Source: Gizmodo | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:30 am

Unreal Tournament 3 will be free again this weekend

Thanks to all you unemployed gamers that downloaded and played Unreal Tournament 3 for free last weekend on Steam, this coming weekend is going to be free too! Valve came to relies that if you make popular games free, people will play ‘em. Then, if the price is right after the free period, they will sell a crapton of copies. So, this coming weekend (March 13-15) the game free again and then afterwards for only $11.99.

Source: CrunchGear | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:21 am

Hitachi Fined $31 Million For LCD Price Fixing

MojoKid writes "The Japanese electronics manufacturer has just agreed to pay a staggering $31 million fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of TFT-LCD panels sold to Dell, Inc. The United States Department of Justice made the proclamation, and details show that Hitachi has plead guilty to a one-count felony. The charge, which was filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, blames Hitachi Displays Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., with 'participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of TFT-LCD sold to Dell for use in desktop monitors and notebook computers from April 1, 2001 through March 31, 2004.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:11 am

The Littlest iPod Packs In Songs and Finds Its Voice [Personal Technology]

In these days of economic distress, it’s nice when technology companies add innovative features to the products at the bottom of their price ranges. So it’s notable that Apple’s cheapest iPod, the oft-forgotten Shuffle model, is getting smarter.

In fact, the latest iPod Shuffle, announced Wednesday and available now for $79, is the first portable music player I’ve tested that announces what’s playing. Push a button and it will tell you, in a computerized voice, the title and artist of whatever song you’re hearing. Keep holding that button and it will recite a roll call of all your playlists, allowing you to select among them. In my tests, this worked as advertised.

In addition, this new Shuffle is almost impossibly small. The company has moved the playback and volume controls off the device and onto a small, convenient module built into one of the earbud cords. That allowed Apple (AAPL) to severely shrink the player itself, which, like the two Shuffle models before it, lacks a screen. Apple claims it’s the world’s smallest music player, smaller than a AA battery or a house key.

The result is an iPod that contains four gigabytes of memory and holds 1,000 songs — twice the capacity of its $69 predecessor — yet is just a little blank rectangle of aluminum, available in silver or black. It’s a mere 1.8″ long, 0.7″ wide, and 0.3 inch thick — including a stainless-steel clip that’s built into the back for attaching it to clothing or backpacks.

This player is so small and thin that it reminds me of the popular “Saturday Night Live” skit in which an actor playing Apple CEO Steve Jobs shows off a series of tinier and tinier iPods culminating in a final fictional model that’s invisible. I actually dropped the new Shuffle while testing it and it took a couple of minutes to locate it behind a table leg.

After using this new iPod Shuffle for a few days, I can say that I like it. It does a good job at playing back music, podcasts and audio books. I found the speech function intelligible and helpful, and the earbud-mounted controls convenient and easy to master. And its tiny size and weight of about a third of an ounce make it an especially good choice for people who use their iPods while exercising.

Only a single button appears on the iPod itself, as opposed to on the earbuds. It’s a sliding power button on the top edge that has three positions — one for “off,” one for shuffling your music, and one for playing your songs in order. Once you set this button, you never have to touch the iPod itself, until you want to turn it off.

The new speech-based navigation feature allows the Shuffle, for the first time, to handle multiple playlists, just like on the larger iPods.

In my tests, I managed to squeeze in more than the 1,000 songs Apple claims. I filled my test Shuffle with nearly 1,100 songs, plus a half dozen podcasts and an abridged audio-book edition of President Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope,” read by the author. My music was organized into about 15 playlists, and I was able to switch among them easily using the voice system.

To pause or resume a song, you click the large center portion of the earbud controller once, quickly. To skip to the next song, you click the same button twice, quickly. To change to the previous song, you click it three times quickly.

If you want the computerized “announcer” to identify the song, you press the center button for a longer time, and you keep holding it to start the playlist roll call. When you hear a playlist you want, you press the button again. Smaller buttons at the top and bottom of this earbud controller adjust the volume up and down. It sounds more complicated than it is. While the voice function is in use, the music keeps playing in the background, at reduced volume.

The computerized voice, available in multiple languages, is hardly perfect. Like all such computer voices, its cadence can sound robotic, and it clips some syllables, but I found it perfectly understandable.

The spoken names of your particular songs, artists and playlists are added when you sync the Shuffle with iTunes. The voice quality is best when using a Mac with the latest operating system. It is slightly cruder on Windows or older Mac operating systems.

Even on the latest Macs, the voice got some words wrong. For a live concert album, it pronounced the word “live” as “liv,” and in another case, it pronounced the Roman numeral “IV” as “eye-vee.”

There are some other downsides. The claimed battery life is just 10 hours, down from 12 on the prior Shuffle model. You can’t fully operate the Shuffle with regular earbuds or headphones that lack the special controller. And, if you have numerous playlists, it could be tedious waiting for the voice control to say all their names until it reaches the one you want.

Still, Apple has packed a lot of new intelligence into a truly tiny music player, at a pretty low price.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Source: All Things Digital | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:02 am

Super-easy solar panels hang out your window

I think I can safely say that we all wouldn’t mind getting a little greener in our everyday lives, but one of the most obvious steps — going solar — is simply impractical for people of limited means like myself. By making a solar easier and, if not cheap, then at least cheaper, Veranda Solar is surely only one of many companies that will grow on this new wave of green. These little panel arrays are simple, lightweight, and can be installed in an hour or two. That’s more than can be said about practically any solar solution today.

As you can see from the picture, they’re designed to hang right out of a window. I get a lot of indirect sunlight on my apartment’s biggest window, but I think I’d have to keep the thing open all the time (the heat tradeoff isn’t worth it). Who knows, though, right? If I could run just my chargers off sunlight (60-70 watts should be enough) that’d be nice.

I’m afraid I don’t have the estimated $400-$600 that a big one will cost, though. Plus, utilities are included in my rent, so I’d really only be saving my landlord money. I don’t think I’m ready to take that step yet.

[via Treehugger]

Source: CrunchGear | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:00 am

March 12, 1838: Chemist Gets a Mauve On

1838: William Henry Perkin is born. As an 18-year old chemistry student, he will synthesize an artificial dye in the purplish range. It will change the way we live.

Talk about your spring-break project! Perkin was a student at the Royal College of Chemistry in London in 1856. While at home in the East End of London during Easter vacation, he was experimenting on chemicals that could be made from coal tar.

Though this was an area of special interest for his professor, Wilhelm Hofmann, it was not without risk. Just a year before, another Hofmann student was burned to death when he tried to extract benzene from coal tar and his still caught fire.

Perkin's project was to make a synthetic version of quinine. He hoped to take the new coal-tar derivative allyl toluidine, add two oxygen atoms and — voila — a low-cost and profitable treatment for malaria. Many of Britain's far-flung colonies and dominions, you will remember, were in tropical climes and hence ridden with the debilitating and often deadly ailment.

But it was not to be. Perkin got nothing more than a brown tar. He tried again with a different coal-tar derivative, aniline. Black tar this time. Quinine, it turned out, would not be synthesized until 1944.

Perkin, however, discovered something very interesting. When he treated the black gunk with alcohol, he got a lovely, rich purple dye.

German chemist F.F. Runge, had discovered in 1834 that treating aniline with bleaching powder produced a bright blue color. Perkin's genius was to go big with his invention.

He wrote about it to a Scottish dyeing firm. They wrote back: "If your discovery does not make the goods too expensive, it is decidedly one of the most valuable that has come out for a long time."

Perkin patented his dye and explored ways to scale up to industrial production. He got his father to invest in a new business, and they set up the first synthetic-dye factory in 1857, in a suburb west of London.

At first, they called the dye Tyrian purple after the ancient city of Tyre. Blue and purple were the colors of eastern Mediterranean royalty: The natural dyes were rare and expensive. Despite the grand allusion, Perkin in 1859 renamed the color mauve (inspired by the mallow flower) and the dye mauveine.

Mauve was a big hit, but was replaced within a few years by other aniline dyes like fuchsine (magenta) and Hofmann's violet (invented by none other than Perkin's old prof).

Soon, chemical factories in two hemispheres were creating all sorts of things from coal tar and other organic matter: dyes, drugs, synthetic billiard balls, you name it.

Perkin had founded an industry. It had its drawbacks — pollution, for instance — but Perkin earned both fortune and fame. King Edward VII knighted him in 1906 to mark the 50th anniversary of his discovery.

Source: Ingenious

Source: Gizmodo | 12 Mar 2009 | 1:00 am

T-Mobile G1 to get the Cupcake update in April

With the HTC Magic launching in April, we probably could have guessed that the Cupcake update would be ready to ship to the G1 at the same time. But now we don’t need to guess - a T-Mobile rep has gone and confirmed it.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Source: CrunchGear | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:50 am

T-Mobile G1 to get the Cupcake update in April

With the HTC Magic launching in April, we probably could have guessed that the Cupcake update would be ready to ship to the G1 at the same time. But now we don’t need to guess - a T-Mobile rep has gone and confirmed it.

PocketLint nudged at T-Mo a bit, and got the following response: “We will be offering G1 users the firmware update sometime in April. We can’t say whether this will be connected with the launch of the HTC Magic as we aren’t aware of what alterations if any they are making to the operating system”.

Yeah, yeah - in other words, neither has a date set in stone just yet, but both can be expected some time next month.

Just tuning in to all this Cupcake business? Here’s a recap of the major features it’s bringing to the platform:

• On screen keyboard
• Copy and paste and inline search in the browser
• Stereo Bluetooth
• Video recording
• Live Folders

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:47 am

Neudesic Enters Alliance With Microsoft and ExactTarget

Actionable Market Intelligence Solution for End-To-End Sales and Marketing Solution IRVINE, Calif., March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Neudesic today announced the formation of the ExactTarget Neudesic alliance, a combination of Microsoft and industry-leading Gold Certified Partners in a strategic integrated solution and services strategy.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:35 am

Nokia expands their Music line with three new phones

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous, Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video

Just a few weeks ago, Nokia released their 5800 Xpress Music phone here in the States.  Today, they announced the release of an additional three music devices set to fit a variety of budgets - the 5730 XpressMusic, the 5330 XpressMusic, and the 5030.  They also have more Comes with Music launches and new Nokia Music Stores.

Nokia Xpress Music 5730

Ok, so first up, the Nokia Xpress Music 5730.  It’s a slider phone operating on Symbian S60 OS.  The center of this baby?  The Homescreen.  It gives access and info on not just music but games, people, email, and calendar.  It has an updated contacts bar for up to 20 friends, links directly to the music as well as N-Gage, and other apps like Facebook, Photos, and messaging to name a few.  It’s got a full QWERTY keyboard which is must have for many when it comes to a messaging device.

The popular Music shortcut not only gives the user fast access to their own music, but also to the music on the Nokia Music Store.  There is a standard 3.5mm audio jack.

Another treat is the “dedicated gaming keys.“  This gives access to the N-Gage Arena and all the preloaded N-Gage games.  You can compete, connect, or check your scores against other players online.

The XpressMusic 5730 will be shipping the “third quarter of 2009” for approximately $360.

Nokia 5330 XpressMusic

Next we have the Nokia 5330 XpressMusic.  This one is a bit funkier.  You have illumination effects going on and a little more of an edgy design style.  It still offers up the instant access to music with touch keys on the side of the unit.  Also complete with the 3.5mm jack so you can rock out without anyone else hearing—and with battery life of more than 26 hours of playback time, you can go for quite a while.  The 5330 is also due to ship the third quarter of ‘09 for about $160.

Nokia 5030

Finally, the Nokia 5030.  This one offers a first for Nokia.  It is their first phone to come with an internal FM radio antenna.  With this antenna, you don’t need a headset or external speakers.  It has one touch FM radio and channel selection keys on the side, which allows it to double as a portable FM radio when placed on its side on a surface.  It has up to 10 hours of talk time and a day of listening time.  It comes in either graphite or red, and is due to begin shipping “the second quarter of 2009” for about $50.

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:21 am

En Pointe Technologies, Inc. Agrees to Be Acquired for $2.50 Per Share in Cash

LOS ANGELES, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- En Pointe Technologies, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:11 am

iSkoot opens their live update platform to handset OEMs

Last month TechCrunch wrote about Kalaida, iSkoot’s software platform purposed for connecting standard feature phones to social sites and other online content in a way not unlike that of a smartphone.

This evening, iSkoot has announced that they are expanding their offerings to include KalaidaLIVE, the always-on connectivity solution that allows their Notifier application to receive content updates without manual or timed refreshes.

As iSkoot puts it:

KalaidaLive opens a persistent connection to iSkoot’s notification server to listen for updates from the various Web services that the subscriber uses. Once new information has been retrieved, the notification server uses this persistent connection to return all relevant new and cached information. The process is optimized for bandwidth efficiency by using a user-sensitive content retrieval system. In addition, iSkoot’s KalaidaLive server can rapidly provision new applications and manage authentication and provisioning as well.

In other words, KalaidaLive allows manufacturers to easily push web content (E-mail, Twitter/Facebook feeds, etc) to their non-smartphone handsets out-of-the-box without requiring them to develop their own content-pushing back end. It’ll also allow them to distribute the latest version of applications directly to handsets in a way that is fairly transparent to the user.

iSkoot isn’t currently providing exact details on the costs involved for manufacturers, though they claim it’s a “small investment”.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:03 am

The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist

Editor's note: This article will appear in Wired magazine's April issue, on sale March 24, 2009. It is being published online now because the subject of the story, Leonardo Notarbartolo, was released from prison in Belgium this week.

Leonardo Notarbartolo strolls into the prison visiting room trailing a guard as if the guy were his personal assistant. The other convicts in this eastern Belgian prison turn to look. Notarbartolo nods and smiles faintly, the laugh lines crinkling around his blue eyes. Though he's an inmate and wears the requisite white prisoner jacket, Notarbartolo radiates a sunny Italian charm. A silver Rolex peeks out from under his cuff, and a vertical strip of white soul patch drops down from his lower lip like an exclamation mark.

In February 2003, Notarbartolo was arrested for heading a ring of Italian thieves. They were accused of breaking into a vault two floors beneath the Antwerp Diamond Center and making off with at least $100 million worth of loose diamonds, gold, jewelry, and other spoils. The vault was thought to be impenetrable. It was protected by 10 layers of security, including infrared heat detectors, Doppler radar, a magnetic field, a seismic sensor, and a lock with 100 million possible combinations. The robbery was called the heist of the century, and even now the police can't explain exactly how it was done.

