Information provided by CrunchBase

Source: Gizmodo | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:30 am

21 Million German Bank Accounts For Sale

anerva writes "Black market criminals are offering to sell details on 21 million German bank accounts for €12M ($15.3M), according to an investigative report (German; Google translation) published Saturday. In November reporters for WirtschaftsWoche (Economic Week) had a face-to-face meeting with criminals in a Hamburg hotel, according to the magazine. Posing as buyers working for a gambling business, the journalists were able to strike a price of €0.55 per record, or €12M for all the data. They were given a CD containing the 1.2 million accounts when they asked for assurances that the information they would be buying was legitimate." 21 million is three in four existing German bank accounts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:28 am

Spy Lens Lets You Take Photos On the Sly

In many parts of the world, the best way to make people mad is to take their picture without asking.

Some simply see it as a sign of disrespect and others just don’t want their likeness to be abused in potentially demeaning interpretations or by flogging them commercially across the internets.

The super-secret Spy Lens easily circumvents the rules of these pesky people.

The rig includes a shady cut-out on the side of the barrel and a precision mirror inside that pivots 360-degrees. The angle of the mirror, however, is always set at 90-degrees, enabling photographers to set up sideway shots.

You should easily be able to take close-up shots of people by sidling up to them while pretending to take pics of the pigeons. The lens fits all SLRs and other cameras that use standard SLR-style filters, like the one shown here for the Canon PowerShot G9.

We anticipate DLSR camera noobs to use this lens all over the city in annoying fits of juvenile behavior, and judging by the ridiculous recession price drops on DSLRs in the last week, there will be plenty of them out there. But what we're really looking forward to is seeing how professional photographers inevitably make use of them in their projects.

The lens is now available for $50.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:12 am

Pulitzer Prize Makes Nice With The Web As Print Media Stumbles

The Pulitzer Prize Board, the governing body behind American journalism’s highest honor, has announced that online-only newspapers will now be eligible for the Prize. The announcement comes as many traditional media outlets are struggling - the Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy today and The New York Times is borrowing against its Manhattan headquarters - and affirms the increasingly important role that online news outlets are playing in today’s news cycle.

The new requirements stipulate that entries come from:

“a text-based United States newspaper or news organization that publishes—in print or online—at least weekly during the calendar year; that is primarily dedicated to original news reporting and coverage of ongoing stories; and that adheres to the highest journalistic principles. Printed magazines and broadcast media, and their respective Web sites, are not eligible.”

But what exactly is an “Online-Only Publication Primarily Devoted to Original News Reporting”? The release and relevant FAQ section shed little light on the matter, offering the following:

Q: Can you give examples of online-only newspapers that would qualify?
A. A growing number of sites, such as MinnPost, Voice of San Diego, St. Louis Beacon and Washington Independent, do original reporting. But it is premature to discuss eligibility before an entry has actually been submitted.

These broad guidelines give the Pulitzer’s governing Board some flexibility for judging entries as it tests the muddy waters of online content. But it leaves the doors open to seemingly absurd possibilities. Among the first to come to mind: what if someone won a prize for a Tweet?

Given the growing importance of Twitter during breaking news events, it is becoming increasingly possible that we will one day have a “Tweet heard round the world” - a 140 character message that breaks a news story of global significance. One that will be repeated ad nauseam across cable news networks and major newspapers - perhaps emerging as a candidate for the Pulitzer under the new rules. Far fetched? Sure. But not impossible. How about a series of Tweets?

One potential obstacle that will face online publishers is the requirement that a submission “depict its original publication on the Web, not its subsequent update or alteration” (submissions must also be sent along with any corrections, updates, and dissenting letters, but these don’t appear as part of the main body of text). One of the benefits of online journalism is that it allows for instant updates - editors will often post the most important facts of a breaking story as they gradually flesh out the details. If the Pulitzer Board views these updates as appendices to a post rather than part of its main content, the value of these timely updates will be lost.

The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2009, but all submissions must have been published by December 31, 2008. We’ll find out the winners this spring.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Dec 2008 | 2:10 am

House Panel to Ask for NSA Spying Probe

A congressional committee wants an internal watchdog at the nation's secretive spy agency to find out if the NSA illegally spied on a Muslim scholar and hid evidence in his 2005 terrorism trial.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:30 am

Chinese search engine trouble after medical P4P

Section: Web

The massive Chinese search engine Baidu is in trouble after state media uncovered that unlicensed medical services are buying good positions on the page through their P4P (pay-for-performance) scheme.  This is a problem as more people then click through to their website and the pay for very expensive and totally useless treatment.

