If you are the curious type (and it has been proven that, along with possessing above-average intelligence, Gadget Lab readers are as curious as up to nine cats), you’ll be wondering why on Earth somebody would put an LED light in a clothespin. Is it for the nocturnal hanging of washing? Is it to be combined with mothballs to attract the flapping moon-fanciers to your clothes and then immediately repel them, thus creating a perpetual motion machine from the poor creatures?
No. The Lighting Pin has nothing to do with clothes, and everything to do with pin. Or clip, if you prefer. When you see the pictures, you will utter an “ahhh” of realization. The peg is simply a clip on light, a household version of the garage-bound inspection lamp, and when used to hold together the seams of a rolled tube of paper, it becomes an instant, mini, table lamp.
Can you buy it? Sadly, no. Can we link you directly to the product page? Of course not, silly. As part of a designer’s portfolio, Internet Law dictates the site be constructed in hard to navigate, impossible to link, processor-cycle-hungry Flash. Thanks!
Reuters - More than half of European websites selling consumer electronics are misleading or cheating online shoppers, the European Union consumer watchdog said on Wednesday after checks on 369 sites in 28 countries. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:28 am
We’re still hours away from Apple’s event today in San Francisco, but that apparently hasn’t stopped the company from releasing some changes in its own store. The main thing to note is the prices of the various iPod lines, especially the iPod touch.
Yesterday, a 32 GB iPod touch was $399. Today? $279. Yesterday, a 16 GB version was $299. Today? $249. The 8GB one is now only $189, down from $229. The nanos are falling as well, with the 16 GB version now only $149, and the 8 GB only $129, down from $199 and $149, respectively. The iPod classic has seen a $20 price cut.
These price cuts were, of course, expected, and very likely point to a new 64 GB iPod touch being unveiled tomorrow in the $399 price point. Significantly, this means that the iPod touch is now cheaper than the high-end Zune HD, set to be released next week. The 32GB model will be $289.99, roughly $10 more expensive then the 32 GB iPod touch, now.
Normally, Apple takes down the store to make these changes, but didn’t tonight for whatever reason. Consider it a teaser of what’s to come.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Sept 9 (Reuters) - Aesthetic laser device maker Syneron Medical Ltd said it agreed to buy rival Candela Corp in an all-stock deal valued at about $65 million. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:14 am
Reuters - Fans of the Beatles queued on Wednesday to buy the band's collected works on a new set of discs and get their hands on an animated video game featuring some of the Fab Four's greatest hits . Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:05 am
Google employs about 20,000 people, and I don’t expect to write a storyeverytimeoneleaves. That said, here’s another one: Michael Rubenstein, who ran DoubleClick’s ad exchange unit and who was running the same project after Google bought his old employer last year, has left “to pursue another opportunity”.
I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to find out what Rubenstein is doing next*. Google hasn’t filled his slot but is looking externally for a candidate, I’m told. His former boss, DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt, left in May.
Rubenstein’s departure is worth noting because the unit he’s been overseeing is small now, but could be important for the ad giant’s future. Google (GOOG) hasn’t formally unveiled its exchange, which is supposed to bring together ad buyers and sellers in the same way that a stock exchange does, but industry folks are already using it on an invitation-only basis. (Google’s “real time” ad bidding system, which is on a separate but parallel as the exchange, is also an open non-secret in the ad tech world).
*Are you Michael Rubenstein, or are you someone who knows what Michael Rubenstein is doing next? Great. Please drop me a line at peter@allthingsd.com, or use the blind tip box here.
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Saturation in the Latin American mobile services markets has encouraged participants in some regions to seek alternative sources... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
One of the First Partners on Talent Grid; World's First Cloud Community for Talent Management SAN RAMON, Calif., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- eQuest, the global leader in job... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
Use of Online Resources Can Shorten Job Hunt PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- 3Away announced today the release of "Social Networking for Job Seekers" webinar... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
BEIJING, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Changyou.com Limited ("Changyou" or the "Company") (Nasdaq: CYOU), a leading online game developer and operator in Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
New Cell Site Means Clearer Reception, Fewer Dropped Calls KALKASKA, Mich., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Verizon Wireless has activated a new cell site in Kalkaska County, which Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
MUMBAI, India, September 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - The Kenya IP PoP Will Link East African Users to Europe and South Africa as well as to Asia and India... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 4:00 am
It's the night before an Apple event. You know, the time just before the Apple Store being down sends ripples of excitement through the blogosphere. Now's a time for one last reflection on the finalized... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:56 am
It’s the night before an Apple event. You know, the time just before the Apple Store being down sends ripples of excitement through the blogosphere. Now’s a time for one last reflection on the finalized rumors laid out in the past several hours. But I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to talk about expectations.
I’ve been to all but one of the past two years worth of Apple events. And for the several years prior to that, I followed along online on sites like this one, with the rest of you. These past two years there has been a noticeable trend immediately following these events: Disappointment.
Now, the degree of disappointment varies, but there always seems to be an overall feeling that people are walking away unsatisfied in some way. The reason for this is obvious: Apple is a victim of its own success. It has spent so many years doing large keynote addresses with “one more thing…” that when it has more recently tried to scale back its events a bit, the public was left expecting the same string of “wows.”
And of course, Steve Jobs has taken a major step back recently from these events due to his health situation, but even before he left, the “wows” seemed to be not as plentiful as in years past. I can’t even recall the last time there was a true “one more thing…” (maybe the Apple TV, then called iTV?) and the last major new product that seemed to draw out the “wows” was probably the MacBook Air — which was unveiled in January 2008.
But I’m not sure I would even count that as a truly “wow” moment. The talk of that product leaked out in the days leading up to the event, and if anything, the “wows” seemed to come from Jobs’ brilliant display of showmanship by bringing the machine out on the stage in a manilla envelope.
And the year before that, we of course had the iPhone. That was really a “wow” moment, but again, there had been not shortage of talk about it, leading up to the unveiling. No matter which way you slice it, that takes away some of the “wow” effect.
And let’s remember, both of those two previous examples were during the keynote of Macworld, a large event. Apple is no longer participating in Macworld, and instead is now focusing more on these smaller events, with WWDC likely to be its largest of the year. The biggest cheers at this year’s WWDC were probably for the price of Snow Leopard (a product Apple itself had already previewed the previous year), and the new features of the iPhone (which Apple previously had unveiled at its iPhone 3.0 event). The new iPhone 3GS was the main event, but everyone already knew basically everything about it beforehand.
The biggest surprise may have been the $99 iPhone. Which again, wasn’t all that surprising.
My point is that in this day and age, it’s simply very, very hard for any company, even Apple, to keep new products a secret. And because the blogosphere has grown to the size that it now is, the news of new products penetrate the mass media. Sure, some product rumors are bogus. But anyone who follows this stuff closely enough can pretty accurately guess what is coming when Apple takes the stage.
Let’s try it. What are we going to see tomorrow? iPods with cameras, iPod storage increases with price cuts, iTunes 9, and the “Cocktail” albums. There are various sources on all of that stuff (with iTunes 9 probably being the shakiest), and all seem like sure bets, and seem like exactly what we’re going to get.
But still, whether we admit it or not, we’re all holding out hope for that “one more thing…” Some want it to be the tablet, some want new Apple TVs, some wants products we’ve never even heard of. The likelihood of any of those? Very, very small.
I’m no different. I write about my desire for The Beatles on iTunes, and dreams of iTunes going to the cloud. Neither are going to happen tomorrow, but I still hold out hope. And that, in turn, leads to some level of disappointment when the show wraps.
And I’m fine with working myself up to be let down, because I know that most of these things we dream about will be a reality in the future (the tablet, The Beatles on iTunes). And I enjoy thinking about the future. But I know that many of you work yourselves up with this huge expectations and then are pissed off when Apple doesn’t meet them. “New iPods, that’s all?”
Apple still certainly has the ability to surprise, because Steve Jobs is known to make product unveiling decisions at the last second. But in recent years, we’ve known about all of the products beforehand, even the ones he chooses not to go with. That’s hardly Apple’s fault, they’d have to develop a product with absolutely no outside help in order to truly keep something on lockdown these days. And considering that not even Apple has the capacity to make every single thing it needs internally, that’s going to be very hard to achieve ever again.
The bigger picture is that by continually waiting to be surprised at these events, we often overlook some of the subtle and interesting things Apple is doing with its products. That will probably be the case again tomorrow. I’m going to try to remember that, but I probably won’t be able to get some damn Beatles song out of my head.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunchMobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Reelight, the Danish maker of magnet-powered LED bike lights, has announced a new handlebar-mounted version of its set-and-forget lamp.
I have had a pair of Reelights (the SteadyLight) on my city bike for almost a year and I love them. They don’t buzz and grind and slow you down like a bottle-dynamo rubbing the wheel, they’re glowing all the time you are riding, so you can never forget to switch them on, and they are utilitarian enough not to be a thief-magnet.
The one problem is that they sit down by the wheel hubs. The lights work by generating energy from magnets hooked onto the spokes. As the magnets are near the hubs, so are the lights, and down there they aren’t as noticeable as they could be.
The new lamps have a cable running from the generator to the light, which now sits up high. Same battery-free lights, same always-on behavior, only now you can see them properly. If these work as well as the regular low-riding Reelights, and you don’t care about bolting bits to, and running cables around, your bike, there is no reason not to buy a pair.
TweetDeck is the most popular desktop Twitter client and is racing Seesmic to see who can be the most innovative social media browser across multiple social networks. TweetDeck will release the latest... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:39 am
It is almost certain that today’s new iPods will gain a camera, bringing the iPhone 3GS’s best new feature to the plebeian masses. But what if you are stuck with the old model or worse - gasp - you foolishly bought an iPod Touch within the last few weeks? You can roll your own camera.
Forget about auto-focus, fixed-focus or size limits on emailed photos. With the iPod1 Pinhole camera, you don’t have to worry about any of these. You don’t even need an iPod — Flickr-er Wheehamx, who made this camera, used an iPod Touch box donated by his son.
The setup is simple, with a metal plate forming the pinhole and a lens cap and step-ring closing off the hole to form a “shutter”. A pair of internal wooden strips and screws let this camera take a roll of 120 film and Wheehamx even added a little transparent red plastic covered window to use as a frame counter.
How many megapixels does this camera have? None, technically, but the resolution is way higher than your average camera-phone, and the pinhole gives almost infinite depth of field for front-to-back sharpness. If you’re thinking about making one, do it quick before apple inevitably reduces the size of the packaging yet again and you’re forced to use - horror - 35mm film.
During the video interview with OpenID evangelist Chris Messina I recorded earlier this year at a German conference about the state of OpenID, he expressed his wish that the Obama administration would soon start to embrace the decentralized, single sign-on method as a way for citizens to engage with the U.S. government online. Four months later, it looks like his dreams are becoming reality.
Later this morning at the Gov 2.0 Summit, Federal Government CIO Vivek Kundra will talk about data.gov and other governmental transparency initiatives, and will also be making an announcement regarding the launch of a open identity initiative featuring the use of both OpenID and InfoCards in a special pilot program.
Make no mistake about it: this has the potential to change the way citizens participate in and communicate with the U.S. government.
The OpenID Foundation has recently published a letter from executive director Don Thibeau as well as a fairly detailed white paper (PDF) on the subject of open frameworks for open governments that you might want to read for background. While the ‘Participating Providers in the U.S. Government Pilot Program’ section on the OpenID Foundation’s website hasn’t gone live yet, the Information Card Foundation provides more details about the pilot program on its blog.
Google, Yahoo, PayPal, AOL, VeriSign, Citi, Equifax, Acxiom, Privo and Wave Systems will be the ten organizations to act as digital identity providers using OpenID and Information Card technologies in the first pilot programs designed for the American public to engage in open government. Representatives from the companies had met with government IT officials early August to engage in talks about the initiative, which ReadWriteWeb caught wind of at the time.
The programs are being conducted by the Center for Information Technology (CIT), National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and related agencies. The participating companies are said to be getting certification under non-discriminatory open trust frameworks developed under collaboration between the OpenID Foundation (OIDF) and the Information Card Foundation (ICF) and reviewed by the federal government.
As an example, we have learned that VeriSign – a founding member of the OpenID Foundation – will serve as an identity provider for a pilot program with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the US Department of Health and Human Services and regarded as one of the world’s foremost medical research centers as well as the Federal focal point for health research. Thanks to this implementation, citizens will be able to more easily provide input on public policy and access their own tax and Social Security records with OpenID:
In essence, this initiative will help transform government websites from basic “brochureware” into interactive resources, saving individuals time and increasing their direct involvement in governmental decision making. OpenID and Information Card technologies make such interactive access simple and safe. For example, in the coming months the NIH intends to use OpenID and Information Cards to support a number of services including customized library searches, access to training resources, registration for conferences, and use of medical research wikis, all with strong privacy protections.
Dr. Jack Jones, NIH CIO and Acting Director, CIT, notes, “As a world leader in science and research, NIH is pleased to participate in this next step for promoting collaboration among Assurance Level 1 applications. Initially, the NIH Single Sign-on service will accept credentials as part of an “Open For Testing” phase, with full production expected within the next several weeks. At that time, OpenID credentials will join those currently in use from InCommon, the higher education identity management federation, as external credentials trusted by NIH.”
Likely, we’ll learn more from Vivek Kundra’s scheduled speech at the Gov 2.0 Summit later today, but one thing is crystal clear: this is a big win for both the OpenID Foundation and the Information Card Foundation.
Who would have predicted say, 5 years ago, that you would some day be able to use commercial identities on government websites? Evidently, this raises questions about privacy and security but if these initiatives can garner enough public support, government validation of open identity frameworks could be a boon for the ecosystem of the open, distributed web. Plus, it can make dealing with the government a lot easier for you, too.
