AP - Seoul was on high alert Thursday for more cyber attacks amid suspicions that North Korea was behind a recent wave of Web site outages in South Korea and the United States. The South warned that computer networks of key infrastructure could be targeted.
AP - A New York congressman who posted a YouTube video blasting Michael Jackson as a "pervert" and child molester is standing by his words. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jul 2009 | 10:08 am
TAIPEI, July 9 (Reuters) - Compal Electronics , the world's No.2 contract laptop PC maker, on Thursday said it shipped a better-than-expected 7.9 million units in the second quarter, in the latest sign... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 10:06 am
By Chris Scott Barr These days people are all about being "green" and such. One good way to do your part for the environment is by recycling. For most people that consists of separating out glass bottles... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 10:01 am
“While competitors are targeting the individual applications Google has deployed, Google is building a massive, general purpose computing platform for web-scale programming.
This computer is running the world’s top search engine, a social networking service, a shopping price comparison engine, a new email service, and a local search/yellow pages engine. What will they do next with the world’s biggest computer and most advanced operating system?”
Just in time for summer, Japan gets a new toy that won’t require you to go out to get the BBQ experience anymore. This actually doesn’t make much sense, but Bandai has announced [JP] an-indoor BBQ simulator toy yesterday, the Yakiniki Ou (roughly: Grilled Meat King).
Yakiniku is the name of a number of Japanese grilled meat dishes. Buyers of the Grilled Meat King get the grill, 14 fake food items (sausages, bite-sized meat and vegetables etc.), dishes, sauce, tongs and even a menu. Up to 4 players are supposed to grill the food, flip it and get it off the grill as quickly as possible.
The Grilled Meat King drops into Japanese stores July 23 and costs $40. Ask specialized stores Japan Trend Shop, Geek Stuff 4 U or Rinkya to get one shipped outside Japan if you can’t wait for Bandai to announce their international sales plans.
The timing of Google's announcement of Chrome OS was curious. I don't mean the fact that Google moved up the post on it by a day when some details leaked out, I mean the fact that they were announcing... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 9:40 am
The timing of Google’s announcement of Chrome OS was curious. I don’t mean the fact that Google moved up the post on it by a day when some details leaked out, I mean the fact that they were announcing it on some seemingly random date in July, well before anything is actually ready to show off. Now, we likely know why.
On Monday, Microsoft is set to unveil its plans to counter the attack Google previously had launched on it with Google Docs. Yes, Microsoft Office is going to the cloud. This is something which we all knew was eventually coming, and there is already some limited functionality, but the full details will pour out Monday at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. You can expect the new version of Office, that syncs with the cloud, and the ability to use it in the cloud without any software as well.
Almost immediately following the Chrome OS announcement, Robert Scoble took to his favorite home on the web, FriendFeed, to have one of his, I-know-something-you-don’t-know “discussions.” During the course of those “discussions,” Scoble gave dropped quite a few hints about what Microsoft planned to announce on Monday, including “Diego, no, it’s one of Microsoft’s primary businesses. Did you know Microsoft has 14 billion dollar businesses?” Guess what that is? Microsoft Office.
It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. And several bloggers already have. And it was especially easy after Scoble ruled out the new browser project Microsoft has code-named “Gazelle.” Scoble also noted that what Microsoft was showing off would run in browsers beyond just IE.
So yes, it’s Office Web that was first talked about at PDC last year.
And it’s possible that Microsoft could unveil that this new web-based Office will reside and the great domain, office.com. That site is clearly going through a transition to new ownership right now, and that would make a lot of sense.
Office is obviously the 900-pound gorilla that Google is attempting to slay with Google Docs, but a 900-pound gorilla with a matching web offering will be a lot tougher. And that’s likely why Google wanted to get its own uppercut in first this week. And it’s a strong one. But now Microsoft is going to have to come up with some answers to how it can counter Chrome OS, rather than focus on talking about the new Office.
Reuters - Japan's top wireless operator, NTT DoCoMo Inc, said it is in talks with some Asian mobile carriers for possible capital investment as it aims to seek growth overseas to counter the maturing cell phone market at home.
Microsoft has upgraded its Quick Add feature in Hotmail, first announced earlier this year, with a number of features from their new Bing search engine.
We’re not talking about a small number of users who will be affected. Hotmail is still by far the largest web mail provider on the Internet, with 343 million monthly users according to Comscore. Second and third are Yahoo (285 million) and Gmail (146 million). A year ago Hotmail had just 273 million users, so it is still growing rapidly.
The new features let users search for and insert maps, movie listings and times, in addition to the restaurants, videos, images and business listings that were there before. And all of these have been upgraded with Bing functionality via the API.
Some of these quick adds are quite useful, particularly the maps and movie listings. For the masses that use Hotmail, it’s also a great way to introduce them to Bing.
Screen shots below:
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Microsoft has upgraded its Quick Add feature in Hotmail, first announced earlier this year, with a number of features from their new Bing search engine. We're not talking about a small number of users... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 8:22 am
In about twelve hours time I head for the airport, heading for SFO for the anual Techcrunch Party. Like I've done for the last four years, for the event I designed a signed, limited edition print, pictured... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 8:19 am
Watching the Dow gain 14 points today was a pleasant surprise after yesterday's blood-letting drop. But even better was Alcoa (AA:NYSE) beating analyst expectations by only losing $0.26 per share compared... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 8:12 am
We started today talking about the things we like and dislike about Second Life's live music scene -- a Comment thread well worth reading -- so may as well finish Wednesday with two more on the ledger's... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 8:12 am
AP - Universal Music Group's distribution arm is teaming up with digital track distributor TuneCore, a move it says will give it a leg up in signing up-and-coming artists without a recording deal yet. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jul 2009 | 8:01 am
AFP - South Korea announced it would set up a military command next year to tackle the threat of cyber warfare from North Korea, amid suspicions the North was behind virus attacks earlier this week.
AFP - Chinese authorities arrested a university economics professor in Beijing after he posted reports about the riots in Xinjiang on his website, an international media watchdog said.
By Evan Ackerman This little USB accessory from Buffalo has got to be the easiest way to throw an impromptu LAN party anywhere you want without having to resort to something as annoying and under performing... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 7:49 am
A few days ago, we got a chance to talk about the state of blogging and social media in Germany with Marcel Wei, the editor of Netzwertig.com - one of Germany's most popular blogs. In the interview, Wei... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 7:45 am
So, we've known for a while that U2's latest world tour was going to be sponsored by RIM, makers of the BlackBerry. And we've known that this was slightly odd because U2 lead singer Bono is a founder of... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jul 2009 | 7:36 am
So, we’ve known for a while that U2’s latest world tour was going to be sponsored by RIM, makers of the BlackBerry. And we’ve known that this was slightly odd because U2 lead singer Bono is a founder of Elevation Partners (which, yes, was named after a U2 song). The same Elevation Partners that owns a huge stake in Palm, makers of the Pre. But good for Bono, apparently not mixing work and, well, other work. But perhaps even odder is the BlackBerry commercial now in circulation.
Until the very end when the word “BlackBerry” appears, I was sure this was an Apple ad. As a commenter noted on YouTube, this looks almost exactly like a cross between this U2 iPod ad from back in the day, plus a more recent Coldplay iTunes ad. Watch them below.
This
Plus This
Equals This
Much was made of Apple’s relationship with U2 when it signed the BlackBerry deal. After all, the BlackBerry is now a chief rival of Apple since the iPhone launched. And, of course, U2 used to have close dealings with Apple, even getting its own special version of the iPod. Ads like this won’t silence that talk. But it’s not like BlackBerry hasn’t had Apple envy before.
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A 29-year old worker died today when he fell into a giant vat of hot chocolate at a New Jersey factory. Hope someone at the scene had the presence of mind to question the oompah-loompahs.
A spokesman for the local prosecutor's office said the man appeared to have died instantly from a blow to his head by a paddle mixing the chocolate.
His colleagues at the factory tried to shut down the mixer, but were too late.
Local journalists met some of the workers in the car park, covered in chocolate and seemingly in dismay.
The Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin, reporting from the prestigious Allen & Co. Sun Valley conference for the media and business elite, says “Sun Valley: Diller and Malone Pessimistic on Twitter.”
She adds “Diller was pessimistic about Twitter’s prospects for making money,” and:
Malone said he didn’t think that an advertising model made sense on Twitter, but there was some hope for a subscription model. “Sooner or later people will be willing to pay for these services,” he said. Warren Buffett privately told him that he would pay $5 a month for YouTube, he added.
As much as I respect Liberty Media’s John Malone and IAC’s Barry Diller, I couldn’t care less about what they think about Twitter and it’s business model (isn’t it obvious anyway?). I would even go so far to say that I would be infinitely more interested in what Twitter CEO Evan Williams thinks about Malone’s and Diller’s businesses, rather than the other way around. And I won’t even get started on Buffett’s ideas on YouTube’s business model.
In fact, when I read the WSJ article I was reminded of my dad complaining about the music I liked in high school. The music he listened to growing up (probably played on a banjo or something) was infinitely more interesting than all this new stuff. Ah, the old days.
Diller and Malone both preside over huge companies with a variety of assets. Some of those assets, like Ask.com and Expedia, would even be considered new media or Internet startups. But just like the truly old media guys, Diller and Malone are already dinosaurs in a fast changing world. They have no clue what Twitter is even about. So why in the world would we care what they think about its business model?
A lot of people wondered how Google would ever make any money with a search engine. That problem was obviously solved. In any community with vast numbers of highly energetic and passionate users, there will be a variety of ways to make money. The only thing that can stop these services are high costs (YouTube and Facebook suffer from this) or someone building a better mousetrap (Facebook did this to MySpace who did this to Friendster).
By the way, News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch isn’t impressed, either, saying that the site is “a tough investment to justify because it has not yet come up with a sustainable way to make money.” He also gave the exact wrong answer to two questions: “Asked if he was considering buying Twitter, Murdoch said, “No.” Asked about selling MySpace, he said, “Hell no.”"
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
By Judy Shapiro, Contributing Writer, Advertising Age
I’m an ex-AT&T “Bell head,” so anything telecom always gets my special attention. When I saw the Google Voice re-announcement recently, I couldn’t help wondering, “Huh, what’s up with that? How does this fit into Google’s core business?” Mostly, though, I was interested in understanding why this and why now.
Siri is a virtual personal assistant for your Apple (AAPL) iPhone or computer, originated at the Stanford Research Institute and spun out as an artificial intelligence project financed by DARPA.
In its demo for Walt Mossberg and me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, Siri tried to show how it was an alternative to search to get a user things like tickets and pizza–using a combination of innovative technologies, including speech recognition, natural language processing and semantic Web search.
David Hornik — a partner at August Capital Management LLC, which boasts raising the year’s biggest venture capital fund with its $650 million balanced-stage fund — weighs in on the challenges facing the VC industry, including what Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson has called “The Venture Capital Math Problem.”
By Zachary M. Seward, Assistant Editor, Nieman Journalism Lab
“TPM started literally out of nothing,” Josh Marshall, the founder and editor of Talking Points Memo, was telling me by phone this week from the site’s new loft in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan.
Not from Google; even your biggest detractor would give you credit for the technological marvel and prosperous business you have helped create in Mountain View. But your position on Apple’s board of directors now looks completely untenable given Google’s intention to release a lightweight operating system for personal computers called Chrome OS.
• It's a Windows Mobile 6.1 handset with a slider QWERTY keyboard, 3.6" touchscreen display, HSDPA, WiFi, a dedicated graphics chipset, Bluetooth, and a 528MHz Qualcomm CPU. It has a custom YouTube client, accepts microSD cards, and charges/syncs through a miniUSB port.
