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Symbian Introduces Open Source Release Planvolume4 brings news that David Wood of the Symbian Foundation has made a post detailing their plans for a release schedule, with new versions due out every six months. We discussed Nokia's acquisition of Symbian for the purpose of open sourcing the popular mobile OS last year. Quoting: "There's a lot of activity underway, throughout the software development teams for all the different packages that make up the Symbian Platform. These packages are finding their way into platform releases. The plan is that there will be two platform releases each year. ... Symbian^2, which is based on S60 5.1, reaches a functionally complete state at the middle of this year, and should be hardened by the end of the year. This means that the first devices based on Symbian^2 could be reaching the market any time around the end of this year — depending on the integration plans, the level of customisation, and the design choices made by manufacturers. Symbian^3 follows on six months later — reaching a functionally complete state at the end of this year, and should be hardened by the middle of 2010."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 14 Mar 2009 | 1:21 pm Utah's Third Attempt To Regulate Keywords FailsEric Goldman writes "Earlier this month, we discussed HB 450, the Utah Legislature's third attempt to regulate keyword advertising after the past two efforts failed miserably. The latest attempt barely passed the Utah House, aided in part by a 'yes' vote from Representative Jennifer Seelig, who also happens to be a lobbyist-employee of 1-800 Contacts, the principal advocate of HB 450. Nevertheless, HB 450 died in the Utah Senate without a vote when the Utah Legislature adjourned last night. Despite the seeming good news, it would be surprising if the Utah Legislature didn't try a fourth attempt to regulate keyword advertising in a future session."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:18 pm JOHN DVORAK'S SECOND OPINION Microsoft's future rides on Windows 7 - MarketWatch
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:16 pm Pet-Like Human Behavior - RSPCA Pet Shop Has A Pet Like You Waiting For Adoption (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Weve got just your type is the latest tagline for the RSPCA Pet Shop. These comical ads show humans acting and looking like snakes, hamsters or dogs. These ads are quite strange at...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 11:59 am Tattoo Clothing - Eco-Friendly Blue Baldur Clothes Inspired by Badass Inking (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Blue Baldur produce custom clothing with a some based on tattoo designs and japanese manga designs and other pieces made with the environment in mind. The stand out eco product is...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 11:39 am Pillows for Workaholics - This Cushion Prevents Keyboard Crash and Rash Injuries (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I know theres been moments where Ive been working late on my PC, and nearly crashed on the keyboard with fatigue. To prevent keyboard crash and rash injuries--and make my sleep a little...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 11:19 am 3D Scanner-Copiers - NextEngine Creates Plastic Prototypes From Any Item (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) NextEngines 3D scanner system has the ability to reproduce items in plastic, much like a photocopier duplicates two-dimensional text and pictures. By using a laser to scan a three-dimensional...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:59 am Rare CDs On Demand - Amazon's CreateSpace Makes Obsolete Records Available for Fans (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Music fans are always trying to find those hard-to-get artists and favorites that are no longer printed, and Amazon.coms CreateSpace service now has over 20 record labels offering up...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:39 am Credit Crunch Cut-Backs - Ways the Recession is Forcing Us to Change the Way We Live (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) With the recession always at the back of our minds, we are taking things into our own hands to try to save money.These are 5 ways in which people are cutting back during these tough...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:19 am Germany can only pay market rate for HRE - MerkelBERLIN, March 14 (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday the German state would only be able to pay a price that conformed with usual market values for stricken lender Hypo Real Estate ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:13 am Web founder warns against website snooping (Reuters)Reuters - Surfers on the Internet are at increasing risk from governments and corporations tracking the sites they visit to build up a picture of their activities, the founder of the World Wide Web said on Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:13 am FDA Nominee Hamburg is expert on safetyMarch 14 (Reuters) - Dr. Margaret Hamburg, a former New York City health commissioner with expertise in food safety and battling disease outbreaks, is President Barack Obama's nominee for Food and Drug...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:03 am UPDATE 1-Obama picks FDA chief, starts new food safety panelWASHINGTON, March 14 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama chose food safety and biological and nuclear threat expert Dr. Margaret Hamburg to run the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and announced a new...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:01 am Obama picks FDA chief, creates new safety panelWASHINGTON, March 14 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama chose former New York City health chief Margaret Hamburg to run the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Saturday and launched a new panel to examine...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 10:00 am Partial list of corporate lickspittles who are allowed to know what's in the secret copyright treaty the Obama administration claims is a matter of "national security"Remember yesterday's post about how the Obama administration had refused to release the details of a secret copyright treaty because doing so would compromise "national security?" Well, it turns out that...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 9:45 am Partial list of corporate lickspittles who are allowed to know what's in the secret copyright treaty the Obama administration claims is a matter of "national security"Remember yesterday's post about how the Obama administration had refused to release the details of a secret copyright treaty because doing so would compromise "national security?" Well, it turns out that there are plenty of people who are cleared to be privy to this "sensitive" document -- strangely, they all seem to work for giant copyright companies!Of course, they're allowed to know what's in the treaty -- but the public, activist groups, consumer rights groups, and the artists whom this treaty is supposed to protect are all forbidden from knowing what it says. What an embarrassment for an administration that holds itself out as an end to the corrupt, business-as-usual beltway fandango. Chairman , Mr. Eric H. SmithWho are the cleared advisors that have access to secret ACTA documents?
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Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 9:45 am Bargain Bin (save money in the app store)BargainBin helps you save money on iPhone apps by automatically finding deals on apps as they happen. App prices change and limited time sales are happening around the clock. With BargainBin, you'll...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 9:24 am Artist "fingerpaints" art on his iPhonePortuguese artist Jorge Colombo's been working on a series of "finger-paintings" of cityscapes done entirely on his iPhone. Using only his finger and an application called "Brushes," he's done some...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 9:14 am iPod Shuffle Finds Its Voicetheodp writes "Steve Jobs wasn't around to convince you that you should be impressed, but on Wednesday Apple unveiled a 4GB Shuffle that's half the size of its predecessor. Holding up to 1,000 songs, the pre-shrunk Shuffle sports a 10-hour battery life and also adds a new VoiceOver feature that can recite song titles, artists, and playlist names, as well as provide status information. Even without a show from Steve, the new player is generally leaving folks dazzled, although there are some complaints."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 14 Mar 2009 | 9:13 am UCSC, NASA Ames to construct green campus in Mountain View - San Jose Mercury News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 8:38 am China Shenhua February coal output edges up on yrSHANGHAI, March 14 (Reuters) - China Shenhua Energy Co , the country's biggest coal producer, said on Saturday that its commercial coal production rose 1.4 percent from a year earlier in February to 15...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 8:31 am Time for Bewkes to Make It America Offline [Voices]Time Warner’s (TWX) hiring of Tim Armstrong to run AOL is, to misquote another Armstrong, a small step for AOL but a giant leap for Time Warner. Whether or not the former Google (GOOG) executive can turn around the AOL business, his hiring clearly sets up AOL to be spun off. That is a step Time Warner must take, having wasted years trying to fix or find a buyer for AOL. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes shouldn’t dawdle in making the formal decision to spin off AOL. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes shouldn’t dawdle in making the formal decision on a spinoff. Now that the Time Warner Cable spinoff is almost done, he has achieved tangible progress toward streamlining Time Warner into a more-defined entertainment business. A quick AOL spinoff would free up Mr. Bewkes to deal with the Time Inc. magazine business. Source: All Things Digital | 14 Mar 2009 | 7:53 am DisplaySearch Says the OLED Era Will Begin in 2011
In a report released this week, analysts at DisplaySearch estimate that OLED displays will be the fastest growing material application in electronics over the next eight years but that we won't get to see a large number of products with them until 2011. That year, big OLED players such as Philips, GE, Konica Minolta, and OSRAM will finally ramp up production. If this does come to pass, they could give each other enough competition to the point where they won't have to weigh down their OLEDs with ridiculous price premiums. But that's a big 'if.'
But it's the overall variety of interesting properties present in OLEDs that make them valuable: Their power efficiency fits in with a renewed focus for environmental and economic concerns, and their light, thin flexibility will be used in everything from phones to military installations. Already, the manufacturing costs of OLEDs are dropping, which will help get the ball rolling. Last year, some of the biggest display companies in Japan (including Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, and Toshiba) came to a major landmark decision that will help them develop large displays (for TVs) faster than any others: They've teamed up to mass-produce the screens and they even got Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to fork over $32.78 million to help them with the project. Why does this matter us? Well, since several companies will be offering more gadgets with OLEDs in 2009, they're bound to be over-marketed, hyped, and continue to stay expensive. Having 2011as a year marker helps consumers understand the premium element, and gives them a couple of years to figure out whether an early investment is worth the price. See also: Photo: General Electric Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Mar 2009 | 7:19 am Shirky: "What will replace newspapers?" is a plea to not be living through a revolutionClay Shirky explains how all the "visionary planning" in the newspaper business in the 90s amounted to variations on this theme: "Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!" This fallacy drives every conversation about selling digital units of content as though they were physical units of atoms, using DRM to stop copying or divide the uses of content into millions of infinitely fungible "licenses" ("You've bought the right to listen to this song on this player, on Wednesday, only if you've got curly hair and you stand on one leg at the same time"), and suing/"educating" your customers about why they should pay you for stuff that you're not offering in their preferred format.As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the merits of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? Shouldn’t we try a carrot and stick approach with education and prosecution? And so on. In all this conversation, there was one scenario that was widely regarded as unthinkable, a scenario that didn’t get much discussion in the nation’s newsrooms, for the obvious reason.And here's the money-shot: When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
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Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 7:13 am Shirky: "What will replace newspapers?" is a plea to not be living through a revolutionClay Shirky explains how all the "visionary planning" in the newspaper business in the 90s amounted to variations on this theme: "Heres how were going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 7:13 am China's Geely Auto eyes foreign M&A for tech, marketsSHANGHAI, March 14 (Reuters) - China's Geely Automobile Holdings , considered a potential buyer of assets from struggling global auto giants, said foreign acquisitions would allow it to secure technology...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 6:18 am How the Economy Is Changing Clean EnergyAl writes "The economy has hit green energy technologies hard, but technologies focused on energy efficiency and clean coal are still attracting money. Over the next few years, venture capitalists say that the biggest winners in clean tech will most likely be companies with technologies that improve efficiency. Such ventures often take advantage of cheap sensors, communications hardware, and software packages to monitor and control energy use both in buildings and on the electricity grid. High-capital businesses are now more likely to succeed if they can attract foreign funding. For instance, Great Point Energy, based in Cambridge, which has developed a process for converting coal into natural gas, has attracted $100m in funding from China."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 14 Mar 2009 | 6:10 am Happy Pi Day!
