Did you know that this kind of thing was even possible? The video shows Danny MacAskill. who rides for UK trials bike company Inspired Bicycles, shredding it in Edinburgh. As our own Danny Dumas says on Twitter*, “From what I gather this is parkour…done with bicycles.”
Keep watching. If you think it’s all over after the first couple of minutes, it isn’t. The video just gets bigger and better as it goes on.
Today sees the public launch of Tweetie for Mac, the desktop-based big brother of what many (myself included) consider to be the iPhone's best Twitter client. I've been playing around with a beta version... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 11:30 am
Today sees the public launch of Tweetie for Mac, the desktop-based big brother of what many (myself included) consider to be the iPhone’s best Twitter client. I’ve been playing around with a beta version of the app for the last few days since my initial preview last Thursday, and I’m happy to say that my enthusiasm for the application hasn’t waned. It’s sleek, it sweats the small stuff, and it’s going to be my Twitter client of choice for the foreseeable future. But it isn’t perfect, yet.
First things first. If you’re one of the so-called ‘power users’ who rely on TweetDeck’s custom grouping features, Tweetie probably isn’t for you. The application goes well beyond most basic Twitter clients in terms of functionality, but it isn’t an uber-dashboard that’s going to take up an entire monitor. If you’re okay with that, read on.
At first glance, Tweetie is deceptively simple. The client consists of a single column displaying your latest stream of incoming Tweets, with four icons arranged on the left side where the majority of navigation takes place. Each icon is self-explanatory for anyone who has used the service before: an ‘@’ symbol represents replies; an envelope is for direct messages; and a magnifying glass for search. Navigating beyond this main menu, everything is intuitive - double clicking on a user name takes you to their most recent tweets, clicking on a hashtag runs a search for it, and so on.
The application’s real appeal lies in the details. Every time you click to open an image from services like TwitPic, the app displays the picture in a nifty popup rather than opening a full web browser. To post one of your own images, you simply need to drag and drop it from the desktop into the Tweetie window. The app also supports global hotkeys (you can activate Tweetie with a shortcut even if you’re working in a different application). And from an aesthetic standpoint, everything looks great: navigating between sections activates a smooth transition, you can ‘endlessly scroll’ through tweets as the app continuously downloads new ones, and the interface is very clean. Also a big plus: Tweetie supports multiple accounts, which even some of the ‘power’ apps don’t do properly.
And while the app doesn’t offer a true columned UI, it does offer a compromise: Tweetie allows users to break search queries into their own windows, which I actually prefer to having one giant unwieldily window taking up my screen. That said, a few of the navigation options are a little awkward, and the application will feel foreign for the first few days that you use it, especially if you’re coming from a multi-column client like TweetDeck.
Aside from the initial foreignness, Tweetie does have some issues that may confuse new users. For one, while the app allows you to create as many new windows as you’d like for searching, they’re confusing to activate (you need to click the search button, then go to the menu bar and hit ‘open new window’) and there’s currently no way to pop out the ‘@mentions’ or ‘direct message’ columns into their own windows (this is coming in version 1.1). The option to ‘follow’ a user is tucked away in a drop down menu when it should be more prominent. And there’s also apparently no auto-complete for Twitter handles, which can make responding to friends frustrating. Minor gripes to be sure, but in an app with this much polish they stick out.
For a long time I’ve been looking for a Twitter client that felt like it actually belonged on the Mac, and frankly I haven’t had much luck. Twitterific offers a native client, but it is fairly basic. So I turned to more robust clients like TweetDeck, and more recently Seesmic Desktop, which are both very powerful and have a dizzying array of options. But my fundamental issue with both of these apps is that they’re built on Adobe’s AIR platform, which seems to invaribly lead to excessive resource usage on my Mac, not to mention weird UI quirks. I’ve hardly been suffering, but they’re nuisances that have continuously irked me and I’m glad to be rid of them. Tweetie isn’t for everyone, but I suspect its mix of power and simplicity will appeal to quite a few people, particularly those who find other Twitter clients intimidating.
Tweetie is available for free with advertising, or for $14.95 for an ad-free version (it will jump up to $20 in two weeks). If you are on a Mac and crave your multiple columns, be sure to check out Nambu, which I’ve also enjoyed using for the last few weeks.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Fee sez, "The BBC and Guardian report that despite claims that waterboarding leads to people confessing all quickly, some suspects were subjected to the torture hundreds of times.
I was already appalled by the idea of civilised countries using torture... this level of torture enacted upon indivduals is inhumane and unspeakable. I hope they are prosecuted."
The CIA waterboarded two al-Qaida terror suspects a total of 266 times, according to a report that suggests the use of the torture technique was much more extensive than previously thought.
The documents showed waterboarding was used 183 times on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who admitted planning the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times reported today.
The US Justice Department memos released last Thursday showed that waterboarding, which the US now admits is torture, was used 83 times on the alleged al-Qaida senior commander Abu Zubaydah, the paper said. A former CIA officer claimed in 2007 that Zubaydah was subjected to the simulated drowning technique for only 35 seconds.
During this past weekend, Microsoft had quietly announced that the Release Candidate for Windows 7 was going to be available for download beginning on May 5. Additionally, it was also noted that MSDN and TechNet Partners were able to begin downloading Windows 7 RC immediately. This all sounded pretty normal, the May 5 date seemed like it would have fit the timeline that one would have expected. However after another visit to that same Microsoft Partner Program page, it seems that Microsoft has changed their mind, and returned the previous Windows 7 information. Additionally, it seems that even those MSDN and TechNet partners were not able to get the download.
Now instead of saying:
“Partners: If you have a subscription to MSDN or TechNet, you can download Windows 7 RC now. Otherwise you can download Windows 7 RC starting May 5, 2009.”
It just reads:
“The Windows 7 Beta download period is now over. If you completed the Windows 7 Beta download, product keys are still available if you do not currently have one.”
Now we can just wonder if we will still see a May 5 RC availability or if someone at Microsoft just got a little excited and posted the new details a little early. Either way, the news of an RC coming soon sounds good. Windows 7, at least in my testing daily use of beta 7000 has proven to be very nice. So nice, that I think I would be willing to either shell out for the software, or possibly a new notebook that is already running it.
Late last night, former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block tweeted out that he had done some research to attempt to quantify the "Oprah Effect" -- that is, the number of users who signed up for Twitter... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 11:05 am
Late last night, former Engadget editor-in-chief Ryan Block tweeted out that he had done some research to attempt to quantify the “Oprah Effect” — that is, the number of users who signed up for Twitter after Oprah featured the service on her show on Friday. The number he came to? 1.2 million.
So did 1.2 million people actually sign up for Twitter as a result of Oprah? It’s possible, but tracking down this data is a bit tricky. I asked Block what method he used, and he told me he looked at the user ID on a Twitter account from early Friday versus one from the afternoon on Sunday. You see, while most people only know their Twitter name, if you look at the RSS feed for your Twitter account, you’ll see a number assigned to it — that’s your user ID, and Twitter increments it upward as new people sign up.
An account I created just now, for example, has an ID of 33471207. One I created on Friday night (a few hours post-Oprah) had an ID 32779621. Does this mean 700,000 signed up between then and now? Probably not. Twitter has a lot of users, but it does not have 33 million. The reason the user IDs are that high is because Twitter stopped incrementing the number sequentially in March 2007. While it’s not entirely clear what method it switched to, at least one theory had it going back and forth between sequential and increments of 10.
If that pattern is correct — and there isn’t much to suggest that it is, but bear with me — then it would probably make sense to divide any number you get by 5 (half of 10 because it’s not always going up by 10). But, as I noted, my first number was from Friday night. That was a few hours after the show, and likely after many of the new users had finished signing up. So I went back to look at other users who likely signed up around the same time.
Oprah, herself, isn’t a good one to use because while she started tweeting on Friday, her account was actually created in March — 2007, as Twitterholic notes. I’m pretty sure someone else had control of it until about a week ago when Oprah took it over. But Gayle King, editor of Oprah’s O magazine, did sign up right around then. She technically signed up on April 16, the day before the Oprah show. Her ID is 29546945.
But, remember that Thursday was the crazy race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN to be the first Twitter user with a million followers. It’s likely that a lot of people signed up that day as well, just to join that race. So King’s number isn’t perfect either. But let’s just say that when Oprah started tweeting, the user IDs were probably around 30000000. That means that between then and now it has gone up nearly 3.5 million ID numbers. Divide by 5 and you get 700,000.
Again, that’s all contingent on an assumption that Twitter is incrementing the numbers in this odd rotation — which is far from a sure thing. But it’s certainly not doing it entirely sequentially, so it’s not to unreasonable to think that the number of users that signed up between Oprah’s show on Friday and today is somewhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million.
And that’s huge. Almost exactly a year ago, we noted that Twitter likely had somewhere just north of a million total users. The service has exploded in popularity since then, and recent estimates have it somewhere in the 5 to 10 million users range. That means that Oprah may have helped bring on a significant percentage of new users in just a few days. Not that it’s shocking in the least. Yes, some of those users would have signed up anyway, some were there for the Kutcher/CNN showdown, and a lot are likely spam. But a very good chunk are thanks to Oprah.
Naturally, I asked Twitter for some actual numbers to share, and co-founder Biz Stone said they hadn’t planned to release any, but thought it might be interesting, and that he’d look into it this week. So you can probably expect a blog post from him sometime this week, though I’m sure it will be vague, showing spikes in sign-ups in relation to other days — rather than actual numbers.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
FRANKFURT, April 20 (Reuters) - The privatisation of the Warsaw Stock Exchange, for which four major western exchange groups have been invited to submit bids, will likely be completed within about six... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:50 am
By Andrew Liszewski Stationary exercise bikes have definitely improved over the years, but a company called RealRyder is hoping to take things one step further with the ABF8. In addition to pedaling, which... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:48 am
-- Andy Home is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. For more Metals Insider columns, top Reuters metals stories and third party content, please visit the free Base Metals Community... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:48 am
HYDERABAD, India, April 20 (Reuters) - Tech Mahindra Ltd , a mid-sized Indian IT outsourcer, said on Monday it had deposited the funds needed for taking the majority stake in fraud-hit Satyam Computer... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:45 am
HYDERABAD, India, April 20 (Reuters) - Tech Mahindra Ltd , a mid-sized Indian IT outsourcer, said on Monday it had deposited the funds needed for taking the majority stake in fraud-hit Satyam Computer... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:45 am
TOKYO, April 20 (Reuters) - Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group , Mizuho Financial Group and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group have submitted bids to buy the Japanese retail brokerage unit of Citigroup Inc... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:39 am
- Stimulus packages are starting to show results but governments need to be prepared to do more, the head of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:35 am
Remember those “personal massagers” in the Sky Mall catalog? The ones that were always shown giving a relaxing vibratory buzz to the neck? Well, now you don’t even need to buy a thinly-veiled sex-toy. For just a dollar, bored, iPhone-owning housewives can “relax at any time of the day” with myMassage, which “helps turn your iPhone into a vibrating personal massager”
Please, try not to snigger.
