Home-Made Coconut Headphones

Sadly, DIYer Iwan Roberts has posted very few details on the making of these wonderful coconut headphones (or coco-cans, as we like to call them), but we can infer plenty from the picture.

Iwan made these custom headphones for a friend (“Do not want to see them go”, he says) from a couple of coconut halves, a pair of what looks like Panasonic’s already excellent RP-HTX7 retro-monitors, and a whole lot of twine. We’re sure they sound great, but better, they’re probably the best smelling pair of headphones ever.

Product page [Dau Gi Bach via Make]

British hacker loses US extradition appeal - Reuters

Telegraph.co.uk

British hacker loses US extradition appeal Reuters LONDON (Reuters) - A Briton wanted in the United States for breaking into NASA and Pentagon networks in "the biggest military hack of all time" lost an appeal against his extradition Friday, making a US trial more likely. ... Court Allows Extradition of British Hacker to ProceedPC World UK court rejects hacker's bid to avoid extraditionThe Associated Press Hacker loses extradition appealBBC News CNN International -Inquirer -V3.co.uk all 496 news articles »

Kodak Flips-Out With 1080p Pocket Camera

Watch out, Flip, Kodak’s in town, and he’s a’gunnin’ for ya. Kodak’s new Zi8 pocket video camera comes in at $20 less than Flip’s Ultra HD and manages to beat it in almost every way. The Kodak shoots 1080p, the Flip just 720p. The Kodak has built-in image stabilization (electronic, not physical), a microphone socket and an SD card slot for adding up to 32GB of memory (although it ships without a card in the box and just 128MB internal memory). The Flip doesn’t. The Kodak even has ther Flip’s trademark flip-out USB plug and snaps five megapixel stills.

In short, if you were thinking of buying a Flip Ultra HD, you should be taking a long look at the Kodak instead. Heck, Kodak even hired a designer this time and made the camera look nice, something the company hasn’t done for a while. $180, available September.

Product page [Kodak]

UPDATE 1-BofA-Merrill appoints China corporate finance head

UPDATE 1-BofA-Merrill appoints China corporate finance head

Journal retracts study that claimed to make sperm

I Quit The iPhone - Washington Post

guardian.co.uk

I Quit The iPhone Washington Post I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first iPhone as soon as it was available. I happily bought the iPhone 3G a year later. I've proudly yelled "I Am A Member Of The Cult Of iPhone." I've been an unabashed cheerleader for ... Apple Shows Google The Web Hasn't WonInformationWeek voicecentral VoiceCentral developer frustrated with AppleCNET News Top 10 iPhone Annoyances (And How to Fix Them)PC World ChannelWeb -Ethiopian Review -VentureBeat all 934 news articles »

British hacker loses bid to avoid US extradition (AFP)

AFP - A Briton accused of hacking into US military and NASA computers on Friday lost his latest legal bid to avoid extradition to the United States.

RidgeviewTel Working to Bring a New Broadband Network to Eastern Colorado

I Quit The iPhone

I have loved the iPhone, but now I am quitting the iPhone.

This is not an easy decision.

I was there in January 2007 when it was announced and I bought the first iPhone as soon as it was available. I happily bought the iPhone 3G a year later. I’ve proudly yelled “I Am A Member Of The Cult Of iPhone.” I’ve been an unabashed cheerleader for the device to all who’ll listen. And I’ve scoffed at developers who said they’d abandon the platform.

But I’m not going to upgrade to the iPhone 3GS. Instead, I’m abandoning the iPhone and AT&T. I will grudgingly pay the $175 AT&T termination fee and then I will move on to another device.

What finally put me over the edge? It wasn’t the routinely dropped calls, something you can only truly understand once you have owned an iPhone (and which drove my friend Om Malik to bail). I’ve lived with that for two years. It’s not the lack of AT&T coverage at home. I’ve lived with that for two years, too. It certainly isn’t the lack of a physical keyboard, that has never bothered me. No, what finally put me over the edge is the Google Voice debacle.

Most of you won’t know what I’m talking about, so I’ll explain.

Google Voice is a a call management service that lets you determine what calls get through to you based on who’s calling and what time of day it is, among other factors. It has amazing features, like automatically transcribing all your voicemails. And you can forward calls to any other phone easily and automatically. Here’s an overview of the service if you aren’t familiar with it.

I’ve always wanted to use Google Voice but there’s a big switching cost - changing your phone number. Too many people have that phone number and use it to call in great stories. There’s no way I’m giving that up. And there’s another problem with Google Voice. When you make outbound calls from a phone, it (obviously) doesn’t use your Google Voice phone number, so recipients don’t know it’s you calling. Those were two hurdles I wasn’t willing to jump over.

But now Google is planning on rolling out number portability, so I can move my mobile phone number to Google. None of my friends, family or contacts have to store a new number.

That still leaves the problem of outbound calls, though. I can move my mobile number to Google and then get a new iPhone account, but outbound calls won’t be identified because they are on the new number. Google has a solution for that too, though. They are releasing apps for a variety of handsets that effectively take over the native dialer, address book and call log. Problem solved. I can use any phone I like, or a bunch of phones, and just choose the one that makes sense at any time. I never have to be tied to a carrier and their restrictive contracts again.

Or so I thought. Apple and AT&T are now blocking the iPhone version of the Google Voice app. Why? Because they absolutely don’t want people doing exactly what I’m doing - moving their phone number to Google and using the carrier as a dumb pipe.

So I have to choose between the iPhone and Google Voice. It’s not an easy decision. Except, it sort of is. Google isn’t forcing the decision on me, Apple and AT&T are. So I choose to work with the company that isn’t forcing me to do things their way. And in this case, that’s Google.

So what phone will I use next? Well, that decision is easy, too. I’d move to the Palm Pre because I believe it is the best phone out there other than the iPhone 3GS. But Google hasn’t created an app for the Palm Pre yet, just Android and Blackberry phones. So for now I’m going to use the new Android myTouch 3G along with the Google Voice App. As soon as something better comes out, or Google makes an app for the Pre, I’ll switch. And keep the same phone number. No long term contracts for me.

And Apple, if you ever decide to put the hammer down on AT&T and do the right thing for your loyal users, I’ll consider switching back. In the meantime, I’ll just use one of many iPod Touches laying around our office to test out new apps.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

I Quit The iPhone

TonenGeneral shuts 92,000 bpd FCC at Kawasaki plant

UPDATE 1-Smartphone firm HTC sees revenue fall on product delay

Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions

DEALTALK-Pipelines and CEO dialogue point to M&A pick-up

PetroChina boss to tour BP London next week -industry exec

Licensing Dispute Threatens Future of Skype

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

UPDATE 2-Tokyo Electron Q1 loss beats consensus, ups outlook

Fish Tank Friday: ZeroEdge Aquarium

“Boatloads of Money” Brings Boatloads of Trouble to Yahoo’s Bartz: The D7 Video (Plus How the Deal Almost Sunk) [BoomTown]

One of the reasons Wall Street investors have gone sour on Yahoo’s stock since its online advertising and search deal with Microsoft was announced is due a much-repeated comment that CEO Carol Bartz made at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May.

In an onstage interview with me, I asked Bartz about how talks with Microsoft (MSFT)–about which I had reported on a lot–were going and what it would take to do a deal.

She answered quite emphatically that “if there’s boatloads of money, and there’s the right technology and there’s the right information we’d have, sure.” Bartz repeated “boatload of money” soon after.

And, since she said that’s what she wanted, Wall Street had expected such a windfall immediately in the deal.

But, with no upfront payment forthcoming–despite the fact that Bartz said she opted for money over longer time frame via better search monetization from Microsoft–Yahoo (YHOO) has seen its shares get pummeled.

The stock was down 12 percent when the deal was signed Tuesday and almost four percent today, giving up a lot of the gains that have been made since Bartz came on board in January.

Ironically, in an interview with me right after the deal was struck, both Bartz and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told me it was at a meeting they had at D7–which I posted about here–that they had where they decided to call an end to the talks that had been going on since March.

The reason was that a plan to also share display advertising was on the table and it had added a level of complexity that was too hard to bridge.

“We agreed to walk away, the game was over,” said Bartz. “It was our ‘hasta luego.’”

Well, not for long, as the execs under them both regrouped and came up with the simpler search plan–a deal that Yahoo investors are still unsatisfied with.

Now, it will be up the Bartz then to convince them that their ship will–eventually–come in.

Until then, here’s the “boatloads of money” video clip:

Shuttle aims for Friday morning landing in Florida (AP)

AP - Space shuttle Endeavour and its seven astronauts are aiming for a landing back in Florida.

Take Your NES Games On The Go With The Retro Mini X

Apple Bumps Time Capsule Up To 2GB

Experts find iPhone text-message security flaw - San Francisco Chronicle

TG Daily

Experts find iPhone text-message security flaw San Francisco Chronicle (07-30) 17:43 PDT -- A pair of security experts have found a vulnerability in the iPhone that allows a hacker to take control of an iPhone through a text-message attack. Cybersecurity researchers Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner explained the ... SMS infects iPhones at Black Hat: PANIC!Computerworld Hackers Can Launch iPhone Attack Via SMSChannelWeb Everybody Panic! The iPhone Has a Vulnerability!PC World Register -KYW1060.com -TG Daily all 296 news articles »

Ebay In Litigation With Skype Founders Over Key Technology

Ebay In Litigation With Skype Founders Over Key Technology

Perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, firing Skype founder Niklas Zennstrom as CEO in 2007 and paying out only 1/3 of the potential earnout wasn’t the best idea. Zennstrom seems to be holding quite a grudge.

eBay is developing new peer-to-peer software to run the Skype service, they revealed in a quarterly SEC statement.

The existing peer-to-peer software is controlled by Joltid, a company controlled by Skype’s founders Zennstrom and Janus Friis. The software was not acquired by eBay in its 2005 acquisition of the Skype service and is now the subject of litigation in the UK.

eBay is developing the new software in the event they lose the right to continue to license that technology, but warns that “such software development may not be successful, may result in loss of functionality or customers even if successful, and will in any event be expensive.”

This comes as eBay prepares to spin off Skype as in independent public company. And the service is surging in popularity, with 480 million registered users and $170 million in quarterly revenue.

The case isn’t scheduled for trial until June 2010. Don’t expect an IPO before that, unless a settlement is reached quickly.

From the 10Q:

Skype licenses peer-to-peer communication technology from Joltid Limited pursuant to a license agreement between the parties. The parties had been discussing a dispute over the license. In March 2009, Skype Technologies S.A. filed a claim in the English High Court of Justice (No. HC09C00756) against Joltid Limited. Following the filing of the claim, Joltid purported to terminate the license agreement between the parties. In particular, Joltid has alleged that Skype should not possess, use or modify certain software source code and that, by doing so, and by disclosing such code in certain U.S. patent cases pursuant to orders from U.S. courts, Skype has breached the license agreement. Joltid has brought a counterclaim alleging that Skype has repudiated the license agreement, infringed Joltid’s copyright and misused confidential information. On the basis of, among other things, the parties’ mutual dealings since the execution of the license agreement, Skype asked the English High Court for declaratory relief, including findings that Skype is not in breach of the license agreement, that Joltid’s notice of breach and subsequent notice of termination are invalid, and that Joltid has certain indemnity obligations in relation to the U.S. patent proceedings. Trial is currently scheduled for June 2010. Although Skype is confident of its legal position, as with any litigation, there is the possibility of an adverse result if the matter is not resolved through negotiation. Skype has begun to develop alternative software to that licensed through Joltid. However, such software development may not be successful, may result in loss of functionality or customers even if successful, and will in any event be expensive. If Skype was to lose the right to use the Joltid software as the result of the litigation, and if alternative software was not available, Skype would be severely and adversely affected and the continued operation of Skype’s business as currently conducted would likely not be possible.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Virtual Worlds Are Getting a Second Life [Voices]

By Victor Keegan, Technology Columnist, The Guardian

We haven’t heard much recently about so-called virtual worlds such as Second Life, in which you move around with your own avatar. Critics must be hoping they have disappeared up their own ether. Actually, they are booming. The consultancy kzero.co.uk reports that membership of virtual worlds grew by 39 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to an estimated 579 million.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Big Content: Ludicrous to Expect DRMed Music to Work Forever [Voices]

By Nate Anderson, Senior Editor, Ars Technica

When Wal-Mart announced in 2008 that it was pulling down the DRM servers behind its (nearly unused) online music store, the Internet suffered a collective aneurysm of outrage, eventually forcing the retail giant to run the servers for another year. Buying DRMed content, then having that content neutered a few months later, seemed to most consumers not to be fair.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

‘NYT’ Video Obits Are Growing–Including One By a Former President–But Remain Secretive [Voices]

By Joe Strupp, Senior Editor, Editor & Publisher

Two years ago, The New York Times (NYT) posted its first video obituary known as ‘The Last Word.’ The subject, humorist and columnist Art Buchwald, had recorded an interview to be used at the time of his death.

“Hi, I’m Art Buchwald and I just died,” the online presentation began. It went on to offer Buchwald’s last views on his life, and death, in a groundbreaking online approach.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Single Misplaced ‘&’ Caused Latest IE Exploit [Voices]

By Lance Whitney, CNET Blog Network Author

A security hole in Internet Explorer that opened the browser to hackers since early July was caused by a single typo in Microsoft’s (MSFT) code.

