IamTheRealMike writes "A month on from the story that BD+ had been completely broken, it appears a new generation of BD+ programs has re-secured the system. A SlySoft developer now estimates February 2009 until support is available. There's a list of unrippable movies on the SlySoft forums; currently there are 16. Meanwhile, one of the open source VM developers seems to have given up on direct emulation attacks, and is now attempting to break the RSA algorithm itself. Back in March SlySoft confidently proclaimed BD+ was finished and said the worst case scenario was 3 months work: apparently they underestimated the BD+ developers."
RobertB-DC writes "The Phoenix mission to Mars' frigid polar regions was going to be tricky from the start, with only a few weeks to perform as much science as possible. Success depended on everything working right. But one of the mission's most frustrating glitches — the stuck doors on the TEGA ovens — could have been prevented with basic quality control on Earth. Nature is reporting that bad brackets were replaced by the manufacturer... with identically bad brackets. The Planetary Society blog sums it up succinctly: 'Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.'"
It's time for our weekly summary of Web Technology news, products and trends. On the product side, we continued our Best Products 2008 series with two more lists: Best Consumer Web Apps and Best RSS/Syndication... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 1:00 pm
(TrendHunter.com) These beautiful images are the work of French and Japanese photographer Kimiko Yoshida, who over the past seven years has created a series of self-portraits in which she presents herself... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 12:59 pm
(TrendHunter.com) Londons iconic double-decker buses have almost disappeared from city streets, but industrial designer Hugh Frost wants to bring back a similar bus with a modern twist. This concept... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 12:39 pm
(TrendHunter.com) Michael Phelps, the undisputed number 1 athlete of 2008, graces the cover of the new ESPN Magazine with a pretty cool digitally manipulated photo that gave the Olympic champion a whole... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 12:19 pm
(TrendHunter.com) Typical breakthrough cancer pain episodes strike many times a day, peak within minutes and last for about a half hour. Nycomed is developing a new way to help patients gain better control... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 11:59 am
(TrendHunter.com) One of the most advanced digital photo frames available, the iGala features an 8M LCD touchscreen frame with a Linux-based operating system inside. The iGala comes complete with... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 11:39 am
(TrendHunter.com) Fashion has always been inspired by movies and vice versa. Both worlds fuse in Movie Stills, an editorial in the December 2008 issue of Vogue Italia. Peter Lindbergh puts both his... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 11:19 am
(TrendHunter.com) Why does everything in the bathroom either hang from the wall or have to be built in? Undpartner of Austria proves with the Panay, a completely self-contained one-piece bath, that were... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 10:59 am
The Dallas White Rock Marathon held tomorrow December 14, is offering e-mail and SMS updates on your favorite contestants progression throughout thre race. Gizmodo reports. While most modern marathons... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 10:52 am
A Bristol-based charity has started a text message service to help people who fear they may have meningitis. The BBC reports. The Meningitis Research Foundation is targeting the most at-risk groups, including... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 10:48 am
A couple years back, my friends Paul and James opened a pair of chocolate shops in London, Paul A Young Fine Chocolates, with one branch in the City and
the other in Islington, in Camden Passage. Paul is a self-taught chocolatier whose truffles I'd been lucky enough to sample over the years, and James is a very sharp entrepreneur, technologist and activist, so I knew that whatever they made, it would be tasty.
But I didn't count on it being this good.
In a few short years, Paul A Young chocolates have won more awards than I can count, including the Academy of Chocolate's "Best New Chocolate Shop," "Best Dark Chocolate Truffle" and "Best Filled Chocolate," and so on -- and when I dropped in this week to buy the last of my Christmas presents, I discovered that the Observer and the Financial Times had both put Paul A Young on their list of the 10 best chocolates in the world. I'm pretty well travelled, and I've enjoyed some magnificent chocolate here and there, but I'm hard pressed to find a chocolate I find myself thinking about, dreaming of, tasting the phantom of, more than Paul's.
Here are a few of my favourites from the shop. First, the drinking chocolate -- a gently heated pot of molten Valrhona chocolate guarded by several jars of fine ground spice, ranging from chilis to ginger to cardamom, cinnamon, and many others. Get a cup and season to taste, stir, drink, fall unconscious. I'm also a great fan of Paul's chewy, rich brownies, which have the texture and color of good, loamy soil and the flavour of high-cacao artisanal chocolate adulterated with such additives as stem ginger.
But my favourites have to be the truffles -- they were special treats for my wife during her pregnancy and after her delivery, they're the gifts I give to friends come from out of town, they're the treats I go for on days when nothing seems to be going right. There are the "normal" truffles (for example, the gold-medal-winning Sea Salted Caramels have a hard, glossy dark shell that shatters in your mouth, revealing a slow, decadent slurp of salty caramel, or the Kalamansi truffles, with a centre of tangy tropical citrus), and the exotics -- truffles stuffed with Marmite, stilton, and other savouries that turn out to be extremely witty and improbable taste-combinations that are inevitably delicious in a way you never expected.
What's the catch? Well, they're kind of expensive -- especially if you're used to buying an assortment of milk chocolates at the grocery store. And they're also only available in person at the shops in London -- no mail order. Paul's chocolates are made fresh daily on the premises, without any preservatives of any kind, and they just don't travel (I've successfully brought abroad them in my hand luggage, but I wouldn't try to ship them as cargo or by mail). So this is a pleasure strictly reserved for Londoners and those who visit London.
It's this last part that's kept me from mentioning them here for so long -- it seems like a cheat to tell you how goddamned fantastic this stuff is and then announce that you can't have any. But it's the end of the holiday shopping season and plenty of you live in London. If you're looking for an extraordinary gift that comes from a local small business, won't clutter up the house after it's opened, and will certainly be warmly appreciated and fondly remembered, this is my top choice.
Oh, and Paul's hiring staff -- his business is doing very well, despite the crummy economy, and I can't think of a better place to work (except for the risk to your waistline!).
Iddo Genuth writes "Since first entering the consumer market about two years ago, solid state drives (SSDs) have improved significantly. While prices remain substantially higher than conventional magnetic storage, it is predicted that in 2009 SSDs will finally make an impact on both the consumer and business markets bringing blazing fast speeds at reasonable prices for the first time — will it finally happen?" It seems likely, as Samsung began mass-producing both 128GB and 256GB SSDs this year. Intel and Micron have also posted recent breakthroughs which will help to bring the technology into the mainstream.
With so many more ex-Yahoos out there now that the most recent layoffs have taken place, BoomTown put out feelers to a range of them to ask whom they would like to run the company they no longer work for.
After all, who better than to pick a new CEO than an ex?
The response I got was swift and varied wildly, depending on which way the ex-Yahoo felt the company should go, including quite a few who thought Yahoo needed to sell itself off completely.
Some considered Yahoo (YHOO) a media and advertising company, for example, while others thought of it as a more Web-tools outfit. Still, others considered it a turnaround situation, requiring a wholly different kind of CEO.
Perhaps therein lies the problem–it is still hard to define precisely what Yahoo is and is not, even for its ex-employees.
In any case, here are some of the best suggestions:
1. The Media Mogul
“I think they need to sell to a media company,” said one ex-Yahoo, who posits the move needs to be drastic enough to truly reset Yahoo.
In this scenario, search gets sold to Microsoft (MSFT) and Yahoo’s online content is combined with media assets of a big entertainment and news conglomerate.
That would make the leader of Yahoo one of the following: Bob Iger of Disney (DIS); Rupert Murdoch/Peter Chernin of News Corp. (NWS); Jeff Zucker of General Electric (GE) unit NBC Universal; or Les Moonves of CBS (CBS).
2. The Insider
A lot of votes here for former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig and not so many for current President Sue Decker.
Why? Several ex-Yahoos mentioned a need to refocus intently on products and the need for a product-obsessed leader, but one who also knew Yahoo well and could get things moving without needing a lengthy learning curve.
“Since Dan R. left, I think there’s been a definite void (at the senior exec level) on the product/consumer expertise and advocate front,” said another ex-Yahoo.
Other execs mentioned are former Yahoos Jeff Weiner and Jeff Mallett.
But several also pointed to board member John Chapple, who is the one most insiders say they are guessing will be the next CEO, especially since he has been reaching out to Yahoos on many levels and asking questions.
3. The Microsoftie or Googler
The new top name here is obviously recently departed online ad exec Brian McAndrews, former CEO of aQuantive, whom many think would be a strong pick and would focus the company on advertising.
In addition, most of those leaving–including several technical people–all seem to agree that Yahoo needs to get out of the search business and pronto.
Said one engineer: “I hate to say this, but as good as we can be, we cannot compete in the war that is breaking out between Google and Microsoft. And it will only get uglier.”
Other names mentioned in this category include Yusuf Mehdi and Kevin Johnson of Microsoft, as well as Tim Armstrong of Google (GOOG).
4. The Fixer
While there are a lot of different opinions out there among the ex-Yahoos I spoke to, all agree that the company is in need of a sharp operator and someone who can do what it takes to turn the company around quickly.
That means someone like former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, whose name as popped up recently, or even non-techie execs known for operational skills.
“We need a decisive leader, given how slowly it takes for things to change at Yahoo, who has a real sense of urgency from the minute he or she gets the job,” said one ex-employee.
Another former exec described it as a “two-step process.” First, the turnaround CEO needs to come in and reorient, focus, and get the company going in the right direction, then a more product-oriented person can be installed under that CEO later.
5. The Holy Grail-Steve Jobs Option
I think the most interesting idea I got from all the many former Yahoos I spoke to was that Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs swoop in and buy Yahoo.
When I laughed out loud at this notion at first, the exec insisted that it was a feasible idea, given that Apple was interested in expanding it platform beyond its now popular devices.
It’s an interesting bit of wishful thinking, of course, to imagine a “great leader” to calmly guide the company back to its roots.
Interestingly, pretty much all the ex-Yahoos I talked to–as angry as some are at him for his tenure as a CEO less successful at execution and the ensuing loss of market value at Yahoo–said they did feel there was a need for Co-Founder Jerry Yang to stay around in a significant way.
“Jerry has been a really bad CEO,” said one former employee. “But he could still be an important leader at Yahoo and give the company the kind of inspiration it so desperately needs.”
Not everyone is on board with that.
“I completely disagree that Jerry should stay around. Jerry is one of the main issues at Yahoo and he and [David] Filo must go as well as most of the board,” said one former Yahoo. “There needs to be free reign for the new CEO to make changes and that won’t be possible if Jerry is still there. Jerry is a nice guy and his heart is in the right place but he has failed as both board leader and CEO and the company needs to start fresh if it is to have a chance.”
Adds the ex-Yahoo: “Steve Jobs would be great, but I think he is busy.”
A Swedish artist uses dividends from an "unethical" investment fund (money used to buy shares in an arms dealer, a tobacco company, an alcohol company, a pornography company, and a gambling company) to fund scholarships for artists. He calls the fund, "The Pål Hollender Foundation for Ethically or Aesthetically Offended Consumers of Culture."
Hollender’s foundation is itself the work of art, which is owned by the Malmö museum. Physically it consists of 13 boxes, where visitors can post their applications for a scholarship. A text on the wall outlines the foundation’s constitution. The money the scholarship holders receive is intended “to promote insight or further education among cultural consumers with respect to what is commonly thought of as respectable culture”. Applicants must sign a declaration stating that they feel or have felt offended either ethically or aesthetically by culture.
China is likely to miss an energy saving target that it has set itself for this year, state media reported Saturday, citing the nation's top economic planning agency. In the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 8:36 am
I write this from a hotel room at Newark airport in New Jersey. I’m half way home from a wonderful week in Paris at the Le Web conference where I mingled with 1,700 or so attendees. My mood: jetlagged, sated and cranky.
My week was spent in luxury. I was treated to a business class flight to Paris, a stay at one of the nicest hotels in the city, and at least three of the best meals I’ve had since the last Le Web conference in 2007. I’m still a little dazed after a five hour, fourteen course dinner last night at Restaurant Guy Savoy, my first foray into a Michelin three star restaurant, for example. A fleet of Peugeots sallied us across town. Europe is more formal than Silicon Valley, so I wore a suit each day to the conference. In all, an atypical week for me in every way (jeans, tshirt, Jet Blue and Motel 6 is how I roll on most of my trips).
Life is good in Paris.
The conference agenda was packed with excellent content. There were a few welldocumented logistical hiccups (there was effectively no Internet connectivity either day, and the venue was cold). But apart from that Le Web was a success.
As an American I found that I was treated more warmly than any time I’ve visited Europe in the last few years. Obama is on deck, and the Euros like him. America is cool again.
But Europe’s persistent background pessimism was out in full force, even at an event full of entrepreneurs. Americans dominated the stage and spoke mostly about the tremendous opportunities that arise in down markets. Engineers are much easier to hire. The press have fewer startups and stories to divide their attention. The pond certainly gets smaller, but there are far fewer people fishing, too. For most startups, this is a time to blossom.
The last session at Le Web was a live Gillmor Gang It will be posted soon but you can watch it below, care of Ustream. At about the 14 minute mark a discussion of Europe v. Silicon Valley erupts.
Conference organizer Loic Le Meur (a French entrepreneur who moved to Silicon Valley for his most recent startup Seesmic) says that Silicon Valley moves too fast, and that Europeans enjoy a good two hour lunch just to experience the joy of life.
My response, at about 17:40: the joy of life is great, but all these two hour lunches over a bottle or two of great wine and general unwillingness to do whatever it takes to compete and win is the reason why all the big public Internet companies are U.S. based. And those European startups that do manage to break through cultural and tax hurdles and find success are quickly gobbled up by those U.S. companies. Skype (acquired by eBay) and MySQL (acquired by Sun) are recent examples.
The crowd jeered but the stark reality of it all is unavoidable. And the fact that the panelists on stage, all either American or living in America, suggested that you can somehow succeed with a startup while maintaining a healthy work-life balance is unfortunate. Too many people choose to be entrepreneurs as a lifestyle, without realizing that it takes everything you have and more to win. And if you aren’t in it to win, why not just take that nice job down the street that gives you five weeks of vacation.
