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ASUS drops Eee prices in Taiwan and China, will we be next?
Per the article:
Here in the US, you can get a new 8.9-inch Eee starting at around $229 to $249 and Toys R Us, for instance, has been selling the 7-inch versions for around $150 for a while now. Netbooks generally cost a bit more in Taiwan than they do here so the fact that prices are falling over there may mean that they’ll fall here as well. That, or they’ve fallen as low as they’re gonna go here and Taiwan and China are now finally adjusting.
Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Firefox 3.5 Arrives Today, But Are You Dazzled?There used to be a time when a new Firefox release was an exciting day for early adopters. We'd delve into the new features, rejoice in the speed improvements, and moan about our lost extensions. Today...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:54 pm The iPhone 3GS Popularity Wars - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:53 pm The sad truth about inkjet printers There are a couple of different opinions floating around right now on how to best measure the cost of printing with an inkjet printer when it pertains to the ink. In these tight economic times, determining that cost has everything to do with how often you need to replace “consumables” like ink and paper.
In 2007, Kodak began its aggressive "Print and Prosper" campaign, which claimed that consumers could save “up to 50 percent” on ink costs while using Kodak's inkjet printers compared to printers from other manufacturers. There is even a Kodak site complete with an “overpayment calculator” that presents the savings you could earn by going with one of their printers.
HP, as expected, did not take such claims from a rival lying down. To combat what it called “misleading information,” HP aimed to debunk Kodak’s claims through its own campaign, which it calls “The Truth Behind Printing”.
Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:53 pm NI Technology Research Updates Outlooks for ADC Telecommunications, Ciena, 3Com, Cisco Systems, Alcatel-Lucent, Altera, and XilinxPRINCETON, N.J., June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Inning Technology Research ( href="http://www.nextinning.com">http://www.nextinning.com ), an online investment newsletter...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:48 pm Wireless Phone Users in Gladstone, Missouri, Now Experience Even Clearer Reception and Fewer Dropped CallsVerizon Wireless Activates New Cell Site GLADSTONE, Mo., June 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless has activated a new cell site in Gladstone that expands network...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:46 pm Pirate Bay sold, going legit; music biz cautiously optimistic - Ars Technica
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:44 pm Enable Holdings, Inc. Announces RedTag Live! Warehouse Sale Event in Tampa, FL AreaAsset Recovery Leader Will Hold RedTag Live! Sale July 3rd through 12th CHICAGO, June 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Enable Holdings, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board:...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:44 pm Best Buy’s Magnolia Home Theater to sell Onkyo products soon
Keith Hass, Director of Sales for Onkyo,
Expect to see Onkyo products, and hopefully some Integra items as well, later this year.
Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:40 pm China postpones controversial Web filter (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 30 Jun 2009 | 2:37 pm Sweden's Global Gaming snaps up Pirate Bay
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 Gadgetrepublic | Google, YouTube Give Citizen Journalists New Tools PC World Google has a firm grip on the news industry. With Google News, its monstrous news aggregator, and examples such as the recent explosion of citizen journalism covering the conflict in Iran, Google is giving traditional print journalism a run for its ... Google Asks Newspapers To Post Content On youtube Google News, YouTube Invite News Groups to Share Video Content Google invites news publications to join YouTube Partner Program |
 BBC News | Jobs's Return to Apple Greeted With Little Fanfare Bloomberg June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Jobs's return from medical leave was greeted with little fanfare by investors. Apple, up 67 percent since Jobs went on leave Jan. 14, rose 65 cents to $142.62 at 10:08 am New York time in Nasdaq Stock ... What Happens To Cook Now That Jobs Is Back At Apple? Steve Jobs returns to work at Apple Jobs back at Apple after 5 1/2-month leave |
It’s always good to know some big companies don’t forget to come up with technological innovations that aren’t aimed at a large or wealthy group of consumers. In this case, Toyota has announced the development of a system that makes it possible for drivers to control wheelchairs with their thoughts alone. And it supposedly works excellent.
The system is able to analyze brain wave controls in as little as 125ms (similar products require a few seconds to work), which makes Toyota speak of control in real-time. It even can “learn” by analyzing the behavior of the driver, meaning that the driver can improve the performance of the system over time.
The wheelchair will move forward, for example, when the driver thinks of walking. Very cool, even though drivers are required to wear an EEG scanner cap. According to Toyota (and the other organizations involved in the development), the wheelchair is able to understand a record 95% of all commands coming from the drivers.
Watch the video [JP] to see the wheelchair in action.
Via Asahi Shimbun [JP]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you’ve been biting your nails off anticipating the launch of the Blackberry Tour, you probably want to visit a psychiatrist ASAP. But you can also be happy to know that Verizon Wireless just announced that they’ll be releasing the Tour on July 12th. The Tour provides anyone hell-bent on Verizon (like people who actually want their phone to make and receive calls) a good multimedia phone in the $200 price range.
According to the offical press release, the Blackberry Tour has an optional camera (yes, optional: meaning you can actually choose NOT to have it but still pay the same $200), a media player and a beautiful high-resolution display. K Street and Obama rejoice, as now they can watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother between National Security briefings and shooting hoops at the White House. Anyways, if you want to find out the full specs, you can access the Verizon site here.
If you’ve been biting your nails off anticipating the launch of the Blackberry Tour, you probably want to visit a psychiatrist ASAP. But you can also be happy to know that Verizon Wireless just announced that they’ll be releasing the Tour on July 12th. The Tour provides anyone hell-bent on Verizon (like people who actually want their phone to make and receive calls) a good multimedia phone in the $200 price range.
According to the offical press release, the Blackberry Tour has an optional camera (yes, optional: meaning you can actually choose NOT to have it but still pay the same $200), a media player and a beautiful high-resolution display. K Street and Obama rejoice, as now they can watch episodes of How I Met Your Mother between National Security briefings and shooting hoops at the White House. Anyways, if you want to find out the full specs, you can access the Verizon site here.
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With a webcam built into or sold together with nearly every computer that goes over the counter nowadays you’d expect direct video-based communication to have massively taken off by now, but the reality is that it’s far from being as ubiquitous as some proclaimed it would become in the past.
But maybe it’s just that there’s isn’t always that good a reason to video chat with your friends and family when you can just as easily use voice call or text chat to communicate with them directly. After all, once you’re connected you can just as easily get your message across without actually seeing someone.
But Israel-based 6rounds thinks that there is a demand for a video platform that offers additional layers of fun, social interaction and utility on top of the basics of video conversations, and they’ve raised the necessary funds to bring the idea to market.
CEO Dany Fishel and COO Ilan Leibovich tell me that they view 6rounds essentially as a live meeting point that comes with real-time video chat but also a set of additional features that should enhance the “sharing experience”. Sharing can mean anything from co-browsing YouTube to playing games, adding funny effects to a live video conference, interacting on Facebook together with your contacts or even shopping for things online together with your friends or family members. You really need to try it to experience how much fun that can be, and for that reason we’ve arranged invitation codes for 500 TechCrunch readers. Simply head over to this webpage and enter code “6techcrunch”.
If you’re too late, check out these screenshots and a short demo video below to get an idea of what 6rounds is all about.
6rounds is not just a mere destination site, and wants to enable users to interact socially in real-time regardless of what their favorite social network is. The platform comes with an open API and can easily be integrated into third-party websites or services – starting with a Facebook or MySpace app, continuing with a plugin for WordPress or an embeddable widget in users personal pages, and ending with various extensions to IM, ICQ, Skype and Firefox.
It also does a fine job at tapping into your social networking accounts to build a profile for yourself that indicates your interests, hobbies, music and movie taste etc. When you’re in a video chat you can click a button and a question will be proposed based on the profile of the person on the other end. This could be useful as an ice-breaker when you’re having a conversation with someone you don’t know very well yet.
Sounds all fine and dandy, but how will they make money? The founders explained to me that they see four different revenue streams for 6rounds:
1) users could purchase virtual and real gifts (think ringtones, MP3s, etc.) and send them to other users during the video experience.
2) users could personalize their video experience by purchasing customized skins and choosing different applications for private arenas (unique games, targeted extensions and special activities).
3) affiliate fees from e-commerce majors: from music, movies, TV shows and books through the personal profile slideshows to a dedicated co-shopping experience in a variety of online retail stores. 6rounds aims to earn revenue shares from these transactions and allow other developers to tap into this stream by means of the open API.
4) advertising, licensing and product placement: the company at a later stage intends to offer advertisers licensed versions of 6rounds as well the ability to insert video advertising units within the layers (think sponsored gifts, targeted activities, and promoted themes).
The company just closed a seed investment of $1 million, led by Rhodium Investment Group and followed by private angel investors from the Israeli Startup Factory group, who previously invested $350K (November 2008). The founders had initially founded the startup with the help of family and friends on some $150K back in February 2008.
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My initial reaction to the news that some company called Global Gaming Factory X has agreed to buy The Pirate Bay was, “Pfft, why should I care? The was only garbage on there anyway.” And while that’s still my opinion—there really was only garbage on there—we really ought to recognize that, for better or worse, The Pirate Bay was something of a symbol for the greater “music/movies/whatever wants to be free” “movement,” if you can even call it that.
The site was sold for 60m Swedish Crowns (around $7.7ish million at the moment), and this new group will take over in August. Says the CEO of Global Gaming Factory X:
We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.
The Pirate Bay founders have also released a statement:
If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.
I cannot tell you the douche chills that the phrase “you can now not only share files but shares with people” gave me.
I don’t know, I’m all over the place here. It’s entirely too early to be making any bold, Techmeme-friendly predictions right now. It’s not the time for “WHAT THIS MEANS FOR PIRACY” or “RIAA 1, TPB 0” rubbish that you’re certain to read elsewhere.
Let this news marinate a bit before freaking out, or cheering.
One early morning a couple months back, we ventured from San Francisco down Highway 101 to 3333 Coyote Hill Rd., where a terracing three-story concrete building sits amidst rolling hills and horse farms.
The Palo Alto Research Center was established in 1970 as a division of Xerox (in 2002, PARC became an independent company). Through the years, PARC has churned out more than 600 patents in a variety of disciplines &mdash from computing and engineering to electronics and biomed. At one time, PARC's patent portfolio was worth an estimated $1 billion.*
The Alto was dreamt up in 1972 and unveiled in 1973. PARC researchers were responsible for unleashing the first GUI in 1975. Researchers at PARC created the first worm in 1978 (it was intended for good: seek out idle servers to distribute processing load).
Famously, in 1979 a wide-eyed 24-year-old named Steve Jobs visited PARC and had his mind totally blown. About the GUI, he later recalled:
"I thought it was the best thing I'd ever seen in my life... within, you know. ten minutes it was obvious to me that all computers would work like this some day."
To honor the place that's more or less responsible for envisioning, creating and instigating the modern computing era, BBG will be posting a series of stories today about PARC: historical tidbits, current research, photos, video, insights and more.
*see Open Innovation
 Reuters | China Delays 'Green Dam' Mandate InformationWeek China has pushed back its deadline requiring all PCs sold in the country to include Web filtering software known as Green Dam. No new deadline has been set. By Thomas Claburn China has postponed its requirement that all PCs sold in the country include ... China Delays Rule on Software Censor China delays Internet filter Proof that Green Dam ripped off Solid Oak |
Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X this morning announced it has agreed to buy file-sharing service The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (which currently converts to approx. $7.7 million). In addition, GGF has entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new p2p technology.
The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009.
Update: The Pirate Bay has confirmed the news (see their commentary below).
China’s youth must face the corrupting influence of Internet porn without government guidance for a brief while longer. The Chinese government said Tuesday it will delay enforcing a new requirement that all new computers sold in the country to include Green Dam/Youth Escort Web-filtering software. It’s not yet clear whether Beijing postponed the order because PC makers were having trouble supplying all new machines with the program or in reaction to the international outcry over it. In a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao last week, an international group of business associations that includes most of the world’s major technology companies, called upon China to abandon the plan which it said “raises serious concerns for us and seems to run counter to China’s important goal of becoming a vibrant and dynamic information-based society.”
If you’re like me, you always try to avoid storing or backing up files, even those that are important to you. It’s too boring, time-consuming and cumbersome to remember doing it regularly.
This is where a new service called quanp (short for “quantum paper” and pronounced “kwan-puh”), launched today in beta, comes in. Developed by Japanese technology giant Ricoh, quanp wants to become your online center for collecting and organizing all of your personal “digital life memories”.
