• Amazon releases some Kindle source-code - Boing Boing
• Kindle owners start to lose text-to-speech on purchased books ...
• If you lose your Amazon account, your Kindle loses functionality ...
• When it comes to the Kindle, authors are focused on the wrong risk ...
• Report from protest for blind rights at Authors Guild yesterday ...

• Transparency isn't enough - Boing Boing

Is Privacy An Illusion? Facebook ‘Fans’ Claim Hack Exposes Private Profile Information

FBHive, a new site covering news and opinions about Facebook started by ‘two twenty-something guys’ who are self-proclaimed ‘avid fans’ of the social networking service, is launching today with a bang. According to the website owners, a security loophole allows anyone to view private profile information even if that information has been shielded off by privacy settings.

Think FBHive is touting this hack simply to draw attention to the new site? Think again.

As a challenge, I asked them to tell me some things about me that they could only find on my Facebook account, which is protected from public viewing and should only be accessible to my networks and friends. Almost immediately, they replied with my birth date, the name of my hometown, the name of my fiancé and my political views. That’s scary (and more proof is available if you click the link below).

In their first blog post, FBHive mentions that a similar hack - using the search function to uncover private information - was reported by The Register back in 2007, but that their process is ‘much more simplified and specific’. Moreover, they also claim the bug has already been reported to Facebook several times since June 7th, but that so far response has been virtually non-existing.

The FBHive team is giving the Facebook team - which we’ve also alerted about the claim - about 24 hours to finally respond to their reach-out, and will post details on how exactly one can obtain basic private profile information from protected accounts should the company fail to respond adequately.

This is yet another blow to Facebook: yesterday Michael published an article about a weeks-long issue with click fraud on the social networking service, which the company acknowledged almost immediately with a promise for a quick fix.

(Image found on the blog of Pino Bruno)

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

AT&T Screws Up iPhone Launch, Apple Cleans Up Mess with $30 iTunes Credit

Apple must be sick of constantly apologizing for the bad behaviour of its iPhone business partner AT&T. Time after time it messes up — no tethering or MMS on the 3GS launch day, a botched 3G launch a year ago — and Apple has to mop up after it. If this were a family, AT&T would be the drunken uncle who always throws up at wedding receptions, and Apple would be the long suffering brother who always has to drive him home.

This time, Apple is offering a $30 iTunes credit for 3GS buyers who couldn’t activate their new phones. New customers hooking their iPhones up to iTunes were seeing a message saying there could be a wait of up to 48 hours before activation — hardly what you want when you were excited enough to buy the phone on its first day. If you were one of the unlucky ones, keep an eye on your inbox for this mail:

Dear Apple Customer,

Thank you for your recent Apple Store order. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience caused by the delay in your iPhone activation.

We are still resolving the issue that was encountered while activating your iPhone with AT&T. Unfortunately, due to system issues and continued high activation volumes, this could take us up to an additional 48 hours to complete.

On Monday, you’ll receive an email from Apple with an iTunes Store credit in the amount of $30. We hope you will enjoy this gift and accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused.

Thank you for choosing Apple.

Sincerely,
Apple Online Store Team

Of course, Apple isn’t completely innocent. AT&T may have added a couple of days to the wait times for the iPhone, but remember MobileMe? That took Apple months to get right, and it’s still little more than Geocities mixed with a buggy sync-engine.

Apple Stuck Apologizing For AT&T Yet Again With A $30 iTunes Credit [Tech Crunch]

Apple Offers $30 iTunes Store Credit for Activation Delays [MacRumors]

iPhone 3GS Sales Exceed 1 Million, iPhone 3.0 Downloads Reach 6 Million [Digital Daily]

Looks like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s second estimate of Apple’s weekend iPhone sales underestimated demand just as badly as his first. Apple (AAPL) didn’t sell 500,000 iPhone 3G Ss over the weekend, as Munster first predicted. Nor did it sell 750,000 as he said in a research note this morning. It sold over 1 million. Moreover, downloads of the company’s new iPhone 3.0 software, launched last Wednesday have already reached 6 million. “Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said a press release today. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”

An impressive showing. Particularly considering all the factors that could slow sales: the souring economy, competition from the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry Storm, the T-Mobile G1 and, of course, the iPhone itself. After all, there is now a $99 iPhone on the market. Beyond this, there’s the fact that AT&T’s loyalty tax might be discouraging some early adopters from upgrading and, as Walt noted in his recent review of the 3GS, OS 3.0 boasts so many new features that it might inspire some folks not to upgrade.

Interestingly, this is the first time we’ve seen Jobs quoted in an Apple release in some time now. As best I can tell, the last quote attributed to him was in a January 21, 2009 earnings release. Since then, Apple has issued 22 more press releases. This, the 22nd is the first in which it is him, not COO Tim Cook or Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, who is quoted. Does this mean he’s officially back at work following his medical leave? Could be …

[Image credit: Gizmodo]

Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Coming ... - WELT ONLINE

guardian.co.uk

Rockstar Games Announces Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars Coming ... WELT ONLINE Rockstar Games, the world-renowned publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO), is pleased to announce that one of the highest-rated handheld games of all time, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, will be making its way to the ... GTA: Chinatown Wars Coming to the PSP Co-Optimus.com GTA: Chinatown Wars Coming to PSP IGN Gaming Front - PerezStart.com - Huntington Herald Dispatch - guardian.co.uk all 43 news articles

Aluminum Pencil

Kaweco's "AL Sport" is a €40 technical pencil housed in a bad-ass aluminum body. It accepts .7mm leads and comes in a fancy presentation box.

Product Page [Hard Graft via Awesomer]

The Olympus E-P1 is now available for pre-order

The Olympus E-P1 is shaping up to be one of the must have cameras of 2009. The camera was just announced last week after months of speculation, but it’s finally available for pre-order from numerous  retailers. The prices are just what we thought they would be with the body running $750 and a 3x zoom kit costing $799. The rest of the options go up from there.

You may want to hold off plopping down your hard-earned scratch until we post our review - our early hands-on here. Peter did find a dead pixel on his review sample, btw. But if you can’t wait to fork over your money, head over to J&R, B&H, Adorama, or Amazon. [via Engadget]

Fire bell alarm clock

There's a plastic look to it, which suggests a jaunty headline like "Try sleeping through this!" would bear its fixed grin weakly. Vat19's "Fire Bell" alarm clock clearly offers only the lesser bedlam of a looping, 4-bit sample of a fire bell. Repurposing the real thing would be a superb product to rival a screaming meanie; this, however, is just another $15 'gift for the inner child.' [Vat19 via Red Ferret]

Do your own Ioning

Kuroutoshikokou's Nvidia Ion motherboard includes an Atom CPU, 16x PCI-E slot, HDMI out and 6 USB ports. [Akihabara News]

Great White Sharks Hunt Like Serial Killers

Ultra-Thin Laptops To Be Next Intel-AMD Battleground

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

T-Mobile Announces Android-Powered MyTouch

T-Mobile has announced the MyTouch, the company’s second Googlephone, and on paper it is smaller, lighter and just plain better.

The biggest change between the MyTouch and the original Android handset - the G1 - is the physical QWERTY keyboard. It’s gone, replaced by an-onscreen soft keyboard. It was ironic that the old G1 keyboard, the major differentiator between the iPhone and the first Google phone, was one of its biggest problems, featuring a large “chin” which would trip up all but the longest of thumbs.

The soft keyboard one-ups the Palm Pre, too, with predictive text (the Pre has neither prediction nor correction to help you use its tiny buttons), and it vibrates when you touch a button to let you know you’ve, well, touched a button.

The other physical change is the size. It’s slimmer (early reports compare it to the iPhone) and lighter, at 4.1 ounces against 5.6 ounces (116g vs. 160g). It’s also colorful-er: Along with white and black the phone will come in “merlot”, a shade of burgundy sure to join Zune-brown in the history books of bad taste.

Memory is provided by microSD cards which augment the internal 512MB. The $200 MyTouch will come with a pathetic 4GB card in the box, a move which looks even worse now that the old 8GB iPhone 3G can be had for just $100. On the other hand, SD is certainly handy for upgrades.

The biggest problem with the G1 was the terrible battery life. The multi-tasking applications meant that the power would be sucked dry in a matter of hours. A new 1340mAh battery should give a claimed six hours of talk time versus the five hours of the old 1150mAh battery. In the real world, of course, it will be much less.

