Source: Gizmodo | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:40 pm

Android-powered Garmin devices coming second-half of ‘09

2009 is set to be Google’s Androids big year with more and more manufacturers jumping on the open-source platform. Garmin has at least one smartphone slated for the second-half of ‘09 release and with perhaps more on the way. 

We’re still too far away from the launch for exact details. There is a chance that the mobile might not see a Stateside release as the tidbit doesn’t mention that side of the Pacific at all. This comes Tony An, Garmin’s Asia Pacific Marketing Director,

Garmin will launch Nuvifone, its first GPS-enabled handset, in the Taiwan market in the second quarter of 2009, An noted. Garmin also plans to launch self-developed Android handsets in the second half of 2009, with production to be outsourced

Chances are though, the device will be available here in Garmin’s home country - hopefully. Perhaps, 2009 will be a big year for Garmin as well. We would love to see more mobile devices from the firm with their industry-leading GPS support, something the G1 is notoriously lacking.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:37 pm

Android-powered Garmin devices coming second-half of ‘09

2009 is set to be Google’s Androids big year with more and more manufacturers jumping on the open-source platform. Garmin has at least one smartphone slated for the second-half of ‘09 release and with perhaps more on the way.

We’re still too far away from the launch for exact details. There is a chance that the mobile might not see a Stateside release as the tidbit doesn’t mention that side of the Pacific at all. This comes Tony An, Garmin’s Asia Pacific Marketing Director,

Garmin will launch Nuvifone, its first GPS-enabled handset, in the Taiwan market in the second quarter of 2009, An noted. Garmin also plans to launch self-developed Android handsets in the second half of 2009, with production to be outsourced

Chances are though, the device will be available here in Garmin’s home country - hopefully. Perhaps, 2009 will be a big year for Garmin as well. We would love to see more mobile devices from the firm with their industry-leading GPS support, something the G1 is notoriously lacking.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:37 pm

VAX77 Fold & Carry MIDI Controller

By Andrew Liszewski Speaking of folding keyboards, the VAX77 MIDI Controller from Infinite Response is designed for musicians who travel without the benefit of roadies to move their equipment for them...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:30 pm

Petrobras sees 2009 investments above 50 bln reais

RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 22 (Reuters) - Brazil state-run oil company Petrobras will invest more than 50 billion reais ($21 billion) in 2009, Chief Executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli said on Monday.
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:30 pm

Will People Really Boycott Apple Over DRM?

Ian Lamont writes "DefectiveByDesign.org is waging a battle against DRM with a 35-day campaign targeting various hardware and software products from Microsoft, Nintendo, and others. On day 11 it blasted iTunes for continuing to use DRM-encumbered music, games, TV shows, movies, audiobooks, and apps with DRM, while competitors are selling music without restrictions. DefectiveByDesign calls on readers to include 'iTunes gift cards and purchases in your boycott of all Apple products' to 'help drive change.' However, there's a big problem with this call to arms: most people simply don't care about iTunes DRM. Quoting: 'The average user is more than willing to pay more money for hobbled music because of user interface, ease of use, and marketing. ... Apple regularly features exclusive live sets from popular artists, while Amazon treats its digital media sales as one more commodity being sold.' What's your take on the DRM schemes used by Apple and other companies? Is a boycott called for, and can it be effective?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:14 pm

Dell Green, All Right–Green With Envy [Digital Daily]

I’m not sure which is more suprising: that Dell (DELL) would publicly criticize Apple’s (AAPL) environmental claims in a post to the company’s Direct2Dell blog or that anyone would pay any attention whatsoever to that post, which is poorly researched and as unwieldy and silly as late ’90s-era Inspiron.

Like a heckler emboldened by one-too-many Prairie Dogs, Dell catcalls at Apple’s latest MacBook ad, which claims the machine is the “greenest” notebook on the market, thanks to its environmentally responsible unibody enclosure and the recyclable materials from which it’s made. Dell apparently finds such claims to be disingenuous and would prefer us all to think that it’s notebooks are the greenest.

“We have repeatedly said we want to be the greenest technology company on the planet,” Bob Pearson, Dell’s VP of Communities & Conversation, writes. “This is our aspiration. It really motivates us inside Dell to chase this goal. It’s very different than saying “we have the greenest laptops,” which Apple has said. Apple hasn’t stated any goals, just made claims, which as far as we can tell, are not accurate. Our Latitude E-series makes energy efficiency, the use of BFR/PVC-free components and the elimination of mercury a priority. They were designed and built with the environment and easy accessibility in mind, arguably more so than the Macbook.”

Moreover, Dell beleives Apple doesn’t understand the real meaning of being green from the viewpoint of a Fortune 500 company. “We don’t recall Apple joining the conversation about the environment, either via key conferences or the blogosphere or via reporter meetings. In fact, we believe Apple employees are not allowed to blog, as far as we can tell. If you want to make “big claims,” you should be willing to tell “big stories” in an open environment and let others critique your efforts. Don’t skip this step and go right to ads that may not even be truthful.”

Now, leaving aside for a moment thefact that it’s a marketing message that’s at issue here and such things are, by their very nature, prone to exaggeration — have we already forgotten that a court found Dell guilty of false advertising less than a year ago? And leaving aside too, the fact that Dell has fallen to 12 place from 5th place in Greenpeace’s Greener Electronics Ranking over the past few years, one would think that any company planning to accuse Apple of making bogus claims about green laptops and failing to engage in a meaningful dialogue about its enviromental obligations would conduct the due dilligence necessary to back them up.

Not Dell, though.

Because if the company had done its due dilligence, surely it would have stumbled across Steve Jobs’s “A Greener Apple” essay, which details the company’s efforts to remove toxic chemicals from its products and to recyle its older products. It might have found Apple’s 2008 Environmental Update as well. That document explains, in a fair bit of detail, the company’s efforts to temper the environmental impact of not just Apple products, but the company’s facilities, a well. Offers a nice overview of Apple’s recylcing program and its Supplier Code of Conduct, too.

“We wish Apple would be more bold in making a difference rather than making ads,” says Dell. Perhaps it would be better served making its own difference, rather than making empty, poorly research accusations at its rivals.

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:10 pm

POMERA DM10 Pocket Word Processor

By Andrew Liszewski When you’re trying to write the next great novel, a laptop full of games, web browsers and other distractions isn’t the most productive tool. So if you live in Japan at...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:05 pm

Web Shoppers Refuse to Bail Out Economy: Holiday Sales Down One Percent [MediaMemo]

ComScore, the Web analytics company that has been bringing us a weekly installment of grim news about Christmas sales since November, weighs in with its newest update. Want to hazard a guess?

Yup, more of the same: Holiday sales from Nov. 1 through Dec. 19 are down one percent compared to the same period in 2007. Which is right in line with ComScore’s (SCOR) prediction of flat online sales for the holiday.

If you’d like a rosier glow to these numbers, ComScore tries to oblige, by noting that average online spending between Thanksgiving and Dec. 19 is actually up five percent per day. But since there are fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year compared to previous years, that won’t help retailers’ top or bottom lines.

What are people buying on Amazon (AMZN) and other electronic storefronts? Fewer flat screen TVs, ComScore says, either because promotional discounts have tapered off or because those who need a 42-inch LCD on their walls have already got one.

Meanwhile, I’m not sure what constitutes an online “Sports and Fitness” purchase, but ComScore says people have been making many more of them this year, because the category is up 31 percent. Music, movies and videos are much more familiar, and much less popular. Sales are down 24 percent, which mirrors what Best Buy (BBY) said about its brick and mortar sales for the same goods earlier this month.

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:03 pm

Cycle in the Snow With DIY Studded Bike Tires

In the winter, the bike often gets put away. Some reasons are rather weak, like rain and cold, but once the snow sets in taking a bike out is a rather dangerous proposition. No matter how good a rider you are, a sheet of black ice is going to throw you to the ground.

Unless you add some extra traction. This DIY hack from ZeCanon adds metal studs to your tires for extra winter grip. His tutorial covers drilling the holes, adding regular screws and then grinding down the sharp ends to stop them popping the innertubes. We prefer the modified approach outlined by the Bikehugger blog, which has the screws threaded from the inside out so that the rounded heads are left inside and the sharp points are outside, ready to bite into ice instead of soft rubber.

DIY Studded tires [Bike Hacks via Bikehugger]

Studded Tires: Make your own in 7 easy steps [Bikeforums]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:59 pm

Cloud Computing Has A Future With Businesses

The next big step in satisfying the computing needs of businesses may come from so-called “cloud computing.” Cloud computing allows a group to use the IT-related capabilities via the Internet without having to control the technology infrastructure that supports them.While once it was considered to be a distant concept, cloud computing has become a more feasible option for businesses.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:55 pm

Good news for Project Playlist: Sony BMG strikes deal

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:36 pm

72-Hour Survival Kit Contains Some Odd Items

Imagine, if you will, taking a post Christmas lunch walk. The day is dark and cloudy, but you feel full of festive cheer. Until, that is, a strange figure stumbles towards you through the gloom.

As the man approaches, his words whipped away on the biting winter wind, you notice his strange attire. His mouth and nose are covered by a dust mask, his eyes are hidden beneath the peak of a white baseball cap and his shambling form is obscured by a plastic poncho. You pause, suddenly alert, and notice that in his leather-gloved hands he is carrying a roll of duct tape and some as-yet unidentified capsules.

A gust blows aside the poncho and reveals an army knife tucked into his belt, alongside a sewing kit. You turn and run, terror pumping new energy into your drowsy limbs.

Who is this man? He is the lucky recipient of the 72 Hour Emergency Survival Kit, and he, like you is taking an after dinner stroll to test out his new Christmas gift. The kit contains all of the above, along with a sleeping bag, a hand-cranked flashlight, a pre-paid phone card and a host of other useful and not-so-useful gadgets, all packed into a compartmentalized orange case.

If you had stuck around instead of fleeing like the paranoid wuss you are, you would have found out that all these goodies could be had for a mere $100. Next time you go for a walk across the local park alone, take some cojones with you.

Product page [4 Survival To Go via Uncrate]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:30 pm

Badass Ornaments - Christmas Tree Balls With Attitude (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) If youre looking for a way to spice up your Christmas tree, maybe you should consider these badass Christmas Tree Balls by Kuehn Keramik. The unorthodox ornaments feature guns, a...
Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:19 pm

The Battle of Hoth in LEGO

This epic recreation of The Empire Strikes Back's Battle of Hoth is a glacial firmament of geeky obsession: it took four years, $3,000, 60,000 bricks and even comes with remote-controlled AT-ATs that rappel Snowtroopers.

