Palm Pre Reviewed

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Microsoft Update Quietly Installs Firefox Extension"

Brian Krebs:

Big deal, you say? I can just uninstall the add-on via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface, right? Not so fast. The trouble is, Microsoft has disabled the "uninstall" button on the extension. What's more, Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry, an exercise that -- if done imprecisely -- can cause Windows systems to fail to boot up.

Charlotte, NC mall has an E-cigarette kiosk, the world is doomed

As my better half says, “Only in the South.” Have you guys seen these e-ciggy kiosks in malls around your neck of the woods? If you’ve never seen one of these things then check out John’s review of the SuperSmoker Blue.

via KSA’s Twitter

Singer Susan Boyle loses British talent show (AFP)

AFP - Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle, who won a worldwide audience after her rendition of "I Dreamed A Dream" became a hit on YouTube, came second Saturday in the British talent show that made her famous.

EU Wants Multiple Browser Bundling On New PCs

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Appletell reviews the Eos Wireless iPod Speaker System

FROM APPLETELL - I’ve got an iPod. I’ve got nearly 4,000 songs on it. But what if I’m moving around the house, getting things done? What if others want to hear what I’m playing? Do I have to carry around a speaker dock? Not with the Eos Wireless iPod Speaker System.
MORE »

Village Voice Wishes McMaster Would Hate Them, Too

And you thought the South Carolina v. Craigslist story was dead.

If anything sucks more than being the target of an ambitious but delusional gubernatorial candidate who has suddenly developed a bit of a fetish for prostitution, it’s being ignored by that candidate. As far as Village Voice sees the world, Craigslist just got a bunch of free press. And they want their share.

When Craigslist management was facing a criminal investigation for listings on the site they did the smart thing. They talked about the law, and they pointed out that the real smut was on other sites that were being ignored by the South Carolina Attorney General. If you really want hard core porn and prostitution, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster pointed out, check out Village Voice’s BackPage.com.

That’s all body fluids under the bridge now, of course, since a federal judge smacked down McMaster and forbid him from stalking Craigslist management.

But Village Voice is still smarting from those Buckmaster links in that blog post. Yesterday they issued a very official press release titled “Village Voice Media to Craigslist CEO Buckmaster: Calm Down, Back Off; There is Nothing Wrong With a Little Competition.”

In an email, Village Voice’s PR firm accuses Buckmaster of “leveraging the legal bind he’s in to damage Craigslist’s competition.”

The real reason for the press release and press outreach, of course, is to get a little bit of the spotlight pointed to backpages, too. Because their official story doesn’t make sense.

Backpages has adult ads, lots and lots of them, and they’re proud of it: “We will continue to exercise our right to accept legal adult postings,” they say. All Buckmaster did was link to a whole bunch of them. And since backpages desperately needs the traffic, what they really should be doing is thanking Craigslist, not attacking them.

What we learned today: If you really want to pay for sex, backpages is the place to go.

Full press release is below:

Village Voice Media to Craigslist CEO Buckmaster: Calm Down, Back Off; There is Nothing Wrong With a Little Competition

PHOENIX, May 29 /PRNewswire/ — Last Friday, Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, fired a deliberate, unnecessary and wholly inaccurate shot across the bow of Village Voice Media and backpage.com, our online classified advertising property. Given the serious nature of what Buckmaster inferred in his post about Village Voice Media newspapers and backpage.com, we can’t sit on our hands and be silent.

In the original blog post, which was later “submarine” edited to reword and soften some of the attacks towards Village Voice Media, Buckmaster complained that politicians are attacking Craigslist but not Village Voice Media and other media outlets because they have a “need for positive stories and campaign endorsements from those very same newspapers.

“Is it possible that writing stories critical of Craigslist’s (relatively tame) ‘adult service’ section is more career-friendly than attacking their own employer (or journalistic media brethren) for operating a (far more graphic) ‘adult service’ section of their own?”