Two hour lunches are great. But when you have investors to answer to and employees (and their families) to provide for, something has to give. Perhaps that’s why many of Europe’s hardest charging and most successful entrepreneurs tend to move to Silicon Valley, where they are surrounded by like minded people.
The panelists would have better served the audience by urging them to help shift European culture to be more supportive of their entrepreneurs. These people need a fighting chance to survive, and just telling them what they want to hear isn’t helpful. Joie de vivre is fine once you’ve sold that startup and have a summer house in the south of France. In the meantime, get to work. Le Web needs more Europeans on stage next year, and it just may be you up there telling the world how you overcame European culture and grew a successful company.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
ruphus13 writes "HP finally begins to actively push open source in its products. From the post, 'HP has been quirky over the years when it comes to open source. It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source — especially in larger enterprises... Wednesday, it announced two new open source products, geared to small businesses and educational institutions. HP plans on including its 'Mozilla Firefox for HP Virtual Solution' on more of its business class desktop PCs (to a total of seven models between the HP Compaq dc/dx lines in the US, eight models worldwide). Come December 15th, HP will also offer Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on its HP Compaq dc5850 model. The base SLED-equipped model will cost $519, and features the usual open source suspects for the small business setting — OpenOffice, and mail clients such as Evolution.'"
bahstid writes "As the year comes to a close, it's time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times. While the global aggregated results are what one might expect, the breakdown by country is filled with 'hotmail,' 'yahoo' and 'facebook,' indicating that in 2008 your average user still hasn't quite grasped this address bar thing." This year's focus on the US presidential election and the economic crisis made for some interesting trends. It also seems that many Americans frequently checked their Facebook profile while watching American Idol and wondering who Sarah Palin was.
AP - A Washington Post reporter's blog about the six-day occupation of a shuttered Chicago factory will be turned into a book, tentavively titled "Revolt on Goose Island." Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am
Looking for a beefy gaming rig, and don't mind getting your hands a little wet? Hardcore Computer's Reactor might just be the 100-pound computational monolith for you.
Crafted from 2.5mm-thick aircraft aluminum and packed with powerful hardware, the Reactor is already a fairly striking and competitive machine. But there's a secret weapon sloshing around in that unassuming tank: four and a half gallons of cooling oil.
PC enthusiasts looking to get the most power out of their machines have often turned to overclocking — pushing key components to perform faster than the manufacturer intended. This generates quite a bit of heat, which is traditionally fought using an array of fans or a maze of tubes pumping cooling fluid to select components.
The Reactor takes the liquid-cooled principle a bit further by submerging everything into a tank of coolant. Of course, this isn't your average fish tank filled with mineral oil — take a look at the innards of this (relatively) mini-supercomputer.
Left: Behold, Hardcore Computer's Reactor. Like most gaming PCs, it's crammed with overclocked, high-performance hardware. But there's an important difference here: Every single component is submerged in a custom-designed cooling oil, called Core Coolant. Less trouble with heat means a faster, highly stable system. Dunking everything in fluid works surprisingly well, and is more efficient compared with traditional air- or water-cooling methods.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
It's packed to the gills with high-performance, server-grade hardware, including room for a pair of hot-swappable drives so you can switch HDs without ever shutting off your machine. Other goodies include integrated WiFi, up to three solid-state drives, and dual power supplies — just in case one fails in the middle of a World of Warcraft raid.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The Reactor is a fortress: You'll want to set aside some time to work your way through more than 20 fasteners and screws. Every system ships with removal tools in case you don't have some on hand. With all of that cooling fluid sloshing around in there, you'll almost be glad that getting inside it is a chore — we shudder to think of the mess that would result if a 4-year-old could easily pry the lid off.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Hardcore Computer's Core Coolant is a biodegradable, nontoxic cooling oil, and there's 4.5 gallons of the stuff coursing its way through the tank. An odorless, clear liquid, it's fairly easy to spill if you're not careful. Fortunately, it doesn't conduct electricity — just keep a roll of paper towels handy.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Once you've removed all of those screws, it's time to start lifting out the Reactor's core. Slow and steady is key here; you can keep relatively dry by resting the core on a pair of hooks running near the lid, and letting all of that cooling fluid drain off.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
This behemoth weighs in at just over 100 pounds, so you'll be glad to know that it's been designed to be opened up and tinkered with from a comfortable seated position, presumably right beside your desk.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The core, in all its glory. Every single component — including the 650-watt power supply — is completely submerged in Core Coolant while tubing pumps the oil about the tank and then back to the radiator.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
There were four gigs of RAM in the configuration we tested with room to spare, if you're feeling power-hungry. In fact, most of the components in the Reactor can be upgraded from off-the-shelf parts, to take advantage of all the overclocking potential. And can you believe that no one had ever trademarked that radioactive symbol? The folks at Hardcore Computer couldn't either.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
While the Core Coolant sports some impressive chilling capabilities, it still needs to dissipate some of the heat picked up from all that overclocked hardware. This radiator works just like the one in your car: Four independently controlled fans blow cool air over the Coolant as it's pumped through a network of tubes, and then back into the tank.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
All this could be yours, starting at the fairly reasonable price of about $3,700. A fully loaded setup would cost just south of $10,000, but with so many overclocking safeguards in place, a savvy enthusiast could buy slightly cheaper components and still push them well beyond their intended performance levels.
Slammin' pram makes your kids play-date magnets, so head for the park. Choose the streamlined single seat, or pick the two-seater to wheel twin toddlers in style.
Slammin' pram makes your kids play-date magnets, so head for the park. Choose the streamlined single seat, or pick the two-seater to wheel twin toddlers in style.
Looking for a beefy gaming rig, and don't mind getting your hands a little wet? Hardcore Computer's Reactor might just be the 100-pound computational monolith for you.
Crafted from 2.5mm-thick aircraft aluminum and packed with powerful hardware, the Reactor is already a fairly striking and competitive machine. But there's a secret weapon sloshing around in that unassuming tank: four and a half gallons of cooling oil.
PC enthusiasts looking to get the most power out of their machines have often turned to overclocking — pushing key components to perform faster than the manufacturer intended. This generates quite a bit of heat, which is traditionally fought using an array of fans or a maze of tubes pumping cooling fluid to select components.
The Reactor takes the liquid-cooled principle a bit further by submerging everything into a tank of coolant. Of course, this isn't your average fish tank filled with mineral oil — take a look at the innards of this (relatively) mini-supercomputer.
Left: Behold, Hardcore Computer's Reactor. Like most gaming PCs, it's crammed with overclocked, high-performance hardware. But there's an important difference here: Every single component is submerged in a custom-designed cooling oil, called Core Coolant. Less trouble with heat means a faster, highly stable system. Dunking everything in fluid works surprisingly well, and is more efficient compared with traditional air- or water-cooling methods.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
It's packed to the gills with high-performance, server-grade hardware, including room for a pair of hot-swappable drives so you can switch HDs without ever shutting off your machine. Other goodies include integrated WiFi, up to three solid-state drives, and dual power supplies — just in case one fails in the middle of a World of Warcraft raid.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The Reactor is a fortress: You'll want to set aside some time to work your way through more than 20 fasteners and screws. Every system ships with removal tools in case you don't have some on hand. With all of that cooling fluid sloshing around in there, you'll almost be glad that getting inside it is a chore — we shudder to think of the mess that would result if a 4-year-old could easily pry the lid off.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Hardcore Computer's Core Coolant is a biodegradable, nontoxic cooling oil, and there's 4.5 gallons of the stuff coursing its way through the tank. An odorless, clear liquid, it's fairly easy to spill if you're not careful. Fortunately, it doesn't conduct electricity — just keep a roll of paper towels handy.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Once you've removed all of those screws, it's time to start lifting out the Reactor's core. Slow and steady is key here; you can keep relatively dry by resting the core on a pair of hooks running near the lid, and letting all of that cooling fluid drain off.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
This behemoth weighs in at just over 100 pounds, so you'll be glad to know that it's been designed to be opened up and tinkered with from a comfortable seated position, presumably right beside your desk.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The core, in all its glory. Every single component — including the 650-watt power supply — is completely submerged in Core Coolant while tubing pumps the oil about the tank and then back to the radiator.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
There were four gigs of RAM in the configuration we tested with room to spare, if you're feeling power-hungry. In fact, most of the components in the Reactor can be upgraded from off-the-shelf parts, to take advantage of all the overclocking potential. And can you believe that no one had ever trademarked that radioactive symbol? The folks at Hardcore Computer couldn't either.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
While the Core Coolant sports some impressive chilling capabilities, it still needs to dissipate some of the heat picked up from all that overclocked hardware. This radiator works just like the one in your car: Four independently controlled fans blow cool air over the Coolant as it's pumped through a network of tubes, and then back into the tank.
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
All this could be yours, starting at the fairly reasonable price of about $3,700. A fully loaded setup would cost just south of $10,000, but with so many overclocking safeguards in place, a savvy enthusiast could buy slightly cheaper components and still push them well beyond their intended performance levels.
Reuters - With more than $1 billion in sales and 50 million tracks downloaded between them -- on a base of only about 350 songs -- the "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" video-game franchises emerged this year as serious moneymakers for the music industry. But are they bringing in enough per track?
DENVER (Billboard) - With more than $1 billion in sales and 50 million tracks downloaded between them -- on a base of only about 350 songs -- the "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band" video-game... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 4:37 am
Earlier today we learned that Apple had decided to allow a new genre of apps into the app store with the release of Pull My Finger, a humorous but simple application that emits predictably nasty sounds whenever users pull on a virtual finger. The application was intitally rejected by Apple, sparking debate over the seemingly arbitrary standards it was using in its approval process. Today’s policy shift sets the stage for imitators looking to build on the irreverent success of Pull My Finger, and we’ve already got our next contender in the battle for flatulence supremacy. It’s called iFart, and while it’s an improvement over Pull My Finger, I seriously hope this isn’t the start of a new trend.
First, the apps themselves: while Pull My Finger has the basics down, it doesn’t do much beyond playing embarrassing noises when prompted to. iFart builds on this by adding a ’stealth’ feature, allowing users to set off their ticking timebombs after a set amount of time. They can also enable a “security” feature that plays one of the noises whenever the phone is moved.
Don’t get me wrong - both applications are funny, and I’ll probably use them to play a prank or two over the holidays. But I fear that developers will now flood the App Store with similar juvenile apps looking to make a quick buck, and we’ll see iFarts and Pull My Fingers overwhelm the Top App lists and overtake the genuinely useful apps like Shazam.
Left alone, the market might let most of these immature apps fade into obscurity within a few weeks (note that not a single ‘lighter’ app is present on the Top Apps list anymore, despite the fact that there are at least 15 of them available). Then again, iBeer is still ranked #5 after over five months. The general population has a seemingly insatiable appetite for dumb shit (remember what happened when Facebook Platform first launched?), and it would be a shame if the some of the App Store’s prized Top Spots were sacrificed for an endless rotation of dumb.
Apple made the right move by letting these onto the store - censorship is a slippery slope, and there’s a place for immature and adult content. But, as with the recently released NC-17 tags, Apple should consider making a tag for ‘Silly Apps’. Give them their own place on the store (perhaps even a Top 5 on the front page), or continue to tweak the store’s layout, but don’t let them overwhelm the apps that add real value to the iPhone.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Long before Virgin Mobile acquired Helio, we started hearing whispers that the Samsung F400 was destined for the carrier’s lineup. With its vertically dual-sliding design featuring a number pad on one end and dual speakers on the other, it would have been a pretty snazzy little handset for music fans on everyone’s favorite MVNO. Don’t expect to expect to see this one hit the shelves anytime soon, though.
If you're giving someone an iPhone for Christmas or Hanukkah, you must also give that person a copy of iPhone Fully Loaded, 2nd Edition, by Chicago Sun Times columnist and MacBreak Weekly co-host Andy Ihnatko. I read the first edition when it came out, and the chapter on iTunes smart filters alone improved my experience with the iPhone.
The other chapters are also very useful. You'll learn the easiest way to get DVDs, internet videos, VHS tapes, broadcast TV episodes, podcasts, e-books, comics, songs from various sources, Office documents, and lots of other kinds of media onto an iPhone. You'll learn how to turn text files into audiobooks, and watch videos hosted on an online dropbox.
Even if you didn't have an iPhone, you could pick up a lot of useful computer and media tips here. As a bonus, Ihnatko's wry sense of humor makes the book a lot of fun to read.
Long before Virgin Mobile acquired Helio, we started hearing whispers that the Samsung F400 was destined for the carrier’s lineup. With its vertically dual-sliding design featuring a number pad on one end and dual speakers on the other, it would have been a pretty snazzy little handset for music fans on everyone’s favorite MVNO.
Alas, things got a bit crazy in the months leading up to the acquisition. The Ocean 2 slipped all the way back to January of next year, and Helio’s version of the F400 (which would have been modeled the SPH-A533) purportedly got canned. Don’t get your hopes up on a post-acquisition revival - chances are, Virgin Mobile has moved on.
More shots after the jump. (Thanks Kill3r24!)
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SYDNEY, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Caltex Australia Ltd , Australia's only listed oil refiner and marketer, said on Saturday it was restarting its 110,000 barrel per day Lytton refinery that had been shut a day... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 3:40 am
One of the great things about Android Market is that you can see what everyone has to say about the applications they've downloaded. Very useful in figuring out if you should really download that app called "Alien Blood Bath" or just avoid it all together.
The system, however, is slightly flawed. It appears that no one is really moderating these comments, and they usually end up turning into heated debates on the most futile of topics. So, rather than let these little gems go to waste, we've run into the middle of the battle, and emerged somewhat unscathed with loads of half-baked comments for everyone to enjoy.
