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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s Letter About the YaSoft Deal [BoomTown]
Here is Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Carol Bartz’s letter to the Yahoo “fans,” which appeared on the company’s blog this morning, about the just announced search and online advertising deal with Microsoft (MSFT). Main messages: Better! Google (GOOG) is a lopsided monster! Microsoft is a frenemy! And, mostest of all: WOW! Bartz, like BoomTown, was up early:
Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 6:11 am Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Deal on Search Partnership - New York Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 6:10 am Microsoft and Yahoo! announce Web search deal (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 6:02 am Barnes & Noble Launches Free Wi-Fi - InformationWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 6:01 am Woman's Tweet Draws Landlord Lawsuit - InformationWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 6:01 am Sprint loss widens but loses fewer customers (Reuters)Reuters - Sprint Nextel Corp posted a wider quarterly loss but fewer customers defected from the No 3 U.S. mobile service, which started selling Palm Inc's popular Pre phone in early June.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:59 am Kodak outs the 1080p Zi8 pocket camcorder
Oh man, we nailed it. Remember that dumb Kodak viral video we posted where a marketing dude was showing off the latest Kodak product but it was blurred out Japanese porn-style? Well, we said it would be an updated pocket camcorder and it’s a new, 1080p-recording pocket camcorder. The Kodak Zi8 packs a lot into the small form factor. It has 1080p recording, along with face tracking, image stabilization, an external mic jack and a 2.5-inch LCD. All your precious moments will be recorded onto an SD card. Just like the Zi6, videos can be uploaded to YouTube directly, but this model also supports Facebook uploads. At $179, the Zi8 comes in $20 under the MSRP of the Flip UltraHD. Hopefully the quality of the new Kodak passes the Flip as that little camera is a tad disappointing despite the 720p video recording mode. Expect the Zi8 to hit stores sometime in September.
Source: CrunchGear | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:59 am Lamps Made From Old Cassettes Exude Warm Retro Glow
This commercial product, the Cassette is Not Dead lamp, is an invitation to start a great DIY project. The €25 ($35) lamp is made up of old audio cassettes which are joined together by nothing more than string. In fact, so easy is it to construct that you can even remove and replace cassettes so they can be listened to (assuming you actually have something to play them on):
See? Also available is a floor-standing version, which is essentially the same thing, forming a shade on a standard standard lamp. This costs a record-collection replacing €220 ($312), and could also easily be re-made with a bit of help form Ikea. Still, as inspiration, the beautiful lamps are priceless. Product page [OOOMy Design] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:49 am MicroHoo Deal Finally Official in a 10-Year Landmark Partnership (Plus the Full Press Release) [BoomTown]
Finally. After a decade of competition, several years of push-me-pull-you partnership talks among innumerable execs come and gone and even a hostile takeover that went bad, Yahoo and Microsoft have officially struck a landmark 10-year search and online advertising deal. While it is in no way as sweeping as some had expected, the deal marks the most important union of digital companies in recent times. It gives Yahoo much-needed backing–especially financial–and gives Microsoft the most Silicon Valley cred ever. “In simple terms, Microsoft will now power Yahoo! search while Yahoo! will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers,” said the two companies in a joint press release. That’s not to say it will work out, as a deal like this is all about execution and how well the companies manages the partnership. But, for now, here’s the official press release:
Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:49 am Twitter becomes a real-time search engine - V3.co.uk
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:45 am Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal: The Official Press Release
Official press release (emphasis ours apart from title and subtitles):
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:38 am Pirate Bay unfazed by new threats - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:36 am Profit below estimates in 2Q for Diller's IAC (AP)AP - IAC/InterActiveCorp, the company behind such Internet properties as Match.com, Ask and Citysearch, posted a second-quarter profit that fell short of analyst expectations Wednesday and indicated the online ad market is still weak.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:36 am Captain Kirk declares war on HP - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:31 am Schneider National to Deploy Qualcomm's Mobile Computing Platform 200 Series to Entire Fleet- Agreement Renews 20-year Collaboration to Bring Revolutionary Technology to Transportation Industry - SAN DIEGO and GREEN BAY, Wis., July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:30 am General Dynamics Reports Strong Performance in Second Quarter 2009- Operating earnings rise 2.6 percent - Revenues increase 10.9 percent - Full-year EPS guidance raised FALLS CHURCH, Va., July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- General...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:30 am Belden Announces Second Quarter 2009 ResultsSecond Quarter 2009 Highlights - Adjusted net income per diluted share was $0.34 in the quarter - Free cash flow during the second quarter was $47.9 million - Second...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:30 am IAC Reports Q2 ResultsNEW YORK, July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IAC (Nasdaq: IACI) released second quarter 2009 results today. SUMMARY RESULTSSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:30 am UPDATE 1-China Pacific hires CICC, banks for HK IPO -sources* CICC to be lead underwriter for potential $3.5 bln HK IPOSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:15 am Onion Spoof Gadgets Almost, Nearly, Bad Enough to Be Real
On the left, you see the E-Z Go Spine Extractor, it’s purpose: “Removal of undesirable fish spine and other living things has never been easier! For immediate taste-pleasure and easy disposal.” The spine extractor, although authentic in both cheap design and Engrish product pitch, is a spoof. As is the rather handy looking box next to it, the Yu Wan Mei Device, which “has been completed and is now available for sale.” These parodies are what happens when the Onion gets into gadget marketing, and like anything the Onion does, they’re so close to the truth of our day-to-day gizmo-hunting life that a few tears of knowing pain slip between the mirthful drops from our laughing, watering eyes. Click over to experience the dangerous joys of Metal Fun, fast-food snack bags filled with filings, shavings and other sharp shards. Or the Yu Wan Mei Loyalty Bracelet, the blurb for which is worth quoting in full:
Hot New Consumer Products [The Onion]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:12 am The Worlds First Mile-Long Advertising Billboard Becomes a RealityLONDON, July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- The world's first mile long billboard becomes reality. This quirky and unusual idea of the 'Mile Long Advertising' (Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:07 am Time Warner Cable 2nd-quarter profit risesTime Warner Cable Inc., one of the nation's biggest cable TV system operators, said Wednesday higher subscription revenue helped boost its second-quarter profit by 14 percent, beating Wall...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:04 am Toshiba loss swells to US$614 million in April-June quarterToshiba's red ink swelled to 57.8 billion yen (US$614 million) in the April-June quarter, hit by losses on asset sales and weakness at its consumer electronics and chipmaking businesses.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:03 am India HPCL sees 1 mln T naphtha exports in 2009/10NEW DELHI, July 29 (Reuters) - India's Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd is likely to export 1 million tonnes of naphtha but no fuel oil in the current fiscal year, a top company official, who did not want...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:01 am Lawmakers to propose ban on driving while texting - The Associated Press
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:01 am Monsterpod Camera-Mount Sticks to Almost Anything
One well crafted pitch from Photojojo and we’re hooked. Here’s the opening of the blurb which describes the Monsterpod: “If there were a tripod equivalent to the hoverboard, the Monsterpod would be it.” Unbeatable. So what is it? The Monsterpod is a fat disc of viscoelastic polymer with a tripod mount up top. Screw on your camera, scooch the pod onto almost anything (bricks, glass, stone) and there it sticks for up to ten minutes, holding your camera steady for a quick low-light shot or self-portrait. Viscoelastic Polymer is a material that acts like rubber honey — once deformed it creeps slowly back into shape. Think Stretch-Armstrong, only more useful. The Monsterpod costs $30, and you’ll need to spend another $10 on the zip-up carrying case. This makes it a little more expensive the the other favorite mini-camera holder, Joby’s Gorillapod, although the uses of each are different enough that you might want both. Maximum camera weight, 20oz. Product page [Photojojo] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:00 am QOTD [Digital Daily]
Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:00 am Benchmark Electronics Reports Results for the Quarter Ended June 30, 2009ANGLETON, Texas, July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Benchmark Electronics, Inc. (NYSE: BHE), a leading contract manufacturing provider, announced sales of $482 million for the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 5:00 am Super Talent’s Pico 32GB USB drive is the world’s smallest and water resistantSection: Gadgets / Other, Peripherals, Storage
Product [Super Talent] Via [SlashGear]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:58 am Small Social Sites Work Together To Tackle FacebookSeveral small social sites are starting to wonder how to be successful when they have to compete against juggernauts like Facebook.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:56 am Orangutans Swing For SurvivalScientists studied how Sumatran orangutans are able to swing from branches that appear too weak to handle their weight. They believe their findings will help their fight for survival. A research team from Birmingham, U.K.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:41 am Geek Gives 1-Up to Retro-Gaming Handheld
I’m a retro-gamer. I used to beat all comers at Street Fighter 2 (SNES) playing with my feet. I once lent that same SNES and a copy of Super Mario Kart to an apartment full of weed-smoking stoner friends so they could practice and “offer me more of a challenge” (result, a thrashing for me). So I’m well into the idea of putting these classics in my pocket, but for one thing… The price. The GPX2, from Korean company GamePark, costs $180. This is steep, even on a million dollar per year blogger’s salary. On the other hand, the machine has a 320×240 2.8” AMOLED touch screen display, a gig of memory and an SD card slot. It also runs a flavor of Linux, meaning that once I have laid out my $180, I can keep my cash and use emulators and hypothetical collection of legal ROMS. In short, $180 puts every old game, ever, on a handheld. Is this starting to excite you yet? Gp2X Wiz Runs Retrogaming Rings Around Mainstream Rivals [BBG]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:32 am AP source: Microsoft, Yahoo near Web search deal (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:31 am Culture-Inspired Fashiontography - Vogue China August 2009 Issue Offers New Take on Chinese Traditio (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Shot by Quentin Shih, Vogue China's August 2009 issue portrays the new lifestyle in China that is affected by the modern western culture.Although the series of shoots are called "Inspired...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:30 am Giant linocut type-map of Paris Marilyn sez, ""Around eight months ago, Mark Webber began work on his latest project, which he is very nearly ready to print. It's a typographic map of Paris. It's in French (naturally) and, being a linocut, Webber has had to carve out every single street and area name he's included, in reverse. Oh and it's 1.8 metres across..."
Man seeks massive printer
(Thanks, Marilyn!) Giant linocut type-map of ParisMarilyn sez, ""Around eight months ago, Mark Webber began work on his latest project, which he is very nearly ready to print. It's a typographic map of Paris. It's in French (naturally) and, being a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:29 am 20 String Innovations - Flossy Ideas, From Playgrounds to $121,000 Panties (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) String is a valuable tool for many many reasons. You can occupy your cat, play a guitar (I know different types of string) or create an extremely expensive undergarment with it. You...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:20 am McLaren And Samsonite Launch Luxury Travel BagsBy Andrew Liszewski While definitely slick looking, I think these new suitcases, that are a result of a partnership between McLaren and Samsonite, might actually venture a bit too far into overkill territory...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:19 am Canadian copyright collecting agency subverting open debate on copyrightAccess Copyright, the Canadian author's collecting society (a group that collects money from libraries for book lending and gives it to authors) is using its members' money to sabotage an enormously...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:18 am Canadian copyright collecting agency subverting open debate on copyright
Access Copyright, the Canadian author's collecting society (a group that collects money from libraries for book lending and gives it to authors) is using its members' money to sabotage an enormously popular consultation on the future of Canadian copyright.
