Technology Headlines for October 8, 2009

Vivendi seen unlikely to engage in GVT bidding war

* French firm not able to make same synergies as Telefonica
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 4:19 am

Media Talk USA talks TV

Here’s this month’s edition of the Guardian Media Talk USA podcast with me at the helm and the NY Times’ Brian Stelter and Time’s James Poniewozik on the couch. This month: No newspaper...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 4:16 am

CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-Alcatel CEO says mergers not best solution for it

(Corrects date of Alcatel results in last paragraph to Oct. 30)
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 4:15 am

Sony’s Ultralight $1300 Carbon-Fiber Netbook Has the X-Factor

vaio-x

Like the starlet of a successful network TV show entering its third season, Sony’s new Vaio X notebook has lost a lot of weight. The super-skinny carbon-fiber body means that it beats the tight-fitting pants off the other anorexic starlet on the block, the MacBook Air.

The X weighs just 1.5 pounds, half the heft of the MacBook air, although to be fair the Sony has two inches less of screen, at 11-inches instead of 13-inches. It is also thin, at 1.5-inches to the Air’s 0.76-inches. In fact, so tiny and light is it that you’d be forgiven for thinking you were holding a netbook.

There are some other similarities shared with the MacBooks: The aluminum keyboard panel is sunken and has chiclet-style keys. Yes, the tiny Vaio P has these, but the X keyboard looks to have been ordered straight out of a Mac spares warehouse. The touchpad also has all the multi-touch gestures of the Macs, and a good thing, too: all keyboards, portable and desktop, should have one.

And before we head inside, Sony has managed to squeeze in a few things onto the case that Apple couldn’t. You get two USB ports, and Ethernet jack and twin slots for Memory Stick Pro (whatever) and SD cards, along with a camera and a microphone. Not bad.

Heading inside we see that this is sorta, kind of a netbook. You get an Intel Atom processor, but it runs at a healthy 2.GHz, and there is a solid state drive (up to 128GB) and a battery that lasts around three hours. Swap in the (included) high-capacity battery though, and Sony claims up to 14 hours of life. Even with adjustments for PR BS, this is going to be a useful life, and as the bigger battery adds just under one pound extra to the weight, it’s still very portable (if a little chunkier).

SO we have two ways of looking at this machine. Either it is Sony’s hottest, tiniest and ultra light-est notebook since like forever, or it is, at a starting price of $1300, the world’s most expensive netbook.

The boundaries are very blurred here. While you’re not going to be editing movies on this (not at a pro-level, at least), 2.0GHz of Atom is enough for most things, and the slightly larger screen and keyboard (and of course proper trackpad) make this a lot easier to actually work on than your average netbook. I’m going to predict that Sony will sell a boatload Vaio Xs, price be damned. We all giggled when Apple tried the same thing with an underpowered, anorexic Mac, but the MacBook Air is now a coffee-shop staple and the kind of machine that the words “pry” and “cold, dead hands” were invented for.

Product page [Sony. Thanks, Ana!]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 8 Oct 2009 | 4:08 am

Cable Boxes And Their Fisher Price Remotes Are Junk. Demand Better.

41501151-300x300-0-0_Fisher+Price+Sesame+Street+Silly+Sounds+Remote About a year ago, I had enough. I was so sick of putting up with Comcast’s ridiculous rates for terrible service that I decided to cancel everything but the Internet. Truth be told, I kept basic cable only because it was cheaper to keep it with my Internet package then to not keep it. But I never watched it. For all intents and purposes I was cable-free. Most importantly, that meant removing the cable box from my life as the filter between me and content on my television. I thought I would miss it. I did not. At all.

Fast forward to now: I recently moved, and luckily enough my apartment isn’t held captive under Comcast’s dominion. So I decided to try cable once again, just to see if it was as bad as I remembered it. My new service is substantially cheaper, so that’s nice, but all in all, the song remains the same. It’s absolute crap from an end user perspective. And yet we put up with it.

