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Facebook courting Twitter lovers (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:05 pm I Love You TooSource: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 1:34 pm Obama To Reverse Bush Limits On Stem Cell WorkAn anonymous reader sends this quote from the Associated Press: "Reversing an eight-year-old limit on potentially life-saving science, President Barack Obama plans to lift restrictions Monday on taxpayer-funded research using embryonic stem cells. ... Under President George W. Bush, taxpayer money for that research was limited to a small number of stem cell lines that were created before Aug. 9, 2001, lines that in many cases had some drawbacks that limited their potential usability. But hundreds more of such lines — groups of cells that can continue to propagate in lab dishes — have been created since then, ones that scientists say are healthier, better suited to creating treatments for people rather than doing basic laboratory science. Work didn't stop. Indeed, it advanced enough that this summer, the private Geron Corp. will begin the world's first study of a treatment using human embryonic stem cells, in people who recently suffered a spinal cord injury. Nor does Obama's change fund creation of new lines. But it means that scientists who until now have had to rely on private donations to work with these newer stem cell lines can apply for government money for the research, just like they do for studies of gene therapy or other treatment approaches."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Mar 2009 | 1:18 pm Weekly Wrapup: New Facebook Homepages, Kindle for iPhone, DEMO Smarter Web, And More...In this edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our newsletter summarising the top stories of the week, we look into Facebook's homepages, check out Yahoo's answer to Facebook Connect, review the new iPhone version...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm Silly Shirts for Charity - Stella McCartney Designs Clothing for Red Nose Day (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The stars you see in the gallery above are all modeling shirts from Stella McCartneys designs created for Red Nose Day on March 13. Red Nose Day is an initiative backed by charitable...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 12:19 pm Twitter To Start Serving Local News To Users?Germany's Der Spiegel published an interview with Twitter CEO Evan Williams yesterday on its website, and Williams had a couple of interesting things to say. You can find a poorly Google-translated version...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 12:16 pm Twitter To Start Serving Local News To Users?
But Williams did share something worth noting at the end of the interview. When asked about possible future features for Twitter, he reportedly said that one of the things being considered is an extension that lets people know what’s happening in their immediate vicinity. That would basically mean that Twitter could actively ping users about local events that are going on in their neighborhood, in real-time, based on the location they’ve indicated. As an example, Williams says users could be alerted to the fact a fire is burning a few streets away from where the user Twitter knows (or thinks) they are.
It’s not clear of this feature is under development or merely in idea stage right now, but rarely does anyone from Twitter give so much insight on the startup’s plans for the future in terms of product features, so we’re inclined to believe it’s coming sooner rather than later. Some questions arise. How frequently would Twitter ping users on local news? In what form (replies, direct messages, SMS, …)? How personalized would this be (what constitutes news for you may not mean the same to your neighbor)? And if it’s only about alerting people in case of emergencies, like the example Williams cites, who would be the one to determine when and why it’s worth sending warning messages out to users? Would they be possibly opening such a feature up to the authorities (police, fire fighters, etc.) so they could be the ones alerting users about potential risks in their vicinity themselves? Last but not least, could this be an indication of their impending revenue model? If you think about it, location-based marketing messages would fit right into all of the above, for better or worse. (Hat tip to TechCrunch blogger Serkan Toto) Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 7 Mar 2009 | 12:16 pm The Worm Returns: Protecting Yourself From Conficker - TechNewsWorld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Mar 2009 | 12:14 pm Apple's new firmware enables remote disk sharing on wireless base ... - TG Daily
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Mar 2009 | 12:05 pm 37 Innovations in Bamboo Plants - From Eco-Fiber Fashion to Sustainably-Produced Helmets (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) Bamboo plants are most admirable. Theyre strong, prolific and hardy. Bamboo wood is every bit as appropriate for helmets and houses as it is for comfortable clothing and whisper-soft...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:59 am Obama To Reverse Bush Stem Cell PolicyImage Caption: A colony of embryonic stem cells, from the H9 cell line (NIH code: WA09). Viewed at 10X with Carl Zeiss Axiovert scope. Courtesy WikipediaSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:57 am UPDATE 3-BNP, Belgium revise Fortis carve-up deal again(Adds Fortis comment on vote, shareholder, lawyer reaction)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:51 am Eco-Friendly Cosmetic Wipes - Kaia Bamboo Facial Cleansing Cloths Nourish Naturally (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) When it comes to cleaning your face on the go, nothing beats the simplicity of a cosmetic wipe. Unfortunately, these single-use disposables arent the most eco-friendly way to clean...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:39 am Thought-Propelled Wheelchairs - Milan Lab Creates Transport Controlled by Brain Signals(TrendHunter.com) With a skullcap on his head connected to a computer and electrodes, Bernardo Dal Seno moved around in a wheelchair using only his mind, claimed researchers from Italy. According to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 11:19 am Giant Interactive TV Remotes - World's Largest Remote Control Made From DDR Mats (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) This is one remote that youll never misplace--its simply too big to lose! Billed as the worlds largest remote, its a homemade device cleverly made from two PlayStation 2 Dance Dance...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 10:59 am Guerrilla Craigslist Parodies - Cryptic Text Art From Craig Pop Ups Around Melbourne (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Somethings afoot in Melbourne, and a guy named Craig is behind it all. These typewritten faux Craigslist ads are popping up all around Melbourne and feature witty, if lengthy, appeals,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 10:39 am Mashup Convention Cosplay - WonderCon 2009's Motley Costumed Crew (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) While it isnt close to the size of Comic-Con, its little sister WonderCon continues to grow, and you can run into an almost limitless number of interesting costumed fans wherever you...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 10:19 am Game Developers Becoming Similar To Hollywood Studios?CNet is running an article that looks at the growing parallels between the major movie studios and some of the most successful game publishers, which have gradually turned into the juggernauts of the industry as they've absorbed a variety of smaller developers in recent years. "If we consider Hollywood — the model to which the video game industry is always compared — it doesn't take long before we realize that it's dominated by a handful of studios that effectively control a large percentage of the industry, while the independent studios are left trying to defy the percentages and get their innovative and artistic films to the masses. Since most fail, it's the big studios that enjoy profits as the independents try to find some way to stay alive." Gamasutra has a related piece suggesting the opposite trend: "Smaller, less expensive games made by smaller, more agile teams seem like a very logical step, now that the industry structure is better able to support it, with no less than three venues on which to distribute content as a small team. These are downloadable console, direct to consumer PC downloads via Steam-like services, portals, or direct sale, and iPhone and potentially DSi downloads."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Mar 2009 | 10:16 am Windows 7 may allow Internet Explorer removal - VNUNet.com
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Mar 2009 | 9:23 am Microsoft's new system easier for browser switch (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Mar 2009 | 9:15 am Google Privacy Blunder Shares Your Docs Without Permission
In an apparent privacy error that underscores some of the biggest problems surrounding cloud-based services, we’re hearing that Google has sent a notice to a number of users of its Document and Spreadsheets products stating that it may have inadvertently shared some of their documents with contacts who were never granted access to them. According to the notice, this sharing was limited to people “with whom you, or a collaborator with sharing rights, had previously shared a document” - a vague statement that sounds like it could add up to quite a few people. The notice states that only text documents and presentations are affected, not spreadsheets, and provides links to each of the user’s documents that may have been affected. I’ve contacted Google for confirmation and haven’t heard back, but this seems to be legit - our tipster says that he had previously shared the document listed in his notice, but now it has been reset to show 0 collaborators (one of the precautionary measures mentioned in the note). At this point the relatively few Tweets around the letter seems to indicate that the error is not particularly widespread, but it’s still a major and unsettling lapse in security. Update: an affected user posted his story and the exchange he had with Google support over the issue on Slashdot. Here’s the letter in full:
In short, this is a massive blunder on Google’s part. I fully appreciate the lengths Google has gone to to offer a wide array of helpful online services, many of which are free of charge. But this error highlights why cloud-based services scare many people. Regardless of what a site’s posted rules and policies are, a technical glitch is all it takes to expose your sensitive data. Thanks to Ed McManus for the tip. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 7 Mar 2009 | 9:01 am Motorola: Worst Week?Section: Business News
Good news, everyone: Motorola’s co-CEOs have declined to take their bonus for 2008. On the surface, that sounds like a great thing; Motorola can use that money to help the company out. However, in reality, the bonuses were mainly from stock awards, which would be virtually worthless considering Motorola’s current stock price. The bad news: Motorola had to shut down one of its plants in China and let go about 5000 employees. This should be another good cost-cutting measure for Moto. And it is going to need that money to pay its legal fees because Motorola is being sued by its former CFO for retaliatory discharge (usually this refers to a firing in response to an employee acting in the public interest). If his allegations are true, and Moto is firing people who are looking out for the public interest, it is time to be afraid of who they are keeping around. That is just one week of Moto news from this year. Who knows what will happen next week? My predictions for next week: 1. The Moto RAZR will have a huge product recall due to the phones melting after being exposed to air; 2. Moto will be sued for trademark infringment by Warner Bros. for using a bat-styled logo too similar to that of the Batman, and 3. There will be an outrage by the remaining employees when they are told that they will be charged an “existence fee” for the privilege of being on Moto property - a plan actually secretly meant to get people to voluntarily quit. If none of these happen next week, it wil be a good week for Moto. On the other hand, if any one of the three happen, I am heading to Vegas. Read: [CEOs turn down bonuses] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 Mar 2009 | 7:33 am fMRI humor ar ar arHere's some brain-scanning humor from the University of Western Ontario's Psych department site:9. While pouring syrup on your Eggo waffles, you note that you missed a few voxels.Top Ten Signs You've Been Scanning Too Much (via Beyond the Beyond Source: Boing Boing | 7 Mar 2009 | 7:17 am NASA's Kepler Telescope Launched SuccessfullyIddo Genuth writes "At precisely 10:49 p.m. EST, NASA's 'Kepler' telescope was successfully kicked off into space, embarking on a mission that the agency says 'may fundamentally change humanity's view of itself.' The telescope will search the nearby region of our galaxy for the first time looking for Earth-size planets, which orbit stars at distances where temperatures permit liquid water to endure on their surface — a region often referred to as the 'habitable' zone."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Mar 2009 | 7:15 am Anatomical armchairs The message of these lovely anatomical armchairs seems to be, "Tain't no sin, to take off your skin and laze around in your guts."