This inevitably leads to more cases of dangerous, and sometimes lethal, disregard of safety and expertise meaning that many operations are useless, expensive, and health-threatening.  Examples include a man being charged $1,500 for an operations that didn’t do anything, when he could have paid $15 for effective treatment at a public hospital.

The blame has to fall somewhere, and in this case it is with the search engine.  They are being blamed for not vetting the companies more thoroughly and allowing people to be conned into the traps.  The search engine dominates 2/3 of the country’s market which given that China is the biggest (regarding population) country in the world makes it very important.

This raises serious questions as to how much power these big websites have, and this splits into two parts: they have massive dictation over which websites we visit, and they also hold lots of information on what we do.  This is a prime example of how a company has not taken this responsibility seriously enough, and people have suffered both financially and physically as a result.

The fact that Baidu has been dubbed “China’s Google” automatically draws are attention to Google and how much power they have over our everyday life, and how easy it would be for someone to wreak havoc if they had that information.  It doesn’t bear thinking about really, so lets hope that companies can learn form others mistakes.

Source [PCPro]

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

---

Source: Gadgetell | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:28 am

Sun's Mickos Is OK With Monty's MySQL 5.1 Rant

narramissic writes "Back on November 29, MySQL developer Michael Widenius trashed Sun's decision to give MySQL 5.1 a 'generally available' designation in a now-infamous blog post. Widenius warned users to be 'very cautious about MySQL 5.1' because 'there are still many known and unknown fatal bugs in the new features that are still not addressed.' And now we get Sun's response. In an interview Monday, Marten Mickos, senior VP of Sun's database group, said, 'I learned over many years about the benefits and the painfulness of absolute transparency in open source. A little bit of debate never hurts. This is part of being an open-source company. ... People are free to blog about what they want.' Doubtless, this will do nothing to end the debate over whether Widenius will follow fellow MySQL co-founder David Axmark's lead and leave Sun."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:11 am

Dog Unto Others: Canines Have Sense of Fairness

Dogs know when they're getting the short end of the stick, according to new research out of the Clever Dog Lab in Austria. When a dog doesn't get the same reward for doing a trick as another dog, he's less likely to perform the behavior when asked again.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Dec 2008 | 1:00 am

Texas Instruments–Sigh–Slashes Q4 Outlook [Voices]

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

Well, you knew this was coming. (Or you should have.)

Texas Instruments (TXN) this afternoon sharply reduced its Q4 outlook.

The chip maker now sees Q4 revenue of $2.3 billion to $2.5 billion, down from previous guidance of $2.83 billion to $3.07 billion. The company sees profits of 10-16 cents a share, down from 30-36 cents. The Street consensus had been $2.91 billion and 31 cents. While expectations of reduced guidance were widespread, I’m not sure that anyone thought it would be quite this bad.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:59 am

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld, we saw stunning side-by-side comparisons of the real D.C. versus the post-nuclear version in Fallout 3, watched Dragon Quest in ballet form, noted that the classic Space Invaders would be coming along with its latest futurist remake, and thought about the right and wrong ways to present in-game ads. We also looked at Scribblenauts, a new DS game from 5th Cell that promises to make 'anything' you can think of a usable object in the game, coveted Meat Bun's latest gaming T-shirt designs, watched how a budding love story was scrapped as Left 4 Dead's opening cinematic evolved, and got deep with an existentialist meditation by way of Paperboy, Tapper, and Balloon Fight. Finally, we listened to '8-bit Jesus', a new chiptune Xmas album that reinterprets holiday hits in the style of NES soundtracks, got even more retro with extruded 3D dioramas of 2D classics like Mario, Zelda and Pokemon, heard unsubtle hints of a new Crackdown sequel, looked at Gish creator Edmund McMillan's new video game mashup "album", and, most amazingly, learned how to build a portable talkbox with a bendy straw and the DS's Korg software synth so that we might remake Pete Drake's Forever in handheld form.

Source: Boing Boing | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:27 am

World's First 21Mbps EHSPA/HSPA+ Data "Call"

gadgetopia writes "Although data 'calls' on 21Mbps networks and equipment have been made in the labs and in demonstrations, Australia is the first place in the world where such a call has been made on a commercial, deployed 21Mbps eHSPA network, with a full commercial launch due early 2009."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:21 am

How to Read E-Books on Your iPhone

Is that new bestseller too much of a page-turner to put down? Take your favorite text on the road with these options for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Dec 2008 | 12:15 am

Netflix Says Roku Streaming Problems Are Over, Some Users Disagree

Last Friday, Netflix announced on its blog that the glitch plaguing their streaming service (mostly through Roku’s hardware box) was now pretty much over.

