Source: Gizmodo | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:48 am

Power On Self Test: Picnic on Aldaraan

Scarlett Rose Larson makes art from found stings and human hair. (Thanks, Eric!)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:30 am

Apple Erases Prototype iPhones from History

The 2006 iPhone prototypes we told you about yesterday? They've already been pulled from Ebay, where bidding had reached around $2000. And the YouTube video showing how they worked? Also gone.

It will be no surprise to find out that Apple was behind this -- the company has secrecy in its DNA, even when it comes to three year old test hardware. Here's what the seller told iLounge: "as many people predicted would happen, Apple has contacted eBay to close the listing."

This is a crying shame. We don't care so much about the handsets themselves, although the seller is probably less than pleased about losing $2000. What we care about is the video, a little piece of history which should really be preserved. Fortunately, Engadget rescued it, but YouTube would be better -- that way we could watch it on our iPhones.

Was this even a real software prototype? Gadget Lab reader John Thain wrote with an interesting theory and helpfully included a snippet from Fred Vogelstein's excellent article on the birth of the iPhone:

Even the iPhone's hardware and software teams were kept apart: Hardware engineers worked on circuitry that was loaded with fake software, while software engineers worked off circuit boards sitting in wooden boxes.

Could this be one of those handsets "loaded with fake software"? It makes sense. The iPhone in the picture is clearly the same iPhone that went on sale two years ago. This may explain why Apple wanted the listing pulled -- instead of showing an earlier, crappier iPhone interface, the video and photos instead show Apple's secret, internal phoney phone software.

See Also:

• Hideous iPhone Prototypes on Ebay
• The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:24 am

The First Phone Call Was 133 Years Ago

magacious writes "March 10 is the 133rd anniversary of the first telephone call. It occurred between Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson back on this day in 1876. But there is some debate about whether Bell is actually the rightful owner of the crown for such invention. Having worked on the idea of transmitting speech using electricity for some time, Bell filed his patent on 14 February 1876, either just before or just after his main rival for the title of inventor of the telephone, Elisha Gray, filed his own. Bell won the patent and Gray died in obscurity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:01 am

NSG Group Chooses Verizon Business for Global Network

Managed Verizon Private IP Solution Streamlines Infrastructure to Achieve Management Efficiencies READING, England, March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The NSG Group, one of the world's largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products, has chosen Verizon Business to deploy and manage the company's global communications infrastructure.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:00 am

Secret message hidden in Lincoln's pocketwatch

Watchismo has the incredible story of an apocryphal anti-slavery message that a watchmaker hid inside Abraham Lincoln's pocketwatch at the outbreak of the civil war:

Dillon, working in a D.C. watch repair shop in 1861, told family members that he -- by incredible happenstance -- had been repairing Lincoln's watch when news came that Fort Sumter had been attacked in South Carolina. It was the opening salvo of what became the Civil War.

Dillon told his children (and, half a century later, a reporter for the New York Times) that he opened the watch's inner workings and scrawled his name, the date and a message for the ages: "The first gun is fired. Slavery is dead. Thank God we have a President who at least will try."

Secret Message in Abraham Lincoln's Pocket Watch


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:37 am

Facebook Developers Getting Antsy Over Verified Apps Program

Facebook’s Verified Apps program, first announced in Summer 2008, is a way for trusted application developers to be separated from the pack. But the program is yet to launch, and perceived delays and a lack of communication by Facebook is making some developers who signed up for the program a little antsy.

The details of the program were announced in November. Developers are charged $375 to apply to the program, and must continue to pay the fee each year. I called it a protection racket.

Putting that aside, though, the program seems to be very popular with developers. Facebook hasn’t said how many applications they received but they initially estimated that at least 10% of of the 50,000+ third paryty applications on Facebook Platform would become Verified. My guess is 10% is on the low side.

Facebook originally said the program would go live in early 2009, and we’re still in the ballpark of “early” in the year. But some application developers are saying Facebook took their application fee and now aren’t communicating with them at all about timing or the status of their application. A few comments from a Facebook Forum page on the topic:

It’s been months since we have heard anything about this. What time frame are we looking at?

Communicating with the verification team seems almost impossible - their email system doesn’t work properly and they wont give out the name of the person dealing with my application or any contact phone number. All the emails they send me are anonymous and unsigned making it impossible to hold a conversation. Most of the emails I send them disappear into a black hole or seemingly get delayed a week then end up not being delivered to the same person who I was replying to. They offered to phone me at a pre-arranged time but it has proved impossible because they want to organise it by email and their email system doesn’t work! If it takes a week to exchange one email, we can’t arrange a time for a call within a week! We’ve paid a lot of money for a service we’re just not getting…

I had to pay the full $375 for which I got nothing, because the changes suggested by the reviewer were in direct conflict with what the platform policy team had told me to do, so I couldn’t implement them and Facebook have not responded to any of my questions sent by email. Can Facebook please explain why some developers have only paid $1 and got verified while others have been charged $375 and you wont even communicate with us?

A Facebook representative responded in the forum and said:

Thanks for your feedback about the Application Verification program. For those who have completed the detailed submission form, you should have at least heard back from us with initial feedback. You can reply to us with any questions through that channel.

As far as what’s been going on, we’re working hard on two fronts. First, ensuring the verification review is thorough and results in applications that are trustworthy and improve the user experience of Platform applications. Second, we are working developing and testing the full package of verification benefits to make sure they achieve our goal of helping trustworthy apps gain exposure on Facebook.

Facebook hasn’t yet responded to my email inquiry on this, but I’m guessing the volume of applications may be a factor in the delay. Facebook is also building a lot of new products in a lot of different areas of the business, and they are becoming famous for missing publicly stated dev deadlines.

But it’s also clear from the comments that developers expect something besides silence, largely because of the fee they paid. Facebook has said from the beginning that the fee only covers their costs in running the program, which I don’t completely buy. But at any rate, this looks like the Verified Apps program may be a bigger headache than they counted on.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:36 am

Relationship With VMware Will Not Change, EMC Chief Says (PC World)

PC World - EMC and VMware plan to continue working together closely in the years ahead, said EMC's top executive, dispelling speculation the storage vendor might sell down its stake in the virtualization software company.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:20 am

Economists call for patent and copyright abolition

Two economists at Washington University in St Louis have published a paper arguing that copyright and patent are a net drag on the economy and should be abolished.

"From a public policy view, we'd ideally like to eliminate patent and copyright laws altogether," says Levine, John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics. "There's plenty of protection for inventors and plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for creators. It's not that we see this as some sort of charitable act that people are going to invent and create things without earning money. Evidence shows very strongly there are lots of ways to make money without patents and copyright."

Levine and Boldrin point to students being sued for 'pirating' music on the internet and AIDS patients in Africa dying because they cannot afford expensive drugs produced by patent holders as examples of the failure of the current system. Boldrin, the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and Chair of the economics department says, "Intellectual property is in fact an intellectual monopoly that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps..."

They call on Congress to reverse the burden of the proof on patent seekers by granting patents only to those capable of proving that:

• their invention has social value

• a patent is not likely to block even more valuable innovations

• the innovation would not be cost-effective absent a patent

Economists Say Copyright and Patent Laws Are Killing Innovation; Hurting Economy (via /.)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:10 am

“Search is a Pencil” [Voices]

I will never forget that quote, from Alta Vista founder Louis Monier, as he bemoaned the devolution of his creation into Yet Another Portal. He was devoted to the idea that Alta Vista would do one thing - search - and do it well. But Alta Vista was instead turned into a bawdy image of Yahoo, AOL, Lycos, Excite, and all the other portals of the late 90s.

And along came Google, which by 2000 had gained a reputation as the Best Search on the Web. And Yahoo, eager to appropriate all things Best on the Web, was more than happy to give Google what Netscape had given Yahoo in the mid 90s: a front row seat to Becoming the Next Big Thing.

Oops.

This is all a throat clearing to Think Out Loud about Twitter and Facebook. (Like I’ve been doing anything else lately.)

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:05 am

High-resolution Tetris

Having too much fun playing Tetris? Why not suck all the enjoyment out of it by playing it in HD?

High-Rez Tetris (via Kottke)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:04 am

The 10 Most Endangered Newspapers in America [Voices]

Over the past few weeks, the U.S. newspaper industry has entered a new period of decline. The parent of the papers in Philadelphia declared bankruptcy, as did the Journal Register chain. The Rocky Mountain News closed, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, owned by Hearst, will almost certainly close or only publish online. Hearst has said it will also close the San Francisco Chronicle if it cannot make massive cuts. The most recent rumor is that the company will lay off half the editorial staff. Still, that action may not be enough to make the property profitable.