I could try to make fun of the application, which simply activates the iPhone’s internal vibrator (four levels, shake to select a random speed), but honestly, the product’s own blurb does a far better job. It’s enough to make even an innuendo-loving schoolboy blush:
If you’re stressed or just need a quick pick-me-up, let myMassage provide you with quick relief. MyMassage will continue to vibrate if you turn the screen off while it’s running, great for situations where you don’t want your “myMassage” time to be interrupted by a distracting screen.
The newest version of the software is 1.2, and promises, no kidding, code which is “now leak-free”. Even the disclaimer is ridiculous — “This application is not intended to treat any disease or disorder.”
At last week’s The Next Web Conference, I was part of the 4-headed jury that evaluated all presenting startups and ultimately decided My Name Is E should be awarded the top prize. It was an extremely close call, since we ended up having to decide between the young Dutch company and a startup that built a simply amazing web application you’re really going to want to check out. The tool I’m referring to is called Prezi, and it allows you to create amazing presentations on the web.
If you think you’ve heard that too many times, don’t stop reading just yet, because this one is just plain awesome. It’s an entirely Flash-based app that lets you break away from the slide-by-slide approach of most presentations. Instead, it allows you to create non-linear presentations where you can zoom in and out of a visual map containing words, links, images, videos, etc. This is similar to pptPlex, a Microsoft Office Labs project that aims to bring that type of functionality to PowerPoint.
It’s really no use explaining how presentations come out without seeing it for yourself, so it pains me that there’s currently no way to embed the examples that are showcased on the Prezi website. Instead, you will need to jump to examples in another tab or window, but please do it: good examples are ‘AIESEC’ and ‘Technical Investigation ICYA’.
It takes a while to get used to the way Prezi lets you create presentations, although the interface is fairly intuitive once you’ve grown accustomed to using the ‘Zebra’. There are a number of tutorial videos to assist you in creating your first Prezi presentations.
To get started, you can use the free version which brands every presentation with a Prezi logo, offers 100 MB of file storage, comes with an offline player but without the ability to make presentations private. For €39 a year, you get all that but 5x the amount of storage space and the option not to have your presentations made public. A third ‘Pro’ version costs you €119 per year but features a cool desktop application you can use to create and edit Prezi presentations offline. Besides offering paid versions of the software, Prezi also has other revenue streams, like selling DVDs and offering branding services.
Try it out and let us know how your presentations come out!
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
By Andrew Liszewski There’s no real reason anyone needs to wear a watch with a built-in calculator these days, unless you’re trying to look super-cool of course. In that case you’ll want... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:18 am
JOHANNESBURG, April 20 (Reuters) - South Africa's No.3 drug maker Cipla Medpro SA (CMSA) is still considering a 2.1 billion rand ($236.4 million) bid by rival Adcock Ingram , the company said on Monday... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:16 am
April 20 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 0600 GMT on Monday. (For Reuters columns on deals, click on [DEALTALK... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:16 am
By Andrew Liszewski This folding charging dock from Scosche Industries is nowhere near as compact as the charging adapter currently shipping with the iPhone 3G, so why would you use this one instead? Well... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:14 am
Apple (AAPL) is about to remove the shackles from developers of applications for the iPhone.
While iPhone users have mostly praised the steady stream of games, guides and other programs released thus far, many developers have been frustrated by their inability to do more, such as allow users to purchase digital content within an application. Until recently, Apple Inc. has been slow to give them the tools or a blueprint with which to make that possible.
Now the company says it is on the verge of launching a new iPhone operating system — and a toolkit to help developers of new applications for the handsets. Apple says the new operating system itself will add more than 100 features, including the ability to cut and paste text, and a virtual keyboard for use when the phone is turned sideways, making it easier to type emails. The toolkit is expected to add about 1,000 functions to help developers come up with new applications.
(TrendHunter.com) Warwick Audio Technologies has announced a breakthrough in modern audio technology. The Flat Flexible Loudspeaker (FFL) is less than 0.25mm thick, can produce sound of a higher quality,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 10:00 am
If you’re going to build a manual Segway clone, why not make it steampunk style? This fantastically dangerous pedal-powered Steampunk Segway is called the Legway, and is apparently not as hard to ride as it looks.
Steampunk usually means low-tech, and the Legway is as low-fi as things get. The pedals are mounted on a “crank” of galvanised steel, and pretty much everything else, including the wheels, is made from wood. The Legway obviously lacks the Segway’s self-balancing electronics, replacing them with “a brave self balancing human”. Actually, not that brave — if you check the photos at the end of the Instructables how-to, you’ll see that the maker Bdring has pressed his son into service as a test pilot (although he did ride the thing himself in the accompanying video).
The Legway should be secretly shipped as an overnight replacement for all the real Segways I see carrying swarms of tourists around my city. Currently, my tourist-baiting is limited to riding up behind map-gawkers that have wandered into the bike lane and going crazy with the bell. The inevitable face-plants that the Legway would bring would obviously be far more satisfying.
(TrendHunter.com) It is scientifically proven that human breast milk contains the essential nutrients for growth. Recent discoveries have produced evidence that breast milk also contains antibodies that... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 9:40 am
The yet unnamed device has a tiny solar panel behind the lid, making it possible to charge the phone through the power of the mighty sun. KDDI au claims 10 minutes of a solar charge is enough to be able to make a quick phone call (one minute) or use the phone on standby for an impressive 120 minutes.
Needless to say, the phone will also come with a conventional battery that can be charged up to 80% via solar power.
The phone will be sold in Japan from June. Plans for other markets are not yet on the table.
(TrendHunter.com) Solange Knowles, the younger sister of international superstar Beyonce Knowles and a singer-songwriter in her own right, was spotted leaving the NBC studio after taping a performance... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Apr 2009 | 9:20 am
destinyland writes "Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York is developing flexible nanotubes inserted under the skin to create a handheld display — inside your hand. They wirelessly receive data and display reminders and text messages, and the concept has also been broadened to suggest endlessly programmable digital tattoos, while Netherlands-based Royal Philips Electronics is also exploring the concept of the body as 'a platform for electronics and interactive skin technologies'." That middle link is quite old, but is still loaded with interesting links.
Francesco sez, "Phlatboyz are about to release the new and really improved Phlatprinter MK2: a special type of CNC machine (created by Mark and Trish Carew) that anyone can build with materials purchased at a local hardware store."
, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- In case any bosses missed the memo, Administrative Professionals Week is April 19-25. And OfficeArrow.com, the largest and fastest-growing online collaborative community of Office Professionals, is releasing the results from a recent study showing that most Administrative Professionals prefer recognition year-round. In fact, of those Administrative Professionals surveyed, 53% don't desire any special recognition Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 9:00 am
Come Wednesday, it will be Apple’s turn to discuss its results for the first three months of 2009. But among the crowd of Apple (AAPL) watchers, the discussion has been simmering for months, with the tone shifting from pessimism about recession-whacked sales to cautious optimism–especially as the stock has rebounded 58 percent and skeptical analysts have revised previously bearish outlooks.
As Ashton Kutcher becomes the first to collect 1 million followers on Twitter and Oprah Winfrey sends out her first tweet, tech observers are debating: Does Friday mark a new peak for the microblogging service? Or the beginning of its demise?
Ford is betting the success of the Fiesta subcompact on the blogs, tweets and Facebook updates of 100 people who will live with the cars and share their experiences online. It’s a hell of a gamble, but if it pays off, Ford (F) just might recast itself as a cool company with a great product–no small feat for an American automaker.
LAS VEGAS, NAB Show 2009, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Autonomy
Corporation plc (LSE: AU.), a global leader in infrastructure software for
the enterprise, today announced that its Digital Asset Management (DAM)
solution, Virage MediaBin (previously known as Interwoven MediaBin), has been
incorporated into the Virage family of products that focus on Enterprise Rich
Media Management. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 8:00 am
Kim sez, "The sequence of paintings by a Spanish artist called Fernando Vicente is called Vanitas, meditations on the fading of beauty
and the inevitability of death, basically."
As of today, we have made important changes to the All Things Digital Voices section, which should be of interest to some (and not at all to others).
Why? Well, a few weeks ago, ATD was caught up in a bit of the controversy that broke out due to louder-than-usual complaints by several traditional media companies about how their content is treated on the Web.
Without going into a long explanation, they expressed displeasure that some sites were misusing their content via aggregation.
In fact, Robert Thomson, Dow Jones editor-in-chief and also The Wall Street Journal managing editor, was widely quoted in an interview in the Australian as saying: “There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet.”
That sounds very painful, digitally speaking.
Many on the Web were incensed by that remark and then quickly pointed to the fact that ATD–which is owned by Dow Jones–has a section called Voices that publishes original columns done for our site and posts from other Dow Jones properties, but also points to third-party posts we admire and want our readers to be aware of.
Instead of using simple blue links, we feature these three kinds of content in a marked section on the front page and also in the Voices section itself, using their original headlines and short excerpts from the posts directly. We do not change the text we use nor do we synopsize it.
We also identify the authors by title and picture (until now, we used a D icon if we could not get a picture, but have changed that going forward), as well provide links to the original sites, so readers can read the entire piece there.
But what we have been doing in Voices was not perfect or as clear as it should have been, which was written about by many, such as in Andy Baio of Waxy.org’s thoughtful piece on the issue.
In it, he talked to both bloggers and writers who were unhappy with being featured in Voices, as well as those who liked it.
While we did not agree with all the complaints in the story, the debate did make us realize we needed to be a lot clearer and more explicit about what we are doing and to make those policies–which we had not posted in as much detail about as we have, for example, about our ethics statements (you can see mine here, for example)–more prominent and transparent.
Some will disagree with the changes we have made and some will not think they go far enough.
But we hope we have addressed the key issues, including making it clearer these posts are not ours, posting our policy prominently to avoid confusion about exactly what Voices is and removing all comments and sharing icons from posts that are not original to our site.
We are also now linking directly to a original site from the front page excerpt, without forcing anyone into the Voices section, where we also link to the original site.
We made a number of other changes, which are below in their entirety and are also now easy to find on both the front page and on the Voices page.
