Source: Gizmodo | 29 Dec 2008 | 9:43 am

Amazon Says 2008 Holiday Season Was 'Best Ever'

Amazon.com called this holiday season its "best ever," saying that it saw a 17 percent increase in orders on its busiest day -- a rare piece of good news in a season that has been far from merry for most retailers, including online businesses. Best sellers included the Wii game console, Samsung's 52-inch LCD HDTV and the iPod touch.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 29 Dec 2008 | 9:39 am

O Christmas tree: Work in summer sun, winter snow (AP)

AP - Christmas is over, but for Christmas tree farmers the work is just beginning so next year's boughs can be even brighter.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Dec 2008 | 9:14 am

Toast to Change Web Site Celebrates the New Year

Online forum for exchanging resolutions, ideas encourages and inspires changes big and small CALISTOGA, Calif., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Dec 2008 | 9:00 am

Naughty and Not-So-Nice: Like “Gossip Girl,” BoomTown’s Tech Ticker Predictions for 2009 and More! [BoomTown]

BoomTown is back in the blogosphere from a freezing and non-digital holiday week on the east coast with the family.

Given I am still in Buffalo until Wednesday, still chilling (and not in a good way), let’s start the proceedings slowly, with some videos I did with the ebullient Sarah Lacy for Yahoo’s Tech Ticker site right before the holidays at the All Things Digital HQ (i.e. the cozy cottage behind my house).

In the first below, I look back at 2008 and make predictions for 2009, including demanding that the new administration of President-Elect Barak Obama “fix my broadband!” Also: I copiously praise the stylings of Blake Lively on “Gossip Girl” and her show’s online life.

In the second below, I play secret Santa to a range of tech figures, doling out virtual presents to Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang, Oracle (ORCL) head Larry Ellison and Apple (AAPL) icon Steve Jobs.

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:06 am

We Are the Water Cooler We Want to See: 2009 Will Be the End of the Echo Chamber. [Voices]

By Charlie O’Donnell, Co-Founder and CEO, Path101.com, Blogger, This is Going to be BIG

Saturday, Loic Le Meur blogged that “We’re not equal on Twitter, as we’re not equal on blogs and on the web.” He was talking about the need for Twitter to start filtering searches by authority–and by authority he means the number of people following them.

It’s laughable…the idea that someone has “authority” because a lot of people pay attention to it. Isn’t that the most anti-Web 2.0 thing you’ve ever heard? Did we forget about the long tail? Wasn’t that the whole point? Level playing field…hear the small voices…excuse me, is this thing on?

So, mark this date down. December 27, 2008 is the day that the digerati jumped the shark–the day that a guy who raised $12 million for a video blog commenting platform with no revenues or any idea of what the business model would be told the world that he only wants to listen to Twitter users with a lot of followers.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:04 am

Play Station’s Virtual Home Is Less Than Hospitable [Voices]

By Mike Musgrove, Technology Columnist, Washington Post, @play

“Dude, this place is quiet,” says one avatar, a rather generic-looking 20-something guy as we lurk on one side of the Home central plaza, watching virtual people go by on what appears, on my television screen, to be a sunny day in a modern town center. “This could get boring fast,” texts another in agreement, a speech balloon popping up over his head.

This month, Sony introduced a virtual world to the PlayStation 3 in a move designed to intrigue the gamers of the world by giving them a virtual place to mingle and hang out. Fire up Home for the first time and you can build your virtual self from scratch, selecting everything from facial features to the clothes that will cover your digital body. After that, off you go to wander around advertising-laden movie theaters, malls and bowling alleys, to meet and converse with your fellow PS3 fans.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:03 am

What Carriers Aren’t Eager to Tell You About Texting [Voices]

By Randall Stross, Professor, San Jose State University; Columnist, Digital Domain, New York Times

Text messaging is a wonderful business to be in: about 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cellphones worldwide this year. The public assumes that the wireless carriers’ costs are far higher than they actually are, and profit margins are concealed by a heavy curtain.

Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin and the chairman of the Senate antitrust subcommittee, wanted to look behind the curtain. He was curious about the doubling of prices for text messages charged by the major American carriers from 2005 to 2008, during a time when the industry consolidated from six major companies to four.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:02 am

Do You Miss the AT&T Monopoly? [Voices]

By Brad Reed, Writer, Network World

When AT&T (T) grudgingly agreed to break itself up 25 years ago, it was seen as a truly momentous event in the history of the telecommunications industry. Today, however, some experts question not only whether the breakup of AT&T was necessary, but whether it even had any long-term impact on the telecom market.

The breakup deal forced AT&T to spin off its local divisions that would then become local exchange carriers, and in return AT&T was allowed to keep its long-distance services division.

However, the rise of wireless services as alternatives to landlines, as well as the entrance of cable companies such as Comcast (CMCSA) and Time-Warner (TWX) into the VoIP market, has led some to conclude that the breakup of Ma Bell is irrelevant to the current telecom market.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:01 am

CrunchGear Week in Review: Christmas Memory Edition

Fold & carry keyboard for me
George Lucas approves production of Star Wars musical: Say goodbye to your childhood
Christmas Memories: The Nintendo Entertainment System
Japanese company releases Sushi guide for the iPhone
Informal Central Ohio Meet-up on December 29 in Columbus, Ohio

Source: CrunchGear | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

It Could Get Condé Nasty [Voices]

By Keith J. Kelly, Media Columnist, New York Post, Media Ink

Condé Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. is slated to return from his extended annual European vacation next week and already insiders are growing nervous ahead of his “January surprise.”

The reason: Newhouse has been poring over the books at the glitzy empire that clears well over $2 billion a year–and the findings aren’t pretty.

According to sources, the trouble spots are rumored to include Sarah Chubb’s CondéNet Web operation, which has already absorbed year-end cuts with the shutdown of flip.com and other staff cuts within the online unit.