24/7 Wall St. has created a list of the 10 major daily papers that are most likely to fold or shutter their print operations and only publish online. The properties were chosen on the basis of the financial strength of their parent companies, the amount of direct competition they face in their markets and industry information on how much money they are losing. Based on this analysis, it’s possible that 8 of the nation’s 50 largest daily newspapers could cease publication in the next 18 months.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:04 am

How to Make Display Ads Suck Less [Voices]

Online display advertising sucks.

There, I said it. It’s like everyone’s been kind of skirting the issue over the last few months so as not to upset anyone. It seems like the conversations around the death (or at least decline) of display has been about everything but the ad itself. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what I want to talk about.

I’d lose my director of strategy card (we really have those) if I didn’t first acknowledge that these types of decisions should be led with objectives. Thinking through what you want to accomplish with online display will obviously help sort out what it should say and how it should say it.

OK, with that little disclaimer out of the way, let’s get to the creative. Why does it suck? Well, first off, it’s hardly ever aware of the content it is hanging out with. I’m not talking contextual ads here, just saying that display advertising needs to be aware of where it lives. At least it should know what site it’s on and what people are there for. I mean, we spend a lot of time thinking about our consumer, right? We know what they like and don’t like and roughly where they spend their time on the web. However, we give little or no thought to what they’re actually doing once they get there. What content are they looking at? What’s the difference between home-page visitors and lower-level visitors?

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:03 am

FCC Promises Open Process on National Broadband Strategy [Voices]

Interim Federal Communications Commission Chair Michael Copps was clearly feeling his oats on Tuesday at the government’s “kickoff” of its national broadband campaign. “The years of broadband drift and growing digital divides are coming to an end,” Copps told the gathering at the Department of Commerce’s main auditorium.

“Too few consumers and small businesses in this country have the high-speed broadband they need if they’re going to succeed,” he added, and so “today we say: ‘Enough.’ We mobilize and we begin to build.” Also attending this digital pep rally was Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and a small platoon of reps from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:02 am

Should Google Be Added to the Dow? [Voices]

A provocative story from Reuters Monday ruminated on which companies are likely to replace Citigroup and General Motors in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Its conclusion: Google and Cisco are the most likely contenders, with Apple and Visa having a less likely chance.

It’s a safe bet that those two troubled companies — trading below $2 a share — will get the boot, potentially along with Bank of America, which is trading below $4. All are plagued by concerns that bankruptcies or government takeovers would wipe out shareholders. Talk of a reshuffling of the Dow has been heating up of late.

Does Google belong in the Dow? I think it does for a few reasons. According to Dow Jones’ explanation of the indexes composition, “a stock typically is added only if it has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth, is of interest to a large number of investors and accurately represents the sector(s) covered by the average.”

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:01 am

Verizon Business Empowers Corporate Users Through Unified Communications

New Managed Offering Allows Users to Securely Communicate by Phone, E-Mail, IM or Web Conferencing - Right from Their Desktop BASKING RIDGE, N.J., March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Corporate users around the globe can control their unified communications experience with a simple click of the mouse by using a new managed service announced by Verizon Business on Wednesday (March 11).
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:00 am

CrunchBoard: Tech Job Listings Decline, Data Confirms The Obvious

The unemployment rate in the U.S. continues to trend up, and the tech sector certainly hasn’t been spared from the overall economic turmoil.

We’ve noticed a general downward trend in our monthly tech job listings on CrunchBoard over the last year, too, which confirms what is already obvious - there’s less hiring going on out there.

A year ago 100 - 120 job listings were added to CrunchBoard each month (which is consistent with the previous year’s trend of a steady 100+ listings/month). The number of new listings gradually declined and then fell significantly in November 2008, dropping from 68 to 37 listings. Things bottomed out in December with 22 listings, and have edged back up slightly since then (but certainly not enough to call it a turnaround).

We haven’t changed promotion of the site over the last year or changed the listing price, which would affect the data. Traffic to TechCrunch sites has risen steadily over this period.

CrunchBoard is a tiny site compared to Monster, Craigslist and others, and this data isn’t statistically relevant at all. But we’ll continue to share it to add to the data that’s available on the state of things during this troubled time.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:50 am

Web Genome Project Launches Movement to Map the Internet

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand, March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The Web Genome Project (WGP), designed to revolutionize the way we understand and interact with the Internet, launched today with an interactive search engine at www.webgenomeproject.org. The WGP allows each individual a totally private way to find personally relevant content on the Web. Each page on the Web has a distinct personality and flavor -- as does each person who surfs the Web.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:46 am

Tetris bento

Here's the perfect vegetarian geek lunch: a Tetris bento box! Not as good as the Donkey Kong lasagne, of course.

Bento Tuesday (Thanks, BingoTheChimp!)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:19 am

Asthma Risk Linked To Early TV Viewing

Ponca City, We love you writes "The number of children with asthma has been rising for many years. About 1 in 10 children in the UK develop asthma, compared with about 1 in 25 in the 1960s. The reason for this isn't clear, although several theories have been put forward such as keeping our homes cleaner, and having central heating and more soft furnishings where house dust mites can multiply. Now based on more than 3,000 children whose respiratory health was tracked from birth to 11.5 years of age, researchers have found a new correlation with young children who spend more than two hours glued to the TV every day doubling their subsequent risk of developing asthma. 'This study has shown for the first time a positive association between increased duration of reported TV viewing in early childhood and the development of asthma by 11.5 years of age in children with no symptoms of asthma in early childhood,' said the researchers, led by A. Sherriff, from the University of Glasgow. It's not clear exactly how sedentary behaviors like television watching are tied to asthma, but there is some evidence to suggest exercise and deep breaths that come with it stretch the smooth muscles in the airways, while lack of exercise may make the lungs overly sensitive. The results add asthma to a catalog of undesirable outcomes, including obesity, diabetes, smoking, and promiscuity, tied to TV viewing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:43 am

AdultSpace Gets A $1.3 Million Boost For Its Adult Social Network

AdultSpace [NSFW], an adult social network in the same vein as Adult Friend Finder, has closed a $1.3 million funding round led by a number of angel investors. The new funding brings AdultSpace’s total financing to $2.3 million since its launch in January 2006.

AdultSpace says it is looking to use the money to take on Adult Friend Finder, the leading adult social network that was acquired by Penthouse in 2007 and has filed to go public. The site says it will be upgrading its viral marketing efforts and perhaps most notably, to eventually launch mobile applications across all major platforms (though I suspect they’ll have a hard time getting accepted on at least a few mobile app stores).

Included among AdultSpace’s free features are chatrooms, ‘cams’, a classifieds section, and a personality test that the site claims has the analytical detail of eHarmony’s highly touted exam.

Also notable in the mature social networking space is Zivity, a site that features artful adult photos and a community around the site’s photographers and models. Zivity has raised a total of $8 million in funding, including a $7 million round led by BlueRun Ventures and Founders Fund.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:07 am

Appletell giveaway: WordsWorth for iPhone, iPod touch

FROM APPLETELL - Appletell is giving away three copies of the word game WordsWorth for iPhone and iPod touch, and all you have to do to enter is tell us your favorite word.  It’s that simple. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:06 am

ChinaEdu Shareholders Approve Amendments to Equity Inventive Plan at Extraordinary General Meeting

BEIJING, March 11 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- ChinaEdu Corporation (Nasdaq: CEDU) ("ChinaEdu" or the "Company"), an educational services provider in China, today announced the approval by the shareholders of certain amendments to the Company's Equity Incentive Plan (the "Plan") at the Extraordinary General Meeting held on March 6, 2009, which amendments provide for the administration of the Plan by the Compensation Committee of the Board of Directors of the Company, delegate to the Compensation Committee the authority to, among other things, amend or modify outstanding awards under the Plan, including the repricing of "underwater" options, and eliminate the requirement that subsequent amendments to the Plan be submitted for shareholder approval. About ChinaEdu ChinaEdu Corporation is an educational services provider in China, incorporated as an exempted limited liability company in the Cayman Islands. Established in 1999, the Company's primary business is to provide comprehensive services to the online degree programs of leading Chinese universities.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:00 am

ChinaEdu Schedules 2008 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results Release on March 18, 2009

BEIJING, March 11 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- ChinaEdu Corporation (Nasdaq: CEDU) ("ChinaEdu" or the "Company"), an educational services provider in China, today announced that the Company will release its audited financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2008 after the US market closes on March 18, 2009. The earnings release will be available on the investor relations page of its website at http://ir.chinaedu.net . Following the earnings announcement, ChinaEdu senior management will host a conference call at 5am (Pacific) / 8am (Eastern) / 8pm (Beijing/Hong Kong) on Thursday, March 19, 2009 to discuss its 2008 fourth quarter and full year financial results and recent business highlights.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:00 am

Shamwow and the human condition

Jonathan Grubb writes to inform us of the interesting reviews at Infomercial Ratings of Shamwow, the unpleasant-smelling absorbent cloth.

