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Asus intro’s the “stylish” Eee PC 1002HSection: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Netbooks
In somewhat of a non-announcement, Asus has introduced the latest in the ever-growing and ever-confusing Eee PC lineup by simply adding it to their website. This time, the model is the Eee PC 1002H and it is powered by the same 1.66GHz Intel Atom N280 processor that is in the recently announced 1000HE. Of course, other than the slight increase in processing power the specs are just about the same as the previously announced 1002HA. Not to mention, they are also very similar to what we have gotten used to as standard features for just about any netbook. Those features include a 10-inch display with a 1024 x 600 resolution, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, a built-in card reader and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. Additionally, the 1002H also has built-in speakers, three USB ports, a VGA port, headphone out and microphone in. But on the positive side, the 1002H also has the newer “chiclet” style keyboard, and will be available in either black, white or pink. As of now the pricing and availability have not been announced. Product [Asus] Via [EeePC - Blog] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Mar 2009 | 4:02 pm NVIDIA Countersues Intel Over License ConflictMojoKid writes "After Intel filed a lawsuit against NVIDIA late last month, alleging that a four-year-old chipset license agreement the companies signed did not extend to Intel's future generation CPUs with 'integrated memory controllers' (like Nehalem), NVIDIA decided to fight with fire. Today, NVIDIA filed a countersuit in the Court of Chancery in the State of Delaware against Intel Corporation for breach of contract. Furthermore, the action also seeks to terminate Intel's license to NVIDIA's valuable patent portfolio, which no doubt is reverberating with some level of intensity in the halls of Intel."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2009 | 12:42 pm Windows 7 RC Download Page Points To May ReleaseAn anonymous reader writes "Someone over at Redmond flipped the wrong switch, it would seem. Ars Technica spotted that the Windows 7 download page on TechNet had switched to say Release Candidate instead of Beta. It's now back to Beta, but not before Ars got all the details off the page: 'The public RC will apparently be coming in May 2009, and not in April as previously rumored. The RC testing program will be available at least through June 2009, and the actual build will expire June 1, 2010. Both 32-bit and 64-bit versions will be available in English, German, Japanese, French, and Spanish.' A screenshot and all the text on the RC download page, which was set to be published 'May 2009' is saved over at Ars."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2009 | 12:02 pm Imeem Asks Big Music For Help, Gets Some, Needs More [MediaMemo]Since everyone wants to weigh in on the state of online music service imeem, let me add in my two cents: The once-buzzy startup isn’t on life support yet. But it sure could use some help — just like every other Web music player. I can confirm that the company has sought, and received, new terms from some of the big music labels, most notably Universal Music Group. One big label that hasn’t given imeem any concessions yet: Warner Music Group (WMG), which owns an equity stake in the company. Wired.com has a nice summary of the reason imeem needs new terms from the labels. But the short version is that the original deals it had in place meant it lost money every time someone played a song. And that the more popular it got, the more it lost. That kind of business plan isn’t out of the ordinary for Web companies that struck deals with the big music labels — even Google’s YouTube (GOOG) hasa similar kind of arrangement. But those deals, which were supposed to make sense once the online advertising business kicked into gear one day, are also obviously no longer sustainable. The big picture: Imeem went looking for buyers last fall, and hasn’t found any. That puts it in the same boat as every other notable online music service, including iLike and Pandora, all of whom have been looking for money or an acquirer during the last 6 months. One of them — Spiralfrog — finally shut down earlier this month. And if the other startups can’t get the labels to cut them some deals, Spiralfrog will have more company. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Mar 2009 | 11:54 am PC to Mac: I’m Cheaper [Voices]For months, Microsoft (MSFT) has jabbed at Apple (AAPL) with an, at times, baffling advertising campaign for Windows PCs. Now Microsoft may finally land a solid blow against its rival. In a new chapter to its ad campaign that will begin airing during the NCAA basketball playoffs on CBS (CBS) Thursday evening, Microsoft will begin hammering on a theme that could resonate in these times of economic hardship: how much less expensive Windows PCs are than Macs. For the commercials, Microsoft’s advertising agency, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, recruited prospective computer shoppers in the Los Angeles area through Craigslist and other sites, with a tantalizing offer to give them between $700 and $2,000 to purchase a new PC. According to Brad Brooks, corporate vice president for Windows consumer product marketing at Microsoft, the agency told recruits it was a market research firm and didn’t mention it was working with Microsoft. The recruits were told they could keep whatever money they didn’t spend on a PC so they had incentives to look for good values. Source: All Things Digital | 27 Mar 2009 | 11:49 am GDC: Com2us plans baseball games for iPhone
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 Unwired View | Oh, So Now Is It Perfectly Clear about Sprint and Clearwire? Gerson Lehrman Group Analyses are solely the work of the authors and have not been edited or endorsed by GLG. 1. After excusing the bad pun, please bring your attention to the craziness that is going on in the public relations departments of both wireless companies. Sprint Announces 4G for More Cities in 2009 Sprint unveils cities to receive 4G WiMax in 2009 and 2010 |
Hello Kitty, the cutest cartoon cat in the world and dream of millions of (mostly) Asian teenage girls, celebrates her 35th birthday soon. Reason enough for Sanrio, the Japan-based company behind Hello Kitty, and luxury brand Swarovski Crystal to produce a Hello Kitty figure of a very special kind.
The so-called Super Hello Kitty (great naming) weighs 569g and costs 15 million Yen or $152,000. The diamond-clad thing is currently being showcased at a watch and jewelry trade fair in Basel. So hurry to Switzerland if you own that kind of money and want to make your girlfriend really happy.
Via AFP BB News [JP]
Digital certification platform MyID.is is taking a crack at offering a way for people to claim their real identity online, in order to be able to prevent ID theft and to verify content they publish on their blogs, social networking accounts, photo & video sharing sites, and so on.
Additionally, the site offers (yet another) way to manage your online identity … online and doubles as a certified OpenID provider. The site has been in alpha testing for the past 8 months and as of yesterday in public beta.
This is how it works: you register for a MyID.is Certified account on the website, and enter your personal details, which are later verified by the team (I’ll get to the issues with this later). They do this by cross-checking the name you submitted with the one on your credit card - they’ll charge a fee between $2 and $5 to verify that it is yours, similar to how Google checks your credit card details for an AdSense account - and by sending a 6-digit code to your postal address which you have to enter to verify your identity on their platform. Other than the small setup fee, the service is free of charge.
You get a dedicated MyID.is URL, which looks like this: http://myid.is/charles.nouyrit.id (this is the one of founder and CEO Charles Nouÿrit) and you get to dispose over some badges which you can place on your blog or social networking profile to show that your identity has been verified by the company (example). The platform also features a number of custom widgets, offering ‘endless possibilities’ to spread your online ID.
It’s an ambitious project, and it’s always nice to see such an initiative coming from Europe.
But the elephant in the room is of course the fact that MyID.is facing the humongous issue of having to convince people to effectively trust them with their private data, credit card details and physical address included (which they explicitly promise never to sell, evidently). I’m sure there are security measures in place, and Nouÿrit says they don’t keep the confidential information and never even gain access to it as it passes through to a sophisticated banking system, but that is really besides the point.
People are still going to need to feel confident about signing up for the service, and I’m not sure how a tiny company based in London is going to be able to reach that level of trust worldwide. Nouÿrit counters by pointing to the fact PayPal needed a couple of years to be widely accepted too, which is a good point but not exactly a wildcard for MyID.is.
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of competition for verifying your online identity across the globe, and the solutions we could dig up were fairly expensive. In the U.S., there’s Trufina and BeenVerified.com, and in Finland there’s something like NorthID.com.
How do you feel about the concept behind MyID.is Certified?
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
 Grand Forks Herald | Don't forget about dogs when the ash falls Anchorage Daily News So, what's a person to do with 10 dogs that approach indoor living with the same enthusiasm they show when undergoing a rectal exam? Alaska vars Brace For New Mt. Redoubt Ash Fall Alaska Air suspends Anchorage flights after volcano eruption |
Another bit of news from Tag is the RS2 Caliper chrono Ti2 running the Caliber 36 movement for 1/10th of a second accuracy. The 36 isn’t new - it appeared in 2008 - but the “caliper” system is quite interesting.
The dashboard is a stylish black 43mm dial designed for optimum readability and information. The spotlight feature is the exclusive Caliper Rotating Scale, an ingenious display mode marked by an oversize crown and red line at 10 o’clock that enables precise readings of 1/10th of a second — magnified 10X for rapid readability.
It’s a bit hard to see what’s going on here but this video shows the user rotating the outer bezel to indicate the elapsed tenth of a second. I’m not quite sure why they did it this way unless I’m missing something.
Tag is also releasing a few updates to its Carrera chrono line including a big date GMT model.
At Baselworld 2008, TAG Heuer pushed the concept even further with the Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS Caliper Concept Chronograph. The first automatic chronograph in the world featuring Caliper Rotating System, the Caliper Concept is powered by a COSC-certified TAG Heuer Calibre 36 RS, a column wheel movement oscillating at an astonishing 36,000 vibrations per hour, enabling the central seconds hand to tick off 1/10th second intervals. With unparalleled timekeeping accuracy and at-a-glance, cockpit-fast readability, the black-dialed Calibre 36 RS Caliper swept the most prestigious awards in the watchmaking world, including “2008 Sports Watch of the Year” at the Grand Prix de l’Horlogerie in Geneva, “Best Chronograph of the Year” at the 2008
Salon International de Alta Relojería (SIAR) in Mexico City, China’s “Fortune Design Award” and the Red Dot Design Award 2009.
Now, in 2009, TAG Heuer once again showcases its unique ability to turn the most avant-garde concepts and innovations into high-prestige, ultra-luxury timepieces…Introducing the Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS Caliper Chronograph, the first automatic chronograph with 1/10th of a second Caliper Rotating Scale.
From Concept to Reality: The GT car-inspired concept chronograph that wowed Basel World with its technical inventiveness and futuristic design is ready for rollout.
The bodywork of the Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS Caliper Chronograph is pure streamlined simplicity. Under the hood — avant-garde engineering of the highest order. The engine is the same movement that so impressed the watchmaking industry at Basel World: the powerful, COSC-certified TAG Heuer Calibre 36 RS column wheel movement, operating at an astonishing 36,000 vibrations per hour and measuring time to a breathtaking 1/10th of a second.The dashboard is a stylish black 43mm dial designed for optimum readability and information. The spotlight feature is the exclusive Caliper Rotating Scale, an ingenious display mode marked by an oversize crown and red line at 10 o’clock that enables precise readings of 1/10th of a second — magnified 10X for rapid readability.