Happy Pi Day, everyone (and condolences to our non-American cousins who have to wait until July for 22/7 day). I'm a single dad this weekend -- Alice is at SXSW -- so the baby and I are going to go down to Hackney City Farm and order a huge slice of pie, then go and celebrate with the chickens, ducks, piggies and bunny-rabbits.
Pi on Wikipedia
Free Range Kids book: introduction online freeLenore Skenazy (creator of the Free Range Kids blog and an activist for allowing kids to take risks as they grow up) has just posted the first chapter of her new book (Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry) to Scribd.FREE RANGE KIDS (Intro) by Lenore Skenazy Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
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Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:49 am New iPods have DRM on the headphone interfaceFred von Lohmann from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "The sharp reviewers at iLounge spotted out a misfeature in the new iPod Shuffle that other reviewers overlooked: third party headphones for it apparently will require an Apple 'authentication chip,' something that is already required for various iPod docks. Yet another example of Apple's DRM hypocrisy. Apparently it's OK for Apple to use DRM to lock in consumers and hobble competition, even as it rails against DRM on iTunes music."
Apple Adds Still More DRM to iPod Shuffle Katamari Damacy shoes -- true love in custom paintjob form These customized Katamari Damacy basketball shoes were hand-painted by "Steve," a Kotaku reader, for his Katamari-obsessed girlfriend. True love is such a wonder to behold -- and Katamari Damacy remains my favorite new game of the young century. Katamari Damacy Gets Ported To Nike Dunks (via Wonderland)
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Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:40 am EPA's most-wanted fugitives The EPA's most-wanted fugitive list is filled with people who smuggled ozone-depleters, dumped toxins into the water supply, and committed other criminal acts of despoilment (The EPA notes: "Do not attempt to apprehend any of these individuals"). Alas, there are no senior execs from Fortune 100 chemical companies who dump millions of gallons of petroleum into the ocean, or sell carcinogenic pesticides, or manufacture cars that get 0.5 miles to the gallon.
EPA Fugitives
(via Beyond the Beyond) Stanford's Sapolsky on primate sexuality: funny, fascinating, educational"This is a hilarious yet edifying talk on Sex given by Prof. Sapolsky to his Bio l50/250 Human Behavioral Biology class at Stanford in Spring 2002" -- regular readers of this blog will remember Sapolsky as the incredibly fascinating, funny and engaging scientist whose Stanford lectures on stress are some of the most interesting biology presentations I've ever heard. He's absolutely scintillating on the subject of primate sexuality: funny, informative, and filled with aha moments that'll have you rethinking your relationship to your naughty parts. Prof. Robert Sapolsky on the Neurobiology of Primate Sexuality (Thanks, Avi!)
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Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:31 am Scrap metal skeleton sculptureThis scrap-metal skeleton sculpture, "Jibetarian," is on display at the National Art Center in Tokyo -- it's a student piece from Tokyo Zokei University. As Tokyobling notes, it has a haunting, moving aspect that I could look at for days:Jibetarian - 芦村康吉 (Thanks, Robert) Source: Boing Boing | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:27 am Shuttle May Be Able To Launch Tomorrow - Washington Post
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:18 am Australian oil spill '10 times worse' than thoughtAn oil spill polluting popular tourist beaches on Australia's northeast coast is 10 times worse than originally reported, according to the state government. Dozens of beaches have been...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:18 am Amazing: World’s largest or greatest or first something or othersSection: Video, Accessories, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers We live in a strange world. While there’s an enormous economic crisis, companies still have to get us to notice their products. Technological toys must be purchased! Let’s take a look at a great big cell phone and a Blu-ray player combo. World’s Largest Working Cell PhoneYou think getting a small cell phone is a good idea? Maybe you think a Palm Pre or an iPhone is the way to go. You crazy fool. Don’t you know that you should want the world’s largest working cell phone? Samsung put together a 15 foot wide Samsung Messager and put it on display in Chicago. No more complaining about a tiny keyboard or screen. This huge phone holds a new world’s record according to Guinness, so remember that for your next bar bet. If you are really bored, you can actually use the phone to make phone calls and send text messages for free until March 15th at which time it will be returned to Paul Bunyan. Read: [Press Release]  World’s First VHS-Blu-ray PlayerPanasonic has just introduced the world’s first Blu-ray-VHS dual player. Panasonic’s DMP-BD70V lets the user play (I’m sure you’ll never guess) VHS tapes, Blu-ray discs, as well as DVDs and CDs. All this for $399.95. Who on earth is this for? This is for the grandson who wants to sneak in a BD player in his grandparents home. Maybe grandma won’t notice that there’s an extra tray in that VHS player. Or maybe one day you will get a message from someone that uses VHS tapes to communicate (like on “30 Rock”) and you’ll need to have a tape player. This might be the answer. Read: [Panasonic’s Press Release] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 14 Mar 2009 | 5:15 am Your phone, your life: New apps change how you use mobile devices ... - San Jose Mercury News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:51 am Elevator Pitch Friday: HerHotSpot Is A Social Network Merged With Cosmopolitan MagazineThis week’s elevator pitch comes from HerHotSpot.com, an online community for Gen Y women to share stories, ask questions, and get advice on life, love, fashion, work and health. While the name is regrettable, the pitch by founder Brette Borow is well articulated and she does a good job of getting her points across. Launched last year, HerHotSpot is trying to merge the social features of Twitter and Facebook with the content that magazines like Glamour or Cosmopolitan provide. The site itself is geared towards several major issues in a Gen Y woman’s life—health, style, love, post-college life, work and pop culture. Part commentary from professional writers and part user-generated content, the site allows readers to post their own content and, like with Twitter, readers can follow other participants. Users can post video content as well. HerHotSpot is trying to be a content network as well as a social network, creating one big online forum that looks similar to the Sugar Network’s PopSugar. Instead of reinventing the social network wheel, HerHotSpot is hoping to get an influx of members by integrating with Facebook Connect. HerHotSpot has an interesting concept around providing hyper-targeted content built on top of a social network. And the content seems to be catchy, from “A Girl’s Guide to Twitter,” to “Recession Friendly Luxury Shopping.” But I think in order to gain loyal followers, HerHotSpot needs to provide more valuable content. Right now, the site leans too heavily towards the user-generated stuff. Perhaps a fifty-fifty breakdown between forum and original editorial content would be ideal. And forums can be spun off of editorial content as well. Tell us what you think. Try to keep the comments clean. We know it’s hard. But try. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: TechCrunch | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:45 am RIAA Argument About Streaming To Be StreamedNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "You may recall that in an RIAA case, SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the district court ruled that an oral argument about the constitutionality of statutory damages could be streamed, and the RIAA has been fighting that with a petition for 'mandamus or prohibition' in the appeals court, which is opposed by the press. Interestingly, it now turns out that the appeals court's oral argument about the streaming will itself be recorded and then streamed. It is hard to imagine how a court which routinely streams its own oral arguments can rule that it is somehow inappropriate for similar oral arguments in the district court to be streamed as well."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:06 am Family demands push women from mathA U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:04 am NASA preparing Discovery for launchU.S. space officials say they're preparing the space shuttle Discovery for launch Sunday night from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The shuttle's launch was postponed Wednesday after a gaseous hydrogen leak was discovered in the venting system outside the external fuel tank.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:03 am Statins may keep asthma patients out of ER-study* Asthma-related hospitalization, ER visits down by 33 pctSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:01 am New Website Focuses on World's Need for Better ThinkingBestThinking.com launches on Einstein's birthday to bring together the world's best thinkers CARY, N.C., March 14 /PRNewswire/ -- BestThinking.com completes two years of development with a public launch on Albert Einstein's birthday.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:01 am New Website Focuses on World's Need for Better ThinkingBestThinking.com launches on Einstein's birthday to bring together the world's best thinkers CARY, N.C., March 14 /PRNewswire/ -- BestThinking.com...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:01 am Geeks and Tweets: Wired.com's Latest Coverage From SXSWFollow Wired.com's ongoing coverage of the SXSW film, music and interactive conference and festival in Austin, Texas.Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am Japanese 'Detergent Suicide' Technique Creeps Into U.S.Emergency workers respond to two unusual suicides a thousand miles apart, in which young men took their lives by combining two easily purchased chemical products and sealing themselves in their cars. The cases are the first to copy a deadly Japanese fad that killed hundreds last year, and injured scores of innocent bystanders.Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Mar 2009 | 4:00 am Video: Dexter for iPhone trailer WTH is that all about? Dexter does not flail around and that ending is rather disturbing. Hit the jump for the trailer.
Source: CrunchGear | 14 Mar 2009 | 3:38 am Video: Dexter for the iPhone trailerWTH is that all about? Dexter does not flail around and that ending is rather disturbing. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Mar 2009 | 3:36 am Scotland's docs reject chocolate taxDoctors in Scotland rejected a proposal calling for chocolate to be taxed like alcohol and tobacco. Supporters said the tax would help reduce rising obesity rates. Dr.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Mar 2009 | 3:25 am If “Oprah”-Approved Zuckerberg Can’t Buy Twitter, Co-Opting It Is the Next Best Thing! [BoomTown]
Fresh from his puppydog-esque, “Oprah” interview, Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made good use of the press the television talk show appearance engendered to hawk his wares, most especially new features the hot social networking site has been coming out with of late. Including some that look suspiciously like Twitter, the hot microblogging service that has hipchecked Facebook out as the new “in” thing in Silicon Valley and which declined Zuckerberg’s acquisition attempt last year. But what tool did the ever-clever Zuckerberg also use yesterday to flack his products? Twitter, of course! Imitation is, of course, the sincerest form of flattery. But the posting by him (finkd) and also PR honchette Brandee Barker (facebookbrandee) does give new meaning to the word: coopetition. Here’s Zuckerberg’s and Barker’s tweets today, as well as part of the Oprah Winfrey interview–well, more a lovefest for the tie-wearing (please stop taking him shopping, Brandee!) and unusually loquacious Zuckerberg–below:
Source: All Things Digital | 14 Mar 2009 | 3:18 am Alcohol may increase prostate riskAustralian researchers say drinking two or more alcoholic drinks a day increases a man's risk of prostate cancer by 20 percent. The National Drug Research Institute said the findings are based on a review of nearly three dozen studies on alcohol and prostate cancer, the Australian Broadcasting Corp.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Mar 2009 | 3:12 am Get to know Google Voice: A walkthroughSection: Communications, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, VoIP, Mobile, Features, How To
Ring this phone, and that phone or that one over there.Google Voice provides you with a phone number. From that one number you can set up the service to ring your home, cell, work, mistress, payphone, fire chief, etc. So, one call to your Google Voice number can ring all these numbers you entered, simultaneously. How is this helpful? I’ve got work calls coming to my GV number and if I don’t feel like burning cell minutes, I can pick up the land line. Google allows you to control when your Google Voice number rings each phone (weekdays, weekends, or custom). These options are an improvement over the old GrandCentral. Setting up voicemailGoogle thought this one out pretty well too. Instead of relying on some microphone you’ve got hooked to your computer, it dials you on any of the numbers you’ve entered in to record your personal greeting (if you like) or name. Pretty clever. When a new voicemail comes in, you can have Google send you an email or an SMS text to your phone. I’ve used both option with GrandCentral and they worked well. Currently, I simply send the email to my Exchange mailbox.
