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Lucky Thirteen On the ISSHugh Pickens writes "Things may get a little tight in space as seven shuttle astronauts blast off from Florida on June 13 to join up with six colleagues already on the International Space Station (ISS) bringing the ISS contingent to thirteen, the largest number of individuals on the platform ever at one time. The 13 space-farers represent seven from the US, two each from Russia and Canada, and one each from Europe and Japan. '"I don't know what it's going to be like," says Endeavour commander Mark Polansky, a veteran of two prior spaceflights. "We know it's going to be challenging with 13 people aboard."' During five spacewalks, an external platform will be added to the lab which will enable those experiments to be performed that require materials to be exposed to the harsh environment of space and astronauts also have to fit equipment to the exterior of the platform such as batteries and a spare space-to-ground antenna."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 8:00 am Default Passwords Blamed In $55M PBX HacksAn anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post is reporting that the U.S. Justice Department has indicted three residents of the Philippines for breaking into more than 2,500 corporate PBX systems in the United States and abroad. The government says the hackers sold access to those systems to operators of call centers in Italy, which allegedly made 12 million minutes of unauthorized phone calls through the system, valued at more than $55 million. The DOJ's action coincides with an announcement from Italian authorities today of the arrest of five men there who are suspected of funneling the profits from those call centers to terrorist groups in Southeast Asia."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:27 am Microsoft to give away anti-virus - BBC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:59 am Ribcage bagMarisa Ranalli's Ribcage Bag is felt on the outside, and has a change-purse screen-printed with a heart sewn into the interior. Ribcage Bag (via Street Anatomy)Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:54 am Ribcage bag Marisa Ranalli's Ribcage Bag is felt on the outside, and has a change-purse screen-printed with a heart sewn into the interior.
Ribcage Bag
(via Street Anatomy) British cops deliver Catch 22 to photographers: you're not allowed to know which areas you're not allowed to photographIn Britain, cops have the power to search you if you take a picture of a "sensitive" area, but they won't tell you which areas are "sensitive," because they're so "sensitive."The British Journal of Photography is trying to use the UK Freedom of Information Act to find out which places in Britain have such precious photons that people who collect them without authorization can have their civil rights violated, but so far they've been unsuccessful. There's no evidence that terrorists use photographs to plan attacks. Indeed, if disclosing the visible features of notable, iconic buildings puts them in danger, we may as well tear them all down now and get it over with, since the whole point of a notable, iconic building is that everybody knows what they look like. The Home Office has rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the BJP regarding the disclosure of the list of all areas where police officers are authorised to stop-and-search photographers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000...All quiet on the Westminster front (via Memex 1.1)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:50 am British cops deliver Catch 22 to photographers: you're not allowed to know which areas you're not allowed to photographIn Britain, cops have the power to search you if you take a picture of a "sensitive" area, but they won't tell you which areas are "sensitive," because they're so "sensitive." The British Journal of Photography...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:50 am Newspaper asks poets and novelists to cover the news for the dayThe Israeli newspaper Haaretz gave its reporters the day off and asked novelists and poets to report the news for a special edition in honor of Hebrew Book Week. The results were lovely: Among those...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:42 am Newspaper asks poets and novelists to cover the news for the dayThe Israeli newspaper Haaretz gave its reporters the day off and asked novelists and poets to report the news for a special edition in honor of Hebrew Book Week. The results were lovely:Among those articles were gems like the stock market summary, by author Avri Herling. It went like this: "Everything's okay. Everything's like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything's okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place... Dow Jones traded steadily and closed with 8,761 points, Nasdaq added 0.9% to a level of 1,860 points.... The guy from the shakshuka [an Israeli egg-and-tomato dish] shop raised his prices again...." The TV review by Eshkol Nevo opened with these words: "I didn't watch TV yesterday." And the weather report was a poem by Roni Somek, titled "Summer Sonnet." ("Summer is the pencil/that is least sharp/in the seasons' pencil case.") News junkies might call this a postmodern farce, but considering that the stock market won't be soaring anytime soon, and that "hot" is really the only weather forecast there is during Israeli summers, who's to say these articles aren't factual?Literary Lesson: Authors, Poets Write the News (via Kottke) Source: Boing Boing | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:42 am IT Crowd Season 2 DVD for sale in the USThe IT Crowd, Channel 4 UK's brilliant sitcom about sysadmins, is coming out on DVD in the US (previous DVDs were region-free, but were only sold through UK retailers and importers to the US). It's only...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:37 am IT Crowd Season 2 DVD for sale in the US The IT Crowd, Channel 4 UK's brilliant sitcom about sysadmins, is coming out on DVD in the US (previous DVDs were region-free, but were only sold through UK retailers and importers to the US). It's only the season 2 disc (you can order season 3, where the show really hit its stride, from the UK). I love this show, plain and simple: it's funny, silly and relentlessly geeky, and pushes the envelope with every episode. The IT Crowd on DVD in the States
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:37 am Compatibility Issues for New Apple iPhone 3G S AppsA couple of things have emerged about the iPhone 3G S, notably the fact that with its upgraded specs, apps may not work on older models. Mobile Marketing News reports. It may not just be games that are...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:28 am iPhone App Classroom Allows Regular People To Create Their Own iPhone Apps Without ProgrammingiPhone development has exploded as one of the most lucrative opportunities in our economy. But non-programmers have been left asking themselves, "How can I make my own iPhone App?" iPhone App Classroom,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:24 am Wallet made from Atari cartridgeNiles sez, "Here's a video introducing the Atari wallet, a project I've just completed after almost five years in the making. I repurpose original Atari 2600 video games into wallets using every original piece inside except the screw."
Atari wallet - Pac Man introduction
(Thanks, Niles!) Wallet made from Atari cartridgeNiles sez, "Here's a video introducing the Atari wallet, a project I've just completed after almost five years in the making. I repurpose original Atari 2600 video games into wallets using every original...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:22 am NASA scrubs Saturday morning space shuttle launchNASA delayed the launch of space shuttle Endeavour on Saturday because of a hydrogen gas leak similar to one that cropped up three months ago. The countdown was halted shortly after...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 5:54 am First Floating Wind Turbine Buoyed Off NorwayMonkeyClicker writes to tell us that the world's first large-scale floating turbine has been installed off the coast of Norway. A combined effort between Siemens and StatoiHydro, this marks the first foray into deeper waters due to restrictions in place that require offshore turbines to be attached to the sea bed. "The turbine in Norway will be 7.4 miles offshore where the water is 721 feet deep. It will be utility-size turbine, with a hub height of about 100 feet, capable of generating 2.3 megawatts of electricity. To address the conditions of the deep sea, the turbine will have a specially designed control system that will seek to dampen the motion from waves."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Jun 2009 | 5:36 am Behold! OSX finally on Vaio POn the hackintosh front, Sony's Vaio P seemed a bust: its GMA 500 video chip had terrible drivers even in Windows, and no support at all under Mac OS X. Insanely Mac forum posters ryuu123 and maccosmo, however, claim to have cracked the problem, and offer instructions on how to get Leopard running on the minuscule 1.5lb netbook. Is it faster then VISTA? On the OSX Netbook Compatibility Chart it goes. Its a complex install and not for the fainthearted: if you don't know what "installing a kext" means, don't take your coat off just yet. Maccosmo writes that it's easier than it looks -- "installing os x on a vaio p is easy if you done it once" -- but until non-USB networking is available, it's not ready for everyday use. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 13 Jun 2009 | 5:21 am TABLE-GAIL Jan-March net down 13 pct(versus the same period a year earlier, in billion rupees unless stated)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 5:20 am US Firm Says China Stole Software for Web-Filter - Wall Street Journal
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 13 Jun 2009 | 5:19 am If you have a Vaio P, downgrade to XP
Kudos goes to Jenn of Pocketables, chief among those who figured out everything there is to figure out in this particular niche of netbookdom. XP runs so much better on the P than Vista it feels like an entirely different machine. It's markedly faster than Windows 7, too, making it worthwhile even if you're got that installed. Even the XP versions of Sony's system management utilities are markedly less bloated. How did this sorry need to tinker come about? The Vaio P has 2GB of RAM, meaning Microsoft won't license Windows XP for it. Sony itself seems to have realized the mistake it made putting Vista on a netbook: it's reportedly planning to release a 1GB model with XP. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:58 am NASA officials scrub Saturday space shuttle launchNASA officials have canceled a planned Saturday launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour due to hydrogen leak. The problem is similar to one the space agency faced in March during the launch...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:40 am Recessions, Startups and the Fortune 500Great new paper out from my Kauffman Foundation colleague Dane Stangler looking at the relationship between economic cycles, startups and Fortune 500 company founding. It is highly worth reading. Here...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:29 am Apple-AT&T: Hints of Strain - BusinessWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:18 am Geek Art: Needlework Brings Together Programmers, CraftersA Swedish exhibition features crafters who imbibe the open source software ethos. They create stunning, textured art pieces with embroidery, knitting and quilting that reflect technology's patterns, colors and influences.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am Geek Art: Needlework Brings Together Programmers, CraftersA Swedish exhibition features crafters who imbibe the open source software ethos. They create stunning, textured art pieces with embroidery, knitting and quilting that reflect technology's patterns, colors and influences.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am OfferPal Sues Former Customer Kickflip For Starting Competitive ServiceOfferpal Media, an advertising platform concentrated on helping developers monetize social networks by offering virtual currency in exchange for participating in 'offers' like online surveys, has filed...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:33 am OfferPal Sues Former Customer Kickflip For Starting Competitive Service
As first reported in GigaOm, the suit alleges that Kickflip temporarily used Offerpal’s services for the purpose of stealing knowledge of how the service worked, which it then used to start a competitor. From the suit:
Kickflip responds that the suit has “absolutely no merit”. The company originally started off as a game developer in 2007 (you can see a list of their old games here). The company says that during that time it has tried to use OfferPal and SuperRewards (an OfferPal competitor) to monetize their games but that both were unable to meet their needs, so they built their own service. The company’s ‘about’ page offers a similar background:
Kickflip has issued the following statement regarding the suit:
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:30 am Lightning Strikes Amazon's Cloud (Really)The Register has details on a recent EC2 outage that is being blamed on a lightning strike that zapped a power distribution unit of the data center. The interruption only lasted around 6 hours, but the irony should last much longer. "While Amazon was correcting the problem, it told customers they had the option of launching new server instances to replace those that went down. But customers were also able to wait for their original instances to come back up after power was restored to the hardware in question."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:25 am Let's Meet Treasury's Foreign InvestorsMost people were surprised by the recent uptick in foreign buying of the 30-year Treasury bonds. Who are these people, and why are they willing to take so much currency risk? Well, now we now: They're...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 3:22 am iPhone App Roundup: Week 3That’s right folks - it’s iPhone App Roundup time again. During past weeks, we’ve only showcased 3 iPhone apps during each Friday Roundup. But this week was special. What with the iPhone 3G S being announced and all, we decided to throw in a few more. Contain your excitement, please.
