|
|
|
|
BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 7-05-2009Section:  We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Jul 2009 | 2:00 pm UPDATE 1-Venture CEO tells Centrica to pay above 900p/shrLONDON, July 12 (Reuters) - The chief executive of North Sea gas producer Venture Production said its shareholders were looking for "significantly in excess" of the 845 pence a share takeover offer made...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:12 pm Unsung, Unpaid Coders Behind Federal IT Dashboardtheodp writes "The Federal CIO got a standing ovation for the new Federal IT Dashboard. Federal contractors got the cash. But sneak a peek at the 'customcode' directory behind the Dashboard, and you'll see that some individuals also helped bring it to life with their free software. For starters, there's Timothy Groves' Auto Suggest (Creative Commons License), Alf Magne Kalleland's Ajax Tooltip and Dynamic List (GNU Lesser General Public License), and Gregory Wild-Smith's Simple AJAX Code-Kit (SACK) (modified X11 License)."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:10 pm GM hoping to rebuild company with eBay auction salesSection: Business News, Web, Websites
After declaring bankruptcy, the new General Motors Corporation is looking for ways to rebuild their company. A new program being launched by GM is a sales agenda that will include making the entire GM fleet available for purchase online through eBay. GM had previously sold certified pre-owned cars through the auction site, but this new incentive would include new vehicles as well. It is not legal for GM to sell their cars directly to consumers, so GM dealerships would actually be the ones creating the listings. The dealerships would be able to use the auction style listing in order to allow users to place a bid on a vehicle. They would also be able to opt to post a buy it now option. No word yet on how these prices will be determined by the car dealership. The winning bidder would have to go to the GM dealership that hosted the auction in order to complete the sale. The final details have not been ironed out between GM and eBay, but it looks at those the sales program would start in California before going national. GM executives hope that using eBay will appeal to users that prefer to research and buy online. Read: [CNN] Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:07 pm Apollo 11 debate is renewed - Columbia Daily Tribune
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:01 pm Why Big Data & Real-Time Web Are Made For Each OtherThere's been a lot of discussion lately about the real-time web and the problems it poses for incumbent search companies and technologies. Fast-moving trends and the availability of up-to-the minute updates...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:00 pm Dazzboard, An Open iTunes For Just About Any Portable Media File (500 Invites)Finnish startup Linkotec is close to debuting the public beta version of dazzboard, a browser-based media manager that it says has all the goodness of iTunes but without the disadvantages of Apple's closed...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:47 pm Dazzboard, An Open iTunes For Just About Any Portable Media File (500 Invites)
Granted, we hear that a lot, but I’ve been invited to take an early peek at what they’ve been cooking and came away fairly impressed. Dazzboard is currently invitation-only but is shooting for a Wednesday release of the public beta version. TechCrunch readers with limited patience (yes, you there) can already sign up to take it for a spin before that: 500 of you can register for an account right here. Note that the web application currently requires Windows - a Mac-compatible version is in the works - and works best when you’re using the latest Internet Explorer or Firefox browser. With dazzboard, you can plug a wide range of mobile devices into your computer and easily transfer multimedia content like photos, videos and music to the web-based management interface, after which you can organize all your files and seamlessly share them through a variety of social networking services. It goes both ways: with the use of the ‘Dazz me’ bookmarklet you can download content from the Web to the media manager and distribute it to your favorite social network or your mobile device once it’s transferred to your account. Dazzboard supports any portable device that can be used in mass storage or media transfer mode. The company divides the range of portable media players and mobile phones it supports into two groups: full supported devices (supported and maintained by the Dazzboard database, meaning no specific user action is required) and so-called generic devices (not fully supported by Dazzboard so handled as a generic media hub). In the latter case, it’s possible not all functionality of the media manager will work without any glitches. All in all, dazzboard worked as advertised with the few portable devices I used to test it, and it does a great job syncing media content from and to social networks like YouTube, Flickr, etc. Of course, supporting ‘thousands of devices’ means that the company risks getting flooded with just as many device-specific support questions on a daily basis if it takes off. There’s a reason why closed platforms sometimes win. Give it a whirl yourself and tell us what you think.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:47 pm 65 Cartoon Remixes - From Untooned Cartoons to Classic Characters Behaving Badly (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) In this slideshow, your favorite cartoon characters are portrayed in a way you've probably never seen them before. From untooned cartoons that create 3D realistic versions of Bowser,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:39 pm Half Suit Cover Shoots - Bruno Appears in British GQ August 2009 Issue (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The 'Bruno' movie premiered on Friday and Sacha Baron Cohen is continuing his promotion of the film by landing the August cover of British GQ. In the shoot by photographer Greg Williams,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:29 pm First-Person Shooter DiseaseAs the spouse of a former competitive Quake champ, I laughed pretty goddamned hard at this video about life with "First Person Shooter Disease." Living with First-Person Shooter Disease (via Scalzi)...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:27 pm First-Person Shooter DiseaseAs the spouse of a former competitive Quake champ, I laughed pretty goddamned hard at this video about life with "First Person Shooter Disease."
Living with First-Person Shooter Disease
(via Scalzi) Baby pictures in lost wallets increase the chance they will be returnedEdinburgh psych researcher Richard Wiseman and team left a load of wallets lying around with various contents, trying to see if there was a correlation between, say, baby pictures or cards indicating charitable...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:25 pm Baby pictures in lost wallets increase the chance they will be returnedEdinburgh psych researcher Richard Wiseman and team left a load of wallets lying around with various contents, trying to see if there was a correlation between, say, baby pictures or cards indicating charitable giving and the rate at which wallets are returned. It turns out that people in Edinburgh (and maybe everyone) have a high likelihood of returning wallets with baby pictures, but are much less likely to return the wallets of charitable givers:Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture (via Derren Brown)
(Image: 6. Wallet, a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Saad.Akhtar's Flickr stream) Tryvertising Rewards - Free Starbucks Ice Cream Treats for Facebook Users (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) Using the Facebook 'Share a Pint of New Starbucks Ice Cream' application, US users can send a coupon for a free pint of ice cream to a friend. As many as 20,000 free coupons for pints...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:19 pm High-ranking insurance PR flack defects, explains dirty tricks used to fight universal healthcareRoss sez, "A high-placed insider (ex VP of PR at Cigna) describes the machinations the insurance industry has used to keep us from getting a decent health care system."This guy literally wrote the talking-points memo that the anti-universal-health-care crowd uses. He had a conversion experience and has now come clean. Remarkable. Wendell Potter on Bill Moyers (Thanks, Ross!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:08 pm High-ranking insurance PR flack defects, explains dirty tricks used to fight universal healthcareRoss sez, "A high-placed insider (ex VP of PR at Cigna) describes the machinations the insurance industry has used to keep us from getting a decent health care system." This guy literally wrote the talking-points...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:08 pm Cruising Fisherman's Wharf For New Passports' Serial Numbersschwit1 writes "Fox News has an AP story on a SF hacker driving around and needing as little as 20 minutes to be successful in acquiring a passport number: 'Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner detected, then downloaded to his laptop, the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic US passport cards embedded with radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags. Within an hour, he'd "skimmed" the identifiers of four more of the new, microchipped PASS cards from a distance of 20 feet. ... Meanwhile, Homeland Security has been promoting broad use of RFID even though its own advisory committee on data integrity and privacy warned that radio-tagged IDs have the potential to allow "widespread surveillance of individuals" without their knowledge or consent.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:02 pm Sarkozy brings back crazy three-strikes Internet lawThe French "Three Strikes" law is back on -- a law that can punish you for being accused of copyright infringement by cutting off your internet connection, fining you, and putting you in prison. It also...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Sarkozy brings back crazy three-strikes Internet lawThe French "Three Strikes" law is back on -- a law that can punish you for being accused of copyright infringement by cutting off your internet connection, fining you, and putting you in prison. It also criminalizes offering free internet access because pirates might use it.Ed Felten nailed it: this is like a law that lets publishers take away all reading material from you and everyone who lives in your house if you're accused (without evidence) of infringing on three books. Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council--instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her €300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence.French "3 strikes" law returns, now with judicial oversight! (Thanks, Jeremie!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm Attention philanthropy: shining lights on human rights, urban planning, citizen media and renewable energyAlex from WorldChanging sez, We've just released our 2009 "Attention Philanthropy" grants, our effort to shine a light on awesome work that's undeservedly obscure. 100 nominators from around the world...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:56 am Attention philanthropy: shining lights on human rights, urban planning, citizen media and renewable energyAlex from WorldChanging sez,Attention Philanthropy 2009 (Thanks, Alex!) Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:56 am RHJ to submit new, improved offer for Opel-paperBERLIN, July 12 (Reuters) - Belgian holding company RHJ International is readying an improved offer for General Motors unit Opel which foresees preserving all of its German plants, a newspaper reported...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:20 am Hmm. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea after all.Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry. 