The Box

Almost all of us likely have a cable box. Turn it on. Just look at that user interface. Yes, it’s probably more or less the same one you’ve been looking at for the past 10 years, if not longer. It probably has some blue in there, probably some green, maybe a little red if they’re rebellious. The icons look like crap and the text is often hard to read.

I would make a joke about our phones having nicer UIs, except that our phones now have UIs that must be a thousand times nicer. Maybe a million.

dvr_motorola_dct6412_med In fact, I can’t think of any digital device today that has a worse UI. And this is probably many peoples’ most-used device. And it’s not just that it looks awful, it’s slow. There are delays that simply shouldn’t be there when moving between channels or navigating the menus. We’re talking half-seconds to multiple seconds, but all of that time adds up and severely hampers the experience.

I don’t think I’m going to get much disagreement in saying that Motorola, which makes many of these boxes that cable companies use, should have been fired a long, long time ago for these miserable things. But of course, the cable companies don’t care. Most of them have strangleholds (shhh don’t say “monopoly”) over their communities, and know that consumers have very little choice, and so the cable companies go for these cheapest option boxes.

The Remote

As bad as the cable boxes are, their remotes may be worse.

Most TVs nowadays are slick pieces of hardware, and their accompanying remotes are also pretty slick. I’d love to use one someday, unfortunately they’re all pretty useless because the cable company forces their cable box on you and then makes you use their awful remotes. I’ve seen a lot of cable boxes in my time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a remote for one of them that doesn’t look like it was developed by Fisher Price.

Those huge, ugly, rubbery buttons. The cable company branding. The absurd number of extra buttons. These things are nightmares. And while there are some nice universal remote solutions, let’s be honest, most people are never going to get those. Others will say, “Get a TiVo.” It does have a great remote, but again, why would people get yet another box for the living room when the DVR through the cable company is cheaper (though much, much worse)? So they are stuck using the Fisher Price variety. Like I am. Look mom, I can use TV too!

DigitalCableBoxRemote2

The Offerings

I’m not going to go into the various aspects of why cable companies overall content offering is bad. That could be a number of posts all by itself. I will say that it’s an absolutely joke that we still have no a-la-carte options. That is to say, no way to pick just the channels you want to get without being forced to have literally hundreds now that you could care less about.

The Catalysts

If the cable companies had their way, none of this would ever change. Just look at Comcast. We’re in the midst of a horrible recession and yet Comcast’s profits increased by an amazing 53% last quarter. Why? Well a small sliver may be attributed to the fact that in tough times people turn to entertainment to get away, but the real story is that Comcast jacked up prices. Again, because they could.

But I’m going hold out hope that services like Verizon FIOS and others can continue spreading, and put pressure on these cable companies to actually work towards improving their offerings, rather than improving their bottom-lines.

apple-tv-2 While Apple’s iPhone is not everyone’s cup of tea, there is no denying that it significantly changed the wireless landscape in this country. Just a couple of years ago I was using a RAZR phone, and that was considered fairly high tech for the U.S. Today, that would be considered laughable.

The iPhone and the subsequent smartphones that followed have forced change to improve the state of the industry from an end-user perspective. Before it, the carriers ruled with an iron fist. Now, companies like Apple and Google are starting to have a say.

I hope the same thing is possible in the cable industry. It will be harder to initiate this change because various providers do have many areas on lockdown. In wireless, most consumers had a choice of which provider to go with. In cable, most don’t have that choice. Sure, some opt for satellite, but again, that’s not an option for a lot of people.

The Compromise

But forget the service, let’s even just improve the cable boxes. It’s no secret that the Apple TV hasn’t exactly been a big success for Apple. Maybe it’s time for them to stray from the go-it-alone approach and instead talk with cable providers about making boxes for them. Do I believe that will actually ever happen? No, but it’s not out of the realm of possibility as it is a similar idea to what they’ve done with the iPhone in wireless.