Ultra luxury and high-performance details include a linear second counter at 9 o’clock, and a date window at 4:30. The two Rotating Systems, indicating chronograph minutes at 3 o’clock and chronograph hours at 6, are stunning to look at, with high-luxury Côtes de Genève decorations and polished beveling. Other standout features are curved, faceted horns on both case sides, a curved, sapphire crystal with double antireflective treatment and a double sapphire crystal caseback sealed by six screws.
A matchless creation, the Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS Caliper Chronograph sports a black rubber strap with solid steel end piece, or a 3-row multi-faceted bracelet. Both options have a solid-steel folding clasp with safety push buttons and applied TAG Heuer logo.
The Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS Caliper Chronograph is also available in a super-sleek Titanium Edition
The Grand CARRERA Calibre 36 RS2 Caliper Chronograph Ti2 is resolutely virile and ultra high-tech. Inside beats the COSC-certified TAG Heuer Calibre 36 RS Automatic Chronograph movement with 2 Rotating Systems, visible through a handsome caseback in smoked sapphire crystal.
The jet black chassis and bodywork (43mm case, fine-brushed and polished bezel, and fine-brushed and faceted case) are made of grade 2 Titanium (Ti2), an ultra-resistant and biocompatible pure metal twice as light as steel. The oversize crown at 10 o’clock — also in Ti2 — activates the Caliper Rotating Scale, enabling magnified 10X reading to 1/10th of a second.
Other top-end features include a linear permanent second counter at 9 o’clock and a black rubber bracelet with black titanium end piece and folding clasp that grips the wrist the way a GT car hugs the road.
 Techtree.com | OnLive On-Demand Gaming Threat to Consoles Techtree.com Steve Perlman and Mike McGarvey launched OnLive 'Games on Demand' System at the Game Developers Conference 2009 at San Francisco. Is your PC obsolete? OnLive brings the cloud to PC gaming GDC: A look at OnLive, on-demand gaming through your browser |
Tag has launched a number of retreads and a new concept at Basel this year. The Monaco chronograph, worn by Steve McQueen in the movie Le Mans way back in 1971, is a TH stalwart and they’ve been tweaking the timeless design for years. This year they have a concept chrono with 36,000 bph movement that “floats” inside the case to ensure shock absorption even in a 20 meter fall.
I’m not a big Tag man myself but you have to admit the square face and movement make this a bit nice than their low-end F1 racing watches you see on the daily.
TAG HEUER PAYS HIGH-TECH HOMAGE TO THE 24 OF LE MANS
The world’s most mythic endurance car inspires
a groundbreaking BaselWorld 2009 prototype:The MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph
The most avant-garde MONACO ever
TAG Heuer is unveiling its most advanced timepiece to date: the MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph, a cutting-edge creation inspired by the supercharged race cars of the 24 of Le Mans.
The luxury watch carries an oversize “24” at 12 o’clock and the emblematic blue and orange livery of Gulf Oil – the same colours TAG Heuer Ambassador Steve McQueen wore in his 1970 film classic, Le Mans.
Based on the iconic exterior of Steve McQueen’s square-shaped Monaco, the concept watch’s unique tubular design and extreme shock-protected components are directly inspired by GT racecar technology. An innovative wonder with a unique two-part, see-through dial in an oversized, very contemporary case (40.5mm), the MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph is powered by the superlative TAG Heuer Calibre 36 Movement (beating at the stunning speed of 36.000 beats/hour relentlessly as the engine of a Le Mans prototype running at 350 km/h), visible from the front and through its sapphire crystal caseback. Seriously sleek and high-tech, this daring creation of TAG Heuer’s newly expanded R&D department is a triumph of lightness and transparency, yet it looks like it could go 400 kilometres an hour down the endurance race’s fabled Mulsanne Straight.
Jean-Christophe Babin, TAG Heuer CEO and President: “The MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph is inspired by the phenomenally powerful race cars – true marvels of state-of-the-art engineering and design – that compete each June in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Our proud link to this historic race began 40 years ago, when our first brand ambassador, Jo Siffert, was the fastest man on the track, and the first Monaco, the supporting star on Steve McQueen’s wrist in Le Mans, was the hottest watch on the circuit. Ever since, the Monaco has showcased TAG Heuer innovation and creativity, both in its ever-evolving rollout of best-selling editions, and in its award-winning Concept Versions. From Jo Siffert and Steve McQueen in 1969 to Lewis Hamilton in 2009, from the vintage version to this most futuristic creation yet, the Monaco legacy pushes TAG Heuer ever forward.”
The sophisticated concept watch is the latest in a series of groundbreaking concept watches on the mythic watch of Steve McQueen. In 2003, the double-sided MONACO Sixty-Nine won the coveted Design Watch of the Year Award at the Grand Prix d’Horloge in Geneva. In 2004, the belt-driven MONACO V4 was named Watch of the Year by Wallpaper* magazine and “Best of What’s New” by Popular Science. In 2007, the MONACO 360 LS Concept Chronograph, the world’s most accurate wrist chronograph, was awarded the prestigious iF Design Award.
Inspired by the most robust and powerful GT cars in professional motorsports:
In a world first, the MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph’s powerful TAG Heuer Calibre 36 movement “floats” inside a black PVD case, suspended within an “energy manifold” steel-tube housing very much like a race car’s driver’s protective cockpit cage. The components inside the polished black PVD-coated case (based on the MONACO V4 case) are further insulated with a shock-absorbing “composite filter” material used in aerospace and auto racing. The manifold arms collect vibrations and direct them away from the movement and into the composite filter, which absorbs and dissipates their energy.Another never-before-seen innovation is the watch’s centrifugal system: the three arrows on the annular oscillating weight, visible from the front of the dial and through the sapphire crystal caseback, display its working rotation. Custom built in industrial-grade tungsten, the oscillating weight echoes a GT car’s chrome mags. The large-faced, black-textured dial bears an oversize “24″ at 12 o’clock, in honour of the 24 of Le Mans.
The innovative two-part dial’s semi sub-counters at 9 and 3 o’clock have “doubled” hands: on the 3 o’clock, for example, the first part of the hand displays 0 to 15 minutes when the other part of the same hand passes under the upper dial.Water resistant to 100 metres, with anti-reflective double-sided treatment on the curved sapphire scratch-resistant crystal glass to ensure the best readability, this superlative timepiece impressively reveals the direction the Monaco myth will take over its next 40 years.
The MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph is equipped with a revolutionary new shock absorber, the Advanced Dynamic Absorption System (ADAS).
Unlike a conventional watch’s Incabloc shock protection system, which only protects the escapement from external shocks, the ADAS protects the movement in its entirety, not just its regulating components.
The MONACO Twenty Four Concept Chronograph is thus able to withstand an impact of 24,000 G, the equivalent of a 20-metre fall.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 CBC.ca | Lights out in 84 countries for Earth Hour 2009 The Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) - The lights are going down from the Great Pyramids to the Acropolis, the Eiffel Tower to Sears Tower, as more than 2800 municipalities in 84 countries plan Saturday to mark the second worldwide Earth Hour. Earth Hour hopes to shed light on climate Earth Hour gives into the Madness |
Apple stores are selling iPhones 3G without contracts, en masse, for $599 for 8GB and $699 for the 16GB. You can activate the phones in the privacy of your own home or, more importantly, you can downgrade the firmware and unlock them.
AppleInsider believes this move is an effort to clear out old inventory before the expected June phone refresh at WWDC, a magical time when we’re all going to have to upgrade this shiny junk one more time just because Apple tells us to.
The Samsung SWD-M100 Mondi is the first Wimax device in the U.S. and hopes to pick up where Nokia's Wimax tablet, now discontinued in the U.S., left off.
The Samsung SWD-M100 Mondi is the first Wimax device in the U.S. and hopes to pick up where Nokia’s Wimax tablet, now discontinued in the U.S., left off.
The new device has a full QWERTY keyboard, a directional pad, and a touchscreen. Not much else is known about this wee fellow and who knows if it’s even hitting stores this year especially considering the slow roll-out of Wimax to major markets.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Earlier this evening we saw a new ad come out of the Microsoft hive mind showing Lauren, a charming everywoman, purchasing an HP laptop for $699 after finding that the lowest-priced Mac matching her meagre requirements would cost her nearly double. The resulting commercial is effective in these lean times but isn’t it a bit disingenuous?
I’ve often spoken of the PC industry’s race to the bottom. A $699 laptop - along with a $200 LCD monitor - would have been unthinkable a few years ago but it is now commonplace. At that price, however, you get a machine that wouldn’t get a second look, spec for spec, a few years ago. These would have been called barebones machines - a little memory, a hard drive, and a processor are all you’d get. But with the advent of high design, it’s easy to put lipstick on that particular pig and make Lauren happy.
But what is Microsoft really selling? Apple is selling computers. Microsoft is selling software, namely an operating system. This lopsided competition has put Microsoft in a bad spot and for years the Mac/PC argument has danced, fairly, around this dichotomy. Interestingly, however, Apple has never really dealt Microsoft the body blow of hardware comparison, even in price, simply because it never saw the competition as such and, thus far, Microsoft has followed the same pattern - both companies talked up their OSes and hoped for a fair fight. It was all about Wow and ease of use and photo uploading rather than average yearly downtime and hardware costs.
Now, however, Microsoft has ignored the OS question entirely. Vista is a dog and all but the nerdiest among us have no understanding of the vagaries of Windows 7, so Microsoft knows that it can’t win on that front. The decision? To fight it out in price. Lauren, in this case, isn’t offered a PC vs. a Mac. She’s offered a Vizio TV vs. a Pioneer TV (or, say, Taco Bell vs. Chipotle) and, solely on price and ignoring such buzzwords as “resolution,” “digital tuning,” “contrast ratio,” and “percentage of insect parts and mouse feces,” she gets the cheaper of the two.
Macintardation aside, this is not any way to spend money. However, said money is not her own - it’s Microsoft’s- there is a time pressure. And she’s an actress.
If she knows that the HP laptop running Windows is the laptop for her - and you can assume that HP had a bit of skin in this game as well - then I say that she should rock out with whatever appendage out she wishes. However, this is far from a fair fight. This isn’t Lauren being a PC. It’s Lauren being a foolish shopper.
They've got a point on the cost to feature ratio of Macs v. Windows machines in this new Microsoft ad. I have to say, these things are getting a lot better over time. And the price difference is the key weak point in the Apple product lineup. Mac fanatics couldn't care less. But to a recession-beaten regular computer user, this message is right on the money. "I'm just not cool enough to be a Mac person," the actress says after visiting an Apple store and not finding any laptops in her price range.
See our coverage of other recent Microsoft ads here, here, here.
In his book Shaping Things, Bruce Sterling imagines a future where objects are tagged, tracked, and all tell their own stories. He calls these objects “spimes.” I read the book years ago, but it was the first thing I thought of when I visited SendMeHome.
