
Signing up is invitation-only for now, but we’ve got some invite codes for the first 1000 TechCrunch readers that register for beta testing the application. You don’t need to comment on this post to get an invite, simply use ‘techcrunch’ upon registering or click here for a shortcut. The essential idea behind Redanyway is that it should be easier for content publishers to build a social network around blog posts, photos, videos etc. and also enable users to follow / befriend on this centralized location, enhancing traffic, interactivity and reader engagement. In a sense, it also acts like a feed reader, by aggregating content from various sources and bringing it together in a single feed in the Redanyway dashboard. In a blog post, co-founder Kuldeep Kapade says they want to cut out RSS as the middle-man for subscribing to online content. If they’d add tabs and futher categorization capabilities, it would be even more useful, I think. The setup is a bit tedious, though, as publishers are required to install a plugin / widget on their personal blog or website, which is still quite a challenge for many mainstream bloggers (i.e. Redanyway’s target audience). The startup integrated Gigya to make the whole process a bit less complicated, but I still feel this might be a hindrance for the company’s growth. I’m also having trouble looking at it from a different perspective than recent initiatives like Facebook Connect and Google Friend Connect. Furthermore, I ran into a couple of bugs when adding contacts in the initial setup process, and someone should really take a look at the design and usability of the application as well. That said, Redanyway is still in private beta and has only been going for a couple of months, so maybe we’ll see some improvements in the future. All in all, I’m not really impressed, but maybe I’m missing something here. The startup was short-listed for the Techstars Summer program out of hundreds of applications, even though they eventually didn’t participate due to external circumstances.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 12:06 pm Personal finance pocket RPG
Wallet Saver, from Takara Tomy, is a personal finance role playing game that fits in your pocket. Set up your state of affairs, inform it each transaction you make, and it rewards and punishes your in-game avatar. So, what's the punishment for spending $45 on a tamagotchi? Osaifu Saver personal finance RPG game from Takara Tomy [Cscout]
Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:53 am Portable CD Player Sales Up 50%
Why? The Telegraph offers some interesting reasons, but then swiftly falls into the realms of the ridiculous. Most plausible is price. A cheap portable CD player can be had for as little as £15 ($22), and this brief downward blip in the economy is causing otherwise smart gift buyers to cheap-out at the checkout. Second, the Telegraph says that many people find MP3 players hard to use or too small, and that there are still a lot of people who have not yet ripped their music collections. This sounds to us like an older demographic, and is certainly believable. But then the splendidly named Harry Wallop, the Telegraph's Consumer Affairs Editor, goes absolutely crazy:
What? What does the Internet have to do with this? Yes, to get music on to any MP3 player you need a computer, or at the least semi-regular access to one, but the internet? Still, it makes interesting reading. I've spent the last few days at a the house of some friends, looking after the dog while they are away. One is a musician, and he has a kick-ass old stereo with a huge collection of CDs. It sounds amazing. Side by side with even high-bitrate MP3s, the uncompressed CDs are clearer, sharper-sounding and just more real. Sadly, even after my continued claims that optical media is dead, there still isn't a real non-CD alternative for audiophiles. Maybe one day, as internet connections get faster, we'll be able to download uncompressed WAV files, but until then we're stuck with convenient but inferior MP3s, or DIY CD ripping into lossless formats. Portable CD players make a comeback [Telegraph] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:49 am Wal-Mart to sell $99 iPhones in late December: report(Reuters) - A cheaper version of Apple Inc's iPhone will be sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc for $99 later this month, the New York Post said.Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:29 am Wal-Mart to sell $99 iPhones in late December: report (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:29 am The iPhone is coming to Wal-Mart and will be cheaper — by $2 - VentureBeat
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:15 am Canon 5D MkII Plagued by 'Black Spots'?
Posts on internet forums are reporting that these dots appear at the edges of over-exposed (or "blown") highlights. The dots are tiny, and can really only be noticed if you zoom right in and study the images but, for many people, just knowing they are there is annoying enough. Over at the DPReview forums, member f_stops has come up with a temporary workaround. It involves turning off pretty much all in-camera image correction (not necessarily a bad thing as this can nearly all be done later with the right computer software):
Click the thumbnail for a full sized image. This appears to be a software glitch, and other forums posters ask the obvious next question: Will Canon fix this with a prompt firmware update? For the answer, we take a look at Exhibit A, the 1Ds mk III. Canon's flagship DSLR, which costs around $6500, shipped with a rather nasty autofocus bug which leaves the camera unable to produce a sharp image under certain conditions (for instance, "a really hot day.") After a recall and two firmware updates, the problem persists. And remember, this is Canon's top-of-the-line pro body. If it can't be bothered to fix such a big issue on such an important product line, we don't expect a fast remedy for the dreaded Black Dots. LOOK MA, THEY'RE GONE! (How to Eliminate Black Dots) [DP Review via Slashgear via Photography Bay] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:14 am Eight easy steps to iPhone security - InfoWorld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:07 am Brain boosters: Why not? - experts askCHICAGO, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Healthy people are increasingly turning to brain-enhancing drugs like Ritalin to boost their performance in school or at work, researchers said on Monday.Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Your Daily Dose Of Dour: WPP, Publicis Cut Ad Predictions [MediaMemo]
ZenithOptimedia, the media-buying agency owned by ad giant Publicis Groupe, is lowering its 2009 forecast for North American ad spending. It figures spending will drop 5.7% in the North America (down 6.2% in the U.S.) next year; it had previously forecast an increase of 0.9%. Meanwhile GroupM, the media-buying agency owned by ad giant WPP, says US ad spending will decrease 3% next year. Not coincidentally, executives from both companies will be presenting at the same 8am panel today at the UBS media conference, which kicks off today and runs through Wednesday. Ad giant Interpublic Group (IPG), which is also sending an emissary to said panel, will roll out its predictions at the event. Don’t worry, MediaMemo readers: I will be there, and will dutifully report any glum prognostications. Update: A little more detail, courtesy MediaPost; full report now available here. Zenith predicts online advertising will increase 10% next year, down from 22% in 2008. They don’t have a breakdown of the spend, but safe to assume that search will take the lion’s share, which is great for Google (GOOG), and not much help to anyone else.