The reviews people have written for ShamWow's (heavily advertised on infomercials) are hilarious and, at times, heartbreaking. My favorite:

Father died thinking of this crappy product!

2/24/2009 - Bryan of Washington, DC, USA writes:

My father had an illness that didn't let him get out of the house much, and his memory was on the downfall over the last few months. He was in his room watching tv and he saw the shamwow commercial and for some reason really wanted one. Since he doesn't ask for much, me and my wife (his daughter-in-law) decided to buy him a set to use around the house, as he didn't get out much.

The product arrived and we had him wait to open it until we got back from the hospital because we thought he was having a stroke. When we returned he was out of it and went to bed. We woke up in the middle of the night to him crying loudly in his room, which is next to ours. He has spilt his bed pan and tried to clean it up with the shamwow cloth. It wasn't working and he thought it was HIS fault! After hours of calming him down, while I cleaned up the mess with towels, we took him into the kitchen to show him it works. WELL IT DOESN'T, and our neighbors also tried it with theirs that arrived the next day, and theirs was a bust as well.

My father was always in a sad mood after that, as he thought it was his fault it didn't work and he could only seem to remember the commercial saying how good it was and his failure with it. My father died at the age of 72, crying mad as my niece brought in some shamwows her boyfriend had bought to show them to us, not knowing she was there to see my father on his death bed! HE SAW THEM, and we all tried to take them out before he saw them!!! He started to cry and yell, and as I took my niece out of the room, my father yelled out a scream of anger and pain I had never heard before. He never got to say his last words to me or our family, all he saw was his own failure and shame and he died in tears, thinking only of an angry world, and not of our LOVE FOR HIM! This product is garbage, and should be banned, burnt, and that evil man selling it to be drowning and try to save himself by using his own product to soak up the water, as he WOULD DIE!

Shamwow reviews [Infomercial Ratings]

Update! Here is a Unicron Chaser, as requested:

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:43 am

Hospice patients feel abandoned

A U.S. oncologist says terminally ill patients often feel abandoned by their doctors. The study, published Tuesday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests doctors need to be aware of the worries patients have about a loss of continuity in patient-physician communication.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:39 am

Sun Aims for SSD Future in Servers (PC World)

PC World - Sun has laid out more of its plans for using solid-state drives in its servers, which it says will help customers to reduce energy costs and improve application performance in the data center.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:20 am

Hitachi pleads guilty to price-fixing in the TFT-LCD scandal

Section: Video, Video Providers, Computers, Desktops, Mobile Computers, Peripherals, Web

And the cards keep tumbling down.  It’s not like we didn’t all see this one coming.  After all, three other companies have already admitted they were less than legal when it came to fixing prices for LCD panels sold to U.S. companies Today marks Hitachi Displays Ltd. joining the ranks of those companies charged with conspiring to fix prices, making it four companies and seven individuals charged by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Anti-Trust Division.

A plea agreement just waiting for court approval maintains that Hitachi Displays did agree to cooperate with the Justice Department’s continuing antitrust investigation.  Good move guys.  According to Scott Hammond, Acting Assistant Attorney in charge of the Anti-Trust Division,

“Hitachi joins three other multinational companies who have admitted to their involvement in fixing prices for LCD panels sold to U.S. companies and that have already paid criminal fines totaling more than $585 million.  This case should send a strong message to multinational companies operating in the United States that when it comes to enforcing the U.S. antitrust laws we mean business.“

Hitachi’s share of that $585 million is $31 million, not so big considering it is one of only four hit with the rap.  They were nabbed for their role in the conspiracy to fix prices in sales of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display panels (TFT-LCD) that were sold to Dell.

They are charged with the following: Carrying out this conspiracy through several means including taking part in bilateral meetings and communications with Japan, Korea and the U.S. to talk about the prices of the TFT-LCDs being sold to Dell; making an agreement of price during those meetings; issuing price quotes based on the agreements met at the meetings; and exchanging information on sales of the product sold to Dell, with the purpose of keeping track of and enforcing the set price they agreed upon.  Naughty-naughty boys.

The other companies already on the naughty list?  LG pleaded guilty December 15, 2008.  They were rocked the hardest of the four fine-wise—a whopping $400 million criminal fine for a worldwide conspiracy charge.  This is the second-largest in Anti-Trust Division history.  Way to make mom proud guys!  Also on the list is Sharp Corp, pleading guilty the day after LG.  At least they were only slimy enough to fix prices sold to Dell, Apple, and Motorola…not the whole world.  Third up was Chunghwa Picture Tubes, also guilty of the same worldwide conspiracy as LG.

According to the US Dept of Justice website, “Anyone with information concerning illegal conduct in the TFT-LCD industry is urged to call the San Francisco Field Office of the Antitrust Division at 415-436-6660.“

Read: US Dept of Justice

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:19 am

Laptop Lifts

It's an idea we've all had, and which many of us have implemented ad-hoc. In fact, my Airport Extreme is still mounted on pebbles stolen from a desktop zen garden, a measure rendered necessary because I piled books on top of it and it got very hot.

The real genius is, of course, getting down to the job of designing, manufacturing and marketing something useful to people who do not have desktop zen gardens to hand. Hence, the inexpensive Laptop Lifts, which do exactly what you imagine they do.

About.com likes them.

Product Page [Laptop Lifts]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:18 am

Limited edition iPig iPod dock $130 at Amazon

Something about the Limited Edition Black iPig reminds me of Hugbot . [Amazon]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:14 am

Tapes

Valp.now's photostream [via Ffffound]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:03 am

Make a Lighter, Stronger Plastic Bottle

Arrowhead, Poland Spring, Deer Park—all owned by Nestlé. So when the food conglomerate decided to boost its green cred (and save some money) by redesigning its water bottles, what it came up with was the instantly ubiquitous Eco-Shape. Employing thinner plastic, Nestlé created a container that's about 15 percent lighter than its predecessor. But that alone would have left the original cylindrical design weak and crushable. So the company also adopted a corseted silhouette: The arch at the center reinforces the bottle's structure, just as it did for Roman aqueducts 3,000 years ago.

1 // Plastic
Because it uses less material, the bottle's empty weight has dropped from 14.5 grams to 12.4 grams. This has reduced the polymer resin Nestlé needs by about 65 million pounds annually.

2 // Arch
The shapely waist adds stability. The plastic at the curve is about one-thousandth of an inch thicker than the rest; water pressure pushing against it makes the bottle stronger.

3 // Ridges
Curved horizontal ribs provide strength and a little style. Vertical troughs running from the shoulder to the base provide support the same way that a fold in a piece of paper allows it to stand up on its own.

—Patrick Di Justo (justpat@gmail.com) is a Wired contributing editor.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

Video: Optibike 800 Li Electrifies Your Ride

Tired of pedaling up hills? Gadget Lab's Danny and Steven test-drive a $9K electric bicycle called the Optibike that actually helps you save calories.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

March 11, 1986: NFL Adopts Instant Replay

1986: The National Football League adopts an instant-replay system for reviewing disputed calls.

Prior to the 1986 regular season, NFL coaches had no way of challenging an official's on-field call (other than throwing a colorful sideline tirade likely to end up in a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct, while achieving nothing). The best a coach could hope for was that a seriously blown call might be spotted and overturned by the officials themselves.

Officials get the calls right most of the time, even the close ones. But they do miss, sometimes at critical moments of the game. So as video technology advanced to the point where plays could be reviewed with the help of strategically placed cameras — and the TV audience could get a close look, sometimes in slow motion — the NFL grew receptive to trying instant replay.

Early replay was limited. Only officials could initiate a review. Cameras were less sophisticated than they are now ,and relatively few were employed, meaning replay officials often did not get a definitive look at the play. Small wonder, then, that replay was not wildly popular, either with the NFL team owners or the fans.

It was ditched in 1992.

Several more seasons of whining by head coaches apparently softened the resistance, though. So, on further review, replay came back in the 1999 season, with modified rules and improved technology. One new wrinkle was a "coach's challenge," giving the head coach an opportunity to directly contest an official's call.

