Leica M9 Brochure Leaked: 18 Megapixel Full-Frame Sensor

See what a little corporate secrecy can do? It drives the public, and the reporters, nuts, kicking up a whole lot of sparkly publicity-dust along the way. And doesn’t hurt that the brand in question is the cult camera-maker, Leica.

Today’s exciting news is that the details of tomorrow’s “secret” announcement have been leaked in the form of a pdf brochure and an online mini-site. The products are the M9, an update to the M8 rangefinder line, and the X1, a compact camera with a big CMOS sensor.

The M9’s big feature is its full-frame sensor, which will allow proper use of the company’s legendary lenses; the M8, like other crop-framed cameras, would make these lenses longer than they were meant to be. The larger sensor hasn’t added any sensitivity - ISO still tops out at 2500 - but it has let Leica squeeze some extra pixels on there: 18 of them, proving once again that a once innovative company has fallen behind the curve: Even Canon, as megapixel-mad a company as ever existed, has learned the error of its ways.

Not much else is new. From the outside, not many people would spot the difference between the M8 and the M9, but then, the camera design is pretty much already perfect for what it does (apart from having to remove the bottom plate just to change out memory cards). In the box is a nice surprise. Instead of writing its own processing software, Leica has just thrown in Adobe’s Lightroom, a very nice touch.

The X1 is likely to be in more people’s price range, although actual prices are not in the brochure. Details are scarce, but the blurb includes this:

It is equipped with a CMOS sensor equal in size to that of many DSLR cameras, and it’s fitted with one of the very best Leica lenses […] As an optional alternative to its impressive array of manual functions, it provides automatic features, such as autofocus

We take that to mean an APS-C sized sensor, as found in all but full-frame DSLRs. If the pixel-count is kept low, this could actually be a Leica compact worth buying (usually it’s best to buy the identical but differently branded Panasonic versions).

We’ll find out the rest tomorrow, no doubt. If anyone is paying attention during the Apple/iPod furore.

Leica M9 microsite, brochure and more Leica X1 info [Leica Rumors]

LEICA M9 microsite screenshots [Leicaphile/Flickr]

See Also:

• Leica 'Teaser' Promises M9 Next Week

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:39 am

T-Mobile, Orange to form UK's top mobile operator (AP)

AP - Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom SA said Tuesday they intend to combine their British mobile phone units — T-Mobile UK and Orange UK — to form the country's biggest mobile operator.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:35 am

Final Fantasy XIII to launch December 17 in Japan (Reuters)

Reuters - Japanese videogame creator Square Enix Holdings Co said it would launch the latest edition of its "Final Fantasy" game series on December 17 in Japan, which may help sales of Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 in the key shopping season.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:30 am

Viral Video: Los Angeles Wildfires in 35 Seconds [BoomTown]

One of the great things about the Internet is the immediacy in getting relevant information, especially via video.

Such has been the case with the fires that have been raging around Los Angeles of late, riveting images of which have proliferated around the Web, posted by professional and amateurs alike.

Having just spent a week in the area, BoomTown can attest to the surrealness of driving around the city with scary fires clearly visible on the hills nearby. While the fires are now starting to come under control, the videos of them are still burning hot.

To get a taste of it, check out this amazing real-time video of one of the fires, taken last week and posted on YouTube–it is a time-lapse format, which a lot of people are doing:

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:30 am

AOL hires Yahoo's former 'peanut butter manifesto' executive for new Silicon Valley post

SAN FRANCISCO - AOL LLC has tapped former Yahoo Inc. executive Brad Garlinghouse for a key position that is meant to beef up the struggling Internet company's presence in Silicon Valley.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:30 am

Flickr Finally Goes Native With An iPhone App

Despite having one of the most popular online photo services in the world, Flickr has done things the hard way on the iPhone. That is to say for browsing photos, they’ve made you go through their optimized website, and for uploading you had to do it through email. Both worked fine, but were not as seamless as a native iPhone application. Now they have that as well.

Yahoo’s Flickr app has just gone live in the App Store. I’ve only just downloaded it and have started to play with it, but I can tell right away that I’m going to like it. The main screen is a mesmerizing slideshow of photos from your contacts on Flickr. There is an upload button that easily accessible right on the main page, and uploading is done very nicely. You can obviously name your picture and give it a description, but you can also easily manage what set to put it in, and what tags to give it. And the privacy settings are very clearly displayed on the upload page.

There has been no shortage of third-party applications that used Flickr’s pictures, but this app matches the look and feel of Flickr proper, much more closely than any of them. Individual photo pages look great and commenting is easy. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be an easy way to send pictures to Twitter, except through the emailing method.

You can find the app for free in the App Store here.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:21 am

Novozymes sees enzymes sales growing in H2

COPENHAGEN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Danish industrial enzymes producer Novozymes reaffirmed on Tuesday its goal of restoring growth in its enzymes business in terms of local currencies in the second half of...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:19 am

T-Mo T-oBuy O-Range I-n U-K

Rumor has it that T-Mobile UK and Orange UK will merge, creating a 28.4 million customer uber-carrier. The next largest carrier will be Telefonica's O2, the former heavyweight. The deal will be signed by November and the merged company will share networks and CRM services in the UK. This does not directly effect T-Mobile's German parent company except in that it will lose its subsidiary in the UK.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:16 am

T-Mo T-oBuy O-Range I-n U-K

Rumor has it that T-Mobile UK and Orange UK will merge, creating a 28.4 million customer uber-carrier. The next largest carrier will be Telefonica’s O2, the former heavyweight.

The deal will be signed by November and the merged company will share networks and CRM services in the UK. This does not directly effect T-Mobile’s German parent company except in that it will lose its subsidiary in the UK.

Quoth BBC:

Orange employs 12,500 people in the UK, while T-Mobile has UK workforce of 6,500.
A spokeswoman confirmed there would be “efficiencies” that could be made across both businesses - but said it was too early to give details of any impact on staff.
Integrating the business will cost between £600m and £800m, the firms said. This bill would include decommissioning mobile phone masts, cutting back the network of stores and streamlining other operations. Over time, savings should reach about £3.5bn, they added.

T-Mobile has traditionally been the runt in the UK and could use the boost that Orange, with 22 percent of the market, could give it. O2 also carried the iPhone in the UK.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:14 am

The Inevitable Move Of iTunes To The Cloud

Here we are on the eve of another Apple event. There is never a shortage of hype surrounding these, but this one may have a bit more than normal because of the possibility that it could be Apple CEO Steve...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:09 am

The Inevitable Move Of iTunes To The Cloud

Here we are on the eve of another Apple event. There is never a shortage of hype surrounding these, but this one may have a bit more than normal because of the possibility that it could be Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ first public gig since returning to the company following a lengthy and very serious medical leave of absence.

But it’s entirely possible that Jobs won’t be leading this event. And it’s starting to look more possible that what’s thought to be the key product, iPods with cameras, may have to be delayed. And that tablet computer seems pretty unlikely. And The Beatles on iTunes is far from a lock. In other words, there are a lot of possible ways that Apple could disappoint with this event.

But Apple doesn’t like to disappoint, it likes to surprise. And that’s why I’m holding out hope for a big one: iTunes in the cloud.

Now, the likelihood of Apple announcing this on Wednesday seems fairly small. After all, even if Apple has to delay the launch of it iPods with cameras, it will still likely announce them at the event. And it likely has a new, more social iTunes 9, and its new “Cocktail” music format ready to be announced as well. All of that would seem to be enough for what will be a relatively small event in San Francisco — especially if Jobs does take the stage.

But, as myself and others have noted before, iTunes in the cloud is inevitable.

An Expansion Of Music

When iTunes was confined solely to music on your desktop, life was good. There was a lot of talk about how subscription-based streaming services would kill the pay-to-download iTunes model, but that never happened. Instead, iTunes continued to dominate the landscape.

But things are evolving. The new hotshot in the music space is Spotify, which despite not being available in the U.S. yet, has plenty of people going gaga. The interesting thing about it is that everyone praises its user experience and being second-to-none, including yes, iTunes. Spotify has raised a ton of money, and counts some some of the major music labels as investors, and also just launched an iPhone app. As Apple is attempting to make its software more social, you had better believe they are watching the reaction to Spotify closely.

And iTunes itself is evolving. As we are likely to see on Wednesday, Apple and the music labels are pushing for these new “Cocktail” type album downloads that feature much more than just music. A key component is likely to be video, which obviously takes up a lot more space than music. That, alongside Apple’s move earlier this year to a fully iTunes Plus (DRM-free) store, has meant that the space needed to hold all of this music has been going up.

As most people have computers these days with large hard drives, they have been able to handle iTunes music on their machines without much trouble. But a push for more video — especially if it’s HD video — will mean more storage that is needed. And that’s before we get to the real keys to the iTunes in the cloud idea: Movies and television shows.

iTunes’ Video Problem

Apple has obviously been increasing its movie and television show library over the past few years. It now has a fairly robust offering, including many shows and movies in high definition (HD). But have you ever really looked at the size of those files? Anyone who has more than a few of them likely has, because you were probably forced to, as you were running out of room on your hard drive.

Let’s look at the most recent season of ABC’s show Lost. If you bought the HD Season Pass of the show on iTunes, that’s 28.2 GB of data on your hard drive. That’s one season. Of one show.