“Digital accounts for only 3 percent of their total revenue,” said one knowledgeable executive. “They don’t make a penny on digital–and they never have.”

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 29 Dec 2008 | 8:00 am

Leap Second To Be Added Dec 31, 2008

ammorris writes "Don't be the laughingstock of your friends when you shout 'Happy New Years' a second too early ... The International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service has announced that a leap second will be added on December 31, 2008 at 23h 59m 60s, meaning that this year will be exactly one second longer. The last leap second occurred Dec 31, 2005; they are added due to fluctuations in the rotational speed of the earth. You can read all about leap seconds on Wikipedia."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 29 Dec 2008 | 7:58 am

DMFail: Another Reason To Just Not Send Private Messages On Twitter

If you are the kind of person who can’t help but look when you drive by an accident scene, DMFail is for you. The site, which has been all the rage on Twitter for the last few days, shows direct (private) messages that were sent improperly on Twitter and are therefore public.

If you want to send another Twitter user a message that only she or he sees, you type [D + username + message]. But a lot of people accidentally type DM (for Direct Message) instead of D, and when that happens you pay the price of having your message pop into your Twitter stream for everyone to see.

DMFail grabs all those messages and reprints them on its site for everyone to see, which can be quite a horrible experience for the people involved. Thus the accident scene analogy.

It would be fairly trivial for Twitter to change things so that DM also sends a private message, but so far they haven’t. On average, a couple of messages per hour over all of Twitter end up hitting DMFail.

Direct messages on Twitter don’t seem to be all that secure in general. They’re available to third parties through the API, for example, and there has been at least one case where confusion led to making some direct messages public.

Anyhow, from now on I’m just going to start all my Twitter messages with DM. I suggest you do the same.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 29 Dec 2008 | 7:54 am

Judge Denies RIAA Appeal of Kazaa File-Sharing Mistrial

A federal judge is denying the Recording Industry Association of America's request to appeal his decision granting a retrial in the RIAA's only file sharing case to go to trial.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 29 Dec 2008 | 6:36 am

HP’s new MediaSmart NAS lets Apple in on the party

We just reviewed and gave away one of these things, and now they’re dropping a new one! Well, that’s the business we’re in. The new HP MediaSmart server works with both Windows and OS X, so if you’re on a mac and don’t want to pay a premium for a brushed-aluminum NAS, this may be your lucky day.

The capacity of the new ex485/ex487 is “up to 9TB,” although I think that’s just based on the max current capacity of its four SATA HDD slots. You can add USB storage or eSATA devices as needed. These HP devices are chock full of services, and if you’re looking for a rich storage solution you could do a lot worse than a MediaSmart. Although it’s cheaper to buy internal storage, the built-in capabilities and dedicated apps for sharing media and so on make something like this a great option for a connected home.

If you move fast, you can get $50 off by using the code “AC5674″ at checkout.

Here’s the full press release:

HP Launches New Home Server for PCs and Macs

HP MediaSmart Server centralizes digital media and files for backup, remote access, sharing and uploading to social media sites

PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 29, 2008 – HP today launched a home server designed for use with both Windows and Mac computers.

Based on the Microsoft Windows® Home Server platform, the HP MediaSmart Server ex485/ex487 is a central repository for automatically backing up and accessing digital music, videos, photos and documents from multiple computers on a home network.(1)

The MediaSmart Server automatically organizes files across all PCs, streams media across a home network and the Internet,(2) and publishes photos to popular social networking and photo sharing sites.

“A growing number of digital-savvy households have both Windows and Mac computers, with hundreds and sometimes thousands of media files and documents scattered across these devices,” said Jason Zajac, vice president of strategy, Worldwide Attach Group, HP. “The HP MediaSmart Server protects, stores and organizes this content from anywhere on a network so consumers can access and share it any place they are connected.”

“HP continues to innovate on the Windows Home Server platform giving consumers even more options to enjoy and protect their precious memories and valuable data,” said Charlie Kindel, general manager, Windows Server Solutions, Microsoft. “We believe consumers will embrace the new MediaSmart Server as one of the most exciting computing products for the home.”

MediaSmart Server ex485/ex487 features include:

· HP Media Collector: conveniently schedules the MediaSmart Server to copy and centralize digital files and libraries from networked PCs

· Media Streaming: remotely streams photos and music to any Internet-connected PC or Mac

· Server for iTunes: centralizes iTunes music libraries on the server for playback to any networked Mac or PC running iTunes

· HP Photo Publisher: easily upload photos to Facebook®, PicasaTM Web Albums and Snapfish(3)

· HP Photo Viewer: allows easy sharing of photos with friends and family

· PC Hard Drive Backup: backs up networked PCs via the Windows Home Server backup feature

· Mac Hard Drive Backup: backs up Macs running Leopard using Apple Time Machine software

· Server Backup: duplicates designated shared folders to a separate hard disk drive

· Online Backup: duplicates designated folders to Amazon’s S3 online backup service for an additional layer of protection

· Smart Power Management: can schedule times for server to go to ”sleep” and ”wake up,” saving on energy costs

· Processor: Intel® Celeron®, 2.0 GHz 64-bit. Two gigabytes (GB) of 800-MHz DDR2 DRAM now standard on MediaSmart Server

· Expandability: additional drives can be added for up to 9 terabytes (TB)

“Customers are always looking for the right mix of features and ease-of-use when choosing digital home products,” said Danielle Levitas, group vice president, consumer, broadband and digital marketplace at IDC. “HP’s focus and investment in software allows it to deliver a home server with compelling features for Mac and PC users while offering a great customer experience that helps simplify the complexity of the connected home. This unique offering will help expand the home server market.”