During the video interview with OpenID evangelist Chris Messina I recorded earlier this year at a German conference about the state of OpenID, he expressed his wish that the Obama administration would... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:23 am
EthanV2 sends in BBC coverage of the merger plans of Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. "T-Mobile and Orange plan to merge their UK businesses, creating a mobile phone giant with 28.4 million customers. If completed, a deal between Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile and Orange owner France Telecom would see a firm with sales of €9.4 B (£7.0 B, $13.4 B). It would be the UK's largest provider, overtaking Telefonica's O2, with about 37% of the mobile market. ... However, it is likely that competition authorities in the UK and EU will probe the deal."
Japan is the nation of robots. Everybody knows that. It’s also the nation of cell phones. So why not mix robots and cell phones? That’s what the country’s second biggest mobile phone provider KDDI au thought and today presents the iida Polaris, a robotic cell phone [link in English], for the first time (click here for my iida concept photo report from April).
Truth be told, the Polaris looks more like a cell phone installed in a dock and it’s just a concept, but it’s pretty and makes more sense than Sony’s Rolly. The idea is to offer some kind of life recorder that monitors your health, by processing diet data, keeping a record of your physical activity, giving tips on when and what to eat etc. KDDI au has been jointly developed with another company called Flower Robotics (which recently gave us the mannequin robot).
And it does that in a supposedly “intelligent” way, meaning the Polaris “learns” over time and is able to adjust to your personal lifestyle.
Watch the (pretty cool) video embedded below to get an idea how this is supposed to work one day in the future. I want this thing to fly next to me when I leave the house.
LTE User Equipment Software Suite: Aricent's LTE UE Software Suite is a complete software package for device and semi-conductor vendors including fully optimized Layer 1, Layer 2 protocol software with support for 100 Mbps downlink and 50 Mbps uplink data rates. The implementation ensures optimal power consumption, processor utilization and easy integration on multiple hardware platforms.eNodeB Protocol Stacks and Framework: Aricent's existing eNodeB offering provides a turnkey solution for radio access, from pluggable stack software to a pre-integrated and optimized software frameworks for Radio Access equipment, that have been benchmarked on multiple industry leading hardware platforms. Aricent's eNodeB Framework (eNBF) serves as a robust software platform for infrastructure providers planning to develop a complete LTE Release 8+ compliant eNodeB of varying densities (macro/pico/femto).IP Backhaul: Aricent's IP Backhaul solution is based on its industry-proven ISS Metro platform which offers pre-integrated Layer 2 switching solutions and can be used to build LTE and IP backhaul devices such as IP RAN Aggregation devices, Internet Offload Gateways, and Metro Ethernet devices.Evolved Packet Core Protocol Stacks and Framework: Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am
ShoreTel((R)), Inc. (Nasdaq: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified Communications, Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2009 | 3:00 am
LONDON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly one year after the start of the economic crisis, the European mobile industry still faces a period of uncertainty. Despite some positive signs, European economies are not out of the woods yet and consumers' confidence remains low. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:54 am
Oh, BoomTown fears this is not going to end well for the weensy little smart phone that Palm is debuting today on–what an amazing coincidence!–the very same day that Apple is throwing its big product bash in San Francisco, at which Mac fanboys fervently hope that its Supreme Leader Steve Jobs might even appear.
You don’t step on the Superman of Silicon Valley’s cape, of course, but the device with the aggressively cute name of Pixi is apparently attempting just that.
Thus, this fairytale might have a not-so-happy ending.
In any case–reminding BoomTown simultaneously of an unfortunate haircut I had at seven years old, those sticky sticks of powdered candy and, of course, Tinkerbell–Pixi seems to be a smaller, less featured and cheaper version of the Palm (PALM) Pre device.
Except super adorably skinny and featuring Sex-and-the-City style fashionable back covers by artists.
(Paging Roger McNamee: Where is the mirror, please, because–as you insisted to me in an interview at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference, the ladies love it!)
Pixi uses the Palm webOS platform and other software from third-parties, such as Facebook and Yahoo (YHOO).
The Pixi is seen here trying to flirt with a manly cup of coffee, with more images posted below, which you can click on to make larger–although not much larger since it is a pixie, for goodness sake!
Palm said the Pixi is scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays (you can read more details in the full press release below).
But the launch today is clearly a happily-ever-after play–one that will surely cause Palm to catch all kinds of flack, if anyone actually pays any sustained attention today to Pixi, given the outsized focus on whatever innovation the the iPod or iPhone or iTunes that Apple (AAPL) might or might not announce.
And, if Jobs does appear, all geek hell is sure to break loose and Palm staff can pretty much quit for the day and go see “Julie & Julia” to familiarize themselves with the Pixi demographic.
By way of explanation, a Palm source wrote in an email to me last night, “timing’s a funny thing,” noting this event has been long planned to align with the demo debut of Pixi at Palm-sponsored Fashion Week in New York next week.
While one has to admire its miniscule chutzpah at going up against the Jobs-fueled juggernaut–a move even Google (GOOG) mobile plotter-in-chief Vic Gundotra wouldn’t attempt so overtly–let’s not hope the Pixi gets lost in the Apple sauce.
(Okay, sue me, but that line was too good to resist.)
Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips
Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sep 09, 2009 (BUSINESS WIRE)–Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ:PALM) today introduced the Palm(R) Pixi(TM) phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS(TM) platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.
“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”
In addition to linking your information from Google(TM), Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy(TM) and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk(TM) or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)
Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.
Personalization with Style
For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).
You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp(TM).(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)
“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”
The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.
Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.
Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.
Palm Pixi Features
* High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
* 2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
* Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
* Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
* Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
* High-performance, desktop-class web browser
* Integrated GPS(8)
* Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
* Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
* Bluetooth(R) 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
* 8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
* USB mass storage mode
* MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
* The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627(TM) chipset
* Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
* Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
* Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
* Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
* Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
* Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
* Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
* Sprint services, including Sprint TV(R) and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live
Availability and Pricing
The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.
In addition, effective today the Palm Pre(TM) phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.
NOTE TO EDITORS: Photos and video are available from Palm’s media gallery at www.palm.com/mml.
Please add the tag #Palm #Pixi to your tweets or “Palm Pixi” to your blog posts about the all-new Palm Pixi phone running on Palm webOS, and follow Palm on Twitter at www.twitter.com/palm.
(1) Within wireless coverage area only. Email, mobile number, and related information required for setup and activation. Required data plan not included; unlimited plan strongly recommended.
(2) Limitations apply. Layered calendars and linked contacts for Outlook require Exchange ActiveSync and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or later, sold separately.
(3) Within wireless coverage area only.
(4) Performance varies based upon actual usage.
(5) Third-party software available separately. Within wireless coverage area only.
(6) Compatible with iTunes 8.2.1 on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X version 10.3.9-10.5.7. Within wireless coverage area only. Music sold separately. Please respect copyright laws when downloading music.
(7) “Dependable” based on independent, third-party drive tests for 3G data connection success, session reliability and signal strength for the top 50 most populous markets from Jan. ‘08 to Feb. ‘09. Not all services available on 3G and coverage may default to separate network when 3G unavailable.
(8) Coverage not available in all areas at all times.
(9) Outlook requires Exchange ActiveSync and Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 or later, sold separately.
By Andrew Liszewski Every so often it’s nice to review a gadget that’s devoid of firmware updates, software installs, driver issues, DRM, rechargeable batteries and other headaches that prevent... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:39 am
(TrendHunter.com) Kanye West and Ashton Kutcher were part of an epic high five battle that saw 75 Ashtons and Kanyes "Exploit Chaos" in Toronto's Dundas Square. The "Kanye vs Ashton" high fiving feud... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:38 am
By Evan Ackerman Hard on the heels of the Nerf Vulcan EBF-25 is the Nerf Raider CS-35, a semi-automatic Nerf gun that makes use of an honest-to-goodness drum magazine, which manages to cram 35 darts into... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:37 am
When in the course of human events people lose their jobs and their ways to pay for bags of random stuff and close-out smoke detectors, it behooves all good men to approach shopping site Woot.com with... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:35 am
When in the course of human events people lose their jobs and their ways to pay for bags of random stuff and close-out smoke detectors, it behooves all good men to approach shopping site Woot.com with trepidation and distrust. The result? A steady decline in traffic from the post-holiday period of 2009 until about May 2009. Now, however, that is changing. If I can draw your attention to this graph, you’ll notice that yes, traffic is going up. Everything is going to be OK.
The general trend at Woot has been heading down since 2008 and seems to be rolling back up this summer. Obviously none of this stuff is set in stone and absolutely accurate but it’s fairly clear that Woot is turning around. But what does this mean?
Woot is obviously cyclical and is a direct pointer to the pocket change of a certain technical class who may be interested in lasers and walkie-talkies from China that didn’t sell. That said, one would assume said walkie-talkies would be more desirable when you’re in a job than when you’re out of one and/or when you have a little disposable income.
So to recap: Woot traffic took a dive in January and is slowly creeping up. This means it is more popular. As it is a shopping site I suspect the folks visiting aren’t like street urchins in some Victorian novel, their noses pressed up against the glass of a sweet shop dreaming of toffees and crumbles. They are actually shopping.
In short, while I wouldn’t stake my dissertation on this trend, Woot’s ability to predict a financial rebound should not be dismissed and that trend is going up. Also they’re selling a Bluetooth headset with case right now for $30 clams. Not a bad price.
[Thanks, Thomas!]
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
We’re shocked (shocked!) that yes, Twitter is broken again. Once again, rather than the Fail Whale, it’s been getting the annoyingly bland 503 error on and off all night. And while the service may appear to be up for you, it may be an illusion. Despite the frontend fading in and out of existence, new tweets aren’t being reliably passed through as of right now. And third-party services getting data through the APIs are seeing delays.
But while a lot of these Twitter issues are old hat, and far from shocking, today brought about a couple new annoying issue from the service.
The winner: Because Twitter is now tracking all outbound links, and having these 503 errors, a huge number of links that would normally have been working today were caught up in the 503 errors, and seemed to be broken. They weren’t, Twitter is.
The runner-up: Twitter’s @reply sidebar button was more or less broken the entire day. Sometimes it would work, but more often then not it would just keep on spinning, without serving up any results.
Fun times, especially when you’re trying to test Twitter-based services to write up. That new datacenter is supposedly up and running, but for some reason Twitter is not. Let’s see how she does during the Apple keynote tomorrow.
[thanks Josh and Wally]
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
We're shocked (shocked!) that yes, Twitter is broken again. Once again, rather than the Fail Whale, it's been getting the annoyingly bland 503 error on and off all night. And while the service may appear... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:33 am
By David Ponce A simple stainless steel creation by Scandinavian designer Maria Kivijrvi, the Cake Server could replace your current wedge-shaped cake cutter (or even more primitive knife) with this more... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:31 am
When in the course of human events people lose their jobs and their ways to pay for bags of random stuff and close-out smoke detectors, it behooves all good men to approach shopping site Woot.com with trepidation and distrust. The result? A steady decline in traffic from the post-holiday period of 2009 until about May 2009. Now, however, that is changing. If I can draw your attention to this graph, you’ll notice that yes, traffic is going up. Everything is going to be OK.
The general trend at Woot has been heading down since 2008 and seems to be rolling back up this summer. Obviously none of this stuff is set in stone and absolutely accurate but it’s fairly clear that Woot is turning around. But what does this mean?
Woot is obviously cyclical and is a direct pointer to the pocket change of a certain technical class who may be interested in lasers and walkie-talkies from China that didn’t sell. That said, one would assume said walkie-talkies would be more desirable when you’re in a job than when you’re out of one and/or when you have a little disposable income.
So to recap: Woot traffic took a dive in January and is slowly creeping up. This means it is more popular. As it is a shopping site I suspect the folks visiting aren’t like street urchins in some Victorian novel, their noses pressed up against the glass of a sweet shop dreaming of toffees and crumbles. They are actually shopping.
In short, while I wouldn’t stake my dissertation on this trend, Woot’s ability to predict a financial rebound should not be dismissed and that trend is going up. Also they’re selling a Bluetooth headset with case right now for $30 clams. Not a bad price.
Ahhh, just what the doctor ordered: Logitech just released a wireless guitar controller that looks like a kinda-sorta Superstrat played by Adrian Smith of Iron Maiden along with a collapsable drum kit for the Wii and the XBox360.
Not much really to say about these peripherals except that they’re coming on the heels of Beatles Rock Band. I can’t get any pricing but if you need a drum kit for the Wii or XBox 360 and/or want to play a sexy black and white git-fiddle on the Wii, these are your men.
In a move akin to Herman’s Hermits opening for the Rolling Stones, Palm has decided to announce the new Palm Pixi, a phone akin to the Palm Centro of yore in price point and features, on the very day Apple will eat up the rest of the news cycle.
The Pixi is a non-slider with touchscreen and full keyboard. It will cost about $149 with two year contract and rebates on Sprint. You have 8GB of on board storage and it takes 2-megapixel pictures – down from the Pre’s 3-megapixels.
There is no Wi-Fi, a dealbreaker for many. The Pixi will be available in multiple “Artist Series” styles and will be available around the holidays.
The Pre costs about $199 – cut to $99 for a bit and then raised back up – so a $50 savings isn’t much when it comes to a device without Wi-Fi. I think the average smartphone buyer is looking for a few things in a device – a touchscreen, 3G networking, and, ideally, some alternative form of transfer. This doesn’t have it.
That said, it’s a fascinating move by Palm. Either they wanted to bury this news in the Apple event today or they foolishly thought this would overshadow the event. I’m betting on the former.
