Digital TV converter coupons running out

As we quickly approach the Dec. 31st deadline to order a $40 TV converter box coupon, last-minute coupon requests are quickly depleting the subsidy program funds. Consumers who wait too long to request government coupons to subsidize converter boxes for the digital television transition in February may end up not getting one. We’ve known about this for almost a year now. You snooze, you lose.

However, there’s still hope for you lucky procrastinators. Congress may pass additional funds in early January for the coupons before they completely run out. There are currently 1.5 million requests per week for these coupons, so get in line now before it’s too late.

Valuable Objects Stimulate Brain More Than Junk

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snowmen in popular culture

While no one knows for sure when exactly the snowman began smoking a pipe and drinking hard liquor, it may have started as early as 1890, based on a label from a bottle of whiskey from that year. An 1898 postcard shows a snowman carrying two bottles of champagne off to an office party. On holiday greeting cards from the 1900s through and on (up to the 1930s), the snowman often has a drink in one hand and a pipe in the other, mirroring our society’s changes and America’s fascination with smoking and drinking. This would eventually escalate to the snowman cavorting with women and offering drinks to minors. One could argue that these depictions were, in a way, humanizing, but seeing a tipsy snowman chasing a girl with a stick is disturbing at best.

By 1908, there was clear evidence of his partying ways were out of control. In the silent movie The Snowman by Wallace McCutcheon, a chain-smoking snowman is swigging whiskey and appears in the rest of the film sloshed, inspiring a flogging by the townspeople. This behavior would continue on film and media through magazines and postcards as a pickled, skirt-chasing, under-the-table lush. In other words, he had become a frozen W.C. Fields. By the ‘30s and ‘40s, there is no question, the two started to look alike, both wearing straw hats, putting on more weight and looking more round and sporting crimson noses. And both enjoyed prolific silent movie careers based on their reputations as charming drunks. It’s hard to say if either had copied from the other but they were both enhanced by the other’s notoriety. Ironically, W.C. Fields hated the holidays and passed away on Christmas Day, 1946.

Amazon says 2008 holiday season was 'best ever' (AP)

Verizon awarded $33.15m against cybersquatter - Register

PhysOrg.com

Verizon awarded $33.15m against cybersquatter Register - 14 hours ago Verizon has been awarded $33.15m in a cybersquatting lawsuit against a shady domain aggregator that registered hundreds of websites using the telco's name and trademarks. Verizon wins $33 million in domain name lawsuit TG Daily Verizon wins $31 million judgment in cybersquatting case NetworkWorld.com New York Times - Wall Street Journal - TMCnet - InternetNews.com all 95 news articles

Telonu: Another Place To Write About How Much You Hate Your Job

Telonu (Tell-on-you, get it?) is a new website that invites you to “Rave, Rant, and Rate” about your school and business in the hopes of helping inform prospective applicants as well as providing co-workers a place to gossip anonymously. The startup is by no means the first to offer users a place to detail the inner workings of their current occupation (in fact, many companies have entire sites dedicated to describing how badly they suck, and we wrote about a similar site called JobVent last year). But unlike some of these alternatives, Telonu has a fairly attractive and professional interface that could help attract comments beyond the typical “my boss is a moron” drivel that prevent other sites from becoming valuable resources.

The site’s layout is reminiscent of Yelp, offering a summary of each company at the top of its profile followed by a listing of brief reviews from workers on the inside. When users sign up they are asked for their full names, but are guaranteed that these will never actually appear on the site (I’d be wary about entering it regardless, as it seems this information could be easily handed over to litigious companies by court order). Whenever users write a post about their company or co-worker, they can choose between displaying their names as ‘Anonymous’ or their site nickname, presumably so that they can make the really nasty messages totally untraceable.

Of course, with total anonymity comes questionable accuracy. Members of rival companies can easily litter profiles with poor reviews, so readers need to be wary of overly negative remarks (each review can be rated and commented on, so the obvious plants will hopefully sink to the bottom). Beyond standard reviews, the site also offers a section for ‘watercooler’ chit-chat as well as stock advice, which seems like an open invitation to offer insider trading tips given the ‘insidery’ nature of the site. But given the fact that there’s no way to actually verify if a tipster works at a company, even legitimate tips will probably get lost in the shuffle.

Beyond its interface there really isn’t much seperating Telonu from dozens of other competitors, including GlassDoor and the aforementioned JobVent. That said, none of these has really risen to become a well-known leader (as Yelp has with restaurant and entertainment reviews), so Telonu may still have a shot.

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

Vietnam Imposes New Blogging Restrictions

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Insigniam Performance Receives Website Awards

Avistar Communications Announces Receipt of Notice From Nasdaq

Digital TV converter coupons in short supply

UPDATE 1-Fujitsu says no deal with Western Digital-Nikkei

CrunchDeals: Steam offering 10 to 75 percent off everything in store

The sale ends January 2, so you’ve got plenty of time. Hehe.

Steam

Apple's Christmas 'swipe-gesture' patent application - CNET News

Palluxo! - Mac Dose of All Things Apple

Apple's Christmas 'swipe-gesture' patent application CNET News - 15 hours ago While children were nestled all snug in their beds, Apple apparently had visions of improved touch-screens in its innovative head. Apple wants to patent 'swipe gestures' Chicago Daily Herald Apple files for swipe patent, augmenting iPhone keyboard Ars Technica Hard OCP - ipodnn - Palluxo! - Mac Dose of All Things Apple - Coolest Gadgets all 20 news articles

Top ten tech, according to Wired

Priya Ganapati over at Wired posted a top ten list of tech breakthroughs in 2008 including flexible displays, Michael Phelps swimming pants, and memristor.

We at CG haven’t really followed the “big” science, focusing instead on stuff you and I can buy right now in stores or overseas. But it is fun to take a look at the man behind the curtain, as it were, and posit future uses of this powerful technology.

What technology - or technology development - rocked your world this year? I’m thinking about the destruction of the large hadron collider (I so much wanted to type “hard-on”) which points out that even in huge devices blowing crazy quarks around a loop and explode in a shower of sparks.

Global computer ownership

Computer ownership [Economist via Treehugger]

BBtv .08 retrospective: "Animals," by Minilogue (dir: Kristofer Ström)

Continuing in our lazy-time retrospective of favorite Boing Boing tv episodes from the past year, we revisit an animated music video gem by Kristofer Ström of Ljudbilden & Piloten, based in Sweden. Here's their blog. Snip from the original BBtv blog post:

This short work is a music video he created for the Swedish electronica band Minilogue. The track is "Animals," and the video features colorful critter-blobs wreaking hyperfun havoc all over an urban real-life-scape.

