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State Board of Education debates evolution curriculum - Dallas Morning News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:36 am Stanford Students Release A Cool Batch Of iPhone AppsStudents from Stanford’s Fall 1008 iPhone class CS193P created a nice crop of apps that are now available or will be soon for the iPhone (see our Stanford Facebook apps posts here and here). A list of them is here, and some of them I’m going to keep on my phone. My favorite is iDiscover, which gives you random content you think will be interesting (text, videos, apps). You rate them and it teaches the app to refine what it sends you in the future. It’s a sort of StumbleUpon for the iPhone, and its addicting. iDiscover is free. Air Guitar, a $1.99 app, looks like it might be another winner but I’m having issues downloading it. Among the yet-to-be-approved apps, Site Saver looks like a useful way to store web content locally. I tend to take a screen shot of whatever I’m looking at, but this looks like a better solution if it saves the whole web page rather than just what’s on the screen. And Heydar, a location-based dating application, is being released at the perfect time. The complete list is below. Qingwen - Karan Misra
Qingwen uses a modified version of CC-CEDICT as its dictionary. Free. Air Guitar - James Anthony and Edward Marks
HaveASec - Nafis Jamal and Andrew He
iDiscover - Paul Wilson and Nafis Jamal
Site Saver - Vikram Oberoi
Abodi - Keyan Salari
Heydar - Mark Kieling, Shahryar Khan, Matthew Pease, and Matthew Lawyer
Stress Bust - Greg Wientjes
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:33 am Stanford Students Release A Cool Batch Of iPhone AppsStudents from Stanford's Fall 1008 iPhone class CS193P created a nice crop of apps that are now available or will be soon for the iPhone (see our Stanford Facebook apps posts here and here). A list of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:33 am The Oath of Office (and a Pledge of Tech Allegiance). [Voices]By Nitrozac and Snaggy
Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:30 am Introducing the Sony DismayStation [Digital Daily]
A bitter turn of fortune for Sony, which as recently as October had claimed it would make a profit this year. Clearly, the deepening worldwide recession has been particularly cruel to the company. And though Sony is attempting a perilously overdue restructuring that will trim 16,000 jobs and six factories from its books, analysts are beginning to wonder if the notoriously fragmented company might need to take even more drastic steps. “Its business model and operational issues account for 80-90 percent of Sony’s poor earnings,” Nomura Securities senior analyst Eiichi Katayama told Reuters. “Domestic production costs are a concern but this move is not something that would bring it back to the black or cut losses in half. ony has to consider ways to lower fixed costs not only for its TV business but for the whole company. It will have to start cutting development costs in addition to production costs.” Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:22 am Interwrite brings tech to classrooms, could remove embarrassmentSection: Computers, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle
eInstruction hopes to bring the tech into the hands of everyone in the classroom, whether it be elementary, high school or colleges. Its new product, the Interwrite Mobi System, provides a way for teachers and students to connect more easily through technology. The system gives students tablets that connect to the classroom’s network. The students can then answer questions, ask questions or interact more with the teacher instantly. The teacher then sees the responses and is able to tell who said what, so they can identify students that might need extra help, or those who completely understand the material. The Interwrite Mobi System, assuming it can be rolled out to enough classrooms, seems like an excellent idea. It encourages students to take part in the classroom discussion more than some might normally. Seemingly one of the biggest reasons why some kids who don’t understand the material don’t mention something is because they’re too afraid of looking like an idiot in front of their classmates. This allows the teacher to see who actually needs that help, without putting the responsibility into the hands of the student. Read [Business News Wire] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:19 am UPDATE 1-Melrose starts production at Egyptian well* Defers drilling at Ramsey No.1 well in Texas (Adds details)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:19 am China advertising mkt up in '08; slowdown looms -reportBEIJING, Jan 22 (Reuters) - China's advertising market grew 15 percent to 441.3 billion yuan ($64.5 billion) in 2008, enjoying a one-time boost from the Olympics, but the industry could face an abrupt...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:12 am UPDATE 2-AU posts record quarterly loss, but sees Q1 bottom* AU posts record quarterly loss, first loss in nearly 2 yrsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:10 am RPT-UPDATE 6-Sony warns of $2.9 bln loss, biggest ever*Shares close down 2.6 pct in Tokyo ahead of announcement (Repeats to additional subscribers)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:07 am Novozymes FY profit in line with consensusCOPENHAGEN, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Novozymes , the world's leading maker of industrial enzymes, reported on Thursday full-year 2008 operating profit in line with expectations and increased its long-term financial...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:06 am Innovation Doesn’t Take a Vacation in an Economic Downturn [Voices]By David Hornik, General Partner, August Capital By the end of 2008, Venture Capital had been officially declared dead. Startups were laying people off so fast that even TechCrunch couldn’t manage to keep up. University Endowments and Foundations, the source of the “capital” in Venture Capital, were hemorrhaging so badly from their public company investments that many long-time believers in “alternative assets” declared a moratorium on Venture Capital. And the IPO market was a distant memory. Good times! Welcome 2009. The public markets remain closed. Venture investors and the investors in venture investors remain “challenged.” Follow on financings have become increasingly difficult, in some instances impossible. And, while there may well be light at the end of the tunnel, it would appear that we haven’t gotten far enough down the tunnel yet to see that light. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:05 am Autonomy Corporation plc Announces Agreement to Acquire Interwoven, Inc. for an Aggregate Consideration of Approx. US$775 MillionCombination of Autonomy and Interwoven Extends Meaning Based Computing to New Customer Base Enabling World's First Comprehensive Manage-In-Place Architecture A Teleconference Call...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:05 am “Moral Panic” Behind Attempts to Link Games, Violence [Voices]By John Timmer, Science Editor, Ars Technica It seems like it’s rare for a month to go by without a story appearing in the popular press in which the frequent enjoyment of violent games by today’s youth is linked to a specific violent act by members of said youth. Behind the press reports, the academic community has been engaged in a hot debate over whether the evidence supports a connection between the violent content of games and any behavioral effects. One of the researchers who has argued forcefully that it’s not is Christopher Ferguson, who has just published a paper that argues that the continued societal focus on games as a causal factor in violence is an example of what’s termed a “moral panic.” Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:04 am FACTBOX-Obesity is top health concern in U.S.Jan 22 (Reuters) - The following are facts about obesity in the United States.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:04 am RPT-FEATURE-U.S. obesity epidemic shows perils to health reformCHICAGO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - For years, Bob Clegg's insurance company paid out some $3,000 a month for doctor visits, drugs and medical devices to treat the health problems caused by his obesity.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:03 am Back Issues [Voices]By Jill Lepore, Contributing Writer, The New Yorker The newspaper is dead. You can read all about it online, blog by blog, where the digital gloom over the death of an industry often veils, if thinly, a pallid glee. The Newspaper Death Watch, a Web site, even has a column titled “R.I.P.” Or, hold on, maybe the newspaper isn’t quite dead yet. At its funeral, wild-eyed mourners spy signs of life. The newspaper stirs! Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:03 am Word Cloud Analysis of Obama’s Inaugural Speech Compared to Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Lincoln’s [Voices]By Marshall Kirkpatrick, Blogger, ReadWriteWeb Barack Obama was just sworn in as President of the U.S. and though he stumbled in repeating his oath, the speech that followed was delivered flawlessly and was widely praised around the Web. (Several readers have told us that it wasn’t Obama that stumbled, it was Justice Roberts.) There were quite a few concepts discussed that we suspect haven’t been a part of past inaugural speeches. What words were used most often? We ran the full text of the speech through tag cloud generator Wordle.net for one view of the event, and just for the sake of historical context we ran George W. Bush’s second inaugural speech through as well. Update: After one reader suggested it, we’ve also added word clouds from Bill Clinton’s second inaugural speech and Reagan’s first below. Second update: By reader request, we’ve added Lincoln’s first and second inaugural speeches as well. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:02 am Facebook Meets TV, Literally [Voices]By Kevin Anderson, Blogs Editor, The Guardian Barack Obama’s inauguration was clearly historic as the United States celebrated its first black president, but the coverage and experience of the inauguration also broke new ground. For the first time, digital satellite images showed the millions of people who braved the cold to see the inauguration. Microsoft’s Photosynth software stitched together thousands of photos to show the inauguration in 3D on CNN’s Web site, and CNN also brought together a live stream of its coverage and Facebook. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 8:01 am UPDATE 1-UK Coal sees FY production, sales in lineLONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - UK Coal Plc , a coal and property company, said on Thursday that full-year production and sales are expected to be broadly in line with its expectations with the final quarter...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:54 am Apple beats expectations with record earnings (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:53 am Apple's MacBook White Refreshed - Techtree.com
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:50 am Florida University police probe mysterious 'monkey' textA criminal investigation is under way over a mysterious text message sent Tuesday to University of Florida staff and students, officials with the text-messaging company and university police said Wednesday...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:41 am Google helping tourists around New York City - ZDNet
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:40 am MP3 Player Grenade Will Attract Unwanted AttentionBy Luke Anderson Are you looking for a way to instill panic and fear into those nearby with only your MP3 player? Sure, you could go out and buy yourself a Zune, but you might just get pitied, rather than...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:39 am Cover Flow For Your Living RoomBy Luke Anderson Whether you’re a Windows person or a Mac person (or even Linux for that matter), you have to admit that the folks over at Apple have style. When you look at almost any of their products,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:37 am SK Energy sees crude imports at $45-$55/bbl in '09SEOUL, Jan 22 (Reuters) - SK Energy , South Korea's top refiner, said on Thursday it expected crude oil import costs in 2009 to average $45-$55 a barrel, down from $93.60 a barrel in 2008.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:35 am San Diego to test DTV readiness tomorrowSection: Tech News, Video, Content, HDTV
A public service announcement about how to get ready for the transition will be aired at that time. Expect these kinds of tests to continue as we get closer and closer to the transition date. These television stations are probably ready and waiting for the flood of confused television watchers to call in with questions. As I have mentioned in previous related posts, I still expect a bunch of people to know nothing about this transition. The commercials advising the public about the transition are still terribly boring and easily missable. If you know anyone who still isn’t prepared, spread the word. February 17th, 2009—if you don’t have a digital tuner, get one. For a more details, go to the government’s site. Read: [Virtual Press Office] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:30 am Gizmodo's Complete Windows 7 Coverage [Beta Testing Windows 7]Windows 7 Beta, Microsoft's thank-you gift for putting up with Vista, has been out two weeks and we're covering every exciting inch of it. Here's how to catch up, or get the beta for yourself: To...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:30 am Re-Released Takara Tomy Transformers Watch Needs a Little More AllSpark [Transformers Toys]If you need help reliving your childhood, Takara Tomy is re-releasing its classic Transformers watch. I don't remember Transformers looking so drab though. Funny what a few years will do to your...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 7:00 am Nano-motors For MicrobotsSmivs writes "The BBC are reporting on the development of tiny motors the size of a grain of salt which could power surgical Microbots. Some surgical procedures are hindered by the size or inflexibility of current instruments. For example, the labyrinthine network of blood vessels in the brain prevents the use of catheters threaded through larger blood vessels. Researchers have long envisioned that trends of miniaturisation would lead to tiny robots that could get around easily in the body. The problem until now has been powering them. Conventional electric motors do not perform as well as they are scaled down in size. As they approach millimetre dimensions, they barely have the power to overcome the resistance in their bearings. Now, research reported in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering has demonstrated a motor about 1/4mm wide, about the width of two human hairs."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:54 am Apple Chalks One Up For The Long Term BuyersAfter talking one of our faithful followers off of the ledge yesterday, the staff at tech:stocker was elated that his patience was rewarded with a 279 point gain in the Dow today. What was the difference...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:31 am T-Mobile rolls out the Scarlet Sony Ericsson TM506Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers
This is a pretty basic flip phone with a 2.0MP camera, supports e-mail and IM, maps, video and music player with a 2.2-inch screen. The TM506’s best feature may be its size since it is about the size of a business card when closed. It costs $49.99 with the usual two year service agreement. Product Page: [Sony Ericsson TM506 - Scarlet] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:25 am Public-domain childrens' graphicsGrandma's Graphics hosts a really lovely collection of web-resolution public domain children's artwork, perfect for design projects:Grandma's Graphics: Unique Images from the Past (via Making Light) Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:24 am Public-domain childrens' graphicsGrandma's Graphics hosts a really lovely collection of web-resolution public domain children's artwork, perfect for design projects: From Harry Clarke to 1890's storybooks, if you're looking for unique...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:24 am Help re-make a resin-stiffened tablecloth "table"Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel needs your help to re-make this lovely table-less table created from a crocheted tablecloth stiffened with resin:Tablecloth sans table as table, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:21 am Help re-make a resin-stiffened tablecloth "table"Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel needs your help to re-make this lovely table-less table created from a crocheted tablecloth stiffened with resin: This low-slung table, created from a woven tablecloth...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:21 am HOWTO resurface a table with dominoesInstructables author Crowdsourced has a nice, simple HOWTO for resurfacing an old table with dominoes, noting that this is simpler and easier than broken-tile mosaics (and it's pretty sweet-looking besides!)...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:18 am HOWTO resurface a table with dominoes Instructables author Crowdsourced has a nice, simple HOWTO for resurfacing an old table with dominoes, noting that this is simpler and easier than broken-tile mosaics (and it's pretty sweet-looking besides!).