[Image Credit: sherlockonline] Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Cisco Selects Design Reactor as First Digital Media Qualified Content Partner- Key Partnership Enables Technology and Content Innovations for Digital Signage - CAMPBELL, Calif., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Design Reactor, a full-service...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Siemens Survey Shows Unified Communications Has Entered the Mainstream in Large EnterprisesEnd user demand leading the way: Increased productivity and business responsiveness critical in today's economy BOCA RATON, Fla. Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ --...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Autotask Leads the PSA Industry in Successful Technology IntegrationsCompany's open API and 'Ready for Autotask' program proven to integrate seamlessly with the business applications and managed services platforms Autotask customers rely on most ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Isilon Appoints Ram Appalaraju as Vice President of MarketingVeteran Enterprise Marketing Executive and Former HP Vice President to Head Isilon Marketing As Company Extends Leadership in Scale-Out File Storage SEATTLE, Dec. 8...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Test Center preview: Fedora turns 10 (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - There comes a point in the life of any hard-core Linux user when the idea of digging about to find yet another obscure piece of software, compiling the code, and integrating it into your daily routine just seems annoying, not compelling. This is where Fedora comes through. Because more of the popular and necessary packages "just work" with Fedora, less time is burned spinning wheels and more time is available for productive tasks.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Eight easy steps to iPhone security
This thing has a GeForce 8200 integrated, Socket AM2, 5.1 audio, Wi-Fi and you can fill it up to 8GB DDR2 ram. The whole unit is 17×17 cm big. It’s spectacularly small compared to the Wi-Fi antenna. Or anything else. If you are still interested visit here. Source: CrunchGear | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:36 am Last Week On BotJunkieBy Evan Ackerman Last week on BotJunkie, we met a Roomba robotic vacuum knockoff purported to have “anti-aircraft fire performance,” saw a robot taking orders from a touch sensitive control...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:25 am The Discriminating Metal DetectorBy Andrew Liszewski At first glance, wandering the beaches with a metal detector looks like it might be a relaxing and profitable hobby. But from my own experiences, you usually end up spending most of...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:22 am Cardboard iPhone Coffee Table with Icon Coasters
But the very best part of the iPhone Coffee Table, by iLounge readers Tuan Nguyen and Ken Thomas, is the detachable set of icons. Sure, they don't wiggle and jiggle like the real thing, but as the coasters leave another copy of themselves behind when removed, it is entirely possible to double-up on something good like, say, the clock and hide the useless Stocks app beneath it. iLoungers create iPhone coffee table [iLounge]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:13 am Today At Noon, Come See Me On MetanomicsAt 12pm Second Life time, I'll be appearing on today's "Holiday Book Roundup" episode of the Metanomics show, guest-hosted by Benjamin Duranske, with my excellent colleagues Julian Play Money Dibbell,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:06 am Cash-Strapped New York Times Wants to Borrow Against Its HQ: Anyone Want to Lend It $225 Million? [MediaMemo]
Last month, the Times cut its dividend, a move that could save it up to $100 million a year. Now the paper is looking to borrow against its new Manhattan headquarters. It has hired a real estate firm to raise up to $225 million using the value of building as collateral. The company is looking at either a sale-leaseback or a mortgage, reports… the New York Times. The Times doesn’t actually own the entire structure — it owns 58%, and Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner owns the remainder — but the value of the Times’ share has been previously estimated in the $850 million to $1 billion range. It’s not clear whether the Times now thinks the building is worth much, much less than it did a year ago, or if it’s not looking to borrow against the total value of its property. If I get additional information I’ll update. Executive Editor Bill Keller has told the staff that he’ll try very hard not to fire anyone else at paper. We hope this works out, though other people we know have concluded that the paper must make significant cuts. Other less, painful steps the paper can make to save or raise money: Sell either the Boston Globe and/or its stake in the Boston Red Sox. But what the Times really needs is for advertisers to start spending more money on digital advertising as they cut back on print ads. And that, sadly, isn’t something the paper can control. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:00 am The IcephoneA U.K.-based mobile phone maker plans to start selling next year a novel smartphone originally built for the British military called the Icephone. PC World reports. The handset gains its name from...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:50 am Wikipedia is censored - BBC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:48 am The SMS no Dad want's to receiveElizabeth, a Senior in Cleveland went on a class trip where she lost her virginity on the beach. Apparently it was gr8″. She was so excited about her conquest she texted her friend, except it wasnt...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:45 am Movies About Legendary Artists - 'Little Ashes' Has Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) Twilight star Robert Pattinson stars as legendary artist Salvador Dali in his young years in Little Ashes, a movie that explores and details the intimate relationship between Dali...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:45 am This Is the Way the World EndsDave Knott writes "The CBC's weekly science radio show Quirks and Quarks this week features a countdown of the top ten planetary doomsday scenarios. Nine science professors and one science fiction author are asked to give (mostly) realistic hypotheses of the ways in which the planet Earth and its inhabitants can be destroyed. These possibilities for mankind's extinction include super-volcanoes, massive gamma ray bursts, and everybody's favorite, the killer asteroid. Perhaps the most terrifying prediction is the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field (combined with untimely solar activity), a periodic event which is currently 1/4 million years overdue."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:43 am The Natural Year PhoneSpotted on Yanko Design, The biodegradable Natural Year Concept Phone "made of hay, sans screen and soft keys". By designer Je-Hyun KimSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:40 am OGCC Day 8 - Precision Wrapping Paper SlitterBy Andrew Liszewski This one’s for that friend or relative who spends more time wrapping a gift, than shopping for it. You know the type. They hand you a gift Christmas morning that’s covered...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:32 am AT&T Hopes for Single Smartphone OS (PC World)PC World - AT&T hopes to standardize on a single operating system for AT&T-branded smartphones as part of a "dramatic consolidation" of its mobile platforms over the next few years, a company executive said Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:32 am GPS for the ski nerdThis weird looking thing here is a GPS for skiers. With the Flaik you can share your daily ski performance or race against total strangers without seeing each other. According to Flaik’s website the idea is to combine location-based services with social networking. Oh and it also sends an emergency signal if you happen to be under an avalanche.
Source: CrunchGear | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:07 am QNAP TS-509 Pro Wins techPowerUp Editor's Choice & Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer AwardTAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 8 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- QNAP Systems, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:05 am Tata Interactive Learning Disability Forum Highlights Need for Remedial ActionMUMBAI, December 8 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tata Interactive Learning Disability Forum (TLDF) 2008 held in Mumbai on the 29th November and in Kolkata on the 2nd December focuses on urgent need to address Learning Disability (LD) issues. The third annual TLDF - a unique global forum on LD in India - was successfully conducted at Mumbai and Kolkata.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:55 am SMIC Achieves First 45-nanometer Silicon SuccessSHANGHAI, China, Dec.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:49 am SugarCRM Adds Hooks to Cloud Data Services (PC World)PC World - Commercial open-source CRM (customer relationship management) vendor SugarCRM said Monday it will give customers the ability to plug in feeds from third-party data sources like the business social-networking site LinkedIn.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:47 am Next Metal Gear is Coming to "Universal Power Symbol"? (PC World)PC World - Rumor has it Metal Gear Solid 4 is soon to grace the Xbox 360 and reward the platform faithful. The rumor itself is nothing new, but the picture above, just unveiled by Konami at this website, has speculators salivating. Since the colors are electric green on black, and since the symbol to the right looks an awful lot like the symbol in the middle of the power button on the face of the 360, it's not hard to see why.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:40 am Netflix HD streaming now available on TiVoOkay, this is just getting ridiculous, because Netflix is just making Blockbuster look downright silly. Hot on the heels of debuting Netflix HD streaming on the Xbox 360, today TiVo and Netflix have announced...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:38 am AU Optronics Corp. November 2008 Consolidated Revenue Totaled NT$17.8 BillionHSINCHU, Taiwan, Dec.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:37 am US Is Losing Global Cyberwar, Commission Says - BusinessWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:14 am Why Rickrolling is Bad For You [Voices]By Charles Arthur, Editor, Technology Guardian The other day a message popped up on Twitter. Jay Rosen, who teaches journalism at New York University, asked–in all seriousness, and innocence–”I know I sound clueless and that’s never pleasant, but… what in tarnation does ‘rickrolled’ mean?” Oh, the temptation to reply with a classic of the genre. “Go on!” urged friends. “You have to! Never get a better chance!” Oh, the temptation to reply “There’s a really great example here” and append a link to–well, you know where. But I didn’t. (Don’t know what rickrolling is? Read up.) The reasons why are embedded in understanding the new currency that we deal in–certainly in the information industries, and especially journalism. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:04 am Warcraft Account Security [Voices]By Nelson Minar, Blogger, Some Bits My World of Warcraft account is now more secure than my bank account. It is harder to steal 5,000 fake Warcraft gold from me than $5,000 real US dollars. Why? Because unlike my bank, my computer game supports two factor authentication. About six months ago Blizzard started selling the Blizzard Authenticator to its US customers for the nominal price of $6.50. It’s a little keychain fob that generates random number codes that change frequently. Logging in to WoW requires both a password and the current code. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:03 am How YouTube Broadcasts Your Taste in Videos [Voices]By Saul Hansell, Blogger, Bits, The New York Times The slogan of YouTube is “Broadcast Yourself.” I’ve got to wonder if many YouTube users are broadcasting information about their tastes in video far more widely than they understand. Google’s (GOOG) video site lets you subscribe to a “channel”–a collection of videos from one person or company–so you can get reminders about new clips from sources that interest you. When you do this, your user name and photo are usually listed on the page of the channel you are subscribing to. And there is no way for you to keep your subscription private. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:02 am Second Life’s Second Wind [Voices]By Andy Greenberg, Senior Reporter, Forbes In what tech pundits at Gartner Research call the curve of hype and gloom, Linden Lab’s virtual world, Second Life, has officially entered the gloom stage. In October, Reuters pulled its full-time Second Life reporter Eric Krangel, who had written daily news stories about the virtual world’s economy for a year and a half, out of the virtual world. Krangel, who now blogs at Silicon Alley Insider, wrote that Linden Lab needs to recognize that “Second Life’s reputation is now a liability,” and that hanging out in the virtual world was “like watching paint dry.” In November, Google (GOOG) seemed to echo the bearish mood toward virtual worlds when it shut down its own online microcosm, Lively. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:01 am Wikipedia’s WYSIWYG Dilemma [Voices]By Chris Snyder, Reporter, Wired The Wikimedia Foundation recently announced a $890,000 grant from the U.S.-based Stanton Foundation to simplify its very techy user interface for editing posts. It’s a big chunk of change on top of a new $6 million budget for the non-profit encyclopedia, who some argue needs major restructuring rather than a simple cash infusion. “Any amount of money thrown at it is not going to solve the problems,” said Jason Calacanis, CEO of Mahalo. “Putting up a WYSIWYG editor will cost like $50,000. It’s not that big of a deal.” Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am CrunchGear Week in Review: Rented Room Edition
Careful. These USB dinos might not be as cuddly as they look. Source: CrunchGear | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am Yahoo Moves Ahead With Layoffs on Wednesday: The Sad Details [BoomTown]
While there are layoffs all over now, as evidenced by the dismal jobs reports last week, the long-planned Yahoo (YHOO) layoffs will definitely be taking place Wednesday. The layoff number was announced by its (eventually outgoing) CEO Jerry Yang on its last earnings call on October 21. BoomTown wrote about the exact timing of the sad date a few weeks ago. Many Yahoos have emailed me to ask the particulars last week, since most at the company don’t know what’s up. Here is what I found out: 1. The number currently remains at 1,500, although given the current economic environment, several sources at Yahoo expect the eventual numbers to add up to be more that that, up to 2,000. “Things have changed since these layoffs were announced,” said one source close to the situation. “But those additional cuts might not come Wednesday, but through attrition and a hiring freeze first.” 2. The layoffs are mostly across the board. But expect general, human resources and finance to take a bigger hit, since the expenses are cost-based and most of their costs are staff. 3. Employees targeted will be told on Wednesday morning with a “normal separation period,” said a source close to the situation, which means they will be out within a few hours on the same day. 4. Yahoo execs, sources say, are not expecting any serious problems, i.e. extremely upset employees, because these layoffs have been long anticipated. But there will be security present at its Sunnyvale HQ and elsewhere, as there always is with most big layoffs at any company. Still, said one source, that does not mean there will security hovering over departing workers, except perhaps in cases of those who deal with more sensitive information. 5. Most employees do not know if they will be let go yet, nor has management in charge of the cuts made that public. That’s because whole projects might be eliminated, sources said, and the cuts might present yet another chance to restructure more. Already, there are rumors of whole divisions being moved among big managers, probably to stake out territory before a new CEO is installed. While constantly moving around furniture in a living room does not change the room shape or size, rejiggering is a favorite Yahoo management practice. But, as Yang said in an interview with me in late October: “I look at these cuts as both a short-term and long-term effort. In the short term, we have consolidation and organizational corrections to make. In the long term, we will look at our whole portfolio and are now asking ourselves in each case if we need to be in this business. We’re asking ourselves–should we sell it or should we shut it down? That is the kind of comprehensive look we are doing across the company.” 6. No, Yang is not leaving as CEO quite yet, although this week is a perfect time to name a new CEO and get the focus off of the bad news at Yahoo. As I have previously written, many would not be surprised if one of these current directors is named to lead Yahoo, even temporarily and to get a new CEO in place by the New Year (a board priority): John Chapple, Maggie Wilderotter or Frank Biondi Jr. But a dark horse outside CEO–with the public company experience Yahoo’s board is looking for as its top priority–could emerge. More on those names later. Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am Autonomy Has Won the Enterprise Search Wars Declares Computer Business ReviewCAMBRIDGE, England and SAN FRANCISCO, December 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy Corporation plc (LSE: AU.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am Patent pools pushed in new agreement (CNET)CNET - IEEE, the world's largest professional organization for the advancement of technology, is announcing a collaboration Monday with Via Licensing, a company that administers licensing programs for intellectual property owners, to foster the development of patent pools based on IEEE standards.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:50 am Felted Cthulhu Artists Amy Rawson and Brian East made this felted Santa Cthulhu (a towering 12 inches of wool and madness) and have posted it to eBay for your bidding pleasure.
OOAK Needle Felted Santa Cthulhu Figure AHA Art Doll
(via Neatorama) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:18 am Intel Cites Advance in Using Silicon in Data Products; Claim Is ... - Wall Street Journal
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:09 am Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. Announces Monthly Net RevenuesTAIPEI, Taiwan, Dec. 8 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:00 am How the Great Firewall of Britain worksHere's a flowchart showing how Cleanfeed -- the secret British national firewall that is presently restricting access to Wikipedia - operates:Translation: a third party now monitors every request made to Wikipedia from the six ISPs that participate in the Great Firewall of Britain.
Great Firewall of Britain
(Thanks, Seth!) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:28 am Weather delays shuttle's trek back to Space Coast - Florida Today
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:22 am Saving 28,000 Lives a YearThe New Yorker is running a piece by Atul Gawande that starts by describing the everyday miracles that can be achieved in a modern medical intensive care unit, and ends by making a case for a simple and inexpensive way to save 28,000 lives per year in US ICUs, at a one-time cost of a few million dollars. This medical miracle is the checklist. Gawande details how modern medicine has spiraled into complexity beyond any person's ability to track — and nowhere more so than in the ICU. "A decade ago, Israeli scientists published a study in which engineers observed patient care in ICUs for twenty-four-hour stretches. They found that the average patient required a hundred and seventy-eight individual actions per day, ranging from administering a drug to suctioning the lungs, and every one of them posed risks. Remarkably, the nurses and doctors were observed to make an error in just one per cent of these actions — but that still amounted to an average of two errors a day with every patient. Intensive care succeeds only when we hold the odds of doing harm low enough for the odds of doing good to prevail. This is hard." The article goes on to profile a doctor named Peter Pronovost, who has extensively studied the ability of the simplest of complexity tamers — the checklist — to save lives in the ICU setting. Pronovost oversaw the introduction of checklists in the ICUs in hospitals across Michigan, and the result was a thousand lives saved in a year. That would translate to 28,000 per year if scaled nationwide, and Pronovost estimates the cost of doing that at $3 million.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:20 am Piano crossed with a harpThis is only one of two remaining harp-pianos, the bastard hybrid of a harp and a piano:Rare harp-piano by Dietz, Austria or Germany, ca. 1840 (Thanks, Steve!) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:36 am Maker of squeezy arthritis-friendly handgun claims the FDA has classed it as a medical deviceA company called Constitution Arms claims that the FDA has classed its "Palm Pistol" (a squeezable handgun suitable for people with arthritis) as a Class I medical device ("a classification reserved for devices that pose little risk to a patient's health, such as stethoscopes and walking aids") and they imply that Medicare will help you buy one. The FDA denies any certification and an expert on medical device regulation says that Medicare probably wouldn't subsidize these even if the FDA gave it the nod.Company tries to get gun classed as medical device (via Geekologie) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:32 am Betamaxmas: a nostalgia YouTube tour through xmas specials of yesteryear Tavie sez, "This site, designed to look like an old rabbit-ears set playing old Betamax tapes, shows clip after Youtube clip of Christmas specials, commercials and holiday-themed episodes of television shows, all circa 20-25 years ago. Adjust the rabbit ears to get that perfect "grainy" look. I am a sucker for this sort of nostalgia. I have been entertained for hours upon hours. "
Betamaxmas
(Thanks, Tavie!) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:22 am Salesforce Links Force.com to Google App Engine - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:21 am Hard data on adult video game playersThe fantastic Pew Internet Life research series has a new installment up, this one a set of preliminary data on adult players of video games. Lots of crunch stats here:Adults and Video Games
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:18 am Force.com + Google App Engine = Cloud Relationship Management
Salesforce and Google have extended their strategic partnership with Force.com for Google App Engine, essentially bridging the two cloud-based application development environments. App Engine applications, which are typically consumer apps, will be able to access enterprise data and services via the Force.com API.