T-Mobile hasn’t revealed all of the hardware details of the new handset, but as it is essentially a rebadged HTC Magic, it’s not to hard to anticipate the other internals. The camera is the same 3.2MP camera found in the G1, the headphone socket still requires a stupid adapter (why no standard 3.5mm jack, T-Mobile? C’mon already).

What the handset does have, though, is Android. The Google OS was roundly considered to be the best part of the G1, despite the fact that the hardware wasn’t really up to the task of running it properly. Sure, Apple has hit yet another home run with the iPhone 3GS, but we fully expect to see a slew of very good Android phones take their rightful place in the market. T-Mobile itself has said it will launch “a few more” android devices this year. One thing is certain. Right now is probably the best time ever to be buying a cellphone.

T-Mobile is even treating its customers right. They will be able to get the MyTouch on July 8. New customers will have to wait until August to sign up for their two-year contract.

Product page [T-Mobile]

See Also:

• HTC Google Ion
• Second HTC Android Phone Peeks Out
• T-Mobile G1, aka First ‘Googlephone,’ Carries High Expectations …
• HTC, Vodafone Show World’s Second Googlephone

FitOrbit Launches With Heavy Backers, Connects You To Real Personal Fitness Trainers Online

Today sees the launch of FitOrbit, a service that aims to remove the disadvantages associated with working with real life personal trainers for one-on-one fitness and meal plans. FitOrbit, which comes with both a web and iPhone application, boasts the support of a number of big names in both the financing and health industry.

The newly formed startup behind FitOrbit, dubbed Global Fitness Media, is backed by people like angel investor Ron Conway, John Brown (President of Time Inc’s Health franchise), Dr. Jeffrey Weisz (Medical Director of Southern California Permanente Medical Group), Kathy Kaehler (’trainer to the stars’) and Jake Steinfeld (Founder, Body by Jake, Exercise TV and Chairman of the California Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports). Private investment company Polar Capital Group is also participating.

When you register for a FitOrbit account, the first thing you want to do is take a short quiz to determine which real life personal trainer you would want to connect with based on your profile and current lifestyle. You can also opt to pick your own trainer, but it makes more sense to indicate what type of fitness plan you’re most interested in and why, what your gender is, whether you’re living alone or with a big family, and so on.

I signed up and picked Rachel C as my personal trainer, and she said: “I will create a customized, personalized, fitness and meal plan for you. I’ll be on hand to give you feedback, edit your plan, and give you timely motivation and encouragement.” That’s exactly what you’d expect from a real life personal trainer, so I was interested to learn how she aimed to do that over the Internet.

But this comes with a price tag that you’re only going to be able to live with if you’re really serious about your plans to achieve better fitness: prices range from $9.99 per week for a 6-month package to $29.99 per week for just one week. In return, you get an instant channel to your personal trainer (who also gets the majority of the fees that you pay), who besides providing you with adequate training and nutrition plans also helps you stay motivated. Here are some funny but helpful actions that can be part of the feedback loop (see this video for more clarity on that one):

What is a Cheat?
A cheat is an opportunity for you to tell your trainer when you stray from your fitness plan. Examples of cheats would be going to town on a bag of greasy potato chips, or, staying in bed all day with a tub of ice cream.

What is a Panic?
A panic is an opportunity for you to tell your trainer, and support group when need motivation to do something, you are frustrated, and you don’t know what else to do. Your trainer and support group will get your panic and send you messages of encouragement to get up and get with the plan.

What is a Nudge?
A nudge is a friendly hello, and a reminder that you’ve got supporters.

What are Alerts?
Alerts are status updates for you, your trainer, and your supporters

If you’re a trainer looking to sign up for FitOrbit, be prepared to do some homework yourself: apart from submitting identification and other documents, signing an NDA and a contract, trainers who want to be accepted must quality for the program by attending a special webinar and pass a ‘Trainer Test Week’, among other things. And even then, anyone who chose you as their personal trainer has the right to disagree with you on meal or workout plans and even file a concern that he or she doesn’t ‘like you’.

All in all, I think the FitOrbit model makes sense in a modern world where people are increasingly growing accustomed to getting what they would usually have to leave the house for and pay a premium for real life interaction over the wire. For those interested in contracting a real life personal trainer, it’s definitely worth comparing the costs and effectiveness of FitOrbit to the real deal.

If you do, let us know how it went and how both stacked up.

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

The eBayed employee gifts of Cray Research

Supercomputer pioneer Seymour Cray didn't just develop some of the world's most distinctive supercomputers. His company also put out some natty promo junk. Described as a "very heavy glass globe," this promotional item up for auction at eBay is probably the closest I'll get to owning an X-MP. From the auction blurb:

To the best of my knowledge the first time it was ever taken out of the box is when I took a picture of it. An image of the continents is etched on the globe. On the base is the word "CRAY" and the number "15". This is one of the gifts available when an employee reaches 15 years of service. This globe also comes with its own box for storage.

Alas, it's already been bid up to $50. Perhaps a pen holder is more my speed.

There is also an acrylic paperweight, containing a tiny model of a Cray supercomputer, and a tie.

Not too impressive, eh? Well, the best comes last: check out these retro lucite clocks, one to commemorate the T90 supercomputer, and another to just look strange and old.

The clock features an engraved wooden base with a 2 piece acrylic clock mount. The world's major cities are indicated on the clock mount, positioned in sync with the 24 hour time zone dial of the clock.

The mount also features the CRAY logo and simulated signature of John Rollwagen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Cray Research, Inc. at the time.

This is a very unique piece from a time when Cray Research dominated the world of supercomputing!

Yahoo: Carol Bartz Live From Stanford Directors’ College [Voices]

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

Ah, Father’s Day. The perfect time to kick back, fire up the grill, grab a cold one and watch a game on the tube, surrounded by the rest of the clan, all catering to your every whim.

While you are all doing that (well, some of you), I’m at Stanford Law School for the kick-off dinner for the 15th annual Stanford Directors’ College. Tonight’s keynote speaker: Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz. Check back to this post for live updates.

Stanford Law School Dean Larry Kramer sends his regards. So does Law Professor Joseph Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner who runs the conference every year.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Breeding Program Has Rare Lynx On The Rebound

Analyst: 750,000 iPhones Sold Last Weekend [Digital Daily]

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster was right. The iPhone 3G S didn’t sell as well as the iPhone 3G did during its launch weekend last year. But it did quite a bit better than he thought.

In an investment note issued this morning, Munster estimated the company sold 750,000 iPhones over the weekend — 25 percent less than the 1 million iPhone 3Gs Apple sold during the launch of that device last July, but 50 percent more than the 500,000 he originally predicted. “The only true benchmark for judging the launch of the iPhone 3G S will be the time it takes Apple to sell 1 million units. Apple sold 1 million 1st generation iPhones in 74 days and 1 million iPhone 3G units in 3 days. We are uncertain whether or not Apple will announce the 1 millionth iPhone 3g S; regardless, we are increasingly confident in our 5 million iPhone unit estimate for the June ‘09 quarter following the price drop of the iPhone 3G from $199 to $99 in early June and the launch for the iPhone 3G S, where interest in the device suprassed our expectations.”

A few other points worth noting from Munster’s note. The analyst surveyed 256 customers at Apple stores in New York and Minneapolis over the weekend about their prefered OS, the size of the iPhone they were purchasing and the phones from which they were upgrading, among other things (click on chart below). In the 256, he found a mix of 66 percent Mac users and 34 percent PC, similar to what he found last year (61 percent Mac, 39 percent PC). 43 percent of those surveyed purchased the 32 GB high-end 32 GB iPhone 3G S — less than the 66 percent of buyers who purchased the 16 GB iPhone 3G last year. And 56 percent were upgrading from an old iPhone — up from 38 percent last year. “We believe this shows Apple is developing brand loyalty not enjoyed by other mobile phone makers,” Munster notes.
At the outset of the company’s iPhone initiative, one of Apple’s goals was to develop the kind of brand loyalty they have developed among Mac and iPod customers and we believe they are succedding thus far. As the footprint expands, and loyalty expands as well, Apple will increasingly enjoy a base of customers who regularly upgrade to the newest version of the mobile phones the company releases in what appears to be an annual cycle.”

Advertisers meet in Cannes amid global downturn (Reuters)

Reuters - The tough economic present is hitting the turnout by ad industry future gazers debating hot topics like mobile advertising and smart phones at this week's Cannes festival.