Say you also bought last season of The Office (a 30-minute show versus the hour-long Lost), that’s 19.43 GB. Those two shows alone — again, just one season of each — have nearly 50 GB of your hard drive tied up right there. Throw a few HD movies (usually 3 to 4 GB each), and maybe a few more shows and you’re going to need hundreds of gigabytes for all of these. And God forbid you want the other 4 seasons of Lost or The Office.

The way to combat this problem right now is to do what I did: Buy terabyte external hard drives. But let’s be honest, most average consumers are not going to do that. If and when they see that their entire hard drive has been eaten up by season 3 of My Name Is Earl, they’re going to be upset. It’s probably more likely that they’d simply delete the content. But should they really have to do that for content they paid for? Of course not.

Apple’s Options

That leaves Apple with two options:

1) Offer television show rentals. This is certainly something it could, and may do, but it would be a short-term fix.

2) Move iTunes fully to the cloud.

Actually, iTunes is really already is in the cloud — kind of. If you delete a piece of content from your machine, Apple will allow you to download it again (at least once). This is more or less the idea of how iTunes in the cloud would work. Rather than storing all your media locally on your machine, it would be stored on iTunes’ servers in the cloud — which again, they’re already doing.

If you bought a television show, movie or even song, you’d be able to stream it from Apple’s servers. Or, if you wanted to take it on the go, on your iPod or iPhone, you could download it and store a physical copy locally. There would be no risk in deleting content locally when you were done with it, because Apple would have a copy for you to obtain again.

Concerns

Now, this idea is so obvious that it has to be coming, right? Well, there are obviously some concerns as well. First, security. The music labels and television and movie studios would want assurances from Apple that no one could “game the system” and get access to content for free. With iTunes in the cloud, Apple would likely have to partially rework the 5 computers-at-a-time system for iTunes that it uses right now (for DRM content), but something similar would probably be intact.

The second concern would be cost. Apple undoutbedly spends a lot of money now serving music and movies over iTunes, but it’s for the most part a one-time deal, where a user pays and then downloads the content. If you introduce streaming into the mix, costs will go up. But perhaps that is part of the reason behind Apple’s new massive 500,000 sqaure foot datacenter in North Carolina — which will be one of the largest in the world.

Untenable

The fact of the matter is that any way you slice it, iTunes current model is untenable. Even if you opt to get standard definition video content from the service, we’re talking ten to a dozen gigabytes of storage needed for just one season of a television show. Movies are still over a gigabyte a piece. If you buy as much content as Apple and the studios would like you to, you’re going to fairly quickly get into the hundreds of gigabytes and then terabytes range. I should know, I’m already there.

Meanwhile, there’s a movement underway to more portable machines that feature smaller amounts of storage. Obviously, there are netbooks, but you can also be sure that Apple’s tablet device, when it comes out, will not have a terabyte of storage. And Apple itself has been starting to push faster, but smaller capacity, SSD drivers in its laptop lines.

The larger point is that while it’s great to own your own content, most customers likely do not want terabytes of data cluttering up their machines. It becomes a huge management burden. And if you get a new machine, transfers are a hassle.

There are some other short-term solutions, like the aforementioned TV show rentals, but long term, the only viable model would seem to be Apple holding all of this content for us on its servers. Streaming a huge collection of movies works beautifully right now for Netflix via its Watch Instantly service. Apple would need a download component to supplement its portable devices, but it likely can and will be done.

Months ago, there were rumors of such a service called “iTunes Replay” for iTunes 8, but nothing ever came of them. But since then, Apple has launched services like HD movie downloads — the need for such a service is only getting greater. And it will continue to.

Apple chose to use a Rolling Stones’ lyric as the tagline for this event, “It’s only rock and roll, but we like it.” Here’s to hoping that they work in another Stones’ lyric as well, “On my cloud, baby.”

[photos: flickr/Kables and flickr/preater]

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

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:09 am

Japan's Idemitsu to triple Boggabri Mine output

TOKYO, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Japanese refiner Idemitsu Kosan Co said on Tuesday it would invest 11.5 billion yen ($124.4 million) to nearly triple coal output at Boggabri Mine in Australia to 4.3 million...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:04 am

Discovery bids adios to ISS - Register

Telegraph.co.uk

Discovery bids adios to ISS Register Space shuttle Discovery is preparing to undock later today from the International Space Station following the successful completion of mission STS-128. The decoupling is due to take place at 19:26 GMT. ... Space crews say goodbye, shuttle departing TuesdayThe Associated Press Discovery closes hatch with ISSNECN Shuttle Astronauts Prepare to Leave Space StationNew York Times Space.com -Florida Today -Ethiopian Review all 543 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:02 am

RPT-REFILE-Novozymes says its enzymes market share 47 pct

COPENHAGEN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Danish industrial enzymes producer Novozymes said its global market share is 47 percent and it had gained share in recent years, contributing most of the market growth over...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:01 am

REFILE-Novozymes says its enzymes market share 47 pct

COPENHAGEN, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Danish industrial enzymes producer Novozymes said its global market share is 47 percent and it had gained share in recent years, contributing most of the market growth over...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am

What, Exactly, is Foursquare? And Why Are Investors Clamoring For It? [MediaMemo]

Many digerati had this reaction to last week’s news that mobile startup Foursquare had closed its first financing round: About time.

And many also had this reaction: Why, exactly, should I care about Foursquare?

The first reaction makes sense. Foursquare is just a few months old, but it’s received an extraordinary amount of buzz and press since its debut at South by Southwest in March. That seeemed to reach a fever pitch this summer, when Twitter investor Fred Wilson started blogging about it.

And sure enough, Wilson’s Union Square Ventures did indeed end up betting on the company. The $1.35 million round was actually led by O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and by all accounts investors were clamoring to throw money at the revenue-free startup, which may have all of 50,000 users. I know of at least one high profile VC firm that wanted into the deal but got shut out.

But the befuddled reaction some people have to Foursquare also makes sense. Foursquare is a “location-based” app for your iPhone (or Android-based phone, or even your BlackBerry) that sort of combines elements of Twitter and Yelp and “social” Web/mobile games like Zynga’s Mafia Wars. But even if you’ve used it, it’s not exactly clear what you’re supposed to do with it. You tell your pals that you’re visiting this bar or that restaurant, and then… what?

At least, that was my reaction when I played with Foursquare at South by Southwest in Austin: I couldn’t figure out how it was more useful than Twitter at broadcasting my location and/or finding my friends.

And once I got back to Brooklyn, there didn’t seem to be any point to the service at all for me. No point in telling anyone where I am, because it’s almost always the same place: My apartment in Brooklyn. Nothing to see here.

But my nightlife problems aside, there are a bunch of people who think cofounders Dennis Crowely and Naveen Selvadurai are on to something. Even if they’re not sure exactly what that may be.

A more cynical take: Crowley sold Dodgeball, his last buzzy mobile startup, to Google in 2005. And even if Crowley was unhappy about the way things turned out after that — he left in 2007, and Google (GOOG) pulled the plug on Dodgeball (along with a host of other non-starters) this year — it’s always good to bet on a guy who’s already had one successful exit.

But why not listen to Crowley explain what he’s up to in his own words? Here’s an interview I taped with Crowley last month, a couple days before he closed his funding round.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am

Dirty vendor tricks (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Enterprise software and service vendors are a tricky bunch. Like skilled magicians, they use sleight of hand and misdirection to pull cash from your company's coffers.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am

Intel Shows off pcs, Servers Built on Lynnfield Processors - PC World

Sydney Morning Herald

Intel Shows off pcs, Servers Built on Lynnfield Processors PC World Intel showed off a number of new computer systems and at least 40 new motherboards built by partners for new Intel microprocessors that officially launched on Tuesday, nearly a month after the chips were first spotted at computer markets in Taipei. ... Partners: Intel's Lynnfield A Strong Whitebox PlayChannelWeb Intel's Core i5, Core i7 ProcessorsTechtree.com Intel blitzes market with Nehalem chipsTG Daily Computerworld -Inquirer -InternetNews.com all 119 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:52 am

UPDATE 2-Advanced Medical H1 profit falls; to meet FY view

* H1 pretax profit, before items 896,000 stg vs 1.2 mln stg
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:50 am

Tokai Challenger: Solar cell-powered “green” race car

Sharp Japan today said [press release in English] it supplied a total of 2,176 high-quality solar cells to a research team developing a sun-powered racing car at Japan-based Tokai University. The cells used for the car are usually powering satellites and measure 77 x 39mm, which translates back to a total area of about 6m².

They’re made of rare metals, have an output of 1.8 kW and boast an energy conversion efficiency of 30%, which Sharp says is the highest level in the world (conventional crystalline silicon solar cells typically have a little more than 15% efficiency). The car, dubbed Tokai Challenger, can reach a top speed of 150km/h.

