Dell’s Dedupe Play [Voices]

Until three weeks ago, few people outside corporate data centers knew much about deduplication technology, which makes data storage more efficient by culling repetitive documents. That changed when data storage companies NetApp and EMC got into a bidding war last month for a leading provider of the heretofore obscure software.

Their target is Data Domain, for which EMC is offering $30 a share and NetApp $25 a share. While the clash surprised people who don’t know about the technology, it was no shock for Darren Thomas, who heads Dell’s data storage division. “We always knew” that deduplication was hot, he says.

This week, Dell (DELL) jumped into the fray when it announced a new deduplication box that combines technology from software maker CommVault with Dell hardware. The new product – along with new deduplication services that Dell is offering – may give a hint into the company’s M&A strategy, which has been taking shape in recent months.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Supreme Court Declines Case Over Techs' Right To Search Your PC

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SeaHope Ever-Increasing Watch

China defends net filtering software amid outcry (AP)

AP - Chinese state media on Thursday issued an unprecedented defense of newly required Internet filtering software that must be packaged with every computer sold in China starting next month, after a public outcry at home and abroad.

Google Defends Itself Against Antitrust Regulation - InformationWeek

Straits Times

Google Defends Itself Against Antitrust Regulation InformationWeek In the face of growing scrutiny of corporate behavior, Google is hoping to dissuade the Department of Justice from bringing an antitrust case. By Thomas Claburn Google's "Competition and Openness" world tour came to San Francisco Wednesday, ... Google On DOJ Probe: Who Us, Worry?ChannelWeb Justice Dept. Seeks Details On Google DealWashington Post Google polishes competition charm offensiveCNET News Wall Street Journal -PC World -Reuters all 395 news articles »

Video: Cryogenic Rocket Engine Makes Icicles

CrunchDeals: Sony PS3 for $349

Here’s that PS3 price drop everyone’s been waiting for — sort of. Amazon’s got the 80GB PlayStation 3 for $349.99, down from $399. This is a one-day deal, so get it while it’s hot as they say.

The kit includes the PS3 console with an 80GB hard drive, Dualshock 3 wireless controller, Wi-Fi, and the built-in Blu-ray player.

PlayStation 3 [Amazon]

The New York Times Explains Why it Prints Old News [MediaMemo]

You’ll be hearing about this most of the day, so best to take 5 minutes and watch it now: The Daily Show visits the New York Times (NYT).
Cheers to the paper for allowing itself to be savaged by correspondent Jason Jones. I particularly enjoyed watching Executive Editor Bill Keller gamely explaiing the news business, while managing to get a dig into Google (GOOG), The Huffington Post and the Drudge Report.

Crave more? Here’s an interview the Wall Street Journal’s new “Speakeasy” blog conducted with the Daily Show’s Jones about the bit. Excerpt:

How’s the mood at the Times these days?

Edgy? No. It was really quite lovely. Let me tell you this, movies have severely misled me on what newspaper rooms should look like. There was no paper stacked 6 feet high on people’ desks. No one’s yelling stop the presses.

What are people up to over there?

Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:28 am

Federal Agencies Examining Google In Book Deal

The U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:25 am

Casio announces EXILIM EX-H10 point-and-shoot camera with superior battery life

Casio Japan announced a new point-and-shoot camera today [JP], the EXILIM Hi-ZOOM EX-H10. The 12.1MP camera is a follow up to the EX-V7 and EX-V8 the company released in 2007. It features an impressive 10xoptical zoom (wide-angle starting at 24mm) and can shoot 1,000 images on a single battery charge. According to Casio, this is three times more than other cameras in this class have to offer.

The camera also features a 3-inch LCD, 37.5MB of internal memory and SD/SDHC support. It records 1,280 by 720 video in Motion JPEG at 24fps but is missing an HDMI interface. It measures 102×62x24mm and weighs 164g (without the battery).

The new Exilim will launch in Japan on July 3 in pink and silver. The Japanese street price is $400, but Casio hasn’t announced their plans for release in other countries yet.

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:23 am

Toyota Expects New Lexus Hybrid Sales To Top 25,000

According to a Toyota Motor Corp executive, the company plans to sell 25,000 of its new Lexus hybrid vehicles in the United States within the first 12 months of its sale.The Lexus HS250 hybrid, which will be available in the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:09 am

Jon Rubinstein replaces Ed Colligan as Palm CEO

Section: Business News, Communications

In some news that just goes to deepen the Apple and Palm employee mix, Jon Rubinstein has recently been appointed as CEO of Palm.  Rubinstein, who was the General Manager of the iPod division at Apple from February 1997 through April 2006 has replaced Ed Colligan, who had held the CEO position for the previous 16 years.  While the announcement has been made official, it should be noted that Rubinstein will not officially take over as CEO until June 12.

Of course, while Rubinstein is stepping up to CEO that does not mean Colligan will be leaving Palm entirely.  Instead he will be joining Roger McNamee at Elevation Partners.  Thankfully, it can be said that Colligan is stepping out while on a high note, which is nice, because the initial success of the Pre seems to have pushed any remaining thoughts of the Foleo out of people’s minds.

Read [Reuters]  Read [Investor.Palm.com]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:03 am

Digital Downloads Threaten Brick-and-Mortar Video Game Stores

Video game retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, and GameStop, are concerned that Internet distributors may soon push them out of the video game market.At last week’s E3 Expo in Los Angeles, retailers spread out across large booths showcasing games like Activision's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen."Despite efforts from retailers, games continue to turn to “streaming” online games, or downloading games rather than purchasing from a brick-and-mortar store."Our solution is not to dive into a fight with Sony (Corp), Microsoft (Corp), Nintendo Co Ltd, as it wouldn't gain any 'new audience' for publishers," said industry veteran Dave Perry, whose Gaikai online system lets PC gamers buy and stream games through their Web browsers without needing to download any content."Instead, our strategy is 100 percent focused on being an ally to publishers and first-party hardware makers, by delivering them audiences they don't reach today," he added.Digital downloads are still a small business, but according to the NPD group, 17 percent of games sold in 2008 by PC gamers were digitally downloaded.According to Michael Pachter, analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, digitally downloaded games will account for nearly 2 percent of industry sales this year, or around $400 million.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 11:02 am

Free Anti-Virus Software To Be Introduced By Microsoft

Free anti-virus products by makers like Symantec Corp and McAfee Inc are facing new competition as Microsoft Corp is set to introduce a similar new product, Reuters reported.  A spokesman for the world’s largest software maker said it is running a preliminary version of the product with its own employees first.  However, he added, Microsoft would make a trial version, or product beta, available on its website, but did not offer an exact date.  The New York Stock exchange reports indicated that Symantec shares dropped 0.5 percent on Nasdaq and McAfee dropped 1.3 percent, while Microsoft was up 2.1 percent.  The Nasdaq composite index fell 0.47 percent.  Because investors fear the free service, code-named Morro, could jeopardize sales of products from Symantec and McAfee, it is being closely observed.  The companies generate billions of dollars of revenue each year protecting Windows PCs from invasions by hackers.  Though the near-term impact was insignificant, "It's a long-term competitive threat," said analyst Daniel Ives with FBR Capital Markets.  Morro will provide fundamental features for combating a wide variety of viruses, Microsoft said, which would quite possibly make it similar to low-end consumer products made by Symantec and McAfee that can be purchased at about $40 per year.  Security suites that contain features including encryption, firewalls, password protection, parental controls and data backup have traditionally been their best-selling products.  Live OneCare was Microsoft’s first comparable product in this market, launched three years ago.  Consumers did not embrace the product, and it was deemed a commercial disaster.  In November, Microsoft plans to end that product suite, and introduce the free Morro service by the end of 2009.Analysts said they are anxiously awaiting results of Morro’s beta to see precisely how its features compare to similar competitor products.  Microsoft promises its product will offer protection from many types of malicious software like viruses, spyware, rootkits and trojans.Symantec and McAfee officials have said Morro poses no threat."Microsoft's free product is basically a stripped down version of the OneCare product Microsoft pulled from the shelves," said Symantec Consumer division president Janice Chaffin.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 10:50 am

Microsoft to unveil free anti-virus software

Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jun 2009 | 10:15 am

Can an Old Superman Sell Microsoft’s New Browser? [MediaMemo]

Microsoft (MSFT) is throwing a ton of money into an ad campaign for its Bing search engine, hoping to claw back some share from Google (GOOG). But I don’t think it’s sinking quite as much into the new ads it’s running for its newish version of Internet Explorer.

For one thing, no matter how aggressively I lean on the fast-forward button on my DVR, I still end up seeing bits of Bing spots. Can’t escape them. But as far as I can tell, the ads below aren’t scheduled to appear on TV at all.

Another hint: They star Dean Cain, who is best known for his work in “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” And that show went off the air in 1997.

The ads come to us courtesy of Bradley & Montgomery, the Indianapolis shop that also made the much-buzzed about “Mojave” spots for Windows Vista last year. But I don’t think the buzz translated into many happy Vista users, and I don’t know that these new spots will prompt anyone to rethink their browser choice.

You know what, though? I don’t care. If I used a computer that ran Windows, I would totally download IE8, just to support the ad’s director: Bobcat Goldthwait.

Many of you may have a vague memory of Bobcat as the screamy comedian from the 80s who wasn’t Sam Kinison and who appeared in a bunch of “Police Academy” movies. But he’s also the writer, director and star of “Shakes the Clown”, which is awesome and dark and truthful and also really funny. Go watch it! Or download IE8.

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 10:00 am

Online Advertising In Europe: 2008 Was Tough, 2009 Will Be Worse

The Interactive Advertising Bureau Europe is currently holding its annual Interact Congress, an event that brings together the main protagonists of the European digital industry here in Brussels. For the occasion, IAB Europe in conjunction with PriceWaterhouseCoopers today released the findings of its annual advertising expenditure survey for the year ending December 2008. The gist: growth in digital advertising significantly slowed down last year, especially in more mature markets, and the outlook for this year is grim.

In 2008 the total European online advertising market, or at least the 19 markets analyzed by IAB Europe and PwC, was worth €12.9 billion (approx. $18 billion) with a like-for-like growth rate compared to 2007 of 20%. For comparison, online advertising grew 10.6% in the United States in 2008 (outpacing TV) and was worth €16.6 billion ($23.4 billion). However, the 20% growth figure paints a better-looking picture than the harsh reality, which is that it is far below previously stated expectations, of course caused by the crumbling of the global economy and the huge strain it has put on digital advertising spending worldwide.

If you look at the top 10 markets in Europe, year-on-year growth rates were under 20% more often than not. Considering the fact that these markets account for about 93% of the total value of the market, the following chart doesn’t accurately reflect the slowed growth because it over-accentuates the massive growth in Slovenia, Poland and Austria.

Broken down by formats, search remains the leading format in Europe with the strongest year-on-year growth rate (26%), accounting for 43% of online ad expenditure in the countries measured and a value of €5.6 billion. After search come classifieds, with growth rates of 17.4% bringing it to 26% share of total ad spend and a market value of €3.8 billion.

Alain Heureux, President and CEO of IAB Europe, acknowledges that while the overall picture in Europe is one of growth, what is clear from these figures is that 2008 was a tough year for online advertising. And if you thought that trend was going to reverse this year, Eva Berg-Winters, Senior Manager at PwC, is here to put you back with your feet on the ground:

“2009 is set to be a difficult year for online advertising. Decline is likely in a number of mature markets and, where there is still growth, we expect it to be much lower than previously.”

In the U.S., IAB as recently as last week reported that online advertising declined 5% in the first quarter of 2009 to $5.5 billion, compared to the first quarter of 2008. Industry revenues were down an even steeper 9.8 percent sequentially from the fourth quarter’s $6.1 billion.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:55 am

French Court to Pirates: Three Strikes and ... Then What? (PC World)

PC World - France's highest legal authority has ruled as unconstitutional a government plan to cut off, without trial, Internet users accused of copyright infringement.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:50 am

Court: Appeal from Selena's killer in wrong court (AP)

AP - The convicted killer of Tejano music star Selena lost an appeal Wednesday in Texas' highest criminal appeals court because it was filed in the wrong county.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:44 am

Let the Navel-Gazing (and Grumping) About Vanity URLS Begin–Can Facebook Soothe the Savage Media? [BoomTown]

Exactly how is the introduction of vanity URLs on Facebook going to go?

At 9:01 pm PST on Friday, the giant Silicon Valley-based social networking site will allow its 200 million members to log in and claim a friendlier username for part of their URL, instead of the long string of gibberish that is now there.

That a lot of sites like Twitter, LinkedIn and others already allow you to do this is not really the point.

But, because it is about people’s names and because it is certain to be chaotic in its execution, I think we can pretty much slap the moniker, “URLgate,” on this one and just call it a night.

Nonetheless, in an email tonight inviting media to an open house to see its new HQ building in Palo Alto, California, the PR team at Facebook–which often gets into hot water over various public snafus that arise at the young company with regularity–is mightily trying to make nice with journalists to perhaps head off any bloggish bellyaching.

