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More USB stuff from Thanko: Liquid Mouse and Silent Mouse
Tokyo-based USB gadget specialist Thanko has been quite active in the last few days, having launched two PC mice in a row. One of these devices is silly, the other isn’t: You can now get a mouse with a built-in mini fish tank [JP] of sorts (Liquid Mouse) and one which hardly makes any noise [JP] (Silent Mouse EX). What these two mice have in common is that nobody really needs them, but hey, this is Thanko stuff we are talking about here. The 800dpi liquid mouse, pictured above, is available in three versions (clownfish, baby duck and earless seal). It costs $17 each in Japan and should be listed in Thanko’s English store soon.
The silent mouse you see above solves the big problem of noise when using a computer mouse by reducing the noise level of a conventional mouse (58.0db) to 35.5db. Using silicon did the trick for the Thanko engineers. The so-called Silent Mouse EX costs $33.07+shipping over at Geek Stuff 4 U.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:37 pm Important Importables: Long live the DreamcastFROM GAMERTELL - This week, Important Importables is all about the Sega Dreamcast. We review some interesting tidbits about the console, discuss running import games and search the internet for sites still selling Dreamcast hardware and software. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:35 pm U.S. Swine Flu Cases Hit 1 MillionSwine flu has infected as many as 1 million Americans, U.S. health officials say.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:30 pm Doctors Baffled, Intrigued By Girl Who Doesn't Agephyrebyrd writes "Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler. She turned 16 in January. Brooke hasn't aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke's body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why. Brooke's hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. "She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old," he said." Link To Original SourceRead more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:20 pm BLOG: Michael Jackson's PatentMichael Jackson, a masterful dancer, held a patent for a dance-assisting device.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:16 pm Layers of AbstractionJWZ on porting the classic melty-numbers Dali Clock app to Palm Pré: It's a little slow. It is, in fact, a bit slower than the PalmOS "Classic" port. And, for that matter, the original Xerox Alto version. Why, you may ask? Because this port is written entirely in Javascript. Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:15 pm NI Technology Research Updates Outlooks for Cree, Harmonic, Rambus, Intel, Vitesse Semiconductor and Amkor TechnologyPRINCETON, N.J., June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Inning Technology Research ( href="http://www.nextinning.com/">http://www.nextinning.com ), an online investment newsletter...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:13 pm Netbook owners may be able to buy Windows 7 on a thumb drive
Microsoft has an interesting problem on the horizon in trying to persuade netbook owners to upgrade to Windows 7 when said netbook owners’ netbooks don’t have optical drives. What’s a giant software company to do? According to CNET, “Microsoft is considering offering Windows 7 on a thumb drive” as one of a few possible solutions. I, for one, applaud the death of optical media so I like this idea almost as much as one of the other ideas: make it downloadable. Two additional solutions: use an external optical drive (NO!) or “through a service such as Best Buy’s Geek Squad” (I’d rather die a dozen deaths). The simplest solution would be to make it downloadable. Microsoft isn’t really all about simple, though, so we’ll see what happens. And it’ll be interesting to see if Windows 7 Starter (or whatever the netbook version ends up being called) is the only version offered for download or on a thumb drive. I’d personally prefer to download any and all versions Steam-style and have them kept safely in the cloud.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:12 pm Ista wins US panel support for eye itch drugSILVER SPRING, Md., June 26 (Reuters) - A proposed drug from Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc won unanimous support from a U.S. advisory panel on Friday for treating itchiness in the eye caused by allergies.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:06 pm American Security Challenge Generates Millions in Cash; ContractsWASHINGTON, June 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Security Challenge today announced a $500,000 investment by Chart Venture Partners into MindCo, a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:04 pm Giant alien robots start life as sketches (AP)AP - Giant alien robots don't actually exist. So the dozens featured in "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" had to be built from the ground up.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Jun 2009 | 2:02 pm Call of Duty offered as download for PowerPC and Intel Macs
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 ITProPortal | Apple ups stake in iPhone graphics chip designer Apple Insider Apple has increased its holdings in Imagination Technologies, the chip designer responsible for the graphics technology inside the iPhone and iPod touch, and now holds a combined 9.5% stake in the company. The British firm said Friday ... Apple shows more interest in Imagination Apple increases its stake in PowerVR designer to 9.5 percent Apple Follows Intel, Increases Stake In Imagination Technologies |
 SlashGear | Palm execs look to Pre as savior CNET News Palm announced big losses for its fiscal fourth quarter, the last quarter before its hot new smartphone hit the market, but executives see the Pre as the key to its turnaround. CEO Jon Rubinstein said Thursday during the company's ... Palm Posts $105 Million Loss Palm?s financial loss widens, but less than expected Plucky Palm predicts Pre has bright future |
Section: Business News, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
Competition is integral for a healthy market, right? The Palm Pre is the latest and greatest super-smartphone released and is a serious competitor to the current king, the Apple iPhone. Palm isn’t hiding the fact they are gunning for Cupertino.
Take a look at this ad that ran in today’s Wall Street Journal. Here is an excerpt of the ad copy: “Your iPhone contract is up. Perfect timing. The Palm Pre does things the iPhone can’t. Run multiple applications at the same time with real-time updates and even save $1200 over two years.” The Pre is propped up against an apple core. I guess Palm is not going for subtlety at all here.
Advertising in the WSJ, Palm looks to be going after the business oriented. I don’t know if business-types care about running multiple applications at one time, but everyone cares about savings in these troubled economic times (drink). Will this get more people interested in the Palm Pre? We’ll see once Palm announces its next financial statements.
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Product Reviews | Invitees Answer The Call For Google Voice ChannelWeb People who signed up months ago to try out Google's new Voice technology are now getting official invites to try out the VOIP service. The VOIP offering builds on technology from GrandCentral, a company Google acquired in 2007 for a rumored price tag ... Google Voice: 5 Reasons to Use It, 5 Reasons to Think Twice Help Us Test Google's Hearing Google Voice Rolling Out to Select Invitees |
If you curled your lip and slowly shook your head when Sony announced that the PSPgo would cost $249, you weren’t alone. So it’s perhaps even more irksome when the head of Sony Europe just comes right out and says that you’re paying a premium price just because the PSPgo is new. What’s with all the honesty, Sony?
When asked if the high price tag was to “protect retail margins” or to “cover R&D costs,” Andrew House of Sony Europe told MCV the following:
“Those aren’t the factors. When you introduce a new piece of hardware you have the opportunity to say there is a certain premium that is associated with it, and we took that into account.
As with all hardware launches you look at the business model, the cost structure, and the necessarily level of profitability, and you use that to set the wholesale price. Much as we do with any other hardware.”
As a consumer and as a technology blogger, I’m outraged that House’s statement didn’t contain any song and dance, vamping, sidestepping, or mudslinging. At least now we know that Sony knows that we know they know they can get away with charging more just because something’s new and says “Sony” on it. Or something like that.
Now howsabout dropping the price on that new PS3 that came out almost three years ago?
[via Kotaku]
There was no discernible reason why Japanese developer AQI should have to parody Steve Jobs to announce a new version of their portable Korg DS-10 synthesizer, which makes the fact that they did (above) -- and pulled it off with pitch-perfect style -- all the more fantastic, and sets a high bar as one of the cutest game announcements in recent memory.
Elsewhere on Offworld, we saw more game/music crossovers, listening to the latest and most accessible chiptune/downtempo/glitch sampler for San Francisco's DUTYSTYLE III show, happening tonight at 8pm (check the post for full details), and finding Open Emu, a new modular Mac emulation system that's a boon for budding 8-bit VJs, as it lets you control both the visuals and the play of emulated games with audio and MIDI.
We also saw that early-oughts cult classic shooter Serious Sam (which shipped with our favorite cheat-mode of all time, turning gibs and blood splatter into hamburgers, fruit, and bursts of blooming flowers) was being remade for Xbox Live Arcade, and that EA/DICE's similarly tongue in cheek free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes had quietly gone live, and will likely be taking up the majority of our weekend (as it should yours).
And our 'one shot's of the day: the mathematical beauty of building pixel Invaders, the aching shoulder-slump of BioShock 2's original Big Daddy concept, the certifiably longest beard in gaming's history, and, of course, Michael Jackson, in memoriam.
AP - It was a where-were-you moment in a digital age. Michael Jackson's death was not learned from a fatherly TV news anchor. Instead, the news first spread online.
A family that builds food-based weapons together stays together. Take the DeRose family — they issue themselves a “design challenge” every year around the holidays. This year’s challenge: build a potato gatling gun.
[via MAKE]
AP - The Internet agency with key oversight of the monikers behind every Web site, e-mail address and Twitter post named former U.S. cybersecurity chief Rod Beckstrom Friday as its next chief executive.
Section: Business News, Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Times are tough for Palm but not as bad as Wall Street expected, so the outlook is a bit rosy for the smartphone maker. Since the Palm Pre was launched after the close of Palm’s Q4 and is not included in the numbers, analysts seem to have hope for the company. Indeed, after-hours trading brought Palm shares up as much as 16%, a vote of confidence not only in their webOS but also in their new CEO, John Rubenstein.
From ZDNet: “The company reported a quarterly loss of $53.4 million, or 40 cents per share, on sales of $113.2 million, excluding one-time items. Wall Street had been expecting a loss of 62 cents on revenue of $80.64 million. For Fiscal year 2009, the company reported a loss of $241.1 million, or $2.08 per share, excluding items.”
“The launch of Palm webOS and Palm Pre was a major milestone in Palm’s transformation; we have now officially reentered the race,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer.
Palm managed to ship 351,000 smartphones during the quarter representing a quarter to quarter increase of 6% but a year-to-year decrease of 62%. Ouch. The luster is definitely off Palm’s aged phones, huh? These figures most likely show the backside of the Centro popularity curve as well as businesses holding out for something better than the older Palm OS and Windows Mobile OS Palm products.
Some real questions emerge, such as can the Pre make that much of an impact on the financials? Is Palm eyeing a Centro replacement based on webOS for just $99 as we’ve seen? If so, will it be offered to all Centro carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint)? And if so, could a low-cost widely distributed phone spur developers into action to fill out the Palm app catalog? Many chastise Apple for taking a while to open the SDK to everyone, but in hindsight having a captured audience may have been a very shrewd move as it beckons developers to code for an identified population. Android and webOS don’t really have that luxury, yet.
One thing is certain: a company can only lose $50 million a quarter for so long.
Source: [Yahoo!]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There was no discernible reason why Japanese developer AQI should have to parody Steve Jobs to announce a new version of their portable Korg DS-10 synthesizer, which makes the fact that they did (above) -- and pulled it off with pitch-perfect style -- all the more fantastic, and sets a high bar as one of the cutest game announcements in recent memory.
Elsewhere on Offworld, we saw more game/music crossovers, listening to the latest and most accessible chiptune/downtempo/glitch sampler for San Francisco's DUTYSTYLE III show, happening tonight at 8pm (check the post for full details), and finding Open Emu, a new modular Mac emulation system that's a boon for budding 8-bit VJs, as it lets you control both the visuals and the play of emulated games with audio and MIDI.
We also saw that early-oughts cult classic shooter Serious Sam (which shipped with our favorite cheat-mode of all time, turning gibs and blood splatter into hamburgers, fruit, and bursts of blooming flowers) was being remade for Xbox Live Arcade, and that EA/DICE's similarly tongue in cheek free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes had quietly gone live, and will likely be taking up the majority of our weekend (as it should yours).