WebOS is a contender but with phones like the Hero and the Tattoo appearing on the horizon and HTC really taking a a hard look at its competitors – and eating them – Palm may be barking up the wrong tree.
We’ll have hands on later today.
Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts
Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips
Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 9, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today introduced the Palm® Pixi™ phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS™ platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.
“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”
In addition to linking your information from Google™, Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy™ and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk™ or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)
Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.
Personalization with Style
For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).
You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp™.(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)
“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”
The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.
Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.
Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.
Palm Pixi Features
High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Integrated GPS(8)
Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627™ chipset
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
Sprint services, including Sprint TV® and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live
Availability and Pricing
The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.
In addition, effective today the Palm Pre™ phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
LONDON, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Tesco, one of the world's leading retailers, and Microsoft Corp., worldwide leader in software, today announced a collaboration to launch the next generation of home video viewing. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2009 | 2:00 am
Back in July, we wrote about TweetMixx, the new service from social voting site Mixx that allows you find relevant links on Twitter. Starting tomorrow, the service will be opened up to the public. And in anticipation of that, the service got a last-minute revamp this weekend to make sure it’s ready.The results are good, but there’s still a question of if TweetMixx can take off in an increasingly crowded field.
As we noted previously, once you log-in with your Twitter credentials via OAuth, the service scans the tweets of the people you follow for links. Rather than trying to make you decipher a long URL or worse, a short URL, to know what the content is, TweetMixx pulls out the title, to let you know what you’re going to click on in plain English (or whatever language the link is in). You can also easily retweet any item or see that link’s details on Mixx.com in this main TweetMixx stream.
On top of showing off the links from your friends, you can also view all the tweets (including those without links), just as you would on Twitter.com. And you can update your status from TweetMixx. As a straight-up Twitter client, it’s not a bad one, as it’s fast, and the plain-English link idea is a pretty nice one. There’s also an area to basically saved filtered searches for links you may be particularly interested in. Saved filtered searches are nothing new for Twitter clients, but the link angle is again, a nice one.
The problem will be getting people to use TweetMixx rather than the current favorite TweetMeme for Twitter link discovery. I think much of what TweetMixx offers is actually more compelling than TweetMeme (the personalized links on top of the popular links section), but TweetMeme controls the all-important retweet button right now across the web, and as such has the mindshare for links on Twitter.
And then there’s the wildcard that is gearing up to enter the race: Bit.ly. As the default URL shortener for Twitter, Bit.ly already has a ton of interesting link data that it will apparently soon use for some kind of link discovery site of its own.
Still, TweetMixx is definitely worth taking for a spin if you’re particularly interested in links your friends are sharing, or those for particular queries. And the fact that it can be used as a pretty nice looking Twitter client on top of a link aggregator is a bonus.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
In a move akin to Herman’s Hermits opening for the Rolling Stones, Palm has decided to announce the new Palm Pixi, a phone akin to the Palm Centro of yore in price point and features, on the very day Apple will eat up the rest of the news cycle. This is in line with the intelligence we received earlier yesterday about the Pixi launching in time for Fashion Week.
The Pixi is a non-slider with touchscreen and full keyboard. It will cost about $149 with two year contract and rebates on Sprint. You have 8GB of on board storage and it takes 2-megapixel pictures - down from the Pre’s 3-megapixels.
There is no Wi-Fi, a dealbreaker for many. The Pixi will be available in multiple “Artist Series” styles and will be available around the holidays.
The Pre costs about $199 - cut to $99 for a bit and then raised back up - so a $50 savings isn’t much when it comes to a device without Wi-Fi. I think the average smartphone buyer is looking for a few things in a device - a touchscreen, 3G networking, and, ideally, some alternative form of transfer. This doesn’t have it.
That said, it’s a fascinating move by Palm. Either they wanted to bury this news in the Apple event today or they foolishly thought this would overshadow the event. I’m betting on the former.
WebOS is a contender but with phones like the Hero and the Tattoo appearing on the horizon and HTC really taking a a hard look at its competitors - and eating them - Palm may be barking up the wrong tree.
We’ll have hands on later today.
Thin Palm Pixi Phone Puts
Fast, Intuitive Communication at Fingertips
Palm’s Thinnest Phone Yet Expands Palm webOS Line with Customizable Style
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 9, 2009 – Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today introduced the Palm® Pixi™ phone for faster, more intuitive and personal communication in a compact and customizable design.(1) With the instinctively useable Palm webOS™ platform, strikingly thin design, a visible full keyboard and fashionable personalization options, Palm Pixi lets you express yourself in amazingly useful ways. It’s scheduled to be available exclusively from Sprint in time for the holidays.
“With Palm webOS, we’re creating a new, more intuitive smartphone experience defined by unmatched simplicity and usefulness,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm chairman and chief executive officer. “Palm Pixi brings this unique experience to a broader range of people who want enhanced messaging and social networking in a design that lets them express their personal style.”
In addition to linking your information from Google™, Facebook and Exchange ActiveSync, Palm Pixi adds Yahoo! and LinkedIn integration to Palm Synergy™ and assembles it all in a single view.(2) You can get your Yahoo! contacts, calendar and IM, and access to your LinkedIn contacts, including job titles. Synergy on Palm Pixi makes messaging easier by showing you all your conversations with the same person in one chat-style thread, so you can start a conversation on AIM Instant Messenger, Google Talk™ or Yahoo! Messenger and continue it by text message later.(3)
Complementing the phone’s already rich Facebook integration with the contacts, phone, calendar and photo applications, a new Facebook application will be available with Palm Pixi so you can see and comment on all the latest news from your friends, as well as easily update your status. The phone’s full QWERTY keyboard puts it all at your fingertips, and the multi-touch screen lets you move back and forth between open applications using natural gestures.(4) The unique removable back cover is rubberized, making it scratch-resistant, slip-resistant and durable.
Personalization with Style
For those who want to express themselves with some extra style, Palm is introducing the Palm Pixi Artist Series. Designed by some of today’s most unique and compelling artists, these numbered, limited-edition back covers let you change designs to suit your mood. You can see the first collection in the series, as well as information about the artists, at www.palm.com/artistseries. Palm will be showcasing the fashionable new Palm Pixi with the Artist Series covers this week at the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in New York (Sept. 10-17).
You can also tailor Palm Pixi to your interests with downloadable applications from the Palm Beta App Catalog, including the latest entertainment and social networking applications such as Local Concerts by iLike, and Yelp™.(5) You can use Palm media sync to customize your phone with music, photos and videos from iTunes (Versions 8.1.1-8.2.1)(6), or use the on-device Amazon MP3 store to purchase individual songs or full albums over-the-air.(3)
“Palm Pixi continues Sprint’s leadership in providing useful and innovative devices on America’s most dependable 3G network,”(7) said Dan Hesse, chief executive officer at Sprint. “We are pleased to be the first carrier to bring this device to market and offer both devices in the growing Palm webOS family. Sprint’s Everything Data plans, which provide unrestricted access to the Internet, mobile content and applications, and our Ready Now retail experience make for a perfect combination with these new Palm products.”
The Sprint Mobile Broadband Network reaches more than 271 million people, 18,652 cities and 1,838 airports, and Sprint’s networks are now performing at best-ever levels.
Customers who purchase Palm Pixi will benefit from Sprint’s Ready Now, which the company pioneered to help customers leave the store educated, comfortable and confident about the phones they’re taking home. It is like having a free personal trainer that educates you on all your phone can do by setting up all the applications you want to use on the device.
Palm Pixi is also the perfect complement to Sprint’s Simply EverythingSM plan, which provides unlimited nationwide calling, texting, email, social networking, web browsing, GPS navigation, Sprint TV, streaming music, NFL Mobile Live, NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile and much more for only $99.99 per month. It’s a savings of $1,200 over two years versus some comparable competitor plans.
Palm Pixi Features
High-speed connectivity (EVDO Rev. A)
2.63-inch multi-touch screen with a vibrant 18-bit color 320×400 resolution TFT display
Gesture area, which enables simple, intuitive gestures for navigation
Exposed QWERTY keyboard for fast messaging
Robust messaging support (IM, SMS and MMS capabilities), including Google Talk, AIM and Yahoo! IM
High-performance, desktop-class web browser
Integrated GPS(8)
Multimedia options, including pictures, video playback and music, and featuring a 2-megapixel fixed-focus camera with LED flash, and a standard 3.5mm headset jack
Email, including Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) (for access to corporate Microsoft Exchange servers), as well as personal email support (Google push, Yahoo! push, POP3, IMAP)(9)
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
8GB of internal user storage (~7GB user available)(10)
USB mass storage mode
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
The first handset to launch with Qualcomm’s high-performance MSM7627™ chipset
Proximity sensor, which automatically disables the touch screen and turns off the display whenever you put the phone up to your ear
Light sensor, which dims the display if the ambient light is dark, such as at night or in a movie theater, to reduce power usage
Accelerometer, which automatically orients web pages and photos to your perspective
Ringer switch, which easily silences the device with one touch
Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAh battery
Dimensions: 55mm (W) x 111mm (L) x 10.85mm (D) [2.17 in. (W) x 4.37 in. (L) x 0.43 in. (D)]
Weight: 99.5 grams (3.51 ounces)
Sprint services, including Sprint TV® and Sprint Radio, Sprint Navigation, Sprint’s exclusive NFL Mobile Live and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile Live
Availability and Pricing
The Palm Pixi phone is scheduled to be available from Sprint in time for the holidays. Pricing for the phone, as well as the limited-edition Palm Pixi Artist Series covers, will be announced closer to availability. Customers who would like to register to receive additional information about Palm Pixi and be notified when it’s available can register at www.palm.com/pixi.
In addition, effective today the Palm Pre™ phone from Sprint is available for $149.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $150 instant rebate and $100 mail-in rebate. You can find this great pricing at Sprint stores, on the web (www.sprint.com) and by calling Sprint’s telesales group (1-800-SPRINT1). With the new Palm Pixi phone, and Palm Pre at a lower price, Palm and Sprint are bringing greater choice of Palm webOS phones to a larger audience.
AFP - A frenzied rumor mill worked overtime in anticipation of Apple's latest media event Wednesday with Beatles on iTunes, a tablet computer, an appearance by Steve Jobs, all mooted as stars of the show.
TweetDeck, the most popular software client for Twitter, is not just for Twitter anymore. Founder Iain Dodsworth’s ambition is to make TweetDeck more of a generalized stream reader. Last March, he already added limited Facebook functionality. But with the release today of version 0.30, he is finally bringing in the full Facebook stream into TweetDeck, expanding to MySpace updates, and launching a TweetDeck directory of suggested users to follow.
Before, all you could do in your Facebook column in TweetDeck was post status updates and read your feed of friends’ updates. Now you can drag and drop photos and videos, add inline comments and likes, and create different groups of friends to follow (all presumably using Facebook’s new Stream API). The threaded comments and drag-and-drop for adding images and videos will be the big crowd-pleasers, and we noted that the default photo sharing app in TweetDeck for new installs has now changed to TwitPic competitor TweetPhoto (review).
In addition to Twitter and Facebook, you can now also keep track of your MySpace stream in Tweetdeck. You can update your mood or status, comment on a friend’s profile, or just wade through your MySpace activity stream, complete with photos and videos.
Finally, TweetDeck is is taking its suggested user feature and turning it into a Twitter directory. The page is divided into categories such as music, news, writers, tech, and travel, with sub-categories and an expandable list of suggested Twitter users in each.
AFP - Mobile phone text messages helped cause a revolution in the Philippines. Now the nation's mobile phone lobby is in uproar again over a multi-million-dollar plan to tax texting.
A slate of new Hollywood science-fiction films share a common vision: In the future, we will become a race of puppet masters. As expected, Hollywood’s take on brain puppetry isn’t exactly true to the current research. But the shortcuts taken by filmmakers highlight the promise, and the challenges, central to the bizarre new discipline of mind over matter.
By C.W. Anderson, Assistant Professor, Department of Media Culture at the College of Staten Island
Business models are important — but questions like “what kind of journalism best integrates with the nature of 21st-century democracy and society?” are also practical problems. So in this post I want to apply the model to a few real new organizations, describe what problems I think it might help us solve, and answer a few questions raised by my previous post.
By James Boyle, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law, Duke Law School
Librarians call it the 20th-century black hole. The overwhelming force is not gravity but copyright law, sucking our collective culture into a vortex from which it can never escape.
That culture includes millions of books Google wants to make available online. But many are concerned. The European Commission will hold hearings on Monday, while a US judge has extended the deadline for objections to a proposed US legal settlement.
By Simon Dumenco, Columnist, Ad Age, The Media Guy
On the web, lurid, sensationalistic news is priced at $0 (for now, at least). Maybe it’s worth exactly that. A kidnapper-rapist sicko has me thinking lately about the literal value of news. Yeah, I’m talking about the shocking story of Phillip Garrido, the California nutcase who allegedly kidnapped Jaycee Lee Dugard 18 years ago, apparently brainwashed her, kept her secreted away as his sex slave in his backyard shantytown, impregnated her and had her raise two daughters with no access to formal education or medical care.
As school starts again, there’s so much more for a parent to nag about. Homework. Bedtime. Lost hours on Facebook and Xbox. The chores that need to be squeezed in.
But in the age of the digital childhood, Jacky Longwell, 45, mother of three in McLean, often text-messages what she once uttered as her children rushed out the door: Be nice to your brother. Walk the dog. Remember your reading.