There are still restrictions in the replay system. Each team is permitted only two coach's challenges per game (although, if both are successful, a third is awarded). A coach cannot issue a challenge in the last two minutes of either half; the decision to review any questionable call occurring inside the two-minute warning comes from the replay official in the booth upstairs.

The challenging team must also have at least one of its three timeouts left, because it loses a timeout in the event of an unsuccessful challenge.

One piece of technology the NFL backed away from was the use of a vibrating pager for a coach to notify the referee that a challenge was being made. The pager gave way in 2004 to a decidedly more low-tech solution: Coaches now throw a red flag onto the field and yell at the ref to make their challenge known.

Far more viscerally satisfying, for sure.

Even in the new era, however, the kinds of plays subject to review are restricted. Replay is most often used to determine whether a fumble occurred (or whether the player was down by contact), whether a player got both feet down inbounds after making a catch, or whether the ball has actually broken the plane of the goal line for a touchdown.

Penalty calls — holding, roughing the passer, pass interference, etc. — are not subject to review.

When a play is reviewed, the referee has 60 seconds to examine the replay on a sideline monitor. He views all available angles of the play and will only overturn a call if he sees "incontrovertible visual evidence" supporting a reversal.

If the call is overturned, the referee determines where the ball is to be spotted and how much time is to be removed from or restored to the game clock. If the official's call is upheld, the game resumes where it was, and the challenging team is docked a timeout.

While the benefits of replay are fairly obvious, there are drawbacks. For one thing, an argument can be made that the human factor — in this case a blown call that costs a team dearly — is part of the game, part of its lore. The players are certainly human and screw up all the time: dropped balls, fumbles, bad passes, missed blocks, crummy tackling. Imperfection, a purist might argue, comes with the territory.

And even with state-of-the-art camera technology, the system remains imperfect. Rarely does an offseason pass without the league's competition committee taking up some aspect of instant replay.

Also, in a game that many people feel is already overregulated and occasionally made ponderous by too much technology, instant replay is not "instant." It means an additional stoppage of play. Despite rules meant to speed the process, delays of several minutes or more are not unknown.

If you're pounding a few brewskis with your pals down at the local watering hole, maybe this isn't so bad. If you're sitting in the end zone in Buffalo in mid-December, stripped to the waist and painted blue with a big white "B" scrawled on your chest, it's a different story.

Unless, of course, you're more hammered than the guy pounding the brewskis.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

Video: Optibike 800 Li Electrifies Your Ride

Tired of pedaling up hills? Gadget Lab's Danny and Steven test-drive a $9K electric bicycle called the Optibike that actually helps you save calories.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

TV-B-Gone Creator Still Going Strong

Mitch Altman, the creator of the TV-B-Gone remote, has become something of a guru for open-source electronics hardware. "I make enough money to live the life I want to live," Altman says. "And I love this life."

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

Hide the Antenna Inside the Cell Phone

In the early 1990s, the cell phone was the ultimate tech bauble. But one major blemish kept it more geek than chic: that stray-dog-ugly and easily broken external antenna. At first, phone manufacturers thought the face-lift would be easy: Just stick the wire inside the phone, right?

Not so fast. "Antennas don't follow Moore's law," says Eric Krenz, manager of Motorola's Antenna Innovation Lab. They can't just be shrunk, because the antenna's size must be proportional to the wavelength on which it transmits. Given the slot on the radio spectrum to which cell phones are assigned, their antennas typically need to be around 7 inches long—not exactly pocket-size.

1 // Printed Plate
To replace the long, straight booms, antenna engineers stamped metal patterns onto plastic plates. Ten years later, wafers still don't deliver the reception of old-school whips, but nobody is screaming for Motorola to bring back the brick phone.

2 // Ergonomics
The 8810 was tapered and weighted to encourage users to hold it below the antenna, minimizing interference.

3 // Plastic Casing
The "silver slider" body of the 8810 wasn't completely metallic: Part of the back was made of plastic to let the signal pass through. Apple employed the same trick on the first iPhone, using a black stripe on the otherwise silver back.

Eventually, Nokia engineers had a brainstorm: Couldn't they just fold up the antenna and secrete it inside the case? It wasn't that simple. They had to use the same amount of metal as was in the external antenna—in a component that would fit inside an already crowded phone casing. They finally realized they could achieve the necessary signal-to-inches ratio by stamping a thin, square plate with a labyrinthine metal pattern. The result was the Nokia 8810 (pictured), which came out in 1998.

—Contributing editor Mathew Honan (mhonan@wired.com) wrote about location-based services in issue 17.02.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

10 Best Uses for RFID Tags

1// Saguaro cacti
On the landscaping black market, these succulents sell for more than $1,000. Arizona's Saguaro National Park plans to use RFIDs to track hot cacti.

2// Indian elephants
The New Delhi forest department requires pet jumbos be chipped to prevent trafficking. No parades until implanted.

3// Surgical sponges
One out of every thousand or so intra-abdominal surgery patients "retains" a sponge. Oops! With SmartSponges, docs can find stowaways by passing a wand over the body.

4// Mexicans
Security firm Xega uses GPS chips to track kidnapped people—a pretty big market in a nation where 6,500 were abducted last year.

5// Pirelli tires
A chip inside the new Cyber Tyre transmits info on road conditions and friction coefficients to the car's computer.

6// Clubbers
At Barcelona's Baja Beach Club, VIPs are injected with RFIDs linked to debit accounts, making wallets passé. Handy when all you're wearing is a thong.

7// Tokyo
The city aims to blanket itself with microchips—from bus stops to restaurants. Tourists may soon get maps, schedules, tips, and other info just by waving their cell phones.

8// Police badges
The Blackinton SmartShield badge hides an ID chip, preventing knockoffs. Good idea: Remember Terminator 2?

9// Inmates
Forced to release prisoners due to overcrowding, Britain wants to chip them. Cops would know if, say, a felon enters a school.

10// Cat doors
Kitty flaps are great—until you find a possum hanging from your towel rack. The Pet Porte waves through only preapproved critters.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

TV-B-Gone Creator Still Going Strong

Mitch Altman, the creator of the TV-B-Gone remote, has become something of a guru for open-source electronics hardware. "I make enough money to live the life I want to live," Altman says. "And I love this life."

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am

National Ignition Facility Fires 192-Beam Pulse

An anonymous reader writes "The construction and test firing of the National Ignition Facility have been completed. NIF was designed as the first facility ever to achieve self-sustaining nuclear fusion and, in particular, to reach the point of ignition in which more energy is generated from the reaction than went into creating it. While the recent 192-beam pulse only produced 80 kilojoules worth of energy, all signs point to NIF being able to reach an order of magnitude higher (PDF) than that in the coming year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:50 am

Conficker Worm Free Removal Tool Has Been Released by the Enigma Software Group

NEW HAVEN, Conn., March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Enigma Software Group USA, LLC. ("Enigma Software Group" or "Enigma") announced today that it has released a free removal tool that will eliminate the Conficker worm from infected computers.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:34 am

Sony, NBC ink content deal for PlayStation (Reuters)

Reuters - Sony Computer Entertainment America will make movies and television programs from NBC Universal available to buy or rent through Sony's PlayStation Network, the companies said on Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:30 am

It requires no lubrication

Mark "Android Man" Miller writes in to tell us of his latest odd robot creation, The Lazy-Arsed Fisherman.

It started off long ago as a serious project idea, got pushed off to the side for a while, and finally I made this parody video about it: Small business success story.

Miller's got some stuff up here, but his awe-inspiring zombie robot video is gone.

Previously: Self-Taught "Android Man" Building Better Robos

Update: Zombies here and here.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:26 am

French gadget bags

Be.ez makes laptop sacks with particularly nice colors and designs. I like this one. Here's the new stuff.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:20 am

NBC Stars Whimper About Jon Stewart's Skewering of CNBC

The poor widdle babies at NBC are soooo unhappy with Jon Stewart's skewering of CNBC's stock-market boosterism and stupid behavior. If you haven't seen it watch this first and then come back:


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:50 am

RFID in Helmets Could Help Find Overheating Football Players in Real-Time

Hothead Technologies and Kennesaw State University are currently testing an RFID-enabled helmet that tracks the body temperature of a player and promises to lessen dangerous instances of over heating.

In the last decade, companies have looked into developing systems to better measure player temperatures to catch those in danger of heat strokes, as they’ve led to unfortunate deaths.

