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A Giant Awakes in Nantes
Nantes, the home town of Jules Verne, is situated in western France. Here, near the river Loire a giant deep-sea diver sleeps gently, waiting for his task to begin. Sadness marks his face even as he sleeps. He has been searching the world over for his missing niece and although he may not know it, the end of his search is coming. The diver or scaphandrier as he is known in French will be paraded through the streets of this historic city at the beginning of the Estuary 2009 arts festival. The biannual festival gives the French mechanical marionette street theater company Royale de Luxe the opportunity to unveil their latest creation.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
With the Palm Pre, new iPhone, new T-Mobile Android phone, the summer is already heating up rapidly. Who knows, the addition of the Nuviphone could be right around the corner, which would definitely create an interesting dilemma for new smartphone shoppers.
On Friday, Garmin President and COO, Cliff Pemble announced some new details about the Nuviphone, specifically about availability in Asia and the United States. The Nuviphone was announced by Garmin back in 2008, and here we are a year later still no Nuviphone to be seen. The award for delaying a highly anticipated the phone the best goes to Garmin instead of Palm. Anyway, so Pemble announced at a shareholders meeting on Friday that the Nuviphone is “getting very close” to launching in the States with a specific carrier.
Originally, they were going to launch the Nuviphone as an open phone in the market, not having it be restricted to one carrier. However, due to a large amounts of carriers wanting the Nuviphone, Garmin went back to the drawing board to work on the design of the smartphone. In the end, they teamed up with Asustek and created two models of the phone, the Linux based G60, and the Win-Mo 6.1 M20. In addition, they plan to launch an Android based Nuviphone in 2010
For those of us based in Asian countries, Pemble announced that the Nuviphone will be released as an open phone either this month or July. Still, this makes an interesting case for all the new phones available this summer, especially if it is released in the States. Consumers are going to have to make a tough decision between all these exciting new phones.
Via [TWICE]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Founder and former CEO of Netvibes Tariq Krim is moving forward with his ambitious Jolicloud project, looking to build a better operating system for web workers with netbooks (or smartbooks or cloud computers, whichever term you prefer). A couple of days ago, we got a couple of exclusive screenshots from the team, and just a day after the startup started sending out a handful of invite codes for early adopters who wanted to get a peak at the alpha developer release. I also got hold of one and have been using Jolicloud on my Acer Aspire ONE for about four days now. These are my initial findings.
Installation
Jolicloud is still in alpha mode, and there’s no denying that there are a lot of kinks left to iron out before it’s ready for public use. For instance, the process of installing it on my Windows XP-powered netbook was frankly a pain in the butt. You need to download an IMG file from the Jolicloud website, ‘burn’ it to a USB key and boot your computer from that drive. But, not only did mine not boot automatically from the key (I had to dive into the BIOS and change the order manually), it also completely froze at the first installation screen.
I only got it to start up once out of perhaps 30 attempts, which was frustrating. And the one time I got into the OS (I didn’t install it, just ran it on test mode) I wasn’t even able to install any applications, which is supposed the main USP for the system. After the first day of not being able to effectively try Jolicloud, Krim advised me to try using another USB key, and lo and behold everything went fine from there. The speed of booting up and shutting down have been impressive ever since I finally installed the full system on my computer.
Using Jolicloud
I’ve now had Jolicloud installed on my netbook for about three days now, alongside Windows XP to make sure, and already I don’t think I’m going to be booting up Windows much from now on. As you could tell from the screenshots we received earlier this week, a lot of thought has been put into the design of the OS, adapting it for optimal use on smaller screens. Even when you run Jolicloud for the first time, everything is quite visual, making it easy to navigate even when you’re not familiar with all the buttons and processes. Compare it to switching from Windows Mobile 6 on your smartphone to the iPhone OS: it’s incredibly easy to get used to, and it’s just a better general user experience, particularly if you use a lot of web applications. I can’t wait to try Jolicloud on a touch-screen enabled netbook to see how it stacks up.
I installed a bunch of applications on Jolicloud in just a matter of minutes, web-based ones such as Gmail, Twitter, Flickr, Wikipedia, but also tools usually run from desktops like Boxee and Skype. All behave the way they should, and smoothly at that. The only hick-up I’ve noticed so far is that sometimes I’ll get a blank screen when you start up applications from the My Jolicloud interface for no apparent reason, but apart from that it’s all pretty impressive, and fast.
I particularly like the fact that there’s a persistent bar at the top of your screen that puts all the instances you’re running neatly into tabs with icons, making for seamless switching between applications (including Firefox, which comes pre-installed and enables you to do whatever you’re used to on your current computer with Mozilla’s browser, including installing add-ons and plug-ins). The team is currently talking to application developers in order to get more on board, and even some that are creating Jolicloud-specific tools.
A bit of social
You can ’subscribe’ to other Jolicloud users, which means you’ll get updates on what they’ve installed on their own netbooks. This should provide a great way to get to know the best applications when eventually the list of tools grows too big for users to easily find their way. It’s also a good way for Jolicloud to analyze who is using what on which type of machine (this reminds me a bit of Wakoopa). It could prove beneficial for Jolicloud to integrate more social features in the future, like the ability to communicate directly with other users or instantly share applications, reviews, screenshots, etc. on the multitude of social networking services out there.
Technology
Jolicloud builds upon Debian and Ubuntu 9.04, tweaked to be more suitable for computers that are in general relatively low on disk storage and memory, and have smaller screens. Hence, they are suited for the so-called netbooks and offer little added value for more powerful laptops. To run applications, Jolicloud uses either custom Linux builds for services or Mozilla Prism for anything that can run off the web. For Windows-only products, there’s Wine, an emulator that runs those applications in a virtual desktop.
Conclusion
The frustrating experience with the initial installation aside, Jolicloud - especially for an alpha release - is impressive. Particularly for people like myself, who use a lot of web applications on a daily basis, it’s definitely a step up from running Windows XP on my Acer Aspire ONE. The design of the system is spot on, the processes are straightforward and everything ‘just works’.
That said, I have my doubts about the potential of the OS to become more than a niche product for people aleady using a niche product (netbooks), and it will be interesting how much of a competitor Google turns out to be with Android, which is poised to become a netbook-specific OS in the coming years. I wouldn’t mind having Krim prove me wrong and invent the future with his small team instead, though.
(If you want to give Jolicloud a whirl yourself, your best chance is to put yourself on the waiting list and well, wait. If you’ve received a promo USB key at an event in the past, it likely that doesn’t work anymore)
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AP - A few months from now, a highly contagious disease will spread through a Japanese elementary school. The epidemic will start with several unwitting children, who will infect others as they attend classes and wander the halls.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We're just two days away from Apple's WWDC keynote where it's expected to show off the next generation iPhone hardware. Not surprisingly, pictures are starting to surface on the web of the purported device — a French site, Nowhere Else, has a bunch of them, that have since been posted elsewhere. Who knows if the pictures are real or fake — it seems like just as often these days people yell "Photoshop," when the product is actually real as the vice-versa situation. But real or fake, I have to say that I hope they're real for one reason.
While at first glance, that device looks nearly identical to the current iPhone (it seems like that will definitely be the case), there is one big difference: A front-facing camera. This is interesting to me for two reasons, because it could jump-start two trends: Mobile video chatting and the self-picture.