IBM launches Wimbledon smartphone application

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jun 2009 | 11:25 am

Windows 7, Bing and security: Mr Ballmer regrets - Register

Digitaltrends.com

Windows 7, Bing and security: Mr Ballmer regrets Register You can measure the size of a man's regret by how much he spends to make up for his mistakes. If you've missed your girlfriend's birthday, for example, then that could be a lolcat. Microsoft To Put Up To Ten Per Cent Of Income Into Search Digitaltrends.com Microsoft shares look 'super cheap'-Barron's Reuters 24/7 Wall St. - WTN News - Web Devil - Seeking Alpha all 34 news articles

Ads Worth Watching: Olympus vs. Blendtec

This is how you make an ad. What you are about to see starts of like any other “Will it Blend” episode, but this special edition is a collaboration between Olympus and Blendtec. Once the second camera goes in, you’ll easily guess the ending, but I won’t spoil it here. We’ll just say that this is the kind of smart, innovative advertising that Olympus was famous for right back to its Olympus Trip/David Bailey TV spots.

Will It Blend? - Take Two: The full Olympus Multimedia Blend [YouTube]

See Also:

• Olympus Digital Pen And Pancake Lens Teardown
• Digital Pen
• Hands-On With the Smart, Retro Olympus E-P1
• Olympus Camera Packs SLR Aspirations in Compact Body
• More Leaked Shots Show Beautiful Retro Olympus ‘Pen’ Camera …

Dino-Not-So-Soaring

Google Voice getting closer to launch, Google secures one million phone numbers

Section: Communications, Web, Web Apps, Google

It does look like Google has recently taken a step that makes it appear as if they are preparing to launch Google Voice sooner than later.  Google has recently grabbed one million phone numbers with Level 3, which for those unfamiliar, Level 3 is the service Google has already been using with Google Voice.
Unfortunately a launch date is not yet available, however for those still waiting, trust me it will be worth the wait.  I was lucky enough to score an account way back when it was still Grand Central and since Google has opened transferred over to Google Voice, the service has been rock solid.

Read [PC World]

Singapore Leading The Way In Water Research

Are you still there?

Samsung Story HD Dials Style Up To Eleven

How do you decide on an external 3.5″ hard drive? What’s inside the box doesn’t really matter — anything made by Seagate, Western Digital, Hitachi, Toshiba or Samsung will work the same (exceptions are the high-performance drives with extra cache or 10,ooo RPM speeds). So the decision rests on a balance between price and looks. And now, on knobs.

Samsung has released the oddly named Story (a terrible pun on “store”, we imagine) and it ticks the style and value boxes. 1TB wil cost £83 ($137), and the box is a smart-looking mix of brushed metal and matt-black plastic reminiscent of early 1990s stereo equipment. But one look will tell you that Samsung has pushed the design-dial up yo 11: There’s a knob on the front.

What does it do? It acts primarily as an on/off switch, but once you have decided on which side of that binary choice to stand, you can tweak it further. Twisting the knob will change the brightness of the drive’s power light. Useless? Perhaps, although being able to turn the thing down might make it easier to sleep at night: I have a pretty modest range of hardware in my bedroom and I still have to make a tour at night covering the blinkenlights with my discarded underwear. Hopefully Samsung will still be making these when ZFS becomes a widespread file system, allowing us to make a pun-tastic nerd-titled post “Never Ending Story”.

The Story is also stackable, USB-only and comes in both 1 and 1.5TB sizes.

Product page [Samsung via Reg Hardware]

Google to cut China porn results - BBC News

Straits Times

Google to cut China porn results BBC News The firm was responded to criticism from China's internet watchdog which said Google was "disseminating pornographic and vulgar information". Baidu Mulling Acquisitions to Extend Lead in China Bloomberg In Flap Over Google In China, An Accuser Is Accused Wall Street Journal CNET News - InformationWeek - Reuters - Mashable all 580 news articles

Arianna Talks About New CEO, New Local Sites and Paying for Content [BoomTown]

Huffington Post Co-founder and blogging diva Arianna Huffington was in Berkeley this past weekend, keynoting at the Craigslist Foundation Boot Camp 09.

So, BoomTown took the opportunity to motor over the Bay Bridge to catch Huffington on video between sessions, talking about all the big changes at the news Web site of late.

The interview includes the replacement of its CEO with well-known media exec Eric Hippeau; the launch today of another of its local sites–this time, New York–in an effort to move beyond politics; and what she thinks about the controversies around paying for content on the Web.

Here’s the interview:

Underground Quarry Discovered In Holy Land

More Baby Gorillas Baptized In Rwanda

YCD Multimedia Raises $12 Million For In-Store Digital Media Solutions

YCD Multimedia, an international provider of in-store digital media solutions has closed its Series E investment round, a new financing package totaling $12 million. This packages includes conversion of a bridge loan facility and new equity investment led by Pitango Venture Capital and Arts Alliance Digital Ventures.

YCD Multimedia software integrates with existing retail and communications applications, and delivers a range of digital media - music playlists, visuals, etc. - to on-site digital signage. This allows traditional retailers, banks, hotels etc. to run digital promotion and advertising campaigns on screens and video walls throughout physical locations.

Founded back in 1999, YCD Multimedia boasts offices in the US, UK and Israel and an international reseller network. The company is headed by CEO Barry Salzman, former President of DoubleClick’s global media business.

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

QOTD [Digital Daily]

QOTD [Digital Daily]

The Internet is a big distraction. Yahoo called me eight weeks ago. They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? ‘To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet.’ It’s distracting. It’s meaningless; it’s not real. It’s in the air somewhere.

— Author Ray Bradbury does not, uh, Yahoo

Insulating Placemat Made from Old Wine Corks

The equation balances, and the idea is obvious, so we wonder why on earth we never had this idea. We throw corks away by the dozen (daily, in my home) and then go out and buy insulating cork mats to protect delicate countertops from hot pans. Surely there’s some disconnect here?

The Salvamanteles Bakus from Ciclus and designer Nikoline Arns is a simple metal tray into which you load old bottle-stoppers and make yourself an instant placemat. There are spikes punched from the stainless steel to keep the corks in place. We most like the renewability — when the corks start to get burned-out you can pop in a new one while celebrating your green-mindedness with a glass of freshly-opened wine. Can you buy it? Of course not. Can you make your own from a cheap, dime-store cake tin? Sure!

Product page [Ciclus via Noquedanblogs]

Google’s YouTube White House Privacy Policy: “Trust Us” [MediaMemo]

How do we know that Google isn’t tracking the viewing records of people who watch YouTube videos at the official White House Web site? Because Google says so.

That’s the short version of a followup to a post I wrote earlier this month, which noted that Google (GOOG) said it was no longer logging data from tracking cookies sent out from WhiteHouse.gov. That move was applauded by the privacy advocates like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

But there’s a bit of important nuance there that I should have highlighted the first time around, and I’m doing so now at a reader’s behest.

Long version: After I wrote my story, I got a note from Daniel Brandt, who runs Scroogle.org, a non-profit that tries to foil Google’s attempts to track its users’ online behavior. He contended that that Google was still tracking YouTube views on the White House site. “I just clicked on a video at whitehouse.gov … and the YouTube Flash code phoned home to  Google about two seconds into the videom,” he wrote. “Nothing has changed. What is Google/YouTube talking about?”

I relayed that question to Google spokesman Scott Rubin, who said that Brandt was correct — up to a point. YouTube is still sending viewing data back to the mothership when you watch a video at WhiteHouse.gov. It just doesn’t pay attention to said data.

Rubin’s explanation:”Even though the cookies are still sent as before when playback starts (since we did not change the domains of the video or playback functionality), we no longer log this information.” Just to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, I asked Rubin what exactly becomes of the cookie data that YouTube receives from the site. “We don’t store it anywhere,” he wrote.

Is that an adequate answer? It’s OK with me, but then again I don’t ever assume that the Web offers real privacy. And if you have a rigid distrust of Google or other institutions in general when it comes to privacy issues, I’m guessing it won’t cut it.