Dropbox and many other services basically do the same, but the idea behind quanp is to turn storing and sharing pictures, music, videos, PDFs etc. online into a more enjoyable experience by making it more “visual”. The service is currently free and as Ricoh says, mainly aimed at US residents for the time being (in Japan, quanp is available in free and paid versions since March). The US version is being managed by a Ricoh office based out of Cupertino in California.
The structure of the quanp site is a tad confusing, but you basically get a suite of three tools:
Here is a quick rundown:
quanp.on
I had to unearth my Windows machine for quanp.on, but once installed (system requirements), the software works as promised. It lets you drag and drop, tag and date files you can then navigate through a pretty “3D” interface (Ricoh calls this 3D visual browsing). Files can also be easily shared with other quanp users over the web.
quanp.net
Definitely not as sexy as quanp.on or the widget, this browser version (for Mac and Windows users) doesn’t offer anything similar services have been offering for years.
quanp drop
“quanp drop” is an animated, customizable widget that sits on your Mac or Windows desktop (system requirements) and allows you to share files by dragging and dropping them into it as if you’re adding files to a folder. You need to register in order to then manage and share these files. quanp drop also requires Adobe AIR to function.
Ricoh says these beta versions of their tools are mainly aimed at geeks and heavy web users whose opinions the company wants to use as a basis for further improvements. So give one of the tools a shot (personally I recommend the widget and the client version), follow them on Twitter, and post your feedback in the forum (or write an email).
The following video provides more background on the service.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Waves of exultation and joy must be coming out of Saigon as the first secret G.S.M. Palm Pres begin wending their way out of the secret Pre factories in the jungles to the south. A crack team of commandoes have wrested one of these super secretive models out of the hands of an unsuspecting courier and taken video and photos of it.
Remember that the Palm Pre originally came in G.S.M. flavor back at MWC 2008 and that O2 and Movistar probably have Pre exclusivity which allows us to assume the G.S.M. model will drop sooner than later.
A G.S.M. Pre makes a lot of sense - it would at least make the phone international - and G.S.M. has traditionally been Palm’s strong point up until they settled in at the CDMA carriers of late and just kind of hung out there, essentially blocking their international spread.
You can hear the head-scratching going on at movie studios and music labels across the world: What just happened to the Pirate Bay? Reports out of Sweden are murky at best. But supposedly, a Scandinavian software outfit is buying the world’s most notorious file-sharing site for about $8 million, and will create a service that pays copyright owners when people download their work. Maybe.
You can read a confusing release from the supposed acquirer, Global Gaming Factory X, here, and an equally confusing post from the Pirate Bay’s operators, here. And the Pirate Bay guys, who are supposedly looking at a big fine and a jail term, say they didn’t actually own the Pirate Bay, but they’re going to get some of the profits from the sale anyway, and will use that to finance an “Internet project“. Etc.
Oh! And the Pirate Bay’s new owners say they can’t promise that copyright holders are actually going to get paid. Here’s Global Gaming CEO Hans Pandeya in the FT:
However, Mr Pandeya said the company would not be able to compel any filesharers to pay content owners. “We are trying to create a different model that addresses the needs of the different parties. However, it is up to them if they want to participate,” he said.
So it’s understandable that Hollywood and big music are mute, or close to it, on the deal. Because it’s difficult to say exactly what the deal is. I was able to extract one statement from the IFPI, the international music trade group. Here’s chairman and CEO John Kennedy:
“We don’t know the details and there are many questions to ask about how this will work in practice, but we would be delighted if this resulted in the Pirate Bay turning into a legitimate licensed service.”
But let’s be honest: There’s no way the Pirate Bay is going legit. And if it does, it won’t be the Pirate Bay, but something else.
Instead of being a massive site that attracts a huge audience that wants to devour free content, it will be a small distributor of licensed content, and the masses will flock somewhere else for their free stuff. Because they don’t want licensed content, even if it’s legal and/or better quality. They want free stuff.
The movie studios and the labels should be able to pat themselves on the back, gently and cautiously, for getting the Pirate Bay’s current owners to more or less abandon the site.
The problem, as they’re well aware, is that the Pirate Bay was only a directory that sent users to “torrents” that allowed them to gobble up as much pirated stuff as they want. And that shutting down the Bay doesn’t mean the torrents are gone. And it doesn’t prevent other directory sites from popping up, whack-a-mole style, all over the world.
The more cargo bikes I see, the more I want one. They’re immensely practical in any city, and can carry enough junk to make most car journeys pointless. But if you’re already used to a bike you likely think smaller — daily rather than weekly trips to the grocery store, for example. The cargo bike, then, may best be marketed at the guilt-ridden car user.
And this cargo bike might be just the one to pry you away from your gas-fuelled obsession. The Madsen Bucket Cargo Bike is a purpose built, long-wheelbase bicycle with a giant plastic bucket on the back. The $1300 bike comes with an eight-speed derailleur with trigger shifers to get things moving and a disk brake to stop when fully loaded. The bucket at the rear holds 40 gallons and can be swapped out with a supplied two-seater bench and seat-belts. There’s a bucket free version, too, for $1100. It’s not a steal, but compared to a car it looks very cheap, and you’ll be traveling in style.
In fact, one way to think of this is as a stretch limo with a pool in the back, for little people at least — just add hot water and cold champagne.
Product page [Madsen Bikes via Uncrate]
See Also:
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Here’s one more thing that separates the Palm Pre from Apple’s iPhone: the removable battery. A new battery from Innocell promises longer standby and talk time than the original. The additional battery life is crammed into the exact same specifications as the original battery and costs just $44.95.
Battery life is the bane of smartphones. Many believe the next big thing in smart phones is battery advances as it doesn’t matter if your phone has GPS, Bluetooth, a billion Apps; if your battery runs out of juice, it is just as handy as a brick. Manufacturers are very aware of fine line they walk in keeping weight and size to a minimum while trying to eek out significant battery life.
But smart phones like Apple’s iPhone have a non-replaceable battery. This means users must plug the phone in or slide the phone into a battery pack such as Mophie’s Juice Pack, a clever work around that adds some bulk but carries more charge than the original battery.
According to Seido’s online store, Innocell is developing a super-duper extended battery that will include a rubberized battery door to accommodate the slightly bigger size. From Seido, “This Innocell extended battery provides up to nearly twice the capacity than the standard battery. Even with heavy phone and data usage, this battery will keep your Pre charged and ready to go.” Price and availability has yet to be announced for this battery.
For those traveling with their Palm Pre, extra batteries make a whole lot of sense. Having the ability to change out a common wear item, such as a battery, makes the Palm Pre a smarter smartphone.
Product Page: [Seido] via [PalmInfocenter ]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Big savings on the complete Stargate SG-1 series if you’re looking for something to do all summer (or over the course of a weekend or two). Normally selling for $216.99, Amazon is blowing out “Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series Collection” on DVD today for $131.99 after an $85 instant discount and with free shipping.
The deal is good today only. The collection includes a whopping 54 discs!
Stargate SG-1: The Complete Series Collection [Amazon]
From Pocket PC to HPC to UMPC to MID, Intel and Microsoft rebrand their idea of palmtop computers with unerring regularity. This illustrates their desire to design perfect consumers rather than perfect computers: the specs read like a list of what the makers would like people to buy, not what features an interesting product might have. That's why the designs never change much, beyond increased performance and feature refinements, as the years go by. Just the name.
And yet people will pitch the ad for them, every time. Here's the Wall Street Journal, buying the notion that "Mobile Internet Devices" have just been invented like right now because the name is new.
The development effort is one of the first experiments by a big-name PC maker in a nascent category of products known as mobile Internet devices, or MIDs,which are designed to fill a perceived gap between mobile phones and laptop computers.
In fact, big companies (like Sony, Samsung and Fujitsu) have been making these things for years. Today's story is that Dell is rumored to be making one -- as has been rumored for years already.
The odd part is that the story starts out comparing Dell's new gadget to the iPhone and iPod Touch: an interesting and clear-minded view immediately muddied by the dip into Intel's marketing labyrinth. The hypothetical device doesn't even have an Intel CPU.
That the iPhone was a better MID than any MID, for most consumers, was the biggest tech story of 2008. Dell seeking to improve on the iPhone is a story: Dell seeking to implement a variation on Microsoft's middle management marketing five finger death punch is a boring blog post, because any such device would be doomed to the same obscurity as the many others just like it. If Dell can't even design an interesting smartphone, how it doing to excite the world with something so niche-bound that oh, right, Android. Wake me up when it makes calls or has a usable keyboard.
Apple figured something important out about three or four years ago: that the popular pocket computer would start out as a big phone with a clever UI and its own software ecosystem, not a miniaturized PC.
Pic: onlyUMPC
Well, well. We told you that Nikon was going to launch two DSLR cameras this summer. These two are probably them and we need to point out that Nikon is getting good “leaking” pics of unannounced cameras. The last time around, everyone and their brother knew about the D5000 before it was official. This time we’re seeing the D300s - which we already know about - and the also unannounced D3000.
A quick look at the D300s pic (above) shows that it sports a microphone for the rumored video mode. But besides that little change, the rest of the body seems to be the same as the current D300, which is right in line with the rumor.
The D3000 pic shows a body that’s very similar to the new D5000 except for the lack of microphone holes and it’s slightly smaller. You can probably guess what that means. Also, LensTip examined the pic closely and found that it doesn’t have an HDMI port, articulating display, which all means this camera will likely be the entry level DSLR when it launches.
Given the product hero shots are already available - that is if these are real - there is a good chance that we’ll see both the D300s and D3000 sometime this summer.
Nikon Rumors, LensTip via Engadget
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Android Phone Fans - Phandroid.com | Dell to Make iPod Touch-like Gadget PC World Dell is developing a pocket-sized gadget fashioned after Apple's iPod Touch that will play music, videos, and connect with the Web and is based on the Google Android mobile operating system, according to reports in today's Wall Street Journal. ... Dell working on pocket-sized Internet gadget Report: Dell May Be Going Mobile Dell developing pocket Web gadget: report |
 Mobiletor.com | Palm Pre Sales Beating Expectations ChannelWeb The Palm Pre smartphone may actually be the savior the struggling smartphone maker was looking for. According to a recent report by Charter Equity Research, the Palm Pre sold more devices than expected this month, with sales into the channel hitting ... mocoNews - Analyst: Palm Pre Has Sold 300000 Units 300000 Pre sold so far, claims analyst Palm Pre sold 300000 in June |
Yoono, an extension built to enhance both the Firefox and IE browser experience that comes in pretty handy when you go on the Internet mainly to interact socially with your peers and friends, has just released version 6.1 of its add-on, and revamped the interface along with adding a couple of useful features.
I’ve been trying it out for a couple of hours now, and I have to say I’d already miss it if it were gone from my Firefox browser (which, admittedly, I use less and less thanks to Google Chrome). Yoono is essentially a browser sidebar that aggregates and centralizes your online profiles, including from IM tools like Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk and AIM but also a wide variety of social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, FriendFeed and more.
The latest version of the extension, next to expanding support for Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace as well as the ability to easily share pages, images, or videos from your browser across all networks at once, boasts another useful new feature: real-time search. The search engine is powered by OneRiot, one of many trying their hand in this hot field but effectively one that does what it does very, very well.
Granted, this isn’t exactly a huge innovation (doing a search simply opens up a new browser tab with results from the OneRiot website), but people who already use Yoono will no doubt be pleased with the integration. Try it out and let us know what you think.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Doom, a game that has been ported to every device that contains a microchip, has finally come to the iPhone. And because the usual button-mashing, mouse-thrashing controls would translate terribly to the iPhone’s touch interface, the folks at Id software have redesigned the game.
Doom Resurrection is based on Doom 3, and departs from other Dooms in that it runs on rails. The game rolls you around through the levels, and you’re left to aim the guns by tilting the iPhone. The game costs $10, and for that you get eight levels: six on Mars and three in hell. This should be an easy choice. If you’re a Doom fan, it’s cheap. If you’re not, you probably aren’t even reading this post. Me? I’m off to play the classic Doom right now. I think I still have it installed on my toaster.
