Source: Gizmodo | 7 Feb 2009 | 12:11 am

A Hypothetical Question to the Boing Boing Community: the Filmmaker and the Bittorrented Screener

I attended a private screening of a yet-unreleased new movie today, hosted by the director of that movie. At the end of the screening, the filmmaker shared with me that a rough cut of this film had been leaked to BitTorrent, with the screener blurb marking ("PROPERTY OF #### FILMS, DUPLICATION PROHIBITED" or something) clearly placed on every frame. The filmmaker was upset about this and asked what they ought to do, if anything, to try and stem its spread, or deal with whatever unknown damage the leak might cause. Here's the interesting part: their concern mostly stemmed from the fact that this was not the final cut or mix of the film, and the filmmaker didn't consider it a finished work. For them, it wasn't a perfect enough, complete enough, final enough product. And I'm confident this wasn't a faked "leak" designed to drum up publicity. I told them I'd ask someone with expertise, but then thought it might be more interesting to ask all of you. If you were advising this filmmaker, and you knew they wanted to do the right thing by the internet community *and* by the film and all the people who worked on it -- what would you do or not do, say or not say? By the way, the film was amazing.

Source: Boing Boing | 7 Feb 2009 | 12:10 am

Universal Power Adapter Struggling For Support

Ian Lamont writes "Last year, there was a lot of hopeful discussion surrounding an initiative to have the consumer electronics industry standardize their products on a USB-based universal power adapter devised by Green Plug. Eight months later, the effort has stalled. The reason: manufacturers have balked from using Green Plug's technology. '... Gadget makers seem to have no compelling financial incentive to adopt Green Plug's technology. It would require them to add Green Plug's chip, or similar hardware and software, into every phone, camera, or music player they build, making them more expensive and more complicated to build. Another stumbling block for manufacturers: A universal power supply would kill the market for replacement power supplies. Manufacturers sell these at a steep markup price to customers who lose or break the original one that came with the device, and aren't tech-savvy enough to procure a low-cost generic replacement.' Green Plug is now trying to drum up public outcry through a (slow) website, but the number of supportive comments and votes remains relatively low."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Feb 2009 | 12:00 am

Exercise Accessory Turns iPhone Into Heart Monitor

A new iPhone exercise gadget will let you listen to music while it listens to your heart.

Announced Friday, iTMP Technology's SMHeartLink is a wireless bridge device that collects data from different types of sensors, such as heart rate monitors and biking sensors. After you're done with a workout, you'd press a button on the SMHeartLink, which automatically sends the information to your iPhone via Wi-Fi.

There are already three heart-monitor iPhone apps in the App Store that work with the device: iRPM, iSpinning and iNewLeaf.

The SMHeartLink is shipping for $155. For a limited time, it includes a heart-monitor chest strap.

Product Page [via Macworld]

Photo: SMHeartLink

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:59 pm

Shortcovers launches mobile eBook service

Section: Communications, Mobile, Web, Websites

If you don’t own one of Amazon’s Kindle Readers, then you may think that you are unable to enjoy books electronically.  This is not the case with Shortcovers, a new mobile service from the Canadian book retailer Indigo Books & Music.

Shortcovers will allow users that own iPhones, BlackBerries, and Android platform phones to access their library of books, magazines and blogs for a fee per title.  Once you select a title, it will download onto your phone and you’ll be able to access it at anytime.  You can also browse free content and book excerpts prior to purchasing the eBook.  This service could challenge the popularity of Kindle since you won’t need to buy a new device in order to enjoy the service.

Shortcovers will be available in both Canada and the United States starting at the end of this month.  The company also hopes to add more mobile platforms to their service.  You can sign up on the Shortcovers site to receive an email notification once the site launches.   

Site: [Shortcovers]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:45 pm

College Music Service Ruckus.com Shuts Down

Ruckus, an online music service geared towards universities that allows students to stream an unlimited amount of music, has apparently just closed its doors. The service was designed to appeal to college students, offering a legal alternative to the piracy that can be found on many campuses. Ruckus was initially offered as a subscription service, then eventually moved to an ad-supported model with partnerships with dozens of major universities. Eventually it opened to all students with an accepted university email address (typically .edu).

At around 5 PM EST today the site went down with a notice stating that it was undergoing an update. As of 5:30, it was displaying the shutdown notice seen above.

We’re told that music that has not passed its “renew date” still works, but that music that has expired will no longer work because the DRM licensing server has apparently shut down.

Last year Ruckus was acquired by Total Music, the joint venture between Sony and UMG, with the intention of using it as a backend for a service which still has yet to launch. Total Music has been struggling for some time - we hear that it made a strong pitch to provide Facebook’s music service, but that it was eventually denied when the social network was unwilling to share revenue and user data, which would have been part of the deal.

While Ruckus’ closure certainly doesn’t bode well for the initiative, Total Music doesn’t seem dead quite yet. Last month it quietly launched a site called Tunepost in private beta, which seems to offer streaming music through a widget.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:43 pm

Economy Could Slow Enterprise Adoption of Windows 7 (PC World)

PC World - The turbulent economy could hinder enterprise adoption of Windows 7, even though many companies opted to skip Windows Vista and are still running the outdated Windows XP OS, analysts said.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:40 pm

From The Cure to 'The Silver Box,' Roger O'Donnell Synthesizes the Digital-Analog Divide

The Moog lover and Mac fanatic waxes enthusiastic about digital music and the power of the analog pencil.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:32 pm

Cognitive Computing Project Aims to Reverse-Engineer the Mind

Imagine a computer that can process text, video and audio in an instant, solve problems on the fly, and do it all while consuming just 10 watts of power.

It would be the ultimate computing machine if it were built with silicon instead of human nerve cells.

Compare that to current computers, which require extensive, custom programming for each application, consume hundreds of watts in power, and are still not fast enough. So it's no surprise that some computer scientists want to go back to the drawing board and try building computers that more closely emulate nature.

"The plan is to engineer the mind by reverse-engineering the brain," says Dharmendra Modha, manager of the cognitive computing project at IBM Almaden Research Center.

In what could be one of the most ambitious computing projects ever, neuroscientists, computer engineers and psychologists are coming together in a bid to create an entirely new computing architecture that can simulate the brain's abilities for perception, interaction and cognition. All that, while being small enough to fit into a lunch box and consuming extremely small amounts of power.

The 39-year old Modha, a Mumbai, India-born computer science engineer, has helped assemble a coalition of the country's best researchers in a collaborative project that includes five universities, including Stanford, Cornell and Columbia, in addition to IBM.

The researchers' goal is first to simulate a human brain on a supercomputer. Then they plan to use new nano-materials to create logic gates and transistor-based equivalents of neurons and synapses, in order to build a hardware-based, brain-like system. It's the first attempt of its kind.

In October, the group bagged a $5 million grant from Darpa -- just enough to get the first phase of the project going. If successful, they say, we could have the basics of a new computing system within the next decade. 

"The idea is to do software simulations and build hardware chips that would be based on what we know about how the brain and how neural circuits work," says Christopher Kello, an associate professor at the University of California-Merced who's involved in the project.

Computing today is based on the von Neumann architecture, a design whose building blocks --  the control unit, the arithmetic logic unit and the memory -- is the stuff of Computing 101. But that architecture presents two fundamental problems: The connection between the memory and the processor can get overloaded, limiting the speed of the computer to the pace at which it can transfer data between the two. And it requires specific programs written to perform specific tasks.

In contrast, the brain distributes memory and processing functions throughout the system, learning through situations and solving problems it has never encountered before, using a complex combination of reasoning, synthesis and creativity.

"The brain works in a massively multi-threaded way," says Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT, a research and consulting firm. "Information is coming through all the five senses in a very nonlinear fashion and it creates logical sense out of it."

The brain is composed of billions of interlinked neurons, or nerve cells that transmit signals. Each neuron receives input from 8,000 other neurons and sends an output to another 8,000. If the input is enough to agitate the neuron, it fires, transmitting a signal through its axon in the direction of another neuron. The junction between two neurons is called a synapse, and that's where signals move from one neuron to another.

"The brain is the hardware," says Modha, "and from it arises processes such as sensation, perception, action, cognition, emotion and interaction." Of this, the most important is cognition, the seat of which is believed to reside in the cerebral cortex.

The structure of the cerebral cortex is the same in all mammals. So researchers started with a real-time simulation of a small brain, about the size of a rat's, in which they put together simulated neurons connected through a digital network. It took 8 terabytes of memory on a 32,768-processor BlueGene/L supercomputer to make it happen.

The simulation doesn't replicate the rat brain itself, but rather imitates just the cortex. Despite being incomplete, the simulation is enough to offer insights into the brain's high-level computational principles, says Modha.

The human cortex has about 22 billion neurons and 220 trillion synapses, making it roughly 400 times larger than the rat scale model. A supercomputer capable of running a software simulation of the human brain doesn't exist yet. Researchers would require at least a machine with a computational capacity of 36.8 petaflops and a memory capacity of 3.2 petabytes -- a scale that supercomputer technology isn't expected to hit for at least three years.

While waiting for the hardware to catch up, Modha is hoping some of the coalition's partners inch forward towards their targets.

