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Leaked video of Apple’s rumored tablet deviceFROM APPLETELL - To be completely honest, I had no idea whether to believe all of the rumors about the Apple tablet. That is, until I saw this video. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 13 Aug 2009 | 4:40 am Steampunk butterfly I'm very fond of this steampunk butterfly by DeviantArt's Ursulav, who writes, "Have finally succeeded in sketching one of the clockwork insects present at this location. It appears at a distance to be a common skipper butterfly, but upon closer examination, it became apparent that there had been extensive technological modifications to the creature. Contrary to my initial expectations, the creature clearly possesses organic traits, and is not merely a clever mimic. Whether the technological additions were impressed upon the developing chrysalis, or were grafted upon an adult specimen is one of many mysteries that I hope to uncover in time."
Steampunk Skipper
(Thanks, Andrew!) Apple to (Some) Angry iPhone ... - InternetNews.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 Aug 2009 | 4:07 am Viral Videos: Something Old, Something New–But Still, Dancing Babies [BoomTown]
Here’s a new video that has been making the rounds recently featuring “Roller Babies,” which is essentially a computer-generated bunch of babies on skates doing a rap number. It’s a commercial for Evian Water, but BoomTown laughs every time I look at it anyway–probably because it reminds me of the most famous of all viral videos on the Internet. I speak, of course, of the dancing baby from the television show, Ally McBeal.” Debuting in 1997, doing a bizarre boogie to “Hooked on a Feeling,” better known as the “Ooga-Chaka” song, the innovative video was an instant hit and is one of the first and best examples of the Web’s powerful virality. I still heart that creepy little virtual nipper. Compare and contrast: Roller Babies The Dancing Baby Source: All Things Digital | 13 Aug 2009 | 4:05 am Microsoft's Nokia deal was all about clouds - Inquirer
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:54 am Stargazers dazzled by meteor show - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:35 am "Avatar" trailer tickets to be available online (Reuters)Reuters - Free tickets will be distributed online starting Monday for special Imax presentations of a 16-minute trailer for the 3D sci-fi action movie "Avatar."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:32 am Australian charged with infecting 3,000 computers with virus that captures banking dataADELAIDE, Australia - A 20-year-old Australian man has been charged with infecting more than 3,000 computers around the world with a virus designed to capture banking and credit card...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:29 am LaunchSet: Beta/Alpha/Private Access and Data for Startups and the Early Adopters Who Love ThemFor the earliest of early adopters, the concept of a service like LaunchSet sounds like being buddies with the biggest, coolest club promoter in town: Get a first look at pre-launch sites for testing and...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:27 am Africa's mobile banking revolutionMillions of Africans are using mobile phones to pay bills, move cash and buy basic everyday items. So why has a form of banking that has proved a dead duck in the West been such a hit across the continent?...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:27 am UPDATE 1-Siliconware to invest up to T$2 bln in Taiwan Memory* Stock outpaces big board before announcement (Adds details)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Aug 2009 | 3:19 am China might appeal WTO ruling on film import
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 Techtree.com | Microsoft confirms Zune HD details CNET News Microsoft on Thursday confirmed several of the worst kept secrets in the industry, acknowledging the pricing, availability date, and capacities for its upcoming Zune HD. The black 16GB version of the touch-screen media player will sell for ... Microsoft Zune HD announced. Formally Microsoft Zune HD officially available for pre-order Hands On with the Zune HD |
By Simon Dumenco, Columnist, Ad Age, The Media Guy
There’s something a little heartbreaking about the very existence of “And Then There’s This: How Stories Live and Die in Viral Culture,” by Bill Wasik. After all, it’s a meditation on living, breathing virality that resides between the hard, dead covers of a book. I can point you to its Amazon (AMZN) page or to any number of reviews and write-ups — including, most recently, James B. Arndorfer’s “Father of Flash Mobs on the Future of Viral” in the Ad Age Bookstore — but the actual pages of “This” are trapped, even on a Kindle, in their own separate, fixed, unlinked world.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Bobbie Johnson, Technology Correspondent, The Guardian
Yet again, Wikipedia is about to break new ground. The website that has become one of the biggest open repositories of knowledge is due – within the next week or so – to hit the mark of 3m articles in English.
It’s all a very long way from January 2001, when Wikipedia launched. Its first million articles took five years to put together, but the second was achieved just 12 months later.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Emily Yoffe, Human Guinea Pig, Slate
Seeking. You can’t stop doing it. Sometimes it feels as if the basic drives for food, sex, and sleep have been overridden by a new need for endless nuggets of electronic information. We are so insatiably curious that we gather data even if it gets us in trouble. Google (GOOG) searches are becoming a cause of mistrials as jurors, after hearing testimony, ignore judges’ instructions and go look up facts for themselves.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By Sarah Perez, Blogger, ReadWriteWeb
Security firm Symantec (SYMC) has identified the top 100 searches conducted by children online. Popular items in the list include some expected entries like YouTube, Facebook, and MySpace as well as queries for popular pop idols like Michael Jackson and Miley Cyrus. However, what’s surprising about the children’s list is how similar it looks to that of any other online adult - something which seems to imply that our online activities aren’t all that age dependent after all.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
By John Koblin, Writer, New York Observer
Three weeks after McKinsey & Company slipped its foot into the door of the emerald tower, Condé Nast staffers continue to ask what fresh hell they find themselves in.
“I saw Graydon in the cafeteria this week!” said one business-side insider, last Friday. “In all my years here, I’ve never seen him in my life there.”
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Wear your favorite place on Earth
Sure, why not buy a Go Kart version of Batman’s Tumbler?
New Limited Edition Marc Ecko Star Wars hoodies and jackets
Drink-on: Newcastle Brown Ale DraughtKeg
The Flash Drive Lock: a solution looking for a problem
The annual Burning Man fest takes place at the end of this month in Nevada's Black Rock desert. El wire, fake fur, exposed titties, fire art, pill popping, light shows, bad techno, art cars, dudes with no pants, platform combat boots, utilikilts, on and on and on -- if you're reading Boing Boing you probably know what Burning Man is (and if not, read the prior BB posts linked at the bottom of this one).
So, for many years now, the organization behind the event has enforced a highly restrictive set of policies around photography and video out on the playa. The argument for these restrictions involves protecting attendees' privacy rights. People do wacky stuff out there, in various states of undress and sobriety, and nobody wants their naked DMT yoga falafel rave dance routine to end up on some sleazy "Girls Gone Wild" DVD, right? But here's a snip from a commentary by Corynne McSherry on the EFF Deep Links blog which argues these policies go too far:
Most attendees have the entirely reasonable expectation that they will own and control what is likely the largest number of creative works generated on the Playa: the photos they take to document their creations and experiences. That's because they haven't read the Burning Man Terms and Conditions.Snatching rights on the playa (deeplinks via Wayneco)
Those Terms and Conditions include a remarkable bit of legal sleight-of-hand: as soon as "any third party displays or disseminates" your photos or videos in a manner that the Burning Man Organization (BMO) doesn't like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO. This "we automatically own all your stuff" magic appears to be creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined "notice and takedown" process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to quickly remove photos from the Internet.
The BMO also limits your own rights to use your own photos and videos on any public websites, (1) obliging you to take down any photos to which BMO objects, for any reason; and (2) forbidding you from allowing anyone else to reuse your photos (i.e., no licensing your work no matter what is depicted, including Creative Commons licensing, and no option to donate your work to the public domain).
Seattle-based Z2Live, a new mobile social gaming platform, is announcing a second round of financing tomorrow - $3 million from Madrona Venture Group (also Seattle based), topping off the $1 million they raised from Madrona last year. Paul Goodrich from Madrona is on the company’s board of directors.
The company describes itself as “the first mobile multiplayer game platform,” and has created a multiplayer platform for the iPhone/iPod Touch products. They also offer a set of services to implement subscriptions. The platform, they say, supports a wide variety of social games, including: turn-based casual games, racing games, role-playing games, and eventually the most sophisticated first-person shooters. The platform is free, Z2Live takes a cut of revenues from the games.
The company has a complicated corporate structure. Z2Live is a division of Zero260, which launched another product this year called PhotoFeedd. The companies were founded by David Bluhm and Damon Danieli.
A YouTube video shows a sample game called Showdown:
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1 // They listen to the crowd. Researchers asked two sets of soccer refs to judge game clips. One group watched the footage on mute; the other with sound. The refs who heard the fans called 15.5 percent fewer fouls against the home team. So, yeah, screaming like a maniac really does help.
2 // They aren't blind, but they are seeing things. To compensate for a 100-millisecond lag in our visual system, our brain creates an illusion that shifts objects in the direction they're traveling. So a tennis ball flying toward the baseline may appear to cross it before it bounces just inside. This, according to vision scientists, explains 70 of 83 bad calls made during the 2007 Wimbledon Championships.
3 // They prefer red. Tae kwon do officials scoring fighters on film gave more points to those wearing red than blue. When asked to review the same footage after the uniform colors were digitally switched, they again ruled in favor of red. Pow!
Britney’s set of gifts was designed in collaboration with Susan Kare, the famed designer responsible for creating the icons on the original Macintosh, as well as many of Facebook’s other virtual gifts. The initial selection includes a schoolgirl outfit, a birthday cake, a multicolored balloon, and a classic shot of Britney’s performance with a boa constrictor. And in case you were worried that these digital masterpieces were somehow counterfeited, fear not: the press release we received says that they were all “signed by Spears herself”. Seriously.
Of course, these will sell like hotcakes to Britney’s legions of fans (she has over 2 million on Facebook alone). And they’ll also likely get a fair bit of use from mischievous young men who will send them to their friends and giggle incessantly. Either way, Britney and Facebook win: each gift costs $2 (most gifts cost half that), and you can be sure Britney is getting a piece of the action.
It’s only a matter of time before we see a bevy of other celebrities sporting their own sets of gifts. And in a way, it’s sort of sad — I’ve always enjoyed virtual gifts because they were charming, featuring things like cupcakes and penguins. Granted, there have certainly been some corporate sponsored gifts (someone gave me Coors Light bottlecap at some point), but even then they were usually hand drawn. The photographs of Britney just look out of place.
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Do you eat the moldy stuff?My husband and I have battled continuously for years about whether scraping the mold off the top of -- well, anything -- makes it OK to eat, or if once a spot of green invades the top of a barely used jar of jam we've got to call it a loss and toss it out. I'm always willing to scrape off the top, cut off the moldy crusts, etc., and carry on with the meal. My husband, not so much.