We asked Kristofer to tell us a little about how this came together, and he explains:

In late 2007 we (me and the band Minilogue) started talking about making a followup to the very popular "hitchhiker's choice" video. At the same time I was doing some VJ-ing for them and found that those little animations i made for that could be characters in their next video. So I started producing a lot of loops of creatures. I hooked up with bart yates, nicholas wakeham and erik buchholtz, and our first thought was to put them all in an animated world... but i didn't really feel it. Then Erik showed me a test of my characters motion-tracked onto some footage -- and there it was. So he went out shooting some spots, rough cuts without the creatures, then we added those little fellas in the footage. Voilá! A longer version will be found on the minilogue DVD, coming this fall, finally! The longer version of "hitchhiker's choice" will be on there too. Some other stuff can be found on our temporary web site: http://varelsen.com. Link to Minilogue's YouTube features. (Special thanks to Claire Jones, and to Cocoon.)

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:11 pm

The Armadillo Breadbox retracts its carapace

The Armadillo Breadbox is expensive for a bread receptacle, but the retractable plates of its mold-guarding carapace make me want to spend the $90 for it anyway.

Armadillo Breadbox [Where Did You Buy That? via Gizmodo]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:10 pm

Avistar Communications Announces Receipt of Notice From Nasdaq

SAN MATEO, Calif., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:05 pm

The best iPhone apps not in the App Store - Macworld

dBTechno

The best iPhone apps not in the App Store Macworld - 15 hours ago by Christopher Breen, Macworld.com All this week, Macworld editors have picked their favorite iPhone apps of the past year. And while these apps cover a diverse array of categories—entertainment, creativity, productivity, and so on—they share one ... The Best iPhone Apps of 2008 Gizmodo Apple: iPhone farts ok, boobs not TG Daily VentureBeat - CNET News - PC World - dBTechno all 368 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:04 pm

Environmentalists prep for what's coming

Environmental advocates concerned about global climate change say they're preparing for what is coming rather than focusing on stopping it. In a way, we're protecting the stage, while the actors may change over time, said Andy Finton, a director at The Nature Conservancy. That means, for example, accepting that some species, such as moose and loons, may not be part of the Massachusetts' wildlife in the future, The Boston Globe reported Friday. The old model is -- let's protect a certain species or natural community, said Finton.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:01 pm

Lightsaber nunchucks outmack Darth Maul

Lightsaber nunchucks: the realization of at least some twelve year old's fever dream. In universe, these would not be pragmatic: there's a reason a Jedi's lightsaber handle is not made of the same material as the blade... namely, the plasmic energy of ten thousand suns. Still, even though these nunchucks are nothing more impressive than a couple of Glow-Sticks tied together with a string. points awarded for aesthetic bitchingness.

When Lightsaber Meets Nunchucks [Tech E Blog]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:01 pm

The 7 Best Capers of 2008

Competition was tough, but after an exhaustive search, Threat Level has produced this authoritative list of the best capers of the year. We're leaving the award of the grand prize, the coveted Lex Luthor Award for Best Caper of 2008, in your hands.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Dec 2008 | 8:00 pm

UPDATE 2-FDA approves Allergan's drug for longer eyelashes

BOSTON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - Allergan Inc , the maker of Botox, said on Friday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its eyelash-thickening drug Latisse.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:58 pm

Web Zen: New Years Eve Zen

confidence
drunkard's dozen
hr giger bar
sorry i missed your party
how to know when to leave the bar

community art makers

previously on web zen:
n.y.e party music zen

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:56 pm

FriendFinder IPO: Invest $460 Million, Get a $95,000 Car [MediaMemo]

I only had enough time to assess the big picture when I wrote about the FriendFinder Network IPO earlier this week: Money-losing porn/social-network company drowning in debt, needs public investors to bail it out.

But the FriendFinder prospectus may turn out to have multiple Christmas gifts for those who work their way through it. For instance, Nick Wingfield, my corporate cousin at The Wall Street Journal, dug up this gem under “related party transactions”:

In another interesting tidbit, the company says [predecessor company] Various purchased an automobile from the founder of Various for $125,000 on October 27, 2006 (the founder in question appears to be Andrew Conru.) The company doesn’t say what kind of car it is or why it bought it, but it doesn’t appear to have gotten a very good deal. The filing says the vehicle is currently ‘being held for sale and in 2006 was written down to its estimated net realizable value of $95,000.’ A FriendFinder spokesman didn’t immediately return a call for comment.”

I’ve also lobbed queries in to Andrew Conru and to FriendFinder’s corporate HQ, but haven’t heard back. But perhaps MediaMemo readers who are more autocentric than I am (I’ve owned one car in my life–a 1994 Toyota Tercel with vinyl seats and no air conditioning) can help answer one of my questions: What kind of used car can you get for $95,000?

Please share your thoughts with us via the comments section below; if you find the registration process too onerous, you can leave an anonymous comment via the tip box.

In the meantime, I’ve made my own rudimentary attempt to gauge the market for $95,000 cars: A trip to eBay’s (EBAY) Motors showroom. Here’s a sampling of what’s available in the $90,000 to $95,000 range today (click on each image to enlarge).

2006 Bentley Continental Spur. Starting bid: $95,000

2003 Ferrari 575. Starting bid: $95,000

2007 Porsche 911. Starting bid: $95,000

1970 Ford Mustang Boss. Starting bid: $90,000

2004 Lamborghini Gallardo. Starting bid: $95,000

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:53 pm

Snapping turtles decline in Ontario

Snapping turtles in Ontario are on the decline and at risk because they don't mate until they are 15 years old, say Canadian officials. The provincial government has named the snapping turtle a species at risk over concerns they produce few offspring and have a high mortality rate,
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:48 pm

Cryptol, Language of Cryptography, Now Available To the Public

solweil writes to mention that Cryptol, a 'domain specific language for the design, implementation and verification of cryptographic algorithms,' is now available to the public. Cryptol was originally designed for the NSA. It allows for a quick evaluation and continued revisions, and is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:44 pm

Creative launches mysterious ‘Zii Stemcell Computing’ initiative

I’m not sure what to make of this, but if you go to Creative.com – say, looking for an MP3 player – you’ll find a teaser link to Zii.com that says “Everything you know is about to change…” 

The Zii.com site itself simply says “Zii.com Stemcell Computing” and contains a link to register for e-mail updates. The logo is surrounded by quivering four-leaf clovers. Weird.

Whatever the case, I’m going to go out on a short limb and guess that we’re not looking at a new gadget. Perhaps it’s some sort of computer cluster geared toward stem cell research and – gasp! – cloning. The logo doesn’t tell us much, but I keep getting fixated on the two “I”s – the lower part of one of them is upside-down and the other one’s right-side up. Also, as Engadget points out, it looks an awful lot like the Wii logo.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:40 pm

T-Mobile to gift G1 owners with extended batteries?

