|
|
|
|
HOWTO make a plush cell model Instructables user ChrysN has a sweet plush cell model HOWTO up on the site. ChrysN suggests that this would be a great project for students assigned to produce a cell model.
Plush Cell Model
(via Neatorama) Bollywood stars celebrating Ganesha festival
The Times of India has a nice photogallery of Bollywood stars celebrating the Ganesha Festival, one of the busiest festivals in India.
Bollywood welcomes Lord Ganesha
Bollywood stars celebrating Ganesha festivalThe Times of India has a nice photogallery of Bollywood stars celebrating the Ganesha Festival, one of the busiest festivals in India. Bollywood welcomes Lord GaneshaSource: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 4:08 am Fundable rips off Hugo-nominated writer Mary Robinette KowalMary Robinette Kowal sez, "Last January, I tried using fundable.com to raise money to replace my computer. At the time, their rating online looked good and I didn't see anything to suggest they were a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 3:53 am Fundable rips off Hugo-nominated writer Mary Robinette KowalMary Robinette Kowal sez, "Last January, I tried using fundable.com to raise money to replace my computer. At the time, their rating online looked good and I didn't see anything to suggest they were a scam. They'd been covered by BBC and Marketplace, so seemed legit. Seven months and $1450 later, I'm ready to say that yes, yes they are a scam."I've since challenged them for my paypal payment and got that money back. But My dad still hasn't gotten back the $700 he pledged and other people are waiting for theirs. I think they are still holding some $1410. It pisses me off no end. Oh, and yes, Rob and I wound up going into a bit of debt because I'd ordered the computer when the fundraiser completed. Funny thing, I started the fundraiser because we couldn't afford a new computer on our own.My very bad experience with Fundable.com (Thanks, Mary!)
Update: The negative attention from Mary's post and the followups elsewhere have attracted Fundable's attention and they promise to fix things. Finally. Anti-Public Peeing Art - Luzinterruptus.com Creates Guerrilla Urinal Installations (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Recently Luzinterruptus.com, a Madrid-based collective specializing in guerrilla interventionsm, drew attention to public urinating. By installing "Public Toilets" in places they chose...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 3:10 am 24-hour cell phone crackdown nabs thousands of chatty New YorkersAccording to The Daily News, New Yorkers are using their cars for a lot more than driving. Cops issued 7,432 tickets during this week's 24-hour crackdown on drivers caught yakking or texting on their...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 3:05 am Discovery all set for Aug. 25 launch - The Money Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Aug 2009 | 2:45 am Sunspots May Be Different During This Solar MinimumPhreakOfTime writes "According to Bill Livingston and Matt Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, sunspot magnetic fields are waning. The two respected solar astronomers have been measuring solar magnetism since 1992. Their technique is based on Zeeman splitting of infrared spectral lines in radiation emitted by iron atoms in the vicinity of sunspots. Extrapolating their data (PDF) into the future suggests that sunspots could completely disappear within decades." To motivate their interest the researchers mention the Maunder Minimum, which occurred beginning in 1645 and coincided with the coldest part of the so-called "Little Ice Age." Sunspot counts during this period were as low as 1/1,000 of the numbers seen in modern times.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 23 Aug 2009 | 2:43 am UPDATE 1-Australian oil well to gush for nearly two monthsSYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A leaking Australian oil well is likely to pour oil into the Timor Sea for nearly two months before it can be stopped, the operator said on Sunday, as environmentalists expressed...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 2:35 am Dunbar's Number and the Future of CommunicationsOver the past year, I’ve wished more of my friends “Happy Birthday” than I had my entire life prior to that. This summer, I’ve checked in daily with numerous friends while they...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 1:00 am Apple says Google Voice app alters iPhone (Reuters)Reuters - IPhone maker Apple Inc told U.S. regulators it has not approved Google Inc's Voice application, which could challenge the wireless industry's giants, because it interferes with the iPhone "user experience."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Aug 2009 | 12:39 am Sean Kingston album gets fans online with karaoke (Reuters)Reuters - Most music videos might not have the promotional impact they used to. But what about videos that make fans the star, allow them to sing with an artist and seem to pop out of the screen?Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Aug 2009 | 12:35 am Cell Phone Snap Shots Can Help Find Missing Children (Dear Abby)Dear Abby - DEAR ABBY: I have an idea that may prove useful to parents. I have worked in law enforcement for more than 18 years, including as a state police dispatcher. There are often stories in the media of children lost or abducted in the blink of an eye.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Aug 2009 | 12:16 am Australia sprays oil slick amid wildlife fearsSYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Aircraft sprayed chemicals to break up a large oil slick off Australia's northwestern coast on Sunday as environmentalists expressed fears for rare wildlife from oil gushing...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Aug 2009 | 12:10 am Smartphones drive language learning innovation (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:38 pm World of WarCraft: Classes, Items, Pr... - GameSpot
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:18 pm Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug PossessionProfessor_Quail notes an AP story that begins, "Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. The law sets out maximum 'personal use' amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday." An official in the attorney general's office said, "This is not legalization, this is regulating the issue and giving citizens greater legal certainty... for a practice that was already in place." In 2006, tht US criticized a similar bill that had no provisions for mandatory treatment, and the then-president sent it back to Congress for reconsideration.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:12 pm Third World infections hitting U.S.Parasitic diseases like Chagas and dengue fever have spread along the border with Mexico and in other poor areas of the United States, researchers say. Scientists say the diseases can cause long-term health problems, including birth defects and heart disease, The Wall Street Journal reports.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:22 pm Apple says Google Voice app alters iPhoneWASHINGTON (Reuters) - IPhone maker Apple Inc told U.S. regulators it has not approved Google Inc's Voice application, which could challenge the wireless industry's giants, because it...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 9:52 pm Birdwatchers asked to look for rare birdsBritish organizations that seek to protect birds say they have begun a $414,000 effort to save endangered species.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:55 pm BrainPort Lets the Blind "See" With Their TonguesHugh Pickens writes "Scientific American reports that a new device called 'BrainPort' aims to restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue's surface to send light signals to the brain. BrainPort collects visual data through a small digital video camera and converts the signal into electrical pulses sent to the tongue via a 'lollipop' that sits directly on the tongue, where densely packed nerves receive the incoming electrical signals. White pixels yield a strong electrical pulse and the electrodes spatially correlate with the pixels, so that if the camera detects light fixtures in the middle of a dark hallway, electrical stimulations will occur along the center of the tongue. Within 15 minutes of using the device, blind people can begin interpreting spatial information. 'At first, I was amazed at what the device could do,' says research director William Seiple. 'One guy started to cry when he saw his first letter.'" There is some indication that the signals from the tongue are processed by the visual cortex. The company developing the BrainPort will submit it to the FDA for approval later this month, and it could be on sale (for around $10,000) by the end of the year.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:45 pm 35 Eco Art Installations - From Plant Portraits to Cassette Tape Masterpieces (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) Eco artists are amazing at taking old, recycled and reused objects and turning them into spectacular pieces of artwork. While this artistic field is certainly not new, the recession...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:10 pm Asia-Pacific quakes herald a disaster? Experts say noPowerful earthquakes that have jolted Asia recently do not presage a disaster, although it is only a matter of time before the next catastrophe befalls the quake-prone region, seismologistsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:01 pm Say what you like about the Google Books Kool-Aid, but it tastes much better than Microsoft's sour grapesIf this were a column about religious affairs, I would undoubtedly focus this week on the shocking news that Beelzebub himself has joined a coalition opposing child abuse in the Catholic church. I'd remark...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:34 pm Say what you like about the Google Books Kool-Aid, but it tastes much better than Microsoft’s sour grapes
