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Hands on Bug Labs’ BUGmodulesSection: Computers, Mobile Computers, Trade Shows, CES Bug Labs was at ShowStoppers in Las Vegas tonight showing off their new BUGmodules for their BUGbase. They introduced a new pico projector module, a QWERTY keyboard, a 3G module, Bluetooth/Wi-Fi module, and an audio module with multiple lines in and lines out. Bug Labs introduced their BUGbase last year at CES. This device lets you play with pre-fabricated components to build your own gadget. Alicia Gibb, Gadget Wrangler, gave a great example of a person who created a GPS alarm clock. The idea was that the person wanted to be woken up on the train at their particular stop. That person put together the GPS module with the BUGbase to make the device. You don’t need to know how to solder to put together a device to test things on. The booth at ShowStoppers also had a mock-up of a dual wide LCD screen (an LCD that would be the same size as the BUGbase). There is no official date for its launch, but expect it in the summer of this year. Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 9 Jan 2009 | 2:15 pm Palm Announces Killer New PhoneBarence writes "At CES, Palm announced what promises to be the product that finally matches and even betters the Apple iPhone, and certainly looks to be the most important product announced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. It's called the Palm Pre and it's based on a completely new operating system, called Palm webOS. Its key specs include a 3.1in 320x 480 touchscreen, 8GB of storage, UMTS HDSPA support (in the UK version of the phone), 802.11b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, and GPS. It also includes a slide-out Qwerty keyboard, 3.5mm headphone jack, and what Palm described as the 'fastest ever' Texas Instruments OMAP processor."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:53 pm Motorola shows off MotoSurf, other new products at CESSection: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Computers, Wireless, Trade Shows, CES Motorola’s new MotoSurf A3100 was the highlight of their booth. The new smartphone is powered by a skinned version of Windows Mobile 6.1, has a 2.8-inch touch screen display, and two cameras. Allthough the phone is currently headed for Asia and Latin America, we will likely be seeing it in the US very soon. Many of other things things in their booth were merely concepts, or products like WiMax that do not yet affect our lives—unless you live in Portland or Baltimore—however products like the Aura (the goofy-looking silver swivel phone) are fairly fresh. Source: Gizmodo | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:22 pm Obama wants DTV delay, but is it too late to turn back? - Ars Technica
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:22 pm Cellular Crime WarningsSpotted on Future Perfect, a poster warning (elderly) people of phone crimes. A Japanese variation of the Brazilian virtual kidnap crime where a (random) person is called and informed that their loved...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:21 pm Burger King Asks Facebook Users To Drop 10 Friends For A Whopper - AHN
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:14 pm Committee OKs pact to expand Internet coverage (AP)AP - The Alabama Legislature's Contract Review Committee approved a $1.7 million two-year contract Thursday to help spread high-speed Internet service across the state, particularly to rural areas.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:13 pm Palm gets in game but doesn’t change it; Reality lurks - ZDNet
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:13 pm Mac Bloggers Murmur Over Macworld Machinations - TechNewsWorld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:09 pm RIAA Gives Up In Atlantic Recording v. BrennanNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Atlantic Recording v. Brennan, the landmark Connecticut case in which the first decision rejecting the RIAA's 'making available' theory was handed down, the RIAA has finally thrown in the towel and dismissed its own case. Mr. Brennan never appeared in the case at all. In February, 2008, the RIAA's motion for a default judgment was rejected for a number of reasons, including the Court's ruling (PDF) that there is no claim for 'making available for distribution' under the US Copyright Act. The RIAA moved for reconsideration; that motion was denied. Then, in December, the RIAA's second motion for default judgment was rejected. Finally the RIAA filed a 'notice of dismissal' ending the case."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:07 pm Sharp and Broadcom Deliver Innovative Bluetooth(R) Technology to Digital TelevisionsSharp Adopts Broadcom's BCM2046 Bluetooth Solution in AQUOS(R) XS1 LCD TVs for Japanese Market LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- International CES --...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:05 pm DealBundle: On-Line Shopping Club Opens for Local and National Bargain SeekersPURCELLVILLE, Va., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- In response to the current economic downturn, YippeeO LLC has announced the opening of a worldwide on-line shopping club called...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:05 pm Intel shows it all: netbooks, touch screens, gaming, ball-kicking robotsSection: Communications, Computers, Gadgets / Other, Robots/AI, Trade Shows, CES Intel didn’t have many new products to show at CES this year, but the company’s booth was still looking good. The company showed all of the latest netbooks with Intel chips on a grand wall-o-netbooks, had a touch screen Minority Report-style information board showcasing their latest products (sans multi-touch), showed off a life-sized racing game with three HDTVs surrounding the driver, and my favorite…ball-kicking robots. Ball-kicking robots you say? You heard me right. The little WoWee-like robots, controlled by a nearby laptop, drove around a little platform bumping a white soccer ball around. Check out photos of Intel’s CES happenings below. Full Story » | Written by Doug Berger for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:03 pm ProDocumentSolutions Introduces a New Concept in the Security and Verification of Election BallotsPASO ROBLES, Calif., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- ProDocumentSolutions (Pro), a leader in election printing, announced they have developed a new method of securing and verifying...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm Authentic Response Announces Partnership with RelevantView(C)Global Panel Company Enhances Authentic Validation Data Security Process NEW YORK, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Authentic Response, a leader in the market research...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm ViXS and Rebaca Announce Joint Development of the Next Generation PVR/STB PlatformLAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ - ViXS Systems, and Rebaca Technologies today announced a technical collaboration to create an advanced Set-Top Box Reference Design that uses the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm ViXS XCode(TM) provides Media Processing For LaCie LaCinema Black Max Entertainment CenterXCode(TM) 2105 enables product differentiation via innovative Video Processing TORONTO, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ - ViXS Systems Inc., a leading developer of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm AsiaInfo Updates Fourth Quarter 2008 OutlookBEIJING and SANTA CLARA, Calif. Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- -- Adjusts EPS guidance as a result of US$4.6 and US$2 million non-cash impairment charges...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm ViXS XCode(TM) provides Media Processing For Blusens blu:brain Home Entertainment Device (HED)XCode(TM) 2111 enables Video Processing for Advance applications TORONTO, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ - ViXS Systems Inc., a leading developer of video processing...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm CCID Consulting: China's IT Market During the Financial CrisisNext Generation Data Centers Attach Equal Importance to Income Increase and Expenditure Decrease -- Review of China's Next Generation Data Center Market in 2008 and Outlook for...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm Electrolux Freestanding Range Ranked #1 by Consumer Reports(R)New range cited for its "top performance" and innovative features AUGUSTA, Ga., Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Electrolux, the premium appliance brand used in...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 1:00 pm Conceptual Interface is Controlled by Hand GesturesToshiba showed off a conceptual computer interface at this year's CES that uses hand gestures for control. With simple motion sensing technology and a software interface, Toshiba hopes to open up possible applications for video games and other interactive media.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:55 pm Conceptual Interface is Controlled by Hand GesturesToshiba showed off a conceptual computer interface at this year's CES that uses hand gestures for control. With simple motion sensing technology and a software interface, Toshiba hopes to open up possible applications for video games and other interactive media.
Source: Gizmodo | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:48 pm Ballmer reacquaints Microsoft with its PC past - Register
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:43 pm Winners of the 2008 Best iPhone App Ever Awards AnnouncedThe winners of the 2008 Best App Ever Awards have now been announced in the inaugural competition honoring the best iPhone apps and games released in the iTunes App Store. ... Sponsored by 148Apps, the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:36 pm Broadcasts to mobile devices to start in 22 cities (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:27 pm Broadcasts To Mobile Devices To Start In 22 CitiesTV stations in 22 U.S. cities say they will start broadcasting their signals this year in a format designed to be received by mobile devices like cell phones, MP3 players, GPS units and in-car entertainment systems. The broadcasts would most likely be free, would provide access to local news, weather and traffic updates and could an important role in emergencies like hurricanes.
Source: Gizmodo | 9 Jan 2009 | 12:14 pm Retro Wedding Revivals - A Magician and His Assistant Wed 1920s Style (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Weddings are one of the most significant moments in ones life. Magician Mario and his assistant Katie wed this year in a fabulous event with a retro 1920s theme. Glorious sepia-toned...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:59 am [CES 2009] Samsung Booth HighlightsBy Evan Ackerman Anyone want to count the number of TVs in that Samsung display? They look all blurry to me, but that’s probably due to a combination of lack of sleep, electronics overload, and cheap...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:56 am A Sexy New Notebook From Sony - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:52 am D20 flailsSilver Dragon Studio makes $50 flails out of novelty outside D20s. It's the ideal B&D;/D&D; crossover item! D20 Flails (via Wonderland)Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:47 am D20 flails
Silver Dragon Studio makes $50 flails out of novelty outside D20s. It's the ideal B&D/D&D crossover item!
D20 Flails
(via Wonderland)
Source: Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:47 am Bright Contemporary Kids Furniture - GABs Colorful Child-Friendly Designs (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) This compact but charming series from Italian furniture manufacturer GAB will inspire you to want to be a kid again just to have a super-trendy room to decorate. Although the designs...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:39 am Newber brings a second business line to the iPhoneSection: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
I must stress here that Apple has not approved this application yet. Despite repeated calls to Apple regarding the disposition of their application, they are in limbo land. With that out of the way, let’s talk about what this application can do for you. Need a business line and want to use your iPhone for both your personal line and for the business line? Of course you do! Newber brings a business line to your phone that you can control. You can route the business line to a landline near you to save on phone charges. To do this, just enter the phone number in Newber and your calls are routed to that line, boom. Even cooler and techier, Newber will remember this number for you and forward your calls to this line when you come back near this phone thanks to GPS. So, that allows you to have your work calls forward to your work landline when you are there, pretty cool. And if that was all it did, cool. But Newber also allows you to set up contacts with multiple numbers and will phone each number in succession upon no answer. Interesting. This is one app to keep your eye on. Company site: [Newber] Source: Gizmodo | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:28 am Windows 7: Home Networking In Three Steps - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:20 am Fast Healthy Snacks - Japanese Feast on Sweet Potato Cookies (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Calbee, a major supplier to Japanese convenience stores and vending machines, has launched a whole new line of healthy veggies. Last year Trend Hunter wrote about the line of drinkable...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:19 am CES 2009: BounceBack Ultimate DebutsSection: Trade Shows, CES
BounceBack Ultimate also provides file level AES 256-bit encryption. The program supports Windows XP and Vista. Features include application throttling, continuous data protection, Quick Restore, and true open file backup support. Read[CMSProducts] Source: Gizmodo | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:08 am Palm pre video: The simplicity of searching on the preSection: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:46 am AT&T To Launch In-Car Satellite TV Service
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 TrustedReviews | Panasonic Unveils First Portable Blu-ray Disc Player InformationWeek - The device can also be connected to a digital TV via an HDMI cable and used as a standalone player. By Antone Gonsalves Panasonic has introduced what it said is the first portable Blu-ray disc player. A Blu-ray portable? Really? Why? Panasonic Brings 3D Imaging to Home Theater |
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
Need specifics on why Gadgetell is so high on the Pre? Here is one: combined Messaging. This one unbelievably simple detail shows us Palm built this OS to compete in the market.