Product page [ID via MacWorld]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
During its post-earnings conference call last Thursday, Palm (PALM) refused to say how many Pre handsets have been sold to date. Or how many it believes it will sell in the first quarter of production. It would say only, in the words of CEO Jon Rubinstein, that “sales have been strong and growing.” So until Palm provides specific Pre sales figures we have only the estimates of analysts with which to gauge the device’s impact on Palm’s moribund smartphone franchise. And the latest, from Charter Equity Research Edward Snyder, suggest that impact is great. Sources in the manufacturing and retail channels tell Snyder that Palm may have sold as many as 300,000 Pres in June and 70,000 in May. Those are impressive figures if they prove true. After all, Palm shipped just 351,000 phones in the entire quarter prior to the Pre’s debut. If Palm ships one million Pres to Sprint in the device’s first full quarter of production, as Snyder believes, that will be an achievement indeed.
As I’ve said before, turnaround story of the year.
 Washington Post | Micro-USB to be universal EU phone charger ZDNet In a brave move, the vast majority of mobile phone manufacturers in Europe have signed an agreement which sees future mobile phones across a variety of brands and models all sharing the same charger port - the micro-USB. This means every phone you will ... Agreement on Cell Phone Chargers in EU Universal Chargers are a Good Start: 5 More Things That Need ... Apple, others agree to universal cell phone charger standard in Europe |
By Ben Worthen, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Speed is critical for the growing number of traders who rely on algorithms to detect market shifts. So NYSE Euronext is building two new data centers that the exchange hopes will allow it to process trades faster than its rivals.
The new data centers are being built outside of London and New York City, and are scheduled to open in 2010. When they do, the NYSE will have an advantage with “the most obsessive traders,” says Steve Rubinow, NYSE’s chief information officer.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Until a review unit arrives at Olympus’ Spanish PR Office (amazingly just around the corner from my apartment) I’m slurping up anything and everything I can find on the web about the EP-1, or digital Pen camera. And it’s not just journalistic professionalism, either: As an amateur photographer, I’m excited by a camera that could actually deliver on the promise of a compact digicam which works as well as an old film compact.
Non-DSLR cameras have a few problems which make them a pain for anyone serious about their photos, and this is why I’m scouring the web: to find out if the Pen has solved them. And the answers so far appear to be yes, yes and yes.
First up is shutter lag. You’ll know it as the sluggish pause between hitting the button and the camera actually snapping a picture. One of the causes is the non-mechanical shutter. The Pen has a real (if quiet) clunk-click shutter. Reports say that shutter lag is all but unnoticeable.
The second problem with compacts is their tiny sensors. The Pen has a Micro Four Thirds sensor, half the size of a 35mm frame but still way bigger than those in even high-end compacts. And it seems that this sensor has low-light noise licked: Take a look at this shot , taken by Derrick Story. It’s a jpeg, straight from the camera, shot at ISO 6400. As Flickr commenter Swiss James says, “Sold.” Throw the image into Adobe Lightroom and add a few tweaks and you get a rather nice, grainy B&W version (below, thanks to Derrick for licensing his images under the Creative Commons).
The other problem is focussing. DSLRs use phase detection to focus very fast. Compacts (and DSLRs in live view mode) use contrast detection, which is a lot slower. The Pen uses this, too, prompting fears that it would be sluggish in use. Photographer James Duncan Davidson took it for a spin:
But what I can say is that autofocus speed is reasonable. It’s not as fast as the autofocus system on my D700 bodies, but it’s a heck of a lot faster than any compact camera I’ve used.
[M]anual focusing works like a charm. When you turn the focusing ring, the viewfinder zooms in letting you judge critical focus. You can move your zoomed view around the photo with the control pad if you’re not in the right place. And, the focus ring […] has a nice feel […] With a bit of practice full-on manual focus should be easy as pie, if you’re into that kind of thing.
That’s right. It has a manual focusing ring, although you still need to stare at the LCD to see if you have got it right. And if Olympus had actually included a depth-of-field scale on the lenses, you could easily use that to set and forget a hyperfocal distance, just like the street photographers of old.
Finally, there’s the problem of the viewfinder. Amongst other niggles, Canon’s G9 fails as a serious camera because the optical viewfinder is so small as to be unusable. The Pen gets around this by shipping a big-looking finder with the 17mm lens. Accessory finders are nothing new, but they are dead handy for fast framing and even the cheap old Soviet ones I have owned have been bright, big and sharp. So far, though, I have read nothing about this finder.
We’ll find out for sure when we get our hands on one (I’m in a race with Wired.com editor Dylan Tweney to see who can get one first). Until then, what I’m reading is making me more, not less, excited.
Olympus E-P1 ISO 6400 [Flickr/Derrick Story]
Quick Olympus E-P1 Hands On [Duncan Davidson]
New York City Shoot to Test the Olympus E-P1 DSLR [Digital Story]
See Also:
Jeff Goldblum has been making a string of appearances on the Colbert Report over the past few weeks, but last night was by far his best work. For starters, the Internet and Twitter declared him dead last Thursday.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c |
| Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed | |
| www.colbertnation.com | |
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And here’s that stunning footage of a real Australian morning show reporting Goldblum’s death that Colbert used in his bit. Note that they had time to assemble a b-roll montage before going on air with this.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Just in case you had any doubt, Verizon has confirmed the upcoming availability of the BlackBerry Tour 9630. The handset is currently available for pre-order and will be available for purchase beginning on July 12. As for pricing, the Tour will be $199 which comes after a $70 instant online discount and along with the standard two year agreement.
Of course, if for some reason you want to get this in your hands as quickly as possible, then a trip to the store on the 12th may be in order. According to the pre-order page, any “pre-order shipments are estimated to begin on Monday July 13.”
Feature-wise, it will be difficult for many to complain as the handset seems to be a solid offering. The Tour 9630 has 3G support, a 2.4-inch 480 x 360 resolution display, a 3.2-megapixel camera with flash, auto-focus and video capture as well as Bluetooth and assisted GPS. Additionally, the handset also ships with a 2GB microSD card for some much needed extra storage.
Product [Verizon Wireless]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Good on the operators of The Pirate Bay, who created a cultural phenomenon, kicked the entertainment industry's hidebound and useless middlemen in the nuts, and now get to cash out by selling it to a more "legitimate" company. I wonder if the new owners understand that changing what the site does will just mean that something else will replace it.
What you see above is not a calculator. Or rather, it’s not the calculator you think it is. Rather, it is the latest software-only implementation of the classic Hewlett Packard scientific calculator, the 15C.
It gets better. This emulator runs on the iPhone, and is joined there by its little brother, the 12C (a financial calculator). Both calcs are photo-perfect representations of the originals and both run the same algorithms as the hardware versions to do the actual number crunching.
Now, the catch is the price. Although by no means expensive, these apps do cost more than the free calculator that comes with the iPhone, which will be enough to put many people off. But compared to the price of an actual second hand 15C, something of a sought after cult classic, they look cheap. The actual 15C can go for up to $400. The software version is a mere $20.
Product page 12C [iTunes]
Product page 15C [iTunes]
Search Engine: Here's some audio of your predecessor promising, on behalf of your party and your government, never to ever allow the police to wiretap the Internet without a warrant.
Minister (as though he had been off on another planet): We never promised not to do that.
Search Engine: What about all the personal information that you guys are now proposing to give to the cops without a warrant?
Minister (tragically unclear on the subject): We're not requiring ISPs to give out any personal information without a warrant, just your real name, your home address, your IP address, your home and cell number...
Search Engine: Huh. Well there's this really critical, high profile court ruling that calls all that stuff private information?
Minister (pretending he didn't hear): The courts have ruled that this isn't private information. Canadians have no legitimate expectation of privacy when they use the Internet, not when it comes to your name, address, cell phone number, etc
Search Engine: Do the cops really need to get this information without a warrant?
Minister: Oh yes. There are MONSTROUS BABY-EATING CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS WHO ADVERTISE THAT THEY ARE ABOUT TO SEXUALLY ASSAULT A LIVE CHILD IN TEN MINUTES and we need to be able to run down their IPs without talking to a judge first.
Search Engine: But when a child is endangered, the law already allows you to get this information without a warrant, right?
Minister: Why are you still asking questions? Didn't you hear me? BABY-EATING CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS! Surely that settles the matter.
Search Engine: Uh, I guess. Thanks anyway.
Search Engine: "No Expectation of Privacy"
Disclosure: I have not bought an iPhone 3GS — I’m still unsure if I will. Apple gave me a review unit to play with for 60 days.
I’ve had the new iPhone 3GS for a little over a week now. Using it day-to-day over the course of that time, I have a pretty good feel for it. A good enough feel to answer the question that every single person seems to be asking: “Should I get it?”
The answer to that is not so simple. And so I’m going to break it down a bunch of different ways based mainly on the device’s functionality and who I think is considering buying it. I’ll lay out what someone may be interested in the device for, and then give a “yes” or “no” (or a couple “maybes”) answer on if I think it’s worth it. I’ll follow that up with an explanation.
Here we go:
If you have an original iPhone from 2 years ago? Yes.
Yesterday marked the two-year anniversary for the people who bought the original iPhone on day one in 2007. That also means it marks the official end of those people’s contracts with AT&T (though many are eligible to end them, or get upgrades much earlier). If you’ve had your original iPhone this long, chances are that you’re a fan of it. And if you’re a fan of that version, you’re going to love the iPhone 3GS. Not only will its computing speed blow away that version, but since you skipped the iPhone 3G, you haven’t experienced the big increase in data speed that 3G offers over EDGE.
I’ve talked to a few people who upgraded from the original iPhone to the iPhone 3GS, and all of them cannot believe how much better then device is in its third iteration.
If you have the iPhone 3G? Maybe.
There are simply too many variables at play here to answer this with a simple “yes” or “no.” I’ll address many of them below. But the biggest one for many users right now will be if you’re eligible to get the full $199 and $299 subsidy on the device. Even after AT&T’s relaxing of the rules a bit, most iPhone 3G owners still are not able to get the subsidy yet. If you cannot, I say wait until you can. If you can get the cheaper price now, the iPhone 3GS is probably worth it — if you don’t mind signing your soul over to AT&T for another 2 years. Which leads me to…
If you have never had an iPhone? Yes.
It’s an easy call if you want an iPhone and have never owned one, as this is the best one yet. Definitely get one, unless you have a strong dislike of AT&T. If so, skip to the next question.
If you hate AT&T? No.
This is a big “no.” If you really dislike AT&T, the iPhone 3GS only gives you more reasons to dislike them. MMS still isn’t working. Tethering still isn’t working. The iPhone 3GS has a chip that can handle data transfer speeds of 7.2 Mbps, but AT&T’s network isn’t ready for that, so that data speed is the same as with the iPhone 3G. And that faster AT&T network won’t fully be ready until 2011 — obviously, there will be at least one, and probably two more iterations of the iPhone by then.
And there will likely a version of the iPhone that is not exclusive to AT&T by then as well. That possibility alone should be reason for a lot of people not to sign up for a new two year contract with AT&T. And unfortunately, that means no iPhone 3GS.
If you love video? Yes.
This is a big, emphatic “yes.” I truly believe the iPhone 3GS should have been called the iPhone 3GV, for “Video.” The device is simply great at shooting quick videos and giving you one-button publish capabilities to services like YouTube. While there were some video applications that worked on older jailbroken iPhones, like Qik, the quality of the video with the 3GS is leaps and bounds better. And the trimming capabilities on the phone are very simple to use. And playback looks great on the device. I could go on, but as I said already, if you’re really into video and want a great mobile device for doing it, the iPhone 3GS will be worth it for you. The Flip cam should definitely be scared.
If general speed is your only reason? No.
The iPhone 3GS is noticeably faster than the iPhone 3G, but in my opinion, that speed alone is not worth the upgrade price. One problem is that while apps do load faster, you still have to wait for AT&T’s often shoddy network to connect for many of the apps to work. As I noted above, the iPhone 3GS can handle faster wireless data speeds too, but AT&T’s network isn’t yet up to the same task, so it renders that advantage moot.
I have found myself getting frustrated with using the iPhone 3G after using the 3GS for a while due to the speed difference, but that’s only because I have a point of reference. If you haven’t used a 3GS yet, or don’t use it extensively, you shouldn’t have too much of an issue staying with your iPhone 3G (or buying a new one for $99) and still taking advantage of the new features in the 3.0 software upgrade.
If you’re really into iPhone games? Yes.