UFC fighter Frank Mir exhibits the unfortunate consequences of what happens when you step into the ring with six-foot-three, 265-pound human monster Brock Lesnar after last night's UFC 100 heavyweight bout.
"Lesnar, St-Pierre claim victories at UFC 100." (Image credit: John Locher/Associated Press.) Source: Boing Boing | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:12 am Ericsson to invest $1.5 bln in South Korea (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:07 am Financial investors may buy Vattenfall grid-sources*Vattenfall in exclusive talks to sell German grid- sourcesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:05 am Chrome: No Operating System for Old Men - TechNewsWorld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Jul 2009 | 11:05 am Chips in official IDs raise privacy fears (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Jul 2009 | 10:10 am S. Korea analyzes computers used in cyberattacks (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Jul 2009 | 10:09 am Thanks Everyone: The Real Time CrunchUp + The August Capital Summer Party.
Thank you to all of you who came out to support the 2009 Summer CrunchUp! We broke 600 attendees to the Real Time Stream CrunchUp, double our initial expectations, and we hosted lots more of you at the August Capital outing.
If you missed the CrunchUp, the video is on the CrunchUp site, courtesy of Ustream. Both they and FutureWorks did an amazing job to help us stream and record Real Time for future use. We live blogged as much of the conference as possible. In case you missed yesterday: The Real-Time Opportunity, including Ron Conway’s Top Ten List of Monetization Opportunities Additional archives are on the CrunchUp site. We incorporated real-time widgets and services, from CrunchUp sponsors Tinker, cc:Betty and Tokbox. Thanks again to Charles River Ventures and Microsoft BizSpark for helping to underwrite the CrunchUp. August Capital was unbridled start-up networking and fun. As usual, we are indebted to David Hornik and the partners at August Capital for allowing we hooligans onto their beautiful back deck under the premise of business socializing. We did manage to get a bit classy this year. Grey Goose Vodka hosted an amazing martini bar for us, complete with ice sculpture. (We were told the last time Grey Goose did an ice-sculpture, it was for Tiger Woods, so we’re super proud of our TechCrunch in ice.) cc:Betty’s founder Michael Cerda shared his latin jazz band, El Desayuno with us. Between sets, Pandora rocked the house with music. Silver Moon Desserts shared mini, gourmet ice-cream cones. Stormhoek provided wine and Groovy provided the beer and other refreshments. Friendster hosted an amazing caricature mural of attendees with artists who recorded hundreds of attendees. Gaping Void’s Hugh Macleod shared his Dream Big lithographs with attendees (a large-format serigraph a Dream Big was auctioned off during the CrunchUp, and picked up by Bantam Live founder John Rourke in honor of his company’s launch. Benefits to the EFF.) Lots of other start-up demos ran the length of the deck. Eye.fi took pictures on behalf of Microsoft BizSpark’s photo wall. Catch them on flickr. Please tag your photos of the conference and social with crunchup (also techcrunch, august capital, 2009.) Share your photos and posts about your CrunchUp experience, and we’ll add links to them here. Thanks again for sharing your own ideas and energy at the CrunchUp. Events like this keep our adrenaline up at TechCrunch. We’ll do another one soon. Lots more photos below. Thank You To Our CrunchUp Sponsors Who Made It All PossibleProduct Sponsors: Glam Media Lab’s Tinker live conversation moderation, Tokbox live video chat, Ustream live video streaming, Bantam Live, Charles River Ventures, Microsoft BizSpark and mailspace cc:Betty. Demonstration Sponsors: Seesmic, OneRiot, PeopleBrowsr, Mashery, IDrive, Sun Start-Up Essentials, Meraki, SocialFeet, Tapulous, Loopt, Grey Goose Vodka, Future Works, Gaping Void, Stormhoek Wines, Silver Moon Desserts, Friendster, LifeIO, Groovy and ODesk. Event Sponsors: Eventbrite for ticketing and MediaTemple for hosting, Topix, Orange, AIM/AOL, ReTargeter, NewTek, Coveroo, Pandora. More photos: Michael Arrington sweeps Randi Zuckerberg off her feet:
Michael Arrington (left), Ron Conway, John Borthwick:
Twitter creator Jack Dorsey on stage:
CrunchUp Crowd:
Grey Goose ice sculpture:
No idea, but I love it:
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 10:01 am Twitter Expanding Executive Team: Hires General Counsel From Google, Looking For CFO
We’ve been sitting on the story all day and were trying to talk with Macgillivray because our understanding is that he may not have told Google that he was going to Twitter and we didn’t want to be the one’s to break the news. But the story broke on the NY Times, so I’m guessing they know all about it now. We’ve also confirmed that Twitter is aggressively hiring across the board, including top executive spots. A number of candidates have been interviewed for the CFO job in particular. Macgillivray, a former Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati attorney, has been a key figure in Google’s legal battles over their book scanning efforts. The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the matter. Macgillivray is leaving Google at a crucial time. The books settlement is a key antitrust issue that needs to be handled delicately, and he was leading the charge (or, perhaps, retreat). Google will be scrambling to fill his role. One problem Twitter has had in attracting key executives, multiple sources have told us, is the impression that they may sell the company sooner rather than later. They have told candidates that they intend to stay in it for the long haul, and don’t plan to sell any time soon. We’ll see. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 9:40 am Chips in official IDs raise privacy fearsIt took him 20 minutes to strike hacker's gold. Zipping past Fisherman's Wharf, his scanner downloaded to his laptop the unique serial numbers of two pedestrians' electronic U.S....Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 9:27 am Stealing Data Via Electrical OutletPonca City, We love you writes "NetworkWorld reports that security consultants Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco are preparing to unveil their methodology at the Black Hat USA conference for stealing information typed on a computer keyboard using nothing more than the power outlet to which the computer is connected. When you type on a standard computer keyboard, electrical signals run through the cable to the PC. Those cables aren't shielded, so the signal leaks via the ground wire in the cable and into the ground wire on the computer's power supply. The attacker connects a probe to a nearby power socket, detects the ground leakage, and converts the signal back into alphanumeric characters. So far, the attack has proven successful using outlets up to about 15 meters away. The cost of the equipment to carry out the power-line attack could be as little as $500 and while the researchers admit their hacking tools are rudimentary, they believe they could be improved upon with a little time, effort and backing. 'If our small research was able to accomplish acceptable results in a brief development time (approximately a week of work) and with cheap hardware,' they say, 'Consider what a dedicated team or government agency can accomplish with more expensive equipment and effort.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Jul 2009 | 8:57 am Get Ready For Animoto Video…And Animoto 3DAnimoto is turning into a cult favorite web app - upload a few pictures to the service, pick some music, add some text and get a really cool video slide show back. They made my annual “can’t live without” list last year based on their obsessive desire to perfect a single product. Many, many users agree. Last month they announced a new round of financing and turned cash flow positive. Users are flocking to their iPhone application that lets you create slide shows from events even before you get back to your computer. And soon, CEO Brad Jefferson tells me, they will let users upload video clips as well as photos to make their slide shows. They actually showed the feature last month in a promotional video for the Webbies, which shows photos as well as short video clips.