I’d remark upon the sheer chutzpah of El Diablo, and his glaring hypocrisy in funding a law school to investigate his sworn enemy’s practices. An investigation which, thanks to his involvement, now reeks of self-interest. Self-interest and sulphur. But this isn’t a column about religious affairs, so I’m not going to discuss that. Instead, as this is a column (broadly) about technology, I’ll confine myself to the entirely unrelated news that Microsoft is joining a coalition to oppose Google’s settlement with the US publishing industry over Book Search. I’ll also touch on the totally unanalogous fact that they’re funding a New York Law School investigation into their biggest rival’s anti-competitive behaviour. Avid TechCrunch readers would be forgiven for having missed this latest development in the Google Book Search saga. After all, in recent weeks this once-fiercely bipartisan publication has thrust itself headlong into an orgy of Google adulation - a veritable golden shower of fanboyism - apparently triggered by Arrington’s discovery that his Android phone is a bit better than the iPhone. Nary a day goes by without the Dear Leader splurging more praise over his precious new handset and the undeniably paradigm-shifting fact that it allows him to use Google Voice. In that context, writing a negative story about anything happening in Mountain View might be considered at best inadvisable, at worst sacrilegious. But as usual I’m not afraid to be the voice in the wilderness. To risk ostracism by asking the questions that need asking: namely, doesn’t Microsoft actually have a point? I mean, where the hell does Google get off criticising Apple for anti-competitive practices when they’re about to be investigated by the Department of Justice for the exact same thing? Some background, if you need it. Back in 2005, the US book industry - as represented mainly by The Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers - launched a class-action suit against Google over the Search God’s plans to scan the world’s books and make them searchable through Google Books. Late last year, after millions of dollars in lawyers fees had changed hands, a settlement was agreed between the parties. Much of it was uncontroversial - a win-win, even: Google would pay a token $60 scanning fee to authors of in-copyright (US) works in return for being allowed to display short extracts of the books as part of their search results. For out-of-print books, users could also pay to download digital copies of the entire work, with a reasonably decent commission being paid to the publisher or author for each download. For in-print books, users would be referred to online retailers or libraries to buy or rent. So far, so fair. But one aspect of the settlement wasn’t so uncontroversial, and that was the issue of so-called ‘orphan works’ - books which are still in copyright but where the identity of the copyright owner is, for one reason or another, unclear. As part of the settlement, the book industry agreed that, with certain restrictions, Google could scan orphan works without being held liable for breach of copyright claims if the rights owner subsequently came forward. In return Google agreed to create an independent (and open to all) rights registry letting authors of orphaned stake their copyright claim. At first glance, the deal over orphaned works seems as reasonable as the rest of the settlement - these are books for which no-one is being paid and which otherwise would be hidden away in libraries and second hand bookstores. But still Google’s competitors are crying foul. The Internet Archive is particularly annoyed, arguing that they too are scanning millions of books for the public good, but without any blanket copyright protection for orphaned works. And so, through a group they call Open Content Alliance, they hope to pressure the Department of Justice to extend the terms of the settlement to everyone, not just Google. For the other companies joining the Alliance - including Microsoft, Yahoo and Amazon - there are more obvious and nakedly commercial reasons to oppose the settlement. But that doesn’t make their objections less valid. Back in April, Erick Schonfeld wrote a passionate - and compelling - argument for the immunity to apply to everyone so that Google wouldn’t have a monopoly position where they could effectively charge whatever they like for downloading digital copies of orphaned works. So, yeah, Google love-in be damned - let’s ask the tough quesions. If Google really does care about making the world’s information free, surely bringing rivals into the orphaned works party is the very least they can do? Whatever happened to ‘don’t be evil’? Yeah. No. Erick may be dead right in demanding the orphans be freed, but the Open Content Alliance is dead wrong in both their method and motives for making that happen. Let’s take a quick look at some of the loudest Alliance members, shall we? First there’s Microsoft - the kings of the anti-trust violation, the monarchs of monopoly. This is a company that gave the Internet Archive ten million dollars to scan books, only to pull the plug when they realised that they couldn’t make any money from their own book search service. The truth is, Microsoft couldn’t give a damn about making information free - remember Encarta? -but they’ll stop at nothing to prevent Google from succeeding where they failed. If Google Genocide launched tomorrow, you can be sure there’d be a lawyer from Redmond whining to a judge that they should be allowed a piece of the action. At least Amazon wears its biases on its sleeve - in March, Google signed a deal with Sony to put 500,000 public domain titles, scanned by the former, on to the latter’s e-reader device. At a stroke, Sony’s library of ebooks overtook Amazon’s (then) 250,000-strong database. And unlike Sony, which uses the open ePub standard for its titles, Amazon still insists on using its own ridiculous proprietary format. If they really were serious about making books more widely available, they could start by fixing the crappy PDF support for the Kindle. And then there’s Yahoo. Poor old bandwagon-jumping Yahoo. Nothing to see here; let’s move on. And yet if you look past the most vocal members of the Alliance, there are countless member organisations with bags of credibility, including thousands of libraries and universities. And there’s the Internet Archive itself, and their legal expert, Gary Reback. Both boast solid credentials - the Internet Archive has worked tirelessly, and non-commercially, to digitise out-of-copyright books, while Reback is probably the valley’s most high-profile anti-monopoly activist. (If Reback’s name sounds familiar it’s because in the 90s he was instrumental in persuading the DoJ to investigate Microsoft for anti-trust violations - and also because in a recent interview with Michael Arrington he said that, he doesn’t think Microsoft should have been split in two because the investigation itself was enough to make the company change its ways. Apparently in Reback welcoming Microsoft into the Alliance, the enemy of his enemy is now his friend.) All of which leads me to the real question that needs to be asked this week: what on earth are the Internet Archive and Gary Reback and the libraries, universities and other legitimate members of the Open Content Alliance thinking? The stated aims of the Alliance - to ‘build a permanent archive of multilingual digitized text and multimedia material’ - are solid, and their position that Google’s legal immunity over orphaned works should be extended to all is laudable. But by palling around with anti-trust terrorists, self-interested champions of DRM and conflict-funded law schools, they’re undermining all of that by making themselves look like corporate shills. If I were the Alliance’s legal advisor, I’d recommend that they leave the anti-trust nonsense to Google’s conflicted rivals and instead focus their efforts on lobbying for a change to the US Copyright Act. Google has already said that they would support a change in the law to shore up the status of their searchable rights registry and to protect all users of unregistered orphan works from breach of copyright claims. The Alliance should be working with Google to make that change happen - and that includes Amazon who really has no business siding with a bunch of sour-grapes-fuelled anti-trust cheerleaders. Beyond that, if I were advising the Alliance, I’d tell them to shut up about extending the settlement to all comers. Google has spent millions of dollars being forced into the deal they now have with publishers and it’s frankly ludicrous to expect them to share those hard-fought spoils with their biggest competitors. Google Books may be a commercial enterprise, and it may be establishing a position where it can dictate terms to authors and publishers. But it also happens to be the best book search product the world has ever seen. Really, it’s incredible. And if the likes of Amazon and the Internet Archive started working with it rather than against it, it could also be the answer to rewarding book authors in a digital age, tidying up the mess of orphaned works, making books accessible to a new generation of readers and - hell - shifting a few million more e-books and e-book readers. And with a change in the law to allow everyone to exploit orphaned works, many of the anti-trust issues that Reback hates so much would vanish too. That really would be a win-win. But of course I’m not anyone’s legal advisor; I’m just a guy who writes a technology column for money. And, as I may have mentioned before, an author. And a former co-founder of a publishing company. I mean, really this isn’t my field. I’m just glad that once again Google is in the right, and their rivals are in the wrong. The TechCrunch/Google circle jerk can continue for another week. Awesome. Someone pass me the Gool-aid. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:34 pm Who can we demote today? (ECARD)(TrendHunter.com) Tear apart structure Most animals behave instinctively. Fish know how to swim. Birds know how to build a nest. But for primates, including humans, behavior is learned within a social...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:10 pm Talkin' Bout a (Blogging) RevolutionChalk that headline as a hat tip to one of my favorite artists, Tracy Chapman is performing in San Francisco this weekend. In the slipstream of my post from earlier this month, The Evolution of Blogging,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 6:53 pm Developing World's Parasites, Diseases Enter USreporter alerts to a story up at the Wall Street Journal on the increasing prevalance in the US of formerly rare, 3rd-world diseases such as toxocariasis, chagas, and cysticercosis. Health-care legislation pending in the House calls for a full report to Congress about the threat from this cluster of diseases, termed "neglected infections of poverty." "Parasitic infections and other diseases usually associated with the developing world are cropping up with alarming frequency among US poor, especially in states along the US-Mexico border, the rural South, and in Appalachia, according to researchers. Government and private researchers are just beginning to assess the toll of the infections, which are a significant cause of heart disease, seizures and congenital birth defects among black and Hispanic populations. ... 'These are diseases that we know are ten-fold more important than swine flu,' said [one] leading researcher in this field. 'They're on no one's radar.' ... These diseases share a common thread. 'People who live in the suburbs are at very low risk,' Dr. Hotez said. But for the 37 million people in the US who live below the poverty line, he said, 'There is real suffering.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 5:15 pm All-purpose BEAR robot rolling to a military engagement near you
It’s got a couple freaky-looking arms capable of either carrying a wounded soldier or daintily plucking a grenade out of a purse. It cruises around on a cool sort of double-tread that can change angle to help it get over rubble (or human rubble). It’s pretty cool, but I think their next design goal should be making it less frightening. Human-looking or not human-looking, you gotta make a choice here, guys. [via CNET]
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 4:30 pm How To Prove Someone Is Female?krou writes "Caster Semenya won the 800m at the World Athletics Championship in blistering style leaving her competitors in the dust, but she has been thrown into the midst of a scandal amidst claims that she's not really a woman. According to the many press reports, she's believed to shave, is flat chested, has a very masculine physique, previously preferred playing physical games with boys, and shunned traditional female activities and clothing. Questions about her gender have dogged her entire career. Previously, acceptance that she is a women relied on simple inspection of female genitals. But now the IAAF claim that they want to conduct further tests to see if 'she may have a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage.' An IAAF spokesmen noted that 'The [testing] process was started after Semenya made her startling breakthroughs — a 25-second improvement at 1500m and eight seconds at 800m, just some weeks ago.' I'm curious what the Slashdot community thinks: what can be considered proof of someone being male or female? Is it simply a case of having the right genitals, or are there other criteria that should be used? Is the IAAF right in claiming that someone should be prevented from competing because they have a rare medical or genetic advantage?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 3:45 pm How To: Clean a watch bracelet I moved this over from my watch site because I thought i might be useful for you all. I just got myself an ultrasonic cleaner and it's great.
Cleaning your watch isn't as complex as it sounds. If you have a real issue with your watch - it's running fast or slow or seems to contain water - you need to take it into a watchmaker. However if you just want to clean up your watch get yourself an ultrasonic cleaner.
I bought a $70 Chinese model on eBay but you could also get something like this Braunsonic. The cleaner vibrates a water bath which in turn creates tiny, energetic bubbles. These bubbles get into all of the nooks and crannies of your watch bracelet to pull out dirt.
Source: CrunchGear | 22 Aug 2009 | 3:35 pm What would you do with a Class C IP block?A reader writes,Back in the day before ARIN, I obtained a class C license (255 IP numbers) for a network of servers running in my garage. This block hasn't been in official routing for several years. As you well know, class C licenses are in rather short supply.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 3:00 pm IBM, Other Multinationals "Detaching" From the UStheodp writes "If you're brilliant, work really hard, and earn a world-class doctorate from a US university, IBM has a job for you at one of its US research sites — as a 'complementary worker' (as this 1996 piece defined the then-emerging term). But be prepared to ship out to India or China after you've soaked up knowledge for 13 months as a 'long-term supplemental worker.' Newsweek sketches some of the bigger picture, reporting that IBM, HP, Accenture, and others are finding it profitable to detach from the United States (even patenting the process). 'IBM is one of the multinationals that propelled America to the apex of its power, and it is now emblematic of the process of creative destruction pushing America to a new, less dominant, and less comfortable position.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 2:51 pm Kids' Doctor Who Torchwood videoLittle Red Light's kids have produced a followup Doctor Who fan video as a sequel to last summer's lovely effort, this one focused on Torchwood. UNIT-Torchwood Upgraded: Part 1 (Thanks, littleredlight!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 22 Aug 2009 | 2:32 pm Vhy do all zee Germans speak English in Wolfenstein?
If we slightly alter the definition of the word “whim” from “a sudden desire or change of mind, esp. one that is unusual or unexplained” to “the result of many hours of thought and planning,” then yes, you can say that I bought Wolfenstein on a whim this week. Seeing as though it’s a Saturday, and the rules and bylaws governing the Internet are different than they are during the workweek, I present, uncensored and unencumbered, my early reactions to the game—single player mode, that is. I can’t be bothered with multi-player modes these days. I think I’ll preface all of this by saying that, yeah, the game is fun sometimes. It’s doesn’t do anything to reinvent the FPS genre, but you probably already assumed that when you first saw the ludicrous opening cinematic, released several months ago and summarily teased on various Web sites. (B.J. is able to single-handedly take on, and defeat, the crew of the German battleship Tirpitz, never-you-mind what actually happened to it.) If you enjoy seeing a gun bob up and down while you hold down Right Trigger, well, that’s exactly what you’ll find here. It’s like giving a child a paint-by-numbers coloring book, then being surprised when the resulting picture looks halfway decent; it’s exactly what you expected to happen. My praise for the game ends there. For one, can someone explain to me why, in the year 2009, we’re still playing World War II-ish video games where the German soldiers speak English? Holy Christ-on-a-pony is it annoying to be running-n-gunning, only to hear the Germans say, “Get him!” or “Vhere did zee American go?” Your comrades are equally tiresome. “So you must be zee American?” “Goot shot, American!” “Ve must locate zee artifact, ja!” (Note: I don’t remember if those are exact quotes from the game, but they capture the spirit, such as it is.) How much money does id, to say nothing of Activision, have in its coffers? Can’t it spring for one Germany-speaking voice actor? Nope! We’re treated to voice actors with inconsistent German-sounding accents—you know, pronouncing the word “weapons” like “veapons,” but then pronouncing other words as if they’d graduated from an American Perfect Diction Academy in the middle of Ohio—that hurt our ears, and souls. Put another way, how stupid would Saving Private Ryan be if zee Germans spoke Englisch? It instantly takes me out of the setting—oh, right, I’m playing a video game. In this “HD Era” of gaming, little things like this detract so, so much from the overall experience that’s it like, why bother sinking millions of dollars into game engines if you’re gonna throw any semblance of realism right out the window? Am I wrong here? Is it too much to expect German soldiers to be speaking German? That’s not my only problem with the sound, no. Take a coffee cup and lightly tap it on your knee. You hear the sound it makes? That’s the same sound the weapons make in the game. They just seem so tame. Call of Duty 4 isn’t my favorite game, but golly did it sound like I was right in the middle of And I’m no graphics whore, but I get the feeling that my Xbox 360 is capable of being pushed a little further. I see an explosion here, and I immediately think Medal of Honor—the original one, mind you. So, yeah. Is the game fun? Yeah, OK, in parts it is. But either I have entirely unrealistic expectations of what a video game should be, or there are a few ways in which Wolfenstein could have been improved.