The integration consists of a Python library, example code, and testing harness that allows App Engine apps to read and write to Force.com. As an example, Salesforce executives demoed for me a hybrid application that combined a game interface built on App Engine that allowed visitors to Harrah's website the ability to win additional points and upgrade their experience in the actual Las Vegas casino.
Source: Gizmodo | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:01 am Two Months After Release, Brightcove Announces Nearly 100 API Partners
Web video platform Brightcove has so many API partners just two months after the release of Brightcove 3 that it had to create an alliance to contain them all. Actually, the Brightcove Alliance is more of a marketing exercise to acknowledge and promote its API partners. Nevertheless, nearly 100 companies (including Yahoo, AOL, DoubleClick, Veoh, Metacafe, Slide, Meebo, Blinkx, Sprout, Clearspring, and Visible Measures) have implemented the API in less than two months. When Brightcove 3 launched, it greatly expanded its set of APIs. As I wrote back then:
The new APIs cover everything from advertising and analytics to mobile, search, and social media. Video portals like Veoh and Metacafe, forinstance, are using the APIs to play videos from Brightcove partners wrapped in players that look like their own, but extend the reporting and advertising afforded to the video owners through Brightcove. Similarly, Meebo now supports Brightcove videos in its IM environment, as do Sprout and Clearspring in their widgets. JS-KIT and Intense Debate are using the APIs to allow Brightcove video publishers to add commenting features to their videos. Advertising partners from DoubleClick to 24/7 Media can now plug their ads into Brightcove as well. Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire likens the Alliance to App Exchange for Salesforce.com, where “customers can snap something in without doing any additional work. A partial list of partners is below, or you can explore more here. And here is an example of an API integrations in widget from DotSub, which offers subtitle translation for any Brightcove video:
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Ultrazoom Pocket Cam Sports Leica Lens, WiFi ConnectThe Panasonic TZ50 seals its ultrazoom dominance with integrated WiFi for straight-to-the-web image transfers (from your nearest T-Mobile hot spot).
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Gallery: Top 10 Wired.com Heat Photos, Decided by Us : Though Wired.com readers selected 10 excellent photos in our heat photo contest, we here at the photo department like to fight for the underdog. Here are our 10 favorite submissions that we think deserved more attention. Our next twice-monthly photo contest is Animals. We want to see your craziest, scariest and funniest photos of the animal kingdom. Check out the contest page for more information. Left: A street demonstration in Place de la Bastille Photographer's comment: "The National Front, the far-right political party in France, came in second place in the first round of voting in the presidential elections on April 21, 2002. The results of this vote set off a series of demonstrations in the streets, one almost every day.”  : hold fire Photographer's comment: "A Key West, Florida, street performer who juggles fire. Heat."  : The livin's easy... Photographer's comment: "summertimes..."  : Sesnon Fire Photographer's comment: "Sesnon Fire."  : Kalahari Sun Shade Photographer's comment: ”Ground squirrel beating the heat in the Kalahari.”  : Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia Photographer's comment: "Road to Sharoura, southern KSA near Yemeni border ... just before my car broke down ...."  : Sugarcane Fields Photographer's comment: "Recently harvested sugarcane fields are set on fire to enrich the soil and promote the canes regrowth outside Mysore, India."  : Our Heat Source Photographer's comment: " We see it every day, and it's shaped our entire world.”  : Escaping the Heat Photographer's comment: "... or trying to at least. It was almost as hot here when Pvt. Eric Williams was home on leave as it has been for him where he serves as a medic in Iraq."  : Camels in Heat Photographer's comment: "Female camels in waiting."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Kids' Sci-Fi Circuit Board Promises a Nerdier TomorrowWish your child could grow up to be a 1337 hacker or belle of the Maker Faire? There's no better way to set them up for a life of schoolyard taunts and ultimate IPO riches than a supercool electronics kit.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am How the Virtual Gold Trade Works : Internet Gaming Entertainment, or IGE, made hundreds of millions of dollars as middleman for Western gamers eager to outsource the boring aspects of play to low-wage third worlders. The people who founded the company realized that scarcity of time and scarcity of virtual resources created a whole new market. MMOs like World of Warcraft keep players hooked with the promise of big-ticket loot like, say, this epic flying mount. It costs 6,000 gold pieces — weeks of in-game work — to acquire such a sweet ride.  : But thanks to IGE, you can have a flying steed in a few hours! The company maintains a Web site that's sort of like Amazon.com, except customers spend their dollars on virtual gold.  : IGE acts as a middleman between customers and gold farmers: groups of players in low-wage countries who slay monsters and rack up in-game cash for the explicit purpose of reselling it.  : Choose how much currency you want to buy. The exchange rate is about 2 cents per unit of gold. Proceed to checkout, where there are a dozen payment options (all major credit cards are accepted).  : IGE arranges for the purchaser to meet with a delivery agent, who hands over the virtual cash. Items can be sent through in-game email, but that's rumored to entail a greater risk of being spotted.  : The player can then use the in-game gold to buy that virtual steed, along with the skills required to ride it. Total real-world cost: $146.94. Hours of monotonous in-game labor dodged: about 60.  : Even if you don't exchange your real-world dollars for in-game gold, real-money transactions are an omnipresent fact of life in World of Warcraft. Gold farmers and resellers advertise their services through any medium available: targeted advertising through Google, banner ads on WoW-related sites, and in-game spam-messages announced over the general chat channels. The latter practice tends to provoke the ire of actual players, and Blizzard has introduced measures to combat it, such as the ability to instantly report spammers. Here we see Lrhoxchzqd, a character created with a gibberish name for the specific purpose of spamming the chat channels. Note the actual players mocking the spammer's poor grammar and spelling. All a player has to do to file a report is right-click on the offender's name and select the option to report them.  : You can acquire virtual wealth a number of ways. The simplest is "farming," or killing the same creatures over and over to stockpile whatever valuable items and materials they drop. Most players farm at some point, whether to complete a quest or gain materials needed for a trade skill like an in-game job. For instance, skinners kill things and skin them, so leatherworkers have materials to work with. Most professional farmers, however, employ botting programs to automate the process — using a computer program to control the characters' actions). This practice allows one person to tend to several characters with minimum supervision. Encounters with characters being botted are not uncommon, although botters tend to set up their operations up in more remote areas to avoid being attacked by other players — or worse, being reported to the authorities and having their accounts banned for violating the terms of service. It's easy to spot a botter — watch for signs such as repetitive playing patterns. Additionally, bots rarely respond to any sort of interaction. A character being controlled by a computer won't respond to a friendly hello wave.  : While much of the gold bought and sold online comes from legitimate farmers (those who run bots or use defects in the game to harvest their bounty), we hear that more of it is coming from account theft. Players may try to log in one day to find that their passwords have suddenly changed. A thief has nabbed a password using a keylogging program the player inadvertently installed, usually by downloading an add-on from a less-than-reputable source. This is the "Zomg! Wtf?" moment of realization. The player has entered a password several times, checked Caps Lock, even typed their password into a notepad document and pasted it in. All this and they still receive the "wrong password" error. The account has likely been stolen and the thieves have changed the password.  : Imagine logging on only to find your character stripped naked, stripped of all the possessions you spent months acquiring. Gone! It's the virtual world equivalent of having a car stolen, only to find it up on cinder blocks, missing everything but the frame. And given the current exchange rates, replacing the lost goods could be the same as the cost of a 2002 Honda Accent off craigslist. The thieves empty the player's bank, sell most of the weapons and armor, disenchant any items that can't be sold (this destroys the item, but generates a transferable material), and give the goods to a second character that acts as a fence. Higher-level characters may become zombielike bot-farming vehicles, run by an automated program not under the control of any human player. This continues until the owner reports the account as stolen, or worse, the account is banned by Blizzard for botting (a grievous violation of the terms of service). This all adds up to hundreds of hours of lost "work," and many, many hours on the phone with Blizzard customer support trying to restore the character to a shred of it's former glory. Left: An account-theft victim is left alone, naked and confused.  : It's the root of all evil: Azerothian gold. The irony is that the players never actually see their gold — no piles of virtual treasure to roll around in, just an icon in their backpack with a number next to it. This number is the key to the finest mounts, good equipment, life-saving potions, power-enhancing elixirs, food and drink, ammunition, armor repair bills, and everything needed to play more World of Warcraft. to continue earning gold, to play more WoW, to make more gold, to play more WoW, and on into infinity.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Kids' Sci-Fi Circuit Board Promises a Nerdier TomorrowWish your child could grow up to be a 1337 hacker or belle of the Maker Faire? There's no better way to set them up for a life of schoolyard taunts and ultimate IPO riches than a supercool electronics kit.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Wired.com Photo Contest: AnimalsThis week we want to see your best animal photo. Whether they be furry, feathery or freaky, we want to see what the animal kingdom has to offer. Use the Reddit widget below to submit your best animal photo and vote for your favorite among the other submissions. The 10 highest-ranked photos will appear in a gallery on the Wired.com homepage. Show us giraffes walking down city streets, panda bears with parasols, arctic sled dogs, swarms of squirrels and cheeky monkeys. Sure, pets are cute and we love ours too, but show us something we've never seen. If you do, we'll give you a treat ... The photo must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. Please submit images that are relatively large, the ideal size being 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side. Please include a description of your photo, which may include exposure information, equipment used, etc. We don't host the photos, so you'll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you're using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it's displayed. Using an online photo service that requires that you log in will not work. If your photo doesn't show up, it's because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg). Please bookmark this page and check back periodically over the next two weeks to vote on new submissions! Also, check out the winner's galleries from our previous contests: Fall, Holga, Red, Self-Portrait, Night, Macro, Transportation, and Black and White. Vote on animal photos submitted by other readers.
Show entries that are: hot | new | top-rated. Submit your animal photo. Submit your animal photo.(No more than one every 30 minutes. No HTML allowed.)
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Dec. 8, 1993: Location, Location, Location1993: The U.S. secretary of defense opens the global positioning system to civilian use. It's about to change how people see where they are. The GPS story starts with Sputnik, the first artificial satellite. The night after it was launched by the Soviet Union in 1957, researchers at MIT were able to track Sputnik's orbit by its radio signal. And if you can track satellites from Earth, you can figure out how to locate objects on (or just above) Earth from the positions of satellites. The U.S. Navy experimented with a satellite navigation system for its submarines in the mid-1960s. The Transit System used six satellites in circumpolar orbits, calculating the Doppler shift of radio signals to ascertain position. Originally called the Navstar Global Positioning System, the outlines of the current GPS were conceived at the Pentagon in 1973. Testing began the following year, and the first operational GPS satellite was launched in 1978. It became clear in 1979 that the initially planned 18 satellites would not provide sufficient coverage, so the number was increased to 24 (including three substitutes). The system was intended for military uses like targeting missiles, as well as peacekeeping uses like monitoring nuclear-bomb tests outlawed by the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. But, after Korean Airline Flight 007 wandered into Soviet territory in 1983 and was shot down with a loss of 269 lives, even the military thought there might be distinct advantages to sharing the GPS system with civilians. Twenty years after the initial concept, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin wrote to Secretary of Transportation Federico Pena on Dec. 8, 1993, that the system had achieved "initial operational capability" as defined in the 1992 Federal Radionavigation Plan. The Defense Department thus opened the GPS Standard Positioning Service (SPS) to the Transportation Department. After further testing for military use, the U.S. Air Force Space Command declared "full operational capability" on April 27, 1995. The civilian SPS initially provided an accuracy of 100 meters. The Precise Positioning Service (PPS) for authorized military users was accurate to within 22 meters. President Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 1998 that resulted in the civilian service becoming as accurate as the military one, starting in May 2000. The disparity had in fact been artificially created by introducing random errors in the public signal. Those errors (called Selective Availability) can still be reintroduced in combat zones, so only friendly forces receive the highly accurate signal. GPS augmentation and precise monitoring techniques known as carrier-phase enhancement, differential GPS and relative kinematic positioning can now provide accuracy down to 4 inches. GPS is integrated into so many devices today, it's as ubiquitous as cellphones. We use GPS to navigate our car trips and manage fleets of taxicabs, trucks, buses and rental cars. First responders and package-delivery services rely on GPS. Airplanes fly with it. Fishing boats find their way to rich waters with it. Researchers track wildlife with it, and we even find our way down wilderness trails with it. Henry David Thoreau would have been amazed. One way or another. Source: Various
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Ultrazoom Pocket Cam Sports Leica Lens, WiFi ConnectThe Panasonic TZ50 seals its ultrazoom dominance with integrated WiFi for straight-to-the-web image transfers (from your nearest T-Mobile hot spot).Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am Gallery: Top 10 Wired.com Heat Photos, Decided by You : After weeks of sweaty submissions in our heat photo contest, we're ready for a frosty winter to cool us down. Here are the 10 highest reader-voted submissions. Steve Dahlgren takes home the gold with his photo "Stairway to Hell" at left. Mr. Dahlgren will be receiving a subscription to Wired magazine and a digital picture frame for his desk. Since we had so many great photos that we thought should've received more votes, and because we love to anger readers with our selections, we've also compiled a Wired.com Editor's Choice Heat Photo Gallery. Our next twice-monthly photo contest theme is animals. We want to see your craziest, scariest and funniest photos of the animal kingdom. Check out the contest page for more information. Left: Stairway to Hell Photographer's comment: "Firefighters ascend a stairway.”  : Vibrations Photographer's comment: "A crazed fire-twirling junkie unleashes his skills inside an old red brick storm-water tunnel."  : Fire Photographer's comment: "Shot with a canon EOS 5D in the summer of 2007."  : Drink for the Devil Photographer's comment: "A pic I took when I first got my new Nikon D50 camera a few years back."  : Painting With Fire Photographer's comment: "Painting with fire in White Lake, Ontario, Canada. Shot with a Sony DSC-W1 on a 30 sec. exposure."  : Festa Mayor — Terrassa, Spain Photographer's comment: "Dancing with the devil in a Catalan Festa Mayor."  : Let the Sparks Fly Photographer's comment: "Taken with a cheap point-and-shoot Fuji Finepix A350 set to 'Night' mode."  : Fahrenheit 451 Photographer's comment: "'The number "451" refers to the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which the books burn when the "firemen" burn them "for the good of humanity." Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Ray Bradbury saw as an increasingly dysfunctional American society.' (Wikipedia) Photo was made with Canon EOS 300D."  : Fanning the Flames of the Great Debate Photographer's comment: "I hope Earth won't end up like Mars."  : Mammoth Hot Springs Photographer's comment: "A cold day at a very hot pool, Yellowstone National Park."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am RIP, Forrest J AckermanRIP, Forrest J Ackerman, the pioneering science fiction fan, editor and writer who coined the term "sci-fi" and founded Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. 4e left the party on December 4, at 92, after a long illness. of heart failure at home at the legendary Ackermansion in Los Feliz in Los Angeles.Forrest J Ackerman, writer-editor who coined 'sci-fi,' dies at 92 (Thanks to all the readers who suggested this!)