Here’s what’s great about Animoto - these clips take just a few seconds to create. Animoto does all the hard work for you. And the demo videos show clips with mixed images and short video clips put together into a seamless product. You will actually be able to create these right from an iPhone using the app, the camera and the new video functionality, and then share them with your friends and family. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Jul 2009 | 7:00 am Real-Time Conversations Hasten Social CRM Social Media has evolved beyond a series of platforms that enable content publishing, sharing, and discovery into a genuine, peer-to-peer looking glass into the real world conversations that affect the perception, engagement, and overall direction of the brands we represent. Socialized media didn’t invent “conversations,” it simply organized and amplified them and established an opportunity for learning and collaboration. Twitter and Twitter Search have ushered in a new genre of not only communications and associated search technology, but also dedicated ecosystems that transform and support how we as consumers share and discover relevant information in real-time. Online discussions, rants, and observations are either alarming (and motivating) brand managers or fooling them into unforeseen enthrallment. But the reality is that real-time dialogue is fueling connections and perceptions in the statusphere, blogopsphere, online communities, and the social web in general. It’s this swelling tsunami of chatter that will only intensify and heighten as it forces a new genre of Social Customer Relationship Management (sCRM). Social CRM is no longer an option. It necessitates brand involvement to proactively share answers, solve problems, establish authority, and build relationships and loyalty, one tweet, blog post, update, and “like,” at a time. In the world of business, social media, led by Twitter, is forcing companies to augment the offshoring of reactive customer service with the nearshoring of proactive customer engagement. The conversations that power social media are sparking a sense of urgency to identify influential voices and talk to customers in a place and time of their choosing (generally, in public and online). For example, on Friday at during a panel at the CrunchUp on Real Time Business, Porter Gale, vice president of marketing for Virgin America, made it clear that Virgin America understands the promise, prospect, and value of listening and responding to the social stream. Erick Schonfeld, who was moderating, asked Porter how her team mines Twitter for the perception of the brand and also for determining how they contact customers.  Porter revealed that the Virgin America team is small and applies roughly the equivalent of 1.5 people to monitoring and engaging on Twitter and other social networks. To her and the team, social media is representative of not only a listening system, but also a complete engagement channel. The word “marketing” doesn’t even enter the mix. With more than 20,000 followers on Twitter, Virgin America is galvanizing a vibrant and active community of people who will respond in “Twitter time,” thus alleviating the modest team from having to engage in every discussion, whether it’s positive or negative. The most common example Porter shared was a response to the question, “Should I fly Virgin?” “The community closes the sale,” exclaimed Porter. She also shared a story of how Virgin America invests in the good will of customers, simply by publicly acknowledging and supporting them in the same channels where they’re communicating. During one flight, a woman who just graduated medical school to become a doctor, had tweeted her excitement about graduating and also flying @virginamerica. Instead of simply responding with a congratulatory Tweet, Porter and her team retweeted and asked someone on the flight to buy her a drink (the benefits of offering inflight wifi). To her surprise, Porter triggered an immediate response, “Row 11 is going to buy her a drink.” And, to her further astonishment, the person who sent that Tweet was live in the audience at the Real-Time stream event. Alexia Tsotsis, tech writer at the LA Weekly, shouted from the first row, “That was me!” Everyone in the audience was a witness to a vivid demonstration of how interaction online extends into real world experiences. More impressive is Virgin America’s use of the social Web for real-time customer service. They’re actively monitoring issues, frustrations, and recommendations to solve challenges as they arise. In several such instances, Virgin America has used Twitter as a real-time guest service recovery system in flight to address concerns and problems by contacting service staff in the air to alert them to issues – again, the perils and associated benefits of offering inflight WiFi. Earlier in the day, Peoplebrowsr (disclosure: I am an advisor) showed a demo in which airlines were ranked by the sentiment expressed about each brand on Twitter, and Virgin America was on top. Peoplebrowsr highlighted the ability to analyze conversational sentiment by industry through the alignment of positive, neutral, and negative conversations and perception by brand.
Ross Mayfield, CEO and founder of Socialtext, discussed the nature of the social dialogue enterprises are being pulled into and how conversations require more than one person or department to engage. SocialText offers a dashboard for enterprises that wish to collaborate internally with coworkers and externally with customers and stakeholders. Ross referenced the engagement iceberg, where he observes only a small portion of customer conversations and engagement as truly visible, with most occurring beneath the water line and thus, out of view.  He’ s right. In my research and experience, we’ve identified that every online conversation worthy of response directly matched specific divisions within an organization and usually rank in this order: 1. Support It highlights the reality that every department eventually needs to socialize. Ross then asked his fellow panel members as well as the audience, “Who’s going to own Social Media and the process of responding?” My answer: No one. Social Media is, for the time being, tuning-in new channels of influence to incorporate into the brand and marketing mix. While it takes a station manager time to receive the signals and in turn, coordinate outward broadcasts, it is the divisions within each organization that will need to shift from an introspective support mode to an extrospective group of proactive collaborators. But as Ross cautioned businesses and eager social media teams, “Before they collaborate with the community, they have to collaborate with themselves.” If responsibilities and workflow isn’t established and most importantly, if guidelines aren’t drafted and disseminated company-wide, the intention of helping influential customers and advocates can quickly transcend into social, and very public, chaos. We need rules of engagement. As Erick pointed out in the discussion, “It used to be unhappy customers who would call into customer service lines to express frustration. Now if businesses don’t immediately respond with a resolution and nip these issues in the bud, they have the potential of spreading and getting out of control. At the same time, companies need to identify and amplify praise as it happens.” Virgin America’s Porter Gale is trying to rally her team as well as the other departments that are affected by real-time conversations and the issues they raise. She hosts brownbag lunches, where PR, customer service, and other teammates discuss what’s happening with Twitter and other social networks. They also share and review strategies and tactics to teach and learn from each other based on their experiences. There are social networks, and there are tools with which to identify conversations and facilitate interaction, but everyone agreed, that in the world of new service and marketing, we need to improve the literacy and education among the teams who occupy the front lines. The “now” web is powerful. It’s building new bridges, networks, and channels. It’s absolutely changing the way people communicate, research, and ultimately make decisions. Yes, the real-time Web is powered by conversations. But, what’s important to remember, is that conversations are personal and therefore sacred. Companies such as Pizza Hut that relegate Twitter interaction to a summer “Twintern” will indubitably get what they pay for. We’ve already witnessed the public backlash when a twintern abuses Twitter on behalf of an unsuspecting brand. #habitat