Well, turns out the USDA has weighed in on the argument with interesting findings. My favorite part of the Safe Food Handling fact sheets is this chart on how to handle moldy foods (very, very carefully is not one of the answers).
 Boston Globe | Study sees dramatic drop in Indian groundwater The Associated Press NEW DELHI — Excessive irrigation and the unrelenting thirst of tens of millions of people are causing groundwater levels in northern India to drop dramatically, a problem that could lead to severe water shortages, according to a study released ... Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according ... Is Northwestern India's Breadbasket Running Out of Water? Space Images Forewarn of Indian Groundwater Crisis |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Indian Express | Court slaps ban on some Microsoft Word sales Reuters BANGALORE, Aug 12 (Reuters) - A US federal court has ordered Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) to stop selling some versions of its widely used Word software in the United States in two months, ruling in favor of a small Canadian firm that ... Texas Judge Orders Microsoft to Stop Selling Word Microsoft Word Sales Banned In 60 Days Toronto Firm Wins Lawsuit Over Microsoft Word |
A couple months ago, we wrote about the site Blame Drew’s Cancer, which was hoping to utilize the Twitter phenomenon, and specifically the hashtagging of tweets, to raise both money and awareness for cancer. It has already garnered the support of Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG foundation, and now it has a new big-time player aboard to sponsor some tweets: 23andMe.
The genetic testing startup has agreed to donate $1 for each of the first 500 unique tweets that use the hastags #blamedrewscancer and #23andMe. These tweets will start counting after the site reaches its 10,000 person who has tweeted for the cause, which will be sometime tonight. The money will go towards the LIVESTRONG foundation for cancer research.
23andMe is also donating 5 of its new $99 research kits, to be raffled away to Blame Drew’s Cancer followers, also to benefit the LIVESTRONG foundation. Along with that, 23andMe is donating a kit to the namesake of Blame Drew’s Cancer, Drew Olanoff, to add his results to their Research Revolution project. And soon you’ll be able to buy the $99 kits through the Blame Drew’s Cancer site, with $5 of each sale going to LIVESTRONG, Olanoff tells us.
In addition to all of that, 23andMe has agreed to be the main sponsor of Olanoff’s 24-hour Blame-a-thon happening on 9-9-09, and being streamed live to the web.
This is another example of Twitter being used for charitable purposes. Last week, we wrote about TwitCause, a service that wants to spread the word about various good causes on Twitter — much like Causes does on Facebook and MySpace. BlameDrewsCancer is taking more of a grassroots approach, but it appears to be working.
Watch Olanoff in the video below.
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District 9 sounds like it’s going to be great. We’ve gotten lots of sleepers in the past few years - think Taken and Children of Men - and this sounds like another amazing action/sci-fi film with lots of brains.
The reviews are great and the movie, based on the short film you see here, has a fascinating premise: aliens land in Africa and suffer under intergalactic apartheid. The aliens themselves are “worker drones” with little apparent free will - until they revolt.
I may leave my house tomorrow to see this. You?
Section: Computers, Hardware, Peripherals, Printers / Scanners
Epson, a company mostly known for their printers, has recently shown off the new WorkForce 610 and WorkForce 1100 on Amazon. In terms of similarity, both printers boast Wi-Fi connectivity (in order to be shared by computers), and the ability to fax documents directly from your computer. If you only buy products that meet the energy star requirements, then you will be pleased to know both printers are eco-friendly and save power.
Specifically, the Epson WorkForce 610 can print up to 38 ppm in both black & white and color. For laser printing, black & white speeds are 15 ppm, and color is 9.3 ppm. It allows for a 30 page Auto Document Feeder to conveniently scan, fax, or copy as many papers as you need. Epson promises that the ink will never smudge. I suppose if you print high quality documents very fast and handle it immediately they would smudge, but neither of these printers will allow that to happen.
Meanwhile, the WorkForce 1100 is designed to print documents of any size in order to make your small business more productive. It sacrifices printer speed but it is designed to save ink, thus saving you money in the long run. In terms of printing speeds, it cranks out 30 ppm in black & white ink, while 17 ppm in color ink. In addition, laser quality printing can achieve speeds of 13 ppm for black & white, while it reaches only 5.5 ppm in color ink.
The Epson WorkForce 610 will be available in late August for $200, while the Epson WorkForce 1100 will be available in late September for the same price.
Check it out [Amazon] and [Amazon] Via [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
If your driving is getting a bit worse as you grow older, it may be because of a natural decline in the brain’s ability to process visual information.
Some scientists believe that, as people age, their capability to rapidly grasp and act on what their eyes see can degrade. And one of the activities most affected is driving, a task that demands you simultaneously track multiple moving objects, often at the edge of your field of vision.
The decline of this capability may be one of the reasons the elderly have to stop driving. But this problem doesn’t affect only the oldest people. Some experts say that the speed and accuracy of the brain’s visual processing can begin to gradually decline in middle age or even earlier.
Now there’s a software program, for both PCs and Macs, that claims it can “train the brain to think and react faster on the road” by putting a user through brief, repetitive exercises aimed at bolstering his or her visual-processing prowess. It’s called DriveSharp, and is from a San Francisco-based company called Posit Science (positscience.com), which also produces other brain-training programs.
DriveSharp isn’t a driving simulator, but a pair of simple-looking visual memory games, plus assessment tests, that Posit Science says are based on published scientific research. The company says it purchased a training technique that researchers have proven to be effective at improving visual processing.
Posit Science makes some strong claims for DriveSharp. It asserts that people who use the program as directed (at least three times a week for 20 minutes at a time) can cut their “crash risk” by 50% and stop their cars 22 feet sooner at 55 miles per hour. It says these users can expand by 200% their “useful field of view,” the area within which you can take in details with a single glance.
And the company adds that, if you use DriveSharp as instructed for a total of 10 hours, its positive effects can last for several years. To back up these claims, Posit Science cites a number of scientific studies and articles published in well-known journals.
I’ve been testing the DriveSharp software, which costs $139 at the company’s Web site, or $99 from participating AAA Clubs. (The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has endorsed the product.)
My verdict is that it was easy to use, and it did indeed work on my ability to rapidly recall the color and position of multiple moving objects and of objects on the periphery of my vision. It intelligently adjusted to my performance, and gradually presented me with tougher tasks.
However, two major caveats are in order. First, I am neither a scientist nor a doctor, so I can’t vouch for the company’s claims about DriveSharp’s benefits or even the underlying problem it aims to alleviate. Secondly, I wasn’t able to test DriveSharp long enough to know if it actually made me a better driver.
When you first install the product, you are required to set up an account so your progress can be tracked. The software checks your computer’s video capability, suggests a distance you should sit back from the screen, and changes your screen resolution to one it deems optimal for the training. It then plays an introductory video explaining how it works.
Your first step for each of the two exercises is to take a tough assessment test to establish a baseline from which your progress is measured. DriveSharp doesn’t tell you how you’re progressing after every session, only after you take another assessment, which isn’t recommended until you’ve put in a few hours of work with the software.
The first of the two exercises in DriveSharp is called Jewel Diver. This game aims to train you to divide your attention so you can track multiple moving objects at once. Your goal is to locate colored “jewels” that have been covered by identical opaque objects and surrounded by decoys, all of which then move around. Over time, you have to find more jewels, and they move faster, for longer periods and over larger areas.
The second exercise is called Road Tour and is designed to expand your useful field of view. The exercise involves correctly recalling a car displayed in the middle of a circle and also a particular road sign, among many, near the edge of that same circle. These objects flash in front of you very quickly and are then hidden. Again, the test gets harder over time.
Both exercises are sensitive to your progress. If you’re doing well, they get tougher faster. If you’re struggling, they revert to simpler challenges for a while. I saw both of these behaviors in my tests.
I did encounter a few annoyances. For instance, a bug fix required me to re-install the entire program, not just a patch. And the company automatically emails you “newsletters” once you establish your account.
But, even though I am not endorsing Posit Science’s claims, I can say that DriveSharp was fun and challenging, and that it makes sense to this layman that it could help you notice and track things you see more accurately.
Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.
Take your piggy bank. Now, smash it open — what have you? $350 plus change? And you need a laptop? Well, come right over here, sir. Yes, welcome to Wal-Mart. We’re going to… no, not a netbook. Sir, do you want to watch your Boston Public on a 10-inch screen? I thought not. Right over here, with the regular laptops, all the way to the left. Yes, it has a 17″ screen and a — what? No, I understand you only have $350. You say you won’t be a part of any criminal act? Admirable, sir, but we are not stealing the laptop. No, $350 is enough.
The Toshiba Satellite L355. You want a DVD burner? Here you have it. A nice big screen? You see it. Full-size keyboard and number pad? Anything less would be uncivilized. Well-built, fairly well-equipped except for a slower-than-average 5400RPM hard drive (it’s big) and a less-than-stellar Celeron processor (it’s adequate). Yes, $350 is the actual price.
Excellent choice, sir.
A few days ago, I sent out a tweet wondering how long it would be until Google Reader added a tweet button to the bottom of each feed item. My guess was that it would be very soon. I was quite right. Today, the Google Reader team has unveiled a bunch of new updates to the product, including, yes, the ability to easily tweet any item.
But that’s hardly all this update contains. You can also now easily send feed items to a number of places including Facebook, MySpace, Digg, StumbleUpon, Blogger, and others. To enable any of these, simply go to the “Settings” area of Google Reader and enable the ones you want to use. If the services you want aren’t listed, you can even customize the “Send To” feature to enable sending items just about anywhere.
Another new feature allows you to easily subscribe to feeds owned by people you are contacts with. This is an obvious, but nice addition, as it makes it easier to locate feeds you may be interested in — assuming, of course, that you’re actually interested in the people you follow on Google Reader. This feature also includes Twitter updates, so you can easily import all of those and see that person’s tweets through Google Reader if you don’t feel like scanning Twitter all day.
But the best feature of the bunch may be the ability to have more control over the “Mark all as read” functionality. We all use the “Mark all as read” button when we’re too far behind on our feeds to possibly catch up. But now you can just mark items that older than a day, a week, or two weeks as read, saving the newest ones for you to still be able to read. That’s a great idea.
Google Reader still has some social issues, but it’s hard to argue with any of these features.
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Good news for HTC! The Magic, also known as the MyTouch 3G, has sold a million units, according to Digitimes. I never really liked the look of this thing, but I’m sure it’s a solid phone. Arrington seems to like it, anyway.
I like my G1, but don’t think I wasn’t tempted by the Magic’s increased internal storage and sleeker form factor. I just love me some physical keyboard, okay? By the way — if you’re one of the million people with a myTouch/Magic, you might consider rooting it to get the most out of it.