Let us be clear: We have always aimed for our Voices section to point to other posts around the Web that we find laudable, interesting or provocative in ways we think our readers should be aware of and we want readers to read them in full on their original site.
The myriad of issues around aggregation and linking is clearly likely going to result in a long and difficult debate, as the way media is discovered by and delivered to consumers changes in the digital age.
Our site obviously believes deeply that linking and pointing and sharing are all an important part of the new media landscape and we remain open to trying to create a system that all players think is fair and equitable.
And, most of all, we hope no one will get too nauseous in the process.
Here’s the new explanation of what Voices is, which is permanently and prominently posted on the site:
This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes “from other Web sites.”
We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to “scrape” original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.
The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions–Look, Mom, no algorithm!–of posts we think are worth their time.
That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don’t expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.
So here is exactly what we do:
We link directly to the post’s original site from the headline on the front page of All Things Digital and use the smallest amount of text possible to give readers a sense of the topic of the post.
Instead of using simple blue links, we feature these three kinds of content we feature in Voices in a marked section on the front page and also in the Voices section itself, using their original headlines and short excerpts from the posts directly. We do not change the text we use nor do we synopsize it.
We fully identify the site the author is writing for, to make sure readers are aware that this is not written for our site. We take attributions from the originating site, but if we have made an error or it is incomplete, we will make sure it is corrected as soon as we are informed of any problems.
We use pictures of the authors from their sites and, if one is not available, we now will be using generic male and female icons going forward, to minimize any confusion that the piece was written for our site.
You can also see the posts when you visit the Voices section, where we feature them, again with the smallest amount of text possible and direct links to the original site. In that section, we pick our favorite post of the day.
We have also removed comments and sharing icons from the posts that are not original to our site.
All content for Voices is selected by, and/or solicited by, the editors of All Things Digital.
If you do not want your pieces selected for our Voices section, please let us know immediately and we will refrain from pointing to any of your work. We will also, on request from an author or site, remove past posts, if so requested.
Regarding original material, we are open to proposals at any time. If you have an idea for an original Voices post, please send it, in the form of a short paragraph, to voices@allthingsd.com. Include a second short paragraph describing yourself and your relevant credentials.
If we like it, we may invite you to submit the full post, and consider publishing it. However, we lack the staff and time to acknowledge such proposals or to engage in a debate or discussion about their suitability. You will only hear from us if we are interested.
We reserve the right to edit the original posts we publish in Voices, but all legal responsibility for their content rests solely with their authors.
We do not make editing changes to posts from other Web sites we point to, except to add ticker symbols when approriate. We obviously claim no copyright over any content that is not original to our site.
We welcome and feedback about Voices at voices@allthingsd.com.
Even more disclosure: Dow Jones is owned by News Corp. (NWS), whose CEO and Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, also complained about some Internet aggregators, which this site covered here in MediaMemo.
Annual Event to Focus on Harnessing the Power of SAP(R) Solutions to Help Companies Achieve Clarity to Thrive in the Current Business Environment
ORLANDO, Fla., April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SAP customers, partners and industry experts worldwide will gather May 11-14 in Orlando, Florida for SAPPHIRE(R) 2009 Orlando, the IT industry's premier customer conference hosted by SAP AG (NYSE: SAP). Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 7:00 am
Republicans in DC know Al Franken won the Minnesota Senate race.
But they are bankrolling Norm Coleman's continued court challenges and are encouraging him to drag this thing out forever. For them, it's worth it to keep shelling out money to block the seating of Senator Franken.
Put simply, the incentives are all wrong. But this weekend, some online folks launched a new campaign to set the incentives right.
Howard Dean's Democracy for America teamed up with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (founded by former MoveOn.org organizers and Aaron Swartz, the co-inventor of Reddit and RSS) to launch www.NormDollar.com.
At that site, people are asked to give a "Dollar a Day to Make Norm Go Away" -- with the funding going to help progressive candidates defeat congressional Republicans in 2010.
The theory: If Republicans up for re-election in 2010 see the progressives who are out to defeat them get an infusion of donations each day that Coleman is obstinate, they and their funders will call Coleman and say, "Your time is up. Concede!"
So far, it's working. In less than one weekend, Norm Coleman has raised over $20,000 to help progressive candidates -- and that number grows by the hour.
An anonymous reader writes "The construction of first next-generation Westinghouse nuclear power reactor breaks ground in Sanmen, China. The reactor, expected to generate 12.7 Megawatts by 2013, costs 40 billion Yuan (~US$6 billion; that's a lot of iPods.) According to Westinghouse, 'The AP1000 is the safest and most economical nuclear power plant available in the worldwide commercial marketplace, and is the only Generation III+ reactor to receive Design Certification from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).' However, Chinese netizens suspect China is being used as a white rat to test unproven nuclear technologies (comments in Chinese)." Update: 04/20 07:28 GMT by T : As several readers have pointed out, this plant will generate much more than 12.7 Megawatts -- more like 1100 MWe.
TiVo’s growth has stopped, and in fact, its user base is dropping. There’s too much competition in the DVR market from the big cable companies who offer the same service at a lower price bundled with the cable boxes you need to have anyway. So TiVo needs a way to make more money. Selling customer data is always a good way to do that.
Now, to be clear, this data will be anonymous, and TiVo has actually been doing this to some extent for several years. But tomorrow, the company plans to unveil a better challenger to Nielsen, the leader in TV audience data, USA Today reports. This type of data is vital to television advertisers because it dictates their ad sales. And TiVo thinks it can provide better data for more markets by using its 3 million plus subscribers, to dish out data that can be broken down by the second.
TiVo is trying to play up the fact that such data can be useful to not only advertisers, but to television shows themselves. This way, they can see what parts of shows people skip through — so news shows, for example, can better tailor key content. But this is really about the advertisers, who will want to know what ads people are skipping through, and at what times, during what programs. I’ll make this simple: While not all DVR owners may skip through all commercials, I would bet that anyone who took the initiative to buy a TiVo — a separate box that costs a few hundred dollars and requires a subscription fee on top of your cable bill — skips through just about all commercials, period.
This data from TiVo will apparently come from all but the smallest of the 210 television markets. That’s nice, as it’s a lot more than Nielsen, which generally just offers constant in-depth reports for the largest markets. But Nielsen’s data undoubtedly covers a much wider range of the overall population. In fact, that idea led to the most curious line in USA Today’s piece as stated by TiVo’s audience research and measurement general manager, Todd Juenger. He says, that on top of being richer and better educated, TiVo owners tend to be “unfortunately, a little more white” (than the overall population).
Seriously though, as a former TiVo owner, I feel for the company. It offers a truly great product, but it’s simply hard for most people to justify paying to put yet another box in their increasingly cluttered living rooms — and asking them to pay yet another monthly fee for it. The cable companies DVRs are absolutely dreadful, but they are cheaper, and come in cable boxes.
The company is making some right moves by offering other services, like Netflix Watch Instantly and Amazon’s streaming movie service on its boxes, but it still has to give a reason for users to pay a relatively high monthly fee for the TiVo service. TiVo can sell all the data it wants, but unless it can reverse the trend of subscribers leaving the service behind, none of that will matter.
--Agreement establishes SeaMobile as Stratos ECO-Partner for land mobile
services--
BETHESDA, MD, April 20 /PRNewswire/ - Stratos Global Corporation, the leading global provider of advanced mobile and fixed-site remote communications solutions, today announced it has signed an agreement with SeaMobile Europe to jointly market SeaMobile's ClipWay real-time video transmission application.
SeaMobile Europe, a Stratos Channel Partner based in Paris, France, developed ClipWay as an easy-to-use software solution for transferring audio/video files to and from anywhere in the world. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 6:00 am
The guest post below was written by Reid Hoffman, CEO and Founder of LinkedIn. Reid, who’s been a prolific writer lately, is a strong advocate of entrepreneurism and the startup mentality. See his recent Washington Post article Let Our Start-Ups Bail Us Out, and the guest post he wrote here on TechCrunch, Stimulus 2.0: It’s The Startups, Stupid. Reid has recently appeared on Charlie Rose, and we had a chance to sit down with him earlier this year for a video interview as well. Reid is an investor in over 60 web ventures including Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, FunnyOrDie, Ning, Last.fm, Six Apart and Technorati. He is also a member of the nominating committee of our upcoming TechFellow Awards with Founders Fund.
TechCrunch and Founders Fund announced the first annual TechFellow Awards last week. This is a great time to stimulate investment and recognize and encourage tech entrepreneurs –starting up is cheaper, talent is more fluid, and people are more inclined to take calculated risks. If we can find more ways to spur investment, it will be good for the entrepreneur now and good for society later.
As a serial investor, I’ve enjoyed backing some good Web 2.0 companies, and it’s helped me develop a shortlist of criteria to cut the wheat from the chaff. After five minutes of a pitch, I know if I’m not going to invest, and after 30 minutes to an hour, I generally know if I will. Many entrepreneurs are product-focused, which leads them to pitch the brilliance of the product. Others are money-minded, so they can over think the business plan. But neither of these approaches answer the first few questions I want to know as an investor:
1. How will you reach a massive audience?
In real estate the wisdom says “location, location, location.” In consumer Internet, think “distribution, distribution, distribution.” Thousands of products launch every month on hundreds of thousands of new Web pages. How does a company rise above the noise to attract massive discovery and adoption? YouTube did it through existing channels like MySpace, which already reached millions. Yelp had strong SEO, which found them a mass audience searching for restaurants and nightlife. Facebook’s University-centric approach landed them 80% adoption across a campus within 60 days of launch. Every Net entrepreneur should answer these questions: How do we get to one million users? Then how do we get to 10 million users? Then how will you get deep engagement by your users.
2. What is your unique value proposition?
The Internet space is crowded. A product needs to be sufficiently innovative to distinguish itself from the pack, but not so forward thinking as to alienate the user. Many entrepreneurs create incremental improvements on existing products. This can be big – Google revolutionized search when AOL and Yahoo! were presumed to have it locked up – but more often, the pitch sounds like, “It’s a dating site, but for senior citizens…” I want to see innovation that is categorically distinct from existing propositions. Digg lets users decide which headlines are newsworthy. Last.fm tracks music listening with an iTunes plugin and buffer great music discovery. Flickr enables users to share and tag photos in new ways.
3. Will your business be capital efficient?
This may be the most important of the three. Even if you have a mass audience and unique value prop, a business fails without cash flow. An initial round of financing is important, but how reliable is later financing? Will investors see the right elements in the next stage? Your product must scale intelligently – this is why I like software. A well-coded site can adapt to mass demand without its capital expenditures scaling out of control. A product like TypePad can grow to 10 million users without half the growing pains of a service like WebVan, the Web 1.0 startup that attempted to deliver groceries to users’ doorsteps. Try reaching Facebook scale with a service like that.
