Dear AOL colleague,

I’m writing to tell you that Maneesh Dhir, head of our international efforts, has decided that after 10 long and fruitful years with AOL, it’s time to start the next chapter in his career.

Since coming to the company in 1999 as part of AOL’s Netscape acquisition, Maneesh has made many important contributions to AOL. Most recently, of course, he was instrumental in the growth of AOL’s presence worldwide. Under his leadership, AOL went from a company with a consumer presence in just four countries outside the U.S. to one that is now in 38 countries–including India–in less than two years. Maneesh was also a key advocate for the rebuilding of our product development efforts so we could more effectively and efficiently launch products worldwide.

Just as important, Maneesh helped us learn the benefits of tapping into a worldwide pool of talent. It was his idea to open an AOL call center in Bangalore in 2002, which quickly became our largest. Two years later, he pushed for the creation of the Bangalore Development Center and the Bangalore Knowledge Center–important centers for technology, finance, analytics and shared services that are now part of the AOL India operations.

Thanks to these and many other accomplishments, we are now well positioned for global growth in all three of our key businesses–MediaGlow, Platform-A and People Networks–as well as our Products & Technologies division.

Having done all this, Maneesh told me he’s ready to return to his entrepreneurial roots. He’ll be staying on for a couple of months to help ensure a smooth transition. There will be subsequent information outlining organizational changes coming shortly.

Please join me in thanking Maneesh for all he’s done for AOL and wishing him the very best on his future endeavors.

Randy

From: Ron Grant
To: ADTECH Global; Platform-A Europe; Intl Employees; US Employees
Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 9:05:37 PM
Subject: Organization Update

Dear AOL colleague,

I want to join Randy in thanking Maneesh Dhir for his outstanding contributions to AOL. I’ve known Maneesh for years, and he’s always been a tireless champion of AOL and of our global ambitions. I’m proud of all that he and his team have accomplished.

With Maneesh’s decision to return to his entrepreneurial roots, we’re taking the opportunity to make organizational changes that will build on the progress he and our international team have achieved.

Our next step is to more closely align and centralize our global publishing efforts under the newly formed MediaGlow business unit, headed by Bill Wilson. Over the last year, we have grown the MediaGlow audience dramatically through our highly efficient content development model. We believe that a more centralized infrastructure will enable us to accelerate MediaGlow’s global growth.

As a result, Dana Dunne, who oversees our European publishing business, will now report directly to Bill. In addition, our publishing businesses in India, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Canada will all report in to MediaGlow.

We are also aligning our global technologies and search organizations under Ted Cahall. With this move, our AOL India operations led by Philip Nelson will now report in to Ted, as will Bill McGrath, who heads our ASA team and also oversees the International development team in Bangalore. Ponnapa PG will now report to Phil, who will be working with his team to finalize the India realignment over the next few weeks. Lastly, Joe Arcuri is leaving AOL Canada and his direct reports will be aligned with their counterparts in New York and Dulles.

Please join me in thanking Maneesh for his many contributions and wishing him well.

UK Politician Criticised For Using Hotmail

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

3Sixty Fishes DivShare Out Of The Deadpool

When we reviewed file-sharing service DivShare way back in October 2007, we were mildly impressed with its one-stop solution for storing, managing and sharing files. A month later, the service was put up for sale on an auction site which prompted us to deadpool it.

Fast-forward to January 2009, when the small startup behind DivShare was finally picked up by a group of internet veterans who started a new company called 3Sixty and aim to not only continue the service but also add some bells and whistles to it in the near future. The reason it took so long for DivShare to be acquired, so I was told, was because the service was doing well and making money and the owners just wanted to make sure it fell into the right hands and not sell it off to quickly and see it fade.

As everyone knows, online file storing and sharing services are a dime a dozen, but DivShare boasts over a million registered users and - gasp - profitability (it helps when you haven’t take a dime in VC funding, of course). I tested the service and while it was not special in any way you look at it, it did work as advertised and you get a decent amount of storage (5 GB) for free. The company is apparently also very serious about not hosting anything but legitimate material on their servers. Annoyingly, a free account means that when you upload a file, it displays on a page filled with blatant in-your-face advertising units and pop-up ads, so that’s definitely a big turn-off. That said, the price for an ad-free service is reasonable and the company is re-evaluating how it displays advertising at the moment.

DivShare also has some nice features like an iPhone application to access your files, a Facebook application for easy sharing on the social network, a WordPress plugin that replaces your regular uploading form with one from DivShare and an extensive API. You can find out more about that here.

Interestingly, the people behind 3Sixty (who used to work for companies like Netscape, Roku, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, PSINet, Sybase, etc.) tell me that the acquisition of DivShare is just one of the steps in the direction they want to take their company, and that they’ve got some really exciting integrated internet communication services in the pipeline. Unfortunately, that’s about all they shared for the moment so we’ll just have to wait and see how that translates in practice.

In any case, DivShare is no longer tagged ‘deadpool’ and you should try it out.

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

Morningstar Introduces Real-Time Data Offerings, Rebrands Tenfore Systems Limited Under the Morningstar Name

HIT for ICT

QOTD [Digital Daily]

QOTD

I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.

- Google’s first official tweet

What Margaret Mead could teach techs [Voices]

While traveling in China, Genevieve Bell figured she’d have no trouble getting a cell phone. With cash, a passport and official documents from her employer, she went to a local shop where phone packages lined the walls, and asked for one.

I don’t have any, the shopkeeper said.

She noted that she could see boxes of them all over the store.

They’re bad phones, he said.

I’m only here three weeks, she confided; it can be a terrible phone. But he still wouldn’t sell her one. “It was like a really bad Monty Python routine,” she recalls.

Read the rest of this post

In Innovation, U.S. Said to Be Losing Competitive Edge [Voices]

The competitive edge of the United States economy has eroded sharply over the last decade, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group.

The report by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation found that the United States ranked sixth among 40 countries and regions, based on 16 indicators of innovation and competitiveness. They included venture capital investment, scientific researchers, spending on research and educational achievement.

But the American economy placed last in terms of progress made over the last decade. “The trend is very troubling,” said Robert D. Atkinson, president of the foundation.

Read the rest of this post

Jurassic Web [Voices]

It’s 1996, and you’re bored. What do you do? If you’re one of the lucky people with an AOL account, you probably do the same thing you’d do in 2009: Go online. Crank up your modem, wait 20 seconds as you log in, and there you are—”Welcome.” You check your mail, then spend a few minutes chatting with your AOL buddies about which of you has the funniest screen name (you win, pimpodayear94).

Then you load up Internet Explorer, AOL’s default Web browser. Now what? There’s no YouTube, Digg, Huffington Post, or Gawker. There’s no Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Wikipedia. A few newspapers and magazines have begun to put their articles online—you can visit the New York Times or Time—and there are a handful of new Web-only publications, including Feed, HotWired, Salon, Suck, Urban Desires, Word, and, launched in June, Slate. But these sites aren’t very big, and they don’t hold your interest for long. People still refer to the new medium by its full name—the World Wide Web—and although you sometimes find interesting stuff here, you’re constantly struck by how little there is to do. You rarely linger on the Web; your computer takes about 30 seconds to load each page, and, hey, you’re paying for the Internet by the hour. Plus, you’re tying up the phone line. Ten minutes after you log in, you shut down your modem. You’ve got other things to do—after all, a new episode of Seinfeld is on.

Read the rest of this post

Search Spending Expected to Rise, But What About the Clicks? [Voices]

A pair of reports from eMarketer and The Kelsey Group paint a rosy picture of the search advertising market over the next four years—with double-digit increases in spending for both web-based and mobile search. It’s not surprising, given the instant gratification (and perceived ROI) marketers get from paid search ads.

But just how effective is search? New research from Penn State University suggests that people click on both paid and organic search links much less frequently than most marketers think: searchers only clicked on paid search ads—even when they were supplemented by organic links—about 15 percent of the time. (The industry consensus is that a combination of both paid and organic search presence boosts an advertiser’s trustworthiness and search results page “coverage”—which increases click-through rates).

Read the rest of this post

Neuroscience and Nostalgia [Voices]

Ahh the good old days. The music, the sights, the sounds of a place that we can never journey back to. But why do these memories of times past feel so nostalgic? What makes these memories so different from remembering what I had for breakfast last Tuesday?

Put on the rose colored glasses and get ready to take a trip through our brain, as we examine the science of nostalgia.

Japanese teens addicted to cellphones: survey

Source: Gizmodo | 26 Feb 2009 | 7:00 am

TANDBERG Selects Verizon Business to Support Advanced Global Collaboration

Authors´ Guild vs. reality: Kindles and read-aloud

He doesn't actually say what that thing is. Presumably, he'd like Amazon to simply remove the feature. But if you take Blount at his word, then we can only assume the feature will spread to other platforms -- does he think that iPhones shouldn't be able to read your email to you as you jog? And if it can read your email, what's to stop it from reading your ebooks? Blount implies that there's a simple solution to his technological problem, but if you truly believe that it should be illegal to ask software to produce audio of copyrighted works, then Blount's lining himself up to fight the entire future of technology that can convert text to speech.

Continuing to take Blount at his word, let's assume that he's right on the copyright question, namely, that:

1. Converting text to speech infringes copyright

2. Providing the software that is capable of committing copyright infringement makes you liable for copyright infringement, too

1. is going to be sticky -- the Author's Guild is setting itself up to fight the World Blind Union, phone makers, free software authors, ebook makers, and a whole host of people engaged in teaching computers to talk.

But 2. is really hairy. If Blount believes that making a device capable of infringing copyright is the same as infringing copyright (something refuted by the Supreme Court in Betamax in 1984, the decision that legalized VCRs), then email, web-browsers, computers, photocopiers, cameras, and typewriters are all illegal, too.

Time and again, the Author's Guild has shown itself to be the epitome of a venal special interest group, the kind of grasping, foolish posturers that make the public cynically assume that the profession it represents is a racket, not a trade. This is, after all, the same gang of weirdos who opposed the used book trade going online.

I think there's plenty not to like about the Kindle -- the DRM, the proprietary file format, both imposed on authors and publishers even if they don't want it -- and about Amazon's real audiobook section, Audible (the DRM -- again, imposed on authors and publishers even if they'd prefer not to use it). But if there's one thing Amazon has demonstrated, it's that it plans on selling several bazillion metric tons of audiobooks. They control something like 90 percent of the market. To accuse them of setting out to destroy it just doesn't pass the giggle-test.

One of the most powerful weapons in the publishing industry's arsenal is that it isn't the record or film industry. By and large, publishing is undertaken by bookish people who love books and bookselling and readers and writers. By and large, writers get a decent deal from their publishers -- especially relative to recording artists; most writers don't have to sign over their copyrights, don't have the promotion of their books deducted from their royalties, etc. By and large, publishers don't sue tool-makers or accuse readers of being crooks.