But the EFF, which is about as vocal, and aggressive, as it gets when it comes to the stuff, is OK with the answer. Pretty much. Here’s legal director Cindy Cohn’s response to me when I relayed Rubin’s explanation:

It doesn’t satisfy us entirely, but it’s a small good thing. The part that is especially troubling here is how difficult it has been to get YouTube to publicly disclose the nature of this change, much less get a clear idea of what logging/tracking is still going on through other means. This information should be in the whitehouse.gov privacy policy, which right now is remarkably vague about what information is going to YouTube, much less what it does with the information it receives. YouTube should also disclose it, at least on their blog if not elsewhere.  Basically now citizens won’t know unless they happen to follow EFF’s blog, your blog or one of the other tech media outlets who have followed the story.  That’s a real problem.  The public deserves to know — clearly and in nontechnical language –what is happening with their viewing information, both on Whitehouse.gov and elsewhere.

To sum up: If you’re the kind of person who’s worried about the information that Google collects about you when you surf the Web, you can feel a little more secure about what happens when you visit WhiteHouse.gov — if you’re the kind of person who’s placated by Google’s assurances. I’m guessing that’s a very narrow Venn diagram.

And in case you’re wondering, All Things Digital has its own cookie policy, which the site breaks out separately from its privacy policy. You can find it here.

Celeb Blogger Perez Hilton Assaulted By Artist will.i.am, He Tweets

Renowned celebrity blogger Perez Hilton (real name Mario Armando Lavandeira) was apparently assaulted by artist will.i.am, frontman of The Black Eyed Peas and his security guards, according to messages posted to his Twitter account. We’re pretty sure this really happened, although you never know.

Follow-up tweets read that the bleeding had stopped, the police had arrived and would investigate the case further, and that today would be a normal day at work for Lavandeira without any mention of the incident on his wildly popular blog until the authorities close up the investigation.

Update: will.i.am’s video response

It’s remarkable that he chose to tweet out a message for help rather than contact the police directly (he has over 1 million followers on Twitter). From the looks of it, he needed to effectively ask people to stop calling the police because the department got flooded with incoming calls from his fans.

Or how Twitter can be both a way for people to call for help in real-time, but also a way for them to order a mob.

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

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:50 am

T-Mobile myTouch 3G

T-Mobile's second handset to feature Google's Android operating system, the myTouch 3G is manufactured by HTC and will hit the U.S. in August. At $200 with a 2-year contract, it'll be offered in white, black and dark red. Other features include Wi-Fi, GPS, a 3.2 megapixel camera with automatic uploads, Exchange support and a bundled 4GB microSD card. [T-Mobile]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Jun 2009 | 9:31 am

SSN Required To Buy Palm Pre

UltraOne writes "Sprint requires your Social Security number in order to run a credit check before they will allow you to open an account, according to a store manager in Silver Spring, MD. Since Sprint is the exclusive carrier for the Palm Pre, if you are not willing to provide an SSN, you can't buy this product. I believe a full credit check for this level of consumer purchase is a clear example of overkill. I have supplied an SSN when buying a house and renting an apartment, but never for any other consumer purchase. I have purchased my cars with cash so far, so I don't have first-hand experience, but a car loan also seems to be an appropriate place to require an SSN for a credit check. At the very least, Sprint should have an alternative for people who don't want to give out their SSN. I also found the entire experience a powerful argument against exclusive license agreements." Read below for details of this reader's experience.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jun 2009 | 8:45 am

It is 580 AD in computing years.

Sick of "early car" metaphors for the state of computer usability? Dan Rutter has a better one:

Let's, instead, consider that weird old phrase "computer literacy", these days seldom used except by the hardy souls teaching Windows to the elderly. Let's compare computer literacy with ordinary literacy. Reading and writing.

In this respect, I think you can make a case that computer technology has made it to the late sixth century AD, at best. In the olden days, you see, the upper classes were able to read and write, but they generally preferred not to. They left it to people who had to do it, like scribes and clergymen.

The last recorded act of the Roman Senate was to send a gift box to Tiberius II, emperor in the east, in 580. In it was an apology for not sending troops to help fight the Persians, season IV of The Sopranos, and a shitty netbook.

A bold new computer metaphor [Dan's Data]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Jun 2009 | 8:39 am

“Portable” USB cooler notebook stand (Thanko strikes again)

One of our favorite crap gadget makers, Tokyo-based Thanko, seems to put a lot of thought into their silly products when summer time nears. Or do you have another explanation for things like the USB cooler keyboard, mouse or necktie? The newest idea: A notebook stand, which is (kind of) portable and sports two fans that are supposed to cool down the user working in the summer heat.

The stand, which in fact Thanko refers to as a desk, comes with three joints for maximum flexibility. And although Thanko promotes the so-called Gorocool 2 as portable, it seems pretty bulky to me. After all, the stand weighs a whopping 12kg. But at least you can enjoy a cool breeze from the fans via USB.

So far, the Gorocool 2 is available only in Japan (where it costs $95), but expect Thanko to list the stand in their English online shop soon.

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jun 2009 | 8:33 am

Internet boycott calls to mark China filter debut (Reuters)

Reuters - Chinese Internet users are calling on fellow web surfers to stay offline on July 1, the debut of a controversial software filter that critics say the Chinese government is using to tighten censorship.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jun 2009 | 7:39 am

Samsung Mini S2

Offered in pink, blue and white. But not in 640GB. [Akihabara News via Engadget]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Jun 2009 | 7:30 am

Twitter Diplomacy [Voices]

By Spencer E. Ante, Associate Editor, BusinessWeek

On a warm spring evening in Iraq this April, months before Iranians made global headlines with angry Twitter posts, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and several other American tech leaders sipped wine with Barham Salih in the garden of his Baghdad home. Dorsey urged Salih to start using the microblogging service to publicize the inner workings of the Iraqi government. “The people of Iraq and the media will follow you,” said Dorsey.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

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

AdSense: The (Weak) Elephant in the Room [Voices]

By Bernard Lunn, Chief Operating Officer, ReadWriteWeb

A few years ago, we spoke of the “AdSense Economy.” It was so simple. Create a website, slap on an AdSense widget, and voila: “Insta-biz.” Wow! Who knew business could be so simple? AdSense was proof of Google’s (GOOG) genius, having grown into a multi-billion dollar business in only a few years after its launch in 2003.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

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

The Newsweekly’s Last Stand [Voices]

By Michael Hirschorn, Contributing Editor, The Atlantic

Newsweek’s recent decision to get out of the news-digesting business and reposition itself as a high-end magazine selling in-depth commentary and reportage follows Time (TWX) magazine’s emergency retrenchment along similar lines. It accelerates a process by which the 76-year-old weekly will purposely reduce its circulation from 2.7 million to a bit more than half of that. (Its circulation was nearly 3.5 million in 1988.) Likewise, Time’s circulation, which 20 years ago was close to 5 million, is now at 3.4 million.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

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

Adding Value in the New News Ecosystem [Voices]

By Jeff Jarvis, Creator and Editor, BuzzMachine

How can and should news organizations and others add value to the new news ecosystem that is being used in the Iran story?

Or to put the question another way: The New York Times (NYT) keeps talking about how expensive its Baghdad bureau is and what a fix we’d be in without it. Well, the essential truth in Iran is that no one has a Tehran bureau (or if they do, it has been rendered useless by government diktat).

Read the rest of this post on the original site

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

CrunchGear Week in Review: Strange Victory Edition

Spunky Sputnik LED Lamp
Video of coffee-serving mini humanoid is awesome, gets 100,000 views in 24 hours
Bweedly beep de beep beep! Super Mario played on a theremin
The Story of the Littlest Drill
Remote-controlled flying cockroach is fun for some, nightmare for others
Review and Giveaway: Razer Sphex mousepad

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am

Indian CEO Says Most US Tech Grads "Unemployable"

theodp writes "When questioned about his firm's US hiring, Information Week reports that Vineet Nayar, the CEO of the Indian outsourcing giant HCL Technologies, showed he can stereotype with the best of them, telling an audience in NYC that most American tech grads are 'unemployable'. Explaining that Americans are far less willing than students from developing economies like India, China, and Brazil to master the 'boring' details of tech process and methodology, the HCL chief added that most Americans are just too expensive to train. HCL, which was reportedly awarded a secretive $170 million outsourcing contract by Microsoft last April, gets a personal thumbs-up from Steve Ballmer for 'walking the extra mile.' Ballmer was busy last week pitching more H-1B visas as the cure for America's job ills at The National Summit."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2009 | 6:01 am

Super-filtered #IranElection info for the easily overwhelmed

I am blogging this from a wifi-enabled plane somewhere above a square state in the USA. The passenger sitting next to me is frustrated that no cable news is shown on the plane -- she wanted to keep up with the turmoil in Iran during this 6-hour flight. Several fellow passengers agreed that one of the feelings shared around the Iran story is the sense that so much information from new, unfamiliar sources seems to be flooding us, without good filters, or many trusted, authoritative guides.