The most high-profile player to die from over-heating in the NFL is Korey Stringer, an offensive tackle for the Minnesota Vikings. He died in 2001, a day after collapsing from heatstroke during an especially hot and humid day practicing at his team’s training camp facility.

Younger players at the high school level have also died, and they all had the same symptoms: dizziness, body weakness, and heavy breathing. But the culture of football sometimes makes it hard to distinguish between tiredness and illness – players often practice for hours without a proper on-field check-up.

The HOT (heat observation technology) system from Hothead is betting that a real-time observation plan for players will make a difference. A tiny RFID transponder (with a thermal heat sensor) is placed inside the forehead area of the helmet and measures temperature. It's supposed to handle intense collisions, which is key because the crown of the helmet is often used as a directional 'spear' to blast opponents.

                        

The transponder (Range: 500 meters) sends the temperature of every player on the field to a secure PDA gadget on the sidelines, and seems to be packed with WinMo(see pic above). A green dot shows normal temperature, yellow shows a loss of connection, and red places the temperature of a player in danger at the top of the screen, setting off a loud signal as an alert.

The system also comes with a software database that helps coaches determine the trend for each player over time. This is expected to be especially helpful because some players have different heat threshold levels than others.

Athletes and their coaches have long been aware of the problems caused by over-heating. Recently, the American College of Sports Medicine said that players suffer heat strokes because they're often not acclimated to the intense heat levels coaches subject them to, because of 'the intensity/duration of practice,' and even because of improperly ventilated uniforms.

The group has also called for better hydration of players, proper treatment (such as fluid replacement), and better knowledge of environmental conditions.

Hothead Technologies is looking into pushing this technology into other areas where heatstroke is a concern, like firefighting and the military. They company tested the equipment this past fall with a couple of high school teams, and we're waiting for comment from the team Head Coach to hear about how accurately he was able to manage his players' temperatures.

There's no current price available for the system.

Check out a helmet with the RFID tag inside of it (on the side) after the jump:

Follow Jose Fermoso on Twitter at twitter.com/fermoso, and Wired's Gadget Lab at twitter.com/gadgetlab

Korey Stringer photo: Sports Illustrated

See also:

• Creepy: The RFID Urn Retrieval System
• Eat an RFID-tagged Pill Before a Run, Prevent Over Heating
• Problems at The Gates? RFID-enabled Tix to Olympics' Opening Ceremonies to Include Passport Data
• European Retailer Using RFID to Improve Customer Service

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:48 am

GMail’s down and out again

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

GMail is suffering yet another outage and Google officials say it could last as long as 36 hours for some people.  The outage started early this morning, and while Google says the problem was partially fixed for some people, an undetermined amount still are without access to their email.  Google has so far declined to explain what caused this latest outage but a spokeman did explain why they often take so long to fix:

Asked why some Gmail outages last more than 24 hours, Matthew Glotzbach, product management director of Google’s Enterprise, told IDG News Service in November 2008 that those instances are “very rare.“

“Where there are problems is in the cases where we can’t fail that user over [to the backup] for whatever reason—there’s an error with the account, or the master and the slave [copies] are out of sync. So in a few circumstances, we have been unable to fail a user over and we can’t restore that user’s access to the service until we restore that physical location. This is an area where we’re constantly getting better and some of the things we’ve done as a result of our learnings over the last few months address that,“ he added.

GMail has been plagued with numerous outages.  In August 2008 the users of the service suffered through three separate outages.  The first, on August 6th, affected Apps Premier users, who were hit with another outage on August 15th.  The third outage occurred on August 11th and also affected AP members.  Then in October another outage hit, knocking out email service for 30 hours.  The latest was just 2 weeks ago when a major outage cut most of GMail’s users off from their email for nearly 3 hours.

Reliability issues are a big concern for many people considering moving crucial services to web based applications (known as “the cloud”) and for good reason.  If a server crashes, a piece of software becomes corrupt or a hacker strikes, your information could be inaccessible for quite some time.  So if you use a web based service, have a back up plan in place. You never know when it will come in handy!

Read[PCWorld]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:23 am

How Vista Mistakes Changed Windows 7 Development

snydeq writes "For the past several months, Microsoft has engaged in an extended public mea culpa about Vista, holding a series of press interviews to explain how the company's Vista mistakes changed the development process of Windows 7. Chief among these changes was the determination to 'define a feature set early on' and only share that feature set with partners and customers when the company is confident they will be incorporated into the final OS. And to solve PC-compatibility issues, Microsoft has said all versions of Windows 7 will run even on low-cost netbooks. Moreover, Microsoft reiterated that the beta of Windows 7 that is now available is already feature-complete, although its final release to business customers isn't expected until November." As a data point for how well this has all worked out in practice, reader The other A.N.Other recommends a ZDNet article describing rough benchmarks for three versions of Windows 7 against Vista and XP. In particular, Win-7 build 7048 (64-bit) vs. Win-7 build 7000 (32-bit and 64-bit) vs. Vista SP1 vs. XP SP3 were tested on both high-end and low-end hardware. The conclusions: Windows 7 is, overall, faster than both Vista and XP. As Windows 7 progresses, it's getting faster (or at least the 64-bit editions are). On a higher-spec system, 64-bit is best. On a lower-spec system, 32-bit is best.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:47 am

Risque German Game Phenomenon Tries To Repeat Success In English

Most of our readers have probably never heard of Pennergame, a controversial German game that asks players to rise from virtual homelessness to great wealth, by any means necessary. The text-based game has proven immensely popular in Germany, where it sees 1.8 million unique visitors a month and 1.5 billion page impressions, and is the third fastest growing website according to Comscore (falling just behind Facebook). With subject matter like animal-fights, tramps, and a “blood alcohol level management system”, the game has also raised the ire of a number of activist groups and politicans for its deragotory portrayal of the homeless.

Today the two young men behind the game are launching an English version called Dossergame, which retains the same gameplay as the original with a London-themed slant (the creators may released localized US versions in the future). Once again gamers are asked to “beg, collect junk and to form gangs with other players” in the quest to rise from tramp to “castle owner”. So will Dossergame be able to capture the huge success of the original?

As far as I can tell there isn’t anything particularly unique about Pennergame or its English sibling. Both games are primarily text-based, allowing gamers to rise in power and reputation by boosting their stats and interacting with other players. If that sounds familiar, it’s because games like Mob Wars and iMob are very similar, just with a different set of art and characters. And other text-based games have existed for many years, long before Mob Wars and its ilk.

Pennergame has succeed not because of its technology, but because it became a social phenomenon, allowing kids and co-workers who know each other in real life to band together in virtual gang wars. Dossergame may be able to ride the coattails of its German counterpart to popularity, but it will have to rely primarily on word-of-mouth, which is hard to force.

The small team who built Dossergame and Pennergame are also behind Verwandt.de, a German clone of Geni.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:45 am

Fresh & Easy Email Program Attracts More Than 45,000 Customers in Less Than Three Months

Customers sign up as 'friends of fresh&easy' to receive news and exclusive promotions EL SEGUNDO, Calif., March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- In December, Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market launched "friends of fresh&easy," an email program aimed at keeping customers informed with the company's latest news as well as exclusive offers and special deals.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:30 am

Who Cares if He Didn’t Invent the Mac or Can’t Dance: Vote Early and Often for Woz on DWTS! [BoomTown]

Forget all the noise in the blogosphere about Apple (AAPL) Co-Founder Steve Wozniak’s lack of involvement in the computer company of late (no, he did not invent the Mac, but he was responsible for the Apple I and Apple II, so give him a big honking break).

And try, if you can, to ignore the fact that the man has what appears to be at least seven left feet, as you will see in the video below of his first painful cha-cha-cha outing on “Dancing With the Stars” on ABC last night. By the way, major props go out to his professional dancer partner Karina Smirnoff.

Because, as DWTS judge Carrie Ann Inaba noted on the television program, after other judges mocked him for being a clod: Woz has some very cheerful gumption to be up there in the first place, boogeying to Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t See Nothing Yet.” (Best. Song. Ever.)

Oh, you definitely ain’t seen nothing like this yet and it must continue.

Unfortunately, phone, text and online voting is over for this week–results are in on next Tuesday’s show, when the couple with the lowest combined score from judges and viewer votes will be eliminated from the competition.

Woz only got 13 point from the judges, so he has to rely on the kindness of strangers now.

But, if he makes it, it is up to Silicon Valley to help him survive in future weeks.

Thus, geeks of the world unite–you have nothing to lose but your dignity! And if Woz does not care about wearing a pink silk shirt and sporting a pink boa too, you owe him.