The point is that it’s not whether or not an intern or junior staffer on the marketing and communications team is competent or incompetent. The reality is that businesses should view the role of engaging with customers, prospects and influencers as a strategic competitive advantage as well as an earned privilege. As panelist Maynard Webb of LiveOps pointed out, “A brand can get damaged faster than ever nowadays.” The true shift represented by the social and real-time Web is not simply the ability to surface relevant conversations as they happen, it represents the opportunity to learn from public sentiment and create a more aware and adaptive organization that leads communities through action. Monitoring the conversation is not enough. Brands need to jump in, but in a professional way. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 6:36 am Omega-3 no match for Alzheimer's, study finds* Shows promise in healthy people with mild memory troubleSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 6:00 am Plastic Circuits Designed To Enable Tough, Green ComputersDanS writes "Computerworld has an article about two Australian engineers who have invented 'Circuits in Plastic' technology. CIP designs aim to be more environmentally friendly than traditional circuits as they can be made from recycled plastic, don't contain any hazardous substances, and since packaging is part of the base circuit board, there is no need for additional packaging material. As an added bonus, different 3D shaped circuits can be made using CIP, which are also waterproof. No more ruining cell phones by getting them wet! The hope is that the technology will reduce the amount of toxic electronic waste in landfills, as even with lead-free technology, etching of existing printed circuit boards (and disposal of the chemicals) is a significant issue during manufacturing."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Jul 2009 | 5:50 am Did dinos burrow to survive harsh climate?Dinosaurs of different species in different hemispheres -- millions of years apart -- burrowed, perhaps to survive, an Emory University paleontologist says. Anthony Martin, the paleontologist, and other researchers had discovered 95-million-year-old skeletal remains of dinosaurs in a fossilized burrow in southwestern Montana in 2006. The researchers said the find suggested burrowing may have allowed some dinosaurs to survive extreme environments, in contrast to some theories about how they became extinct. Now, Martin has found evidence of more dinosaur burrows, on the other side of the world, in Victoria, Australia, findings to be published this month in Cretaceous Research say. This research helps us to better understand long-term geologic change and how organisms may have adapted as the Earth has undergone periods of global cooling and warming, said Martin, a senior lecturer in environmental studies at Emory and an honorary research associate at Monash University in Melbourne. The Victoria fossils are about 110-million-years-old, dating to one of the last times Earth experienced global warming. Earlier researchers had theorized small dinosaurs in the region survived harsh weather by sheltering beneath large tree roots or in hollows.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Jul 2009 | 4:40 am Knee surgery may not cut careers shortKnee surgery doesn't necessarily cut short a professional football career, a researcher reported at an orthopedic conference in Keystone, Colo., Saturday. Robert H.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 12 Jul 2009 | 3:54 am Check Twitter for Bargains - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Jul 2009 | 3:23 am French "3 Strikes" Law Returns, In Slightly Altered Formsuraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "The French Senate has once again approved a reworked version of the country's controversial 'three strikes' bill designed to appease the Constitutional Council. Instead of a state-appointed agency cutting off those accused of being repeat offenders, judges will have the final say over punishment. The approval comes exactly one month after the country's Constitutional Council ripped apart the previous version of the Création et Internet law. ... Not content to let the idea die, President Nicolas Sarkozy's administration reworked the law in hopes of making it amenable to the Council — instead of HADOPI deciding on its own to cut off users on the third strike, it will now report offenders to the courts. A judge can then choose to ban the user from the Internet, fine him or her 300,000 (according to the AFP), or hand over a two-year prison sentence."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Jul 2009 | 2:37 am RentHop: Easier Apartment Hunting, Without The Broker Fee
For the time being RentHop is only available in New York City, largely because of the way apartment hunting is set up there. For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, most of the time when you’re looking to find an apartment in New York City, you’re forced to work through a broker who will charge a fee of 15% of your first year of rent (which works out to around $3,000 based on NYC’s average rent). So why not just skip the brokers and go straight through Craigslist, which offers a broker-free ‘no fee’ section? RentHop co-founder Lee Lin says that oftentimes brokers will spam this section with fake listings, hoping to seduce viewers into calling them at which point they can say “Oh, that one is taken, but we’ve still got this one available…” and so on. Because NYC apartment listings rarely include an actual address, these are very easy to fake. RentHop solves this problem by going to major landlords, some of which own many buildings in New York City, and getting the listings straight from them. Each listing on RentHop has a valid address, which means that they’re harder to fake, and the site can also plot them on a map to give you an idea of where the apartment actually is. Lin says that landlords have an incentive to offer apartments through the site, because their inventory will move more quickly when potential tenants don’t have to pay a large broker fee. While the site originally launched back in Febraury, Lin says that most of the features have been added since then, and the site has changed its business model. RentHop now looks to generate revenue by offering a set of ‘Pro’ features to large major landlords, who can have hundreds (or more) of apartments to manage at once.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 1:09 am 23andMe Zeppelin Hanging Out Above My House, Creeping Me Out
But this blimp (or rather a zeppelin) they’re flying around Silicon Valley is a menace. First of all, I go outside to get away from work, not to look up in the sky and see a big startup logo hovering over my house. And our attempts to take a video of it almost resulted in a car crash (video below) (Yeah, probably more my fault than theirs, but still, it’s there, I need to video it. From a moving car). Go away, Blimp. Or Zeppelin. Apparently this thing has been around for a while. An excruciatingly detailed overview of the zeppelin and why it is flying around with a 23andMe logo on it is here.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:30 am How Much Does Google Like Twitter?