Pricing and availability

Manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the HP MediaSmart Server ex485 with 750 GB of hard disk storage is $599 while the HP MediaSmart Server ex487 with 1.5 TB is $749.(4)

The HP MediaSmart Server can be pre-ordered beginning on Jan. 5, 2009, from Amazon.com, BestBuy.com, Buy.com, Frys.com and NewEgg.com; it is expected to ship in February.

The first 200 consumers who visit HP Home & Home Office (www.hpshopping.com) or call +1 888 271 2982 between Jan. 5 - 11, 2009, to reserve a MediaSmart Server and use coupon code “AC5674” will receive a $50 savings off their purchase.(5)

More information is available at www.hp.com/go/mediasmartserver.

Source: CrunchGear | 29 Dec 2008 | 5:36 am

Playstation 3 plans to expand to the third dimension in 2009

FROM GAMERTELL - Could the Playstation 3 be going 3D in 2009? Sony’s Playstation 3 will soon have the ability to support “both stereoscopic and Blu-ray-based three-dimensional gaming…” MORE »

Source: Gizmodo | 29 Dec 2008 | 5:01 am

Dec. 29, 1766: He Put the Mac in Mackintosh

1766: Charles Macintosh, who has no connection whatsoever to the computer of the same name, is born in Glasgow, Scotland. He will be remembered in tech annals as the inventor of rubberized, waterproof clothing. He's remembered more generally for the raincoat that bears his name.

Macintosh, the son of a well-known dyemaker, developed an early interest in chemistry and science and by 20 was already running a plant producing ammonium chloride and Prussian blue dye. Around this time, he introduced some new techniques for dyeing cloth.

In partnership with a certain Charles Tennant, Macintosh developed a dry bleaching powder that proved popular, making a fortune for both men. The powder remained the primary agent for bleaching cloth and paper into the 1920s.

At the same time, though, Macintosh was experimenting with the idea of waterproofing fabric, using waste byproducts from the dye process. One byproduct he worked with was coal tar, which, when distilled, produced naphtha.

Macintosh found that naphtha — a volatile, oily liquid created in the distillation the aforementioned coal tar, as well as petroleum — could be used to waterproof fabrics. In 1823, he patented what was the first truly waterproof fabric, supple enough to be used in clothing. He produced the desired results by joining two sheets of fabric with dissolved India rubber soaked in naphtha.

When this concoction of his was later used to make a flexible, waterproof raincoat, the garment quickly became known as the mackintosh. (The extraneous "k" has never been explained.) The coat came into widespread use, both by the British army and by the general public.

Which is not to say it was all smooth sailing for Macintosh's process. The fabric was vulnerable to changes in the weather, becoming stiffer in the cold and stickier in the heat. It was not especially good with wool, either, because that fabric's natural oil caused the rubber cement to deteriorate.

Nevertheless, the waterproofing process was essentially sound and was improved and refined over time. By 1924, it was considered effective enough to be used in outfitting an Arctic expedition led by Sir John Franklin.

Although he enjoyed his greatest success and lasting fame for his waterproofing process, Macintosh was no one-trick pony. In his capacity as a chemist, he helped devise a hot-blast process for producing high-quality cast iron.

Source: Today in Science

Source: Wired Top Stories | 29 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Vaporware 2008: Crushing Disappointments, False Promises and Plain Old BS

Welcome to Wired's 11th annual Vaporware Awards, our annual roundup of the tech industry's biggest, brashest and most baffling unfulfilled promises.

This year, handset makers were exhaling more vapor than anyone — eager to compete with the iPhone and to cash in on the excitement around Android and GPS-enabled services, the mobile sector was ripe with empty vows. Gamers had it rough again this year, too, as several key titles failed to ship on time.

We selected from readers' submissions the top 10 products that were supposed to ship in 2008 but ended up delayed, derailed or otherwise rendered in absentia. Hardware, software, games and vehicles were all fair game. Beta releases count, but as in years past, we gave Gmail a pass — it's branded "beta," but it's widely used by millions. Like "Google" and "Twitter," "Gmail" has even become a verb.

A surprisingly high percentage of last year's winners actually shipped this year (Chinese Democracy, the Tesla Roadster and the world's most expensive and useless keyboard among them), clearing the decks for a whole new stack of suckage.

So here it is: Vaporware 2008. Prepare to taste the waste.

10. Sony PlayStation Home

Sony's virtual world for PlayStation 3 users, Home, earns a top slot, even though the service finally launched as an open beta in early December. But beta ain't shrinkwrapped — so it's fair game.

Home was originally announced in March 2007, but was repeatedly sidelined. And now that it’s kinda here, it's woefully incomplete. Promised features like video sharing are absent, Sony has removed voice chat until further notice, and users from different countries can't interact with one another — a major problem for an international platform.

Home doesn't even succeed as a Second Life rip-off, owing to the fact that there simply isn't much to do. You can walk around in the mall and spend real money on virtual clothes branded with advertisements, or you can hang out at the bowling alley and play crappy video games. That's about it. Even the avatar creation system is incredibly scaled-down.

Sony keeps promising Home will get more features later, relying on the "it's only a beta" line whenever somebody points out that it is a completely useless piece of crap that no one would ever use.

"There is of course no place like Home," quipped reader Bob Krupinski.

9. Myka

A set-top box with a built-in BitTorrent client, the Myka had the Pirate Bay crowd salivating when it was first announced in March. And rightly so when you consider a tiny box with HDMI connections, H.264 and Blu-ray support, embedded Linux, a 160GB hard drive and the ability to suck all of Hollywood's top hits directly from the file-sharing networks, no purchase required.

But the pirate's dream appliance remains a pipe dream, and it looks likely to stay that way. As reader Chris Lindley points out, Myka's website is still taking pre-orders, even though the user forums are overrun with spam and requests for refunds.

Even if it eventually arrives, the Myka's missed the boat. Any potential customers have already picked up the like-minded HD set-top box from Popcorn Hour, or they just bought Apple TVs and installed Boxee.