With these three elements in place – mass audience, unique value, stable funding – a startup has time to discover where it can make money. Few business plans ever pan out like their owners intend. PayPal started as a plan to beam payments between Palm Pilots. Google raised funds with a vision to capitalize on enterprise search and ended up in advertising. The formula is to build an audience with a great product – then secure enough funding to figure out how to make it pay.
Since I’m focused on building LinkedIn, I’m not currently investing in new projects, but I firmly believe now is the time to take smart risks as entrepreneurs and investors. I hope these criteria help startups make better pitches as they fundraise, and maybe even encourage others to take the plunge. Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential, and if these criteria help a few more companies find capital, it’s a win for everyone.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Mentalist and conjurer Derren Brown's taking a new show called "Enigma" on tour across the UK. Derren's a terrific performer who does an absolutely baffling mentalist act that combines applied psychology, prestidigitation, and a fabulous performing style that'll have you scraping your jaw off the theatre floor. We caught him in London last year and were just delighted. All the stuff you've seen him do on TV and YouTube? He does stuff that's that cool, except there's no camera, no edits -- nothing that could be used to simply trick you. The fact that he's a "psychic"-busting skeptic only makes it all cooler, since you know that there's a trick in there somewhere, but damned if you can find it. (Or at least, if you can, you're a lot smarter than me!)
Slashdotters are eagerly debating the answer to this provocative question, posed by Travalas, who needs gear that'll run unattended in Bangladesh:
Last year I moved to Rural Bangladesh. My work is pretty diverse, everything from hacking web apps to designing building materials. Increasingly a Linux VM on my MacBook Pro is insufficient due to storage speed/processing constraints and the desire to interface more easily with some sensor packages. There are a few issues that make that make a standard server less than desirable. This server will generally not be running with any sort of climate control and it may need to move to different locations so would also be helpful if it was somewhat portable. The environment here is hot, humid and dusty and brutal on technology and power is very inconsistent so it will often be on a combination of Interruptible Power Supply and solar power. So a UPS is a must and low power consumption desirable, so it strikes me that an Integrated UPS a la Google's servers would be handy. Spec wise it needs to be it needs to be able to handle several VM's and some other processor storage intensive tasks. So 4 cores, 8GB of ram and 3-4 TB of SATA storage seems like a place to start for processing specs. What sort of hardware would you recommend without breaking the bank?
Apart from the normal background radiation of dumb Internet answers ("Why don't you buy an RV and use it to house the armed guards you'll need?") there's some good techy discussion there.
Brazilian radio-cops are handing out $20,000 fines to satellite hackers who bounce their ham signals off FLTSATCOM -- an array of disused US military satellites -- using them as range-extenders for purposes as diverse as trucker-chatter to avoiding the logging cops in illegal Amazon logging operations:
To use the satellite, pirates typically take an ordinary ham radio transmitter, which operates in the 144- to 148-MHZ range, and add a frequency doubler cobbled from coils and a varactor diode. That lets the radio stretch into the lower end of FLTSATCOM's 292- to 317-MHz uplink range. All the gear can be bought near any truck stop for less than $500. Ads on specialized websites offer to perform the conversion for less than $100. Taught the ropes, even rough electricians can make Bolinha-ware.
"I saw it more than once in truck repair shops," says amateur radio operator Adinei Brochi (PY2ADN) "Nearly illiterate men rigged a radio in less than one minute, rolling wire on a coil."
Brochi, who assembled his first radio set from spare parts at 12, has been tracking the Brazilian satellite hacking problem (.pdf) for years.
Brochi says the Pentagon's concerns are obvious.
"If a soldier is shot in an ambush, the first thing he will think of doing will be to send a help request over the radio," observes Brochi. "What if he's trying to call for help and two truckers are discussing soccer? In an emergency, that soldier won't be able to remember quickly how to change the radio programming to look for a frequency that's not saturated."
The Telegraph celebrates the recently departed Clement Freud (writer, grandson of Sigmund, chef, politician, broadcaster) with this clip of the delightful old codger telling "the funniest joke ever told." I laughed aloud -- and I loved his Grimble kids' books, which were weird, subversive and funny in just this way.
PC World - Adobe Systems on Monday unveiled a version of its Flash multimedia streaming technology that would allow people to run entertainment programming directly to television sets from the Internet, a new option for the rapidly changing digital-home market. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Apr 2009 | 4:10 am
AP - Washington will be the first U.S. city to get free digital TV broadcasts for mobile devices like cell phones, laptop computers and in-car entertainment systems, broadcasters were set to announce Monday. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Apr 2009 | 4:05 am
Play MPE(R) v.4 Available in 24 Languages; New Design Features Include MP3 Export and Improved Download Speed and Reliability
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Destiny Media Technologies (OTC Bulletin Board: DSNY) is pleased to announce Play MPE(R) v.4 is now available for download for Windows users. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 4:05 am
Company Releases Caustic RT - Flexible Development Platform for No-Compromise Raytracing
SAN FRANCISCO, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Today Caustic Graphics released CausticRT(TM), the worlds only massively accelerated raytracing system for achieving breakthrough levels of quality in interactive, cinema-quality 3D computer graphics. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 4:01 am
Jaded by years on the internet, even space-based solar power starts to sound ho-hum. That is, until a company files a patent to combine power stations in space with global weather control, claiming they'll use powerful beams of energy to destroy hurricanes as they form.
In 1982, schoolteacher Ed Peden drove out to investigate a decommissioned nuclear missile bunker that was up for sale near his hometown of Topeka, Kansas. He found 34 acres of grass in need of mowing and, deep below ground, an 18,000-square-foot warren of concrete tunnels, most of it flooded with rainwater.
Peden stripped to his shorts and dropped a rope ladder into the flooded base. Most of the rooms were three-quarters flooded, and the water had stagnated for nearly two decades. Holding his nose to dive under doorways between the flooded rooms, Peden took his first tour of what would soon become his family home.
At the height of the Cold War in the early '60s, the United States built dozens of missile bases across the Midwest to launch salvos of Atlas and Titan ICBMs. Typically, the sites were enormous underground bunkers, built to withstand a direct nuclear hit. Some resembled underground cities in their scale. The government spent millions of dollars building each of the sites but evolving weapons technology made them quickly obsolete. Most were shuttered after only a few years of war readiness.
The Topeka base, opened in 1961, housed a gigantic Atlas E missile armed with a 4 megaton thermonuclear warhead — a weapon 200 times more powerful than the bomb that obliterated Nagasaki. By1965 it was declared outdated because it took too long to open the missile bay doors. Nearly 20 years later Peden bought the base — which had remained abandoned all that time — for $48,000.
Today, retired from teaching, Peden is one of the Midwest's leading missile base brokers. So far, he's sold 48 of these forsaken sites, often selling the same site more than once when new owners become overwhelmed with the commitment needed to overhaul and live in an enormous government facility.
Join us as we tour Peden's missile-base home and take a look back at the time that spawned these supersized structures.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
In 1961 America's nuclear muscle was flexed, paraded down the streets of Topeka, Kansas. The United States wanted the entire world to know it was ready, willing and able to respond to any threat.
The I-70 interstate skirts downtown Topeka. It stretches past miles of Kansas farmland, occasionally interrupted by a rest stop or filling station.
Heading west out of town you travel the same open road Ed Peden often drives to pick up groceries and visit civilization since moving into his nuclear missile base some 15 years ago. He has owned the place since 1983, but it took him 10 years to convince his wife to live there.
As the miles pass it becomes obvious why the government decided to build a cluster of missile sites where it did. If you think Topeka is in the middle of nowhere, then Missile Base Road is nowhere.
Off the exit, south 7 miles, left at the T, follow the curve to the right but not onto the gravel road, another couple of turns and you find yourself on Peden's mile-long driveway.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
An ICBM arrives in Osage, Kansas in 1961. The missiles were often displayed in public squares for a while before heading out to the bases.
The one structure Peden added to the property is a sunroom containing a hot tub. He built this small structure over the entrance to his living space and in the shadow of a castle turret. Friends built two faux castle turrets over the bunker's escape hatches.
Peden is a former Topeka high school teacher-turned-real estate mogul, who specializes in selling off these abandoned missile bases. He is also media savvy, as evidenced by the dozens of newspaper and magazine clippings taped to a hallway wall. He glorifies living underground, but carefully measures his words.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
The landscape of Peden's Atlas missile bay is similar to this historical aerial photograph of a similar site, except most of the outbuildings were removed years ago, and his parking lot is completely empty.
Peden's missile base is an early design. The Atlas E missile it housed was stored horizontally in a missile bay. (The entrance to the bay can seen in the background).
To ready the missile for firing, the bay's roof was retracted and the missile lifted into a vertical position. It was then fueled and prepped for launch. This design didn't last long, as it became apparent that too much time was lost preparing the missile for action.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
After being paraded through the streets of nearby towns and cities, the missiles were delivered to their respective bays and silos. In the cavernous bay that once housed a nuclear missile, Ed Peden now stores his lawnmower and other toys.
Peden, who often gives tours of his missile base, likes to start them in the garage. Walking down the ramp to his garage door you can understand why: It's huge.
The massive motorized bay door, which measures 18-by-20 feet and weighs more than 47 tons, gives you some idea of what lies behind it. Beautifully engineered and made from the finest steel, the door still works like a charm, even after spending years submerged under eight feet of water.
Even before all the water was pumped out, even before the electricity was working, Peden cleared out the missile bay with a wheelbarrow, a shovel and a miner's cap. He removed the sludge one trip at a time. It was a mess, but he was determined.
Today the missile bay houses Peden's Winnebago, a tractor and various other vehicles, including an old MG Midget with a For Sale sign in the window. His Winnebago is parked right on top of a massive exhaust pit — now covered by a huge steel plate — that would have expelled the missile's flaming rocket plume as it shot out of the bay. There's also a workroom next door where Peden has built airplanes. (Yeah, full-sized airplanes. Not models). It's a tinkerer's paradise.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
A contemporary photograph shows the missile bay as an Atlas is backed in through the garage door. The 47-ton door at the end of the bay is still completely functional at Peden's base, but the retractable roof is no longer operational.
The first of two tunnels out of the missile bay leads to a platform. A second, 120-foot tunnel leads to the Peden's living space. "Not many houses have tunnels," said Peden. "We have one. We like it."
Peden says that he and his wife inhabit only 6,500 square feet out of the base's 18,000 sq ft. Their two daughters grew up here, learning to ride their bikes on the extensive driveway, but have since grown up and moved out.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
This 1965 photograph taken in Worley, Idaho, shows an Atlas missile bay tunnel, lined with hardhats. The government ripped out all of the hardware when the site was decommissioned.