Sharp says a team from Tokai University will field-test the car in the so-called Global Green Challenge, a 3,000km race that’s exclusively held for “green” vehicles in Australia next month. One of the drivers has won the Paris to Dakar Rally in 1997.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:40 am

Nova Announces Acceptance for Additional Stand Alone System From new Memory Customer

Company Expects 2009 Third Quarter Revenues to Increase by More Than 40% Sequentially REHOVOT, Israel, September 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Nova Measuring ...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:30 am

Copyright Troubles For Sony

ljaszcza writes "Daily Tech brings us a story about Sony's run-in with the Mexican police. (Billboard picked up the story as well.) It seems that they raided Sony's offices and seized 6,397 music CDs after a protest from the artist, Alejandro Fernandez. Fernandez had signed a seven-album deal with Sony Music; he completed that commitment and then left for Universal. During the time with Sony, he recorded other songs that did not make it into the agreed-upon seven albums. Sony Music took it upon themselves to collect that material and release it as an eighth album. Fernandez claims that he fulfilled his contract with Sony, and residual material belongs to him. Hmm. Precedent from the Jammie Thomas infringement and distribution case gives us $80K per song. Sony vs. Joel Tenenbaum gives $22.5K per song. So 6,397 CDs at an average of 8 songs/CD is 51,176 infringing songs, with (IMHO) intent to distribute. The damages to Fernandez should be $1,151,460,000 using the Tenenbaum precedent or $4,094,080,000 using the Thomas precedent. Seems very straightforward to me."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:19 am

Russian Software Market is Considered as one of the Most Potential Software Markets in the World

LAHTI, Finland, September 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Russia is becoming one of the major software markets in Europe.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:16 am

Russian Software Market is Considered as one of the Most Potential Software Markets in the World

LAHTI, Finland, September 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Russia is becoming one of the major software markets in Europe. In recent years, the software industry has been one of the...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:16 am

Sanofi Pasteur to provide Brazil with H1N1 vaccine

PARIS, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur, part of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis , will supply Brazil with 18 million doses of vaccines against the pandemic H1N1 flu and could supply 15...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:14 am

Nio security system: As seen on YouTube

So this is actually kind of cool. It’s a security system that uses Bluetooth to connect all of your belongings - your briefcase, your keys, et al, to your phone. When they move out of range, Nio tells you on your BlackBerry screen.

Each tag can be given a different alarm tone on your phone so you know which item is at risk. In addition the nio’s locate tone can help you find misplaced tagged items such as USB data sticks or keys.

Uniquely, nio has a fully rechargeable battery which will hold its charge for several weeks, allowing you to relax in the knowledge that your tagged article is safe. Using the simple to operate calendar application allows you to set dates and times for automatic activation such as during your regular commute.

The rechargeable battery in the Nio unit gives me pause but it seems like a few weeks of uninterrupted usage may work out fairly well. The little device itself costs 40 Pounds Sterling in the coin of the realm or about $70. Pricey.

Would you stick one of these in your briefcase? I don’t recall anyone ever stealing my bag, just picking my pocket. Thoughts?

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:09 am

UPDATE 1-China Pingdingshan closes coal mines, impact limited

* Henan orders halt on small mines without govt permission
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:09 am

NOOOO! iPods with cameras update could be delayed!

In a fancy bit of pussy footery, AppleInsider is quoting some guy with a good track record on Apple rumors who heard from some guy’s uncle’s mother’s brother who overheard someone say that someone at Apple heard someone say in 31 Flavors that the iPods with cameras (camPods) would be delayed.

What does this mean? It means they probably won’t sell the new iPods immediately at stores after tomorrow’s iPod event and instead roll them out slowly over the next few weeks. AppleInsider could also be completely wrong.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Expedia Signs Global Agreement with Japan's Largest Independent Hotel Chain, Prince Hotels

BELLEVUE, Wash. and TOKYO, Sept. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Expedia, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXPE), the world's leading online travel company, today announced a global partnership agreement with Prince Hotels & Resorts, the largest independent hotel chain in Japan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Beijing Science Park Selects Trapeze Networks for Building Campus-Wide Wi-Fi Network

PLEASANTON, Calif., Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Trapeze Networks, a Belden Brand (NYSE: BDC), today announced that Hi-Tech International Business Incubator Co., Ltd.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Mobotix Revolutionizes the Video Surveillance Industry with New Hemispheric Technology, Says Frost & Sullivan

LONDON, Sept. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- In a recent study on state-of-the-art solutions in video surveillance technology, Frost & Sullivan has identified Mobotix AG's new hemispheric technology as among the most innovative developments in high resolution video surveillance.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Redknee's Customer Care Solution Wins InfoVision Award

One Call Resolution named best at industry innovation award TORONTO, Sept.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Ranking of European Fibre-To-The-Home (FTTH) Penetration Shows Scandinavia and Smaller Economies Still Ahead

BRUSSELS, September 8 /PRNewswire/ -- - Full Global Findings, and Other Unique Research, Available at FTTH Conference in Lisbon in February 2010 Yesterday, the FTTH Council Europe announced the latest figures showing which EU countries are leading the way in the penetration of fibre-to-the-home, at a press conference at the Broadband World Forum in Paris. Sweden leads the line-up of the top 10 adopters of FTTH services with more than 10% of FTTH penetration, followed by Norway, Slovenia, Andorra, Denmark, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Slovakia and Finland.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

ActiveVideo Networks, eventIS, Neotion to Show Cloud-Based Interactivity for CI Plus Televisions at IBC

AMSTERDAM, Sept.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am

Opera 10 Downloaded 10 Million Times In Its First Week

In the first week after its release and after many favorable reviews - including our own - Opera Software has announced that its revamped desktop browser has been downloaded 10 million times and is now...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:52 am

Opera 10 Downloaded 10 Million Times In Its First Week

In the first week after its release and after many favorable reviews – including our own – Opera Software has announced that its revamped desktop browser has been downloaded 10 million times and is now in use by millions of users around the world. For Opera, this is a record achievement.

If my own experience is anything to go by, these users are happy users. As I wrote before, Opera 10 is blazing fast – comparable to the speed I was experiencing with Google Chrome – and that’s a huge plus. It doesn’t hurt that everything ‘just works’ either, and I’m already so used to the (all new) Opera interface that it’d be hard for me to switch again.

If you haven’t tried out Opera 10 yet, do it now. You won’t be disappointed.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:52 am

Spider and Jeanne Robinson need help

Beloved Hugo-award-winning writer, dancer and choreographer Jeanne Robinson (wife of Spider Robinson) has cancer, and it has taken a turn for the worse. Spider Robinson describes their financial situation as dire ("running on fumes") and so he's asking for cash to help them get through this. There's lots of ways to give, from bidding in a charity auction to attending a benefit concert to buying Spider's books. I've just sent them what I could spare -- Jeanne and Spider have given me so much pleasure and wisdom over the years, it was an honor. I hope that some of you who've been touched by them will do the same.

As some of you know, I've been dealing with a rare biliary cancer for many months. It has already taken my gall bladder, bile duct and most of my liver...and it's not done yet. It looks like in a matter of weeks I'll be facing chemotherapy, in an attempt to at least slow its progress...

There are many things I need as I prepare for my third act--supplements, prescription drugs, counseling, expensive alternative therapies, etc--and they all cost money...money I don't have. So, after all these months of being silent and private about my illness, I recently said yes to my close friend Michelle Meyrink when she asked if she could organize a benefit concert for me. http://www.spiderrobinson.com/images/Dream%20for%20jeanne.pdf

Others have since jumped in, including my Vancouver Buddhist sangha, Mountain Rain Zen Community, and a dear friend in Florida, Jan Schroeder, who has been auctioning donated items (such as rare Babylon 5 scripts and other SF memorabilia) on eBay for me. Goods or services can be donated for the auction by contacting Jan at dreamforjeanne@aol.com. Several other methods of helping out, including a straightforward PayPal donation account, can be found at http://wedreamforjeanne.blogspot.com/.

Another way to help would be to buy our books from Amazon by clicking-through from Spider's site, so we can get the affiliate commission. We've spent decades holding up visions of humankind's highest evolutionary potential while entertaining you enough to keep you turning pages.

The Third Act


Source: Boing Boing | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:39 am

Spider and Jeanne Robinson need help

Beloved Hugo-award-winning writer, dancer and choreographer Jeanne Robinson (wife of Spider Robinson) has cancer, and it has taken a turn for the worse. Spider Robinson describes their financial situation...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:39 am

Survey Monkey Growing Like A Weed, Fills Out Exec Team

Portland-born Survey Monkey, a site that lets users create surveys for customers, is a ten year old startup that mostly flew below the radar until last year. Ryan Finley started the company ten years ago in Madison, Wisconsin when he was a year out of college. Five years later he had moved it to Portland and hired his brother Chris to help him.

They never raised outside funding and grew the business to a rumored $30 million in revenue in 2008, with 85% EBITDA margins. This year revenue will be more like $45 million, we’ve heard (the company won’t comment).

That’s when the big money rolled in. Spectrum Equity Investors and Bain Capital Ventures injected capital into the company earlier this year, the founders took most of it off the table, and ex-Yahoo exec Dave Goldberg was brought in as CEO.

Today Survey Monkey has offices in Menlo Park (the former CBS Interactive offices) and 20 million monthly unique visitors, says the company. They have 32 employees, up from 14 a year ago, and the product continues to grow like a weed.

Goldberg has also brought in a new executive team to help him handle the growth, and says that the company will soon open an office in Europe for customer support.

New execs include VP Engineering Selina Tobaccowala, who was previously an exec at Ticketmaster’s Europe division, and was the cofounder of Evite. New VP Finance Noreen Bergin spent five years as SVP of Finance and Corporate Controller for Netscape in the 90s, and VP Business Development Tim Maly just ended a six year run at Google. Most recently, Maly led the Inside Sales and Sales Strategy & Operations teams for AdWords North America.

