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Best Buy brings an App Store offlineSection: Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
If you are a Palm-head, most likely you know about Handago. They’ve been a trusted clearing house for applications for years and now they are bringing their good name into the halls of Best Buy. No longer content to just offer Palm apps, Handago now offers apps for Windows Mobile, Blackberry, and Symbian S60 smartphones. They offer over 140,000 apps. Best Buy is betting customers have trouble with the whole downloading thing and perhaps many customers feel that way. The press release says the purchasing decisions will be made easier with “simple pricing” which sounds like silliness to me. Overall, I suspect customers won’t be lining up for this. It is a great move for Handago as they get their store application on each phone that Best Buy sells and I suspect Best Buy gets a cut of the sales derived from that. Perhaps it will be helpful to customers, but I’d be waiving these guys or gals away just like the protection plans. But that is just me. What is your take? Does buying apps in-store sound attractive? Company site: [Handago] and [BestBuy] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 Dec 2008 | 5:15 pm Trash with Flash: Lomo's New TLR Adds Mod Cons
Of course, Lomo has as ever done little more than re-animate the ageing product line and as such you'll get all the Lomo hallmarks -- wonky focus, odd color shifts and a generally fun but inferior experience. I used one of the originals back in school and, while it was fun, it could also be frustrating. You'll also need to buy film. The Lubitel+ works with 120 roll film, but will also accept 35mm. This is a new, added feature, and Lomo has also upgraded the focus screen to flat ground glass instead of the old curved, shiny version, tweaked the lens to focus closer (80cm or 31"), and added film rewinding and a hotshoe. That's not to say it's high-tech. As the blurb says: "Fully manual everything, fully automatic nothing." It's also not cheap. This Soviet era relaunch can be yours for a distinctly capitalist $350 (basic) and up to $560 for the "supreme" kit, which bundles a flash, tripod and films. Someone needs to invent a slot-in sensor for converting these analog cameras to digital. If that was the case, I'd be buying up second-hand cameras like this all over the place. As it is, film is kind of inconvenient, especially since I threw out my scanner. LUBITEL+ IS FOR LOVERS [Lomo via Amateur Photographer] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 12 Dec 2008 | 12:19 pm Russian Hopes To Cash In On Emoticonsdrewmoney writes "According to a BBC article, Entrepreneur Oleg Teterin said the trademark for the ';-)' emoticon was granted to him by Russia's federal patent agency. 'Legal use will be possible after buying an annual licence from us,' he was quoted by the newspaper Kommersant as saying. 'It won't cost that much — tens of thousands of dollars,' added the businessman, who is president of Superfone, a company that sells advertising on mobile phones. The president of Russian social networking site odnoklassniki.ru, Nikita Sherman said: 'You're not likely to find any retards in Russia who'll pay Superfone for the use of emoticons.'" Teterin may have gotten the idea by catching up on some old news about Despair, Inc., which in May 2000 was awarded a US trademark on the "frowny" emoticon (Slashdot story).Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 12 Dec 2008 | 12:17 pm The Nation's Weather - The Associated Press
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm World's Smallest (and Pointless-est) Optical MouseThis tiny mouse, which we will call the Finger Mouse in honor of the creepily disturbing 1970s UK kids TV show, measures just 42 x 21 x 17.65mm, units too small to be converted into oafish, bumbling inches. Yet into that small space, the makers of the Z-Nano (its real name) have managed to cram almost everything, from a laser tracker to a scrolling function to, yes, obnoxiously bright LED blinkenlights. Here it is in action: We have complaints. First, it will obviously cause your fingers to shrivel and lock into a rigid, bony claw. Second: Why is the case for this thing so big? The whole point of a tiny mouse is to make it easy to carry, right? The supplied clamshell travel case is as big as a regular mouse, so why not just use a proper desktop mouse? Third, how is this different from a trackpad? Just asking. World's Smallest Optical Mouse [Tech E Blog via BBG]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:58 am What is the New S&P 500 Normal?A thought experiment I like to do is mull what S&P 500 earnings would have been today if we hadnt had a decade or more of cheap credit. Earnings have grown, on average, 9% a year for years in the U...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:57 am UPDATE 3-Novartis posts Phase III progress for MS drugZURICH, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Switzerland's Novartis AG said first Phase III results for its FTY720 drug showed superior efficacy to a current standard of care for patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:45 am Twelve Strobe Rig Blots Out the Sun
As photographer Syl Arena put the finishing touches to his oak and plastic creation, he must have been thinking variously of Frankenstein's monster or – perhaps – the myth of Icarus. Carrying his hubristic rig, he approached the Photoshop teacher Ben Willmore and placed him with his back to the noonday sun. The strobes are Canon 580 EX IIs, triggered by twelve RadioPopper wireless triggers. Because the Radiopopper actually transmits the full TTL info from camera to speedlight, Syl was able to shoot at a huge 1/8000 sec, fast enough to knock out even the background ambient light. Syl lined up on Ben. As the flash units charged, they whined, reminding the poor, scared subject of the nuclear accelerator worn on every Ghostbuster's back. Despite his fear, Ben easily dropped into the pose of a stage magician. Syl hit the shutter release, and all hell broke loose. The Sun, outraged by the incredible power held in the flashguns, actually blnked out of existence for a brief moment. Ben disappeared, leaving only shadow behind him, burned permanetly into the asphalt. Had he skipped to another dimension? Had he been vaporized? The search for the teacher and author continues. The name of Ben's own blog now reverberates with a chilling irony. It is called "Where's Ben?" I Shot Ben Willmore… In Broad Daylight [Pixsylated via Strobist]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:34 am More Fun with Levered ETFsLately I find myself repeatedly explaining how levered ETFs work, so I thought I would help myself out by putting up a table that gets the point across empirically. The gist: Such products reset on a daily...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:29 am UPDATE 1-Caltex Australia says shuts 110,000 bpd refinerySYDNEY, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Caltex Australia Ltd, Australia's largest refiner, said on Friday it had shut a refinery producing 110,000 barrels per day due to problems with its system, and that diesel supply...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:25 am Pension Problems: Most Equity-Happy Countries in WorldGiven the problems facing most pension plans worldwide, it's worth considering which countries' pension plans have been skewing toward equities in recent years. They will be the ones most at risk in the...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:20 am Google Chrome Goes Gold With 1.0 Release - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:18 am Teens Post, Send Nude Pix As Sexy Presents - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:18 am Boston Power: Green Laptops Today, Electric Cars Tomorrow? - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:18 am CORRECTED-Shell pension underfunded, contributions to rise(Corrects first paragraph and final paragraph to make clear Shell's pension fund, not Shell, sent letter to employees)Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:18 am Sony Hit With $1M Penalty For COPPA Violations - Slashdot
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:16 am Nearly 50% of IT Shops to ... - InternetNews.com
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:06 am Sony Hit With $1M Penalty For COPPA Violationscoondoggie writes "It really isn't a big enough penalty, and the company admitted no guilt, but Sony BMG Music Entertainment today agreed to pay $1 million as part of a settlement to resolve Federal Trade Commission charges that it knowingly violated the privacy rights of over 30,000 underage children. Specifically the FTC said the company violated the agency's Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and the FTC did say the penalty was its largest ever in a COPPA case. To provide resources to parents and their children about children's privacy in general, and social networking sites in particular, the penalty order requires Sony Music to link to certain FTC consumer education materials for the next five years."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:02 am Bristol-Myers signs cancer drug deal with ExelixisNEW YORK, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Bristol-Myers Squibb Co said on Friday it will collaborate with Exelixis Inc on development of two experimental cancer drugs in a deal that includes an upfront cash payment...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Apple battles bugs and pesky lawsuits, the battle over Internet porn gets cartoonish, and Google Chrome ditches its learner's permit and gets the keys to ad's car.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am Bayer to cut investments at plastics unit in 2009LEVERKUSEN, Germany, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Bayer plans to reduce investments in plant and equipment at its MaterialScience plastics division next year compared to 2008, Chief Executive Werner Wenning said...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:53 am Gyro Swing Lets You Feel The Perfect Golf SwingBy Andrew Liszewski Well here’s something different. While most innovations in golf club design usually just consist of a slightly different head shape or use of materials, the Gyro Swing actually...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:48 am Hearst Corp's CEO search called off - NY PostDec 12 (Reuters) - A search for a chief executive to lead Hearst Corp has been called off as interim CEO Frank Bennack Jr appears to have no intention of relinquishing the role, the New York Post said,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:42 am Shell pension underfunded, contributions to riseLONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc said its Dutch pension fund had fallen into deficit as share market turmoil knocked 40 percent off the fund's value, forcing the oil major and employees...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:40 am More Economic Bad News–This Time, for the Auto Industry–Sure to Slap Tech Stocks Today [BoomTown]
After the Senate effort to forge a package to help the ailing U.S. auto industry collapsed yesterday, one can expect that the stock market will give up gains made in recent days. And, inevitably, that will include stocks for the tech industry, whose shares have rallied this past week. Google shares, which have recently crossed back above $300 of late, for example, were already seeing pre-market declines this morning, as European and other markets crashed on the bad news about U.S. politicians rejecting an effort to hand over $14 billion to automakers. Thus, Google (GOOG) stock was down over one percent in pre-market trading. Yahoo (YHOO), which has been nicely trending up into the $13 range, also is getting smacked, down almost three percent in pre-market trading. And so on: Amazon (AMZN) down one percent to $47.85. Microsoft (MSFT) down one percent to $19.27. Intel (INTC) down 1.4 percent to $13.82. Apple (AAPL) down one percent to $94. You get the idea–Silicon Valley is still in no way immune from the econalypse. Source: All Things Digital | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:36 am UPDATE 3-Alcatel pessimistic on '09, no talk of net profit* CFO refuses to give timeframe for achieving net profitSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:36 am Ocarina: This Contest BlowsIt's no secret that a few of us here at ReadWriteWeb are big fans of Ocarina, the iPhone app from Smule that converts your iPhone into an ancient woodwind instrument. And we're not alone, thousands of...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:30 am OGCC Day 12 - M&MS Musical OrnamentsBy Andrew Liszewski I suppose the fact that I associate M&M’S with Christmas is a tribute to the marketing gurus at Mars. I mean all they really did was exclude a couple of colors come the holidays,...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:27 am November video game sales near $3 billion (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:18 am Caltex Australia says shuts 110,000 bpd refinerySYDNEY, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Caltex Australia Ltd , Australia's only listed oil refiner and marketer, said on Friday it has shut its 110,000 barrel per day (bpd) Lytton Refinery due to problems with its...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:01 am Nokia takes on Huawei in connecting laptopsHELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top cellphone maker Nokia plans to tap the surging market for connecting laptops to wireless networks taking on market leader Huawei Technologies, its...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:54 am Nokia takes on Huawei in connecting laptops
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 Discover Magazine | Does Obama Want to Ground NASA's Next Moon Mission? TIME - By Jeffrey Kluger Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008 Getting into a shouting match with the HR rep is not exactly the best way to land a job. NASA Chief Denies Rift With Transition Team NASA transition sparks sharp talk |
With the explosion of educational resources available online, one might think parents would be 100% pleased with the internet’s role in their children’s lives. But surveys show just the opposite: a late 2006 survey that showed 59% of parents think the internet has been a totally positive influence in their children’s lives-- down from 67% in 2004.FCC Commissioner Terms WoW a Leading Cause of College DropoutsYou might find it alarming that one of the top reasons for college drop-outs in the U.S. is online gaming addiction - such as World of Warcraft - which is played by 11 million individuals worldwide.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 eFluxMedia | Rule Eases a Mandate Under a Law on Wildlife New York Times - By FELICITY BARRINGER The Interior Department on Thursday announced a rule that has largely freed federal agencies from their obligation to consult independent wildlife biologists before they build dams or highways or permit construction of ... Administration Loosens Species Protections Major changes to Endangered Species Act |
The pink slips were passed out on Thursday throughout the various business duchies that make up CBS Interactive—CNET, CBS.com, CBSNews,com, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, last.fm, and CHOW. While CBS confirmed to me and other reporters that layoffs did happen across the board, it refused to talk about how many total people are losing their jobs. That left us scrambling about gathering piecemeal information. There were about 20 layoffs at Last.fm; 8 editors, we hear, at CBSNews.com are out of a job; another set of “redundancies” were eliminated at CBSSports.com.