Lee’s train-hopping from Microsoft (MSFT) to Google (GOOG) back in 2005 touched off a five-month pitched battle marked by all manner of inanities. Among them was this account of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s now-infamous alleged chair-tossing tantrum told by former Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Mark Lucovsky:
Prior to joining Google, I set up a meeting on or about November 11, 2004 with Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer to discuss my planned departure…At some point in the conversation, Mr. Ballmer said: “Just tell me it’s not Google.” I told him it was Google.
At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: “F–king Eric Schmidt is a f–king p–sy. I’m going to f–king bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to f–king kill Google.”
Thereafter, Mr. Ballmer resumed trying to persuade me to stay…Among other things, Mr. Ballmer told me that “Google’s not a real company. It’s a house of cards.”
And there were others as well. Certainly, the sourcing of some of Microsoft’s legal docs was amusing. As I wrote at the time:
Kai-Fu Lee may be a top-drawer research engineer, but his understanding of the mechanics of Microsoft’s desktop environment leaves a bit to be desired. Turns out Microsoft recovered Lee’s employment contract with Google, which figures prominently in its suit against the search leader (see “And, if you’re beaten by Microsoft thugs, our generous health plan will cover you”), from the “recycle bin” of one of Lee’s computers. Odd that Lee would choose to browse offers from his employer’s rivals on his work computer. Odder still that having done so, he would neglect to scrub them with a secure erase program. Clearly, he must have been a bit lightheaded after learning of Google’s promise to allow his stock options in the company to vest even if he was unable to start work for a year.
And, finally, there were the videotaped depositions, like one from Ballmer that included this great bit:
Ballmer: “Kai-Fu had a–a distinct commitment and responsibility on behalf of the company for being the senior executive here in Redmond, with responsibility for godfathering, shepherding all of our R&D activities in China. It’s a structure we also use for India. We have a senior executive with knowledge of India be the R&D godfather for India, encourage work to go there, shepherd, and–and mentor people in the area. Kai-Fu had that broad, important responsibility for China.”
Deposing lawyer: “This term, ‘godfather’–is that an official title within the Microsoft organization?”
Hard to believe Kai-Fu Lee’s tenure at Google China ended with such a whimper, although there are many quiet rumblings of trouble he had with Google’s top execs in Silicon Valley, given the bang it began with.
LONDON, September 9 /PRNewswire/ --
- GSMA-led White Paper Provides Mobile Operators, Infrastructure and
Device Vendors With a Common Framework for Delivering Services Based on IMB
The GSMA, which represents the interests of the worldwide mobile
communications industry, today announced that it has endorsed a new 3GPP
standard, Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB), that will allow its members to
accelerate the adoption of mobile data and broadcast services worldwide. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Sep 2009 | 1:00 am
The Harvard Crimson took an ad from "The Committee for the Open Debate on the Holocaust," a front for Holocaust denier Bradley Smith.
Bradley Smith, the founder of the organization that placed the ad, is a known Holocaust denier who has been identified for his hiding behind the veil of free speech in America. Here's his coolest quote: "I don't want to spend time with adults anymore. I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled."
Update: The Crimson has apologized for running the ad, saying it was the result of an unspecified oversight: "Yesterday's advertisement was the result of that miscommunication. And while running the ad was not our intent, we accept responsibility for our failure to carry out the planned cancellation. We recognize how sensitive a subject this is for our community and appreciate all the e-mails and letters we have received about it from concerned members of the University. We have made sure that the rest of the ad's planned run has been terminated, and any money that has changed hands in exchange for the ad to date will be returned. "
Steampunk maker Nifer Fahrion worked with Robynne Winchester of Tulgey Wood Designs to whip up this rugged, construction grade corset to wear at Burning Man with the Man KCrew:
To create this hybrid corset, I first chose a fabric consisting of same type of rugged cotton canvas found throughout the Carhartt line. Durable, practical, and breathable, the material allows me to get down and dirty with my hammer and drill without fear of damaging my corset.
Next it was important the corset be functional and versatile. I attached holsters for a hammer, drill, tape measure and pliers, as well as pockets to use for assorted needs while working.
All the tool holsters and pockets are attached to the corset with heavy-duty snaps allowing me to change the configuration according to my needs on the job site.
Cause for celebration: the new issue of Flurb, Rudy Rucker's wonderful free sf zine, is live, including work from Greg Benford, Paul Di Filippo, Howard Hendrix, and many other talented and lovely individuals.
We have a lot of great stuff in Flurb #8. A big thanks to all the writers!
This summer I taught a writing workshop at Clarion West in Seattle, and one of favorite stories I saw there was "My Only Sunshine," by the new writer Emily C. Skaftun. It has a mythic feel and a nice twist at the end.
The old pro Gregory Benford brings us a short and snappy piece, "Paradise Afternoon," about longevity.
Wonderfully weird Charlie Jane Anders is back for another Flurb appearance, with "Henry's Penis," a rather touching coming of age story, complete with hardcore nanotech.
Nice work here: [_n3o_] shoved an 80GB hard drive into an old GameBoy, replacing the screen with a printout that makes it appear that a game is running, and hooking up the power-light to the drive's power.
Researchers at Ohio State University have studied the relationship that hairdressers have to older clients, who are apt to discussing all their problems during haircuts. As such, the stylists are well-situated to act as early-warning systems for dementia, neglect and poor health.
"Hair stylists are in a great position to notice when their older clients are starting to suffer from depression, dementia, or self-neglect," said Keith Anderson, co-author of the study and assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University.
"While not expecting too much beyond the scope of their jobs, we may be able to help stylists direct elderly people in trouble to community services..."
"Their older clients may sit in a chair for an hour or longer while they're having their hair done, and this may happen once or twice a month. So stylists are in a good position to recognize when things change with a client, and when they may need help."
destinyland writes "Cyberdyne has started renting their exoskeleton body suits in Japan. The mind-controlled wearable machine increases strength and endurance, and rents for $2,300 a month. (Sensors on the skin detect traces of nerve signals from the brain, synchronizing the power suit's movements with the user's own limbs.) New video shows the suits in use on the streets of Tokyo, and the concept may be catching on. DARPA now has a program called Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation 'to develop devices and machines that will increase the speed, strength and endurance of soldiers in combat environments.'"
Strangpork sez, "Boing Boing fan art created with Quartz Composer, using appropriate iconography." Nice work! Love the repurposed Boing Boing video art!
3D printing comes to custom jewelry: this German company will let you pick your favorite piece of terrain from the planet Earth and they'll make a silver brooch featuing it. I'm holding out for the hyper-detailed version that includes nanoscale clockwork people who meander up and down your tiny silver mountains making ultrasonic bird calls.
The Earth Brooch Silver is an eclectic custom piece of jewelry you can easily design yourself. Just select your desired location. Within a few seconds the place's distinctive landscape turns into a 3d-preview of your custom jewelry.
As soon as you are satisfied with the preview we cast the custom brooch with fascinating detail in 975 silver. The Earth Brooch Silver perfectly makes for a unique silver wedding or other special anniversary gift.
A long requested feature of Google Voice was a simple one: forward inbound text messages to email. Google Voice users get voicemails auto-transcribed and emailed to them, but text messages were not. Users can read and respond to them online in addition to their phones in the normal way, but email forwarding wasn’t an option.
Tonight that changed. Google Voice users now have the ability to forward inbound text messages to email. And even better, you can reply from email as well.
There are third party services (example) that have offered this, but they require users to give these services your Google Voice credentials, which is never a good idea. It’s great that Google launched this feature directly.
Since they seem to be taking requests, here’s my next one: launch an API. I can’t wait to see what developers come up with, and I’d love to use those non-Google services in a secure way without giving them my Google Voice credentials.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
The folks at JibJab continue to pump out some of the funniest customized videos on the web. Last month they forged a deal with master parody maker Weird Al to bring custom versions of the song writer’s music video to the site. And today they’re announcing a partnership with Soul Train, the long-running music TV program that featured countless artists from genres including R&B, soul, and hip hop over its 35 years on the air. You’ll now be able to stick yourself (or your friends) in the 70’s-era dance video below and watch the hilarious results.
JibJab has been making similar videos for quite a while, and has built up an impressive repertoire of licensed content including videos from Snoop Dogg and High School Musical. Cofounder Gregg Spiridellis says that the site’s recent implementation of Facebook Connect, which lets users pull photos from the social network and share these customized videos with friends, has led to video virality tripling compared to normal sharing over Email.
Dave from the Wondermark webtoon sez, "Hi folks. I made a steampunk helicopter for my most recent Wondermark comic. It's collaged together in my usual fashion from scans of old Scientific American magazines.
I've been making helicopter noises with my mouth as I walk around this morning and realized that I'm just super duper proud of it, so I thought I would share. Thanks, hope you like it!"
Wired’s Steven Levy reports on the latest phone from Palm.
Palm elbowed its way into the smartphone discussion this year with the introduction of its slick multi-tasking handset, the Pre. Now Palm is announcing a little sister, called Pixi.
The Pixi kind of looks like a Blackberry Curve after an inspired makeover by a pricey SoHo hair stylist and a liposuction doctor.
It’s more svelte than the Palm Pre — slimmer even, Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein notes, than its blood rival, the iPhone, made by his former employer. Like the Pre it has a small physical keyboard. But the Pixi’s keyboard doesn’t slide out; it squats below the screen, always in view.
What’s more, Palm is offering colorful custom back plates based on designs from what Rubinstein calls “upcoming artists.” The first five options, to be released in numbered editions of 5000 each, include a snakeskin pattern, a hummingbird, a stylized skull, and a searing red desert landscape that, in the words of the artist, confronts “themes of isolation, fear, destruction, and resilience.”
No wonder that the Pixi announcement comes just before Fashion Week in New York City, which Palm is co-sponsoring.
The Pixi’s diminutiveness isn’t limited to its waistline. It will be priced lower than the Pre: probably under $100 with a 2-year contract, but Rubinstein isn’t saying for sure. Its screen is smaller, with 320 x 400 pixels, as opposed to the Pre’s 320 x 480, and it has just 8GB of memory. The software is the same webOS as used by the Pre, though there are new applications for Yahoo Messenger and Facebook, but Pixi has dropped the Pre’s single navigation button. (The functions of that control are evoked simply by tapping the screen.)
Pixi is also a bit slower than its big brother. Palm product manager Sachin Kansal says that in most functions it performs similarly to the Pre, but in multimedia apps, it’s less zippy. There’s no Wi-Fi. The target audience, he says, is people mainly interested in communications, as opposed to those who engage in lots of graphics-intensive activities.
Like the Pre, the Pixi runs on the Sprint network.
Rubinstein says to expect the Palm’s webOS family to grow even further. From the start, he says, he has instructed his software engineers not to do their designing for Pre, but “an OS for the next ten to fifteen years.” While the Pixi runs webOS in a smaller package than the Pre, he’s not ruling out something in the other direction.
Though some analysts estimate that the Pre’s sales have leveled off after its initial burst, Rubinstein is upbeat, saying that he’s proud of Palm’s performance against tough competition from Apple and RIM.
And what of Palm’s relatively sparse selection of apps — at 65 or so, roughly one thousandth of Apple’s ecosystem? “It sounds small, but they’re really good, ” Rubinstein says. He promises that more will come as the Palm opens up to a wider range of developers.
Apple’s well-publicized rejections of certain apps may play in Palm’s favor, as Rubinstein says that he won’t discriminate. For example, he says, a Google Voice app for Palm is definitely coming.
As for that TV ad with the zoned-out sylph for a spokesperson, Rubinstein says that he’s heard pros and cons, but the campaign has tested well. “I’m no expert on ads,” he says, clearly distinguishing himself from his former boss in Cupertino.
The Pixi will be available “in time for holiday sales,” he says.
Macworld.com - BIAS released SoundSoap Pro 2, adding adaptive noise reduction to the newest version of its audio noise reduction and restoration plug-in. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 11:16 pm
A South Jersey man says his eyesight is returning, weeks after doctors at Wills Eye Institute in Philadelphia implanted electrodes behind his left eye.
AP - Palm Inc., which revitalized its product line with the Pre smart phone launch in June, is hoping to keep momentum going with the release of a lighter, cheaper handset called the Pixi. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:21 pm
PC World - Salesforce.com on Wednesday will make a series of announcements regarding its Service Cloud customer-service applications, which are a major part of the on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) vendor's long-term growth plans. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 10:20 pm
Mitch Horowitz is the editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin and responsible for the publication of such seminal esoterica books as Manly P. Hall's The Secret Teachings of All Ages: Reader's Edition, The Book of the Damned: The Collected Works of Charles Fort, and a slew of other contemporary and classic works of high weirdness. Mitch is also a great writer on the occult himself. His own new book, Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, went on sale today. I haven't read it yet, but Mitch wrote an overview of the book for Graham Hancock's site and it's terrific. I'm delighted that Mitch is going to guestblog on Boing Boing a few weeks from now too! I'm sure every post will be a gem from the equinox. From Mitch's essay, also titled Occult America:
By the 1830s and 40s, a region of central New York State called "the Burned-Over District" (so-named for its religious passions) became the magnetic center for the religious radicalism sweeping the young nation. Stretching from Albany to Buffalo, it was the Mt. Sinai of American mysticism, giving birth to new religions such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism, and also to the spread of Spiritualism, Mesmerism, mediumship, table-rapping, séances, and other occult sensations - many of which mirrored, and aided, the rise of Suffragism and related progressive movements.
The nation's occult culture gave women their first opportunity to openly serve as religious leaders - in this case as spirit mediums, seers, and channlers. America's social and spiritual radicals were becoming joined, and the partnership would never fade.
