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Q and A: Who Was the Historical Jesus?Biblical scholar Rachel Havrelock discusses misconceptions about early Christianity.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 3 Apr 2009 | 1:55 pm News Bits: Amazon in Germany and a Best Buy recallSection: Video, Web, Online Music/Video
Look into the future: Amazon MP3 is huge in GermanyLike David Hasselhoff, Amazon’s MP3 store will become huge in Germany according to a new survey. The survey asked which company would broadband users want to download music from. Choices included Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft. Those surveyed were all about Amazon. Want to know more about the study? It only costs $3,995. I didn’t get the okay from the big bosses to purchase the study, but let me know if you did. [Source] Best Buy RecallIf you bought an Insignia television, you may be affected by a recall. The model number is the IS-LCDTV26; it is a 26-inch LCD television. Over 13,000 televisions are being recalled. These televisions were sold from August 2005 to June 2006. The power supply on the device may fail which could cause fires. Check out the BestBuy or call 800-233-0462 for details. [Source]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 3 Apr 2009 | 1:08 pm Google could be in talks to buy Twitter (Reuters)Reuters - Google Inc may be in talks to buy internet start-up Twitter, the free micro-blogging service that allows people to send short text messages to a network of friends, the TechCrunch website said late Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 3 Apr 2009 | 1:02 pm Bad weather delays return of US space tourist - Reuters
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 3 Apr 2009 | 1:02 pm April Fools’ Tauntaun sleeping bag might become an actual product
It’s true what they say: some of the best products start out as fake products on April Fools’ Day. I don’t know who says that but the next time someone says “You know what they say: some of the best products start out as fake products on April Fools’ Day,” the “they” part of that phrase will be me. Or something like that. Remember that fake Star Wars Tauntaun sleeping bag from ThinkGeek? Turns out everyone who’s anyone wants one for real. And why not? It’s a cool idea. Well it looks like ThinkGeek is going to actually try making it into a real product. According to the site:
Hey ThinkGeek, don’t worry too much about the license. Lucasfilms just got into a line of pool toys, so sleeping bags are a logical next step. Let’s just try to keep the price at $39.99, eh? Source: CrunchGear | 3 Apr 2009 | 1:00 pm German Telecom Giant Blocks iPhone Skype App - eWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 3 Apr 2009 | 12:58 pm IBM cuts Sun offer, may unveil deal next week: source
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 DailyTech | Verizon: Fast, wireless Internet coming to rural America Christian Science Monitor By Chris Gaylord | 04.03.09 Verizon had hopeful news for those parts of America that broadband companies have ignored. An executive for Verizon’s mobile-phone division said Wednesday that the company plans to roll out a wireless network that will ... Verizon: Too Many Mobile Operating Systems Report: Verizon Wireless Aims To KO Some OSes |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Concord C1 Quantum Gravity Power Reserve Tourbillon at Baselworld 2009 from ProfessionalWatches.com on Vimeo.
The good men at Professional Watches got some face time with Concords strange and magical C1 complete with liquid nanotechnology power reserve.
This thing is nuts. While I appreciate the dedication to unique design and engineering, I still can’t see where Concord is going with this. The watch is nigh on unwearable, as we see from the video, but hopefully they’ll be able to move some of these techniques to actual production models a la Tag Heuer’s latest manufacture movement.
Regardless, this is a great and amazingly detailed look at one of the watches that is making watchmaking fresh again. They’re making 10 pieces out of titanium for 100,000 Swiss francs ($OMFG US aka about $88K).
Read all about the C1 right here.
Ritz Camera will close almost 50% of its stores in a move to reorganized after a court-supervised bankruptcy. The closing will leave 400 stores in the U.S.
Ritz was one of the first and finest camera chains but, as we all know, these chains are about as useful now as a dinosaur with a buggy whip. Online news sources provide most of the camera advice we need and online stores make it easy to get that latest 12-megapixel wonder. Besides, who needs some guy telling you what to buy when every point-and-shoot is basically the same now.
$50 million of inventory will be liquidated, so maybe you can head over to pick up a flash or something. Sales start on April 4.
 BBC News | Robot Scientist Able to Conduct Research By Itself DailyTech Researchers have successfully developed a new robot that is able to reason, formulate theories, and work on new scientific breakthroughs without the need of real scientists. Robots act as scientists without assistants First Robot Scientist Makes Gene Discovery |
A new cable from Vuzix will let iPhone owners hook up LCD glasses to watch movies in 3D. The cable hooks into the iPhone’s dock connector and will work with 3D movies in side-by-side, interlaced and anaglyph modes.
Why bother? Well, even if 3D isn’t your thing, the iWear specs offer a considerably bigger viewing area than the iPhone’s screen, giving the equivalent of a 44-inch screen as if viewed from nine feet. There are built-in headphones, too, so you won’t get too overloaded by cables, although you may end up looking like a certain Star Trek engineer.
All iWear AV230XL headsets bought from now on will come bundled with the cable. The headsets cost $200 and if you already have one, the cable alone costs $40.
Product page [Vuzix. Thanks, Greg!]
While the “news” that Google was in “late-stage” talks to acquire Twitter, which TechCrunch reported last night, certainly sounds exciting, it isn’t accurate in any way, according to a number of sources BoomTown spoke to close to the situation.
In fact, Twitter and Google have simply been engaged in “some product-related discussions,” according to one source, around real-time search and the search giant better crawling the microblogging service.
Said a source close to Twitter: “There was a discussion with [Google executive Marissa Mayer's] group about real-time search and about product stuff. It was a couple weeks ago. It was very preliminary…and that was that.”
More importantly, said another source about the idea of an imminent acquisition or serious acquisition or even early talks: “Seriously, no negotiations, no deal, nada.”
So for all those Twitterers madly typing 140 characters and caught up in the grand idea of Twoogle, we return you to your regularly scheduled tweeting.
Of course, there has been a lot of analysis, put forth by many including me, that Google should think about acquiring Twitter.
It is the microblogging service’s likeliest acquirer, in fact.
But sources at Google have said they are closely watching Twitter’s progress, stressing a strong partnership–especially in light of the growing size of the Facebook social networking site. It is what the company is most interested in at this point in time.
And that’s also true for a range of other companies–from Microsoft (MSFT) to Yahoo (YHOO) to News Corp. (NWS) to Time Warner (TWX) unit AOL to Cisco (CSCO) to Comcast (CMCSA) to the big telcos–who would also be interested in buying Twitter or partnering with it.
And Facebook already tried and failed to buy Twitter last year, which BoomTown chronicled in a post in November, for $500 million in cash and stock of the social networking service.
Why? Because although Twitter is still small, with seven million users, it has a definite momentum in the red-hot real-time online status space.
And while I give it a hard time for its utter lack of a business plan or revenue to speak of, the well-funded Twitter is also at the beginning of a long runway of possibility that could yield it a higher price later, if it so chose to sell at all.
Moreover, if Twitter’s investors and founders did want to sell, they wouldn’t have taken a recent round at $230 million valuation, because it would imply a $750 million to $1 billion purchase price, and no one could pay that right now.
Even the mighty Google could not–which does not typically overpay for companies.
More likely, it would surely get killed by investors for spending that much on a revenue-free company, especially since it is still getting beat up for pricey YouTube deal Google made when times were great.
Lastly, its founders have expressed the desire to take Twitter out for a longer ride, even if some of its investors would love to cash out if offered a crazy price.
“Why would the company do something like this right now?,” said a source close to Twitter, in a typical sentiment. “The company’s on a tear right now.”
In fact, last night in an appearance on “The Colbert Report,” Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone explicitly said Twitter planned to be a “strong, profitable, independent company.”
While entrepreneurs have said this and then quickly sold out, it is not the case now for Twitter, unless it got some insane offer, said numerous sources.
TechCrunch, which slapped a loud headline on its first post “Sources: Google in Late-Stage Talks to Buy Twitter,” then changed it to “Sources: Google in Talks to Acquire Twitter (Updated).”
What’s next? “Google and Twitter Have a Lovely Organic Lunch and Discuss Trading T-Shirts (Updated Update)”?
The TechCrunch report, penned by Michael Arrington, also added a let’s-just-cover-all-our-bases update at the bottom of the ever-changing post that then hedged the news it had just hyped.
This is not new for the tech blog, especially related to Google.
On July 28, 2008, TechCrunch reported: “Google In Final Negotiations To Acquire Digg For ‘Around $200 Million’,” and said there was a letter of intent signed.
While the pair did hold ultimately unsuccessful talks, they never got even close to final.
And on February 6, 2008, TechCrunch had a post with the headline, “Rumor: Is Google About to Buy Bebo For $1 Billion To $1.5 Billion? Or Will it Be MySpace?”
Hmm, not so much on the about to buy Bebo. In fact, Google was never in what could be described as serious talks and Bebo was sold to AOL, the lone bidder, for $850 million a month later.
Thus, the third time is, no surprise, not a charm either.
Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.
Zune may be closer to expanding internationally than we thought. A few new job postings at Microsoft point to the possibility of seeing a 10-foot-interface for Zune designed for TVs - perhaps via the XBox - as well as a call for more music reviewers.
Ars found the two postings here and here. The gist:
>Job Title: Software Development Engineer We’re Zune Services and today we’re selling over five million music tracks, music videos and television episodes to customers across the United States. Moreover, we provide rich reviews on more than twelve million music tracks and biographies on almost a million artists. And we do it all with a small team of very passionate people. However, we need to grow. We have big plans that extend around the world. We have fierce competition. Are you up to the challenge? Is music a part of your life? Does the thought of taking on an industry leader excite you? Do you know better ways to introduce music to your friends; how about to the world? Are you ready to write systems that can scale to the millions and beyond? Are you ready to see your ideas come to market in months versus years?