Photo: Courtesy of Eldon Wilford via siloworld.com
Peden shines a light on a photograph of an Atlas E ICBM, the type of nuclear missile stored at his house in the '60s. Peden, who has given countless tours of the facility, has also put a lot of effort into collecting photographs and other items from the time.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Another 1965 photograph of an Atlas-E ICBM inside a missile bay much like Peden's. This one was in Worley, Idaho.
Photo: Courtesy of Eldon Wilford via siloworld.com
At the entrance to the living quarters is a control panel, very similar to the one that was originally housed here. Peden, shown here, had to buy a replacement since the original was long gone by the time he arrived.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
The operational technical manual must have been fascinating reading. This one put a deputy missile combat crew commander to sleep in front of his Atlas F launch console.
Historic photographs line the walls at the entrance to Peden's living quarters. Pictured is a photograph of an Atlas site from 1964. The Atlas E site he lives in was operational from 1961 to 1965, then decommissioned. It was home to a 4-megaton warhead.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
The crewcuts meet to discuss a looming missile erection demonstration at an Atlas E missile bay, sometime during the early '60s.
Peden remodeled part of the base into a residential area, adding, among other things, two kitchens for his wife, who loves to cook. He also built an office for himself and a bedroom for each daughter, both left untouched since they flew the nest. At his wife's request, Peden keeps the master bedroom off limits for tours.
The highlight of this portion of the house is the spiritual room, formerly the missile control room. Three men manned the controls 24/7 between 1961 and 1965. Now, very deliberately, it's filled with spiritual artifacts from all over the world.
Peden had the room checked out by some of his more spiritual-minded friends. "The room had some heavy energy," he says. He thinks it's ironic that someone with his liberal political views lives in a structure built for such an ominous purpose. "We think we are the antithesis to the American military," he says.
The final stop on the tour takes you through the upstairs dining room, where the diesels that powered the site used to live. The room's glass doors lead to a balcony overlooking the largest and most impressive room in the "house."
Now it is lit with chandeliers, hung with delicate fabrics and covered in richly colored carpets, a gathering place for the Pedens and their friends.
Up the spiral staircase to a sunroom, the tour ends. After an hour below the surface in Peden's castle one can appreciate seeing the light of day and relaxing in his above-ground hot tub.
Photo (above): Jim Merithew/Wired.com
The power room of an Atlas E missile bay in Worley, Idaho, in March 1965. First Lt. Eldon Wilford, S-16, left, and Arthur Huber, S-16, stand next to the diesel generators.
Photo: Courtesy of Eldon Wilford via siloworld.com
1940: Vladimir Zworykin, better known as a co-inventor of television, demonstrates the first electron microscope in the United States. Once again, the Russian emigré improves but does not, strictly speaking, invent an important electronic apparatus.
Zworykin came to the United States in 1919 and worked for Westinghouse for a decade. While there, he developed and patented the iconoscope and kinescope, which used an electronic system to create and reproduce television images.
Westinghouse decided not to pursue the new technology, and Zworykin moved to RCA. Besides helping advance TV to a commercial medium, he worked on text readers, electric eyes, missile guidance systems and, later, computerized weather prediction.
The goal of creating an electron microscope was to achieve far greater magnifications than those possible with conventional, optical 'scopes. The concept involved using a magnetic coil or electric field to focus electrons to a single point.
Bombard a tiny object with electrons, and you can create a large image with the focused beam. In fact, you can use a combination of these lenses to increase magnification, just as an optical microscope does.
Ernst Ruska made this discovery at Berlin Technical University in the late 1920s. He and Max Knott built the world's first electron microscope in 1931. The instrument had a resolution of only 400x — not as good as an optical microscope — but it was proof of concept.
Two years later, Ruska built an electron microscope with resolution that bettered its optical counterparts. By 1938, University of Toronto researchers had built their own model, and the German firm Siemens produced a commercial model in 1939 based on Ruska's work.
Zworykin and his team developed their electron microscope at RCA's research labs in Camden, New Jersey, in 1939. The device they demonstrated across the river in Philadelphia on April 20 of the following year measured 10 feet high and weighed half a ton. It achieved a magnification of 100,000x.
That was more than proof of concept. It was a fulfillment.
Zworykin shares credit for the television with Philo T. Farnsworth and John Logie Baird. His various efforts earned him the Edison Medal from the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the National Medial of Science from the National Academy of Sciences and scores of other awards from associations and institutions around the world.
But science's highest honor eluded him. The 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Ruska, "for his fundamental work in electron optics, and for the design of the first electron microscope," and to Swiss IBM researchers Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer for developing the related technology of the scanning tunneling microscope in the early 1980s.
CAMPINAS, Brazil — On the night of March 8, cruising 22,000 miles above the Earth, U.S. Navy communications satellite FLTSAT-8 suddenly erupted with illicit activity. Jubilant voices and anthems crowded the channel on a junkyard's worth of homemade gear from across vast and silent stretches of the Amazon: Ronaldo, a Brazilian soccer idol, had just scored his first goal with the Corinthians.
It was a party that won't soon be forgotten. Ten days later, Brazilian Federal Police swooped in on 39 suspects in six states in the largest crackdown to date on a growing problem here: illegal hijacking of U.S. military satellite transponders.
"This had been happening for more than five years," says Celso Campos, of the Brazilian Federal Police. "Since the communication channel was open, not encrypted, lots of people used it to talk to each other."
The practice is so entrenched, and the knowledge and tools so widely available, few believe the campaign to stamp it out will be quick or easy.
Much of this country's population lives in remote areas beyond the reach of cellphone coverage, making American satellites an ideal, if illegal, communications option. The problem goes back more than a decade, to the mid-1990s, when Brazilian radio technicians discovered they could jump on the UHF frequencies dedicated to satellites in the Navy's Fleet Satellite Communication system, or FLTSATCOM. They've been at it ever since.
Truck drivers love the birds because they provide better range and sound than ham radios. Rogue loggers in the Amazon use the satellites to transmit coded warnings when authorities threaten to close in. Drug dealers and organized criminal factions use them to coordinate operations.
Today, the satellites, which pirates called "Bolinha" or "little ball," are a national phenomenon.
"It's impossible not to find equipment like this when we catch an organized crime gang," says a police officer involved in last month's action.
The crackdown, called "Operation Satellite," was Brazil's first large-scale enforcement against the problem. Police followed coordinates provided by the U.S. Department of Defense and confirmed by Anatel, Brazil's FCC. Among those charged were university professors, electricians, truckers and farmers, the police say. The suspects face up to four years and jail, but are more likely to be fined if convicted.
First lofted into orbit in the 1970s, the FLTSATCOM bird was at the time a major advance in military communications. Their 23 channels were used by every branch of the U.S. armed forces and the White House for encrypted data and voice, typically from portable ground units that could be quickly unpacked and put to use on the battlefield.
As the original FLTSAT constellation of four satellites fell out of service, the Navy launched a more advanced UFO satellite (for Ultra High Frequency Follow-On) to replace them. Today, there are two FLTSAT and eight UFO birds in geosynchronous orbit. Navy contractors are working on a next-generation system called Mobile User Objective System beginning in September 2009.
Until then, the military is still using aging FLTSAT and UFO satellites — and so are a lot of Brazilians. While the technology on the transponders still dates from the 1970s, radio sets back on Earth have only improved and plummeted in cost — opening a cheap, efficient and illegal backdoor.
To use the satellite, pirates typically take an ordinary ham radio transmitter, which operates in the 144- to 148-MHZ range, and add a frequency doubler cobbled from coils and a varactor diode. That lets the radio stretch into the lower end of FLTSATCOM's 292- to 317-MHz uplink range. All the gear can be bought near any truck stop for less than $500. Ads on specialized websites offer to perform the conversion for less than $100. Taught the ropes, even rough electricians can make Bolinha-ware.
"I saw it more than once in truck repair shops," says amateur radio operator Adinei Brochi (PY2ADN) "Nearly illiterate men rigged a radio in less than one minute, rolling wire on a coil."
"If a soldier is shot in an ambush, the first thing he will think of doing will be to send a help request over the radio," observes Brochi. "What if he's trying to call for help and two truckers are discussing soccer? In an emergency, that soldier won't be able to remember quickly how to change the radio programming to look for a frequency that's not saturated."
When real criminals use these frequencies, it's easy to tell they're hiding something, but it's nearly impossible to know what it is. In one intercepted conversation posted to YouTube, a man alerts a friend that he should watch out, because things are getting "crispy" and "strong winds" are on their way.
Sometimes loggers refer to the approach of authorities by saying, "Santa Claus is coming," says Brochi.
When the user's location is stable, the signal can be triangulated. That's how the Defense Department got the coordinates to feed Brazilian authorities in March's raids.
While Brazil may be the world capital of FLTSATCOM hijacking, there have been cases in other countries — even in the United States. In February of last year, FCC investigators used a mobile direction-finding vehicle to trace rogue transmissions to a Brazilian immigrant in New Jersey. When the investigators inspected his radio gear, they found a transceiver programmed to a FLTSAT frequency, connected to an antenna in the back of his house. Joaquim Barbosa was hit with a $20,000 fine.
A technician with Anatel, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the chief problem with ending the satellite abuse in this country is that U.S. and Brazilian authorities simply waited too long to start. Thousands of users are believed to have the know-how to use the system. After a bust, the airwaves always go quiet for a while, but the hijackers always return.
One week after the "Operation Satellite," Brochi met with Wired.com at a gathering of amateur radio enthusiasts in a bucolic square in Campinas, about 60 miles north of Sao Paulo. Brochi switches on his UHF receiver and scans through the satellite frequencies.
It's relatively quiet now on the satellite underground, except for the static-like sound of encrypted military traffic. But eventually, a lone creaky voice cuts through. It's a man in Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia, a day's drive north into the upper Amazon basin. He's making small talk with a friend in Portuguese. The satellite pirates are creeping back on the air.
If you’ve been paying attention to Shane Acker’s upcoming feature 9, which is based on his short film then you won’t want to miss the video we have for you after the jump. But whatever you do, don’t look at the lights!