Software simulation of the human brain is just one half the solution. The other is to create a new chip design that will mimic the neuron and synaptic structure of the brain.

That's where Kwabena Boahen, associate professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, hopes to help. Boahen, along with other Stanford professors, has been working on implementing neural architectures in silicon.

One of the main challenges to building this system in hardware, explains Boahen, is that each neuron connects to others through 8,000 synapses. It takes about 20 transistors to implement a synapse, so building the silicon equivalent of 220 trillion synapses is a tall order, indeed.

"You end up with a technology where the cost is very unfavorable," says Boahen. "That's why we have to use nanotech to implement synapses in a way that will make them much smaller and more cost-effective."

Boahen and his team are trying to create a device smaller than a single transistor that can do the job of 20 transistors. "We are essentially inventing a new device," he says.

Meanwhile, at the University of California-Merced, Kello and his team are creating a virtual environment that could train the simulated brain to experience and learn. They are using the Unreal Tournament videogame engine to help train the system. When it's ready, it will be used to teach the neural networks how to make decisions and learn along the way.

Modha and his team say they want to create a fundamentally different approach. "What we have today is a way where you start with the objective and then figure out an algorithm to achieve it," says Modha.

Cognitive computing is hoping to change that perspective. The researchers say they want to an algorithm that will be capable of handling most problems thrown at it.

The virtual environment should help the system learn. "Here there are no instructions," says Kello. "What we have are basic learning principles so we need to give neural circuits a world where they can have experiences and learn from them."

Getting there will be a long, tough road. "The materials are a big challenge," says Kello. "The nanoscale engineering of a circuit that is programmable, extremely small and that requires extremely low power requires an enormous engineering feat."

There are also concerns that the $5 million Darpa grant and IBM's largess -- researchers and resources--while enough to get the project started may not be sufficient to see it till end.

Then there's the difficulty of explaining that mimicking the cerebral cortex isn't exactly the same as recreating the brain. The cerebral cortex is associated with functions such as thought, computation and action, while other parts of the brain handle emotions, co-ordination and vital functions. These researchers haven't even begun to address simulating those parts yet.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:31 pm

5 Actresses Who Could Replace Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft

Who's up to the task of taking on the Tomb Raider movie franchise? Vote for your favorite contenders, or submit your own.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:16 pm

A Short, Sharp Shock [Digital Daily]

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:15 pm

Help Writing an Open Standards Policy?

Cornwallis writes "I'm trying to save money for a local government agency I work for by writing a policy statement to support the idea of adopting open data standards and/or Open Source software in order to contain IT expenses (by reducing licensing costs). I am thinking something along the lines of supporting open standards by not locking in to long term software contracts so that departments could be freed to adopt an alternative OS and/or desktop suite if this would work for the individual department. The idea is to unlock the stranglehold that proprietary software may have on the department IT budget. Have any of you written policy statements along these lines, and would you be willing to share? I'm not saying this would be for everybody, nor replace everything, just be an option to help my beleaguered agency in rough times."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:15 pm

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Bubble-Pops at Democratic Policy Confab: The Full Speech [BoomTown]

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an appearance at the three-day U.S. House of Representatives Democratic Caucus Retreat today to talk about innovation and, let’s be real, the very bad economy and the impact on businesses like the tech giant.

Held at the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., the confab has already seen an appearance by President Barack Obama yesterday and one by Vice President Joe Biden this morning. Ballmer got the lunch spot.

The annual gathering is more crucial this year, given the pressure to pass the massive economic stimulus package to try to revive the moribund economy.

Ballmer was not reassuring. “The bubble has burst,” said Ballmer. “We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.”

And also: “In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset.”

Microsoft (MSFT) should know all about that. The powerful company recently announced week earnings, a foggy outlook and layoffs of 5,000 employees.

Here’s Ballmer’s speech to the group:

Well, I want to thank Jay, I want to thank the speaker and all of you for the opportunity to be here today and chat with you. It’s a real honor to have a chance to share some thoughts on the economy and on innovation, and hopefully spur some thoughts on how we all participate in restarting long term economic growth.

As Jay was telling my story, so to speak, I thought I’d put in one parenthetic that might be of interest. When I got to Microsoft and we were this tiny little company, we didn’t have the budget to put people up in hotels, so I lived with Bill. And every time I sat down, in every corner, nook and cranny of couches, tables, I’d find these little yellow pieces of paper with Bill’s writing that had a bunch of people’s names and companies’ names and numbers.

So, finally–I think of myself as pretty good pattern matching. Actually I was sitting next to Congressman Frank, and we were both trying to see which of the six states that are going to be still bigger than North Carolina by 2015. So, we’re going through the pattern matching game, and I just couldn’t figure out what these numbers were.

So, finally I said to Bill, what is this? He says, Steve, I’m really always worried about whether we’re going to have enough cash to pay people. So, every night I write down everybody who works for us and how much we pay them, and every contract we have and how much it’s worth. I’ve got to count the pennies tightly and that’s why you’re here now.

In this economic climate, whether you’re talking about businesses or consumers, everybody I think is having the little yellow sheets of paper out, and counting pennies pretty tightly.

I’m going to make one thing clear up-front: I’m not going to claim to be an economist. On the other hand, I think it’s sort of the responsibility of every businessperson to really form a model of what’s going on in the economy, if you’re going to provide proper stewardship to your business; big company, small company, it’s important to have a model of what’s going on, and certainly have been thinking a lot about the economy in the context of how we think about and plan for the future of Microsoft.

For the past 25 years, the world has certainly enjoyed incredible, incredible global growth. Average incomes around the world grew at unprecedented rates, millions of people moved from out of poverty into the middle class for the very first time.

I think that expansion was built on three things: innovation, globalization, and debt, increasing debt.

American technology was certainly at the heart of the innovation that played the central role in the process. The PC, the Internet, fiber optics: Those things were things that continue to keep America at the forefront of technology, and really at the lead of a growing global economy.

But over time, over the last period of time, the balance has really shifted. Instead of innovation and productivity driving growth, it’s really been unsustainable levels, particularly of private debt, that have been a key driver of economic growth.

The hard truth is this, in my opinion: The private sector of our economy has borrowed too much money, businesses and consumers alike, fueled by the a lot of different things, some notion that housing prices would go up forever, that you could borrow money cheaply.

I gave a speech at Stanford Business School a few years back, and I was talking, we’re a company that has been conservative, per the yellow pieces of paper. We like to keep cash. And a very smart Ph.D. in the audience puts his hand up and said, “Why don’t you borrow money?” I said, “I don’t like to borrow money.” He said, “But it’s so cheap; you’re depriving your shareholders.” I think it reminds us that essentially consumers and businesses alike have really borrowed too much money.

The bubble has burst. We can no longer rely on consumption by refinancing our homes or inexpensive money to fuel economic growth, and that’s certainly had a huge impact.

At our own place, what we think about PC sales, they are discretionary in most home budgets, the second, the third PC. Consumer electronics has that characteristic. Fifty percent of capital spending in this country is on information technology. Less capital, less spend on information technology. No sector will be immune.

There’s a natural tendency to want to blame somebody for the economic crisis. In reality, I think you have to say we’ve all contributed to a culture of spending and private debt. And I distinguish private debt and government debt, because I think you have to be much more–the private sector has less ability to be thoughtful, and the government sector needs to be quite thoughtful. But there certainly has been too much use of debt.

At Microsoft, we’ve studied these developments. We believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime economic event, but it’s not unique frankly in U.S. history. The current situation looks a lot like several–not one but several previous cycles of long-term private sector debt.

In 1929, for example, just before the stock market crash, the private debt-to-GDP ratio was 160 percent. Last year, private sector debt as a percentage of the GDP: 300 percent; far more leverage. And you can see it’s been a steady increase basically since almost the end of World War II.

In my view, what we now have will be a fundamental economic reset. The economy is going to have to re-establish itself at a level of spending that reflects the real value of underlying assets before we can all start growing again at a healthy rate.

This may not be the thing that people really want to hear, but it’s certainly what we’re planning on, and it’s the truth on which we’re basing sort of our model, if you will, at Microsoft.

In our opinion, in order to reach the reset point, three things need to happen. First, the economy must be deleveraged. Private debt as a percentage of GDP has to be reduced. Restoring health to the nation’s financial system is a fundamental part of this.

Just for historical note, not only during the Depression, but actually in 1837 and in 1873 we had similar style resets in the economy. We actually have at least three historic periods that we can study in which similar phenomenon occurred. I think it was 1873 where even the state of Florida filed for Bankruptcy. So, we need to be thoughtful about being students I think of the history.

Second, confidence must be restored. The stimulus package, in my opinion, is vital. It will provide a cushion as we reach the reset point and it will help restart our economic engine. I certainly want to applaud the steps that the House has taken under the speaker’s leadership to quickly pass a strong stimulus package and to help shore up our financial institutions.

Third, America really has to return to growth that’s built on innovation and productivity, rather than leverage and private debt. That must happen.

The good news is that the U.S. economy is still the world leader in innovation. Our universities are the envy of the rest of the world. The American workforce is the best on the planet, and U.S. companies continue to drive technological progress in almost every industry.

But the time has come when we need to renew our innovation capacity.