Job Title: Software Development Engineer Primary responsibilities include development of innovative user interfaces for delivering a rich, deep interactive media consumption experience in a living room environment. Experience with online services API development is a must, product will provide a rich online media experience delivering music and video from the cloud. A passion for UX and digital media is a must.
Most of us iPod nerds are looking for Zune to fail but if they can turn the Zune into a service concept rather than a lumpen music player, they may have a chance.
EBay (EBAY) is on a mission to woo developers at the Web 2.0 Expo this week in San Francisco.
During a keynote speech Wednesday, eBay CTO Mark Carges told an audience filled with Internet startups that “nothing matters more than getting paid for the hard work that you do.” EBay knows a thing or two about making money, he said, before unveiling a new program to open up the company’s marketplace platform and PayPal services to outside developers.
On Thursday, Carges elaborated on that plan in an interview. Web 2.0 startups have tended to go after critical mass audience first – and then worry about making money later, he said. “It was easy for one to assume that you can move into an advertising model eventually,” Carges said, “and this has been reinforced by the way that a lot of venture capital firms have run boards of these companies.”
But that kind of thinking is likely going away in the recession out of necessity. Now he wants eBay and PayPal to become a part of startup business models.
Read the rest of this post
Horrible news from Japan: A 38-year-old woman from Sapporo died yesterday after falling into a sink hole that suddenly opened up when she was playing golf with her husband and two children. The golf course is located in Abira, a small town in Hokkaido, Northern Japan.
According to Japanese media reports, the woman was walking down a fairway when the ground caved in at around 2.30pm local time. She plunged into a hole about 1.5 meters wide and 5 meters deep. Firefighters found her lying face down on the water-filled bottom of the hole but couldn’t help her anymore.
The golf course management claimed in a first reaction it has never experienced anything like this before. Now the Japanese police are investigating the cause of the hollow space’s appearance.
Via Sankei [JP]
 TrustedReviews | Abacus Intros Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 Techtree.com Abacus has launched the new Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 graphics card for the mainstream segment. The new Sparkle GeForce GTX 275 graphics card joins the Nvidia GeForce offerings from Abacus. AMD, Nvidia Launch Dueling Graphics Cards AMD, Nvidia Release 'Most Powerful' Graphics |
 CBC.ca | Sweden: Internet use down after file-sharing law The Associated Press STOCKHOLM (AP) - Experts say Internet traffic dropped sharply in Sweden this week after a new law cracking down on online copyright violation went into force. Swedish antipiracy law stirs up political waters Swedish web traffic tumbles as IPRED arrives |
 PC World | Windows 7 is opportunity for Linux Inquirer By Nick Farrell FRESH FRIM CLAIMING that 2009 will be the year of the Linux desktop, Mr Ubuntu, Mark Shuttleworth, claims that Microsoft's introduction of Windows 7 will be a great day for the Penguin. Will wireless Android netbooks finally kill Windows? Texas Senate bans Vista from Government agencies |
 ITProPortal | Future of SGI Wis operation cloudy Chicago Tribune AP CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. - A Silicon Graphics Inc. vice president says the future of the company's Chippewa Falls operation may be clearer in the next couple months. Fallen star SGI to sell most assets for $25M SGI portrayed as fallen star |
If anyone doubted that Barack Obama is the techiest president ever, they can drop their crazy ideas forever. When the president and his wife, Mrs. O, met the Queen of England this week, there was the traditional exchange of gifts.
The Queen presented the Obamas a rather lame present — a photograph of herself and her awesomely un-politically correct husband the Duke of Edinburgh. The picture came in a silver frame.
And what did the prez bring for the Queen? An iPod, fully loaded with Broadway show tunes plus video clips of the Queen on her 2007 US visit. Sadly, amidst all the reports of this momentous gift-giving session the actual iPod model is not disclosed. We’d like to think that it’s the Touch, but whichever it is, one thing is clear: The Obamas put a lot more thought into their gift than did the Royals. According to the Guardian, the Queen is "delighted."
President Obama gives the Queen an iPod [Guardian]
AP - Goodbye, numeric cell phone keypads. You're going the way of the rotary dial. Touch screens and QWERTY keyboards will take over from here, thank you.
IBM is in talks to buy Sun Microsystems for $7 billion. This would turn IBM into a one-stop shop when it comes to Unix server sales, a fairly lucrative niche in this cloud-happy world.
I.B.M. is offering $9.50 a share, down from a bid of $10 a share, said people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to speak publicly. The new agreement would restrict I.B.M.’s ability to walk away from the deal, these people said.
My favorite memory of Sun is flying from Moscow to Warsaw back in 1999 and two guys from Texas talking about implementing web servers in Germany or something. One would say something like “They want an e-store, maybe.” and the other guy would say “Ok, we’ll get a Sun box in there.” Everything - website, ecommerce, auction site - “We’ll get a Sun box in there.”
Section: Business News, Communications, Cellphones, Mobile
Research In Motion has just posted their Q4 year end results and are showing some significant gains. In total, RIM was able to sell over 26 million BlackBerry handsets over the course of 2009 with about 7.8 million in the fourth quarter alone.
“We are very pleased to report another record quarter with standout subscriber growth that speaks volumes about the early success and momentum of our new BlackBerry products,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM
In addition to the number of handsets sold, the fourth quarter resulted in 3.9 million new customers for RIM. As for revenue, RIM saw a 24.5-percent increase as compared to the previous quarter, which means they recorded an increase from $2.78 billion to $3.46 billion in revenue for Q4. The press release also shows that they were at $1.88 billion in the fourth quarter during the previous year, which translates into being up 84-percent in just one year.
While we hear about recession and decreased spending almost daily, it seems that RIM is still selling plenty of BlackBerrys.
Read [RIM]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 BBC News | Observatory invites you to look at the heavens Cincinnati.com By Dean Regas • April 3, 2009 The International Year of Astronomy (IYA) is in full swing, and we are in the midst of one of the cornerstone projects called 100 Hours of Astronomy. Star parties this weekend during "100 Hours of Astronomy" celebration Prime time for astronomy |
 Telegraph.co.uk | Google to Buy Twitter? Report Says Deal is in the Works PC World The rumor mill is in full gear today over speculation that Google may acquire Twitter. The news comes from two separate and unnamed sources that claim talks between Google and Twitter are in the late stages, according to TechCrunch's Michael Arrington. Google could be in talks to buy Twitter: report Report: Google in talks to buy Twitter |
The site has been fixed now, but not before the quick folks at Apple Insider grabbed the screenshot above. If you’re in the market for a new OS X server, you might just want to put the credit card back in your wallet for a short while. These could be popping up officially any day now.
Product page [Apple]
Apple blunder confirms imminent Nehalem Xserve launch [Apple Insider]
Apple Hints at Launch of Nehalem-based Xserve [PC World]
It was just one of these idle thoughts where you go dub dub dub and then you go one more w and that gets you to Web Squared, right?
– Tim O’Reilly, who coined the term Web 2.0, manages to come up with an even sillier term
So, why not make your own? That’s what Manzin of the Digital Photography School forums did, and the result is above. Essentially free (if you raid the kitchen), the adapter is made of two plastic bowls, one big and one small. The gap between them is filled with aluminum foil and the flash is fired in from the side. You won’t get the efficiency of a dedicated adapter — that foil will eat some of the light — but for a quick and dirty projects it’s perfect. Just make sure you don’t use mom’s favorite Tupperware.
How to Make a DIY Ring Flash [Digital Photography School]
See Also:
Unknown to most, April 3rd is Cheese Weasel Day, the holiday where the Cheese Weasel brings dairy goodness to all the good boys and girls in the tech industry. While the origins are murky, it seems to have started around 1992 when a weasel was spotted carrying a Kraft Single. This, they assumed, must be the Cheese Weasel, and therefore, that it must be Cheese Weasel Day. What was the weasel going to do with the cheese? He must be off to put it under the keyboards of good tech workers everywhere.
The practice of the holiday seems to spread through word of mouth. I first heard of it when I showed up to work on April 3rd many years ago and a fantastic spread of exotic cheeses was laid out in the middle of the office. It wasn’t until a few hours later, after the food coma had started to wear down, that I started to think about the legend, “The Cheese Weasel leaves cheese under the keyboards of good tech workers… cheese under the keyboards… keyboards.” I looked, and there was a cheese single, still wrapped. I wonder how long it would have lasted had I not found it.
The holiday does seem to be growing. Each year, more and more sites show up with a reference to the holiday or the song (yes, there is a song). One site even offers Cheese Weasel Day (CWD) ecards. The methods of celebration vary. Some prefer to celebrate with the best cheeses and freshest baguettes, while others eschew that practice and insist on keeping with the tradition of cheese food singles.
Proporta has announced their most recent addition to the iPod accessory train, the Silicone Sleeve for the 3G iPod shuffle. From just a personalization point of view, it’s a pretty cool product. They offer three options to choose from currently, and all of them seem to be fairly tasteful and well designed. We have seen their products before, and they passed muster from Biggs. Given the fact that this is a variation of that basic theme, I think it’s safe to say that these will be of the same build quality.
We are checking into getting one for review purposes, we’ll let you know if it’s worth your $6.45 + shipping.
Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags are widely used today to identify and track persons or objects using radio waves in a number of areas: payment systems, electronic toll collection systems, transportation systems, logistics etc. Existing RFID tag readers can only be used for tags moving several km/h, but now Mitsubishi has developed a device that’s able to read tags moving as fast as 100km/h.
The company says it looks at ways to use the new device to read RFID tags attached to car doors, tracking vehicles on high ways or express freight trains. Mitsubishi also wants to convince manufacturers to use the device if they use high-speed conveyor belts for production.
I looked for pictures of the device online but couldn’t find any. At this point, even Mitsubishi’s Japanese site doesn’t mention the new device.
Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In BoomTown’s ongoing series, “Microsofties on Parade,” I spent some time earlier this week with Stephen Elop (pictured here), president of Microsoft’s Business division.