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 2:15 pm RIAA Loses Case Against Launch MediaNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's claim that personalized internet radio stations were 'interactive services' was flatly rejected 'as a matter of law' by the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Arista Records v. Launch Media. In affirming the jury's verdict in favor of the defendant, Launch Media — acquired during the lawsuit by Yahoo! — the Court said it did not even need to concern itself with possible errors in the jury instructions, since the trial judge should have directed a verdict for defendant 'as a matter of law' on the question of whether the radio stations were 'interactive services.' At pages 23-42 of its 42-page opinion (PDF), the appeals court carefully analyzed how Launch Media's personalized internet radio stations worked, and noted that the users could neither obtain and play on demand a particular song, nor obtain the transmission of a particular program, thus rendering the RIAA's claim of 'interactivity' meritless."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 1:45 pm FACTBOX-Canadian energy facilities in Bill's pathAug 22 (Reuters) - Hurricane Bill is moving towards Canada's Atlantic provinces as a major storm, with forecasters expecting to it reach the region on Sunday morning.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 1:42 pm Weekend Update, 8.22.09–The Musical Chairs Edition [Digital Daily]
Digital Daily came bearing sad news on Monday: The Apple (AAPL) event scheduled for September 9 will not have anything to do with a tablet computer. Just music. And from an organization vulnerable to Palm (PALM) poachers. Presumably, all managers present will be exercising caution and utilizing peripheral vision. Netflix (NFLX) was the recent recipient of good news, as John reported this week—analysts’ research shows that the DVD-by-mail business has a lot of life left in it. So hopefully for them, Google (GOOG) won’t be going into that business anytime soon. It might be a little bit occupied by the Open Book Alliance and that group’s opposition to its Google Book Search Settlement, the $125 million deal that will allow it to digitize and monetize some 18 million books. Probably won’t be occupied for long, though. MediaMemo returned this week with an explanation why the relatively mediocre iPhone camera has become the favorite camera on Flickr: It’s already in your pocket, and no one wants to carry another gadget around. Which is likely to become a more common refrain as high-end handsets grab more marketshare than ever and the quality of secondary functions improves. Another common refrain: The one where media companies start charging for content, and people start paying. News Corp. (NWS) (which owns this Web site) is working on assembling the critical mass of publishers it believes is necessary to make this possible.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 1:30 pm Hibernia to operate normally as Bill approachesCALGARY, Alberta, Aug 22 (Reuters) - The approach of Hurricane Bill is not expected to affect operations at the 98,200 barrel per day Hibernia oil platform in the North Atlantic southeast of St. John's,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 1:02 pm The Would-Be FFugees Shouldn’t Pack Up And Find A New Home Just Yet
Well, now that the FriendFeed team is successfully in their new Facebook office and working to get up to speed on their new site, Steve Gillmor got a chance to catch up with FriendFeed co-founder Paul Buchheit, and to ask him some of the questions that Mike didn’t touch on too much during his interview with Buchheit last week. Warning, the video below is quite long (over 50 minutes) and free-flowing at points, so I’ll summarize some of the key things said first. Of note:
Those are many of the key points, but again, if you’d like to watch a nearly hour-long video on this fine Saturday, please be our guest below. Hopefully much of this will further put to ease the minds of would-be FFugees. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 1:00 pm Car Runs On Yucca-Derived EthanolColumbian scientists have revved up a car that runs on yucca-derived ethanol, which is sparking hopes that the Latin American staple will be transformed into an abundant fuel.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:55 pm Today at Boing Boing Gadgets • Lisa told about her favorite sport headphones for running with.
• Steven got hands-on with HTC's MyTouch.
• Rob offered a compendium of disturbing British public information films.
• Justin Timberlake's new fragrance looks a lot like a music player.
• Apple is so inundated with AppStore submissions that its review teams have only minutes to examine each one.Source: Boing Boing | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:50 pm Big Bang Could Be Recreated Inside a MetamaterialKentuckyFC writes "Metamaterials are substances with a permittivity and permeability that has been manipulated in a way that allows fine control over the behavior of light. They have famously been used to create an invisibility cloak that hides objects from view. Now Igor Smolyaninov, a physicist in the US, has calculated how metamaterials could be used for a much more profound demonstration: to reproduce the behavior of light in various kinds of spacetimes, in particular a (2+2) spacetime (one having two dimensions of space and two of time). His method is to show that there is formal mathematical analogy between the way metamaterials and spacetimes affect light. He goes on to show how a phase transition in a (2+2) spacetime leads to the creation of a (2+1) spacetime filled with photons, an event analogous to the Big Bang." Here are the abstract and the preprint (PDF).Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:38 pm Yahoo Internet Radio Wins Copyright CaseA federal appeals court in New York sided in favor of Yahoo Inc.'s Internet radio service instead of Sony Corp's BMG Music, who claims Yahoo should pay fees to the copyright holders. In a case closely followed by the record industry, the U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:35 pm Your Guide To Music On The Web - Part #1
Music plays a large role in our lives. Since the web now plays an even bigger part, combining the two together has become unavoidable. The greatest thing about this powerful duo is that you don’t need to spend a lot of time searching for music you like — just use this nifty guide list and you’ll find just about everything you need to enjoy hours of good music. The sound quality changes from service to service, but overall, it’s good enough for regular web usage. Please note that this is a list of services that you can use over the net without the need to download anything to your computer. This is why I’m not listing any P2P software: i.e., Spotify, as well the fact that most of us can’t really test it or use it for all that matter. This is also only the first half of this guide; part two will include more web music players (including MySpace Music, Streamzy, and others) as well as music search engines and services that make it easy to share songs on Twitter and other social sites. Music Recommendations:
Also worth mentioning in this same topic group are, of course: Ilike.com (acquired by Myspace), and music.strands.tv Independent Music:
Create & Listen to Playlist:
Worth mentioning: Imeem, and Maestro.fm Music Visualization:
Web-Radio:
Worth mentioning: Tun3r, Mugasha, and Play.fm That’s it for Part 1 of this music guide. If you have any other suggestions related to these groups, you are more than welcome to add them in the comments. In the next part of this post, I’ll offer the best options for Music search engines, Music web-players, Twitter-Music craziness, and more. Stay tuned! Image by RossinaBossioB on Flickr. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:30 pm Facebook Hires TipJoy Co-Founder Ivan Kirigin After Backing Away From A Full Acquisition
It turns out there is more to the story behind the sudden demise of Tipjoy. The micro-payments service was trying to sell itself, according to a source with direct knowledge of the attempted transaction, and even got an all-stock offer from Facebook nominally worth around $5 million. The deal fell through when Facebook walked away. But Facebook didn’t walk away completely empty-handed. It managed to hire Tipjoy co-founder and CTO Ivan Kirigin instead. After the acquisition negotiations fell apart, Facebook reached out to hire Kirigin. They made him an offer, and he accepted. It is not clear what he will be working on, but Facebook Payments would be a good guess. Some investors weren’t too thrilled because Tipjoy was still in discussions with other potential acquirers (including Twitter and PayPal). But once Kirigin was out of the picture, the other interest evaporated, say our sources. All of this brings up a real dilemma for small-app startups. If all Facebook or Twitter has to do is hire one or two key people instead of buy the whole company, then it will be hard to capture much value in the long run. As for Facebook, building its own social payments platform makes a lot of sense. Kirigin and his co-founder (and wife) Abbey, spell that out in Tipjoy’s farewell post:
Now Kirigin can try to prove that social payments can succeed within one of those larger platforms, Facebook, even though Tipjoy was better known as a Twitter (and blogging) phenomenon. TipJoy did not respond to repeated attempts to contact them on this post. Update: Abby Kirigin emails:
Perhaps the TipJoy founders should discuss this issue with their investors, who disagree, in a more private forum. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 12:00 pm Panda gives birth to twins in ChinaA giant panda born through artificial insemination has given birth to twins after being artificially inseminated herself, officials in northwest China said. The success of Lousheng's delivery is a great step forward in our propagation technologies, said Jin Xuelin, a spokesman for the Shaanxi Rare Wild Animals Rescue and Breeding Research Center. Lousheng, age 6, gave birth Wednesday to healthy male and female cubs.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:45 am Careful, this is not an MP3 player (it’s JT’s fragrance)
Consider this a PSA. The object above is not, I repeat, not an MP3 player. Oh no, it’s Justin Timberlake’s new men’s fragrance from Givenchy called Play. I just want to make sure everyone knows that so when you’re cruising through Sears or JCPennys, you don’t accidentally buy it. Because, well, chances are that if you read this blog, you probably aren’t the target market for JT’s fragrance. But you know what, if there was an MP3 player like the bottle above, and the bottom part was a fuel cell, I’d be all over it. I’m guessing most of you would be as well. See, we’re definitely not suppose to buy Play. [Play by Givenchy via BBG]
Source: CrunchGear | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:38 am Twitter Developing Location-Based APIadeelarshad82 writes "Twitter developers are now working on a location-based API that will provide accurate information on your whereabouts. Developers will be able to add latitude and longitude to any tweet. The option will definitely be opt-in. Folks will need to activate this new feature by choice, and the exact location data won't be stored for an extended period of time."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 22 Aug 2009 | 11:30 am The Odd Tale of Facebook, TipJoy, the Deal that Didn’t Happen and the Hire that Did [MediaMemo]
In fact, co-founder Ivan Kirigin’s first day at Facebook was last Monday–four days before he and his wife, Abby, announced that they are shuttering their start-up. Confused? You should be: This is one of the odder M&A stories I’ve seen in a while. Not surprisingly, the tale differs depending on who’s telling it. Some basic, undisputed facts: Sometime this spring, TipJoy, a year old start-up that lets Web surfers “tip” bloggers and publishers, shopped the service to multiple parties, including Twitter and Facebook. By July, Facebook had offered, via a term sheet, to buy the company. Facebook then pulled its offer, and shortly after, offered Ivan a job. Now he and his wife are shutting TipJoy down and returning what’s left of the $1 million they had raised to their investors. Also undisputed: No one has accused anyone of violating any laws, or contracts. Facebook’s offer was nonbinding and nonexclusive. And it’s not unheard of for companies to walk away from an M&A deal late in the process. That’s what happened, for instance, when Google (GOOG) bailed out after deep talks with Digg a year ago. You could see why some of TipJoy’s backers, which include BetaWorks, the Accelerator Group, ex-Googler Chris Sacca and the Y Combinator start-up factory, might cry foul. The argument would be that Facebook’s actions effectively prevented the company from finding another buyer. But even if that was true, it doesn’t mean that Ivan Kirigin had to accept Facebook’s job offer and/or shutter his company. Facebook spokesman Larry Yu declined to discuss the negotiations in detail, but offered this statement via email: “We take pride in operating in a transparent and ethical manner. We can’t offer any specifics here, but to suggest anything untoward occurred on our part simply ignores the facts.” I’ve sent the Kirigins repeated requests for comment but haven’t heard back. Their statement announcing the decision to close their company doesn’t mention Ivan’s new job. But it does hint, obliquely, at their future plans:
UPDATE: Y Combinator founder Paul Graham, commenting on this story on his Hacker News site, says Facebook hired Ivan at his urging:
Ivan Kirigin also weighs in within the same comments section, and says that my report “completely doesn’t tell the whole story.” Ivan, I’m all ears, so either drop me a line or leave a comment below. Note: I’m assuming that the commenters identifying themselves as Paul Graham and Ivan Kirigin in the comments section are indeed Paul Graham and Ivan Kirigin. But I’ve sent emails to both men so I can verify that. Update: That is indeed Paul Graham. Source: All Things Digital | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:50 am New Justin Timberlake fragrance looks like an MP3 player
Justin Timberlake's new men's fragrance for Givenchy is called Play, and the bottle looks like an MP3 player. The design, according to the web site, is inspired by "mobile multimedia gadgets, those quintessential objects of modernity and style that have become both everyday objects and icons of our era." Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:49 am Obstacles Near Emergency Exits Speed EvacuationBuzzSkyline writes "Despite fire codes that require emergency exits be clear of obstacles, some types of obstacles actually speed evacuation. The counterintuitive conclusion resulted from a series of experiments performed at a TV studio in Japan. Researchers from the University of Tokyo asked 50 volunteers to exit the studio through a narrow door. Video tapes of the experiments show that people made it out quickest when a pole was placed about 30 degrees to one side of the exit. The lead researcher believes an obstacle reduces jamming and friction among people in crowds by decreasing conflicts as the crowd presses toward the exit. A paper describing the research is scheduled to appear in the journal Physical Review E in September, but a preprint is available on the Physics Arxiv."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:27 am One PR Firm’s Lack Of Ethics: Reverb Caught Astroturfing The App StoreWhen it comes to winning in the App Store, one PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy: throw ethics out the window. Reverb Communications, a PR firm that represents dozens of game publishers and developers, has managed to find astounding success on Apple's App Store for its clients. Among its various tactics? It hires a team of interns to trawl iTunes and other community forums posing as real users, and has them write positive reviews for their client's applications. Yeah, that 5-star iTunes app review you saw for the once top-5 paid app Enigmo? It might not be written by a real user, but rather by Pangea Software's PR firm. Reverb isn't the first to try and game the user review process, but they are definitely one of the most blatant cases. Reverb Communications is an extremely successful PR firm that claims to have "first party" and "personal" relationships with Apple. Aside from representing Pangea Software, one of the more successful App developers for the iPhone (they made Enigmo, which was featured during the Apple WWDC Keynote 2008), they also represent Harmonix (the Guitar Hero and Rock Band guys), MTV Games, and a host of iPhone game developers. Additionally, they've managed to do an impressive job at courting the press: clients have had iPhone apps featured in just about every major media outlet known to man, including Forbes, MTV, G4TV, NBC (in fact, all the examples were for one developer: Publisher X, which Reverb happens to own). Reverb claims that their clients have sold over $2 Billion of product under their watch.
Source: TechCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:23 am Paid version of Twitter on the waySection: Web, Web 2.0, Websites  It’s something a lot of people were wondering. How will Twitter monetize itself? Wonder no more. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone announced Thursday that the popular micro-blogging service plans to offer paid accounts to businesses by the end of the year. Users of the accounts will have access to stats and analytics not available to regular users, and quite possibly a new commercial API. It’s important to note that the new Twitter Pro will be offered to businesses only. Regular users like you and me will not be asked to pay. Businesses have already been tapping into the power of Twitter and have been using it for marketing and customer service. Whether they will be open to the idea of paying for an account in return for specialized stats remains to be seen. Hopefully, this new revenue model will be successful. However, if it is it will become even more critical for Twitter to implement tighter security measures to fight the spammers and hackers targeting the site and cut down on downtime. Paid customers are not likely to be very accepting of either. Read [Cnet] Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Aug 2009 | 10:21 am EU 'considering bluefin tuna protection'The European Union will decide in the autumn whether to add bluefin tuna to a list of threatened species, a move that would mean a temporary ban on its sale on world markets, a spokeswoman...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 9:52 am Hands On w/HTC's myTouchI dropped by Wired to talk about HTC's latest Android phone.