Buckmaster and Craigslist are in a tough, and in many ways, frightening situation - they have a number of moralistic state Attorneys General threatening them over their adult ads, and a raft of bad press following the terrible tragedy in Boston that the company is admittedly in no way responsible for. But, the manner in which Buckmaster is responding to this pressure - by disingenuously lashing out at competitors and caving to political pressure - is inexcusable, and displays a remarkable lack of sound judgment.

In 2002, Village Voice Media recognized the forces that were changing the classified advertising market and created backpage.com to answer that challenge. We’ve put a lot of work into making it the No. 2 free classifieds site in U.S. We’re fine with being No. 2, proud in fact. Buckmaster, apparently, is not. Instead of working with his competitors to find a way to solve, or at least mitigate issues surrounding adult ads - the shortcomings of automatic content filters is something we are all trying to fix - Buckmaster simply attempted to take the competition down with him. And, his methods leave much to be desired.

First off, our newspapers don’t endorse politicians and rarely have anything nice to say about them, so to say that politicians aren’t going after Village Voice Media because they need our endorsement isn’t viable. Secondly, Buckmaster is only complaining because a competitor is challenging his economic advantage in the free classified arena - which he built in part on adult ads - and has made him a very wealthy man. His talk of building community and serving his users rings hollow. It now appears that, as is so often the case with New Age entrepreneurs, it’s all about the money.

We will continue to exercise our right to accept legal adult postings from our users and concentrate on growing backpage.com. We are aggressively building additional technical solutions as well as increasing our manual site inspections to improve efficiency of removing content that is illegal or otherwise violates our Terms of Use.

About Village Voice Media

Village Voice Media is a collection of 15 weekly newspapers and daily Web sites, including New York’s Village Voice, the LA Weekly, Denver’s Westword and the Phoenix New Times. Online, in print, and on mobile devices, VVM’s products combine music, food and events coverage with gritty, hard-hitting journalism to create the most powerful city guides in each market. While the focus of the brand is local, its free classifieds site backpage.com, partnership with social recommendation engine LikeMe.net and national sales force, Voice Media Group, extend its reach on a national level.

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

Star Trek devices that resemble present-day gadgets

The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is currently running a Star Trek exhibit with all sorts of whimsical items from the various TV shows and movies. A few devices, in particular, look mighty familiar to present-day gadgets.

Please observe the two Engineering PADDs (personal access display device) in the above photo. I’ll be damned if those don’t bear a striking resemblance to Amazon’s Kindle and Kindle DX e-book readers. The PADD, however, is set way, way off in the future — circa 2375, according to the little sign there. It appears that in the future they have color e-ink, too.

Then below we have a Cardassian Data Clip, described as a “portable storage and data processing device”. It’s roughly the size and shape of a 2.5-inch portable hard drive enclosure.

And this “data display panel” could double as a digital photo frame or, perhaps more appropriately, one of those 7-inch USB LCD monitors. Except this one is much cooler looking and wireless.

Starfleet Communicator? Hello Motorola Ming. The Ming has a stylus, though, which Kirk would have lost on day one. “Captain’s log… I’ve… lost… my… po-king… apparatus!”

And last but not least, there’s the Tricorder, “an advanced scientific device used by Starfleet personnel” to monitor medical conditions and search for signs of life, among other things. Kinda resembles a wireless router, which is used to search for and monitor advanced scientific stuff like LOLcats and hot deals on Wolf T-shirts.

Star Trek: The Exhibition [Franklin Institute, Philadelphia]

Mad Catz scores rights to wireless Xbox 360 controllers

It never really dawned on me that Microsoft had a stranglehold on production of wireless Xbox 360 controllers. It just wasn’t something that I thought about when plunking down in front of the TV to play some video games. In any case, Mad Catz has scored the exclusive global rights to produce “Xbox 360-branded wireless specialty videogame controllers.” That’s great and all, but we won’t be seeing any run-of-the-mill wireless controllers, which isn’t that big of a deal. Let’s just hope they’re cheaper than the Microsoft ones.

via MTV

PSP Go "revealed early"

From Gamespot:

A YouTube video of what appears to be the next issue of the PlayStation-focused video magazine Qore has revealed that Sony will use its event to unveil a new PSP model, the PSP Go. Sony is expected to unveil the PSP Go at its press conference Tuesday at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. As had been widely rumored, the PSP Go will have a sliding form factor like the Mylo, Sony's ill-fated Internet communicator device.