The robust growth of occult and mystical movements in nineteenth-century America was aided by the influence of three mighty social and spiritual movements: Freemasonry, Transcendentalism, and Spiritualism. Each helped transform the young nation into a laboratory for religious experiment and a springboard for the revolutions in nontraditional and therapeutic spirituality that eventually swept the globe. Consider:
• Freemasonry is, perhaps, a direct remnant of the most radical thought movement to emerge from the Reformation, and it instilled a strong anti-authoritarian streak in America's early religious culture. Masonry's penchant for occult and pagan symbolism suggests how some of the nation's Founders - many of whom were Masons - understood religious truth as emanating from a common source that could be found in different cultures throughout history, including those of a mystical and pre-Christian past. American Masonry emphasized religious tolerance, which its highly placed members, including George Washington (pictured in Masonic garb at left) and Benjamin Franklin, modeled and interwove throughout American life. Early in his presidency, Washington took matters a step further. In a letter to the congregation of a Rhode Island synagogue, the first president wrote: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national gifts." In other words, minority religions were no longer guests of the new republic, but full members. Whatever Freemasonry's airs of secrecy and images of skulls, pyramids, and all-seeing eyes, it is in this principle where one finds the order's truly most radical, even dangerous, idea: the encouragement of different faiths within a single nation.
For many people, email is the main way they communicate with friends, co-workers and family members. It contains bills, class assignments, trip itineraries, photos and love notes. But as much as it gets used every day, the software that we utilize to read and sort our email isn’t as clever or time-saving as it could be.
This week I tested Postbox 1.0, a program designed to handle your email in a smart, helpful manner. Starting Wednesday, this program is available at www.Postbox-Inc.com. Postbox sorts through your email and detects its contents so you can see Web links, photos, contacts and other items themselves with one button click—whether Microsoft Word (MSFT) documents, PDFs or spreadsheets—without digging through messages. Since its inbox is constantly being indexed, all search queries return near-instant results.
Postbox uses an Inspector Pane on the right side of each email to extract and display elements like images, attachments and contact information.
Postbox’s founders come from Mozilla Corp., maker of the popular Firefox browser, so Postbox is based on Mozilla technology and its security standards. Email is indexed locally on your computer, so none of it is sent back across the Web to Postbox. It uses Content Tabs (tabs are another feature borrowed from Firefox) to help visually organize folders, messages and content extracted from those messages. It displays the most important elements of each message in a right-side panel. Received emails can even be edited so they aren’t sitting in your inbox with subject lines like, “Fw: Re: Re: Sept.” Instead, you can rewrite the subject to something like “Flight times.”
But this program isn’t free like Gmail, Hotmail or other Web-based email programs, nor does it come preloaded on a computer the way Apple Mail (AAPL) is on every Mac. Users can try Postbox for a free 30-day trial period after which each license costs $40, allowing one person to use their license on multiple computers (i.e. at work, at home, on a laptop). For another $20, a Family Pack option will give up to five family members use of Postbox. An additional $25 buys a Lifetime Upgrades plan that entitles you to receive free of charge any major version of Postbox that’s released; other nonmajor releases are free upgrades.
I used Postbox on a Mac and a Windows Vista computer, filling it up with thousands of emails from Gmail, Hotmail and .Mac accounts. It didn’t run properly on my company-issued computer, which is plugged into a network firewall. Postbox says it supports open protocols like IMPAP, POP and SMTP, and that it would work with Microsoft Exchange if Exchange were set to use those open protocols.
For all of Postbox’s terrific features, it can be hard to suddenly see your email in a different way since most of our email programs haven’t changed much in years. Outlook, for example, has plenty of hidden features that many people never learn how to use. Postbox seems to know how slow users are to adapt to change and so it reveals many of its features whenever it gets the chance.
For example, Postbox pops up an alert that shows you how to connect this email program to Facebook and Twitter so that you can post status updates or tweets without leaving your email. These connections also let Postbox try to pull one representative photo for each of your email contacts by matching a name in an email with someone’s Facebook or Twitter name—if you follow the person. It also uses photos assigned to contacts in the Mac OS X address book, which is used by Apple Mail.
Or take a feature in Postbox called Topics. This is a way of auto-organizing messages into different groups after you label them as being part of a certain topic, say “Mom’s Birthday.” All messages in an email conversation are grouped into “Mom’s Birthday,” as are any future responses to the same conversation. Postbox gives you three ways to label an email conversation as being part of a certain topic: from the toolbar, using a Topics button in the message header or by pressing “T” from within a message. You can also select a topic as you’re composing an email, pre-sorting that conversation into a designated topic.
Not everyone will like Topics because, however helpful the feature is, it makes the user do more work when he or she just want to get through a huge pile of unread emails. Labeling each email with a certain topic doesn’t take long, but it’s still an extra step. I would like Postbox to create automatic topics for sorting emails. For example, I recently sent and received at least 50 emails related to rescheduling tennis matches. Even though all the messages had the word “tennis” in them, not all of them were related to the same email, so they wouldn’t sort into the topic I created, “Tennis Make-Up.” Postbox says it has considered automatic options like these and may try to incorporate something similar in future versions of the product.
If my 30-day trial ran out tomorrow, I’d miss Postbox’s Inspector Bar the most. This feature works like a filter, instantly sucking out the most important parts in each email—including messages, attachments, images or links—and displaying them in a blue, right-side panel.
Another useful tool in Postbox is the Compose Sidebar. This also appears as a right-side panel but it shows up when someone is writing an email. This panel can display attachments, images, links or contacts found in all emails so you can simply drag and drop that item into your email as you’re composing it. This took me a while to get comfortable using because I’m so used to hunting through emails for things that I need to find. But once it became a habit, I found myself using the Compose Sidebar often.
If you have Postbox running in the background and you get an email, small notifications appear in the bottom left of your screen telling you which email account received the message and who sent it.
In the Content Tabs, which fill up with all attachments, images, links or contacts found in your indexed email, a feature called the Action Bar lets you save, send, or instantly glance at a document. This saves you from opening each email and its attachment, a process that sometimes requires opening a slow-to-open program to see the document. A slider in this Action Bar lets you adjust the size of images from small to large.
Postbox shines a unique light on email and the way we work with it every day. Not all of its features will come naturally for long-time users of the same email program. But for someone who wants a fast search option built into email, Postbox is a winner.
Researchers are divided on whether radiation from cellphones pose health risks or not. Now, one nonprofit organization adds some hard data to the argument: the radiation emission profiles of more than 1,200 cell phone models. The data won’t resolve the debate, but does give concrete information to consumers to help them make their buying decisions.
American cellphone radiation standards don’t make enough of an allowance for safety and ignore the impact of electromagnetic radiation on children, says the Environmental Working Group, which analyzed the radiation emissions from 1,268 cellphones. The group also looked at a number of recent research studies and supporting documentation from the handset makers to arrive at its conclusions.
“We think that based on current standards there’s increased risk of developing brain tumors in long term users — people who have used cellphones for more than 10 years — from radiation in cellphones,” says Olga Naidenko, a senior scientist at EWG, who worked on the report for about 10 months.
The group has created adatabase of feature phones and smartphones that lists the maximum radiation each of the devices emits. (You can look up your phone’s radiation level using the form embedded in this story, below.)
“We want consumers to take steps they can take to minimize potential risks,” says Naidenko.
About 4 billion people worldwide use cellphones. Researchers have been debating for years on whether the radiation from cellphone use leads to health hazards such as cancer and other illnesses. Perhaps, in no greater proof of how hot the debate is, infomercial peddlers such as Kevin Trudeau and television doctors such as Andrew Weil have declared that cellphone use are one of the risk factors for brain cancer.
More scientific studies have tried to assess both short term and long term impact of cellphone usage. Yet there has been no conclusive evidence so far. That’s because earlier research studies didn’t have a pool of users available who had been on their cellphones long enough, says Naidenko.
“A lot of the studies that came out in 2000 and 2001 only looked at short term exposure, which is about four to five years and they didn’t see any risks from radiation,” she says. “But now that we see results from long term studies, we are seeing more evidence to the contrary.”
Still Naidenko says the EWG’s data doesn’t conclusively prove a link between cellphone radiation and health risks.
Henry Lai, a professor of bioengineering at the University of Washington who has researched the issue in the past, reviewed EWG’s report and says the group is on the right track.
“There’s no solid conclusion right now on whether cellphone use leads to increased health risk,” he says. “But all the data shows cause of concern, and that’s very well brought out in the report.”
Cellphone radiation is transmitted by the antenna and the circuitry inside the handset by sending out electromagnetic waves (radio frequency radiation) to transmit their signal. The radiation emitted by the antenna is not directional, which means that it propagates in all directions more or less equally. Factors such as the type of digital signal coding in the network, the antenna design and its position relative to the head determine how much radiation is absorbed by a user, says EWG.
Other household appliances, such as microwave ovens, emit radiation, but no other device is in such close contact with the human body as a cellphone. “You don’t put your head inside the microwave,” says Lai. “And unless you are standing very, very close to it, the radiation from microwaves is very low.”
The Federal Communications Commission sets the acceptable U.S. radiation standards for cellphones. The effects of the radiation depend on the rate at which energy is absorbed by a mass of tissue. This is called as the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) and measured in watts per kilogram (W/kg). Most handset makers use private certification companies to test the SAR on their devices.
Based on a recommendation from industry group, IEEE, the FCC limits SAR levels for partial-body exposure (including head) to up to 1.6 W/kg, and whole body exposure to up to 0.08 W/kg. For hands, wrists, feet, and ankles, the limit is up to 4 W/kg, averaged over 10 grams of tissue.
In general, the lower the SAR the better the phone, from a potential health hazard point of view. For instance, Apple’s iPhone 3G has a maximum SAR of 1.39 W/kg when held at the ear. Compare that to the 1.19 W/kg SAR for the iPhone 3G S.
The best phone on EWG’s list, the Samsung Impression, has a maximum radiation of just 0.35 W/kg.
But FCC’s current standards are inadequate, says EWG. FCC standards allow 20 times more radiation to reach the head than the rest of the body, says an EWG representative, and they don’t provide an adequate margin of safety for cell phone radiation exposure.
“The FCC limit for the head (SAR of 1.6 W/kg) is just two-and-a-half times lower than the level that caused behavioral changes in animals (SAR of 4 W/kg),” says the representative. “Thus, the brain receives a high exposure, even though the brain may well be one of the most sensitive parts of human body … and should have more protection.”
There’s also just one one standard for “general population exposure” which is same for adults and children. The FCC also does not have strict enforcement against violators, alleges EWG.
“The U.S. government is not paying enough attention to this health problem,” agrees Lai.
But policy makers in Washington D.C. are starting to take notice. Experts will present evidence at a conference in mid-September, arguing for and against the impact of radiation from cellphones on health, and its implications for public policy. But no cellphone companies or handset makers are expected to be present. Independent of the conference, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pennsylvania) is expected to chair a Sept. 14 congressional hearing on cellphones.
Still EWG’s research is just the beginning, says Lai. “It is a not a scientific paper and there are mistakes with over-interpretation and bias in use of some of the literature to support their conclusions,” he says. “But it does serve the purpose of raising awareness of the problems stemming from cellphone use.”
September 9 is the 40th birthday of the automated teller machine in the US. To celebrate the invention that spews twenties at two in the morning, we're spitting out some numbers of our own.
1939
First mechanical cash dispenser installed in the US
6 months
Length of time before this ATM precursor was removed due to nonuse
Estimated number of ATMs in the US today
85% Global transactions that are made in cash
US currency in circulation in 2008, per capita
239
Number of new ATMs installed per day worldwide
$9 million
Largest amount ever stolen from ATMs in one heist
130
Number of ATMs targeted in the robbery
30 minutes
Duration of crime
ATM transactions in US that are
withdrawals
deposits
balance inquiries
other
Average amount of cocaine found
on each US bill in circulation
1:761
Ratio of ATMs to permanent residents in the US
2:0
Ratio of ATMs to permanent residents in Antarctica
PC World - The Chinese government has cleared a version of the iPhone to use the country's mobile networks and posted pictures of the handset online, just as carrier China Unicom prepares to launch the phone. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 9:50 pm
Because this guy’s sewed it up pretty tight. Working drill, platform diving shoes, nuts, bolts, and everything. To the creator of the costume: that’s pretty savage, man. I guess you do this stuff for a living, but still, this sucker is something we can all be proud of, professional or not.
mnmlst notes a Wall Street Journal story (picked up at Total Telecom) on the move of some patents originally held by Microsoft to the Open Invention Network, where they will join a portfolio whose purpose is to inoculate open source companies against patent trolls. OIN is near a deal to buy 22 patents from another patent-protective group, Allied Security Trust, whose members include Verizon, Cisco, and HP. AST won the patents in a private auction Microsoft put on earlier. An AST executive says that "Microsoft presented the patents to potential bidders in its auction as relating to Linux." While OIN's acquisition of the patents will act to protect the Linux community, AST, by contrast, exists to protect only its corporate members, not the community as a whole. But by selling the patents to OIN, they are cooperating in the protection of Linux. And by allowing the patents to go to AST in the first place, Microsoft may (the article implies) be signaling at least their lack of active intent to disrupt the Linux marketplace.
Google wouldn’t have an image problem if they made these ads international. Seriously, they have to have the money, just saturate the airwaves with these things. It’s a different kind of cute overload — the kind that prevents lawsuits from people who don’t understand how Street View works.
Last week, I blogged about a federal appeals court decision which could make former Attorney General John Ashcroft personally liable for decisions leading to the detention of a US citizen as a material witness after 9/11.