That’s 44 accounts by my count. Where are all those Jaiku accounts? Still think they have no interest in the micro-messaging service? Of course they do. It just may cost them more than a billion dollars to satisfy their fixation. And Microsoft is starting to get a fixation too. Remember when the two had a bidding war over a stake in Facebook? Update: Interesting. As Habib points out in the comments, it looks like Google may have missed one of its own accounts in the region list: Google Arabia. That makes 45. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:25 am Space companies eye HI as potential new frontierTourists coming to Hawaii for high-end getaways could someday be launched from the sand the stars, taking island-hopping to new heights. Hawaii could even be the first state where space...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Jul 2009 | 12:13 am Military's Satellite Meteor Data Sharing May Soon Resumejbdigriz writes "Leonard David has a followup piece to his original story, referenced here on June 22nd ('US Military Blocks Data On Incoming Meteors'). Air Force Brig. Gen. Robert Rego explains his decision to suspend the meteor data sharing program due to 'loopholes' in the informal arrangement. He and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher hold out some hope that the program will resume on a more secure basis at some unspecified but not too distant point."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jul 2009 | 11:42 pm Google accounts on TwitterLike lots of you, we've been drawn into Twitter this year. After all, we're all about frequent updates ourselves, and there's lots happening around here that we want to share with you. Of course, we enjoy watching, and contributing to, the tweetstream (we hope you find our tweets useful, too). Because there are many programs and initiatives across the company, we've got a number of active accounts. Here's a list of the current ones. We'll update this list from time to time.twitter.com/Google - our central account twitter.com/Blogger - for Blogger fans twitter.com/GoogleCalendar - user tips & updates twitter.com/GoogleImages - news, tips, tricks on our visual image search twitter.com/GoogleNews - latest headlines via Google News twitter.com/GoogleReader - from our feed reader team twitter.com/iGoogle - news & notes from Google's personalized homepage twitter.com/GoogleStudents - news of interest to students using Google twitter.com/YouTube - for YouTube fans twitter.com/YouTubeES - en Espanol twitter.com/GoogleAtWork - solutions for IT and workplace productivity Geo-related twitter.com/SketchUp - Google SketchUp news twitter.com/3DWH - SketchUp's 3D Warehouse twitter.com/Modelyourtown - 3D modeling to build your favorite places twitter.com/EarthOutreach - Earth & Maps tools for nonprofits & orgs twitter.com/GoogleMaps - uses, tips, mashups twitter.com/GoogleSkyMap -Android app for the night sky Ads-related twitter.com/AdSense - for online publishers twitter.com/AdWordsHelper - looking out for AdWords questions and tech issues twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah - Google Guide for AdWords Help Forum twitter.com/GoogleAnalytics - insights for website effectiveness twitter.com/GoogleAdBuilder - re building display ads twitter.com/GoogleRetail - for retail advertisers twitter.com/TechnologyUK - for U.K. tech advertisers twitter.com/InsideAdWordsDE - for German AdWords customers twitter.com/GoogleAgencyDE - for German ad agencies twitter.com/AdSensePT - info for Portuguese-language publishers twitter.com/AdWordsRussia - AdWords news & tips in Russian twitter.com/DentroDeAdWords - Spanish updates from the Inside AdWords blog twitter.com/AdWordsAPI - AdWords API tips Developer & technical twitter.com/GoogleResearch - from our research scientists twitter.com/GoogleWMC - Google Webmaster Central twitter.com/GoogleCode - latest updates for Google developer products twitter.com/GoogleData - Data APIs provide a standard protocol for reading and writing web data twitter.com/app_engine - web apps run on Google infrastructure twitter.com/DataLiberation - our initiative for complete import/export of all data twitter.com/GoogleMapsAPI - about using Google Maps embedded in websites twitter.com/GoogleIO - Google's largest annual developer event Culture, People twitter.com/googletalks - notes from our @Google speaker series twitter.com/googlejobs - the voice of Google recruiters Country or Region twitter.com/googlearabia - news from the Google Arabia Blog* twitter.com/googledownunder - Google activities in Australia & New Zealand twitter.com/GoogleDE - Google in Germany twitter.com/GoogleLatAm - Latin America (en Espanol) twitter.com/GooglePolicyIt - Notes on Google policy issues in Italy Update: Additions indicated by * Posted by Karen Wickre, Google Blog & Twitter Team   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 11 Jul 2009 | 11:01 pm Apple Still Mute to iPhone Complaints - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jul 2009 | 10:40 pm Five Years of PC Storage Performance Comparedtheraindog writes "PC storage has come a long way in the last few years. Perpendicular recording tech has fueled climbing capacities, 10k-RPM spindle speeds have migrated from SCSI to Serial ATA, Native Command Queuing has made mechanical drives smarter, and a burgeoning SSD market looks set to fundamentally change the industry. The Tech Report has taken a look back at the last four and a half years of PC storage solutions, probing the capacity and performance of a whopping 70 different notebook and desktop hard drives, SSDs, and exotic RAM disks. There's a lot of test data to digest, but the overall trends are easy to spot, potentially foretelling the future of PC storage."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jul 2009 | 10:40 pm Brooklyn Loses Sarah Jessica Parker, Gains a Super Rich Googler [MediaMemo]
OK. For the rest of you: The New York Times has unmasked the buyer of one of Brooklyn’s most expensive homes. It’s not, as an astonishing number of people have speculated, actress Sarah Jessica Parker. Instead, it’s unnamed Google (GOOG) engineer, who bought the place on Prospect Park West last year for $8.45 million. At the Googler’s request, the Times isn’t naming the buyer, citing “office culture at Google” (more on the Times’ policy on unnamed sources here). But it’s going to be hard to keep this one quiet for long. For starters, the buyers have already told the paper that “Harken Pretty,” the name of the limited liability company they used to buy the 9 bedroom, 5,000-square-foot townhouse, is an anagram of their names. They also note that the Googler started working at the company prior to its 2004 IPO. Assuming that the Googler is based in New York (he and his family are moving from Soho), that’s a reasonably small pool of folks to pick from. Maybe a couple hundred, tops. So this one’s getting out sooner than later. Meanwhile, Curbed has full set of pictures of the place, if you’re interested in that sort of thing (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Note that these snapshots were taken prior to planned overhauls. The exterior will have to remain the same, per New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. But while the interior was good enough for its previous owners, actors Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany, the new owners say the kitchen “had an inconsistent 1980s renovation.”
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jul 2009 | 10:15 pm Video: Hands on With the Vibram FiveFingers "Footglove"We review the Vibram FiveFingers, a creepy looking "footglove" designed to protect your feet, but keep your step completely natural.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm Video: Hands on With the Vibram FiveFingers "Footglove"We review the Vibram FiveFingers, a creepy looking "footglove" designed to protect your feet, but keep your step completely natural.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm How To Teach Programming To Kids, Via XboxAn anonymous reader writes "Chris Wilson reviews Kodu, the new XBox game that he calls 'Logo on Steroids.' The game allows you to build a world and program every object in it with an in-house graphical language, making the game a primitive example of 'reactive state machines' in a 'multi-agent concurrent system.' It sounds like what we call 'application specific integrated circuits' in engineering, where every line of code runs in parallel."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jul 2009 | 9:37 pm Public Service Announcement: Babies deter theftWho knew? Apparently would-be thieves have a soft spot for baby photos. A research study conducted in Edinburgh found that lost wallets containing baby photos were returned nine out of ten times.
