• Launch for Lessig's new book Remix, San Francisco, Oct 29 - Boing ...

Warner Music adding social networking to websites

3D coming around again, in your home

Row 44 Discloses Upcoming Airline Tests

Boing Boing Gadgets at CES Video: Palm Pre Hands-On with Joel and Brownlee, review huddle with Ars Technica

(Flash video above, downloadable MP4 here.)

Hello from CES in Las Vegas! Boing Boing Gadgets' Joel and Brownlee got a hands-on demo with the new Palm Pre here, and Boing Boing's video team was there to cover them. Watch the whole review above. In the first half of the video, Brownlee and Joel grill a Palm rep -- who doesn't want to let either of them touch the device -- about features and what's under the hood. In the second half of today's video, our fellas huddle over brews and watered-down show floor drinks with Jon Stokes from Ars Technica for a post-game analysis. Verdict seems to be that if this is Palm's "hail mary," it just might work. The Pre seems pretty sweet. Here's the Pre product page at palm.com.

Join the discussion about this video over at Boing Boing Gadgets.

Previously on BBG: Seven features that make the Palm Pre better than the iPhone

Sponsor shout-out

(Special thanks to Q-Burns Abstract Message for the background tracks in our CES episodes!)

CES Video with Boing Boing Gadgets: Asus Netbookstravaganza with Bamboo, Gold Lamé, and Lamborghini.

Flash embed above, downloadable MP4 here.

Xeni from the motherboing here with a new Boing Boing Gadgets CES video installment! Beschizza and I visited the Asus booth to check out some of the netbooks and other devices they're developing. Rob got some hands-on time with some of the more visually interesting models, including one netbook covered in bamboo, and others covered in very Vegas-appropriate gold lamé or Lamborghini co-branding. (Ay, que Elvis, hombre!) We also spoke with one of the senior designers with Asus from Taiwan about the Intel co-partnered WEPC project, in which they're soliciting feature requests from the public, then sorting through those crowdsourced suggestions and figuring out what makes sense to implement in production.

Join the discussion for this episode over at Boing Boing Gadgets.

(Special thanks to Q-Burns Abstract Message for the background tracks in our CES episodes!)

Another Week In Laptop Experts Land

UK Email Retention Plan Technically Flawed

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

$100 Studio-in-a-Box — Get on the Mic and Podcast

$100 Studio-in-a-Box — Get on the Mic and Podcast

Intel unveils new generation of netbooks at CES

Glaxo to curb U.S. TV ads- WSJ

Hisense Awarded CES 2009 the 'Global TV Brand Top7'

Big Bird-Inspired Hairy Fashion - Jean-Francois Campos Shoots Hair for Flair (GALLERY)

Haier Strengthens Its Position as a Global Brand

Execs see technology as economic equalizer

Source: Gizmodo | 10 Jan 2009 | 3:35 am

Watch The Crunchies Live, Right Here

Watch The Crunchies Live, Right Here

Ustream is broadcasting this year’s Crunchie Awards in its entirety, free of charge. The awards are celebrating the past year in tech, highlighting some of 2008’s best startups, founders, innovations, and gadgets. Tune in below.

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

Live from the Crunchies 2008

Ustream is broadcasting this year’s Crunchie Awards in its entirety, free of charge. Tune in below.

Hisense Awarded CES 2009 the 'Global TV Brand Top7'

Equestrian Supermodel Shoots - Cindy Crawford Horses Around with Tony Duran (GALLERY)

Elan CEO says not in talks with Pfizer- Bloomberg

AMD Plans 1,000-GPU Supercomputer For Games, Cloud

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Greenpeace hands out green grades to electronics makers (AFP)

AFP - Consumer electronics manufacturers are making greener products than a year ago but more progress needs to be made before they can claim a truly environmentally friendly product, Greenpeace said Friday.

Dishwasher-Safe Gadgets - Seal Shield Keyboards, Mice and Remotes Are Goof-Proof (CES 2009) (VIDEO)

NVIDIA glasses make home computer screen 3D

Source: Gizmodo | 10 Jan 2009 | 2:40 am

Cisco CEO Chambers Ties Networking, Music

Source: Gizmodo | 10 Jan 2009 | 2:14 am

Coming Soon to iTunes: Surround Sound Audio

LAS VEGAS -- Audio company Fraunhofer is at the Consumer Electronics Show lining up deals to put its new MPEG Surround format into everything that plays digital music: cars, MP3 players, home theaters, phones ... and possibly Apple's iTunes and iTunes Music Store.

"There is an unsigned contract with a well known PC player application," said Robert Bleidt, general manager of Fraunhofer's audio and multimedia division (pictured above), which would give the software the ability to "natively support MPEG Surround."

There are a couple of reasons to think that the application Bleidt is referring to is iTunes.

Fraunhofer, the inventor of the MP3 format and co-inventor of the AAC codec already used in the iTunes store, said it has already developed an MPEG Surround plug-in for iTunes and Quicktime: the first indication that iTunes is the store he was referring to. And clearly, iTunes, with its domination of the digital music scene, would be Fraunhofer's first choice. Other than Windows Media Player, iTunes is the only "well known PC player application" in existence, but the stores listed in Windows Media Player have nowhere near iTunes' market share, and Fraunhofer's stated goal is to sell MPEG Surround files online.

In light of all of this -- and Fraunhofer's booth demonstration of an iPod playing the surround-sound-enabled files (pictured below) -- I'm more or less convinced that Apple is the company he was referring to.

If Apple signs this contract, its timing could be impeccable. Video upgrades are paving the way for a whole new class of consumers to embrace surround sound in the home, and some new cars already offer it too.

Fraunhofer has a number of factors in its favor -- mainly, that it's backwards-compatible with anything that can play an MP3, including the iPod and iPhone. If you play an MPEG Surround file on a plain old stereo MP3 player, you'll hear exactly what you would have if the file was a vanilla MP3.

But if you play the song on a device that supports Fraunhofer's surround sound format, the 10 to 20 percent of the file containing the surround sound information kicks in to turn the stereo signal back into a discrete 5.1-channel signal.

The difference is palpable. Bleidt played me songs in several genres, in DVD-A, MPEG Surround and stereo, on the stereo in the above-pictured car. The first two sounded nearly identical, meaning that MPEG Surround does a fine job of preserving channels discretely. By comparison, the stereo version sounded flat, canned and boring.

"Stereo music is like listening through a window, and the performance is in the next room. With surround, you're in the studio, you're in the concert hall -- it's an immersing, enveloping experience," said Bleidt, "a better experience than just two-channel stereo."

The above-mentioned contract would only add support for the format to iTunes but commerce could be next. Apple was the first company to put together a comprehensive online store for stereo music. It would only be fitting if it was also first to start selling digital surround sound files, whether with Fraunhofer's technology or someone else's. And thanks to the failed DVD-A and SACD high-end audio formats, the labels already have lots of music in surround, just waiting for the next promising format to come along. One major label has already agreed to use MPEG Surround, and Fraunhofer is in talks with the other three.

"MPEG Surround is our vision of the first practical way to get surround sound music to mainstream consumers," said Bleidt. "Today, they are used to hearing surround on films or digital TV, but they don't have access to surround sound music, even though the music industry has thousands of hours of surround content mixed and sitting in their vaults, ready to sell."

With MPEG Surround, record labels would have a nearly-painless way to start offering surround sound, and iTunes would be the natural place for them to sell it. The files would be preferable to both the CD and the non-surround MP3s already zinging around the world's file sharing networks. This, as I've mentioned before, could give the labels something to sell to consumers that they don't already have.

The next step would be to add surround sound simulation to the iPod. "Looking forward," said Bleidt, "we think that new music players will eventually have binaural playback mode that lets you experience a realistic simulation of surround over ordinary earphones."

Photos: Eliot Van Buskirk / Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 2:13 am

The iRiver Wave Home is a Sleeker, Less-Huggable Chumby

The iRiver Wave Home is a wireless gadget with a touchscreen that relies on a constant stream of web widgets that offer up tiny-bits of tasty, digestible media content.

Sound familiar?

It should, because it's basically the exact same device as the Chumby, which came out last year to wide acclaim (and a healthy amount of hype). The only difference between them is that the Wave Home appears to be less cuddly and more prone to die from a fall in the kitchen. 

Ok, fine, there are more differences. The Wave comes with a separate control that also serves as a wireless phone handset used for VoIP calls, though you can actually use the 7-inch (800 x 480 pixel) touch display as a virtual keypad. Also, the original Chumby (right) did not support certain codecs of video playback (the current versions uses Flash Lite 3 capabilities), but this one is supposed to be play pretty much everything.

Like the Chumby, it's perforated with the usual SD, Ethernet, and USB ports, but this one comes with a 1.3-megapixel CMOS camera. The picture quality of the cam, however, will probably look dated by the end of the year.

When we reviewed the Chumby, we noted that the best part about it was the quality of the streams from internet radio and when music played from our iPod, and part of that was due to its quality speakers. The iRiver is also touting the Wave Home's speakers as one its integral parts – if they doesn't work just as good, expect a lot of disappointed ears in the G-Lab when it comes in for a review.

IRiver is not releasing the price yet, but the rumor is that it will come down to about $400. It will launch next month in Korea and in the U.S. by mid-year.

 

Source: Gizmodo | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:54 am

Microsoft delays Windows 7 beta download

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Friday it has paused offering downloads of the public test version of its new version of Windows due to "high demand."
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:54 am

Another Newspaper Down: Hearst About To Pull The Plug On Seattle’s Post-Intelligencer [MediaMemo]

Anyone in Seattle want to buy a money-losing hometown paper? If they don’t, owner Hearst says it will either turn the Seattle Post-Intelligencer into an online-only pub with a skeleton staff, or just shut it down altogether. Bet on the latter.

Here’s the paper’s own report on its impending demise:

The Seattle P-I is being put up for sale, and if after 60 days it has not sold, it will either be turned into a Web-only publication with a greatly reduced staff or discontinued entirely.

“One thing is clear: at the end of the sale process, we do not see ourselves publishing in print,” said Steven Swartz, president of the Hearst Corp.’s newspaper division.

Swartz addressed the P-I’s newsroom at about noon Friday, flanked by P-I editor and publisher Roger Oglesby and Lincoln Millstein, Hearst’s senior vice president for digital media.

Swartz said the reason for offering the paper for sale is purely economic.

“Since 2000, the P-I has lost money each year, and the losses have escalated and continue to escalate in 2009,” he said. “We have had to make a very tough decision. This is a business decision and it is no reflection on your work. The decision reflects our inability to see the losses turning around soon.”