8. Hero's Journey

Duke Nukem had better watch his back. This graphical MMOG — made by Simutronics, the people behind cult fave MUDs like Gemstone IV and DragonRealms -- has been in the works for almost a decade. Hero's Journey's promise of an open game world that responds to player decisions earned raves at the gaming trade show E3. That is, it earned raves at E3 2005. The official FAQ claims that the game is "actively in production and does not have a set release date."

The hold-up seems to be that development focus has shifted from the game itself to its engine, HeroEngine, which Simutronics has licensed out. Bioware is using it to power its upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic.

As reader Kuro suggests, "If Old Republic gets released before Hero's Journey, that will probably be the final nail in the game's vaporware coffin."

7. ZAP-X

With all eyes on climate change, roller-coaster gas prices and Detroit's ineffable ineptitude, few technologies more eagerly awaited than a sensible electric car.

At an estimated $60,000, Zap's ZAP-X EV SUV may not be all that affordable, but it's an important step towards an alt fuel future. The all-electric SUV promises a 350-mile range, 644 horsepower, a top speed of 155mph — the power of a Porsche Cayenne at around half the price, and only costing around a penny per mile to drive.

Originally promised for 2008, the ZAP-X's arrival has been pushed back to 2010. But even experts question Zap's ability to pump out an electric with such sexy specs before the end of the decade.

"This is vaporware," Aaron Bragman, an auto industry analyst at Global Insight, told Wired.com earlier this year. "I'd take it with a grain of salt."

6. Microvision Pico projector

It's a tiny projector for your mobile phone — a super-small projection module that can be embedded in phones, laptops, cameras and portable media players. A miniature wonder that lets you show off your boring home videos and pirated DVD rips in stunning high-resolution on the back of the nearest stained white t-shirt.

"Guaranteed to make you sick of looking at other people's crappy quality family photo albums," says reader Grady Root.

But while Microvision generated lots of buzz for its tiny "Pico P" laser light device at CES in January 2008, it hasn’t yet shown up.

So far, all we've seen are hyped-up reviews of prototypes. Meanwhile, other companies, including Toshiba, have managed to ship their own pico projectors this year.

Microvision has since partnered with Motorola to build a phone with a built-in projector. Hello Vaporware 2010?

5. Garmin nüvifone

This 3G-enabled handheld will be the first dip into the smartphone fray from the GPS device manufacturer Garmin — if, of course, it ever arrives.

The nüvifone was first announced in January of 2008, boasting a list of features to make map-geeks drool: preloaded world maps, real-time traffic stats, Google Maps and local search. Plus, a built-in camera that automatically geo-tags photos, integration with Google Panaramio photo sharing services and voice-prompted directions. There's even a feature that pinpoints the place on the map where you last removed the nüvifone from its dashboard mount so you'll always remember where you parked.

But the promised release date of Q3 2008 came and went, and the nüvifone is now expected during the first half of 2009.

Says disappointed reader Elio Manetti: "I don't believe anymore it will ever be released."

The boys and girls in Wired's Gadget Lab were ready to write off the nüvifone, believing it would never ship, until documents suggesting it is currently being tested by the FCC surfaced on the web.

In the meantime, we'll stick to our Signal the Frog antenna ball when we want to find our parked car.

4. StarCraft II

If the previewed gameplay videos and cut scenes are any indication, Blizzard Entertainment's sequel the 1998 sci-fi strategy game StarCraft looks like an epic multi-player frag-fest.

Much like the company's wildly successful Warcraft III, StarCraft II will let users edit campaigns, create their own maps and modify the game play to their hearts' content.

Sounds like a doozy, but so far, it's a snoozy. StarCraft II has been in development since 2003, was teased and demoed throughout 2007, promised in 2008, and now it's been pushed back until at least 2009.

Reader Ray Keller is fed up with the wait. "I'm stuck watching the videogame elite play on YouTube," he writes.

Says reader John Epperson: "I'm not the only one who has been waiting for this installment for more than five years!! And I'm not even a Starcraft fanboy!"

Bad enough that Blizzard has a slow, methodical "It's ready when it's ready" attitude, the company has now announced the game will be carved up into several pieces that will be sold separately.

So, we wait forever for the game to come out, and then when it finally does, it'll just be a first installment?! Grrr...

3. Android phones other than the T-Mobile G1

Google's open-source Android operating system for mobiles is one killer bundle of tech. It has a real web browser, some awesome GPS capabilities, support for touch screens and the flexibility to run on all kinds of hardware.

Which makes the first Android phone, T-Mobile's G1, that much more of a bummer. An Android phone could be so much more than a clunky iPhone knockoff with a slide-out keyboard. There are nine major handset manufacturers in the Open Handset Alliance, and all of them are committed to bringing out Android phones. So where are they already?

There is one beacon of hope from down under. Australian company Kogan Technologies plans to release the Agora, the world's first non-G1 Google phone, in January of 2009. We look forward to reading the reviews on our iPhones.

2. Internet Explorer 8

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Internet Explorer commands the lion's share of the world browser market. Previous versions of the browser were much maligned by the web elite — IE7 is capable but flawed, and IE6 was a gigantic piece of crap — but even the Firefox-using snobs of the blogosphere saw something to look forward to in early builds of Internet Explorer 8.

And continue to look forward they shall. After pegging the browser for a late 2008 ship date, Microsoft has pushed its estimated arrival back into 2009. The browser is currently available as a public beta, and the first release candidate was sent out for private testing in December. The betas look great, but final code is still months away — cold comfort for OEMs and corporations who can't adopt a new browser until it's been thoroughly tested and approved.

Meanwhile, older versions of IE continue to instill fear in IT managers and web developers everywhere as new security flaws pop up and new compatibility problems are exposed.