And our 'one shot's of the day: the mathematical beauty of building pixel Invaders, the aching shoulder-slump of BioShock 2's original Big Daddy concept, the certifiably longest beard in gaming's history, and, of course, Michael Jackson, in memoriam.
I'm not a svelte man anymore, I'll admit. Two kids - I ate them both - and lots of beer have forced my metabolism to run, cowering, resulting in size changes that would swallow the average man. This product is what I need.
The BodyTrace is a wireless scale that sends your shame to the Internet, allowing you to follow your slow decline - or incline - into our out of lassitude. It will be available in November for $119 and it costs $19.99 for a three month weight loss subscription.
The system also includes a grouping feature so you an add your friends and family to your fight - or even create social groups of like-minded fat losers - and the service also makes suggestions for eating and working out. You can also upload progress pictures and cry when they never change, not once.
The drama in iPhone porn world continues. Yesterday, Hottest Girls, the first app with nudity was accepted into the App Store. But early this morning it was made unavailable, and everyone presumed Apple was behind it. But apparently, the app has not been pulled from the App Store by Apple, but rather by the developers because of high demand.
The guy team behind the app, Allen the Geek, writes on its site:
The Hottest Girls app is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone's mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again. -ATG dev teamSo is this BS? Is this just them covering up for Apple pulling it? I don't think so.
Apple (AAPL) put some of the vast $28 billion in cash and short-term investments it has socked away to good use this week raising its stake in Imagination Technologies. The $5.16 million investment nearly triples Apple’s original 3.6 percent stake, giving it 9.5 percent ownership of the UK chip designer whose PowerVR graphics technology figures prominently in the iPhone and iPod touch.
Interestingly, the move follows an investement by another high-profile licensee: Intel (INTC). The chipmaker last week Iincreased its own Imagination stake to 14 percent, causing some to speculate that Intel was prepping a takeover bid for the company. After all, Intel uses PowerVR in its Atom platform which is crucial to its success on the mobile phone market. Could these dueling investments set the stage for a takeover battle for the company? It’s certainly possible, but Seymour Pierce analyst Ian Robertson says it’s unlikely. “Apple and Intel are investors not buyers,” he said in a research note. “We do not expect either Intel or Apple to go beyond 15-20% in the short to medium term and we would be very surprised indeed if they were to attempt to buy Imagination. We note that both Apple and Intel have the resources to swallow up the company without chewing. We remind investors that Intel has a long history of taking and holding significant stakes in companies that it has seen as important to its further success – notably Micron and RAMBUS where its investment was not necessarily a guarantee of success for these companies.”
If there was any question about the significance of the iPhone 3GS's impressive video functionality, here's your answer: YouTube reports that in the six days since the iPhone 3GS was released last week, the number of mobile uploads has increased by a whopping 400%. For a single phone model to have such a major impact on the site is simply phenomenal.
Even without the iPhone, YouTube is seeing major growth across the entire mobile space — the site has seen uploads go up 1700% over the last six months. It's not hard to guess why. Video-enabled smartphones are becoming increasingly popular, as are high speed data connections. YouTube also attributes part of the growth to a streamlined upload flow (note how easy it is to upload a video from your iPhone to the site), as well as its improved sharing capabilities (you can now syndicate your videos to services like Facebook and Twitter).
Apple is nearly tripling its stake in UK-based Imagination Technologies, boosting its interest to 9.5 percent with the purchase of 2.2 million new shares at £1.4275 ($2.35 million) each - the mid market close price on 25 June - and another 11.52 million shares.
In total, Apple is spending £3.14 million (approx. $5.17 million) for the new shares, exactly the same amount it paid last December when it purchased a 3.6 percent stake in the microchip maker.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Okay, the situation surrounding the App Store and its approval process continues to get weirder and weirder.
As you may have heard, an application featuring nudity first appeared in the App Store yesterday. Today, that app was removed, which everyone presumed was a move by Apple. But the developers said that the removal was its own doing because its servers were getting slammed with picture requests. Then more applications claiming to have nude photos started appearing. And now Apple is apparently saying none of these apps will be allowed in the App Store. But that seems to contradict its own rating system that now clearly allows for nudity.
This makes no sense. To the point where I'm not sure there is anyone actually in charge of all of this for Apple. Instead, I'm starting to think this whole system is run by a group of people, all with different thoughts on the approach Apple should take with apps. And none of whom seem to communicate with each other very well.
Hidden under a pile of bad, old fashioned marketing attempts we find this DIY gem: printable filter gels for your flashgun. Appropriately available from the Digital Secrets Site, you have to follow a treasure hunt to get the eBook telling you how to make them:
When you click on the image here, you will see a third item, but then when you release that click, whoosh—off you go to the detail page […] Click the picture in the previous article to find the magic preorder link.
Honestly, though, we don’t care. The pictured filters are designed to fit into the Nikon SB-900’s filter holder. If you have one, you’ll have the supplied filters and therefore all the information needed to make some more. If you don’t own one, a simple rectangle and some gaffer tape is all you need.
The trick is to use a heatproof acetate sheet. The kind meant for use in photocopiers should work. You should also run the sheet twice through your printer to up the color density. And thirdly, some advice from Digital Secrets: If using with the SB-900 adapter, you risk the ink transferring to your gear. The solution isn’t given, but we expect an extra, non-printed piece of gel sandwiched in there should take care of things.
Off you go. It’s probably best to buy actual color correction filters to ensure accuracy, but for wild experimentation, go crazy. And don’t limit yourself to flat colors either. That cheesy gradient fill tool in Photoshop finally has a use.
To get the printable PDF seen in the picture, you’ll need to buy a whole e-book about the Nikon D300 camera for $60.
Product page [Digital Secrets]
Facebook is testing a new privacy setting that for the first time allows its members to share their status updates and items with a wider Internet audience than just Facebook members.
The status update box–now called Publisher and an all-purpose location for updates, links and photos–will allow users to customize their audience. When Facebook opens the feature to all of its members (”soon,” it says), they’ll be able to specify whether they want to share the submission with their friends, their broader networks or to “everyone,” including the rest of the Web.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Michael Jackson’s unfortunate passing is a sad event on many levels, and a moment to reflect upon the man’s rich life and career as well as a time to pass support - silent or loud - on to his family, friends and everyone who needs it now that the King of Pop has ceased to be.
For us here at TechCrunch, it’s also an opportunity to take a look at how media, old and new alike, handle news reporting and distribution in this day and age (as well as a sneak peek at how it’ll likely evolve in the near future).
Like many others, I had Twitter open in one of my browser tabs when the first reports of Jackson’s hospitalization and at the time rumored cardiac arrest started circulating. At first, there was no indication that the news had been confirmed by anyone and people were just frantically retweeting messages carrying lots of question marks while trying to find an online news source to serve as a beacon for further updates on the story. Quickly enough, people started linking to AOL’s online gossip powerhouse TMZ, which was the first to call out his passing away when everyone else was still referencing the hospitalization part.
Granted, TMZ may well not be the most credible source in the world (quick, which one is?) and there’s a possibility they just went with the story of Jackson dying as fact before it really was, but all that doesn’t matter anymore now. They called it first, and they got it right. We soon learned that, despite the fact many news blogs and sites were struggling to keep up with all the massive influx of people looking for more digital reports.
For a visualization of Twitter trending topics as they evolved in real-time, check out this video, courtesy of TwitScoop.
So TMZ broke the news and Twitter was red hot with all the chatter about it, approximately 40 minutes before the L.A. Times followed up with a confirmation of Jackson’s death on one of its blogs, citing its own sources. Not really that big a deal, but people did see the LAT follow-up as a more credible confirmation of what everyone was assuming already, which is fine, even if some of them minutes before couldn’t stop bashing TMZ over the so-called rumor-mongering they displayed.
But noteworthy, and somewhat disturbing in my view: most mainstream media who followed up on the story after these two outlets were mostly regurgitating and filtering what the two blogs had reported before them, more often than not without proper credit or attribution, let alone a link. Some of them, like NY Times blog Bits acknowledged Twitter to be the place to be for watercooler-type chatter about the events, yet practically none of them dared admit that blogs and Twitter had simply been quicker with spreading the facts than they were (and yes, we realize using both as a source for rock-solid news can be quite dangerous too, but that’s beside the point in this case).
A jaw-dropping case of being painfully out of touch with reality was to be found in this Chicago Tribune article, carrying the subtitle “TMZ leads with early details, while Los Angeles Times and AP do the heavy lifting”, in which we read nonsense like:
Gossip site TMZ.com, owned by Time Warner, was out in front with Jackson news and digital-era pipelines spread the word, as has happened before with other major celebrity news stories. But it was old media stalwarts that did the heavy lifting, with giants such as The Associated Press and the Web site of the L.A. Times, sister paper of the Chicago Tribune, reporting the fastest, most credible information on the emergency call for paramedics and ultimately his death.
Yes, I laughed out loud too. Chest-beating over old media doing the ‘heavy lifting’ for blogs and Twitter, and being faster and in reporting information than those new media when it was exactly the other way around is beyond ridiculous, and statements like the above are evidence of massive misunderstanding of the author - and he’ll certainly not be the only dinosaur thinking along these lines - of how the world of news distribution is evolving.
The author was also happy to find someone to back him up, this time Adam Fendelman, founder and publisher of entertainment news site HollywoodChicago.com, whose first response to his staff was when he was filled in on the news was apparently: “Are we sure?”.
Here’s what he reportedly said to the Chicago Tribune journalist:
“The Web and TV phenomenon that TMZ is is very good at fast-breaking and late-breaking news, but there’s an inherent problem with trust in the everyday consumer’s mind.”
Damn right and for the better too, but as far as I’m concerned you can replace TMZ with just about any news outlet out there, including the old big ones, who are rapidly becoming far less big and relevant.
To me, this whole thing just proves that mainstream media are justifiably freaking out with their eyes wide shut to what’s happening instead of learning and adapting to the new age of journalism.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Section: Computers, Software / Applications
Yesterday Microsoft announced the official pricing for Windows 7, and beginning today users can pre-order the operating system from Amazon. Those choosing to pre-order can expect to receive their copy of Windows 7 when it is officially released on October 22, 2009, that is if you choose “release-date delivery” at checkout.
Otherwise, as we learned yesterday, the pricing will range from $49.99 up to $219.99 for upgrade versions and from $199.99 up to $319.99 for the full (non-upgrade) versions.
Strangely though, they are limiting sales of the Home Premium Upgrade and Professional Upgrade versions to three per customer. Of course, both of those versions are listed as being on-sale and are offering savings of $70 and $100 respectively.
I guess those willing to commit, and those who cannot wait can go ahead and place an order. Personally, I do plan on grabbing a copy of Windows 7, but not really feeling the need to pre-order just to get “release-date delivery.”
Product [Amazon]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Steorn, you may remember, is the Dublin based company which provided us with a good weeks worth of entertainment back in July 2007. The company’s perpetual motion machine, the Orbo, promised to usher in a new world of clean, free energy. Sadly, before the demonstration could take place, the precision engineered, 25-year life bearings in all three machines mysteriously broke due to “hot lights”.
Now, Steorn is back, and this time it has a real, shipping product. The trouble is that the company so slathered itself in snake-oil two years ago that the stink will likely never wear off. The product is a USB Hall sensor, a conductor which is used to detect fluctuations in magnetic fields. If you have used one of those cheap boxes which detect electric wires behind walls, you’ll know how it works.