The site is wacky but brilliant. It lets you register any object with a unique code, which is printed out on a small sticker that you place on the object. The object can be anything from your wallet or iPhone to a beloved frying pan. Ostensibly, the purpose of doing this is that if you should ever lose the object, anyone who finds it can contact you through SendMeHome. By entering the code on the sticker, they can learn anything you’ve decided to share about yourself or the object, and can contact you anonymously. SendMeHome offers this service for free, but charges $3.99 for a pack of stickers. (It doesn’t get involved in actually getting your item back to you).
The lost-and-found feature is the only practical reason you would use the service. But once you’ve attached a sticker to a favorite object and registered it on the site, there are other things you can do with it. You can tell a story about the object, pass it around, or put it on a mission. It is on its way to becoming a spime,. These spimes are “always associated with a story. . . . they are protagonists of a documented process,” as Sterling once described it.
SendMeHome lets people create a very rudimentary version of a spime. Anyone who enters the code found on the SendMeHome sticker can add to the object’s story in a blog-like format which incorporates Google Maps, YouTube videos, and uploaded photos. For instance, here is the story of a disposable camera that was left on a bench in LA with instructions for passersby to take photo with it. (They did). And here’s another one of a bacon frying pan, which instructs people to cook their favorite bacon recipe in the pan, document it with photos, and pass it along to another bacon lover. Every object has a story which SendMeHome lets you unlock.
There are flavors of the social game Akoha here, with its bar-coded cards and playful missions set in the real world. SendMeHome should be getting more social itself now that it has a Facebook app and has integrated its site with Facebook Connect. To encourage people to use its new Facebook app, it is putting up prizes worth $1,000 for whoever can create the SendMeHome stories on Facebook with the most followers by May 4.
The company has been bootsrrapped with $50,000 from founders Andrew Lee and James Tamplin.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
There was a time when all you needed was a good record review in Rolling Stone or a stellar book review in the New York Times to get a boost in sales and popularity. But as those old gatekeepers lose their cachet in the digital age, a new set of gatekeepers has sprung up and they don’t have bylines. These are the editors who pick featured artists and apps at the Apple (AAPL) iTunes store, who choose videos to spotlight on YouTube (GOOG), and who highlight Suggested Users on Twitter.
The most recent hubbub over the gatekeeping function started when Twitter began listing Suggested Users a couple months ago for newbies who weren’t following anyone and didn’t get how the service worked. By highlighting popular Twitter feeds from news organizations such as the New York Times and celebrities such as Britney Spears, Twitter hoped to hook new users. The problem? There was no explanation of how anyone made it onto such a list, and all the featured users started racking up huge numbers of followers.
Video host and blogger Veronica Belmont said her growth rate of followers shot up to a few thousand new ones per day — now hitting around 275,000.
“At the time that I was featured, I already had a pretty successful following on the site, at around 50,000 readers,” Belmont told me. “Maybe Twitter thought that if those people enjoyed my Tweets, then new people would as well. I tend to write about things in the technology world, but I intersperse it with funny or cool links I find throughout the day.”
Old computer products, like old soldiers, never die. They stay on the market–even though they haven’t been updated in eons. Or their names get slapped on new products–available only outside the U.S. Or obsessive fans refuse to accept that they’re obsolete–long after the rest of the world has moved on.
For this story–which I hereby dedicate to Richard Lamparski, whose “Whatever Became of…?” books I loved as a kid–I checked in on the whereabouts of 25 famous technology products, dating back to the 1970s. Some are specific hardware and software classics; some are services that once had millions of subscribers; some are entire categories of stuff that were once omnipresent. I focused on items that remain extant–if “extant” means that they remain for sale, in one way or another–and didn’t address products that, while no longer blockbusters, retain a reasonably robust U.S. presence (such as AOL (TWX) and WordPerfect).
AOL (TWX) was the top Internet service provider when it came to customer service in 2008, according to a Forrester Research report. The rub: AOL’s top rating based on Forrester’s “customer experience index” translates into a “just ok” mark.
As a group, ISPs grade out with a “poor” rating of 59 percent based on Forrester’s customer experience index. That tally makes ISPs 10th place out of the 12 industries the research firm examined.
I sought out the Forrester report after AOL trumpeted its customer standing in a press release. I just had to see how AOL, which is trying to wind down its access business, managed to be the best house in a bad ISP neighborhood.
In fact, AOL’s 71 percent rating was the tops, AT&T (T) and MSN were the only other ISPs that had “okay ratings. Three ISPs—Charter, Comcast (CMCSA) and Road Runner—and “very poor” ratings.
Relationships are so much more than the mere act of following or friending someone on Twitter or any social network for that matter. It’s the balladry of transcending online connections into real world relationships. It’s the cadence of interaction and the poetry of conversations that empower the human network and the escalation of the Social Economy.
On Social Networks we’re bound by context and not necessarily by the relationships that link us in the real world.
We listen to relevant keywords to learn from others who share our interests and passions.
We’re followed or friended by people prior to understanding who they are and how we’re potentially affected through an alignment.
We’re complex and multi-dimensional individuals, more so online, who distinctly connect with varying contacts tethered to transforming frames of reference.
Boxee, a free software package that pulls together multiple sources of Internet video in an easy-to-use interface, has quietly been building an army of ardent fans.
But what is it about Boxee that is driving the technorati wild?
Turns out, more than a handful of the 600 or so people who filed into Webster Hall in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday evening for a free Boxee-focused event couldn’t quite put their finger on it either.
In fact, a number of them weren’t exactly sure what Boxee was.
Aarin Clemons, who won a Mac mini computer by performing a beatboxed song incorporating Boxee’s name during a talent show portion of the evening, confessed he’d never used the service. “My friends brought me here,” he said.
Vincent Polidoro, a 25-year-old filmmaker in New York who persuaded Mr. Clemons to attend the gathering, said he had recently joined the ranks of those who adore the service, which many people use to pipe video from a computer to a TV screen.
Trailer for Where the Wild Things Are: Looks great
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Google is holding one of its occasional “Campfire One” events for developers on April 7. These events, which are held outside on the lawn at Google Headquarters, have always included big product announcements in the past. At a May 2008 Campfire One Google announced details of Friend Connect. A month before that, in April 2008, Google announced App Engine.
What will they announce this time? A good bet is Java on AppEngine, which we’d previously heard wouldn’t be announced until the I/O conference in May. But the product would be a good fit for Campfire One. Of course, it may also be something else entirely. We’ll attend (either because we’re invited or because we just show up) and live blog whatever it is that happens.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Everybody’s doing it. Even YouTube has succumbed to Twitter mania. Below every video if you click on the “Share” link you will find three options: MySpace, Facebook, and now Twitter. You can expand the box for even ore sharing options, but those are the main three and Twitter was just recently added.
Clicking on the Twitter button opens a pop-up window that takes you to your Twitter account and fills in a Tweet telling your followers to “check out this video,” along with the title and URL. The URL is not shortened, but YouTube is working on that. (Youtube URLs are short anyway, so it is not a huge issue). Adding Twitter as one of the key sharing options is a no-brainer. Now, if they could actually embed the videos in the Twitter stream like you can on Facebook and MySpace, that would be something.
YouTube announced some other tweaks today as well. The upload status bar is now fully rolled out. You can watch lectures and educational videos on YYouTube EDU, and it updated its mobile landing page and simplified the process of uploading a video from your phone to YouTube.
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Section: Business News, Video, Content, Portable Video, Video Providers, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
In efforts to compete with Apple’s App store and the Android Marketplace, RIM has decided to launch their own BlackBerry App store for all BlackBerry users to take advantage of. According to NewTeeVee, multiple sources claimed that RIM would be announcing a mobile television service by next week, at the earliest.
Basically, the sources claim that service charges will be a one month thing, resulting in unlimited TV downloads which will run on WiFi. This makes things interesting for several reasons. We don’t know if RIM got this idea approved with BlackBerry carriers, so cell phone carriers might not want unlimited TV downloads to be clogging up the 3G networks, but with WiFi, it wouldn’t slow it down. Another thing is the quality of the TV shows will be much higher because they will not have to worry about people downloading shows at 3G speeds.
This makes sense for a couple of reasons, one being that CTIA is right around the corner and so RIM will be announcing their App store at that time and two, it is another reason for people to get excited about the BlackBerry again. Unfortunately for RIM, Apple already has a stronghold on the whole app store business, as Associate Editor JG claims all App stores minus Apple are doomed. Not to mention Android’s app store has been around longer than the new BlackBerry app store. But, let’s not forget that 19.5% of worldwide smartphone sales are RIM’s BlackBerrys. People don’t like to change, and if they see nothing wrong with their BlackBerry, they are less likely to switch to let’s say the iPhone, G1, or any other competitive smartphones.
Will this rumor play out and be successful? Only time will tell, but it is another thing along with the App store for BlackBerry users to potentially get excited about.
Read [NewTeeVee]
Problem Regional brokers are responsible for getting enough electrons to their designated areas. At times of peak usage, that means firing up an old, dirty generator (not exactly green) or importing more juice from outside the region (not exactly cheap). Eventually, someone has to build more power plants and infrastructure (wickedly expensive).
Solution Treat electricity like a commodity—something for which you can gauge demand and set a price in advance. That's what New England's independent system operator started doing last year. In its Forward Capacity Market, the ISO projects how much power the region will need three years ahead and then runs a descending-clock auction for the right to provide it. The ISO doesn't care whether it gets its power from increased production of megawatts or from efficiencies added to the system, so-called negawatts. The agency simply sets the starting price. Result: money saved in power plants and wires, more stable electricity bills, and a homegrown incubator for getting bright green ideas off the drawing board.
$15 The independent system operator announces its need for 32,305 megawatts. Hundreds of wannabe providers—generators and conservers—offer 6,850 MW more than the ISO wants. The auction opens at $15/kW-month.
$9With excess supply, the ISO brings the price down to $9/kW-month, then $8, and so on, shedding bidders—and surplus power—with every round.
$4.50 End of the auction: The ISO reaches $4.50 ... and still has excess electricity, which it offers to take off the providers' hands as well.
Illustration: Lamosca
: For this stunningly produced, profoundly moving, and quietly imposing monograph on loss, photographer David Maisel gained access to an abandoned building at a mental hospital. In a locked room, he found neatly shelved copper canisters numbered 1 to 5,121, alive with evidence of chemical reaction at the seams—as if the contents were escaping in crystalline blooms of color. What's inside these enigmatic vessels? The cremains of long-forgotten patients.