Reporting directly to CEO Steve Ballmer, Elop is a newbie, having gotten to Microsoft (MSFT) only a year ago.
Which is why he is enthusiastic in his determination to tell the world that the software giant has gotten the open religion and is becoming “the most interoperable company in the world.”
Elop said that humdinger earlier this week, when he was in San Francisco for an onstage Q&A with Tim O’Reilly at the Web 2.0 Expo.
The statement was met by a show of no-hands, after O’Reilly asked who in the audience thought that was true.
Still, Elop pressed on, also hinting that Microsoft’s Office products–Excel, PowerPoint, Word–could even be coming to the Apple (AAPL) iPhone.
“Not yet, keep watching,” said Elop, whose portfolio has purview over Office, as well as the Dynamics business applications divison and Unified Communications products.
I suppose Elop can be that cheeky, after a lot of Silicon Valley experience, as COO of Juniper Networks (JNPR) and CEO of Macromedia, which was acquired under his tenure by Adobe (ADBE).
Or, it could be that he knows from having five kids–including triplet 10-year-olds–that patience is a virtue and that there might be a day when more hands might shoot up.
In any case, here is a video interview I did with Elop, where he talks about making Microsoft a more open and innovative place, the changing business model of software and more:
For media, there are two primary use cases for RSS, promotion of new content and content syndication. The latter is true plumbing that offers low cost, reliability and convenience while the former is a means for promoting new content through RSS client applications, widgets, iPhone apps, purpose specific apps, and so on… you see the headline and click on the content that interests you. Twitter is killing this use case for RSS.
Few media sites enable full text RSS feeds and for a good reason, it robs them of site traffic that is monetized whereas RSS feeds are not. This has always hamstrung the utility of RSS outside of blogs, yet still provided “good enough” utility that you could still use it.
Wags in Britain are up in arms about the gift that President Obama, in London for the G20 summit, has given to Queen Elizabeth II: An iPod loaded with video and photographs of her 2007 visit to Richmond, Virginia.
The Drudge Report is giving the gift the snarky headline treatment: “Gift to the Queen: An iPod [And She Already Has One]” implying somehow that perhaps this wasn’t a gift worthy of a queen. It’s not clear from the stories I’ve read so far exactly which model of iPod was given. It would seem that either an iPod classic or an iPod touch would seem the most likely candidates. Her Majesty already has a 2005-vintage iPod Mini.
Yesterday, New York-based startup incubator Betaworks raised $2 million in funding for its URL-shortener project, Bit.ly, and spun it out as an independent company. The funding raised some eyebrows, with some speculating if Bit.ly, one of the dozens of link-shortening services, was worth a rumored $8 million. I fall in the camp of those who think Bit.ly is worth the money.
Here’s why: The most important aspect of Bit.ly is not that it can shorten URLs. Instead its real prowess lies in its ability to track the click-performance of those URLs, and conversations around those links. It doesn’t matter where those URLs are embedded — Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, instant messages or SMS messages — a click is a click and Bit.ly counts it, in real time. Last week alone, nearly 25 million of these Bit.ly URLs were clicked.
The Twitter microblogging service has received an absurd quantity of press in the mainstream media lately. Everybody has been talking about it, from CNN, which has built entire shows around it, to The View, where each host tries to out do the others in how clueless she is about Twitter. And now, the inevitable “Twitter backlash” has begun. What does it all mean?
In a word, nothing.
The so-called backlash is just the media’s knee-jerk pseudo-contrarianism, right on schedule. Obviously Twitter has been clearly overexposed and overhyped in the media, and now reporters and commentators are both slamming their own hype, and, inevitably, attacking Twitter itself.
Wikia Search, Jimmy Wales’ project that was supposed to put the social into search, is getting closed down today, CNET reports.
The project, while interesting as an idea, was pretty much doomed from the beginning. My initial review was negative; Wikia Search was simply very far from a finished product. I’ve revisited the service after a couple of months, and though certain improvements were made, it was still just a promise of something that might or might not happen in the future. In the meantime, Jason Calacanis’ Mahalo was doing pretty much the same thing with a lot more success.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AFP - Vietnam said Friday it had approved four telecoms to offer the country's third-generation (3G) mobile phone services.
This video of Inuit throat-singing by Kathy Keknek and Janet Aglukkaq was created as an application for the 2008 Arctic Winter Games. I'm entranced by the way their throats move as they sing. Woah.
Inuit Throat Singing: Kathy Keknek and Janet Aglukkaq (long) (via William Gibson)
About the AnthologyFrom Star Trek to Star Wars, and from Dune to Foundation, science fiction has a rich history of exploring the idea of vast interstellar societies, and the challenges facing those living in or trying to manage such societies.
The stories in Federations continue that tradition, and herein you would find a mix of all-new, original fiction, alongside selected reprints from authors whose work exemplifies what interstellar SF is capable of, including Lois McMaster Bujold, Orson Scott Card, Anne McCaffrey, George R. R. Martin, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Alastair Reynolds, Robert J. Sawyer, Robert Silverberg, Harry Turtledove, and many more.
(Thanks, John!)
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Apr 2009 | 4:09 am
Given that $300 won't buy you an hour of law-firm advice, this is a damned good deal.
EFF Bootcamp
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Apr 2009 | 4:04 am
Film Of Police Attack On G20 Climate Camp (Thanks, Whitey!)
1892: A druggist in upstate New York adds a candied cherry and some cherry syrup to two dishes of vanilla ice cream. He and his guest, the local parson, enjoy the concoction so much they name it the Cherry Sunday. A treat is born.
Church treasurer Chester Platt often took Rev. John Scott to confer after Sunday worship at the Platt & Colt drugstore in downtown Ithaca, New York. On this particular Sunday, druggist Platt fancied up a simple dish and started an American tradition.
The new dessert gained instant popularity, and the store was soon selling it in strawberry, pineapple, chocolate and other variations. Students at Ithaca's Cornell University spread the idea as they returned to their homes around the country. Platt and Cole tried to patent the name Sunday, to no avail, but fruit-syrup manufacturers hedged their bets by changing the spelling to sundae, sundai, sundi and even sondhi.
Documentation for this tale is abundant. The drugstore was advertising the Cherry Sunday for 10 cents (equal to about $2.50 today) in the Ithaca Daily Journal as early as Oct. 5, 1892. The store's ledger books show it was selling ice cream at the time, that it had the ingredients on hand to create the new taste treat, and that the soda clerk who witnessed the creation was indeed employed there at the time. In fact, Deforest Christiance got a raise just two weeks later ... from $2 a week to $4.50 (from $50 to $110 in today's dough). There's also 1894 correspondence from a patent attorney on the subject.
Other tales place the origin of the dessert and its spelling in Marshall or Evanston, Illinois, or Manitowoc or Two Rivers, Wisconsin. The story goes that local preachers objected to the serving — and sucking — of fizzy ice cream sodas on the Sabbath, so a local genius merchant just took the soda water out of the confection and, voilà, a sundae that wasn't too sinful to slurp on a Sunday. Journalist H.L. Mencken reported this as folklore in The American Language in 1919 and 1945.
Two Rivers, Wisconsin, has vigorously pressed its claim that Ed Berners created the first sundae in the ice cream parlor he owned in that town in 1881. The problem with this story is that records show that Berners was only 17 in 1881, and that he was employed in Chicago as a millworker in 1884. Berners did eventually own and operate an ice cream parlor in Two Rivers, but the only attribution of the supposed act of culinary wizardry was his own recollection in a local newspaper article in 1929, some 48 years after the purported event.
As for the origins of the ice cream cone, that's another story for another 'dae.
Source: What's Cooking America
Once, billions of giggles ago, humans sat in dark rooms sipping watered-down mai tais while a person onstage—usually with a mic, usually with "issues," sometimes with a watermelon and a sledgehammer—attempted to amuse us. Heckling was discouraged; if it happened, a good comedian had methods of smacking it down. But that comfy, one-way, single-stream, comic-to-audience model is about as cutting-edge as Blockbuster. Or something funnier than Blockbuster. Betamax? The George Burns-Gracie Allen sex tape? Coolidgenomics? Help me out here, folks. And, hey, if you're reading this on the Internet, you can help me out. Chances are, you will. You probably already have—I'll go check the comments.
We've heard a lot about how Google is making us dumber and more distracted and lazier. We've heard less about how it's making us—maybe even forcing us to be—funnier. For today, thanks to the digital hive mind, comedy is colloquy, everything is "material," and life is one big writer's room, a massive clusterchuckle of witty one- upsmanship—on blogs, on social-networking sites, in tweets, in funny video shorts, in Lolcats and talkbacks. Humor saturates the infosphere, for at least two reasons: First, a successful joke implies insight, and insight, especially if it's pithy and self-explanatory, is the basic currency of a high-speed information economy. Second, the fundamental tools and techniques of that economy—memory, annotation, contrast, collage—are also the fundamental tools of comedy. They facilitate ironic linkages, unexpected resonances across genres and media, and anarchic twists on established, institutional forms. That's how you get 50,000 mashups of a Christian Bale tirade inside of 36 hours; that's how you have the day's headlines pureed into music videos and montages hours before The Daily Show hits the air. Behold, the unleashed energies of millions of amateur comedians.
Thanks to market forces, the creation and purveyance of humor have become decentralized and deregulated. The class clown's little monopoly is smashed: Laffs have gone laissez-faire. Obviously, some people are simply funnier than others, and there will always be a comedy aristocracy, either natural or appointed. (Dane Cook, most believe, was groomed by the Illuminati.) But the implication here is that everyone can be funny. More than that: Everyone must be funny.
And if you're still worried about bombing in what is, basically, the world's biggest, cruelest comedy club, don't be. I assure you, you're getting funnier all the time, simply by dint of being plugged into the collective e-conscious and keeping up with the high-bandwidth badinage. Remember the Zen saying: "Like pebbles in a bag, the monks polish each other." (If you can't hit that low, fat pitch out of the park, then brother, no one can help you.) I envision a future where humans communicate only in jokes. Of course, by then we'll have taken to the stars, in great space arks full of comedians, looking to colonize a planet populated entirely by straight men. And yes, that is, indeed, what she said.