Unlike the record and film industries, who seem bent on doing everything in their power to build the moral case for ripping them off -- to convince the public that they are a passel of greedy, clueless technophobes who deserve to have their industries killed, if only to protect the 21st century from them -- there are very few people who feel this way about publishing and authorship.

Unless, that is, groups like the Authors' Guild continue to make us all out to be cut from the same cloth as media execs like Universal Music's Larry Kenswil, who once bellowed "FAIR USE IS THE LAST REFUGE OF THE SCOUNDREL" at me from a stage at the RSA in London.

Dear Mr Blount: you don't represent me. You don't represent the future of authorship. You and your group are jeopardizing the future of authorship and of society with your petty little grabs and ridiculous posturing. Cut it out before someone gets hurt.

True, you can already get software that will read aloud whatever is on your computer. But Kindle 2 is being sold specifically as a new, improved, multimedia version of books — every title is an e-book and an audio book rolled into one. And whereas e-books have yet to win mainstream enthusiasm, audio books are a billion-dollar market, and growing. Audio rights are not generally packaged with e-book rights. They are more valuable than e-book rights. Income from audio books helps not inconsiderably to keep authors, and publishers, afloat.

Internet Gold Reports Q4 & Full Year 2008 Results

Record Q4 Caps Off Record Year for 012 Smile.Communications: Highest-Ever Quarterly & Annual Revenues, EBIT, EBITDA & Net Income

Gamerkitsch Warcraft steins

World of Warcraft Epic Collection Steins (via Wonderland)


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Feb 2009 | 6:17 am

Crocodiles With Frickin Magnets Attached to Their Heads

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Homebrew steampunk lamp

Inspired by this post showing off the marvellous steampunk lamps of Etsy's "Dr Robert", Mike Pusateri set out to make his own and did a smashing job: "I used an old wooden cigar box, a few ceramic bulb mounts, a rheostat and few other odds and ends. I did get a little fancy and paint the ceramic mounts with textured copper paint. The wiring was trivial, but I got a chance to use an Underwriter's Knot. There's a lot more steampunk I could have thrown at it, but I like the simplicity of this. I used two 60 watt bulbs, so it can get quite bright. It's much more pleasant at a lower light level."

Steampunk Lamp


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Feb 2009 | 6:14 am

Economic Slowdown - What Are The Opportunities Within The Asia Pacific RFID Industry?

Blogger fight: Respond to the Pre or face becoming Motorola, Apple

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile, Features, Originals

Our sister site’s Jake Gaeke has been taking some rough shots over at Appletell for his post: Apple can do whatever the hell they want.  In his post, Jake laid out some thoughtful (if not fanboy-istic) ideas on why the iPhone has nothing to worry about.  However, I think Jake is dead wrong.

If you cut through Jake’s admitted lust for the iPhone, you get to his main thrust: yes, the Pre looks good on paper, but it is “no Apple.“  And by “no Apple,“ he means the relationship he shares with the company from Cupertino, the relationship many of us iPod/iPhone users have with Apple.

They say that love is blinding and I think Jake’s got some of that.  I can one up Jake by having gotten to hold the Pre and was in the crowd at the announcement.  This is the first phone that will actually challenge the iPhone.  Currently, the market is littered with immediately forgettable LGs and Samsungs that bring nothing to the table besides a me-too touchscreen.  Can you tell I am excited about the Pre?

Yes, I am.  And for good reason.  This phone melds the design chops and the software skills that are on par with the iPhone.  Many of whom I’ve talked to about the phone go beyond that and say it is above the iPhone.  We’ve all only played with show prototypes and while the proof is in the pudding; let’s assume the real thing will be similar. 

The specs of the Pre beat the iPhone hands down on paper.  Jake makes the strong point that the Pre lacks the App store, for which I’ve been quoted as saying makes up as much as 1/2 of the iPhone experience, if not more.  And it is a good point, but there were a lot of Palm developers that are rooting for Palm perhaps just as much as I am.  I would bet we’ll see lots of interest from them, not just eying the Pre, but also the next generation Centro that will run WebOS and be able to potentially take advantage of the apps.  I’d argue Palm’s got as many good developer relationships as Apple, but Palm has something even better.

And mass appeal is something Apple isn’t going to chase in the phone market, according to their last investor call.  “They’ll let someone else chase” that segment of the market.  With WebOS on their top of the line Pre but also on the entry level Centro, developers can leverage a much broader audience.  And ecosystem like that will thrive in today’s market.  Apple has to pay attention to that.

Another thing Palm has is phones on different carriers.  Apple’s deal will continue for another 3 years at best, Palm’s could be only six months.  Imagine the power of a Verizon Pre, an AT&T Pre in addition to the Sprint Pre.  Heck, imagine if Apple didn’t have the exclusive.  Mass appeal means more than just a cheap phone, it means carrier choices.

Apple’s got to pay attention to the Pre.  That is the nature of business.  Surely Jake isn’t suggesting Apple ignore the market and rest on its laurels ala Motorola?  Of course not, he knows Apple is probably readying something we didn’t even see coming that will one up the Pre, perhaps. 

And that is why Palm put its drop dead launch date of the Pre before June’s WWDC.  Palm will use the Pre’s on-paper advantage to sway users that it is the next big thing.  Palm clearly hopes to steal some thunder from Apple’s next release.

One thing that amazed me about CES this year and probably the biggest thing I got out of it, was everyone is rooting for Palm.  Bloggers, manufacturers, PR folks, taxi cab drivers, heck even the waiters clearing my half-eaten finger sandwiches—everyone is rooting for Palm to pull this off.  People love the underdog.

That said, I’ve got a brand-spanking-new iPhone in my pocket right now.  Am I willing to jump to Sprint?  Nope.  But with a six-month potential exclusive, a Pre for all carriers could be awfully interesting.

What do you think?

Stratos is First Inmarsat Distribution Partner to Reach 1,000 FleetBroadband Activations

NetDimensions Takes User Experience to the Next Level with Latest EKP Release

Sony Japan looking for guinea pigs for “new game machine”

FROM GAMERTELL - Sony Japan is looking for new testers for what might prove to be an additional member of the Playstation portable gaming family. MORE »

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

Working late hurts mental ability

Swiss docs diagnose PlayStation palm

imeem launches Android app called imeem Mobile

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites, Online Music/Video

If you enjoy using imeem’s music service and own the T-Mobile G1, you will be happy to know that they recently came out with an app that allows you to access your music right on your Android powered phone. 

imeem updated their mobile service to include “MyMusic,“ which lets you stream your personal imeem library to your G1 phone.  Essentially, you can upload as much music as you want to your personal account and then access it by downloading imeem’s free Android app, which was just announced and made available today.  In addition, users still have access to the other mobile features such as creating Internet radio stations, read artist bio’s,  and purchase DRM-free MP3 music through Amazon.  Users can also share music with friends by sending the link of a song in email format. 

In case you don’t own an Android phone, but still would like to access some personal music on your phone, you can opt in using Didiom.  Both of these services are similar, but Didiom offers their streaming service on many different phones, so it will be interesting to see which is more popular.

Full Press Release is below.

imeem Mobile’s New MyMusic Feature Helps People Enjoy Their Music Anywhere

People Can Now Access their Personal imeem Music Library through their Android-Powered Phones

SAN FRANCISCO – February 24, 2009 – imeem, the leading social music service, today launched the latest version of imeem Mobile, its award-winning social music application for the Android platform.

The updated version of imeem Mobile includes MyMusic, a new feature which enables music lovers to access and stream their personal imeem music library through their Android-powered phones. With MyMusic, people can now browse through the music they already own and have uploaded to imeem.com and play these songs wherever and whenever they want. The enhanced version of imeem Mobile is available as a free download starting today through the Android Market (http://www.android.com/market.html).

MyMusic builds on imeem Mobile’s existing features, which allow people to create custom Internet radio stations by searching for specific artists, discover new music through personalized recommendations and artist bios, listen to the most popular artists in the imeem community, and purchase DRM-free MP3s through the Amazon MP3 application, all from their mobile device. 

“Our community has been asking for this feature since we launched imeem Mobile last fall,” said Dalton Caldwell, founder and CEO of imeem. “We’re happy to give them what they want – access to their music from the cloud—and to help drive download sales by adding more value to the music people buy online. That’s good for music fans, for the industry and for imeem.”

The new version of imeem Mobile includes additional new features that make it easier for people to access and share their favorite music on the go, including:

·      “Favorite” Stations: imeem Mobile now includes two new personalized Favorite stations comprised of “favorited” artists and songs . Now, people can create a customized listening experience by programming their own radio stations.

·      Share with a friend: Music fans can now share their favorite songs with friends via email. Friends receive an email with a link to the full-length song on imeem.com

imeem Mobile was recently honored as 2008’s “Best Mobile App” at the Crunchies, an awards event co-sponsored by leading blogs TechCrunch, VentureBeat, GigaOm and Silicon Alley Insider honoring “the best of the best of the web.” Since launching in October, imeem Mobile has become the number one streaming music application in the Android Market and is one of the 15 most popular applications on the Android platform. More information about imeem Mobile is available at http://www.imeem.com/mobile

About imeem
imeem is the world’s largest social music service that enables users to discover, interact and express themselves with media, including music, video, photos and playlists, and form connections with other people based on shared tastes and interests. By using innovative media expression tools and social discovery features, including custom music playlists, video channels, photo slideshows and blogs, the imeem community can share their tastes with friends and fans on imeem and across the Web.

imeem is the first social network to partner with all four major labels as well as thousands of independent labels and video providers to offer free, on-demand streaming of all music and video content on an ad-supported basis. Launched in March 2006, the Web-based service attracts over 25 million unique users a month. imeem’s network of embeddable audio and video playlist widgets reaches over 85 million users a month, according to Quantcast. To learn more, visit http://www.imeem.com

How Perverse Incentives Drive Bad Security Decisions

An employee of Whole Foods in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was fired in 2007 for apprehending a shoplifter. More specifically, he was fired for touching a customer, even though that customer had a backpack filled with stolen groceries and was running away with them.

I regularly see security decisions that, like the Whole Foods incident, seem to make absolutely no sense. However, in every case, the decisions actually make perfect sense once you understand the underlying incentives driving the decision. All security decisions are trade-offs, but the motivations behind them are not always obvious: They’re often subjective, and driven by external incentives. And often security trade-offs are made for nonsecurity reasons.

Almost certainly, Whole Foods has a no-touching-the-customer policy because its attorneys recommended it. "No touching" is a security measure as well, but it's security against customer lawsuits. The cost of these lawsuits would be much, much greater than the $346 worth of groceries stolen in this instance. Even applied to suspected shoplifters, the policy makes sense: The cost of a lawsuit resulting from tackling an innocent shopper by mistake would be far greater than the cost of letting actual shoplifters get away. As perverse it may seem, the result is completely reasonable given the corporate incentives — Whole Foods wrote a corporate policy that benefited itself.

At least, it works as long as the police and other factors keep society’s shoplifter population down to a reasonable level.