So I saw Up yesterday with the boy and I wondered if anyone had invented a collar that can allow dogs to communicate a bit more clearly a la Dug the Dog in the movie. If you haven’t seen it, one of the characters has created a collar that reads a dog’s thoughts (”Squirrel!”) and plays them out loud. Hilarity ensues.
So I’m looking around and discover that yes, such a thing exists, but it’s definitely a bit less high-tech than I thought. I introduce to you the X-Rated Hound Bytes Talking Dog Collar. Gah.
Are you a dog lover? Here is a gadget that will give you hours of fun, Hound Bytes Talking Dog Collar; this is the worlds first talking dog collar.
You can take your dog for a walk and be the envy of your friends, with the
RC control you can make your dog use funny phrases such as:* It’s a dog eat dog world, so eat me!
* Tricks! You wanna see tricks? Get yourself a hooker!
* Woof, woof, I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced
It’s only $12.99 so you won’t have to spend much to lose your dignity.
AFP - Movie directors, composers, authors, legal experts, policy-makers and others are meeting here this week to discuss the "threats and opportunities" the Internet poses to copyright in the digital age.
AFP - Apple on Monday is expected to unveil a next-generation iPhone and possibly provide a glimpse at long-absent chief executive Steve Jobs as it kicks off a software developers conference here.
AFP - French videogame powerhouse Ubisoft is building its movie-making muscles.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It's Cold Cash, Not Cold Feet, Motivating Runaway Brides in China (Thanks, Marilyn!)"She called me soon after she left," says Mr. Zhou, a slight man with a tentative smile. He says she asked how he was doing, and apologized for the hardship she had caused. "I told her, 'I will see you again one day....'"
Last December a family friend told his mother that her nephew recently married a girl from neighboring Sichuan province. The bride had three female friends visiting her, who might be interested in marrying local men, said this friend.
Encouraged, Mr. Zhou and his mother met the three girls the next day. After an hour's chat with the trio, who claimed to be ages 23, 25 and 27, Mr. Zhou found himself drawn to the prettiest and youngest, Ms. Cai, who had angular features and an ivory complexion.
He proposed marriage. She agreed, with one proviso: cai li of 38,000 yuan, or roughly five years' worth of farm income. The Zhous agreed, but took the precaution of running a quick background check. Tang Yunshou, Xin'an's Communist Party secretary, said Ms. Cai's identity and residential papers checked...
Meanwhile, Mr. Zhou is still lovelorn. "I feel I can't hate her," says the deserted husband, who is now so depressed his parents have forbidden him to leave the village, as he longs to. "She must have her own troubles."
(Image: Mei Fong/The Wall Street Journal)
Source: Boing Boing | 7 Jun 2009 | 6:21 am
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We're just two days away from Apple's WWDC keynote where it's expected to show off the next generation iPhone hardware. Not surprisingly, pictures are starting to surface on the web of the purported device — a French site, Nowhere Else, has a bunch of them, that have since been posted elsewhere. Who knows if the pictures are real or fake — it seems like just as often these days people yell "Photoshop," when the product is actually real as the vice-versa situation. But real or fake, I have to say that I hope they're real for one reason.
While at first glance, that device looks nearly identical to the current iPhone (it seems like that will definitely be the case), there is one big difference: A front-facing camera. This is interesting to me for two reasons, because it could jump-start two trends: Mobile video chatting and the self-picture.
 Daily Mail | Jobs may spark move in Apple shares Washington Post By Clare Baldwin SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A surprise appearance by Apple Inc Chief Executive Steve Jobs at the company's annual developer conference could boost its stock on Monday, but his absence might trigger a bigger move in the other direction. Can Apple top the iPhone? The rumor mill says no Apple WWDC 2009 keynote Bingo! |
We’re just two days away from Apple’s WWDC keynote where it’s expected to show off the next generation iPhone hardware. Not surprisingly, pictures are starting to surface on the web of the purported device — a French site, Nowhere Else, has a bunch of them, that have since been posted elsewhere. Who knows if the pictures are real or fake — it seems like just as often these days people yell “Photoshop,” when the product is actually real as the vice-versa situation. But real or fake, I have to say that I hope they’re real for one reason.
While at first glance, that device looks nearly identical to the current iPhone (it seems like that will definitely be the case), there is one big difference: A front-facing camera. This is interesting to me for two reasons, because it could jump-start two trends: Mobile video chatting and the self-picture.
Now, there are a few other devices capable of doing mobile video chatting, but none have taken off yet. But an Apple chat app built exactly like its iChat app on Mac computers, could change that immediately. Just imagine placing a call to another iPhone user (or maybe even someone using iChat on their computer) and being able to hit a button and see their face. It’s something that seems like an obvious direction to go in, and there’s been talk about it before, and patents filed indicating such functionality.
Assuming this new iPhone is significantly faster than the current model, it certainly seems like a possibility. But there’s a major x-factor pointing in the direction of why this won’t happen: AT&T. Considering that it gets all worked up when developers try to create a Sling app that can stream video over its 3G network, and blocks it (it’s Wi-Fi only), just imagine what it will think about two-way live streaming video chat.
Of course, that stance is pretty ridiculous considering that AT&T allows the Sling app to work on other phones on its network. But given what it knows about how much bandwidth iPhone users use versus the other smartphones out there, AT&T made a play to attempt to salvage its often sketchy network. But it’s possible that if AT&T really is doing massive upgrades to its network to get ready for this new iPhone which will supposedly connect to the Internet at higher speeds, that the company could allow video streaming as long as it’s from Apple. After all, it doesn’t want to piss off Apple, lest it expands its business to other carriers, like Verizon, as well.
Or Apple/AT&T could just say that this mobile video chatting is limited to Wi-Fi, like the Sling player is. But that would be pretty lame.
But it seems logical that sooner or later this functionality will come to the majority of smartphones. And you can bet that Apple wants to be credited with jump-starting this trend. And I think it would work because while video chat is cool on the computer (most people still seem to be impressed when they see a video iChat for the first time), it sucks being tethered to a desk and chair to use it. Using it on the go could be much more interesting. Naturally, some people would hate such a feature, but it would be one of those things that eventually became a norm, I think. It wouldn’t replace straight-up voice calling obviously, but it would be a nice option.
The other trend I noted above is one that is actually already alive and well: Self-picture taking. People have been doing this a lot pretty much since the dawn of the digital camera since you can immediately take a picture, see how you look, then delete and re-take if it’s bad. And people seem to love doing it on the iPhone already, as you can see clearly on all the web’s photo sharing sites.
But as it stands right now, you either have to take the picture in a mirror, which just looks odd because you’re holding your iPhone in the picture — and you’re well, taking a picture in a mirror of yourself. Or you have to hold the iPhone away from you to snap the shot. But that often results in a crap picture because the iPhone’s camera sucks and doesn’t have a steady-cam features (though it seems likely that the new one will).
But a forward-facing camera could be a game-changer for the vain — which, come on, we all are in some regard. And it’s something that Apple already has experience with thanks to its Photo Booth program which is included in OS X. For those that haven’t used it, basically it just allows you to use a computer’s camera to take a picture of yourself and you can do weird things to the picture like give yourself a giant head. I could definitely see Apple including that same funtionality on the iPhone.
So again, I don’t know if these latest pictures are legit at all. They look pretty good, but there is odd issues with focus, blurriness and illuminated dots. But that really doesn’t matter, eventually I think Apple will add a forward-facing camera to the iPhone to lead the way in the mobile video chatting and self-picture trends — it just may not be announced this Monday.