This begs the question: If it works with wallets, will it also work for gadgets? Perhaps an adorable baby as the background on your cell phone and laptop might significantly up your chances of getting those devices back should they become lost or stolen. And finally, some suggestions of photos to NOT have on your gadgets:
Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture [Timesonline.co.uk via Consumerist]
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jul 2009 | 8:45 pm Searching Google, Where Internet Access is ScarceInternet searching means that finding information mundane, obscure, or fantastically useful is just a few keystrokes away — but not if you're without a connection to the Internet (or can't read), both the norm for many of the world's poor. itwbennett writes "Rose Shuman developed a contraption for this under-served population called Question Box that is essentially a one-step-removed Internet search: 'A villager presses a call button on a physical intercom device, located in their village, which connects them to a trained operator in a nearby town who's sitting in front of a computer attached to the Internet. A question is asked. While the questioner holds, the operator looks up the answer on the Internet and reads it back. All questions and answers are logged. For the villager there is no keyboard to deal with. No complex technology. No literacy issues.' This week, Jon Gosier, of Appfrica, launched a web site called World Wants to Know that displays the QuestionBox questions being asked in real time. As Jon put it, it's allowing 'searching where Google can't.' And providing remarkable insight into the real information needs of off-the-grid populations."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jul 2009 | 8:32 pm Video: A time lapse construction of a Super Hornet jet fighter
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 8:30 pm Google Stealing Apple’s Ideas And Other Tales Of Accidental Corporate Espionage
And then I read the story, which turned out to be a strange hit job on Google for no apparent reason, trying to imply that Google has somehow bypassed Apple’s “renowned secrecy” and used its ideas to foster the development of its new Chrome OS. And somehow, Google CEO Eric Schmidt is behind it. Caulfield claims that Apple may have “missed a spot” by letting Schmidt stay on Apple’s board. First off, why does everyone seem to assume that Apple isn’t well aware of the fact that Eric Schmidt is the CEO of Google? To paraphrase John Gruber, does anyone actually think Steve Jobs is too shy to confront Schmidt? Of course, Caulfield immediately goes on to say that Schmidt isn’t actually a spy, but rather that somewhere along the line Apple and Google have become “accidental competitiors” who have simply yet to realize it. Right. But the Schmidt point can be forgiven. It’s possible, however improbable, that Eric Schmidt has somehow been accidentally abusing his position at Apple to gain insider knowledge that he then leveraged to empower Google, all under Jobs’ nose, and without realizing that he was competing with Apple. After all, he is a very smart man. So on to the points where Google has apparently copied Apple, which range from the silly to utterly ridiculous. Caulfield points out that Chrome OS runs on x86 and ARM processors and is based on Unix. But look: Apple’s OS X also runs on both x86 and ARM processors, is based on a Unix variant, and NeXT Step (which laid the ground work for OS X) was used to build the web. Frankly I have no idea what that last point is even relevant to (maybe that Chrome is optimized for browsing the web?). Moving on, OS X is built to run on a wide range of devices, including the iPhone, servers, and Mac PCs. Clearly, Chrome’s planned support for both netbooks and eventually desktops is entirely derivative of Apple’s idea to allow an operating system to perform on multiple products. Caulfield fails to point out the major obvious differences between the two operating systems. For one, Chrome OS will probably be entirely browser driven — many of the details are still speculative, but it’s likely that Chrome PCs will boot directly into the browser, with a boot time ranging in the single digit seconds. Applications will all be reliant on ‘the cloud’, rather than storing data locally. In contrast, Apple’s OS X is totally different. It’s not cloud based. It’s a full fledged OS that doesn’t boot into the browser. It seems that Caulfield honed in on just about every other obvious similarity while ignoring the mountains of differences. Caulfield then gets into the similarities between the iPhone and Android. This is well-trodden territory, and Apple and Google are definitely competitors here. But trying to say Google stole the idea of a smartphone OS from Apple is strange — Apple and Google are taking very different approaches to their software (Google is free and used on devices from multiple vendors, Apple’s isn’t). And Apple wasn’t exactly the first company on the mobile block, though they did revolutionize the touchscreen. So, okay, we can see where Caulfield is going with this. Then :
Let’s just go through these one by one. Eric Schmidt was just quoted by the Financial Times as saying “[Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin] wanted to do this project since founding the company”. In other words, Google has been thinking about doing this for over a decade. But Google didn’t actually wind up releasing Chrome until well over a year after Safari hit Windows. Point Caulfield, I guess. Of course, by this logic, Apple was “stealing” that whole Windows browser thing from Microsoft to begin with. Next up, Apple’s office productivity suite iWork vs. Google Docs. I don’t think anyone who has ever actually tried using both iWork and Google Docs would put them anywhere near the same ballpark. Google Docs is a cloud-based service that allows for easy collaboration. But it isn’t where you’re going to be doing any heavy document lifting — I can’t imagine writing anything longer than a few pages in it, not to mention create a media-heavy presentation. Yes, you can edit documents in both of them, but calling this a “stolen” idea is pretty ridiculous. Finally, Apple’s Email service vs Gmail. This one is just laughable. When Gmail was released back in 2004, it revolutionized webmail, offering a full gigabyte of storage space to users (not to mention a great interface). Mail services at the time that had previously been restricted to a tiny fraction of that — in fact, Apple’s premium .Mac, which cost $100 a year, was only giving out a measly 15 megabytes of storage. Even if all these points held water, Caulfield could have used nearly exactly the same argument trying to accuse Google of “stealing” from Microsoft. Microsoft has a browser too, as well as a tiny productivity suite called Office, and an Email service called Hotmail. You may have heard of them. Google isn’t stealing, it’s competing. It’s releasing new products in an effort to beat out its rival. Likewise, Apple is out to beat Microsoft as well, so the two sometimes wind up releasing similar products. If anything, this is a case of convergent evolution, not cloak and dagger espionage. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jul 2009 | 8:00 pm Lockheed Martin Team Lays Keel On Nation's Third Littoral Combat Ship, Fort WorthRep. Kay Granger (R-12-Texas), the Ship's Sponsor, Authenticated the Construction Milestone MARINETTE, Wis., July 11 /PRNewswire/ -- A Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)-led...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jul 2009 | 8:00 pm Shuttle Launch Delayed by StormsLightning strikes delay Endeavour's launch, already a month late.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 11 Jul 2009 | 7:40 pm Bloggers held on hooliganism charges in Azerbaijan: rights group (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jul 2009 | 7:32 pm CrunchDeals: Kodak Zi6 for $99
It’s pink.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 7:30 pm Lightning Strikes Delay Shuttle LaunchTisha_AH writes "The Space Shuttle has had its launch delayed for inspection after several lightning strikes to the launch tower and/or shuttle. Several different technologies have been applied by NASA to divert the strike energy to ground potentials with Air Terminals (lightning rods), surge protectors or the often-disputed use of static dissipator brushes. One technology that appears promising is to cause a lightning strike (to a safe location) through the use of short pulsed ultraviolet lasers. Maybe in the future, once the technology matures, we may find widespread use of UV lasers to protect space launch vehicles, antenna towers or buildings."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jul 2009 | 7:28 pm The Hype Machine’s New Twitter Music Chart Is Too Easy To RickRoll
The folks at the Hype Machine, the popular music tracking site, think that all of the Twitter music charts out there are “lame,” so they decided to make their own Twitter Music Chart. It encourages people to Tweet out links to their favorite songs on the Hype Machine, where you can listen to the full audio stream. They came up with a formula which gives people with more followers on Twitter more points for every song they Tweet. The songs with the most points, move up the chart. It seems straight-forward enough, but it is way too easy for people with a large number of Twitter followers to game. I just RickRolled the chart by Tweeting a link to Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” from the TechCrunch Twitter account. The TechCrunch account has 916,735 followers, which gives each Hype Machine Tweet 2,997 points. A single Tweet was enough to put the song at the top of the chart, above Michael Jackson’s and Telepopmusik’s “Remember The Time” (1,972 points). Okay, so maybe it wasn’t fair to use the TechCrunch account, but what else am I gonna do on a Saturday morning plane ride back to New York (gotta love Virgin America’s WiFi in the sky). Even before I Tweeted the link with the TechCrunch account, I Tweeted it first through my personal @erickschonfeld account, which only has 7,224 followers, and was able to get the song to debut on the list at No. 24. Every time I Tweet out a song link, it counts for 266 points, noyt enough to get a song to the top spot with one Tweet, but enough to move “Superteen” by The Care Bears On Fire from the No. 12 spot to the No. 5 spot. The Hype Machine’s formula is flawed. No single person should be able to affect the rankings so easily. To be fair, it just launched, and as more people start voting, the system should self-correct. But the bigger problem with ranking songs based on someone’s popularity on Twitter is that just because someone has a lot of followers doesn’t man they have good taste in music (TechCrunch and myself excluded, of course). Ranking music based on roughly on how many Twitter followers someone has is just as lame as any of the other methods the Hype Machinists are trying to replace. (I like WeAreHunted). If there was a way to figure out who are the music experts or influencers on Twitter and give their Tweets more weight, that would create a more interesting list. Otherwise, the Hype Machine’s chart is just going to keep on getting RickRolled.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jul 2009 | 7:15 pm Tropical fish enduring off Sydney coastMore tropical fish species are thriving off the Australian coast near Sydney because ocean temperatures have warmed, an ecologist says. Marine ecologist David Booth of Sydney's University of Technology said when combined with the increasing strength of ocean currents in the region, warmer temperatures have made the traditionally cold waters more hospitable to fish species, the Sydney Morning Herald reported in its Sunday edition. More and more of the fish are surviving winter down here, Booth said.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jul 2009 | 6:52 pm Thriller Skull Phone could have just been named ‘Skull Phone’
Oh Brando, cashing in on Michael Jackson’s untimely death? You’re better than that, Brando. At any rate, the Thriller Skull Phone is an old-timey standard phone in the shape of a skull with blue LEDs for eyes that light up when the phone rings. Other features include that it’s tone/pulse switchable. And that’s about it. The phone costs $25 and is perfect for people who like skulls or Michael Jackson fans who are willing to make the enormous leap that’s required to tie this product in with the King of Pop.