Hope you enjoyed this special WWDC edition of Friday App Roundup. See you next week, and don’t forget: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 2:30 am Facebook Nabs The Man Who Engineered Google AdSense For Many Years
At Google, Badros was in charge of the AdSense engineering team from its formative years in 2004, through when it exploded in popularity with billions of dollars in revenues. He has also led the Google Calendar, Google Reader and Gmail teams. Since March 2009, he has led the Application Platform group. But it’s the AdSense experience that is particularly interesting here, as Facebook is attempting to better monetize its service. Badros will report to Mike Schroepfer, who Facebook hired from Mozilla in July of last year. Schroepfer is the VP of engineering. Before Google, Badros worked at Go2Net which was later acquired by InfoSpace. He served as the Chief Technical Architect at both companies. His Google profile doesn’t reveal much about him, other than the schools he attended, and his blog — which he infrequently posts on. Update: Here’s Facebook’s official statement statement:
Information provided by CrunchBase
Information provided by CrunchBase
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 13 Jun 2009 | 2:25 am NASA fuels space shuttle Endeavour for launchCAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA filled space shuttle Endeavour's fuel tank on Friday for an early-morning liftoff on a mission to deliver the last part of Japan's laboratory to theSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Jun 2009 | 2:24 am Facebook Vanity Landrush Tonight At 9 pm PST: Here’s What You Need To Do
At 9 pm PST you’ll be able to log in and claim your new name. Go to facebook.com/username and log into Facebook. You’ll see a tool like the one below to pick a permanent Facebook URL:
Usernames much be in basic text, at least 5 characters long, and include only alphanumeric characters (A-Z, 0-9), or a period or full stop (”.”). When you get your name, the next step is to leave a comment below with your new URL (yep, we want to see it) and then become a Fan of the TechCrunch Facebook page. Ok, to be honest, that last step is optional and probably has very little impact on you getting the vanity URL you really want. But it won’t hurt, either. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 13 Jun 2009 | 2:23 am Andreessen and Horowitz Complete Raising Dough for $300-Million Venture Fund–Let the Seed Investing Begin! [BoomTown]
Even in the midst of a tough investing environment, Silicon Valley legend and serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen (pictured here) and his longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz have completed the raising of his new venture fund, according to the numerous sources close to the situation, and it is oversubscribed. Sources said the fund–which was nicknamed “Project A,” but is actually called Andreessen Horowitz–will be $300 million. It is $50 million over the $250 million he and Horowitz had planned. Several major institutional investors–from universities, for example–have invested large chunks of up to $20 million or more, while a spate of Silicon Valley luminaries have put in amounts of $1 million or less. The quick completion of the fundraising, in the midst of a national econalypse, is a good sign perhaps for the forward-leaning culture of tech, which has seen some pull-back by VCs over the last six months. Andreessen, who co-founded Netscape–the iconic browser company that was key to introducing the modern Internet to consumers–and a lot of other start-ups, announced on the “Charlie Rose” television show in February that he was creating the new fund. “For the first time in my life, I am crossing over into the dark side,” said Andreessen at the time (see the video).
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 2:00 am Scanner-cam from earlier in more detail
Here’s what he has to say in his explanatory blog entry:
Sounds good to me. I may look up a few of my craftier friends and see what we can do about putting together something like this with one of the scanners moldering in my my parents’ basement. [via Hack A Day]
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:30 am Oddball Tech: The future is dirt, USB-powered microwaves, and free kidneys onlineSection: Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Web, Websites  Dirty buildingsYou would think that the future of building techniques would be in electronics and new materials infused with nanotechnology. You would be wrong. Forget nanotechnology. That’s old news. The future is in sandcastles. A bunch of folks in Durham, England think that rammed earth can be used as building materials. Strength of the rammed earth depends on water content. Does this mean you’ll be living in a fancy hut in the future? I don’t know, I can’t see the future. [Source] Never leave your deskSo you’re working in your cubicle and you don’t want to go all the way over to the break room to heat up your tiny microwaveable meal. What do you do? You break out the Heinz Beanzawave, the smallest microwave ever and attach it to the USB port on your computer. You would think that this kind of device is pointless and you would be completely right. Don’t you love the waste of resources that go on sometimes? [Source] Need an organ? Go online.
How many times do I have to tell you - get your mind out of the gutter. The Internet is a great way to pick up some hard to find merchandise. Maybe you could grab a vintage Dr. Pepper belt buckle or an old Nintendo. Why not use the Internet to grab yourself a kidney? Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:17 am The Birth and Battle of ConfickerNewScientist has an interesting look back at the birth of the Conficker worm and how this sophisticated monster quickly grew to such power and infamy. "Since that flurry of activity in early April, all has been uneasily quiet on the Conficker front. In some senses, that marks a victory for the criminals. The zombie network is now established and being used for its intended purpose: to make money. Through its peer-to-peer capabilities, the worm can be updated on the infected network at any time. It is not an unprecedented situation. There are several other large networks of machines infected with malicious software. Conficker has simply joined the list. The security community will continue to fight them, but as long as the worm remains embedded in any computer there can be no quick fixes."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:12 am Dear Sony: Denial is not a valid business stategy
Being completely disconnected from market realities and pretending everything will be all right is no way to go through life, Sony. And I’m afraid that at this point there’s no turning back. If, during the first year of the PS3 and PSP’s lifetime, you’d seen the terrible sales and said “we blew it,” you might have been able to save yourself. But I’m convinced you’re going to keep missing opportunities until you’re out of the race. Just don’t croak until the PS3’s magnum opus comes out (probably The Last Guardian, let’s be honest). You may not even compete in the next generation, but at least people will look back at the PS3 the way they look at the Saturn or Dreamcast, and say “What a waste. There were some decent games on that thing.”
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:00 am Company alleges Chinese software has stolen code (AP)AP - A California company claims that the Internet-filtering software China has mandated for all new personal computers sold there contains stolen programming code.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:55 am Accused Facebook Spammer Could Face Jail Time
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 Ars Technica | New MacBook Pro speed tests Computerworld By James Galbraith Anonymous says: I really wish Apple would put price in line with other "comparable" PC's. I would love to own one, but... Macworld - I had been looking forward to this past week for months. I imagined immersing myself in session ... New Apple MacBook review roundup New MacBook Pro Can Boot From an SD Card. (Duh. So Can PCs.) |
Nearly two months before the Pre hit the shelves, one of our Pre-toting compadres gave us the run down on how to take screenshots on the device.
Now, that wasn't all that useful two months ago. Outside of the hundred or so people running around with a pre-release Pre, no one would be taking screenshots for quite some time. With the device now on the shelves, however, we've been seeing a whole lot of people asking how to grab screen captures, and countless other sites relying on the old "point a camera at the screen and pray" method. We figured it was time for a refresher course.
It's easier than you might expect. Ready to grab some screens? Click here for the details.
 CBS News | Bing modified to enable porn filtering CNET News by Larry Magid After plenty of coverage about how its Bing search engine makes it all too easy for kids to find and view porn, Microsoft has made some changes that will make it easier for parents to block or monitor what their kids are viewing on the ... 'Bing' Ballmer Says, 'Don't Drink That Poison Google Milk!' Microsoft takes on Google with a Bing |
AP - TV shows were replaced by the hiss of static in perhaps 1 million U.S. homes Friday as stations ended their analog broadcasts and abandoned the transmission technology in use since the days of Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Howdy Doody.
Father’s Day is coming up, I guess, and Wal Mart is having a fire sale on gadgets and doodad’s to fill dad’s “man cave.” The savings start on June 14th and run till June 20th. Here are a few notable items that will be on sale during that time: $128 Blu-ray player, $697 42-inch LCD HDTV, $199 Palm Pre sans MIR, and a ton of other goods.
The Game Room/Living Room Cave: The hi-def or game experience with new savings:
· $128 Magnavox Blu-ray Disc player (NB500MGX)*
· Two for $20 Blu-ray movie bundles of dads’ favorites such as Shooter/ The Italian Job and Face Off / Next
· $59.96 Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09 All-Play Wii bundle with Wii Motion Plus Accessory and protective sleeve
· $399 PS3 (80GB) Bundle including Quantum of Solace on Blu-ray Disc and the MLB ’09: The Show
· Five for $20 select DVDs – More than 50 favorites including FlyBoys, iRobot, and We Are Marshall
· HDTV savings – $398 Sanyo 37-inch LCD (720p – model DP37649), $697 Vizio 42-inch LCD (1080p – model VO420E), and $1,788 Sony Bravia 52-inch (1080p- model KDL-52S5100)
The Home Office Cave: New products arrive and new savings inspire.
· $398 Dell Inspiron Black Notebook Computer* or $848 Dell Studio One 19 All-in-one Touch Desktop Computer – both exclusively at Walmart
· $69 Canon Pixma Ink Jet Photo Printer with Fax
· $69 Seagate Free Agent Go 250GB Portable Hard Drive
Mobile Man Cave: Popular GPS and cellular products for dads on-the-go, enjoying the drive.
· $199 Palm Pre smart phone (with qualifying contract, no mail-in rebate) – select stores
· $128 Garmin nuvi 250, 3.5 inch touch screen GPS - voice guidance and loaded with more than 5 million points of interest*
· $10 Glove Box Tool Kit (52-piece) for the car
· $46 iPod-Compatible FM Transmitter and Car Charger, available online only at Walmart.com
The “Deck” Cave: For grilling with the guys, playing chef for the family, or hanging out:
· $17 Grill Care Co. four-piece stainless steel barbecue tool set
· $20 Weber’s Way to Grill guide
· $149 Royal Oak 30-inch Deluxe Charcoal Grill or $198 Brinkman 4-Burner Gas Grill
· $50 Classic Cotton Rope Hammock, available online at Walmart.com
The Garage Cave: For escapes in the garage or making minor improvements
· $15 Black & Decker 75-piece drill accessory kit or $15 Black & Decker cordless screwdriver
· $15 Carrand Power Jet Wash Wand, $25 Torin Blackjack floor jack, $30 5-gallon ShopVac
· $100 Karcher 1,550 PSI Pressure Washer
Last night, BoomTown went to a lovely party thrown by David Hornik, the August Capital VC who also runs The Lobby conference in his spare time.
He threw the event, because those who attend the annual invitation-only gathering in Hawaii wanted to get together again during the year in Silicon Valley for even more schmoozing.
I went to the first Lobby in the fall of 2007 (you can see my video of that below too), so Hornik let me in to have some pizza and beer at August’s offices on Sand Hill Road and use my Flip video to ask those in attendance where they thought the digital sector was in terms of the economy and innovation.
So, here’s Hornik, angel investor Brett Bullington (who is also in the 2007 video, but in shorts) and BillShrink’s Peter Pham, as well a merger of MINIs.
Here’s the video (with my 2007 one below it):
 Telegraph.co.uk | Microsoft Browser Offer Fails to Impress Europe New York Times By KEVIN J. O'BRIEN BERLIN - European regulators, wary of repeating an earlier mistake, signaled this week that Microsoft's offer to sell a browserless Windows system on the Continent did not go far enough. Microsoft hopes charity push will spur IE downloads Six Editions of Windows 7: What's With All the Whining? |
AFP - Videogame players will soon get to tinker with some of the grimmest times in history.
