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Wockhardt to sell animal health unit to VetoquinolMUMBAI, June 28 (Reuters) - Indian pharma company Wockhardt Ltd said on Sunday it had signed an agreement to divest its Animal Health Division to France's Vetoquinol , but did not provide any financial...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 11:09 am On Being - Or Finding - a Great Startup Advisor: Video Interview with TechStars Mentor Jud ValeskiWith fifteen years of experience in Internet-based entrepreneurialism, Gnip CTO Jud Valeski is well qualified to offer expertise to startups, which he does through the Boulder, Colorado-based TechStars...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 11:08 am Facebook, Twitter and peers for sale - privately (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:47 am Spain's Repsol discovers 2 oil wells in TarragonaMADRID, June 28 (Reuters) - Spanish oil major Repsol has discovered two new oil wells off the northern coast of Spain with a potential production of 8,000 barrels per day, four times the group's Spanish...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:44 am Novartis in talks to buy much of Elan -reportDUBLIN, June 28 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis is in talks to buy parts of Irish peer Elan , including its flagship multiple sclerosis products and its Alzheimer's disease pipeline, the Sunday Times...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:13 am Novartis in talks to buy much of Elan -reportDUBLIN, June 28 (Reuters) - Swiss drugmaker Novartis is in talks to buy parts of Irish peer Elan , including its flagship multiple sclerosis products and its Alzheimer's disease pipeline, the Sunday Times...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:13 am PollyTrade Lets You Trade Stocks Via Twitter
With nothing else on his hands immediately, Walley started building a Twitter application on his own dime (about $10,000) that would basically link your Twitter account to a brokerage account and enable you to trade stocks via the micro-sharing service. PollyTrade is the result of his work, and it’s currently available in public beta. What it does is link your Twitter account to your E*Trade account (more brokers will be added in the future based on user feedback), and subsequently enable you to do transactions using tweets that start with @pollytrade and include the respective ticker.
It’s that simple, and the ease of use is what Walley touts as the main selling point: “I always have access to Twitter, even if through SMS, so trading is always just a short text message away.” That’s true, but there are issues: the service’s flaky reliability is one, security is another. Anyone remember the Mikeyy worm attacks earlier this year? To get around that, you’ll still need to log into your E*Trade account to confirm any transactions passed through PollyTrade, so the app is more like an easy way to start transactions than to actually go from A to Z with buying and selling stock. On a sidenote: if you have a public Twitter account, other users can see which stocks you’re buying and selling when they follow both you and @PollyTrade, or when they simply go to your profile. Obviously, don’t use PollyTrade if that’s information you want to keep to yourself until they start supporting trading via direct messages (which is in the works). If you’re all ok with the above and you want to sign up, you can do this here, but note that while in beta the PollyTrade team will decide to let you in only after contacting you. Curious to see if this takes off, when they’ll team up with the StockTwits folks, and what you think of PollyTrade. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:05 am PollyTrade Lets You Trade Stocks Via TwitterLast month, Lance Walley left his position as co-founder and CEO of Ruby on Rails hosting company Engine Yard, after the VC-funded startup was forced to trim its workforce by 15% last January. With nothing...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:05 am The Proposal Starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds Depicts Real LifeMajority of U.S. Singles Would Have Green Card Wedding; High Percentage of Single Online Daters Would Marry Foreign Strangers for Cash MIAMI BEACH, Fla., June 28...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 10:00 am Stoner Wallabies - Marsupial Madness Results in Tasmanian Crop Circles (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) The mystery of recent crop circles sighted in Tasmania has been solved: Wallabies have been eating poppy heads which make them high. The intoxicated marsupials hop around in circles...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 9:30 am Israel's D-Pharm files plan for Tel Aviv IPOJERUSALEM, June 28 (Reuters) - Israel's Clal Biotechnology Industries said on Sunday its D-Pharm unit has filed a draft prospectus with regulators for an initial public offering in Tel Aviv.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 9:26 am Ronald McDonald Hair - Space-Age Clown Locks in 'Alien Dolls' by Paco Peregrin & Kattaca (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) This space-age photo shoot by Paco Peregrin and Kattaca is called Alien Dolls, and its easy to see why. Each model featured has a more avant-garde look than the last. With porcelain...