Screen your callsThis feature has been around and honestly I am not a fan. You can have Google Voice screen your calls which boils down to the person phoning you is greeted with “this is Google Voice, please state your name and hold please” after this information is relayed to you, you have the option of rejecting, sending to voicemail, listening in to the voicemail or man-up and take the call (or woman-up I guess). Personally, I stopped ducking calls so this wasn’t attractive to me. Other settings include choosing the caller ID to forward to you or just your Google Voice number so you can know where the number is routing through. I see the need for both options but I go with the callers. There is a handy “Do Not Distrub” button for sending calls straight to voicemail. I love that and cannot wait for the Google app to integrate these Google Voice controls Call and SMSI find I am starting to use these more and more. You can click on Call, select a number from your GMail contacts and pick which phone you wish to take the call on. The SMS works simlar to the GMail chat, pick a number and fire away IM style. Both seem to be reliable.
Call WidgetsWanna put your number out there but not really? A call widget is what you seek, create one and your number stays hidden but the callers can reach you based on your settings. You can create widgets with their own set of conditions which is pretty handy. TranscriptionHere is something brand new from Google, using the engine from their GOOG 411 service, the team will send your voicemail through transcription transforming the voicemail to text. I’ve been using PhoneTag for some time now and love it. While the CEO of PhoneTag says Google’s transcription is “total crap,“ I found it to be just so so. There were loads of errors I don’t see with PhoneTag, but you get what you pay for. Overall, I am thrilled with the upgrade and can’t wait to get into it more. Even more so, I am thrilled they upgraded my account before our Editor Iyaz… Check out our announcement: [Gadgetell] Source: Gizmodo | 14 Mar 2009 | 2:30 am For Getting the Skinny on Apple Stock Hijinks Alone, BoomTown Hearts Jon Stewart [BoomTown]
I know that “The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart does not need even more praise for his spot-on comic and very real jabs at the CNBC financial cable network and its milquetoast coverage of the financial crisis, pre and post. The silliness that prevails too much over doing serious and rigorous reporting that Stewart takes perfect aim at is a major problem. Taking CEO spinning at face value and letting them yammer on on air without being challenged much at all has always been excruciating to watch at best and woefully irresponsible at worst. But, to my mind, the most important thing that he elicited out of CNBC’s most famous stock jester, Jim Cramer, was the part of the interview discussing using the malleable press to float fictional rumors about companies in order to make money on the negative news. While Cramer at first tried to deny he did it, Stewart had the videotape of the “Mad Money” host talking about the practice, specifically in regards to Apple (AAPL). His appalling idea to make a quick buck? Making it up that the mobile carriers did not like the iPhone right before Macworld, in this case in 2006. “And this is very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim that it’s credible because you spoke to someone at Apple, because Apple doesn’t…comment,” said Cramer cavalierly, as if he was not talking about a way to essentially steal other people’s money and hurt Apple unfairly, to interviewer Aaron Task, then at Cramer’s own TheStreet.com. “So it’s really an ideal short. And again if I were short Apple, I’d pick up the phone and I’d do that today.“ Bernie Madoff would be so proud, if he wasn’t otherwise imprisoned for life! Kind of puts all those Steve-Jobs-Is-Dead-Right-Now rumors of a few months ago into a new light? It’s been obvious the legendary Apple CEO has been quite ill from his appearance alone. But, as BoomTown has always maintained, the rumors written without any serious reporting about him were also a troublesome issue, because it was clear short-sellers played a large part in stoking the fear about his imminent demise, given how important Jobs has been to Apple. (Although, it has not seemed to stop Apple from releasing a lot of really cool stuff of late, like the new Shuffle, which Walt Mossberg reviewed here.) While Apple has not been adequately forthcoming either about the Job’s situation, that does not mean the press–as Stewart correctly points out–should not try to actually do its job and dig for what is really going on rather than just slap up unsubstantiated blather. “It’s not a f@#*ing game,” said Stewart perfectly. Indeed not. You can see Cramer cynically discussing the Apple stock manipulation tricks at the 6:45-minute mark of Part 2, but here is the entire Stewart well-deserved roasting of Cramer in three parts. (And at the bottom is the Task interview with Cramer too.) Part 1: The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Part 2: The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
Part 3: The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c
TheStreet.com Interview: Source: All Things Digital | 14 Mar 2009 | 2:05 am New Type of Superconductivity Spottedsciencehabit writes with this excerpt from a story about research into an unusual form of superconductivity:"Superconductors, materials that carry electricity without resistance, can be divided into two broad groups depending on how they react to a magnetic field — or so physicists thought. New experiments show that one well-studied superconductor actually belongs to both groups at the same time. The advance may not immediately lead to new gadgets and applications, but it suggests that superconductivity, which has already netted four Nobel Prizes, may be an even richer phenomenon than previously thought."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Gizmodo | 14 Mar 2009 | 2:00 am Ancient turtles threatened by modern lifeLeatherback turtles, survivors of the prehistoric era, are threatened with extinction by modern plastics, a Canadian researcher said. Mike James, a biologist with Dalhousie University, said the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth are choking or starving to death after ingesting plastic garbage.Source: Gizmodo | 14 Mar 2009 | 1:30 am Sony rewarding folks for recycling e-waste in CaliforniaSection: Gadgets / Other, Green, Household, Lifestyle  At Gadgetell, we’re big into helping out the planet. In Mountain View, California, Sony is running a recycling event. They will be accepting electronics from any brand (not just Sony stuff) on March 28th, 9AM to 4PM at the Shoreline Amphitheater. Not only will they be accepting your junky old electronics, but the first 2,000 drivers of cars to drop off e-waste will receive a $100 voucher for Sony products. It’s almost like they are paying you to recycle. Keep in mind this is about electronic devices; Sony will not be accepting things like appliances or smoke alarms. They will be taking things including video game consoles, cell phones, computers, monitors, and televisions. As you probably know, improperly disposing of electronics can lead to all kinds of disastrous effects like groundwater contamination. By recycling, not only will harmful substances be taken care of, but parts of machines will be reused. If you can’t make it to the event, don’t forget that Best Buy also accepts electronics for recycling (but is a little limited on how much they take). Read: [SmartBrief] Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 14 Mar 2009 | 1:20 am CrunchArcade Roundup
There aren’t as many hot updates today as there were yesterday, but quality certainly trumps quantity in my book. Earlier today there was a slew of unsubstantiated details trickling out from the 2K forums about BioShock 2. No need to get into that stuff since it wasn’t true, but if you’re really interested then check here. The real scoop is that you’ll be playing as the very first Big Daddy and liberating Little Sister from other Big Daddies. So, that’s the real deal and you can also pick up the current issue of Game Informer for other details. Oh, there’s one Big Sister and that’s the only thing true from the earlier rumor.
My favorite game of 2008, Gears of War 2, is getting a new map pack, and Title Update 3, which includes an experience-based ranking system amongst other goodies. TU3 drops on March 24 with Snowblind Map Pack dropping a week later on March 31. Here’s what’s new in TU3:
Snowblind Map Pack includes the following:
Gamestop has the WB’s Batman: Arkham Asylum up for pre-order and the Collector’s Edition, which goes for an astonishing $100, includes a 12-inch Batarang! The site has been updated and contents have been taken down, but the batarang is the biggest news. The game hits stores on June 9th. And last up is the trailer for Capcom’s Resident Evil: The Dark Chronicles that debuted last night in LA at the RE5 launch party. What are you guys and gals playing this weekend? I’ll be playing some MLB 2K9, Grand Theft Auto IV (The Lost and Damned FTW!), EndWar and maybe FIFA 09. I think Dave is playing Halo Wars. Doug is probably cursing at Tiger. Greg is M.I.A. I have no idea what Devin is playing, but he rocks a PC and we don’t like PC gamers. JK. Matt is more than likely playing Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II since he just got a new PC laptop to test out and Nicholas and John are in Austin for SXSW, which means they’re playing Rock Band. No clue what Shaila, Scott or Serkan are playing, though. Apparently, we’re not in the cool kids group so we’re not playing Resident Evil 5. Source: CrunchGear | 14 Mar 2009 | 1:15 am USDA approves E. coli vaccineThe U. S. Department of Agriculture has approved a new vaccine to reduce the prevalence of E. coli O157 in beef cattle. The agency issued a conditional license to Epitopix, LLC, of Willmar, Minn., for the vaccine, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Friday.Source: Gizmodo | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:40 am Batteries recharging in a matter of seconds - Neoseeker
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:34 am Sound Revolution agrees to merge with On4 CommunicationsVANCOUVER, March 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Sound Revolution Inc. (SRLU), a digital entertainment distribution, marketing and technology company, has announced that it has entered into a merger agreement with On4 Communications, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:34 am How Much Do You Owe Uncle Sam? Tax-Prep Sites May Disagree (PC World)PC World - Tax-prep software and services all promise to make the annual IRS ritual painless by asking the right questions and then doing the math.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:30 am Sharp Turns Like Cisco's Have a Long History - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:24 am Hulu’s Library Obsession [Voices]Is more always better? Hulu has expanded its content library considerably since its launch a year ago. The Internet video site has grown from 50 content partners to more than 130 and has nearly 40,000 pieces of video. Now, in addition to the full-length TV shows that made the site popular, it has an expansive, somewhat chaotic library. The site contains everything from two-hour feature films such as Universal’s “Liar, Liar,” starring Jim Carrey, to short instructional Web videos such as “How to Make Stuffed Crust Pizza.” Andy Forssell, Hulu’s senior vice president of content and distribution, says the goal is to provide users and advertisers with more options. Hulu is a joint venture of General Electric’s (GE) NBC Universal and News Corp., (NWS) which owns Wall Street Journal (and AllThingsD.com) publisher Dow Jones. Among the newest content partners is Condé Nast Publications Inc., the people behind magazines like Vogue and Wired. Videos from the company’s online destinations, such as Epicurious.com, a site for food aficionados, are now appearing on Hulu. They’ve added content from four sites: Epicurious, Wired.com, Style.com and Men.Style.com. Source: All Things Digital | 14 Mar 2009 | 12:23 am Sharp Turns Like Cisco's Have a Long History
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 Washington Post | Apple iPod Shuffle (Third Generation) Audio Player Washington Post The minimalist Shuffle has innovative text-to-voice technology, but the controls take some getting used to. Comments that include profanity or personal attacks or other inappropriate comments or material will be removed from the site. Week in review: Apple shuffles feathers Making use of the new iPod shuffle remote and VoiceOver |
Maybe it is all the TV news mentions, but Twitter is seeing the growth in U.S visitors to its site accelerating. In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior. (ComScore has yet to release February figures for worldwide visitors, but for January that number is 6 million).