I’ll keep this review short and sweet, folks.
If you’re looking for a second, third or even fourth Wiimote for your Wii then allow me to suggest picking up Nyko’s Wand. It’s priced $5 less than Nintendo’s Wii Remote and you’ll never know the difference when playing with your Wii Wii. It even comes with a blue condom!
With larger buttons and a rubberized grip, the Wand is far superior to the Wii Remote offering better control and a colorful button layout so you don’t have to hunt and peck. Maybe it’s just me, but the tiny white buttons with even tinier font on the Wii Remote confuse the heck out of me. That or I just don’t play my Wii enough.
I was a bit apprehensive about the D-pad on the Wand, but I found my Klonoa gaming skills were much improved thanks to the larger button configuration. The rubberized backside and B-trigger made it much easier to hang onto the Wand without using the blue condom that Nyko provides.
Overall, I’m more than happy with the Nyko Wand and recommend it to anyone looking for additional Wii Remotes for the Wii. You won’t notice a difference, I can guarantee it.
 TweakTown | Intel breaks Moore's Law with new Atom chips Computerworld By Eric Lai Computerworld - It seems Moore's Law doesn't apply to the next generation of Intel's Atom chips. The low-cost, power-sipping chips, codenamed "Pineview," will greatly improve upon both of those traits, but at the expense of any significant ... AMD Ahead Of Intel In New Category Of Notebooks - For Now Intel to battle for share of smart-phone chip market |
So you have managed to not pay attention to any of the notices that today is the day that the digital transition is in full effect and old analog televisions cannot receive over-the-air signals without a converter box. What can you do if you’ve been affected? Well if you didn’t pay attention to all the news, then clearly you don’t care about television. So how about some suggestions what to do with all your free time?
Just because your television doesn’t get video over-the-air doesn’t mean it can’t receive a signal any more. Attach a video game system, a DVD player, or maybe a Netflix player or something and you’ve still got content. Your television may not be able to get new content, but it doesn’t mean that your television is dead.
Maybe you don’t even want to touch that television. Why not read something? If you want to feel high tech while reading, you could pick up an Amazon Kindle (check out our review here). High tech or low tech, you could revive that imagination of yours that has laid dormant since the days that you played with Legos.
A lot of these digital signals will have high definition video. The consumer electronics industry says that the next big thing is 3D. The video game manufacturers like Sony and Microsoft say that you can really enjoy the game if you can interact with them more naturally.
Here’s a crazy idea: Go outside and play a sport. The resolution is better than high definition. It’s already in 3D and you don’t need any special glasses unless you choose to wear them. Instead of calibrating a fancy camera based motion controller, calibrate your legs to kick a ball. No need for some fancy “motion plus whatever” to shoot a basket. Get a basketball.
Sure these things may be scary and different, but change can be good. If you need that television fix, there’s always online video sites out there.
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We’ve got good news and bad news. Soon you’ll be able copy your Blu-ray discs. Only once though and that’s not the bad news.
Oh no, the bad news is that under the recently-approved AACS license that includes Managed Copy, the studio can charge you to do this. And it will require new hardware when it hits the market in 2010.
The process will work something like this: Somewhere within the menu of a Blu-ray disc, there will be an option to make a copy. The system will then hook-up with the main server to ensure that the disc hadn’t already been used for this purpose. If it’s given the go ahead, either a DRM-locked down WMV or a Blu-ray disc image will be made. The disc’s serial number will then be recorded in some master database to ensure that the evil consumer will never be able to backup that Blu-ray disc ever again.
Don’t even think your current Blu-ray player supports this. Nope, you will need new hardware. Also since Managed Copy isn’t a specific requirement for Blu-ray, it will be up to manufacturers to include it within their players.
The only thing this ludicrous plan will do is spur more piracy. That’s it.
Here are some of my recent posts about money for credit.com.
A Look at Amish Finances: Amanda Grossman was interested in finding out how it was possible that the Amish, who don't use electricity and shun many modern conveniences, are able to own large, well maintained houses surrounded by plenty of farmland.
How to Prevent Your Waiter from Altering Your Credit Card Bill: Take a cell phone photo of your receipts and check them against your statement or use a geeky checksum method to alter-proof your receipt.
Obama's Policy Advisors Are "Devotees" of Behavioral Economics: In Greensboro, NC, teenage mothers are paid $1 a day by the city if they don't get pregnant. That's not a lot of money, but the small incentive is enough to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy in the town.
25 Traits of the Not-So-Well-To-Do: People who are in debt share 25 similar traits. Those include buying the latest consumer technology, eating out frequently, getting a new car every few years, and maintaining poor health habits.
A Visual History of Credit Cards: Caitlin McDevitt of Slate's The Big Money site has written a fun, brief history of the credit card, starting with a photo of the very first credit card, The Diners' Club from 1951.
Interview with "Nudge" Author Richard H. Thaler: Google invited Richard H. Thaler, author of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, to come to the Google campus and talk about behavioral economics. His hour-long presentation is a fascinating trip through irrational human behavior, especially when it comes to how we make financial decisions.
Interview with Predictably Irrational's Dan Ariely -- the Power of a T-Shirt Slogan In one experiment, Ariely gave a group of volunteers t-shirts with the word "generous" printed on them and gave another group shirts that said "stingy." It turned out the the people behaved according to the word on the shirts they were given, even when the word was printed inside the shirt so that no one else could see it.
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:44 pm
Most TechCrunch writers are iPhone users. And while we’re still debating whether when what time we will be upgrading to the iPhone 3G S next Friday, we are excited for the iPhone OS 3.0 next Wednesday. We’ve had a few requests to publish the apps we use on our iPhones - and we’re going to share that information with you now.
The following list is by no means all of the apps we have on our iPhones. There are plenty of apps we only use a couple times a month (e.g. Shazam), but when we need them, they’re great. We’ve also linked to any TechCrunch/CrunchGear/MobileCrunch reviews of the apps. Let us know which apps you use in the comments below.
| App | Users | Review |
| Yammer | 7 | |
| Qik | 6 | CG |
| Skype | 6 | CG |
| Tweetie | 6 | |
| 5 | MC | |
| foursquare | 4 | |
| Flight Control | 4 | TC |
| Pandora | 4 | TC |
| Recorder | 2 | |
| Loopt | 2 | TC |
| Strategery | 2 | |
| Twitterific | 2 | TC |
| Fieldrunners | 2 | CG |
| Remote | 2 | |
| Deep Green | 2 | |
| Instapaper | 2 | TC |
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The long-standing legal dispute between Toys R Us and Amazon has been resolved in toy retailer’s favor, but at a much discounted price. In a regulatory filing submitted to the SEC Friday, Amazon said it has agreed to pay Toys R Us $51 million to settle claims that it violated an earlier exclusivity agreement with the company. Quite a sum, but far less than the $93 million in damages Toys R Us demanded when it first sued Amazon in 2004, accusing it of violating their partnership by allowing other merchants to peddle toys and baby products on its pages.
Amazon (AMZN) hasn’t yet commented on the settlement beyond the filing, which offers little more information than that it was “unanticipated” and will be charged to “other operating expense” in the second quarter.
Picking apart the bankrupt Psystar corpse has revealed a debt of $75,000 to Apple for “Unsecured Nonpriority Claims,” whatever thoseare. Nobody knows what exactly that might be for, although some savvy mathemagicians have decided it might be for 581 (and a half) copies of Leopard. Not knowing Psystar’s actual sales volume, that number means practically nothing. Did they maybe order all those copies and never pay? Or was that just the unsold ones left over after Apple caught them up in the ongoing legal tiff?
Psystar isn’t saying, probably because it’s got more important things to deal with (and quite a bit more debt to settle). Apple is quiet, too. Maybe it’s something shady? I’m going to say no. Probably just regular debt.
Looking and the smoking wreckage of Psystar certainly drives the point home, though: if you want a Hackintosh, do it yourself. Two of my friends have just put OS X onto sub-$400 netbooks and they love it. Contact your local geek if you’re interested.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Earlier this week a Holocaust denier shot and killed a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Facebook didn’t change its policy on allowing Holocaus denial groups, even though one group quickly put up a cartoon mocking the event.
If attacks on Jews by Holocaust deniers won’t be enough to sway Facebook that this is all hate speech, perhaps angry advertisers will do the trick. Brian Cuban has been tracking advertisers who have insisted their ads don’t show up anywhere near Holocaust denial pages on Facebook, and at least one who doesn’t want ads to be placed on profiles of people who are members of such groups.
Vodafone, Tesco, American Airlines and Domino’s Pizza have pulled advertising, says Cuban.
Domino’s Pizza’s Social Media Specialist Phil Lozen wrote to Cuban saying that “initially, Facebook was pushing back on their ability to block ads” from some of the pages. But as of today even pages showing search results for hate groups won’t have Dominoes ads. He also says that Dominoes would not have purchased ads at all if they knew of the possibility of their ads appearing near Holocaust denial pages.
What we really need are a set of large advertisers to boycott Facebook entirely until these groups are banned. There’s a reason why eBay and other private companies won’t let this kind of hate speech on their sites. It’s bad for business. And as soon as Facebook realizes that, they’ll change their policy. Then look for lots of talk from Facebook employees about how proud they are that their company did the right thing - [insert current policy here].
And for those of you who will argue that the best way to handle hate is to shine a light on it, debate these people openly, and generally assume that reason will prevail: you’re wrong. Read this USA Today opinion piece that is talking about the steady rise of hate groups in the U.S. - “the Internet gives formerly isolated racists, whether individuals or small groups, a means to stoke one another’s smoldering anger. With the ready availability of weapons, even a single person can do enormous harm.”
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At the London International Music Show, Shure introduced a set of headphones that are perfect for “general listening.” The SRH240s feature 40mm neodymium dynamic drivers that promise to reproduce “deep bass with clear mids and highs.” Weighing in at 181 grams, the SRH240 headphones will be available next month for roughly $115.
Shure also rolled out two other high-end headphones, the Professional Studio SRH440 and the Professional Monitoring SRH840. No details on either of these other than specs listed on the Shure site.
via Pocket-Lint
It’s up. It’s down. It’s up. It’s down. That’s the brief, updated history of a billboard-style ad posted by the Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen next to Apple’s (AAPL) store in downtown San Francisco, the subject of an item here last Saturday.
To recap: the ad was designed to promote music-management software offered by doubleTwist, a startup formed by Johansen (known as “DVD Jon” for breaking the copy protection on DVDs). The company arranged to have the ad posted on a glass façade next to a stairway leading to the subway operated by Bay Area Rapid Transit, better known as BART. From some angles, the location made it seem like the ad was on the wall of Apple’s retail store.