Hurry up, Microsoft. Countless Windows desktops need IE8 badly. Come to their rescue before they all wise up and switch to Firefox.

And the Vaporware 2008 winner is ...

1. Duke Nukem Forever

Really, is there anywhere else you expected this to end up?

After some twelve (12!) years in development, we had given up all hope of ever seeing Duke Nukem Forever hit the shelves. We even held a high-level meeting in the Wired newsroom where we agreed to end the agony and, some vague promises to the press about a 2008 release notwithstanding, leave Duke off the Vaporware list this year. Even the best jokes get old eventually.

Says reader Dennis Murphy: "My nominations for DNF got printed in 2001 & 2002. Here we are, 7 years later, and it's still on the list. How about one more chance? If we don't see it by 2010, I promise I'll stop submitting! (Well, at least till my grandkids are born ...)"

But then, in May, Jace Hall of Crackle.com scored an on-camera interview with the Dukefathers, George Broussard and Scott Miller of 3-D Realms. At the end of their sit-down, the DNF developers even let him demo an actual, working version of the game.

The resulting hand-held footage of the first-person shooter was all the proof we needed — the game is still inching towards reality. So congrats, Duke. You're the King of Vaporware once again.

When pressed to explain the delay, Broussard and Miller, aside from blaming "hookers and cocaine," offer a classic excuse. "There's a lot of mistakes and lessons we had to learn," Broussard says. "But most of all, there's also been a lot of World of Warcraft."

OK guys, we get it. You love playing games so much, you can't be bothered to finish building your own. Put down the bong and get it DONE.

Tell you what — we'll give you one more year.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 29 Dec 2008 | 5:00 am

Carbon sheets may power next generation of flash storage

Miniaturization is one of the driving forces in the tech world, not just in the size of your media player or whatnot, but in the size of the nano-scale components that make it up. Processors, for example, are approaching the barrier of quantum effects on their transistor units, and are having to work around it. Similarly, flash memory makers are going to be hitting a wall a few years down the line and are looking for the tech that will take them over it. Graphene may be the answer they’re searching for — or not.

As solid state memory technology advances, it gets smaller and smaller. IBM and AMD recently created a 22nm SRAM cell, though Intel pooh-poohed the achievement. The next generation will prove even more difficult, as the physical limitations of the material (silicon) will make arrays of the current design ineffective. So either they have to find a way to work around the problem with silicon (via multi-level cell arrays, for instance), introduce a new material like graphene, or try something completely different.

Graphene is a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, which exhibits properties favorable to SSD engineers: when used to store a charge, it leaks little voltage, produces little heat, and works in a large range of temperatures, unlike my laptop (the battery got so cold that it thinks it isn’t there). It also will work down to a much smaller cell size — 10nm — which means more density and more storage space.

Unfortunately it’s not as simple as just switching out the materials; years of research will have to be done, but it’s one of those things that you’d better start on early or when the time comes, you’ll have beeen outflanked by more forward-thinking research teams.

Source: CrunchGear | 29 Dec 2008 | 4:56 am

Go Vote For The 2008 Crunchies Finalists

The finalists for the 2008 Crunchies awards, brought to you by VentureBeat, GigaOm, Silicon Alley Insider and TechCrunch went up for vote earlier this evening. Vote here for your favorite startups, products and entrepreneurs.

Nearly 180,000 total nominations were made across the various categories.

Voting will continue until end of day on January 5, and the winners will be announced at the award ceremony and party on Friday, January 9 at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. We released another 200 tickets for the event this evening as well, get them at Amiando. This ticket also gets you into the after party.

This year’s Crunchies would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. Thanks to ceremony and after-party co-hosts: Microsoft, MySpace and Founders Fund; award benefactors: Charles River Ventures and Mayfield; streaming partner, Ustream; after-party game-room partner, Garage Games; ticketing partner, Amiando; photo host, PicApps; hosting partner, Media Temple; wine partner, Cannonball wines; and event patron, Institutional Venture Partners. Please contact heather@techcrunch.com or jlogo@earthlink.net if you’re interested to learn more about creative (and very reasonably priced) sponsorship opportunities.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 29 Dec 2008 | 4:46 am

Walmart Photo Keychain Comes Preloaded With Malware

Blowit writes "With the Christmas holidays just past and opening up your electronic presents may get you all excited, but not for a selected lot of people who got the Mercury 1.5" Digital Photo Frame from Walmart (or other stores). My father-in-law attached the device to his computer and his Trend Micro Anti-virus screamed that a virus is on the device. I scanned the one I have and AVAST did not find any virus ... So I went to Virscan.org to see which vendors found what, and the results are here and here." Update: 12/29 05:44 GMT by T : The joy is even more widespread; MojoKid points out that some larger digital photo frames have been delivered similarly infected this year, specifically Samsung's SPF-85H 8-inch digital photo frame, sold through Amazon among other vendors, which arrived with "W32.Sality.AE worm on the installation disc for Samsung Frame Manager XP Version 1.08, which is needed for using the SPF-85H as a USB monitor." Though Amazon was honest enough to issue an alert, that alert offers no reason to think that only Amazon's stock was affected.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 29 Dec 2008 | 4:46 am

Dick Tracy-esque touchscreen videophonewatch from LG

Oh man, does this look awesome or what? As soon as I touch down in Vegas for CES, I will make it my business to touch it all over and tell you how it felt. It’s got a 1.43″ touchscreen and a built-in camera for 3G video calls. But do you think we’re going to see its beautiful form stateside? Not likely. Our networks aren’t really ready for a bunch of videoconferencing 13-year-olds, so LG Korea is aiming this device at their home country and possibly Europe.

Once again we are not cool enough. It’s okay, we’ve got… monster trucks. And the Parthenon. Wait, that’s Greece. Damn!