They wrote: “We wanted to let you know that we decided to reserve usernames for the key journalists and outlets we work with. Look out for an email from someone on the communications team with more details.”

Firestorm of disgruntlement from those who did not make the list sure to follow? Of course!

In any case, my top preferences?

Http://facebook.com/internalfacebookmemostoboomtownstat

Http://facebook.com/dontmesswiththeswishsherylandelliot

Http://facebook.com/findmeontwitter@karaswisher

And, if you want to read a very funny take on the gathering Facebook Username–yes, FU!–storm, read Anil Dash’s great spoof post on the issue.

My favorite fake prediction Dash makes is one that you just know is going to come true:

“In response to the growing buzz on Techmeme about ‘The Facebook Debacle,’ [Facebook CEO and Founder] Mark Zuckerberg posts on Facebook’s blog with the news that the company has created the Facebook Username Dispute Resolution Community.”

[Photo of the vanity license plate above, courtesy of COOLPL8Z.com.]

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:34 am

Insert Alliterative Bing Headline Here [Digital Daily]

Early gains do not guarantee a long-term increase in search market share and, thanks to its experience with Live Search and Live Search Cashback, Microsoft (MSFT) knows that better than anyone. That said, Redmond, Wash.’s new search engine Bing does seem to be making some solid progress.

For example, a comScore (SCOR) report said earlier this week that Microsoft’s share of the search market has risen to 11.1 percent from 9.1 percent since Bing’s debut.

And now market researcher Hitwise reports that Bing is among the top 20 most popular Web sites in the U.S. and among the top 10 in Canada (click on chart below).

“In the U.S., Bing ranked 17th among all Web sites out of over 450,000 Web sites, up from 5120 the week before the official launch when the Web site was merely a placeholder,” Heather Dougherty, Director of Research at Hitwise, wrote in a blog post. “Within the Search Engines category, Bing ranked 4th out of the search engines tracked by Hitwise…In Canada, Bing hit the top 10 among all Web sites during the first week of launch and captured 1% of all Canadian Internet visits last week. Bing also ranked 3rd last week in terms of the market share of visits within the Search Engines category behind Google Canada and Google.”

Not bad. Of course, early successes like these are as driven by marketing as they are by technological prowess and positive user experience. And, right now, Bing’s got some pretty major marketing dollars behind it. But those will only last for so long.

And, as Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Scmidt likes to point out, you really can’t expect to buy your way into the search market. “You don’t just buy it with ads,” Schmidt told Fox Business earlier this week. “You earn it, and you earn it customer by customer, search by search , answer by answer.”

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:25 am

How to Set Up a Temporary Outdoor Home Theater

Outdoor Summer Cinema on a Budget

Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jun 2009 | 9:02 am

Using Mobile Phones To Write Messages In Air

Anonymous writes "Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that note automatically sent to an e-mail address. The 'PhonePoint Pen' can be held just like a pen, and words can be written on an imaginary whiteboard. With this application a user could take a picture with a phone camera, and annotating it immediately with a short caption. Duke Computer Engineering Professor Romit Roy Choudhury said that his research group is envisioning mobile phones as just not a communication device, but a much broader platform for social sensing and human-computer interaction. Such interactivity has also emerged in the work of other research groups, such as MIT's Sixth Sense project, Dartmouth's MetroSense project, and Microsoft Research's NeriCell project, to name a few."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:54 am

Online Poker Players get Another Chance to Play Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott as Final Table from Hell Returns to DevilfishPoker.com

DUBLIN, Ireland, June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Each Thursday for Five Weeks From June 11 Devilfish Bounty Tournament Victors Also win a Place at the Six-Seat Final Table From Hell II Devilfishpoker.com today announced the return of its popular Final Table from Hell series of online poker tournaments which will see the best poker players in the next five weekly Devilfish Bounty tournaments take their seats at an exclusive single table tournament with site ambassador Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott on July 14. Devilfish is again in Las Vegas playing at the World Series of Poker and because he is unable to play the Devilfish Bounty for the next five weeks he has organized the weekly EUR250 bounty on his head be rolled over until he returns to play the winners of the five tournaments on the Final Table from Hell 2. Devilfishpoker.com is adding a EUR250 poker bonus to bring the total prize pool for this freeroll to EUR1,500. The Devilfish Bounty tournament takes place each Thursday at 8 p.m.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:51 am

Viral Video: Twitter TRACKER Massacres Blue Birdies on CoCo’s Tonight Show [BoomTown]

Even if it never makes any money, Twitter certainly does provide fabulous material for television spoofs.

So far, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have done several funny bits on Comedy Central, deftly mocking the microblogging service.

And now, Conan O’Brien is doubling down with two skits so far dubbed “Twitter TRACKER” on GE (GE) unit NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”

In them, a loudmouthed voice delivers pointless celebrity tweets, as a flock of blue cartoon Twitter birdies are murdered in various ingenious ways.

What’s not to like?

O’Brien, who is nicknamed CoCo by the Twitter TRACKER bully, hardly needs to work hard to make fun of real tweets like Ashton Kutcher’s mundanities, such as “Going to the grocery store need some fixins for a salad.”

There is also, of course, snark-laced Web site and a Twitter page, so it looks like this Tweet-beatdown might just go on and on.

It should, if only for terms like: “Schprechen sie Tweetenshlize!”

Here are the online spoof videos so far (and click here to see the full interview with the Twitter Co-Founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams onstage at the D7 conference):

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:37 am

Betaworks Email To Investors: Read It Here

Famous angel investor Ron Conway’s investment focus on real time startups earned him the moniker “Real Time Ron” by his close friends. But he’s certainly not the only venture capitalist out there focusing on this space.

New York based betaworks, an incubator/VC, is also right in the thick of things. They invested early in Summize and gained a sizable chunk of Twitter stock when that company was acquired in 2008 to become Twitter Search.

betaworks’ list of investments is a who’s who of the real time world. Twitter, StockTwits, TweetDeck, Twitterfeed, Tumblr and bit.ly are examples. And they also own a piece of what may be my favorite content site on the Internet - someecards.

Anyway, things seem to be rocking at betaworks based on the email to investors from CEO John Borthwick and COO Andrew Weissmanthat was sent out a couple of weeks ago and forwarded to us. bit.ly, for example, now has a 50% share of the URL shortener market and 130 million weekly clicks on links.

The full email is below.

From: Borthwick John
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2009 11:23 AM
To: Schilling Mathias; Thomas Blondet; Smith Richard; Jean-Charles Charki; Herbert Allen III; Vigil Hank; Tarek Abdel-Meguid (Terry) Meguid; Ellman Stuart; Jaffe Bruce; Lisa Belzberg; Gillian Munson; Pittman Bob; Dominic Becotte; Joshua Stylman; Peter Hershberg; Stan Pantowich; Ron Conway; David Singer; Cappuccio Paul; Jean Marie Messier; Heiferman Scott; Howard Lindzon; Peretsman Nancy; Brad Reifler; Peter Borish; Brian Gottlieb; Strauss Zelnick; Taavet Hinrikus; Eric Martineau-Fortin; Ted Barnett; Robin Transport; Jon Brod; Russell Andrew; Ken Lerer; Gordon Crovitz; Goldstein Seth; Hilary Bergman; Shen David; Armstrong Tim
Cc: Andrew Weissman
Subject: betaworks / quarterly investor update / June

betaworking
Once again a busy quarter at betaworks — and a good one to boot. We now have 22 companies in the network. They are listed here http://bit.ly/beta-network. We are still in the early days of building betaworks into a new type of media company - one characterized by a loosely coupled network of companies. A network that is connected by shared data services matched with a bottoms up structure. Chris Anderson wrote last week that “the .. new economy, the one rising from the ashes of this latest meltdown, will favor the small … distributed-information networks would do the same outside the walls of a single company. The Web would be globalization taken to the extreme. Projects would be open to the best of breed anywhere, creating virtual flash firms of suppliers and workers that would come together for one product and then re-form for another. “Small pieces, loosely joined” was the mantra.” Its only eighteen months but this is betaworks. We did a revision to our web site and included a interactive presentation on what is betaworks and how we believe what we are building is in essence a new kind of media company. You can find it at http://betaworks.com On to the update. Over the past quarter we spun out our first project, took a majority stake in one company, made two new investments and made solid progress on our other internal product.

bit.ly
Eight weeks ago we spun bit.ly out of betaworks into bit.ly Inc, and raised a seed investment round led by OATV (O’Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures), Social Leverage, Ron Conway, TAG, Chris Sacca, Mitch Kapor and the Founders Fund.

bit.ly has been on a tear since we launched it last summer — let me sketch out what it is, why its useful and offer some data points on progress. bit.ly is on its surface a link or URL shortener, helping people take long and unwieldy links and make them short and easy to share via email, Twitter, Facebook etc. But once you shorten a link with bit.ly the fun begins. You can put a simple “+” on the end of any bit.ly link and see, real time, the pace at which that link is getting shared and clicked on as it moves around these social distribution networks. The pace of growth at bit.ly has been astounding to say the least. Its been a real lesson to us here at betaworks — when you hit a vein things can grow extremely fast. I have had the fortune to work with fast growth products before, bit.ly growth has been like walking up a wall. Some data points. We launched bit.ly late last summer. The growth curve below illustrates the trend. Nine weeks ago when we closed the funding of bit.ly approx. 18m bit.ly links we getting clicked on every week, about 3-4 m per week day (the chart below shows daily clicks through the first week of April). In a little over 6 months we managed to earn a 30% share in the URL shortening market via organic, viral growth.

By the first of May we were doing approx. 50m decodes a week. Last week 130m bit.ly links were clicked on. Three weeks ago we rolled out bit.ly as default within Twitter. Twitter has added 20-30% on top of the viral growth - a great partnership that holds a ton of potential. Closing in upon bit.ly’s nine month anniversary it has over 50% market share. The betaworks / bit.ly team has done a phenomenal job scaling the systems and making sure that not once has a bit.ly link been unavailable. And the real time metrics distinguishes bit.ly from all of its competition. Scaling real time metrics is a huge challenge — one of those things that you only hear about when you slip up. Please if you come by the office mention this to the team of ex AOL engineers who run bit.ly — they are doing a great job. Business model wise we are starting to figure out where the money is. My sense is that there should be some very interesting monetization opportunities we can un-pack.

Three new things …
Partnered with TAG, betaworks took a majority stake in Twitterfeed a content router for publishers to Twitter. Twitterfeed has 150k publishers pushing out a quarter of a million updates daily. It’s a very interesting business — for some background see http://bit.ly/U2QM3. And we did seed investments in two new companies — Uservoice and GDGT — two wonderful companies, both of whom fit right into the betaworks thesis.

Other updates …
- Tweetdeck is doing very very well. The most recent version, out for less than a month, has received approx. a million downloads. Over the past quarter Tweetdeck has continued to pull ahead of its competition. Tweetdeck is the preferred way to access the Twitter stream for over 14% of all users and they send more messages from Tweetdeck than from Twitter.com or any other service.
- Tipjoy opened up an API to power payments for social applications. User and payment growth have both been strong. This is the first social payments API we’ve seen, excited to see how it grows. Stocktwits is doing very well — premium (paid version) is getting rolled out and they closed a series A in the past quarter.
- IILWY — who we told you last time had hired a CEO — rebranded itself to OMG POP. The service is doing great, they closed its B round led by Bessemer.
- Some e Cards is rocking. Last October (@betaday) the announced break-even– they have been cash flow positive ever since then, sold out till the fall. They have approx. 600k followers on Twitter and as I outlined in an essay I wrote 2 weeks ago they, and other betaworks, are leading a transformation in distribution (see: http://bit.ly/UWNtS).
- Lastly, we launched Chartbeat in the spring — we now have 500 paying customers, modest but solid start. Phew — I said it was a busy quarter.

Press roundup
Business Week included in its round up of the Twitter ecosystem five betaworks companies:
Tweetdeck http://bit.ly/4sLvnH
Stocktwits http://bit.ly/Oyukm
Tipjoy http://bit.ly/1911Z1
bit.ly http://bit.ly/10q3FP
Twitterfeed http://bit.ly/U2QM3

GigaOm mused about how we could “upstage Digg” at http://bit.ly/3IfpUO (laying out an interesting roadmap for bitlynow). Jenna Wortham from the New York Times http://bit.ly/4fol1L, Chartbeat press: Better Homes ‘n Garden! http://bit.ly/11YCEz “chartbeat is metrics porn” http://bit.ly/f48j5 “I recently stumbled upon Chartbeat and I’m already addicted.” http://bit.ly/6empP

And someone @ the LA Times is loving our work product!

Thats it for the quarter, onward and best regards to you all

best regards

JB, AW and our small crew

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:29 am

Back to the Future wedding cake

This fantastic courthouse-scene-from-Back -to-the-Future cake was Flickr user Snot Boogie's wedding cake: "The cake was the clock tower and was red velvet. It was done by Caryn's Cakes in Atlanta."