Dominoes Table (who needs broken tiles?)
(via Craft) Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:18 am Obama adminstration brings back the Freedom of Information Act and transparency in governmentThe Electronic Frontier Foundation's Marcia Hofmann has a report card on transparent government measures undertaken by the Obama administration on its first day in office. The news is pretty damned good: they've reversed Ashcroft's restrictions on Freedom of Information Act requests as well as changes to the Presidential Records Act, and have adopted general principles on transparency and open government.According to Obama's memo: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."On Day One, Obama Demands Open Government Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:15 am Obama adminstration brings back the Freedom of Information Act and transparency in governmentThe Electronic Frontier Foundation's Marcia Hofmann has a report card on transparent government measures undertaken by the Obama administration on its first day in office. The news is pretty damned good:...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:15 am NSA warrantless wiretapping targeted non-terrorists, including journalistsVisit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy NSA whistleblower Russel Tice says that the Bush administration's illegal spying campaign was even worse than suspected: the administration specifically targeted "non-terrorist" groups for special surveillance, including journalists.
Whistleblower reveals surveillance target
(Thanks, Bill!) Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:11 am NSA warrantless wiretapping targeted non-terrorists, including journalists.msnbcLinks {font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 425px;} .msnbcLinks a {text-decoration:none !important;...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:11 am Man arrested for shouting complaints about "Arab types" on Turkish Airlines flightAn "American of German origin" was kicked off a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to New York for standing up and shouting loud complains about all the "Arab types" on the plane:Daniel Sussman Pincus, whose age and hometown were not given but who was described in one report as an American of German origin, shouted his complaints as the flight was preparing to depart Monday.PLANE CRAZY (Thanks, Bill!) Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 6:07 am Antarctica not immune to warming - USA Today
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:54 am Copy and paste comes to jailbroken iPhonesFROM APPLETELL - Although common on other mobile phones, Apple decided to not include copy/paste functionality in the iPhone. Thankfully, third party developers have been working on a solution. MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:45 am To the Chagrin of Rich Geeks Everywhere, Russians Killing Space Tourism Program [Space Tourism]Richard Garriot and other well-to-do nerds will no longer be able to play spaceman, now that Russia's canceling its astrotourism program to make way for three real astronauts at the International...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:45 am India's Largest Mobile Telco Posts Strong Revenue, Profit (PC World)PC World - India's largest mobile services provider, Bharti Airtel, on Thursday reported strong growth in revenue and profits, as the country's mobile market remains unaffected by the economic downturn.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:30 am Apple's Impressive Quarterly Numbers - BusinessWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:25 am Outer Banks face risk from sea-level riseA U.S. study suggests North Carolina is one of the states that will be hurt the most by a substantial rise in sea-level. Lead author Jim Titus of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the sandy shore of the mid-Atlantic will erode faster than other coastal areas.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:19 am Arctic ivory gulls seen in MassachusettsA couple of ivory gulls, which usually live in the high Arctic, have been spotted in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Audubon Society said birders are flocking to Gloucester, Mass., where an ivory gull was spotted Saturday -- the first sighting of the species in the Bay State in two decades,Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:17 am Android gets Truphone, lets you make cheap callsSection: Communications, Cellphones
Truphone is bringing its iPhone, Nokia, and Blackberry app to the Android Marketplace, allowing users to make incredibly cheap or even free phone calls. With the app, you can call any other Truphone user free of charge or call international numbers very cheaply. For instance, a call from the USA to France is $0.018 for a landline or $0.188 for cellphone. Truphone can do quite a bit more, you can use it to keep in contact with friends using MSN, Yahoo!, and Google Talk, with AIM and Skype support coming soon. Truphone can also be used for Twitter, making it one of the most complete apps for internet communication that I’ve seen. Having a central app is pretty nice, even if it only means less transfer between apps. When Skype support actually gets to it, I would imagine it being a more viable option. Making your friends sign up for a new account every time you find a new service can be rather annoying, and doesn’t always turn out all that well. Read: [Virtual Press Office] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:14 am Apple beats Street in holiday quarter; shares soar (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 5:07 am China Extends Porn Crackdown to Mobile Phones (PC World)PC World - Chinese officials have closed 1,250 Web sites and arrested 41 people as part of the country's ongoing campaign against Internet pornography, and plan to extend the crackdown to content for mobile phones, China's Ministry of Public Security (MPS) said Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:50 am Apple wants more overweight kids, fewer drug addicts in the App StoreFROM APPLETELL - How do you get your adult-themed game past Apple for approval in the iPhone App Store? Simple. Change “drugs” to “candy” and make it fun for the whole family! MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:46 am Sony ignores struggling PS3, declares itself industry leader
But if it isn’t in terms of those, what is it in terms of? He continued, about the Wii and the Xbox360:
Aaron Greenberg from Microsoft responded to Hirai’s comments:
So Sony, with its 10 year plan, thinks that longevity is going to win the race for them. I don’t think so. Sony’s stance is understandable: the PS2 still shows strong sales for a console that was released almost 9 years ago and has put them at a favorable position, but when it comes down to it, a business has to make a profit to be successful. With Sony still losing money on every console sold, developers still finding the Cell processor hard to develop for, and overall lower popularity even after a fair amount of time on the market, the PS3 is not doing well. To me, it looks like a case of complacency by a leading company. Just like the decline of Apple in the early 90s, the troubles of the American automakers after vast success in the mid 20th century, and Nintendo before the Wii. When a company sits on top for too long, they lose sight of the market and as a result lose the ability to compete. So is the PS3 a failure? No, there are quite a few good games on the PS3, its powerful Cell processor still has a lot of untapped potential, and its made by a corporation that isn’t going to give up anytime soon. Can we call it the leader though? I don’t think so. Each company has its heyday: Nintendo with its NES, Sony with its PS2. Sony might recover in the next ten years, but until then I think it’s between Nintendo and Microsoft to duke it out for the position of industry leader. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:45 am Boat Moves Without an Engine Or Sailscoondoggie writes "Researchers say technology they have developed would let boats or small aquatic robots glide through the water without the need for an engine, sails or paddles. A University of Pittsburgh research team has designed a propulsion system that uses the natural surface tension that is present on the water's surface and an electric pulse to move the boat or robot, researchers said. The Pitt system has no moving parts and the low-energy electrode that emits the pulse could be powered by batteries, radio waves, or solar power, researchers said in a statement."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:38 am Follett’s new eBook reader is all software
Here is the rundown on features:
The new Follett Digital Reader system will be replacing their previous Adobe PDF eBooks in March 2nd of this year. Hopefully this will save our schools a little money and a lot of paper. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:02 am Tableau Offers OEM Program to Help ISVs Get to Market FasterSEATTLE, Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:01 am Sanyo’s newest Xactis hands onSection: Imaging, Camcorders, Digital Cameras
Earlier today, Sanyo announced a bunch of new Xactis. Their new strategy is that the Xacti is now a “Dual Camera.“ Each of the new cameras are both HD video cameras and still cameras. The idea is simple—there’s no need to carry both a still camera and a camcorder any more. We got a chance to play around with the newest Xactis. These cameras were very small and light. Sanyo’s first horizontal Xacti, the FH1, was a little larger than a business card in its width and length. The other Xactis retained the distinct upright form factor but received upgrades. Take a look at the photos to see what these devices are like in person. They will be available in March 2009. Read: [More on the Sanyo Xacti line] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 4:00 am How Illegal Satellite Combated the Censorship of Obama's Speech in China [China]While Americans had millions of ways to watch Obama's inauguration speech, here in China, I'm giving thanks for my one: gray-market Filipino satellite. Without it, I would've missed anything past...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:45 am Review of the 128K Mac
If you read Larry’s review you really come to understand why Apple got the reputation for being expensive and weird. The printer cost $495 when similar gear cost maybe $250 on a good day. But remember: this thing had a “mouse” and a “GUI” back when most of us were about ten years old. Now we basically define our entire computing experience by saying how far from that original 22 pound box we have come. How about this little blast from the past?
Damn. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:34 am Even Ubuntu’s founder likes Windows 7
Microsoft has been pushing Windows on low-end PC makers by giving away XP licenses, but once 7 comes out that will seem a little ridiculous, especially considering how well 7 is likely to work with the light hardware. So later in 2009 there will actually be a value proposition in choosing Ubuntu to power a line of netbooks — at the moment XP is simply more recognizable and better-supported, and doesn’t cost much either. But Shuttleworth had more than shop talk for 7:
It’s like a whale praising a harpoon! Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:30 am Ustream’s iPhone Viewing Application Downloaded 113,000 Times in 24 Hours
Only two days after its release, Ustream’s iPhone Viewing Application has already hit the top spot of the App Store’s Entertainment section, and is ranked the 6th most popular free application overall. Ustream says that its latest figure for number of downloads stands at a whopping 113,000, which only represents the first 24 hours that the application was available (Apple doesn’t update download counts in real time). The application allows users to watch live and archived streams from Ustream.tv directly on their iPhone or iPod Touch, and also features an integrated chat. Despite its popularity, it looks like users have had a number of gripes. With an average rating of two stars, many of the app’s user reviews complain about crashing, the lack of support for 3G or Edge (you need to use Wi-Fi), and little in the way of mainstream television content. These issues aside, the application is still very cool, and will only get better as the developers push out updates. We’re still waiting on Ustream’s second application that would allow users to actually broadcast video (the viewing app only lets you stream). While competitors like Qik and Flixwagon have created similar apps that work on jailbroken iPhones, none of these have made their way to the App Store. Ustream’s application was submitted last week and has not yet been approved by Apple. Update: This post originally said that Ustream saw 113,000 downloads in 48 hours. While it has been around 48 hours since the application launched, Ustream says that the download figure hasn’t been updated to include today’s downloads, so it really only represents the first day that the app was available on the store. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:15 am Apple nixes iPhone Nano and netbook rumors
The iPhone is what they felt was the best possible size and shape when they made it. I doubt they’ve changed their opinion on that. An iPhone Nano would be compromise in design and technology, and they’re not about that. And RE: netbooks,
You might add to the argument that the reason why people buy netbooks is that they’re functional and dirt cheap. The day Apple puts out something that fits both those criteria, I’ll eat a treasure chest full of doubloons. Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:08 am PS3 firmware update version 2.60 adds photo gallery, DivX supportFROM GAMERTELL - PS3 firmware version 2.60 is out now. The update includes guest access to the PS Store, DivX 3.11 support, and a Photo Gallery application. MORE » Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 3:02 am Apple's new CEO: Netbooks "will not provide the experience to customers that they're happy with" Here's Tim Cook, quoted by Wired's Brian X. Chen:
Apple reinforced its skepticism in netbooks, saying their low-powered CPUs, cramped keyboards and small displays are not enough to satisfy customers... It's too easy to assume they're missing the boat because of corporate elitism. But the smarter assumption is that they've got something cooking, and are being customarily sly about it. The clue? When businessmen talk of imaginary customers, a solution to their imaginary problems is always close at hand. Apple Still Oblivious to Netbook Opportunity [Wired: Gadget Lab] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:50 am Obama may be able to keep his BlackBerry after all (CNET)CNET - Forget the important task of opening up government. Never mind a recession that seems to be trying hard to be promoted to a full-scale depression. In geekish circles, the question of the week has been: Will President Obama manage to hang on to his BlackBerry?Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:50 am Shelby SuperCars announces worlds fastest electric production car
It’s quite an interesting sounding car. They’ve stated that the Ultimate Aero EV will charge up in 10 minutes off a standard 110v outlet, and then run for 200 miles off that one charge. That’s quite an improvement from what Tesla or Fisker has been capable of. And of course it goes very fast. The part that really jumps up and grabs you though, is the drivetrain. Shelby SuperCars (SSC) describes it as being scalable. As they suggest in their press release, this means that a delivery truck or SUV using their new technology may not be far off. So while a new supercar is always worth a look, (and a watch on TopGear) the idea of a practical electric drivetrain is what I want to see. And while the Tesla is a great proof of concept vehicle, I won’t get really excited about purely electric technology until I see it in a station wagon or minivan.
Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:47 am YouTube still hunting for money with affiliate ad expansion - VentureBeat
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:42 am Our Favorite Lifehacker Posts of the Week [Roundups]Once again, the dudes at Lifehacker show us how to be anal and get things done. Here are our favorite posts of the week. • Use Safari to update your iPhone's word database with curse words 100%...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:40 am US-CERT Says Microsoft's Advice On Downadup Worm BogusCWmike writes "Microsoft's advice on disabling Windows' "Autorun" feature is flawed, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) said today, and it leaves users who rely on its guidelines to protect their PCs against the fast-spreading Downadup worm open to attack. US-CERT said in an alert that Microsoft's instructions on turning off Autorun are 'not fully effective' and 'could be considered a vulnerability.' The flaw in Microsoft's guidelines are important at the moment, because the "Downadup" worm, which has compromised more computers than any other attack in years, can spread through USB devices, such as flash drives and cameras, by taking advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:35 am Today on Offworld
Today on Offworld, we saw how Obama (or a reasonable facsimile, at least) unwinds after a long inaugural day with a little retro-gaming, and likely the best piece of cosplay kit we'll see in some time -- a masterfully rebuilt Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.