Thriller Skull Phone [Brando]
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Jul 2009 | 6:30 pm Navigon’s MobileNavigator LITE app officially available for the iPhoneSection: Gadgets / Other, GPS/Navigation
After the iPhone 3.0 software was made available, GPS companies such as TomTom and Navigon announced their navigation plans for the iPhone. Back in early June, Navigon had officially announced their plans for a GPS app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Recently, it has been announced that the MobilNavigator LITE app by Navigon has hit the app store for all users to download for free. Since it is the LITE version of the app, it will lack some notable features, such as active route guidance. In addition, the LITE app sports updated maps as well as a comprehensive POI database. Since active route guidance is a big part of any GPS, users might want to wait until the paid version is released, which should be soon. However, give the LITE version a chance and see how you like it. If you hate it, you might not even want to try the paid version. Keep in mind the GPS app works on both the iPhone and iPod Touch. Read [Navigon]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jul 2009 | 5:36 pm Final Fantasy A+via newgrounds.com
Everything I hated in Final Fantasy, in satiric form.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 5:30 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of July 05, 2009Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jul 2009 | 5:02 pm Rosetta Stone Battles Google In Court Over Trademark InfringementRosetta Stone, a language-learning software producer, recently filed suit against Google's AdWords online advertising program for infringing its trademark, AFP reported.The company claims the Internet search giant is wrongly allowing its name and other trademarks to serve as keywords that other businesses can use to target paid advertisements to people on the web.Google said its policy is to allow trademarks to be used to target AdWords advertising.Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said the company allows trademarks to be used as keyword triggers in AdWords because users searching on Google benefit from being able to choose from a variety of competing advertisers.Pederson said providing users on Google with more than one option when they search for a brand name or other trademark helps them to find the best product at the lowest price.Similar lawsuits, which have yet to be resolved in court, have been filed against Google in the past.Google said in May it made efforts to become more in line with U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jul 2009 | 4:55 pm Lightning delays space shuttle Endeavour launchNASA scrubbed space shuttle Endeavour's Saturday evening launch after 11 lightning strikes were reported near the seaside launch pad. NASA technicians found no damage after an electricalSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jul 2009 | 4:46 pm Aquarium mouse lets you interface in style
Well, it doesn’t have a real fish inside. That’s probably for the best, though, as you’d have to figure out some way to feed it — and let’s not forget all the poo. As for the 800-dpi mouse itself, it features “precise optical technology” delivered through an old-school PS/2 interface. It’s also got three buttons and a scroll wheel. So how much would you expect to pay for this wonderful mouse? $49.99? (NO!) $29.99? (NO!) $14.99? (NOO!!!) Through a limited-time, one-day offer, you can get the aquarium mouse for one easy payment of just $2.99 (plus shipping). Not sure what it’ll cost tomorrow — don’t let this one get away! Get it? Like fish, they get away? So it’s like don’t let this one “get away” because it’s a product that has to do with fish? Like don’t let this product get away? So it’s like you know about this product now, which is like having a fish on your hook but if you don’t buy it, it’ll be like the fish got free from your hook and swam away? Hence, don’t let this one “get away”? Aquarium Mouse [Geeks.com]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 4:30 pm Meet Betty, a bionic goose with evil intentions (likely)
What have they done?! Soon we will be ruled over by this bionic goose, Betty, and her devious minions. Why in the world did veterinarians in the UK cobble together the first bionic goose when Mother Nature obviously had different plans by leaving her a half a mile from land with a busted leg. It doesn’t matter now. Betty’s plan is already in motion. The UK press is reporting that she is resting at an animal shelter where she is likely gathering the necessary forces to first overtake the British Isles and then the world. I, for one, do not welcome our new bionic goose overlord and will lead the resistance against her. Who’s with me!
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 3:55 pm Antivirus Glitch Creates Headache For Many PC UsersAntivirus software made by CA Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jul 2009 | 3:45 pm Kindle does sheet music: Amazon introduces “Kindle the Muse”Section: Business News, Gadgets / Other, Household, Lifestyle, Web, Online Music/Video
The “Kindle the Muse” collection is from FreeHand Systems’ Novato Music Press Catalog, which includes American music, classical, and traditional pieces by more than 1300 composers. Prices per piece range from $1.56 to $9.99. You can find the “Kindle the Muse” collection on the main Amazon Kindle storefront. You can also find it by doing a Kindle book search for “freehand” since the sheet music doesn’t have its own subcategory yet. Down the road I expect that Amazon will make “sheet music” its own category as it adds new music catalogs. Read: [Press Release] Full Story » | Written by Merlyn Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jul 2009 | 3:20 pm CrunchDeals: Wii for $200, Wii Fit for $72
The free shipping on Wii Fit is for when it’s bundled with the Wii — otherwise it’s $13 if you buy Wii Fit on its own. Might make a nice way to get in shape for the summer. Oh, and play video games all day long too. Wii Gaming Console [Dell] via dealnews
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 3:10 pm Free Apps roundup for July 10th, 2009FROM APPLETELL - Happy Birthday App Store. That’s right, you’re one now. There’s cake and presents, but truth be told, none of the presents are for you; they’re mostly for our readers. So, let’s go opens some! Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jul 2009 | 2:22 pm OSes gone and very forgotten
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 2:18 pm Indie Kindle author lands book deal
He will be published in hardcover in 2010 and is working on his next book featuring swashbuckling adventurer Tyler Locke.