Flow armchair by AK-LH
(via Cribcandy) NASA's Kepler Mission Rockets to Space in Search of Other EarthsCAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., March 7 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Kepler mission successfully launched into space from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:55 am Tonnes of elephant tusks smuggled into Vietnam: reportsVietnam customs officials have uncovered up to five tonnes of elephant tusks smuggled in from Tanzania, state media said Saturday. The tusks were found Friday hidden in around 114 boxes...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:39 am Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne Engine Launches Planet-Hunting SpacecraftCANOGA PARK, Calif., March 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In the first planet-hunting mission of its kind, Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne boosted NASA's Kepler spacecraft into...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:28 am NASA planet hunter rockets into spaceNASA's planet-hunting telescope, Kepler, rocketed into space Friday night on a historic voyage to track down other Earths in a faraway patch of the Milky Way galaxy. It's the first...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:01 am Elevator Pitch Friday: Valu Valu Uses A Scientific Pricing Model To Sell GamesThis week’s elevator pitch comes from Valu Valu, an online marketplace for video games whose prices are based on dynamic scientific pricing, creating the optimal price for both the seller and the buyer. The pitch was concise and outlined the service the the site is delivering well, but didn’t tell us how Valu Valu will make money. After doing a little bit of research, we discovered that Valu Valu charges a 5 percent transaction fee on the total purchases (there’s no transaction fee charged to “local” transactions). The site currently features video games but plans to expand to other markets in the future. Founded by ex-Microsoft techies Emmanuel Marot and Bruno Botvinik, Valu Valu uses a proprietary scientific pricing algorithm that continuously optimizes prices based on market conditions, a.k.a. supply and demand, so that buyers are happy with prices of goods (and thus will make purchases) and sellers make more money. The seller’s price is determined automatically, giving sellers limited control of the price of their goods. Other online marketplaces, like Ebay or Craigslist, allow the seller to determine the price of the item being sold. But Valu Valu’s method saves sellers’ time by establishing a set price, and cuts out haggling or auctioning time. Of course, Valu Valu will face competition in game sales from popular online retailers like Amazon.com and GameStop’s EB Games. I did a side by side price comparison of the “James Bond 007: Quantum of Solace” game for Playstation 3 between Valu Valu and Amazon. Amazon’s price for a new game came in $10 lower than Valu Valu’s estimate for a brand-new game. The Valu Valu’s product that was actually being sold was “just like new” (which sounds like a nice way of saying used), but even Amazon’s used Bond game were selling more than $10 lower once again. Valu Valu just launched the beta version in February, so hopefully the start-up will be able to attract more users in the future. I think Valu Valu may be on to something. It seems like an innovative technology that needs to be tinkered with a bit more. Here’s a screenshot:  Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 Source: TechCrunch | 7 Mar 2009 | 6:00 am ShopSavvy gets location aware - Find better deals nearbySection: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile
A lot of barcode scanner applications are out there with varying degrees of success. I’ve played with ShopSavvy and have been impressed by its speed. The Big in Japan guys have added plenty of features to make their application distinct like a stealth mode, Twitter integration, and now this location aware feature. Skyhook also recently paired up with Texas Instruments to make its chips more location aware. To find out how exactly Skyhook works, check out Appletell’s great explanation. Company Site: [Big in Japan] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:56 am Aerojet Engines Assist NASA in Quest to Discover Habitable PlanetsSACRAMENTO, Calif., March 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Aerojet, a GenCorp (NYSE: GY) company, announced today that NASA's Kepler mission was launched aboard the ULA Delta II...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:34 am Blood substitute may slow cancer spreadAn experimental blood substitute shows promise in reducing the spread of pancreatic cancer in early clinical trials, U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:26 am Hydrogen sulfide may boost erectionsU.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:14 am Shaming Russia Into Action On Cyber Crimekrebsatwpost writes "The Washington Post ran a piece earlier this week that confronts the myth that cyber criminal gangs in Russia and Eastern Europe avoid attacking their own, pointing to numerous examples of late that counter this common misconception. The story draws on data from Team Cyrmu about distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS) that target Russian and E. European organizations, intel from McAfee about Russian banks and federal agencies that appear to be under control over cyber gangs there, and tens of gigabytes of data stolen via keyloggers that disproportionately impact Russian systems, including that of a top Gazprom official. The piece begins: 'If you ask security experts why more cyber criminals aren't brought to justice, the answer you will probably hear is that US authorities simply aren't getting the cooperation they need from law enforcement officials in Russia and other Eastern European nations, where some of the world's most active cyber criminal gangs are thought to operate with impunity. But I wonder whether authorities in those countries would be any more willing to pursue cyber crooks in their own countries if they were forced to confront just how deeply those groups have penetrated key government and private computer networks in those regions?'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:14 am Siftables: another way to make kids smarter than usMIT graduate student David Merrill was inspired by building blocks to design computerized blocks called Siftables. They are interactive computers each the size of a cookie and can sense each other and their motion. “Each Siftable has a color OLED screen, four infrared communication modules - one in each direction in the horizontal plane - a 3-axis accelerometer, and a Bluetooth radio,” Merrill explained. The Siftables have many applications including language, math, and logic games for kids. The video demoes the Siftable Music Sequencer where each Siftable represents an instrument or music feature. Merrill did not suggest how much these will cost when they end up manufacturing them. Ideally the Siftables should be sold in sets so they can interact with each other. Considering the impressive technology that goes into the Siftables, they won’t be cheap. If you want updates, here’s the Siftables site.
[via Ars Technica] Source: CrunchGear | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:01 am Video: 'Watchmen' Photographer Snaps Superheroic StillsStill photographer Clay Enos discusses his 106 days on the Watchmen set, and how he helped manufacture some of the artifacts seen in the film.Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Mar 2009 | 5:00 am Microsoft's new system easier for browser switchNEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp is developing a feature in its new operating system that allows users to turn off Internet Explorer and other key Microsoft programs.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Mar 2009 | 4:44 am World to face water shortage by 2025More than 25,000 conservationists and international policy makers are preparing to meet in Istanbul this month to discuss world water challenges. The International Union for Conservation of Nature says two-thirds of the world's population will face water shortages by 2025. Policy makersSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 4:44 am Zebrafish offer glimpse of heart diseaseResearchers in California are using young zebrafish to study the effects of excess cholesterol on arteries. Young zebrafish are transparent, allowing scientists at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine to view the development of plaques in blood vessels, the university reported.Source: Gizmodo | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:30 am Symantec Support Gone Rogue?DigitalDame2 writes "PCMag Security Analyst Neil Rubenking has always praised Symantec's tech support. Lately, though, a number of readers have reported problems with chat support, so he investigated. Rubenking was trying to install Norton 360 version 3.0 on a malware-infested system when the computer crashed with a blue screen error. He connected with Symantec tech support and was told that they could fix the problem, but for a fee of $100! (Here is the transcript and screen-captures of the chat.) Even more, Symantec support suggested that he use a malware-removal tool that wasn't even made by Symantec."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:12 am NASA's Kepler rocket launchesNASA's Kepler spacecraft launched Friday evening from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on a mission to find new planets. The spacecraft is mounted on a United Launch Alliance Delta II rocket.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:10 am Problem solver concept: the 16943 televisionSection: Video, HDTV, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle  Sure, television is going digital eventually, but that doesn’t mean that all content will be in the 16:9 aspect ratio. If you have a 16:9 television, you’ve surely noticed pillar bars on 4:3 content. If you’ve got a 4:3 television, you’ve probably noticed letterboxing of movies and some newer television programs. Sure, you could zoom or stretch the image, but then everyone looks strange and out or proportion on your television. Studio FRST has an interesting take on the whole thing called 16943. Maybe the current design for televisions is broken. Take a look at this asymmetrical design. When either 4:3 or 16:9 content is on this screen, you will not notice bars on each side of the screen. You’ll only have a bar on one side of the screen. A practical concern is the fact that television manufacturers try to get the most out of their glass used on their screens. If you’ve noticed 16-inch and 22-inch screens in laptops, it is partially due to the fact that more screens can be produced at these sizes out of larger pieces of glass. Perhaps, a designer can come up with an array that uses the glass efficiently. It’s a pretty cool design that you’d expect to see in Bang & Olufsen before too long. However, keep in mind this is only a concept at this point and may never see the light of day. Read: [Yanko Design] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:10 am Lead found in ancient potteryEarthenware pots containing lead were found in the Iron Age layer of Iran's Kelardasht Mound, researchers said. Mehdi Mousavi, head of the research team, said a metal ring found in the earthenware was nearly 95 percent lead, Iran's Fars news agency reported Thursday.Source: Gizmodo | 7 Mar 2009 | 3:00 am craigslist CEO Mystified by Actions of Cook County SheriffCites Record of Cooperation with Illinois Law Enforcement SAN FRANCISCO, March 6 /PRNewswire/ -- "Frankly, Sheriff Dart's actions mystify me," says craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster, referencing the private civil suit filed against the online service yesterday by the Cook County (Illinois) Sheriff. Buckmaster explained that "in mid and late 2007 we had very positive communications with the Cook County Sheriff's Department, in which we explained how "erotic services" came to be, the purposes it is intended to serve, and the statutes that support our right to operate as we do. "Since then, we have not only initiated multiple new measures to further reduce misuse of our website by anyone intending criminal activity, we also reached an agreement with 40 state attorneys-general, including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, about an enforcement plan designed to protect the public from those who would misuse our site." And yet, inexplicably, Sheriff Dart apparently bypassed the Illinois Attorney General's office, and filed this complaint through a private law firm. "As our counsel explained to Sheriff Dart's Department in 2007, craigslist cannot be held liable as a matter of clear federal law for content submitted to the site by our users." Buckmaster pledged to defend vigorously the lawsuit brought by the Sheriff. Buckmaster further pledged craigslist's continuing commitment to helping law enforcement officers nationwide locate and rescue victims and put criminals in jail.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:59 am Some Indie Facebook Developers Pulling In Over $700,000 A Month