An errant ampersand (”&”) took the blame for the exploit, admitted Microsoft in a blog published Tuesday at its Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) Web site.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Study: Videogames Underrepresent Minorities [Voices]

By Tracey John, Writer, Game|Life, Wired

A recent report released by the USC Annenberg School for Communication says that videogames don’t represent American society any better than television does. In fact, it says that some cases videogames do a worse job.

The study claimed that while Latinos are making “modest gains” in television, fewer than three percent of videogame characters were “recognizably Hispanic,” when looking at the top 150 videogames in one year across nine platforms, giving extra weight to the more popular titles.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Daily Crunch: Cannon & On & On Edition

Apple releases iDisk for iPhone
Toy Story, Cars, and Prince of Persia LEGO Minifigs are coming soon
The Bass Cannon: It is a cannon that sends out bass
DIY Vortex cannon
Meet An9-PR, the cutest multi-purpose robot out there

Technorati Launches Twittorati: Top Tweets from Blogosphere

Another One Bites The Dust - Sprint Acquires Virgin Mobile

China IPhone Pictures Posted on News Site (PC World)

Plastic Chocolate Mouse - Ergonomics: Zero, Deliciousness: Also Zero

Apparently nerds dig Russian Nesting Dolls

Is it me or has nesting dolls jumped forward in evolution? It doesn’t seem like that long ago that the only nesting dolls you could find were either real Russian nesting dolls or a set of Tupperware. But lately, there seems to be all sorts of items masquerading as nesting dolls.

GadgetHer.com has a fantastic run down of what I’m talking about. Chances are that you have seen a good amount of these before somewhere out on the vast plains of the Internet. But look at all of ‘em. Who knows, maybe a lot of obscure items like this existed before, but we just didn’t know about ‘em without the connected world. Wait a second. Are we really talking about nesting dolls here?

BSkyB To Launch 3D TV Service In 2010

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Month of sf authors on SF Message Board

Month of sf authors on SF Message Board

8/1 Alfred Bester; 8/2 William Tenn (Phillip Klass); 8/3 Gene Wolfe; 8/4 E.T.A. Hoffman; 8/5 Norman Spinrad; 8/6 Lucy Sussex; 8/7 Robert J. Sawyer; 8/8 Phillip Reeve; 8/9 Ian McDonald; 8/10 Ken MacLeod; 8/11 Dan Simmons; 8/12 S.M. Stirling; 8/13 Sean McMullen; 8/14 James Blish; 8/15 Kelley Eskridge; 8/16 Octavia Butler; 8/17 Charles Stross; 8/18 Colin Kapp; 8/19 Fritz Leiber; 8/20 Nicola Griffith; 8/21 Hal Clement; 8/22 J.G. Ballard; 8/23 Alison Sinclair; 8/24 E.C. Tubb; 8/25 Neal Asher; 8/26 Karl Schroeder; 8/27 Jack L. Chalker; 8/28 John Varley; 8/29 Alan Dean Foster; 8/30 David J. Williams; 8/31 Kurd Lasswitz

Live EFF Web event: How to make technology safe for use by dissidents in authoritarian regimes?

Live EFF Web event: How to make technology safe for use by dissidents in authoritarian regimes?

BayFF on August 3: Iranian Protests and Digital Media (Thanks, Rebecca!)


Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 11:34 pm

98.9% of US homes able to receive DTV per Nielsen

Good job, everyone! The DTV switch seemed to went well. The June 12 transition came and past on our end with little fanfare. Hopefully it was the same with you. Nielsen is reporting that the vast majority of US homes - 98.9% that is - can receive DTV signals. Kind of surprisingly though is that the under 35 demo is the least prepared with 2.7% unable to receive the digital broadcasts.

We’re just hoping that they are actually ahead of the curve and could care less about broadcast or subscription TV. Hopefully most of those hipsters are using digital downloads or Internet video in lue of traditional TV sources. But if folks haven’t figured out why the hell their TVs stopped working, it’s probably better that they go read a book anyway.

Nielsen via EngadgetHD

Fish for dinner: Overfishing easing in some areas - The Associated Press

ABC News

Fish for dinner: Overfishing easing in some areas The Associated Press WASHINGTON — Crabcakes and fish sticks won't be disappearing after all. Two years after a study warned that overfishing could cause a collapse in the world's seafood stocks by 2048, an update says the tide is turning, at least in some areas. ... Study: No more gloom and doomGloucester Daily Times Imperiled Fisheries Make A Comeback, Study ShowsWBUR Having Fish and Eating It TooNew York Times Reuters -USA Today -Seattle Times all 251 news articles »

Annie Lennox gives her masters to mashup artist DJ Earworm

Sharna sez, "Already known for her stand against criminalizing music downloaders, now Lennox has given DJEarworm her multi-track masters to mash up. The resulting track 'Backwards/Forwards' is stunning and is featured on his site and hers and on both artists' youtube channels."

Annie Lennox: Backwards/Forwards (Thanks, Sharna!)


Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 11:31 pm

British fraud cop quits job, buys huge databse of stolen identities, charges fees to people who want to know if their details are in the database

Highly sensitive financial information, including credit card details, bank account numbers, telephone numbers and even PINs are available to the highest bidder...

The information being traded on the web has been intercepted by a British company and collated into a single database for the first time. The Lucid Intelligence database contains the records of four million Britons, and 40 million people worldwide, mostly Americans. Security experts described the database as the largest of its kind in the world...

The database is held by Colin Holder, a retired senior Metropolitan police officer, who served on the fraud squad. He has collected the information over the past four years. His sources include law enforcement from around the world, such as British police and the FBI, anti-phishing and hacking campaigners and members of the public. Mr Holder said he had invested £160,000 in the venture so far. He plans to offset the cost by charging members of the public for access to his database to check whether their data security has been breached.

University prof wants to put drinking on the curriculum

The way our society addresses this problem has been about as effective as a parachute that opens on the second bounce. Clearly, state laws mandating a minimum drinking age of 21 haven't eliminated drinking by young adults--they've simply driven it underground, where life and health are at greater risk. Merely adjusting the legal age up or down doesn't work--we've tried that already and failed. But federal law has stifled the ability to conceive of more creative solutions in the only place where the Constitution says such debate should happen--in the state house--because any state that sets its drinking age lower than 21 forfeits 10 percent of its federal highway funds. This is called an "incentive."

So what might states, freed from this federal penalty, do differently? They might license 18-year-olds--adults in the eyes of the law--to drink, provided they've completed high school, attended an alcohol-education course (that consists of more than temperance lectures and scare tactics), and kept a clean record.

Mobile Phone Shipments Drop 11 Percent in Q2, IDC Says (PC World)

High school student suing Amazon over book-deletions which rendered his study-notes useless

PDF: UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE (via Engadget)

Banning Texting While Driving Will Help, Education Is Key - PC World

CBC.ca

Banning Texting While Driving Will Help, Education Is Key PC World Banning texting while driving is such a no-brainer that it's hard to believe there is even a discussion. States may say they have better things to do, but when the feds threaten to cut off highway funding they'll find the time. Good for the feds. ... Carriers Respond To Bans On Texting While DrivingInformationWeek Nationwide Texting While Driving Ban Is Common Sense LegislationChannelWeb Senators Seek to Ban Texting While DrivingeWeek The Epoch Times -The Associated Press -BetaNews all 1,169 news articles »

Leica comments on haters complaining about the price of the S2

Leica is firing back over the criticism they’ve received lately about the price of their new flagship digital SLR, the S2. Internet pundits have been rather, shall we say, catty about the price based on a rough glance at the specs, and Leica’s VP of marketing says that’s just not fair.

Leica’s disturbingly happy looking marketing guy, Christian Erhardt said in a recent interview that it’s not just the Leica name you’re paying for, but in fact the sensor. Erhardt insists that the sensor is 56% larger the in the one in their competitors full size DSLR offerings, which actually pushes the S2 into the realm of a medium format camera. This means that we’ve haven’t been comparing like products, and certainly does explain the premium that the S2 demands. In fact, as Erhardt pointed out, when you look at comparable medium format digital cameras, the S2 is actually right in line on the pricing.

So while the 37.5 megapixel sensor is a quite impressive 30×45mm in size, you do take quite a performance hit for that medium format. Honestly though, the people that are going to buy this camera aren’t going to care. This is not a camera designed for shooting sports or your kid at soccer practice, rather it is aimed at the professional level landscape photographer, who was shooting medium format film in the first place to get the image quality that galleries demand. People in this market segment don’t really care about the 1.5 FPS that you’ll get with a sensor of that size, they are waiting for the light so they can get that one perfect shot.

What to Expect From Will Wright's Stupid Fun Club

Will Wright is the great polymath of interactive design, weaving theories of architecture, astrophysics, and urban planning into his videogames. That may sound like the opposite of fun, but he's created some hugely popular franchises—The Sims alone has sold more than 100 million copies for publisher Electronic Arts. Nowadays, though, Wright is thinking smaller. In April, he stunned the game industry by announcing that he was leaving EA to run a startup called Stupid Fun Club.

If the endeavor has the whiff of a garage operation, that's because it is one—the club began in a Berkeley, California, warehouse space where Wright and his buddies went to tinker and play and escape from the pressures of making blockbuster games. "We were tripping over ideas that were intriguing to us," Wright says. "But I didn't have time to develop them." Now his hobby is becoming his full-time gig (though Wright will do some consulting for EA, which is an investor in his new venture).

Stupid Fun Club has just 10 staffers, a fraction of the number who worked on his last title, the ambitious universe sim Spore. "When a team has more than 80 members, it gets very unwieldy," he says. This may explain why Wright is eager to join the indie movement that's sweeping the industry. Several high-profile developers—like David Jaffe and Neil Young—have formed tiny production teams to make innovative, attention-getting games. Wright crafts a characteristically erudite metaphor on the state of the medium. "Five hundred million years ago, during the Cambrian explosion, all these diverse life forms evolved," he says. "Our industry is going through that explosion now."

Can Wright Go Wrong? You Decide.

There will be robots.
Wright and his SFC pals have tinkered with everything from fighting automatons to AI experiments. "We taught the robots to be social," Wright says. "They can converse, and it was fascinating to see their personalities interacting." For Wright, playing geek Frankenstein goes hand in hand with making games. "Building robots is not that different from programming sims," he says. "On the other hand, a robot may crash into you."

It will go beyond videogames.
Wright's games have always been modular, allowing for lucrative expansion packs and spinoffs: SimFarm, Sims 2: Apartment Life, Spore: Galactic Adventures, et cetera. Expect that to continue with his next offering, which will also play out across multiple media (television, toys, games). "It's a fractal deployment of intellectual property," Wright says. "Instead of picking one format, you're designing for one mega- platform. TV shows are borrowing clichés from games now. We've been talking about this kind of synergy for years, but it's finally happening."

We will all be guinea pigs.
Wright's famously open-ended simulations are social experiments that give players enormous latitude to make their own choices—and he loves to sift through the resulting data. That impulse is also evident in the pranks he's pulled with his SFC cohorts. "We've been building strange little things and taking them out in public to see what happens," he says. For instance, they put a smashed-up robot on the street and set up a hidden camera nearby. "As people walked past, it would beg for help," Wright says. Some ignored the injured automaton. Some stopped to talk to it. And some picked it over for salvageable parts.

Torture Chamber: NASA Tests Next-Gen Craft for Space Blast

Need to test a spaceship? For the past two decades, rocket scientists have been trucking prototypes to NASA's Space Power Facility in Sandusky, Ohio. The site's 122-foot-high aluminum vacuum chamber, the biggest on the planet, simulates the harsh conditions of outer space. But to accommodate the next craft in line for testing—Orion, the agency's new vehicle for human space missions—the facility is going to require some remodeling.

When Orion launches in 2014, it will be steeped in radar and radio frequencies generated by its own systems. So NASA is outfitting the chamber with antennas that'll bombard the vehicle with electromagnetic waves to see whether the controls go haywire. The chamber also lets researchers test the craft in an airless environment at temperatures ranging from -260 to 175 degrees Fahrenheit.

In an adjacent wing, NASA is building two more test bays. The first—designed to gauge how Orion's booster rocket, the punishingly powerful Ares I, could affect the craft—is a 2,500-ton concrete platform (anchored by steel rods in bedrock 50 feet down) topped with hydraulic actuators that will shake the 75,000-pound Orion with 45 minutes of intense sinusoidal vibrations along all three major axes. The second is another sealed chamber lined with nitrogen-gas-powered horns to blast the module with 163-dB noise, mimicking the acoustics of reaching for the sky at Mach 4.8. To avoid irking the neighbors, NASA is installing a soundproof concrete door that's 2 feet thick and 57 feet tall. Renovations are set to be completed by 2012, so that the tests may be run before Orion heads for the International Space Station. That should leave plenty of time to shake and rattle before it's time to rock and roll.

Photo: Courtesy NASA

July 31, 1971: Astronauts Drive on the Moon

Will Wright's Robot-Powered Master Plan for Stupid Fun

Fed Up, A Popular Mac Developer Quits The iPhone

By now, you’ve heard the horror stories. Developers put their heart and soul into building an application for the iPhone App Store only to have it rejected by Apple. And sometimes apps are at first accepted and then later pulled for odd reasons. And sometimes app updates are rejected, even though there isn’t much difference with the version accepted. We get a half dozen or so stories sent to us now every single day. It’s no wonder that a lot of mobile developers are growing wary of the App Store. But Steven Frank is not one of those developers.

Steven Frank doesn’t make iPhone apps, specifically for the reasons stated above. But he is a very popular Mac developer, that co-founded the OS X development house Panic, makers of the popular coding application Coda, among other apps. Frank is well-known in some circles as a Mac enthusiast. You know, the kind of person that is often derided as a “fanboy.” And that’s why what I’m about to tell you is surprising: He’s ditching his iPhone.