John Schwartz at the New York Times has filed a more thorough report than the AP item I blogged. His piece includes details about the Kansas-born man who filed the lawsuit, with representation from the ACLU. Snip:
The lawsuit was brought in 2005 by Abdullah al-Kidd, who was born Lavoni T. Kidd in Kansas and converted to Islam in college. He was arrested in 2003 at Dulles Airport as he prepared to fly to Saudi Arabia for graduate work in Islamic studies, and was held for weeks under a law that allows the indefinite detention of material witnesses to a crime. After his detention, he was ordered to stay with his in-laws in Las Vegas; his travel was restricted over the next year.
Mr. Kidd, who was not called as a witness in the case in which he was detained and was never charged with a crime, sued Mr. Ashcroft and other officials in 2005, challenging his detention as unconstitutional and saying it cost him his marriage and his job. His lawyers argued that he was held as part of a secret Bush administration policy to use the material witness statute as a tool to detain and interrogate people when there was insufficient evidence to charge them with a crime.
adeelarshad82 writes "Yet more confirmation has emerged that Asus plans its own e-book reader. An Asus representative in the UK appears to have confirmed this, with the additional details that there may be a value-priced as well as a premium version. The article guesses at the price point for the low-end model — around £100 ($192). Unlike current e-book readers, which take the form of a single flat screen, the Asus device has a hinged spine, like a printed book. This, in theory, enables its owner to read an e-book much like a normal book, using the touchscreen to 'turn' the pages from one screen to the next. Asus showed off a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March." Reader NeverBotedBush adds, "Asus's e-reader will likely have color touch screens, a speaker, a webcam, and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls." The color screen rules out using E Ink technology, so long battery life seems to be unlikely.
I can appreciate this hand carved alien flash drive after making a few wooden flash drives myself. It’s clever, seems well done, but is it really worth $155? [Etsy via geeky-gadget]
Reuters - Any appointment at Abbey Road still involves walking over the most famous pedestrian crossing in popular music. And the history of the north London studio hangs heavy in the air when the meeting is with the engineers who have just finished digitally remastering all the original Beatles albums, from "Please Please Me" through "Abbey Road." Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 6:50 pm
While the latest in motherboard news may not be particularly thrilling, if you’re planning on building a PC any time soon (or just ordering one), it pays to be aware of what’s out there. I’m going to be putting something together myself in a few months, after these boards have clashed for a while and a clear victor remains, and while I’m not yet decided on AMD vs Intel, if it’s the latter I’ll definitely be running a P55.
The X58 chipsets which dominate enthusiast rigs these days will slowly be going the way of the dodo as P55 matures, but the first crop seems to be getting pretty positive reviews. PC Perspective has a nice little review roundup if you want to skim the conclusions and specs.
Netgear just came out with their latest network appliance, the Digital Entertainer Live system. It’s a set top box that ties into your home network and internet connection, and (like most home entertainment appliances these days) plays streaming video, music, and pictures to your TV without a computer.
Seems like a good deal. $150, does streaming video, youtube, hulu, PlayOn, Netflix, and the like. It’s got the standard HDMI and component video out, two USB ports, and an ethernet connection. It’ll also work with other Netgear products, including the EasyNAS and other USB storage devices. It’s currently available at your favorite online retailer.
In order to boost Palm Pre sales, there was a rumor speculating that Sprint would slash pricing by $50. A $150 Palm Pre looks pretty enticing especially when compared to the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. However, Sprint decided to do something a little different; new customers who port over an existing number to a Pre would receive $100 credit over a period of three months.
Basically, new customers would have to purchase a Pre between now and October 31, and this does not apply to existing customers, as Sprint really wants to attract new customers from competing carriers. While the credit isn’t an exact discount of the $199 price, it still serves the purpose of saving the customer $100 over a three month period of time. Some could look at this deal and say Sprint is trying to do something good for the public by indirectly lowering prices. Others are suggesting Sprint’s profit from the Palm Pre sales are decreasing and they need a new promotion to boost sales and gain new customers. In addition, the fact that the credit will be applied to the new users’ invoice over a three month period makes me wonder why they can’t offer the credit up front.
However you look at it, new customers will be able to save $100 after purchasing a Palm Pre, which essentially brings the price down to $99. While this confirmation isn’t totally in line with the rumor, it does confirm that a price cut was on the horizon.
coondoggie writes "Things don't look good for NASA when the report outlining its future begins: 'The US human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. [NASA] is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursuing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science. Space operations become all the more difficult when means do not match aspirations.' Today the Augustine Commission handed to the White House the Review of US Human Space Flight Plans Committee summary report, after months of expert review and testimony. Many observers expected a bleak report, but ultimately the future of US manned space flight will hinge on how the report's conclusions are interpreted. Keep in mind too that NASA has spent almost $8 billion of a planned $40 billion to develop systems for a return to the Moon."
Even after gecko tails have detached from the rest of the lizard's body, they exhibit complex behavior that suggests they can sense and react to their environment. Scientists say that studying the unpredictable gecko tail may better help us understand spinal cord injuries.
PC World - Microsoft has released its security updates for the month of September, but a couple of unpatched flaws have some security experts wondering if the software company will be forced to release an emergency patch sometime in the month ahead. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Sep 2009 | 5:50 pm
The Fab Four version of the popular videogame packs 45 classic pieces of pop ear candy ready to wow fans old and new. Here are five of the most highly anticipated songs (and five tunes we wish came in the box).
Making sure to avoid getting buried by the Apple (presumably iPod) announcement tomorrow, Dell today announced a number of new computers. The new machines come in the form of a new desktop with options for Intel Core i5s or Core i7s and two new slim laptops.
Dell’s new desktops
To start, the new desktop is the Dell Studio XPS 8000, and even with the standard feature set it is fairly impressive for a gaming, home theater or image/video editing PC. The Dell Studio XPS 8000 starts at $799 with an Intel Core i7, 4 GB of RAM, integrated 7.1 surround sound, and an ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB, which isn’t bad at all. Upgrades include the aforementioned Core i7, up to a monstrous 16 GB of RAM, and Blu-ray read-only or burnable drive. Looks to be a good deal no matter what the specs.
New Inspirons, too
The two new “ultra-slim” laptops come in the form of the Inspiron 14z and 15z. Both are using Intel’s Utra-Low Voltage (ULV) to provide lots of battery life, to the tune of 4 or 8 hours from 4 and 8 cell batteries, respectively. They each feature Intel Core 2 Solo, Core 2, or Core 2 Duo processors, and, unlike the Inspiron 11z, both the 14z and 15z have a DVD-drive. Aside from the ULV technology and the reduced size (each stand at less than 1 inch thick when closed), they are pretty much the same as the Inspiron 14 and 15, though the added battery life may be worth the extra money.
Hold your horses?
The new computers are definitely nice machines, but it might be worth it to hold off on buying them for at least a month and a half. At this point, with Windows 7 looming at the end of next month, buying a PC right now is probably not worth the hassle of installing the new OS. Unless you really need a new computer of laptop right now, just hold off on these until they have 7 instead of Vista pre-installed. Or, of course, there’s always a Snow Leopard installed Mac.
Oh Apple.. you are such a fickle taskmaster when it comes to the App store. On one hand, it’s brilliant. On the other hand, their approval process can be draconian and bizzare at the same time. Recent case in point: the Commodore 64 emulator by Manamio. It was declined, resubmitted, approved, published, and then promptly removed.
The reasons for its woes aren’t quite what you might expect. While we would have guessed that the initial reason to reject the app was for being a emulator designed to run ROMs, it turns out that the issue is that the SDK prohibits programs that run a code interpreter. The author had originally put the C64 BASIC interpreter in, was told to remove it, and did… sort of. Rather than removing it entirely, it was tucked away in the app, accessible through a couple of simple keypresses – an easter egg, of sorts. Some bloggers discovered that it was still in the application, spilled the beans, and Apple dropped the banhammer.
The good news: the author is removing the offending bit of code, and once he does, the app will most likely be back. Then maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to get your game on once and for all.
Vringo has partnered with Marvel Comics to bring you cellphone video clips and video ringtones from Marvel’s Super Hero library. A dedicated storefront at vringo.marvel.com lets you choose from pre-cut video clips/ringtones or search for a Marvel video and clip it to the 30 seconds you want. Then you simply download the video clip to your phone.
Available content ranges from Marvel’s classics to the Marvel properties of today. If you have a Vringo-app-compatible phone (BlackBerry Bold, Tour, Curve 8900; Symbian; Windows Mobile; J2ME), you can make use of the clips as video ringtones. Your first video clip is free and additional clips are available for $1.99.
Three would-be bombers convicted in the United Kingdom this week were found guilty based on crucial coded e-mail messages that were intercepted by the U.S. National Security Agency.
By Jessica E. Vascellaro, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer Gary Reback made his case against the Google Books settlement Tuesday, arguing that the settlement is illegal but could be remedied if the Justice Department insists that Google (GOOG) license the books it scanned to competitors.
In a court filing on behalf of the Open Book Alliance, a consortium that opposes the settlement, the attorney argues that the settlement between Google, the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers gives publishers and Google monopoly control over the pricing of digital books. Reback, who was involved in spurring the Justice Department to bring an antitrust suit against Microsoft in the 1990s, co-founded the consortium along with the Internet Archive, a nonprofit that is trying to create a digital archive of the Web, last month. Many members of the consortium, including the Internet Archive, Amazon.com (AMZN), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT), have filed their own briefs opposing the settlement too.
The musician expands his creative palette, releasing a novel about a sex-obsessed traveling salesman in multiple formats (including an iPhone app packed with original songs).
David Gerard writes "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures doesn't sue people over patents, because that would be patent trolling! No, instead they just threaten to sell the patent to a known litigious patent troll. So that's all right then. Timothy Lee details how using patents to crush profitable innovation works in practice, and concludes: 'In thinking about how to reform the patent system, a good yardstick would be to look for policy changes that would tend to put Myhrvold and his firm out of business.'"
An unusually cogent report on the NASA's future has opened the agency's open secrets for public inspection. We can't have a human space exploration program without more money, and the gap between the shuttle's retirement and a new alternative will be at least six years. But the good news is that with another $3 billion, all kinds of space exploration schemes could work.
Over the long holiday weekend Facebook began having serious issues. News feeds stopped updating and displayed entries that were days old. Popular apps like Farkle started loading slowly or returning errors. Uploaded pics didn’t always display and the site as a whole started running slowly and returning random “endpoint” errors. Facebook was silent on the matter but their users weren’t. Amid the complaints a dire warning began popping up on statuses:
URGENT!!!! APPARENTLY THE FAN CHECK APPLICATION IS A BAD VIRUS THAT TAKES UPTO 48HOURS TO KICK IN!!!! EVEN IF U R TAGGED IN A PHOTO THE VIRUS CAN STILL GET TO U!! PLEASE INFORM ALL UR FRIENDS AND REMOVE/DELETE IT ASAP!!! COPY AND PASTE THIS TO UR STATUS TO WARN OTHERS!!!
Well there is good news and bad news. The good news is Fan Check isn’t a virus; it is just a very badly written and scammy app. The bad news is that “Fan Check Facebook virus” has become a hot trending topic on Google and hackers have taken advantage of it. If you search for that phrase on Google you’ll likely be presented with a lot of malicious links. The hackers are using black hat SEO techniques to poison search results.
What exactly is Fan Check? The developers say it’s simply an app that can tell you how much of a “fan” of you each of your Facebook friends are by analyzing how often they interact with your FB page via wall posts, comments, etc. It’s already been shut down once by Facebook over objections to its original name, Stalker Check.
It appears to be down again, returning a message that it’s being “updated.” Also of note, the link to contact the developers is broken. The app itself is not malcious nor does it appear to be responsible for the issues Facebook is having, but it’s not 100% harmless either.
Trailrunner7 writes "Today vendors are finally releasing patches for the TCP vulnerabilities first publicized nearly a year ago that affect a huge range of networking products, including any device running a version of Cisco's IOS software, and a number of Microsoft server and desktop operating systems. Both Microsoft and Cisco released fixes for the vulnerabilities today. The Microsoft Patch Tuesday release included the fix for the TCP flaw, which affects Windows Server 2003 and 2008, as well as Windows Vista, both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions, and Windows 2000 SP4, for which no fix is coming. The TCP flaws were identified several years ago and were made public last year by two researchers at Outpost24, Jack C. Louis and Robert E. Lee. Louis, who has since died, developed a tool called Sockstress that tested for the flaw and was able to maintain extremely long-term TCP connections with remote machines using very little bandwidth."
Palm will unveil its second WebOS phone this week, internally named the "Pixie," we've heard from a source close to the company. The debut will occur as part of Fashion Week in New York.
As we wrote back in April, the new phone will have the same operating system as the Palm Pre but will be much lower priced ($99). The latest information we have on the hardware specs is here.
ThousandStars sends us to The Wall Street Journal for a report that momentum for nuclear energy is waxing in the US. "For the first time in decades, popular opinion is on the industry's side. A majority of Americans thinks nuclear power, which emits virtually no carbon dioxide, is a safe and effective way to battle climate change, according to recent polls. At the same time, legislators are showing renewed interest in nuclear as they hunt for ways to slash greenhouse-gas emissions. The industry is seizing this chance to move out of the shadow of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl and show that it has solved the three big problems that have long dogged it: cost, safety and waste."
FROM APPLETELL - There have been several rumors surrounding Apple’s music-based event on September 9th, from a touch-screen tablet device to social networking tools built into iTunes 9. Catch up on the rumors before following our live blog tomorrow. MORE »
Netbooks are so 2008. Get ready for the new wave of must-have devices dubbed “smartbooks.” These smartbooks are small netbook sized devices running on ARM microprocessors used in smartphones. Why would you build such a beast? They’re cheap.
