VisionChina Media to Report First Quarter 2009 Financial Results on April 28, 2009

Sharp follows Sony’s Vaio P with a Mebius UMPC, copies Sony’s promotion campaign

Remember Sony’s Vaio P ultra-mobile PC? Remember their American and Japanese PR campaign for it, with Sony being all vague and secretive about the device for weeks? It seems that Sharp remembers it very well, as they obviously try to “adopt” this strategy for their up and coming Mebius netbook [JP].

Technical details are more than scarce at this point. All that Sharp reveals at the moment is a top-down view of a black netbook. The writing in the pink bubble (on the left) says “2009 - You will change - The Mebius will change” in English (whatever that means).

Sharp will release more (relevant) information on the new Mebius next week. Let’s just hope that Sharp’s promotion campaign doesn’t end like Sony’s.

Interactive Anti-Abuse Games - 'Missing' Teaches Kids About Online Predators

Largest pop music archive puts catalog online

Source: Gizmodo | 15 Apr 2009 | 9:20 am

Curved Laser Beams Could Help Tame Lightning

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Comptel Wins Best Service Fulfillment Solution Award

Biamp Systems Confirms Injunction Order Does Not Affect Its Current Products, Services or Technologies

When Google Latitude Stalking Isnt Such A Bad Thing

When Google Latitude Stalking Isn’t Such A Bad Thing

Yesterday, Silicon Valley’s local CBS affiliate ran a story (video here) about a woman getting her purse snatched. But what’s interesting is the way she got it back: With an assist from Google Latitude.

You see, in her purse, her phone had Google’s location-based social networking service installed, and it was updating the location of her phone in real-time. So even though the thief hopped in a car, when the girl called her sister, she was able to tell police exactly where the criminal was. They arrested the man and got the girl’s purse back.

It’s worth noting that the woman said she had the service running on her phone “as a joke,” so that she and her sisters could “stalk each other.” And that’s interesting because ever since it launched a few months ago, jokes have abounded about it being a tool for stalking. But at the same time, the program had a user base of over a million users just one week after it launched. People are clearly interested in using location data in social services, but it’s usually only negative connotations that are associated with stories about it. Here’s a positive one, but it still has some negative undertones.

After all, if the girl’s sister knew exactly where the phone was, that means Google did too. Of course, Google has a policy not to share that information, but if push came to shove, and the authorities got the right warrant, Google would have to give up such information. Hopefully, you’re not a criminal — and if you are, hopefully you’re smart enough not to use Google Latitude — but it’s still a bit creepy for most people to know that a company has data about where they are at all times. And Google is hardly the only one of these services, everything from Loopt to Whrrl to Brightkite all have varying degrees of information as to your whereabouts if you use them.

Location-based services have yet to take off on a large scale, but with Google now in the field, and major players like Facebook and MySpace undoubtedly looking at entering it, it’s only a matter of time. And when those huge social networks get into the game, there will be some initial backlash, but then people will start using it. (It may even complement other future lost purse stories.) And slowly, users will let the privacy ramifications fade into the background unless some sort of location-based horror story makes headlines.

I, for one, welcome a future with ubiquitous location services in the social layer. Because there are upsides to location as well. This purse snatching incident is a bit extreme, but using location to find friends close by on a service like FourSquare, which I’ve been using for several weeks now, also speaks well to its potential.

I really wish I could embed the CBS clip here, but they apparently don’t believe in embeds. Instead, I’ll just link to it again and tell you to watch for the reporter reenacting the robbery like a foppish dandy, and point out the ridiculousness captured in my screenshot above. It looks like the reporter asked the woman to hold her phone up to her ear while giving the interview to appear as if she’s somehow using Google Latitude at the same time. As if just because Google Latitude is a service for phones, you have to somehow use the voice functionality of a phone to interact with it. Oh, old media…

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Swedes files their taxes by SMS

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One: Yahoo Management and Staff Set on Shuffle Again [BoomTown]

Yes, more layoffs are indeed coming to Yahoo, sources confirmed to BoomTown, but perhaps even more than have been reported.

But that’s not all, as even more top-level managers are either leaving or being moved around the ever-changing organizational structure at Yahoo (YHOO).

That includes a longtime top sales operations exec, Dan Foehner, who is about to start at Facebook next week, as well as others either contemplating leaving, are on their way out or are being reshuffled.

In other words, business as usual at the tumultuous company whose nickname should be “Reorg.”

First, the layoffs, which the New York Times was to first report yesterday would be announced Tuesday (side note to Damon–this is how you link to scoops) during Yahoo’s first-quarter earnings call and could impact several hundred employees.

The quarterly results are expected to be weak by most analysts, which is why more layoffs–which had been mentioned by the company as a possibility–are an obvious move.

But several internal sources said Yahoo staff is bracing for employee departures that might to be even higher, as many as 500 or more.

That could mean a complete lopping off or sale of various business units that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz has been evaluating since she arrived in January.

Why? Well, several employees said they were told the new round of cuts will not actually take place until June and that Yahoo HR is now preparing to follow the rules required by the “Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act.”

Under the complex federal guidelines, Yahoo must provide a written WARN notice to affected employees, “at least 60 calendar days in advance of covered plant closings and mass layoffs.” WARN notices are triggered for a variety of reasons, although a smaller number of layoffs across many units typically does not require it.

A WARN notice is required, for example, when an employer shuts down a facility or operating unit within a single site of employment and lays off at least 50 full-time workers, as well as when an employer lays off 500 or more full-time workers at a single site of employment.

In its last two layoffs, Yahoo issued WARN notices and slashed about 2,500 jobs in total last year, leaving it with about 13,600 employees worldwide at the end of 2008.

But some of Yahoo managers are still leaving on their own.

Many top engineers, for example, have taken jobs of late at Microsoft (MSFT), after the software giant installed a Yahoo tech star, Qi Lu, as its top online exec.

And, BoomTown reported earlier, there have also been numerous departures of key staff recently, including: PR head Jill Nash, Zimbra founder Satish Dharmaraj and soon, high-ranking techie Venkat Panchapakesan.

And more still, it seems.

Yahoo’s VP of Sales Operations Foehner, for example, is headed out after a long stint at the company, and is going to Facebook, said several sources inside and outside the company.

On Foehner’s Twitter page, he tweets about a new unnamed job, as well as an athletic endeavor (Foehner is a dedicated triathlete): “back in pleasanton. starting bike adventure on thurs. start new gig on monday. 9 weeks til CdA!”

There is also a lot more movement inside Yahoo too, as the reorganization done by Bartz in February shakes out.

Typical of this is Mike Walrath, the high-profile former CEO of Right Media, an online ad exchange snapped up by Yahoo for $720 million in 2007, who is now an advertising-focused SVP at Yahoo.

Now, Walrath is moving out from under the purview of Yahoo North America EVP Hilary Schneider and will report to Ari Balogh, EVP of Products and CTO, as all search products seem to be rolling up through his organization. (Both Balogh and Schneider are pictured here.)

While there are other key execs at Yahoo–see this drastically downsized Yahoo management page, which used to be a lot longer–Balogh and Schneider have roughly split the company into two parts, product and engineering for Balogh and the bulk of the content and advertising businesses under Schneider.

Bartz is at the top, of course, and moving parts is not a complete surprise, said one exec, as she gets more control of the company.

“The last reorg was a blunt instrument, so now she is starting to surgically move people around or even out, after seeing what staff can and can’t do and what fat there still is,” said one exec close to the situation.

That’s no small comfort to Yahoo’s reorg-and-layoff-weary staff, especially at its Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ in the heart of Silicon Valley.

When Bartz announced her big reorganization in late February, she declared a moratorium to the endless reorganizations that had plagued the company’s troops for far too many years.

Wrote Bartz in an email to Yahoo employees, about her new management lineup:

“I know you guys have reorg fatigue. Hang in there–our intention is to leave this structure in place for two to four years. We’ll continue to make adjustments as needed, but we expect this core structure to stay put.”

Perhaps the core is still solid, but a lot is still quite undefined at Yahoo, as it seeks to right its shaky fortunes.

iSkoot Notifier Goes International

iSkoot’s Notifier product takes some of the most popular social services on the web, and puts in a format that’s easy to read on average phones. By “average” I don’t mean smartphones, because remember, most of the world still does not have those. Today, iSkoot is taking the Notifier product international thanks to a deal with German carrier E-Plus.

While it’s certainly no App Store (or even App World, App Catalog, Market or Windows Marketplace for Mobile), if you visit E-Plus’ beta2go site, you’ll be able to find and download iSkoot’s Notifier application. And iSkoot is offering the product for free to the first 500 TechCrunch readers that visit the site and get the app.

Back in Feburary, iSkoot launched its Kalaida Platform, which extended the service’s reach to places like Facebook and Twitter. In March, the company opened the platform to OEMs allowing manufacturer’s to offer the service on handsets right out of the box. This is potentially very useful to the million of cellphone users out there who want to use their phones to access services like Facebook, but don’t have a phone necessarily tailored to do so.

See the product in action in the video below:

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

Socializr ‘Event Connect’ Looks To Be Your Comprehensive Social Calendar

Socializr, an Evite competitor that allows users to coordinate party planning and invitations, is launching a new product today called ‘Event Connect’ that allows users to aggregate and respond to all of their events from sites like Facebook, Meetup, MySpace, and Evite in one place.

The site has integrated with each of these social networks/event sites using services like Facebook Connect, allowing users to see available events that they’ve been invited to, as well as the events their friends are attending. Each of the sites that Socializr taps into has different degrees of support when it comes to friends and photo sharing, so some options won’t always be available.

Because the site can showcase both the events you’re attending and those being attended by your friends, things can get crowded quickly. So Event Connect also features a number of filters, allowing you to specify at what thresholds you’d like an event to appear on your radar (for example, I can specify that I only want to view events being attended by five or more of my friends). Event Connect can also pull photos from multiple sources, like Flickr and Picasa, and display them side by side. Finally, the service makes it easy to send invitations to an event across multiple social networks, like Facebook and MySpace, at the same time.

Socializr’s Event Connect sounds like a solid idea, especially for users who have their event invitations scattered across a half dozen social networks and Evite-like services. But it’s still another pseudo-social network that I’ll have to keep tabs on - I’d much rather get a weekly digest in my inbox letting me know which events are coming up rather than have to keep revisiting the site.

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

Wanted: Wolfman to holler at tourists on a New Hampshire steam train

The new Wolfie, as he is affectionately known, must be over 18, be willing to grow a beard and eschew soap, and work up to 48 hours a week for $12 an hour.

The Wolfman, for the uninitiated, is one of Clark's Trading Posts most unique attractions, aside from, of course, the trained bear shows, which celebrate their 60th anniversary this summer.

During the daily steam train rides aboard the White Mountain Central Railroad, it's the Wolfman's job to scare the beejeebees out of the passengers, whom he believes are trying to jump his precious Unobtainium claim. He bursts out of the woods driving an ancient automobile, sets off firecrackers and yells at passengers to go home.

On the return journey, passengers have learned that to send the Wolfman back into the woods, they have to shout back "Scram you old goat!"

Boston College Campus Police: “Using Prompt Commands” May Be a Sign of Criminal Activity [Voices]

On Friday, EFF and the law firm of Fish and Richardson filed an emergency motion to quash [pdf] and for the return of seized property on behalf of a Boston College computer science student whose computers, cell phone, and other property were seized as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. The problem? Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the investigating officer argued that the computer expertise of the student itself supported a finding of probable cause to seize the student’s property.