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 22 Aug 2009 | 9:07 am Google Voice App Rejection: AT&T Blames Apple; Apple Denies It Happened And Google HidesFederal regulators wanted to know why Apple rejected Google’s innovative Voice app from its iPhone app store and what role AT&T played in the rejection. AT&T told the FCC that it had no part in the decision, while Apple claims it never happened. Google released a heavily redacted document.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:54 am Installing the Whitoken theme on your iPod Touch
It seems like only yesterday that we were slobbering over the Whitoken theme for the iPod Touch. Well, today you can install this amazing theme with a little muss and fuss. The first step is to jailbreak your iPod with redsn0w and install Cydia, the app installer, and theme manager Winterboard. QuickPWN will take up the slack for you, showing you all the steps necessary to make your iPod look like the controller on the Axiom.
Source: CrunchGear | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:14 am Sony Home Update: Major Home overhaul coming September 2009FROM GAMERTELL - Recently announced during Gamescon 2009 in Cologne, Germany, and confirmed on the Sony PlayStation blogs, Sony Home will have a major overhaul with the release of version 1.3 in September 2009 with tons of updates and much welcomed additions… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Aug 2009 | 8:04 am Florida expands python huntingLicensed hunters will soon have permission to kill pythons and other invasive reptiles in South Florida, but only in season and with approved weapons. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission announced the new policy Friday, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:59 am BudgetTravel's "World's Weirdest Hotels"
BudgetTravel has a slide show of what they've deemed the "World's Weirdest Hotels." No Madonna Inn, but more interesting to me than theme rooms anyway are places where the entire hotel structure is an oddity. Top, the Hotel Costa Verde near Quepos, Costa Rica. Left, at the Capsule Hotel in Den Haag, Netherlands, you can sleep in an escape pod from a 1970s oil rig."World's Weirdest Hotels, Part Deux"
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:49 am Cheating the App Store: PR firm has interns post positive reviews for clientsWhen it comes to winning in the App Store, one PR firm has discovered a dynamite strategy: throw ethics out the window. Reverb Communications, a PR firm that represents dozens of game publishers and developers, has managed to find astounding success on Apple’s App Store for its clients. Among its various tactics? It hires a team of interns to trawl iTunes and other community forums posing as real users, and has them write positive reviews for their client’s applications. Yeah, that 5-star iTunes app review you saw for the once top-5 paid app Enigmo? It might not be written by a real user, but rather by Pangea Software’s PR firm. Reverb isn’t the first to try and game the user review process, but they are definitely one of the most blatant cases.
Unfortunately, they don’t always follow the rules, and they have been stupid enough to tell that to prospective clients. One prospective client, hereby known as “Developer Y,” (no irony intended) recently let us on to Reverb’s lack of scruples. This tipster forwarded us a document from Reverb Communications (attached below) that described what services Reverb provides to its clients. For $0.75 per paid download of your app, you get a whole host of standard PR services, and then some … not so standard ones. Here’s a quote from the doc:
It gets worse. They call these “internal user reviews” and outline the process for creating them here:
Yes, the “iPhone storefront” that Reverb Communications is referring to is the one you all know as the iTunes App Store. Our source assured us this document was real, but seeing as how it was our first time with the guy, we decided to double-check. We went to the App Store page for one of their client’s apps, specifically HydroTilt XL by Publisher X, and looked at the earliest app reviews for the title. Sure enough, the first five reviews for HydroTilt XL were glowing 5-star ratings. But, of course, we weren’t satisfied. The app now has over 908 ratings, and 348 of those ratings were 5-star. Clearly, it was a popular app and users really liked it. So, a few positive ratings doesn’t prove anything.
Below is a table so you can see what we noticed. Each developer on this chart was represented by Reverb Communications for the title that was reviewed. The left-hand column is a reviewer and blank squares indicate apps that were not reviewed. None of the reviewers wrote reviews for non-Reverb clients. None of the reviewers gave an app less than 5 stars. It’s important to note that the reviews mentioned above are just a subset of the reviews that we believe Reverb has published on behalf of its clients. Due to space and time considerations, we did not want to belabor the point by adding more reviewers and reviews to the list. Ultimately, this is fraud. Plain and simple. Reverb Communications is using anonymized reviews as a way to boost sales, while lying to iTunes users. The worst part is many of these games stand by themselves. They have dozens of positive reviews from users (which we are assuming are not employees of Reverb). The developers are culprits as well. We don’t have proof of whether they know about the wrongdoing - we do not know whether the document sent to Developer Y was the same as the one sent to all of Reverb Communications’ other clients. That doesn’t exonerate the developers who are clients of Reverb; some of them have been repeat customers (Pangea Software comes to mind) for almost a year. We find it hard to believe they weren’t privy to Reverb’s actions.
Another interesting side-story here is about Reverb’s relationship with Apple. Now, we don’t expect Apple to have caught the bad behavior of one PR firm on the App Store’s reviews. That would just be ridiculous. But we were surprised to know that Reverb had worked with Apple so much. As such, I can’t imagine anybody will be more furious about this news than Apple itself. They’ve done TV commercials for these guys, for pete’s sake. We don’t know a whole lot about the relationship, however. All we know is that one client of Reverb’s told us that he was referred to Reverb Communications by an Apple employee. That employee, from what we know, was part of a team that manages Apple’s relationships with 3rd party developers. The referral was likely an innocent mistake: I doubt the employee knew of Reverb’s questionable ethics. But it just makes the story that much more interesting - this isn’t your mom and pop PR shop. Reverb has a staff of 15 professionals (presumably full-time employees) and 10 interns. Needless to say, we’re interested in your thoughts. The comments section is below and I look forward to seeing what you think. Please keep your comments rated PG, if possible. We asked Reverb for a statement, and this is what they have sent us. (My response is below it).