We also saw new flashcarts built specifically for Game Boy musicians, the finalists in the Independent Games Festival's student showcase, custom vinyl toys of classic Dig Dug characters, and new God of War and WipEout crossovers coming to LittleBigPlanet.
Finally, we played the latest game in the fantastically complex Grow series, looked back at LucasArts' 300-baud C64 virtual world forerunner Habitat, heard about Flashbang's newest abstract underwater action game Blush, and saw the first hints at a new WiiWare game from Sega that parodies 8-bit gaming's past. Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:32 am Yankee Group finds that Internet TV to boom in 2009Section: Video, Content, Video Providers, Web, Websites, Online Music/Video  Have you ever noticed how the Internet is home to nearly as many videos/TV shows as you can find on the TV? Many people today watch TV on the Internet and it looks like that number will only go up as faster Internet speeds become more available. Yankee Group recently conducted a survey on how people use the Internet and television and here are the results that they found. Multitasking is something that everyone does, and Yankee Group says that 56% of people when watching TV are also on the web doing other things such as instant messaging, e-mail, or looking at their favorite site. 82% of all people who generally watch video on the Internet are more likely to watch their favorite episode that they missed on the Internet, rather than record it, which brings me to my next point. People who own DVRs would rather watch a show online than record it, which is slightly odd. Lastly, 25% people who watch videos on the Internet watch on-demand online video once or a couple of times a day. Looking at this survey report got me thinking about how much we use the Internet in our daily lives. We used to spend so much time sitting on the couch watching our favorite shows. But, now we can do that and much more on our own time with limited commercials. It will be interesting to see if more websites like Hulu emerge, where they offer a lot of TV shows on the Internet with limited commercials. Read [Yankee Group Press Release] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:30 am Exclusive: YouTube Will Soon Let Big Content Partners Bring Their Own Ads
Big media companies have always had a love-hate relationship with YouTube. They don’t know whether to sue YouTube for abetting copyright infringement or get in bed with it because it is the biggest Web video game in town. YouTube is trying to convince them that love is better than war by giving them a cut of advertising revenues from their videos that appear on YouTube, regardless of who put them there. So far, most of the ads have been contextual overlay ads sold and served up by YouTube. Currently very few media partners are able to sell their own ads on YouTube, but industry sources expect that this program will soon be expanded to more big media partners, possibly before the end of the first quarter. YouTube confirms that a few big partners, like CBS, can already sell their own ad inventory on both the videos in their YouTube channels and any videos with their content uploaded by users that is picked up by YouTube’s Content ID system. But this group is very limited. (YouTube wouldn’t comment on future plans). YouTube has thousands of traditional media partners, in addition to its Partners Program targeted at super users. The option to bring your own ads to YouTube most likely will not be offered to the super users who come in through the Partners Program. However, it will apply to any videos caught by the Content ID system. YouTube’s content screening technology identifies copyrighted audio and video that can be claimed by media partners. Ninety percent of claimed videos are monetized with YouTube ads instead of taken down. The ability to sell their own ads on YouTube is a big deal for larger media companies, especially those which are already selling Web video ads across their own sites. Media companies with lots of video tend to have large advertising sales teams that are typically able to command better ad rates than what YouTube can get. The prospect of selling ads against all of their videos on YouTube at those higher ad rates has them salivating, even if they have to share the spoils with YouTube. As for YouTube, content from media partners represents maybe only 4 percent of all videos on the site, but it is where nearly all of its advertising dollars are coming from. Anything to make that part of the pie bigger would have an outsized impact on YouTube’s revenues. While YouTube is now pulling every lever it can to get advertising revenues flowing, this could turn out to be one of the biggest levers of all. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:21 am Minutuner Clock Helps You Visualize Time and Disguises Itself as a Radio [Clocks]Why are traditional clocks round? Perhaps to symbolize the Circle of Life and how time's constantly repeating itself? The Minutuner Clock concept wants you to visualize time for what it is:...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:20 am Amazon User Reviews of "Playmobil TSA Checkpoint" Put the "LOL" in "Lost Liberties" These user reviews for a Playmobil Security Check Point ($55!) are pretty hilarious.  (via @EFF on Twitter)
Update: Oh, Cory posted about this product 5 years ago! But I'll leave this new post up because a bunch of funny user comments have accrued on the Amazon listing, like so many happy barnacles on an ocean rock.
Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:17 am Today on Offworld
Today on Offworld, we saw how Obama (or a reasonable facsimile, at least) unwinds after a long inaugural day with a little retro-gaming, and likely the best piece of cosplay kit we'll see in some time -- a masterfully rebuilt Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. We also saw new flashcarts built specifically for Game Boy musicians, the finalists in the Independent Games Festival's student showcase, custom vinyl toys of classic Dig Dug characters, and new God of War and WipEout crossovers coming to LittleBigPlanet. Finally, we played the latest game in the fantastically complex Grow series, looked back at LucasArts' 300-baud C64 virtual world forerunner Habitat, heard about Flashbang's newest abstract underwater action game Blush, and saw the first hints at a new WiiWare game from Sega that parodies 8-bit gaming's past. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:12 am Even in Test Form, Windows 7 Leaves Vista in the Dust [Personal Technology]This will be a big year for new operating systems. Apple (AAPL) plans a new version of its Macintosh operating system, to be called Snow Leopard. Palm (PALM) plans an all-new smart phone operating system called Palm WebOS. But the new release that will affect more users than any other will be Windows 7, the latest major edition of Microsoft’s dominant platform. Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t announced an official release date for Windows 7, but I would be surprised if it wasn’t available to consumers by this fall. The company has just released the first public beta, or test, version of the software, and I’ve been trying it out on two laptops. One is a Lenovo ThinkPad lent me by Microsoft with Windows 7 already installed, and the other is my own Sony Vaio, which I upgraded to Windows 7 from Windows Vista.
I won’t be doing a full, detailed review of Windows 7 until it is released in final form, but here’s a preview of some of the main features of this new operating system and some of my initial impressions. In general, I have found Windows 7 a pleasure to use. There are a few drawbacks, but my preliminary verdict on Windows 7 is positive. Even in beta form, with some features incomplete or imperfect, Windows 7 is, in my view, much better than Vista, whose sluggishness, annoying nag screens, and incompatibilities have caused many users to shun it. It’s also a serious competitor, in features and ease of use, for Apple’s current Leopard operating system. (I can’t say yet how it will compare with Apple’s planned new release, as I haven’t tried the latter.) In many respects, Windows 7 isn’t a radical shift from Vista, but is more of an attempt to fix Vista’s main flaws. It shares the same underlying architecture, and retains graphical touches like translucent Window borders. But it introduces some key new navigation and ease-of-use features, plus scores of small usability and performance improvements — too many to list here. The flashiest departure in Windows 7, and one that may eventually redefine how people use computers, is its multitouch screen navigation. Best known on Apple’s iPhone, this system allows you to use your fingers to directly reposition, resize, and flip through objects on a screen, such as windows and photos. It is smart enough to distinguish between various gestures and combinations of fingers. I haven’t been able to test this feature extensively yet, because it requires a new kind of touch-sensitive screen that my laptops lack. But even if your current or future PC lacks a touch screen, Windows 7 will have plenty of other benefits. The most important may be speed. In my tests, even the beta version of Windows 7 was dramatically faster than Vista at such tasks as starting up the computer, waking it from sleep and launching programs. And this speed boost wasn’t only apparent in the preconfigured machine from Microsoft, but on my own Sony (SNE), which had been a dog using Vista, even after I tried to streamline its software. Of course, these speed gains may be compromised by the computer makers, if they add lots of junky software to the machines. Windows 7 is also likely to run well on much more modest hardware configurations than Vista needed. The familiar Windows taskbar is more customizable and useful in Windows 7. The program icons are larger, and can be “pinned” anywhere along the taskbar for easy, repeated use. There are also “jump lists” that pop out from the icons in the taskbar and start menu, showing frequently used or recent actions.  A screenshot shows several application windows on the desktop of the Beta version of the Microsoft Windows 7 software. Windows 7 also cuts down on annoying warnings and nag screens. Microsoft notifications have been consolidated in a single icon at the right of the taskbar, and you can now decide under what circumstances Windows will warn you before taking certain actions. Compatibility with hardware and software, which was a problem in Vista, seems far better in Windows 7 — even in the beta. I tried a wide variety of hardware, including printers, Web cams, external hard disks and cameras, and nearly all worked fine. I also successfully installed and used popular programs from Microsoft’s rivals, such as Mozilla Firefox, Adobe Reader, Apple’s iTunes, and Google’s (GOOG) Picasa. All worked properly, even though none was designed for Windows 7. But there are some downsides to Windows 7. First, you will only be able to directly upgrade Vista computers to the new version. People still using Windows XP will need to perform a more cumbersome multistep process. Microsoft is working on a method to help XP owners preserve all their data during this process. Second, Windows 7 will eliminate some familiar bundled programs from Windows. Vista’s Mail, Calendar, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, and Address Book programs are being removed. To get similar basic, free, programs, you’ll have to download them from Microsoft’s Windows Live service, or use alternatives from other companies. Microsoft defends this move as supporting consumer choice and better coordination with Web services, but it does remove out-of-the-box functionality from Windows. Still, even in its preliminary form, Windows 7 looks very promising, and could well help expunge the bad reputation of Vista.
Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:02 am Rackable Puts Desktop CPUs in Low-cost Servers (PC World)PC World - Rackable Systems has turned to low-cost desktop components for a new server design that aims to provide a cheaper alternative for companies running busy Web applications, the company announced Wednesday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:00 am Why Obama Doesn't Use a Cordless Phone (And Neither Should You) [Cordless Phones]I hate cordless phones. So when Gizmodo reader ournextcontestant asked why Obama was using a corded phone instead of a cordless phone in this photo, I felt it was our duty to explain. First off,...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 2:00 am Hate Vista? You May Like the Fix - New York Times
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:52 am Electronic ID cards for BahrainSection: Communications, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle
What’s in the electronic ID card? There is a microprocesssor by Gemalto. The card is intended to hold biometric data, medical data, and driver’s license data amongst other things. The cards will allow for both contact and contactless interactions meaning you could just wave your card to transmit data in areas like airports. Gemalto is outfitting the Kingdom of Bahrain with a million more of these ID card (Gemalto has provided the Kingdom with cards since late 2007). These cards are about the size of a standard credit card. This seems like an interesting idea to have data-packed cards. Other countries have built in a lot of this kind of functionality into cell phones, but it makes more sense to build this kind of stuff into an ID card. It’ll probably be a long time before the U.S. has anything like this. Read: [Gemalto Provides Kingdom of Bahrain with Additional One Million New-Generation e-ID Cards] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:46 am Monitoring Teens’ Facebook Activity [Mossberg's Mailbox]What is the best way to monitor our teens’ Facebook activity? To my mind, this is more a parenting issue than a technology one. The easiest method would be to join Facebook yourself and become one of your teens’ ”friends” on each account they have. That might not sit well with your kids, but if you’re willing to be tough, you could make that a condition of their being on Facebook. You could also insist they use the network’s extensive privacy controls to guard their detailed information and activities from strangers. There is a paid service called YouDiligence that claims it will notify you if certain words appear on a child’s Facebook page. But it requires that you be one of your child’s Facebook friends, so it is mainly a time-saver. Also, because it focuses on words, it doesn’t flag photos or other Facebook activity. Another paid service, called imView, automatically takes pictures of the screen of the PC your child uses, at intervals you select, and allows you to view these screen shots at your leisure, from any Internet-connected PC. Its maker touts this as a way to monitor Facebook activity. I haven’t tested either of these two services. I want to transfer my Mini DV taped videos from my video camera to my Mac. But my new MacBook has no Firewire port, which is the only port my camera includes — only USB ports. Am I stuck? Maybe not. One option would be to see if you can borrow a Mac or Windows PC that does have a Firewire port, convert the videos to digital files on that borrowed machine, and then transfer the resulting files to your new Mac using an external hard disk or flash drive. Obviously, you wouldn’t want to have to do this often. Another option: A company called Pixela (pixela-1.com) claims to have a Firewire-to-USB cable meant for exactly your situation. It is for Windows only, but might well work if you installed and ran Windows on your Mac. However, a glance at the company’s Web site shows it is out of the version of the cable that works with the North American, as opposed to European, video standard. If you are in North America, you might check with the company to see if and when the correct version will be available. One important caution: I haven’t tested it, so don’t know how well it works. My computer crashed last fall, and I lost thousands of iTunes songs. I would like to copy all the songs to my new computer from my iPod, which still contains them. However, iTunes allows only purchased songs to be returned. Is there software that would help me? Yes. There are several utility programs designed to copy the contents of an iPod back to a Windows or Mac computer. The one I usually recommend, because I have found it works well, is called Music Rescue. It costs 10 British pounds, or about $15 at current exchange rates. It can be purchased at kennettnet.co.uk. You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:46 am Tweet-a-Watt, Because It's OK To Brag About Energy Efficiency [Smug Alert]Phil at Make has developed a mod for the Kill-A-Watt power meter: Tweet-a-Watt transmits your daily power usage to Twitter via PC, so friends and strangers will know you're a smug, super-green SOB....Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:40 am DTV Transition Gains Steam as Qualcomm Pushes Back - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:32 am Technical Indicators Controlling Markets - FlowTrades.comWESTON, Fla., Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:30 am Gadget Deals of the Day [Dealzmodo]And the Lord spake, saying, "First, thou shall buy the full Monty Python Collector's Set for $80, no more, no less. $160 would be too much. Then, jump and read the rest of this dealzmodo." Gaming: ...Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:20 am Eric Schmidt Talks Google, Apple, Energy, Obama With Jim Cramer
On Google killing its print ads business: “That particular product didn’t work particularly well and we’re trying other solutions. Print is a hard one because they have declining ad revenue and higher print costs. And so we’re trying other solutions. Ultimately most people will get their information online.” On Steve Jobs’ health: “Speaking as a board member, we recognized that Steve needed a medical leave and we announced on that. And that’s my only comment on that. Apple’s doing very well, the product’s doing very well.” On energy: “The part of the stimulus package includes money to modernize the electric grid to make it look more like the Internet. A lot more flexible as it moves power around without this smart grid we won’t make any of this happen.” On Obama: “I have [spoken with Obama] just a little bit and they’re really, really focused on moving very, very quickly. I think everybody understands that a new president has a honeymoon period in that honeymoon period they can get the most ambitious agendas. In his inauguration speech yesterday you could hear the same things themes in his campaign. The notion of dealing with the way that the country is perceived globally as well as economic stimulus there in a hurry and need to be.” The full transcript is below (please forgive the all caps, it’s what CNBC supplied): CRAMER: WE’RE ABOUT TO HEAR FROM CRAMER FAVE ERIC SCHMIDT THE CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF GOOGLE BUT HE’S NOT HERE TO TALK ABOUT HIS COMPANY WHICH WAS UP A COOL 20 POINTS TODAY. NO.ERIC IS HERE TO TALK ABOUT THE MOST-IMPORTANT WORRY IN AMERICA,OTHER THAN HOUSE PRICE DEPRECIATION, OUR SKY-ROCKETING RATE OF UNEMPLOYMENT. THE NEED TO PUT PEOPLE TO WORK INCLUDING IN TECHNOLOGY.REMEMBER, ERIC SCHMIDT ISN’T JUST GOOGLE’S CEO. HE’S ALSO BEEN A PRINCIPLE ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA SERVING ON OBAMA’S ECONOMIC TRANSITION TEAM. I BELIEVE THE MOST IMPORTANT TRANSITION TEAM TO SERVE ON. WHY DO WE CARE? BECAUSE I DON’T THINK IT’S ENOUGH TO SIMPLY BUILD BRIDGES AND PAVE SOME ROADS WITH THE STIMLUS PACKAGE.A LOT OF WHITE COLLAR PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR JOBS WHO WOULDN’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE UNFORTUNATELY BETWEEN PLAYING BRIDGE AND BUILDING ONE. WE NEED TO CREATE WHITE-COLLAR JOBS AND PUT THESE PEOPLE BACK TO WORK. AND WHEN IT COMES TO THAT ISSUE SCHMIDT HAS THE BEST INSIGHT PERHAPS AS ANYONE ON EARTH. HE’S THE MAN THAT PRESIDED OVER GOOGLE’S EXPANSION FROM AN ITTY-BITTY COMPANY IN 2001 WHEN HE BECAME CEO TO A TECH BOHEMITH WITH OVER 20,000 EMPLOYEES. SCHMIDT WAS THE CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER OF SUN MICROSOFTSYSTEMSBACK IN ITS HAYDAY WORKING THERE FROM 1983-1997 WHEN HE BECAME CEO OF NOVELL. IF ANYONE KNOWS HOW TO CREATE WHITE-COLLAR JOBS ESPECIALLY IN THE TECH SECTOR ITS HIM. NOW BARACK OBAMA HAS YET TO APPOINT HAS CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER FOR THE NATION.A BRAND-NEW POSITION THAT COULD HAVE A HUGE HAND IN CREATING NUMEROUS WHITE-COLLAR JOBS.BACK IN OCTOBER, ERIC SCHMIDT TOLD US HE WOULDN’T TAKE THEJOB. ONE OF THE LEADING CONTENDERS A MAN NAMED VINCE SURF A MAN WHO IS CONSIDERED TO BE ONE OF THE FATHERS OF THE INTERNET AN IDOL OF MINE WORKS FOR SCHMIDT AT GOOGLE AS THE CHIEF INTERNET EVANGELIST. ED FELDON.ANOTHER CONTENDER FOR OBAMA’S CTO. HE’S A PROMINENT COMPUTER SCIENCE EXPERTAND PUBLIC AFFAIRS PROFESSOR AT PRINCETON. WHERE SCHMIDT IS ON THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES.LET’S HEAR FROM THE MAN HIMSELF.CAN WE GET A BIG BOO-YAH FOR GOOGLE’S ERIC SCHMIDT. HOW HAVE YOU BEEN? NICE TO SEE YOU. SCHMIDT: NICE TO SEE YOU GUYS. CRAMER: ERIC, WELCOME BACK SCHIMIDT: THANK YOU. CRAMER: FIRST, LET’S GET IT OUT OF WAY. SCHMIDT: YES. CRAMER: YOU THOUGHT — SCHMIDT: WHERE IS YOUR HELMET. CRAMER: I DON’T NEED A HELMET. WHEN WE ARE EXCITED.I AM VERY EXCITED ABOUT THE NEW ADMINISTRATION. SCHMIDT: OKAY, GOOD. CRAMER: AND I WANT TO KNOW FROM YOU WHETHER YOU THOUGHT LONG AND HARD AND I BELIEVE YOU WOULD BE THE BEST CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER THIS COUNTRY COULD HAVE. WHY NOT TAKE IT. WHY NOT HELP OUT. SCHMIDT: BECAUSE I LIKE WORKING AT GOOGLE. CRAMER: WELL WE ALL LIKE WHERE WE WORK I LIKE IT HERE. SCHMIDT: I LIKE WORKING AT GOOGLE. I WILL STATE RIGHT HERE. CRAMER: AND HAS HE COME BACK AND ASKED YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA SCHMIDT: LET ME JUST SAY I WANT TO STAY AT GOOGLE. THAT’S A PRETTY CLEAR ANSWER. CRAMER: YEAH. I WILL NOT TAKE THAT AS A MAYBE. OKAY. SCHMIDT: OKAY. CRAMER: NOW WE NEED TO CREATE JOBS. WE KEEP HEARING ABOUT TERRIFIC BLUE-COLLAR OPPORTUNITIES. YOU’VE BEEN ADVISINGTHE PRESIDENT.I IMAGINE NOT JUST ON INFRASTRUCTURE, BUT ON WAYS TO CREATE CRITICAL WHITE COLLAR JOBS WHICH ARE BEING LOST BY THETHOUSANDS.WHAT ARE THE REAL OPPORTUNITIES TO PUT THESE PEOPLE TO WORK? SCHMIDT: WELL, LOOK FIRST WE NEED TO CREATEJOBS ARE CREATED BY THE PRIVATE SECTOR WHEN THEY INVENT AND CREATE NEW BUSINESSES. WE ALL UNDERSTAND THAT.WE’VE ARGUED FOR A LONG TIME THAT THE USE OF THE INTERNET, PARTICULARLY THE BROADBAND INTERNET REALLY REALLY DOES PROVIDE THE LEVERAGE THAT EVERYBODY IS LOOKING FOR.GET EVERYBODY CONNECTED.MAKE IT POSSIBLE DO THINGS FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE, BE CREATIVE AND SO FORTH. IN THE BROADBAND STIMULUS PACKAGE. IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE COMING THROUGH, COMING THROUGH MAYBE IN THE MIDDLE OF FEBRUARY, THERE IS A NEW ORDER OF $10 BILLION OF INFRASTRUCTURE MONEY TO BUILD A BROADBAND INTERNET IN THE RURAL AREA WHERE WE THINK A LOT OF TALENT — DOES NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE KIND OF THE STUFF THAT THOSE IN THE CITY COULD USE. CRAMER: NOW WE KNOW THAT CHINA FOR INSTANCE WILL SPEND $40 BILLION UPGRADING ITS TALCO INFRASTRUCTURE WHY CAN’T WE MIMIC THE CHINESE? WE COULD USE ALL NEW TELCO INFRASTRUCTURE SCHMIDT: IN FACT THAT’S HAPPENING, RIGHT? AND THIS INFRASTRUCTURE IS PART OF THAT AND THE GOOD NEWS IS THAT WE’RE GOING TO THAT.AND I’M QUITE CERTAIN THAT BY THE TIME WE GET THROUGH THE HORSE TRADING AND SO FORTH PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THE INVESTMENTTHAT NEEDS TO GET DONE HERE. CRAMER: NOW WE HAVE SPENT THE PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATION HAS SPENT HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TRYING TO SHORE UP A BANK SYSTEM WHICH HAS NOT CREATED ANY JOBS, HAS ACTUALLY LED TO TREMENDOUS UNEMPLOYMENT IN BANKS AND HAS NOT STEMMED THE BANKING CRISIS.DO YOU THINK THAT OBAMA, AGAIN, YOU’RE ON THE ECONOMIC TRANSITION TEAM, UNDERSTANDS THEFLAWS OF THAT AND WON’T — WANTS TO CHANGE THAT. SCHMIDT: WELL IN FACT GEITNER SPOKE ABOUT THIS IN HIS CONFIRMATION HEARING YOU’VE GOT A JOBS PROBLEM ANDA CREDIT PROBLEM.THE JOBS PRO!LEM IS SOLVED BY STIMULUS SPENDING, HELPING PEOPLE CONTINUE TO HOLD THEIR HOMES AND SO FORTH AND MAKING ALL THAT HAPPEN THE BANKING CREDIT CRISIS.WHERE DID THE MONEY GO? DO YOU WHERE IT WENT. CRAMER: YES, I DO. SCHMIDT: $350 BILLION DOLLARS HAVE YOU EVER LOST THAT KIND OF MONEY. CRAMER: NO I HAVEN’T BUT IF I WERE –LOOK I WILL NOT DEFEND A LOT OF THESE BANKS’ CEOs. MAY MADE A LOT OF MISTAKES AND THEY DESERVE A LOT OF THE APROBEIUM.BUT MOST OF THESE BANKS ARE SHORT OF CAPITAL AND THEY NEED THIS MONEY, IF ONLY JUST TO BE ABLETO TAKE THE CHARGES. I FEEL LIKE THEY WERE BETRAYED BECAUSE THEY WANT — A LOT OF ACQUIRING BANKS BOUGHT BAD MORTGAGES THINKING THEY COULD PUT THEM TO THE GOVERNMENT. SCHMIDT: WHAT THEY’RE GOING TO DO IN THIS NEXT ROUND IS THEY’RE GOING TO MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE TRANSPARENCY OFWHERE THIS MONEY GOES. ONE OF THE THINGS THE GOVERNMENTNEEDS TO CHANGE IS HOW IT TALKS ABOUT HOW TO MAKES ITS DECISIONS. WHY DON’T WE SEE THE EARMARKS WHEN THEY COME THROUGH? WHY DON’T WE SEE THE CHANGES? WHY DOESN’T THE GOVERNMENT POST ON OUR WEBSITE, VISIBLE TO YOUR FAVORITE SEARCH ENGINE. WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED, NOT HAVE A YOU WOULD KNOW WHERE IT WENT.YOU’D SEE WHERE THE SPECIAL INTEREST REALLY ALIVE. IT WOULD BE A BETTER GOVERNMENT IF MORE TRANSPARENT. CRAMER: DO YOU THINKIT WOULD BE POSSIBLE EXPLAIN A WAY, BAD DECISIONS, THOUGH, NO MATTER HOW TRANSPARENT. SCHMIDT: YOU’D GET A BETTER OUTCOME WHEN EVERYBODY SEES WHAT’S GOING INTO THE SOUP. CRAMER: OKAY.NOW ONE WAS THINGS THAT I’M LOOKING TO YOU INTO A LOT OF OTHER SMART PEOPLE.WE MENTIONED MR. SURF, IS SOMETHING WE HAVEN’T NEVER HEARD OF THE OTHER DAY i WAS HEARING FROM THE CRITICS LISTENED ALL DAY, PEOPLE ARE SAYING THERE IS NO SOLUTION TO THE BANKING CRISIS.ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I LIKE IS THE OUT OF THE BOX, TO USE THAT CLICHE, OBAMA THINK, LARRY SUMMERS’ THINKING, BUTTHE OUT OFTHE BOX THINKING OF WHAT WOULD BE THE GREAT MANHATTAN PROJECT OF THIS ERA? SCHMIDT: WELL, IT’S OBVIOUS THAT WE NEED TO REBUILD THE ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE OF AMERICA.I DON’T BEEN YOU BUT I’M TIRED ABOUT THE WARS AND WORRYING ABOUT ARAB OIL.I’M TIRED ABOUT ALL OF THIS STUFF.WHY DON’T WE FIGURE OUT A WAY TO USE THE RESOURCES THAT AMERICA HAS. AMERICA HAS LAND, WIND AND SO FORTH AND I KNOW THAT THE OIL IS CHEAP AND YOUR MODEL IS $30 TO $50. CRAMER: RIGHT. SCHMIDT: OIL IS NOT GOING TO STAY THAT WAY FOREVER. LETS GET OURSELVES ORGANIZED AROUND JOBS THAT CAN REALLY CREATE SOMENEW INVESTMENTS AND NEW ECONOMIES AND BY THE WAY THE FUNDING THAT’S IN THE STIMULUS PACKAGE A LOT OF IT IS TO TRY TO GET THAT GOING AND THAT’S GOOD LONG-TERM INVESTMENT ON AMERICA. CRAMER: BUT WHY AREN’T WE USING OUR BRAINS TO MAKE THE ENERGYTHAT WE DO HAVE, COLE, IN ABUNDANCE, NATURAL GAS IN ABUNDANCE, CLEANER AS A BRIDGE FUEL SO WE DON’T SET OURSELVES UP FOR FAILURE. SCHMIDT: IN FACT, THAT’S HAPPENING. IF LOOKS LIKE CARBON SEQUESTRATION, COAL — BASICALLYTHE PROCESS OF PUTTING CARBON IN THE GROUND AND OTHERS, IT HAS HAD SOME SIGNIFICANCE — SCIENTIFIC BREAKTHROUGHS.A LOT OF THESE INDUSTRIES GOT NOINVESTMENT THE LAST 30 YEARS. THEY WERE NOT VERY SEXY. THE SORT OF PROFESSORS ARE NOW RETIRING. A NEW GENERATION OF PEOPLE ARE COMING INTO UNIVERSITIES WHO WANT TO SOLVE THE GLOBAL ENERGY PROBLEM.PARTLY BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE. CRAMER: RIGHT. SCHMIDT: AND ALSO BECAUSE THERE IS JOBS CREATION GROWTH AND THERE ARE ALL THESE ISSUES WE TALK ABOUT THEM ALL THE TIME. IT’S A MUCH BIGGER INDUSTRY BY THE WAY THAN MY INDUSTRY WHICH IS THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. CRAMER: YES IT IS. SCHMIDT: SO LET’S FIX THAT. CRAMER: NOW WE HAD A GOOD QUESTION ABOUT WHEN WOULD SOLAR COME BACK IN VOGUE?GIVEN THE FACT THAT WE HAVE TO SPEND SO MUCH MONEY TO SHORE UP THE BANKING SYSTEM, HOW WILL WE POSSIBLY HAVE ENOUGH MONEY LEFT OVER TO SUBSIDIZE SOLAR IN AN HERE WHERE OIL IS NO WHERE NEAR WHERE IT WAS A YEAR AGO? SCHMIDT: YOU GOT LOOK AT THAT FROM THESTANDPOINT OF THE COST OF THE PLANTS.NOT THE COST OF OIL.OIL IS LARGELY A FUNCTION OF TRANSPORTATION. THE BASIC PROBLEM YOU’LL EITHER BUY THIS HUGE EXPENSIVE COAL PLANT OR WIND PLANT OR HUGE EXPENSIVE NATURAL GAS PLANT. RIGHT NOW THERE’S A PROBLEM THAT WIND FARMS ARE BEING BUILT RIGHT NEXT TO BRAND NEW GAS PLANT BECAUSE WIND DOESN’T BLOW ALL OF THE TIME. THE PART OF THE STIMULUS PACKAGE INCLUDES MONEY TO MODERNIZE THE ELECTRIC GRID TO MAKE IT LOOK MORE LIKE THE INTERNET. A LOT MORE FLEXIBLE AS IT MOVES POWER AROUND WITHOUT THIS SMART GRID WE WON’T MAKE ANY OF THIS HAPPEN. CRAMER: DO YOU THINK THAT THERE IS ANYTHING ON THE HORIZON IN ‘WILL 89, ‘90.INTEL SHRUNK THE SEMICONDUCTORS SO WELL BUT KEPT THE SPEED AND THE INTELLIGENCE OF THEM THAT WE HAD AN EXPLOSION IN PERSONAL COMPUTERS.IN THE MID ‘90S WE HAD AN EXPLOSION FIRST IN E-MAIL AND THEN THE INTERNET TOOK OVER AND THEN THE SEARCH ENGINES.GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT NO ONE’S SEEING THAT YOU’RE PERHAPS NOTICING IN GOOGLE. YOU GUYS HAVE YOUR HANDS IN MANYDIFFERENT THINGS. SCHMIDT: WELL, WE’VE GOT A COUPLE OF BETS IN THE ENERGY SECTOR WHICH ARE REALLY INTERESTING.PEOPLE ARE WORKING ON VERY, VERY AGGRESSIVE BIOFUEL STRATEGIES. WE MAKE THIS STUFF.LITERALLY GROWING IT FROM SUNLIGHT, RIGHT?AND ALL OF A SUDDEN — CRAMER: BUT COULD THAT BE MASS EVERYTIME I HEAR ABOUT THESE IDEAS, IDON’T WANT TO SHARE THEM WITH MYVIEWERS IS IF SHOULD NO HOPE. SCHMIDT: IT’S SCIENCE AND RESEARCH.IT’S NOT THIS YEAR BUT IT’S COMING. ANOTHER EXAMPLE IS IN PHOTO VOLTAICS — THE SEMICONDUCTOR PROCESSES ARE GETTING FASTER. WE CAN GETTHE KIND OF EFFICIENCIES THAT ARE UNHEARD OF BEFORE TO CONVERSE.THESE HERE IN DEVELOPMENT NOW.YOU WON’T SEE THEM THIS YEAR.MAYBE TWO, THREE YEARS FROM NOW.IN THE SHORTER TERM YOU’RE SEEING GREAT TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENTS IN BATTERIES AND HYBRIDS WHICH WILLHELP US A LOT IN THE TRANSPORTATION. CRAMER: YOU’RE OBVIOUSLY AN INTERNET CEO. YOU I TEND TO LOOK AT INTERNET AS SOMEWHAT RAPACIOUS.IT HAS HURT A LOT OF PRODUCERS OF CONTENT BECAUSE OF IT COMMODITIZED IT. WHY SHOULD WE THINK THAT THE INTERNET CAN PUT MORE PEOPLE TO WORK WHEN IF YOU’RE WORKING IN A PRINT PUBLICATION A LOT OF PEOPLE OUT OF WORK. SCHMIDT: WELL, THEY’RE WINNERS AND LOSERS IN ALL OF THESE TECHNOLOGIES AND THE FACT OF THEMATTER IS THE INTER’ET MAKES THEMARKET MORE EFFICIENT.WHICH OFTEN BRINGS — BRINGS PRICES DOWN WHICH IS A BENEFIT TO END USERS. ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF IT IS PROBABLY IS THE PIE GETS SO MUCH LARGER. AND NOW YOU HAVE A MUCH LARGER GROUP OF PEOPLE WHO MAKE LESS MONEY AND SO FORTH BUT IT’S SUCHA GLOBAL BUSINESS NOW THAT’S SOLUTION. BUILDING — USING THE INTERNET TO BUILD GLOBAL BUSINESSES HOW YOU REALLY WIN. CRAMER: HAVE YOU SPOKEN TO PRESIDENT OBAMA IN THE LAST WEEK OR TWO ABOUT SOME OF THESE IDEAS THAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT? SCHMIDT: I HAVE JUST A LITTLE BIT AND THEY’RE REALLY, REALLY FOCUSED ON MOVING VERY, VERY QUICKLY.I THINK EVERYBODY UNDERSTANDS THAT A NEW PRESIDENT HAS A HONEYMOON PERIOD IN THAT HONEYMOON PERIOD THEY CAN GET THEIR MOST AMBITIOUS AGENDAS.IN HIS INAUGURATION SPEECH YESTERDAY YOU COULD HEAR THE SAME THINGS THEMES IN HIS CAMPAIGN.THE NOTION OF DEALING WITH THE WAY THAT THE COUNTRY IS PERCEIVED GLOBALLY AS WELL AS ECONOMIC STIMULUS THERE IN A HURRY AND NEED TO BE. CRAMER: I KNOW YOU ARE REPORTING TOMORROW AND I’M IN THE TALKING ABOUT EARNINGS BUT IN THE NEWS TODAY, GOOGLE DISCONTINUES ITS PRINT RELATIONSHIP. IS PRINT MEDIA DEAD? SCHMIDT: NO, NO NOT AT ALL.THAT PARTICULAR PRODUCT DIDN’T WORK PARTICULARLY WELL AND WE’RE TRYING OTHER SOLUTIONS. PRINT IS A HARD ONE BECAUSE THEY HAVE DECLINING AD REVENUE AND HIGHER PRINT COSTS.AND SO WE’RE TRYING OTHER SOLUTIONS.ULTIMATELY MOST PEOPLE WILL GET THEIR INFORMATION ONLINE. CRAMER: OKAY, APPLE COMPUTER JUST REPORTED.IT REPORTED A MONSTER GOOD QUARTER. IT IS MOVING THINGS UP DRAMATICALLY.ARE WE AT A TIME WHEN THERE’S TREMENDOUS FINANCIAL CHICANERY?WHERE WHOLE BANKS HAVE BEEN DESTROYED.PEOPLE HAVE NO TRANSPARENCY.IS IT RIGHT FOR THE S.E.C. TO SPEND ALL OF ITS TIME TRYING TO INVEST OR AT LEAST A LOT OF ITS TIME TRYING TO INVESTIGATE WHETHER WE KNEW ABOUT THE TRUTH ABOUT THE UNBELIEVABLY GREAT CEO, STEVE JOBS’ HEALTH. SCHMIDT: SPEAKING AS A BOARD MEMBER, WE RECOGNIZED THAT STEVE NEEDED A MEDICAL LEAVE AND WE ANNOUNCED ON THAT.AND THAT’S MY ONLY COMMENT ON THAT. APPLE’S DOING VERY WELL, THE PRODUCT’S DOING VERY WELL. CRAMER: ONE LAST THOUGHT, IF WHERE WOULD THE MOST UNEXPECTED THING THAT OBAMA CAN DO RIGHT NOW TO FIX THIS ECONOMY?THE ONE THAT — LOOK, WE BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB IN THE 1940s.NO ONE SAW THAT COMING.WE’VE HAD TREMENDOUS ADVANCES PUT A MAN ON THE MOON.WHAT’S OUR MAN ON THE MOON? SCHMIDT: WELL, THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS WOULD TO BE DO SOMETHING EVERY MONTH AND TRACK IT ON A WEBSITE. CRAMER: DO YOU THINK THAT WE CAN DO THAT. SCHMIDT: ABSOLUTELY.OUR ONLY JOB IS TO GET PEOPLE BACK TO WORTHWORK AND WE’RE GOING TO CHANGE.OH THAT WORKED?OR THAT DIDN’T WORK? OH MY GOD THE GOVERNMENT MAY BE FLEXIBLE. CRAMER: EXCELLENT. ERIC SCHMIDT. CHAIRMAN AND CEO OF GOOGLE. GREAT SEE YOU. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:10 am Ninja Tacks Pierce Your Papers...Silently [Ninjas]If you've been dreaming about the Ninja Star Tacks concept since last year, know that swift and silent cork board devastation can now be yours for $12. [Chromly via bbGadgets]Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jan 2009 | 1:00 am Intel to cut up to 6,000 jobs in factory shakeup (AP)AP - Intel Corp. plans to cut up to 6,000 manufacturing jobs as the company struggles with souring personal computer demand that has left its factories operating at less than their full capacity.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:51 am EBay 4Q profit and revenue fall amid recession (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:42 am Falling Market, Company Missteps Hurts Seagate Financials - ChannelWeb
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:39 am Apple Q1: Boom [Digital Daily]Source: All Things Digital | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:35 am Oldest Weapons-grade Plutonium Found In DumpUrchin writes "Researchers have just identified the first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made. The batch was produced as part of the Manhattan Project, but predates Trinity — the first nuclear weapon test — by seven months. It was unearthed in a waste pit at Hanford, Washington, inside a beaten up old safe."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:31 am Heartland says it has closed security hole (AP)AP - As data breaches go, a single merchant getting hacked is bad enough. Even worse is an intrusion into the systems of big payment processors, which could potentially put customer credit card data at risk at the hundreds of thousands of merchants whose transactions are crunched there.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:23 am RockYou Continues To Combine Spam With Stupidity
RockYou VP Business Development Ro Choy apologized in the comments to our previous post, saying “We take privacy of all our partners very seriously and have reviewed and corrected the process that enabled this.” Despite Choy’s assurance that the problem had been fixed, they did the same thing on November 25 (we gave them a pass that time). And now they’ve done it a third time. In a thinly veiled mass mailing advertisement, RockYou asks scores of developers to buy some of the “600 million impressions that we deliver each day.” And once again, they cc’d everyone, which annoys the recipients to no end. The message is below. On an unrelated note, if you are looking for advertisers for your Facebook application, I’ve got a very high quality list for sale.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jan 2009 | 12:10 am BB Video: Micachu and "maker" music, the Russell Porter interviewWATCH: Flash video embed above, or download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Today's a Russell Porter double-header on Boing Boing Video. In this episode, our UK-based music correspondent introduces us to minimalist/electro/glitch trio Micachu and the Shapes. 21-year-old songwriter/musician/MC Mica "Micachu" Levi leads the band, with Raisa Khan on keyboards and Marc Pell on drums. 