But how big exactly were the layoffs, especially at Cnet, where most of the employees reside? CBS, which is at heart a news organization, doesn’t want the public to know how many layoffs just occurred at CBS Interactive. As of this writing, Cnet didn’t even report the fact that there were layoffs on Thursday. Neither did CBSNews.com. And it’s not because they didn’t get the memo (from CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith, reprinted below).
One rumor going around, which I heard as well, was that there were 20 percent cuts in all business units (which was in line with the cuts at Last.fm). But that percentage turns out to be a bit high. According to a source inside Cnet, the buzz is that the total number of employees asked to leave today was “275-ish.” A CBS spokesperson wouldn’t confirm that number. So take it as a rough estimate.
Don’t expect a press release or even a footnote in CBS Corporation’s SEC filings either. CBS as a whole employed nearly 24,000 people at the end of 2007 (the last figure I can find), so 275 is barley one percent. That is not material, and thus the company is not required to report it. But for CBS Interactive, it is material—about 10 percent or higher.
Here’s how I get at that figure. The vast majority of employees are at Cnet, which if you look at the last 10K it filed with the SEC, lists 2,700 employees at the end of 2007. There was at least one round of layoffs at Cnet in March, 2008, which reduced headcount by 120. And a CBS Interactive spokesperson told me today that before Cnet was acquired in July, 2008, it had 2,000 to 2,500 employees. But that was more a guesstimate than a hard number. Figure some more attrition, then give or take a few hundred employees at the other CBS properties, and that puts the total employee count back somewhere between 2,300 and 2,700. Sticking with the 275 layoffs, that represents between 10 and 12 percent.
We’ve updated our Layoff Tracker with this estimate.
Below is the memo Quincy Smith sent on Thursday afternoon to all CBS Interactive employees, delivering the layoff news in the vaguest terms as part of a progress report. Basically, everywhere he is combining business units (in sports, games, music, lifestyle, entertainment, news, marketing, and biz dev), people are losing jobs.
From: Quincy and Neil
Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:33:25 -0800
Subject: CBS Interactive UpdateTeam,
As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.
Progress
CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.
Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.
Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.
Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.
Organizational Promotions and Changes
As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.
Sports, Games and Music
We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.
Entertainment & Lifestyle
We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.
Technology & News
Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.
CBS Interactive Marketing
We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.
CBS Interactive Business Development
We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.
Market Conditions
As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.
CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.
Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.
Best,
-q, NA
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
As Eric Reynold of Fantagraphics says: "First Dave Stevens, then Forrest J. Ackerman, and now Bettie Page. 2008 has been a brutal year for some of the icons of my Southern California adolescence."
 Globe and Mail | PlayStation users can enter virtual world United Press International - NEW YORK, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Sony launched its PlayStation Home Beta service Thursday for the PlayStation 3 in the United States. The service allows PlayStation users to create avatars and interact with others in a virtual world. Sony launches PlayStation virtual world for gamers Playstation Home open beta now live |
Online Rebel Publishes Millions of Dollars in U.S. Court Records for Free (Image: Carl Malamud, by Joi Ito, under a CC Attribution license
If you want to search federal court documents, it's not a problem. Just apply online for an account, and the government will issue you a user name and password.Through the postal service.
And once you log in, the government's courthouse search engine known as Public Access to Court Electronic Records or PACER, will charge you 8 cents a page to read documents that are in the public domain — a fee that earned the federal judiciary $50 million in profits in 2006.
With its high cost and limited functionality, critics call the system an absurdity in the era of Google, blogs and Wikipedia, where information is free and bandwidth, disk space and processing power are nearly so.
"The PACER system is the most broken part of our federal legal mechanism," says Carl Malamud, who runs the nonprofit open-government group Public.Resource.Org ."They have a mainframe mentality."
Now Malamud is doing something about it. He's asking lawyers to donate their PACER documents one by one, which he then classifies and bundles into ZIP files published for free at his organization's website. The one-year-old effort has garnered him 20 percent of all the files on PACER, including all decisions from federal appeals courts over the last 50 years.
Disabled boy can keep his pony, Caledon rules (Thanks, Alex and Christine!)
Caledon councillor Annette Groves told the Post that the boy should be allowed to keep the therapy pony.“While you have to enforce the rules, there are times when you have to use discretion and have to remember that you’re a human being and have to have some compassion,” she said.
“That would be the case in the case.”
Who at Apple has been set up to vet material? Specifically, why was Murderdrome vetted as an application and not as a publication? Apple has a Books category in the App Store. That’s where Murderdrome should have been placed.Apple Forfeits eBooks By Banning A Comic Book! (Thanks, Reid!)
 Globe and Mail | Critical Report on Health of Zoo Elephants Is Debated New York Times - By CORNELIA DEAN Living in a zoo drastically shortens the lives of Asian and African elephants, possibly because of the effects of stress and obesity, researchers are reporting. Elephants' lives much shorter in zoos, study finds Zoo life is killing elephants: study |
Here, the MPAA is advocating for a number of things, the most problematic of which is a "three strikes" internet termination policy. This would require ISPs to terminate customers' internet accounts upon a rights-holder's repeat allegation of copyright ingfringement. This could be done potentially without any due process or judicial review. A three-strikes policy was recently adopted by legislation in France, where all ISPs are now banned from providing blacklisted citizens with internet access for up to one year.MPAA Asks Obama for More Copyright Surveillance of the InternetBecause three-strikes policies do not guarantee due process or judicial oversight of whether the accusations of copyright infringement are valid, they effectively grant the content industry the ability to exile any individual they want from the internet. Lest we forget, there is a history of innocents getting caught up in these anti-piracy dragnets. (Copyfighter Cory Doctorow has wondered what would happen if the MPAA's erroneous notices were subject to a similar three-strikes law.)
Thankfully, members of the European Parliament vehemently rejected these measures, resolving that "The cut of Internet access is a disproportionate measure regarding the objectives. It is a sanction with powerful effects, which could have profound repercussions in a society where access to the Internet is an imperative right for social inclusion." Let's hope the US government's decisions on this are as wise.
A woman's clothing company in Hollola, Finland, is embedding RFID tags all over its stores. They're sewn into the clothes, placed on the shelves, and laced in the screens of the dressing rooms.
But the company's CEO says it has very little to do with any control-freak Big Brother paranoid tendency the company might have. He says it was done to improve the customer service of the stores and that only four months after implementing the tags, they're already working.
"The main benefit for us will be the new shop and service concepts," says Naisten Pukutehdas CEO, Risto Rosendahl. "We believe that better customer service [through RFID], as well as lower cost, will be very important for our business."
Using an RFID retail system developed by Senso Solutions, NP's fitting rooms have touch-screen displays on the wall that bring up the item you have in your hand upon entering the room. Wireless sensors pick up the RFID from the moment a garment is removed from its shelf.
As you're trying things on, recommended items that match it come up on the screen, with color and availability information. If you're into one of the suggested clothes and select them, within seconds, a clerk will show up at your room with the item. This is possible due to the Nokia N800 Internet tablets that clerks carry around the store and that also receive the tracking info.
It would be great if someone tested this system by continually choosing items for ten straight minutes and someone just kept coming by with them.
Just like other retail companies, NP is also using RFID to identify inventory needs and for supply chain tracking.
If it turns out the UK Government are unwilling to reject the Directive, then it will be up to the European Parliament to see sense and vote it out when they come to consider it (likely next February). Which means it’s all the more important to write to your MEP if you object to the proposal to extend copyright term.Screw the evidence, says Burnham, let’s extend copyright term anyway, Write to your MP/MEP (Thanks, Glyn!)
Best Buy announced today that they are going to start selling Smartphone software applications from their in-store “Mobile Genie” system. They also announced that Handango’s In-Hand client will be custom branded for Best Buy, and automatically downloaded into each device so customers can continue to purchase apps with Handango and Best Buy after they leave the store.
In addition, some Best Buy outlets will be selling “Mobile App Packs” featuring games pre-loaded onto Micro SD cards, eliminating the need for over the air downloads.
Ok, wait a second.
First off, you’ll get the pleasure of having your phone pre-loaded with an app that guarantees that Best Buy will get paid whenever you buy an application from Handango. My guess is that those “special” apps will also include a “special” price that will make sure no one is losing money. As far as having applications preloaded onto SD cards, I really don’t see the point. I mean, didn’t you buy a smartphone to enable yourself to download applications from anywhere in the world?
Sounds like a pointless partnership aimed at fleecing the stupid or uninformed to me.
[via cellular-news]
FROM APPLETELL - Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid is a TV tuner for a Mac. With it, you can watch and record live TV, making it the perfect gift for just about any Mac user. MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Can the Wii juggernaught be stopped? It doesn’t look like it. Wii sales are consistently high and even though they’re shipping them as fast as they can make them, there may be shortages this holiday season for the third year in a row.
With more than two million Wiis sold just last month, equating to a profit of about infinity dollars, rumors are circulating that every Nintendo employee is being cast in gold for a penthouse statuary in Dubai. What can I say? They deserve it.
Here’s what they had to say for themselves:
Wii and Nintendo DS Set Historic New U.S. Sales Records
REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–With more than 3.6 million combined systems sold in November, Wii™ and Nintendo DS™ set new hardware sales records, according to the independent NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States. The Wii console sold more than 2 million in November, a new all-time record for a non-December month. The Nintendo DS system sold more than 1.56 million in November, which is now the second-highest total for a non-December month in history. The Wii console has sold 15.4 million in the United States since it launched in November 2006, and Nintendo DS has sold nearly 24.6 million in the United States since it launched in November 2004.
“Nintendo’s record-breaking sales demonstrate that consumers are looking for the best value not only among video games, but also among all entertainment options,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Shoppers are looking for gifts that can be enjoyed by the whole family, and Nintendo provides an incomparable range of experiences that gets the whole family involved.”
Four games made for Nintendo systems placed in the top 10 U.S. best-sellers for November, representing the diversity of people who play Nintendo games. These included Wii Play™ (for casual and lapsed players) at No. 3 with more than 796,000 sold, Wii Fit™ (for new gamers) at No. 4 with more than 697,000 sold, Mario Kart™ Wii (for both core and casual payers) at No. 5 with nearly 637,000 sold and Wii Music™ (for everyone) placed at No. 9 with more than 297,000 sold, following its long-tail trend.