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 9:09 am The State of Munich's Ongoing Linux Migrationchristian.einfeldt writes "The Munich decision to move its 14,000 desktops to Free Open Source Software created a big splash back in 2003 as news circulated of the third-largest German city's defection from Microsoft. When it was announced in 2003, the story garnered coverage even in the US, such as an extensive article in USA Today on-line. Currently, about 60% of desktops are using OpenOffice, with the remaining 40% to be completed by the end of 2009. Firefox and Thunderbird are being used in all of the city's desktop machines. Ten percent of desktops are running the LiMux Debian-based distro, and 80% will be running LiMux by 2012 at the latest. Autonomy was generally considered more important than cost savings, although the LiMux initiative is increasing competition in the IT industry in Munich already. The program has succeeded because the city administration has been careful to reach out to all stakeholders, from managers down to simple end users."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jun 2009 | 8:56 am Buzz Aldrin weighs into NASA - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 28 Jun 2009 | 8:07 am Internet Gold Announces Filing of Annual Report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionPETACH TIKVA, Israel, June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Internet Gold Golden Lines Ltd., (NASDAQ Global Market and TASE: IGLD), today announced that its annual report on Form...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 7:16 am 012 Smile.Communications Announces Filing of Annual Report with the U.S. Securities and Exchange CommissionPETACH TIKVA, Israel, June 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- 012 Smile.Communications (Nasdaq Global Market and TASE: SMLC), an Israeli telecommunications service provider, today...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 7:12 am How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw Linking
Of all the misguided schemes put forth lately to save newspapers (micropayments! blame Google!), the one put forth by Judge Richard Posner has to be the most jaw-dropping. He suggests that linking to copyrighted material should be outlawed. No, Posner does not work for the Associated Press (which also has some strange ideas on linking). He is (normally) considered to be one of the great legal minds of our time. Posner is a United States Court of Appeals judge in Chicago and legal scholar who was once considered a potential Supreme Court nominee. He is someone who should know better. Yet in a blog post last week on the future of newspapers, he concludes there may be only one way to save the industry:
Let me repeat that. He wants to “bar linking” to newspaper articles or any copyrighted material without the “copyright holder’s consent.” I am sorry Judge Posner, but I don’t need to ask your permission to link to your blog post or to a newspaper article online. That is just the way the Web works. If newspapers don’t like it, they don’t need to be on the Web. Much of what Posner wants to outlaw is public discourse. Why is it okay for people to talk about the day’s news in a barber shop, but not online? People should be able to discuss the day’s news on the Web without fear of violating copyright law. The natural way people discuss things on the Web is by quoting and linking to the source. (Except maybe Posner, he doesn’t seem to link to much of anything in his blog posts). Posner never squares his position with freedom of speech or fair use rights. He doesn’t even mention them. Yet those are precisely the rights which allow me to paraphrase his argument without his permission so that I can disagree with it. Posner is more concerned with the “free rider” problem. You know, all of those “vampires” and “parasites” supposedly sucking the life out of newspapers by quoting from them or linking to their stories. Blogs and other sites just take content from newspapers, Posner asserts, but they share none of the costs of news gathering. Of course, that blanket assertion is simply not true. A growing number of blogs, including TechCrunch, do their own news gathering and send writers to cover events at their own cost. But even if we limit the discussion to cut-and-paste sites, the free rider argument still doesn’t hold much water. You can’t be a free rider if you are giving something back of value. A link on its own is valuable. Where does Judge Posner think all of these newspaper sites get their readers? It is mostly through links, not direct traffic. Removing the links would obliterate the majority of the online readership for many newspapers. Beyond that, extending copyright law to criminalize linking would cripple the entire Web. In all of these debates, newspapers are always placed somehow at the center of the Web, completely ignoring the millions of other sites out there which have nothing to do with news. Yet changes to copyright law to make linking illegal would have much wider, unintended consequences. I can’t believe I even have to explain why this is a bad idea. (Hat tip to Jay Rosen). Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 28 Jun 2009 | 7:06 am How To Save The Newspapers, Vol. XII: Outlaw LinkingOf all the misguided schemes put forth lately to save newspapers (micropayments! blame Google!), the one put forth by Judge Richard Posner has to be the most jaw-dropping. He suggests that linking to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 7:06 am Self-Service Nation: Why Targeting Small Business Is Good BusinessOne of the key concepts at the core of traditional marketing is the 80-20 rule — that some 80 percent of the effects (or in this case, profits) are the result of 20 percent of the causes (here, customers)...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 7:00 am Alien Abduction Lamp Now A Final Prototype, Production ImminentBy Evan Ackerman We’ve been waiting for over two years now, but the Alien Abduction lamp is finally almost ready for production. The picture above is the final prototype; the production version of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 6:20 am Videos from stage production of Little Brother