No, we didn’t speak with a former employee, and no such former employee is mentioned in this story. I did in fact inform Reverb via phone (I spoke with their VP of Public Relations, Tracie Snitker) last night that the story was about writing reviews on behalf of clients. I don’t buy the argument that the interns and employees write reviews based on their own experiences: it’s a nice story, but at the end of the day, probably not true. Flipping through the reviews on iTunes and examining the text and messaging will give you a clear indication that it corroborates the story Developer Y told us. Furthermore, taking just one of many examples, the reviews for Publisher X’s HydroTilt XL came out within 2 days of the game’s release. I find it hard to believe that 5 positive reviews from Reverb (which owns Publisher X) were not planned or coordinated. Not to mention the fact that we’ve got a document from Reverb explicitly laying out their policy on this matter. Here is the document provided to us by Developer Y. We’ve taken out irrelevant parts of the doc and replaced them with “…” Reverb Communications Proposal: </div Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Source: MobileCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:45 am For Twitter, Sharing Data With Google Would Be Suicide
Guest author Edo Segal (@edosegal) has launched and sold several companies. In 2000 he founded eNow, a search engine for the Real-time Internet in an age that predated RSS as a popular medium. As such he has had a decade to think about its implications. He ultimately sold the company (renamed Relegence) to AOL in 2006 and today runs his Incubator/Investment vehicle Futurity Ventures. He recently launched a new search engine for wisdom. In a way we are all virtual stock holders in Twitter. We all have a vested interest in its success. Facebook is soon to monopolize the social stream to the same extent that Google has done with search. That is not good for anyone, including Facebook. I have had many discussions with people in recent weeks about the face-off between twitter and Facebook and also about the high probability of Twitter cutting a deal with Google. When I was asked by Erick Schonfeld at the Real Tiime Stream Crunchup (Video) event about my opinion on Twitter giving Google their firehose feed, I responded that they could do that if they don’t plan to sell their company in the future. In other words, it is my humble opinion that if Twitter was a publicly traded stock its value would drop by 75% the second that deal was announced and for good reason. Twitter is important. How often does a company come along that really changes consumer behavior? That creates a new form of media consumption and connectivity? For all the thousands of startups covered on Techcrunch only a few have a profound impact on the arc of internet history. Twitter has earned its spot in that pantheon and now it remains to be seen if it can play a bigger role in how to monetize the stream and in the process build a real business. At this moment in time, Twitter has such a stronghold on this new form of real-time consumption that it has the potential to dominate the category. But its window of opportunity is closing fast as Facebook and others hurl themselves at that prize. The experience of real-time communication and search, that sense you get of unfolding streams of relevant information to your interests and queries flowing in a digital river has arrived with Twitter coursing first through the rapids. But now that we have arrived at this new medium, what next? Does Twitter become an example of a utility that is emulated by others that already have a monetization engine, leaving Twitter to ultimately drift to a respected place in Wikipedia like Netscape? Or does it continue to push the boundaries and create a sustainable and growing business that will allow it to continue to ride the whitewater? If twitter is to confine itself to being a communications medium, or even worse, a news distribution engine, it will surely perish. By analogy, Google as a business is not a search engine but an advertising business that is printing money at unprecedented rates. Google does this by owning the equivalent of distribution in the digital age. Its just that the meaning of the word “distribution” in the digital age has shifted. Google, as the entry point for such a vast audience, effectively owns the distribution on the Internet as a business leader and brand. Its lead continues to grow as the audience grows. Google’s economics lay in the economy of intent. The intent of users to purchase a product or service when they use Google’s search is what drives its money presses. The context of the users’ actions and interests map to an intention which advertisers are eager to pay for. The ability to automate the placement of advertising next to relevant content and map consumer queries to useful advertising stands at the heart of Google’s success. This is something that has been notoriously missing on communication platforms. See AIM as an example. What was once an omnipresent juggernaut of a product is inching towards being a footnote in internet history. One that has always struggled to monetize its vast audience. The same is true for other communications platforms such as Hotmail and Gmail. They have become strategic traffic drivers in companies with a broader monetization engine. Look further into innovative news aggregation platforms such as Digg, Google News, and Techmeme and you see that it’s pretty tough to generate significant revenues in news, certainly not Google-scale revenues. Even for pillars of the industry such as the New York Times, big online profits are elusive. So there are not many prospects for building a sustainable multi-billion dollar business for Twitter either as a communications platform or a news discovery engine. The way to make Twitter into a sustainable business is to tap into the economy of intent. God knows Twitter has that potential, but it has a narrow window of opportunity in which to execute. The business promise is to create a new type of useful advertising for people that is consumed in the context of a new form of discovery—one that for the moment is unique to Twitter but, alas, not for long. If Twitter doesn’t pick up the pace at this moment in time and take the path leading to building a business, it will begin to destroy its value. By doing a deal that will give Google unfettered access to real-time results from Twitter in Google search, Twitter will effectively be giving up the fight and losing the war. For if consumers can get the same experience that is currently unique to Twitter on Google, why would they need to go to Twitter to search? If they don’t bring their intentions to Twitter search, then Twitter is not participating in the Economy of Intent and as such will diminish its value to the single-digit millions. At the risk of stating the obvious let me throw out some constructs. There has been much speculation about how Twitter will make money. From #pastryto #diabetes, the world of Twitter is self-organizing in a highly effective folksonomy that is vibrant and useful. Today, Twitter users are left to their own devices when it comes to unearthing these gems in the stream. As Twitter further develops its discovery(taxonomy) and search engine, the valuable content streams will be unearthed. Think of the simple impact of auto-complete in the search box to # tags. This is but one simple move which could start to drive traffic to focused streams of information, which could also map to useful advertising, just like on Google. Start with creating a marketplace for advertisers around the #tags, then search queries, and see how valuable the experience Twitter created really is. Throw in the recent evolution in geo-tagging and you add another layer of usefulness. Typing in “amazing restaurant” when you are in Soho should show a fresh stream of nearby locations, recommendations, and warnings. As Twitter make these changes, users will start focusing more on discovery, and it will become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Users will alter their behavior to capture the search queries. The notions of surfacing more advanced trends and audience recirculation present further opportunities. There is so much that can be done in this domain once Twitter has the critical mass of audience and data. Twitter has a unique opportunity to innovate and create new forms of useful advertising that will truly help both users and advertisers. This was the key to Google’s success and is the key to Twitter’s future. It takes time for advertising to become useful as it requires a significant liquidity of ads. Twitter has to start soon to build up that liquidity in time for the face-off competition for the advertisers. They need for buyers to know they are the go-to place for in-stream advertising. Google is at a big disadvantage at this junction in time. One only needs to set a Google alert to see how latent their Twitter discovery is (I have seen alerts come in for tweets that are 3 days old). Google has not made it a secret that the strategic importance of the real-time web registers with them. For Twitter to give away the farm (its firehose of Tweets) at this stage is tantamount to suicide and can only be defined as a form of creative laziness. Twitter, you got this far don’t get too comfortable with all that money in the bank. Get off your asses and push, you owe it to history. There are so many things you could be doing short of giving up and serving yourself up on a silver platter. If you must do it, if you do sell your data or yourself to Google – make ‘em pay, they can afford it. If you give away your data to the majors, they wont need to buy you anyway and if you don’t create a solid way to make money, you can’t survive on your own. Make your own path, and you’ve got it made. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:34 am EU names airlines that could face Europe banThe European Union on Saturday published a list of nearly 4,000 airlines that it says should reduce their impact on the environment from 2012 or face being banned from European airports.