Wedding Cake (Thanks, Jay!)

Previously:

• Dalek wedding cake - Boing Boing
• Zombie cake topper - Boing Boing
• Polyhedral dice cake - Boing Boing
• Steampunk robot wedding-cake topper - Boing Boing
• Zombie wedding cake topper - Boing Boing
• Super Mario wedding cake to die for - Boing Boing
• Wedding cake clone of bride - Boing Boing
• Wedding cake casemod - Boing Boing
• Resignation letter on cake - Boing Boing
• Zombie Hello Kitty cake - Boing Boing
• Giant squid cake - Boing Boing
• Steampunk cake - Boing Boing
• Dragon made of cake - Boing Boing
• Star Trek cake - Boing Boing
• Pixel Mario cake made from cupcake squares - Boing Boing

Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:03 am

Power On Self Test: Buffed

Ad by Euro RSCG South Africa. [via Advertka via Copyranter via The Awl]

Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jun 2009 | 8:00 am

Student challenges prof, wins right to post source code he wrote for course

Kyle Brady writes, "Thanks to some perseverance and asking the right questions, SJSU professors are now prohibited from barring students from posting their code solutions online, as well as penalizing their students for doing so. A win for students, programmers, and copyfighters nationwide!"

Kyle's a student at San Jose State University who was threatened with a failing grade for posting the code he wrote for the course -- he wanted to make it available in the spirit of academic knowledge-sharing, and as code for potential future employers to review -- and when he refused, his prof flew into a fury and promised that in future, he would make a prohibition on posting your work (even after the course was finished) a condition of taking his course.

Kyle appealed it to the department head, who took it up with the Office of Student Conduct and Ethical Development and the Judicial Affairs Officer of SJSU, who ruled that, "what you [Kyle] have done does not in any way constitute a violation of the University Academic Integrity Policy, and that Dr. Beeson cannot claim otherwise."

There's a lot of meat on the bones of this story. The most important lesson from it for me is that students want to produce meaningful output from their course-assignments, things that have intrinsic value apart from their usefulness for assessing their progress in the course. Profs -- including me, at times -- fall into the lazy trap of wanting to assign rotework that can be endlessly recycled as work for new students, a model that fails when the students treat their work as useful in and of itself and therefore worthy of making public for their peers and other interested parties who find them through search results, links, etc.

But the convenience of profs must be secondary to the pedagogical value of the university experience -- especially now, with universities ratcheting up their tuition fees and trying to justify an education that can put students into debt for the majority of their working lives. Students work harder when the work is meaningful, when it has value other than as a yardstick for measuring their comprehension. I've always thought it was miserable that we take the supposed best and brightest in society, charge them up to $60,000 a year in fees, then put them to work for four years on producing busywork that no one -- not them, not their profs, not other scholars -- actually wants to read. Might as well get them to spend four years carving detailed models of ships from sweet potatoes (and then bury the potatoes).

And in this case, it's especially poignant, since Kyle's workflow actually matches the practices of real-world programmers and academic computer scientists: coders look at one anothers' examples, use reference implementations, publish their code for review by peers. If you hired a programmer who insisted that none of her co-workers could see her work, you'd immediately fire her -- that's just not how software is written.

Kyle's prof's idea of how computer programmers work is exactly what's meant by the pejorative sense of "academic" -- unrealistic, hidebound, and out-of-touch with reality. Bravo to Kyle for standing his ground!

How I Won a Copyfight (Thanks, Kyle!)


Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:59 am

Edac Power Electronics Co Ltd Warns of Counterfeit Battery Charger

TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 11 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Edac Power Electronics Co Ltd is notifying manufacturers that battery charger, identified below, bears a counterfeit Underwriters Laboratories Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:23 am

Microsoft to Discontinue MS Money [Voices]

Microsoft plans to stop selling Microsoft Money, its venerable, but not market-leading personal finance program, CNET News has learned.

The software maker has been notifying financial institutions and plans to announce the move to customers over the next 24 hours via a posting on its Web site and a notification in the software.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:05 am

The History of ClariNet.com [Voices]

June 8, 2009 sees the 20th anniversary of the public launch of an electronic news publishing company I built named ClariNet. It seems odd to think of just 20 years as distant history, but the story of the internet is so accelerated that the world has changed in such a short time.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:04 am

How Nintendo’s Boss Rewrote the Rules of the Game [Voices]

Satoru Iwata is not your typical Japanese company president. When he talks about the games his company produces, the 49-year-old Nintendo CEO’s eyes positively twinkle with mischief and excitement.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:03 am

Barry Diller: ‘If You Have Too Many Epiphanies, You’re On Some Kind of Drug’ [Voices]

Drippy Manhattan evenings aren’t usually a draw for an outdoor cocktail party but the FoundersClub NYC Internet Week soiree had something that overcomes a little rain: power. Barry Diller, the chairman and CEO of IAC (NSDQ: IACI), was hosting two of the hottest not-so-new guys in town—AOL’s Tim Armstrong and News Corp.‘s Jon Miller—in the Rooftop Garden at Rockefeller Center and the draw was irresistible for Rupert Murdoch and wife Wendy, Jeff Zucker, Sir Martin Sorrell and more from media, advertising and tech.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:02 am

Maag Pump Systems Chooses Swisscom and Verizon Business Alliance for Secure Global Communications

Combined Capabilities From a Single Source Offer Complete Managed Network Security ZURICH, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Maag Pump Systems, a global leader in processing solutions for the chemical and polymer industries, has chosen the Swisscom and Verizon Business alliance to provide its global network and managed security services requirements.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am

Over 100 Leading Telecom Players Converge in Portugal to Attend Insights'09

LUXEMBOURG, June 9 /PRNewswire/ -- - MACH's Annual Conference Dedicated to Mobile Innovation, Interoperability & Interconnectivity More than 100 of the telecom industry's leading mobile network operators, experts, regulatory bodies and hardware providers converged on Lisbon, Portugal this week for Insights'09, MACH's conference dedicated to mobile communication innovation, interoperability and interconnectivity.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am

ASPIDER Solutions Provides MVNE Capabilities to Vodafone Ireland

BOSTON, Massachusetts and WOERDEN, The Netherlands, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- ASPIDER Solutions today announced a partnership with Vodafone Ireland to enable solutions for Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs).
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am

Hurt, Trent Reznor Half-Quits Twitter

He’s had enough.

Trent Reznor, better known as the man behind the band Nine Inch Nails, is apparently fed up with Twitter. In a long, free-flowing rant post tonight in the NIN forums, Reznor let his haters have it. What starts out as a diatribe against the record labels (which Reznor has been one of the main proponents against in recent years), quickly turns directly to Twitter, which Reznor seems to blame for allowing him to give too much insight into his personal life — something which some trolls are using against him. And so he’s taking a break from the social media scene, and has turned his Twitter account into a “one-way” stream of NIN-only material, according to his new bio.

And apparently, he won’t change it until “Twitter improves blocking.” The reason for this is people Reznor calls the “Metal Sludge contingency.” Here’s Reznor graphic description of these people:

Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I’ve ever come across. It’s populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn’t stop there - hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

But buried in this stuff, Rezor has some good points. First of all, Twitter is quickly getting overrun by spammers. That’s probably not a shock to those of us who follow and use Twitter a lot, but it’s getting to the point where celebrities are now starting to notice it, and it’s turning them off from the service. As he puts it, “So when you see the new accounts that pop up daily on Twitter spewing [garbage], usually from picture-less creatively named profiles, spewing hate at Mariqueen and I, take a moment to visualize the sad couple people behind them.”

Also, he’s thinking about the idea of these networks using real-life verifications to encourage better conversations:

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it’s participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you’re conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you’d have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC’s heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I’d value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs’s “opinion”. Know what I mean? Anyway, we’re in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

That’s obviously another shot at Twitter, but it really speaks to most networks. Facebook is by far the best as it at least tries to make sure real people are using it. This topic is something I have thought about recently, as well.

Reznor kind of gives away what seems to be at the heart of his issues towards the beginning of his rant:

Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and “human”. I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I’m in love and it’s all I think about and that’s that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you’ve projected on me, fair enough - it’s probably time for you to leave. You are right, I’m not the same person I was in 1994 (and I’m happy about that). Are you?

Apparently, some people are disappointed with Reznor no longer portraying himself as the crazed counter-culture icon he was in the early-to-mid 1990s. He’s in love now, and it’s changed him. And thanks to Twitter, millions of people have been privvy to that. Other celebrities should consider that a warning. With Twitter, there is no PR person filtering the message about you. That’s both powerful, but also potentially harmful.

Reznor’s post is actually quite insightful, when you’re able to parse it. Especially when compared to Kanye West’s rant about Twitter last month. And his rants have proven useful in the past, especially against Apple’s ridiculous app approval process for the iPhone. Perhaps now, Twitter will step up its game in the fight against spam and trolls.

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:57 am

DOJ Turns Up the Heat On Google's Book Deal

narramissic writes "It appears that after its initial review of a deal that would settle a lawsuit publishers and authors filed against Google over the latter's book search engine, the DOJ is leaning toward challenging the proposed settlement. The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reported late Tuesday that the DOJ is now sending civil investigative demands (CIDs) to organizations involved in the deals, a more formal approach than its initial information-gathering efforts. But Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken said the fact that the DOJ is reviewing the proposed settlement isn't surprising, considering Google is involved: 'Any big deal that involves Google is going to get a look from the Justice Department.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:39 am

Digital downloads spell end for videogame stores? (Reuters)

Reuters - Will digital downloads kill the videogames store? That's the multibillion dollar question facing retailers from Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Target Corp to GameStop Corp, as Internet distributors continue to grow.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:38 am

China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar - Washington Post

ABC News

China Internet filter challenged in rights uproar Washington Post BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese lawyer has demanded a public hearing to reconsider a government demand that all new personal computers carry Internet filtering software, adding to uproar over a plan critics say is ineffective and intrusive. ... China's computers at hacking riskBBC News China Faces Criticism Over New Software CensorNew York Times Chinese Internet censorship is a huge security riskInquirer Register -Wall Street Journal -Reuters all 1,091 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2009 | 6:38 am

Ars Reviews the Palm Pre, part 1: the BlackBerry killer - Ars Technica

Globe and Mail

Ars Reviews the Palm Pre, part 1: the BlackBerry killer Ars Technica Most of the gadget press is obsessing over whether the Palm Pre is an iPhone killer, but they're asking the wrong question. We've been testing one for the past few days, and it's clear to us that the real target of Palm's new phone is the BlackBerry. ... Hands on: Should you put a Pre in your pocket?Computerworld CNET News Daily Podcast: Our love-hate relationship with the PreCNET News Infographic: New iphone vs. Palm Pre vs. Android G1CNNMoney.com BusinessWeek -ABC News -Money Morning all 493 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:44 am

Why Isn't the US Government Funding Research?

thesandbender writes "The recent post about GM opening its own battery research facility led me to wonder why the US government is pouring billions into buying companies instead of heavily funding useful research. You can give $10 billion to a company to squander or you can invest $10 billion into a battery research and just give the findings to the whole of the US industry for free. From a historical standpoint, the US government has little experience with commercial enterprise ... but has an amazing record for driving innovation. The Manhattan Project and the Apollo moon missions are two of the pinnacles of 20th century scientific achievement, yet it seems to me that this drive died in the '70s and that's when the US started its slow decline. To be true to the 'Ask Slashdot' theme, what practical research do you think the US government should embark upon to get the most return for its citizens and the world?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:30 am

Microsoft and Novell Experience Increased Demand From Customers Seeking to Maximize IT Investments Through Greater Interoperability

Technical solutions spur continued success of joint effort to advance cross-platform interoperability and deliver IP peace of mind. REDMOND, Wash. and WALTHAM, Mass., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- As organizations of all shapes and sizes are making every possible effort to deliver greater value to their business and customers, IT managers are being required to increase the efficiency of their operational infrastructure, systems and processes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:01 am

Century-Old Taxidermy Yields Clues to Climate Future

A 100-year-old collection of animal specimens from California becomes a valuable resource for climate-change research. Take a video tour of the collection, and learn how scientists at UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology compare how the state's animals are doing today to how they were faring a century ago.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Samsung's Fancy Blu-ray Player Will Have You Up Against the Wall

Samsung's latest Blu-ray player will have you up against a wall. Really. The player is wall mounted, has a hint of color, and is so thin you could nearly shave with it.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Tech Me Out to the Ballgame: Touring the Giants' Home Turf

The San Francisco Giants boast one of the most technically advanced ballparks in the major leagues. Come take a behind-the-scenes tour of the yard hard by McCovey Cove.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Samsung's Fancy Blu-ray Player Will Have You Up Against the Wall

Samsung's latest Blu-ray player will have you up against a wall. Really. The player is wall mounted, has a hint of color, and is so thin you could nearly shave with it.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

NASA's Icy-Hot Rocket Engine

Rocket engines don't get much cooler than this. The Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine being developed for NASA burns a mixture of liquid oxygen (-297 degrees Fahrenheit) and liquid hydrogen (-423 degrees). Though the fuels are frosty, upon ignition they generate scorching steam (5,000 degrees) and plenty of thrust: Hydrogen is 40 percent more efficient than other propellants. But because the icy H is pumping through the entire system, the engine nozzle remains cold. As the hot steam condenses on the edges, it refreezes and forms icicles.