Incentives explain much that is perplexing about security trade-offs. Why does King County, Washington, require one form of ID to get a concealed-carry permit, but two forms of ID to pay for the permit by check? Making a mistake on a gun permit is an abstract problem, but a bad check actually costs some department money.

In the decades before 9/11, why did the airlines fight every security measure except the photo-ID check? Increased security annoys their customers, but the photo-ID check solved a security problem of a different kind: the resale of nonrefundable tickets. So the airlines were on board for that one.

And why does the TSA confiscate liquids at airport security, on the off chance that a terrorist will try to make a liquid explosive instead of using the more common solid ones? Because the officials in charge of the decision used CYA security measures to prevent specific, known tactics rather than broad, general ones.

The same misplaced incentives explain the ongoing problem of innocent prisoners spending years in places like Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. The solution might seem obvious: Release the innocent ones, keep the guilty ones, and figure out whether the ones we aren't sure about are innocent or guilty. But the incentives are more perverse than that. Who is going to sign the order releasing one of those prisoners? Which military officer is going to accept the risk, no matter how small, of being wrong?

I read almost five years ago that prisoners were being held by the United States far longer than they should, because ''no one wanted to be responsible for releasing the next Osama bin Laden.'' That incentive to do nothing hasn't changed. It might have even gotten stronger, as these innocents languish in prison.

In all these cases, the best way to change the trade-off is to change the incentives. Look at why the Whole Foods case works. Store employees don't have to apprehend shoplifters, because society created a special organization specifically authorized to lay hands on people the grocery store points to as shoplifters: the police. If we want more rationality out of the TSA, there needs to be someone with a broader perspective willing to deal with general threats rather than specific targets or tactics.

For prisoners, society has created a special organization specifically entrusted with the role of judging the evidence against them and releasing them if appropriate: the judiciary. It's only because the George W. Bush administration decided to remove the Guantanamo prisoners from the legal system that we are now stuck with these perverse incentives. Our country would be smart to move as many of these people through the court system as we can.

---

Bruce Schneier is chief security technology officer of BT. His new book is Schneier on Security.

Palm Energizes Developers for the Pre Phone

Feb. 26, 2006: World Population Reaches 6.5 Gigabods

2006: The U.S. Census Bureau's World Population Clock ticks up to 6.5 billion folks at 16 minutes after midnight Greenwich Mean Time.

Thomas Malthus, the 18th-century thinker who famously predicted the human population would outrun its food supply, would have been astounded.

Back in 1798, when Malthus penned his classic, An Essay on the Principle of Population, barely a billion Homo sapiens roamed the planet. Today, Earth's population exceeds 6.75 billion living, breathing humans.

"Malthus would be astonished not only at the numbers of people, but at the real prosperity of about a fifth of them and the average prosperity of most of them," said demographer Joel Cohen, a professor of populations at Rockefeller University. "He wouldn't be surprised at the abject poverty of the lowest quarter or third."

The clock, which operates continuously, currently estimates that each second 4.3 people are born and 1.8 people die. The clock figures are estimates, subject to error, given the difficulties of maintaining an accurate global population count.

A large portion of the world's population now lives in nations that are at sub-replacement fertility, meaning the average woman has fewer than two children in her lifetime. Countries in this camp include former members of the Soviet Union, Japan and most of Europe.

Demographers attribute the slowing rate of global population growth in part to more-widespread availability of birth control and to people in developed nations choosing to have fewer children. But low-birthrate countries are counterbalanced by nations like Yemen, where the average woman has seven children in her lifetime.

The highest population growth rates emanate disproportionately from the poorest regions of Africa, the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent.

U.S. population is also growing at a steady clip, augmented by high numbers of immigrants. It hit 300 million in 2006 and now nears 306 million. Earth's population is expected to reach 7 billion in 2012, according to the Census Bureau.

Carl Haub, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, sees urbanization contributing to slowing growth, because urban areas typically have lower birthrates than rural areas. In 1950, less than 30 percent of people lived in areas defined as urban. As of 2007, more than half the world's population is urban.

As population growth marches forward, debate continues in academia — as it has since Malthus' time — over how many people the Earth can realistically support.

Certainly individual countries, such as Bangladesh or Rwanda, can be characterized as overpopulated, said Haub. But in other places, such as India, it's harder to determine the extent to which overpopulation — rather than other social and economic factors — contributes to poverty.

Some turn to mathematical models for estimating maximum sustainable population levels.

One metric modeled on the Census Bureau's population clock compares world population to the finite supply of arable land.

Cohen estimated that if we want to support individuals indefinitely — allotting each person 3,500 calories per day from wheat and 247,000 gallons per year of fresh water — the planet has room for only about 5 billion people.

But such formulas are subject to tinkering. Changes in agricultural practices, more efficient water-desalination technologies and a host of other factors can increase the number of people the planet can feed. Shifts in behavior — such as acceptance of new food sources that are cheap to produce — can have a similar effect, noted Cohen.

"What most of this commentary neglects is the role of culture in defining wheat as food but not, let's say, cultured single-cell algae," he said.

And in the end, it may not be food and water supplies, but our effluvia of greenhouse gases and heat, that limit global population.

Source: Wired.com archives

Q and A: Jack Horner Wants to Re-Create T. Rex From Chickens — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Flip the right genetic switches in a chicken embryo and you just might hatch a baby dino. Paleontologist Jack Horner intends to do it. He explains his scheme to rewind evolution in a new book, How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to Be Forever. We asked him if there is anything—anything at all—that could possibly go wrong.

Wired: Dinochicken—walk me through the concept.

Jack Horner: Birds are descendants of dinosaurs. They carry their DNA. So in its early stages, a chicken embryo will develop dinosaur traits like a long tail, teeth, and three-fingered hands. If you can find the genes that cancel the tail and fuse the fingers to build a wing—and turn those genes off—you can grow animals with dinosaur characteristics.

Wired: It's a romantic idea, that dinosaurs can live on in bird form.

Horner: Dinosaurs are not extinct; they're still with us in this sense. Birds look different, but it's all cosmetic. By tweaking some genes, we can bring out the underlying similarities. Yes, it's a wild plan, but I like to think about things backwards.

Wired: You were a consultant on Jurassic Park... Should we be worried here?

Horner: Look, it's not like dinochicken will overrun the world. If he mates with a chicken, you still get a chicken. Eventually we might make animals that look more like dinosaurs, but we won't have velociraptors on the loose.

Wired: Thorny ethical issues?

Horner: If you think we're playing God, maybe. But we're already modifying plants and mice. I don't see a lot of people jumping up and down complaining about better tomatoes.

Wired: Are you getting flak from other researchers?

Horner: Scientists who play by someone else's rules don't have much chance of making discoveries.

Wired: The initial funding came out of your own pocket. Is money an issue?

Horner: It shouldn't cost more than a couple million dollars. That isn't a heck of a lot of money when it comes to big science.

Wired: What's the upside? What do you hope to gain from this?

Horner: Ultimately, we hope it can lead to a cure for genetic defects. Once we understand just how to control genes, we have the potential for spinal cord regeneration, bone regeneration, and so on. It might also give us plumper chickens.

Wired: It would certainly prove the creationists dead wrong.

Horner: Religion is about faith, not evidence. Comparing science and religion isn't like comparing apples and oranges—it's more like apples and sewing machines.

Wired: In your book, you envision getting dinochicken a spot on Oprah. Why?

Horner: The creature would be its own sound bite. It'll go a long way toward convincing people that we can learn a lot from this sort of experimentation—about biology, development, evolution. Otherwise we're just a bunch of wild scientists building monsters in our laboratories.

Pimps Go Online to Lure Kids Into Prostitution

Playlist: PolarClock, Vintage Typewriters, Baconnaise

At last—a screensaver that trumps the Ken Burns-effect slide show of that hike to Waimea Falls! Flash and Flex developer Gabriel Bucknall's after-hours project gives us a new reason to sit idly at our computers, literally watching time pass. PolarClock, available for Mac and Windows, represents month, date, day, hour, minute, and second in concentric arcs that lengthen as time goes by. Download the screensaver at blog.pixelbreaker.com/polarclock and the iPhone app from iTunes.

How could we not love a book subtitled Be Afraid, Beautiful People? Alpha geek Garth Sundem tackles pressing issues like the Great Myth of the Metric System, Five Classic MacGyver Hacks, and Tongue Twisters in Languages of Fewer Than a Million Speakers. The info may boost your nerd cred, but we guarantee it will not get you a date.

Think texting on your RAZR is tough? Imagine selecting each letter using a slider bar. That's how people wrote with the keyboard- free 1890 Odell 2. It and 44 other vintage typewriters are on display at Toronto International's Malton Airport Gallery until mid-March. Some even allowed the writer to see what they were typing! You'll never complain about iTap again.

If a geriatric British explorer's hunt for magical golden armor doesn't pique your interest, try tackling puzzles at the same time. EA's genre-bending mashup for Nintendo DS throws enemies and tricky jumps onto the top screen and challenging brainteasers onto the bottom. Switch successfully between the two and you'll be rewarded with the vim and vigor of youth, delicious tea, and an unstoppable robot battle suit. Bloody goode show!

Earth has 170 documented scars from falling space rocks. A single meteorite can leave a wound as big as 236 miles wide (like South Africa's Vredefort Dome). For his debut monograph, photographer Stan Gaz captured these craters by pointing his 20-pound Hasselblad rig out of helicopters worldwide. The result is this epic and sometimes creepy 85-picture survey in black and white.

Bouncers at Moscow clubs can be blunt—if you're fugly, you're not getting in. Inspired by this ruthless velvet-rope technique—aka face control—this Montreal-based duo's sophomore LP shores up anthemic, Springsteenian melodies and stadium guitar hooks with cold drum-machine beats, blippy synthesizers, and lyrics about the post-Soviet free-for-all that is Eastern Europe. What a country!

Fact: Most everything is better with bacon.* Problem: the requisite prep and cook time. Solution: Inject the salty-sweet hammy goodness into a spreadable (and kosher!) condiment. Our new fave Frankensauce is concocted from no less than 23 ingredients, including natural smoke flavor and, um, tocopherols (to preserve porkiness). But trust us, you won't believe it's not bacon. Probably.

*The few things that can't be improved with bacon: orange juice, Star Wars, Facebook, Radiohead, chocolate (ed. note—can too!).

Nearly 25 years have passed since Michael Mann redefined television and '80s fashion with Miami Vice. Forget the campy pastiche of pastels—this neon noir, available on DVD, is a testosterone-soaked masterpiece of impossibly fast boats, women, and cars (shot lovingly with Mann's signature wheel-mounted cameras). Jan Hammer's soundtrack heightens the tension, and Crockett and Tubbs' banter imbues the show with a surprising charm.

Budget cuts. Layoffs. Credit crisis. Meh. Tough times call for stiff drinks, penny-pinching, and a few more stiff drinks. Add this Web site to your RSS reader, sign up for the weekly newsletter, or follow a Twitter feed that serves up all the events, art openings, screenings, and parties that will be pouring free booze in select cities: New York, LA, San Francisco, Chicago, Miami, and Honolulu. Rock bottoms up!