The loot was never found, but based on circumstantial evidence, Notarbartolo was sentenced to 10 years. He has always denied having anything to do with the crime and has refused to discuss his case with journalists, preferring to remain silent for the past six years.

Until now.

Notarbartolo sits down across from me at one of the visiting room's two dozen small rectangular tables. He has an intimidating reputation. The Italian anti-Mafia police contend he is tied to the Sicilian mob, that his cousin was tapped to be the next the capo dei capi—the head of the entire organization. Notarbartolo intends to set the record straight. He puts his hands on the table. He has had six years to think about what he is about to say.

"I may be a thief and a liar," he says in beguiling Italian-accented French. "But I am going to tell you a true story."

It was February 16, 2003 — a clear, frozen Sunday evening in Belgium. Notarbartolo took the E19 motorway out of Antwerp. In the passenger seat, a man known as Speedy fidgeted nervously, damp with sweat. Notarbartolo punched it, and his rented Peugeot 307 sped south toward Brussels. They hadn't slept in two days.

Speedy scanned the traffic behind them in the side-view mirror and maintained a tense silence. Notarbartolo had worked with him for 30 years—they were childhood buddies—but he knew that his friend had a habit of coming apart at the end of a job. The others on the team hadn't wanted Speedy in on this one—they said he was a liability. Notarbartolo could see their point, but out of loyalty, he defended his friend. Speedy could handle it, he said.

And he had. They had executed the plan perfectly: no alarms, no police, no problems. The heist wouldn't be discovered until guards checked the vault on Monday morning. The rest of the team was already driving back to Italy with the gems. They'd rendezvous outside Milan to divvy it all up. There was no reason to worry. Notarbartolo and Speedy just had to burn the incriminating evidence sitting in a garbage bag in the backseat.

Notarbartolo pulled off the highway and turned onto a dirt road that led into a dense thicket. The spot wasn't visible from the highway, though the headlights of passing cars fractured through the trees. Notarbartolo told Speedy to stay put and got out to scout the area.

He passed a rusty, dilapidated gate that looked like it hadn't been touched since the Second World War. It was hard to see in the dark, but the spot seemed abandoned. He decided to burn the stuff near a shed beside a small pond and headed back to the car.

When he got there, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Speedy had lost it. The contents of the garbage bag was strewn amongst the trees. Speedy was stomping through the mud, hurling paper into the underbrush. Spools of videotape clung to the branches like streamers on a Christmas tree. Israeli and Indian currency skittered past a half-eaten salami sandwich. The mud around the car was flecked with dozens of tiny, glittering diamonds. It would take hours to gather everything up and burn it.

"I think someone's coming," Speedy said, looking panicked.

Notarbartolo glared at him. The forest was quiet except for the occasional sound of a car or truck on the highway. It was even possible to hear the faint gurgling of a small stream. Speedy was breathing fast and shallow—the man was clearly in the midst of a full-blown panic attack.

"Get back in the car," Notarbartolo ordered. They were leaving. Nobody would ever find the stuff here.

The job was done.

Patrick Peys and Agim De Bruycker arrived at the Diamond Center the next morning. They had just received a frantic call: The vault had been compromised. The subterranean chamber was supposed to be one of the most secure safes in the world. Now the foot-thick steel door was ajar, and more than 100 of the 189 safe-deposit boxes had been busted open. Peys and De Bruycker were stunned. The floor was strewn with wads of cash and velvet-lined boxes. Peys stepped on a diamond-encrusted bracelet. It appeared that the thieves had so much loot, they simply couldn't carry it all away.

Peys and De Bruycker lead the Diamond Squad, the world's only specialized diamond police. Their beat: the labyrinthine Antwerp Diamond District. Eighty percent of the world's rough diamonds pass through this three-square-block area, which is under 24-hour police surveillance and monitored by 63 video cameras. About $3 billion worth of gem sales were reported here in 2003, but that's not counting a hidden world of handshake deals and off-ledger transactions. Business relationships follow the ancient family and religious traditions of the district's dominant Jewish and Indian dealers, known as diamantaires. In 2000, the Belgian government realized it would require a special type of cop to keep an eye on things and formed the squad. Peys and De Bruycker were the first hires.

De Bruycker called headquarters, asking for a nationwide alert: The Antwerp Diamond Center had been brazenly robbed. Then he dialed Securilink, the vault's alarm company.

"What is the status of the alarm?" he asked.

"Fully functional," the operator said, checking the signals coming in from the Diamond Center. "The vault is secure."

"Then how is it that the door is wide open and I'm standing inside the vault?" De Bruycker demanded, glancing at the devastation all around him.

He hung up and looked at Peys. They were up against a rare breed of criminal.

About 18 months earlier, in the summer of 2001, Leonardo Notarbartolo sipped an espresso at a café on Hoveniersstraat, the diamond district's main street. It was a cramped, narrow place with a half-dozen small tables, but from the corner by the window Notarbartolo could look out on the epicenter of the world's diamond trade. During business hours, Hasidic men wearing broad-brimmed hats hurried past with satchels locked to their wrists. Armored cars idled tensely while burly couriers with handguns wheeled away small black suitcases. There were Africans in bright blue suits, Indian merchants wearing loupes around their necks, and bald Armenians with reading glasses pushed up on their mottled heads.

Billions of dollars in diamonds pass by the café's window. During the day, they travel from office to office in briefcases, coat pockets, and off-the-shelf rollies. At night, all those gems are locked up in safes and underground vaults. It's one of the densest concentrations of wealth in the world.

It's also a thief's paradise. In 2000, Notarbartolo rented a small office in the Diamond Center, one of the area's largest buildings. He presented himself as a gem importer based in Turin, Italy, and scheduled meetings with numerous dealers. He bought small stones, paid cash, dressed well, and cheerfully mangled the French language. The dealers probably never knew that they had just welcomed one of the world's best jewel thieves into their circle.

By his own account, Notarbartolo had pulled off dozens of major robberies by 2000. It wasn't just about the money anymore. He stole because he was born to be a thief. He still remembers every detail of his first robbery. It was 1958—he was 6. His mother had sent him out for milk, and he came back with 5,000 lira—about $8. The milkman had been asleep, and young Leo rifled through his drawers. His mother beat him, but it didn't matter. He had found his calling.

In elementary school, he filched money from his teachers. As a teenager, he stole cars and learned to pick locks. In his twenties, he devoted himself to the study of people, tracking jewelry salesmen around Italy for weeks just to understand their habits. In his thirties, he began to assemble teams of thieves, each with their own specialty. He knew lock-picking experts, alarm aces, safecrackers, guys who could tunnel under anything, and a man who could scale the sleek exteriors of office buildings. Each job brought a different mix of thieves into play. Most, including Notarbartolo, lived in or near Turin, and the group came to be known as the School of Turin.

Notarbartolo's specialty was charm. Acting the part of the jolly jeweler, he was invited into offices, workshops, and even vault rooms to inspect merchandise. He would buy a few stones and then, a week or a month later, steal the target's entire stock in the middle of the night.

Antwerp provided a wealth of opportunity and a good place to fence hot property. A diamond necklace stolen in Italy could be dismantled and its individual gems sold for cash in Antwerp. He came to town about twice a month, stayed a few days at a small apartment near the Diamond District, then drove home to his wife and kids in the foothills of the Alps.

When he had stolen goods to sell, he dealt with only a few trusted buyers. Now, as he finished his espresso, one of them—a Jewish dealer—came in and sat down to chat.

"Actually, I want to talk to you about something a little unusual," the dealer said casually. "Maybe we could walk a little?"

They headed out, and once they were clear of the district, the dealer picked up the conversation. His tone had changed however. The casualness was gone.

"I'd like to hire you for a robbery," he said. "A big robbery."

The agreement was straightforward. For an initial payment of 100,000 euros, Notarbartolo would answer a simple question: Could the vault in the Antwerp Diamond Center be robbed?

He was pretty sure the answer was no. He was a tenant in the building and rented a safe-deposit box in the vault to secure his own stash. He viewed it as the safest place to keep valuables in Antwerp. But for 100,000 euros, he was happy to photograph the place and show the dealer how daunting it really was.

So he strolled into the Diamond District with a pen poking out of his breast pocket. At a glance, it looked like a simple highlighter, but the cap contained a miniaturized digital camera capable of storing 100 high-resolution images. Photography is strictly limited in the district, but nobody noticed Notarbartolo's pencam.

He began his reconnaissance at the police surveillance booth on the Schupstraat, a street leading into the center of the district. Behind the booth's bulletproof glass, two officers monitored the area. The three main blocks of the district bristled with video cameras: Every inch of street and sky appeared to be under watch. The booth also contained the controls for the retractable steel cylinders that are deployed to prevent vehicular access to the district. As Notarbartolo walked past, he began taking pictures.

He headed toward the Diamond Center itself, a gray, 14-story, fortresslike building on the south end of the district. It had a private security force that operated a nerve center located at the entrance. Access was blocked by metal turnstiles, and visitors were questioned by guards. Notarbartolo flashed his tenant ID card and breezed through. His camera captured crisp images of everything.

He took the elevator, descending two floors underground to a small, claustrophobic room—the vault antechamber. A 3-ton steel vault door dominated the far wall. It alone had six layers of security. There was a combination wheel with numbers from 0 to 99. To enter, four numbers had to be dialed, and the digits could be seen only through a small lens on the top of the wheel. There were 100 million possible combinations.

Power tools wouldn't do the trick. The door was rated to withstand 12 hours of nonstop drilling. Of course, the first vibrations of a drill bit would set off the embedded seismic alarm anyway.

The door was monitored by a pair of abutting metal plates, one on the door itself and one on the wall just to the right. When armed, the plates formed a magnetic field. If the door were opened, the field would break, triggering an alarm. To disarm the field, a code had to be typed into a nearby keypad. Finally, the lock required an almost-impossible-to-duplicate foot-long key.

During business hours, the door was actually left open, leaving only a steel grate to prevent access. But Notarbartolo had no intention of muscling his way in when people were around and then shooting his way out. Any break-in would have to be done at night, after the guards had locked down the vault, emptied the building, and shuttered the entrances with steel roll-gates. During those quiet midnight hours, nobody patrolled the interior—the guards trusted their technological defenses.

Notarbartolo pressed a buzzer on the steel grate. A guard upstairs glanced at the videofeed, recognized Notarbartolo, and remotely unlocked the steel grate. Notarbartolo stepped inside the vault.

It was silent—he was surrounded by thick concrete walls. The place was outfitted with motion, heat, and light detectors. A security camera transmitted his movements to the guard station, and the feed was recorded on videotape. The safe-deposit boxes themselves were made of steel and copper and required a key and combination to open. Each box had 17,576 possible combinations.

Notarbartolo went through the motions of opening and closing his box and then walked out. The vault was one of the hardest targets he'd ever seen.

Notarbartolo leans toward me in the Belgian prison and asks if I have any questions so far. It is a rare break in his fast-moving monologue. There is a sense of urgency. He is allotted only one hour of visiting time per day.

"You're telling me that the heist was organized by an Antwerp diamond dealer," I say.

"Bravo," he replies, smiling.

"What about your cousin?"

His smile disappears.

Notarbartolo was born in Palermo, Sicily, and members of his extended family have long been dogged by accusations of Mafia connections. Those accusations reached a crescendo last year when anti-Mafia police arrested Notarbartolo's cousin Benedetto Capizzi, claiming he was about to become the new leader of the Sicilian Mafia. Notarbartolo says the Italian authorities traveled to Belgium soon after the heist to question him about Capizzi's possible role in the robbery. If there is an organized-crime link, Notarbartolo might be inventing a story about the Jewish diamond dealer to distract attention from what really happened.

Notarbartolo scoffs at this idea and insists that his cousin had nothing to do with the heist. The reality, Notarbartolo says, is that he thought the vault was impregnable. He didn't believe it could be robbed until the dealer went to extraordinary lengths to prove him wrong.

The Target

The Antwerp Diamond Center vault was protected by 10 layers of security.

The Door 1.    Combination dial (0-99) 2.    Keyed lock 3.    Seismic sensor (built-in) 4.    Locked steel grate 5.    Magnetic sensor 6.    External security camera

The Vault 7.    Keypad for disarming sensors 8.    Light sensor 9.    Internal security camera 10.  Heat/motion sensor (approximate location)

Illustration: Joe McKendry

It took five months for the diamond dealer to call back after Notarbartolo told him the heist was impossible. He had even given him the photographs to prove it. Notarbartolo thought that would be the end of it, but now the dealer wanted to meet at an address outside Antwerp. When Notarbartolo arrived, the dealer was waiting for him in front of an abandoned warehouse.

"I want to introduce you to some people," he said, unlocking the battered front door.

Inside, a massive structure was covered with black plastic tarps. The dealer pulled back a corner and they ducked underneath.

At first, Notarbartolo was confused. He seemed to be standing in the vault antechamber. To his left, he saw the vault door. He was inside an exact replica of the Diamond Center's vault level. Everything was the same. As far as Notarbartolo could tell, the dealer had reconstructed it based on the photographs he had provided. Notarbartolo felt like he had stepped into a movie.

Inside the fake vault, three Italians were having a quiet conversation. They stopped talking when they saw the dealer and Notarbartolo. The dealer introduced them, though Notarbartolo refuses to reveal their names, referring to them only by nicknames.

The Genius specialized in alarm systems. According to the dealer, he could disable any kind of alarm.

"You can disable this?" Notarbartolo asked, pointing at the replica vault.

"I can disable most of it," the Genius said with a smile. "You're going to have to do one or two things yourself, though."

The tall, muscular man was the Monster. He was called that because he was monstrously good at everything he did. He was an expert lock picker, electrician, mechanic, and driver and had enormous physical strength. Everybody was a little scared of him, which was another reason for the nickname.

The King of Keys was a quiet older man. His age set him apart from the others—he looked like somebody's grandfather. The diamond dealer said that the wizened locksmith was among the best key forgers in the world. One of his contributions would be to duplicate the nearly impossible-to-duplicate foot-long vault key.

"Just get me a clear video of it," the man told Notarbartolo. "I'll do the rest."

"That's not so easy," Notarbartolo pointed out.

The King of Keys shrugged. That wasn't his problem.

"Don't worry," the Genius said. "I'll help."