"Working with our content distribution partners and key carriers, we made some specific changes that should restore everyone's experience to  . . . high quality streaming," said a Netflix representative.

The problem could now be quietly filed as a 'temporary' problem, even though there was no mention in the post as to what the 'specific changes' were, and didn't specify the main reason for the problem. Earlier speculation centered on slow network servers and maybe even a glitch in the software code.

Since mid-November, Roku users experienced a loss in streaming video quality, and as the problems became widespread, some Xbox 360 owners that use the service for movie streaming also spoke up with similarly annoying problems, including choppy delays.

For a few hours, news of the fix filled the hard-core Netflix community with a sense of relief. They could finally go back to streaming old episodes of Kojak in peace.

But in the last two days, several users have said that the problem is still going on.

In the Netflix blog, users are taking the company to task: "I am still having the same problems with my Roku. If anything it is worse," said one post. Another promised to cancel his subscription if the streaming didn't improve.

And another posted the idea that it was clearly not an ISP or wireless router problem: "Glitch is not resolved! . . . only getting up to two-dot quality on the Roku. . . I'm getting over 10 Mbs on a computer over the wireless connection (20 Mbs over Ethernet)."

Netflix didn't follow up with a new post over the weekend to explain why these users were still experiencing delays.

This is the first problem that has significantly affected the Netflix streaming service. Up to now, the company's streaming option was regarded as an excellent model for streaming quality videos.

Last week, angry Roku customers initially blamed the loss of quality on the hardware start-up, but soon after, most realized the problem was coming Netflix.

In a statement, Roku accepted the weekend 'fix' with guarded optimism: "Roku is pleased Netflix has resolved the issue but we will continue to closely monitor streams to make sure our customers get the best quality experience."

With the holiday break coming up soon and more kids around the house than usual, many users will probably increase their use of the service. So look for Netflix to continue to stamp out the bad streaming over the next week, or they might suffer the consequences on the posting boards again.

Sources: Netflix, Roku, Cnet

See also:

• Netflix Movie Streaming Suffers Serious Loss in Quality, Say Roku Owners
• Netflix Goes Down For 11 hours, Wall Street Pushes Its Stock to All-Time High
• Wired Product Reviews: Roku Netflix Player

 

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:37 pm

Recession got you down?  Why not pick up a $5,879 Blu-ray player?

Section: Audio, Video, DVD Players/DVRs

There are some companies in the world that aim purely at the upper end of the pay scale.  Denon has just released their new DVD-A1UD which costs a staggering $5,879, a price that us debt ridden unemployed mortals can only gape at.

So what does it actually do?  Well, it can play Blu-ray discs, SACDs, CDs, DVD-Audio, and DVD-Video.  This is Denon’s first Profile 2.0 Ready (BD Live) Blu-ray DVD player and it supports the HDMI 1.3 spec.  It can also upscale non-HD sources and can convert signals so that they properly fit 16:9 screens without black bars or distortion.  And lets face it, if you can spend this much you definitely have a widescreen TV.

It is pretty bulky (not surprising considering how much it has squeezed inside it) and the remote looks like it defies the laws of physics with more buttons than space.  Yet despite this there is still a sleek finish (achieved through the slight curve at the top) and the stylish silver/black finish will look at home under any TV.

“We have combined both analogue and digital signal processing technology and precision mechanism engineering to reproduce the most delicate and refined aesthetic video and audio details recorded on disc.  The DVD-A1UD literally allows discriminating home entertainment consumers to experience the very best that Blu-ray, as well as DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, and CD, have to offer.“  Hirofumi Ichikawa president of Denon

However when you look at it the $5,000 + price tag is still massive, and I think that noone except some very rich die hard HD enthusiasts are really going to buy this.  Right now, this is the age of conservative spending and cutting back, and this luxury is one that very few will enjoy.

Source [jGadgets]

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

---

Source: Gadgetell | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:25 pm

Pilots Complain the A380 Is Too Quiet for Sleeping

The new long-haul jet from Airbus has engines so quiet, the pilots say they can't nod off.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 8 Dec 2008 | 11:00 pm

Analysis: ARM Chips Could Appear in Apple Netbooks, Tablets

Apple's recent acquisition of a semiconductor company suggests the corporation is developing mobile chips that will power not just iPhones, but netbooks and tablets as well.

CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged in April that Apple acquired PA Semi to work on chips for iPhones and iPods. And it's reasonable to infer that Apple will use these CPUs in its entrance into the netbook and tablet categories (or whatever Jobs decides to call them).

