Source: Gizmodo | 22 Apr 2009 | 10:17 am

Yahoo First Quarter ‘09 Financial Highlights: The Slides [BoomTown]

For those who cannot get enough of either a report on Yahoo’s first-quarter earnings or a liveblog of its conference call on the subject, here are the slides the company released about the results.

Yes, BoomTown is dropping the F-Bomb–that would be for financial slides for Yahoo (YHOO), so get your mind out of the gutter!

Here they are (click on the little screen icon to make larger):

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 9:34 am

Finjan Discovers a Network of 1.9 Million Malware-Infected Computers Controlled by Cybercriminals - Corporate and Government Computers are Included

- Findings Show That the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 9:00 am

CommuniGate Systems Launches Mobile Office for Mobile Unified Communications

LONDON, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- - New Offering Packages Unified Communications and Fixed to Mobile Convergence for Wireless Operators to Deliver Value Added Services (VAS) to Small and Medium Businesses CommuniGate Systems, the leader in carrier-class Mobile Unified Communications, today announced the launch of its new offering - CommuniGate

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:55 am

Inotera (3474.tw) Schedules 2009 Q1 Inotera Quarterly Earnings Conference

TAIPEI, Taiwan, April 22 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Inotera Memories, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:54 am

Study Claims 8.5% of Young Gamers "Pathologically Addicted"

schnucki brings word of new research which claims roughly one in twelve American children between the ages of eight and 18 are "pathologically addicted" to video games. The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, says that "pathological status was a significant predictor of poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play." However, Professor Cheryl Olson, who has conducted her own research into video game use, questioned Gentile's methodology, saying, "The author is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:51 am

Wii Console Sales Hit 8 Million in Japan as Growth Slows (PC World)

PC World - Sales of Nintendo's Wii console have passed 8 million in Japan, according to data released on Wednesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:50 am

ASUSTEK(2357.tw) 2009 Q1 Webcast in English Scheduled

TAIPEI, Taiwan, April 22 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- ASUSTEK COMPUTER INC. (Stock Code: 2357.tw) has scheduled its 2009 Q1 Webcast in English for Apr 30, 2009 at 20:00 (GMT+08:00) in Taipei.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:47 am

World's Top Computer Display Brands First to be Awarded New TCO Certification for High Performance and Green Design

STOCKHOLM, April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Products from leading computer display brands Eizo, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Terra are first in the world to be awarded the new TCO Certified designation - recognizing superior design for environment and usability.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 8:30 am

Ranting lemonade label from embittered screenwriter

Aaron sez, "My girlfriend knows that I like strange stuff, so she picked up two bottles of lemonade from this guy who sells them at a farm in Malibu. Here is what you could find on the labels:"

THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN MY MOVIE!

My name is Matthew and I am one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood. Unfortunately, the television networks and movie studios don't know that yet. As it stands, the decision of which films get produced are left in the hands of emotionally-immature, substance-abusing ex-lawyers who live in dread paranoia that everyone in the universe is out to get them. They spend the bulk of their time spying on their fellow executives, composing nasty counter-intelligence rumors and spreading them through their network of FA-BU-LOUS, yet cunning assistants.

Much of the actual work, like "reading" is left to a gaggle of twenty-something interns who are all the product of George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" policy. To these bimbos, nothing in the world existed before 1995, and the most reading they've done has been through text messages. They believe that good writing is something that fits into 160 characters, all performed with the thumbs. :)LOL!

Needless to say, I'm making my own damn movie and you just helped! All of the profits from this amazingly refreshing drink are going into my independent film. Why? Because I believe in the spirit of America - CONSUME AND DESTROY! POOR=BAD/RICH=GOOD! WAR IS PEACE! YOU-ESS-AY! YOU-ESS-AY! YEE-HAW!

Any-hoo, if you work in "THE INDUSTRY" as a common below-the-line slob and would like to work on my film for less than you're worth for no other reason but to satisfy my giant ego, send your resume to: malibu.monkey@verizon.net.

If you're a producer with a distribution deal, somewhat sober, and capable of actually reading a screenplay by yourself, shoot an email to me as well. I'll be happy to send a script to you along with your stupid submission release agreement boilerplate wank-rag.

If you are an actor, congratulations on making it this far. It's a lot of words. Who's a good boy? You! And you are very special. Plus, you serve specials at the restaurant. Special food served by special people to special people. Okay, I admit it. I'm just jealous because you are better looking than me and get all the hotties. Girls who go for me are all smart 'n' junk. Plus, they sag. And you're in SAG. Isn't that special?!

Agents, entertainment lawyers, managers and all other Pimps of The Antichrist can do us all a favor by simply killing yourselves. If you can, try to attempt a single moment of original, creative thought by finding an entertaining way to do it. Like performing seppuku with a champagne flute during the lunch rush at The Ivy. Or hang yourself from one of "O's" in the Hollywood sign with a noose made from your Kabbalah strings and rubber cancer-awareness bracelets. Either way, die bloodsucker! Die!

Cheers!

This guy is the embittered Dr Bronner of the west coast soft-drink trade. ALL ONE ALL ONE ALL ONE! We should introduce him to Mr Time-Cube.

THANK YOU FOR INVESTING IN MY MOVIE! (Thanks, Aaron!)

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:52 am

STMicroelectronics Posts Its 2008 Statutory Accounts on Its Website

GENEVA, April 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) has posted its 2008 Statutory Accounts on its Company website and has filed them with its Dutch regulator, the AFM (Authority for the Financial Markets).
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:30 am

India's Wipro reports 4 pct rise in Q4 profit (AFP)

AFP - Wipro Ltd, India's third-biggest software company, on Wednesday reported a four percent rise in net profit ending March, beating market expectations.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:17 am

The Twitter Revolution That Wasn’t [Voices]

We’ve been waiting a long time for political upheaval to follow in the wake of technological change, and on April 7, it seemed to have arrived. From Moldova, of all places, came news of the Twitter revolution: In one of the poorest backwaters in Europe—a place that frequently features in global surveys as the world’s unhappiest country—a group of fresh-faced young people reportedly used Twitter tweets, text messages, and Facebook postings to organize a demonstration in favor of democracy and against rigged elections.

Read the rest of this post on Slate, its originating Web site

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:05 am

New Website Provides a Wealth of Hard-to-Find Cost Information to Help Consumers Stretch their Budgets

PROVIDENCE, R.I., April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- With the unemployment rate at a startling high and the prices of necessities rising even as many household budgets shrink, making informed purchasing decisions matters now more than ever.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:05 am

Why Did Google Create News Timeline and Not Newspapers? [Voices]

I have to say that my initial reaction to Google (GOOG) Labs News Timeline feature was meh. I don’t think it’s as elegant as Marcos Weskamp and Dan Albritton’s newsmap, which has been around since 2004.

However, as Edward N. Albro points out at PCWorld, there are some useful features such as the ability to see the news by decade. It really shows how news goes from being the first draft of history to become history.

Read the rest of this post on the Guardian, its originating site

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:04 am

Study: Pirates Biggest Music Buyers. Labels: Yeah, Right [Voices]

Those who download illegal copies of music over P2P networks are the biggest consumers of legal music options, according to a new study by the BI Norwegian School of Management. Researchers examined the music downloading habits of more than 1,900 Internet users over the age of 15, and found that illegal music connoisseurs are significantly more likely to purchase music than the average, non-P2P-loving user.

Read the rest of this post on Ars Technica, its originating Web site

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:03 am

Time For Google To Fund An Online-Only Version Of The Pulitzers? [Voices]

The Pulitzer Prizes were announced today [April 20] — and sincere congrats to the hard-working journalists who’ve won those highest of prizes. But with no online-only publications winning — in the first year they were eligible to enter — I wonder if it’s time for an online-only version of the Pulitzers to be offered.

Read the rest of this post on Daggle, its originating Web site

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:02 am

Ignore Twitter? Major Brands Learn They’d Better Respond — and Quick [Voices]

Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) shut like a book.

Domino’s Pizza Inc. (DPZ) was late but eventually delivered.

And CNN focused on the good news.

When the three major brands engaged with their Web-savvy fans and critics in separate incidents last week, their responses demonstrated how corporations are still learning how to control their messages — and reputations — in a fast-twitch online world.

Read the rest of this post on latimes.com, its originating Web site

Source: All Things Digital | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:01 am

SAP Signs Global Reseller Agreement With APOS Systems

SAP(R) BusinessObjects Integration(TM) software, version for ESRI GIS software is a powerful, two-way bridge between two industry-leading business intelligence solutions, ESRI ArcIMS/ArcGIS Server and SAP BusinessObjects XI. Shockwave Flash (SWF) format-based control enables live ESRI map embedding in Crystal Reports(R) software, and users can export these reports to a PDF with a working map control.SAP BusinessObjects Integration, version for Microsoft Outlook allows users to connect to SAP BusinessObjects XI from Microsoft Outlook, with online or offline report viewing and scheduling.SAP(R) BusinessObjects(TM) Enterprise software, advanced administration package
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Apr 2009 | 7:00 am

Ancient Books Go Online

jd writes "The BBC is reporting that the United Nations' World Digital Library has gone online with an initial offering of 1,200 ancient manuscripts, parchments and documents. To no great surprise, Europe comes in first with 380 items. South America comes in second with 320, with a very distant third place being given to the Middle East at a paltry 157 texts. This is only the initial round, so the leader board can be expected to change. There are, for example, a lot of Sumerian and Babylonian tablets, many of which are already online elsewhere. Astonishingly, the collection is covered by numerous copyright laws, according to the legal page. Use of material from a given country is subject to whatever restrictions that country places, in addition to any local and international copyright laws. With some of the contributions being over 8,000 years old, this has to be the longest copyright extension ever offered. There is nothing on whether the original artists get royalties, however."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Apr 2009 | 5:41 am

747 converted to a restaurant, then abandoned

Marilyn sez, "An old 747 was converted into a restaurant in the city of Mokpo, South Korea, and then abandoned. Sad looking on the outside, but still cool looking inside."

Abandoned Boeing 747 Restaurant (and Other Plane Conversions) (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Source: Boing Boing | 22 Apr 2009 | 5:38 am

JG Ballard eulogized by John Clute

Writing in The Independent, John Clute, an eminent scholar and historian of science fiction, eulogizes JG Ballard. I ran into Clute over the Easter weekend and he mentioned that as the designated writer of science fiction obits for The Independent, he keeps a file of pre-written -- and oft-updated -- obits for older writers and writers in poor health. I was shocked at this -- it seemed a little gruesome -- but John said, "The last thing I want is for a good friend to pass while I'm travelling or busy and for me not to be able to write them the good, full and complete obituary they deserve." Here's the results -- an obit every bit as good as a titan like Ballard deserved.