Looking at the industry as a whole, Nintendo products continue to fuel the engine of the video game industry. In November alone, Nintendo represented 198 percent of industry growth over 2007. Nintendo systems represented 66 percent of all hardware sales in November, including 59 percent of all console sales and 79 percent of all portable hardware sales.
I’m just surprised Wii Music sold almost 300,000 units. That game looked like a real dog.
If you want to search federal court documents, it's not a problem. Just apply online for an account, and the government will issue you a user name and password.
Through the postal service.
And once you log in, the government's courthouse search engine known as Public Access to Court Electronic Records or PACER, will charge you 8 cents a page to read documents that are in the public domain — a fee that earned the federal judiciary $50 million in profits in 2006.
With its high cost and limited functionality, critics call the system an absurdity in the era of Google, blogs and Wikipedia, where information is free and bandwidth, disk space and processing power are nearly so.
"The PACER system is the most broken part of our federal legal mechanism," says Carl Malamud, who runs the nonprofit open-government group Public.Resource.Org ."They have a mainframe mentality."
Now Malamud is doing something about it. He's asking lawyers to donate their PACER documents one by one, which he then classifies and bundles into ZIP files published for free at his organization's website. The one-year-old effort has garnered him 20 percent of all the files on PACER, including all decisions from federal appeals courts over the last 50 years.
The project is important, he says, because court filings are a part of the fabric of a democracy, and should be freely available to average citizens. "We are going after all primary legal materials in the U.S.," Malamud says. "That's part of America's OS, and we think it should be open source." [Disclosure: Wired.com nurtures a hefty PACER bill].
Malamud is a man accustomed to finding ways to provide free and easy online access to government documents.
Back in 1995, the Securities and Exchange Committee decided to put corporate filings online only after Malamud essentially shamed them into doing so. For two years he operated a free site that published the filings, then abruptly pulled the plug and directed angry users to the SEC.
He's since won battles freeing the nation's catalog of copyrights, Oregon's book of state laws, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark database. Now, he's after congressional-hearing videos, expensive but copyright-free building codes, and the Code of Federal Regulations, in addition to all the court filings in the PACER database.
While Malamud's budget is only about $1 million annually, he has a matching grant from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar's philanthropy group and help from influential tech friends like Tim O'Reilly, Paul Vixie and Larry Lessig.
Malamud dreams of a day PACER's legal documents are free, so that academics and entrepreneurs can create custom search engines and new tools to make the information available to American citizens.
But that's what PACER does now, counters U.S. Courts spokesman Richard Carelli.
"PACER is the greatest technological achievement in the court system in the last 20 years," Carelli says.
The search system has already revolutionized access to court records, Carelli submits, by preventing time-consuming trips to federal courthouses and undercutting photocopy fees. PACER is also experimenting with making digital audio recordings of cases available online, and — at least during the pilot — a copy of an audio file costs just 8 cents, regardless of length.
What's more, PACER already gives its 900,000 users free access to judicial opinions, and citizens don't have to pay if they look at less than $10 worth of filings a year, Carelli says.
Indeed, PACER is both revolutionary and cheap when compared to the state and local courts that have no electronic records at all, or charge $5 just to run a record search, even if it comes up empty, as in the case of Los Angeles Superior Court.
But PACER's interface feels like something designed for the Department of Motor Vehicles, and the system lacks any way to search the text of legal documents. Interested in finding all cases alleging music piracy, or in discovering how often Steve Jobs is mentioned in a court filing? Want to be e-mailed when there's a new filing comes in a specific case? How about an RSS feed of a certain court's decisions? You'll find no help from PACER.
Who wants information like that? Tim Stanley, the CEO of Justia.com, for one.
After Stanley sold his legal-information company Findlaw to one of the nations' top legal-publishing concerns, West Publishing, he started a profitable web-design house for law firms. He uses the revenue to give away legal documents through the legal search engine Justia.com.
"West makes billions of dollars selling stuff we want to give away for free," Stanley boasts.
Justia now lets academics and journalists follow cases of interest for free, and publishes some case files online for everyone to see. His company purchased and digitized all the Supreme Court decisions, put up the first free search engine for them, and donated them to PublicResource.org.
Now Justia's working with Cornell University to throw some Web 2.0 tools into the mix, including wiki pages for decisions, automated tracking of citations to decisions, and tools to track what briefs a particular attorney has written.
Other efforts include AltLaw.org, a free legal search engine created by law professors Tim Wu and Paul Ohm, and Ed Walter's comprehensive Public Library of Law, which covers state courts as well.
Some issues have surfaced as old court files migrate online and then get spidered by Google and other search engines. Malamud says he's been contacted by people shocked to find an old lawsuit in which they were named suddenly popping up in search results on their names; he's currently blocking search engines from indexing his PACER files through robots.txt. Malamud says that there are also massive privacy violations lurking inside some court filings, since clerks, judges and lawyers aren't adhering to rules about what can and can't be in legal filings.
Public.Resource.org used some primitive software tools to search for social security numbers in court filings from 32 district courts. The results: 1,700 confirmed documents, including one from a Massachusetts court that had a 54-page list of the names, medical problems, Social Security numbers and birth dates of 353 patients.
The fix for these glitches is more sunshine, Malamud argues, not less.
"Public interest groups and the public in general, when given access to these public records, are able to provide the kind of feedback that leads to the correction of these privacy issues," Malamud recently told administrators at U.S. courts. "If we want to be serious about personal privacy, we can only do so if we are also serious about public access."
But the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has already experimented with making PACER free to the public, and it found the concept lacking.
In 2007, the office launched a trial at 16 libraries around the country that allowed unlimited free access from library computers. The trial was suspended last September, after Malamud encouraged volunteers to visit the libraries and download large numbers of cases to USB drives and donate them to the commons.
Carelli won't say why the trial was suspended, or if Malamud's "Thumb-Drive Corps" was a factor in the decision. Malamud won't discuss it either, but noted in a letter to the courts last October that the abortive trial "was run with no written or oral guidelines on appropriate use."
Malamud says he's looking forward to the day he doesn't have to game the system. "If I had $10 million, I'd make a copy of all the documents and be done."
Hip hop mixtapes used to be a street thing—cassettes and (later) CDs crudely dubbed by local DJs and MCs to be passed around as a grassroots promo tool. But between the RIAA crackdown and the bandwidth explosion, up-and-coming artists began migrating to the Web, harnessing blogs, zip files, and free file-sharing services like Megaupload to find fans and launch careers well before their actual albums come out. "Mixtapes create a product for people to wrap their heads around," says Nick Catchdubs, cofounder of the DJ-run record label Fool's Gold. "An artist could release a million individual MP3s to the Internet, but a solid mixtape makes way more of a statement." Here's a look at the new school of mixtape maestros — and their upcoming releases.
Listen: Nick Catchdubs' Wired Mix
Artist Wale
Mixtape The Mixtape About Nothing
What's Fresh This Washington, DC, rapper's joint, mixed by Catchdubs, is built entirely around Seinfeld dialog. Wale had already scored fans with his previous mixtape, 100 Miles and Running, but this festivus of Easter egg rhymes advances the genre. Even Jerry loves Wale (not that there's anything wrong with that).
What's Next Debut album slated for March.
Artist Kid Cudi
Mixtape A Kid Named Cudi
What's Fresh If Pink Floyd were a hip hop outfit, they'd probably sound a lot like this. Produced by Emile and Kanye collaborator Plain Pat, this mix lays raps over heavy bass and even heavier guitars.
What's Next Debut set for spring/summer.
Artist 88-Keys
Mixtape Adam's Case Files
What's Fresh Fans of 88-Keys, who forged his reputation as a producer for the likes of the Pharcyde and Mos Def, had been waiting years for the November release of his debut, The Death of Adam. To tide them over, 88-Keys released this mixtape of teaser tracks, along with a series of buzz-building viral videos.
What's Next US tour launches in spring.
Artist Hollywood Holt
Mixtape Holt Goes to Hollywood
What's Fresh Hollywood Holt is actually from Chicago, but the MC has enough swagger to put LA to shame. Luckily, Holt's steez is of the geek variety. This tape features drops from a Stephen Hawking impersonator, plus the moped gearhead anthem "Throw a Kit" — bolted over the beat for Rich Boy's "Throw Some D's."
What's Next Debut planned for 2009.
Artist Izza Kizza
Mixtape Kizzaland
What's Fresh A recent addition to Timbaland's Mosley Music Group label, Izza Kizza got his tape mixed by Catchdubs, featuring classic Timbo beats and a drop from Missy Elliott.
What's Next His first album hits the streets in spring.
Dec. 12: Inventor Guglielmo Marconi amazes a London assemblage in 1896 with a demonstration of wireless communication across a room. Five years later to the date, Marconi sends the first signal across an ocean.
Marconi was the son of an Italian country gentleman and Irish whiskey heiress Anne Jameson. He took an early interest in physics, especially electricity. His neighbor in Bologna, physics professor Augusto Righi, encouraged Marconi to study the work of Heinrich Hertz.
In the attic of his villa, Marconi replicated Hertz's experiments on "Hertzian waves," detecting sparks in one circuit with another circuit a few meters away. By 1895 the young man extended the range to 2 kilometers.
Marconi tried to interest the Italian Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs in transmitting messages without wires, but the burocrati weren't buying. In England, however, a maternal cousin introduced Marconi to William Henry Preece, engineer-in-chief of the British post office.
Preece had studied as a graduate student under Michael Faraday and was working with his own wireless devices as early as 1892. He arranged for a demonstration of Marconi's advanced apparatus at Toynbee Hall, a center of social reform in East London.
The post-office engineer advertised the event and invited the press. Press is the operative word, because there were obviously no electronic media yet.
Marconi tapped a telegraph key in one part of the room, and Preece walked around with a receiver box. Every time Marconi hit the key, a bell rang. Look, Ma: no wires!
Tickle me, Guglielmo. The crowd was impressed. Marconi was 22 years old.
Marconi received the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. He founded what would become the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1897 and opened the world's first radio factory at Chelmsford, England, in 1898.
The young inventor kept working on improvements. He sent radio signals a distance of 12 miles in 1897 and across the English Channel (21 miles) in 1899. The following year, he received the famous patent No. 7777 for "tuned or syntonic telegraphy.” The concept was fundamental: Use different frequencies to allow simultaneous transmissions without interfering with one another. The improved signal quality also increased the range of radio transmission.
Still, there was the issue of the curvature of the Earth. Many people believed that would limit radio to local use. Marconi set out to prove them wrong.
And that he did. Assistants telegraphed a prearranged signal, the letter S (three clicks in Morse Code), from Poldhu in Cornwall, southwestern England, to Marconi at Signal Hill, St. John’s, Newfoundland, at 4:30 a.m. GMT on Dec. 12, 1901. (An attempt the previous night had failed when a windstorm knocked down the antenna, which was held aloft by a balloon.)
By sending a signal more than 2,100 miles across the Atlantic, Marconi convincingly demonstrated the practicality of worldwide wireless communication. And in 1909, he shared the Nobel Prize for physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun of Germany, whose modifications to Marconi's transmitters made them strong enough to be practical.