Bill Massiola, who adapted my novel Little Brother for a critically acclaimed stage-play running in Chicago right now at the Griffin Theatre Company performing at the Athenaeum Theatre, sent me these three video clips from the production. I'm coming through Chicago on July 9 to see the play (it runs until July 19); based on these clips I'm incredibly excited to see more! Source: Boing Boing | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:51 am Videos from stage production of Little BrotherBill Massiola, who adapted my novel Little Brother for a critically acclaimed stage-play running in Chicago right now at the Griffin Theatre Company performing at the Athenaeum Theatre, sent me these...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:51 am Videos from stage production of Little BrotherBill Massiola, who adapted my novel Little Brother for a critically acclaimed stage-play running in Chicago right now at the Griffin Theatre Company performing at the Athenaeum Theatre, sent me these...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:51 am Ksplice Offers Rebootless Updates For Ubuntu Systemssdasher writes "Ksplice has started offering Ksplice Uptrack for Ubuntu Jaunty, a free service that delivers rebootless versions of all the latest Ubuntu kernel security updates. It's currently available for both the 32 and 64-bit generic kernel, and they plan to add support for the virtual and server kernels by the end of the month, according to their FAQ. This makes Ubuntu the first OS that doesn't need to be rebooted for security updates. (We covered Ksplice's underlying technology when it was first announced a year ago.)"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:50 am Comics creator stopped by TSA for carrying script about writer under suspicion by TSAComics writer Mark Sable was detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for carrying a script for an upcoming comic book about a writer who is detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for writing...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:47 am Comics creator stopped by TSA for carrying script about writer under suspicion by TSAComics writer Mark Sable was detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for carrying a script for an upcoming comic book about a writer who is detained and intensively questioned by the TSA for writing a comic about terrorism."Flying from Los Angeles to New York for a signing at Jim Hanley's Universe Wednesday (May 13th), I was flagged at the gate for 'extra screening'. I was subjected to not one, but two invasive searches of my person and belongings. TSA agents then 'discovered' the script for Unthinkable #3. They sat and read the script while I stood there, without any personal items, identification or ticket, which had all been confiscated.Comics artist Mark Sable detained for Unthinkable acts (Thanks, Nosehat!) Source: Boing Boing | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:47 am Spanish vintner finds good ethics means good businessAs a vegetarian and an environmentalist, vintner Josep Maria Albet i Noya decided in the late 1970s that going organic matched his green principles. But he quickly discovered that good...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 5:41 am Daimler launches first German hybrid carGerman luxury car maker Daimler launched its first hybrid model last week, almost 10 years after the market leader, Toyota. The world's best-selling limousine, a favourite of world...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 28 Jun 2009 | 4:56 am Barometer store in England features reproduction of a "Tempest Prognosticator," a.k.a "Leech Barometer"Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras.  Barometer World is a store in Okephampton, England that specializes in the sale and repair of instruments that determine atmospheric pressure. After two years of research, its proprietor built a reproduction of one of the most whimsical weather-forecasting devices of all time, the "Tempest Prognosticator," a.k.a. the "Leech Barometer," a.k.a. the "Atmospheric Electromagnetic Telegraph." The instrument, which uses fresh water leeches to predict incoming storms, was first exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851:
Barometer World & Museum [Atlas Obscura] Source: Boing Boing | 28 Jun 2009 | 4:50 am US, Russia in dispute over computer attacks: report (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 28 Jun 2009 | 3:05 am Canada Considering Online Voting In Electionsehud42 writes "Slashdot readers generally agree that voting machines such as those from Diebold are a bad idea. Well, what about online voting? That is what the Vancouver Sun is reporting. Given that voter turnout in our most recent election was the worst on record, Elections Canada is kicking around the idea of allowing voters to register online, update registration information online, and maybe even vote online."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jun 2009 | 2:57 am Get you some Mojo (SDK for WebOS)
Get some sweet, sweet Palm Mojo early. It’s basically the SDK for WebOS and it just showed up on the interwebs. Most interesting, however, is the lengths folks will go not to anger the Palm Gods:
A torrent of the new SDK is here and this post has more sources.