: Desirable .com domain names are scarcer than profitable investment banks. But Domai.nr makes finding pithy URLs easy by querying 280 top-level domains and another 2,014 second-level ones for domain hacks, turning real English words into unique and memorable Web addresses like del.icio.us, internetfamo.us, gee.ky, and iamthewalr.us. Plus, it's free. Kookooka.ch/oo!
: Here's proof that sophomore albums aren't all backwash. The British MC who broke through rap's macho ranks serves her second round straight up: a classic hip hop cocktail (ego plus electro) with a dash of dance hall and a tough femme twist that's guaranteed to get your body moving.
: Jason deCaires Taylor is taking participatory art to new, er, depths. The sculptor and diving instructor plants statues on the ocean floor, allowing a flash mob of coral, urchin, and fish to transform them into artificial reefs. His latest installation, The Silent Evolution at Mexico's National Marine Park of Cancun, features 400 human lifecasts and their aquatic friends.
: Jane Austen isn't for everyone. Neither are zombies. But combine the two and the only question is, Why didn't anyone think of this before? The judicious addition of flesh-eating undead to this otherwise faithful reworking is just what Austen's gem needed. The new version begins, "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains," and proceeds apace.
: Yes, it's another Web site that pairs relatively innocuous animal photographs with funny captions. But this one is different, we swear! Fuckyoupenguin .blogspot.com gives adorable creatures the business for being distressingly precious. From tree-climbing pangolins to dove-hugging monkeys, no critter is too cute for a firm dressing down. It's the ultimate antidote to puppycams.
: They cut their hair, they sued Napster, and they made a movie starring their band's therapist. But we forgive them. Because 28 of Metallica's head-bangers—classics like "Master of Puppets," "The Unforgiven," and "Battery" are now available for your Guitar Hero-callusedfinger- tips. Neighbors beware.
: The third season of Adult Swim's mad-scientist/boy-genius/superhero spoof is now on DVD. See: flashbacks that reveal how dark mastermind The Monarch met his new wife, Dr. Girlfriend. Get: a view inside the Guild of Calamitous Intent. Meet: Dr. Venture's latest nemesis, Sergeant Hatred. Learn: (spoiler alert!) how henchman #24 met his unfortunate and shocking demise.
: For a 2002 Wired article, author David Ewing Duncan had his genome scanned. For this book, he went even farther, undergoing $500,000 worth of tests to discover what high tech medicine can tell us about ourselves. The result: His brain is shrinking (no biggie), he shouldn't have chased DDT-spraying trucks as a kid (duh), and he metabolizes caffeine faster than average (bummer).
: Nothing's worse than a musty merlot or a bad Bordeaux. Blame oxygen. A vacuum-pump stopper will keep an open bottle fresh, but it works only with the hard-to-conceal original container. For the on-the-go wino, we suggest this foldable, air-tight plastic bladder. Just pour in your favorite vino, squeeze to vacate the 02, tighten the cap, and stash for later. Built for backpackers yet handy for discerning drunks everywhere.
1977: Two Boeing 747s collide on a fog-shrouded runway at Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 people in the worst accident in aviation history. Sixty-one people survive.
The planes — Pan Am flight 1736 originating in Los Angeles and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight 4805, a charter from Amsterdam — crashed into each other on Los Rodeos Airport's single runway.
Visibility on the ground was poor, limited to 1,000 feet or so, but many other factors led to the disaster. Muddled instructions, malfunctioning runway lights and an overcrowded airport played roles, too, but perhaps the major factor was pilot error, specifically the bad judgment exercised by the Dutch captain.
The KLM jumbo was under the command of Capt. Jacob Veldhuyzen van Zanten, a seasoned pilot so popular and photogenic that the airline used him both in its marketing materials and as a de facto company spokesman.
Although van Zanten was KLM's most experienced 747 pilot, he had spent most of his time recently in simulators, training other pilots for the service.
When news of the disaster reached KLM officials they tried to find van Zanten, only to discover he had been the pilot involved.
Pan Am 1736 was piloted by Capt. Victor Grubbs, who came aboard when the plane made an intermediate stop in New York.
The chain of events leading up to the crash began earlier in the day at another airport in the Canary Islands. A militant separatist group set off a small bomb at Las Palmas Airport on Gran Canaria, closing that field and rerouting air traffic to the much-smaller Los Rodeos Airport on Tenerife.
With the apron at Los Rodeos full of airplanes, overworked controllers began directing incoming flights onto taxiways that intersected the main runway.
Both Pan Am 1736 and KLM 4805 were sent to taxiways. Van Zanten took the opportunity to refuel his aircraft, which took about 35 minutes. As soon as refueling was completed, he fired up his engines.
Both captains were eager to get going, especially Grubbs, who had already flown for eight hours and was tired. Their anxiousness, coupled with the tower's occasionally unclear instructions of how to proceed through the morass, helped set the stage for what happened next.
In an attempt to move Pan Am 1736 off the main runway, controllers instructed Grubbs to turn onto taxiway 3 (although taxiway 4 would have been better logistically to set up for takeoff). In any case, the weather was deteriorating. Grubbs was unfamiliar with Los Rodeos and had trouble locating the correct taxiway in reduced visibility.
Van Zanten, in KLM 4805, had gassed up and was maneuvering toward takeoff himself. He was aware of the Pan Am jumbo, but had no visual contact. He asked for takeoff clearance and was told to stand by. Whether he misheard the instruction, or ignored it, van Zanten proceeded to go. What he didn't know was that Pan Am 1736 was taxiing down the runway directly toward him, still looking for its assigned taxiway.
As the cockpit voice recorder later revealed, Pan Am first officer Robert Bragg spotted the KLM jumbo's landing lights through the fog and screamed to Grubbs, who tried to steer his plane off the runway. It was too late.
KLM 4805, at full throttle and lifting off, struck the other plane just aft of the starboard wing. Propelled by its forward momentum, the Dutch plane rose to an altitude of roughly 100 feet before nosediving into the runway and exploding in a fireball.
Pan Am 1736 also burst into flames and broke into several pieces. Most of the survivors from that aircraft were seated forward of the wings.
All 248 people aboard KLM 4805 were killed. On Pan Am 1736, seven of the 16-member flight crew, along with two company employees and 61 passengers, survived, although nine later died of their injuries. Grubbs was not among the survivors.
Despite the various factors feeding into the disaster, the official inquiry laid the entire blame on van Zanten. The veteran pilot's most egregious sin, caused either by impatience or miscommunication, was to take off without having received clearance from the tower.
Had van Zanten waited, the worst aviation accident in history would never have happened.
AirDisaster.com
FROM APPLETELL - Each year, Apple holds an event for developers of Mac OS X and the iPhone OS. The World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is held in the summer months, and Apple have set the dates for this year’s conference. MORE »
We cover tech news here at TechCrunch, so I was surprised to see a 5 lb overnight shipment arrive from Pepsi containing three half liter bottles of Aquafina water. The reason for the special delivery? The company is launching a new plastic bottle that contains half the plastic content of the old bottles. Less plastic = less landfill weight, less carbon, less bad stuff in general, they say.
I’m concerned that Pepsi decided to promote its new “eco-friendly” product by proactively shipping, via Fedex overnight, 5 lb boxes of the water to press around the country. And then sending a second batch either in error or to reinforce the message. That’s not very eco-friendly (if anyone knows the carbon cost of sending these boxes, let me know, then multiply it by hundreds or thousands of press). It all seems a little wasteful.
Anyway, after all this carbon spending and the general effort involved in sending me six bottles of water I never requested, I thought I should at least put the product to the test. I don’t drink bottled water myself, since it’s less safe than tap water and way too expensive (see the clip from Bullshit below). But Laguna, my 105 lb chocolate lab, loves bottled water. And she loves to chew on stuff. So we brought her in for a special assignment to test Aquafina’s new Eco-fina water in the TechCrunch Lab. She reluctantly agreed.
First off was the taste test. She doesn’t look particularly enthusiastic in the picture above, but once I started pouring, she was definitely into it. She didn’t even wait for it to hit the bowl:
So Laguna definitely like the taste of Aquafina water (she also eats dirt, and enjoys licking my feet). Next was the durability test. It took her about ten seconds to destroy the bottle, which isn’t good. Pepsi removed about half the plastic from the new bottles, and they clearly aren’t going to hold up to any kind of sustained attacked from a large, well-toothed canine:
Overall I’d say that Aquafina water is absolutely good enough for my dog to drink, and the bottles make fun albeit short-lived chew toys to distract her.
Here’s that clip on just what you get with bottled water, if you’re interested:
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 ABC News | Defeat and Some Success for Texas Evolution Foes New York Times By MICHAEL BRICK AUSTIN, Tex. - In an evenly split vote, the State Board of Education on Thursday upheld teaching evolution as accepted mainstream science. Texas rejects effort to require teaching of evolution 'weaknesses' Texas ed board's vote a mixed bag for evolution |
Reclusive British comedy genius Chris Morris came out with his darkly surreal masterpiece of weirdness, "Jam" (based on his "Blue Jam" radio show) in 2000, but sadly because of expensive music rights issues, "Jam" has seldom been seen outside of the UK. This is a shame, because "Jam" is a uniquely...um... well... ah...hmmm... I hesitate to call it "comedy" because it's so odd and disturbing, but if I called it "David Lynchian" comedy, we'd be in the right ball park at least. "Jam" is like a bad --make that very bad-- acid trip played for laughs. Take a look at one of the show opens:
Not exactly "funny ha ha" stuff. In fact, there's nary a traditional "joke" in the entire series. There are six episodes of "Jam" and although I'd classify myself as a huge fan of the show, six episodes of something like this is plenty!! The style would've become a creative dead end. But a great talent like Chris Morris wasn't to repeat himself anyway --his next project, the wonderfully vicious satire of dotcom dickheads, "Nathan Barley" was quite a shift away from the brooding psychopathy of "Jam." I eagerly await his feature comedy debut, rumored to be about Islamic terrorists and suicide bombers.
Here's another great "Jam" clip with another UK comedy auteur, Julia Davis, creator of the "wheelchair Gothic" classic, "Nighty Night" as a particularly stupid woman:
China has begun blocking all access to YouTube, adding it to a the long list of sites it blocks. Other sites on that list include the Amazon, Flickr, GoDaddy, Google News, iTunes, and Wikipedia. While this latest block has been confirmed, Chinese officials have not offered any explanation for it. When asked if China fears the Internet, this is how a Chinese Foreign Ministry responded:
“Many people have a false impression that the Chinese government fears the Internet. In fact it is just the opposite,“ the official, Qin Gang, explains. “China’s Internet is open enough, but also needs to be regulated by law in order to prevent the spread of harmful information and for national security.“
Harmful information? Yeah, I imagine all those rickrolled videos on YouTube could be considered harmful, right? It’s obvious that China does fear the Internet and the information it provides. It’s not really a secret that the Chinese government spreads propaganda to its citizens and tightly controls all forms of media, so the fact they want to do the same to the Internet isn’t really that surprising. Sad, but not surprising.