• It was sent so that I could look at the keyboard. This one thing was all: there wasn't even a SIM card in it. At this stage, even the folks selling Windows Mobile seem to be gritting their teeth over it.
• That said, it was the best Windows Mobile experience I've had. HTC's overlays get the most out of it. Touchflo 3D makes that which it touches look nice.
• The keyboard is better than any cellular QWERTY I've used (but I haven't used all of them.) It was better than the Xperia's, and leaves stuff like cheapo LG texting models and Sidekicks in the dust. At first it looks like just another set of hard, shallow chiclets, and it is -- but they're as properly tactile as such things can be and well-spaced. The layout is good, too, with numerals on their own row, arrow keys, shift keys in the proper spots, and a middle space bar. I'd go as far as to say that I enjoyed thumb-typing on it more than trying to touch-type with certain netbooks, like the Dell Mini 9 and Eee 900 series.
• John Gruber's right to say that most consumers will be happy and productive with touchscreen keyboards, and that the learning curve is easily breached with familiarity and time. But the Touch Pro 2's keyboard is such a great advertisement for physical keys, I just can't jump aboard the on-screen train just yet. It's important to me because I have the worst phone-typing fingers on Earth.
• The Touch Pro 2 is closely modeled on the iPhone, which makes the cost of that expansive slider keyboard very clear: it's almost twice as thick as Apple's handset. It is a bit of a brick.
• It comes with an unnecessarily stylish charging plug, which is just as well, because you'll be using it often.
By Douglas Rushkoff, Contributing Writer, The Daily Beast
As the Google Apps suite of programs finally graduated from its “beta” status this week, Google also announced its plans to release an operating system on which to run them. Google Chrome, based on the company’s new browser, will invite us all to spend a lot less time, energy, and money on our computers—and in the process, it may force the technology industry to consider how to make money after people no longer require expensive machines and software to do their work.
TEANECK, N.J. and CHENNAI, India, July 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cognizant (Nasdaq: CTSH), a leading provider of information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services, today announced the launch of a unique and comprehensive platform that will foster innovation and enable the company to deliver greater value in the area of testing. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jul 2009 | 7:00 am
PARIS, July 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- In an effort to help higher education institutions support economic stimulus efforts and work-force development strategies, Microsoft Corp. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jul 2009 | 7:00 am
Hugh Pickens writes "Joe Moran writes in the BBC News Magazine that Sat-Nav clearly suits an era in which 'map-reading may be going the way of obsolete skills like calligraphy and roof-thatching.' Sat-Nav 'speaks to our contemporary anxieties and preoccupations about the road,' writes Moran. 'More roads and better cars mean we can travel further, and so the risk of getting lost is all the greater.' But do real men use sat-nav? Moran says that men seem to recoil from being given digital instructions by a woman, and read the satnav woman's pregnant pauses, or her curt phrases like 'make a legal U-turn' and 'recalculating the route', as stubborn or bossy. Still we don't quite trust the electronic voice to get us where we want to go. 'Since before even the arrival of the car, people have worried that maps sever us from real places, render the world untouchable, reduce it to a bare outline of Cartesian lines and intersections,' writes Moran. 'Sat-nav feeds into this long-held fear that the cold-blooded modern world is destroying local knowledge, that roads no longer lead to real places but around and through them.'"
TAIPEI, Taiwan, July 9 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- United
Microelectronics Corporation (NYSE: UMC; TAIEX: 2303), (UMC) today reported
unaudited net sales for the month of June 2009.
Revenues for June 2009
Period 2009 2008 Y/Y Change Y/Y(%) M/M(%)
June 8,235,925 8,104,590 +131,335 +1.62% +9.6%
Jan.-June 33,465,873 49,235,386 -15,769,513 -32.03% N/A
(*) All figures in thousands of New Taiwan Dollars (NT$), except for
percentages.
Additional information about UMC is available on the web at
http://www.umc.com .
Contacts:
Bowen Huang / Tien Yu Tseng
UMC, Investor Relations
Tel: +886-2-2700-6999, ext. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jul 2009 | 6:50 am
One thing I’ll grudgingly grant to MySpace - the site works. That’s more than I can say for Facebook over the last month or so.
In the past Facebook has had desperately slow page views and occasional downtime. But recently, the site has become almost unusable for me. And no, I’m not just talking about the abysmal messaging system that still won’t let me properly sort through thousands of emails. I’m talking about a complete inability to create new “connections.”
My profile (no vanity URL for me yet) is near the 5,000 limit on friends, but it has a few slots to spare. And I’m a fan of only a handful of Facebook pages. But any time I try to add or confirm a friend, or become a fan of a page, I get an error saying “Sorry, you cannot create any more connections.”
The fact that there are limits at all on connections is absurd (MySpace doesn’t have this limit, neither does Twitter or any other site I can think of). And the fact that I can’t make new connections even though I’m under the limit is worse.
I know Facebook continues to grow at a breakneck pace - Comscore pegs them at 316 million monthly visitors and 122 billion page views. But the fact that MySpace, no slouch in the user numbers or page views themselves (122 million, 35 billion), hasn’t had these problems is worth noting.
MySpace has a different architecture than Facebook, though. News items from friends aren’t pushed to my home page into one feed, for example. Regardless, Facebook needs to address this on a technical level, not a policy one.
A Facebook employee, listening to my gripes, recently told me to switch my Profile to a Page, and they would transfer all my 5,000 friends and 4,500 or so friend requests over to that page as fans. But putting aside the fact that people may not be so happy to be labeled as “fans,” this still isn’t a good solution. I can’t have a two way connection with these people via messaging and chat.
Facebook either needs to ditch the idea of friends entirely and move to a Twitter follow model, or allow as many connections as I choose to create. The company now has 1,000 employees, I’ve heard recently. One of those bright and eager engineers should be able to fix this.
Am I asking a lot of a company that has grown faster than perhaps any Internet company in history? Probably. But if they want to be the next Google, it’s time to get organized.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.)
Richard Metzger: Caught in the Act: The Full Story (most genius thing I've seen in... days) Link
Richard Metzger: Michael Jackson's video nasty Unseen footage shows Jacko squirming in horror as he's quizzed over sex Link
Richard Metzger: Anderson Cooper vs Sarah Palin's Insane Spokeswoman Meg Stapleton Link
Jesse Thorn: Stay with this music video by the Salteens and you will be rewarded. Link
Instead of a complaint letter, the band "Sons of Maxwell" have posted a music video aimed at United Airlines over the destruction of one of their guitars on a trip last year:
[We] were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world.
AP - U.S. authorities on Wednesday eyed North Korea as the origin of the widespread cyber attack that overwhelmed government Web sites in the United States and South Korea, although they warned it would be difficult to definitively identify the attackers quickly.
Woah, this is weird. Twitter has apparently starting promoting Firefox 3.5, which was released last week, to some of its users. Judging by Twitter Search, the banner began popping up around eight hours ago, and given how few people have tweeted about them it seems like they’re not being very widely distributed.
The amusing thing about the banner is that Twitter’s site may not be properly detecting which browser their visitors are currently using — Chris Saad, who tipped us off to the annoucement, says he was using Firefox 3.5 already. That said, most of the other tweets about the banner do appear to be showing up to users who aren’t using the latest version of the browser.
At this point it isn’t clear if this is a sponsored ad or more of a public service announcement. Update: It isn’t an ad, see below. If it’s the former, it would be a significant departure from the more subtle advertising Twitter has been toying with over the last few months, which has primarily consisted of small text blurbs in the right sidebar of the site. Twitter only recently began charging for some of these ads (or at least presenting them as sponsored links), and most of them are still free promotions for apps and services in the Twitter ecosystem.
Even if this is a public service announcement, you can be sure that Twitter is closely monitoring the banner’s performance in anticipation of placing full fledged paid advertising there. They really wouldn’t be any more intrusive than the vast majority of banner ads on the web, but after years of going without any advertising at all, they’re going to take some getting used to.
Update: Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has gotten back to us with details on the company’s motivation for placing the banner:
This is not an advertisement and it’s not just for one browser—it’s customized based on which browser you’re currently using.
We’ve optimized Twitter.com for older browsers but we thought it would be worthwhile to let folks know that they could have a better Web experience on Twitter and in general if they upgrade to a newer version of whatever browser it is that they are using.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Oh, this is righteous and terrific news. Remember Jean Anleu, the mild-mannered, book-loving, code-writing geek who was jailed in May by the Guatemalan government over a single tweet he posted during that country's political crisis?
He's a free guy now. The case against him was thrown out today by a Guatemalan appeals court. He has been absolved of all charges.
Prensa Libre has a comprehensive article in Spanish here, and this link takes you to Spanish-language audio of the proceedings today.
Friends are still collecting funds to cover @jeanfer's sizeable legal bills. If you care to donate, you can do so to his friend Manolo's PayPal account (manolo@manoloweb.net, yes I have vetted it, and yes it's real).
Matt_dk sends in a Spacefellowship article: "The ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, David Southwood, met NASA's Associate Administrator for Science, Ed Weiler, in Plymouth, UK, to establish a way for a progressive programme for exploration of the Red Planet. The outcome of the bilateral meeting was an agreement to create a Mars Exploration Joint Initiative (MEJI) that will provide a framework for the two agencies to define and implement their scientific, programmatic and technological goals at Mars."
Only lawyers, EULA collectors and legal obsessives will find this funny, but it cracked me up: care to access the 140-character pearls of wisdom streaming forth from Wal-Mart's Twitter account? Well, first you have to agree to the 3,379-word Terms of Use agreement that comes with it. I know, I know, a lot of big corporate entities on social networking sites likely put forth equally verbose TOUs, but -- a "Twitter Discussion Policy"? Awesome overkill. It all starts here. (via @zephoria)
A lot of pricey eBook readers are available out there, along with a couple of cheap ones. The Cool-er is one of the less expensive, but you get what you pay for in this one -- the content's anemic and it's missing some key features.
1 // The mountains on a Coors Light can are poor arbiters of taste.
The peaks turn blue at "optimal drinking temperature," or 39°F and colder. But beer loses flavor at that temp: It releases fewer volatile chemicals, and your tongue's ability to taste bitterness is diminished. Luckily, with Coors that makes little difference.
2 // Miller Lite's "triple hops brewed" claim isn't anything special.
Three doses of hops is fairly standard. Some craft breweries throw in more or even add it continuously, to create bitterness, flavor, and aroma.
3 // Budweiser calls itself "the Great American Lager," which is a bit of a misnomer.
The original German lagers were made exclusively from barley. Bud also uses rice. This generally cheaper ingredient can make up a quarter to two-thirds of the grains used in domestic macrobrews. You know, for that oh-so-watery appeal.
Once the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Bevatron is being torn down to make room for new scientific facilities. This gallery chronicles the demolition and the glory days of the historical atom smasher.
A lot of pricey eBook readers are available out there, along with a couple of cheap ones. The Cool-er is one of the less expensive, but you get what you pay for in this one -- the content's anemic and it's missing some key features.
Nine years ago, Jonathan James achieved fame for hacking into NASA and the Pentagon. Last year, he killed himself after Secret Service agents accused him of being part of a hacking ring responsible for the largest identity theft in U.S. history.