Previous to this consultation, the Canadian government twice tried to ram through restrictive, US-style copyright rules, refusing to meet with Canadian creators, net-users, libraries, educators, publishers or musicians. Now, after hundreds of thousands of Canadians came forward demanding public consultations and a balanced, made-in-Canada answer to copyright in the information age, Access Copyright has responded with an hysterical, dishonest call to its members to condemn the consultation and any notion of protecting privacy, access, fair dealing and other public rights in copyright. The broadside includes this remarkable condemnation of "users" of information -- that is, readers, writers, teachers, scholars, fans, government, students -- "It's a simple fact that users outnumber us. But Canadian users involved in the online debate are so adept at leveraging the Internet and social networks to their advantage, there's a danger that your voices as Canadian creators and publishers will be drowned out by the chatter. Your interests need to be expressed as forcefully as possible, and it's up to you to get involved to make that happen." These are the same people who launched the ill-starred "Captain Copyright" campaign, using writers' money to produce embarrassing, half-witted comic books that were meant to indoctrinate children, inculcating them with fear of using authors' works in their own creations. After the Captain Copyright fiasco, it seemed that Access Copyright would settle down and look at a balanced approach. But recent times have seen an upswing in loony, toxic copyright maximalism from the organization, including a recent bid to collect money for out-of-copyright public domain materials. As Michael Geist says, "So AC claims that the public is trying to deprive them of their livelihood, while they actually try to get the public to support their livelihood by charging for things that doesn't even belong in their repertoire. Hard to believe that users are now characterized as powerful and adept at controlling the debate. All the more reason to encourage people to use Speakoutoncopyright.ca and make their voice heard." As a Canadian author, Access Copyright is supposed to represent my interests in the Canadian copyright debate. Instead, they are setting out to undermine the first glimmer of sanity in Canadian copyright policy in three governments -- and using my money to do it. For shame. Copyright Debate Takes Aim at Your Livelihood
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Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:18 am Apple Wins Right To Say Its Apps Are 'Only On The iPhone' - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:18 am 122 Three-Dimensional Designs - Exploring Strange New Worlds, From Televisions to Tables (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) Now, I know we can see in the third dimension and touch in the third dimension, but there is a cosmic third dimension that can only be experienced through certain eyes (pretty much...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:10 am LG to Embed Vudu’s On-Demand Movie Service Into TVs
“Smart TV’s are part of an exciting new industry trend,” says Alain Rossmann, CEO of Vudu. “Vudu is partnering with leading consumer electronics vendors to embed the new Vudu service directly into the TV, eliminating the expense and hassle of purchasing, installing or connecting another device to the TV.” The new Vudu service delivered through LG TVs allows consumers to discover and watch high definition movies on-demand. The service will be available on upcoming models of LG’s broadband TVs later this fall. Licensing Vudu’s software to consumer electronics makers such as LG though is a strategy that allows Vudu to go out of the box and focus on delivering the service. It’s a strategy similar to what GPS-navigation devices maker Dash had adopted. Dash started out by producing standalone GPS boxes with its software that offered services such as local search. But the company soon abandoned the hardware-based GPS systems and instead focused on licensing its applications and services to run on other products. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion acquired Dash earlier this year. In the last two years, streaming media boxes that bring online movies, TV shows and content to the TV have become popular with consumers, though they are still a small fraction of audience that rents movies. Apple launched its Apple TV in 2007. Meanwhile, Roku, a company that started by offering $100 boxes in partnership with Netflix included access to content from Amazon.com earlier this year. Netflix rival BlockBuster also has a streaming video box available. Vudu says its service differs from rivals in that it can offer movies in 1080p definition and high resolution Dolby Digital surround sound. Vudu also offers features such as instant fast forwards, rewind and instant start for all its movies. Customers can instantly buy or rent from the company’s library of movies with no monthly fees. See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:00 am 12 Wild Mask Fashions - From Lady Gaga Face Masks to Disguised Animal Dolls (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) No need to reveal your true identity thanks to these 12 mask fashions. While some (those of Lady Gaga) are over-the-top, some are simply eccentric (gold gas masks). Whether it be in...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 4:00 am Bug-eyed steampunk monster maskMore mask glory from Ukrainian steampunk leatherworker's collective Bob Basset -- a bug-eyed monster. Mask - order number N. Previously:Cthulhu mask on eBay - Boing Boing Leather Cthuhlu mask from...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:57 am Bug-eyed steampunk monster mask More mask glory from Ukrainian steampunk leatherworker's collective Bob Basset -- a bug-eyed monster. Mask - order number N. Маска заказ номер Н
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Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:57 am US border station scraps sign that says "United States" because terrorists might attack itA handsome, welcoming new border crossing has had its 21-foot-high yellow "United States" letters scrapped because crazy border people are afraid that the words "United States" will serve as an irresistible temptation for terrorists.Four years ago, when the federal General Services Administration unveiled its plans for a new border-crossing station here in northeastern New York State, the design was presented as part of the agency's campaign to raise the dismal standards of government architecture. Even many in the famously fractious architectural community celebrated the complex -- particularly its main building, emblazoned with glossy yellow, 21-foot-high letters spelling "United States" -- as a rare project the government could point to with pride...At a Border Crossing, Security Trumps Openness (via Schneier) Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:54 am US border station scraps sign that says "United States" because terrorists might attack itA handsome, welcoming new border crossing has had its 21-foot-high yellow "United States" letters scrapped because crazy border people are afraid that the words "United States" will serve as an irresistible...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:54 am Viral Video: “Rocket Man” Shatner Channels “Maverick” Palin (Watch Out, Tina Fey!) [BoomTown]
In a genius pairing of subject and artist, here is the best online viral video this week from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show,” featuring actor William Shatner reciting outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent farewell speech verbatim. You simply can’t make this stuff up. Done in Shatner’s perfect Captain James T. Kirk/”Rocket Man”-style, here is the video from NBC (as well as Shatner interpreting the Elton John-Bernie Taupin hit song, and also my favorite impression of Palin by Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live”): Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:53 am Associated Press claims to have discovered magic anti-news-copying beansA lot of copyfighters were mystified by the Associated Press's recent announcement (complete with a bonkers diagram straight off a bottle of Dr. Bronner's) that they had spent millions of dollars on a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:52 am Associated Press claims to have discovered magic anti-news-copying beansA lot of copyfighters were mystified by the Associated Press's recent announcement (complete with a bonkers diagram straight off a bottle of Dr. Bronner's) that they had spent millions of dollars on a DRM system for news that would limit how you could paste the text you copied from your browser window.This is a seeming impossibility, and while there will always be DRM vendors with impossible magic beans to sell to any panicked goofball media dinosaur who'll buy them, it just seemed too weird to think that no one at the AP had said, "Wait, what? This is dumb." Now Ed Felten has delved into the details that can be gleaned about these magic beans and concludes that AP has made up a bunch of fictional things that their reasonably neat content-management system and microformat can do. AP's DRM Announcement: Much Ado About Nothing
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Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:52 am BedBunker: Sleep Sound On Top of Your Weapon Stash
Apparently one of the most common, and therefore obvious, places to hide your valuables is under the bed. This means its the first place a thief will look. But if you have the BedBunker, it will make no difference — he won’t be able to open it anyway. The BedBunker is a gun cache which sits under your mattress and infuses your dreams with manly, death-spraying action. Inside the 10-gauge steel box you can cram the bare essentials for survival: 35 rifles and 70 handguns. You can even take the optional castors to turn this into a rolling weapon-wagon. Worried that things might get hot and the caps will start popping underneath you? The safe is fireproofed for 120 minutes, giving you time to get out before things blow. For the truly paranoid, we suggest just throwing a mattress inside and sleeping in the BedBunker itself (warning, air supplies may be tight). How much for this macho princess-and-the-pea accessory? $2,200-$4,000 depending on size. Infomercial below. Product page [Bed Gun Safe via Uncrate]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:51 am Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Imminent: Analysts Weigh In
If the deal is completed it will close the 18-month long negotiation that began with a $45 billion merger offer on February 1, 2008. The details of the deal will determine the bump in Yahoo’s share price, something investors really desperately desire. Here’s what the deal may look like (from a Thomas Weisel Partners analyst report colorfully titled BingHoo! earlier this evening):
The bottom line is, no one expects any upfront payments to Yahoo. Revenue split estimates range from 80% - 110% to Yahoo (higher in the beginning), and there is likely a hefty guaranteed revenue component so assuage the Yahoo board of directors. This is a much different search deal that Microsoft offered Yahoo a year ago. From our summary of that long-dead offer:
It’s also much different, and likely much less attractive, than the Google/Yahoo search deal announced last summer and which was terminated before implementation. We’ll analyze the actual deal terms as they are announced, but our guess is the likely outcome of this is one big complicated mess. The result: Google will take even more search share. Why these two companies don’t just merge is beyond me - everyone we’ve spoken with says everyone, on both sides of the table, would prefer a merger. Everyone, that is, except Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:47 am Active kids sleep betterA paper in Archives of Disease in Children documents a New Zealand experiment in which children's sleep habits were tracked against their activity, as measured by an actigraph. The conclusion won't surprise many parents: kids who run around all day sleep more at night (and kids who sleep more at night are more apt to run around all day).Active days mean better bedtimes (via Consumerist) Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:46 am Current Recession Offers Redemption to Tech Industry [Voices]By Erica Alini, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Information and communications technology companies, whose bust dragged down the world economy in 2001-2002, are much less of a problem and much more of the solution in the current recession, a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development suggests. The ICT industry — which includes anything from manufacturers (think Intel Corp.) (INTC) to software firms (Microsoft Corp.) (MSFT) to Internet companies (Google Inc.) (GOOG) — took a hit from slumping global demand, but it is showing signs of a rebound, the OECD found. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:45 am Paul Carter's "The Enormous Absurdity of Nature": superb essay on space, the moon, religion, myth and science
Earlier in July, I attended the Kansas University Campbell Conference, the annual event at which the Campbell and Sturgeon Awards are given out (Little Brother was one of the Campbell winners this year). One of the honorees at the awards ceremony was Paul Carter, the historian and science fiction scholar. Paul was absolutely charming all weekend, a clever, twinkle-eyed presence in the room at all the various discussions, and then, at the very end of the event, he took the podium and delivered the closing lecture.
Called "The Enormous Absurdity of Nature," Carter's essay was one of the most beautiful, lyrical and thought-provoking pieces of writing I had encoutered; it examined the mythic, religious and scientific history of humanity's relationship to the Earth, to space, and to the moon. It epitomized everything great about scholarly writing -- the ability to show the unexpected connections between seemingly disparate subjects and to illuminate them in so doing. Paul's son Bruce was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the manuscript for "The Enormous Absurdity of Nature" and to pass on Paul's consent to publish it here. I only regret that there isn't video of Paul's delivery, which was magnificent, practically a sermon (turns out Paul's father was a Methodist minister).
So here it is; posting it here is one of my most exciting Boing Boing moments for the year. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
During the week in the hot summer of 1994 when we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the first human visit to Earth's moon, broken chunks of Comet Shoemaker-Levy, carefully labeled from A to W by watchers on Earth, crashed into the back side of Jupiter. When the big planet rotated sufficiently to show Earth observers the extent of the damage, Jupiter quite to their surprise displayed visible blemishes, some of them more than Earth-sized, on its colorful cloud-banded face. They shared space with the long-extant Great Red Spot, which Jupiter watchers had had under continuous observation for two centuries and more. The Enormous Absurdity of Nature (PDF, scan of original typescript) The Enormous Absurdity of Nature (HTML, OCR'ed from original typed manuscript)
(Thanks, Paul and Bruce!)
1-800-FLOWERS.COM Sets Up Shop Inside Facebook
Registered users can now order all kinds of floral products from the popular florist and gift shop without ever leaving the social network. 1-800-FLOWERS is a bit of a pioneer when it comes to initiatives like this. In 1992 (!), the company was already fiddling with selling goods via the Internet, and two years later it became the first merchant of any kind to transact on AOL. Now, at least according to the company, it’s the first online retailer to launch a fully functional commercial storefront inside Facebook. Somehow, I doubt that statement rings true, but I couldn’t immediately think of or find any other e-commerce outlets that can handle online orders from a to z inside Facebook. Alas, when I did a search on Facebook for “1-800-flowers”, the very first result was a group unambiguously called 1-800-Flowers Sucks and when I filtered down the results for Pages only the only result was one dubbed 1-800-flowers-screwed-u-2? (albeit with 0 fans). I finally found the official Facebook Page when I added “.com” to the search query, but at first sight it seems currently people are using social media more often against the company than vice versa. Anyway, this is what the company’s Facebook shop looks like:
1-800-FLOWERS.COM has teamed up with ad network / app developer Alvenda to bring its store to a potentially massive audience on Facebook (although only some 1530 people have become a fan of the florist shop’s Page so far). I’m told future versions of the store will integrate more robust social features, including birthday calendars and group gift giving options. Currently, 1-800-FLOWERS accepts payment with all major credit cards, but it’s conceivable that it will be quick to implement Facebook’s upcoming proprietary payment platform, which is currently being tested with a handful of developers. To conclude, a tip: when you become a fan of the retailer’s Facebook Page, you get a discount code. Happy flower shopping! Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:38 am Free: a great book, but it's missing the truly freeHere's my Guardian review of Chris Anderson's excellent new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price. As with The Long Tail, Free gave me lots to think about: it does a tremendous job of enumerating the economic and business opportunities derived from the net's capacity to deliver so much for free. However, I think that, as with The Long Tail, Free stops short of considering one of the most important aspects of the net: the extent to which purely non-economic, non-commercial activity is filling in niches that were formerly reserved for commercial undertakings, or were altogether invisible.Chris Anderson's Free adds much to The Long Tail, but falls short
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Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:29 am In Europe, Auto Spam Translation Kicks InAn anonymous reader writes "While spam levels globally remain at a two-year high of approximately 90 percent, some European countries are seeing levels of over 95%. According to a new MessageLabs report (PDF here), countries such as Germany, France and the Netherlands are being heavily targeted by spammers with automated spam translation techniques. The use of automated translation services enables multiple-language spam runs and is responsible for a 13% increase in spam levels in these countries since May."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 29 Jul 2009 | 3:21 am BB Video Notes: Mighty Boosh at Roxy (video stills)
Here's a hastily-uploaded set of video stills from the Boing Boing Video shoot of The Mighty Boosh (Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Dave Brown, Michael Fielding, and Rich Fulcher) performing live at the Roxy on Sunset tonight. We'll be publishing a little mini-documentary about the Boosh's voyage to Hollywood next week, but I thought these quick snaps would be fun to share now. The show was a lot of fun, and all those trufans lined up for blocks, many in character costumes? Pretty amazing to witness. Related, from earlier today: Boing Boing Video shoot notes: The Mighty Boosh
O4 Reignites Cadbury's Field Sales Force With Easy-to-Use TechnologySYDNEY, July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Cadbury today announced it has chosen O4 Corporation, the world's leading provider of mobile sales force automation solutions to deliver an advanced retail execution solution.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 2:00 am Chunghwa Picture Tubes Schedules 2009 Q2 Investor Online ConferenceTAIPEI, Taiwan, July 29 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:59 am Booyah Society: Level Up in Life! with your iPhone So what is Booyah and what does it bring to the iPhone that no one else has done? Before we dive into that here’s a little background info on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup. Founded by three former videogame industry vets from Blizzard, Activision and Insomniac Games, Booyah looks to shake things up with real-life achievements for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Booyah CEO Kevin Lee is an industry vet having worked on Ratchet and Clank, Diablo II, Resistance: Fall of Man before parting ways with Blizzard to launch Booyah with Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen. Booyah’s main goal is “to motivate people to pursue their real-life passions while positively impacting themselves and the community around them. It’s the first achievement system for life.”
Source: TechCrunch | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:30 am Hidden Booze Treasure Ad CampaignJason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.