Read the rest of this post

Activist Charged for Inciting ‘Twitter Revolution’ (Updated) [Voices]

A Moldovan activist faces criminal charges for organizing demonstrations that were enabled by social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, the Russian press reports.

In an interview with Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, Moldovan Prosecutor General Valeriu Gurbulea said Natalia Morar, one of the organizers of an anti-Communist flash mob, has been officially charged with “calls for organizing and staging mass disturbances.” (Morar has not been put in jail, however–despite some reports to the contrary.)

Prosecutors, Gurbulea added, were contemplating charges against another 200 people he described as being involved in an attempt to overthrow the government in Moldova’s so-called “Twitter Revolution.”

Read the rest of this post

Techmeme Founder: WSJ, NYT Are Aggregators [Voices]

Techmeme is one of the sites that Robert Thomson, managing editor of the The Wall Street Journal, presumably thinks is a “parasite” or “tech tapeworm in the intestines of the Internet.”

The Web site aggregates links to stories. Along with the links is a short description of the news. Thomson and others in the newspaper industry say it’s unfair and unlawful for Web sites to profit from their content without compensating them. On the same day that Thomson made his comments, William Dean Singleton, chairman of the The Associated Press, sized up how many in print journalism feel about sites that aggregate news: “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore.”

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Today on Offworld

BBB: YouTube Acting as a Vector For Ponzi schemes [Voices]

Just as Nigerian 419 scams have adapted to the Internet age, so have Ponzi schemes. Also known as pyramid schemes, these types of scams have flourished online—particularly on YouTube (GOOG), where the Better Business Bureau says there are almost 23,000 (and growing) Ponzi scheme videos. Because of the apparent growth in this type of scam, the BBB last week put out a warning telling consumers to avoid the temptation, and to learn how to recognize the warning signs.

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AOL Appeals To Users To Visit Propeller Again

AOL’s Propeller launched in 2006 as a “Digg Killer” - a Digg like site with editorial oversight that had massive netscape.com traffic directed to it. All those Netscape users were used to seeing a standard news page, though, and didn’t quite know what to do at the new site.

A variety of changes were made over time, including paying news submitters to lure them from Digg, changing the name to Propeller.com, and occasional layoffs. They even added a mascot. But nothing has stopped the decline of the site, and now AOL is appealing to previous users to come and give it another try.

A year ago 4.6 million people a month visited the site (Comscore worldwide). Now its 2.1 million, more than a 50% decline in unique visitors. Page views have also dropped by 50%, to just 6 million/month. Revenue is likely in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars per month at best, meaning that it is almost certainly costing AOL money to keep the lights on at the site.

It’s pretty clear that Propeller is a candidate to enter the deadpool, although the upside is the people working on it could go to more interesting projects at AOL. But they’re not giving up just yet. In an email to registered users who haven’t signed in recently (that would be me), Propeller General Manager Tom Drapeau said:

Hello–

We at Propeller have noticed that while you have an active account with us, we haven’t seen you for a while. This e-mail is being sent to encourage you to come pay us a return visit, with the hope that you will consider making Propeller a part of your daily news consumption.

Over the past several months, we have greatly improved the experience at Propeller. We have added a member comment page and a Groups directory, added several RSS feeds, comment detail pages, greatly improved the homepage, added story sharing, member blocks, and improved the story submission process, allowing for images to be picked for stories.

We have also spent a considerable amount of time improving Propeller’s performance, the end result of which is a more functional, better looking and better performing site.

Propeller remains a news community with a strong politics and current events influence, where many different political views are heard and oftentimes spur substantive discussion on topics such as President Barack Obama, his first 100 days, and his domestic and foreign agendas. We also have our share of fun, with jokes, satire and YouTube videos populating our Humor category, as well as compelling submissions in our Arts & Entertainment, Business & Finance, Science & Technology, Religion, Style, Health & Fitness, Family and Sports categories.

We understand that you might have signed up on Propeller, only to have life events conspire against your time for online news reading. We especially understand given the current hard economic times. We are asking you to take a few minutes and pay us a visit. If Propeller isn’t to your liking, and you would like to tell us why, please leave your feedback here–it is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
Tom Drapeau
GM, Propeller.com

I have my doubts as to whether this’ll lead to a spike in unique visitors next month, but it shows they still have some fight in them. Good luck, Tom. I hope our next post on Propeller is something more positive.

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

Twitter and a History of Technology and Communications [Voices]

First, a bit of a prelude. Probably 15 years ago, I was talking to someone who did marketing for a high end bike manufacturer. He was telling me about the amount of money the company was spending to really understand what their core customers (and their competitors’ core customers) were looking for in a bike…what did they really, really want? I pointed him to USENET group formed and populated by people passionate about bikes. “They are doing your research for you,” I said. My point was that technology now allowed people who were passionate about a product or category to form communities to explore and communicate about that love–and that smart companies should be looking to technology to better understand that bleeding edge customer.

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Daily Crunch: Get Gadget Edition

Rubik’s Cube salt and pepper shakers for some nice dinnertime frustration
Own your own Steve Jobs plushie
We at CrunchGear salute Newsoap!
Rotating cubic memory card reader
Will consumers line up for iPhone ]I[?

China puts satellite in orbit

YOUAND.ME - the Safest and Most Secure Free Dating Site

Today on Offworld

Today on Offworld, we played Scarygirl, the just-released new platformer game based on illustrator and designer toy maker Nathan J's exquisitely designed world and characters, which, pleasantly enough, turned out to be one of the richest web-game experiences in recent memory.

We also learned that Through the Looking Glass -- the first and only game ever first-party Apple developed and published for the Mac -- had been brought to the iPhone as AliceX by its original developer, Steve Capps (who would go on to help develop the first version of the Finder).

Elsewhere we saw Sony taking on a new strategy of selling digital-download-only PSP games at retail by providing little more than a box and a download code, read how game developers and porn stars are alike, saw the 13 oddest developments in the history of the Game Boy, and found out that the new PC release of Xbox Live Arcade favorite Braid comes with a full level editor.

We also learned more about the "feverish bad crazy" at the heart of EVE Online, took a longer look at iPhone space combat game Galaxy on Fire, listened to our favorite loopy lonely computer song, wondered if a game based on the attack in Fallujah was "too soon," started reading a new blog dedicated to the art of the pixel, and, wonderfully, found an 8-bit heart meter T-shirt that only refills when it's close to its mate.

CW-11 news claims clip of them airing YouTube prank infringes copyright

So, naturally, CW11 sent a copyright notice to YouTube saying that the video infringed their copyright.

CW 11 News Falls for Fake Improv Everywhere April Fool's Mission - video powered by Metacafe

Tonight I got a copyright notice from YouTube informing me that Tribune (the parent company of the CW 11) had filed a copyright claim against the video and that it had been removed. Clearly they want this embarrassment off of the Internets. What's more interesting is the fact that their original broadcast used our content without permission. They simply put "YOUTUBE" on the screen to indicate that's where they found the video. So it's OK for them to air content that we shot and own, but it's not OK for me to upload their footage of the content they took from me? It's "fair use" for the news to take a video off of YouTube and broadcast it, but it's not "fair use" for a citizen to expose their poor reporting on his own content? CW 11 Files Copyright Claim (Thanks, Jim!)


Source: Boing Boing | 15 Apr 2009 | 6:27 am

World of Warcraft 3.1 Patch Brings Dual-Specs, New Raid

On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2009 | 6:07 am

Tetris furniture

Brazilian designers Diego Silvério and Helder Filipov created this stacking Tetris furniture -- the tricky part is getting your spouse to slowly lower it, piece by piece, from the ceiling.

Tetris Furniture (via Neatorama)

Previously:

• Hi-rez Tetris after two weeks - Boing Boing
• Working GameBoy costume with playable Tetris-torso -- Boing Boing ...
• 3D Tetris in Flash - Boing Boing
• HOWTO Make Tetris brownies - Boing Boing
• Tetris cosplayers in parking-lot brawl - Boing Boing
• HOWTO make Tetris ice-cubes - Boing Boing
• Mac tetris game killed by The Tetris Company - Boing Boing

Source: Gizmodo | 15 Apr 2009 | 5:30 am

New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and activists

Michael Geist sez, "The World Intellectual Property Organization may be best known for the Internet treaties that led to the DMCA, but in recent years groups like EFF, KEI, and Public Knowledge has helped to open things up and move toward a Development Agenda that better balances international intellectual property policy. That progress may be threatened by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which officials now acknowledge is designed to exclude WIPO, developing countries, and NGOs."

Moreover, the criminal provisions go well beyond clear cases of commercial infringement by including criminal sanctions such as potential imprisonment for "significant wilful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain."

Jail time for non-commercial infringement will generate considerable opposition, but it is the internet provisions that are likely to prove to be the most controversial. At the December meeting in Paris, the US submitted a "non-paper" that discussed internet copyright provisions, liability for internet service providers, and legal protection for digital locks.

While the substance of the treaty will remain fodder for much debate, Canadian officials recently hosted a public consultation during which they acknowledged the true motivation behind the ACTA. Senior officials stated that there were really two reasons for the treaty. The first, unsurprisingly, was concerns over counterfeiting. The second was the perceived stalemate at WIPO, where the growing emphasis on the Development Agenda and the heightened participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations have stymied attempts by countries such as the United States to bull their way toward new treaties with little resistance.

Given the challenge of obtaining multilateral consensus at WIPO, the ACTA negotiating partners have instead opted for a plurilateral approach that circumvents possible opposition from developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina, India, Russia, or China. There have been hints of this in the past - an EU FAQ [frequently asked questions] document noted that "the membership and priorities of those organisations [G8, WTO, WIPO] simply are not the most conducive" to an ACTA-like initiative - yet the willingness to now state publicly what has been only speculated privately sends a shot across the bow for WIPO and the countries that support its commitment to multilateral policymaking.

The ACTA Threat To The Future Of WIPO


Source: Boing Boing | 15 Apr 2009 | 5:17 am

Google Profiles Take An Important Social Step With Vanity URLs

The problem with Google’s movement towards becoming more of a social entity is that it lacks one cohesive place to tie everything together. YouTube has social elements, Picasa has social elements, even Google Maps has social elements, but Google lacks this singular area — like a Facebook profile page — where all of this information can reside and be easily seen. But actually, it has such an area, Google Profiles — but no one really seems to talk about it, because it hasn’t been terribly useful, and it’s hard to find. But Google is now making it quite a bit easier to find.

The service now has an option to use vanity URLs for your profile page, as the blog Digital Inspiration found. This means that rather than having a page located at http://www.google.com/s2/profiles/3223lkn23lkn or some nonsense, it now can reside at http://www.google.com/profiles/YOURGMAILNAME. If you have a Gmail or Picasa account, the URL will feature the user name you chose for those. Otherwise, you can pick a name as long as it’s not taken by another Gmail/Picasa account.

This vanity layer helps these profiles not only be more user-friendly for sharing, but it will undoubtedly help them show up more often in actual Google Searches. And the ability to search these profiles is clearly important to Google. Back in November of last year, it added search functionality to the Google Profiles area. Still, it seemed like few used it. A few weeks later it rolled out a few other improvements to Profiles, including the ability to pipe in picture feeds and have thumbnails show up. But still, the moves went largely unnoticed.