The USB Hall Probe comes with Windows software to give you all the readouts and graphs you might want. Is there a catch? Of course there is. The probe costs €290, or around $400. This seems to directly contradict a claim from the company:
Low cost – No need for expensive gaussmeter/teslameter/voltmeter hardware to measure fields.
Now, I took a quick look at the internet and found that an expensive gaussmeter can be had for anywhere from $13 up to over $1000. The pricier options are calibrated and can store data over time, just like the Steorn version, only they are whole boxes, not just a probe.
And there, we think, lies the problem. The Steorn meter is a simple probe and sensor which just measures, and your PC does the processing. These “expensive gaussmeters” do a whole lot more.
Or maybe we’re just cynical based on past events. I’m certainly no Hall Meter expert, but I do come equipped with a pretty good BS detector.
Product page [Steorn]
See Also:
It was a historic marriage, in US politics at least, between digital technology and grassroots [campaigning]. We did have a big Facebook presence and MySpace. When we started, Twitter wasn’t really around, it was at the end. The real drivers were old school, email and Web. We did build a social networking [presence] but it was Web and email.
– Political strategist David Plouffe on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign
Fujitsu Laboratories, the company’s R&D subsidiary, has announced the development [press release in English] of a transistor for the power supply units of servers that can help reduce electricity consumption of computer hardware and home electronics significantly.
In the case of data centers, for example, Fujitsu speaks of a 12% decrease in power consumption. For its home market of Japan, the company claims this alone would help save 330,000 of CO2 yearly.
Fujitsu’s transistors are made from a gallium nitride material (instead of silicon). Whereas conventional transistors lose around a third of the input supplied power to heat, the new version cuts this number by around 66%.
What’s more interesting from a consumer point of view: A Fujitsu researcher has also said [JP] his company aims at reducing the size of their energy-saving to be able to supply it to makers of notebooks, home electronics and electric vehicles by 2013 or 2014.
This almost sounds too good to be true. But first Fujitsu Laboratories’ own data centers will get the new transistors after mass production starts in 2011.
Remember the LightLane, the laser-projected personal bike lane concept that put a pair of do-not-cross lines alongside the night-rider? It is now real and running as a rather successful looking prototype.
The personal bike lane consists of strips of laser-light projected onto the asphalt. This provides a psychological barrier to other road users, hopefully giving the cyclist a little extra breathing space.
The video looks good, and the only real change in the trip from concept to reality is the color of the lasers — now Jedi-green instead of Darkside-red. It’s a little dimmer than we’d like, although the designers put a nice spin on this:
Preliminary contextual research shows its performance in real world situations is best when lighting conditions are at their worst, improving safety in the most critical situations.
Product page [LightLane]
See Also:
London, like many large, modern cities, is at a standstill. There are only so many cars and buses that will fit on the roads. The answer? Brand new concept designs of course!
London Garden is a hybrid bike/scooter which folds up to fit into specially designed buses and taxis. Designed by Marten Wallgreen and friends from the RCA, the multi-purpose vehicle is engineered to work in harmony with the city around it. You even pay for you bus ride with the energy stored in the bike, whereupon it becomes the actual seat you sit on inside the bus.
The problem is that the team’s design is complete after stage one: Shut off car access to Central London. Do that and regular bikes can peacefully exist alongside the buses and taxis (it’s London: You can’t ban taxis). Instead of trying to achieve the impossible task of selling everybody the same bike, convincing the bus company to retrofit its vehicles and telling cab-drivers they need to upgrade their cabs yet again, all you need is a pot of paint to make some bike-lanes in the now empty roads.
Still, not everyone agrees with us. The design won the prestigious SeymourPowell award for Future City Mobility. We still think our pot of paint is better, though.
WINNER! (SeymourPowell award) for… [MW Blog via Bicycle Design]
Big day for Twitter yesterday. News broke, and people promptly turned to the service to spread the word. It’s a story that’s becoming increasingly familiar.
Except… I have this nagging concern.
Like a lot of you, I first learned about Michael Jackson’s death Thursday via Twitter. But at the time, I wasn’t convinced I was learning about it.
I saw tweet after tweet on my BlackBerry declaring the superstar dead. I was mobile, and my Web browser wasn’t working, so my Twitter stream was my only source of information, and I was grateful for it.
But in the first hour the story broke, I was never sure what the source of the information was. And so I never knew whether I should believe it.
Turns out that some of the Twitterers I followed had seen a report, first published at 5:20 eastern time, from TMZ.com, Time Warner’s (TWX) gossip powerhouse. But even if they linked to TMZ, I couldn’t tell that at a glance, because they used URL-shorterners like bit.ly that obscured the Web address.
And many other Twitterers didn’t bother to explain where they’d heard the information at all. It was just fact. They were right, of course. But were they sure?
In some folks’ eyes, these qualms I have about accuracy and sourcing make me an old media dinosaur. So says a pal who’s worked as a reporter at three big, prestigious, old media outlets. Here’s a bit of a missive he sent me via Facebook:
Twitter delivered the news first and fastest. Yes, it was from tmz; but who actually went to tmz.com? I didn’t. I read it on Twitter… and stayed there to read more. Did I turn on CNN? No. Just read the tweets.
This is really bad for old media: Twitter is the water cooler. It is the center of the conversation. Almost every media outlet wants to be the center of a conversation. They’re suddenly failing.
But I don’t think it’s that binary. Twitter and old media are complimentary, and the former certainly has less value without the latter.
I eventually got to a Web browser, and looked around the Web for other sources confirming Jackson’s death. When I couldn’t find them, I came back to Twitter.
At 6:15 eastern time, the Los Angeles Times reported that Jackson was dead, citing its own sources. After that I knew that Twitter would primarily be repeating the LAT’s report, and those that followed it, so I bailed.
That worked out well. Staying clear of Twitter for a while Thursday night meant I didn’t have to read about Jeff Goldlum’s death. Which never happened, of course. But that didn’t stop Twitter users from repeating the story, over and over.
“Transformers, robots in the sky!” as I erroneously sang back in the schoolyard. These Transfomer cufflinks from Etsy maker Finkstudio do not, sadly, soar through the stratosphere, but they do transform from silver plated Decepticon and Autobot trinkets to silver plated Decepticon and Autobot cuff-fastenings. Let’s see the giant Optimun Prime manage that.
At just $20 the pair they’re almost criminally cheap, and this particular design has sold out. Check out Finkstudio’s store, though, and you’ll find all manner of geeky jewellery. Batman cufflinks, anyone?
Product page [Etsy via Geeky Gadgets. Thanks, Roland!]
Ryan Bavetta’s Rocket Board doesn’t actually use a rocket, but it does look like one. The home-brew prop-powered skateboard carries a 3.7 HP model airplane engine which powers a propellor in a standard house-fan cage. It doesn’t use gasoline or kerosene but proprietary Glow Fuel, a dangerous sounding mix of methanol, nitromethane and oil. The setup is enough to spin the prop at up to 10,000 RPM which, as you can see, can easily shift a person.
What we love best about this video (apart from its entertaining professionalism and the freakin’ rocket board) is that it shows the whole crazy boffin project, from the first test with a household fan and a car battery (FAIL) to the inevitable golden-hour run with POV-cam. Bavetta even built his own skateboard to mount the fan.
Finally, a word to our British readers over 35 years old. This Rocket Board is the exact same thing as you may have seen in Sammy Brewster’s Ski-Board Squad, a comic strip which ran in Buster back in the 1970s about a gang of crime bustin’ kids riding, you guessed it, motor-powered skateboards. Ryan Bavetta, you’re my hero!
Product page [Crazy Builders]
They're saying on BBC radio right now that when news of his death started to hit late Thursday, so many search queries for "Michael Jackson" were hitting Google and other search engines, the flood was perceived at first as a malicious automated attack.
Above: my own personal favorite.
Below, words from music industry writer Bob Lefsetz (Twitter, blog) on the passing today of one of the most important pop culture figures of our time.
He missed his childhood and now he's gonna miss his old age.The rest of his essay continues after the jump.How fucked up is that?
Michael Jackson never had a chance. He had to succeed for his family, his parents' dreams were dependent upon him.
And a boy with that much pressure delivers. He works truly hard, so he will be loved. That's all Michael Jackson was looking for, love.
He wanted to be accepted. Wanted to be so good that he couldn't be denied. But you can't change family history, and the public no longer treats you as human, as an equal, once you break through. People want to rip you off or tear you down, or shower you in faux love that's more about their unfulfilled desires than yours. It gets so confusing that you retreat.
The Jackson 5 broke through at the tail end of the sixties. When both Motown and Top Forty radio were in decline. But the burst of energy known as "I Want You Back" could not be denied. And the continuous singles made Michael Jackson a star.Read more of Bob Lefsetz here.He sang a horror movie theme. He endured puberty. He was a faded child star. Then, suddenly, he released a dance floor epic. When disco was supposedly dead, Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones concocted a synthesis of rock and beats that could not be denied. Few were paying attention when "Off The Wall" was released. But over the course of two years, word spread. This was an album that could be played endlessly, that made you feel exuberant, totally alive. We didn't stop listening because we could never get enough.
Then came "Thriller".
There are indelible television moments. When there's only before and after. Michael Jackson's "Motown 25" moonwalk was one of those events. Akin to the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon over a decade before. MTV was AOR. Dancing was something you saw on Broadway. Give Walter Yetnikoff credit, he forced MTV to play Michael Jackson and not only was the color barrier broken, not only did videos turn into extravaganzas, the biggest star since the Beatles was hatched, fifteen years after Michael had first gained public notoriety, years after he'd started performing. It's "Outliers" in action. Michael Jackson made it look easy.
But there were far in excess of 10,000 hours involved. When everybody was finally paying attention, no one else was close. You had newbie bands from the U.K. who could barely sing, never mind play. And you had this phenomenon prancing on screen fully realized. It was like the 1927 Yankees playing a Little League team.
And then it was over.
There was another album with Q, but it was a step down. There's nowhere to go from the top but down. But Michael Jackson couldn't accept this. Everything had to be bigger and better. A musician's career can last forever. But to have those legs, you've got to have perspective. Existing at the center of the hurricane, unable to step outside the maelstrom, means that you have no frame of reference.
Not that you can't buy one. Or that hucksters and shysters don't try to give you one. You trust everyone but know you can trust no one. You're a party of one. What means so much to everybody else means almost nothing to you. You don't want to give up your money and fame, but they don't buy you peace of mind, they don't buy you love, they don't keep you warm at night.
It's been a sad movie that's been unspooling. We can delineate the low points. But let's just say it started with plastic surgery and it ended with court cases. Michael Jackson just didn't think he was good enough. And when he tried to explain, when he showed up in court in his pajamas, we didn't want to listen, we didn't want to give him a break, we just wanted to make fun of him, deride him.
Michael Jackson was an entertainer until the very end.
It's just that his latest gigs were not inside theatres, but played out on "investigative" television shows and gossip Websites. Everybody was living off Michael Jackson. He gave good ratings. He rescued the hoi polloi from a life of drudgery.
But that's all over now.
Sony can be thrilled that the digital marketplace insures there's endless inventory for those sitting shiva to buy. And they're going to end up with the Beatles catalog too. But we've lost something with the passing of Michael Jackson. A belief that America is a good-hearted place, a supportive place, where we want everybody to have a good life and be happy.