[photos via Gizmodo and Engadget]
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 Channel 4 News | Reports of Yahoo Getting Binged Appear to be Mistaken DailyTech It appears reports that Microsoft "binged" Yahoo with its new search engine were mistaken. Three out of four major market research firms say that Yahoo still leads significantly in traffic. Bing off to solid start, but not that good Bing: why the rebrand was necessary |
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FROM APPLETELL - WWDC usually brings great news for all Macintosh, iPhone and iPod owners, but what if you can’t upgrade to the new Apple hardware that’s likely to come? Appletell and Just Mobile are here to cushion the blow.
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No, we didn’t get a Palm Pre to check out before its launch today — something which is a bit fishy and contributed to a big heap of drama earlier today. But it does seem like a ton of people both on the web and in real-life are very excited about the device. And they should be, having just read others’ reviews and talking to friends who have used it, it seems like it will easily be at least the number two coolest phone out there.
So for those of us who didn’t get one today, here’s the video that plays upon starting up your new Pre. It’s pretty damn awesome — much better than the iPhone’s startup screen — which I’ve been seeing a lot of lately. This one actually reminds me a bit of the cool Apple TV startup video.
[via PopWuping]
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Judging from the reaction on the web, people aren’t having too hard of a time getting the new Palm Pre at Sprint stores across the country. But last night, one woman was apparently so concerned that she wouldn’t be able to get one that she sped her car to a Sprint store — wait, let me rephrase that — she sped her car into a Sprint store.
Check out the video embedded below from NBC Chicago. It’s pretty incredible. Joking aside, I highly doubt the elderly woman behind the wheel actually wanted a Pre and more importantly, she was fine aside from a few bruises. But as you can see, the store didn’t fare so well. And it was probably the worst time something like that could have happened given the Pre launch today.
The store apparently said it would still be ready for the 8 AM launch. Anyone in Chicago know if they made it? Perhaps having absolutely no storefront helped with the crowd flow. Let’s just hope they cleaned up the broken glass and picked up the poor fallen giant Pre display.
[via PalmPre.org]
[photo: Jesus Leal Jr.]
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FROM APPLETELL - A fantastic week of E3 announcements and demonstrations is past us, and it’s now time turn our attention towards Apple’s WWDC. The event kicks off Monday, but we couldn’t wait to get our live blog up because we’ve got some great products to give away.
MORE »
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Don’t have the money to get yourself a Gigapan system, and don’t want to spend the time stitching together pictures from your regular point-and-shoot? Japan has a solution for you. The great thing is, it’s so simple I don’t have to explain it. Actually, that trigger bit looks kind of complicated, but I’m sure you’ll figure something out.
But seriously, if you want to do panoramic photos, get Hugin. The solution pictured is ingenious, though.
[via Reddit]
A teardown of the Palm Pre, just hours after its nationwide launch, has revealed an ultra-fast processor and a solid build but a touchscreen module that could become a trouble spot for some buyers.
“It’s a good design with components that, while not quite at the bleeding edge, are at the forefront of their competition,” says Aaron Vronko, CEO of Rapid Repair, the company which dissected the phone told Wired.com. Technicians took about an hour-and-half to slice through the device.
Palm launched the Pre exclusively on the Sprint network Saturday. Reviews of the Pre have praised the phone’s design, its completely rebuilt operating system and its ability to multitask. But they have also pointed out drawbacks such as the device’s cramped keyboard and poor battery life. The Pre will cost $200, after a $100 mail-in rebate, on a two-year contract.
Vronko and his team’s repair toolkit for the Pre included a small Philips screwdriver, a flat head screwdriver, a razor blade, pliers and a solder iron. Removing the back panel was easy since, unlike the iPhone, the battery on the Pre can be replaced.
“We found the overall construction of the Pre to be typical of slider phones,” says Vronko who rates the difficulty of taking the device apart a seven out of ten and comparable to the iPhone.
The Pre’s system board has a Texas Instruments CPU (TWL5030B/ 94A20PW C), an Elpida memory chip and 8GB NAND memory chip from Samsung.
“The processor on the Pre is almost 50 percent faster than the iPhone,” says Vronko. “One reason could be that Apple may have clocked down the speed on its iPhone processor to reduce power consumption and heat generation.”
The Pre stumbles when it comes to its touchscreen says Vronko. In the Pre, the LCD and capacitive touchscreen are permanently glued together. It’s similar to how the first generation iPhone was built. But the subsequent iPhone 3G has the two screens as separate modules. The advantage for users is that in case of a problem with the screen it is easier to repair if they are different modules, says Vronko.
“If the screen is damaged, it’s almost twice as expensive to repair and replace it if they are glued than if the two are discrete components,” he says.
Another likely trouble spot for the Pre is the slider mechanism that could wear out over time, warns Vronko. Still, he rates the Pre a “solid build”. “The phone is in pretty good shape,” he says.
See more photos from the Pre teardown
Palm Pre with its back panel removed
Palm Pre’s front panel exposed
Palm Pre’s front panel board view
For step-by-step view of the Pre disassembly, check out Rapid Repair’s site
Photos: Rapid Repair
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…
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
As Radley Blako says, there's got to be great story behind this photo.
UPDATE: Steven Leckart says It's a sculpture called "Ancient Echo"!
Man comforts young, semi-clothed, vomiting orangutan
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Jun 2009 | 11:56 pm
Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Today, Sprint and Palm began selling the hot new Palm Pre phone through company stores, Best Buy and Radio Shacks across the nation. The verdict? Hot. White hot. And don’t even try to find the handy Touchstone wireless charging accessory as many locations sold out of them before actual Pre phones.
As lines formed for what Sprint and Palm warned would be low stock counts, many were concerned they’d be shut out on launch day as stock ran out. And true to form, many were given forms to get notified when a new shipment arrived. But those that left with the new Pre phones were “wowed”.
Consumers overall seem very pleased with the phone, not so much with activation which isn’t uncommon:
“Activated and it’s really amazing. Very fast. Love the multitasking and cards. Camera was excellent. Screen is beautiful.”
“Phone is f-ing awesome!”
“After the typical problems porting and activating”
Around the webs, I read only one review from a consumer that was meh. Not bad considering someone has to be upset.
One note that was common is the phone was less than stable until an update to 1.0.2 where after that, the phone seems to be behaving fine. Also a common theme, a bunch of DOA phones seem to have made it into the product stream. Several purchasers started on a bad phone only to have it swiftly replaced with another. Sign of the times or a problem brewing?
So far, Palm looks to have sold well. Not iPhone well, but well for Sprint. It will be interesting to see how consumers deal with webOS phones on multiple carriers, a feat even the mighty iPhone hasn’t been able to achieve.
Read: [PreCentral], [Engadget]
(photo credit: Engadget)
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 ABC News | Palm Pre's big day CNET News by Marguerite Reardon NEW YORK--The much-anticipated Palm Pre may have gotten almost as much hype as the Apple iPhone over the past six months, but its opening day fell short of the attention iPhones grabbed on their first days. Pre Hunt: In Search of the Elusive New Palm Device Palm Pre teardown shows iphone-inspired design |
So.
The Gillmor Gang was today. We started things off with a nice talk about Rajeev Motwani and his contributions to the community. That was nice.
Then Leo Laporte started talking about the Palm Pre, which launches today. That part of the show, which turned as ugly as a show can turn, is in the video clip embedded above. The unedited audio file of the show is here, you can listen to the pre show banter and the first bit about Motwani before the train wreck.