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jun 2009 | 1:38 am Spheres of Influence: A Collection of Spherical SitesDylan 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.
Recently the most perfect spheres in the world were created as an answer to the "kilogram problem." Made to replace a chunk of platinum and iridium that has defined how much a kilogram weighs for 120 years (the weight of the metal has been changing ever so slowly ) the spheres are about the size of a melon and almost perfectly round. They are likely the most perfectly spherical objects on the planet.
With this in mind we present you a collection of a few of the more interesting spheres found around the world. Sweden Solar System: The world's largest model of our planetary system centered around the largest spherical building in the world. The Mapparium: An three story inside-out glass globe built in 1935. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory: A gigantic spherical neutrino detector built into the largest man made underground cavity in the world. Costa Rican Stone Spheres: Mysterious spherical rock formations from an earlier era. Paris Sewer Museum: Giant wooden balls helped keep the Parisian sewers clean. The Republic of Kugelmugel: A spherical "micro-nation" in the heart of Vienna. Previously: Source: Boing Boing | 28 Jun 2009 | 1:08 am iCake
April Julian made this delicious-looking iPhone cake. [via Make] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jun 2009 | 12:52 am Delta 4 rocket boosts weather satellite into orbit - CNET News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 28 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am EPA Quashed Report Skeptical of Global Warmingtheodp writes "CNET reports that less than two weeks before the EPA formally submitted its pro-carbon dioxide regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty 'decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.' In an e-mail message (pdf) to a staff researcher on March 17, the EPA official wrote: 'The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward...and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.' The employee was also ordered not to 'have any direct communication' with anyone outside his small group at EPA on the topic of climate change, and was informed his report would not be shared with the agency group working on the topic. In a statement, the EPA took aim at the credentials of the report's author, Alan Carlin (BS Physics-Caltech, PhD Econ-MIT), describing him as 'not a scientist.' BTW, the official who chastised Carlin also found himself caught up in a 2005 brouhaha over mercury emissions after top EPA officials ordered the findings of a Harvard University study stripped from public records."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:50 pm Photos of fireworks stand
Our pal Stefan took photos of a fireworks stand. Fun! I grew up in New York State, where even sparklers were illegal. Firecrackers, bottle rockets, and other goodies will be sold out of car trunks. Scoring even a pack of firecrackers was a big win. Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:13 pm Aardvark Open For Business Via Facebook Connect
The service, which we described a couple of months ago, lets users ask questions of their friends and friends of friends like “What’s the best place to go hiking in Marin?” But it only works well, the company says, when your friends are already on the service. That’s why people who weren’t able to get an invitation from a current user had to wait in line until now:
The company was founded by Max Ventilla (Google corp dev), Nathan Stoll (Google News) and Damon Horowitz (Perspecta) and has raised $6 million in capital from August Capital, Baseline Ventures and a number of angels. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 27 Jun 2009 | 11:11 pm Hackable In-Car GPS Unit?gigne writes "I'm in the market for a new, in-car GPS/sat nav. I am preferably looking for one that has live, up-to-date traffic information and route planning that doesn't make you want to cry. I'm not quite dumb enough to drive off a cliff, but something that doesn't even try and lead me to watery doom is preferable. The only thing I absolutely must have is the ability to hack it. It would be preferable if it ran GNU/Linux, but given a convincing argument, I would be swayed to another OS. Without wanting the Moon on a stick, what is the best device that would offer a decent modding community and a good feature set?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:46 pm Sony working on making a PSP-phone?