Singer/sometime-actor Will Oldham goes by "Prince" but doesn't make doves cry, and he's prone to lyrical metaphors approaching Dadaism. Move past the scattered arrangements of his latest record—ostensibly about love—and you'll find a sweet throwback to classic American folk with appealingly nonobvious melodies. Nothing to fear here.

Palm Energizes Developers for the Pre Phone

Obama making gamer news, this time with his BlackBerry

FROM GAMERTELL - Looks like Obama’s Blackberry wasn’t shredded after all. He’s playing with it every night… MORE »

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

US Antitrust Judge Examining Windows 7 Documents

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LG partners up with Microsoft to put WinMo on its phones

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile

Windows Mobile has allied with LG in an effort to bring their smartphone software to more users.  Microsoft’s Windows Mobile will be now available on 50 LG brand devices. Prior to this announcement, Windows Mobile was only offered on a single LG phone.

Microsoft has fallen in third place behind Symbian and Research In Motion, other producers of mobile software.  The deal with LG could help Microsoft improve sales and approach other cell phone makers about offering the software on their mobile devices.  As part of the agreement, Windows Mobile advertising will appear on both the devices as well as the packaging of the LG phones.

Windows Mobile has a user friendly interface with a touch enabled screen that uses icons to navigate menus and the ability to instantly jump on Internet Explorer.  New features expected to be introduced include the ability to back up data, photos and contacts on Microsoft servers.  This allows the user to replace the data if their phone is lost or stolen.

Read: [Newsfactor]

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

Casemod: Widefault’s Hackintosh Jr.

One fan of the Mac Pro tower decided to build his own hackintosh junior Mac Pro from aluminum sheeting and mesh. The best part is, it’s about the size of a Mac Mini. I like the idea, it’s a good look. It’s got really low power requirements as well.

It’s 5.5″ x 7″ x 5″ and has a 2.33GHz low-power Core Duo processor, 2 gigs of RAM, and a 2.5″ 40GB HDD. Not exactly a powerhouse, but it’ll work for the basics.

Created by Widefault, it’s one of the best I’ve seen in a while.

[via Technabob]

Animalights

It's not rocket science [Thelermont Hupton via DVice]

Cult of Aibo worships Rolly

[via Geekologie]

Samuel L. Jackson to play Nick Fury in 9 Marvel films

We’re ’bout to see a bunch of Samuel L. Jackson. Remember how he briefly appeared after the Iron Man credits as Nick Furry hinting at Marvel’s future? Well, he just signed a huge deal that will place him in nine upcoming Marvel films, effectively creating a huge Marvel universe. Tight.

Not all the films have been announced yet, but so far they include Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers(!!!), and perhaps even a S.H.I.E.L.D movie with Jackson as the lead. We can’t wait to see what Stan Lee and Co. do with the Nick Fury role. Having this particular character link all the superhero movies together should (hopefully) create an immensely a deep storyline. We cannot wait to see how this pans out but the 61 year old Jackson should start sipping on some of that Infinity Formula tonight; he’s going to need it.

BTW, be thankful that David Hasselhoff isn’t reprising his 1998 role as Nick Fury; the overall sentiment would be a tad different.

Microsoft imposes online "don't tell" policy on homosexuals

Identifying your sexuality in your Xbox Live profile is "offensive," according to Microsoft. When one lesbian complained about harassment, it suspended her account.

Whither Ash Patel–Can Longtime Yahoos Learn New Tricks? [BoomTown]

There’s no question Yahoo owes longtime veteran exec Ash Patel a lot, as it has grown into a global Internet behemoth.

Since getting to the company in 1996–which essentially means he was present at the creation–Patel (pictured here) has, as the corporate page on its top execs notes, played “key roles across the company including architecting MyYahoo!, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo! identity and the user database, and many other products that continue to impact millions of Yahoo! users.”

Now as EVP of the Audience Product Division, he presides over pretty much all of Yahoo’s well-known consumer products, from its homepage to its email to its search to, more recently, the product development of its media offerings.

But, because of his longevity, vast purview and clear impact on the company, Patel has also become a symbol for many inside Yahoo (YHOO) right now, who mention him most often in the should-he-stay-or-should-he-go-now debates about the future of the company and who should be in charge of that.

Thus, Patel’s fate is seen as a key indicator of what is to come at the company, especially whether he and it can change with the very fast-changing times. While his love and loyalty to Yahoo are unquestioned, like many at Yahoo, can he be a true agent of change who could upend all he has built?

The big question, of course: Can old Yahoos learn new tricks?

That, of course, is all now up to new CEO Carol Bartz, who is busy restructuring the company to her liking, in decisions that are about to come down after only six weeks into her tenure.

Bartz is clearly casting herself as the agent of dramatic change and speed, as she noted that in a recent memo to staff:

What does this have to do with the need for speed? Many of the things I just talked about could have and should have been decided earlier but we haven’t been an organization that has embraced the need for speedy decisions, even when they are the tough ones. We can all be part of changing this and getting back to an organization that is fast on its feet.”

With the reorganization in flux, even as big departures occur (mobile head Marco Boerries today, for example), it could start to feel like the rapture at Yahoo, as the old ways make way for, well, the unknown.

Right now, it seems Patel might stay, reporting to CTO Ari Balogh, who is about to also get control over all of Yahoo’s products. Previously, Patel reported directly to outgoing President Sue Decker.

But others are convinced he will go, if not right away in the current upheaval, then soon enough, with Bartz and Balogh on the hunt for a crackerjack new outside product exec to take over and, more importantly, take a fresh look Yahoo’s many offerings.

That’s been Patel’s job for a long time, after a long rise to the top from when he arrived from Oracle (ORCL). He’s been SVP of platform engineering, chief product officer and EVP of the Platforms and Infrastructure Division, before getting his most recent title in one of Yahoo’s umpteenth reorgs.

“Ash is the symbol of old Yahoo, and now he is really actually one of the only ones with longevity in top management,” said one person at the company. “What happens to him–whether he stays and transforms or simply goes–says a lot about the future of Yahoo.”

Here is a video interview I did with Patel recently about the launch of some open and social-networking initiatives at Yahoo (Front Doors head Tapan Bhat, who reports to Patel, is also in the video):

Forget the Barackberry, what about the Obamacopter?

After the world held its breath over the fate of President Obama’s beloved Blackberry (and we imagined a replacement), you could be forgiven for thinking that the primary crisis of his term had passed. Not so! No sooner does he retain his Blackberry than he is beset by another problem: the replacement of the Presidential helicopter.

His current whirlybird is getting old, though it’s still tricked out and functioning just fine. There are improvements that can’t be made, however, without an overhaul. The Pentagon saw fit to commission a custom EH101 that will cost as much as Air Force One — and I’m not talking about the movie. It’s too late to abort ($1.5 billion in the hole already), unfortunately, and Lockheed will be profiting handsomely by the deal, but cost overruns have resulted in the President (and runner-up) questioning whether they should cut their losses.

What do you think? Procurement money is obviously way off the charts, but it is the kind of funny money that often finds itself in those crazy projects that end up being things like, oh I don’t know, the internet. Clearly a billion-dollar helicopter is excessive to say the least, but if we don’t throw insane amounts at stuff like this, where would we get things like the ARGUS-IS and plane-mounted lasers?

[via the Register]

Designer Babies

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Freeze-Proof 65-inch Sony TV Available Soon. For $20,000.

Sony's TV division has apparently decided that the next great feature in televisions has nothing to do with image contrast, brightness, or green efficiency standards. Instead, they’re going to make rain- and freeze-proof TVs.

Clearly, this TV will be for people who, having survived the global apocalypse led by tidal waves, torrential rains, and freezing temperatures, will still feel like pulling up a chair to catch some game highlights.

Alright, so the new 65-inch GXD-L65H1 LCD probably won't survive something that crazy, and Sony is still placing inside some of the important picture quality features. According to its product page, it will also be completely dust-proof, using aluminum frames on the front and back. And it would not be a bad thing at all if the tough engineering principles here are eventually passed down to future TVs.

But it's hard to see the purpose of a 'tough' TV in this economy at this time, especially one that will cost nearly $20,000 for the privilege.That's almost the same price as a Dumas/Chen haircut!

Public parks like stadiums could probably use durable TVs, if bought in bulk, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also marketed as a private stand-alone unit.  Because, really, there's nothing like preying upon people's fearful need to buy durable, long-lasting products.

So unless I happen to live in the North Pole or an outdoor park in Seattle, I'd skip this one. It will be available soon in Japan and likely later this year in the US.

Donate to the Timothy Leary Digitization Project

Timothy Leary was a visionary. Realizing the importance of the events of the day, he tenaciously saved records of each phase of his life, capturing not only the budding psychedelic movement and its history, but years later, trumpeting the coming of the digital age of personal computers when this concept was still foreign to most.

His archival collection contains over 500,000 documents, including hundreds of letters from luminaries of all kinds (Allan Ginsberg, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Abbie Hoffman, Robert Anton Wilson), documents from his Harvard research, Millbrook journals, IFIF documents, hundreds of hours of audio and video and thousands of photographs. This collection records not only his life, but the history of the entire psychedelic movement, and more.

Last week, at a huge reunion event in San Francisco, his estate announced their plans to digitize this collection and place it online as one of the first projects of its kind. Hosted by Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive, the site will eventually house the entire collection, and it will be completely searchable and indexed. Dr. Leary had this dream before most people even knew what the internet was, or how important it would become.

We invite you to visit to help support the digitization, by donating to help move the project forward.

Electric Mountain Rotten Apple Gang

This great mountain music group was playing at Austin Maker Faire in October 2008. The crowd went ape! You can find out more about the Electric Mountain Rotten Apple Gang at their MySpace page.


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Feb 2009 | 1:31 am

Beach Boys vs. Murry Wilson

Over at Bedazzled, Spike Priggen has posted four MP3s of Murry working with the Beach Boys as they record some songs in the studio. (1, 2, 3, 4)

If you're as much of a Beach Boys fan as I am, this is pure gold.

Spike's also linked to four episodes of Peter Bagge's hilarious "Murry Wilson, Rock & Roll Dad." (Episode 1, 2, 3, 4)

Brian vs. Murry Wilson


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Feb 2009 | 1:18 am

Down but not out: Kogan reveals new Android prototype

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Web, Google

Recently Kogan, a small Australian cell phone manufacturer, made waves in the Android world when it announced its Agora and Agora Pro Android phones.  Had they reached market, the handsets would have been the second Android phones available to the general public following T-Mobile’s G1.  Unfortunately even though the pair of phones garnered significant interest in the mobile world, in January, Kogan leadership announced that production on the units would be delayed indefinitely.  At the time, there was a great deal of speculation as to whether this was due to the handset displays not meeting the minimum requirements for an upcoming Android refresh.