These numbers are only for visitors to Twitter.com, and they do not capture usage on desktop or mobile clients. And the apps just keep on coming. For instance, Twitdom now counts 529 Twitter apps. But the site visitor numbers are indicative of the steep growth ramp Twitter is enjoying right now. It is still early days. Can its growth keep accelerating or is it unsustainable?
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Communications, Gadgets / Other, Web, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack
And a merry Friday the 13th to you! Can you believe the crap they pulled this week? I could have written this post on Monday with the mayhem that abounds the web this week. Here are my favorites:
I am going to work this week backwards, mostly because I feel like it. Apple picks a super interesting time to announce an event to discuss iPhone 3.0 software. The Apple announcement came a day before Palm was holding a ho-down with their sensational Pre. Talk about stealing thunder! Is Apple nervous like a crack fiend looking for their next score?
I’ve said this before but I think Apple has been resistant to things like MMS and copy and paste mostly because they knew we’d buy the phone anyhow. They were the OGIT (only game in town). Now that Palm is threatening with something that actually does a bit more than the iPhone, Apple is rushing to battle stations. I expect this 3.0 to be the catch up, not surge ahead. Anyone else?
What a let down. An invite only call that had me on the edge of my chair turns out to be a friggin’ rerun? Palm showed the press and analysts basically the same thing they showed us at CES a couple of months back. I loved it then, I love it now, but how many times do I have to watch this?
We wanted new info, not Lucy screwing up something and expecting Ricky to blow his top. Something new to the mix and having Sprint tell us how great they are isn’t new. Worse still was the Q&A. Can you say, “awkward silence?“ Despite a wealth of questions we hoped would get answered, Palm picked softballs and made it seem like there were no questions coming in while the seconds ticked away the dead air while they frantically searched for easy (mostly already answered) questions. What a let down.
Ah Symbian, loved all over Europe, unknown in USA. We here know so little about the OS here in the states, you could safely name your kid Symbian and no one would get the reference. What would that say about the kid’s future?
According to the the Foundation, five versions of the OS will incubate at the same time, each in a different stage of development. Are they nuts? Five versions? I’ve got two kids I can’t keep track of and you want five versions out there? What are you guys, Microsoft?
It may not matter as back in September our Mark Rowland wrote about the iPhone overtaking Symbian (which had a 45% market share not too long ago) by next year.
Or so said Sony employees in France that seized Sony executives and held them hostage. The brand, a hold over from the 80s, should be dropped in favor of something more hip, more relevant. Fine, that is just me talking.
The employees in France apparently have no beef with the Walkman brand, theirs was with the plant closing. They just wanted to be retrained or something. To me, this seems like a wasted opportunity to make a point about Walkman, but whatever fills your croissant. Best of luck to the French and kudos on holding captive the execs for 24 hours.
My favorite stupid move of the week was pointed out to us by Sue Walsh with her post on Office Depot employees told to lie about products if the customer isn’t interested in store add-ons like warranty protection. If the customer isn’t adding on accessories and warranty protection they are told the product they seek is out of stock.
What a rip! The company is that disparate that they’ve decided sales are not enough of just actual product, they need the add-ons to survive. News flash OD, you’re just about done.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Wired contributing writer Steven Levy, who recently reviewed the Kindle 2, moderated a discussion and demonstration of new iPhone apps March 8 in Berkeley, Calif. Here's a video of his hourlong session, which Levy kindly kicked the session off with a brief plug for Wired's iPhone app.
Video: Fora.tv
One of our biggest issues with the Shuffle 2k9 is, of course, that you’re locked into using proprietary headphones. If you insist on getting one of these silly things, do yourself a favor and at least spring for a better pair of earbuds; of course, at that point you’ll be spending close to $100, and you may as well buy a Nano or baby Zune. But I digress. Soon lots of headphone manufacturers will be putting out Shuffle-compatible cans. None are available yet, but they have been announced.
Etymotic will be putting out some high quality ones — they seem to think the Shuffle is specially capacious and will hold “an impressive amount of uncompressed music.” I’d like some of what he’s smoking. The headphones will probably be nice, though.
Monster will be updating its Beats and Turbine lines among others to include Shuffle controls. Nothing to make fun of there.
V-MODA will be dropping a Shuffle-compatible headphone line that, if I’m to believe their press release, is nothing short of revolutionary. Their words.
Scosche will have a pair of their own as well or you can get an inline adapter for normal headphones, which seems the best solution to me.
Klipsch has some as well. As if you didn’t know!
We’ve contacted Ultimate Ears to see what their plans are, but haven’t heard back yet.
As I mentioned, there’s hardly any more info out there other than “yeah, we’re making some,” so we’ll get you the news and reviews you want as soon as the gear is available. In the meantime, we also advise against getting the new Shuffle, since it sucks.
Rumor has it that a “Premium” version of the App Store will appear next week featuring more expensive and presumably better apps. This will allow more valuable apps to escape the 99 cent/free ghetto.
Presumably we’re also talking about apps from well-known developers as well, which will encourage the creation of iPhone apps by EA and the like. Here’s hoping.
Obama appointee Vivek Kundra’s new job as chief information officer has gotten off to an inauspicious start. After just a week on the job, Kundra is taking a leave of absence following an FBI raid on the District office he previously led. Yusuf Acar, a D.C. government official who previously worked for Kundra, was arrested on bribery charges this week (affidavit). Kundra has not been implicated in the alleged wrongdoings, nor is he being investigated. But the fact that these charges have been leveled at all would seem to, you know, raise questions about his management approach. Certainly, the White House–now gun shy after the Daschle debacle–isn’t taking any chances. In a statement on the matter, the administration, which often stresses the importance of government ethics, said Kundra had been placed on leave out of “an abundance of caution.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Salutations, readers. John Biggs and I are here in Austin, Texas for the big SXSW Interactive extravaganza. It’s essentially an opportunity for Internet-minded folks to mingle, show off their wares, etc. It’s rainy and cold. But enough complaining! If any of you guys are at the show and would like to have a completely unorganized meetup—we’ll drink beverages in each other’s vicinity—feel free to tweet John. He’s checking his iPhone—I’m the only person without an iPhone here, I think—every four seconds, so we’ll know what’s going on.
California-based Motoart repurposes aircraft parts into furniture and their latest creation is the 747 Jet Liner Bed. Created from the engine nacelle from a 747, their new bed features a round mattress and box springs. Just the thing for the…well, I have no idea who would want this.
The headboard is polished and repainted, and then the exposed ends are covered with plexiglass which allows you to see the internal structure. They are available now, but no information on price. I’d assume it’s one of those, “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” type of situations.
[via OhGizmo!]
As Apple gets ready to preview its new software developers' kit and an updated iPhone operating system next week, there could be some changes to the company's App Store too.
We're hearing rumors that Apple could introduce a "premium" section in the store, in order to sell more expensive third-party programs. The premium section would largely be focused on games, giving game makers a channel to offer more in-depth (and pricier) titles without getting lost in the clutter of free and $1 apps.
Game makers contacted by Wired.com, including Activision and Electronic Arts, have not returned calls for a comment. Apple has also not returned calls for comment.
This "velvet rope" section of Apple's store could feature software programs that cost $20 or more, making it friendlier to publishers whose products are too complicated to be created in one developer's spare time. That change would make the App Store more friendly to game publishers, as well as enterprise software companies such as SAP that would otherwise prefer to focus on the more business-user targeted BlackBerry phones. BlackBerry is expected to launch its own app store, called the BlackBerry App World, later this month.
The Apple App store is a big hit among users. Independent app makers can make hundreds of thousands of dollars hawking games such as iShooter or Twitter apps like Tweetie.
But along with the increased downloads, developers have seen the average price for games pushed down steadily. Three weeks ago, Silicon Valley Insider analyzed prices of the top 100 paid apps in the iPhone app store. Their spreadsheet showed apps prices dropped an average of 19 percent over the previous two months.
A premium section or a tiered App Store could help change that. The premium section could offer a channel for the more expensive products and protect the $20 price point.
In November, Apple marketing executive Greg Joswiak called the iPhone and iPod Touch "the future of gameplay," and in January, Gadget Lab reported on the iPhone's future as a gaming platform. By offering a premium section in the App Store, that future could be more secure.
See also:
Photo: (superciliousness/Flickr)
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.
First, however, let’s announce winners for the past two days. Congratulations to:
MattSF
dj chang
Tostada-man
KimberleyM
Avani
Falafulu Fisi
Your mission? Read on.
You’ll have four chances to enter this weekend. Today, tomorrow, and Friday we’ll give away vouchers for three covers - but not actual devices. There will be three winners each day. On Saturday we’ll have a super-duper prize day during which time you’ll compete for an etched iPod Nano.
Here’s what you have to do: post a comment describing how you’re going to break out of your cubicle jail. Will you dress up in wild colors? Will you move to an island in Tahiti? Will you etch Obama on your phone? We’ll pick three commenters at random each day and one lucky winner on Saturday. Get cracking!
When you win in the first three days you can pick plates from any one of the phones you see here.