Having said all of that about speed, if you’re really into gaming on the device, the faster processor and better graphics chip will undoubtedly be worth it for you. I’ve been playing a bunch of games on the 3GS, including some larger ones like Tiger Woods PGA Tour, and the iPhone 3GS performs much, much better than the iPhone 3G does.
If you’re a developer? Yes.
Likewise with the gaming, if you’re a developer making apps on the iPhone, you’ll undoubtedly love the faster speeds the 3GS offers. Plenty of developers, such as Facebook’s Joe Hewitt, are already raving about this.
If battery life is your main reason? No.
The battery life on the 3GS does seem to be better, but it’s hard to know if that’s just due to the fact that this is a fresher battery compared to the one in the year-old iPhone 3G. Apple has stated that the battery in the 3GS does boost times for certain things (like browsing the web on WiFi), but it also apparently is leading to some overheating.
I’ve also noticed that the auto-brightness setting on the iPhone 3GS is much dimmer than on the iPhone 3G. I’ve done a number of tests to make sure I wasn’t just seeing things, or it wasn’t a one-time fluke. For whatever reason, the iPhone 3GS is much dimmer when auto-brightness is turned on, and this undoubtedly saves some battery life too. The dimmer setting doesn’t bother me at all until I look at it side-by-side with the the iPhone 3G.
The iPhone 3GS also has a feature that allows you to tell you the percentage of your battery has left. This is a pretty nice feature, but it does get a bit nerve-racking.
If you have very oily hands? Yes.
This may sound like a joke, but the iPhone 3GS’s new oleophobic (anti-oil) screen coating really is making a noticeable difference on my iPhone’s screen. While you may assume that my iPhone 3G has a dirtier screen simply because it’s older, I had a protective covering on the screen up until the day before I got the iPhone 3GS, so basically the screens were in the same condition a week ago. Now, one is constantly much more dirty.
If you’re excited about voice control? No.
The voice control feature would seem to be a nice touch, but it’s pretty wonky in my experience with it. More than a few times I’ve tried to tell the device to play music by a certain band, and it will end up calling someone — and without fail it is usually someone I really don’t want to be calling.
The “play more songs like this” which kicks in the iTunes Genius features is by far the best part of the whole thing. Otherwise, it’s just a system that is too slow to activate, and too inaccurate.
If you want a better cameraphone? Yes.
While I’ve already raved about the video capabilities, the camera itself is so much nicer than the iPhone 3G’s. This camera is 3.2 megapixels compared to the old version’s 2 megapixels. But the real difference is with the auto-focus, which turns crap pictures, good.
The camera isn’t as nice as some of the ones found in phones by Nokia, but it’s definitely good enough for your average point-and-shooting in good light.
If you want more storage? Yes.
There’s no denying that having 32 GB (on the more expensive model) versus 16 GB is nice. I remember buying my first iPod five years ago — it was a hard-drive based model with 40 GB of storage. The thing was a brick. Now the iPhone has just about as much storage, which is pretty crazy.
And considering you can now not only shoot movies on this device, but can download them from iTunes with the 3.0 software, you might need that extra space.
For the compass? No.
Don’t get me wrong, the compass is interesting, but aside from Google Maps and maybe the GPS apps, I really don’t see the point of it. And for the first few days I had no idea how to activate the compass features in Google Maps — you have to tap the location button (in the lower left corner) twice. I hope some applications arise that do cool things with it, but I certainly wouldn’t buy the device for this.
Overall? Maybe (See Above).
As I said, there’s really no clear-cut answer as to if you should get the device. You really need to look at the functionality and use cases above, and determine where you reside with regards to those things. If you think a bunch of stuff is missing from the list, you’re probably thinking about features that are a part of the iPhone 3.0 software. Most of those work on the older iPhones as well. If something like cut, copy & paste is most important to you, that works on the iPhone 3G, so it probably makes sense to stick with that device. Or if you don’t have one, consider paying $99 to get one — that seems like a hell of a deal.
If you’re a really big fan of the iPhone, you probably already bought this new model. But it’s the fence-sitters that this post is meant to help. Both those who are unsure if the time is right to get their first iPhone, or if it’s worth it to upgrade.
It’s a tough call — but simplified: If video is the feature you most care about, then get it. If not, consider the iPhone 3G for $99. If you’re worried about AT&T, don’t get either — wait to see if Apple renews its exclusive deal with AT&T next year. Even if it does, you can be sure another phone, more advanced than the iPhone 3GS, will be on the verge of being revealed.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Of these two Nikon rumors, one looks almost certain to be real, and one looks like a bad fake. First, the D300s, a camera which we actually expect to see announced pretty soon. The specs and a screenshot leaked already, pointing to a video-capable upgrade to the D300 with stereo sound and an SD card slot. This picture, though, looks like a poor piece of Photoshoppery, a simple grafting of the D5000’s microphone holes onto the D300 body, with an “s” slapped on for good measure.
Better is the D3000, which looks to be an entry-level video capable DSLR. At first glance the picture (above) looks to be a D5000 with the mic holes removed, but closer inspection shows some harder to fake details. The left shoulder is a different shape, for example, and the D3000 lacks the green dot found by the exposure compensation button on the D5000.
Rumored specs say that the D3000 will shoot video but lacks an HDMI-out and has a smaller flash and viewfinder setup. Oddly, it’s claimed (presumably based on the lack of a mic grille) that there will be no sound recording. This is hard to believe, as even a cheap point-and-shoot can manage it.
If true, it could mean that Nikon is splitting the lower ranges into still-only and video-capable ranges, with the extra zeroes of the D3000 and D5000 indicating movie-mode.
Image leaks show Nikon D3000, D300s [Electronista]
This (fake) Nike ad is all kinds of awesome, but the thing that strikes me is that even parkour-busting robots wear hoodies, which appear to be the free-runner’s uniform. This, ironically, means that they can’t enter the malls which are the home of Nike stores, or not in the UK at least: Some years ago an unofficial ban came into effect after knee-jerking do-gooders kicked themselves in the teeth whilst frothing about the dangers of hoodie-wearing youths.
Why? Because wearing a hood and baseball cap hides your face from the CCTV cameras, something unthinkable in a surveillance state. Still, the ad rocks, especially as it is already two years old. It’s called “Exploit Yourself and was animated without commision by the Big Lazy Robot visual effects studio (who also worked on Transformers — the first, good, Transformers) and directed by Carl Rinsch.
Product page [Big Lazy Robot]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
OK, that's weird.
Following the completion of the acquisitions, GGF intends to launch new business models that allow compensation to the content providers and copyright owners. The responsibility for, and operation of the site will be taken over by GGF in connection with closing of the transaction, which is scheduled for August 2009.OK, that's kind of ominous and interesting."We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site" said Hans Pandeya, CEO GGF.
"The Pirate Bay is a site that is among the top 100 most visited Internet sites in the world. However, in order to live on, The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary. Content creators and providers need to control their content and get paid for it. File sharers' need faster downloads and better quality" continues Hans Pandeya.
Sounds more or less what the VCs who backed the original Napster were hoping for: buy the music industry's most hated, most successful enemy, then shop around to the industry and see if they'll give it a license and help it go legit. Ten years ago, the industry figured it would get a better deal by suing Napster into oblivion (they even tried to sue for the assets of the pension funds that backed the VCs that backed Napster!) and then buy it at firesale prices and run it themselves (except they ended up running it into obscurity by larding it with a bunch of junk that reflected wishful thinking about what the market would bear; meanwhile, competing rogue services took off and filled and expanded the niche Napster had occupied).
So here's the question: will Big Content learn from the Great Stupidity of 1999, or are they so emboldened by their domination of the legislative and judicial arms of the world's governments that they'll once again kill the most successful rogue operation and leave yet another niche for yet another group of even-less-cooperative rogues to fill?
Update:: Here's The Pirate Bay's Brokep on the subject:
TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it's value if the money would be the interesting part. It's not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site. As all of you know, there's not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It's the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn't evolve. We don't want that to happen.Listed company buys The Pirate Bay for 60 MSEK (Thanks, Kullin!)We've been working on this project for many years. It's time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!
If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That's the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That's awesome and will take the heat of us.
STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish software company Global Gaming Factory X AB said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy free file-sharing website The Pirate Bay, and that it would find ways to compensate copyright owners for downloaded material.
The four Swedish men behind the website were sentenced in April to one year in jail and ordered to pay damages of 3.6 million dollars for running the site, which is one of the world's largest for downloading files on the Internet.
The buyer said the website, for which it would pay 60 million Swedish crowns ($7.7 million), was viable based on plans for a new business model that would satisfy both content providers and copyright owners.
"We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site," said Global Gaming Chief Executive Hans Pandeya in a statement.
Music and film companies including Warner Bros., MGM, Columbia Pictures, 20th Century Fox Films, Sony BMG, Universal and EMI had sought damages of more than 100 million Swedish crowns ($12.6 million) to compensate for lost revenues.
The verdict has been appealed to a higher court.
($1=7.826 Swedish Crown)
(Reporting by Veronica Ek; Editing by Jon Loades-Carter)
See Also:
Disney, Hong Kong Government Reach Deal To Expand Hong Kong Theme Park
As part of the deal announced Tuesday, the government plans to convert a substantial amount of existing loans to the park into equity, but won't invest any new capital. Its stake in the park will fall to 52%...The physical size of the theme park, will increase by 23%, Lau said, with the new attractions aimed at broadening Disneyland's appeal to young adults...
In its first year of operations, visitors to Hong Kong Disneyland fell 400,000 short of the park's 5.6 million target. In its second year, attendance fell to just over 4 million visitors.
The park has also drawn criticism for lack of appeal to mainland Chinese tourists, who account for the bulk of its visitors, given their unfamiliarity with Disney stories and characters.
Disney said Tuesday the expansion will focus on "universally understood" stories, adding that many of the new attractions will be unique to the Hong Kong park.
(Image: 27601 - Hong Kong - Disneyland, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Xiquinhosilva's Flickr stream)
Swedish software firm Global Gaming Factory X this morning announced it has agreed to buy file-sharing service The Pirate Bay for 60 million Swedish crowns (which currently converts to approx. $7.7 million). In addition, GGF has entered into an agreement to acquire the shares in Peerialism, a software technology company that develops solutions for data distribution and distributed storage based on new p2p technology.
The transaction is scheduled to be closed in August 2009.
Update: The Pirate Bay has confirmed the news (see their commentary below).
Last April, the founders of The Pirate Bay were sentenced to one year in jail and a fine of $3.6 million for running the site, which is one of the world largest for downloading files on the Internet (one of the 100 most visited websites in the world according to the press release). The case had been brought on by a number of groups from the music and movie industry.
For that reason, GGF has stated that The Pirate Bay requires a new business model, which “satisfies the requirements and needs of all parties, content providers, broadband operators, end users, and the judiciary.”
Global Gaming Chief Executive Hans Pandeya didn’t give a lot of detail about what type of business model it has planned for the file-sharing service, and only said:
“We would like to introduce models which entail that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.”
We’re gathering more information and will update this post accordingly.
Statement from TPB:
“A lot of people are worried. We’re not and you shouldn’t be either!
TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it’s value if the money would be the interesting part. It’s not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site.
As all of you know, there’s not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It’s the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen.We’ve been working on this project for many years. It’s time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!
If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And - you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.
The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets - quite the opposite. Now we’re fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It’s win-win-win.
The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don’t worry - be happy!”
Update 2: TorrentFreak was informed by TPB’s Peter Sunde that the site will soon decentralize and quit running a properietary BitTorrent tracker, instead encouraging its user base to use a yet to be launched third party tracker for their torrents.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
What can one say about Mark Cuban that he can’t say himself?
Not much, as you will see from this sassy onstage interview he did with Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, where he talked about everything from the idiots of the Internet to the subsidization of Web video by Google (GOOG) to the next big innovation.
Cuban hardly needs an introduction–he’s been a Web mogul, an entrepreneur, a sports team owner, a blogger, a theater owner, a high-definition evangelist, most of all, a digital gadfly.