In September 2002, a guard stepped up to the vault door and began to spin the combination wheel. It was 7 am. He was right on schedule.

Directly above his head and invisible behind the glare of a recessed light, a fingertip-sized video camera captured his every move. With each spin, the combination came to rest on a number. A small antenna broadcast the image. Nearby, in a storage room beside the vault, an ordinary-looking red fire extinguisher was strapped to the wall. The extinguisher was fully functional, but a watertight compartment inside housed electronics that picked up and recorded the video signal.

When the guard finished dialing the combination, he inserted the vault's key. The video camera recorded a sharp image of it before it disappeared inside the keyhole.

He spun the handle, and the vault door swung open.

Thursday morning, February 13, 2003. Two days before the heist. The thud-thud-thud of a police helicopter beat over a convoy of police cars escorting an armored truck through the heart of Antwerp. They blew past posters of Venus Williams—she was due in town to compete in the Proximus Diamond Games tennis tournament.

The escorts bristled with firepower. They belonged to a special diamond-delivery protection unit, and each cop carried a fully automatic weapon. Their cargo: De Beers' monthly shipment of diamonds, worth millions.

De Beers is the world's largest diamond-mining company. In 2003, it controlled 55 percent of the global diamond supply and operated mines in South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana, among others. The rough, unpolished gems were flown to London, where they were divided and placed in 120 boxes—one for each official De Beers distributor, many of which were headquartered in Antwerp.

Every month, Antwerp's share of the boxes was flown into Belgium and transferred to a Brinks armored truck. Once the truck's doors slammed shut, the convoy sped away, sirens wailing. The vehicles rocketed past the guard gate at the entrance of the district, and the giant metal cylinders rose out of the ground behind them, blocking any further automotive access.

The armed escorts fanned out on foot around the armored truck to form a perimeter. No one was allowed near the vehicle. The doors swung open, and the boxes were quickly carried through an unremarkable entrance in the middle of the block. It was payday. The Diamond District was flush.

Notarbartolo was buzzed into the vault the next day, Friday, February 14—the day before the robbery. He was alone. In his jacket pocket, he carried a can of women's hair spray.

A security camera recorded his movements—police would later watch the footage—but the guard had gotten used to the Italian's frequent visits and wasn't paying attention. Notarbartolo stepped away from the safe-deposit boxes and pulled out the aerosol can. With a quick, practiced circular movement, he covered the combined heat/motion sensor with a thin coat of transparent, oily mist.

The vault was momentarily filled with the smell of a woman's hair.

It was a simple but effective hack: The oily film would temporarily insulate the sensor from fluctuations in the room's temperature, and the alarm went off only if it sensed both heat and motion.

Still, it was hard to guess how long the trick would work. Once the Monster was in the vault, he had to install the sensor bypass before his body heat penetrated the film. He might have five minutes—he might have less. Nobody knew for sure.

Venus Williams smashed the ball crosscourt with a yelp, overwhelming her leggy Slovakian opponent. It was Saturday night, and Williams was dominating the semifinals of the Diamond Games, an event that hyped Antwerp's predominant position in the gem world. Many of the city's diamantaires watched as Williams beat down the Slovak and moved one step closer to winning a tennis racket encrusted with nearly $1 million worth of stones.

Across town, the Diamond District was deserted. Notarbartolo drove his rented gray Peugeot 307 past the city's soot-covered central train station and turned onto Pelikaanstraat, a road that skirted the district. He pulled to the curb, and the Monster, the Genius, the King of Keys, and Speedy stepped out carrying large duffel bags. The King of Keys picked the lock on a run-down office building, and they disappeared through the door. It was a little past midnight.

The Genius led them out the rear of the building into a private garden that abutted the back of the Diamond Center. It was one of the few places in the district that wasn't under video surveillance. Using a ladder he had previously hidden there, the Genius climbed up to a small terrace on the second floor. A heat-sensing infrared detector monitored the terrace, but he approached it slowly from behind a large, homemade polyester shield. The low thermal conductivity of the polyester blocked his body heat from reaching the sensor. He placed the shield directly in front of the detector, preventing it from sensing anything.

The balcony was now safe. While the rest of the team scrambled up, the Genius disabled an alarm sensor on one of the balcony's windows. One by one, the thieves climbed through the window, dropped into a stairwell, and descended to the darkened vault antechamber. They covered the security cameras with black plastic bags and flipped on the lights. The vault door stood imposingly before them. The building was quiet—no alarms had been triggered. The police never determined how the men had entered the building.

The Genius pulled a custom-made slab of rigid aluminum out of his bag and affixed heavy-duty double-sided tape to one side. He stuck it on the two plates that regulated the magnetic field on the right side of the vault door and unscrewed their bolts. The magnetic plates were now loose, but the sticky aluminum held them together, allowing the Genius to pivot them out of the way and tape them to the antechamber wall. The plates were still side by side and active—the magnetic field never wavered—but they no longer monitored the door. Some 30 hours later, the authorities would marvel at the ingenuity.

Next, the King of Keys played out a hunch. In Notarbartolo's videos, the guard usually visited a utility room just before opening the vault. When the thieves searched the room, they found a major security lapse: The original vault key was hanging inside.

The King of Keys grabbed the original. There was no point in letting the safe manufacturers know that their precious key could be copied, and the police still don't know that a duplicate was made.

The King of Keys slotted the original in the keyhole and waited while the Genius dialed in the combination they had gleaned from the video. A moment later, the Genius nodded. The Monster turned off the lights—they didn't want to trigger the light detector in the vault when the door opened. In the darkness, the King of Keys turned the key and spun a four-pronged handle. The bolts that secured the door retracted and it swung heavily open.

Speedy ran up the stairwell. It was his job to stay in touch with Notarbartolo, but there was no cell phone reception down in the vault. Upstairs, he got a signal and dialed his old friend.

"We're in," he said and hung up.

Notarbartolo put his phone back on the dashboard. He was sitting in the Peugeot and could see the front of the Diamond Center a block and a half away. His police scanner was quiet. He took a sip of cold coffee and waited.

In the antechamber, the King of Keys deftly picked the lock on the metal grate. He shuffled backward as the Monster propped the grate open with two cans of paint he found in the storeroom. Like the rest of the team, the Monster wore plastic gloves—the police would find no prints on the cans. It was now up to him to disable the remaining systems.

The Monster oriented himself in the darkness at the vault entrance. The only sound was the steady breathing of the others behind him. His body was already projecting heat into the vault—the hair spray on the infrared sensor wouldn't last. Every second he was there would raise the ambient temperature. He had to move quickly but keep his heart rate low.

As he'd practiced in the warehouse, he strode exactly 11 steps into the middle of the room, reached for the ceiling, and pushed back a panel. He felt the security system's main inbound and outbound wires. An automatic electric pulse constantly shot into the room and back out along these wires. If any of the sensors were tripped, the circuit would break. When a pulse shot into the room, it expected an answer. If it didn't get one, it activated the alarm.

With his hands over his head, the Monster used a tool to strip the plastic coating off the wires. It was a delicate task. One slip could cut through, instantly breaking the circuit and tripping the alarm.

The police would later discover stripped wires in the ceiling and guess that the thieves considered cutting them, only to lose their nerve. But Notabartolo says that the Monster knew exactly what he was doing. Once the copper wires were exposed, he clipped a new, precut piece of wire between the inbound and outbound cables. This bridge rerouted the incoming electric pulse over to the outbound wire before the signal reached the sensors. It no longer mattered what happened further down the line. The sensors were out of the loop. It was now safe for the others to enter.

Still, the men were cautious. They blinded the heat/motion detector with a Styrofoam box, covered the light detector with tape, and then set to work. The King of Keys unloaded a homemade, hand-cranked drill and fitted it with a thin shaft of metal. He jammed the shaft into one of the locks and cranked for about three minutes—until the lock broke, snapping open the box.

The guys took turns yanking the contents out. Since they had memorized the layout of the vault in the replica, they worked in the dark, turning on their flashlights only for split seconds—enough to position the drill over the next box.

But in those muffled flashes, they could glimpse their duffel bags overflowing with gold bars, millions in Israeli, Swiss, American, European, and British currencies, and leather satchels that contained the mother lode: rough and polished diamonds. They resisted the urge to examine their haul; they were running out of time.

By 5:30 am, they had opened 109 boxes. A tamped-down giddiness pervaded the dark vault, but they had to stop. The streets would fill with people soon, and they needed to transfer their bags into Notarbartolo's car. Speedy relayed the message to him. They were coming out.

It took almost an hour for the team to haul the bags up the stairs, pass by the infrared sensor, lower the loot down the ladder, and gather in the hallway of the decrepit office building. Notarbartolo idled at the curb while on the phone with Speedy. A bus came and went, and then the street was empty.

"Now," he hissed.

In the predawn half-light, the four men raced out of the building. They jammed the bags in the car, slammed the doors, and headed off on foot for Notarbartolo's apartment. He put the car in gear and slowly pulled away.

In half an hour, they were huddled around the bags in the apartment. The Monster unzipped one and pulled out a leather satchel. It was time to celebrate.

He opened the satchel and looked up, bewildered. It was empty.

He took out another. It was also empty. A wave of anxiety swept the room. They unzipped all the other duffel bags and rifled through the satchels. More often than not, there was nothing in them.

Something had gone wrong. The diamonds should have been there.

"We've been set up," Notarbartolo said.

Notarbartolo stepped into a scalding-hot shower while the others made salami sandwiches in the kitchen. He needed some clarity—the fatigue was weighing on him. In the weeks preceding the heist, he had seen many of the satchels in the offices of the diamantaires, and they were always filled with inventory. He expected the total take to exceed $100 million. Now they were looking at a fraction of that—probably about $20 million.

Notarbartolo reflected on his interactions with the diamond dealer, and a thought flashed through his mind: Maybe the dealer wasn't operating alone. If he tipped off a group of his fellow merchants, they could have pulled their inventory out of the vault before the heist. Each could then claim that their gems were stolen and collect the insurance while secretly keeping their stones. Most had safes in their offices—they could have simply kept the stock there. Notarbartolo realized that the heist he had spent so much time planning might have actually been part of an elaborate insurance scam.

He shut off the water. A half hour earlier he was a king. Now he felt like a pawn.

Speedy and Notarbartolo were on the E19 heading out of Antwerp. It was 6 o'clock on Sunday evening. Notarbartolo settled in for the 10-hour drive back to Turin. The garbage bag filled with incriminating evidence sat in the backseat. Notarbartolo planned to stop in France and burn it, leaving no trace of the crime.

But Speedy was having trouble. His face was ashen, and his eyes darted madly at the cars around them. Finally, after only 20 minutes on the road, he snapped.

"I can't do the drive," he said.

The guy was melting down. Notarbartolo told him to take it easy. He'd drop him at the train station in Brussels if that's what he wanted. It might actually be nicer to do the trip without his friend driving him crazy.

"We can't take the garbage into Brussels," Speedy stammered. The city was crawling with cops—maybe they would be looking for them. They couldn't run the risk. They had to drop the bag immediately.

"Pull off up here," he said abruptly from the passenger seat.

"This is a ridiculous time to be having a panic attack," Notarbartolo muttered.

"Just pull off," his friend snapped.

Notarbartolo took the exit and surveyed the darkened surroundings.

"There's a dirt road," Speedy said, peering into a forest. "It'll be perfect."

August Van Camp likes weasels. The 59-year-old retired Belgian grocer had two—he called them Mickey and Minnie—and he enjoyed sending them down holes in the forest. Typically, a rabbit came rocketing out the other end. It was a lot of fun.

In 1998, he bought a narrow strip of forest alongside the E19 motorway. It was about a five-minute drive from his house, and if you ignored the sound of cars hurtling past at 80 miles an hour, it was a pretty 12 acres of trees with a gurgling stream. There were also a lot of holes with rabbits in them.

But because it adjoined the highway, Van Camp found a lot of garbage. The local teenagers once decided to have a party there and burned down a little hut he'd built. It made him fume with anger.

When he found garbage, he phoned the police, who had gotten used to his calls. A typical conversation:

"The kids have made a mess on my land again."

"I am sorry to hear that, Mr. Van Camp."

"I demand that you send someone to investigate."

"We will pass along your request."

Van Camp rarely heard back.

While hunting one morning—Monday, February 17, to be exact—Van Camp was incensed to find yet another pile of junk in the underbrush. After a flash of pique that made him puff out his cheeks, throw up his arms, and wonder what the world was coming to, he knelt down and glared at the refuse. He wanted to be able to describe to the cops what he had to put up with. There was videotape strewn all over the place. A wine bottle rested near a half-eaten salami sandwich. There were also some white envelopes printed with the words diamond center, antwerp. Van Camp's irritation increased.

"Kids," he grumbled.

At home, he punched in the number for the police and asked to lodge a complaint. The officer listened as Van Camp tallied the mess. When Van Camp mentioned Diamond Center envelopes, the officer broke in. "What was that?" he said.

"Antwerp Diamond Center envelopes," Van Camp sputtered.

This time, the police came running.

By mid-afternoon, a half-dozen detectives swarmed the forest, painstakingly gathering the garbage and collecting stray gems. Van Camp watched with satisfaction. The police were finally treating his litter situation with the proper respect.

Within hours, the trash began to fill the evidence room at the Diamond Squad headquarters in Antwerp. A member of the squad bent over the clear plastic bags, looking for immediate clues. A pile of torn paper seemed promising. It didn't take long to reassemble the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. It was an invoice for a low-light video surveillance system. The buyer: Leonardo Notarbartolo.

Back at Van Camp's property, another detective knelt among the thorny brambles and peered at a small, jagged piece of paper poking out of the mud. He carefully lifted it free and held it up to the light.

It was a business card that bore the address and phone number of Elio D'Onorio, an Italian electronics expert tied to a series of robberies. Notarbartolo has consistently refused to identify his accomplices, but all evidence indicates that D'Onorio is the Genius.

The lab techs also bagged a half-eaten salami sandwich. They found Antipasto Italiano salami packaging nearby and sent it along to Diamond Squad headquarters.

Four days later, the detectives executed a search warrant on the apartment Notarbartolo rented in Antwerp. In a cupboard, they found a receipt from a local grocery store for Antipasto Italiano salami. The receipt had a time-stamp.

A detective drove to the grocery and asked the manager to rewind his closed-circuit television to 12:56 pm on Thursday, February 13. When the video came to a halt and snapped into focus, there was an image of a tall, muscular Italian purchasing salami. His name: Ferdinando Finotto—the man most likely to be the Monster.