Here's our preliminary review: "Excellent hardware, but...."

PSP Go With 16GB Memory and Bluetooth Leaked

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PSP Go is go

Here we go, friends. E3 is next week and Sony will be launching this UMD-less PSP Go with 16GB of memory. There’s even a freaking video out, after the jump.

Certainly looks more interesting than the hand-destroying PSP.

via Giz

Super Laser As Hot As A Star Unveiled

The U.S. Government: Your next ISP?

Section: Business News, Communications, Web

“U.S. Government Broadband, Inc. now bringing you the World Wide Web at lightning speeds.”  Wait - the U.S. Government provides broadband?  But, the Government isn’t a telecom—yet.  A member of the Obama Administration is supporting the idea of a U.S. tax-subsidized public broadband network.  Just imagine, high-speed internet everywhere, even in the most rural parts of the country.  Plus, this isn’t your ordinary cable internet - when they say high-speed, they are talking 100 times as fast as what we have now. 

So, theoretically, you could sit back and stream HD movies to your laptop, even if you’re in the middle of nowhere.  Isn’t that what we all want?  For most of us, the answer is yes, but, is such a large-scale telecom project possible?  Well, Australia and Singapore are already in the process of successfully implementing such a network and Britain and the Netherlands are making their own network plans. 

Of course, nationwide, government-sponsored internet has its opponents, particularly the private telecom sector.  Private telecoms would have to compete with the Government to be your ISP, but may not have the capital to meet tax-subsidized pricing plans.  The Government also has regulatory powers that private telecoms simply do not have.  There’s also the question of how the Government will manage customer service and system maintenance of such a large network.  The U.S. is geographically much lot larger than Australia.  Just because Australia is having success with nationwide broadband, doesn’t mean it will be feasible here.

While I am all for bringing broadband to every part of the country, I believe that a piece of the access equation is being overlooked.  Even with nationwide broadband, there are still going to be people who cannot afford a computer to connect to the internet, as well as those who won’t be able to afford even a subsidized internet plan.  Will the nationwide broadband plans also include a subsidized hardware program to supply computers to low-income persons? 

Also, considering the degree of bureaucracy in Government, I find it unlikely that such a large project would move forward expeditiously.  I also believe that the private telecoms will use what money and power they have to lobby heavily against such a project.  That’s unless Congress implements the idea of leasing out its broadband infrastructure to the private telecoms to help soften the pitch.  We won’t know exactly what Congress has in mind though until February 2010 when it releases its official national broadband strategy.

Read: [National Journal]

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

Young Conservative rappers explain Jesus, Ayn Rand, and ANWR drilling

In this short video, sneering rappers from the young conservative movement bust rhymes about drilling in Alaska, forcing women to bear foetuses to term, eliminating social programs and merging Church and State. Lines include: "Three things taught me conservative love: Jesus, Ronald Reagan, plus Atlas Shrugged;" and "Everyone can succeed because our soldiers bleed."

It's (apparently) not a parody.

Why Conservatives Can't Dance


Source: Boing Boing | 30 May 2009 | 6:57 pm

Weird Science

(Rudy Rucker is a guestblogger. His latest novel, Hylozoic, describes a postsingular world in which everything is alive.)

Looking back over the advance of physics over the last two hundred years, it's staggering to realize how much our world view has changed. As a science fiction writer, I'm always trying to imagine how much more things might change in the coming two centuries. The really hard thing to anticipate is the completely game-changing advances that occur every so often.