But Google is clearly trying to build these profiles up as an area you go to to find social information about someone. And it’s not just tied to Google products, as Flickr photos can be piped into these profiles, for example. Google looks to be essentially creating a de-facto social network profile page, without having an actual social network around it. Apparently, Google, and all its services, are the social network.

Vanity URLs came up recently when we reported that Facebook was finally getting serious about using them. Unfortunately, it is still only for its Pages area, where celebrities and other people of note can get them, but regular users are still stuck with the http://facebook.com/profile=02938042039840 nonsense.

Go claim your Google Profile vanity URL now here.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:43 am

Measles outbreak tracked in Maryland

Health officials in Maryland say four people have been diagnosed with measles in the state's first outbreak since 2001. Three of the four cases are linked to a Montgomery County man who contracted measles outside the United States in February, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Health officials said most recent measles outbreaks occur in foreign-born residents who have never been immunized.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:18 am

Gore backs stem cell venture

Former U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:16 am

Next version of Microsoft Office coming in 2010 (AP)

AP - Microsoft Corp.'s next version of its Office desktop programs will reach consumers next year, though not likely in conjunction with the Windows 7 operating system.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:07 am

Hackers grabbed more than 285M records in 2008 (AP)

AP - Hackers made off with at least 285 million electronic records in 2008, more than in the four previous years combined, according to a new study that shows identity thieves are getting better at exploiting careless mistakes that leave companies vulnerable to attack.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:05 am

Intel shares slip despite bullish PC prediction (AP)

AP - Investors don't seem to totally buy Intel Corp.'s proclamation that slumping personal computer sales have "bottomed out."

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:04 am

Yahoo plans first major layoffs under new CEO (AP)

AP - Yahoo Inc. is gearing up for its third round of mass layoffs in 14 months, signaling the long-slumping Internet company is still struggling to snap out of its financial malaise under a new leadership team.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:01 am

Deleted Data Drives New Data Breaches (PC World)

PC World - According to a new report on data breaches from Verizon Business, cyber criminals are no longer attacking where the credit card files are, but where they once were. "Criminals are borrowing from digital forensics tools," said Bryan Sartan, director of investigative response for Verizon Business Security Solutions.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:01 am

TSMC Adopts Jordan Valley JVX 6200 for Copper Layer Metrology

MIGDAL HA'EMEK, ISRAEL, April 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Jordan Valley Semiconductors LTD, a provider of semiconductor metrology solutions, announced today that TSMC (TAIEX: 2330, NYSE: TSM), the world's largest dedicated semiconductor foundry, has selected JVX 6200 X-ray metrology tool for measuring the thickness of thin film copper layers in TSMC.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:01 am

Verizon Business 2009 Data Breach Study Finds Significant Rise in Targeted Attacks, Organized Crime Involvement

Financial Industry Accounts for 93 Percent of 285 Million Compromised Records; Most Breaches Avoidable if Proper Precautions Taken

Source: Gizmodo | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:01 am

Mobile Music: Band Geeks Play iPhones, Not Instruments

Once upon a time, orchestras required instruments. Then computers reproduced the sounds of symphonies. Now, band geeks are playing iPhones.

Stanford University's newest ensemble is called , short for Mobile Phone Orchestra. Its conductor, Ge Wang, is a veteran of Princeton's Laptop Orchestra (see issue 14.04) and is obsessed with making electronic music as mobile as possible. "The iPhone holds a lot of potential for what kind of music can be made and how it can be made," Wang says.

MoPhO plays mostly improvisational pieces using an app that Wang built (and hopes to make public soon). Each player touches a button onscreen to select a tone, then tilts, twists, or shakes the mobile phone to change pitch and timbre. The group also performs chamber music and pop covers using one of his other apps, Ocarina (available from iTunes), which turns the iPhone into the 12,000-year-old wind instrument.

In MoPhO's first show at January's Macworld, 10 iPhone players rocked the intro to "Stairway to Heaven" wearing fingerless gloves with Altec Lansing Orbit speakers sewn in.* Wang envisions a day when they'll perform dressed in speakers from head to toe.

* Suggested songs for future concerts: "Apple of My Eye," "Call Me," "867-5309/Jenny," "Can I Get Your Number"

Stanford assistant professor and entrepreneur, Ge Wang makes music with a mobile phone orchestra and iPhone ocarina.

Ge Wang's presentation at eComm on March 4, 2009 demonstrates how mobile phones have become much more than simply "miniature computers." Wang explores the iPhone as a unique platform for creating new expressive, social mediums.

For more from FORA.tv, visit wired.com/video.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

April 15, 1726: Apple Doesn't Fall Far From Physicist

1726: Isaac Newton tells a biographer the story of how an apple falling in his garden prompted him to develop his law of universal gravitation. It will become an enduring origin story in the annals of science, and it may even be true.

Newton was apparently fond of telling the tale, but written sources do not reveal a specific date for the fabled fruitfall. We do know that on this day in 1726, William Stukeley talked with Newton in the London borough of Kensington, and Newton told him how, many years before, the idea had occurred to him.

As recounted in Stukeley's Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life:

It was occasioned by the fall of an apple, as he sat in contemplative mood. Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to himself. Why should it not go sideways or upwards, but constantly to the earth's centre.

Newton (like Ben Franklin and his kite more than a century later) may have indulged in some self-mythologizing here. Surely, the puzzle was not that things fell down rather than sideways. Isn't that what the concepts "fall" and "down" are about?

Newton's breakthrough was not that things fell down, but that the force that made them fall extended upward infinitely (reduced by the square of the distance), that the force exists between any two masses, and that the same force that makes an apple fall holds the moon and planets in their courses.

John Conduitt, Newton's assistant at the Royal Mint (and also his nephew-in-law), tells the story this way:

In the year [1666] he retired again from Cambridge on account of the plague to his mother in Lincolnshire & whilst he was musing in a garden it came into his thought that the same power of gravity (which made an apple fall from the tree to the ground) was not limited to a certain distance from the earth but must extend much farther than was usually thought — Why not as high as the Moon said he to himself & if so that must influence her motion & perhaps retain her in her orbit, whereupon he fell a calculating what would be the effect of that supposition but being absent from books & taking the common estimate in use among Geographers & our sea men before Norwood had measured the earth, that 60 English miles were contained in one degree of latitude his computation did not agree with his Theory & inclined him then to entertain a notion that together with the power of gravity there might be a mixture of that force which the moon would have if it was carried along in a vortex, but when the Tract of Picard of the measure of the earth came out shewing that a degree was about 69½ English miles, He began his calculation a new & found it perfectly agreeable to his Theory.

A much finer tale: It shows one of the great minds of the millennium entertaining proper scientific doubt about his hypothesis, before better measurement and better data ultimately provide confirmation.

Voltaire also wrote of the event in 1727, the year Newton died: "Sir Isaac Newton walking in his gardens, had the first thought of his system of gravitation, upon seeing an apple falling from a tree."

Note that no one, from Newton on down (so to speak) claims the apple bopped him on the bean. Makes a good cartoon, sure, but such an event, if it happened, might have set the guy speculating instead on why — and how — pain hurts.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

Report From Antarctica: Geoengineering on the High Seas

The infamous Drake Passage that separates Antarctica from South America is high in nutrients, except for iron. That makes it a tempting place for experiments to see if seeding with iron can increase plankton growth and consequently pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

PIN Crackers Nab Holy Grail of Bank-Card Security

Cyberthieves have seized on new, sophisticated hacking techniques to bypass the encryption of bank-card Personal Identification Numbers (PINs), a new report says. The revelation could explain the millions of dollars lost in previously mysterious ATM frauds across America.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

SoundCloud Raises €2.5 Million For Professional Music Collaboration Hub

SoundCloud, an audio sharing site geared towards music professionals, has closed a €2.5 million (around $3.3 million) funding round led by Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures. As part of the deal, Stefan Tirtey of Doughty Hanson will join the company’s board of directors.

We last covered SoundCloud in October, when the site launched in a private beta. Since then it has opened to the public, and now claims 100,000 registered members. The site’s primary function is to help musicians, producers, and other professionals in the music industry share and collaborate around music tracks. These tracks tend to be quite large in size, which makes them difficult to transfer (typically musicians would be forced to resort to FTP or services like YouSendIt, which are hardly ideal for frequent music swapping).

SoundCloud solves this issue, allowing members to swap files without having to download them to listen (you can stream them straight from the SoundCloud servers). Musicians can also optionally allow their peers to download their tracks, and can use the site’s analytics to see who has listened to them. The site also offers an embeddable music player that musicians can distribute across the web (example below) which allows users to leave a comment directly on a portion of a song (for example, I could append a comment in the song’s timeline stating that I liked a certain guitar solo).

Rock Your Body (alex dogmatic remix) by Alex

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Apr 2009 | 3:43 am

Mexican Government To Document Cell Phone Use

Alyssey writes "The Mexican government wants to have a database to track every cellphone number in the country (in Spanish, Google translation) and whom it belongs to. They want to tie in the CURP (Unique Registration Population Code in Spanish, like the Social Security Number in the US) with cellphone numbers. If Mexicans don't send in their number and CURP via SMS before April 10, 2010, their cellphone number will be blocked. The new law was published back in February and is going into effect now."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:43 am

Twitter Fight! Larry King To Kutcher: CNN Will Bury You

“Do you know how big we are? Do you know what CNN is?!” Them fightin’ words — from longtime CNN host Larry King to Ashton Kutcher. King sent out the YouTube video (below) responding to the challenge Kutcher laid out yesterday to beat CNN to become the first Twitter user with a million followers.

So far, it’s not working all that well for Kutcher. He is gaining followers at a remarkable rate — he now has over 870,000 followers — yesterday he had under 850,000. But CNN is gaining them just as quickly. Yesterday they stood just above 900,000 and now they’re just under 930,000. So Kutcher has stepped up his game slightly, offering Guitar Hero to the person who is his millionth follower. Come on Ashton, you can do better than that.

King, meanwhile, promises to take on any challenge Kutcher throws his way. He notes, “I’ll go on your…Twitter — or whatever it is you do.” But he corrects Kutcher that Ted Turner (the subject of Kutcher’s throw down yesterday) doesn’t actually run CNN anymore. But, he notes that Turner is likely to accept an offer to meet Kutcher face to face on Larry King’s show to discuss the feud.

So what does everyone think — has Twitter officially jumped the shark now? Larry King is offering to devote a show to a fake race to a million followers — a good majority of which are probably spammers or fake accounts — on a service that sends 140 character messages. It’s nice to see all these big time names using the same services we all use, but come on guys, surely there’s some real news going on out there (which I fully expect will be echoed about us in the comments of this post — beat you to it!).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:26 am

Flat keyboard for medical environments features faux-3D keys

I’m surprised that it’s taken this long for one of these flat, easily washable keyboards to be clearly aimed at the medical establishment, not just in marketing but in design. The Medigenic Infection-control keyboard (catchy) is totally flat, and only appears to have a three-dimensional surface. This means it’s super easy to wipe down after some patient yaks all over it, or an infected monkey sneezes on it. It even comes with a mouse that has no exposed cracks where bacteria and the like can make their home.

There’s even a dedicated “wipe” key, which you hit before you clean the pus off the sucker. This is a great idea, although I doubt that the flatness enhances typing ability. For the long reports you’ll need to write about that fascinating mutation you-know-who exhibits, you’ll want to use your office computer.