Note to all you aspiring authors: Boyd seems to have his act together. He already has a road-map of books he’s planning and is attending a number of conferences for writers to spread the word. Not everyone, as we see from this self-published page, is going to get a two book contract with Mssrs. Simon and Schuster
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jul 2009 | 2:06 pm Google vs. Bing: Let’s put them to the testSection: Web, Web Apps, Web Browsers, Websites, Google, Features, Originals  Gadgetell decided to do a Coke vs. Pepsi scenario, but with Google vs. Bing. You know, put them head to head and search out the same material to see how they compared. I admit that I am one of those people that is so used to going to Google to look everything up, that even if Bing is better, it is going to be a hard habit to break. It’s like a cheesy 80s song. There has been so much hoopla surrounding these two search engines lately. When Bing first came out, I had heard all about how you could search out porn and watch it with a mere hover of your mouse. When I shared this with you all, I even had one reader tell me I was being too hard on Bing. Now, to clarify, I never said Bing wasn’t a good search engine. Just that it may be one you don’t want your 13 year old with the raging hormones using when you aren’t in the room. Because if you don’t think little Johnny is searching the word “sex,” you are naive. What really made me decide to do this was my amusement over the fact that there seems to be such a schoolyard scuffle going on between Google and Bing right now. Apparently Bing Travel was down for a bit a few days ago and Google took around four or five days to update the fact that it was up and running again in their search ranking. When you ran a search for “Bing” in Google (not “Bing Travel”, but “Bing” itself), the number two spot informed you that the site was down. So, then we had Microsoft tweeting Google telling them how they might want to take a look at that and update it. Amusing too that Bing is Googling themselves. So, to compare apples to apples, I first did the obvious and Googled and Binged myself. I got a lot of the same results on both sites throughout the pages, although not in the same order. I was kind of surprised with Bing’s order. They put as the top ranking me as a writer for Appletell. While I do also write for Appletell, I write more regularly for Gadgetell, and I have written for them longer. I obviously have many more articles and views as a result on Gadgetell, so, I would have expected that one to come up higher. I am unsure of how that one worked that way. The next word to try out was “Hershey.” I had a Hershey’s Take 5 candy bar near me while I was writing this. I got almost all of the same results on the first page. The notable exceptions being that Bing actually showed you the stock quotes right there on the page, instead of just offering you a link to them like Google did. Google had a little thumbnail of a map to get to Hershey which would link you to (obviously) Google maps. Bing didn’t offer anything like that, at least on the first page. On to sports, I searched for the “Dallas Cowboys.” Obviously the top ranking on both pages was the official homepage of the Cowboys. But, I think I liked Bing’s results better for this search other than that being the same. I like how it offered up “related searches” with links to Cowboys Apparel, Tickets, Dancers, Coaches, etc. And right at the top left of the page, there is also the section where Bing gives you “Images,” “Schedule,” “Rumors,” “Wallpaper,” “Jerseys,” and “Coach.” Plus the fact that NFL.com didn’t even show up on Google until almost the bottom of the page seemed kind of odd. And all they offer off to the side is a link to Bank of America. I did a couple of other words, and for the most part, I liked how Bing laid out the results better than Google. More information, but separated and easily available, and still relevant. It wasn’t of highest relevance in all cases for what I was looking for, but I think that will come better in time. I think Google may be getting so testy because they are so aware of the fact that finally, they have a serious contender in the search arena. They are so used to being king of the search hill, they aren’t taking it well at all. Maybe they should search the phrase “competition is healthy” or “good sport.” Because hate to break it to you, Google, I think Bing is going to be be badda-booming it for good. Full Story » | Written by Jodie Andrefski for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jul 2009 | 1:14 pm Facebook Slapped With Lawsuit Over Ownership RightsOn Friday, social networking giant Facebook found itself in another legal wrangle as San Francisco based Power.com filed a lawsuit over ownership of content on personal profiles.The controversy centers on Power’s key feature which allows users of various social networking sites to share info and access multiple accounts through a single portal. The company has defended its service, saying that it “believes in a borderless Internet where users have the right to control their own data.”Power.com added that users ought to have “complete and total ownership” of all content and data on their personal profiles and that neither other users nor corporate entities ought to be able to make use of it or restrict its use without the consent of the owner.Power’s lawsuit accuses Facebook of unfair competition, restricting trade and attempting to form a monopoly.The suit is part of an ongoing struggle between the two firms over competitive practices and ownership rights. In January, Facebook sued Power.com, alleging copyright and trademark infringement, unlawful competition and fraud.Power.com has denied those allegations and in its countersuit has requested that Facebook be legally prohibited from "anti-competitive practices," while also seeking financial redress for unspecified damages and costs.Facebook justified their lawsuit earlier on the grounds of their rigid protection of user privacy, saying in a statement that they only resorted to suing Power.com after “numerous attempts” at negotiating had failed and the company “continued to put Facebook user data at risk.”In an official statement, Facebook added that Power’s claims are “without merit” and that they would be fought “aggressively.”Facebook found itself in a fix earlier this year when they attempted to change their users’ terms of service in order to prohibit customers from sharing and modifying their personal pages through portals like Power.com. They were forced to fold on the issue when users began to complain that the company was attempting to take ownership of the personal data posted on their profiles.Power’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Vachani has accused Facebook of trying to suppress competition by limiting their customers’ access to their own personal data.“If you block users’ data or any tools they would like to use to get that data [...] this is similar to phone companies that blocked you from moving your phone number,” contended Vachani.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jul 2009 | 1:05 pm Talking to bureaucracies considered as a corporate fitness factorSeth Godin eloquently describes the fitness factor that makes a restaurant suited to getting placement in an airport: they have to be run by corporations whose primary skill is dealing with bureaucracies. I wonder why this competency appears to exclude a comparable competency in preparing edible food?Have you noticed that most airports feature the same restaurants? It's not an accident. The people who run these chains have organized themselves to be good at dealing with municipal organizations. Same thing goes for design firms, creative firms, accountants etc. that deal with large corporations.The art and skill of working with bureaucrats Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jul 2009 | 1:03 pm Visualization of US consumer spending Here's a nice dataviz of US consumer spending as of April 2009. How depressing is that minuscule slice labelled "reading"?
How The Average U.S. Consumer Spends Their Paycheck
(via Sociological Images)
Bletchley Park codebreakers recognized by British governmentThe codebreakers of Britain's Bletchley Park have finally been officially recognized by the UK government for their critical contributions winning WWII. Now, if we can only get the British government to put some money into preserving the shockingly decayed site itself...Government honours veterans of Bletchley Park at last (via /.)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jul 2009 | 12:58 pm Wandering minds are active mindsUCSB brain researcher Jonathan Schooler has an intriguing theory about why our minds wander:The regions of the brain that become active during mind wandering belong to two important networks. One is known as the executive control system. Located mainly in the front of the brain, these regions exert a top-down influence on our conscious and unconscious thought, directing the brain's activity toward important goals. The other regions belong to another network called the default network. In 2001 a group led by neuroscientist Marcus Raichle at Washington University discovered that this network was more active when people were simply sitting idly in a brain scanner than when they were asked to perform a particular task. The default network also becomes active during certain kinds of self-referential thinking, such as reflecting on personal experiences or picturing yourself in the future.The Brain Stop Paying Attention: Zoning Out Is a Crucial Mental State (via Kottke) Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jul 2009 | 12:56 pm Pesky Foreign Seaweed Invades Coast Of CaliforniaAll along the California coast, stretching from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a species of rapidly-growing sea kelp from Japan has begun taking over the coastline and spreading quicker than authorities can contain it.The aggressive seaweed, known to scientists as Undaria pinnatifida, was first detected in the area in May when a local biologist noticed the marine plant clinging to piers and boats in a San Francisco Bay yacht harbor.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jul 2009 | 12:40 pm
|
Finnish startup Linkotec is close to debuting the public beta version of 
The baby photograph wallets had the highest return rate, with 88 per cent of the 40 being sent back. Next came the puppy, the family and the elderly couple, with 53 per cent, 48 and 28 respectively. At 20 per cent and 15, the charity card and control wallets had the lowest return rates.
BILL MOYERS: Was [Michael Moore's SICKO] true? Did you think it contained a great truth?
In typical TechCrunch style, it was a work-hard, play-hard day. Thank you to all our CrunchUp speakers for investing your time with us to talk about new trends, boundaries and your passions. Plus we fit in 22 new product highlights from start-ups and big internet companies alike.
Twitter has hired 
The feature is near-ready to launch to users, Jefferson told me last week. I was on a Southwest flight with him and Wired editor Fred Vogelstein (see his recent Facebook 
I’m a fan of DNA startup 
This morning I woke up and saw an interesting headline on 
While I’m partial to Fly Guy’s aquarium platform shoes in 
One of the selling points of the 
Whoa, Dell, that’s some aggressive pricing on the Wii and Wii Fit. Assuming it’s not a price mistake, you can get — today only — the Nintendo Wii for $199.99 and Wii Fit for $71.99 with free shipping. 
And you thought 