We went back and studied what innovation companies did during the time of the Great Depression. One company that stands out, if you study the Depression, is RCA.

Now, the fact that RCA is not around today, this has nothing to do with their behavior during the Depression. There’s probably good learnings for a lot of technology companies in that.

But during the time of the Depression, RCA was probably the most broad-based R&D-centric company in America. And while it cut costs certainly to survive the Depression, it never retreated from its commitment to core research and development. And as a result, after the Depression had ended, it really led and the U.S. led TV technology developments for the next 25 years.

That was good for RCA; it was good for America.

In my view, American companies aren’t going to be able to weather this economic downturn just by cutting costs either. You may have heard that Microsoft, our company has decided that we need to reduce 5,000 positions. What you may not know is that at the same time we’ve decided we’ll also create two to three thousand new jobs–mostly in the U.S.–as we continue to push into new areas that require investment.

In addition, despite the tough economy–I might even say because of the tough economy–our company will continue to invest more than $9 billion a year in R&D, because we think it’s that R&D spending that will cause us to remain strong.

People ask me, are you upbeat or not, and I say, about technology I’m super upbeat. The industry that we’re in, information technology, stands at the threshold of again a new revolution.

I joined Microsoft essentially for the PC revolution. The Internet revolution, we have the revolution of what I might call pervasive computing. Computers that are as thin and light as this on which you can have access to the world’s information will be kind of expected over the next five and 10 years.

So, being optimistic and positive about what technology can accomplish is very, very important.

If you take a look at it today, there is increasing ubiquity and power in the computing platforms. A laptop today has more computer power than a mainframe did when I came to Microsoft. Mobile phones today are more powerful than the PCs that existed 10 or 12 years ago, at the start of the Internet era.

But over the next few years, we’ll continue to go into uncharted territory as many-core chipsets and devices become common, and we develop new ways to write programs to help us model the world’s climate, the world’s population, the world’s energy needs; all of that will be super possible.

This is going to lead to breakthrough applications, more intelligent, more aware of their environment, and where we can really help anticipate the information you need and the capabilities that you really want to have.

The next few years are going to see dramatic changes in the way you interact with technology: touch, gestures, handwriting, speech recognition. Instead of telling my secretary to get me ready for my trip to the House Democratic Caucus, I’ll just type it in or speak it to my computer. It can look up, it turns out, who you all are, and where you’re all from, and it’s got all–it’s all out there. We just need to automate it in ways that real people can get access to information.

Some of this I’m sure sounds a bit like science fiction, but we’re rapidly nearing a time when interacting with technology really will be like interacting with people, which will make technology more accessible and really unlock the potential of computers to individuals and communities to help solve tough problems.

A third trend, as I talked about, is screens and displays. Literally every wall, every tabletop, you’ll be able to roll up your computer, if you will, and put it in your purse or put it in your pocket. That’s what we have to look forward to.

All of these trends are going to help create a computing platform that extends from PCs and phones and TVs out into the massive storage and connectivity out in the Internet.

All of this will enable us to transcend the barriers that exist between technology today, and seamlessly connect people to the information and applications that you’re interested in, no matter where you are, no matter what kind of screen you have in front of us.

It’s very important. As the computing environment becomes richer and more pervasive, and more universally useful, it will enable citizens to be more active participants in our national economic recovery. If we do our jobs right, the computer revolution will help amplify our ability as individuals and as a nation to tackle the pressing problems of society: education, health care, energy independence; and at the same time, continue to enhance our productivity and economic competitiveness.

They say GDP is consumption plus investment, plus government spending, plus productivity growth and innovation, and I’m very bullish on what will happen in our industry.

Imagine, for example, an intelligent energy system in your home that’s linked to a smart energy grid. With that infrastructure, your dishwasher and washing machine would know to run when electricity is cheapest. That kind of intelligence and control could really have a major impact on residential power consumption, which is a very large piece of energy consumption in this country.

There are similar scenarios in healthcare, where genomic research will open the door to personalized treatment; and in education for sure, where technology will enable all teachers to use the very best teaching methods and connect with students in new ways.

The truth though, we can barely guess what is possible. With the kinds of technologies we envision, other people, many people in many fields, fields of science and social science and many, many others, will come forth with an incredible outpouring of new ideas and innovation that will continue to expand the universe of what’s possible. So, the enablement not only of information technology and the productivity it brings directly, but other new forms of innovation I think will really be important for long term growth and prosperity across many, many fields of endeavor.

To harness this potential of this transformation, I think it’s going to take a lot more than investment by the private sector. We need investment and we need leadership by government as well. I don’t understand all of the issues and interests that you have to deal with. As I was sitting listening this morning, I understand more that there are hundreds of unwritten things that citizens just don’t really know about what it takes to catalyze these things to happen. But I would at least like to offer a couple suggestions on some things I think are important.

First, we really need the federal government to invest in human capital, in the citizens of our country.

I sit here and talk, talk, talk about innovation, but it’s people who turn ideas into positive and productive innovation. And in today’s knowledge-driven world, innovation will depend on people who are actually technologically sophisticated, have strong critical thinking skills, have expertise in math and science and engineering.

This is true not only for people who live in places like Seattle and work at places like Microsoft, but live in places like Detroit, where I grew up, and work for companies like Ford Motor Company, where my father worked when I was a child. I think this is going to be true for anyone, anywhere in this country, who hopes to earn a wage that can really properly support their family.

This means investment in education is critical, and I’m really encouraged by the very heavy emphasis on education that’s in the stimulus package.

We really need to transform math and science education in America. We need to improve teacher training, teacher quality.

I was talking earlier in the day with some folks about just how many of our math and science teachers don’t have the correct training and accreditation, and that stands in the way of us really breaking through.

For those who are already in the workforce, we need programs that provide ongoing education and training, so they can be successful in this knowledge-based economy. For those who are unemployed, we need new technical skills training to give those people a start back up the economic ladder. And we are going to need lifelong learning programs to keep people fresh, as innovation and technology continues to power the economy.

The second thing we need–and I’ll tell the Speaker this was written even before our meeting this morning–we need greater government investment in our nation’s science and technology infrastructure.

I came in, flew in red eye, was a little groggy this morning when I got here. I sat down with the speaker at 8:00 AM, and she woke me right up. She said there are four things I want you to make sure you understand are a priority: science, science, science, and science. I was awake by the end of the fourth science for sure, and I couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly.

Science and technology is the backbone for productivity and innovation; has been, not always information technology, but science and technology has been a driver of economic success. Government investment in science and engineering as a percentage of GDP is half, in this country, what it was in 1970, and it would be growing rapidly, particularly in countries in Asia, off a small base albeit, but in places like India and China and Korea the trend is the other direction.

We need to pursue breakthroughs over the coming years in green technology, alternative energy, bioengineering, parallel computing, quantum computing. Without greater government investment in the basic research, there is a danger that important advances will happen in other countries. This is truly I think not only an issue of competitiveness, but also in a sense of national security. Companies like ours and others can do our fair share in terms of funding of basic research, but government needs to take the lead.

This is also a moment when government should invest, I think, in information technology to help transform healthcare. We deliver information technology that we think can help create a connected health system that delivers predictive, preventive, and personalized care, a system that I think can improve the health of Americans and reduce the cost of health care in this country.

Government support for innovative development, rapid adoption of information technology in health care is important. I was talking to Congressman McDermott this morning. Government has a big role to play, including the fact that Medicare and Medicaid pay over 50 percent of all health. If Medicare and Medicaid want to take on some issues and use its authority to push health information standards, I’m sure this industry and this area of technology innovation can move even more quickly.

There’s always broadband. My number one encouragement to you is start with government itself. Every school, every hospital, every government building, is it wired, have we funded that infrastructure; very important.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime economic crisis. There is a lot of history around that, and frankly if you stop and think about it, 1837, ‘73, ‘29, 2008, it’s almost exactly a whole lifetime between each of the major economic difficulties that we face. But I think it’s also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to think about our priorities again and make the investments that put us on the right foot.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said we need to assume more responsibility and make the hard decisions that have been postponed for too long.

The president’s remarks actually reminded me of something I heard a lot from my dad when I was growing up. My dad was an immigrant to this country. He came from Switzerland after World War II. He went and was an interpreter with the US military at the war trials in Nuremberg; came to Detroit with some of the soldiers he had met there, who sponsored him in this country; went to work at Ford Motor Company, was there for 30 years. Never finished high school never went to college, but he had a simple model: “If you’re going to do a job, do a job. If you’re not going to do a job, don’t do a job.”

You could say, okay, that’s probably a good thing to tell a 10-year-old, but what it really came to mean to me was that if you want to accomplish anything at all, you’ve got to be committed, you’ve got to be motivated, you’ve got to be tenacious, you’ve got to be smart. And, of course, that’s not really just my dad’s message to me and my sister as we were growing up; it’s really the essence of the American work ethic, and I think it’s been passed down to millions of American children every generation.

This country has what it takes to succeed. We have talent, we have technology, we’ve got the track record. We’ve got to be really honest about where we are. We’ve got to take the kind of bold steps that the vice president so well characterized in his remarks this morning, and we certainly have to roll up our sleeves and put ourselves back on the path of the kind of innovation that will drive the kind of economic success that I know we all want.