[Medgadget via OhGizmo]

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:11 am

March ComScore Search Numbers Offer A Sign Of Hope For Google

ComScore released its search market share numbers tonight for March, 2009 and the first quarter. After a dip in February, the number of searches done in the U.S. on Google and the other top search engines recovered in March. ComScore estimates there were 9.125 billion searches done on Google last month, up 11 percent from February. That growth outpaced the growth at the other search engines (Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, and Ask), resulting in Google gaining half a percentage point in market share to 63.7 percent.

On an annual basis, Google’s core U.S. search volume was up 41.7 percent for the month of March and 40.6 percent for the quarter. That exceeds Yahoo’s 25.5 percent annual growth for the quarter and Microsoft’s 13.9 percent growth.

ComScore’s estimates only cover domestic core search, and often don’t correlate directly with what Google itself reports, but if Google is seeing search volume re-accelerate that could mitiagte some of the other factors contributing to what analysts expect to be a bad quarter.

Here are the figures for growth in the quarter, the month, and total market share (courtesy of J.P. Morgan):

Y/Y Growth In Core U.S. Search Queries, Q1 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)

Google	40.6%
Yahoo	25.2%
Microsoft	13.9%
Ask	10.6%
AOL	2.1%

Y/Y Growth In Core U.S. Search Queries, March 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)

Google	41.7%
Yahoo	28.0%
Microsoft	17.7%
Ask	8.6%
AOL	1.5%

U.S. Core Search Share, March 2009 (Source: comScore qSearch)

Google	63.7%	+0.5% m/m	+3.9% y.y
Yahoo	20.5%	-0.1% m/m	-0.8% y/y
Microsoft	8.3%	+0.1% m/m	-1.1% y/y
AOL	3.7%	-0.2% m/m	-1.1 y/y
Ask	3.8%	-0.3% m/m	-0.9% y/y

CrunchBase Information

Google

Information provided by CrunchBase

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:09 am

An Embarrassed Warner Music Regrets MySpace Music Deal

One thing is for certain - the six month old MySpace Music project is throwing off a lot of cash to the labels. That’s because MySpace’s 75 million or so U.S. users are streaming literally billions of songs a month. And they have to pay for every song streamed.

Labels are known to give streaming rates for on demand music of around half a cent per song play, but they are negotiated on a deal by deal and label by label basis. Journalists have tried repeatedly to understand the rates that MySpace is paying since the volume means lots of dollars are at stake. MySpace has always guarded this information closely, since it’s a competitively valuable piece of information. But there’s another reason they may be so secretive - the deals they cut with the four big labels may all be very different. And the deal they cut with at least one label, Warner Music, may not have streaming rates at all.

Our sources say Warner has been complaining about the deal they did with MySpace. That deal has no per song streaming cost, but includes a revenue share on advertising displayed when the song is played. That revenue share hasn’t been what they thought it would be. And the staggering number of plays of songs from their catalog, combined with their newly acquired knowledge that their competitors are being paid per stream, has left them steaming mad.

Warner will get little sympathy from, well, anyone. But they’re telling people that they plan to make changes when their deal comes up for renewal, or pull their music from the service. But the fact that their revenue share is significantly less than they thought it would be means MySpace Music may not be monetizing as well as they had hoped. That means the whole ecosystem may be in danger. If MySpace is facing tens of millions of dollars in losses every year (or more) from royalty payments, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll give up.

Already the service does things to limit streaming and associated costs, like only playing four songs on a playlist before asking if you are still there. That leaves the door open for services that have different business models and allow for the user experience to come first. See LaLa and the still fantasy-land MOG music service that look promising.

MySpace Music refused to comment on this post.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:09 am

Blue whales reappear off western Canada

Blue whales, the largest animals ever to have lived on Earth and now one of the rarest, have reappeared off the western coast of Canada. Scientists say that the whales may have come back because krill, the microscopic shrimp they eat, has become less common in California waters, The Vancouver Province reported.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Apr 2009 | 2:06 am

Sturgeon reappears in Baltic after century

For the first time in more than a century, a sturgeon has turned up in a net in the Baltic Sea, caught by a Swedish fisherman. Ulf Akerlund told the news agency TT that he caught the unusual fish Thursday off Oland, an island on the southeast coast of Sweden.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Apr 2009 | 1:49 am

Snapple reinvents itself, now made from better stuff?

Snapple has claimed for years that it is made from “the best stuff on earth”. Pretty tough act to follow. I mean, “best stuff” doesn’t exactly leave much room for improvement. Where do you from there? “Mo’ better stuff?” “Stuff so good we need a new descriptor”? Well luckily, I’m not doing the marketing for Snapple, because they went with “Better Stuff” - and after tasting it, I have to say I agree with them. And since you guys read this blog because you need the latest in Snapple-related news, I thought I should share it.

Intent on keeping their light hearted reputation, Snapple is keeping some of their classic elements like the “Real Facts” but they are redesigning the bottle and the label to reflect the new healthier content of their teas. Does it still taste good? I tried the peach tea, which I’ve always been a fan of, and I have to say that it actually tastes… better.

The peach ice tea tastes a little less sweet then it used to. It doesn’t leave you with an overly sticky sensation on your mouth, but is still very flavorful. According to Snapple, this is because they are using green tea and black tea  in the new formula.

So if you haven’t tried it yet, go buy one. And if you haven’t drank Snapple in a while, it’s worth it to you to check it out again. Now if they’d only bring back the mint iced tea…

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Apr 2009 | 1:45 am

Honda aims to help the elderly with walking

Section: Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Transportation

If you have ever been in a wheelchair for any reason, then you probably know that an inability to walk can pose great problems.  I know when I was in a wheelchair for a brief period of time due to an injury, it was really frustrating not being able to walk.  In efforts to provide a solution, Honda has been developing a type of support system that is able to help people with weakened leg muscles walk again.  On April 20-23, Honda will be showing off a prototype at the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress in Detroit.  However, before this event, Honda has plans to show off their prototype to some media in New York. 

Essentially, the support device consists of straps that wrap around your waist and knees, and then a few plastic pieces that have important jobs.  The plastic pieces are designed to collect information on hip motions as well as how you walk to accurately change to match your gait.  The whole idea is to figure out when to provide assistance to your walk, and when to leave it alone.  The computer measures how much to increase your average stride, in order to make walking easier. 

The straps around the waist and knees have been designed to reduce the weight and pressure on your body and make walking more effortless.  In addition, it is able to cope with your body whenever you decide to go for a job, so it is not limited to walking.  Honda’s prototype is a good example of how well biology and technology can fuse together and result in a beneficial product that is sure to help many people.  Walking is something many of us take for granted all the time, and I’m sure a device that can help allow people to walk again would sell very well.

Unfortunately, no word on pricing or availability at this time, but we will probably know more after the SAE World Congress event. 

Via [Honda Press Release]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Apr 2009 | 1:18 am

Tyler Bell On Yahoo's Open Location API

blackbearnh writes "Yahoo! has been working for a while to promote a unified system for referring to places, through their Where On Earth IDs. Using a WOEID, you can query Yahoo's publicly available APIs to find out things like what cities are in a county, or what counties border each other. In an interview for O'Reilly Radar, Tyler Bell, the product lead for the Yahoo Geo Technology Group, talks about their Open Location program (not to be confused with openlocation.org, a different group altogether.) He also talks about how privacy concerns interact with the increasing use of personal geotracking, and the troublesome problem of what to call places. 'I'm not even going to tell you about the problems we had when we accidentally called Constantinople Byzantium, just slipping back about 800 years there accidentally. That's a very sensitive issue. Any company dealing with geography is going to have to address it somehow. So I'll be very candid in how Yahoo addresses this. I mean first, our stated goal is to capture the world's geography as it is used by the world's people. We don't see ourselves as the definitive authority on how a place should be called.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Apr 2009 | 1:05 am

Mining Email for Contacts [The Mossberg Solution]

If you’re feeling guilty about how rarely you update your email contacts, you’re not alone. There are loads of people just like you who would rather not waste time cutting and pasting contact information from emails into digital address books. Instead, they search through email messages for the most up-to-date information, like phone numbers or addresses.

But it’s easy to delete or lose emails. Contacts in a digital address book are more permanent, and they synchronize with smartphones.

This week I tested Gwabbit (Gwabbit.com), a tool that automatically hunts through your emails as you receive them, finding contact information that can be captured — “gwabbed” — and saved in your contacts. It starts on its own without prompting and uses pop-up notifications to tell you that a message has contact information you might want stored in your address book.

Gwabbit comes from Technicopia LLC and uses a pink Gwabbit Wabbit as its mascot, which adds a little whimsy to the dull task of saving contact information. Currently, it works only as a Microsoft Outlook plug-in, but Technicopia is working on a BlackBerry application that will come out at the end of May. Down the line, the company is planning products for the Mac and Web-based email services.

I started with the free version of Gwabbit, which lasts for 14 days or 20 Gwabbit uses, then upgraded to the paid version, which costs $20. Gwabbit’s accuracy — its ability to find the right information in an email and put it in the right field in an Outlook contact card — was usually reliable. The product works by looking for symbols, like “@” to designate email addresses or parentheses to indicate phone numbers, as well as where information appears in a signature.

In most cases, Gwabbit took only a few seconds to work, per contact. It wasn’t always perfect, but worked well enough to make me start saving a substantially larger number of Outlook contacts — and it updated my contacts that had old, outdated information.

Gwabbit installs with a few annoying features turned on. If you’re like me and you get a lot of emails from people you don’t know, Gwabbit’s notifications will pop up often, which could be irritating. If you turn the notifications off, you may not remember to use Gwabbit.

I found it irksome that Gwabbit installs its own promotion in every contact that it creates for you. If you used Gwabbit to make a contact card in Outlook, the notes field will be filled with an announcement that you used Gwabbit, including a Web link for the product — even in the paid version. Technicopia says that it will eliminate this in the next paid version of Gwabbit, which is due out in about three weeks.

Competitors to Gwabbit include the built-in contact grab tools in email clients like Microsoft Outlook (MSFT) and Apple Mail (AAPL). But these programs don’t automatically extract information from all email addresses the way Gwabbit does. Other third-party programs like Signature2Contacts don’t pop up automatically when an email contains information that you don’t have; instead, you must initiate extracting information.

When Gwabbit is downloaded and installed, it adds to Outlook its own toolbar, which can be hidden at will.

When Gwabbit’s auto-grab feature is turned on, a small bubble appears in Outlook when any highlighted email has contact information that isn’t saved in your address book — including people whose signatures have changed since the last time you saved them. The Gwabbit bubble takes a few seconds to appear, which Technicopia says allows enough time for you to read an email. But if you’re scrolling down a list of emails, this bubble will keep popping up for many different emails and can slightly slow down your ability to arrow down through the list.

When Gwabbit can’t find signature information in an email, it creates a bare-bones contact card for the person, and then gives you the option of highlighting the person’s signature block, from which to extract information for the contact card. In my experience, this problem occurred only a handful of times — usually when looking at a recent email in a string of messages back and forth, because Gwabbit couldn’t find someone’s signature buried within the correspondence.

If a Gwabbit notification pops up and you don’t want to save the contact information for the person who sent that email, you can hit an “Ignore this Contact” option in the notification. This sets Gwabbit so it never tries to save that person’s information again. If you want to save information but you’re in the middle of doing something else when the notification pops up, you can hit the “X” button in the notification bubble. This closes the notification but doesn’t ignore the contact in the future.