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:22 am

Sunrise Telecom(R) Exploring Strategic Alternatives to Enhance Shareholder Value

SAN JOSE, Calif., March 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Sunrise Telecom(R) Incorporated (OTC: SRTI.PK), a leader in test and measurement solutions for telecom, cable and wireless networks, today announced it is exploring its strategic alternatives in order to enhance shareholder value.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:01 am

Calling All Foodies: Y Combinator’s Foodoro Launches Online Farmers Market

Foodoro, a new Y Combinator startup launching today, is an online marketplace for specialty artisanal foods. The site allows foodies to ship items like sesame nut spice chocolate and Mountain Jasmine Green Pearl Tea, to themselves or friends and family. The site offers a variety of hard-to-find food items from 54 vendors across the country, ranging from California cheese makers to Nebraskan buffalo farms to rice grown in the Philippines.

Foodoro’s concept is fairly similar in concept to a TechStars‘ startup we reported on last year, Foodzie. Like Foodzie, Foodoro aims to be an online hub for artisanal food makers, exposing these vendors to a greater audience of food aficionados than they would get from their own sites or selling solely to specialty food stores. Foodoro takes a 15 percent commission on each transaction whereas Foodzie takes a 20 percent commission on transactions. Both Foodoro and Foodzie leave distribution up to the vendors, allowing the marketplaces to it focus on the transactions, which can be helpful to the vendors who aren’t familiar with e-commerce.

However, Foodoro is doing some pretty nifty things to help these small food vendors incorporate e-commerce into their own sites. Foodoro provides the vendors with an e-commerce widget that they can embed on their sites to allow customers to easily buy the product. Foodoro is also trying to engage the food blogging community by implementing an affiliate program (like Amazon’s) that lets food bloggers earn a percentage on traffic they refer to back to Foodoro (the bloggers can also embed a widget of a product they are writing about in their blogs).

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The site also publishes content from food bloggers, including reviews and product photos, with links to the food bloggers’ sites.

Foodoro also offers a variety of shipping options via UPS, FedEx, and USPS (Foodzie only offers FedEx as a shipping option). That being said, shipping on food items can be pricey and sometimes close to if not more than the price of the product itself. For example, overnight shipping for four abalone steaks, (which are priced at $20), is $32.11. The vendor sets the shipping requirements of whether a product should be shipped overnight, two-day etc.

Given the current state of the economy, its plausible to think that most consumers would be hesitant to spend money on high-end, pricey food items. Jay Moon, one of the founders of Foodoro, says that while the startup is not immune to the economic downturn, the company hopes to gain strong business in the food gifts market, which has become increasingly popular. Foodoro is hoping to capitalize on what they say is one of the fastest growing gift verticals, with the food gifting market collecting $15 billion in revenue for 2008, according to Foodoro.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 12:50 am

Gadget Lab Video Blog: Optibike 800 Li Electrifies Your Ride

Want to go fast and not pedal too hard? Want to leave fixie mounted hipsters in your dust at stoplights? Want to ride what's essentially an electric moped? If you've got a spare $9,000 to spare — and really who doesn't — you can pick up an Optibike to cart your posterior about town in style.

This electric assist 2-wheeler is assembled with an 800-watt motor, Fox shocks, 9-speed drive train shifters, and a healthy dose of pure awesomeness. Watch as we take the bike into traffic, punch each other in the head, and endo over handlebars (dramatization, may not have happened.) And yes, Steven and I do all of our own stunts. That's why we wear protection!

This video podcast was produced by Annaliza Savage, edited by Fernando Cardoso with camera work by Annaliza Savage and Michael Lennon.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 12:50 am

Gameloft brings “Terminator Salvation” to mobile phones

Section: Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Miscellaneous, Gaming, Mobile

Sci-Fi fans will have the latest round of Terminator at their fingertips.  It was just announced today that Gameloft joined in a licensing agreement with The Halcyon Company to “develop, distribute and publish the official mobile game to the first film of the new Terminator trilogy, Terminator Salvation.“  The release of the game is set to coincide with the date of the film release on May 22nd.

Gameloft is a top dog in the world of publishing and developing video games for mobile phones and consoles.  They were formed in 1999, and have since become a top innovator in their market.  Their games for mobile handsets are developed with Java, Symbian or Brew technology.  And this is a booming arena.  The expected number of games-enabled handsets is thought to be more than four billion within three years.

Apparently the Terminator Salvation game is shaping up to be pretty dang cool.  According to an interview MTV Multiplayer with the President and CEO of Gameloft, Michel Guillemot, the great action shots in the movie are being incorporated into the game, although not by direct screen shot.  Guillemot states “We wanted to really push the graphics to the limit on this game because of the intensity and power of the action scenes in the film. We worked closely with Halcyon to make sure that the game complemented the film in a way which not only was true to the storyline, but also brought an added value for the player when they bought the game. They provided numerous documents, assets and the scripts that really helped us in developing the game.“

Gameloft isn’t limited to phones.  They also make games for PCs, WiiWare, DS, and Xbox Live Arcade. 

This isn’t Gameloft’s first big partnership agreement.  They have agreements with major licensors and sports personalities like Universal Pictures, Dreamworks Animation, Ubisoft Entertainment, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Ferrari, Kobe Bryant, Chuck Norris, and plenty more.

Senior VP of Publishing of Gameloft, Gonzague de Vallois, says that “The Terminator franchise is one of the world’s most recognized brands and Gameloft is pleased to create the game that brings the excitement of the movie to your fingertips.  The film provides an optimal environment for our new game and will capture the thrills of the sci-fi adventure for Terminator Salvation fans worldwide.“

That “optimal environment” is one set in post-apocalyptic 2018, where John Conner (Christian Bale) is the man whose fate leads him against the human resistance against Skynet and its army of….you guessed it…Terminators.

“We are excited to bring an immersive cinematic experience to mobile gaming with the release of Terminator Salvation” said Cos Lazouras, president of Halcyon Games. “Players will have the ability to expand their interaction with the Terminator universe with content that is unique to this platform.“

All you Terminator fans…get ready to get your fight on.  After all, as John Connor says, this is not the future your mother warned you about. 

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 12:36 am

TV-B-Gone Creator Going Strong With Open-Source Hardware

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The creator of the TV-B-Gone, Mitch Altman, has turned his love of open-source electronic mayhem into a one-man business.

His website offers the basic TV-B-Gone, a $20 keychain device with a protruding LED that emits 140 different TV power-off codes, enabling it to shut down 98 percent of all televisions with the press of a single button, Altman says.

"The way I see it, it's only fair," Altman says of his infrared light-emitting device. "If a TV shines light at me, I'll shine a light at it. And if it stops shining light at me, I'll stop shining light at it."

He also sells a $20 TV-B-Gone kit for do-it-yourselfers who want to assemble the parts themselves, and a $50 TV-B-Gone Pro that looks a bit like a chunky iPhone and has a range of 100 meters.

"I used it in the hotel lobby last night," Altman says. "I was trying to get some work done and there were four TVs on, with no one watching them. I aimed it at the two in front of me and all four turned off, that's how powerful it is."

Altman's invention, covered by Wired.com in 2004, achieved notoriety last year, when writers from Gizmodo used it to turn off dozens of displays at a time in the TV-saturated booths of CES 2008.

Afterwards, Altman says, he made $24,000 in new sales. "I called those guys to thank them personally," he says.

But business is, it seems, just a means for Altman to keep doing what he loves most: Hacking electronics. In a workshop Monday on how to build things with microcontrollers here at the Emerging Technology conference, Altman explained the basics of electronics while standing in front of a table littered with blinking, pulsing, glowing, beeping and whirring devices.

Many of his hacks, including the first versions of the TV-B-Gone, were built using the MiniPOV3 kit by hardware hacker Ladyada. That kit lets you create ghostly messages with a bank of 8 blinking LEDs, by waving the LEDs back and forth in the air.

By making changes to the kit's circuitry, replacing the red LEDs with different colors and reprogramming the included microcontroller, Altman has made not only the TV-B-Gone, but also glowing lights that respond to hand gestures, an electronic "dog" that spins its tail in reaction to sunlight, a 3x3x3 cube of LEDs that displays abstract 3-dimensional patterns, and even a pair of glasses with embedded, flashing LEDs and a pair of headphones for getting your brain waves into a meditative state.

Altman is a fan of open-source hardware. The MiniPOV3 kit he uses is open source, and he recently released the schematics and code for his own projects as open source. Altman describes the decision to go open-source as a way of giving back to the hardware hacking community, which was already modifying and improving the TV-B-Gone.