Email scott4wired@yahoo.com.
Long before nerdcore MCs established a niche by name-checking gear as geeky as the Commodore 64, hip hop artists were stocking their rhymes with more gadgets than a Best Buy. We submit: Back in 1988, Ice Cube bragged about his "little bit of gold and a pager" in N.W.A.'s "Fuck Tha Police." In 1991, De La Soul screened booty calls via answering machine in "Ring Ring Ring (Ha Ha Hey)." In 1998, Tupac claimed that his foes were jealous of his mobile phone in "Changes." And there's plenty more where that came from. Test your street cred by selecting the right device to complete the lyrics below.
1 // "The 'S' in ??? really stands for sex / Beeper's goin off like Don Trump gets checks"
"Skypager," A Tribe Called Quest (1991)
2 // "Tearin' up my coupe lookin' for the chronic / Goddamn, nobody got a ??? "
"Who Got the Camera," Ice Cube (1992)
3 // "Only way to roll, Jigga and two ladies / I'm too cold, ??? two-way page me, c'mon"
"I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me)," Jay-Z (2000)
4 // "Last month I spent two weeks on a vacation / I had a dream that I was inside of my ??? "
"Rap 2k1," Masta Ace (2001)
5 // "Daddy need Pirellis to look mean on 22s / Stash box, ??? , laptop, fax machine, phone / Bulletproof this bitch and I'm gone"
"High All the Time," 50 Cent (2003)
6 // "Out the country but the ??? still connect"
"Encore," Jay-Z (2003)
7 // "Meth Man's left hand ??? / Def Jam's employee of the month, now let's dance"
"Let's Do It," Method Man featuring Redman (2004)
8 // "Put away change for Ibiza / And check your credit on your new ??? "
Untitled, M.I.A. (2005)
9 // "Befo' Steve Jobs made the ??? / Was getting head, jobs, we call that intimate"
"The Prelude," Jay-Z (2006)
10 // "When his majesty speaks, speech defy gravity / ??? nigga but I don't have any cavities"
"Hold Up," P. Diddy (2006)
11 // "I'm cool, I'm cool, Westside representative / All me, no ghost no 16-bit like ??? "
"Go Go Gadget Flow," Lupe Fiasco (2007)
12 // "Pulled out the ??? is on deck / So much ice hanging off my neck"
"Sidekick," Soulja Boy (2007)
| Track 1 // ??? |
Track 2 // ??? |
Track 3 // ??? |
Track 4 // ??? |
Track 5 // ??? |
Track 6 // ??? |
| Track 7 // ??? |
Track 8 // ??? |
Track 9 // ??? |
Track 10 // ??? |
Track 11 // ??? |
Track 12 // ??? |
Here’s a heck of a rumor that we’ve sourced from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.
Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.
Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game. In a post last month called It’s Time To Start Thinking Of Twitter As A Search Engine, I wrote:
More and more people are starting to use Twitter to talk about brands in real time as they interact with them. And those brands want to know all about it, whether to respond individually (The W Hotel pestered me until I told them to just leave me alone), or simply gather the information to see what they’re doing right and what they’re doing wrong.
And all of it is discoverable at search.twitter.com, the search engine that Twitter acquired last summer.
People searching for news. Brands searching for feedback. That’s valuable stuff.
Twitter knows it, too. They’re going to build their business model on it. Forget small time payments from users for pro accounts and other features, all they have to do is keep growing the base and gather more and more of those emotional grunts. In aggregate it’s extremely valuable. And as Google has shown, search is vastly monetizable - somewhere around 40% of all online advertising revenue goes to ads on search listings today.
If this is accurate, it’s a brilliant deal for Google - the value of Twitter is only going to go up over time. And it will be Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone’s second sale to Google - they sold Blogger to them just five years ago. But there’s one big question - where’s Microsoft in all this? Letting Twitter go to Google only hurts them, badly, in the long term search game. This is an asset they need to be competing for aggressively.
Of course, it’ll be sad to see Twitter become just another subsidiary of Google, if this happens. I would have liked to have seen the company spread its wings a little longer to see what it could do.
Updated: Yet another source says the acquisition discussions are still fairly early stage, and the two companies are also considering working together on a Google real time search engine. But discussions between the companies are confirmed.
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Remember Zork? Sure you do. It was great. The grues, that scary white house, the keys, the puzzles... it was the ur-game, the game that defined many of our childhoods and the game we've been trying to find ever since. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that the latest 3D RPG for XBox 360 or PC was more like Zork. There is only so many Hobbit knock-offs you can take before you yearn for the gnome of Zurich. Sadly - or maybe luckily - Activision decided to regurgitate the old game in on-line form, sell "turns" to addicts, and generally destroy Zork for an entire generation. Oh well. Things change and kids these days don't care about good text-based adventures what with their Nintenders and PlayStations 3.
Lengends of Zork is clearly aimed at folks who haven't played an online game in decades. It's quite simple - you wander around, fight other characters, and generally recreate most of the boredom inherent in poorly-made online games and none of the beauty of Infocom's original work.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
DiggBar, the new shortURL and toolbar service from Digg, is certainly useful. I expect it to become my default short URL service on Twitter since it is so easy to create a short URL by simply adding Digg.com/ in front of any URL. It will redirect to a short Digg URL like digg.com/d1npNz, which is this story rendered with the DiggBar (click that Digg button!).
The Twitter crowd already loves this based on all the chatter I saw on the site today. This will also expose a lot of new people to Digg since anyone that clicks on the link will see the toolbar wrapper with the view count, Digg comments and other information on the top. And it will also increase Digg’s overall traffic substantially - unlike other short URL services, Digg doesn’t simply redirect to the longer URL. It keeps you on Digg and shows the site being pointed to in an iframe wrapper. You can get to the underlying URL by clicking on the X button on the top right.
But Digg didn’t stop there. They’re also using DiggBar for all stories on Digg as well. So all those home page stories that send massive amounts of traffic around the web are now redirecting right back to Digg, too. That keeps all that traffic in the Digg ecosystem, to the detriment of the sites being linked to.
For most purposes those sites won’t care. The page is still rendered and includes the advertising. The way most internal analytics software works means that page views will still be counted. But some services, like Comscore, won’t necessarily see the visit to the site, and will penalize the domain name.
I’d expect Digg to add text advertising to the DiggBar over time, sooner rather than later. It should be a material revenue source for them.
Overall it’s a brilliant move by Digg. I’m surprised no one has complained yet though about Digg home page traffic no longer going to the sites being listed.
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Aw, man - we were just starting to get excited. April, long listed as Vodafone’s launch windows for the HTC Magic, is upon us, and we’re ready to play with a new Android device.
Unfortunately, there’s now good reason to believe that it may be up to a month before the device hits the shelves. Pocket-Lint contacted Vodafone’s sales line, who told them that the computers now listed May 1st as the launch date. HTC went ahead and confirmed the delay (though they didn’t verify May 1st as being a date of importance), saying “We are confident that Vodafone’s customers will be delighted with the HTC Magic in spite of a short delay due to a last minute hardware change.”
We were beginning to worry that something was up when the Magic handsets HTC had at CTIA09 were all the unfinished prototype models, with tiny, narrow face buttons rather than the big round ones visible in the press images. Might there have been some snags in pushing the button layout changes through the pipes?
[Via Engadget Mobile]
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Master hacker and lockpicker Barry Wels (who shot the photo above) has posted an account of a "penetration party," at which safes are made available for guys skilled in the fine art of lock-cracking to demonstrate and hone their skillz. I love all the photos he illustrated this account with -- these guys are as scary-smart as they are cool. Snip:
[S]afe opening is all about experience. The best safecrackers are the ones that have the most experience, or with the best connections to people who can tell you what the internals of the target safe most likely will look like. In previous events the strategy to open safes was to drill a hole on a strategical place in the safe. This sounds easier as it is, and I always admire the craftsmanship that is needed to pull it off. Just think about it: you need to picture what is inside the safe and then try to drill away the element that keeps the safe locked, or in case of a combination lock drill until you are inside the heart of the lock and set the code by looking into it with a scope. Being off by a millimeter can cause you big trouble, not to mention the glass plates that can set off ‘relockers’ if hit (shattered) by a drill. If this happens, the safe will lock up, and even the original key and combination will not open it anymore (a mechanism to win time, safes that have the relockers fired can take a looong time to open).About the safe opening weekend (next one in 1 month!) (Blackbag.nl, via Wayne's Friends list)[A]t this event we tried to shift from drilling to picking and decoding safes. Just as with opening standard locks, there is nothing like opening a high security safe without a scratch. To do so requires the right tools, and Jord Knaap is becoming really good at making safe opening tools. His hand made Hobb’s picks are just as good, and sometimes better, as the stuff that is available commercially on the market. And Paul Crouwel was the first one to pick open a safe at the weekend. In about fifteen minutes the door of this monster safe swung open without a scratch. Later Paul tried his luck (skill) on another safe, but when it did not open in fifteen minutes decided to go for a smoke. When he came back, master lockpicker Julian Hardt was kind enough to have picked it open for him. Later that day Julian would repeat the job and pick open the lock on a heavy rosengrens safe.
PhoneBook (iTunes Link) is a new iPhone application looking to make it as easy as possible to call your most important contacts. The application plugs into your AT&T account, allowing it to dynamically rearrange your list of contacts depending on how often you call them.
After entering your carrier account information, PhoneBook can suck in your call data, which it can then use to update your list of friends so that the ones you call most are always the easiest to dial. Using Facebook Connect, users can import and automatically assign photos to their friends’ phone numers. The app also allows users to monitor their phone usage (so they don’t get charged for extra minutes).
Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I doubt many people are going to jump through the hoop of entering their phone carrier’s account information primarily so that the photos of their friends are arranged in the proper order. Most people simply don’t call that many friends, and there are plenty of similar apps that allow users to rearrange their contacts without having to let the app access potentially sensitive data. Granted, there are some services like BillShrink that ask for the same information, but that site has a more practical use that may be a little more enticing: it saves users money.
That said, there are certainly some cool things that can be done with this kind of data - PhoneBook just needs to figure out some innovative features that will tantilize users enough to sign up for the app. The PhoneBook developers say that more features are on the way, and that they may eventually offer premium features to generate revenue (it may also serve up advertising for free users).
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FROM GAMERTELL - While OnLive may seem like a console crushing behemoth, it is unlikely that it will take the place of the home game console. If you take a close look at possible issues that could arise, you can see that consoles still have a place in homes.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
A 20 year-old Minnesota man who killed a woman he lured to his home with a fake Craigslist ad was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole yesterday.
According to news reports, in October 2007, the victim, Katherine Olson, 24 years old, responded to a help-wanted ad for a babysitter. She arrived to find Michael Anderson, who shot her in the back as she tried to leave. She was found in the trunk of her own car.
The prosecutor said that Mr. Anderson called himself “the Craigslist murderer” in conversations with other inmates.
Mr. Anderson pleaded innocent but was convicted on all counts, including first-degree murder. His attorney, Alan Margoles, argued that the shooting was accidental. He said he plans to appeal because he wasn’t allowed to use Mr. Anderson’s Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism, as evidence in the case.
The conviction follows the late March killing of George Weber, a New York journalist whose attacker told police that they met through a Craigslist personal ad.
Digg may have 19 million unique visitors and nearly 85 million pageviews (Comscore worldwide, Feb ‘09), but one thing it’s never had is a decent search engine. There’s no rhyme or reason to the ordering of results. A lot of stuff just seems to disappear. And the filters are overly complicated.
That’ll change in the near future, the company noted in a blog post today. And since we’re so curious about what the new Digg search will look like, we hammered them until they gave up a screenshot.
The new search appears to have much more relevant results, taking into account the popularity of the story as well as the newness for “best match.” Other simple filters include “most dugg” and “newest first.” Compare that to the very old, not very relevant results you get now.
The new search also has a left sidebar with key stats, such as aging, how many stories with a certain number of Diggs, stories broken out by media type (news, video, images), and by topic.
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Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Video, Accessories, Content, HDTV, Portable Video, Web
Whether you are an Apple fanboy or Zune fanatic, you probably know that the Zune isn’t the most popular PMP out there. Microsoft continually tries to strengthen the struggling device, but there is no use in trying to budge Apple’s iPod off their lofty throne. Recently, Microsoft posted a job listing under the Zune, which leads many to believe that Microsoft is exploring the possibility of bringing Zune related software to your sexy HDTV.
In their concise listing, Microsoft talks about needing help to shape the future of entertainment and to do so, they need an experienced software designer “to help deliver great digital entertainment features into the living room, including on demand music and video.” In addition, the listing goes on to say, “Experience with online services API development is a must, product will provide a rich online media experience delivering music and video from the cloud. A passion for UX and digital media is a must.” The rest of the listing is about necessary qualifications.
On the Zune team, part of them are responsible for working out actual hardware, while the other half of the team works on designing specialized software. Obviously, the person who gets this job would be working with the software part of the Zune team to create a device or software for HDTV.
Microsoft has a few choices in how they want to go about this, they can either add a feature to the Xbox 360, add something to the Zune, or create a totally new device compatible with both devices. If the Apple TV comes to mind, I wouldn’t be surprised because that sounds like what they want to create.
Hey, if you are a software designer looking for some new work, hit up Microsoft and see if you can the job.
Check out the Listing: [Microsoft] Via: [Slashgear]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The default mode for Google Analytics and other Website tracking software often makes you wait an entire day to find out what is happening on your site. There is a 24-hour delay (although this can often be changed in settings). Speed up the feedback loop, and Websites in theory could become even more responsive to traffic and attention peaks or to unexpected sluggishness. Betaworks, John Borthwick’s startup holding company which has stakes in Twitter and Tweetdeck, and spun off bit.ly, has just launched Chartbeat.
Keeping with Betaworks’ focus on real-time data services, Chartbeat offers a dashboard for Website owners that monitors how many people are on their site at any given second, where they are coming from, which pages visitors are looking at the most, as well as conversations and links from Twitter. It also shows average load times, what percentage of current visitors are returning, how many are reading, how many are actively writing in comments or engaging with the site in some other way, and how many are simply idle. All it requires is one line of Javascript to be inserted on a site and then it pings Chartbeat every 10 seconds.
The dashboard also offers a historical view, and even lets you play the dashboard through time like a movie so that you can see for instance what was going on during a particular peak—where was traffic coming from and what were visitors looking at. If you choose, you can also share your dashboard and make it public. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has done so for his blog A VC. Click through to his blog, and then you can see the results on his Chartbeat here. The video below also shows what it looks like.
Chartbeat is offering a free 30-day trial and then wants to charge $10 a month for the service. Competing real-time Web analytics services include Get Clicky and Woopra (which we covered here).
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In a tucked away room in the CTIA 2009 North Hall, Sprint and Palm are demonstrating a number of Pre applications for the first time. Earlier this afternoon we got a bit of footage of Classic, a PalmOS emulator by MotionApps‘ primarily intended for running any legacy applications you may have laying around. Since then, we’ve also had the opportunity to check out the Pandora, Fandango, Sprint TV, FlightView, and Nascar applications, and we’ve brought back a boatload of video for you to check out.
For all videos below, I’d recommend hitting the HQ button for the sake of visibility. These applications are all pretty dang gorgeous, so the extra click is worth it.
Pandora:
They were one of the first to be disclosed as being in the know when it came to the webOS SDK, and now they’re one of the first with something to show. Pandora brings all the streaming radio functionality you’d expect of an app to bear the name, but leverages the Pre’s notifications bar to serve as a media controller from outside the app.
Fandango:
Like all of the apps Palm had on display, the Fandango application is reaaally smooth. The UI is gorgeous, it localizes theater times and ticket availability via GPS. A bit of a neat trick: it can automatically add the movie to your calendar, making sure you don’t miss your flick when you lose track of time whilst grabbing a pre-show drink, and allowing you to invite others.
Sprint TV:
FlightView:
Gotta pick up grams at the airport? Want to check if her flight is on schedule? FlightView is a fairly basic application, but it serves a purpose. Punch in the flight info, and you’ll get notifications of any changes along with access to a live flight tracker once it’s in the air. Recently searched flights are automatically stored for later viewing.
Nascar:
Not to unfairly generalize here - but is there all that much overlap between the Palm Pre’s audience and devout Nascar fans?
Whether it sees much use, the Nascar application seemed well designed. The demonstrator had a bit of trouble getting it to connect to video streams while we were recording, but we’d seen cars successfully tearing around the screen just minutes before. I’ve gotta ask: Any Nascar fans out there dying for the Pre?
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LAS VEGAS --- LG's latest phone, the GD900, puts the 'wow' factor into cellphones. The device is the first smartphone to have a transparent keypad and it melds the idea into a slider phone form factor.
LG first introduced the device at the Mobile World Congress conference in February in Barcelona. But at the CTIA wireless conference we had some time to play with it.
The GD900 is a beauty. The phone is pretty thin and comes with a transparent keypad that slides out easily. The illuminated keypad is also touchscreen enabled. That means users can do the familiar flip and scroll gestures on the keypad to scroll through the phone's user interface. Typing on the keypad offers a nice haptic feedback with a little vibration to match.
Even better, the phone has handwriting recognition so scrawling on the keypad can be an alternative way to communicate with the device. So writing 'W' will trigger off the web browser or 'M' can start the music player.
What makes the phone not just another gimmick is the user interface that LG calls the 'S class UI.' It is slick, scrolls through fast and almost offers a 3D experience while moving through the different icons and is similar to what LG has with its Arena device.
The GD900 doesn't lack in features either. It has a 8-megapixel camera, 3-inch touchscreen display and an accelerometer. The phone is expected to launch in Asia and Europe in May but no word on pricing or availability in the U.S.
Here are more photos of the GD900
Photos: LG GD900/Priya Ganapati
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
In a tucked away room in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center, Sprint and Palm are demonstrating a number of Pre applications for the first time. Earlier this afternoon we got a bit of footage of Classic, a PalmOS emulator by MotionApps’ purposed for running any legacy applications you may have laying around. Since then, we’ve also had the opportunity to check out the Pandora, Fandango, Sprint TV, FlightView, and Nascar applications, and brought back a boatload of video for you to check out.
For all videos below, I’d recommend hitting the HQ button for the sake of visibility. These applications are all pretty dang gorgeous, so the extra click is worth it.
Pandora:
They were one of the first to be disclosed as being in the know when it came to the webOS SDK, and now they’re one of the first with something to show. Pandora brings all the streaming radio functionality you’d expect of an app to bear the name, but leverages the Pre’s notifications bar to serve as a media controller from outside the app.
Fandango:
Like all of the apps Palm had on display, the Fandango application is reaaally smooth. The UI is gorgeous, it localizes theater times and ticket availability via GPS. A bit of a neat trick: it can automatically add the movie to your calendar, making sure you don’t miss your flick when you lose track of time whilst grabbing a pre-show drink, and allowing you to invite others.
Sprint TV:
FlightView:
Gotta pick up grams at the airport? Want to check if her flight is on schedule? FlightView is a fairly basic application, but it serves a purpose. Punch in the flight info, and you’ll get notifications of any changes along with access to a live flight tracker once it’s in the air. Recently searched flights are automatically stored for later viewing.
Nascar:
Not to unfairly generalize here - but is there all that much overlap between the Palm Pre’s audience and devout Nascar fans?