In a candid post today, Frank explains his utter frustration with both Apple and AT&T over the way they’ve handled the device and its developers. The whole Google Voice fiasco was the last straw for him. Again, Frank doesn’t make iPhone apps, but he’s simply disgusted as an end-user — someone who pays close to or over $100 a month, and can’t use a range of apps that are available on other phones, including some also on AT&T.

And so he’s now ditching his iPhone and boycotting any device that runs the iPhone OS (including, if applicable, the rumored Mac tablet). He says he’s going to get a Palm Pre, a device he considers inferior to the iPhone, but one that doesn’t (at least so far) have the app issues the iPhone does. (Nor does it have the AT&T issues.)

Is Frank crazy? If he is, he’s not the only one.

Perhaps you heard about Om Malik of GigaOM doing the same thing over frustrations with AT&T several months ago. And as someone who covers the iPhone ecosystem quite a bit, I’ve had a number of discussions with iPhone users who have either ditched their device over similar concerns, or are considering it.

Personally, I’m not there yet. I still consider the iPhone to be too far ahead of the other smartphones even with its (sometimes major) flaws in the App Store. But I’m getting much closer than I ever imagined to looking at other phones simply because of my complete and utter disliking of AT&T at this point. At the very least, if Apple doesn’t get rid of the AT&T exclusivity agreement next year (which, for the record, I think it will), I’m going to unlock my iPhone to use it on another network.

But that’s a separate issue from Frank’s. He’s right about Apple’s often odd, and sometimes downright hostile actions towards developers in regards to the iPhone. It needs a better set of guidelines for developers to work with, because clearly, the current ones aren’t cutting it. And it needs to be more consistant with adhering to its guidelines. I’d also say that some more transparency would be nice, but I know that will fall upon deaf ears. This is Apple, after all.

The iPhone and the App Store remain too far ahead of the competition for one person, no matter how big, or even a group of people leaving, to have much of an impact. But Apple has to be careful that its rivals don’t mature quicker than anticipated (the Pre finally opened its webOS SDK, for example), or we could see some serious defections. By that I mean at first some developers, fed up with the App Store, may move on to other platforms. And that may lead to more doing then same. Eventually, that will trickle down to the end-users.

I’m not saying that will happen, but there is a lot of outcry for changes right now. And it’s getting louder everyday.

[photo: flickr/thetechbuzz]

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Coconut! Headphones!

I don’t have any info on these headphones besides that they are homemade and awesome.  But what info do you really need? It’s not like you’re going to actually make some of these. And I’m guessing that if you have the skill to make these coconut cans with instructions, you can probably figure it out on your own anyway.

Dau Gi Bach via MAKE

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 9:00 pm

The Little Secret of Web Startups

This guest post is written by Marcelo Calbucci, the founder and CTO of Sampa — a personal homepage creator that will be shutting down next month. He’s writing a series of posts about the lessons learned from the venture at http://blog.calbucci.com. He’s also the publisher of Seattle 2.0, a web resource for tech entrepreneurs and startups in Seattle.

Consumer startups are tough. You have two basic choices: A paid offering or a free offering (or freemium). If you charge people a penny, you’ll turn off the bulk of your visitors. If you offer free services, you might grow to be the next YouTube, Wordpress or Facebook. Most entrepreneurs are not risk-averse and the dream of being big is just too appealing and the majority of us take the “free-route”.

Once you offer something for free, all shades of people will try to benefit from your service. You’d think a service like Sampa with a strong family and baby branding would just repel small business, teenagers, criminals, etc. but that’s not the case at all. And I suspect most blogging services; photo-sharing or web-site building solutions face the exact same issue we did.

Most entrepreneurs and investors will look at data analysis and talk about averages or totals: Averages number of blog posts per user per week, average number of sign-ins per user per month, viral coefficient, total number of active users, etc. Entrepreneurs who are more sophisticated will split their “averages” and “totals” in two or three groups. For example, fixing one of the dimensions into users that sign-in 30 or more times per month (very engaged), between 10 and 29 times per month (engaged), and between 0-9 times per month (on the brink of leaving) and then run the averages and totals for the different groups (e.g. “very engaged users upload 25 pictures/month, engaged users upload 7 pictures/month, etc.”)

Very few startups actually look at demographic and psychographic data as a way to group their users. Primarily, because it’s hard to get gender, age, income, interests and intentions without asking the user, and once you ask them you might just scare them way or get the wrong information.

One time we went to pitch Sampa to a VC in Seattle, and out of the blue he mentions this other startup growing amazingly fast – had nothing to do with our business. After the meeting I went to check the startup website. Their Compete and Alexa growth was just amazing. Their website contained profiles of all users since it was a public social network. So I clicked on the profile of the 20 people featured on their homepage (“most recent users to join”). Of those, about 75% were girls between the age of 9 and 13 – likely the worst demographic to make any revenue from.

Did the startup know about this? Oh, yeah. Did that VC that was looking at investing on them? Likely not.

In the middle of 2008 we decide to do a qualitative analysis of our user base. People of all kinds were creating sites on Sampa. There wasn’t an automated way to know if it was a baby site, a family site, a small business, a technology blog, etc. We looked at more than 300 sites, randomly selected and created a spreadsheet with the category, the demographic of the author (if we could figure out) and we plugged that into our own analytic system to split our averages and totals for each site category. The results sucked!

Just 20% of our users were on the target audience. That meant 80% were not building any kind of family or baby site. Ok, maybe we can live with that. But it turned out that more than 25% were by pre-teens. There are two problems with that: First, It’s actually illegal in the US and most countries to allow a younger than 13-year-old to sign up to your service without parental consent. Second, pre-teens are not a great audience to build an advertising-based business model.

However the data showed an even worse picture. Pre-teens were a quick burning flame. They would come, upload lots of pictures, write lots of blog posts, “bling” their site, invite 20+ friends and they would be completely gone in a month. That behavior skewed our data enough that once we looked at our growth, viral rates, and everything else, our business didn’t look so great.

Being Proactive Can Backfire

Can you force users to comply with your Terms-Of-Service and still be successful on a UGC service? Yes, you can. Facebook manage to be very aggressive on the enforcement of their TOS, and so did Flickr. However, if you look at most Web 2.0 startups, they are not doing that at all. The most prominent case is YouTube, which allowed copyright infringement on their website and can plot a $1.6B exit based on their “turn a blind eye” strategy.

We didn’t do that at Sampa, and I’m sure we could have seen 2 or 3 times more growth if we had used the same strategy. We proactively removed pre-teens websites. They weren’t easy to find, but every time we found one, we would remove the website and notify the owner she was 12-years-old. They would be mad at us and tell that “Jamie, Emily and Sally also have a website on Sampa”, and we would say thank you and delete all their friends websites too.

We would also proactively delete porn websites. There is nothing wrong with porn. It’s not illegal or immoral in my view, but it didn’t go well with our family-oriented business proposition. Also, most UGC porn sites are infringing in someone else copyright and we just didn’t want to deal with DMCA or lawyers.

We also found criminal websites, from people trying to steal credit-card and passwords to the ugly side of online pedophilia. We had the FBI come over twice to collect evidence.

And let’s not forget link-farms. Although we had CAPTCHA and email confirmation for new websites, every once in a while someone managed to create dozens of websites in a single day all full of links to some bank, real estate agent, mortgage broker, auto dealer, etc. I’m sure the business that were benefiting from it didn’t know they hired a “black-hat” SEO.

Pretty much every Social Network-builder, website builder or content sharing site deals with the same issues we dealt with. A good number of entrepreneurs (and most investors) will be oblivious to those facts and just think that everything is going great and the growth is sustainable and proof they are creating great value and soon will be able to turn a huge profit or to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars, until someone takes the time to figure out what people are using their service for and finds out it’s really not what they thought it was.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:51 pm

Prototype Vehicle For the Blind

An anonymous reader writes "A student team from Virginia Tech Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory have created a vehicle which allows the blind to drive. The vehicle uses a laser range finder to determine distances and alerts the driver through voice commands and vibration. Tomorrow [Friday] morning, the vehicle will have its first public test drive at the University of Maryland. At last, Braille on drive-up ATMs may finally be vindicated."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:30 pm

With silly putty and sparkles, you can make a BioShock belt buckle

Well look at that, a BioShock belt buckle. And, if you’re handy with all sorts of machinery I’ve never heard of (read: TechShop), you can make your own.

The computer work isn’t so difficult: a little bit of PhotoShop, a little bit of Solidworks (which reminds me of my high school AutoDesk Inventor class). But then you need access to a CNC machine, which I couldn’t identify if my life depended on it… maybe Matt could?

Fear not, though, because if this belt buckle steams your clams, then the creator will be selling them on demand for a bit.

Imagine walking into, I don’t know, Local Discotheque, and people freak out. “Whoa, is that BioShock?”

And… scene.

Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:21 pm

MicroStrategy Announces Second Quarter 2009 Financial Results

MCLEAN, Va., July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MicroStrategy(R) Incorporated (Nasdaq: MSTR), a leading worldwide provider of business intelligence software, today announced financial results for the three-month period ended June 30, 2009 (the second quarter of its 2009 fiscal year).

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:00 pm

ZOMG: Nintendo drops v1.4 DSi firmware in Japan, Facebook picture uploading ensues [Update]

Yeah, it’s not that exciting.

via Joystiq

Update: Looks like 1.4 is borking flash carts on the DSi. Uh oh.

via Max

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:30 pm

Apple releases iDisk for iPhone

Do you have a MobileMe subscription? No? Oh.

Well, if you did you could now download Apple’s iDisk application and send files to your friends and neighbors. The app browses your online iDisk and lets you view Office files and PDFs right on your phone. You can also send links to files via email.

You could also use SugarSync or Evernote for this, but you might as well spend the money on Me, right? Right?

Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:24 pm

LG Introduces Ultra-Slim LCD TVs (PC World)

PC World - At LG’s fifth annual summer line show in New York City, the company introduced two new HDTV lines, the SL80 and SL90. Both caught my attention for their attention to design.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:15 pm

Wall Street Journal Creating New “LinkedIn Killer” Called WSJ Connect

The Wall Street Journal has long envied the success of professional social network LinkedIn and its 15 million or so monthly visitors (WSJ.com has just a third of that). In late 2008 they launched WSJ Community, a social network bolted onto the main WSJ site. That community is a ghost town - raise your hand if you’ve even heard of it, let alone visited it. At some point, they’ll likely shut it down as quietly as possible.

But they are still serious about gunning for the LinkedIn crowd and all those monetization opportunities (jobs, ads and a heck of a marketing pool for WSJ subscriptions). They’ve been working on a new social network, to be called WSJ Connect, we’ve confirmed. And instead of building it internally, like they did with WSJ Community, they’ve enlisted the help of another arm of parent company News Corp. - Slingshot Labs. And yes, they call it “LinkedIn Killer” internally.

Slingshot Labs is the R&D arm of News Corp. and works on digital products. Their first product was Daily Fill, which launched earlier this year. They also built the MySpace Events product that we covered in March. They operate fairly independently, have their own funding and 40-50 staff, according to one person familiar with their operations.

WSJ Connect is still in the planning/conceptual stages, says one source, but there is “strong interest” to move the project forward. Importantly, it would leverage the WSJ brand but would be a separate property and unencumbered by the need for a paid subscription to the newspaper.

Conceptual screenshots of the product are apparently floating around Slingshot, the WSJ and MySpace. We’re trying to track them down.

Absolutely no one responded to our requests for comment. Luckily, lots of ex-MySpace employees are happy to talk.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:13 pm

Panel Wants Deep Space, Not Landings as US Goal - New York Times

CBC.ca

Panel Wants Deep Space, Not Landings as US Goal New York Times A panel examining the future of the United States' human spaceflight program will suggest that the Obama administration may want to skip the part about landing on other worlds. That could, panel members said Thursday, ... Shuttle aims for Friday morning landing in FloridaThe Associated Press Space shuttle Endeavour expected to land FridayCNN International Endeavour shuttle ready to landBBC News DailyTech -WXIA-TV -Spaceflight Now all 775 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:06 pm

Motorola Q2 Sales Down Across the Board

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm

Halo Effect: 4 Ring Flashes Tested and Rated

A ring flash is more than a circular light source — it's a portable studio that can be toted to any shooting location. Wired's photo mavens test four of the best ones on the market to find which works best.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm

G.I. Joystick: New Video Games Train Today's Troops (PC World)

PC World - War isn't a game, but it's beginning to look like one.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm

Halo Effect: 4 Ring Flashes Tested and Rated

A ring flash is more than a circular light source — it's a portable studio that can be toted to any shooting location. Wired's photo mavens test four of the best ones on the market to find which works best.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:00 pm

Microsoft Puts Positive Spin on Sales Drop - PC World

New Zealand Herald

Microsoft Puts Positive Spin on Sales Drop PC World Microsoft executives put a rosy glow on the company's prospects and performance at the company's annual financial analysts meeting, despite a recent quarterly report that fell short of revenue expectations by US$1 billion. "I can't say it's good. ... Microsoft optimistic but shy on forecastsReuters Ballmer: Windows will get more competitionCNET News Microsoft ultra-thins to 'out cool' netbooks, AppleRegister BetaNews -eWeek -CNNMoney.com all 77 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:43 pm

Live From Redmond: Kiwi-Cute Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell, Plus Ray Ozzie Apperates [BoomTown]

As the wind-up act for the Financial Analyst Day at Microsoft today, its CFO Chris Liddell took the stage to try to put a shine on weak financial results that the software giant recently reported.