Lucas123 writes "The Santa Cruz, Calif. DA's office had been counting on a DVD with the recorded testimony of a victim in case against a serial rapist, but when they popped the video into the player, nothing came up — the disc was blank. To make matters worse, the cop who performed the original interview with the victim told the DA she never said she was 'forced,' so the judge wasn't going to allow the witness to testify in a case where her original statement to police was in conflict with her current testimony. After two local data recovery firms said there was no way to restore the data, a third was able to recover the police interview from two years earlier, which led the defendant to plead guilty earlier this month. Close call."
A supplier of high-security ID products in Germany is creating a biometric 3D face-recognition tech that checks people for even the smallest change in their appearance.
But while other companies around the world are also doing this, Bundesdruckerei is the only one that eventually will place its biometric info in an OLED-based passport.
Bundesdruckerei's 3D Face Project uses a biometric system called VISOTEC Expert 300, an optical and electrical verification rig that references detailed facial features written onto a chip card.
Using a projection of structured patterns and colored strips (see image after the jump) the system renders 3D images from a batch of super-high resolution 2D pics to measure facial textures and geometry.
Because it's supposed to discern between millions of people, the high-resolution data needs to be at least at a pixel resolution of 491 x 656. The way your skin is checked is through an algorithm that compares small blocks of random surfaces in 'local correlations' or rather, patterns of skin that should go together. The pictures of the people in the latest tests were taken with a Minolta Vivid camera with a high 900/910 sensor.
Early tests have shown the end-chip to consistently replicate a human's face with an error rate at less than .05%. That's pretty good, but the ideal rate is at least at .025%.
In the last two month, German airports have tested the device with volunteer travelers and they are starting to take into account precise (but natural) changes in appearance, such as aging. The project is sponsored by the European Union.
Once the biometric tests are accurate enough to use en masse, though, the real gadgety fun will begin. Bundesdruckerei will add it to a flexible Samsung OLED display and create the first e-Passport.
Announced in a deal earlier in the year, Samsung is building a flexible AMOLED display to be part of a tough, presumably hack-proof document. The OLED will be heat-resistant and super thin and will presumably include movies of 3D biometric info, along with other visual cues.
As for how the OLED will apparently be charged, the company says it is exploring a heat-based battery system.
The 3D Face Project is ongoing and is not expected to be completed for a least another couple of years.
As the holidays are quickly approaching, more and more sweet deals are surfacing. Usually, I like to search around and see what nice deals I can find, and today I found that Circuit City is selling the 80GB Microsoft Zune for only $163.
The 80GB Zune normally sells for $229 at the cheapest at Circuit City and at other retail stores, so it is a really nice deal as you are immediately saving $67. I’m not sure how long this deal is going to last for, so you may want to make your decision of whether you want to get this Zune soon. Unfortunately, it is out of stock online, but you may be able to pick one up at your local Circuit City.
(Thanks to Virgin Mobile for passing the $50 dollar gift cards our way!)
In the series of $50 gift card giveaways we’ve had so far, this is our third. Well, actually, if you count the one we gave away on the MobileCrunch Twitter feed last night, it’s our fourth. Congrats to Chance (Contest 1), Zulay (Contest 2), and Bernardo (Contest 3, via Twitter) on walking away with 50 greenbacks just in time for Christmas. Haven’t won yet? Don’t sweat it. We’re not even a third of the way done yet.
Today on Offworld our weekend gaming edition sees us reaching out to all of you to keep us all together, with the launch of our Facebook page and its repository thread for keeping track of our XBLA/PSN/Steam names (note that we also have soft-launched a Twitter feed as well!).
(Thanks to Virgin Mobile for passing the $50 dollar gift cards our way!)
In the series of $50 gift card giveaways we’ve had so far, this is our third. Well, actually, if you count the one we gave away on our Twitter feed last night, it’s our fourth. Congrats to Chance (Contest 1), Zulay (Contest 2), and Bernardo (Contest 3, via Twitter) on walking away with 50 greenbacks just in time for Christmas. Haven’t won yet? Don’t sweat it. We’re not even a third of the way done yet.
For this next one, I’ve decided to combine two different posts. I’ve got an interview coming up next week with Tracy DeMiroz, the VP of Marketing for the Skyfire mobile browser, and I wanted to reach out to our readers to see if they had any questions they might like us to ask. At the same time, I want to give away these gift cards.
How to enter: Suggest one question to ask Skyfire. We’ll pick a few that we’ll use in our interview, and from this shorter list, pick a giftcard winner at random. In other words, if we decide to use your question, you’ve got a really, really good shot at the giftcard. Post your question down in the comments below. If multiple people suggest the same (or a very similar) question, only the first person to have suggested it gets the shot. Contest ends on 12/14 at 6 pm PST
I suppose this is one of those “trickle-up” technologies, where it first is found in places that need it, like Africa and India, and then everywhere else in the world once the idea is proven practicable. This tech has made its way to Istanbul so far.
I know that whenever there’s a big storm in Seattle, the city grinds to a halt, not because people don’t know how to drive in the rain, but because they can’t seem to deal with outed traffic lights. Simply treating every intersection as a stop sign is wearying; why don’t we have solar-powered backups for nighttime and emergency use? Retrofitting would be easy and cheap, and it’s guaranteed to make disasters and blackouts a little bit easier on everybody when the time comes.
WASHINGTON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Little breast tumors that seemed cured after surgery are more likely to come back if they are the type known as HER2 positive, U.S. researchers reported on Friday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 2:09 am
NEW YORK, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Liberty Media Corp , the holding company owned by media mogul John Malone, on Friday unveiled its plan to split off most of its Liberty Entertainment unit , which owns the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 2:02 am
Sound blastn. A supersize sound bite, blasted over the Internet by a tech-savvy politician. Barack Obama's campaign speeches, uploaded onto YouTube and viewed by millions, have defined the form. The average sound bite is 10.3 seconds; a typical sound blast is 10 minutes or more.
Frolleaguen. A work colleague friended on a social networking site and thus granted access to personal information, from blog entries to stag party pics, that may be perceived as less than professional—or even (if the frolleague happens to be a frupervisor) grounds for dismissal.
Ocean desertsn. pl. Desolate zones in the world's seas. These regions are expanding with global warming, which has dampened the circulation of marine nutrients and lowered the concentration of oxygen to such an extent that some 20 percent of Earth's oceans are now moribund.
Twillern. A thriller composed and published entirely on Twitter. At 140 characters per installment, these works of serial fiction are the microblogger's answer to the cell phone novel, a popular genre in text-happy Japan.
Rob Roy's Las Vegas outpost may remind you of a mega-casino: It's massive. It's full of blinking lights. And its security guards will get rough if you step out of line. But you won't find dealers shuffling cards here. Instead, this facility shuffles bits—on an unprecedented scale.
Dubbed SuperNAP, it's the world's densest data center. In the desert, far from any possible power-cutting natural disasters, Roy, CEO of Switch Communications Group (and no relation to the Scottish vigilante), built a server farm the size of 11 football fields. It eats 1,500 watts per square foot—almost eight times the industry standard—and houses more than 7,000 storage cabinets. Its secret? Rather than placing its blade servers on racks and pumping cold air up through raised floors, Switch packs machines inside containers that draw in cool air and shoot hot exhaust out of the building. "We invented a whole new world to get here," Roy says.
Roy's computer education began at 12. His father, paralyzed in a diving accident, was pursuing a degree in computer science, and Roy volunteered to type his papers and turn the pages of his books. Twenty-seven years later, as more and more petabytes zoom into the data cloud, he sees his facility as home to tech's most creative projects: "We want neat, cutting-edge concepts going on in there—video, gaming, voice."
But Roy tries not to take this stuff too seriously. Consider the comic book he penned about his staff, Switchblades: The Dark Ethereals have hacked into Earth's ionosphere with a plan to destroy the Net! Luckily, Roy, er, Core and his band of super-employees are here to save the day—and keep the world safe for truth, knowledge, and the entrepreneurial way.
One of the great things about Android Market is that you can see what everyone has to say about the applications they’ve downloaded. Very useful in figuring out if you should really download that app called “Alien Blood Bath” or just avoid it all together.
The system, however, is slightly flawed. It appears that no one is really moderating these comments, and they usually end up turning into heated debates on the most futile of topics. So, rather than let these little gems go to waste, we’ve run into the middle of the battle, and emerged somewhat unscathed with loads of half-baked comments for everyone to enjoy.
Note: These have been copied as-is from the Android Market, with minor censoring.
AndroidCan Connect: “Bored. Hit me up at ***@gmail.com and we’ll talk” by katie.
Biolines: “Like a clingy ex-girlfriend that keeps re-installing itself. Seriously, how the heck do you remove this permanently? Worst app ever.” by Erin.
Deflektor Remake: “Im not gonna bash it but that is no classic pac man is classic and how about the ball that breaks the blocks i forget the name arkonoid i think” by duane.
Zombie, Run!: “i love hot naced girls” by Robert.
Port Knocker: “RandumAccess you’re the biggest retard since Hilary Clinton. Go back to sticking your sisters arm up your dads **** passage” by Jamie.
My Med Box: “Yea this ****in blows **** and to the ladies that blow ****….hit me up at ***@gmail.com” by greg
More Cowbell!: “I need a cow bell 2 smack the developer….this shyt is stupid!!!!!” by rocky!
Text-to-Speech Library: “Quickest way to get friends on your g1 = www.G1Profiles.com” by Jerome.
DailyHoroscope: “Oh my god i love this very thing thay said about aries is so ture i love this keep up the work and keep up with the updates” by felicite.
NeoCore: “Gangsta graphics yo mabe if i could play it. O well since i cant do dat u think i can get some homegirls 2 chat with ***139gmail” by steven.
There you have it, just a small dosage of the magnificent Android Market comments. How long until someone develops an app that bricks phones for people who comment “FIRST!!!1″?
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Key U.S. lawmakers urged regulators on Friday to delay action on contentious items ahead of the transition to digital television, which will likely postpone a... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 1:26 am
Reuters - Key U.S. lawmakers urged regulators on Friday to delay action on contentious items ahead of the transition to digital television, which will likely postpone a spectrum auction opposed by cell phone companies. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Dec 2008 | 1:26 am
NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Radio companies took a giant step forward in 2008 by embracing online and mobile applications like never before. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2008 | 1:21 am
Andrew Grove, former Intel Corp chairman, is pushing the world’s biggest maker of microprocessors to diversify business by becoming a manufacturer of advanced batteries for plug-in electric cars. This emerging industry is attracting Chinese and Japanese companies like BYD Motors, Panasonic, and Sanyo.
According to an Intel spokesman, Intel already has investments in battery-related companies through its Intel Capital Unit. It is unknown whether they will increase their presence in this field, especially in these weak economic times when corporations are leaning towards cash conservation instead of new investments. Intel is also expecting a 12% decline in sales for the fourth quarter.
Mark Duvall, a researcher at the Electric Power Research Institute, explains that “batteries are absolutely the No. 1 constraint for electric cars” and is also the single-most expensive component right now. Come on Intel, I want an affordable electric car!
Yep, you can win this HP Mini 1035NR as part of the HP Magic Giveaway. All you’ve got to do is sign up for a Dabbledoo account! Full unboxing photo gallery after the break!
Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for Playstation Home, the virtual world designed for Playstation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.
The discussion about whether or not an unpowered vehicle can be made to go directly downwind faster than the wind (DWFTTW) is ongoing. I was reading the comments this morning, and came across a link to this intriguing video, titled "Under the ruler faster than the ruler." It's starting to make me think that a DWFTTW cart is feasible.
In the video, I was surprised to see which direction the big wheel turned when the ruler was run across the top. I'm also quite impressed that this fellow and others are making models to conduct experiment, instead of simply speculating. Hooray for amateur science!
As I've requested in previous posts on this subject, if you have something to contribute to the discussion boards, please refrain from insults and name-calling.
Techdirt founder Mike Masnick tackles growing calls for a voluntary music-licensing scheme, pushed most recently by Warner Music Group to universities.
A wealthy film director is spending £40 million to build an exact replica of the Taj Mahal in Bangladesh, but Indian officials are trying to block its constructing, claiming the Taj Mahal, which was completed in 1653 is protected by copyright.
For their part, Bangladeshi officials are incensed by suggestions that the Taj Mahal - which was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and completed in 1653 - is protected by some sort of copyright.
“I'm not sure what they are talking about,” one said. “Show me where it says that emulating a building like this can be illegal.”
To make his Taj, Mr Moni imported marble and granite from Italy and diamonds from Belgium to add to 160kg (350lb) of bronze. He hopes that his version of the mausoleum will attract tourists to Bangladesh, a country that is well off the beaten track for Western holidaymakers.
MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.”
What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications for Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian devices while mentors from the likes of Google, Nokia, Bank of America, and Microsoft oversaw their progress.
MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.”
What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications for Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian devices while mentors from the likes of Google, Nokia, Bank of America, and Microsoft oversaw their progress.
Here are the ten applications that were presented today. Some of them might remain as small-scale projects, while others are full-blown, robust applications that have already undergone serious development and are poised to enter the marketplace.
Marauder (Windows Mobile)
Marauder measures crowd density by detecting nearby Bluetooth-enabled phones. So say you’re looking for a restaurant nearby — the idea is that you’ll be able to see how crowded it is before you go. For this to work, at least one person’s phone in the restaurant has to have Marauder installed on it. That phone will see how many other phones are around it by checking for Bluetooth signals, and that data will be uploaded to Marauder’s servers. Locations on a map (see above) will be color coded based on density. It’s a cool idea that seems to need to be fleshed out a bit more.
For example, there’s no way to measure density based on a building’s occupancy rate. Currently, 20-30 detected devices returns a “crowded” rating whether or not you’re at a sporting event or inside a tiny club. The program also has potential civil and business uses for things like public transportation and housing data. All in all, a unique spin on location-based services.