Gwabbit seems like a simple tool, but its ability to find contact information that you don’t already have — or that differs from what you already have — is a task that you aren’t likely doing regularly. So stop feeling guilty about your contacts and just gwab them.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

• Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Apr 2009 | 1:00 am

Russian Steampunk Case Mod

The Russian-born Wall-E case mod was solid. But this steampunkish tube, wood and pipe job posted to English Russia is just plain nutty. When did intensely-over-the-top case-modding become the thing to do in Russia?

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 15 Apr 2009 | 12:29 am

Repo Man with LARPers: "Unhand Thine Prius!" (ridiculous video)

BB pal Alex Ringis says, "A sign of the financial times: Live action roleplaying geeks in full costume with fake weapons and in a reality vortex. Repo-bounty hunters, there to repossess the 'Wizard's' Toyota Prius. BIZARRE video ensues."

It's an episode of the TruTV show Operation Repo, titled "Unhand Thine Prius."

Caveat view-or: as one commenter noted, it's very likely that this "reality" show is presenting a staged or highly modified version of "reality." So, take it as seriously as one might take a friendly fellow in a wizard costume, casting spells in the park.


Source: Boing Boing | 15 Apr 2009 | 12:13 am

ePhoneNumbers Customers Prepare in Anticipation of Google Voice Port-In Service

When Google Voice opens up new registrations and port-in service, our customers will be prepared, will you? LAS VEGAS, April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently there has been a buzz across the internet about Google Voice, in particular the ability to port-in a phone number for use with the service.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Apr 2009 | 12:09 am

Photos: IBM machine, City Hall (1961)

Photo: The Library of Virgina

Photo: Library of Virginia

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 15 Apr 2009 | 12:00 am

News Bits: Chrome gets more incognito and the Pre loves the clouds

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Downloads, Web Browsers, Online Music/Video

More Incognito

Google Chrome just got a bump.  The beta version of the Google’s web browser is now version 2.0.172.5.  The upgrade is supposed to help with stability and fixes issues with form submissions.  Most importantly, Incognito mode works a little better.  Previous to this update, if you visited a site even in Incognito mode, it would appear as a visited link in purple on a website.  In other words, Incognito wasn’t completely incognito.  Now, it’s more incognito—links won’t appear as visited. [Source]

Pre and the WebOS

And the Palm Pre madness continues.  Palm responded to a twitter user today.  The user asked if the Pre would work with Linux.  Palm’s not too surprising answer was “The Pre will work with any device that works with ‘the cloud’—more specifics later.”  Considering the Pre’s OS is called “WebOS” that makes plenty of sense.  Also, that’s a pretty broad statement. 

“Any device that works with ‘the cloud’?”  These days, that’s pretty much everything.  [Source]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:59 pm

Japanese cell phones designed by artist Yayoi Kusama

One of my favorite artists in the world is Yayoi Kusama, an octogenarian Japanese lady with an obsessive, clearly genius mind who has checked herself into a mental hospital after a trauma-filled childhood and a career that entailed spending the fifties in New York City with Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Donald Judd. She just draws dots everywhere, on the ceiling, on the table, on herself--and now, on some creatively packaged Au by KDDI cell phone handsets which were announced last week. [Reuters via TokyoMango]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:40 pm

Using Net Proxies Will Lead To Harsher Sentences

Afforess writes "'Proxy servers are an everyday part of Internet surfing. But using one in a crime could soon lead to more time in the clink,' reports the Associated Press. The new federal rules would make the use of proxy servers count as 'sophistication' in a crime, leading to 25% longer jail sentences. Privacy advocates complain this will disincentivize privacy and anonymity online. '[The government is telling people] ... if you take normal steps to protect your privacy, we're going to view you as a more sophisticated criminal,' writes the Center for Democracy and Technology. Others fear this may lead to 'cruel and unusual punishments' as Internet and cell phone providers often use proxies without users' knowledge to reroute Internet traffic. This may also ultimately harm corporations when employees abuse VPN's, as they too are counted as a 'proxy' in the new legislation. TOR, a common Internet anonymizer, is also targeted in the new legislation. Some analysts believe this legislation is an effort to stop leaked US Government information from reaching outside sources, such as Wikileaks. The legislation (PDF, the proposed amendment is on pages 5-15) will be voted on by the United States Sentencing Commission on April 15, and is set to take effect on November 1st. The EFF has already urged the Commission to reject the amendment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:37 pm

Moment of Bladerunner Fanperson-ism: Props

Joel at Boing Boing Gadgets has an awesome post up with props from Blade Runner and other great sci-fi movies. Deckard's gun is amazing, but my favorite is the manual for the Voight-Kampff machine, used to evaluate replicant/human status in test subjects. Props (BB Gadgets, via MeFi)

Previously:

• Comic book of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" - Boing Boing
• BBtv - Blade Runner LEGO Spinner Car: Syd Mead with Joel Johnson ...
• BBtv - Syd Mead with Joel Johnson, part 3: BLADE RUNNER. - Boing Boing
• New Blade Runner: OMG Deckard is a [REDACTED] - Boing Boing
• And now, we pause for a Bladerunner origami unicorn moment - Boing ...
• Boing Boing tv: Blade Runner - Boing Boing
• Interview with Ridley Scott, Blade Runner: The Final Cut - Boing Boing
• Blade Runner LEGO - Boing Boing
• Blade Runner turns 25: an appreciation by Mythbuster Adam Savage ...
• BBtv - Syd Mead with Joel Johnson, part 3: BLADE RUNNER. - Boing Boing

Source: Boing Boing | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:34 pm

iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3 is out

If you’re a developer dabbling away with the latest builds (or one of those clever dastardly gents who managed to get access to the beta firmware through other means), you’ve got an update waiting for you. Apple has just pushed iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3 out the door.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Source: CrunchGear | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:30 pm

iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3 is out

If you’re a developer dabbling away with the latest builds (or one of those clever dastardly gents who managed to get access to the beta firmware through other means), you’ve got an update waiting for you. Apple has just pushed iPhone OS 3.0 Beta 3 out the door.

The changes seem minor, but here’s whats been noticed so far:

• Obligatory performance improvements
• MMS now works on T-Mobile in Germany, if you modify the carrier bundle
• Spotlight now saves the last search
• Spotlight search options (Want to only search apps, or everything but music?)
• Minor UI tweaks
• iPod Touches can now change the function tied to double tapping the home button

It’s a small one at face value, but likely fixes a number of bugs sneaking around behind the scenes. We’ll let you know if anything else pops up.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:28 pm

Microsoft hints at Windows Mobile revamp

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile

A job posting on Microsoft Careers seems to strongly hint that a total revamp of Windows Mobile’s updating system is in the works. It describes a one click updating system:

Have you wished to see your Windows Mobile phone with new features “magically” show up without you buying a new one? Do you want to see greater and better quality and cool software delivered to your love ones’ Windows phones from just a click? If this is your dream, this is a place for you. Come join us to make this dream into reality! With the mobile industry’s strong growth and several competitors playing in the field, we are going to have a challenging but fun time to show customers what Windows phone can become in the next few years.

It’s not likely the new system will be in place before the release of Windows Mobile 7 next year, but it’s a step in the right direction.  WM users have long lamented the lack of regular updates sent to their phones, and now the popular smartphone OS has stiff competition from Android, the iPhone, Blackberry, and Palm’s hot new WebOS, soon to debut on the much anticipated Palm Pre.  For now, WM users will have to be satisfied with Windows Mobile 6.5 which is itself a big improvement over past versions.

Read [ArsTechnica]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:17 pm

Woman publishes book full of text messages sent to her dead husband's cell phone

Over at BBGadgets, our Lisa Katayama has an incredible post up about a widow in Japan who is publishing an anthology of text messages she sent to her loved one, after his death.

Her husband, Motoo, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006, probably from the steel pipe factory he worked at. He got worker's comp, but the disease ultimately destroyed his lungs and left him with hallucinations for the remainder of his life. Shocked, the widowed Fukuda started sending text messages to her dead husband every time she thought of something she wanted to say to him. Things like: "I couldn't live if I didn't think you were still beside me. I can't live [without you]. I'm crying every day" and "I want to call you 'Otosan' to my heart's content. Why do you have to be inside such a small urn?" Every time she sent a message, the phone by his home shrine vibrated (she made sure it was always charged).

Woman publishes book full of text messages sent to her dead husband's cell phone (BBG)


Source: Boing Boing | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:15 pm

EBay Plans to Spin Off Skype Via 2010 IPO [Voices]

EBay (EBAY) this afternoon announced that it plans to spin off Skype via an initial public offering in the first half of 2010. The company said specific timing of the IPO will depend on market conditions. The announcement did not say whether eBay would maintain a stake in the company.

In a statement, eBay CEO John Donahoe said that Skype is “a great stand-alone business with strong fundamentals and accelerating momentum, but that it has “limited synergies with eBay and PayPal.” He adds that operating Skype as a stand-alone company “is the best path for maximizing its potential.”

Read the rest of this post

Source: All Things Digital | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:15 pm

Strings Link the Ultra-Cold With the Super-Hot

gabrlknght writes "Superstring theory claims the power to explain the universe, but critics say it can't be tested by experiment. Lately, though, string math has helped explain a couple of surprising experiments creating 'perfect liquids' at cosmic extremes of hot and cold. 'Both systems can be described as something like a shadow world sitting in a higher dimension. Strongly coupled particles are linked by ripples traveling through the extra dimension, says Steinberg, of Brookhaven. String math describing such ripples stems from an idea called the holographic principle, used by string theorists to describe certain kinds of black holes. A black hole's entropy depends on its surface area — as though all the information in its three-dimensional interior is stored on its two-dimensional surface. (The 'holographic' label is an allusion to ordinary holograms, where 3-D images are coated on a 2-D surface, like an emblem on a credit card.) The holographic principle has value because in some cases the math for a complex 3-D system (neglecting time) can be too hard to solve, but the equivalent 4-D math provides simpler equations to describe the same phenomena.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2009 | 10:46 pm

Boing Boing Video: recent episodes, in case you missed 'em.

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.

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Here's a recap of recent Boing Boing Video episodes over the past week -- check 'em out!

* "Super Ed," by Subatomic Nixons (dir. Bill Barminski and Walter Robot / music video). A new work from our favorite director and animator Bill Barminski, and Walter Robot. The song is a reimagining of Ed Sullivan with robots and superheroes. The band, Subatomic Nixons, is Barminski's music side project. Download an MP4 here.

* Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music and Matt Ganucheau of Expression College joined us for Boing Boing Video's marathon live coverage of the 2009 Game Developers Conference. Above, part one, below, part two of an interview we did about the future of music in games -- how will the tech tools change? Are developers thinking about sound and scores as a more fundamental building block of the gaming experience? What about iterative/automatically generated music tools?

Blog posts:
Music in Video Games, pt. 2, with Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau (MP4 download)
Music in Video Games, pt. 1, with Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau (MP4 download here)

* And below, finally -- GDC Out-take - Radiohead Fan-Dance-Off with Giant Katamari Damacy Heads. Peter, Matt, and Xeni don Katamari Damacy head, crank up a favorite song ("Bodysnatchers" by Radiohead), and rock out in front of a webcam. Download MP4.