“So, what genetic disposition do you need to be a CFO? Essentially, you need to be miserable, you need to be the sort of person who takes drinks away from people at the end of a party,” said Liddell. “So, you know, my colleagues who have been giving you drinks all day, have told me to come out here and take most of them away from you.”

This was an unusually charming opening for typically dull CFOs, made even more so since it was delivered in Liddell’s jaunty New Zealand-Hobbit accent, which turns words like “share” into “sheeaar” and “schedule” into “shed-you-all.”

But no matter how cute the delivery, Liddell could not make the recent financial performance at Microsoft (MSFT) look adorable. The company missed revenue estimates by $1 billion in its most recent quarter.

Said Liddell: “And, not surprisingly, from a revenue point of view, it turned out to be a fundamentally different year than we thought it would. So, when I stood up here last year and said we thought our revenue would grow, it actually slunk by three percent.”

Liddell dubbed the new economic situation the “new normal,” which sounds like it could be the topic on an “Oprah” show.

Still, Liddell, who has been a grumpier CFO than most during this econalypse–I once dubbed him “Glum Chris at the Recessiondome”–was more positive going forward.

“I can’t say this is good that we’re still down relative to where we were a year ago,” he said. “But, on a relative basis, it was a reasonable year from a shareholder value point of view, given the context of the environment that we had.”

Liddell said Microsoft was now operating in a “reset” mode, a term often used by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

“The economic path that we are all going to face, regardless of any industry, is going to be relative subdued compared to what we’ve been through,” he said. “So, those companies that are going to drive superior shareholder value in the new environment are not only going to be the ones that mapping the reset in a very good way, but are going to manage the new normal in a particular way as well.”

That means having cash, controlling costs, pushing for innovation and market share, said Liddell.

He forgot to add judicious coupon-clipping!

After he was done, Liddell was joined onstage for an executive Q&A by Ballmer, COO Kevin Turner, Online Services President Qi Lu and, finally, Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie, who was apparently in the special guest star role for this year’s meeting.

It was emceed by investor relations guy Bill Koefoed, who I must admit is not even close to as dull as he is when reading all that legal mumbo-jumbo at quarterly earnings call.

(Even to my assistant Ed–to whom Koefoed’s voice is like Valium, since I listen to those calls on a speakerphone at All Things Digital HQ and it puts him into a deep stupor.)

There were various questions for the execs–all men, by the way, although who’s counting? Well, okay, me!–including:

* Whether Microsoft might make more acquisitions.

“We don’t acquire as a strategy,” said Ballmer flatly.

* Its relationship with Yahoo (YHOO) going forward and if it might lead to even closer ties.

“If there was an implicit question are we interested in a full acquisition, the answer is no Yahoo is happy to be independent we’re happy to be independent we’re delighted with search partnership,” said Ballmer even more flatly.

There were also a whole bunch of financial questions, most on the far side of wonky. Ozzie spoke only briefly about big computing ideas, which is his job at the software giant.

And then it was over and he and the other big execs headed for cocktails with those gathered.

And, last I saw, Liddell was not wrestling any drinks from the attendees. Not yet, at least.

Source: All Things Digital | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:42 pm

/C O R R E C T I O N -- Zilog, Inc./

In the news release, Zilog Announces First Quarter Fiscal 2010 Financial Results, issued 30-Jul-2009 by Zilog, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:36 pm

Foxconn suicide turns spotlight on China counterfeiting

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:30 pm

Obama touts stem cell research

U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:29 pm

EBay says no changes to Skype IPO plans (Reuters)

Reuters - EBay Inc shrugged off speculation on Thursday that its planned spinoff of Skype could be in danger, given an ongoing dispute over the technology used in the online telephone unit and new plans to develop proprietary software.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:24 pm

WriteRoom notetaking app adds Web syncing (Macworld.com)

Macworld.com - Hog Bay Software on Thursday released WriteRoom 2.0 for iPhone, an update to its $5 iPhone note-taking utility that adds improved web-syncing features.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:15 pm

Gmail Kisses “On Behalf Of” Goodbye, Enables Support For Third-Party Outbound Servers

Anyone who has ever tried to use Gmail as a central hub for their Email has likely fallen prey to one of the service’s annoying flaws: there was no way to use another site’s outgoing SMTP servers to send Email. For the vast majority of people this wasn’t an issue — Gmail was happy to send your Email for you from your Gmail account, along with message indicating that it was being sent “On Behalf Of” your other account. But those three words were still there, serving as a constant thorn in our sides. And to make matters worse, it could also confuse people: they might start sending messages to your Gmail account rather than your primary Email address. Today, you can kiss those “On Behalf Of”’s goodbye, as Gmail has just started allowing users to send their messages from third party SMTP servers.

If the previous paragraph confused you, here’s an explanation: Many people like to use Gmail’s web interface for their Email but don’t have the option of using Google Apps on their mail server, especially when it’s for their work account. Fortunately there’s a work around to this: simply have your work Email account auto-forward all incoming messages to your Gmail account. The option even allows you to send messages and make them look like they’re coming from your work account, rather than you Gmail account, but with one caveat: rather than actually send these messages from your work address, Google includes a message that says the message was sent “On Behalf Of” your address, while still showing the name of the Gmail account it was actually sent from.

It’s true that most people never noticed this (in fact many mail clients don’t show the “On Behalf Of” at all under default settings), and even if they did see it they probably didn’t care in the slightest. But it’s still been a source of annoyance for many of us.

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Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:08 pm

And Bingo Was His Name-o

In February 2008, when the news of the original Microsoft-Yahoo deal first broke, it didn’t take long before people were Photoshopping new logos. Flickr users were especially passionate, fearing that a Microsoft acquisition would ruin Flickr’s creative appeal.

This time around, it’s the same story. Here are some of the more interesting logos:

Ariz Jacinto

Yahoo Search - Powered by Bing! by sahaab

yabing! by kakoraptor

Binghoo! by bruceclay

bingoo! by ajkohn2001

Yahoo! &* Microsoft? No! by patagonia

Yahoo by joeteixido

Put down your search engine. You have 20 seconds to comply. by thevoicewithin

Feel free to create your own. Tag them with the yahoo, microsoft, and techcrunch (each word seperately) and we’ll add the best ones to our list.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:00 pm

Kids capable of CPR, study finds

Nine-year-old children can and should learn how to perform CPR, a study of 147 Austrian schoolchildren indicates. After a four-month study of children who received six hours of life-support training, Fritz Sterz of the Medical University of Vienna found 86 percent performed CPR correctly, the university said in a news release Thursday. The usefulness of CPR training in schools has been questioned since young students may not have the physical and cognitive skills needed to perform such complex tasks correctly, Sterz said We found that, in fact, students as young as 9 years are able to successfully and effectively learn basic life-support skills. The researchers' observations noted that physical strength may limit robust chest compression and ventilation in children as in adults, Sterz said. Skills children learned included automatic defibrillator deployment, providing CPR, using the recovery position and calling for emergency services, the university said.

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:55 pm

Malaria Vaccine, Via Mosquito

CodeShark writes "The AP is reporting that mosquitoes have been used for the first time to deliver anti-malarial vaccine through their bites. According to this article the results were crystal clear: 100% of the vaccinated group acquired immunity, everyone in the non-vaccinated control group did not. Those in the control group and developed malaria when exposed to the parasites later, the vaccinated group did not. Malaria kills nearly a million people per year, mostly children."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:55 pm

The New MySpace Mail Quietly Emerges As A Big-Time Email Competitor

We’ve been covering the new web email project MySpace has been working on in stealth mode for the past several month. Now it’s ready to begin a quiet rollout today, in beta, for users around the globe.

Here’s why this matters: Right off the bat, MySpace Mail with a sexy new interface is a major player in the e-mail space based on sheer size alone. With nearly 130 million global users, it will enter the field as the 4th largest email provider in the world, and 2nd largest in the U.S. (see chart). And it’s being built on top of the MySpace Messaging service that plenty of people are already using a lot — it accounts for some 20% of MySpace’s site traffic, we’re told.

Here’s what else is nice: Because MySpace has had so-called vanity URLs since its inception (unlike Facebook, which just rolled out the feature), you can use those as your email address with the new MySpace Mail. So for a page that resides at myspace.com/techcrunch, the email would be techcrunch@myspace.com, for example. And, if you don’t like the vanity URL you currently have, MySpace is giving you the opportunity to change it to something else (assuming it’s available). This would also change your vanity URL for your profile.

So what’s different in this new version? Well, besides the obvious upgrades to the overall look, there’s a new Mail Activity Stream. This basically gives users a real-time view of what people you are having a conversation with, are doing on the site. The new MySpace Mail also allows you to embed photos in one step, and send music and video as attachments.

And like Yahoo Mail, MySpace Mail comes with an unlimited amount of storage space. Contrast that with Google’s popular Gmail, which limits to just over 7 GB (though it is consistently growing).

We’ve talked about MySpace using Gears to do cool things with its messaging service in the past, and this new MySpace Mail will also utilize it to allow for power searching of mail.

So the big question is, how does it compare to what Facebook is offering? Well, as we’ve written before, Facebook mail has a lot of issues. Here’s how they stack up on some features (along with the other big guys):

As we said, this new MySpace Mail will begin rolling out today in beta, and it will continue to reach users across the globe over the next few weeks. When you first see it on your account, you’ll be greeting by a walk-through screen (pictured above) to set it up for the first time. This is where you’ll be able to choose which address you wish to use.

Here’s the core functionality:

• New Mail center provides a snapshot of all your mail activities including messages, sent messages, requests, and notifications
• Send and receive messages from inside or outside the MySpace network
• Unlimited file storage
• One click to embed photos directly from your profile or desktop
• Send and receive file attachments including music and video
• Search within Mail using our Google Gears implementation
• Check out friends’ activities in real time via the new Mail Activity Stream module
• Address book that automatically saves your contacts

In terms of privacy, here’s what MySpace is saying about the product:

MySpace Mail is safe and reliable. MySpace has always taken a holistic approach to privacy and Mail is no exception. MySpace Mail empowers users to be as open or as private as they choose. Just like traditional mail, users can choose to receive messages from anyone whether they are in the MySpace network or not, while enhanced privacy features enable users to receive mail from only their MySpace ‘friends.’ Leading anti-spam technology and virus scanning ensure a safe, spam-free mail experience.

And here are a ton of screenshots:

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:50 pm

Does Fedor’s inclusion in EA MMA game jeopardize any possible UFC fight?

Looks like Fedor Emelianenko will, in fact, be in the upcoming EA MMA video game. Fedor, as he’s known to MMA fans, currently fights in M-1 Global, which is an MMA organization based in Russia. (YouTube helps here.)

This could have consequences further down the road. Pretty much every MMA fan in the world wants to see Fedor fight in the UFC; most of those fans, I would guess, would want him to fight Brock Lesnar, who just gave Frank Mir a thorough talking-to. The only problem is that Dana White, who’s sort of the Vince McMahon of UFC (he’s actually the president of the company, but he also performs a public “look at me!” role like Vince McMahon does/used to), has gone on record, time and again, as sayingthat anyone who appears in the upcoming EA MMA game will never fight in the UFC. (Yes, Randy Coture is the exception to this rule.)

Why is Mr. White resorting to such measures?

I went to EA Sports. Know what EA Sports said? ‘It’s not a sport. This isn’t a sport. We would never get involved in something like this.’ We come out with a video game [UFC Undisputed, the best selling game of the quarter] and now they want to come out with a video game? (Expletive) you.

(Also, Dave Meltzer, the guy whose story that quote comes from, could be the greatest journalist alive today.)

So, in summary, Fedor’s appearance in the EA game complicates matters. Now, because Lesnar vs. Fedor has money written all over it, especially if neither of the two lose any upcoming fights, you’d have to think that Dana White would re-consider his stance.

Fedor isn’t getting any younger, and I’d like to see him and Lesnar go at it before the sun runs out hydrogen.

Source: Gizmodo | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:30 pm

Scientists Drill a Mile Into Active Deep Sea Fault Zone

Scientists have successfully drilled into the Nankai subduction zone near Japan, an accomplishment that will help them understand why this type of earthquake zone produces massive quakes.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:27 pm

Kindle Ate My Homework [Digital Daily]

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s hair-shirt apology for Kindlegate was a nice gesture, but it didn’t go over particularly well with Justin Gawronski, a Michigan high school senior who lost his homework when the retailer remotely deleted a copy of George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” from his Kindle earlier this month. He’s filed a class action suit against Amazon seeking money for those who lost work due to the book deletion and an injunction barring the company from improperly deleting books from Kindles again.

Below, an excerpt from the suit and the document in full:

On or about early-June, 2009, Mr. Gawronski purchased for $0.99 an electronic copy of George Orwell’s “1984″ for use on his Kindle 2 from Amazon’s Kindle Store. He purchased the book because it was assigned to him as a summer homework assignment by a teacher at his high school.

On or about July 20, 2009, after reading online about Amazon’s practice of remotely deleting copies of “1984″ from Kindles, Mr. Gawronski powered on his Kindle 2 only to watch “1984″ vanish before his very eyes. Because “1984″ was the most recent book he had been reading on his Kindle 2 prior to July 20, 2009, the Kindle 2 powered on to the last page of “1984″ Mr. Gawronski had been reading. Within moments of powering on his Kindle 2 to this page of “1984,” the entire e-book disappeared as Amazon immediately remotely deleted it from his Kindle 2.