Ballyhoo! (Symbian)
Ballyhoo! is a relatively straightforward mobile coupon redemption tool. You search for deals in your immediate vicinity and you’re presented with mobile coupons that can be redeemed at point-of-sale terminals that are equipped to handle near field communication (NFC) – think of those Mastercard PayPass terminals where you just tap your card on the device instead of swiping it.
In order to get merchants on board with this flavor of coupon-giving, shoppers’ usage data can be anonymously given to stores for marketing and research purposes.
Memento (Android)
Super cool. Memento automatically organizes the photos you take with your phone into albums based on the location where the photos were taken. You can choose to make certain groups of photos public and instantly upload them to popular photo-sharing sites while keeping photos taken in another location private. You can view and share your photos by selecting them from within an organized list or pull up a map to look at collections visually (see above). The program looks really straightforward and easy – it’s for people who take a lot of photos but hate organizing them.
Mem2D (Windows Mobile)
Mem2D aims to solve the problem of archiving information you might see on a flyer that you want to remember for later. Events are created using a simple web-based interface and when marketing materials for a particular event get printed up, there’s a unique barcode that’s added as a graphic. People who want to remember the information on, say, the flyer you posted in the student union building would simply use the Mem2D application on their mobile phones to take a photo of the barcode.
At that point, all of the pertinent information – time, place, date, the event’s website, etc. – would be saved to a user’s account on the Mem2D website for later. Event info can be shared with friends via e-mail or SMS, and there’s calendar integration and support for mapping and directions as well.
Think of MobileTrader as an on-the-go marketplace for connecting buyers and sellers who are within a mile and a half of each other. You create a listing as a buyer or a seller and when there’s a match made, each person gets an instant message and can coordinate a spot to meet up and make an exchange. It sounds a little creepy for real-world use but it could find a nice niche in microcosmic systems like college campuses.
In order to prevent spam, sellers aren’t able to contact buyers directly. And everything’s anonymous until a deal is made, at which point the details are recorded – the item sold, the price, etc. – creating a contractual record of sorts. There are future plans for integration with online services like Paypal as well.
Moca (Android)
Moca is a mobile medical diagnostics program for developing nations. It allows medical field workers to go out to remote locations and provide instant data back to doctors in the bigger cities to diagnose. Using an Android phone, a field worker could take photos or videos, record sound (like coughing, etc.), and ask a series of questions to a patient that a doctor would normally ask. The results get uploaded to a server in real-time and a doctor hundreds of miles away can prescribe treatments.
The system leverages the OpenMRS (medical record system) platform to keep records and Moca, itself, is open-source. There’s a pilot program that’ll be set up in the Philippines this summer to test out the idea’s effectiveness. Impressive stuff, indeed.
Eclectyk uses near-field communication (NFC) to replace the myriad of cards in your wallet with a simple cell phone application. It can be used for credit cards, ID cards, and it can even be used to unlock NFC-enabled doors. The program also has a sharing feature for tickets, so whoever in your group of friends shows up for a popular movie first can buy tickets and shoot them into everyone else’s phones.
Security consists of three layers: PIN numbers, hardware-based encryption, and even a remote wipe feature that can destroy everything if your phone’s lost or stolen. The system was developed under the advisement of Nokia and Bank of America.
UberCal (Windows Mobile)
Ubercal is a simple solution to an apparently complex problem. It synchronizes your mobile Outlook calendar and Google Calendar together. You can use Google Calendar’s handy “Quick Add” feature to create an appointment and there’s a template system that allows you to set up commonly-occurring events without filling out all of Outlook’s fifteen or so form fields each time. Slick.
CashTrack (Android)
CashTrack is an Android application that’s used for splitting bills. It consists of the app itself and a web interface. You can automatically split bills equally between people in your address book and keep a tally of who owes whom what. You can also manually finesse percentages of a certain bill so that you don’t end up paying for the seven beers your buddy ordered at dinner when all you ordered was water.
TrainMe (Android)
“Pocket Fitness Trainer” tool, TrainMe, is an Android that contains images and videos of certain exercise moves for people new to working out. It’ll create customized workout plans for you based on how many days per week you want to work out and how much weight you want to lose and the intensity of your workouts will dynamically adjust to you as well. For instance, you’ll do a set of push-ups and then tell the program if it was too easy, just right, or too hard.
The program also includes a food diary and there’s a website that allows you to upload your statistics, workouts, and various other data. You can even browse other users’ workout routines and clone the ones you like for next time at the gym.
After being rejected by Apple for its obvious supposed “limited utility” back in September, the infamous Pull My Finger app has returned. According to its developer (via MacRumors), Apple informed him that his app would be the first of a “whole new genre of apps,” and that “more apps will follow that may have been previously not allowed.”
Clearly, the real news here is that Apple seems to be loosening up its stranglehold over what does and does not fly in its App Store. Blocking offensive and/or obscene applications is entirely reasonable, but rejecting an application because it is too silly or useless should be left up to the consumer.
The three ring circus known as the McCain campaign continues to provide us with hilarity even though it ended, what, six weeks ago. A fire sale of sorts was held the other day at the former campaign headquarters and a local Fox TV station was able to buy a BlackBerry for only $20. Even more amazing is that the campaign never bothered to clear out the BlackBerry’s contents.
It was filled with phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other private information. Lobbyists, politicians, journalists, etc. Some 50 phone numbers in total were on the BlackBerry.
To moral of the story is, if you’re going to sell your BlackBerry (or any device with personal information on it) be sure to wipe it clean beforehand. Otherwise you’ll look like a fool, and aggravate all of your friends and associates.
coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "Like a bunch of children in a sandbox unable and perhaps unwilling to share their toys, multiple key government agencies cannot or will not cooperate to build a collaborative wireless network. The Government Accountability Office report (PDF) issued today took aim at the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Treasury which had intended what's known as The Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) to be a joint radio communications system to improve communication among law enforcement agencies. However IWN, which has already cost millions of dollars, is no longer being pursued as a joint development project, the GAO said. By abandoning collaboration on a joint implementation, the departments risk duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources as they continue to invest significant resources in independent solutions. Further, these efforts will not ensure the interoperability needed to serve day-to-day law enforcement operations or a coordinated response to terrorist or other events, the GAO said."
Nokia is planning on entering the growing market for connecting laptops to wireless networks, competing against Huawei Technologies, the current market leader. Nokia will begin shipping its first Internet stick early next year with the price yet to be disclosed. Nokia denied that the units would be branded “Donkles.”
The global market for dongles is expected to grow by 30 percent to 26 million units next year. Smart move by Nokia, hoping to profit from expanding the market for their 3G technologies.
This morning I had the opportunity to have a chat with Bhaskar Roy, Co-Founder and VP of Product Management of Qik, a popular live video casting application available on most major mobile platforms. It’s not the first time we’ve interviewed him but, with competition at an all time high, I figured it was time to check back in.
The interview was conducted over IM and later formatted to fit within the traditional Q&A structure.
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Pop surrealist David Stoupakis has a solo exhibition of his phantasmagoric paintings opening tomorrow, December 13, at Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California. Corey Helford Gallery has invited BB readers to preview the entire exhibition, titled "These Predicaments," at the link below. Seen above, "Soup" (oil on canvas, 36" x 72"). I wish I could see these gorgeous paintings in person! From the show description:
For his second solo exhibition at the Gallery, Stoupakis parlays his talent for the supernatural and macabre into dramatic narratives that reveal symbolic turning points and unexpected dilemmas. A delicate balance of childhood innocence and haunting imagery, the series of oil-on-panel paintings and graphite drawings recounts grim fairytales of the decadent and demure. Marking a new direction for the artist, Stoupakis employs a brighter color palette than before and will unveil his largest piece to date for the exhibition. The reception for “These Predicaments” takes place on Saturday, December 13, and the evening will include music scored by composer Geoff Gersh. Open to the public, the exhibition will be on view until
December 31, 2008.
Do you remember that Cold Heat soldering iron that turns hot only when touching metal? Well, Instructables user photozz has put up a guide to saving $19.95 by making your own Cold Heat soldering iron. It is pretty easy to follow, and he even goes as far as explaining the science behind it so that you understand how it actually works. Just don’t burn yourself while making it.
This morning I had the opportunity to have a chat with Bhaskar Roy, Co-Founder and VP of Product Management of Qik, a popular live video casting application available on most major mobile platforms. It’s not the first time we’ve interviewed him but, with competition at an all time high, I figured it was time to check back in.
The interview was conducted over IM and later formatted to fit within the traditional Q&A structure.
We last spoke to you way back in june, when you were getting ready to launch Qik on a few windows mobile devices. Whats new? Whats going on in the world of Qik?
A number of things. We now support Blackberry (alpha stage) as a smartphone platform. We also have support for a number of J2ME (java-enabled) devices (these are the feature phones that are typically given away by carriers), and for (jailbroken) iPhones. What you’ll notice is that we are starting to play around with location support.. people can instantly know where a person is streaming from (of course with the permission of the user) and to what detail they want to show that.
So essentially we are adding more devices, and seeing more of mass market pickup of our service. Users are starting to use Qik more as a communication service to share what they are doing live with their friends and family.
How have client downloads been? Any numbers you can share?
I cant share exact details - but what I can say is that we have over 100k users using the service from more than 150 countries. [Another] thing that we have done is made it really simple for anyone to get up and running. Basically you can go to http://d.qik.com from your phone and, if your phone is supported, it will prompt you and get you up and running in seconds.
We are seeing a shift of viewing videos from phones. People are viewing quite a few qiks directly from their phones (since we now have a WAP site, and an iPhone-optimized site)
Can we expect an Android port any time soon?
The challenge with G1 is that it does not inherently support video capturing. We are looking at it to figure out their roadmap around video, and we’ll then see how we can take advantage of the platform.
Which platform is proving to be the most popular for Qik so far?
That depends very much on a country level. Here in US we are seeing more WM, iPhone and BB adoption. Overall I’d say that WM, S60, iPhone are the leaders.
Speaking of the iPhone: What’s the status of Qik on the iPhone? Video recording and the App Store don’t generally mix, and last I heard it hadn’t been submitted for Apple’s approval yet. Has that changed? Are there actual intents on getting the Qik app into the store, or do you expect it to stay jailbreak-only?
We have not submitted to app store yet. There are a few things we are working on. Once those items are completed we’ll figure out next steps with the app store, but the intent is to release this app in App Store for all iPhone users
Any indication from Cupertino as to whether they’d let Qik through?
Don’t know, as we have not even tried that yet.
Last we spoke, you mentioned that an expecting mother had streamed the birth-giving process to her husband through Qik. Has anything crazy like that happened since?
We have had more births, weddings. Also, now the media around the Pope uses Qik to capture Pope travels. We have Ashton Kutcher using qik
Who gets more viewers, Kutcher or the Pope?
[Laughs] Let me check their profiles, hold on.
http://qik.com/ashton [8,221 views to the channel since 9/19/08]
http://qik.com/h2onewscrossmedia [13,871 views to the channel since 7/12/08]
H2onews is the media company for Vatican. Oh also recently - Victoria Secret backstage was covered using Qik (http://qik.com/blog/273/victorias-secret-fashion-show–backstage-exclusive), and the BBC has been using this for getting citizen’s voice as as a part of the BBC Have Your Say project.
You guys have a number of competitors. Why should someone new to the mobile life casting world go with Qik?
Firstly, mobile broadcasting is just one of the things that people do. We are finding people using this more for communications than broadcasting - especially now with the ability to playback videos from the phone, etc. (Example: Someone receiving a SMS can play the recorded video right from their phone without having to go to a computer at all)
There are a number of technical differentiators we have, like:
Broadest range of phone coverage. Doing this on N95 is one thing, but doing it across all S60 devices (that have different CPU processing powers, battery levels, camera specs) is another. Then on top of that add other platforms Windows Mobile (which has its own variants of PocketPC vs smartphone and from different manufacturers that have their own specs). Then take iPhone, Blackberry, J2ME.
We still have the least latency + best quality (can do 640×480 SD quality over WiFi or 3.5g)
Live is only one aspect - being able to have a high quality video after the fact is another (We have a patent filed on this)
We are the only ones who cover the situation where if your battery dies in the middle or for some reason your video does not get uploaded. We can automatically detect this next time you start and send that out (patent filed on this)
We’ve also filed a patent on the way streaming can be done through J2ME phones as Java does not inherently allow it
Finally - we have built it as a complete platform (rather than destination) so that anyone can integrate Qik mobile live streaming into their apps. People can stream live to their own flash players rather than ours, like we do with our partner Mogulus, where users don’t even know that it is a Qik stream they are watching getting broadcasted to the Mogulus flash player
So broadly speaking 3 areas where we do well: (a) Phone coverage, (b) Technology of live streaming from phones itself from disparate platforms and taking care of various conditions, (c) Platform approach to enable mobile live streaming to any site any social network and any Flash Player.
By the way - another point in the details: We are the only one that has shown live streaming from both GSM and CDMA networks. We support even Verizon and Sprint networks here in US (CDMA), while the others require you to be on AT&T or T-mobile (GSM).
They are approaching this from a broadcast point rather than communication like we are. The main thing here is that we are building Qik as a platform for people to share live video from their phones to their friends and family and their world, such that it can be consumed and experienced from the web and other devices and create a level of interaction therein. Ustream and others are building this out as a destination site for live broadcasting
What’s next for Qik?
You’ll see us marching down the path of enabling people to share live experiences from their phones to any connected device, and building out the platform even further to enable anyone and everyone to build mobile live streaming as a part of their site or product offerings.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
CNET - With so many czars running around trying to solve the nation's problems in tech, auto and drugs, perhaps Sony should consider hiring a common-sense czar. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:31 pm
An anonymous reader writes "Windows-based netbooks aren't too expensive to be ruled out of the Aussie government's billion dollar promise to give a laptop to every school-aged child, according to several education departments. The admission follows an earlier report that open source machines based on Ubuntu or Mandriva are the only option to deliver up to four million computers to students for under $2 billion. Microsoft itself claimed it will keep costs per unit down by hosting a lot of the educational software in the cloud rather than on the netbook devices."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Huge swarms of stinging jellyfish and similar slimy animals are ruining beaches in Hawaii, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean, Australia and elsewhere, U.S.... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Dec 2008 | 11:16 pm
This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack. This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity.