China will also not hesitate to block content created within its borders. For example, think about the thousands of sites and blogs devoted to politics and our government, and how they are free to both praise and criticize. If you’re in China and put up a site that says you disagree with a government ruling or God forbid the Communist Party in general, look out. Your site will be gone like that and you may face harsh legal penalties to boot.
We really need to take a moment and give thanks for being citizens of a country that lets us decide what we want to read, watch, listen to and surf to, and that believes in the famous quote (erroneously attributed to Voltaire):
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
—Beatrice Hall, in “The Friends of Voltaire”
Read [PCWorld]
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 Sydney Morning Herald | Microsoft goes after Mac on price in new ad CNET News by Chris Matyszczyk While Steve Wozniak was rushing to an Apple store to get some help, Lauren, a quintessential average female consumer, was heading there too-- part of Microsoft's bold new attempt to show the "Apple tax" in action. Microsoft to attack Mac pricing in new series of TV ads Microsoft to Apple Buyers: It`s Hip to be Square - Microsoft |
 Boston Globe | An All-Electric Sedan, Awaiting Federal Aid New York Times By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER LOS ANGELES - Tesla Motors on Thursday unveiled its Model S, an all-electric sedan it hails as the beginning of a generation of fossil-fuel-free cars and a profitable company. Tesla's Electric Car for the (Well-Off) Masses Tesla Motors plans to build Model S all-electric sedan in Southland |
FROM APPLETELL - IPEVO’s TR-10i is equipped to handle all of your VoIP related needs. It’s a mic, a speakerphone and a handset all in one nifty USB device. What in the world would you use it for? Tons of stuff actually. MORE »
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We just tried out OnLive, and of course it worked perfectly, being a demonstration on the order of 8-10 machines set up by the company itself. The people we talked to were naturally very optimistic, and my concerns over the availability and reliability of multi-megabit connections were waved away. That isn’t the only problem, though. OnLive will need a top-tier computer for every player at all times, and when a new game is introduced, the volume and subsequent will be unsupportable. Add this to the fact that video quality (which looked okay to me) is questionable at the framerates they’ve set forth, and things start looking a bit pie-in-the-sky.
This informative article at Eurogamer is immensely skeptical, and understandably. These are serious questions, and they demand real answers from OnLive, even if they have to be coy about the details. If they want to serve 20,000 people at a time, they’ll need 20,000 computers or the equivalent thereof. Even at the hugely conservative estimate of $1000 per machine, that’s $20 million just to start. Is growth sustainable? Is the revenue sufficient? Once the shine wears off, will we find that OnLive is making promises it just can’t keep? We’ll know soon. Until then, I’m withholding judgment, but leaning towards calling BS.
While many people in the tech world only make the trek to Austin, Texas once a year for SXSW, the city has a fairly sizable startup community. Now Austin is getting its own Y Combinator-esque program, dubbed Capital Factory.
As with other similar programs, Capital Factory offers entrepreneurs a modest amount of funding in exchange for equity (the program is offering ‘up to $20,000′ in exchange for 5% of each startup). Capital Factory is also advertising ‘$20,000 in free stuff‘, which includes server usage, PR support, and legal help. But the real value from these programs comes from their associated mentors, who work with the startups to help them get on their feet, and help tap into their established networks of VCs and other entrepreneurs.
The ten week long program culminates in a ‘Demo Day’ during which each startup will pitch their wares to VCs, press, and other entrepreneurs.
Capital Factory joins a growing number of programs vying for the attention of eager new entrepreneurs. Aside from Y Combinator, which pioneered the idea, other incubators include TechStars (Boulder and now Boston), Start@Spark (Boston), LaunchBox Digital (Washington, D.C.), DreamIT Ventures (Philadelphia), and Shotput Ventures (Atlanta)
Most of these are regional, but they still draw from the same pool of entrepreneurs (many of whom are willing to relocate temporarily if they get accepted to their preferred program). Recently we’ve heard of some shady tactics like exploding term sheets that are being employed as these programs compete for the same candidates.
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“I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”
– Lauren from Microsoft’s new “Laptop Hunters” commercial sets up Apple’s next “I’m a Mac” ad
Day 3 of Boing Boing Video's live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco with Killscreen TV + Offworld. We're streaming live video around the clock on our new Ustream channel. Tune in for conversations in our BBV@GDC studio with hosts including Matty Kirsch from Killscreen TV and Xeni from Boing Boing, visits from fellow Boing Boing bloggers, and the following special guests today, Thursday March 26, 2009:
Alice Taylor of Channel 4 and Wonderland
John Seggerson of Telltale Games
Derek Johnson of Chalice Games
Troy Gilbert of Mockingbird Games
Sebastien de Halleux of Playfish Games
and our pal Kevin Kelly from Joystiq
For BB + Offworld's complete video and blog coverage of GDC09, visit offworld.com/gdc09.
Chat room after the jump, below!
This week, Samsung is releasing the first TVs with the hyped embedded Yahoo Widget Engine, and those who have taken a first look are saying the feature works quite well.
The Samsung LED Series 7 TVs include a widget 'strip' stream of popular web apps that come up without interrupting video onscreen. Among the first apps to be included are some for Flickr, YouTube, and different news orgs, like ABC News.
Katherine Boehret from the Wall Street Journal says she found the widgets easy to use because they're integrated to a color-coded shortcut on the TV remote. She also appreciated the ability of the screen user interface to re-size itself when the more detailed widget panel takes over the left-hand side of the screen.
One of the things people noted (including myself) about the limitation of this web widget system when it was announced was the lacking physical keyboard. Some apps, like business email or IM, can really only be used with a keyboard in order to be properly useful. The on-screen keyboard the new Samsung TVs come with, which must be used with the limiting remote, is likely not as fast or as comfortable to use.
In fact, I wonder if this limitation will force people to realize they can simply connect their HDTVs directly to their PC to pick up web video online. Believe it or not, millions out there still haven't made that connection.
The Samsung LED TVs have a 120 Hz response time, are WiFi-ready (with the purchase of an additional adapter), and are also among the first TVs to have an edge-lit back light system, which allows it to be fairly thin and to produce greater luminance. LEDs are used as the primary light source for the LCD, as opposed to CCFLs, which helps them save energy and produce improved contrast ratios.
The 46-inch LED TVs are now available for sale for $3,000 and the 55-inch ones sell for $3,700. Some stores like Best Buy are already receiving orders.
Other companies, including LG and Vizio, will also come out with their own web widget-enabled TVs this year.
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "For Shimmer magazine's 10th issue, we've got twelve fantastic new stories and an interview with none other than Cory Doctorow. In honor of Cory's work with Creative Commons, we are giving away the pdf of this issue as a free download."
Issue Ten
(Thanks, Mary!)
Source: Boing Boing | 27 Mar 2009 | 12:13 am
Section: Computers, Networking, Security, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Web Browsers
Stories are starting to fly around the Internet about the latest worm attacking Windows PCs. Why is this one gaining such mass attention? Because of the mystery surrounding it.
The Conficker worm has supposedly already infected millions of PCs around the world and it has plenty of people worried what exactly it is up to. What is known is that the next scheduled “update” for the worm is ironically enough, April Fools’ Day. Look at that, malicious hackers with a sense of humor. Apparently though, Microsoft is not seeing any humor in the situation, given that they offered up a $250,000 bounty for the creator.
The Conficker worm gets its name from a combination of two words—“configuration” and the “nicer” way of saying f**ker. How clever. And it seems as though it may just fit its namesake.
It is amazingly sophisticated and resilient. It has built-in p2p and digital code-signing technology, and it apparently is happiest killing security software. Friendly little bugger, huh? Pretty easy to see why Microsoft hates it so much.
The thing is, Conficker isn’t even a new worm. It started out, according to Vincent Weafer, VP at Semantic Security Response, as a “not very successful worm” way back in November. It attacked and exploited a remote server vulnerability of Microsoft’s, but since this specific vulnerability had already been made known, only systems that were not up to date were affected.
But, it didn’t stop there. Next came the B release, which was a whole lot more successful. It went and infected millions of unpatched systems. Because of its p2p abilities, it pushes its way into open shared folders and printers, so it can zoom easily through a networked system. What makes it more threatening is that it also piggybacks onto USB flash and hard drives. It is designed to fight back, disabling Windows Updates, and destroying security software. It gets in deep.
Last month saw the release of the it’s latest launch, the C release. It goes after computers already infected with B, not new machines. The p2p abilities are extended, now we have digital code-signing. It only accepts trusted code updates from itself. So, a neutralizing code can’t simply be injected. It also got better at killing off security software with the patch. And the domains it attempts to contact with instructions jumped from 250 to 50,0000. So, at this point, security experts hands are kind of tied with stopping it. It looks to be as though April 1 will be the day it receives its next commands.
And that is where all the hoopla comes in. What exactly are the instructions going to be? No one really knows. Some speculation has been that it will setup what is known as the “Dark Google” syndicate, where it would allow it to scour “zombie machines” all over the place for data to sell. Other theories are the launch of a massive denial-of-service attack, or the generation of waves of spam that could crash servers all over the place.
A main theory is that it is a kind of “computer for hire” scheme. Previous botnets were designed so they could be split up and rented out through black market schemes, according to security researchers. But researchers think it may imitate the biggest fad in the computer industry right now—cloud computing. With this, companies sell computing as a service over the Net.
Some theorize however, that it may be absolutely nothing. But Weafer states “you can bet” that other malmare writers have their eye on it all, watching to see his level of success. Because his results could clearly show others the path of developing a similar threat and attack, which could be taken in wicked directions.
Microsoft Report’s Ed Bott says if your system is patched and up to date, you will probably be just fine. (probably?) And while there is the off chance that April 1st will cause computers to self-destruct, there is a much higher chance you will just see a bunch of spam for Viagra in your inbox.
via:gizmodo
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The CrunchGear mobile newswagon is parked in downtown San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference, and although this is a more industry-orientated show, we’ve managed to find some pretty interesting stuff — and of course, a few of the latest games.
The news on everybody’s minds is OnLive, a games service which is roughly comparable to a streaming movie service like Netflix On Demand or what have you. The hardware is to be free, and it will support any USB- or Bluetooth-compatible controllers. Purchased games are run in datacenters (on state of the art hardware, we hope), which then push the content out to you. But they’re not sending game assets — they send a video image of the game as you play it on their machine. It sounds ridiculous, but with good, local servers they can get the ping under 10-20ms, at which point it is almost unnoticeable that the game you’re playing is actually a few cities away. Not everyone is so optimistic.