S-100 writes "SoundExchange has reached an agreement for royalty rates with a consortium of Internet radio broadcasters. The parties are ecstatic that the issue is finally resolved, and that the new rates are below the previous 'death to Internet radio' levels that had previously been imposed by the CARB. According to NewsFactor, Pandora founder Tim Westergren proclaims that 'the royalty crisis is over!', and other large broadcasters are equally pleased. One unheard-from group is less likely to be pleased: small Internet radio broadcasters. Buried in the details are a new minimum royalty payment: $25,000 per year. So say goodbye to all of the small Internet radio stations that you have been listening to, as they will no longer afford to operate legally."
It’s a full-blown civil war on the internet right now over whether Google’s Chrome OS is going to be the web’s ultimate salvation or be completely and utterly useless. I humbly suggest we wait until we’ve actually seen the OS before we make conclusions about whether it’s going to kill Microsoft and invade our lives. After all, the only thing that happened today was that Google said this thing existed.
PC World - Much of the discussion around Google's new PC operating system has focused on a looming battle with Windows, but the biggest losers could be other Linux OSes that have been enjoying some moderate success on netbooks, industry analysts said. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jul 2009 | 1:30 am
Razer’s had the Moray headset for some time now, but I never considered it worthwhile since really, it was just a pair of mid-range in-ear headphones. That’s changed a bit now, and I just got a package with a pair of Moray+ headphones in it. What’s the difference? Well, now it’s got an in-line microphone, which I foolishly did not include in the picture I just took. It’s an unobtrusive little band and they say it’s omnidirectional, but we’ll see soon enough.
It also has what they call “passive noise reduction” built in. Passive noise reduction is also known as putting things in your ears.
The Moray+ is really meant to be a mobile gaming headset, for trash talking your DS opponent while sitting at a cafe (no, I don’t do that), so it’s got adapters for both DS and PSP. Its main cord (without the splitter) is actually iPhone compatible, so it’s got that going for it as well. I’ll have a full review of these little guys soon and you’ll find out if they’re worth the asking price of $60.
On the Watchismo blog, Mitch celebrates the launch of the Urwerk King Cobra CC1, a remake of the original "jumping hour" watch, explaining why he's so fascinated with these remarkable, largely extinct timepieces.
Time is usually - nearly always - displayed by a circular indication: one dial and two (or three) with the time displayed around a perpetual circle. However, this 360° representation of time goes against everything we learnt as we grew up drawing a straight line on a blank page and marking it Past, Present and Future. Why do we think of time as travelling in a straight line yet display it rotating around a circle? The answer is straightforward: mechanisms that continually rotate are much simpler to produce than those that trace a straight line then return to zero. In fact, the latter is so difficult that, until now, nobody has ever managed to develop a production wristwatch with true retrograde linear displays.
We at CrunchGear have been sitting things out today as our brothers at TC pant over ChromeOS, the latest OS based on Linux to impress, however lightly, upon the synapses of our country's journalistic elite. ChromeOS can't beat anything. In fact suggesting that ChromeOS will beat Windows or even OS X is like expecting Coby to come up behind Sony and Samsung next year in Blu-Ray player popularity. It just can't happen. As a wise man once said "Ain't the same ** ballpark. It ain't the same league, it ain't even the same ** sport."
ChromeOS is a specialized version of Linux designed for netbooks. It is more like Android than anything else and, as Fake Steve notes, no one will use it. Oh, manufacturers will pay lip service to it and maybe someone will install it on a few million machines but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the powerful web OSes called Windows 7 and OS X.
We’ve been sitting things out today as our brothers at TC pant over ChromeOS, the latest OS based on Linux to impress, however lightly, upon the synapses of our country’s journalistic elite. ChromeOS can’t beat anything. In fact suggesting that ChromeOS will beat Windows or even OS X is like expecting Coby to come up behind Sony and Samsung next year in Blu-Ray player popularity. As a wise man once said “Ain’t the same ** ballpark. It ain’t the same league, it ain’t even the same ** sport.”
ChromeOS is a specialized version of Linux designed for netbooks. It is more like Android than anything else and, as Fake Steve notes, no one will use it. Oh, manufacturers will pay lip service to it and maybe someone will install it on a few million machines but it will be a drop in the bucket compared to the powerful web OSes called Windows 7 and OS X.
ChromeOS, like Android, is a bargaining chip. OEMs can wave ChromeOS in Microsoft’s face and reduce they price they have to pay per PC for installing Windows. It won’t work, but they’ll try. Die-hard Linux users will stick with Linux and the average consumer, when presented with Chrome, will ask where the Start menu went.
Google can use ChromeOS to scare Microsoft and move more people to GMail and Google Office apps. That’s about it. And the people that move will be limited to the very few OEMs who will install ChromeOS on new machines. Netbooks are going the way of the Dodo and the race to the bottom will cause them to disappear, replaced by more powerful ultralights that will fill out the middle of the laptop market. These ultralights will be running Windows 7, not Chrome.
Fake Steve explains it all thus:
To put it another way, have you ever met anyone who said they’d really like to try out that Interwebs thing, but they’re just put off by the low-quality operating systems and browsers that are available at this time, so they’re sitting it out for now? Or like maybe they’re on the Internet now but they would just be soooo inclined to spend soooo much more time on the Web, and they’d be soooo much more likely to actually click on the ads, if the OS and browser made it somehow less onerous to, um, type in a URL and go to a page? Nah, the only point in Google giving away a free browser and OS is somehow to fuck up Microsoft. (And/or to do some sneaky shit that helps Google screw users a little bit more efficiently. See Point 8 below.) But on the anti-Microsoft angle, take it from someone who has spent the past 10 years selling a superior operating system and getting only 4 percent market share — as obsessions go, battling the Borg is waaay overrated.
And he’s absolutely right. Anyone can make a Linux install disk, call it “Super Google Linux” and rock out. There even was a Google OS - albeit an unofficial one - called gOS. And we all saw how well that went. Hell, you can even make Hanna Montana Linux for newbies but that doesn’t mean newbies will install it or manufacturers will use it. There’s no reason.
Android I’m bullish on. Android is a real threat to Windows Mobile and the HTC Hero put the first chink in Microsoft’s Mobile armor. But the HTC Hero isn’t a Google product, Google gets no cash from it, and, you’ll notice, HTC has modified Android to an extent that makes it closer to the Palm Pre than anything else. HTC took Google’s free operating system and stripped out the Google.
ChromeOS isn’t a threat. In fact it’s not even on Microsoft’s radar. It’s nice that Google is offering their philanthropic OS for all and sundry (incidentally, what are the tax implications of this kind of project?) But can it beat Windows? No and never.
Last summer, I wrote a lengthy rant against business cards, calling them “virtually useless as one of the last bits of information that we pass non-digitally”. Ten months later, I couldn’t agree with myself more. Just like the handshake, the business card is an annoying relic of the past. Each card I get joins a ridiculously large pile on my dresser that has become effectively useless (the only exception are the cards made out of beef jerky). Sure, I could get a business card scanner and digitize them, but the point is that I shouldn’t have to.
Bump Technologies is a mobile application developer that’s looking to offer a solution, allowing users to transfer their contact information simply by tapping their phones together. And things are looking bright for the small startup — the company has just raised a seed funding round from Y Combinator, and is quickly building up a sizable user base.
Bump currently offers an application on the iPhone, with plans to release apps for Android and other mobile smart phones in the near future. Using the app is fairly straightforward: you launch Bump (as does the person who you’d like to swap information with) and tap your phones together. Once their accelerometers are activated, the phones both relay their current location data to the cloud, and Bump’s servers determine when there’s a match. Finally, a photo of the contact you’re pairing with shows up on your screen, and you confirm that you’d like to exchange data. It may sound a bit complicated, but it only takes a few seconds. Bump isn’t the first application to do this (Tapulous’sFriend Book has been doing this since soon after the App Store’s launch), but it’s a good idea nonetheless.
At this point there are some obvious flaws — if you don’t have a cellular connection, it won’t work, though Bump plans to fix this is an upcoming version by also allowing users to transfer data using the iPhone’s Peer-to-Peer Bluetooth functionality. And for the time being you can only share data with users that have an iPhone and have the Bump app installed, which leads to a classic chicken-and-the-egg problem.
That said, Bump is off to a good start. The app currently has 940k users, and 140k of them have already upgraded to the new update in the two days since its release, which means a significant number of them are very active. The latest version adds the ability to transfer photos along with contact info, and Bump will eventually allow you to transfer any kind of data — eventually, it will even allow you to transfer money, which could be huge.
I’m glad Bump, as well a few other companies like Nameo and Me2, are seriously trying to solve this problem. But frankly it’s ridiculous that phone manufacturers can’t agree on a wireless standard for quick data transfer that just works, without any extra applications or an annoying pairing process (seriously, Palm worked this technology out ten years ago). It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen any time soon though, so Bump may well have a bright future ahead of it.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
If I had an iPhone to put a case around, I’d probably get a huge solid-steel one like this one, but since those cost $200 I might settle for a cute Mac Classic sleeve. It’s slightly sold-out, unfortunately, but you might bookmark it for later in case Etsy maker vanMourik decides to pop out a few more.
He (she?) has actually made an announcement on that front:
Hi! The iPhone Classic Mac case sold out very quickly on July 7th. There will be a few more available in a week or so, but then no more. If you would like to be notified when they are posted, send me a message. Thanks!!! :)
I’m not sure how much it costs, but you’ll get back every dollar you spend… in smiles!
Even conceding these points, a woman could not stay young and attractive for ever, and later on could well become a problem.
(vii) A spinster lady can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing years. A man usually mellows.
Nat continues, "Bearing in mind this sage advice, I've already begun to regretfully decline my daughter's requests for education and social opportunities, explaining to her that "she could not be regarded as a long-term investment in the same sense as we regard" her brother."
The Pope's latest encyclical (a kind of churchy APA) decries "excessive zeal for ... intellectual property, especially in the field of health care."
Section 22 of the letter, entitled "Human Development in Our Time," laid out the Pope's vision of human development goals. It also highlighted the failings of the current system, citing rigid ideology, consumerist "superdevelopment", corruption, and "cultural models and social norms of behavior .... which hinder the process of development." Casting a strikingly pragmatic tone, the encyclical underscores the complexity of development issues, which "should prompt us to liberate ourselves from ideologies, which oversimplify reality in artifical ways, and ... lead us to examine objectively the full human dimension of the problems."
Craig sez, "Looks like Vancouver is getting free speech areas just like the RNC! Yipee! It's so nice of them to set up these areas. I'm sure that even though they're optional, all us polite Canadian folks will be encouraged to full advantage of the designated areas."
Good to see the Olympics upholding its tradition of fostering international brotherhood through brutal authoritarian crackdowns, venal rent-seeking, and remorseless forced relocation of unsightly poor people.
The head of security for the 2010 Games, RCMP assistant commissioner Bud Mercer, told Vancouver city council on Tuesday, however, that protesters will not be required to limit their activities to the areas.
You're free to use them, if you like, but anywhere you participate in lawful protest is legal and lawful in Canada. It doesn't have to be in a free speech area," said Mercer.
Mitch writes in with news of his latest Copper Robot podcast, "Robert Charles Wilson discusses his latest novel, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, which is the most fun novel you'll ever read about the collapse of Western civilization and the end of religious freedom and democracy in America.
It's an adventure story about the son of pious snake-handling parents in a small town, who leaves home in the company of the nephew of the President of the United States, and goes off to war and New York.
The novel has adventure and romance and comedy and sea voyages and rooftop foot-chases and leaping from building to building. It's great fun.
I also talked to Wilson about his 24-year career, past books including Darwinia and Spin, his writing process and favorite tools, and how working for a Canadian civil rights education was great education for a writer."