In a release circulated shortly after Swartz finished speaking, Hearst said the P-I lost about $14 million in 2008.

And here’s a reaction from John Cook, a P-I veteran who left the paper last year to start up TechFlash, a tech/biz blog he runs with fellow refugee Todd Bishop:

Could this be its final dance? It’s too early to say. The bigger questions are whether Hearst is doing some behind-the-scenes dealing, and whether the P-I could sustain itself as an online-only operation.

Obviously, we’re big believers in the power of online media. We know it is still an experiment in many ways, but given the rocky state of the daily newspaper business, we’ve always asked ourselves: “What’s to lose?”

Anyway, we don’t think the last chapter has been written in this story. The timing is truly bizarre. What the P-I needs now is a white knight to emerge from the Seattle tech community. A savior. Someone with gobs of money who doesn’t mind losing some of it.

What’s Paul Allen doing these days?

To answer John’s question about the paper’s ability to sustain itself as an online-only offering: It can’t.

Quantcast pegs the paper’s traffic at 2.6 million uniques. That would keep a blog with a handful of writers and editors afloat — if it had a specific niche, like, say technology news. And if it had a national audience to sell to advertisers. But a generalized news site for a local audience? No one’s figured out how to do it yet, and a recession probably isn’t the time to solve that riddle.

It’s hard to see how the paper stays afloat without a white knight. And it’s hard to see how this won’t play out in cities across the country over the next few years.

SeattleHearstLetter - Free Legal Forms

Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:53 am

Dell's New Notebooks Take Design Seriously

LAS VEGAS -- Dell doesn't have a booth here at CES, but the company staked out a floor at the trendy Palms casino to make several product announcements -- and to try to win a few style points.

The stodgy PC maker from Round Rock, Texas has been known for years for its workhorse PCs and notebooks -- functional, economical, generally reliable, and butt-ugly. But in the last year, the company has been working hard to change that perception. For instance, its compact Studio Hybrid PC has a sleek look and can be modded with replaceable outer sleeves, so you can color it (red, black, bamboo) to suit your decor. And its line of Studio laptops, which can be customized with any one of more than 100 different artistic designs, has been selling well.

This week, the company rolled out two new laptops, the Studio XPS 16 (shown above with Dell's head design guy, Ed Boyd) and the Studio XPS 13, that continue the trend of wrapping computers in cutting-edge cases made out of interesting materials. And the company announced a mysterious "luxury brand" called Adamo, which so far seems to be little more than a slim black notebook (or the chassis of a notebook) in the hands of a supermodel.

The XPS 16 and XPS 13 are notebooks with, respectively, 16-inch and 13-inch screens. Both have distinctive multi-toned exteriors in differing shades of black, gray, and charcoal gray, and both include leather trim along the back (hinge) edge of the top lid. While tastes may differ -- and some may find the inclusion of animal skin a bit abhorrent -- these notebooks have a classy, refined look that's a world away from Dell's earlier work.

Both laptops are available now, starting at $1,200.

As for Adamo, very little is known. Dell hired a model to show off the notebook, but no one was allowed to touch it and Dell representatives didn't turn it on. They also did not release any specifications. So for now, Adamo is little more than a pipe dream.

Read on for more pictures of Dell's new products.

Dell's Studio XPS 13 notebook. Photo courtesy of Dell

The 16-inch Studio XPS 16. Photo courtesy of Dell

The Studio XPS 16 has a slim profile and a glowing power connector in the hinge that resembles those on some high-end, slim Sony Vaio notebooks. Photo courtesy of Dell

Dell acknowledged its laptops' homely past with this display, which showed the stylistic progression of laptops from 2005 to 2008. Photo: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com

Dell's suite at the Palm casino was bedecked with laptop art available for installation on current laptop models. Some of the artists commissioned to create art for Dell, including graffiti artists Mike Ming and Tristan Eaton, were in the suite, painting giant canvases and printing original designs on T-shirts. Photo: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com

Top photo: Dylan Tweney/Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:47 am

CES Video: The Palm Pre Up Close and Personal

This isn't a real hands-on: Interestingly, Palm wouldn't let us "hold" the phone and kept a set of applications away from our prying eyes. But here is a thorough walk-through of the Pre operating system, Palm's WebOS. This new phone was definitely my show highlight and I think the video shows exactly what we're talking about when we call this Palm's last chance.

Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:35 am

All Whole Earth publications online

Kevin Kelly reports the exciting news that all the Whole Earth-related publications from the last 40 year are scanned and online at wholeearth.com.

One could read back issues if you could find them. I had the privilege of producing many of the issues of CoEvolution Quarterly and some of the Catalogs, so I had my own personal library of them. (Therefore you should also discount my enthusiasm for them.) I can't tell you how many wonderful evenings I have spent sitting in my reading chair re-exploring the fantastic worlds captured in these back issues. It is impossible to pick one up and not be mesmerized, thrilled, amazed, and informed by at least two stories or reviews. There is a timeless nature to this work that is due to their anti-fashionable status. The Whole Earth Catalogs and CoEvolutions were idea-based journalism, rather than event-based. Instead of reporting on top of things, they liked to get to the bottom of things. These issues zagged while the rest of the culture zigged, only to zag later.

The good news is that all this goodness is now online. Danica Remy and the last holdouts of the old Point Foundation, publishers of the Catalogs and magazine until its last issue in 2002, have given a second life to this gold mine of material by arranging them to be scanned and posted online. The entire 35-year archive of Whole Earth Catalogs, Supplements, Reviews and CoEvolutions are all up and ready to be studied. You can read them for free, or download them for a fee.

The Whole Earth Catalog Archive

Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:32 am

Gadget Roundup: Innovation Is Back at CES 2009

:

The Gadget Lab crew is scouring CES 2009 this week for the hottest new toys and tools debuting this year. Companies are taking some risks with new inventions and ideas, and you never know what to expect at the booths. Here are the best finds so far. Check out Wired.com's full CES 2009 coverage for the latest headlines.

Left:

Powermat's wireless power system, which goes by the same name as the company, isn't exactly wireless. The mat has a single power cord to connect to an outlet, and by placing gadgets on the mat, you can charge them — regardless of their voltage. We won't toss our cables in the recycling bin any time soon, but Powermat's offering is impressive.

For more action from the show floor, go to Wired.com Video, and get the latest news from CES 2009 as it develops.

:

This 12.2-megapixel camera comes in a purse-size 16.6mm (0.65 inch) thick form factor, has a big 2.7-inch screen for checking images and has the usual face-detection and image-stabilization features. A new Smart Auto feature detects exactly what you are snapping and picks the exposure mode. Shoot people and it switches to portrait mode. Shoot a landscape and you get landscape mode. Neat, especially as most people probably never takes the camera off auto.

Smart Albums allow in-camera storage, which groups similar images and videos. It won't let you show all the pictures with your grandkid in them, but it narrows the selection based on color, file type or date. Expect it at around $250.

:

Control the 64-GB HMX-H106 using a touchscreen but thankfully, you have to hit a real red button to record. The camera will also shoot 4.7-megapixel stills and has a built-in flash.

Specs aside, people are excited about the handgrip, which swivels. You can change your grip without removing the strap from your hand. It sounds simple, and it is. The Samsung guy at the stand even said that it "probably only took around five minutes of R&D time." But, apparently, people love it.

Price? Take a guess. Samsung is waiting until these ship to see if the economy has recovered enough to allow them to overcharge.

:

The new 10.2-megapixel HZ10W is a camera that gets everything right and yet fails to bring it together. It's as if Dr. Frankenstein had stitched together his monster, screwed the bolts into its neck and forgotten to hook up the lightning conductor.

The double-stabilized image works in both lens shift and in-body. Other than that you get a bright and sharp 2.7-inch LED, a 10x zoom, the Samsung standard Schneider lens and 720p hi-def video, crunched down into H.264 format.

Price is unannounced.

:

The first ready-for-primetime music game involves real instruments, rather than plastic ones. We captured some footage of Disney Star Guitarist so you can see how the game is played. Check it out at left.

:

This concept motion-sensing remote from Hillcrest Labs uses company software to let users to operate it much like the Nintendo Wiimote. Through a combination of sensors and accelerometers, the remote senses the users' movements and reflects them on the screen. Users can then click the right or the left button on the remote to make selections.

The design does away with the many buttons on a traditional remote and makes the remote-clicking process more intuitive. Last year, Hillcrest filed a lawsuit against Nintendo alleging patent infringement over its motion-sensing technology.

:

The smallest PC sporting an OLED (organic light-emitting diode, an alternative technology to LCD) display took center stage. The luminous, crisp screen sets it apart and OQO claims it's the world's first PC with integrated active-matrix OLED display.

The little American beauty called OQO model 2+ is based on the 1.86-GHz Intel Atom processor, has 2 GB RAM and a Qualcomm chip to support 3G worldwide. The device offers up to 3.5 hours of battery life, has an integrated touchscreen and runs Windows XP or Vista operating system.

Other key features: 60-GB to 120-GB hard disk drive storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, 5-inch display. The device weighs a pound with standard battery.

This is the second version of the OQO PC. The model 2+ will be available in the first half of 2009, with two versions priced at $1000 and $1500.

:

Asus's latest 12.1-inch notebook is special not only because a cow died for it. More interesting for gadget geeks, the notebook can hold a solid-state drive over half a terabyte large.

Lined with brown leather, the S121 is part of Asus' high-end line of 12.1-inch notebooks. The notebook, powered by a 1.3-GHz Atom processor, normally ships with a hard disk drive, but Asus offers a 512-GB SSD as an optional upgrade.

That's pretty damn huge for solid state. Just a year ago, the industry was barely breaking double digits in terms of gigabyte capacity for solid-state drives. The advantage of solid state is no moving parts, so these drives are less fragile and quieter.

Asus' S101 starts at $1,650 with the default configuration. The company didn't have a price yet for the SSD option, but you'd probably have to pay at least an extra $700. The S101 ships at the end of January.

:

Motorola showed off femtocells, small cellular base stations designed to boost cellphone signals, in a digital picture-frame exterior to attract consumers 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 and doors, or select one or more mobile devices to optimize performance, says Motorola. You can handle device, subscriber-management and access-control settings 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 Verizon could be the possible service provider. In Europe, femtocells are available for about 10 euro a month. Motorola hopes to ink deals that will bring similar pricing to North America.

:

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 is a bit controversial — the scan 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, it might be no competition for celebrity voiceovers, 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 scans every word, even in the crack of the book's spine.)

:

The casing on Motorola's new candybar-shaped W233 Renew handset is pretty basic but it has solid green credentials. The phone is made of plastic from recycled water bottles. The device's small form factor takes 20 percent less energy to create than many other phones, says the company, and it comes with an envelope to send in your old phone for recycling.