I’m afraid I don’t trust you guys to make a successful crossover device, although you’re welcome to try. Er…continue to try. Just remember what the N-Gage did to Nokia. Seriously, a device like this (curiously described as a “cellphone/game gear hybrid”) would probably be as big a boondoggle as the N-Gage, though your UMD-less game distribution system would make things a little easier. But honestly, Sony, do us all a favor and just focus on making the next PSP or a killer phone. Money wasted on this project could go into loss-leader pricing for PS3s. I’m just saying! [via 1up]
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 10:00 pm DARPA Wants a 19" Super-Efficient Supercomputercoondoggie writes "If you can squish all the processing power of, say, an IBM Roadrunner supercomputer inside a 19-inch box and make it run on about 60 kilowatts of electricity, the government wants to talk to you. The extreme scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this week issued a call for research that might develop a super-small, super-efficient super beast of a computer. Specifically, DARPA's desires for Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) will require a new system-wide technology approach including hardware and software co-design to minimize energy dissipation per operation and maximize energy efficiency, with a 50GFLOPS per watt goal."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:40 pm Finally, affordable chainmail for the discerning desk knight
That’s right, starting at $35. Meaning there’s more than one style. Standard chainmail costs $35, or you can go with rivited chainmail for $60 if you’ve got yourself a heavy coin purse. Ewww, that sounded bad. According to the product description:
Those dwarfs aren’t cheap, and don’t get me started on how much shrieking black apparitions charge for shipping something from the center of the earth. Kudos to ThinkGeek for keeping the prices down somehow. Chain Mail Coif [ThinkGeek]
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 9:00 pm App Roundup: games, games and more games There are more than 10,000 games on the App Store, according to Apptism. That’s 20% of all apps released on the store: how the hell do you decide which one to buy? We can’t help you there, but we can keep serving you up reviews of recently released games so you can decide for yourself. We spent the week fumbling around with 5 of them: Tradewinds 2, Castle Of Magic, Archon, Jungle Bloxx, and Pocket Gold. Read on for our impressions
Source: CrunchGear | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:57 pm MythBuster Adam Savage Leads Twitter Revolt Against AT&T For the last few weeks it hasn’t been unusual to see AT&T among Twitter’s trending topics — following its disappointing performance at WWDC and the activation issues with the iPhone last week, the carrier hasn’t exactly been garnering positive reactions from its legions of Twitter-using members. Today, it’s reached the top spot on Twitter once again, and, once again, AT&T is the target of waves of contempt.
The source of the recent flurry of AT&T tweets is Adam Savage of MythBusters fame, who tweets that for “a few hours of web surfing in Canada” he was charged a whopping $11,000.
Source: CrunchGear | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:55 pm BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 6-21-2009Section:  We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:42 pm The Video Bay, Now In Betapoundhard writes "Some two years ago, it was mentioned on TorrentFreak and Slashdot that The Pirate Bay team were working on a YouTube competitor. At the oral proceedings of the Spectrial, I believe it was Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, who said to the prosecutor that it was one of those side projects that failed. A few days ago though, he appeared over Skype at the Open Video Conference in New York, and apparently said that they were about to launch something new. It has been speculated in Norway that it will be the IPREDator. But I checked out The Video Bay, and hey, it is about to go live! This is what they write: 'To stay in the spirit on which TPB was founded and using the Latest Technology, TVB aims to use the new HTML5 features, more specifically the <video> and <audio> tags with the ogg/theora video and audio formats. This site will be an experimental playground and as such subjected to both live and drunk (en)coding, so please don't bug us too much if the site ain't working properly.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:36 pm Apple App Store vs. Nokia Ovi Store - A Quick And Dirty Comparison When Nokia launched its Ovi Store for mobile applications a month ago, it was clear that - despite its less than stellar launch - it would be a mistake to simply dismiss the Finnish mobile juggernaut’s efforts as meaningless. The company may be struggling to stay relevant on the software and services side, but with a reach like Nokia’s on the handset distribution level I think it goes without saying that a lot of eyes are firmly fixed on Nokia’s initiatives in the field.