[via Electronista]
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As the most popular video portal in the world, it comes as little surprise that YouTube is also effectively the second most popular search engine, coming after only Google in overall search queries. With that in mind, it’s a bit surprising that the site hasn’t done a better job at featuring this ridiculously popular functionality — instead of placing the search box at the far left or right side of the screen, as most sites do, YouTube has instead tucked it a bit off center, embedded in its somewhat cluttered masthead. In light of this, YouTube has decided to totally revamp the design of the top of its homepage, and will be rolling out a new version today.
The new version has eliminated most of the clutter and color of the old design, in favor of something that’s unquestionably more Googleish. Before now, navigation buttons like “Home” and “Videos” were likely the first thing people looked at — now, there’s no question that the default action on the site is going to be search. The layout also does a better job categorizing the main features of the site: the left side is now dedicated to finding videos, the right is dedicated to uploading and managing the clips you’ve seen.
It may not sound like a huge deal, but just as very small tweaks on Google can have a major effect, a minor change to YouTube’s design may well change the way people use the site. I won’t be surprised if YouTube sees a marked boost in search queries as a result of the new masthead.
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There’s been talk the past couple of days that the latest developer build of OS X Snow Leopard, 10A432, has been designated the “Golden Master” version, meaning it’s ready for prime time. Multiple sources are now stating it is. So now the question is: When will it be released?
Amazon put Snow Leopard up for pre-order a few weeks ago with the following note: “Please note: Official release date has not been announced by Apple, though they have indicated this product will be released sometime in September.” September is also the timetable that Apple gave at its WWDC event in early June. But with the GM version already out there, there are whispers that Apple may have beaten that goal. Friday, August 28 is the day Daring Fireball’s John Gruber is hearing, and he has a very good track record of being right about such things.
As we noted last week, OS X 10.5.8 was likely to be the last update before OS X 10.6 dropped. But an August ship date would certainly be a welcomed surprise. That would also mean nearly a full 2 month head start over Windows 7, which is scheduled to ship October 22. August 28 is also just two weeks from this Friday, so if Apple is really going to launch it then, expect some kind of press release in the next few days.
Earlier today, AppleInsider gave some details about the Snow Leopard installation process, which apparently has quite a few differences from the OS X Leopard install.
OS X Snow Leopard is going to sell for only $29.99, as Apple is considering it mostly a performance upgrade over OS X Leopard. But the performance improvements are expected to be significant, and the footprint of the install has been significantly reduced (due mostly to the fact that it’s Intel-only).
[photo: flickr/wwarby]
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FanSnap, the startup that we’ve likened to a Kayak for event ticket searches, has closed a $5.2 million funding round led by Highland Capital Partners. As part of the deal, Richard de Silva of Highland will be joining the company’s board of directors. The new round brings FanSnap’s total funding to over $15.7 million, after a $10 million Series A round from General Catalyst Partners last year.
FanSnap allows users to search dozens of ticket providers at once, including sites like StubHub, eBay, and RazorGator. The site now claims an index of 13,169,532 available tickets to 33,653 different events. The site goes well beyond standard price listings too — instead of simply showing a Craigslist-style list of available tickets, FanSnap offers a visual map showing off exactly where in a stadium each ticket corresponds to. It also shows how valuable each ticket is using using a color key and alerts users to tickets it deems to be the best buys.
For more, check out our full review of the service here.
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The Register has a nice piece on hacking the Sony Reader, allowing you to install all sorts of goodies onto the Linux-powered e-reader. I’ve never been a big fan for the Sony Reader but clearly hackers prefer this device over the closed Kindle.
Some is simple customisation: you can change the fonts, icons and logos, or add your name and contact details to the About screen, for example. Buttons can be reassigned, or disabled too, so if you prefer to shut the Reader down rather then send it to sleep, then you can add that function to an easily accessible key, instead of having to work through a few menus to find it.
It’s actually possible to go a lot further than that. The reader is controlled using JavaScript and XML, and there are even applications such as dictionaries and Sudoku that can be run from an SD card.
Interestingly the device can run programs right off of an SD card, ensuring you don’t totally hose your device. You can add new firmware with a program called Universal Flasher, a program that sounds like something that happens when Dad gets drunk and then goes on the Shrek ride.
I just wonder if they’ll ever be able to crack into the Kindle. I suspect since it’s not very European right now there’s really no impetus to play around.
Yelp keeps rolling out new iPhone apps with compelling features. In April they released version 2 and added the ability for users to leave reviews on local businesses, a much needed feature since people want to chronicle their experiences as they happen.
Version 3, which should be available soon, adds more useful features. The one that really stands out is "Sales And Offers Near You" which lets users find deals that are physically close to them. Sort by distance (in blocks), price, whether the business is open right then, or by neighborhood. Businesses can add special offers for free on their business page.
Other features include movable maps, and new ways for users to add content. Users can vote on reviews with UFC buttons (useful, funny or cool) and send compliments to reviewers. Users can also now follow Talk conversations via the iPhone.
Yelp keeps rolling out new iPhone apps with compelling features. In April they released version 2 and added the ability for users to leave reviews on local businesses, a much needed feature since people want to chronicle their experiences as they happen.
Version 3, which should be available soon, adds more useful features. The one that really stands out is “Sales And Offers Near You” which lets users find deals that are physically close to them. Sort by distance (in blocks), price, whether the business is open right then, or by neighborhood. Businesses can add special offers for free on their business page.
Other features include movable maps, and new ways for users to add content. Users can vote on reviews with UFC buttons (useful, funny or cool) and send compliments to reviewers. Users can also now follow Talk conversations via the iPhone.
Too bad none of this stuff is available on the Android. I might actually use it. Oh well, at least I can watch via the video below:
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AFP - Google on Wednesday added social-networking features to its customizable homepages by adding software "gadgets" that enable people to play and stay in tune with friends online.
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By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
The rumors of the much-anticipated, yet-to-be-confirmed Apple (AAPL) tablet continued to pile up.
The latest version comes from that old rumormonger, Trip Chowdhry, proprietor of the boutique research firm Global Equities Research. Once a month or so, Chowdhry publishes Silicon Scorp, a roundup of chatter he’s hearing around the Valley. And one of things he’s been hearing lately is that Apple by the end of the year will announce an $899 “SmartBook,” with 8-10 inch OLED screens from LG Electronics, and an ARM Holding dual core Corex9 chipset. He writes that his contacts are “almost positive” that such a device is coming, that Apple wants to launch this year, but that widespread availability isn’t likely until Q1 2010.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
EFF legal director Cindy Cohn and author Johnathan Lethem do a fine job of explaining why this matters and what we'd like from Google in order to withdraw our legal objection to the settlement.
Lethem is one of several authors -- including Michael Chabon and Cory Doctorow -- who have signed on to a campaign to pressure Google Books to offer greater privacy guarantees for its readers. The effort was organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.Google Deal With Publishers Raises Privacy Concerns (Thanks, Hugh!)"They know which books you search for," says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation. "They know which books you browse through; they know how long you spend on each page."
It's the same kind of information that's produced by someone surfing the Web. But Cohn believes books should enjoy greater privacy.
The EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California want Google to keep reader data for less time than normal Web searches. Ideally, they say, the data should be deleted after a month.
Here's a video of Neil Gaiman reading my short story "The Right Book" at the World Science Fiction Convention last week; Neil did the reading for an ambitious short story collection publishing experiment I'm working on; we recorded audio too. The story was written for the 150th anniversary of Britain's The Bookseller magazine -- the brief was to imagine the next 150 years of bookselling. Neil did a wicked reading.
Neil Gaiman Reads Cory Doctorow's "The Right Book"
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Aug 2009 | 4:30 pm
Now’s your chance to get that caffeine molecule shirt you’ve been looking at… and a sweet Airzooka for baby! Just use coupon code “HACKSURVEY09″ at ThinkGeek and it’ll take $10 off any total over $30. It’s for their Awesomeversary. There’s really not much else to say.
ACK-shully, you also get this t-shirt free with the order. [via Dealnews]
Brain Food
Source: Boing Boing | 12 Aug 2009 | 4:28 pm
Gerber Crucial, a good-looking, functional multitool
For me to love a multitool, it has to be smart, strong, compact, and good-looking. The new Gerber Crucial is all of that -- it folds up into a neat little less-than-4-inch long rectangle, has a knife with a straight and serrated blade, screwdriver heads, a bottle opener, pliers, and a wire cutter. Portability is important, too -- I like that it has a carabiner for hooking and a belt clip for clipping onto things. The green and gray color combo is very classy.Available for $45 at the Gerber Store in September, and at some online retailers now.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
We know practically nothing about this machine, but from the two spy photos we can see, it looks interesting. It’s safe to assume it’s HD-capable (from the HDMI port), Blu-Ray is probably at least available as an option, and it appears to have about the same footprint as a Mac Mini. We’d guess the price to be around $500 (at least starting there) since it’s going to be competing with the Mini. No word on availability at this time, but we’ll keep you posted as more details become available.
[via Gizmodo]
This is going to end well, and no one will be upset about this. Also, everything I said in that last sentence is probably wrong.
When Debian developer Joey Hess started tinkering with webOS, he noticed that it was sending something to Palm once a day. Surely, Palm wasn't sending anything too potentially incriminating without making it blatantly obvious to the user, right? Wrong.
I’ve been testing an HD projector here at the house and, in its initial, out-of-the-box setting we found that the picture was ridiculously “sharp.” The picture, I suppose, looked like an old Dr. Who episode where the action on screen is smoother than the background, creating a jarring disparity when watching movies with lots of movement. It’s sometimes called the “Soap Opera Effect.” We decided to do a little digging to figure out why.
Most film is recorded at 24 frames per second, but your LCD TV probably either displays at 60 fps or 120 hz (hertz is just a measurement of frequency per second). There are three main ways to cope with this.
First is to simply display each frame longer, this is the oldest technique in LCD tech. However, its undesirable side effects include the possibility of motion blur, or of judder. Judder is an artifact of adjusting the framerate and it looks like a sort of stutter in movement that would otherwise be smooth (a slow pan, for instance).
The second technique is one used on Plasmas and CRT TVs. Instead of showing a bright image the whole time, they display the frame, then a short frame of either darkness or a very dimmed picture. This alleviates much of the issue with judder and motion blur as it allows your brain to fill in the gap faster than you can consciously notice. It is also an old technique, and is used in theaters. It provides the traditional cinema feel.