The W233 Renew has 2 GB of memory and offers a whopping nine hours of talk time. It has a music player but no camera or internet-browsing capability.

:

Panasonic and LG showcased flat-panel, high-definition TVs bundled with wireless systems that appear very similar. Panasonic's TC-P54Z1 television comes with an 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 (top) works the same way. And both companies say their wireless systems transfer perfectly uncompressed data up to 30 feet away from the TV.

Panasonic's shipping in June or July; LG did not have a ship date ("sometime 2009").

:

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 in capabilities and price, but the best is the HF S10. This has a large (but not as large as Samsung's 64 GB) 32 GB 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, which detects faces even if they're side-on or facing down.

The CMOS sensors don't just do HD video. All cameras in the range will snap stills at a respectable 8 megapixels. Prices and availability unknown.

:

Struggling smartphone pioneer Palm announced a new phone, dubbed the Pre, along with a new operating system that could give the company a fighting chance against its more powerful rivals.

The new Palm Pre is a sleek black device that resembles the iPhone touchscreen and form factor. But it's no ordinary iPhone clone. It offers a clean interface, a combination of touchscreen and keyboard inputs and a curvy black exterior.

The 3.1-inch touchscreen Palm Pre weighs 4.8 ounces and comes with a QWERTY slide-out keyboard. The phone supports Wi-Fi and EVDO and has 8 GB of storage.

:

The Cybershot DSC-G3 is 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 4-GB memory built-in, but if you want more you'll have to buy a Sony Memory Stick.

You can hook up to any Wi-Fi point and using the browser you can sign in to hotspots. From there, you can upload directly to Photobucket, YouTube, DailyMotion, Picasa and Shutterfly, but, oddly, not Flickr.

The real gimmick is the browser, and it's 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'll never have an iPhone-like experience here. 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.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:30 am

Gadget Roundup: Innovation Is Back at CES 2009

:

The Gadget Lab crew is scouring CES 2009 this week for the hottest new toys and tools debuting this year. Companies are taking some risks with new inventions and ideas, and you never know what to expect at the booths. Here are the best finds so far. Check out Wired.com's full CES 2009 coverage for the latest headlines.

Left:

Powermat's wireless power system, which goes by the same name as the company, isn't exactly wireless. The mat has a single power cord to connect to an outlet, and by placing gadgets on the mat, you can charge them — regardless of their voltage. We won't toss our cables in the recycling bin any time soon, but Powermat's offering is impressive.

For more action from the show floor, go to Wired.com Video, and get the latest news from CES 2009 as it develops.

:

This 12.2-megapixel camera comes in a purse-size 16.6mm (0.65 inch) thick form factor, has a big 2.7-inch screen for checking images and has the usual face-detection and image-stabilization features. A new Smart Auto feature detects exactly what you are snapping and picks the exposure mode. Shoot people and it switches to portrait mode. Shoot a landscape and you get landscape mode. Neat, especially as most people probably never takes the camera off auto.

Smart Albums allow in-camera storage, which groups similar images and videos. It won't let you show all the pictures with your grandkid in them, but it narrows the selection based on color, file type or date. Expect it at around $250.

:

Control the 64-GB HMX-H106 using a touchscreen but thankfully, you have to hit a real red button to record. The camera will also shoot 4.7-megapixel stills and has a built-in flash.

Specs aside, people are excited about the handgrip, which swivels. You can change your grip without removing the strap from your hand. It sounds simple, and it is. The Samsung guy at the stand even said that it "probably only took around five minutes of R&D time." But, apparently, people love it.

Price? Take a guess. Samsung is waiting until these ship to see if the economy has recovered enough to allow them to overcharge.

:

The new 10.2-megapixel HZ10W is a camera that gets everything right and yet fails to bring it together. It's as if Dr. Frankenstein had stitched together his monster, screwed the bolts into its neck and forgotten to hook up the lightning conductor.

The double-stabilized image works in both lens shift and in-body. Other than that you get a bright and sharp 2.7-inch LED, a 10x zoom, the Samsung standard Schneider lens and 720p hi-def video, crunched down into H.264 format.

Price is unannounced.

:

The first ready-for-primetime music game involves real instruments, rather than plastic ones. We captured some footage of Disney Star Guitarist so you can see how the game is played. Check it out at left.

:

This concept motion-sensing remote from Hillcrest Labs uses company software to let users to operate it much like the Nintendo Wiimote. Through a combination of sensors and accelerometers, the remote senses the users' movements and reflects them on the screen. Users can then click the right or the left button on the remote to make selections.

The design does away with the many buttons on a traditional remote and makes the remote-clicking process more intuitive. Last year, Hillcrest filed a lawsuit against Nintendo alleging patent infringement over its motion-sensing technology.

:

The smallest PC sporting an OLED (organic light-emitting diode, an alternative technology to LCD) display took center stage. The luminous, crisp screen sets it apart and OQO claims it's the world's first PC with integrated active-matrix OLED display.

The little American beauty called OQO model 2+ is based on the 1.86-GHz Intel Atom processor, has 2 GB RAM and a Qualcomm chip to support 3G worldwide. The device offers up to 3.5 hours of battery life, has an integrated touchscreen and runs Windows XP or Vista operating system.

Other key features: 60-GB to 120-GB hard disk drive storage, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, 5-inch display. The device weighs a pound with standard battery.

This is the second version of the OQO PC. The model 2+ will be available in the first half of 2009, with two versions priced at $1000 and $1500.

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Asus's latest 12.1-inch notebook is special not only because a cow died for it. More interesting for gadget geeks, the notebook can hold a solid-state drive over half a terabyte large.

Lined with brown leather, the S121 is part of Asus' high-end line of 12.1-inch notebooks. The notebook, powered by a 1.3-GHz Atom processor, normally ships with a hard disk drive, but Asus offers a 512-GB SSD as an optional upgrade.

That's pretty damn huge for solid state. Just a year ago, the industry was barely breaking double digits in terms of gigabyte capacity for solid-state drives. The advantage of solid state is no moving parts, so these drives are less fragile and quieter.

Asus' S101 starts at $1,650 with the default configuration. The company didn't have a price yet for the SSD option, but you'd probably have to pay at least an extra $700. The S101 ships at the end of January.

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Motorola showed off femtocells, small cellular base stations designed to boost cellphone signals, in a digital picture-frame exterior to attract consumers 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 and doors, or select one or more mobile devices to optimize performance, says Motorola. You can handle device, subscriber-management and access-control settings 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 Verizon could be the possible service provider. In Europe, femtocells are available for about 10 euro a month. Motorola hopes to ink deals that will bring similar pricing to North America.

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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 is a bit controversial — the scan 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, it might be no competition for celebrity voiceovers, 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 scans every word, even in the crack of the book's spine.)

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The casing on Motorola's new candybar-shaped W233 Renew handset is pretty basic but it has solid green credentials. The phone is made of plastic from recycled water bottles. The device's small form factor takes 20 percent less energy to create than many other phones, says the company, and it comes with an envelope to send in your old phone for recycling.

The W233 Renew has 2 GB of memory and offers a whopping nine hours of talk time. It has a music player but no camera or internet-browsing capability.

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Panasonic and LG showcased flat-panel, high-definition TVs bundled with wireless systems that appear very similar. Panasonic's TC-P54Z1 television comes with an 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 (top) works the same way. And both companies say their wireless systems transfer perfectly uncompressed data up to 30 feet away from the TV.

Panasonic's shipping in June or July; LG did not have a ship date ("sometime 2009").

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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 in capabilities and price, but the best is the HF S10. This has a large (but not as large as Samsung's 64 GB) 32 GB 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, which detects faces even if they're side-on or facing down.

The CMOS sensors don't just do HD video. All cameras in the range will snap stills at a respectable 8 megapixels. Prices and availability unknown.

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Struggling smartphone pioneer Palm announced a new phone, dubbed the Pre, along with a new operating system that could give the company a fighting chance against its more powerful rivals.

The new Palm Pre is a sleek black device that resembles the iPhone touchscreen and form factor. But it's no ordinary iPhone clone. It offers a clean interface, a combination of touchscreen and keyboard inputs and a curvy black exterior.

The 3.1-inch touchscreen Palm Pre weighs 4.8 ounces and comes with a QWERTY slide-out keyboard. The phone supports Wi-Fi and EVDO and has 8 GB of storage.

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The Cybershot DSC-G3 is 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 4-GB memory built-in, but if you want more you'll have to buy a Sony Memory Stick.

You can hook up to any Wi-Fi point and using the browser you can sign in to hotspots. From there, you can upload directly to Photobucket, YouTube, DailyMotion, Picasa and Shutterfly, but, oddly, not Flickr.

The real gimmick is the browser, and it's 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'll never have an iPhone-like experience here. 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.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:30 am

Vintage Radio Case Mod Painstakingly Assembled by Hand

Jeffrey Stephenson, the sole proprietor of Slippery Skip, showed us his Ingraham Nano Case Mod -- a replica of the 1946 Stromberg Carlson radio, but with a few minor modifications to the front panel including the gas cap from a vintage Harley Davidson motorcycle. It was a tricky project due to the exacting nature of some vintage radio buffs.

"You have to be careful with vintage radio collectors," said Stephenson, "because they'll hunt you down if you don't get it right." To that end, he spent around 300 hours building every aspect of the Ingraham by hand, with no power tools.

The $5,000 Ingraham is the first case mod to feature a 1.66 GHz VIA Nano processor, according to Stephenson, but that's not really the point. "I see it more as art than technology," he added, and he's right. The above photo just doesn't do justice to its sumptuous wood finish.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:28 am

CES 2009: Empty Blackberry Storm Booth

LAS VEGAS -- This is the lonely vision awaiting those who visit Blackberry's Storm booth at CES 2009: The only thing missing is tumbleweed and an eerie, whistling wind.

The "iPhone killer" click'n'touch smartphone has so roundly underwhelmed the public that this is possibly the only spot at CES where one can get some peace and quiet. There's nothing to see here. Move along.

See Also:

• The Votes Are In: BlackBerry Storm Sucks
• RIM: BlackBerry Storm "Verizon's Best-Selling Device"
• Review: The BlackBerry Storm

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:28 am

LG recalling popular Incite phone, dozens affected

If you’ve been under a rock for the past month you might have missed the news about the AT&T Incite, a phone. Well, that phone is now going to be recalled due to some software problems so if you bought one you’d best get thyself to the AT&Tery.

Mobility Today has some original documents describing the recall.