Mr. Gawronksi did not consent to Amazon remotely deleting “1984″ from his Kindle 2.

As part of his studies of “1984,” Mr. Gawronski had made copious notes in the book. After Amazon remotely deleted “1984,” those notes were rendered useless because they no longer referenced the relevant parts of the book. The notes are still accessible on the Kindle 2 device in a file separate from the deleted book, but are of no value. For example, a note such as “remember this paragraph for your thesis” is useless if it does not actually a reference a specific paragraph. By deleting “1984″ from Mr. Gawronski’s Kindle 2, this is the position in which Amazon left him. Mr. Gawronski now needs to recreate all of his studies.

Amazon_Complaint

Source: All Things Digital | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:17 pm

Acer plans for a Q3 launch of Aspire One Android netbook

Section: Computers, Netbooks

An Acer representative wanted to ensure Android enthusiasts that a netbook running Android will be launched sometime this year.  After several delays and false reporting, Acer felt it was best to reassure the public that the 10 inch Aspire One will still be running Android.

Now, Acer already markets an Aspire One netbook running on Windows XP; in addition, the one they showed off at an electronics show in Taipei featured a dual-boot of Android and XP.  It should be known that the Android running Aspire One will not feature a Windows XP and Google Android dual-boot. 

Android is, perhaps, best known as an OS for smartphones.  However, after much success and improvements, many manufacturers feel it is ready to perform in netbooks, another source of computer mobility whose popularity has risen in recent months.  The Acer Aspire One Android netbook is the first of its kind to feature both Android and an Intel Atom microprocessor. 

Acer became interested in Android due to its growing popularity and the strong development movement behind the software.  The PC vendor announced the Aspire One with Android a day after saying its first Android-based smartphones would launch in the fourth quarter of this year.  No word on exact pricing or availability as of yet.

Read [PC World]

Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:14 pm

(BB Video) Send Me a Link: The Art of Cassandra C. Jones

(Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube)

In this episode of Boing Boing Video, we visit the Ojai studio of artist Cassandra C. Jones, whose "Google-found" digital photo collages and video loops explore how we "create, communicate with, and consume photography in today's 'remix culture.'" San Francisco gallery Baer Ridgway is hosting a solo exhibition of her work, titled "Send Me A Link," August 1st - September 5th 2009.

Some of the works included are constructed by compiling hundreds of professional and amateur snapshots of the same subject taken by different people. Ranging from full-color lightning bolts to old black and whites of horses jumping over a fence, she links them in ways that depict motion, line and non-linear narrative. Other pieces are made by deconstructing single photographs, removing their backgrounds and reducing them to isolated shapes. Jones then duplicates and arranges these forms to create compositions where singularity and multiplicity exist simultaneously. There is both an order and a chaos present in the body of work, which overall asks the question, what does it mean to organize and interpret imagery in the digital realm, where the archives of visual information are in a constant state of growth and evolution?

More images after the jump, and you may also want to read this article about her work today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"Send Me a Link is at once a nod to the digital landscape in which we find ourselves, and a plea, perhaps an imperative, to create context amidst an endless expanse of images. The phrase explicitly signals the centrality for Jones of network- or systems-oriented digital technologies in the appropriation, accumulation, and manipulation of photographs; the artist culls many of her images from stock or professional photo agencies with an ease and speed unique to our lived moment. Similarly, the wide ranging content of the artist's most recent compositions (leaping animals, looping roller coasters, hovering athletes) all share a suspended quality, suggesting that approaches to flight, air, falling, or hovering might form a new common thematic concern in Jones' evolving practice. She has pushed the suggestion even further in recent compositions: by manipulating streaks of lightning across the night sky into explicitly figurative shapes (Lightning Drawing Series, 2009), she offers another link: the aligning of the practices of drawing and photography."

-James Merle Thomas

Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:07 pm

Inside the World's Busiest Air Traffic Control Tower

Welcome to Oshkosh, where 50 of the best controllers in the business direct 10,000 planes in a single week.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:07 pm

Delta faucet is straight out of Harry Potter

So you’re sitting around looking at faucets like my buddy Sam was. And you happen upon a cool-looking faucet from Delta. It looks really pretty. Huh. But it’s $434.38. Why? You read on.

Suddenly you see something magical: “Start and stop the flow of water with just a tap anywhere on the spout or handle.”

Let me re-paste that “Start and stop the flow of water with just a tap anywhere on the spout or handle.”

Wham. A touch sensitive faucet. If you’re like Sam you’ll email your buddy at CrunchGear to tell him about it. And then he’ll post it. And you’ll both sit there on opposite ends of the United States reunited - for a brief period - over the majesty of a touch-sensitive faucet. This is why they invented the Internet, friends. That and porn.

he Pilar™ design was inspired by a fusion of technology and nature
Saves water and energy
Start and stop the flow of water with just a tap anywhere on the spout or handle
Exclusive MagnaTite™ spray head docking ensures a snug fit of the wand
Helps prevent the spread of bacteria
32″ minimum supply lines below the deck included
ADA Compliant
DIAMOND™ Seal Technology
Touch2O™ Technology
MagnaTite™ Docking
Electronic Faucets
Touch Clean
With Soap / Lotion Dispenser

Does anyone have one of these? I’d totally install this if we didn’t just redo our kitchen.

Source: CrunchGear | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:03 pm

Tech Smoothes Way to Cheaper Electronics

Scientists have developed reusable silicon templates that may lead to cheaper, more efficient technology.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 5:00 pm

A.I. Developer Challenges Pro-Human Bias

destinyland writes "After 13 years, the creator of the Noble Ape cognitive simulation says he's learned two things about artificial intelligence. 'Survival is a far better metric of intelligence than replicating human intelligence,' and "There are a number of examples of vastly more intelligent systems (in terms of survival) than human intelligence." Both Apple and Intel have used his simulation as a processor metric, but now Tom Barbalet argues its insights could be broadly applied to real life. His examples of durable non-human systems? The legal system, the health care system, and even the internet, where individual humans are simply the 'passive maintaining agents,' and the systems can't be conquered without a human onslaught that's several magnitudes larger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:58 pm

University researchers to study power grid

Electrical engineering researchers at two universities will receive stimulus funds to help modernize the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:44 pm

RIAA Seeks Up to $150,000 a Song in File Sharing Trial

The Recording Industry Association of America, fresh from winning a $2 million jury verdict in a file sharing case, urges the judge in another case to instruct the jury that it is entitled to award as much as $150,000 in damages for each of 30 songs in dispute.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:42 pm

Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it - Ars Technica

ABC News

Tenenbaum takes the stand: I used P2P and lied about it Ars Technica Accused of sharing 30 songs on the Internet, Joel Tenenbaum today admitted his liability in a federal courtroom, then told the court he told a "lie" in his earlier sworn responses. The labels have moved for a directed verdict of copyright infringement, ... Joel Tenenbaum admits in court he shared music filesCNET News Mass. student on trial admits sharing tunes onlineThe Associated Press BU student admits illegal downloadsBoston Globe BBC News -Wired News -Law.com all 758 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:39 pm

Hill farmers help preserve rice diversity

The practices of Thailand's hill farmers have helped preserve the genetic diversity of rice, researchers in the United States and Thailand found. Research by Barbara A. Schaal of Washington University in St.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:25 pm

Perhaps if You Bundled the Zune With Windows? [Digital Daily]

“For something we pulled together in six months, we are very pleased with the satisfaction we got. The satisfaction for the device was superhigh.” Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said that of the Zune in October 2007.

Boy was he ever wrong. MarketWatch reports that revenue at Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices unit, which manages the Zune and Xbox 360, fell 42 percent to about $211 million in its most recent quarter. Microsoft (MSFT) shipped more Xbox systems this spring than last, so what could be driving that grotesque revenue shortfall?

Yep. After nearly three years at market, Zune has remarkably little share to show for it. In fact, recent data from NPD Group show Zune’s share of the portable media player market at about two percent, compared to about 70 percent for the Apple (AAPL) iPod. And with a sales trend like the one revealed in Microsoft’s January 10Q, market share isn’t likely to be growing much. According to that document, “Zune platform revenue decreased $100 million or 54 percent reflecting a decrease in device sales.”

And that was in a holiday quarter.

Little wonder, then, that some have begun to wonder if it might not be time for Microsoft to just scuttle the device. “The market reception for Zune is so disappointing that many retailers have even stopped selling it altogether,” Tradition Capital Management VP George Kurian told MarketWatch. “Microsoft should abandon Zune and follow Apple’s strategy to try to make its presence felt in the high-growth smartphone sector.”

Source: All Things Digital | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:15 pm

5 Games to Throw Down a Black Hole (and 5 We'd Pull Out)

Game|Life joins Wire.com's black hole party with five games that should be banished forever. And to keep order in the universe, five games that have disappeared defy the laws of physics and get a second chance at life.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:08 pm

Mandy Godiva, by Dean Yeagle

In addition to meeting comic book historian Craig Yoe last night, I was also lucky to meet artist Dean Yeagle, who was in attendance. Dean is an incredible illustrator with an impressive resume. I've long been a fan of his work and was thrilled when he gave me a copy of his new book, Mandy Godiva, which was a big hit at Comic Con last week.

The images above are from Mandy Godiva (click images for full size), and are some of the only pages that wouldn't get a NSFW label.

You can see more of Dean's work and buy his books at his website, Caged Beagle.


Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:07 pm

Live From Redmond: Microsoft’s Lu Hearts ’Hoo, Plus Business Guy Elop and Server Guy Muglia [BoomTown]

Isn’t it ironic that Yahoo once employed–and for a very long time–top search techie Qi Lu and here he was on stage today at the Financial Analyst Meeting at Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Wash., after having just scooped up that business for the software giant.

Lu, who is now president of the Online Services division at Microsoft (MSFT), was a key player in the deal that was announced yesterday between it and Yahoo (YHOO), under which Microsoft licensed Yahoo’s search technology for a decade.

Lu was not generous with the details, although he did say making the partnership work was his No. 2 priority after Microsoft’s own search business. No. 3 was being financially responsible.

Said Lu, in part: “First, search is our number–one priority…second, a big priority for us is implement the Yahoo partnership. It is a 10-year partnership. We’re absolutely committed in spirit, in everything we did to deliver the true economic values, consumer benefits, customer benefits for advertisers, publishers all around.”

Because of the scale it brings, Lu said that the deal has the potential to be lucrative, despite the fact that Wall Street thinks Yahoo sold out of its search technology too cheaply.

But he also tried to manage expectations. “And I keep telling my teams, we want to be brutally honest about where we are…and understand the hurdles we have to overcome,” said Lu.

Microsoft Business President Stephen Elop, who was on next, talked a lot about how Microsoft was dealing with the tough economy and its impact on the company’s software business.

He also gave updates about a range of its various products, including the upcoming Office 2010.

“Now, despite the difficult economic challenges, despite the end of a product cycle, what we believe, as evidenced by the strength of our annuity business, is that there’s incredible excitement out there in the market because of Office 2010,” said Elop. “So, at a time when we expect business productivity or business spending climate to improve, we are launching the most innovative wave of technology we have ever launched.”

Elop used the term “attach rate” to talk about the how users relate to Microsoft software, although I have often thought about how much I wanted to get a divorce from Microsoft Outlook.

After Elop, another business-type exec, Servers and Tools President Bob Muglia, who also had to deliver not-such-great news.

Said Muglia: “What we saw was that as the economy got soft, so did the customer buying, the business buying for servers, and starting around the middle of October into the end of our fiscal second quarter, and certainly through the entire part of our second fiscal half, this calendar year, we’ve seen a pretty dramatic decline in the server marketplace.”

And, after that, when he started talking annuity sales, virtualization and modular data centers–I’ll admit it–this is precisely the moment when I went out for an emergency cookie run.

After Q&A with Elop and Muglia, next up: CFO Chris Liddell (and his delightful New Zealand accent) to talk about–hopefully–Microsoft’s billion-dollar revenue miss in its most recent quarter.

Source: All Things Digital | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:05 pm

Grooveshark’s iPhone App Is Great, But It’s About To Get Smacked Down By Apple

Over the last few days we’ve seen a lot of attention centered on the new iPhone application from Spotify, the so-called ‘iTunes Killer’ subscription service that lets you plays songs on demand from a library of millions of tracks. We still don’t know if that app is going to make it through Apple’s nebulous approval process, but it’s already got some possible competition: Grooveshark, a streaming music service that lets you stream nearly any song from its web interface, has its own iPhone app ready for release and it’s just about to submit it to Apple. Like Spotify, the application lets you search for any song you want and stream it from the cloud almost instantly.

Now Grooveshark just needs to face the daunting Apple approval process. So will it make it though unscathed? Almost certainly not.

Grooveshark is a great service — the web interface is slick, and you can usually find whatever song you’re looking for in a matter of seconds, free of charge. But it’s also not exactly on solid legal footing. The company is holding true to its comparison to a ‘YouTube for music’, allowing users to upload whatever they want and generally only policing when they receive takedown notices, which doesn’t prevent the bulk of copyrighted songs from making their way onto the site (in its early days YouTube thrived on copyrighted content using a similar strategy) . CEO Sam Tarantino says that Grooveshark is currently hammering out deals with the major record labels to remedy this issue, but EMI changed tactics midway through negotiations and decided to sue the company instead which isn’t helping their efforts.