Apple could use its box to get a foot into the cable business. The box could have a DVR, full access to a cable company’s content, but also access to iTunes. Would the cable companies ever go for that and give up their pay-per-view business? Probably not, but maybe a smaller one would be willing to take a gamble on it. An maybe that in turn would force others to at the very least improve their rubbish hardware.

slingbox-7 It’s a pipe dream, but it’s one that I’m going to keep on dreaming every time I turn on my TV. I look at my cable box’s UI versus the UI on my Apple TV or my Xbox 360 and I just shake my head. Two of them look like modern, sexy services, the other looks like it was designed in the 70s or 80s — probably because it was.

And why on Earth do cable boxes have to be so big? There is technology now to use CableCARD (even though no one suspiciously seems to be using them), and yet we need these gigantic boxes?

Myself and others have ranted about this topic before, with elaborate plans to bring about change, but nothing ever seems to change. That’s why I think now a very simple goal is important — Cable companies: Get decent cable boxes with non-Fischer Price remotes, or get out of my living room, again.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:59 am

Cable Boxes And Their Fisher Price Remotes Are Junk. Demand Better.

About a year ago, I had enough. I was so sick of putting up with Comcast's ridiculous rates for terrible service that I decided to cancel everything but the Internet. Truth be told, I kept basic cable...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:59 am

UPDATE 1-Saudi Oct gasoline imports flat from Sept -trade

DUBAI, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia imported around 26,000 barrels per day (bpd) of gasoline in October, around the same amount as in the previous month, traders said on Thursday.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:56 am

Philippe Starck Partners With LaCie To Design Line Of Hard Drives

By David Ponce We’ve written about Philippe Stark a few times before. He’s an influential French industrial designer who’s gotten involved in the design of an endless stream of consumer...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:56 am

INTERVIEW-Japan's DoCoMo to ease pace of M&A in Asia

TOKYO, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Japan's top wireless operator NTT DoCoMo Inc is easing the pace of its M&A; activity in Asia as it focuses on existing acquisitions, an executive said on Thursday.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:53 am

FACTBOX-Asia prepares for 2nd wave of swine flu infections

HONG KONG, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Health experts in Asia have urged people against underestimating an expected second wave of infections from the pandemic H1N1 swine flu, even though the virus appears to have...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:43 am

Eco-Island Homes - The Architectural Island House by Iroje KHM Architects (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) This architectural island house is floating on river confronting the graceful, natural landscape located in Gapyunggun, Gyeounggi-do, Korea. The shape of the building allows it to blend-in...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am

Candy Linked To Violence In Study

T Murphy writes "A study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry links daily consumption of candy at the age of 10 to an increased chance of being convicted of a violent crime by age 34. The researchers theorize the correlation comes from the way candy is given rather than the candy itself. Candy frequently given as a short-term reward can encourage impulsive behavior, which can more likely lead to violence. An alternative explanation offered by the American Dietetic Association is that the candy indicates poor diet, which hinders brain development. The scientists stress they don't imply candy should be removed from a child's diet, although they do recommend moderation. The study controls for teachers' reports of aggression and impulsivity at age 10, the child's gender, and parenting style. The study can be found here, but the full text is behind a paywall."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:29 am

British mobile phone operators wonder about Kindle - Inquirer

Telegraph.co.uk

British mobile phone operators wonder about Kindle
Inquirer
DURING AMAZON'S big Kindle announcement yesterday we noticed that the outfit failed to announce its telco suppliers. This surprised us as one of the reasons Amazon gave for not releasing the gadget in Europe straight away was that it ...
Why you can't get the Kindle in CanadaGlobe and Mail
Amazon Drops Kindle Price, Takes It GlobalPC World
Amazon up on Kindle price cut, overseas launchReuters
CNET News -PC Magazine -AFP
all 838 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:26 am

Secret Coded Websites - Google Commemorates the First Barcode Patent (GALLERY)

(TrendHunter.com) Google is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the first barcode being patented. Google changes its logo often for holidays and other special landmark events during the year, but usually...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:20 am

UPDATE 1-SK Energy close to battery deal with Mitsubishi Fuso

SEOUL, Oct 8 (Reuters) - South Korea's SK Energy is in the final stages of talks to supply rechargeable batteries to Daimler's Japanese truck unit, Mitsubishi Fuso, a source at SK Energy said on Thursday...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:18 am