I ask Leo whether he bought the Pre or got it free and in advance of the launch, which I think is relevant because Palm is being very picky about who they give them out to. We were promised one but it wasn’t delivered. We suspect our critical coverage may be the reason, one other blogger I spoke to is in the same situation. Many of the pre-launch reviews are overtly positive, and we’re comparing those reviews where the journalist got a free Pre in advance of launch to the less cheerful ones written by people who had to pay for the device. Getting a high profile device in advance is a huge advantage, and is a conflict of interest that should be disclosed in our opinion. But the catch is this - as long as Palm sends out a letter with the device asking for it back in a week, it isn’t considered a financial conflict of interest. The fact that few people ever return them is rarely brought up.
Anyway, Leo lost it and shut down the show. I’ve had a lot of interactions with him and they’ve always been positive. Or at least I thought so. I wasn’t watching the video live during the show and I really thought Leo was joking until the very end (as did Steve Gillmor and Loren Feldman, who were chuckling in the video). My “what are you going to do about it” comment doesn’t sound so great in hindsight. But I really did just think he was joking around.
We’re under so much scrutiny at TechCrunch (read the last two paragraphs here) that i guess I don’t always stop and think about the fact that most journalists are never questioned, and don’t react particularly well when they are. We were once, for example, accused of a conflict of interest when we wrote a story about a product and I happened to be a “friend” on Facebook with the PR person for the company. So you could say I’ve had to develop a thick skin when it comes to questions about conflicts of interest. And I don’t consider asking a journalist to disclose if a device he says he loves was given to him for free or not as being a particularly trollish thing to do.
I’m bummed this has to be an issue on a day that we’re all mourning the loss of such an important member of our community. And I’m sad that my professional relationship with Leo is apparently over. I apologize to you, Leo. I didn’t mean to imply that you were being unethical. I just think that, given the story that’s brewing about favoritism at Palm, it was important to disclose whether you paid for that Pre, and/or got it in advance.
I think I’ll go take Laguna for a walk now and try this blogging thing again tomorrow. I know a lot of you are going to be commenting strongly on this. Comment moderation is going to be tight on this post, so keep it constructive.
Update: comment from Leo below:
Thanks for the post, Mike. Apology accepted. Now that I know what was going on in your mind, I apologize to you.
There seems to be something about the Gillmor Gang that just engenders over the top passion. I’m embarrassed by my overreaction. Peace.
Update: Many comments are complaining about comment moderation. This isn’t about free speech. It’s about dozens of death threats and hundreds of others saying pretty horrible things about one of of us. You may think that your comment needs to get heard and that calling for someone to die shouldn’t be taken seriously. But multiply that by hundreds and maybe you’ll get a sense of this. I was rude. I made the problem worse by saying things because I thought he was play-mad. and then i apologized. i may be a lot of things but i don’t think i deserve to die over this. please. stop. i can’t deal with the death threats after what happened last year and then this year in europe. leo won. you guys won. i surrender. just stop. please. stop.
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FROM GAMERTELL - Every company claims their is the biggest, most important and whatevertheheck else announcements but one a few can be our favorites. Here’s a look at some of the Gamertell staff’s favorite announcements from this year’s E3…
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Happy 25th, Tetris! You’re still the greatest game ever, after Twinkle Star Sprites.
Want to get your own Tetris on? The original NES one is solid, but try the less-common unlicensed Tengen Tetris, which has cooperative play in the same well. Good for finding out who your real friends are.
I had two major motivations for writing my new book, Absinthe and Flamethrowers: Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously. First, I wanted to provide readers with the logical arguments behind living a slightly dangerous life; and second, I wanted to research and document some interesting ideas for getting started. One easy idea is sampling absinthe. Now, it's true there is no real danger involved in imbibing any of the fine, modern absinthes now on the market, if done in moderation. But when living dangerously, reputation and history very important.
At one time, drinking the stuff could be pretty dangerous. The icon of the bohemian life, l'heure verte, or green hour was a daily event among hip European imbibers. Indeed, the image that often comes foremost to mind when considering absinthe is a streetful of dissipated Parisian intellectuals, some of whom sunk into poverty and madness by dancing a bit too closely with the Green Fairy.
Maybe the most well known absintheur is Vincent Van Gogh. Long unknown and impoverished, he became famous and successful only posthumously. Van Gogh was a clinically depressed epileptic, and a social outcast who also happened to drink a whole lot of absinthe. Famously, he shared rooms with Paul Gauguin in Provence for several weeks until he sliced off his ear in a fit of rage. In 1889 the townspeople of Arles forcibly sent him to a mental hospital to rid themselves of their frightening, alcoholic neighbor.
Was Van Gogh truly plunged into madness by absinthe? Maybe, but probably not because of any psychotropic chemical contained in the wormwood from which absinthe is distilled. Some researchers say it was the drink's extremely high alcohol content required to keep the natural oils in suspension that made it dangerous. Others claim it was the way the drink was manufactured. According to Scientific American, low-cost, low-grade absinthe, accounted for the majority consumed at the turn of the 19th century. And this was true rot-gut, often adulterated by cheap, poisonous chemicals such as antimony salts and copper sulphate.
The ban on absinthe was lifted a few years ago and absinthe distillation has reemerged as a boutique industry with several small distillers turning out handmade, small batches of the stuff. My personal favorite is called Taboo and it comes from, of all places, Canada! It's intensely anise flavored and the wormwood bitterness is pleasingly apparent at the start. Lucid is a well known brand and is similarly intense. Interestingly, both of these are considerably paler in color than typical French and Swiss absinthes but they do produce the well known "louche" or milky colored opalescence when water is added.
I'm glad it's Friday. I can hardly wait until 5 O'clock for my cocktail. A votre santé!
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Jun 2009 | 10:59 pm
Wow, it's Mike Hargrove week here at BoingBoing. Yesterday, I wrote about the 35th Anniversary of the 10-Cent Beer Riots at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. As baseball buffs may remember, rookie first baseman Mike Hargrove was a prime target of drunken fans, getting pelted with missiles of all sorts including an empty jug of Thunderbird. (As one commenter pointed out, who would in the world would smuggle in a bottle of T-Bird when beer is only a dime?) But Hargrove survived, and played well in the pros for the next 10 years.
I thought of Hargrove last night while watching the not-worth-watching fourth quarter of the Laker-Magic game. Now, you may be asking yourself, what does Mike Hargrove have to do with the NBA playoffs? Well , Hargrove had a nickname as a player. He was called "The Human Rain Delay" because he took soooo long to stand in the batter's box. He drove pitchers (and fans) crazy. Hargrove may be extreme but there seems to be a lot of waiting around in pro sports.
I'm making up a highlight reel of the least exciting moments in professional sports. It's for those nights when I need help falling asleep.
1. The point after touchdown. Why does this still exist? This is nothing more than an excuse to go get another beer.
2. The intentional walk. Wow, the excitement of watching a pitcher and catcher to stand up and lob baseballs to one another. Definitely something I can't get enough of.
3. Watching a relief pitcher throw yet more warm up pitches on the mound. Hasn't this guy been throwing in the bullpen for last 10 minutes?
4. Any NBA game where there's a 10 point difference with less than 3 minutes to play. Garbage time. (Okay, this isn't hard and fast rule. In 1977, the Milwaukee Bucks overcame a 29 point deficit with 8:43 seconds remaining. But that's pretty darn rare.)