Still, Tarantino sounds optimistic about the future of the company, even if he isn’t counting on the iPhone app getting approved just yet. The website gets 1.3 million visitors a month, 750,000 of which have registered. The company is finalizing how it will deploy a subscription model (likely in the $5-$15 a month range), which will give it an added boost of legitimacy, and revenue. Until then though, I wouldn’t expect this to pop up in the App Store any time soon.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:04 pm

FTC tries to block device-maker's purchase

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is seeking to block a cardiac device-maker's proposed $282 million acquisition plans. Cardiac device-maker Thoratec Corp., of Pleasanton, Calif., is trying to acquire outstanding shares of HeartWare International, based in Framingham, Mass.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:02 pm

ARM Hopes To Lure Microsoft Away From Intel

Steve Kerrison writes "With the explosion of netbooks now available, the line between PC and mobile phone is becoming much less distinct. ARM, one of the biggest companies behind CPU architectures for mobile phones (and other embedded systems), sees now as an opportunity to break out of mobiles and give Intel a run for its money. HEXUS.channel quizzes Bob Morris, ARM's director of mobile computing, on how it plans to achieve such a herculean task. Right now, ARM's pushing Android as the OS that's synonymous with the mobile Internet. But it's not simply going to ignore Microsoft: 'What if Microsoft offered a full version of Windows (as opposed to Windows Mobile or Windows CE) that used the ARM, rather than X86 (Intel and AMD) instruction set? Then it would be a straight hardware fight with Intel, in which ARM hopes its low power, low price processors will have an advantage.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:00 pm

Is this the first D-pad?

Jason 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.

To a certain group of dedicated dorks, videogame controllers and their history is fiercely interesting, even to the point of having dedicated T-shirts. It's to those folks I present this discovery: this looks like it may be the first product (image from a 1977 ad) with a joypad-like device, used for user input (enlargement mine):

Ah, the CALCUPEN. Now, I know Gunpei Yokoi usually gets credit for those little 4-way rocker switches first used on the famous Game & Watch series, but it sure looks like our little Calcupen has five of the things running up its nerdy spine there. Granted, they're used for numerical input as opposed to direction control, but it's essentially the same device. I bet, if one was lucky enough to find one, a Calcupen could be wired to act as an old Nintendo controller!

Maybe the Calcupen is really that missing link between nerd productivity culture and nerd time-wasting culture. I smell a dissertation.


Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:59 pm

One Website To Rule Them All: Explosions And Boobs

We on the web are a simple folk — especially us males. We need but two things to keep us happy: Explosions and boobs. And thank God someone has finally cut through all the BS, and given us exactly what we want in one brilliant site called yes, Explosions and Boobs.

The site is actually more elaborate than it may seem at first glorious glance. If you click on either the explosion picture or the picture of the boobs, you will get new pictures of explosions and boobs! Brilliant. It’s hours of endless fun waiting to happen. Who needs to sit through an entire Michael Bay movie when you have this?

Just go to it and be amazed. Obviously, it may not be safe for everyone’s place of work. But it’s apparently safe enough for Jim Lanzone, the former CEO of Ask.com to tweet about it. Or maybe not. As Michael tweets in response, “see this is why you got fired as CEO of Ask.com.”

Update: Alright, alright calm down. Lanzone wasn’t really fired as Ask.com CEO. But for those who read it on Twitter and assumed that it must be true, consider this the official debunking.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: TechCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:54 pm

Space shuttle to return to Earth Friday

NASA officials say they won't know for certain whether U.S.space shuttle Endeavour will land as scheduled on Friday until about two hours before touchdown. Officials will evaluate weather conditions at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida about two hours before permitting Endeavour and its seven-member crew to land shortly after noon EDT, NASA said on its Web site.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:50 pm

Camille Rose Garcia print, with all money going to charity

BB pal Kirsten Anderson, proprietor of Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery, says:

Roq la Rue Gallery has announced the release of a new print by Camille Rose Garcia, entitled " 'Lil Elorphant." Published by Roq la Rue, the entire proceeds of the sale of this print goes to charity, The contact us to order one.

Camille Rose Garcia
"Lil' Elorphant"
signed and numbered giclee, edition of 100
14" x 17" with hand deckled edges
$400.

Roq La Rue contact info

Previously:

• Mark Ryden print for charity - Boing Boing

Source: Boing Boing | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:38 pm

Microsoft: Windows Mobile Browsing Better Than iPhone - ChannelWeb

Mobiletor.com

Microsoft: Windows Mobile Browsing Better Than iPhone ChannelWeb Microsoft says it's aware that there's plenty of room for improvement with regard to the pace of Windows Mobile development. And yet, Microsoft claims that Windows Mobile 6.5 will offer users a better Web browsing experience than Apple's iPhone. ... Microsoft Renames Windows Mobile to Windows PhoneOS News Microsoft kills Zune phone talkRegister Robbie Bach: Windows Mobile had a 'challenging year'BetaNews Washington Post -PC World -Product Reviews all 180 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:25 pm

LHC Restart Pushed Back To November

The restart of the Large Hadron Collider has been pushed back from October to November, a CERN spokesman said on Thursday.James Gillies, spokesman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), told the Associated Press that the delay is intended to allow extra time to repair two small helium leaks.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:24 pm

Study: Jellyfish help oceans mix it up

Jellyfish and other small swimming marine creatures can have a huge impact on ocean mixing, researchers in California report. Increasingly, scientists have been thinking about the possible role ocean animals may play in larger-scale ocean mixing, the process by which layers of water interact to distribute heat, nutrients and gases throughout the oceans, California Institute of Technology researchers said Thursday in a release. The perspective we usually take is how the ocean -- by its currents, temperature, and chemistry -- is affecting animals, says John Dabiri, a Caltech bio-engineer who, along with Caltech graduate student Kakani Katija, discovered the new mechanism.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:21 pm

How Wolfram Alpha's Copyright Claims Could Change Software

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister suggests that Wolfram Research's claim to copyright of results returned by the Wolfram Alpha engine could have significant ramifications for the software industry. 'While software companies routinely retain sole ownership of their software and license it to users, Wolfram Research has taken the additional step of claiming ownership of the output of the software itself,' McAllister writes, pointing out that it is 'at least theoretically possible to copyright works generated by machines.' And, under current copyright law, if any Wolfram claim to authorship of the output of its engine is upheld, by extension the same rules will apply to other information services in similar cases as well. In other words, 'If unique presentations based on software-based manipulation of mundane data are copyrightable, who retains what rights to the resulting works?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:09 pm

AT&T and Samsung introduce the Solstice

Earlier today, AT&T announced the touch-screen Solstice from Samsung. Equipped with a 3-inch touch-screen, an accelerometer, Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera and little else, the Solstice is an entry-level touch-screen device. But, the one really cool thing about the Solstice is that it comes with TouchWiz 2.0. The second gen UI from Samsung features live widgets, which makes it infinitely better than previous TouchWiz devices. Grab one for th tween or yourself on August 2 for $100.

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Source: MobileCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:06 pm

FairPoint Communications Announces Consummation of the Private Debt Exchange Offer for Its 13-1/8% Senior Notes Due 2018

CHARLOTTE, N.C., July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FairPoint Communications, Inc. (NYSE: FRP) ("FairPoint") announced today it successfully completed its previously announced private exchange offer (the "Exchange Offer") for the outstanding 13-1/8% Senior Notes due 2018 (CUSIP No.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:05 pm

New Clampi Trojan is “ferocious” says experts

Section: Computers, Security

Experts are warning of a new Trojan that is so sophisticated it’s being called “ferocious.”  The Clampi Trojan has infected up to 1 million computers and is stealing massive amounts of financial data.  The Trojan’s botnet is so huge and the Trojan itself so cloaked in encryption it’s nearly impossible to crack.

“Clampi is the most professional thieving pieces of malware I’ve ever seen,” said Joe Stewart, director of malware research for SecureWorks’ counter-threat unit. “We know of few others that are this sophisticated and wide-ranging. It’s having a real impact on users.”

Clampi has a list of nearly 5,000 websites it monitors once it’s infected a PC.  Once a site on the list is visited, a keylogger is activated and the user credentials and any financial info found are stolen and sent to the botnet’s command and control server.  It takes everything - user names, passwords, PINs, SSNs, and anything else typed in while the victim is at one of the targeted sites.

Among the sites identified are news sites, mortgage and insurance company sites, banks, online casinos, military information portals, e-commerce sites and more.  An auto parts store in Georgia has revealed the malware allowed the cybercriminals behind it to rob them of almost $75,000.

What makes this Trojan even more of a concern is that its design is such that it is broken down into multiple pieces, encrypted, and stored in the Windows registry which keeps it hidden from anti-virus software.  The fact that every bit of it, from the malware itself to the traffic between it and its command server, is heavily encrypted makes it impossible to reverse engineer-which also keeps anti-virus software makers from identifying its markers.

This Trojan is so powerful that experts are recommending that everyone confine their financial tasks (this includes banking, bill paying, loan and credit applications and even shopping online) to an isolated PC that is not connected to a network.  Once it’s infected one machine, Clampi will copy itself to every other machine it finds networked to it.

Read [PCWorld]

Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:02 pm

Minn. health officials warn of tick bites

Two tick-borne diseases are emerging in Minnesota, prompting state health officials to urge caution when vacationing in the state's outdoors. Health officials said dog ticks and deer ticks -- both in ample supply in Minnesota -- are carriers of Rocky Mountain spotted fever and Powassan disease, respectively, the St.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:01 pm

Lextech Global Services Works With Lextech Labs and Axis Communications to Provide Video Infrastructure for iPhoneDevCamp 3

LISLE, Ill., July 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Lextech Global Services, leading provider of custom iPhone app development services, today announced that it is working with Lextech Labs, world class video surveillance application company, and Axis Communications, the global leader in the network video market, to provide the video infrastructure for iPhoneDevCamp 3 in Sunnyvale, CA, from July 31 to August 2, 2009.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:01 pm

Smart Parking Meters Hacked -- Free Parking For All!

Security researchers presenting at the Black Hat conference can reprogram pre-paid smart cards to win unlimited free parking. They say they're just scratching the surface on what hackable smart meters can do.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:45 pm

Encouraging Signs Of Recovery From Overfishing

Efforts to curb overfishing throughout the world are beginning to succeed in five of the world’s ten large marine ecosystems, according to a comprehensive study published Thursday.The new research comes just two years after a study that warned that overfishing could cause a collapse in the world's seafood stocks by 2048."This paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia."I'm somewhat more hopeful ...
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:45 pm

T-Mobile pushes out the AppPack, still no Facebook, but there’s Visual Voicemail!

It seems the sudden rush of myTouch 3Gs arriving earlier than expected has forced T-Mobile and certain developers to release their applications into the Android Market prematurely. Not that anyone with a G1, myTouch 3G or Hero are complaining. Geodelic released their Sherpa app yesterday and today we see T-Mobile’s AppPack go live.

This isn’t an entirely new application. It’s just a collection of apps that T-Mobile thinks Android users will find helpful. Apps like imeem, Sherpa, Movies by Flixster and such have been on the market for some time. The other recommended apps include: FreshFace, T-Mobile Mobile Backup, My Account, Phonebook, Visual Voicemail, and WorldTour. Still no Facebook app, though.

Direct your Android device here.

*I really need to install the SDK*

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: MobileCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:44 pm

Dutch court tells Pirate Bay to scram, or else - CNET News

guardian.co.uk

Dutch court tells Pirate Bay to scram, or else CNET News According to blog TorrentFreak, the suit goes against The Pirate Bay founders Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, all of whom were reportedly not even aware of the case. As a response they sent back a letter to the ... Court boots Pirate Bay out of NetherlandsZDNet Dutch court clogs Pirate BayRegister Dutch court rules Pirate Bay must quit NetherlandsThe Associated Press guardian.co.uk -Ars Technica -Wall Street Journal all 492 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:37 pm

Sierra Wireless Reports Second Quarter 2009 Results

TSX: SW NASDAQ: SWIR VANCOUVER, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Sierra Wireless, Inc. (NASDAQ: SWIR, TSX: SW) is reporting second quarter 2009 results. Our results are reported in U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:35 pm

Henry Bros. Electronics, Inc. to Report Second Quarter 2009 Results on August 13, 2009

FAIR LAWN, N.J., July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Henry Bros. Electronics, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:33 pm

FiberTower Announces Second Quarter 2009 Earnings Release and Conference Call Schedule

SAN FRANCISCO, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- FiberTower Corporation (Nasdaq: FTWR) announced today that it plans to release 2009 second quarter results on Thursday, August 6, 2009 after the market closes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:31 pm

SoftBrands Announces Record Date for Distribution of Trust Interest to Stockholders

MINNEAPOLIS, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- On Aug. 12, 2009, stockholders of SoftBrands, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:30 pm

Qualcomm Ventures Extends Submission Deadline for QPrize Business Plan Competition

SAN DIEGO, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, products and services, has extended the deadline for its Qualcomm Ventures QPrize(TM) Business Plan Competition and enhanced the Grand Prize package.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:30 pm

LogicVision Reports Second Quarter Financial Results

SAN JOSE, Calif., July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- LogicVision, Inc. (Nasdaq: LGVN), a leading provider of semiconductor built-in-self-test (BIST) and diagnostic solutions, today announced its financial results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2009.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:30 pm

David Pogue Wants to Take Back the Beep

David Pogue has distilled into useful form a long-standing complaint I have (and one reason I have long had a voice mail greeting that asked people not to leave me voicemail): cell phone companies set up the greeting, caller instructions, and playback system prompts in large part to maximize their revenue per user; by his calculations, the "mandatory 15-second voicmail instructions" from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and others is earning those companies something near a billion dollars a year in charges. Pogue suggests that users should "take back the beep," and to that end provides contact information for the largest cell carriers in order to register a complaint — and, more helpful in the short run, suggests ways in which to make better use of paid-for phone minutes by alerting callers how to bypass the annoying instructions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 2:18 pm

Emacs Hits Version 23

djcb writes "After only 2 years since the previous version, now emacs 23 (.1) is available. It brings many new features, of which the support for anti-aliased fonts on X may be the most visible. Also, there is support for starting emacs in the background, so you can pop up new emacs windows in the blink of an eye. There are many other bigger and smaller improvements, including support for D-Bus, Xembed, and viewing PDFs inside emacs. And not to forget, M-x butterfly. You can get emacs 23 from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ or one of its mirrors; alternatively, there are binary packages available, for example from Ubuntu PPA."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 1:29 pm

Dancing robot has an iPhone 3GS for a face

Meet Robochan, a desktop-sized dancing humanoid robot with an iPhone 3GS for a face. She can entertain you, interact with you, wake you up via the alarm function with a cute little robot dance, and twirl scallions like a pro.