Halloween Becomes Hilarious With a Little Help From CardBoiled

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Oct.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:12 am

Halloween Becomes Hilarious With a Little Help From CardBoiled

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Here's a scary thought: Halloween is right around the corner! That doesn't leave much time to get costumes in order,
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:12 am

19 Ebony and Ivory Illustrations - From Interactive Paper Portraits to Abstract Graphic Arts (CLUSTER)

(TrendHunter.com) Black and white, ebony and ivory illustrations showcase technical skills like no other. At least, that's a belief I hold. Don't get me wrong, color my world all you want, but gradients...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:10 am

UPDATE 1-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions

Oct 8 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 0900 GMT on Thursday.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:09 am

UPDATE 1-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions

Halloween Party Planners Need Not Be Afraid When Life123.com Helps Create a Creepy Bash on a Budget

BOSTON, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Hosting a Halloween party is a thrilling but sometimes daunting task. With all of the holiday's complexities, ensuring a party's surefire success takes a lot of planning and preparation.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 3:07 am

Franken passes law denying fed contracts to companies that support rape of employees

Go Senator Al! Al Franken successfully introduced legislation that denies federal contracts to companies that have policies -- anywhere in the world -- that punish employees for complaining about rape or discrimination on the job. This is in response to a KBR/Halliburton employee in Iraq who was drugged and gang-raped by co-workers and denied justice or even medical treatment, then locked in a storage container for 24 hours and told that she'd lose her job if she left the country to get medical help. She was also prohibited from suing or seeking criminal justice because her Halliburton contract forbade seeking any justice apart from private arbitration.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) tried to block the amendment, saying that it was a "a political attack directed at Halliburton." Franken replied, "This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court."

Sessions' brave defense of the right of private companies to deny justice to drugged and gang-raped employees should not be forgotten. Truly, the man is a model of moral principle.

[Franken]: "The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law ... And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. ... The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen..."
Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. "It means the world to me," she said of the amendment's passage. "It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it."

Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR's Treatment Of Rape (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:55 am

Franken passes law denying fed contracts to companies that support rape of employees

Dell preps Googlephone for AppleT&T network - Register

PC World

Dell preps Googlephone for AppleT&T network
Register
According to sources speaking with The Wall Street Journal, the PC seller could introduce its Android-based phone as soon as early next year. This would give Google's open source mobile OS a foothold ...
Dell plans first US smartphone with AT&T: sourceReuters
Dell to Build Phone for AT&TWall Street Journal
Dell to flog Android smartphoneInquirer
PC World -PC Magazine -The Associated Press
all 296 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:44 am

Open Forum: Introduce Your Avatar, Please!

It's been awhile since I asked this of my readers, but I'm always glad when I do: Who are you in Second Life, what do you do in-world, and why? NWN readers who usually lurk especially encouraged to speak...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:39 am

Swedish children demand end to gender stereotypes in Toys R Us catalog

A group of Swedish sixth-graders filed a complaint against Toys R Us over the company's 2008 Christmas catalog, decrying the gender stereotyping in the product photos. Their curriculum includes a long-term...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:29 am

Swedish children demand end to gender stereotypes in Toys R Us catalog

According to the youngsters, the Toys"R"Us Christmas catalogue featured "outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive", according to a statement from Ro.
The group's teacher explained to the local Smålandsposten newspaper that filing the complaint was the culmination of more than two years of "long-term work" by the students on gender roles.
Thumbing through the catalogue, 13-year-old Hannes Psajd explained that he and his twin sister had always shared the same toys and that he was concerned about the message sent by the Toys"R"Us publication.
"Small girls in princess stuff...and here are boys dressed as super heroes. It's obvious that you get affected by this," he told the newspaper.
"When I see that only girls play with certain things then, as a guy, I don't want it."