The most complete unfolding of his later sense of things can probably be found in a quite astonishing book-length interview published by the magazine Research as the self-standing Research No 8/9 (1984) but he remained unfailingly eloquent until the end of his life, as the interviews assembled in Conversations (2005) attest. "At times", he said in 2004, "I look around the executive housing estates of the Thames Valley and feel that [a vicious and genuinely mindless neo-fascism] is already here, quietly waiting its day, and largely unknown to itself ... What is so disturbing about the 9/11 hijackers is that they had not spent the previous years squatting in the dust on some Afghan hillside ... These were highly educated engineers and architects who had spent years sitting around in shopping malls in Hamburg and London, drinking coffee and listening to the muzak."

He continued to live in Shepperton. In 1985, he had a copy made of a lost Paul Delvaux painting - in truth, not a very good one - and kept it propped against the same wall in his work-room for the rest of his life. He refused an OBE in 2003, as the whole rackety world of gong-bestowing seemed to him a "Ruritanian charade" designed to "prop up" the Royals. He continued to act with dignity and insight the role of a public man of letters, publishing reviews and comments frequently - A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews (1996) assembles some of this work. Miracles of Life is a memoir of piercing clarity; a projected posthumous volume, Conversations with My Physician, may continue Ballard's engagement with the facts of his mortality.

His late novels never flinch from addressing the "elective psychopathy" that increasingly riddles the anaesthetised world we are now beginning to inhabit. It is a fate Ballard had been predicting for half a century. His fiction was perhaps too invariant for him to rank as the greatest literary figure of his generation but of all the writers of significance in the last decades of the 20th century, he was maybe the widest awake.

J.G. Ballard: Writer whose dystopian visions helped shape our view of the modern world (via Making Light)



Source: Gizmodo | 22 Apr 2009 | 5:35 am

Core MySpace Executive Team “Definitely Out.” Expect Announcement Soon.

An update to my post earlier today that News Corp., under new CEO of Digital Media Jonathan Miller, is looking to replace MySpace CEO and cofounder Chris DeWolfe. We’ve confirmed that things are actually moving much faster than we first understood, and that a decision has already been made to terminate Chris DeWolfe’s employment with MySpace. We’ve also been told that the core MySpace executive team will follow.

MySpace has a dozen or so “execs,” but our guess is that it’s the very senior team that will be terminated: cofounders Chris DeWolfe (CEO), Tom Anderson (President) and Aber Whitcomb (CTO). Removing any more of the team would be much more than a morale blow to the company - it would also bring operations to a screaming halt.

Our understanding is that a new CEO has already been recruited and is in the final stages of contract negotiations. An announcement could come as soon as this week or next. We’ll be posting a shortlist of who we believe are the likely candidates for the CEO position shortly.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Apr 2009 | 5:29 am

AMD Adds Speed to Shanghai Processors (PC World)

PC World - AMD on Wednesday expanded its Opteron server processor lineup, lowering the bar on power drawn while raising the performance of chips.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Apr 2009 | 5:10 am

Battlestar fan? Look to Zune Marketplace for your Caprica needs

If you’re a big BSG buff, and I know you are, you’re probably looking forward to seeing the prequel Caprica, if you haven’t done so already. The first episode was shown at the Arclight in LA (I saw Alien there, it was freaky), and now you can get that episode on DVD. Or, if you’re a real fan, you can head on over to the Zune Marketplace and get the episode plus the big Q&A session that followed. With a sold-out BSG fanboy audience, you can bet your final Cylon that it was an interesting event.

Aaaactually, as it turns out, you’ll have to wait until the 28th to get your fix. But when the time comes, you’ll definitely have to Zune it up if you want that extra content. It looks like the Zune guys are big on BSG, since they even had a custom sparkly blue baby Zune made up with BSG art on the back. Hot. It may not attract all the girls, but if you find yourself a lady who is impressed by your Battlestar-themed Zune, you should probably lock that down.

Keep an eye on the Zune Marketplace for your BSG-related video download requirements.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:53 am

Paralysis more widespread than thought

Researchers say the number people in the United States living with paralysis or spinal cord injuries has been greatly underestimated.

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:30 am

Yahoo's feeble 1Q triggers nearly 700 more layoffs (AP)

AP - Yahoo Inc.'s first-quarter results tread familiar ground as the Internet company's financial erosion triggered another round of layoffs and management promised better days ahead.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:10 am

Second Life to let users filter adult content (AP)

AP - Second Life is getting a little less steamy for people who want to use the virtual world for a myriad of PG-rated experiences, such as taking classes, prototyping buildings or designing virtual goods.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:07 am

Star Trek's Beast Master Reveals How to Create a Monster

:

The blink of an ominous eye. The flash of a feral fang. The flapping of a grotesque limb. Creature guru Neville Page knows we're scared. Every peek at monster flesh is part of the deliberate ploy to pull audiences into a film and set them up for a terrific payoff—the satisfaction of finally seeing the beast in its full-screen glory. How does Page keep us captivated from peekaboo shots to the big reveal?

By drawing on plenty of experience, for starters. Page was tapped by J.J. Abrams for Cloverfield and the new Star Trek movie. He also created the killer fish in the forthcoming Piranha 3-D, as well as the bizarre animals and aliens he developed for James Cameron's Avatar, slated for release in December.

:

Page notes that his otherworldly monsters are based in earthly biology. "If you know that," he says, "your ability to manipulate it into something bizarre will still feel correct." He has found inspiration in the jaws of angler fish, the limbs of green tree frogs, and the inflating wattles of male frigate birds.

:

Page never stops honing his rendering skills. He not only paints and sculpts concept art of all of his creations, but also fleshes them out in CG form and—with the help of a 3-D printer (which Abrams loves)—turns out touchable prototypes and maquettes the way the rest of us print Word docs.

:

Finally, Page anticipates how a filmmaker will light and shoot his creatures. Case in point: He tweaked the Cloverfield behemoth to give it a multiarmed midriff, because the characters' camcorders would be aiming up at it from street level.

"What's key in those quick reveals," Page says, "is that you have a lot of detail and that everything reads as fast as possible. That gives people a visceral, holy-crap response." Brace yourself for some of his Star Trek handiwork.

:

To develop a creature, Page first doodles in sketchbooks, then compiles silhouettes of various creatures to judge onscreen proportions. From there Page dresses the profiles with several detailed illustrations of fanciful hides. The final result is prototyped in CG.

:

Meet a monster that literally looks like ass—the Star Trek critter Page calls Big Red, a lobster-hued snow-planet scourge that shows up to attack James T. Kirk. "The brief was, it needs the most disgusting mouth," Page says. He considered crabby, finger-like oral appendages, then decided there's nothing ickier than the sight of a prolapsed rectum. (Yuck. We agree.) For reference, Page hunted down hundreds of pictures of that unfortunate condition. "If the government saw them," he jokes, "I'd be institutionalized."

:

More than 200 eyeballs dot the monster's body, and each one had to look alive. Page and his team turned out sample ocular expressions based on animal physiology, such as "open-nict" (top row, third from left), short for "nictitating membrane," a protective sheath many birds, reptiles, and sharks have. Another effect is "tapetum lucidum" (bottom row, third from right). Latin for "tapestry of light," it's the reflective tissue behind the retina of some animals' eyeballs (as seen in cats, raccoons, and dogs) that allows them superior night vision.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

April 22, 1970: Tell Your Mother You Love Her

1970: Mother Earth finally gets her due with the celebration of the first Earth Day. Historians regard this as the public launch of the modern environmental movement.

In the unslakable thirst for power, wealth and self-aggrandizement, mankind has for centuries shamelessly plundered the planet’s resources. While it's reasonable to use some of the bounties of the Earth to ensure the survival and progress of the species, the growing ability (not to mention both need and greed) to extract more and more has exacted a heavy toll.

The knowledge that the Earth's resources are not infinite provided the impetus for conservationists to try and raise awareness among the broader public.

Earth Day, which was founded by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-Wisconsin), not only heralded the beginning of the environmental movement but became one of its enduring symbols. Its celebration every April affords the chance to reflect on both the successes and failures of the movement.

Nelson, who at the age of 14 led a campaign to plant trees along the roads in his native Clear Lake, Wisconsin, emerged as a major voice for conservation when he joined the U.S. Senate in 1962. He found a sympathetic ear in President John F. Kennedy, and the seeds for Earth Day — and the environmental movement in general — can rightly be said to have been planted during JFK’s administration.

Nelson found his inspiration for Earth Day in the university teach-ins popular during the Vietnam War. If students could be organized to help stop an unpopular war, then why not use similar tactics to galvanize an environmental movement?

In fact, people everywhere were waking up to the importance of protecting their planet. The months before the first Earth Day saw a profusion of grassroots efforts aimed either at specific causes or raising environmental awareness in general.

Under the guidance of Earth Day national coordinator Denis Hayes, thousands of volunteers — mostly college-age or younger — organized rallies and events from the "redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters." When Earth Day arrived, 20 million Americans took part.

During an address at the University of Wisconsin, Nelson summed up the purpose of Earth Day this way: "Our goal is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human creatures and for all living creatures…. The battle to restore a proper relationship between man and his environment, between man and other living creatures will require a long, sustained, political, moral, ethical and financial commitment, far beyond any effort made before."

The senator practiced what he preached. Virtually every significant piece of environmental legislation of the period has Nelson’s fingerprints all over it: from the preservation of the Appalachian Trail to the Clean Air Act to the Clean Water Act.

Following his defeat for re-election in the same 1980 election that swept Ronald Reagan and the neoconservatives into power nationwide, Nelson moved on to the Wilderness Society, where he served as a counselor. He died in 2005.

Over the years, Nelson’s message never wavered: Safeguarding the environment is the single most pressing problem facing humanity.

A lot of people believe him today. Plenty of others, alas, still don’t.

Source: Various

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

Video: Trip-Hop Pioneer Tricky Is Sweet and Naive

Tricky, of Massive Attack fame, shows Wired.com the ropes on becoming a musician and producer

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

Thanks for the Memories: Overtaxing Your CPU for Perfect Recall

	Ready for the ultimate memory test? Find all of the computer names hidden in the grid. All 43 are cited in the list below by the size of the main memory of the base model, the year of release, and the number of letters in the name. (The puzzle works best when printed so the grid is exactly two inches wide.) Click here for the answer key.

Sean Trowbridge is a software architect at Microsoft, where he helped design the .Net Framework. He enjoys designing puzzles that involve transforming ordinary objects in surprising ways.