Source: CrunchGear | 29 Dec 2008 | 4:19 am

GRUVme a groovy place for Internet gaming

FROM GAMERTELL - GRUVme is a free website devoted to short Flash games that you can play from any computer… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 29 Dec 2008 | 3:34 am

The Parent Company Voluntarily Petitions for Reorganization Bankruptcy Protection

DENVER, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Parent Company (Nasdaq: KIDS), today announced that it and nine of its subsidiaries have filed for voluntary protection under Chapter 11 of the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Dec 2008 | 3:03 am

BBC's iPlayer Chief Pushes Tiered Charging For ISPs

rs232 writes with a link to a story at The Register which begins: "The executive in charge of the BBC iPlayer has suggested that internet users could be charged £10 per month extra on their broadband bill for higher quality streaming." The article suggests (perhaps optimistically) that "after years of selling consumers pipes, not what they carry, [tiered, site-specific pricing] would be tough to pull off."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 29 Dec 2008 | 1:39 am

BB Storm 4.7.0.85 firmware leaked

The latest unreleased firmware for the Blackberry Storm (aka le lump of poo) has leaked is now available over at CrackBerry forums.

The results, so far, seem promising. I’ll install it tonight, if I can, and report back. The improvements seem manifold. To wit:

Some bugs have been fixed, the accelerometer action is definitely quicker and typing feels a bit more responsive. You’ll want to jump into our Storm OS forum for all of the details and findings surrounding this release. My opinion? This is what the Storm should have launched with.Definitely worth an install if you’re a 9530 Storm owner.

Source: CrunchGear | 29 Dec 2008 | 1:17 am

Gift Guide: Steam games and packages

FROM GAMERTELL - If you’ve got a PC gamer in your life and don’t know what to get them, here are some sure-fire ideas if they have the Steam client on their computer. MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 29 Dec 2008 | 1:17 am

Oil companies bullish on shale oil

The recent drop in oil prices is not likely to derail the push to develop shale oil deposits in the western United States, an oil executive says. Despite sagging crude prices and growing concern about the amount of water used to extract oil from shale, energy companies are forging ahead to
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 29 Dec 2008 | 12:15 am

UK Government Has Heard There’s Bad Stuff On The InterTubes

In the US tech scene you have weekend “bitchmemes”. In the UK, there is a kind of equivalent known as “government minister opens mouth and inserts foot”. This weekend it was the turn of Andy Burnham, the secretary of state for the Department of Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS), and as such supposed to take an interest in the Internet. Unfortunately his weekend interview with a newspaper betrayed the simple fact that he knows nothing at all about how the Internet works. Nothing.

Burnham gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph newspaper saying that the UK government is considering “the need for “child safe” websites – registered with cinema-style age warnings – to curb access to offensive or damaging online material.” There would also be “child-safe” internet services run by ISPs and the “option” of introducing age ratings for websites. “This is an area that is really now coming into full focus,” he said. He said some content, such as clips of beheadings, was unacceptable and new standards of decency were needed. He also plans to negotiate with the US on drawing up international rules for English language websites.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 28 Dec 2008 | 11:45 pm

Entire Transcript of RIAA's Only Trial Now Online

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The entire transcript of the RIAA's 'perfect storm,' its first and only trial, which resulted in a $222,000 verdict in a case involving 24 MP3's having a retail value of $23.76, is now available online. After over a year of trying, we have finally obtained the transcript of the Duluth, Minnesota, jury trial which took place October 2, 2007, to October 4, 2007, in Capitol Records v. Thomas. Its 643 pages represent a treasure trove for (a) lawyers representing defendants in other RIAA cases, (b) technologists anxious to see how a MediaSentry investigator and the RIAA's expert witness combined to convince the jurors that the RIAA had proved its case, and (c) anybody interested in finding out about such things as the early-morning October 4th argument in which the RIAA lawyer convinced the judge to make the mistake which forced him to eventually vacate the jury's verdict, and the testimony of SONY BMG's Jennifer Pariser in which she 'misspoke' according to the RIAA's Cary Sherman when she testified under oath that making a copy from one's CD to one's computer is 'stealing.' The transcript was a gift from the 'Joel Fights Back Against RIAA' team defending SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, in Boston, Massachusetts. I have the transcript in 3 segments: October 2nd (278 pages(PDF), October 3rd (263 pages)(PDF), and October 4th (100 pages)(PDF)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 28 Dec 2008 | 11:12 pm

Playstation Store Update: Early Holidays Edition (December 23-30, 2008)

FROM GAMERTELL - Sony has decided to give players a nice holiday present in the form of an early update… MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 28 Dec 2008 | 11:09 pm

Wal-Mart sells $197 8GB iPhone ($197$99)

Yahoo is reporting that Wal-Mart is now selling the 8GB iPhone 3G for $197, $98 more than the $99 we were hoping last week let alone the $99 refurb price at AT&T. Not much else to report on this one but it is interesting to see the iPhone visit the hinterlands where AT&T and Apple stores are scarce.

Have you spotted the iPhone at Wal-Mart yet? Give us a location report in comments.

(image from MacRumors)
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Source: CrunchGear | 28 Dec 2008 | 10:27 pm

Wii To Offer Video Rentals In 2009

Nintendo announced on that Thursday it will be offering video rentals through the Wii game console next year.Nintendo is creating programming which will allow Wii users to connect to the Internet and view films on their television.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 28 Dec 2008 | 10:00 pm

Smart Spam Filtering For Forums and Blogs?

phorm writes "While filtering for spam on email and other related mediums seems to be fairly productive, there is a growing issue with spam on forums, message-boards, blogs, and other such sites. In many cases, sites use prevention methods such as captchas or question-answer values to try and restrict input to human-only visitors. However, even with such safeguards — and especially with most forms of captcha being cracked fairly often these days — it seems that spammers are becoming an increasing nuisance in this regard. While searching for plugins or extensions to spamassassin etc I have had little luck finding anything not tied into the email framework. Google searches for PHP-based spam filtering tends to come up with mostly commercial and/or more email-related filters. Does anyone know of a good system for filtering spam in general messages? Preferably such a system would be FOSS, and something with a daemon component (accessible by port or socket) to offer quick response-times."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 28 Dec 2008 | 9:48 pm

Dilution of Promoters' Stake in Satyam Possible

HYDERABAD, India, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 28 Dec 2008 | 9:40 pm

Will It Blend iPhone App Promises Fun, Fantasy

Need 20 "Will it Blend?" episodes? Have $1.99? Then the great god Odin is smiling upon you today for Tom Dickson of Blendtec has an app for you.