Why? The successful iPhone is currently powered by an ARM chip, and these processors can now do anything an Intel chip can do (except run Windows), explains ComputerWorld's Seth Weintraub. Also, ARM chips are extremely inexpensive, with costs as low as $10 a piece. And finally, ARM is 10 to 20 times more power-efficient than Intel's low-powered Atom processor found in almost every netbook today.

In an October conference call, Jobs said Apple wasn't ready to offer a netbook, as the mini notebooks remain a "nascent category." However, he added that Apple has some "pretty interesting ideas" if the category matures.

But piling evidence gives away that Apple has far more than just "ideas." In addition to the acquisition of PA Semi, Apple recently hired former IBM executive Mark Papermaster, famous for developing the Power PC chips used in previous generation Macs. And with $25 billion in the bank, Apple has a good amount of leeway to introduce in-house computer chips to its ecosystem.

See Also:

• Apple Has 'Interesting Ideas' for a Netbook, But Isn't Ready
• Apple's Core Could Soon Include In-House Chips
• Tiny Notes Net Big Gains: The Netbook Revolution
• Apple Hints Drive Speculation of New Notebooks, Mac Tablets

Photo: Wired.com/How-to Wiki

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:54 pm

Broadcom Crams 802.11n, Bluetooth, and FM Onto a Single Chip

Broadcom has managed to cram 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and FM reception/transmission all into a single "combo wireless chip." Designed to be a better wireless implementation for portable devices, the chip seeks to lower chip counts and integration costs. "Broadcom is the second firm — following Atheros in a single-function chip — to announce a single-stream 802.11n product, in which one of 802.11n's advantages is shaved off in favor of a faster baseline performance and lower battery consumption. This move is meant to replace 802.11g in portable devices without draining a battery faster and providing other advantages that make up for what's become a slight cost difference."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:30 pm

The Newspaper Industry and the Arrival of the Glaciers

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.

---

In light of Sam Zell's Tribune newspaper empire filing for bankruptcy today, I was reminded of Ron Rosenbaum's piece beating up on Jeff Jarvis -- The Good Life of a New-Media Guru -- for being unfair to journalists who "have been caught up in this great upheaval" of the print business model. (The piece is sub-titled "Is Jeff Jarvis gloating too much about the death of print?") That in turn reminded me of something I'd written back in 1995 called Help, the Price of Information Has Fallen, and It Can't Get Up. It's not my best writing, but having just re-read it, there's not a conclusion I would change:

The price of information has not only gone into free fall in the last few years, it is still in free fall now, it will continue to fall long before it hits bottom, and when it does whole categories of currently lucrative businesses will be either transfigured unrecognizably or completely wiped out, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

and

Newspapers make an enormous proportion of their revenues on classified ads [...] however, this arrangement is something of a kludge, since the things being sold have a much more intricate relationship to geography than newspapers do.

You might drive three miles to buy used baby clothes, thirty for a used car and sixty for rare coins. Thus, in the economically ideal classified ad scheme, all sellers would use one single classified database nationwide, and then buyers would simply limit their searches by area. This would maximize the choice available to the buyers and the cost able to be commanded by the sellers. It would also destroy a huge source of newspapers revenue.

This is happening now.

I don't post this because I think I had some unique vision back then. In fact, I'd only arrived on the net in '93, a complete newbie, and most of my opinions about newspapers came from talking with Gordy Thompson of the NY Times and Brad Templeton of Clarinet. Instead, what struck me, re-reading my younger self, was this: a dozen years ago, a kid who'd only just had his brains blown via TCP/IP nevertheless understood that the newspaper business was screwed, not because this was a sophisticated conclusion, but because it was obvious.

Google, eBay, craigslist, none of those things existed when I wrote that piece; I was extrapolating from Lycos and it was still apparent what was going to happen. It didn't take much vision to figure out that unlimited perfect copyability, with global reach and at zero marginal cost, was slowly transforming the printing press into a latter-day steam engine.

And once that became obvious, we said so, over and over again, all the time. We said it in public, we said it in private. We said it when newspapers hired us as designers, we said it when we were brought in as consultants, we said it for free. We were some tiresome motherfuckers with all our talk about the end of news on paper. And you know what? The people who made their living from printing the news listened, and then decided not to believe us.

So I'm calling bullshit on the Rosenbaum thesis, because no one has been "caught up in this great upheaval." Caught up? That makes it sound like a tornado. This change has been more like seeing oncoming glaciers ten miles off, and then deciding not to move.

By the turn of the century, anyone who didn't understand that the business model for newspapers was a wasting asset was caught up in nothing other than willful ignorance, so secure in their faith in the permanence of their business that they assumed that those glaciers would politely swerve at the last minute, which minute is looking increasingly like now.