Wonder about the price of fame? Just look at the miserable Jon & Kate. Never mind their eight children.
We did this to Michael Jackson. And there wasn't a single person who could save him. He was too isolated.
We'll remember where we were when we heard the news. But I'd rather remember that explosion emanating from the radio back in '69.
Michael, we want you back! We want to see you moonwalk one more time! We want you to sing "Billie Jean"!
Alas, that's impossible.
As he once sang, "now it's much too late for me to take a second look."
The king is dead.
Long live the king.
Our posts earlier this week about the alarming amount of click fraud at Facebook left more than a few unanswered questions. The problem is real and was confirmed by Facebook. But what wasn’t clear is exactly how or why it was happening. Now, after we’ve interviewed a number of advertisers and fraudsters, we know exactly how and why they are doing it.
First the why. Click fraud is serious business on the big search engine advertising networks because the bad guys can make serious money. Sign up for an Adsense account and put those ads on parked domain names or wherever. Then all you have to do is start clicking those ads like crazy, using bots or cheap labor. The search engines fight this via obvious and not so obvious means, and an arms race begins. To win you need access to a lot of good IP addresses and not get too greedy. And like inflation and the government, a little click fraud is tolerated by Google and others. It keeps the dollars flowing.
But Facebook is a different story. As of now they don’t really have an Adsense equivalent - Some App developers can run Facebook ads for a revenue split, but that’s it. Those guys wouldn’t be able to get away with click fraud for very long because there are too few of them and it’s too easy to monitor spikes in performance.
So what’s the incentive? We’ve spoken to a number of Facebook advertisers who have explained exactly what’s happening - advertisers are clicking on competitor ads to drive up their costs and drive down their ROI. As advertisers leave the system in disgust, prices go down and the people left win.
At least that’s the theory. But what’s really happening is better explained by game theory stuff that we all learned in micro economics courses. The advertisers know they’d all collectively be better off if they didn’t engage in click fraud against each other. But anyone that “does the right thing” is put at a severe disadvantage competitively. So unless and until Facebook can put a stop to this, advertisers argue that they are actually forced to engage in click fraud to have a fighting chance at making any money.
Some of these guys are spending $30,000 a day on ads on Facebook alone (the maximum for self serve advertisers) and put significant capital at risk. They’re not particularly worried about much more than keeping that capital safe, and earning a living.
And for the most part these are affiliate marketers - middleman arbitragers that don’t create or sell products but simply pass leads and orders on to others who monetize users directly. They have to monitor ROI carefully, particularly because they are paying Facebook per click and in turn getting paid for conversions (sales, leads, etc.). Click fraud puts them out of business fast.
Facebook Click Fraud 101:
Here’s how advertisers are engaging in click fraud:
First, its hard to even see the ads in the first place. On search engines they are there on the parked domain page, or you see them when you type in a query. But on Facebook ads are hyper targeted to users based on deep demographic data - like single men who live in San Diego and like the Xbox and U2, for example. If you aren’t a user who fits that description on Facebook, you don’t see the ads.
So the bad guys just create thousands of fake Facebook accounts with a wide variety of demographic information. This sounds like a lot of work, but it’s highly automated. One advertiser told me how he paid $200 to an Indian operation for 2,000 Facebook accounts. Another said the going rate was just $10 per 100 accounts if you supply the unique email accounts. Once the accounts are created, they use software to fill out the varied demographic information, and that software also manages all these accounts.
The fraudster then logs in to Facebook via these accounts and views the ads that are displayed. The right competitive ads come up and Bingo, the software then clicks them. Facebook rules allow an account to click any advertisement up to six times in a 24 hour period, and all those clicks are charged. All you need is a few accounts to view the ads and then click to the max. Facebook even makes it easy to find the ads. They have an “Ad Board” that shows all ads targeted to that user (mine has 15 ads on it).
Often the fraudsters have their art down to a science and their software clicks ads so fast and moves on to the next one that it doesn’t even hang around long enough for the underlying URL to resolve. Facebook still sees (and charges for) the click, but the advertiser’s server never registers a page view. That’s what bugs advertisers the most. In our original post we quoted one advertiser who at least wanted to see the traffic from the spam bots: “If I were at least getting bot traffic or something that would be one thing, but right now Facebook is simply stealing 20% of clicks that I paid for, which adds up to thousands of dollars.”
The people we spoke with say they’ve been doing this since last year, and have had almost no account profiles shut down. “Just 2 of my 2,000 accounts were closed” said one source.
How Facebook Is Fighting This:
We’ve spoken to Facebook a number of times this week to understand how they are fighting click fraud. We also wanted to wait on this story until Facebook felt comfortable that we weren’t going to make the situation worse by mapping out how fraud is done.
Facebook says the fraud is now under control. One way they monitor fraud is to view conversions off ad clicks - some ads ink to other Facebook pages where surveys and offers are completed, and Facebook can monitor if a click results in a conversion. Conversion rates have stabilized since the changes they made last Sunday, Facebook tells us, meaning fraud has decreased.
Facebook has told us a few ways that they are combating the fraud. They’ve asked us not to publish all of those methods because fraudsters may have an easier time bypassing the defenses. But we’ve checked with experts who agree that the protections Facebook has put in place make sense.
One thing Facebook is willing to talk about on record is that they are heavily monitoring click rates on ads and flagging accounts that are statistically out of bounds for human review. It doesn’t sound like they intend to close known fraudster accounts down, though. Just keeping an eye on them and reversing any ad clicks may in fact be a smarter way of combating them and gathering more data. I agree.
Advertisers who’ve been affected will have credits applied to their accounts automatically, Facebook says. And they can also contact Facebook directly with concerns.
Some advertisers are saying click fraud rates haven’t declined this week at all, but others are saying they see a significant decline in fraud over the last few days. We’re working with one group who’ve set up test ads to monitor fraud on Facebook as well. As of tonight they are still seeing discrepancies in the number of clicks Facebook says they sent and what their server logs show. So clearly the problem has not been fixed entirely, and it probably never will be. It’s an arms race, but at least Facebook is admitting to the problem, and actively fighting it.
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AP - News stories from North Korea's official mouthpiece are available on Twitter.
Apple is nearly tripling its stake in UK-based Imagination Technologies, boosting its interest to 9.5 percent with the purchase of 2.2 million new shares at £1.4275 ($2.35) each - the mid market close price on 25 June - and another 11.52 million shares.
In total, Apple is spending £3.14 million (approx. $5.17 million) for the new shares, exactly the same amount it paid last December when it purchased a 3.6 percent stake in the microchip maker.
Imagination Technologies is a two-division company: its ‘Technology’ arm is an IP licensing business providing multimedia capabilities for SoC devices (embedded graphics, video and display acceleration, multi-threaded processing, etc.), while its ‘PURE Digital’ division uses proprietary technologies as a differentiator in its consumer products, which include some of the world’s most popular DAB digital radios. Imagination also boasts PURE to be the number one supplier of radios in the UK.
Earlier this week, Intel had also increased its stake to 16.02% by buying nearly 5 million shares, a week after snapping up 25 million shares to take its shareholding to 13%.
It is believed that the increased stakes of both Apple and Intel are a direct result of the fact that Saudi group Saad was recently forced to cut back its stake in Imagination after its accounts were frozen by the Saudi central bank. Reuters says nearly 10 million shares in Imagination changed hands on Wednesday at 150 pence each, with Saad to be the likely seller.
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Existence is the ultimate proof of the possible. Every time a bold new project is tried, and works, we advance our sense of the achievable. Given how much transformation we need in order to meet the challenges we face, we need many more attempts at innovation, and we're not getting them. The achievable is not advancing quickly enough. ...Hmm, I dunno. Regulation is an impediment to innovation (for example, it's hard to play with cognitive radio when the FCC says that you can't talk in claimed bands, guard bands, etc). But SEZs are also places where countries have experimented with horrendous working conditions, human trafficking, rampant environmental degradation, and other subjects of regulatory "red tape." And it's not easy to say where one ends and the other begins -- take the cognitive radio example. If you've got a theory that you can use cooperative frequency-hopping, directional transmission with phased arrays, and other technologies to make more signal happen in the same spectrum, is the "safety" regulation that prohibits emitting in bands used by emergency services or radio astronomers "red tape" or "safety"?In many ways, the Global North is as hamstrung in the face of bright green challenges as China was in the face of capitalism. What if the answer is a sustainability and social innovation equivalent of China's answers: a sort of "Special Innovation Zone"?
Imagine a place -- perhaps a shrinking city, or a badly savaged brownfield neighborhood -- where laws were set up to strip rules and regulations down to a do-no-harm minimum (maintaining criminal laws and protecting health, safety, workers' rights and civil liberties, but perhaps limiting liability and certainly slashing red tape and delays) allowing for wild deviations from existing patterns for buildings, systems and operations. Imagine a free-fire zone for sustainable innovations, where new approaches could be iterated and tested rapidly, and, when they work, sent to proliferate outside the Zone. Conversely, some of the freedom might paradoxically come from imposing boundary limitations that can't yet be made practical or survive politically outside the Zone, such as bans on broad classes of chemicals or strict greenhouse gas emissions limits.
Special Innovation Zone: Imagination Without Regulation
(Thanks, Alex!)
Source: Boing Boing | 26 Jun 2009 | 8:46 am
While she had almost nothing to do with the Internet, the Web still has a lot to do with Farrah Fawcett, especially today after the iconic Hollywood actress and model died after a long and well-documented battle with cancer.
Still, the massive online reaction to a more sudden and unexpected celebrity death yesterday–pop legend Michael Jackson, who was 50–pretty much drowned out Fawcett’s passing at 62 years old.
That’s too bad, since she was a genuine cultural phenom–from her famous poster to her feathered hairstyle to her always glamorous declarations of “Freeze!” on the television show, “Charlie’s Angels.”
Thus, here’s my favorite of the many tributes to Fawcett from the Web, to remember her by:
Just before ending his news conference Tuesday, President Obama called on CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux for one last question.
MALVEAUX: Back to Iran, putting a human face on this. Over the weekend, we saw a shocking video of this woman, Neda, who had been shot in the chest and bled to death. Have you seen this video?”
Read the rest of this post on the original site
In the wake of the disputed Iranian election, American Internet companies including Facebook and Twitter have given Iranians an avenue to voice their opinions and to break through the wall of censorship their embattled government has built around the country’s traditional media. Now those companies–or others aspiring to help–may be given a boost from Uncle Sam.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Kayak, the popular multi-airline airfare search engine, thinks Microsoft Bing’s new travel search engine looks so much like its own that it’s confusing Kayak users. The travel search company sent Microsoft (MSFT) a legal letter last week telling them to cut it out, Wired.com has learned.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
These days Howard Stringer makes his home in a hotel suite in an affluent Tokyo neighborhood not far from Sony (SNE) headquarters. It’s a comfortable but far from palatial space consisting of a bedroom, bathroom, and decent-size living-dining area with a small desk that he has outfitted with a PC and fax machine.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
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 Telegraph.co.uk | Foreign Trade Groups Appeal For China to Scrap Web-Filter Wall Street Journal BEIJING—Foreign industry and trade associations on Friday submitted a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao appealing to the government to scrap a requirement for all pcs in China to be shipped with Web-filtering software called Green ... Beijing Adds Curbs on Access to Internet US pressing China "Green Dam" concern on all fronts China/Google drama persists, sexual health sites soon barred |
Okay, the situation surrounding the App Store and its approval process continues to get weirder and weirder.