We gave it a shot, and (my driving skills notwithstanding) had no trouble in the form of video artifacts, skipped frames, or lag. Impressive, but the proof of the pudding is in the launching, and when they can provide this level of latency and reliability to thousands of people scattered around the country simultaneously, then we’ll talk. After the demo, we spoke with a more technically-orientated booth guy, who said that between 3 and 4Mbit/s is what they’re aiming for with their 720p60 stream, and when I asked about tension with ISPs, he hinted cryptically that they had that under control. I just hope Comcast and the like haven’t “overbooked” their cable and fiber the way airlines do flights.
Both Microsoft and Sony gave developers a boost, Microsoft in the form of a sleek new developer console and kit tools, Sony by dropping its devkit’s price significantly. Nintendo, as at E3, told us how well they were doing, revealed a couple new games, and demonstrated something ridiculous. Adding the capability to use SDHC cards is a welcome change, however.
The 360 will be receiving a motion-based controller soon, bringing it up to speed nominally with the other consoles in that area. The Gametrak Freedom relies on a sort of ultrasonic sonar, with stereo detectors attached to the display. We gave it a try and it seemed to work decently; keep your eye on CG for video of yours truly flailing grotesquely at virtual tennis balls.
Aside from the relatively far-reaching news I’ve mentioned, GDC is primarily a developer’s paradise. Indie game developers rub elbows with greats like Hideo Kojima and there are more talks, panels, and tutorials than we thought possible, or practical. We’re looking forward to E3 to see how some of these new technologies pan out in a more consumer-orientated environment.
As for games themselves, we got to try out the DSi camera, Punch-Out!!! for the Wii, Fat Princess, and a few others.
Lastly, if you or your spouse or young one is in the market for a little more rhythm, we’re running a contest to win a pre-release copy of Rhythm Heaven for the DS.
For those of you reading this at or around GDC, we hope to see you at one of the many industry events that will be going on later.
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Kenneth Anger's creepy/funny homage to Mickey Mouse:
Source: Boing Boing | 26 Mar 2009 | 11:43 pm
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FROM APPLETELL - We all know that betas are buggy. We all know that betas crash. The iPhone 3.0 beta is no different. If you put that aside, then I have to say it is pretty sweet. MORE »
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This ad establishes two points very well. Firstly, Microsoft accepts that its product, and those of its partners, are perceived as being of lower quality than Apple's. Secondly, it knows how to use this perception to establish itself as the more reasonable choice for everyday people who don't need top-quality products, but who do have a strong idea of what they need.
Mike Arrington admires the line, "I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person," but that's not the smartest part of the ad. That would be how its scenario takes characteristics associated with unsophisticated shoppers and presents them as evidence of pragmatism and a go-getter nature: unplanned and un-researched major purchases made under a manufactured sense of pressure, with up-front price rather than long-term goals in mind.
Microsoft's accompanying website is deliciously Apple-esque. [via Steve Clayton]
Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi’s weirdo follow-up game has made, well, not exactly waves in the game community, but perhaps expanding circles of confusion. Guiding your stretchable “boy” around a bizarre world, the goal is to become as long as possible in order to help your girlfriend (who is much bigger) grow out to the outer planets. Sound weird enough? Well, now you can get your Noby Noby dose on the go, because they’re bringing it to the iPhone.
The pricing and date aren’t set, but after he showed it to the audience at GDC, Takahashi said he’d like to release it for free. We’ll see about that — but I think a buck or two is probably a fair price for the amount of nonsense fun this game will provide on subway and plane rides.
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Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi’s weirdo follow-up game has made, well, not exactly waves in the game community, but perhaps expanding circles of confusion. Guiding your stretchable “boy” around a bizarre world, the goal is to become as long as possible in order to help your girlfriend (who is much bigger) grow out to the outer planets. Sound weird enough? Well, now you can get your Noby Noby dose on the go, because they’re bringing it to the iPhone.
The pricing and date aren’t set, but after he showed it to the audience at GDC, Takahashi said he’d like to release it for free. We’ll see about that — but I think a buck or two is probably a fair price for the amount of nonsense fun this game will provide on subway and plane rides.
They’ve got a point on the cost to feature ratio of Macs v. Windows machines in this new Microsoft ad. I have to say, these things are getting a lot better over time. And the price difference is the key weak point in the Apple product lineup. Mac fanatics couldn’t care less. But to a recession-beaten regular computer user, this message is right on the money. “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person,” the actress says after visiting an Apple store and not finding any laptops in her price range.
See our coverage of other recent Microsoft ads here, here, here.
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With the end of the first quarter of the 2009 almost here, even the strongest companies companies are making last-minute layoffs to shave costs. Today, layoffs were announced across the tech sector, from IBM to Google to Amazon. The biggest layoffs came from IBM, where 5,000 people are losing their jobs in the U.S.. Amazon cut 210 people at three distribution centers in Nevada, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. Google also announced layoffs of 200 people from sales and marketing (so far, engineers have been spared). In all three cases, the job cuts amounted to roughly one percent of each company’s global workforce. The New York Times also announced a 5 percent cut of its newsroom business operations, or 100 people.
It is not as if the payroll reductions will help save the quarter or even have a material impact on it. But the companies can point to the measures during their conference calls with investors and analysts and project the savings going forward.
We’ve added the job cuts to our Layoff Tracker. To see who is hiring, check out our CrunchBoard.
| Company | Date | Location | # | % | Source |
| Amazon | March 26, 2009 | Red Rock, Nev.; Munster, Ind.; and Chambersburg, Pa. | 210 | 1% | NYT |
The New York Times | March 26, 2009 | New York, NY | 100 | 5% | NYT |
| March 26, 2009 | Mountain View, CA | 200 | 1% | NYT |
IBM | March 26, 2009 | USA | 5,000 | 1% | LA Times |
| Imeem | March 25, 2009 | San Francisco, CA | 6 | 4% | TechCrunch |
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Microsoft's Steven Martin has ironically blown the whistle on an attempt at an "open" coalition that freezes out certain companies. Ironic in that Microsoft and IBM played this game years ago with the WS-I, an industry standards group that pointedly stonewalled Sun Microsystems' involvement before caving under media pressure.
In a Google Groups post Introducing the Open Cloud Manifesto, Rueven Cohen describes an effort involving "several of the largest technology companies and organizations" to "draw a line in the sand."
We are still working on the first version of the manifesto which will be published Monday, March 30th with a goal of being ratified by the greater cloud community. Given the nature of this document we have attempted to be as inclusive as possible inviting most of the major names in technology to participate in the initial draft. The intention of this first draft is to act as a line in the sand, a starting point for others to get involved. That being said this manifesto is not specifically targeting any one company or industry but instead is intended to engage a dialogue on the opportunities and benefits of fostering an open cloud ideology for everyone.As inclusive as possible? Not targeted at any one company? Engage in a dialogue? What a load of crap that is. It's the same back room cigar-smoke-filled scam of the good old days when Web Services first began its inexorable move to reshape computing.
These items of personal adornment are sold by Hoon-Paris. Beautiful and very expensive.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Web, Web Apps, Features, Originals, Columns
Microsoft Streets and Trips is currently the bestselling travel and map software program. It has advanced GPS functionality with detailed street maps, directions, and trip planning features. Instead of paying for the standard and deluxe editions, check out these other options.
Google Earth has been one of the mostly wildly popular free map software applications for some time now. You can explore maps in 3D imagery as well as find local addresses and businesses with real imagery. You can record your tour as well as hear an audio guide walk you through the different maps.
Travel by GPS offers the free GPS Maps and Tour Guides with rich map content that includes both audio and video narration. You can type in specific map searches or browse through their library of most popular guides. The maps come in a variety of formats, including the most commonly used by GPS devices, which are GPX file types.
OpenStreetMap is an editable map of the entire world that has been released with an open content license. Anyone can get involved with the project and it has been built from scratch using GPS traces. However, as with any open source project, there are always concerns about accuracy.
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Apple's phenomenally successful iPhone application store surpassed 30,000 apps available for download Thursday afternoon, despite an increasing number of complaints from peeved developers in recent months.
148Apps, an iPhone app review site that has been keeping count of apps in the App Store, said Apple surpassed the 30,000-app milestone at 1 p.m. PDT.
This is rapid, remarkable growth, considering just in December, iPhone fans celebrated the App Store surpassing 10,000 apps. The App Store launched in July 2008 with just 500 apps available.
But of course, the more crowded the app store gets, the more difficult it is for Apple to keep iPhone developers satisfied. Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt lists a number of recent issues developers have been clamoring about regarding the App Store:
Developer complaints are aplenty, but clearly they're not enough to deter tremendous growth of the App Store. Would you put up with the above issues knowing you could make $600,000 in a single month with an app? I probably would.
Photo: superciliousness/Flickr
Anatomical models
Source: Boing Boing | 26 Mar 2009 | 9:51 pm
Imagine this is an analog to the BLAPP Store. Each jacket is an app.
Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, will be announcing the BLAPP World at CTIA this year, adding one more app store to an already healthy app-store market. BusinessWeek calls the BLAPP store “much anticipated” and explains that it will be “chock-full of software programs.” Yes, that’s right: they described BLAPP world they way you’d describe rocky road ice cream and its attendant peanuts and marshmallows.
Apps should start at $2.99, ensuring a nice return to developers and, hopefully, also ensuring quality apps in the store. One developer is selling at considerably more and is quite excited:
. “Obviously, more is better for us,” says Robert Kao, a New Jersey software developer who plans to sell his $9.99 e-mail application on App World.
Doesn’t RIM already have an email application?
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The latest Sea-Doo personal watercraft have something you don't see in boats very often—brakes. Motorboating explains:perhaps the most revolutionary innovation is Intelligent Brake & Reverse. Now you can hit the brakes if a sudden stop is called for. A lever on the left handlebar cuts engine power, deploys a reverse gate and shifts the PWC into neutral and then into reverse if and when throttle is applied.
Everybody panic! IDG is reporting that MS might charge users who send 5 or more mobile apps to the Microsoft Mobile App Bazaar in one year or update their apps too often. Why? Maybe the depression?
For $99 you can submit five applications per year. However, it seems that if you update an app and/or upload a new app over the limit you could be charged. This, presumably, will improve the quality of apps, ensuring sucky houses can’t submit 15 fart apps per year.
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On BoomTown’s recent grand tour of Europe, I paid a visit a week ago to London to moderate some sessions at Media Guardian’s Changing Media Summit 2009.
As in the U.S., a lot of the same questions were asked there about when and how the new media business would cross the Rubicon to transform into a strongly profitable and sustainable enterprise.
Via advertising? Subscriptions? Product placement?
“We’ve got to get to a place where we’re going to become an industrialized-sized business,” said one panelist at a session on monetizing such media, in what was a common question.