Tribune Co. Files for Bankrupcty Protection | The Good Life of a New-Media Guru | Help, the Price of Information Has Fallen, and It Can't Get Up

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Dec 2008 | 10:00 pm

Go Nuts for Good Health

Adding nuts to a healthy diet may lower the risk of high cholesterol and heart disease.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:48 pm

UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Hubble servicing mission launch date set WASHINGTON, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- The U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:44 pm

Canadian Groups Call For Massive Net Regulation

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting that Canadian cultural groups including ACTRA and SOCAN have called on Canada's telecom regulator to implement a massive new Internet regulation framework. This includes a new three-percent tax on ISPs to pay for new media creation, Canadian content requirements for commercial websites, and licensing requirements for new media broadcasters, including for user-generated content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:25 pm

Mistaken Identity Reveals 2 New Extinct Coral Species

Image Caption: Scientists have identified two new species of extinct corals -- Isopora curcaoensis and Isopora ginsburgi, which provide an important link between corals in the Atlantic and Pacific. This is Dr. Robert N. Ginsburg, after whom the new species I. ginsburgi is named. Credit: UM/RSMAS
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 9:22 pm

Broadcom jams FM radio, 802.11n, and Bluetooth into a single package

Back in October, Broadcom made a promise to announce a new combo-chip every 60 days. First came the BCM2049, which packed FM and Bluetooth onto a single die. A bit past their self-imposed deadline (albeit still with impressive haste), they’ve managed to one up themselves with the BCM4329.

What it does:

• Dual-band 802.11n – for sharing video clips, music and pictures between portable devices and other Wi-Fi products
• Bluetooth – for hands-free calling, cordless data synchronization and high-quality music streaming to headphones and other audio devices
• FM transmit and receive – for streaming music directly from a personal media player to a car stereo without special adapters and listening to radio broadcasts

Through what I can only imagine is some sort of sorcery, they’ve crammed FM (transmitting and receiving), Bluetooth, and 802.11n WiFi into one tight little package. To manufacturers, this means lower bill-of-materials and more internal real estate available to other components. To you, this means some top notch features should find themselves in the most compact of handsets when these start shipping sometime next year.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:52 pm

Silicon Valley Conference Aims to Raise Planetary IQ

Forty years ago Tuesday, a Silicon Valley engineer named Douglas Engelbart made a presentation so influential that computer scientists now call it "the mother of all demos." More than a mere product demo, it was a down payment on an ambitious idea: that networked computers could help groups of people work together more effectively, raising the collective intelligence of the human race and making it possible to solve some of our most pressing problems, including pollution, famine, disease, and war.

More than 100 hopeful believers in Engelbart's vision gathered Monday at San Jose's Tech Museum of Innovation, in the heart of Silicon Valley, to talk about the ways that they can help foster greater collective intelligence.

The conference, called Program for the Future, features Engelbart himself as well as tech industry luminaries such as Google's director of research Peter Norvig, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, computer scientist Alan Kay and MIT professors Thomas Malone and Hiroshi Ishii.

Engelbart, now 83, is a stately, if quiet, presence at the conference. But his ideas and his personality loom large over the crowd. Ishii, for instance, called Engelbart his "god" and his "hero," citing the latter's inspirational effects on his own career and on the development of the computer industry.

Google's Peter Norvig was a bit more cautious. "A lot of what we do follows from him, but not everyone who works at Google necessarily recognizes that history," Norvig told Wired.com, referring to Engelbart's 1968 demo. That might have something to do with the relative youth of Google's workforce: With an average age of 29, most Google employees weren't even alive in 1968.

Program for the Future organizer Mei Lin Fung called the event a "changing of the guard," a handoff from an older generation of computer engineers to a younger generation of students and entrepreneurs. Indeed, the audience demographics (as revealed by real-time wireless polls) showed a broad range of attendees, young and old, nonprofit and business, academic and industrial.

Hiroshi Ishii's presentation showed one way that handoff might happen. While the sounds of laughing children visiting the museum filtered into the conference room, Ishii screened videos of some of the work that he and students at the MIT Media Lab's Tangible Media Group have been working on, including one called the I/O Brush: a video camera hidden inside a large calligraphy brush and connected to a drawing program running on a big, white screen. Users touch the brush to an object, and can then paint on the screen with the image that they "picked up," just like the eyedropper tool in PhotoShop. It even works for video, prompting cries of delight from the children who were shown in the video, who pointed it at their eyes and then painted with a series of blinking eyes.