"There are thousands of people who are incredibly intelligent and creative helping me, for free, and they love it," he says, describing the benefits of open source hardware.

He's also helped found a hacker space in San Francisco, Noisebridge, where hardware hackers (or those who would like to learn more about hardware and software) can gather to work on their projects.

"I make enough money to live the life I want to live," Altman says. "And I love this life."

Photo: Mitch Altman wears the $35 Brain Machine he designed. Photo by Dylan Tweney / Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 12:15 am

Rumor: Anonymous developer claims new PSP has sliding screen, no UMD

FROM GAMERTELL - A source close to Eurogamer claims the next PSP model will feature a sliding screen and games that will only use the shoulder buttons. They also back up rumors suggesting the UMD drive will be removed. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Mar 2009 | 11:52 pm

Rock, Meet Hard Place: More Details of AOL Layoffs–But Are There More to Come? [BoomTown]

Earlier today, Silicon Alley Insider reported that layoffs at AOL, which had been announced in January, were finally taking place.

Actually, said an AOL insider, about 10 percent of the layoffs, or 70 people, have been let go since the announcement. The pace just got ratcheted up today, adding another 300 to the pyre at the troubled Time Warner (TWX) online division.

But, said several sources, the slashing of staff might go well beyond what has been announced, as AOL continues to drill down on its three-pronged strategy: social networking and communications (People Networks); content (MediaGlow); and advertising (Platform-A).

That’s no surprise since both AOL’s options have landed, to say the least, in that dreaded rock-and-hard place.

The interest by Yahoo (YHOO) in merging with AOL, for example, has waxed and waned–it’s waned right now, sources said, though not completely–and there seem no true suitors on the horizon.

And new Platform-A head (and former Yahoo sales exec) Greg Coleman–whose business has to drive revenue growth–cannot perform miracles in such a weak environment, no matter what cool new products and offerings either People Networks head Joanna Shields or MediaGlow President Bill Wilson creates.

Thus, with the ever-weakening economy, there is still fat to be cut out, especially since Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes either has to sell AOL off or make it work a whole lot better.

And working better likely means more cuts and a whole lot more of them.

That’s caused a lot of people inside AOL and also a wider circle at Time Warner to increasingly point the finger of blame on AOL CEO Randy Falco, wondering if and when he will suffer too.

“Why Randy Falco gets to keep his job is a mystery to a lot of people,” said one top exec at another division.

While one might look at, say, the media giant’s magazine division and ask the same of its head, Ann Moore, the more obvious answer is that times are tough all over and not just at Time Warner.

Said an AOL insider who does not like Falco’s leadership, but was sympathetic: “He probably should have pushed to sell it off more when times were better, but that was being run by corporate, so now he just has to deal with a weak economy and an online property whose value has been declining for a long time.”

In any case, for now, there’s no joy in Mudville. When the domestic layoffs are done by the end of this month, a source said, the company will turn to international firings (it’s harder to dump folks in Europe, apparently).

But, as another baseball maxim goes: At least when it comes to cuts at AOL, it’s never over until it’s over.

Source: All Things Digital | 10 Mar 2009 | 11:49 pm

Copyright and Patent Laws Hurt the Economy

Norsefire writes "Two economists at Washington University in St. Louis are claiming that copyright and patent laws are 'killing innovation' and 'hurting [the] economy.' Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine state they would like to see copyright law abolished completely as there are other protections available to the creators of 'intellectual property' (a term they describe as 'propaganda,' and of recent origin). They are calling on Congress to grant patents only where an invention has social value, where the patent would not stifle innovation, and where the absence of a patent would damage cost-effectiveness."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Mar 2009 | 11:40 pm

CaseWare Seeks Injunction Against SEC

HOUSTON, March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- CaseWare International Inc., together with CaseWare IDEA Inc. and Audimation Services, Inc., today filed a trademark infringement action against the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2009 | 11:10 pm

Mississippi Bill Would Tax Software Sales

Byzantine writes "The Mississippi Legislature has passed MS House Bill 1461 which would amend the state's tax laws specifically to charge sales tax on 'electrically transferred digital products,' including products bought via mail-order. The bill is currently on the governor's desk awaiting signature." Softpedia claims that 20 states have enacted download taxes of one sort or another — most of them for iTunes music — and that New York is considering taxing downloads of all kinds.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:50 pm

Gel to boost female libido tested

U.S. researchers are testing the drug LibiGel to see if it will safely boost the libido of post-menopausal women. The drug is a gel formulation of testosterone that delivers the hormone to the bloodstream through a once-daily application on the upper arm.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:41 pm

Verizon Business Awarded Department of Defense Contract Valued at Up to $2.5 Billion

Company to Provide Network and Data Services to Military Installations Around the World ASHBURN, Va., March 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Business will provide network and data services at U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:27 pm

NSA Dominance of Cybersecurity Would Lead to 'Grave Peril', Ex-Cyber Chief Tells Congress

The spy agency's tendency to over-classify information would keep it from playing well with others, testifies Amit Yoran, former DHS cybersecurity chief.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:24 pm

Pink My Ride. Barbie Gets a Beetle for Her Birthday

Volkswagen builds a car bright enough to burn retinas in honor of the icon's 50th birthday. You've gotta see what's in the trunk.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:20 pm

Craigslist reports 90 percent decrease in number of prostitution ads

Section: Web, Websites

According to Craigslist, the number of erotic ads that appear on the website is down 90 to 95 percent over the last year.  Craigslist has been better at policing their site in response to a federal lawsuit that has charged the company with facilitating prostitution.  The lawsuit has called for the removal of the erotic section from Craigslist as well as monetary damages for the man hours required by law enforcement officials to investigate the site.

The reduction came about with the help of 40 attorney generals and the Center of Missing and Exploited Children.  Craigslist now requires that if a person wishes to post to the erotic section, he or she must provide a working telephone number and credit card.  Craigslist is also charging a fee for posters to use the erotic section and donates the profits from this to charity.

You can check the Craigslist blog for additional updates on efforts being used to thwart human trafficking and child exploitation.  You can also view the posted graph that displays the erotic services percentile change over the last year in five major cities.

Read: [CNET]

 

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Mar 2009 | 10:14 pm

iTunes Gift Card Key System Cracked, Exploited

moonbender writes "Fake but working iTunes gift cards are being sold on Chinese auction sites for a fraction of their value: 'The owner of the Taobao shop told us frankly that the gift card codes are created using key-generators. He also said that he paid money to use the hackers' service. Half a year ago, when they started the business, the price was around 320 RMB [about $47] for [a] $200 card, then more people went into this business and the price went all the way down to 18 RMB [about $2.60] per card, "but we make more money as the amount of customers is growing rapidly."' The people at Chinese market researcher Outdustry have apparently confirmed this by buying a coupon and transferring it into an iTunes account. Oops."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Mar 2009 | 9:59 pm

Welcome to nationalized Citibank

Funny or Die's take on a nationalized Citibank. NSFW language.


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Mar 2009 | 9:55 pm

Paean to iron-on patches from the 1970s

Over at Craft: Online, Cathy Callahan writes about iron-on patches from the 1970s, taking special note of their packaging design.

Pictured above are a few packages of iron-on patches I found at my mom's house. I actually think she might have used the drawing on that Sturdy Brand package as a style guide for the way she dressed me. There are pictures of me dressed in almost that exact same outfit. I absolutely adore the graphic design, color palette, and illustrations. Wouldn't you just love to walk into Jo-Ann's today and see a whole rack of packages that looked like these?

I am actually kind of fascinated by the Plasti-Stitch corduroy patches. Were they meant to blend in seamlessly and look like you never had a hole in your pants? Or could you go wild and do a little mixing and matching? Perhaps you could tone down your plaid pants a bit by adding a little gray corduroy patch. The back of the package lists purple, olive green, maroo,n and gold as other available colors. Wow!

Let's take a closer look at the Touch O' Magic package: "Use on new jeans for longer wear..." I love their approach to "preventative" patching. But why not wait until you actually have a hole? And isn't the very nature of denim its strength? Iron-on patch sales must have been down in 1968, so those folks at Sandrew, Inc. (makers of Touch O' Magic) of Streetsboro, Ohio, had to come up with new ways to sell their product.