This one’s going to be shaky until T-Mobile makes an official statement or the first delivery is made, but it’s a nice enough idea that we figured it was worth a mention. GoogleAndBlog is reporting that T-Mobile is looking to pacify the complaints on the G1’s dismal battery by hooking up customers with a bigger, badder one.

Now, the only confirmation so far seems to be from a T-Mobile Customer Support rep. Normally we’d laugh such confirmation off; for details on new hardware or coming announcements, CS reps often just repeat slightly imaginative versions of what they’ve read on the blogs, or what their colleagues read on the blogs and regurgitated as gospel. That said, this sounds like something the Customer Service crews would be clued in on in advance, as a means of retaining customers seeking to return the G1 due to a lacking battery.

Of course, a couple hundred thousand batteries and all of the shipping involved wouldn’t come cheap, so we remain dubious on this one. If T-Mo does have something in the works involving complimentary extended batteries, we’d imagine that they’d hold off sending them out to anyone that doesn’t call in complaining.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:37 pm

Wal-Mart To Sell iPhone 3G Starting Sun At $197 - CNNMoney.com

Reuters

Wal-Mart To Sell iPhone 3G Starting Sun At $197 CNNMoney.com - 16 hours ago By Ben Charny and Mary Ellen Llody SAN FRANCISCO -(Dow Jones)- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT) said Friday it will begin selling Apple's (AAPL) iPhone 3G starting Sunday, but not at the dramatic discount some had expected. Wal-Mart announces iPhone 3G availability at its stores Computerworld Wal-Mart to sell Apple's iPhone Chicago Tribune Register - VentureBeat - AHN - eWeek all 446 news articles

Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:37 pm

Conoco says ops normal at L.A. refinery after upset

HOUSTON, Dec 26 (Reuters) - ConocoPhillips said operations were normal on Friday at its 139,000 barrel per day (bpd) Los Angeles refining complex following a Thursday malfunction in a unit at the refinery's...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:35 pm

Trailer for 9 is amazing

I have no idea what this movie is all about but it looks pretty damn cool and anything Tim Burton is involved with usually gets two thumbs up from me. Not that I’m a movie critic or that CG is a movie blog. Just saying I like what he does. Looks like 9 won’t be released until 9.9.09, which is fitting but a shame we’ll have to wait that long for it.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:26 pm

First drug to promote eyelash growth OK'd

Latisse -- the first drug to promote the growth of eyelashes -- has been approved for use in the United States. Latisse, made by Allergan, is to be available by prescription in early 2009, WebMD reported Friday. Latisse, approved for use by the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:17 pm

CrunchDeals: Best Buy marks down eight titles for the PS3 to $38

Target’s upcoming CrunchDeal on seven cross-platform titles may not be of interest to you, but this one from Best Buy might be for the PS3 owners in the audience. Sorry Wii and Xbox 360 owners, but you’re SOL on this one.

Grand Theft Auto IV, FIFA 09, Madden 09, Far Cry 2, Guitar Hero World Tour, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe, NBA 2K9 and Rock Band 2 are all available right now from BB for $38. That’s actually a pretty good list of games and if I didn’t have all of them already I’d probably scoot on over to my neighborhood BB and pick some up.

MK vs DC is quite fun and I’m surprised I remembered how to pull off Sub-Zero’s freeze move after all these years. The storyline that meshes MK characters and DC comic heroes is strange, but works in a cheesy sort of way.

Best Buy listing

via PS Twitter

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:17 pm

iPhone vs. OPhone: the side-by-side comparison

Oh OPhone, you somber siren. You’ve managed to steal the throne from the HTC Touch HD in the realm of phones we want but will probably never get. You’re just as pretty, but with the added bonus of running Android rather than Windows Mobile. Alas, you’re probably never going to find your way out of China. Why must you tease us so, Lenovo?

Looking to make our hearts pang a bit harder, the chaps over at Sina have taken the OPhone and put it hip-to-hip with the iPhone and iPhone3G.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:10 pm

iPhone vs. OPhone: the side-by-side comparison

Oh OPhone, you somber siren. You’ve managed to steal the throne from the HTC Touch HD in the realm of phones we want but will probably never get. You’re just as pretty, but with the added bonus of running Android rather than Windows Mobile. Alas, you’re probably never going to find your way out of China. Why must you tease us so, Lenovo?

Looking to make our hearts pang a bit harder, the chaps over at Sina have taken the OPhone and put it hip-to-hip with the iPhone and iPhone3G. The OPhone is just a wee bit (around a millimeter) thicker in every direction over the original iPhone, but it makes up for it with a 624mhz CPU, removable battery, 3.5mm headset jack, and a microSD slot.

How about sneaking one of these things our way, Lenovo? More pics after the jump.

iPhone vs OPhone

Powered by Picturesurf Gallery

[Via modmygphone forums]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:05 pm

Imagine - Lennon in TV ad 28 years after his death

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Imagine, John Lennon makes a television commercial for charity -- 28 years after his death.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

CrunchDeals: Post-Christmas sales all over the place (including Newegg)

Ho, ho, whatever! Seeing as though retailers are desperate to clear their inventory you’re likely to find several “post-Christmas,” “pre-New Years” and “Post New Years” sales going on.

Take Newegg.com. The store has a post-Christmas sale going on right now, where you can find a 21.5-inch 1080p Acer widescreen monitor for $189, a full $20 off the regular price. There’s also a 950W(!) power supply for $99, down from the regular price of $219.

Again, pretty much every store on planet Earth has some sort of sale going on, so keep your eyes peeled for deals.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Fujitsu says no deal with Western Digital-Nikkei

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 26 (Reuters) - There is no chance that Japan's Fujitsu Ltd will sell its hard disk drive business to Western Digital Corp , the Nikkei financial daily quoted Fujitsu President Kuniaki...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:45 pm

Help Key: How To Get Out of Helping People With Their New Christmas Presents

Your brother just got a new digital camera. Your mom got a GPS device. Your grandfather got a Falcon Northwest gaming rig with six cores and a graphics card that requires its own physical plant. You're stuffed, sleepy, and just want to watch TV. How do you distract these hordes long enough to get in another turkey sandwich and viewing of A Christmas Story? Follow these easy steps:

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:42 pm

Canal would link Dead Sea to Red Sea

A $4.4 billion canal that would stretch from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea would provide an abundance of power and fresh water, Jordanian officials say. The proposed canal also would keep the Dead Sea from drying up and disappearing within 50 years, said Adnan Zoubi, a spokesman for the Jordanian
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:26 pm

RIM patents funky winged keypad design

Apparently tired of having to conform keyboards to the shape of their devices, RIM is looking for ways to break out. According to a patent that just started its trek through the approval process, one concept floating around the is a fold out “Wing” keypad.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:22 pm

RIM patents funky winged keypad design

Apparently tired of having to conform keyboards to the shape of their devices, RIM is looking for ways to break out. According to a patent that just started its trek through the approval process, one concept floating around the is a fold out “Wing” keypad.