On Monday — about 36 hours after the job was completed—the team of thieves reassembled at a bar in Adro, Italy, a small town about 50 miles northeast of Milan. They had agreed to meet the diamond dealer there and divide the loot. The dealer would get a third for financing the operation and putting the team together. The others would split the rest. They had anticipated a haul in the tens of millions each. Now they were looking at roughly $3 million per man. It was still a lot of money, but they couldn't help feeling they'd been played. Everybody had a lot of questions for the dealer.

Hour after hour, he didn't arrive. Notarbartolo was already uneasy about what had happened in the forest. He knew he had made a mistake—he should have turned around after he dropped off Speedy at the train station and gone back to burn the garbage. It was an embarrassing oversight, but what really irked him was that he had vouched for his friend, and the guy had cracked.

They waited at the bar until closing, drinking espressos and then beer. The dealer never showed.

On Thursday night, Notarbartolo ate dinner with his family at home outside of Turin. He tried to pretend that everything was normal. As usual, his 3-year-old granddaughter played with his cell phone and made him laugh. He momentarily forgot his worries.

His biggest problem was that he needed to go back to Belgium; the rental car was due in Antwerp the next day. The plan had always been to return it and show his face at the Diamond Center. That way, if the cops were looking for tenants who'd disappeared, he wouldn't be on the list. It would also give him an opportunity to clean his apartment more thoroughly. He told his family that he'd be leaving early the next morning. His wife decided to come along; she hadn't seen much of him lately. They could even have a nice dinner party with some friends from the Netherlands.

The next morning, as the Notarbartolos blew through the Swiss Alps, the police surrounded their home in Italy. Acting on the surveillance-system invoice discovered on Van Camp's land, the Belgian diamond detectives had asked the Italian police to search Notarbartolo's house. His 24-year-old son, Marco, was there and refused to open the front door. He frantically dialed his father's cell phone while the police smashed the door open.

In Notarbartolo's jacket pocket, his phone flashed but made no sound. His granddaughter had accidently turned off the ringer the night before. Marco called his mother's phone—it was turned off. He tried his dad's phone repeatedly. It just rang and rang.

Unaware, Notarbartolo sped toward Antwerp.

As Notarbartolo drove back to Belgium, Peys and De Bruycker wondered whether they'd ever catch the thieves. They could be anywhere by now: Brazil, Thailand, Russia. It never occurred to the detectives that one of the robbers would walk right back into the district.

But that's exactly what Notarbartolo did. While one of his friends from the Netherlands waited on the street outside the Diamond Center, Notarbartolo waved at the security guard and dropped in to collect his mail. The guard knew that the police were investigating Notarbartolo and phoned the building manager, who immediately called the detectives.

When the police arrived, they found Notarbartolo chatting with the building manager and began peppering him with questions. The friend took off as Notarbartolo stalled for time, pretending to have trouble understanding French and claiming that he couldn't remember the exact address of his own apartment. He just knew how to walk there.

"Let's go then," Peys said and loaded the Italian into a car.

Eventually, Notarbartolo pointed out the apartment.

As the police car pulled to the curb, Notarbartolo's wife and the friends who'd come for dinner stepped out of the building. They were loaded down with bags and one carried a rolled-up carpet. Another minute and they would have been gone.

The police took everyone into custody.

The bags contained critical evidence. The police dug out a series of prepaid SIM cards that were linked to cell phones used almost exclusively to call three Italians: Elio D'Onorio, aka the Genius; Ferdinando Finotto, alias the Monster; and the person most likely to be Speedy, an anxious, paranoid man named Pietro Tavano, a longtime associate of Notarbartolo's. On the night of the heist, a cell tower in the Diamond District logged the presence of all three, plus Notarbartolo. During that time, Tavano stayed in constant contact with Notarbartolo.

The day Notarbartolo was arrested, Italian police broke open the safe at his home in Turin. They found 17 polished diamonds attached to certificates that the Belgian diamond detectives traced back to the vault. More gems were vacuumed out of the rolled-up carpet from Notarbartolo's Antwerp apartment.

The Belgian courts came down hard. They found Notarbartolo guilty of orchestrating the heist and sentenced him to 10 years.

With the cell phone records and the peculiarly precise salami sandwich evidence, the Belgian detectives persuaded French police to raid the home of Finotto's girlfriend on the French Riviera. They retrieved marked $100 bills that the detectives say belonged to one of the Diamond Center victims. Legal proceedings dragged on, but Finotto was finally arrested in Italy in November 2007 and is serving a five-year sentence there.

When questioned by police in Italy, D'Onorio admitted that he had installed security cameras in Notarbartolo's office but denied any involvement in the crime. Nonetheless, his DNA was found on some adhesive tape left in the vault. He was extradited to Belgium in November 2007 to begin a five-year sentence.

The high-strung Pietro Tavano is serving a five-year sentence in Italy for the crime. He has refused to allow his attorney to make any statements on his behalf.

A fifth thief has never been identified, though police know of his existence via cell phone records and DNA traces. The King of Keys was never apprehended.

On January 4, 2009, I see Notarbartolo for the last time. Over the past 14 weeks, we have met seven times in the prison visiting room, and yet questions remain. Was $100 million stolen as the police estimate, or just $20 million as Notarbartolo insists? Does it make sense that the heist was part of a larger insurance scam or is Notarbartolo's story a decoy to throw suspicion on others? Perhaps Notarbartolo's cousin, the Mafia don, was behind the whole thing. Whatever the truth, where is the loot now?

The murky nature of the diamond trade makes it difficult to get clear answers. For instance, detective De Bruycker says that three-quarters of the business is done under the table. According to Denice Oliver, the adjuster who investigated the robbery for insurers, there were roughly $25 million in claims, all documented by legitimate invoices. As a result, De Bruycker calculated that at least another $75 million in goods was stolen, bringing the total value of the heist to about $100 million.

If Notarbartolo's insurance scam theory is correct, it went down like this: The dealers who were in on it removed their goods—both legal and illegal—from the vault before the heist and then filed claims on the legitimate gems. Oliver calls this the "double whammy"—these dealers would have gotten the insurance payouts and kept their stock. The $20 million found by the thieves belonged to traders not in on the scam.

Or: There was no insurance scam. The thieves actually found $100 million in the vault and Notarbartolo has spun a story to cloud the true origins of the heist.

Regardless of which theory is correct, there is agreement that the thieves got away with millions that were never recovered. Notarbartolo refuses to talk about what happened to the goods, adding that it is something best discussed once he is out of prison.

In the meantime, his share may very well be waiting for him, hidden somewhere in the foothills of the Italian Alps.

Joshua Davis (www.joshuadavis.net) wrote about the Kaminsky Internet bug in issue 16.12.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 Mar 2009 | 12:00 am

GCI Reports 2008 Financial Results

- Consolidated revenues of $575.4 million - Adjusted EBITDA of $171.1 million - Net loss of $1.9 million or ($0.04) per diluted share ANCHORAGE, Alaska, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GCI (Nasdaq: GNCMA) today reported its 2008 results with revenues increasing to $575.4 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization and adjusted for share-based compensation and non-cash contribution (adjusted EBITDA) increasing to $171.1 million.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:48 pm

Palm Pre con Movistar en España? [Digital Daily]

Palm says it hasn’t yet announced a Pre distribution deal with Telefónica.

No matter–it appears as though the Spanish media has taken the liberty of doing it for them. According to a number of news outlets in the country, the carrier has negotiated an exclusive deal with Palm (PALM) to distribute the new handset in Spain and Latin America, and perhaps in England as well. If these reports prove true, the Pre will be sold by Telefónica’s subsidiary brands Movistar (Spain and Latin America) and O2 (England). Quite a coup for the carrier, which presumably beat out rival Vodafone for the privilege.

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:44 pm

New Electrode Lets Batteries Charge In 10 Seconds

Al writes "A new lithium-ion electrode allows batteries to be charged and discharged in 10 seconds flat. Developed by Gerbrand Ceder, a professor of materials science at MIT, it could be particularly useful where rapid power bursts are needed, such as for hybrid cars, but also for portable electronic devices. In testing, batteries incorporating the electrodes discharged in just 10 seconds. In comparison, the best high-power lithium-ion batteries today discharge in a minute and a half, and conventional lithium-ion batteries, such as those found in laptops, can take hours to discharge. The new high rate electrode, the researchers calculate, would allow a one-liter battery based on the material to deliver 25,000 watts, or enough power for about 20 vacuum cleaners."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:41 pm

OIdie but Baddie: The Etherkiller

[Fiftythree.org]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:31 pm

Win a 'South Park' Season 12 DVD Set

Get ready for a fresh batch of politically incorrect laughs from your favorite foul-mouthed schoolchildren. Enter Wired.com's giveaway for your chance at one of five DVD sets.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:30 pm

London Restaurant Uses Touchpads for Orders, Projectors for Mood Alteration

The Imano restaurant in London's fashionable SoHo district isn't known for its splendid food or outstandingly accomodating waitresses.

Instead, the new Asian fusion eatery is getting raves for its use of a touchpad-projection system that allows diners to send food orders directly to the chefs and makes the dining experience fully interactive.

Every table at Imano has its own image projector above (see pic at right), meaning every person essentially gets to eat off a giant computer screen. This allows the restaurant to offer several interesting experiences, like selecting the mood of the table by choosing between different 'place mat' images and videos. According to a recent diner, the rig is based on a flash/actionscript system.

When you're waiting for your meal to arrive, you can click on a kitchen camera that let's you see your food being prepared, play different types of computer board games (like Battleship), and when you're done, you can separate bills and boot up a map to figure out your next move around town.

But for me, the best part seems to be that when you're choosing through potential dining options, a picture of the food appears on the plate where you'll be eating it. I'm not sure if the size of the picture approximates the size of the actual meal, but I think this is better than just the syrupy, dramaticized meal explanation one usually gets.

As for the circular touch pad, it seems pretty basic, though I do worry about whether the restaurant changes its surface once in awhile to clean it. Otherwise, you have to rely on other people's hand-washing abilities or dip your hand in a tub of Purella before taking a bite.

Even though your ordering experience is pretty much automated, every table does have a waiter that brings over the meal and answers questions about the system.

Check out a few more pictures of the Imano restaurant after the jump.

The projectors at a standstill before the diners come in.  Dan.Pan.*/flickr

You can check out the Kitchen cam from your own table. Phillie Casablanca/Flickr

 

This is how you choose the different color moods. Phil Hawksworth/flickr

Finding out the subway routes on the table. Phil Hawksworth/flickr

Playing Battleship and drinking now go together. Phillie Casablanca/Flickr

Actual food, looks too much like tapas' 'small plate' dining for my taste. Dan.Pan.*/flickr

Insert Photo: lauronsky/Flickr

See also:

• Is Touch Screen Ordering The Next Big Thing In Restaurants?

Follow Jose Fermoso and the Gadget Lab at twitter.com/fermoso and twitter.com/gadgetlab

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:20 pm

Facebook begins rolling out revamped home page (AFP)

AFP - Top online social-networking service Facebook on Wednesday began rolling out a revamped home page that emphasizes fresh news.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:11 pm

eBay Lays Out 3-Year Growth Plan; Refocusing On PayPal [Voices]

At a time when most companies aren’t willing to offer guidance on the March quarter, eBay (EBAY) is laying out its vision for 2011.

And what it sees is a big opportunity for PayPal.

In connection with the company’s analyst meeting today, eBay said its growth will be drive by its two core businesses: PayPal and e-commerce. In something of a repositioning, the company says that PayPal “has become a second core business,” with an opportunity to become even bigger than eBay Marketplaces.

CEO John Donahoe said in a statement that the company expects PayPal to become “the next leading online global payments network,” and that PayPal is “one of the most exciting and high-potential opportunities anywhere online today.” That’s important, because the company isn’t really expecting to see any growth from the Marketplaces business, which has been shrinking in recent quarters.

Meanwhile, he said the company is “aggressively remaking and transforming” the Marketplaces business.

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:58 pm

How Office Depot Pushes Service Plans On Customers

Harry writes "I was amused, appalled, and angry — yes, all three — when I spotted signs above every register at my local Office Depot with handy scripts for clerks to use in 'recommending' that customers buy extra-cost, extremely profitable protection plans. And now Laptop Magazine has posted an eye-opening investigative report that charges local Office Depot stores with instructing staffers to lie and tell people who want to buy laptops without service plans that they're out of stock."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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

Google to target ads based on Web surfing habits (AP)

AP - Google Inc. will use its surveillance of Web surfing habits to figure out which ads are best suited to each individual's interests — a practice likely to illuminate just how much the Internet search leader has been learning about millions of people around the world.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:39 pm

Tri, Tri Again for Aptera 3-Wheeler Federal Loan

Aptera's electric car doesn't qualify for the federal loans that would spur the development of EVs because it has three wheels. A California lawmaker wants to change that.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:30 pm

Microsoft offers three new important security bulletins for Windows

Section: Computers, Security, Software / Applications

Microsoft has shipped out three new security bulletins this week in order to fix critical errors that have affected millions of Windows users.  The most serious of the threats involves an executable file that can attack your computer if you view a trapped image file.

The bulletins posted are labeled as MS09-006, MS09-007 and MS09-008.  The first one MS09-006 offers protection against the specially made EMF or WMF image file as previously mentioned.  The MS09-007 bulletin involves a spoof attack if the attacker is able to gain access to the person’s certificate of authentication.  The MS09-008 offers protection against a remote attack where the system is able to redirect internet traffic systems.  Without this bulletin, users can be redirected onto a malicious network.

These bulletins are available for all versions of Windows and are included in the standard Windows update.  For more information on the bulletins, you can check the security page of the Microsoft website.

Read: [ZDNet]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:20 pm

Space Station video now live on Internet — mostly (AP)

AP - NASA has started beaming live video from just outside the International Space Station, but there's a catch: The online feeds are available only when the station's crew is asleep or off duty.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:09 pm

A Stylus for the iPhone [Mossberg's Mailbox]

Here are a few questions I’ve received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability.

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I am a Palm Treo user and would like to get an iPhone for the apps. But I have tried the virtual keyboard on the iPhone in the store and hate it. Is there a stylus you can use for better accuracy, or some software trick?