What am I talking about? When you look at your contacts and conversations you’ll see if they are available via IM. Pretty cool. When you begin a conversation say via IM, but then have to continue it via email, all the messages are grouped together. As we’ve said before, Palm built the Pre with the idea that you want to connect with the person, not the tech.
Excited yet? We are.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Tapulous CEO Bart Decrem sent out an email to investors yesterday updating them on the status of the iPhone/Android focused company. It was forwarded to us, and we reprint it below.
The company makes the popular Tap Tap Revenge application as well as Tweetsville and others. Like competitor Social Gaming Network, everything they touch seems to turn to gold.
In the email Decrem says they have had 5 million unique installs of Tap Tap Revenge and claim it is the third most popular application for the iPhone, after Facebook and Pandora. He also says that they have 100,000 customers who’ve paid them for apps and they went from no revenue in September to break-even in December, an important milestone.
On December 31 the company closed an additional $1 million in funding, Decrem says, adding to the $1.8+ million they had previously raised. He also says Tap Tap Revenge II will release in early February.
The rest of the email is largely a description of the disruptive aspects of the iPhone/iPod touch platform. Decrem points out that their apps work on two extremely popular Apple devices. He also points out that games is the compelling application category: “six months into the App Store, there are three times more games available on the App Store than for the Nintendo DS, five times more than for Sony PlayStation Portable - and, says BusinessWeek , Apple is on track to sell as many game-capable handsets in twelve months as Nintendo, the current market leader, has sold in its most recently reported 18 months.”
The full email:
Dear Tapulous investor,
It’s been just about a year since we created our crazy little company, six months since the launch of the App Store, and we’re kicking off a new year, so what better time to check in with all of you and provide our thoughts on the year that just passed, and 2009?
Highlights
One of our goals when we started the company was to be an early leader on a disruptive new platform. The platform has proven to be disruptive, and we are one of the leaders, arguably the leader, on the App Store:
#1 most popular game for iPhone & iPod touch for 2008
#3 most popular app overall for the US (since #2, the amazing Pandora app, is only available in the US, we have a strong feeling that Tap Tap Revenge is the #2 most popular app on the App Store worldwide, after only Facebook)
5 million unique installs on Tap Tap Revenge! (that doesn’t double-count when a user upgrades TTR)
100,000 paying customers
On December 31, we closed another financing, with most of our leading investors joining to invest another $1 million+ in the company. Not bad, in the midst of a huge economic downturn!
Tremendous buzz, including press coverage last month alone in the New York Times, BBC, Fortune, Techcrunch, Billboard, AFP, Reuters
A break-even month in December! Both advertising in Tap Tap Revenge and app sales contributed majorly, together with strong holiday sales of iPhone/iPod and iTunes gift cards
Biggest Learnings
One of the most exciting things about being one of the first on a disruptive new platform is that a new set of rules is being written, and the iPhone and iPod touch have offered no shortage of surprizing lessons!
1. It’s disruptive alright
100 million app downloads in 90 days. Holy cow. In late December, on one crazy day, we added 200,000 (!) new users to Tap Tap Revenge. When we started the company, our fundamental bet was that the iPhone was going to be different, and truly ring in the mobile decade. The first decade was about the PC revolution, the second decade was about the network, and the third decade, we believed, would be about mobile computing. It’s happening alright. The iPhone, with the new price points, is a huge hit, and the App Store has been a success beyond anyone’s dreams. When we started the company, people asked us why we didn’t focus on SMS and WAP, and some rolled their eyes when we told them our goal was to get to 1 million users in 18 months. Six months after launch, we’re at 5 million users. This technology is disruptive, and that means big new companies will be created.
2. Not just the iPhone –two hit platforms
Flying back to Southern California on Sunday after a vacation in Mexico, I looked around me on the plane and counted 6 (six!) iPhones and iPod touches in use just in the 12 seats right around me. Ever since the 3G iPhones launched, it’s started feeling like a few years back, when all of a sudden iPods were popping up everwhere. But it’s not just the iPhone that’s on fire, the iPod touch is just as important to our company. There were an awful lot of iPod touches in those stockings: we’ve heard rumors that some ad networks were seeing a million new iPod touches get activated right around Christmas day. The majority of our users are now using an iPod touch. Leave Silicon Valley (or just hang out with your younger cousins), and you’ll find a world of teenagers and consumers who weren’t ready to take the plunge on the iPhone (maybe they don’t have a phone yet, or they’re locked in multi-year contracts with their current carrier), but have now upgraded their iPods to a shiny new touch. In the process, they’ve upgraded from a great music player to a networked handheld music and gaming device.
With the iPhone and iPod touch, Apple is winning in two formerly very different spaces:
The smart phones market… really, the mobile phones market: Apple is already one of the largest phone makers in the world (#3 in revenues after only Nokia and Samsung), and hands-down the leader in smart phones and next-gen devices
The handheld gaming devices market. Who’d've thunk in July of 2007 that Apple would be rivaling Nintendo and Sony for leadership in the handheld games devices market? Well, six months into the App Store, there are three times more games available on the App Store than for the Nintendo DS, five times more than for Sony PlayStation Portable - and, says BusinessWeek , Apple is on track to sell as many game-capable handsets in twelve months as Nintendo, the current market leader, has sold in its most recently reported 18 months.
At Tapulous, we’re still getting used to that idea, and trying to shake our habits of assuming that all our users are above the legal drinking age, on an iPhone, and always online.
3. Games games games
Yes, the iPhone is great for social networking and location-based services, Facebook is the #1 app on the App Store, and you can build a nice business in any number of application categories. But if you want to get really big audiences, and tap into all those users with iPod touches, GAMES it’s where it’s at! Focus on those spare minutes people have as they wait for their friends, when they’re stuck at the airport, or between classes. 3 minutes (the length of a song) is not a bad chunk of attention to grab - as long as you can make sure users remember to come back for more later. So the “I’m looking for something while on the go with my networked, location-aware device” is still a valid use-case, and successful businesses will be built there, but the “I’m bored for a minute or two, and I may not be online” use-case is where the action is if you’re trying to build a really big audience.
4. The hybrid model works for us
We went from no revenues in September to a break-even month in December, so we wouldn’t dare predict what our mix of revenues will look like at the end of 2009, but so far, the hybrid model is working for us.
Our free game, Tap Tap Revenge, is bringing new users onto our platform at the rate of tens of thousands per day. We are able to monetize those users through non-intrusive ads and point those 5 million users to our premium games. Over 100,000 users have already upgraded to one of those premium games and we hope to entice many more in 2009. Ad-supported free apps vs paid apps? We’ll take both.
4. Breaking thru the noise: virality, buzz
With more than 10,000 apps on the App Store, it’s getting harder by the day to break through the clutter. Efforts to deploy Facebook-style viral strategies have largely failed because the platform isn’t inherently viral - only a fraction of your friends have an iPhone and Apple doesn’t create viral channels in the way Facebook and other social networks do. Things will start changing in 2009 as Facebook Connect becomes more popular, but good old fashioned word of mouth is back!
Fortunately, we’ve been able to break through the noise. It’s been a combination of getting there early (Tap Tap Revenge had a fanbase even before the App Store launched), offering a great product, listening to users, working the phones, and a healthy dose of good luck! The payoff: a good number of people who buy an iPhone or iPod touch have heard about Tap Tap Revenge, and go look for it on the App Store as one of their first apps to download, and we now have our own distribution channel in the form of millions of users on Tap Tap Revenge.
Up next: Tap Tap Revenge II, which is slated for launch in early February. TTR II will bring the innovations of Tap Tap Dance and some other great new features to the free game. We hope the launch will bring even more users into the game and deepen user engagement.
Thank you for being part of our family in 2008 - we look forward to working with you to make 2009 even more succesful!
Bart and Andrew
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Section: Audio, Home Audio, Video, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, HDTV, Trade Shows, CES
Making good use of Blu-ray, Sharp has integrated a player into the back of their new BD series HDTVs. Besides that they, like others, Sharp brought out deeper black, faster refresh rates, and more vivid colors. Besides that, they pushed further into the video, with two new Blu-ray players, and audio, with sound bars, iPod docks, and 5.1 home theaters (also with integrated Blu-ray).
Check it out!
Reuters - The U.S. Army, struggling to ensure it has enough manpower as it fights wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is wooing young Americans with video games, Google maps and simulated attacks on enemy positions from an Apache helicopter.
The Most Run-down School in Guangdong Province
On December 25, 2008, the South.cn's Guangdong Development Forum carried a series of photos of the perilous conditions at the Jiutang Elementary School in Zijin County, Heyuan City, Guangdong Province. The school was called as the "most run-down school in Guangdong province."The person who made the post also divulged: "Jiutang Elementary School has witnessed 60 years of storms under which the helpless children attempt to learn. During the rainy season, the teacher and his students lived in fear. The relevant government departments paid no attention to them. Can the young flowers of the motherland be neglected this way?" In the same post, there were also photographs of the majestic buildings of the relevant government departments in Zijin county. This was a way for expressing the anger over the long-term negligence of the problems at the Jiutang Elementary School.
This story about the bitter lives of these children was shocking. Within a few days, the photos became red-hot on the Internet.
But many Chinese people clearly do not have knowledge about the uneven development within Guangdong province. Given the "aura of the number one province in terms of the economy," many netizens were skeptical about these photos who looked like as if they belong in western China. "Can there be places that are this impoverished in Guangdong province?"
By Kim Zetter, Blogger, Wired.com, Threat Level
An 18-year-old hacker with a history of celebrity pranks has admitted to Monday’s hijacking of multiple high-profile Twitter accounts, including President-Elect Barack Obama’s, and the official feed for Fox News.
The hacker, who goes by the handle GMZ, told Threat Level on Tuesday he gained entry to Twitter’s administrative control panel by pointing an automated password-guesser at a popular user’s account. The user turned out to be a member of Twitter’s support staff, who’d chosen the weak password “happiness.”
Cracking the site was easy, because Twitter allowed an unlimited number of rapid-fire log-in attempts.
“I feel it’s another case of administrators not putting forth effort toward one of the most obvious and overused security flaws,” he wrote in an IM interview. “I’m sure they find it difficult to admit it.”
By Owen Thomas, Managing Editor, Valleywag
Freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. After hackers took down SoapBlox, a one-man blog-hosting company which runs local political websites, a silenced liberal commentariat found out how true that was.