By this design, the number pad would be available at all times. Folding out the wings will make two more rows of keys available, enabling RIM’s two-letters-per-key SureType.

That’s cool and all but, uh, what? This big crazy fold-out mechanism, and we’re still stuck to SureType? No thanks. Everyone loves a transformer, but this just seems wonky.

[CellPassion]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:19 pm

30 Years of Star Wars Technology

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier this month, Computerworld Australia checked out the exhibition of 30 years of Star Wars history at Sydney's Powerhouse museum. They also have a pictorial look at what's on display: one of the largest collections of Star Wars memorabilia combined with real-life examples of how such technology is being applied for business and social advancement."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:14 pm

Green energy thwarted by winter

Winter's bitter cold can stall wind turbine blades, congeal biodiesel and render solar panels useless, say U.S. power developers. As renewable energy assumes a larger role in the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 6:02 pm

Kilauea lava flow pauses for three days

The Kilauea volcano on the big island of Hawaii took a three-day break this week from its 26-year eruption. Scientists said that lava stopped flowing at what is known as the Thanksgiving Eve Breakout on Monday and started up again on Christmas Eve, the Honolulu Advertiser reported Friday. Jim Kauahikaua, head of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory of the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 5:36 pm

Devil's throne

Behold the Devil's armchair. Michael-Anne Rauback has been on a quest for weird chairs this week and this is the third fave find. The 1960s chair above, by Anthony Redmile, is made from malachite, bone, horn, and wood. If I ruled, this would be my throne. Anthony Redmile carved armchair

Previously:

• Hand & Foot Chair - Boing Boing
• Child's "drum chair" - Boing Boing
• Guitar chair - Boing Boing

Source: Boing Boing | 26 Dec 2008 | 5:19 pm

BLOG: Rare Species Threatened by Sludge Spill

The Tenn. disaster may be a nail in the coffin for species already at risk.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 26 Dec 2008 | 5:13 pm

Happy Authorized Boxing Day

[via Vintage Computing]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Dec 2008 | 5:11 pm

Tweebay Offers A Rudimentary eBay For Twitter

Call it micro-classifieds. Paul Rawlings, a developer in the UK, launched Tweebay on Christmas Day, a classifieds listings service for Twitter. You use your Twitter account to buy and sell stuff (perfect for those unwanted holiday gifts). Instead of entering your Twitter password, you simply follow Tweebay on Twitter, and you confirm your bids via direct message (Twitter’s private messaging channel). This method should be used more often to authenticate Twitter accounts, as it does not require people to give out their passwords.

The advantage of selling things on Twitter is that you can alert everyone following you on the service that you have something to sell. Whether or not people will be more willing to buy something from a Twitter friend than from an eBay stranger remains to be seen. But the idea of social classifieds is gaining steam. And there are already ways to sell stuff on Twitter (see iList).

Right now, there is no way to actually pay for items via Tweebay (options are on the way). It simply connects buyers and sellers, and they have to figure out payments (which is less than ideal). Perhaps Rawlings should look at integrating Twitpay, Tipjoy, or Paypal directly. Tweebay took a day to develop using Twitter’s APIs, and is just a side project of Rawlings’ company ScreenReach. If it picks up users, Rawlings says he will develop it further. (He might have to change the name, though—eBay might consider it a violation of its trademark).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:57 pm

RIM Accuses Motorola of Blocking Job Offers

theodp writes "Taking a page from the insanely-jealous-husband-playbook, Motorola management has adopted an if-I-can't-have-you-nobody-can stance on its fired employees, reportedly blocking RIM from offering jobs to laid-off workers. In a complaint filed in state court, Motorola is charged with improperly trying to expand a previous agreement 'to prevent the RIM entities from hiring any Motorola employees, including the thousands of employees Motorola has already fired or will fire.' Through its Compete America membership, Motorola has repeatedly warned Congress that failing to accommodate the lobbying group members' 'principled' demand for timely access to talent would not be in the United States' economic interest and would make the US second-rate in education and basic research."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:48 pm

E-shopping site to open in China for Japan goods (AP)

AP - A new Internet shopping mall is opening in China next month that will take payments in the widely used China UnionPay Co. cards for Japanese products, company officials said Friday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:45 pm

Uproar in Australia over plan to block Web sites (AP)

AP - A proposed Internet filter dubbed the "Great Aussie Firewall" is promising to make Australia one of the strictest Internet regulators among democratic countries.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:40 pm

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers: Full-Priced iPhones on Sale Sunday [MediaMemo]

The iPhone’s long-rumored appearance at the world’s biggest retailer is about to become a reality: Wal-Mart will start selling Apple’s iconic handset starting Sunday, Dec. 28.

One rumor that has yet to materialize, though: A cheap version of the phone priced at $99. Instead, Wal-Mart (WMT) will sell the phones at about the same price that everyone else does–the black 8GB iPhone 3G model will go for $197 and the 16GB black or white model will be at $297.

What will this do for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone sales? Dan Frommer at Silicon Alley Insider does the math:

If each Wal-Mart store gets an average 200 iPhones as inventory, that’s 500,000 iPhone shipments Apple can recognize this quarter. Even if each store gets an average 100 iPhones, that will nicely pad this quarter’s numbers. (And if for some reason Apple waits until next quarter to recognize the shipments, they’ll help during a seasonally slow March quarter.)”

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:26 pm

Before the Levees Break: A Plan to Save the Netherlands

On a late fall afternoon on the western edge of the Netherlands, coastal engineer Marcel Stive stands atop a 40-foot dune. He stares out beyond the posse of wet-suit-clad surfers wading into the breakers of the North Sea. Where the surfers see inviting waves, Stive sees dry land—and a distant storm. He points south toward Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port. Arm outstretched, Stive rotates 180 degrees to face the shoreline running north. "As far as you can see, in both directions, we're going to push the coast out 3, maybe 4, kilometers," he says. "We have to—to keep the water out."

The dunes here alongside the village of Ter Heijde are among the weakest links in the complex network of natural barriers, dams, levees, canals, pumps, and storm-surge barricades that keep this lowest of low countries dry. More than half of the Netherlands sits below sea level, and if a megastorm were to break through these not-so-formidable dunes, the water could inundate Rotterdam and surrounding cities within 24 hours, flooding thousands of square miles, paralyzing the nation's economy, and devastating an area inhabited by more than 2 million people.