According to PC World, Foxconn is developing less than five different models of these inexpensive devices that aim to be in the $100- $200 range. Young Liu, special assistant to the CEO at Foxconn was quoted by the magazine as saying, “that’s a lot lower than a netbook,” he said. “There will be a lot of demand for a sub-$200 device.”
The assistant said demand was coming out of China and other places where these cost-sensitive devices might have the biggest impact. Users can expect basic functionality, WiFi, and slower processing speeds. The screen size would be in the 7-10 inch range.
Others have shown plans for similar smartbooks at last June’s Computex. Largely, these are built for other manufacturers and will be rebranded. Foxconn is the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer.
Just this past week, we were looking at a somewhat blurry shot of the Galaxy Lite, wondering when we’d see more. Seeing as Samsung is about as good at keeping handsets secret as I am at playing a guitar with my feet, it didn’t take too long.
Early this morning, new shots of Samsung’s sightly sibling surfaced on ai.rs – and this time around, it got caught on video. We’re not spotting anything too out of the ordinary when it comes to the interface, so it doesn’t look like Samsung’s going the “LETS OVERHAUL EVERYTHING!” route taken by HTC and Sony Ericsson. Check out the video after the jump.
Image Caption: Electrical engineers Babak Parviz and Brian Otis and undergraduate student Carlton Himes (right to left) demonstrate a circuit that runs entirely off tree power. (University of Washington) Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 2:02 pm
yuna49 writes 'Lately I've been visiting colleges with my daughter, who is a senior in high school. Every school has proudly announced that they support both Windows and Macs, and most of these schools report having about a 50-50 split between the two. However we've been a Linux household for many years now, and my daughter routinely uses a laptop running Kubuntu 9.04. Sometimes I would ask the student tour guide if Linux was supported and was usually met with a blank stare. We're obviously not concerned about whether she can write papers using OpenOffice and Linux. Rather we've been wondering about using other computing services on campus like classroom applications, remote printing, VPNs, or Wi-Fi support (nearly all these campuses have ubiquitous Wi-Fi). Given the composition of Slashdot's readership, I thought I'd pose the question here. Does your school support Linux? Have you found it difficult or impossible to use Linux in concert with the school's computing services?'
Windows mobile has had a hard time of it of late, what with the Blackberry and iPhone being so popular. The current version, WinMo 6.1, is at the long coming end of its lifespan. The followup, 6.5, looks pretty great – but what about handsets already running 6.1?
One by one, handsets are getting the upgrade treatment – at least, the high-end ones are. Toshiba just announced that the TG01 would be getting 6.5′d, and now it looks like the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1 will be following suite. A ROM hacker over at XDA-devs recently got their hands on a “REAL OFFICIAL” 6.5 ROM for the X1, and it’s looking pretty sharp. All we really have are some screen shots, but we’ll keep you posted as more information becomes available.
Have you ever dreamed of an Apple TV featuring a TiVo-like digital video recorder? We have. But unfortunately an Apple executive has squashed any possibility of that ever happening — and with it, he’s probably also killed any chance Apple TV had of becoming a major success.
Apple’s chief financial officer Tim Oppenheimer told investment bank Caris and Company that Apple killed the idea of a DVR-equipped Apple TV because it doesn’t fit in with the company’s business. That makes sense: Apple sells movies and TV episodes via iTunes, and a DVR certainly wouldn’t help with sales.
Then again, if you want an Apple-branded DVR, you can always get a Mac Mini, load on Boxee, and connect one of those Elgato TV tuners. Bonus: The Mac Mini includes a DVD player, so it can even play your Netflix discs — something Apple TV can’t do.
We never thought an Apple TV with DVR was going to happen, but we hoped. Now we’ll just let it go and dream about something else. An official Google Voice app for iPhone perhaps? Hah!
Scientists from Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Denmark say they have identified a new gene involved in type 2 diabetes.
The scientists said the gene, called Insulin Receptor Substrate 1, causes resistance to insulin and is the first gene known to affect how insulin works, not how it is produced.
The researchers said their discovery could lead to better treatment of type 2 diabetes, as well as a better understanding of how the widespread disease develops.
Most of the genes that we've identified as diabetes risk genes to date reduce the function of the pancreas, specifically of beta cells in the pancreas that make insulin, said Dr. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 1:35 pm
Apple just rolled out their new version of OS X and Windows 7 is just around the corner. If you are feeling OS curious, you should definitely check out this promotion by VMWare. Right now through September 10th, 2009 you can get VMware Workstation 6.5 at $113.40 instead of the usual price of $189.00. If you’re on the Mac, VMware Fusion is also available at a discount for $47.99 instead of $79.99. To get this discount, you must buy from the VMware store and enter the promo code: “DESKTOPSALE” (no quote marks). Remember, this promotion ends on September 10th.
If you are unfamiliar with VMware, they make products that allow you to create virtual machines on your computer. So if you’ve got a Windows machine, you can create another machine virtually within Windows. You could test out Linux or other versions of Windows on one machine.
Additionally, if you have a Mac, you can run Windows from within OS X without having to use Boot Camp. While there are free options out there to get virtual machines running on your computer, from my experience VMware products are easy to set up and there is a lot of support for varying operating systems without much hassle.
NASA says space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew are to return to Earth Thursday after a 13-day mission to the International Space Station.
The space agency said two landing opportunities are available at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida -- at 7:05 p.m. and 8:42 p.m. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 1:13 pm
An international team of scientists led by Cardiff University in Wales has reported finding two more genetic risk factors of Alzheimer's disease.
The group said it completed the largest genome-wide association study ever involving patients with Alzheimer's disease. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 1:12 pm
Novmichi Tosa, the man who runs the kooky briliant art unit Maywa Denki, has invented a new musical instrument called the Otamatone, which is shaped like a musical note (or a tadpole) and sounds kind of like a theremin. It has cute little mouth and a long tail that functions as a keyboard. This video is in Japanese, but you can get a feel for how the instrument works and what a lovely man Mr. Tosa is. Watch him play a Japanese children's tune about singing frogs two minutes into the clip.
The Otamatone is currently in production and is slated to sell in Japan starting at the end of this month.
Scientist is studying bacteria that could clean contaminated water bodies across the USThe Lost Orphan Mine below the Grand Canyon hasn't produced uranium since the 1960s, but radioactive residue still contaminates the area. Cleaning the region takes an expensive process that is only done in extreme cases, but Judy Wall, a biochemistry professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is researching the use of sulfate-reducing bacteria to convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances, a much more economical solution.The bacteria Wall is studying are bio-corrosives and can change the solubility of heavy metals. They can take uranium and convert it to uraninite, a nearly insoluble substance that will sink to the bottom of a lake or stream. Wall is looking into the bacteria's water cleansing ability and how long the changed material would remain inert.Wall's research could also be beneficial to heavy metal pollution from storage tanks and industrial waste. The bacteria are already present in more than 7,000 heavy metal contaminated sites, but they live in a specific range of oxygen and temperature, making them difficult to control."Our research must be done in the absence of air," Wall said. "Obviously, none but the most committed – and stubborn – will work with them."Even if an oxygen-tolerant strain were developed, there are still multiple factors that would make applying the bacteria challenging, and these microbes can contribute to massive iron corrosion."Knowledge of the way bacteria live in the environment, in microbial communities, is still in its infancy," Wall said. "We just don't know a lot about the communication systems among microbes."Wall and researchers from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory in California are investigating the bacterium's basic genetics and hope to determine its growth limits and activity in natural settings, including how to make its interactions with metals sustainable. They have already identified a few genes that are critical to converting uranium.Wall's research has been published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Nucleic Acids Research and Environmental Microbiology.---Image Caption: Judy Wall, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri, is working with bacteria that convert toxic radioactive metal to inert substances. Credit: Reprinted with permission from MIZZOU magazine. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 1:09 pm
It's always tough to bid farewell to summer and hit the books again, but for a few million students this back-to-school season, things are looking up. As of this fall, over five million students at thousands of schools in more than 145 countries have "gone Google" and are actively using Google Apps Education Edition on campus. Since this time last year the number of students using Google Apps on campus has increased by 400%. Because more schools sign up for Apps everyday, we wanted to celebrate the start of the 2009 school year by launching a new site that shows off some of these schools, provides product tips and tricks, introduces a community discussion forum and more.
A snapshot of some of the thousands of schools "going Google" this fall. Every location in green indicates Apps users.
When you visit the site, you'll also find an interactive map packed with interesting trivia. For example, in addition to the 70,000 students using Apps at Temple University, their 5,000 staff and faculty were given a choice between Gmail and alternative vendor, and over 90% chose to go Google. Or when Kent State first deployed, they saw more than 700 students migrating each hour. And a single admin at Montana State successfully deployed over 30,000 accounts in less than 90 days. Or as we learned in the recent webinar from another school on the map — Notre Dame — they saved $1.5 million by switching to Apps. You can hear their full story in this video:
We hope more schools will continue to go Google and bring Apps to their campuses in an effort to improve communication and collaboration while cutting costs and resources. In the meantime, check out our site and find out what Apps has done for other schools and what Apps can do for your school — and if you're already a part of the movement, add yourself to the map!
Posted by Miriam Schneider and Jason Cook, Google Apps Education Edition team
Ars has a review of recent research, and a summary of the history, in the field of reidentification — identifying people from anonymized data. Paul Ohm's recent paper is an elaboration of what Ohm terms a central reality of data collection: "Data can either be useful or perfectly anonymous but never both." "...in 2000, [researcher Latanya Sweeney] showed that 87 percent of all Americans could be uniquely identified using only three bits of information: ZIP code, birthdate, and sex. ... For almost every person on earth, there is at least one fact about them stored in a computer database that an adversary could use to blackmail, discriminate against, harass, or steal the identity of him or her. I mean more than mere embarrassment or inconvenience; I mean legally cognizable harm. ... Reidentification science disrupts the privacy policy landscape by undermining the faith that we have placed in anonymization."
On Tuesday, London's Natural History Museum unveiled an eight-story extension to house the collections of Charles Darwin. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 12:50 pm
Apple on Wednesday will host its annual media event, which has traditionally centered on its newest iPods and upgrades to iTunes. On the eve, the Apple community is buzzing with a new crop of rumors regarding the event.
In late August, we treated you to a list of what to realistically expect from this event, including iPods equipped with cameras, a new version of iTunes and the possible return of Steve Jobs as keynote emcee. (And sorry, but we don’t expect an Apple tablet.)
Today’s last-minute predictions include a delay for the new camera-equipped iPods due to technical issues, the death of the iPod Classic, a revised App Store, no Beatles in the iTunes Store, and iTunes in the cloud. As usual, we analyze each of these tidbits and tell you what you can realistically expect.
A Delay for iPods With Cameras A wealth of evidence and a number of anonymous tipsters have indicated the likelihood that Apple will upgrade the iPod Nano and iPod Touch to include cameras. AppleInsider claims there have been technical issues when testing the camera-equipped iPods, which may delay Apple’s announcement at the event.
While it’s indeed plausible that the cameras are experiencing technical problems, we don’t feel this would delay the announcement. Even if there are issues to resolve, Apple will likely move forward with the announcement, then release the iPods to customers on a later date. The company traditionally enjoys announcing and releasing products at the same time, but that isn’t always the case. For instance, the iPhone 3GS was announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference in early June and didn’t hit stores until June 19. And let’s not forget to mention a widely anticipated feature iPhone customers have been waiting for for months: multimedia messaging, which is finally arriving Sept. 25.
In short, we still expect iPods with cameras to be announced. What else would there be to talk about at an iPod event?
The Death of the iPod Classic
Our colleagues Marco Arment, Harry McCracken and Dan Frakes agree it’s possible Apple will discontinue the hard drive-based iPod Classic, despite a rumor that this model would be gaining a camera. We naysayed the idea of iPod Classics receiving a camera, citing declining iPod sales and plummeting costs of flash-based memory. For the same reasons we’re agreeing that it’s possible Apple will discontinue the Classic altogether.
However, we’re not entirely convinced Apple will discontinue this product. The iPod Classic, as its name implies, carries the form factor that helped Apple break ground. Wouldn’t Steve Jobs wish to continue selling the iPod Classic for the sake of sentimental value? Its hard drive also gives the Classic far more capacity — 120GB — than any other iPod. Here’s what we think is more likely: Apple won’t upgrade the iPod Classic and will continue selling the current model for another year, until flash memory prices drop enough to make a 128GB flash drive affordable.
New and Improved App Store Forbes makes a vague prediction that the iPhone’s App Store will be revised to better organize the 65,000 apps available for download. During its previous earnings call, Apple said it was working on improving the App Store experience. Thus, the iPod event would be a good opportunity to demonstrate the “fixed” store, Forbes argues.
Given Apple’s recent statement, we agree that’s probable, but we doubt this will be the biggest news. A tidier App Store would be a bigger deal for iPhone developers trying to earn a buck; consumers will likely care more about new iPods.
Beatles in the iTunes Store — Maybe
The Beatles have not stepped foot in the App Store due to a trademark feud: The Beatles’ record label is Apple Corps Ltd., and ultimately the computer company owned the Apple trademark. Some speculated that The Beatles’ songs would finally be for sale in the iTunes Store because the video game The Beatles: Rock Band is releasing the same day as Apple’s iPod event. And make no mistake: Adding the Beatles to iTunes would be a tremendous personal coup for baby boomer Jobs.
However, All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka cites a source who said The Beatles and iTunes will not be coming together at tomorrow’s Apple event. Kafka’s sources are generally pretty solid, so we believe him. Quel dommage.
iTunes in the Cloud
Many tech journalists agree it’s inevitable that Apple’s iTunes will eventually move toward the cloud: That is, you’ll be streaming your iTunes media over the internet rather than saving it all onto your harddrive. With Apple recently breaking ground on a 500,000 square-foot data center, we agree with this prediction.