Some things are so basic, there is just no excuse not to have them. For video-sharing sites, you’d think that a video upload status bar would be a standard feature—a progress bar that shows how much time you have left before your video is uploaded and ready for viewing. Yet YouTube just tells you to “Please Be Patient” while showing you an uploading icon that keeps spinning (see below).
Apparently, it used to show a progress bar, which was taken away. (Perhaps YouTube didn’t want people to realize exactly how slow it takes to upload a video). Now, it may be coming back. While uploading a video today, Peter Ha at CrunchGear noticed a progress bar all of a sudden (screengrab above). I still get the “Please Be Patient” routine, so this might just be a bucket test. I have an email into YouTube asking about this.
It is such a basic feature, though. They really need to bring it back. Maybe the uploads are getting fast enough that YouTube isn’t embarrassed any more to visually highlight how long they take. Anyone else see the upload status bar?
Update: The feature is in beta. You can check it out here. And I’ve been able to confirm that YouTube will eventually roll out the feature to all users.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
For a vivid reminder of the way the Internet–combined with a vicious recession–can destroy a well-established industry, consider today’s news from the collapsing Yellow Pages business.
Idearc, a 2006 spinoff from Verizon (VZ), late yesterday warned investors that it is considering various ways to restructure its mountainous debt; among the options it’s mulling over are a prepackaged bankruptcy filing; though the company said if it can’t negotiate a prepackaged deal with creditors, it might filed for bankruptcy protection anyway.
CEO Scott Klein said in a statement that the directory publisher is “making progress on our transformational and cost-cutting initiatives,” but that “the unprecedented economic challenges this nation is facing are creating never-before-seen obstacles for our clients and, as a result, for us as well.”
 TechShout! | Google Earth updates maps of Mars CNET News by Dong Ngo There is now a lot more about Mars to view in Google Earth than there was just a month ago. Google announced Friday a major update to show more details of Mars both in its history and the present day. Google Adds 'Time Travel' to Google Mars Google Earth Now Shows Latest Images of Mars |
Section: Communications, Smartphones
With the excitement over the iPhone 3.0 preview next week it’s easy to forget about the other smart phone OSes out there that are vying for attention. Even then, however, the main competitors are usually Windows Mobile and Android. We tend to forget Symbian every once in a while, though it could be because Nokia phones which tend to use it aren’t nearly as popular here in the states. But, there are some important developments coming out of Symbian.
The Symbian Foundation has announced their outline for development of the OS in the coming years. It has a new version of the OS, which their calling Symbian^2, out by the end of 2009. At the same time as the S^2 will be “hardened” and ready for release onto cell phones, S^3 will be “functionally complete” which means all it would lack is stability. That would bring S^3 out by mid-2010, and S^4 through the same process by the end of 2010. The Symbian foundation is able to do this by having no less than five versions of the OS being developed at one time, each in a different stage of development.
There’s a chance that some may be put off by this. Sometimes too many releases can be annoying and confusing to some users. But, a similar system seems to work well for Ubuntu on desktops with two releases of the OS every year. Having two releases per year could easily put Symbian up on some other OSes if they innovate enough. Though it might not beat the marketing machine that is Apple or the overwhelming popularity of WinMo and BlackBerry, it could easily put it up there with Android. For an old smartphone OS, its nice to see The Symbian Foundation try harder to push out updates than Microsoft seems to be doing.
Read [The Symbian Foundation]
Read [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
This piece, titled "Orange Roughy", from digital artist Don Relyea, was inspired by a dinner his wife made. [ScienceBlogs/Deep Sea News (Now At Discovery]
The Elliot Spitzer phenomenon is part of being human. For whatever reason, people who obtain power can convince themselves that the very rules they create and enforce don’t apply to them. Elliot Spitzer and his prostitutes. Al Gore flying carbon-spewing private jets. Countless others. Whether the transgressions are large or small, something clicks inside the brain of some people or entities who’ve obtained power and they convince themselves they are above the rules.
I’ve seen this in our world, too. When I questioned a New York Times reporter on why they felt they didn’t need to make disclosures in (very occasional) stories where they were conflicted (here and here, for example), he said the newspaper was above suspicion and, therefore, disclosures weren’t necessary (yes, he actually said this).
Conflicts of interest and ethical reporting are something that we are very careful about at TechCrunch. We write principally about new startups, and these companies are usually very nervous about early reviews of their products. We’ve been offered significant cash payments to write about some companies, which have always been rudely declined. We’ve always been extremely careful to disclose any conflicts of interest in our stories (which is usually that I’ve invested in a competitor). These conflicts are very rare.
Despite that, some people have spread rumors that we’re dishonest in our coverage (from what we can tell, these usually start with an entrepreneur at a startup we’ve refused to cover, or gave a negative review to). All of these claims are false. From a reporter who spent years trying to nail us on a conflict of interest:
Arrington, for a reason no one has ever pinpointed, attracts haters at a level far beyond what you’d expect for what is basically an online trade magazine. I learned this firsthand when I wrote for gossip site Valleywag from 2006 to 2008. Despite Valleywag’s cruel, personal posts, we received almost no hate mail and were never accosted in public. Instead, we got mail, phone calls and in-person pleas from people who begged us to take down Mike Arrington. The most common accusation was that TechCrunch sold endorsements of startups, either in exchange for advertising buys on the site, or for outright cash payments.
This is important: None of these claims ever checked out. Sources would claim to know someone who knew something, but these mystery witnesses never showed up to tell their stories to a reporter. Arrington’s success, both as a blog-era publisher/writer and a startup businessman, inflames less successful entrepreneurs and journalists with off-the-scale envy. How does he do that?
Anyone who knows TechCrunch understands why we flee from conflicts. Even if our moral compass didn’t steer us clear, everyone is trying to nail us. One slip and everyone would know about it.
But most tech bloggers don’t have the constant attention to their ethics that we have here at TechCrunch, and those who lack the genetic makeup to always do the right thing are starting to make too many mistakes. One of our competitors, for example, pays their reporters a low base salary and then gives them a bonus for advertising they sell. The result is that when they interview a startup, the conversation ends with a request to buy advertising.
Another competitor owns millions of dollars of stock in a public Internet company. The conflict is disclosed, but there is no one more conflicted in Silicon Valley than this blogger. And yet another competitor recently took a second job as a venture capitalist. I actually trust the reporting of both of these bloggers, but they are in an awkward position.
Another problem we’re seeing is an astounding level of hypocrisy with certain bloggers. Yesterday super-blogger Dave Winer wrote a long post saying something funny was going on with Twitter, since they’ve made accounts for some bloggers (including us) “suggested accounts.” He says this will lead to a conflict of interest.
Perhaps so, although it is important to note that we didn’t know about becoming a suggested account, didn’t ask for it and frankly don’t get that much value out of it. Still, it’s something we need to be aware of and perhaps disclose. We’re also a default feed in some feed readers, and we may need to disclose that as well. Where do we draw the line? I’m not sure, it may need to be continually pushed back as the landscape changes. Transparency is key.
But it turns out Winer has a shady past when it comes to disclosing his own conflicts of interest. After his post yesterday, an ex-employee of his noted that Winer took at least one cash payment of $10,000 to promote a blog in a news aggregator he created. This wasn’t disclosed until the the person who paid blogged about it some time later.
Credibility = Shot. Permanently.
This is where the Spitzer phenomenon comes in. Winer doesn’t see his taking a payment as an issue, saying on Twitter “No regrets, we did the right thing, both in including him and in accepting his gratuity.” Sorry Dave, but you aren’t above the ethical rules you so keenly shout about.
Back to transparency, one change I’m going to make at TechCrunch is to get rid of all of our investment conflicts. I’ve long been an angel investor and have continued to make a very few investments even after starting TechCrunch. These investments are always disclosed and in my opinion we do more than enough to maintain transparency there. But it’s also a weak point that competitors and disgruntled entrepreneurs use to attack our credibility. So over the next few months I’m going to divest myself of all of those investments in an orderly fashion, and I’ll update readers on the progress. I’ll also discontinue making any further investments.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
AP - Minutes after Neel Manglik illegally turned right on a red light in the Des Moines suburb of Clive, a video popped up on a computer at an office park outside Scottsdale, Ariz.
Silhouette Masterpiece Theater
Don’t you just love Fridays? The work week comes to a close. Weekend plans start to surface. Freedom is in the air. And today, for BlackBerry Pearl 8120 owners, it gets even better…it’s upgrade Friday!
That’s right. Head on over to http://www.t-mobile.com/bbupgrade and get yourself some fresh OS 4.5. According to Cell Phone Signal, the OS includes the following updates:
New Features:
- Music/video streaming (e.g. YouTube)
- Free/busy calendar lookup
- Remote search for e-mails on server
- Attachment download and document editing
- Wireless software upgrades
- myFaves 1.5
- New browser start page
- Updated UI
- WAP 2.0 (Wireless Application Protocol) better downloading, games and applications
- Voice IT policy controls on International Dialing and more.
- BlackBerry Maps enhancements (points of interest, saving directions, graphical improvements)
- GSM/EDGE toggle
- HTML e-mail for BlackBerry Internet Solution (BIS) account
Fixed bugs:
- UMA performance
- myFaves icon sync
- myFaves activity log
- myFaves icon appearance
- myFaves birthday/anniversary pop-up
- Uncaught Java exception errors when downloading certain audio files
- Device rebooting when on a Belkin Router or certain N type routers
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
 TopNews United States | Yahoo Integrates Fire Eagle into Facebook PC Magazine by Chloe Albanesius The Internet company built a new application, dubbed Friends on Fire, which will let Facebook users share their location and short messages with friends. Yahoo brings location to Facebook, Firefox; plays catchup Yahoo counters Google Latitude: Friends on Fire |
True story: The guy behind me in the cab line at the Austin airport offers to split a car. He seems nice enough, and once we’re in the cab we get to talking. I’m in from New York to check out South by Southwest interactive, the nerd spring break/convention. He’s from Wilmington, N.C. I tell him what I do. He tells me that he doesn’t have a job right now because his company got sold to Yahoo.
Wait a minute. Yahoo (YHOO) hasn’t bought anybody for quite some time. When did his company get acquired? 2002, he tells me. And the reason Richard Johnson hasn’t worked since then is because he didn’t have to. He was the founder of HotJobs, which Yahoo bought for $436 million in cash and stock.