Here is what I found that looks off this week:
Google, what’s brewing?
HP vs bloggers
AT&T: online sales that everyone is confused about
Microsoft vs Polo? What are you wearing this winter?
Google, something going on?
Normally, when Google drops awesome things on us, I am right out there dancing in the street with you. But this week we saw SMS added to Gmail, Tasks added to Gmail, Chrome browser jumps to 1.0 from the cozy comfort of beta, Street View jumps into more devices, Street View hooks up 2x more places, and that is just this week.
It is high time one of us lemmings raised our heads and asked, “WTF is going on?“
Is it the economic downturn in ad revenue that has Google pulling the switches for operation “get cash?“ Presumably that is where we are headed right? An OS to compete with good ol’ MS? Is that too big an assumption at this point? Has my reading of tea leaves lost its touch? Something’s going on and somewhere in Googleville, someone uttered, “make it so, #1.“ Because you know the Google Roller Derby team have someone they call #1. Just saying.
HP hates bloggers?
That surely isn’t the message they were trying to get across with their $6,000 gear give-a-way but that is my take-away. I can’t enter. Maybe it is because I get so much bling as a highly paid blogger, but, wait, that can’t be it. Now when I hear the HP name, I think of how I can’t enter.
A quick check of HP’s site and it doesn’t say I can’t enter. Wait a tick, it is Gadgetell that hates bloggers? What, the enemy is really me? It’s not like my compound couldn’t use some shiny new HP stuff, especially that Mini Note jobber that took home much of my drool at a recent tech event. Darn you, Gadgetell! Why do you have to come between HP and me? Surely the readers wouldn’t mind if I won everything…
What? Really? I was a satellite radio guy back years ago. Then I discovered internet radio and haven’t looked back. Aggressive applications like Pandora for iPhone, allowing free streaming anywhere, really push satellite radio into a corner. If you are a die-hard Stern fan, I suppose it is something you’ll continue with, but can XM/Sirius survive on just Stern fans?
We took a good, hard look at the latest from Pioneer and while the device is fine, it looks like something out of the last century. Like I said, I saw the promise of satellite back in the day, but those days have passed (for me at least) in favor of connectivity over WiFi, 3G or other. Time to rethink this one I suppose.
AT&T goes all cloak and dagger on iPhone online deal
Why is it that some crack-induced blogger who innocently happens to be hanging out on your website at 6am on a Thursday finds you are selling the uber-phone in a new way? We were told the 3G wasn’t going to allow home activation, and that’s still partially true: the phone ships activated. Why no announcement? Why no Steve Jobs doing push ups on the stage to convince us he is healthy and has a great deal for us?
How about letting your people know this is the deal so I don’t have reps telling me to “just insert the battery to activate?“ Or when I call in and get told, “No, you can’t order the phone online” hours after I could, in fact, order the phone online. I get that your organization is huge and just putting out word takes time, but lets make a big deal about this. I know I am excited for you.
Maybe you are just as scared about this economy as I am?
And my favorite of the week: Microsoft gets Fubu’d
Here is the logic: what is not cool is cool. As old as human kind is, we love the underdog. We hate the winners and love the losers. MS has become the pariah of the tech world in many circles, especially with elitist bloggers, so now is the time to exploit it with retro clothing. Remember when DOS was the dog-diggity? Fine, I’ll wait while you go ask your parents. You back now? Yeah, those were the years. Anyhow, we’ve got news for MS: you are on crack.
Natesh alerted us to the fashion trend sharing that rapper Common will be sporting the duds influencing the young’ns on proper fashion. Sure thing, MS. Perhaps that is a niche you can own.
Noah Shachtman over at WIRED's Danger Room blog has posted a pretty big exclusive. "A Defense Department project, supposedly designed to support U.S. troops, was used instead to channel millions of dollars to personal friends and allies of its chief," he tells Boing Boing. How much you wanna bet we see anything but impunity for the crooks in the outgoing administration responsible for this? Also, what are the underwear perverts doing in that photo above? No, not Rumsfeld, I mean the blue and red guys.
Anyway: here's a snip from Noah's post:
The "America Supports You," or ASY, program was led in a "questionable and unregulated manner," according to a Department of Defense Inspector General report, obtained by Danger Room. At least $9.2 million was "inappropriately transferred" by the project's managers. Much of that money served only to further promote ASY, instead of assisting servicemembers.
In 2004, the office of then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld set up ASY as a six-month effort to showcase the U.S. public's backing for the troops and their families. "If you're serving overseas, and you watch the mainstream media coverage, sometimes you can't tell if America knows you're there," one official overseeing the program says. America Supports You was seen as a way to counteract that sense.
In time, however, the program grew. Pro-troop rallies were organized. Special wristband and dog-tags were made. Special-edition comic books were printed up. Processions were held on the National Mall, on the 9/11 anniversary. Sesame Street characters were enlisted to make DVDs that encouraged families with young children to talk about overseas deployments. America Supports You became a kind of umbrella group for all sorts of charity-related work for servicemembers and military families.
Meanwhile, ASY began to spend millions -- not to help the troops, the Inspector General says, but to help itself.
Having a multi-monitor workstation increases productivity dramatically and thanks to the ViBook USB, it’s now easier than ever. The $130 PC/Mac dongle simply plugs into a USB port and outputs up to 1680×1050 or 1600×1200 over VGA or DVI. This could be a great, but somewhat costly, solution for notebooks or towers alike. A heck of a lot easier than installing a new graphics card, that’s for damn sure.
iandoh passes along the news that researchers at Stanford University have completed the first quantitative, scientific comparison of alternative energy solutions by assessing not only their potential for delivering energy for electricity and vehicles, but also their impacts on global warming, human health, energy security, water supply, space requirements, wildlife, water pollution, reliability, and sustainability. Based on their model, they found that the best sources of alternative energy are wind, concentrated solar, and geothermal energy. The worst are nuclear, clean coal, and ethanol-based fuels. In other words, "the options that are getting the most attention are between 25 to 1,000 times more polluting than the best available options."
After a lull around Thanksgiving, December has seen some of the biggest layoffs in the tech industry yet since the economy entered its tailspin in the fall. Our Layoff Tracker is now past 100,000 lost jobs (109,629, as of this writing) across nearly 300 different technology and media companies both large and small. To put this in perspective, Citigroup alone announced 52,000 layoffs in November, and across the U.S. economy, just counting September and October, there were nearly 500,000 unemployment claims as a result of mass layoffs (data isn’t in yet for November or December).
December, though, has seen no let-up in the number of tech jobs being eliminated. Sony announced 8,000 layoffs on Tuesday, AT&T topped that with 12,000 the week before, and Alacatel-Lucent added another 1,000 today. Yahoo’s previously announced layoffs of 1,500 employees took effect this week, and Cnet saw the brunt of the estimated 275 layoffs across CBS interactive (although other units, such as Last.fm, were not spared).
Pink slips were also passed out at Divx (21), Silicon Graphics (160), and Sandisk (300). But the single worst day so far was December 4th, when 18,816 tech jobs disappeared. Most of those (12,000) came from AT&T, but on that day layoffs hit Real Networks (130), IBM Japan (2,500), Viacom (850), NBC (500), and Careerbuilder (300)
If you know of any layoffs at a tech company, please submit a tip with the name of the company and number of layoffs. If it’s been covered, also send a link to the blog post or news article. (For those more interested in who is hiring, check out our job board).
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Just hours after announcing plans to sell a high-end Mac clone, niche electronics reseller EFI-X changed course in order to avoid a nasty legal confrontation with Apple.
"We certainly don't want to get into a legal battle that's over a couple thousand dollars," an EFI-X spokesman said. "Potentially Apple could have a legal issue there. They may not have a legal issue, but with all the money they have they might try to make one."
Despite the sudden turnabout, it's getting harder and harder for Apple
to guard the most precious jewel at the core of its success: The Mac
operating system.
Apple
forbids Mac OS X from running on anything but a Mac. But in the past
year, an army of Mac cloners has emerged, their rise facilitated in large part by Apple's 2006 decision to switch to Intel chips. The most prominent example is
Florida-based Psystar, a startup selling Mac clones, which has been in
legal battle with Apple since July. Shortly following Psystar's lead
were companies with similar offerings: OpenTech, OpeniMac and Art
Studios Entertainment Media.
Friday morning, AppleInsider reported that EFI-X was going to start selling custom-made PCs with
the USB dongle included inside. But in a phone interview with
Wired.com, EFI-X said it was going to cancel this deal, in fear that
Apple would construe this offer -- a computer shipped with a Mac OS X
booter -- as a Mac clone.
HR&O attorney Eric Overholt said
the dongle will likely face legality issues with Apple. He explained
Apple could potentially allege piracy and copyright infringement in
violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, because the
Taiwanese company is essentially copying the Mac BIOS and putting it in
a chip (the dongle).
"My thought is that this company will
face the same type of lawsuit and claims that Psystar is facing," said
Eric Overholt, an HR&O attorney with HR&O. "This dongle tricks
the clone into thinking that the clone is actually a Mac. There will
also most likely be claims against [the company] for 'reverse
engineering' the Mac BIOS in order to create their 'dongle.'"
Art
Studios Entertainment Media's dongle shows how the definition of a "Mac
clone" has become blurry. And that gives away just how easy it's become
for manufacturers to steal Apple's operating system -- and market it in
different ways in order to dodge legal bullets.
"I would say that one of
the things that's happening to Apple is that it's less able to keep
secrets than it used to be because it has broader supply chain and
broader distribution," said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies.
Apple
wasn't always opposed to Mac clones. For a brief period in the 1990s --
when Steve Jobs was still exiled from Apple -- Apple CEO Michael
Spindler licensed the Mac operating system to several manufacturers: Power Computing, Motorola, Umax, APS, Radius and DayStar. When Jobs retook the helm in
1997, one of the first items on his agenda was to destroy the clone
program and eliminate these cheaper alternatives to Apple's goods.
But in 2006, Apple opened itself up to attack again
(knowingly or not) when it ditched its own Power PC processors in favor
of Intel's more power-efficient CPUs. Because Apple then had to code OS X to run on Intel processors, it opened a door for
hackers: They could modify the operating system code to run on any Intel-powered, non-Mac machine.
The Intel switch gave birth to an underground community of hackers dubbed OSX86, who anonymously contribute
to a wiki that details the techniques required to get the Mac OS to work on other
Intel machines. The OSX86 community is what made Psystar and all the aforementioned
companies possible, and it's also what enables people to install Mac OS X on a netbook, a popular hack.
"People were talking about Apple coming out with a laptop under $800 for the first time, and someone already made one and it's a
[hacked] netbook," said Brad Linder, blogger of Liliputing.
Although running OS X on a non-Apple machine may violate Apple's
software license agreements and copyrights, and may be a violation of
the DMCA, the new crop of clone makers have plenty of tricky moves to
evade legal trouble.
One of the trickiest moves comes from
Taiwanese company Art Studios Entertainment Media. The company isn't
selling a Mac clone, per se. It's manufacturing a USB dongle
that lets PCs boot up any operating system, including OS X. Conveniently enough, Art Studios Entertainment Media calls the product EFI-X, and is selling the product through EFI-X USA, the reseller that no longer wants to be known as a maker of Mac clones. The Taiwanese company is urging EFI-X to avoid marketing the dongle's primary feature as booting computers
off OS X -- even though that's what most customers likely want it for.
Confused yet? EFI-X USA says it is too.
"We get somewhat mixed signals on what [Art Studios Entertainment Media] would really like
to accomplish," said an EFI-X spokesman. "They produce the device and want to sell it, but
somehow they don't want it to come out that the primary function of the
device is that it allows people to run OS X on generic Intel hardware."
Another company with a
creative plan to put out a Mac clone was OpenTech. The Florida-based
company launched in July, promising to sell computers together with a
how-to kit on installing the operating system of your choice, including
Apple's. A spokesman for OpenTech made bold statements,
saying, "Our legal team has come to the conclusion that we wouldn't be
violating any copyright laws or any other laws." But just a month
later, OpenTech shut down its operation and put it up for sale.
Apple continues to battle Psystar, a Florida-based company that started selling PCs hacked to run OS X
in April. Apple in mid-July filed a lawsuit alleging copyright,
trademark and shrink-wrap license infringement. And much to Apple's
surprise, Psystar's legal team is fighting back, leading the
corporation to believe the small company may be receiving help from other parties -- perhaps another competing corporation.
Since
the Mac clones market is young, it's difficult to tell how much these clone makers and netbook hackers are actually cutting into Apple's sales. Given the difficulty of getting the hacks to work, or even of getting a clone maker on the phone, total sales of Mac clones probably miniscule. And it's unlikely we'll see Mac clones break
into the mainstream anytime soon, given Apple's ruthless legal team.
Even so, Apple's clone problem is unlikely to go away any time soon. As long as OS X runs on Intel hardware, and as long as the developers behind OSX86 continue their work, it will be difficult for Apple to stop cloning altogether.
What I'm about to say will anger a lot of CE manufacturers, but this has been the laziest year in consumer electronics to date and I'm recommending that rather than spending money on the boring stuff that has come out in 2008 we all spend our money on digital media - games, music, audiobooks, ebooks, and the like. And I don't mean digital Blu-Ray and game disks, either. I mean all bits, all season.
It’s Elevator Pitch Friday, which means another startup has created a video that’s worth showing you. This week’s presentation comes from Duck Duck Go, a start-up that wants to make it easier for you to find what it is that you are looking for on the Internet.