Source: Boing Boing | 14 Apr 2009 | 10:40 pm

If you can’t access Wi-Fi, don’t bother buying Patapon 2 - there will be no UMD release

FROM GAMERTELL - Sony has announced that Patapon 2 will only be available as a PlayStation Store digital download. Those who purchase it for $19.99 in stores will be buying a box and download code - not a game UMD.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 10:31 pm

CO2 Cuts Could Spare Worst Of Global Warming’s Impact

Image 2: New computer simulations show the extent that average air temperatures at Earth's surface could warm by 2080-2099 compared to 1980-1999, if (top) greenhouse gases emissions continue to climb at current rates, or if (bottom) society cuts emissions by 70 percent. In the latter case, temperatures rise by less than 2°C (3.6°F) across nearly all of Earth's populated areas. However, unchecked emissions could lead to warming of 3°C (5.4°F) or more across parts of Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia. (Graphic courtesy Geophysical Research Letters, modified by UCAR.) 
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Apr 2009 | 10:20 pm

S1 Corporation and Longtop Financial Technologies Announce Partnership Agreement

Relationship to accelerate the deployment of S1 Enterprise's multi-channel solutions throughout China XIAMEN, China and NORCROSS, Ga., April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- S1 Corporation (Nasdaq: SONE), a leading global provider of customer interaction software solutions for financial and payment services, today announced that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Longtop Financial Technologies Limited (NYSE: LFT), a leading software developer and solutions provider targeting the financial services industry in China.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 14 Apr 2009 | 10:00 pm

Mozilla Mulls Dropping Firefox For Win2K, Early XP

CWmike writes "Mozilla is pondering dropping support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP without Service Pack 3 when it ships the follow-up to Firefox 3.5 in 2010, show discussions on the mozilla.dev.planning forum by developers and Mozilla executives, including the company's chief engineer and its director of Firefox. 'Raise the minimum requirements on Gecko 1.9.2 (and any versions of Firefox built on 1.9.2) for Windows builds to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher,' said Michael Conner, one of the company's software engineers, to start the discussion. Mozilla is currently working on Gecko 1.9.1, the engine that powers Firefox 3.5, the still-in-development browser the company hopes to release at some point in the second quarter. Gecko 1.9.2, and the successor to Firefox 3.5 built on it — dubbed 'Firefox.next' and code named 'Namoroka' — are slated to wrap up in 'early-to-mid 2010,' according to Mozilla."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:59 pm

Review: Nexto DI eXtreme portable media storage

Portable media storage? What does that even mean, you ask? Don’t worry, all will be revealed. It’s not really that extreme, but it is pretty handy. The Nexto DI eXtreme is a good way to back up all your media on the go without really even thinking about it.

The video above explains pretty much all you need to know, but here’s the rundown: the Nexto DI eXtreme (which I will be calling the Nexto) is essentially a portable hard drive with a built-in controller that lets it suck data off your camera, camcorder, SD card, CF card, or whatever. As long as your device can connect to USB and works without any special programs, I think the Nexto should be able to handle it.

The Nexto is advertised as working at some incredible speed due to some secret techno-sauce(hence the “eXtreme”), but it’s probably not enough that you’ll notice. That’s natural, however; we tend to notice things that are going too slow, and not noticewhen things run just fine or even quicker than we expect. The Nexto copied a gig and a half of HD video, for instance, in about 2′43″.

That’s pretty good time, but I see it more for slightly smaller tasks: let’s say you take 100 pictures of your kid’s birthday party. Plug in the Nexto, and in 20 seconds they’re archived into their own folder with date and time. The pictures can remain on your camera or not (the option for either is available on the Nexto), and you can shoot again knowing that your 100 pictures are safe, timestamped, and ready to be imported as a “roll” or whatever if you accidentally format the card, delete the pictures from your library later, or whatever. It’s a nice worry-avoidance utility.

The Nexto itself is well-built but designed pretty plainly. I couldn’t doll it up in the pictures — believe me, I tried. It’s hard-drive shaped, for better or for worse, and while it’s solidly constructed, its ports are also wide open for dust or coffee to get in, so keep it safe until it’s needed. You navigate its menus via a single button, which you either press for a short or long time, depending on what you want to do. It sounds cumbrous, but it actually works well, and it brings the physical interface to an absolute minimum. And once it’s configured, you’ll only have to hit the button once to turn it on; the rest is automatic.

It has an internal battery that can be charged via a regular plug or USB, which is nice — no worrying about AA batteries and what have you. One charge has lasted it plenty long while I’ve been reviewing it, so it doesn’t appear to suck too much power.

The Nexto DI eXtreme starts at $200 for 160GB and works its way up from there, so I wouldn’t call it a bargain ($300 for 500GB is certainly the best deal — buy more, save more!). But it is useful, and for photographers who can’t have enough redundancy in their workflow, this is a simple and fast way to make yet another backup. The timestamped folders are handy, the speed is good, and the wealth of input options means you’ll be able to store stuff from pretty much any device. Whether peace of mind from there being an extra copy of everything is worth $200 to you is your call, but I can certainly recommend this gadget if it sounds like it’d be useful to you.

Source: CrunchGear | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:58 pm

Analyst Dismisses Rumored iPhone Component-Supplier List

With summer approaching, speculation about the third-generation iPhone is becoming rampant as fans eagerly anticipate a new handset from Apple.

So far, the rumor mill has produced nothing substantial, but on Tuesday the Taiwanese publication DigiTimes published a chart purporting to reveal component suppliers for the next-generation iPhone, which has the Mac community buzzing about the configuration of the new handset.

However, the table has been dismissed as unsubstantiated and worse — uninformative. It contains nothing of value for iPhone watchers.

DigiTimes published the table (right), citing unnamed Taiwanese sources who claim to possess knowledge of the next iPhone's components and their respective suppliers.

But the only listed component that potentially reveals a new feature is a 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor supplied by OmniVision.   

"The so-called 'iPhone 3.0' reportedly will be launched by mid-2009, the sources claimed," the DigiTimes report stated. "Assembly suppliers will kick off shipments for the upcoming model starting from May, with the first batch estimated to be around 5 million units, the sources said."

Apple has not made any official announcements about the next-generation iPhone, but analysts, journalists and Apple enthusiasts unanimously agree an upgrade is likely due in the summer.

A summer launch would follow the product cycles of the current- and previous-generation iPhones, which were released July 2008 and June 2007, respectively.

But thanks to Apple's legendary secrecy, nothing is known about the anticipated handset's hardware, other than a few hints of a possible video recorder and a digital compass.

Unfortunately, DigiTimes' chart is no more illuminating, according to iSuppli, a California-based component research company.

"Their table makes no sense to me," said Andrew Rassweiler, an iSuppli analyst. "It is in no particular order, and is a bit of a random walk through a bunch of components, many of which are relatively insignificant and not worth calling."

Rassweiler said the suppliers in the list could potentially be accurate, but even so, this is not a thorough chart. Many of DigiTimes' listed components are the types that come from multiple suppliers, Rassweiler explained; manufacturers like Apple strategically work with multiple suppliers to avoid being financially bullied by a single supplier.

Also, many of the listed suppliers are Taiwanese — such as Unimicron, Nanya and Largan Precision — and the publication is Taiwanese as well. So even if the chart proves accurate, it's an incomplete sample from Taiwanese companies who are likely trying to get press, Rassweiler said.

Rassweiler added that the component list is filled with safe bets on what will appear in the next iPhone based on the components in the current iPhone 3G. The listed 3.2-megapixel sensor is a conservative guess that anyone could have predicted, Rassweiler said.

"I would expect Apple to move to at least a 3-megapixel camera," he said.

Also interesting to note is a major component missing from DigiTimes' chart — the touchscreen, which could simply suggest the publication doesn't have information about the supplier. Broadcom is the supplier of the current iPhone's touchscreen, according to iSuppli.

Finally, DigiTimes refers to the next-gen iPhone as "the so-called iPhone 3.0" — which is unlikely the name of the new handset. The iPhone's upcoming operating system upgrade is called iPhone 3.0, and Apple would probably not give the next iPhone the same name, as it would cause major confusion.

For your reference, iSuppli provided its list of known component suppliers for the current iPhone. Click on the link below to download the fiile.

Have any additional observations? Add your comments below.

iSuppli's iPhone Component Summary (.xls)

See Also:

• Easter Eggs Give Clues to Next-Gen iPhone
• iPhone 3.0 Wish List: Accessory-Powered Apps We Want
• Apple Bestows Cut-and-Paste, MMS on iPhone Users
• What Apple Needs to Fix to Keep the iPhone Competitive
• Apple's Next iPhone Will Rule at Gaming

Photo: Jon Syder/Wired.com

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:55 pm

Vista Post-SP2 Is the Safest OS On the Planet

pkluss noted Kevin Turner, COO of Microsoft making the proclamation that "Vista today, post-Service Pack 2, which is now in the marketplace, is the safest, most reliable OS we've ever built. It's also the most secure OS on the planet, including Linux and open source and Apple Leopard. It's the safest and most secure OS on the planet today."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:18 pm

Test Drive: Honda Stride Management Assist, Bodyweight Support Assist [Update]

As I mentioned earlier, Honda is in town to demo their two walking assist devices for the first time in the US. I was given the opportunity to test both models out in midtown Manhattan this afternoon. The applications for both models are pretty obvious and Honda has been testing the Bodyweight Support Assist at their Saitama factory since November of last year.

They both offer a surprising amount of support while walking, crouching and traversing stairs. The BSA is pretty awkward at first but you get used to it after a few seconds. Yes, I’m staring at my crotch more than usual and duck walking, but it’s a bit strange to have something between your legs while you’re trying to walk.

What you won’t see in the video is how to get the device on. It comes with shoes that are attached to the legs that, you know, you put on. There are two switches on each thigh section of the legs that you switch on and then you pull up the saddle between your legs and off you go. I won’t lie, it’s a little awkward, but you get used to it. It’s also surprisingly lightweight at around 6.5 lbs.

You may or may not notice the similarities between the movement of the device and ASIMO, but it’s no coincidence. That little robot is going to save the world!

The Stride Management Assist is less awkward to maneuver with and you can really feel the support in the lower back and at the points of contact on your hamstring. The motors really whirled when going up the stairs, but wasn’t as noticeable when going down. The engineers behind the assist devices told me that support is very subtle when walking down steps so that your natural movement isn’t thrown off.

Because both models are prototypes there are some limitations on who can use them at the moment. They can accommodate persons of height up to 6′2″, shoe size of 8-11 for men/9.5 – 12.5 for women and weight up to 220 lbs.

I’m still trying to digest what I just went through and I’ll have the presentation from the brains behind the project up shortly as well. The last two slides are very brief overviews of each device. Here’s a little nugget of knowledge about the walking assist devices that you probably didn’t know: over 30 prototypes have been built in the last decade.

Check back soon for the full presentation. And here’s the entire presentation including the Q&A.

Source: CrunchGear | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:12 pm

Conficker continues to move

Section: Computers, Networking, Security, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Web 2.0, Web Browsers, Websites

Well, the Conficker worm is still alive and well and out there on the move.  Though some thought it was just an April Fool’s joke, the fact that it is still here, still coming up with new mutations, kind of dispels that theory.

Just last week, Symantec detected the latest variant to the Conficker worm, (.E), which is the update to the .C variant.  This one tries to update the previous variant with new capabilities, rogue antivirus software, and new spamming malware. 

We’re not out of the woods yet.

In my opinion, just because this thing didn’t shoot off firecrackers and make a million computers explode on April 1st doesn’t mean it is something to simply ignore.  Nor do I think it is all necessarily overblown media hype.  Yes, if you have your definitions up to date obviously that is in your favor.  But those that don’t, to say “Ahhh…big deal…there have always been viruses out there”...yeah, but not necessarily one of this type and magnitude and complexity.  The simple fact that the total yahoo that created this is playing such a stinking game with the whole thing is what makes it all the more real.  And the fact that (s)he knew how to play such a game so darn well.