And overall, cable news is doing a lousy job anyway. Blowhard anchors reading random tweets, and logging on to Facebook groups? Thanks, but I can do that myself -- without the theatrics.

Over email, John Perry Barlow echoed this: "It's happening so fast I can't digest it. I feel I've stuck a probe into the stream of metaconscious."

With that ambient chaos in mind, Current TV's Robin Sloan has compiled a very useful tool: "Super-filtered #IranElection info for the easily overwhelmed." Go have a look.

Update: Here's another helpful resource from Robin: Persian tweets translated to English.

Previously:

• Iranian election uprising: Twitter tracks it real-time, Iranian ...
• Lazyweb: turn the new version of Opera into an unstoppable grid of ...
• Twitter reschedules maintenance to avoid clobbering Iranian ...
• Iran Elections Crisis: Online Reading List
• Iran SMS networks "mysteriously" fail right before elections ...
• Iran: Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime
• Iran: Tim Shey on Observing Social Unrest Online at 32000 feet ...
• Cyberwar guide for Iran elections

Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jun 2009 | 5:42 am

When It Comes To Search Trends, Google Is Lagging Behind Bing

As Microsoft tries to take away market share from Google with its new search engine, Bing, it is battling Google feature by feature. One feature where Microsoft seems to be edging out Google is with displaying recent search trends. This may not be a major feature, but it shows a weakness in Google’s armor.

On Google, you can create charts showing the popularity of keywords using Google Trends. On Bing, this feature is called xRank. For all but the most popular terms, Google Trends shows a lag of about three days, whereas xRank shows data that is up to date as of today.

For instance, you might want to see how many people are searching for Ricky Barnes, the golfer who came out of nowhere to lead the U.S. Open this weekend. Bing’s xRank shows the spike in interest you’d expect to see over the past two days, whereas Google Trends shows no data whatsoever. The terms “do not have enough search volume to show graphs.”

Or try “Neda,” the name believed to belong to the Iranian woman who died tragically during a protest march in Tehran, and whose dying image and video is spreading around the Web. Bing’s xRank shows the burst in interest today, along with thumbnails of related news videos. It is also a trending topic on Twitter search. Yet the Google Trend graph is three days old. It only goes up to June 18th.

In cases such as these, the fact that Google is not showing the search data from today and yesterday means that it is completely missing the trend.

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

Source: Gizmodo | 22 Jun 2009 | 4:01 am

T-Mobile Will Drop Its Second Android Phone, The myTouch 3G, This August For $199.

As the first Android phone, T-Mobile’s G1 was a much welcomed entry into the smartphone market. And it may have been considered the must-have smartphone were it not for a certain device from Apple. The reason is that while the Android platform itself has a lot of possibility given its open nature, the G1 hardware simply was not great when compared to something like the iPhone. But now T-Mobile is coming back with another attempt at an Android phone in the U.S., which it is calling the myTouch 3G — and it’s much better.

How do I know? Well because I’ve actually had a unit for a few weeks now. You see, the myTouch 3G, which will be available in early August for $199 with a 2-year agreement, is actually the same device as the Google Ion phone that was given to everyone who attended the Google I/O conference a few weeks ago. And technically, both are really the HTC Magic, which was released a few months ago in Europe, and more recently in Canada. But for the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile is offering some other bells and whistles to differentiate it.

The biggest thing T-Mobile is trumpeting for this device is a deep level of customization. Users will be able to customize the menus, wallpapers, icon and a range of other things on the device with the use of themes and skins. This is a sharp break from a device like the iPhone which has a completely un-customizable look and feel.

And the device itself will come in three colors: black, white and what it calls the “distinctive” merlot. (Which just makes me think of Paul Giammati in Sideways, “I am NOT drinking any fucking merlot!”). But there will also be the option to completely customize the shell of your phone too.

The other key point T-Mobile is touting for the myTouch is something called Sherpa, which T-Mobile worked with startup Geodelic to create. Basically, Sherpa is an application that claims to learn from a user’s actions. So, for example, if you’re searching a lot of Thai food, Sherpa should recognize that as something that you like in the future. And it uses your location information to give you tailored results for what it believes you will want based on what you’re around.

The Hardware

But how does the actual hardware of the myTouch stack up against the G1? Very well. The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s substantially smaller than that G1. This is all thanks to the removal of the physical keyboard. Because myTouch uses the Android 1.5 “Cupcake” software, it utilizes a virtual keyboard. While this will undoubtedly annoy some users, from a design perspective, it was a very good move. It allows for a device that is not only smaller, and lighter (it’s about an ounce and a half lighter), but it looks a lot nicer too.

And it’s gotten a little bump in its specs. While it features the same processor, the myTouch has double the RAM of the G1 (now 512 MB), which makes applications load and run much more smoothly.

The screen size and resolution remain the same (3.2-inch TFT-LCD 320 x 480), unfortunately, while the display is capacitive, it still does not support multi-touch. The myTouch also has the same 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus that the G1 had.

The device also comes pre-installed with a 4GB microSD card, but this is user-upgradable to any size.

The most noticeable difference has to be the battery life. In my experience, the G1 had very poor battery life. The myTouch offers a huge improvement in that regard. How much? Well just in everyday use with a couple applications running in the background, my G1 battery would be gone in a few hours. The myTouch battery easily lasts all day in the same environment.

The iPhone

While this device trumps the G1 in every way, the comparison that more people may be interested in for the myTouch is likely how it stacks up against the iPhone. With the removal of the physical keyboard, the devices aren’t all that dissimilar now. The biggest factor will be if you’re a bigger fan of the more open Android platform, or the more tightly controlled approach Apple is taking with the iPhone OS.

In terms of hardware, there is still no question in my mind that the iPhone is much nicer. HTC managed many nice improvements over the G1, but when holding the two hand in hand, the myTouch still feels plasticy, and as a result, cheap compared to the iPhone.

If you have the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G, you’ll appreciate the 3.2 megapixel camera and the ability to shoot video with the myTouch, but the just-released iPhone 3G S matches both of those features now.

And in terms of speed, it’s a bit hard to compare since the platforms run different applications. The myTouch, like the G1 features a 528 MHz processor which is faster than the original iPhone’s and the iPhone 3G’s. But again, the new iPhone 3G S meets that speed and even pushes past it.

Pre-orders for the myTouch will take place for existing T-Mobile customers on July 8. The device will be $199 with a 2-year agreement, and generally availability is set for early August.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Extreme Life Thrives Where the Livin' Ain't Easy

The planet's most extreme organisms are fascinating creatures that can withstand crazy amounts of pressure, heat radiation and other inhospitable conditions. Check out this gallery of some of the most far-out extremophiles on Earth.

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

Hands-On With the Smart, Retro Olympus E-P1

The Olympus E-P1, aka the "Digital Pen," is a retro-cool compact camera that has many of the features of a digital SLR, including a large sensor and interchangeable lenses. It makes an excellent first impression.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 22 Jun 2009 | 4:00 am

Hands-On With the Smart, Retro Olympus E-P1

The Olympus E-P1, aka the "Digital Pen," is a retro-cool compact camera that has many of the features of a digital SLR, including a large sensor and interchangeable lenses. It makes an excellent first impression.

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

June 22, 1675: Greenwich Becomes Royal Pane on the Stars

Merry monarch Charles II establishes the Royal Observatory to help Britannia rule the waves.

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

How Apple, AT&T Are Closing the Mobile Web

Apple and AT&T are violating network neutrality principles by selectively allowing some apps for the iPhone and rejecting others, a growing number of critics charge.

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

T-Mobile Will Drop Its Second Android Phone, The myTouch 3G, This August For $199.

As the first Android phone, T-Mobile’s G1 was a much welcomed entry into the smartphone market. And it may have been considered the must-have smartphone were it not for a certain device from Apple. The reason is that while the Android platform itself has a lot of possibility given its open nature, the G1 hardware simply was not great when compared to something like the iPhone. But now T-Mobile is coming back with another attempt at an Android phone in the U.S., which it is calling the myTouch 3G — and it’s much better.