SoapBlox grew out of Scoop, the software used on DailyKos, Markos Moulitsas’s left-of-center superblog. Paul Preston, its developer, found himself running 25 different sites–the likes of My Left Wing, Blue Hampshire, West Michigan Rising, and Swing State Project. (All politics is local!)
And yet SoapBlox remained a one-man band. So when still-unidentified hackers infiltrated SoapBlox’s servers, causing them to be taken offline, Preston despaired.
By Chris Wilson, Reporter, Slate
On April 30, 2007, with all the usual fanfare that accompanies a software update, Microsoft (MSFT) added Barack and Obama to Office’s dictionary. It was a fairly quick canonization for the Illinois senator. His surname had been on Microsoft’s candidate list for new words since Jan. 5 of that year, and his first name followed three days later, in the same recruiting class as Zune, Klum, and Friendster. Three months later, it was official—no longer would Microsoft suggest Boatman as a replacement for the future president’s last name.
Of course, by April 2007 Obama was already a figure of some renown. He’d announced his bid for the Democratic nomination in mid-January and had been an object of intense fascination since his July 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention. But escaping the shackles of Microsoft Word’s red corrugated line is no small feat, and the list of those who’ve made the cut can seem arbitrary: Why does it recognize the surnames of Matthew Broderick and Susan Sarandon but trip over DiCaprio and Blanchett?
By Dean Takahashi, Writer, VentureBeat
Digital toys and web sites for kids have had a mixed history. But the future is so full of techno-savvy kids that toy makers are finding they have no choice but to move into the digital realm by providing better online entertainment as well as digital toys in the physical world.
Mattel is going to do that by making its first full-scale appearance on the show floor of the International Consumer Electronics Show, which features a Kids@Play Summit this week in Las Vegas. Among the moves Mattel is announcing is a complete revamping of its online strategy, which will now target everyone from small kids to adults to bring out the “kid in all of us.”
Palm’s long suffering investors have apparently drunk themselves silly on Palm Pre Kool-Aid (here at ATD, we tasted it briefly and promptly spit it out). Shares of the much-diminished handset maker climbed almost seven percent to $4.45 Thursday after the company uncrated the device and Web OS, the new platform it will run on.
Wall Street seems convinced that the Pre is not a postscript for Palm (PALM), but the beginnings of its rebirth. A historic turning point worthy of a trading bacchanal. Indeed, expressing a “renewed confidence in Palm’s prospects, Standard & Poor’s raised its target price on the company to $4.50 from $2.50. “Pre uses a new operating system that allows for the merging of multiple data sources,” Standard & Poor’s analyst Todd Rosenbluth said in a research note. “While the new system has been in long-term development, we believe it could help to bring consumer and carrier interest back to PALM’s devices, which have been losing market share.”
Matt Thornton of Avian Securities agrees. “Palm came out with guns blazing,” he told RCR Wireless. “They met or exceeded expectations. This gives the company a sense of momentum and a return to confidence. Of course, the bigger question is how the device is marketed. Will it launch on time? Will AT&T Mobility and Verizon Wireless get on board? Sprint alone isn’t enough to save the day. The profitability impact at this point is unknown.”
Palm announces Palm Pre at CES 2009
Hands on with Mattel’s weird Mindflex Game
Hands on with the Paro Robot Seal: Awwwwwww!
House gets 150 LED lights, reduces power consumption by 80%
New iTouchless faucet and trash can: Wow wee woo woo!
Video: Peter Ha praises the Palm Pre on G4’s Attack of the Show
By Nicholas Carlson, Blogger, Silicon Alley Insider
When he joined the company last summer, Google CFO Patrick Pichette said he intended to “feed the winners,” and “starve the losers.” Lately, insiders have begun crediting him for bringing new discipline to Google (GOOG).
One told us that Patrick has been “taking on a lot of the low-hanging fruit” and that “it’s going to make a difference in revenues over the next year.”
But while its true that since Patrick joined, Google (GOOG) has put its first ads against products like Google Images and Google Finance, the company still has a long way to go before there will be no–pick your metaphor–”losers” or “low-hanging fruit” left.
Read the rest of this post
Order these photos from SmugMug
Wagner James Au sez, "Here's the latest CC-licensed Second Life machinima from Lainy Voom, the UK artist who's 'Dumb Man' Boing Boing blogged last year. I wrote a short post on how she did some of the cooler visual effects. The air bubbles, for example, were achieved by attaching an invisible aquarium rock to the avatar's mouth and nose."
Fall (Mini Project 3)
(Thanks, James!)
In "The Altruist," artist Laurie Munn documents her adventure in found portraiture: working from a 1965 yearbook from Emerson High in Union City, New Jersey that she found in the trash, Munn painted portraits of all 220 members of the class of 65. Then she returned to the Emerson High and tracked down the subjects of her portraits to show them the great work -- discovering the heartbreaking story of the original yearbook on the way.
It's a fabulous short feature, with humor, pathos, art and nostalgia all swirled up together in a mad project.
The Altruist by Laurie Munn
(Thanks, Marilyn!)
JD sez, "In the grand tradition of amazing edible sculpture comes this nerdy piece of jaw-dropping confectionery. It's holding a d20, and sitting on a white chocolate hoard. There's a lot of really amazing detail in this thing.
Seriously. A dragon made of cake."
Dragon cake
(Thanks, JD!)
Retro Sabotage - Super Mario Bros.
(via Neatorama)
We know that our readers are distracted and sometimes even overwhelmed by the myriad distractions that lie one click away on the Internet, but of course writers face the same glorious problem: the delirious world of information and communication and community that lurks behind your screen, one alt-tab away from your word-processor.Writing in the Age of DistractionThe single worst piece of writing advice I ever got was to stay away from the Internet because it would only waste my time and wouldn't help my writing. This advice was wrong creatively, professionally, artistically, and personally, but I know where the writer who doled it out was coming from. Every now and again, when I see a new website, game, or service, I sense the tug of an attention black hole: a time-sink that is just waiting to fill my every discretionary moment with distraction. As a co-parenting new father who writes at least a book per year, half-a-dozen columns a month, ten or more blog posts a day, plus assorted novellas and stories and speeches, I know just how short time can be and how dangerous distraction is.
But the Internet has been very good to me. It's informed my creativity and aesthetics, it's benefited me professionally and personally, and for every moment it steals, it gives back a hundred delights. I'd no sooner give it up than I'd give up fiction or any other pleasurable vice.
I think I've managed to balance things out through a few simple techniques that I've been refining for years. I still sometimes feel frazzled and info-whelmed, but that's rare. Most of the time, I'm on top of my workload and my muse
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
New site Tweetvisor, created by Nelu Lazar, offers users an alternate interface to view and interact with Twitter that some users will really like. (unlike Tweetree, for example, which I think lacks unique and compelling features).
The site places messages from other users directed to you (replies and direct messages) in the sidebar, and offers search in the middle of the screen. Users can save searches and see when new results pop up for that query.
But the compelling feature is the ability to easily administer and switch between multiple Twitter accounts. Some users control their business and personal accounts, or just handle lots of different brands. Tweetvisor is the best browser based solution we’ve seen. It just launched, so don’t be surprised if there are hiccups.
I still say Power Twitter is the best browser interface for Twitter, but if you must deal with multiple accounts, Tweetvisor is for you.
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Guess we should have gone to that Sony dinner.
Sent more or less live from CES.
We’ve been getting quite a few tips about this, and German media outlets are picking up the story like crazy, so here goes: if you were ever in the market for a German blog, now would be a good time to put your money where your mouse is. Robert Basic, famous in German-speaking countries for his blog Basic Thinking, has put the site up for sale on eBay reportedly because he wants to start from scratch again.
Basic Thinking is a technology blog which has actually been dubbed the ‘German TechCrunch’ by some; we’d be honored but we’re not sure since we haven’t been following it and our German is a little rusty. Basic is really straightforward about the incoming revenue of the blog on the auction listing: it made him about €37,000 gross from display and text link advertisements in 2008. He hasn’t been actively selling advertising on the site so he’s confident that it could bring in way more revenue, especially considering his status as the German ICT blog and that his Google PageRank could be brought back from 4 to the former 6 by simply removing the text link ads.
The visitor numbers for Basic Thinking aren’t enormous, but considering the niche and the limited (German-speaking only) scope, they’re decent enough: last month the site reportedly received 85,000 unique visitors and served 254,000 page views. The total number for 2008 was just under 2.5 million unique visitors and 3.6 million page impressions. The embedded graph shows the site’s growth since it took off in 2005 (it was actually started back in 2003 but had been on hiatus for a while).
So, what are you waiting for?
Bidding closes in about six days, the current offer on the table is just over €20,000 (Basic was hoping for something between 10k and 100k so we’re curious to see where this will end).
(Image on top courtesy of Bild)
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Who hasn't put a perfectly good fax machine on the curb? In those hasty moments of purging, you think, "I don't need this dinosaur. Who faxes anymore?" Hope it wasn't a really nice one you junked, because someday you'll wish you had it back. The facsimile isn't going anywhere.
Patented in 1843 and mainstreamed sometime between the 8-track and the CD, the technology is like a B-movie zombie that keeps lurching forward—clumsily, relentlessly—long after it should be in the ground.
Fax machines are everywhere: doctors' offices, delicatessens, brokerage firms, even souvenir shops in the developing world (for verifying tourists' credit cards).
The device's particular skill is well known: It makes a replica of a document appear in another location in seconds. When machines dropped in price in the late '80s, their closest competitor was hand delivery—not a tenable solution for people trading paper over long distances. Soon, courts gave the tech a crucial blessing by certifying that a facsimile of a signature was legally valid. By 1990, faxes were the way to take care of everything, from securing a mortgage to ordering a ham on rye.
The fax's real rival today is the PDF—essentially the same idea, but with far more complex hardware. But even with the prevalence of email, the number of people who can send and receive faxes is still increasing. According to market research firm Gartner, sales of stand-alone fax machines may have plummeted, but sales of multifunction printers—which also copy, scan, and, yes, fax—increased 340 percent from 2001 to 2007.
Although the fax function of millions of those machines is all but ignored, it can be a lifesaver in an emergency. Say you break down on some lonesome road in Pennsyltucky and call your insurance company for roadside assistance. Progressive will probably fax an authorization to the tow company—not drop Joe the Wrecker an IM. Why not just email him? They might not have his address, and he might not be able—or inclined—to open a PDF. But he almost certainly has a fax number, it's probably listed, and his machine can receive a transmission from any source—a brand-new multitasking office bot or a 25-year-old thermal-paper fountain. This universal utility is the technology's competitive edge. Faxing is easy. "It's a self-contained appliance, and that's a lesson to us as information technologists," says Ken Anderson of market research firm Burton Group. In other words, it's still the most elegant solution.