I don’t know if they improve accuracy, but there are several stylus brands made for the iPhone and iPod Touch. They are aimed at making typing easier, especially if you have long nails or are wearing gloves. One example is the Pogo, a $15 iPhone stylus from a company called Ten One Design, at tenonedesign.com.

In addition, there are several iPhone apps that attempt to help typing accuracy by allowing you to compose emails, text messages and Twitter posts using a wide, landscape keyboard rather than the narrower standard keyboard. You type your message in these apps, and then the app sends them to the iPhone’s email program for transmission. One that I have used is called TouchType. It works with email and Twitter, and costs 99 cents.

Another interesting solution is a free app called ShapeWriter, which lets you type by sliding your finger along a keyboard to connect the letters in words. You never have to lift your finger until you are done with a whole word. Messages you compose in ShapeWriter can be saved as notes or shipped to the email program for sending.

Finally, I should note two things about typing on an iPhone. First, it’s difficult to know if you’ll be comfortable with it from just a few minutes in a store, because it usually takes a few days to master. Second, some people won’t ever find it acceptable, and these folks should choose a phone that has a physical keyboard.

In your review of the new version of the Safari Web browser, you said some Web sites were publishing methods for undoing some of the changes in it that you criticized. Can you explain how I can do that?

There are two methods for changing Safari 4 so it looks and works more like the previous versions, while retaining its faster speed. One method involves typing techie commands into the computer. But, for mainstream users, I recommend another: downloading a new free utility called Safari 4 Buddy. It’s available at swoon.net/site/software.html.

Safari 4 Buddy allows you to just check off buttons that can change the placement of tabs in Safari 4 so they’re under the toolbars, rather than at the top of the screen, and restore the blue page-loading progress bar that Apple killed. It also permits users to change other settings Apple omitted from the browser’s Preferences menus. I have tested it and it works.

However, this utility works only on the Mac version of Safari 4. I don’t know of any way to make these changes in the Windows version. Also, there’s no guarantee that Apple won’t make future modifications to the browser that might reverse any customizations Safari 4 Buddy makes.

• You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online free of charge at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:04 pm

Bush Stem Cell Ban Wrong, But Not Anti-Science

The Bush administration's restrictions on stem cell research hindered science, but the celebration over lifting the ban misses the fact that the previous policy was based on ethical grounds.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 10:00 pm

Discovery Launch a No-Go, Again

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from Tech Fragments that says "NASA has yet again postponed the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery, which was due to launch today, because of a hydrogen leak in the vent line between the external fuel tank and main engines. The vent line is at the intertank region of the external tank and is the overboard vent to the pad and the flare stack where the vented hydrogen is burned off. ... The NASA launch team is resetting to preserve the option of attempting a Thursday night liftoff at 8:54 p.m. EDT depending on what repairs are needed and what managers decide. The Mission Management Team is meeting at 5 p.m. today to discuss the issue." You can watch for updates on NASA's Space Shuttle page, too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:54 pm

Analysis: Google's Ad Targeting Turns Algorithms on You

Does Google's move to send targeted ads based on your online behavior signal that the company believes you are simply information to be indexed and made useful? Wired.com's Ryan Singel looks at what the search giant's new Big Brother move means.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:54 pm

Belated happy MAR10 day -- celebrate it with cookies

Tessie sez, "My husband has a very talented student who in honor of March 10th made Mar10 cookies. She cut out the shapes and frosted them using only a butter knife. She gave 7 different cookies to us and this was just a few of the many she made."

MAR10 cookies (Thanks, Tessie!)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:35 pm

Future Shlock: Man to shoot film with camera in prosthetic eye

From the AP:

BRUSSELS - A one-eyed documentary filmmaker is preparing to work with a video camera concealed inside a prosthetic eye, hoping to secretly record people for a project commenting on the global spread of surveillance cameras.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:34 pm

Analogs: Joel Scilley's "Audiowood" turntables

Joel Scilley is a thinking man's carpenter, having grabbed an MA from Carnegie Mellon and a PhD in media studies from Pitt before heading back to the Bay Area to make handcrafted turntables. Like you do.

Scilley makes some out of his "Audiowood" players out of burlwood that has a more organic feel. Others look more modern. Having grown up in the Ozarks, I'm somewhat inured to the charms of burlwood crafts, so I prefer the modern ones, but "Barky", the model below made from a cross-section of a trunk, it downright cute.

The Audiowood designs will be shown off in Oakland starting the 14th. [via Mocoloco]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:31 pm

Future of 'Futurama' Looks Hazy After 'Wild Green Yonder'

Executive producer David X. Cohen ponders the cult show's possibilities after the last of four straight-to-DVD movies.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:30 pm

Game-flavored cookies

Beth sez, "These are cookies i made, Super Mario, Pac Man and Pokeball cupcakes. It was my solution to 'what do I give my geeky boyfriend who has everything for Valentines?'"

Swoon! Now that's sugary sweet geek-lovin'!

Cookies for my love (Thanks, Beth!)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:24 pm

Dr Mario agitates for universal health care in Mushroom Kingdom

Marco sez, "I wrote this piece, appearing on McSweeney's today, from the POV of the greatest doctor in the Mushroom Kingdom, Dr. Mario. He's got a lot of ideas on the universal health care crisis, which closely resembles our own."

A government-run plan sounds a lot like what Bowser wants

The king of all Koopas would love to take over every hospital in Mushroom Kingdom, to use them to extract Peach's DNA or create a horrific suit that looks like me to trick the princess. But government-funded doesn't mean government-run. I propose that we set up an oversight committee that would reside on Star World, a place linked to all of our lands. Its doings would be filmed by one of those Lakitu creatures, the sometimes-benevolent Koopas that fly in clouds. This committee would keep watch over the providers. It would see that free Megavitamins were distributed. Finally, it would research new health innovations, such as the powers of the rare Super Mushrooms.

- - - -

Hopefully, I have presented enough facts to explode these common myths. Time is running out, and we're far from a checkpoint. Every major video-game franchise except the Mushroom Kingdom has a system that guarantees health care to its citizens. It should be a major concern that strength in Super Mario Galaxy is gained through the collection of gold coins. We must have free Megavitamins, easier access to refills, and less-time-consuming ways to defeat the viruses. If we stay healthy, we can go on more adventures. And since staying healthy is the ultimate benefit of universal health care, I'll gladly give more of my tax money to the government. No cheat codes necessary.

DR. MARIO WEIGHS IN ON UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE (Thanks, Marco!)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:24 pm

Legalizing Drugs: The Least Bad Answer

The Obama administration has named the latest of America's "drug czars" -- the person who heads the War on (Some) Drugs, a futile, expensive and supremely hypocritical campaign that has caused vastly more damage, in America and around the globe, than the problems it aims to fix. No one denies that drug misuse and addiction are often horrific to individuals and their families; what almost no one wants to ask, however, is whether legalization (or at least decriminalization) would have cumulatively less-bad effects. Perhaps the Warriors against (some) drugs -- almost all of whom, no doubt, are users of other drugs -- know that the weight of the evidence would not support their side.

Journalists, who are supposed to critically examine orthodoxy, have been especially cowardly. They won't go near the issue except at the edges, notably when voters in state after state approve "medical marijuana" in the clear realization that the drug-banning forces are cruelly indifferent to some kinds of human suffering that often can be alleviated with a well-filled water pipe.

One traditional journalism organization has been consistently asking the right questions, for several decades now. And the current issue of the Economist again treads confidently and logically where its peers won't begin to venture in this editorial, which begins:

A hundred years ago a group of foreign diplomats gathered in Shanghai for the first-ever international effort to ban trade in a narcotic drug. On February 26th 1909 they agreed to set up the International Opium Commission—just a few decades after Britain had fought a war with China to assert its right to peddle the stuff. Many other bans of mood-altering drugs have followed. In 1998 the UN General Assembly committed member countries to achieving a “drug-free world” and to “eliminating or significantly reducing” the production of opium, cocaine and cannabis by 2008.

That is the kind of promise politicians love to make. It assuages the sense of moral panic that has been the handmaiden of prohibition for a century. It is intended to reassure the parents of teenagers across the world. Yet it is a hugely irresponsible promise, because it cannot be fulfilled.

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.

Source: Boing Boing | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:13 pm

Apps That Rely On Ext3's Commit Interval May Lose Data In Ext4

cooper writes "Heise Open posted news about a bug report for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) which describes a massive data loss problem when using Ext4 (German version): A crash occurring shortly after the KDE 4 desktop files had been loaded results in the loss of all of the data that had been created, including many KDE configuration files." The article mentions that similar losses can come from some other modern filesystems, too. Update: 03/11 21:30 GMT by T : Headline clarified to dispel the impression that this was a fault in Ext4.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:04 pm

Lincoln's Watch Unveils Secret Message

The discovery of an inscription on a gold watch owned by Abraham Lincoln was revealed on Tuesday by the National Museum of American History.The inscription bears a message marking the start of the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 9:00 pm

Movies: Attack of the Remakes vs. 'Watchmen'

Two '70s retreads -- Last House on the Left and Race to Witch Mountain -- square off against Zack Snyder's cinematic adaptation of the '80s most influential comic book mini-series.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:59 pm

Honda’s 'Robot Teacher' Smiles, Scolds, Delights Students

Honda’s new “robot teacher” can scold, smile and call roll, delighting students with her lifelike appearance.  Unlike some mechanical-looking robots such as Honda Motor Co.'s Asimo, Saya can express six fundamental emotions — happiness, surprise, fear, disgust, anger and sadness.   These emotions are made possible since Saya’s rubber skin is pulled from the back with motors and wiring around the mouth and eyes.For instance, to appear surprised Saya’s mouth will open, with her eyes widening with arched eyebrows.  And during a demonstration of happiness, Saya pulled back on its lips to make a smile, saying simple preprogrammed phrases such as "Thank you," while her lips moved to express cheerfulness."Robots that look human tend to be a big hit with young children and the elderly," said Hiroshi Kobayashi, Tokyo University of Science professor and Saya's developer, in an interview with the Associated Press on Wednesday.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:55 pm

Hitachi Admits LCD Price Fix Scheme, Will Pay $35 Million in Damages

In a federal court in San Francisco yesterday, Hitachi finally admitted its role in a global LCD display price fix scheme, pleading guilty to a one-count felony charge.

The Japanese company has agreed to pay a fine of Justice Department. According to court reports, Hitachi has admitted its involvement in fixing the prices of LCDs sold to Dell that were later used in monitors and laptops from 2001 to 2004.

The price fix basically involved secret meetings between top executives of companies and them agreeing to set a certain price to sell the LCDs to Dell, and thereby eliminating the natural forces of the open market.

A few months ago, Sharp, LG and Chunghwa of Taiwan also plead guilty to the same conspiracy of price-fixing LCDs in a massive anti-trust settlement. The price-fixing for those companies happened between 2001 and 2006 and also involved the selling of LCD panels to Motorola (for its Razr phones), and Apple (for the iPod). 

South Korea-based LG Display was levied the largest fine, at $400 million dollars. Sharp's fine was $120 million (mostly for its role in deceiving Dell) and Taiwan's Chunghwa took a hit of $65 million. With the Hitachi fine, the U.S. Government has now taken in over $600 million dollars.

If you think that's a lot, well, it is, but it's nothing compared to the overall worldwide take of LCD panels. According to the Associated Press, there's a $70 billion worldwide market for them, and all of those companies have likely gained in LCD profits the fine amount many times over the years.

Maybe these pleas will force these companies to avoid using these methods with future display technologies, but I doubt that's gonna happen.

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:53 pm

Wondering what’s changed in PSP 5.05 firmware

FROM GAMERTELL - The latest PSP firmware 5.05 is only available via the Japanese and Asian UMDs of Namco Bandai’s Idolm@ster SP games. Since there’s no changelog, what comes with the update is a bit of a mystery. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:45 pm

Elecsys Corporation Reports Third Quarter Financial Results

OLATHE, Kan., March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Elecsys Corporation (Nasdaq: ESYS), a leading provider of electronic design and manufacturing services and developer of reliable, innovative product solutions for use in critical applications, today announced its financial results for the third fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2009. Sales for the quarter were $5,032,000, a decrease of 18%, or $1,103,000, from $6,135,000 in sales during the third quarter of Fiscal 2008.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:45 pm

Facebook’s Real-Time Homepage Goes Live Today

Today Facebook is rolling out the update to user homepages that brings a new look, enhanced filter system, and most importantly, realtime updating. Real-time updates are Facebook’s response to Twitter, which has been able to thrive on offering users immediate updates from their friends and favorite celebrities (Facebook’s original News Feed took hours to update).

The new design also includes an emphasis on sharing media and links with friends. Before now the Facebook homepage offered a “What are you doing now?” message nestled at the top. This has now been replaced with Facebook’s ‘Publisher’ interface, which lets users share status updates, photos and links, as well as content from their Facebook Apps.

Because the real-time stream will only display items for a brief period of time (depending on how many friends you have), Facebook is using a new ‘Highlights’ sidebar to show some of the older stories that it thinks you’ll probably be interested in (it sounds similar to the old News Feed).

Facebook’s blog post on the update notes that the new homepage will be deployed over the coming days, so it may still be awhile before you can try it out for yourself.

Initial Impressions
I’m apparently among the first to have the update. So how does it work?