We received some information that the LG Incite has been recalled due to a software issue. Apparently those who were SMS’ing were getting errors reported back to them telling them they cannot send the message. Apparently those who buy from Best Buy must take a closer look to see if they have a blue dot on their box showing them those units are ok and fixed..

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:13 am

CES 2009 Omnibus post for Friday

It’s been another harsh day in the CES trenches, and as usual the CrunchGear team has put out a veritable cornucopia of content. Today was particularly notable for interviews: we got Mark Cuban and Bud Mayo, Dr. Dre, and Les Stroud of Survivorman in front of the camera to talk about the future of HD, DRM, and ruggedized camera gear.

There were also, of course, a number of hands-ons:

• The prototype “Eeeboard” touchscreen+keyboard (a world first on CrunchGear)
• HP’s enormous 13-lb FireFly laptop
• Razer’s wired/wireless convertible Mamba mouse
• Novatel’s extremely useful MiFi
• The (rumored $399) Palm Pre (again, this time on video)

There’s still more in addition to the day’s non-CES-related news. We’ll be back tomorrow, but we believe that the brunt of this show’s force has been spent.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:10 am

Google Researchers Warn of Automated Social Info Sharing

holy_calamity writes "Researchers from Google have written a paper about how social networks can undermine privacy. The most interesting scenario they discuss is 'merging social graphs' — when correlating multiple social networks makes it possible to reveal connections that a person has intentionally kept secret (PDF). For example, it may be possible to work out that a certain LinkedIn user is the same person as a MySpace user, despite their attempting to keep their profiles separate. The Google solution is to develop software that screens new data added to a social network, attempting to find out if it could be fodder to such data mining."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:10 am

Canon's Low End Digicams Raise Standard

LAS VEGAS -- It's not only the HD video cameras that are getting big fat storage -- Canon's line of new standard def camcorders has just been announced at CES 2009, and the top of the line FS 200 has been well endowed with 32GB of flash memory and also a slot to add in an SDHC memory card.

The range carries Canon's current DIGIC DV II procesor instead of the DV III found in the new Hi-Def cams, but by in return you get to choose from a range of pretty colors. At the Canon booth, while I was shooting some product shots, one of the Canon girls came up to the counter and started pretending to be a dumb CES showgoer:

Does this come in pink? I've seen a pink camera before and it was awesome. You guys should make a pink camera.

And:

Can you tell me the difference between SD and HD?

Other than that, there isn't much -- the SD cams are aimed at the bottom end of the market but, although lightweight, they don't feel plasticky. Pricing: the FS200, which records only to SD media, will go for $350. The FS21 and FS22, which have internal memory as well as SD card slots, will be $500 and $600, respectively.

Product page [Canon]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 1:06 am

Hands-on with Razer’s new wired/wireless mouse, the Mamba

I had a long and interesting chat with Razer’s president about the development of the first wireless mouse the company has put out. Of course, it’s not just wireless, it’s also wired, making it what he termed the first “convertible” mouse. At last, you can use a mouse while it’s charging!

You may remember that Razer was one of the die-hard ball-mouse proponents. They were making ball mice for ages after everyone else had moved to optical, because they felt the technology wasn’t good enough for gaming input. Now most of their mice are optical, but they’re transitioning now to the 3rd (and a half) generation laser sensor. And this whole time they’ve been weighing whether to try wireless; actually, it’d be more accurate to say they’ve been trying it for years and only just recently decided that the device they could put together was good enough. And now they have what they feel is the best mouse in the world, and a first in several categories.

You can see the tour of the Mamba in the video, but it’s worth mentioning here that the grip is very comfortable and they’ve tweaked the shape of the Death Adder to make it more comfortable, as well as repositioning the thumb buttons, adding some extras at the tip, and coating said buttons in the grippy finish, which I love. The base is also the charger, but you can detach the cable (appears to be a modified mini-USB interface) and put it in the mouse, so it’ll charge while you’re using it. There is no performance difference, they say, between wired and wireless; they were only satisfied with the product once the wireless firmware could support the same 1000Hz polling rate as their wired software. And now they say they’ve squashed most of the bugs and we’re going to get a really solid product.

I like Razer’s design philosophy, and I like their mice. I’m really looking forward to putting the Mamba through its paces in a month or two.

Is that video choppy for anyone else?

They also showed off the new “Cacharias” headset, which is the headset that will be coming in the Megalodon package; the package will include a little amp/mixer that they’re still QAing. They were really light and very comfortable, I can see myself wearing them for way longer than the Piranhas, which, though they sounded great, tended to crush my head a bit. I didn’t get to use them for anything, but I’m hoping they sound as good as their cousins.

Anyhow, these are definitely winners from what I can tell, and I’ll have a full review of them as soon as they’re available — should be a couple weeks.

Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:50 am

Nvidia Launches 3D Kit For Gaming

LAS VEGAS -- 3D technology is coming to the video gaming industry for real with Nvidia's launch of a new accessory kit that will automatically transform more than 300 existing games into 3D experiences for users with PCs that have the company's graphic cards.

Nvidia's kit includes a pair of black 3D glasses, an infra-red emitter cables that will retail together for $200.

The kit doesn't work with all HDTVs. It is compatible currently with the new Samsung and ViewSonic 120 Hz LCD monitors, Mitsubishi DLP HDTVs and DepthQ HD 3D projector by Lightspeed.

Nvidia's 3D glasses still have the dorky feel to them though the company says they are modeled after modern sunglasses. The glasses are not tethered and offer up to 20 feet of wireless video viewing.

The USB-based emitter transmits data directly to the shutter glasses and has a 3D adjustment dial so users can adjust the depth in the game.

3D Technology is all the rage at CES this year. Panasonic is showing a full-HD 3D Plasma TV home theater system, while Samsung and Sony are offering concept 3D TV sets.

Nvidia's 3D gaming accessory kit is the closest thing to reality that consumers can get right away-- though it works only with the company's GeForce graphic cards.

Game manufacturers don't have to do anything specifically to make their games compatible with the 3D kit. The processing for 3D is done by the GeForce graphics cards, says a company executive. 

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:50 am

WTF is this? Fiberglass poop on wheels?

I found this abomination in the North Hall at CES. I don’t know what the hell it is nor what random company commissioned this disaster. I was too dumbstruck to get any details. Who care anyway? Gallery after the jump.

CES WTF

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Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:49 am

Breaking: Casio Still Makes Calculators

LAS VEGAS -- Remember the Casio calculator? The humble digital abacus that has been pimped in every possible form, including that geek icon, the calculator watch?

With all the fuss over Casio's rather splendid 1000fps Exilim FC100 here at CES 2009, it's easy to forget the humble calculator, but here they are at the show, proudly on display in the center of the Casio booth.

The Casio booth girl approached me. "Would you like to know all about Casio calculators?" she asked. I scoffed. What could you tell me, a boy who was so pleased with the calculator (Casio) he received for his tenth birthday that he actually took it to bed that night? And the next night. The answer is, of course, an arrogant "nothing".

I just took the photos. And upon getting back to Wired's CES HQ, a monolithic box that resembles the one in Kubrick masterwork 2001 (if Kubrick had made his monolith out of MDF and trestle tables), I took another look at the photo. Can you see it?

Yes. It has a "replay" button. Why? What is that there for? I want to head back to the Casio booth to ask, but I'm embarrassed by my earlier behavior. Really, though, it doesn't really matter. The only useful upgrade that Casio could make is to add a mode that automatically spells out rude words when you turn the handset upside down. Every schoolboy would buy one.

See Also:

• Casio Spruces Up Nerdy Calculator Watches
• Casio Crams High-Speed Shooting into Tiny Camera Body

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:45 am

Pre at $399? No Way Palm’s That Stupid [Digital Daily]

So a Russian LiveJournal site claims that Palm (PALM) intends to price its new Pre smartphone at $399 in the states and offer an unlocked GSM version of the device abroad for between $500 and $550. Now, this is an unsubstantiated rumor and I offer it up here with a grain of salt, if not an entire salt flat. Really, it’s hard to lend it any credence, because frankly if Palm brought the Pre to market at a $399 subsidized price it might as well close up shop. That’s double the price of the iPhone 3G and it would likely kill the device’s chances of success.

Sure, $399 is the price at which Apple (AAPL) debuted the iPhone. But unlike the iPhone, the Pre is not a game-changer. Rather, it’s a player late to a game Apple redefined two years ago. No one’s going to pay a premium for the straggler. And if Palm really intends to ask them to, if it really is convinced that it has “a significantly better product” than its rivals, well, the company’s going to go from “show me story” to horror story very quickly. Because–regardless of how wonderful Pre and Web OS might be–Palm is attempting to stage a comeback in a sector in which the competition is so fierce and the pace of innovation so furious, that it’s already entering the market with an enormous disadvantage.

Consider:

• Unlike the iPhone’s OS–Mac OS X, Web OS is not a maturing platform.
• There is no thriving developer ecosystem around it.
• There is no thriving consumer ecosystem around it, either.
• The Pre is not outfitted with a market leading music player and store with a massive installed base.

Given all this, is $399 a realistic price for the Pre? Unsubsidized, yes. Subsidized, absolutely not.

Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:45 am

CES 2009: Interview with Les Stroud of “Survivorman”

If you’re not familiar with “Survivorman,” shame on you. Survival expert Les Stroud has stranded himself for a week in a ton of godforsaken (but beautiful) places with nothing but a multitool and a bunch of camera gear (unlike that other guy). The result is an extremely good show called “Survivorman.” Les was here at CES to talk up Sony’s equipment, which he’s used exclusively on his shows and which he believes is the best stuff on the market for the kind of dirty, dangerous guerilla filming he has to do.

Les does all his own shooting and is doing a lot of editing as well. We talked about what he needs out of his equipment, what could be improved, and what you can expect to face if you decide you want to film yourself surviving in a rainforest for a week.

Devin interviewed Les courtesy of Sony, and Doug attempted to wrangle the camera’s autofocus, which was having trouble with the low light and neutral color scheme of the Sony green room. Thanks to Les and Sony for taking the time to meet with us!

Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:39 am

CES Photo: V-Moda Vibe II earbuds

Sent more or less live from CES.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:37 am

Rush for Windows 7 downloads overwhelms Microsoft servers (AFP)

AFP - Microsoft's mighty servers were overwhelmed Friday as computer users worldwide rushed to download a free test version of a Windows 7 operating system being groomed to succeed Vista.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:33 am

Dell Says We Will Fall in Love With Adamo [Voices]

By Don Clark, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal, Digits

Dell (DELL) called a bunch of reporters to a room at the Palms hotel in Las Vegas and gave them a sneak peek at a widely rumored laptop called Adamo. It was literally just a peek; the stylish, thin notebook PC was held up briefly by a stylish, thin fashion model who goes by the single name Hollis. A small mob of photographers was allowed to snap away for a minute or two, and then the Adamo was hustled out of the room.