The ad first went up June 5, three days before Apple’s closely watched developer conference (where this year the company unveiled a new iPhone and Mac laptops). But it was removed before the show; Johansen said that he was told that BART objected because it was too dark, blocking light from the stairway.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Back at the height of the dotcom bubble, Amazon was signing lucrative deals with traditional retailers to be their online store. One of the biggest such deals was with Toys “R” Us. It was announced with much fanfare in 2000 and was supposed to last a decade. Toys “R” US would handle the toy buying and inventory management, Amazon would handle the Website.
It made sense until, oh, about 2004, when Toys “R” us filed a lawsuit for breach of contract. While Amazon was perfectly happy to be the exclusive online presence for Toys “R” Us, it didn’t feel that it had agreed to make Toys “R” Us the exclusive of provider of toys on Amazon. A New Jersey court ruled in favor of Toys “R” Us back in 2006. But only yesterday did Amazon finally settle with Toys “R” Us, agreeing to pay $51 million.
In an SEC filing Amazon states:
On June 11, 2009, Amazon.com entered into a settlement agreement in its lawsuit with Toys “R” Us, Inc., and its affiliates, with terms that include, among other things, (i) a one-time payment from Amazon.com of $51 million in the third quarter 2009, substantially all of which was unanticipated and will be charged to “Other operating expense” in the second quarter, (ii) dismissal of all claims and counterclaims, and (iii) mutual releases.
Nine years after the initial agreement, that particular dotcom hangover is finally over. It lasted almost as long as the original deal was supposed to be. The lesson here: don’t hand a key part of your business to someone else, especially if it is where your growth is going to be coming from. That is the same as handing control over your destiny to someone else.
(Photo credit: Flickr/Daniel Chan).
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BBC:
"That was how I discovered almost everything when I was a teenager - my dad brought home a modem," he said.I realize a large percentage of artists feel similarly; I just really think Robin Pecknold is tops."That was how I was exposed to almost all of the music that I love to this day, and still that's the easiest way to find really obscure stuff.
"I've discovered so much music through that medium. That will be true of any artist my age, absolutely."
Ooh la la, here’s video of the Archos 9, straight from a recent Archos event in Paris. The quick and dirty: about three hours battery life, Windows 7, 8.9-inch 1024×600 touchscreen, 80GB hard drive, 1.2 GHz Atom CPU, Bluetooth/Wi-Fi, kickstand, onscreen keyboard, and SIM card slot for HSDPA.
Charbax from ArchosFans.com speculates that it’ll cost under $500 here in the US when it launches in the fall. The European launch price is apparently 450 Euro ($632), but US consumers generally pay less since there’s no VAT here.
[ArchosFans.com via SlashGear]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Section: Video, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray
While there is a war raging on about whether it is legal to copy your DVDs or not, you will be able to copy your Blu-ray discs (BDs) complete with the studios’ permission soon. The Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator is responsible for the copy protection on BDs and will require the studios who use their technology to allow BDs to be copied by the consumer. This is called a “managed copy.”
That means that movies that have the AACS copy protection will be copiable starting next year. There are, of course, a bunch of qualifications to this news.
The AACS-LA is only requiring that the studios allow one copy of the BD. There is nothing saying that these copies must be free; the studios will be able to charge for these copies. Also, since this is a “managed copy,” expect it to be DRM-laden and it will probably only work with specific partners. On the bright side, these are supposed to be full copies of the discs including special features as well as the feature film.
The studios still must approve and then sign the agreement. Since the agreement seems relatively studio-friendly, they will probably go along with it unless they want to adopt a new copy protection standard.
As an aside, Mac fans are out of luck since Apple is not participating in the discussions. There’s nothing stopping them from joining in, so if they ever decide to officially support Blu-ray, who knows what will happen.
Read: [Video Business]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Well this ought to be of some use to our Chinese readers. And by that I mean people who are actually in China who visit, for whatever reason, crunch gear dot com. There’s some sort of software called Green Dam that will be required on all Chinese PCs soon that blocks all sorts of fun content from being downloaded and/or viewed. Salty political talk? Banned. Pornography? Banned. (Well that’s 90 percent of the Internet right there, silly political arguments (NOBAMA, REVERSE RACISM, etc.) and porn.) Tips on how to grow marijuana? Banned. Violent video games? Banned. Fun all around!
Now, what’s the issue today? Well, it seems that the software that will filter all that unwanted content, Green Dam, is a terribly coded piece of garbage. In fact, it’s so bad that someone could, if he were so inclined, code it so that any PC running Green Dam can be remotely taken over, thrown into a giant botnet. And even if only a fraction of China’s population uses a PC, that’s still an awful lot of potential zombie PCs gunking up the Internet.
What to do about this? Well, ideally you wouldn’t install Green Damn, thus eliminating the potential for future problems. Other than that? Just be really careful when you use the Internet.
Or, better yet, don’t even bother going online. It’s mostly rubbish. I know: I produce a lot of it on a daily basis.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The web is currently ablaze with headlines that IE8 will not be included in the European release of Windows this fall. In fact, no browser at all is going to be included with the latest version of Microsoft’s operating system. No, Hell has not frozen over — the news is the result of Microsoft’s longstanding (and very costly) antitrust issues with the European Commission. And it has everyone, from the regulators to consumers to IE competitors, very upset. Fortunately, it seems like this is much ado about nothing.
The way some people are portraying it, it’s as if millions of computer users are suddenly going to be left Internet-less, isolated on their home PCs without any hope of ever reaching the web beyond. But an important statistic that some major news outlets are failing to highlight (though most others are pointing out) is that the vast majority of people won’t notice the change at all. That’s because PC makers — your Dells, HPs, etc. — will be able to install IE8 before their computers ever reach the consumer. And you can be sure that for nearly all of computers they sell, they’re going to do just that.
But what about that 5% of users that are buying the the OS in a retail store? For one, consider the fact that many of the people taking the initiative to actually go out and buy Windows 7 are perfectly capable of finding a way to install Firefox or IE on their computers. But what about everyone else? Microsoft has made it clear that it’s going to offer IE on an “easy-to-install basis“, which includes distribution via “via CD, FTP, and retail channels”.
In other words, every single computer store you walk into is going to have giant displays inviting you to grab your Internet Explorer pack. At checkout, your friendly clerk is going to remind you to make sure you grab one. If you find yourself walking out of the store without an IE CD, it’s almost certainly because you made the decision not to. In the incredible event that you do install the OS and can’t figure out where your browser went, there will likely be a hotline at Microsoft dedicated to answering this exact question. No, it’s not going to be especially user-friendly (at least compared to having the application pre-installed). But this is hardly going to be a crisis.
Now, it’s easy to decry Microsoft for this move, but it’s also pretty easy to understand why they’re doing it. The company is eager to launch Windows 7 on time, and it isn’t too keen to hand over another 1.7 billion euros in fines. It also doesn’t want to resort to the so-called “ballot screen which would present a list of alternative browsers during the OS’s first boot, which is one of the solutions being proposed. Microsoft may work out (or be forced to use) an alternative solution, but in the mean time this should help the company avoid any further fines. It’s also a way for Microsoft to effectively tell the European Commission to piss off.
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AP - Ralph Deangelis planned his family's cross-country RV excursion around taking in great sights at Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon. But Deangelis also likes being able to see practical things like local TV weather reports while they're on the road.
In the two years between my high school graduation and his, I called my friend Tony pretty regularly to make sure he hadn't lost his mind at our tiny boarding school in northern Maine. Shortly after I left for college, Tony was inspired by a nearby wind farm in Mars Hill to learn as much as he could about windmills. It sounded like the snow might have finally gotten to him, but at least he was keeping busy.
Over the last year and a half he explained all the math he learned from piles of textbooks in order to design the windmill and its circuitry. I had to hold the phone away from my ear when he got $1000 from a company to actually build the thing. The school promised him some space to work on it. When it turned out he couldn't put it up on school grounds, one of the teachers offered to let him put it up on her farm.
Through all this explaining and excited yelling, I'm glad that my consistent response was: "Don't forget to document it." If you don't document your work, how will anyone ever really understand it?
Tony documented it alright. The same day that he posted the documentation, it was featured on Instructables. Yesterday the windmill was featured on Make Magazine's blog. Today I have the privilege of showing you his final product on Boing Boing Gadgets. Here he is telling it like it is to the local news:
Tony's windmill is sweet in more ways than just that he did it with a $1000 budget, or that he did it in his junior and senior years of high school. Tony made the windmill using lots of waste material from local metal shops, including a strut from the axel of an old Volvo for the windmill's rotor. He convinced Stantech Engineering that his project was worth funding and organized people to help him set the base and put up the finished windmill.
Most importantly, Tony's project demonstrates that clean energy is more achievable than you think.
Another month, another version of the Kindle. I've been using a Kindle since it was shaped like a very thin doorstop and I'm delighted each time I see a new version. The latest version is the DX, a monstrous 9-inch version of the smaller Kindle 2 that supports direct PDF reading without conversion.
Why am I interested in the Kindle? Well, I already have a first-gen Kindle so I'm not too keen on upgrading immediately. But I've been waiting for Amazon to solve something with the Kindle DX that has been nagging me for quite a while. You see, I have a problem. I don't want to read the New York Times on paper anymore but paper seems like the only logical way to read it. Reading the newspaper on a gadget is rude and dangerous - especially with toddlers around the house. It's a tough sell to have a gadget at the breakfast table. But then I know that I'll never read it on the desktop whether through the Times Reader or any other source. So the DX sounded great. It has all of the features of the current Kindle plus rotational sensing and a beautiful, huge screen that might just fit the entire NYT front page and not just one article. So that's why I wanted to see the DX.
How do you get a boat from Florida to the Mediterranean? Easy—just put it on another boat. The Yacht Express is a semi-submersible float-on/float-off yacht carrier, now carrying 18 yachts on its first trans-Atlantic voyage. At 209-meters long, it's the largest yacht transport in the world. (And the only that's purpose built just for yachts.)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
At Launch Silicon Valley this past week, I saw a demo of Gliider, a Firefox plug-in and tool that allows you to drag and drop travel information you collect from around the web. The video explains the concept behind Gliider, which is still in private beta, fairly well. While the travel 2.0 space is nearly saturated with a plethora of competitive products, Gliider’s tool is incredibly useful and its focus is narrow (Gliider only wants to help users with planning), which could make it standout in the crowd.
After you download the plug-in, you can pop-out the Gliider trip planner box from your browser when you need it. Within the planner box, you can create a trip, specify where you are traveling to (Gliider’s search box offers auto suggestions), and when you plan to go. Gliider will automatically create folders for each type of information, including flights, hotels, shopping, transport and food. You can also create customized folders.
When you come across useful travel info, like hotel, restaurant, or flight listings, you can highlight the text and images and simply drag and drop the info into the box. Once the item is in the organizer, you can make insert comments to each item. It replaces bookmarking for travel and automatically organizes links, sites, and listings for you. Once you’ve finished the planning process of a trip, Gliider will email you all your details in a PDF file. The startup will also be rolling out a iPhone app that will let you view your planned trips.