The US space agency plans to use the technology when astronauts return to the moon around 2020. "When we go back this time," says Tony Kim, who manages deep-throttling engine development for NASA, "we plan to stay awhile." In addition to the crew vehicle, cryogenic tech will power a 60,000-pound cargo lander that will bring down materials for a base, a pressurized lunar rover, and, of course, a whole lot of Tang.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Feds Swoop In on Nationwide Pickpocket, I.D. Theft Ring

Federal prosecutors level conspiracy and bank fraud charges against the alleged leader and nine members of a national organization of high-tech pickpockets who have been the scourge of police around the country.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

June 11, 1910: Champion of the Wine-Dark Sea

Today's the birth date of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a man with an ocean of promise fulfilled.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

In the Strike Zone: What Lightning Teaches Us

In an effort to understand lightning bolts' behavior, researchers are tracking the radio waves and x-rays produced by lightning. And they're experimenting with synthetic strikes made with rockets.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Chinese IPhone Deal Shows More Hints of Progress (PC World)

PC World - Hints of progress toward Apple's goal of selling the iPhone in China have appeared on its own Web site and that of a Chinese government organization.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2009 | 3:50 am

Facebook Vanity URLs: Journalists Don’t Have To Wait In Line

Friday night is the Facebook vanity URL landrush (first reported on May 31, announced yesterday officially). At 9:01 pm PST on Friday, just log into Facebook and grab the name you want before someone else does.

While the masses (that’s you) will be fighting for that perfect name on Friday night, some lucky few people won’t need to bother waiting in line. Facebook employees have already grabbed theirs (taking Facebook.com/Mike, which is what I wanted). And apparently “key journalists” won’t have to wait in line, either.

In an email today, Facebook told me “We wanted to let you know that we decided to reserve usernames for the key journalists and outlets we work with. Look out for an email from someone on the communications team with more details.” Other writers here at TechCrunch got the same email.

I feel sort of bad about posting this, since Facebook is actually doing us a favor. But I also think it’s kind of BS that Facebook is giving some people, employees included, first shot at the names. My guilt only extends so far, though. You suckers wait in line. I’m grabbing my name in advance.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 3:17 am

Are you crazy enough to use this Monster remote?

I’m not sure how to describe this thing. There’s no frame of reference in the picture, and it’s supposed to be “tabletop,” so I suppose it could be several feet long and you use a mallet to hit the buttons. I’d better let Monster explain this creature:

In July, meanwhile, Monster will release the MCC AV50 Home Theater Controller, a tabletop universal remote control. The device includes a portable game console-like design, Web-based setup, and simple touch commands like “Play a DVD” or “Listen to Satellite Radio.”

Console-like with web-based setup and simple touch commands? Somehow I am skeptical. It looks like one of those remotes for the extremely nearsighted that you have to hold with both hands and manipulate with your face.

Okay, those don’t exist, but this one is real. It’ll cost $50 and it really does look like something out of the original Star Trek series. They also released some new $100 cables but we’re not going to dignify them with a post.

[via Gearlog and PC Mag]

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 3:00 am

Video: iPhone Push Notification In Action With AIM

Earlier today, Apple sent out an email (embedded below) to developers who are testing the latest iPhone 3.0 software, asking them to help do one final stress test the new Push Notification service. The app picked for this test was AOL’s AIM instant messaging application, which makes sense given that IM apps are likely to be the apps that end up using Push Notification the most.

Push Notification, for those who haven’t been following news about it for the past year, is the system Apple developed to alleviate the fact that it won’t allow third party apps to run in the background of the iPhone. Apple claims there are security concerns, battery life concerns and performance concerns that prevent background apps from being feasible at this time on the iPhone (though the company is considering ways to do background apps in the future). Instead, it has asked developers to use its servers to push out certain tasks (like IMs) that come to your phone even when that application isn’t running.

Apple first talked about Push Notification a year ago at WWDC, and said it should be available around September of 2008. When that deadline came and went, Apple was largely silent, only remarking briefly that the system wasn’t yet ready and it wanted to make sure it was perfect before rolling it out. A smart move considering the rough start its MobileMe service go off to. So we waited and waited, until finally Apple announced that it would be a part of the iPhone 3.0 software, due out June 17.

Watch the video below to see Push Notification in action with AIM. One quick note: The video makes it look like there may be a delay between an IM sent and received, but I’m told it’s basically instantaneous — under a second.

[thanks Kyle]

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Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:36 am

How To Sponsor an Open Source Sprint

Esther Schindler writes "Does your favorite open source project need just a little extra functionality? As Esther Schindler explains in this IT World article, your company can encourage the developers to add the features you've been yearning for — for far, far less money than you imagine. She interviews companies who have sponsored 'code-a-thons' for Drupal, Plone, simwiddy, and a set of applications for British Telecom, and provides specific pointers. From the article:'To ensure that the event happens and that it meets its goals, you must connect with the right members of the community and motivate them to work with you. "It's not like these people are paid to work for your interests," points out Brightcove's Whatcott. If your business already has project committers on its staff, then it's just a matter of leveraging existing relationships. But, says Stahl, "Someone less 'core' in the community might well have a harder time.'"'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:36 am

Casemod like an Egyptian

We see so many corporate-looking casemods, overlit casemods, and steampunk casemods that the whole idea is starting to wear on us, but this sort of thing is a breath of fresh air. Blissfully untainted by such things as smirking game protagonists, external tubing, or flashing LEDs, this one is just… well, Egyptian. If you were a gamer and a pharaoh, this is what you’d be rocking.

The modern bits look incredibly incongruous next to the faux stone and stuff, maybe you could paint or distress them. There’s even quotes from the Book of the Dead on the side, in case dread Anubis takes you while you’re gaming and you need to brush up on it so his spectral dogs don’t eat your spirit heart.

More pics at Walyou.

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 2:30 am

Inside the iPhone 3G S

T-Mobile.nl has a detailed spec list for the new iPhone 3G S and shows that it has 256 MB RAM - up from 128 MB - and 600 MHz, up from 412 MHz. As GadgetLab notes, OS X loves memory more than clock speed.

Specificaties
3.0 megapixelcamera met autofocus 256 RAM
Videocamera 600 MHZ-processor
Kompas-functionaliteit HSDPA 7.2 MBit/s
32 GB opslagcapaciteit Wi-Fi
Multi-touch-breedbeelddisplay Bluetooth

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 1:55 am

Remote Control Titanic lets you be the king of the 1:150 scale world

RC helicopters are fun, and RC Pro-Am is really fun, but neither of them are quite as epic as your very own RC Titanic. Just imagine all the dark, dark fun you could have with this. Got a pond that freezes over in the Winter? Stage a reproduction. Got a potato cannon? Rewrite history as the Titanic is bombarded by colossal tubers.

Unfortunately, the price of all this fun is a whopping $2500. That’s right, this ain’t no bargain bin pond pal. It’s a gol-durn certified 1:150 scale reproduction, by god, “for the most discriminating nautical enthusiast.” The sucker weighs 25 pounds (and floats!) and uses three 550-watt motors to putter along, powered by eight AA batteries.

I don’t know. $2500 would buy a lot of Neo-Geos.

[via Geekologie and OhGizmo]

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 1:30 am

SF Samurai exhibit showcases vintage swords and armor

Miyamoto Musashi is a famous swordsman and philosopher who lived in Edo period Japan. He founded the Niten Ichi style of swordsmanship, which entails the use of two wooden swords, long and short, at the same time. The Asian Art Museum's Lord of the Samurai art exhibit, which opens this Friday in San Francisco, will showcase the original wooden swords made my Musashi himself between 1640 and 1645.

Lord of the Samurai at the Asian Art Museum

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 11 Jun 2009 | 1:06 am

Apple selling off old laptop models, special price for you my friend

What with the spec bump and the white MacBook likely to get the hook soon, Apple is trying to work through their stock of old laptops as fast as they can. It’s not exactly bargain bin, but if you were thinking of getting a one of the Macs on the chopping block, this could be your chance to save a couple hundred bucks. These deals are in-store only, people! If I were you I’d run over there and see if you can still snag a 15.4″ MacBook Pro with 2.4GHz and 2GB of RAM (get your own) for $1600. That’s a steal.

Check out the full complement of deals here; Apple Insider has them all organized into a nice matrix for you, but you’d do well to maybe just call up your local Apple store and ask if they’ve got anything good.

Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:45 am

Behold! The Living Sasquatch

Remember those holograms we saw during the presidential election? It was just like the hologram of Princess Leia that R2D2 shows to old Ben Kenobi, except suckier. I bet you wished, like I did, that you could make your own cool holograms, but with Sasquatch, right? Your dreams have been answered, thanks to LivingSasquatch.com! This is a pretty cool little application. Simply print out the foot, and place it in sight of your webcam. Then use the simple storyboard tools to line up a sequence of actions, emotions, or attacks, and watch Sasquatch act them out right in front of you! Here's a little video I made that took all of two minutes to prepare. With a little more time, and a modest amount of creativity, you can whip up any number of clever Sasquatch videos! I can't wait to see someone reenact their favorite scenes from Harry and the Hendersons! Be sure to check out the gallery for more glorious Sasquatch videos.

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:39 am

1 KB music files thanks to a clarinet?

Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Gadgets / Other

Many of us carry around easily pocketable personal music devices that carry upwards of tens of thousands of songs.  Even the smaller devices can hold a few hundred songs.  You no longer have to worry about variety with these kind of numbers.  Now, what if I told you that someday these very same devices will be holding hundreds of thousands, even millions, of songs without an increase in memory size?  Well, some researchers at the University of Rochester are working towards that future.

The Rochester researchers recently unveiled a 20-second music file, a clarinet solo, that was “1,000 times smaller than a regular MP3 file.”  That is 20 seconds of music compressed into less than 1 KB.  If that wasn’t cool enough, the researchers claim that the music quality is very close to “flawless.”  This is an incredible feat considering the degraded sound quality of MP3s.
 
So, how did the researchers achieve such superior sound quality in such a small file?  A computer, of course.  They measured the clarinet’s acoustical attributes and studied how a musician plays it.  Using this data, they built virtual models of a clarinet and a clarinet player.  The computer running the models then listened to a live clarinet performance, recording the virtual instrument and player actions needed to reproduce the sound.  Finally, it used this record to digitally reproduce the live performance.

Right now, the current model structure can only handle one instrument at a time, but the researchers are working towards multiple instruments.  What does that mean for you?  It means that someday you could have digitally reproduced music that takes up little file space and sounds almost as good as the real thing.  Basically, it will make MP3s look and sound like one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters.  Oh, and of course, it also means the clarinet is little bit cooler (says the former clarinet player).

Read: [Analogik]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:36 am

SnapStream Charts Trending Topics On The Tube

Snapstream, the company that makes a device that lets enterprises record thousands of hours of TV (from both satellite and digital cable sources) and search inside the recordings for keywords, has launched a trending topics site for TV. The site lets you see the hot words (those that are ascending in mentions) and cold words (those that are descending in mentions) on national television. And you can also enter couple of keywords (up to 5) into TV Trends and you’ll get a graph showing you the relative frequency of mentions of those words on mostly-news national programs on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, MSNBC and CNN.

Snapstream crawls closed-captioning text for programs that they record. They filter out local programming, sitcoms, and sports and then cleans-up, analyzes and indexes data for the trends site. When you graph a keyword, the site will give you a view of excerpts of stories at selected points along the curve and you can also filter the results by network. For example, you can chart trends of the mention of “Twitter” on CNN alone. TV Trends graphs can be embedded into a site or blog. Here’s a comparison between mentions of Twitter and Facebook over the past six months. You can see the spike in mentions in April, around the time of the Ashton Kutcher/CNN showdown.

I compared SnapStream’s trends to Google Trends and Twitter’s Trending Topics. SnapStream’s mentions differ because it tallies the most common mentioned words, not topics. So today, SnapStream’s top keywords mentioned include several references to the Holocaust Museum Shootings, including “the gunman,” “museum,” and “Holocaust.” Twitter and Google both listed the Holocaust Shootings as one trending topic. And of course, the content that is popular differs between the two mediums. For example, one of twitter’s Trending Topic’s is “#geekpickuplines.” And Google lists “Contessa Brewer,” the MSNBC host who recently had an on-air meltdown that was spread via YouTube. On the other hand, SnapStream lists “North Korea” and “Chrysler” as hot topics.