My sense is that, for one thing, we won't be using chip-based computers in two hundred years---any more than we use mechanical calculators now. That's why, in my recent novels Postsingular and Hylozoic, I've been speculating about a world in which our computations escape from our machines and filter into our ordinary matter.

Nick Herbert is one of my favorite offbeat physicists. One of his papers in particular is something I've thought about a lot over the years: "Holistic Physics, or, An Introduction to Quantum Tantra." Here Nick argues that our conscious minds display some of the same features as quantum mechanics. When we're not thinking about anything in particular, our thoughts evolve in a continuous, multi-universe kind of way---but when we focus on something, we carry out something like the quantum collapse that characterizes the process of measurement.

[Brain models from the Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments at Harvard University.]

As I've been saying, I think it's at least in principle possible that the quantum computations in ordinary matter might be capable of carrying out these same kinds of processes---which we normally associate with living, conscious minds. And Nick's paper helps you to think about this idea.

David Deutsch wrote a deep and technical paper about the topic of computation in arbitrary pieces of matter, called "Quantum theory, the Church-Turing principle and the universal quantum computer."

The basic idea is that quantum mechanical systems can act as universal computers, and it's generally believed that any universal computer can emulate a human mind (given the right program, and, aye, there's the rub).

One of our big problems is that we still have such an imperfect notion of how to build a software system that's like a human mind. The best idea along these lines that I've seen in the last few years is in the book On Intelligence, by Jeff Hawkins and Sandra Blakeslee.

Two more rich sources for futuristic ideas.

(1) The arXiv.org site---for instance look at their New Papers on Cosmology and Extragalactic Physics page. It blows my mind that you can so easily access all these wild new papers, easily readable in PDF form. Even if, for the average person, a lot of the writing is incomprehensible gibberish (like the backwards neon sign shown above), you can skate through and pick up some great concepts and buzzwords.

(2) The physicist John Baez's pages. Baez is a deep thinker and a gifted popularizer, adept at imparting the true strangeness of this world.

It's liberating to realize that, as always, we're very much on the edge of knowing what's really going on.

Canadian cinema fined $10,000 for privacy invasion over bag-search

Staff at the theatre were searching customers' bags for video equipment that could be used for movie piracy.

Security guards didn't find any video equipment in the family's bags, but did turn up a large selection of snack food, which they asked the family to take back to their vehicle, Lurie said.

"They did so willingly. But they continued the search of the bags and while searching they also uncovered some birth control pills belonging to the older daughter," Lurie said.

"Needless to say the mother was not pleased to find out in this manner that her daughter had those pills in her possession."

Electric-Powered VW Bus Photobooth

Portland, OR-based photographer Soren Coughlin-Glaser runs a mobile photobooth out of his bright orange VW-EV bus. Cool stuff, but even cooler is that he re-built the e-bus mostly himself using 24 6V golf cart batteries.

Soren's blog doesn't provide full-on step-by-steps, but there are schematics, as well as lessons learned with regard to blown connections and brake woes.

Sadly, all those set backs pale in comparison to this full-on meltdown:

After the jump, find out what happened and check out some close-up pics...

Says Soren:

I am sad and embarrassed to admit it but my shoddy wiring job on the bus led to a fire in the rear battery box. I was playing with the cables connecting two batteries and left one cable too long and forgot I had done that, it must have gotten pressed against another battery terminal under my box lid and the vibrations of driving caused the cable insulation to break causing a short...

I had some foam in the back that was a spacer and when I shorted [the wire] it caught the foam on fire. Not a great place for foam...

...Yes I replaced the batteries and got rid of the foam and it runs again.

Actually I just stripped a coupling between the motor and transmission so I am having another built so it is out of action for a week or so.

You can't just bring these to a shop, you pretty much have to maintain them yourself. Some things can be bought online and are east to replace, but something are better off custom built by a machine shop, which is where I'm at this week. Just another VW bus adventure.