Source: TechCrunch | 28 Dec 2008 | 9:29 pm

Will It Blend iPhone App: For the man who has everything

Need 20 “Will it Blend?” episodes? Have $1.99? Then the great god Odin is smiling upon you today for Tom Dickson of Blendtec has an app for you.

Blendtec’s decision to blend stuff that should be blended is a marketing coup. Think about it: have you ever heard of Blendtec? Nope. Then they started doing videos of them blending stuff and the rest is history. I never much followed this meme but there’s no shame in loving you some controlled destruction.

Source: CrunchGear | 28 Dec 2008 | 9:28 pm

Rhino Offers Hope For Species

Wildlife experts announced Wednesday that a male rhino is anticipated to become the primary contributor in a Malaysian breeding plan to save his endangered species.The 20-year-old Borneo Sumatran rhino, "Tam," was discovered in August with an infected leg wound possibly produced by a poacher trap.Tam has been moved to a wildlife reserve in Malaysia's Sabah state, where the remaining Borneo Sumatran rhinos live.Authorities want to convey five male and females to the reserve in the following few years so that offspring production will occur, stated Junaidi Payne, for the World Wildlife Fund's Malaysian Borneo chapter."Their numbers are so low that they might drift into extinction if no one does anything," Payne said.Experts cannot authorize the amount of Borneo Sumatran rhinos that exist in the wild, but guesses vary from 10 to 30.The Borneo Sumatran rhinos have quickly disappeared recently as their habitat has been destroyed due to logging, plantations and developments.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Dec 2008 | 8:50 pm

Hot gaming news for the week of 12-21-2008

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…

• How To: An illustrated guide to making Pro Design outfits in Animal Crossing: City Folk
• Dear Santa: A gamer’s wish list for Christmas 2008
• Top geek gifts by ExtremeTech
• Christmas cards from game companies (2008 edition)
• Playstation 3 expensive as hell, expected to remain that way through Summer 2009

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 28 Dec 2008 | 8:43 pm

Using Lasers To Generate Random Numbers Faster

Pranav writes "Using semiconductor lasers, scientists from Takushoku University, Saitama University, and NTT Corporation achieved random number rates of up to 1.7 gigabits per second, which is about 10 times higher than the second-best rate, produced using a physical phenomenon. Future work may center on devising laser schemes that can achieving rates as high as 10 Gbps."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 28 Dec 2008 | 8:22 pm

The Tubes Are Clogged

If you’ve been having trouble accessing some of the web’s most popular sites this morning, you aren’t alone - reports have been pouring in that major sites like Amazon, CNN, and ESPN have been having sporadic outages in some areas across the United States. The problem seems to be stemming from an issue with Level 3 Communications, which operates one of the largest internet backbones in the world.

According to InternetPulse, the provider has been showing severe latency times, and a number of other sites have confirmed that Level3 is the source of the issue.

Some of the affected sites are beginning to write blog posts explaining their outages to users (here are posts from SliceHost and Posterous). It looks like some of the issues are being resolved, but some sites are still having problems.

We should also note that AT&T customers have been reporting widespread outages in some regions. We’re trying to find out if the two outages are related.

Update, 11:45 AM PST: Level3 technical support technician Eunice Morales says that all of the issues have been resolved, and that the problems originated from Washington, DC, Chicago, Spain, and Germany. She also says that the problems with AT&T could possibly be related to the Level3 issues.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 28 Dec 2008 | 7:24 pm

UK Wildlife Suffers From Erratic Weather Changes

The National Trust stated that UK wildlife is struggling to cope as erratic and unseasonal weather has taken its toll for a second consecutive year.Birds, mammals and particularly insects have all suffered from a cold, late spring, a wet summer with little sunshine and a long, dry autumn, they said.Known species under threat from the drastic weather changes include puffins, marsh fritillary butterflies and lesser horseshoe bats.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Dec 2008 | 7:05 pm

Time Running Out For Digital Converter Coupons

Regulators have warned that time is running out for U.S. consumers to request government coupons to subsidize converter boxes for the digital television transition in February.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 28 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm

Windows 7 beta 1 makes early debut (CNET)

CNET - The first beta of Microsoft's next operating system has apparently been spotted in the wild.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 28 Dec 2008 | 6:20 pm

The Future Of Social Search (Or Why Google Should Buy Facebook)

If you could search your friends’ thoughts, interests, and activities, would that be a better search experience? In many cases, it would be. Searching for restaurants, books, or movies, would turn up recommendations from people you actually know. If you are researching a trip to Florence, Italy, you might discover ten friends who have been there already, and could ask for advice on what to do. These scenarios have been the dream of social search for a few years, with both startups and search engines taking a stab at it. But so far it’s been a failed dream.

Yahoo’s experiment with social search, Yahoo 360 MyWeb, never took off. is being shut down. It was a rudimentary social search in that relevant bookmarks from friends showed up as search results. And search has never been Facebook’s strong suit. It handed search over to Microsoft, but the search experience on the site is poor. It is difficult to search much deeper than your friends’ names. You need to go to an advanced profile search page to filter through their interests, activities, or other profile categories, for instance. And forget about searching your news feed.