I'm more used to being a critic of advertising, but I have to admit, I kind of like this old late 60s-early 70s ad campaign/stunt for Canadian Club whiskey. The idea is really simple: the company hid cases of the whiskey in remote locations throughout the world, and daring go-getter boozehounds with, I imagine, a good bit of disposable income, would go off in hunt of them. The ad I have here describes one at the bottom of Devil's Backbone Reef in the Bahamas. Here's an old article about it, too.
Incredibly, as improbable as it would seem that a company would be allowed to just leave around cases of alcohol in our modern, fussier time, it looks like the contest was revived, in 2004, but they were in U-Hauls, which makes it lots less fun. Information about the event is a bit scant online, but I did find this one very, very informative comment: In 1967, Hiram Walker and its advertising agency began hiding cases of Canadian Club Whiskey around the world. In all, 22 cases were hidden and 5 remain hidden to this day. The 5 remaining cases were hidden: 1) At the North Pole; 2) In Lake Placid, NY; 3) In The Yukon Territory of Canada; 4) On Robinson Crusoe Island off the coast of Chile; and 5) In Ujiji. Of the 5 remaining cases, those in Lake Placid, The Yukon, and Chile have clues which are at best vague. Those cases will most likely never be found. Of the 2 other cases, both the North Pole clues and the Ujiji clues were quite specific. The North Pole clues included Longitude and Latitude, Minutes and Seconds. Unfortunately, due to its location, it most likely sank into the snow long ago. The Ujiji case remains the strongest candidate as to its potential discovery. If anyone is interested in learning of the Ujiji hidden case of Canadian Club whiskey, contact me @ james.willhoft@gte.net Wow! There's still 5 cases out there! I actually found a few other similar posts about the remaining 5 cases, signed by a "James W." Man, this guy really, really wants those weathered old cases of hooch. Maybe it's time to get up an expedition of discriminating drunks with lots of frequent flyer miles to burn, or willing to take up a collection and get poor, obsessed James a case of his own. Source: Boing Boing | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:28 am Viral wedding video gives Brown's "Forever" a boost (Reuters)Reuters - When Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz asked their wedding party to turn their wedding into a party, the result was the latest YouTube hit, "JK Wedding Entrance," which featured the entire cast dancing down the aisle to Chris Brown's "Forever."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:14 am Build the Wall [Voices]By David Simon, Contributing Writer, Columbia Journalism Review To all of the bystanders reading this, pardon us. The true audience for this essay narrows necessarily to a pair of notables who have it in their power to save high-end journalism—two newspaper executives who can rescue an imploding industry and thereby achieve an essential civic good for the nation. It’s down to them. … Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Katharine Weymouth, publishers of The New York Times and The Washington Post. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:01 am SuiteLinq(TM) Deploys Public Area Computing Service at Sheraton University City HotelEXTON, Pa., July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- SuiteLinq, Inc., a provider of multimedia interactive, broadband, and on-demand solutions for hospitality and extended-stay environments, has extended its interactive services from the guest room to the hotel lobby at Philadelphia's Sheraton University City Hotel.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:01 am On the Go, Running Errands or Waiting in Line, Study Shows Smartphone Users Prefer Using Their Voice to Typing or TouchingMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- A study released today reveals that smartphone users are more inclined to buy a device that offers them the ability to push one button, say what they want and get it, making them more efficient on the go.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:01 am iPhone development tools that work the way you do (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - When Apple opened up the iPhone to developers, O'Reilly books noticed a big jump in sales of its long-neglected titles on Cocoa and Objective C. These elegant dialects never caught on outside of Apple, but when the iPhone SDK appeared, the world started studying up again. If you want to work in Rome, learn Latin.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:01 am Future of Cyber Security: What Are the Rules of Engagement? [Voices]By Kim Zetter, Contributing Writer, Wired The fireworks weren’t only in the sky this past Fourth of July but were seemingly in the Intertubes, too, when U.S. and South Korean government websites were struck by a series of cyber sorties that knocked a few sites off line and left some people seeing red — as in the crimson Communist hue. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am Is the Economy Really THIS Bad? [Voices]By Jim Goldman, Silicon Valley Bureau Chief, CNBC This was a strange earnings season. But it has been a remarkably strange economy. But when you look at the big names in tech, including Intel, IBM, Apple, Google, Yahoo, eBay, Microsoft, and the big names on Wall Street, there was a bizarre disconnect over what was expected, and what was realized. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am Daily Crunch: Cold Cupid Edition
Penguin-powered bootable USB drive looks like actual penguin
Source: CrunchGear | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am Blip.tv Brings Programs to YouTube, Ads to ‘Channel Awesome’ [Voices]By Michael Learmonth, Reporter, Ad Age What does the TV network of the future look like? A version of it is coming into focus at New York-based startup blip.tv. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am The Apple Tablet: Some Possibly Answered Questions [Voices]By Harry McCracken, Blogger, Technologizer About the only thing we know for sure about Apple’s allegedly upcoming tablet computer is that there’s definitely misinformation floating around at the moment. Last week, AppleInsider was exceptionally confident that Apple will be shipping its long-awaited tablet computer in the first quarter of next year. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am Buzzluck.com, the World's First Online Supercasino, Adds a Live DJ and a Trip to MarsLONDON, July 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Having conquered Europe with their innovative new online supercasino, the boys at Buzzluck.com set their eyes on a new heavenly body to make their mark on: Mars.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 1:00 am IPhone SMS Attack to Be Unleashed at Black Hat (PC World)PC World - Apple has just over a day left to patch a bug in it's iPhone software that could let hackers take over the iPhone, just by sending out and SMS (Short Message Service) message.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:50 am UMC Reports 2009 Second Quarter ResultsTAIPEI, Taiwan, July 29 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Second Quarter 2009 Overview (Note 1): -- Revenue increased 108.8% sequentially to NT$22.63 billion (US$690 million) -- Gross margin of 23.8%, operating margin of 11.9% -- Net Income of NT$1.55 billion (US$47 million) -- Earnings per share of NT$0.12; Earnings per ADS of US$0.018 Note 1: Unless otherwise stated, all financial figures discussed in this announcement are prepared in accordance with ROC GAAP, which differ in some material respects from generally accepted accounting principles in the United States.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:42 am Noctilucent Clouds Likely Caused By Shuttle Launchesicebike writes "In our recent discussion of the phenomenon of noctilucent clouds, there was some suggestions that these might be the product of global warming due to moisture being lofted high into the atmosphere. It now appears that these clouds are simply the product of Shuttle launches. In a story about the Tunguska blast, Science News says: 'Each launch of a space shuttle, which burns a combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen as fuel, pumps about 300 metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere at altitudes between 100 and 115 kilometers. Soon after the January 16, 2003, launch of the shuttle Columbia, a liftoff that took place just after the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere, noctilucent clouds appeared over Antarctica. Similarly, a widespread display of the night-shining clouds showed up over Alaska two days after the shuttle Endeavour blasted off on August 8, 2007. Previous studies show that in both instances those clouds included material from the shuttle plumes.' So, man-made after all?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:33 am SCM Microsystems Receives Market Leadership Award in North AmericaSANTA ANA, Calif. and ISMANING, Germany, July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SCM Microsystems, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:30 am SAP posts better-than-expected net profit (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:28 am YC-Funded HighlightCam Makes It Easy To Remotely Watch Babies, Pets And Burglars
It does this by watching for changes in video streams, which is to say that it looks for motion happening within the video. When it senses something, it knows to remember that portion of the video. And, if you set it up to do so, it can also send an email to you to let you know there is activity currently happening on the video stream. You can probably dream up a bunch of uses for something like this, but the obvious ones are monitoring babies from other room, watching your pets when you’re away, and yes, watching to make sure no one is breaking into your house. This sort of technology has only existed up until now in high-end security systems for big commercial buildings, we’re told. But HighlightCam does this at a fraction of the cost. To use it, you simply have to set up a webcam and then visit the HighlightCam site. The service is entirely browser-based. And you don’t even need an account to start using it (though you will need one to access recordings later). If you want to see it in action, Justin.tv has been using it for their pets section, and it was a part of their recent API launch. The Y Combinator-funded HighlighCam makes use of the freemium model. With the free version you get the core features including the ability to use any webcam and e-mail notifications. But the main limitation is that your recorded videos are only stored for 24 hours. With the premium version (which is $8.99 a month), videos are archived for 2 weeks, and you get higher resolution recordings, no ads on the site and the ability to download recorded videos. I think we definitely need to set this up for the TechCrunch CrunchCam. Most of the time when I’m not in the office and I tune in, I just see Jason and Leena diligently typing away with absolutely no perceivable motion occuring. It’d be great to get an alert for the 15 minutes a day when there is actually something going on, like Segway jousting.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:16 am Can Your Phone Read This QR Code?[via CScout Japan] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:08 am Rental Report Shows Scottish Rents Sliding - But it's not all Bad NewsEDINBURGH, Scotland, July 28 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the latest rental report from Scotland's leading online letting portal Citylets, people renting property are benefitting most from the beleaguered housing market, with a wide choice of properties available and rents continuing to fall across the country. The latest Citylets quarterly rental report, which covers the period April to June 2009, shows that average rents declined for the second consecutive quarter and are now 3.3% lower than the same period in 2008. Although high stock levels have forced landlords to lower prices to secure leases, properties are still proving slower to let than in previous years.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 29 Jul 2009 | 12:00 am Siliconware Precision Industries Reports a 53.6% Quarter-over-Quarter Growth in RevenuesTAICHUNG, Taiwan, July 29 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Siliconware
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 11:07 pm EyePet: an augmented reality monkey-dog for your PS3
The pet can interact with a few things, like a plane you can draw and fly around or a card that lets you check for… foriegn objects, perhaps. Now there’s no doubt this looks fun and weird, but when these developers saw Project Natal they probably all started crying like babies. EyePet should be coming out for the holidays. Get it for your kid, it’s cleaner than a real monkey-dog.