Have a burning need to install a large, multi-touch screen in your home or office? Well you’re in luck. DemandEvolution has created a multi-touch screen for artistic, office, and personal use that requires a projector and can then scan that screen for motion and react accordingly. Take a look at these wacky videos for a clearer picture.
Essentially you’re creating a vertical Microsoft Surface for $1,800 plus $200 shipping. The kit includes a 50-inch screen, IR touch surface, IR video camera, and software and drivers. All you have to do is set up a projector aimed at the surface and flick and twist your way into multi-touch heaven.
These good folks also make a 30-inch multi-touch LCD for $5,500. It’s a little bit pricey but hey, it’s the future.
Audi is 100! Wait, what? When was the car invented? Okay, some time earlier. But I had no idea Audi had been about this for so long. They’ve given us some beautiful cars and probably a lot of other stuff since the company was founded in 1909. And now, to celebrate their centenary, they’re bringing out a grand piano, of all things.
I’m sure it sounds better than the one my parents have sitting in the garage, but there is a reason pianos are shaped the way they are. I doubt Bosendorfer would make a bad piano, but I can only imagine that the true Pianophile will find something amiss. I do like that bit “curtain” on the left side, though. Do you think it resonates?
Anyway, it’s lovely, Audi, but you couldn’t have made a special 100th Birthday Blogger Edition of the R8?
Jason Calacanis and Chamath Palihapitiya busted out on day 2 (apparently Calacanis’ ridiculous gangster costumer only took him so far). David Sacks is going strong into the third day with $116,000 in chips. We have no information at all on Goldberg (please let us know).
Sacks, who won $25k in prize money last year, will need to stay in the game another day or two to match that previous performance. The total pot being split by the top 10% or so of players is likely around $50 million.
Sacks let us know today that he would not be speaking at our sold out Real-Time Stream CrunchUp on Friday because, well, he’ll be playing poker. He requested that co-founder Adam Pisoni take his place on stage.
We’re going to let our readers decide whether Yammer gets to send in a substitute in the poll below.
Cc:Betty, a free service that helps organize group email threads, is the latest startup to catch the Twitter bug. The email collaboration service is integrating with Twitter, so that users of the service can tweet in and out of a of the collaboration platform, as well as see each other’s latest tweets.
Cc:Betty routes, parses, and organizes email conversations in a simple at-a-glance dashboard so you never have to scour your inbox to find the bits and pieces of a long thread. If you cc “betty@ccbetty.com” on any email, “she” will create a mailspace, which is a webpage, for your entire email thread and will divide important things such as dates, times, people, places, and files and will format them all in one place. It basically maps out your communications for you in an easy-to-see format.
CEO Michael Cerda says that Twitter integration was another way to help users organize all of their communications, including Tweets. Cc:Betty also recently upgraded its service with several useful features, including the ability to see maps, images and documents as large thumbnails in email threads, and a list of people in an email conversation. You can also filter content of the thread by participant. Cc:Betty has raised $1.5 million in seed funding, which was announced in June.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
A few months ago I was touring Nokia’s headquarters in Espoo when I espied the Nokia N79 Active Edition. Announced around CES time, this phone combo included a heart-rate monitor and sports armband along with special software to record your distance, heart-rate, and route for each workout. The software includes a full complement of statistics and maps for your pleasure and is quite fully-featured.
The phone itself uses A-GPS to measure speed and distance and the heart-rate monitor is a Bluetooth model made by Polar. It also includes a built-in pedometer and two extra backplates so you can customize your phone. I tested it a few times over the past few weeks and came away quite impressed.
As a work-out tool this thing is perfect. My dream has always been to have a music-playing device with full workout stats recording systems built-in and the N79 fits the bill. It is compact and the armband works well and protects the phone from dirt and grime.
You can export your workouts to multiple websites including Google Earth and you can share and record your workouts for posterity. It has a built-in 5-megapixel camera with flash.
Now for the bad news. As far as I can tell the N79 Active isn’t available on Nokia’s website or any stores. It was supposed to sell for about 350 Euro which calculates to about $5 million but I haven’t been able to spot it in the wild. You can get the N79 itself for $349 or so.
Bottom Line
In general this is a great addition to the NSeries family and a great work-out tool. Here’s hoping Nokia actually starts to ship it.
WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif., July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- PlanarMag, Inc., a leading developer of innovative planar electromagnetic components for the computer, data networking, and telecommunications industries, today announced the initial closing of a Series B financing. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am
Some FCC documents have been filed by Creative which clearly outline (so to speak) a media player with a nice, big touch screen and an “HD” camera, which bespeaks 720p or better. The “Egg” version apparently is for developers, although I’d like to have “developer edition on mine anyway. Beyond that everything is pretty much speculation, so we’ll just let you look at the picture for a while.
It does have that iPhone-y outline, doesn’t it? But how else are you going to make a widescreen device that fits in the hand? The lozenge is becoming a very familiar shape these days.
For some people, this little doodad will be a godsend. With a single AC adapter, you can charge up to four devices at the same time. There are interchangeable connectors for most popular devices, and if the included 5 don’t cover your bases, one of the many purchasable extras should do the trick. It seems to be mostly limited to mobiles, but a mini-USB cable is a handy addition and most larger devices tend to have removable batteries and separate charge cradles.
There are two options: with mat and without mat. I don’t care for the look of the mat, personally (reminds me of a Lego base) and you can save $10 by just getting the tube, so that’d be my recommendation.
I actually would find little use for this because I like to spread my gadgets around the area. I have a camera gear table, a gaming table, and so on. Phones get charged by my bed because that’s where I need it to be when I’m sleeping. Still, this might be handy for an office or common area in a house or dorm.
Amazon has the Kindle 2 listed for $60 cheaper than previous prices, it now ships for $299, as opposed to $359. For some, $299 is still a pretty steep price to pay for an e-book reader, especially when a smartphone can perform a similar function. However, to others $299 might just be the price deal they were looking for and are now ready to pull the trigger on the enticing device.
The 6 inch Kindle 2 can hold up to 1,500 books and has the ability to download a book in less than 60 seconds without being connected to a PC. At 10.2 ounces, it is a portable device that features 3G connectivity, without the monthly fees and yearly contracts.
It will be interesting to see if the Kindle 2 comes down more in the future, or if this is the final price cut.
coondoggie writes "On a day when one of the largest wind farm plans bit the dust, the US Department of Energy is offering up a five-year, $45 million grant to design and build a large dynamometer facility for testing 5 to 15 MW rated wind turbines and equipment. The DOE says such a facility is needed as the US has fallen behind other countries in the race to build ever-larger wind turbines for energy production. According to the DOE, the average size of wind turbines installed in the United States in 2007 increased to roughly 1.65 MW. Additionally, turbines already developed range in the 2.5 MW to 3.5 MW capacity sizes; with plans being developed for even greater power ratings. The larger wind turbines have outpaced the availability of US-based testing facilities, the DOE stated."
Last month HTC introduced its third Android handset, the Hero. The device was billed as a touchscreen phone with a newly designed user interface and carried some sweet specs: GPS, digital compass, a 5-megapixel auto focus camera and an anti-fingerprint coating on the screen for smudge resistance.
But U.S. cellphone customers better not hold their breath for it. T-Mobile, which picked up HTC’s previous two Android phones, has no plans to bring the HTC Hero to market, said T-Mobile CTO Cole Brodman during an event in New York City Wednesday.
Instead, T-Mobile made the myTouch 3G available for pre-orders. The myTouch 3G is based on HTC’s Magic phone that was introduced in February, and is very similar to the Google Ion reviewed by Wired.com in June. It runs Google’s Android operating system–like the T-Mobile G1–but has a touchscreen instead of a physical keyboard.
So far T-Mobile is the only telecom carrier in the U.S. to offer Android-based phones.
Curtailing your home electricity use is a bit like losing weight: You already understand the basics, but it’s hard to accomplish without help and motivation. An array of gadgets are vying to serve as electricity personal trainers, monitoring home power use minute by minute, and making you feel guilty about indulgences like blasting the air conditioner.
I have been testing three of these devices, the Power Monitor from Black & Decker Corp. (BDK), the very similar PowerCost Monitor from Blue Line Innovations Inc., and the more-sophisticated The Energy Detective 5000 from Energy Inc. In my tests, the Black & Decker model provided the most effortless electricity-tracking service. At $99.99, it is also the least expensive.
The devices provide real-time data about how much power you’re using across the house in terms that are easy to comprehend: cost per hour and cost per month. Turn on the microwave and watch the cost jump from 10 cents to 25 cents an hour. Turn off some lights and see the cost drop a few cents.
The firms say their customers have, over time, seen drops of as much as 20% in power bills by being more mindful of electricity use and making informed purchases. An independent Oxford University study in 2006 found that people getting direct feedback on their power consumption reduced use 5% to 15%.
After I began monitoring, my most-recent electricity bill dropped $10 from the month before—but that could also be due to my living in a city where air conditioning isn’t a summer necessity. I find myself thinking more about electricity, and even running back into the house to make sure the lights are out.
The monitors sold by Blue Line and Black & Decker are almost identical, because they’re both manufactured by Canada-based Blue Line. The Blue Line model costs $109, is a bit larger, and features a slightly longer range for the wireless signal that transmits power use from your electric meter.
Connecting these two devices to my electric meter was simple. First, loop a metal belt around the glass dome covering the meter. Then align a sensor attached to the belt on top of the glass to read the data collected by your meter. On my old-style meter, the Power Monitor’s sensor keeps track of how fast a dial rotates. The companies say their products work with about 90% of meters in North America.
The sensor you attach to the electric meter wirelessly sends raw data to a digital monitor that is kept inside the house. Before using the monitor, you have to enter data from your electric bill, but finding the right data can be tricky. Black & Decker’s instructions on this are relatively clear, and entering the data into the digital monitor involves a process similar to setting an alarm clock.
The digital monitors, about the size of a large remote control, can sit in one room or travel about the house. A button labeled “tare” on the Black & Decker model helps you calculate how much electricity is being used by any single appliance that you can turn off and on.
The Black & Decker model features a rudimentary display that only reports the aggregate power use for your house at any given time. It can’t go back and show you changes over time.
But the latest model from The Energy Detective, known as TED, connects directly to a house’s power supply for a more-precise read than the Black & Decker. It comes with software that graphs how use patterns change over time. The TED 5000 costs $199.
But installing TED requires turning off your home’s main power line and inserting a sensor into your circuit breaker—a process that the company says should be done “by qualified personnel only.” I sought help from a friend who has a lot of wiring experience, but after several hours, we were unable to make TED work. My issue was likely a decades-old circuit breaker. The company said my configuration is atypical and that problems like this are rare. A colleague has been using TED for several weeks after hiring an electrician to install it.
While TED 5000 offers many more advanced tools for sleuthing your home’s electricity waste than the other models, all of its sophistication won’t necessarily help the average user do much of a better job remembering to turn off the lights. For most of us, the large cost-an-hour sign on the Black & Decker Power Monitor offers the only feedback we really need.
And before buying any of these devices, keep in mind that many utility companies are installing a new generation of so-called “smart” meters, which not only measure real-time power use, but also offer two-way communication with the power company to help cut costs. And Google Inc.’s (GOOG) nonprofit foundation is working with power companies on a free service that connects data about your power use into an online widget.
Walt Mossberg is on vacation. Email Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com
Denial-of-service attacks against U.S. and South Korean websites boost international tension with North Korea. But evidence suggests it's the work of an unambitious hacker wielding a five-year-old virus.
Jon Morgan writes "Whilst heaving around numerous data storage systems to sell (they weigh A LOT!), we got to wondering: How heavy is a Petabyte of data storage? Our best guess is 365KG, which is 6 million times lighter than in 1980! But is there a lighter way to store a Petabyte?"