Source: CrunchGear | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:29 pm 9-1-1 Should Never Give Me A Busy Signal
Last night I got word that my parents had witnessed a tragic accident while driving in Northern California. I won’t get into the details, but suffice to say one person was killed and others were left bleeding, in various states of unconsciousness. Thank God my parents were not hurt in the accident, but they witnessed it first hand, as well as the disturbing aftermath. Immediately after the accident, my parents and other witnesses began trying to dial 9-1-1. Attempt after attempt resulted in a busy signal. This isn’t unusual in the event of an emergency, as multiple dialers often tie up the lines to report the same incident. Except it seems that nobody managed to get through for far too long: emergency personal didn’t arrive for 20 minutes. The first officer to arrive at the scene said it took him two minutes to get there from the time he got the call. Which means that it took approximately 18 minutes for the news to reach him in the first place. During a conversation with my father following the accident, he said one of the most profound things I’ve heard since I arrived in Silicon Valley: “Why is it that I can pull out my cell phone and call France or browse the Internet whenever I want, but I got a busy signal for 9-1-1 for 20 minutes?” I wish I had an answer for him. In the United States, we’re taught from a very young age to call 9-1-1 whenever there’s an emergency. Something bad happens, you call that number, and someone on the other line will be there to help you. Getting a busy signal after dialing 9-1-1 is the closest thing you can have to a mental null set. It doesn’t compute. But it’s apparently happening more often than most people would believe. A recent report in the Sacramento Bee says that more than 26% of all wireless calls to 911 in California are “abandoned” — in other words, more than a quarter of the people calling 911 hang up in frustration before they even get to talk to someone. In a world where we can interact with people across the world at a moment’s notice, I just don’t understand how one of the things we’ve always taken for granted can fail so miserably. Now, I’ll be totally upfront and admit that I know relatively little about the way 911 dispatchers work. I am sure that the incident can be fully explained by a lack of staffing at the CHP center that routed the call, or maybe the fact that the accident occurred near a county line caused some jurisdiction issues. I don’t know what the reason was. But as far as I’m concerned, the discussion shouldn’t get that far. This is the kind of problem that we shouldn’t have allowed to form in the first place. It’s as if we’ve forgotten the fundamental reason why most of us keep cell phones with us at all times: to keep each other safe. At its core, this is more a political issue than a purely technological problem: more money needs to be routed to the right places. But at the same time, there’s no denying that technology plays an important role here — the call routing systems could probably be made more efficient. Calling filters could be improved. Perhaps the system could detect when multiple phones were calling from the same area and inform callers that an accident had already been reported. Whatever the answer, things need to change. And given how upset we get over homepage redesigns and SMS fees, why not exhibit a bit of outrage when technology fails us in a matter of life or death? As one final note, I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack on the men and women who staff emergency call centers, or the law enforcement officers and paramedics who respond to the scene. I have the utmost respect for everything they do. I just wish that the infrastructure supporting them was as up to the task as they are. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 27 Jun 2009 | 8:00 pm 'Hacktivists' take up Iran fight as streets quiet (AP)AP - EDITOR'S NOTE: Iranian authorities have barred journalists for international news organizations from reporting on the streets and ordered them to stay in their offices. This report is based on the accounts of witnesses reached in Iran and official statements carried on Iranian media.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:55 pm Video: Animatronic Luxo Jr.There is now an animatronic Luxo Jr. (Pixar's mascot) at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Awesome! Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:50 pm Microsoft To Offer Windows 7 On USB Thumb Drives?Barence writes "Microsoft is reportedly considering offering Windows 7 on USB thumb drives to allow netbook owners to upgrade their machines. Windows has, until now, only been distributed on DVDs or via download. However, netbooks don't have optical drives and the Windows 7 ISO weighs in at 2.3GB, which would take several hours to download on an average broadband connection and potentially do serious damage to a customer's broadband data cap."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:34 pm Roman Cat SanctuaryDylan 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.
From Atlas Obscura's newest team member, the terrific Annetta Black.