On the road again

All photos by Soren Coughlin-Glaser

Don’t Watch This: Newest Twitter Worm “Best Video” Is Spreading

Warning: It appears that a worm has hit Twitter-the tweet will say “Best Video” with a link to “http://juste.ru.” If you see this in a tweet, do not click on the link. It’s unclear exactly how the worm is spreading. But from the look of Tweets about the virus, if you click on the link, you account could be compromised and spammed.

According to reports on Twitter, users who clicked the juste.ru video link had their account compromised and passwords stolen. Further details about the virus are limited but Twitter’s official spam account was updated this morning stating that Twitter is aware of the issue and making steps to resolve the virus. The Tweet also warned users to not click the Best Video link.

This isn’t the first worm to hit Twitter. In early April, Twitter’s service was infected with a worm that appeared to have originated from the owners of the website StalkDaily. This week, Twitter was hit with a “Twittercut” worm, which also compromised users’ accounts if they clicked on a link.

UPDATE: Twitter has posted the following update to its status page stating that the site is aware of the virus:

No matter how good that “best video” looks, don’t go to any juste.ru domains. We’re aware of the situation and are working on it.

UPDATE 2: Twitter has also noted that they’ve temporarily suspended some legit accounts to clean up the spam. Again, this is just temporary for the real accounts that were spreading the worm.

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

New US command to focus on cyber battlefield (AFP)

AFP - The US military is moving ahead with plans to create its first "cyber command" designed to bolster America's potential to wage digital warfare as well as defend against mounting cyber threats, officials said on Friday.

Healthy skin crawls with bacteria

Scientology Blocked From Altering Wikipedia Entries

Didiom partners up with new music companies to offer even more content

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Web, Websites, Online Music/Video

Didiom is a service that allows music streaming from your home PC to your cell phone (that is compatible with the service).  While that is a great service in itself, it also allows users to purchase music from their database of over 1.5 million songs.  Instead of the normal purchasing music for the price, users are allowed to bid on music, so they could receive the song for cheaper than iTunes. 

A few days ago, Didiom announced that they reached an agreement with two new record companies, finetune-solutions and A-Train Entertainment.  With the new agreements, they will add 1,500 new record labels for users to enjoy.  While their service is constantly expanding to more and more smartphones, if you own a Blackberry or a Win-Mo phone, chances are high that your phone will be compatible. 

As Didiom continues to grow in popularity, they will probably announce more agreements in the future as they constantly strive to add more and more music to their database.  Just to recap their service, basically you have the option to purchase music from your phone or your computer for a set price.  However, that price can be negotiated and accepted or rejected on the spot and then you can download the song/album right away.  Also, they have a cashback program that pays back 35% that you can use on more music.  While I personally haven’t used their service, it does seem like a neat one and is probably very useful to receive your library of music from your computer on the go. 

Read [Didiom Press Release]

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

Three strikes for the Electronic Entertainment Expo? - CNET News

The Associated Press

Three strikes for the Electronic Entertainment Expo? CNET News by Dan Ackerman After two lackluster years of tiny audiences and slashed budgets, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is trying to recapture some of its past luster--but it may be too little, too late. E3 May See New Game Devices; Price Cuts Unlikely Wall Street Journal Blockbuster videogame line-up to spark E3 magic Sin Chew Jit Poh The Associated Press - PC World - Boston Herald - Destructoid all 102 news articles

BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 5-24-2009

Section:

We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does!  Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…

• News Flash: People who approve iPhone apps still morons
• Appletell reviews VooDude for iPhone, iPod touch
• Appletell reviews TweetMic for iPhone, iPod touch
• Appletell exclusive: LittleWing pinball heading to the iPhone, iPod touch [updated]
• Eucalyptus now available on iPhone store

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

The Search For Drinking Water In Nicaragua

Streamlining Access

Testing Windows 7 on an Asus EEE PC 1000HE netbook

Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Features, Originals

I recently decided to install the Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 on my netbook, an Asus Eee PC 1000HE, which had been running Windows XP on 2GB RAM.  Getting Windows 7 installed in the first place was a bit tricky since the netbook has no optical drive, but this was easily solved by using an external DVD-burner.  If you don’t have access to one of these, you are going to have to go through the rather involved process of formatting a USB-key as a bootable drive.  Total install time was about 40 minutes.