SnapStream’s site isn’t updated in real-time (it is updated every 3-4 hours), which puts its topics at a disadvantage to Twitter and Google’s topics, that are close to real-time. But Twitter’s Trending Topics has its disadvantages too and thus far, there isn’t much on the web that measures trending topics on national TV.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:15 am

Another Move towards Mobile TV: Flo TV goes national

TV on the go has been a reality for awhile. What with Verizon and Sprint offering their users streaming TV on their cell phones for more than a year. Today, though, a large third party player enters the fray: a Qualcomm subsidiary, FLO TV, has just announced that they are expanding their service nationwide. The launch date is slated to follow the DTV transition this Friday, June 12. (If you’re wondering what DTV is, you probably won’t care much for FLO TV, and you can read more about DTV here.

FLO TV will launch in 39 new markets, and offer “its service to an additional 60 million customers with a total reach of more than 100 major markets and more than 200 million potential consumers nationwide by the end of 2009.” This is great news for AT&T customers, always the last to get any sort of decent new technology on their phones (except the iPhone!). But, don’t rejoice yet - iPhone users; Apple isn’t allowing any streaming video applications on the App Store. Arrrgh. Doesn’t that make you want to break something?

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:02 am

$33 Million In Poker Winnings Seized By US Govt

An anonymous reader writes "A New York Times story reports that, 'Opening a new front in the government's battle against Internet gambling, federal prosecutors have asked four American banks to freeze tens of millions of dollars in payments owed to people who play poker online. ... "It's very aggressive, and I think it's a gamble on the part of the prosecutors," Mr. Rose said. He added that it was not clear what law would cover the seizure of money belonging to poker players, as opposed to the money of the companies involved.' Many players are reporting that their cashout checks have bounced."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:02 am

Facebook to let users add names to profile addresses (AFP)

AFP - Facebook on Friday will begin letting members use their full names in online addresses for profile pages at the popular online social networking service.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am

Looking Forward To Streaming Live Video From Your iPhone 3G S? Not So Fast.

There’s a poorly kept secret in Silicon Valley: A lot of people are using their iPhones to stream live video over the web. The reason this is kept secret is because technically, no one is supposed to have such an app on their iPhone. You see, Apple has not allowed any of these live-streaming apps into the App Store. One reason is because these apps use hacks to get the iPhone’s camera to record video. But another is undoubtedly because AT&T does not want live streaming video clogging up its network. But if Apple and AT&T think videos like this and this were shot on something like a Nokia N95, they’re dreaming.

Even the video-crippled iPhone 3G has proven to be a great tool for shooting streaming live video, and now with the launch of the iPhone 3G S — which actually supports video, the implications are huge. Companies like Qik and Ustream should be shouting from the rooftops, “Finally!,” right? So why is everyone so quiet when it comes to using the iPhone 3G S for streaming live video? Well, because it’s still far from a sure thing.

Speaking with representatives from Qik and Ustream — two of the leading live streaming video companies — both seem to be completely in the dark when it comes to any streaming live video from the phone functionality in the new device. Obviously, they’re both very interested in it (and that’s probably an understatement), but it sounds like Apple and AT&T aren’t too interested in talking to them about it, right now.

The iPhone video capture problem is now out of the way, as Apple announced it has opened its video APIs to third parties, but that doesn’t mean that live streaming video output will be okay, Qik co-founder Bhaskar Roy tells us. He says that his team is currently digging through the new APIs in the iPhone 3.0 software, but it’s hard to know anything for sure until they get their hands on the actual iPhone 3G S hardware, which will be available next week.

And while it would be easy to blame the life or death of such functionality solely on AT&T, the whipping boy when it comes to all problems iPhone-related lately, it could well be Apple’s APIs that are limiting such functionality. “I haven’t heard specifically about AT&T’s concerns,” Ustream founder John Ham tells us.

Still, there’s good reason to think AT&T is plenty happy not to see any live streaming video apps anytime soon on the iPhone. It has been widely reported that AT&T is prohibiting iPhone apps like the Sling Player from streaming video over its 3G networks due to bandwidth concerns. This is true even though AT&T allows the same app to work over its 3G network on other phones. It’s crap. And we could be looking at getting handed the same plate of crap when it comes to sending live streaming video from the new iPhones.

And it seems pretty unfair to these video startups trying to provide their service to customers. “Currently, viewing YouTube videos on the iPhone presents a load that is likely larger than the aggregate amount of bandwidth used by many individual broadcasts [on Ustream] at any given moment,” Ham notes. That’s interesting because YouTube, which is owned by Google, obviously has had an official app on the iPhone since day one, and AT&T doesn’t seem to ever complain about that.

Why any of this matters is because live streaming video from your phone is proving to be an invaluable tool for certain circumstances. Despite its popularity, most people still don’t carry around Flip cameras at all times, and even if they did, those don’t stream live to the web. But having such a tool that is always on you, on your phone, with such capabilities is huge. How else could we get great videos cornering Google co-founder Sergey Brin at a conference or the Google Goats?

AT&T has been working to overhaul its 3G network, upgrading to High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) which can run at 7.2 Mbps — which the new iPhone will work with. Of course, that won’t start happening until “later this year,” so our best hope for live video support over 3G may be then. If we don’t have such a capability at least by then, that’s just pretty pathetic — no matter whose fault it is.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 11:40 pm

Green Jobs Growing: 770,000 Americans Have One Already

Green jobs are increasing, easily outgrowing the national average over the last 10 years, according to a new report. Looks like the "clean energy economy" already supports nearly four times as many Americans as biotech.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2009 | 11:30 pm

Cernium announces new Archerfish; designed to keep your house under 24/7 surveillance

Section: Video, Portable Video, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, Household

If you live in a bad neighborhood, where those darned teens like stealing your patio furniture, investing in a home surveillance system may be just the solution.  However, such a rig is pretty expensive to set up, and then it is hard to monitor, as you can only monitor it from your home.  Cernium’s latest product, Archerfish, is a new type of home or business surveillance system that is designed to monitor a certain area and then report back with video footage.  The system is designed pretty well, as it looks for certain things, and then it has the capacity to send you the appropriate footage to your cell phone. 

Here are some events Archerfish can monitor for you -  a person entering the view, a vehicle entering the view, Intelligent Object Motion, or External Sensor Trigger.  As you can see, Archerfish will be monitoring a selected area all the time, but it will only send video footage when one of these events have been encountered.  Inside the Archerfish box comes a few key components. 

First off, the SmartBox which conveniently monitors all data from the cameras, two cameras, as well as complimentary Archerfish SmartPortal access.  Each SmartBox can monitor up to two cameras, so if you would like additional cameras, you can purchase two more before you need to get another SmartBox.  Now, in case you can’t view footage on your cell phone, it can still be monitored on your computer, assuming an Internet connection is available.  However, if an Internet connection is not available, the service will store the videos, and then send them through email, whenever a connection is established. 

Until June 19, the Archerfish will be available for $1499, but after that, it is available for $1999.  The whole product may become a bit expensive, but just knowing your house is under constant surveillance may be well worth the money.

Via [Archerfish]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 11:12 pm

Google unfazed by 3 US government inquiries (AP)

AP - Google Inc. doesn't believe it needs to change its ways despite three separate U.S. government inquiries into whether some of the Internet search leader's actions are thwarting competition.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:56 pm

Nokia Developed Wireless Power-Harvesting Phones

Al writes "An engineer from Nokia's UK research labs says that the company is developing technology that can harvest ambient electromagnetic radiation to keep a cellphone going. The researcher says that his group is working towards a prototype that could harvest up to 50 milliwatts of power — enough to slowly recharge a phone that is switched off. He says current prototypes can harvest 3 to 5 milliwatts. It will require a wideband receiver capable of capturing signals from between 500 megahertz and 10 gigahertz — a range that encompasses many different radio communication signals. Other researchers have developed devices that can harvest more modest power from select frequencies. A team from Intel previously developed a compact sensor capable of drawing 6 microwatts from a 1.0-megawatt TV antenna 4.1 kilometers away."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:56 pm

LEGO Launching New Blox Gagdets

LEGO announced a new product line, which includes a stop-animation video camera, MP3 player ($40), still camera ($50), alarm clock, walkie-takie, and a "boomblox" (get it? ...blox!).

The gadgets won't be available till the fall, but DVICE got to check 'em out. Kevin Hall reports:

The camera isn't packing all that strong of a punch with a 1.5" LCD screen, 3 MP sensor and 128 MB of internal memory, but that should be more than enough for a kid to play around with. It hooks up to your computer with a USB cord, and has a lithium battery inside. The MP3 player has 2 GB of memory by comparison.

Who cares about the guts? I'm paying for that classic aesthetic.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:53 pm

The More Followers You Have, The More You Tweet. Or Is It The Other Way Around?

Oh, the burdens of popularity. We already know that most people on Twitter are sheep with few followers and who don’t Tweet much. But what about the rams? If you want to lead a flock on Twitter, you need to be heard. People with 100 followers send out an average of 2.4 Tweets per day, while those with 1,800 followers Tweet an average of 10.2 a day, according to a new study by Sysomos, a social media analytics company based in Toronto. The inflection point seems to be between 800 followers (2.8 Tweets a day) and 1,000 followers (6.4 Tweets a day).

The more followers you have, the more you Tweet. Perhaps once people attract a large enough audience they feel obligated to keep them entertained. More likely, the more you Tweet the more followers you get, provided you actually have something interesting to say. As it turns out, not everybody uses Twitter as a broadcast mechanism. Many people simply tune in passively and skim their feeds. Sysomos looked at 11.5 million Twitter accounts and concluded that the top 10 percent of Twitter users produce 86 percent of the Tweets (which closely matches a Harvard Business School study that estimates the top 10 percent of Twitter users do 90 percent of the Tweeting). It is even more concentrated than that. The Sysomos data indicates that the top 5 percent of people on Twitter account for 75 percent of all Tweets.

More broadly, 50 percent of people on Twitter send out updates less than once a week. But 36 percent of the accounts Sysomos tracks send out Tweets every single day. So about a third of people on Twitter are fairly active, dedicated users. While half are more passive desk potatoes, Tweeting less than once a week.

These numbers are actually higher than the activity suggested by other recent reports. For instance, TweetGrade found that 29 percent of Twitter accounts in its sample have zero followers (same link as above). Sysomos, on the other hand, found a much lower percentage of accounts with zero followers: only 7 percent. And it counts 21 percent of users who have never posted a Tweet (Ironically, 65.5 percent of people who identify themselves as social media marketers have never posted an update). These discrepancies may be due to the way Sysomos gathered data on those 11.5 million accounts. It indexed Twitter starting with a core set of accounts and then spreading out to all of their followers and followees. Dead accounts or spam accounts with 0 followers and 0 Tweets would be less likely to be picked up this way. All of the data is as of mid-May.

The study also broke down the market share of Twitter clients, both desktop and mobile. More than half of all users (55 percent) use a Twitter app. The most popular way to use Twitter is through the Website (45 percent), followed by TweetDeck (19 percent). Twitterfon and Tweetie are the two most popular mobile apps and the No. 3 and No. 5 most popular ways to use Twitter overall, with 4.5 percent and 3.7 percent market share, respectively. Twitterfeed, which people use to submit RSS feeds to Twitter and which was purchased today by Betaworks, was the No. 4 client with 3.8 percent share. (Here are more up-to-date cient usage stats from TwitStat).

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

Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:49 pm

Palm appoints ex-Apple whiz as CEO (AP)

AP - Jon Rubinstein, a former executive behind Apple Inc.'s iPod, on Wednesday was named chief executive of smartphone maker Palm Inc., replacing Ed Colligan who is stepping down after 16 years with the company.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:45 pm

Lucy Knisley's zombie invasion poster

Cartoonist Lucy Knisley drew this fabulous poster of a zombie invasion to sell at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Arts Festival in New York. She promises to sell it online soon, too. Make sure to admire the larger version here.


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:42 pm

iPhone 3.0 handles hotspot log-ins gracefully, with aplomb

Reader Andrew noticed an interesting happenstance when he stopped by his local coffee shop with his 3.0 enabled iPhone. He writes:

When at work my phone picks up the wifi of the coffee shop next door. That network is open but you have to accept a web certificate and put in a password on a login re-direct page every time you connect to the network.

This can be annoying when your phone auto-connects to the network but then doesn’t actually have access to the Internet (since wifi overrides edge and 3g connections for data).

What I discovered today though with 3.0 installed is that my phone had auto connected to the wifi network and I went to check my mail, which would normally result in it not loading and me having to either load safari and log in or turn off wifi and use edge, was that the iPhone realized it was connected to wifi but was not accessing the Internet, so it loaded a webpage overtop of mail (without kicking me out and opening safari) and allowed me to log in and then dismiss the page and continue with my mail.

Very streamlined, very much useful for coffeeshop networks.

The webpage acted much the same way an email overlay in safari would work allowing you to write an email while still surfing the web, only… Exactly the opposite.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:28 pm

The Top 10 most absurd Time covers of the past 40 years

Radley Balko and Jeff Winkler of Reason put together a fun gallery of the "The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years," with appropriate commentary.