Johnson, who’s a very pleasant fellow, says he hasn’t been in a coma since then. He’s invested in some companies, including stock photo agency Photoshelter. But he’s also spent a lot of time fly-fishing in Wyoming, and says he hasn’t felt compelled to start up something new because he hasn’t found anything that both excites him and that he understands. But he’s hoping that might happen in Austin this weekend.
So there you are: A walking, talking winner from the Web 1.0 era, here to poke around the deflating Web 2.0 bubble for opportunity. Johnson’s particularly interested in Present.ly, a Facebooky/Twittery tool for enterprise customers–he knows the company’s founder and has volunteered to work at the start-up’s booth so he can get a better handle on the business.
Drop by and say hello–and if you get a chance, ask him about his company’s then-famous ad that didn’t run in the 1999 Superbowl.
[Image credits: Bubble/Pink Sherbet Photography; Johnson/University of North Carolina Wilmington]
Monster (I know) just sent me a press releasing saying that future revisions of their entire headphone product line will include the buttons compatible with the new iPod Shuffle. Now add a microphone and I'm willing to accept the new click-cord controls as standard, especially if they'll work with the iPhone. (I still think the buttonless Shuffle is dumb.)
Just because it is shared on Twitter doesn’t make it good. Nevertheless, ffwd, the video-surfing recommendation site that borrows from StumbleVideo, has launched Twitmatic, a video site that plays only videos being shared on Twitter. (The name TwitterTV was already taken).
The concept is very simple. You are presented with videos in an embedded player which you can watch, or skip to the next one. If you like a video, there is a “Tweet this video” button, which acts as an extra vote for the video since presumably ffwd is counting how many times a particular video is Tweeted to come up with its recommendations. The videos I saw on the site were pretty random, everything from the little boy David who just came back from dental surgery and a guy throwing his Wii controller through his TV screen to one where some guys are setting up a race track in their office. Interspersed in there were also really bad marketing videos for a Rodial Tummy Tuck machine (I’ll spare you the link), get-rich-quick schemes, and dry stock market analysis.
People share all sorts of junk on Twitter. I’m not sure it works as an effective filter for video. But it does help kill some time. Ffwd also has set up a special SXSW version of Twitmatic showcasing videos from the conference in Austin which begins today.
(See also, our previous coverage on ffwd).
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According to Gartner’s final 2008 “Worldwide: Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System” stats, reigning mobile OS champ, Symbian, remains on top of the world with a whopping 52.4% majority market share. Although that number is down over 11% from 2007, Symbian still maintains a healthy 35.8% lead over its nearest competitor, Research In Motion. (chart after the break)
Of the 6 major mobile operating systems (Symbian, RIM, WinMo, Mac OSX, Linux, and Palm OS) included in the data, 3 platforms - Symbian, WinMo, and Linux - all lost some of their respective market share over the past year, while RIM and OSX each experienced growth of over 5%. Palm managed a meager fraction of an increase (.4%), but there’s no denying that things will get more interesting once they let the Pre (Web OS) out of the bag.
[via CNET]
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As steady and reliable as a McDonalds hamburger, comScore’s monthly search metrics–and about as exciting. February’s search rankings were much like January’s, which were much like December’s, which were…. Well, you see where this is headed.
Succinctly speaking, Google’s share of Internet searches in the U.S.: large. Everyone else’s: small (click on chart below).
According to the Web metrics outfit, Google (GOOG) claimed 63.3 percent of all U.S. queries in February, up 41.6 percent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, Yahoo (YHOO) took 21 percent, down from 26 percent year-over-year for the month. And Microsoft (MSFT)? Well, try as it may, the company just can’t seem to make any headway in search. At all. It’s share of February search queries fell to 8.2 percent from 8.5 percent, a new 12-month low.
As Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said back in February, “Search and advertising, we are a small share….It’s all about Google. Some people say to me, why don’t you just give up? This is a huge opportunity. You give up, you can’t get back in the game….But we are up against incredible odds. They have share, we don’t have share.”
When’s that Yahoo deal going to happen, again?
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 Fresh News | Apple sued over 'exploding' iPod Touch CNET News by Tom Krazit A 15-year-old iPod Touch user did not have all that much fun with his new iPod. Apple has been sued by the mother of a 15-year-old boy who said his 16GB iPod Touch exploded in his pants pocket, burning his leg. Apple Store Employees Named In Exploding iPod Lawsuit Apple Facing Lawsuit Over Exploding iPod Touch |
AP - An executive from Google Inc. is becoming the latest CEO of AOL, raising hopes that he will be able to turn around Time Warner Inc.'s struggling Internet unit.
Section: Business News
Sony executives who were being held by workers in France have been released. The workers were upset about the closing of their plant.
The head of human resources, Roland Bentz, and CEO of Sony France, Serge Foucher, were being held because the workers were unhappy with Sony’s severance package. The executives have not been able to leave the plant since Thursday afternoon and were released to begin new talks about the severance package.
The plant is to be closed since Sony is trying to cut costs. The workers want training so they can obtain new jobs. More on this story as it comes.
Read: [International Herald Tribune]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Recently on Offworld, Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol officially declared 2009 the year of the real-time strategy genre, French guerrilla artist Space Invader was caught on film, Dr. Mario talked Universal Health Care, and a new group is taking a games-centric approach turning NES/Famicom clones into classroom computers for the developing world.
We also saw indie things: an upcoming PC game that lets you ghost-ride a moon rover, an excellent customizable pixel-platformer browser game, submissions open for worldwide indie showcase Indiecade, a teaser for the Alien Hominid/Castle Crashers dev's new game (above), a fantastic looking new downloadable DS game from the Boy and his Blob remake team, an audio preview of a new game from the creator of I Wish I Were The Moon, and a new DIY 8-bit retro console for you to make your own games.
Console/handheld/PC things: the first video of Steven Spielberg/EA's Boom Blox sequel, a fascinating look at the peculiar appeal of Peggle, amazing new games built with just 4K of Java, action-man kung-fu-grip gaming with the PS3's Rag Doll Kung Fu, rhythm in real life with a new DS game, and retro-futurist downloadable Wii music game Bit Trip: Beat coming on Monday.
iPhone things: a multiplayer game about personal/inter-relational growth, love, and money called KarmaStar, Japan signing up for the iPhone with a new dedicated magazine, ragdoll physics injuries with Stair Dismount and board game legend Reiner Knizia seeking iPhone devs.
Toy things, and things to wear: a Metal Gear crossover with vinyl art progenitor Michael Lau, a custom Earthbound toy, a new games-like site from Argentina cutesters DGPH, a new Nintendo character T-shirt from kaiju artist Lamour Supreme for 8bitpeoples, and UNIQLO's massive game crossover T-shirt line revealed.
Musical things: the excellent near Ed-Banger-esque soundtrack to iPhone game Edge, chiptuner Tettix vs Fighting Games, Rockstar/Timbaland's music tracker app back on track for a 2009 release, shoegaze made of hacked-firmware dot matrix printers, and Chamillionaire, Kanye, and Jay-Z done 8-bit style.
Aardvark, the secretive, invite-only social search service founded by ex-Googlers that we first mentioned late last year, is preparing to become a little less secretive (the company has changed its name from Mechanical Zoo to Aardvark). They’ll start giving users virtually unlimited invitations starting next week - until now invites have been limited to one or so per month per user.
Aardvark is a way to get quick, quality answers to questions from your extended social network. You can ask questions via an instant message buddy or email. The questions are then farmed out to your contacts (and their contacts) based on what they say they have knowledge of. If you ask taste related questions about music, books, movies, restaurants, etc., they’ll ask people who tend to show similar tastes as you in their profile.
I’ve used it for feedback on restaurant recommendations in Paris, vacation rentals in Sonoma and wine bars in San Francisco.
The service works best when you already have friends using it, which is why the company is focused on user invitations rather than just opening it up to the public. There is a wait list on the home page, and the company says they’ll start letting those people in, too. But they’ve found during beta testing that users who have a group of friends to ask and answer questions to have a better experience and are more likely to stick. One way for users to grab a quick friend list is to sign in via Facebook Connect, which imports all your Facebook friends who are already using it, and prompts you to invite those that aren’t.
The company is also experimenting with a very promising sub-product that groups people under topics of interest. We could theoretically create a TechCrunch group, for example, that lets users ask questions about startups, venture funding and entrepreneurship to each other. All those questions and answers are populating a knowledge base in the background (think Yahoo Answers but with real content), and eventually Aardvark may leverage all that data. More on this in the coming months, says Aardvark co-founder Max Ventilla.
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From Lockheed Martin:
The HULC is a completely un-tethered, hydraulic-powered anthropomorphic exoskeleton that provides users with the ability to carry loads of up to 200 lbs for extended periods of time and over all terrains. Its flexible design allows for deep squats, crawls and upper-body lifting. There is no joystick or other control mechanism. The exoskeleton senses what users want to do and where they want to go. It augments their ability, strength and endurance. An onboard micro-computer ensures the exoskeleton moves in concert with the individual. Its modularity allows for major components to be swapped out in the field. Additionally, its unique power-saving design allows the user to operate on battery power for extended missions. The HULC’s load-carrying ability works even when power is not available.[via MeFi]
⌦ Resident...Evil...5 – In stores only, Toys 'R' Us is selling RE5 for $60 with a free $20 gift card. I can't let myself buy it, because I don't want to have to replace my television when I throw the controller through the screen. [Slickdeals]
⌦ National Geographic – 1-year subscription to NatGeo mag for $12. That's like a buck a boob. [Slickdeals]
⌦ Projection Screen – Elite Screens 97 x 49 inch 16:9 projection screen for $102, shipped. [Dealoco]
⌦ MP3 Player – The Philips 1GB MP3 player with 2-line LCD display, voice record, and buttons, is available refurbished for just $13. [Dealnews]
⌦ Sound Bar – Philips AmbiSound sound bar with built-in 1080p-upscaling DVD player for $250, shipped. I've not used this particular model, but I suspect it's a nice starter kit. (I'm really considering a sound bar for the house, but for now I'm just pulling down the rear speakers and putting them behind the couch on the floor. And that's really not a huge deal, actually.) [Dealnews]
⌦ Irish Dirt – I hate St. Patrick's Day and the Irish as much as any proper faux Scotch-American, but I actually think it's sort of awesome that you can buy Real Irish Dirt with shamrock seeds in it for $5. [DeepDiscount]
⌦ Shortwave! – Today's Woot is the Grundig G4 World Recorder FM/AM/Shortwave Portable Radio with MP3 and SD Player for $105, shipped. About $45 off most places.