5×10-foot Hoth base diorama includes teeny tiny minifig footprints [Brothers Brick]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:09 pm

Lenovo Thinkpad W700DS features slide-out 10.2-inch secondary display

Lenovo's latest Thinkpad, the W700DS, is a beast: an 11 pound notebook with a NVIDIA Quadro mobile GPU, an Intel quad core processor, a 17-inch wide screen... and an additional 10.2-inch secondary LED display that slides out from the casing. This isn't so much a laptop as a portable graphics workstation, and its cost is in line with that: when it comes out early next year, it'll cost about $3,600.

Secondary Display Slides Out of the Thinkpad W700DS [Gearlog]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:01 pm

Ten Foot Table is Paper-Thin

Microsoft may have already snagged the name Surface, but this table from Established & Sons is in some ways even more impressive.

The Surface Table is based on technology from Formula One engineering, and combines thin layers of carbon fiber. In itself, that's not so impressive, but listen to the specs: The table measures almost 10 feet long, but is just 0.8" thick (for our more modern readers, that's three meters by 2mm).

It's the rigidity of carbon fiber that does this of course, and stops the table sagging in the middle like, well, like my belly. The more conservative buyer can opt for a walnut veneer on top, but the price of both this and the more honest plain CF version is, inevitably, unavailable.

Product page [Established and Sons via Kottke via Creativity Online]

See Also:

• First Look: Microsoft Milan Surface Computer -- A Table That Knows ...
• Video: Hilarious Spoof Microsoft Surface Ad
• The Levitation Table: How Does it Work?

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:47 am

iPhone 3G unlock coming New Year's Eve

For the last six months, the Dev Team have been working on an iPhone 3G baseband unlock. Things have moved so slowly that despite the teasing little trickles promising progress, it looked like the Dev Team might have been totally locked out by Apple.

But Merry Christmas! They've done it. There's some caveats: you need a baseband of 2.11.07 or earlier. If you upgraded your iPhone 3G too far, you're out. But if you followed the Dev Team's advice and avoided upgrading your iPhone 3G until the unlock became available, you're in.

The Dev Team promises to release it on New Year's Eve.

yellowsn0w live demo [Dev Team]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:37 am

Dead Simple Posterous Gets A Round Of Funding And Launches Group Blogs

Posterous, which launched in June, is one of those sites that I tested and it stuck - I continue to post pictures to it regularly.

What I like about it - you don’t have to create an account to use it. Just start emailing text and files (images, video, whatever) to post@posterous.com and you’ve got a site where it all goes. And they’ve steadily added features. You can, for example, repost all the stuff you email in to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr or wherever.

Today the company is announcing a new product, group blogs. You can add your friends or family’s email addresses to any Posterous site you control, and they can then email stuff in too. It’s useful for families, sports teams, etc. to share photos and video. Once you’ve added those emails, all they have to do to post is send whatever they want to publish to post@sitename.posterous.com. No registration required. An example is here, and see the image below.

Posterous is a Y Combinator startup. They also just raised a second angel round of financing - $725,000 from XG Ventures and a whole bevy of high profile individuals.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:26 am

EPhone is Curiously Familiar

Just what might this be? The Ephone might look like some other phone you have seen before, but it is in fact the most audacious of iClones, and differentiates itself by leaving out all the good stuff (touch screen, 3G) and stuffing the "razor sharp" case full of junk. What's inside?

The EPhone has TV. This looks to be old-fashioned TV rather than TV over the cell network, although rabbit ears are not provided in the box. The phone will also play music and video, but the measly 1GB bundled card means you won't exactly be spoiled for choice. The camera, amazingly, is even worse than that of the real iPhone, at just 1.3 megapixels, but the EPhone does support MMS and dual SIM cards.

Other than that, the EPhone is short on features. Merely to poke fun, let's take a look at the other "specifications": The phone book is nothing short of extraordinary, and offers an oddly recursive ability: it "can store 500 phonebooks". Games, too, are supported, and the lucky buyer will get "One as standard".

You want more? What about the FM radio, which will "play outside without earphone"? By now, you are certainly tempted by this revolutionary device and its original good looks. The bad news? It cost almost the same as a real iPhone 3G, at $160. But as Daring Fireball's John Gruber succinctly puts it, "Why not save a few bucks?"

Product page [Light in the Box via ★]

See Also:

• Meizu Patents The IPhone
• Meizu M8 Mini One Updated: Blacker and Cheaper
• Meizu's iPhone Clone: More Photos and Specifications

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:21 am

The BachPod

Back in the nascent days of the MP3 era, as I sat /pdccing nontupled nines at mIRC in EFNet's #mp3 and waiting hours for that Dickies song to come through the pipe, I was convinced all CDs would eventually be delivered physically in MP3 format. The example I used to like to give was that Mozart's complete works came on 400 CDs, and that MP3s could deliver that same oeuvre with 1/40th of the physical waste.

I flashed back to this (completely failed) prophecy earlier today, when this Bach Pod came through the pipes: it's an 80GB iPod Classic pre-loaded with 175 hours of Bach's complete works, with 17GB of room left to spare. Buying a new iPod to get a complete collection of an artist's works is only for the die-hards, but it's interesting to see completist classical music collections go down this route.

It's an expensive iPod to buy, though, unless you're willing to shell out $450 bucks for the complete Bach: Passionato is selling the Bach Pod for $700.

Bach Pod [Passionato via Cult of Mac]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:14 am

The Super Electrofluorescent Profanity Machine

This array of Cold War era Soviet vacuum tubes doesn't just tell you the time, nixie-like. It also randomly generates all possible permutations of four-letter profanity across all Latin-based languages, both real and theoretical, at a rate of one per second. An f-bomb shining in the dark, the result of random chance in a godless universe: a perfect metaphor for the human condition.

Super Electrofluorescent Profanity Machine [Etsy via MAKE]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:04 am

The Vista follies: Windows' tortured 2008 (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Microsoft is used to criticism; after all, it's a standing joke that the third version of any Microsoft software is the first one that works right. But the backlash against Windows Vista in 2008 was unprecedented. The new OS had been out for a year, finding its way into new consumer systems through 2007 but not getting much adoption by business.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Dec 2008 | 11:00 am

Apple Mighty Mouse + Multi-Touch concept probably has it about right

MacBlogz postulates something like this might be the next evolutionary step for the Mighty Mouse in the multi-touch age. The Mighty Mouse is a cursor-swooping rodent I've never liked even half as much as its opera-singing, baritone namesake, but you could certainly see Apple doing something like this to bring multi-touch to their desktop line... it certainly beats the alternative of smearing finger grease all over your glossy, multi-touch display.

One More Thing: Apple's New Multi-Touch Mighty Mouse [Mac Blogz]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 10:55 am

Video: iPhone 3G SIM Unlock

It's taken a while, but the iPhone Dev Team has successfully unlocked the iPhone 3G to accept SIM cards from other networks.

The hack, named Yellowsn0w (don't eat it!) looks to be both quick and simple to use. It won't be released until New Year's Eve, but the video above shows Dev Team member Musclenerd unlocking a phone with the software and reciveing a call on the T-Mobile network. During the demo, Musclenerd mentions Cydia, the installer program which is loaded onto the iPhone when you jailbreak, or hack it. We take this to mean that Yellowsn0w will run directly on the iPhone 3G as an over-the-air download.

We're looking forward to it. The iPhone Dev Team is the band of merry hackers that has been providing software unlocks for the iPhone since the beginning, so we're pretty sure that this video is legitimate. Of course, you still need to get ahold of an iPhone 3G and, outside of Taiwan and Hong Kong, that means signing your life away to a telco for up to two years. Expect the gray import market to explode.

Yellowsn0w live demo [iPhone Dev Blog via iPhone Hacks]

See Also:

• Video: IPhone 3G Pwned and Jailbroken
• Hackers Successfully Unlock the iPhone 3G
• Unlocked Taiwanese iPhones Could Cause Gray Import Surge
• Unlocked iPhone 3G Available in Hong Kong

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 10:52 am

EEStor Issued a Patent For Its Supercapacitor

An anonymous reader sends us to GM-volt.com, an electric vehicle enthusiast blog, for the news that last week EEStor was granted a US patent for their electric-energy storage unit, of which no one outside the company (no one who is talking, anyway) has seen so much as a working prototype. We've discussed the company on a number of occasions. The patent (PDF) is a highly information-rich document that offers remarkable insight into the device. EEStor notes "the present invention provides a unique lightweight electric-energy storage unit that has the capability to store ultrahigh amounts of energy." "The core ingredient is an aluminum coated barium titanate powder immersed in a polyethylene terephthalate plastic matrix. The EESU is composed of 31,353 of these components arranged in parallel. It is said to have a total capacitance of 30.693 F and can hold 52.220 kWh of energy. The device is said to have a weight of 281.56 pound including the box and all hardware. Unlike lithium-ion cells, the technology is said not to degrade with cycling and thus has a functionally unlimited lifetime. It is mentioned the device cannot explode when being charge or impacted and is thus safe for vehicles."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Dec 2008 | 10:25 am

Some Good News For Project Playlist - A Deal With Sony BMG

It looks like embattled music service Project Playlist has someone other than Facebook in their corner. This morning, after remaining silent all weekend over the MySpace ban, they are announcing a much-needed agreement with Sony BMG to give users direct (and legal) access to that library.

Sony was never part of the litigation by the big labels that was filed on April 28, 2008, choosing instead to pursue negotiations. Warner Music, EMI and Universal, the three other big music labels, remain hostile to Project Playlist. And until all the labels have given the company a green light (and the litigation is settled), it’s unlikely MySpace will un-ban them.