Who hasn't put a perfectly good fax machine on the curb? In those hasty moments of purging, you think, "I don't need this dinosaur. Who faxes anymore?" Hope it wasn't a really nice one you junked, because someday you'll wish you had it back. The facsimile isn't going anywhere.
Patented in 1843 and mainstreamed sometime between the 8-track and the CD, the technology is like a B-movie zombie that keeps lurching forward—clumsily, relentlessly—long after it should be in the ground.
Fax machines are everywhere: doctors' offices, delicatessens, brokerage firms, even souvenir shops in the developing world (for verifying tourists' credit cards).
The device's particular skill is well known: It makes a replica of a document appear in another location in seconds. When machines dropped in price in the late '80s, their closest competitor was hand delivery—not a tenable solution for people trading paper over long distances. Soon, courts gave the tech a crucial blessing by certifying that a facsimile of a signature was legally valid. By 1990, faxes were the way to take care of everything, from securing a mortgage to ordering a ham on rye.
The fax's real rival today is the PDF—essentially the same idea, but with far more complex hardware. But even with the prevalence of email, the number of people who can send and receive faxes is still increasing. According to market research firm Gartner, sales of stand-alone fax machines may have plummeted, but sales of multifunction printers—which also copy, scan, and, yes, fax—increased 340 percent from 2001 to 2007.
Although the fax function of millions of those machines is all but ignored, it can be a lifesaver in an emergency. Say you break down on some lonesome road in Pennsyltucky and call your insurance company for roadside assistance. Progressive will probably fax an authorization to the tow company—not drop Joe the Wrecker an IM. Why not just email him? They might not have his address, and he might not be able—or inclined—to open a PDF. But he almost certainly has a fax number, it's probably listed, and his machine can receive a transmission from any source—a brand-new multitasking office bot or a 25-year-old thermal-paper fountain. This universal utility is the technology's competitive edge. Faxing is easy. "It's a self-contained appliance, and that's a lesson to us as information technologists," says Ken Anderson of market research firm Burton Group. In other words, it's still the most elegant solution.
Radiohead, Deerhoof, Nine Inch Nails, Public Enemy, Mariah Carey—plenty of indie, hip hop, and pop artists have welcomed others to remix their songs online. Now classical music aficionados can get in on the act. Renowned cellist and 15-time Grammy winner Yo-Yo Ma is hosting an online competition, inviting listeners to add their own accompaniment to his performance of the traditional hymn "Dona Nobis Pacem," from his latest album, Songs of Joy & Peace. "Just releasing a CD is constraining to an artist," Ma says. "You know: 'I'm the product, you're the consumer'—it's no longer like that." In October, he posted his cello solo to the online site Indaba Music. Since then, scores of Indaba's 125,000 users—amateur noodlers, music teachers, and pros alike—have used the site's free Flash-based mixing board to add their own variations and countermelodies. In January, Indaba users will vote for their favorite arrangements, with the winner scoring a coveted recording session with Ma that will be featured on both Indaba and the cellist's own site. "Technology lets you share ideas," Ma says. "By sharing and learning and teaching, you expand your imagination." Not to mention your repertoire.
1643: Italian astronomer Giovanni Riccioli discovers a faint glow on the night side of the planet Venus. Other astronomers over the centuries since will also observe the Ashen Light, but one of the longest-running mysteries of astronomy still defies conclusive explanations.
Riccioli was an astronomer of some repute. Working in the first generation after Galileo, he discovered that Mizar (the middle star in the handle of the Big Dipper) is actually a double star — the first one known. He also discovered satellite shadows on Jupiter and published a map of our moon's surface. The names he assigned (e.g., Sea of Tranquility, Sea of Storms) are still used today.
The faint luminescence Riccioli saw 366 years ago has been seen many times since, by professionals and amateurs alike. It's also not been seen by many who were looking for it. Its apparent intermittence and the lack of a satisfactory explanation has led some to chalk it up to observer error, distortion caused by Earth's atmosphere and/or artifacts induced by telescope optics.
But, still: 366 years of similar observations? Those who've seen the Ashen Light of Venus report it looks a lot like the reflected "Earthshine" that sometimes casts a dull glow on the moon, but not even that bright. It's most easily sighted when the dusk edge of the sunlight on Venus faces Earth.
The U.S. Pioneer mission and the Soviet Venera 11 and 12 landers looked for it without any luck. The Keck I telescope in Hawaii did spot a faint, green glow consistent with the 558-nanometer emission of oxygen atoms. It seemed possible that UV sunlight breaks abundant carbon dioxide molecules into carbon monoxide molecules and oxygen, with the single oxygen atoms emitting green light when they recombine into two-atom oxygen molecules. However, that emission would be too weak for all the amateur telescopes to have detected over the years.
Another possibility is multiple lightning flashes. During Venus flybys in 1998 and 1999, the Cassini spacecraft failed to detect the high-frequency radio noise that lightning would be expected to generate — like AM radio static during terrestrial thunderstorms. On the other hand, "observations of Venus' ionosphere ... reveal strong, circularly polarized, electromagnetic waves with frequencies near 100 Hz [that] have the expected properties of whistler-mode signals generated by lightning discharges in Venus' clouds."
It's also possible the Ashen Light of Venus is caused by solar particles energizing the atmosphere like the terrestrial Aurorae Borealis and Australis — hence its evanescence.
Or it's some previously unknown combination of things we understand.
Or something we don't understand at all.
Source: Eastbay Astronomical Society
Last month meebo, the web-based chat startup that supports nearly every IM protocol, announced that it had added support for both MySpace and Facebook Chat. Meebo’s post on the new features was a little strange - while they explicitly thanked “the folks at MySpace who encouraged and helped us to test and gave us their support”, there was no such mention of any support from Facebook’s side (instead, thanks went out to Eion Robb, who created a Facebook Chat Plugin for Pidgin). And while it’s easy to assume that Facebook was simply unwilling to help meebo, it turns out that meebo never asked, knowing full well that any changes Facebook made later on could break what they’d built.
Tonight Meebo is announcing that they’re removing support for Facebook Chat. From the company’s post on the change:
We have been speaking to the Facebook team, and it turns out, they’d like us to connect to their network in a different way. In the interim, they asked us take Facebook off Meebo, and we said “okay.”
However, we were glad to hear that the Facebook team was genuinely excited to see their network on Meebo, especially since they already have plans to open Facebook Chat. They also committed resources from their Chat and Facebook Connect teams to do extra work with us to get Facebook Chat back on Meebo “really, really soon.”
While it’s easy to point the finger at Facebook over this (the company is known for being litigious when someone implements an unauthorized use of its services), it sounds like Meebo is at fault. CEO Seth Sternberg says that while the company did reach out to MySpace, it chose to implement the Pidgin plugin without Facebook’s consent (the plugin has been used successfully on a number of native chat clients without any complaints from Facebook, though it isn’t Facebook-approved).
However, unlike these native chat clients, meebo is based on a web site and is exposed to different security risks. Facebook believed that some of these could have directly put its users at risk, which is why it asked meebo to hold off until the two companies could work together to create a secure implementation of Facebook Chat.
Of course it’s possible that meebo is offering this explanation in the hopes of smoothing things over with Facebook and avoiding litigation or being cut off from the service altogether, but it sounds like this was just a case of buggy code.
Update: A Facebook employee comments below that there was no litigation issue and that Facebook would just like to get meebo to use Chat in a way that is fully supported (we should note that the employee’s views may not represent those of the company’s).
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No, you’re not seeing things! That’s Peter Ha (and Pop 17’s Sarah Austin) on G4’s Attack of the Show trying very hard to look excited about the Palm Pre. He does a bang-up job!
In this segment, Peter admits that he’s all but ready to ditch his iPhone 3G and BlackBerry (Bold, I think) for the Pre, which must mean that Palm will win everyone’s Best of CES 2009 award. For if Palm can pry Peter away from his precious BlackBerry then the world is its for the taking.
And look who’s lurking in the background!
But yes, if the early response is any indication I think it’s safe to say Palm will have a fruitful 2009.
MySpace, like YouTube, is holding a contest to send one MySpace user to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland later this month.
MySpace has teamed with the Wall Street Journal on the contest, which is fascinating because (I imagine) there is exactly zero overlap between the stuffy WSJ readership and the hip, chaotically cool MySpace crowd. But they are sister companies under the mammoth News Corp., so maybe they thought it was a good idea to partner up.
Anyhow, the contest will make one MySpace user a “special correspondent” to the prestigious event. The winner will be chosen by a panel of experts and given a press pass to Davos.
Details are here. You choose one question to answer and record a video with your response:
The winner receives a press pass to the event and all-expense paid access to/from Davos, Switzerland. On the other hand, he or she will also be forced to sit through a lunch with editors from the Wall Street Journal.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Want access to Facebook’ user base, which has now cracked 150 million? Then you’re going to need to play by Facebook’s rules.
Last week Mark Zuckberg’s company sued Power.com, a social network aggregator, because the company allowed Facebook users to plug into the site without actually visiting Facebook itself. Today, instant messaging aggregator Meebo is unplugging itself from Facebook.
No idea if legal threats were brought up in this case, but the parallel seems pretty clear: Facebook will offer outside sites access to its user base, but only on its own terms.
In both cases, Facebook wanted the would-be partner sites to use its recently launched Facebook Connect service. I’ve asked Facebook for comment and will add one if I get one.
Last week, Power.com founder Steve Vacahni told me that he and Facebook had “resolved” their issues, and that Facebook’s lawyers had told him the suit would be dropped shortly. But as far as I know Facebook has yet to withdraw its complaint.
Which has probably served as an effective warning for Meebo CEO Seth Sternberg, who sent out this memo to his users tonight:
Hi Meebo,
Got some bad news.
As a bunch of you already know (because you’ve been using it), we recently added Facebook Chat into Meebo.
We have been speaking to the Facebook team, and it turns out, they’d like us to connect to their network in a different way. In the interim, they asked us take Facebook off Meebo, and we said “okay.”
However, we were glad to hear that the Facebook team was genuinely excited to see their network on Meebo, especially since they already have plans to open Facebook Chat. They also committed resources from their Chat and Facebook Connect teams to do extra work with us to get Facebook Chat back on Meebo “really, really soon.”
Work began this week, so stay tuned. We expect some all nighters on both sides!
Seth
P.S. Meebo grew in December. We reached close to 45 million people, a new record, including 2.5 million via Meebo Community IM. So it’s not all bad news…
LogRhythm just joined the Payment Card Industry Security Council (PCI) with the goal of making log info more secure.
While the PCI group is focused on payment security--it was founded by American Express, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, MasterCard Worldwide, and Visa Inc.--the addition of LogRhythm will extend the focus toward making logs across all organizations more secure.