The mass media may be enamored of the rags-to-riches stories of developers on Apple’s App Store, but it isn’t the only game in town for indie developers to strike it rich. We’ve gotten word from SocialMedia, a popular ad platform for social network applications, that one of the company’s clients pulled in over $700,000 in advertising revenues from their Facebook apps in December alone. Granted, this was spread over 30+ of the client’s applications, but the company only consists of a handful of (very prolific) developers. While SocialMedia declined to name the company in question, it confirmed that it was not one of the large social application developers like Playfish, SGN, and Zynga who have raised large funding rounds and have been rumored to pull in over $1 million a month. The news reaffirms Facebook’s position alongside the iPhone as a place to get rich quick (at least for a lucky few). SocialMedia also notes that it has several other independent clients who are making over $100,000 a month. Of course, such results are uncommon, but no more so than they are on the App Store. Also worth noting is that these revenues are entirely based on advertising, while most of the success stories we’ve heard on the App Store have been from premium apps. Facebook isn’t likely to unveil its own premium apps any time soon, but if it ever gets around to launching the payment platform it announced last year, these success stories will probably become far more common. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:30 am Craigslist to sheriff: Federal law protects site - CNET News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:22 am Hulu Brushes Off Boxee, And Boxee Comes Back For More [MediaMemo]
And Boxee, a startup that makes it easy for you to plug your computer into your TV so you can watch Web video, doesn’t care. Got it? Here’s where we’re at: Early this morning, Boxee rolled out a workaround which let Boxee users watch Hulu shows again, which they haven’t been able to do since last month, when Hulu pulled its shows off Boxee’s browser. Late this afternoon, Hulu squelched that workaround. And as of now (8:51pm eastern), CEO Avner Ronen tells me, his team has made another series of tweaks that will let you watch Hulu shows on Boxee yet again. Ronen says he’s not quite sure about the technical details, but argues that his service has every right to let you watch Hulu on your television, since Hulu is a free Web service that anyone (in the U.S. can access). But he is sorry that he’s now playing cat-and-mouse with Hulu, a joint venture between GE’s NBC (GE) and News Corp.’s Fox (NWS). “It’s not a very productive way to spend our time,” Ronen says. Confused? There’s more background here and here. But the important takeaway is that Hulu — or more accurately, Hulu’s TV progammer owners — are signaling to their partners — the big cable companies — that they’re willing to pull back on Web access to their shows. And Boxee, which has $4 million in financing from Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital, is signalling that it’s willing to dig in and fight. Source: Gizmodo | 7 Mar 2009 | 2:00 am Obama to drop stem cell research curbPresident Barack Obama plans to reverse former President George W. Bush's policy limiting U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Mar 2009 | 1:47 am Microsoft to let PC users turn off IE Web browser
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 ITProPortal | Microsoft Recruiting For Windows 7 Small Biz Blitzkrieg ChannelWeb By Kevin McLaughlin, ChannelWeb Microsoft wants small businesses that have avoided Windows Vista like the plague to upgrade to Windows 7, and the software giant is enlisting the aid of its small business-focused solution providers to help make that ... Vista-downgrade lawsuit revised; Microsoft now accused of price ... Windows 7 a tough sell on netbooks? No kidding! |
Someday someone somewhere somehow will invent a pair of noise canceling headphones that do three things: 1. Deliver top quality audio. 2.) Cut out ambient noise perfectly. 3.) Cost under a hundred bucks. Senior editor Dylan Tweney just reviewed a set of cans that fall far short of this trifecta. From his review:
To their credit these bulbous cans do a good job of silencing the traffic hum from the street below the WIRED offices, and they nicely muffle the gnashing of teeth in the newsroom around me.
But sonically, they're about as satisfying as a week-old rice cake. The sound feels clipped and flat: High-end frequencies that hum crystal-clear in better headphones are missing or muffled in the Plane Quiets. Stereo separation is not as sharply defined as I'd like, and the overall sound feels only like it's half alive.
$100 • outsidetheboxgroup.com
Read the whole Plane Quiet Platinum Headphone review here.
Section: Business News, Communications, Cellphones
Better look at the fine print of your terms of service agreement if you hold an American Express card. AMEX is changing the agreement to allow the company to call a card holder from any phone line that the person uses to ever get in touch with the company. This could mean calls on your cell phone, a friend’s phone, hotel phones, etc. They can also use this information to send out SMS messages as well.
And don’t think that AMEX will be footing the bill for these charges. Within the terms of service is the following, “You agree to pay any fees or charges you incur for incoming calls or text messages from us without reimbursement.”
This new rule could prove tricky, especially if you use a public or friend’s phone and could have your AMEX information broadcast to people you don’t want to. However, AMEX assures cardholders that they would not give out any personal information without first verifying the identity of the person. The new telephone communications rule will go into effect April 2.
Read: [Wired]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
An auto-engineering company from Germany has built a prototype car that uses OLED displays on its front and back windshields, the better to communicate with surrounding vehicles.
EDAG's 'Light Car – Open Source' car is based on the same principle used by phone manufacturers when replacing the physical buttons of their UI. That is, a display can have easily customizable inputs and can increase the surface area for dynamic media. In the case of the Light Car, the OLED screen can display road conditions and, when you tap on the brake or stop, a giant 'stop' sign will appear in the back windshield and warn the car behind.
In this first design, the glass panel OLED displays in the front of the car outline, or enhance, the area where the LED headlights blast out. In the back, a transparent tailgate is built on top of the OLED screen, as can be seen in the pictures below.
EDAG's big idea is that in the process of buying a car similar to this one, you could configure the shape of your headlights, so that the OLED effects can be created accordingly around it, on a computer. So if you're a big S.F. Giants baseball fan and you're heading to the Park to watch Barry Zito play, for example, you could plug in little digital dollar signs surrounding the headlights. Or not. That might be too cruel and distracting to drivers.
Apparently, EDAG does not intend to make the LC-OS. They want to sell or share the technology to big car manufacturers so they can be put in the streets faster, hopefully within the next two or three years.
It's true that if you're a careful driver, adding OLED displays shouldn't make that much a of a difference. After all, we've adapted to look for two fading red lights in the back of cars for years.
But this could help out people who don't see as well. In other words, people who shouldn't be driving in the first place.
Making a musical found-sound collage is hardly rare (The Books are kings of it), but when it’s all noises from ancient PCs in the UK’s National Museum of Computing, it becomes our business. Musician Pixelh8 was inspired by these humongous machines and the variety of noises they make, and is putting on a series of shows with the music he’s put together from them.
There’s lots more info here for the curious. It’s not your momma’s chiptunes, so be ready for some abrasive stuff. Not as crazy as Oval but still.
There was actually a contest a while back to make music out of the sounds of dying hard drives. Interesting results, as you might expect.
[via the Register]
Derek Bledsoe, Boing Boing Video producer, is blogging daily Boing Boing Video episodes while Xeni's on the road in Africa.
Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.
Les Claypool is a man of many dimensions. Known for gathering an eclectic mix of talented musicians from around the world, Les has fronted a number of projects including the Frog Brigade, Colonel Claypool's bucket of Bernie Brains, Sausage, and Electric Apricot.
But, when Les visited the Boing Boing Video studio, we asked him about the band he didn't get to play for. In 1986, before Primus came into fame, Claypool auditioned for a heavy metal band called Metallica after their bassist Cliff Burton was killed in a tragic bus accident.
BB Video pal Matty Kirsch got the inside scoop on all things Les: past, present, and future. Since boingers seemed pretty jived about the interview we posted earlier in the week, we thought we'd give you a little more Les love.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
San Francisco based Pure Digital Technologies, the seven year old company behind the Flip Video line of video cameras, is considering a sale of the company, multiple sources have confirmed. One interested buyer is rumored to be Cisco.
Flip cameras - dead simple and small video devices that are tailored towards users who want to upload video to the Internet - have become massively popular. One source says the company has sold more than $200 million worth of the tiny cameras in the last couple of years. Based on reviews of the recently released Flip Mino HD, we’re not surprised. The devices cost between $130 and $230 and have spawned a large group of copy cat competitors.
One potential buyer, says a source, is Cisco, which has been more active recently in acquisitions. Ned Hooper, Cisco’s chief M&A guy, is said to be actively looking to buy or invest in consumer startups that offer high-bandwith-using services. A hot startup like Flip, which is helping to fuel the explosion in user generated video (much of which makes its way online), fits in perfectly with that strategy.
The company is backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, Crescendo Ventures, Focus Ventures, Morgan Stanley, AllianceBernstein and Steamboat Ventures (the venture capital arm of the Walt Disney Company) and has raised at least $68 million in venture funding.
Update: We’re getting another source that says this “is a done deal,” that Cisco is confirmed as the buyer and that the price is “north of $500 million.” Founder and CEO Jonathan Kaplan is said to be taking around $80 million off the table personally. This hasn’t been confirmed.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 ABC News | Horses tamed in late stone age Financial Times By Clive Cookson Horses were first domesticated on the steppes of northern Kazakhstan about 5500 years ago, 1000 years earlier than believed, according to an archaeological study published in Science today. Horses first domesticated 5000 years ago Earliest domesticated horses in Kazakhstan |
Looking for a way to compost your organic waste? All you need is a bunch of worms and a plastic storage tub with a lid. How big the tub needs to be and how many worms you need depends on how much food waste you want to process per week. To give you an idea, a pound of worms can process half a pound of waste per day. You drill a few holes on the bottom and sides of the bin and follow a few more quick steps to finish the worm bin.
If you’re okay with having a box of worms in your house or apartment, it sounds like a cheap and easy way to make some high quality compost and make the world a little bit greener. If you’re worried about it stinking up your place, the guys in the video claim that it is almost odorless.