One down, three to go.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 10:20 am

Fold & carry keyboard for me

I want the VAX77. I’m a rock star so I know that carrying instruments is always a problem. It has midi, usb, a small lcd, and a lot of synthesizer presets in there so you don’t need to set up the functions for all the knobs and buttons yourself. You can fold it to half so the 77 key masterkeyboard will take up only 23.3″ of space. The VAX77 will probably get a price tag on NAMM.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:51 am

The Year of the Simpler Gadget [Voices]

By Damon Darlin, Technology Editor, Bits, New York Times

The National Bureau of Economic Research hardly stunned the nation this month when it announced that the United States had been in recession since December 2007. And, as it turns out, the buyers of consumer electronics could very well have been a leading economic indicator. Over the last year, they chose to buy two inexpensive and simple products, the Wii and the Flip, over competing gadgets bristling with more features.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:01 am

Rudolph’s Mystery Explained. [Voices]

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

To Fix Itself, Electronic Arts Needs More Than Just Job Cuts [Voices]

By Om Malik, Founder and Senior Writer, GigaOM

Last year Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello told The Wall Street Journal that his company was “boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play.” Prophetic words though no one was listening at EA. In early December, EAs said that it was going to miss its revenue target of between $5-to-$5.3 billion for 2008.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

Reimagining Direct Marketing With a (Twitter) Spin [Voices]

By Charles Cooper, Executive Editor of Commentary, CNET News.com

Michael Dell gets a lot of the credit for pioneering the direct sale of PCs to the public. The reality is that there is a legion of now long-forgotten mail order entrepreneurs who came along earlier. He just did it better than all the rest. So it was with more than usual interest that I read a piece published by InternetNews.com earlier this week in which Dell’s eponymous company claimed that sales alerts on Twitter had resulted in about $1 million in sales.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

Did Company Use Fake Facebook Groups to Market to Students? [Voices]

By Eric Hoover and Beckie Supiano, Bloggers, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Anyone can create a Facebook group and make it appear to be something it’s not. Brad J. Ward reminded admissions officials about that simple fact on Thursday after examining hundreds of “Class of 2013” groups that have popped up on the popular social-networking site. Typically, students who plan to enroll at a particular college create such groups to start communicating with their future classmates. Some colleges establish the groups or encourage admitted students to do so. But Mr. Ward, coordinator for electronic communication in Butler University’s admissions office, found that dozens of the 2013 Facebook groups had been created — or were being maintained — by the same handful of people. Who were they?

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

What the Recession Means for the Mac [Voices]

By Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Blogger, Apple 2.0

Money gets tight. Buyers get picky. Price-sensitive consumers — the kind Steve Jobs  and Apple famously “choose not to serve” — start shopping for bargain basement PCs and Taiwanese netbooks. Mac sales plummet. That’s the conventional wisdom. Or at least that’s the line Morgan Stanley’s Kathryn Huberty pitched in September — when she lowered Apple’s (rating twice in two weeks — and reiterated last week, when she earned the distinction of being the first and only mainstream Apple analyst to set a 2009 price target below $100 a share

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

The Richter Scales Are Back. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Anyone remember the laugh-out-loud Richter Scales song from last year called Here Comes Another Bubble? It’s embedded below in case you’ve forgotten, as well as the version they performed at the Crunchies.

Well, they’re back with their most recent song, a slight variation on Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. “Desperate times call for desperate Christmas carols. Here’s our contribution. Enjoy the video, and then go enjoy another egg nog. And another. And another.”

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Drink your cares away
Times are bad and stock declines are here to stay…

You can catch the Richter Scales live at this year’s Crunchies on January 9 in San Francisco. They’ll be performing an all new song at the event (and hopefully this one, too).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 7:53 am

Nokia's Mail on Ovi Public Beta Goes 'Live' Around the World

ESPOO, Finland, December 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mail on Ovi, the free email account from Nokia (NYSE: NOK), is now 'live' and can be set up directly on Nokia phones without requiring a PC to get started.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 7:35 am

New Advertising Campaign Promotes .eu to Transport Industry

BRUSSELS, December 22 /PRNewswire/ -- - Learn the Value of a .eu Domain Name at http://www.goingfor.eu EURid has launched a new advertising campaign targeting the transport and logistics sector.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 7:15 am

Scientists Build Neonatal Incubator From Car Parts

Peace Corps Online writes "The NYTimes ran a story this week about a group of scientists who have built a neonatal incubator out of automobile parts, including a pair of headlights as a heat source, a car door alarm to signal emergencies, and an auto air filter and fan to provide climate control. The creators of the car-parts incubator say that an incubator found in any neonatal intensive care unit in the US could cost around $40,000, but the incubator they have developed can be built for less than $1,000. One expert says as many as 1.8 million infants might be spared every year if they could spend just a week in the units, which help babies who are born early or at low birth weights regulate their body temperature until their organs fully develop. Experts say in developing countries where infant mortality is most common, high-tech machines donated by richer nations often conk out when the electricity fizzles or is restricted to conserve power. 'The future medical technologists in the developing world,' says Robert Malkin, director of Engineering World Health, 'are the current car mechanics, HVAC repairmen, bicycle shop repairmen. There is no other good source of technology-savvy individuals to take up the future of medical device repair and maintenance.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Dec 2008 | 6:59 am

A Sad Day At Fox Interactive - No More Free Lunches

Don’t expect big layoffs at MySpace parent company Fox Interactive Media any time soon. In an email to all staff on Friday, Fox Interactive chief Peter Levinsohn says that 2009 will be an “even rockier economic climate” and takes steps to reduce costs. Chief among the changes - the end of the free lunch program for all employees (the French would riot over such an outrage).

Levinsohn also says he has avoided a hiring freeze. But if you are a contractor or temporary employee, watch your back and steal those office supplies now. Shortly after returning from the holidays you may find yourself being walked out of the building.

The memo also details the successes of FIM companies over the year (MySpace, IGN, Rotten Tomatoes, Photobucket, Fox Sports, etc.).

The full memo is below:

With the end of the calendar year approaching, I want to take a moment to thank everyone for making 2008 a year full of milestones and accomplishments for all of FIM’s businesses. In spite of a challenging economic environment, the last twelve months have produced some great results, none of which would have been possible without your dedication and hard work.

Unfortunately, 2009 is shaping up to be an even rockier economic climate, and while I am convinced we hold an incredibly unique position in the marketplace and have great potential for success going forward, we will be making some hard and necessary decisions about how we run our business in this environment. I’ll outline a few of those decisions below, but first I want to share some of the past year’s accomplishments:

· MySpace launched MySpace Music — a groundbreaking joint venture with major and independent music labels — and the MySpace Open Platform, which included the launches of the MySpace Developer Platform, MySpaceID, and Post-To MySpace.

· MySpace also continued its aggressive international expansion strategy — launching in seven new countries — and is now fully localized in 30 territories.

· FIM Audience Network was formed and launched self-serve ads on MySpace, a program which now has more than 15,000 participating advertisers.

· IGN launched a groundbreaking video initiative that includes more than a dozen of the Web’s most cutting-edge content creators.

· FOXSports.com produced more video content than any other sports site — including live content for the World Series, the Super Bowl and the BCS Championship Game. Scout.com continued its full product and management integration into FOXSports.com, enabling the two sites to deliver an even better experience to college and high school sports fans.

· Photobucket built out a world-class advertising team and released over 10 major new products, including group albums, themes and its API to the developer community.

· The new Digital Publishing Group launched its Web Content Management and Digital Asset Platform for FOX Television Stations and a number of third-party television station groups.

· Rotten Tomatoes completely redesigned its site and this week announced a deal with Current TV to co-produce “The Rotten Tomatoes Show”.

· GameSpy powered the online functionality for a number of the year’s top videogames, including Grand Theft Auto IV; Direct2Drive began selling games from EA for the first time ever, and featured some of the hottest titles of year from publishers like Ubisoft, Bethesda and Rockstar.

· AskMen continues to be the Web’s leading men’s lifestyle site and attracted more than 13 million unique users in October – an all-time high – while bringing on board a number of first-time FIM advertisers such as Porsche, Gucci and Calvin Klein.

· FIM Mobile distributed free, ad-supported mobile Web versions of every FIM site and is now a leader in ad-supported mobile Web, with a cumulative audience of 15M unique users per month.

While we’ve had some incredible success this past year, it’s impossible for us to ignore the larger economic environment and the challenges that are facing businesses all over the world. As a result, we are taking proactive steps to align our businesses practices with the economic realities that we will face in 2009. Some of these steps will be painful in the short term, but they are necessary to put our company in the best possible position to succeed now, and more importantly to emerge even stronger once the markets recover.

FIM’s success is the product of our incredibly talented people, and the retention of that talent is always our number one priority. We have approached this process with this priority at the forefront of our thinking.

We have taken several initial steps. First, have we have reprioritized our hiring needs for the remainder of the fiscal year. By doing so, we avoided instituting a hiring freeze and will continue to invest in our most promising opportunities. We have also taken a detailed look at our use of contract and temporary workers, and will be scaling back our use of those services in favor of internal resources wherever possible. Second, we will be closely monitoring, and cutting back on travel and expense budgets for the remainder of the fiscal year — please discuss any travel plans with your manager. And finally, we have made the decision to discontinue all meal subsidy programs currently being offered at FIM locations, effective January 1, 2009. Right now, it is imperative that we all work together to create savings and to maximize value – and these are all vital steps to this end.

Despite the challenging economic environment in which we will be operating, I am incredibly confident in our position within the marketplace. We have made a conscious effort over the last several years to build our business from the ground up in a manner that delivers maximum value at minimal cost not only to FIM, but to our advertisers and business partners. As a result, we are now in a great position to respond to the needs of the market at a time when our services are not only valuable to our partners, they are critical.

Thank you for your continued hard work and I look forward to seeing you all in 2009 as we work together to execute our plans and engage the challenges that lie ahead.

Happy Holidays,
Peter Levinsohn

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 6:01 am

Mr Site's Takeaway Website Pro Nominated for Best Business Tool

LONDON, December 22 /PRNewswire/ -- - With Photo Mr Site - the UK's favourite DIY website creator - has just scooped a prestigious nomination at the Esquire Magazine's Man at the Top Awards. The Mr Site Takeaway Website Pro was nominated in the Best Business Tool Category alongside the Nokia E71, Samsung SCX-4500W Printer, the Cardscan Executive and the Livescrive Pulse Smartpen. Pro gives users everything they need to get a professionally designed dot com website online including a secure advanced online shop and .com name (eg. http://www.theirbusinessname.com).
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 6:00 am

Saft : Production of new Battery Range Designed for Telecom Networks

PARIS, December 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Dedicated Production Line at Valdosta (Georgia, USA) has a Capacity of Over 16 000 48 V Tel.X Batteries Per Year. Saft, leader in the design, development and manufacture of high-end batteries for industry, has completed its investment in its new Tel.X nickel based product range designed specifically for telecom networks applications. The investment programme just completed is a new $9 million production line at its US manufacturing facility in Valdosta (Georgia, United States). The Tel.X battery range is designed to deliver reliable backup power for the growing number of decentralized facilities, supporting fixed, wireless, cable and cellular networks, which are in remote or demanding outdoor locations. The new manufacturing line will enable Saft to expand its customer base in a market where performance, reliability and low TCO (total cost of ownership) are crucial.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Dec. 22, 1882: Looking at Christmas in a New Light

1882: An inventive New Yorker finds a brilliant application for electric lights and becomes the first person to use them as Christmas tree decorations.