An anonymous reader writes "eReader.com seems to have begun applying distribution restrictions to its library. I first noticed that there was a FAQ page about distribution restrictions this morning. When I tried to order a few books this afternoon I simply couldn't — a large banner on the order confirmation told me the books had distribution restrictions. I checked a number of titles but it seems a large number of books are no longer available to non-US citizens like me. It is interesting to note that this policy change got implemented shortly after Barnes&Noble purchased Fictionwise. I have no idea if the new owners are behind this new policy but it seems crazy to restrict sales of ebooks. I've bought dozens of ebooks from eReader the past 4 years. I still have 15 dollar store credit but cannot buy any of the books I am interested in." (Right now, the link that should display these new geographic restrictions returns an error message that says the page is being updated.) Sounds like Barnes & Noble is taking its cues from Apple.
Kadoink, a text messaging marketing startup based in San Francisco, has been seized by creditor Hercules Technology Growth Capital after failing to maintain the financial requirements of a $2.5 million line of credit. CEO Scott Cahill says that there is still a “substantial amount of cash remaining” that is being returned to Hercules, and that they are looking for a strategic buyer to keep the service alive.
The company has announced just $5 million in funding from Sutter Hill Ventures, but they may have burned through substantially more than that. There was rumored to be a previous angel round of nearly $2 million, and the founders took $3 million or so off the table in 2008. Sutter Hill may also have bridged the company an additional $2 million Along with the venture debt, the company may have raised as much as $14 million in capital. At this point, all equity holders other than the cashed-out founders are wiped out.
The startup provided text messaging based marketing services on behalf of brands, similar to competitor Mozes. We’ve added it to the deadpool.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
ATCi Offers the 1st Complete Uplink Broadcast Packages at under $50K
LAS VEGAS, April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Antenna Technology Communications Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Apr 2009 | 1:39 am
ballooner writes "A group of Cornell University graduate students are attempting to break the Amateur Radio Ballooning duration record this weekend. The project is a continuation from last year when some other Cornell grad students broke the altitude record. The progress of the team can be tracked via their Twitter feed or by monitoring their APRS beacons. For all the HAMs out there, downlinks are available on a 30m wavelength, too."
LONDON, April 20 /PRNewswire/ -- SuperDerivatives (SD), the derivatives
benchmark and multi-asset front office and revaluation provider, has launched
the next generation of its interest rates derivatives trading system to
support unprecedented demand for tools to distribute and manage interest rate
derivatives.
Volatility in the interest rates market, driven by policy-setters and
central banks adapting their base rates to the changing economic landscape,
has combined with high levels of illiquidity in banking systems to create
uncertainty in pricing for even the most vanilla of interest rates
derivatives.
Deep concerns about the liquidity and viability of the world's banking
system mean challenges for institutions seeking to hedge interest rates
exposures on their books. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 19 Apr 2009 | 11:01 pm
jefu writes "J.G. Ballard, an author (of science fiction and other fiction) has died. His works include some of the strangest and most compelling novels ever, including 'The Crystal World,' 'Crash' and 'The Atrocity Exhibition.' For a truly weird read, try his 'Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race," compared with Alfred Jarry's "The Crucifixion Considered as an Uphill Bicycle Race.'" Here is Ballard's obituary at the BBC.
Earlier today I covered two new URL shortening services, UnHub and LNK.by, the latest additions to the plethora of basic web applications that many people are growing accustomed to for sharing links on micro-sharing services and social networking sites.
And just when I thought I’d had it with that type of service for a while, we caught wind of one that made me raise my eyebrows. Enter NytUrl, the ‘trusted’ URL shortener for NYtimes.com articles. Update: The site and all the redirects were taken down “due to abuse.”
According to the website, the service shortens URLs for NYTimes.com articles, although a quick test shows that it’s definitely not restricted to other websites (see http://nyturl.com/34 and http://nyturl.com/35), even if it occasionally says the URL is not valid for any other site. This of course defeats the entire purpose of the service, which is to reassure people clicking the links that they’ll wind up on the NYTimes.com website. My guess is that the ability to add links to other websites will be disabled soon enough.
NytUrl also comes with a handy bookmarklet and a basic API, but the website claims this is just the beginning and that there are lots of new features coming soon.
Here’s the strange part: this service is not operated or even endorsed by the New York Times. In fact, the official Twitter account @NYTimes uses bit.ly for links to articles, even if some NYT related accounts are apparently already using NytUrl.com, as evidenced by this Twitter search query (and these exampletweets).
So what gives? A WHOIS search for the owner of the nyturl.com domain name doesn’t reveal a thing since his or her identity has been protected upon registration, but according to our source this is effectively the work of two NYTimes employees, namely one of the group’s Senior Software Architects, Jacob Harris and in-house developer Michael Donohoe.
Which checks out, because Harris is a self-proclaimed Twitter fan and NYTimes aficionado, and according to the bio posted on the SXSW website (where he was a panelist for one of the sessions) he’s also the one who set up the Twitter feeds for a variety of NYTimes related accounts. Donohoe even lists the NytUrl service on his website, so no doubt he’s involved.
Update: Donohoe got back to a request for more information but declines to share more details.
And in case you’re wondering why Harris isn’t using nyt.com (which is owned by the NY Times and forwarded to the main website) for the service, which would knock another 3 characters off the shortened URLs: our source says this was likely a grassroots initiative which hasn’t been approved by any of the decision makers at the NY Times, and that it’s not clear if it’s even going to be in the future.
It does raise interesting questions: is it a good idea for media companies to obtain control over the short URLs they broadcast across the net and link back to their content? Will netizens lend more credibility to media-owned URL shorteners? Or should they just be using what is out there instead of adding yet another one to the fray?
(Note that we use tcrn.ch ourselves for our Twitter account, and that you can see the shortened URL for any of our posts right next to the comment box, in this case http://tcrn.ch/Lk)
Your thoughts on this?
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Mathiasdm writes "The Invisible Internet Project, also known as I2P, has seen its 0.7.2 release (download). I2P uses multiple encryption layers, and routing through several other computers to hide both sender and receiver of messages. On top of the network, regular services such as mail, browsing, file sharing and chatting are supported. This release (and all of the releases since 0.7) is at the start of a new development period, in which the I2P developers wish to spread the word about the secure network. This new release includes performance improvements, a first edition of an experimental new desktop interface and security improvements (by limiting the number of tunnels a single peer can participate in)."
TV advertising startup Spot Runner really is running on fumes. According to a lawsuit filed by one its irate investors, advertising giant WPP, Spot Runner has “expended all but approximately $20 million of its investor capital, while losing money at the rate of $35-$45 million a year.” The company has raised $100 million since 2006, and at one point employed more than 500 people before a string of layoffs cut that number down significantly.
The lawsuit states that the company had a loss of $45 million in fiscal 2008, on revenues of only $9 million. And in fiscal 2007, it lost $35 million on revenues of $5 million.
And here’s the zinger. While Spot Runner was losing all that money, its founders and two early investors (Index Ventures and Battery Ventures) sold shares worth $54 million. CEO and founder Nick Grouf took the lion’s share of those proceeds, netting $26.7 million in five transactions between Feb/March, 2006 and March, 2008. Battery and Index each sold $11.7 million worth of shares (nearly doubling their initial investments of $6 million each). While co-founder David Waxman walked away with only $3.6 million and investor Bob Pittman $365,000 worth of shares. The main complaint of the lawsuit states:
Rather than working to make Spot Runner a successful and profitable venture, they perpetuated a “pump-and dump” scheme in which they aggressively promoted the Company to new investors (often by promoting that WPP was an investor in and supporter of the Company) and then sold new investors large quantities of their own secondary shares at ever-increasing valuations.
WPP alleges that they did this “surreptitiously” and without disclosing it to other investors. As one of Spot Runner’s largest investors, WPP put a total of $11.8 million into the company. But it is hard to feel sorry for WPP. Basically, it argues in the suit that it should have been able to sell its shares to greater fools as well. It is suing because it wasn’t told about the secondary share sales and wasn’t invited to participate until the very last one, and even then only after it complained (WPP was allowed to sell $900,000 worth of stock at that time, while the defendants made off with $17.8 million).
What is not clear from the suit is how much of that $54 million in proceeds, if any, came from fundraising rounds for the company itself versus private secondary sales. Spot Runner won’t comment on any of these numbers other than to say “the complaint contains many inaccuracies.”
With the IPO window closed for many startups, secondary private sales of stock are becoming more popular, especially for founders. That practice is fine if the company succeeds. Nobody is going to care if the founders took some money off the table along the way if everyone gets rich in the process. It is when things don’t go so well that investors start to complain and the lawsuits start flying.
Regardless of the merits of the case, it is not a good sign when one of the largest investors of a startup decides that the best shot it has at ever getting any of its money back is in court instead of in the market. WPP is seeking $13.2 million in damages. And it is not the only one who is angry. Both former and existing employees also feel shafted (read some of the 135 comments on my post about the last round of layoffs, which somehow became an unofficial forum for employees to vent). They never got a chance to sell any of their shares.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati say they have identified a gene that may help recognize who has a greater risk of developing lung cancer.
Cancer biologist and research team head Marshall Anderson said the gene, dubbed RGS17, may serve as a warning sign for people at an enhanced risk for developing the potentially deadly disease, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday.
A proven genetic test could help us identify people at risk before the disease progresses, Anderson said of his group's discovery.
The genetics finding could significantly help young smokers who possess the gene as they would likely be at a higher risk of lung cancer if they continued smoking, Anderson added.
This gene is clearly interactive with cigarette smoke exposure, he said. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 8:50 pm
tuna writes "A real-world test by the Dutch province of Zeeland (a very windy place) demonstrates that small windmills are a fundamentally flawed technology (PDF of tests results in Dutch, English summary). Twelve much-hyped micro wind turbines were placed in a row on an open plain. Their energy yield was measured over a period of one year (April 1, 2008 — March 31, 2009), the average wind velocity during these 12 months was 3.8 meters per second, slightly higher than average. Three windmills broke. The others recorded ridiculously low yields, in spite of the optimal conditions. It would take up to 141 small windmills to power an average American household entirely using wind energy, for a total cost of 780,000 dollars. The test results show clearly that energy return is closely tied to rotor diameter, and that the design of the windmill hardly matters."
Reuters - Nintendo Co Ltd (7974.OS) shares are oversold, Barron's said on Sunday, and reported that strong growth for the Japanese maker of electronic game systems should resume this year.
The global economic slowdown is unlikely to dampen long-term demand for new nuclear power plants, said officials with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Sunday on the eve of talks about the future of nuclear energy.IAEA officials are gathering in Beijing with national and international Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 8:20 pm
British science writer John Maddox, who was editor of the Nature science journal for 22 years, reportedly has died in London at the age of 83.
The Independent reported Saturday Maddox was a key influence to the British science world after 1966 due in part to his editorial efforts with Nature from 1966 to 1973 and again from 1980 to 1995.