The company gave very few details about the device, which it vowed to ship in the first half of the year and appears to be positioned as a Dell equivalent to Apple’s (AAPL) MacBook Air. Adamo will “be the new luxury franchise in the Dell brand line up,” says Michael Tatelman, vice president and general manager for sales and marketing in the company’s consumer group.

Adamo means “to fall in love with,” Tatelman says, predicting that consumers will do just that when they see the precision craftsmanship of the product. No pricing was given.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:15 am

Another DNS Flaw Found, Patched

darthcamaro writes "Remember the big DNS flaw that Dan Kaminsky 'discovered' last year? Well, it looks like another flaw in DNS has just been patched. This time it's an item that affects DNSSEC, which was supposed to be the savior for the Kaminsky flaw. The good news, though, is that this time, the issue is relatively minor and DNS has already been patched. 'The flaw is specific to certain usages of DNSSEC,' Joao Damas, senior programming manager of the ISC told InternetNews. 'It is strongly advised that all BIND DNSSEC deployments update in case they are using the particular pattern affected (DSA keys in some cases) and to prevent coming across the problem in the future unexpectedly.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Jan 2009 | 12:11 am

If Ambition Were All It Took, YourNight Would Be Sitting On Gold

There’s not a lot of information to be found about YourNight.com, a currently invite-only portal that’s slated for launch this quarter, but the information we’ve received about its parent company Extreme Enterprises raising a relatively small amount of cash for a valuation of tens of millions of dollars made us curious, so we looked a little closer.

Here’s what we know about the service: YourNight.com will be publishing “dozens of internal search engines in an array of online services located within one portal”, and ultimately hopes to give “every person and business in the world a free web presence, multiple free search engine placements, free advertisement, and free entertainment from TV, radio, email, chat, games, networking, dating & more …”

The company is certainly ambitious enough, openly boasting about becoming a serious threat to “companies such as Google, Yahoo, MySpace, eBay, Amazon, Yellow Pages, Microsoft and several more” and billing itself as “The World’s Largest Interactive Entertainment, Information & Shopping Search Portal”. Last December, EEI even put out a press release about receiving a $30 million valuation based on a stock purchase to the tune of $180,000 for 0.6% ownership made by PlanLogix, a software development company that’s going to be working on YourNight.com. Since its inception in 2004, EEI has reportedly raised over $2.5 million in private equity investments, both cash and in-kind, still according to the release.

A couple of familiar names pop up in the story as well: one of the investors is Mike Alstott, the recently retired Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl champion and six-time Pro Bowl star. George Wendt, that would be the actor who portrayed Norm in the sitcom “Cheers”, is a family member to the founder of EEI and is expected to be endorsing the company, with the terms still in negotiation. Then there’s attorney Ken Keefe, a former U.S. Diplomat and ex-President of Eupen Cable USA who will be assuming the role of President / CLO for the company.

And then there’s this bizarre gem, straight from the press release:

EEI recently announced its nationwide search for a CTO. Starting from the top, EEI has contacted Aber Whitcomb, current MySpace CTO, as well as Sean Parker, Founder of Napster and Former President of FaceBook. “No offers have been agreed upon yet so the search continues”, says EEI CEO RJ Garbowicz.

The press release also states that the company will ‘let its purpose and presence be known’ as soon as they reach their goal of raising a Series A capital round of $10 million.

We’re very curious about the upcoming launch and future of this one.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:56 pm

Packed House For The Crunchies, See You Tonight

Tonight’s Crunchies award ceremony in San Francisco is now totally sold out. We’re sorry if you didn’t get a chance to grab a ticket, but you’ll still be able to watch the show streamed live via Ustream (click here to start watching once the show begins at 7:30).

The awards show, which is co-hosted by GigaOm, VentureBeat, Silicon Alley Insider, and TechCrunch, highlights some of Silicon Valley’s best startups, technological innovations, and breakthrough leaders of 2008. The nomination process saw nearly 170,000 total votes to pick out the finalists in each category, and then another 350,000 to pick the final winners.

We’ve got some big surprises for the show, and the afterparty in SF City Hall is also shaping up to be a blast. We’ll see you there!

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

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:53 pm

Hands on with the HP FireFly prototype laptop

Earlier today we got a bit of face time with HP’s 13-pound prototype laptop dubbed Firefly. This large monstrosity packs a heap of goods like an Intel quad-core proc, secondary screen, dual graphics cards and ‘5.1 sound’. The Firefly has four speakers plus a subwoofer that is placed under the wrist rest. Strange, I know. Sound quality was pretty good but the bass coming out of the wrist rest was weird.

This beast is Phil McKinney’s (HP’s Personal Systems CTO) and he actually lugs it around with him. He noted that he has to use an extra large bag from Timbuk2 just to get it around.

The powerbrick or as Phil calls it the UPS is quite large and is actually the same one that comes with the Firebird desktop.

HP didn’t say this outright but they alluded to the fact that they could place the trackpad on the left side for those that are left-handed. It currently sits on the right side.

Notice the silver grills? Yeah, that’s what’s keeping the laptop cool and bumping your music. There are two fans that sit underneath and the rig is actually air-cooled believe it or not. Phil even said he’s had it on his lap and doesn’t suffer from overheating.

There’s no chance of it hitting the market, but the HP team will undoubtedly pull certain pieces of it for future products. I’m not sure I could lug around a 13-pound laptop, anyway.

HP Firefly

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Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:51 pm

CES 2009: BeerTubes.com beer tube video review

This Beertube was given to us by a charming young lady at the Burger Braisserie in the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. We reviewed it by emptying it of beer. There’s a little bit of salty language in there, be warned.

what is that? how'd it get in there?!

Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:49 pm

Top 11 Most Anticipated Games of 2009

It's gonna be a great year for videogames, and these titles look likely to deliver maximum fun. From big winners to little-known gems, Wired.com runs down the year's most promising games.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:43 pm

Researchers Apply P2P Principles To Car Traffic

alphadogg writes to tell us that lessons learned from peer-to-peer networks are being applied to traffic systems in order to prevent jams. "Their Autonet plan would center around ad hoc networks of vehicles and roadside monitoring posts supported by 802.11 technology (the prototype uses 11b). The vehicles would essentially be the 'clients' in such a system and feature graphical user interfaces to pass along information to drivers. They're building the system to be able to handle data on thousands of traffic incidents and road conditions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:19 pm

CES Video: Interview with Dr. Dre

Peter and Greg got a chance to sit down with Dr. Dre on the first night of CES. We asked him when his next album would drop, what he though of DRM, and if he could help us install Windows 7.

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:14 pm

Atari dates Ghostbusters video game

Atari has just announced that Ghostbusters: The Video Game will be available for purchase on June 16th to coincide with the Blu-ray release of the original movie. Holy crap, the original was released 25 years ago. Crazy.

Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:13 pm

Palm Pre to get its own “App Catalog”

With the Palm Pre rocking a brand spankin’ new OS and an entirely new development platform, it was pretty foreseeable that Palm would eventually announce plans for a central application store. Apple’s doing it, Google’s doing it, RIM is doing it - if you don’t have an App Store of your own, you’ve got nothing.

Sure enough, Palm has gone ahead and announced to their development network that an on-device application catalog is in the works. Of course, they already have an on-device app store of sorts for other Palm handsets, but we’re going make the assumption that this one will be an actual native application, a la the App Store or Android Market, rather than what is little more than a link to a website. Then again, with the webOS Mojo Framework being fueled by HTML5, CSS, and Javascript, we’re not quite sure what to expect.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:04 pm

Why the Budget All-in-One Desktop Will Fail

LAS VEGAS — Several manufacturers are scooping out the guts of netbooks and implanting them in inexpensive, all-in-one desktop computers. And even though they're cheap, it's unlikely these desktops will break into the mainstream.

Micro-Star International (MSI), Asus, Viewsonic and Shuttle showcased various budget all-in-one desktops at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. And hardly any convention attendees even appeared to care about the devices; most of their attention remained fixated on mini notebooks.

MSI is proving to take this new category most seriously with four all-in-ones on display at CES. Dubbed the NetOn series, the computers included the same processor and chipset as the MSI Wind netbook. They range from $500 to $800, depending on screen size (from 16 to 22 inches) and other configurations such as optional touchscreens.

Of course, these companies are embracing this new marketing direction with two trends in mind: 1.) Budget devices, such as netbooks, are flourishing largely because consumers are spending less in a failing economy; and 2.) All-in-one compartmentalization is also highly desirable, as proven by the phenomenally popular iPhone.

But they're missing one key ingredient that's making netbooks (and the iPhone) so successful: They're mobile. They're light and small enough to carry around with you everywhere, which is what's making them loved among both casual users and now even the business world.

The companies are trying to spruce up the all-in-one desktops by offering additional options such as touchscreens. Shuttle's X50 All-in-One (right), for example, is a $500 desktop with an Atom processor and a touchscreen. But this isn't going to cut it either. Consumers definitely are enjoying touchscreens, but is there much of a point in a touchscreen computer if it's stationary? What would you do with it besides tap around for recipes while in a kitchen?

Companies producing budget all-in-ones and netbooks face a problem: The two products are competing with each other. And there just isn't enough of an incentive to buy an all-in-one desktop as opposed to a netbook. Want to add to your netbook's screen size? Attach it to a monitor. Need a keyboard and mouse? Plug them in via USB, just like you would with a desktop system.

Of course you're going to ask — what about the iMac? What makes that system so popular? A few things: Apple's cultlike status, superior aesthetic and higher quality parts. If I were considering an all-in-one desktop, I would want it to be capable of handling everything I would wish to do with a computer — play games, watch movies, edit movies, do work, etc. — and I wouldn't want a low-powered system to do all that. The iMac can handle all of that, and that's why it's not a budget system.

Budget all-in-ones are a truly nascent product — and we won't know how well they're performing in sales until we see some earnings reports. But we're going to make an early call by saying this product category is going to fail very fast, very soon.

See Also:

• MSI Introduces the 'NetTop': Low-Cost, All-in-One PC
• MSI's Most Pricey All-in-One Desktop Is Fugly

Photos: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:02 pm

Why the Budget All-in-One Desktop Will Fail

Attempting to ride the success of netbooks, companies are introducing inexpensive all-in-one PC desktops. They don't stand a chance in the market, and here's why.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:02 pm

Why the Budget All-in-One Desktop Will Fail

Attempting to ride the success of netbooks, companies are introducing inexpensive all-in-one PC desktops. They don't stand a chance in the market, and here's why.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:02 pm

As BoomTown Said, Bartz Is Tops on the Yahoo CEO Short List–Here’s the Reaction [BoomTown]

Following on BoomTown’s report earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal followed by also naming former Autodesk top exec Carol Bartz as a contender for Yahoo CEO in a report today.