Edward H. Johnson, who toiled for Thomas Edison’s Illumination Company and later became a company vice president, used 80 small red, white and blue electric bulbs, strung together along a single power cord, to light the Christmas tree in his New York home. Some sources credit Edison himself with being the first to use electric lights as Christmas decorations, when he strung them around his laboratory in 1880.

Sticking them on the tree was Johnson’s idea, though. It was a mere three years after Edison had demonstrated that light bulbs were practical at all.

The idea of replacing the Christmas tree’s traditional wax candles — which had been around since the mid-17th century — with electric lights didn’t, umm, catch fire right away. Although the stringed lights enjoyed a vogue with the wealthy and were being mass-produced as early as 1890, they didn’t become popular in humbler homes until a couple of decades into the 20th century.

A general distrust of using electricity for indoor lighting, still widespread in the late 19th century, kept the popularity of Christmas lights low. They were most commonly seen ringing the seasonal display windows of big-city department stores.

In 1895, President Grover Cleveland (a New York stater himself) supposedly ordered the family’s White House tree festooned with multicolored electric lights. If he did, it barely moved the needle on the popularity scale. Even so, General Electric began selling Christmas-light kits in 1903.

Another New Yorker is generally credited with popularizing indoor electric Christmas lights. According to the story, Albert Sadacca, whose family sold ornamental novelties, became a believer in 1917 after reading the account of a bad fire caused by a candlelit tree bursting into flames.

Whether or not that’s the reason, Sadacca began selling colored Christmas lights through the family business. By then, the public’s distrust of electricity had diminished. So the timing was right, and sales took off.

With his brothers, Sadacca later started a company devoted solely to the manufacture of electric Christmas lights. He succeeded in roping a few competitors into a trade association, which proceeded to dominate the Christmas-light industry into the 1960s.

Source:Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Top 10 Games of 2008

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2008 was an amazing year for videogames.

With the next generation of gaming hardware hitting its stride, the hits came fast and furious: Nintendo shipped its long-awaited Super Smash Bros. Brawl for Wii, Rockstar Games finally gave us Grand Theft Auto IV and Sony got its make-your-own platform game LittleBigPlanet out the door.

Perhaps just as important, independent games shifted from quirky distraction to viable business model. With digital distribution taking off on all three consoles, small teams crafting small, innovative games captured more and more of our gaming dollars.

Still, big-budget blockbusters dominate our list of the year's top games. Here are the titles Wired.com reviewers enjoyed the most in 2008.

10. No More Heroes: Best Game That Just Barely Made It Here

Left: This Wii game squeaks into 10th place largely on the strength of its well-directed and very funny story about an otaku doofus pro wrestler who gets duped into being a lightsaber assassin.

Swinging the Wiimote to chop off dudes' heads is exhilarating. Doing odd jobs to earn money in between assassination attempts is significantly less so. But it's such a hilarious and occasionally brilliant experience that No More Heroes' flaws prove forgivable.

Review: No More Heroes, Rez HD Sport Serious Style

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9. Left 4 Dead: Best Multiplayer Game

It might not have been the homage to George Romero's zombie flicks that some gamers were looking for, but Left 4 Dead's cooperative multiplayer action made for a concerted adrenaline rush. This Xbox 360 and PC game features an AI Director that adjusts the pacing of the zombie-filled action sequences depending on how your team of four desperate survivors is faring, so as to keep the tension at perfect pitch — and make sure that no two gameplay sessions are the same.

Review: Left 4 Dead Delivers Definitive Team Zombie War

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8. Super Smash Bros. Brawl: Best Game by Nintendo Fans, for Nintendo Fans

As a game, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a divisive experience — players either love its four-player, pummel-your-friends-to-oblivion gameplay, or they can't stand the random chaos that every match quickly devolves into. But as a tribute to a quarter-century of Nintendo culture, this Wii game is an unqualified masterpiece.

Its developer filled the disc with characters, fighting arenas, music and bonus content pulled from practically every game the company has ever produced. One example: Brawl contains a whopping 314 music tracks to smash by.

Review: Smash Bros. Brawl Fun for All

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7. Persona 4: Best Swan Song

We had a lot of great times together, PlayStation 2, but you're not as much fun to be around as you used to be. You've still got one or two hits in you, though, as evidenced by Persona 4.

Japanese towns possessed by demons were never so much fun: This mammoth RPG successfully blends going to school and making friends with taming grotesque creatures to fight other grotesque creatures for you. Here's hoping the sequel lands on PS3, though.

Review: Stylish Persona 4 Is RPG Perfection

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6. Boom Blox: Best Use of Irony

Legendary filmmaker Steven Spielberg teams up with Electronic Arts, and his first game is ... a multiplayer Wii game where you throw baseballs at towers of blocks? Amazingly, this unlikely project turned out to be a polished, addictive critical success and a big hit at parties. Meanwhile, Spielberg's more traditional project — the cinematic, serious adventure — is now rumored to be in jeopardy after EA layoffs. Whodathunkit?

Review: Spielberg's Boom Blox Rocks

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5. Grand Theft Auto IV: Best Reinvention of the Wheel

The first high-definition entry into the world's best-known series of violent crime games was going to sell millions of copies no matter what. But Rockstar didn't just slap a new coat of paint on Grand Theft Auto: It overhauled almost every aspect of the gameplay, making it much more palatable.

Finally, the gameplay missions were as polished as the story line — which itself was even better this time around. Most gamers still probably just ignored the story and went on hours-long killing sprees, but there's no accounting for taste.

Grand Theft Auto IV Delivers Deft Satire of Street Life

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4. Fallout 3: Best Horrific Vision of a Shattered Future

Think of Fallout 3 as a dry run. The bombs are going to drop eventually, and when they do, as you emerge from your shelter into a radioactive nightmare world populated by wild packs of giant, roving cockroaches, you'll be thankful that you spent 40 hours practicing.

Will you keep your moral compass and be humanity's savior, or will you just start taking everything that isn't nailed down? This Xbox, PS3 and PC game lets you rehearse for your post-apocalyptic life.

Review: Engrossing Fallout 3 Mutates a Classic Series

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3. Professor Layton and the Curious Village: Best (and Worst) English Accents

When you solve one of Professor Layton's many logic puzzles, you're sometimes rewarded with a congratulatory line from the top-hatted teacher in his smooth English-gentleman lilt. And sometimes, feral child Luke shrieks at you.

The uneven voice work is the only sore spot in this collection of lateral-thinking puzzles organized around a charming, animated story line. Don't let the cartoony look fool you: Layton's brain teasers will have you stumped for hours. This is the Nintendo DS game that should be in everyone's library.

Review: Professor Layton, the Smarty Pants' Perfect Game

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2. Braid: Best Indie Game

We've had a lot of fun this year with inexpensive downloadable games like Audiosurf and World of Goo. But this Xbox 360 title is the best example of why the independent games movement is important.

Braid isn't just a quirky puzzle game: It's a subtle, emotional story that hits with real impact. This is only possible because its creator, Jonathan Blow, was able to control every aspect of the game's production. Had Braid been cooked up at a big publisher, it surely would not have possessed such a strong authorial voice — something that videogames need much more of.

Review: Braid Innovates and Satisfies

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1. LittleBigPlanet: Game of the Year

User-generated content — levels, characters and the like produced by gamers — was perhaps 2008's biggest buzzword, but no game pulled it off as well as LittleBigPlanet.

Thanks to the title's charming design and intuitive interface, PlayStation 3 owners are bending over backward to produce new action-game levels to be enjoyed by the rest of the world. Spore's player-made creatures and Guitar Hero's custom songs aren't nearly as fascinating as LittleBigPlanet's never-ending carnival of amusement.

First Impressions: LittleBigPlanet's Ever-Expanding World of Wonder

For more gaming action, check out the following lists of 2008's top videogames, by console:

Best of 2008: Top 5 Multiplatform Games

Best of 2008: Top 5 Xbox 360 Games

Best of 2008: Top 5 PC Games

Best of 2008: Top 5 Wii Games

Best of 2008: Top 5 PlayStation 3 Games

Best of 2008: Top 5 Portable Games

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

The Top Gadgets of 2008

:

What a year it's been for gadgets. We saw the second coming of the Jesus phone, the toppling of Canon as the premier DSLR maker and the first short wobbly steps of the Android OS. We also saw the fall of the economy, which may or may not have jump-started the rise of the netbook. Hey, we're gadgetheads here, not economists.

You've got to admit, this has been a turbulent 366 days for technology. But as we've seen a torrent of gizmos come blasting through the Lab, there are a few that stand out above the rest. Here we list our favorite pieces of technology that were tested, released or announced in twenty-ought-eight.

10. Analog: The Herman Miller Embody Chair

Left: It may not have an accelerometer. Or an OLED. Or lasers. Or image-stabilization. You can't even plug it in to an electric socket. But the Herman Miller Embody chair has got its back (and yours) covered with meticulous engineering. The thing is adjustable to Asberger's levels of obsession; controls exist to cradle your lumbar, hips and neck. Plus the multilayered seat absorbs even the most microscopic shifts in weight, cupping your derriere no matter how much (or little) you move. It's the greatest breakthrough in ass-to-comfort technology since, well, the Aeron chair.

: Photo by David Clugston

When was the last time you strapped on a set of noise-canceling headphones, turned on some "Straight Outta Compton," and got smacked in the head by deep, resonant bass? Never? That's because (until recently) no set of noise-canceling cans could bring the low-end thump. Leave it to a collaboration between the masters of sound at Monster Cable and the meticulous master of hip-hop, Dr. Dre, to produce a set of headphones like the Beats. These black and red over-the-ear 'phones feature a customized 40mm driver and a souped-up digital amplifier that sends bass deeper than the Marianas Trench directly into your cabesa.