Here’s the full D7 video session:
By Malcolm Gladwell, Staff Writer, The New Yorker
At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle, Amazon’s new electronic reader. “They want seventy per cent of the subscription revenue,” Moroney testified.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Brian Stelter, Media Reporter, New York Times
“Check the source” may be the first rule of journalism. But in the coverage of the protests in Iran this month, some news organizations have adopted a different stance: publish first, ask questions later. If you still don’t know the answer, ask your readers.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Scott Campbell, Contributing Writer, BBC Magazine
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day. He had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Fred Vogelstein, Contributing Editor, Wired
Larry Page should have been in a good mood. It was the fall of 2007, and Google’s cofounder was in the middle of a five-day tour of his company’s European operations in Zurich, London, Oxford, and Dublin. The trip had been fun, a chance to get a ground-floor look at Google’s ever-expanding empire.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
The saddest thing about Jackson was not just that his fame ruined him, it's that it continued ruining him even after he was essentially finished as an artist. In the last decade of his life he was no longer a great singer or a talented composer or a brilliant choreographer; he was someone who had once been all those things and was now Michael Jackson. Here was a guy whose entire existence from early childhood had been wrapped up with what happened when he did things that made other people happy and excited. And that was unavailable to him. He still could make people happy and excited by showing up and having his picture taken, but that's all he had left.Some thoughts on Michael Jackson (via Making Light)Someone on the WELL used a word about Jackson's probable history as a child molester that made me stop and think: "unforgiveable." It strikes me that it never even occurred to me whether or not to forgive Michael Jackson. In my mind, he was so far away from normative that the question of forgiveness seems totally irrelevant. Not that his no longer really being human in any meaningful sense justified his actions, or mitigated the harm he did, but that it makes no more sense to judge the morality of his actions than it would to judge Henry Darger's. Their creepiness, sure. But this was a man (it's a mark of how profoundly damaged Michael Jackson was that it feels strange to call him "a man", just as it feels strange to recognize that when he died he was older than the President of the United States) who spent every day of his life embedded in a matrix of perverse incentives. The terrain of his personal landscape was unrecognizable. I can understand the choices that my cat makes more deeply than I could understand the ones Jackson made.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
EurekaFest is a yearly event held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showcases the prototype inventions of high school students from around the country. The inventions consist of various gadgets and devices aimed at helping solve real-world problems.
One of the more impressive ideas I saw during the two days I spent covering the event was a prototype “sensing” cane for blind people. The cane features sensors that can detect objects up to eight feet away, at which point the cane’s handle begins buzzing once per second and increases in intensity as objects get closer.
Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan's new anthology The New Space Opera 2 came out today, featuring all original stories by me, John Scalzi, Robert Charles Wilson, Jay Lake, Garth Nix, Bruce Sterling, Elizabeth Moon, Justina Robson and many others. My story, "To Go Boldly," is a look at the LARPing ethic that lurks under the skin of any space navy.
The New Space Opera 2: All-new stories of science fiction adventure
(via Scalzi)
Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jun 2009 | 5:47 am
laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in la (via Waxy)
Posing as owners of a new LA area vegetarian restaurant, we arrived at Bodhi and asked to speak with a customer service manager. We were quickly introduced to a helpful lady who was ready to advise us on what products to buy. She was either the manager or the owner, and most definitely the senior person on-premise at that time.She showed us to a freezer of "veggie chicken", and we checked the ingredients on the label (all vegan). We asked her why some products have a better mouth texture than others, even though they have no eggs listed as ingredients, and after a long conversation and questions, she said the following:
"We buy most of this veggie meat from a manufacturer in Taiwan. It's produced for the Taiwanese and Chinese vegetarian market then re-labeled for export, often to the USA. I do know of times when things have been labelled incorrectly, but I do my best to make sure that what they send me is what they say it is."
Upon further questioning, she kindly gave us the email address of her contact in Taiwan. She specifically asked that we didn't mention Bodhi Vegetarian Supply when we contacted them, and so we're not disclosing the name of the manufacturer here.
More sophisticated users can skip this paragraph, but for the rest, here's the basic outline. Tor (an acronym of "The Onion Router") is free and open source software that helps users remain anonymous on the Internet. Normally, when accessing websites, your computer asks for and receives a webpage out in the open, a process that exposes your IP address, the URL of the website, and the contents of the site, among other information to third parties. When accessing websites while using Tor, your computer essentially whispers its requests for a website, to another computer, which passes the request on to another computer, which passes it on to another computer, which passes it onto the computer where the website is hosted; the reply returns in the same, chain-message manner. The whispers are encrypted, so that neither outside authorities, nor the computers in the middle of the chain, can tell what is being said, and to whom. And the website itself does not have your IP address either.Whatever you think of Mousavi, I suspect that we all agree that Iranian citizens should be allowed to communicate without being spied upon by their governments (if only Americans enjoyed this right!).Internet users in Iran are using Tor to both (a) circumvent censorship systems and (b) remain anonymous while reading and writing on the Internet. Both are critically important to the safety of protesters, many of whom fear retaliation from the government. Preliminary reports indicate that use of the Tor client in Iran has increased in the days after the contested election.
Help Protesters in Iran: Run a Tor Bridge or a Tor Relay
Mochi Media, the fast growing Flash game advertising network and payments platform that we covered last week, is in the midst of an internal battle over the fate of the company.
The company is mulling over an acquisition offer that would give investors Accel Partners and Shasta Ventures their original investments of around $14 million back, but not much more. Founders and other employees wouldn’t make much from the sale.
Normally this is an easy offer to turn down. The company is doing well and has “plenty” of money left in the bank, sources say. The founders obviously would want to continue to grow the business and hope for a good outcome.
But for some reason at least one investor, Ping Li from Accel, wants to close the deal and take his original investments off the table. He has been pressuring the founders and management team to accept the terms offered, multiple sources say.
That’s left the founders frustrated, who apparently turned down an offer from Time Warner to acquire the company for $65 million or so a year ago. Li convinced the founders not to take that deal, sources say, and instead raise more money to go for a “home run.” Now, a year later, Li wants to sell the company for a small fraction of that $65 million.
Generally venture capitalists like to keep their money on the table when startups are doing well and aren’t in danger of folding, as is the case with Mochi Media. No one we’ve spoken with can explain why Li would want to force this deal on the company.
Li is a somewhat controversial venture capitalist - he was one of (or the) architect behind the extraordinary undoing of a $17 million round of financing for BitTorrent last year - we questioned whether Li violated his fiduciary duty to the company in closing that deal at the time.
Seeing venture capitalists square off against entrepreneurs is never fun. And as ugly as this situation has become, I don’t want to unfairly single out Ping Li. He’s got plenty of people that he’s invested in that say glowing things about him. For example, I spoke with Dennis Fong of Raptr this evening, and he says Li is a model investor.
This situation is more of an example of a trend that we’re seeing, where the goals of investors and entrepreneurs veer off in separate directions. It’s also a red flag for entrepreneurs in general - sometimes the needs of a venture fund can lead that fund to make bad decisions on behalf of their companies. Be prepared for that, protect yourself in contracts as much as possible and choose your investors wisely.
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"Tourist Remover" cleans up your vacation photos
"Tourist Removed" is a web app that will remove other tourists from the photos you took of landmarks while on vacation as a tourist. All you have to do is take multiple shots of the same location, and Tourist Remover will only keep the bits that stay the same. It's like diff for photos!
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Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jun 2009 | 5:29 am
I've spoken to gold farm researchers in China, the UK and the US, and many believe that the gold farming industry is controlled by Chinese cartels that use language barriers to exclude others from the internal exchanges where gold from one server of a given game is exchanged for gold on another server. Of course, many people who speak Chinese live outside of the Great Firewall, but still, this might the chance that Indonesia and Vietnam (already outsource destinations for Chinese gold farming operations) as well as Eastern Europe to launch their own competing gold farming sector.
The ruling is likely to affect many of the more than 300 million Internet users in China, as well as those in other countries involved in virtual currency trading. In the context of online role playing games like World of Warcraft, virtual currency trading is often called gold farming.China Bans Gold FarmingThe most popular form of virtual currency in China is called "QQ coins," a form of virtual credit issued by Tencent.com.
Tencent.com, which has about 220 million registered users -- about as many as Facebook -- is quoted in the Chinese government news release as "resolutely" supporting the new rule. The government justifies its ban on virtual currency trading as a way to curtail gambling and other illegal online activities.
The extent to which the Chinese government will apply its virtual currency rule to online role playing games remains unclear. A report in the English-language China Daily says that in-game gear is not considered virtual currency, so selling virtual items may be allowed to continue.
The trading of virtual currency for real cash employs hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and generates between $200 million and $1 billion annually, according to a 2008 survey conducted by Richard Heeks at the University of Manchester.
The DM of the Rings
(via Neatorama)
Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jun 2009 | 5:21 am
Sense of Fashion is an Israeli startup that aims to be a marketplace for both Indie fashion designers to sell their designs and for consumers to be able to access clothes made by aspiring designers. The site also serves a social purpose—it lets any user create a fashion homepage of sorts where you can add photos of what you wear your favorite clothes and designs. Designers can create storefronts on this platform as well.
The site has ambitions to be more than just a marketplace for new and interesting fashion. The site hopes to connect shoppers, designers and trendsetters. Designers can tap into a potential customer base of users who have created their own fashion pages and users can influence designers by commenting on designs and fashions posted on the site. Users can also interact with other shoppers on the site. For example, Sense of Fashion has a “Fashion Emergency” feature that allows you ask friends to vote and choose which item of clothing looks best on you.
Sellers can operate e-commerce on Sense of Fashion via Paypal. The site takes a 3% sales commission on all sales and charges designers an undisclosed listing fee as well. Launched in 2009, Sense of Fashion has received seed funding by VOIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, Ori Levy and other investors. Sense of Fashion is an interesting way to combine social networking, fashion, and retail for the Indie design space. I can imagine aspiring fashion students and design connoisseurs will find the site particularly appealing. FashionSpace has a similar concept.
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 Telegraph.co.uk | Cool Search Engines That Are Not Google Wired News How do you find a new search engine if all you know is Google? Typing “search engine” into the usual box might lead you to Microsoft's newly launched Bing, the combined search at Dogpile, or the former king of search, Altavista. ... Google Says It Doesn't Dominate, Microsoft Begs To Differ Humor video highlights Bing's challenge Pay-per-click Advertising: Bing Delivering Improved Results ... |
 Canada.com | Comcast Deploys WiMax 4G Broadband PC World The new service, called Comcast High-Speed 2go, offers speeds of up to 4Mbps. The Fast Pack Metro package is aggressively sold at an introductory rate of $49.99 a month, which also includes a 12Mbps home Internet service and a free Wi-Fi router. ... Comcast to offer 4G wireless broadband service Comcast Rolling Out WiMax Service Comcast to Bundle Clearwire Service |
When Sam Altman visits New York, he's never alone for very long. Altman is the 24-year-old CEO of Loopt, a company that makes a "location-aware" app for mobile phones that tracks where all of your friends are and what they're doing.
"I'll pull it out on the ride in from the airport, and before I've even gotten to the city I'll have figured out who's nearby me, and we'll be making plans to get together that night," Altman told me. If he looks on his phone's map on a Saturday night, he can literally see groups forming in real time. "It's getting to the point now where if you want do something social, you have all this information about the world around you," he says.
Location-based applications are quickly becoming the hot new thing on phones. Since many mobiles today — most particularly the iPhone — can determine their location via GPS chips (or pinging local cell towers and WiFi signals), they're spawning a whole new ecosystem of apps. There are social ones like Loopt or foursquare, which track the movement of friends as well as find-stuff tools like Yelp that locate top-rated bars and restaurants near you. According to web-research firm Compete, one in three mobile-phone owners uses location-based tools, and the number of apps has exploded from 500 to 2,500 since last October.
Yet this new class of information tool violates everything we normally think about the internet.
The whole reason the web revolutionized the world was that it rendered geography irrelevant. People connected worldwide based not on location but on their common interests: Model-train collectors and free-speech activists and Britney Spears fans could swarm onto the discussion boards and blogs, from Chicago to Tehran. By severing the link between location and geography, the internet turned everything upside down.
Now mobile phones are inverting everything again, in the other direction — because your location becomes most important thing about you. So how is the return of geography going to change our lives?
The near-term effects are obvious: We're using it as a sort of radar for our social lives and Yellow-Pages needs. The first round of geo-aware phone apps has consisted mostly of "listings" services and tools for tracking your posse.
Altman thinks these apps are already tweaking people's everyday behavior. Early adopters often allowed only approved friends to track them; but now a larger chunk of Loopt users publish their location openly, for anyone to see. Why? Being open allows for more happy encounters — hook-ups with friendly strangers who are useful, or at least interesting, to know.