The most recent and advanced technique is motion interpolation. Motion interpolation is a process by which your TV analyzes the current frame, and the next frame, then creates an average. It inserts these averaged frames in between. The result is extremely smooth motion with no motion blur and judder becomes almost non-existent. There are a few technical issues with this, including the possibility of ghosting or artifacts in rare cases. Also the smooth movement this creates is slightly disconcerting.
This extremely smooth motion has earned the name the “Soap Opera Effect,” after the way those shows looked, having been shot on cheaper 30Hz video instead of regular broadcast equipment or film. Although it might be technically superior it seems it is disconcerting to me. The movement looks like a digital video, not like film. This problem is exacerbated by the high definition. I’ve seen this happen in standard definition video as well and you essentially see the “moving” objects on a different plane than the background, as if they were cut outs moving on a painted background.
Cinematographers and video experts have had techniques for hiding “telecine” video artifacts for years, but the increase in interpolation frames (from 30 to 60 to 120 or more) has reduced the need for such techniques. Instead, the increased framerate minimizes the video glitches at the cost of looking a bit weird. There are a lot of complaints out there over how 120Hz looks “too smooth” or unrealistic. This is probably mostly due to people just not being used to it and wanting to home films to look like the cinema they are used to. The rub here is simple: HD content looks incredible, on the aggregate, but these interpolation problems pull us out of the uncanny valley and into a strange new way of seeing motion. It isn’t quite what we expect and it upsets us.
Maybe TV makers will solve this problem or maybe we’ll just get used to it. Either way, something you can simply turn interpolation off and get the old, juddery picture you know and love.
With Berkeley Beyers
 Ars Technica | Kaleidescape loses; DVD copying falls again CNET News Kaleidescape, a company that enables users to copy dvds and store them on its system, lost an important court decision Wednesday. For the second time in two days, Hollywood has racked up another major legal victory over DVD-copying ... Hollywood Studios Win Ruling Limiting DVD-Copying Technology Kaleidescape to Appeal to Calif. Supreme Court Now it's Kaleidescape's turn to cry |
Thanks for your columns about the difficulties of upgrading to Windows 7 from Windows XP. But I am a Mac owner with an iMac I bought new last year that currently runs Mac OS X Leopard. Will there be obstacles to upgrading my Mac to the new Snow Leopard?
Owners of any Mac with an Intel processor—about 80% of all Macs in use, including yours—will be able to do simple, direct in-place upgrades to the new Snow Leopard edition of the Mac operating system, due out soon. This method will preserve all programs, files and settings without requiring any of the hard-disk wiping, temporary offloading of files and re-installing of programs that Microsoft is requiring to move to Windows 7 from its most popular current version, Windows XP.
Not only that, but Snow Leopard will cost you and other Leopard users just $29, which is $90 less than the Home Premium version of Windows 7. Apple also is claiming that the upgrade will be up to 45% faster than in the past and that it will actually free up an additional 6 gigabytes of hard disk space.
However, that doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles or issues for some Mac users. Most important, owners of the other 20% of Macs, those whose models use older PowerPC processors—like the G4 and G5—won’t be able to use Snow Leopard at all. It’s the first Mac OS version that runs only on Intel-based Macs. So, if these folks want Snow Leopard, they’ll have to buy new machines, even though some of them bought their Macs as recently as 2006.
Also, although Intel-based Macs running the older Tiger version of the operating system can be directly and simply upgraded to Snow Leopard, Apple is officially requiring their owners to spend more for it. They have to buy Snow Leopard as part of a $169 boxed set that includes other Apple software they may not want.
Given the manual process of moving from Windows XP to Windows 7, isn’t it likely that there’ll be some third-party utility to handle it?
Yes. Seattle-based Laplink Software has announced that it will issue a new version of its PCmover utility—mainly sold for transferring data to new PCs—that will be able perform automated in-place upgrades to Windows 7 on an existing Windows XP machine, including the preservation of programs. I haven’t tested it yet, and can’t swear that it will work properly. More information is at laplink.com under “Latest News.”
Can you recommend software to remove trial/craplet programs? Something suitable for average users?
The one I have used with success is called “The PC Decrapifier,” which removes unneeded trial programs, add-on programs and advertising come-ons known as “craplets.” The software is free at pcdecrapifier.com. Note that it works only on PCs running Windows XP and Windows Vista. Before you use it, make sure to read the list of exactly what it removes, which is on the Web site.
You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the new All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Telegraph.co.uk | Twilight time for Yahoo search CNET News SAN JOSE, Calif.--Yahoo's lame-duck period as a search company is in full swing. Following a Wednesday morning session on the SEO implications of duplicate content at Search Engine Strategies 2009, technical and marketing attendees ... Microsoft Bing Adds Major Zing To Paid Click Share What Yahoo+Microsoft means for marketers Microsofts eyes Bing-iphone linkage boost |
When Microsoft announced at E3 that you’d soon be able to buy, earn, and win props for your Xbox Live Avatar, they also disclosed that there was a terminal tucked away somewhere in their booth where you could sign yourself up for an exclusive E3 trophy.
It wasn’t really “hidden” per se, but it was absurdly hard to find. It took me 4 passes and a few stops at the front desk to find someone who had any idea what the hell I was talking about.
If you were at E3 and managed to find the terminal, check your inbox. The trophies have now started to trickle out. If you weren’t or you didn’t, you’re out of luck; like most unlockable content, each E3 trophy is tied to a unique 25 character code.
Section: Computers, Security, Web, Web 2.0, Features, Originals, Columns
Everyone loves Facebook. It’s fun, it’s useful, and it can be downright addicting. Thanks to its ever increasing popularity it can also be dangerous. Hackers and scammers are well aware of the large audience on Facebook and do what they can to take advantage of it. Here are a few of the ways they do so:
Third party apps are huge on Facebook. You can play games like Mafia Wars, FarmTown, YoVille, and Scrabble with your friends and send them virtual drinks, flowers, snacks, bumper stickers, and more. Unfortunately, since Facebook doesn’t have any kind of verification system in place for its app developers (it’s as lax as Apple’s App Store is strict!) it is easy for scammers to distribute malicious apps.
The result? Apps like “Error Check System” which sent users a notification that said “(Name of Friend) has faced some errors when checking your profile. Click here to view the error message.” Anyone who did find themselves presented with a page asking them to install an “error checking” app, which is actually a piece of spyware. Once installed, it spammed everyone on the person’s friends list with the same fake notification.
Other rogue apps that are similar include “Secret Crush” which sent a notification telling you one of your friends has a crush on you and to click to find out who, and “Facebook-Closing Down!!” which sent a particularly upsetting fake notification that stated “(Name of Friend) reported your profile to Facebook for a TOS violation. Click here for info.” Needless to say it caused a lot of anger, hurt feelings and defriending before people realized it was all fake. While these apps were eventually shut down, similar new ones pop up all the time.
Sometimes legit apps can become compromised as well. A few weeks ago the wildly popular FarmTown app, which lets users tend to a virtual farm, sell crops, and chat with other farmers, began redirecting users to a site serving up a fake anti-virus program, also known as scareware. It appears that the ad network serving ads in the game was poisoned with a malicious banner ad and was responsible, not the app developers.
Speaking of rogue apps, there is a malcious ad on Facebook that is also a rogue app and is perhaps the biggest scam on the entire site. The IQ Test. It looks like one of the many quiz apps that are wildly popular among Facebook users. Banners around the site challenge you to see if you bet your friend’s results. Some are downright insulting, informing you that “4 of your friends think you’re an idiot!”
The quiz looks perfectly legit until you reach the end and expect your results. Instead it demands that you hand over your cell phone number if you want to find out how you did. Those that do find themselves subscribed to a premium SMS service that sends horoscopes and other junk text messages to them and charges their cell phone bills $9.99 and up a month. It doesn’t ask you if you want to subscribe, give you any other way to get your quiz results, or make the fees clear. Very sleazy. It’s disappointing that Facebook allows this outfit to continue to post their scam “quiz” all over the site. Say what you will about Apple’s App Store, but at least you know the apps are not going to spam, scam, or hack you.
How do you protect yourself? First off don’t click on any banner ads inviting you to challenge your friends or that inform you that someone thinks you’re an idiot/has a crush on you/hates you. Be careful about what apps you chose to install as well. If you get a notification saying a specific friend reported you, found errors on your profile, or anything else that seems odd, don’t click. Ask that friend directly! If you find a message on your wall from a friend telling you you were caught on a hidden cam or just have to see this awesome video, delete it and let your friend know they’ve got the Koobface virus. Also beware of any vague notifications that say “Someone thinks you’re awesome/sent you a gift/has a crush on you” etc as they are likely from rogue apps.
Facebook is a great site. It’s a valuable networking tool, a great way for far flung friends and family to stay in touch, and just plain fun. However, until they realize they need exercise a lot more control over what third party apps are allowed and put better security measures in place, it’s up to you to stay aware and protect yourself.
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
OK IT’S TIME FOR BRANDO TIME AGAIN! Good friend give you a clock! Don’t think it’s a pinhole camera with remote! Don’t! You will be a fool to think so! Don’t worry!
Need to make sure no one blackmails your car shop! Press the button and record video! It is a tire clock that looks like a tire and is a camera! 12FPS! $69.
Pinhole Lens
Resolution: 352 x 288 pixel
FPS: 12 frame per second
Recorded file format in AVI
Color Video and Audio
Built-in 2GB Memory
Rechargeable Li-ion battery
On a brisk summer evening in Los Angeles, a swarm of geeks fill the University of Southern California's Galen Center for an exclusive—and somewhat surreal—event. It's the day before E3 2009—the conference where the gaming industry previews its most high-profile releases of the coming year. The eager attendees are about to witness an impossible feat: the Beatles, reunited. This magical mystery moment comes courtesy of MTV, here to unveil its gaming division's most ambitious and expensive launch in recent history: The Beatles: Rock Band.
On a giant stage, the iconic opening chord of "Hard Day's Night" blasts from the speakers, and on a billboard-sized screen, the Fab Four, or rather, their youthful, mop-topped, computer-generated avatars, are jamming like it's 1964. The attendees, nearly all born well after John Lennon died, are screaming and clapping like schoolgirls, clearly in the throes of Beatlemania.
At the end of the video presentation, the two surviving flesh-and-blood band members, Ringo Starr, 69, and Paul McCartney, 67, take the stage for a surprise appearance. Standing side by side, the pair look slightly befuddled by the moment. For these been-there, done-that rockers, flogging a videogame is a first. "We love the game, it's fantastic," McCartney says. "Who would've ever thought we'd end up as androids?" No one, perhaps, except a few ambitious executives at MTV.