Global warming is a cause for serious concern in low-lying countries. The Dutch aren't waiting for a catastrophe; they're taking measures to solve the problem now.

For more, visit wired.com/video.

Stive is part of a Dutch team charged with reducing that risk. Narrowing the gap between the Netherlands and North America by a couple of miles would be a start, and as a bonus it would create valuable new real estate for recreation and development. Also on the drawing board are massive new storm-surge barriers and reinforcements around cities like Rotterdam and Dordrecht, built on the marshy delta where the Rhine and Meuse rivers meet the sea. "If you see a certain future, you must react," Stive says. And as he sees it, that future looks wet.

More than half of the Netherlands sits below sea level, and if a massive storm were to break through the dunes, Rotterdam would be inundated in 24 hours. Photo: Ralph Hargarten

Yet the chance of a breach at Ter Heijde is actually quite low, about 1 in 10,000 in any given year. (In the lingo of storm protection, that's known as a 10,000-year flood.) The coastline and river deltas of the Netherlands are arguably the best-protected lowlands in the world, and the Dutch are a little miffed at Al Gore for suggesting in An Inconvenient Truth that their homeland is as vulnerable to rising seas as far less protected places like Bangladesh and Florida.

To Stive and other sea-rise hawks, however, 1 in 10,000 has become too risky. They want to crank up defenses in some critical areas to the level of 1 in 100,000. "To understand risk, you must consider the value of what would be lost," says Stive, a pink-faced man of 57 years who heads the coastal engineering and water research centers at Delft University of Technology, just north of Rotterdam. The half of the country that is below sea level—including the area behind these dunes—generates about 65 percent of its GDP. That's nearly $450 billion a year.

A deadly flood hit the Netherlands in 1953, covering more than 600 square miles and killing more than 1,800 people.
Photos: Getty Images

There is, of course, another factor to take into account: Global warming is increasing the odds of a catastrophic breach. That means the risk calculations need revamping. New projections of sea-level rise and other potential consequences of climate change, coupled with the aftershock from Hurricane Katrina, have prompted Dutch officials to ask a very big question: What would it take to climate-proof our country for the next 200 years?

In 2007, the parliament assigned a team of experts, dubbed the Delta Committee, to come up with an answer. The group's final report, published in September, proposes a combination of aggressive new steps—extending the coastline and building surge barriers—and time-tested strategies like fortifying levees. The cost: about $1.5 billion a year for the next 100 years.

Of course, a 200-year plan seems absurd. Two centuries ago, it would have been impossible to predict how civilization and the planet would look today. But the Dutch insist that the project is prudent and rational. If they start now, the costs will be minimized and disaster, perhaps, averted. After centuries of damming, pumping, barricading, and redirecting water, the Dutch water masters are laying the foundations for what may be the most ambitious act of territorial defense in history. In so doing, they are giving engineers and urban planners from New Orleans to Singapore a preview of what it will take to keep rising waters at bay. "We have the safest river delta in the world," Stive says. And, he adds, they want to keep it that way: "We will completely control the water."

Floods may be among today's more ominous climate-driven hazards, but the Dutch know better than anyone that they're nothing new. Below a bridge crowded with bicycles in the groovy Amsterdam neighborhood of Jordan, canal boats full of beer-soaked vacationers glide past a heavy black gate. On the side of the bridge is a small block of white marble, high above the waterline, with a horizontal cut across the middle. It shows the high-water mark of 1682 and is accompanied by an inscription reading, Zee dyks hooghte zynde negen voet vyf duym voven stadtspeyl.Translation: The sea dike level is 9 feet 5 thumbs above city level.

The 327-year-old gauge is high and dry today because in 1932 Amsterdam's labyrinth of canals was sealed off from the ocean by the 19-mile-long Afsluitdijk (Enclosure Dam). That feat of engineering created Lake Ijssel, one of the largest freshwater lakes in Europe. It also cut Amsterdam off from tidal changes and storm surges, permanently lowering the city's waterline.

How to Climate-Proof a Country

The Dutch have laid out a 200-year plan to defend against rising sea levels. Here's a look at the major upgrades. — David Wolman

1 // Raise the Lake At low tide, the North Sea now drops far enough that gravity can drain excess water from Lake Ijssel. But that won't work if the oceans rise. The plan: build up the height of the lake's enclosure and raise the water surface by up to 5 feet.

2 // Extend the Coast To fend off swelling seas and raging storms, engineers want to push the coastline out by as much as 2.5 miles. Dredging ships would suck up ocean sand and dump it on the edge of the beach, adding 400 square miles to the country.

3 // Dam the Waters Rotterdam, Europe's busiest port, is already protected by an extensive network of dams, dikes, and dunes. The new plan would augment that system, raising the height of existing structures and adding four giant flood barriers.

Infographic: The Department for Information Design at Copenhagen

Some 3 billion people—at least half the world's population—live in coastal areas vulnerable to the worst effects of global warming: harsher storms, rising sea levels, flooded deltas in winter, parched deltas in summer, and less sensational but equally serious problems like salt water infiltration of underground aquifers. By 2025, when the human population reaches 8.5 billion, the number of coastal dwellers is expected to be closer to 6 billion.

Marcel Stive, coastal engineer for the Delta Committee
Photo: Ralph Hargarten

Success in holding back the sea has earned the Dutch an international reputation as experts in reclamation and flood protection. But that knowledge has been acquired through painful experience. In February 1953, a massive storm surge inundated 600 to 800 square miles of the country, killing 1,835 people. After the disaster, the government devised a plan so that the people of the Netherlands could confidently say: never again.

The initiative triggered a 30-year campaign of bulwark construction, known as the Delta Works, to reduce the country's flood vulnerabilities. Dams and levees were built to cut tidal areas off from the open ocean, shortening the exposed coastline by nearly 450 miles. The flagship projects are the 22-year-old Oosterschelde storm-surge barrier and the 11-year-old Maeslant barrier, a gate made up of two giant arms, each nearly the size of the Eiffel Tower. In the event of calamity-level storm waters, the barrier will close off the mouth of the New Waterway leading into Rotterdam.

The megastructures are impressive, but what may prove to be the most visionary aspect of the Delta Works is the statistical approach that guided the designs. How high should we build the levees? How strong should a surge barrier be? The Dutch decided to base their answers to these questions not merely on the fact that storms are destructive and the Netherlands low, but also on economics. With the help of renowned Dutch mathematician David van Dantzig, the 1953 task force calculated safety levels using an equation that is now seared into the minds of Dutch engineers:

risk = (probability of failure) x (projected cost of damage)

This kind of risk analysis is common today in fields like nuclear power, aerospace, and chemical manufacturing. But back in the 1950s, accounting for the projected cost of damage when developing flood protection was novel. The power of this simple formula is that it produces economically rational public-safety decisions: Less value, less protection. Dutch law now requires this principle to be used to determine the strength of flood defenses throughout the country. Since the dunes at Ter Heijde sit between the sea and a vulnerable but economically vibrant area, a safety level of 1:100,000 is called for. More rural parts of the country require safety levels of just 1:1,250 or lower.