Gliider’s proprietary technology will read where and when you will be traveling and provide customized hotel deals for you. And Gliider will also track hotel deals, letting you know when a price goes up or down. The tool doesn’t yet do the same for flights, which would also be a useful item to track. Gliider will soon have a “ask around” feature, which via Facebook Connect, will let you solicit advice on a trip or listing from your Facebook friends.
Gliider mainly makes money from affiliate fees—when they suggest deals (they have a partnership with Expedia) and a user clicks to the deal and books, Gliider will get a cut from the purchase. The startup’s CEO and co-founder Jordan Stopler, declined to say how much they receive in these deals but also added that the startup will be offering deals on flights as well in the future. Gliider will also be adding functionality for IE8 soon.
The most obvious and serious competitor to Gliider in this space is TripIt, a popular travel site (and one that Mike can’t live without) that lets you generate an itinerary by simply forwarding the service your email confirmations from hotels and airlines. NileGuide also is similar in function. But the beauty of Gliider is that it’s solely focused on planning a trip and not on creating a step by step itinerary for travelers. And the fact that Gliider is a plug-in makes it easy to access and integrate with the browser experience.
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Nearly two months before the Pre hit the shelves, one of our Pre-toting compadres gave us the run down on how to take screenshots on the device.
Now, that wasn’t all that useful two months ago. Outside of the hundred or so people running around with a pre-release Pre, no one would be taking screenshots for quite some time. With the device now on the shelves, however, we’ve been seeing a whole lot of people asking how to grab screen captures, and countless other sites relying on the old “point a camera at the screen and pray” method. We figured it was time for a refresher course.
It’s easier than you might expect. Ready to grab some screens? Click here for the details.
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(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)
Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).
Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."
Section: Peripherals, Displays/Projectors
Currently, LCD displays use a backlight which drains batteries. A new technology called “mirasol” is looking to change all of that. The idea behind mirasol is by using mirrors the display can be lit with ambient light.
Another power saving feature is that the mirrors only have to move to reflect light when you move. If you place something like a digital picture frame with the mirasol technology, the mirrors can stay in position and use very little energy while still displaying the image.
The other good news about this technology is that it is not just another concept. Qualcomm set up a factory in Taiwan to put these displays together and we could see them in use this year. There are several devices that already use this kind of technology but they could not display full color. Mirasol will be able to show many colors and can display video and images.
No word on how this technology would operate with very low light situations.
Read: [MSNBC]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Buyer’s remorse. It’s been around forever and is especially rife in the gadget world, where every year there is a smaller, faster or cuter version of every device you own. But where a product’s life used to be measured in years, now it can be just months. In the cellphone market, this is particularly dangerous: You sign up for a 24 month relationship with a single gadget, but even as you pen your name on the line you know you’ll be tempted to cheat in less than a year.
Now, right or wrong, buyers are fighting back and trying to force manufacturers to give them cheap upgrades. Sometimes they have a case, but most of the time they’re just whining. Here are five of the worst examples we’ve seen this year.
iPhone 3G and 3GS
Apple seems to attract a lot of upgrade envy, possibly because of a relatively small and easy-to-understand product lineup, or possibly because the company gets publicity like no other. Right now the problem is the iPhone 3GS. Current iPhone 3G owners wanting to get their hands on the new phone will have to pay $700 for the top-of-the-line 32-GB handset, $400 more than the cost for new customers.
This isn’t the first time Apple has annoyed its customers with iPhone pricing — the original iPhone cost $600 on launch and then dropped to $400 just a couple of months later. In that case, Apple actually listened to all the whiners and issued a $100 store credit to early adopters.
The difference this time, though, is that people who signed up for a two-year contract are now complaining, even though they knew this would happen. They bought a subsidized handset in return for being a customer for the next two years, and now they want to change their minds. Our advice? Suck it up, and quit whining.
Kindle 2 and DX
Amazon certainly engaged in some questionable product-launch scheduling this year. The Kindle 2 replaced the original Kindle, and barely a month after it started shipping, along came the Kindle DX, a bigger, more expensive version of the e-book reader with PDF-compatibility and a display viewable in landscape format.
There was an outcry, and many Kindle 2 buyers tried to return their perfectly good devices so they could upgrade to the new one. “Unfair!” they cried, saying that Amazon was somehow in the wrong for announcing two products so close to each other.
But this is, again, nonsense. The Kindle and the Kindle DX are quite different products. One is a reader for novels and the like, the other is for textbooks and research papers. The DX is really too big to carry for most people, but it is still a lot smaller than a suitcase full of reference books.
Analog TV and Digital TV
You might laugh, but it’s possible that somebody, somewhere, has bought an analog-only TV this year. If the message about the big switch-off was so badly communicated that the Obama administration delayed the throwing of that switch until today, it was badly communicated enough that some hillbilly might have sprung for a new set in the last few months.
In this case, though, there really is someone to blame. Sure, the cousin-marriers might be excused for not keeping on top of the tech news, but the TV stores cannot. We imagine, though, that it is very unlikely: Most of the suppliers, and even the cable companies, are lying about the digital switch to get people to upgrade to unneeded new plans and equipment.
Personal GPS and Every Cellphone
If you have recently bought a personal GPS device, then you really shouldn’t have bothered. Many cellphones have one already, and in the next year or so we think that GPS will become as ubiquitous in phones as cameras have.
While in-car GPS units still have advantages — they’re harder to steal if they come as standard, they can hook into the car’s speakers, and they can have a big, juicy antenna to suck in the satellite signals, personal GPS devices have little to recommend them over the ones in phones.
Megapixels and More Megapixels
Believe it or not, we’ve actually read complaints from D3 owners that they felt cheated by Nikon’s announcement of the D3x, despite the fact that the cameras have almost completely opposite purposes. The older D3 is a dream camera for many. It has a 12-megapixel sensor which can see in the dark, and it costs around $5,000. If you have bought one of these, it’s likely you know a lot about cameras and have plenty of experience.
The D3x, on the other hand, is a 24.5-megapixel monster that weighs in at $8,000 and is better suited to a brightly lit fashion studio than a dark sports stadium.
As we said, two completely different cameras in purpose, and yet even smart people, people willing to pay thousands for a camera, are seduced by megapixels. Is this buyer’s remorse … or just buyer’s stupidity?
In this week’s edition of the Gadget Lab podcast, Priya Ganapati and I discuss the climactic outcome of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The company’s major announcement was the iPhone 3GS — the highly anticipated third-generation iPhone, whose performance is reportedly two times faster than the iPhone 3G. We also highlight substantial price cuts for the MacBook family and what they mean for Apple.
In lighter news, the Palm Pre hit stores Saturday, and Priya summarizes consumer response to the smartphone. Incidentally, Amazon released its large-format Kindle DX reader on June 10, and we discuss Steven Levy’s review of the product. The verdict? Bigger is indeed better.
This week’s podcast features Priya Ganapati and Brian Chen, with superb audio engineering by Michael Lennon.
If the embedded player above doesn’t work, you can download the Gadget Lab podcast #78 MP3 file.
Use iTunes? Subscribe to the Gadget Lab Audio Podcast in iTunes. Do it now!
Like video? Aim your browser at the Gadget Lab Video Podcast — available on iTunes and right here on the Gadget Lab blog.
The blogosphere went buck wild with Apple rumors prior to this week’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The rumors ranged from the predictable to the wacky, with publications placing bets on everything from new iPhones to a fabled touchscreen tablet.
Of course, many rumors proved to be correct while others were irrevocably wrong. Fortunately, by studying the outcomes, we can learn who to trust — and what to expect before Apple’s next big product unveiling.
Here’s our status report of all the WWDC rumors, followed by a report card grading the publications responsible for them. And, for the sake of fairness, we grade ourselves, too.
New iPhone
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps; MacRumors; WeiPhone
Status: True
Anyone could have guessed Apple would announce a new iPhone at the Worldwide Developers Conference this week, given that the current iPhone 3G and its predecessor launched July 2008 and June 2007, respectively. Nonetheless, prior to the conference, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster placed an oddball bet that no new iPhones would be announced at WWDC; rather, he anticipated Apple would host a special event later this month or in July to unveil iPhone upgrades.
The tech blogs won against a supposedly informed analyst by having faith in the most obvious outcome, which is quite often a good strategy when playing the Apple guessing game. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber stood out among the crowd: He even knew the new iPhone’s name (iPhone 3GS) before anyone else in the blogosphere. That deserves extra credit.
Two New iPhones for Verizon
Source: BusinessWeek
Status: False
This was another case where banking against the obvious resulted in a miss. Verizon’s CEO Ivan Seidenberg said in April that Apple was unlikely to share the iPhone with Verizon until 2010, when the carrier begins rolling out its fourth-generation network. Also, Apple said in an April earnings call that the company had no plans to change its exclusive contract with AT&T. Nonetheless, with no mention of those two factoids, BusinessWeek reported hearing from two sources “familiar with the matter” that two new iPhone devices for Verizon could be available as soon as this summer. Clearly, it doesn’t take much for one to qualify as “familiar with the matter,” given how vague and loaded that phrase is.
To be fair, BusinessWeek does, toward the end of the story, cite Munster, who says such a deal would be unlikely due to “technology hurdles involved in building and supporting its first CDMA iPhone.” Fine point — so fine, in fact, it should’ve appeared in the first or second paragraph.
Touchscreen Tablet aka “Media Pad”
Source: BusinessWeek
Status: False
In the same story as the one above, BusinessWeek alludes to the second iPhone device for Verizon as a “media pad” enabling users listen to music, view photos, watch high-definition videos and place calls over a Wi-Fi connection. The publication’s source describes the device as smaller than the Amazon Kindle, but with a bigger touchscreen than the Kindle’s. This sounds an awful lot like Apple’s fabled touchscreen tablet that rumor blogs have been squabbling about since July 2008. We have faith that such a device will surface in the next year or so, but BusinessWeek suggested the tablet could launch this summer, meaning Apple might possibly announce the device at WWDC. Nope.
Incremental Upgrades for MacBooks
Source: 9 to 5 Mac
Status: True
Apple fan blog 9 to 5 Mac received a tip that the MacBook family would receive minor upgrades at WWDC. We agreed that this was likely to happen, because Apple’s MacBooks generally have a lifespan of seven months before they’re refreshed. The news that came out of WWDC was even better than expected: Not just upgrades, but significant price cuts that should poise Apple for significant growth in the notebook market.
iPhone-Specific Rumors
Speedier processor and additional RAM
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps; MacRumors; WeiPhone
Status: True
We expected Apple to boost performance in the new iPhone: The company called the handset “the future of gaming,” and a processor and memory boost for the iPhone would help deliver on that statement. Sure enough, that happened; the S in iPhone 3GS even stands for “speed.”
Magnetometer
Source: The Boy Genius Report; Daring Fireball; WeiPhone
Status: True
Various blogs did some clever investigation to dig up this detail about the new iPhone before Apple could even introduce it — the addition of a magnetometer (i.e., digital compass), which will enhance the handset’s GPS capabilities among other changes. A job well done.