However, information has recently surfaced that makes it appear that there is still a possibility of Kogan bring an Android handset to market.  Several parties are reporting that they have had some hands on time with one of the original prototypes; the device shares some design cues with the Samsung Blackjack, but looks like a solid offering on the whole.  Some changes may be in the works on the overall design; Ruslan Kogan, founder of Kogan, reports that the final model will be reminiscent of the iPhone with a large 3.8 inch screen dominating the front of the device.  Shay from Midnight Update managed to grab an interview with Ruslan Kogan himself, and even has some footage of the prototype Agora. Hit the read link to check out the interview.

Read [Midnight Update]

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

Google Responds To ‘Gfail’ Outage With Apps Status Dashboard

In response to its extended Gmail outage yesterday, Google has just launched the Google Apps Status Dashboard. The dashboard offers an at-a-glance look at the system health of most popular Google services, including Gmail, Google Calendar, and the company’s suite of web-based document editors. Google has been pretty good about responding to down time with blog posts alerting users with status updates, but having a dedicated page seems like a much better solution (especially for users who don’t follow Google’s blogs).

The news is in line with recent trends seen by other popular web services, like Twitter, which now offers its own dedicated Status Update. Given that users (especially business customers) are becoming increasingly reliant on Google’s cloud based services, this is a welcome move, though I’m hoping we won’t have to use it too often.

For more, check out Google’s blog post here.

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

Obamas' Pick for First Dog Solidly Scientific

Lockheed airship video with epic music

Music Labels Reach A New Low, Sue Developer For Using Seeqpod API

It’s no secret that the record industry hates Seeqpod, a music site that lets users stream songs for free. Last year the company was sued by Warner Music Group (the outcome of the suit is still pending). Now, the company has just been slapped with a complaint from EMI. But the new complaint goes one step further, personally naming some of the Seeqpod executives, and in a move that may well raise the ire of countless developers, a developer named Ryan Sit who happened to tap into the Seeqpod API.

The legality of Seeqpod is murky. The company says that it doesn’t store any songs, but instead streams them from countless music files littering sites across the web. In effect, it acts as a powerful music search engine with a media player built in. The record industry claims that this is still illegal, and the new EMI complaint goes as far as to say that Seeqpod actually does host some of these music files, at least temporarily (which would strike a major blow to Seeqpod’s defense if proven true). In any case, Seeqpod is clearly on some shaky legal ground, so the new lawsuit doesn’t come as a surprise.

What is surprising, and potentially very alarming, is the fact that Ryan Sit was named in the suit for running the one-man startup Favtape, which leverages the Seeqpod API to stream music. Sit has created a number of sites, including Swurl and FavThumbs. In short, he’s a prolific developer who takes advantage of the APIs offered by many popular websites.

Favtape allows users to create playlists of their favorite songs, which are then streamed using the Seeqpod API. Favtape never hosts any of these files. At its core, it’s essentially just a fancy front-end for Seeqpod. In my past coverage of Favtape, I’ve noted that the site would become virtually useless if Seeqpod ever got sued. But it never crossed my mind that the site itself, and the man who built it, would also be named in the case. For one, there are dozens of other sites that use the Seeqpod API to do exactly what Favtape does. Why was Favtape singled out? There’s also the fact that - given the already murky laws surrounding Seeqpod - Favtape is yet one more degree removed from any possible transgressions.

If EMI does win, it would set a precedent that the usage of an API puts the developer at risk of a lawsuit should the service they’re tapping into ever get sued. Such a decision would have huge ramifications for developers, who could become weary of using any service that could conceivably be considered illegal. It would stifle innovation. And frankly, it’s ridiculous.

For more, check out this post by Michael Robertson.

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

Sony To Unveil New Fuel-Cell Prototype

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Microsoft files patent suit against TomTom (AFP)

AFP - Microsoft on Wednesday said it is steering Netherlands-based vehicle navigation systems firm TomTom to court for infringing on the software giant's patented technology.

It's on: Microsoft sues TomTom over Linux-powered GPS

For years, Microsoft's claimed that Linux violates patents it owns. Today it sued TomTom, maker of Linux-powered GPS devices, and three of its eight claims refer to file system patents which are among those MS claims Linux violates. Here's the Federal complaint and here's the complaint filed with the International Trade Comission. [via Techfish]

Crayons as pixels

Christian Faur's crayon art.


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Feb 2009 | 12:09 am

Video of Bali from 1910

Interesting to compare this film of Balinese life in 1910 with this video of London at around the same time. (Warning: video contains scene with topless people.)

(via Filled With Chocolate Pudding)

Online Ads: Even the Evangelists Turning Bearish

It wasn’t too many months ago that saying online advertising would decline in 2009 was enough to get you laughed at in the blogosphere, mocked on Twitter, and have Eric Schmidt roll his eyes and explain, again, why Google ads were such a better value than traditional media.

Flash forward to this week and the Interactive Advertising Bureau big wigs are predicting whole businesses dependent on online ads could go belly up, and researcher IDC has completely reversed its growth estimates. No longer will online ads grow 10% in 2009, says the firm. IDC now predicts a 5% drop in revenues in the first quarter that could get worse in the second. Fingers crossed for the second half of the year.

The trend is certainly already moving in that direction: Last year the market was growing at 18%. Last quarter it grew a sad .4%. That’s flirting dangerously close to the first quarter-over-quarter drop in online ad sales since the great dot com bust. Suddenly everyone’s bull scenario isn’t double-digit growth; it’s a year that doesn’t tip negative.

How’d everyone get the story so wrong? (Ok, not everyone. Stop waving your hand Henry Blodget, I see you.) Two big assumptions were at work here: One was that online advertising is more actionable and more measurable than advertising in the offline world. The other was this pie chart that Yahoo’s PR department used to love to trot out showing the discrepancy between the amount of time people spend online and the percentage of advertising spend that goes online. “At some point, that has to balance out, right? RIGHT?”

There’s enough truth in these assumptions to ensure that online advertising won’t have nearly as bad of a year as offline advertising. But in this market, that’s like saying a broken leg is better than an amputated one.

Plenty of attendees at this week’s IAB conference pointed out that problems like reliable audience measurement are no closer to being solved than they were during the industry’s last identity crisis in 2001. Some people argue, it’s gotten worse. There was also plenty of worried chatter that desperate times would lead to desperate measures, causing advertisers to play fast and loose with user privacy in an attempt to make a sale.

I have a better idea: How about actually come up with innovative advertising products? Google-aside, I think the Web industry has gotten lazy when it comes to advertising innovation. There’s too much outsourcing to the ad networks and too much of an assumption by the portals and other large properties that gaudy eyeballs will be enough. That’s old media thinking. It’s enough to get ads when times are good, but not necessarily to keep them when times get bad.

A lot of people criticize newspapers for just putting their stories online, the same way they’d dummy them up on the printed page, rather than really utilizing the two-way medium. I think you could argue the same about the way many sites think about display ads. Too often it seems a cat and mouse game where I’m chasing an ad around a page looking for the close button so I can read some content. Sure, maybe I look at your message more than I would in a banner. But it’s also annoyed me enough that I will never buy your product. In many cases, even a back-to-basics approach works better, as I wrote about in my BusinessWeek column today that highlights some of the shockingly high CPM rates that un-high-tech email newsletters are getting.

Like so many things in the recession, it’s ultimately a good sign that marketers are panicked. We might actually see some innovation here.

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

Samsung's 8-Megapixel Cam Phone Shuns the Sun

Samsung's 8-Megapixel Cam Phone Shuns the Sun

Has Microsoft's Patent War Against Linux Begun?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Stop thief! Software lets stolen laptops speak up (AP)

Aphids Devoted To Repairing Galls

VUDU is the first to sell HD movies On-Demand

Section: Video, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, HDTV, Video Providers, Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Peripherals, Storage, Web, Downloads

Do you VUDU?  Apparently it’s becoming more and more popular.  And with their announcement yesterday that they are the first on-demand service to offer high definition movies to own, those that VUDU are liking it a lot.

Before this, subscribers could only rent HD movies from on-demand services (like VUDU).  Although Vudu boasts a library of over 1,400 HD movies, but you could only watch them, not keep them.  That all ended yesterday.  Not all of their HD movies are available for sale however; for right now, there are 50 movies from “top independent studios.“  That phrasing does have some folks raising their eyebrows a little, although VUDU says more studios will be making more movies available in the future.

Although people that use VUDU seem to love it for the ease of use, that drawback seems to have always been what has been holding VUDU back from making what could be a major splash in the home movie market, the lack of movies—okay, popular and new movies, available.  That and the fact that some movies are available for rent, some only to buy, some to rent or to buy.  It’s a hard sell to get someone to plunk down $25 to watch a new release (purchase is required for many new titles) when they could just go to Blockbuster, Netflix, or *ahem*, a less than legal site and get it for free.

“Man on Wire” is one of the titles that is being released.  It is by Magnolia Studios, one of the studios working with VUDU on the HD releases along with Kino and FirstLook Studios. “We are thrilled to work with VUDU to offer our new releases for sale in HD when they are released on DVD,“ said Dean Wilson, Chief Operating Officer of FirstLook Studios. “We continue to explore every channel for distribution, and the emerging digital platform that reaches consumers in their homes directly on their HDTVs via VUDU is an important new channel for us.“

I think they have to do a few things in order to become the success they have the chance to be if they play their cards right.  Bring down the initial purchase price of their box.  I mean, they offer three choices right now for box storage size, and the “big” one…$995? (Although I did find it on sale for $795)  You’ve gotta be kidding me.  Get real.  I don’t care if it IS 1 TB. 

Next, a better, more current, movie selection is needed.  More new releases available the day they come out from new studios.  If you want to compete, get in the ballgame.  Next, don’t just make the selections for purchase only.  Some people don’t want to purchase it, they just want to watch it. 

They have something that could go somewhere.  It has a chance of beating Apple TV and even XBox Live Marketplace.  It has a chance to stick around as something people might use rather than running out and renting or even buying.  The big question is will they do what they have to do in order to accomplish that goal.

Via: prnewswire

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

Google Speaks Out In Antitrust Case Against Microsoft

Seesaw Link Between North And South Atlantic Climates

Fossils Reveal Nature Of Sex Among Fish During Prehistoric Times

Syba Mini Projector Announced, Still Too Expensive To Take-Off

There's no question the creators of mini projectors want them to become the popular portable alternative to expensive TVs and big projectors, just like the netbooks have cut into the market for laptops.

But looking at recent announcements of high-quality mini projectors, like that of the Syba RCG RC-VIS62002 this week, we find that the comparison is not yet apt. Mainly, they're still too expensive.

Let's first take a look at the Syba RCG. It's pluggable to your notebook (or DVD player), and displays images at a 640x480 VGA pixel resolution (though it's also mentioned it can go up to a 1024 x 768 resolution, probably with interpolating with XGA).

I like the fact that company is willing to come out and say the optimal size of the projected screen (at 25 inches) instead of giving us the largest potential size possible. That happens when the projector is pulled away the farthest from the distance of the wall, a max that always turns out to be unwatchable.