In a Rotterdam office built atop a levee on the New Meuse river, Cees Veerman is sketching lines on a map of the Netherlands. A farmer-economist-politician, Veerman is the head of the new Delta Committee. He was only 4 years old the night of the 1953 flood, but he remembers his grandfather racing into the kitchen to grab a knife. "He was about to run out and cut the cattle loose and move them to higher ground," Veerman recalls. The townspeople in his South Holland village of Nieuw-Beijerland assumed the storm waters would rise gradually. Instead, a wall of water bulldozed through the dikes. Their lives were in danger, but there was little to do except pray. Suddenly, the water level began to drop—their prayers had been answered. "Everyone was shouting, 'The water is falling!'" It wasn't a miracle, though; the water had merely barreled through the far-side levees, relieving the buildup at the Veerman family farm while inundating areas farther inland.

To climate-proof the Netherlands for the next two centuries, Veerman and his team first needed to gather the best possible data. Most existing projections of sea-level rise look at the oceans as a whole, not at specific regions. So the Dutch commissioned their own forecasts. Developed by some of the engineers and ocean experts on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the group that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore), the models predict that the North Sea will rise 40 centimeters by 2050, between 65 centimeters and 1.3 meters by 2100, and up to 4 meters by 2200.

On the drawing board for reducing the risk of flooding are massive new storm-surge barriers and reinforcements around cities like Rotterdam and Dordrecht, built on the marshy delta where the Rhine and Meuse rivers meet the sea. Photo: Ralph Hargarten

Veerman talks about Dutch can-do the way generals talk about staying the course in a prolonged military battle. "People say sea-level rise will push us back into the hinterlands," he says. "We say no, we can manage with 1, 2, even 3 meters. But we have to act." With a black pen, he inks in an expanded coastline on the map laid out before him. Extending the country westward will be a colossal reclamation effort: Dredging ships, working just offshore, would spend the next century vacuuming up roughly 121 million cubic meters of seafloor sand every year and spraying it toward the shoreline, where wave action would then deposit it at the water's edge and "naturally" build the beach outward. Over the course of 100 years, the project would add about 400 square miles to the Netherlands—roughly equivalent to 17 Manhattans.

Next, Veerman sketches in future storm-surge barriers, adds a new channel for diverting the flow of the Lek River, and draws a line connecting a small chain of islands off the northern coast that may someday be linked up to form a giant buffer against the North Sea. He also circles a swatch of farmland near the confluence of the Rhine and Meuse rivers. Global warming doesn't just bring a threat from the ocean; greater precipitation in the Alps is expected to increase the amount of water flowing through Europe's major rivers, raising the flood hazard from within. Veerman explains how this circled area will be converted back into wetlands, giving the rivers room to flood in a place that makes sense—not downtown Rotterdam.

Then he brings his pen north to Amsterdam. At present, when water levels in nearby Lake Ijssel get too high, water managers release the excess through the Enclosure Dam and into the sea. Gravity is currently able to move the water during periods of low tide, when sea level falls below that of the lake. But that will stop working as the ocean rises. One option is to pump the water out, but the expense would be prohibitive. Instead, Veerman wants to raise the level of the lake on pace with the sea, as much as 5 feet by 2100.

From the air, you can see why this would be a bitter pill for Amsterdam's booming satellite towns—especially the posh developments along the lakeshore, which would have to be fortified by higher dikes. But the price tag on the proposed lake project, as much as $8.2 billion over the next 100 years, is only a fraction of what it would cost to build and run a pump system or to repair damages if the lake overflowed into 10,000 living rooms.

Today, life around the periphery of Lake Ijssel—and throughout the Netherlands—looks so peaceful, it's hard to envision disaster. Because of that, protests seem inevitable. Environmentalists will no doubt be hostile to the idea of a century-long dredging project, relocated farmers will put up a fight, and condominium owners around the lake may resist anything that interferes with their views. But Veerman and his colleagues are convinced that bold measures now are necessary to prevent calamity tomorrow.

The wind rips through the dark skies above New Orleans. Hurricane Ike is hours from making landfall at Galveston, Texas. New Orleans should receive only a glancing blow, but residents are hardly at ease: Tropical storm and tornado warnings are expected to last through much of this September afternoon and evening. Just two weeks ago, Hurricane Gustav forced an evacuation of 2 million people and pushed the city's unfinished levee system to the brink.

The Maeslant barrier and the Oosterschelde storm surge barrier are the crowning jewels of the Delta Works. Because of the accelerating rise in sea level, the Dutch will have to build additional mega-structures to guard against flooding. Photo: Ralph Hargarten

On the east side of the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, Mathijs van Ledden climbs a muddied slope toward a recently constructed flood wall. Behind him are the devastated blocks of the Lower Ninth Ward, an eerie mixture of abandoned lots, weed-covered foundations, and a few refurbished or newly built houses.

The canal connects the Mississippi River to the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and Lake Pontchartrain. The flood wall was built soon after Katrina, to plug what was one of the most catastrophic failure points along the city's roughly 350-mile network of levees and floodwalls. Van Ledden, an engineer with the Dutch consulting firm Haskoning, has been in New Orleans since 2006. His job: Run wave and water models for the US Army Corps of Engineers to help determine the necessary height of new defenses.

Shouting over the wind, Van Ledden, 33, says a stormy day is ideal for touring the city's flood-protection maze. He leans over an older flood wall that runs perpendicular to the new, higher one. Ike has raised the water level in this canal 5 or 6 feet above normal. "During Gustav, the level was all the way up to here," Van Ledden says, placing his hand just below the top of the wall. "And Gustav was just a friendly wake-up call. In 50 years, if the sea level goes up 1 or 1½ feet, the level for that storm would be here," he says, holding his hand well above the top of the flood wall. To make sure that doesn't happen, the Corps is planning to build a giant storm-surge barrier between Lake Borgne and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The barrier's gates would close during extreme storms, blocking lake water from funneling up into this narrow canal.

After Katrina, Congress ordered the Corps to bring the city's hurricane protection system up to 1:100 levels by 2011. If a 1 percent per year chance of system failure sounds high—compared with existing 1:10,000 defenses in the Netherlands—that's because it is. "One-hundred-year protection is quite a risk," Van Ledden says. Statisticians will tell you that over the course of a 30-year mortgage, the chance of a 100-year flood hitting the city is more than 25 percent. The 1:100 standard takes projected sea-level rise into account, but not economic impacts and repair costs. (Hurricane Katrina caused upwards of $150 billion in damage.)