Well, considering how small the revenues in new media still are compared to traditional media, along with the recent negative impact of the econalypse, even a profitable popcorn stand would be an admirable achievement right about now.
Still, the room was packed at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel overlooking the Thames River and Big Ben, as people searched for answers.
One of the panels I moderated had the much-too-vaunted title of “The Future of Media: Capturing the Essence of Reinvention in the New Age.”
The panelists talked about what the media company of tomorrow looks like, as well as discussing the Next Big Thing.
The group included Ashley Highfield, managing director and VP, consumer and online for Microsoft (MSFT); Larry Kramer, former president of CBS (CBS) Digital and senior adviser to Polaris Ventures; Peter Smith, president of GE (GE) NBC Universal’s international unit; and Mike Volpi, CEO of video start-up Joost.
Here’s a video of interviews I did talking about all this and more while at the Guardian Media Group’s new digital-heavy offices in London.
It includes Volpi and Kramer, as well as Guardian-owned paidContent.org head Rafat Ali and the BBC’s tech news correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones:
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If Apple is planning to release a new iPhone this summer, it will likely unveil it June 8. That’s day one of Apple’s 2009 Worldwide Developers Conference and historically the day on which its keynote address is delivered. Given the iPhone 3G’s debut at WWDC last year and the recent unveiling of the forthcoming iPhone OS 3.0 update, it’s a safe, but not sure, bet that this year’s event will feature the next revision of the handset (iPhone ’09? With 4G networks not yet commercially available, “iPhone 4G” doesn’t quite work, does it?) as well as quite a bit of discussion about OS X Snow Leopard. No word yet on who’ll be handling keynote duties this year. With CEO Steve Jobs on medical leave until the end of June, it will likely be another member of Apple’s (AAPL) executive bench, though it would be great to see Jobs onstage and healthy once again.
If there was ever a doubt that Star Wars creators will sell anything related to the movies to make a buck, that ended when even R2-D2 aquariums and terribly inappropriate toy Sith babies became available in the last decade.
For that insatiable niche audience of fanboys, here come a couple of gems: a new TIE Fighter webcam and a light saber LED lamp.
Both compare poorly spec-wise to other gadgets in their categories but it's the allegiance to 30 year-old movies that counts, doesn't it? The Darth Vader TIE fighter web cam has a video resolution of only 0.3 megapixels and a tiny built-in mic, but hey, it has two red LEDs that flicker when it's being used. That might be worth the $90 price for someone. At least it's better built than other Star Wars webcams previously available.
But the same amount could get you one of the best web cams in the market, the Logitech QuickCam Orbit AF, with Auto Focus, video effects, and a Carl Zeiss lens. Suddenly, the tie-in TIE fighter doesn't look so good.
The $40 Laser Saber LED Light follows the same bad value, so you're better off buying a nicer lamp from REI and just pretending it's a light saber.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Twitter is the one service that everyone either loves, hates, or has no idea what to do with. The company has been around for three years, and has yet to find a way to monetize the service. For a while, it seemed almost impossible for Twitter to find a way to make money without shoving advertising down the throats of its users. It seems they may have found one way around that issue.
Twitter’s first plan on making money actually has nothing to do with the average user, so the service would probably stay the same for them. No, Twitter instead plans on trying to market commercial accounts to companies using the service. These commercial accounts will feature an “enhanced version of Twitter,“ whatever that means. Biz Stone, co-found of Twitter seems confident that this will work, and that some corporations will find the enhances services valuable enough to pay for.
Originally, Twitter wasn’t going to try making any money until next year, but for some reason decided to start with their plans now. This move to get some companies to pay for enhanced services is likely only the first plan. It’s doubtful that this plan could possibly pay for all the expenses Twitter must accrue. As long as Twitter remains free to use for most people it should be fine. The experiments that the company comes up with to actually make money should be rather interesting. Just plain advertising might be hard because most people use different apps to use Twitter.
Read [Reuters]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Om Malik (he puts the Om in GigaOM) is reporting that “a very reliable” tipster told him “that Skype is almost ready to launch [an] iPhone version, perhaps as soon as next week.” Next week being the CTIA Wireless show in Las Vegas, where the big wireless companies get together to pat themselves on the back for stuff like fixing mobile broadband pricing at $60 per month for 5GB of data.
Read the rest of this entry >>
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The Port Authority says it's "Making our world better one step at a time," but I'm thinking we might be in a V situation here: whose world is that, again?
(Gadget blogging will resume presently.)
It’s been almost a year since we first got our hands on Samsung’s updated (u740) Alias, and whadoyaknow, Samsung is getting ready to launch the Alias2 on the Verizon Wireless network any time now. Funny how that tends to work. Just as you get comfortable with yesteryear’s technology…BAM, the next generation hits the scene.
It appears that the new Alias2 shares the same physical shape and general functionality of the original, complete with its signature dual-hinging flip screen. What’s new for ‘09, you ask? Well, how about the inclusion of a dynamically changing keypad, for starters. According to what appears to be a leaked product manual, the Alias2’s keyboard changes “depending upon whether the phone is in portrait or landscape orientation.” Not too shabby of a feature for a non-smartphone, mid-tier, Verizon flip-phone.
That’s pretty much it for now. No release date, price information, or any other concrete specs have been leaked/released yet, besides what you read above and see below.
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"Course all the neighbors ran out into the street. We didn't know what was going on," said Paul Williams, who heard the explosion...Mythbusters 'Big Bang' Shatters Windows (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)
Williams said the school and others in town should have been notified the blast was going to happen.
Chief Barry Burns, of Esparto Fire Department, had several firefighters on hand for the explosion. He said he made the decision not to notify anyone in town for safety sake.
"Mythbusters is supposed to be a really popular show. Everybody would have been out there. We would have had to cancel it because it would have been too dangerous," Burns said.
While I'm as much of a fan of the leather-and-fur jobbers as anyone, there's no arguing that the F-35 helmet (on the right) is the most wicked-looking real-world military helmet ever. [Oobject]
FROM GAMERTELL - Inova Interactive managing director, Larbi Belrhiti, talks about his companies newest massive multiplayer online game that is now available. MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Matthew PB writes:
Got to briefly meet Steve Wozniak as he was doing some press for Dancing with the Stars. I showed him my Dell Mini 9 with OS X Leopard installed on it (and an Apple sticker sloppily applied over the Dell logo.Woz is lovable.He said, "Oh my god, that is so COOL!"
And: "Is that really the color you wanted?"
Then he graciously signed it. I then ran away and giggled for about 45 minutes.
You can get a free Sidekick 2008 from LetsTalk.com when you sign up for a new two-year contract with T-Mobile. Or, if you need to extend your contract you can get one for $49. T-Mobile is selling the device directly for $99, so you can save a little moolah with this deal.
T-Mobile Sidekick 2008 [LetsTalk.com via dealnews]
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The Ramp House (Thanks, Dave Gill!)The architect wanted the ‘skateboarding’ element to be more than simply putting a mini ramp in the living room. Rather, the ramp, the bowl and all the interpretations of those terms would actually become the building elements for this space. It is intended to be a ‘ramp house’ and not a ‘house with a ramp’. Straight lines are curved and the flat surface becomes a ramp or a bowl. Basic house elements such as the fireplace and storage units are hidden inside the ramp forms.
Here’s a spicy rumor for you all to enjoy. Apparently RIM is planning some sort of BlackBerry TV store/service/thing, and may launch it as early as CTIA next week. (CTIA is like CES, but just for cellphone stuff; actually, a more accurate comparison would have been with Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress; thank you.) It’d be a subscription service, and the TV shows download over a Wi-Fi connection; it won’t use your data (3G if you’re lucky) connection at all.
Of course, these are just rumors. Supposedly there’s more than a few networks who have licensed content for there store, so there’s that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the BlackBerry Storm not have Wi-Fi? Wouldn’t that be the best BlackBerry to view TV shows? So, if, indeed, this rumor pans out, we’ll see how RIM tries to spin that.
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Mother Jones went with the makers of the Aptera 2e electric car to Washington, which is apparently not getting any subsidy from the government because it has three wheels instead of four.
GM has requested $8 billion from this same fund.
Ruby's Bequest
Set in the fictional town of Deepwell, Ruby’s Bequest begins with news of a sizeable bequest from Ruby Wood to strengthen the ecosystem of caring in the community. Charged with improving the town’s caring infrastructure the residents of Deepwell have created the online forum at www.rubysbequest.org to solicit the whole community and beyond to participate and achieve this mission. Participants are invited to share their own experiences on caring and care giving by logging on, creating a profile and contributing text, photos, videos, and other personal narrative. Subject matter provided in the fictional narrative will include things like “caring from a distance,” “tough conversations,” “making the system work (better!) and so on. These subjects are intended to spark further discussion and debate among the community at large about other aspects of caring.
“The caring infrastructure as we know it is changing fast. Federal and local services that we once relied upon—from adult day care to Medicare and Social Security—are quickly eroding,” said Jason Tester, IFTF researcher and lead developer of Ruby’s Bequest. “This means that more of the burden of caring will fall to individuals and communities in the near and long term. A key charter of the Institute is to encourage broader and deeper examination of our future now so that the public can help shape it and be better prepared to face it.”
The Telsa S sedan is being shown off soon enough, but these are rumored to be leaked images (that'll be confirmed later today). I probably shouldn't traffic in leaks, but I think it's sort of interesting, not just for the gigantor LCD screen in the console, but for the car itself—this is going to be the car that makes or breaks Tesla Motors.
Marty Goldberg of Legacy Engineer talked to Retrothing, creator of the "Atari Flashback Portable", a portable Atari 2600 that was once set to be released as a licensed product until the suit at Atari took another job. They may just release it anyway for about $75.
Good luck to Marty, of course, and I don't mean to be a Debbie Downer, but wouldn't it be better for most people to just have, like, an emulator on a DS?
Gabe Delahaye at Videogum points to this gem, and says, "I copied out the lyrics so that they're easier for you to cut and paste into your Livejournal."
While chatting, first greet happily / Use polite words in a cordial way / During the game always be open, honest and do the right thing / Be careful on the keyboard / I know who did it (be careful) / I know I am the internet guardian angel / I will be the first to protect / I want to be the first to protect / Though faces are unknown, it's a warm neighborhood / Precious Internet friend / Precious Internet friend (friend!) / Netiquette!Kids Sing A Made Up Song About Netiquette The Darndest Things
Soon, I'll be taping an interview with Charles Hugh Smith and posting it here at Boing Boing. In the meantime, Charles has posted Chapter 2 of his new (free) e-book, "Survival+" at his Of Two Minds blog, which I encourage you all to visit daily. Many of you reading this are starting to wonder what society will look like: in a few months, a year from now, five years from now and Charles Hugh Smith is an indispensable thinker and tour guide for what we should be preparing for. I believe that he's one of the sharpest, smartest --and sanest-- writers around today, and I enjoy batting ideas around with him corresponding over email, some of which makes it into his more informal columns. I'm pleased and grateful to have a forum here at Boing Boing where I can help promote his work.