On September 9, after three years of ardent courtship, tech wizardry, and dizzying legal acrobatics, MTV Games is releasing The Beatles: Rock Band, a multiplayer title spanning the group's entire career. The launch of the game (to be released the same day as a 12-album remastered CD box set) marks the first time the Beatles tunes will be legally available digitally. The game will include 45 tracks to kick things off, followed by additional releases for purchase via MTV's download-to-console service.
It's an extraordinary coup for MTV. For years, the Beatles have been the refuseniks of rock and roll, turning down all entreaties, including well-publicized offers from Apple and Microsoft, to make their 24-album catalog—currently available only on vinyl, cassette, and CD—accessible online.
The band's resistance is as curious as it is costly: Apple Corps, the company it founded in 1969 as a tax shelter, has undoubtedly missed out on millions of dollars in online sales, causing some fans to find illicit ways to get Beatles music.
Yet the band remains one of the best-selling musical acts ever. The release of the Beatles' 1, a remastered compilation album, has sold more than 28 million copies worldwide. In April, McCartney was one of the headline acts at the hipster music festival Coachella, strumming a string of Beatles classics to thousands of under-30 music fans.
So, after the Beatles turned away such desirable suitors as Apple and Microsoft, how did MTV persuade the group to make its digital debut via videogame? For starters, the money. While music industry revenue streams are shrinking, videogames offer long-term growth, with a larger chunk of profits for the copyright holder than, say, a standard deal with iTunes. Activision's rival game franchise, Guitar Hero, for instance, has sold 35 million discs, generating more than $1 billion in sales, with acts like Metallica and Aerosmith cutting fat deals for their band-name versions.
It's also a matter of control. Apple Corps is hyper-vigilant about the integrity of the tunes and the threat of piracy. (In 1987, when EMI licensed "Revolution" to Nike, Apple Corps fought unsuccessfully to block the deal.) With Rock Band, users can stream or download songs only through their game console—no importing to laptops or MP3 players.
With this unprecedented deal, the execs at MTV Games (and parent company Viacom) are banking on the Beatles version of the already successful Rock Band franchise to give the fading network a boost. "Rock Band is a place we've built for people to gather," says Judy McGrath, CEO of MTV. In other words, The Beatles: Rock Band is rebooting MTV's original concept: getting kids to enjoy music through their TV sets.
It all began on a secluded beach. In late 2006, Van Toffler, president of MTV Networks, took his family to a small Caribbean island for a much-needed vacation. It had been a rocky year for Toffler. His longtime friend and colleague Tom Freston had been ousted as CEO of Viacom, and MTV was struggling for ratings.
Toffler had created MTV's videogame division in 2005 as part of his larger effort: to expand the network everywhere its audience convened, be that via mobile phones, the Internet, or videogames. One of his boldest moves was purchasing Harmonix, the game development company behind Guitar Hero, to create a similar title for MTV. It was risky: Harmonix would have to compete against its own best-selling game—which is owned by Activision—and hope to catch lightning in a bottle twice.
A few days after he and his family arrived, Toffler was invited to lunch by Planet Hollywood founder Robert Earl and ended up sitting next to George Harrison's 31-year-old son, Dhani. Harrison mentioned being exhausted from a late-night bout of Guitar Hero. When Toffler told him about the MTV purchase of Harmonix, Harrison's face lit up: "You know what would be cool. If you made a game that featured the whole band."
Toffler was shocked. Harrison had no way of knowing it, but Harmonix was toiling away on Rock Band, which was building on that very idea. Toffler's wheels began spinning. It seemed too insane to contemplate, but what if MTV could get the Beatles on the new game? It would give MTV an advantage over Activision; Rock Band could blow Guitar Hero off the stage.
Toffler returned to MTV's New York offices eager to pursue the prospect. He set up a meeting between Harrison and Alex Rigopulos, cofounder and CEO of Harmonix. When Rigopulos arrived at Harrison's home in Venice, California, he was elated to shake hands with the son of rock royalty and anxious about pitching the outrageous scheme. "Wouldn't it be incredible to make a Beatles game?" Rigopulos asked. To his surprise, Harrison eagerly agreed.
Soon, Harrison began lobbying his mother, Olivia, and the other Apple Corps shareholders: McCartney, Starr, and Yoko Ono. His enthusiasm was contagious: In summer 2006, Rigopulos and Paul DeGooyer, senior VP of MTV's game division, flew to LA to present a Rock Band prototype to Olivia Harrison and Starr, who loved the game. DeGooyer did a repeat performance for Ono's son Sean Lennon.
Rigopulos and DeGooyer still had to meet with McCartney—a task not unlike scoring a sit-down with the Pope. "You don't schedule a meeting with Paul," Rigopulos says, laughing. "You just drop everything and come when he has time for you." In August 2007, the pair got the call. They flew to London to meet with McCartney at EMI's famous Abbey Road Studios. DeGooyer and Rigopulos strapped on their plastic instruments and kicked out the jams. McCartney was friendly and listened closely to their pitch. "We were relieved," Rigopulos recalls. "He seemed genuinely interested." Still, McCartney remained noncommittal.
Upon their return to New York, the duo discovered why: Apple Corps was interested in a Beatles version of Rock Band only if it used songs spanning their entire career, a demand that posed considerable—perhaps insurmountable—technical challenges. "They may have thought we would never come back," Rigopulos says. "They thought it was a polite way of saying thanks but no thanks."
Determined, Harmonix pushed forward, offering to craft a sample demo as a means of clinching the deal. To produce a song for Rock Band, however, Harmonix requires access to an original multitrack recording, in which individual instruments are put down on separate channels. But in the early '60s, when the Beatles were cutting classics like "I Want to Hold Your Hand," the band recorded multiple instrumental parts on a single track. Isolating McCartney's bass from Harrison's guitar was no easy feat. Further complicating matters, Apple Corps had given the team only hissing, low-bitrate audio files, which required extra time and care.
But they did get a little help from a friend. Jeff Jones, CEO of Apple Corps, suggested they turn to Giles Martin, the son of longtime Beatles producer George Martin, for help. Martin had just completed remixing a series of Beatles tracks for the 2006 album Love (featured in a popular Cirque du Soleil show) and was intimately familiar with the band's master tapes. "The stars just aligned," DeGooyer recalls. "It turned out Giles wasn't booked at that time, and he had the trust and confidence of the Beatles."
Martin had discovered a way to isolate the individual instruments and voices using software developed by Cedar, a company based in Cambridge, England. Originally created for audio forensics, the software allowed Martin and the Harmonix team to zero in on the exact frequencies of McCartney's vocals, for instance, and filter out the rest. After weeks in Abbey Road Studios, they disassembled five songs—enough to make the demo.
Meanwhile, the first version of Rock Band was released in late 2007, quickly becoming a hit. In a savvy move, MTV made Rock Band as much a sales platform as a videogame, releasing 6 to 10 tracks a week that could be downloaded for a few bucks a pop. David Bowie, Radiohead, Metallica, and the Clash signed on. While overall sales of the game disc lagged behind Guitar Hero's, sales of downloadable tracks now outpace those offered by Activision.
In February 2008, Rigopulos, Martin, and DeGooyer presented their five-song game demo to the Harrisons, Ono, and Starr. They got the thumbs-up. Next was McCartney. After they played the demo for him in his London office, McCartney gave them a sprig of lavender in a glassine envelope as a parting gift.
Did they have a deal? Was that McCartney's idea of a handshake? DeGooyer and Rigopulos returned to the US and waited. Not long after, they got McCartney's blessing. The Harmonix team had the band; now they needed the rock.
Licensing music for games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band is a fairly complicated procedure. Gamemakers pay a chunk of cash upfront to several parties to license both the master recording and the publishing rights to the underlying song. Licensing the Beatles, however, is trickier. The recording rights belong to the band's longtime label, EMI. Most of the publishing rights, on the other hand, are held by Sony/ATV (a joint venture with the late Michael Jackson). Complicating matters even further, additional publishing rights for certain tunes are held by Harrissongs, an independent entity set up by George Harrison, as well as by Starr's publishing company, Startling Music.
And that's just behind the music. In order to develop the game's digital doubles, MTV had to license the artists' likenesses from Apple Corps, which meant appealing to the Beatles and their descendants—famous for conflicting views on how to manage the Beatles brand—to reach an agreement. On top of that, the company had to obtain separate rights for any materials it wanted to use for the game's marketing.
After resolving the legal aspects, reviewing the demos, and considering a late-breaking offer from rival company Activision, the Beatles officially teamed up with MTV. On October 30, 2008—almost two years after the first meeting on the beach—MTV and Apple Corps issued a statement that the Beatles were coming to Rock Band. The announcement was met with disbelief and envy from the music industry and game companies alike.
With the deal complete, Harmonix could finally bring all its resources to bear on the project itself. The September 9 release was less than a year away, and although Martin and Rigopulos had figured out how to marry the Beatles' music to the Rock Band format, the developers still had a long way to go. The original Rock Band let players assume the role of a generic rocker and gradually gain experience and a bigger repertoire, thus accessing more fans, cooler clothes, bigger venues, a larger entourage, and all the other accoutrements of rock-and-roll stardom. "Right away, we realized this wouldn't work for the Beatles," Rigopulos says. "They had all that stuff—fans, money, stardom—almost from the beginning."
Harmonix had to re-create the most mythologized narrative in music history and adapt it to the rather inflexible formula of the videogame. And the company would need to do it without blaspheming the Beatles and offending the fans most likely to plunk down $250 for the game and specially designed plastic drums, bass, and guitar.
Eventually, Harmonix and Apple Corps agreed that the game should reflect the two distinct stages of the Beatles' career: the first half, when they were a live act, and the later, more introverted, psychedelic period, when the band holed up in Abbey Road Studios and produced mind-blowing works like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The first 25 songs are played in painstakingly reproduced settings of the band's most iconic performances—Liverpool's Cavern Club, The Ed Sullivan Show, the infamous Budokan arena in Japan, and New York's Shea Stadium, the site of the first stop on their only US tour, in 1965. "In the Ed Sullivan chapter, we actually quote from the original camera work," Rigopulos says. The final 20 songs of the game, however, take place in what Harmonix calls dreamscapes, confections inspired by imagery the Beatles popularized in albums like Sgt. Pepper's and the movie Magical Mystery Tour.