As you may have heard, an application featuring nudity first appeared in the App Store yesterday. Today, that app was removed, which everyone presumed was a move by Apple. But the developers said that the removal was its own doing because its servers were getting slammed with picture requests. Then more applications claiming to have nude photos started appearing. And now Apple is apparently saying none of these apps will be allowed in the App Store. But that seems to contradict its own rating system that now clearly allows for nudity.
This makes no sense. To the point where I’m not sure there is anyone actually in charge of all of this for Apple. Instead, I’m starting to think this whole system is run by a group of people, all with different thoughts on the approach Apple should take with apps. And none of whom seem to communicate with each other very well.
Here is Apple’s statement to CNN earlier today:
Apple will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography. The developer of this application added inappropriate content directly from their server after the application had been approved and distributed, and after the developer had subsequently been asked to remove some offensive content. This was a direct violation of the terms of the iPhone Developer Program. The application is no longer available on the App Store.
But the app was clearly labeled on its App Store page with a 17+ rating that said the app contained “Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity.” Those are not the developer’s words, those are Apple’s words.
And a few developers have now told me that there is an area in the app submission process to designate if your app contains nudity — hence the need for a 17+ nudity label, which again, Apple offers.
So why pull this app? The reasoning seems to be that the developer wasn’t honest upfront that the app would contain nudity. But then why would it have the nudity warning attached to it? Is it possible that Apple approved some of the nudity but then the developer was trying to push something like hardcore pornography into the app? Maybe, but I haven’t heard any reports of that — just that it featured pictures of topless women. And from its statement, it would seem that Apple doesn’t want any nudity, period.
And if that’s true then why are there other apps out there claiming to also have nude photographs in them, that are getting approved as well? Some are even touting it in the title of their apps. Yet Apple isn’t rejecting them.
So, either we have a situation where for some reason Apple has app warning labels that it never intends to use, and has app screeners that are once again doing a sloppy job watching submissions. Or, there are no clear-cut rules for what should be allowed when it comes to this in the App Store.
I’m definitely thinking it’s the latter, given what we’re seeing.
It’d be one thing if Apple didn’t have a rating that accounts for sexual content, but it does. So clearly it expects some apps to have “”Frequent/Intense Sexual Content or Nudity” in the store. But according to its statement, it won’t allow for them.
And further, Apple allows for plenty of movies that contain all kinds of nudity to be in iTunes. You can even now download those directly to your iPhone. Why are those okay, but apps of that nature are not? I’m repeating myself, but it makes no sense.
The App Store approval process has basically been a joke for much of the past year. I was hopeful it would get better now that parental controls are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Apparently, I was wrong — it looks like it’s getting worse.
We’ve reached out to Apple for further clarification on this. I’ll update if we hear back.
[photo: flickr/arbo]
[thanks Chris]
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Steampunk Transhuman Artifacts
(Thanks, Marque!)
Source: Boing Boing | 26 Jun 2009 | 5:50 am
But to answer the question properly - what are we missing out on - my own regret is that I don't get to read French steampunk!MIND MELD: Guide to International SF/F (Part I ) (via Beyond the BeyondI know there's a lot of it - I did a panel on steampunk a few years ago in Nantes and it was horrible, being surrounded by steampunk writers telling me about their (very cool sounding) books and I can't read any of them! I'd also love to see some of the Chinese SF novels, and at least get a glimpse into the Arabic SF that's being published. I'd love to read some of the Cuban stuff... stop me when you've had enough. Israel has some very interesting home-grown YA fantasy at the moment. To be honest, the way I get to read non-Anglophone writers is mostly in the crime genre, which seems to be a lot more open to translating in the field - so the Cuban or Japanese or French writers I do read are crime writers - check out Detectives Beyond Borders, which is a great introduction. But I think things are changing in science fiction and fantasy a little, too. Certainly, since I started the World SF Blog I've been amazed by how much was out there - in English - translations from Korean and Spanish, writers who occasionally sell an English story but work predominantly in other languages, and a huge amount of articles, blog posts, online communities, a great deal of discussion, from people around the world who are simply passionate about the genre and want others to know about it, too. The problem with the old model of World SF was that it was Anglophone-led, but now it's not! The Internet's been a major catalyst in that regard. A few years ago, three German fans started InterNova, which was meant to be a magazine of international SF. They only managed to do one issue, and it was plagued with distribution problems, but the remarkable thing about it was that the initiative came from the outside, and the contributors, editors, proof-readers, translators - everyone involved - was likewise from the non-English world. And that was quite remarkable to me, this idea that you can do this, you don't need one of the old English writers or editors to do it for you. You can do it yourself. We're seeing more and more of this now, and the Internet's been great in allowing people from all around the world to communicate with each other, talk to each other, exchange ideas - there's a real cross-polination taking place, and it's very exciting and rewarding to be able to do that.
Meet the chief US ACTA negotiator: Kira Alvarez, the Deputy Assistant USTR for IP Enforcement (Thanks, Jamie!)
 PhysOrg.com | New York State Allows Payment for Egg Donations for Research New York Times Stem cell researchers in New York can now use public money to pay women who give their eggs for research, a decision that has opened new possibilities for science but raised concern among some bioethicists and opponents of such research ... New York becomes first state to pay egg donors for stem cell studies NY to Pay for Eggs for Stem Cell Research $10000 is an egg-cellent price, says stem cell panel |
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Twitter has a history of killing off features in order to stay up. And it looks like it had to do that again today, in the wake the avalanche of tweets that are flowing in following Michael Jackson’s death. Gone are Search and Trending Topics from logged-in Twitter account main pages.
It’s probably not that tweets that are so bad for Twitter right now, it’s the searching for tweets to get information about not just Michael Jackson’s passing, but also Farah Fawcett’s and Ed McMahon’s. Plus there’s a whole trend of celebrity deaths being erroneously reported that probably isn’t helping Twitter too much either.
Twitter says the features are “temporarily disabled,” but then links to a blog post on a site that is also apparently down.
For anyone who has seen the new Pixar movie, Up, this reminds me of the scene where they have to throw stuff out of the house to make it float again.
Update: Okay, the post is up now. Here’s what it says:
We’ve had to temporarily disable search results from the logged-in homepage of twitter.com (this includes the saved searches and trends shown in the sidebar). We’re working on the underlying problem and will bring back these features as soon as we can.
You can still search Twitter and see the latest trends at search.twitter.com.
Update 2: And after about 4 hours away, the features are back. The fact that it’s now 2:30 AM on the east coast of the U.S. probably helped relieve some of the load.
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Today, we got the latest version of the live-streaming app Qik, a version that will work on the iPhone 3GS. No, we didn’t get it through the App Store, because Apple or AT&T or both still won’t allow for applications that stream live video from the device to be accepted into the store. So instead, just like before, we have to settle for the ad-hoc version, which is fine, but severely dampens the application’s potential reach.
So how does the iPhone 3GS version of Qik compare to the one that worked on the iPhone 3G? Overall, video quality-wise, I would say the iPhone 3GS version of Qik and the iPhone 3G version look about the same. This is despite the 3GS having a nicer camera (3.2 megapixels versus 2). And even though the iPhone 3G didn’t have video camera capabilities, Qik was able to build its own encoders to use the regular camera for video capture. The iPhone 3GS of course, can do video, and it has APIs that give developers access to it. But it would seem that Qik is still limiting the quality of the video that gets streamed, to ensure better live performance.
But where the new version of Qik shines is when you get in close to something. That’s because it uses the new camera’s auto-focus feature to maintain quality up close (check out the third video below). This is a very welcome feature.
The entire app itself seems to run faster as well, no doubt thanks to the iPhone 3GS being a much faster device than the iPhone 3G was. And it can do a few other neat tricks, such as shut the camera down when Qik is open but you haven’t been streaming anything for a while (you simply tap the screen to activate it again). Another curious option appears to suggest that you can allow the app to run in the background (when the Qik app is closed). I tried that out, but couldn’t get it to work. Perhaps that feature is coming later to take advantage of the fact that Qik cannot put this app in the App Store, so it doesn’t have to play by the App Store’s rules.
The iPhone 3GS does get pretty hot when live streaming, but it did while streaming from the iPhone 3G as well, in my experience.
The bottom line is that Apple/AT&T need to allow these live-streaming apps in the store eventually. Video is the killer feature of the iPhone 3GS and live video is a key part of the market. Though I don’t think you’ll hear too many people complaining for the time being because uploads to YouTube, and using the new Kyte app are so fast (and better quality), but eventually, live video streaming from the device will be demanded.
Qik also recently released a version of its app that will work on the older iPhone 3G with the new 3.0 software that is jailbroken.
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Google China mess gets messier (China Economic Review, via @rmack)Gao (shown here during the broadcast) complained that the pornographic content on Google.cn was particularly harmful. He said in the interview, 'I have this fellow student and he's been curious about these kinds of things. He visited porn Web sites and ended up becoming absent-minded for a while.'
Which sounds pretty authentic. Viewing porn sites causes memory loss. Not a known syndrome but possible, possible.
Some viewers doubted the truth of Gao's comments and suspected that he had been coached beforehand. So an Internet search was carried out -- there is no place to hide -- and it appears that he is a current intern with CCTV. His page on the popular Chinese social networking site Xiaonei.com seemed to support the claim that he was working for the state broadcaster at the time of the interview.
"Day in the Clouds," The Virgin America + Google in-flight internet gaming competition we published a BB Video piece about today, netted yet another honor for multiple world puzzle championship Winner Wei-Hwa Huang. He's shown above, on our flight, using one of the tools of his win: a notebook. Not the notebook computer, a notebook.
He has an extensive blog post about his experience at the event here, which includes the impossibly awesome phrase "Parallel slave processor friends," used to describe his seat-mates, off whom he bounced thoughts as he sorted out answers.
My favorite part of his post? The lyrics he wrote as an answer for one of the puzzles. You should read the whole entry, because it's rare to read such a subjective, intimate account of how genius prepares for a competition in his field. But, I have to just blog the song he wrote, here:
Enjoy the world
with the day in the cloud
Never be bored
and say this aloud:
Everything is connected
when you live in the clouds
Every line is expected
when you live in the clouds
Everyone can do it
no matter your status
have fun anywhere
while flying through a stratus!
Everything is awesome
when you live in the clouds
Everything and then some
can be found in the clouds
Don't worry so
about problems in flight,
Because you know
Everything's going to be all right!
Day in the Cloud -- Virgin America Flight 921 (Onigame livejournal; image via Virgin America)
Dylan Thuras is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dylan is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer.
As one who answers the Call of Cthulhu, I have a special interest in locations that have to do with Lovecraft or the Cthulhu mythos. Risking my grasp on reality and sanity I have assembled three places that display the distinct geometry of evil that occurs when Lovecraft and the Atlas Obscura meet:
The home of Jonathan Corwin, one of the judges involved in the Salem Witch Trials, which sentenced nineteen "witches" to hang and crushed one man to death in an attempt to make him confess to witchery. It is the only structure left with direct ties to the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and referenced in Lovecraft's "Dreams in the Witch House."
Danvers State Hospital for the Criminally Insane
The insane asylum was the basis for Arkham Sanatarium in H.P. Lovcraft's Horror stories and Batman's Arkham asylum but is now a horrifying condo. However a nearby cemetery where the residents of Danvers were buried went unmolested by the condo developers and is worth a visit. The hospital is referenced in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and "Pickman's Model."