What's the next? It's probably ''tagging:'' Writing up notes, implanted in space, that describe something interesting about a particular location. Some apps already offer crude versions of this: With Socialight or Brightkite or Graffito, people can pick a spot on the map — using their phone or browser — and post a note that others will see when they're nearby.
These markups are still pretty sparse, but they're intriguing: When I wander through midtown Manhattan, I find it's an odd mix of the utilitarian — notes warning me that a bar has awful service, or recommending an awesome music store — and grippingly personal: a dispatch describing where somebody had a breakup and what it was like.
"It's like this form of Terminator vision," jokes Socialight founder Dan Melinger, whose app is set to launch soon on the iPhone. He thinks that as more and more people tag the real world, it will create a sort of parallel, invisible internet of data floating over our everyday lives.
"You can figure out the mood of a place by searching for all notes in an area," Melinger adds. What types of music do people listen to in this neighborhood? What do they argue about?
All those tracks of our lives form an enormously rich stream of information. So most geo-app pioneers are developing collaborative-filtering tools that find patterns in the data; for example, recommending other people you might want to "friend" because they have similar everyday behavior — going to the same cafes and schools and bars (at the same time of day) and talking about the same topics in their tags. (And, of course, alerting advertisers if you're the type of person who drinks a lot of coffee, as evidenced by your daily route.)
Altman calls this the "life graph" — the lattice of invisible geodata you produce every day as your phone leaves trails through the digital ether
Geo-apps face one big technological hurdle, though: Most phones do not allow an app to constantly check its location — every minute, say — in part because that constant pinging would drain the mobile's battery. They thus require you to pull out your phone and look at it, and many people find this onerous (or simply forget to do it regularly).
Assuming those tech hurdles can be overcome in the next few years, many geo-app makers envision physical space marked up with interesting information that actively pops up when you walk past a particular location.
In the long run, we could find ourselves living in a world where long, threaded discussions and conversations occur not only on blog postings or Facebook status updates but in specific cafes, public buildings, or rooms.
Granted, the privacy aspects of geodata are hair-raising. Many of these new apps intend to monetize their service by helping advertisers target you based on where you go — using your "life graph", as it were, to sell you things. Geo-enhanced advertising is likely to be something potentially useful — and annoying and occasionally unsettling — as Google's ads keyed to your search queries and e-mails.
Ted Morgan, the CEO of Skyhook — a company that maps out WiFi signals worldwide, to help phones pinpoint their location — thinks the way geotagging really changes life is by becoming part of everything: All Tweets, all Facebook entries, all MySpace posts, all news items become automatically marked up with geographic data. What will that do? He's not sure. But then again, nobody predicted social networking, either.
"You're going to see some Mark Zuckerberg guy come out with an idea that nobody could foresee," he predicts.
Ars Technica reports: Web apps are changing the world of TV.
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The web is transforming the way traditional TV shows are distributed, which is a boon for consumers but a nail-biting conundrum for the television networks. On one hand, you can now watch many of your favorite program on your flat screen, computer screen or mobile-phone screen when and where you want. For the network bosses, though, this brave new TV-land poses challenges familiar to newspaper executives: how do you make money once the horse has left the digital barn?
TV distribution grew up in simpler times, before all this BitTorrent, iPod and Home Theater PC riffraff. The television networks provided the content and set schedules, advertisers ran commercials and viewers turned on their TVs at the appointed time to watch their favorite shows.
Fast forward to 2009. Viewers are demanding that networks provide programs that play on various gadgets — for free — or they'll go elsewhere. TiVo, the iPod and iPhone and internet video distribution are shifting not just time but the very culture around watching TV.
"This is a very exciting time in digital entertainment," says Karin Gilford, senior vice president of Fancast, Comcast's streaming video site. "But it's just the beginning in figuring out how to find the balance in keeping consumers happy while being nimble in figuring out the business models that can work."
Consumer demand isn't the problem. The iTunes Store boasts a downloadable catalog of 30,000 TV episodes, and in March, Hulu — the video site owned by NBC and Fox — streamed 380 million videos to 41 million unique visitors. But despite those numbers, revenues have not followed. Advertisers prefer to target — and pay the most — for the largest audiences, which still can be found on the networks.
Nevertheless, Steve Ronson, an executive vice president at A&E Television Networks, sees a bright future for digital distribution of network programming.
"The ability to watch TV on multiple screens has passed the technology stress test," he says. "Now the issue is to develop economic models to complement the user experience. Value will be derived from quality content and user-friendly distribution. That remains the winning formula."
Says Albert Cheng, executive vice president for digital media at the Disney-ABC Television Group: "We need to be able to match the appropriate pricing, availability windows and distribution platform to the right consumer."
At sites like Hulu and Fancast, advertisers are already adjusting their advertising strategies to reach a new generation of viewers with short attention spans and a low threshold for bull.
Instead of peppering shows with blocks of 30-second ads — an eternity in internet time — these sites usually throw up a few 10-to-15-second commercials. Unlike a television screen, a PC display provides a platform for branding and interactive advertising. Ads may no longer just interrupt an episode: They could become part of the actual experience. And that could be the jackpot long sought by content creators and advertisers.
"Super-subscriptions" are another possible way for consumers to tune in and content providers to profit. Currently you can subscribe to services like Netflix to stream video on a PC and handful of console devices but you can't take shows on the go. With a super-subscription from the studios or an intermediary like Hulu, the vast majority of content could be served on-demand to a wide variety of devices, be they in the living room or your pocket on the train.
The line between the web and TV will inevitably disappear thanks to the proliferation of digital gadgets and the coming of thin, interactive screens that you can roll up like a newspaper. Now the networks just need to figure out business models that will catch up with all this technology.
Wired.com reports: Geo-apps are going to remake the digital world.
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If you own an iPhone, chances are you have at least one Twitter client on it. And while everyday seems to bring new ones into the App Store, at the end of the day, Tweetie always seems to be the one that I go back to. TwitterFon, Twitterriffic and most recently, TweetDeck, all are worthy challengers, but I find each of them lacking in some regard. Usually, it’s either speed or simplicity. Tweetie seems to be a perfect combination of the two. But a new app, Birdfeed, may be a little more perfect.
When you first boot it up, you may think Birdfeed looks a little sparse. But there’s a lot behind this simple design, it’s just tucked away, so as not to clutter the main experience, as so many apps do. The main Birdfeed screen consists of your Twitter timeline, a button to load newer tweets, a button to compose a tweet, and a button to your account — that’s it. Clicking on any tweet in your timeline will load it on its own screen and from there you can easily see that person’s profile, reply to that tweet, favorite it or forward it (retweet it, post a link to it, or mail a link to it).
But it’s the button that takes you back to your account that leads you to all of the tools you’re accustomed to on many Twitter clients. There’s a “Mentions” area, a “Direct Messages” area, and a “Favorites” area. You can also view your profile, your tweets, perform a search, or jump to a specific user. On a user’s profile page within Birdfeed, there are also some cool tools. At the bottom, you’ll find a “Services” button. Clicking on that pops up a menu which allows you to automatically scan that user using DoesFollow (a service that tells you if a user is following you on Twitter), Follow Cost (which tells you how annoying a user is to follow based on number of tweets), Favrd (which tracks interesting things on Twitter), and Twitter.com (to show you their actual profile on Twitter).
Another couple nice features that Birdfeed highlights is the threading of direct messages in a way that looks like the SMS (and one day, MMS) messages area on the iPhone. And the app bookmarks where you last updated your Twitter timeline, so that when you load the app again, you don’t have to scroll through past tweets to remember what you haven’t seen. And yes, there is multiple account support.
Birdfeed has really whittled down its Twitter client to just the essentials. But it does so in a way that makes perfect sense. As the developers put it on their site, “We’re as proud of the things we left out as we are of the things we put in.” As someone who is a huge fan of keeping things simple, I wholly approve that message. But as great as the simplistic look of Birdfeed may be, it’s the speed that is arguably even better.
Whereas an app like Twitterriffic can often take in excess of 10 seconds to load up with you tweets, Tweetie typically takes about 3 seconds. But I’ve found Birdfeed is able to boot up and load new tweets in about one second. The reason for this is that the app does local caching. And not only does this allow it to load faster, it also allows you to view tweets even when you’re not connected to the Internet. I just put my iPhone in Airplane Mode and web back through over several hours worth of tweets, seamlessly.
So, are there any downsides to Birdfeed? Yes. The biggest one for many users will be its price: $4.99. While many users opt for clients that are free (TwitterFon’s free version is a nice option), Tweetie sets its price at $2.99. But System of Touch (yes, from the Tears For Fears song), the team behind Birdfeed that consists of Buzz Andersen and Neven Mrgan, have plenty of experience developing for the desktop side of things, and consider a Twitter iPhone client much more of a challenge than a desktop version. As such, they note in a blog post that, “because we put a lot of sweat into producing a polished, Apple-caliber application, we feel Birdfeed is worth $4.99.” Fair enough.
Another downside is that the all-important “Mentions” or “@replies” are not just one-click away on Birdfeed like they are on Tweetie. Instead, they are two clicks away (back to the main screen, and then into Mentions). But, Birdfeed features an indicator (next to your name on the button to go to the main screen) to let you know if there is a new mention or direct message for you to view.
Another feature I’m not thrilled with is that it uses chat bubbles as the default view for the timeline. While I think these bubbles are fine for Direct Messages, they take up too much space in the main screen, where I prefer to see as many tweets as possible without having to scroll. Tweetie gives you an option to have a straight-forward block-style look, Birdfeed does not.
Birdfeed has only been available for one day, so it’s too early to declare it the new de-facto iPhone Twitter client. But I will say that it’s closer than any other app has ever been to dethroning Tweetie, in my mind. It’s so good that I’ve already moved it onto my first page of apps on the iPhone, just to make sure it gets a fair shake against Tweetie. We’ll see what I’m still using in a week, but I suspect is may just be Birdfeed.
You can find Birdfeed in the App Store for $4.99 here.
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AFP - Facebook, the social networking website which has signed up more than 200 million members but has yet to make a profit, has named a new chief financial officer.
Has there ever been a kiwi that has sounded mean or ominous? They're the most adorable English speakers in the world.
Oh, there's ever-so-slight nudity in this video, but it is not sexual in any way. [via @jonnodotcom]
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Tomorrow, YouTube is going to release a very important addition to its suite of advertising products, and it has the potential to have a huge impact for politicians, brands, and charities alike. The funny thing is, you probably thought it was already out there.
The product’s official name is the Call-To-Action Overlay, and it’s about as straightforward as ads come: it’s a semi-transparent pop-up that links viewers to any website you choose. For example, I could place an overlay on a TechCrunch video inviting users to visit the corresponding post we wrote about it. Yes, it’s that simple.
It’s hard to believe, but you’ve never been able to do this on YouTube before now. If you ever wanted to drive users watching your YouTube video to another site, you’d have to include it as a link in the summary at the right-hand side of the page, which most people ignore anyway. Users can include links in annotations, but only to other YouTube videos. Think back to President Obama’s landmark election campaign, which was helped in no small part by his YouTube presence. If he ever wanted to direct visitors to one of his campaign homepages, he’d have to ask visitors to enter his site’s URL manually. That’s a pretty major hurdle to overcome. This gets rid of it.
So why has YouTube taken so long to implement such an obvious feature? The answer likely boils down to the fact that this is effectively driving traffic away from YouTube, which isn’t an ideal situation for a site that thrives on views. This is probably a somewhat scary step for the video giant, but it’s taking some initiatives to negate any possible downsides. You can only place these customized overlays on a video that you’ve entered into YouTube’s CPC Promoted Videos program. You don’t have to pay anything extra for the Call-To-Action overlay, but you do have to be a paying YouTube advertiser.
The feature has been in testing with select partners and non-profits for some time, and the results have been extremely positive. Last March, the organization charity:water managed to raise $10,000 in a single day by including an overlay on one of its videos. A handful of politicians have also been trying it out, using it to entice voters to sign their petitions. It’s worked well enough that politicians who haven’t had access to the feature are clamoring for it.
At this point the potential uses for the links are fairly obvious. Brands can link their commercials back to the products they’re selling. Publishers (like us) can link back to relevant articles. And politicians can link back to their campaign homepages or petitions. But there’s almost certainly some other kind of creative use for the new ads waiting to be tapped, just as YouTube’s annotations were used to create choose-your-own-adventure video journeys.