I thank you again for the opportunity. It’s been my pleasure.

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:14 pm

Sirius Debt Problems? Call Echostar! No Upfront Fees! [Digital Daily]

A quick update on Thursday’s Sirius/Echostar story. People familiar with the matter tell The Wall Street Journal that the portion of Sirius XM Satellite Radio’s (SIRI) maturing debt that Echostar (SATS) has purchased is a sizable one. It holds most of the $175 million tranche of debt that matures on Feb. 17 and more than half of a $400 million tranche coming due in December. Grand total: around $400 million.

Just why Echostar is amassing this debt is unclear. It may be looking to take control of the company outright to gain its physical assets–satellite and terrestrial repeaters (towers that bolster reception of satellite signals). Or it could be setting the stage for some sort of alliance under which it would use those assets to help build a network for delivering mobile video in cars and consumer devices. A partnership is certainly a possibility. As a commenter on yesterday’s post noted, the companies may have an intermediary in former Sirius CEO Joseph Clayton, who sits on EchoStar’s board. Said Janco Partner analyst April Horace, “There clearly is a relationship and some triangularity between Sirius and Dish and EchoStar, taking into consideration that Joe Clayton now sits on the board of EchoStar. Joe knows Sirius like the back of his hand.”

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 11:10 pm

MySpace Begins Monetizing Music Videos With Impressive Results

In an effort to monetize the growing number of music videos on its site, MySpace has just launched a new pilot advertising initiative that places attractive overlays at the bottom of some clips, allowing users to buy the song they’re listening to or immediately jump to the artist’s homepage.

The new initiative stems from MySpace’s partnership with Auditude, a content detection and management company that can identify copyrighted content and serve relevant advertising, even on user-submitted video. Now Auditude is applying the technology to music videos, which in the past have largely relied on banner ads and static text links to music stores for monetization.

On Wednesday the site, in a partnership with Warner Music Group, placed an overlay ad on a video for My Chemical Romance’s cover of Desolation Row. Users were presented with the option to buy the song either on Amazon, or (in an interesting twist) on a vinyl disc. Over the 24 hours that the ad ran it posted an impressive 1.2% click-through-rate (significantly higher than rates seen on typical banner ads), encouraging MySpace and Auditude to expand the program to more videos. Today the site began displaying advertising on U2’s new single Get On Your Boots, with plans to expand the program more broadly in the near future.

Much of the overlay’s success probably stems from the fact that it doesn’t look too much like an ad - it actually shows informative content like the album the song came from, the year it was released, and a link to the artist’s profile. I wouldn’t say I like having it there, but MySpace could have done a lot worse. And frankly in the current economic climate it’s encouraging when companies can find advertising methods that actually work without being ridiculously annoying.

YouTube launched a similar program three weeks ago, allowing content owners to insert overlays for products into their videos (MySpace’s overlays are significantly more attractive, but they both serve the same purpose). YouTube wouldn’t provide any exact numbers, but a representative confirmed that in general the site has seen significantly improved clickthrough rates when ads are embedded in videos themselves, as opposed to appearing in surrounding banner ads.

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Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:50 pm

The Valentine’s Day E-card: Trojan horse of the modern age

Section: Computers, Security

Software provider Computer Associates has issued an early warning to computer users the world over to be wary when opening E-cards this Valentine’s season.  The Win32/Waledac trojan is enjoying new life as a nasty download that will be soon spamming its way into your inbox, disguised as a Valentine’s Day themed card.

The trojan, once downloaded, sets up shop gathering and sharing your personal data with external information collecting servers.  Once infected, your machine also may be used by foreign entities as a spam bot, and can even be used to spread the infected email to other computers.  According to CA, the files to keep an eye out for are love.exe; onlyyou.exe; you.exe; youandme.exe; and meandyou.exe, but they do note that new files could be added to the mix at any time.

CA lists a few steps you can take to make sure that you keep you computer clear of viruses, among them is keeping you browser up to date with the latest updates and not downloading or running files you are not familiar with.  During holiday periods, CA security teams have regularly seen an uptick in trojan laden spam, but there is good news. Vigilance in keeping your software updated and attentiveness to what files you are accessing, can go a long way to keep your computer free of trojans.

For more information on this threat and other future security risks, you should browse over to the CA Security Advisor Research Blog.

Site: [CA Security Advisor Research Blog]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:45 pm

Telekenex Announces Discontinuance of Discussions with SkyWi, Inc and One Connect IP VoIP Operations

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Telekenex today announced it has discontinued its discussions with SkyWi, Inc and One Connect IP.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:43 pm

Digital Overload Is Frying Our Brains

The high-speed, hyperconnected world we live in may be eroding our ability to pay attention. Our brains are being trained to expect distraction, and the results could lead to an attention-deficient future society.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:41 pm

IBM Offers to Send Laid-Off Staff to Other Countries

TheAmit writes to tell us that many recently laid off IBM employees have been offered jobs if they will only move somewhere it is cheap to employ them. IBM's new Project Match program offers some financial assistance for moving and immigration help for visas. "However, the move has not gone well with the IBM staff union. Slamming the offer, a union spokesperson said that not only were jobs being shipped overseas, but Big Blue was trying to export the people for peanuts too. He added that at a time of rising unemployment IBM should be looking to keep both the work and the workers in the United States. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:24 pm

Pioneer Televisions Go Dark

Pioneer's television business has become the latest victim to the troubled economy. The consumer electronics company will stop making plasma and LCD TVs, according to a report in Japan's Nikkei newspaper.

The move comes after the company said last year that it will stop manufacturing plasma TV panels and would instead source it from Matsushita, now a part of Panasonic.

Some keen eyes spotted the absence of LCD TVs at the Pioneer booth in the Consumer Electronics Show last month, which seems to indicate the decision may have been taken more than a few weeks ago.

Pioneer will also shift its DVD player division to integrate it into a new joint venture with Sharp, reported the Nikkei.

[via PC World]

Photo: Pioneer TV (Gone-walkabout/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:17 pm

iPhone App Vows to Save Relationships by Tracking PMS

An upcoming iPhone app strives to facilitate harmony between Mars and Venus.

PMS Buddy, coming soon to the iPhone's App Store, is an application that keeps track of a woman's menstrual cycles. The app is based on the PMS Buddy web site, whose slogan reads, "Saving relationships, one month at a time!"

Yes, the idea is to give you a reminder of when that time of the month is coming, so as to avoid misunderstandings, which could lead to heated arguments and "dinner plates being hurled across the room," PMS Buddy's web site says.

Helpful? Offensive? Stupid? I polled some of my followers on Twitter, and the responses were mixed:

"I know of a great iPhone app that tracks menstrual cycles," tweeted Ars Technica's Jacqui Cheng. "It's called 'Calendar.'"

Touché. But some others said they would find it helpful:

"Definitely useful for the 'WTF is wrong with me? Why am I so bitchy?' moments," tweeted "Jemmen." "Also will be useful for couples trying to conceive."

According to PMS Buddy, the app will be available sometime in the next week. Pricing details have not been announced, but I'm betting it'll be free like the online service.

No word on whether the app will help iPhone-addicted men put down their handsets and, you know, talk to their female SOs.

New iPhone application tracks menstrual cycle [Telegraph]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:16 pm

Equifax to Continue Providing Consumers Access to Fico(R) Score

ATLANTA, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Equifax Inc, (NYSE: EFX) a global leader in information solutions, reiterated today that it will continue to offer FICO(R) scores to consumers.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 10:00 pm

Video: Bill Gates, the TED Conference and a Box Full of Mosquitoes [MediaMemo]

What does it look like when one of the world’s richest men unleashes a box full of mosquitoes at a high-end conference? That’s what Microsoft (MSFT) founder Bill Gates did at the TED gathering earlier this week in a much-discussed stunt.

And now you can see for yourself:

Less exciting than it sounded, right? Here’s the thing: The mosquito bit is just the publicity-generating part of Gates’s talk, which is a thoughtful discussion of the problems the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is focused on, and the methods the nonprofit is using to try to solve them.

Modest title: “How I’m Trying To Change The World Now.”

You can see the complete speech here, and it will require 20 minutes of your time. But it’s free, and worthwhile.

The video comes from TED’s–that’s the Technology, Entertainment, Design conference, by the way–“TedTalks” page, which is slowly releasing clips of this week’s conference for those of who couldn’t make it to Long Beach this year.

I’m looking forward to seeing Elizabeth “Eat Pray Love” Gilbert’s presentation, which seemed to generate lots of buzz; you can see what various Twitterers (including our own Walt Mossberg) had to say about the conference here.

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:57 pm

Microsoft Denies Plans to Build Own Smartphone

Rumors of Microsoft launching its own phone have been doing the rounds for the last few weeks. First came the buzz about a Zune phone and then the chatter about a new smartphone.

Now Microsoft is responding and its answer is No. "Microsoft is not doing a phone," a Microsoft spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.

Speculation about a Microsoft phone recently intensified. Microsoft could release a Zune phone at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas based on its struggling media player platform, said Trip Chowdhry, an analyst at Global Equities Research two months ago. A Zunephone never made its debut at CES.