Trusty’s is a new local search engine/review database for blue collar service workers, aiming to help small businesses establish reputations while giving consumers an easy way to find the services they’re looking for. While there are a number of sites out there that allow users to rate their experiences with local services (including countless niche communities), most of them are purely user-generated, and don’t give businesses any control over their profiles.
Rather than leave all content creation to consumers, Trusty’s is taking a different approach. Each company is invited to create their own profile, where they can list their contact information, credentials, and other information that is effectively forms an online resume. Users can visit these profiles and leave ratings and comments that business aren’t able to edit without contacting Trusty’s (as they would in the case of profanity or obviously misleading reviews).
The site also sports an impressive search engine that extends beyond basic keyword matching. Each service provider is broken into a general catagories, and can include specialties (which are essentially search-friendly tags). This segmentation makes it easier to browse the site’s growing database, which currently has over 2000 service providers.
One potential issue with the site is that users are unable to create profiles for companies not yet in the database, which could frustrate users eager to report an especially bad or good experience (they can however send an Email to a company and recommend that it join). Founder Kit Cody says that the site isn’t necessarily trying to become a comprehensive database of all service providers, but is instead trying to become a directory for the best ones looking to build up a positive reputation in the local community.
Trusty’s will face off against quite a few competitors, including leading sites like Angieslist and smaller startups like Workstir, which launched in November. As with other sites in this space, it will face the classic chicken-and-the-egg problem: until it has some reviews, it will have a hard to attracting new users to write reviews.
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Hungry for some Slacker streaming radio on your iPhone? The BlackBerry app just became available earlier today, and it looks like they’re already prepped to go live on Apple’s finest. We ran into a Slacker rep tonight at the ShowStoppers CES event, said some magic words, and were presented with Slacker for iPhone in all of its glory - and we’ve got the screenshots to prove it.
According to rep, the iPhone Slacker app could be on the App Store “as soon as tomorrow”. As we’re now quite accustomed to hearing, the ball is essentially in Apple’s court; once they give it the greenlight, it’ll go live. It won’t feature the battery-saving song caching that the BlackBerry app has claimed as an exclusive, but it’ll have at least one feature temporarily: “Fine tuning”. Once you’ve got your streams set up, you can tell the application to adjust the stream based off of your favorites, the song’s popularity, and how recently the song was released
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Hungry for some Slacker streaming radio on your iPhone? The BlackBerry app just became available earlier today, and it looks like they’re already prepped to go live on Apple’s finest. We ran into a Slacker rep tonight at the ShowStoppers CES event, said some magic words, and were presented with Slacker for iPhone in all of its glory - and we’ve got the screenshots to prove it.
Hungry for some Slacker streaming radio on your iPhone? The BlackBerry app just became available earlier today, and it looks like they’re already prepped to go live on Apple’s finest. We ran into a Slacker rep tonight at the ShowStoppers CES event, said some magic words, and were presented with Slacker for iPhone in all of its glory - and we’ve got the screenshots to prove it.
Hungry for some Slacker streaming radio on your iPhone? The BlackBerry app just became available earlier today, and it looks like they’re already prepped to go live on Apple’s finest. We ran into a Slacker rep tonight at the ShowStoppers CES event, said some magic words, and were presented with Slacker for iPhone in all of its glory - and we’ve got the screenshots to prove it.
According to the rep, the iPhone Slacker app could be on the App Store “as soon as tomorrow” - which could just as well mean months from now. As we’re now quite accustomed to hearing, the ball is essentially in Apple’s court; once they give it the greenlight, it’ll go live. It won’t feature the battery-saving song caching that the BlackBerry app has claimed as an exclusive, but it’ll have at least one feature exclusive temporarily: “Fine tuning”. Once you’ve got your streams set up, you can tell the application to adjust the stream based off of your favorites, the song’s popularity, and how recently the song was released
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Anybots new robot, the QA can be controlled remotely over Wi-Fi and 3G. So you can use the robot as an interface to communicate with people. Sometimes I have to run to the shop and I don’t want to go near humans. The QA could almost do the trick but unfortunately - since it has no hands - it’s hard to shoplift with it. Being lighter then it’s predecessor, it can speed up to 6 MPH.
Click here for the website.
[Via Sam's blog]
LAS VEGAS -- Multi-Star International, famous for its netbooks, is showcasing a new family of all-in-one desktops at the Consumer Electronics Show. Of the product line, the Wind NetOn AE2208 (above) is the top-of-the-line system -- and boy is it ugly.
The specifications are as follows:
The AE2208 starts at $800 and is expected to ship second quarter of 2009, according to MSI.
In terms of specifications, it sounds like a pretty decent system that offers a cheap alternative to the iMac. But boy does MSI lose in the looks department. Computers shouldn't have nipples.
See Also:
Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
(Flash embed above, downloadable MP4 version here.)
In today's installment of Boing Boing Gadgets' video coverage from CES 2009 in Las Vegas:
* Rob Beschizza reports from the Sony press conference. Sony Electronics president and COO Stan Glasgow unveiled new OLED and LCD TVs, "Webbie" social networking video cameras, and the P series "lifestyle devices." Rob got a hands-on demo of these 1.4 pound laptops, which retail for $900 and allow you to connect via WiFi, Bluetooth, or Verizon cellular broadband.
* Joel harasses people waiting in line for the Ballmer keynote. What do people want from Microsoft? Verdict: most folks at the front of the line seemed most excited about their imminent proximity to His Ballmerhood. Many were in line with hopes of gleaning more info on Windows 7 features and release date, and one guy just wanted to see Ballmer "dance around and sweat and yell." Another dude wanted to hear Microsoft admit, at long last, that Bill Gates is a Communist.
* Xeni, Rob, and Joel huddle on the floor and fight over whose mobile phone is dumber, and who is more of a shameless fanboy/girl of which manufacturer.
* Xeni points out badly designed CES signage which might lead one to believe that attendees go about bashing babies in strollers.
* Joel is not amused that one of his colleagues tweeted he'd be wandering around the convention dressed in a fursuit. People are talking.
Join the discussion for this episode over at Boing Boing Gadgets.
Previously: Boing Boing Gadgets at CES: Video Report, Day One
Sponsor shout-out: Boing Boing Video coverage of CES 2009 is sponsored by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is intended to be a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "could influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."
Special thanks to Q-Burns Abstract Message for the background tracks in our CES episodes! Today: remixes of songs he produced with the lovely Lisa Shaw.
A blast from your 28.8 past.
LAS VEGAS -- Femtocells, or small cellular base stations designed to boost cellphone signals, are seen as the next big thing in wireless.
At CES 2009 Motorola showed off femtocells packaged in a digital picture-frame like exterior in a bid to make it easier for consumers to hop on to the trend.
The CDMA femtocell 9100 Series includes a VoIP soft phone and offers enhanced phone coverage inside the home. Touching the screen activates the femtocell.
Through the screen, users can specify coverage radius, average number of walls, windows, doors, or select one or more mobile devices to optimize performance, says Motorola. Device, subscriber management and access control settings can also be handled through the femtocell frame.
Motorola will start trials of the femtocell frame in the first half of the year and hopes to have it available by the end of the year. The company hasn't finalized any deals with carriers yet but T-Mobile or Verizon could be possible service providers for the device.
In Europe, femtocells are available for about ten-euros a month. Motorola hopes to ink deals that will bring similar pricing to North America.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
LAS VEGAS --
Asus isn't having a hard time distinguishing its netbooks from the rest of the herd. The company's latest mini notebook features a swivel touchscreen.
The touchscreen netbook, powered by the standard 1.6GHz Atom processor, will be available in two different screen sizes: 8.9 inches and 10 inches.
Asus will also implement a new touchscreen software interface called 3Doorway. The company is still developing the software, so not many details are available, but in a nutshell you can swipe back and forth between three menus. Each menu displays an intuitive collection of apps as large icons that you can tap easily.
Pretty neat stuff: Creating a new software interface is way smarter than simply slapping a touchscreen on a computer.
The 8.9-inch model, the Eee PC T91, is shipping March. The 10-inch model, the EeePC T101H, is shipping June. Price details are not yet available, but expect somewhere around $600.
Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
There was a glow on the face of every Palm employee we saw today, and deservedly so: the new Palm Pre is a hail mary product. It's probably going to save the company.
And it is, in many ways, better than the iPhone.
Brownlee and I got a little guided tour of a Pre by a beaming executive this evening. (We filmed it; Xeni, Derek, and Wes from the Boing Boing video team are working on it as I write.) But I'm so excited about the product that I wanted to share my enthusiasm before I forgot all the details about why I am so into it in the first place.
• It feels small and pleasant in the hand. Much smaller than the iPhone, but inexplicably the screen seems big enough. Part of that is the lovely interface that Palm has created that echos a little bit of the old Palm OS in font choice and such, but feels wholly new.
It's a little bit longer than a Treo when the keyboard is extended, but the curving bit makes it seem a nice size.
• It runs Linux. SQLlite is the built-in database. Developers will have to use "web technologies" to make most of the apps, but it sounds like there may still be ways to use closer-to-the-metal languages.
• The animations and interface are gorgeous. They are in many ways busier than the iPhone's animations, and clearly largely cribbed from the bouncy, lively way the iPhone OS moves around, but they look really nice when switching from app to app.
• It has the coolest menu bar I've ever seen. The touchpad actually extends about half an inch below the screen, and to bring up the ever-present menu bar, you push up from below to smoosh it onto the screen, where it rests under your thumb like a Gummi worm. It looks really great and really useful. It is the first clear "impress your friends" feature.
• Integration with Facebook and Gmail looks top notch. Here's the part that got me: if you choose to, you can make your contacts list pull live from Facebook, including their selected profile picture, which means every time your friends call you their image will be their latest Facebook profile picture. Not a huge deal, of course, but a wonderful touch.
• There will be an official app store, but you can still load other apps. Probably. Palm isn't quite sure how syncing with a PC will work, but it sounds like you'll be able to load apps from a variety of sources as well as buying them over-the-air from the Palm application store.
• It's got multitouch, Apple patents be damned. We asked if they were afraid of Apple's claimed protectionist patents for multitouch. They would only respond with a confident smile.
What a pleasing thing it is to see a company that had been all but counted out of the smartphone game come storming back into what I suspect will be the lead.
Update: Oh, one more thing: It has system-wide cut-and-paste.
If you’re a news junkie and you’re on Twitter, there’s a good chance that you’re following @BreakingNewsOn, an account that often actually breaks news before any other media organization does, ranging from political news to natural disasters and other noteworthy events from across the globe.
As one of the 16400 followers of the account, I caught an announcement last week about the impending launch of BNO News, an extension of the news service to a separate website and a Pledgie entry where people can donate in order to contribute to the launch. I was intrigued and got in touch with founder Michael van Poppel, who set up the account back in May 2007 when he first found out about Twitter and the potential of releasing short news announcements quickly to people opting into it.