The face displayed on the 3GS screen is actually that of Hatsune Miku, the anime girl depiction of a vocaloid software created by Yamaha that continues to be a huge hit among Japanese web geeks. The music she's singing is Levan Polkka, a Finnish folk song. Videos of Hatsune Miku singing Levan Polkka became a huge meme on the web video site Nico Nico Douga, which I wrote an article about in Wired Magazine last year. The scallion-twirling, someone explained to me, is a symbol of dumbness &mdash only a really brainless person would stand there and twirl scallions all day.

The creator of this robot calls himself Tamakin &mdash Japanese for Balls.

[via Pink Tentacle]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 12:50 pm

Kodak introduces full HD Zi8 Pocket Video Camera

Section: Business News, Video, Portable Video

Adding to its pocket video camera line, Kodak is announcing the Zi8 Pocket Video Camera.  The Zi8 shoots in full HD 1080p with electronic image stabilization and smart face tracking.  It also doubles as a 5 MP 16:9 still camera.  The Zi8, like its little brother the Zi6, has one-button recording.  Storage is SD/SDHC card-based and will accept cards up to 32 GB - so you are in full control of memory.  If you are a podcaster or semi-professional videographer , you should like the addition of an external microphone jack and on-camera video editing.  The Zi8 will be available in a variety of colors and will go on sale in September 2009 for $179.95 MSRP.

Read: [Geek] and [Press Release]

Full Story » | Written by Merlyn Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 12:48 pm

Null Character Hack Allows SSL Spoofing

eldavojohn writes "Two researchers, Dan Kaminsky and Moxie Marlinspike, came up with exact same way to fake being a popular website with authentication from a certificate authority. Wired has the details: 'When an attacker who owns his own domain — badguy.com — requests a certificate from the CA, the CA, using contact information from Whois records, sends him an email asking to confirm his ownership of the site. But an attacker can also request a certificate for a subdomain of his site, such as Paypal.com\0.badguy.com, using the null character \0 in the URL. The CA will issue the certificate for a domain like PayPal.com\0.badguy.com because the hacker legitimately owns the root domain badguy.com. Then, due to a flaw found in the way SSL is implemented in many browsers, Firefox and others theoretically can be fooled into reading his certificate as if it were one that came from the authentic PayPal site. Basically when these vulnerable browsers check the domain name contained in the attacker's certificate, they stop reading any characters that follow the "\0 in the name.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 30 Jul 2009 | 12:43 pm

SLIDE SHOW: DNA Reveals Whale Shark Habitats

Small genetic differences among whale sharks indicate that their population is global.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm

Doomsday Comet Less Likely, Calculations Show

Rest easy: Comets are unlikely to wipe us out, according to new research.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 12:00 pm

Coconut headphones!

via Make blog

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 11:23 am

One million plus additional books available for the Sony Reader, courtesy of Google Books

Section: Gadgets / Other, Miscellaneous, Web, Google

It should now be hard to make the statement that you have a Sony Reader and cannot find anything to read because Google has now made more than one million titles available for the Sony Reader.  The newly available books, which are all public domain titles are coming courtesy of Google Books in the EPUB format.  As of now, due to copyright laws, these titles are only going to be available for those in the US.  However on the flip side, they are being formatted for use on either the PRS-505 or PRS-700 Reader.  Current Sony Reader users will be able to find these newly available titles in the Sony eBook Store and of course they are all available as free downloads.

Read [Sony Blog]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 11:18 am

Old media tech coverage is stupid. Time to stop biting its ankle and rip out its throat

Old media coverage of cutting-edge toys is increasingly hapless. If you ever have trouble sleeping, just read the gadgets column in a lifestyle mag. The big newspapers' gadget blogs are phoned in, too: they want to beat techie sites like Engadget and Gizmodo, but they stick with a stuffy approach at odds with the enthusiast subject matter. This blurring of "blog" and "newspaper" also makes mistakes look like journalistic misrepresentations.

A great example of all this is at Digits, the WSJ tech blog. The Journal's Ben Charny writes about a dinner hosted by the people who run the Consumer Electronics Show. Slipped into a post so perfectly unexciting that it reads like an AP news item, Charny offers an amazing fact: "Apple plans to attend the show's 2010 version, marking the first time in memory the Cupertino, Calif., consumer-electronics giant will be there."

Wow! But there's a problem.

Not only is there scant evidence this is the case, CEA president Gary Shapiro denied the rumor at the very event Charny attended. And there's no source, named or otherwise, for that claim.

Engadget's Ryan Block, who also attended, takes it down, hard. But while Block strikes each debunking note with excruciating precision, the way he did it was a missed opportunity. It's as if Block, far more popular and credible than his target, thought the reverse was true.

Responding to a one-line mistake with a big wall of text feeds the assumption that old newspapers are the ones with reputations to live up to, and that bloggers are better at reading than they are at reporting. But the truth is that blogs like Engadget, Gizmodo and the Crunches are coming close to supplanting traditional outlets entirely when it comes to technology news.

It's time for bloggers to stop chipping away at the credibility of fusty rivals, assume that they have no credibility advantage left at all, and simply get on with the job of out-writing them.

After all, responding to something at all grants it a measure of equality, and responding to it at greater length offers it primacy. This is why scientists are so leery of smacking down flat-earthers and the like: it gives them credibility they don't deserve. A better way to put a screw-up in its place it is to make fun of it, or give it a quick kick in the balls.

It's not just about technology reporting, either: online news will polish off its traditional counterparts by ignoring, rather than reacting to, their mistakes. Instead of attacking its credibility when it wanders into our yard, it's time for us to invade theirs--before they get a clue.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 11:00 am

Japanese auto-fogging glasses prevent long stares at the computer screen

Sometimes geeks sit in front of computer screens for a really long time, and we forget to do stuff like eat food, drink water, and blink our eyes. That's why Masunaga, the company that designed Sarah Palin's glasses, is coming out with a new product called Wink Glasses on August 10th. A sensor attached to the lenses detects blinking movements; if it doesn't log any activity for five seconds, an ultra-thin liquid crystal sheet pasted onto the lens surface fogs up and doesn't clear up until you blink again. The sensor is operated by a battery rechargeable via USB &mdash I guess that means that if you don't charge them, they don't fog up. The frame and sensor set will cost about $400.

Product page [Masunaga via Impress]

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 10:36 am

I now pronounce you monetized: a YouTube video case study

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Biz Blog)

Last week the world watched in wonder as Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz's wedding party transformed a familiar and predictable tradition into something spontaneous and just flat-out fun. The video, set to R&B star Chris Brown's hypnotic dance jam "Forever," became an overnight sensation, accumulating more than 10 million views on YouTube in less than one week. But as with all great YouTube videos, there's more to this story than simple view counts.

At YouTube, we have sophisticated content management tools in place to help rights holders control their content on our site. The rights holders for "Forever" used these tools to claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes. As a result, the rights holders were able to capitalize on the massive wave of popularity generated by "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" — in the last week, searches for "Chris Brown Forever" on YouTube have skyrocketed, making it one of the most popular queries on the site:


This traffic is also very engaged — the click-through rate (CTR) on the "JK Wedding Entrance" video is 2x the average of other Click-to-Buy overlays on the site. And this newfound interest in downloading "Forever" goes beyond the viral video itself: "JK Wedding Entrance" also appears to have influenced the official "Forever" music video, which saw its Click-to-Buy CTR increase by 2.5x in the last week.

So, what does all of this mean? Despite compelling data and studies around consumer purchasing habits, many still question the promotional and bottom-line business value sites like YouTube provide artists. But in the last week, over a year after its release, Chris Brown's "Forever" has again rocketed up the charts, reaching as high as #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon's best selling MP3 list. We've seen similar successes in the past with partners like Monty Python.

One of our main goals at YouTube is to help content creators effectively make money from the distribution of their content online. That they can do so in a way that brings artists and our community together to create fun, spontaneous and inspiring works, is one of the best and most exciting things about YouTube.

Posted by Chris LaRosa, Technical Account Manager, and Ali Sandler, Music Partner Manager

Source: The Official Google Blog | 30 Jul 2009 | 10:32 am

The LG Chocolate is now official!

The LG Chocolate is now official. (That sound you just heard is the sound of millions of people breathing a sigh of relief.) The specs are, in fact, the same as those found in that leaked promo video from a few days ago.

There really isn’t much to add that wasn’t addressed in that video, either. But if I’m not mistaken, LG is in New York tonight. Presumably the phone will be on display. If so, I’d imagine we’d be able to sneak a few hands-on photos.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: MobileCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 10:28 am

LG gives us firm details on touch Chocolate

Section: Communications, Cellphones

You may have seen glimpses, and heard a few rumors about the next version of LG’s Chocolate phone.  We’ve known that the next version will be full touch screen thanks to the teaser images and leaked video.  Now LG finally seems ready to grace us with some actual details about the BL40, or touchscreen Chocolate, which are pretty much what we’ve already known about the device.

With the new images of the phone comes confirmation from LG that the phone will, in fact, feature a four inch, 800x345 resolution touch screen.  The screen will allow for easy viewing of widescreen videos, as well as a side by side split-screen view of content.  Other features include 7.2Mbps 3G support, a 5.0 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, and GPS, and expandable memory via the SDHC slot, all of which are about standard for any high-quality international phone.  As with previous versions of the LG Chocolate, it would be safe to assume that a CDMA version of the phone that will work with Verizon’s network is in the works.

The one downfall of the touch Chocolate is the fact that it lacks a true smartphone OS, and is essentially a really smart dumb-phone.  The average consumer wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, however, as the phone will be able to access the web, most likely have some form of apps from LG’s new store, and will most likely be positioned as a media, specifically music, phone.  It will most likely walk the line between feature phones and the iPhone, or other smartphones.  That’s by no means a bad thing, but it will be interesting to see how average consumers looking for a phone that’s a bit like the iPhone but on Verizon will look at the touch Chocolate.

Read [Electronista]

Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 9:06 am

Review: 3 Reasons Why Nokia's N97 Is a Bummer

Matt Buchanan at Gizmodo already hit the nail on the head with his spot-on assessment of the N97: Nokia is doomed.

So I won't spend much time shooting a dead (well, dying*) horse dead-er, but having manhandled the N97 for a few weeks, I've also got a few thoughts.

First off, I'm no fanboy. But I have been seduced by some of Nokia's handsets. I carried the N82 for a year. At the time, Symbian felt utilitarian and easy to use. The 5 megapixel sensor, xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics were pretty stellar. So much so, I used the phone as my main point-and-shoot on a trip to Japan, where I snapped some reasonably ok pics (not amazing, but good enough).

I carried the N95 for a spell in 2007. Same deal. Solid hardware. Ahead of its time. And like a lot of us, I started scratching my head about when, how, and if consumers (and cell phone companies) in the U.S. would ever see the light. Sure lesser offerings from Nokia have been entirely forgettable. But that's besides the point. When the company swung to the fences, Nokia tended to deliver.

That said, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the N97, the company's first legit touch screen. Well, here's what I found:

1) A clunky touch screen interface that merely mimics a non-touch OS. The Pre, iPhone and G1 all require the user to speak in elegant gestures that, in turn, make you feel elegant. Quick flicks, simple pinches, and de-pinches that are &mdash forget easy and practical &mdash actually FUN to do.

The N97, on the other hand, offers no magic. If you want to scroll through your contacts on the iPhone, you press and drag, and watch the list rapidly flow before your eyes &mdash then bounce when it hits the bottome. With the N97, you're stuck dragging a clunky nav bar or holding your finger in one spot (top, bottom) to get the list to scroll.

2) The hardware is both lackluster and not the least bit luxurious. The mostly-plastic frame makes the phone decidedly lightweight (a plus), but the hinge &mdash as several reviewers have noted &mdash is a little awkward to us. Same with the relatively cramped, too-minimalist keyboard, which I never really mastered or cared to.

The more I handled the phone, too, it started to feel cheap. Less like a flashy status symbol, and more like a basic, no-frills handset I got with an upgraded contract (unfortunate, considering that's far from the case). Evoking the word "cheap" is shameful for any product that boasts a price tag this high (see below).

3) $699?! (now reduced to $629). Nuff said.

*Nokia's profits are dropping faster than a virgin's pants at a free brothel**.