Visually, Windows 7 looks worlds different than XP and even Vista, which I’ve had the unfortunate opportunity to use.  From the taskbar, Start menu/Windows button, and desktop, the overall user interface has been revamped resulting in a very refreshing, uncluttered experience.  The old Start menu has been given a more logical hierarchy and the taskbar now shows image buttons that you can hover over for a preview of the window. 

Customizing your user experience is also much more fun in Windows 7 with the greater variety of sounds, pointer schemes, and wallpapers.  The wallpapers are the most surprising - there were some really abstract, funky images (think Gelaskins).  You can also customize the shade and transparency of your windows for a colored, glass-like effect.  With all this personalization and visual beauty, I nearly forgot that I was working on a 10-inch, 1024 by 600 netbook display.

Technically, I didn’t see much difference in power usage - maybe an hour or so less, but on the 1000HE that isn’t much of a difference (I normally get about 7 to 8 hours).  I did notice the fan going a bit more than usual and I figure that may be due to the visual features of Windows 7.  I ran both Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome and experienced no hiccups.  When I installed Chrome and my free anti-virus, I only received one warning message from Windows - a nice change over Vista’s constant nagging. 

Overall, I am fairly impressed with how the netbook is handling Windows 7, especially since RC 1 is the Ultimate version with Windows Media Center.  If Windows 7 runs this well on a netbook, I can only imagine what it could do on full-sized laptops and desktops.  I think I’ll definitely be looking to purchase the full version of Windows 7 when it is released.

Download: [Windows 7 RC]

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

The Top VC Blogs (According To Google Reader)

Venture capitalists can be valuable sources of information about the tech community. Not only do they have quality insider information but they also have a knack for figuring out how to evaluate startups. So it makes sense that their blogs can be compelling reads.

Larry Chang, a partner at Fidelity Ventures, has compiled a list of the 100 top VC blogs, according to the number of Google Reader subscribers for each one. Chang admits that the rankings don’t necessarily equate to the best quality of content and that there is fine content coming from VC blogs with less subscribers. But the list is a good starting point. Chang says he will be highlighting the best VC blog posts from this list on his blog every two weeks and will update the directory to add new VC blogs quarterly.

Here are the top 20 on the list, with their Google Reader subscriber numbers (you can see all 100 on Chang’s blog):

1. Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures, How To Change The World (17,555)
2. Fred Wilson, Union Square Ventures, A VC (11,821)
3. David Hornik, August Capital, VentureBlog (7,060)
4. Brad Feld, Foundry Group, Feld Thoughts (6,434)
5. Marc Andreessen, TBD, Blog.pmarca.com (5,099)
6. Josh Kopelman, First Round Capital, Redeye VC (3,310)
7. Ed Sim, Dawntreader Ventures, Beyond VC (3,239)
8. Jeremy Liew, Lightspeed Ventures Partners, LSVP (2,973)
9. Bill Gurley, Benchmark Capital, Above The Crowd (2,257)
10. Jeff Nolan, SAP Ventures, Venture Chronicles (1,528)
11. David Cowan, Bessemer Venture Partners, Who Has Time For This? (1,261)
12. Christopher Allen, Alacrity Ventures, Life With Alacrity (1,194)
13. Seth Levine, Foundry Group, VC Adventure (1,154)
14. Rick Segal, JLA Ventures, The Post Money Value (795) – Canada
15. Jeff Bussgang, Flybridge Capital Partners, Seeing Both Sides (727)
16. Mike Hirshland, Polaris Venture Partners, VC Mike’s Blog (726)
17. Tim Oren, Pacifica Fund, Due Diligence (661)
18. Jeff Clavier, SoftTech VC, Software Only (656)
19. Mendelson/Feld, Foundry Group, Ask The VC (587)
20. Matt McCall, DFJ Portage Venture Partners, VC Confidential (432)

(Image courtesy PhotoxXpress).