How do I know? Well because I’ve actually had a unit for a few weeks now. You see, the myTouch 3G, which will be available in early August for $199 with a 2-year agreement, is actually the same device as the Google Ion phone that was given to everyone who attended the Google I/O conference a few weeks ago. And technically, both are really the HTC Magic, which was released a few months ago in Europe, and more recently in Canada. But for the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile is offering some other bells and whistles to differentiate it.

The biggest thing T-Mobile is trumpeting for this device is a deep level of customization. Users will be able to customize the menus, wallpapers, icons and a range of other things on the device with the use of themes and skins. This is a sharp break from a device like the iPhone which has a completely un-customizable look and feel.

And the device itself will come in three colors: black, white and what it calls the “distinctive” merlot. (Which only makes me think of Paul Giammati in Sideways, “I am NOT drinking any fucking merlot!”). But there will also be the option to completely customize the shell of your phone too.

The other key point T-Mobile is touting for the myTouch is something called Sherpa, which T-Mobile worked with startup Geodelic to create. Basically, Sherpa is an application that claims to learn from a user’s actions. So, for example, if you’re searching a lot of Thai food, Sherpa should recognize that as something that you like in the future. And it uses your location information to give you tailored results for what it believes you will want based on what you’re around.

Here’s T-Mobile’s spiel on it:

At the heart of the T-Mobile myTouch, Sherpa™ is an application with a built-in learning engine that automatically customizes itself to your preferences. Created by Geodelic, the application learns your likes and dislikes through behavior and user feedback, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location-relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market.

The Hardware

But how does the actual hardware of the myTouch stack up against the G1? Very well.

The first thing you’ll notice is that it’s substantially smaller than that G1. This is all thanks to the removal of the physical keyboard. Because myTouch uses the Android 1.5 “Cupcake” software, it utilizes a virtual keyboard. While this will undoubtedly annoy some users, from a design perspective, it was a very good move. It allows for a device that is not only smaller, and lighter (it’s about an ounce and a half lighter), but it looks a lot nicer too.

And it’s gotten a little bump in its specs. While it features the same processor, the myTouch has double the internal memory of the G1 (now 512 MB), which makes applications load and run much more smoothly.

The screen size and resolution remain the same (3.2-inch TFT-LCD 320 x 480). And, unfortunately, while the display is capacitive, it still does not support multi-touch which is a key feature of the iPhone and the new Palm Pre.

The myTouch also has the same 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus that the G1 had. And the device also comes pre-installed with a 4GB microSD card, but this is user-upgradable to any size.

But the most noticeable difference has to be the battery life. In my experience, the G1 had very poor battery life. The myTouch offers a huge improvement in that regard. How much? Well just in everyday use with a couple applications running in the background, my G1 battery would be gone in a few hours. The myTouch battery easily lasts all day in the same environment.

The iPhone

While this device trumps the G1 in every way, the comparison that more people may be interested in for the myTouch is likely how it stacks up against the iPhone. With the removal of the physical keyboard, the devices are more similar now.

Before I get to that, I will say that the biggest factor for which one you’re likely to enjoy more will be if you’re a bigger fan of the more open Android platform, or the more tightly controlled approach Apple is taking with the iPhone OS.

In terms of hardware, there is still no question in my mind that the iPhone is still much nicer. HTC managed many solid improvements over the G1, but when holding the two hand in hand, the myTouch still feels plasticky, and as a result, cheap, compared to the iPhone.

If you have the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G, you’ll appreciate the 3.2 megapixel camera and the ability to shoot video with the myTouch, but the just-released iPhone 3G S matches both of those features now.

In terms of speed, it’s a bit hard to compare the two since the platforms run different applications. The myTouch, like the G1, features a 528 MHz processor which is a faster processor than the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G had. But again, the new iPhone 3G S meets that speed and even pushes past it, in terms of raw processing power.

I’ve only played with the iPhone 3G S for a few days, but I think it’s safe to say that for day to day use of any application and browsing the web, the new iPhone blows past the myTouch in terms of speed. But again, the myTouch seems noticably faster in many regards then the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G.

That’s not the say that the myTouch has no advantages against the iPhone. It has a huge one: It can run third-party applications in the background. Apple has been toying around with the idea, but the Android phones have done this since day one. And as I noted above, while this severely hurt the G1’s battery performance, the myPhone performs much better even with applications running in the background.

Price

But in a move that still isn’t being talked about all that much, Apple may have dropped a bomb on devices like the myPhone 3G not with the iPhone 3G S as much as with the $99 iPhone 3G. At $199, the myTouch is the same price point as the entry-level iPhone 3G S, but I can see a lot of new smartphone buyers opting for the older iPhone for $100 cheaper.

Pre-orders for the myTouch will take place for existing T-Mobile customers on July 8. The device will be $199 with a 2-year agreement, and generally availability is set for early August.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 3:58 am

2tor Raises $10 Million To Help Universities Manage Online Degree Programs

2tor, a startup that helps universities administer classes and degree programs online, closed $10 million in Series A financing round led by Redpoint Ventures, Novak Biddle Venture Partners and City Light Capital participating.

Launched earlier this year, 2tor partners with universities to build, administer, and market online degree programs. The company says it will use the funding to increase resources dedicated to student recruitment efforts and marketing. Currently, 2tor has partnered with the University of Southern California’s School of Education to launch MAT@USC, a graduate teaching program delivered online.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 3:57 am

Social Media Payment Platform oneTXT Scores $2 Million And Former iVillage Exec As COO

OneTXT, a social media payment platform, has raised $2 million in Series A funding from Metamorphic Ventures with KPG Ventures, New York Angels Fund, and individual angel investors participating. Former iVillage CTO and COO Richard Caccappolo has joined oneTXT as president and COO.

OneTXT provides a payments processing alternative for social networks, online games to accept payments, create loyalty programs, and send marketing messages. Similar to PayPal, oneTXT takes a stored-value approach. Each account, which is filed under the user’s cellphone number, has funds sourced from a checking account, a credit card or Western Union.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 3:45 am

Oyster Hotel Reviews Provides Detailed Reviews By Travel Writers

There are two different types of hotel reviews: user reviews and professional reviews from travel journalists. When choosing a hotel, it can be helpful to evaluate both. TripAdvisor has long been the leader of the pack when it comes to providing a database of user reviews for every hotel out there. Oyster Hotel Reviews aims to provide consumers with qualified professional reviews of hotels around the world, hoping to compete with the likes of Frommers, Fodors, Conde Nast Traveler and others. Oyster’s reviews take on a longer, more magazine-like form, and are all written by a staff of full-time journalists who travel to each hotel reviewed.

There’s no doubt that Oyster’s actual reviews are comprehensive. Reviews include a snapshot summary that lists detailed pros and cons of each hotel, and extensive descriptions on the scene, service, location, features, activities, food and drinks for hotels. Because the review is able to be so lengthy, the details given about the hotel are ones that you wouldn’t normally find on other review sites, such as the thread count of the sheets on the beds or which celebs have stayed there. Each review also includes photos from when the reporter stayed in the hotel (not the fancy photos pulled from the hotel’s website), a map with nearby hotels, and user comments/reviews.

Currently, Oyster, which launches in beta tomorrow, only provides reviews for hotels in Aruba, Jamaica, Dominican Republic and Miami and plans to add New York City and Las Vegas in the near future. These lack of options are no doubt limiting and even in the current coverage areas, not every hotel is listed. For example, in Jamaica, there are only 40 hotels listed for the entire country. TripAdvisor lists over 300 hotels, in addition to lists of vacation rentals and B&Bs.

To date, Oyster has raised $6.4 million in Series A funding from Bain Capital, Accelerator Ventures and angel investors in March 2008 and plans to raise a Series B round in the near future. The co-founder of Oyster Hotel Reviews, Elie Seidman, says Oyster will make money off of traditional CPM based ads from relevant partners (Jamaica’s tourism board, airlines etc.). Seidman says the site will also generated revenue from leads to bookings sites like Orbitz, Hotels.com and Expedia. On Oyster, you can click to check availability of a hotel for a given date and will be given the choice to check Expedia, Hotels.com, Travelocity, and Orbitz. Each time a user books through one of these engines from a lead created by Oysters, the site gets a cut.

The online travel industry has a whole is incredibly crowded—and there are many services out there that provide reviews of hotels including TripAdvisor, Fodors, Frommers and TripKick. I think the comprehensive, journalistic, unbiased style of Oyster’s reviews are certainly useful, but the startup will need to scale its number of reviews and coverage areas to be a serious competitor.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 3:00 am

Where Does a Geek Find a Social Life?