	Answer: The answers are: Colossus, ENIAC, Altair 8800, Manchester Mark I, Pilot ACE, Sinclair ZX80, Apple II, Commodore PET, TRS-80, VIC-20, PDP-8, System/360, DG Nova, Atari 800, Univac I, PDP-1, IBM PC, TI-99/4A, BBC Micro, DECmate, Osborne 1, Commodore 64, Kaypro II, Coleco Adam, Atlas, HP 9000, Compaq, Macintosh, Sun-1, Amiga, Atari ST, PS/2, CDC 6600, Lisa, Powerbook, Symbolics, SPARCStation, Thinkpad, Cray-1, VAX-11/780, NeXT, iMac, Cray-2. The leftover letters spell TO FIND A UNIT OF STORAGE FOR PREHISTORIC COMPUTERS, PLACE CORNERS OF 2 SD CARDS AT XES Unfortunately, this final step of the puzzle only works if you're using the version that appears in the magazine, or if you print it out such that the word find grid is exactly 2x2.75 inches. If the grid is the correct size, then putting SD cards (found in most digital cameras) with corners at each letter X gives: At the intersection of these cards, the punny answer TRILOBYTE is shown between the hyphens.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Apr 2009 | 4:00 am

Music Video: Oiled up bikini girls using power tools

It's okay, it's not sexist—it's a documentary.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:58 am

Family forgot about gun used in shooting

The parents of a 12-year-old boy who shot himself with a handgun he found in their home told police they had forgotten they even owned the gun. The boy, Jacob Larson, was found last Friday with a gunshot wound to the head. He remains hospitalized, the St. Petersburg Times (Fla.) reported.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:57 am

Social Profiling

Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Yahoo and now Google. What does these have in common? If you’re reading this blog, you probably have a profile on all of them. And those are just the obvious ones, you probably have a bunch of other profiles on a series of other networks too. The situation has become untenable.

Imagine if you wanted to update one piece of information on all of them — like I recently had to do with a job change. That’s a lot of work for such a minor tweak. But if you don’t do it across the board, there will be incorrect information about you out there on the web. Information that is always just a search away.

Sure, there are calls for profile standards, and even some services that promise to update your information across multiple networks in one fell swoop — but let’s be honest, the only way you’re ever going to get a unified profile, is if one of the aforementioned services gets so big that it becomes the de-facto standard. Facebook is getting closer to that than anyone else with over 250 million users and rising, but Google may have well as have taken a crowbar to its knees today.

By adding its own profiles to search results on Google for names, Google has created yet another profile that we need to maintain. While that’s good for Google — Google Profiles have been around for a while, but no one used them — it’s more work for us, and seems to all but ensure that one network will not rule them all.

And we can all say that we’re going to drop all networks besides the one we use the most, but we won’t. For most people, the social graph is different on each of them, and there’s some reason to stick around there. If nothing else, it’s more of a pain to remove yourself from a service than it is just not to update your profile anymore. I can’t even begin to imagine how many profiles I have out there that haven’t been updated in a year or more.

And even if we did drop all our networks but one, another hot new network would rise up and we’d all sign up for it, renewing the cycle. Just look at Twitter. Everyone is now signing up for it, and while it doesn’t have a robust profile right now, it probably will at some point.

And services like Facebook Connect offer the promise of transferring your profile information to other services, but do you think Google is going to use that? I don’t think so. Why would it? It has a competing product it’s trying to push with Google Friend Connect. And it can act as nice at it wants, say the right things in public, and add links to Facebook under your Google Profile result, but do you really think Google wants Facebook winding up as the one profile you maintain? No. And vice versa.

And so we remain at a stand still. It’s one of those situations where, while competition may not be a bad thing, it can be a frustrating thing. I wonder how long until we see Yahoo add profiles to its search results? And maybe Microsoft will further its relationship with Facebook to add limited profile information from there to its queries. It’s already a mess, and it’s going to get worse before it gets better — if it ever does.

Update: As Google’s Kevin Marks notes in the comments, Google did try to use Facebook data with Friend Connect, before it was blocked almost a year ago. Of course, Friend Connect would basically negate the need for a lot of what Facebook Connect does, so what we have here are competing platforms, and a stand-off — like I said above.

[photo: flickr/andrew mason]

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:56 am

Photo: Pimobile

Congratulations to Reddit user Alexem, whose 2001 Volkswagen Jetta just rolled over in the most elegant way.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:54 am

MOXI HD shocker: No AVI or MKV support

Somehow in the hoopla that surrounded the latest Moxi HD press release, I failed to notice that the recently added DLNA media streaming capabilities does not support AVI or MKV files. This is huge. Suddenly I’m looking at this sexy DVR like it has chlamydia. I don’t want anything to do with it. The lack of AVI or MKV support makes the DVR kind of useless in my house.

Sure, TiVo’s implementation of media streaming is far from perfect. The system actually copies the video file onto the TiVo hard drive, which is annoying but supports nearly every file format including the two in question here.

The Moxi is a DLNA compliant device but that doesn’t mean that it will stream AVI or MKV file formats as I just found out. I’ve tried TwonkyMedia, Tversity, and Windows Media Connect without any luck. It’s kind of a moot anyway as a tech support guy kindly pointed me to the user guide (pdf link - search for WMV) where it doesn’t list those file formats anyway. He also confirmed numerous times - I was being thorough - that the Moxi HD DVR does not support AVI streaming in anyway, shape, or form.

Two of the listed supported file formats stream fine: WMV and MPEG-2. However, I couldn’t get any MPEG-4 files to stream. Honestly, I only have two files of that format anyway ’cause everything is in AVI or MKV format so it could have been me.

There is no reason why this gigantic oversight cannot be corrected by Moxi with a simple update. No one would convert their entire library of videos to WMVs when a TiVo or hundreds of other devices support the file formats fine. It doesn’t matter how slick or cool the Moxi looks on an HDTV when basic functionality isn’t there.

This is big, Moxi. Fix it.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:10 am

Dozens arrested over coal plant

Dozens of demonstrators are facing charges in Charlotte, N.C., after a protest against Duke Energy's coal policies. Police said 42 people were arrested and charged with trespassing at Duke's headquarters Monday during a rally in which about 250 protested against the expansion of the company's coal-fired Cliffside power plant, located 60 miles west of Charlotte, The Charlotte Observer reported Tuesday. Environmentalists are challenging Duke's claim that the $2.4 billion Cliffside expansion will offset new emissions by retiring older units.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Apr 2009 | 3:05 am

Consortium To Share Ad Revenue From Stolen Stories

Hugh Pickens writes "Erick Schonfeld has an interesting story in TechCrunch about a consortium of publishers including Reuters, the Magazine Publishers of America, and Politico that plans to take a new approach towards the proliferation of splogs (spam blogs) and other sites which republish the entire feed of news sites and blogs, often without attribution or links. For any post or page which takes a full copy of a publisher's work, the Fair Syndication Consortium thinks the ad networks should pay a portion of the ad revenues being generated by those sites. Rather than go after these sites one at a time, the Fair Syndication Consortium wants to negotiate directly with the ad networks which serve ads on these sites: DoubleClick, Google's AdSense, and Yahoo. One precedent for this type of approach is YouTube's Content ID program, which splits revenues between YouTube and the media companies whose videos are being reused online. How would the ad networks know that the content in question belongs to the publisher? Attributor would keep track of it all and manage the requests for payment. The consortium is open to any publisher to join, including bloggers. It may not be the perfect solution but 'it is certainly better than sending out thousands of takedown notices' writes Schonfeld."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Apr 2009 | 2:36 am

Contaminated drinking water discovered

Illinois Gov.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Apr 2009 | 1:23 am

Chicago store selling War on Terror outside its market

FROM GAMERTELL - With the world as it is, there is a need for laughter. Here are two options to get a great satiric game if you live stateside and don’t want to have it shipped in from abroad.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 22 Apr 2009 | 12:43 am

MiVitals Can’t Find Pulse For Online Health Records

Online health records is a rapidly growing segment of the health 2.0 world—Google Health, Microsoft’s HealthVault, WebMD, Aetna’s SmartSource (via a partnership with Healthline), and Revolution Health (now part of Waterfront Media), are just a few of the many online platforms that let consumers organize their health records online in a secure portal.

In a space where you are competing with prestigious medical institutions and platforms backed by the largest tech companies in the world, there’s not much room for the small, bootstrapped startup. Unfortunately, miVitals, an Australia-based startup that provides an online storage platform for consumer health records, will be shutting its doors in mid-May due to lack of funding. miVitals, which was primarily financed by angel investors, is a free service that let you store medical records, manage accounts for your family, schedule appointments, and share this information with your health care professionals.

It seems that in the online medical records sector, partnerships with pharmacies, medical professionals, and institutions are key to making the platform efficient and more consumer-friendly. At some point in everyone’s lives, you realize the difficulty (and inefficiency) of getting your records faxed from a health care provider to an insurance company or another doctor. One of the primary virtues of an online database is that it streamlines the sharing process of medical records, and partnerships are key to making this process work. miVitals was lacking in this area; the startup had only developed partnerships with Australia-based medical companies and institutions despite the site’s aim to be an international resource for consumers across the world. Google Health has partnerships with pharmacies (Google Health recently struck a deal with CVS), insurance companies, hospitals and labs to integrate data from medical professionals with consumer information.

HealthVault’s online platform has been integrated with several large medical institutions over the country, including The Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. And Microsoft has been able to sign in insurance companies-last year, Microsoft struck a deal with Kaiser to offer HealthVault’s health record site service to Kaiser’s members.

With competition coming from Google, Microsoft, WebMD, and more, it can be tough for a smaller competitor to find footing in the space. And the current economic crisis and lack of available funding isn’t helping. Perhaps the death of miVitals a sign that there isn’t room for small startups in the already crowded online medical records market.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Apr 2009 | 12:29 am

Rare California condor nest found

A California condor nest near Pinnacles National Monument is the first one documented in the region in more than 70 years, park officials say. Officials said a male condor released at the monument in 2004 apparently has paired with a 6-year-old female condor for breeding, KSBW-TV of Salinas, Calif., reported Tuesday. California condors were facing extinction and there had been no new condor nests known to have been found in the park in nearly 70 years before the 2003 reintroduction effort, said Carl Brenner, chief of interpretation and education at Pinnacles National Monument. The station noted the condor nest is located on a private ranch outside the Central California park.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Apr 2009 | 12:15 am

A billion App Store downloads, whenever Apple says so

It seems that if you set your clock forward to Friday the 24th, Apple’s homepage shows that the billionth app has been sold! Huzzah! Of course, that implies that Apple is pulling one over on us and will declare the billionth app sold whenever it feels the time is right. Hmm, how about Friday, guys?

I just tried and it works. Not sure why I did that. I like BBG’s assessment of the source deciding to watermark the image, when they’ve just told you how to acquire it. Accordingly, I’ve watermarked our image too. Can you spot how?