Whether it sees much use, the Nascar application seemed well designed. The demonstrator had a bit of trouble getting it to connect to video streams while we were recording, but we’d seen cars successfully tearing around the screen just minutes before. I’ve gotta ask: Any Nascar fans out there dying for the Pre?
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We knew it’d be a hit, but not that much of a hit. The official Skype iPhone application, announced earlier this week, hit the iTunes Store last Tuesday and since then it’s seen an astonishing one million downloads to the popular Apple devices, which is nothing short of amazing. That translates to approximately 6 downloads per second.
In the blog post announcing the milestone, Skype blogger Peter Parkes says he’s “confident that it’s one of the fastest-downloaded iPhone apps ever”, which means he’s not really sure.
And since we don’t know either, we’re reaching out to you, dear readers. Does Skype now hold the record for reaching the million download mark fastest for a free app, or not?
(Hat tip to Pat Phelan).
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If you’ve got loads of 5 year old PalmOS applications laying around, fear not - they’ll run on the Pre. Well, sort of; they’ll run in MotionApps’ recently announced PalmOS emulator which, for most purposes, should be just as good. We stopped by Palm’s lounge this afternoon for a quick demo, and brought the whole thing back on video for your perusal
Don’t expect much luck with anything that requires an infrared port (HotSync, for example) - while they’ve emulated the hardware functionality up to the buttons, it’s a bit tough to fake an IR port. Throwing a new application into the emulator is a matter of plugging in the USB cable and dragging over the PRC.
Classic will not come installed on the handset out of the box, but should be available in the Palm App Catalog at launch.
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Google just rolled out a search autocomplete feature for Gmail; If you turn on “Search Autocomplete” from the Labs tab under Gmail Settings, you’ll get suggestions in your search box while you are typing like you do in Google’s search box.
The search feature is pretty easy to use and definitely helpful. If you are looking for a contact, you can just type a couple letters of the person’s first or last name and the feature will provide a list that matches the search query. Google has added some advanced features like the ability to search in specific places (e.g. in chats or sent items), or search for messages with attachments by certain type (e.g. docs or photos). But finding that email from six months ago among the tens of thousands in your archive just got easier.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
"To urban hunter, next meal is scampering by" (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)Beasley, a 69-year-old retired truck driver who modestly refers to himself as the Coon Man, supplements his Social Security check with the sale of raccoon carcasses that go for as much $12 and can serve up to four. The pelts, too, are good for coats and hats and fetch up to $10 a hide.
While economic times are tough across Michigan as its people slog through a difficult and protracted deindustrialization, Beasley remains upbeat.
Where one man sees a vacant lot, Beasley sees a buffet...
He procures the coons with the help of the hound dogs who chase the animal up a tree, where Beasley harvests them with a .22 caliber rifle. A true outdoorsman, Beasley refuses to disclose his hunting grounds.
"This city is going back to the wild," he says. "That's bad for people but that's good for me. I can catch wild rabbit and pheasant and coon in my backyard."
Apple and Stanford University this week will begin offering free videos and course materials on iPhone application development.
Video recordings of Stanford's 10-week computer science class, taught by two Apple employees, will be freely downloadable through Apple's iTunes U educational channel. The course's syllabus and slides will be freely available on iTunes as well.
This move toward open, free information is particularly surprising coming from Apple. The tight-lipped corporation is especially peculiar about guarding its secrets, and its products are designed under a restricted, closed platform. However, as Apple continues to expand its product line and partnerships, the corporation has recently been forced to open up — just a peep.
"Stanford is very interested in not just creating knowledge but in sharing that knowledge with anyone who seeks it," said Brent Izutsu, product manager of Stanford's iTunes U program. "I think there definitely is a little modification at Apple, at least within the education realm, to open up a little bit."
Apple did indeed modify its modus operandi for its iPhone 2.0 software development kit — under the pressure of widespread scrutiny. Previously, Apple imposed a non-disclosure agreement on iPhone developers, which prohibited them from making public any information on coding software for the iPhone.
Most notably, the NDA barred programmers from exchanging tips with one another on iPhone coding — and critics said this was antithetical to how a scientific community works. The NDA also blocked publishers from releasing books on iPhone software development.
Finally in October, Apple lifted its NDA, agreeing that it was only stifling the iPhone's potential.
"We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect," Apple wrote in a letter published on its developer site. "However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software."
The removal of the NDA led to the launch of Apple's iPhone University program, giving instructors and students all the software needed to code for the iPhone for free. This program made Stanford's iPhone development course possible, and other universities have plans to offer iPhone classes as well.
Universities could teach courses on competing mobile platforms as well. But the unique, attractive factor about the iPhone is its phenomenally successful App Store, which made some independent developers rich. For example, independent developer Steve Demeter announced earning $250,000 in just two months with his game Trism. And Ethan Nicholas, developer of the iPhone game iShoot, raked in $600,000 in a single month with sales of his app.
"We really wanted to highlight the iPhone course because currently there's a ton of interest around it," Izutsu said. "We thought it was the perfect opportunity to ride that wave of interest."
Stanford is posting its first video of this quarter's iPhone development course Friday at iTunes U.
Apple did not return phone calls for comment.
Photo: shapeshift/Flickr
Download the MP4 here. Flash video above, click "fullscren" icon inside player to view large. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.
Today on Boing Boing Video, another game-related feature we shot during the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco: a conversation with Konami CEO Hideo Kojima at the San Francisco Apple Store, about his latest creation -- Metal Gear Solid Touch for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Previously:
[ Credits and props for BBV Live @GDC09: Production Team -- Jolon Bankey, Derek Bledsoe, Daniela Calderon, Eddie Codel, Xeni Jardin, Allison Kingsley, Matty Kirsch, Alice Taylor, Wesly Varghese. Special thanks to Wayneco Heavy Industries (accommodation and studio facilities), Virgin America Airlines (air travel), Celsius (thermogenic energy beverage), Ustream.tv (streaming video host). Moral support, production assistance, additional talent, and good vibes provided by: Domini Anne, Scott Beale, T.Bias, Jeremy Bornstein, Brandon Boyer, Chris The Van Guy, Peter S. Conrad, Marque Cornblatt, Wayne, Bre, and the entire de Geere family, Marcy DeLuce, Cory Doctorow, Joel Johnson, Kourosh Karimkhany, Jim Louderback and the Revision 3 team, Karen Marcelo, Rocky Mullin, Alicia Pollak, Jackie Mogol, Taylor Peck, David Pescovitz, Micah Schaffer, and Teal. ]
Local review sites like Yelp have irrevocably changed the way consumers find businesses in a particular area, and truly given power to the consumer in finding the best place to eat a meal, grab a drink, etc. And the potential of putting local reviews and listings on mobile devices is immense. Yelp’s existing iPhone app is less than a year old and it already accounts for 5% of Yelp’s overall traffic, which adds up to be around roughly 1 million monthly visitors.
In the next few days, Yelp will be launching a new version of its popular iPhone app which we’ve reviewed. The new app gives consumers even more ease in automatically reviewing businesses via their iPhone and enhances its exiting GPS capabilities. The updated version of the app now lets Yelpers write review directly from their iPhone through a Twitter-like “Quick Tips” feature that allows users to create 140 character tips. This was sorely lacking in the original version. The tips will be accessible on the iPhone app and the site itself (if popular) and will also be shown in a feed using GPS capabilities when users search businesses. Like before, the app leverages GPS in the iPhone to list reviews, tips, and photos written and taken around a users location. The app will also feature a Friend Feed feature that will pull in your friends activities. Users can also draft a full review of a restaurant, bar or business from their iPhone and then post it later to Yelp.com. Yelp is also upgrading the app to become more compatible in Canada and the UK.
Since its launch in 2004, Yelp caught on pretty quickly and has seen consistent growth. Yelp currently has over 5.5 million reviews in the site. Google Analytics says Yelp has had 20.5 million unique visits in the past 30 days. Comscore’s estimate for February was a little more conservative, at around 7 million unique visits for Yelp.com. But Yelp’s monthly unique visits more than doubled from the same month, last year. Along the way, Yelp has decimated most of its competitors. Insider Pages laid off 2/3 of their staff and sold quickly to CitySearch in February 2007, Intuit said “goodbye” to Zipingo in August 2007, and Judy’s Book closed their doors in October 2007. CitySearch remains as Yelp’s lone competitor in the local reviews space. To date, Yelp has raised 31 million in capital.
The combination of local reviews and mobile is so compelling because Yelp now allows consumers to post reviews as they are eating, drinking or visiting a business. Think about the review of a restaurant that had bad service. Likely, the consumer will be emotionally charged about the poor service. Before the iPhone app, the consumer would write the review after the restaurant visit, when he or she had cooled off a bit. Now, the angry consumer can enter a particularly distasteful, and emotionally charged review directly from the restaurant’s table. Additionally, the combination of using GPS to see reviews of businesses directly where you are in an area is fascinating. Yelp is making it incredibly easy for consumers to quickly access listings, reviews and ratings of businesses without having to input there location.
Of course, the transparency and potential negative backlash businesses can suffer from sites like Yelp or CitySearch, has ignited businesses to fight back. Businesses have started anti-Yelp websites and even sued Yelp users for negative or unfair reviews. Yelp lets businesses fight back with a suite of tools to take part in the conversations consumers are having about their businesses.
Yelp’s next move should be incorporating Facebook Connect with its site and iPhone app. Currently, you can add Yelp friends on the site and get personalized feeds of reviews from people who are your friends and random people who share your local restaurant or bar tastes. But it would be really cool to be able to see your Facebook friend’s reviews of local businesses, similar to MySpace Local, a partnership between MySpace and CitySearch to combine CitySearch business listings in the MySpace community.