JustShootMe writes "I have a question for my fellow Slashdotters, and yes, I realize I am entering the lion's den covered in tasty meat-flavored sauce. I have never been a very social person, preferring to throw myself into technology; therefore, I've been spectacularly unsuccessful in developing any meaningful interpersonal relationships. Lately I have begun to feel that this situation is not tenable, and I would like to fix it. But I really don't know how and haven't the faintest idea where to start. I know that I am in the minority and that there are many different kinds of Slashdot readers, most of whom have more experience in this realm than I do. So please tell me: how, and more importantly, where do you meet fellow geeks — preferably including some of the opposite gender — in meatspace?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2009 | 2:57 am

Iran: Neda Soltani (warning: graphic video)

WARNING: GRAPHIC VIDEO / DEPICTS DEATH.

Via Andrew Sullivan, who is doing some of the best coverage of the Iran story online:

"At 19:05 June 20th Place: Karekar Ave., at the corner crossing Khosravi St. and Salehi st. A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart.

I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St.

The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

Confirming The Basij Murder Of Neda (Daily Dish)

There is another video of the same scene, taken from a different angle, here.

Boing Boing reader S.R. Hadden explains in the discussion thread below that an unidentified man kneeling next to her

...is crying out, in Farsi: "My Neda, don't be afraid, please don't go, please don't go, please stay..."

Related: 'Neda' becomes rallying cry for Iranian protests

Previously:

• Iran Election Crisis: 10 Significant Web Videos
• Social Media in Iran: Lessons Learned (Ethan Zuckerman)
• Iranian election uprising: Twitter tracks it real-time, Iranian ...
• Lazyweb: turn the new version of Opera into an unstoppable grid of ...
• Twitter reschedules maintenance to avoid clobbering Iranian ...
• Iran Elections Crisis: Online Reading List - Boing Boing
• Iran SMS networks "mysteriously" fail right before elections ...
• Iran: Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime - Boing Boing
• Iran: Tim Shey on Observing Social Unrest Online at 32000 feet ...
• Super-filtered #IranElection info for the easily overwhelmed
• Cyberwar Guide for Iran Elections

Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jun 2009 | 2:07 am

Apple rejects a Commodore 64 emulating iPhone app that coulda been a contender

It's happened again. Apple has officially rejected an app that at first blush seems harmless and fun. This time it's a Commodore 64 emulator from Manomio that offered a realistic joystick and keyboard, portrait and landscape gaming, and a fully licensed C64 emulator code. It was all on the up and up. Apple seemed excited. But then Manomio got the dreaded rejection mail:

Thank you for submitting C64 1.0 to the App Store. We've reviewed C64 1.0 and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it violates the iPhone SDK Agreement; "3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

Source: CrunchGear | 22 Jun 2009 | 1:27 am

Apple rejects a Commodore 64 emulating iPhone app that coulda been a contender

It’s happened again. Apple has officially rejected an app that at first blush seems harmless and fun. This time it’s a Commodore 64 emulator from Manomio that offered a realistic joystick and keyboard, portrait and landscape gaming, and a fully licensed C64 emulator code. It was all on the up and up. Apple seemed excited. But then Manomio got the dreaded rejection mail:

Thank you for submitting C64 1.0 to the App Store. We’ve reviewed C64 1.0 and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it violates the iPhone SDK Agreement; “3.3.2 An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise. No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s).”

So basically they ran afoul of the rule that says you can’t run your own code - or emulated C64 code - over the OS. Well heck, that seems fair?

But what about Golden Axe and Sonic, two games that essentially emulate old game ROMS… which is exactly like emulating C64 games except on the C64 you could potentially type in BASIC code.

This probably won’t end here. We’ll keep our eye on the story.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 22 Jun 2009 | 1:26 am

How the Obama Copyright Policies Might Unfold

An anonymous reader points out a column by James Boyle, who knows a thing or two about copyright, analyzing the Obama Administration's policy choices about intellectual property and high tech. "Traditionally, Democratic administrations take their copyright policy direct from Hollywood and the recording industry. Unfortunately, so do Republican administrations. The capture of regulators by the industry they regulate is nothing new, of course, but in intellectual property there is the added benefit that incumbents can frequently squelch competing technologies and business methods before they ever come into existence. ... The Obama administration's warm embrace of Silicon Valley, and Silicon Valley's checkbook, had given some hope that this pattern would change — and I think it will. Now, instead of taking copyright policy direct from the media conglomerates (who, after all, have a very legitimate point of view — even if not the only point of view) it is quite likely that the administration will construct it as a contract between content companies and high-technology companies such as Google. In some places, citizens and consumers will probably benefit, simply because optimizing for the interests of two economic blocs rather than one is likely to give us a slightly more balanced, and less technology-phobic, set of rules. And perhaps the administration will go further. But recent actions make me doubt that this is the case."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 22 Jun 2009 | 12:43 am

One month to go until the next total solar eclipse

Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.

Last summer, I read Roberto Casati's wonderful, lyrical book Shadows: Unlocking their Secrets, from Plato to Our Time, and was struck by a passage in which Casati describes how his addiction to total solar eclipses (TSEs) has carried him to the middle of the Black Sea and to Zambia:

A total eclipse is by far the most impressive natural phenomenon that we terrestrials can witness. The staging doesn't lessen its brutal effects. The temperature drops. A mysterious cold wind starts blowing. The shadow comes running up like a hurricane on the sea. The light collapses, and in just a few seconds, a metallic night falls--it comes on so fast the mind is not ready for it. On the horizon, unreachably far away, are the vestiges of daytime: an orangy twilight all around, as if a set designer made a mistake in projecting a sunset. In the midst of all this is a sun that's no longer a furnace but just an unlucky rock: its shining fringe is like the silver mane of hair of some aged celestial divinity; and stars glitter again, caught out of place in this out-of-joint nighttime.

Sounds like an almost religious experience, doesn't it?

TSEs happen about once every other year, and are only visible in a narrow band of the earth's surface. When I first read Casati's book, I vowed that I would try to see one as soon as possible.

I had high hopes of being in the Siberian town of Nadym for the last TSE, on August 1, 2008, but another commitment kept me in another hemisphere. Alas, I'm also going to be glued to my desk for the next TSE, which is exactly a month away, on July 22. Since it's going to pass over major populated areas in India and China, it may end up being witnessed by more human beings than any other TSE in history. It's also going to be the longest of the 21st century, lasting 6 minutes and 39 seconds at its point of maximum eclipse.

The next four TSEs--in 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2016--will barely cross dry land. So unless you want to join a cruise expedition or do some airborne eclipse chasing, you'll have to wait for the 2017 eclipse, which is going to carve a big fat path across the American heartland. For more info, check out Totality: The Digital Magazine for Eclipse Chasers.

Source: Boing Boing | 22 Jun 2009 | 12:34 am

Does the Linux Desktop Innovate Too Much?

jammag writes "The Linux desktop has seen major innovation of late, with KDE 4 launching new features, GNOME announcing a new desktop, and Ubuntu embarking on a redesign campaign. But Linux pundit Bruce Byfield asks, do average users really want any of these things? He points to instances of user backlash, and concludes 'Free software is still driven by developers working on what interests or concerns them. The problem is, the days when users of free software were also its developers are long gone, but the habits of those days remain. The result is that developers function far too much in isolation from their user base.' Byfield suggests that the answer could be more user testing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Jun 2009 | 10:34 pm

Gadgetell Peep Show: LG enV Touch

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Features, Originals

One of the newest, exciting phones to hit the Verizon network has been the LG enV Touch.  It combines an innovative touch screen that opens up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard for quick and rapid texting.  Not to mention, it comes with a 3.2MP camera, a full HTML browser, and 16GB microSD expansion for music playback. 

I haven’t had enough time to give a full review on the enV Touch, but here are some of my initial thoughts on the device as a whole.  The touch screen is very simple and easy to use for both T9 word texting, or hold it landscape for a virtual QWERTY keyboard.  Of course, you can always open it up and start typing on the physical keys instead.  The HTML browser can be very quick to load up pages, or it can be painfully slow, it depends on the signal strength at the time.  I’ve had the ability to play a few games on the phone, and it looks very nice on the internal screen.  Music has been easy to add to the device, and the speakers allow for clear, loud playback. 