The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel was built in 1844, and is possibly the worlds oldest subway tunnel. The tunnel lay sealed and hidden under the busy Brooklyn street for almost 140 years until it was rediscovered by a twenty year old in 1980. One can take a tour of the site, which the discoverer of the tunnel still gives. Be prepared to enter via manhole in the middle of Atlantic Ave. Referenced (not by name, but Lovecraft was likely referring to it) as the location of devil worshippers in "The Horror at Redhook."
A much more detailed list of Lovecraftian sites can be found here at the HPLA , and great Lovecraftian travelogs here and here.
Foursquare, the location-based social networking service, is about to activate Push Notifications in the new version of its iPhone app, due shortly. I’ve been beta testing it out for the past week, and I’m happy to report that it works brilliantly. But be warned: Some of you will not like this idea.
Applications using Push have been rolling out over the past week. None so far have been bigger than the IM clients like AIM and Beejive, as instant messaging is an obvious use of Push messages. But location can work quite well too, as Foursquare is proving, but only for a certain kind of location app.
Foursquare is all about explicitly “checking-in” places. That is to say, when you go somewhere, you have to boot up the app, load the site or send a text to let it know you want to check-in there. It doesn’t do it automatically, even if you have the app open. Because of this, Push Notifications make sense, since they ping your followers when you check-in somewhere. And you really shouldn’t have to worry about privacy because you are the one checking in to a place, on purpose, to let the people you know — that you personally allowed to let follow you — see where you are.
Of course, regardless of that, there will be people who don’t like this concept. Some have been too liberal with who they allow to follow them. Others won’t like the idea of someone getting pinged every time they check in somewhere. I imagine it will be kind of like how some users at first didn’t like the Facebook News Feed because it made the information updates from your profile more obvious — even though all that information was already there for people to see.
Others won’t like the concept of their own phone getting pinged every time a friend checks in somewhere. But, of course, you can always turn the Push Notifications off. Right now, the service is wrestling with the idea of having them set to “on” as the default when you download the new version, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells us.
While that may sound like a bad idea to power users of the service who may follow dozens of people, Crowley notes that most users follow far fewer than that. And so if the average user only follows say, 10 people, the Push Notifications should be a welcome way to follow that number of people.
And you can toggle notifications on a per-user basis. Though in this version of the app (1.3), it’s somewhat of a pain to do because you have to click on a user’s profile, then click on the “Pings” tab, then flip the switch on “Checkin Messages.” In the future, Crowley hopes there will be an area of the app that contains a list of all your friends and you can easily go through that to toggle them on or off. Right now, you can do that on the Foursquare website on this page.
And it’s easy to turn all these notifications on or off. In the upper right side of the app there is a “Ping: On/Off” area. Clicking on that takes you to a Pings page that gives you a few options. One is to turn checkin messages off until the following morning (great for if you’re going to bed). Another allows you to turn them off until you turn them back on in the same menu.
Again, I understand that a lot of people won’t like this idea of being able to “stalk” your friends’ whereabout. But this is where social networking is heading. Just imagine being hungry around lunchtime or being in the mood for a happy hour drink, and getting pinged with a message showing you that a friend is doing one of those activities. These types of apps actually put the “social” — as in, real life social — in “social networking.”
Foursquare 1.3 with Push Notifications should be available soon in the App Store for free.
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Section: Web, Websites, Google
China’s dispute with Google has reached a new level as millions of users found they were unable to access the English or Chinese versions search engine or Gmail. The block was put in place after the government accused Google of willfully spreading pornography.
“We have found that the English version of Google.com has spread lots of pornographic, lewd and vulgar content, which is in serious violation of Chinese laws and regulations,” government spokesperson, Qin Gang, was quoted by the BBC.
Google has been called upon to meet with Chinese officials but has not commented on the block. It’s unknown if China considers any content it doesn’t agree with, such as political sites critical of the government, as “unhealthy content” or just traditional adult sites. Knowing how China censors with an iron fist, it probably does lump any content it doesn’t like under that label.
In another show of censorship, Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has been found to deliver different results for politically sensitive keywords if they are typed in in English, traditional Chinese as opposed to simplified Chinese. Simplified Chinese is used in China.
Google is expected to find a way to meet the Chinese government’s demands although they obviously have no clue how a search engine works. While it’s disappointing that American companies are reluctant to stand up to China’s censorship demands, it’s understandable that they don’t want to risk losing such a large market.
Read [PCWorld]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Video uploads to YouTube have increased 400 percent a day since the launch of the iPhone 3GS, according to YouTube.
In a blog post, YouTube officials Dwipal Desai and Mia Quagliarello cited three factors driving an overall growth of 1700 percent in uploads in the last six months: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvement of the upload flow and a new, streamlined process to share videos on social networks.
Yowza — 400 percent a day due to the iPhone 3GS? We’re guessing AT&T is going to hate this: The company already prevented the TV streaming iPhone app SlingPlayer from working on the 3G network, saying it “could create congestion and potentially prevent other customers from using the network.” How will AT&T handle video uploads? That’s bound to stress the upstream of the 3G network. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Via Macworld
Today, HP announced several new desktops at affordable prices. The new computers include the HP Pavilion Slimline s5000 series, HP Pavilion p6000 series, the HP Pavilion Elite e9000 series, and the Compaq Presario CQ5000.
The Pavilion Slimline s5000 series features 2GB DDR2 memory, operates on Windows Vista Home Basic edition, features a 320GB hard drive, runs on am AMD Athlon Single Core LE1660 processor, and sports a 6-in-1 memory card reader. The computer only costs $289. Keep in mind there are other computers in the same 5000 series that feature better specs, as the computer listed is the most basic version.
Next up, we have the p6000 series which is pretty similar to the s5000 series. Basically, it also operates on Windows Vista Home Basic edition, runs on an AMD Sempron Single Core LE1300 processor, features 2GB DDR2 memory as well as 320GB hard drive. Since it does not come with as many capabilities as the previously mentioned computer, it will sell for $269. Again, this is only the most basic computer in the p6000 lineup.
Moving on, we have the Pavilion Elite e9000 series, which is more advanced than the two previous computer lines. First off, it operates on a 64 bit version of Windows Vista Home Premium. It runs on an AMD Phenom II X2 545 Dual core processor, sports 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB hard drive, 15-in-1 memory card reader, and has a dedicated 512MB NVIDIA GeForce G210 graphics card.
Since it features higher-end specs, the price is also higher, as it will cost you $599. The $899 computer in this lineup features 6GB RAM and a 750GB hard, just to list a few details. Lastly, we have the Compaq Presario CQ5110F Desktop, which will sell for $379. In terms of Operating System, it runs on Windows Vista Home Premium, features an AMD Athlon X2 7750 dual core processor, 3GB RAM, and a 320GB hard drive.
Read [HP]
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Patent number 5255452, filed in 1992, shows how Michael Jackson and his dancers could lean at 45-degree angles during live performances of the song "Smooth Criminal".
1. A system for engaging shoes with a hitch mans to permit a person standing on a stage surface to lean forwardly beyond his or her center of gravity, comprising:at least one shoe having a heel with a first engagement means, said first engagement means comprising a recess formed in a heel of said shoe covered with a heel slot plane located at a bottom region of said heel, said heel slot plate having a slot formed therein with a relatively wide opening at a leading edge of said heel and a narrower terminal end rearward of said leading edge, said recess being larger in size above said terminal end of said slot than is said terminal end of said slot; and
a second engagement means, detachably engageable with said first engagement means, comprising a hitch member having an enlarged head portion connected by a narrower shank portion to a means for raising and lowering said head of said hitch member above and substantially level with or below said stage surface, said head portion being larger in size than said terminal end of said slot and said shank portion being narrower than said terminal end of said slot, wherein said hitch member can be moved through apertures in said stage surface between a projecting position raised above said stage surface and a retracted position at or below the stage surface, and when said head portion of said hitch member is raised above said stage surface, said first engagement means can be detachably engaged with said projecting hitch member, thereby allowing a person wearing the shoes to lean forwardly with his or her normal center of gravity beyond a front region of said shoes, and maintain said forward lean.
You can see them perform the move in the below video; watch the guy on the right, as he has trouble disengaging his loafers after the move.
Goodbye, Michael. Even with all the problems, you were one of the greats. [via Karina]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
A girl named Erica is hosting a new video podcast on YouTube that teaches home repairs like hanging a door, removing grout and using the Saw Stop. Erica wears low cut tops which reveal a pierced bellybutton and lower back tattoo. You may be surprised to hear the videos are sexually-suggestive:
"The only thing I like more than working with my hands is a guy who knows what he's doing."
"I measure 36"... from the floor to the doorknob."
If the pin does not go in... lube may be required.
All of the videos end with a gag reel, which should help endear her to you.
Section: Video, Portable Video, Peripherals, Displays/Projectors
The Jakks Pacific EyeClops Mini Projector is being marketed as a toy, but for $99, it’s worth a second look. Gadgetell got a chance to see the device in action. Is it worth getting as a second television or for video games?
This projector is tiny. It easily fits in your hand and does not get very hot. Additionally, the device comes packaged with a battery pack that accepts D cell batteries to make the projector portable. For stationary setups, you can use the included power adapter.
The EyeClops has composite inputs, a built in speaker, and also has a minijack audio out for better sound. The demo unit was being fed by an iPod. Video quality is less than VGA, but is acceptable for the price. Obviously, since this is not a business class projector, don’t expect to be able to see a picture in a brightly lit room. However, if you darken the room, you’ll get a decent image. Jakks Pacific claims that you can get up to a 60-inch screen out of this tiny toy (down from their original 70-inch estimate).
From the demo, the EyeClops Mini Projector seemed pretty interesting. It definitely is cooler than a lot of the toys I had when I was growing up. It might be worth getting just to have a quick second display to watch even more television or show off photos or videos. We’d need more time with the device before making a full recommendation. The EyeClops Mini Projector is still scheduled for a Fall 2009 release.
Company Site: [Jakks Pacific]
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
I don’t know whether this is real or fake, and I don’t care. This image (above) purporting to be a one-pose narcissist’s iPhone home screen is redonkulously hilarious. Makes you want to Jailbreak your iPhone, doesn’t it?
Imgur via Gizmodo
Here’s more evidence that texting and driving is terribly dangerous. Car and Driver magazine tested to see how long it takes to hit the brake when completely unimpaired, legally drunk, reading e-mail, and sending a text message. It turns out that sending a text message adds 70 feet to your drive before you hit the break, the most out of all four scenarios.
What does that mean, in plain English? Basically it means that, of all the things you could do while driving, sending a text message is so incredibly dangerous that you should be ashamed of yourself if you do it.
And yet, I have a feeling that the perception is that drinking and driving is just about the worst thing a person can do, not only putting the driver in danger but everyone else on the road. That may be true, and it’s right to demonize drink-driving, but text messaging while driving should be just as icky, no?
I don’t know, how about this: try to be well-rested and sober while you drive, okay?
via Drudge/CNBC
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FROM APPLETELL - Cover your eyes, kiddies, because Apple has opened Pandora’s Box on iTunes. The “Hottest Girls” app now features topless and fully nude women, and carries a 17+ rating.