Pluto’s sullied celestial reputation has been restored. In brazen defiance of the International Astronomical Union–which famously demoted Pluto to dwarf planet in 2006–the State of Illinois this week passed a resolution restoring Pluto’s planetary status.
In Illinois, anyway. Apparently, Clyde Tombaugh, who first discovered the planet, was born on a farm there.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you haven’t heard about PlayOn, MediaMall’s PC-to-console video streaming software, you will soon. Moving to become a major player in the streaming content world, PlayOn has grabbed some huge wins lately, and it doesn’t look like they’re planning on slowing down. In a software update hitting today, PlayOn has added streaming support for Amazon’s Video on Demand service along with content from Revision3.
PlayOn is available for $40, and currently compatible with the PS3 and Xbox 360. You just install the server software on your PC, then stream the content over your network back to your console of choice. It’s well known that PlayOn is working on adding Wii compatibility, which ought to make it the dominant force in the console streaming market.
This news comes just days after the announcement that Roku has added Amazon VoD support to their $99 player, and the service has found its way to TiVo boxes and Sony Bravia TVs as well. If you’re not looking to add a new box to your AV set, PlayOn seems like a fairly solid alternative.
PlayOn has long supported Hulu, CBS.com, ESPN.com, CNN.com, YouTube, and Netflix, and these latest additions are rounding things out nicely. Next up on PlayOn’s plate is ABC.com content, for which they’re currently in talks with ABC. It’s beginning to look more and more like the average joe won’t actually need cable or an antenna in order to stay entertained in their living room.
We’ve just started putting PlayOn through the paces, but we like what we see so far - if you want to check it out for yourself, a 2 week trial is available at their site.
[via Audioholics]
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
If you haven’t heard about PlayOn, MediaMall’s PC-to-console video streaming software, you will soon. Moving to become a major player in the streaming content world, PlayOn has grabbed some major wins lately, and it doesn’t look like they’re planning on slowing down. In a software update hitting today, PlayOn has added streaming support for Amazon’s Video on Demand service along with content from Revision3.
PlayOn is available for $40, and currently compatible with the PS3 and Xbox 360. You just install the server software on your PC, then stream the content over your network back to your console of choice. It’s well known that PlayOn is working on adding Wii compatibility, which ought to make it the dominant force in the console streaming market.
This news comes just days after the announcement that Roku has added Amazon VoD support to their $99 player, and the service has found its way to TiVo boxes and Sony Bravia TVs as well. It’s quickly becoming a must-have feature for anything that plugs in to your TV and has a net connection. If you’ve already got a compatible console and aren’t looking to add a new box to your AV set, PlayOn seems like a fairly solid alternative.
PlayOn has long supported Hulu, CBS.com, ESPN.com, CNN.com, YouTube, and Netflix, and these latest additions are rounding things out nicely. Next up on PlayOn’s plate is ABC.com content, for which they’re currently in talks with ABC. It’s beginning to look more and more like the average joe won’t actually need cable or an antenna in order to stay entertained in their living room.
We’ve just started putting PlayOn through the paces, but we like what we see so far - if you want to check it out for yourself, a 2 week trial is available at their site.
[via Audioholics]
Like a plus-sized dress on a skinny runway model, Windows just doesn't fit when it's loaded on a netbook.
So entrepreneurs are taking a page from the fashion industry playbook, and creating new operating systems that are tailored exclusively to fit the smaller, less powerful and inexpensive netbooks.
At least four new operating systems are in the works, all promising to offer a better experience to users struggling with tiny Windows icons on their 10-inch laptops.
"This is an OS built for the Facebook generation," says Tariq Krim, founder of JoliCloud, a new OS being created exclusively for netbooks. "People have their lives on the net now and they want an OS that understands that."
JoliCloud is one of several efforts to create a netbook-optimized operating system. Another startup, Good OS, is planning a browser-centric netbook operating system it calls Cloud OS. Intel is spearheading an open source project called Moblin that aims to create a netbook OS based on a Linux kernel, while offering related software development tools. And while details are sketchy, MSI, a market leader in netbooks, has created a new operating system called Winki aimed at mobile internet devices.
Amid a slowdown in PC sales, netbooks are popular among budget-conscious consumers, with nearly 15 million devices sold worldwide last year. Sales this year are expected to double, says ABI Research. Almost 90 percent of netbooks sold by Acer and Toshiba run Windows XP (the newer Windows Vista is too resource-intensive to run on these underpowered machines). Dell says one in three of its netbooks carries a Linux flavor such as Ubuntu.
But existing operating systems don't take into account the netbook's quirks, say the developers of the new OSes. A netbook is much smaller than a laptop, which means a smaller screen size. That's why the user interface becomes the most pressing issue. Makers of the new OSes hope to create something more appropriate to netbooks' small, 8- to 10-inch screens and their puny keyboards.
"XP uses a lot of tiny icons that are scattered on the startup screen," says Phil Solis, an analyst with ABI Research. "With a different OS you can reimagine the way your computer looks and reacts to your needs."
Netbooks are also used for different tasks than traditional desktop and notebook PCs -- mainly web surfing, e-mail and chat. In short, they are used more like mobile phones, says JoliCloud's Krim. "I have been a Linux evangelist for a long time and I love the interface of the iPhone," he says. "So I thought, why don't we have a perfect mix of both?"
JoliCloud's OS will offer iPhone-like icons to navigate. It plans to offer a custom browser, and the entire OS will be built on a Linux kernel, says Krim. The icon-based interface also makes it easier to support touch screens.
Apart from the interface, these new OSes should better serve users who are increasingly living "in the cloud."
Creating a system for users who live, work and play online has driven the development of Cloud OS, says David Liu, founder and CEO of Good OS. For these users, their word processor is Google Docs, their e-mail is Gmail, and their phone service is provided by Skype. For such users, the browser isn't just an application -- it's a lifeline.
That's why Cloud OS will have a small Linux kernel at is core and will offer a browser screen on startup, says Liu. "The idea is to make the browser the starting point for the user," he says. "It fits well with the internet heavy usage pattern of netbook users."
The rise of netbooks offers one of the best opportunities in more than two decades to challenge Microsoft's near-monopolistic dominance of the operating system business.
But Microsoft isn't taking the threat lying down. The company is hoping to establish its dominance in the category with the upcoming Windows 7. Windows 7 will be optimized for netbooks and could even come in a lightweight edition for smaller devices, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in a recent interview. The Windows 7 Starter edition will be offered for less powerful machines, such as netbooks, and will be able to run only three applications at a time.
Ultimately, whether netbook-optimized OSes live or die will depend on PC makers. Although Good OS and JoliCloud plan to distribute their software online, the key to success in the operating system market is getting your product pre-installed.
Their one hope might be PC makers' need to differentiate cheap netbooks from ostensibly similar, higher-priced notebooks. Netbooks, priced at an average of $400, offer much lower margins to companies than their bigger, more expensive counterparts, says Paul Moore, senior product director at Fujitsu Computer Systems.
Netbooks with well-tailored OSes could help companies build greater differentiation into their products. Often consumers are disappointed with their netbooks because they expect similar experience and performance from these cheap ultraportable machines as they do from their heftier notebooks, just because the two run the same operating system, says ABI Research's Solis. Putting a different interface on the netbook might help signal its different purposes.
It's an argument that plays well with former netbook user Kaan Yigit, president of SRG Solutions Research Group. Excited by all the buzz around netbooks, Yigit bought a Asus Eee PC with a Windows XP operating system earlier this year. "It looked extremely attractive online and offline and I thought, 'Let me try small form factor,'" he says.
Barely days into using the machine, Yigit found the keyboard too cramped and the XP user interface grating. "You couldn't do anything with it that you could do with a standard XP machine," he says. Using the small trackpad on the keyboard to maneuver through XP icons required great dexterity for even the simplest tasks, says Yigit.
Six weeks later, frustrated with the challenges, Yigit gave the netbook away to a colleague at work. "Design of everything, including the OS, has to follow the users needs and the form factor of the device," says Yigit. "Old school XP in a tiny machine does not work."
It's that call to entrepreneurship that upstarts JoliCloud, Moblin and Cloud OS hope to answer.
Photo: JoliCloud OS Interface
Craigslist, the online classifieds juggernaut, has run afoul of authorities once again, over the ads in its adult section. On Thursday, the sheriff in Cook County, Ill., called the site the “largest source of prostitution in America,” and filed a civil lawsuit to get Craigslist’s “erotic services” section shut down.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart announces at a news conference that he has filed suit in U.S. District Court against Craigslist, accusing the site of knowingly promoting and facilitating prostitution.
Said Sheriff Thomas Dart at a news conference: “They’ve actually catered their site so it facilitates (prostitution), where you can actually and more specifically and quickly get to what you want.” He continued: “How is that different than somebody who’s aggressively and actively working with a pimp to try to get the word out about the women working for him?”
Craigslist, in a blog post by chief executive Jim Buckmaster, said that it doesn’t tolerate illegal activity on the site and has taken steps to stop it.
 CrunchGear | Apple ready with second beta of Mac OS X "Juno" Apple Insider By Kasper Jade Users still facing software issues while running the most current version of Mac OS X Leopard may take kindly to word that Mac OS X 10.5.7 is moving swiftly through its development cycle. Who needs Steve Jobs, anyway? May or June? WWDC '09 speculation is off and running |
Section: Communications, Computers, Wireless, Gadgets / Other, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack
This week’s list is dedicated to the march of technology that continues to screw me over. I’ll show you the things I’ve finally coughed up actual cash for only to have the gadgets eclipsed and rendered obsolete by updates. Faster, cheaper, better; these attributes are only available on the product they are waiting to release right after you buy the previous generation. Grrrrr. I hate you tech companies!
My list of things they are updating right after I bought mine:
Yes, I finally shelled out for the iPhone. My touch lasted me a year, then I decided it was time to get off the Wi-Fi crack pipe and get rid of the WinMo Samsung BlackJack. So, I march down to AT&T and pony up. Then whammo - Apple signals an event at the end of this month. No doubt they’ll be talking about a new iPhone. Damn you, Apple.