Paean to iron-on patches from the 1970s


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Mar 2009 | 9:51 pm

Times Editor Envisions Future of News

Like a lot of us Nick Bilton loves the news but newspapers, not so much. As head of the New York Times core research and development lab, though, he's in a position to do something about it. And the news, he says is good: "Paper is dying, but it's just a device," Bilton tells Wired.com.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Mar 2009 | 9:20 pm

New EPA Proposal Sets Rules For Emissions Reporting

In a move toward regulating and reducing emissions, the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 8:25 pm

Study: Solar water heating good investment

Scientists in India say they have analyzed the engineering and economics of a solar water-heating system and determined it is a good investment. Vivek Khambalkar, Sharashchandra Gadge and Dhiraj Karale at the Deshmukh Agricultural University in Maharashtra, India, determined the 264,172-gallon (1,000 liter) solar water-heating system at a university hostel had a payback period of only two years. The researchers evaluated the various costs and benefits involved in solar hot-water production. Solar energy is the only renewable energy source that has a wide range of uses with commercial viability, they said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 8:15 pm

Google blocks all of UK from YouTube music videos

Section: Web, Online Music/Video, Google

YouTube and Google seem to have no luck when it comes to negotiating with the music industry.  While Apple has the persuasive power of Steve Jobs, Google seems to have the persuasive power of messing with YouTube viewers to prove a point.  A few months ago they removed music videos from Warner Music Group due to a contractual disagreement, and it started muting copyrighted music on non-approved videos.  Now they’ve gone so far as to block music videos all together in one country.

The move comes because Google could not reach an agreement with PRS for Music, a British “songwriters’ collection society.“  Unsurprisingly, PRS for Music was asking for much more money than Google was willing to give out for the music videos.  So, rather than continue with the current revenue model while a new one is reached, Google just blocked all of the UK from viewing music videos on YouTube.

Having a stance on this one is really tough.  On one hand, the music industry seems to lack any sort of innovation of its own and relies on other companies to produce services that it can leverage for more money.  That doesn’t seem too fair to those who set up the entire service.  However, there’s also the issue of Google having $5.7 billion in revenue last quarter and should be able to reach some sort of deal that doesn’t involve losing a whole lot of that in the coming years.  Google does seem to donate a lot of money to movements it believes in as a company, though, so they put all that money to good use.

Either way, it sucks that all of the UK is out their music videos on YouTube until an agreement is reached.  For the sake of them it would be nice to see an agreement soon.

Read [Reuters]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Mar 2009 | 8:08 pm

Alga found that detoxifies arsenic

Montana State University scientists say they have discovered an alga in Yellowstone National Park that can chemically modify arsenic. Professor Tim McDermott, who led the study, said the one-celled alga -- called Cyanidioschyzon -- thrives in extremely toxic conditions and chemically modifies
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 8:01 pm

Researchers Discover New Type Of Greenhouse Gas

Sulfuryl fluoride, a compound developed to phase out the use of methyl bromide in fumigants has been implicated as a possibly significant contributing factor for greenhouse warming, according to an international team of researchers.Methyl bromide has been used to control insect infestations in grain storage facilities.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 7:55 pm

Disney Prepares To Eliminate Carbon Emissions

The Walt Disney Co.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 7:44 pm

Protein key to eye development identified

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 7:12 pm

NASA's Kevin Petersen to retire

Kevin Petersen, director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Dryden Flight Research Center in California, says he will retire next month. A veteran aerospace engineer and manager with 38 years experience at Dryden, Petersen has served as the center's director for more than 10 years and is the longest-serving field center director currently at NASA, officials said. Dryden's deputy center director, David McBride, has been named acting director. NASA officials said that during Petersen's tenure as center director, Dryden has accomplished many flight-research firsts, including the flight of the Helios solar-electric aircraft to a world record altitude of 96,863 feet, the flight of the X-43A integrated scramjet vehicle to a speed of Mach 10 and the demonstration of fully autonomous in-flight aerial refueling capability. Petersen began his career at Dryden as a university cooperative student in 1971 and was hired as an aerospace engineer upon graduation in 1974.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 7:06 pm

Caravaggio First to Use ‘Camera Obscura’ Approach

Sixteenth-century Italian artist Caravaggio used techniques closely related to the essence of photography when painting his subjects, according to researcher Roberta Lapucci of Florence. Working in a “darkroom,” Caravaggio used a hole in the ceiling to shine light on his subject.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Mar 2009 | 6:58 pm

LG Cookie gets upgraded with S-Class interface, 3G, mispelled name

Just around 6 months after the launch of the LG Cookie (KP500) , LG has announced details of a followup. Because the name “Cookie II” just made too much sense, LG has instead opted to name this second handset “Cooky”, which is not a word.

We had joked that LG had chosen the name “Cookie” because there were no good words left in the phone-naming pool. Now they’re just taking the old names and spelling them wrong.

Anyway - the LG Cooky will be a good bit pricier (around $380, compared to $230), but pack a 3 megapixel camera, TV tuner, the S-Class interface first seen on the Arena, and 7.2mbps HSDPA into a 10.9mm shell (one whole millimeter thinner!). The strength of the original Cookie was its price - this one, we’re not too sure. Oh, and check out the weird external stylus in the shot below.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Mar 2009 | 6:11 pm

Caravaggio Used Optical Tool to Trace Models

Caravaggio was among the first artists to "photograph" his models using an optical tool.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 5:54 pm

Recession-Ready HD Theater Rocks the House

Klipsch is known for making some mighty pricey audio equipment. That is, until the company came out with a line of home theaters in a box. That system, the HD 500, can fill a room with sparkling sound for relatively cheap ... provided that room isn't very big.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Mar 2009 | 5:40 pm

iPhone Nano Rumor #5,838,321: Screen stays the same, Home button moved to the side

According to Le Journal du Geek, the much-fabled iPhone Nano is coming in June, and will be debuted by none other than Jobs himself. The new, meaty bit: to make it smaller (for the sake of the whole “Nano” bit), they say the home button has been moved to the side - but that 3G, GPS, and WiFi get to stay!

Okay, look. The whole iPhone Nano thing is bananas. I’m pretty sure people have been gossiping about the possibility of a smaller iPhone before the iPhone even existed (Newton Nano!), so at this point debunking the rumors is just marginally less silly than making them in the first place. Rather than debunking this new one, we’ll tell it how we see it and let you do the decision making.

Why it might be true:

• It would let them shave some size off the iPhone without changing the screen size. All previous rumors have implied that the screen size would change, nullifying the rumor right off the line. iPhone apps are designed with the specs of the current screen in mind. Sure, you could just match the resolution on a smaller screen (quite easily), but the small fonts and tiny buttons would make the user experience pretty nasty.
• The home button being on the side wouldn’t break anything.

Why it’s probably not:

• If they shave down everything around the touchscreen, where do the speaker, headphone jack, and camera module go? They currently fill the internals above the touchscreen - and those things aren’t exactly small (in a relative sense).
• They’d only be shaving down an inch or so, and only off the height. That doesn’t really justify the “Nano” name, nor would it really justify all of the research and production work required for such a change. With all of the aforementioned components needing new places, the entire handset would need to be re-engineered.
• Why? Why would Apple make this? It’d cost right around the same as the current iPhone to make, and require a good amount of research and development (read: $) - all to shave an inch or so off one dimension?

Like we said earlier, we’ll leave it at that and let you decide whether or not it’s shenanigans.

Just kidding. It’s shenanigans.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Mar 2009 | 5:38 pm

Sea Level to Surge 3 Feet by 2100, Experts Warn

Previous estimates of sea level rise have received a stark revision.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 4:33 pm

St. Francis Basilica Frescoes Bound With Milk

Italian artists used milk as a binder for the famous frescoes of St. Francis Basilica.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 3:47 pm

Severe Depression Can Break Heart

Depressed women are more than twice as likely to experience sudden cardiac death.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 3:45 pm

Hands On With Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid

Elgato’s EyeTV Hybrid is a TV tuner USB stick that can pick up analog signals, digital broadcasts and also FM radio. It allows users to watch TV on their Mac and is popular among Mac Mini users.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Mar 2009 | 3:35 pm

Inclement Weather Linked to Headaches

Research confirms there is a link between weather and headaches.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 3:15 pm

Japanese company rolls out cell phone charger with built-in zinc-air battery

A Japanese company called KFE has developed a charger for cell phones that gets its energy from a zinc-air battery. Users can recharge their phones about 20 times and KFE says compared to dry-cell battery based charger, their $35 device (Japan-only) is more economical.

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Mar 2009 | 2:48 pm

Fall of Communism Renewed Europe's Forests

Europe's forests have recovered significantly since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 2:47 pm

Walrus Can Sleep Anywhere or Barely at All

The walrus can sleep anywhere and can easily forgo sleep for up to 84 hours.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Mar 2009 | 1:00 pm