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Apr 2009 | 12:12 am

Apple Will Hit A Billion Apps At 1:24:06 AM PST On April 23 (As Of Right Now)

We all know that Apple is closing in on a billion app downloads in the App Store. Currently, the counter on the main Apple.com claims it’s about 10 million away from the major number. But, Apple apparently already knows when the billion mark is going to be passed, because the billion celebration page is ready to go and can easily be accessed, right now.

And we know the exact time Apple is predicting when it will cross the mark — at least, right now (more below): 1:24:06 AM PST on April 23. Simply go to your system settings and set the date and time to anytime after that mark, and reload the main Apple page. You’ll be greeted by big picture on the landing page reading, “Thanks a billion. Over a billion downloads in just nine months. Only on the App Store.”

And actually, if you change to a before the mark Apple has set, you can see the counter advance closer and closer towards the billion mark.

Of course, this means that the number is at least somewhat tied (update below) to your computer’s clock rather than an actual billion app sales mark being triggered. Not that it’s all that surprising. After all, with so many apps being sold every second, can you really expect Apple to do anything other than estimate? This would be an issue though if said it was giving away a prize to the person who specifically downloaded the billionth app (it’s not).

Update: It looks like Apple is constantly tweaking the exact timing based on the following text file, as commenter Robert notes below. As of right now, the rate of Apps being sold appears to be slowing down, pushing the time out a bit.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Apr 2009 | 12:07 am

AMD posts deeper loss, shares fall (AP)

AP - Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s loss widened in the first quarter as demand and prices for its microprocessors slumped and charges for the biggest restructuring in the company's 40-year history took their toll.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:59 pm

World's First X-Ray Laser Goes Live

smolloy writes "The world's first X-ray laser (LCLS) has seen first light. A Free Electron Laser (FEL) is based on the light that is emitted by accelerated electrons when they are forced to move in a curved path. The beam then interacts with this emitted light in order to excite coherent emission (much like in a regular laser); thus producing a very short, extremely bright, bunch of coherent X-ray photons. The engineering expertise that went into this machine is phenomenal — 'This is the most difficult light source that has ever been turned on,' said LCLS Construction Project Director John Galayda. 'It's on the boundary between the impossible and possible, and within two hours of start-up these guys had it right on.' — and the benefits to the applied sciences from research using this light can be expected to be enormous: 'For some disciplines, this tool will be as important to the future as the microscope has been to the past,' said SLAC Director Persis Drell."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:36 pm

Taser sues Second Life over fake in-game Tasers

Ah, Taser. The Monster Cable of personal defense. Although the word “taser” has become so common as to be an improper noun like frisbee, kleenex, or google, the company still vociferously defends its trademark. I guess you can’t really blame them there, but suing Linden Labs because some Second Life player made a BDSM suit with a “built-in crotch taser”? How petty.

Yes, it appears that the word “taser” was appearing in conjunction with a shocking device in some form or another (apparently here). Whether crotch-mounted or traditional, it seems that Taser has found the product convincing enough that they need to let people know it’s not an actual Taser product. Go for it, Taser. That’ll be a real PR win.

[via Techdirt]

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:30 pm

Apple prematurely announces billionth AppStore download...

...but only, of course, if you set your computer's clock forward! (Click for the full-size graphic). Camillo Miller writes in:

Wanna see what Apple will do at the 1Billionth download mark? Set your Mac's clock to friday 24th and head to www.apple.com

Now here's a great piece of blogsanity: the source has watermarked its screenshots of this, as if it were some sort of exclusive not available to anyone with a web browser and a clock. Great find, though!

Update: Commenter GabrielM wonders why we've got it classified as a "fuck up." It's not because of the existence of the page itself, but because Apple's set the "billionth app" threshold as a client-side date rather than a server-side number--meaning that it's very easy to trick! (The actual counter is, as commenter Youngbrendan points out below, probably reasonably accurate)

Source [Mac Magazine via Apple Lounge]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:16 pm

Sony Ericsson to steer clear of Android for the time being

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Web, Google

Ever since the emergence of Google Android, cell phone manufacturers were intrigued, but only T-Mobile dared to venture and try it out initially.  Soon after, other manufacturers jumped on the Android bandwagon, and many major handset manufacturers have plans to include the new OS on their phones.  In an interview with the CEO of Sony Ericsson, Hideki Komiyama, he stated that it would take some time before Sony Ecrisson branded phones featured Android. 

One of Komiyama’s main arguments in the interview was the fact that Android is still relatively young.  He specifically stated, “It does require a lot of evaluation, as well as a lot of testing, a lot of acceptance from a consumer viewpoint, and there is still some time to go.”  Sony Ericsson has been doing poorly in a slumping economy as they even have plans to cut 20% of their staff.  With this in mind, jumping over to Android at this stage might prove to be detrimental to Sony Ericsson, as their main focus is regrouping, and try to have a profit.  Interestingly enough, he sees Google Android “as one of the important operating systems, there is no doubt.” 

Until Sony Ericsson can figure out a way to gain a profit, they will keep what they have going for them, but probably will turn to Google Android in the future when much more testing and evaluation has been conducted.

Read [Reuters]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:16 pm

Open Source Hardware Project RepRap Creates its First Circuit

RepRap is an open source hardware project that aims to create a self-replicating machine or a 'universal constructor' by using rapid prototyping. That means the machine can manufacture objects directly including itself, endlessly.

The project has had its latest breakthrough with the first circuit made entirely automatically by the RepRap machine.

The soldering isn't perfect and in the words of the RepRap: Blog a bit "blobby". Still it is an important step forward for the group. Head over to the blog for details and pictures on how they did it.

Meanwhile other objects that users have made using the RepRap machine, so far, are a door handle, coat hook and a pair of children's shoes.

See also:
Imaginary Gadgets 0003: The RepRap

Photo: Adrian Bowyer/RepRap Blog

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:12 pm

Biotech Company To Patent Pigs

Anonymous Swine writes "Monsanto, a US based multinational biotech company, is causing a stir by its plan to patent pig-breeding techniques including the claim on animals born by the techniques. 'Agricultural experts are scrambling to assess how these patents might affect the market, while consumer activists warn that if the company is granted pig-related patents, on top of its tight rein on key feed and food crops, its control over agriculture could be unprecedented. "We're afraid that Monsanto and other big companies are getting control of the world's genetic resources," said Christoph Then, a patent expert with Greenpeace in Germany. The patent applications, filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization, are broad in scope, and are expected to take several years and numerous rewrites before approval.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:08 pm

On the Aptera 2e production model

Chuck Squatriglia for Autopia:

We won't see a production model for another couple of months. It will be a little more square when viewed from the front, a concession made to increase interior room and allow the windows to roll down. That's a smart move, because the car we drove could be called "cozy" and the windows don't open.

The engineers have reworked the battery pack, which is located in a sealed compartment under the seats, to move it forward and shift the center of gravity toward the front. Wilbur says the production car carries 70 percent of its weight on the front wheels, which "is excellent for traction and handling." They also brought the front wheels eight inches closer to the body and raised the ride height a bit.

Despite the tweaks, the car became more aerodynamic, and Wilbur says the production car will have a drag coefficient of 0.15. That will make the 2e the most aerodynamic production car in history, topping even the General Motors EV1.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:02 pm

NES purse is a purse with an NES, obviously

I’ve taken to carrying around a bottle of whiskey and an SNES in a bag wherever I go because hey, instant party! But this might be an even better solution — at least, if I were the purse-carrying kind of guy. The battery-powered unit is actually a little console-on-a-chip, and it can be used for other stuff too… as long as you only need to type A’s and B’s.

There’s also a Commodore 64-on-a-chip in there, in case you want to switch platforms. Homegirl actually made that one herself.

Hit up the video above for the proof (and the pudding).

[via Make and Dvice]

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 11:00 pm

Unloved and Overpriced, Consumer Robots Battle for Survival

The green, scaly Pleo -- a robotic dinosaur -- has taken its last breath as its maker Ugobe filed for bankruptcy Monday. But the Pleo's death is just the beginning of a tough battle for the fledgling U.S. consumer robotics industry's survival.

Pleo joins at least three other consumer robots that have been shelved this year. Robot makers have been hit by a double whammy: A recession-inflicted downturn in consumer spending and a lack of mainstream acceptance of robots by American consumers. Those factors combined put the industry in a zone of pain.

"This situation is truly historical and unprecedented," says Robert Oschler, who runs the robot-enthusiast site Robots Rule. "We have a brand new high-tech market in consumer robots that was finally poised to take off broadly done in by a socioeconomic event," he says.

Consumer robots fall into two broad categories: Toys (like the Pleo or the popular WowWee Robosapien) and practical, utilitarian robots (like the iRobot Roomba vacuum cleaner or telepresence robots ConnectR and Spykee).

For now, the robotics toy market is near death, says Faysal Sohail, managing director of CMEA Ventures, which has invested in a few robotics startups.

"Anything that feels like a toy and does not provide any real value proposition beyond entertainment is getting cut dramatically by consumers," says Sohail. "There's just not enough consumer demand for it."

Instead, says Sohail, robot makers that offer more practical products will have a better shot at success.

But there's a hitch there too. Although robots have played starring roles in popular culture (think R2D2 and Wall-E), mainstream U.S. consumers are not yet entirely comfortable buying and using robots, compared to their peers in Japan. Most users see robots as less practical or utilitarian objects and more as exotic tech creatures.

"Japanese consumers are a lot more comfortable with having robots around and integrating them into their lives," says Sohail. "And they are willing to put in that extra effort to make these robots work for them better, which is not what we have seen in the U.S."

Take iRobot's Roomba robotic vaccum cleaner. The company has sold more than 3 million of its most successful consumer Roomba robot to date. But that's a small percentage of the 10 million vacuum cleaners analysts estimate are sold in the country every year. A big reason? Users don't have the patience or the tolerance for a robotic vacumm cleaner that isn't entirely trouble-free.

Worse, robots targeted at consumers currently fall short, both in terms of the promises they make and the value they deliver, Sohail says.

"Our consumers are very finicky," says Sohail. "You have to hit a lot of things right in terms of technology, price point and usability before the product can go beyond just early adopters and into the mainstream."

So far, consumer robotics companies have failed to deliver on that trifecta. The Ugobe Pleo was launched for $350 two years ago and now retails for $245 through Amazon. Even with the price cut, that's still a lot to pay for a pet that is not even alive, says Dan Kara, President of Robotics Trends, a consultancy firm focusing on the robotics industry.

"Sony, Ugobe, and others have jumped in too far into a marketplace that doesn't exist and into an industry that is very cutthroat," says Kara. "The amount that they want consumers to pay and the features that they are offering ultimately don't match up."

As for the telepresence robots ConnectR and Spyball, they are products that could be resurrected with a revival in the economy, he says.