Yet social search done right could become very valuable for Facebook. And it would be even more valuable for Google. (They already know how to make money from search). It is also an opportunity for Microsoft Live Search, but they are not really inspiring much confidence so far. So let’s set aside for a moment the unlikelihood of any Google-Facebook deal or partnership (given Microsoft’s investment in Facebook), and let’s imagine how the two could help each other.

Even if Facebook/Microsoft figures out social search, it is more useful on Google, which is where most of us do our searching. To get a glimpse at what this might look like, you can try Sidestripe, which is both an add-on widget for Google search and a Facebook app. Sidestripe is like Glue for search (Glue is a browser add-on that shows you whether anyone in your social networks has expressed interest in the book, movie, restaurant, product, or other things mentioned on whatever page you happen to be browsing). Similarly, sidestripe indexes all your friends on Facebook and parts of their profiles (where they work, their interests, etc). When you do a search on Google, a box with Sidestripe results appears after the third natural result, giving you a sense of whether any of your friends might be experts on the topic. For instance, when I do a search for “Google” it turns up Facebook friends who work at Google or are somehow affiliated with Google, and looks like this:

A search for “biking” turns up friends who are interested in biking. You can also add your own knowledge to any search result, and it will appear as a subsequent result (although it does not let you add links, which I consider a major bug). Or if you still can’t find what you are looking for from either Google or Sidestripe, you can ask all of your friends a question from inside the Sidestripe box on Google about the topic you are trying to learn about and that question shows up in all of your friends’ feeds. Any answers then become indexed and searchable.

Sidestripe is barely out of alpha and still frustrating to use because more often than not the Sidestripe box remains empty. When there are results, they are interesting. It is hit or miss. As more people use Sidestripe, this should improve. But I think a big part of the problem is that it does not fully index my social graph, and certainly does not return results from my News feed.

Yet making Facebook’s News feed searchable (on Google) would go a long way towards realizing the dream of social search. The Facebook feed already aggregates what my friends are doing not just on Facebook but all across the Web (Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg, etc.). It’s like Friendfeed in this respect, but with many more users.

The trick to making all of this seemingly random data useful in search is to come up with a social algorithm that can rank it all accordingly. For instance, when I search for Florence, Italy, friends who have lived in Florence, Italy should show up, but so should friends who have recently taken pictures there or Tweeted about Florence, and maybe in that order. This kind of ranking is a hard problem to solve, and it is what Google is good at.

Imagine instead of Sidestripe, the option to add Facebook Connect to Google search, which would then turn on social search in results (these should only appear when there actually are social results to show). They could keep the Q&A capability in there as well. It would add an entirely new dimension to search.

Of course, Google has its own Friend Connect program, and wants to monetize it with Friendsense. But just as search is not Facebook’s strong suit, social networking isn’t Google’s. All my contacts are on Facebook. They are the ones I want to search. And everything I’ve described above is a big opportunity for Microsoft, if they can pull it off.

But the best results, IMHO, would come form a combination of Facebook and Google.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 28 Dec 2008 | 6:08 pm

Ask And Ye Shall Receive: Twitority Launches Authority-Based Twitter Search

Yesterday Loic Le Meur wrote a blog post asking for an authority-based Twitter search that would allow users to restrict their searches to Twitter users with a large number of followers. A number of bloggers were upset over this seemingly innocuous feature request, citing the difference between authority and popularity and how easy it is to game popularity counts on Twitter. But it looks like at least a few people thought it was a worthwhile cause: twelve hours later, Loic writes that a small team of developers led by Jon Wheatley has launched new service called Twitority that does exactly what Loic asked for.

Below is the letter Wheatley wrote to Loic:

“Since I read your post this morning about authority based twitter searches I’ve been frantically trying to come up with a solution with some friends. 12 hours and numerous cups of coffee later I think we’ve cracked it.
You can now perform authority based twitter searches at http://twitority.com

This wasn’t an easy task. There are some very real limitations on the twitter API so we had to hack around it a little bit to find a way to do this. This obviously isn’t an ideal solution but hopefully it will suffice until twitter implements the feature themselves.”

The service seems to be pretty bareboned at the moment, but it’s still impressive for the amount of time it took. Users can choose to search for users with “any authority”, “a little authority”, or “a lot of authority” (no word on how many followers correspond to the latter two), and each result indicates how many followers the user has. At this point it seems like the threshold for the “high authority” settings are too high - I’m often left with no results for queries for popular keywords like “iPhone” and “Twitter”. But now that the technology is built, it will likely be fairly simple for the site to implement more customized settings.

So is Twitority going to mark the end of the golden age of Twitter? Hardly.

Even Loic, who initiated yesterday’s fiasco, has admitted that “authority” might not be the best word for a popularity-based search (he blames his French). It doesn’t really matter what it’s called - being able to filter users by follow count is useful, and is certainly a worthwhile feature. But it won’t spell the end of a “democratic Twitter” because, as Google showed over a decade ago, popularity isn’t the best indicator of relevance. For that, you need an algorithm that can filter out spammy results (don’t be surprised if Twitter is already working on one in-house).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 28 Dec 2008 | 5:48 pm

Got a Christmas tree in the house? Don't forget to water it.

Christmas Tree Fire Safety Video from NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology). (via Esthr Dysn!)

Source: Boing Boing | 28 Dec 2008 | 5:38 pm

10 dolphins stranded on Cape Cod beaches

Cape Cod Stranding Network coordinator Sarah Herzig says 10 dolphins have been stranded on beaches in the Massachusetts region in recent days. Herzig said eight of the animals became stranded on beaches in the towns of Wellfleet and Brewster on Christmas Day, followed by two more dolphins
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Dec 2008 | 3:38 pm

Satyam to Consider Additional Strategic Actions

HYDERABAD, India, Dec. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Satyam Computer Services Ltd.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 28 Dec 2008 | 2:00 pm