They're destined to win a Grammy for best use of a vacuum cleaner in a melodic noise composition. Well, whatever, maybe not, but I love that they use a "hoover" as a voice modulation accessory on-stage, and they build or mod other instruments from odd origins. In our Boing Boing video interview, they joke about the vacuum cleaner thing being a gimmick, but it's cheap and punk and I like it. Micachu's debut record is due out in a couple weeks (early February, 2009), and was produced by the acclaimed electronic musician Matthew Herbert. As is the case with many of the bands Russell introduces us to in these Boing Boing interviews, his timing is prescient. Music critics in the UK are using headlines like "Is Micachu The Next Big Thing?" which probably means: yes. But we wouldn't hear about them in the US otherwise for months. Here's a snip from the band's Wikipedia entry which delves into the "maker" aspect of their act: Micachu describes the music she performs with The Shapes as pop, but the term may be misleading, as her music veers away from much of pop's defining characteristics, including obvious choruses, and accessible lyrics, and often makes use of unconventional playing styles and use of noise like bottles breaking or a vacuum cleaner. There is also little or no bass line in much of her music, which is very uncommon in pop music. For these reasons, her music has been widely described as experimental, and difficult to categorize. 
Here's more about Harry Partch, (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974), the pioneering American electronic musical instrument maker and composer Micachu cites as an influence. At left, an image of his "cloud chamber bowls," described here as "sections of 12-gallon Pyrex carboys, suspended from a redwood frame on ropes... difficult-to-find and impossible-to-tune glass gongs played very carefully by a percussionist who risks the anguish of splintered disaster." Partch obtained the original bowls at the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, where they'd been used as cloud-chambers to trace the paths of sub-atomic particles.Björk is said to be a fan of Micachu and the Shapes: [O]ne of her mix tapes brought her to the attention of the east-London grime scene. But ask her about Bjork calling her up after a gig and she scrunches her face. "Yeah, that was nuts. We spoke but she didn't call me up. It's not like she had my number or anything. "But I spotted her dancing and I kind of stopped for a second."Below, a promotional video about the band from their label, Accidental Records.
* Boing Boing Video Archives
Source: Boing Boing | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:59 pm BB Video: Micachu and "maker" music, the Russell Porter interview
WATCH: Flash video embed above, or download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Today's a Russell Porter double-header on Boing Boing Video. In this episode, our UK-based music correspondent introduces us to minimalist/electro/glitch trio Micachu and the Shapes. 21-year-old songwriter/musician/MC Mica "Micachu" Levi leads the band, with Raisa Khan on keyboards and Marc Pell on drums. They're destined to win a Grammy for best use of a vacuum cleaner in a melodic noise composition. Well, whatever, maybe not, but I love that they use a "hoover" as a voice modulation accessory on-stage, and they build or mod other instruments from odd origins. In our Boing Boing video interview, they joke about the vacuum cleaner thing being a gimmick, but it's cheap and punk and I like it. Micachu's debut record is due out in a couple weeks (early February, 2009), and was produced by the acclaimed electronic musician Matthew Herbert. As is the case with many of the bands Russell introduces us to in these Boing Boing interviews, his timing is prescient. Music critics in the UK are using headlines like "Is Micachu The Next Big Thing?" which probably means: yes. But we wouldn't hear about them in the US otherwise for months. Here's a snip from the band's Wikipedia entry which delves into the "maker" aspect of their act:
Here's more about Harry Partch, (June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974), the pioneering American electronic musical instrument maker and composer Micachu cites as an influence. At left, an image of his "cloud chamber bowls," described here as "sections of 12-gallon Pyrex carboys, suspended from a redwood frame on ropes... difficult-to-find and impossible-to-tune glass gongs played very carefully by a percussionist who risks the anguish of splintered disaster." Partch obtained the original bowls at the Radiation Laboratory of the University of California, Berkeley, where they'd been used as cloud-chambers to trace the paths of sub-atomic particles.
[O]ne of her mix tapes brought her to the attention of the east-London grime scene. But ask her about Bjork calling her up after a gig and she scrunches her face. "Yeah, that was nuts. We spoke but she didn't call me up. It's not like she had my number or anything. "But I spotted her dancing and I kind of stopped for a second."Below, a promotional video about the band from their label, Accidental Records.
* Boing Boing Video Archives
Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:46 pm Seven steps to a bootable Windows 7 thumb driveI’ve been playing with Windows 7 Beta for a the past week or so and after loading it up on multiple machines I’ve learned a few things: 1. I hate waiting for DVDs to burn ISO images. 2. Half of my computers don’t have optical drives and I don’t want to buy an external one. 3. Creating a bootable USB thumb drive with Windows 7 loaded onto it is more complicated than it needs to be, but once it’s done it’s a great tool to have. There are plenty of great tutorials out there that basically contain the same information as this one, but I thought I’d try to put together a how-to guide that made everything as simple as possible for people who might like the idea of Windows on a thumb drive but aren’t necessarily super comfortable with the actual process. The only tangible thing you’ll need is a USB thumb drive with at least 4GB of capacity. I found a SanDisk Cruzer Contour worked best, while a Kingston DataTraveler was a bit fidgety at first but worked after a couple of tries. It’s all pretty easy once you get going, so let’s begin. Step One: Download Windows 7 Beta
Head over to http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/beta-download.aspx and jump through all the hoops to begin your download. For the sake of this exercise, we’ll assume that you’ll download the ISO file to your desktop. The download might take a while depending on your connection speed – set aside an hour to be on the safe side. Meanwhile, take a break. You’ve earned it! Step Two: Download and install WinRAR
I hate guides that make me go download a bunch of software just to accomplish a task, so I apologize for making you do the same thing. I promise this will be the only third-party software that you’ll have to download and install, though, and it’s a great program to have on your computer anyway if you don’t already. Head over to http://rarsoft.com/download.htm and click on the WinRAR 3.80 link to download the software. Once downloaded, install it. Step Three: Extract the Windows 7 ISO file
Once Windows 7 Beta has finished downloading, you should see a file on your desktop with a bunch of gobbledygook in the name like “7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD” or something cryptic like that. Right-click on that file and choose “Extract to [gobbledygook]” as shown in the above picture. When the smoke has cleared, you’ll have a gobbledygook folder on your desktop. I’ll continue to refer to this folder as “the gobbledygook folder” for the rest of this guide. Step Four: Format a 4GB USB thumb drive
Head into “Computer” or “My Computer” and locate your USB thumb drive. In this instance, we’re dealing with the F: drive. Right click on the drive and choose “Format…” Then, we want to format the drive using the NTFS file system with the default allocation size, so make sure those two things are selected from the dropdown menus. You can check the Quick Format box, too, if it’s not already checked. Step Five: The tricky BootSect.exe part
Now we’re going to go back to our extracted “7000.0.081212-1400_client_en-us_Ultimate-GB1CULFRE_EN_DVD” gobbledygook folder and open the “boot” folder, inside which we’ll find a file called “bootsect.exe” that we’ll need to use. If you’re comfortable navigating folders in DOS, then you can skip this particular step. If you don’t like DOS or haven’t used it much, we’re going to copy this bootsect.exe file into an easy-to-access location. Copy the file (CTRL-C) and then open up “Computer” or “My Computer” and double-click your C: drive.
We’re going to paste (CTRL-V) that “bootsect.exe” file right into C: so we can easily access it in a moment. See it there? Fifth file from the bottom, all safe and sound? Step Six: Do some Ninja-like stuff in DOS
Now we’re going to open the Command Prompt. If you’re using Vista or Windows 7, you’ll have to do the “Run as administrator” thing or we won’t be able to deploy our sweet flanking maneuvers that are coming up. So go into Programs > Accessories and then right-click on Command Prompt and choose “Run as administrator.”
Once we’ve got the Command Prompt up, we’re going to switch to our top-level C: folder by simply typing “cd\” without the quotes and hitting Enter (If you skipped Step Five above, then navigate yourself to the “boot” folder inside the extracted ISO folder on your desktop).
We should then have a straight-up C:> prompt. At this point, we’ll type the following (without the quotes): “bootsect /nt60 f:” We’re assuming the drive letter of your USB thumb drive is F:, so replace “f:” in the above phrase with whichever letter is assigned to your particular thumb drive. Hit enter and you should see:
Blah, blah, blah your bootcode is something something. This just means that the thumb drive is now ripe to auto-load when you boot up your computer. Step Seven: Copy the Windows 7 files to the thumb drive
This is it! The final step! Open up your extracted Windows 7 gobbledygook folder and copy the files over to your thumb drive. You should be copying five folders and three files to the thumb drive. That is, don’t drag the gobbledygook folder over; open it up first and drag the stuff inside of it over instead.
It’ll take maybe about ten minutes for everything to copy over. Take another break! You’ve earned it! When all is said and done, reboot your computer with the thumb drive in place and you should be greeted with the Windows 7 installation menu. If you’re not, you might have to tweak your BIOS settings to allow your computer to recognize a thumb drive as a bootable device. Questions? Comments? Rage? I hope this little guide helps. I’ll try to answer any questions left in the comments section. Also, if any of you out there are programmers, this whole setup is itching for some sort of automation process – something where a user could load up a program, select their thumb drive and Windows 7 ISO file and have the rest done automatically. You’d be doing the world a great service. Source: CrunchGear | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:46 pm Apple’s Tim Cook Warns Competitors: If You Rip Off The iPhone, We’ll Go After You
At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today, COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Cook made an oblique threat:
This threat seems directed squarely at Palm, which recently launched it’s own answer to the iPhone: the Palm Pre. The Pre has a multi-touch interface, something which Apple holds patents on, and from which other competitors have steered clear. Source: CrunchGear | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:44 pm Chart: Mediawiki (Wikipedia) database schema [Wikimedia.org]Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:42 pm Apple’s Tim Cook Warns Competitors: If You Rip Off The iPhone, We’ll Go After You
At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today, COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Cook made an oblique threat:
This threat seems directed squarely at Palm, which recently launched it’s own answer to the iPhone: the Palm Pre. The Pre has a multi-touch interface, something which Apple holds patents on, and from which other competitors have steered clear. Read the rest of this entry >> Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:42 pm TruPhone now available for Android
In the weeks leading up to the G1 launch, rumors were abound that the lack of a SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) stack in Android meant that VoIP applications were a no go. Of course, such nonsense has since been proven wrong by the likes of Skype lite (and its unofficial predecessors, such as iSkoot) - and now it sees that the VoIP train is chugging away at full speed. The latest to bring their VoIP offerings to everyone’s favorite Google-powered platform is Truphone, with today’s release of the free Truphone Anywhere Android application. Beyond support for their own VoIP service, the Truphone Android app also supports text chat over MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, and Twitter, with text/voice Skype support promised “soon”. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:38 pm Graph of the way a cigarette tastes
I'm not a smoker, but this graph makes sense to me. It probably applies to most bad habits. Source: Boing Boing | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:37 pm Microsoft Donates Code To Apache's "Stonehenge" Projectdp619 writes "Several months after joining the Apache Foundation, Microsoft has made its first code contribution to an Apache project. The project, known as Stonehenge, is made up of companies and developers seeking to test the interoperability of Web standards implementations."Reader Da Massive adds a link to coverage at Computer World.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:30 pm Apple’s Tim Cook Warns Competitors: If You Rip Off The iPhone, We’ll Go After You
At the tail end of Apple’s quarterly earnings conference call today, COO Tim Cook (CEO Steve Jobs, who is taking a medical leave of absence, was not on the call) noted that 17 million iPhones have been sold to date. When he was asked about the rising competition from Android, Blackberry, and Palm, Cook made an oblique threat:
This threat seems directed squarely at Palm, which recently launched it’s own answer to the iPhone: the Palm Pre. The Pre has a multi-touch interface, something which Apple holds patents on, and from which other competitors have steered clear. When Cook was asked if he was talking about Palm, he demurred:
What makes this veiled threat even more personal is that Palm’s executive chairman is former Apple product chief Jon Rubinstein, who was installed by Elevation Partners. Elevation Partners is Palm’s biggest investor. They believe so much in the Pre that they just sunk another $100 million into the company, on their initial $325 million investment a year ago. Maybe Rubinstein can use that cash to pay Apple a licensing fee. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:28 pm Rumor: Verizon slashing prices on 13 phones tomorrow or soon thereafter
Source: CrunchGear | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:16 pm Verizon to discount up to 13 handsets as early as tomorrow?