5. The NFL instant replay challenge. When Ed Hochuli walks to the sideline and puts on the cans, you know you're in for excitement.
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Jun 2009 | 10:58 pm
![[08-026] bartitsu.jpg](http://www.boingboing.net/%5B08-026%5D%20bartitsu.jpg)
[Moriarity and I] tottered together upon the brink of the fall. I have some knowledge, however, of Bartitsu, or the Japanese system of wrestling, which has more than once been very useful to me. I slipped through his grip, and he with a horrible scream kicked madly for a few seconds and clawed the air with both his hands. But for all his efforts he could not get his balance, and over he went.Britain's most popular literary character of the late 19th century, Sherlock Holmes was well known for his towering intellect and need for constant mental stimulation. To satisfy his intellectual needs, he engaged in a number of trans-Golden Third activities including sword fighting, boxing, and stick fighting, as well as frequent recreational narcotic use.
-- Sherlock Holmes in The Adventure of the Empty House
From Drinking Learner Permits for Under Age Persons:
In more than 30 states, drivers aged 16 and 17 gain driving experience while holding special licenses that restrict when and how they may drive (for example, no late-night cruising). This permits a slow introduction to an adult privilege. The same concept should apply to drinking.I'm fully aware that this may seem ironic given that I've already posted stories on absinthe and the 1974 Cleveland Indians 10-cent beer night debacle. But I see too many people drinking too much booze way too often. Recently, I came up (over beer with friends, another irony) with an idea for a drinking license. Turns out, several others have had the same idea.
What could be the elements of a provisional drinking license? There could be time and place restrictions. The license holder could drink, for example, only in an establishment where at least 75% of sales receipts were for food (no bars, no liquor-store purchases). No service after 11:00 pm. Moreover, a 19- or 20-year-old could have to undergo formal instruction about alcohol and pass a licensing exam.
In early June 2007, Palm was teetering on the edge of obscurity. Their flagship Treo product line had gone stale, numbers were down across the board, and rumors of a sale were abound. On June 4th, 2007 it was announced that Elevation Partners had purchased a 25% equity stake of Palm for $325 million. Flash forward to today; just two years later (almost to the day), Palm has launched the Pre, a phone which managed to nab the attention of just about every blog and blog reader out there.
So what changed? What had that new-found $325 million bought them? Talent. Lots and lots of talent - from their competitors, no less. With a good amount of lucky timing and some decent salary proposals, Palm managed to snatch up at least 8 people who were just oh-so-damn good at what they do, ending up with the Palm Pre and webOS as a result.
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No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you! Here’s a look at this week’s top stories…
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Got a hankering for some 20fps DSLR video but don’t have the scrilla to pick up a T1i? Well, you may be in luck, my comrade-in-poverty. Rumors are swirling that a stripped-down version of Canon’s consumer DSLR will find itself announced as early as June 9th. The T1/2000D (why didn’t Canon standardize its names with this latest change?) will probably have about the same relationship to the T1i/500D as the XS/1000D has to the XSi/450D. Got that? Here it is in SAT form:
T1/200D:T1i/500D::XS/1000D:XSi/450D
In other words, it’ll be not as good in pretty much every area, but still a great camera, and presumably for a significantly lower price.
The June 9th date is just a rumor, as is a June 23rd date, but either way it seems likely that whenever Canon has a big press day this month, the T1 will be coming out. We’ll spec it up whenever that happens, but if you were deliberating on an entry-level DSLR purchase, it might be wise to wait a week or two.
From Ryan Gallagher's Camera Toss Blog:
- Use "timer function" or longish exposure setting.
- Depress the shutter button (timing depends on your technique).
- Throw your camera into the air during or just before it exposes.
- Catch camera (optional).
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[via SuperForest]
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FROM APPLETELL - WWDC is likely to be full of announcements but the important announcements are likely to be more evolutionary than revolutionary.
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The Digipocalypse is fast approaching. Are you ready? Because apparently some 10 million Americans aren’t, and when the switch hits they’ll be cruelly deprived of television and will be forced to spend their leisure time interacting with their friends and family, perhaps out in that beautiful summer weather. CrunchGear’s hearts and prayers are with these poor wretches, and we beg to remind them that while broadcast TV may not work, your television is still useful for playing movies and games, or just for providing a central source of light around which your family can sit, motionless and silent.
Who makes up this unfortunate remainder? This useful chart should help:
Of course, that’s a bit of an oversimplification (and a mean one at that). The fact is that there are millions of old and poor people throughout the country who don’t have the money or savvy to set up the change, or, despite $2bn in funds being put into PR and transition groups, simply aren’t even aware of it. If you know any, point them toward our handy guide or recommend something easy like the DTVPal.
We have to make this work. After all, the family that stares together, stays together.
 New York Daily News | Athletes are all aflutter over Twitter, but don't believe ... New York Daily News BY Ralph Vacchiano AND Michael O'Keeffe Lance Armstrong (from l.), Tony La Russa, Mark Sanchez and Shaquille O'Neal have all had their run-ins with social networking site Twitter. Tweet Up held in Missoula To Tweet Or Not To Tweet? |
I must have missed these while perusing SkyMall on my flights last week. Hammacher Schlemmer, which has been improving our quality of life for years with things like the solar-powered flashlight and submarine screen door. Their latest triumph: sandals that are also metal detectors. Actually, I believe only the right sandal has a detector, so you’d best start practicing your wavy walk now.
The embedded metal detector will find things down to two feet below, and lets you know it’s done so by buzzing on your leg and blinking. This little show also attracts women (not guaranteed).
A lot of times with these gizmos, I can see how someone, somewhere, might find it useful. With these, though, it seems unlikely. After all, a real metal detector is moved in a wide arc as you walk, covering perhaps a five-foot-wide swath of beach or ground. This one will cover a thin line about five inches wide. Your chance of discovering something has just been reduced by about 80%.
That said, it only costs $60 and it’ll run for six hours on a battery, so why not? Something tells me, however, that you shouldn’t wade with them. Or wear them around the ladies. Or wear them at all, ever.
[via OhGizmo and The Green Head]
Larry Page and Sergey Brin have always given Professor Rajeev Motwani significant credit for helping them create what would eventually become Google. Today, as I say my personal goodbye to the man who helped so many people in our community, I’m also spending some time going back and reading some of the early papers that Rajeev co-authored describing how PageRank could become the basis for a new kind of search engine.
In a 1998 paper called “What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket” Brin, Motwani, Page and Terry Winograd say “…we have developed a global ranking of Web pages called PageRank based on the link structure of the Web that has properties that are useful for search and navigation..we have used PageRank to develop a novel search engine called Google, which also makes heavy use of anchor text.”
An even earlier paper in 1998 that the four co-authored called “The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web” went into much more detail on PageRank. “In this paper, we take advantage of the link structure of the Web to produce a global “importance” ranking of every web page. This ranking, called PageRank, helps search engines and users quickly make sense of the vast heterogeneity of the World Wide Web.”
Today much of what they wrote appears as little more than common sense. But in 1998 it was a revolutionary way of thinking. AltaVista, the leading search engine at the time, turned down the chance to buy Google for $1 million, saying spam would make PageRank useless. Yahoo also declined to purchase Google, supposedly because they didn’t want to focus on search, which only sent users away from Yahoo.com. So what seems obvious today was considered sort of meh by the leading technologists a decade ago.