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:30 pm Palm Pre Ad, Trauma EditionSource: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:22 pm Flower shop launches first Facebook store (AP)AP - In a first, but likely not last for Facebook, a retailer is setting up shop inside the popular social-networking site.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:22 pm Breaking: iPhone 3GI only visible to those loyal to Apple
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:15 pm Samsung Mobile Application Store Coming to Europe (PC World)PC World - Samsung plans to launch a mobile application store in Europe this quarter, following an increasingly popular path to revenue inspired by Apple's iPhone App Store.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:10 pm Larger Than Life Prints: Because Giant Custom Stickers Make Everything Better
The site is still fairly new, but’s already beginning to attract some top talent, including Susan Kare, who is famous for designing the on-screen graphics of the original Macintosh computer and many of Facebook’s popular virtual gifts. LTL Prints is featuring many of these artists in a collection of ‘big wall art‘, which includes art curated by the Start Soma Art Gallery. It’s hard to really get excited about stickers, but these are actually pretty impressive. They’re made out of a study fabric-based paper that’s really hard to tear (we tried), and it can also be applied many times on various surfaces, like walls and glass. You can roll the sticker up in a ball, and it will pull apart without any lasting damage. Contrast that with most other large stickers, which are typically made of vinyl, and it becomes clear that these are truly some high grade stickers. Prices for the stickers range from $20 for a 2ft sticker to $165 for a massive 7 ft tall sticker. From there you’re free to charge higher prices if you sell your sticker in the site’s integrated marketplace. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm July 29, 1994: Videogame Makers Propose Ratings Board to CongressUnder the gun to do something about sex and violence in their games, the manufacturers patch up their differences and come up with their own ratings system.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm Booting Up Baghdad: Tech Execs Take a Tour in IraqAs the CEO of MeetUp, Scott Heiferman usually spends his days meeting with staff and brainstorming product strategy. But today the 37-year-old New Yorker, wearing a combat helmet and armored vest over a black business suit, is crammed into a battered C-130 transport plane headed for Iraq. Military and diplomatic personnel aboard are warily eyeing him and the others in his party, all similarly attired, as the C-130 begins its steep, corkscrew descent into the Baghdad airport. And Heiferman is thinking, "What am I doing here?" It's only been a few weeks since he got an email from a State Department policy planner named Jared Cohen inviting him to join the first tech delegation to post-invasion Iraq. Now he's strapped in with eight other Silicon Valley executives, mostly in their thirties, from Google, Twitter, YouTube, Blue State Digital, WordPress, Howcast, and AT&T. When Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey got his invitation, "I just said yes," he recalls. YouTube's director of product management, Hunter Walk, had to go down to his basement to find a suit to wear, because Cohen insisted that the group dress like diplomats to show respect for their hosts. Others worked their spouses for approval, repeating Cohen's assurances that the security situation in Baghdad was much improved. Howcast CEO Jason Liebman's mother thinks he's on a trip to LA. When the plane lands, Heiferman, Dorsey, Liebman, and the rest meet Tony, an ex-Marine straight out of central casting who will head their security team. "Is everyone's insurance paid up?" he jokes, then adds confidently, "I will get you out alive." He tells them that if a rocket bomb lands nearby, they should hit the floor with mouths open so the explosion doesn't shatter their eardrums. Before the implications of that can sink in, the execs are aboard a pair of helicopters racing vertiginously 150 feet over collapsed buildings, desert-camouflage Humvees, and the muddy rivers that once cradled civilization. It's like being plunged into the dense, dizzying pixels of an Xbox game. Ten minutes later, the birds land in the US Embassy compound in Baghdad's Green Zone (officially renamed the International Zone), and the Americans find themselves in a windy parking lot, desert sand stinging their faces. Now they'll confront the question behind this visit: Can Iraq be saved by meetups, Web searches, tweets, blogs, and YouTube videos? The previous evening, Cohen, the 27-year-old State Department tyro who dreamed up the trip, laid out the agenda over dinner at a restaurant in Amman, Jordan. Up to that point, his fellow diners had been told little more than this: We are looking to integrate new technology more broadly into our foreign policy objectives. Cohen is a former Condoleezza Rice protégé now thriving under Hillary Clinton. Between puffs of flavored tobacco smoke drawn from a hookah, he explains that using technology to spread democracy has become a cornerstone of what diplo-nerds are calling 21st-century statecraft. Cohen chose this group for several reasons: to expose them to the changed reality of Iraq so they could spread the word back home, to inspire Iraqis to pursue capitalism with the fervor of a tech startup, and to initiate a few projects that will actually help Iraq rebuild. David Nassar, a VP at Blue State Digital—which handled online aspects of Barack Obama's campaign—is along to offer ideas on elections. Raanan Bar-Cohen, vice president of Automattic (the company behind WordPress), is an advocate for blogging and the open source movement. Richard Robbins, AT&T's "director of social innovation" (a title he invented), represents the big mobile firms. And there are three people from Google (including YouTube's Walk) because—well, because it's Google. Cohen's fear is that taking a bunch of Web 2.0 suits into a nation shattered by war will be seen as an absurd boondoggle, mocked in the press as war tourism for Twittering geeks. The way to counter this, he says, is to produce "deliverables." In Cohen's personal word cloud, that's a noun set in 36-point type. "The technology that's second nature to you is going to be really important to countries like this," he tells the group. "You have a chance to contribute to this country in this early form of nation-building." On one hand, it's ludicrous. What can makers of social networks and video sites do to fix an economy that's as broken as Saddam's statue? On the other hand, Silicon Valley types like to think they know how to make the world better. This trip isn't about profits or investing opportunities—as new markets go, Iraq falls somewhere between Antarctica and Somalia in desirability. They're motivated by a mix of curiosity and Obama-inspired patriotism. (If George Bush were still president, some of them might not have come.) There is also the guilt factor. "It's the least we can do for fucking up their country," Heiferman says. Just how fucked up is Iraq? The executives get an overview in a series of briefings from State Department and military officials in embassy meeting rooms. Not all bad. Just mostly bad. Violence is down, but danger still lurks outside the Green Zone. The economy is a wreck. Electricity comes and goes. "This is an analog society," says an Army major charged with expanding the communications infrastructure. Some high-speed fiber-optic cable was laid in the Saddam era, but there's no coherent network. One company received a contract to build cell phone connections throughout Iraq but absconded with the money. Corruption is rampant. Nothing can happen without complex permits and licenses. Very few homes have broadband, and personal computers are scarce. Many Iraqis do have cell phones—62 percent today, up from almost zero in 2003. Heiferman and Dorsey begin imagining SMS versions of Twitter and Meetup. But coverage is spotty. Businesspeople and even embassy staff often list multiple mobile phone numbers on their cards, one for each wireless network. Most Iraqis use prepaid phones, because with limited banking infrastructure in the country, billing systems don't work. Neither do credit cards. But Iraq's biggest high tech hurdle has nothing to do with a lack of twisted fiber or 3G networks. This is a country drained of entrepreneurial vigor. Decades of government control have smothered the belief that ordinary people can build a company or develop a product on their own. And although officials of the new government pay lip service to the idea of privatization, in practice the bureaucrats really haven't changed their thinking.  The National Investment Commission is reached by way of a dusty alley off a street in the Green Zone. The door opens directly into a room with a conference table and an old refrigerator humming in the corner. The host is Dr. Sami al-Araji, a husky man who refers frequently to a degree he earned at Michigan State University in the 1960s. His deputy, an older man with a whisk-broom mustache, solemnly distributes business cards. A woman in a head scarf delivers the tiny glasses of sugary tea that punctuate every meeting. After introductions ("I'm Jack Dorsey from Twitter" ... blank stare ... "Tweeter?"), Dr. Sami opens with a brief speech. "Gentlemen, until recently, we were not positioned to accept foreign investment," he says without apparent irony. But now, Iraq's combination of talent, intellect, and natural resources present a wonderful opportunity for the companies represented at this table—especially, if Dr. Sami may say so, Google. He pauses. "Now we can open it up for discussions and proposals." There is a brief silence that Dr. Sami clearly had hoped would be filled by eager bids for business. "Do you have examples of success?" asks AT&T's Robbins. "Of course!" Dr. Sami says. Nothing completed yet, but he is about to close on deals involving a cement factory and a fertilizer maker. From outside comes the beeping of a truck backing up. A dog barks. "Considering the problems with security, infrastructure, and even getting a visa, what could you tell a company that would lead it to invest here?" asks Ahmad Hamzawi, head of engineering for Google's Middle East operations. "I say to the US, there are countries that are competing with you," Dr. Sami replies. "India and China could come in and get many of the opportunities. You might find yourself waiting for a long time." Cohen cuts in to explain that the delegation has not come to explore specific investments but to offer their knowledge and experience. "How can we help you craft a message?" he asks. "I want to work on a businesslike level," Dr. Sami says. "Do you have proposals?" Even as the group is filing out, he calls after them: "I have a weakness for high tech. Come back with proposals!" Embassy staffers have identified Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih as the government official most likely to mind-meld with techies. Salih is stuck in his native Kurdistan but agrees to a teleconference. After several tries, the call goes through and Salih's voice emerges, crisp even over a fuzzy connection. The line goes dead six or seven times during the meeting, and the number has to be redialed. "Everything is a challenge in Iraq," Salih sighs. "But that's also the biggest opportunity." The deputy prime minister has done his homework on the Americans, and he is totally into deliverables: "I hope your delegation won't leave without solutions—even if it's how to roast a perfect chicken!" It's a reference to a popular Howcast video, and Howcast CEO Liebman instantly becomes Salih's BFF. Even modest projects could be models for a larger transformation, Salih says. "You have solutions that can be empowering for a situation like ours—don't let this just be a visit!" he urges, just as the line goes dead again. The delegation's first look at the Red Zone—the real Baghdad outside the protected area—is through the tinted windows of armored Chevy Suburbans. The Americans are wearing oversize combat helmets. Tony's instructions for sorties outside the Green Zone include a ban on Twittering upcoming locations. But aside from the presence of red-bereted Iraqi soldiers and some buildings half-reduced to rubble, Baghdad doesn't feel like a battleground. Customers line up at shabby food stalls; small cars scuttle by tooting their horns. A few fast-striding pedestrians would not look out of place on Dupont Circle. Others—kids in T-shirts, mustached young men in soccer warm-up jackets—offer stony, hateful stares. After a 15-minute ride, the convoy arrives at the Iraq National Museum. As the visitors wander through the recently reopened building and gawk at 16-foot-high friezes from the Assyrian age, Dorsey hovers over a display of credit-card-sized slabs bearing messages in cuneiform—civilization's first stab at Twitter. After the tour, a curator quietly describes the museum's plight while her guests sip yet more sweet tea. "We do not have a security system. We do not have a fire alarm system," she says. "We would welcome any idea, any kind of help." "Do you have a Web site for the museum?" Blue State's Nassar asks. "Under construction," she says. Another potential deliverable: a full-featured Web site for the National Museum. Iraq's Ministry of Science and Technology is a stately building in an advanced state of disrepair. Cohen has pleaded with the minister that a planned "symposium" be informal, allowing plenty of discussion. Fat chance. The group shucks its body armor and marches into an auditorium filled with poker-faced men in suits or clerical garb and women with covered heads. A dozen or so functionaries are seated on the dais. "We have invited speakers to express their success stories," the moderator announces. As success stories go, this isn't exactly Apollo 11. The minister of industry and minerals shows a slide detailing a slate of "historical achievements," like installing an antivirus application. Not everyone focuses on heroic feats: A turbaned cleric lectures the Americans on how they've screwed up the country and how much more things will be screwed up when they leave. Only one speaker represents the private sector, a man named Aziz. He sees a bright side to the financial meltdown that has smacked the US. "This is good news for us, because maybe now you will be more sympathetic," he says. "We have no economy." Before Aziz gets to his suggestions on how the delegation might help, the moderator cuts him off. Symposium over. The government dysfunction bothers Google's Kannan Pashupathy. As the guy who sets up the company's offices all over the world, he's used to grilling officials and has taken the role of lead questioner in the meetings. He has a talent for asking questions that require numerical answers, making them harder to duck. "These are classic government types," he says. "I didn't get the impression that they were very ready to listen." The first encounter with students is at a get-together at the al-Rasheed Hotel in the Green Zone. A show of hands indicates that the young people are skilled users of YouTube, Google, and Facebook. But when Heiferman asks what they want for their future, no one envisions creating wealth and innovation in the private sector. Instead, they want to work for the government. They want job security and pensions. This makes the Silicon Valley group crazy. "You should think of yourselves as social entrepreneurs!" Heiferman says. "Our society is not mature enough to supply this freedom," one student says glumly. Automattic's Bar-Cohen tries to explain that they can use off-the-shelf software tools to create companies on a dime or code open source projects from here in Iraq, but the concept does not compute. As one student explains, starting a business "is not something I talk about with my friends—no one ever thought of doing anything like that." In any case, she adds, "I can't talk freely about it; I can't let everyone know I meet Americans, because of the security issue." During a visit afterward to the University of Baghdad—which resembles an American state college after a 20-year strike by maintenance workers—the executives learn that Iraqi universities have largely stopped conferring graduate degrees in computer science and that most top professors have left the country. Almost imperceptibly, the Americans have shifted from listen-and-learn to activist mode. Some of this is undoubtedly due to Cohen's emphasis on deliverables, but mostly it's a natural reaction to the constant, desperate pleas for help from honorable, educated people. The intransigence of the government and hopelessness of the economy hasn't discouraged the group—on the contrary, it has energized them. "I had no idea what to expect when I came here—just what I'd seen on TV," says Howcast's Liebman. "Now that we're here, I feel we have a responsibility to help out." Liebman, Cohen, and a few others work into the night drafting an email to the deputy prime minister. Subject line: Tech delegation deliverables for Dr. Barham. The schedule is packed: a boardroom meeting in the offices of mobile carrier Zain, where executives continue their presentations without missing a bullet point when a power failure darkens the lights; a platitudinous audience with President Jalal Talabani; a suburban-style cookout at the home of Iraqi general Nasier Abadi, on a lawn grown from American grass seed—the illusion of normalcy spoiled only by helicopters from a nearby military hospital flying low enough to flap shirt sleeves. Everyone is exhausted on the final Red Zone foray, a long, winding drive past an oil refinery and through the mean-looking Karrada neighborhood to the University of Technology, known as Iraq's MIT. The cars stop alongside the main university building, a brick structure with the charm of an industrial-park warehouse. As was the case at the University of Baghdad, there seems to be no place for students with entrepreneurial urges. Hearing this frustrates the Americans. "Google was built in a garage by students just like yours," Heiferman says, his voice rising. "The future Googles will come from your classrooms!" The professors are unimpressed. "In America there is support for those things," one replies. "Ask me five years from now. Maybe it will be better." The meeting is interrupted by Tony: We must leave now. The visitors quickly retrieve their body armor and pile into the Suburbans. An elaborate lunch planned for the group is scrapped. Later, Tony explains that the hasty exit was to avoid a possible suicide vehicle intended to blow them to pieces. The next day, a bomb goes off in Karrada, leaving dozens dead and wounded. Barham Salih,the deputy prime minister, is back from Kurdistan and has invited his new friends to his Green Zone villa on their last night in the city. "A year ago we would not have been able to sit in this garden," he says. "We would have been hit by rockets." Outside the villa walls, evening prayers are being chanted. Tieless in a gray suit, Salih resembles Harry Smith of The Early Show. His iPhone rests on a tray table beside him. Salih wants pledges that planned projects will really happen. First is a reciprocal task force of Iraqis that will visit Silicon Valley and coordinate tech plans for Iraq. The Americans worry that it will be dominated by government foot-draggers, especially since Salih has invited some familiar bureaucrats—hello Dr. Sami!