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Section: Business News, Video, Content, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, Video Providers
If you have Cablevision, then you probably know about its remote DVR features, which allow you to record TV shows remotely for later viewing within Cablevision offices. Previously, there was a petition questioning the legality of remote DVR usage which reached the Supreme Court. Once there, the United States Supreme Court disposed of the petition, a move greatly appreciated by the CEA.
CEO and President of CEA, Gary Shapiro, had this to say about the remote DVR technology, “The ability to record television programming has become commonplace to millions of Americans which has benefited consumers and allowed the consumer technology and content industries to contribute billions of dollars to our economy and create millions of jobs.”
He goes on further to say that it doesn’t matter how you record shows, whether it be a box, or in an office. Another argument used by Shapiro is the fact that Apple and Google already offer similar services, so it makes sense that remote DVR technology such as this is allowed to prosper.
This always seemed like an odd case. Why would remote DVRs be illegal when regular DVRs were legal? If you had a very long cable between your hard drive and your set top box, that would be illegal? With the Supreme Court denying to review the lower court’s decision, expect more cable providers to start setting up remote DVR functionality. Just imagine never filling up your hard drive space on your DVR. Or just imagine the cable companies telling you that you get 5 hours of DVR space and for a fee you can get more space. Hmm…one of those options seems a lot more realistic than the other.
The full press release is below.
CEA APPLAUDS SUPREME COURT’S DECISION IN REMOTE DVR CASE
Decision is a Triumph for Home Recording and Common Sense
Arlington, Va., June 29, 2009 – The United States Supreme Court today denied the petition for a writ of certiorari upholding the legality of Cablevision’s remote digital video recorder (DVR). The technology is functionally identical to a home DVR, and allows viewers to record programs on a remote system within Cablevision’s offices. The following statement can be attributed to CEA President and CEO, Gary Shapiro.“We applaud the U.S. Supreme Court today for letting stand a decision that supports the growth of technology and innovation. The ability to record television programming has become commonplace to millions of Americans which has benefited consumers and allowed the consumer technology and content industries to contribute billions of dollars to our economy and create millions of jobs.
“From a common-sense standpoint, the Court’s decision was a slam-dunk. The Court has already ruled that consumers have the right to time-shift television shows. Whether the bits reside in a box under your TV or a box in the cable field office is not relevant.
“CEA has been at the forefront of promoting digital technologies for decades. The ability to shift content among devices and products within the home is paramount in allowing technology to thrive and allowing companies to continue to design and develop new products.
“In addition, remote computing and data storage, like that allowed by the remote DVR, offers extraordinary benefits. Indeed Americans already enjoy this technology through services like Google applications and Mac. An adverse ruling would have hamstrung this exciting new area of innovation.
“We commend the Supreme Court for protecting our ability to innovate and ensure that America remains the world’s technology leader.”About CEA:
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the $172 billion U.S. consumer electronics industry. More than 2,000 companies enjoy the benefits of CEA membership, including legislative advocacy, market research, technical training and education, industry promotion and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA also sponsors and manages the International CES - Where Entertainment, Technology and Business Converge. All profits from CES are reinvested into CEA’s industry services. Find CEA online at www.CE.org.
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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File this review from a rancher who used only his Palm Pre to access the web under "phones are computers now":
I did a lot of study and comparison shopping before I decided on the Pre. Again, my family lives completely off-grid. What power we do use comes from our small solar array, and we do occasionally run a generator. I am writing this on a small Acer laptop using wireless radio internet from the nearest small town. I am a writer, I edit a few fairly large websites, and I am an Agrarian blogger. I receive a lot of communications and correspondence from people all over the world, and I need to be able to constantly stay on top of my correspondence while still remaining free to work on my ranch and live the life I preach about and love. It had gotten to the point that I generally spent at least 5 and sometimes up to 8 hours a day in our small cabin on the internet. I needed a smartphone tool and not a toy. When you live on a ranch, you appreciate tools and you know tools have a purpose. I wasn't just out for the newest gadget, I have been looking for a way to accomplish very specific tasks in very specific ways. I needed a tool that would hold up to the rigors of what I do, and that would allow me to do things while I work on the ranch. I know that there are fanboys and tech geeks out there who couldn't wait to break down the Pre and analyze every line of code, etc. I know that there are folks who just want a great platform on which to run multiple apps and games. I basically needed a mobile internet, email, and texting tool that would also provide mountains of information at my fingertips - instantly. I'm not disparaging other phones or other people, but I needed a tool that would be able to respond to my very unique needs.One time we found a dead cow out near the gully and it was inflated with gas and I really, really wanted to poke it with a stick but remembered this horrible story about someone else who did that and then ended up with exploded, putrefying cow guts all over and in their mouth. But today I would have just shot a movie and uploaded it to YouTube. The future! [via Donald Melanson]
"Tourist Removed" is a web app that will remove other tourists from the photos you took of landmarks while on vacation as a tourist. All you have to do is take multiple shots of the same location, and Tourist Remover will only keep the bits that stay the same. It's like diff for photos! [via Halogen Life]
FROM GAMERTELL - Digital Innovations is now distributing John Morrissey’s $29.99 GameDr, a timer that allows parents and guardians to limit children’s video game playing with minimal effort.
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iPhone 3GS owners (of whom there are already over one million, according to Apple) won’t be able to Jailbreak their smartphones to run unauthorized applications for a little while.
The Dev-Team, who regularly issues software to Jailbreak and unlock iPhones, is delaying the hack for iPhone 3GS. Why? Not enough people own the phone yet, the team says, and the hack will be easy for Apple to plug. (If you want the explanation in l33t hax0r lingo, visit the Dev-Team’s blog.)
Unlocking an iPhone does require Jailbreaking it first. So that means in the United States, T-Mobile users will have to wait a little while before they can unlock the iPhone 3GS to work on their carrier. Better later than never though, right?
Photo: Stéphane Delbecque
YouTube has launched the YouTube Reporters' Center, with interviews from professional journalists giving tips to—and this is critical—everyone about how best to practice journalism.
Above, Bob Woodward, who you might know as a person who got at least one story right once, offers a story that suggests some practical tips on investigative journalism. The comments on the post are hilarious worthless non sequiturs ("The empowered fascist left is KILLING AMERICA"; "I'll remember to 'check my fucking work' when I'm writing about something I don't know shit about." [Woodward never uses the phase in his video]; "I FUCKED MY STEP SISTER IN THE ASS :D"), as per typical YouTube, since for some reason Google doesn't care about comment quality, but anyway listening to Woodward made me realize how sick of 'New vs. Old Media' stories I keep hearing and how much I actually care about and respect journalism.
There are at least a half-dozen practical tips that Woodward gives in the above video that any writer, from stupid online gadget copy-and-paster to investigative political blogger could stand to pick up. (Here's a hint for one: One of his sources called him.) The newspapers may die due to mismanagement, misdirected editorial efforts, and flagging public interest in hard news, but the biggest mistake new journalists—professional or citizen or any mix in between—could ever make is to think that the tools the old guard honed over decades should be left in the past.
YouTube Reporters' Center [YouTube]
(See also: The New New Journalism: Conversations with America's Best Nonfiction Writers on Their Craft, the best crash course in How To Do It I've ever read.)
Just a week after the release of Apple’s new iPhone, a few owners have complained about the handset’s high temperatures, which in some cases are high enough to start browning the white plastic on the back of the phone.
Only a small number of iPhone 3GS customers have reported their handsets are reaching very high temperatures. But because more than a million iPhone 3GSes were sold in the first weekend, the issue could put tens of thousands of new iPhones at risk, a component specialist told Wired.com.
Aaron Vronko of Rapid Repair, which performs teardowns of iPhones and iPods, said overheating is likely an issue due to faulty battery cells, and said he expected it could spur a recall of up to hundreds of thousands of iPhone 3GS units.
“My guess is there’s going to be a whole lot of batteries affected because these [iPhones] are from very large production runs,” Vronko said. “If you have a problem in the design of a series of batteries, it’s probably going to be spread to tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, and maybe more.”
Apple has not returned phone calls and e-mails requesting comment on the reports.
Of all hardware-related failures, overheating batteries have historically posed the greatest safety risks — in extreme cases causing fires, exploding and even killing consumers. The issues of overheating batteries are typically traced to faulty battery cells provided by a component supplier.
Apple products in the past have had battery-related woes. In 2006, Apple issued a recall for iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 notebooks, because their batteries contained cells provided by Sony that were causing some batteries to explode.
Also, Apple in August 2008 issued a recall for defective iPod Nanos, which caused three fires in Japan. In that incident, Apple said only 0.001 percent of iPod Nanos were affected. Even so, that’s still a large number of consumers, considering the millions of iPods sold.
Over the past weekend, a small number of iPhone 3GS owners reported in forums and on blogs that their handsets were reaching oddly high temperatures. The issue was most visible in white iPhones, which were turning brown as a result of the high heat (right).
“At some point, I became aware the handset had become very hot,” wrote Melissa Perinson, senior editor of PC World, who felt high temperatures while gaming and browsing the web on her iPhone 3GS. “Very, very hot — not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too…. Toasty doesn’t even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face.”
Vronko said the iPhone 3GS’s heat problem is evidently tied to the battery, because the pictures of discolored white iPhones reveal the outline of the battery. He noted that although thousands of iPhone 3GS users probably own defective handsets, the risk of causing fire or explosion is low because the iPhone’s battery cell is extremely small.
“[An overheating iPhone] is much less dangerous than a laptop,” Vronko said. “It’s extremely rare for a cellphone battery to explode. A little bit of smoke eventually is probably the best bet.”
He stressed, however, that overheating will more likely cause complete failure of the iPhone 3GS over time. When a battery overheats, it’s getting a runaway reaction that produces gas, causing expansion to occur inside the sealed battery. This expansion puts pressure on components, damaging them and eventually killing the iPhone.
Wired.com polled iPhone 3GS owners via Twitter asking if they were experiencing any problems with their new handsets. Only one out of 21 respondents said his iPhone 3GS felt like it was overheating.
Eleven of those respondents, however, reported the iPhone 3GS had poor battery life — even shorter than its predecessor — a different topic Wired.com will investigate soon.
Wired.com will continue examining the iPhone 3GS’s battery issues and keep you posted. Look forward to a battery test comparing the new iPhone to its predecessor in the near future. Meanwhile, e-mail any of your iPhone 3GS-related problems to Brian_Chen [at] Wired [dot] com.
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com, Le Journal du Geek
Section: Apple, Web, Websites, Online Music/Video
The latest entry in the book of frivolous lawsuits is one filed against Apple by an Illinois couple. They are accusing the company of gift card fraud and they are seeking monetary damages for what they call Apple’s “wrongful, illegal and fraudulent acts.” The charges in the suit include one count each of violating the Illinois Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and Consumer Protection Statutes, and 2 counts of breach of contract.
The target of their outrage? Apple’s decision in April to change the iTunes store pricing structure from a flat 99 cents per song to a one where song prices vary from 69 cents to $1.29.
Yes, they are suing over a 30 cent price increase - but it gets better! The couple is irate because they feel the value of the two $25 iTunes gift cards they bought in March of *2008* has been reduced due to the increase! They said they been “denied the benefit of their bargain to purchase any song for 99 cents.” You did read that correctly.
It’s about gift cards they bought a year ago! Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If the value of the cards is so important to them why did they let a year go by without using them?
Here’s what I think the real story is. They bought or were given some iTunes gift cards last year and forgot about them until recently. When they noticed the pricing structure had changed they thought they might have found an easy way to make some quick cash.
I think a snowball has a better chance in hell than they do of getting any windfall from Apple though, and if they were to win any kind of settlement their lawyer would probably get most of it. What do you think about this case? Frivolous lawsuit or serious case? Leave a comment and let us know!
Read[CNet]
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(Currently the band's download page is offline, but the whole album is available for free download on Last.fm. No agenda, just really digging this band.) Nevermind! Here is the official download page.
Rob Moffet's other commercials are quite a treat. ("Because problem + chainsaw = no problem!")
FROM APPLETELL - If you’re in need of a simple solution to store documents, images, video and audio to have with you where ever you go, FileMagic from SplashData for your iPhone or iPod touch is an excellent solution.