The papers are embedded below.
What Can You Do With A Web In Your Pocket? -
The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web -
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As with every gadget that comes out, someone had to go and disassemble the darn thing. And even though the Palm Pre only come out today, Rapid Repair has already torn it apart, rapidly. A rough “guesstimate” of the cost for Palm to put the Pre together? Around $170; the device retails, sorta, for $199.
Would I recommend you try to disassemble a Pre of your own? No, that would be silly. Granted, I’m not the handiest person in the world—I fried an Xbox1 motherboard trying to install a modchip some years ago; plug-in mod to the rescue!—but, really, there’s not point anymore.
And a brief note to all y’all Palm Pre fans: as you’re standing on line, waiting for the kid behind the counter to hand you your phone, please don’t forget that today is June 6: 65 years ago to the day of the D-Day invasion. Many young men died so that you could have the freedom to wait in line at Best Buy or Radioshack all day and pick up your new plastic god.
Just keep ‘em in mind, ok?
That is all.
via GIZMODO
 Seattle Post Intelligencer | Miyamoto Spotted at Microsoft's Project Natal Demo 1UP.com By Kris Pigna, 06/06/2009 Microsoft's announcement of Project Natal, their new Xbox 360 full-body motion control device, was a clear challenge to Nintendo's Wii. Behold the motion-sensitive controller wars Future Controller Wars: Natal vs PS3 |
In early June 2007, Palm was teetering on the edge of obscurity. Their flagship Treo product line had gone stale, numbers were down across the board, and rumors of a sale were abound. On June 4th, 2007 it was announced that Elevation Partners had purchased a 25% equity stake of Palm for $325 million. Flash forward to today; just two years later (almost to the day), Palm has launched the Pre, a phone which managed to nab the attention of just about every blog and blog reader out there.
So what changed? What had that new-found $325 million bought them? Talent. Lots and lots of talent - from their competitors, no less. With a good amount of lucky timing and some decent salary proposals, Palm managed to snatch up at least 8 people who were just oh-so-damn good at what they do, ending up with the Palm Pre and webOS as a result.
The Ex-Applers:
Jon Rubinstein: Perhaps the most well known of the Palm to Apple switchers. Rubinstein worked at Apple from February 1997 to April 2006, serving as senior vice president of hardware engineering and, later, senior vice president of Apple’s iPod team. When a trip to a Toshiba plant yielded a 1.8″ hard drive that no one really knew what to do with whilst Jobs was looking for a portable music player, Rubinstein put the pieces together - and the iPod was born. Rubinstein joined at Palm right after the Elevation Partners investment was finalized in October 2007, serving as executive chairman.
Lynn Fox: Take a look at how the Pre was handled: Employees were sworn to secrecy, with all information shared on a need-to-know basis. The product announcement looked like a parallel universe Steve-note. They pushed every morsel of information in a way that was sure to hype the hell out of the thing - without promising more than they intended to offer. Doesn’t that sound like a very Apple-esque way to go about things? It should. Prior to joining Palm as head of PR in March of 2008, Lynn Fox was Apple’s head of PR for at least 8 years.
Mike Bell: After 16 years at Apple as VP of CPU Software for the Mac team, Mike Bell changed his title to Senior Vice President of Product Development at Palm in January of 2008. It seems like he’s liking it there - in December of 2008, he was quoted saying “I’m fundamentally convinced we’re onto something huge. Some of the stuff we’re working on here is mind-blowing—better than anything I’ve seen before.”
The Helions:
No one would have been interested in the Pre based on the hardware alone. Yet another QWERTY slider - big deal, right? But that webOS.. it just seemed so gorgeous. Everything just seemed to flow together, both visually and functionally. Though it’s still up in the air whether or not it’ll prove itself as viable a platform as the iPhone OS/App Store combination, the software is really what sealed the deal here.
As odd as it may seem, webOS’ existence may lie in the untimely (or, for Palm, incredibly timely) demise of wireless MVNO Helio. Helio started going under, and their UI team bailed - right over to Palm. A significant portion of Palm’s User Interface/Experience team is made up of ex-Helions, all the way up to the guy who introduced webOS at the Pre’s debut.
Matias Duarte: Wherever this guy goes, awesome user interfaces follow. At Danger, he helped lay the foundation for the circular homescreen UI they still use to this day on the Sidekick series. At Helio, his team churned out one of the best user interfaces to grace a feature phone - that of the Helio Ocean. Matias was chief designer at Helio before becoming Senior Director of User Experience at Palm sometime in late 2007.
Unfortunately, we don’t know all that much about the rest of his team - but we do know of a few who went with him from Helio:
Wes Yun: Worked at The Designory prior to Helio.
Michelle Koh: Also worked at The Designory prior to Helio.
Nate Streu: Ex-Helion
Daniel Shiplacoff: Ex-Helion
From what we’ve been told, Matias’ past teams at Danger and Helio were both somewhat restricted, be it in freedom or funding. At Helio, for example, they designed an incredible user interface intended for use on the Helio Ocean 2. Unfortunately, technical limitations of the WIPI platform that then parent company SK Telecom insisted they use kept it from ever seeing the light of day. Palm, however, granted Matias and co. free reign - and webOS emerged, with hints of the Helio OS that never was tucked throughout.
This list is by no means exhaustive, of course - nor are we trying to say that these are the only folks responsible for Palm Pre/webOS. It’s simply a list of the talent we know for sure made the jump to Palm in the months and years leading up to the Pre. If you know of any we’ve missed, drop a comment below.
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Twitter has faced harsh criticism from celebrities, including Kanye West, about impersonators creating unauthorized accounts on their behalf. Tony La Russa, the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball franchise is suing Twitter claiming that someone is pretending to be him on the site.
Today, Twitter’s co-founder Biz Stone responded to the lawsuit, adamantly stating that Twitter will not settle with La Russa, calling the lawsuit an “unnecessary waste of judicial resources bordering on frivolous.” Twitter, as it has done with other similar situations, suspended the account in question.
But in response to the problem of impersonators of brands and famous people, Twitter is giving us a sneak peak of an experimental feature they call “verified accounts.” Twitter says it will start rolling out the beta of this feature this summer for a small set of public officials, public agencies, famous artists, athletes, and other celebs who run the risk of impersonation. Businesses will not be included in the initial beta testing of the verification seal. As you can see from the image, the account holder’s page will have a “verified account” official seal in its profile box.
Impersonation is a problem on the web in general. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler recently tried to sue a group of anonymous bloggers for pretending to be him, which proved to be futile. Facebook, like Twitter, is another platform where impersonators can create unauthorized pages on behalf of celebs and public figures.
Of course some Twitter impersonations can result in amicable situations. During the Ashton Kutcher vs. CNN race to a million followers, it was revealed that CNN didn’t own the CNNbrk Twitter account. CNN ended up taking control of the CNNbrk account, under the agreement that the original account holder, James Cox, would act as a “social media consultant” to the network. While Twitter’s verification seal is still in an experimental phase, it seems like a step in the right direction.
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FROM GAMERTELL - Gamertell ahs comiled a lis tof some of the great “vs” game titles throughout game history. They might not all be amazing games but they sure have enticing and interesting names when you consider them at face value…
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Someone on Conan O’Brien’s staff reads the Internet! Yes, last night Conan addressed the fact that his set for The Tonight Show looks an awful lot like Super Mario Bros.