From William Randolph Hearst's ginned up hysterical stories about marijuana to the "10-cent plague" comic book scare of the 1950s to The New York Times warning of "cocaine-crazed Negroes" raping white women across the Southern countryside, the media has always whipped up anxiety and increased readership via thinly sourced exposes of the next great threat to the American way of life.

And since the British sociologist Stanley Cohen defined the moral panic phenomenon in the early 1970s as hysterical overreactions to imagined threats to social order, no publication has done a better (by which we mean worse) job of scaring the crap out of post-baby boomer America than Time, the top-selling newsweekly that's dropping subscribers like the mythical meth mouth drops teeth.

The Top 10 Most Absurd Time Covers of The Past 40 Years


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:25 pm

Rubinstein ascends the CEO throne at Palm

It’s the changing of the guard. In an continuation of Palm’s reinvention of itself, pioneering ex-Apple exec and Pre torch-bearer Jon Rubinstein will be sitting in the CEO chair at Palm come Friday (the 12th). Ed Cooligan, the current CEO, will be moving behind the curtain to work with Elevation Partners, a major investor in Palm.

Whether they bet the job on the success of the Pre or had it arranged months ago, it’s probably a good step for Palm to take: the smaller and more agile Palm with its new OS and design will likely function better under the guy who was instrumental in that change.

Rubinstein worked at Apple from ‘97 to ‘06, and was most recently General Manager of their iPod division before going over to the Palm side. You can bet he took a lot of Apple lore with him over to Palm; it’s no coincidence that the new Palm device manages to have an Apple-ish flair without biting on the iPhone too directly.

From Reuters:

Jonathan J. Rubinstein has served as one of Palm Inc directors and Executive Chairman since October 2007. Prior to joining Palm, from February 1997 to April 2006, Mr. Rubinstein was a Senior Vice President at Apple, Inc., a provider of personal computing devices and related software and peripherals, and served most recently as the General Manager of the iPod Division. Mr. Rubinstein earned a B.S. and an M.Eng in electrical engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. in computer science from Colorado State University. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 10:03 pm

Nokia working on phone that charges itself

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones

Many people find charging their mobile phones to be a hassle, especially when they are on the go.  Nokia thinks it has the solution: a phone that charges itself.  A new charging system it’s working on allows a phone to charge itself using ambient radiowaves.  Such waves are all around us thanks to TVs, radios and mobile phones themselves.  The power harvested from these waves is enough to keep a phone powered in standby mode indefinitely.

The Oyster cards used by commuters in London use a similar principle but harvest their power from the readers they are swiped through.  Nokia’s prototype harvests it right from the air.

The system works using a wide band antenna and two simple circuits.  They pick up frequencies ranging from 500 megahertz to 10 gigahertz and convert the waves into electrical current.  So far they have been able to harvest up to 5 millliwatts and hope to get at least 20, which would be enough to keep a phone in standby mode.

Steve Beeby, an expert in harvesting ambient energy at the University of Southampton, said it would be a remarkable achievement. . “Radio frequency power falls off exponentially with distance,” he says.

Don’t run out to the store just yet and grab one of these.  Phones with such a charging system are not expected to be on the market for another 3-5 years.

Read [The Guardian]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:55 pm

Levitron Revolution levitates your keepsakes, Dr. Strange figurines

Aaron M. writes:

I had a chance to see this new invention at the New York Toy Fair and it is finally public on their website.

There is a small disk which levitates a few inches above the surface of an illuminated base. The disk rotates on its own. You can place up to 4 ounces of whatever you like on the disk and it will endlessly hover and rotate while the lights from the base illuminate it.

If you have any kind of collection (action figures, minerals, shells, glass figures, etc), this is really killer.

Hopefully they'll post some movies soon. It should be available from retailers by Christmas (that is what they promised).

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:47 pm

Fools' Names and Fools' Facebooks: Vanity URLs Go Social - PC World

Telegraph.co.uk

Fools' Names and Fools' Facebooks: Vanity URLs Go Social PC World Analysis: Does having your 'real' name on your Facebook or Twitter page really matter to anyone with an actual life? Two days, 13 hours, and 58 seconds, as I write this. That's how much time you have left before you can claim your own personalized ... Get Your Facebook Usernames Here!Washington Post Facebook to let users pick names for their URLsBizjournals.com Facebook vanity urls coming this weekendCNET News PC Magazine -Register -The Associated Press all 407 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:46 pm

Could Karma Play Role In The Fate Of Microsoft Bing? - ChannelWeb

guardian.co.uk

Could Karma Play Role In The Fate Of Microsoft Bing? ChannelWeb Microsoft's Bing has made solid search market gains in its first week, and looks likely to continue doing so because of its unique search methodology. But eventually, Bing is going to run into the cold, hard reality that a significant portion of the US ... Will Bing give advertisers more bang for their buck?BizReport Bing 'better' than Google for advertisersRegister Microsoft Bing: Five Areas in Search of ImprovementComputerworld Reuters -Washington Post -Telegraph.co.uk all 575 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:35 pm

How To Manage Hundreds of Thousands of Documents?

ajmcello78 writes "We're a mid-sized aerospace company with over a hundred thousand documents stored out on our Samba servers that also need to be accessed from our satellite offices. We have a VPN set up for the remote sites and use the Samba net use command to map the remote shares. It's becoming quite a mess, sometimes quite slow, and there is really no naming or numbering convention in place for the files and directories. We end up with mixed casing, all uppercase, all lowercase, dashes and ampersands in the file names, and there are literally hundreds of directories to sort through before you can find the document you are looking for. Does anybody know of a good system or method to manage all these documents, and also make them available to our satellite offices?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:27 pm

Maybe It's Really Raining Less Than We Thought

It's conventional wisdom in atmospheric science circles: large raindrops fall faster than smaller drops, because they're bigger and heavier.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 9:20 pm

Repo man who specializes in recovering planes from deadbeat con-artists, gangsters and drug-lords

Salon's got a great feature on Nick Popovich, the "Learjet repo man," a pilot who specializes in repo'ing airplanes from deadbeat drug lords in the jungles of South America, heavily armed American white-supremacist gangs, and collapsed pyramid-scheme pilot schools. Some of the planes he flies are barely airworthy, neglected by their owners, and once, back in Papa Doc's Haiti, he didn't get the plane off the ground (instead he was captured, tortured and imprisoned, only gaining his freedom once Papa Doc was overthrown).

These days, Popovich is fielding assignments as fast as he can handle them. "We've got a lot of business right now," he says. "We recently recovered planes from Okun and Nadel." Popovich is referring to Edward Okun and Arthur G. Nadel, two Bernie Madoff-manqués that have been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from unsuspecting clients who thought they were safely investing their money ($300 million in Nadel's case, the largest alleged hedge fund fraud in Florida history). Among the booty that Popovich was hired to return were two Gulfstream IIs and a Learjet...

Using his European scouts, Popovich tracked one plane in Milan; the other was sitting on the tarmac near Terminal One at Charles DeGaulle Airport. The MD-81 was covered in official-looking documentation written in French, so Popovich just ripped everything off and hopped in. Big mistake. The airport cops stopped him as he was taxiing and threw him in a cell overnight. The next day, a French magistrate had handcuffs slapped on Popovich and ordered him returned to Chicago. "I was more determined than ever to grab those damn planes," he says. "You push me, I push back harder."

A few weeks later he snuck back into the country, convinced a captain with an Air Afrique fuel bus to fill up Arpel's Boeing and flew it out. But the Milan plane was trickier. The engine was behaving erratically, and no sane person should fly a bird with a hinky engine. Popovich had a replacement engine in Munich (engine-swapping is a common occurrence in the business) and the only way to get it would be to make the 50 minute flight and pray.

The Learjet repo man

Previously:

• "Super Repo Men" steal jets back from the insolvent rich

Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:53 pm

Study criticizes U.S. wildfire mitigation

U.S. researchers are criticizing federal wildfire mitigation efforts, saying only 11 percent have occurred near homes or offices during the last five years. The analysis of the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:40 pm

The Evolution Process Can Occur In Less Than 10 Years

How fast can evolution take place? In just a few years, according to a new study on guppies led by UC Riverside's Swanne Gordon, a graduate student in biology.Gordon and her colleagues studied guppies — small fresh-water fish biologists have studied for long — from the Yarra River, Trinidad.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:35 pm

Libraries, Food Banks Will Benefit From Transportation Modeling

For industrial engineering professor Karen Smilowitz, the best part of her job is finding new ways to apply her specialty--transportation modeling--to problems that benefit society."Industrial engineering is not just taking a calculator and a stop watch, and hanging out in a factory," she says.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:35 pm

Scientists report unusual enzyme structure

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:12 pm

Typhoons Trigger Slow Earthquakes In Taiwan

Image 1: This photo shows colleague Chiching Liu with the drill rig and the strainmeter on the ground front left. The small blue enclosure to the right houses the electronics. The picture was taken shortly before the installation of the strainmeter. Credit: Image courtesy Alan LindeImage 2: This diagram illustrates how pressure change affects slip in the eastern Taiwan area. Credit: Image courtesy Alan Linde
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:07 pm

iPhone 3G S available through AT&T Premier?

Word on the web is that Apple’s latest and greatest, the iPhone 3G S has been sporadically popping up on AT&T’s Premier business customer site. A few folks on the MacRumors forums have reported spotting it on the Premier customer site as early as yesterday afternoon, and a few users got very close to putting a preorder in, before being rejected right at the very end.

A tipster passed along a few screenshots taken earlier this morning that seem to corroborate what everyone’s been saying. We ourselves have yet to be to able to confirm the veracity of these images - looking at the AT&T Premier site from a different login brings up a teaser image of the 3G S, but nothing but run-of-the-mill 3Gs for sale beyond that. That said, these images look pretty legit, but who are we to judge? Have a look for yourselves and tell us what you think. Either way, it seems like AT&T is gearing up to offer the 3G S through their Premier business portal, but the real question is when?

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 8:04 pm

Reviving American chestnuts may mitigate climate change

American chestnut trees are very fast growing and produce a hard wood suitable for furniture. They're good at sequestering carbon. In the early 1900s a blight nearly wiped out chestnut trees. They've never come back. But Douglass Jacobs, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources at Purdue University, has hybridized American chestnuts with blight-resistant Chinese chestnuts. The tress are 94 percent American chestnut, yet retain the blight resistance of Chinese chestnuts.

(Photo by Nicole Jacobs)

Jacobs studied four sites in southwestern Wisconsin that were unaffected by the blight because they are so far from the tree's natural range. He compared the American chestnut directly against black walnut and northern red oak at several different ages, and also cross-referenced his results to other studies using quaking aspen, red pine and white pine in the same region.

In each case the American chestnut grew faster, having as much as three times more aboveground biomass than other species at the same point of development. American chestnut also sequestered more carbon than all the others. The only exception was black walnut on one site, but the American chestnut absorbed more carbon on the other study sites.

"Each tree has about the same percentage of its biomass made up of carbon, but the fact that the American chestnut grows faster and larger means it stores more carbon in a shorter amount of time," Jacobs said.

Jacobs said trees absorb about one-sixth of the carbon emitted globally each year. Increasing the amount that can be absorbed annually could make a considerable difference in slowing climate change, he said.

Reviving American chestnuts may mitigate climate change


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:44 pm

Zipcar iphone App Makes Car-Sharing A Breeze - Wired News

Jakarta Post

Zipcar iphone App Makes Car-Sharing A Breeze Wired News By Ben Mack Zipcar has joined Apple to make getting a car as easy as using your phone. The pioneering car-share company has developed an iphone app you can use to choose, reserve and locate a car on the go - a brilliant move, considering one-quarter of ... Apple WWDC: No Steve Jobs, But Who Noticed?PC World Finding Your Way Through a Maze of SmartphonesNew York Times 10 More Must-Have iphone GamesPC Magazine BusinessWeek -Ars Technica -Washington Post all 2,911 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:29 pm

Gadgetell Review: Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill

Section: Gadgets / Other, Household, Reviews

What is it?

This is the Black & Decker 18V Smart Select Drill (Model BD18PSK) that currently sells for $82.44 at Amazon.com.

What’s in the box:

• 18V Drill/Driver
• Two 18V batteries
• DC charger
• One double ended screwdriver bit
• Storage bag

Features:

• 11 easy-to-read project icons
• Settings for screw driving and drilling
• Settings for working with wood, metal, and plastic
• A rechargeable 18V battery
• T-style grip in the middle of the handle for comfort

Performance:

I took it out of the box and plugged in the battery to charge in the morning.  Easy enough.  According to the manual, the battery takes nine hours to charge.  By the time I went to use it, it was actually a little more than that, and it was all ready to go.  I tried it out and it worked great.

I was totally impressed with how fast it was and surprised at its light weight considering the size of the battery.  The drill was easy to use and didn’t feel awkward at all.  I used it to drill through wainscoting, and also into a wall.  No problem with either; it handled the jobs nicely.