Since my post on Wednesday, I have been getting a lot of intense reaction from inside and outside of Yahoo to the idea of an old-line tech CEO–such as Bartz (pictured here in a lovely WSJ dot drawing)–with little Internet or online advertising experience, taking on the difficult role at Yahoo (YHOO).

Bartz certainly has a rock solid resume, including a computer science degree–exactly of the kind the Yahoo board has been interested in, as I have previously reported.

She successfully led Autodesk (ADSK)–which makes computer-aided design software and is half Yahoo’s size–for 14 years, before retiring in 2006 to spend more time with her family.

Bartz remains Autodesk’s executive chairman and also serves on big-name tech boards, such as Intel (INTC) and Cisco (CSCO).

What’s most interesting about the reaction to Bartz is that the kudos and the knocks track very closely.

Some think her lack of Internet and online ad experience is a problem, while others think it is a good thing, freeing her to think freshly.

Some worry about her age (60 years old), while others see it as important to get a seasoned pro in the seat.

Most controversially, some are concerned about her closeness to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker–Bartz serves on the Cisco board with Yang and the Intel board with Decker–seeing the choice as an attempt by Yang to stay in power at Yahoo.

But others think it will make for a smoother transition and that Yahoo still needs Yang’s involvement, despite his rocky tenure as CEO.

Consider the wildly different opinions on the idea of an exec like Bartz:

“It is unbelievable to me that there are NO Web monetization experts being considered for Yahoo CEO–the fix is easy–just focus on making money!!” said one former Yahoo exec.

Added another person close to Yahoo: “I don’t see how Bartz is qualified, other than as a successful former CEO. CAD software is very different from Yahoo’s technology and she has no apparent background in ad sales.”

But others disagree.

“Yahoo needs a strong executive like Bartz to get the company on track, and all she needs is to be able to focus, make deals and be decisive,” said a Yahoo insider. “And she is plenty tough enough to do it and has the tech chops too.”

In addition, another former Yahoo exec noted that she could easily be paired with a strong No. 2, with much more of an Internet background.

“There are a lot of great choices around who would love to take a COO job, since it is clear Bartz will not be a long-term CEO,” said the former exec, referring to her age. “It is a perfect stepping stone.”

But the Yang connection worried one current exec: “Jerry just does not want to let go. The person who made this mess should not be controlling a search to replace himself, especially with someone who is probably friendly to him.”

Indeed, several sources said the most prominent insider considered, board member John Chapple, is now not a choice, due to his closeness to fellow director Carl Icahn. Icahn came to the Yahoo board after waging an ugly proxy fight against the company and Yang.

But other current exec disagrees. “Yahoo has had enough turmoil and we need someone who can come in and settle things down,” said the exec. “Bartz seems perfect to do that.”

Another exec points out that Yang has not apparently been favoring Decker (pictured here), to whom he is very loyal, but who carries the same baggage as Yang about Yahoo’s current state.

“That Sue is not the likely choice is a sign that Jerry has tried to make the best choice for the company over getting an ally in power,” said the exec. “I think he also knows the reaction to her as CEO would probably send Wall Street into a tizzy and signal investors of an unwillingness to be accountable or to change by the already tarnished board.”

Whoever the new leaders of Yahoo are, they will have their work cut out for them, from deciding the strategy, especially with regard to a search deal with Microsoft (MSFT), to determining whether a merger deal with Time Warner (TWX) online unit AOL should happen.

While rich in assets and online traffic, Yahoo has suffered over the last year from a range of internal and external troubles that have shaken the iconic Web company to its core and depressed its stock.

That’s why Yahoo’s board probably must select a new CEO before it reports fourth-quarter earnings on Jan. 27.

If not, it will have to answer sharp questions from investors, Wall Street analysts and the press about why the process is taking so long, especially considering the urgency.

That sluggishness, of course, is a hallmark of Yahoo, and one of the reasons for its current troubles. Yang announced he would be stepping down in mid-November.

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 11:01 pm

iFrogz’ new headphones - plus a contest

I’ve been thinking of you, dear reader, and that’s why I custom-designed a pair of CrunchGear-colored headphones from . I stopped by the booth to pick them up (for you) and found a few new things. They now have fluffy earpieces, which is kind of awesome (and warm), and they are also making a cool little attachment for your iPod so kids can use it without breaking the thing. Having been a preschool teacher for a couple years, I can say that I think it might actually work. Parents, take note.

The silicone case has handles like a sippy cup and a protector for the screen (and maybe for the wheel, I can’t remember). The kid just holds it with both hands and it’s really thick silicone so it just bounces or rolls when you drop it. Apparently one iPod survived being thrown from a moving car in the thing. No iPod Touch version yet or anything like that, but if you’re a digitally minded parent with an old-style iPod, this thing might be worth your while.

Now! The contest! I have a pair of Nerve Pipes which I’ve customized to have CrunchGear colors (silver/grey and orange, if you must know). I know you want to show your CG stripes in public, so here’s how you win ‘em: just leave a comment telling us what your favorite CES gadget is so far. That’s all! The contest will end at the end of the weekend. And that’s a lot of “end”s in one sentence.

Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:57 pm

2009 Software Outlook Predictably Crappy [Digital Daily]

Goldman Sachs published its “Americas: 2009 Software Outlook” report today and it’s as dismal and ugly a forecast as you’d expect, given the current economic climate.

“The worst of the IT-spending slowdown likely remains in front of us, as we start the clock on slashed 2009 budgets,” Goldman said in the report. “We forecast 0 percent revenue growth for our group, below consensus at 5 percent, and 1 percent earnings growth, below Street at 2 percent.”

Beyond that, the firm forsees an eight percent decline in developed economy tech capital investment, with the likes of Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), SAP (SAP), Symantec (SYMC), CA (CA)–the so called Big 5–treading water until the economy recovers. Said Goldman, “We expect the Big 5 software companies…to benefit from more defensive revenue streams due to critical nature of functions, ’stickier’ maintenance, stronger negotiating leverage, and a likely spending consolidation to larger vendors. Hence, we assume 0 percent growth for this group in 2009.”

Ugly. Could have been worse, though.

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:42 pm

The Adamo: It’s a laptop

After a few weeks of exciting lead-up we finally see the Adamo, a Dell laptop. It has a screen, keyboard, and touchpad and is clearly so fierce that it must be held at arms length for fear of it exploding on your chest.

These laptops are basically going after the MacBook market, much as the many touchscreen iFauxs we’ve been seeing (Storm, Instinct, etc.) have been going after the iPhone market. In a few months the netbook market will collapse - folks that already have them, well, have them and folks who don’t want them will never buy them - so it’s important for these guys to bring out some laptops that appeal to a general audience, recapturing the delicate space between business laptop - rugged, ugly - and desktop replacement - big, ugly.

Expect more like these in the next few months as laptop makers decide to start making money again.

Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:39 pm

CES: Intel Chairman Barrett Touts Education for Developing World [Voices]

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

I’m at the Palazzo Ballroom in the Venetian/Palazzo Hotels in Las Vegas where Intel (INTC) chair Craig Barrett is talking a whole bunch about the developing world. He’s probably not going to talk much about the company’s “Atom” microprocessor for netbooks, or about any other chip stuff.

“There are more Internet users in China than there are people in the U.S.,” Barrett notes, “And more cellphone users in South Africa than in the U.S.” But it won’t matter, he says, if the world doesn’t address inequities, starting with education. “If someone asked me what’s the most important technology you could put in the classroom, I would say, a really good teacher,” says Barrett. He brings onstage executives from NetHope, which is coordinating IT for developing countries, including Kenya, and Save the Children, which is working on getting Intel Classmate PCs into classrooms in Bangladesh.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:37 pm

Tiny memory cards come with outsized storage (Reuters)

Reuters - Imagine storing 100 movies in glorious high-definition on a card the size of a postage stamp, then calling them up instantaneously for viewing on your cellphone whenever and wherever you like.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:36 pm

Past Due: Frost & Sullivan and Digital Defense Answer PCI Security Standard Questions

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:34 pm

Abused IT Workers Ready To Quit

An anonymous reader writes to tell us that new research is suggesting as many as a quarter of all IT staff in small to medium businesses have suffered some sort of abuse and are looking for careers elsewhere [PDF]. "The study also found that over a third have suffered from sleepless nights or headaches as a result of IT problems at work, while 59 per cent spend between one and 10 hours a week working on IT systems outside normal hours. [...] The biggest cause of stress among IT staff is problems arising from operational day-to-day tasks, the survey found. Another major cause came from loss of critical data, according to Connect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:31 pm

Shapeways easy fabrication’s fabulous little objects

Do you hear me, fabulous! I found Shapeways, the online marketplace for 3D objects and models, rocking a booth full of little things their community had designed. This service is really cool, and if you’re a crafty type or decent in Maya or Blender, you should check it out. There are a couple options for materials, and the sort of amber-colored hard plastic, as you see with the face-bowl, looks beautiful when polished (plus it’s super strong). Unfortunately they don’t polish it for you, but you got two good hands, why don’t you use ‘em?

There’s no real news here, just a couple pictures of the little objects you can cause to be made.

Source: CrunchGear | 9 Jan 2009 | 10:28 pm

Make Your Photos Talk Smack With Storyblender

Storyblender, the casual animation site that launched at TechCrunch40 that lets you put together customized goofy video clips, has just opened up a fun new side project called Make Me Talk. The new web app lets you stick some fake lips on the photo of your choosing and make them move realistically in sync with a voice recording.

To use the service, just upload a photo (upclose headshots work best), and choose from a handful of lip designs. Once you’ve resized and placed the lips, you’re asked to make your recording of up to 60 seconds. The audio detection seems to work pretty well (you can see a demo video below), though I wish there was more variety in lip choices. Even without much variety, it’s still a lot of fun.

Other services that offer similar talking avatars include Beema (covered here), Vidiator, and Oddacast’s Voki.

Note: If you’re having trouble getting the lips to sync correctly, try closing any other tabs in your browser that might be playing a Flash video (this bug should be fixed by early next week).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:57 pm

Amazing Photography of Bees and Bunnies and More, Oh My!

As a long-time couple, finding art or photography that we both enjoy can sometimes be difficult. For instance, we’ve been searching for a painting of the rolling hills of Sonoma County that we can both live with for roughly 18 years.