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:22 am Southwest Airlines looking to roll out Wi-Fi service to all planesSection: Computers, Laptops, Netbooks, Wireless, Gadgets / Other, Transportation, Web  As many airlines are looking to find ways to make more money and keep customers happy, Wi-Fi is steadily being added to many different airlines. It was announced by Southwest Airlines that the beta testing of Wi-Fi has done well and they are looking to integrate it within all their planes. Basically, Southwest Airlines had Wi-Fi rolled out to about four planes and the customers were pleased with it, which is good news for Southwest Airlines. When flying, many users were testing out Wi-Fi on their netbooks, laptops, and smartphones. While email, streaming video, and surfing the web are all allowed, Southwest Airlines is strict about not allowing VoIP and video chats because they want to be considerate to all users, which is probably a good policy. In terms of a data supplier, Southwest Airlines is going with Row 44, however, a pricing plan has not been set in place yet. Of course, the popularity of in-flight Wi-Fi depends on the pricing packages available. The airline with the most to offer in terms of normal accommodations as well as the best Wi-Fi deal will probably attract the most customers. Expect all Southwest Airlines airplanes to have full Wi-Fi services starting next year. Read [Electronista] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:16 am People With Disabilities Helped By Robotic SystemsBioengineering and mechanical engineering professor Rory Cooper describes how rapid prototyping and robotics are providing promising solutions for those with severe manipulation and mobility challengesPeople might be surprised to learn that about 50 million individuals in the world use, or could benefit from the use of, a wheelchair.Wheelchairs are one of the most commonly used assistive devices for mobility, providing people with mobility in their homes and communities. While wheelchairs were once a symbol of inability and considered stigmatizing, they have evolved to be highly mobile forms of self-expression that are often fitted to each individual user.One may wonder what science and engineering can do to improve the wheelchair, and be surprised by the answer: much has been, and remains to be, done. One of the areas in which science and engineering are making the breakthroughs of tomorrow is in applying computer modeling, rapid prototyping and robotics to create electric-powered mobility and manipulation devices. Such devices provide people with very severe disabilities--those that affect both the use of arms and legs--the ability to perform tasks with minimal assistance, or even function independently.Computer modeling allows engineers to design and simulate such systems within a virtual space. Simulations range from the mechanical and circuit design to the complex control and coordination systems needed to make all of the components work together.One of our greatest challenges is ensuring that the powered mobility and manipulation device actually meets the user's needs, and that the science is guided by problems facing people with disabilities.In our work, we collaborate closely with people with disabilities and incorporate them into our research and development team. These collaborators focus attention on some of the hurdles that they face, and other potential uses of powered mobility and manipulation devices, such as driving on rough terrain like snow, ice, grass, sand and gravel.For people who have limited or no use of their arms, it is equally as challenging to complete such tasks as making a sandwich, putting away clothes and shopping.Many people would like to drive the powered mobility device in parks, on winter days or across gravel roads--tasks that are difficult and sometimes impossible with the technology of today. Likewise, people with some severe disabilities require a person to help them perform tasks that many of us take for granted, such as adjusting one's jacket. Rapid prototyping and robotics provide some promising solutions to at least some of the challenges faced by people with severe mobility and manipulation limitations, and offer hope for greater independence.Rapid prototyping helps engineers make models and even one-off devices in a cost effective and timely manner. This allows computer models to become physical models within days and real systems within months rather than years. This accelerates the research and design process, and affords people with disabilities more opportunities to participate in the scientific process.Robotics has traditionally focused on replacing humans in the performance of tasks to achieve greater efficiencies or to reduce human exposure to risk. In our work, the person and robot must work together in what we call cooperative control. In our cooperative control model, we have a pilot who is the actual person with a disability, a remote human assistant, and the robotic system. With cooperative control, these three core units work in unison to achieve the actions desired by the pilot in natural environments.This approach speeds deployment from the laboratory to the real world, and allows scientists and people with disabilities to learn from each other throughout the process, working towards achieving practical robotic mobility systems that safely, effectively and efficiently help people with disabilities perform the activities that they desire.To read more about these projects, visit the Web site for NSF's Quality of Life Technology Center.Rory A. Cooper, Department of Veterans Affairs & University of Pittsburgh rcooper@pitt.eduThis Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.InvestigatorsTakeo KanadeRory CooperRelated Institutions/OrganizationsCarnegie Mellon UniversityUniversity of PittsburghLocationsPennsylvaniaRelated ProgramsEngineering Research CentersRelated Awards#0540865 Quality of Life Technology Engineering Research CenterTotal Grants$13,096,903Related AgenciesDepartment of Veterans AffairsRelated WebsitesLiveScience.com: Technology: Robotic Systems Help People with Disabilities Engineering Research Centers AssociationMore ImagesSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:15 am NASA Heads Out to SeaNOTES(1) Mobile Bay National Estuary Program: Al-Hamdan and Maury Estes are lending their remote sensing expertise to help the Estuary Program and other members of the Gulf of Mexico Regional Collaborative (GoMRC) understand what might be affecting the health of sea grass and other marine vegetation in the coastal areas, including the estuaries. Established in 2006 with NASA funding, the GoMRC will use the study results to decide where to focus habitat restoration efforts.(2) This demonstration project in Mobile Bay, AL is a collaborative effort between NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Universities Space Research Association, NASA Stennis Space Center, Battelle at the Pacific Northwest National Lab, Tetra Tech Engineering, Prescott College, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program and other Gulf coast partners.(3) Heck is Chief Scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and a Professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama. Dauphin Island Sea Lab is Alabama's marine education and research center. Located on the eastern tip of a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico, the Sea Lab is the home site of the Marine Environmental Sciences Consortium. The Consortium serves Dauphin Island Sea Lab members, both public and private. Additionally, the DISL's Coastal Policy Center offers local government, industry and agency decision makers a range of coastal zone management services.(4) For more information on these gentle giants, see http://www.manatees.net/ and the Mobile Manatees Sighting Network at http://manatee.disl.org .(5) To find out how the watershed land was used through the years, the team studied 1948 historical land use data from University of Alabama Geography Department archives, along with 1992 and 2001 satellite data from NASA's Landsat* . Their growth model (The Prescott Spatial Growth model), which projected land use to 2030, used the 2001 land use data as a baseline. This allowed them to develop land use scenarios for input into their watershed model for predicting the future runoff characteristics. They used the model to figure out how changes in land use affected runoff water in terms of changes in the water’s salinity, temperature and sediment throughout the Mobile Bay, and in turn, the sea grass. [more information] More information from Mobile Bay National Estuary Program about the Mobile Bay Watershed:- It is the 4th largest watershed in terms of volume in the United States: Mobile Bay receives an average of 460,000 gallons per second of fresh water from the watershed.- It has one of the richest freshwater fish populations in North America, home to 236 species of freshwater fish, alone. Alabama also ranks second among all U.S. states in the total number of fish species (fresh and saltwater).- It contributes to Alabama's ranking as second in the nation in biodiversity (species per square mile), due to its wide array of habitats.Dauna Coulter, Science @ NASA---Image 1: Estes (center), Al-Hamdan (right), and a Mississippi State graduate student (left) check water samples. The instrument in the picture is lowered into the water and samples trapped at various depths. Image 2: The wetland environment of coastal Mobile Bay.Image 3: A Mobile Bay revetment--i.e., a sea wall made of rocky rip raps.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Aug 2009 | 7:00 am Gamertell Review: Sumo Sultan bean bag chairFROM GAMERTELL - Sumo Lounge is offering its line of big and comfy bean bag chairs for consideration to gamers but is it worth the space? Click through to find out ... Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 22 Aug 2009 | 6:46 am Apple Withheld Google Voice Approval ... - InformationWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 22 Aug 2009 | 5:00 am Apple denies 'rejecting' Google Voice for iPhone (AP)AP - Apple Inc. told federal regulators Friday that it blocked the Google Voice program from running on the iPhone because it alters important functions on the device yet Apple denied that it has rejected Google's application outright.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Aug 2009 | 3:38 am AT&T Says it Didn't Block Google Voice (PC World)PC World - Apple is still reviewing the Google Voice iPhone application, and AT&T has not played any role in that review process, the companies told the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Aug 2009 | 2:45 am
|
If this were a column about religious affairs, I would undoubtedly focus this week on the shocking news that Beelzebub himself has joined a coalition opposing child abuse in the Catholic church.
The week ending August 21 began August 17 with another round of digital musical chairs—BoomTown reported that 
Following Facebook’s 
I’m a Web fanatic, I admit. But you probably already knew that… My work environment has been completely web based for years now. The same applies to my music. Like many people, I used to download music from 
Pandora
Amie Street
IThe biggest issue with this theme is that it requires quite a bit of set-up. Each app has to be stuck into a mini folder using a program called Categories and then creating a bunch of weird blank icons that do nothing but keep some icons away from others. However if you’ve got a few hours to kill this weekend - Hurricane Bill is hitting the East Coast so maybe you’ll have a nice day in - you can give it a try. Send us screenshots when you figure it out.
Reverb Communications is an extremely successful PR firm that claims to have “first party” and “personal” relationships with Apple. Aside from representing Pangea Software, one of the more successful App developers for the iPhone (they made Enigmo, which was featured during the 