Amy Weltman, Vice President of Marketing for WowWee, hints that Spyball could definitely make a comeback. "It isn’t unusual for a company to announce a product and then decide to delay it based on the fact that it isn’t the right product to introduce at that time," she says. As for whether U.S. consumers will have the appetite for robots, Weltman remains confident. "Absolutely," she says.

Oschler is similarly optimistic. "If we go to hoarding guns and gold all bets are off," says Oschler. "But my firm belief is that it won't happen, but this period of pain will last for some time."

For robot makers targeting consumers, the next two years will pose the ultimate test of survival.

Photo: (Baboon/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:58 pm

Sink Your Balls Quickly With Pool-Cue Robots

AndreV writes "In another attempt to dehumanize our bar games, a Canadian engineer has turned the classic game of billiards on its head with his BilliardBots pet project, which consists of a series of remote-controlled mobile robots meant to replace the standard cue sticks normally used to pocket pool balls. While in his version the basic rules remain, unlike regular billiards, players in this version simultaneously rush to pocket their designated balls (they don't take turns), 'thus it's very competitive and fast,' the creator says. In order to keep tight reins on the mechatronic ball handlers' movements, he adapted a pair of Playstation controllers and says that playing 'requires dexterity, like a video game,' to control their 3.5-m/sec-maximum speeds. The 'bots are designed simply but effectively, using a 3-by-3-by-3-inch metal frame with an electronic board, two motors and rechargeable battery packs. Using a Bluetooth wireless communication protocol, its commands come from the wireless controller with single or double joystick selectable control (the other buttons are not used). Its other parameters are software programmable, such as maximum acceleration rate, maximum speed and maximum rotation speed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:49 pm

TV reporter forgets he is on live TV, says bad word, then blanches in horror

A TV reporter forgets he is live, not taped, and utters Deadwood's trademark expletive. The look on his face when he realizes what he has done, and the repercussions that will follow, is haunting. (Via Arbroath)


Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:47 pm

Nifty gaming gadget administers nitrous oxide to kids

I imagine a lot of grown ups will want this, too.

PediSedate is a medical device consisting of a colorful, toy-like headset that connects to a game component such as the Nintendo Game Boy system or a portable CD player. Once the child places it on his or her head and swings the snorkel down from its resting place atop the head, PediSedate transparently monitors respiratory function and distributes nitrous oxide, an anesthetic gas. The child comfortably becomes sedated while playing with a Nintendo Game Boy system or listening to music. This dramatically improves the hospital or dental experience for the child, parents and healthcare providers.

PediSedate (via MedGadget)


Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:25 pm

Mars Rovers, Roomba and the Terminator enter the Robot Hall of Fame

I think congratulations are in order! The official Robot Hall of Fame is inducting several new members into its illustrious ranks. Along with Spirit, Opportunity, Roomba, and the original Terminator, the terrifying Da Vinci surgical bot and Huey, Dewey and Louie, some old-school droids from Silent Running will number themselves among the elite.

The announcement by Carnegie Mellon University details their accomplishments and says there will be a ceremony, but not till 2010. Let’s hear it for these brave bots, even though they are indicative of the growing reliance upon machines that will be our downfall in the coming Robocalypse.

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:18 pm

Facebook for BlackBerry v1.5 now available

Here it is, folks, at long last. Its been over a month and a half since details of Facebook v1.5 for BlackBerry spilled all over the place, but it’s now available for anyone and everyone with a compatible ‘Berry.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:16 pm

Facebook for BlackBerry v1.5 now available

Here it is, folks, at long last. Its been over a month and a half since details of Facebook v1.5 for BlackBerry spilled all over the place, but it’s now available for anyone and everyone with a compatible ‘Berry.

Beyond the standard bug fixes and performance tweaks, the biggest updates are all focused around integration: Facebook messages can now be routed through your standard messaging inbox, Facebook events and birthdays can be auto-added to your calendar, and contacts (complete with pictures) can now be pulled from Facebook into your BlackBerry contact list. They’ve also made a few minor changes (such as the ability to comment on status updates) for the sake of keeping up with the browser version.

Facebook for BlackBerry v1.5 will hit Blappworld tomorrow, but can be nabbed right this second from mobile.blackberry.com (on a BlackBerry) or www.blackberry.com/go/facebook (on a desktop).

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:13 pm

Windows 7 Starter Edition can only run 3 applications at a time

FROM APPLETELL - Windows 7 is currently in public beta testing. It will come in several flavors: one for home users, one for businesses, etc. There’s also one intended for low-end machines: Windows Starter. And ZDNet is reporting on a rather startling limitation.
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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:13 pm

Study: Algae can form stable groupings

Scientists at England's Cambridge University have discovered freshwater algae can form stable groupings in which they dance around each other. The researchers said they studied the multicellular organism Volvox, which consists of approximately 1,000 cells arranged on the surface of a spherical matrix about half a millimeter in diameter.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:07 pm

2009 Northern California Cherry Blossom Festival

FROM GAMERTELL - Take a gander at San Francisco’s Japan Town during its busiest time of the year, also known as the Cherry Blossom Festival.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:05 pm

News Corp. Exploring MySpace CEO Options (Updated)

Update: More information here.

MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe has been with the company since its August 2003 launch, seeing it through a 2005 $580 million sale to News Corp. and growing revenue to something approaching a billion dollars a year. 130 million people around the world visit MySpace every month, making it one of the largest sites on the Internet.

And now it may be time for him to step down.

He and co-founder Tom Anderson are reportedly making an aggregate of $30 million/year under a contract signed in 2007. That contract terminates this October and must be renegotiated soon. But MySpace is under a new boss, Jonathan Miller, who joined News Corp. last month as CEO of Digital Media. MySpace is one of his assets, and he may be inclined to make a change in management.

DeWolfe is also dealing with the recent departure of three of his top executives, and more may be on the way.

A top headhunting firm is starting to scour for possible replacements. We’ve spoken directly with one person who was contacted by the firm and asked to give recommendations for possible candidates. One source close to News Corp. says that no firm has been officially retained to do a search, but won’t comment further or make any explanation as to why calls are being made.

One thing DeWolfe has always had is a close working relationship with News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, who has protected him in past conflicts with other News Corp. execs. But that very relationship has been a thorn in the side of his various managers over the years. There are people at News Corp. gunning to knock DeWolfe out of the company. The question is whether Murdoch and Miller will protect him. And, of course, there is always the chance that DeWolfe will simply leave the company. Its high growth days are likely behind it, a new type of manager may be better suited to running the company going forward.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:01 pm

Sample footage from the T-Mobile 3G Sidekick LX

After we snagged some info on the video capabilities of the new Sidekick LX yesterday we couldn’t help but ask for more info. And we sure got it. After the jump is sample video taken from the Sidekick LX as well as the startup screen, which was taken from a different device (which apparently refused to focus). We also have a few other hands-on shots and a sample image taken with the new LX.

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:00 pm

Google Brings 3D To Web With Open Source Plugin

maxheadroom writes "Google has released an open source browser plugin that provides a JavaScript API for displaying 3D graphics in web content. Google hopes that the project will promote experimentation and help advance a collaborative effort with the Khronos Group and Mozilla to create open standards for 3D on the web. Google's plugin offers its own retained-mode graphics API, called O3D, which takes a different approach from a similar browser plugin created by Mozilla. Google's plugin is cross-platform compatible and works with several browsers. In an interview with Ars Technica, Google product manager Henry Bridge and engineering director Matt Papakipos say that Google's API will eventually converge with Mozilla's as the technology matures. The search giant hopes to bring programs like SketchUp and Google Earth to the browser space."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2009 | 10:00 pm

Unloved and Overpriced, Consumer Robots Battle for Survival

Consumer robotics face an uncertain future. The demise of Ugobe, maker of the Pleo dinosaur, turns the spotlight on a fledgling industry battling to survive through this economic downturn.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:58 pm

Unloved and Overpriced, Consumer Robots Battle for Survival

Consumer robotics face an uncertain future. The demise of Ugobe, maker of the Pleo dinosaur, turns the spotlight on a fledgling industry battling to survive through this economic downturn.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:58 pm

FDA scientists announce bird flu findings

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:56 pm

Dell Hell: The Sequel

This guy Anthony's having a heck of a time with Dell tech and customer support regarding his recently-purchased Studio 15 Laptop. The whole, sad tale is worth reading, but here's the gist:

Although the problem was characteristic of a hardware issue, the tech support representative attacked it from the perspective of a software issue. He remotely accessed the machine and reinstalled keyboard drivers without any resolution. He then attempted to flash the computer's BIOS remotely. After a delay in the attempted flash, he shut down the computer before the process had completed. Following this, the computer would not power up again. He instructed me to remove the bottom panel of the machine and swap the memory to no avail. The computer would not power up... I have spent nearly 14 hours on the phone with Dell. I have no way of retrieving the data off of the hard drive from the computer that tech support destroyed. When I speak to representatives I am left with a feeling that my issue is unimportant.

[via Consumerist]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:55 pm

eBay opposes bills in Congress designed to fight online sales of stolen goods

Section: Computers, Security, Web, Websites

Although it’s pledging to cooperate fully with law enforcement, eBay is steadfastly opposing three pending pieces of legislation in Congress designed to help fight the growing trend of e-fencing.  E-fencing is the practice of selling stolen goods online and the popular auction site is often a hotspot of such activity.

The bills would require “online marketplaces” like eBay to give up private user information about sellers to retailers who make complaints of stolen good sales, and allow them to sue sites that refuse to adequately investigate such complaints.

“The bills try to address retail theft by trying to impose additional obligations, additional liabilities on the marketplace,” Edward Torpoco, senior litigation and regulatory counsel at eBay, said during a briefing with reporters. “We feel very strongly that any common-sense approach to combat retail theft needs to recognize first and foremost that the primary responsibility for preventing theft actually resides with the retailers, given that employee theft is the single leading cause of theft.”

eBay says that while it has no problem giving such information to law enforcement agencies investigating theft, it feels that having to also release it to retailers is unfair and encourage retailers who want the legislation to focus more on the point of theft rather than on where those goods ultimately end up.  eBay’s view is that stopping theft where it happens is the real key to any successful crackdown and points out that most retail theft is perpetrated by employees.

How do you feel about these bills?  Should eBay have to give up seller info to retailers claiming theft?  Is it a violation of privacy? An unfair burden on online marketplaces? Let us know your thoughts!

Read [PCWorld]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:55 pm

Amazon Video on Demand ups the definition to “high”

If you’re a fan of Amazon’s iTunes rival, Video on Demand, you’ve probably been waiting patiently for this announcement. Indeed, after iTunes went HD, it was only a matter of time before the other big A did as well. So they’ve got the usual suspects in HD, and your favorite set-top boxes like Roku and TiVo should be ready to stream HD as you read this, assuming the update has rolled out to you. Your internet-enabled TVs like newer Vieras and Bravias will reflect the change as well.