:

Honda's hybrid has pedigree — the Insight has been around since 1999 — but Toyota's goofy-looking Prius has been the go-to car for smug environmental apologists. That's about to change. The 2010 Insight will bring great mileage to the masses with an expected selling price of $18,500 — a full $3,500 less than the entry-level Prius.

But cheapness alone isn't enough to earn a car a place in our top 10 lineup. The 2010 Insight also features a dashboard display straight out of Battlestar Galactica, making heavy use of ambient cues to keep your right foot light on the go-pedal.

In fact, the only thing we don't like is the shell. The Prius was a hit partly because it looked so different on the road. The Insight looks almost exactly the same as Toyota's green-mobile. But then, maybe that's the point.

:

2008 saw a rash of cheap, YouTube-ready camcorders that could be had for less than a couple of hundred bucks. Mostly, these one-shot wonders were crap. Not the Zi6. Infused with Kodak imaging pedigree, this pleasantly plump handheld shoots with sharper detail and richer color than any other cam of its ilk. (The popular Flip Mino HD is prettier, but its videos look far worse.) Couple that with a dead-simple setup and you have to wonder why anyone would shell out thousands of dollars for a camcorder that will almost undoubtedly be used to upload vacation videos to the web.

:

As with any tech involving lasers, you'll need to have a Bond-villain-size bank account to afford it. But once you've dropped your $7,000 and got it back to your underground lair, you'll see what all the fuss was about. The Mitsubishi LaserVue has twice as much color as any other TV due to the lasers providing the light. The size of the rear-projection TV is equally ambitious: Sizes start at a whopping 50 inches.

But unlike a real Bond villain, you won't be destroying the world; you'll be saving it. The LaserVue uses a third less power than rival sets and the lasers inside are long-lasting. Besides, what else do you need to know? It has frakkin' lasers!

: Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Back in May, we described the Roku Netflix box as "Just Shy of Totally Amazing," and it's easy to see why. The tiny, plain-looking box sits next to your TV and gives you on-demand access to thousands of movies. You have to be a Netflix subscriber, but if you are, you can watch as many Hollywood blockbusters as you can take.

The $100 box keeps getting better, too, with HD movies expected soon. In fact, with all the big players (Microsoft, Hulu) racing to get onto your TV via the internet, it seems the geek-friendly DVD-by-mail company was planning this right from the beginning.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The Chumby brought the friendlier face of the internet into our homes, and it did it while disguised as a teddy bear for the 21st century. It took the concept of the widget and turned it into an easy-to-use hub for home entertainment.

The $180 touchscreen and leather pet is a gateway to streaming-music services, weather reports, news and video. Better still, the soft little box is based on Linux, so you can bend Chumby to your will, serving up anything it can suck in via its WiFi connection. As a bonus, you can even hook up an iPod. Time to nail shut the pet door and decommission the dog.

: Photo: Max Buck/Wired.com

Manufacturers squeezed off a lot of cellphones in 2008. But all of them lacked something. The iPhone 3G? Atrocious battery life. The BlackBerry Storm? Half-baked software. The G1? Great OS shackled with borderline embarrassing hardware. But the E71 is different. The gorgeously designed handset also comes with a fully developed operating system (replete with a dedicated user community), two separate home screens, a QWERTY keyboard where touch typing was not some half-remembered fever dream, plus a battery life that could be measured in days, not hours. Any wonder why we ditched our iPhone and picked up one of these babies?

:

In 2008, Nikon staged a comeback worthy of Rocky Balboa. With the new flagship, full-frame D3, the see-in-the-dark D700 and the brand-new medium-format wannabe D3X, Nikon has been roundly kicking arch-rival Canon's butt.

The biggest surprise, though, was the D90, the first digital SLR to shoot video — and high-def, 720p video to boot. The advantage of relatively cheap, interchangeable SLR lenses together with a Hollywood-style shallow focus not available on even high-end consumer camcorders made the Nikon a must-have for budget movie makers. And that's before we even get to the 12.3-megapixel still images it takes. Sure, Canon answered back with its own hi-def, 1080p camera, the 5D MkII, but Canon's model costs almost three times as much.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Netbooks: Was there a PC maker (with the exception of Apple) that resisted cultivating one of these tiny titans in 2008? For the most part, the netbook "revolution" has meant a tidal wave of underpowered, mediocre plastic boxes. But it was the MSI Wind that separated itself from the chaff. Sure, we tested other netbooks that performed faster, or had prettier chassis, or came loaded with more memory. But the Wind gets the top prize for two reasons: It's an incredibly balanced rig that also happens to be highly hackable. Prompted by a dedicated (and slightly rabid) Wind user community, our own Brian Chen and Charlie Sorrell both managed to supplant the Wind's Linux-based OS with Apple's OS X on their respective machines.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

The Top Gadgets of 2008

:

What a year it's been for gadgets. We saw the second coming of the Jesus phone, the toppling of Canon as the premier DSLR maker and the first short wobbly steps of the Android OS. We also saw the fall of the economy, which may or may not have jump-started the rise of the netbook. Hey, we're gadgetheads here, not economists.

You've got to admit, this has been a turbulent 366 days for technology. But as we've seen a torrent of gizmos come blasting through the Lab, there are a few that stand out above the rest. Here we list our favorite pieces of technology that were tested, released or announced in twenty-ought-eight.

10. Analog: The Herman Miller Embody Chair

Left: It may not have an accelerometer. Or an OLED. Or lasers. Or image-stabilization. You can't even plug it in to an electric socket. But the Herman Miller Embody chair has got its back (and yours) covered with meticulous engineering. The thing is adjustable to Asberger's levels of obsession; controls exist to cradle your lumbar, hips and neck. Plus the multilayered seat absorbs even the most microscopic shifts in weight, cupping your derriere no matter how much (or little) you move. It's the greatest breakthrough in ass-to-comfort technology since, well, the Aeron chair.

: Photo by David Clugston

When was the last time you strapped on a set of noise-canceling headphones, turned on some "Straight Outta Compton," and got smacked in the head by deep, resonant bass? Never? That's because (until recently) no set of noise-canceling cans could bring the low-end thump. Leave it to a collaboration between the masters of sound at Monster Cable and the meticulous master of hip-hop, Dr. Dre, to produce a set of headphones like the Beats. These black and red over-the-ear 'phones feature a customized 40mm driver and a souped-up digital amplifier that sends bass deeper than the Marianas Trench directly into your cabesa.

:

Honda's hybrid has pedigree — the Insight has been around since 1999 — but Toyota's goofy-looking Prius has been the go-to car for smug environmental apologists. That's about to change. The 2010 Insight will bring great mileage to the masses with an expected selling price of $18,500 — a full $3,500 less than the entry-level Prius.

But cheapness alone isn't enough to earn a car a place in our top 10 lineup. The 2010 Insight also features a dashboard display straight out of Battlestar Galactica, making heavy use of ambient cues to keep your right foot light on the go-pedal.

In fact, the only thing we don't like is the shell. The Prius was a hit partly because it looked so different on the road. The Insight looks almost exactly the same as Toyota's green-mobile. But then, maybe that's the point.

:

2008 saw a rash of cheap, YouTube-ready camcorders that could be had for less than a couple of hundred bucks. Mostly, these one-shot wonders were crap. Not the Zi6. Infused with Kodak imaging pedigree, this pleasantly plump handheld shoots with sharper detail and richer color than any other cam of its ilk. (The popular Flip Mino HD is prettier, but its videos look far worse.) Couple that with a dead-simple setup and you have to wonder why anyone would shell out thousands of dollars for a camcorder that will almost undoubtedly be used to upload vacation videos to the web.

:

As with any tech involving lasers, you'll need to have a Bond-villain-size bank account to afford it. But once you've dropped your $7,000 and got it back to your underground lair, you'll see what all the fuss was about. The Mitsubishi LaserVue has twice as much color as any other TV due to the lasers providing the light. The size of the rear-projection TV is equally ambitious: Sizes start at a whopping 50 inches.

But unlike a real Bond villain, you won't be destroying the world; you'll be saving it. The LaserVue uses a third less power than rival sets and the lasers inside are long-lasting. Besides, what else do you need to know? It has frakkin' lasers!

: Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Back in May, we described the Roku Netflix box as "Just Shy of Totally Amazing," and it's easy to see why. The tiny, plain-looking box sits next to your TV and gives you on-demand access to thousands of movies. You have to be a Netflix subscriber, but if you are, you can watch as many Hollywood blockbusters as you can take.

The $100 box keeps getting better, too, with HD movies expected soon. In fact, with all the big players (Microsoft, Hulu) racing to get onto your TV via the internet, it seems the geek-friendly DVD-by-mail company was planning this right from the beginning.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

The Chumby brought the friendlier face of the internet into our homes, and it did it while disguised as a teddy bear for the 21st century. It took the concept of the widget and turned it into an easy-to-use hub for home entertainment.

The $180 touchscreen and leather pet is a gateway to streaming-music services, weather reports, news and video. Better still, the soft little box is based on Linux, so you can bend Chumby to your will, serving up anything it can suck in via its WiFi connection. As a bonus, you can even hook up an iPod. Time to nail shut the pet door and decommission the dog.

: Photo: Max Buck/Wired.com

Manufacturers squeezed off a lot of cellphones in 2008. But all of them lacked something. The iPhone 3G? Atrocious battery life. The BlackBerry Storm? Half-baked software. The G1? Great OS shackled with borderline embarrassing hardware. But the E71 is different. The gorgeously designed handset also comes with a fully developed operating system (replete with a dedicated user community), two separate home screens, a QWERTY keyboard where touch typing was not some half-remembered fever dream, plus a battery life that could be measured in days, not hours. Any wonder why we ditched our iPhone and picked up one of these babies?

:

In 2008, Nikon staged a comeback worthy of Rocky Balboa. With the new flagship, full-frame D3, the see-in-the-dark D700 and the brand-new medium-format wannabe D3X, Nikon has been roundly kicking arch-rival Canon's butt.