Marconi predicted the advent of radar in a lecture to the American Institute of Radio Engineers in 1922. His own research progressed from short-wave radio to microwaves, and in 1932 he opened the world's first microwave radiotelephone link. It connected Vatican City with the pope's summer palace at Castel Gandolfo.
Marconi actively supported and then served in Benito Mussolini's Fascist government of Italy. Mussolini rewarded him in 1929 with the noble title of marchese, and when Marconi died in 1937, Mussolini gave him a state funeral.
Source: Various
Dihydrogenated tallow dimethyl ammonium chloride
A derivative of rendered fat from cattle, sheep, and horses. Just boil it down and mix with ammonium (NH4). After a series of chemical pit stops, out comes a quaternary ammonium compound, or quat—a positive ion in which the hydrogen is replaced by long-chain organic molecules. Quats effectively coat your clothing with lipids, making the fibers soft to the touch. These fats also make fabric a bit less absorbent—don't use on towels or cloth diapers—and the positive charge neutralizes static electricity. There are a few other quats in Downy, with easily pronounceable names like 1-methyl-1-tallowamidoethyl-2 -tallowimidazolinium methylsulfate.
Calcium chloride
These water-absorbing crystals are in everything from road deicers to food additives. On a molecular level, quats tend to clump into fatty globules. CaCl draws water out of them by osmosis, keeping the goo flowing smoothly.
PEG 8000
The 8000 is this polyethylene glycol's molecular weight; in this formulation, each molecule weighs as much as a small protein. Here it's an emulsifier, keeping the fats and other liquids from separating on the shelf.
Kathon CG
Also known by the catchy moniker 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-isothiazolone. So much animal fat in one place serves as a perfect medium for microbes. Without powerful antimicrobials like isothiazolones, April Fresh would quickly turn into August Rancid.
Perfume
The sizzle that sells the steak: Research shows that scent—locked into the clothing fibers by the fatty coating—is the main reason consumers choose one detergent or fabric softener over another.
Ethanol and isopropanol
Downy is shipped year round and isn't always stored at room temperature. If the quat cocktail were to drop below freezing, it would thicken and need to be dissolved in water. Alcohols act as antifreeze to keep things from solidifying into a pitcher of lard.
Deionized water
This is added as a preservative for the various quats in the bottle. It also eliminates any ferric ions (dissolved iron) present in your laundry water, which can yellow some fabrics.
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I’m sure we’re going to be seeing a lot of extra Vaults out there in a couple weeks — Fallout fanfiction forums are, I’m sure, just flamin’ hot right now.
With any luck, they’ll make a few dungeons that are actually challenging. On normal difficulty (I know…) I ended the game with about 80 stimpacks and at least 20 mini-nukes unused. At that point, I could decapitate a super mutant brute with a single shot. Come on!
Get the G.E.C.K. here and check the modding wiki before you break your game.
I always like MIMOBOT usb drives since they’re kinda like vinyl figurines, but are actually functional. These new ones are no different. Choose from a new selection including the Pirate Nero, Fairybit and Pastaio. Make sure to check out the great deals on the site too. My personal favorite, the Boba Fett (which features a helmet cap which when removed reveals Boba’s face) is on sale for 19.98. If you can’t think of a cheap but cool gift to give this Christmas, this could be a great choice.
via eModa
FROM GAMERTELL - ThinkGeek has released its December 2008 holiday catalog and few familiar items have returned as well as some new kewl stuff including Mario & Luigi 10 in. Vinyl Figures, Tuttuki Bako Virtual Finger Game, a Mario Kart WiiMote Projection Light and more… MORE »
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Reuters - U.S. sales of video game hardware and software rose 10 percent in November from a year earlier, market researcher NPD said on Thursday, as Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.OS) reported its Wii console and DS hand-held system both set U.S. sales records in the month.
We’ve seen baby tripods before, from DIY to possibly useful to questionably safe. This Manfrotto looks pretty decent, (although it’s not technically a tripod) but I’m not sure I trust those little springs. And I’d want the feet to be bendable. For $30 it’s an okay bet but kind of chunky; a commenter mentions the Millipod, which is more compact, looks simpler, and costs $5 less.
And, as usual, you can get this awesome foldable one for $10. It wins again!
I’ll tell you. When it’s the size of a matchbook. This is the kind of mouse a spy might use — if he or she was unaquainted with the magic of trackpads.
Really, all you need to make a mouse is an optical sensor and a couple contact sensors for buttons, and they can make those on a molecular scale these days. I wouldn’t be surprised if these mousemakers (I’m guessing Vietnamese by the music) get one-upped by some puckish nanomaterials engineers who etch a functional mouse on the side of a human hair.
FROM APPLETELL - Developer Craig Hockenberry has sent a letter to Steve Jobs claiming the “ringtone app,“ or the 99 cent application, is crippling developers and their products. MORE »
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German high-end headphone manufacturer Ultrasone announced today that it has a few Edition 9 headphones left for sale in the U.S. These limited edition headphones retail for $1,799 and according to Ultrasone are “unrivaled in terms of sonic clarity and transparency.”
We’ve tried a more affordable pair from these guys and the quality is really good. So these are are made to be appreciated by true audiophiles and aren’t just one of those fancy-pants pairs that are made to match your Lambo.
Here’s the press release:
“Wildomar, Calif. - (December 11, 2008) – Ultrasone Inc., distributor for German headphone manufacturer Ultrasone AG, announces the few remaining Edition 9 headphones are available in the U.S. For high-end audio enthusiasts, the Edition 9 headphones are unrivaled in terms of sonic clarity and transparency. The last Edition 9 headphones have a MSRP of $1,799 and are available at select Ultrasone dealers and at www.ultrasone.com.
“The Edition 9s, like the Edition 7s, were among the finest headphones we have ever produced and they have been extremely well received by audiophiles,” remarked Paul Taylor, President of Ultrasone Inc. “To own one of only a handful of limited edition headphones is enticing for audio enthusiasts; I anticipate that the remaining Edition 9 headphones will be sold before the holidays.”
Edition 9
The $1,799 Edition 9 headphones utilize Ultrasone’s finest titanium plated drivers to deliver astounding sonic clarity and transparency. The Edition 9 headphones eye-catching aesthetic is due in large part to the use of the black chrome in both the ear cups and nameplates. The attention to detail in the design of the headphones is made apparent by the use of Ethiopian sheep leather in ear pads and headband pad, ensuring the listener maximum listening comfort. The headphones come in a sleek, metal attaché case for safe storage and transportation.
PartyBeans, a new startup launching today to the public, has created a WYSIWYG interface for candies that makes it easy to order personalized tins of Jelly Bellys, mints, and gum. The first 500 TechCrunch readers to check out the site can get 15% off their orders with the promo code “TECHCRUNCH”.
The site allows users to add their own logos or photos to the tops of their candy containers, along with a few lines of text. Each candy also has a few customization options - you can choose if you’d like your Jelly Bellys to come as a standard random sampling, or in a flavor or two of your choosing. The site plans to introduce more candies and options in the near future.
There are countless other custom confection sites out there (you can see a sampling of them here), but many of them have minimum order sizes and cater primarily to large events like weddings. PartyBeans is trying to appeal to more casual purchasers, who can buy as little as one item at a time (you can get a custom Jelly Belly tin for as little as $5, including shipping). In my testing the site seemed to work quite well - it took me only a few minutes to create my own jar of green and white TechCrunch Jelly Bellys, and I’ll probably be ordering a few more tins for the holidays.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Force fields aren’t just used to obstruct the TMNT, they are actually being used by scientists to improve research. A new gadget called EnviroStat (”Environment”+”Constant”) can hold individual cells in an electric force field, potentially leading to improvements in drug trials or even biofuel production. EnviroStat was developed by Andreas Schmid and his colleagues Lars Blank and Hendrik Kortmann at the Dortmund University of Technology in Germany. With this gadget, researchers will be able to evaluate the individual cell response to a single variable while other conditions are kept stable. According to Schmid, the new gadget could smooth out some of the complexities involved in cell studies of drugs. Click here to see a video of this thing in action.
[Editorial note by Devin: it's only a matter of time before the machines adapt this technology to trap their flesh-based enemies in an electrical bubble. Beware the Robocalypse!]
Today on Offworld we read new details about the latest downloadable content set to come to Fallout 3, and downloaded G.E.C.K., the officially released mod kit for the PC version of the game.
We also read about the precarious rebalancing of Street Fighter II for its Xbox 360/PS3 remake (and re-watched the most thrilling Street Fighter championship video ever recorded), and watched new footage of Thatgamecompany's serene Flower, a game that flexes every bit of the PS3's muscle purely to render fluttering petals and waves of tall grass.
We also heard about a new DS game that generates items based on wi-fi hotspots in your area, saw web game portal InstantAction go free, recapped the best moment of last night's Fünde Razor, and fiddled with theRelativity, a version of the underlying tech behind PS3/PSN game echochrome that lets you look inside the "impossible objects" made popular by M.C. Escher.
Finally, we played our two favorite indie games of the day: I Fell In Love With The Majesty Of Colors, a game from the vantage point of a lonely undersea Cthulu-esque monstrosity, and Minotaur China Shop in which a similar monster leaves the labyrinth to deal in dainty dinnerware, to expectedly disastrous results.
Image credit: Vox_efx from flickr
G.E. today announced “a new covered GE Energy Smart® compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb featuring the GE Spiral® CFL inside the glass bulb.” That’s right: it’s a CFL coil hidden discretely inside of a normal incandescent shaped bulb. According to Kathy Sterio, general manager of consumer marketing, GE Consumer & Industrial:
Some people just want an incandescent bulb profile so they can easily use it with clip-on lampshades or smaller table lamps. Other people may see it as more aesthetically pleasing than GE Spiral® CFLs in lamps or fixtures where the bulb is visible. It provides a more finished or tailored look that appeals to a lot of consumers.
You can see some videos of the new bulb at the G.E. Lighting Channel on YouTube.
CBS paid $1.8 billion for CNET last summer, and today it is dealing with the consequences: A re-org and layoffs.
CBS execs won’t release specifics on the firings and wont’t say how many people were let go altogether. So news will be coming out in piecemeal fashion for some time.
The best that I can tell, though, the cuts came throughout the company’s interactive group, from its London-based Last.FM radio service through CBS (CBS) headquarters in New York to CNET’s home base in San Francisco.
Based on the fact that CBS Interactive boss Quincy Smith flew to the West Coast to quarterback the re-org this morning–and the fact that CNET was much, much bigger than the CBS Interactive group–I’m assuming that more CNET employees were let go than anyone else.
Quincy, if I’m wrong, please let me know. And CBS Interactive/CNET employees can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com.
In the meantime, here’s the new structure of Smith’s group, via an internal memo that comes from him and Neil Ashe, his CNET counterpart:
Team,
As we come to the end of 2008, we have a lot to be proud of. CBS Interactive is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Our properties are expanding, advertisers are capitalizing on our properties and their scale, and we are positioned well to continue to grow. As we prepare for 2009 and beyond, we’d like to update you on this progress, announce some organizational changes and comment on the broader market environment and how it impacts CBS Interactive.