However, the work of Kate Kunath amazes both of us, not only because of the quality of the images, but because of the thought she puts into each of her projects. Whether it’s dilapidated buildings in China or the portraits of people holding rabbits, we both agree these are beautiful and thought-provoking. We first heard about Kunath’s work when Treehugger featured her Stung: Beekeeping in the 21st Century series of photos, which is also full of terrific photos we can both agree on.

Kate Kunath’s Work

(Shawn Connally and Bruce Stewart are guest bloggers)

Source: Boing Boing | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:53 pm

Anti-psychotics may double death risk

A British research team says anti-psychotic drugs commonly given to Alzheimer's patients may double the risk of early death. The study, led by Clive Ballard of King's College London, involved 165 Alzheimer's patients who were being prescribed anti-psychotics.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:48 pm

Linux Courses Increase Job Options for Techs

UC BERKELEY EXTENSION OFFERS SHORT COURSES IN EMBEDDED LINUX FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS BEGINNING JANUARY 26th
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:45 pm

Dell touts luxury brand but offers few details (AP)

AP - Computer maker Dell Inc., trailing Hewlett-Packard Co. in worldwide sales, could have used a home run at the International Consumer Electronics Show. Instead, it came to Vegas with a model and a mirage.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:43 pm

Google Releases Chrome 2.0 Pre-Beta

Nick Fletcher writes "Just a few short months after the initial release, Google has released a pre-beta version of Google Chrome 2.0. It sports a few new features including form auto-completion, full-page zoom, 'profiles,' and Greasemonkey support. It seems the only notable feature would be profiles, which allows users to separate out their homepage, history, and bookmarks on a per user or category basis. It seems Google is still playing catch-up but they're definitely moving at a pace unknown to some of their competition. The full list of new features is available in the release notes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:42 pm

CES Photo: Intel's Minority Reportesque Demo Screen

Sent more or less live from CES.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:30 pm

Online Threat to Kill Obama Leads to Arrest

Secret Service agents raid the home of a man suspected of promising Barack Obama a "50 cal in the head" on a Yahoo message board. They take away his .50 caliber rifle.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:20 pm

Twtvite Makes Organizing Tweetups Easy

From the developer who brought us twtpoll, Felipe Coimbra, now there is twtvite, an easy way to use Twitter or Facebook to create a micro-invite for your friends and followers. You create an invite on the twtvite site, and then micro-message with a tiny URL on Twitter or Facebook. The link takes people back to the site where they can RSVP. (See screenshot below).

I just created one for the Crunchies here.

Coimbra is creating a whole suite of Twitter apps, including twtvite, twtpoll, and twtcard. You can find them at TwtApps.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:19 pm

China 3C Group Appoints Goldman Parks as New Auditor

HANGZHOU, China, Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:19 pm

Molecular origin of stem cells uncovered

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:08 pm

USAID Hosts 1st Development 2.0 Challenge Awards Ceremony for Technology Innovators

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- USAID Administrator and Director of U.S. Foreign Assistance Henrietta H. Fore named RapidSMS Child Malnutrition Surveillance the winner of the Agency's first Development 2.0 Challenge.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 9:00 pm

USAID Partners With The Tech Awards to Promote Innovation for Development

WASHINGTON, Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:59 pm

Global warming could overheat crops

U.S. researchers say global warming is likely to result in lower crop yields in the tropics and subtropics.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:51 pm

a la mode Promotes Brian Craven to Chief Financial Officer

OKLAHOMA CITY, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- a la mode, inc. is pleased to announce the promotion of Brian Craven, CPA, to the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Mr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:51 pm

Higher Insulin may Play a Key Role in the Link Between Obesity and Breast Cancer

Elevated insulin may play a key role in the link between obesity and breast cancerHigher-than-normal levels of insulin place postmenopausal women at increased risk of breast cancer, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University report.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:46 pm

Army Assembles 'Mad Scientist' Conference. Really

The "Mad Scientist Future Technology Seminar," a three-day conference hosted by the U.S. Army, posits a near future where access to advanced military technology is available to all. So we'd better get our problems sorted out pretty damned quick.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:45 pm

Scientists Develop First Examples of RNA That Replicates Itself Indefinitely

Now, a pair of Scripps Research Institute scientists has taken a significant step toward answering that question.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:41 pm

How Our Brain Works as a GPS Device

We've all experienced the feeling of not knowing where we are. Being disoriented is not pleasant, and it can even be scary, but luckily for most of us, this sensation is temporary.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:38 pm

Video: the Magic of Mushroom Spores

High-speed video reveals that the fantastic variety of shapes of mushroom spores serves to help them catapult themselves into the air.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:36 pm

How Video Will Save the Audio Star

Audiophiles, rejoice: Sound quality is about to get much better, thanks to high-definition video standards.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:35 pm

How Video Will Save the Audio Star

Audiophiles, rejoice: Sound quality is about to get much better, thanks to high-definition video standards.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:35 pm

Don't Worry! Interevco Launches Grey Flannel Digital to Guide Publishers to Safety

NEW YORK Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:33 pm

Intel Cash Register Knows Who You Are, What You Want

Asking the question: "Do you know who I am?" is not likely to score you any points at the store, even in these trying economic times. But Intel wants to change that with a proof of concept cash register that knows not only who you are, but also what you want.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:31 pm

Coupon woes are only part of digital TV concerns (AP)

AP - In less than six weeks, the nation's television broadcasters are due to shut off their analog signals and begin transmitting in digital — potentially blacking out as many as 8 million U.S. households that rely on analog TV sets to pick up over-the-air channels.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:10 pm

Jerry Yang and Sue Decker Talk About Yahoo’s Connected TV at CES [BoomTown]

Usually, BoomTown plays the stalker of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang. But, with an interesting product to show off, this time he invited me and also Walt Mossberg to take an on-the-floor look-see at the company’s new “Connected TV” effort yesterday.

Wading into what has been a longtime dead end for many tech companies–bringing the Internet to the television–Yahoo (YHOO) has struck a deal with South Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung and other major television makers to put its software in televisions to link them to the Internet.

Using an onscreen dock, Yahoo is presenting its own services (like Flickr) and those from outside Web sites (YouTube) with this “widget engine.” With a regular remote, you can click through these applications easily and launch them in a side screen.

Yahoo hopes to create an entire ecosystem of these widgets, similar to what is occurring with the iPhone.

Publishers and vendors can use Yahoo’s open technology, although the company will offer monetization services, keeping itself at the center of the platform.

In the short amount of time I used it, it’s a nice effort and an important one if Yahoo is to try to lead in being a key player in devices other than computers.

Here’s the video of me talking to Yang (check out his attempted scary stare at me at the start!) and Yahoo President Sue Decker about Connected TV, along with an interview with Yahoo’s point man on other devices, Connected Device EVP Marco Boerries.

Here’s the video (I had to use YouTube to upload it, since Brightcove isn’t downloading properly):

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 8:04 pm

CES: The Audacity of Woot

The Woot boys challenged us to find the most flagrant display of waste at CES. Clearly, this monstrous booth run by Woot themselves typifies the worst sort of disregard for the dire economic climate in which we
live.

I mean *two* flashing lights? A slap in the face of decorum! And if they would have made this desk -- which encompesses the entirety of this baroque cathedral to consumption -- slightly more modest, they could have probably had the resources they could produced dozens of extra bags of crap.

Sent more or less live from CES.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:57 pm

Obama Urges DTV Delay as Time, Money Runs Out

The deadline for switching to digital-only TV is 39 days away, but the move is in serious trouble. Millions of households aren't ready for the conversion and a government program to subsidize the hardware needed by many is out of money.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:55 pm

Web startup to offer foreign news as papers cut (AP)

AP - As budget cuts force many U.S. newspapers to retrench on their foreign coverage, veteran journalist Charles Sennott saw virtually no chance of getting another assignment abroad.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:47 pm

U.S. Needs Better Security on Science

The National Research Council advised on Thursday that the system for keeping U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:45 pm

Global Warming Could Cause Worldwide Food Shortage by 2100

Scientists warn that looming global warming could induce a worldwide food shortage crisis by the next century. Warming could result in a reduction of crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by 2100, said Prof David Battisti of the University of Washington, Seattle.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:40 pm

CES: Dell announces Mini Inspiron 10, Adamo luxury laptop brand

Clamping my ears to prevent my melted brain from oozing out of my cochleas, I stumbled up to the Dell Suite in the Palms Pleasure Tower this morning to allow Dell's constabulary of attractive public relations girls the honor of ministering to my hangover with smoothies and omelettes.

It was not to be. As I poured my gelatinated central nervous system out of the elevator, I really did expect those dollsome PR sirens to whisk me away to a chaise longue, where they would press my noble brow with a moist cloth and provide me with Bloody Marys and sympathetic, dove-like cooing.

Instead, though, those assholes decided to throw a press conference, and sidelined me into a press room... a press room where there was not a single omelette or smoothie to be had. Unbelievable.

Over the course of the next forty five minutes, Dell pulled the curtain on an array of new products. They debuted a 13-inch Adamo with much vagueness and mystery, refusing to be pinned down to anything besides its screen size and the fact that it is a "luxury product" with top-of-the-line hardware specs. This vagueness seemed to confuse the other tech writers in attendance, but even through the random jactitation of my limbs and reality's insistent loop-de-loops and vomit-inducing pirouettes, it seemed pretty clear that the Adamo wasn't intended to be a single laptop, but Dell's new luxury brand.

It's a curious announcement either way. A luxury laptop? Sure. But a luxury brand... even forgetting the recession, is "luxury" really a market that can be pandered to with Dell's typical broad product line swathes?

Also debuted during my delirium tremens: the Mini Inspiron 10. It is what it is: a 10-inch expansion to Dell's netbook line, with built-in GPS and a digital television tuner. Yesterday, they also announced an aftermarket add-on tuner for their existing Mini Inspirons. I think Dell's got whiff of the right scent: they are probably right to guess that netbooks have appeal as portable televisions to the broader public at large.

But, you know, whatever. I'm just so mad at Dell right now. I really don't know what those guys are thinking. It is true: omelettes don't come free. And I understand that Dell and I have a symbiotic relationship. I need to give in return.

But a press conference at the positively inhuman hour 8:30am after a night out at Casino Royale? Bad cricket. Minister to my hangover, Dell. Stroke my hair. Let me lay my head in your lap for a spell. Then, after all of that, pluck the Dadaist splendor of my hangover from my brow and slap it as a sticker on the back of one of your custom-art Studio laptops. I am an artist.That is how I can give. And it would beat some of the Bill Cosby sweater designs you're already rolling with.