Check out the gallery below for some unboxing pictures.  Expect a full review of the phone in a few weeks.

Source: Gizmodo | 21 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm

Google Suggest Disabled In China Due To Porn

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Chinese government has asked Google to disable Google Suggest because it has been suggesting that people search for pornography based on its analysis of the most popular search terms in China. This comes on the heels of a fake CCTV interview being used to support the government requirement that all new computers ship with the 'Green Dam' Internet censoring program, which is still in force, despite reports to the contrary." The story on the chinaSMACK site demonstrates that Chinese search engine Baidu features a comparable search-suggestion function, which similarly recommends adult-themed sites, but that the government has not attacked Baidu over the issue of porn.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 21 Jun 2009 | 8:45 pm

Apple fans are prepared for a part-time Jobs (AP)

AP - Five and a half months ago, word that Steve Jobs would only work part-time as he recovered from a liver transplant would have sent investors into a selling frenzy, so closely linked was Apple's charismatic co-founder and CEO to the company's success.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 21 Jun 2009 | 8:05 pm

Changing ocean currents impacting salmon

The salmon population in the Gulf of Alaska has been dwindling as Pacific Ocean currents shift, Alaskan fisheries biologists say. The Anchorage Daily News said Saturday the Pacific decadal oscillation may be to blame for an increase in cooler waters in the Gulf of Alaska, where king salmon fishermen have struggled for two straight years. Changing water temperatures have also been blamed for the poor king salmon catches at Canada's Kodiak Island, Susitna Valley and Kenai Peninsula. As an example, the number of king salmon caught in the Susitna Valley's Deshka River went from an annual harvest of up to 60,000 fish to fewer than 8,000 in 2008. "It kind of has everyone wondering,'' Tom Vania, a regional management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's Division of Sport Fish, said. The runs are looking pretty poor,'' Keith Pahlke, a researcher with the state department, told the Daily News.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jun 2009 | 7:40 pm

Artists offer hints at mummy's former face

A curator at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute says two artists came up with very similar renditions of a 2,800-year-old Egyptian mummy's face. Curator Emily Teeter said while artists Joshua Harker and Mike Brassell used separate police forensic methods to determine what the mummified Egyptian court singer Meresamun once looked like, their final products were extremely similar, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday. They are so close that we feel pleased that we're giving people a pretty good idea of what Meresamun looked like in life, Teeter said. The two artists each used CT-scan images of the mummy's skull as a basis for their forensic investigation and the only major differences between their creations lay in their renderings' noses and chins. Harker told the Tribune a human skull such as the one from the mummy, which went on display at the museum in February, offer strong insights into a person's former appearance. The skull drives everything, he said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jun 2009 | 7:31 pm

So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of June 14, 2009

Section:

Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!

• Voice in your head says Palm Pre is better than iPhone + 3.0 update
  “Now that leading edge users have downloaded and installed iPhone 3.0, many are wondering if it is enough to keep them in love with uber-phone or start casting longing glances at the new Palm Pre.  We’ll take a quick look at some of the things iPhone users have…” MORE »
• AT&T warns that iPhone pre-orders may not do you much good
  ” Pretty much like has happened the past couple of years, it looks like those folks pre-ordering the iPhone 3G S probably aren’t going to get their phone on the launch date.  Due to major sell-outs, anyone pre-ordering from Saturday, June 13th and…” MORE »
• Samsung has a new Blu-ray player: What’s the point?
  ” Samsung’s latest offering into the Blu-ray market is the SD-P4600.  Very glossy and streamlined in appearance, but when are they going to give up attempts into the Blu-ray foray?  I just don’t see Blu-ray making it. This one is different from other…” MORE »
• Pre devs can get root, play NES
  ” We’re just over a week removed from the launch of the Palm Pre and it looks to be shaping up as a fairly hacker friendly device.  Within a few days users had figured out that the…” MORE »
• Unconfirmed: 1,000s of Palm Pres on back order
  “Talk about long lines, Gadgetell has the report from a Sprint representative that thousands Palm Pre units are on back order in the entire USA.  Sprint is on the record reporting that the Palm Pre launch was the biggest in the company’s history and the line that has…” MORE »
• Palm warns Pre devs to cut tethering
  ”  Yesterday, I talked about how some hackers have been working on the Palm Pre, gotten root, and can make some interesting changes to WebOS.  The ultimate goal of the project was…” MORE »
• Google begins limited testing of number portability in Google Voice
  “We first heard rumblings of number portability coming to Google Voice a few months back when Google began asking if users would like to see it become a feature, and now we are seeing some evidence…” MORE »
• Nokia upping its smartphone game with E72
  “Hot on the heels of their smartphone success with the E71, a decent entry level smartphone, Nokia introduced the E72 and it looks to pack several upgrades.  Nokia apparently listened to users of the E71 as many of…” MORE »
• BlackBerry Tour 9630 will be heading to Verizon, Sprint
  ” Although details for both launches are pretty light, we do have some confirmation that both Verizon Wireless and Sprint have plans to launch the BlackBerry Tour 9630. As for Verizon, this comes with surprisingly…” MORE »
• Flip Video software gets an upgrade, iPhone app
  ” You’ve probably heard of Flip, the little camcorder that pretty much launched the pocket camcorder market.  While their cameras are pretty cool, Flip has just upgraded FlipShare, the software that comes with their…” MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Jun 2009 | 7:11 pm

Study Shows Ice Sheets Can Retreat 'In a Geologic Instant'

Findings are relevant to modern Greenland ice sheet, says UB researcherModern glaciers, such as those making up the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, are capable of undergoing periods of rapid shrinkage or retreat, according to new findings by paleoclimatologists at the University at Buffalo.The paper, published on June 21 in Nature Geoscience, describes fieldwork demonstrating that a prehistoric glacier in the Canadian Arctic rapidly retreated in just a few hundred years.The proof of such rapid retreat of ice sheets provides one of the few explicit confirmations that this phenomenon occurs.Should the same conditions recur today, which the UB scientists say is very possible, they would result in sharply rising global sea levels, which would threaten coastal populations."A lot of glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland are characteristic of the one we studied in the Canadian Arctic," said Jason Briner, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and lead author on the paper.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jun 2009 | 5:40 pm

New worm attack hits Twitter

Section: Computers, Security, Web, Web 2.0, Websites

Twitter is under attack by yet another worm.  This one is spreading via a Twitter message claiming to be an invite from your friends and asking that you check the attachment for more info.  The attachment contains the Ackantta.B worm which is capable of taking over any machine it infects.

When it’s installed it immediately searches for any email contacts and sends itself to them, and sends your IP address to its botnet and prepares your PC for even more malware downloads.  Fortunately, since most people are wary of opening attachments and many ISPs either scan or outright block zip files, this latest worm is not expected to spread very rapidly.  It appears to be the work of some rather dim scammers.

Twitter has been a hot spot for worm, spam, and phishing attacks this year with the Mikeyy worm, the TwitterCut phishing scam, and numerous other attacks hitting the site.  To protect yourself, don’t automatically follow people who follow you (check out their profiles first), don’t click on URLs in Tweets from people you don’t absolutely trust, and consider protecting your tweets so only people you approve can see them.

Read [PCWorld]

 

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Jun 2009 | 5:19 pm

Carnivorous dinosaur's teeth discovered

Museum officials in Japan say fossilized teeth from an ancestor of the tyrannosaurus have been found in the Hyogo Prefecture. Museum of Nature and Human Activities officials said the teeth found in Tamba were inside strata thought to be up to 140 million years old, Kyodo reported Sunday. Curator Haruo Saegusa said the fossils indicate the carnivorous dinosaur they came from was likely nearly 16.5 feet long. Saegusa added if the fossils' age was similar to that of the strata it was discovered in, the finding would represent an early ancestor of the tyrannosaurus, the Japanese news agency said. If the dinosaur belongs to the same era as the strata, the tyrannosaurus could have started to grow larger much earlier than thought, Saegusa said.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 21 Jun 2009 | 4:51 pm

iPhone 3.0 First Look: Find My iPhone

FROM APPLETELL - When Apple previewed the iPhone 3.0 update at WWDC last week, one of the previously unannounced features was the new “Find My iPhone” service for Mobile Me users. Being a Mobile Me subscriber, I thought I would try it out and let you know how it worked.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 21 Jun 2009 | 4:01 pm

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