—to this meeting. Could Salih lead the visit himself? Bar-Cohen suggests a program to encourage Iraqi students to participate in open source projects. "How can we make it happen?" Salih asks. Jack Dorsey has another request—will Salih sign up for Twitter? More proposals are chewed over. Would the US pay half the cost to outfit Iraqi students with $100 laptops? An embassy official indicates that Uncle Sam might lay out some funding. By the end of the meeting, Salih has a notepad full of action items. The guests leave the villa on a high. This had been the kind of meeting they strive for back home. But when they share their excitement later at press conferences arranged by the State Department, a reporter watching the video feed back in Washington remarks, "My God, they have a lot of Kool-Aid over there, don't they?" The big question is left hanging: Would anything actually come of this? In the weeks after the trip, some answers emerge. No, YouTube, Twitter, and the rest haven't saved Iraq. But the techies have a Google spreadsheet full of modest, plausible projects. "The Iraqi museum is a no-brainer—we can do a really cool job," Jason Liebman says. The US may grant funds for a programming contest in the spirit of Google's Summer of Code. The travelers have gotten their companies involved, too. None are about to open an office there, but Iraq now figures in Google's recruitment and deployment efforts in the Middle East. "Iraq wasn't on the plan before," Pashupathy says. "Now we're thinking about it. "I don't care what the Iraqi government thinks—we were there to sell the Internet," Heiferman says. "If we raised the consciousness on that even a little, maybe it can help the people self-organize." The biggest deliverable of all, of course, is the transformational, bottom-up power that the Internet offers—if people are inclined to take advantage of it. For evidence that they might be, look to Iran: In the wake of the disputed election in June, Iranians took to Twitter and Facebook to communicate with one another and the outside world. A few days after the vote, Jared Cohen reportedly asked Jack Dorsey to postpone a planned maintenance shutdown of Twitter so the Iranians could continue tweeting. If nothing else, the delegation to Iraq has already logged one indisputable deliverable: Salih is now on Twitter. His first effort, tapped out the day after the Americans left: "Sorry, my first tweet not pleasant; dust storm in Baghdad today & yet another suicide bomb. Awful reminder that it is not yet all fine here." Senior writer Steven Levy (steven_levy @wired.com) wrote about Googlenomics in issue 17.06.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm Protect and Preserve: Mobile Art-Conservation Van Helps Save TreasuresFrom the outside, the van is nondescript. It doesn't even have a diagonal red stripe. But inside, a hard-traveling team of art conservators packs an arsenal of high tech gear: an atomic-force microscope, a micro-Raman spectroscope, a nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometer. They're like the A-Team, only with black turtlenecks and Gauloises. The mobile laboratory — aptly code-named MoLab — is tasked with protecting cultural treasures. Sponsored by the European Commission, it's better equipped than the cash-strapped museums that now rely on MoLab for scientifically sound data on the chemical composition of priceless works of art. Ideally, knowing, say, what sort of resin Mark Rothko used or which pigments are in a medieval manuscript can help determine the best ways to preserve the objects. And those findings also help ease the tension between curators, whose main goal is to display works, and conservators, whose job is to guard them from the ravages of time. "The art community is very protective," says Bruno Brunetti, the team's scientific coordinator. "They do not want you to move them or take samples. But once we carry out the measurements, they are surprised how much information can be obtained." In five years on the road, MoLab has analyzed everything from a pre-Columbian Mixtec codex in the British Museum to expressionist paintings, such as Angst and Puberty, at the Munch Museum in Oslo. MoLab can even track an artist's style and methods — in 2005, the team found a sketch for da Vinci's The Last Supper under the surface of another one of his paintings at London's National Gallery. Expect more discoveries in the future: The European Commission just greenlit MoLab to keep museum-hopping the continent for another four years.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:00 pm Microsoft and Yahoo Reach Deale9th writes "We know that Microsoft failed last February in its attempt to buy Yahoo. Now, Advertising Age reports that they've reached a deal. Instead of a buyout, the two will enter into a revenue sharing agreement, and Bing will become Yahoo's default search engine. The meat of the AdAge article can be found in Yahoo News. This deal may give Google something to worry about."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 9:30 pm Exclusive: Former MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe Raising Money For New Venture
We’ve confirmed that DeWolfe has been pitching a number of private equity funds to raise up to $100 million for a roll up of an Internet industry vertical. In exchange for confirmation we’ve agreed to keep exactly what that vertical is confidential for now. But at least two funds, both with significantly more than $1 billion to work with, are interested. DeWolfe, as is his style, won’t comment on the fundraising. It’s not surprising that there is such strong interest. Few executives have been able to grow a company from zero to 1,700 employees and $800 million or so in revenue. In just five years. DeWolfe may be eccentric but he’s also clearly one hell of a business man and entrepreneur. And there is no one in the world with his connections and experience in both the geeky Internet world and flashy Hollywood scene. Case in point - a couple of funds I called today to see if they’d been pitched yet eagerly asked for an introduction. I suggested they add him as a friend on Facebook. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:30 pm Growing Ice Mountains: Coolest. Hobby. Ever.*
At the time, the wall was 132 feet tall. Since then, it seems they've perfected the art of ice gardening. Not only does the block appear even more massive and challenging, but the climbers who scale it sure do seem to enjoy the finer things in life. Cheers to them. If you want to get a handle on ice climbing, here's a solid primer on the science of ice. *har har! Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:19 pm New DoS Vulnerability In All Versions of BIND 9Icemaann writes "ISC is reporting that a new, remotely exploitable vulnerability has been found in all versions of BIND 9. A specially crafted dynamic update packet will make BIND die with an assertion error. There is an exploit in the wild and there are no access control workarounds. RedHat claims that the exploit does not affect BIND servers that do not allow dynamic updates, but the ISC post refutes that. This is a high-priority vulnerability and DNS operators will want to upgrade BIND to the latest patch level."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:45 pm 32GB on your keychain, and it’s even water resistant
Pick some up at your favorite e-tailer… as soon as they hit. Should be any time now but all three of the sites they list only have 16GB versions as of this writing. [via Electronista]
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:42 pm New Twitter Homepage Goes Live With Search Front And Center
Most importantly, the new version features search functionality front and center. This way people who aren’t even Twitter users yet can search for things being said on the service. And results are nicely placed on the same page below the main area. You’ll also notice that when you click on any of the popular topics, a description of why that topic is being featured appears along the top of the search results. This is something that is very helpful, as quite a few trending topics seem to make no sense on the surface. It looks like Twitter is using the third-party service What The Trend? to populate these descriptions. It’s important to note that nothing has changed about Twitter’s UI and functionality for those who are logged in. This is simply part of Twitter’s goal to make the service more accessible and obvious to new users, as well as increase engagement, and the use of search/trends. The bigger goal is to make it easier for businesses to use Twitter, which will allow the service to finally make some money. It’s new Twitter 101 area is another of the initial steps in that direction. Find screenshots below of both the new main page and the old version. As well as what the new main page search results look like.
Update: And here’s Twitter’s post on the new homepage. Here’s the key blurb:
Update 2: It also looks like Twitter is using this new homepage search interface to highlight some of the lesser-used search operators, like the “:)” symbol for results with “positive attitude.”
Update 3: As Adobe’s Ryan Stewart notes on Twitter, this homepage change seems like it could be a fairly big shot across the bow of Google. After all, if everyone now visiting twitter.com sees search front and center, it’s pretty clear that the product is being positioned as a major player in the search game. It will be interesting to see Twitter’s next step, which undoubtedly will include another homepage redesign to match this new Twitter home screen. Will we also see the search box more prominently featured there? Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:41 pm Possible embryonic stem cell optionSperm cell precursors can be converted into other cell types, providing a possible alternative to the medical use of embryonic stem cells, U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:40 pm Prof: Latina cancers to soar in U.S.Breast, cervical and other cancers in U.S. Hispanic women will soar in the next 40 years, a health professor says, calling for improved cancer screenings.
Source: Gizmodo | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:30 pm DIY: build your own tilt-shift lens
San Fransisco resident Bhautik Joshi is on the second build of his custom made tilt-shift lens, the first one was built using a toilet plunger of all things. Regardless of what it was made from, it’s quite impressive to see the finished product. If you can manage to build one of these for yourself, you can start making really cool videos like the one [via Hack a day]
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm YC-Funded RethinkDB: A MySQL Storage Engine Built From The Ground Up For Solid State Drives
The company, which is part of the latest batch of Y Combinator-funded startups, is in fairly early stages (it started developing the product only two months ago), but it’s already making some substantial headway in the features it can offer. Among these are live schema changes, which allow developers to make significant modifications to their database structure without having to go through complex sync and backup procedures. It also offers lock-free concurrency, which means users will be able to read from the database even while other users are writing to it. And it’s an append-only database, which means developers can quickly recover in the event of a system failure.
RethinkDB is also taking a relatively novel approach to its development, at least as far as database storage is concerned. It’s following the “release early, release often” mantra, which it’s kicking off with the release of an early developer pre-alpha, which you can download and try out for free (the company says that implementing the software is quite easy because of the way MySQL handles storage engines). However, given that you’re going to be using this to manage your data, it is absolutely vital that you use this for testing purposes only — make sure you have any crucial data stored elsewhere. The company hopes to use developer input over the next few months to improve the product up until its release. RethinkDB plans to have its commercial product out the door in the next six months, with an enterprise-level pricing structure that charges on a per-CPU basis (with support included). Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:58 pm Saltwater croc's genetic linkage map madeAustralian researchers have created the first genetic linkage map for the giant saltwater crocodile, aiding in its genetic sequencing, the researchers said. The crocodile is a very charismatic organism, but with surprisingly very little genetic or genomic resources available prior to this map, University of Sydney genomics researcher Lee Miles said. The research will also help in understanding the molecular evolution of reptilian and other genomes of egg-laying animals, including mammals and birds, Miles said. His doctoral research, conducted with the Darwin Crocodile Farm in Australia's Northern Territory and the University of Georgia, was published in the open-access journal BMC Genomics. The saltwater, or estuarine, crocodile is the largest of all living crocodilians, an order of large reptiles that appeared about 84 million years ago in the late Cretaceous Period.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:49 pm Nice: iPhone charge cable with built-in battery
As if that wasn’t good enough, it comes in 6-inch, 20-inch, and 30-inch versions. We were just talking about how much we love short cables. It even comes as a retractable version! All this for $30, which is probably what Apple charges you for a regular cable. I hope they come out with something like this for standard mini-USB jacks. [via Gadget Review]
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:30 pm TuneIn Tunes In To $500k From True Ventures, Mitch Kapor
Lanzone is not working on the startup full time, he’s taking a board seat going forward. TuneIn first launched a couple of weeks ago at our RealTime CrunchUp. It’s a web based Twitter client with a lot of additional features, including highlighting popular content from your network or anyone else you want to view. Lanzone has described it as “TiVo for Twitter” because it lets you peruse linked media and sites from your network. The site has only rolled out initial features, Hertz tells me there is a lot more coming. Keep an eye on it. Here’s the video of TuneIn’s debut at the CrunchUp: Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:16 pm Sun's JRuby Team Jumps Ship To Engine Yarditwbennett writes "'To be honest, we had no evidence that Oracle wouldn't support JRuby, but we also didn't have any evidence that they would,' said Charles Nutter, explaining why Sun's entire 3-member JRuby team will be leaving the company to work for application hosting company Engine Yard. Nutter called getting hired by Sun about two-and-a-half years ago and being given the chance to work full time on JRuby a 'dream come true.' And said that the decision to leave Sun came down to making sure 'JRuby will get to the next level.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:13 pm Gadgets Join the Search for the Lost Tomb of Genghis Khan<< previous image | next image >>
It’s one of the few great archaeological mysteries of the world, and now a bunch of gadget-wielding geeks are going to try and solve it. The tomb of Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol empire and one of the world’s greatest and most ruthless emperors, has remained hidden for nearly eight centuries. According to legend, Khan died in 1227 near the Liupan mountains of China and is thought to be buried in the northeastern region of what is currently Mongolia. Now a group of researchers led by University of California San Diego’s Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology, with funding from National Geographic, have embarked on a quest to find this ancient grave. Their secret weapon: an array of technological gizmos ranging from unmanned aerial vehicles to sophisticated satellites and 3-D displays. “This is the first of its kind,” says Mike Henning, a researcher at UCSD, “a large scale expeditionary-type project that promises to open up new doors for technology.” Hennig and the entire expeditionary team left for Mongolia earlier in July and will be there until the end of the month. They will do most of their work in an 11-square mile region in Mongolia flying two UAVs, directing satellite imagery and collecting data that will be processed at home later.
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm GP2X Wiz handheld gaming emulator reviewed
Remember the GP2X Wiz I wrote about a couple weeks ago? It’s been reviewed by Rob at Boing Boing Gadgets. The verdict: pricey, but pretty much totally worth it if you’ve got the moolah. There’s apparently a little bit of framerate slowdown with more recently-released arcade and SNES games, for instance, but most of the old classics run like buttah. The thing is tiny, too — smaller than a Nintendo DS — while the screen remains bright and colorful and “the ambidextrous d-pad stylings of the buttons aren’t a problem.” REVIEW: GP2X WIZ RUNS RETROGAMING RINGS AROUND MAINSTREAM RIVALS [BBG]
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm Gadgets Join the Search for the Lost Tomb of Genghis KhanThe burial site of the fabled Mongol warlord has remained a mystery for eight centuries. Now, armed with a boatload of new technology, archaeologists from California will take a crack at finding him.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm Gadgets Join the Search for the Lost Tomb of Genghis KhanThe burial site of the fabled Mongol warlord has remained a mystery for eight centuries. Now, armed with a boatload of new technology, archaeologists from California will take a crack at finding him.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm Is 12GB of RAM worth it?
As it turns out, 12GB is… too much. Testing put the GeIL Evo One 12GB kit slightly ahead of a 6GB configuration, but not enough that you’d notice. For the most part, results were very similar, although the 12GB set did perform better on a memory-specific test. So not a lot of performance gain under conditions you’re likely to using these sticks in. It must be said, though, that they are an absolutely sick-looking set of DIMMs. The custom cooler is pretty ridiculous.
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:30 pm Sprint picks up Virgin Mobile for $483 million, bolsters Sprint’s prepaid departmentSection: Business News, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones  A definitive agreement was reached today when the board of directors of Sprint Nextel and Virgin Mobile USA agreed to Sprint purchasing Virgin Mobile for $483 million. Virgin Mobile is perhaps best known for their prepaid phone sales and Sprint plans to use Virgin Mobile to improve their standings in the prepaid phone department. If you are still a Virgin Mobile customer, fear not as all account information will be transferred under the new ownership. In addition, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has placed long time associate Dan Schulman in charge of Sprint’s prepaid business. He was the former Virgin Mobile USA chief executive officer. He will be reporting directly to Hesse, therefore he will be a high ranking member within Sprint. Hesse hopes Schulman can facilitate business growth within prepaid phone sales. Here is what Hesse had to say about the acquisition:
Such a move definitely benefits Sprint as a whole since it brings them more customers to purchase prepaid phones, and possibly even purchase a Sprint contract for a new phone. In addition, Schulman brings strong leadership and experience to Sprint’s prepaid department. Read [Sprint Press Release] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:14 pm Review: A day with HP's MediaSmart LX195
HP's LX195 has a 1.6 GHz processor, gigabit ethernet, 1GB of RAM, a 640GB hard drive and 4 USB ports. Running Microsoft Windows Home Server, it's competitively priced against consumer network storage options, but offers extras like iTunes media serving, network media collection and antivirus. At $300 after rebates, it's the perfect thing if you're on Windows, have a family-full of computers bursting with photos and music, and want an easy, no-tinkering-required setup. Step out of this scenario, however, and some shortcomings emerge. Pros and cons follow, in no particular order.