Photo: Matito
Today, the Web turns 20 years old. In the TED talk embedded above, Tim Berners-Lee recalls how he invented the World Wide Web twenty years ago. It was a “play project” that his boss let him do on the side. Berners-Lee notes that the original Web was for connecting documents together online, and then argues quite eloquently why the Web now has to evolve from linked documents to linked data.
Of course, that evolution is already well under way. Just look at the explosion of APIs everywhere. The Web is becoming a massive interlinked computer, and computers need data. As more and more data becomes linked across the Web, the more that it can be accessed, analyzed, and computed. As Berners-Lee says, “Data is relationships.”
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Mobile
Despite the bad outcomes that we have seen with other US based MVNO carriers such as Helio and Amp’d Mobile, we have yet another with plans to launch soon. The latest company is called Zer01 Mobile and are planning to launch during CTIA, which begins on April 1.
The Zer01 network will piggyback of the AT&T network, however Zer01 will be tunneling “AT&T’s network into their own IP backbone.“ According to the details, they will be using a VOIP application that is made of several “brand-new, proprietary technologies.“ Basically, that means at this point we can only guess at how reliable their service will be.
That said, Zer01 Mobile is planning to offer an unlimited voice and unlimited data plan for $69.95 a month. That plan includes voice calling to anywhere in the US, however customers can also add unlimited international calling for an additional $10 per month. Customers will also be on a month-to-month arrangement, meaning no two-year contract to sign, the only downside will be in the form of a $30 activation fee.
As for the phones, customers can choose to bring one of their own, or pick from one of the three that will be offered. The available handsets will be the HTC Touch Diamond, HTC Touch 3G and the HTC TyTN II (Tilt).
Bottom line, this sounds like an interesting setup, especially if you already have a decent phone to bring with you. But, judging from the previous lack of MVNO success I would be a little nervous about becoming a customer. At least we have number portability, that way you can at least take your number should they go belly up.
Read [PC Mag] Via [unwired view]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Following Joel's post about the beautiful and elegant mechanical apple peeler that Mat Honan's dad owns, reader KPKPKP submits the ABL PDS75 Apple Peeler, Cutter and Corer, its modern industrial antithesis. It can deal with many fruits simultaneously.
It deals with apple skins the way the Chinese government deals with diseased chickens.
The music makes this video. You just know the machine is humming that tune to itself as it works.
Update: Added achievement badge – Joel
Zypad WR1100 is a computer that straps around your forearm, designed for use by the military and particularly adventurous ravers. From GPS World's review:
The WR-1100 uses the Linux (Kernel 2.6) operating system, weighs in at just 23 ounces or 650 grams, and is about 4.5 x 3.5 x 3 inches in size. It is rugged to MIL-STD (military standards) 810F and 461E for temperature, thermal shock, humidity, transit, and crash shock; normal and vehicular vibration; altitude and enclosure class for immersion in three feet of H20; so you don’t have to worry about damaging the WR-1100 when you hit the deck. ... The WR-1100, the device I am reviewing, also incorporated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The WR-1110 adds an RFID or radio frequency identification capability and the WR-1120 adds ZigBee in place of Bluetooth. ... it is a computer with all the associated capabilities.
Speaking of the miitary, I deserve a medal for getting through this post without making a Fallout reference. Not even a clever, oblique one in the headline.
Review [GPS World via CrunchGear]
One of these new phones is a full feature texting handset, while the other is your standard thin but basic device. One has stereo Bluetooth and a Facebook support and the other one can play games. One has a full QWERTY keyboard while the other has a number pad(!!!!). Chances are you would probably buy the X-tc instead of the Jax, eh? Yeah, probably.
The X-tc seems like a quality Virgin Mobile handset. It has almost everything we have came to expect from a modern cell phone including a 1.3 MP camera along with the notable specs mentioned above. Expect to pay $100 for this one one.
The Jax isn’t marketed towards us. It’s basically a rebranded S1300 Melo that is also available from Cricket and MetroPCS. It does have mobile web access but I suspect that the overall browsing experience wouldn’t be that great. No camera, no Bluetooth, no media player, but it does rock a speakerphone. Pricing hasn’t been announced yet not that you would care anyway.
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iPhone OS 3.0 is under development and will be announced next week. BGR says that MMS and tethering are among the additions. [BGR]
Event tickets are a big business and startup FanSnap is entering the game with a compelling ticket search engine. FanSnap is launching the public beta of its nifty Kayak-like live ticket search engine for sports, concerts, and theater events. FanSnap, through partnerships, provides free ticket search results for close to 60 of the leading ticket providers, including StubHub, eBay, Ace Tickets, AllShows.com, Barry’s Tickets,Gold Coast Tickets, Las Vegas Tickets, RazorGator and TicketNetwork. The results include more than 12 million tickets to 40,000 events.
FanSnap’s technology makes finding tickets to an event very simple. The site allows fans to see ticket selection and price ranges at-a-glance. FanSnap uses sliders to allow filter to see tickets by price range, date, time, number of tickets available, and by the series of the event (baseball homestand, a multi-night concert performance, or a week of Broadway shows). Users get a comprehensive list of comparable ticket offers from multiple providers. The search results also make it easy for users to see the full price of a ticket on a ticket vendor’s site, including all taxes, commissions, and fees that may come with a ticket. Similar to Kayak, when a user clicks on a desired ticket, he or she is taken to the vendor’s page.
Here’s the really cool part. Next to the search results, FanSnap has an interactive map of the event venue, which includes a “best value” feature that highlights at-a-glance those ticket offers that are priced significantly lower than surrounding offers. The value of the tickets are color-coded, with yellow being the lowest price and dark red being the highest price. The available tickets are distributed over the venue map, with the “best value” tickets as determined by FanSnap’s technology (the best tickets for the lowest price) represented by stars.
But that’s not all. FanSnap’s map then lets users zoom into a row-level view of the available seats map (only created for around 200 of the top venues of the U.S, but will be rolled out to more venues in the future), to see exactly where the desired seats are versus the rest of the stadium or event space. FanSnap says that they plan on including actual “views from the seat,” a photo from the actual seat, in the future (they already have a partnership with seating chart site SeatData to create this feature). Competitor SeatKarma already offers such court-view photos.
FanSnap is led by some pretty experienced people in the online tickets and search aggregation industries. CEO and co-founder Mike Janes used to be StubHub’s chief marketing officer. Steve Hafner and Paul English, co-founders of Kayak, are on the board of advisers. Co-founder Rishi Garg was the director of strategy and business development for MTV Networks. And FanSnap received $10.5 million in Series A funding from General Catalyst Partners, which is also one of the primary investors in Kayak.
Janes says FanSnap’s biggest competitor is Google, since many consumers will type in the name of a desired event to Google’s massive search engine. But FanSnap, he says, solves the problem of filtering the legitimate tickets from the fake ones, and also provides real-time data. Other competitors include event ticket aggregator TicketStumbler, but FanSnap appears to have more ticket vendors (and thus reach), more interactive images and more features.
FanSnap’s search engine is disarmingly good. Not only is it comprehensive, but FanSnap’s focus on visuals and images makes it really easy for users to see exactly what they are getting both in terms of value and location of a seat. Ticket selling is a dynamic industry—consumers often get ripped off or are charged unwanted fees. FanSnap adds transparency to the market by making side-by-side comparisons of fees vendors are tacking onto the value of a ticket. And FanSnap says that it fully vets each ticket vendor to ensure legitimacy and customer service.
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Eddie Zarick's inspirational hack can run iTunes visualizations, screensavers, even movies. It's such a shame his taste in music is so bad. [MacMods]
The Gadget Lab Flickr group has been quietly growing, and our readers have been posting some great shots, ranging from plain good pictures (with some geek technique behind them) to hardware hacks to follow-ups of the How To projects here at the Lab.
I have been taking a look through the archives and decided to call out a few of my favorite pictures here. Keep reading to find out what your fellow readers have been up to.
And for more photos from the group, check out the Gadget Lab Flickr Group.
The picture at the top of the post is from Bryan Jones. Not only is it a great macro shot of the inner workings of a watch, it is also an example of "focus stacking". This is a similar technique to HDR, or High Dynamic Range photography, only instead of bracketing the exposure and combining the images, you bracket the focus. Bryan says:
Using a Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5X macro lens wide open at f/2.8 to ensure the focal plane was as thin as possible, I captured 12 images in a row, altering only the plane of focus a few hundred micrometers at a time using a focusing rail.
Unless you are very patient, you'll want to let something like Photoshop take care of the heavy lifting when actually lining up the pictures and combining them (Bryan has some links, along with an animated gif of the individual images on his blog). When done, you'll have a shot that is sharp from front to back. Of course, Bryan was being slightly perverse in choosing such a shallow depth of field to begin with -- you can always use this on a regular outdoor scene, too.
Focus Stacking [Jones Blog]
Photo: BWJones/Flickr
Why use a simple cable when you can use an oscilloscope, an infra-red LED and some circuitry to do the same thing? So thought AMagill when he was looking for a way to trigger his camera flash.
What you see in the video is his Canon (which looks like a 5D MkII) shooting his oscilloscope, which is hooked up to his Make Controller. The 'scope sends the signal to the controller where it is transformed into IR light of just the right pulse and wavelength to trigger the 520EX speedlight.
Fantastically Rube Goldberg. Better still, AMagill actually has a proper IR flash trigger -- he used it to beam the correct signal to the 'scope, so this setup is completely superfluous. Brilliant.
Video: Flickr/AMagill
This is abailward's crack at a stealth camera bag, and it's far better than my own attempt. Not only does it have a fabric cover on the padding to allow easier sliding in and out of his kit, these are also reconfigurable "pockets" for lenses and other accessories. And if you take a look at his photoset, you'll see the bag he picked has some rather useful, iPod-sized pockets already sewn in.
Photos: abailward/Flickr
Larsonist gets the prize for quickest response to a challenge ever. Only yesterday did we post a how-to and a request to turn your digicams into pinhole cameras. This picture was taken with a Nikon D300, and the lens was replaced with "a dark slip from a FujiFilm fp100c cartridge, two sheets of tin-foil and opaque 3M tape."
It's a lovely image, although kind of creepy at the same time, and really shows how you can get some unusual photos with a little effort and some odd ideas.