• It feels a lot more like Twitter. The whole page focuses around conversations, which isn’t a bad thing at all (I’m noticing fewer items around photos and events)
• Items may be posted in real time, but it doesn’t seem like the page updates as the items come in (I’m having to refresh to see new content)
• The Highlights section doesn’t exactly do a great job at highlighting news stories. With only a narrow column to work with the stories don’t stand out. And with so little real-estate, sponsored items (which are basically just ads) are more irritating.
• The ability to filter the News Feed by Friend Lists is great (I can’t believe we’ve gone this long without it). You can also ‘x’ out friends you never want to see appear in your News Feed again.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:44 pm

MIT Researchers Develop Revolutionary New Lithium Batteries

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:43 pm

Chimp Found Plotting Against Zoo Guests

rjshirts writes "In further proof that Planet of the Apes is coming to pass, researchers in Stockholm, Sweden have proof that primates can plan ahead. From the article: 'Santino the chimpanzee's anti-social behavior stunned both visitors and keepers at the Furuvik Zoo but fascinated researchers because it was so carefully prepared. According to a report in the journal Current Biology, the 31-year-old alpha male started building his weapons cache in the morning before the zoo opened, collecting rocks and knocking out disks from concrete boulders inside his enclosure. He waited until around midday before he unleashed a "hailstorm" of rocks against visitors, the study said.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:42 pm

Concurrent Invites You to Join Its Briefing Call Announcing a New Corporate Strategic Initiative

ATLANTA, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- On March 23, 2009, Concurrent (Nasdaq: CCUR) will launch its corporate vision and strategy to drive, deliver and monetize video.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:41 pm

Points International Reports Record Fourth Quarter and 2008 Financial Results

Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2008 Highlights: - Highest Quarterly Revenue in Company History of $21.7 Million(1), Up Approximately 50% Year-Over-Year - Record Full Year 2008 Revenue of $75.6 Million, Up Approximately 150% Year-Over-Year and Above 2008 Guidance Range - 2008 EBITDA(2) of $555,717; Second Consecutive Year of Positive EBITDA While Aggressively Investing to Drive Growth - Points Exits 2008 with Strong Balance Sheet, No Debt 2009 Business Outlook - New Partnerships Signed in Late 2008 Will Contribute to Growth; Company Reaffirms Strong New Business Pipeline - Aggressive Long Term Growth Focused Investment Strategy Will Continue - 2009 Revenue Expected to Grow to Range of $85 Million to $95 Million with third straight year of Positive EBITDA TORONTO, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Points International Ltd.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:37 pm

Nokia e71x gets pictured again - this time from behind!

We were just starting to think that AT&T’s version of the e71, otherwise known as the e71x, had been canned. I mean, it’s been right around 5 months since it was last seen floating around, and it seemed like it was in good shape at the time. Can you really blame us for worrying?

Fortunately, it seems the device is alive and kickin’ - or at least, the guy who snapped pictures of it last time got bored and decided to shoot it again. The pictures aren’t nearly as nice this time, but they do show the backside for the first time. Surprise surprise, it looks just like the back of the E71 - but it looks like they may have dropped the metal back of the original in lieu of cheapo good ol’ fashion plastic.

[Via MobilityToday]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:34 pm

‘Peking Man’ Could Be Older Than Scientists Thought

Chinese researchers say a new and more accurate dating method shows that Peking Man may be 200,000 years older than what experts previously thought, The Associated Press reported.The bones of the so-called Peking Man — a batch of Homo erectus fossils found in the 1920s during cave excavations near Beijing — were originally believed to have been some 550,000 years old.Researchers have now developed a new method that examines the radioactive decay of aluminum and beryllium in quartz grains, which enabled them to get a more precise age for the fossils.The experiments, led by Guanjun Shen of China's Nanjing Normal University, wrote in an article in Nature that the analysis dated the finds to around 750,000 years old, some 200,000 years older than previous estimates.The researchers wrote: “The finding indicates a hominin presence in the area through glacial and interglacial cycles.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:30 pm

Tagetik Announces Agreement for BI Integration With Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform

STAMFORD, Conn., March 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Tagetik, a global provider of Performance Management and Financial Governance software solutions, today announced its integration with Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Business Intelligence Platform.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:15 pm

Agilysys Announces Settlement Agreement with Ramius

- Board Appoints John Mutch and Steve Tepedino as Directors to Fill Vacancies Created by Resignations of Two Existing Directors - Ramius Agrees to Support Agilysys Slate of Directors for the 2008 and 2009 Annual Meetings CLEVELAND, March 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Agilysys, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:15 pm

Apple's small new 4-gigabyte iPod shuffle can talk (AP)

AP - Apple Inc. unveiled a minuscule new iPod Shuffle on Wednesday that takes its "smaller is better" mantra to a whole new level.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:13 pm

AdSense to track your interests, if you let it

Section: Web, Websites, Google

Google has long been suspected of having too much information on its users.  From all the services it offers to its users (though its doubtful that any one person could possibly use all of them), to what they search for on the search engine.  It has a tendency to scare some who highly value their privacy, though there’s no evidence Google would ever do anything with the information.  It wouldn’t be surprising if those same people voice concern over the new AdSense program from Google.

AdSense will be seeing an upgrade in how it knows what users interests are.  Right now it’s based on the website they visit at that particular time.  The new program will store a separate cookie on computers and base the ads on that information.  So, say you’re interested mainly in technology, not only would you see ads for computer and repair services on Gadgetell but also on a random sports site you might find yourself stumbling upon.  Sounds like a better way to get money for those who have AdSense on their sites, not everybody is interested in the things they might show on every website.

These settings don’t have to be mandatory, though.  Users can change what AdSense thinks is their interests by clicking the “Ads by Google” link once it actually rolls out so it doesn’t confuse you with someone else who might use your computer from time to time.  Users and websites can also choose to opt-out of the new program all together if they’re too worried about the changes.  Google promises that it won’t use information like search results, Gmail or other services in each person’s profile.  If it’s just going to be a cookie, there’s a chance it might all be anonymous anyway.  But, there’s no pleasing some people when it comes to potential privacy issues.

read [NY Times]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:11 pm

Does Scholastic Deserve a Failing Grade?

The direct-to-classroom publisher and bookseller may have lost its way, pushing cheap toys and videogames straight into your kids' backpacks, in the name of promoting reading and kicking a few bucks back to our ailing schools.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 8:10 pm

New iPod Shuffle controls; bad for users, great for headphone manufacturers

FROM APPLETELL - The VoiceOver feature of the iPod Shuffle allows you to hear what song is playing, but it doesn’t allow you to navigate between songs. That functionality has been moved to the earbud cord, and that’s an epic fail. MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:50 pm

New Battery Could Recharge in Seconds

An MIT team develops a battery that has super-quick recharge potential. A special coating applied to lithium iron phosphate allows the ions to move around much more quickly.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:30 pm

Malaria parasite mechanism is identified

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 7:22 pm

EBay's PayPal envisions doubling in size by 2011 (AP)

AP - EBay Inc.'s name may conjure images of online auctions, but the company is hoping to turn attention to its second-largest business — PayPal — which it expects to blossom significantly in the next few years.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:58 pm

KLM and Air France begin rolling out electronic boarding pass service in Europe

KLM and Air France announced yesterday that they’ve begun rolling out an electronic boarding pass service throughout Europe. A six-month beta test occurred on the Paris-Amsterdam-Paris route and it was launched a month ago on the ‘La Navette’ flights. It’s currently available on flights from Paris to Amsterdam and other European destinations except the UK.

Of the three airports surrounding the NYC metro area, I’ve only been able to use my BlackBerry as an electronic boarding pass at Newark Airport. I typically fly on Continental or Virgin America and the former is the only one that uses the electronic boarding pass service at the moment and it’s mighty handy when you’re running late or get stuck in traffic. If it weren’t for this service my brother and I would have missed a flight to Miami last year had we been forced to go to the ticket counter.

So far, American Airlines, Delta and Continental use the service, but on a limited basis.

Press release via Unwired

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:56 pm

Fermi telescope produces new gamma-ray map

New data from the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:50 pm

New Software May Help Stop Tiger Poaching

A team of scientists has unveiled a new piece of software that is able to identify individual tigers by the unique stripe patterns on their coats, which the developers say will make it easier to estimate tiger populations and aid conservation efforts, BBC News reported.The technology can also match skins sold on the black market to photographs of the animals taken using camera traps, researchers based in the UK and India reported in the journal Biology Letters.The researchers based the program on similar software originally designed to scan the markings of grey seals and identify them from photographs.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:45 pm

Color me Mac Mini

Count me among those who hoped the new Mac Mini would come with iPod Nano-style color options. Alas, no, but Computer Choppers already has a perfect third-party spray shop up and running for the newest models.

. For those who don't know, anodizing is a scratch resistant finish applied to aluminum that comes standard on most Apple computers. The only problem is, they don't offer this finish in different colors. So to fix that problem, we now offer anodizing in a rainbow of colors and styles. Similar to plating, anodizing can be finished in a flat, brushed, or a polished look designed to make any color you choose stand out of the crowd.

So the important part--making sure the paint job is accurate and has that distinctive surface texture--is taken care of. Unfortunately, it's very expensive: $200, a third of the machine's original price!

Add some color to your Mac products [CC via Technabob]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:41 pm

RC Mario Car

From Takara-Tomy, this $28 Mario toy is remote controlled and requires two coin batteries. Effective range is only 5 feet, but it does have a "dash" button! Banana and Koopa Troopa shell included.

Product Page> [GeekStuff4U]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:37 pm

Microsoft Reveals New App Store Strategy

Apple's App store is uber-popular among developers and users. But don't tell that to Microsoft which has set some aggressive guidelines for developers who put want to offer their programs through the Windows Mobile app store.

Microsoft's demands include that developers pay $99 to get enrolled into the program as part of an "introductory annual registration fee." That also buys them up to five free app submissions for 2009. But from next year, developers will have to pay $99 for every app submitted to the store.

The move is in contrast to how rival Apple deals with app developers. Developers have to pay $99 for a digital certificate that they need to have in order to publish apps to the Apple app store but they can submit as many apps as they want for free.

The registration doors for the new Microsoft app store called Windows Marketplace will open in the spring and developers can start submitting their applications later this summer, said Microsoft.

In terms of revenue split, Microsoft is offering developers the same deal that they would get with the Apple App Store and the Android Market. Microsoft will give developers 70 percent of the sales revenue of their applications from Windows Marketplace and keep 30 percent of the revenue for itself.

Microsoft says its app store will be different from competitors because it will offer greater transparency through the certification process and more guidance to developers from how they can build the app to the final sale.

"Developers will be able to see detailed feedback during and after the certification process of their application," said Microsoft in a statement. "Ultimately this enables developers to devote more time to writing innovative applications and less time trying to navigate the approval process."

A barb at Apple it may be but to us Microsoft's words still sound like vague promises.

See also:
Microsoft Unveils Developer Strategy for Windows Phones [Press Release]

Photo: (Liutao/Flickr)

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

Tramontana R-edition: Formula 1 + TIE Fighter + Street Legality

The Tramontana R-edition is a 720-HP, V12-powered car that actually exists. Half-a-million dollars sounds reasonable for a street-legal Formula 1 car in this economic climate. [via Core77]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:29 pm

Acidic Oceans Could Spell Doom For Many Sea Creatures

A top ocean scientist warned that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities are acidifying the oceans and threatening some sea life with mass extinction, BBC New reported.It is impossible to know how marine life will cope, but it is feared that many species will not survive, according to Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:25 pm

Gallery of engraved laptops

You've seen some of them before here, but some newly-lased beauties stand out. Foliage is about the perfect engraving theme, but this one is particularly clever.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:24 pm

Study finds causes of Atlanta tornado

U.S. scientists say the only tornado to hit downtown Atlanta in recorded history may have formed because of previous rainfall in the drought-stricken area. On March 14, 2008, a tornado swept through downtown Atlanta, with 130 mile-per-hour winds.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:18 pm

'Peking Man' Endured Frigid Climate

New techniques push back the date of an early hominid fossil by 200,000 years.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:15 pm

Video: Overpowerwheels

These intrepid souls have modified their Mattel Powerwheels kids cars with gas-powered go-kart engines (and likely suspensions and just about everything else). Then, as befitting their aesthetic, they've taken them out in the snow to do fat powerslides. Heroes. (Thanks, Duffong!)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 6:06 pm

Study urges people to curb ocean litter

A U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:59 pm

Lenovo's secret Vaio P sibling

Engadget has pics of a rival for Sony's underpowered, oversexed Vaio P, spotted at Lenovo's offices. 21:9 aspect ratio in leather? Yes, please.

Lenovo's VAIO P Reserve Edition? [Engadget]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:56 pm

Rumor: AT&T to drop Samsung A877 on March 29?

Fire up the r-mill. An anonymous tipster has it that AT&T will launch the (dragon-scale green) Samsung A877 on March 29, 2009. According to PhoneDog, said A877 (possibly codenamed “Jackfrost”) is quite the non-smartphone (like the Samsung Memoir, it runs the smartphone-esque TouchWiz OS), and could be a solid replacement for the recently deadpooled Quickfire.

Rumored specs include:

• 3.2″ WQVGA AMOLED touchscreen
• Slide-out QWERTY w/ messaging shortcut button
• 3 MP camera with geotagging
• Telenav GPS Navigator
• Full HTML browser
• TouchWiz user interface
• Quadband EDGE/GSM
• Dual band HSDPA (1900 and 850)
• Bluetooth
• MP3 player

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Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:55 pm

Wireless-only U.S. phone use increasing

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says wireless-only telephone use continues to increase across the United States. The CDC said Oklahoma leads the nation in the percentage of households with cell phones only at 26.2 percent, with Vermont having the fewest wireless-only households at 5.1 percent. These findings are important to CDC because many of our largest surveys are done on calls to landline phone numbers, said Stephen Blumberg, a CDC health scientist and lead author of the study.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:50 pm

Nokia announces 3 new XpressMusic phones: 5730, 5030, 5330

Nokia hasn’t had the best luck with the XpressMusic line so far; the 5610 XpressMusic had bad screens, and the 5800 XpressMusic had no shortage of problems at launch. Ignoring the fact that the XpressMusic name is apparently cursed, Nokia has announced 3 more “Comes With Music“-focused handsets.

From left to right, above:

Nokia 5730:

This is the one we’re most excited about - we loves us some QWERTY keyboards.

• Full Qwerty Keyboard
• NGage support
• 280 Euros ($357) before taxes and subsidies, Q3 of 2009

Nokia 5030:

• FM Radio
• Available in Graphite or Red
• 1 day of audio playback, or 10 hours of talk time
• “Powerful” loudspeaker
• “Less than 40 euros” ($51 USD) before taxes and subsidies, Q2 of 2009

Nokia 5330:

• 3.5mm jack
• 26 hours of playback
• 160 euros ($205 USD), Q3 of 2009

Unfortunately, US availability hasn’t been announced for any of these phones. It might be a tough sell unless they coax a carrier into a deep subsidy, but we wouldn’t mind seeing the 5730 hit US shores - that keyboard looks nice and comfortable.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:42 pm

Gas Leak Postpones Space Shuttle Launch

NASA postpones Wednesday's launch of space shuttle Discovery because a gas leak is found.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:35 pm

Eric Isaacs to be Argonne Lab's director

University of Chicago physicist Eric Isaacs has been selected to become the next director of the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:32 pm

Apple Netbooks Look More Likely

Will Apple do a netbook or won't it? The question has had company watchers buzzing for months even as Apple in the past has shot down suggestions that it may consider offering a netbook of its own.Now, new reports suggest that Apple may be taking netbooks more seriously than it was widely believed.