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:11 pm Rumor: Palm Pre launching mid-February?
Treocentral poster Vyruz Reaper claims to have been given insider info on the launch date for the Palm Pre. His source, who allegedly tipped him off to the 800w, but was only 75 percent accurate told him/her that the Pre would launch as early as February 15. The rest of his post blathers on like a 6-year-old telling you about Cars so check it out after the jump and see if you can decipher it. Read the rest of this entry >> Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:02 pm Terrible economy? Big deal, we still love our cellphones & video games
So, what do Americans buy as their country’s economy collapses around them? Well, according to Forbes, we still buy things like smartphones, video games and movie tickets. We’ll spend our way out of this yet. As you know, the world is slowly melting, and we’ll all be defending our remaining property with pointy sticks sooner rather than later. But even though people are genuinely concerned with the economic well-being, they still manage to splash the cash for a few “must have” items or services. These are, says Forbes: • smartphones • video games • movie tickets • gym memberships • car maintenance • toy sets (Lego and the like) • casual shoes • restaurants (cheap ones, though, like McDonalds) • netbooks • personal care (toothpaste, deodorant, etc) So there’s two categories here: diversionary junk you don’t really need but don’t want to do without (games), and things you need but would rather not spend any money on (a new thingie for your car). Oh, and apparently you spend money on anything with the name Apple on it. As a Forbes commenter pointed out, where’s guns and ammo from this list? A fair number of people are buying guns and ammo out there, for whatever reason (“Obama will soon make guns illegal” or “I need one in case there’s a revolution” or “I just like being a well-armed citizen”). I have a solution to the economic crisis, by the way: just print more money! That way, I could pay off my college debt will a barrel filled with worthless money. Granted, a single banana would cost $300, but that’s a price I’m willing to pay. Photo: Flickr Source: CrunchGear | 21 Jan 2009 | 11:00 pm Fujitsu To Show Off "Zero-Watt" PC At CeBITmobile writes "In August of last year Fujitsu announced new 'zero-watt' displays. This means the screens use absolutely no power when put into standby mode, unlike most other screens that use less than 1 watt, but still require some power. Now Fujitsu has announced they will be showing a zero-watt PC later this year at the CeBIT show. The PC is called the Esprimo Green and marks a first, in that it's able to use no power while in standby mode — but this is a feature that will be required from 2010 for new PCs released across Europe."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:43 pm Avistar Communications Reports Financial Results for the Fourth Quarter of 2008Revenue, EBITDA, Net Income and Cash Flow all Increase; Metrics Move into Positive Territory SAN MATEO, Calif., Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:42 pm The Day Before Tomorrow, January 21st, 2009Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:35 pm mEgo Raises Another $2.5 Million For Its Multimedia Social Avatars
mEgo, a startup that lets you create a portable Flash-based avatar that includes aggregated content from your social network profiles, has closed a $2.5 million funding round. The site has also announced that it has reached its 1 millionth registered user since launching at 2007’s TechCrunch40 conference, with a 20% growth rate month over month. mEgo’s widgets allow users to import information from sites like Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter, which are then presented alongside customizable avatars (you can see an example below). Each source of information can be associated with a different button on the widget that users can place themselves. For example, in the widget below music buttons are positioned on the avatar’s ears and display the user’s Last.fm profile when clicked. mEgo widgets can be placed on blogs and most social networks, and see around 30 million impressions per month. There are a number of other companies working on embeddable avatars, including Gizmoz and Voki, but mEgo differentiates itself by acting as a hub for a user’s photos and network profiles rather than just a fancy self-portrait.  
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:35 pm Experiment: Dissolving starch packing peanuts
Above: A sink full of starch packing peanuts soaking in hot water. Below: The results, 24 hours later. 
Conclusion: These packing peanuts are made of plastic. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:18 pm Tablecloth sans table as table
This low-slung table, created from a woven tablecloth petrified with sort of resin, may not be a retail product, but it could always get work as a set piece in an Aqua Net commercial. If I were to try to build one, what sort of resin should I use? [Pink Wolf via Freshome] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:07 pm Apple pushed 4.4 million iPhones in Q1 of 2009
We’re just minutes into Apple’s quarterly earnings call, and the iPhones sales numbers for the first fiscal quarter of 2009 (which ran from Oct. 1, 2008 to Dec. 31st, 2008) are already in. Over the past 3 months, Apple has sold over 4,363,000 iphones. Compared to the 2.3 million iPhones sold in Q1 of last year, this number is astronomical. Compared to the 6.9 million iPhones sold in the previous quarter, however, it seems relatively low. While it may be that the demand caused by the 3G model of the iPhone may be wearing off, I’d expected Christmas purchases to pull sales on par or above Q4 of 2008, along the lines of the sudden App Store sales boost we saw in December. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. Source: TechCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 10:04 pm Most Hackable Coupon-Eligible DTV Converter?An anonymous reader writes "So I've finally gotten my DTV coupons, now I have to choose a converter before the analog signals go dark. I'd like to get one that is hackable, but haven't had much luck finding information about the internals of the units available. My question is, What chipsets do the different coupon eligible converters use, and which one is the most hackable? It'd be great to be able to send my own MPEG stream and have it displayed, or to grab the raw stream out of the device."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:59 pm Apple pushed 4.4 million iPhones in the last quarter
We’re just minutes into Apple’s quarterly earnings call, and the iPhones sales numbers for the first fiscal quarter of 2009 (which ran from Oct. 1, 2008 to Dec. 31st, 2008) are already in. Over the past 3 months, Apple has sold over 4,363,000 iphones. Compared to the 2.3 million iPhones sold in their fiscal first quarter of last year, this number is astronomical. Compared to the 6.9 million iPhones sold last quarter, however, it seems relatively low. While it may be that the demand caused by the 3G model of the iPhone may be wearing off, I’d expected Christmas purchases to pull sales on par or above Q4 of 2008, along the lines of the sudden App Store sales boost we saw in December. More on Apple’s quarterly earnings at CrunchGear. Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:56 pm Android T-Mobile G2: Leaked Photos and Facts - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:55 pm FISD Policy Best Practice Recommendations Address Derived Data, Non-Display Usage of Data, and Internal Data UsageWASHINGTON, Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:54 pm Can't Buy Me Love This Valentine's Day? Don't Worry - OkCupid.com is the Free Way to Finding Love in This Heartbroken Economy- Singles from all over the country are turning to OkCupid.com to meet that special someone before or on Valentine's Day for FREE - NEW YORK, Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:46 pm Controlling The Nature Of GrapheneResearchers “tune” graphene’s properties by growing it on different surfacesResearchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered a new method for controlling the nature of graphene, bringing academia and industry potentially one step closer to realizing the mass production of graphene-based nanoelectronics.Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, was discovered in 2004 and is considered a potential heir to copper and silicon as the fundamental building blocks of nanoelectronics. With help from an underlying substrate, researchers for the first time have demonstrated the ability to control the nature of graphene. Saroj Nayak, an associate professor in Rensselaer’s Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy, along with Philip Shemella, a postdoctoral research associate in the same department, have determined that the chemistry of the surface on which graphene is deposited plays a key role in shaping the material’s conductive properties. The results are based on large-scale quantum mechanical simulations.Results show that when deposited on a surface treated with oxygen, graphene exhibits semiconductor properties. When deposited on a material treated with hydrogen, however, graphene exhibits metallic properties.“Depending on the chemistry of the surface, we can control the nature of the graphene to be metallic or semiconductor,” Nayak said. “Essentially, we are ‘tuning’ the electrical properties of material to suit our needs.” Conventionally, whenever a batch of graphene nanostructures is produced, some of the graphene is metallic, while the rest is semiconductor. It would be nearly impossible to separate the two on a large scale, Nayak said, yet realizing new graphene devices would require that they be comprised solely of metallic or semiconductor graphene. The new method for “tuning” the nature of graphene is a key step to making this possible, he said. Graphene’s excellent conductive properties make it attractive to researchers. Even at room temperature, electrons pass effortlessly, near the speed of light and with little resistance. This means a graphene interconnect would likely stay much cooler than a copper interconnect of the same size. Cooler is better, as heat produced by interconnects can have negative effects on both a computer chip’s speed and performance.Results of the study were published this week in the paper “Electronic structure and band-gap modulation of graphene via substrate surface chemistry” in Applied Physics Letters, and are featured on the cover of the journal’s January 19 issue. Large-scale quantum simulations for the study were run on Rensselaer’s supercomputing system, the Computational Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI). Researchers received funding for the project from the New York State Interconnect Focus Center at Rensselaer.---Image Caption: Researchers at Rensselaer have developed a new method for controlling the conductive nature of graphene. Pictured is a rendering of two sheets of graphene, each with the thickness of just a single carbon atom, resting on top of a silicon dioxide substrate.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:39 pm Fake LEGO ads pit brickplay against sex, needle, and gunplay
These advertisements for LEGO from agency DDB aren't real, in as far as they certainly weren't commissioned by the brickmaker, but we can still love them. [via Animal] 
 Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:36 pm Western Capital Resources, Inc. Acquires 12 New Cricket Wireless Stores in MissouriCOUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Western Capital Resources, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:30 pm Video: T-Mobile's Liverpool dancing commercialT-Mobile's UK commercial takes Improv Everywhere techniques to a ridiculous level inside the Liverpool Street Station. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:26 pm KY Appeals Court Nixes Seizure of Gambling-Linked Domainsdavidwr writes "A state appeals court in Kentucky ruled that the state courts cannot seize domain names as 'gambling devices.' The court ruled that 'it's up to the General Assembly — not the courts nor the state Justice Cabinet — to bring domain names into the definition of illegal gambling devices.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:12 pm Is it 2012? Because Hello Kitty just made her debut on the iPhone The end of the world has come early, friends. FunMobillity has finagled their way into Sanrio’s good graces and unleashed Hello Kitty for the iPhone. For five whole dollars you can get 50 wallpapers of the 35-year-old cat from Japan. The real shocker here is that it took this long for HK to make her way into the App Store. Why didn’t Sanrio just do this themselves? Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:05 pm Lizards Evolve To Escape Fire Ant AttacksImage 1: Fence lizards rely on camouflage to avoid being eaten. Tracy Langkilde, Penn StateImage 2: Invasive fire ants attack and kill a centipede. Tracy Langkilde, Penn StateImage 3: Langkilde captures a fence lizard using a little noose tied to the end of a pole. Tracy Langkilde, Penn StateSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:03 pm Robinson Joins Adams Harris to Lead St. Louis OfficeCHICAGO, Jan.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:03 pm Former Alcatel COO Joins Audinate Board of DirectorsSYDNEY, Australia, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Audinate, a leader in digital media networking technology, today announced that Mike Quigley has joined their Board of Directors.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 9:00 pm New White House Web Site Goes OnlinePresident Barack Obama’s White House went online Tuesday, with the administration pledging the new site will serve as a "window for all Americans into the business of the government."The Web site, www.whitehouse.gov, "will serve as a place for the President and his administration to connect with the rest of the nation and the world,” wrote White House Director of New Media, Macon Phillips, on a blog posting.The new site replaced that of former president George W.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:57 pm Poster: Diversity of Mechanized Species in the Rainforest
[OroVerde.de via GOOD] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:52 pm Microsoft Contributes Code to Apache SOA Project (PC World)PC World - Microsoft for the first time is contributing code to an Apache open-source project, continuing the company's softening of its attitude toward open-source software and the community that supports it.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:50 pm New Species Of Climbing Fish Shakes Catfish Family TreeA new species of fish from tropical South America is confirming suspected roots to the loricariid catfish family tree.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:49 pm Mediterranean Fruit Fly Knows No BordersBalkan States Consider Sterile Insect Technique Against Mediterranean Fruit Fly Fruit farmers in Southern Europe have been struggling for decades in a losing battle against the Mediterranean fruit fly, or Medfly, which is one of the world’s most destructive farm pests, since it lays its eggs in fruit and vegetables.The female can produce up to 800 offspring per season. The larvae or worms feed on the pulp of fruits, tunneling through it, and reducing the fruit to an inedible mush.The battle waged by farmers in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Medfly has been fought since the 1940s with insecticides. But the growing export market in the European Union imposes strict rules on pesticide residue limits in food.So in 2007 Croatia turned to the IAEA for help to apply the most environmentally friendly alternative to insecticide - the Sterile Insect Technique (SIT). There are plans to start implementation next year.SIT involves the sterilization of factory-reared male insects by irradiation. Millions of sterile males are hatched and then released into infested areas. When they mate with females in the wild, no offspring are produced, thereby gradually reducing and in some situations even eradicating the population. The technique is particularly effective in a confined area such as the Neretva Valley, which runs across the borders of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the migration of flies from outside into the valley is reduced.This valley produces 80 percent of Croatia´s clementines for export. Thirty percent of them are infested by Medflies. Across the border Bosnia´s small farmers who grow peaches and plums also struggle with Medfly infestation."National borders mean nothing to the Medfly, so these two countries are working together on this control project which has an SIT component," says Rui Cardoso Pereira an Entomologist in the IAEA´s Insect Pest Control Section.The Medfly, which is slightly smaller than a common housefly, originated in Africa and is now a global pest found in over 85 countries in tropical and subtropical regions.It infests some 50 different types of fruit in the Neretva River Valley. "This area is what we call the northern limit," says Mr. Pereira. "It’s close enough to the coastal areas where the winter temperatures aren’t low enough to kill the Medfly. And this helps sustain the population, which has been wreaking havoc on plants here since the 1940s."SIT, when integrated with other control measures, has proven to be an effective weapon against the Medfly, resulting in total eradication of this pest in Mexico, Chile and the USA. Southern Argentina, parts of Guatemala and Southern Peru have also been declared Medfly-free as a result of using this technique. Increasingly, SIT is also being used to suppress Medfly populations to acceptable levels in many regions around the world.In the Neretva Valley project suppression is the objective as well. SIT implementation will not only dramatically cut the use of pesticides, but increase yields and the quality of available produce.But it isn’t a quick-fix."Implementing this technology takes longer than insecticide application," says Mr. Pereira. "Croatia took the first two years just to collect baseline data. Not only do we need to collect statistics and do feasibility studies, but we also need to test whether or not the wild females will mate with the sterile males we are going to release. Also, to find out when the first flies appear after each winter period is key to engaging in well-oriented suppression of this pest," he said. Bosnia and Herzegovina began feasibility assessments into its Medfly population in January 2009."With the full involvement of the fruit industry in the valley, our counterparts in Croatia plan to begin releasing some sterile Medflies into the area in 2010," Mr. Pereira says. "Our efforts will be a success if we bring down the infestation rate in Croatia in 2011 and if crop yields increase for the poor small farmers in Bosnia and Herzegovina who are still recovering from the war."