The biggest surprise, though, was the D90, the first digital SLR to shoot video — and high-def, 720p video to boot. The advantage of relatively cheap, interchangeable SLR lenses together with a Hollywood-style shallow focus not available on even high-end consumer camcorders made the Nikon a must-have for budget movie makers. And that's before we even get to the 12.3-megapixel still images it takes. Sure, Canon answered back with its own hi-def, 1080p camera, the 5D MkII, but Canon's model costs almost three times as much.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Netbooks: Was there a PC maker (with the exception of Apple) that resisted cultivating one of these tiny titans in 2008? For the most part, the netbook "revolution" has meant a tidal wave of underpowered, mediocre plastic boxes. But it was the MSI Wind that separated itself from the chaff. Sure, we tested other netbooks that performed faster, or had prettier chassis, or came loaded with more memory. But the Wind gets the top prize for two reasons: It's an incredibly balanced rig that also happens to be highly hackable. Prompted by a dedicated (and slightly rabid) Wind user community, our own Brian Chen and Charlie Sorrell both managed to supplant the Wind's Linux-based OS with Apple's OS X on their respective machines.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 22 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

First Real iPhone 3G Unlock Caught on Video, Coming New Year’s Eve

Put on your woot hats and prepare your fun cannons because the iPhone 3G is getting its official unlock on New Year's Eve. Isn't it a little cynical to launch a cellphone unlock on New Year's Eve? Listen: the folks who will buy an iPhone, break the contract, and soft unlock the thing probably won't be hanging out in the Rainbow Room come midnight. They'll be snug in their beds, tapping warily at their MacBook trackpads, counting down the seconds for the first true soft unlock of the iPhone 3G (sadly, I'll probably join them). And they say technology isn't destroying human interaction.

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Dec 2008 | 4:27 am

First real iPhone 3G software unlock

Put on your woot hats and prepare your fun cannons because the iPhone 3G is getting its official unlock on New Year’s Eve. Isn’t it a little cynical to launch a cellphone unlock on New Year’s Eve? Listen: the folks who will buy an iPhone, break the contract, and soft unlock the thing probably won’t be hanging out in the Rainbow Room come midnight. They’ll be snug in their beds, tapping warily at their MacBook trackpads, counting down the seconds for the first true soft unlock of the iPhone 3G. And they say technology isn’t destroying human interaction.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Dec 2008 | 4:15 am

Cowon’s S9 Curve PMP now available on Amazon

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Portable Video

For a while, Cowon has been teasing us with one of their better PMP’s, the S9 Curve.  They originally said it would be available in November, but then the latest report said around Christmas time.  It looks like they finally kept their word on this highly anticipated PMP as it is available for order on Amazon.

It features the same specs and will be selling for $240.  To recap, it comes with a 3.3-inch AMOLED touchscreen with 480 x 272 resolution.  In addition, it comes with improved BBE audio, DMB receiver, dual core processor, FM Tuner, and 40 hours of battery life when playing audio.  It is set to be available in an 8GB model and a 16GB model.  Right now, Amazon is selling the 16GB model for $240.  If you order it soon, you should be able to get it by Christmas, which would make it a nice holiday gift.

Read [Amazon]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 22 Dec 2008 | 3:59 am

The Slow Bruteforce Botnet(s) May Be Learning

badger.foo writes "We've seen stories about the slow bruteforcers — we've discussed it here — and based on the data, my colleague Egil Möller was the first to suggest that since we know the attempts are coordinated, it is not too far-fetched to assume that the controlling system measures the rates of success for each of the chosen targets and allocates resources accordingly. (The probes of my systems have slowed in the last month.) If Egil's assumption is right, we are seeing the bad guys adapting. And they're avoiding OpenBSD machines." For fans of raw data, here are all the log entries (3MB) that badger.foo has collected since noticing the slow bruteforce attacks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Dec 2008 | 3:30 am

MIT's Huggable Robot Teddy is a Therapeutic Toy in the Making

Due to another innovation straight out of MIT's media lab, cuddly interactive robots should soon be roaming the halls of hospitals, simultaneously creeping people out and helping the sick get better.

MIT's Huggable robot, even in its current uncompleted state, is a technical marvel of communications and data accumulation.

The bear is lined with over 1500 sensors for direct data transmission, has cameras for eyes, a microphone field in the ears, and has an internal wireless PC. The ear mics give the robot 'sound localization' so it can directly interact with people in space, but the visual context from the cameras is even more impressive. 

Because the camera in the bear's eyes has a narrow field of vision, Media Lab personnel had to create a visual interface called 'stale panorama' to raise its space awareness. The robot takes separate video frames automatically when it is placed in any new room, by pointing its head around the room. The software that helps run the robot then mods the pics together into one large canvas, and when it's combined with an automatic face detection feature, allows the bear bot to naturally follow a person around the room, face-to-face.

It also has an internal measurement unit that allow the bear to know its tilting orientations. But it's the sensitivity of the sensors that are probably the most interesting for the future of touch-based physical applications.

Made of silicon, the sensors record electrical field, force and temperature data everytime the bear's body parts are touched. It understands nine classes of affective touch: tickling, patting, poking, scratching, rubbing, squeezing, slapping, petting and light contact. From each of these, the bear is supposed to mimic a human-like response, eventually building an extensive database of appropriate replies and improving its function.

Since touch therapy is effective for sick patients, the bear is currently being looked at as a potential animal companion in hospitals.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 22 Dec 2008 | 2:32 am

Pop Rock: Kellogg’s Guitar Hero promotion includes free hat, T-shirt, mini LCD games

FROM GAMERTELL - Eat some sweet breakfast treats and either dig for mini Guitar Hero-themed LCD games or clip and mail-in “tokens” for a free hat or T-shirt… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:23 am

US Government Responds Harshly To ICANN gTLD Plans

ICANN posted its proposal for expanding gTLDs late in October, and now the US government has issued its scathing response (PDF, 11 pp.), from the departments of Commerce and Justice. The initial criticism is that John Levine sent a note to a policy mailing list and summarized the concerns raised as ranging from "...insufficient attention to monopoly and consumer protection, to lack of capacity to enforce compliance, to overreach into non-technical areas such as adjudication of morality, to what they'll do with all the extra money since they are a non-profit. Their first concern is that in 2006 the ICANN board said they would commission a study on economic issues in TLD registrations such as whether different TLDs are different markets, substitutability between TLDs, and registry market power, issues which are fairly important in any new TLD process. Here it is two years later, they're rushing to set up the new TLD process, but there's no study. 'ICANN needs to complete this economic study and the results should be considered by the community before new gTLDs are introduced.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Dec 2008 | 1:20 am

Online Real Estate Investor Social Network Extends Free Training Courses Giveaway Until New Year's Eve

TAMPA, Fla., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Dec 2008 | 12:42 am

Heavy Online Spending Continues Later Into the Season But Fails to Make Up for Compressed Holiday Shopping Schedule This Year

RESTON, Va., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Dec 2008 | 11:36 pm

Dear Santa: A gamer’s wish list for Christmas 2008

FROM GAMERTELL - Gamertell staff writer Jeremy Hill asks Santa for three “gifts” that would help make him and other gamers happy for years to come… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Dec 2008 | 11:32 pm

Videogames may do the aging brain good (Reuters)

Reuters - Older adults might want to take an interest in their grandchildren's' video games, if early research on the brain benefits of gaming is correct.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Dec 2008 | 11:09 pm

Octopuses Have No Personalities and Enjoy HDTV

Whiteox writes about an Australian researcher named Renata Pronk, who has discovered that octopuses prefer HDTV. She recruited 32 gloomy octopuses from the waters of Chowder Bay. Previously, researchers have reported little success when showing video to octopuses. Miss Pronk's insight was that the octopus eye is so refined that it might see standard PAL video, at 25 fps, as a series of stills. She tried HDTV (50 fps) and her subjects reacted to the videos of a crab, another octopus, or a swinging bottle on the end of a string. A further discovery is that octopuses show no trait of individual personalities, even though they exhibit a high level of intelligence. It would certainly be possible to quibble about the definition of "personality" employed, and whether Miss Pronk had successfully measured it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Dec 2008 | 11:08 pm

Will This Economy Finally Push the Toyota Way Into Software Development?

On Friday, I interviewed Ryan Martens, CTO & founder of Rally Software, about agile development. (Rally offers Agile lifecycle managment products and is a key player in the online Agile development community.) Agile has its roots in the Toyota way and lean manufacturing. But only now is it starting to hit mainstream knowledge management process–like software development. Wikipedia calls it “Agile Software Development.” Certainly, moving to Agile isn’t pain free–there is risk involved–but companies that take the risk consistently report strong results, including those listed on the banner above. (Expect it to be flavor of the week if you apply it like the flavor of the week.)

Source: TechCrunch | 21 Dec 2008 | 10:33 pm

MySpace v. Facebook Advertising Showdown. Which Platform Is Better?

The guest post below is written by Ryan Hupfer at HubPages. A couple of weeks ago HubPages ads were blocked from MySpace’s new self serve ad platform, MyAds, as being competitive to MySpace. That problem was fixed, but we asked Ryan, who advertises on both MySpace and Facebook, to write a guest post comparing the two platforms.

His results are below. In a nutshell, he finds Facebook a much better experience. When it comes to the results, though, things are mixed. Ryan’s test showed a lower cost per click on MySpace than Facebook ($.27 v. $.44). But the Facebook clicks were more productive: a new user cost just $5.11 on Facebook, v. $8.03 on MySpace.

The results, though, can’t be taken too seriously, for a number of reasons. First, Ryan spent $3,119 on Facebook ads and only $225 on MySpace (he says MySpace ads are much harder to administer, so he spent less). But that difference alone makes the results unreliable. Second, Facebook has text ads, MySpace has display ads, so the results are not apples-to-apples.

That gets me to the biggest reason the test isn’t scientific - both MySpace and Facebook knew about it. Ryan interviewed both extensively for the post. Since both knew this was coming, they both had incentives to help his ads get better performance.

But the post is valuable in that it shows what a real world advertiser thinks of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the platforms. Based on this, we may commission a true third party test of each of them, without notice to either company. Those results will be more relevant.

Update: A statement from MySpace on the post below:

We welcome the constructive feedback we’re getting on MyAds from our more than 15,000 advertisers—we’ve only been live publicly for a handful of weeks and we continue to make updates to the system. Unfortunately a lot of the information in the post above is outdated and we wanted to clarify a few important details on the new product.

Last week, we debuted a new functionality—“On-going Campaign and Daily Spending Limit,” which allows an advertiser to easily set up a continuous campaign with a daily stop-limit budget. Since its launch last week our daily budgeting has been adopted by 90% of advertisers. We also recently launched “Bulk Pausing and Restarting” which enables advertisers to better manage campaigns in bulk and filter by campaign status. We think these new improvements should address the major points above.