• It looks much nicer than the original EX-series MediaSmart servers, but seems a little on the large side given that it contains just a single 3.5" hard drive and requires an external power supply. • WHS has a simple administration console that lets you set up shared folders, remote access policies, and special features (such as the iTunes server and network media-collection scans). Backups can also be scheduled and WHS plugins installed--included with the HP is McAfee antivirus.
• Another add-on publishes photos and other media over the web: the clever bit is that it does it not by trying to be an exposed server in its own right, but by logging into sites like flickr and automagically synchronizing with them. One caveat: it runs via web browser through https, generating security warnings. A minor irritation, for sure, but still--who on earth is going to buy an SSL certificate to access a local web service whose selling point is that it doesn't need to be globally exposed? • Skip this MediaSmart if you have a Mac or Linux PC. Most admin tasks require special software that only runs on Windows. The OSX admin program is just a bunch of links to the SMB shares on the box and a backup/Time Capsule panel that produces inaccurate error messages ("Backup disk creation failed: Make more space available on server...") unless you have already configured the box to work with it using the Windows-only software.
• There's no video out at all, so it can't be used as a home theater PC. On the other hand, the price is right. Product Page [HP] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:05 pm Study: Nanotech specks affect mouse brainsNanoparticles of titanium dioxide, used in air and water purification and self-cleaning surfaces, cause brain dysfunction in mice, a Japanese study indicated. The findings add to the current concern that this specific nanomaterial may have the potential to affect human health, TokyoSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:01 pm Early Human Relative Predates DinosaursThe first known tree-dwelling vertebrate was a distant relative of modern mammals, including humans.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:01 pm Viliv X70 preorders delayed, should ship out on August 11
I feel real sorry for the folks that pre-ordered the fantastic Viliv X70 from Dynamism. Those customers should have gotten an email today explaining that the UMPC has been delayed by about two weeks. It seems that it goes back to the old saying of how things roll down hill as a delay from component suppliers has been passed on to the consumers. Dynamism now expects the first shipment to go out on August 11 instead of right now. But let me just say, that the UMPC is amazing and is worth the little bit extra wait.
Source: CrunchGear | 28 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pm London's Robotic Fire Brigadedustpan writes "The BBC has a story up about a quartet of robotic fire fighters that the London Fire Brigade is testing and with which have been achieving 'tremendous results.' The robots were developed by QinetiQ, which is a defense contractor. The LFB has been testing the units since last year and the machines are primarily used in fires involving acetylene canisters. The group commander for hazardous materials and environmental protection with the LFB says that the robots have cut the time to resolve these potential hazards from 24 hours to 3. From the article: 'Three years ago we were shutting down parts of London for over 24 hours every other week. Now it doesn't even make the news.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:30 pm Appletell reviews Comcast Mobile App for iPhone, iPod touchFROM APPLETELL - If you’re a subscriber to a Comcast cable service (television, internet, and/or VoIP), you’ll find that the new Comcast Mobile App is a useful hub. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:13 pm Scientists Create Airway Spheres To Study Lung DiseasesUsing both animal and human cells, Duke University Medical Center scientists have demonstrated that a single lung cell can become one of two very different types of airway cells, which could lead to a better understanding of lung diseases.From this single "basal" cell, a small, squat stem cell that divides to replenish the lung lining layer, scientists created 3-D hollow spheres that were lined inside with both ciliary and secretory cells.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:05 pm Dead whale to be food for sea creaturesThe remains of a fin whale found impaled on the bow of a cruise ship when it arrived in Vancouver has been towed to sea to provide nourishment for marine life. Paul Cottrell of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans said the carcass was lowered into the depths Monday somewhere west of Vancouver Island in the Pacific Ocean, The Victoria Times Colonist reported.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm Forest Response Project FACEs The EndAfter 12 years, an experiment focused on forest growth and climate change comes to an end, and researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are eager to collect and analyze data to see if their predictions match results.With the Department of Energy-sponsored free air carbon dioxide enrichment experiment, known as FACE, three plots of sweetgum trees were the control sites and two plots of sweetgums were exposed to increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere at 550 parts per million, the concentration that is projected to occur in about 2050 if current trends continue.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:00 pm Who Needs Mountains?: Go Climb a Tree
I've never been to a rock climbing gym or scaled an artificial rock wall. Although I once put on a harness and climbed some low rock structures 15 years ago, I've always been more into scrambling. I figured it had to do with an abstract fear of heights, but then I realized I've always love climbing trees. Since it'd be sad to let BBG's official "climbing" day go by without acknowledging the sport many of us grew up doing, here's an assortment of stuff to take your tree-climbing to the next level &mdash unless you'd prefer to go barefoot and gearless.
photo by aphasiafilms Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 4:00 pm Video: LG GD910 Watch phone does videoDick Tracy, eat your heart out. Better yet, do it whilst having a live video chat with someone on the LG GD910. So, yes - the LG GD910 Wrist phone does video chat. Unfortunately, all signs point at this thing costing roughly the same as a down payment on a new Honda, and it’s pretty likely that the video chat feature will only play friendly with other GD910s. Unless you’ve got a posse of disgustingly rich friends, you’re looking at some pretty lonely video chats, [Via Slashgear] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:58 pm Review: Primus Eta Pack Lite
You don't want to carry too much crap with you when you're going on a climbing trip, but you still need to eat. There are several great lightweight camping stoves on the market &mdash one of them is the Primus Eta Pack Lite. It comes with a little carry sack that's about the size of a climbing helmet, and the kit includes pretty much everything you need to make pasta or soup for a couple of people &mdash a burner, an igniter, a pot with a colander top, a wind screen, and a bowl to eat out of. It only weighs 20 ounces, and boiled water in just over two minutes. It's non-stick, so easy to clean, too. I used it to make a couple of meals and I really liked it. It's $115. Product page [Primus] Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:45 pm Sandia Studies Botnets In 1M OS Digital Petri DishPonca City, We love you writes "The NY Times has the story of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories creating what is in effect a vast digital petri dish able to hold one million operating systems at once in an effort to study the behavior of botnets. Sandia scientist Ron Minnich, the inventor of LinuxBIOS, and his colleague Don Rudish have converted a Dell supercomputer to simulate a mini-Internet of one million computers. The researchers say they hope to be able to infect their digital petri dish with a botnet and then gather data on how the system behaves. 'When a forest is on fire you can fly over it, but with a cyber-attack you have no clear idea of what it looks like,' says Minnich. 'It's an extremely difficult task to get a global picture.' The Dell Thunderbird supercomputer, named MegaTux, has 4,480 Intel microprocessors running Linux virtual machines with Wine, making it possible to run 1 million copies of a Windows environment without paying licensing fees to Microsoft. MegaTux is an example of a new kind of computational science, in which computers are used to simulate scientific instruments that were once used in physical world laboratories. In the past, the researchers said, no one has tried to program a computer to simulate more than tens of thousands of operating systems."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:44 pm Hybrid Power Comes to AviationA German company brings the same technology to aircraft that makes the Prius such an efficient car.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:40 pm Percentage Increase in Organic Carbon Aerosol at the Surface over the WestResulting smoke and other particles from more fires could diminish air qualityAs the climate warms in the coming decades, atmospheric scientists at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and their colleagues expect that the frequency of wildfires will increase in many regions.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:35 pm Booyah Society: Level Up in Life! with your iPhone
So what is Booyah and what does it bring to the iPhone that no one else has done? Before we dive into that here’s a little background info on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup. Founded by three former videogame industry vets from Blizzard, Activision and Insomniac Games, Booyah looks to shake things up with real-life achievements for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Booyah CEO Kevin Lee is an industry vet having worked on Ratchet and Clank, Diablo II, Resistance: Fall of Man before parting ways with Blizzard to launch Booyah with Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen. Booyah’s main goal is “to motivate people to pursue their real-life passions while positively impacting themselves and the community around them. It’s the first achievement system for life.” Achievements are earned by way of various real-life activities, like going to the gym, uploading photos to Flickr and whatever else we do on a daily basis. They can be shared via Twitter and Facebook if you’re into that sort of thing. Lee compares it to earning merit badges in the Boy Scouts. Booyah Society is more or less a twist on modern Social Networks. It encourages you to share what you’re doing with others in Booyah in an attempt to earn achievements and badges. Booyah Society isn’t so much a game as it as a new way of interacting with friends and strangers. What sets this app apart is the customizable 3D avatar that evolves with your daily habits and unlocked achievements. Your avatar can even interact with other Booyah Society member’s avatars. They’re surprisingly fully interactive. At launch there are 108 achievements scattered throughout various categories. When asked how Booyah will make money since Booyah Society is free, Lee said they have various business models in the works. Whether they generate revenue through CPC remains to be seen. Booyah was recently awarded $4.5 million in Series A funding through Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers iFund. It’ll be interesting to see how Booyah expands and what new features will be incorporated into the app. From what I saw it seems like a viable business and clever app. I encourage the iPhone and iPod Touch owners to give it a whirl. Who doesn’t want to brag about achievements earned and such? Booyah Society [iTunes] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:21 pm Freshwater Fish At The Top Of The Food Chain Evolve More SlowlyFor avid fishermen and anglers, the largemouth bass is a favorite freshwater fish with an appetite for minnows.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:15 pm Shields Up!: Email spoofingSection: Computers, Security, Features, Originals
In its simplest terms, email spoofing is the faking of certain parts of an email message to make it look like it came from someone other than the actual sender. The parts commonly faked are the From, Reply-To and Return-Path fields. Spammers use this technique to mask where their messages are actually coming from, and worms like Klez and Sober also use spoofing to propagate themselves. They take random email addresses from the infected person’s address book and plug them into the fields mentioned above. In phishing attacks, where the spammer actually wants a reply, the Reply-To field will usually contain the spammer’s actual email address, but obviously you don’t want to use it - all you’ll do is tell the spammer your email address is “live” and that you read/respond to spam! In the case of spam and malware don’t try to reply either. I know it’s tempting to want to respond angrily and tell the spammer off, but the message will most likely either bounce or end up in the inbox of a completely innocent person. If you’ve had your email address spoofed there is really not a lot you can do except delete the bounce messages and wait for the spammer to move on and pick another address to spoof, and that usually doesn’t take long. Don’t take it personally either, the addresses that get spoofed are chosen randomly. Spammers have special software that does it for them, often using dictionary attacks. A dictionary attack is a rather primitive way of spamming and email harvesting. The spammer uses a program that spams a domain using different variations of common usernames, for example jdoe@example.domain, johnd@example.domain, or johndoe@example.domain. The CAN-SPAM Act makes email spoofing in commercial messages a crime and several states have also outlawed the practice. Unfortunately, since many spammers and scammers operate from countries that don’t have such laws in place, the practice continues largely unabated. To fight email spoofing sender authentication systems such as the Sender Policy Framework or Microsoft’s Sender ID have been developed. Shutting down open relays also helps. More and more ISPs are cracking down on open relays which are almost always used by spammers, and those who insist on offering them more often than not find themselves blacklisted. Have you had your email address spoofed? Please leave a comment and share your experience with us! Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 3:02 pm Netflix Prize Contest Ends, Down To the Wiresuraj.sun updates us on the Netflix Prize now that the competition has officially closed. We discussed the new leader with one day to go in the contest: The Ensemble, taking the lead from long-time leader BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, the first contestant to submit an entry that broke the 10% barrier. In the contest's final day, BellKor re-took the lead with 20 minutes to go, then The Ensemble apparently pulled a Michael Phelps with 4 minutes to go, squeaking ahead by 0.01%. At least so the leaderboard claims — but those numbers are posted by the competing teams. The NY Times reports that an official winner will not be named until September — Netflix needs that much time to pore through the complex entries and read the code. Netflix contacted BellKor on Sunday to tell them the team remained in first place; The Ensemble has had no such notification.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:55 pm Remains of the Day: 9 Comic-Con Photos You Didn't SeeComic-Con is a fun event to document, but quite a challenge because of its sheer size. Racing from Hollywood press conferences to celebrity interviews doesn't keep me from capturing antics on the show floor.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:52 pm BLOG: John Kerry, Discovery Team up for SharksSen. John Kerry joins the Discovery Channel on Shark Week in an effort to save sharks.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:45 pm Verizon Confirms Palm Pre, New Android Handset