And here’s the video:
Note: NBC will probably take the video down in eight seconds, so non-U.S. readers better view it quickly before we have to switch over to the Hulu version.
via Kotaku
I don't purport to be an expert in things computer and Internet related. Usually I just read what people I respect say and go with that. Often, they point me me to Google's stuff (search, gmail, Picasa, youtube, etc) and I've always been pretty impressed with their services.
Microsoft just introduced Bing to compete with Google search. My friend Mark Hurst sent me a very interesting article he wrote about it.
Everything Microsoft has tried recently hasn't worked. They tried the "I'm a PC" ads, a knockoff of the Mac ads - didn't work. Tried the Zune, a knockoff of the iPod - didn't work. Tried redoing MSN Search again and again, as a knockoff of Google - didn't work. What's the world coming to, when Microsoft can't build a monopoly around a knockoff?Hurst's full post is at http://goodexperience.com/2009/06/microsoft-has-a-probl.php
It's those effing customers. They keep choosing the best experience.
I have to imagine this is tough on Ballmer and whoever else over there. No matter what they try, the customers refuse to take orders from Redmond. Sure, lots of people still pay the upgrade tax on Windows and Office every two years, but only because they have to. There's no love.
So what does Microsoft do? They launch - I'm still reeling from this - they launch a search engine. To compete head-on with Google. In search. I just need to type that again: Microsoft wants to unseat Google with a search engine.
Now here's where it gets really nuts.
Microsoft's strategy, to win market share from Google, is not to compete on user experience. No. Microsoft's strategy is to advertise the heck out of the thing and hope people flock to the site.
They are spending - wait, let me try my best "Dr. Evil" voice - one hundred million dollars to order the world to use their search engine. According to a Microsoft exec in charge of the launch, "The key will be whether we deliver a product and connect with people emotionally in the advertising."
A hundred million dollars to "connect with people emotionally in the advertising." If I've learned one thing in my customer experience work over 12 years, it's this: any online strategy built on emotional connection, based on flashy ads or a new font or color scheme on the website, is guaranteed to fail.
 DailyTech | ISP Pricewert Protests Shutdown PC World Although a Federal Trade Commission order shut down Internet access for San Jose Web-hosting firm Pricewert based on several complaints, the company says the action was unfair and plans to fight the FTC in court. FTC forces hive of scum and villainy ISP offline Federal Trade Commission shuts down rogue ISP |
Don’t expect every country in Europe to follow France in implementing a “three strikes” anti-piracy laws. A report called Digital Britain, which assess the UK’s preparedness to enter the digital era, will be published next week, and inside are methods that the UK could use to combat Internet piracy. One such method: slowing down the Internet connection of file-sharers so as to prevent them from effectively downloading illegal content. (Though, if my UK acquaintances are telling the truth, broadband in the UK is garbage to begin with. It’d be like telling a slug to slow down.)
Slowing people down is one option, rather than just cutting people off from the Internet altogether, which is something the EU doesn’t support. The Government there, now less a few Blairites, sees Internet access as being as important as something like running water.
Also in the report: a demand that ISPs cooperate when copyright infringement is found. You know, sending letters to customers saying, “Yeah, we found out that you were downloading Premier League games, and now the FA and Sky Sports are breathing down our necks. Knock it off.”
Of course, that’ll open up ISPs to all sorts of nastiness. “If they can catch people downloading episodes of “Lost,” why can’t they spot people who are looking at terrorism sites, teasing Gordon Brown, etc.?”
The Palm (PALM) Pre officially went on sale this morning, and judging from initial reports–and my experience at a local northern California Sprint store–neither demand or supply was particularly overwhelming. Certainly, lines for the device were far shorter than those that extended from Apple (AAPL) stores for the launches of the iPhone and the iPhone 3G.
Arriving outside my local Sprint (S) store about an hour after they first opened, I found not a queue of eager Pre-buyers, but two kids making forts out of a few Pre shipping boxes left outside the store. Inside the store, I found a group of 9 people waiting in line to add their names to a waiting list for the device, which was already sold out at this location. A Sprint rep refused to tell me how many Pres had been sold this morning, but admitted that the shipment had been a small one. The situation is apparently the same across the country. The Boston Globe reports that Sprint’s Back Bay store sold out of its 55 Pres by 11 AM. An informal survey by 24/7 Wall Street reveals sell outs or fast-dwindling supplies of the device at Sprint and Best Buy stores in Chicago, Houston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Four of the 5 Best Buy stores I contacted reported selling out of the Pre very quickly; one representative told me his store had just four of the devices and he believed that to be the case at many other locations.
Sprint stores I spoke with in LA, Chicago and Boston told me they’d sold out by late morning. Q: How many names on the list? A: “We’re not allowed to say.” A reader tells me that the line outside the W. Division Street in Chicago was at least 50 people long, and that the store started wait-listing people somewhere around #36. Another reader reports a line of about 20 people outside an Emeryville, CA Sprint store. That same reader claims a clerk told him the store had 60 Pres on hand. Still another reader reports that the line outside Sprint’s Market Street store in San Francisco started at 6 AM this morning. There were a dozen or so folks in line by about 7:30 AM. Finally, another reader reports that a Sprint store in San Francisco’s Castro district had a line of about 40 people when she showed up to get in line at 7 AM. That location, too, sold out quickly.
Four phones at the local Best Buy? Stores in Marin, LA and Chicago sold out within hours? Makes you wonder if Palm and Sprint are purposely constraining supply to foster an image of overwhelming demand. Is that the case? “Absolutely not,” Palm spokesperson Lynn Fox told me, noting that supply is being spread out across a large base of 1200 Sprint Stores and Best Buy and Radio Shack locations as well. “We’re actively producing product and getting it out there as fast as we can because demand is very, very high. Sprint tells us they have never seen higher demand for a smartphone.”
Nick Popovich is a repo man, but not the kind that spirits away Hyundais from suburban driveways. Popovich is a super repo man, one of a handful of specialists who get the call when a bank wants back its Gulfstream II jet from, say, a small army of neo-Nazi freaks.For the past three decades, Popovich has been one of a secret tribe of big game hunters who specialize in stealing jets from the jungle hideouts of corrupt landowners in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil and swiping go-fast boats from Wall Street titans in Miami and East Hampton. Super repos have been known to hire swat teams, hijack supertankers and fly off with eastern bloc military helicopters. For a cut of the overall value, they'll repossess anything.
Here’s a question that’s been running through my head ever since Michael posted about FriendFeed being in danger of becoming the coolest app no one uses: exactly how many startups out there are trying to be the one social networking service aggregator to rule them all, and how many is enough?
It seems like every day startups come up with new applications, be it for desktop, Web and/or mobile phone, that essentially want to be the gateway to our online lives. In reality though, there are not that many people who want - let alone need - continuous access to multiple social networking services, and even if they do, how many people (outside of the tech industry) do you know who are genuinely waiting for a extra third-party that helps them manage all their online personas?
Is this a sucker’s game? Is it a battle worth fighting?
For example: how many clients exist that basically aim to lure you away from using Twitter’s standard web interface by adding more features to the core micro-sharing functionality and throwing in more eye candy? And yet, the Twitter website remains, by far, the most popular way for users to update their message streams, with dozens of apps like TweetDeck, Twhirl / Seesmic Desktop, PeopleBrowsr, Sobees, Streamy, Tweetie, Nambu, TwitterBerry, and HootSuite trailing in its path (and there are many more where that came from).