The icons that allow you to select what job you are going to be doing are really helpful and I can see where these would really assist in preventing mess-ups due to going too fast or slow or drilling too deep.

Because it is really relatively light, it is simple to maneuver it around for different jobs.  Your arm doesn’t feel like it is breaking holding it.  Obviously, the fact that it is cordless is a perk, so there is no cord to get tangled up while you are working, or get in your way. 

Another bonus is the key-less chuck.  You don’t have to worry about stopping and using a key (or losing the key) while you are in the middle of a project. 

Final Thoughts:

The Black & Decker 18V Smart Select cordless drill makes doing your job more simple.  It features settings for you to pick from telling the drill what you are going to be working on, so you don’t have to worry making the wrong choice.  It’s light and easy to handle, even with the 18V battery.  The battery seems to hold a charge nicely, so you don’t have to deal with switching batteries or recharging constantly.  It’s definitely a good tool to have around the house for any of your do-it-yourself projects.

Product Page: [Black & Decker ]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:28 pm

Scientists Finds New Way That Cells Fix Damage To DNA

Proteins responsible for this type of DNA repair may also limit the effectiveness of chemotherapy agents, which aim to injure tumor DNAA team of researchers at The Scripps Research Institute and other institutions has discovered a new way by which DNA repairs itself, a process that is critical to the protection of the genome, and integral to prevention of cancer development.Scientists who study the repair of the DNA bases, which make up the information in the human genome, had known of only one type of method that cells use to fix a specific kind of damage to their DNA, but in the June 11, 2009 issue of Nature, the team found a novel way—one that combines elements from the known mechanisms and an unrelated second method that was previously not known to play a role in this type of DNA repair."We found a connection between the known DNA repair processes that people did not know was there," says Professor John Tainer, a member of the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at Scripps Research, who led the study with Geoffrey P.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:25 pm

Climate Change Could Cause Human Migration By 2050

Climate change could result in massive displacements by mid-century, according to a new report from climate change experts at Columbia University, the United Nations University and CARE International."Unless aggressive measures are taken to halt global warming, the consequences for human migration and displacement could reach a scope and scale that vastly exceed anything that has occurred before," researchers wrote in the report “In Search of Shelter”."Climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement.”"All major estimates project that the trend will rise to tens of millions of migrants in coming years.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:20 pm

A Monkey on My Back (non-metaphorically speaking)

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Writing a book is a long and difficult process. Sometimes, a part of the book that the author really likes is excised by the editor. Well, thanks to Mark and the other Boingboing'ers I get to share it here.

The first draft of Absinthe and Flamethrowers contained a historical sidebar on the ancient practice of human vs animal combat and I don't mean throwing Christians to the lions. Rather, I mean a one-on-one match up between an gunless human and an equivalently sized animal. Turns out this practice, (please note that I also think it's bizarre, and in the Commodus case below, disgusting, and I'm not advocating it) is pretty well known throughout history.

Commodus, the degenerate Roman emperor (so excellently portrayed by Jaoquin Phoenix in Gladiator) would often parade around the Roman Coliseum dispatching animals with a sword or spear. While he certainly wasn't unarmed, he was in close contact.

The dens of the amphitheatre disgorged at once a hundred lions; a hundred darts from the unerring hand of Commodus laid them dead as they ran raging around the Arena. Neither the huge bulk of the elephant, nor the scaly hide of the rhinoceros, could defend them from his stroke. Ethiopia and India yielded their most extraordinary productions; and several animals were slain in the amphitheatre, which had been seen only in the representations of art, or perhaps of fancy. - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, Chapter 4

Fairs and amusement parks at the turn of the Twentieth Century were colorful, vibrant, and boisterous places. They offered an antidote to the strict moral codes of the period and offered exotic products and activities which curious visitors found irresistible: foot long hot dogs and salt water taffy, ferris wheels and roller coasters, and . . . kangaroo boxing.

In the year 1900, the Boardwalk in Atlantic City was well known for its boxing kangaroo (whose name is sadly forgotten in the sands of time.) But by all accounts, it was a hell of a good boxer and was said by more than one spectator that it could give John L. Sullivan himself a run for his money. This was the heyday of man versus kangaroo pugilism.

More recently, there are several mid-20th century diary and newspaper accounts of monkey wrestling matches at county fairs. One man wrote that he went to town one day and came across a carnival where for five dollars a person could enter a cage containing an orangutan. If the person could stay in the cage with the ape for five minutes, they got paid $100. But nobody was able to do it.

"After several hours of strategy sessions and drinking beer, I devised a plan and launched off to encounter the orangutan.

"The monkey looked docile enough, 110 pounds, long skinny arms, just sitting there in the middle of this iron cage. I approached the monkey from the backside and grabbed it in a half nelson. To my surprise and pleasure, she offered no resistance. Then I made the mistake of lifting the orangutan off the ground. I had a big smile on my face. This lasted for about fifteen seconds, and then I noticed that this long, skinny arm had reached up and grabbed the iron bar over my head.

"I didn't pay much attention to it at the time, until a few seconds later, I felt my feet leave the ground. I figured out the orangutan, who weighed 110 pounds (and I weighed about 230 at the time) had just done a one-arm pull up with something like three times her body weight.

"I realized I was in deep and serious trouble, and the grin on my face turned to stark terror. I was no longer squeezing the ape, but actually holding on her back for fear of my life. The orangutan, while she held us in mid air with one arm, reached around with this other long skinny arm and grabbed me from the back of my neck and slung me the length of the cage, through the door which I immediately took exit from the cage."

Much more on this subject at Notes From the Technology Underground


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:07 pm

T-Mobile Accidentally Posts Secret iPhone 3G S Specs

Apple has flatly refused to tell anyone just what chips lie inside the iPhone 3G S. In fact, while Apple insists that the “s” in 3G S stands for speed, it could equally well stand for secrecy. But T-Mobile in the Netherlands apparently didn’t get the memo, and has gone ahead and posted the hardware specs on the product page for the new models.

The relevant numbers are 256MB RAM for the OS, double that of the 128MB in the original iPhone, and a 600MHz processor, up from the pedestrian 412MHz of the first two models. The added RAM alone probably makes a huge difference — if you have ever added memory to a Mac you’ll know how much OS X loves it some extra gigs to play around in. And that processor neatly leapfrogs the second-gen iPod Touch’s 532MHz. It also shuts up anyone comparing the iPhone to the Palm Pre, which has the exact same number of megahertz: 600.

Of course, this never really mattered — as soon as the iPhone goes on sale it will be torn apart like a gazelle being set upon my hunger-crazed lions and the innards cast across the floor for all to see. We wonder just how long the T-Mobile site will keep this information up.

Product page [T-Mobile]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 7:01 pm

GOOD infographic: largest bankruptcies in history

GOOD magazine's infographic reveals that recent bankruptcies dwarf Enron's collapse. That gives Jeff Skilling something to be proud of!


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 6:52 pm

BLOG: Moon 'Sea of Storms' Image Unveiled

A lunar image snapped by a long-gone probe offers a unique view of the moon.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 6:28 pm

The digital TV transition is near, so why are so many homes not ready?

Section: Video, HDTV

This Friday, broadcasters will stop sending out analog signals and make the DTV transition.  However, even with an extended digital TV deadline imposed, an estimated 3 million homes are not prepared to make the transition.  This represents roughly 2.5 percent of the television market.

Nielsen released the report this Wednesday and it showed that elderly households were the most prepared to make the transition.  African American, Asian and Hispanic households were the least prepared according to figures.  Location also played a factor with most TV owners from the East prepared to make the switch while many of the Western state residents lacked the equipment necessary to receive digital TV signals.

The good news is that figures show that almost twice as many households are now prepared for the DTV switch since the February delay.  Once analog signals stop, it is expected that the rest of the households will be lining up to purchase converter boxes required for the switch.

Read: [CNET]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 6:22 pm

Amazing Gallery of Retro, Streamlined Steam-Irons

The internet is supposed to be the place for niches. No matter how odd your interests, you’ll almost always find something pertinent on the web. Paper books, on the other hand, need to aim at the mass audience and are therefore more mainstream, right?

Then what the hell is Streamlined Irons? The book details the most extraordinarily wonderful steam-iron designs from the 1930s and 1940s, irons with curves so swooping and voluptuous that they make the Chrysler Building look like a prefab garden shed.

Of course, the book comes from somebody eccentric enough to know all about the history of steam irons. The author, Jay Raymond, is a collector, and along with the close-up pop-shots of the irons there is a history of the electric steam iron running as a narrative.

But we don’t care about that. It’s all about the pictures. And possible the names, too. Try some of these monikers for size: The Never-Lift, the Lady Dover and the Steam-O-Matic A.

The book is available to order now for $70. The publisher? Who else but the Streamline Press?

Product page [Streamlined Irons via Core77]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 6:14 pm

Planet Smash-Up Possible (in 3.5 Billion Years)

Earth and Mars or Venus could collide in the future (but the chances are slim).
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 6:08 pm

IM Interview: Surfing Spacetime

Futuristic spacecraft could surf a spacetime wave faster than the speed of light.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:48 pm

Art Lebedev Turns Utensils into Giant Folding Knife

Art Lebedev does two things well. It comes up with wonderfully inventive product designs which may or may not ever see production. And it adds the letters “us” to the end of everything to make it sound like the kind of ancient Latin spoken in the Asterix books.

The Swissarmius does both. Based on the Victorinox classic, the Swissarmius is a kitchen utensil holder which presents tools as if they were folded from a pocket knife. The four sections not only keep things arranged in a more Swiss-army like fashion, they spread things out so when you grab, say, the tongs, you don’t drag out the scissors and the knives along with them.

Availability? Who knows? Price? Surely too high. Last two letters of the name? Us.

Product page [Art Lebedev]

See Also:

• Art Lebedev Reinvents the Traffic Light
• Art Lebedev Announces Optimus Pultius, A Mini-Me For The Maximus …
• Art Lebedev Redesigns the Door Chain Lock For Security Fetishists …
• Art Lebedev Announces Sub-$1000 Optimus Keyboard

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:38 pm

Scalin Skullpaper

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

BoingBoing readers may already be familiar with artist Noah Scalin Skull-A-Day project from a previous post. I met Noah at the 2009 GEL conference in New York City and was immediately struck by his ability to so creatively render an idea in so many different media (vegetables, shoelaces, bed sheets, concrete construction barriers, and so on.)

In early July (July 3 to August 22 to be precise), a solo art show of his work in opens in Richmond, VA. It's at the Quirk Gallery, 311 West Broad Street, Richmond, VA. He'll be displaying his newly available Skull-a-Day wallpaper as well.

It took me a while to see the skull in the wallpaper, but yup, there it is.


Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:23 pm

Whoa there, Sun Chips: Ingeo corn plastic not suitable for backyard composting

NatureWorks (a subsidiary of Cargill), makes "Ingeo", a bioplastic spun from lactic acid generated from corn sugars. It's the same stuff used by Sun Chips to make their new "compostable" bags that will be released in 2010. It's exciting stuff, and I support the notion, but the commercial (linked above) is misleading about how you'll be disposing of Sun Chips bags.

According to NatureWorks' FAQ:

Can I throw Ingeo™ biopolymer into my backyard compost?

Ingeo™ biopolymer should be composted in industrial compost facilities, which contain the right managed combination of temperature and moisture. Therefore, it is not recommended for use in typical backyard composting due to the lack of high temperature and inconsistent conditions.

The commercial for Sun Chips never says you can just toss it in the backyard, but that's certainly the implication.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:20 pm

No Snow Leopards for PowerPC

Wired's Charlie Sorrel:

If you have an old PowerPC Mac, you should probably make it its favorite dinner, throw an arm around its shoulder and - as you shed a single, silent tear - lead it round behind the back of the house. Lowering it gently into the old, rusted bathtub you whisper, almost inaudibly, "sorry." You then pull out a gun and finish off your faithful old friend.

Apple Euthanizes PowerPC Macs with Snow Leopard

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:10 pm

France's three-strikes copyright rule is unconstitutional and hence dead

Jeremie sez,

The Constitutionnal Council, highest jurisdiction in France gave its decision1 concerning the HADOPI "three strikes" law [ed: France's insane plan to force ISPs to cut Internet service to people who have unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringment], final stage before the promulgation of the law. It decided that presumption of innocence is more important than the idiotic schemes from the entertainment industries to artificially prolong their obsolete models.

All sanctioning power (ie. disconnecting internet users) has been removed from the HADOPI.

" This is a great victory for citizens who proved they can altogether act to protect their Freedom. HADOPI's "three strikes" is finally buried. All we have now is a big tax-sponsored spam machine for the entertainment industries. But this is not the end of Sarkozy's will to control the Internet. The next law, LOPPSI, is already on tracks and will be about filtering the content on the Internet. Citizens must celebrate this great victory but remain watchful..." declares Jeremie Zimmermann, cheerfully.