Duck Duck Go combines a search engine’s algorithmic search technology with Wikipedia’s user generated content. They argue that the combination of these two technologies makes it quicker and easier for people to find what they want on the Internet.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
When it comes to educational software, the trick is to make kids think they’re just playing a traditional escapist game, while they’re really being surreptitiously fed facts and logic problems that put their brains to work. But while many games have done this for years, the technique hasn’t really made the jump to online virtual worlds - most of the kid-friendly virtual worlds are more focused on socializing and having fun than learning. Now JumpStart, a best-selling educational software developer, is looking to fill this niche with its new JumpStart Virtual World, which launched this week in public beta.
The game has high production values, with rich 3D graphics, customizable avatars, and a large world to explore. The game is browser-based, and works on both Mac and Windows with a small browser plugin. The current release offers 5 themed zones, each of which is filled with games designed to entertain and teach at the same time (examples include a Story game, which requires the child to play a memory matching game as they attempt to find all of the parts of their story book). Each game also tracks the child’s progress, and allows parents to receive periodic updates via Email detailing how their kids are doing.
The JumpStart virtual world is broken into three main segments, each targeted towards a different age range. At launch the only one available is Story Land (for ages 3-5), but Adventure Land (6-8’s) and Futureland (8-10’s) will be opening up in March or April 2009. The game is free to try out and lets kids play in one of the world’s themed zones, but to access the majority of the content families will need to pay a $7.99 monthly subscription fee (the fee is per family, not per child, and also includes access to JumpStart’s library of retail games).
But while JumpStart’s world is loaded with content, at this point it doesn’t take full advantage of its online connectivity. To keep kids as safe as possible the game doesn’t allow for much socialization between avatars (an understandable restriction, especially with the 3-5 year-old set). But at launch there’s only one multiplayer game, though JumpStart exec Thomas Swalla says more are on the way. If JumpStart is going to be charging monthly dues, it needs to do more to separate itself from a standard off-line game. That said, in my testing the game was surprisingly fun (even though I am admittedly well outside the target audience), and could easily be a hit with kids.
We’re done with that. There is no point. People don’t even listen to it all. They put it on their iPod, they drag over the two singles and skip over the rest. The listening patterns have changed, so why are we killing ourselves to do albums, to create balance and do the arty track to set up the single? It’s done.
A bipartisan Senate report concluded that decisions by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were a "direct cause" of inhumane treatment of POWs.
The report, endorsed by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is the most forceful denunciation to date of the role that Rumsfeld and other top officials played in the prisoner abuse scandals of the last five years.
The document also challenges assertions by senior Bush administration officials that the most egregious cases of prisoner mistreatment were isolated incidents of appalling conduct by U.S. troops.
"The abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib in late 2003 was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own," the report says.
Instead, the document says, a series of high-level decisions in the Bush administration "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees in U.S. military custody."
Of course, the only thing that will happen as a result of this report is that President Bush will give Rummy a medal.
PC World - Enterprise software maker Infor Global Solutions quietly laid off about 5 percent of its roughly 9,000 workers this week, making it the latest of its peers to trim staff during the economic downturn. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 10:00 pm
JACKSONVILLE, Fla., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Fidelity National
Financial, Inc. (NYSE: FNF) today announced the signing of an amended stock
purchase agreement with LandAmerica Financial Group, Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:54 pm
Archeologists in England say they've found an ancient human brain buried in a small pit near York.
The brain, believed to have been buried 2,000 years ago, was inside a decapitated skull, the Daily Mail reported Friday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:44 pm
NewsFactor - Acer, AT&T and RadioShack have teamed up to offer a deal that brings the Acer Aspire netbook to market for only $99. Netbooks are mobile computing devices with a screen size of five to 10 inches that run a full version of a client operating system, such as Windows XP or Linux. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:38 pm
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Streaming speakers and docks, quality design, and a sincere effort to downsize their product lineup to affordable levels appears to be the main focus for Philips for the upcoming year.
The downsizing extended to the small gathering present at an office downtown, which took the place of the company's usual jaunt down to Vegas for CES. Like other companies this year, the downturn in the economy forced managers to reconsider the costs of that massive show and instead opted out.
According to Roy Carpenter, Director of Customer Marketing for Philips, they used that philosophy when creating this year's lineup: "We looked at some heavy features from our in-house design team and we had to tell them, you know what, people now are looking for something more affordable. We love the step-up stuff . . . but many have to be under $100." He said they cut designs that were only $10-$20 more per item because in the current economic climate, every dollar counts.
Some people have speculated the CES move is a bad sign for the long-term health of Philips. Earlier this year, the company announced they were shifting their TV division to Funai, likely to concentrate on future technologies like large-scale autostereoscopic 3D displays.
The early lineup is nothing to get excited about, but if you're into sleek, portable gadgets that work with your iPhone, you could do much worse than these. Here are some we liked:
Philips Streamium Network Music Players NP2500 and NP2900 -–
These are nicely designed wireless players that can access your PC,
international radio stations, and any internet radio feed (including
Rhapsody). They also come with a bright LCD for album art, although
it's too bad they can't play video. The latter comes with an integrated
four-speaker system (with 32W RMS), and both up-convert compressed
sound.
The
UI is similar to the iPod's, and seems easy to navigate through the
menus. Probably the best thing about it was that it took a couple of
split-second dials to find a random station from Spain. Seems
weird, but they really eat up Van Gough's Ear over there. They'll go for $220 and $320 respectively.
Philips Docking Entertainment System DC350 –- This one
should be sold as "For the CEO Who Still Has His Job." It's an
iPhone/iPod dock with hands-free conference call functions and is synchronized to
your business calendars on your PC. Mainly, I liked the
retro-futuristic design that could easily fit in the new Star Trek
movie if it wasn't populated by too many soap opera wannabes. Compared to other new docks out, the price seems inexpensive.
With six-watt RMS output power. Will be out in January '09 for $150.
DLO iBoom JukeBox
–- Another iPod/iPhone dock that looks good. Features a radio frequency
(RF) remote that controls the box up to 100 feet away, as well
as dual one-inch tweeters and three-inch woofers. It’s $200.
Philips Multimedia Speakers 2.1 SPA5300 –- Tiny
speakers with some power. Comes with a customizable Dynamic Bass Boost
for quick room-sampling tweaks, and works with any type of media gear.
If you plug them in to your PC, they also promise to eliminate computer
screen distortion with 'magnetic shielding.' That's a claim that needs
to be tested.
Saunders Announces Resignation from Board of Directors to Join YTB Legal Team
WOOD RIVER, Ill., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- YTB International, Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:26 pm
By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
Omniture (OMTR) shares are down sharply today following cautious comments on the stock this morning by Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley.
Bartley writes that “feedback from the channel is markedly more negative” than it was two to three months ago. He says the poor economy is resulting in month-over-month slowing in the online business analytics sector; he says Q4 activity is weaker than expected in what is normally a seasonally strong period. “In general, existing customers are not expected to increase their investments in 2009,” he writes. Bartley also says new customer growth is slowing; he expects a drop of 30-50 percent in 2009 in new customer additions.
The mysterious Director of surrealist thinktank and clothier Imaginary Foundation has a gallery show of oil paintings and sculptures opening tomorrow night, December 13, at SURU in Los Angeles. The opening night festivities will include music by DJ Nitedog and Darkhorse and a special live appearance by the Cosmic Drummer featured on the Imaginary Foundation's "Space Is The Place" t-shirt. The show is titled "I Dream, Therefore I Become," and will be the subject of Monday's episode of BBtv. Tune in, and turn on. Imaginary Foundation gallery show
Apple this week revised the layout of its iPhone application store to make it less of a cluttered mess.
The iPhone App Store now displays the most
downloaded applications for each category (e.g., Games, Travel,
Finance, etc).
In the past, the App Store only listed the
top 25 apps (paid or free) downloaded overall, regardless of category.
Breaking the apps into separate categories will not only make it easier for customers to find popular software; it'll help out iPhone developers as well.
Some iPhone
developers were recently complaining it's difficult for their apps to receive
attention now that the App Store is crowded with over 10,000 apps.
Earlier this week, developer Craig Hockenberry published an e-mail
he wrote to Steve Jobs outlining why the App Store's structure is
hurting his business. He said since the only way to receive major
attention is making it to list of top 25 apps downloaded overall, developers feel rushed to
produce $0.99 apps to try to make it to that list. The long-term result
is apps are likely to get simpler and less innovative, Hockenberry
explained.
A U.S. Food and Drug Administration draft report says most people should eat more fish, a published report said Friday.
The draft report, obtained by The Washington Post, calls for the government to reverse current U.S. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:12 pm
Zoledronic acid may shrink breast tumors when used used in addition to chemotherapy, scientists meeting in San Antonio said.
Zoledronic acid is primarily targeted to bone and metastasis within the bone marrow microenvironment, but it may also be enhancing the response in the primary breast tumor, Dr. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 9:04 pm
Estonia has become the world’s first nation to recognize mobile suffrage after passing legislation to allow its citizens the ability to cast their votes in the 2011 parliamentary elections with their cell phones.
This is the second time Estonia has adopted such an innovative, pro-tech law, having given Estonians the ability to vote in the parliamentary elections over the Internet for the first time last year.
In regards to security, Raul Kaidro, a spokesman for the SK Certification Center in charge of issuing personal ID cards in Estonia, explains:
The mobile-voting system, which has already been tested, requires that voters obtain free, authorized chips for their phones. The chip will verify the voter’s identity and authorize participation in the electronic voting system.
The system and software have proven effective and reliable in an independent security audit, he continues…dismiss[ing] security concerns, claiming the system “is the most secure way to authenticate digital signatures.”
Security concerns aside, the adoption of mobile voting will most almost assuredly result in greater citizen participation. Hopefully, they’ll send voters a confirmation text: U vtd 2day!
You'd think that if scientists were to discover a new species, it would be in some remote, uncharted tropical forest, not a laboratory in New York. But a team from the Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics at the American Museum of Natural History has done the unexpected. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:53 pm
O2 Wireless, a nationwide provider of prepaid cellular service that features highly competitive rates and FREE International long distance to 50+ countries, is offering a red-hot online only offer Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:53 pm
Religion and culture shape views of nanotechnologyTwo new National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored research studies say public acceptance of the relatively new, nature-altering science of nanotechnology isn't a foregone conclusion. Instead, the studies indicate continued concern.Researchers at Yale University say that when people learn about this novel technology they become sharply divided along cultural lines, while a separate study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Arizona State University says nanotechnology seems to be failing the moral litmus test of religion.Federal entities are looking into safety and public acceptance issues surrounding nanotechnology because of its ability to alter matter on an atomic and molecular scale. The potential societal benefits of using nanotechnology to create new materials and devices for medicine, electronics and energy production could be huge. But the idea of creating them through molecular manipulation leaves some people apprehensive."Evidence shows that there is much room for improvement in efforts to communicate about the environmental, health, and safety impacts of nanotechnology," said Robert E. O'Connor, NSF program manager for decision, risk and management sciences.The Yale study, part of their Cultural Cognition Project, surveyed 1,500 Americans, the majority of whom were unfamiliar with nanotechnology. Researchers gave participants balanced information about its risks and benefits. Upon seeing it, study participants became highly divided on the technology's safety compared to a group that was not shown the same information.According to Dan Kahan, the Elizabeth K. Dollard Professor at Yale Law School and lead author of the study, people's cultural values determined how they responded. "People who had more individualistic, pro-commerce values, tended to infer that nanotechnology is safe," said Kahan. People more worried about economic inequality saw the same information as implying that nanotechnology is likely to be dangerous.The finding is consistent with other Cultural Cognition Project studies that show people's cultural values influence their perceptions of environmental and technological risks. Kahan notes, "When respondents learned about this new technology, they matched their views of its risks with previously held cultural values."A separate study conducted in the United States and Europe indicates that people with religious views see nanotechnology as less morally acceptable, compared with people who live in more secular societies.According to the study, the United States and a few European countries where religion plays a larger role, notably Italy, Austria and Ireland see the potential of nanotechnology to alter living organisms or inspire synthetic life as less morally acceptable. In more secular European societies such as France and Germany, people are less likely to see nanotechnology as morally suspect."What we captured is nano-specific," said Dietram Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of life sciences communication. "But it is also representative of a larger attitude toward science and technology. It raises a big question about what's really going on in our public discourse where science and religion often clash.""Our findings show that the public no longer just turns to scientists for answers about the science, but also for answers about its social implications," he said. "In other words, they want to know not only what can be done, but also what should be done. The more prepared scientists are to answer both questions, the more credible their societal leadership will be on issues like nanotechnology," said Scheufele, who co-authored the study with Elizabeth Corley, School of Public Affairs at Arizona State.According to O'Connor, both studies highlight the need for specific public education strategies that consider citizens' values and predispositions. "Understanding that people make decisions about technology through the prisms of their personal values will be important to take into account if we are to accurately communicate the risks and benefits of innovations like nanotechnology to the public," said O'Connor."There is still plenty of time to develop risk-communication strategies that make it possible for persons of diverse values to understand the best evidence on nanotechnology's risks," said Kahan. "The only mistake would be to assume that such communication strategies aren't necessary."It's estimated that nanotechnology will be a $3.1 trillion global industry by 2015. Both studies can be found in the Dec. 7, 2008, issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology.---Image Caption: Nanotechnology, which alters the fundamentals of nature by manipulating matter on an atomic or molecular scale, is becoming a larger presence in everyday life through its use in more than a thousand products ranging from solar panels, scratch-resistant automobile paint to enhanced golf clubs. Even so, cultural and religious beliefs give rise to differing views of its acceptability. This is a view from within a flattened, twisted carbon nanotube. Nanotubes are tiny tube-like structures that have unique electronic, thermal, and structural properties that make them potentially useful for nanotechnology, electronics, optics and other fields of material science. Credit: Vin Crespi, Pennsylvania State Physics. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:47 pm
There is something about great sales people or deal makers that is entirely social. They are connectors, as Malcolm Gladwell calls them—people who know the interests, skills, and needs of everyone in their social or business circle and connects them together. If you are really good at this, like Sidney Weinberg (a legend who helped build Goldman Sachs), you are a super-connector.