That didn't stop two other Wall Street analysts from making a new prediction earlier this week. Microsoft is preparing to launch its own device in the second half of the year said Rob Sanderson and Mark McKechnie from research firm Broadpoint AmTech citing "multiple industry sources."   

As bloggers worked themselves into a frenzy over the latest tidbit, Microsoft stepped in with its denial.

Much of the talk about a Microsoft smartphone is the result of the company's Windows Mobile operating system facing increasing threat from other platforms. In the last few months, Google's open source mobile OS, Android, has bagged the attention of handset makers. Motorola, HTC and LG among others are working on new Android-based phones to be introduced later this year. Even Palm, a Windows Mobile loyalist, plans to move away and introduce its own operating system for upcoming Palm Pre phone.

With Windows Mobile, Microsoft has said earlier it cannot afford to build its own device. Windows Mobile depends on other handset makers for distribution and the company would rather not compete with its partners.

Photo: Treo 500w with Windows Mobile (jeffwilcox/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:49 pm

CIA Agent Pleads Guilty to Misusing Covert Credit Cards

A career CIA case officer admits to abusing four special credit cards used by the agency to conceal its activities, ringing up $75,000 in personal charges while living in a hotel under an assumed name.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:41 pm

Confirmed: LG will debut the LG Arena KM900 at Mobile World Congress

When word first got out of the LG Arena, we figured it was safe to say we could expect an official debut at Mobile World Congress - and it definitely was. LG has just pushed a previously unpublished shot of the KM900 (and its interface, which looks a whole lot less iPhone-y here than it did in previous shots) to their blog, saying nothing but “All will be revealed at Mobile World Congress… (Awful teases, aren’t we?!)”.

With alleged and likely legit specs already out (Tri-band radio, FM, aGPS, WiFi, 5MP camera, 3″ 800×480 touchscreen), we’re not quite sure exactly what else there is to be “revealed” - but hopefully the new interface packs something worth keeping secret until the big day in Barcelona.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:33 pm

Samsung Acme i9810 will run Symbian S60

If it seems like it was only yesterday that we first heard of the Samsung Acme i9810, it’s because it was. Less than 24 hours after a grainy spy shot of the unannounced handset was reveal, someone has followed up with some proper shots.

We already know from yesterday’s leak that the Acme would boast an 8 megapixel camera, GPS, HDMI output, WiFi, DivX and DNLA, and come in 8GB and 16GB flavors - but what OS would fuel those oh-so-impressive innards. Would it be Android? Windows Mobile? Nope! From these shots that DailyMobile.SE dug up, it’s quite apparent that the Acme will be running Symbian S60

All of this stuff flying out of the woodworks, and Mobile World Congress is still a week and a half away. MWC is going to be madness this year.

Samsung Acme i9810

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Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:12 pm

Hospital Chain Sues Lawson Software Over Retiring ERP Apps (PC World)

PC World - A Kansas-based nonprofit hospital chain has filed a breach-of-contract lawsuit against Lawson Software, saying its agreement with the ERP (enterprise resource planning) vendor requires Lawson to provide -- for just a small fee -- replacements for two software modules that will be decommissioned next year.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:10 pm

A Geeky Writer's Weapon of Choice: The Ray Gun

They say the pen is mightier than the sword. So what would you say about a pen designed to look like a ray gun?

That's the idea behind the Ray Gun — a retractable rollerball pen, which you'd mount on a stand resembling a gun grip (right).

UK designer Ben Hall created the pen, which will be available mid-February for $130 at ACME Studios.

 

ACME releasing the most gorgeous ray gun pen known to man [Sci Fi Wire]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 9:07 pm

WorkOasis(TM) Announces Record Results for 2008

ATLANTA, Feb. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- WorkOasis announced today record results for the fiscal year 2008. Revenues in its core technology services business increased 280% compared to the prior period.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:43 pm

Munich's Metro Stressful, But It Goes Everywhere

It is said that no household in Munich is more than 1,300 feet from a transit stop of some kind. That can be a bit overwhelming.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:30 pm

Apple Co-Founder Joins Computer Storage Company

Fusion-io, a computer storage technology firm, announced on Thursday that Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has joined the company.Wozniak, who is now 58 years of age, helped launch Apple Computers with Steve Jobs in 1976.  He will serve as Fusion-io's "chief scientist" and as a technical
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:29 pm

After Job Cuts, Future Of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator In Doubt

The future of Microsoft Corp.’s Flight Simulator series, arguably the longest running computer game series ever, is now in question after the software giant laid-off the entire development team.While the company says it is "committed" to the series, despite closing down the Aces studio when it cut 5,000 jobs, third party developers say Microsoft needs to define its future plans for the game, which was first launched in 1982.Nels Anderson, founder of website FlightSim.com, called the  studio’s closure a "dark day" for the flight sim market, and said he was baffled by the company’s decision."Microsoft have apparently cancelled a 27 year franchise.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:25 pm

Survival Of The Fittest: Drugstore.com Reports First Quarterly Profit

This isn’t exactly new news, since its earnings were reported last Wednesday, but it’s a fact worth highlighting these days: Drugstore.com is now effectively a profitable business as it has been able to turn an operating profit for the fourth quarter of 2008, the first time since it went public in 1999.

The company would have gotten there sooner, if it weren’t for the fact that the state of New Jersey settled against the company in a sales tax case, costing the company $2.5 million and resulting in a quarterly loss for Q4 2007, when the company had originally thought it would be turning an operating profit.

The company this week reported quarterly net sales of just south of $94 million and net income of $289,000, and jumped to profitability thanks to an increase in customers (+400,000 new customers in Q4 alone) and solid sales of over-the-counter products. The company achieved fourth quarter gross margins of 28.5% and the highest adjusted EBITDA in the history of the company of $5.2 million, which is up 243% over Q4 2007.

For the year, Drugstore.com reported net sales of $366.6 million, a net loss of $8.3 million and an operating cash flow of $9.9 million for 2008.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:24 pm

Slide Show: The Week's Top Stories

From giant snakes to ancient mummies, we present a visual tour of the week in the news.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:17 pm

Coral Reefs In Taiwan Turning Black

A study released on Friday said coral reefs off the southeast coast of Taiwan have turned black with disease possibly due to sewage discharge, threatening fragile undersea ecosystems and tourism.Researcher Chen Chao-lun of Taiwan's state-funded Academia Sinica said the discovery suggests that coral is suffering widely in waters up to 16.4 feet deep and less than a mile offshore from two outlying islands.Chen, whose began doing research with local environmental groups in 2007, was shocked at what a large distribution it covered.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:16 pm

Now Shipping: Orion(R) XTR Coaxial Speakers From Directed Electronics

VISTA, Calif. Feb.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:15 pm

Intel's New Netbook Chips Promise Faster HD Video

Cheap, tiny netbooks are about to get a little more powerful.

Intel this week confirmed it's shipping a new version of its low-powered Atom processor designed for netbooks.

Dubbed the Atom N280, the processor's most notable improvement will be seen in high-definition video playback. The N280 is paired with a GN40 chipset, which includes a hardware-based HD video decoder for viewing 720P HD video.

That seemingly minor upgrade could significantly change the netbook experience by making the devices competitive with much more expensive machines on video playback. A common complaint about netbooks is choppy video playback, and the N280 should address that issue. Heck, you might even consider buying one to use as a portable video player — a device between a video iPod and a full-sized notebook. (Think airplanes or family road trips.)

With the N280, the Atom processor is also receiving a minor speed boost: 1.66GHz compared to its predecessor, the 1.6GHz Atom N270.

Interestingly, Asus's upcoming Eee 1000HE netbook is already going to include the N280. We received a test unit of the Eee 1000HE this week, and we can tell you the Atom N280 is making a pretty significant difference. The Eee 1000HE is leaving other netbooks we've tested in the dust, and video is noticeably smoother. Stay tuned for a review of that netbook next week.

Intel Now Shipping Atom N280 Processor [PC World]

Photo: Asus

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:08 pm

DrillSpot.com Alerts Consumers of Intermatic Recall Notice

Digital Timers Could Pose an Electrical Shock Hazard BOULDER, Colo., Feb.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:07 pm

WSO2 offers open source, componentized SOA (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Open source SOA vendor WSO2 on Monday will debut a componentized framework for SOA based on OSGi, with the intent of letting user sites assemble just what they need for their own deployments without having to carry excess software.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Feb 2009 | 8:00 pm

FlightTrack Pro Puts TripIt (And More) In Your Pocket

Appropros Mobile has released a Pro version of its popular FlightTrack iPhone application that can automatically pull in your flight itineraries through TripIt’s recently released API.

The original FlightTrack application, which costs $4.99 and is currently ranked third among the iPhone App Store’s top paid travel applications, asks for you to enter an airline, a flight number, and a date. It then displays a travel map with route and weather information, and it tells you whether the flight’s gate has changed or if there’s been a delay.

The new Pro version essentially saves you from having to remember flight numbers by giving you a list of the itineraries you have already emailed to TripIt. You can still look up flights manually (perhaps when you want to retrieve the status of a flight for a friend or family member), but you’ll always have your own travel information ready for quick access.