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 guardian.co.uk | Salty Saturn moon plumes suggest stuff of life Register Massive geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty ocean beneath the surface, adding weight to speculation it harbors the essential building blocks needed for life. Scientists working on NASA's ... Hunt for Life on Saturnian Moon Heats Up The Salty Waters of Saturn's Moon Hint at Life Ocean hidden inside Saturn's moon |
Section: Web, Web 2.0, Web Apps, Websites, Online Music/Video
Maybe they should just start calling it “TwitBook” because Facebook sure seems to be trying to adapt their interface to everything Twitter. Their latest redesign sees them making some changes to their Publisher tool (this used to be the status update box). Now, users can choose just how public (or private) they want their shared content to be. “Public” as in everyone—you don’t even have to be friends.
There actually still seems to be some confusion as to how public “Everyone” really is. Facebook doesn’t clarify the term on their blog. Some people are stating it means your content will actually be Google-able, others say it probably means just searchable within Facebook. You can also choose to feed your updates to friends, friends of friends, networks, or just certain friends.
The changes are there right now for people who had previously marked their info “public” and are supposed to be made available to everyone else in a trickle effect soon.
It’s pretty clear that a big hope on Facebook’s part with this latest move is that people will be more willing to update more on all fronts: to stream more videos, post more photos, and share more. Now that users can pick and choose who can see the info, they can decide to share certain bits and pieces with different people. They may want to talk tech with a certain crew and complain about their girlfriend with their guy buddies without her (or her friends) seeing it.
Facebook is also clearly emphasizing real-time information. Their developer blog stated yesterday that developers can take advantage of the live-streaming update boxes which were very similar to the one used by CNN during the Presidential inauguration in January. “With the Live Stream Box on your website, users log in using Facebook Connect and share updates that appear both within the Live Stream Box and on their Facebook profiles and in their friends’ home page Streams,” the post by Tom Whitnah explained. “Each post includes a link back to the Live Stream Box on your site so users can discover the live event and immediately join based on their friends’ recommendations.”
Much like how on Twitter people use hash tags (which are often planned and organized ahead of time so that people can follow a set topic), the Live Stream Box is being set so that users can comment at the same time on an event. It is also supposed to be very simple to create one of your own, which Facebook is hoping site owners and developers take advantage of.
“The Live Stream Box is easy to install and takes just a minute to set up,” the post stated. “To get the Live Stream Box on your website, get a Facebook API key, upload a small file to your website, and then embed a few lines of code into your Web page.”
While these are some interesting moves on Facebook’s part, they are still too Twitter-like for my liking. C’mon Facebook. Think of some of your own new stuff.
Read: [insidefacebook]
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Sorry Nvidia fans, there’s no Nvidia Tegra netbook on the horizon.
Contrary to reports that Nvidia is planning to release a netbook made by Taiwanese manufacturer Mobinnova under its brand, the company says it has no plans to do so.
“It’s not true,” Derek Perez, director of public relations for Nvidia told Wired.com
Nvidia will focus on getting its Tegra system-on-a-chip into cellphones and mobile internet devices produced by its partners. The company launched Tegra earlier this month as an ultra-low power chip package that could significantly improve audio and video processing capabilities in pint-sized devices. Tegra includes an 800-MHz ARM CPU, a high-definition video processor, an imaging processor, an audio processor and an ultralow-power GeForce GPU, that can be used together or independently.
Nvidia will support Mobinnova, which announced a Tegra-powered netbook called élan earlier this month. The élan is expected to be the size of a hardcover book, weigh less than 2 pounds and offer five to ten hours of high-definition video playback.
Looks like Mobinnova will have to market élan on its own or find another company to rebrand the product.
Photo: Mobinnova élan netbook/Mobinnova
 Telegraph.co.uk | Kayak broadside hits Microsoft's search redesign CNET News Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, although on the Web it can be followed by the threat of litigation. Wired reports that travel search site Kayak.com sent Microsoft a "legal letter" this week based on Microsoft's Bing ... Bing a Captain Kirk Rule-Changer for Google: Rich Jaroslovsky Bing -- Early Estimations in Local Search Focus Group Study Offers Good & Bad News For Bing |
FROM APPLETELL - Today, Windows announced the official pricing for Windows 7 for users who are upgrading, as well as for users who just want a new copy of the operating system.
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That's not a picture of an old HP 15C Scientific Calculator—or rather, it is, but only as it appears as an application for the iPhone or iPod Touch, available now in the iTunes App Store for $30.
Too expensive? You can get the HP 12C Financial Calculator model software for only $15.
The culprit in nearly every case has been Sony's tradition-bound mentality, one that remained too focused on building excellent analog machines in an increasingly digital world. And though Stringer has been pushing for transformation since his first days in the top job, by his own admission he has been hamstrung by the management culture in Sony's home market and the repercussions of bad decisions made years ago that still haunt the company.1. Sell Ericsson.
This is an interesting addition to your AT&T U-verse TV DVR (does anyone have one? I’ve never seen one). The new iPhone app allows folks to control their DVRs remotely using the Touch or the iPhone and augments the current Web Remote Access service available for U-verse.
The app allows you to pick and record content from the comfort of being in front of your iPhone.
New iPhone and iPod touch Application From AT&T Lets Customers Schedule U-verse TV DVR Recordings On The Go
DALLAS, June 25, 2009 — AT&T U-verseSM TV customers can now use a free application from the Apple App Store to make scheduling and managing recordings on their DVR even easier when they’re away from home. The U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App for iPhone and iPod touch lets customers record their content from virtually anywhere and is another example of U-verse TV applications and DVR enhancements that have been rolled out to customers at no extra charge.
“This is the perfect example of how AT&T is bringing services together to deliver a better experience for customers,” said Jeff Weber, vice president of video services for AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “With AT&T U-verse, you get DVR capabilities you can’t find from any other provider, and this app gives users the freedom to schedule their DVR from their iPhone or iPod touch.”
The app allows users to easily search U-verse TV program listings from the full program guide, view descriptions of selected programs, schedule program or series recordings, manage or edit scheduled recordings, and delete stored DVR content.
The Mobile Remote Access App is available for free from Apple’s App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/.
The launch of the new U-verse TV Mobile Remote Access App follows several DVR enhancements that are currently being rolled out to U-verse TV customers, including an exclusive new Total Home DVR feature that allows customers to schedule and delete recordings from any U-verse receiver in the home — all from a single DVR.
AT&T U-verse was one of the first providers to introduce Web Remote Access to the DVR in November 2006, and it brought three-screen DVR access to all U-verse TV customers with Mobile Remote Access to the DVR in April 2007. In 2008, AT&T launched AT&T U-verse Total Home DVR, allowing all U-verse DVR customers to watch standard and High Definition recorded shows from a single DVR on any connected TV in the home.
U-verse TV customers can also enjoy several other integrated applications, including personalized, on-screen weather, sports, traffic and stock information via AT&T U-bar; local and national weather forecasts with Weather On Demand; the ability to view personal photos on your TV that you have uploaded to flickr.com; and more.
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Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 25 Jun 2009 | 5:38 pm
I just came back from the official pre-launch event for the iPhone 3GS in Japan, organized by telecommunications giant SoftBank (the exclusive carrier in Nippon). The iPhone is often said to be rather unpopular in this country (which isn’t true), but even though the event began at 10 in the night, it was totally packed.
I’m guessing around 500 iPhone fans, journalists, geeks and other people gathered in the hall, which was just a minute away from SoftBank’s flag ship store in Tokyo’s upscale district Omotesando.
Have a look at the pic above and the photo gallery below to see a queue of hardcore fans lining up for the iPhone 3GS (today at 7pm) even though sales start tomorrow morning at 7am Japanese time. There are also some additional pictures from the pre-launch event.
In case you wonder who the guy in the stormtrooper suit in the pics below is: It’s Danny Choo who writes a wildly popular English blog on Japanese culture and currently prepares a Danny Choo iPhone app.
The queue looked way wilder last year (when the 3G was launched), but still this level of interest is quite impressive.
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I am a huge advocate of combining exercise with other activities &mdash most of my fitness choices have a social component to them (run clubs, volleyball teams, climbing gyms) and I do a lot of my editing and revising in the dog park. So the idea of being able to tone my tummy while blogging was too much to resist. Hammacher's exercise ball chair looks like a little alien on legs, but can it really improve my posture and strengthen my core while I work?
I used to sit on a plain exercise ball, but I got sick of it rolling away every time I got up. (It's also only good for your posture if you sit on it the right way: it's just as easy to slouch or wiggle on an exercise ball as it is to activate your core muscles and sit straight.)
Hammacher's exercise ball chair comes packaged in a rectangular box &mdash you have to inflate the ball with the included hand pump and build it yourself which, in retrospect, wasn't all that bad. The key is to pump it just enough so that your knees bend at a perfect 90-degree angle. The chrome-plated steel feet screw into a plywood base that keeps the ball from plopping out from underneath your seat. The chair has a pretty light blue, red, or black mesh cover, which makes it look like a cool piece of furniture and not a gaudy desk chair.
I've been sitting on this thing for about a month now, and so far, I really like the way my back feels. I like that I can roll around a little bit on the chair without it giving out under me &mdash I can do slow pilates-style belly rolls while I type. Is it slouch-proof? No. But the fact that it feels the most stable when my feet are on the ground and my core is straight is incentive enough for me to stop sinking in my seat. My shoulders, however, are a totally separate issue. They still hurt like hell after hours in front of the computer screen. Does anyone know of a chair that alleviates shoulder pain?
Product page [Hammacher Schlemmer]
The tech blogosphere was abuzz yesterday with the news that Apple seemingly started accepting applications that contain nudity into the App Store. Now, it appears someone over at Cupertino as ultimately decided to reject the first such app to get into the store after all. In our tests, we could still locate the app via the iTunes link, but were unable to purchase it and download it to our devices.
The internet is filled to the brim with hubbub about Apple approving bare breasts in the App Store. Some cry for others to think of the children, others support the loosening of Apple’s grip on application content, and the rest all shrug it off with the rightly answer of “Who gives a damn?”
We want to know, dear reader: if you’re a-okay with people doin’ the nasty in a few apps, what’s the limit? Is there one? Let us know in the poll below, then weigh in down in the comments.
Where does your comfort zone end when it comes to adult content in the App Store?(surveys)
(Note: Yes, I’m fully aware that Hayden Panettiere, pictured at right, has nothing to do with porn. I’m also fully aware that she’s absurdly gorgeous. We’re riding the fine line between “hot” and “NSFW” here.)
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With a nice big 3.2″ touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, and 624mhz CPU, the Samsung Omnia wasn’t a bad piece of hardware when it was released last year. Hell, it still outspecs most phones released today. Hardware-wise, it’s set - but on the software front, it’s luke-warm garbage. The TouchWiz interface helps a little, but deep down inside it’s still clunky ol’ Windows Mobile 6.1.
Well, a handful of handy hackers might soon fix the Omnia’s software. How? Android! It’s still in an early (read: not working) stage, but they’ve managed to get it to start up and provide some basic level of functionality. Best part? You don’t even need to flash your handset; they’ve got it running right off the SD card. If they manage to knock out some of the kinks and blast out a few drivers for the device, this could get really interesting.
Keep up the good work, guys.
[Patrick Soon via Android Community]
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If you live in one of those houses where making a call on your AT&T phone requires standing in a specific corner, knocking three times, and saying a short prayer, you were probably pretty jazzed to hear about MicroCell, AT&T’s broadband-powered cell tower for your living room. When we discovered mentions of the MicroCell in an iPhone update, you probably got outright excited. It seemed like it was just weeks away from launch.