Consider my protest lodged.

Image of Dell's Adamo brazenly stolen from Gizmodo. I have cropped out their watermark with confidence. You know, plied with enough booze, Brian Lam is surprisingly open about the profane fetishes of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, and the manner in which Gizmodo has capitalized upon them. It would be a shame if any of those secretly recorded remarks "got out."

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:36 pm

Vicarious Vegas: On the Ground at CES 2009

:

The impending money apocalypse has forced even the most die-hard gizmo geeks to become careful penny pinchers. Never fear, if you couldn't quite stretch your dollar to Vegas this year, you can still get a taste for what it's like to be there in this tour of the grounds.

If you just want to gorge yourself on gadget news, check Wired.com's full CES 2009 coverage on Gadget Lab's blog.

Left: Not all the gadgets at CES are tiny. Giant TVs still mesmerize the crowd.

: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comMembers of the media swarm Panasonic chairman Yoshi Yamada after a press conference Wednesday at the Venetian hotel.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comPalm's executive chairman Jon Rubinstein announces the new Palm Pre at the invite-only press briefing in the Venetian.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comAttendees flock to product stations at the LG booth, eager to test out their new electronics, like the LG Cookie.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comHigh-definition home-audio listening booths are among the most popular attractions on the floor of the Las Vegas Convention Center.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comConventioneers mill around outside the hall as a hard day of gadgeting finally wraps.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comA splash of red light illuminates a CES devotee outside the Microsoft exhibit.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comAn exhibitor looks on while a CES junkie plays with the CXC Motion Pro II Racing Simulator at the Intel booth.: Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.comThe sun sets on fleeing gadget lovers after a long day at CES.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:30 pm

Iceland Pressed by Pro-Whaling Groups

Whaling groups in Iceland argue for the expansion of catch quotas.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:24 pm

Walt and Katie Take Some Gadgets for a Test Drive [Mossblog]

Yesterday at Consumer Electronics Show, Walt and Katie Boehret got their hands on some new gadgets, including waterproof military laptops, games that teach kids how to play real musical instruments and, yes, those uber-hip 3-D glasses.

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:19 pm

CES: Netflix on the Hunt [Voices]

By Nick Wingfield, Staff Writer, Digits, The Wall Street Journal

Reed Hastings is prowling CES for deals. Already, in the past year, the CEO of DVD rental service Netflix Inc. has cut at least a half-dozen partnerships with consumer electronics makers to make a Netflix service that streams movies and television shows over the Internet watchable on television sets via game consoles, digital video recorders and other gadgets.

This week at CES, Netflix announced Korea’s LG Electronics will let viewers tune into the Netflix service through an upcoming line of HDTVs. A Netflix deal also announced this week with another television maker, Vizio, could be even more interesting because some of those sets will be able to get onto the Internet wirelessly, a technology that will make it much easier to get online than sets with only wired Internet connections.

“I think it will double or triple the percentage of people who have those devices and hook them up to the Internet,” Hastings said, over a cup of gelato at a café in the Venetian hotel.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:01 pm

Video: Wireless Power Energizes Many Devices

Powermat displays new wireless charging systems at CES 2009, a convenient wireless alternative to mobile phone, computer and appliance chargers. The system uses magnetic conduction to transfer energy to almost any device.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm

Devastating rumor puts Sprint’s Palm Pre at $399 at launch

What’s the quickest way to kill any momentum you might have built up in the past 24 hours, Palm? How about pricing the Pre at $399, as this rumor currently zipping around the Internet suggests?

A Russian, who is apparently Mr. Credible for having reported on the death of the RAZR 3, says that Palm will price the Pre at $399 when it launches on Sprint in a few months. That’s $100 $200 more than the 8GB iPhone 3G (and the same price $100 more than the 16GB iPhone 3G).

Palm would be wise not to price the Pre out of the reach of the average consumer, especially with so many of them now watching the family budget so closely.

via Electronista

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Source: MobileCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 6:51 pm

Mark Cuban Wants to Know if You’re Ready for Some Football in 3-D [MediaMemo]

One of the biggest themes at the Consumer Electronics Show this year (besides the fact that the town is comparatively empty) is 3-D. A host of hardware and software companies insists that a new version of the technology is ready for prime time, and that it won’t be a “Creature from the Black Lagoon” novelty: The glasses are better, the images will burst off the screen and into your lap, etc.

At Sony’s keynote presentation yesterday, CEO Howard Stringer devoted a good chunk of his presentation to the wonders of the technology and showed off a 3-D short from Disney’s (DIS) Pixar. And last night a few hundred of us got another demo–a broadcast of the Florida/Oklahoma BCS championship game, on a giant screen, live, in 3-D.

This sounded great in theory. A brace of companies, including Cinedigm, 3ality, Carmike Cinemas (CKEC), News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox and Sony (SNE), partnered up to create a special 3-D broadcast that went out to a handful of movie theaters across the U.S. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site.) And they’d like to replicate this a dozen times a year for other special occasions: Other big sports events, concerts and the like.

This stuff is still a bit rough around the edges. The 3-D cameras seem to have a hard time keeping up with high-speed action like a pass, some images didn’t seem to focus that well, and the broadcast, which was created separately from the show everyone else in the country saw, seemed to be several cameras short–not enough overhead shots of the action, etc. But that’s OK: CES is usually stuffed with vaporware that never makes it to market, so we’re willing to cut an actual product some slack.

The bigger question is whether the 3-D experience will be amazing enough to convince people to pay money to watch a big game at a theater instead of their living rooms or at a sports bar. I’m not convinced, but I’m willing to give it another shot.

Here’s some video footage from the event; I can’t show you what the broadcast looked like because my not-so trusty Flip Mino doesn’t have any kind of flash. And there’s not much point in watching a clip of a 3-D broadcast in 2-D anyway, right? Instead, I chatted with Cinedigm CEO Bud Mayo, recent Carmike investor Mark Cuban (more from him later), and Nate Westheimer, a New York-based tech guy around town who filled in as my volunteer cameraman and one-man focus group.

[Image Credit: Life/Google]

Source: All Things Digital | 9 Jan 2009 | 6:51 pm

Cyprus at Risk of Desertification

An expert warned Friday that Cyprus runs the risk of desertification by the end of this century as it feels the brunt of climate change and drought.Professor Manfred Lange, a geophysicist, said that studies project a rise in summer temperatures on the East Mediterranean Island of between
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2009 | 6:29 pm

Palm Pre Hands On: The Movie

Here it is, folks - our video of the Palm Pre in its factory-made flesh, mere inches away from our lens. We intended for this to go live at the same time as our primary hands on, but the winds just wouldn’t blow in our favor. We shot the video, brought it back for editing.. and then things broke, USB drives were lost, and the video was 1 minute too long for YouTube (which we found out after roughly half an hour of uploading). But we shot 11 minutes of Pre footage, and darn it, we’re going to put it up. Enjoy.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 6:19 pm

CES Video: Asus Netbookstravaganza, with Bamboo, Gold Lamé, and Lamborghini.

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Full Disclosure: Boing Boing's video production at CES is sponsored by WEPC.com, and they're also the subject of this episode. We were not paid to produce a piece about them, nor were we required to cover their presence at CES as part of the sponsorship. They had no editorial control or involvement in the content we produced, including this episode. Netbooks were sort of a hot topic at CES 09, and since Asus was something of a pioneer in this product sector, with interesting products out this year, we chose to cover this project's presence.

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Xeni from the motherboing here with a new Boing Boing Gadgets CES video installment! Beschizza and I visited the Asus booth to check out some of the netbooks and other devices they're developing. Rob got some hands-on time with some of the more visually interesting models, including one netbook covered in bamboo, and others covered in very Vegas-appropriate gold lamé or Lamborghini co-branding. (Ay, que Elvis, hombre!) We also spoke with one of the senior designers with Asus from Taiwan about the Intel co-partnered WEPC project, in which they're soliciting feature requests from the public, then sorting through those crowdsourced suggestions and figuring out what makes sense to implement in production.

Flash embed above, downloadable MP4 here.

(Special thanks to Q-Burns Abstract Message for the background tracks in our CES episodes!)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 5:56 pm

Flashback: Images From the Week's News

A look back at images from Discovery News, Jan. 5-9.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 5:54 pm

Thin is in: Skype lite (beta) launches for Android, 100+ Java-enabled phones

Lite version of Skype for Android
by SkypeConversations

Skype announced today that it has released a new “thin” client - Skype lite (beta) - available for Android-powered devices and over 100 other Java-enabled handsets from the likes of Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG.  The launch of Skype lite also marks the first time a mobile version of the app is available for use in the US.

According to the official Skype lite site, the beta app’s major features include:

• Local rate calls to your Skype contacts wherever they are.
• Call on Skype wherever you are - no WiFi or 3G required.
• Instant message from your mobile.
• Save on international and long distance calls to phones and mobiles.

For an official list of Java-enabled, (currently) supported devices, head on over to the Skype for your mobile site.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 9 Jan 2009 | 5:54 pm

CES Video: Palm Pre Hands-On with Joel and Brownlee, post-review huddle with Ars Technica

(Flash video above, downloadable MP4 here.)

Joel and Brownlee got a hands-on demo with the new Palm Pre, and Boing Boing's video team was there to cover them. Watch the whole review above. In the first half of the video, Brownlee and Joel grill a Palm rep -- who doesn't want to let either of them touch the device -- about features and what's under the hood. In the second half of today's video, our fellas huddle over brews and watered-down show floor drinks with Jon Stokes from Ars Technica for a post-game analysis. Verdict seems to be that if this is Palm's "hail mary," it just might work. The Pre seems pretty sweet. Here's the Pre product page at palm.com.

Previously: Seven features that make the Palm Pre better than the iPhone

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Sponsor shout-out: Boing Boing's 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."

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(Special thanks to Q-Burns Abstract Message for the background tracks in our CES episodes!)


Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 9 Jan 2009 | 4:37 pm

Great White Tops List of Hardest-Biting Sharks

It's head width, not overall size, that best predicts how hard a shark's bite will be.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 3:54 pm

Canadian Trekkers Claim South Pole Record

Canadian trekkers subsisted on deep fried bacon and butter while setting an Antarctic record.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 3:15 pm

Shiny Urban Surfaces Trap Clueless Critters

Reflective city streets can trap insects drawn to the glint of water.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 2:44 pm

Blacks Holes Came Before Galaxies

The universe's chicken or the egg riddle has been solved: black holes predate galaxies.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 9 Jan 2009 | 2:27 pm

Conceptual Interface is Controlled by Hand Gestures

Toshiba 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

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