Macworld.com - QuickerTek has released a lower-cost version of its Apple Juicz external battery for MacBooks laptops. The Apple MacBook Battery and Charger Lite provides up to five hours of extra battery life for MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air models. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Jul 2009 | 10:17 pm
Amazon hasn’t said how many Kindles it has sold since launching the device in 2007, but it may soon be selling quite a few more of them. The company today dropped the price of the six-inch Kindle to $299, $60 off of its previous price. That’s certainly not a dramatic reduction, but it may be enough to drive consumers who’ve held off on purchasing the device to reconsider.
That said, even at this reduced price, the Amazon Kindle still costs $299 more than Kindle for Apple’s iPhone, which I’ve found to be a compelling way to read books. After six or so novels, I have no complaints about eye strain, screen size or glare. And honestly, I think I’m reading more now than I ever did before simply because I always have the book I’m currently reading in my pocket.
Anyway…
Today’s price cut makes you wonder if this presages a similar reduction for the Kindle DX, which at $489 could really use one. A bit too early, I suppose, since Amazon (AMZN) hasn’t yet announced pricing for subscriptions to the Washington Post (WPO) and New York Times (NYT). We’ll see, I guess.
U.S. senators from Michigan and other states are urging the Senate to consider tougher federal regulations on invasive species such as the zebra mussel.
Sen. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 10:08 pm
By Julia Angwin, Editor, Digits, The Wall Street Journal
Allen & Co.’s Sun Valley, Idaho, media fest got off to a gloomy start Wednesday, with downbeat panel discussions on the economy (getting worse) and the digital future (looking murky).
Erin Burnett of CNBC opened the conference by moderating a discussion between investor Wilbur Ross, MIT professor Simon Johnson and American Express (AXP) CEO Kenneth Chenault.
The prognosis for the economy from the experts was bearish, according to members of the audience. “It was interesting but gloomy,” said Ken Auletta, the New Yorker writer who attended the meeting, closed to press.
FROM GAMERTELL - McFarlane Toys recently announced the second wave of Halo Odd Pod figures, its San Diego Comic-Con figure and a small slew of other Halo-themed figures and figure-related products. MORE »
By blending hand-painted figures with computer-generated imagery, the Berlin-based artist has become a go-to guy for eye-catching covers. A new coffee table book collects some of his most impressive visions of X-Men and other superheroes.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a nationwide recall of Alba-brand non-fat dry milk products because of possible bacterial contamination.
The federal agency said the McClancy Seasoning Co. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 9:55 pm
Dexterous tasks may be limited by our brain's capacity to handle the anatomy and mechanics of our musclesA new study suggests activities combining movement and force tax our brains to capacity, countering a long-held belief that difficulty with dexterous tasks results from the limits of the muscles themselves. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 9:49 pm
A study of brains donated by nuns found that those with excellent language skills earlier in life had fewer symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, even if their brains showed evidence of the disease.
People who have superior language skills early in life may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease decades later, despite having the hallmark signs of the disease, according to research published in the July 9, 2009, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology."A puzzling feature of Alzheimer's disease is how it affects people differently," said study author Juan C. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 9:47 pm
There are few things in life more satisfying than using compressed air to fire textiles at high velocities. Before security confiscated it, we used a t-shirt cannon in the Wired office to destroy overhead lights, bruise butt cheeks, and keep interns in line. Terrorizing co-workers aside, Nike’s T-Shirt gun is essentially geek nirvana for those looking for alternative methods to propel apparel. Sure it looks cool — kind of like the mashup between a Halo weapon and a Nerf product — but we’re skeptical if it actually functions (certainly not like in Nike’s video). For $1500, Nike hucksters claim:
The Nike T-shirt gun delivers only Premium Nike T-shirts.
Eliminates poor fitting, uncomfortable, lame-designed T-shirts on all your friends.
Each limited edition T-shirt gun is numbered and engraved with the signature of a Nike athlete.
Quality Craftsmanship guarantees your T-shirt gun will last game after game.
By the way, if anyone wants to upload the video of Maude Flander’s being pwn3d by the t-shirt cannon, we’d be much obliged. It’s from the episode Alone Again, Natura-Diddily.
A U.S. study suggests people are more likely to become involved in conservation programs if their neighbors are also involved.
Michigan State University Professor Jianguo Liu said his study is the first to look at social norms in the context of China's conservation efforts. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 9:30 pm
Krneki writes "I've been developing monitoring solutions for the last five years. I have used Cacti, Nagios, WhatsUP, PRTG, OpManager, MOM, Perl-scripts solutions, ... Today I have changed employer and I have been asked to develop a new monitoring solution from scratch (5,000 devices). My objective is to deliver a solution that will cover both the network devices, servers and applications. The final product must be very easy to understand as it will be used also by help support to diagnose problems during the night. I need a powerful tool that will cover all I need and yet deliver a nice 2D map of the company IT infrastructure. I like Cacti, but usually I use it only for performance monitoring, since pooling can't be set to 5 or 10 sec interval for huge networks. I'm thinking about Nagios (but the 2D map is hard to understand), or maybe OpManager. What monitoring solution do you use and why?"
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced the nationwide recall of Stealth-brand powdered dietary supplements due to possible contamination.
The FDA said Vital Pharmaceuticals Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 9:20 pm
While LG is currently is currently teasing us in the US with the next Chocolate, it is busy teasing those over in Warsaw with a fantastic-sounding concept phone. The phone looks to combine the best features of some of the newer Samsung and Sony Ericsson, and even some cues from the iPhone 3GS.
The phone, dubbed the GC990, looks like an LG branded iPhone with a few extra buttons at first glance, which makes sense, only so many ways to make a touch screen phone. From the back, however, it looks more similar to a point and shoot camera complete with a 12.1 MP camera. The phone should be able to take photos as fast as any camera, with “zero” shutter lag, and can even geotag the photos once taken.
If you’re in love with your iPhone 3GS for the touch focus capabilities, the GC990 has that as well. It can even shoot video like the iPhone 3GS, except it’s more like the Samsung i8910 Omnia HD in that the video can be recorded in 720p at 30 fps, quite impressive for a phone. There’s also the mundane Wi-Fi with DLNA, GPS, and TV-out to go with the 3.2” touch screen.
While the GC990 looks very nice, that’s about all it’ll do for us right now. LG is very clear that the GC990 is strictly a concept unit showing off what it’s trying to bring to market. Perhaps all these features will be coming, but not all in the same phone for right now. The GC990, given the 12.1 MP camera, 720p and most likely included media application, will need a ton of storage space which would probably cause an issue for LG if all these features were to be in the same phone. Although, the 32GB that the iPhone 3GS might suffice, with the option for added storage of course. Maybe, just maybe, if we ask LG enough the GC990 will come to market as a prohibitively expensive, yet awesome flagship phone.
Seth Raphael is a Portland magician who will be doing a full-blown version of his "technology or magic?" show at the Hollywood Theater this Saturday, July 11th at 7:15PM. This is a warm-up for a performance at the TED conference, so get him before the malarial venture capitalists get to him first. Tickets are $10.
MagicSeth's groundbreaking magic features a psychic website, a card trick done over instant messenger, and a time machine. His performance pushes the boundaries of magic and technology, discarding the silk handkerchiefs of his predecessors and embracing the machines that fill our daily life.
S2 Games, longtime fans of the "Defense of the Ancients" (DotA) mod for Warcraft 3, have decided to create an entire game based around it (which IceFrog had no objection to). Without offending their still-active NDA, I can say that Heroes of Newerth is shaping up to be a very polished RTS, with the ability to play both via S2's own online service and local games, something that even Blizzard seems to be missing these days. Unlike most publishers, S2 has also decided to simultaneously release Windows, Mac, and Linux clients, making this one of the best looking games that I have ever seen on my Linux box. Additionally, S2 would like to invite another 400 players to the HoN beta, so if you are an RTS fan (and especially if you are a DotA fan) just send an email to scuttlemonkey at slashdot dot org with the subject line of "HoN Beta Key Request" and I'll reply to the first 400 requests as best I can. Update 20:37 GMT by SM: In case you don't notice in your haste to create a beta account, let me remind you that this game is still under strict NDA, so please no specifics in the discussion below. Update 00:01 GMT by SM: Well, given the 800+ emails that flooded my inbox in the first half hour or so we're all out of beta keys, but keep an eye out for a release date. Update 01:00 GMT by SM: Apparently your friends over at S2 games were quite impressed with the level of interest and are furnishing another 2,000 beta keys for me to continue working through the requests in my inbox (I'm at around 1,500 requests total as of this update, and only about 350 keys sent out). Please be patient as I slowly try to catch up. Also a point of clarification, while IceFrog doesn't mind S2 diving in to this space with a game based on DotA (competition is good in the long run after all), he wanted to make sure loyal fans of DotA knew that he plans to continue developing and improving DotA for WC3.
As if the number of consumers complaining about the iPhone 3GS’ battery life weren’t enough, now reports are arising about Wi-Fi problems. About 30 iPhone 3GS owners are reporting in Apple’s support forums that their Wi-Fi transfer rates are surprisingly sluggish — in some cases, considerably slower than on the older iPhone 3G.
“I’ve also got a 3G and now a 3GS and on Wi-FI the 3GS is much slower,” writes forum member Andy Worthington. “The 3GS and my Touch (all version 3) are at least twice the download speed and the signal strength [and] the 3GS fluctuates quite extremely. I’ve tried three different Wi-Fi networks (all with different routers) and the results are consistent each time. Clearly something is wrong.”
The video above, shot by iPhone owner Mike Krasner, attempts to illustrate the problem by running a broadband test on the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS side-by-side. However, as a commenter noted below, even though the iPhone 3GS (left) is reporting slower speeds, it appears to only be running the test through three trials while the iPhone 3G performs six trials. We presume the speed test is not programmed to work properly with the iPhone 3GS.
We haven’t experienced Wi-Fi issues with our iPhone 3GS, but we’re interested in hearing from readers to look into this further. Experiencing the same issue? Chime in in the comments below or e-mail Brian_Chen [at] Wired [dot] com.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists say they've created a computer model that might solve the problem of some drugs having a short shelf life.
Researchers said the problem has plagued drug companies trying to develop medicines made of antibodies: The problem is that, over time, the antibodies tend to clump together, rendering the drugs ineffective.
Antibodies, the scientists said, are the most rapidly growing class of human drugs, with the potential to treat cancer, arthritis and other diseases. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 8:36 pm
Google's new Chrome OS will have to deal with many of the same challenges that Linux-based operating systems have faced in the past: compatibility, usability and unfamiliarity.
Google's new Chrome OS will have to deal with many of the same challenges that Linux-based operating systems have faced in the past: compatibility, usability and unfamiliarity.
Dongles. In-line adapters. Proprietary headset ports. If it’s an audio port on a mobile handset and it’s not 3.5mm, it’s junk. As we declared back in May, we’re done with all of it. Now HTC, sire of the T-Mobile G1, myTouch, and countless other smartphones plagued by non-3.5mm jacks, is done with it too.
If you’ve been keeping up with your Android handset news, you might already know that the HTC Hero will be the first HTC-made Android handset with a 3.5mm jack. As it turns out, it’s just the first of many; beginning with the Hero, HTC is moving away from requiring users to pump audio through their modified miniUSB port.
We’d heard this mentioned as a possibility at past press events. This was HTC’s response when we reached out for comment:
The vast majority of devices we launch after Hero will have a 3.5mm jack. Devices that we have already announced but that still come out after Hero will not necessarily be a part of this change.