Same Industrial Design as 3G
Source: WeiPhone; Daring Fireball
Status: True
This was a smart bet, because when added together, all the probable rumors suggested most of the new iPhone’s changes were occuring inside, leaving the outside unchanged. Sure enough, the iPhone 3GS looks exactly the same as the iPhone 3G, even in the same colors.
Improved camera with auto-focus lens, video recording and video editing
Source: Engadget; MacRumors; BusinessWeek
Status: True
The iPhone 3GS’s camera sports a 3.0-megapixel camera (up from the 2-megapixel cams in its predecessors) with auto-focus and video-recording capabilities. The video recorder also includes an editing interface. Woohoo!
$200 and $300 price points to be maintained
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps
Status: True
It was a wise guess that Apple would maintain the same price points: Apple’s iPhone 3G was a tremendous success, selling more than 10 million units in 2008, so why not keep the same price points? Later, Daring Fireball went the extra mile and predicted Apple would keep the 8-GB iPhone 3G alive, selling that model for $100 to attract even more consumers. That turned out to be right, too.
Storage options increased: 16 GB and 32 GB
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps
Status: True
The iPhone 3G came in two models, an 8 GB and 16 GB, so 16 GB and 32 GB was the logical next step. Sure enough, that happened.
Sleeker design
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
We thought there a possibility the new iPhone 3GS would get a tiny bit sleeker while maintaining the same overall design, but this turned out to be wrong. The rumor originated from Apple iPhone Apps, a rather obscure blog, so our hopes weren’t very high for this.
1.5 times the battery life of the current models
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: True
Though Apple iPhone Apps’ rumor report was mostly wrong, it was correct about battery life. Apple claims the iPhone 3GS offers 1.5 times the battery life than its predecessor.
OLED screen
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
We didn’t believe this for a second: OLEDs are expensive and would likely drive the iPhone’s price points higher — not a great idea in this economy.
Glowing Apple logo on the back
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
Unnecessary feature, and sure enough, a false rumor.
Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
We doubted this, because we saw no evidence of it. Also, a reader intelligently pointed out that the metal band is the basis of the structural integrity of the device.
Rubber-tread backing
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
We didn’t think this would happen, either, soley based on the fact this would be ugly, and Apple doesn’t like ugly stuff.
Built-in FM transmitter
Source: Apple iPhone Apps
Status: False
Nope. Not a feature users are demanding, and other iPods don’t have it, so why would Apple introduce it in the iPhone?
Grading the Blogs
Without further ado, our report card:
Daring Fireball: A+
Gruber appears to have some pretty damn trustworthy sources: Prior to WWDC, he knew everything from the name of the new iPhone to the fact that it would remain the same colors. Who is his mole?
BusinessWeek: C
Major minus points for drumming up a rumor that was clearly and utterly improbable. Plus points for being right about video editing in the new iPhone.
9 to 5 Mac: B
Kudos for guessing the MacBook upgrades would come, though there weren’t many details about what would be included in those upgrades.
The Boy Genius Report, Engadget and Mac Rumors: A-
Smart investigation led these publications to dig up details about the new iPhone’s camera. Thanks for spoiling the surprise, guys!
WeiPhone: A
A commenter at Chinese Apple fan blog WeiPhone was the first to suggest the new iPhones’ improvements would be internal, leaving the outside unchanged. The tipster said the new iPhone would include a faster 600-MHz processor (up from 400 MHz in the current iPhone), 256-MB RAM (up from 128 MB), and a larger storage capacity of up to 32 GB (up from a maximum of 16 GB). Spot on!
AppleiPhoneApps: D-
This blog’s rumor report was so bogus and unlikely that it receives our lowest grade yet. An FM transmitter? C’mon.
And finally:
Wired.com: B
All of our WWDC predictions and iPhone predictions were correct, although we did miss a few things: Price cuts for the MacBooks, the inclusion of the iPhone 3G for $100 and a super low price tag ($30) for Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Also, we were slightly off with the release date of the new iPhone and iPhone 3.0: Our source said to expect late June or early July, but it turns out iPhone 3GS is hitting stores June 19. Not quite late June, but close.
Photo: Adam Jackson/Flickr
It has been said time and time again, but really: the iPhone is a damn good gaming device. It’s the perfect platform for tower defense games. Never played one? In tower defense games, players build towers that fire an endless barrage of artillery at an onslaught of enemies. The goal is to kill the enemies before they reach a given target. The classic iPhone tower defense game is Fieldrunners. After being released by SubAtomic Studios, Fieldrunners quickly shot up the ranks of the iPhone App Store, eventually becoming a household name to iPhone owners. Now, ngmoco, a premier iPhone game developer, has teamed up with Rough Cookie to launch its own version of the tower defense game: StarDefense.
StarDefense brings a whole new twist to tower defense: its in 3D. Intrigued? You should be. Each level is a different planet (think: Super Mario Galaxy), and shows up on your screen as either a globe or a cube. You can rotate around the planet by flicking your finger across the screen and zoom in or out by pinching the screen with two fingers. On each planet is a start and an end point (or “defense wall”), with a winding path that wraps around the planet between the two. You are armed with 5 types of towers, and your job is to kill all of the enemies (known as S’rath) before they blow up your defense wall. 10 enemies to the wall and you lose. The enemies come in “waves:” each wave is a group of enemies of the same type, and there is a delay between each wave (with the tap of a button, you can eliminate the delay). To beat each of the worlds, you have to wipe out 60 waves of enemies.
The gameplay is pretty fun. You drag and drop one of 5 towers onto different spots on the planet and strategically place them to optimize the towers’ ability to kill the enemies. You can’t rely too heavily on one tower, because certain enemies may be resistant to them and just walk right past them. This makes for a challenging yet exciting gameplay because it requires creativity and thought to make it through each level. Frankly, tower defense games are like really high-tech, super fun puzzles. Your job is to figure out the right placement and mix of towers to ensure that you kill all of the enemies. You can also upgrade your towers up to 2 times each, adding to the complexity and intricacy of your strategy.
Tower defense games can often be pretty slow-moving, and repetitive. Though still not the fastest game in the world, StarDefense carefully manages the pace of the game to make it more exciting and to keep you on your toes. You often have to upgrade your towers during the middle of a wave, and sometimes don’t even finish off every enemy in a wave before the next one starts. StarDefense’s carefully-crafted rhythm ensures you don’t fall asleep at the wheel, and keeps your mind from wandering off wondering what would happen if aliens descended upon Earth with a quest for destruction.
A major cause for frustration is the repetitiveness of the game. Because there are over 60 waves in each level, and the levels are fairly challenging, it’s not uncommon to get to wave 56 out of 60 and then lose. Bam! You’re back at wave 0. Maybe you like wanting to beat yourself over the head watching the same enemies go down the same path, but I don’t - so 60 waves was a bit overkill. I wouldn’t say this was a deal-breaker by any means, but definitely a downside, and I would’ve preferred 9 levels with 40 waves each instead of the 7 levels with 60 waves that StarDefense has.
Now, if there’s one thing about StarDefense that will shock and awe you, its the graphics. They are probably what put this game over the top in my book; the planets, the towers, the enemies - they all look fantastic. The worlds are diverse and well-crafted; you can really tell that ngmoco had some talented designers working on making this game as visually-appealing as possible. The best part is that you can zoom in or out within each world and find yourselves lost, admiring the intricate details of the environment. Next thing you know the bell has rung and it’s time for recess.
The bottom line is the graphics are great and the gameplay is pretty sweet. We’d take it over Fieldrunners or TapDefense. If you’re a fan of those games but feel they’re getting a bit stale, check out StarDefense.
What we like:
What we didn’t like:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
AI is reporting that Best Buy will be offering insurance on the iPhone 3G S when it goes on sale next week. Current Black Tie Protection plans range between $7 and $10, but protection for the iPhone 3G S will be significantly more. You’ll have to shell out $15 per month or $180 a year to protect your precious against drops, spills and whatever else you can throw at it. So who’s going to Best Buy to get their iPhone 3G S?
via AI
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
I'm enjoying Casey and Sommer's blog of their trip to Japan, which includes photos and videos of claw machines, self driving cars, and a trip to the Railway Museum and Tokyo National Museum.
Japanification
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:36 pm
Consider this: you’re stranded on a mountain in the middle of a blizzard, and you find yourself hopelessly loss amidst a sea of white. You glance down at your iPhone, to see you only have about a few minutes of battery life left. Looks like a pretty grim situation, right? Well, thanks to a recently revealed patent filed by Apple, you may just be alright after all.
Apple’s patent (Application #00901149153, if you’re interested) has a few tricks up its proverbial sleeves to help save your life. It seeks to create an emergency mode for cell phones that determines whether or not the phone call you’re making is an emergency call, and acts accordingly to give you the best chance of getting help. First, the phone would make any emergency call harder to disconnect - a glancing blow to the End key won’t mean the end for you. On top of that, emergency mode would disable all non-critical functions of the phone to try and give you as much juice to make the call as possible.
Also useful is the activation of what the application calls “emergency phrase buttons”. Let’s go back to our previous thought experiment, and amend it a little bit. Not only are you stranded on a mountain, but now you’re also being attacked by a polar bear for some reason.
First off, way to go. You had to piss off that bear, didn’t you?
Second, those emergency phrase buttons can read off a pre-recorded statement to an emergency worker on the phone. Not only that, a speech synthesizer can read out your current location (using the GPS that wasn’t turned off by emergency mode), so rescuers will know exactly where to find your hideous, bear-mauled corpse.
Apple’s got a great idea here, and hopefully it’s something we’ll see on an iPhone in the not-too-distant future. Maybe the whole “bear on a mountain” scenario is a little farfetched, but it’s clear to see how useful something like this could be, and hey - once they get everything worked out, it could just be a simple software update away.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
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Open source programmers and crafters may seem like they come from different worlds. Still, the two communities have much in common, says Ele Carpenter, the founder of Open Source Embroidery, a largely British movement.
The movement brings together knitters, embroiderers and quilters who see parallels between the way they create their crafts and how open source software creators share their ideas. At the BildMuseet University in Sweden, an exhibition — also called Open Source Embroidery — showcases artworks that use embroidery and code as a tool for participatory production and distribution.
“The idea of collaboration has been made cool by open source software,” says Carpenter, the curator of the exhibition. “But artists have been working like this for a long time.”
Even the differences between needlework crafts and open source software are alike, she says. Embroidery is largely dominated by women, while software is created mostly by men, she says. In embroidery, tiny stitches come together to create a pattern visible on the front of the fabric, while its system is revealed on the back. It’s similar to how software is created.
The arguments about open source vs. free software can also be applied to embroidery, says Carpenter, where artists struggle with questions around borrowing and modifying patterns. “The Open Source Embroidery project simply attempts to provide a social and practical way of discussing these issues and trying out the practice,” says Carpenter.
The Open Source Embroidery movement, which started in 2005, says it will hold workshops to explore the idea further. “We are not all programmers,” says Carpenter, “but we are all looking to understand the shared philosophy and methods between craft and technology.”