By spring, the Harmonix crew had completed a rough build of the entire game. Yoko Ono, whose involvement up to then had been minimal, decided to fly to Boston to provide her own distinct brand of input. "She gave the designers hell," DeGooyer says. "She's an artist," Rigopulos adds, "so she was very concerned with the look of the game. She really held our feet to the fire." Ono made specific suggestions, like proposing that the game's final scene—the Beatles' infamous rooftop concert on the Apple Corps building in Knightsbridge—look windier. Her criticism sent Harmonix scurrying to improve the graphics. At that point, the E3 conference and the game's debut was just three months away. "We were like, oh, gee. Thanks," Rigopulos says. "It would have been nice to know that six months ago, but yes, thank you very much."
Several hours after the game's Galen Center preview, the Harmonix crew hosted a VIP party at the Standard hotel. As the sun set, gaming journalists and geeky celebrities like Christopher "McLovin" Mintz-Plasse took turns playing John, Paul, George, and Ringo.
The game was a huge success at E3 and has been getting unanimously rave advance reviews ever since—with good reason. Lovingly crafted and thoughtfully produced, The Beatles: Rock Band features three-part harmonies, with previously unseen video footage, rare photographs, and a dense Beatles biography. In other words, it's more than a game; it's like a quantum leap into the Fab Four universe.
None of this guarantees commercial success, of course. It's not an auspicious time to be releasing an expensive, blockbuster videogame. Game sales are not recession-proof, and projections for the holiday season—typically when half of the year's total games are sold—are already grim. Worse, some wonder whether the armchair rock-star craze has already peaked. "Anyone who wants a plastic guitar in their living room already has one," says Joe Spiegel, a partner at videogame investment firm Dalek Capital Management. Just as anyone who wants a Beatles tune on their iPod already has one.
Nevertheless, Toffler, DeGooyer, and the rest of team are optimistic. After all, they've already done the impossible. They've reunited the Beatles. The magical mystery tour is on again.
Contributing editor Jeff Howe (jeff_howe@wired.com) is the author of Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business.
FROM GAMERTELL - Microsoft’s latest update to the Xbox experience includes Netflix improvements, hits such as Mass Effect as downloadable content and designer duds for your avatar.
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Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
There’s a better half of a thousand cans up there and darn near all are (diligently) cracked open from the bottom, preserving the original seal. Also out of all the cans hanging, there’s only a handful of duplicates. We are quite proud of this assemblage of our cultural history and all of us, at one time or daily, have to be reminded to get the hell back to work and stop staring into abyss of an unfortunately long-gone and better era."It's Superior" (Thanks, Blogzilla!)
This is going to end well, and no one will be upset about this. Also, everything I said in that last sentence is probably wrong.
When Debian developer Joey Hess started tinkering with webOS, he noticed that it was sending something to Palm once a day. Surely, Palm wasn’t sending anything too potentially incriminating without making it blatantly obvious to the user, right? Wrong.
Joey tore apart the data the Pre was transmitting, and there it was, smack dab at the top of the page:
{ “errorCode”: 0, “timestamp”: 1249855555954.000000, “latitude”: 36.594108, “longitude”: -82.183260, “horizAccuracy”: 2523, “heading”: 0, “velocity”: 0, “altitude”: 0, “vertAccuracy”: 0 }
That was Joey’s position at the time the data was sent, accurate to the same degree that the Google Maps application was.
Also included was a list of every application Joey used, along with how long they were used for (as measured by “launch” and “close” parameters), along with crashlogs. Last but very much not least, it also sent a manifest file of all applications installed on the phone - including third-party applications not authorized by Palm. All of this data is sent to ps.palmws.com.
For some crazy reason, people don’t really like having this sort of information sent back to the mothership without their explicit consent. Palm knows this, of course, and has their bases covered in their privacy policy:
Location Based Services. When you use location based services, we will collect, transmit, maintain, process, and use your location and usage data (including both real time geographic information and information that can be used to approximate location) in order to provide location based and related services, and to enhance your device experience.
The latter part of that sentence, “in order to provide location based and related services”, makes perfect sense - you open Google Maps, and it needs to find your location. Sure. Then they tack “enhance your device experience” onto the end, essentially giving them full reign to send your data wherever the hell they want as long as it potentially makes the experience better.
Of course, Palm’s privacy policy could say that they have the right to punch you in the face and light your shoes on fire, and no one would notice. Even the most anal of gadget users don’t tear through EULAs and privacy policies before booting up their device. When it comes to location tracking and device activity, you must alert the user and specifically request permission. If you don’t, you are spying, plain and simple. Regardless of what Palm is doing with this data, the user needs to be completely aware that it is being sent.
Furthermore, why would Palm need this data? It’s not for marketing reasons; you know where I bought my phone. It’s not for technical reasons on the carrier’s end, such as network load balancing - the towers are already fully aware of who’s in each cell.
Palm, your privacy policy opens by stating “Our goal is to help you make informed decisions about the personal information you share with us.” If thats the case, you’re doing a pretty terrible job.
You can see a full list of what is being transmitted here.
Update:
Palm has since issued a statement on the matter:
Palm takes privacy very seriously, and offers users ways to turn data collecting services on and off. Our privacy policy is like many policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when location based services are used, we collect their information to give them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust that users give us with their information, and have no intention to violate that trust.
We’re not sure what method of toggling data collection they’re talking about, unless we’re missing something tucked deep away. In the end, however, they still fall back on their privacy policy.
[Via IntoMobile]
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"The Best Wish For My Good Friend" is to spy on him with the video camera hidden in the "R" of this clock.
- The Real Tire Clock comes with Remote Spy Camcorder.The Tire Clock Spy Camcorder with Remote Control $69.00- Press once to record, easy to control. Plug it to the PC as a flash drive via USB Cable.
- Come with Stand as a Desktop Clock
- AA battery x 1 piece for a Tire Clock
- Tire Clock and Spy Camcorder are working independently
- Diameter: 17.5 cm, Depth: 4.5 cm
- Pinhole Lens
- Resolution: 352 x 288 pixel
- FPS: 12 frame per second
- Recorded file format in AVI
- Color Video and Audio
- Built-in 2GB Memory
- Rechargeable Li-ion battery
Section: Computers, Software / Applications, Web, Web 2.0
Digsby, the popular IM and social media client, is getting closer to being the only application you need to access the social web. Digsby has long had Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and LinkedIn as part of the application, and today is looking to improve on all of them. It also announced a partnership with OneRiot, the real-time search engine that recently opened up its API for anyone to use.
The biggest change in Digsby is arguably one that most people won’t care too much about. Digsby has improved its MySpace support, which will now include status updates, Activity Streams, and full photo browsing right from Digsby. Sounds like a great idea, but would see much more use if it were from Facebook. What people can do with Facebook using the new version of Digsby is update their status globally. The new version includes what Digsby is calling “Global Status,” which will change your status on all social networks attached to Digsby as well as IM accounts. Sounds like a no-brainer, which makes its inclusion welcome, if not strange that it wasn’t there before.
Digsby is also announcing digs.by, a URL shortener that will hopefully be more reliable than tr.im, in addition to a new Windows 7 theme which fits in with the rest of the new OS. Digsby is one of the few applications that, as a Mac and Linux user, makes Windows looks good. Sure, it can take up a lot of RAM, but the fact that it combines so many other applications into one is certainly a nice feature. There has been an option to sign up for emails when the other OS versions come out, but those emails have yet to come. In the mean time, Windows users get these pretty cool features in one application while I run Adium, Mail and Tweetie just to have some of the capabilities of Digsby.
Read [Digsby Blog]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Giant's latest folding bike, the Clip, is uniquely handsome. It has decent components. It folds relatively quickly/easily. It even rides smoothly. My one complaint?
From my full review over at Wired.com:
The little "D" above the fork seems like a natural carrying handle when the bike is folded. Right? Well, it is -- provided you've got the hands of an 11-year-old girl. Try as we might, we simply couldn't find any comfortable way to grasp the "D."
Not a deal breaker, but worth knowing before you spend $1000.
photo by Jonathan Snyder for Wired
For me to love a multitool, it has to be smart, strong, compact, and good-looking. The new Gerber Crucial is all of that &mdash it folds up into a neat little less-than-4-inch long rectangle, has a knife with a straight and serrated blade, screwdriver heads, a bottle opener, pliers, and a wire cutter. Portability is important, too &mdash I like that it has a carabiner for hooking and a belt clip for clipping onto things. The green and gray color combo is very classy.
Available for $45 at the Gerber Store in September, and at some online retailers now.
Product page [Gerber Store]
Lets say you just finished hacking and cracking your myTouch 3G through the just unveiled rooting process. With the myTouch lagging behind some other in the looks department, your first quest is to retheme it. You’d heard about a Palm Pre skin, which decks Android out with Pre-esque visuals from top to bottom. Partly out of spite and partly out of genuine curiosity, you set out to find it.
Sorry Charlie, it’s too late.
Earlier this week, the developer of the Palm Pre skin, L3wish, received a letter from the Sunnyvale mothership. “You should probably take this stuff down, or we’ll stop pretending you’re not infringing all sorts of copyrights,” it read - except spread out across 714 words.
Citing the potential for “widespread consumer confusion” and the usage of Palm’s trademarks (the skin was outright called “Palm Pre theme”), Palm demanded that all materials be taken down. The developer has since pulled the download, and any instances of it we knew of have disappeared. You can probably find them in a few minutes with Google - but then again, so can Palm’s lawyers.
[Via EngadgetMobile]
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After a few false starts and a handful of hoaxes, the T-Mobile myTouch 3G has been rooted. For those a bit behind the times on their lingo, “rooting” an Android phone is similar to the concept of “jailbreaking” an iPhone, in that it gives you full access and control of your system files. This allows you to retheme the device, run applications that otherwise wouldn’t (there aren’t many of these on Android, but tethering applications are one example), and swap out just about any core OS file you want.
The magic all happened at the hands of hackers dream_kill and Haykuro, the latter of which is the same clever gent who tweaked and twurked the HTC Hero ROM onto G1s back in May. Interestingly, Haykuro doesn’t even own a myTouch - it seems that things were just passed back and forth between Haykuro and a “test dummy” (his words) until it worked.
The process is by no means for the faint of heart or technically inept. The whole thing is about 20 steps deep, each part filled with at least one thing likely to confuse. Before you even start, you’ll need to make a “gold card”, which is a memory card modified to unlock your device at startup. Though there are a handful of tutorials out there, even this step can be daunting.
If you’re still willing to take on the task, you can check out Haykuro’s tutorial here.