So it sounds like we may still see a few handsets hit the shelves with worthless audio ports - but aural salvation is on the way. This is a hugely important move for HTC and, seeing as they’re the most fruitful supporter of the platform so far, for Android. People like using their own headphones, but hate carrying around 2 extra inches of an oh-so-easy-to-lose adapter cable. If you make using headphones a pain, the media playback functionality of the handset/platform tends to be abandoned. Long live the 3.5mm port!
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Google’s netbook-friendly Chrome OS takes direct aim at Microsoft, whose 8-year-old Windows XP leads the netbook market. But the odds are stacked against Google.
In competing with Windows, Google Chrome OS will have to deal with many of the same challenges Linux has: compatibility, usability and unfamiliarity. The record isn’t good: In the past year, Linux-based netbooks have rapidly lost market share to Microsoft, as people find that Linux doesn’t work as expected, may not support the applications or peripherals they’re accustomed to using, and is just plain different.
“The propeller-heads or early adopters understood what Linux was about,” says Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC, a market research company. “But as netbooks have gone mainstream, users want the apps they are familiar with, rather than the nonstandard ones on Linux.”
While sales of netbooks have exploded, Linux’s market share on these devices has dramatically declined. In 2008, about 24.5 percent of netbooks shipped with an Linux operating system, estimates IDC. This year, it’s expected to plunge to 4.5 percent, and in 2010 only 3 percent of all netbooks will run a Linux OS.
Even if it offers the same or better features than similarly equipped Windows notebooks, Google Chrome OS will face the same uphill battle Linux has. Here’s what Google needs to figure out to make Chrome OS a success.
Compatibility with popular applications Some of the earliest netbooks featuring Linux faced high rates of consumer returns, because they did not support popular applications, says Shim.
“Many users found that the universe of applications compatible with Windows was much larger than those with Linux,” Shim says. “So when they looked at their Linux netbooks. not only did it run nonstandard apps but also a graphical interface they weren’t familiar with.”
Chrome OS will run on top of a Linux kernel, although Google has said that it will have an entirely new interface and will run all web applications rather than just native Linux apps.
Multimedia compatibility issues in some flavors of Linux helped add to early customer confusion, says Chris Kenyon, director of OEM services at Canonical, which supports Ubuntu. “Some of those Linux netbooks that didn’t have Flash pre-installed or multimedia codecs pre-installed faced a lot of problems,” he says.
Translation: If a customer can’t watch YouTube on her new netbook, she’s more likely to return the netbook rather than install Adobe’s Flash plugin for Linux.
What Google must do: Google Chrome OS can’t afford to make those mistakes. Flash support and the ability to play a wide variety of multimedia files will have to be standard. And where popular-application support is missing, Google will have to ensure that it provides satisfying alternatives (such as Google Docs in place of Microsoft Word).
Usability User interface is a big factor for computer buyers. Many netbook buyers are first-time Linux users. And these newbies have often been stumped by the operating system’s unusual interface. Even with very Windows-like and user-friendly Linux distributions, like Ubuntu, they often don’t know how to perform simple system-management or hardware-configuration tasks. Options for those exist on the OS, but new users have to put in the effort to learn, which can be a turnoff. Chrome OS will have to find a way to offer its customers a familiar graphical user interface that makes it easy to do the tasks they have been used to on a Windows operating system.
“UI is a very significant component for new operating systems,” says Shim. “You have to fight the first impression that this is different, and then you have to sell people on why different is better.”
What Google must do: Google needs to integrate Gmail, Google Docs and the Chrome web browser in a package that makes it easy to use not just these individual programs, but also perform other routine tasks, such as installing new software or changing display configurations.
Compatibility with popular hardware Google will also be under pressure to ensure Chrome OS works flawlessly with gadgets such as cameras, printers, smartphones and e-book readers. So far, Linux netbooks have had a spotty record. Some such as Ubuntu or Red Hat offer better support for popular gadgets, but users have still faced compatibility problems.
A recent review fromThe Wall Street Journalcomplained that Linux-based netbooks could not load software drivers to print photos to Canon and Dell printers. The review also said there were problems loading pictures over a USB cable from the Canon PowerShot SD750 digital camera onto a Dell Mini 10 netbook running Ubuntu.
Another big stumbling block for Google will be iTunes. The popularity of iPods means that many people expect their netbook to sync with their iPods. However, netbooks running Linux (including Ubuntu) do not support iTunes, and that means no iPod or iPhone support.
“ITunes itself doesn’t work on Ubuntu, but you can use emulators,” says Kenyon. “It’s something we would like to change.”
It also has to be dead simple to use hardware that’s pre-installed on your netbook — such as a webcam, a Bluetooth connection or a 3G wireless data card.
What Google must do: Ubuntu and other Linux vendors may not have the clout to get Apple to support Linux, but Google could make it happen for Chrome OS. Google and Apple share a close relationship, and Google CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple’s board of directors.
Also, drivers for Wi-Fi hardware or webcams in the netbooks come preloaded with Windows netbooks. Chrome OS will have to ensure it offers customers the same simplicity right out of the box.
Resistance to change
PC users may complain about glitches in the Windows operating system, the viruses and the blue screen of death. But unhappy as they may be, they are not beating down the doors of any Linux vendors to get a new OS. More than 80 percent of the billion or more PCs worldwide run some version of Windows, and 96 percent of netbooks are running Windows, according to NPD Group.
Changing consumer expectations has been one of the biggest challenges that Linux vendors face. Google will have to deal with this, too.
What Google must do: Massive advertising. Fortunately for Google, this is a business it knows well.
Support from netbook makers
One of Microsoft’s biggest strengths is the relationships it has built with device makers such as Dell, HP, Lenovo and Asus. As a new entrant Google will have to work with these PC makers to ensure that netbooks come preloaded with Chrome OS. Google can probably swing a few early deals, as it has with Android, but to be a force to reckon with, it needs to ensure widespread availability.
So far, Linux vendors have found it difficult to get OEMs completely on board. PC makers don’t want to jeopardize their relationship with Microsoft, which powers the higher-margin products such as desktops and notebooks.
What Google must do: Wheel and deal to ensure that Google Chrome OS is available on as many netbooks as possible.
Bill Kendrick writes "My first computer was the short-lived 1200XL model of the Atari 8-bit computer line. I finally got ahold of one again, after having to settle with a lesser Atari system. My immediate reaction was: "Damn, it's as big as my Dell Inspiron laptop!", and I couldn't resist doing one of those side-by-side comparisons, complete with photos of one system sitting atop the other. (I also put the 1983 storage and speeds in 2009 terms, for the benefit of the youngin's out there.) While in many ways the Atari pales in comparison to the latest technology they cram into laptops, I do get to benefit from SD storage media. It also still boots way faster than Ubuntu on the Dell, has a far more ergonomic keyboard, and is much more toddler-proof."
Amazon has lowered the price of the Kindle 2 e-book reader by $60. The Kindle 2 will now sell for $300 instead of the $360 it was introduced at earlier this year.
Amazon’s move has put Kindle in a better position to compete with its rivals by bridging the price gap. Sony’s basic e-book reader costs $280, while lesser known brands such as the Cool-er will set you back by $250.
The Kindle 2, with its 6-inch screen, is the successor to the original Kindle that was first introduced in 2007. Kindle 2 has a revamped design, slimmer profile and longer battery life compared to its predecessor.
Amazon has hinted that an increase in the number of Kindles manufactured have helped bring down the cost of the product. But the company hasn’t disclosed, till date, the number of Kindles it has sold or how much revenue it has made from the device.
Amazon did not reduce the price of the $489 large screen Kindle DX introduced just weeks after the Kindle 2.
Leatherman's Knifeless Fuse has pretty much everything you might need in a multi-tool:
Needlenose Pliers, Regular Pliers, Wire Cutters, Hard-wire Cutters, Wire Stripper, Small Screwdriver, Large Screwdriver, Phillips Screwdriver, Scissors, Wood/Metal File, Bottle, Opener, Can Opener, 8 in | 19 cm Ruler.
...except for a knife.
The tool is geared for people who work in airports, schools, and other places where larger blades aren't allowed or are considered a "liability." Yet, the thing's still potentially-lethal and probably won't get through TSA. So really, I don't get it.
American drones are finding their targets in Pakistan through a series of infrared homing beacons, Al Qaeda alleges in a new online publication. And they say they've got the pictures to prove it.
A 700-mile security wall under construction along the United States' border with Mexico could significantly alter the movement and "connectivity" of wildlife, biologists say, and the animals' potential isolation is a threat to populations of some species.However, technology and alterations to the design could dramatically improve the potential for animals to move more freely between the two countries, the scientists added.Results of their study are being published in the journal Conservation Biology."The biggest concern is that this barrier will break small populations of animals into even smaller pieces that will result in fewer animals interacting," said Clinton Epps, a wildlife biologist at Oregon State University and co-author on the study. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Jul 2009 | 7:52 pm
When the HTC Hero made its video debut weeks before official announcement, it looked like we’d see this thing hit the shelves in a full array of colors, from Neon Yellow to Turqoise. By the time it became official, however, most of these variations had disappeared. By the time the press event wrapped up, we saw only two variations: one black, one white.
It looks like at least two more are in the works, however. For all 8 fans of brown phones, we’ve got good news: we’ve got it on pretty good word that a bronze version will be available at some point. Want something a little less.. well.. boring? How about pink? It’s not quite the vibrant pink we saw in that initial video, but retailer Carphone Warehouse is running a shot of a pink(ish) Hero alongside the product details. We’d have preferred the brighter colors over the pastels - but we’ll take what we can get.
For a while it was starting to look rather iffy as to whether or not Pandora, as well as internet radio in general, was going to be able to continue, or die a sad death. The cost of keeping it afloat was simply getting too high in the face of the streaming rates for Internet radio. But now, artists, record labels and webcasters have finally come to an agreement, according to Pandora’s Tom Conrad.
“Pandora is finally on safe ground with a long-term agreement for survivable royalty rates,” Conrad says.
So, what does this long-term agreement consist of? SoundExchange agrees to a 40-50% reduction in the per-song-per-listener rate, or Pandora giving up a 25% share of its US revenue, whichever is higher. The new agreement runs through 2015.
But, that’s not all and the rest of it is where it affects the users. Because the rates are still higher than they can apparently easily handle without other changes, they are starting to implement a fee for usage for some users. They say this will only affect 10% of the user base.
What it boils down to is, if you use Pandora more than 40 hours a month, it will cost you $0.99 to continue using the service and go to unlimited. If you choose to do this, you are not signing up for a self-renewing subscription of any kind. Each time you do so is a one-time thing. If you already use Pandora One, which is the pay version of the service, you are already in the clear, and already have unlimited (ad-free) listening obviously.
Emails have been sent out to listeners that seem to be in danger of going over the 40 hours based on their usage history, letting them know about the upcoming changes. (Thanks to GTell’s Natesh Sood for this alert!) Pandora also let current users know in the email about the options that would be available to them should they go over the 40 hour cap.
Pandora is still hoping to be making a profit by this time next year, and hoping that these changes might assist in the goal of seeing them get there. “It’s a great outcome. Expensive, but I think we can still be profitable next year. These are workable rates,” Conrad says.