(Image: Forrest J Ackerman at the Ackermansion.jpg by Alan Light, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 4:54 am Brightcove Extends Online Video Platform With Global Partner EcosystemCAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Brightcove Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Dec 2008 | 4:01 am Time To Discuss Drug Prohibition?gplus writes "December 5th was the 75th anniversary of the end of alcohol prohibition in the US. The Wall Street Journal has an op-ed which argues that now may be the time to discuss our war on drugs and the drug prohibition currently in place. The article argues that the harm caused by the banned substance must be balanced against the harms caused by the prohibition. As to why Americans in 1933 finally voted to end prohibition, while we barely even discuss it: 'Most Americans in 1933 could recall a time before prohibition, which tempered their fears. But few Americans now can recall the decades when the illicit drugs of today were sold and consumed legally. If they could, a post-prohibition future might prove less alarming.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 8 Dec 2008 | 2:55 am Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division, #2Ed. 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. Here's another video made during the 2008 Presidential election, from the Republican side of the house. Like Dear Mr. Obama (and like everything my fall class at ITP was concerned with), this wasn't made by political professionals. The "video" is in fact mainly audio -- a 4 minute radio clip overlaid with pull-quotes and editorializing, taken from a 2001 WBEZ interview with Obama, where he is discussing the inequalities of rights vs. inequalities of wealth:
This kind of material can sometimes be political gold ("The Warren Court wasn't radical enough!", "Breaking free of the Constitution!"), but this video, though it was seen a couple million times, didn't have that effect, in part because it didn't come out til the last week of October, when people's mind were already largely made up, and when other economic issues had become more pressing. So why, since the material had been sitting there since 2001, did no one use it til a week before Election Day? No one found it. Search engines have made text search trivial, but audio and video are still hand-craft jobs. Had some enterprising Republican found this in July, the McCain camp could have made use of it, possibly finding some way to make Obama respond. (That McCain would have lost anyway doesn't matter for future uses of the technique.) Seeing this, candidates starting exploratory committees for 2012 may try to harness partisan amateurs to find 'gotcha's in the increasingly large but hard-to-search audio and video archives coming online, through 'tag it and flag it' searches of an opponent's historical multimedia record. Assume that every potential candidate for president has generated an average of 100 hours of audio or video a year to date; that to avoid wild goose chases, you want every minute listened to or looked at by ~5 different people; and that the average volunteer will review ~10 minutes of audio or video. With those constraints, a campaign would need something like 30,000 volunteers to cover every minute of a decade's worth of public speech, per opponent. (You can move the input numbers up and down some, but 10^4 users per decade of coverage seems like the right order of magnitude.) These numbers are high, but not insuperable, and being able to swing this kind of distributed opposition research during the primaries may be an early show of strength. Howard Dean introduced the net as a fund raising tool, and Obama as a proselytizing and 'get out the vote' tool, but I think NakedEmperorNews has shown us the template for distributed opposition research and 'gotcha' political ads created off the candidate's books. PS. Speculation bait for commenters: why do some videos generate almost all the traffic at a single YouTube version (e.g. Obama Girl) while others, such as this video, get reposted several different times to YouTube, even though the content is not altered? What makes one video have a canonical version and another not? Obama Bombshell Redistribution of Wealth Audio Uncovered | Naked Emperor News | (Earlier: Video from the Presidential Campaign, Republican Division)Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 2:31 am Survey finds over half of adults play video games (AP)AP - After a day of dirty diapers and "Dora the Explorer," of laundry and homework time, when her four kids are finally asleep, Sarah Ninesling begins roaming the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., fighting mutants to help save the survivors of a nuclear war.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Dec 2008 | 1:59 am Tribune Co. Headed for Chapter 11? [MediaMemo]
Tribune Company, which owns the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and a host of other media properties, has hired the Lazard investment bank and law firm Sidley Austin to try to stave off a Chapter 11 filing, both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times report. But that may not be enough: The WSJ says owner Sam Zell, who took on some $8 billion in debt to buy the company last year, is preparing for a possible bankruptcy filing “as soon as this week.” Tribune’s problems are well documented and are similar to every other newspaper–including the New York Times (NYT), as well as papers owned by News Corp. (NWS), which also owns this Web site, as ad dollars, revenue and readers are all moving rapidly to the Web. In addition, Tribune is particularly debt-laden: It owes $1 billion in interest payments this year, has another $500 million payment due next June, and may already be violating debt covenants that limit the amount of money it can borrow. Tribune tends to receive special attention from us media types because of the size of the company and the prominence of its publications, but also because Sam Zell gives good quote. He’s generated plenty of them since he bought the company, and most of them come back to the same theme: He bought the newspapers to make a profit, not because he’s enamored of newspapers. And he holds a visible contempt for journalists who worry about the future of journalism. Here’s a sampling: Zell at Quadrangle’s kind-of-off-the-record FourSquare gathering earlier this fall:
And here’s Zell addressing the staff of his Orlando Sentinel in January 2008. Warning–one bit of colorful muttering at the very end of this: Source: All Things Digital | 8 Dec 2008 | 1:14 am Peggy Noonan, Lesley Stahl and Friends Raise More Money: Wowowow.com Gets Another $1.5 Million [MediaMemo]
No word on valuation, but I’d guesstimate Wowowow.com’s investors peg its value in the high 7-figure range. The company has now raised $3.1 million in less than a year. The five founders–former publisher Joni Evans, “60 Minutes” reporter Lesley Stahl; New York Post gossip columnist Liz Smith; ad exec Mary Wells; and Wall Street Journal political columnist Peggy Noonan–each contributed $200,000 each in an initial round. Some of the company’s high-profile pals, like Whoopi Goldberg and Candice Bergen, later kicked in another $600,000. Is that money well spent? We’ll see. Publishing is a tough business, even for lean Web operations, and advertisers generally steer clear of small sites. The company launched with a series of high-profile sponsors; from what I can tell, at least some of them–like Citigroup (C) and Sony (SNE)–are still there. And Pittman, the former MTV and AOL executive, has garnered new respect as a Web investor (Disclosure: Pittman’s company invested in Silicon Alley Media, my former employer), so presumably he sees something there. One plus: Wowowow.com is boasting rapid growth. The site, which launched in March, says it attracted 600,000 unique visitors last month. That number is much higher than outside estimates from outfits like Compete and Quantcast, but that kind of discrepancy is par for the course for any Web publisher. In any case, if Wowowow.com wants to make a go of it, it’s going to need to attract at least 1 million uniques a month, a goal the company says it will achieve “early next year.” All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher dropped by the company’s New York offices earlier this year; here’s a video that documents her visit. Source: Gizmodo | 8 Dec 2008 | 12:30 am RIAA Sues 19-Year-Old Transplant PatientNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Just when you think they've reached rock bottom, it seems the RIAA always finds room to sink a little lower. This time they've sued an innocent, 19-year-old transplant patient, hospitalized with pancreatitis and needing islet cell transplants. Although the young Pittsburgh lady claims that she did not infringe any copyrights, she failed to answer the complaint in time, and a default judgment was taken against her. A Pittsburgh area lawyer has stated that he will represent her pro bono and make a motion to open up the default."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 8 Dec 2008 | 12:26 am Holiday E-Commerce Season Sales Finally Match Last Year as Two Workdays This Past Week Each Surpass $800 Million in Online SpendingRESTON, Va., Dec.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Dec 2008 | 11:45 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of November 30, 2008Section:
Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 11:30 pm Visual dialing for the iPhoneEver wanted to add contacts right to your iPhone’s front page? A new product by Talent Group Labs creates a visual dialing system that adds phone numbers as icons in the home screen.