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Apple’s secretive M.O. can get pretty annoying to us journalists, but we have to admit sometimes it makes things more fun. Take for example a report today claiming Apple shot a TV ad at Jax at the Tracks, a 1940s-style diner in Truckee, Calif. Jax at the Tracks owner Bud Haley told Truckee publication Sierra Sun that a scout found his restaurant for the shoot. No details on what the product was, of course. What could it be based on the setting?
The mom-and-pops diner suggests the ad could be targeted at a younger, hip generation with an appreciation for the obscure. But that doesn’t give away much, since Apple has always marketed its products for non-conformists. What type of gadget would be shown off at a diner? Probably not a MacBook, since that would be somewhat tacky at a diner. A touchscreen tablet, perhaps, where a geek could be showing off his vacation photos to his friends? Or maybe just the upcoming iPod Touch, which is rumored to feature a new camera? What are your guesses?
See Also:
Photo of a scene from a diner (not Jax): ThomasHawk/Flickr
Everyone knows being a drummer kind of sucks. You sit in the back and watch the singer take all the credit. The guitar player's always stealing your lady (unless you're Mick Fleetwood). Your gear is HEAVY and, most importantly, no one ever wants to help you schlep it around.
Created by a Russian percussionist who was — I'm guessing — tired of setting up and taking down his kit at every gig, the "Moto Drum" is pure genius.
More photos at English Russia.
Rumors around the upcoming Zune HD have flying fast in the last couple of weeks. And now it seems like official confirmation is not far away. Microsoft is expected to announce the pricing and the launch date for Zune HD tonight.
A leak from Amazon.com Tuesday pegged the 16 GB Zune HD player at $220 and the 32 GB version at $290. The Zune HD is expected to available starting September 8.
Zune HD has a 3.3-inch capacitive OLED screen with multi-touch functionality, Wi-Fi, HD radio and an internet browser. The device will also have HD video output capability. Much of the functionality has been provided by Nvidia’s Tegra system-on-a-chip, said some Microsoft executives at the GDGT launch party last week.
Tegra includes an 800-MHz ARM CPU, a high-definition video processor, an imaging processor, an audio processor and an ultralow-power GeForce GPU in a single package. The different processors can be used together or independently while consuming very little power, said Nvidia. The company introduced the Tegra system in June and devices based on it, including media players, smartphones and netbooks, are expected be available to consumers by the end of the year.
See Also:
These colorful, slightly nipple-like gadgets are called Good Egg Talking Clocks &mdash they're alarm clocks that tell you what time it is in a Japanese human voice when you push the little nob. Also, to wake you up, it says "Kokekkoko!!" Which is the sound roosters make in the morning. Like cock-a-doodle-do, Japanese-style. It goes on sale at the end of the month, probably only in Japan.
As predicted, Microsoft and Nokia announced a broad ranging alliance this morning which will bring Microsoft Office and other productivity software to a Nokia phones. The agreement marks "the first time Microsoft will make Office for non windows mobile phones," says Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop. There are 200 million Nokia smart phones out there, and Microsoft wants its software on all of them eventually.
But initially, the alliance is targeting enterprise customers and will be integrated into Nokia's E Series business phones. The Microsoft software and features that will be ported to Nokia phones include:
Section: Computers, Software / Applications
There’s been a lot of crazy suits against Microsoft in the past, but there a chance that this one might take the prize for being possibly the most important, if it goes through. Microsoft has been sued by a Toronto company by the name of i4i who owns a number of patents regarding XML coding that Microsoft may be infringing on. The infringing parts of Word? Oh, just opening .DOCX, .XML or DOCM files.
Microsoft was handed an injunction by a Texas judge stating that it would have to stop selling Word domestically within 60 days. Not only that, but it would also have to stop instructing people on have to open the offending files. The suit doesn’t seem to apply to any other aspect of Microsoft Office which seems a bit odd, but perhaps the patent just doesn’t cover spreadsheets and presentation software.
The strange part about this? The opposing company, i4i, actually sells XML products for Word. So potentially a large portion of i4i’s business model relies on the very thing it looks to be halting. Seems an odd business strategy, though potentially one that could mean a large payday for i4i. Suits like these tend to not get to the point where the company can’t sell the product anymore. What will most likely happen is Microsoft will settle with i4i for a decent amount of money, rather than allow i4i to block one of it’s top selling applications banned from selling in the US.
Read [Mashable]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
This design-y armchair by Hungary's Peter Vardal not only looks cool, it transforms into a rocking chair in under 20 seconds. So really, it's like having two chairs in one. It has a carbon frame and an elastic body, and it's called the Fotel.
[via Yanko Design]
Gizmodo's Mark Wilson, on how Microsoft is shamelessly reaming its customers. It charges $160 for a 120GB hard drive, doesn't offer hard drives in modern capacities, and even takes measures to prevent you from using them.
Inside that plastic shell is a stock, boring-as-hell 2.5-inch laptop drive. And you can find such a drive with 500GB of storage for $90 right now. ... Even though I can technically go through the trouble of installing a sweet, 500GB of storage capable of holding my entire game collection, Microsoft has taken the time specifically to thwart me in that endeavor.
SanDisk's $100 Sansa slotRadio player we reviewed previously is another attempt to convince us to adopt the music/media "format of the future" — which is, of course, the company's microSD card.
Last year, you may recall SanDisk launched a huge print marketing campaign that featured billboards of people next to the phrase "Sally found her slot" (yes, I know). The idea was simple: First make consumers understand it's possible to pump music into a phone via memory card. (OK, we got you)... Then try to get them to purchase albums on individual, 1GB cards... for $15 a piece. (Uh, no thanks!).
First of all, if you ask major labels what the real format of the future is, they probably won't say the microSD, but CMX.
Secondly, they're pushing a proprietary player and mix cards with 1,000 songs culled from the Billboard Charts, as if that's appealing on any level.
Here's what's completely asinine about this (and forgive me for re-stating much of what Joel's said previously):
1) A lot of people don't want to hear just 1,000 "hits." They want 10,000 micro-hits. Why not give it to them? That's right, storage is very expensive and hard to come by... Oh wait, no it's not.
2) NO ONE wants to carry and organize potentially hundreds of little microSD cards. Yes, they are small, which makes 'em easier to cart around, but even easier to misplace. Let me buy music digitally (with awesome bonus content/videos, etc.), so I can shove the files I want to hear onto a 32GB card.
3) Instead of zero onboard memory for $100, you can get an iPod Shuffle with 4GB of space for $79. If you don't like the idea of random tracklists, then you can spend $150 for an 8GB iPod nano. Hate Apple? You can pick up an 8GB Zune for $110, which is $10 more than the Sana SlotRadio and won't require you to fuss with physical cards.
Good luck, SanDisk!
[via Uncrate]
Section: Computers, Hardware, Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards
For those of us with jobs that revolve around typing on a computer for prolonged periods of time, it is important that we use the right keyboard and typing techniques. Of course, changing typing habits is not very easy, but using a keyboard that will help your fingers and wrists is possible.
The new Logitech Wireless Desktop MK 700 is a wireless keyboard and mouse setup. The interesting part of this product is the keyboard, which features Logitech’s special “Incurve keys.” The keys on the keyboard are designed in such a fashion that are curved in a way that provides comfort to your fingers. In addition, the keyboard features a LCD screen on top that displays vital keyboard information. Among battery status, the LCD screen will display whether or not caps lock, scroll lock, and num lock are on, and whether mute is being used or not.
No specially designed keyboard and mouse combo would be complete without an equally special mouse. Logitech’s using a slightly curved mouse to better fit your hand shape. In terms of scrolling, users have the choice between typical “ratchet-mode” or hyper-fast. The problem with a hyper-fast sort of scrolling is the prospect of over scrolling, which can become annoying. Both these products claim strong connectivity and immediate responses. Logitech gives the keyboard a three year battery life and a one year battery life for the mouse.
Read [Logitech]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The SL900 is a relatively-lightweight, dead-simple-to-use lantern that sports two solar panels, LEDs and a 6V 4AH sealed lead acid battery. You simply leave it in direct sunlight while hiking, hanging or whatever, and it will charge up enough to provide at least 2-4 hours of nocturnal glow.
At about 12" x 7", the SL900 isn't the most packable torch ever, but for car camping, it works great. I've used it on two car-based camping trips this spring/summer, and have very very minor complaints. One little issue is the fact the top opens indiscriminately, i.e. the top cover hatch tends to open all the way due to a frisky hinge. Thus, if you're trying to position part of the solar panel so that it gets optimal, direct sun at certain times of the day, you won't always achieve your goal — in other worse, you'll need to brace the top against a rock or, more likely, wedge the carrying handle against the back of the panel to hold it at the perfect sun-kissed angle.
All in all, that's a pretty minor complaint. The lantern is $85 (a bit pricey), weighs just 7 lbs (not totally unreasonably), and works well (it should, for that kind of money). After an afternoon of charging, we wound up getting 2 hours with the lamp on high, then another hour or so with the lamp set to medium/low — and while it was not exactly a task light, the lantern provide enough visibility to cook desert, make our way around the camp site, etc.
It's worth noting higher-end solar lanterns include AM/FM, 9-watt fluorescent bulbs, and stobe light features, to name just a few perks. Eh, spending more than $85 — let alone $75 — on a lantern seems potentially gauche. Also, before any solar charging, you'll need to give the lantern a full charge from a standard wall outlet/power source. So, if you're thinking of going off the grid completely with this thing, well, sorry.
So, apparently, Apple’s Phil Schiller is starting to talk about Apple’s missteps. After months of silence, one of Apple’s top executives (and possibly the most public-facing one next to Jobs) has started to reach out to the tech community to help explain Apple’s numerous, absurdly embarrassing blunders. Some may be satisfied with Schiller slowly sending private e-mails out to various developers and bloggers.
Not me. I want answers. I think many of us do. And not just about specific issues like the banning of one small iPhone app (Ninjawords). Not just one private e-mail to one developer which the rest of us can’t even read. That’s helpful, granted. And I’m stoked that Schiller was willing to take out the time. But while he’s at it, I think the general public of Apple products users would love to know a lot more. At the very least, I know I would.
So here are 6 questions for Apple’s Phil Schiller that I would really love to know the answer to. Feel free to add to the list in the comments.
(Mind you, I don’t expect to get answers on all of these right away, but eventually would be nice).
(Oh, and some of these are for AT&T also. Primarily because, as far as I’m concerned, they are both accountable for each other’s failures.)