Cees Veerman, head of the Delta Committee
Photo: Ralph Hargarten

So why don't we do it like the Dutch? The glib answer is that we should. Van Ledden and colleagues have run the numbers for New Orleans, and he says investment in a protection level of at least 1:1,000 is economically justifiable in some areas. That is, the cost of boosting protections to that degree is modest in relation to the huge reduction in risk. And if you settle for mediocre defenses and they get wiped out, you also lose your initial expenditure.

But the Dutch model may not work in the US. That's partly because our hurricanes are so severe. Consider this: The levee height required for 1:100 protection in some areas of New Orleans is roughly 30 feet—the same height as fortifications in the Netherlands that provide 1:10,000 protection.

In any case, American politicians could never get away with basing flood barrier specs on the value of what sits behind them. Ratcheting up defense levels in New Orleans to match those in the Netherlands would lead other areas of the Gulf Coast to demand equal treatment. And what about earthquake zones in California, floodplains in Iowa and Missouri, or blizzard territory in New England? Should similar standards be applied there?

Van Ledden says many Dutch citizens may not know it, but their government has accepted—even legislated—unequal protection, or what engineers euphemistically call "differentiation." Everyone knows that all places can't be protected up to the same standard; individual cost must be balanced against collective cost, he says.

Beefy levees keep the water at bay. For now. Photo: David Wolman

The US certainly has variable protection levels throughout the country, but there's a difference between de facto disparity and an explicit government policy of inequality. Imagine if Congress or the Army Corps were to recommend protecting the French Quarter and downtown New Orleans at the 10,000-year level while giving less economically productive areas such as St. Bernard Parish only a 100-year level of protection. Applying the Dutch model of risk-based design would be a political nonstarter, if not unconstitutional, and the efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers would in no time be halted by an army of lawyers.

Meanwhile, the water keeps coming. The Dutch are taking on the threat of global warming before anyone's feet are wet. They're showing the world that to prepare for sea-level rise and other impacts of climate change, you need, paradoxically, not dominion-over-nature bravado but patience, good data, and—above all—the long view.

Contributing editor David Wolman (david@david-wolman.com) wrote about Egyptian activists using Facebook in issue 16.11.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Playlist: Animation Verite, YouTube's 'Final Countdown,' Animal Collective

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To explore his grim experiences as an Israeli soldier during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, director Ari Folman eschews the standard tropes of war documentaries (talking heads, vintage newsreel footage) and instead deploys an innovative and far more engaging genre: animation vérité. With a budget of less than $2 million, Folman and a team of animators churned out 3,200 hand-drawn illustrations and used Flash—a staple technique for YouTube videos—to translate the harrowing accounts and haunting memories into a powerful, disturbing alloy of the real and unreal.

:

The laws of rock 'n' roll typically allow artists just one sprawling, arty, hash-hazy album. Animal Collective, headed up by Baltimore-bred experimental musician Panda Bear, has churned out two ear-bending efforts in less than two years: late 2007's Strawberry Jam and Merriweather now. With soaring harmonies, twinkling keyboards, and funky hand-claps, it's avant-garde you can almost cuddle with.

:

It's a busy time for Wired writers. Contributor Brian Raftery's Don't Stop Believin': How Karaoke Conquered the World and Saved My Life reminds us that belting out tunes with all your heart can be fun, wrenching, and ultimately very satisfying. In Arcade Mania, Brian Ashcraft and Jean Snow tour the innovative, sometimes bizarre, and never dull world of Japanese game centers. And Steven Johnson recounts how scientist Joseph Priestley put a mint plant in a jar and discovered oxygen in The Invention of Air.

:

As science geeks, we first loved the novelty of these wines from Washington state vintner Substance, with labels inspired by the periodic table of elements (just like Wired's Play section IDs). But the actual wine appeals to our more bacchanalian side: The syrah (Sy) is rich, spicy, and not too fruity, tasting as smart as it looks.

:

How much energy do you really use? Your electric bill isn't especially, uh, illuminating. WattzOn lets you create a personal energy- consumption report (right down to what it took to make the books on your nightstand) and see how you stack up against the site's other users. You can then take steps to cut back, tracking the results along the way.

:

The '80s track "The Final Countdown" by Europe was a paragon of dopey arena-rock bombast, which makes YouTube's current glut of bedroom-shot covers all the more delightfully absurd. Stuart Crout's "kazookeylele" (kazoo, piano, ukulele) version is by far the most badass. The two-hand-band fart-alongs and SpongeBob mashups turn the awesome up to 11.

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Spending the holiday season cursing at hard-to-open packages didn't exactly make our yuletide bright. That's why we're stoked about Amazon's "frustration-free packaging" effort. The etailer is urging manufacturers to wrap products in fewer materials and make them easier to open. (What will comedians complain about now?) For videos of particularly egregious packages, see the Gallery of Wrap Rage at amazon.com/frustration.

:

We held tight during the writers' strike and after that what the frak?! midseason cliff-hanger last summer. On January 16, the final batch of Battlestar episodes finally hit the Sci Fi Channel for what's sure to be a bittersweet 10-week swan song. Things we will learn: The identity of the final Cylon, why Earth resembles an apocalyptic wasteland, and the fate of everyone's favorite ragtag fleet.

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Carrying your little one Swedish-style is so last century. Instead of a BabyBjörn, today's savvy parents tote their tots in the American-designed Ergobaby. It balances the munchkin's weight across your hips rather than your back and lets you lug kids (up to 40 pounds!) in front, on the side, or behind. Of course, no carrier can eliminate a child-induced pain in the neck...

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It's tough to steal the iPhone's thunder, but RIM has managed to rain on Apple's parade with the Storm. Sure this device has multifinger touch like the Jesus Phone, but it trumps Cupertino's wunderkind with cut-and-paste functionality, a 3.2-megapixel cam, and zero input ambiguity—you physically click the screen like a mouse button whenever you type or select an app.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Dec 2008 | 4:00 pm

Amazon: Our Holiday Sales Were Great. Just Don’t Ask Us to Tell You About Them [MediaMemo]

Retail was supposed to get hammered during the holiday season that just ended, and a new survey says that sales fell four percent. But Amazon says Christmas 2008 was its “best ever.” How so?

Jeff Bezos and company won’t say. Amazon (AMZN) is only doling out a handful of statistics to quantify its success. Like the number of items ordered on its peak day–6.3 million–and the number of items shipped on its peak day–5.6 million units.