The balance on my T-Mobile pre-paid SIM mysteriously vanished a couple of weeks ago, despite the account having "Gold Rewards," wherein minutes supposedly don't expire for a year.
Here's part of the transcript of a chat with a T-Mobile support staffer, who patiently explained that qualifying for Gold Rewards does not actually mean that T-Mobile has granted them:
T-Mobile: I understand you want to know why your prepaid balance suddenly disappeared.
Rob Beschizza: That's right ... I'd topped it up only a few months ago
T-Mobile: Please hold on for a minute or two while I check this one for you. Would that be okay?
Rob Beschizza: And it should have lasted a year
T-Mobile: As I have checked your account, I found out that you are not yet in Gold reward status.
Rob Beschizza: I am looking at my account right now and it says "You are qualified for Gold Rewards!"
T-Mobile: Your Gold reward status will take effect on your next refill.
Rob Beschizza: So I have lost the $40 remaining balance?
T-Mobile: Yes, that is correct Rob.
T-Mobile: I apologize for the inconvenience.
I imagined that it was my own fault: the word-dance around "qualification" and "status" is just the sort of small print trick that's easy to miss. However, the agent's claim actually contradicts T-Mobile's own FAQ, which says you gain the status and the perks as soon you qualify. Emphasis mine:
Gold Rewards is a status that is reached once a T-Mobile To Go customer has applied more than $100 worth of refills (in any combination of $10, $25 or $50 refills) to his or her account or has purchased and applied a $100 refill to the account. Once a customer reaches Gold Rewards status, he or she automatically receives 15% more minutes for free and any unused minutes won't expire for a full year!
If you ... have already reached Gold Reward status, all unused minutes won't expire for one year from the date you last applied airtime to your account.
A third FAQ entry contains more evasive language and changes the deal's name to "Gold Reward Rates," but still says you receive Gold Rewards minutes when you qualify for them, not at some future date when you buy another round:
Gold Rewards rates take effect as soon as you spend over $100 on refills. ... NOTE: The 15% bonus minutes are included as part of the 1,000 minutes you received when you qualified for Gold Rewards.
In yet another T-Mobile FAQ, it's made clear that you receive Gold Rewards status as soon as you qualify for it:
You'll reach Gold Rewards status once you've applied more than $100 worth of refills (in any combination of $10, $25, $50, or $100 refills) to your T-Mobile To Go account. Once you reach Gold Rewards status ... any unused minutes won't expire for a full year!
Remember, T-Mobile said I didn't have this status, even though I've paid my dues.
Given how poor the carriers' customer service generally is, I'm fine with getting tricked by fine-print wrangling over the difference between "qualification" and "status." But T-Mobile's rationale for cancelling the minutes I paid for contradicts all but one of the FAQs I could find. T-Mobile explicitly promises that when you spend $100, you "reach Gold rewards status" and that "any unused minutes won't expire for a full year."
Is it really that difficult to have a no-BS rate schedule and to stick to it?
Update: So after writing this, I decided to call. T-Mobile gave me the same run-around regarding "qualified for Gold Rewards" not being the same as "Gold Rewards status." However, the operator offered a $20 credit when I pointed out that last FAQ entry.
I took the offer, so that I can put it to bed. Commenters Stumo and Michiel are likely right that the best way to have gotten the full amount back would have been to put the dispute in writing -- another next step could have been to email the corporate brass directly.
Researchers from Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry say Tamiflu apparently increases abnormal psychological behavior in young influenza patients.
The team, led by Osaka City University Professor Yoshio Hirota, said its study revealed influenza patients between the ages of 10 and 17 were more likely to exhibit serious abnormal behavior if they consumed the antiviral medication, The Daily Yomiuri reported Sunday.
Tamiflu was banned by the Japanese ministry in 2007 for use on 10- to 19-year-olds after delirious behavior was observed in some children taking the drug.
The new study focused on nearly 10,000 influenza patients under the age of 18 diagnosed after the 2006 fiscal year.
They stated in their report that those patients ages 10 to 17 who took Tamiflu had a 54 percent greater chance of exhibiting abnormal behavior than those patients who did not take the medication.
The link with Tamiflu can't be ruled out, the researcher said in the report released Saturday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 7:47 pm
Rutgers University researchers will make a second attempt to send its miniature yellow submarine across the Atlantic ocean to gather data from underneath the waves.The launch is set for Wednesday, on Earth Day, assuming conditions cooperate."The launching is tremendously exciting because there is just so much that we don't really know about what happens in the oceans," said Jane Lubchenco, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)."The capacity to fly through the ocean, across the Atlantic, taking data about temperature, salinity and other properties of the water gives us keen insight into what's happening down there," she said during an interview with the Associated Press.The first sub was lost in 2008 before it completed its trip. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 7:30 pm
travalas writes "Last year I moved to Rural Bangladesh. My work is pretty diverse, everything from hacking web apps to designing building materials. Increasingly a Linux VM on my MacBook Pro is insufficient due to storage speed/processing constraints and the desire to interface more easily with some sensor packages. There are a few issues that make that make a standard server less than desirable. This server will generally not be running with any sort of climate control and it may need to move to different locations so would also be helpful if it was somewhat portable. The environment here is hot, humid and dusty and brutal on technology and power is very inconsistent so it will often be on a combination of Interruptible Power Supply and solar power. So a UPS is a must and low power consumption desirable, so it strikes me that an Integrated UPS a la Google's servers would be handy. Spec wise it needs to be it needs to be able to handle several VM's and some other processor storage intensive tasks. So 4 cores, 8GB of ram and 3-4 TB of SATA storage seems like a place to start for processing specs. What sort of hardware would you recommend without breaking the bank?"
As Cory noted below, JG Ballard died this morning. Ballard was one of my favorite writers ever and his thinking about culture, art, science, technology, and human behavior had a massive influence on me. He will be missed greatly.
"Picturing the psychology of the future is what it's all been about." --JG Ballard
Silicon Valley is known for nurturing start-ups in a way no other place can. But it’s not all kumbaya here. And one of the most destructive things about Silicon Valley is the hype cycle. And judging by the fact that some bloggers pronounced Twitter “done” the same week the company was featured on Oprah, it’s clear that hype cycle has spun ludicrously out of control.
I’m sure you’ve seen the graphs. If not, it’s to the left. In words: A company comes out and no one likes it. It starts to attain huge growth and buzz. Suddenly it’s anointed the Messiah. Then something happens. A long time ago, that something was negative: A founder leaving, a down-round, growth that tailed-off or an inability to serve customers. Even then it wasn’t necessarily deserved, but the backlash would begin immediately. This company was a laughing stock. What was wrong with them? They’d lost it. They were toast. Well….for another few years. During which a good company would keep growing. And only later, would they get the true credit for what they’d built. Of course, “experts” would claim they got it all along.
A great example is Google—a lauded company that was dismissed when it wouldn’t immediately monetize with banner ads in the wake of the bust, then re-anointed when the numbers came out at the IPO, and it began its surge past $700 a share.
But the hype cycle isn’t confined to companies. It can describe waves of technology – like social networking, RFID or the consumer Internet itself—or people. One of the first examples I saw in the Valley was Marc Andreessen. He was built up as the young, shoe-less God of the Internet that the press brutally tore him down once the crash changed the viability of his second company, Loudcloud’s, business. It’s still deemed a “failure” in some corners of the Valley, never mind that it was painstakingly retooled as Opsware and sold for about the same amount as YouTube. People not only trashed the company, but they retroactively trashed Netscape, and Andreessen himself, saying he’d exaggerated his contributions to Mosaic. Of course, Andreessen kept his head down and kept working. Today he’s widely regarded as one of the most important mentors and angel investors of the Web 2.0 movement and one of the only people to found two companies that would end up being worth more than $1 billion each.
Sure a smug “I told you so” as you count your millions is the best way to silence and embarrass naysayers; it’s the ultimate revenge. But start-ups can take a while to reach their final destination—whether that’s bankruptcy or an IPO. Forget cold, in the Valley revenge is a dish served molding and with flies swarming around it.
There’s an element to the hype cycle that reflects human nature. We get excited about technology and tend to overestimate what it can do in a year and underestimate what it can do in ten years. That’s not all bad: Being underestimated is why a lot of start-ups catch giant companies off guard.
But the blogosphere has turned an already frustrating hype cycle manic. The famous example was Cuil—a company lauded in the morning as a “Google Killer” and trashed before our first cups of coffee got cold. Not quite as extreme is what we’ve seen with the giants of Web 2.0: MySpace, Facebook and– believe it or not– the three-year-old Twitter.
As soon as Facebook launched its platform—as if in unison—the media world decided MySpace was a has-been and Facebook was the king. Sure, Facebook is poised to overtake MySpace in the U.S., but by many accounts MySpace is making more money, increasing engagement and is still one of the largest sites on the Web. That should count for a lot.
In the last month, it’s been happening to Facebook, and it’s even more absurd. The company is still growing, having passed the 200 million or 250 million user mark, depending on who you believe. And other reports, and my own sources, say the company is doing close to a $500 million revenue run rate. Did I mention we’re in an epicly bad recession? How is that a failure?
Frequently the people calling for Zuckerberg’s head because of recent “failures” have never run a company, and never even met Zuckerberg. I tend to agree with a guy who’s done both: Reid Hoffman, CEO of LinkedIn and one of the most successful Web 2.0 investors in the Valley. “Ultimately you judge a CEO by how well the company is doing, and Facebook is doing pretty well,” he told me a few weeks ago. “I think Mark should answer any criticism by saying, ‘Look at the company; I’m doing fine.’” Did Hoffman like the new redesign? Not especially. But he added this, “It’s good to be bold in what you’re doing; it’s good to be visionary. Personally, I don’t think it was right, but Mark may very well learn from that and the next step will be much more interesting in that direction.”
Well said. Guess what, gang? Building a company is hard. No one gets every single thing right. Bloggers harping on each mistake are like the fat guy sitting in the bleachers at a baseball game berating a star player for not hitting a homerun in every at bat.
Sure, Facebook’s valuation is coming down from $15 billion. But that was never a realistic valuation for the company. It wasn’t even paid by traditional venture capitalists; it was paid by Microsoft and other strategics looking to get a piece of the hot company and not caring what it cost. The company itself didn’t value Facebook at $15 billion when insiders sold stock. But is it worth $1 billion or more? Definitely. Even based on a reasonable multiple of revenues. Of the Web 2.0 wave you can count on one hand the companies that can claim that with a straight face.