1. What is your App Store policy? Specifically, how do you determine whether apps in the App Store are rejected or accepted? Additionally, why even bother taking on the liability and responsibility of making such determinations? It may have sounded like a good idea at first, but do you still think this is the best course of action given the App Store’s incredible success?
2. I know you won’t answer this, but how my mouth waters at the thought of even asking this question: what does Apple say to the serious anti-trust and anti-competitive allegations brought against it in recent years? If you’re asking “what anti-trust and anti-competitive allegations” please read: 1) Jason Calacanis’s post and 2) the FCC’s concerns about Apple’s blocking of Google Voice.
3. What are you doing about the complaints? Steve Frank wrote in his blog that Apple is “taking these complaints seriously.” How so? What is Apple doing - or going to do - to rebuild relationships with the community?
4. What involvement does AT&T have in the App Store process? They’ve said publicly that they are not involved in the process. I have my doubts. What does Apple say about AT&T’s involvement?
5. Why are developers still complaining about late payments? The last time we wrote about this was months ago, but since then I’ve spoken privately with many developers who say this is still going on. I’ve also heard from these same developers that the App Store review process has taken weeks (sometimes more than a month): is any effort being made to improve this turnaround time?
6. What is the deal with the exploding iDevices and how widespread is the problem? Has Apple taken any action to decrease the risk of overheating in its devices? This isn’t a new problem. Apple has had overheating issues for a while. What are you changing hardware-wise to fix this?
It is obvious that many of these questions will not get answered, but it would be nice if someone at Apple at least spoke to the general principles. Publicly.
In the meantime, MobileCrunch readers: feel free to comment on what questions you may want answered. If you come up with some good ones, I’ll add them to the list.
Phil: My e-mail address is gaganATcrunchgearDOTcom, in case you are willing to address some of these questions.
[Flickr / marzipanguy]
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Are you an English WAG? (And if you are, how did you hear about us, lol!) Good news, then, since Sony Ericsson just lifted the veil on this fashiony phone, the Jalou. I’ve been pronouncing it J-Lo, like the singer, all morning, so feel free to do the same.
There’s actually two version of the phone: a standard edition that has plain ol’ Sony Ericsson branding, and a limited edition that has Dolce&Gabbana branding. Is there any functional difference between the two? Of course not.
This quad-band GSM/tri-band HSPA—WAGs need to be able to travel all over the world, remember—comes with a 3.2-megapixel camera, FM radio, Bluetooth, etc. Basically, think of any standard feature phones have had since 2006 or so, and odds are it’s here.
Oh, and the D&G edition is plated in 24K gold. Very fancy.
Sony Ericsson didn’t announce a price, not that that matters to us working stiffs.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Behold, the Cobra XRS R10G radar detector. The design should look sort of familiar — it's copping Tron. Maybe not as much as this concept bike we spotted, but close enough, no?
[via Wired]
I’m aware studies comparing cell phone charges generally have to be taken with a grain of salt (especially cross-country studies like the following one), but this one coming from the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is pretty interesting.
It’s not really a “world” ranking, but the ministry compared [JP, PDF] cell phone charges in seven major cities in Europe, Asia and the US. The result in a nutshell: New Yorkers are pretty lucky, Parisians aren’t.
Cell phone charges in Paris were the highest in in fiscal 2008 (at the end of March 2009), with one minute costing $0.33. New York is on the other end of the spectrum with just $0.11. Here is the complete breakdown:
1. Paris: $0.33 per minute
2. Tokyo: $0.28
3. Düsseldorf (Germany): $0.23
4. London: $0.17
5. Seoul: $0.13
6. Stockholm: $0.13
7. New York: $0.11
The ministry compared the cheapest rate plans of those cell phone carriers in the seven cities that have the largest market share.
Picture credit: Bling Ring
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The Backpack is an ingenious, gravity-secured shelf that sits on the rear stand of an iMac or an Apple Cinema display. The punched-aluminum platform pushes against the rear stand and a couple of clips reach around to grab the back, and the shelf just hangs there. And don’t worry: There’s no metal-on-metal action. The clips are protected by non-scratch inserts.
This is clearly a home-makeable product, but we love the smooth lines and Apple-like finish to this commercial version, plus the design details (there is a scale on the slots where the clips attach so you can make sure you have it perfectly centered, for example). The product page, too, is like being at Apple.com, and even the price is a Cupertino-cloning $29.99, with a six-pack for $150.
Product page [Twelve South via Noquedanblogs]
We’ve heard real good things about the HTC Touch Pro 2. The 3.6-inch WVGA screen is good, the slide-out keyboard is apparently awesome and HTC once again shipped a great skin for Winmo 6.1. It’s just too bad that at $349, it’s the most expensive handset available at T-Mobile just like we feared.
This means that only die-hard Windows Mobile fans will use the quality phone. No matter how good the hardware is on the Touch Pro 2, there isn’t any reason why someone should spend an extra $150 on it over the Android-power myTouch 3G. Hopefully Verizon doesn’t make the same mistake when the Touch Pro 2 launches in a few weeks on its network.
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
It was once upon a time, well actually more like December 2007 when Palm announced the last firmware update for the AT&T branded Treo 680 and since then it seems that some users have chosen to not update. Put it this way, that update came so long ago that one of the features that it included was the re-branding from Cingular to AT&T.
Anyway, flash forward to August 2009 and AT&T is now mandating users to perform that upgrade. According to reports, remaining Treo 680 users have begun receiving text messages stating that they will be required to update their device sometime before September 15 in order to continue using it. In addition to those text message alerts, AT&T is also reportedly sending out written notification by way of the snail mail.
Via [PalmInfoCenter]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
This story is so wonderfully pragmatic and stiff-upper-lipped that it could only come from sun-challenged England, the home of people who will go to a beach on a planned day trip even though the day turns out to be cold and wet.
Many Brits are holidaying in their own Isles this summer, caught between a devalued currency and a recession. But when they get to holiday camps and caravan parks and the heavens open, what do they do as the torrents lash their tents and chalets? The answer used to be “play cards”. Now there will be the internet. British Telecom is installing Wi-Fi hotspots in Pontin’s holiday parks, 77 Camping and Caravanning Club sites, along with sites in the once-popular holiday town of Skegness (motto: “It’s so bracing”).
If you are already a BT customer, chances are you’ll get free access to the OpenZone hotspots. Others can pay, which may be worth it at any cost if you’re stuck in a caravan with your parents, siblings and Aunt Flo (why does she make that horrible noise when she eats?). And I’m not joking about this being done to cope with the notoriously fickle English weather. BT Openzone boss Chris Bruce had this to say in the official press release: “Having the option to get online and stay entertained will provide a useful ‘plan B’ if the weather does its worst.”
Press release [BT]
 ABC News | Facebook Lite Goes Live, Sort Of InformationWeek Social networking hub Facebook on Tuesday rolled out a slimmed down version of its Web site to a test audience, but inadvertently exposed the so-called Facebook Lite edition to a much larger audience than it intended. ... Facebook Testing 'Facebook Lite' Facebook lite Facebook Lite Aims for Growth Abroad |
Is it possible to squeeze the line “My cardiovascular fitness level’s right up there with Lance” into a rap and have it sound good? Amazingly, yes, as MC SpandX shows us in his wonderful hipster-baiting, fixie-dissing performance. Hilarious.
Video page [YouTube via Cyclelicious]
In a brilliant move which will catapult it into the realms of Apple-like profit margins, Dell has teamed up with Nickelodeon to bring us the Inspiron Mini Nickelodeon Edition. Apparently, it takes “personalization to new heights.”
And it does, if you consider “new heights” to be slapping a slime-green paint-job on an existing netbook (the Mini 10v) and pre-loading the hard drive with some games, widgets and installing parental controls (in the form of a custom interface by Stardock).
Given that most kids learn their way around a computer much faster than their parents, we wonder if Dell should perhaps swap things around and give this simplified machine to the oldies instead. Still, that gloopy-green cover graphic will give the onlooking parents a safe, warm glow inside as the kids hack the thing to look for rude words and pictures of boobies. Available October, along with a Spongebob edition.
Press release [Dell]
Do you remember your first Walkman? I do, although it was a personal stereo, not a real Walkman, and it came from Lloytron. Fast forward only, no rewind, but awesome all the same. I remember it as being tiny, but it was probably huge.
Over at Oobject, there is a gallery of 12 early Sony Walkmen (Walkmans?) A kid in our school had the one above, the TPS-12, way back in 1979 or shortly after. The orange button killed the music and activated a microphone, piping the sound into the headphones. This let you hold a conversation without taking of your ‘phones. That this was in Sony’s first Walkman shows some interesting considerations of the player’s social aspect, although it turned out to be a pointless gimmick.
I also had the yellow “waterproof” model when I got older. I dunked it in the sea and it worked fine. Go take a look at the gallery. You might spot an old friend, too.
12 Vintage Walkmans [Oobject via BBG]
Things are a little backwards on this one. We love the company, but we certainly don’t love the product, a small, portable camera tripod. It starts with the name — Digidudes. Then, the rather nasty plasticky look of these “dudes” further repels us, in the way that only a colorful, novelty keychain item can. It reminds us of the girl back in school who would constantly have to show how “whacky” and individual she was by hanging almost every keychain known to man off the back of her schoolbag.
Really, if you want a small, foldaway tripod, buy one of Joby’s little Gorillapods and at least have something more useful. Still, the people behind Digidudes, Quirky, are an interesting bunch. The company takes pre-sale orders and then, when enough demand is generated, the production line is fired up. This allows small runs with a guaranteed sell-out, and brought us the, ahem, quirky Split Stick double-sided USB drive. Further, 30% of the cash goes to the people who helped design it, or influenced the design. But Digidudes? C’mon, guys. And sticking a Leica M8 on top isn’t helping any either.
Product page [Quirky. Thanks, Nikki!]
Section: Computers, Desktops, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Netbooks
Everyone loves to get something with a nice discount, and one of the latest offers from Dell will allow you to get a Dell Mini 10v netbook for $99. Just as an FYI, the Mini 10v normally retails for $299, which means you are going to save $200. Of course, as you would expect there is a catch.
In order to get that price you need to purchase either an XPS notebook or XPS desktop. The systems you can choose from include the Studio XPS 13 and XPS 16 notebooks as well as the Studio XPS desktop and are priced from $1,037, $1,094 and $854 respectively.
All things considered, this would not convince me to run out and purchase a computer that I was not shopping for. However if I was in the market already, this would certainly be enough to convince me to purchase (or at least consider) a Dell. This offer is available for a limited time and will expire on August 13, 2009.
Read [Dell] Via [Twitter @DellHomeOffers]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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