Hadopi is dead: "three strikes" killed by highest court. (Thanks, Jeremie!)

Previously:

• French "three-strikes" copyright law passes -- but may be dead ...
• French film-makers and science fiction writers protest new anti ...
• French government nukes crazy Internet law in open revolt against ...
• EU kills "3-strikes" Internet rule, affirms Internet is a ...
• For sale: One French Internet, slightly sarkoed - Boing Boing
• Crazy French copyright law translated to English - Boing Boing

Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:10 pm

Palm’s Pixie flitters into view past Castle

Hacksters at PreCentral have found some shell script that points to future Palm phones called “castle” and “pixie.” We well know that the Pixie will be the EOS and the Castle is the codename for the Pre.

# Start novacomd service
if [[ "$hostName" == "castle" ]];then
modprobe g_composite product=0×8002
elif [[ "$hostName" == "pixie" ]];then
modprobe g_composite product=0×8012
else
modprobe -q g_composite
fi

Huge deal? Absolutely not. But it’s fun to know bash scripting, ain’t it?

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 5:00 pm

The imaginary musical instruments of Yanko

Theirs is a wonderful gallery of designs, mockups and creative ideas: wouldn't it be cool if all of them were realized and a concert performed?

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:48 pm

Winds Losing Umph in U.S.

Research suggests winds in the U.S. are dying down; global warming could be to blame.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:40 pm

Video: Robots Firing Guns

Peaches and cream. Smoked salmon and cream cheese. Robots with guns. All these things are natural partners, combinations sent from heaven to us Earth-bound monkeys to make our sad lives better. Only the last, though, is at the same time both awesome and terrifying.

The video shows a montage of the best and worst of the creations of RoboteX Inc (ignore the powerpoint-style opening. The real action starts just shy of one minute in). First, we see a tiny, bullet firing spider of a robot, able to keep a bead on its target even when bouncing over rocky terrain or walking up stairs (yes, stairs. Take that, Daleks). This is just plain neat.

The next bot, though, is actually rather menacing: a humanoid machine that walks amongst the urban population, “helping” the police. Can you imagine how you’d feel if you saw this thing on your street, a cold, emotionless killing machine bristling with advanced weaponry, its cold metal body empty of anything so warm as a soul or conscience? Maybe like one of the nine soldiers who were mown down by a marauding robot in an ED-209 style massacre in South Africa two years ago.

After that, the video quiets down a little, showing us guns mounted upside-down on wheels, but wait for the denouement at 3:53 minutes in — a robot-drone helicopter with not one but two (2!) automatic rifles on the sides. I gotta get me one of those.

RoboteX Inc. Montage ROBOTS WITH GUNS [YouTube]

See Also:

• Newbies Build Killer Robot; Fortune Fawns
• Robot Cannon Kills 9, Wounds 14
• Robot War Continues

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:38 pm

Adesso introduces mini keyboard perfect for your living room

Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards

Putting a computer in your living room is simple.  Plenty of televisions have DVI or VGA inputs.  However, there’s always one hurdle.  The living room keyboard and mouse solution. 

Adesso introduced its WKB-3100 (a catchy name that I’m sure will be stuck in your head for years to come) which is actually a tiny wireless keyboard with a built in trackball.  The entire device is only 12 inches in width so it may actually be comfortable to type on.

Adesso is claiming a range of 30 feet.  That ought to be plenty of range so you can type in “hulu.com” in your Media Center PC or something.  Logitech has a snazzy alternative in its diNovo Mini, but the Adesso Wireless Mini Keyboard only costs $79.99 when compared to the Logitech at $149.99 (which you can get for less on Amazon).  We’ll be testing out the Adesso in the near future, so stay tuned. 

Company Site [Adesso]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:20 pm

Is Sony ripping off consumers with PSPgo?

FROM GAMERTELL - The PSPgo carries a $250 price tag which seems too expensive for what it offers.  Michael Pachter even went so far to say Sony is ripping off consumers.  This makes us wonder what makes the PSPgo so expensive…
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:02 pm

What is this iPhone 3G S/AT&T upgrade pricing brouhaha really about?

There has been plenty of ink spilled over the 3G S upgrade (”Now faster with oleoresistant skin!”) and it’s abundantly clear what folks are trying to do here. Early adopters have always chafed at having to pay outrageous fees for upgrades inside of a contract period. Be it the latest RAZR a few years ago or the latest iPhone today, the same obsessives who are ranting about iPhone upgrade pricing were trying this same trick years ago - but now they have some leverage.

All said and done you’ll probably pay $499 for the new iPhone if you’re in contract and you’ve been a good AT&T customer. Not too shabby if you’re the kind of person who needs to upgrade. But the folks making the biggest noise are aiming to change the upgrade paradigm here. They’re calling and threatening to switch the the Pre. They’re filing petitions. They’re ranting on Twitter. Poor AT&T - if such a phrase should ever be said of a carrier - will have to react and they’ll probably react by creating an early adopter precedent and creating a special price for people who are calling to whine. General outrage and excoriation are useful tools for the consumer troll.

Will the upgrade pricing situation change for the 3G S2 or the 3G S++ or whatever the next iteration will be called? Absolutely not. AT&T has a good thing going here. But look for class action lawsuits and faux-outrage to come. This is just the beginning, especially if Apple and AT&T continue using low prices as bait… as carriers for time immemorial have done.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 4:00 pm

Ready for the Pre’s SDK? Not unless you know the Konami Code.

If you have a Palm Pre, try this: at the home screen, type “upupdowndownleftrightleftrightbastart“. Yep, it’s true - punching in the Konami code allows you access to the Pre’s Development Mode. Once it’s activated on the Pre, connecting it to a PC that has the Mojo SDK installed and running would allow you test work-in-progress apps on live hardware. Sure, chances are you don’t have the Mojo SDK handy, but with a full release on the books, the code is bound to help sooner or later.

How the code was discovered is a hell of a story itself: some chaps over on the PreCentral forums were able to dissect the recently released webOS Doctor, an application offered by Palm that restores and updates the Pre’s software in case of a serious OS failure. After a fair bit of poking and prodding, they were able to dig a full copy of the webOS 1.0.2 ROM, and proceeded to have at it.

The result? Well, Developer Mode aside, they’ve found references to the Pixie, another webOS device in development, contact syncing with Yahoo!, AOL and MSN icons, and more. The deeper these intrepid hackers go, the more fun will turn up, and you can bet we’ll be here to let you know about it.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 3:50 pm

Warming to Trigger Vast Human Migrations

People are likely to flood to urban areas as climate change forces migrations.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 3:50 pm

Juniper Research: Cheap Phones Are Big Business

A new report from Juniper Research forecasts that by 2014, annual sales of low-budget mobile devices will rise to north of 700 million units, up 22% from this year. The report goes into the various schemes that have been implemented to help 'connect the unconnected', or the estimated 3 billion people on the planet that do not own mobile phones. Apparently, the key to be able to tap into this vast pool of potential customers in these so-called 'emerging markets' lies in drastically reducing the cost of handsets that can be used by low-income users.

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 3:30 pm

Apple Euthanizes PowerPC Macs with Snow Leopard

If you have an old PowerPC Mac, you should probably make it its favorite dinner, throw an arm around its shoulder and – as you shed a single, silent tear – lead it round behind the back of the house. Lowering it gently into the old, rusted bathtub you whisper, almost inaudibly, “sorry.” You then pull out a gun and finish off your faithful old friend.

If you don’t, Apple will do it for you. Snow Leopard is Intel-only, and as such any PowerPC Macs will be stuck with the current version of Leopard. Of course, the combo of old G5 Mac and OS X Leopard will continue to be as good in the future as it is today, but if you want to get all the juicy new features of Apple’s latest, you’ll need a modern machine.

If you’re interested in the full requirements for running OS X 10.6, Apple has posted the details on its site. Any Intel Mac should work, but for things like Grand Central Dispatch, for example, you’ll need a multi-processor machine. And if you’re holding off buying a Mac because you’re waiting for Snow Leopard in September, don’t bother. Apple is running its usual up-to-date program so you can upgrade any Mac bought today for just $10. This isn’t the bargain it usually is, though, as the full OS will be just $30.

Snow Leopard Tech Specs [Apple]
Photo: Tambako the Jaguar/Flickr

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 3:27 pm

Virgin offering prepaid 3G access for those who fear commitment

Section: Communications, Broadband Cards, Mobile

Having 3G access on a computer is a wonderful thing; being able to have internet connectivity almost everywhere you go is a blessing for many people.  However, sometimes paying $60 or more every month can be daunting, especially if you don’t use it all the time.  Virgin Mobile is coming to the rescue of those people with a 3G modem and a prepaid data plan.

The service is being called Broadband2Go, and will allow users to connect to Sprint’s EV-DO Rev.  A network via a Novatel MC760 USB modem.  The modem will work with any OS with a dual-band diversity antenna and an option for an external antenna as well if needed.  Given Sprint’s 3G coverage, the external antenna will be needed if you go too far outside of a city or metropolitan area, or even too far away from a major highway. 

While the idea sounds wonderful, it might not once you see the prices.  The modem itself will cost a reasonable $150 at Best Buy starting late June.  The data plans are fixed at pretty high rates, starting with $10 for 100 MB, $20 for 250 MB, $40 for 600 MB and finally $60 for 1 GB.  True, this is a pay as you go service, but those prices seem just a bit high, considering that $60 a month will get you 5 GB from Verizon with the MiFi.  It might make sense for those who desperately need the connectivity where ever they’re going and can afford it, but it’d be nice to see those number drop even just a little bit.

Read [Electronista]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2009 | 3:09 pm

Billshrink: iPhone 3G S vs Palm Pre vs T-Mobile G1

As always, Billshrink breaks it all down for us. Anyone want to guess how much cheaper the Pre is compared to the upcoming 3G S? Hit the jump to find out.

Billshrink

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 2:56 pm

Eye-Fi Pro Adds RAW Support, Selective Transfers

Is it possible that Eye-Fi could make its range of geo-tagging’, Wi-Fi sharin’ cards any more useful? We didn’t think so, but it turns out we were dead wrong. The company has today released the Eye-Fi Pro, a 4GB SD card with a couple of very handy new features.

First, the cards finally support RAW files. Previously, only jpeg images could be geo-tagged and sent over Wi-Fi, but now you can use it with proper images. Next, and possibly more important for some, is that the cards work with ad-hoc Wi-Fi networks. This means that you no longer need a Wi-Fi router to get connected — if you set up an ad-hoc network using your laptop, for instance, then the Eye-Fi Pro can connect direct. Handy for wireless tethered shooting away from power outlets.

Eye-Fi has another new trick, one which will apply to all its cards via the Eye-Fi manager. You know the lock feature on the camera, the one which lets you protect a photo against deletion? Now it’s actually useful. Lock a file and Eye-Fi will engage in Selective Transfer, which in English means you can choose which photos get transferred. This is particularly useful with huge RAW files.

I have a question for the you, the readers. I’m thinking of picking up an Eye-Fi card to use back in Spain. Has anyone had any luck using the cards for geo-tagging in Europe?

The Pro costs $150 and is available now.

Product page [Eye-Fi. Thanks, Gina!]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2009 | 2:52 pm

Climate Change? Big Mammals Can Adapt

Big mammals may be unexpectedly flexible to climate change, research finds.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 2:28 pm

Verizon’s EXILIM hits stores, but it’ll cost you.

It’s been spotted a few times before, but Verizon has chosen today to officially push their new EXILIM phone out the door. Technically dubbed the C721, Casio has managed to pack quite a bit into their latest swiveller: the 5.1 megapixel camera is prime among them, and hopefully it lives up to the EXILIM pedigree. We’re talking flash, auto focus, 3x optical zoom and video recording here, so it’s looking to be a very solid shooter.

Speaking of solid, the phone itself is actually built to MIL-STD-810 standards. For those of you who don’t speak Military, rest assured: the phone can withstand ” (immersion and rain), humidity, salt-fog, shock, vibration, dust, solar radiation, altitude, and low and high temperature storage” and still keep ticking. This well built package is rounded out by a rotating 2.3 inch display, expandable memory slot that can handle up to 8 GB of storage, support for VZ Navigator, Visual Voicemail, and V Cast’s Music partnership with Rhapsody.

If you’re a die-hard fan of the flip-phone form factor, it may be worth your time, but it’ll certainly make a dent in your wallet. You can mosey on down to your local Verizon store and pick one up for $329.99 out of pocket with a new 2 year contract, plus a $50 mail in rebate to sweeten the deal. It seems like a lot to pay for a feature phone, especially considering that most of Verizon’s expected summer sellers go for a good hundred dollars less (case in point, enV Touch), but if need a phone you can go to town on, this just might fit the bill.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2009 | 2:08 pm

Black Hole More Massive Than Expected

A black hole is two to three times heftier than scientists had imagined.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 10 Jun 2009 | 1:15 pm

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