Programming geeks, largely from the DIY community, are slowly acknowledging these similarities, agrees Becky Stern, an American artist whose work is included in the Bild Museet exhibition.
The exhibition will open in San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art on Oct. 2.
The Open Source embroidery exhibition also explores the history of computing as a craft. For example, the Jacquard loom is a mechanical loom invented in 1801 that used binary punch cards to design woven patterns. The loom is seen as the first programmed machine and one that inspired Charles Babbage in his design of the analytical engine.
Top Photo: Ele Carpenter
Bottom Photo: George H. Williams
Step 2: Making an Ax from Jamie O'Shea on Vimeo.
Could humans at any point in history, given the right information, construct an electronic communication network? To test this hypothesis, Substitute Materials will attempt to build a functional electric battery and telegraph switch from materials found in the wilderness, using no modern tools except information from the internet. The telegraph will be a first step towards an ahistorical internet.Currently, Jamie is working on making an ax to cut wood to make tools to make a smelting furnace. Above, a basket that Jamie made to hold things he collects.Full-scale construction of the artifacts is currently underway in Mineral county, Montana.
I wish him luck!
Immaculate Telegraphy
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:07 pm
Actually, Comfort Wipe, I think living in bodies that must use the bathroom at all is archiac. Can you fix that?
And sorry, chubby dude, I do not hate on the portly types, but I really don't think there's any "advantages" to being overweight. Unless you don't like to wipe your own ass in the first place.
Thank god they weren't suggest what I first thought they were suggesting, which was to also use it as a shower brush. [via The Awl]
Jim Leftwich says:
"I'm thinking the next step beyond raising chickens in the backyard is to have your own Goat Tower!
"Currently there are only three Goat Towers in the world (which I think you'll agree is not nearly enough!). The original Goat Tower was built in 1981 by Charles Back at the Fairview Wine and Cheese Estate in Paarl, South Africa. The estate has 750 Saanen goats and some of these are allowed access to the tower.
"The other two Goat Towers are the "Tower of Baaa" in Findlay, Illinois and one built in 2006 in Ekeby, Norway, both of which are modeled on the original.
"Here's an interview with David Johnson, who built one in Illinois, and which is interesting because it contains a lot of great details about the Goat Tower's construction."
"Goats love it and people driving by can't believe it," says David Johnson of Findlay, Ill., about his 31-ft. tall, 7-ft. dia. "goat tower" built with the help of the late Jack Cloe, Herrick, Ill. The tower was constructed with 5,000 hand-made bricks, each one a different size and shape. The tower has 276 concrete steps, arranged to form a spiral staircase, that allows Johnson's goats to climb up and down with ease.Goat TowerJohnson has 34 Saanen milk goats that use the tower. "Goats are the most curious animals in the world so they use the tower a lot. They come and go, passing each other on the ramp as needed."
...
The roof is supported by wheels that ride on a circular steel rail along the upper edge of the tower wall. "I cut a door into the roof and plan to use a garage door opener to rotate the roof and use it as an observation tower. I might even bring a telescope up there to look at stars," says Johnson.
Along with the fanny-pack, nothing says “I’ve given up” like dorky cellphone holders. Wear any of the myriad nerd-holsters available today and you are essentially ruling out the possibility of sex for the rest of your life.
Take a look at this king of anti-aphrodisiacs, the Wrap Strap, from the people who brought you the awful Cell-Wrap. It’s a neck-strap which holds your cellphone at chest level, so you can fire up the speaker-phone and natter away without having to actually hold the handset. Promised benefits include “No more tired arms and hands” and “No more painful neck and ears”. Unmentioned side-effects include “No more credibility amongst friends” and “Guaranteed hatred of every commuter on the subway”.
The Wrap Strap will even work with cordless home phones, if you still have one. And at “just” $12 for what is essentially a length of webbing with a couple of velcro pads, you could afford one in each of the three colors.
Product page [Universal Cell Wrap]
Chinese authorities are having to grapple with more bad publicity for the “Green Dam-Youth Escort” software that Beijing wants to see included with all PCs sold in China from July 1.
Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered major security vulnerabilities in the Internet filtering software, according to this report. The authors say that initial testing of version 3.17 of the Green Dam software found serious security holes, which the authors attributed to programming errors.
Worryingly, the report said that once the software is installed, “any Web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer. This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet [a group of software robots that run without a computer owner's knowledge].”
Read the rest of this post on the original site
For bike enthusiasts, ain’t no mountain high enough and now ain’t no river wide enough. A Chinese man has created an amphibious bike that travels as well on land as it does on water.
A few large empty water bottles and a touch of madness is all it takes to do this mod. The bike uses eight gallon water bottles attached to a metal frame to keep it afloat. Paddles on the wheels allow it to be maneuvered on water. On road, the water gallons are pulled up and it becomes just another bike zipping along.
The bike made by Li Weiguo was shown in the Hubei province in China. It cost around 20,000 yuan or $300o to develop, says Inhabitat.
While, for now, it may be a novelty, Li Weiguo is seriously looking for a manufacturer for his invention. Any takers?
Check out more photos of the water bike
Photo: Floating Water Bike/
Section: Apple, Web, Web Browsers
Apple released a statement today that their new web browser, Safari 4 has been downloaded by both Mac and Windows users over 11 million times in just three days of its full version release. Additional, data released by Apple indicates that at least 6 million of these 11 million downloads are from Windows users.
Safari 4 has been available in beta since February and Apple has touted the browser as the fastest and most innovative web browser ever to be released. Early reports indicate that Safari 4 is very fast, mostly in part to the Nitro JavaScript engine that can load web pages up to three times faster than IE 8 and Firefox 3. Users can get the Safari 4 download for free from the Apple website.
However, detractors are saying that this 11 million statistic posted by Apple is bogus and doesn’t prove the success of the new version of their web browser. The main reason? Mac owners were automatically updated with the browser over the last couple of days.
Read: [PC World]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories.
Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)
Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).
Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."June 13, 4:04pm: A white guy named David discovers every variation of his name on Facebook is already taken, and finally reconsiders the condescending contempt he's always had for black people who give their kids unique names. This tiny bit of racial reconsideration is the only unequivocally good news to come out of the Facebook Usernames launch.
Going on Royal Pingdom’s latest gallery, there are two schools of supercomputer design. First, we have the kick-ass, retro-future Death Star category, which includes the The Connection Machine 5 (above), a machine so cool-looking that it actually had a minor role in the movie Jurassic Park. It wasn’t just flashing lights, though. The CM-5 had a massive two (2!) terabytes of RAM, and that was back in 1993.
The second kind of supercomputer design is what we like to call the “filing-cabinet school”, designs so dull that they fit right into even the beige-est of offices. The epitome of this was the cool-sounding Earth Simulator, the world’s fastest computer between 2002 and 2004 with a ridiculous 10 terabytes of RAM. The Earth Simulator could more accurately be called the “Locker-Room Simulator”, so closely does it resemble row upon row of metal closets.
As ever with Pingdom’s galleries, you’ll learn a lot. Did you know, for example, that between 1997 and 2000, the world’s fastest computer used Pentium chips?
Ten of the coolest and most powerful supercomputers of all time [Royal Pingdom. Thanks, Peter!]
The big letdown when the new iPhone 3G S was announced on Monday was the lack of a tethering option on AT&T. While almost any iPhone customer around the world will be able to share their phone’s internet connection with their computer, AT&T customers are out of luck.
If you’re willing to do a little hacking, though, you can have tethering right now, and you don’t even need to jailbreak the iPhone. All you need to do is add a little configuration file to the phone, although the method is a little tortuous.
9to5 Mac has the full step-by-step guide, but in short, you need to be running the new iPhone 3.0 software (if you’re a developer, you have it already, if not, it can be found in the darker corners of the internet) and you’ll need the first pre-release version of iTunes 8.2. With these parts in place, it’s as easy as using a free application called iPhoneTether App to build a custom .ipcc file to modify the phone’s settings. Don’t worry, its easy, and once done you’ll find a new option in the iPhone’s network settings.
That’s it. Now you can use your iPhone as a portable internet hot-spot. Mac-only right now, but we expect there will be a Windows version of the software soon enough.
Here’s how to get tethering on any iPhone right now, no jailbreak, for free [9to5 Mac]
Today, the full sessions of the seventh D: All Things Digital conference get rocking–literally–by posting Kara’s onstage interview with music powerhouse and Ticketmaster (TKTM) CEO Irving Azoff.
Here’s the video of the D7 interview (including the very funny intro that music legend Joe Walsh did for Azoff) :
Palm has shipped 100,000 Pres since the device debuted on June 6. This, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Coster, who estimates that more than 50,000 phones were sold in the first two days it was available and says the company may have sold another 50,000 in the days that followed. “Channel checks conducted Thursday, the 11th, suggest shipments to Sprint stores have averaged about 10-15 units every 2 days, implying about 36K-55K units will have shipped by Saturday (1,200 stores, three shipments of 10-15 units),” Coster said in a research note issued this morning. RadioShack inventory has been replenished once (back to launch-date levels or higher), whereas Best Buy has not received additional units (based on very limited sample). Our channel checks included 28 Sprint stores across the nation, 3 Radio Shack stores, and 3 Best Buys….Though we came away with a generally favorable impression of the sell-in momentum that Palm is currently experiencing, we also detected a lot of uncertainty. Sprint stores are being dripfed devices without much certainty or uniformity regarding timing and quantity. A Best Buy associate expressed hope that devices would be delivered by Friday but sounded doubtful.”
Interesting. Certainly puts Palm’s claim that “Sprint tells us they have never seen higher demand for a smartphone” in perspective.
Coster’s suggestion for folks intent on buying a Pre but frustrated by the meager supply at Sprint Stores and Best Buy: Try Radio Shack, which “seems to have been neglected by eager early adopters.”
Nikon may be ready to pop its feet in the stirrups and squeeze out a new DSLR in the form of the D300s. A screen capture and an anonymous tip received by Nikon Rumors both point to an update to the two-year-old D300.
The D300 is Nikon’s top-level DX camera, meaning that, unless you opt for full frame, you won’t get a better camera. The D300 debuted alongside the flagship D3 back in 2007, and as the D3 has spawned the D3x, we’re not surprised to learn that there will be an upgraded D300.
The new camera, according to the rumors, will shoot video (we’d be surprised to see any new DSLR from any manufacturer appearing without video), have an audio-in stereo mini-jack as well as a built-in mic and have an SD card slot alongside the Compact Flash slot. This last is interesting because the more expensive D700 lacks these dual slots.
Video will probably be the weird Motion JPEG found in the D90 and D5000. Here’s the relevant section:
Movie
Frame size (pixels) 1,280 x 720/24 fps, 640 x 424/24 fps, 320 x 216/24 fps
File format AVI
Compression format Motion-JPEG
Autofocus Contrast-detect AF on a desired point within a frame is possible (Tripod mode)
Audio Sound can be recorded via built-in or optional external microphone; sensitivity can be adjusted
Maximum length 5 min (1,280 x 720 pixels), 20 min (640 x 424, 320 x 216 pixels)
Interestingly, the sensor will be the same 12MP size of the current D300. The picture at the top of the post is from Nikon’s own site, although I can’t actually find it there anymore. The circles highlight the model name and also the SD card. This looks to be a pretty solid rumor, and hints that there may be changes afoot for the still quite young D700.