It’s not available yet - they’re still working through approval, but it definitely looks like a great way to add face-based shortcuts to your address book. Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 11:14 pm EMA proposes anti-theft solution for video games, DVDsFROM GAMERTELL - If the EMA gets its way, media will be shipped to stores in an inoperable state and, when the game is purchased, it becomes operable again… MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 10:30 pm Cold Sore Virus May Be Alzheimer's Smoking GunScience Daily is reporting that the virus behind cold sores has been found to be a major cause of the insoluble protein plaques found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease sufferers. Researchers believe the herpes simplex virus is a significant factor in developing the debilitating disease and could be treated by antiviral agents such as acyclovir, which is already used to treat cold sores and other diseases caused by the herpes virus. Another future possibility is vaccination against the virus to prevent the development of Alzheimer's in the first place. The research was just published in the Journal of Pathology (abstract).Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 9:30 pm Microsoft announces new clothing line in an attempt to regain popularitySection: Computers, Software / Applications, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous
So, you don’t like Windows Vista, or Windows anything, but Microsoft seems to think that you’ll like to wear Microsoft based shirts? Dubbed Softwear by Microsoft, these new clothes are being marketed by Crispin Porter & Borgusky, with help from rapper Common, so all the cool kids will wear these shirts. These shirts feature MS-DOS in a unique font, as well as Bill Gates mugshot tee shirt. Microsoft says that it is “a clothing line that taps the nostalgia of when PCs were just starting to change our lives…“ and that it is used to “showcase the DOS days of the software company that now connects over a billion people.“ This new clothing line is set to be available on December 15th, but the pricing hasn’t been announced, yet. It will be interesting to see how popular these tee shirts become. Below is another tee shirt.
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 Dec 2008 | 9:22 pm Water balance restored in EvergladesFlorida officials say they have successfully moved water dumped by Tropical Storm Fay, ending flooding that threatened wildlife in one part of the Everglades. Water north of the Tamiami Trail had been so deep that wading birds such as herons and egrets could not ,and deer and other mammals sought higher ground, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Dec 2008 | 9:05 pm Super Handy Visual Speed Dialer For The iPhoneThis may be my new favorite iPhone application - Visual Dial lets you add a picture of a friend to the iPhone home page (as if it were an application). Click the picture and it acts like a visual speed dialer to that person. Simple. And very useful. The video sort of says it all. The application is still under review by Apple, we’ll update when it becomes available. They are letting a few people into a private beta before approval - details are here. Visual Dialer is being created by Straight2Market.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 7 Dec 2008 | 8:57 pm Freelance Web Developer Best Practices?SirLurksAlot writes "My last employer had to make a series of budget cuts, and I was laid off. I have been on the job hunt since then; however in the meantime I have begun freelancing as a Web developer. This is my first time in this role and so I would like the ask the Slashdot community: are there any best practices for freelance developers? What kind of process should I use when dealing with clients? Should I bill by the hour or provide a fixed quote on a per-project basis? What kind of assurances should I get from the client before I begin work? What is the best way to create accurate time estimates? I'm also wondering if there are any good open source tools for freelancers, such as for time-tracking and invoice creation (aside from simply using a spreadsheet). Any suggestions or insights would be welcome."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 8:30 pm LG SU100 released in South-Korea
Equipped with a 3″ OLED touchscreen, a 3MP camera, S-DMB digital mobile tv, Bluetooth, global roaming capability, whatever that means. It costs 700.000 won, about 500$. Yeah I know this is rather boring but the device has a built in Franklin Planner which could come handy. [Via Prim Online [HR]] Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 8:20 pm Firefox 2.0 Update To Remove Phishing DetectionAn anonymous reader writes "Computerworld and others are reporting that Firefox 2.0.0.19, the last security update to be released before 2.0 goes end-of-life, will remove the phishing detection at the request of Google. The browser is using an older version of the Safe Browsing protocol that Google will discontinue. According to the latest NetApplications report, about 25% of all Firefox users were still on version 2.0. This move ought to result in an increased adoption of Firefox 3.0 and other browsers, unless it goes unnoticed by most users."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 7:30 pm TiVo rolls out Series 3/HD fall update; Amazon Unbox HD not included
Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm Young Mad Scientist's Illustrated Alphabet Blocks: 26 FIVE engraved chunks o' wonder -- UPDATED Xylocopa's Young Mad Scientist's First Alphabet Blocks come in packs of A - Appendages | B - Bioengineering | C - Caffeine | D - Dirigible | E - Experiment | F - Freeze ray | G - Goggles | H - Henchmen | I - Invention | J - Jargon | K - Potassium | L - Laser | M - Maniacal | N - Nanotechnology | O - Organs | P - Peasants (with Pitchforks) | Q - Quantum physics | R - Robot | S - Self-experimentation | T - Tentacles | U - Underground Lair | V - Virus | W - Wrench | X - X-Ray | Y - You, the Mad Scientist of Tomorrow | Z - ZombiesA Young Mad Scientist's First Alphabet Blocks (via JWZ)
Update: Andrew Waser (Chief Mad Scientist, Xylocopa Design) sez, " I
wanted to make a small correction - the blocks actually come five to a
set (with 26 unique illustrations), not 26 individual blocks. I don't
want anyone to be disappointed if they order in confusion!
You and your readers also might appreciate that the blocks have a
super-secret built in encryption function - if you rotate any block
180 degrees, it'll encode to ROT13. If it's good enough for Adobe
Acrobat, it's good enough for Mad Science!" Source: Boing Boing | 7 Dec 2008 | 6:57 pm China's .cn Now the Second Most Popular TLDdarthcamaro writes "In case you needed further proof of China's breakneck pace of growth on the web, InternetNews is reporting on data from Verisign that the .cn Top Level Domain (TLD) has now become the second biggest TLD worldwide, surpassing Germany's .de and second only to .com. The amount of .cn sites grew by 76 percent in 2008, which is significantly more growth than .com and .net, which only grew by 16 percent combined. A graph in the Verisign report (PDF) shows how quickly China's internet presence has grown in the past two years."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Dec 2008 | 6:30 pm Video: AC Milan’s Kaká chosen to demonstrate Sony Bravia’s 240Hz MotionflowAC Milan Brazilian midfielder Kaká scored the winning the goal against Catania only a few minutes ago. This, believe it or not, is relevant to us here at CrunchGear, for the Manchester City-bound player (if you believe the European sports pages) is Sony’s new frontman for an upcoming Bravia ad campaign. And if you’ve spent any amount of time on YouTube then you know what to expect from such a campaign: a big idea and an even bigger budget (Kaká’s no fool) leaving you wondering, “Wait, this is about TVs, right?” That quick, shaky (sorry!) video shows you some behind-the-scenes action of the shoot in a Turin square. It also shows one Dan Magness breaking a whole bunch of keepie-uppie records. Incidentally, Turin is home to Juventus, one of AC Milan’s principal rivals. Some explanation is in order. The big spinny thing you see in the video is a zoetrope, which was an early device used to give the illusion of motion. The point of the campaign is to convey the idea that the Bravia’s Motionflow technology—basically, Bravia TVs run at 240Hz— eliminates the blur you’d find in TVs that operate at lesser hertz. Hence Kaká and the fast-moving sport of football as the vehicle for all 240Hz. And yeah, you read that correctly: 120Hz was this year’s TV star feature, and now Sony has doubled that number. Whether or not the human eye can see the difference between 120Hz and 240Hz, I don’t know (because you can see the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz); I do intend to call around tomorrow though, bothering doctors and researchers for that info. What’s most interesting to me, as a sports fan, is if Kaká does leave AC Milan in the coming months—I do believe Manchester City’s owners, the Dubai royal family, are offering Milan an unlimited amount of money for the player—how would this affect the commercial? I mean, it’s not gonna be out for a few months yet, and having a Milan-clad Kaká saying sweet things about his Bravia and Motionflow can’t be ideal for Sony. Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 6:13 pm Sapiens Announces Payment of Third Installment of the Principal Amount of DebenturesCARY, North Carolina, December 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sapiens International Corporation N.V.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Dec 2008 | 6:00 pm What the Papers Don't Say About Vaccinesjamie tips an article in The Guardian's "Bad Science" column which highlights recent media coverage of the MMR vaccine. A story circulated in the past week about the death of a young child, which the parents blamed on the vaccine. When the coroner later found that it had nothing to do with the child's death, there was a followup in only one of the six papers who had covered the story. "Does it stop there? No. Amateur physicians have long enjoyed speculating that MMR and other vaccinations are somehow 'harmful to the immune system' and responsible for the rise in conditions such as asthma and hay fever. Doubtless they must have been waiting some time for evidence to appear. ... Measles cases are rising. Middle class parents are not to blame, even if they do lack rhetorical panache when you try to have a discussion with them about it. They have been systematically and vigorously misled by the media, the people with access to all the information, who still choose, collectively, between themselves, so robustly that it might almost be a conspiracy, to give you only half the facts."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Dec 2008 | 5:40 pm Indigenous Tribes Say Climate Change Harming Way of LifeBill Erasmus, chief of the Dene nation located in northern Canada, issued a grave warning targeting the climate crisis: The once plentiful herds of caribou are declining, rivers are smaller and the ice is too thin to hunt upon safely.Erasmus brought his worries to the sidelines of a U.N.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Dec 2008 | 5:25 pm University Celebrates Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade DatabaseA new Web database created by historians may help millions of blacks find out more about their African ancestors who were forced onto slave ships, connecting them to their heritage in a way that white Europeans have done for years.The project called, "Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database" launched Friday during a conference at Emory University marking the bicentennial of the official end of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1808.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Dec 2008 | 5:15 pm Interview With Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Products, Funding, Competition
Platform v. Applications I asked Mark about the company’s policy on competition with application developers, an issue that has come up repeatedly over the last year. Mark said that the company has no rule against competition with application devlopers. In general, though, he says it’s not good for Facebook to compete with third party applications that have been built on their platform.