Photo: Larsonist/Flickr
This shot by McGiffert is an improved take on my disastrous scanner camera. McGiffert appears to have made the cardboard box but, instead of hooking it up to a flatbed scanner he put a "ground glass" plate in the back, pointed a camera at that and threw a black cloth over the whole thing.
Another great project and one which comes with a true Gadget Lab-style hack. The secret of the "ground glass"?
The 'ground glass' is actually a picture frame with the glass sprayed with Krylon glass frosting.
Photo: McGiffert/Flickr
Last, and certainly not least, is legendarypoet -- the most prolific poster on the Gadget Lab Group. Above is a video shot with the Canon 5D MkII. For added geek bonus points, the video is of a backlit MacBook keyboard and shot in complete darkness. The Poet says "Love this cam."
Video: legendarypoet/Flickr
See Also:
This morning Yahoo has released a pair of new applications that tap into Fire Eagle, Yahoo’s ambitious geo-location system that allows a wide variety of web services to share your location data (after being granted permission to do so). The new applications include a rich Facebook application called Friends on Fire and a Fire Eagle extension for Firefox that allows users to update their location directly from their browser without having to leave the site they’re viewing.
Of the two, Friends on Fire for Facebook is the more consumer-friendly. The application allows you to pinpoint your current location on a map, as well as view the location of your friends (shared either through the Facebook app or any of the other 70+ supported Fire Eagle services). You can also append notes to any point on the map regardless of your current location (for example, I could tag my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, or point out a park where my friends should meet up later). The bottom of the app offers a listing of your friends’ recent locations and notes, and the app can also optionally syndicate your actions to Facebook’s news feeds.
The Firefox extension works as advertised, offering a handy button at the bottom right corner of your browser that can be used to update your location. Unfortunately, getting it installed is a bit of hassle. Because it is an ‘experimental’ extension, you’ll need to first register with Mozilla. Then you’ll have to enter your Yahoo ID. If you don’t have Mozilla’s Geode location-services extension installed, you’ll need to grab that too. Given all of these hoops, I think the only people who are going to install this extension for now are the people that really want it. But once you’re set up, it works like a charm.
On the development side of things, Fire Eagle has also rolled out a number of new features. The service now supports a new ActionScript library that makes the service more accessible to Flash developers. Fire Eagle has also implemented support for XMPP (used by many instant messaging systems) to offer real-time updating. Finally, the service will soon be able to associate location coordinates with nearby restaurants and locations.
Fire Eagle continues to innovate, but it still faces some challenges, the largest of which is that most people probably don’t have too many friends who are using it quite yet. Geo-location is quickly gaining ground, but until it reaches critical mass the odds of randomly running into a friend for an impromptu get together are so low I doubt many people will take the time to manually update their location. And the fact that some these services are also segmenting their audiences (Google’s new Latitude service doesn’t play nice with Fire Eagle) isn’t helping.
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We’re all for third party headphones — Lord knows I buy enough — but when it comes to the iPod Shuffle, we have to wonder, what’s the point? It’s not that the sound quality of the little iPods doesn’t merit some bigger cans — it’s that, in order to improve on the stock Apple ‘buds, you’ll end up spending more than the price of the iPod itself.
This is even worse with the new Shuffle, which requires that headphones have in-line switches to even play a single track, thus adding to the cost (although as the new iPod is $80 instead of $50, there is some headroom before the cans reach the price of the player).
This hasn’t stopped my inbox filling with emails detailing various companies’ intentions to make remote control headphones. The only reason we are covering Scosche’s phantom earbuds here over other brands is that Scosche’s PR people included pictures (tip to PR people — always include pictures. Never ask me to reply and request them. I won’t).
Like everybody else, Scosche doesn’t have its new headphones ready yet. They’re coming in the spring and will feature the company’s IDR (Increased Dynamic Range) tech, which it claims will “give users an enhanced listening experience with brilliant highs, silky smooth mids and powerful bass.”
They’ll all work with other iPods that support the in-line remote, and they also have a mic for the Touch, the iPhone, the Classic and the Nano. Prices? From $50 to $80, the same as the Shuffles themselves.
Product page [Scosche. Thanks, Mark!]
See Also:
Forbes released its list of the world’s billionaires and it looks like the U.S. tech billionaires took a pretty hefty hit from the economic crisis. The 40 tech billionaires we identified on the list collectively lost $81.5 billion compared to their standing in last year’s list. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.4 trillion in net worth that disappeared from the entire Forbes’ list, which also saw the total number of billionaires drop to 793 from 1,125, the first year-to-year decrease since 2003.
The tech billionaires are still collectively worth $203.4 billion. Although Bill Gates rose to the top of the list after falling to number 3 last year, the move was bittersweet. Gates lost a massive $18 billion in the past year. Larry Ellison from Oracle lost $2.5 billion but moved up 10 spots from last year, to number 4 on the list. Larry and Sergey from Google both took a hit of over $6 billion each.
We also included some media moguls with technology-related businesses. Michael Bloomberg had a very good year. He rose nearly 50 spots on the list, with a gain of $5.5 billion. But News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch saw his net worth cut in half to $4 billion. Viacom’s Sumner Redstone plummeted down the list, from number 137 to number 701 on the list, losing $5.8 billion in the past year.
Despite these massive losses in wealth, most of the big tech titans all made the list, including, Gates’ old partner Paul Allen, Michael Dell, and Steve Jobs. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg didn’t make the list this year, however, with his estimated net worth dropping from $1.5 billion to $600 million. He’s still smiling though.
| 2009 Rank (2008) | Name (Company) | Net Worth | Change From 2008 |
| #1 (#3) | William Gates III (Microsoft) | $40.0 billion | -$18.0 billion |
| #4 (#14) | Larry Ellison (Oracle) | $22.5 billion | -$2.5 billion |
| #17 (#65) | Michael Bloomberg (Bloomberg) | $16 billion | +$5 billion |
| #29 (#40) | Michael Dell (Dell) | $12.3 billion | -$4.1 billion |
| #26 (#32) | Sergey Brin (Google) | $12 billion | -$6.7 billion |
| #26 (#33) | Larry Page (Google) | $11 billion | -$4 billion |
| #29 (#43) | Steven Ballmer (Microsoft) | $11 billion | -$4 billion |
| #32 (#41) | Paul Allen (Microsoft) | $10.5 billion | -$5.5 billion |
| #68 (#110) | Jeffrey Bezos (Amazon) | $6.8 billion | -$1.4 billion |
| #119 (#142) | Eric Schmidt (Google) | $4.4 billion | -$2.2 billion |
| #132 (#109) | Rupert Murdoch (News Corp.) | $4 billion | -$4.3 billion |
| #146 (#87) | Charles Ergen (EchoStar) | $3.9 billion | -$5.6 billion |
| #156 (#120) | Pierre Omidyar (Ebay) | $3.6 billion | -$4.4 billion |
| #178 (#189) | Steven Jobs (Apple) | $3.4 billion | -$2 billion |
| #196 (#236) | John Sall (SAS Institute) | $3.1 billion | -$1.3 billion |
| #205 (#277) | George Lucas (LucasArts) | $3.0 billion | -$0.9 billion |
| #246 (#288) | Gordon Moore (Intel) | $2.6 billion | -$1.1 billion |
| #261 (#462) | David Sun (Kingston Technologies) | $2.5 billion | 0 |
| #261 (#462) | John Tu (Kingston Technologies) | $2.5 billion | 0 |
| #296 (#446) | Mark Cuban (Broadcast.com) | $2.3 billion | -$0.3 billion |
| #296 (#307) | Ray Dolby (Dolby) | $2.3 billion | -$1.2 billion |
| #397 (#286) | Jeffrey Skoll (Ebay) | $1.8 billion | -$1.8 billion |
| #430 (#503) | William Randolph Hearst III (Media, Kleiner Perkins) | $1.7 billion | -$0.7 billion |
| #468 (#652) | Thomas Siebel (Siebel Systems) | $1.5 billion | -$0.4 billion |
| #522 (#605) | Andreas von Bechtolsheim (Sun, Google investor) | $1.4 billion | -$0.6 billion |
| #522 (#533) | Omid Kordestani (Google) | $1.4 billion | -$0.8 billion |
| #559 (#652) | Henry Samueli (Broadcom) | $1.3 billion | -$0.6 billion |
| #559 (#462) | Craig McCaw (McCaw Cellular) | $1.3 billion | -$1.2 billion |
| #559 (#743) | Irwin Jacobs (Qualcomm) | $1.3 billion | -$0.3 billion | #559 (#785) | Todd Wagner (Broadcast.com) | $1.3 billion | -$0.2 billion |
| #601 (#707) | L. John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins) | $1.2 billion | -$0.5 billion |
| #601 (#677) | Henry Nicholas III (Broadcom) | $1.2 billion | -$0.6 billion |
| #601 (#461) | David Filo (Yahoo) | $1.2 billion | -$1.3 billion |
| #647 (#785) | Vinod Khosla (Kleiner Perkins) | $1.1 billion | -$0.4 billion |
| #701 (#137) | Sumner Redstone (Viacom) | $1 billion | -$5.8 billion |
| #701 (#897) | Scott Cook (Intuit) | $1 billion | -$0.3 billion |
| #701 (#897) | David Duffield (PeopleSoft) | $1 billion | -$0.3 billion |
| #701 (#897) | Barry Diller (IAC) | $1 billion | -$0.3 billion |
| #701 (#847) | Richard Egan (EMC) | $1 billion | -$0.4 billion |
| #701 (#785) | Theodore Waitt (Gateway) | $1 billion | -$0.5 billion |
| 40 names | Totals | $203.4 billion | -$81.5 billion |
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Yet here in the nice, safe,
scurvy-free twenty-first century, we worry about our kids riding
their bikes to the library, or walking to school. We worry when we
can’t reach them on their cells. In fact, cell phones—though I love
them dearly—are a great example of how everything has gotten so
mixed up. We give them to our kids because we don’t want to
worry. We say, “They’re for emergencies.” And yet now, if you ex-
pected to hear from your daughter after her Mandarin lesson and
you can’t reach her immediately, you may well start to think: What
happened?! Lost, dead or white slavery? (Which, for our purposes, includes Hispanic, Asian American, African American, Native American, and Inuit slavery, too.)
Google’s put some serious investment into Google Voice and I am fired up about it. I am a longtime user of GrandCentral and have come to love and hate it. Here is a five minute walkthough (actual times may vary, but that is all on you) on how you can love this service too.
SanDisk may be the target of 