That was February. 4 months later, AT&T has still been mostly mum on the matter - until now. Unstrung caught AT&T network delivery honcho Gordon Mansfield talking up the MicroCell, saying it’s “on track for a full national launch by the end of 2009.” A window of six months? Pah! That’s like a lifetime in the mobile world. There will be 14 new iPhones released by then!
So don’t worry, folks - by the time you have a flying car and a broadband connection in said flying car, you’ll be able to pick up a MicroCell to go along with it.
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According to pocket-lint, HTC CEO Peter Chou has confirmed that the HTC Sense interface will be available as an optional addition to “other existing [HTC] devices.” Though he did not detail which phones would receive the addition and when, it isn’t hard to extrapolate. There are only a few other HTC phones running on Android, though each has a few variants: the HTC Dream, otherwise known as the T-Mobile G1, and the HTC Magic, known as the myTouch, ION, etc.
Speaking of variants: From what we’ve heard from our talks with HTC, it seems a bit unlikely that Sense will find its way to any “with Google”-branded handsets - at least not in any official manner. That means the T-Mobile G1/myTouch are out, but the ION and another other handsets lacking the “with Google” subtitle are in. Cross your fingers, HTC fans, your phone may get a facelift soon.
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Wait, what? There’s pornography on the Internet? When did this happen? It must be, like, a new thing, otherwise I cannot understand the curiosity over a newly updated iPhone app called “Hottest Girls” [iTunes link]. It’s $1.99, and includes pictures of women, some of whom are topless. It’s almost like living in Europe, where topless women can be found on magazine covers and advertisements.
The big deal with this app, of course, is that it’s the first iPhone app to include nudity. But should it be a big deal? As of iPhone OS 3.0, there’s built-in parental controls, meaning that Mommy and Daddy can prevent Junior from seeing naughty images. (Better not take Junior to a museum, either. Lots of paintings of naked people there, too.) And if Junior finds a way around the iPhone’s parental controls, well, then your best bet is probably to have a talk with him. You know, be a parent.
On the other hand, if apps like “Hottest Girls” can get the Apple seal of approval, why can’t something like Quick Shot? What brings more value to the iPhone: a glorified replacement for Google Image Search, or /S/ on 4chan (both easily accessible on Safari for iPhone), or an app that brings more functionality to the device’s camera? I absolutely understand how certain developers will be none too pleased to hear that “Hottest Girls” was approved.
In conclusion, expect any of the following topics to be debated on the Internet: should nudity ever be allowed on the iPhone?; what is porn, really: a topless woman posing on a beach, or something “more”?; why does Apple approve this but not other apps?; do the new parental controls preclude Apple from making “moral” decisions?
And then the Europeans will laugh at us Americans, again, for our inability to handle the female breast. (But we just beat them in soccer, so it all evens out!)
UPDATE Looks like Apple just pulled the app. Make of that what you will.
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The HTC Ozone might just be one of the best deals at Verizon Wireless. Check out everything you get for only $49.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate: QWERTY, Winmo 6.1, global roaming, Wi-Fi, and teathering. I don’t think you could ask for a better value out of a brand new Verizon phone.
Sure, Verizon does have BlackBerrys on the cheap, but those are old models. The HTC Ozone brings the goods on a new model. Don’t worry about the Winmo interface as HTC has its quality skin loaded on top. This is also one of the only phones that Verizon sells that has Wi-Fi and doesn’t have its GPS locked onto VZ Navigrator, which makes it even more a steal.
The HTC Ozone will be online beginning June 29 and in-stores July 13.
HTC OZONE BRINGS VERIZON WIRELESS’ SMARTPHONE LINEUP TO NEW HEIGHTS
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., and BELLEVUE, Wash. – Verizon Wireless and HTC today introduce the Verizon Wireless HTC Ozone™. This easy-to-use smartphone combines a simple design with a host of connectivity options that include the nation’s largest wireless 3G network, global roaming and Wi-Fi, making it a smart option and, at $49.99*, a great value for first-time smartphone users or savvy business professionals.
Available color: Black
Key features:
· Ergonomically-designed QWERTY keyboard for fast and easy typing
· Flexible connectivity options with Verizon Wireless’ 3G network, global roaming capabilities and support for Wi-Fi
· 1500 mAh battery delivers extended operating time
· Includes international charging adapters to stay powered up while abroadLifestyle features:
· VZ NavigatorSM – get audible turn-by-turn directions to more than 15 million points of interest and share the directions with others
· Visual Voice Mail – view, delete, reply, listen to and forward voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions
· Mobile IM – connect with friends on AOL® Instant Messenger, Windows® Messenger and Yahoo!® Messenger
· Mobile Email – access to popular e-mail services such as Yahoo!®, Hotmail®, AOL® and Windows® Live Seamless Microsoft® Exchange synchronization with Microsoft® Office Mobile for maximum productivity
· Access to most frequently used features with a simplified “sliding panel” user interface
· One-touch messaging key for quick connection to friends and family* Price and availability:
· The HTC Ozone will be $49.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.
· VZ Navigator is available for $9.99 monthly access, and Visual Voice Mail is available for $2.99 monthly access.
· Customers can purchase the HTC Ozone beginning June 29 online at www.verizonwireless.com, by calling 1-800-2 JOIN IN, or through business sales channels. It will be in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on July 13. For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.(EDITOR’S NOTE: Media can access high-resolution images of the HTC Ozone in the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.)
About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation’s most reliable and largest wireless voice and data network, serving more than 86.6 million customers. Headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with more than 86,000 employees nationwide, Verizon Wireless is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). For more information, visit www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.About HTC
Founded in 1997, HTC Corporation (HTC) is a global leader in mobile phone innovation and design. Since its establishment, HTC has developed strong R&D capabilities, pioneered many new designs and product innovations and launched state-of-the-art mobile phones for mobile operators and distributors in Europe, the US, Asia and around the world. HTC is one of the fastest growing companies in the mobile device market. The company is listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange under ticker 2498. For more information about HTC, please visit www.htc.com.HTC Ozone from Verizon Wireless
The HTC Ozone™ from Verizon Wireless has everything customers need to take care of business – whether out of the office or out of the country. This easy-to-use smartphone offers the power of Windows Mobile® 6.1 Standard, access to the nation’s largest wireless 3G network, global roaming and Wi-Fi, making it a great option for first-time smartphone users and savvy business professionals alike.
Customers can purchase the HTC Ozone on June 29 online at www.verizonwireless.com, by calling 1-800-2 JOIN IN, and through business sales channels, or in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on July 13. The HTC Ozone is available for $49.99 after a $70 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.
Features
· Supports Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard
· Supports Microsoft® Office Mobile that allows customers to view and edit Excel® and Word® documents; view PowerPoint® presentations; and create notes with OneNote® Mobile
· Supports Adobe® Reader® LE PDF viewer
· Browser: Internet Explorer Mobile
· Windows Media® Player Mobile
· Bluetooth® (version 2.0) capabilities include A2DP for stereo support
· 2.4” display: 320 x 240 pixels; QVGA resolution; 64K color support LCD
· Full-QWERTY with five-way navigation keypad
· 2.0 megapixel camera with auto-focus and video capture
· microSD™ memory slot with support of up to 16 GB (microSD card sold separately)
· Voice command, voice notes/recorder capabilities
· Speakerphone
· Security locking features
· Text, picture and video messaging
· Instant Messaging capabilities: AIM, WL Messenger, Yahoo!® Messenger
· ActiveSync®-capable (version 4.5) and Windows Mobile Device Center®Connectivity
· CDMA 2000 1xRTT/1xEV-DO (Revision A) 800/1900 MHz GSM/GPRS/EDGE: 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
· Pre-installed SIM card
· Wi-Fi connectivity (802.11 b/g)Verizon Wireless Services
· VZ NavigatorSM-capable – customers can get audible turn-by-turn directions to more than 15 million points of interest and share the directions with others
· Visual Voice Mail – delete, reply, listen to, and forward voice mail messages without having to listen to prior messages or voice instructions
· Mobile Broadband Connect-capable – allows customers to use their HTC Ozone as a modem to connect to Verizon Wireless’ high-speed network with a qualifying Nationwide plan
· Wireless Sync-capable – allows customers to send and receive personal or corporate e-mail, calendar, contacts and moreSpecifications
· Dimensions: 4.5” (h) x 2.5” (w) x 0.5” (d)
· Weight: 3.7 ounces
· Memory:
o Flash: 256 MB
o RAM: 192 MB
· Standard battery usage times: 1500 mAh
o Usage: 290 minutes
o Standby: 324 hours
· SAR: Head: 1.03 W/Kg
· Hearing Aid Compatibility = M3/T3
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Apple has finally allowed pornography into the iTunes App Store. The application, called Hottest Girls, costs $2 and includes “2200+ images of topless, sexy babes and nude models”.
UPDATE: TechCrunch is reporting that Apple has pulled the app from its App Store, stating, “it appears someone over at Cupertino [has] ultimately decided to reject the first such app.” However, the removal of the app is only a temporary one, according to the app’s developer, who states the he made the decision to stop distributing the app himself.
Allen Leung, developer of Hottest Girls, posted on his web site that his app is “temporarily sold out” due to overload on his image server.
Why has Apple, a company which banned an e-book application from the same store because it could be used to download the Kama Sutra, suddenly started selling smut? Because the 3.0 iPhone software update now allows age restrictions for applications. Also, when I downloaded the application to test it, a new alert popped up asking me if I am over 17. I said yes.
The application itself is terrible. Four photos are shown on screen at once and tapping one will pull a full sized version from the server. From here you can look at it or save it to your photo-roll. There is no slideshow to display a progressive striptease of the same model, so you are limited to one picture at a time before you have to navigate back to the main screen, which shows a lack of understanding as to how a porn app should work. You could of course just use the application for downloading and view the pictures later in the Photos application.
You can, however, pick a category. On offer are Popular, Asian, Blonde, Brunette and Swimsuit. This is a little less specialized than what you will find on most porn sites, and it is also distinctly softcore: while there are nipples to be seen, that’s about it. A smartly-worded Google image search would do better if you’re looking for titillation.
The most interesting part is the social media aspect, or at least a crowd-sourcing one. When you view a picture full-size you are asked to rate it as either good or bad. Supposedly these ratings will steer future updates, which will be free and pushed directly to buyers.
This is certainly an interesting move from Apple. One of the main reasons for not buying porn on the internet (apart from the vast range of free content) is fear that the purveyors will rip you off if you give them a credit card number. With the Apple Store, your stimulation is just an easy, automatically-billed click away. This first foray is quite awful, but you can be sure that there will be more, and better, very soon.
Product page [iTunes]
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An exercise for the reader:
First, we present Fracture. You tap the iPhone to "crack" the screen and then you tap again to cause the apps to explode, triggering the rest of the apps to explode in rapid succession. Next, we find SkyFart. You press a little man and he farts. Then you press him again and he farts and again and flies into space. Then you press him again and he farts and flies. Then you press him again...
So which app was accepted by the App store with open arms and which one was rejected?
The logical thing to say, based on the common understanding that the expression of gas and fecal matter as a mode of transport is considered by some to be offensive, is that SkyFart would be rejected out of hand. This is not true.