MySpace does an exceptional job of empowering MyAds customers to receive an analysis of campaign performance, however, in the break-out spreadsheet above, it says “No Daily Reporting,” which is factually incorrect. Not only does MyAds have daily reporting in the product, the reporting is updated on an hourly basis and has been core a functionality of the product since launch.

Ultimately, we wish the author would have spent more money with us to match what he spent on Facebook to ensure the comparison was reasonably balanced, but in spite of that we managed to deliver a 50% higher CTR at two-thirds the cost-per-click– making MyAds a better value for the money.

We hope this additional information is helpful to TechCrunch readers and are in contact with the guest author to update him on some of the absent MyAds product details.

Ryan’s Post:

After I had some issues with MySpace MyAds a while back, I’ve decided to dig in and come up with a much more detailed and apples-to-apples comparison of MySpace’s newly launched self-service ad platform to that of the slightly older, yet just as wet behind the ears Facebook Ads. As HubPages Communicator of Awesomeness! I have not only extensively used both of these latest attempts at the do-it-yourself advertising craze as a part of my overall marketing plan, but I have also had the chance to pick the brains of each of their management teams.

One of the first things that I found out was even though MySpace and Facebook have both created services that are similar in the fact that they’re finally able to capitalize on the data that millions of people are pumping into them daily, their implementation, strategy and vision couldn’t be any more different.

MySpace MyAds - Keeping It Creative And Looking To Monetize Now

While meeting with Adam Bain, the president of Fox Interactive Media’s audience network and the guy that Fox challenged to make some monetary magic with MySpace after they acquired the ad optimization and hypertargeting ad experts Strategic Data Corporation in 2007, it was clear that he has a plan to implement MyAds in a way that won’t affect the creativity and entertainment that MySpace has embraced since its launch in 2003. This is the main reason for him and his team deciding to go with a banner-based system as opposed to the more text-based systems that are currently used with Facebook Ads and other cost-per-click ad platforms such as Google AdSense.

Adam was also quick to let me know that the MyAds platform is now utilizing the same hypertargeting technology that they have been successfully using with larger big brand ad campaigns, such as the major mobile phone carriers (which he claims MySpace is the number one online lead generator for each of them). His overall vision for MyAds is to quickly focus on monetizing MySpace by utilizing this new hypertargeting which now gives users the ability to target a professional and creative campaign to practically anyone on MySpace based upon their interests and location. Also, he stressed that as the adoption of MyAds continues to grow he feels that that eventually the ads that most people are used to seeing on MySpace (punch the monkey) will go from being annoying to becoming something much more relevant and entertaining.

It’s probably also worth mentioning that the MyAds platform itself was built from the ground up internally by MySpace and that many of their core members came over from the team that helped Yahoo integrate their acquisition of Overture’s search advertising system. MyAds is seen as a huge revenue opportunity for MySpace and according to Adam the 40,000+ ads that have been submitted are already having an impact on their bottom line.

Facebook Ads - Monetization Taking A Backseat To Overall Growth Strategy

Facebook’s director of monetization, Tim Kendall, seemed to have a much different take on their now one year old self-service ad platform, which is an evolution from the Facebook Flyers that I once used a few years back when I was a graduate assistant at a college in Indianapolis, IN. According to Tim and despite the over half a billion dollars of funding that they’re currently burning through, Facebook’s main priority isn’t monetizing - it’s continuing to keep the now fastest growing social network of 140+ million worldwide users on pace to become something even bigger.

Growth, Tim says, is the only way to eventually get to a point to where they can start bringing in a positive cash flow and can begin turning their now venture capital devouring machine into something that can show signs of actually making some real money. Until they get to this point of growth that they’re happy with, Tim says that the proper resources required to really break out the Facebook Ads system into the mainstream won’t be available and they will continue to grow at the modest pace that they’re currently seeing.

The excitement about and around the Facebook Ads team wasn’t close to being on the same level of what I experienced when meeting the MyAds team, but I suppose that could be due to other growth-based initiatives, such as Facebook Connect, getting all of the attention. Also, as we discussed the overall vision of Facebook Ads there was much less focus on the potential effects to the overall user experience when it came to the ads being implemented into the Facebook as compared to my discussion with the MyAds team. This is probably because of the more spontaneous and community-focused nature of MySpace vs. the more connection-focused Facebook that is used more like a communications tool.

Using MyAds In Two Words: Clumsy Yet Creative

The newly launched MyAds is a huge step in the right direction for MySpace’s attempt to empower potential advertisers of all sizes to be able to tap into their network of promotion-friendly users by utilizing their new lineup of self-service tools. As a marketer with a mid-sized and somewhat limited budget, the idea of what MyAds can offer is very appealing - as long as it’s easy-to-use and somewhat self-managing.

You see, the self-service model that is meant to take advantage of the longtail of advertisers (50,000 advertisers spending $25 as opposed to 25 advertisers spending $50,000) is somewhat of a double-edged sword due to the fact that the smaller and mid-sized advertisers that are meant to use the system are a much different beast than the larger and more experienced advertisers that are more used to dealing with advertising platforms, terminology and management. This means that dealing with smaller advertisers (like me) also comes with dealing with advertisers that have less time, are managing many different things at once, and are most-likely less educated on advertising methods and seem to need more tools that allow them to make sense of their campaigns easily and quickly.

This brings me to my own experience with the MyAds platform, which up until this point has been a little bit of a struggle. This isn’t surprising considering that it’s only been openly available for less than 3 months and is still in public Beta. I’m not one to get frustrated easily with something new and I understand that they are consistently making improvements every day, but as it stands now there are some issues with the MyAds platform that have made it really hard for someone like me to work with as efficiently as I’d like. Some of these issues are as follows:

• Extremely slow and non-intuitive Flash-based management system that can be a real time-killer: It takes me a lot of time and a lot of screens to manage the campaigns that I have created. I want to get in, make some changes and get out fairly quickly and this system just doesn’t allow me to do that at this point.
• No multi-ad campaign creation: Unfortunately every ad that I enter into the system has its own campaign, budget, timeline and reporting. This makes it impossible to create specific sets of ads that can be managed from the group level such as Christmas ads, female-targeted ads or groups of locally focused ads. Managing each ad on its own is very inefficient, unpractical and isn’t worth the time that it takes to manage them.
• No ongoing campaigns and no daily spending limits: When a campaign is created there is a specific budget amount and schedule set for the ad and once either that budget or schedule runs out the campaign is officially complete and stopped until it is restarted manually. This results in excessive management of the campaigns or the inability to manage them at all, especially for the ones with smaller budget amounts. One odd quirk that I specifically ran into was that when my $25 budget ran out for an ad I couldn’t figure out how to get it restarted. This was because even though I extended the schedule for another month, I had to go in and add another $25 by hand to the $25 that was already listed for my budget, meaning that I had to change the original $25 to $50 to get it up and running again. Then the additional $25 ran out (which happened a day later) and I now need to go in and change the budget to $75 to get it restarted one more time. As you can see this can begin to get very annoying. This past week the MyAds team informed me that they are rolling out both daily spending limits and ongoing schedules, which will clear this issue up and will make MyAds much more manageable.
• Being creative could also mean more work: The banner-based system that MyAds utilizes allows for a higher level of creativity for those who use it, but this also means that it takes more work to get these campaigns created and running. Google, Facebook and others have developed more text-based systems for this very reason. But, the user-generated ads that I was shown by the MyAds team were super creative and looked as professional as many banner ads that I have seen on other sites, which shows that users are already capitalizing on the flexibility of the platform. MySpace has never been one to take the more boring route and they’re hoping that these types of banners will make the ads more effective and relevant to their users as time goes on.

Each of these issues can probably be easily fixed and like I said, the MyAds system is only a few months old and they have a very capable team working on improving this system every single day. I fully expect MyAds to only get better over time, I just hope for their sake that they don’t lose a lot of advertisers in the meantime.

Using Facebook Ads In Two Words: Speedy And Statistical

Everyone knows that Facebook hasn’t exactly been free of any issues when it comes to trying to monetize their network, but ever since I have used them Facebook Ads have consistently improved their extremely easy-to-use tools and have quickly realized the benefit of empowering their advertisers with as much statistical and analytical data as possible. The speed and ease of use that comes along with using Facebook Ads makes creating campaigns and managing their budgets, schedules and messaging extremely straight forward while their reporting options also make it easy to get a quick and easy overview of what your different campaigns are up to.

In fact, there aren’t a whole lot of things to complain about from a marketing perspective when it comes to Facebook Ads, but the one thing that I do worry about is how much noise their users will take before the ads begin to get in the way of what they’re actually there for - communicating with their friends. Here are a few things that I feel Facebook has done right:

• They have developed a great keyword-based ad targeting system: Facebook has over 20,000 unique keywords (and a pool of over 1 billion) that you can use when targeting your ads. These keywords come from profiles, Facebook pages, groups and authorized Facebook applications and are entered with a free form predictive keyword system. MySpace, on the other hand, uses a less-organic method to targeting interests via a hierarchy tree-based system.
• They have created a very flexible and friendly campaign management and reporting system: There are options to group ads into a campaign, to set a daily spending limit and the ability to make the campaign run on an ongoing basis. Of course, all of this is well complemented with a quick and comprehensive reporting system that Facebook calls Insights. Insights goes well beyond just clicks and impressions by enabling you to dig deeper into your campaigns by providing user-specific demographic data for the people who are actually end up clicking on your ads.
• The use of adding Social Actions can really boost your clicks: By adding Social Actions to your Facebook Ads you allow the ads to potentially run with an image of one of the Facebook user’s friends if they’re a fan of your Facebook Page that is connected to the campaign. Adding Social Actions has been known to double the amount of clicks that an ad receives.

So, does Facebook have the perfect system? No. But as far as I’ve seen they’ve made some huge leaps in the right direction when it comes to advertising on social networks and I can only imagine what they’ll come up with once they actually give it the attention and resources that they think it eventually deserves.

Stats, Conversions And The Bottom Line: How Do They Perform?