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I don’t know if you guys are aware, but nothing is better for making people think you’re awesome than doing card tricks. No, seriously. Anyone you know with a ton of friends only has so many friends because of their card trick repertoire.
Actually, there is one thing that’s cooler than doing card tricks: doing card tricks with virtual cards. For maximum cool, it must be done on an iPhone. Just when you started to think such incredible feats were impossible, David Blaine has saved the day with an iPhone app: David Blaine’s Street Magic: See-A-Card by David Blaine [brought to you by David Blaine].
For just $1.99, you can get all the benefits of knowing a card trick without actually learning a card trick. Whoever said you can’t buy friends?
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Section: Web, Web 2.0, Websites
It was hidden for seven months—almost unheard of in the news world. A kidnapping by the Taliban of a reporter to the NY Times was hidden and covered up by both the print and online press. The thing is, in this case, it was done for his safety.
David Rohde, along with his interpreter and their driver, was kidnapped in Afghanistan on November 10, 2008. In response to the action, executives at the Times decided to keep it quiet, believing that publicity about the event would increase Mr. Rohde’s value to his captors, and in turn, lower his chances of survival.
Usually, when a decision is made to keep something quiet, a call is simply placed editor to editor from one publication to another. The trouble in this day in age in keeping news quiet is the obvious. We have the Internet. News travels at the click of a button whether someone wants it to or not.
And that is just what happened in this case. Or, what kept trying to happen anyway. Just days after Mr. Rohde was kidnapped, it began showing up on his Wikipedia entry. Thus started the Wikipidia editing battle.
Since Wikipedia works under the premise that anyone can be writer and editor, and that information should be made public, those self-made writer/editors wanted to put the information of the kidnapping out there for public information, without being in on the fact that people related to the situation wanted desperately to keep it hidden for the life and death safety of Mr. Rohde.
And so, the information would pop on on Wikipedia, only to be taken down. This removal was part of a joint effort by co-founder of Wikidpedia Jimmy Wales, along with Wikipedia administrators and people at the Times. Although, in an interview, it was stated that Wikipedia’s cooperation was not a given, and that “We were really helped by the fact that it hadn’t appeared in a place we would regard as a reliable source,” he said. “I would have had a really hard time with it if it had.”
Further adjusting things on Wikipedia to help the situation was Michael Moss, an investigative reporter at the Times, as well as a friend of Mr. Rohde. A couple of days after the kidnapping, knowing that the abductors would be researching their captive, he went onto Wikipedia and adjusted the page on Mr. Rohde to emphasize his work that might be seen as sympathetic to Muslims. For example, his coverage of the Srebrenica massacre of the Bosnian Muslims, or reporting on Guantánamo.
Mr. Moss, who has written extensively about the Taliban and Al Qaeda, hid his identity when making these changes to the page. “I knew from my jihad reporting that the captors would be very quick to get online and assess who he was and what he’d done, what his value to them might be,” he said. “I’d never edited a Wikipedia page before.”
The history on that page shows that the very next day, someone (without a username), edited the entry to include the kidnapping for the first time. It was deleted by Mr. Moss. The same unknown user quickly restored it, along with a note offering protest about the removal, and citing an Afghan news report. In the first couple of days, a few blogs and at least two small news agencies did report the kidnapping, though for the most part it was contained.
About then, the chief spokeswoman for the New York Times Company, Catherine J. Mathis, called Mr. Wales and asked him for his help. He agreed, and in turn, turned to one of the several admins who would eventually become key in both monitoring and controlling the page.
On November 13, the kidnapping news was posted and removed four times in as many hours. At this point, an admin blocked any changes for three days. When those three days were up, it had to be blocked again, this time for two weeks.
“We didn’t want it to look unusual in some fashion that would draw speculation, so we would protect it for three days, or up to a month, which is pretty normal,” Mr. Wales said. He added, “Weeks would go by before there was a problem.”
Interest in posting news of the kidnapping didn’t fade after the new year. On February 10th and 11th, two different users added information to the page regarding it, only to have it promptly deleted. They began tacking on little notes to the updates. “We can do this months,” one said.
Since it was so well hidden from the public for the most part, most of the attempts to edit the Wikipedia page came from only three similar IP addresses that all correspond to service provider in Florida. Although Wikipedia administrators guess it was the same person, they do not know who that person is. “We had no idea who it was,” said Mr. Wales, who said there was no indication the person had ill intent. “There was no way to reach out quietly and say ‘Dude, stop and think about this.’ ”
The whole cat and mouse game came to an end Saturday, when Mr. Rohde and the translator escaped from a Taliban compound in Pakistan. Ms. Mathis emailed Mr. Wales before she made an official announcement, and Mr. Wales then unfroze the page.
The announcement brought forth a big “I told you so” from the unknown user, who posted the information (yet again), along with a note to Wikipedia administrators saying “Is that enough proof for you [expletives]? I was right. You were WRONG.”
Whether or not Wikipedia agreeing to actually withhold news and information was a right or wrong decision in the eyes of some shall remain to be seen. Is it okay to do it when lives are at stake? Joseph M. Reagle, an adjunct professor of communications at New York University who studies Wikipedia says “Wikipedia has, over time, instituted gradually more control because of some embarrassing incidents, particularly involving potentially libelous material, and some people get histrionic about it, proclaiming the death of Wikipedia,” he said. “But the idea of a pure openness, a pure democracy, is a naïve one.”
Read: [NYTimes]
Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The movement toward adopting a universal cellphone charger — that is, one type of charger that’s compatible with all cellphones — is becoming a reality in Europe as soon as 2010.
Several major mobile manufacturers, including Nokia, Apple and Research in Motion, have signed up for the universal charger initiative led by the Group Special Mobile Association (GSMA), according to Reuters.
GSMA announced the initiative in February with a goal of pushing manufacturers to use Micro USB as the charging standard for all cellphones by 2012. Europe is getting a head start, as several manufacturers have agreed to implement Micro USB in their phones next year.
The 10 cellphone manufacturers beginning Micro USB adoption in Europe are Apple, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, LG , NEC, Qualcomm, Research In Motion, Samsung and Texas Instruments.
The goal of the universal charging solution is to address the environmental impact of cellphone chargers. By having one charger for every phone, cellphone manufacturers will be able to offer chargers as an option rather than an included accessory. The GSMA estimates a universal charger will cut down on the energy and materials required to produce charger by 51,000 tons, reducing the overall amount of chargers produced by 50 percent. This would also decrease the amount of waste created by discarded, useless cellphone chargers.
We’re wondering what Apple will do for its iPhone. Will the company remove its USB dock connector and replace it with Micro USB, rendering the iPhone incompatible with available accessories such as speakers and docks? Or will Apple keep the dock connector and add the Micro USB port? The latter option would likely satisfy customers who own accessories, but it would not enable Apple to cut down on the number of USB dock connector cords produced.
See Also:
Photo: osde8info/Flickr
We’ve been excited about Nvidia’s Tegra chipset making its way to mobile handsets for as long as they’ve been showing off their prototypes - which, to be clear, is quite a while. They’ve managed to jam a beast of a computer down into a itty-bitty chip and sink the power requirements down to less than one watt, all while keeping the thing cheap. In other words, straight ridiculous computing power (games, HD video output) on a handset that lasts, as Nvidia puts it, “days and days”.
We’d heard whispers from Nvidia’s crew back at CES that this thing ought to make its mobile debut in Q4, but we had a hard time getting an official statement on the matter. Looks like it has become a sure thing since: in an interview with The Street, Nvidia’s GM of mobile Mike Rayfield fessed up that one of the big five manufacturers should launch a Tegra phone by the end of this year.
We aren’t going to take a stab at which of the big five we’re talking about here, but we can make educated guesses as to which platform it’ll run. Last we heard, Tegra played friendly with Windows CE Embedded, Windows Mobile, and Android. If you see us around, pardon the shade of blue that has conquered our faces; we’re not going to stop holding our breath until we get a Samsung-made, Android-based Tegra phone.
UPDATE: Looks like our own Peter Ha of CrunchGear nailed out this information in an interview with Nvidia last week. Not only that, but he took it one step further, getting pricing/carrier information; expect Tegra phones to launch in Q4 on AT&T/T-Mobile for right around the $199 price point.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Gadgets / Other, Green
Sharp has released the new Solar Phone SH002 in Japan this month as a way to get a jump on the solar powered cell phone market. The company claims that ten minutes of sun exposure allows for one minute of talk time or two hours of standby time. Sharp has also stated that the Solar Phone SH002 is waterproof.
To use, the solar panel on the outside should be placed in direct sunlight. As it charges, either a “Charging” or “Solar Power Not Available” will appear on the device. Outlet charging is also available on the mobile.
Initial reports state that the Solar Phone SH002 does not have the ability to rely solely on the sun to operate and the solar powered functionality should only be used as a backup. Product testers found that it took approximately sixty minutes to get three minutes of talk time out of the device. The solar power option is ideal though for an emergency situation where a charger is not available. Announcements have been made that Samsung and LG are both currently working on solar powered cell phones for distribution in the United States.
Read: [Fast Company]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
I don’t typically cover apps or widgets that send e-coupons to my cellular phone very often or at all, but I kind of dig the Green Perks app from T-Mobile. It’s the Oregonian in me, I swear.
So, what is Green Perks and why should I download it onto my T-Mobile device? That’s what you’re asking yourself, right? Well, it’s meant to send e-coupons from Green Perks partners who offer environmentally conscious products and/or services. Said partners include Method, Jamba Juice, Volcom, Roxy and Quiksilver. Quiksilver, for example, has a collection of Eco Friendly threads. Volcom also carries a line of 100 percent organic cotton duds under the V-Co.logical collection. So, yeah, those coupons might come in handy if you’re out shopping as they’re the POS type.
Green Perks is just another facet in the Mobilize initiative from T-Mobile to help their customers be a little more green and eco-friendly. Check it out at T-Mobile Mobilize.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Vodafone, the world’s largest cellular operator, is thinking about buying T-Mobile UK, making the giant even bigger. The plan is under scrutiny right now as it would essentially create a massive Euro-monopoly on the cellular front.
Vodafone declined to comment. But people familiar with the situation said the company was examining the case for making an offer for T-Mobile UK, or setting up a joint venture. In February, Vodafone and Hutchison Whampoa, the Hong Kong conglomerate, announced plans to combine their Australian mobile businesses.
Shares in Vodafone rose 1.3 per cent on Monday to 117.9p, while Deutsche Telekom was 0.8 per cent higher at €8.30.If Vodafone were to buy T-Mobile UK, the company would be catapulted to clear market leadership, with a 40 per cent share of revenue paid by British mobile phone users.
It seems this consolidation is taking advantage of reduce company prices during the downturn, placing Vodafone in the cat bird seat once things clear up. What would you UKites think if you had to switch to Vodafone?
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile
Being stuck on Windows Mobile right now isn’t exactly the most exciting part about owning a cell phone. The OS is clunky, old, and just not as good as some of the others out there, for most people at least. Not to mention the fact that the web browser that comes packed inside is Internet Explorer. There’s always Opera and Skyfire as well, but now there’s a chance to try the same browser you likely use on your computer on your Windows Mobile device, Firefox.
Previously, mobile Firefox, code named Fennec, has only been available in alpha release for the HTC Touch Pro, leaving other users out of luck. Not so anymore. Fennec is still in alpha, alpha 2 to be exact, but it is no longer limited to one device. Any device that runs Windows Mobile 6.1 can now use try the alpha 2 version of Fennec. There’s even an option to download it to your computer to test out, build add-ons for it, or even help with the localization.
Since Fennec is still in alpha, there’s a number of features that have yet to be implemented. Most notably are bookmarks and the smart URL bar, or “awesome bar” as Mozilla calls it. Right now it functions just as well as you would expect it to run, at least when running on Mac OS X. It looks to function about as well as Mobile Safari for the iPhone, but with other features such as easier tabs (just swipe to the left). While it does work fairly well, if you’re looking for it to replace your current browser Mozilla would most likely ask you to wait a bit. Maybe try Skyfire, or just tough it out with the alpha 2 release if you really need it right now.
Read [Mozilla]
Read [Boy Genius Report]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
FROM APPLETELL - To simplify the process of finding an Apple store with iPhone 3GS stock, Apple have made stock information available on their website again
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According to DigiTimes, ASUS is blowing out 7- and 8.9-inch Eee PCs over in Taiwan and China. According to me, those same savings may trickle into US markets too!