This is obviously a company on a roll, no matter how ugly you say their homepage is. Small businesses love this stuff, and are willing to pay for it.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:39 am

Survey Monkey Growing Like A Weed, Fills Out Exec Team

Portland-born Survey Monkey, a site that lets users create surveys for customers, is a ten year old startup that mostly flew below the radar until last year. Ryan Finley started the company ten years ago...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:39 am

Spherical Soft Robots Can Roll And Jump

By Evan Ackerman This may not look like the most promising design for a robot, but there's a lot of potential to be had with robots that can change their shape. These robots, from Ritsumeikan University...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:38 am

France Télécom and Deutsche Telecom Plan UK Mobile JV (PC World)

PC World - Deutsche Telekom and France Télécom have begun exclusive negotiations to form a joint venture to run their respective U.K. mobile communications networks, T-Mobile U.K. and Orange U.K., they said Tuesday.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:30 am

Magic Software Wins Deal to Provide RIA Platform and SAP R/3 Integration Solution for Leading European Sauna and Spa Company KLAFS

OR-YEHUDA, Israel, Sept.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:29 am

HTC unveils the Tattoo

HTC's naming conventions are kind of funny. I was almost hoping that after the Hero they'd call this the HTC Ninjastar or the HTC Hobo, but sadly it ended up being the Tattoo. The Tattoo runs the Sense UI, which is great++ and it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, and MicroSD memory slot. The phone will be available in Europe in October and, as we all well know, may or may not come to our shores in some form or the other in the next few weeks. Full PR after the jump.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:25 am

HTC unveils the Tattoo

HTC’s naming conventions are kind of funny. I was almost hoping that after the Hero they’d call this the HTC Ninjastar or the HTC Hobo, but sadly it ended up being the Tattoo. The Tattoo runs the Sense UI, which is great++ and it has a 3.2 megapixel camera, 3.5mm headset jack, and MicroSD memory slot.

The phone will be available in Europe in October and, as we all well know, may or may not come to our shores in some form or the other in the next few weeks. Full PR after the jump.

HTC TATTOOTM BRINGS ANDROID TO ALL
Tattoo embodies three core principles of HTC Sense: Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected
TAIWAN – September 8, 2009 – HTC Corporation today introduced the HTC TattooTM, an Android-based phone that brings broad personalization to the masses. With its distinct design and ability to personalize all aspects of the phone, from its hardware to its applications and content, people are able to express themselves and create their own individual mobile experience.
“Everyone wants their own phone to feel like it was specifically made for them. The Tattoo, with HTC Sense represents an easy way to shape your own distinct mobile experience and really make it your own,” said Peter Chou, Chief Executive Officer, HTC Corporation. “The HTC Tattoo ensures that you can create the most engaging and appropriate mobile experience through simple yet powerful personalization.”
HTC Tattoo is the second phone to embody HTC Sense, a mobile experience focused on putting people at the centre by making your phone work in a more simple and natural way. Designed by listening and observing how people live and communicate, HTC Sense revolves around three fundamental principles Make it Mine, Stay Close and Discover the Unexpected.
With HTC Tattoo, you stay close to the important people in your life by integrating your communications and applications including voice calls, emails, texts, photos and status updates into one consolidated view, providing innovative and fun phone experiences.
The stylish HTC Tattoo is small and compact, fitting snugly into your hand or pocket. People are able to design and purchase their own unique covers or search and select from popular cover designs, altering the look of the phone to reflect their mood or individual tastes.
HTC Tattoo integrates Google’s innovative mobile services including: Google Maps, search, Google Mail, and Android market where users can download thousands of popular applications and games. It also comes complete with a broad variety of hardware features including a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, 3.5mm stereo headset jack and expandable microSD memory.
Availability
The HTC Tattoo will be available in Europe first at the beginning of October, and will roll out in markets around the world in the following months.

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

Not surprisingly, the health of those in the third group improved most. In fact, just by participating in the trial, volunteers in this high-interaction group got as much relief as did people taking the two leading prescription drugs for IBS. And the benefits of their bogus treatment persisted for weeks afterward, contrary to the belief—widespread in the pharmaceutical industry—that the placebo response is short-lived.

Studies like this open the door to hybrid treatment strategies that exploit the placebo effect to make real drugs safer and more effective. Cancer patients undergoing rounds of chemotherapy often suffer from debilitating nocebo effects—such as anticipatory nausea—conditioned by their past experiences with the drugs. A team of German researchers has shown that these associations can be unlearned through the administration of placebo, making chemo easier to bear.

Meanwhile, the classic use of placebos in medicine—to boost the confidence of anxious patients—has been employed tacitly for ages. Nearly half of the doctors polled in a 2007 survey in Chicago admitted to prescribing medications they knew were ineffective for a patient's condition—or prescribing effective drugs in doses too low to produce actual benefit—in order to provoke a placebo response.

The main objections to more widespread placebo use in clinical practice are ethical, but the solutions to these conundrums can be surprisingly simple. Investigators told volunteers in one placebo study that the pills they were taking were "known to significantly reduce pain in some patients." The researchers weren't lying.

These new findings tell us that the body's response to certain types of medication is in constant flux, affected by expectations of treatment, conditioning, beliefs, and social cues.

For instance, the geographic variations in trial outcome that Potter uncovered begin to make sense in light of discoveries that the placebo response is highly sensitive to cultural differences. Anthropologist Daniel Moerman found that Germans are high placebo reactors in trials of ulcer drugs but low in trials of drugs for hypertension—an undertreated condition in Germany, where many people pop pills for herzinsuffizienz, or low blood pressure. Moreover, a pill's shape, size, branding, and price all influence its effects on the body. Soothing blue capsules make more effective tranquilizers than angry red ones, except among Italian men, for whom the color blue is associated with their national soccer team—Forza Azzurri!

But why would the placebo effect seem to be getting stronger worldwide? Part of the answer may be found in the drug industry's own success in marketing its products.

Potential trial volunteers in the US have been deluged with ads for prescription medications since 1997, when the FDA amended its policy on direct-to-consumer advertising. The secret of running an effective campaign, Saatchi & Saatchi's Jim Joseph told a trade journal last year, is associating a particular brand-name medication with other aspects of life that promote peace of mind: "Is it time with your children? Is it a good book curled up on the couch? Is it your favorite television show? Is it a little purple pill that helps you get rid of acid reflux?" By evoking such uplifting associations, researchers say, the ads set up the kind of expectations that induce a formidable placebo response.

The success of those ads in selling blockbuster drugs like antidepressants and statins also pushed trials offshore as therapeutic virgins—potential volunteers who were not already medicated with one or another drug—became harder to find. The contractors that manage trials for Big Pharma have moved aggressively into Africa, India, China, and the former Soviet Union. In these places, however, cultural dynamics can boost the placebo response in other ways. Doctors in these countries are paid to fill up trial rosters quickly, which may motivate them to recruit patients with milder forms of illness that yield more readily to placebo treatment. Furthermore, a patient's hope of getting better and expectation of expert care—the primary placebo triggers in the brain—are particularly acute in societies where volunteers are clamoring to gain access to the most basic forms of medicine. "The quality of care that placebo patients get in trials is far superior to the best insurance you get in America," says psychiatrist Arif Khan, principal investigator in hundreds of trials for companies like Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb. "It's basically luxury care."

Big Pharma faces additional problems in beating placebo when it comes to psychiatric drugs. One is to accurately define the nature of mental illness. The litmus test of drug efficacy in antidepressant trials is a questionnaire called the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale. The HAM-D was created nearly 50 years ago based on a study of major depressive disorder in patients confined to asylums. Few trial volunteers now suffer from that level of illness. In fact, many experts are starting to wonder if what drug companies now call depression is even the same disease that the HAM-D was designed to diagnose.

Existing tests also may not be appropriate for diagnosing disorders like social anxiety and premenstrual dysphoria—the very types of chronic, fuzzily defined conditions that the drug industry started targeting in the '90s, when the placebo problem began escalating. The neurological foundation of these illnesses is still being debated, making it even harder for drug companies to come up with effective treatments.

What all of these disorders have in common, however, is that they engage the higher cortical centers that generate beliefs and expectations, interpret social cues, and anticipate rewards. So do chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, Parkinson's, and many other ailments that respond robustly to placebo treatment. To avoid investing in failure, researchers say, pharmaceutical companies will need to adopt new ways of vetting drugs that route around the brain's own centralized network for healing.

Ten years and billions of R&D dollars after William Potter first sounded the alarm about the placebo effect, his message has finally gotten through. In the spring, Potter, who is now a VP at Merck, helped rev up a massive data-gathering effort called the Placebo Response Drug Trials Survey.

Under the auspices of the NIH, Potter and his colleagues are acquiring decades of trial data—including blood and DNA samples—to determine which variables are responsible for the apparent rise in the placebo effect. Merck, Lilly, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi-Aventis, Johnson & Johnson, and other major firms are funding the study, and the process of scrubbing volunteers' names and other personal information from the database is about to begin.

In typically secretive industry fashion, the existence of the project itself is being kept under wraps. NIH staffers are willing to talk about it only anonymously, concerned about offending the companies paying for it.

For Potter, who used to ride along with his father on house calls in Indiana, the significance of the survey goes beyond Big Pharma's finally admitting it has a placebo problem. It also marks the twilight of an era when the drug industry was confident that its products were strong enough to cure illness by themselves.

"Before I routinely prescribed antidepressants, I would do more psychotherapy for mildly depressed patients," says the veteran of hundreds of drug trials. "Today we would say I was trying to engage components of the placebo response—and those patients got better. To really do the best for your patients, you want the best placebo response plus the best drug response."