Progress
CBS Interactive is the 8th largest Internet network in the world. Our combined traffic is up nearly 30% since we closed the merger this summer. CNET, CBSSports.com, BNET, GameSpot, TV.com, CBS.com, last.fm, and CHOW have each had record traffic within the past three months. Our commitment to our users is paying off.
Advertisers have noticed. We have recently signed and announced deals across several of our properties with Microsoft, AT&T, Intel, Bertolli, EA, and GM. In these challenging economic times, marketers are consolidating their efforts with their best partners. Our properties, our audiences, our ideas and our insights will continue to differentiate us in the marketplace.
Finally, we have contributed to and benefited from the TV and Radio divisions of CBS. We’ve done nearly 1,500 purpose-driven promotions to our properties on Broadcast TV, Radio and local TV Stations; CHOW and GameSpot content is running on the CBS Outernet; and CNET ran a major consumer campaign in markets like New York and San Francisco through CBS Outdoor. CBS Interactive is also a key partner to CBS Television Network for major broadcast events. In just the last week, we featured complementary content for events including The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the Grammy Nominations and the SEC Championship.
Moving forward, we have a lot to look forward to. Events like CES, The Grammys, and March Madness on Demand are all just around the corner. Each represent huge cross-platform opportunities where CBS Interactive will again help complete the experience with coverage on air, online, and on mobile for our audiences.
Organizational Promotions and Changes
As we enter 2009, we are making some changes to our organizational structure to capitalize on audience and advertiser overlaps. We are also making some changes to key functions so that we can realize the benefits of our position in the marketplace. These changes mark another significant milestone in our integration, as we fine-tune our organization to best take advantage of the power of our entire network.
Sports, Games and Music
We are combining our Sports, Games and Music properties into a single group led by Steve Snyder. Steve has tremendous product and leadership experience and an enthusiasm for each of these categories. In addition, Tom Jones will be moving over from CNET to head-up the sales efforts for this group. Within the group, our talented senior leaders including Jason Kint, Rich Calacci, Jaci Hays, Kevin Menard, Felix Miller, Doug Schmidt and others will report to Steve and to Tom.
Entertainment & Lifestyle
We are also moving our Lifestyle properties, CHOW and UrbanBaby, to the Entertainment group (TV.com, CBS.com, The CBS Audience Network and TheInsider.com) to capitalize on the similarities in audience and advertisers. This group will continue to be led by Anthony Soohoo with sales led by Ken Lagana. We’re excited to see the innovation that will come from this group in 2009.
Technology & News
Under the continued leadership of Joe Gillespie, our Technology & News division will bring CBSNews.com and CNET News.com into a single CBS Interactive News Group. Each site will maintain its own brand identity, while benefiting from shared resources in design, product and engineering to deliver deeper and more comprehensive coverage of major stories and events. Led by Mark Larkin, with Dan Farber as Editor-in-Chief, CBS News.com and CNET News.com will also have the opportunity to share content and collaborate on stories for the benefit of their unique audiences.
CBS Interactive Marketing
We are bringing together our key marketing functions into a new group called CBS Interactive Marketing led by Mickey Wilson. The group brings together expertise from across the organization so that we can capitalize on our biggest opportunities, and elevate the company to be a strategic marketing partner whose products, consumer insights, and ad innovations are critical to our clients’ long-term success. They will establish the company as the standard for premium content online, and define and evolve brand strategies to capture the biggest opportunities for audience and revenue growth through market planning, insights and execution.
CBS Interactive Business Development
We are also bringing together all of our business development activities. This group will be led by Mike Marquez. Mike and his team will be responsible for the development of all new partnerships, investments, and acquisitions. They will be charged with taking advantage of knowledge sharing across the whole company to ensure that we are the strategic partner of choice for the industry.
Market Conditions
As you know the general economic environment continues to be a challenge. We have always been very aggressive about managing our costs, and that requirement is even more critical now than it has ever been. We believe this new, more efficient organizational structure will produce better results for CBS Interactive, and also result in lower operating costs. It is always very difficult to make these kinds of reductions, but they come after a thorough review of how we are organized and how we operate, and what best serves our many users, advertisers and employees.
CBS Interactive is a special place because of you, and we thank each of you for what you have done, are doing, and will do to exceed the expectations of the tens of millions of people who come to our properties every day.
Today, we sit in a great position. People seek out our brands because we provide them with the information and entertainment they want and need, and marketers seek us out because of the powerful audiences we attract. We are positioned to grow in 2009 and beyond.
Best,
-q, NA
Short Version: The EOS wireless audio system is dead simple to set up and use, although a high price tag and so-so sound quality might keep some people away.
Overview and Features:
Pros:
Setting up the EOS system couldn’t have been easier — if you can plug things into wall outlets, you’re 95% there. The speakers are designed to either plug directly into an outlet and “float” or you can detach the AC adapter from the back of the speaker if you want to move it away from the wall to, say, a bookshelf or countertop. I had everything set up and playing in about five minutes. It’s super easy.
Wireless audio transmission was absolutely interference-free, which is refreshing for a wireless system. The EOS speakers sounded pretty good, although it was still somewhat obvious that they were wireless. You’d probably be able to fool regular folk, though, as each speaker features both a left and right channel and a subwoofer, which is far more ambitious than most wireless speakers setups.
Cons:
First and foremost, the EOS system is a bit pricey. The kit I tested consisted of the core system – which consists of the base station and one speaker – plus three add-on speakers. Total out of pocket cost for that setup would be $249.99 plus $129.99 per extra speaker ($389.97), for a grand total of $639.96.
Granted, you can just buy the base system and add speakers as you go, but keep in mind that the system only supports up to four total wireless speakers, so you’d be somewhat limited in your coverage if you have a big house.
And the sound quality, while free of interference, is still a bit tinny on the high end and songs with deep bass end up sounding pretty muddy. I ended up testing some bass-heavy songs with an iPod Touch, with the EOS plugged into my computer, and with the EOS plugged into a SanDisk Sansa Clip and the speakers bottomed out and distorted with each device when trying to handle songs with low, low bass.
Recommendation:
If you’re not put off by the price tag and you’ll be listening to relatively tame music at moderate levels (or podcasts and other voice-only stuff), then the ease of use as far as setup and functionality are concerned make the EOS system worth a closer look.
Product Page [EosWireless.com]
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FROM GAMERTELL - Gamertell takes a stroll through Sony’s new PlayStation Home, snapping a few touristy photos along the way…MORE »
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Stephen Fry reviews the new BlackBerry Storm and Bold, plus the Google Android G1, with a dash of context based on the iPhone and its strengths.The G1 is a little narrower than an iPhone and has an attractively light, semi-matt, almost rubberised texture to its back and a glossy enamelled lustre to its front that I happen to like. I am assured by a friend that ‘coffee bean’ would be a good description of the colour of the one I bought, a kind of dark army brown/grey, officially designated ‘bronze’. ‘Metallic mocha’ is also suggested by this colour literate acquaintance. Black and now white are also available and I must say it does my heart good to see a phone that isn’t trying too hard to imitate the iPhone in its exterior lineaments. When I saw pictures on the web I thought, as did many, that the ugly stick had given the G1 a damned good thrashing, but in the hand and up close it’s much better than I expected. It has a gentle, somehow retro form factor that I find comfortable and appealing without eliciting screams of desire. The bronze version reminds me of GPO brown from the days before BT: trimphones could come in that colour and also had those simultaneously square yet rounded corners. The lower section of the front, which carries five buttons and a trackball is tilted forward and up in such a way as to have earned the soubriquet ‘the chin’. Otherwise standard volume rockers, an angled camera lens and a camera button in the usual place complete the outward appearance, in the closed position at least. Yes, ‘closed position’, for this is a slidey-open phone which reveals a full qwerty keyboard when the top half of the sandwich is prised away from the bottom. More on that later. The hard buttons, incidentally, are Menu (context specific), Green Phone, Home, Back and Red Phone. Pretty basic and all one could need. I am pleased by the addition of a trackball. Apple’s purity can sometimes get in the way of convenience and I like thumbing balls. Hang on … look … stop it at once …. you know perfectly well what I mean.This is a short blockquote, percentage-wise.
Gee, One Bold Storm coming up…. [StephenFry.com]
With Qik, Kyte, and FlixWagon all battling for their share of the live mobile broadcasting market, is there room for another contender? Ustream.tv seems to think so. We’ve just received word (and even better, video) of a Ustream.tv mobile client already in the works.
While details are still somewhat sparse, we’re hearing that Ustream.tv’s got at least one trick up their sleeve to make their offering stand out: drastically shorter delays in getting your live content onto viewer’s screens.
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(Clarification Update on the video: The above video was sent in to us - not produced by us. While the source indicates that the devices were both running on 3G, there’s no way for us to positively verify that one wasn’t running WiFi while the other ran on 3G or EDGE.)
With Qik, Kyte, and FlixWagon all battling for their share of the live mobile broadcasting market, is there room for another contender? Ustream.tv seems to think so. We’ve just received word (and even better, video) of a Ustream.tv mobile client already in the works.
While details are still somewhat sparse, we’re hearing that Ustream.tv’s got at least one trick up their sleeve to make their offering stand out: drastically shorter delays in getting your live content onto viewer’s screens.
Currently, competing products in the mobile live streaming market have a delay often reaching times between 30 seconds and a full minute. According to our sources (and as confirmed in the video), Ustream.tv’s solution manages to take the delay down to just a few seconds (6 seconds in the video) when transmitting over a 3G network. It’s not 1:1, but it’s about as close as you get when dealing with the latency of modern wireless data networks.
While no one’s really looking to share the secrets of their methods, we’re being told that Ustream.tv has shifted a good amount of the video transcoding process to the hardware, presumably for maximizing bandwidth and better utilizing free processor time on the handset. That said, we do wonder what the spec requirements for Ustream.tv’s client will be; the video above shows it running on an N95, which totes a 330Mhz processor. While that’s not the utmost top of the line anymore, it’s not exactly entry-level, either.
We’ll dig as deep as we can on this and update as details come in.
Update: A few more details on the application not shown in the video:
[Thanks for the tip, Captain3]
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
More layoffs today at DivX, the publicly traded video codec supplier that recently sued Yahoo over canceling a contract that makes up as much as 20 percent of its revenue. According to a tip that came into our Layoff Tracker, 21 people were let go. I just confirmed that until-now unannounced number with DivX investor relations. It represents just under 10 percent of the workforce in San Diego, where DivX is based (although there were some cuts globally as well).
Its stock is trading under $5, about a third of where it was a year ago.
This follows the resignation of its CTO Markus Moenig earlier this month. And some readers may remember the drama surrounding DivX’s shutdown of its video site Stage6 back in February.
Keep those layoff tips coming.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
Ariba (ARBA) shares are coming under pressure today following a cautionary note on the company this morning from JMP Securities analyst Patrick Walravens.
Walravens today repeated his Market Outperform rating on the stock, but cut his price target to $15 from $18. He also cut his EPS estimate for the September 2009 fiscal year to 61 cents from 70 cents; for FY 2010 he goes to 83 cents, from 91 cents.