Ishii's lab's work has also led to a truly Minority Report-style interface called G-Speak, which lets users interact with large datasets on wall-mounted screens and tabletop displays by waving their arms and "grabbing" virtual objects with their hands.

What many attendees had in common was an earnest belief in the power of collective intelligence to improve the world, a deep appreciation for Engelbart the man, and a level of comfort with the jargon of collective intelligence. A long mural illustrated the significance of the 1968 demo on a 20-foot "co-evolution" timeline (4.4-MB image file, part of which is shown at top of this page) that paralleled Engelbart's life and stretched past 2008 into the future. On the timeline, significant events and inventions were marked with icons, while "The Demo" took the shape of a huge, blue tidal wave of ideas: email, networked computing, online publishing, video conference, hyperlinks and — of course — the mouse.

Attendees were invited to add their own ideas to the timeline with Post-it notes. After doing so, the organizers asked for a minute of silence while everyone contemplated the ideas being discussed, and some members of the crowd bowed their heads prayerfully. Afterwards, people shouted out their best ideas: "World 2.0," one man said, to answering cheers, and "Life in an integrated domain," yelled another one, prompting whoops from the crowd.

It wasn't all jargon and hopeful visions. "One-to-many" presentations were intermixed with more collaborative sessions, in which participants were asked to come up with ideas for advancing the collective intelligence program.

But in the end, the conference came down to a fundamental belief that technology could help people get better at solving real and pressing problems.

Engelbart boiled his theory down to the single principle of continuous improvement, Norvig said. "If you continuously improve, everything else will take care of itself."

"But really you also need to be improving in the right direction," Norvig continued. "The reason Doug passed over this is that he had such moral clarity he knew what direction he wanted to move in."

The rest of us, it seems, are still trying to catch up.

---

The Program for the Future conference continues through Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon, Stanford University will host a 40th anniversary celebration, Engelbart and the Dawn of Interactive Computing.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:44 pm

Malaria Vaccine Shows Promise

An experimental malaria vaccine is shown to be more than 50 percent effective.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:40 pm

Dinosaurs Were Airheads

Image 2: Compared to brainy humans, dinosaurs were airheads. The head of Tyrannosaurus rex was filled with sinuses that lightened the head while enhancing its strength.art by: Lawrence Witmer/Ryan Ridgely
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:30 pm

Mine is Bigger: JVC Launches Giant 720p Screen in Times Square But Walgreens Beats it

JVC is premiering a new LED billboard in New York's Times Square this week that they claim is the first true 720p high-def giant screen in the world.

But it's being overshadowed by a much cooler screen from Walgreens only a few steps away that's getting way more attention because of its placement and unusual shape. The Walgreen display hugs the center of the main Times Square building where the ball drops every year for New Year's Eve celebrations and it's also almost completely vertical .

JVC has been preparing the screen for the last few months in order to unveil it during the normally high-traffic holiday shopping season. Unfortunately, the premiere is coming during the worst economic period in 20 years and the only people who will get to enjoy it will be the occasional tourist and the financiers who used to afford such extravagancies. They now have to make do with tiny 11-inch Sony OLED screens. Poor guys.

The screen's full resolution is set at 1280 x 720 and has a pretty good frame rate at 60 per second. It's sized at 19 by 34 feet (or 7,880 square feet), weighs 12,500 lbs, and its 1,152,000 LEDs are set at a 8mm pixel pitch, which helps the screen with its quality definition.

The LED modules were set-up by Rancho Cordova's D3 LED LLC, which is also using its LED mojo across the street with a new screen for Walgreens. According to D3, every single diode in the LED arrays used for the screens produces 16-bit color data, jacking up the overall color vibrancy.

In the video below from ABC's Good Morning America, you can see the clarity and color produced by the Walgreens LED:

Walgreens claims that the almost fully vertical display is the largest one in the U.S., at 41,000 square feet. It is powered by 12 million LEDs.

According to a report on another network broadcast, the Walgreens screen project cost about 12 million and will be featured by New York City during its New Year's Eve celebration.

The screen will play a critical role in the drugstore company's return to New York.

According to the Times, Walgreens is leasing the whole building for $4 million a year and is placing one of the largest stores at its base, where the giant screen begins its ascent. In marketing-speak, it estimates that the screen will bring the company close to a million a half impressions a day. With those numbers, they'll be able to charge advertisers a huge pile of money.