Zentact has the modest goal to help you become a super-connector. It has a long way to go before it can do that. But it is starting with the kernel of something that is intriguing. At its core, Zentact is a browser add-on (for Firefox only right now) that helps you read the Web with the interests of your social network in mind. If you want to try it out, we have 500 invites for the private beta (but once you are in, you can invite as many people as you want by sending them a message through Zentact).
Here is what is supposed to happen once you have Zentact all set up. Reading an article about black labs? A box pops up to remind you that your co-editor loves black labs and lets you email him the article with a note right from that page. Run across a blog post that mentions a contact’s company? Same thing happens. You can forward that article or link and make yourself look thoughtful in the same way that setting up automatic birthday reminders in your calendar or Amazon makes you look like you went the extra effort to remember someone’s birthday.
“This is basically a karma points system,” says investor and adviser Eric Marcoullier, the CEO of Gnip. Marcoullier and Zentact co-founders John Sampson and Jared Brandt are all MyBloglog refugees. They founded Zentact with a few hundred thousand dollars. (Howard Lindzon is their biggest angel investor).
Before you can start using Zentact, first it needs to ingest all of your contacts from Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo Mail. Then—and this is its weak point—you have to tag each contact with their interests, company affiliations, and whatnot. That right there almost makes it a non-starter for me. Some people, I realize, will do this obsessive tagging (sales people, recruiters, biz dev types), but not most people. I have 2,318 contacts in Gmail. There is no way I am going to go through and tag those. It would be much better if Zentact could simply get all of this information from one of my existing social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, which already know all of my contacts’ interests and affiliations.
The software, however, does have a saving grace. Whenever you email someone in Gmail, a Zentact box opens up right in the email below the address field where you can add tags and other data in a piecemeal fashion. That makes the process a lot less daunting, and lets you focus on the people you actually are in contact with the most frequently.
Once that is set up, then the Zentact box is supposed to pop up whenever it reads a tag contextually on a page and tell you which contacts you might want to email the link with a thoughtful note. It acts a a surrogate super-connector brain in that way. Explains Marcoullier:
The vast majority of people get information, they process it for internal use, and then move on. Why not build a plugin that reads what you are reading and alerts you to the fact that it might be relevant to someone in your network?
That could be helpful or annoying depending on how often it pops up. You can moderate that based on the tags you use. The actual mechanics of Zentact are still a little bit buggy in my experience (although that could just be my dying computer or the fact that I imported way too many contacts). But this is a rough beta and there is a lot of promise here.
Once you’ve tagged a bunch of contacts, then you can click on each tag at Zentact’s Website and see all the contacts who share a certain interest. This could be great for organizing soccer games or biking trips or a startup, or that matter. It all depends on how good is your personal tag database. How well do you know your contacts and what they are good at?
Zentact will soon add the ability to actually connect like-minded contacts to each other, which is really what super-connectors do. When it does that and can automatically tag your contacts for you, then I’ll really be excited about it. But what I really want is for my existing social networks to do this for me.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Total Communications donates food baskets and hundreds of toys to needy families in East Hartford
EAST HARTFORD, Conn., Dec. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:44 pm
File under “interesting, but understandable”: After a flurry of election-related interest in October, traffic to red-hot Hulu fell off in November. Blame Sarah Palin–or the lack of her.
ComScore says that traffic to the joint venture between News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and GE’s (GE) NBC fell 10.8 percent from October to November, dropping from 5.3 million unique visitors to 4.8 million. (Hulu’s PR team notes that ComScore’s separate “VideoMetrix” panel assigned a much bigger audience to the site last month: 24 million uniques. They haven’t put out November numbers yet but I’ll update when I get them).
ComScore (SCOR) says U.S. traffic at Google’s (GOOG) YouTube also dropped that month, but by a much smaller margin–0.006 percent. And since YouTube is a global property, those numbers are less telling. Hulu, meanwhile, is a U.S.-only site (much to the dismay of blog commenters).
Apologies for not figuring out how to show you this data in graph form–I’ll figure it out eventually. For now, click to enlarge.
This makes plenty of sense: Hulu was one of two places were you could (legally) see the “Saturday Night Live” Sarah Palin clips, which were huge sensations. The other one, NBC.com, dropped a whopping 50 percent–from 14.1 million to 7.2 million, comScore says.
And all sorts of Web sites that enjoyed a bump during the run-up to the election have tailed off a bit since then. ComScore says the Huffington Post, for instance, is down 20 percent– from five million uniques to four million. Presumably Oak Investment Partners was aware of that before it sank $25 million into the site last month.
Meanwhile, Hulu still shows impressive growth. If I could have figured out how to create a graph, you’d see that Hulu has still had a huge run-up since March, when it left beta.
Speaking of beta, video site/blog punching bag Joost has logged its first full month of traffic since its Web video player became open to the public. ComScore pegs traffic at 1.1 million uniques; the company says that its data, which include global traffic, show 2.1 million.
Those aren’t huge numbers–I can think of several text-only blogs, which cost a lot less to build and operate than Joost’s site, that garner more eyeballs than that–but they’re not terrible either. Still, Joost has a lot of ground to catch up if it wants to give Hulu a run for its money.
Last but not least! Here’s an excellent clip from the smart folks at the Onion. It’s a month old, but news to me. Enjoy:
PC World - The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has approved a standard for high-speed networking over multiple types of in-home wiring. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:40 pm
LUVERNE, Ala., Dec. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Tough economic times don't have to
mean a ho-hum holiday if you follow some simple strategies for creating cheer
without much cash, says Patricia "Sister Schubert" Barnes, founder of Sister
Schubert's Homemade Rolls. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:38 pm
A study in the U.S.-based journal Science suggests female elephants living in in Africa and Asia live longer than those in European zoos.
Researchers, led by Georgia Mason of the University of Guelph in Ontario, said a study of data on more than 4,500 Asian and African elephants from Amboseli National Park in Kenya, the Myanma Timber Enterprise in Burma and European zoos shows being born into a zoo, being moved between zoos and the possible loss of their mothers puts animals at particular risk.
The study said the median lifespan for African elephants born in zoos was 16.9 years while the median for Africans at the Kenyan preserve that died of natural causes was 56 years.
The report was criticized by the North American-based Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
The article is flawed, Paul Boyle, senior vice president of conservation and education for the organization, told the Los Angeles Times. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:32 pm
Climate change is hampering the long-term recovery of rivers from the effects of acid rain, as wet weather counteracts improvements, according to a new study by Cardiff University.The research, by Professor Steve Ormerod and Dr Isabelle Durance of the School of Biosciences, took place over a 25 year period around Llyn Brianne in mid-Wales. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:19 pm
Nearly half of all U.S. adults say they're not planning to get a flu shot this year, a RAND survey said.
Dr. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:16 pm
New technique allows real-time observation of molecules during chemical reactions.A novel x-ray technique allowing the observation of molecular motion on a time scale never reached before has been developed by a team of researchers from EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Switzerland. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Dec 2008 | 8:15 pm
New Google Android mobile operating system-based phones are coming fast.
After news less than a week ago of the second Android phone to be launched in Australia, reports suggest that Lenovo is preparing to launch a Android-based phone called "OPhone" on China Mobile's network.
T-Mobile's HTC G1 launched in October in the U.S. was the first device to run Android OS.
Lenovo's OPhone is likely to release early next year, according to a forum on ModMyGphone.
A leaked shot of the OPhone suggests a sophisticated touchscreen phone that could potentially seize the opportunity that Apple has left in the country.
China has the largest number of cellphone users in the world. But Apple has been struggling to ink a deal with China Mobile to bring the iPhone to China. So far, the company has made little headway.
The OPhone, which runs Android operating system customized to China Mobile's network, could fill that gap for customers longing for an iPhone-like gadget.
Alright folks, here goes. On Tuesday, December 16th, we will be announcing the winner of the HP Magic Giveaway. How do you enter?
All you’ve got to do is create an account right here. Sign up for a Dabbledoo account/profile to enter! Also with that account, you’ll be able to comment without entering your information, create a profile, upload a pic / avatar, and more!
You don’t want to miss out on $6,000 worth of computer stuff, do you? Keep coming back to Gadgetell so you can see what you can win!
AP - Parliament has approved a law making Estonia the first country to allow voting by mobile phone. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 7:10 pm
Right about now, Michael Phelps is shaking in his Baltimore boots.
A material recently invented by Swiss scientists promises to lead to the first waterproof swimsuits, reducing current drag by almost 20%.
Let's just say that for the sake of their business, Speedo is probably looking into this.
The innovative fabric is comprised of (non-waterproof) polyester fibers coated by millions of microscopic filaments of silicone. The coating is the key. In a chemical process, silicone is condensed onto the fibers, which create the spiky structure of filaments 40-nanometre-wide that prevents water droplets from soaking through.
In addition, the nanofilaments trap a layer of air in the tiny space between them, and this creates a permanent bubble barrier preventing water from seeping through. This double-coating structure is already so good that according to University of Zurich scientists, it's possible to submerge it in water for up to two months without getting wet.
This means that you can squirt-tag it with the ultimate super-soaker, and the water stream just bounces off. Because the contact between the water and the fabric is minimized, water droplets never submerge and just slide off.
This isn't the first time scientists have figured out that nanostructures can produce water-proof surfaces. In fact, a Chinese group recently reverse-engineered Lotus flowers to discover that the reason why its epidermis tends to stay dry in wet environments is because its leaves have 'microbumps' lined with waxy nanoparticles. It is another example of nature perfecting something thousands of years before we figure it out.
According to the University, the waterproof project is working on adding the coating to other textiles like wool and cotton. It's only a matter of time before they show up in bodysuits in the ski slopes.
Dhreck's hemp-mote is made from 100 percent natural hemp, and remains completely functional on the inside.
In stark contrast with the original Wii-mote set, what was once sleek, cold, white and hard plastic has now become a slightly fuzzy, natural, warm and textured concoction. No more bland, branded and boring but mottled, flawfull, rough and a tad sweat absorbing.
Move over LG Prada and Co., there’s a new outrageously priced (mobile) sheriff in town - the (previously mentioned) Motorola AURA. For just shy of $two grand (unlocked), Motorola’s high-society handset can be yours, complete with its very own 62 Carat Sapphire Crystal Lens.
But wait, there’s plenty more where that came from. With stainless steel housing, the world’s first 16 million color, circular display, and over 700 other individual components, the quad-band GSM 4.97 oz. AURA is not messing around.
If that’s not quite enough to garner your attention, maybe Motorola’s own marketing jabber will:
AURA™ by Motorola is a timeless, classically designed device that delivers a sensory experience that is second-to-none for those with refined taste. Combining an exquisite interface with superb craftsmanship inspired by high-end watches, AURA breaks convention and re-establishes artistry in the design and manufacturing of mobile devices. From the moment an AURA owner picks up his or her device they embark on a journey of discovery.
One could argue that releasing the company’s most expensive mobile phone to date during a worldwide economic downturn is just plain silly, but then again, anyone looking to buy a $2,000 handset probably isn’t terribly concerned one way or another. And really, can you even put a price tag on “The Return of Artistry”?
According to the official Motorola store site, AURA’s key features include:
World’s first circular display on a mobile phone, 16 million color
Chemically-etched textures and patterns
Three tungsten carbon carbide coated main gears
The main bearing is Swiss-made
Protective PVD coating and mirror polish finish, same as used on luxury watches
A new prosthetic arm, developed in the U.K., attaches directly to its owner's bone.
A victim of the London bombings has had a prosthetic arm fitted to her bone and skin in an operation which could herald "a new generation of reconstruction".
Kira Mason was opposite one of the four men who detonated devices on the transport network on 7 July 2005.
Surgeons were able to fuse a metal pin with her skin tissue, and a battery pack helps to ensure she can clench her fist and flex her muscles.
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Steve Cannon said it was a "breakthrough"
If life is a cement trampoline, then Fairchild Semiconductor just performed a flat back landing. It’s hand forced by those oft-cited “market conditions,” the company said Friday it is sacking 12 percent of its workforce, or 1,100 people, in an attempt to reduce expenses and spread holiday cheer.
Fairchild (FCS) reduced its guidance as well. It had been expecting $338 million to $360 million in sales for its fiscal fourth quarter. Now it expects just $320 million.
Fairchild is the latest semiconductor company to temper its estimates as demand for the computers and telecommunications gear in which its chips are used contracts. Earlier this week, Texas Instruments (TXN), National Semi (NSM) and Broadcom (BRCM) all cut their projections because of lousy market conditions.
Our story on swoopo.com, an auction site that advertises crazy low prices, continues to draw folks that are either angry at the site or impressed with their business model. The concept is rather unique: bidders pay per bid which tends to keep the prices low. Is it possible to beat Swoopo? Can it be taught?
One site that has been offering advice to our readers on swoopo is David Boyd from beatswoopo.com. Dave sells a guide book of sorts on techniques to beat Swoopo. The book costs $7 and is sold from his site. From his site:
A sample of 5,000 auctions was taken to formulate several different characteristics and trends on Swoopo. You will have the ability to know what day of week a product is going to be discounted the most. You will know what time of day you should be bidding on that product.
Let’s get to the questions:
Tell me what drove you to start your site.
I started my website after checking out Swoopo when I read a brief blog on the site. I’m always interested in new business models, and this one definitely sounded like a first. So, I checked it out, did my
research, and found that there were a ton of people very dissatisfied with it. I guess it’s only to be expected because it is not an eBay clone and is called an auction. What if Swoopo came first? I think it would be the other way around. I digress. Well, I saw that there was a way to extract the data off the website and present the data in a way that makes it easier for people to see the best times to make bids on Swoopo. People on eBay call this sniping. I call it simple statistics.
What kind of advice (as specific as you can) do you offer?