How Osama Bin Laden jumpstarted the service
In September 2007, van Poppel got hold of an unpublished videotape of Osama bin Laden, which he consequently sold to Reuters. It was then that he realized that he was sitting on something potentially valuable, and started thinking about organizing and structuring the whole process around the Twitter account. Over the past few months, BreakingNewsOn grew into a service that provides 24/7 news updates from around the world, often before any mainstream media reports on the same events, and providing more context with relevant text messages and links about the topic right after posting the actual breaking news.
Van Poppel says many news organizations claim to be leaders in breaking news but rarely live up to those claims because the information is often already “out there” for some time. He won’t go into detail about the specifics of his newsgathering operation, but says they use pretty much the same official sources as any news agency but with a much more efficient, unique processing system in combination with an extensive monitoring platform that digs up fresh news items almost as they happen. If you’re interested, read about how BreakingNewsOn beat a 911 call once in reporting a bus crash in the Bronx.
Moving away from Twitter
The reason BreakingNewsOn is moving away from Twitter in favor of a separate website with live updates from news events from across the globe, is as simple as it is obvious: the free service could never be monetized the way Twitter works right now. BNO News will have separate RSS feeds and e-mail alerts. It intends to also process user-submitted news items in true citizen journalism fashion and is thinking of adding some features especially designed to cater to professional journalists and raw news junkies.
The team has every intention of keeping the service free to users, and is keen on keeping the Twitter account pumping out news updates the way it is now, although I expect them to tone it down a little if the site gets any traction.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
The gear these Austrian ladies are selling is pretty cool. It’s a bunch of straps and bags for all your gadgets that wrap around your body like a bandoleer. But what are they called? I’m glad you asked.
That’s right. URBAN TOOL. It’s such a great phrase. Peter Ha, for example, is an URBAN TOOL, especially if you take out the URBAN part.
Here is BoomTown’s first video from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which kicked off last night with a keynote speech by Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer.
So far, it’s been a definitely thinner crowd, a reflection of the weaker economy, with more taxis in line than lines for taxis.
But CES is still a reliably noisy, often pointless, gadget cavalcade–with introduction of a new smartphone from Palm (PALM), called Pre, as the highlight so far.
Here’s some chit-chatting with attendees and looking at some products, including a guy who looks like a member of ZZ Top, showing off a new music device from Disney (DIS):
Generating digital content for the media you already own is a frustrating experience.
Whether it's buying up a single online you couldn't get out of an old vinyl, or getting a digital version of a favorite book to read on your iPhone, it always takes just a little too long for a little too much money.
This is why plenty of people turn to pirated content and gadgets like the Book Reader V100, which his being shown at CES 2009 this year. Plustek's $700 Reader scans books through a cool optical character recognition tech that understands words even when they’re faded or smudged on the physical page. It can duplicate books in PDF and various other file types.
But the killer app, and one whose ease of use is probably a bit controversial, is that the scan also automatically creates MP3 files of books. This means you can make an audio file of any book you own in only a few steps. This might not be Audible.com's worst nightmare, if only because of the nice presentation of celebrity voice-overs of most audio books, but there's no way they'd like their customers to know about it.
According to the company, setting up the book scan is simple – you just place the book on the base and the machine does the rest. (The sensitive curved lamp scan every word, even in the crack of the book's spine).
We haven’t tried out the natural voice synthesis when the file reads the book back to you, but we can't wait to try it. As long as it doesn't crank up the high notes or sound like a robot, it could be a good gadget if the price goes down significantly.
Check out a video of the previous version of the scanner after the jump.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
This ittty bitty DV camera could be used where photography is not permitted by authorities. It's $147.00.
# The Tiny DV Camera Recorder
# Thumb size alloy housing
# Manually and sound activated recording
# Web camera for online video chat
# Support AVI video format
# Low illumination, high resolution image with 2000K pixels
# High speed recording and quick light response
# 30 frames per second for 640*480 video output
# Built-in Li rechargeable battery lasting for 2 hours
# Provide 2G Micro SD card and Support up to 8G memory card
# Easy operation with LED indicator
# Support USB 2.0
# Flexible installation with clip and bracket
# Support JPEG picture format
It's like watching an iPod movie through the filter of a thousand migraines!
Green is the new black and Motorola is ready to ride that fashion trend. The company's new candy bar shaped W233 Renew handset is pretty basic but has solid green credentials.
The casing on the phone is made of plastic from recycled water bottles. The device's smaller form factor takes 20 percent less energy to create compared to many other phones, says the company and it even comes with an envelope to send in your old phone for recycling.
The W233 Renew has 2GB memory and offers a whopping nine hours of talk time. But if you are looking for features, you are in the wrong lawn. The phone has a music player but no camera or internet browsing capability.
While a good first step in the trend towards greener devices, this lightweight phone will make the grass seem greener on the other side for its buyers.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
The CES posts have been coming out like machine gun bullets at CrunchGear, so much so that even we can’t keep track of them. But that doesn’t mean you should miss the highlights, hands-ons, and sneak peeks that have been going on all day here in Vegas on the first day on the show floor. Here are a few noteworthy posts from today.
We got hands-on with:
There’s lots more to come. We’ve got a lot of great interviews lined up or processing. You can always visit the CES 2009 tag if you’re curious (and we know you are). And if you’re in the area, stop by Casino Royale later tonight and have a drink.
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LAS VEGAS -- It was probably the lack of any exciting new products from the Sony stable that the keynote address by company Chairman and CEO Howard Stringer was high on the celeb quotient and low on new product news.
At CES, Stringer paraded a list of stars including Tom Hanks, Usher, Oprah's favorite doctor Mehmet Oz (better known as Dr. Oz on TV), the Yankees baseball hall-of-famer Reggie Jackson and Hollywood power executives, John Lasseter, chief creative officer of Disney and Pixar and Jeffery Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks.
Hanks and Stringer kicked off the keynote with banter about some of the prototype products that Sony is working on. This includes new eyeglasses that would allow the wearer to watch a movie on their glass and see their surroundings at the same time.
Sony didn't offer any details on when early products based on the prototype will be available. But if successful in bringing it to market, the company would have eliminated the biggest problem in wrap-around personal movie viewer-glasses: claustrophobia.
Glasses from companies such as Myvu and Vuzix are not popular among most consumers because they completely cut off peripheral vision and awareness of the surroundings.
With its new glasses, Sony hopes to eliminate that problem and make it more acceptable to users.
Sony also showed a prototype of a flexible display screen. The organic TFT OLED called Flex can be squeezed and manipulated even as it displays on-screen video.
On Wednesday, the company announced a new mini-notebook called the Vaio Lifestyle PC. The size of a small business envelope, it sports a eight-inch LCD screen.
At CES, Sony is also showing a prototype of its sugar-based bio battery that generates electricty based on the breakdown of carbohydrates and GreenHeart concept phone that has a recycled plastic keypad and greener packaging among other things.
LAS VEGAS -- A jungle of cables dangling from the back of a television detracts from the beauty of any home entertainment system. That's why some manufacturers are making some of their premium TV sets wirelessly interact with other entertainment devices.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Panasonic and LG both showcased flat-panel, high-definition TVs bundled with wireless systems.
Both companies' wireless systems appear very similar. Panasonic's TC-P54Z1 television is sold with a SCZT1 wireless receiver box. You'd connect devices such as your Blu-Ray Player or Xbox 360 to the receiver, and on top of the receiver is a transmitter that wirelessly outputs to another receiver on the TV.
LG's 47LH85 wireless system (above) works the same way. And both companies say their wireless systems transfer perfectly uncompressed data up to 30 feet away from the TV.
Neither company provided a price estimate, but since these are 47 to 55-inch TVs we're talking about, I'd guess somewhere around $3,000.
Panasonic said its wireless home entertainment system is shipping June or July. LG did not have a ship date but said sometime 2009.
Photos: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
LAS VEGAS -- Canon is saving any new still cameras it might have for the PMA show, but here at CES 2009, the company is showing its new range of Vixia camcorders. They range is capabilities and price, but the best is the HF S10. This has a large (but not as large as Samsung's 64GB) 32GB of solid state storage, or you can opt for an SDHC card instead.
All the new cameras have Canon's new DIGIC DV III chip, which is a step up from the – you guessed it – DIGIC DV II. This brings the magic of side-of-face recognition, as you might call it. Canon employs some magic to get the camera to detect faces even if they're side-on or facing down.
The CMOS sensors don't just do HD video, either. All cameras in the range will snap stills at a respectable 8 megapixels. Prices and availability unknown.
Product page [Canon]
On Fox Business News today, Walt previews some of the latest gadgets at CES, including 3-D glasses, secure hard drives, and Netbooks.
Be sure to check out tonight’s airing of Attack of the Show on G4 TV because CrunchGear will be featured around 8:20 PM ET to talk about what’s going on at CES this year. Tune in!
LAS VEGAS -- Sony has invented the webcam. Or at least, it has put the web into a cam. At CES 2009, the company debuted Cybershot DSC-G3, the first camera to have built in 802.11 (b,g) Wi-Fi along with a web browser.
As a camera, it's no slouch. Ten megapixels, a 10x zoom, a hi-res 921,600-dot 3.5 inch touchscreen and smile detection. There is a decent 4GB memory built in, but if you want more you will of course have to buy a Sony Memory Stick.
Of course, the Wi-Fi is the interesting point here. You can hook up to any Wi-Fi point and using the browser you can also sign in to hotspots. From there, you can upload directly to Photobucket, YouTube, DailyMotion, Picasa and Shutterfly but, oddly, not Flickr.
The real gimmick, though, is the browser, and it is terrible. Buttons disappear half off the screen in forms, html links are tiny and hard to click (hence the plastic stylus on the end of the strap) and if you think you'll be browsing your online photo collection you're dead wrong. This is strictly html only, Web 1.0. No Flash, no Javascript.
You're never going to have an iPhone-like experience here (except for the parity in the lack of Flash). In fact, its hard to see why Sony bother putting it in. In fact, if you need the uploading functions, just grab an Eye-Fi card instead.
Priced at $500, you can buy it now only at SonyStyle, coming to stores soon.
Product page [SonyStyle]
LAS VEGAS -- With its new Palm Pre phone announced earlier today, troubled phone maker Palm has clearly put itself back into the game.
The spotlight is clearly on the slick hardware but Palm is betting its secret sauce, its newly created operating system, WebOS, will give the Pre an edge over competitors.
"We created a new platform from the ground up," said Ed Colligan, CEO of Palm at CES 2009. "It is going to redefine the center of your access point to the Internet."
A key feature of WebOS is the Palm Synergy, which brings different information from calendars, contacts and instant messaging applications into a single screen.
WebOS links contacts together so if the same contact is listed in Outlook, Google and Facebook accounts, it recognizes that they are the same person and links them together into one listing.