Here’s a video detailing the new version of Yelp’s iPhone App:
And screenshots below:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
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Section: Communications, Email / IM, Web, Online Music/Video
Goodmail Systems has announced the launch of their new CertifiedVideo technology which allows companies and non-profit organizations to embed streaming video into their emails. While almost all email providers block emails with embedded videos in them, Goodmail’s new technology ensures their users’ videos are safe and secure. Here’s how they do it:
Goodmail begins by making sure the senders’ video players meet their specifications for stability and compatibility, then once the sender is approved, they affix cryptographically secure CertifiedVideo tokens to their messages. These tokens tell the email providers the messages and the videos they contain are safe.
“CertifiedVideo merges the best of the Web with the email inbox, delivering breaking news and sports, exclusive movie premieres and product demonstrations directly to an audience of opt-in subscribers,” said Peter Horan, CEO of Goodmail. “Americans watched more than 14 billion online videos this past January alone. 1 With CertifiedVideo, consumers can now watch videos within their email inbox without having to click to an external Web site, and brands can tap into shifting media consumption habits and craft truly interactive, email 3.0 marketing campaigns.”
AOL is the first email provider to partner with CertifiedVideo, but company has a long list of approved CertifiedVideo senders that includes CMT, Fox Digital, iVillage (NBC Universal), LiveNation, the New York Times, Target, and Turner Networks.
Goodmail Systems is already well known for their CertifiedEmail technology. Like CertifiedVideo, trusted senders affix cryptographically secure tokens to their outbound emails. These special emails are marked in the recipients’ inbox with a blue ribbon icon, and like CertifiedVideo, senders are held to a strict code of accountability and expected to adhere to a high set of standards regarding privacy and low complaint rates. The CertifiedEmail technology is in use by 7 of the top 10 email providers as well as over 500 commercial, government, and non-profit organizations.
Read [BusinessWire]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
FROM APPLETELL - President Obama flew over to England for the G20, and, as part of his trip, visited the Queen of England. It was expected that he would bring gifts for both the Prime Minister and also the Queen, although just what he brought was a little surprising.
MORE »
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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Real phones have to contend with real problems and design trade offs. But unfettered by manufacturing constraints, concept phones are a way for handset makers to imagine the future of mobile devices.
At the CTIA wireless trade show, there were some of these concepts from companies such as Kyocera, Neutrano and Chinese firm ZTE Technologies. Among the ideas on display were watch phones with USB modem built into the strap, a phone that flips open like a book to lie flat offering users a large display and a phones with a wide screen that is reminiscent of a PlayStation Portable like handheld device.
"There are some interesting ideas and though many of them are years away from reality it is a glimpse into what the future phones could be" says Chetan Sharma, an analyst who has his own telecom technology and consulting firm.
Kyocera's concept phone, for instance, rolls up in three parts, with one third hosting the keyboard. The rest is the display that can be opened up completely to offer a wide screen.
Watch phones seem to be particularly popular among designers. Earlier this year, LG showed off a working watch phone at the Consumer Electronics Show. LG's Dick Tracy-like watch phone doesn't have pricing or availability listed yet but the company has said it plans to launch the device this year. LG's watch phone has a touchscreen, 3G, Bluetooth and a camera that can do both still photos and videos.
Chinese phone company ZTE hopes to take that idea to the next level. ZTE 's concept watch phone offers a USB modem at one end of the watch band. Meanwhile, another manufacturer Neutrano is working on a prototype of a watch phone, according to PCmag.com, that can be detached from its band and held up to the ear to act as a regular phone.
So could the trend of wearable computing be coming to cellphones?
Photos: Top- Kyocera concept phone. Right - ZTE concept/ Priya Ganapati
Hey, look! It’s the LG GD900 from Mobile World Congress, except not behind an inch of glass!
We’re amazingly torn on this device; on one hand, it’s an exercise of vanity, with nearly every defining feature existing solely for show. I mean, come on - a clear touch keypad? Why? On the other hand, hot damn it’s pretty. It’s a fashion phone without a fashion brand attached (yet.)
The S-class interface which made its first appearance on the LG Arena has made its way onto the handset, but the port doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time. The rep couldn’t get a number of features (quick launch touchpad gestures, for example, refused to play nice - in theory, you could draw a letter with your finger down on that clear layer to skip to user selected areas of the handset). LG is promising the GD900 some time in this quarter, so hopefully they can get things brushed up quick.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Trade Shows, CTIA
Day two of CTIA in Las Vegas, Nevada and as is fitting the Palm Pre is leading the buzz with its announcement yesterday that it will support Palm OS and a new round of showing off of 3rd party apps. If you cut through that buzz, there are some unsung heroes that will be bumping into in your local coffee shop and on the planes, trains and if you carpool, automobiles.
Engadget has a nice gallery of the Samsung Magnet from AT&T. This phone represents the branch of the phone world that focuses on texting at Edge (2G) speeds. This phone though not officially priced yet, looks fantastic and is sure to be pretty affordable, I’d guess somewhere around the $49 mark with contract. The full QWERTY keypad looks nice and the phone itself will intro in orange. What is not to love? Check out more here at Engadget.
Their new Evoke is hot and being called a top pick already by those that have played with it. The touchscreen coupled with a slide out keypad looks the part: small and thin. A 2.8 capacitive touchscreen felt responsive to handlers. PC World has this to say:
The Evoke comes preloaded with seven widgets: MySpace Mobile, Follow Me Weather, Google Quicksearch, Google Picasa, RSS Reader, USA Today Mobile, and YouTube. Each widget has its own panel and you can flip through them with a swipe of the finger. The silky interface reminded me a little of the Palm Pre’s “deck of cards” model for managing apps
That could be just enough to keep main stream users quite happy. Learn more about the Evoke here.
Go figure. Sprint wheeled out the Samsung S30 as the replacement for the Instinct. You’ll remember the Instinct for all its bold claims vs. the iPhone? Sure you do.
Phone Scoop had this to say about it:
When the original Instinct came out, it was frustratingly slow. We’re happy to report that this issue has been addressed; the new Instinct S30 is a fairly speedy device. It responded to touches quickly and with smooth animation. The Instinct S30 will go on sale in all major channels on April 19.
Did you catch yesterday’s list? Check it out here.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
I will never have a need for a Veritas Dovetail Gang Saw in my life—I buy all my joints pre-cut—but I still want one all the same. It's $212, plus shipping. [via Toolmonger]
The Hustler Zeon is an all-electric, zero-turn riding lawnmower—they say it's the first in the world. Hustler's site has nearly no information, but Uncrate reports the Zeon will have up to 80 minutes of mowing time per charge. That sounds great for home use, but won't cut it for bigger jobs unless you can cycle batteries through with an external charger.
No price yet, but you can count on it costing more than your average Snapper.
Want to learn how to create an iPhone app? Later this week, aspiring app creators will be able to start watching a popular Stanford computer science course on developing iPhone apps right on their iPhones. Stanford will start distributing the course for free as a video podcast throughiTunes U. (The podcasts can also be watched on iPods and computers, obviously).
With more than 25,000 apps out there, which have been downloaded more than 800 million times, the competition is fierce for making the best apps. Apple itself provides a wealth of information for developers about its SDK, but for those who need a little more guidance or a refresher in the basics, watching these videos is like continuing education. The videos are not on iTunes yet, but the first one should appear within the next few days.
Why pay to go to Stanford when you can get the lecture on iTunes for free?
Section: Web, Downloads, Web Apps, Features, Originals
The reference software for Encyclopedia Britannica is a popular option to download on Pirate Bay. Although you can find a slew of online reference materials, you may feel leery about the accuracy of the information. Instead of paying $59.99 for the software, you can find free encyclopedia web sources that you can reference with assurance.
Encyclopedia.com is an online website that only presents information and facts that have gone through a verification process. The site uses sources like the World Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press, and Oxford University Press. You’ll have to suffer through a few pop up ads to use the site, but otherwise you can site their published works for your research papers without worrying that it’s incorrect (I’m talking to you Wikipedia). Site: [Encyclopedia.com]
MSN Encarta is another choice for an alternative to Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia. The setup is a little more navigational friendly than Encyclopedia.com. You can view encyclopedia articles by categories or type in a search to find information on a particular topic. However, make sure you log on before October 31 because Microsoft has decided to discontinue the offering. Site: [MSN Encarta]
Encyclopedia 2 is an application available for free through the Download.com website. This software contains information from more than 40 online encyclopedia reference sites. This is ideal for students that don’t feel like combing the web for different information on a particular research product. Site: [Download.com]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
LAS VEGAS -- About five months after HTC G1, the first Google Android operating system based device, made its debut, HTC is ready to roll out its second Android phone.
Called the HTC Magic/Sapphire, the phone will be released through service provider Vodafone in parts of Europe but recent FCC filings indicate it is likely to come to the U.S. soon with T-Mobile as the telecom carrier.
At the CTIA 2009 conference, we had a chance to briefly get hands on with the G2, though HTC didn't want to acknowledge the device with that moniker.
In terms of looks, the HTC Magic with Android OS looks very similar to the G1, except that it lacks a slide-out keyboard. Overall the phone feels slimmer and lighter than the G1 though it is unlikely to win any points for sleek design. The black finish is basic and the phone has the standard five-button configuration.
The HTC Magic will be the first Android phone without a keyboard. The G2's on-screen keyboard is fairly responsive though nowhere near the iPhone or Palm Pre quality.
The phone's main screen has icons for messaging, browser, maps, contacts and the Android market. Switching between contacts and browser seemed pretty smooth but overall our impression is that there is little to really make users go 'wow' when they see the device.
The HTC Magic will start retailing through Vodafone within the next three weeks, says HTC spokesperson Eric Lin.
Here's another picture of the phone
See also
HTC, Vodafone Show World's Second Googlephone
Photos: HTC Magic/G2 Priya Ganapati
Tool Guy D looks at the new Leatherman Freestyle multitool, scheduled for a May release. Inexplicably, it appears they've ditched the screwdriver, which might make it all thinner, but would seem to diminish the usefulness of a multitool quite a lot. The Freestyle and the Skeletool are certainly the coolest Leatherman tools out there, but it still seems the New Wave is the most multi of their multitools.