This is not a pocketable projector, despite the early claims. Just like the EyeClops Mini Projector and the similar LG, it's a light (80 grams), mid-range, palm sized box that fits better in a large purse or backpack. And this is the key. If someone is willing to carry a projector in a bag separately, they might want to get the projector with the best image possible, and it's not going to be the smallest Pico. It will probably be one at this size or a normal-sized projector.

But the rub is that this one is going to be almost $400, just like the LG. Put in an extra $50 or $100 at most and you can get a regular-sized, higher-quality projector. At this point, if you can carry the larger one, the mini is not cheap enough to be worth it.

Netbooks don't face the same close price range with their competitors. The best cheap laptop comes in near the $1000 mark, twice as much as most netbooks. And they offer a similar quality version of the most popular and basic apps – word processing and internet browsing. A projector's most basic app, the image, still can't come close to the resolution quality of an LCD at the same price. Check out these available TVs from Amazon for comparison.

We're going to love testing this one out when it's available, but they're gonna have to lower it to really take off.

Experts Call For More Climate-Proof Crops

Galileo's telescope recreated

Behold the Bomb-Bot: Boom!

Afghanistan is one destination for the Advanced Explosive Ordnance Disposal Robot System's (AEODRS) planned new machines. One will even have a human-like hand to deal with the fiddly stuff, but the real developments are in sensors and environmental awareness. Here's Wired's Noah Shachtman:

That would free up military robot-handlers, who today have to guide the machine's every move - and make decisions based on the bot's often-fuzzy video feeds.

The AEODRS program is also designed to give the maintenance guys a break.

Military Gears Up for Bomb-Bot 2.0 [Wired: Danger Room]

GamersGate, An Alternative Direct-Download Games Service

Apple director says no change in Jobs' plans (AP)

Sony Preps Hybrid Fuel Cell Battery

Sony is set to show a hybrid fuel cell that will perform double duty. The cell can switch between the methanol fuel cell mode and the traditional lithium-ion battery system.

The hybrid cell system also offers the option to have both run at the same time. Sony will have two sizes, a portable version and a standard one, on display at what is billed as the world's largest fuel cell exhibition in Tokyo.

Fuel cells are emerging as an attractive alternative because they are more energy efficient, quiet, non-polluting and longer life. (See here for a primer on how fuel cells work)

Sony also showed a bio-battery that is powered through the enzyme degradation of glucose, or more simply put by Coca-Cola or Mountain Dew.

The company did not offer any details on when the products would be available commercially.

[via Engadget]

Michael Jackson’s Collection of Arcade Games Going to Auction

Review: TrialPay can help you get freebies online (AP)

AP - With the economy in the dumps, you might hesitate before buying discretionary goodies like video games or pizza. But what if you could get those things for free by doing something you might already be inclined to do — like signing up for a trial of Netflix or buying coffee from Starbucks.com?

Palm Energizes Developers for the Pre Phone

With the Pre just a few months from launch, Palm is wasting no time courting developers -- the one group that is arguably most critical to the new phone's success.

So far, it looks like developers are taking the bait.

Developing for Palm's new webOS looks like it will be much easier than other mobile platforms, says Chris Sepulveda, vice president of business development for Pivotal Labs. "You can do some great things with the iPhone, but if you are not a Mac developer you have to learn something new," he says. "And there are lot more web developers out there than Mac guys."

Sepulveda's comment is focused on what sets webOs apart from other mobile environments: It only requires programmers to know JavaScript and CSS, which are simpler and easier to learn than other mobile programming languages. That's in contrast to iPhone's Objective C based Software Developers Kit (SDK) or Android's Java based tools.

Sepulveda was one of a group of developers who attended a teleconference tutorial that Palm hosted on Wednesday, with help from O'Reilly Media, to introduce the webOS operating system. Palm CTO Mitch Allen led the conference call, which focused on the technical details of how to create applications for the Pre. During the call, Allen tried to drive home the point about how easy development would be. Allen demonstrated a quick way to build an application even as developers who had logged on wondered if it would be really as easy as shown.

"Palm alluded a lot to what makes the platform and web elements attractive to developers," says Ian McFarland, vice-president of technology for Pivotal Labs."The cost of learning is very low and people can use existing JavaScript libraries to speed up their development process."

Building developer following is important because it is developers who will create specialized, third-party software for the device. That in turn, believe handset makers, will make their phones more attractive to customers -- a strategy which appears to have worked very well for Apple's iPhone. In addition to the developer teleconference, Palm has also courted developers by offering early access to its software development kit (SDK) to a few key companies.

So far it looks like the company has been successful in drumming up interest for webOS. "We had a huge crowd," tweeted O'Reilly Media referring to Wednesday's online tutorial. However, neither O'Reilly nor Palm said exactly how many developers attended the teleconference.

Palm introduced the Pre at the Consumer Electronics Show last month to much critical acclaim. The phone has won kudos not only for its design but also for its OS, a completely new system designed from the ground up exclusively for the Pre.

webOS treats applications as "cards" and makes it easy to flip through the deck of cards, view them at once and shuffle them. It allows for multi-tasking of apps and apps are live even when minimized.

Palm has not said when it will makes its Pre SDK widely available to developers, but a select few already have had access to it. TeleNav, which offers turn-by-turn navigation systems for mobile phones is one of them. The company is working on a navigation app to be released on Pre; it doesn't have a similar app yet for the iPhone.

"Earlier, to create an application for a phone, you needed developers with embeded programming skill sets -- which is much more difficult to find," says Amit Patel, who leads the Pre development team at TeleNav. "Now Palm has made it easy and has provided some very good tools for app development."

Enthused Palm developers are already organizing themselves. A week after the Pre's release, programmers plan to get together to have workshops in over 60 cities worldwide. Called preDevCamp it aims to exchange ideas and tools for webOs developers. Palm has not yet announced when the Pre will be available on Sprint, the exclusive telecom carrier for the phone.

A strong area of interest to developers has focused on how well the Pre can handle games. Games are one of the most popular categories of apps on the iPhone. They are also one of the few categories where paid apps still find takers. Addressing that issue, the Pre will give game developers plenty of room to unleash their creativity, Allen told developers Wednesday. "There are great web based games that will work well in this (Pre's) environment," he says. "Other category of games require deeper access to the OS and that is something we intend to improve as time goes on."

And in contrast to Apple's iPhone, Palm Pre will support Adobe's Flash technology. Palm hasn't commented though when Flash will come to the Pre. Flash on the phone could open up a window for a whole new set of gaming apps, says Sepulveda. "Once Flash support comes to the Pre developers will have a lot of options there for gaming," he says.

Applications built for webOS will not have backward compatibility. But Palm has reassured developers that it will offer tools and techniques to migrate their existing apps to the new operating system.

Also see:
6 Reasons Why the Palm Pre Is Special
Palm Unveils Its Long-Awaited Smartphone, the Pre
Video: Hands-On With the Palm Pre
New WebOS Is Palm's Secret Sauce
Up Close and Personal With the Palm Pre

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Nokia thinking about dabbling in the laptop biz

Earlier this morning on Finland’s YLE (think BBC, but Finnish), Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was asked if the company had plans to expand into the laptop market. Sure enough, his response:

“We are looking very actively also at this opportunity.”

Yeah. Weird, right? Nokia, making laptops? It seemed strange to us at first, too. Then we thought about it a bit more - and it kind of made sense.

First, we recalled our trip to the Nokia Damage Testing Labs, where Nokia smashes, scratches, freezes, and drops every piece of hardware that they produce. Beyond a handful of manufacturers that take tremendous pride in their products, the laptop market is filled with poorly made garbage. If Nokia put the same amount of effort into stress testing a laptop that they did their phones, we’d definitely consider picking one up. We’d have to take another trip to their smash labs to watch them hit things with big sticks again, of course - you know, for the sake of science and stuff.

Then we thought a bit about their upcoming products, one of the most notable of which is the N97 - which is about as close to a laptop as a mobile phone gets. Make it a bit bigger, flesh out the OS a bit, and you’ve got a laptop. Well, you’ve got a netbook - and that’s exactly where we think Nokia might be going with this. This is purely conjecture, but we wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to see Nokia throw down a netbook with a Symbian Foundation-made (or Maemo) OS running on top sometime in the next year or two. We’ll just have to keep an ear to the ground for now.

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Fish Fossils Revise Date Sex Evolved

Salesforce Hits $1 Billion Dollars In Annual Revenues

Salesforce is now officially the first enterprise cloud computing company to hit $1 billion in annual revenues. The company announced its fourth quarter and year-end earnings. It’s quarterly revenues were up 34 percent to $290 million, bringing the total for the year to $1. 077 billion. Net income for the quarter was $13.7 million ($0.11 a share), and $43.4 million ($0.36 a share) for the year (which doesn’t sound like a lot compared to $1 billion in revenues, but it was more than double last year’s earnings). Its operating cash flow for the year was a quite healthy $230 million.

Salesforce ended the year with 55,400 corporate customers, and 1.5 million individual subscribers. And it has $883 million in the bank. Salesforce expects revenues to increase by about 30 percent this fiscal year to $1.3 billion.

Passing the $1 billion mark is a major milestone for both Salesforce and cloud computing in general. Salesforce is the first enterprise computing company to get to that size based solely on selling Web apps.

Here is the press release:

Salesforce.com delivered the following results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2009:

Revenue: Total Q4 revenue was $289.6 million, an increase of 34% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Subscription and support revenues were $266.1 million, an increase of 35% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 5% on a quarter-over-quarter basis. Professional services and other revenues were $23.5 million, an increase of 15% on a year-over-year basis and an increase of 2% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

For the full fiscal year 2009, the company reported revenue of approximately $1.077 billion, an increase of 44% from the prior year. Subscription and support revenues were $984.6 million for the year, an increase of 45%, while professional services revenue rose 35% to $92.2 million.

Earnings per Share: Q4 GAAP diluted earnings per share were approximately $0.11, including approximately $21.1 million in stock based compensation expense and approximately $2.9 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the Q4 GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the quarter.

For the full year, GAAP diluted earnings per share rose approximately 130% year-over-year to $0.35, including approximately $77.4 million in stock based compensation and approximately $8.0 million in amortization of purchased intangibles related to previously announced acquisitions. For purposes of the GAAP EPS calculations, there was an average of approximately 125 million diluted shares outstanding during the year.

Customers and Paying Subscribers: Net paying customers rose approximately 3,600 during the quarter and approximately 14,400 during the year to finish at approximately 55,400. Net paying subscribers rose to greater than 1.5 million, an increase of approximately 400,000 from the prior fiscal year end.

Cash: Cash from operations for the fiscal fourth quarter was approximately $76 million, up from $17 million in the third quarter, and down 7% year-over-year. For the full year, operating cash flow totaled $230 million, an increase of 12% from the prior year. Total cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities finished the year at approximately $883 million, an increase of approximately $78 million from Q3 and approximately $213 million from the prior fiscal year end.

Deferred Revenue: Deferred revenue on the balance sheet as of January 31, 2009 was $594 million, an increase of 24% on a year-over-year basis and 27% on a quarter-over-quarter basis.