Don’t even get me started on the plethora of apps that syndicate FriendFeed feeds alongside Facebook and Twitter to deliver the best-user-experience-known-to-mankind when it comes to updating your social graph on your current status. It’s the ultimate social networking service aggregator update management tool, baby!
All these applications appeal to only a fraction of the users of the more popular social services, many of which are still trying to figure out how to turn all that attention into cold hard cash themselves. I’m not necessarily saying that that’s a reason not do get into that business, I’m just saying chances are little that they’re ever going to be able to turn it into something even remotely profitable.
I sincerely think we’ve seen enough of these social network aggregators, and while I’m sure one or two will live on, get acquired or turn out to be a successful venture in another way, most are destined for failure like most startups in any other market, especially if they’re as saturated as this one has quickly proven to be.
I’ll sure be pointing back to this post when the next contestants in this particular arena find their way to our inboxes.
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 Search Engine Watch | American Online Video Viewing Hits New Record in April Comtex Smartrend By Chip Brian, SmarTrend Analytics Team American Internet users broke their previous monthly record for watching videos online in April, growing viewership to 16.8 billion videos watched for an average of 6.4 hours streamed per user for the month, ... YouTube drives video viewing to record month Americans Viewed a Record 16.8 Billion Videos Online in April ... |
Above, the first video I saw on this YouTube account about an hour ago. Here was the second, here was the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. Wait, don't miss this one either. You kind of need to just take some time and watch all of them. Also this.
Nadja over at Street Carnage says,
[He] looks like he might have Progeria, a terrible disease where your body is elderly even though you're only 8. Regardless of this disfiguring disease, he's a true gangster. He has the balls to go online and be like every other pre-teen boy on youtube, singing along to Papa Roach and generally being awesome. The fact that he does this, that it brings him some kind of happiness, and that he calls himself "chick3n little", is why the internet is amazing and why the world doesn't seem so shitty sometimes.I am not a doctor, and I do not know what condition the person in the video has that makes them look and behave differently. But here is the Wikipedia entry on Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome ("Progeria", or "HGPS"). Here is another entry for a different condition called Virchow-Seckel Syndrome.
Looks like the content was previously uploaded to YouTube under another name, deleted, then re-uploaded them under this new account name. His real name is apparently Justin?
He is already huge in France. Here's an english translation of that article.
Update: Some background on the meme provenance in this BB comment. Some have stated that the current YouTube channel is not controlled by the person in the videos, but was reconstructed by someone else. In other words, the videos appear to have been created and originally published online by this young person, but the "Tsimfuckus" YT channel, and the descriptions/titles therein, not actually his. Various accounts name the person in the video as Justin Tsimbidis; he called himself "tsimfuckis"/"tsimfuckus" in one of his videos. The uploads are fascinating, but it sucks that anonymous jerks on the internet are being cruel to this person.
(Thanks, Sean Bonner and Richard Metzger!)
Source: Boing Boing | 6 Jun 2009 | 5:29 pm
Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Web
Looks like a Best Buy memo got leaked, and in it we can see both their real opinion of Microsoft Vista, as well as their pricing plans for upcoming Windows 7.
Gotta love the second line, where it says that Windows 7 “isn’t just a Vista that works” (tell us how you really feel), but a totally improved operating system with better productivity. They also gave detail to the fact that they will be giving out a free upgrade copy of Windows 7 when it comes out October 22nd to anyone purchasing a Vista-laden computer after June 26th. It will count whether you have Vista Home Premium, Business or Ultimate. You even qualify if you bought individual disks.
In addition, between June 26 to July 11, you will be able to pre-order select editions of Windows 7 on Best Buy.com. The Home Premium Upgrade will be going for $49.99, and the Professional for $99.99. Bit of a savings from the cost of a Vista Upgrade at $129.95 and $199.95
So, if you were planning a buying a computer…ya might want to hold off a couple of weeks. You know…to get an OS that actually works. I don’t know that Best Buy is going to be thrilled that this one got out, since it may bring down computer sales the next few weeks.
Never the less…kudos to Best Buy for calling a spade a spade.
via: engadget
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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If you happen to be in Los Angeles tonight, and you are reading Boing Boing, you really should be at Johannes (of monochrom)'s talk over at Machine Project gallery about the image of computers in popular music. "I can count every star in the heavens above but I have no heart I can't fall in love..." Link to event description, starts around 8pm.
And if you can't make it, here is archived media of an earlier version of the talk presented in 2007.
Video Above: Computer No. 3, a weird song from 1968 by France Gall which Johannes will no doubt reference in his talk. You gotta watch this. Someone took the original performance recording from 1968 and remixed/dolled it up.
Let’s face it, most people are sheep. It is much easier to follow than to lead, and on Twitter it is no different. A full 80 percent of Twitter accounts have fewer than 10 followers, according to an analysis of seven million Twitter accounts provided to TechCrunch by Web security firm Purewire (which operates TweetGrade). What’s more, 30 percent have zero followers.
Does this mean nobody is using Twitter? Or that they are using it more as a one-way information consumption service?
The fact that an estimated 32 million people around the world visited Twitter.com alone in April certainly indicates that there is something going on there. It just may be that Twitter really isn’t as much about two-way micro-conversations as it is about one-way micro-broadcasting. Indeed, a recent Harvard Business School study suggested that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce more than 90 percent of all Tweets.
Here is how Purewire breaks down activity on Twitter by number of followers, followings, and Tweets:
Followers
Accounts with 0 followers: 29.4%
Accounts with 1 to 9 followers: 50.9%
Accounts with 10 or more followers: 19.7%
Followings
Accounts following 0 people: 24.4%
Accounts following 1 to 9 people: 43.4%
Accounts following 10 or more people: 32.2%
Tweets
Accounts with 0 Tweets: 37.1%
Accounts with 1 to 9 Tweets: 41.0%
Accounts with more 10 or more Tweets: 21.9%
What stands out from this data is that about a quarter of all accounts are not following anybody, nearly 30 percent have zero followers, and more than a third have not posted a single Tweet. The problem with all of this data, however, is that it includes abandoned accounts (as most likely does the Harvard data as well).
Like any popular Web service, millions of people create a Twitter account, try it once, and never come back again. The Purewire data shows that about 40 percent of users have not sent out a Tweet since the day they created their accounts. You can compare this with the 60 percent abandonment rate claimed by Nielsen. But even these may not be the true abandonment rates. Just because you are not Tweeting does not mean you are not listening.
After getting rid of the dead accounts and spam accounts (24 percent of accounts follow nobody), what do we have left? All the activity on Twitter is coming from the remaining people who stick around—that 20 percent with more than ten followers and the 32 percent following more than ten people. If you look at active accounts—which Purewire defined as those with at least 10 followers, 10 followings, and 10 tweets—it shows that Twitter is still filled with sheep. Of those active accounts, 63.6 percent follow more people than they have followers (2.8 percent have the same number of followers as followings).
But that is what you’d expect. When only 22 percent of accounts have more than 10 Tweets, people who bother to Tweet on a regular basis will attract more followers than people who prefer to sit back and read. Twitter is no different than any other form of participatory media. A small fraction of users produce the overwhelming amount of content, even if it is just 140 characters at a time. Everyone else just drinks from the stream. Baaaa!
(Photo credit: Flickr/Stacie Brew )
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