You can check out the movie selection here and the TV shows here.

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:46 pm

Carol Bartz Still Looking For Wow, Drops F-Word During First Quarter Earnings Call.

After spending a lot of time speaking with Yahoo employees, partners, and customers, new CEO Carol Bartz has come to realize the importance of giving consumers a “Wow experience,” she told investors in the first quarter conference call. But they have yet to experience that from owning the stock. Yahoo reported a 13 percent decline in revenues for the first quarter of 2009 to $1.6 billion, while net income dropped 78 percent to $118 million.

Google, in comparison, last week reported a 3 percent decline in first quarter, but was able to manage a 9 percent increase in net income. Update: As a comment points out, Google saw a 3% decrease in revenue from Q42008 to Q12009, but saw a 6% growth year over year for Q1. Yahoo saw losses for both metrics.

Diving into the numbers, search advertising revenues on Yahoo sites declined 3 percent to $399 million, while display advertising on Yahoo sites declined 13 percent to $371 million. The biggest decline, however, was from affiliate ad network revenues, which were down 16 percent to $511 million.

Page view growth also slowed down to 8 percent from 20 percent growth a year ago and 15 percent growth during the fourth quarter. On the search side, query volume grew but revenue-per-search declined as commercial queries and click-through rates saw weakness. Bartz puts a positive spin on Yahoo’s results and claims that it is actually gaining share of advertising dollars compared to the overall industry:

I think our search results, . . . it is like online window shopping, people are grazing around, just not clicking to buy. Marketing budgets have been slashed a heck of a lot more than any declines in these metrics. It is my belief that we must be gaining share.

Bartz announced another round of layoffs, which will affect 5 percent of the workforce, or about 675 people (out of 13,500). The cuts will take place within the next two weeks. Bartz also indicated during the conference call that she is focusing on the products and properties which drive the bulk of Yahoo’s traffic and revenues, including the homepage, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo News, Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Mobile. Her three-pronged strategy is to globalize the platform, build “fantastic products to deeply engage users, and to improve the return from its advertising platforms.

Asked about discussions with Microsoft, Bartz had no comment. Later on she did manage to drop the F-word, though (but quickly apologized for the slip).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:37 pm

Climate change: Colorado river shortfalls?

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:37 pm

Mammoth validates scientist's approach

Scientists say the remains of a 40,000-year-old baby mammoth found in Siberia two years ago validate techniques created by U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:36 pm

I do believe BitTorrent is available for Windows also, Mr. Goldman

Already clobbered once for his too-cosy association with Apple, CNBC tech journalist Jim Goldman is now issuing surrealist commentary about the differences between Macs and PCs. Did you know, for example, that you get Photoshop for free when you buy a Mac? [Gizmodo]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:32 pm

iXtreme version 1.6 adds further Xbox Live ban precautions

Six years ago, news of a new Xecutuer BIOS would have had me counting down the hours till school let out, at which point I’d go home and flash my X2 Pro with Team Xecuter’s latest handiwork. (That particular Xbox has since been moved around so much in various moves that the X2 Pro has been disconnected, thus ending the fun.) But now, the iXtreme hacked firmware for the Xbox 360? I couldn’t even tell you where to get it (still #xbins?), nor what to do with it. But! I can read a carefully put together list, and hence know what’s new with the latest firmware, version 1.6. Big news: greater precautions taken to prevent your banning from Xbox Live.

What you no-good kids can expect:

• To avoid any risk of banishments, the games sector will not be modified launched with iXtreme 1.6

• The security to be disabled temporarily. Called “One-Shot-Boot-Mode”, it will allow you to temporarily disable the launching of non-stealth games. This option should be reactivated every time I start new game

• Activation of the “One-Shot-Boot-Mode” will be provided via a activate.iso in the iXtreme package

• The original games can be dumped directly Dumping 0800 without having a drive with Kreon firwmare

And other stuff. It sure seemed a lot easier in my day with the X2. You flash your chip, FTP into your Xbox, then transfer over the ISO using extract-iso. (If I recall correctly, I typed “./extract-xiso -f 192.168.1.30 -d /E/Games/ [game.iso].” Something like that.)

The dumb things you do when you have an incredible amount of free time on your hands and a shiny, new (at the time) broadband connection.

Photo: Flickr

Source: CrunchGear | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:30 pm

Neil Gaiman Writes a Final 'Love Letter to Batman'

As the final curtain falls on the Caped Crusader, the acclaimed author talks about superheroic storytelling, comic book movies and burying a legend.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:30 pm

Amazon Jumps Into The HD Stream As Well. Doesn’t Really Make A Splash.

With all of the online video services now offering much of the same (sometimes lousy) content, the new differentiating factor seems to be high definition quality. Microsoft has been there for a while (with videos over Xbox Live), as has Apple (over the Apple TV), and now Amazon is joining the gang.

The new HD option for Amazon Video On Demand is available starting today for some 500 movies and television shows. And the HD content will work with the set-top boxes Amazon streams to including the Roku and TiVo Series 3 devices. In addition, Amazon is launching On Demand on select Panasonic televisions today as well.

So Amazon is getting into the same HD streaming market that everyone else is. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any real differentiating factor from the other services. Sure, it’s nice for people who already use Amazon On Demand, but there is no real reason to switch to use it if you are already using one of the other services. Though, it is nice that the service is available on more devices than say, iTunes or Xbox Live.

But the prices, for example, are the same as iTunes ($3.99 to $4.99 to rent an HD movie — and $2.99 to buy an HD show). And the content looks to be pretty much the same as well. Amazon, in its press release, is touting the availability of the newly released Frost/Nixon. Well, I just watched it last night, in HD, on my Apple TV.

And it’s content that’s the main problem for all of these services. Apple has been expanding its HD offerings, but still only has a few hundred, several months after launching. Xbox Live’s content is the same way. Apple just rolled out the ability to buy (rather than rent) HD movies, and that is so far restricted to just a handful of movies. 500 HD titles is a good number for Amazon to launch with, but it’s a drop in the bucket of the 40,000 On Demand titles it offers.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:28 pm

The Frank Lloyd Wright Ax Murders

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

"Taliesin is really a great example of the later Prairie style. It's where the architecture school is, during the summer session anyway, because Olgivanna, Frankie's third wife...or maybe his fourth, I can't remember, liked to have everybody down at Taliesin West in Arizona in the winter. The students build their own shelters out in the desert and everybody is supposed to learn how to play an instrument."

"Uh, huh. That's neat."

"He built Taliesin for his second wife, who he stole from a client. Of course, she ended up being killed by that ax murderer."

"Wait. What?"

This is pretty much verbatim from a conversation I had with my husband (then boyfriend) on one of our early dates. Get into a relationship with a second-year architecture student, and it's pretty much expected that you'll end up hearing a LOT about Frank Lloyd Wright--his design philosophy, his work history, even some little gossipy snippets about his rather sketchy dating life. But the ax murder thing? That, I was not expecting.

True story, though.
Wright did, in fact, run off to Europe with his client's wife, Martha "Mamah" Borthwick Cheney, in 1909, leaving her husband and his wife (and six children) behind. It was the sort of thing polite Victorian society was willing to overlook in an artist, but not in a neighbor. When Wright and the de-Cheneyfied Borthwick returned to the states, they left Wright's old digs in Chicago behind and moved to rural Wisconsin, near Wright's maternal family. There, they lived happily in sin (Wright's ex not being willing to grant a divorce) in a house that Wright meant to embody everything that was good about his architectural style.

The idyll ended in 1914. Wright was off at work and Borthwick was dining with her two children from her previous marriage and several of the Taliesin staff. As they ate, another staff member named Julian Carleton locked them in, poured kerosene around the house and lit a match. When the diners managed to bust their way out, Carleton hacked them to death with an ax. Of the nine who sat down to eat, only two survived. Borthwick and her children were killed. The whole thing turned into a media sensation. "Murderer of Seven: Sets Fire to Country Home of Frank Lloyd Wright Near Spring Green," declared one newspaper. The Wisconsin State Journal, on the other hand, went for something a bit more Rupert Murdoch-esque (and also inaccurate), with the headline "Insane Negro Kills Five in Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Love Bungalow'".

To this day, no one has a clear idea of what drove Carleton to grisly murder. Wright had apparently threatened to fire him at some point before the murders, but there doesn't seem to have been any hints of what was to come. Even his wife, who also worked for the Wrights, had no idea of what he'd been planning. And Carleton himself wasn't talking. Although captured alive by authorities after the murders, Carleton had drunk acid and died a few days later in jail.

Image courtesy viZZZual.com.


Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:26 pm

Jay-Z vs. Radiohead

Jaydiohead is a mash-up album of Jay-Z an Radiohead. Git yerself some while the gittin's good. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)



Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:20 pm

Slightly better shots of the Toshiba TG02 and TG03 emerge

We got a glimpse at some itty bitty fun-sized shots of the Toshiba TG02 and TG03 back when word of them first leaked. A week later, the embiggened versions of the same shots have emerged, and they’re looking.. well, about the same. Just bigger!

Toshiba has obviously found some comfort in this design, with all 3 models being essentially the same thing: a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU with varying fancy hardware tucked behind the same big ol’ 4.1 inch WVGA screen. Though similar, each of the new models has its own little perks; the TG02 is water proof, for example, while the leak slides indicate that the TG03 has something they’re touting as a “5.1ch speaker”. Seeing as it’s unlikely they packed a little tiny subwoofer into the TG03, we’re still a bit shaky on what they might be going for with that last bit.

If the most recent rumors hold true, we should see the TG02 and TG03 sometime in Q4 of 2009, following the TG01’s release in Q2.

[TechBlog via Engadget via IntoMobile]

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:10 pm

RIAA Brief Attacks Free Software Foundation

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has requested permission to file a response to the amicus curiae brief filed by the Free Software Foundation in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case against a Boston University grad student accused of having downloaded some song files when in his teens. In their proposed response, the RIAA lawyers personally attacked The Free Software Foundation, Ray Beckerman (NewYorkCountryLawyer), and NYCL's blog, 'Recording Industry vs. The People.' The 9-page response (PDF) — 4 pages longer than the document to which it was responding — termed the FSF an organization 'dedicated to eliminating restrictions on copying, redistribution, and modifying computer programs,' and accused the FSF of having an 'open and virulent bias against copyrights' and 'blatant bias' against the record companies. They called 'Recording Industry vs. The People' an 'anti-recording industry web site' and stated that NYCL 'is currently subject to a pending sanctions motion for his conduct in representing a defendant' (without disclosing that plaintiffs' lawyers were 'subject to a pending motion for Rule 11 sanctions for their conduct in representing plaintiffs' in that very case)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:10 pm

Dell Vostro (aka Darth Mini 9) available for $200; makes a fine hackintosh

Above you'll see my Runcore 64GB SSD drive sitting in front of my Dell Mini 9. The Runcore cost me $220—just $30 less than I paid for my Mini 9.