If you want to check out these screens in person, the JVC screen is located in the corner of Broadway and 43rd Street in New York and the Walgreens is just across the street.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:28 pm

Dogs Have Feelings, Too

Researchers at the University of Vienna, Austria, suggest that dogs have a sense of fairness and jealousy.The team found that dogs would stop doing a simple task when not rewarded if another dog, which continues to be rewarded, is present — demonstrating a sensitivity in dogs that was only previously found in primates."Animals react to inequity," said Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 8:05 pm

Leaked: 8-Megapixel Samsung “Memoir” headed for T-mobile

Though just about everyone is pushing out 8-megapixel phones at this point, it’s surprising how few (read: pretty much none) of them have made it to US carriers. Looks like that might be about to change, if this latest leak from TmoNews rings true.

Essentially a bigger, badder version of the Behold, the handset the whispers are naming as the Samsung “Memoir” purportedly sports the same TouchWiz UI, along with an 8-megapixel camera and (presumably) an over-all spec bump.

Unfortunately for those looking for a device with some room for expansion, the chances are pretty strong that it’s pure TouchWiz down to the core rather than TouchWiz layered on-top of Windows Mobile, a la Omnia.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:45 pm

Fair-Weather Clouds Part Of Climate Predictions

InteractionThe behavior of clouds is the great unknown quantity in current climate models. To make reliable predictions on climate change, more knowledge about clouds is thus essential. Heus explains, ‘What we call fair-weather clouds have posed one of the biggest challenges in atmospheric science for decades. For accurate representation of clouds in weather and climate models, it is crucial to have a solid understanding of the interaction between clouds and the environment. Today, with the help of better observational methods and more powerful computers, we can get a much nicer picture of how it works.’DownwardHeus continues, ‘A cloud is normally described as an entity in which air rises. All around the cloud, air sinks downward in compensation for the upward movement.‘We demonstrated that air far away from the cloud on average displaces very little. The biggest amount of compensatory downward flow occurs immediately surrounding the cloud, in a ring of sinking air. This ring results because cloud air mixes with the surroundings, causing the cloud water to evaporate, air to cool, and thereby sink. The interaction between the cloud and its environment as such occurs indirectly, through the buffer zone of the ring. This buffer zone has not yet been incorporated into climate models until now.‘The ring is principally created by horizontal mixing. We showed that whatever happens on the cloud top has little influence on the underlying layers.’Virtual Reality
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:43 pm

Logitech Launches Attractive New Lapdesks

Most notebook users have experienced the burn that comes from keeping notebooks on their lap for an extended period of time.

Laptop desks try to fight that problem but most of them are tacky and poorly designed. With its latest product, Logitech is hoping to fix that.

The company's newly launched lapdesk is sleek, white and promises some impressive heat-reflecting design.

Logitech says its research shows nearly 60 percent of people who use a laptop at home use it on the couch, while about 36 percent use a laptop on the bed and 16 percent use it while sitting or lying on the floor. About 50 percent of those people report concerns about laptop heat.

Home remedies include the use a pillow or book to provide a barrier to the heat from the laptop but those usually end up trapping the heat making the device even hotter, says Logitech.

Logitech's lapdesk has a four-layer, heat-shielding design. And instead of the laptop lying flat against the body, the base with an arch makes contact with the legs in just four places improving air flow, it promises.

The lapdesks are available for a suggested retail price of $40. It's a small price to pay to avoid discomfort if you are on your laptop at home for more than a few hours.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:08 pm

Ambiguous T-swivel device surfaces, has identity crisis

Either that person has a tiny hand, or this mysterious T-swivel device needs to go on a serious diet before hitting the streets.

Found on a Korean forum discussing reasons why Ultra-Mobile Personal Computers (UMPCs) and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs ) never reached market saturation, it is not clear what category this “concept” device fits into.

Sporting a T-swivel display (a la LG VX9400), a full qwerty keyboard, and what appears to be a touchpad complete with left and right mouse buttons, this behemoth confusingly blurs the lines between UMPCs, MIDs, and smartphones.

The fact that this image is apparently over 6 months old suggests that this hefty handset might never see the light of day. And really, is there even room in the ever-crowded portable/mobile device market for such a beast? With the explosion of netbooks, web-capable PMPs, and much sleeker alternatives…I’d say that’s a big NO.

[via Pocketables]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 7:01 pm

Google Introduces Mobile Ads For Android And The iPhone

Google is now formatting AdWords text and image ads for Android and iPhone mobile browsers. The ads can include mobile-only calls to action, and can be created from standard Google ads run on the Web. The ads will also work on other phones with full HTML browsers in the future as they become available. (Both the iPhone and the Android G1 have full browsers based on Webkit).

By sticking with full HTML browser phones, the links in the ads can continue to point to regular Web pages and still work in a mobile context. Advertisers can also run one single campaign across the Web and advanced mobile phones, and see where they get the best response.