Possibly the greatest invention since carpet skates, this card flings my pictures from my camera to my computer and to Picasa as fast as I can take them. I love that. I finally bought one, thanks to Robert’s post on their deal with Evernote. I thought I was so smart, outlasting their pricing scheme for early adopters.
Then ooof, they I read Natesh’s post on how the company is now going to offer up a new card that will fling videos, too. I take lots of videos and feel like a cave man taking the SD card out now to get the videos off. Thanks a lot Eye-Fi.
I just installed a 500GB Buffalo external drive and feeling pretty good about the security blanket feeling that comes with that much space. Then, Iyaz points out this Western Digital 8TB drive. Whoa! That is like me showing off my cool new Smart car only to see it crushed by Iyaz in his heaving monster truck.
I know 1TB SDXC cards are coming. I take solace in the fact that those shelling out $1,700 for the 8TB must be hiding risque photos.
Technically, I’ve not bought one, but I’ve bought into the idea. I’ve been using the Stanza app for the iPhone for a bit but am now mid way through The Count of Monte Cristo (spoiler alert: it is not about a sandwich) and am loving it. Besides being free, it can catch up on all those great novels I Cliff Noted during high school and college. Sweet!
Now I’ve got tons more options. Sue Walsh’s post tells us about the Amazon Kindle app for the iPhone while Iyaz yammers on about a touch-Kindle. Many many choices that could put libraries out of business. With e-ink just around the corner, this is only going to become a more crowded marketplace. I can’t wait.
I am sucker for flat-packed minimalist designed furniture spit out by Ikea. I was pleased with my new coffee table as it met my two criteria: black and wood-like. Seems I had the question wrong as Sue Walsh ruined my day by telling me I could have crammed in a HTPC. A smart-table blows doors on just one that holds my drinks and feet.
Yes, some lucky fool figured he could one up me and pack his computer into an end table no less, clearly a show-boater. Now I sit and stare at my coffee table, asking it fruitless questions like, “what widgets can you run?“ and “I don’t hear your disc spinning, are you ok?“ Stupid thing.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
WaTunes, a service that helps independent artists get their music into online music stores like iTunes and Amazon, has announced that it is making its service entirely free. The move is a direct attack on competitors like TuneCore, which also helps independent artists distribute their music but charges fees depending on the number of songs being sold and the number of stores the artist would like to sell their tracks on.
In the company’s blog post on the new pricing scheme (or lack thereof) CEO Kevin Rivers writes:
We’ve went from being free to be charged, to giving 90% of sales, to giving back all the sales earnings. We’ve finally can say that we have raise the bar even higher by providing you guys an ABSOLUTE digital distribution service. As of now, WaTunes will enable it’s customers to continue to sell unlimited music, earn 100% of the royalties, and more, ALL FOR FREE! There are no fees, cancellations, no gimmicks.
So now that the company is giving up its entire source of revenue, how is it planning to make money? I spoke with CEO Kevin Rivers, who explains that the site is moving towards launching a music-based social network with rich music widgets and a community of fans and artists (it sounds like it will compete against sites like MySpace Music). Users will also be able to buy songs through an online storefront, with advertising as the primary source of revenue. The move to make WaTune’s distribution service free is designed to attract a variety of independent artists to the music social network, which he says will launch around June.
While this seems like a great deal for artists, it also sounds a little too good to be true. There are already many online music communities, and even if WaTunes does begin to distribute music for a large number of artists, I still don’t see how they’ll be able to convert them into new users on their music portal. That said, free is free, so I doubt WaTunes will have any trouble attracting new artists for the time being.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Would you pay $10 for an entire offline copy of Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia of information that you can get on the Web for free? WikiPock, a Paris-based startup, has compressed the entire English language version of Wikipedia to under 4 gigabytes (not including images), and is selling it for mobile phones. The other language versions are smaller (it also comes in German, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish).
The application lets you search and read Wikipedia articles on your mobile phone without an Internet connection. It can be downloaded directly, or on its own microSD card. For $15, you can download updates, but only for a year. The first 30 people to send an email to tc[at]wikipock[dot]com will get a free copy. It is available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones right now, and will soon be available for the iPhone, Android, and Symbian phones.
Would you pay $10 for an entire offline copy of Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia of information that you can get on the Web for free? WikiPock, a Paris-based startup, has compressed the entire English language version of Wikipedia to under 4 gigabytes (not including images), and is selling it for mobile phones. The other language versions are smaller (it also comes in German, French, Polish, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish).
The application lets you search and read Wikipedia articles on your mobile phone without an Internet connection. It can be downloaded directly, or on its own microSD card. For $15, you can download updates, but only for a year. The first 30 people to send an email to tc[at]wikipock[dot]com will get a free copy. It is available for Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones right now, and will soon be available for the iPhone, Android, and Symbian phones.
Since all of these phones can access Wikipedia via their browsers, what you are paying for is offline access, a mobile-friendly format, and fast search. Consumers seem more willing to pay for mobile apps, even when the same information is free on the Web (witness the success of paid apps in iTunes). And at least WikiPock is giving back to the Wikipedia community. Ten percent of all sales will be donated to the Wikimedia Foundation.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Jeff Simmermon says:
I've been performing at The Moth, a spoken word/storytelling non-profit with arms in NYC and LA. Essentially, folks perform a 5-minute story (without reading or notes) based on a theme. It's rated like figure-skating -- with teams of judges awarding scores like "9.5" or "8.0". They have the second-largest podcast on iTunes right now, too.So anyway -- in 2003, I met a woman online. She was from Western Australia, I was living in Richmond, VA. I ended up selling all my stuff and flying over there to meet her in person. Here's the story.
Another grim report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics today shows the job market slipping closer still to the grim levels it reached in 1982. The country lost 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the national unemployment rate to 8.1 percent, the Bureau said Friday (see chart below). That’s its highest rate in 25 years.
Sad to say, things are even worse in technology’s heartland, Silicon Valley. The unemployment rate there reached 9.3 percent in January. And given today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report, it’s likely to have gotten worse. “If the January unemployment numbers resemble a horror movie, then I fear the sequels that will be released in February and March, as they will probably be even more frightening,” Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, told The Mercury News. “The message we hear loud and clear [from CEOs] is that it is bad, and sadly, only getting worse.”
Hold up, LaCie has something here. The iamaKey flash drive is actually novel and worth your time. I like it.
Flash drives were always something almost disposable. When you purchased one, you just kind of knew that it would eventually be lost. Or if you happened to use the keychain hole, the bulky, plastic casing would be damaged and ultimately be a pain in the ass. This LaCie flash drive shows promise though; it has already earned a spot on my key ring.
This little flash drive is surprising tough. It’s made out of stamped metal with a flat type USB connector. I dare say it can hold up to the type of punishment keys are put through. It might get dinged up but all that matters is that if the USB connector holds up.
My totally real world test using Windows 7 to monitor data speeds saw transfer rates around 10MB/s meaning this 4GB flash drive isn’t the quickest on the block. Honestly though, I would rather have a tough as nails flash drive than a lightning fast drive made out of plastic.
Obviously, this flash drive is all about convenience. It slips right onto the key ring and looks right at home. Depending on the weight of your keys however, you probably wouldn’t want to leave this plugged in unsupported as it might damage the USB port if it’s just hanging in the wind.
According to the press release that was included on the flash drive, these are available right now starting at $9.99 but I can’t find ‘em on LaCie’s website. It will probably be available shortly though.
Plenty more photos here.
Alvin also let me know about two brand new very-limited hand-made book releases from BP:
Swipe File, by Charles Burns.
and
New Character Parade #2 by Johnny Ryan.
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Mar 2009 | 9:52 pm
BB pal Steven "Invention of Air" Johnson sez, "thought you might want to link to the pretty funny interview I did on Colbert last night, including an excellent little exchange about an imaginary Founder Father named Robert Cornhole who should really have a Wikipedia page."
AP - As Google Inc.'s stock price plunged along with the rest of the market this week, the Internet search leader's employees were set up for a bigger windfall down the road.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Irene sez, "A user nicknamed 'hadopi' put up the whole French Internet for sale on eBay (starting price: 0.01 Euro), in a humorous stunt against the new Internet legislation project debated in the French parliament. This project is named by its acronym, HADOPI, and it contains the same kind of provisions as the one defeated recently in New Zealand."
Réseau internet français contrôlé, idéal pour industrie,
Mirror
(Thanks, Irene!)
Hey everyone, you know what day it is? Friday! Hurray! But not just any Friday, mind you. It’s Follow Friday! Okay, fine. Every Friday is Follow Friday in Twitterland, so it technically is just another Friday - but work with me here. Each Follow Friday, you’re supposed to recommend people on Twitter that are worth following, so as to spread the love and bring about world peace or something like that. Our Follow Friday recommendation: The CrunchGear staff! Want to get a regular dose of insight on your favorite CG writer’s life? Want to know what we had for breakfast? Read on to find out how!
Oh, and you can follow the main CrunchGear account while you’re at it, I guess. Or you could just read the actual site. Or the RSS feed. Or subscribe to CrunchGear Magazine*!
* does not exist.
Shot and rendered in Kansas City. (Well, Lee's Summit.) It's a love story, as well as a piece about the tools that regular users will use to composite photographs.
Section: Business News, Web, Web 2.0, Online Music/Video
Joost was one of the pioneers in online video. First they started off as a software download that allowed you to watch all kinds of content. They reinvented themselves by becoming a web app and dropping the software download requirement.
Now, Joost is working with a social network to give their users the ability to watch video. So who are they working with? MySpace? Facebook? Friendster? Nope. Joost is working with Netlog. While Netlog may not be a big name in the U.S., it has over 40 million users in Europe.
So what does this mean? It looks like Joost isn’t about to just roll over and die. This kind of partnership could be a testing ground for Joost. If it proves successful, look for Joost to try to duplicate this kind of deal with other social networks.
Read: [ContentAgenda]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Hey, kids! Happy Friday! Aren’t you excited for the weekend? I know I am! Because it’s a slooooow news day, we thought we’d liven things up a bit with a contest. On Tuesday, March 10th, Comedy Central and Paramount are releasing the 12th season of South Park on Blu-ray and DVD. And we happen to have one copy of it on Blu-ray and two copies on DVD that we want to give to you. Hit the jump to find out how.