By releasing an API and deciding not to develop its own iPhone application, TripIt has essentially offloaded its mobile users to Appropros Mobile (TripIt does have a mobile iPhone site but it’s not nearly as functional). Unfortunately, this means TripIt will miss out on the revenue that Appropros gets to generate with its data, not an insignificant amount at $9.99 a pop for FlightTrack Pro.

This could be a strategic mistake for TripIt since travel is by definition a mobile activity. However, travel social network competitor Dopplr hasn’t released an iPhone app of its own either, so perhaps neither company has felt enough competitive pressure in the mobile space yet.

See our previous coverage of TripIt here.

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Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:53 pm

CG Freebie: Free Screening of the All-Star Game in 3D

Were you as excited as we were about the 3D presentation of the BCS championship game? Here's a chance for you and a friend to see this hot new technology in action! Read on to learn how to win free tickets to see the Sprite Slam Dunk contest in 3D at a theater near you!

Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:50 pm

NAM Nokia E63s now available at the flagship stores

It was only a few weeks back when Nokia announced that a model of the E63 with North American 3G friendly internals was on the way, and it’s already found its way to the shelves. While it doesn’t appear that Nokia has gotten around to putting it online yet, the flagship Nokia stores in Chicago and New York are reporting that they just received their first shipment and are letting them go for $279.99 a piece.

The North American model packs in quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900 Mhz) and UMTS (850/1900mhz), so it should fire right up on AT&T’s (or, if you’re a bit further up north, Rogers) 3G network. Besides the radio change, it matches spec-for-spec with the international version Nokia launched a few months ago, which is in turn a lighter-spec’d and easier-on-the-wallet homage to the E71.

The E63 comes in blue and red, and we’re not sure which is in stock - so make sure to call ahead if you’ve got a particular hue in mind.

[via Symbian-Guru]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:47 pm

Debate Continues Over Broadband Investment

Among the many components of the economic stimulus plan currently making its way through Congress is a provision for significant funding of a massive expansion of broadband Internet access to every part of the country that depends upon dial-up access or has only one high-speed option.  The premise is that building these new networks will create jobs, and that expanding broadband access would trigger new economic activity.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:45 pm

eBay: Braun RT 20 desktop radio by Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot

Currently at $495, this Braun RT 20, designed by Dieter Rams and Hans Gugelot vintage 1961, is currently not functional, due likely to a "suspect tube or fuse issue". Besides some stains on the veneer, it appears to be in great shape.

Also nice: A heavily contested Modell 4766, Serie ET66 Braun Control Calculator for around $110, enjoying the attention it received when referenced by Apple in the iPhone's calculator application skin. (I wouldn't pay that much for it.)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:37 pm

Babson College Receives EQUIS Accreditation from EFMD

WELLESLEY, Mass., Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Babson College has received a full five-year EQUIS accreditation from EFMD. Currently, only three U.S. schools are accredited by EQUIS.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:36 pm

TEDsters Smile Through Financial Meltdown

TED is all about deploying the world’s most creative thinkers on the world’s most daunting problems. But only passing references have been made at TED 2009 about the global economic meltdown — and for many attendees this is as it should be. "Who wants to hear some economist tell us what we already know?" said one. "I come here to hear new ideas."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:32 pm

Google Sets Its Sights On Your Sight

Google has published a bit of an insider’s look on how the company conducts eye-tracking studies to evaluate the effectiveness of its search results.

In addition to holding interviews, field studies and live experiments to improve the usability of its products, Google has special hardware and software that tracks test participants’ eyeballs as they scan results for the perfect link.

The official blog post doesn’t detail any groundbreaking discoveries that have been produced by this testing technique. It sounds as though it has mostly helped Google confirm the obvious: that the first few results it returns are indeed usually the most relevant, and its so-called “universal search” effort (where it mixes rich media results like images and video thumbnails among the standard text results) doesn’t distract users too much but has actually proven rather useful.

Perhaps most intriguing is the following video provided by Google that shows how quickly users glance around result pages:

The bigger the dot, the longer the person sat looking at a particular part of the page.

This heatmap-like image, which is named the “golden triangle”, also suggests that people spend a lot more time evaluating the whole results at the top of the page than the ones further down.

For more, see our previous coverage of Google’s usability lab.

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Source: TechCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:29 pm

Engineering a live NFL game

Mark Bowden for The Atlantic:

“Aaaand go!” shouted Fish, a wiry man in faded blue jeans and a loose-fitting, long-sleeved cotton shirt, a headset clamped over a baseball cap. He was leaning up and out of his swivel chair, choosing shots and barking orders, arms elevated, snapping his long fingers loudly with each new command. “Go fan shot! Ready four. Take four! Ready eight. Take eight! Ready one. Take one! Ready 12. Take 12! Ready five. Take five! Ready thre—ready two. Take two! Ready three. Take three!”

Camera three, which Fish returned to just before the snap of the ball, offers a wide angle from above that’s used to frame the play. In this case, with one eye on the play clock, Fish snuck in one last scene-setting image—Burress lined up and looking back toward his quarterback—before returning to the wide angle as the ball was snapped.

This was just 30 seconds. The entire broadcast would last more than three and a half hours.

[via Kottke]

Photo: Medium Mike

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:25 pm

EPA Revisits California’s Car Emissions Waiver

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Friday said it would reconsider its March 2008 decision to deny the state of California permission to set its own green standards for emissions.In December 2005, California requested the right to control its greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:22 pm

Salesforce.com: CRM Actually Short for “Cakebread Resignation Management” [Digital Daily]

If today’s news is a harbinger of things to come, 2009 may be a difficult year for Salesforce.com. The company lost three senior executives this week, among them Steve Cakebread, its president and chief strategy officer.

Cakebread’s resignation, while unexpected, “does not involve any controversy or disagreement with the company,” Salesforce.com said in a SEC filing. Apparently, he’s leaving to “pursue other professional opportunities.” The circumstances surrounding the reported departure of the other two execs–Gary Hanna, EVP of enterprise sales, and another unnamed executive vice president–are still unclear. Sources close to the company tell Reuters that both were laid off. If that’s the case, it may be a sign that Salesforce.com’s (CRM) customer relationship management business is not as resistant to economic trends as it led us to believe last November. “While the company has been able to close deals, we believe the deals, in general, have been downsized and invoice duration has been shortened,” Cowen Co. analyst Peter Goldmacher wrote in a research note this week. “We know of no deals over 1,000 seats in the quarter.”

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:02 pm

Reminder: Monday is Kindle 2 Day!

Just a friendly reminder that CrunchGear will be blogging live from the Amazon.com press conference on Monday, 2/9, at 10am eastern. How great is it going to be? Will Bezos be there? Will it involve Kindle 2s? Will it involve something even better and more incredible? We won’t know until Monday morning. Here’s what we know so far:

• It is an updated version with the same sized screen, a smaller form factor, and an improved interface. The source told us that Amazon has “skipped three or four generations,” comparing the old Kindle to the 1st gen iPod and the new version to something like the sexy iPod Mini.
• It’s a longer device but not as thick as the original Kindle, and fixes some of the button issues that plague users (like accidental page turns).
• It may have a touchscreen but if it has a color e-ink screen I’ll eat my hat, provided said hat is made of cake.
• There may be a new model shaped like an 8 1/2 x 11-inch piece of paper, is considerably bigger than the current model and should be available next year. This one would be for students.
• No word on pricing, but expect something in line with current pricing or less.
• The Kindle 1.0 is essentially being pulled and new new Kindles should ship shortly after announcement.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:01 pm

Corn starch and speakers: It’s alive!

While this may look like my face after I eat a barrel of cookie dough, this is actually cornstarch on a speaker. Pretty fun stuff, right? Just imagine what you could do with a huge speaker and lots of cornstarch. Lots of gooey towers of power.

via BBG

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 7:00 pm

Evergreen Solar: Piper Downgrades, Cuts Target [Voices]

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

Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel this morning cut his rating on Evergreen Solar (ESLR) to Neutral from Buy, chopping his target price in half to $2.50, from $5. The move follows the company’s release after the close yesterday of disappointing Q4 results.

Pichel offered three reasons for his more cautious approach to the stock:

• He contends the company is “rapidly losing its polysilicon cost advantage” as the price of polysilicon approaches $100/kg and as “competition intensifies in an over-supplied environment.”
• Pichel says he has “little visibility” into the company’s new strategy to outsource production in Asia.
• The company’s balance sheet “leaves little flexibility for pursuing alternative expansion strategies in Asia.”

He says the stock at $2 “represents an option on solar’s growth in the U.S.,” but that “future growth and profitability prospects have become murkier in the last two months in an intensely competitive environment.”

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:54 pm

Campbell Hausfeld Tire Inflator

Got an air compressor at home? The Tire Inflater from Campbell Hausfeld puts a tire pressure gauge in-line with with the valve handle, making it easy to dial in the exact amount of pressure in a tire. (As long as that pressure is between 10 and 100 PSI.) Street price is around $20.


Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:46 pm

Presentation by Limelight Networks Chief Financial Officer Doug Lindroth at Thomas Weisel Partners Technology & Telecom Conference 2009

TEMPE, Ariz., Feb. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Limelight Networks, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:42 pm

The MSI Wind NetOn AP1900, she’s skinny

Eat! Eat! You’re skin and bones! MSI has officially announced the Wind NetOn AP1900 (previous coverage here), an all-in-one computer measuring just 35 millimeters (1.37 inches) thick. MSI is calling it the world’s slimmest.

The monitor part is 19 inches, which somehow seems small in this day and age. It’s got a 16:9 aspect ratio, 5ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 250 cd/m2 brightness. Under the hood is an Intel Atom CPU, a maximum of 2GB of RAM, a 1.3-megapixel webcam, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 4-in-1 card reader, three USB ports, 160GB SATA hard drive, and a DVD burner.

Total power usage is a namby-pamby 35 watts. Some version of this thing was supposed to be here last month and there will apparently be various screen sizes and configurations starting at around $500, so let’s hope that today’s official announcement directly from MSI means we’ll get some more reliable pricing and availability info.

Here’s the press release.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:40 pm

Climate Change May Carry Invasive Weeds Back And Forth

Global warming is likely to result in more preferred conditions for many of the most unwanted weeds to invade the West, researchers reported on Friday.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:39 pm

US analog TV shutdown bolder, riskier than most (AP)

AP - The U.S. has planned for more than a decade to have TV broadcasters turn off their analog signals, yet when the Feb. 17 deadline loomed, it flinched, delaying the mandatory shutdown for four months.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:28 pm

Rubik's 360 Will Boggle Minds, Wear Out Arms

After inventing the Rubik's Cube, professor Erno Rubik has devised a new puzzle to frustrate and delight us. And this time it's spherical.

Dubbed the Rubik's 360, the puzzle consists of six colored balls contained in three transparent plastic spheres. The objective is to move the balls from the inner sphere into their matching colored slots in the outer sphere.

"I feel that the 360 is one of the most innovative and exciting puzzles we’ve developed since the Cube — adopting elements of my original design, challenging the solver to use skill, dexterity and logic," Rubik said in a statement.

Rubik added that the game is  "a more kinetic challenge, more physical, because gravity is involved, so those expecting a brainteaser might be better served rifling through the bottom drawer for the original Rubik’s Cube."

Hitting stores this July, the Rubik's 360 will cost about $15.

Product Page [Entertainment Earth via Gizmag]

Photo: Entertainment Earth

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:27 pm

Video: That MIT “sixth sense” device in action

That “sixth sense” device is a heck of a let more interesting actually seeing it in action. It’s also a heck of a lot more interesting the way Wired describes it, as opposed to Reuters’ “Um, it does stuff! Far out!”

First, the device, which, again, is the handiwork of a group of MIT graduate students, has been in development for the past four months, “day and night”; the students have already patented the idea.

Second, describing it as a “sixth sense” device doesn’t quite capture what it’s all about. It’s really more of an organic computer than anything else, you yourself being the “organic” half. Whip your hand out and draw the “@” on it, you’re able to check your e-mail. A stranger approaches you at a party, then the projector projects all their pertinent info: name, Web site, blog address, what they like and dislike, etc. “Wait a minute, you actually like Lost? Well, I know we’ll never be friends, so let’s not waste each other’s time.”

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:20 pm

Microsoft’s SkyBox redubbed “My Phone”, info page briefly goes live

Looks like the rumors from a few weeks back about Microsoft launching a MobileMe-esque product for Windows Mobile were spot on - except for the name. Earlier this morning a beta signup page briefly went live at GetSkybox.com, but wherever we expected to see “Skybox”, it said “My Phone” instead. Perhaps Microsoft got a bit tired of the Skynet references?

The page has since been pulled (don’t worry, there was no actual functionality to any of the links past the front page), but it does confirm that SkyBox will support over-the-air syncing of data, contacts, and photos from your phone to Microsoft’s magical land in the clouds.

(Side note, but does anyone else think its odd that they just flipped the name “MobileMe” around and plugged in synonymous variations? It’s probably not intentional, but you’d think they might avoid something so confusingly similar.)

[via EngadgetMobile]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:19 pm

The $2,200 Bandai Ginza-themed diorama in full working action

Bandai’s Ginza-themed diorama speaker broke cover days ago and most of us was like, “wha? A diorama speaker?” Really, that’s what we said. Anyway, the video after the break clearly shows that this thing should stay over in Japan where apparently it means something cause it does nothing for us here in the States.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:18 pm

Drug Made From Genetically Engineered Goats

The FDA approves the first drug made with materials from genetically engineered animals.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:17 pm

The ultimate ray gun pen

An absolutely gorgeous ray gun pen by the appropriately named ACME Writing Tools, available mid-February for $130. The barrel separates from the brightly colored, Marvin Martian base as a retractable roller ball. I only wish the handle / stand were less cartoonishly abstract.

ACME releasing the most gorgeous ray gun pen known to man [Sci Fi Wire]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:16 pm

Tazzari Zero electric city car

Italian car makers Tazzari is promising the zero, a 113-inch long city car that is two and a half feet shorter than the Mini Cooper and slightly longer than the tiniest smidgen of a Smart car. It's incredibly light at 1,200 pounds, and promises a range of 88 miles on a single charge, with a 56 MPH top speed.

That's not great, but ample for a car mostly meant to be puttered around a metropolis. What's stranger are the recharge numbers: Tazzari claims that the battery pack can be recharged up to 80% in fifty minutes, but that a full charge takes nine hours to complete. Note to Tazzari: "percent" means "portion of the whole." Unless that last twenty percent only gives you an additional 18 miles of range, something's a bit off.

It looks good, but not for the price: almost 20,000 euros, available in Europe only. That's tens of thousands of euros more than what it costs to traverse most European cities by metro or bike... both of which, city driving being what it is, being probably speedier to boot.

Tazzari releases more details on Zero electric city car [Auto Blog Green]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:06 pm

Companies Lobby To Secure Patents In Antarctica

Companies developing new products through biological discovery or "bioprospecting" are trying to file patents on Antarctic organisms or molecules for items ranging from cosmetics to medicines, putting new strains on the treaty demanding all scientific findings on Antarctica be freely shared.Jose Retamales, head of the Chilean Antarctic Institute, told Reuters that biology is dealing with a tricky situation due to the lack of clear rules for prospecting for animals and plants in Antarctica.An annual meeting commemorating "50 years of peace and science" will include a debate over issues involving the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, including bioprospecting.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 6:00 pm

Robots will soon start conquering buildings, Japan says

Japan-based tech powerhouses Shimizu and Yasukawa Electric think that robots can make life easier for all of us and initiated the “Smart Robotics Building” project to prove it - even if at this point, a show room must do.

In the so-called “Smart Showroom”, a guide robot called SmartGuide (pictured below) gives tours around exhibitions. He greets, guides and sees off guests. In the room, networked robots are being used instead of human guards, receptionists, guides, cleaners and delivery men.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:59 pm

Warming Arctic Sparks Proposed Partial Ban On Fishing

Image 2: With the Seward Peninsula of Alaska to the east, and Chukotskiy Poluostrovof Siberia to the west, the Bering Strait separates the United States and the Russian Federation by only 90 kilometers. It is named for Danish explorer Vitus Bering, who spotted the Alaskan mainland in 1741 while leading anexpedition of Russian sailors. This view of the region was captured by MISR's vertical-viewing (nadir) camera on August 18, 2000 during Terra orbit 3562. NASA
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:48 pm

LG Bluetooth QWERTY keyboard outed by the FCC

Looks like LG is really starting to get into this idea of optional QWERTY keyboards. First they crank out the mix-and-match Versa, then this little gem passes through the FCC. Called the “Bluetooth-enabled QWERTY Card”, it looks to be a Bluetooth keyboard intended for use with LG devices, with a built-in screen for displaying incoming texts and allowing you to respond without lugging out the handset.

Be it that you don’t forget the thing at home, you’ll also be able to fiddle with contacts, alarms, and the clock whilst the handset stays in your bag, or fire off the phone’s camera remotely. That last bit sounds neat - just don’t be a creep with it.

Bluetooth keyboards are nothing new, but they’re still fairly uncommon and generally unsupported. Even if a phone does tote the required HID (Human Input Device) Bluetooth profile, functionality is often quite limited. With the touchscreen trend not looking to be on the way out anytime soon, we can only hope that these optional accessories start getting more love soon. Our fingers are starting to hurt.

[Via UnwiredView]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:41 pm

BB Video: Global Game Jam Preview

Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. And here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

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Today's Boing Boing Video episode is a quick preview of our forthcoming episodes from the Global Game Jam, around the world. A number of our correspondents, pals, and fellow mutants sent in video from places as diverse as LA, Costa Rica, Australia, Scotland, Israel, and Venezuela. We're digging through the deep well of footage, and digging on all the awesome games people created at the jam, in just 48 hours. Check out the clip above for a taste of what's ahead on BB Video next week! And check out some of the games!

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:40 pm

News Corp: We Spent $2.8 Billion Too Much on Dow Jones [MediaMemo]

A little more detail, via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, on the $8.4 billion write-down announced by News Corp. yesterday: $2.8 billion of that charge is getting assigned to the company’s $5.7 billion purchase of Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, a little more than a year ago.