“While we continue to believe that Ariba’s software solutions should fare relatively well in this macroeconomic environment, the services business may not hold up as well as we had previously believed,” he writes. Walravens notes that the company had guided to December quarter services revenue of $32 million to $34 million; roughly 40 percent of that relates to systems implementation. He notes that product upgrades are discretionary “and could easily be delayed by cautious customers.”
Read the rest of this post
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AFP - Facebook announced Thursday that Donald Graham, chairman and chief executive of The Washington Post Co., is joining the booming social networking site's board of directors next month.
After dashing the hopes of iPhone/Android fanboys and girls everywhere with last month’s news that Mobile Firefox (Fennec) would not be ported to the two popular/emerging platforms due to licensing and technological reasons, Mozilla has instead turned to the widely adopted (mostly abroad) Symbian platform.
Christian Sejersen, charged with heading up the engineering efforts for Mozilla mobile back in Oct. 2007, posted news of this new partnership on his personal blog today. He cites recent marketshare stats to support his argument in favor of this new direction:
Q3 2008 Symbian had 49.8% of the total smartphone sales (and 57% in Q2) according to Gartner compared to 11.1% for Windows Mobile and 7.2% for Linux
Symbian has committed in-house engineers to better assist Mozilla in porting Mobile Firefox to its platform. Sejersen offers an open invitation to members of the greater development community to contribute to the newly proposed project.
[via Christian Sejersen]
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Despite the growing public support for a Zune phone and the recent claims of analysts, a Microsoft insider is shooting down the rumor of a hardware release for CES 2009.
Brian Seitz, Group Manager of Zune, got in touch with Gizmodo's Brian Lam and told him "there’s no Zune phone at CES.”
This contradicts a lot of what we've been hearing for months about a possible Zune phone, but not everything.
Two days ago, we noted that Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry claimed that Microsoft would release a Zune phone and would physically resemble the hardware design of Danger's Sidekick.
A couple of months back, CNBC reported that MS was working on a phone code-named "Pink," which was the strongest evidence yet that an iPhone-rival was in the works. But according to Microsoft (and Lam), the Microsoft Pink project is more "a platform of services that could allow Zune like services to run on platforms like Windows Mobile."
This would jive with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's assertion that they were working with hardware vendors to bring about more 'complete experiences' to the phone market (still, Ballmer's original answer was vague at best). At any rate, the Zune-like software/services would give hardware makers the opportunity to ramp up the multimedia capabilities of their phones without worrying about competing against an Alpha Zune phone.
It also means that Microsoft could still have some prototypes of Pink-infused phones to announce at CES as they roll out a Pink strategy that affects their immediate future in mobile.
But like we mentioned before, the numbers facing the Redmond giant in this space don't lie. Apple is in full stride and piling up the money, and the Pink 'Zune in every phone' idea needs to be fully realized, and perhaps more importantly, individually dynamic for each phone-maker, to make it stand above the crowd in a competitive arena.
While the company's history of denials makes us wary to fully accept the no-Zune phone slam, the Pink project would be a step forward for the company and for phone users everywhere.
Photo: gizmodo
See also:
Here's a handy tip for holiday shopping: load up Wired.com's Product Reviews app on your iPhone and use it to check out our take on various products while you're cruising the gadget section of the local Mega-Lo Mart.
Wired's iPhone app brings you the entire database of Wired product reviews, in a slick, easy-to-browse format that looks just great on the iPhone, if we say so ourselves. In addition to the reviews, you get specs and photos, and you can email reviews to your friends. And it's free. The only price you'll pay is watching the occasional ad within the app.
To get more info head over to wired.com/iphone for details and a link to download the free app.
Or click on this link to get the app directly: Wired Product Reviews for the iPhone [Apple iTunes link]
Want to know more? Check out the short video below, in which I show off the app's main features. (Video running time: 2:24)
Google’s Chrome browser is officially ready for prime time. As we reported earlier this week, Google has dropped the Browser’s Beta label after a mere 14 weeks (many Google products, like Gmail, have been billed as Betas for years). The browser now claims over 10 million active users worldwide.
Since launching, Chrome has implemented a number of major bug fixes (audio and video are less glitchy), increased performance on the browser’s V8 JavaScript engine, added a bookmark manager, and introduced UI changes to make privacy settings more accessible. The company’s blog post also says that an extension platform (similar to Firefox’s add-ons) is on the way. Mac and Linux versions are still nowhere to be seen.
During our talk at LeWeb with Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Search Product and User Experience, we learned that the (relatively) quick turnaround is due to the fact that Chrome is a client software application. Many OEMs won’t touch software that is still in Beta, so Google had an incentive to conduct a thorough but finite testing Beta program. Conversely, cloud-based apps like Gmail can retain their Beta status indefinitely so long as Google feels that there are still major features that should be added.
So how has Google Chrome fared? It was clear from the get-go that this thing was fast, touting new features and enhanced stability that made it a great new entry into the browser market. Within a few days after launch the browser made up 6.23% of our traffic - a few weeks later it was up to 8.12%. Some analysts guessed that it might even be able to overtake Firefox within the next two years.
But since then that number has fallen to around 6% of our total traffic - nearly three times more than Opera, but well below Safari (9.87%), Internet Explorer (28.37%), and Firefox (52.05%). For a browser that is only a few months old this is still an impressive feat, but for Chrome to take on Internet Explorer (which is Google’s ultimate goal), Chrome’s market share needs to be showing consistent growth. TechCrunch traffic is by no means representative of the web as a whole (a recent report pegs Chrome’s overall US market share at .62% vs 81.36% for IE), but a large number of early adopters read this site and may be indicative of future trends.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
I’ve just been informed by AT&T marketing that AT&T is shipping the online purchased iPhone pre-activated. After receiving conflicting data about the activation process for the iPhone, AT&T has decided to follow suit with its other phone activation schemes and just ship it activated. You’ve already signed your life away for 2 years…
The device ships activated, but a customer must accept terms and conditions over the phone with customer care or online at att.com (which is the same process for other phones purchased online), after which he or she will simply sync the device with iTunes to use it.
So, this is legit and we are all let down there is no removable battery as the online chat rep suggested.
More as it comes.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FROM GAMERTELL - Intended to be used with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for Wii, dreamGear’s Dual Glow Sabers are WiiMote holsters that are intended to provide the illusion of wielding a lightsaber while gaming. MORE »
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Sprint Nextel Corp. wants to regain the 3 million customers it has lost this year (probably due to the iPhone) with the help of a new Android phone. It is ready to release a phone based on Google’s operating system within a year, and is hoping that a high-profile handset might help get back those lost customers. It might be too little, too late, but we’ll soon find out.
Sprint is the largest service provider supporting Android, and a release on their network will make it a larger player in the smartphone market, which is projected to double to almost 340 million units by 2012.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Though Wal-Mart has made no official announcement regarding the reportedly imminent arrival of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone on its shelves, it would seem that the big-box retailer will begin peddling the device before the year is out. If that’s the case, how many iPhones is Wal-Mart capable of selling?
The short, and obvious, answer to that question is “a hell of a lot.” In a note to clients today, Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi argues that Wal-Mart (WMT) can sell between 800,000 and 1.3 million iPhones in 2009, though the retailer’s low price mantra may appear inconsistent with the iPhone’s market positioning. And that would seem to be a reasonable estimate. After all, Wal-Mart has some 2,500 retail outlets in the states.
“The addition of Wal-Mart will roughly double the iPhone’s distribution in the US to nearly 6,000 outlets,” Sacconaghi writes. “We believe iPhone sales will benefit from the added distribution, though not proportionately; in our view, price (for both the device and service plan) is still the biggest hurdle to mass adoption…. With the iPhone already available at 3,000 Apple, AT&T (T), and Best Buy (BBY) stores, Wal-Mart likely does little to expand the device’s geographic reach. However, we believe Wal-Mart will have a greater impact on the iPhone’s demographic reach in terms of raising awareness and availability among lower-end consumers who are less likely to shop at the Apple Stores or BestBuy.”
One last point worth noting here, Sacconaghi puts little faith in rumors that Wal-Mart will offer a $99 4GB iPhone. “Could there be a cheaper iPhone at Wal-Mart,” he writes. “We think it unlikely, at least initially, but the idea is not completely unfounded. In our view, a $99 price point for the iPhone seems too low, but some modest discount is not implausible.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Communications, Email / IM, Web, Web Apps, Google
After a release, then a trip back into labs, Google is relaunching their SMS to chat services from Gmail. Users can send text messages to phone simply by entering in their phone number in the Chat window. The service originally encountered bugs and was promptly pulled from public use. Looks like they’ve remedied the problems.
Google says:
Send SMS text messages right from Gmail. You chat from your comfy computer and reach your friends on the go; they get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards.
To activate the service in Gmail, users need to go to Settings > Labs and almost to the bottom of the list, enable “SMS in Chat” (look for the dark blue bar).
Source: [Gmail]
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When Virgin Mobile acquired Helio earlier this year, they also acquired a nice big pile of $50 AmEx gift cards intended for use in Helio promotions. The downside? They expire at the end of 2008. In an effort to make sure the cards don’t go to waste and to make December just a wee bit brighter for a handful of MobileCrunch readers, they sent a pack of cards our way. We’ll be giving them out through a series of contests for the next few days, with at least one giveaway each day.
The first and second contests are already underway, but you’ve still got time to get your entries in. And the other contests? You’ll just have to keep an eye on MobileCrunch.
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By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
Friedman Billings Ramsey’s David Hilal this morning became the latest analyst to cut estimates on Oracle (ORCL) ahead of the software giant’s earnings report for the November quarter, which will be announced after the close on Dec. 18.
Oracle’s forecast for the quarter was for revenue to be up 9-12 percent, or 12-15 percent on a constant currency basis; it projected new license growth of 2-12 percent, or 5-15 percent on a constant currency basis.
Hilal thinks the company will be at the low end of guidance on a constant currency basis, and could miss on an as-reported basis.
The Z-Nano is the word's smallest optical mouse, about just as large as your fingertip. When not in use, it can be stored in your ear canal or nostril. $60.
World's Smallest Optical Mouse [Techeblog]
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Mobile
What can you expect from a $39 phone at AT&T? That is the question I asked myself when I read the release from Pantech. The result is actually a bit more than I expect, the phone is pretty feature rich and one I could see myself carrying.
The phone features: 3G, AGPS, AT&T Navigator, Bluetooth, MicroSD memory (up to 16GB!), 1.3mp camera and is packaged in a diminutive candybar form factor. In my opinion, it looks quite pro (camera is a bit small) and the features make it a worthwhile choice in AT&T’s line up.
The phone even has a few stand out features like a rubberized back-panel, a mirrored screen and a small joystick pad, presumably for on phone gaming. Of course, the standard instant messaging via AIM, Windows Live and Yahoo are there as are mobile email and mobile music programs.
This phone rolls into AT&T tomorrow for the going price of $39.
Company site: [Pantech]
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The Korea Communications Commission announced on Wednesday that it would no longer require mobile device manufacturers to include a S. Korea-only technology, Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI), in handsets after April 1, 2009.
Why is this such a big deal? Well, prior to yesterday’s announcement, the mandatory inclusion of WIPI had effectively precluded numerous non-Korean manufacturers (i.e. Apple, RIM) from offering mobiles in the highly competitive South Korean market. By lifting this rule, the Commission aims to bring more competition to the S. Korean mobile phone market which is currently dominated by hometown giants Samsung and LG, as well as expanding consumers’ choices.