**Feel free to out-analogy me in the comments.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 9:00 am

WATCH: New Species Thrive in Mekong

The Mekong region in Southeast Asia is home to over a thousand new plant and animal species.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:20 am

iPhone Devs: Lite/Free mobile apps really pay off

The creator of iCombat wrote an analysis of his experience making and giving away a free “lite” version of his app alongside his paid, full version. The result? It makes economic sense to create a lite version early on and update it often to goose the users into downloading - and paying attention to - your app.

His global conversion rate was 9% which meant that a considerable cohort of lite users bought the full version. He discovered a number of best practices for iPhone devs and allowed us to post them here. His most important takeaway? He should have made a lite app much earlier in the game. The conversion rate once the lite app was made available was quite impressive and meant a lot of lost revenue.

1. Should have released lite version from the beginning – There was no point to waiting and sacrificing the initial new release buzz. Since it is harder to get featured once your app is launched, say for app updates, it is important to strike early and hard with your app release.

2. Lite does NOT cannibalize sales – If your app is a gimmick then it might not make sense but in all other cases it only helps to increase sales (see our previous post on this topic)

3. Get the bugs out for your lite release – users churn lite apps and are fine giving you 1 star if they don’t like the experience. This is especially bad because the App store prompts users to rate an app when they try to delete it

4. Lite sales trail off too but paid sales remain higher – if you don’t have the x-factor that is needed to spread the word your lite downloads will fall as they have for iCombat, but in our case paid sales have continued to sell at a minimum rate several times higher than the pre-lite period

5. Frequent releases do juice downloads – Pocket God and other frequently updated apps have benefited from a weekly sales bump as they show up in the new releases section of the app store (users also like this episode style model)

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: MobileCrunch | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:06 am

Apple, Jobs to appear at CES 2010? Conflicting opinions abound

FROM APPLETELL - The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple may be making a comeback to a technology convention held in January.
MORE »

Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 8:06 am

Review: Vivitar Vivicam 8025 and T328

Vivitar's ViviCam 8025 and T328 are budget point-and-shoot cameras that offer standard features and come in blister packs. They're not very good, but they are cheap and they are easy to use.

The T328 has 12 megapixel sensor, 3x optical zoom lens, face detection, anti-shake and 32 MB of internal memory. It's an inch thick, but much fatter at the control end. The 8025 has 8.1 megapixels, a slightly smaller display, and is much thinner and lighter.

Both have SD/SDHC card slots, flashes and come with USB cables and wallwart USB power adapters.

Pros:

• Picture quality OK for budget cameras
• Bright displays with simple menus
• Rechargeable lithium battery included

Cons:

• Plastic tat
• No auto-review of shots
• SD card in the 8025 hard to insert and remove

Though Vivitar's budget ViviCams get the job done, and have fast, simple menus, they're not the equal of stuff from Canon, Sony or Nikon, who all have basic models that are only slightly more expensive. No-one who already owns a camera should consider these models. That said, deals at discount stores make the lower-end 8025 a good gift for anyone who need something disposable and straightforward.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:40 am

Study: students carry lousy cell phones; one browser aims to enlighten them all

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Web Browsers

Bitstream, the developer behind the increasingly popular Bolt browser, conducted a study of college students in the US and concluded a good 45% of them do not access the internet on their phone.  Despite having phones that are likely capable, these students choose not to.  The 55% that do access the net on their phones, typically do so for social networking purposes, not to advance their academics.

So what is keeping the 45% down?  Bitstream suspects the likely cause is twofold: carrier enforced data charges for a phone that is likely to smell like stale beer in short order and many students are not aware their phones can access the net.  My thoughts quickly flash back to the painful Internet experience on my Windows Mobile phone.  Bitstream hopes to make the case that their Bolt browser can solve the poor internet experience.

The Bolt browser is hugely popular in India and many say it beats Opera mini.  Crackberry.com called the browser, “stellar” in announcing its Beta3 release last month.  The latest release adds things like copy/paste, easy text entry, and works with an upgraded server to Webkit 4 (which all traffic from the browser gets routed through).

A quick look at the comments on usage range from “fastest browser I’ve ever used” to “too slow.”  In any event, the browser is offered for free.

Product page: [Bolt Browser]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:09 am

Space Station Reality Check: Now What?

NASA's budget for the space station runs out just five years after its completion date.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 7:05 am

Leica S2: $26,000 Body-Only

Leica’s long-time-coming S2 DSLR is about to hit the stores in the UK for a bank account-emptying £16,000, or around $26,000. And that’s not even the top-end version. To get a sapphire-glass LCD screen and some gussied-up “Platinum Service”, you’ll have to drop another £3,100, or almost $5,100. To put that in some perspective, you could buy a Leica M8 and a lens for around the same price as the upgrade alone.

The camera looks sweet, though: 37.5 million pixels sit atop a huge 30×45mm sensor, a whopping 56% bigger than a full-frame sensor or rectangle of 35mm film. This is unashamedly a big, fat medium format camera, and it looks like a battleship, although it is actually smaller than a lot of pro 35mm DSLRs. The entire S range will launch in October, and you can see the full line-up of lenses and prices over at DP review. To give you a taster, the cheapest thing on the list is the battery charger, which will cost a ridiculous $420.

Leica reveal S-system pricing and launch date [DP Review]

See Also:

• Leica S2 Reinvents 35mm: More Megapixels, More Millimeters, More …
• $11000 Leica Lens Sees in the Dark

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:46 am

BLOG: Space Station Spotting

A Twitter service guides our space producer to spot the space station from his backyard.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:05 am

Nikon Announces Video-Shooting D300s and More

Nikon has announced three hot new products today, and if you have been paying any attention to the rumors, you’ll already know what they are. The biggest news is the new D300s, a video-capable update to Nikon’s top-of-the-range crop-frame DSLR, the D300. We also get a new entry level DSLR, the D3000, and a replacement for Nikon’s pro 70-200 zoom, called the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F/2.8G ED VR II.

D300s

So, what’s new? A glance at the camera doesn’t give much away. On the outside you see a camera much the same as the two-year-old D300, and from the front it is pretty much indistinguishable apert from the “s”. Round back, though, things have changed. The rear now looks just like the D700, with the memory-card hatch button gone, replaced by an info button. There is also a grille which covers the speaker for video playback and the welcome addition of a separate center button in the main control d-pad, plus a dedicated “live view” button.

The screen has also been improved, and is now the same 920,000 pixel model as found in the D700. Finally, there is a microphone socket hidden under the flap.

On the inside, the biggest change is video, coming in from the same 12.3 megapixel sensor as the old model. It’ll shoot in motion jpeg format, like the other Nikon video-capable DSLRs, but also now in AVI, and it’ll do it at 24 fps and up to 720p. Also new is the ability to auto-focus while shooting video, using the slow but accurate contrast-detection method.

This video means you’ll burn through storage, and the D300s has an extra memory crd slot for you, adding an SD card to the existing CF. You can choose to mirror your images across the cards, use them consecutively or write, say, jpegs to one and RAW to the other, or still shots to one and video the other. Speaking of still shots, the D300s will now hit 7fps without an external grip (up from 6fps), and there is a new “quiet shutter” mode, which lets you rattle of shots without flipping the mirror back down between each of them.

In short D300s takes an already great camera, adds video and tweaks a few features. $1800, body only.

Product page [Nikon]

D3000

The second new camera is way down at the other end of the performance scale, although it manages to pack a lot in for such a cheap DSLR, and surprisingly doesn’t have video. Priced at $600 with the 18-55mm VR kit lens, it costs the same as the D60, and you have to wonder why anyone would still buy the D60, especially as they share the same 10.2 megapixel sensor.

The differences: 11 point autofocus instead of just three, which also brings “3D tracking”, Nikon’s name for spookily following a moving subject and staying locked on, a 3-inch screen (the D60 has 2.5 inches) and a new “guide mode”, which walks the user through the settings step-by-step.

This last looks great, especially in a camera clearly aimed at the first-time DSLR owner. You or I might spend hours, and a few battery charge cycles, digging through menus to discover what goodies lie inside. The normal user, though, is unlikely to stray from the “green rectangle” mode, so anything that stretches them and encourages experimentation is a good thing.

Product page [Nikon]

AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm ƒ2.8G ED VR II

Quite a mouthful, huh? The new pro-zoom replaces the well respected but flawed 70-200 ƒ2.8 lens. And before you ask: yes, the vignetting has been fixed. The lens also gets a “nano crystal coat” to reduce reflections, and has seven (count ‘em) ED elements to do the same thing. It also has upgraded vibration reduction (the VR II part) which gives up to four stops extra room before you start to get the wobbles. This combined with the fast ƒ2.8 maximum aperture throughout the range means super low-light shooting. $2400

Product page [Nikon]

AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm ƒ3.5/5.6G ED VR II

Finally, we have a new DX sized lens, the AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm ƒ3.5/5.6G ED VR II, a superzoom with the new VR II anti-shake inside. $850.

Product page [Nikon]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 30 Jul 2009 | 6:03 am

Unofficial Google Voice app now available for the Palm Pre

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web Apps, Google

Despite the recent uproar that we have been seeing in regards to Apple or AT&T or maybe both being responsible for all of the Google Voice apps being pulled from the App Store, it seems that the life of Google Voice does indeed continue.  Of course, in this instance it is continuing on the Palm Pre.

One of the latest apps to become available for the Pre is called dkGoogleVoice and is being made available by d0lph1nK1ng Software.  What we can tell you so far is that the app is available (just not yet in the App Catalog) and it is free.  In terms of features, dkGoogleVoice will allow the user to make calls and dial from your contact list as well as sending SMS messages.  Sounds like it has the basics covered, but unfortunately it was also noted as being “under development” which means that (according to the developer) “it has a lot of bugs.”

As of now, there has not been any mention as to when we can expect a final App Catalog version which means that in the meantime, this will have be downloaded and installed using the .ipk file.  Still, at least the Pre has a Google Voice option available.

Software [dkGoogleVoice]  Via [PreCentral Forums]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:52 am

World’s Biggest Portable TV Is 13 Meters Long

In this case, the definition of “portable” has been stretched slightly. The iConic 100 LED screen has more in common with a billboard than a television, with a surface area of 100m². The screen is actually high-def and can play back 720p video.

From there, the numbers get even bigger. The display is 12.8 meters long and 7.2 meters tall. That’s a 578-inch screen, if my math is correct, and the TV takes a half hour to set up once it has arrived. And how, you are no doubt asking, could this be called portable? That’s the trick. The Iconic comes on wheels. Giant, flatbed trailer wheels which hook up to a truck, making it technically “portable”, despite weighing 33,000Kg. It even comes with a generator so you don’t have to find a socket to plug it in.

So, is this the world’s largest portable TV? Actually, no. There’s no built-in tuner, so really it’s just a big ol’ screen.

Product page [Adi. Thanks, ]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:39 am

BIG PIC: Beaver Beats the Heat

As the Pacific Northwest swelters in a heat wave, a beaver takes relief in a fruit pop.
Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:20 am

Hack Turns Netbook Battery into USB Charger

Czech hacker Josef Průša took a look at his useless three-cell MSI Wind battery and wondered why it didn’t have a USB socket in the side. Surely it could power smaller, less thirsty devices than a netbook? After popping the case with a knife, he discovered that there was actually plenty of room left inside. Enough room, in fact, for a USB port and a voltage regulator.

It turns out that there is enough power in the 12 volt battery charge an iPhone twice, although of course you can use it with any USB-powered device. It also turns out that the power conversion, stepping down from 12 volts to 5 volts, generates a lot of heat, so Josef upgraded his passive-cooling device (a heatsink) to a bigger one, bringing the temperature down from a toasty 120ºC to a more manageable 70ºC, and punched through the stickers covering some existing holes in battery case for better air flow.

It looks like a simple hack, and damn useful too. As my wonderful and generous editor Dylan Tweney mentioned, it would be better if it worked with the battery still in the laptop, but still, I’m going to give it a try with my own spare Wind battery.

USB iPhone battery pack from MSI Wind battery [Prusadjs. Thanks, Josef!]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 30 Jul 2009 | 4:18 am

Joby Announces ‘New’ Gorillamobile Cellphone Tripod

Joby has announced the brand new Gorillamobile, a small, ball-and-socket-jointed tripod specially made for mobile devices. Or has it? Some of you may have noticed that it looks a lot like the Gorillapod Go-Go, and in fact hitting up the old Go-Go product page takes us directly to the Gorillamobile page.

So it looks like Joby hasn’t come up with a new product after all, but a rebrand was a good idea - after all, who would buy a camera tripod for a phone? The new site shows the iPhone in all kinds of non-photographic situations: hugging the bars of a stepper at the gym, for example, or clamped around the handlebar of a pram.

The “new” tripod fixes to devices in one of three ways. If you have a camera with a tripod screw, that will work. There is also a suction cup which will even stick to rubberized surfaces and finally you can permanently attach an adhesive clip. All three then slide into the head of the ‘pod. This will be great for holding an iPhone steady while shooting video. It is also $5 less than the “old” model, at $30.

Product page [Joby. Thanks, Greg!]

See Also:

• Gorillapod Go-Go: Miniature, Flexible Tripod
• Joby Puts a One Pound Gorilla in the Room
• CES: Joby Gorillapod Attaches Cameras to Anything
• Joby Gorillapod SLR and SLR-Zoom
• Shaky-Cam: DIY Bike Tripod
• Steady As She Goes: Hands On With My New Manfrotto Tripod

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 30 Jul 2009 | 3:57 am

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