There's also combined messaging, which allows you to see who's active in a buddy list and start a conversation with just one touch, instead of having to fire up the IM application seperately.
The OS treats every application as a "card", a new term that Palm has introduced with the Pre. Cards or individual applications are stacked up like a deck on the main screen and can be scrolled through.
WebOS also comes with global search-- any search string typed on the phone searches through contacts, applications and other information repositories on the device. The OS also offers to search the Internet, all in a seamless way.
While Palm has said the WebOS is developer friendly, it hasn't commented about how applications written for WebOS will be compatible with Palm OS 5.
We heard about Psyko a few days ago, and they won accolades for innovation, producing a pair of surround-sound headphones that’s using a totally different kind of technology. Essentially the sound is produced in five separate drivers above your head, then guided down pipes to your ears. They’re untraditional in every way, and I just wish I could have tried them out in a quiet room instead of the infernal racket that is the CES show floor.
Let’s be honest, now: these are some weird-looking headphones. And a test configuration I tried with bigger plushy headpads looked even more so. But first of all, who really cares? You’re not wearing these to the ball, Cinderella. And second, they felt incredibly light and comfortable. Like, you won’t believe how light they are. I’ve been reviewing a really nice but quite heavy pair of Ultrasones for a while, and this is a breath of fresh air. Speaking of which, the ear bits are vented — the mechanism is a bit budget (I don’t think you can take the flap off completely), but while we’re being honest we can talk about how our ears get all sweaty.
I’ll definitely be getting a pair of these to review in case you’re skeptical, so I can give you the whole story.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The ZvBox is a promising little CE device that streams HD content over widely available coax cable. Unfortunately, the first version did work so well but Vic Odryna, CEO and overall nice guy, promises brighter roads ahead thanks to an update and the new commercial unit.
The original ZvBox was one of the most buggy devices I have ever used but Vic said they have listened to all the negative reviews (including mine) and improved nearly everything. Mouse lag times have been improved, computer support increase, and the software updated which hopefully improves the experience.
The new commercial unit is aimed at custom installers and commercial applications. This rack mountable version comes equipped with component video and digital audio jacks for even more support. Pricing will be set at $2500 when it becomes available which clearly shows this isn’t for the everyday geek.
Unfortunately, the company is sticking with its VGA hijacking for the video input and not offering an independent networking version which means that a dedicated computer will still probably be required. The ZvBox interface is solid and it would be a great platform for a set-top box that doesn’t directly rely on a computer for content.
Hopefully the updates help out cause this box would be a killer system if it works well. I, for one, want it to work well.
Ahoy, space ninjas! We present to you the iTouchless Trashcan SX, a space saving version of my favorite trash can in the world. This model has a lid that folds in on itself instead of flipping up, ensuring you don’t get your hand smacked by the trash can lid.
They also have a new touchless faucet that turns on when you wave your hand under it, just like at the airport. I love this iTouchless stuff - we have two cans we bought at Costco right now - and it’s great that the coolest thing I’ve seen so far is a mechanical trash can.
Seeing as everyone in the blogging world is scrambling to get up a Hands-on article on the Palm Pre, I’ll go ahead and say this now: if anyone claims to have gotten a true hands-on, they’re probably lying. We just got back from a post-announcement, closed doors Palm event where a handful of Pres were being demonstrated. While we could touch the phones, we couldn’t actually hold the phone, making it kinda tough to get a real sense of the phone’s weight and feel. Regardless, I still want one. Boy oh boy, do I want one. Read on for experiences. (Video is on the editing rack, by the way - we’ll have it up ASAP.)
The OS:
It’s straight up gorgeous, but it’s not perfect - yet. During our demonstration, a few things went on the fritz: there was a bit of lag, certain menus wouldn’t open no matter how many times they were poked. With Palm only promising “by the end of the first half of 2009″, they’ve still got nearly a full 6 months to crack out the bugs, so we won’t judge them too much.
At the very bottom of the screen is a notifications bar, similar to that found on Android. Icons light up when a new e-mail or IM comes in - touch the area, and the notifications menu opens to tell you what’s going on. To clear the notification, you simply swipe it off the screen
The “Cards” window management system is fantastic - it reminds me of alt-tabbing on a full blown desktop OS, with the added ability of being able to gesture swipe programs upward to close them.
All demonstrated gestures (single and multi-touch) appeared to work well. A small glow appears on screen beneath your fingers when doing multi-touch gestures - I’m not quite sure what the point is, but it’s a nice visual.
The quick launch bar, which is activated by dragging your finger upwards from below the screen, is great. Drag up, highlight any of the 5 applications you’ve got tucked away in there, release - the application launches.
The Hardware:
Like I said earlier, getting a true feeling for the overall hardware was difficult, as we weren’t allowed to actually hold the thing.
The speaker on the back was loud enough that we could hear a demo tune playing over the murmur of the event’s schmooze-and-boozers.
Our impressions of the keyboard are a bit tainted by the fact that our hands were awkwardly nestled at the bottom in a rather unnatural way, as our demo rep couldn’t take her hands off it. Regardless, it felt as nice to use as any Palm devices we’ve used previously, with keys slightly bigger than those on the Centro. As with any bite-sized keyboard, the keys could still be bigger.
When slid open, the back of the display serves as a mirror for self portraits.
The IM app:
Think threaded SMS - now throw in a bunch of other protocols into the same thread. Input your contact’s screen names into the address book, and webOS will automatically tie together all messages from each individual into one simple thread. For example, if you’re talking to someone by SMS and then switch to Google Talk, the Google Talk IMs are automatically incorporated into the same chat screen as the SMS.
Search:
Similar to the one-click search found on the Helio Ocean - from the main screen, you can start typing for a search term at any time. webOS will give search priority to local System/Apps and contacts, but it can also launch directly into an search engine (Google, Maps, Wikipedia).
Browser:
Demonstrated for us over WiFi, as the double-hitter of ultra-thick walls of the Las Vegas Convention Center and a hundred thousand people all carrying cell phones doesn’t work out well for a EVDO Rev. A demonstration. Browser seemed zippy - pinch/pull zooming worked well, and double tapping on any area auto-zoomed to the proper level for viewing.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
TiltShiftMaker.com gives your photos that delightful tilt-shift look. (Above: From an original photo by Daveness_98)
Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.(Thanks, Bevin!)Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com.
As uninviting as this thing is, I had to snap a shot and upload it. Joel has always had this idea of a work-cocoon in which he is surrounded by displays that keep him apprised of everything happening on the Internet. In this respect Joel is like the evil Mason Verger from Hannibal, but instead of having a grossly disfigured face, he has grossly disfigured hair.
Behold multidisplay, the platonic form of brilliant but arguably pointless technology. "It might help you with spreadsheets."
I want a Smart car. But I'm not sure I want this one!As soon as you walk into CES' central hall, Intel's treasure trove of wee handheld computers presents itself. After half an hour playing with them, I've changed my mind about something. Mobile Internet Devices aren't just another echo of the HPCs and UMPCs of years gone by. They're aaaalmost there, especially those fitted out with well-designed keyboards--and assuming you have a purpose in mind for buying one.
Best of the bunch is OQO's Model 2+, an update of 2007's respected but fiddly pocket rocket. Replacing the last-gen model's VIA chipset with an Intel Atom, it's fast, genuinely small enough to slip into a pair of jeans. It runs Vista on an 800x480 display and has a thumb-board about as good as thumbboard's get, and is otherwise the incremental upgrade its unadventurous name suggests.
Several devices dialed back the specs (and the size), opting for stripped-down linux-based user interfaces and an even lighter weight: fans of Nokia's Internet Tablet series will like these. Typical of them is the Compal Jax 10, which has 512 MB of RAM, an 8GB solid state drive and a 480-line display. Though it lacks the horsepower and utility of the OQO or a netbook--you can browse the web and play media and not really much else--it's got great connectivity options, up to an including all the standard 3G options and WiMax.
I finally got my hands on a Panasonic Toughbook, in this case a U1 with a Z500 series Atom CPU.
It runs XP, has a gig or RAM and a 32GB SSD, WiFi, Bluetooth, a 5.6-inch display with 600 lines, and optional GPS and 3G internet. Most striking about it, though, is the fact that it is bad-ass. Armored, with every port protected by a thick plastic clasp, it has a hard-to-learn thumb-board and a stylus touchscreen. The design's not too hot--its more "pipeline worker" than "special forces," but it's hard to imagine breaking it without trying. They're damned expensive too: some configs take it past two grand.
The surprise, for me, however, was the UMID. Similar to other MIDS, with a gig or ram, 16GB SSD and 3G/WiMax connection options, its clamshell form factor allows for a much better keyboard than any of the other machines on display. Though too small to touch-type, the keys are big and relatively well-spaced -- great for my stubby thumbs to hammer at. As is invariably the case, the layout is odd, with some bad choices (you have to use a function key to access the apostrophe, for example) but it's a neat little Qwerty device that would be great for mobile text editing and messaging. Mobile bloggers will be disappointed by the lack of a camera.
It's basically a more open iPhone with a new OS — how new is yet to be determined — a new interface, and a physical QWERTY slide-out keyboard. This is their Hail Mary — and at first glance it looks like it just might work.
At a press conference hosted this morning on the 26th floor of the Palms Pleasure Tower, over omelettes as fluffy, golden and delectable as the lanugo pudendums of virgin angels, Dell announced the newest extension to its laptop line: the Studio XPS 13 and 16.
Featuring an attractive design of anodized aluminum accenting the gloss of Obsidian Black, as well as an attractive leather strip on the spine, the new Studio XPS laptops are meant to appeal to design-minded multimedia enthusiasts and artists.
The flagships XPS is the 16, which features a 16-inch WLED display with an optional RGB LED Full HD 1080p display, with an 8 millisecond response time and a 130 degree viewing angle. It also features an Intel Centrino 2 processor, a 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3670 graphics and 7-watt Dolby 5.1 audio.
The XPS 13, on the other hand, is the road warrior model, a 13.3 incher with an Intel Core 2 Duo starting at 2.26GHz, 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and optional NVIDIA hybrid SLI technology allowing users to switch dynamically between power saving and graphics modes.
Both Studio XPS laptops are available for order now from Dell's website. Both laptops start at $1,199.00.
Studio XPS [Dell]
Seems the boys of Woot want a little blog tussle, seeing how they called us out over coffee and EVDO driver downloads outside of the Las Vegas Convention Center this morning.
Their challenge? Find the most flagrant display of extravagance at CES this year; the most inappropriately luxurious or wasteful image of gaudy consumerism wins. We'll put up our entries this evening on Woot and BBG and then — after listening to your measured commentary — declare ourselves the winner.
Take that, old media!
At a press announcement today at CES, Palm announced a brand spankin’ new handset: the Palm Pre. Running the much-gossiped new Palm WebOS (Not known as “Nova” afterall) and sporting a QWERTY slide-out keyboard below a 3.1″ touchscreen, this might just be enough to get Palm out of their slump.