A good majority of the CG staff is on Twitter and we want you all to start following us. It boosts our egos and makes us feel important. Over the course of the weekend one of us will spout off a quote from South Park and the first to @ us will snag one of three copies. You can @ us with whatever you want, but just be sure to include “South Park” and “Blu-ray” or “DVD” so we know which one you want. Pretty easy, right?
Update: There's one other way you can win, folks. Give us your best impression of any South Park character by leaving a video comment using Seesmic.
Web design startup AType Studios has launched the private beta of Ohpan, a free personalized side-scrolling interactive ticker feed featuring breaking news, pictures, web links, blog posts, the weather, and tidbits of information. The first 1000 TechCrunch readers to enter the code “TCRUNCH” when prompted here will be able to join the private beta.
Ohpan’s technology is enabled by learning about what communities, sources, and topics users like through their actions on the site (like clicking, saving and forwarding comments). Ohpan will also ask users questions to determine what news should be subscribed to a feed. For example, if a user answers “Yes” to a “Do you use twitter?” question, more Twitter news will be published to the user’s feed. Ohpan then combs through thousands of RSS feeds to find news items and then individualizes the news ticker to the users preferences.
Upon accessing the site, Ohpan lets users link to Facebook or Gmail accounts or sign up as a guest. When a user clicks on a news item, Ohpan gives the user a snapshot of the article or news, showing the source and images associated with the item. The user can “star” the article to save this item and show more like it in the ticker, “strike” the item to limit similar items, “flag” the item as cautionary, or “publish” the item to add to the user’s collection that can be seen by contacts via Facebook. Ohpan also allows users to create a feed featuring items they have composed.
The technology (a proprietary Atype algorithm) picks up on the user’s tastes pretty quickly. And there’s always a need for personalized real-time news. But the value of a ticker (at least on the TV) is having it scroll at the bottom of a screen while a user is viewing other content. Its a little annoying to keep switching between tabs to look at the scroll. Perhaps a widget of the ticker would be a more useful tool, especially if it could also be easily embedded in a social network or stand alone website. Ohpan is also planning to launch an iPhone application in the next few weeks.
Ohpan has some innovative plans for the future, including the ability to score ads as one would news items. According to the founder of Atype, Simon Plashkes, ads will be subject to the same scoring system that other content is and if users overwhelmingly strike an ad, it will be removed from the site. Ohpan is also looking to possibly integrate with user’s Google Reader feeds. Users would be able to forward a Reader item into their feed interface.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
You just know that Steve Jobs is pretty upset with Nvidia right now. Reports are popping up detailing video problems currently being suffered by the new 17-inch MacBook Pro. It seems that, for some people, whenever the 9600M is turned on the screen displays all sorts of nasty tearing and color deformities. That picture up there shows the extent to the damage.
Right now, there’s a few work-arounds. One, switching to the less powerful 9400M seems to eliminate the problem. Too bad the whole point of buying a MacBook Pro is so that you benefit from the power of the discrete 9600M; trying playing WoW using the 9400M! Two, you can restart the computer, which seems to temporarily fix the issue. Of course, a temporary work-around isn’t exactly optimal, nor is is something you should have to do after having shelled out nearly $3,000.
So far, no one knows exactly what’s going on here. Is this a truly widespread problem, or did just a few users win the Unlucky Lottery? (History says this could well be a widespread problem.) If it is a proper problem, who’s to blame, Apple or Nvidia?
And what’s all this I hear about Macs being rock-solid or whatever? It’d be nice to know that buying a premium laptop—I think it’s fair to call the 17-inch MacBook Pro a premium laptop—would preclude you from having to deal with such glitches.
via GIZMODO
With admonitions like “If you like your fingers and hands … you will always wear something like … thick gloves when you’re handling large magnets” and “these are in the body part crushing category”, you know Super Magnet Man is dealing with really powerful magnets. Neodymium magnets are the strongest rare-earth magnets around, and Super Magnet Man sells them to you in a variety of shapes and sizes. What can you do with them? Who knows! But who wouldn’t swoon when presented with a neodymium wedding ring?
You can buy the N50 wedding ring magnet for a paltry $15. I don’t know if I could handle having my hand yanked out of my pocket as I walk past anything ferromagnetic.
Via Boing Boing.
Can’t get enough of Jon Stewart’s CNBC rant from earlier this week? CBS hopes not: It had Stewart on David Letterman’s show last night, and was lucky enough to get “The Daily Show” host to riff on the topic yet again.
And kudos to CBS (CBS) for getting the bit on Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, where it will get in front of many more eyeballs than the network’s own sites alone. And double kudos for allowing the likes of us to embed the clip, so we can promote the show for them (see, music dudes?).
Truth in advertising: The CNBC stuff only comprises a couple seconds of this clip. But what the heck–the whole thing is barely a couple minutes long. It’s the end of a long week. You can spare the time.
"$200 for a bottle of Canadian Club?" asked Ian. I was packing up most of my stuff to leave Brooklyn. I wasn't leaving for Eugene for two more weeks, but I didn't want to wait until the last second. "Who drinks Canadian Club?"
"It's a Mad Men thing, I think." The blended whisky had been moving back up the ranks of acceptable drinks ever since Don Draper, the last style icon we'd had in a while, had sipped a few in an early episode. Or at least I thought that's what he did. It'd been a while since I'd watched Don boss his secretary around.
Ian turned up his nose, which was silly. Canadian Club, the regular old stuff you can get for twenty bucks or so, really isn't bad stuff. Too much vanilla overtone for my taste, but not bad for a blend of corn, barley, and rye mashes. I think Ian just doesn't like it because he's from Detroit—okay, well, Ann Arbor, but he wears chains like he used to hang out with the goths at City Club—and after Hiram Walker moved his distillery to Windsor, Ontario, the proud people of Rock City can't stand to think that CC is quality stuff. Or something. I'm not from Detroit.
Canadian Club actually used to be quite a premium drink, due in large part to Walker's decision to age each bottle for five years, unlike other whiskies and bourbons around the turn of the century, which might only spend a few months in oak barrels before getting slipped onto the backs of burros and shipped off to the tipple and julip foundries of the East. But the last couple of decades found blended whiskies relegated to the slop trough, hiding behind sour mix, colas, or deep within cocktails, while the single-barrel stuff gets the attention. Which is fine—I'm not going to argue that single-barrel whiskies aren't great—but as a bourbon drinker, I'm happy to offer up the suggestion that there aren't profound differences between a decent blended whisky and something that is milked from a single nipple of an oak-and-brass spider idol. Yes, yes, the subtlety—I get it. And the smoothness. Sure. (Which, as someone who drinks their whisky neat, I find a peculiar quality over which to stumble. We are sipping straight booze, after all. Buck up.)
I'm in Eugene now, and I've started sipping from this bottle of Canadian Club 30-Year Reserve. It's noon and the sun is starting to shine. The dog sleeps on his bed in a parallelogram of sunlight. I need to get to my point before I blow through the rest of this day—and the bottle, which is nearly gone already.
What I'm trying to say here is that Canadian Club is alright. I actually had a bottle of the standard six-year sitting in the bar in Brooklyn to use as a control versus this 30-year bottle, one of 3,000 released by Canadian Club to celebrate their 150th anniversary. They're clearly the same stuff, still light on the tongue, not too oily, very little oak, with a bit more vanilla sweetness than I think makes sense, but still pleasant enough to let stand on its own, perhaps broken up my a single ice cube if you want to make it suitable for lawn work. The 30-year, though, has been transmuted by that peculiar alchemy made popular by Hiram himself; it's very much the same whisky, but it's so smooth that what alcohol burns the throat is almost an afterthought, a slow suck on a cough drop opposed to the full snort of Vap-o-rub.
Too bad I don't really care about smoothness.
It's inarguably a nice drink, though, as my nearly empty bottle testifies. Paying $200 for a blended whisky is still probably a bit silly, but if you're a dedicated Canadian Club drinker already, it might be worth a splurge to sample what your drink of choice would taste like with another two-and-a-half decades of contemplation. For everyone else—and god knows we're choosing booze on price these days—I'd stick with the six-year. It'll get you farther than a fifth of the way to the same experience.
I was originally going to write this booze up for my friends at Cocktalians, but then I never ended up making any cocktails out of it. So do me a favor and go check their site out.
I'm about to reconstitute my homebrewing setup here in Eugene, so expect more posts about that here on BBG, too.
And if you're a booze distributor, homebrew suppleir, distiller, or importer, and you'd like to give me free liquor to drink and maybe even write about on the site, shoot me an email and I'll give you my address. It's a rough job...
Hey, kids! Happy Friday! Aren’t you excited for the weekend? I know I am! Because it’s a slooooow news day, we thought we’d liven things up a bit with a contest. On Tuesday, March 10th, Comedy Central and Paramount are releasing the 12th season of South Park on Blu-ray and DVD. And we happen to have one copy of it on Blu-ray and two copies on DVD that we want to give to you. Hit the jump to find out how.
A good majority of the CG staff is on Twitter and we want you all to start following us. It boosts our egos and makes us feel important. Over the course of the weekend one of us will spout off a quote from South Park or ask a question about the show and the first to @ us will snag one of three copies. You can @ us with whatever you want, but just be sure to include “South Park” and “Blu-ray” or “DVD” so we know which one you want. Pretty easy, right?
Update: There’s one other way you can win, folks. Give us your best impression of any South Park character by leaving a video comment using Seesmic.
Now start following us:
CrunchGear
John Biggs
Peter Ha
Doug Aamoth
Nicholas Deleon
Matt Burns
Greg Kumparak
Dave Freeman
Scott Merrill
Serkan Toto
And don’t forget to check out South Park Studios for all sorts of hilarity. Oh, the 12th season of the South Park includes the following goodies:
* “Six Days to South Park: A Day-by-Day Making of the ‘Super Fun Time’ episode of ‘South Park’”
* “Making Boobage: behind-the-scenes footage and interviews of the people who made ‘Major Boobage’” happen
* A behind-the-scenes look at “About Last Night” (available in HD on the Blu-ray version)
* The ever-popular “commentary-minis” by co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone
In January, when Hearst said it would either turn the Seattle Post-Intelligencer into an online-only newspaper or pull the plug altogether, I said they’d do the latter.