The pharma crisis has also finally brought together the two parallel streams of placebo research—academic and industrial. Pfizer has asked Fabrizio Benedetti to help the company figure out why two of its pain drugs keep failing. Ted Kaptchuk is developing ways to distinguish drug response more clearly from placebo response for another pharma house that he declines to name. Both are exploring innovative trial models that treat the placebo effect as more than just statistical noise competing with the active drug.

Benedetti has helped design a protocol for minimizing volunteers' expectations that he calls "open/hidden." In standard trials, the act of taking a pill or receiving an injection activates the placebo response. In open/hidden trials, drugs and placebos are given to some test subjects in the usual way and to others at random intervals through an IV line controlled by a concealed computer. Drugs that work only when the patient knows they're being administered are placebos themselves.

Ironically, Big Pharma's attempt to dominate the central nervous system has ended up revealing how powerful the brain really is. The placebo response doesn't care if the catalyst for healing is a triumph of pharmacology, a compassionate therapist, or a syringe of salt water. All it requires is a reasonable expectation of getting better. That's potent medicine.

Contributing editor Steve Silberman (steve@stevesilberman.com) wrote about the hunt for Jim Gray in issue 15.08.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Sep 2009 | 10:00 pm

Forget Apple, Here's the Real Snow Leopard

As most of the tech world focuses on Apple's new Snow Leopard operating system, the real animal struggles to survive.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Sep 2009 | 10:00 pm

Making Geeks Cool Could Reform Education

Earlier this year in midtown Manhattan, a local venture capital firm staged a daylong conference on school reform. Authors, professors, financiers, and entrepreneurs took over the French Institute's skylighted penthouse and earnestly discussed how embracing "digital culture"—from deploying videogame-style rewards to encouraging kids to develop online reputations—could completely transform education. Outsiders were invited to participate via Twitter, and their ideas were projected on the wall. It was a high-minded, tech-centric affair—until Alex Grodd brought it back to earth.

Although Grodd now runs a site that lets educators share lesson plans, he started out teaching at inner-city middle schools in Atlanta and Boston. The businesspeople in the room represented a world in which innovation requires disruption. But Grodd knew their ideas would test poorly with real disrupters: kids in a classroom. "The driving force in the life of a child, starting much earlier than it used to be, is to be cool, to fit in," Grodd told the group. "And pretty universally, it's cool to rebel." In other words, prepare for you and your netbook to be jeered out of the room. "The best schools," Grodd told me later, "are able to make learning cool, so the cool kids are the ones who get As. That's an art."

It's an art that has, for the most part, been lost on educators. The notion itself seems incredibly daunting—until you look at one maligned subculture in which the smartest members are also the most popular: the geeks. If you want to reform schools, you've got to make them geekier.

"Geeks get things done. They're possessed. They can't help themselves," says Larry Rosenstock, founding principal of eight charter schools in San Diego County collectively called High Tech High. He has come up with a curriculum that forces kids to embrace their inner geek by pushing them to create. The walls, desks, and ceilings of his classrooms teem with projects, from field guides on local wildlife to human-powered submarines. (A High Tech High art project called Calculicious, based entirely on math principles, now hangs in the San Diego airport.) The students all work in small groups as a way to foster shared enthusiasm: Get two kids excited about something and it's harder for a third to poke fun at them.

But more important, Rosenstock keeps the students surrounded by adults. There are no teachers' bathrooms or lounges. Parents roam the halls. And the students are required to present their work to outsiders. This, it turns out, is the key to geekifying education. "A big chunk of the school experience is having them hang out with the adults they could imagine becoming," says private-equity manager Tom Vander Ark, former head of education investments for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a onetime school superintendent. "A big high school has a youth-owned culture. You've got to break that."

The result: One hundred percent of High Tech graduates get into college. Nationally, the college attendance rate for High Tech High's demographic—half are eligible for free lunch, and even fewer have parents who attended college—is about 55 percent. Yet all High Tech students take advanced math and science classes, and many of them end up at universities like MIT and Stanford.

Back on the East Coast, in one of Boston's toughest neighborhoods, Roxbury Prep (where Grodd once taught) uses a similar formula. Almost 80 percent of its eighth graders—nearly all of whom come from families earning less than $28,000 a year—go to college. Their teachers work nonstop to stamp out youth culture: Kids eat lunch in the classroom, they're not allowed to talk in the halls, and they're disciplined for using the word nerd. But it's about the nerdiest school you can imagine; every week, the faculty awards one child a "spirit stick"—a bedpost painted a rainbow of colors—for good grades.

In the public school I attended, that would be a homing beacon for a beating: "There's the nerd with the stick. Jump him!" But in geeked-out schools, that wouldn't happen—because everyone would be a nerd. At the final spirit-stick ceremony last year, 220 kids erupted in applause as a teacher read aloud the 14-year-old honoree's thesis. It started by calling America an "unfair and superficial nation." Hey, kids are going to rebel; better to have them cheered for doing it with contentious ideas.

Senior writer Daniel Roth (daniel_roth@wired.com) wrote about innovation in the wake of the financial crisis in issue 17.07.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 Sep 2009 | 10:00 pm

Sticky Situation of the Month: Ex-Yahoo Communications Head (and "Peanut Butter Manifesto" Scribe) Garlinghouse to Helm Similar Unit at AOL [BoomTown]

In the ongoing game of musical chairs among top managers at Internet companies, former Yahoo exec Brad Garlinghouse–famous for his controversial “Peanut Butter Manifesto” that correctly chided the Internet giant for becoming so lugubrious several years ago–is taking a very similar job at AOL to the one he left at Yahoo last year.

Garlinghouse, 38, has been named president of Internet and mobile communications at AOL, putting him in charge of the New York-based Time Warner (TWX) online unit’s powerful email and instant messaging properties, including ICQ and AIM.

He has only been in talks with AOL–which used Spencer Stuart’s Internet-top-exec-finder-in-chief Jim Citrin–for a few weeks, in a deal that came together quickly, he and the company said.

Garlinghouse, a longtime Web entrepreneur and exec, had reportedly been considering a number of start-up and venture-related jobs, since he left Yahoo last summer after six years there.

Sources said he was seriously considering becoming the CEO of a mobile firm.

He was most recently at Silver Lake Partners, as an “in-house senior advisor,” the private equity firm that recently bought the Skype Internet telephony firm for $1.9 billion. Garlinghouse also reportedly helped work on that deal.

“It’s really exciting to be to able to rebuild and revitalize an industry giant,” said Garlinghouse in an interview with BoomTown earlier today. “I make no bones that these [properties] are in need of that…but there is also a huge opportunity to do something cool.”

Garlinghouse has to hurry. Despite being among the top communications players online–a group that also includes Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) and, more recently, Google (GOOG)–AOL has lost relevance with key audiences, even as social networking properties like Facebook and the microblogging service, Twitter, have innovated in the communications space.

The hiring of Garlinghouse, well known in Silicon Valley circles, is meant to counter that.

He will head up AOL’s operations from its Mountain View, Ca. campus–which is also the former HQ of AOL-acquired Netscape Communications–where, said AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Garlinghouse will “be CEO of Silicon Valley for us.”

Between all its various properties, AOL has several hundred employees in the Northern California area.

Armstrong said AOL–which was founded 25 years ago in the East coast and has tried and failed many times to get a true foothold in the West–thinks having an important player at the center of the tech industry is critical, as it moves to spin off as an independent company by the end of the year.

“We have a triple play in getting a great executive, who is a master in the communications on the Web and who is well known out there,” said Armstrong. “Brad is our senior AOL manager there.”

Along with running all of AOL’s communications properties, Garlinghouse will also inherit some of its community properties too, although AOL’s Bebo social networking unit–now considered to be an overpriced acquisition error–now resides in its ventures unit, headed by Jon Brod.

Garlinghouse will also be aiding Brod, said Armstrong, with AOL on the lookout for acquisition opportunities in the communications and other arenas too.

While Garlinghouse declined to be specific about what would pique his buying interest, he was responsible for such big Yahoo deals as its $350 million purchase of Zimbra in the fall of 2007.

He was also key to bringing both Oddpost, which is at the heart of Yahoo’s email offering, and the popular Flickr photosharing service to Yahoo.

Garlinghouse said he has admired what Twitter and Facebook have done, but they were not destroying traditional online communications, pioneered by AOL, as some assert.

“It’s a vibrant segment and this just means there are a lot of opportunities to enable integration,” he said. “I think of it as an expansion of online communications and I hope AOL can do more collaboration and partnerships.”

Garlinghouse also has to watch AOL’s basic products like email, which was recently passed by Google’s Gmail as the No. 3 email service in the U.S. Yahoo Mail is the top email, while Microsoft’s Hotmail is second.

How much Garlinghouse can do will depend on the future financial strength of AOL. Its advertising business has been hit hard in the econalpyse, with hopes it will return before its money-generating access business continues its slow decline.

Armstrong is now in the midst of looking over AOL’s cost structure and employee base, which most expect will eventually result in another round of layoffs and cuts.

He has been busy creating a different strategy for the company since he arrived earlier this year, as well as hiring (and firing) top execs to create a new management structure.

Now, that includes Garlinghouse.