Apple has placed orders for 10-inch touchscreen in Taiwan and will take delivery of the product in the third quarter, according to a Reuters report. Earlier this week, Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported that a company called Wintek will supply 10-inch touchscreens to Apple. Taiwan's contract manufacturing company for notebooks Quanta Computer is also expected to be working with Apple on a new product.

The latest flurry of reports suggest a shift in Apple's stance towards netbooks. In its quarterly earnings call earlier this year, Apple indicated that the company didn't think netbooks offered customers a happy experience because of the low-powered CPUs, cramped keyboards and small displays.

But even Apple can't ignore the fast growing netbook market. ABI Research forecasts that manufacturers will ship 200 million ultramobile devices, including netbooks, by 2013. And the netbook market will grow at least 100 percent in 2009 despite a weak economy and a slowdown in general PC sales. That's an opportunity that could prove to be too mouth watering for even Apple to pass on.

Photo: (nikitagubanov/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:14 pm

iSynth Brings Microsoft’s Powerful 3D Photo Viewer Photosynth To The iPhone

iSynth (iTunes Link) is a new application that brings Microsoft’s impressive Photosynth 3D photo viewer to the iPhone. Photosynth stitches together user-submitted photos of the same subject, allowing users to ‘fly-through’ the area by clicking on each successive photo. The technology works best in places and events with many user-submitted photos (popular Synths include the Taj Mahal and President Obama’s inauguration). The site is very fun and often gorgeous, and is certainly worth checking out if you haven’t seen it before.

iSynth brings much of the functionality of the original Photosynth to the iPhone, and for the most part it works well. In fact, the touch-screen interface makes the experience even more intuitive than the original - tapping on the screen causes the app to zoom in on the highlighted photo, shifting the viewer’s position in the 3D scene. Unfortunately, because the iPhone’s screen is so much smaller than a computer monitor the feeling of ‘walking through’ each scene isn’t quite as good as it is on the original application, but it’s still fun nonetheless. And the application is perfectly suited for those moments when you just need to kill time for a few minutes - just fire up the app and take a virtual stroll around the Taj Mahal.

The free iPhone application was developed by Greg Pascale, a former Photosynth intern who received permission to build the app from Microsoft (though Microsoft didn’t build the application and does not support it). Also worth checking out is Microsoft’s Seadragon Mobile (iTunes link), which allows users to flick through large albums of high-resolution photography, including 2D versions of albums from its Photosynth product.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:09 pm

Photo of Abraham Lincoln Could Be His Last

A photo of Lincoln near the White House could be the last taken before his assassination.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 5:05 pm

$12 Computer: Playpower Wants to Save the World 8 Bits at a Time

SAN JOSE, California — The Apple II computer is long gone, but its heart beats on in the developing world, where 8-bit computers sell for as little as $12.

Now, computer scientists see a way of using those ubiquitous, primitive PCs to help kids learn — by playing games.

"It is about bringing affordable computer learning to the 90 percent of learners in the world who can't afford a $1,000 or even a $100 computer," says Derek Lomas, who is leading the Playpower.org team.

The project, first talked about last year, is gathering steam. Lomas and his partners are talking to manufacturing partners in China to produce the $12 systems, which are based on cheap computers already sold throughout the developing world. Some of the computers will be sold through Maker Shed, the e-commerce arm of Make magazine in the United States, while the rest will be distributed through non-profit partners in developing countries. And the Playpower team has collaborated with other groups in the 8-bit computer hacking community to help build educational software for the computers.

The Playpower team touted its ambitious project with a high-energy presentation in front of a standing-room-only hotel conference room at ETech 2009 in San Jose. While 8-bit musician Jordan Gray improvised funky digital beats on a PSP, the screen displayed a rapid-fire series of images showing photographs of poor children, screenshots from old 8-bit games like Oregon Trail and relevant stats ("More than 4 billion people earn less than $3,000 per year").

The $12 computing system itself defies conventional expectations of what a computer today should be. The soul of the Apple II and a geek microprocessor favorite of the 1970s, the 8-bit 6502 processor is the heart of these computers. It is small enough to be contained within a full-size keyboard and sold for mere dollars. The keyboard also has a slot for game cartridges, and is usually sold with a mouse and two game controllers. Many of these systems are currently on sale as "TV computers" in Bombay, Bangalore and Nicaragua. They are often packaged in boxes emblazoned with unlicensed cartoon art (Mario, Spiderman) and misspelled English ("Lerrn compiters the fun way!") and are bundled with games that would likely be copyright violations in the United States. And like the early home computers sold in the United States, they plug into a TV screen for display.

Although these computers are currently aimed at the gaming market, Playpower.org envisions using them to deliver educational software and learning games to children in developing countries.

The project will run on machines that are within the reach for millions of families that make less than $3,000 a year, say Lomas and his partners, Jeremy Douglass and Daniel Rehn, all students at the University of California at San Diego.

It's an ambitious project and one that requires just a tad of youthful optimism to pull it off. Dodge a pothole in China or India and you are likely to bump into the carcass of yet another ambitious attempt to bring low-cost computing to the developing world. The MIT Media Lab-backed One Laptop Per Child project planned to bring $100 computers to those in need. That project has never been able to achieve that price point, although OLPC cofounder Mary Lou Jepsen said Tuesday here that more than a million of the project's XO laptops had been shipped to kids in more than 30 countries. Recently, Indian government officials made an announcement of a $10 "computer" that proved to be a dud.

"The $100 laptop does a lot of things that makes it expensive, such as its screen, own power system and a faster processor," says Lomas.

But Playpower.org offers something different. The group hasn't created a new machine. Instead it builds on something that already exists. Lomas first saw one of these inexpensive 8-bit computer at a computer market in Mumbai where he was on an internship.

"There are many manufacturers in India and China that make them since the chip went off patent a few years ago," says Lomas who brought the $12 computer back to the United States. "And while it may not be powerful enough to run YouTube or surf the internet at high speed, it is great for educational games and related ideas."

For most Americans, if the 8-bit processor sounds like a blast from the past, it is. The 8-bit 6502 chip technology, along with the Zilog z80, kicked off the U.S. home-computing revolution, aided in part by enthusiast organizations such as the Homebrew Computer Club.

Early 6502 home computers included the Apple II, the BBC Micro and the Commodore PET. All of them included the Basic programming language.

The 8-bit machines faded away in the United States to be replaced by the Pentiums and Core2Duo processors. But in China and many parts of Asia, the chips are still produced, to the tune of more than a million chips a year, estimates Lomas. And they are very cheap.

"Rather than figure out how we can create a cultural niche for a $10 computer, we thought: Let's identify the systems that are affordable and in demand, and put them to work," says Jeremy Douglass, co-founder of Playpower.org.

The games that the Playpower.org project is developing for the 8-bit computer will teach users basic skills such as English and typing. And they are working on some fun ideas.

Playpower.org has collaborated with 8BitPeoples, a collective of artists focused on applying the 8-bit aesthetic to games and music, says Rehn. The collective provides music that can be used in Playpower's games, for instance.

Creating software and games for the $12, 8-bit computer will be easy, says Lomas. After all, it's something even fifth graders can do, sbecause the Basic programming language remains part of the elementary school curriculum in many schools in China and India.

(With additional reporting from Dylan Tweney)

Photos: Top -- Jeremy Douglass, Derek Lomas and Daniel Rehn jam with collaborator and 8-bit musician Jordan Gray (second from the right) while holding 8-bit computers. Bottom -- Douglass and Lomas chat with Visicalc cofounder Bob Frankston. Photos by Dylan Tweney / Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:49 pm

Technique Disables Plutonium's Use in Bombs

Adding the element Americium to plutonium may help prevent using the fuel in bombs.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:40 pm

Radar For iPhone Finds Flickr Support

Heres an idea: If you’re looking to build up your social site’s user base, add support for a popular, similarly focused (but not directly competitive) social site to your network’s iPhone application. It may sound crazy (who wants to promote someone else’s brand?), but that’s exactly what Radar, a social network for sharing cameraphone images and videos, is doing. This morning, Radar has released an update to their iPhone application which adds Flickr support to the mix.

Though Radar and Flickr are quite similar in that they’re both intended as repositories for your photographs, their finer focus differs just enough for this idea to work. Flickr is generally used for collections of high resolution images, with the comments area serving as a grounds for conversations that stretch on indefinitely. Radar, on the other hand, is more for spur-of-the-moment, heres-what-I’m-doing-right-now type stuff.

It also helps that free Flickr support on the iPhone is currently mostly unclaimed; searching for “Flickr” on the iPhone returns a handful of Flickr-friendly uploaders, less than half of which are free. Of these free applications, very few have more than 50 reviews. While the number of reviews isn’t an absolute indication of the number of downloads, it’s generally relative. In other words, it doesn’t seem like any of these applications have really taken off. Radar only added Flickr support this morning, yet already shows up in the first page of results for the term (albeit at the very bottom.) Flickr has a rather substantial user base; if Radar manages to become the go-to application for Flickr, they might just pull enough eyes toward their own service to make the endeavor worth while. That said, if Flickr ever gets around to releasing their own official iPhone offering (beyond the m.flickr.com Web App), it would likely take the throne pretty quickly.

Therein lies the flaw of Radar; while the concept is grand, it seems.. replaceable. It’s an entire social service built up around a single idea, and it’s an idea that other social sites can get (and pretty much have already got) up and running quite easily. Facebook’s iPhone app, for example, allows the user to upload mobile photos straight their profiles for sharing and commenting. The same can be said about Twitter, of course - it’s an entire social service build up around a single idea (a similar idea, really - just text, rather than images). But Twitter succeeds in that the format promotes efficient (or at least brief) conversation and open dialog that tends to branch out into many more conversations. Would the conversation flourish as well if pictures were required at the beginning of each?

As a piggyback application for services like Flickr and Twitter, I see it working; as a standalone service, I’m not sure I see the point.

Ah, well - Radar is free and does as advertised. If you’re looking for a solid Flickr uploader, it’s worth checking out. Here’s the iTunes link.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:01 pm

Radar for iPhone finds Flickr support

Heres an idea: If you’re looking to build up your social site’s user base, add support for a popular, similarly focused (but not directly competitive) social site to your network’s iPhone application. It may sound crazy (who wants to promote someone else’s brand?), but that’s exactly what Radar, a social network for sharing cameraphone images and videos, is doing. This morning, Radar has released an update to their iPhone application which adds Flickr support to the mix.

Though Radar and Flickr are quite similar in that they’re both intended as repositories for your photographs, their finer focus differs just enough for this idea to work. Flickr is generally used for collections of high resolution images, with the comments area serving as a grounds for conversations that stretch on indefinitely. Radar, on the other hand, is more for spur-of-the-moment, heres-what-I’m-doing-right-now type stuff.

It also helps that free Flickr support on the iPhone is currently mostly unclaimed; searching for “Flickr” on the iPhone returns a handful of Flickr-friendly uploaders, less than half of which are free. Of these free applications, very few have more than 50 reviews. While the number of reviews isn’t an absolute indication of the number of downloads, it’s generally relative. In other words, it doesn’t seem like any of these applications have really taken off. Radar only added Flickr support this morning, yet already shows up in the first page of results for the term (albeit at the very bottom.) Flickr has a rather substantial user base; if Radar manages to become the go-to application for Flickr, they might just pull enough eyes toward their own service to make the endeavor worth while. That said, if Flickr ever gets around to releasing their own official iPhone offering (beyond the m.flickr.com Web App), it would likely take the throne pretty quickly.

Therein lies the flaw of Radar; while the concept is grand, it seems.. replaceable. It’s an entire social service built up around a single idea, and it’s an idea that other social sites can get (and pretty much have already got) up and running quite easily. Facebook’s iPhone app, for example, allows the user to upload mobile photos straight their profiles for sharing and commenting. The same can be said about Twitter, of course - it’s an entire social service build up around a single idea (a similar idea, really - just text, rather than images). But Twitter succeeds in that the format promotes efficient (or at least brief) conversation and open dialog that tends to branch out into many more conversations. Would the conversation flourish as well if pictures were required at the beginning of each?

As a piggyback application for services like Flickr and Twitter, I see it working; as a standalone service, I’m not sure I see the point.

Ah, well - Radar is free and does as advertised. If you’re looking for a solid Flickr uploader, it’s worth checking out. Here’s the iTunes link.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 4:00 pm

Contest: CrunchGear and Coveroo Want to Make you(r Phone) Less Boring

Hey, guy/girl in an office. Aren't you tired of that slacks and a button down look? Would you like to wear your total absolute cool on your phone? Coveroo just announced their new etching service for almost any phone under the sun and they want to give 10 of you a chance to try things out. If you win, you'll get a pre-etched phone case or a brand new iPod Nano with your favorite characters etched on the back. Your mission? Read on.

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:50 pm

$12 Computer: Playpower Wants to Save the World, 8 Bits at a Time

A group of researchers are using the heart of the Apple II, the 8-bit 6052 processor to create $12 computing systems for citizens in developing countries.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:50 pm

Kutiman Killed the Video Star

If you haven’t heard of Kutiman yet you’re about a week late on the latest music sensation to be incubated on the Web. Ophir Kutiel, aka Kutiman, is an Israeli musician and producer that released a project titled Thru You on the Web seven days ago. It has since garnered over a million views and generated a buzz both on the blogosphere and on Twitter.

The project consists of seven music tracks/videos that are made exclusively from video material found on YouTube. Kutiman spent 3 months in his bedroom splicing and dicing over one hundred videos for samples of singers and instruments—from guitars, pianos, drums and harps, to synthesizers, a bouzouki and even a cash register.

The resulting seven tracks which range in genres—from R&B, Funk and Reggae, to Jungle, Afro and Jazz—are quite impressive. The project as a whole is reminiscent of DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing….., a brilliant and seminal album created completely by the sampling of other albums (hear it here).

Apart from the revolutionary music creation aspect, this story also has an interesting social media angle. The entire snowball effect that resulted in over a million views, a crashed website and a fair bit of buzz, was initiated by three people associated with the project. They emailed twenty people in total and it took a life of its own from there. From zero views to over a million in less than 7 days with no marketing dollars, blackhatting or SEO’ing involved. The team around Kutiman attribute much of this to word traveling across Twitter. If this is true, Kutiman may in fact be the first music star to be born on Twitter. There’s no question that we are sure to see other up and coming musicians harness it as well in the future.