Now Dell is selling its business black version of the Mini 9, the Vostro A90, for just $200. Slap in a bigger SSD (the Runcore tends to benchmark the fastest, but I only went with 64GB because the 32GB were in deep backorder) and 2GB of RAM, and you've got yourself a fine little Hackintosh for around $500. And you can do it for far less if you go with a more modest SSD.

One bonus to the Runcore, though, of any size: Along with snappy performance, the Runcores come with a micro-USB port, making it possible to plug it in to your Mac, boot from any install disk (even the crippled ones that come with your Mac), and install OS X directly onto the SSD. Put it in the Mini 9, boot from a Linux sysloader on a USB flash drive, and run the DellEFI driver installer once you're in OS X. Easy peasy. It took me about three hours to do it—two of which were spent mucking around trying to get OS X to boot with the flash drive because I tried to get fancy with newer versions and didn't use the one suggested in the instructions.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 9:05 pm

We Drive the Aptera, and It's a Real Car

We get behind the wheel of Aptera Motors' three-wheeled electric car. No, it doesn't fly, but it looks like it should.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 8:43 pm

HD VoD is officially here from Amazon and it’s on TiVo

Section: Video, Accessories, Content, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, HDTV, Portable Video, Video Providers, Computers, Gadgets / Other, Household, Web, Downloads, Websites, Online Music/Video

Get those TiVos ready!  Because we told you it was coming, and now it is here.  Today is the first day that TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, or Series 3 subscribers can download high definition TV shows and movies right off of the amazon.com website.

Amazon takes on iTunes

As I predicted after poking around Amazon’s site a while ago (when I found pages that weren’t really supposed to be found), the cost for a current season download is $2.99, and their new releases for movies are going for $3.99 to $4.99.  So the price is still in direct competition with iTunes.  It should be interesting to see how it plays out now that they are obviously going to try to give iTunes a run for their money.

How it works

When users run a search on TiVo, they will get Amazon’s HD selection included with all the broadcast and cable options.  Tara Maitra, General Manager and VP of Content Services and Advertising Sales at TiVo Inc. says “Our customers now have access to a new world of ultra high quality HD television and movie choices, many of which are available when the DVDs are released, something no other DVR, cable, or satellite company can match.”

All you have to do to get started with activating your TiVo DVR is log into Amazon at this page.  You complete a one-time registration, which allows you to use the remote to search and browse the Amazon selections and download your choices right onto your TiVo DVR. 

Will it take off?

Bill Carr, Amazon VP Music and Video is excited about the partnership.  “TiVo is enabling customers to access our unparalleled library of hit movies and TV shows, bringing them directly into the home where friends and family can watch from the comfort of the couch.  Together with TiVo, Amazon Video On Demand is excited to offer HD and increase the selection, quality, and convenience for the TiVo community.”

Whether or not it will have the video quality people will demand remains to be seen, as well as the selection.  If VoD is done the right way…it could obviously take off in a major way, even more so than it has yet to do yet.  But, you have to convince people that the service you’re selling is the best one.  Is it Amazon’s?  Guess we’ll have to wait and see how they stack up.

For more information, check out Amazon’s TiVo page.

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 8:30 pm

Appletell giveaway: Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPhone 3G

FROM APPLETELL - Mophie announced today the release of their Juice Pack Air battery charger for iPhone 3G, and we want to make sure you get one. The Juice Pack Air is the world’s thinnest Apple-certified external battery for iPhone 3G, virtually doubling the amount of time you can use your iPhone 3G.… MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 8:07 pm

Endangered Marine Creatures Needlessly Discarded

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said Tuesday that Southeast Asian fisherman are killing sharks and endangered marine turtles every year by discarding them as “unwanted catch.”The global conservation group estimates that millions of pounds of marine creatures are caught in fishing nets and thrown away every year in the so-called Coral Triangle – an area spanning the seas of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.  Scientists say the area contains the most diverse collection of marine species anywhere on earth.  The Coral Triangle is home to six of the world's seven known species of marine turtles, three of which are considered "endangered" and another three “critically endangered,” the WWF said in a statement.The WWF co-authored the study, which concluded that at least 38 million tons of fish, consisting of 40 percent of the world's recorded fish catch, is wasted, unused or unaccounted for.Fish are highly unregulated in the Coral Triangle, resulting in many millions of pounds of so-called bycatch, the fund said."In many cases, fish and marine animals are thrown back to sea dead or dying and currently even if bycatch is used there is no way to tell whether it was sustainable to remove it in the first place," WWF Coral Triangle specialist Keith Symington told the AFP."It is an insidious and invisible form of over-fishing," he said."The at-sea bycatch of marine turtles, for example, is one of the greatest threats to the future existence of these highly endangered animals.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Apr 2009 | 8:02 pm

Offworld gets an exclusive peek at Henry Hatsworth concept art

Brandon has scored a major coup: Electronic Arts has presented Offworld with access to the concept art for Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure, one of the most interesting games to come out this year, both in play and in art direction. Brandon's put together a galley showing the environments, characters, and enemies. It's an awesome peek into the creative act that happens before pixel is ever put to sprite. We hope this will just be the first of many "Concept Albums" on Offworld.


Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:51 pm

freaky food fun: Insert dried spaghetti into hot dogs, then boil

DrO says: "I wanted to point out to you that some people on LiveJournal came up with an idea of inserting dry spaghetti into hot dogs, then boiling it, and coming out with amusing culinary constructs that kids seem to love."

Source: Boing Boing | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:48 pm

Offworld gets an exclusive peek at Henry Hatsworth concept art

Brandon has scored a major coup: Electronic Arts has presented Offworld with access to the concept art for Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure, one of the most interesting games to come out this year, both in play and in art direction. Brandon's put together a galley showing the environments, characters, and enemies. It's an awesome peek into the creative act that happens before pixel is ever put to sprite.

We hope this will just be the first of many "Concept Albums" on Offworld.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:48 pm

Sample footage from the T-Mobile 3G Sidekick LX

After we snagged some info on the video capabilities of the new Sidekick LX yesterday we couldn’t help but ask for more info. And we sure got it. After the jump is sample video taken from the Sidekick LX as well as the startup screen, which was taken from a different device (which apparently refused to focus). We also have a few other hands-on shots and a sample image taken with the new LX.

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Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:36 pm

Kick Starters: Four Hiking Boots for Getting Out of the House and On the Trail

Warm weather is upon us! And you know what that means: Get out of the house and take a hike. But you need the right gear first. Let Wired be your trail guide for picking out the right pair of go anywhere, do anything hiking boots.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:20 pm

Kick Starters: Four Hiking Boots for Getting Out of the House and On the Trail

Warm weather is upon us! And you know what that means: Get out of the house and take a hike. But you need the right gear first. Let Wired be your trail guide for picking out the right pair of go anywhere, do anything hiking boots.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:20 pm

The magic 8 ball goes high tech with Hunch

Section: Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites

There’s this new website out there called hunch.com.  It’s developed by an 11 person team, made up of a crew of MIT computer scientists and the co-founder of flickr, so it isn’t like it’s being put together by some 12 year old and her gaggle of giggling girlfriends. (Or so we hope).  And it’s pretty much the tech-ed up version of the ole magic 8 ball.  Minus all the shaking.  You know… “Should I ask that hot girl from Accounting out on a date?”  “Should I take that new job offer?”  “Do I look fat in these pants?”  Well, maybe not the “fat in these pants” one…Hunch may have some tact.

Invite Only

It’s in invite mode right now, but they promise it will be “coming soon” to full regular mode.  I got my invitation, signed up, and decided to see what it was all about.  From the “About the Site” page, it had sounded kind of interesting, though I still wasn’t quite convinced how this could really actually work and give me advice I’d want to follow any more than shaking a plastic ball.  They say they take information from questions they ask you, and use that to formulate advice (or “hunches”) as to what might be the best answer for whatever question you are posing. 

How it works

So, I sign up and log in (very easily done by the way), and there is a box right on the upper right hand corner of the home page to start answering questions to give the Hunch-master an idea about what makes Jodie tick I suppose.  I’m sure my boyfriend would tell them good luck with that.  They asked all sorts of questions, from leading off with what kind of area do I live in to what do I think of Wal-Mart.  And for those that maybe are a tad challenged with reading the answers they supply to pick from, they even offer little pictures next to each answer to help you in your selection.

And just so you know how you compared to other Hunch users, they tell you for many of the questions “72% of respondents also chose that answer!” or “4% of respondents also chose that answer!” (where I feel like it should be followed with…“You freaking reject! Why did you pick THAT?? Duh!”  and a stupid face emoticon.  Although this one asking about where I’d get my furniture cracked me up.  Gotta love the last choice.

I decided it was time to give it the old college try.  You could either go to the categories page and browse a list of topics (check out the photo below), or, on the home page it offers up “Featured Topics” .  I guessed this was where you could pick one that you liked as well and get it to answer for YOU.  So, I picked one.  Since I didn’t see one offering up advice on how to have Ed McMahon show up at my door with the Prize Patrol within 24 hours, and since I like to read, I went with “Which book author should I read?” 

Mark Twain is a niche author?

It takes me to a screen asking me some more questions.  Ok, so they didn’t claim to be Madame IKnowAll, and they need some background.  So, first, it asked me if I was looking for a blockbuster author or a more niche author.  I went with niche.  Then they wanted to know what kind.  I went with mysteries.  Fiction or non-fiction.  I went fiction.  And what did it come up with?  Ummm…Mark Twain. 

Now, while he IS an author I really enjoy…I don’t see how he even really fit what I was just asking for.  I can see if I was asking for a classic author or something.  But, ok.  Next result they gave me was Vikram Seth.  Hunch tells me that Seth is “an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children’s writer, biographer and memoirist.”  Uhh…ok.  The third choice offered up was Philip Kindred Dick.

Hunch was kind enough to even provide dates of birth and death for this one.  (December 16, 1928 – March 2, 1982 for the curious among you.) This one was “an American science fiction novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments, and altered states.” 

So now I’m thinking Twain wasn’t such a bad pick.  What in the world?? I was thinking more along the lines of Patterson or Grafton.  And the last one listed…which they call the “wild card”?? Hugo Maurice Julien Claus. He was “a leading Belgian author, writing primarily in Dutch.” *considers banging head against wall*.  And yes, “Do I speak other languages?” was a “get to know you better” question Hunch asked me…and no…I don’t speak Dutch.