To put a fine point on it: Rupert Murdoch is admitting that he spent twice as much as he should have for The Wall Street Journal.

This isn’t a huge shock: When Murdoch made his $60 a share offer for Dow Jones (which also owns this Web site) in the spring of 2007, he was already paying a 65 percent premium over its market value. And, of course, both the economy in general and the newspaper industry in particular have collapsed since then–just ask the New York Times Company (NYT) and Carlos Slim.

So it was only a matter of time before News Corp. (NWS) had to fess up and account for the deal on its books. But that can’t make it any less unpleasant to look at in black and white. The gory details are here if you want to see for yourself.

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:40 pm

Golf: OnPar GPS unit looks pretty cool

That OnPar GPS device that we caught wind of last week has been captured on video by Rob over at Golf Views. As far as golf gadgets go, this one’s bound to make a splash thanks to the very iPhone-like interface and what seems like a relatively straightforward user experience mixed in with some pretty interesting shot tracking and statistics features.

The $479 price tag is going to place this gizmo right out of the hands of all but the most serious and/or well-heeled golfers but the idea behind the OnPar could likely be made into a similar iPhone or Android app and sold to the rest of us. Actually, if OnPar wanted to head something like that off at the pass, they’d port their own software for use on various mobile platforms – not just their own hardware device – and beat everyone else to the punch.

[via Golf Views]

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:40 pm

Obese toddlers being put on diets

Australian doctors say a growing number of children as young as 12 months are being treated for obesity. The Children's Hospital at Westmead said it is treating 150 children aged between 1 and 16 in the hospital's weight management clinic, some with severe weight-related issues such as sleep apnea and diabetes, The Daily Telegraph newspaper in Sydney reported. There is a 12-month waiting list for treatment by the clinic's psychologists, dietitians and physiotherapists, the report said. Pediatrician Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:36 pm

Credit-card sized bluetooth keyboard

LG's tiny, credit-card sized bluetooth keyboard is a very bad keyboard, but a wonderful gadget. Unless it's ruined by excessive price or poor compatibility, it's going in my wallet. [via Unwired View]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:34 pm

Display six photos at once with fancy new photo frame

Aside from the recent surge in digital picture frames, there hasn’t been too much innovation in the picture frame market. Until now! The Rhombus Turning Photo Frame from Brando has room for six photos. Stick the frame on a level surface and it’ll rotate!

Only $22. That’s $3.66 per photo!

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:20 pm

Starcraft II done up LEGO style

Normally we don’t get excited over LEGO like some other site, but we do like us some Starcraft II. Apparently at least one chap enjoys both and has spent a good amount of time constructing killer LEGO units based on the upcoming game’s units. They are impressive to say the least.

Check out his flickr page for even more shots.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 5:00 pm

TED: 'Eat, Pray, Love' Author on How We Kill Geniuses

Author Elizabeth Gilbert says people tagged with the "genius" label feel too much pressure from themselves and society to perform the next extraordinary feat. The ancients thought brilliance came from an exterior force, such as a muse, and so didn't expect the individual to carry the load. So, give 'em a break, says the TED conference presenter.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 6 Feb 2009 | 4:52 pm

Hey, at least the $10 Indian ‘computing device’ runs OpenOffice

Who cares about that stimulus package, right? Jobs, smobs, I say. No, what we’re concerned about is the nitty gritty of that so-called $10 Indian laptop. Is it even a laptop? What can it do? What can’t it do? Where’s Waldo?

So the laptop, again, really isn’t a laptop, at least not in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, Indian officials have described it as a “computing device.” It can run certain programs, including OpenOffice.org. It can even surf the Web. Once produced at high volumes, it should sell for $10; before that, between $20 and $30. (Everything I know about India I learned from the first half of Slumdog Millionaire, before I turned it off because it’s an overrated piece of Hollywood hype, so forgive my ignorance on Indian affairs and cultural norms.)

As you might have already guessed, it’s primarily being made for the education market, and higher education at that. Students needing to pump out labs and long-form essays, that sort of thing.

One last thing: please don’t compare this to the XO Laptop. This “computing device” isn’t charged with the lofty goal of ending world poverty or anything, but merely to assist higher learning.

Source: CrunchGear | 6 Feb 2009 | 4:40 pm

The Stinger With the Zingers… [Voices]

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 4:07 pm

Sharp Expecting Sharp Loss [Digital Daily]

Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. hasn’t posted a quarterly loss since it began reporting earnings in 1953.

Well, there’s a first time for everything. And with the widening gyre of the recession as backdrop, the company now expects to report one. Sharp this morning revised its earnings outlook to a loss for its current fiscal year.

Back in October, the company forecast a net profit of 60 billion yen for its fiscal year ending March 31. Today it changed that forecast to a net loss of 100 billion yen.

Ugly.

Said Sharp Director Tetsuo Onishi: “The decline in LCD-TV prices was so steep that it pushed our business into the red, and was so sharp that our cost-cutting efforts couldn’t keep pace.” In hopes of catching up, Sharp plans to cut 1,500 part-time jobs and shutter some production lines at two liquid crystal display manufacturing plants in Japan.

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 3:58 pm

Climate Change May Reshuffle Western Weeds

A warming U.S. West puts out a welcome sign to invasive plants, say researchers.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 3:42 pm

Red Boosts Attention, Blue -- Creativity

Findings on the effects of the colors red and blue could help guide warnings and advertising.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 3:42 pm

Video: How to Make a 3D Stereo Camera

We're pretty used to amazing special effects -- even the phone in your pocket can likely produce some pretty fancy 3D graphics. But despite this, there is a rather surprising feeling of childlike wonder whenever we view real 3D images. For many of us, the first experience was with the Viewmaster, a plastic toy which contained a disk of tiny photographic slides.

These would present two slightly different views of the same scene, taken a few inches apart, approximately the distance between our eyes. Because these images are presented separately to each eye, a 3D effect is produced.

And that's exactly what is happening in this Wired video, featuring artist Carl Pisaturo of the nerd-robot studio Area 2881. Pisaturo's devices are beautifully intricate, comprising a couple of 35mm film SLRs (remember those?) clamped to a stand. But what a stand. The camera bodies slide in tandem on a spacing bar and everything is designed to keep things in sync, from the three position click-stop zooms to the single shutter-trigger which fires both cameras simultaneously.

And that's before we get to the viewers. The 35mm slides are huge compared to those in a Viewmaster, and the viewing devices reflect that. The engineering is precise, but what gets us is the look of these things -- somewhere between steampunk and a kid's toy playset. Beautiful.

How to Shoot (and View) 3-D Photos [Wired Video]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Feb 2009 | 3:01 pm

Amazon’s New E-Books: No Kindle Required? [MediaMemo]

Kindle fans like to describe Amazon’s e-book reader as the “iPod of the Book World.” The counter-argument is that such a thing already exists, and that Apple already makes it: the iPhone, which offers plenty of apps that let you download and read books on the go.

Now the line between the two devices is about to get blurrier: Amazon (AMZN), which is set to introduce a new version of the Kindle on Monday, is also preparing to sell books that will work on other, unnamed mobile phones.

“We are excited to make Kindle books available on a range of mobile phones. We are working on that now,” an Amazon spokesman told the New York Times, while offering zero other details.

I’ve asked for more clarification, but I’m not hopeful–it’s difficult to get Amazon to acknowledge that the sun sets in the West. [UPDATE: Via email, an Amazon spokesman allows that "we are excited" but nothing else.] The big question is whether Amazon intends to sell titles that can be read on Apple’s (AAPL) handsets.

On the one hand, it would be a natural fit: There’s a much larger base of iPhone users than Kindle owners, and Amazon already makes a helpful iPhone App. On the other, Amazon and Apple are increasingly going head-to-head in the digital content business: The two companies now have rival online music and TV/movie stores, so it would be surprising to see them collaborating over books.

And just to get this part out of the way: I know that reading a book on a cellphone–even one with a very nice screen–is a different experience than reading on a Kindle, which boasts an e-Ink screen that’s designed to be read in different light levels while using very little battery power. But there’s no reason Amazon customers shouldn’t have a choice about the way they read their books on the go.

In less important e-book news, Google (GOOG) has beefed up the catalog of free public domain books available for mobile readers. If you’ve got an iPhone or one of Google’s Android handsets, you can now browse, but not download, one of 1.5 million titles like “The Wind In the Willows” at http://books.google.com/m.

[Image Credit: austinevan]

Source: All Things Digital | 6 Feb 2009 | 2:53 pm

Deforestation Ticks Up Again in Brazil

Deforestation is rising again in Brazil following a decline in the last few years.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 2:52 pm

Caregiving Nuns Wiped Out by Plague

A new test confirms the presence of plague in ancient burial sites for nuns and priests.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 2:30 pm

Broadband funding in stimulus plan sparks debate (AP)

AP - Among the economic stimulus proposals moving through Congress is one that fulfills an old dream of broadband boosters. It would offer substantial funding for high-speed Internet networks in corners of the country that still rely on dial-up connections or have only one broadband option.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Feb 2009 | 2:27 pm

Spiral Galaxy Stands Out Among Elliptical Neighbors

Hubble captures an odd galaxy during an in-between state of formation.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 6 Feb 2009 | 2:05 pm