Nikon D300s specs [Nikon Rumors]
Nikon D300s LCD screen leaked? [Nikon Rumors]
See Also:
Today, the full sessions of the seventh D: All Things Digital conference get rocking–literally–by posting my onstage interview with music powerhouse and Ticketmaster (TKTM) CEO Irving Azoff.
One of the most important behind-the-scenes movers and shakers in the industry, Azoff is now running the world’s biggest entertainment ticketing company while still heading one of the largest music management companies. He is also personal manager for the Eagles and many others.
He and I talked about all this and more, focusing on the digital forces buffeting the music business.
Here’s the video of the D7 interview (including the very funny intro that music legend Joe Walsh did for Azoff) :
Section: Communications, Cellphones
Sometimes a study or survey comes along that tells us exactly what we already knew. A recent Yahoo HotJobs survey is just one of those. By now we all know that there are people out there (some of us probably included) that use their smartphones to check email while in meetings, or occasionally during conversation. It should also be of no surprise that those around them consider it rude.
This survey comes with a cautionary tale from Reuters, however. Anyone in New York State might know that the state senate has been going through a strange shift from a democratic majority to a republican controlled majority that is a bit confusing to understand. It seems that part of this shift came when billionaire contributor Tom Golisano was talking to Democratic majority leader Malcolm Smith. Smith was more interested in checking his BlackBerry that talking to Golisano. This apparently caused Golisano to talk to other legislators who would then vote the Democrats out of power.
So now, not only will checking your email during meetings or conversations get you in trouble with your boss, co-workers, friends, family and significant others, but it could also shake up an entire state government. Some complain that the practice makes it difficult to retain information from either the meeting or the emails. Reuters talked to a business etiquette trainer, Barbara Pachter, who claimed that we might stop the practice in a year or two as people get more used to the idea of smartphones. Or it could just be that meetings will becoming less boring, which could possibly lead some people to refrain from checking their smartphones.
Read [Reuters]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Recently on Offworld, we watched the network TV debut of Microsoft's motion-controller Natal, took a TV trip back even further to see the original members of The State selling Game Boy Pockets, and saw both the start-stop unveiling of ngmoco's next iPhone first person shooter and the last look at the latest from Minotaur China Shop creators Flashbang: Crane Wars, due for release on Monday.
Elsewhere we saw Reset Generation -- Nokia's fantastic flagship retro-referencing multiplayer strategy game for PC and their N-Gage service -- come to Mac, Linux and web portal Kongregate, took a new look at Apple's beautiful App Store data-viz Hyperwall, and saw a nice piece on the design process behind rebranding EA's Redwood Shores studios as 'Visceral Games'.
And the day's 'one shot's: Platinum Games on designing guns to "look hot in a girl's hand", and Media Molecule offer a replacement for the default iPhone wallpaper (above) for a stitched-up felt LittleBigPlanet of your own.
Another potshot aimed at the working man, friends. The IRS is looking to collecting more taxes on your work-provided cellphone, something the wireless industry—think CTIA, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, etc.—will fight tooth and nail. The industry thinks that if companies and/or employees have to pay more for their phones, they may cancel the service altogether.
But let’s go into a little detail first, figure out what’s going on. The IRS, naturally, wants to collect more tax revenue. There’s a law on the books, from 1989, that says you’re supposed to pay income tax on any personal minutes you use on a work-provided cellphone. That is, if you work for Big Company, and Big Company gives you a BlackBerry to use during the day for your work but you also use said BlackBerry to call your wife to ask what type of cereal the kids want from the store—Cinnamon Toast Crunch, please—those minutes are, technically, taxable income.
Now, the idea that businesses and employees should keep a detailed log of the minutes they use, tallying work-related minutes versus personal-related minutes, is patently absurd; it’s entirely too much of an effort. But the IRS knows this, too.
So, if you cannot be expected to keep a log of your work versus personal minutes used, and thus how much taxable income to pay, what happens? The IRS could set a limit on untaxed personal minutes; use more minutes, and those minutes are taxed (but you’d someone have to keep track of minutes used). The IRS could also use statistics to figure out, on average, how many personal, taxable minutes are used on work-provided cellphones, then tax you from there. Or, simply, the IRS could “waive tax liability” if employees show they use their work-provided cellphones for personal use during business hours.
It’s all terribly confusing, yes.
In any event, should you find yourself in the 28% income tax bracket (which is more than Cristiano Ronaldo will pay in Spain now, mind you), and your company pays $1,500 per year on cellphone service, you could find yourself owing the tax man an additional $105 per year. Is that a huge deal? No, probably not, but it’s still pretty annoying, I’ll grant that.
And here’s where the wireless industry gets mad. Their assumption is that, if companies and employees now have to keep track of minutes, companies may decide it’s not even worth giving employees a cellphone. They may calculate that, the amount of resources needed to keep tabs on everyone’s minutes outweighs the benefits of giving employees cellphones in the first place. And then they’d cancel their cellphone contracts!
My guess is that this won’t be too popular with the working man, no sir.
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Apple claims that Safari 4 is “the world’s fastest” Web browser. That may or may not be true, but certainly its speedy market share gains are impressive. Apple said Friday that more than 11 million copies of the new browser have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads by Windows users.
More than six million downloads by Microsoft (MSFT) Windows users? That means that Safari 4, at least at the outset, is more popular on Windows than on the Mac.
Now, the former’s installed base is significantly larger, I know. But still…. Clearly, Apple’s (AAPL) 2007 decision to suggest Safari to Windows users via the iTunes software update has done great things to boost usage on that platform. As Apple CEO Steve Jobs said when Safari for Windows was first announced:
How are we going to distribute [Safari for Windows]? We don’t really talk to these customers, do we? There are over 500,000 downloads of Firefox a day. What are we going to do? Well, it turns out, there are over 1 million downloads of iTunes a day. As a matter of fact, there have been over a half a billion downloads of iTunes to Windows Machines. Over half a billion. And so we know how to reach these customers and we are going to do exactly that.
And successfully, too.
FROM APPLETELL - It’s finally here: the Delicious Library app for iPhone. This week was a little less than spectacular as far as free apps are concerned, but I managed to scrape together a few interesting apps and games for your enjoyment.
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Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Downloads, Web Apps, Web Browsers
In a continuation of the anti-trust skirmishes that Microsoft is facing, it seems they have decided to lose the battle in hopes of still winning the war. In a confidential memo leaked to Cnet News originally intended for PC makers, it is made clear that Windows 7 will in fact ship in Europe minus the bundled Internet Explorer starting October 22.
After being told in January by the Commission that the inclusion of IE in Windows clearly violates European competition laws, and that they intended to impose a fine for Microsoft doing so; it seems Microsoft backed off. They aren’t going down without at least an attempt of still holding their head up though.
In their response to the Commission’s Statement of Objections, Microsoft maintains that:
“We believe we made a strong showing that including Internet Explorer in Windows is lawful so that no remedy is needed. We hope that the Commission will ultimately agree with us. In the meantime, we have to move forward with final planning for the release of Windows 7, so we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately. As noted, we will continue to discuss browser issues and other matters with the Commission.”
They apparently want to make the OS available in Europe the same time it comes out everywhere else rather than continuing their fight and ending up with a later launch date. But, they still plan to make IE available to those that may want it. Dave Heiner, Microsoft VP and Deputy General Counsel states “Given the pending legal proceeding, we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users.”
The European market will receive a product known as “Windows 7 E” which will work just like the Windows 7 that will be sold in the States, except they won’t have IE automatically included. This still comes with a “but.” Because like Mr. Heiner clarified, people there might end up with it anyway, since manufacturers are going to be given the option of preinstalling it before they ship their PCs.
“Microsoft will ... make it easy and convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE 8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose,” the original Microsoft memo is quoted as stating. “PC manufacturers may choose to install an alternative browser instead of IE 8, and [as] has always been the case, they may install multiple browsers if they wish.”
Microsoft was offered another option rather than simply removing IE from Windows 7, one that they didn’t seem to like very much. The European Commission also brought up including both IE and other browsers by default. They also discussed the option of something like a “ballot screen” where it would allow consumers to pick which browser they wanted during the setup process. Microsoft didn’t go for it.
“Important details of these approaches would need to be worked out in coordination with the Commission, since they would have a significant impact on computer manufacturers and Web browser vendors, whose interests may differ,” Heiner responds. “Given the complexity and competing interests, we don’t believe it would be best for us to adopt such an approach unilaterally.”
Could that be because of the rising popularity of Firefox in Europe and Microsoft wasn’t sure that the check mark in the ballot box would land next to their baby? And given that if you buy a PC minus a browser, it’s not like you can just pop over to the Mozilla website and download Firefox—you need something to get you there.
So, in a show of “You win for now,” Microsoft really isn’t giving up a whole lot. Then again, to be perfectly honest, I don’t see the huge deal. Yeah, my computer obviously came with IE preinstalled; there is nothing saying that I have to use it. I don’t. Pretty simple - in a real stab at Microsoft use their product to go download the competitions, then never open Microsoft’s again.
Although I do like the idea of a ballot box to choose. No wonder Microsoft doesn’t. That route, we never have to touch theirs. What’s your browser of choice? Do you like IE or have you jumped to another?
Read: [ cnet]
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
If you were wondering the age ol’ question of “Will it run Doom?” about the Palm Pre, the answer is yes. We’re kind of thinking though that more would be surprised if the Pre wouldn’t run Doom. But anyway, one dude took it upon himself to reprogram an open-source version of the game to use WebOS’s DirectFB graphics library. So what we have here is a hardware-accelerated version of the classic FPS. Well done.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers, Software / Applications
Without even trying to get all speculative on the reasoning behind this release, I cannot help but wonder what this really says for Android and its future. Evernote has just released a version of their app for the Palm Pre. Which is currently available as a free download from the Palm App Catalog.
This, of course, should come as good news for Evernote users who are using a Palm Pre, however it seems a little telling that an app has not only been released, but has been released so quickly. Take the fact that the Palm Pre has been available for just a very short time and Android on the other hand has been available for quite a bit longer. Could this be telling us something about how the success of the Palm Pre will play out as opposed to Android? After all, I think it is safe to say that thanks to the current and previous success of the iPhone thanks to the App Store, a fair amount of the success of the Palm Pre and Android are going to come down to how much support they are receiving from the developer community.
Getting back to Evernote for the Palm Pre, similar to the mobile clients for the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile you can create new notes, edit existing notes, take a photo and save it as a note, search your notes as well as browse your current notes as thumbnails. The Evernote app for the Palm Pre is available as a free download. As for the Evernote service itself, that can either be found in the form of a free or paid service depending on your needs.
Read [Evernote] Via [jkOnTheRun]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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