So, for a look-see at AOL’s latest talent acquisition, here’s a video interview I did with him, just after Yahoo bought Zimbra:

And here’s the full press release from AOL about the hiring of Garlinghouse:

AOL NAMES BRAD GARLINGHOUSE AS PRESIDENT, INTERNET AND MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS

NEW YORK, N.Y.–September 8, 2009–AOL today named Brad Garlinghouse as President of Internet and Mobile Communications, spearheading AOL’s global efforts to expand the reach of its e-mail and instant messaging. Garlinghouse will also take on an expanded leadership position for the company, heading up AOL’s Silicon Valley operations from its Mountain View campus and serving as the West Coast lead for AOL Ventures, the company’s venture capital arm headed globally by Jon Brod. Garlinghouse was most recently at Silver Lake Partners as an in-house Senior Advisor.

Prior to Silver Lake, Garlinghouse spent nearly six years at Yahoo!, where he led that company’s communications and community products. Garlinghouse will report directly to AOL’s Chairman and CEO Tim Armstrong.

” Brad Garlinghouse is an all-star in the Internet industry with an unparalleled background and proven track record, having led Yahoo’s communications products to unprecedented growth,” said Armstrong. “In addition to leading our efforts to grow our communications products, Brad will be bringing his global leadership and business experience as a key member of our company’s executive leadership team. He will also be a major force for AOL in Silicon Valley, working to expand our presence there and in the tech community in general. We’re delighted to have Brad on board and know he’ll do great things for AOL.”

“It’s a tremendous opportunity to join AOL at this pivotal moment in its history,” Garlinghouse said. “Tim has set out a clear strategy and vision for where he is taking this company as it becomes independent again. I’m looking forward to working with him and the rest of the team to realize that vision.”

Armstrong, who joined AOL in April, identified Communications as one of the five key areas of strategic focus for AOL after an extensive 100-day review of the company’s business. Other focus areas include Content, Advertising, Local & Mapping and AOL Ventures.

Garlinghouse spent nearly six years at Yahoo! where he most recently served as SVP of Communications and Communities. Prior to that he served as SVP of Communications, Communities and Front Doors, which included the Yahoo! home page. He came to Yahoo in 2003 as VP, Communication Products. During his time there, Yahoo! Mail went from No. 3 to leading all competitors by a wide margin, and the company’s instant messaging service rose to become the leader in that market as well. Garlinghouse also oversaw the company’s Flickr photo-sharing service and Yahoo! Groups.

Prior to Yahoo!, Garlinghouse was CEO of Dialpad.com Inc., responsible for all aspects of the company’s operations, finance, sales and marketing. He was also General Partner at @Ventures, Category Manager of Media Development for the @Home Network, Inc., and Manager at SBC Communications.

Garlinghouse, 38, received his BA in economics from the University of Kansas and his MBA from Harvard Business School.

Source: All Things Digital | 7 Sep 2009 | 9:45 pm

Bootstrapping a New Technology?

djk1024 writes "I've just filed for a patent on a new approach to motion capture that is simple, cheap, easy, accurate, and portable. It's RF-based, accurate to 1 mm, and simple enough that a sophisticated hobbyist could build one in a couple weekends from plans and standard electronics. So now what? I quit my job and have been working on this full-time for the past couple of years; now I'm out of money so can't continue development on my own. I'm also not an electrical or RF guy so I can't carry out my own independent development on the electronics. I'm quite frustrated at this point. I've been in the software development field for over 30 years and have gone through a large number of startups, but always just as the head techie, and always as part of a team. This doing it alone sucks. I would love some advice on how best to go forward."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Sep 2009 | 8:03 pm

How to Fix the App Store - BusinessWeek

guardian.co.uk

How to Fix the App Store BusinessWeek The Google Voice stalemate highlights the problems in Apple's iPhone app approval process. Here are some ways Apple can make the process smoother By Arik Hesseldahl Anyone who reads my blog, column, or Tweets—or who calls me for work or any other ... New AT&T specific features rumored for future iPhone updateApple Insider New iPhone software update coming by year's end?FierceDeveloper New AT&T specific iphone features approachingTopNews United States CNNMoney.com -infoSync World -Santa Rosa Press Democrat all 75 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Sep 2009 | 7:49 pm

@BBVBOX: recent guest-tweeted web video picks (boingboingvideo.com)

(Ed. Note: The Boing Boing Video site includes a guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. We'll post roundups here on the motherBoing.)

---

More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com

Source: Boing Boing | 7 Sep 2009 | 7:01 pm

Police Line: Do not cross.

A lovely, noirish tat by the talented skin-n-ink artist David Allen (via Chuck Anderson)


Source: Boing Boing | 7 Sep 2009 | 6:51 pm

Researchers set to test MD compound

University of Illinois researchers will soon test a molecule they say may be a breakthrough in the fight against the most common form of muscular dystrophy. The new compound binds tightly to an abnormally elongated RNA that disrupts normal cellular machinery and brings on symptoms of the disease, myotonic dystrophy type 1, the university, in Champaign, Ill., said in a press release. Myotonic dystrophy type 1 affects about one in 8,000 people.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Sep 2009 | 6:39 pm

Leica X1 details: fixed lens, cropped CMOS sensor

Looks like someone let some more Leica assets go live a bit early. The M9 had its own leak earlier today, and now some more details are out there, this time about the lower-end X1. I’m happy to say the leak exonerates me in my doubt of the previous leak, in which I thought the X1 looked janky.

The previous (and fake if you ask me) leak of the X1 had it with the 24mm 2.8 lens fixed on. That’s a pretty solid call, I’d say. I’m afraid, though, that with a fixed lens I’m just not that attracted to the X1 when there are things like the Panasonic GF-1 just around the corner.

You can get the whole Leica brochure, including many M9 details we’ve already covered, over at Leica Rumors.

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Sep 2009 | 6:00 pm

Google Books As "Train Wreck" For Scholars

Following up on our earlier discussion, here's more detail on Geoffrey Nunberg's argument that Google Books could prove detrimental to academics and other scholars. Recently Nunberg gave a talk at a conference claiming that the metadata in Google Books is riddled with errors and is classified in a scheme unfit for scholarly use. This blog post was fleshed out somewhat a few days later in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Quoting from the latter: "Start with publication dates. To take Google's word for it, 1899 was a literary annus mirabilis, which saw the publication of Raymond Chandler's Killer in the Rain, The Portable Dorothy Parker, [and] Stephen King's Christine... A search on 'internet' in books written before 1950 and turns up 527 hits. ... [Google blames some errors on the originating libraries.] ...the libraries can't be responsible for books mislabeled as Health and Fitness and Antiques and Collectibles, for the simple reason that those categories are drawn from the Book Industry Standards and Communications codes, which are used by the publishers to tell booksellers where to put books on the shelves. ... In short, Google has taken a group of the world's great research collections and returned them in the form of a suburban-mall bookstore." The head of metadata for Google Books, Jon Orwant, has responded in detail to Numberg's complaints in a comment on the original blog post — and says his team has already fixed the errors that Nunberg so helpfully pointed out.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Sep 2009 | 5:52 pm

Canon trash-talking RED? Oh no they di’int

There’s an unconfirmed, unsourced rumor going around of a translated informal conversation with someone who may or may not work in a relevant part of Canon. The rumor states that Canon is confident in its own ability to compete with RED and that they’re “not afraid.” And there isn’t reason to be afraid, at least for products like the 7D. RED’s promise of a “Digital Still/Motion Camera” is still unfulfilled, while Canon has made significant progress with its own DSMC lines.

But unless they’ve got something pretty serious up their sleeves, RED’s Scarlet is still a threat to them, especially in the independent filmmakers market. After all, when you can have 3K digital RAW footage with serious color depth in a package the size of two cans of Sprite, the semi-pro Canon cameras start looking kind of plain. But really, it’s all wild speculation since the actual capabilities and price points haven’t been announced for the Scarlet, and Canon’s ace in the hole, if they have one, is similarly obscure.

The Canon fanboys are going off here, and the RED-heads are going off here. Go forth and flame. (Jannard responds here)

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Sep 2009 | 5:30 pm

Beware the fake WoW beta invite emails

Despite the fact that Blizzard has warned us, there have been some fake beta invite emails starting to go out for the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion, Cataclysm. In fact, they tried to catch the CrunchGear crew this morning with their little fake email and site.

It started out looking legitimate enough; having received emails from Blizzard before, the format and tone looked legitimate. The first clue that something was wrong was when the URL that was shown in the email was different from the one that showed up on the webpage. Not to mention that to the best of my knowledge, “betasignup.com” is not a domain owned by Blizz, or somewhere they would ever send us.

After seeing the wrong URL come up, it was apparent it was a phishing expedition. The design of the page looked good, but when you refresh it, the captcha didn’t change.. Interesting eh? After bypassing the captcha screen, we get to the point: they ask for your account name, email address, and password. The fake site always warns to always check to make sure you are going to the “official” URL - a third different URL from the one included in the original email.

It gets better. After I entered in a fake user ID, password, and email address, the site told me that, “In order to ensure all accepted beta applicants have enough play time on their accounts, a 60 day pre-paid Game card is required.”

Yeah, right.

So not only are these scumbags trying to scam you for your account information, they are also trying to screw you over for a 60 day pre-paid card. Nice eh? This is why I use (and recommend you do too) the Blizzard authenticator. It’s easy to set up, and makes your account completely safe from any and all hacking attempts. There are two versions of the key, a dongle, and a mobile phone software version. The iPhone/iPod touch version is free, and definitely worth your time to set up.

So I hope you didn’t fall for that email. If you did, I suggest you contact Blizzard directly, unless your account is already gone.