The creator(s) changed up their malware several times, adding on new infection vectors and new capabilities.  Conficker also gets around through weak admin passwords.  What it does is attempt to guess them using a password guessing attack.  It also spreads through USB devices.

The University of Utah believes this was how they were just infected.  The Conficker worm infected around 800 computers at the University last week, causing them to block internet access while they contained the infection.  They say they believe that no data was stolen.  “We think we caught it early” said a spokesman with the university’s school of health sciences.

And while it keeps on spreading, it now seems like it’s reaching out for the money.  You know, just like in Jerry McGuire….“Show me the money!!”

After about a week of not doing much at all when everyone was waiting with bated breath to see what it would do on April 1st, Conficker seemed to wake up.  It began transmitting updates via P2P and sticking some mystery package onto PCs.  Most researchers seem to think that the payload program it is putting on the machines is either a keystroke logger or spam generator (or both).

What it does now, is also tries to connect to a random one of five websites: MySpace.com, eBay.com, CNN.com, MSN.com, or AOL.com to test that there is an internet connection. It then deletes all traces of itself in the host machine (how polite!), and has some kind of code written in to shut down some functionality on May 3rd.

Waledac

Now, if we thought it was just disappearing come May 3rd it would be fine and dandy.  Ummm…no.  It also just so happens to reach out to this domain that is KNOWN to be infected by this worm you just may have heard of called Waledac.  There, it downloads an encrypted file.  Researchers are trying to analyze both the code and the program that is being plunked onto infected machines by other infected machines to figure out what is in it.  And what they are pretty darn certain of at this point, is that Conficker and Waledac are coming from the same folks.  Paul Ferguson, an advance threats researcher for Trend Micro says “I’m pretty certain the same people are behind both of them.  Conficker has got their (Waledac creators’) fingerprints all over it.”

He believes that Eastern Europeans are behind the Waledac worm, first creating the Storm botnet to try out different business models and payloads, and that Waledac was a result of that.  He further thinks that they are taking what they learned from that and putting it into practice with the Conficker virus.

“There is empirical evidence that these guys are a for-hire, for-profit criminal operation on the Internet and that Conficker is nothing more than part of that organization’s best efforts to monetize their efforts on the Internet,” Ferguson said.

VP of Symantec Security Response Vincent Weafer, confirmed that Conficker does indeed have a connection with Waledac, but would not speculate on who might be spreading the worms.  He did say however that Conficker now downloading a Waledac file “reconfirms our belief that ultimately this is a large botnet designed to make money,” he said. “It’s the first example of how these guys are trying to leverage this botnet for profit.”

Weafer says he thinks the May 3 shut down code has to do with the first variant of the worm, Conficker.A.  Symantec is calling the latest variant of the worm Downadup.E, since apparently Downadup is another name for Conficker.  (Isn’t one name good enough?)

Staying safe

Piece of advice, be careful if you think you do have it, or when running searches for “Conficker.”  With all the hype out there right now, there are plenty of people more than happy to cash in on that, and are actually going to link you to a malware site of their own.  They will have you run a virus scan, and then have you download their software for a mere $49.95, which then only installs malware on your system.  Don’t.  If you don’t have any virus removal programs on your computer, here are some really good free ones worth checking out. 

If you aren’t even sure if your computer is infected, you can go to this site and check out the Conficker eye chart.

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:11 pm

PogoPlug Provides Remote Control Over External Hard Drive

The PogoPlug promises to port your data from a hard drive onto the internet. Guess what? It totally works. Just be sure not to take a gander at any sensitive documents using the PogoPlug — security is virtually non existent.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:10 pm

PogoPlug Provides Remote Control Over External Hard Drive

The PogoPlug promises to port your data from a hard drive onto the internet. Guess what? It totally works. Just be sure not to take a gander at any sensitive documents using the PogoPlug — security is virtually non existent.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:10 pm

Steel Cake chrono line, back in stock

If you tried to order a Steel Cake chrono lately, you might have noticed a slight problem: they’ve been out of stock. The good news is that we got an email from them today, and they have them back in stock again. We’ve mentioned them before, and we do like the looks of their products. They are also running a really great spring sale (only until May 1st, so hurry) on some of there other watches. Personally, I dig the black square chrono, but take a look of some of their other models. The black steel tag could be just the thing to round out your goth-punk-industrial outfit.

Source: CrunchGear | 14 Apr 2009 | 9:00 pm

Photo: Array of UFO Shapes

[NCAS.org]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:57 pm

Analyst Dismisses Rumored iPhone Component Chart

A chart purporting to reveal component suppliers for the next-gen iPhone has the Mac community buzzing. However, a component analyst has dismissed the chart as unsubstantiated and uninformative.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:55 pm

Analyst Dismisses Rumored iPhone Component Chart

A chart purporting to reveal component suppliers for the next-gen iPhone has the Mac community buzzing. However, a component analyst has dismissed the chart as unsubstantiated and uninformative.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:55 pm

Medigenic keyboard for hospitals

The Medigenic infection-control computer keyboards have several neat tricks to prevent them from picking up any viral or bacterial baddies: they whole thing is sealed and can withstand hospital-grade disinfectants; there's a one-key switch that will disable the rest of the keys without forcing you to unplug it, making it possible to give it a quick wipe-down; it even has backlighting under each key.

But my favorite feature of the $140 Medigenic? The faux 3D keyboard silk-screened onto the surface.

You can pick up an equally crevice-less mouse for $80. [via Oh Gizmo!]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:52 pm

Peaceniks Target Killer Drones

Peace activists have traveled to the remote deserts of the Southwest for nearly 30 years to demonstrate against the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. These days, the protesters have a new target in the mountains and deserts north of Las Vegas: America's fleet of killer drones.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:45 pm

Everything old is new again: Wireless headphones

You kids with your fancy Bluetooth headsets and your fancy satellite radio and your portable music players magically transmitting stuff to other devices without any wires. You think you’re all so special. Well I got news for you, bub: wireless headphones were available on a Sony Walkman — you know, the kind that used cassette tapes — in 1988! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, hotshot!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to talk to my best friend through a tin can attached to a string…

Source: CrunchGear | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:40 pm

Study may aid fast track vaccine creation

In what's described as a genetic leap, U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:31 pm

Some Fear Biofuel Production Will Dry Up Water Supplies

As corn farmers in the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:21 pm

Video: Rapid Prototyping by Karl Frankowski

The fourth in a series of videos from Karl Frankowski, explaining the processes behind rapid prototyping for industrial designers. [via Core77]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:20 pm

Skype to IPO Early Next Year

Ebay is spinning Skype off into an independent company next year with a public stock offering, the auction giant announces Tuesday. The news comes just days after speculation that the internet telephone service's founders were trying to buy Skype back from Ebay.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:12 pm

Best Buy's "community" forum flags "Buy.com" as offensive

"Buy.com" Is Apparently A Curse Word On Best Buy's Forums [Consumerist]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:11 pm

Dharma Initiative ads from National Geographic

Hot Meteor has created these "vintage" ads from National Geographic for LOST's Dhama Initiative. [via Kottke]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 8:03 pm

Woman publishes book full of text messages sent to her dead husband's cell phone

65-year old Toshiko Fukuda of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan, lost her husband to asbestos on April 17th last year. Her husband, Motoo, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006, probably from the steel pipe factory he worked at. He got worker's comp, but the disease ultimately destroyed his lungs and left him with hallucinations for the remainder of his life. Shocked, the widowed Fukuda started sending text messages to her dead husband every time she thought of something she wanted to say to him. Things like: "I couldn't live if I didn't think you were still beside me. I can't live [without you]. I'm crying every day" and "I want to call you 'Otosan' to my heart's content. Why do you have to be inside such a small urn?" Every time she sent a message, the phone by his home shrine vibrated (she made sure it was always charged).

Now she's publishing a book with the loosely translated title Job Transfer to Heaven Without Family-I Wanted to Be With You Longer, a compilation of all her text messages from the past year that she hopes will educate the public about the dangers of asbestos. [via Yomiuri via Asia Daily News]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:59 pm

Hands-On: 'Saw' Game Combines Puzzles, Death

Disgusting traps await those who venture into this videogame nightmare based on the popular torture-porn movies.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:57 pm

Dell Smartphone Could Launch in China by Year End

PC maker Dell has been rumored to be working on a smartphone for months. Now a new report suggests the company may be planning an initial roll out in China, instead of North America, by the end of the year.

Dell is working with a Chinese manufacturing and an operating system design company to create its new smartphone, according to a Reuters report.

Dell's move to get a piece of the fast growing smartphone market is no surprise but analysts are cautious about the company's plans.

"The risk with Dell's move is potential lack of differentiation versus other competitors including HTC, Lenovo, Acer, Asustek etc," says Shaw Wu, an analyst with Kaufman Bros. in his latest research note. "In addition, our industry and supply chain sources indicate that carrier subsidies in China are much lower, if any at all, making profitability more difficult."

Suggestions that Dell may offer up a smartphone first flared up at the beginning of the year when some analysts said the company could make an announcement at the 3GSM or the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona in mid-February.

Despite a weak economy, global smartphone shipments could go up by as much as 11 percent to about 192 million units this year, says research firm iSuppli. And with the success that Apple has found in the business, more PC makers are looking to find a foothold in the smartphone business. Asus, for instance, has partnered with GPS handset maker Garmin to create new handsets.

Meanwhile, there have been few signs of a Dell smartphone. A prototype of the device has never been seen publicly. Some reports have suggested that the company has had trouble convincing telecom carriers in North America to pick up its phone, potentially delaying its plans. 

Through it all, Dell has chosen to stay mum. The company is working with handset manufacturer Chi Mei Communications and a Chinese software company Red Office to design the smartphone OS, says Reuters.

It's a move that could backfire, warns Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Collins Stewart. "Dell’s product needed to be a 'wow them' smart phone in order to differentiate itself from an already crowded market," wrote Kumar in a report. "The early verdict appears to indicate that Dell’s handset is more like a me-too product with a cost structure that offers little advantage over established players like Apple and Nokia."

Dell may be determined to launch a smartphone but clearly the company's choices are increasingly limited. If Dell can't get its device out soon, this could end up as a stillborn project.

See also:
Dell Plans a Smartphone of its Own

Photo: Sony Ericsson P1i (r3k4hsttUb/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:16 pm

Obamas' Dog Moves Into White House

The Obamas are greeting a new member of the first family today.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:04 pm

SLIDE SHOW: Top 10 Glacier Surprises

Browse through these images to learn some surprising facts about glaciers.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:04 pm

13 year old girl racks up $5000 phone bill for 20,000 texts in a month

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers

Everyone knows that teens love to text, but sometimes it gets way out of control.  Especially when your parents open a $5000 cell phone bill.  This is the case with 13 year old Dena Christoffersen of Cheyenne, Wyoming who is responsible for sending and receiving over 20,000 text messages in one month.  She averaged 700 texts per day, which I’m not even sure is humanly possible.  After receiving the bill, her father took a hammer to the phone (I already like this guy) and was grounded to the end of the school year.

In order to help her parents out, the entertainment service provider Predicto has offered to foot the entire bill on their behalf.  In exchange for the company’s generosity, Dena has to write an essay on the importance of taking responsibility for your mobile phone habits and what she has learned from the experience.  Predicto is going to post the essay on its blog as a warning to both teens and parents about how much out of control texting can cost you.  Hopefully, parents will realize the need to better monitor their teen’s phone usage and teens will appreciate that overboard texting comes at a high price.