---Image Caption: Medflies caught on a trap in the Neretva Valley in Croatia. Fly trapping is one means used to collect data about the Medfly population before SIT can be introduced. (Photo: R. Pereira/IAEA)Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:46 pm Russia: No More Space Tourists After 2009American Charles Simonyi will be the last space tourist to fly on a Soyuz spacecraft.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:45 pm Windows Mobile 6.5 in action - blurry, blurry actionThe always incredibly prompt folks over at XDA-Developers managed to get their mitts on a ultra early beta release of what’s purported to be Windows Mobile 6.5, and then proceeded to tweak and tune it to load on an HTC device. Which HTC device, you wonder? Might it be the gorgeous and relatively new HTC Touch Pro, or the ever elusive HTC Touch HD? Hell no - they’re kickin’ it oldschool here, loading it up on 2004’s The video is a twelve kinds of blurry, but it’s the first time we’ve seen WinMo 6.5 outside of stillshots - plus if you’re feeling adventurous, they’ve put the ROM up for anyone lookin’ to flash their own handsets. [via WMPowerUser] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:45 pm Study Claims Antarctica Is Losing Its CoolA new study suggests that Antarctica is rising in temperature, despite previous claims it was the only continent not suffering from global warming.Research in the past indicated that temperatures on much of Antarctica were staying the same or even cooling.But a review of satellite and weather records for the continent, which contains 90 percent of the world's ice and would raise world sea levels if it thaws, proves that freezing temperatures had risen by about 0.8 Fahrenheit since the 1950s.Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University, and the study’s co-author, said contrarians have grabbed on to this idea that the entire continent of Antarctica is cooling, so “how could we be talking about global warming.” "Now we can say: no, it's not true ...Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:35 pm An FBI Agent's 3 Years Undercover With Identity Thievessnydeq writes "InfoWorld offers the inside story of how FBI Supervisory Special Agent J. Keith Mularski, aka Master Splynter, penetrated and took over DarkMarket.ws, the infamous underground carding board hacked by Max Butler and later transformed by Mularski into an FBI sting operation. The three-year tour sent Mularski deeper into the world of online computer fraud than any FBI agent before, resulting in 59 arrests and preventing an estimated $70 million in bank fraud before the FBI pulled the plug on the operation in October."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:25 pm High definition ISS video is producedThe U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:16 pm Some sliced leeks recalled in CanadaThe Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning against consumption of certain leeks due to possible bacterial contamination. The CFIA and Les Cultures de Chez Nous Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 8:01 pm Bacterium affected by land practicesAustralian scientists say they've discovered the pathogenic soil bacterium Burkholderia pseudomallei is influenced by land management practices. Researchers at the Menzies School of Health Research in Darwin, Australia, said they found the bacterium, which causes the emerging infectious disease melioidosis in humans and animals, is associated with land management changes such as livestock husbandry or residential gardening. These findings raise concerns that B.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 7:56 pm World’s Oldest Weapons-Grade Plutonium Uncovered In DumpImage Caption: Nuclear reactors line the riverbank at the Hanford Site along the Columbia River in January 1960. The N Reactor is in the foreground, with the twin KE and KW Reactors in the immediate background. The historic B Reactor, the world's first plutonium production reactor, is visible in the distance.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jan 2009 | 7:46 pm No More Space Tourists After 2009, Russia Saysmknewman writes with disappointing news for anyone with the money that it would have cost to fly as a space tourist, excerpting a story that says "Russia's space chief says there won't be any more tourists headed to the international space station after this year. Anatoly Perminov told the government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that there will be no room for paying tourists because the space station's crew is expanding from three members to six."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 21 Jan 2009 | 7:38 pm OneSeason Raises $3.5 Million For Its Sports Stock Market
OneSeason, the stock market for sports that lets users invest real money into their favorite athletes, has closed a $3.5 million Series A funding round led by Charles River Ventures. To coincide with the funding, OneSeason has also announced that CRV’s George Zachary will join the company’s Board of Directors. Hot or Not founder James Hong and 49er superstar Ronnie Lott will also be joining the company’s Advisory Board. The site mimics traditional stock markets, substituting famous athletes in place of large companies (they even have their own ticker symbols; KING, currently the top-trading stock, stands for LeBron James). Users can purchase ‘Synthetic Ownership Interests’ in each player, which rise in value depending on their demand. Since launching in October the site has traded over one million of these SOIs. The site could be very appealing to sports fanatics looking to convert their fantasy sports skills into real cash, but as we wrote when the site launched, it’s a system that seems ripe for abuse. Because you aren’t actually buying any real asset and there isn’t any official regulation, users could potentially team up with friends to ‘pump and dump’ a stock. To combat this OneSeason has a dedicated team of staffers looking to curb abuse and an automated fraud detection engine, but I’d still be wary of investing large sums of cash in this still-nascent market. That said, if the site can prove the legitimacy of the market it could gain a massive following - predictions are always more fun when there’s some risk involved. Thanks to Scott Harper for the tip.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 7:08 pm Antarctic Warming Is Continent-WideNo region of Antarctica is safe from climate change, suggests new research.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 7:00 pm T-Mobile rehashes the Sony Ericsson TM506 in Scarlet Red
Four months of green later, T-mobile has gotten around to releasing the TM506 in a shiny new color: Scarlet Red. The specs are identical, the price has dropped down to $49.99 (from $79.99 at launch) and, well, it’s not green. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 6:33 pm BLOG: White House Pets and PalsWhich president had a pet goat? What's Sasha Obama's favorite stuffed critter?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 5:58 pm NYC Teams With Google To Launch Its Own Citysearch
New York City has just launched a revamped webportal at NYCgo, which now offers an extensive database of events, restaurants, hotels, and other points of interest. All of these are tied into the Google Maps API, making it easier for visitors to quickly find things to do in their vicinity without having to hunt down their hotel’s concierge. The site will also include a listing of promotions and discounts, like the incredibly popular Restaurant Week, during which upscale restaurants offer meals at a flat (and heavily discounted) rate. The city has also teamed with Google to create its new Information Center at 810 Seventh Avenue, which includes Surface-like map tables powered by the Google Maps API . Users will be able to browse through attractions and create travel plans which they can print on the spot, and can also apparently embed their travel itinerary into small tokens which they can use to virtually ‘fly’ through a rendered 3D version of New York City taken from Google Earth. For tech geeks this might be the first city where the visitor center is going to double as an attraction. New York City isn’t the first city to go hi-tech - major cities like Washington DC and San Francisco also offer interactive maps and visitor guides. For more details, check out the post from NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg here.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Source: TechCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 5:30 pm Lizard Find Suggests New Zealand Never Fully SubmergedRemains of a reptile suggests New Zealand was not once submerged.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 5:28 pm Ancient Greek Homes Doubled as Pubs, BrothelsNew evidence tells of the double life of certain homes in ancient Greece.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 3:36 pm Pair Found Adrift in Icebox Credit Survival to Bird SpatTwo claim they survived 25 days at sea in an icebox by eating bird regurgitation.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 3:30 pm Heat to Become Major Threat by Century's EndBy the end of the 21st century, the currently hottest weather will become the norm.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 2:30 pm Spitting Cobras' Sharp-Shooting SecretsScientists spy on venomous cobras at target practice. How do they do it?Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Jan 2009 | 2:15 pm Android G2 snapped by Mr. Blurry Camera Man
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Jan 2009 | 1:16 pm
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Qingwen is an extremely focused and streamlined Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionary designed with the Chinese reader in mind. Lookup is meant to be fast and easy. There is just one search field which accepts anything you throw at it- Chinese characters, Pinyin, and English - and figures out the most relevant results. Since Qingwen is meant for students of Chinese, you can also easily add words to word lists for future reference and discover relationship between characters by seeing which other words they occur in and which other characters have similar sounds.
Air Guitar provides all the fun of rocking out with none of the talent or commitment required to play a real instrument. Unlike other guitar apps, Air Guitar uses the built-in accelerometer to let you really rock: with your iPhone or iPod touch in hand, just start strumming away at your imaginary axe. $1.99
Do you HaveASec? If so, this is the perfect application for you. You can quickly create a short survey or poll to send out to your friends. You can also ask a public poll to see what our users think. Friends don’t have an iPhone? No problem! We have a fully functional web interface for all mobile phones and computers. Free
Do you have a second? Want to read an article of interest to you but don’t have the time to find it? How about a new video to kill some time on the train? Or, what about checking out a new application that isn’t on the Top 25 list? iDiscover lets you easily discover new articles, videos, and applications customized to your interests. You and your friends can also easily share these articles, videos, and applications that you enjoy with each other. Free.
Site Saver allows you to save websites locally on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Save online references to train schedules, recipes, or product reviews to your device for quick access on the go, or keep your daily fix of online articles just a tap away! $2.99, pending App Store approval.
Abodi allows you to search listings on Craigslist and save your favorite results for viewing access on the go. You can call or email the ad poster, map out the locations of rental/sale properties and even take notes and photos of the properties you visit. Abodi knows where you are located using the iPhone’s GPS technology, so you can find or rank listings by their distance to your current location or other points of interest! Free, to be submitted by 01/26/09
Heydar is a fun new way to meet people. Get started by taking your own headshot. Then view headshots of nearby Heydar users. Tap “Hey” if you find someone attractive. Don’t worry… they will only find out you tapped them if they also tap you. What you decide to do next is up to you… Free, pending App Store approval.
Stress Buster provides a video of soothing ocean waves. A guiding voice assists the user in relaxing through a progressive muscle squeezing up through the body. $.99, available now.
What a dark day this is for Sony (SNE). Its hand forced by a profound deterioration in the current business environment, the company today slashed its forecast for the current financial year and said it will soon post an annual loss for the first time in 14 years. And that loss will be far worse than even the most pessimistic forecasts — 
Think back to a time when you were in school. If you’re as young as me there were probably some old, broken computers in every classroom, each barely capable of running Windows 98, let alone anything worth while. Nowadays there’s computers in many classrooms and some might have projectors attached to the ceiling. That’s great and all, but what’s the point in all that technology if the students can’t use them?
The digital television transition is coming this February. While I’m sure that every Gadgetell reader is ready for the change, San Diego is testing its residents tomorrow. At 6:58 PM on January 22, 2009, all the major broadcast networks (including the local CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox affiliates) will drop their analog signal at the same time. 
T-Mobile introduced a Sony Ericsson TM506 with red accents which will be available starting today. The TM506 is mostly a glossy black with accent colors. Previously, you could pick up the phone in chrome, green, or amber. 
One of the greatest features on the G1, as with most other smartphones, is the inclusion of Wi-Fi in addition to 3G wireless. It is much easier for those whose carriers might have limit data limits on the 3G networks or who just want more speed. It can also provide for cheaper phone calls as with the new Android app from Truphone.
Oh Windows 7, is there anyone who doesn’t like you, other than John Biggs? 
The U.S. usually lags behind in government acceptance of new technology. Our ID cards usually have barcodes, magnetic strips, or even a RFID. The Kingdom of Bahrain will issue new electronic ID cards to its residents and citizens. 
Google CEO 
In September 2008 Facebook application developer and advertising network 
Back in September when T-Mobile launched the Sony Ericcson TM506 as their first ever 3G handset, it was a mighty fine lookin’ flip phone - except 
Isn’t funny how everytime you get your hands a super-duper secret phone or random gadget, the one camera nearby is your crappy camera phone? Funny. Anywho, supposedly what you see above, and after the link, is 