I got that one wrong. Hearst is getting ready to launch a Web version of the paper while shutting down the print version as early as next week, the PI reports.
But Hearst seems to agree with my dubious assessment of a Web-only paper’s chances. Which is why it’s preparing to go ahead with just a handful of the paper’s existing staffers.
The PI says perhaps 20 will stay on at the digital version. It’s possible that number may get bigger once you factor in folks from the business side. But it’s still going to be a tiny crew: The PI currently employs some 180 people.
And I think that number might still be too big: Last time I checked, the PI was attracting some 2.6 million unique visitors a month. That’s basically the size of a decent-sized professional blog, which would perhaps have a dozen employees at most–and would also be selling ads to a national audience.
Meanwhile no one has figured out how to generate advertising at any scale from local advertisers. And Seattle’s online dollars that are available have plenty of suitors. Among them the still-extant Seattle Times daily and The Stranger, the city’s well-established alternative weekly.
Again, it looks as if Hearst has diminished expectations here, too. Check out the pay package it offered a prospective hire, via the PI:
“He said the offer increased his health insurance cost, cut his salary by an unspecified amount, offered to match his 401(k) contributions, required him to forgo his P-I severance pay, reduced his vacation accrual to zero and required him to give up overtime.”
But hey, better a lousy job than no job at all, right? Not according the PI reporter cited above. He says he turned down Hearst’s offer.
I hope you join us at BlogTalkRadio for our first Make: Talk call-in show. The call-in number is: (646) 915-8698
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Mar 2009 | 7:57 pm
Investors holding shares in foundering satellite radio outfit Sirius XM just received a bit of welcome news. The company has closed its investment deal with Liberty Media. “We are excited to have closed the second and final phase of our investment agreement with Liberty Media,” Sirius CEO Mel Karmazin said in a statement. “It is an example of the confidence our that lenders and Liberty have in our business model. These transactions resolve all of the uncertainty surrounding the company’s and its subsidiaries’ debt maturing in 2009.”
Good thing too, because that uncertainty was pretty worrisome. Buried in the company’s recent Notification of Late Filing with the SEC, along with the now standard warning about the souring economy’s effect on business, was this little disclosure:
Management has not yet completed its evaluation as to whether substantial doubt exists relative to the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern for a reasonable period of time. A significant element of that evaluation relates to uncertainties associated with funding of amounts stipulated in the aforementioned Investment Agreements. These uncertainties may not be resolved by the time the Company files its Form 10-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In the event such uncertainties remain unresolved, management anticipates that KPMG LLP’s auditors’ report relative to the Company’s 2008 consolidated financial statements will contain an explanatory paragraph indicating substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.
In addition to resulting in termination of further funding pursuant to the Investment Agreements, the inclusion of such a paragraph by KPMG LLP would result in a default under certain indebtedness of the Company, XM Holdings and XM Satellite Radio Inc. (“XM Inc.”) which defaults, if not cured or waived prior to the expiration of the applicable grace period, would result in an event of default under other indebtedness of the Company, XM Holdings and XM Inc. Such events of default, if they occur, provide the lenders the right to demand all amounts due under the respective agreements immediately due and payable.
What this means is that if KPMG’s assessment of the company is that it’s not able to continue as a “going concern” and the company had not at that time resolved its debt issues, it would automatically default. Presumably, now that Sirius (SIRI) has closed the Liberty (LINTA) deal, that’s no longer a possibility. Looming crisis averted.
Going, going, gone. Circuit City stores nationwide will turn off their lights forever on Sunday as the electronics retailer finally goes out of business.
The move comes nearly four months after the chain filed for bankruptcy in November. In January, the second largest electronics retailer in the U.S. said it will close all stores and has had liquidation sales in a bid to get rid of its merchandise.
For gadget heads, reports say there are not too many deals left. Except for some giant Plasma TVs and store furniture, most stores seems to be picked over.
Still don't forget to keep a moment's silence on Sunday midnight. Circuit City, RIP.
Photo: (akent/Flickr)
For the solar industry, there is good news and bad news about the demand picture.
In 2009, Citigroup’s (C) Timothy Arcuri observes in a research note today, global demand is likely to sink to 5 GW, from 5.3 GW in 2008. But driven by a growing pipeline of utility-scale projects and aided by government stimulus programs, he thinks the total will jump up to 7.6 GW in 2010 and 9.6 GW in 2011. But Arcuri cautions that at the moment there is about 4 GW of product in the supply chain, or about 10-12 months of current demand. He says production cuts are still not keeping up with inventory build, and contends that long-term polysilicon and wafer supply agreements are preventing a more efficient response from suppliers.
Next week ministers from around the world gather in Vienna to set international drug policy for the next decade. Like first-world-war generals, many will claim that all that is needed is more of the same. In fact the war on drugs has been a disaster, creating failed states in the developing world even as addiction has flourished in the rich world. By any sensible measure, this 100-year struggle has been illiberal, murderous and pointless. That is why The Economist continues to believe that the least bad policy is to legalise drugs.
“Least bad” does not mean good. Legalisation, though clearly better for producer countries, would bring (different) risks to consumer countries. As we outline below, many vulnerable drug-takers would suffer. But in our view, more would gain.
Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Mar 2009 | 7:25 pm
Barbara Demick of The LA Times reports on Sun Yaoting, China's last living eunuch (Left, standing with his biographer, Jia Yinghua).
In 1911 when he was eight years old, his father castrated him with a razor in preparation of "an imperial life of riches." It didn't qute work out as his father had hoped.
After the Communists came to power in 1949, Sun and other surviving eunuchs were despised as freakish symbols of the feudal past. He was nearly killed during the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s, and his siblings were so fearful of persecution that they threw away his bao, or treasure: the severed genitals that eunuchs kept pickled in a jar so they could be buried as complete men.It was not until the final years of his life that Sun was recognized as a rare living repository of history. A biography based on hours of interviews in the years before his death in 1996 was recently translated into English. The book arrives as a museum dedicated to eunuchs, built around the tomb of a 16th century eunuch, is undergoing a major expansion. It is scheduled to reopen in May.
Circuit City is powering down for the last time. With its shelves nearly empty after weeks of liquidation sales, the bankrupt consumer electronics chain will shutter its remaining stores on March 8. That’s a bit earlier than originally planned. Said a representative for the Great American Group, which has been overseeing the chain’s going-out-of-business sales: “Consumers reacted to the top-quality product that they had, and the prices we were able to sell it at, and we’re basically running out of inventory a week early.”
Pity that in the end, the only things able to draw crowds to Circuit City were its liquidation sales.
The Clear WiMax wireless broadband connectivity service from ClearWire has been available only in Portland and Baltimore so far but the company has some big expansion plans up its sleeve.
ClearWire plans to extend its WiMAX service to about 80 cities nationwide by the end of 2010. WiMAX subscribers will get a 3G/4G modem, says the company, but its not a home run yet for Clearwire. Rival Nokia is ramping up its efforts to introduce WiMAX competitor LTE to U.S. users.
Nokia will focus on LTE (Long Term Evolution) as its preferred network and plans to launch devices for those networks in 2010, says James Harper, senior manager of technology marketing at Nokia according to GigaOm. “WiMAX has some place in the market but we do believe it’s a niche play,” says Harper.
Both WiMax and LTE are 4G technologies. WiMax is based on IEEE standards while LTE is supported by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project) group. The biggest difference from the telecom carrier perspective between the two standards is how they will be deployed. WiMAX requires a new network to be built whereas LTE is an evolution of existing WCDMA/HSPA networks.
The upgrade to LTE makes it a more natural choice for many telecom carriers and that's what Nokia is counting on. MetroPCS has already said it will support LTE. MetroPCS plans to launch a smartphone in the second or third quarter says Tom Keys, chief operating officer for the company.
That's not good news for Clearwire. Clearwire is backed by Comcast, Intel, Time Warner Cable, Google and Bright House Networks, which together have invested $3.2 billion in the company. Clearwire's open all-IP network can provide users with average download speeds initially of 2-4 megabits per second and peak rates that are considerably faster, says the company.
But without enough support from device makers and other telecom carriers, Sprint which combined its 4G assets with Clearwire may find itself in the minority.
See also:
ClearWire Posts Fourth Quarter Results
ClearWire Brings its WiMAX Service to Portland
Photo: (Intel CES 2008/Flickr)
Section: Computers, Desktops, Netbooks, Trade Shows, CeBIT
I’m starting to think maybe Gadgetell should get into the netbook business. Why not? It seems everyone else is doing it. Granted, all those companies have experience in manufacturing computers or components prior to getting into the netbook arena, but it can’t be that hard. Just get some Intel Atom chips, some motherboards, a bunch of 1 GB RAM sticks, throw in a small 1.8” HDD or SSD and put it all in a 10” screen-sized shell. Or we could just leave that to OCZ, the memory manufacturer who just announced it’s releasing a netbook with up to 250GB HDD or SSD, which is actually a bit impressive.
The real news with OCZ at CeBIT isn’t its new Ubuntu or XP LED backlit “Neutrino” netbook, it’s actually its 1TB SSD. Before you get too excited, you should know that OCZ isn’t ready to talk anything about release or pricing for the drive yet. But, there’s no reason to drool over the specs of the thing. The SSD is called the Z drive, and connects via PCIe with a hardware based RAID controller and 256 local cache. Oh yeah, it also has a read speed of 600Mbps and a write speed of 500Mbps. So yeah, pretty fast for a 1TB SSD.
The reason why OCZ is just showing it off at the moment is because the company is trying to find a way to cool the drive. I suppose it runs too hot to be used normally, and requires an entirely different way of cooling, or it just needs to be tweaked a bit. Either way, a 1TB SSD? Sign me up for that.