More at the Google Mobile blog.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:50 pm

Rogers launches the BlackBerry 8900 Javelin

After some many months in the works, the BlackBerry 8900 (otherwise known as “Javelin”) has finally made its way out of the labs and onto a shelf near you. Well, by “a shelf near you” we mean “on a shelf at Rogers locations in Canada”. Not, say, the shelf in your bathroom.

Essentially a BlackBerry Bold Lite, the Javelin’s missing 3G, and has a slightly smaller keyboard, slower processor, and a bit less boom in the speaker department. It’s not all a downgrade, however; the screen is slightly higher-res (480×360 vs 480×320), and the camera has been bumped from 2-megapixels to 3.2. If you’re looking to pinch some pennies (though only about $20 bucks worth) on a Bold and don’t mind being stuck with GSM/EDGE, the Javelin should do you well. Expect to walk out the door with one for $179.99 on a 3-year contract.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:47 pm

Researchers Use Household PCs For Solar Power Study

In an ambitious effort to revolutionize the green energy world, scientists at Harvard University and IBM are hoping to harness the power of a million idle computers to develop a new, cheaper form of solar power.The project uses IBM's World Community Grid, which taps into volunteers' computers across the globe to run calculations on a myriad of compounds, which could potentially shorten the project from the proposed 22 years to just two years.Scientists at Harvard are hoping the project will lead to a combination of organic materials that can be used to manufacture plastic solar cells that are cheaper and more flexible than the silicon-based ones used to turn sunlight into electricity.Experts suggest the technology could be used to coat windows, make backpacks or line blankets to produce electricity from the sun's rays.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:35 pm

Genetic method found to kill gray mold

A team of U.S., French and Spanish scientists say they've identified the gene that enables gray mold to kill plant cells. Brown University Professor David Cane and his international colleagues also found deletion of that single gene from gray mold's DNA shuts down its ability to produce toxins that kill cells in more than 200 species of garden and ornamental plants. The fungus, Botrytis cinerea, can kill more than 200 agricultural and ornamental plant species, including staples such as tomatoes, strawberries, snap and lima beans, cabbage, lettuce and endive, peas, peppers, and potatoes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:30 pm

Could Males Really Become The Weaker Sex?

Scientific research from around the world suggests that the male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife.The research shows that a host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects.Recent U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:30 pm

HP Prototypes First Flexible Display

The Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University has promised that thin paper-like displays are just about three years away from field trials.

Now HP in partnership with the Center says it has created the first prototype of an "affordable" flexible electronic display. "We want to lower the costs of traditional flat panel displays and increase their functionality," says Carl Taussig, director of information surfaces for HP Labs.

Flexible displays are paper-like computer displays made almost entirely of plastic. They are easily portable and consume lower power than current displays.

Taussig says HP has been able to create a manufacturing process for the prototype that would allow the fabrication of thin film transistor arrays on flexible plastic materials. The displays would be created using roll-to-roll manufacturing, much like how a newspaper is printed in the press. That compares to a batch production that traditional displays use, similar to the process of cutting individual cookies.

"Roll-to-roll is about reducing costs ultimately," says Taussig.

The prototype display is black and white but Taussig says the process can be used to create flexible color displays. HP has licensed the technology to PowerFilm Solar, a company that specializes in flexible solar panels.

Though HP doesn't as yet have an estimate of what a flexible display will eventually cost consumers, the company says it expects the first displays to be available to the U.S. Army for trials in the next three years.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Dec 2008 | 6:21 pm

Brain Drugs Fine for Healthy People, Says Group

Should everyone have access to drugs designed for the memory-impaired?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 5:19 pm

BLOG: Dogs Feel Envy

Studies prove what most dog-owners know: Dogs feel envy when snubbed.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 4:22 pm

FDA Lists Handgun for the Handicapped

A handgun designed for weak or arthritic hands could soon be available, by prescription.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 3:19 pm

Empathetic Virtual Humans on the Way

Virtual humans are in the works that can read our moods and react with empathy.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 2:28 pm

Cave Bears Vanished Under Climate Change

The massive ancient cave bear was likely done in by climate change.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 2:28 pm

Asteroid Impacts Gave Crucial Spark to Early Life

Asteroids crashing into the ancient oceans may have helped give rise to the first life.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 8 Dec 2008 | 2:08 pm

Laptop Searches at Border Might Get Restricted

Given all the personal details that people store on digital devices, border searches of laptops and other gadgets can give law enforcement officials far more revealing pictures of travelers than suitcase inspections might yield. That has set off alarms among civil liberties groups and travelers' advocates - and now among some members of Congress who hope to impose restrictions on the practice next year.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 8 Dec 2008 | 12:08 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