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

New LA-based Mac cloner hopes to magically alter status quo - Ars Technica

Ars Technica

New LA-based Mac cloner hopes to magically alter status quo Ars Technica Yet another company has decided to toss its hat into the Mac cloning ring. This latest venture hopes to avoid Psystar's fate by opening a retail store to supplement online sales. Another Mac clone maker tries its luck with Apple Apple Insider New Company to Start Selling Mac Clones PC World Slashdot - VentureBeat - Mac HTPC - TechRadar UK all 29 news articles

When the Country Called

Super-Efficient Light Bulbs With Ultra-Fast Laser

Crazy Kiwis: Buy a new Mitsubishi Triton, get a free goat with ... - Autoblog

Crazy Kiwis: Buy a new Mitsubishi Triton, get a free goat with ... Autoblog by Jonathon Ramsey on May 30th 2009 at 9:25AM New Zealand Mitsubishi wants you to buy a Triton ute, and to lure you into doing it they're using goats -- because really, who can resist a goat?

Podcast horror story about wanting to fly

When Michael was just a kid, Uncle Evan made a movie of Grandfather. He used an old eight-millimeter camera that wound up with a key and had three narrow lenses that rotated on a plate. Michael remembered holding the camera. It was supposedly light-weight for its time, but in his six-year-old hands, it seemed like it weighed a ton. Uncle Evan had told him to be careful with it; the camera was a precision instrument, and it needed to be in good working order if the movie was going to be of any scientific value.

The movie was of Grandfather doing his flying thing -- flapping his arms with a slow grace as he shut his eyes and turned his long, beak-ish nose to the sky. Most of the movie was only that: a thin, middle-aged man, flapping his arms, shutting his eyes, craning his neck. Grandfather's apparent foolishness was compounded by the face of young Michael flashing in front of the lens; blocking the scene, and waving like an idiot himself. Then the camera moved, and Michael was gone -

And so was Grandfather.

Dave's got a new short story collection coming soon, available for pre-order: Monstrous Affections.

Pseudopod 144: The Inevitability of Earth

MP3 Link

Pseudopod podcast feed

Yahoo 360 to close on July 13

Section: Business News, Web, Web 2.0, Websites

Yahoo has announced that the long delayed closing of its Yahoo 360 social networking service will now happen on July 13th.  Yahoo 360 opened with great fanfare in 2005 and was hoped to become a serious competitor to MySpace and Facebook, but it never happened.  The site’s closure was first announced in 2007 and pushed several times in 2008.  Finally however, the service will officially be shut down.

Users will be transitioned to the new Yahoo Profiles service.  This new service gives users the ability to publish information about themselves, broadcast status updates, and keep a blog.  However, it still leaves much to be desired and doesn’t match the features of 360, something Yahoo acknowledges:

“At this time, your new profile does not have all the features and functionality of your 360 profile. However, we are looking at incorporating new ways of expressing yourself through your profile,” Yahoo’s community manager Melissa Daniels wrote. “In regards to uploading multiple photos, your profile on Yahoo allows for only one primary photo for now. This is also something we’re looking at improving/expanding based on your feedback.”

The failure of Yahoo 360 is just another chink in the once mighty Internet portal.  Their search engine has long since been eclipsed by Google and technologically it has lost its edge as its financial picture became unstable.

Will the new Yahoo Profiles service be all Yahoo hopes it will be? Only time will tell, but given the company’s recent history and the speed at which things change in the Internet landscape, I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Read [PCWorld]

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

Indonesian Scientists Discover Possible Underwater Volcano