Those numbers don’t give you any sense of what kind of stuff consumers were ordering, and what prices. Observers will eventually get a better handle on that over time as Amazon releases its financials, but don’t expect too much disclosure: The company is famously reticent about letting outsiders peek inside.

And in any case, Amazon was supposed to do well over the past few months. The real surprise would be if the company had said it hadn’t crushed the holiday season, which is why Amazon’s shares are only up by two percent or so today.

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Dec 2008 | 3:52 pm

At Least Amazon Had A Good Christmas

One reason Amazon has survived as an enduring Internet brand is that during downturns it takes market share, and this holiday season looks like it will be no different.  Amazon announced its 14th record holiday season, with 72.9 items ordered every second, up from 62.5 last year. What really counts is its revenues and profits, which Amazon does not get into, but the holiday stats do provide some sense of how much shopping occurred on it site.

The day that orders peaked was on December 15th, when 6.3 million items were placed into Amazon’s checkout carts. That number was up 17 percent from the peak order day in 2007 (December 10). With five fewer shopping days this season, orders shipped peaked at 5.6 million on a single day, up 44 percent from last year. Some of the best-selling items this year included Eyeclops night vision stealth goggles, the Nintendo Wii, Razor scooters, Samsung 52-inch LCD HDTVs, The Dark Knight DVD, and the Twilight Saga books by Stephanie Meyer. Amazon says it was able to ship 99 percent of all holiday items in time for Christmas.

How does this year compare to seasons past? Barclays analyst Doug Anmuth provides the following comparisons:

Peak items ordered on a single day

2008: 6.3M
2007: 5.4M
2006: 4.0M
2005: 3.6M
2004: 3.6M

Items ordered per second

2008: 72.9
2007: 62.5
2006: 46.3
2005: 41
2004: 32

Peak items shipped on a single day

2008: 5.6M
2007: 3.9M
2006: 3.4M
2005: 2.7M
2004: 2M+

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 3:45 pm

iBoobs denied entry to AppStore

"Obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory," says Apple.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Dec 2008 | 3:11 pm

Voicetag Brings Voicemail To Facebook

For those of you who don’t think voicemail is counterproductive, there is a new app on Facebook called Voicetag that lets you send voicemail messages to individuals or groups. This is not the first such app on Facebook (see Voicemail or TringMe), but it works with regular phones and incorporates SMS messages.

The app is very simple. You select a Facebook contact you want to leave a voice message for (or you can set up group aliases), and add an optional text message. Then, instead of using a computer microphone, you enter the number where you are at and Voicetag calls you. After leaving your message, the recipient gets a notification via Facebook and can play the Voicetag from his or her browser. You can also leave messages to groups from your cell phone by texting Voicetag. It will then call back your cell phone and you can leave a message.  The service is free for now.

Voicetag was built by a startup called Ringful to showcase its voice app APIs. (It hopes to compete with BT’s Ribbit and Gizmo).  Voicetag’s future feature list includes:

• The ability to not only record but also deliver voice messages to phones, in addition to the online voice Inbox we have today.
• The ability for the message recipient to interact with the message via touch tone when they hear the message on the phone (imagine that you can send out a voice poll on “where do we want to eat tonight? punch 1 for XYZ; punch 2 for ABC”, and get the votes back in text message!)
• The ability to start ad hoc group / conference calls among facebook friends.
• The ability to call your Facebook friend on the phone no matter where she is in the world, and no matter how many times she has changed her phone number since you last talked.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 2:52 pm

Genetic Engineering Moves from Labs to Homes

Much like Steve Jobs of Apple Computers and the creators of the Google search engine, hobbyists are now working at home with the basic building blocks of life itself.People are using the unlimited knowledge of the Internet, and homemade lab equipment, and are trying to create new life forms through genetic engineering, a field largely dominated by Ph.D.'s tolling in university and corporate laboratories.Meredith L.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 2:35 pm

Scientists Find Brain Cells Linked to Learning

Thanks to new imaging technology, scientists are able to see neurons that are critical to how people and animals learn from experience.Researchers at the University of Washington used a new imaging technique to examine the brains of rats that had been subjected to conditioned taste aversion training.  They were able to visualize individual neurons that were activated as a result of the experiment.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 2:10 pm

Carry Cheer Into The New Year By Recycling Your Old Wireless Phone

Verizon Wireless' HopeLine Program Turns Donated Phones Into Support For Victims of Domestic Violence BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 2:00 pm

Turn Your Old Phones into Cash

This Christmas, it is unlikely that the global recession has completely dampened the enthusiasm for people's interest in new gadgets.However, for the cash-strapped individual, with a new cell phone in their possession, there is a way of making money from their old phones.A cell phone trade-in Web site called FoneBank, said only 20 percent of U.K.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Dec 2008 | 1:50 pm

Digini Announces Blade3D Commercial Release, Founder's Club Discount, and Contest for GDC 2009

Founder's Club provides lifetime discount to Blade3D subscribers; Digini hosts contest for Blade3D game creators to win a trip to GDC 2009 in San Francisco ISSAQUAH, Wash., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 12:59 pm

Why Googlers Call Friend Connect “FriendSense”

It’s always fun to hear what Google employees call various projects when they think no one is listening. In 2007 they called the upstart Hulu joint venture Clown Co. as a private joke about the messy start to that unlikely company (I was right there mocking Hulu with them, but later gave them their due when they failed to fail).

Now we’ve confirmed that inside the Googleplex their new social product, Friend Connect, is often referred to as “Friendsense.” Why? Because like Adsense, Google plans to use Friend Connect as a shoehorn to insert advertising onto third party websites.

Friend Connect was first confirmed in May 2008. Earlier this month it opened to all comers.

The product (see the video below) lets websites add social features to their website. Add a few lines of code and you can let users sign in through a variety of social networks. Websites can also add various widgets and applications through Google’s Open Social project.

Soon websites that use Friend Connect will have a new option - add Adsense-like advertising within the Friend Connect and Open Social widgets that they’ve added to their websites. Publishers will get a percentage of the revenue generated from the advertising.

And that’s the big monetization scheme behind Open Social and Friend Connect for Google. And that’s why they call it Friendsense internally. And occasionally let it slip to outsiders.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Dec 2008 | 12:25 pm

Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. Provides Fourth Quarter 2008 Business Update

SHANGHAI, China, Dec. 26 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq: SPRD), one of China's leading wireless baseband chipset providers, today provided an update to its fourth quarter 2008 guidance.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 12:00 pm

Tata Communications Global Internet Service Maintains Connectivity During Triple Cable Cuts

SINGAPORE, Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 11:23 am

Playtech Launches 'Play for Real' Mode on Italian Poker Network

DOUGLAS, Isle of Man, Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Dec 2008 | 9:38 am

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