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Sep 2009 | 5:00 pm

Lawsuit Claims WGA Is Spyware

twitter writes "Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA), Microsoft's euphemistically named digital restrictions scheme, is the target of another spyware and false advertising lawsuit. 'Microsoft this week was sued in a Washington district court for allegedly violating privacy laws through Windows XP's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) copy protection scheme. Similar to cases filed in 2006, the new class action case accuses Microsoft of falsely representing what information WGA would send to verify the authenticity of Windows and that it would send back information [daily IP address and other details that could be used to trace information back to a home or user]. The complaint further argued that Microsoft portrayed WGA as a necessary security update rather than acknowledge its copy protection nature in the update. WGA's implementation also prevented users from purging the protection from their PCs without completely reformatting a computer's system drive.' There were at least two other lawsuits launched in 2006 over WGA. According to the Wikipedia article, none of them have been resolved. The system is built into Vista and Windows 7."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:43 pm

Squarespace Tries To Attract More Users With New Importing Tool

The blogging space is cluttered with lots of options including WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, MovableType, Squarespace, and many more. Today Squarespace is releasing a new blog importing tool that hopes to attract many bloggers over to Squarespace’s blogging engine. Squarespace had originally provided a simple importing tool to its users.

Squarespace’s new blog importing tool supports most of the main publishing platforms; Wordpress, Blogger, Typepad and Movable Type. After entering your login credentials, the Importer Tool will migrate all of your old blog posts, comments, tags, authors and more to your new Squarespace site. Squarespace is also working directly with Amazon S3 — Squarespace will bring all the media from your old posts and ensure these files are uploaded to Squarespace’s Amazon S3 account. For users who want to retain custom domains, Squarespace will use the URL structure of your existing site and create mappings for every single one of your old posts automatically.

Squarespace’s founder, Anthony Casalena tells us that Squarespace submitted an iPhone application to the App Store two weeks ago, which hasn’t been approved yet and should be coming “soon.” Also, this is the only current way to exit a self-hosted site right now. This importing tool is a big plus for any blogger wanting to move over to Squarespace, because you keep your SEO and page ranks, as well as all your content.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:40 pm

Spy pen for spying on people

Why yes, Mr. Obama, just sign here and we’ll do a the work over at the Watergate for you. Here, take my pen. No, it’s fine. It’s imported. Yes, it’s from China. Our good friends in China.

Would you like to keep it? Feel free. No, it doesn’t contain a 640×480 pixel camera to record video at 30 fps. No, it didn’t cost $14 online. No, no microphone. Don’t worry about that. Just sign here and we can move on from here.

Oh that? That’s a robot that we use to spy on Presidents. Just ignore it.

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:20 pm

Google’s Monopoly: The Board Game, Not Antitrust

Increasingly these days you hear the words “Google” and “monopoly” in the same sentence. There is no shortage of fears that the search giant is getting too powerful in the search and online advertising space. But today, the two words are being joined for an entirely different reason: The board game Monopoly is about to launch an online version with Google Maps.

All the details aren’t clear yet, as the game won’t launch until September 9. But it would appear that Hasbro, makers of the Monopoly game, is attempting to turn the franchise into a massively multi-player online game. Called “Monopoly City Streets,” here’s a brief description that is offered on the teaser site:

The goal is simple. Play to beat your friends and the world to become the richest property magnate in existence.

Own any street in the world. Build humble houses, crazy castles and stupendous skyscrapers to collect rent. Use MONOPOLY Chance Cards to sabotage your mates by building Hazards on their streets.

It’s also not clear if this game will be an official partnership with Google, or if Hasbro is simply using Google Maps APIs. But the tie-in goes a bit deeper, as is revealed on the blog it set up for the game (on yes, Google’s Blogger platform). A post from Friday reads:

We still need 3 new building designs and we’d like YOU to design them!

MONOPOLY and Google SketchUp fans worldwide be sure to check back from next Tuesday 8 September for entry details and the chance to show the world your ultimate 3D building creation.

So it’s not just Google Maps, but also SketchUp that Hasbro is utilizing for this game. The UK’s Guardian is reporting that the game will run for 4 months. They’re also reporting that players starting a new game will get $3 million to play around with.

Without seeing it in action, this sounds like a brilliant idea for a massively multi-player online game. You’ll apparently be able to buy an property in the world. Of course, the social element that links together will be key, and it’s not yet clear what that will be. The Monopoly City Streets blog uses Google Friend Connect, but perhaps the game will have its own social web.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:19 pm

Back to School: Is a Mac the right choice?

FROM APPLETELL - As students head back to school, many have dreams of computers dancing in their heads.  In my experience, the best tool for the job is Apple’s Macbook or MacBook Pro line.
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Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:19 pm

Wordpress.com Enables RSSCloud In Post Feeds

RSSCloud is a new format specification for feeds that solves polling and notification issues. It works by adding a cloud element to a feed which describes the path to a cloud server that should be notified when a feed is updated. The cloud server, in-turn, will send the updated feed content to all subscribers and aggregators. There is a description of this process on the RSSCloud website.

The protocol was designed by Dave Winer, who also drafted the original RSS specification and pioneered the use of feeds as a way to aggregate content. RSSCloud allows feeds to be more responsive and real-time. Rather than a polling model (’are we there yet, are we there yet’), it pushes updates and update notifications down to subscribers via a cloud server and API.

The new protocol took a big step forward today as Wordpress.com enabled the cloud tag on all post feeds (comment feeds will be enabled at some later point). Winer tweeted about it today, and Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg has since confirmed in an email that all Wordpress.com blog feeds now support the tag. If you view the source of a feed on Wordpress, such as this one, you can see the new tag:

<cloud domain='rsscloud.wordpress.com' port='80' path='/?rsscloud=notify' registerProcedure='' protocol='http-post' />

A cloud notification server is defined for each channel in the feed. This now means that client tools that support the new protocol will be pushed updates whenever there is a new post on a Wordpress.com blog that the user has subscribed to.

This could also mean the beginning of a new format war for the real-time web, reminiscent of the old RSS vs Atom battles. Another groups of developers, lead by Brad Fitzpatrick, published a format and cloud hub known as pubsubhubbub, which is now being supported by Google Reader. There is sure to be much discussion of Wordpress.com falling into the RSSCloud camp, and which protocol/format/method etc. is better than the other (a debate we will engage in on this blog, no doubt).

Services such as Twitter and Friendfeed centralize real-time data and updates. RSSCloud and broader support of such a protocol is a step in the direction of decentralizing such services.

Update: The Wordpress.com blog now has a post about the update

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

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:15 pm

A simple how-to on connecting a Wiimote to your Mac or PC

Now before you say something along the lines of “Uh, but why would I want to use a Wiimote when I’ve got a mouse” — no, I’ve changed my mind, go ahead and say it. … … WELL! I will tell you! Recall that your Wiimore and Nunchuk also sport buttons and a very functional analog stick. N64 emulator, anyone?

So getting it working on your computer appears to be quite easy. I’m sure if you’re deep into hacking your gear you’ve already done this, but there are probably a lot of people out there with Wiis and PCs who just didn’t think it was worth the trouble. I don’t know, is three steps trouble?

1. Make sure you’ve got a compatible Bluetooth unit. Dongles work well, but internal ones are less reliable in this case.

2. Make sure you have a complete, compatible Bluetooth stack; it seems likely that a Bluetooth dongle will come with an installer for one of these.

3. Get control software — Windows, Mac — and run the included script for Nintendo controllers.

Boom, you’re done. It should detect your Wiimote as a standard controller and you’ll be climbing Bob-omb Mountain in no time at all. A Reddit commenter notes that it’s significantly easier than described when you’re on Ubuntu, simply run wminput -d and sync with buttons 1 and 2.

[via Reddit]

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Sep 2009 | 4:00 pm

New Wheel of Time Book — Chapter One Online, Released Oct 27

Tor Books has made the first chapter of the latest Wheel of Time book available to readers for free via their website. This is the first book to have work from Robert Jordan's replacement, Brandon Sanderson, since Jordan died in September of 2007. The Gathering Storm is complete and will be released on October 27th of this year. In addition, the prologue to this book will be available in e-book format on October 17th for $2.99. The whole of the Wheel of Time series will also be released as e-books with several of the books receiving new cover art as well. Update: 09/07 23:42 GMT by KD : Reader Daniel Benamy points out that the correct release date for the prologue e-book is September 17.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Sep 2009 | 3:21 pm

Leak shows HP considering mobile core i7 laptop, among others

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Netbooks

HP looks to be the first manufacturer to use the new Intel Mobile Core i7 CPU.  In a pair of leaks from the company, we now know that not only is HP looking at the core i7, but is also working on a Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) laptop, a new Compaq netbook, and finally a new Voodoo laptop.

The biggest laptop of the leaks is the HP Pavilion dv8, which will come equipped with the mobile Core i7.  The 18.1-inch laptop will serve as a desktop replacement, and have the CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz when using all 4 cores, or 2.8 GHz when using only 2 cores.  It’s expected that the laptop will come with 4 GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive, and 640 GB of storage.  It would make sense for the dv8 to have more available storage and RAM, but just having the mobile Core i7 makes it impressive.

For the CULV laptops, there appears to be the dm2 and dm3 (pictured), both of which will feature 11.6-inch screens and 1.2 GHz processors.  They’ll likely come with prices and specs that place them just above netbooks.  The new Compaq netbook looks to stand at 11.6 inches for the screen, with nearly standard netbook specs with the added bonus of NVIDIA’s Ion LE netbook graphics chip.  Not much is known about the new Voodoo laptop, the Envy 15, but it will most likely be similar to the Envy 133, have better specs, a 15-inch screen, and probably still drool-worthy.