Early thoughts on Hunch

So, right now, although I admittedly didn’t play around with the site too much, I wasn’t overly impressed so far with the hunches it gave me.  While I think it is a nifty concept that I think can really go somewhere, I think it is going to take much user interaction to develop it to where they see the site going.  And even they know they need that.  More users/more answers/more questions is what it’s going to make Hunch work.  It’s a fun site…I could still see myself going back and playing around on it for kicks at this point.

According to their fact sheet, they claim their goal is “Eventually, when Hunch gets good enough, we hope users will trust it to make an informed decision without having to turn to lots of external time-consuming sources of information.”  Nothing wrong with aiming high!

Maybe my next question will be “Will Vista ever start working correctly on my laptop?”  Never mind, I don’t need a website to answer that one for me.  I have a hunch that’s a big N-O. 

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Apr 2009 | 7:01 pm

FCC approves T-Mobile Sony Ericsson CS8 Cyber-shot handset

If I was the FCC, I’d start my own gadget blog in light of the fact that I’d have first dibs to all the new gear. Er, wait…nevermind. Scratch that, stick to your federal duties and leave the blogging to us.

Sony Ericsson’s newest (T-Mobile-bound) slider phone, the Cyber-shot CS8 (known elsewhere as the C905), has received approval by the FCC. Not only are there a bunch of external and internal photos of the new CS8, but for the extra curious/impatient readers out there, you can also read the CS8’s user manual (pdf).

From what we can gather, the CS8 includes an 8 megapixel camera w/ flash, WiFi, GPS (w/ Google Maps), Bluetooth, and a Memory Stick Micro (M2) slot, among other features. Obviously, since this is just FCC approval, there’s no pricing or availability info yet.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:59 pm

Artoo is more than a droid, he's a cheap laptop for kids

I remember seeing the Darth Vader and Storm Trooper "Learning Laptops" from Oregon Scientific when they debuted a couple years ago. What I did not know: 1) they also created an R2-D2; 2) he has the cheapest price tag of the lot.

Droids get no respect.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:45 pm

Stereographic images of Tokyo

These photographs of Tokyo taken by heiwa4126 are amazing. He used an ultra-wide fisheye lens to create 360°x180° panoramas using stereographic projection--a technique used in geometry to map a sphere onto a plane.

heiwa4126's Flickr set [via Pink Tentacle]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:25 pm

Hands On: 'inFamous' Amps Up Superhero Game Genre

Why stop at racing through a virtual world when you can layer on some superpowers and really go wild? InFamous owes a heavy debt to Crackdown, but a first look at the upcoming PS3 game indicates it could surpass Microsoft's sleeper hit.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:09 pm

iPhone 3.0 Beta Reveals More Clues of Voice Control

Developers testing iPhone 3.0 beta have discovered further evidence of voice control coming to the OS.

System files in the 3.0 beta suggest a framework called "Jibbler" may introduce voice-enabled navigation of the iPhone OS, sources told ArsTechnica. When a user dictates a command, for example, Jibbler could theoretically launch an app in the iPhone's SpringBoard, or perform a search with Spotlight, a newly announced systemwide search tool.

The exact function of Jibbler has yet to be confirmed. However, voice control is looking more likely: In early April, developers testing an earlier version of the 3.0 beta discovered a configuration file called "Voice Control."

Ars speculates Jibbler could also introduce voice-enabled dialing. It's worth nothing, however, that there are already voice-recognition apps available in the App Store: SayWho, a dialer; SayWhere, which looks up directions and businesses; and Google Mobile, which performs Google search queries.

iPhone OS 3.0 to feature voice control and feedback [ArsTechnica]

See Also:

• Apple Bestows Cut-and-Paste, MMS on iPhone Users
• Pictures: iPhone 3.0 USB Tethering Already Activated
• Easter Eggs Give Clues to Next-Gen iPhone
• Screenshot Hints at Video Recorder in iPhone 3.0
• Analyst Dismisses Rumored iPhone Component-Supplier List

Photo: chrisscott/Flickr

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:08 pm

100-MPG Delivery Van Is a Bright Idea

Bright Automotive plans to tap the fleet vehicle market with a 100-mpg plug-in hybrid van it says will be on the road by 2012.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 21 Apr 2009 | 6:08 pm

Verizon opens their catalog to user reviews, probably a bad move

This ought to be interesting. Apparently never having felt the wrath of a dissatisfied buyer with access to the internet, someone over at Verizon has just decided to enable users to leave public reviews on any phone in their catalog. Users can rate their handsets on a scale of 1-5 for ease of use, display, features, and battery life, then manually add their own pros, cons, and comments.

Openness is good. Helping people make educated purchases is good. But this just seems like a bad move.

If I’ve learned anything from gallivanting around the internets in search of cell phone knowledge, it’s this: the majority of people taking the time to talk about their phones hate them. Now, that’s not saying that most people hate their phones - just those willing to take 20 minutes to throw down 300 words about a handset on a forum. It’s good ol’ Silent Majority/Loud Minority; though the vast majority of consumers can be neutral or positive on a product, a quick glance around the internet will make it seem like everyone despises it.

This tends to be less of a problem on e-commerce resale sites, especially those which see lots of return buyers. Sites like Amazon have built entire communities out of the reviewing process, thus enticing folks to return and leave reviews for all products they buy - not just the ones they hate. People connect with the process and leave reviews both good and bad, and others seem to follow by example.

With Verizon, it’s a whole different story. With 2-year contracts as a part of nearly every phone sale, the volume of return sales just isn’t that high. In 10 years, the average soccer mom might buy/trade up through 5-6 phones. That’s 5-6 opportunities to review, across a decade. Are they going to connect with the review process and tell of the good times they’ve had with the handset? Or will the only ones who bother be those looking to unleash their buyers remorse and all of their pent up frustration from spending hours dealing with customer service?

Verizon has put up a safety buffer: they’re manually approving reviews, which may take up to 2 days. But what’s the criteria? Are they simply filtering out the messy, profane garbage, or will they nix reviews they feel are being too harsh? The masses (read: angry consumers on social sites) wouldn’t respond too kindly to the latter.

What do you think - a good move toward openness, or a good way to doom handset sales?

[via PhoneArena]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 21 Apr 2009 | 5:01 pm

Ancient Carvings Reveal Pharaoh's Dark Age

Carvings in the Sinai peninsula may shed light on an obscure period of Pharaonic history.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 5:00 pm

Volcano 'Poses Tsunami Threat' in Caribbean

The collapse of a volcano on Dominica could unleash a devastating tsunami.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 4:55 pm

Nanocluster Acts as Hydrogen Super Sponge

A new zinc oxide nanoparticle has highest surface area of any known material.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 3:55 pm

Earth-Sized Exoplanet Is Smallest Ever Found

The least massive exoplanet ever found is too close to its parent star to be habitable.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 2:55 pm

Stephen Hawking Expected to Recover

Physicist Stephen Hawking is expected to fully recover from a chest infection.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 1:44 pm

Days to Lengthen With Climate Change

Changes in the atmosphere due to global warming will lengthen Earth's days.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 1:40 pm

BLOG: Polo Horses May Have Been Poisoned

Were 21 horses that died Sunday at the U.S. Open Polo Championship poisoned?
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 1:40 pm

Hands-On With the Sigma Wireless Bike Computer

I have been speeding around on a new bike this weekend, a cheap-o fixed gear I picked up in order to study for the Gadget Lab build-a-fixie project. I’m hooked — it’s so much fun riding the thing. Inevitably, I started wondering just how fast I was going, and also how much ground I was covering on my long trips around town. I decided to take a look at cheap cycle computers.

I picked the Sigma 1106L DTS, a choice based entirely on a balance between price and availability (it was in my local store and cost just €30). Actually, the tiny size and white color were also factors — I wouldn’t want to ruin the clean lines of the bike, would I?

The computer is only barely worthy of that name: You get a minimum of information — speed, distance traveled and time riding — but this is all I need. Anyone wanting cadence information, heart rate monitors, GPS or other fancy functions will need to look elsewhere, and you’ll need to visit an ATM along the way — prices go up fast.

The DTS part of the name stands for Digital Transmission System, which means that this sucker is wireless. No wires means easy removal and no hideous cable-mess. It also means two batteries (thin CR2032s), but they’re lithium so they should last a while.

Fitting is easy. There are three main sections. A magnet which screws onto the spokes, a transmitter which counts the revolutions and a head-unit that sits up-top on the handlebars. The transmitter fixes on with a rubber band, which is supplied and looks something like a black o-ring. The head unit clicks into a plastic bracket which is also attached by rubber band, but which also has a sticker pad and can stay on permanently.

The setup is a bit of a pain. The computer comes from a German company and is supplied in German. After switching to English (following the confusing multi-lingual instructions) you can choose kph or mph, set the time (annoyingly, if you choose mph you get a 12-hour clock. 24-hour is only for those outside the US and UK, it seems) and tell the unit your wheel circumference. This last is important, and means that the computer only has to count revolutions to work out distance, which in turn means that you can put the magnet and transmitter box any distance from the center of the wheel. There’s a handy table to find out the sizes you need from reading the markings on your tires.

You can also use the computer with two bikes, although you’ll need to spring for another transmitter. You can pick a wheel size for each and then swap the head unit back and forth between bikes and it will automatically know which is which. Of course, you could do this manually, but that’s kind of a pain.

Once set up, operation is easy. The top edge has the Set and Reset buttons. Reset you’ll need, Set you won’t (it's just to access the main settings menu). On the front bottom is the Mode button, which cycles between the following: Trip Distance, Trip Time, Average Speed, Max Speed, Clock, Total Odometer and Total Time. All of these keep the current speed showing in the top corner. The display isn’t back-lit, but it’s clear enough to be read from the saddle, and the Max Speed reading means you don’t have to be staring at it when you’re speeding down a hill.

The easy to setup and remove design is great, and although the rubber bands feel a little weak when you stretch them on, they hold up well in practice. Unless you want to keep the lines of the bike super sleek, I’d recommend using the sticky pad to affix the head unit, otherwise it bounces around when you press buttons. Both sections feel well made — light but solid — and the top unit has already been dropped a few times and still works fine. Swapping modes on the fly is easy, but pointless as you can review all the information later.

For me, this is a huge tech step up. My last odometer was an analog fork-mounted box which got clicked forward by a pin on the spoke. And I never had a speedometer before, although my school friends used huge motorbike-style dials hooked up to wheel-rubbing spindles, proving that quantum physics isn’t the only place where measurement affects the outcome. Price around $50.

Product page [Sigma]

See Also:

• The Great Gadget Lab Fixie Project: Help Us Build a Better Bike ...
• 5 Inexplicable Fixie Fashions
• If Computers Were Bikes, What Bikes Would They Be?

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 21 Apr 2009 | 1:17 pm

Complex Molecules Found in Milky Way's 'Sweet Spot'

Astronomers describe two of the most complex molecules ever found in space.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 21 Apr 2009 | 1:15 pm