What I am going to say isn’t original. Similar to what it says on the Swoopo website I believe you should start out small. Don’t use Bid Butler at first. Get an idea of what you think is what you want for a small amount of money (bids + final price) and give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen? Yeah, you could lose $30.00. So what? That learning experience could save you $300.00 in the future.
Why $7? How did you arrive at that number?
The $7.00 is a holiday special which I have decided to keep running. I might keep it at that price, but I’m not sure as of this time. It’s also a very reasonable price for a book that will most likely save someone ten times that amount given the product and auction.
Do you believe swoopo is evil or just misunderstood?
Swoopo is totally misunderstood. The guys at Swoopo definitely have some tough skin for all the flak they get. It’s like trying to get the old people at church to change the style of service from traditional to contemporary; only they are trying to get people to change from eBay to Swoopo. Also, they are a young company with an extremely fast growth rate. I’m sure that if there are any kinks to be worked out, they are already on top of it.
Do you offer a guarantee or some assurance of winning?
As of right now I do not guarantee anything through the purchase of my eBook. I do have a disclaimer in the book, but I would also think that you can’t be that ridiculous to think that I’m going to sell insurance on an auction that you are putting your money in that I have no say in. I’m not a dealer at a blackjack table and I’m not the house. Hmm, that’s an idea. Swoopo selling auction insurance? Maybe for the amount of insurance you put in you get a certain amount back if you do not win. It could be a ratio between the sell price and the price spent on bids. Just a thought. You heard it here first.
What have you won on the site?
I don’t gamble for religious reasons, so I do not participate on Swoopo.
Can you give us an idea how many customers you’ve had?
I am still in the early stages of sales and have sold under 75 books. I will be coming out with Volume 2 soon. It will be available on the website. I am also looking to get on Amazon for all you digital book people.
Can you share your customers success rates/stories?
I have had several customers come back saying that they love the book and have used the strategies to win holiday presents for their kids. It’ s a good feeling to know I helped.
Thanks to Dave for answering all my questions. On his site he says he assumes Swoopo is legit. What is your take? Let us know in the comments.
Nokia is to make its own 3G USB dongles in Europe. From Reuters:
Nokia declined to comment on the price of the device -- which uses HSPA, a super-fast 3G technology -- saying it would be sold mostly through operators and bundled with services.
Strategy Analytics said it expects the global market for so-called "dongles" -- external USB modems and PC cards -- to grow to 26 million units next year from 20 million this year.
It's remarkable to think that while 3G is still shiny and fresh here, and carriers charge stiff fees for data and phone-as-modem plans, there are already price wars over it elsewhere —and it comes as standard on cheap Euro-netbooks like the EeePC Go.
By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
ThinkEquity’s Jonathan Hoopes this morning made an aggressive call on First Solar (FSLR), asserting that a “high-level inventory analysis” of six of the company’s major customers lead him to conclude that there maybe be substantial numbers of First Solar panels sitting in customer warehouses. And he says that they aren’t likely to move out soon, “given weakening economies, lower natural gas prices, higher interest rates and tougher underwriting requirements.”
Hoopes contends that global solar demand headwinds are unlikely to subside for at least the next few quarters. “Take-or-pay contracts are only as good as the counter-party’s willingness and ability to do either,” he notes. Hoopes points out that Q-Cells, on its Dec. 9 conference call, said it will allow a flexible delivery schedule for customers and will also offer discounted prices to help share the burden.”
This one goes out to you, pink fans. I know you’re out there; every time I push a story about the latest Samsung phone being rereleased in pink, my inbox gets attacked with requests for more info. You want pink? The Barbie P520 is about as pink as they come. Seriously, look at it. That thing burns the eyes a little.
It’s not a powerhouse by any means - but if you’re interested in carrying a pink phone with a Barbie silhouette on the front, I doubt you really care. Underneath that blindingly bright exterior, it’s got a 2.0″ 240×320 touchscreen, a 1.3mp camera, FM radio support, and, somewhat surprisingly, dual SIM slots. All that, and all you have to give up is the pride lost by carrying around a very much not licensed Barbie phone. Oh, and 780 Chinese yuan ($114 USD).
(Side note: What’s up with Barbie’s face in that silhouette? Which little nub is supposed to be her nose? It’s like Barbie has massive craters for facial features.)
Palm is planning a massive product launch for the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month. It could be the company's last, best shot at survival.
"It's quite likely, actually close to a certainty, that they will show a new OS, new user interface and probably new hardware," says Lawrence Harris, an analyst for Wall Street brokerage firm CL King & Associates. "This is Palm's last shot to prove it has what it takes to survive in a very competitive market."
Palm ushered in the handheld computing revolution more than a decade
ago with the Palm Pilot, and further advanced the market with its early Treo smartphones. But in the last few years the company has been struggling for
survival while its devices get eclipsed by smartphones from Research in Motion, Nokia and Apple.
Now Palm has industry
watchers buzzing about its plans for a CES press conference. According to analysts contacted by Wired.com, the company is likely to debut its new, Linux-based operating system,
dubbed Nova, and show the first of a new family of smartphones that
would use the OS. Nova is scheduled for release in the first half of 2009, the company has previously said.
CES, the largest consumer electronics products fair in the U.S., will clearly be a make-or-break event for Palm. The company recently posted second-quarter financial results nearly 40 percent below what some Wall Street analysts had projected. Sales of the Centro smartphone, the company's biggest seller, have been fading. Palm also faces strong headwinds from a weakening economy.
Meanwhile, competition in the market has gotten more intense with the launch of the Apple 3G iPhone, Research In Motion's latest BlackBerry devices and T-Mobile's G1, the first phone based on the Google-backed Android operating system.
Palm currently uses its Palm OS, aka Garnet, and Windows Mobile for its handsets. However, Palm OS is restricted in its use. It lacks support for high-speed HSDPA networks, also known as 3G mobile technology.
Nova could fix that and offer Palm an opportunity to create a new family of products that would go beyond the Centro and its Treo line.
"The good news for Palm is that folks are still talking about them and
those making the trek to CES will likely pay
attention to what they're saying," Michael Gartenberg, vice president at research firm Jupitermedia, wrote on his blog. "If this event disappoints it's going
to be hard for them to muster attention in the future."
Palm may have gotten industry watchers buzzing but, so far, it has held its cards close to its chest. There have been almost no leaks about new hardware or features of the upcoming OS.
It could be a result of the culture that the company's many recent hires from Apple may have brought with them.
Over the last 18 months, Palm has hired a number for former Apple executives including Jon Rubenstein who was instrumental in the creation of the iPod, Lynn Fox, former head of Mac PR and Paul Mercer, a former Apple engineer.
"It is part of the Apple culture to keep things under wraps," says Harris. "And now we are seeing greater secrecy than ever from Palm."
Getting a smartphone? Want a hand getting applications we’ve all been talking about? Head on over to Best Buy where they and Handago have worked together to put Handago’s store on the handset and assist with getting apps on your device in the store. Best Buy says moving an app store into brick and mortar space.
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?
Alcatel-Lucent, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, won’t be quite so large come 2009. This morning the struggling Franco-American network supplier said it plans to sack 1,000 managers and 5,000 contractors in a bid to bring down costs. “The new management team is committed to rapidly executing this new strategy and leveraging the new streamlined organization,” CEO Ben Verwaayen said in a statement. We are focused on delivering results and restoring profitability.”
This latest swing of the ax brings total job cuts at Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) to about 22,500 since the 2006 merger that created it. And though the company will be leaner and meaner for it, that new found agility won’t count for much without a shift in business strategy bold enough to reverse the brutal reduction in market share and market capitalization Alcatel-Lucent has suffered. And an oblique and, frankly, baffling mention of Web 2.0, does not a business strategy make.
Alcatel-Lucent’s plan is to “combine the trusted capabilities of the network environment with the creative communications services of the Web (Web 2.0, Web 3.0 and beyond).” What the hell does that mean?
AP - Computer and video games and their ever-greater realism get most of the attention these days. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Dec 2008 | 4:49 pm
Unless you happen to be one of the few reading MobileCrunch from China, look away. The gorgeous little piece of Android-powered fun you see up above isn’t leavin’ the People’s Republic, so don’t torture yourself by falling in love with it.
Purportedly a work-in-progress by Lenovo, this one’s carrying the name “OPhone” behind closed doors. It’ll be one of the first to be based around China’s Open Mobile System, in which they tweak Android to fit their needs and regulations and slap in a bit of TD SCDMA to support China’s 3G network. It’ll also be one of the first to be based around Lenovo’s “Hey, lets start making really friggin’ pretty handsets” system.
American Toy & Invention Co. has created a kit that allows you to build and demolish a building. These kits are either 4 or 8 stories high, and the buildings can be rebuilt and imploded again.
The inventor has run out of funding, so even though this product is completely tooled and could be delivered, he doesn't have adequate resources to ship product.
I want to get one of these for the engineer on my Christmas list. Somebody needs to fund this thing!
I'm not sure about the funding thing. His site says that he's sold out of a couple of kits, but there are quite a few still on sale at the bottom of the page for around $60. Kudos to the inventor for realizing the end result of most toys is the joy of destruction and just going for it.
This Dinosaur WebCam, available for $17 at crapvendor Sourcing Map, may not be as "high detailed realistic" as they claim — I don't recall many dinosaurs unearthed with cans of nitrous crammed in their mouths — but it is awful cute. And no with completely manual focus!
It's staggering how many different corny webcams are available from these places, all just cheap enough I want to collect them all. I mean, a "Brown Cartoon Windmill" webcam? That's adorable, even if it is inexplicably perched on a set of engorged...oh, maybe that's a heart.
Mitch Altman — Greeetings from Dublin, the second city on my tour of European hacker spaces and conferences. It’s 2am here, after another night of intense conversation and drinking with the local geeks. I was met at the airport yesterday by 5 of said geeks holding laptops, each displaying part of my name – what better way to start my first stay in Ireland?
If my experience is at all typical, then people in Dublin really are warm and open, as I’ve been told by friends who’ve visited here. I’m already friends with several people I never even heard of a couple days ago. From the airport I was scuttled to a respected drinking establishment, frequented by the Netsoc crowd, Netsoc being the computer society of Trinity College. [Pictured above] Conversation and drinking ensued – till 4 in the morning, when the pub manager lost patience and kicked us all out.
The presentation I gave today included several of my favorite rants about TV and its effects, making conscious choices in our lives, encouraging everyone to do what they love. I guess it went over well, since they brought me along with them to the aforementioned pub. Tomorrow I go to Limerick to give another talk at the university there.
A couple years back, my friends Paul and James opened a pair of chocolate shops in London, Paul A Young Fine Chocolates, with one branch in the City and
the other in Islington, in Camden Passage. Paul is a self-taught chocolatier whose truffles I'd been lucky enough to sample over the years, and James is a very sharp entrepreneur, technologist and activist, so I knew that whatever they made, it would be tasty.
I write this from a hotel room at Newark airport in New Jersey. I’m half way home from a wonderful week in Paris at the 
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
If you're giving someone an iPhone for Christmas or Hanukkah, you must also give that person a copy of iPhone Fully Loaded, 2nd Edition, by Chicago Sun Times columnist and 
One of the great things about Android Market is that you can see what everyone has to say about the applications they've downloaded. Very useful in figuring out if you should really download that app called "Alien Blood Bath" or just avoid it all together.
The system, however, is slightly flawed. It appears that no one is really moderating these comments, and they usually end up turning into heated debates on the most futile of topics. So, rather than let these little gems go to waste, we've run into the middle of the battle, and emerged somewhat unscathed with loads of half-baked comments for everyone to enjoy.
As the holidays are quickly approaching, more and more sweet deals are surfacing. Usually, I like to search around and see what nice deals I can find, and today I found that Circuit City is selling the 80GB Microsoft Zune for only $163. 
I suppose this is one of those “trickle-up” technologies, where it first is found in places that need it, like Africa and India, and then everywhere else in the world once the idea is proven practicable. This tech has made its way to Istanbul so far.
Andrew Grove, former Intel Corp chairman, is pushing the world’s biggest maker of microprocessors to diversify business by 
MIT professor Hal Abelson started today’s final presentation for the school’s “Building Mobile Applications” class by saying, “A course like this couldn’t have existed ten years ago… maybe not even a year ago. Courses like this right now are unique, but in two years they’ll be completely ordinary.”
What’s extraordinary is that on top of a full college course-load at one of the most challenging schools in the country, these groups of students built fully working mobile applications for Windows Mobile, Android, and Symbian devices while mentors from the likes of Google, Nokia, Bank of America, and Microsoft oversaw their progress.
After being rejected by Apple for its 
Nokia is 
This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack. This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity. 
Nortel Networks is slipping closer to the abyss each day. Earlier this week it was 
Having a multi-monitor workstation increases productivity dramatically and thanks to the 
What I'm about to say will anger a lot of CE manufacturers, but this has been the laziest year in consumer electronics to date and I'm recommending that rather than spending money on the boring stuff that has come out in 2008 we all spend our money on digital media - games, music, audiobooks, ebooks, and the like. And I don't mean digital Blu-Ray and game disks, either. I mean all bits, all season.
The report, endorsed by Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, is the most forceful denunciation to date of the role that Rumsfeld and other top officials played in the prisoner abuse scandals of the last five years.
The mysterious Director of surrealist thinktank and clothier 
Estonia has become the world’s first nation to recognize mobile 
Move over LG Prada and Co., there’s a new outrageously priced (mobile) sheriff in town - the (
If life is a cement trampoline, then Fairchild Semiconductor just performed a flat back landing. It’s hand forced by those oft-cited “market conditions,” the company 
Our story on swoopo.com, an auction site that advertises crazy low prices, continues to draw folks that are either angry at the site or impressed with their business model. The concept is rather unique: bidders pay per bid which tends to keep the prices low. Is it possible to beat Swoopo? Can it be taught? 
Alcatel-Lucent, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications equipment, won’t be quite so large come 2009. This morning the struggling Franco-American network supplier said it plans to