Keep in mind that these leaks are always subject to change.  That doesn’t make them any less interesting, but it’s possible that these machines could change between now and the time they’re released.  Hopefully by then HP will make a mobile Core i7 laptop that isn’t ginormous.

Read [Electronista]

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Sep 2009 | 3:00 pm

Buzz grows ahead of Apple media event (AFP)

AFP - Will it be upgraded iPods? The Beatles finally coming to iTunes? A tablet computer? An appearance by Steve Jobs?

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Sep 2009 | 2:39 pm

How Hollywood Tie-Ins Saved Lego

MBCook writes "The New York Times published an article on Saturday profiling Lego, and how tie-ins with movies have helped save the company. 'Even as other toymakers struggle, this Danish maker of toy bricks is enjoying double-digit sales gains and swelling earnings. In recent years, Lego has increasingly focused on toys that many parents wouldn't recognize from their own childhood. Hollywood themes are commanding more shelf space, a far cry from the idealistic, purely imagination-oriented play that drove Lego for years and was as much a religion as a business strategy in Billund.' The article also mentions coming Lego Stores, a Lego board game, how Lego now allows sets with violence (like a gun for Indiana Jones), and how since 2004 Lego has cut part count nearly in half by encouraging re-use of parts and stopping one-off pieces."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Sep 2009 | 2:00 pm

Asus Eee-reader to open like a book - CNET News

Geeky gadgets

Asus Eee-reader to open like a book CNET News This image, which appears to be a conceptual drawing, shows an Asus e-reader with a backbone. We're getting more details about that upcoming Asus Eee-book reader we told you about last month. The company is looking at two versions: ... Asus set to enter ebook marketAfterdawn.com Asus 'Eee Reader' to Join E-Reader Fray, says ReportPC World Netbook-Creator Asus to Launch Game-Changing e-ReadereWeek VentureBeat -Techtree.com -TopNews United States all 73 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Sep 2009 | 1:50 pm

Half Of Global Fish Consumed Now Farm Raised

Aquaculture, once a fledgling industry, now accounts for 50 percent of the fish consumed globally, according to a new report by an international team of researchers.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Sep 2009 | 1:36 pm

Genomes Reveal Bacterial Lifestyles

Provides tool for tracking environmental changeIn line with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) interest in characterizing the biotic factors involved in global carbon cycling, the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) characterizes a diverse array of plants, microorganisms, and the communities in which they reside to inform options for reducing and stabilizing atmospheric greenhouse gases.Through a novel genomic approach detailed in the September 7 online edition and on the cover September 14 of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, an international team of scientists led by the University of New South Wales and the DOE JGI demonstrates how the microbial diversity of the oceans can be analyzed without necessarily cultivating samples in the laboratory."The model we describe is useful in studying whole marine microbial communities, or metagenomes, to better understand how communities in specific locations are evolving," said senior author Rick Cavicchioli of the University of New South Wales. "In essence, by analyzing and comparing the strategies of the dominant organisms we should have an idea of the carbon flux going through the environment which in turn will be affected by global warming.The oceans, which make up 71 percent of our planet's surface, are home to microorganisms that are adapted to life strategies along a continuum of two extremes: those that thrive in nutrient-rich waters often associated with warmer regions and those that prefer nutrient-poor waters. Collected from waters off the Alaskan coast, the bacterium Sphingopyxis alaskensis was sequenced by the DOE JGI under the DOE's plan to study the biochemical pathways in microbial genomes and lay the groundwork for technologies based on that data which might be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This bacterium, which has a nutrient-poor lifestyle, serves as a model microorganism that thrives in low-nutrient waters and is key to carbon sequestration in the oceans.Cavicchioli and his lab compared the traits of S. alaskensis' genome against the genome of Photobacterium angustum, a bacterium collected and sequenced from the warmer, nutrient-rich waters off Sydney, Australia. They then tested the model developed based on these two genomes to successfully predict whether several dozen bacterial samples were those that grow in nutrient-rich environments like P. angustum or under nutrient-poor conditions, like S. alaskensis.The researchers' findings also supported a long-held theory that though more microbial genome projects involve bacteria adapted to more nutrient-rich environments, in part because they are easier to cultivate, bacteria like S. alaskensis are more representative of microorganisms that are abundant and ecologically significant in the biosphere. DOE JGI Genome Biology Program head and study co-author Nikos Kyrpides said the finding supports the need to develop better techniques to isolate such microorganisms from nutrient-poor environments and sequence their genomes in order to better reflect the microbial biodiversity."The method used by Cavicchioli's group to predict bacterial habits lends credence to the idea that sequencing cultivated organisms is biased toward sequencing those that thrive in nutrient-rich conditions, even though those that get by in nutrient-poor conditions are more abundant in the environment," Kyrpides said. "Despite the number of microbial genome projects being done, these organisms represent just a fraction of the microbial diversity on the planet. To sequence microbial genomes that are representative of the environments in which they were collected and for a more systematic and comprehensive sampling of the Tree of Life, researchers need to increasingly develop and rely on other techniques such as single-cell sequencing to isolate DNA samples from harder-to-cultivate microbes residing in environments where nutrients are scarce."Kyrpides' words were echoed by DOE JGI collaborator Ramunas Stepanauskas of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, who said the model developed by Cavicchioli's team supports his own group's use of cultivation-independent, single-cell sequencing of marine microbes. "What the Australian group together with the DOE JGI has demonstrated is a more rigorous way of testing the long-standing notion that cultured microorganisms are biased toward the species that are adapted to nutrient-rich environments, which is, in effect an over-representation of their true abundance in the biosphere," he said. "Using their model, we can demonstrate that novel research tools, such as metagenomics and single-cell genomics, provide us with data of ecological relevance without biases due to microbial adaptations to incredibly diverse life strategies."Cavicchioli said the researchers plan to apply the model to studying the microbial communities' relationships with climate change. As an example, he cites the end of phytoplankton bloom, which is believed to be relatively nutrient rich even in the absence of a chlorophyll spike. "A natural extension is to assess and monitor gene function," he said. "Now that we know 'who' is present, and what their 'lifestyle' is, we can ask, what exactly are they doing – assessing function."Other authors on the study include DOE JGI's Alla Lapidus, Iain Anderson, A. Christine Munk, Chris Detter and Cliff Han. Other collaborating institutions are the J. Craig Venter Institute, the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and Istanbul University (Turkey).---Image 1: This is the lower half of Alaska's Resurrection Bay, where the bacterium S. alaskensis was isolated. Credit: US Geological Survey/photo by Bruce F. MolniaImage 2: This 2-D map shows clusters of organisms used in the study. The distance between colors is proportional to how different they are from each other, while the size of each black dot is proportional to the number of genomes occupying a cell in the map. Blue represents organisms that are adapted to extremely nutrient-poor environments while red represents organisms that are adapted to extremely nutrient-rich environments with a range of other colors representing intermediate strategies. Credit: Image generated by Dr. Federico Lauro and Dr. Matthew Z. DeMaere, University of New South Wales.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Sep 2009 | 1:20 pm

C64 Emulator Finally Approved For iPhone

Gi0 writes "After a couple of months of rejection, the C64 Emulator has finally been approved for the iPhone (and is available at the app store now). 'BASIC has been removed for this release; however, we hope that working with Apple further will allow us to re-enable it. Despite its absence, BASIC is not our focus; ultimately, fans of the C64 want games.' It comes with 5 bundled games and will certainly give you that retro fix for your iPhone."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Sep 2009 | 1:17 pm

Monster stays starstruck: Adds “Heartbeats by Lady Gaga” to Beats by Dr. Dre line

Section: Audio, Headphones, Portable Audio

Monster, makers of pricey cables and other home theater accessories, teamed with Dr. Dre to come out with Beats by Dr. Dre specialty headphones and ear buds.  Now, the line just got larger with the introduction of “Heartbeats by Lady Gaga.”

These headphones are marketed to the fashion conscious with a unique diamond-like shape for the earbuds.  Additionally, the Heartbeats will be available in three colors: black, red, and silver.  There will be several variations on these headphones with prices ranging from $99.95 to $149.95.  They will also have Monster’s “ControlTalk” which is a built in mic and remote for several iPods including the iPhone 3GS and the buttonless iPod shuffle. 

“Heartbeats by Lady Gaga are holistically designed to deliver the soundtrack of your life with clarity and power, as well as satisfy your passion for fashion.”

You’ve got to love ad copy sometimes.  Monster went all out on this one. The Hearbeats will be available in October, 2009. 

Product Site: [Heartbeats by Lady Gaga]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Sep 2009 | 1:00 pm

Rumor: Palm Pre getting a price cut?

Palm picked a pretty nasty time to stage their own revival. Smartphone prices are plummeting. If an iPhone 3G S at $199 wasn’t enough, HTC’s Hero for Sprint further mucks things up by coming in at just $180. The only choice Sprint and Palm have at this point is to undercut everyone - and it looks like they’re about to.

PreCentral just got a tip containing a brand new pricing sheet for an unnamed retailer, with prices apparently good from tomorrow (9/8) till the end of October. Follow the trails until “Net price to Consumer after MIR” and “Palm Pre” cross, and there it is: $149.99.

That’s a full $50 bucks off the current going price, dropping the cost of entry by right around 25%. What do you say, Palm-holdouts: is that enough

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