Not all Pandora users are as happy about the upcoming changes as Pandora seems to be. In comments posted around the web I’ve been reading mixed reactions to the news. “Lex” states “geez.. people are so naive. If you know the details, the deal itself is horrible. Why would Pandora stick in a 40 hour listener cap otherwise? Everybody cheered the Imeem deal at first too, look where they are now. safe ground indeed”
And where the complaints really have start to have some merit is the fact that come 2015, it seems all hell may break loose with this new little deal that is making everyone all happy now. Because it may be that the crafty little deal Simpson worked up for SX does a whole lot for SX and not so much for Pandora. Quoted from the SX agreement:
Bundled Services: The rates for commercial webcasters providing bundled, syndicated, subscription services are to be the same as the rates agreed to by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB)
rates for
2010 0.0016 per performance
…
2015 0.0025 per performance
So feasibly, come 2015, Pandora may be stuck with fees they can’t afford to pay, and have to get rid of the Pandora One and the $0.99 subscription services, and users are gonna get slammed. Bye-bye Pandora. All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.
Last week you asked Jazz technical lead Erich Gamma questions about Jazz or anything else in his realm of expertise. Here are his answers, along with many external links and places to continue the conversation if you are interested.
While I was at the T-Mobile myTouch 3G event earlier today, a rep from T-Mobile whispered a few sweet nothings into my ear. I didn’t think anything of it because PR folk are always trying to butter me up, but there was something about Android updates that popped up.
Apparently, T-Mobile will be pushing out four Android updates this year or I’m lead to believe, but four updates were definitely mentioned. Two being minor while the other two being major updates for the OS. 1.1 was the minor and 1.5 was the first major leaving two more updates. Other details were not privy to me, but the next will be Donut (obvs). I’m afraid that’s it, though.
And because Devin made the images for me, I’ll post both of them to keep him happy.
Crunch Network: TechCrunchobsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
thecarchik writes with this interesting excerpt: "It takes a lot of energy to split hydrogen out from the other atoms to which it binds, either in natural gas or water. Which means energy analysts are skeptical about the overall energy balance of cars fueled by hydrogen. Ohio University researcher Geraldine Botte has come up with a nickel-based electrode to oxidize (NH2)2CO, otherwise known as urea, the major component of animal urine. Because urea's four hydrogen atoms are less tightly bound to nitrogen than the hydrogen bound to oxygen in water molecules, it takes less energy to break them apart."
Uh-oh. Better look out, HTC. Looks like Sense isn’t the only gorgeous Android overhaul on the block anymore. USEB managed to scrounge up a demo of Sony Ericsson’s Android interface, codenamed “Rachel” (as inherited from the device it’s expected to launch on, also named “Rachel”), and man does it look fantastic.
What to look for:
Notice the static row of icons, serving as a “dock” of sorts on the homescreen. This appears to replace the handle-ish element that you usually pull on to open the Android apps drawer.
They’ve got some sort of horizontally-scrolling navigation screen which shows up around the 25 second mark. This part looks very HTC TouchFLO-esque. We’re not quite sure how it’s invoked, as nothing happens on screen. Dedicated hardware key?
All-in-one messaging system seems to allow you to tap into any contact, then immediately view relevant info, calls, sMS, Email, MMS, and Twitter/Facebook updates.
Crunch Network: CrunchBasethe free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Don’t count on it. Earlier today at the T-Mobile myTouch 3G event in NYC, T-Mobile’s CTO Cole Brodman flat out said that T-Mobile USA has no plans to bring the Hero stateside. *sad clown* Did you think that it was coming to a GSM carrier because of that FCC filing? We’ve heard it’s going to Sprint, so who really knows.
However, Brodman did say that T-Mobile will be getting a handful of other Android devices by the end of the year. Another T-Mobile rep hinted that they might be getting netbooks and MIDs later this year. Whether they come running with Android was not divulged.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Last week, we announced a suite of SMS services in Uganda, a country where someone's first experience of the Internet is far more likely to be on a mobile device rather than a PC. We are really excited about this project in part because it is the result of more than a year of true user-centered research and design. We knew we wanted to build useful mobile services tailored to the needs of people in sub-Saharan Africa, but how could we find out what people want from the Internet when they don't have access to it already? What would people who had never used search before want to search for if we gave them a mobile phone and said "Ask any question you like"?
In early 2008 we set out with colleagues from Google.org, Grameen Applab and MTN (a network carrier in Uganda) with this challenge in mind. Our research needed to be able to assess the feasibility of delivering information via mobile in Uganda as well as evaluate the content "appetites" of local people. Since no search engine existed for testing, we did the next best thing: We decided to mimic the experience of using a search engine using human experts.
First, we trained a multilingual team to act as user researchers in 17 carefully selected locations across the country. In each place, they introduced themselves to a cross section of people they met and invited them to participate in a free study that would help create useful services for Ugandans. If the person agreed, the researcher handed them a mobile phone and encouraged them to write a text message containing a question they wanted to know the answer to. (If people had their own phone, we reimbursed them with phone credit.) The text message was then routed to a control room we'd set up in Kampala where a human expert read the text message, typed a response, and sent it back via SMS to the person who asked the question. In the meantime, the interviewer observed and recorded the participant's user experience. This allowed us to record rich qualitative data from hundreds of interviews in just a few days, and to collect quantitative data from hundreds of search queries.
Trying mobile search for the first time
Last week's launch of SMS services in Uganda is the direct result of this research — it's based on listening to what people want and finding a way to get it to them. Our research enabled us to observe first-hand how people instinctively wanted to interact with a mobile phone. We let people select the language they wanted to use. We gained deep insights into the way people formulate their questions and what questions really matter to them. On top of that, we saw the excitement on people's faces when they got their first-ever search results, and we realized that some of the information we could deliver to these users, such as health information, has the power to truly change lives. These new services in Uganda are just one step on the path to providing information to people who have little or no access to the web. This research will help us as we continue to develop more services to increase access to information all around the world.
Posted by Sian Townsend, Mobile User Experience Researcher, and Charles Warren, Mobile User Experience Design Manager
We’ve partnered up with LogicHP.com to bring you today’s Recession-O-Rama deals. The website focuses news, deals, reviews, and discussion on everything HP Laptop, Desktop and Printers. How about $$$ off a range of HP notebooks and desktop computers?
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Ohhhh - so thats why T-Mobile ignored all of the good names, instead opting to call their HTC Magic the “myTouch“: because they’re working the customizability angle.
And boy, are they working it hard. At today’s myTouch event, folks were given a USB stick with a little sneak-peek at what T-Mo had up their sleeve in terms of add-on toys. Skins? Check. Replacement battery covers, holsters, colored wrist straps, and battery extenders? Abso-friggin-lutely. Travel mugs with the myTouch logo with a handful of other accessories shoved inside? Er.. check.
Any accessory you can name, T-Mobile is probably making one for the myTouch. Well, except for tiny robot maids tasked only with keeping your myTouch clean. No word on that yet. Come on, T-mobile, get it together; the people need tiny robot maids.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
UK designer Joseph Joseph has created this awesomely cute spaghetti measuring device that measures out 1-4 servings of pasta with a camera lens-like functionality. For $8.50, it's one of those kitchen gadgets that you don't really need, but would make you look like a fancy culinary person, or at the very least, just a design-y person.
The Koobface worm has now surfaced on Twitter with the latest variation attempting to create as much havoc as possible. The newest code can allow criminals to access a person’s Twitter account and post their own tweets. These tweets are used as a way to spread the worm and infect your followers if they open the malware.
The hackers are using the recent death of Michael Jackson to lure users by posting tweets like “My home video :); michaeljackson’ testament on youtube and Watch my new private video! LOL :).” Over the past month alone, Koobface has popped up on Twitter three times more frequently than the previous month.
Koobface is not new to the social networking scene with appearances on Facebook, Hi5, MySpace and Friendster. Multiple variations have been released since its initial appearance in 2008. One of the main reasons that Twitter site is an easy target for the worm is the lack of security features found on other social networking websites, like CAPTCHA challenges or the requirement of a valid email address.
Whether you're heading into the wild or down the road, it's hard to find a better electronic sidekick than a GPS. (Well, you know, other than a cell phone.) NavTeq, which provides electronic cartography for the likes of Garmin and Magellan, says GPS unit sales doubled in 2008 (after tripling in 2007). Still, even savvy gadgeteers sometimes can't locate their device's true potential.
Because a GPS has to receive a signal from space, physical impediments like skyscrapers, cliff faces, and even trees can stump it. Reception is less of an issue with the ultrasensitive chipsets in newer models, but if the walls are closing in on you, take a cue from a time when navigation systems weren't the streamlined panels they are today: Hooking up an antenna will make use of even the most tenuous celestial connection. There's a port on the back of most GPS devices for jacking in.
But don't drop $50 on extra hardware until you've made sure the problem isn't operator error. The worst time to power up your GPS is when you actually need it. Before you set out, find some wide-open sky and give your silicon guide a couple of minutes to itself. Newer units have detailed tables that tell them where the satellites will be at any time of day, anywhere in the world; they just need a single clean sync to get oriented. If you wait until you're in the woods, the receiver will have to scan the heavens with no inkling of where to start.
You'll also want to remember that a GPS is not a compass: It runs on software. Like your PC, it needs to communicate with the mother ship periodically. Vendors refresh firmware and maps on a regular basis, sometimes even daily. These updates deliver new bits of data that significantly affect your gadget's accuracy. But if you live in the boonies on a road named after your sister-wife, don't expect NavTeq to come a-knocking with its survey equipment. Fortunately, most companies make it easy to update your own maps. Usually it's as simple as plugging into your home computer, dropping a couple of pins in Google Maps, and clicking Save.
If you own a new TomTom, it's even easier. You can edit maps on the unit itself, though you might not have to: Some of the company's navis update themselves. TomTom's IQ Routes software takes data from every person who uses the company' gadgets and readjusts its assumptions about which roads you should use and how long a given route will take. It will even change its own maps.
See, it's not that hard: Your GPS may use NASA technology, but getting the most out of it isn't rocket science.
Michael Jackson’s funeral was the most watched daytime program in history and quite probably the most watched program ever worldwide. The service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was broadcast all across the globe, and for those who couldn’t get to a TV, it was streamed live on the net. Unlike the day the news of his death broke, the net was not brought to his knees.
Although there were reports of slowdowns and a few scattered outages, for the most part the net was able to shoulder the burden. CNN reported 11 million unique visitors, 72 million page views and over 750,000 concurrent streams of the funeral. Twitter suffered yet another outage as users were unable to view or post tweets for a brief time. Many Facebook users complained of slowdowns and random errors, most attributed to CNN’s use of Facebook Connect. The service reported that as Jackson’s funeral got underway, 300,000 users were logged in and posting roughly 6,000 status updates a minute. The pop icon’s Facebook fan page now has nearly 7 million fans,which is a good million more than President Obama’s.
Don’t expect traffic to return quite to normal just yet. With the cause of Jackson’s sudden death still unknown, possible criminal charges pending against his doctors, and a custody fight for his children shaping up, the hunger for all things Michael isn’t likely to ebb anytime soon.
You’re all familiar with the little basketball hoops that hook onto waste-paper baskets, right? Good. Because we have just discovered the perfect companion for this executive toy. The Play More Notebook features normal lined paper (for people who have trouble writing in a straight line) on the front, but turn it around and you’ll see various ball-patterns. Screw up the paper and you have a a football, basketball, tennis ball or one of many others.
This is like the paper equivalent of the mullet. Staid and businesslike at the front, but wild and crazy at the back. Unlike the mullet, though, the pad is not an affront to intelligent human society (except for the lined paper, that is).
The notebook-as-concept won a bronze gong in the 2008 European Design Awards but has yet to make it to stores. But hey, that’s what your printer is for, right?