Here are a couple of Kutiman’s tracks:

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:14 pm

Space Station Poll Tallies in Colbert's Favor

Stephen Colbert convinces his fans to write in his name in a space station naming poll.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:14 pm

CrunchDeals: T-Mobile G1 for $98

 

The greatest phone in the history of telephony, the T-Mobile G1, can be yours for just $97.99 with a two-year contract.

Read the rest of this entry >>

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Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:08 pm

Tapped for Bile, China's 'Moon Bears' Languish

An estimated 7,000-10,000 moon bears are trapped in bile farms across China.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:02 pm

Zappos and Magnify Join Forces to Combine The Thrill Of Retail Therapy With Web 2.0 Video

Online footware and apparel retailer Zappos.com is partnering with video hosting and sharing platform Magnify.net to launch a “BoxBreak” campaign to engage the retailer’s customers into building a video community around Zappos. BoxBreak will encourage customers to first capture their experience (via video) of opening a Zappos box when it arrives and then upload the video to Zappo’s Magnify.net sponsored channel. On the site, customers can vote for the best video and each month the customer who made most popular video will receive a $100 gift certificate to Zappos.com

Last year, Magnify added social networking features to its video channels, which can integrate video from across the web (YouTube, AOL). Magnify is using these features to create a video platform and community for various businesses, including Zappos, New York Magazine and The Weather Channel.

Boxbreak seems like a decent idea in concept and a good way for a business to engage customers in a web 2.0 video community. Of course, getting customers to go through the process of taping the experience is the hard part, but a substantial gift certificate is a decent incentive, especially when people are looking for ways to save a few bucks in the current economy.

I’m not sure if the social network part of the campaign will really take off. Many people will submit one entry to the Zappos contest and that’s it (you have to open a different Zappos package for each entry). I’m doubtful the Zappos TV site will be able to drive continued traffic from its customer base through the BoxBreak campaign alone.

That being said, Zappos and Magnify have recruited a veritable who’s who of the tech community to be part of the official launch at South by Southwest this Friday, touting Guy Kawasaki, Kevin Rose, and Chris Brogan as all expected to participate in their own individual BoxBreak moment at the festival. Perhaps celebrity takes could be a possible way to drive traffic to the Zappos TV site. I’m already looking forward to seeing those videos.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 3:00 pm

Expensify’s Free Expense Report System Takes The Hassle Out of Reimbursements

Expensify, the startup that took second place at TC50’s demo pit last year, has launched the public beta version of its business expense tracking and reimbursement system. Expensify has created a bigger and better version of its system, which we reviewed last fall.

Expensify still offers the “electronic payment card,” which is essentially an Expensify-branded MasterCard that is linked to your original credit card (which doesn’t have to be a MasterCard). When you use this card, business expenses are immediately charged to the linked credit card’s account. Not only does this allow you to still rack up any frequent flier miles associated with your primary credit card but it takes only a week to get the Expensify card and you don’t have to undergo a credit check. You can get numerous cards (and are able to manually write what each card is for in a blank white spot on the top of the card), which is ideal for consultants who are billing reimbursements to different clients.

Now Expensify also gives you the option of using an existing corporate or personal credit card and the service will automatically import your purchases directly from the banking website. Expensify currently can import over 90 percent of U.S. credit cards. Expensify also allows you to apply for an American Express Blue Card, from which the startup receives a referral fee when a user enrolls.

Here’s a quick demo:

Once the billing information is set up, Expensify will automatically generate an expense report with “e-receipts” for all purchases under $75 and gives you the ability to import any receipts over that amount via an email, jpeg, or pdf file (e-receipts are all formatted to IRS regulations). Expensify will also have an iPhone app that will take a picture of the receipts and upload it to the site directly. The drawback to the e-receipt is that it doesn’t give a line by lie itemization of a receipt, which shows for example, how much each entree cost and whether there was alcohol on the bill. Many employers have certain restrictions on expensing alcohol with meals or how much money can be spent per person in a group.

Once all receipts are uploaded, Expensify will create a one-click expense report organized by category of expense (i.e. food, travel), attaches all the receipts and even includes charts detailing the breakdown of expenditures. You can also label expenses in the report and add comments. Once you sign off on the report, Expensify will send a PDF of the report via email directly to the reimbursement contact, along with a link back to the report where the admin can approve or reject the report. Once approved, funds are deposited directly back into the credit card used or a checking account. You also have the option of sending the report directly to the whoever is reimbursing you directly and going through their channels for reimbursement.

Expensify is now completely free-the startup eliminated the 3 percent transaction fee it was originally proposing to charge users during private beta. With its new service options and its free platform, Expensify will undoubtedly challenge similar expense report sites out there like Shoeboxed and Concur, who both charge a monthly fees for users.

This service is ideal for freelancers, contractors or small businesses looking to integrate or use an expense system at little to no cost. Its doubtful that big businesses, who often have established in-house expense report systems with strict rules on how to submit expenses, will allow Expensify reports to pass by freely. But CEO and co-founder David Barrett says that Expensify is specifically targeted towards small businesses and the self-employed and delivers options that will suit both groups expense needs

Here’s a look at a sample expense report:

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:59 pm

TechFuga Updates Its News Aggregator. Now, With Twitter Search!

Tech news aggregator TechFuga has some new features this morning, including a new news clustering algorithm, easier-to-read graphics, more news sources, and better news search. The one feature I really like is that it now searches Twitter, in addition to all of the news sources it keeps track of.

For instance, here is a search for “Greystripe,” which had some funding news earlier today. Our post shows up, but above it appears all of the Twitter chatter about the news as well. Notice that the Twitter results appear above the blog post results. But nevertheless, you get a unified view of what people are saying about this particular topic.

TechFuga’s overall layout is a mixture of Techmeme and Alltop. The big headlines of the day are clustered above the fold much like on Techmeme. In fact, you will find most of the same stories on Techmeme. Where TechFuga begins to differentiate itself is with a column of developing news on the right, and tabs along the top which let you view more top news, latest news, and upcoming news.

If you go below the fold on the homepage, you are presented with an Alltop-style view of the last eight headlines from each of TechFuga’s top news sources, which include mostly other news aggregators such as Techmeme, Hacker News, Digg, Google News, BlogRunner, and Yahoo Buzz.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:29 pm

Google Now Lets You Target Ads At Yourself

Google is wading into behavioral ad targeting in a big way today. It will start placing cookies on consumer’s browsers to collect information about their interests whenever they visit sites that show AdSense contextual ads. Then it will show ads targeted to those interests to the same person as he or she browses the Web on other sites that also serve AdSense ads (which is a large portion of all commercial sites).

Since Google already knows what each site or page is about, it will use this information to place each user in one of 600 subcategories of interest. If you visit tech blogs often, you are probably interested in technology. If you visit Trulia, you are probably in the market for real estate. Through AdSense, Google can now target ads not only based on the context of the page you are on, but also based on the context of the pages you have visited in the past, even if you are on a site that is completely unrelated. For instance, as a completely hypothetical example, it might show you a real estate ad targeted to the towns you were searching on Trulia when you visit a gadget blog.

Not only will Google now target ads at you based on your interest, but it will also let you target yourself. Anyone can go to Google’s Ad Preferences Manager and see exactly how Google is categorizing their interests. (Most people will probably see nothing right now, since this program is only being rolled out on a test basis and will gradually expand). Now, here’s the really smart part: Google lets you add or remove any interest. In effect, it is inviting you to declare what kind of ads you wan to see. You can also opt out of the program completely.

While most people will probably never bother to tweak their ad preferences or even be aware that they can, this represents an important new precedent in online advertising. Why should the ad networks be the only ones who can determine how to target ads at consumers? Why not let the consumers self-target if they care to do so?

Google knows that its interest-based targeting algorithms need a lot of work. Even if it can get just a small percentage of people to correct the algorithm, that data theoretically could be applied to other people with similar browsing patterns. Google gets to say that it is giving users more privacy and control, while collecting really valuable data that will help make its targeting more effective. In the online ad game, whoever can target the best can charge the most.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:12 pm

Qik Announces Support For Nokia’s Share On Ovi, Will Be Featured In The Ovi Store

Qik’s mobile video streaming software began its life on the Nokia S60 platform, so it makes sense that a number of its recent big wins involve Finland’s finest. This morning, Qik is announcing that their application is now compatible with Nokia’s Share on Ovi media sharing service, and that it will be prominently featured in Nokia’s Ovi Store when it launches in a few months.

Qik users can get their content onto Share on Ovi from their handset while (or immediately after) the video is recorded, or from their desktop browser later on. From the handset, users simply select the “Send to Ovi by Nokia” option from the share menu; from the browser, sharing is done by clicking the “Ovi by Nokia” share widget, which sits alongside support for posting your content on Digg, StumbleUpon, Blogger, Facebook, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Myspace. There’s no real advantage to posting your content on Ovi as opposed to solely Qik’s site, besides being able to keep all of your content in one digital basket. Competing video sharing service Flixwagon launched Share on Ovi support at the end of October.

What the competitors don’t have (at least as far as we can tell) is featured placement in Nokia’s Ovi Store. As shown in the screenshot above, Qik will be listed under Nokia’s “Recommended” applications when the Ovi Store launches in May. A small win at face value, but it’s actually quite important; Qik faces a good bit of fierce competition (Flixwagon, Kyte, and Ustream to name a few) in the mobile streaming field. With many of these competing services offering applications on the same platforms, it’s an all out battle for users here. When you’re striving for attention, getting a public nod from the world’s largest handset manufacturer is sort of a big deal.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 2:02 pm

Qik announces support for Nokia’s Share on Ovi, will be featured in the Ovi Store

Qik’s video streaming software began its life on the Nokia S60 platform, so it makes sense that a number of its recent big wins involve Finland’s finest. This morning, Qik is announcing that their application is now compatible with Nokia’s Share on Ovi media sharing service, and that it will be prominently featured in Nokia’s Ovi Store when it launches in a few months.

Qik users can get their content onto Share on Ovi from their handset while (or immediately after) the video is recorded, or from their desktop browser later on. From the handset, users simply select the “Send to Ovi by Nokia” option from the share menu; from the browser, sharing is done by clicking the “Ovi by Nokia” share widget, which sits alongside support for posting your content on Digg, StumbleUpon, Blogger, Facebook, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Myspace. There’s no real advantage to posting your content on Ovi as opposed to solely Qik’s site, besides being able to keep all of your content in one digital basket. Competing video sharing service Flixwagon launched Share on Ovi support at the end of October.

What the competitors don’t have (at least as far as we can tell) is featured placement in Nokia’s Ovi Store. As shown in the screenshot above, Qik will be listed under Nokia’s “Recommended” applications when the Ovi Store launches in May. A small win at face value, but it’s actually quite important; Qik faces a good bit of fierce competition (Flixwagon, Kyte, and Ustream to name a few) in the mobile streaming field. With many of these competing services offering applications on the same platforms, it’s an all out battle for users here. When you’re striving for attention, getting a public nod from the world’s largest handset manufacturer is sort of a big deal.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:57 pm

Artificial Muscles to Bring Back Wink, Then Smile

An artificial muscle system promises to help people with facial paralysis blink and smile.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:45 pm

Shark Attacks Down in 2008 as Economy Tanks

People are spending less time at the beach, which may explain a dip in shark attacks.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Mar 2009 | 1:45 pm

Tiny New iPod Shuffle Talks to You

Apple has quietly introduced a new 4GB iPod shuffle. Not only is it bigger on the inside -- it's smaller on the outside. So small, in fact, that it has no buttons other than the shuffle mode switch. All the controls are now on the earbud cord, which means that you'll be stuck using Apple's own earbuds until third party versions make it to stores.

The new Shuffle also talks to you. Press the center button on the remote (a long press) and the "VoiceOver" function will tell you the name of the song and artist you are listening to, and it will also read your playlists. This is a rather helpful new feature, especially since, at 4GB, the Shuffle is approaching the capacity of the original full-sized white iPod.

VoiceOver speaks 14 languages, from Spanish to Mandarin. The actual speech is generated by iTunes and then schlepped across to the Shuffle when you sync. This means that if you are syncing with a Mac running OS X Leopard (the latest version) you get to hear the rather good robotic voice of Alex. If you are running an older version of the OS, or using a PC you get a rather crappy voice. You can check them out here at the Apple site.

And because the Shuffle now reads out your playlists, you can skip through them until you find the right one. Suggestion: Keep the names short and distinctive to avoid frustration.

The new iPod also loses a couple of hours in battery life -- 10 instead of 12, and costs a little more at $80. The old Shuffle is still available in 1GB form for $50.

Product page [Apple]

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

Watchmen Characters Rendered in Lego

The Watchmen. In Lego. This awesome project is from Jordan Schwartz (aka Sir Nadroj -- think about it). The figures are all "purist" which means that the parts are real Lego parts, simply reassembled (which is probably why Nite Owl looks so much like Batman).

Purist, that is, except Dr. Manhattan, who was brought into existence by Photoshop. We love Rorschach, despite his lack of a trench coat, but the winner here is the Comedian. He looks so mean! And if you haven't seen the movie yet, buy a ticket today. It's fantastic, despite the rather curious new ending.

The Watchmen [Flickr via Brothers Brick]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 12:20 pm

Tiny New iPod Shuffle Talks to You

The new 4G iPod shuffle is smaller on the outside, but bigger on the inside. And, it talks to you.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:50 am

Black & Decker's Drill Lights Get You Torque-ing

You might think that tool makers come up with a new product and then put it on sale, leaving it there indefinitely. After all, if you're like me your power tools are vintage models -- ancient but still going strong.

In fact, tools are subject to the same incremental updates as any other gadget, and Black & Decker has just released v 2.0 of its SmartDriver, a handy lithium-ion powered screwdriver. What's new? B&D have added torque control, essential in a screwdriver to stop you from stripping the heads of the screws. There is also a new magnetic screw guide which holds the screws in place in front of the chuck -- handy for tight corners.

But better than all of that is the shiny blue blinkenlight, a bright LED that not only illuminates dark operations but makes the SmartDriver match every other ill-designed gadget in my house. Thanks, Black & Decker. Maybe you can add extra-loud ringtones to next year's model?

The SmartDriver is available now, list price $40.

Product page [Black & Decker via Toolmonger]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Mar 2009 | 11:44 am