Read [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) shares came roaring out of the box this morning, after Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter this morning upped his rating on the videogame publisher to Buy from Hold, while maintaining his $10 price target.
Pachter concedes that the call could be early given cautious guidance from the company, but he thinks the forecast is already in the share price. And he thinks the current level disregards a potential new version of Grand Theft Auto in the October 2010 fiscal year.
AP - "Resident Evil 5" producer Jun Takeuchi wants to clear up some misconceptions about his upcoming entry into the popular zombie-killing franchise: It's definitely as scary as its predecessors, players can't run while gunning down foes, and there's nothing racist about the video game, which takes place in a fictional West African country.
Long before the launch of Apple’s official App Store, Jay Freeman (otherwise known as Saurik) unleashed Cydia, an open repository of third-party applications for jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches. If you knew the right server addresses (or “Sources”), you could get just about anything. Sure, some folks use it for getting around that whole “paying for stuff” thing - but for most users, its primary use is the distribution of applications that Apple won’t allow in their store. It’s the only way to get recording or streaming video apps (Cycorder and Qik, respectively) or tethering apps (PDANet) onto your iPhone, for example. The only snag: if developers want to sell their application, they have to handle payments themselves. But that’s about to change.
Some time today, Saurik will be pushing an update to Cydia that adds a simple billing process, called Cydia Store, to the mix. If an app developer wants to make a bit of change from their jailbroken app, Cydia will handle the transaction process. According to the WSJ, Cydia’s cut will be no larger than Apple’s. Also mentioned in the article are RockYourPhone, currently invite-only, and an unnamed store planning on peddling goods of a more X-rated variety.
I’ve bought.. er, I mean, I know a dude who has bought a few apps found on Cydia, and the payment processing methods were cumbersome - not to mention a bit shady. Anything that makes things more straight forward is a welcome change. Well, at least we think it is; Apple probably won’t agree.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Watch the new trailer in HD (or less!) here.
Step right up, ladies and gentleman! Test your strength and potentially break the hell out of your iPhone!
Carnival Hammer is a new game for the iPhone that simulates.. well, a carnival hammer. You know, that game where you smash a little pad with an awkwardly weighted hammer to try and impress your lady friend with your smash-a-little-pad-with-an-awkwardly-weighted-hammer skills?
It’s a cute idea, and the game looks like it was designed well - but look, iPhone developers. Remember all that nonsense when the Wii first came out where people who sucked at holding onto things were flinging the Wiimotes into their TV sets? Nintendo had to double up the strength of their wriststrap - but that wasn’t enough, so they wrapped the remotes in a pillow. The iPhone doesn’t have a hole for a wrist strap, and people probably aren’t going to wrap their iPhones up in big padded jackets. Making use of the accelerometer is great, but any game that promotes people thrusting the iPhone through the air as hard as they can is probably a bad idea.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to work out so that I can thrust my iPhone through the air as hard as I can when the game launches in the App Store on 3/20/09.
[via NoWhereElse]
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Tech companies are getting sued for patent infringement regularly, but this recent case of patent litigation might mean serious trouble for HTC, at least in Germany. Munich-based IPCom, which is not your usual insignificant patent troll, says the Taiwanese company is infringing its patents (IPCom doesn't have a website).
Section: Business News
It was only a matter of time, we all knew the final days for Circuit City were getting close, but the end is now upon us. They have just announced that March 8 will be their final day, which means that if you were holding out to that very last minute to try and score a good deal then you are at that time. You cannot wait much longer.
Circuit City originally began these going out-of-business sales back on January 17 at all of their 567 locations. Since then some stores have already closed due to depleted merchandise. Strangely enough, it seems that the lack of customers that forced them into closing actually turned around and has caused them to sell out and close faster. According to Scott Carpenter, executive vice president, director of operations, for Great American Group;
“Thanks to record shopper turnout at many of the store locations and the attractive discounts offered on all merchandise, the sales actually went quicker than we expected,”
Talk about irony. Sad, sad times, of course I must admit that I rarely shopped there myself. I do have some sympathy for all those employees that will wake up unemployed Monday though.
Read [Business Wire]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
"If you lose your eye and have a hole in your head, then why not stick a camera in there?" asked Rob Spence back in December 2008.
Since then, the one-eyed Canadian filmmaker has been working on his Eyeborg project and building a camera to stuff in his socket. He now has a prototype of the wireless cam, which he eventually plans to use to record his every waking moment. Except visits to the bathroom.
The picture shown is the newest model, shown by Spence at a conference in Brussels yesterday. Spence also posted a new video yesterday, The Two Week Trial, which we have posted below. If you don't like seeing goopy eyeballs being dug out of heads while you're eating lunch, don't watch it while you're eating lunch.
Newnewnenenwnenenwnewnew [Eyeborg Blog]
Filmmaker plans "Eyeborg" eye-socket camera [Reuters]
Eye Spy: Filmmaker Plans to Install Camera in His Eye Socket [Gadget Lab]
I can but echo Wired's pre-emptive review: "Yummy."
This image is apparently somewhere atFeckless via unicornology and Cellar Door via kmlog via tweexcore via Noquedan via Gadget Lab. If anyone knows where it really comes from, do get in touch.
You know the beautiful thing: June 29, 2009, is the two- year anniversary of the first shipment of the iPhone. Not one of those people will still be using an iPhone a month later.
Them’s fightin’ words, and they remind us of some similar bravado from Palm CEO Ed Colligan back in 2006, before the iPhone wiped the floor with every single competitor: Colligan, on rumors of an iPhone:
We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.
Oh, Ed! What did you say? We’re not sure why people insist on doing this — they’re just setting themselves up for even more ridicule in the future. And lest you say I’m just poking fun, here are a few things that McNamee has failed to consider, at least in this interview.
First, Apple has a cachet that Palm does not. Many, many companies have made MP3 players with more and sometimes better features than the iPod. None of them succeeded. Not even Microsoft with its deep pockets and the rather good Zune.
Second, June/July is indeed the second anniversary of the original iPhone. It is also the first anniversary of the iPhone 3G. And you can bet that it will also be the birthday of a third iPhone. Don’t get us wrong — we love the Pre and really want to see it give Apple some trouble, but if McNamee is boasting that his phone will beat out a two year old phone from Apple, he ought to be worried.
McNamee couldn’t stop:
Think about it — If you bought the first iPhone, you bought it because you wanted the coolest product on the market. Your two-year contract has just expired. Look around. Tell me what they’re going to buy.
Roger, please. These customers will have a battered, two year old iPhone, but it’s still an iPhone. Even if Apple doesn’t bust out a new model this summer, customers can upgrade to a slimmer, faster iPhone 3G.
But the most obvious thing that McNamee has forgotten is the App Store aka the first mobile application store used by normal people. The iPhone user has a hand held computer stuffed full with useful applications, none of which will run on any other platform. If they take another iPhone, they can keep them all, for nothing.
The App Store is indeed the genius behind the iPhone, itself no slouch when it comes to redefining a market. And what does the Pre have to offer? A slide out keyboard, and Bono. Good luck, Palm.
Pre to Win IPhone Users After Contracts, McNamee Says [Bloomberg via ★]
Photo: Jon Snyder
See Also:
Peek is an email-only handset for people who don't want smartphones or the top-tier data plans required to check email on them. Even massively discounted at $44, however, the Peek's $20 monthly plan held it back. However, a Costco trial of the device at $400--but with no monthly payments ever--has proved a success.
If that seems weird, consider that the $400 pays for itself in less than two years, and you get free portable email and messaging until the handset dies. Forward-thinking consumers are prepared to invest in their own decisions, and this is a good example.
Previously:
• Review: Peek puts email in your pocket and removes voices from your head
• Peek email theory
Peek finds that Costco customers greatly prefer lifetime subscriptions [Engadget]
Uysse Nardin' Chairman Cellphone has something you can't make by adding diamonds or dipping things in gold: beautiful craftsmanship. From Timezone:
Celebrated Swiss vanguard watchmaker Ulysse Nardin has partnered with the European firm, SCI Innovations, to create the world's first hybrid smart phone: the Chairman. Inherently green, this smart phone pairs cutting-edge kinetic technology with the pedigree of the 163-year-old timepiece innovator. ... While details are limited, it has been confirmed that the Chairman will be able to use any mobile phone service provider in the world and includes several components never seen before in a smart phone.It will incorporate a Ulysse Nardin designed kinetic rotor system which is blended into the mechanical and aesthetical design of the smart phone. This smart-phone is hand-assembled under the strictest guidelines mandated by Ulysse Nardin.
Pre-BASEL 2009 – Ulysse Nardin Cellphone [Timezone via Bornrich]
When I tell you that Leica is killing its manual focus R-Series camera line, many of you will say "Leica still makes a manual focus SLR?" Your surprise is justified. When I read the press release today I thought the exact same thing -- and I should know better.
Despite proudly showing the R-Series on its stand at the PMA show in Las Vegas, Leica will no longer be making either bodies or lenses. All of its efforts will instead go into the S2, the 35mm DSLR sized body with a huge 53.15mm sensor (that's the diagonal length, measured like a TV screen, and our new metric here at Gadget Lab for combatting the weasely obfuscation of sensor sizes by camera makers).
We're neither surprised nor disappointed by the move. After all, what was the point of a Leica SLR? For the price, you'd get almost nothing. Compare the R9 to Nikon's last film SLR, the F5, for instance, and you'll see that the Nikon gives a lot more gizmos for the money, and at SLR sizes, the Leica lenses just aren't that much better. Curiously, the cameras remain on Leica's site.
Leica ceases R-series production [DP Review]
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Germany’s Der Spiegel published an 
If I were Motorola this week, I’d be feeling a bit nauseated. The company took some particularly bad hits this week—hits that would take the wind out of almost anyone’s sails. Let’s give you a rundown of the fun this week at Moto.
Big in Japan added in Skyhook technology to its app, 
Just in case anyone was wondering: Hulu, the Web video service that lets you watch Fox and NBC shows on your computer, really doesn’t want you to plug that computer into your TV.