Even more absurd: Now bloggers are starting to say Twitter is done. I thought it was only now hitting mainstream? It’s one thing to take a company like Cuil—that arguably over-represented what it could do—from hero to goat in less than an hour. It’s another thing to trash a company that’s only a few years old, growing exponentially, well capitalized, and conservatively run with about 30-something employees. (Let’s not even bring up the free Sprint ad and the barrage of John Stewart-Ashton-Larry King-Oprah free press.)
Look, we all do it to a degree. We fall in love with technologies, and readers and editors suddenly get an insatiable demand for stories about them. It’s reporters’ and bloggers’ jobs to give them what they want, right? But that tips into link-baiting, blindly aiming for that TechMeme traffic and writing a provocative headline that the story doesn’t even necessarily back up. It’s one thing to be the early adopter who gets bored once something is mainstream. It’s another thing to write off a company for the sheer fact that it’s successful, and you’re bored writing about it.
Here’s the thing: Great start-ups can survive the hype cycle. Horrible companies were going to fail anyway. That may leave some marginal ones in the middle, but let’s argue if the press tanks a company, it wouldn’t have gotten far ultimately. So maybe the hype cycle doesn’t really do any harm.
But who does it help? As bloggers and reporters we’re supposed to bring people reality and truth. No phase of the hype cycle is reality: Not the messiah, not the goat simply because big press has grown weary of the topic.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Whatever. Last week’s guilty verdict (that will be appealed till we’re all bored of the topic) in the Pirate Bay trial caused all sorta of comfortable outrage online. Now people are taking to the streets. I can’t imagine what they’re chanting at these gatherings: “We demand the right to download music and movies without having to pay for them!” Have these people lost their mind?
So there were a few scattered protests around Sweden in the past couple of days, some of which were organized by the Pirate Party, a nascent political party there. The founder of the party, Rickard Falkvinge, said—I kid you not—that “Politicians have declared war on our entire generation.” That’s good, keep things nice and rational.
The Pirate Party’s ranks have swelled in the wake of the verdict, and now there’s hope that it can win a seat in the European Parliament, and all that entails.
While I’m all for getting people more involved in politics, this could be the dumbest thing ever. You can argue that, perhaps, the imposed damages were excessive, or that a year in jail is silly, but can we be honest for just one minute: the name of the site is the Pirate Bay. It’s a BitTorrent tracker, not a run-of-the-mill search engine. When you look for “filetype: torrent movie” on Google you’re not downloading a torrent file that connects to tracker.google.com, right? So let’s stop pretending that there’s no difference between the Pirate Bay and Google.
And I’m not even saying that I don’t grab the occasional album or dumb movie, but in no way do I picture myself as Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and sticking it to The Man for the Greater Good.
Granted, Facebook’s recent redesign came with a couple of flaws, and lots of people were upset about the changes, but resorting to street protests to try and turn them around?
Apparently, a few people have gathered in Paris to protest against the changes in Facebook, and Alex van Herwijnen was nice enough to send us some pictures he snagged while visiting the French capital. The protesters can be found at the Arche de la Défense, holding signs saying that they’re against the new version of Facebook and that they want the old one back.
From the looks of it, this is probably a prank or more likely part of a video shoot or something. TechCrunch France’s Alain Eskenazi and I looked around for reports in French media, but couldn’t find anything.
I also did a quick search on Facebook to see if there were any related groups or events on the site, but had trouble finding anything in the messy new interface. Maybe I should head down to Paris and voice my complaints with the other protesters?
British scientists say they have developed a stem procedure that will reverse the most common cause of blindness, age-related macular degeneration.
The procedure, pioneered by the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital, involves replacing a layer of degenerated eye cells with new ones obtained from embryonic stem cells, The Sunday Times of London reported.
The newspaper said pharmaceutical research company Pfizer this week will announce financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.
This is a huge step forward for patients, Tom Bremridge, chief executive of the Macular Disease Society, told The Sunday Times. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 6:27 pm
surpeis writes "This snub is an attempt to point the finger at something I feel has been widely ignored in the ever-lasting debate surrounding (illegal) filesharing, now again brought in the spotlight by the Pirate Bay trial. I should state that I am slightly biased, as I have been running my own indie label for some years, spanning about 30 releases. It's now history, but it was not filesharing that got the best of us, just for the record." (surpeis's argument continues below.)
A collaboration between more than 70 researchers across the globe has uncovered nine new genes on the X chromosome that, when knocked-out, lead to learning disabilities. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 6:17 pm
Atmospheric lead causes clouds to form more easily, could change pattern of rain and snow By sampling clouds -- and making their own -- researchers have shown for the first time a direct relation between lead in the sky and the formation of ice crystals that foster clouds. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 19 Apr 2009 | 6:15 pm
AP - To design Windows 7, Microsoft analyzed billions of pieces of data. It studied exactly what PC users do in front of their screens. It tallied hundreds of thousands of Windows surveys. It got feedback from people all over the world who tried different versions of the software. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 19 Apr 2009 | 6:07 pm
To completely rip off Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Sundays are for watching TV, playing video games and building up your BitTorrent ratio. As it turns out, Sundays are also for finding out that the iPod touch is being used in American military theaters, helping troops translate from one tongue to another, taking photos and showing them to locals (“see, your town’s mayor really does like us!”) and any number of other, high-techy things. Hooray for Sundays, then.
There’s a few reasons why the military has chosen the iPod touch. First, and probably foremost is price. A new iPod touch costs Uncle Sam only $230; who know how much a military-specific, tax payer dollar-funded device from a Raytheon or a Stark Industries would cost! Two, most soldiers are already familiar with the iPod touch; many of them own one or an iPhone. That minimizes the amount of device training troops would have to undergo. Three, the touch is fairly versatile device. Apps can be programmed without too much effort, and it won’t break very easily.
Soldiers use the iPod touch in a number of situations. They can translate from Arabic (and others) using Vcommunicator. Software is in development that would allow a soldier to take a photo of, say, a street sign, send it off to HQ, then get all sorts of intelligence for the surrounding area.
Groovy. (And all that without a single Swiss Army Knife metaphor. Well done, me.)
Seth Shostak of the SETI Institute recently wrote an opinion piece for the NY Times discussing the limitations of our space technology. He makes the harsh point that transporting human beings to other star systems isn't a reasonable goal even on a multi-generational time frame. However, advances in robotics and data gathering could instead bring the planets and stars to us, and do it far sooner. Quoting: "Sending humans to the stars is simply not in the offing. But this is how we could survey other worlds, around other suns. We fling data-collecting, robotic craft to the stars. These proxy explorers can be very small, and consequently can be shot spaceward at tremendous speed even with the types of rockets now available. Robot probes don't require life support systems, don't get sick or claustrophobic and don't insist on round-trip tickets. ... These microbots would supply the information that, fed to computers, would allow us to explore alien planets in the same way that we navigate the virtual spaces of video games or wander through online environments like Second Life. High-tech masks and data gloves, sartorial accessories considerably more comfortable than a spacesuit, would permit you to see the landscape, touch objects and even smell the air."
Sure, wardriving isn’t what it used to be with access points often locked down, but some folks still enjoy the pastime. This, however, is not the safest way to conduct the activity. Apparently there are not seat belt laws in Russia either. Another pic after the link.
You might me able to spotThe Beatles: Rock Band in this clip if you have access to the Hubble. On Friday, Mr. Paul McCartney took stage at Coachella, and belted out a tune or two. In the background, quite possibly the game that will be all over the place come September.
I guess there’s two markets for the game: Beatles fans from back in the day (presumably they’ll be picking up the Wii version) and Rock Band addicts.
For $250, Paul McCartney himself had better pop out of a cake (fully dressed, thank you very much!) and start singing show tunes the moment you open the box.
Joel “Drinkmaster” Johnson started a little drinking society in his garage in Washington and these are the results of their first meeting. Man, I want to do one of these in Bay Ridge.
Above, Patrick and Don of the Baker Boulevard Geographic Society generate a wall of noise from found objects connected to contact mics, a portable record player, and a signal generator. (Video shot and edited by Justin.)
I finally received and installed a Moxi HD DVR after some shipping issues with Fedex . I have to say though, I’m not that impressed two days in. The company screams on the official website that the Moxi is superior to TiVo in almost every way - seriously, it does - but besides the pretty eye-candy GUI, I wouldn’t call everything superior. The Moxi has some sweet extra features that TiVo doesn’t, but I feel like the core functionality of watching and recording television isn’t all that better.
Click through for more initial thoughts and unboxing pics.
I have two TiVo HD boxes in my house. I like ‘em. The interface is outdated, but it works well. Big props to the Moxi as it looks so much better in HD than the TiVo. That is probably ’cause the interface was designed this decade rather than during the Clinton administration.
However, the GUI doesn’t take advantage of an HDTVs real estate properly when surfing the channels. The layout is a vertical bar, which fits great in a SDTV but leaves a lot of unused space that could show more info on an HDTV. This complaint could be that I cannot stand the vertical channel bar and its limited info. TiVo offers a similar guide layout, but also allows for a grid type display, which shows future events on numerous stations simultaneously.
There are some cool features built into the Moxi. Superticker I found to be convenient. It displays a small ticker at the bottom of the TV that is easily navigated for sports, weather, and news info without taking away too much from the TV program. The Flickr support is superb as was the Moxi HD setup which only took a few minutes.
The TiVo HD XL is still hooked up to the TV and is just one click away on the remote, but I’ll give this Moxi box a fair chance before coming to any solid conclusions. So far I have to say that I’m not as impressed as I thought I would be.
AP - In 2004, when MySpace was still getting going, recording label executive Courtney Holt noticed that musicians were using the Web site to connect more intimately with their fans, through detailed blogs and behind-the-scenes photos. So Holt arranged to meet MySpace's founders.
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TiVo’s growth has stopped, and in fact, its user base is dropping. There’s too much competition in the DVR market from the big cable companies who offer the same service at a lower price bundled with the cable boxes you need to have anyway. So TiVo needs a way to make more money. Selling customer data is always a good way to do that.
The guest post below was written by 
Mentalist and conjurer Derren Brown's taking a new show called "Enigma" on tour across the UK. Derren's a terrific performer who does an absolutely baffling mentalist act that combines applied psychology, prestidigitation, and a fabulous performing style that'll have you scraping your jaw off the theatre floor. We caught him in London last year and were just delighted. All the stuff you've seen him do on TV and YouTube? He does stuff that's that cool, except there's no camera, no edits -- nothing that could be used to simply trick you. The fact that he's a "psychic"-busting skeptic only makes it all cooler, since you know that there's a trick in there somewhere, but damned if you can find it. (Or at least, if you can, you're a lot smarter than me!)
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The author JG Ballard, famed for novels such as Crash and Empire of the Sun, has died aged 78 after a long illness.