Here’s what we know so far:
At the bottom of the touchscreen is a designated “Gesture area”, where much of the navigation and app control is handled by simple finger flicks.
Word from the press room is that the new handset, and the new WebOS in general, looks like a winner. As Peter put it during the liveblog, “This is like watching a small, old, stinky dog beat a bigger dog. Finally, Palm, finally.”
Check out the liveblog for dozens more pics of the Pre in action (via PowerPoint).
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Looks like Slacker isn’t the only one using CES to push their mobile radio goods. FlyCast has long been available on the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms, taking a slightly more traditional approach to mobile radio; unlike Pandora and Slacker, FlyCast’s radio stations are all preprogrammed streams, though songs can be skipped at the user’s leisure on about 1/4 of the stations. This morning, they’ve announced that Android compatibility is one the way. It’s still “coming soon” - but G1 owners, keep an eye out.
FlyCast Piles On New Platform Enhancements
Leading Mobile Broadcast Network Adds Desktop Widget, Android Support, More
CES SHOW, LAS VEGAS, NV – January 8, 2009 – FlyCast announced a number of new enhancements to its industry-leading mobile broadcast network today, including a move to the desktop with its new player widget for PCs and Macs. Other announcements include support for the T-Mobile G1and other upcoming Google Android-based devices, a new “What’s On Now” program guide feature, a Facebook interface, a partnership with AccuWeather.com and support for AAC+ and Windows Media streams.
“2009 will be a year of transition for broadcasting, as hundreds of millions of new ’smart devices’ hit the streets, with incredible media consumption capabilities,” noted FlyCast CEO Sam Abadir. “FlyCast continues to lead the way in offering broadcasters and webcasters innovative platform capabilities to take full advantage of these new and compelling distribution opportunities.”
The Desktop Player Widget
Beginning immediately, listeners can download a standalone desktop player that mirrors exactly the FlyCast mobile experience, with 1000 traditional stations plus 300 ‘personalized’ stations with unlimited song skipping available. Dedicated versions of the player will also be available for the company’s popular webcast partners, including AccuRadio, 1.FM, 977 Music, 1Club.FM and radioIO. These widgets can be downloaded free from the company’s website at www.flycast.fm. Based on Adobe Air technology, FlyCast’s widgets work on Mac or PC platforms.
Android/G1 Support
In addition to supporting the popular iPhone, iPod Touch and the BlackBerry Storm, Bold and Curve, FlyCast now offers a version for the latest entrant into the powerful smart phone category – the Google Android-based T-Mobile G1. According to industry reports, dozens of new Android-based devices are in development and set for release in 2009.
A New Program Guide Plus Song-Skipping and StreamShift™ Enhancements
FlyCast listeners will now be able to instantly select their favorite broadcast program to listen to from the company’s new ‘What’s On Now” feature. FlyCast broadcast partners, including companies like Entercom, FOX News, Sandusky and Cromwell Radio Groups, with 100s of terrestrial stations, stream many of the most popular shows in the U.S, including programs hosted by Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingram, Sean Hannity and those featuring a number of popular sports show hosts, including Jim Rome, Mike & Mike in the Morning, The Herd with Colin Cowherd, and Tirico & Van Pelt. Listeners will be able to instantly tune into broadcasts as they air from the ‘What’s On Now’ guide component. And with FlyCast’s StreamShiftTM feature, listeners will be able to tune in to the broadcast at any point, ensuring that they do not miss any part of their favorite shows. Additionally, over 300 stations have been enhanced with unlimited song-skipping functionality.
Facebook Support
FlyCast has added support for Facebook Connect and Facebook feeds. Facebook Connect allows users to use their Facebook login for FlyCast, eliminating the need for a new user name and password. Facebook feeds will optionally allow users to post their listening interests to their Facebook profile automatically. Posts can include songs, stations and artists that the user is currently listening to. Listeners will be able to ‘Thumbs Up’ and ‘Thumbs Down” what they’re listening to, for the benefit of their Facebook friends.
AccuWeather.com
FlyCast has partnered with AccuWeather.com, The World’s Weather Authority to provide its audience with instant weather forecasts and updates. When a user selects a city within Flycast, they are presented with one-click access to AccuWeather’s local forecast information, including current conditions with sky conditions, high and low temperatures, patented RealFeel® temperature and three-day forecasts. Through FlyCast’s partnership with AccuWeather, users can easily check the weather wherever they are, wherever they’re travelling, and wherever friends and family may be.
AAC+, Windows Media Support
FlyCast will now offer support to broadcasters that have deployed their streams in AAC+ and Windows Media formats. The AAC+ codec offers higher quality at lower streaming bitrates, allowing broadcasters the ability to both save streaming costs and reach a larger audience that does not have access to more powerful 3G networks. The Windows Media codec provides similar quality and bitrate advantages, but is not natively supported by the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch.
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Nokia announced today that it’s bringing a US “optimized” version of the E63 smartphone stateside with an estimated retail price of $279. Citing a “loud and clear” demand for more QWERTY form factor devices in the US, Nokia sees that E63 as a solid entry level compliment to its more expensive E71.
The E63 features a QWERTY keypad (omg, srsly?!), 3G, Symbian S60 3rd Edition OS, and the ability to switch between two separate home screens (i.e. 1 for work, 1 for play) at the push of a button. It will also include a full HTML browser with Flash support and will be available in either ruby red or ultramarine blue. You can snap up an unlocked E63 in the near future (no specific release date yet) through various retail channels throughout the States.
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Have you been drooling over the Slacker for BlackBerry app that made its demo-debut all the way back in September of ‘08? At long last, it’s available to satisfy your streamin’-radio needs, packed with preprogrammed genre stations, custom stations, album art and reviews, song skipping, and the fancypants caching that makes it oh-so-special. The base version of the application is free, but subscription add-on services are available if you want the bells and whistles.
Get it at http://www.slacker.com/blackberry
Full press release after the jump.
Slacker Announces Availability of Mobile Radio Application for BlackBerry Smartphones
Exclusive station caching feature guarantees playback everywhere while also dramatically boosting battery life and performance
LAS VEGAS – January 8, 2009 – Slacker, Inc. today announced the availability of the free Slacker Mobile application for BlackBerry® smartphones from Research In Motion (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; TSX: RIM). BlackBerry smartphone users* can now hear their favorite Slacker radio stations wherever they go, whether they are connected to a wireless network or not – a Slacker Mobile feature exclusive to BlackBerry smartphones. The application, which is compatible with BlackBerry® Device Software version 4.3 and higher is available as a free download by visiting Slacker.com from your BlackBerry smartphone.
The Slacker Mobile application provides BlackBerry smartphone users in the US. with a personalized music discovery and listening experience pulling from over 100 expert- programmed Slacker stations, over 10,000 artist stations or a nearly unlimited number of the listener’s own custom-created stations.
Slacker station caching, an exclusive feature for BlackBerry smartphones, enables mobile listeners to store favorite stations on a memory card, allowing Slacker music service to play without a network connection while boosting battery life up to 5 times that of streaming playback and enhancing application performance. In addition, BlackBerry smartphone enthusiasts can enjoy Slacker Personal Radio while doing other tasks such as emailing, instant messaging or web browsing.
The groundbreaking Slacker music service enables listeners to enjoy Personal Radio stations and hear their favorite music without ever having to manage playlists or research new artists. Included in the Slacker application for BlackBerry smartphones are detailed artist bios and album reviews for each song that is played, providing the ultimate resource for music discovery. The Slacker Mobile application works with the free Slacker Basic Radio service, along with Slacker Radio Plus and Slacker Premium Radio subscription offerings.
“Slacker Mobile makes your BlackBerry smartphone the ultimate personal radio player,” said Dennis Mudd, CEO of Slacker. “And because of our caching technology, BlackBerry owners can play their personal radio stations everywhere, even on subways and planes, with much better battery life and faster song skipping than is possible with streaming stations.”
“Our new BlackBerry smartphones provide truly impressive audio and video performance that allows the smartphones to serve as powerful and conveniently accessible personal entertainment devices for consumers and business users alike,” said Jeff McDowell, Vice President, Global Alliances at Research In Motion. “With access to millions of songs and easily customized programming, it’s no surprise that people are excited by this new application.”
Slacker Personal Radio, available online at www.Slacker.com, enables listeners to personalize over 100 professionally programmed stations or create, edit and share their own Personal Radio stations. Slacker listeners also have easy access to artist profiles, album reviews and cover art on the web, with the Slacker G2 portable and now on BlackBerry smartphones.
Slacker Mobile for BlackBerry smartphones offers:
- Free music library featuring millions of songs
- High-quality stereo playback from cached stations and all streaming wireless connections
- Over 100 professionally programmed genre stations
- Create custom artist stations
- Station caching for music playback anywhere, greatly improved battery life and accelerated application performance
- Multi-tasking – listen to music while doing email
- View artist biographies and photos
- View album art and reviews
- “Peek Ahead” artist and album preview
- Pause and skip songs
- Rate songs as favorites
- Ban songs and artists you don’t likePricing and Availability
The Slacker Personal Radio Mobile application for BlackBerry smartphones is available immediately as a free download by visiting Slacker.com from your BlackBerry web browser or visit www.slacker.com/blackberry for more details.About Slacker, Inc.
Slacker is the world’s first Personal Radio company offering “Your Radio Everywhere.” Slacker allows music lovers to play highly personalized music online at the Slacker web site or on the go with Slacker Personal Radio players. Visit www.slacker.com for more information.###
*The Slacker Personal Radio Mobile application is currently available for U.S. customers only. Slacker Mobile for BlackBerry is available for BlackBerry smartphones running operating system 4.3 or higher with the exception of the BlackBerry Storm which will be fully supported in a future release.
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Now this is interesting. At CES tonight I found Newber, an application that brings a second business line to your iPhone. This is worth getting your head around.
Today at CES, CMS Products introduced its latest data recovery software, BounceBack Ultimate. Billed as an “instant PC recovery” product, the company claims that the software will allow users to instantly recover their PC in the event of a hard drive crash and with no data loss. Users can continue working from an external hard drive, giving them the option to recover or replace the internal hard drive at their convenience. 
During my time hanging out in the Palm Lounge, I also took a minute, and shot a quick video demonstrating the simplicity of searching on the Palm pre. When you are on the desktop (the wallpaper screen) you can just begin to type a phrase or word using the keyboard, and the device will begin searching. Similar to other searches it begins wide and narrows down depending on how much you enter. As you will see in the video, the search will check everything, from apps on the phone to contacts and will even allow for a web search if it is not found on the phone. Its actually a real nice way to find something quickly. See for yourself in the video below.
While at the Kodak booth we noticed someone pitching the idea that Kodak should add a projector to its Zx1. 