The bottom line when using these self-service advertising platforms is whether or not they make my life easier as a marketer and whether or not they give me a good return on my investment of time, money and attention. I ran some numbers on how each of these campaigns has performed for me, but like most advertisers will be quick to tell you, results can and probably will vary from campaign to campaign. With that being said, here are some things that you should be aware of before I lay out my numbers for you:

• These stats are from the campaigns that I ran in November of 2008
• Each week I spend some time each Thursday to update, manage and adjust these types of marketing campaigns and depending on ease of use, I can get more done on some platforms than others. MySpace tended to take me more time to manage, so it usually didn’t get the same level of management that Facebook Ads did.
• These stats include analytics that I have pulled from both Facebook Ads and MyAds and the amount of data they allow you to view and download varies. While MyAds only offers a Flash-based reporting interface with some basic analytics, Facebook Ads allowed me to download more data than I could ever ask for in an easy-to-use Excel format.
• I was more than willing to budget the same amount of spending on both of the platforms, but due to some of their campaign restrictions, I honestly had a hard time spending as much money with MyAds.
• As far as HubPages interests go, there are two metrics that we are most interested in when it comes to determining a good ROI - newly registered members and more importantly the Hubs that they end up publishing. Depending on these two metrics we can determine whether or not various marketing campaigns are giving us the return that we need to deem them successful.

The Future For These Self-Service Ad Platforms

Although MySpace and Facebook are two very different businesses, they both have realized that they need to accomplish similar things in order to give their self-service systems the success that they’re looking for. Two big goals that they both mentioned were increasing their marketing and promotional reach to the millions of potential advertisers across the nation and once they reach them somehow educating these advertisers to the point that they feel comfortable using these self-service systems.

Facebook has already started setting up deals with partners as a way to get the word out, such as their partnership with the Visa Business Network that leverages Visa’s name to attract new businesses to advertise and a deal with GoDaddy and Intuit that gives their new business users free credits to try out the Facebook Ads system. MySpace is also working on setting up some of these partnerships and I’m sure that they will be figuring out ways to inform their music, comedy and other entertainment-based users about the MyAds service as they begin to implement their marketing and promotional strategy.

With both MySpace and Facebook looking to self-service advertising as a way to significantly bump revenues, the race is officially on to see who can get traction in the market first. Facebook has the polished tools and the growing audience, but I have a feeling that MySpace has just given us a taste of what their creative team can come up with and despite the issues that I’ve had with MyAds, they seem to be constantly improving their system that has already seen some early success. All I know is that I’m looking forward to seeing how these competing platforms end up performing through the rest of 2008 and into 2009.

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Source: TechCrunch | 21 Dec 2008 | 10:03 pm

SpaceShipTwo Mothership Makes Maiden Flight

RobGoldsmith writes "Earlier this week images were appearing on the Net showing the WhiteKnightTwo craft doing some tests in Mojave. The earliest tests showed perhaps two of the engines being used, while a later test showed all the engines working and some further testing. Today the four Pratt & Whitney Canada PW308A engines finally carried the craft into the air. The maiden flight of the WhiteKnightTwo lasted just shy of one hour and happened today at around 08:15 local time, at Mojave air and spaceport. Rumors suggest that a Beechcraft King Air was used for a chase plane. The craft will be used to position Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo craft to fly into space; this is estimated to happen around 2010."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Dec 2008 | 9:59 pm

LittleBigPlanet patch brings an in-game store and more

FROM GAMERTELL - LittleBigPlanet gets patched, adds in-game store and better level searching… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Dec 2008 | 9:45 pm

Scientists Investigate Reasons Behind Missing Orcas

Scientists are analyzing killer whale scat and breath samples in the hopes of solving the mystery of Puget Sound's dwindling orca population.There were seven resident killer whales that frequently pass the waters of Washington that went missing this year and are presumed dead."We're losing animals and we don't exactly understand why," said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service.Researchers of the University of Washington analyzed stress hormones and toxins from scat of the remaining 83 orcas and have found signs suggesting the mammals may have starved to death, possibly because of the dwindling salmon runs.Another team of scientist from Global Research and Rescue is riding along with whales, using petri dishes on poles to capture air droplets from the blowholes.  These samples are being studied for potentially harmful organisms.One theory for the orcas' demise includes ocean pollutants such as oil and sewage, or vessel noise disrupting their ability to find food.On San Juan Island, the Center for Whale Research plans to tag the southern population of killer whales next year and track their winter migration.  That region's signature whales have been studied for more than three decades, and it's a mystery where they go and what they eat when they leave the Puget Sound.Next year, researchers will attach satellite tags on the dorsal fins of six orcas.  In the past, two of the pods have been showing up in central California, an indication they may be foraging farther for salmon."We've got to think bigger about the whole food issue," said Joe Gaydos, a wildlife veterinarian and regional director of the SeaDoc Society.What the whales eat when they leave Puget Sound has implications for salmon harvest in other areas like California and Alaska, he said.Researchers from UW have found a link between whale mortality and low levels of thyroid hormone by using a 2-liter bottle on a telescoping pole to collect whale scat for analysis.Sam Wasser, director of the UW Center of Conservation Biology, thinks they show a consistent nutritional problem.Katherine Ayres, graduate student doing work under Wasser, said if whales do not each much, they draw from their fat reserves, where toxins are stored.  After that, toxins enter the circulation system and could cause health problems.She said that it is unclear whether the whales are starving or whether they're becoming more susceptible to disease, but regardless it all goes back to food."The future for the fisheries is grim, and it's going to get worse," Balcomb said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 9:29 pm

Tools & Surprises For a Tech Book Author?

Fubari writes "I have questions for those of you who have written books: what writing tools have you found helpful? I want to start my book off right (so I'm pretty sure I don't want to write it in MS Word). What has and has not worked well for you? So far I have thought of needs like chapter/section management, easy references to figures (charts, diagrams, source code), version control (check in/check out parts like chapters, figures, etc.), and index generation. I would also welcome advice about what I don't know enough to ask about. Did you encounter any surprises that you wish you had known about back when you started out?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Dec 2008 | 8:46 pm

Cloud computing looms larger on corporate horizon (AP)

AP - Todd Pierce recently put his job on the line.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Dec 2008 | 8:17 pm

Hot gaming news for the week of 12-14-2008

Section:

No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you!  Here’s a look at this week’s top stories…

• Playstation Store Update: Monsters, costumes and maps edition (December 11-17, 2008)
• Apple App Store gaming update for the week of December 8 -14, 2008
• Overstock.com offering 4 days of video game deals
• Gamertell’s PS3 game gift guide for Christmas 2008
• Details for Fallout 3’s Operation Anchorage expansion pack

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Dec 2008 | 7:31 pm

New tests increase fetal DNA analysis

Researchers at the Baylor School of Medicine in Houston say they are making breakthroughs in enhanced DNA testing of unborn fetuses. Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 6:43 pm

Report: EPA allows chemical secrecy

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has kept data about potentially dangerous chemicals secret, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says. The newspaper said its analysis of more than 2,000 EPA dangerous chemical filings during the last three years found that the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 6:42 pm

Music Video Games Boost Artists Popularity, Sales

All across America, teenagers are discussing and praising the complexity of Aerosmith’s “Train Kept a Rolling.” They are mentioning how difficult The Rolling Stone’s “Gimme Shelter” is to play on the guitar.Confused? Don’t be! These are songs on the "Rock Band 2," and "Guitar Hero" games that are being played across the country.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Dec 2008 | 6:40 pm

New 'Smart' Materials For The Brain

Research done by scientists in Italy and Switzerland has shown that carbon nanotubes may be the ideal "smart" brain material.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 5:39 pm

Scientists Create Titanium-Based Structural Metallic-Glass Composites

The new alloys are lighter and less expensive, but are still tough and ductile enough for use in aerospace applicationsScientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a range of structural metallic-glass composites, based in titanium, that are lighter and less expensive than any the group had previously created, while still maintaining their toughness and ductility--the ability to be deformed without breaking.A paper describing these breakthrough metallic-glass alloys is now online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition in advance of an upcoming print publication.Earlier this year, the same Caltech group had published a paper in the journal Nature, describing new strategies for creating the liquid-metal composites. This research resulted in "alloys with unrivaled strength and toughness," notes Douglas Hofmann, visiting scientist and lead author on the PNAS paper that, along with the Nature paper, describes work he did while a graduate student at Caltech. "They are among the toughest engineering materials that currently exist."Still, there were shortcomings to the alloys presented in Nature. Because they were created for use in the aerospace industry--among other structural applications--they needed to have very low densities. Ideally, the alloys would have had densities in or around those of crystalline titanium alloys, which fall between 4.5 and 5 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cc). The original alloys, made predominantly of zirconium, fell between 5.6 and 6.4 g/cc, putting them "in a no-man's-land of densities for aerospace structures," says Hofmann.And so Hofmann and his colleagues--including William Johnson, Caltech's Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, and a pioneer in the creation of metallic glass--began tweaking the components in their composites, eventually coming up with a group of alloys with a high percentage of titanium, but which maintained the properties of the previously created zirconium alloys."Despite being based in titanium," Hofmann notes, "these alloys exhibit the same impressive properties as the zirconium alloys. They are still tough--in other words, they resist cracking--and they are still ductile. In fact, they are even more ductile than the alloys we'd created in the past."This decrease in density also resulted in a reduction in cost, adds Hofmann, since zirconium is a more expensive metal than is titanium.The work detailed in the paper, "Development of tough, low-density titanium-based bulk metallic glass matrix composites with tensile ductility," was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research. Hofmann was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense through the National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship program.The paper's coauthors included Johnson; Caltech graduate students Jin-Yoo Suh and Aaron Wiest; Mary-Laura Lind, a visitor in materials science; and Marios Demetriou, a senior research fellow in materials science.---Image Caption: Samples of the new titanium-based metallic-glass composites showing their toughness and ductility. Credit: PNAS/Douglas Hofmann, Caltech
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 5:32 pm

Dream Of Quantum Computing Closer To Reality

The ability to exploit the extraordinary properties of quantum mechanics in novel applications, such as a new generation of super-fast computers, has come closer following recent progress with some of the remaining underlying mathematical problems.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Dec 2008 | 2:40 pm

Researchers Modify E Coli To Create Higher-Density Biofuels

Genetic modification of bacterium results in alcohols with greater energyFor the first time, researchers at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science have successfully pushed nature beyond its limits by genetically modifying Escherichia coli, a bacterium often associated with food poisoning, to produce unusually long-chain alcohols essential in the creation of biofuels."Previously, we were able to synthesize long-chain alcohols containing five carbon atoms," said James Liao, UCLA professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Dec 2008 | 2:25 pm