As of February 25, 2009, salesforce.com is initiating guidance for its first quarter, fiscal year 2010. For its full fiscal year 2010, the company is updating its prior revenue guidance and initiating EPS guidance.

Q1 FY10: Revenue for the company’s first fiscal quarter is projected to be in the range of approximately $304 million to approximately $305 million. GAAP diluted EPS is expected to be in the range of approximately $0.10 to approximately $0.11. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $22 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is expected to be approximately $2.6 million. For purposes of the Q1 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 126 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $200,000.

Full Year FY10: The company today is updating the full year revenue guidance it provided on November 20, 2008, with revenue now expected to be approximately $1.30 billion to approximately $1.33 billion. The company is also initiating its earnings outlook for the full year, expecting GAAP diluted EPS to be in the range of approximately $0.54 to approximately $0.55. Stock based compensation expense is expected to be approximately $91 million, and amortization of purchased intangibles is currently expected to be approximately $9.3 million. For purposes of the full fiscal year 2010 GAAP EPS calculation, the company is expecting an average diluted shares count of 128 million shares, a GAAP tax rate of approximately 43%, and a minority interest expense of approximately $1 million.

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Rumor: Ugly Gmail scheme broke Gmail

Section: Communications, Email / IM, Web, Web Apps, Websites

According to deep throat sources inside the hallowed walls of Google, MG Siegler of VentureBeat is to blame for yesterday’s Gmail outage.  The outage, which lasted two and half hours, is rumored to have been triggered by Sieglers toxic combination of “melons and eggplant.“  On behalf of an agitated world, let me offer the first big, “thanks” to Siegler.

Fearing retaliation from Siegler (after all, look what he said to Engdaget after they made disparaging remarks toward the writer), Google’s official explanation blames some hapless code monkey for wayward code.  Somewhere, in a dark apartment in Europe, a code monkey weeps at the deception.  The official line:

Unexpected side effects of some new code that tries to keep data geographically close to its owner caused another data center in Europe to become overloaded, and that caused cascading problems from one data center to another. It took us about an hour to get it all back under control.

To further sweep the mess under the carpet, Google is offering users 15 days credit for those who pay for their Gmail for the two and half hour disruption to service.  This move smacks of a clear sense of guilt and embarrassment that the combination of their stock colors could bring the whole system down.

Google says the code problem is fixed now in typical, “move along, nothing to see here folks.“  If you take the first and last letter of each sentence in their blog post update on the issue and unscramble you get: “melons and eggplant don’t mix.“  Perhaps we should all just stick to regular themes?

My weak-kneed editor suggests I inform you Mr. Siegler is not to blame for the outage and the whole thing may or may not have been a figment of my wild imagination that I should put to better uses like selling hot dogs from a cart.

Source: [VentureBeat]

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

Ocean Circulation Triggers 'Seesaw' Climate

Despite Recession, Atmospheric CO2 Levels Accelerated In 2008

Biden Forgets Recovery.gov’s “Website Number”

This morning Vice President Biden went on the CBS early show to promote Recovery.gov, the website that will detail where all of the money in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be going. Unfortunately, he forgot the actual address of the site during the interview, explaining that he was embarrassed that he didn’t have the “website number”. And thus, we have a new internet meme in the making, as Biden follows in the footsteps of Senator Ted Stevens’s Series of Tubes and President Bush’s reference to the “internets”.

In Biden’s defense, at least he was smart enough not to take a guess at what the website might have been called, only to have an entrepreneural domain squatter grab the domain and start a porn site. The last thing the government needs is something along the lines of NBC’s hilarious Hornymanatee fiasco.

Thanks to Paul Kedrosky for the tip.

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Coupon Tweet Joins The Search For Deals On Twitter (Beta Invites)

Every day we hear about new businesses being built around Twitter. Corporations such as Dell are discovering that it is an ideal way to distribute marketing information about deals and and services such as TwtQpn makes it easy for businesses to create Twitter coupons. But who wants to follow Dell? Maybe for a week or two while you are in the market for a new computer, but then you have to remember to unfollow. And if you are really into finding deals, following every retailer you love is a sure way to turn your Twitter stream into a constant flow of spam.

As a result, services are popping up to help you search for deals and coupons on Twitter. CheapTweet has already launched, and one that is in private beta is called Coupon Tweet. (To check out the beta be one of the first 500 readers to enter this code: TCBETA500). Coupon Tweet was developed by a Chicago firm called 12 Interactive, which is also behind employee discount site PerkSpot.

It filters out all the coupon-related messages from Twitter, categorizes them, and and lets you search them on its site. The latest deals appear chronologically in a familiar Twitter stream. Tabs across the top allow you to browse through specific retail categories (apparel, cell phones, computers, tickets, travel). Deals can be voted up or down the page, or retweeted. (CheapTweet has similar functionality). The top three deals are featured items. Stores can register with Coupon Tweet to ensure that all of the deals they Twitter are captured.

Since the links go straight to the retailer’s page, Coupon Tweet can simply feature items from retailers with affiliate programs like Amazon to start generating revenue. And those slots could be sold to keyword bidders as well. Anyone can also follow @CouponTweet on Twitter to get a stream of the best deals of the day.

How much of the total Twittering that goes one every day is commercial and are there really that many deals being Twittered every day that we need two services to keep track of them all? It is a tiny niche. Coupon Tweet founder Christopher Hill estimates that 4 million to 5 million total messages get Tweeted every day, and out of that he finds only about 1,500 coupon-related Tweets. He scrubs that down to 500 coupon Tweets a day, which comes out to about 0.01 percent of all Tweets. But you know what they say about early bird getting the worm and all that.

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Sneak Peek: Musical Instruments of the Future

Futuristic musical instruments will hold center stage this weekend in Atlanta, where Georgia Tech will be hosting a competition and performance to showcase innovative instruments.

Georgia Tech's recently-launched Center for Music Technology is hosting the first annual Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, and it promises to be a smorgasbord of weird, wonderful and unusual musical expression.

As one of the judges of the competition (along with a competition organizer and Harmonix co-founder Eran Egozy, one of the creators of Guitar Hero and Rock Band) I was not permitted to find out more about these instruments -- yet -- because the point is to determine which ones perform best during the competition itself. We judges will be making those calls based on "musicality, design and engineering" and taking into account the instruments' "range of musical expression, playing technique, usability, and physical construction."

In addition to live performances on these next-generation musical instruments, the competition includes master classes for "inventors, composers, creators, and designers of all ages and affiliations," and the whole thing is open to the public for free. Entrants will vie for prizes -- $5,000 for first place, $3,000 for second, $2,000 for third, and free copies of the Rock Band videogame for places four through six.

But the real point of this event is to see what could become standard musical instruments in the future, in action today. I for one can't wait to hear what these things sound like.

Georgia Tech professor Gil Weinberg sent over the photos shown here, which depict some of the instruments we'll see this weekend.

Judging from the looks of them, attendees and judges are in for some truly astounding performances this weekend.

Note: In fairness to all of the competition's entrants, I have included neither the names of the instruments nor their creators. The inclusion or exclusion of any particular instrument from the gallery here has no bearing on how it will fare in the competition; the photos are included here merely to provide a visual preview.

Georgia Tech's Center for Music Technology, launched in November, will hold the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition on Friday, February 27 and Saturday, February 28 on the Georgia Tech campus. Performances and master classes are open to the public.

This annual competition (formerly for keyboardists) was funded by a gift from Richard Guthman, who, at his fortieth Georgia Tech reunion, created an endowment in honor of his wife Margaret and her love of music.

See Also:

• Review: beamz Music System Lets You Compose a Symphony With the Power of Freaking Lasers
• Robots Pass Musical Turing Test
• Sounds of Science: 8 Futuristic Musical Instruments

Ill pork plant workers status is updated

Two sentenced in tainted syringe case

Top 10 Most “Popular” U.S. mobile phones in Dec. 2008

Disclaimer: The following information is based on “popularity,” as in not cold hard sales stats since that info is not made available by either mobile carriers or manufacturers (and therefore, the rankings below are subjective). The ranking information (below) is provided by AvianResearch L.L.C. and is culled from its Monthly Retail Store Survey where it surveys 100 service reps and store mgrs from across the four major U.S. wireless carriers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, and T-Mobile) - though we’re not sure how asking 100 retail employees about their favorite phones is really indicative of anything. According to AvianResearch, these four carriers represent 85% of all U.S. mobile subscribers.

With that said, lets take a quick look over these too cool for school mobiles. Edging out Apple’s iPhone 3G for the top spot is none other than the vivacious BlackBerry Curve. RIM has got to feel pretty good about itself, what with 3 devices in the top 10 and helping Canada take home first place. Although not standing on the podium, both LG and Samsung also make a solid showing with 3 devices each in the top 10, giving South Korea an incredibly strong presence with 6 total handsets. That leaves America with just one popularity medal, Apple’s iPhone 3G standing alone at #2.

Here are the Top 10 Most Popular U.S. mobile devices in December 2008:

[via RCRWireless]

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

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic finds its way to North America

It’s been a long time since we saw the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic sneak into 10 seconds of The Dark Knight. At long last, Morgan Freeman isn’t the only North American who can get one. As expected, the North American model (with the proper 3G bands, of course) of Nokia’s first touchscreen has hit US soil.

While it’ll likely trickle out to other retailers in the coming weeks, it’s available immediately at the Nokia flagship stores in New York City and Chicago. It’ll set you back 399 bucks before Uncle Sam throws in his fees.

[via Phonescoop]

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Vaster Regions of Antarctica Melting Into Sea

Why the AT&T Quickfire got knicked: People weren’t plugging it in correctly

A few days ago, we found out that AT&T had decided to pull all of their Sidekicktastic Quickfire units from the shelves, citing a failure to meet “performance expectations” as the sole (and rather ambiguous) reason. While we’d gone ahead and assumed they’d come to the shocking revelation that the Quickfire was painted with pure lead or the radiation levels were causing people to grow extra limbs, the real reason isn’t quite as exciting: people couldn’t figure out how to plug in the charger properly, and jamming it in the wrong way caused the units to overheat.

AT&T customers will soon begin receiving e-mails telling them how to get the electric juices flowing the right way, along with a text sent to their devices to make sure they’re completely aware. Being that they’re already pulling them all off the shelves, we’d guess that AT&T is also planning to modify the hardware to make doing things the wrong way a bit more difficult - or at least throwing a big “Hey! Read this so your device doesn’t melt!” pamphlet into every box.

Full text of both the e-mail and the SMS follow:

Please take special care when charging your Quickfire GTX75 mobile phone. There have been a few reports of significant overheating of the phone when the AC Charger adapter is inserted incorrectly and forced into the phone.

The clearly marked, embossed arrow on the AC Charger adapter should always be face-up on the same side as the display screen of the Quickfire when it is inserted into the phone. See the diagram below for proper positioning and insertion of the AC Charger adapter into the phone. You should never force the AC Charger adapter into the phone.