The drumbeat around Palm Pre’s availability on the Verizon Wireless network had been steadily getting louder in the last few weeks. And now Verizon has confirmed that Sprint’s exclusive stranglehold on the Pre is unlikely to last beyond the end of the year. “We plan to offer the Palm Pre early next year,” Dennis Strigl, president and chief operating officer of Verizon told analysts on a conference call late Monday. Palm made the Pre available starting June 6 exclusively on Sprint’s wireless network. The handset costs $300, excluding a $100 rebate on a two-year contract and has gathered fairly positive reviews for its design, ability to multi-task and offer an integrated contacts and browsing experience. Sprint and Palm haven’t disclosed how long the exclusive deal between the two carriers. Now it is certain that Verizon will get its hands on the device soon. Verizon is also promising to offer other new handsets in the next few months. The company plans to refresh the Storm later this year, said Strigl. There’s also an Android handset on the way. “Android is on our roadmap,” said Strigl. “We have a great device lineup.” But will the combined power of the Pre, Storm and an Android phone at Verizon be enough to fight Apple and AT&T’s iPhone? See Also:
Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:38 pm Comic Con 2009: Gettin’ telekenetic with Mattel’s Mind FlexFROM GAMERTELL - An exclusive look at a new and innovative game by Mattel that uses brainwaves to move a ball across an obstacle course… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:21 pm iPhone Jailbreaking Could Crash Cell Phone Towers, Apple ClaimsApple tells government regulators that jailbroken iPhones might be used by rogue hackers to cripple mobile phone towers. This comes as the Copyright Office is allowing consumers to legally run apps not sanctioned by Apple.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:18 pm Apple Kills Google Voice Apps On the iPhonemolnarcs writes "Apple pulls Google Voice-enabled applications from its App Store, citing duplication of functionality. The move affects both Google's official Google Voice and third party apps like Voice Central. Sean Kovacs, main developer of GV Mobile, says that he had personal approval for his app from Phil Shiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, last April. TechCrunch's Jason Kincaid suspects AT&T behind the move."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:08 pm How to Catch a Giant, Smelly, Endangered EarthwormThe giant Palouse earthworm is so rare, only four have been found in the last century. But one scientists has a strategy for finding more.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 2:02 pm Order Your DIY Flying Trike Today!Inventors have been promising us flying cars for decades. Samson Motor Works promises us a flying trike. Some assembly required.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 1:59 pm The Rise of the Digital Nomadkrou writes "The Washington Post has a look at the rise of the digital nomad, workers who have shunned the idea of working in an office, or working from home. Instead, they've taken the next logical step in the evolution of teleworking, and work wherever there is a Wi-Fi or 3G connection, using tools such as Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, to gain both primitive ('If I'm working at home by myself, I am really hating life. I need people.') and practical ('There is no hope for the road system around here.') benefits from this nomadic lifestyle. The need for contact with other people has driven some nomads to start working with others in public places and at strangers' homes. Other benefits from nomadic working include changing the scenery, and starting the work day 'long after many of their colleagues out at the cubicle farm have spent hours preparing for and getting to their workstations.' Coffee shop owners love the trend, and so do some employers, one of whom (an AOL manager), says: 'It's a win-win' because the employee in question 'is happy doing what he loves and from a business perspective, we gain valuable industry knowledge, contacts, and insights.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 28 Jul 2009 | 1:19 pm Cable about to bite it? Blip.tv gets broad distrbution deal and new partnersSection: Video, Content, Video Providers, Web, Web 2.0, Websites, Online Music/Video
Blip frontman Mike Hudack, announced on the Blip.tv blog
What is Blip.tv exactly? The company basically runs a hosting service, workflow automation and an ad match-making service that matches up both large and small producers with advertisers allowing highly targeted advertisements. The company takes a cut in ad revenue. It is just that simple. The news today is adding partners like TiVo, FIOS, and connected Sony TVs means a larger audience. The company holds soon the TV viewing we consume will be made by those with talent, not those who were able to “get a meeting.” Blip.tv’s plan is any content on any device and it is starting to gather steam. Blip.tv counts as its friends: YouTube, NBC, Sony, Roku, TubeMogul, Vimeo, TiVo, Boxee, AOL, MSN, Facebook, Miro, Apple, Twitter, and Verizon. Good company to keep. Interestingly, also announced was NBC local service who will be broadcast on Blip.tv to get on boxes like Vimeo and Roku. How is that for some new age thinking? This is one company to check out and watch. No pun intended. Read [Blip.tv blog] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 1:11 pm Verizon Promises Simpler, More Lucrative App Store for Developers
To entice developers, Verizon highlighted the simplicity of submitting and selling software through its app store, which is slated for an end-of-year launch. The company said it is not providing a software development kit, but rather open APIs for billing systems and location-aware features with other mobile platforms. That way, developers coding for Research In Motion’s BlackBerry World store, for example, can simply embed Verizon’s APIs to sell their apps through the Verizon app store, thereby increasing exposure and profit potential. Lowell McAdam, Verizon Wireless’s CEO, said Verizon’s goal is to “provide more mobile applications than anyone else.” “It’s a new day,” McAdam said on Tuesday to developers at the Verizon Developer Community Conference in San Jose. “Our success is tied to you.” Some of Verizon’s tactics are clearly targeted at luring developers away from Apple’s App Store. For instance, Verizon promised approved apps would take only 14 days to launch after its date of submission. The move appears to address a persistent complaint regarding Apple’s App Store, whose approval policy is unclear and inconsistent, making some rejections appear arbitrary to developers. iPhone developers also often don’t know when their apps will actually launch after submission. Borrowing from Apple’s App Store model, however, Verizon said its developers would receive 70 percent of each sale — the same portion developers receive from the App Store. See Also:
Photo: Brian X. Chen/Wired.com
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 28 Jul 2009 | 1:00 pm Shuttle Heads Home, Leaving Six at Space StationAstronauts head home after installing a porch and new batteries at the space station.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 12:54 pm Artificial Climbing Walls 101: More Mountain Than Mountain?
Unlike running or cycling, rock climbing is a sport that can't be easily simulated. In the old days, you'd get in your car and drive to a mountain to "practice." These days, more and more options abound. Eurpeans are starting to experiment with "rockmills," giant vertical treadmills that provide various hand- and footholds as you move (hat tip: TJ S). Of course, indoor climbing facilities are popping up all over the world. And, most interesting to me, regular gyms are also starting to get in on the action. But how do you squeeze a mountain into a gym that's already been constructed? Easy. You convert the racquetball court. While the dimensions (i.e. height) aren't ideal, according to Cort Gariepy of climbing wall manufacturer Rockwerx, the racquetball-climbing wall is becoming a popular option among gyms trying to compete with the growing number of climbing-specific facilities that might charge around $25 per session. However, not all rock walls are created equal. Duh. As the CEO of Rockwerx, Gariepy has spent the last 16 years constructing about 1 million square feet of climbing space (100,000 sq. ft. every year). We asked him to walk us through the three main options for wall-building.
Modular Panels
Gym Rock
Natural Rock Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 12:30 pm Mile-High Club: Do Oxygen Tents Boost Athletic Performance?Oxygen tents are touted as a ticket to a "sleep high, train low" athletic training regimen. But do they actually work? Wired uses hard science, buckets of data and a bike race that climbs to 14,000 feet to find out.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 12:10 pm Mile-High Club: Do Oxygen Tents Boost Athletic Performance?Oxygen tents are touted as a ticket to a "sleep high, train low" athletic training regimen. But do they actually work? Wired uses hard science, buckets of data and a bike race that climbs to 14,000 feet to find out.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 28 Jul 2009 | 12:10 pm Mile-High Club: Do Oxygen Tents Boost Athletic Performance?
But the only thing I was cheating on was my athletic destiny. Or I thought I was. The zipper in this case was of the floor-to-ceiling variety, enclosing me in the oxygen-starved weirdness of an altitude simulation tent from Colorado Altitude Training. There, in the basement, wedged between the bookcase and my 7-year-old’s wooden railroad empire, I spent four weeks of not-so-restful nights trying to sherpa-charge my cardiovascular system for a road bike race up Colorado’s 14,420-foot Mount Evans. Altitude-simulation tents are enclosures hooked to the back end of an oxygen generator, so they suck O2 out of your air instead of pumping it in. They don’t duplicate the air pressure difference — you would need a steel tank for that — but an athlete’s cardiovascular systems is still forced to work as if it were at altitude, causing the proportion of oxygen-carrying red blood cells to rise. The tents, which start at $4,000, are thus sold as a quick ticket to the “live high, train low” regimen. “This is certainly the way to prepare for it!” Colorado Altitude Training CEO Larry Kutt told me. Kutt has no medical training, but he quickly sketched out a program for me. Already acclimated to Boulder, I could ramp up the elevation quickly. He told me to start at 6 or 7 thousand feet and work my way up to 11 or 12 thousand. I would practically fly up Mount Evans. “The entire podium at the Tour de France [in 2008] was people using CAT equipment,” he exclaimed. The tent CAT loaned me was one of the company’s higher-end models. Setup was simple but controlling the “low-oxygen environment” was trickier. The unit delivers the oxygen-thin air in liters per minute. A hand-held meter gives the percentage of oxygen while a graph keyed to the starting elevation matches that percentage to an approximate altitude. But there is no gauge that measures oxygen level. Keeping it right meant waking up several times a night to check the meter and adjust the flow. I took some “before” numbers into the tent with me. After a trip, the Boulder performance Lab, I found my wattage at lactate threshold, the point where your body can’t clear lactic acid from the bloodstream, was 248, high enough to qualify me as “elite,” at least among 45-year-olds. My VO2 Max (the amount of oxygen the body can process) was a respectable 51 liters per minute. If the tent increased the proportion of red blood cells, those numbers, and my performance, should go up.
After 10 nights in tent, I upped my average speed on one 8-mile uphill ride by 1 mph, to 15.4 mph, shaving 1:32 off my best time, but that was perhaps due more to favorable tailwinds than anything else. On another climb, my best pre-tent speed had been 11.9 mph. A week before the race, after two weeks in the tent, I spun a disappointing 11.4 mph. I went into the last week with growing doubts. I wasn’t sleeping well. With the iffy oxygen-level controls, I would wake in the middle of some nights at the elevation equivalent of 13,000 feet. The next morning I’d wade through pedal strokes in a hangover-like stupor. Two nights before the race, I decided to sleep tent-free. I wanted as much quality sleep and oxygen-aided recovery as possible. Turns out I needed it. The Bob Cook Memorial Mount Evans Hillclimb starts at 7,555 feet and follows the highest paved road in North America, past the timberline and into the gasp zone above 14,000 feet. Pilots are required to carry supplemental oxygen a 12,500. And I’d been sleeping at 12,000.
But the morning of the race, disaster struck from the onset: A starting line snafu delayed my start by almost three minutes. I was crushed: All those sleepless, oxygen deprived nights in the tent were seemingly all for naught. I still rode hard. For the first, comparatively flat, six miles, I tucked down on the drops and hammered, still thinking I might catch a lead group. By the time I got to the cruel hairpin where the real climbing starts, it was clear that would not happen. I kept pumping, leapfrogging from one group to the next, steadily suffering the grade. My time targets clicked by unmet. By the time I got to Summit Lake at 13,000 feet, I had practically given up. The switchbacks through the otherworldly alpine expanse were numbing. At the finish line, I was despondent. Finishing at 2:46, I had missed my target time by 16 minutes. I attributed 10 of those minutes to the chaos of the first 100 yards of the race, but I had only myself to blame for the other six.
I didn’t start feeling better until a week later when I went back to the Boulder Performance Lab. We were looking for the “after” results and we found them. They just weren’t what we expected. The difference was one watt out of 248. My VO2 max was up, climbing from 51 to 58, but my legs weren’t using that oxygen to any effect. I wasn’t faster. I wasn’t stronger. But I was surprised. Rick Crawford wasn’t. A Durango-based coach at Colorado Premium Training, Crawford has worked with ultra-elite athletes like Lance Armstrong, Levi Leipheimer and Mount Evans record holder Tom Danielson. Crawford has “a lot of experience with tents” but says he doesn’t recommend them. “I have never asked an athlete to buy a tent,” Crawford says. “They just end up having them.” Crawford discounts anything beyond a placebo effect, claiming that the low-oxygen environment hampers recovery and robs the athlete of sleep, a primary component of any training program. “Why am I starving my athlete of oxygen that he needs to recover?” Crawford asks. And even believers can be cautious. Karen Rishel, a 44-year-old family practice physician, who races road and mountain bikes on weekends, had a custom tent made. She sleeps in it with her husband in their El Paso home. “All the advertisements say four weeks and it should make a real difference,” she notes. “I think it is cumulative and takes longer.” Her experience in the first month matched my own. “For the first month that I was in the tent I would wake up in the morning and feel like crap, every day,” Rishel says, though in the end, she says, she got stronger and faster. “A lot of people end up having an expectation that you are going to get tremendous results right away,” Rishel says. “It’s a long-term journey with cumulative effects.” That may be true, but I’m not sticking around long enough to find out. I bid farewell to the tent and returned to restful sleep. Turns out neither science nor body hacking nor a generous dose of tech were going to help me achieve a single minded two-wheeled fantasy. I just couldn’t cheat on my athletic reality. (Images by Beth’s Gallery/ Picassa, Colorado Altitude Training, and bicyclerace.com)
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 28 Jul 2009 | 12:08 pm Dan Osman's famous speed solo videoCheck out this famous video of Dan Osman, a Japanese-American outdoor adventurist who like to run up 400+ feet tall crags &mdash like this one at Lover's Leap near South Lake Tahoe &mdash without any protection. Most of the time, climbing this rock requires a lot of hardware &mdash nuts, camalots, quickdraws, a rope, a belay device &mdash but when you're Dan Osman, all you need is a lot of balls. Osman was also an avid free-jumper &mdash he liked to jump off of cliffs with a normal rope (not the elastic kind that softens your fall like in bungee jumping) that would place him just inches off the ground. Sadly, but not too surprisingly, Osman died in Yosemite at the age of 35 when a rope failed him.
Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 11:34 am Verizon Broadband, FiOS subscribers to get free Boingo WirelessSection: Communications, Mobile, Computers, Wireless
For Verizon Broadband customers, both new and existing customers will qualify as long as you are subscribed to either an up-to-3 Mbps or up-to- 7.1 Mbps package. For Verizon FiOS customers, new customers will have to sign up for a 25/15 Mbps or faster connection and existing customers on a plan of up-to-20 Mbps or faster will qualify. Bottom line, if you qualify, or if you want to check and see if you do, head on over to the regular Verizon website at www.verizon.net and login as normal. Finally, you can also check to see which Hotspots will be available to you by visiting the Wi-Fi Access HotSpot Locator page. Keep reading to check out the full press release:
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 11:06 am WATCH: Pinup Girls Release Pitbulls CalendarMichael Vick may have used pitbulls for fighting, but a group of women is posing with them.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 11:00 am Common outdoor climbing phobias and how to combat them
When you're climbing outdoors, you inevitably end up facing some of your biggest fears, whether it's heights, dirt, or pooing in the wild. Here are some tips and tools on how I dealt with three of my phobias. 1. Mosquitoes Mosquitoes are often at the campsite, too. Since a lot of climbers ditch the tent in an effort to minimize weight, taking a bug bivy with you is also a good idea. 2. Heights 3. Getting lost 4. Pooing in the wild Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:51 am Six things you need to own to start climbing
I strongly recommend rock climbing as routine exercise for geeks. Figuring out how to get up a route is very strategic in a puzzle game type of way, and you never have to lift more than your own weight. It also gives you nice muscle tone all around. Here are six things you'll need to invest in to start. 1. A harness.A harness is what you tie the rope to &mdash the rope that keeps you from falling. Very important! In the gym, I use the Aura harness by Black Diamond (the men's version is called the Ozone) &mdash it's super lightweight and has a special webbing design that allows it to skimp on thickness while maintaining durability. For outdoors, though, I prefer one that's a little bit more rugged, with adjustable leg loops and with more carabiner and chalk loops like the Petzl Luna (the men's version is called the Adjama). These harnesses cost about $80-100. 2. Climbing shoesIf you only get two things, get a harness and shoes. Read my shoe reviews here. Prices vary from about $80-150.
3. A belay deviceRock climbing is a social sport &mdash unless you're bouldering or you're crazy and like to free climb, you always need at least two people, one to belay while the other climbs. There are many different kinds of belay devices on the market &mdash Mammut's new Smart Belay is designed to soften long falls, and Petzl's self-braking Grigri prevents accidents entirely. If you're lead climbing with more than two people outdoors, though, you'll need something that fits two ropes like the Verso. Expect to spend $30-100 on a belay device.
4. A helmetA lot of climbers think they don't need a helmet, but seriously? If you're planning to hit the outdoors, you really don't want shards of rock or someone else's hardware falling on your head. (I dropped my belay device about 300 feet at Lover's Leap &mdash luckily, it didn't hit anyone. But you never know what's gonna happen.) Pictured here is Petzl's Meteor 3. It's light, it's airy, and it's one-size-fits-all. I've also tried BDE's Tracer, which is just as light as the Meteor and equally resistant to falling belay devices. Cost = $100, give or take. 5. Comfy clothes.This is very important. A lot of climbers also do yoga because it increases flexibility, and flexibility enhances your range of movements, which is key in making sure you don't get stuck in the middle of a huge granite wall and not being able to hook your toe on a good hold because you're too stiff. Get some solid climbing-friendly clothes &mdash pants that are long enough so you don't scrape up your knees, but short enough so that you don't end up stepping on them. Mountain Hardwear makes abrasion-resistant pants with SPF50, and Prana, the company that makes the yoga mat that Xeni reviewed in April, has a wonderful selection of capri-length pants and comfy tops you can move around in, as well as the last thing you definitely need: chalk bags. 6. ChalkSweaty hands = major problem when the grip of a finger could make or break your ability to not fall off a rock. Make sure you get some chalk and a chalk bag that hooks onto your harness or pants so that you can un-stickify your fingers when they're starting to feel useless. Chalk is cheap, I just bought a refill for my chalk bag for $4 at REI. Also, think about picking up a climbing book to get started: I read Girl on the Rocks Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:42 am Sidekick Sync app brings push email, Exchange support, and more to the Sidekick LX ‘09
Yo, Sidekick LX ‘09 owners. Check out the Download Catalog. You should find the Sidekick Sync app somewhere in there and guess what? The app brings push email, attachment viewing, syncing, and Exchange support to your beloved Sidekick. Tits, right? (If you don’t see the app right away, check back a little bit later today) Now you should know that the app costs $4.99 a month to use and you must have a Sidekick data plan. But think what this means. You’ll finally have real-time email and be able to hook up with your work calander and contacts Exchange server. That must be worth $5 bucks a month, right?
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Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:40 am This August, the HTC Touch Pro 2 & Samsung Gravity 2 head to T-Mobile
You’ll have two more T-Mobile cellphones to pick from beginning next month. There’s the HTC Touch Pro2, which still doesn’t have an AT&T release date (so T-Mo can lord that over AT&T), and the Samsung Gravity 2. All it takes is a quick glance at the photos to understand what the phones are about. That, or familiarity with the phones’ predecessors. The HTC Touch Pro2 runs Windows Mobile 6.1—sad but true. Judging by BGR’s comments, a scientific sampling if there ever was one, the phone has heat. Someone even goes so far as to say he’ll switch his BlackBerry Bold for one. (But where’s the headphone jack?) No point in re-typing the specs when they’re all right there.
As for the Samsung Gravity 2, well, that’s more my speed: inexpensive, and sans personality cult. Again, the specs are as printed. Too bad where I live, about an hour north of New York, T-Mobile isn’t so hot. What are you gonna do? via BGR Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 10:24 am Crustacean Color Control System DecodedA single protein produces the unique color system present in all crustaceans.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 9:30 am VZW now pushing Slacker Radio to the BlackBerry Tour
If for some reason Slacker hasn’t been uploaded to your Tour, pull the battery and restart. You should see a icon on the home screen when it powers back on that prompts you to download the app. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 9:20 am Airplane Built To Launch Spaceships FliesAn airplane built to launch a ship into space makes its debut.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 9:05 am HP delaying promises to go green, Greenpeace respondsSection: Business News, Computers, Desktops, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Gadgets / Other, Green
HP originally promised to phase out these compounds back in 2007, with full compliance due by 2009. HP has since delayed those efforts, expecting full compliance by 2011. Not happy with their commitment, Greenpeace has decided to respond to HP by climbing onto the roof of HP’s global headquarters and writing “Hazardous Products” in bold letters made of non-toxic children’s finger paint. HP employees can also see Greanpeace’s displeasure through the automated phone calls from William Shatner today asking them to phase out dangerous chemicals. Greenpeace is asking HP to be more like Apple, which has virtually eliminated BFRs and PVC from all of its computers. Even other top manufacturers like Dell, Lenovo, and Acer has reduced the amount of dangerous chemicals in their computers, some of them even as green as Apple’s. There’s really no excuse for HP to not follow through with its promises if all those other companies are doing so. As HP should know with its recycling program, e-waste is very dangerous and accumulates tons of old computers yearly. It would be nice to see the manufacturing giant, whose products most likely amount to a large percentage of e-waste take steps to help out through more means than just recycling programs. Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 9:01 am Space Station Gets X-Ray EyesA telescope now on the space station will provide X-ray images during every Earth orbit.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:55 am Hey LG BL40 - Why the long face?
The more we look at this thing, the more we wonder if we’ll need a special pair of pants to carry it around. Will we need LG Chocolate BL40-certified pockets? Or will we need to carry it around in some sort of sling? We still haven’t touched it, but some lucky reporter over at tech.sina got the opportunity to paw at it briefly. They didn’t say much we didn’t already know — FM transmitter, big ol’ 21:9 screen, 5-megapixel camera, etc — but they did provide a few pictures of LG’s Ol’ Sausagephone in the flesh. We’ve gotta know - if this hit the states and played friendly with US 3G, would you consider picking it up? [Via EngadgetMobile] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:31 am Apple tablet coming sooner than next year? Thanks to record labels?FROM APPLETELL - Apparently thanks to EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music Group, Apple will supposedly be releasing their “iTablet” device sometime around September. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:31 am Sprint puts $483 million on the table for Virgin Mobile USA In what looks to be shaping up to be another healthy week for M&A activity, Sprint Nextel is putting more of its focus on the prepaid cell phone service market with a $483 million deal to buy out Virgin Mobile USA.
The acquisition, which was announced earlier this morning, calls for Sprint to pay $5.50 in stock for each Virgin Mobile share, a 31 percent premium to the MVNO's closing share price Monday of $4.21. The deal is expected to receive approval either in the fall or in early 2010.
Sprint Nextel actually already owned 13.1 percent of Virgin Mobile, which uses the carrier's network to offer service to some 5.2 million subscribers. The deal cancels out Virgin's $248 million in outstanding debts and will unite Sprint's Boost service and Virgin Mobile under the same roof. Sprint says it would keep the Virgin Mobile brand and let Virgin Mobile USA's CEO Dan Schulman, run Sprint's entire prepaid business if and when the deal closes late this year or early next.
Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 8:26 am Sprint set to acquire Virgin Mobile
Sprint currently owns about 13% of MVNO Virgin Mobile, and Virgin already uses Sprint’s pipes for its cell service, so the transition should (in theory) be pretty smooth. Current Virgin Mobile shareholders are expected to get $5.50 per share out of the deal. That’ll make for two prepaid offerings from Sprint going forward, as Virgin Mobile will join Sprint’s Boost Mobile. It appears that the two brands will remain separate, yet united under “one umbrella” as Sprint’s press release says the following:
So there you have it. The whole deal “is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2009 or in early 2010.” Full press release:
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Source: MobileCrunch | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:31 am 'Brain Carpet' Translates Thoughts Into ActionNew microelectrodes connect man to machine by sitting on the surface of the brain.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 7:05 am AT&T hears Google Voices: Block that app!Section: Apple, Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
In a quote from TechCrunch:
So now, dejected and kicked to the curb, Google will build a web app to work around Apple’s wishes. The expectation by many is that AT&T is behind this move, as Google Voice allows free SMS and calling that can shift calls off expensive mobile lines. AT&T must be feeling the heat. We’ve seen Apple fold on some apps that received an outcry from the public, but I suspect that isn’t going to happen here. Google Voice has the potential to be a game changer in voice and perhaps Android and the Palm Pre (hopefully) will have to carry the banner forward. A web app is going to limit what level of integration Google Voice can have with the iPhone. As a Google Voice user and proponent, this is disappointing news. Read: [TechCrunch] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:59 am Incan Empire Aided by Global WarmingA 400-year period of warming helped usher in the Inca Empire.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 28 Jul 2009 | 6:05 am
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Sure, we have seen those 
Over at BoingBoing Gadgets, Rob “The Boss” Beschizza takes a Wiz on modern games. To be precise, he has reviewed the tiny, retro game-playing handheld console, the GP2X Wiz, and decrees it “The best portable yet for retrogamers.”
Streaming media provider Vudu has partnered with LG to include its software into upcoming LG high-definition TVs. The move will get rid of the intermediary set-top box and allows consumers to directly watch on-demand content from the internet on their TVs.
The study included 519 healthy 7-year-olds from New Zealand, who each wore a device called an actigraph for 24 hours. An actigraph records movement, providing an objective measure of a child's activity level and sleep time. Parents also noted when their child went to bed, which allowed researchers to calculate how long after bedtime children actually fell asleep.
In another testament to the notion that 
There's plenty in our world that lives outside of the marketplace: it's a rare family that uses spot-auctions to determine the dinner menu or where to go for holidays. Who gets which chair and desk at your office is more likely to be determined on the lines of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" than on the basis of the infallible wisdom of the marketplace. The internally socialistic, externally capitalistic character of most of our institutions tells us that there's something to the idea that markets may not be the solution to all our problems.
Live video monitoring systems are great — except for the fact that someone actually has to be watching for them to be of much use. Even if that doesn’t mean watching it live, that means pouring over hours of footage that likely contains a lot of the same thing: Nothing. And that’s why 
Just three months ago 
Twitter has just rolled out the new version of its 
Buying an actual tilt-shift lens will run you over $1000, depending on what camera you own. Instead of buying a new or used lens, you can just build your own out of some PVC pipe, hose clamps, rubber hose, and a cheap lens off of an auction site.
Have you ever checked your email and found a flood of “delivery failed” messages (also known as bounce backs) but they are for messages you never sent? Congratulations, you’ve been spoofed - or rather your email address has. Email spoofing is one of the oldest tools in a spammer’s book. Let’s take a look at what it is and what you can do about it.
You know how the big three networks are all over Hulu and YouTube about copyright and how they fear/need the internet to survive? Blip.tv is what they fear. Today, Blip announced some big changes that are going to mean something to anyone with a TiVo, has Verizon FIOS, or a Sony TV with Ethernet jack.
When a zipper shows up in a mid-life crisis, there’s usually a private investigator outside a motel window with a telephoto lens.
At times like this I am even happier being a Verizon FiOS customer, now in addition to the nice fast Internet speeds that I get at home, Verizon is going to be offering me free Wi-Fi while on the go courtesy of Boingo. According to the details, Verizon has partnered with Boingo and will be offering free Wi-Fi to both Verizon Broadband and FiOS customers.
, which is written by a super-cute female climber named Katie Brown.
For computer manufacturers, going green has been a big issue for a number of years. Most computers include a number of dangerous compounds such as brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics. Many manufacturers have committed themselves to phasing out the amount of these chemicals in their computers, even if they have yet to cut them out completely.
Sprint and Virgin Mobile sitting in a tree, m-e-r-g-i-n-g. Well, not merging per se. More like Sprint is acquiring Virgin Mobile. Seems as though this whole “pre-paid, no contract” thing is a hit and Sprint, looking to gain some ground in the mobile arms race, wants in on the action.
A Google spokesperson confirmed Apple has rejected its iPhone application for