Some recent Charles Hugh Smith essays:
Survival+ Chapter 1
The Dematerialization of America
The Return of Big Government and the (de facto) Welfare State
Has Capitalism Failed?
The Road to National Insolvency
What's Obvious III: Some Transformations Will Be Positive
End of An Era: What's Not Coming Back
Of Two Minds: An Interview with Charles Hugh Smith
Not that you particularly care, but WMPowerUser is reporting that Zune functionality is coming to Windows Mobile 7 and will allow operators to charge phone users for music purchased in the Zune store, thereby opening the Zune experience up to a millions upon millions of unwitting customers.
No further information is available, but I’m sure someone out there is interested in this, so there you have it.
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There’s a reason you can’t really see the phone in this picture.
Let’s start with a little gem from the press release for this new S-E phone, shall we?
Maria knows that all eyes will be on her this season and thanks to her new T707; she can rest assured that whatever she does, she will look stylish, glamorous and be in control of her life with just the wave of a hand.
Now, to extrapolate, what we are seeing here is the suggestion that Maria Sharapova, besides having a mean arm, knows enough about cellphones to tell if she - or, in actuality, her travel coordinator and assistant - needs a gesture-based cellphone. Wait, what’s that you say? You think S-E paid her to say all those nice things about this otherwise dud of a flip phone? Why you might be right. And there we find the flaw in S-E’s plan for world domination.
The world needs another Motorola like it needs another Pol Pot. Assigning cool to cellphones through the use of celebrity endorsement may work in Japan where gaigin are still considered exotic but slapping a cellphone in Maria’s hand, winding her up, and letting her walk around Miami touting its benefits is like shaving the Sony Ericsson logo on a golden retriever and setting it loose in a park: people will love the dog and wonder what idiot shaved a logo into the poor thing. Then they’ll call the police.
Oh, and then they make you suck on this at the end:
The T707 will be available in selected markets from Q2 in the colours Mysterious Black, Spring Rose and Lucid Blue.
I truly loathe Sony Ericsson.
Light up your life with Sony Ericsson’s stylish new T707 mobile phone
Add a touch of glamour to your day with the stunning new T707 mobile phone from Sony Ericsson. This innovative phone radiates style and glamour with its unique, eye-catching light effects and gesture control to guarantee you will never be left in the dark!
Miami, USA - 26th March 2009 - Sony Ericsson today announced its latest mobile phone, the T707, with tennis star and style icon Maria Sharapova, who perfectly epitomises the phone’s sleek and elegant qualities.
The T707 truly interacts with the user - it lights up when you receive a call and you can personalise the light settings to each of your friends, so you always know who wants you. If you are too busy to answer, simply end the call with a wave of your hand over the screen - you can also do the same gesture to snooze the alarm - your very own magic wand!
“The T707 is my ultimate new accessory,” said Maria. “I am always on the go and I need a phone that is easy to use, and of course chic as well! I never miss a call with the eye-catching light effects and personalised pulsation settings and I love the fact that I can just wave my hand to mute a call using the gesture control. I can also use my practical and stylish Bluetooth(TM) Headset HBH-PV715 to take my calls, check my emails and blog to my website from the phone. It’s great to have a phone that looks good but also lets me keep up-to-date with everything I need.”
Perfect pixels for every pose
Coordinate the T707 to any outfit, as it comes in a rainbow range of three clam shells to suit every mood. Whatever you wear will be perfectly captured by the 3.2 megapixel camera, making sure that you stand out on screen as much as you do in real life. The photos can then be uploaded to your personal social networking site using the HTML web browser, so you and your friends can keep up to date wherever you are.Customise your phone like your clothes
With the T707 you will never be left behind in the style stakes, as the 2.2 inch screen is waiting to be customised to your individual taste. The changing wallpaper themes will ensure that you are never caught wearing clashing colours! The theme also changes from day into evening, which is perfect if, like Maria, you need to match with everything from tennis whites to a little black dress.Packed with extras, as one option is never enough.
This is one accessory you will never leave home without as the T707 packs in more extras than even your handbag. The FM radio and Bluetooth(TM) audio streaming will entertain you when you are out and about, and you can download music, games and ringtones at the touch of a button with PlayNow(TM) to ensure that boredom is something which happens to other people!“The T707 is the next step in the style evolution from Sony Ericsson,” said Linda Schori, Global Marketing Business Manager for Style Category, Sony Ericsson. “Maria Sharapova is the perfect partner for us as she exemplifies not only elegance but also substance, just like the T707. It works hard and is also sleek, glamorous and desirable - a truly winning combination!”
Maria knows that all eyes will be on her this season and thanks to her new T707; she can rest assured that whatever she does, she will look stylish, glamorous and be in control of her life with just the wave of a hand.
The T707
The light of your life
Unique pulsating notification and light effects
Day and Night changing theme
Gesture control for muting calls and alarm
Capture moments with 3.2 MP camera
The T707 supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 2100. The T707a supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA 850/1900/2100. The T707 will be available in selected markets from Q2 in the colours Mysterious Black, Spring Rose and Lucid Blue.- ENDS -
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The McGyver way to perform a tracheotomy is with a pen-knife and a Bic biro tube, but if you want to truly be ready for everything, you could drop considerably more cash on the $125 LifeStat Emergency Pocket Airway.
If we were to somehow succumb to an emergency requiring this kit, we’d surely be glad somebody was carrying it, but who, really, would wander around with a throat-drill on their keyring? I have been watching too many episodes of Criminal Minds these last weeks to think that anyone could carry this and have good intentions. Fortunately, there is an FDA warning to buyers, in all caps:
THE FDA AUTHORIZES THIS DEVICE FOR USE BY MEDICAL PERSONNEL, ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE OF ESTABLISHING AN EMERGENCY AIRWAY, AND IS NOT TO BE REUSED.
Shiver. We won’t cover the use of this here, as if you are qualified to own one you’ll know already. This reminds me of my time running a London cocktail bar. We were coming up with a new menu and brainstorming drink ideas. Mine contained rum, muddled with peanuts and the shells of shrimps. It would be served with a scalpel and a stiff drinking straw, and be called “The Throat Closer”. True story, although it didn’t make it onto the list.
Product page [Airstat via Cool Tools]
The Cordarounds both of these by turning the turnups into reflectors and thereby adding stiffness which stops the cuff rolling down:
With 3M Scotchlite sewn along the inner cuff, a quick upward fold of the trouser leg will render you nearly indistinguishable from a heroic firefighter (from the ankles down).
They also have pull out reflectors in the rear pockets, called mudflaps, for some extra visibility. And the problem? They’re cords, the least stylish pants material out there (after Nylon). At least those ridges run horizontally, not up and down. The pictured pants may be even worse, made as they are for the office — think corporate dress-down Fridays.
If you can stand it, or if cords actually are the fashion and I am just horribly out of touch, head to the site and pick up a pair for $90. The Cordarounds are only available online and made in, where else, San Francisco.
Product page [Cordarounds via Noquedablogs]
In fact, this news should tickle TiVo owners, whose box is fast becoming the best single way to watch movies instantly via the internet. But the news that is catching everybody’s attention is a small fact that Blockbuster senior VP Kevin Lewis let slip when talking to Reuters — Blockbuster will stream content to “Apple devices". Sadly, Reuters didn’t quote directly, so we don’t know which devices exactly, only that they will be “the normal places that consumers want to watch movies."
This could just mean a Mac client, something it took Netflix a while to get around to. Or it could mean iPhone or Apple TV. Or it could mean absolutely nothing. Remember Adobe’s increasingly desperate bleats that it is bringing Flash to the iPhone, and that “Apple and Adobe are collaborating"? This “collaboration" was in fact wishful thinking on the part of Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayan.
Could it be that this is merely a Freudian Slip on the part of Lewis? That his desire to be on the iWagon is so great that it bubbled up from Blockbuster’s collective unconscious and spilled out all over the TiVo announcement? We don’t know, but if company philosophy is any indicator, we’d put money on a Netflix/AppleTV double-team instead.
What we do know is the the whole TiVo lineup will be able to use the Blockbuster service in the second half of the year. There will be 10,000 titles to choose from. Prices are yet to be confirmed, but they are likely to be similar to today’s Blockbuster.com prices, at $2-$4 for rentals and $10+ for purchases. The biggest shock, though is this quote from Lewis: “You have to think about what the consumer wants." Yes, he really said that.
Blockbuster aims beyond stores with TiVo deal [Reuters]
Original photo: John Pastor/Flickr
Confession. When I was small, we used to play with Star Wars figures, and we used to swap them. There was a kid a few blocks away with rich parents that had bought him the entire set, brand new. Let’s call him Martin. Martin was a few years younger than us, and many years more gullible. Word quickly got around the kids on our estate about Martin’s new toys.
You can guess what happened next. Martin’s parents were out and we deccended like piranhas on the poor boy, stripping him of his shiny new figurines with terrifying efficiency. When we skedaddled, we left a sinking cloud of dust and a pile of loose-limbed, paint-chipped toys with tooth-marks on the heads.
Within a few moments of their arrival at home, Martins’ parents had decoded his sobs and hit the phones. My parents, for the record, thought Martin to be a wuss (my father, I think, used a rather stronger term), but we still had to play fair and give the figurines back.
Curiously, my brother didn’t take part in this. He was, presumably, at home playing with his own almost-complete set, featuring not one but two giant Gamorrean Guards (prized because, at the time, they cost the same as a Jawa but contained around five times the plastic). He’d saved pocket-money for months to buy these figurines (even today he has an unhealthy obsession with collecting things) but he was still just as sneaky us kids who had stripped poor Martin to the bone.
One day soon after Martingate I was called upon by my parents. Apparently I had, according to my evil little brother, broken one of his Gamorrean guards by “dropping it on the floor". He was trying to frame me, presumably jealous of my non-red hair. One look at the figurine debunked him — not only had the marks not come from dropping three feet onto deep-pile carpet, but they looked very much like they were made with teeth. My sneaky little brother’s teeth. I gave him a beating that night.
If you want to relive any of this nostalgia, you too can buy the entire set of Star Wars Figurines from the first three movies — all 79 of them, although they have already been freed from their blister-packs, just like Martin’s. The price? $3,500. If that’s too much you could try for swapsies.
Complete Set of 79 Vintage AFA 85 Loose Figures [Brian’s Toys via Uncrate]
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