Whether the cats rule themselves via Republic or recognize a cat Emperor is, as of yet, undetermined. More on Torre Argentina here. Source: Boing Boing | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:24 pm Malware attacks lurk behind fake Harry Potter movie and Michael Jackson newsSection: Computers, Security, Web, Websites, Online Music/Video
If it’s clicked they are brought to a site where the old fake codec trick is used. Victims are told they must download an update before they can view the movie but the update is actually a Trojan that steals personal info, add the system to a botnet and download even more malware. Speaking of scammers exploiting headlines and hot topics, spam and malware attacks using Michael Jackson’s sudden death hit the net within mere hours after the news hit. The first wave was in the form of emails that promised important and exclusive info on the pop icon’s death. The recipients were asked to reply to the message to get the info. This was merely an email harvesting attack. The second wave included links that claimed to be of videos or photos of Jackson’s body. When clicked they lead to a site where malware is quietly installed on the victim’s computer in the background. The most recent attacks involve fake blogs devoted to Jackson. These blog sites are extremely malicious and install a ton of malware onto visitor’s computers, including the Koobface virus. To protect yourself simply avoid anything that invites you to watch the new Harry Potter movie for free. There is absolutely no legal way to do so online. Also beware of any e-mails/links claiming to offer videos or information of Michael Jackson’s death. Stick to well known sites for your news. Common sense is a scammer’s worst enemy! Read [PCWorld] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:24 pm Regulators extend review of Oracle's Sun takeover (AP)AP - The Department of Justice wants more information about Oracle Corp.'s planned takeover of computer server maker Sun Microsystems Inc., extending the agency's review of the $7.4 billion deal.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 Jun 2009 | 7:24 pm PhoneSuit Turns iPhone, iPod Touch into Portable Projector
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AP - The Filipino inmates who shot to global fame with a YouTube video of their "Thriller" dance swayed and stomped again Saturday in a behind-bars tribute to their idol, Michael Jackson.
Yesterday we posted about Glam Media contacting Twitter app developers concerning an upcoming ‘Twitter-powered ad network’, and requested more information from CEO Samir Arora as the e-mail we were forwarded by one of the developers was rather scarce on details.
He came through earlier this morning to confirm the accuracy of the scoop, and also provided a statement from his team in order to shed more light on the imminent initiative. As we suggested, the new solution is tied to GlamApps, the company’s application platform.
Arora tells us:
With the launch of Tinker.com to help monetize “real-time” trends and events, Advertisers have been asking Glam to reach real-time stream users across multiple applications.
Unlike Social Network apps that live “inside” MySpace and Facebook, Twitter is revolutionizing the apps business by pioneering an open model- Glam sees this as the first mid and long tail of Social Apps, much like iPhone has done for mobile apps with a pay for apps model. Given internet apps are free, except for a small “pro” apps upgrades, it is vital that we can figure out a monetization quickly. Given the audience and vertical targeting Glam has developed for content publishers and the trust with brand advertisers, Glam can bring the learning to the Twitterverse. Like Portals like Yahoo and AOL offered advertisers content along with social apps like AIM, Twitter Apps Network helps Glam Media offer distributed social apps to brands- taking the next step in building a true distributed media company.
Yep, that’s still vague. Hopefully we’ll have a better understanding of what Glam Media is trying to accomplish when they share more details about the project next month.
We didn’t really ask, but Arora also shared some statistics about the current reach of the Glam network. He claims Glam Media currently boasts over 1,000 publishers with 6,000 editors/journalists/bloggers reaching 56 million unique users a month in the United States. That’s one big vertical.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
AP - Jean Anleu was so fed up with corruption in his country that he decided to vent on the Internet, sending a 96-character message on the social-networking site Twitter.
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Last month, 
For instance, if you’d want to buy 200 shares of Apple, you would tweet ‘@pollytrade buy 200 shares AAPL’ and likewise for selling e.g. 100 shares of General Electric (’@pollytrade sell 200 shares GE). After communicating with E*Trade, which should only take a few seconds, PollyTrade tweets back your order status along with your brokerage order number. In case something went wrong - because of incorrect formatting or a refusal from your broker - you’ll receive an error message instead so you know the order didn’t go through.
If you’ve been holding off on purchasing your very own chainmail coif because you think chainmail prices have gotten out… of… control, you’ll be delighted to hear that ThinkGeek is selling chainmail coifs starting at $35.
This post is a bit different from the technology news that we generally cover here at TechCrunch. But it’s something that I think needs to be said.
A new malware attack exploiting the upcoming and highly anticipated new Harry Potter movie “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is hitting the net. Using black hat SEO and malicious posts in blog comments, the scammers try to trick fans into clicking on the link, which claims they can watch the new movie online for free. 
Fans of YouTube should be happy, since they have just doubled the size of uploads for users from 1GB to 2GB. The change counts for regular account holders, no fancy account status needed. According to the company, the increase is to compensate for users’ HD uploads.