What’s this about a 12-megapixel, HD video recording cell phone unveiled in Warsaw? If you’re to believe LG, then the GC990 Louvre is merely a concept at this point. Under the hood of said concept is a 12-megapixel camera with Schneider-Kreuznach optics, xenon flash, and auto/touch focus. But the big reveal is the ability to record 720p video at 30fps.
Other features on the concept device include aGPS, Bluetooth, DivX and Xvid support along with Wi-Fi, a TV out and a 3.2-inch touch-screen. And that would the S-Class Touch UI on screen.
LG claims that it’s just a concept, but we find that doubtful based on relevant information we’ve received from other cell phone manufacturers.
Make no mistake: A Vita-Mix 5200 blender is overkill for the home kitchen. It's $450, to start. And its laudable blending ability doesn't even make itself apparent unless you're blending quite a bit of food at once. But over the course of the last month, I've yet to find food it can't turn into a healthful slop—eventually.
(You can buy a smaller blending carafe that makes it more suitable for home use, but that'll set you back nearly another $100.)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I’m going to dump my BlackBerry Curve for the myTouch 3G. Yes, I realize I’ve said that about the Palm Pre, iPhone 3GS and even the Sidekick LX (2009), but I’m serious this time. I think.
Many of you are actually going to upgrade or switch to the myTouch 3G and if you’re an existing T-Mobile customer, you can pre-order now for $199 and have it delivered by August 3. That price is only applicable if you’re eligible for an upgrade. But you should know that by now. It isn’t the Hero and it doesn’t have Sense, but it’s better than everything else T-Mobile has on the deck.
Panasonic’s new HD camcorder, the HDC-HS350, is all about the storage. The camera has a huge 240GB hard drive crammed inside and, if that wasn’t enough, you can also jam in a SD card to grab some extra footage.
The camera will record that HD footage for a full thirty hours before filling up, or 100 hours of standard-def, and the images are supplied by the Panasonic-invented 3MOS sensor, a 10.6 megapixel chip which acts like three separate CMOS sensors which grab red, green and blue light separately. The most immediate advantage is that the chips can shoot in very low light, down to 2 lux.
You also get niceties like auto follow-focus, anti-shake correction (which will lop off some of the frame, just like iMovie does) and a Leica lens with a 12x zoom. Price and release dates are as yet unconfirmed.
SPRXmobile, the startup behind Layar, the mobile augmented reality browser for Android, is moving fast. Barely three weeks after launching its application too much fanfare (see my video interview with the company's co-founder Raimo van der Klein for more context), it is opening up its platform by handing out keys for its just launched API to a select number of developers. Interested parties will need to fill out a request form, which should be available in about half an hour following this link, and the company will subsequently handpick 50 developers and provide them with the necessary documentation, tools and a test environment for third-party layers.
Layar is far from the only player in the mobile AR browser market, which is shaping up to be an interesting field as devices and the operating systems they run see technological advances at an ever-increasing speed.
Chrome OS promises to revolutionize netbooks and other underpowered machines. But why bother? Your netbook already has a browser and access to Google’s applications. What could Chrome do for you and your netbook?
No, the Palm Pre can do the conversion from gallons to decaliters just fine, it is the conversion from CDMA to GSM that seems to be giving the company fits. Back at CES, I was given a private word that the two devices would ship simultaneously and take the world by storm. But according to this announcement (“in time for the holidays”) by Palm, the two are not even close. My math says Palm will release the Pre by December 11th.
Why December 11? Easy. Following the roadmap and marketing effort Palm laid out in the states, the company seeks to feed on iPhone customers whose contract is up. The iPhone 3G, the real player in the UK where everything is 3G, launch day contracts are up on December 11th, 18 months after the original launch day of July 11. Palm will plead its case to UK mobilists (just coined a new word and I am off to go hashtag it on Twitter) who might be looking for something a little different.
Why launch in two stages? Simple: Apple did. Palm’s sales plan is to track Apple at the end of contract terms for each market. Why waste your time yelling about something folks are not interested in buying? Palm seems to reason the Pre’s isn’t impressive enough to stage an outright coup to get users to pay up their early termination fees plus new hardware costs, or it just lives in the real world and wants to maximize its payoff potential.
Interestingly, Palm’s statement of “before Christmas” is dangerously close to the end of the supposed 6 month exclusivity Sprint has on the device. That has me wondering if that has any bearing at all in delivering a GSM phone. Perhaps a bulk run in Asia and two boats sail: one for Europe the other for AT&T in the US? Wishful thinking, I am sure. What do you think? Will this intro spur the US bound GSM version or are we left to wait it out?
TwittAround is a terrifying new iPhone application which will actually overlay tweets on the world around you. It is an Augmented Reality Twitter Viewer which uses the iPhone 3GS’ location services to pinpoint your position and then queries the built-in compass to see which way you are looking.
Finally, it takes location-stamped tweets and overlays them onto the live view from the iPhone’s camera. This way, you can see just what kind of sandwich somebody was eating on the park bench in front of you. Astonishing.
Location aware tweets have been around for a while, but browsing them amounted to a list of messages, mostly from strangers, with no real context. TwittAround, from the people who brought the voyeur-tastic SurveillanceShaker, fixes the context part, at least, even showing you how far away the tweet is through perspective tricks.
We imagine that this is the ideal platform for Twitter spam, too, the virtual equivalent of the guy standing on a corner with a sign pointed at the nearby pizza joint. We’re optimistic, though. Imagine this combined with a tourist guide, for instance, allowing reality to mix with text overlays. Think of it as post-it notes for the whole world.
TwittAround is still in beta, and will need to run the App Store gauntlet before it is available.
Chrome OS, Google’s newly announced computer operating system, is coming this autumn and promises to revolutionize netbooks and other underpowered machines. Essentially, the OS is a small, fast-booting platform whose purpose is to run a browser, and from there all the Google apps and other web services you know and love. But why bother? Your netbook already has a browser and access to Google’s applications. What could Chrome do for you and your netbook?
Cost
Netbooks are cheap. So cheap that a disproportionately large chunk of the cost is made up of a Windows license. Ever wondered why the Linux versions of netbooks cost around $50 less? Microsoft tax. Chrome OS is based on Linux and will, like most Google products, be free, bringing the price of a $500 netbook down by 10 percent.
Speed
Windows 7 runs faster than Vista on a netbook. Scratch that. Windows 7 runs on a netbook, period. But Chrome OS is designed to run on low-powered Atom and ARM processors, and web-based applications don’t require that much horsepower on the client end so it should be faster still. Better, it will be small. Google is promising boot times measured in seconds, not minutes, so battery life should also get a boost — it will be possible to cold boot instead of sleeping or hibernating the machine, saving precious juice.
Compatibility
Google says that “[Users] don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.” One of the big problems with using anything but Windows XP on a netbook has been drivers. Try installing OS X on one if you don’t believe us, or any version of Linux not specifically designed for your model. If Google can come up with an OS that can be downloaded, dropped onto any machine and then “just works,” we might just have the ultimate portable OS.
Portability
Netbooks are meant for the road. At home, a bigger computer is almost always better but when traveling, a netbook shines. Swapping between the two is a pain, though. With Chrome, you can bet that all of Google’s service — Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa and so on — will be built-in and have offline access via Google Gears. If you are a good Google Citizen and use all these services, you’ll never have to worry about having all your latest data with you, whether you have a net connection or not.
New Applications
With its web services, Google has been slowly duplicating everything that we can do locally on our computers. Almost. There are a few things that Google doesn’t do yet, most notably a video player and a music jukebox. Sure, there’s YouTube, but what happens when you want to watch something other than a skateboarding dog in a blender? There are open-source options: The awesome VLC video player has just reached v1.0, for example, and the Songbird music player, based on Firefox, can even sync with an iPod. Both already run on some flavors of Linux.
Google may use these, buy them or even roll its own. One thing is sure, though: If Google can put out a whole OS that is as clean, fast and focused as its individual web products, the Chrome OS could be a revolution. A free revolution that could be making Microsoft extremely uncomfortable right now.
Erasing a hard drive. How do you do it? For home use, you don’t need to worry, but when you’re selling a computer, you really don’t want your information to stay on there in any form. I don’t care about the porn so much, but I do worry about bank details and my secret (and late) plans for the Lady’s birthday gift.
Most of us know that simply throwing files in the trash does nothing to actually erase the data from the disk. So, what’s the best way to trash them? One is to write random data over the entire drive, several times. The other is to physically shred the drive, smashing it to smithereens. Guess which one you’ll see in the video below?
OK, so we cheated. The actual video from Global Environmental Services, showing a couple of hard drives being fed into a wood chipper is sober, sensible and shows the correct way to dispose of your data. It is also excruciatingly dull. If you like, you can see it over on YouTube. Instead we stuck in an always-fun Will it Blend video, from the folks at Blendtec. They have never blended a bare drive, but this old clip of an HD-based iPod is close enough. And man, doesn’t that old white case look old?
So, there you have it. For responsible data destruction, use a blender.
It seems as if Google is trying to shake things up, first they remove the beta tag from Google apps such as Calendar, Docs, Gmail and Talk and now they have unveiled their latest project—Google Chrome OS.
“Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.”
Yes, you read that correctly, Google is planning to release an operating system based on their Chrome web browser. First things first, Google Chrome OS is not yet available, instead we will have to wait a while as it will not be available for consumers until the “second half of 2010,” which means we have to wait at least a year.
Anyway, assuming we can deal with having to wait (of course, really we have no other option) here is a little of what we have to look forward to. To begin with, Google Chrome OS will be open sourced and be able to run on both x86 as well as ARM chips. It seems as if Google Chrome OS is going to be the true cloud based operating system. According to the few details given “the software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.” Basically, users will be relying on web apps, and in terms of new applications, those can be written using, as Google puts it, “your favorite web technologies.”
So far it was noted that Google is currently working with “multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year.” Basically the details given were pretty light, however they did address the possible overlap of Android.
“While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.”
Sadly, though, even after a nice long post announcing Google Chrome OS on the Official Google Blog, I am still left wanting a little more of something. Maybe it is in the details, or due to the lack of anything in terms of images or screenshots. Bottom line, while interesting sounding, it sounds like we are going to have to wait a while longer before we get anything more because unfortunately, we can expect “more updates in the fall.”
The timing of 
Microsoft has upgraded its Quick Add feature in Hotmail, first 
So, we’ve known for a while that U2’s latest world tour was going to be 
The Wall Street Journal’s Julia Angwin, 
We at CrunchGear have been sitting things out today as our brothers at TC pant over 
Last summer, I wrote a 
Amazon has the Kindle 2 listed for $60 cheaper than previous prices, it now ships for $299, as opposed to $359. For some, $299 is still a pretty steep price to pay for an e-book reader, especially when a smartphone can perform a similar function. However, to others $299 might just be the price deal they were looking for and are now ready to pull the trigger on the enticing device. 
Last month HTC introduced its third Android handset, the Hero. The device was billed as a touchscreen phone with a newly designed user interface and carried some sweet specs: GPS, digital compass, a 5-megapixel auto focus camera and an anti-fingerprint coating on the screen for smudge resistance.
Amazon hasn’t said how many Kindles it has sold since launching the device in 2007, but it may soon be selling quite a few more of them. The company today 
While I was at the T-Mobile myTouch 3G event earlier today, a rep from T-Mobile whispered a few sweet nothings into my ear. I didn’t think anything of it because PR folk are always trying to butter me up, but there was something about Android updates that popped up.
Michael Jackson’s funeral was the most watched daytime program in history and quite probably the most watched program ever worldwide. The service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, was broadcast all across the globe, and for those who couldn’t get to a TV, 