Bad news, you guys. Looks like after Google pulled all tethering apps from the Android Market, it had a change of heart and re-published them all. Problem is, the new terms of the tethering apps stipulate that they’ll only work for “all Android Market users outside the T-Mobile US network.”
Read the rest of this entry >>
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Section: Computers, Mobile Computers
NVIDIA has recently been taking great strides to diversify beyond just the graphics cards it’s known for. NVIDIA has been getting in a bit of trouble with Intel for all its expansion, but it seems willing to fight and lawsuits Intel will push out. Meanwhile NVIDIA is showing off its computer-on-a-chip system at CTIA.
The system, dubbed Tegra is designed to be used in Mobile Internet Devices, netbooks, or any other small devices (smartphones maybe?). NVIDIA is claiming the Tegra system will be able to handle 1080p video output over HDMI, using just a half watt of power. While not outputting HD video, the Tegra system uses so little power on standby that the device using Tegra will likely be able to run for days on standby.
To show off Tegra, NVIDIA had a mobile device with a custom OS that seems to borrow a bit of Android and Mac OS X as well as the chipset inside a gutted HP Mini. The Mini is said to have shown no difficulty with a 720p video, which is quite impressive. Though NVIDIA has promised 1080p, any sort of HD video takes a lot of power to process, and to do it on such a small chipset is quite surprising.
The Tegra system should be included in devices by the end of the year, with a possible mobile device from NVIDIA and an OEM at a $99 price point. There was no talk about who the OEM or the companies that will be releasing Tegra devices, though NVIDIA is saying it has a significant announcement to make at Computex Taipai in June about Tegra.
Read [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
What has this shown us? It makes it clear that simply adding extra features doesn’t work. Adding a 5MP camera is no more likely to topple the iPhone than adding an FM radio worked to beat the iPod. The reasons for the success of the iPhone are subtler and harder to see.
Here’s what the Pre needs to do to make a dent.
Be Fun to Use
Arguably, almost every cellphone before the iPhone was horrible to use, a monstrosity of hard-to-access features and bad UI decisions. Because every phone was as bad, the manufacturers got away with it. The Pre enters a post-iPhone world. The iPhone’s UI is not only easy and intuitive but a joy to use. Little tweaks, animations and subtle guides combine to make the iPhone fun to just play with.
The Pre’s wiggly strip, its un-intrusive pop-up notifications and its “card" metaphor are all good candidates for this. And when you see the “window-blind" expandable menus for the first time, I dare you not to crack a smile.
Applications
The iPhone is lacking in many features — just look at the reception that the addition of cut-and-paste got at the OS 3.0 announcement. But the beauty of the iPhone model is the App Store, which means developers can add almost any missing feature they like. Every smartphone can run third party applications, but Apple was the first company to make it so easy that it’s hard not to buy apps.
Palm needs to make sure the Pre has a store at least as good as the iTunes Store, and — unlike Apple — it doesn’t have the luxury of spending a year making it. The Pre needs to launch with a perfect, well stocked store to stand a chance. Pandora and Amazon have already signed up, so its off to a good start.
An Kick-Ass Ad Campaign
One of the secrets of Apple’s success is brand awareness. Nobody goes to the store to buy an “MP3 player"; they go to buy an iPod. And so the iPhone, too, isn’t seen to be the same as a phone. The iPhone exists in a category of its own.
To have a chance of really competing, rather than being a respectable also-ran, the Pre needs to become a household name, and to garner similar buzz to that surrounding Apple’s phone. This is starting with the tech blogs — we are almost universally excited by the Pre, but it needs to go mainstream. Other than the BlackBerry and the iPhone, name another handset that get regular coverage in regular news and newspapers.
One More Thing
While Palm shouldn’t try too hard to push the Pre as an iPhone competitor, it needs to have something to differentiate it from the Stupendabrick. And it has it — a keyboard. The iPhone is, like the iPod Touch, a mobile computer, a handheld pocket-box tht can do anything thanks to its very simple hardware design. The Pre is a phone, albeit a good one, and it has the keyboard to prove it.
For many, the lack of a hardware keyboard on the iPhone is a “deal-breaker". For them, the Pre might be just the thing, although with 30 million already sold, the iPhone/iPod Touch on-screen keys can’t be that bad.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired
See Also:
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers, Mobile Computers, Netbooks
Casual internet: a term that will define the younger generation that has access to the internet, not for business purposes, but when lounging. The iPhone allows this casual internet experience, but now, teleco carriers are moving to supply everyone that doesn’t have an iPhone with low cost netbooks. The New York Times says this is a force that will change PCs as we know them and to a point, I agree. But the Times is wrong about the impact.
You can’t swing a dead cat in Staples, Best Buy, or other computer purveyor without hitting a slew of netbooks. These darlings are just powerful enough to muster casual internet browsing but not a lot more. They are small, light, and cheap. There is a particular HP that calls to me every time I visit stores, but so far, I’ve resisted.
And that is just it: the carriers are now moving to make them irresistible. How? The Times reported AT&T is offering a netbook complete with a connectivity contract for data services so you can surf every and anywhere, for just $50. The move is afoot and we fully expect to see free netbooks with a service commitment. From the Times:
“This year, at least one wireless phone company in the United States will probably offer netbooks free with paid data plans, copying similar programs in Japan, according to industry experts.”
Free rules, so why am I at odds with the Times? In a word, phones. Lets take a quick look at 3 reasons why I believe netbooks are not going to catch on like the carriers hope:
The netbooks are only free for the hardware. Carriers are more than happy to have you pay them for connectivity services, something you already pay for via your mobile phone (assuming you have some kind of data plan). I don’t know about you, but the almost $50 a month in data charges is more than enough for me. With an iPhone, users are already paying for a a data connection (and a pretty expensive one at that). Adding another data stream doesn’t make sense for many of us.
Carting around even these small laptop-sized netbooks is nearly as convenient as just using a phone sized device. You can inconspicuously surf the net much easier on say a train with a phone vs. a netbook, not to mention in the bathroom (not that anyone is admitting to that).
Intel and Microsoft are named by the Times to be the biggest losers in this shift to netbooks. More open source devices are coming based on phone OSes and for what the netbook is aimed to do, that is about all it needs. More and more web apps, less native. You can bet Intel and MS will be working extra hard to tempt consumers to get something else besides a netbook.
Where netbooks may do well is just replacing the home computer. Most users don’t do much besides surfing the net anyhow and there are a lot of web apps to accomplish much of what can be done locally by a more powerful machine. So, instead of being oversold an expensive notebook or desktop, they end up undersold with a netbook. This will be an attractive option vs. buying a big computer, arranging for broadband, setting up a wireless network and being overwhelmed. This is where netbooks could thrive but will they be enough for users?
Surely the carriers don’t care, you just signed for 2-years. (Cue the evil, “muh huh ha ha haaaa”).
Source: [New York Times]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
It's not the sexiest thing you've ever seen, but this prototype of Nvidia's ION nettop platform shows its colors. Bristling with USB ports, audio jacks and eSata adapters, it wants to prove that performance can come in small packages.
How best to illustrate this? Nvidia goes for the only benchmark that matters: gaming!
NVIDIA ION graphics processors will power a new generation of smaller, greener, fully capable PCs. Consumers utilizing ION-based PCs will be able to make full use of some of the world’s most popular applications, such as Spore, Call of Duty 4, Google Earth, Adobe® Photoshop®, Cyberlink PowerDVD, LEGO: Batman, and Battlefield 2. ...“New affordable and powerful PC hardware like ION is going to change the landscape of PC gaming,” said Ben Cousins, executive producer at DICE, a division of Electronic Arts. “This new mass-market target audience is a perfect match for Battlefield Heroes.”
Nvidia promises "10x faster graphics" on its tiny form-factor systems than "similar systems," by which it means Pico- and Mini-ITX motherboards made by Via, and Intel's relentlessly dismal integrated video chips.
Its aim is perhaps to establish a new tier of popular gaming systems that match game console performance instead of greatly exceeding it. From a practical standpoint, this approach is more likely to facilitate a stable PC gaming market than high-end plug-in video cards that only geeks buy.
World's Leading Software Companies Rally Around NVIDIA ION [Nvidia]
Sony's HDR-TG5 is smaller than a Sanyo Xacti of any stripe, but offers 1080p AVCHD video, 10x optical zoom, 16GB of built-in storage and built-in GPS, so everything you shoot is geo-tagged.
It costs $1,200, of course.
Sony's tiny HD camcorder geotags, for a price [CNET]
There is a site up that finds testable predictions and grades them at the moment of truth. The records of our nearest and dearest are not great: Robert Scoble and Dave Winer, it transpires, are merely writers of extraordinarily mundane science fiction. [Wrong Tomorrow]
David Benatan works for a design outfit in Tel Aviv, where he makes lamps out of pipes. You even turn them on and off using faucets!
Kozo lamps by David Banatan {Dezeen]
No state agency may buy or use Windows Vista without a special dispensation, effectively banning it from government use. [Consumerist]
Windows Live may seem like a failure in the eyes of many a TechCrunch reader, but there are a number of services that continue to thrive within the scope of a vast, mainstream audience. Hence it's worth noting that Microsoft has released a new application for Windows Mobile devices that encompasses a slew of Live services used by dozens of millions of people every day.
The new version (v10.06.0046.0800) of the Windows Live For Windows Mobile client, which is evidently free of charge, includes mobile versions of Windows Live Hotmail (works with both both pull and push sync), Windows Live Messenger (finally!), Windows Live Contacts, Windows Live Spaces, Microsoft Live Search and enhanced photo upload capabilities. The app comes in a Pro version for touch-enabled devices and a Standard version for non-touch phones, and is available in 25 languages.
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