[via Reuters]
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AMEE, a London based startup with an API which has the grand aim of measuring the world’s energy consumption - and therefore Carbon Footprint - has secured an undisclosed Series A financing from O’Reilly Alphatech Ventures, Union Square Ventures and UK-based Angel The Accelerator Group. AMEE’s idea is pretty simple. Act as a neutral, open source aggregation platform for energy consumption data and thus sit at the centre of a paradigm shift in the way the world thinks about energy.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
An iPhone game rated NC-17 has arrived on the App Store, and it deserves the rating but not your five bucks.
In Amateur Surgeon, developed by television network Adult Swim, gamers take on the role of Alan Probe, a "Pizzaboy/Wannabe Surgeon. Moron" (photo on the right). In the game, Alan either causes or witnesses horrible accidents that require him to put victims under the knife -- or rather, his pizza cutter, a stapler and other shady tools in his arsenal.
The game is best described as a more interactive, grotesque version of the classic boardgame Operation -- with some animations in between surgeries. To save injured victims, you tap the appropriate tool and apply it to the wound. If you miss the wound or operate too hastily (for instance, remove a shard of glass too quickly), you risk killing the patient (see photo below).
And don't get me wrong: Amateur Surgeon is a hilarious game with a quirky premise, but it gets old really fast; I can't imagine anyone wanting to play this more than two or three times before deleting the game or neglecting it forever.
Just look at the screenshots we've provided (or some clips on YouTube), have a good laugh at those and save your $5.
Download Link [iTunes]
An NC-17 rated game hits the iPhone App Store [VentureBeat]
FROM APPLETELL - Apple is busy working to ensure that its best selling product makes it all the way across the world to all suitable markets, including now South Korea. What took so long? MORE »
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Today, CBS Interactive is laying off people across several of its properties, I’ve confirmed with the company. CBS is not saying which divisions or how many people are affected. It is positioning the layoffs as part of the integration process it began six months ago when it bought CNET for $1.8 billion. But it is not just the CNET businesses that are being cut.
I’ve also confirmed that earlier today employees at social music site Last.FM were let go. CBS bought Last.fm in 2007 for $280 million. One source puts the number of layoffs at as many as 40 people, mostly from LAst.FM’s London HQ, which has a total staff of 95. A spokesperson for CBS Interactive says that number is inaccurate on the high side, but won’t provide the correct number. In any case, it is likely a small fraction of the overall number of employees being laid off across CBS Interactive. Update: CBS says the number of Last.fm layoffs is less than 20, which would put it at about 20 percent.
Last.fm never really became a big money maker from what I can gather, and all of those engineers and other staff members are not cheap. Even after a redesign last July, growth has been flat. According to comScore, Last.fm had 9.2 million global unique visitors in October, a 6 percent increase from July. Imeem is still much more popular, with 22.1 million global visitors. And in the U.S., even Pandora has a bigger audience (4.97 million uniques in November, versus 2.75 million, see chart below).
If you know which other CBS Interactive divisions are going through layoffs today or the total number of layoffs, leave us a tip and we will add it to our Layoff Tracker. Update 2: There were also layoffs at CBS Sports where, a tipster who is a former employee tells us, “the entire accounting department” was lost, as well as jobs in Database Applications and Data Warehouse .
The Last.fm staff learned about the layoffs a little more than an hour ago. Below is a screenshot from one of their friends, showing their reaction on Facebook. That first status message is in Swedish and says, “better start planning for the future.” Update 3: Matt Hillman says that his status message below was not related to the layoffs.
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More than a week after Nokia World 08, shots of two unreleased and unannounced E71 color variations that were lurking around the showroom floor have made their way out. How’d they manage to stay off the radar for so long? In the sprint of craziness that is a convention, it’s easy to dig so hard for the goods that you miss what was in your face the whole time.
First of the duo is the Red/Silver guy pictured up top. Looking for something a bit more stealth? Check out the all black variation after the jump.
[Via E71Blog, Red E71 shot via Dave Weinstein of Gizmag]
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
BlogHer, a women’s ad network/publishing network and conference organizer, is cutting the amount it pays to its blog partners by 10 percent. That’s really sort of a double cut, since the blog owners/writers in its network get paid based on the ads BlogHer can sell, and ads are already under pressure.
The only real surprise here is that the BlogHer founders–Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort Page and Jory Des Jardins–don’t blame the economy for the cuts. Rather, they say that they have to reduce payments because they’re so successful:
When BlogHer’s network was created in 2006, we began with 35 blogs, a few advertisers and a small number of staff members to sell and manage the entire network. Today, BlogHer’s network is more than 2,500 blogs strong, and we’re working with dozens of advertisers each quarter. We have had to grow our technology infrastructure and staff dramatically to keep pace with network growth. Because many of these costs are fixed, expanding our network to compete for Fortune 500 advertisers has been a major investment.”
BlogHer was founded in 2005, and has received funding from Venrock, the Rockefeller family’s VC arm, and Peacock Equity, the JV between GE’s (GE) NBC and GE Commercial Finance.
Here’s the full text of the email from the BlogHer founders to their blog partners:
December 10, 2008
Hi everyone,
This is a long letter, but an important one, so thank you for your attention during this busy time of year. We’re writing to share with you:
* One change that BlogHerAds is making to our contract terms with you, effective January 1, 2009. This change will require your agreement, and instructions will be provided on how to indicate your agreement.
* One change in our payment processes, also effective January 1, 2009
* One new benefit: A new way to receive your payments online, immediately available to all members
This letter explains what the changes are, and how they will affect you.
In the past year, BlogHer expanded and competed for more advertising dollars for your blogs. The good news is that we successfully grew our business in the worst economy in the nation’s history. However, because of the current climate, we need to make some changes so that BlogHer can continue to invest in the resources necessary to recruit the very best advertising for your blogs.
* Contract Change -Your revenue share percentage
When BlogHer’s network was created in 2006, we began with 35 blogs, a few advertisers and a small number of staff members to sell and manage the entire network. Today, BlogHer’s network is more than 2,500 blogs strong, and we’re working with dozens of advertisers each quarter. We have had to grow our technology infrastructure and staff dramatically to keep pace with network growth. Because many of these costs are fixed, expanding our network to compete for Fortune 500 advertisers has been a major investment.
Currently, you get a revenue share of 100 percent of gross advertising fees received by BlogHer. Effective January 1, 2009, we will apply your revenue share to 90 percent of gross advertising fees, thus reducing your revenue share by 10 percent. To document this change, we need to amend the first sentence of Section III.A.3 of our Agreement to read:
For the purposes of this Agreement, the term “Revenue” means the gross fees actually received by BlogHer for Advertising Impressions originating from the Advertising on Partner’s Blog, less an administrative fee equal to ten percent (10%) of the Gross Fees to cover sales commissions, costs associated with serving the advertisements, administrative third party fees, campaign referral fees and other miscellaneous administrative expenses.
Here’s what the difference will mean to individual bloggers:
Currently, on a $10 CPM, a network blogger earns $5 per 1,000 impressions if the number of impressions on the blogger’s site is equal to less than one million. With a 10% deduction from gross revenue to cover our operating costs, a network blogger will now earn 50% of $9.00, or $4.50 per 1,000 impressions. (As always, BlogHer will not take a revenue share on BlogHer house ads or on remnant inventory - 100% of that total revenue will still go directly to you.)
While we have needed to make this change for some time, we held off for as long as possible. We are acting now in order to continue aggressively pursuing new revenue for you and your sites.
What we are asking you to do now:
We have added a section to your BlogHerAds profile with a summary of this change. Please visit your BlogHerAds profile and check the box indicating that you accept these changes to your contract by December 19, 2008. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us via our help desk form.
This is an opt-in contract change, so you must indicate your acceptance of these terms. If you do not visit your profile and accept these terms, we will have to suspend ads on your site, starting January 1, 2009, until acceptance is received.
Please accept these changes now by logging into your profile at
https://www.blogherads.com/user/login and clicking the Accept Terms of Service box.
* Payment Process Change - Net 45-days payment terms for each month’s payment of your revenue share
Our contract with you currently allows us to pay your revenue share 45 days from the date we receive payment from our advertisers. We’ve actually been paying you much sooner than we receive payment! BlogHer has consistently sent payments within 30 days following the close of each month for that month’s revenue. As we have scaled in number of both bloggers and advertisers on the network, we need to extend our payment schedule to 45 days from each month’s close, rather than 30 days. This is a more realistic schedule and will allow us to continue to scale, while continuing to get your payment to you more quickly and efficiently than paying you 45 days after we receive payment.
To effect this change, there will be a one-time 45-day gap between your payment for November’s revenue and your payment for December’s revenue. Subsequent to that you will continue to receive a check every 30 days, by the 15th of each month.
Here’s how your payment schedule will look:
Your revenue share for December 2008, which would normally have been received by January 31, 2009, will now be received by February 15, 2009. Going forward, you will continue to receive a check on the 15th of each month for the calendar month prior to the immediately preceding month (as long as you’ve earned or accrued at least $25 by the end of that calendar month.)
Near-term schedule:
November 08 revenue will be paid December 30th
December 08 revenue will be paid February 15th
January 09 revenue will be paid March 15th
February 09 revenue will be paid April 15th
March 09 revenue will be paid May 15th
* New Benefit (optional) - switching from paper checks to electronic payments
Many of you have asked about receiving ad revenue shares via electronic payments. Effective January 1st, BlogHer is making it possible for all members, domestic and international, to select PayPal as a payment option. We have switched to using Mass PayPal, which has the following benefits:
* No charge to you. BlogHer covers the entire surcharge for using Mass PayPal
* Using PayPal eliminates paper checks, and any inefficiencies with the U.S. Postal Service or if you should move physical addresses
If you are interested in switching to PayPal, you may choose the PayPal option of payment, along with entering your PayPal email address, by logging into your profile and going to Your account > Edit > About You, and selecting either check or PayPal under the Payment Preference header.
This change is optional and offered as a service to our bloggers. We hope it is good news to many of you! Please let us know if you have any questions about PayPal payment of your BlogHer Network revenue share.
As 2008 comes to an end, we are thankful for our partnership with each of you and proud of the pioneering publishing network for writers that we are building together. We and the entire BlogHer team will be working very hard to make 2009 a year of continued growth.
Best,
Elisa, Jory and Lisa
It seems that Apple has loosened its iron grip on the iPhone by letting AT&T not only sell the phone online, but also allowing consumers to self-activate it at home. Crazy, I know. Previously, the phone could purchased online, but you still had to trek to a AT&T or Apple location for activation. It actually works out well for gift giving. Good luck trying to activate on Christmas Day. Our crystal ball forecasts overloaded servers on Xmas.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
If the Save Sirius coalition hopes to fulfill its eponymous mandate, it may have to do so by other than legal means. Because its lawsuit against Sirius XM (SIRI) has been dismissed. Filed in early November, the suit accused the satellite broadcaster and its leadership of severely damaging shareholder value in violation of their fiduciary duties. Among the group’s gripes against Sirius: “locking shareholders into the longest merger delay in history; preventing the corporation from seeking alternatives or potential suitors; failing to commercially introduce interoperable radios; insisting on going forward with the merger at any and all costs; and consummating the merger, issuing 300 million shares to the financiers of XM’s debt to be sold short on the open market.”