Read: [Denver Post]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 7:01 pm

Will the S8000 be Samsung’s first Android phone?

In an occurrence that seems to be happening on an almost weekly basis as of late, an online retailer has put up details about a thus far unannounced device. This time around, it’s the Samsung S8000. They caught their error after a few hours - but not before much of the spec sheet had began its adventure across the internet.

GSMArena managed to catch most of the droolworthy details: 3.1″ WVGA AMOLED Display, 5 megapixel shooter with flash, 2 GB internal memory, 3.5 mm audio jack, FM radio, Wi-Fi, GPS (and A-GPS), and Bluetooth 2.1. That’s all fine and dandy - especially considering they packed it all into a 12mm body - but the most interesting bit: according to the product page, it’s an Android phone.

Samsung has promised 3 Android phones are on the way, so this could most certainly be one of those. Lacking a physical QWERTY keyboard or a slider of any sort, it shares a form factor with the soon (but not as soon as before) to be released HTC Magic. Unlike the Magic, the S8000 has a 3.5mm headset jack. We can’t wait.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 6:37 pm

Laptop stand shootout: Xtand Pro vs. the Elevator

FROM APPLETELL - All laptop users who often find themselves doing work at their desk should consider a laptop stand. In this review, I’ll take a look at two: JustMobile’s Xtand Pro and Griffin Technology’s Elevator.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 6:35 pm

CinemaView Announces First Monitor to Support Apple's Mini Display Port

CinemaView is the first to announce displays compatible with Mini Display Port — Apple's new video-connection standard seen in the latest Macs.

The display will be available in three different sizes: 19 inches with 1440-by-900 resolution, 20.1 inches at 1,650-by-1,050 resolution,  and 24 inches with 1,920-by-1,080 resolution. They're priced at $300, $400 and $500, respectively — which should be an attractive price point for Mac users unwilling to shell out $900 for Apple's 24-inch LED cinema display.

The displays will be available before September this year. Consumers can reserve displays in advance.

Product Page [CinemaView via Slashgear]

Photo: CinemaView

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Apr 2009 | 6:07 pm

Brian Azzarello's '100 Bullets' Runs Out of Ammo

As his decade-long run of postmodern comic book noir comes to an end, the award-winning writer talks conspiracies, badass characters and stillborn videogame adaptations. Wired.com interview by Scott Thill.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 14 Apr 2009 | 6:00 pm

Oh, how far we’ve come

Warning: This is not news. But it is kind of amazing.

Extracted from some incredible time capsule ensconced sometime around 1846 (read: 1990s) and then immediately ripped to digital form in all of its glory, this RadioShack gem has emerged. Imagine a phone you can take with you. Want to talk on your phone while you golf? Sure. While you’re on your boat? No problem. What about while you eat? Oh, hell yeah.

Will we look back at iPhone commercials and chuckle in a mere 18 years?

(For added awesome, check out the kid from Step By Step rockin’ a Tandy 102 at the end)

[DisgracefulAndSexy via Reddit]

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Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 5:50 pm

Fixing a hole: Toshiba’s 2009-2010 product roadmap leaked

Mario and Luigi must be working some incredible overtime these days, what with all the leaks that keep springing up across the Interpipes. Lucky for us, until they get around to fixing all these holes, we all get to enjoy some exciting unknown product rumors.

According to the leaked info, Toshiba has 5 new 1 GHz Snapdragon + WinMo 6.5-based devices (2 smartphones/3 MIDs) planned for release over the coming year.

First and foremost, the highly anticipated/yet to be launched TG01 is getting 2 new siblings - the water resistant TG02 and the A/V powerhouse TG03. More specifically, the (relatively) svelte TG02 features:

• 4.1″ WVGA touchscreen
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• 3.2 megapixel camera
• HSDPA
• Integrated GPS
• IPX4 water resistant
• 9.9mm thickness

The media-juggernaut TG03 includes:

• 4.1″ WVGA touchscreen
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• 5 megapixel camera
• 5.1 channel speaker
• HSDPA

Now, for the MIDs. The Toshiba K01 features:

• QWERTY slide-out
• 4.1″ display
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• 3.2 megapixel camera

The smaller K02 includes:

• QWERTY keyboard
• 3.5″ display
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Windows Mobile 6.5
• 3.2 megapixel camera

And last, but not least, the larger and more ambiguous L01:

• Standalone keyboard
• 7″ display
• 1GHz Snapdragon processor
• Windows Mobile 6.5

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Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 5:26 pm

How to take screenshots on the Palm Pre

Sure, none of us have the Palm Pre yet - but once you get it, won’t you want to take a ton of screenshots to show off to your friends document the experience?

On the iPhone, taking a screenshot requires no wonky software or hackery - just hold two buttons. I figured a similar function might exist on the Pre, but we had a heck of a time finding anyone who had any idea what we were talking about - until now.

To take a screenshot of the Pre, you’ll hold the Orange, Sym, and P keys. Bam! Instant screenshot, prepped and ready for sending off to Grandma. Because there’s nothing Grandmas love like phone OS screenshots.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 5:11 pm

Evernote makes Twitter more productive

Section: Communications, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

Evernote, the cross-platform productivity application, now integrates with Twitter.  How does that work?  You’ve got to follow “myEN” on Twitter and then link accounts.  If you add @myEN in the tweet, Evernote will save that tweet.  If you want a note to be private, just direct message @myEN. 

Many of us use Twitter on the web or with a third party app.  This feature now allows you to use Evernote without having to go into Evernote’s desktop or web application. 

Some people are starting to think of Twitter in the same vein as IM and email.  Evernote integrating with Twitter brings nice functionality to something that can sometimes be pretty unproductive.  The integration allows you to keep track of tweets you care about.  Since people often share links or other info on Twitter, grabbing and organizing information within Evernote could work very well with Twitter.

Read: [Evernote Blog]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 5:00 pm

Bedbugs on the Rebound, Feds Take Note

Facing rising complaints about bedbug infestations, the EPA hosts a summit on the pest.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 4:30 pm

Android 1.5 pushed out to developers

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Computers

Looking for more cell phones OS updates after finally calming down from the showcasing of iPhone 3.0?  Android has you covered with the release of Android 1.5 to developers for a future release.  The update brings Android closer to some of the functionality touted by the iPhone, though obviously without all the restrictions.

Android 1.5 looks to add a slew of new features to the platform, some of which we already knew were coming.  For instance, 1.5 adds a soft keyboard like the iPhone’s which can be used in portrait and landscape modes.  It was already shown as part of the HTC Magic, and will have custom user-defined dictionaries.  But there’s some we haven’t seen yet, like video recording with an option to send the videos straight to YouTube, or the ability to upload photos to Picasa (which sounds a bit like the iPhone’s MobileMe integration, but using Google services).  There’s also Stereo Bluetooth, copy and paste in the web browser, and widgets for the home screen.

There’s no word yet on when Android 1.5 will be released, but it seems most plausible that it will come out before or on the day of the release of the HTC Magic in May.  If that is the case, the release seems to be coming a bit late for apps to come out supporting its full features on time.  It would be a smart move to have it out before the iPhone 3.0, so at least Android will have a period of time where it’s mainly competing against the Palm Pre and last year’s model of the iPhone. 

There’s a possibility that it may draw in some iPhone 1 users who are tired of AT&T, or those in the market for a new smartphone and don’t want to wait the extra month or two for the new iPhone.  Android 1.5 will likely be running into heavy competition with the Palm Pre and even the next BalckBerry OS, and it seems to be gunning straight for that second place spot after the iPhone.

Read [Electronista]
Read [Android Developers]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 14 Apr 2009 | 3:36 pm

First Cloned Camel Born in Dubai

Injaz, a female one-humped camel, was cloned from a camel that was slaughtered in 2005.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 2:43 pm

Samsung Propel Pro now available from AT&T

Samsung’s latest Windows Mobile slider is now available from AT&T. The chromed out Propel Pro features WinMo 6.1, GPS, Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, a 3-megapixel AF camera and a microSD card slot. Get you some Windows Mobile action for $150.

Specs

Quad band GSM/GPRS/EDGE connectivity (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
Tri-band UMTS/HSDPA connectivity (850/1900/2100 MHz)
2.55-inch TFT screen; 320×320 pixels; 65K colors
Wi-Fi
GPS
3-megapixel AF camera
Bluetooth 2.0
MicroSDHC card support, up to 16 GB
10MB of internal memory
Talk time: up to 6 hours
Standby time: up to 12 days
3.9 x 2.4 x 0.60 inches
4.83 ounces

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 14 Apr 2009 | 2:31 pm

Nikon Makes New Ultra-Wide Lens for DX Shooters

Along with the new flip-screen DSLR, the D5000, Nikon has today also birthed a new lens. The specs of the AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 10-24mm ƒ3.5-4.5G ED  are, as we never tire of telling you, contained entirely within the name. The focal length range of 10-22mm is the equivalent of 15-36mm on a 35mm camera, which is wide. Very wide, in fact, capturing a 109º angle of view at the short end.

AF-S means that there is a motor in there, so it will auto-focus even on the cheaper D40 and D60 that don’t have a motor of their own. DX means it is designed for crop-sensor cameras, so you’ll get image quality fall-off and vignetting with full-frame and film cameras. ƒ3.5-4.5 is the maximum aperture at either end of the zoom. IT’s not great, but you don’t buy a lens like this for shallow depth-of-field anyway.

G means there is no aperture ring, so it won’t work on very old Nikon bodies, Finally, ED means Extra-low Dispersion glass, Nikon’s tech for reducing certain chromatic aberrations. The price? $900, available May.

Product page [Nikon]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Apr 2009 | 1:47 pm

Herbal Wines Healed Ancient Egyptians

Residues from ancient Egyptian jars reveal traces of wine with herbal additives.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 1:23 pm

Salmonella Vaccine Could Come From Space Studies

Astronauts use zero-g to mimic the human gut for the study of salmonella in space.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 1:17 pm

Da Vinci Portrait Found in Cathedral Window

A scholar finds a portrait of Leonardo in the stained glass of a Tuscan cathedral.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 14 Apr 2009 | 12:00 pm

New Gigapan Shoots HDR Images, Works with Bigger Cameras

Gigapan now sells a bigger version of its panorama-shooting robot, which means that you can now load up larger compact cameras and even a small DSLR and take gazillion-pixel images. Like its older brother, the Epic 100 holds you camera and moves it in small, precise increments, snapping a new picture each time and then, back at the computer, stitches them together into one giant, super-detailed image.

The new Epic 100 doesn't stop there, though. The new version has a larger distance between the camera and the base, meaning a steeper angle can be gotten for even bigger pictures; the LCD panel now has a backlight for easier night-shooting and the unit gains a delay timer so you can leave the setup to start shooting later.

The smallest change, though, could also be the best. The Epic 100 can now shoot up to nine images before shifting to the next position. Aside from filling up your memory card much quicker, this means you can now shoot HDR (Hight Dynamic Range) panoramas. For people who like tweaking and dickering with their photographs, this is a nerdgasmic nugget of news. The Epic 100 is $450 against $380 for the standard Epic. An even bigger DSLR version is in the works.

Product page [Gigapan]

See Also:

• GigaPan Releases Camera Rig for Automated Panorama Photos
• Camera Add-On Brings You Billion Pixel Images

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Apr 2009 | 11:52 am

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