If you have any questions, please call 1-800-801-1101.

Sincerely,

AT&T

TEXT MESSAGE

AT&T Free Msg. Click www.att.com/wapmyaccountqf for an important safety message on how to properly charge your Quickfire.

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British company could deeply cut DNA scans' cost (AP)

Review: Samsung Memoir for T-Mobile - Not dumb, but not quite smart enough.

At long last, one of the many 8-megapixel cameras to be announced in the past few months has made its way to a US carrier. But megapixel count isn’t all that matters here by a long shot - does the $249 Memoir carry itself well enough across the board to come at such a price? And, as I’d imagine most people reading this review are wondering: can it replace my traditional point-and-shoot camera? No, it probably can’t. But more on that later.

The Interface:

Like many Samsung phones released as of late, the Memoir runs TouchWiz. TouchWiz is a user interface developed by Samsung, which comes in at least three distinguishable forms: TouchWiz on top of Windows Mobile (a la the Samsung Omnia), TouchWiz on top of S60v5 (see the OmniaHD), and TouchWiz.. by itself, on top of Samsung’s own operating system. The Memoir is the latter, and that may be its biggest pitfall.

Nothing’s wrong with plain TouchWiz - it’s intuitive, it’s easy on the eyes - but we’re not sure it needs to exist. It’s this awkward middle ground between a feature phone’s crap OS and a smart phone’s full-fledged one. What you see is what you get - there is no expansion. It does a good amount, but it does it as a feature phone would. Take email for example: it’ll do it, but it uses a rather archaic feeling Java-based email client which only supports the services it already knows (AOL, Yahoo, Gmail, etc) - no POP or IMAP.

If you’re looking for a pit stop between a dumb phone and a smart phone, the TouchWiz interface will meet your needs - but if you’re looking for a smart phone, it falls short.

TouchWiz’s key selling point are its widgets, which come out in full force on the Memoir. Some of them (Weather, Photos, Bluetooth toggle, Voice recognition) are quite handy and well made, while others (Browser, Search, Telenav) are just shortcuts to applications on the phone.

The Hardware:

The Memoir is a nice solid handset, and feels good in the hand and in the pocket. It’s also a fairly nice looking handset, if you don’t mind the thickness. The camera lens adds a good bit of heft to the overall package, so know that it is a bit of a tubber.

I’m usually not a fan of resistive touchscreens, and while the Memoir doesn’t completely convert me, it does do a fairly good job of showing me they’re not all bad. Once you fall back into the habit of pressing a bit harder and ignoring the friction on your finger whilst dragging things to and fro, it’s perfectly accurate and responsive - but it still feels funny.

Unfortunately, there’s no 3.5 mm headset jack. Sorry, Samsung - it’s 2009, requiring a dongle to plug in my own ear buds is no longer acceptable. If a dongle is required, you might as well strip out all of the media features; after the first week the dongle will have slipped away onto the subway floor or fallen beneath the driver’s seat to be forgotten, rendering the media stuff practically useless.

The accelerometer is nice and hasty - while typing texts, the device will switch orientations in about half a second. No cheezy fade in/fade out transition is required here to make the switch seem faster.

The Browser:

Yet another place where TouchWiz seems stuck in some unnecessary middle ground. Samsung’s browser is better than that of most feature phones, but falls short of everything we’d expect of a touchscreen browser. Pages render strangely more often than not, and the user interface takes up at least 30% of the screen real estate.

The Memoir’s lack of WiFi is especially noticeable in the browser - even more so if you don’t live in an area where T-Mobile has rolled out 3G which, for the time being, is fairly probable. T-Mobile’s 3G network is growing regularly, but until it hits a level of reach on par with the networks of competing carriers, every phone they sell intended to be used for browsing needs WiFi.

The Camera:

As the first 8-megapixel camera phone to hit the US shores by way of a carrier, the camera is obviously a big selling point here. For a camera phone, it’s a damned decent camera - but it won’t replace your traditional point-and-shoot which, with the $249 price tag (after rebates and contact), many will expect it to.

Noise isn’t especially bad in either high or low light shots - but it’s noticeable in both. Low light shots are very muddled. Therein lies the glaring flaw in touting megapixels as the sole indicator of a camera’s worth; the pictures the Memoir takes are plenty big (resolution wise) - but aren’t particularly amazing looking outside of brightly lit environments. Now, the photo quality is still better than the very, very vast majority of camera phones - by leaps and bounds, in fact - but it’s still a camera phone.

All that said, the camera interface is dead simple - probably one of the best we’ve seen on a cameraphone thus far.

Photo Quality Samples:

Clockwise from top left : Fluorescent lighting (Auto White Balance), Fluorescent lighting (White balance set to Fluorescent), High light, Low light. Click each image for the full res version.

Video Quality Sample here. Recorded at 320×240 (Max res is 720×480), Auto white balance, Highest video quality setting.

Pros:

• Nice looking hardware
• Easy to use, responsive touchscreen.
• User interface is clean and easy to use throughout
• Best cameraphone pictures we’ve seen yet

Cons:

• No WiFi. On T-Mobile’s limited 3G network, it needs WiFi
• Crummy browser
• No 3.5mm headset jack
• $249 bucks for a not-smartphone

The bottom line:

The Memoir suffers from a bit of an identity crisis. It’s not a feature phone, but it’s not a smartphone. Perhaps a market for such a middle-of-the-road phone exists - but we’ve yet to see it.

The biggest selling point here is the 8-megapixel camera, which just doesn’t justify the $249 price tag to us in a world filled with far more capable phones coming in at $199 or less. If they’d strapped Android, S60v5, or Windows Mobile on this thing, we’d recommend it in a heart beat - but being that it’s just plain TouchWiz, we’re not too sure. It does a whole lot, but it doesn’t do much of it well.

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Ballmer: Windows Mobile 7 in 2010

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed on a conference call yesterday that Window Mobile 7 indeed won’t be here until next year. Although Ballmer didn’t give an exact date, it’s thought that the OS will be sent to manufacturers in November of this year and will show up in consumer devices by April of next year as previously reported.

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

Amazing Cargo Cult Mac Pro Mini

This fantastic Hackintosh has 2GB of RAM, Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and WiFi. Created by modder Widefault, it cost very little to build and occupies a similar footprint to the Mac Mini.

I bought an Aaeon Gene 9310 on Ebay for a ridiculous price. ... I'm running the ATA drive because 1.) I had it, and 2.) the board has a 44 pin IDE header on board. This means I could power the drive right from the board, no extra cables. It does have two SATA connectors, BUT the board has no power output on board. I'd have to find a power source on the board to tap and make a cable to go to the drive. Right now I have one 44 pin cable from board to drive that carries data and power. Less cable clutter than running seperate SATA data and power cables. Honestly, the only way I'd consider going to an SATA drive is if I found a deal on an SSD.

Only has a VGA output. There is an adapter board to add DVI, but it would also add $125 to my cost. Not worth it to me.

No optical drive. Some sacrifices need to be made to keep the size down, and that was the one this time. I have a couple USB CD/DVDs so it's not much concern. I load most software off the network, anyway.

Have to ask... how many USB ports?

Completed Project: Hackintosh, Jr. Widefault [via Technabob]

The shocking truth about Kindle

Sounds fishy to me.

Five More Crazy Bike Mods

Photo Credit: TheThompsonFive/Flickr

Pub Bike

One of the reasons I ride a bike is so that I can roll back from the pub and not lose my drivers license (although in Germany, oddly, you can lose your car license for being drunk in charge of a bike).

This monster takes it slightly further, putting the pub on the bike. The PedalPub holds 16 people, although only ten of them have to pedal while the others relax. The original is Dutch, but we picked up on the Minnesota version as it was pointed out to us in the comments and also because it highlights an interesting Minnesota law.

According to the PedalPub site, Minnesota State law was amended to allow passengers to drink while pedaling. Here's the exception:

a vehicle that is operated for commercial purposes in a manner similar to a bicycle as defined in section 169.01, subdivision 51, with five or more passengers who provide pedal power to the drive train of the vehicle

Product page [PedalPub] 

The Poppa Chop

Far too dangerous looking to be practical, the Popa Chop is a chopper built to wheelie. Made by Gadget Lab reader Macbaen, the bike balances on the back wheels of two kids' cycles. As you can imagine, its almost impossible to steer. In fact, it ended up "attracted to the tree across the street".

Poppa Chop [Macbaenchunk]

The Schloooong Bike

This ridiculous example of bike hacking is brought to you by the Rat Patrol. It's classed as a Limo Bike, but lacks any frills. The stretch-cycle is, as you'd expect, dangerous -- under the listing for Most Memorable Ride we find the following: "Ones where critical bits didn't fall off!"

Sadly, the Schlooooong Bike is out of action -- it was actually stolen, presumably by someone with a sense of humor.

Schlooooong Bike [Rat Patrol]

The Aquaduct

Not a homemade mod, but fantastic nonetheless. The Aquaduct is designed for developing countries where water is both far away and dirty. You cycle the empty bike to the well or river, load it up and, on the return journey the water is pumped by pedal-power through a carbon filter and ends up in the top tank.

The design is still a concept (we first covered it a year ago, but if there's anything we know about the developing world is that the people are very inventive hardware hackers. Hopefully somebody will build their own.

Aquaduct blog [Aquaduct]

Water Bike Pitches Pedal Powered Purification [Gadget Lab]

Sport Utility Bicycle

Here's another ute, this time fashioned from two bike frames and one shopping cart. Don't overload it, though. The maker, called TheThompsonFive, tells us how it rides:

Yeah it's heavy, but it rides pretty good. The only problem I'm having is that the basket has quite a bit of flex in it, which is a little unsettling going around bumpy turns. I may have to work out some cross bracing. I wonder if they will let me take it into the supermarket.

Photo credit: TheThompsonFive/Flickr

Linux in a wall-wart

In fact, prongs and ports are all you'll see on this tiny device, which has 512MB of RAM, a 1.2GHz ARM CPU and a $100 price tag. What is it good for? Anything! It comes with an SDK. Well, nearly anything: it doesn't have video-out.

The tiny embedded PC also includes gigabit Ethernet and USB 2.0 ports. Marvell did not release precise dimensions for the platform, but one early product based on the design is listed as measuring 4.0 x 2.5 x 2.0 inches. Plugging directly into a standard wall socket, the Plug Computer draws less than five watts under normal operation, compared to 25-100 watts for a PC being used as a home server, claims Marvell.

$100 Linux wall-wart launches [Linux Devices via Make]

New Tech Turns up Best Sperm

iFixit rips up a Kindle 2

Others have already spotted the unused SIM card space. I can exclusively reveal, however, that I think those chips might be big enough to run Doom.

Kindle 2 First Look [iFixit]

Critters Hitch Ride to Martian Moon, and Back

5 GeekDad Tips for Improving Your Pinewood Derby Car's Speed

Toxin Levels May Be Falling Among Americans

Wildfires Could Be a Force Against Climate Change