Mark says there are two reasons that they don’t compete with developers lightly. The first is that the company is focused on its core competence - building the social channel (profile, friends, sharing of information and content) and allowing developers to plug into that via their API, platform and Facebook Connect. Facebook has a limited number of engineers, he says, and they need to stay focused on the core service. The second reason, he says, is that it sets a bad precedent to compete with the best developers. “The other thing I’d say is that if there is a precedent where there are good applications and we just go and compete with them its generally not good for the ecosystem.” I asked Mark if he thinks the lack of a hard rule that the company won’t compete with developers creates uncertainty. His response is that the company cares most about the ecosystem as a whole, and that while they are thoughtful about competing with application developers, they’ll do it if it is in the best interests of the ecosystem as a whole. Mark specifically talked about two examples, Facebook Music (discussed below) and Facebook Marketplace, which is relaunching from an in-house application to be powered by Oodle. Facebook Marketplace is an example, he says, where the company is actually removing an in-house application and replacing it with a developer application instead. I asked him if having an official partner for classified listings harmed the developers that have similar applications on Facebook. His response - there is still a competitive marketplace, and having Oodle as an official partner doesn’t “in any way disadvantage having a competitive marketplace.” I asked Mark about Facebook’s rumored efforts to launch a Facebook Music service in partnership with one or more applications developers. Mark confirmed that Facebook was investigating the possibility of launching a music application.
He added that he can’t say whether or not Facebook would get involved with a music application directly, or if they did decide to get involved how they would do it. Music is such an important application, he says, that Facebook may have to get involved to lend the effort the scale needed to pull it off effectively with the labels and other rights holders. Data and Privacy I asked Mark why the company decided to give Microsoft access to Facebook user email addresses to promote MSN Messenger. He says that the relationship was reciprocal and that Microsoft allowed Facebook users to import Hotmail contacts and invite them to Facebook. He also pointed out that it was a one time use and that Microsoft didn’t store the data after sending out the emails. I asked him about Facebook’s policy towards giving out my personal information, such as my email address, based only on the permission of a Facebook friend (which is what is happening with MSN Messenger). Mark says that it’s a complex issue, after noting that users have the ability in their privacy settings to restrict whether friends get access to your email address. Data privacy issues are seeking equilibrium in the community, he says. People are willing to share much more information than they were previously. Facebook Valuation And Fundraising We discussed Facebook fundraising issues and valuation. He said some of the speculation was true and some wasn’t. he confirmed that Facebook’s $15 billion valuation round was still open and that CFO Gideon Yu was open to new investors at that price. But he denied that Facebook was pitching for new money at a lower valuation. “We’re not actively going around trying to raise money from a lot of different people. It’s more just a follow on to that [previous round].” Mark also said that the company isn’t overly concerned about capital, and that their current costs and revenue trajectory is on track. Revenue This was the one topic where Mark was not very forthcoming. He wouldn’t talk about specific revenues. But he did say that the company’s self service advertising product was doing very well, both in the U.S. as well as internationally. “It’s surprising how much money comes in internationally,” he said, and suggested noncommittally that Facebook’s self service ad revenues are higher than our recent estimates that MySpace is on a $50+ million run rate for their new self serve ad product. When I asked about how Facebook’s virtual gift product was doing, Mark kept quiet. “I don’t know off the top of my head but wouldn’t answer if I did.” Update: Mark has left a comment below clarifying Facebook’s goals (we’re sure it’s him because he used Connect to link the comment to his Facebook profile - another benefit of using the new service). We’ve also swapped the outdated photo for a newer one:
Information provided by CrunchBase
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 7 Dec 2008 | 5:13 pm Microsoft geeks it up with retro tees
Too bad they aren’t official Microsoft digs otherwise they might be a hit with nerdy hipsters. Official name: softwear. Lame. Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 4:35 pm Net Neutrality Opponent Calls Google a "Bandwidth Hog"Adrian Lopez writes "According to PC World, an analyst with ties to the telecom industry — in a baseless attack on the concept of Net Neutrality — has accused Google Inc. of being a bandwidth hog. Quoting: '"Internet connections could be more affordable for everyone, if Google paid its fair share of the Internet's cost," wrote Cleland in the report. "It is ironic that Google, the largest user of Internet capacity pays the least relatively to fund the Internet's cost; it is even more ironic that the company poised to profit more than any other from more broadband deployment, expects the American taxpayer to pick up its skyrocketing bandwidth tab."' Google responded on their public policy blog, citing 'significant methodological and factual errors that undermine his report's conclusions.' Ars Technica highlighted some of Cleland's faulty reasoning as well."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Dec 2008 | 4:35 pm NASA delays Mars rover mission two years - CNET News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Dec 2008 | 3:38 pm Convert an old Xbox 360 HD DVD drive into a gun laser sight Go grab that Xbox 360 HD DVD drive and give it new life with this mod. What you’re going to do is rip it apart and make a sweet-ass laser pointer/gun sight/cat teaser. It’s not like you’re ever going to use it again. Look at it. It’s just sitting there, mocking your early-adapting ass. Oh, and didja know that this laser will be strong enough to burn paper or light a match? Go get it. Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 3:03 pm Latest Facebook Koobface Virus: Spawned by an earlier attack - Product Reviews
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Dec 2008 | 2:25 pm Dell jacks up the price of Windows XP
Source: CrunchGear | 7 Dec 2008 | 1:45 pm US venture capitalists optimistic on carbon market - Reuters
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Dec 2008 | 1:21 pm
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I recently had a chance to sit down and have a one-on-one chat with Facebook CEO 
Not sure when that was taken… Don’t we have a better one on our website that you can use?