Searing claims. Unfortunately for Save Sirius and its founder Michael Hartleib, they’re far too lacking in specificity for a court to take them seriously. “The majority of Mr. Hartleib’s arguments to show the futility of making a demand on the current Sirius board are based on generalized, not specific allegations,” Judge Cormac J. Carney wrote in an order dismissing the suit. “Although the complaint identifies alleged fraud and wrongdoing committed by Defendants, it does not state how each specific Sirius director was responsible for those actions.”
Hartleib, for his part, was unfazed by the dismissal. “The case is not over at all,” he said. “We have twenty days to resubmit, and we shall.”
As of this writing SIRI was trading at $.15, nearly double its 52-week low.
Looking out for all those crazies (read: the majority of people) who don’t seem to think that dropping a few hundred greenbacks for a phone is a good idea but still want their handset do to a few cool tricks, Pantech has announced the C630 candybar.
For $30 after a 2-year contract and mail-in rebate, you’ll walk out with a bit of 3G, aGPS and AT&T Navigator, Bluetooth, a 1.3 MP shooter, and microSD support. Plus, it has “deviated number keys that glow white when depressed”. Glowing numbers, people. This is the future.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Fox News has determined that teenagers' communications with one another are often sexually suggestive.
One in 5 teenagers say they've electronically sent or posted online nude or semi-nude images of themselves, which may be fueling a more casual attitude toward sex, according to a "Sex and Tech" survey released this week by The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com.
"Tech sex" is a fantastic phrase, for sure, but credit must go to Wired's Steve Kettman.
Study: 1 in 5 Teens Engaging in Tech Sex [Fox News]
According to the USB standard, a cable should not be more than five feet long. That is, unless you are using Icron's ThinkLogical setup, ExtremeUSB. The bridging technology will allow you to use a cable which is 25 miles long.
Imagine the convenience! You could sit at home with a keyboard in your lap but your your computer could be one town over in the office, connected via CAT5, fiber or even the powerlines. Working from home is finally a possibility.
Of course, that would be quite foolish, but one of the selling points of the system is that governments can use it to run secure connections to distant cameras. For us, more modest extensions over USB's five-foot limit mean we can tuck unsightly peripherals away in hidden corners.
As you may have guessed, the ThinkLogical setup doesn't use real USB. You buy some boxes and plug them in. Each box converts the USB signal to or from a proprietary signal and sends this over the wire (or the air, or the powerline). The trick is that, to the computer and other devices, the whole thing looks like a regular USB hub. A twenty five mile long USB hub, but a hub nonetheless.
We don't have a price -- although this would be dead useful at home, the pitch is aimed squarely at the business market and you'll need to talk contracts. There is however, "ExtremeUSB On a Chip" arriving at OEMs in the first part of 2009, which means that this tech could find its way inside everyday gadgets. Wireless USB camera tethering, anyone?
Product page [Icron. Thanks, Michael!]
See Also:
As I noted earlier this week, CBS had yet to announce any cuts or restructuring after acquiring CNET this summer for $1.8 billion. That changes today, CBS (CBS) confirms in a statement:
CBS Interactive continues its integration process, which now calls for the further combination of several portions of the division into unified groups oriented around similar content. This important move allows us to better align our premium content for our audiences and our advertisers, and also results in reduction in certain areas that are now duplicated in the new organization structure. We believe these moves are necessary to continue building CBS Interactive into the most creative, most efficient, most profitable and fastest growing Internet company in the media business.”
News of the re-org was first reported by paidContent this morning. No details yet on how the restructuring will play out, though a person familiar with the situation did confirm that the company will push CNET’s News.com news site and CBS’s own CBSNews.com units closer together. Both groups have already been reporting to former CNET exec Joe Gillespie since the merger went through this summer. More details as I get them.
UPDATE: Here’s the complete re-org memo.
A note to CBS employees: Since this is one story you folks are going to have a hard time covering, feel free to pass along your tips to me. You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. If you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.
Peek, maker of the slim email-only handset of the same name, is giving away a gadget a day in the run-up to Christmas.
1. At the beginning of each day for the next 12 days we are going to announce a new must-have gadget
2. If you buy a Peek on that day you’ll be in the running to win that gadget
3. As each day goes by they’ll be an extra winner. i.e On day 1 we’ll give away one gadget to a lucky winner, on day 2 we’ll give away two of that day’s gadget to two lucky winners until the 22nd when we give away 12 gadgets to 12 lucky Peeksters!
Day one's gift is a Kindle: enter "12daysofpeekmas" during checkout to have a shot at it. Peek is just short of $100, with a $20 monthly unlimited data sub,
12 Days of Peekmas [Peek]
This is the Authentic Boardwalk Photo Booth, and it appears to be something of an expensive, anachronistic and rather pointless toy.
First, the price. The booth costs $10,000. We doubt it's aimed at the home party market, but as it lacks a coin slot, there doesn't seem to be a way to press it into service and make some of that money back. For all that cash, you do get a a sturdy box: it is constructed from powder-coated 14-gauge steel, actually making it sturdy enough to cost another $2000 for shipping (it comes straight from the factory).
So why would you buy this instead of, say, the now rather cheap looking Nikon D3X ($8000)? You wouldn't. While the booth can snap and then print four photos in just 16 seconds, it produces only small, black and white pictures. How small? 2"x2" and just 72dpi.
The internals are somewhat mysterious. The product site lists the booth as using a Polaroid-made thermal printer, but also tells us that the machine comes with two rolls of "film." That's enough for 3,200 pictures, but replacement rolls go for $500 each, or "400 sessions of four-frame photo strips". That is, incredibly, over a dollar a strip.
However you look at this, it seems to be a bad deal. Unless you can actually put a coin box on the side, in which case it looks like a really big, really crappy camera with which to rip other people off. It does, though, have one thing you won't find on any other camera: A built-in chair.
Product page [Hammacher Schlemmer via Uncrate]
With the economy in contraction and the stock market going all to hell, 2008 was not a good year for the IPO market. In fact, volumewise, it’s looking like it was one of the worst in the last 13 years. Global IPO activity has more than halved since 2007, according to Ernst & Young’s year-end Global IPO update. Through November 2008 a total of 745 IPOs worldwide raised $95.3 billion in capital. That’s sharply off from 2007, when there were 1,790 offerings, which raised some $256.9 billion.
Clearly, the so-called IPO window has been slammed shut by the capital crisis. Indeed, data from Dealogic show that 298 IPOs were postponed or withdrawn over the past 11 months–quite a few more than the 167 that met that fate in all of the 2007. And those companies that went through with their offerings didn’t fare so well. Almost 50 percent of new issues fell on their first day of trading, and aftermarket performance was poor, according to Renaissance Capital; the average new issue was down 38 percent by year-end.
“Performance of 2008 new issues in the US was abysmal by historical standards, although not surprising given the steep decline in equities,” says Renaissance. “The average first day pop was a paltry 2%, down from the more than 10% average first day return investors became accustomed to in each of the last five years. A whopping 58% of all new issues traded down in their market debut, the worst first day showing in at least a decade and almost four times the IPO market’s 10-year average.”
Little wonder, then, that the U.S. went three months without an IPO during the second half of the year–the longest dry spell since the recession of the 1970s.
When will the IPO market return? Tough to say. Renaissance says there’s a lot of pent-up demand by potential issuers to raise equity capital. But they’re not likely to test the IPO waters until the financial markets stabilize.
The elusive iPhone Copy and Paste is getting to be something of a joke, and the latest punchline comes from Pastebud, a yet-to-be released workaround which will let you move text around your iPhone.
Instead of hooking in to the iPhone's guts and working some illegal magic there, Pastebud works by combining two Javascript bookmarks (named, of course, Copy and Paste) with some online web-service jiggery-pokery. The video shows us how:
What appears to be happening is that the Copy button takes the URL of your current web page and opens it in Pastebud's site. Once there, it looks like some Ajax-y scripting allows you to highlight text. This is then copied and can be pasted into another web page.
It also looks like the standard "Mail Link to this Page" functionality is hijacked to insert the pasteboard text instead of the page's URL.
The service is apparently launching tomorrow, along with the Pastebud site (which is currently non-existent). As this is not an application, it's not going to be subject to Apple's App Store vetting processes, although we doubt even Apple would have the cojones to refuse it entry on the grounds of "duplicating functionality".
The folks behind Pasteboard do want to make some money, though. Check the video closely and you'll see an annoying pop-up at the end asking for a $5 upgrade fee.
Finally, copy and paste on the iPhone [YouTube via the Giz]
To love puzzles as I do, and yet be so bad at solving them, is a heavy burden to bear. Therefore, I'm not even going to think about getting this 360-degree, spherical horror, and instead will be content to just look it at for a couple of minutes on the Internet.
Another reason not to actually play it: It is rumored that if you solve it, a portal opens to the place where McDonald's researches childrens' play areas.
The Awesome 360 3D Maze Ball [Random Good Stuff]
$10 from Thinkgeek.
It's tempting to buy a few, then set up an aluminum sheet at an angle and actually try playing Tetris by sliding them down. As a completed line will not vanish automatically, a sense of accomplishment could be had by making the tetrominoes out of certain beverages and eating them instead.
Ice Blox [Think Geek]
Behold the ioDrive. With its passive cooling and stubby PCIe connector, it could be easily mistaken for a cheap video card. A fat bank of memory chips, however, shows what it's really about: 80 gigs of ultra-fast NAND flash memory.
The theoretical specs are breathtaking: using PCI-Express x4, it can write at up to 368 megabits/s and read at 473 megabits/s, several times faster than standard SSDs, even outstripping high-end 15K hard drives from Seagate.
With an MSRP of $3,000 and up, it's targeted at servers rather than home computers, in configurations of up to 320 gigabytes. It's 64-bit only. You can't boot to it, either, according to Chris Ram's writeup—but that's just because it's a prototype.
Exclusive look at Fusion-io ioDrive [Tweaktown via Engadget]
If it sometimes seems more comfortable to accelerate gently into a speed bump than to grind over it at 1MPH, you wouldn't be alone. Jae-yun Kim & Jong-Su Lee invented a collapsible speed bump that flattens automatically for slow drivers, taking the rough out of responsible driving.
"Encouraging drivers to retain a constant slow speed will reduce the amount of stops and starts made..." they told Chris Burns of Yanko Design. "It is hoped that this retractable speed hump would therefore have positive effects on energy consumption and pollution.”
Speed Bumps That Flatten for Slow Speeds [Yanko]
Sony's dye-sensitized solar cells will first see life as light: a desk lamp, to be precise.
The Hana-Akari fixture is made up of panels that mimick photosynthesis, storing energy in a low-cost, thin membrane that will be easy to manufacture. Commercial applications are expected to be a "potentially significant contributor" to the feasibility of renewable energy policies.
No release date was given at the demonstration, which took place at an eco-products conference in Japan this morning.
Sony, using dye-sensitized solar lighting equipment "Hana-Akari" [PC Watch]
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The beginning of what promises to be a fascinating story (and possibly a Hollywood movie) around the 