We disagree, however, with TechCrunch’s suggestion that Apple will make an announcement about cloud-based iTunes storage as soon as tomorrow. Considering the data center hasn’t even been built yet, it’ll be at least one more year before Apple announces a move toward cloud computing for iTunes.
And that about wraps up our pre-event analysis. Eager about tomorrow’s news? We’ll be covering the event live, so keep up with Wired.com’s live blogging and news reporting here at Gadget Lab. Also, follow @gadgetlab and @bxchen on Twitter to stay plugged in.
Updated Tuesday, 2 p.m. PDT: The Beatles might be heading to iTunes after all, according to new reports.
A number of publications throw in their last-minute rumors and predictions for Wednesday's Apple press event. Some suggest that new iPods will be delayed due to technical issues. Wired.com analyzes these tidbits for their plausibility.
Image Caption: Ravens are one of several predator species attracted to oil drilling infrastructure, a new study finds. Credit: Steven Zack/Wildlife Conservation Society Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 8 Sep 2009 | 12:42 pm
Computer maker Asus, known for its line of Eee PC netbooks, is working on an e-book reader that will have two touchscreens and when laid open will resemble a hardcover book.
Asus showed a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March. But now additional details have trickled out.
An Asus representative confirmed to Wired.com the company will probably show the device at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
Asus’ e-reader will likely have color touchscreens, a speaker, a webcam and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls. Despite all those features, Britain’s Sunday Times reports, somewhat unbelievably, that it may be priced lower than its competitors from Sony and Kindle.
The e-reader market is one of the hottest consumer product categories this year. Just the last few months have seen a slew of new product announcements. After introducing Kindle 2, the updated version of its e-reader, Amazon launched a broadsheet reading device called the Kindle DX. Last month Sony introduced a $400 wireless e-reader with a 7-inch screen and cut the price on its older models to offer the cheapest e-book reader in the market. Meanwhile, two other companies — iRex and Plastic Logic — plan to offer new large-screen readers later this year or early next year.
But all e-readers, available and planned, are black and white. Asus’ product will likely be the first to offer a color screen. The move, coupled with unexpected features such as speakers and mic, is the only way the company can stand out in a crowded market.
With dual screens, the new Eee e-reader could give readers a user experience similar to paper books. The device could also offer readers the option of using the second screen to browse a web page. The best part about the device, though, would be the price tag, says the Times report. The cheapest version of the Asus Eee reader could lost about £100, equivalent to $165.
While Asus has a well-deserved reputation for making extremely inexpensive computers, that price may be too low for even it to match, given the promised feature set.
For Asus, getting this mix of features and price right is essential if it has to make a dent in the e-reader market at this stage.
There has been a few rumors about Sprint cutting the price on the Palm Pre the last few days. Those might still work out, but until then there is this deal. There is a lot of fine print with the offer, but if you’ve been eyeing a Palm Pre, you should definitely see if you qualify.
Could include a $36 activiation fee per line
Excludes existing customers
Must transfer a number from an active wireless line
The new line must be active for 30 days
Ends on 10/10/09
It will be applied to your account within three invoices
These intricately designed toy robot hands created by Craft House go on sale tomorrow in Japan. They have five jointed fingers that can grab small objects like fruits and ping pong balls. This version is called the Melissa Hands, and they're the successor to a popular previous version called God's Hands. If you're in Japan, you can buy them online for about $600.
Taiwanese phone maker HTC has released yet another phone based on the Android operating system.
Called the Tattoo, the device has a 2.8-inch touch screen display, a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera, FM radio, GPS a and expandable microSD memory. It integrates Google’s services such as maps, search and email and runs HTC’s custom interface called Sense. The phone allows users to customize the device through changeable covers and pick from a choice of designs to ink the back of the phone. The Tatoo also has a HTC-designed interface that users can personalize to bring Facebook, twitter feeds and Flickr apps to the home screen.
“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, CEO of HTC.
HTC has become the torchbearer of the Google designed open source Android mobile operating system. The Tattoo will be the company’s fourth Android device in less than a year. HTC launched the first Android phone called the T-Mobile G1 in the U.S. last October. Since then, the company has introduced the HTC Magic, a touch screen phone that eliminates the physical keyboard of the G1 and the HTC Hero, which is scheduled to be available on Sprint’s wireless network later this year.
The Tattoo is the second phone, after the HTC Hero, to use the company’s custom designed Android interface called Sense. Like the Palm Pre’s webOS interface, HTC Sense organizes the phone around contacts and widgets such as twitter feeds, weather data, email or calendar. This allows users to personalize the start up screen on their phone and create profiles around specific functions such as work and home.
The current version of the Tattoo does not support 3G in the U.S. But the Tattoo, which was earlier nicknamed HTC Click, is expected to cost lesser than current Android handsets in the market. HTC hasn’t specified pricing or telecom carrier partners for the device.
The Tattoo is expected to debut in Europe at the beginning of October and will be available in the U.S. a few months later.
Here comes the trickle, folks. With just two days left before the grand unveiling of Motorola’s first Android-powered device(s), the basic specs for two separate ‘Droid sets have shown up on Motorola’s own territory. CellPassion was hunting around in one of Motorola’s repositories when they found them: the MB200 and MB300. Could these be the Morrison and the Calgary?
MB200 Specs:
MSM7200a processor, 528mhz
Android-powered
Bluetooth: A2DP, ARCP, Headset, and Handsfree
QWERTY keyboard
320×480 screen
WCDMA
MB300 Specs
Nearly identical to the MB200, but the “MaxImageResolution” variable is set to 2592×1944, which works out to right around 5 megapixels.
We’re not too sure where the MB200 specs might come in, but the MB300 specs match up perfectly with what we’ve been hearing for the Morrison. Two more days, folks!
Crunch Network: CrunchBoardbecause it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Today, Epson announced the release of four brand new projectors: PowerLite Home Cinema 8100 and 8500 UB, and Pro Cinema 9100 and 9500 UB. Each of these projectors will project 1080p high definition and are intended for home use. The 8100 is the budget friendly version with the 9100 and 9500 being the more high tech and pricier models.
The Home Cinema 8100 will have contrast ratio of up to 36,000:1 and brightness of 1,800 lumens while the 8500 expands on these features with the introduction of new Super Resolution technology which includes refined frame interpolation in order to provide the user with crystal clear images. The Pro Cinema 9100 has 36,000:1 contrast ratio and brightness of 1,800 lumens along with the inclusion of ISF calibration and color isolation.
The highest end unit of the new series is the 9500. Expect features like 200,000:1 contrast ratio, real color reproduction, and frame interpolation. In addition, the home theater projector has an anamorphic lens mode, ISF calibration, color isolation, and pre-set color space selection.
The Home Cinema and Pro Cinema series will be released in late October. Pricing information for the units will be available at that time.
After letting it float around in the rumorsphere for months on end, Verizon finally announced at the end of August that they would be launching the Samsung Rogue on September 8th. September 8th has come and, sure enough, so has the Samsung.
The Rogue isn’t quite a smartphone, but it still packs a good amount of heat for a $99 messaging phone. It’s got a 3.1″ touchscreen, with a 3.0 megapixel camera with flash and video recording. Stereo bluetooth support is there, and it’s all built-up on top of Samsung’s in-house TouchWiz OS. If nothing else, we’ve got a special place in our hearts for that big ol’ full QWERTY keyboard.
Crunch Network: TechCrunchobsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Spotify, the on-demand music streaming software and service, has come to the iPhone. A slick implementation and instant access to any of four million songs, whenever you want, could spell the death of the iPod as we know it. Or could it?
FROM APPLETELL - Word from MacNN has it that Apple and AT&T may together add support to the iPhone for overage alerts and new Voicemail settings. MORE »
It’s the attention to detail that really makes this hard-drive mod great — after all, how hard is it to just slip a USB-powered 2.5” drive into, well, anything?
After slipping the drive into the casing, hacker _n3o_ (for that is his hacker name), shifted the LED up to the hole where the Gameboy’s battery light used to be. Then, he took advantage of the lack of a screen backlight and simply replaced the panel with a piece of paper sporting the logo graphic. And that’s it: a very neat’n’nerdy 80GB portable drive.
Retro-hardware fans will be pleased to know that no consoles were hurt in the course of making this mod — the Gameboy in question was already dead.
Even with yesterday's holiday, we still caught up on some of the weekend's biggest news from PAX or otherwise, as Twisted Pixel -- the indie dev behind the recent fantastic one-button Xbox Live Arcade platformer Splosion Man -- unveils Comic Jumper, a superhero run and gun that will change its style as you, well, jump between comics from PowerPuff to Sin City.
Asus just dropped the new UL Series of laptops with a 1.3GHz dual-core processor that is a Intel Consumer Ultra Low Voltage processor. Why is that good news? Increased battery life—Asus is claiming up to 12 hours of battery life in their new UL series. While battery life hardly ever matches manufacturer’s claims, a battery at 1/2 that life is still pretty good.
The UL Series also is thin and light at under 1 inch thick and weighs 3 pounds in a brushed aluminum chassis. Asus also threw in the ability to switch between an integrated graphics card and a dedicated one to keep battery life up. Unfortunately, Asus did not release the price and lists the availability as “soon.”
Morris Rosenthal, author of the book Computer Repair with Diagnostic Flowcharts, writes about the effect that the viral replication of its incredible flowcharts, across the internet, had on actual sales. Our own post was here a few days ago.
The FonerBooks website received approximately 90,000 extra visitors for the week, who downloaded some 14 GB worth of material. Our $10/month hosting service stood firm under the load and continued to perform amongst the top 10% of web servers, and I haven't been contacted about any overage charges on bandwidth yet.
His referrer chart shows 24k visitors from Gizmodo, 9k from Lifehacker, 7k from BBG, and then 4k from Google's feeds. URL shorteners obscure the origin of some visitors.
Of these visitors, however, only a tiny fraction turn into sales. Most venues credited Morris and linked to his site or the book's Amazon page, others did not. Bloggers tend to link to the blog they read about it instead of Morris' website. About 25,000 of the visits went directly to the PDF version of the charts.
Nor is it the first time the charts have "gone viral." Like anything on the Internet of great general usefulness, it gets periodically rediscovered. "The funny thing is that I launched my viral book promotion blitz SIX YEARS AGO, in 2003!" he adds.
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.
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: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
It’s the night before an Apple event. You know, the time just before the Apple Store being down sends ripples of excitement through the blogosphere. Now’s a time for one last reflection on the finalized 
During the 
We’re shocked (shocked!) that yes, Twitter is broken again. Once again, rather than the Fail Whale, it’s been getting the 
Back in July
The Earth Brooch Silver is an eclectic custom piece of jewelry you can easily design yourself. Just select your desired location. Within a few seconds the place's distinctive landscape turns into a 3d-preview of your custom jewelry.
A long requested feature of 
By the 1830s and 40s, a region of central New York State called "the Burned-Over District" (so-named for its religious passions) became the magnetic center for the religious radicalism sweeping the young nation. Stretching from Albany to Buffalo, it was the Mt. Sinai of American mysticism, giving birth to new religions such as Mormonism and Seventh-Day Adventism, and also to the spread of Spiritualism, Mesmerism, mediumship, table-rapping, séances, and other occult sensations - many of which mirrored, and aided, the rise of Suffragism and related progressive movements. 
Because this guy’s sewed it up pretty tight. Working drill, platform diving shoes, nuts, bolts, and everything. To the creator of the costume: that’s pretty savage, man. I guess you do this stuff for a living, but still, this sucker is something we can all be proud of, professional or not.
Netgear just came out with their latest network appliance, the Digital Entertainer Live system. It’s a set top box that ties into your home network and internet connection, and (like most home entertainment appliances these days) plays streaming video, music, and pictures to your TV without a computer.
In order to boost Palm Pre sales, there was a 
Making sure to avoid getting buried by the Apple (presumably iPod) announcement tomorrow, Dell today announced a number of new computers. The new machines come in the form of a new desktop with options for Intel Core i5s or Core i7s and two new slim laptops.
Oh Apple.. you are such a fickle taskmaster when it comes to the App store. On one hand, it’s brilliant. On the other hand, their approval process can be draconian and bizzare at the same time. Recent case in point: the Commodore 64 emulator by Manamio. It was declined, resubmitted, approved, published, and then promptly removed.
Over the long holiday weekend Facebook began having serious issues. News feeds stopped updating and displayed entries that were days old. Popular apps like Farkle started loading slowly or returning errors. Uploaded pics didn’t always display and the site as a whole started running slowly and returning random “endpoint” errors. Facebook was silent on the matter but their users weren’t. Amid the complaints a dire warning began popping up on statuses:
Palm will unveil its 
Netbooks are so 2008. Get ready for the new wave of must-have devices dubbed “smartbooks.” These smartbooks are small netbook sized devices running on ARM microprocessors used in smartphones. Why would you build such a beast? They’re cheap.
Windows mobile has had a hard time of it of late, what with the Blackberry and iPhone being so popular. The current version, WinMo 6.1, is at the long coming end of its lifespan. The followup, 6.5, looks pretty great – but what about handsets already running 6.1?
Asus just dropped the new UL Series of laptops with a 1.3GHz dual-core processor that is a Intel Consumer Ultra Low Voltage processor. Why is that good news? Increased battery life—Asus is claiming up to 12 hours of battery life in their new UL series. While battery life hardly ever matches manufacturer’s claims, a battery at 1/2 that life is still pretty good. 