Toys"R"Us scolded for gender discrimination (via Wonderland)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:29 am

Germany's top fashion magazine bans models over "anorexia"

Declaring that "Today's models weigh around 23% less than normal women," and "The whole model industry is anorexic," Germany's top women's magazine, Brigitte has announced that it will no longer work with...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:22 am

Germany's top fashion magazine bans models over "anorexia"

Declaring that "Today's models weigh around 23% less than normal women," and "The whole model industry is anorexic," Germany's top women's magazine, Brigitte has announced that it will no longer work with professional models, because they have to devote substantial resources to photoshopping added weight to them in order to make them resemble their readers.

Lebert said the magazine would call on German women to put themselves forward as models for fashion and makeup articles.
"We're looking for women who have their own identity, whether it be the 18-year-old A-level student, the company chairwoman, the musician, or the footballer," he said, adding that he wanted a mix between prominent and completely unknown women and would look out for politicians and actresses interested in modelling.

Brigitte, Germany's most popular women's mag, bans professional models (via Wonderland)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:22 am

Dragon Age: Origins To Get Paid DLC Expansion — On Launch Day

BioWare's upcoming RPG, Dragon Age: Origins, is set to launch on November 3rd. Today they announced details about some of the downloadable content they have planned for the game. In fact, it's scheduled to become available on the same day the game launches, at a cost of $7. (The PS3 version will be slightly delayed). "Called the Warden's Keep, the DLC will add a dungeon-based quest to the game along with six new abilities, a variety of items, and a base where players can trade with merchants. It will feature a supernatural storyline set in an ancient — and possibly haunted — fortress once used as a redoubt by the Grey Wardens, the ancient order at the center of Origins' main storyline." There will be two additional bits of DLC that are available for free to people who have purchased the game new. One "adds a stone golem character to the player's party from the beginning of the game, unlocking numerous story options," and the other increases a character's defense against some attacks in-game.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:10 am

Betway.com Casino Player Wins a Life Changing $1,242,561.85!

LONDON, October 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Massive dreams do come true! On October 5 2009, Radoslaw Maculewicz's life changed forever when he became an instant millionaire by winning $1,242,561.85 on Microgaming's Betway.com.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

Twitter Talking Separately to Microsoft and Google About Big Data-Mining Deals [BoomTown]

Is there gold in them thar tweets?

Maybe so, because–according to sources familiar with the situation–Twitter is in advanced talks with Microsoft and Google separately about striking data-mining deals, in which the companies would license a full feed from the microblogging service that could then be integrated into the results of their competing search engines.

Sources said a number of scenarios are being discussed to compensate Twitter for its huge and potentially valuable trove of real-time and content-sharing information, generated from the data stream of billions of tweets of its 54 million monthly users.

That includes a number of structures, including a payment of several million dollars to Twitter, along with various revenue-sharing proposals that would give Twitter a piece of the revenue made from search results.

The deals, stressed sources close to the situation, are non-exclusive, especially because Twitter’s management is keen to remain independent and also non-partisan in the growing search battle between Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT).

That means Yahoo (YHOO)–which recently struck a search technology and online advertising partnership with Microsoft–could also license Twitter’s feed to make its search results even more robust, although Boomtown could not determine if the company was in talks with the San Francisco start-up.

Sources said it is also possible that no agreement would be reached with either company.

And execs at Twitter, Microsoft and Google had no comment when asked about talks.

But doing these kinds of data deals with big search players does make a lot of sense, since it would be hard for Twitter to turbocharge its own search engine without running into the big, cash-laden guns at both Google and Microsoft, which recently launched its new Bing search service.

Twitter is, instead, seeking to create a large open platform, which many could plug into, from search engines to marketers to publishers to developers.

Twitter has also been considering offering premium services to these groups and is also contemplating some form of advertising offering.

But, most of all, Silicon Valley’s hot start-up is focusing now on spurring growth and engagement, along with fine-tuning its product offering.

Being deeply integrated into big search services would give Twitter a huge footprint.

Microsoft had already done a small experiment this past summer integrating Twitter data into search results, starting with tweets of bloggers like me.

How much of an indexing of its data Twitter will allow is unclear, but it certainly has bought itself time to think carefully about all its options, given that it now has a lot of money in the bank.

Late last month, Twitter raised another $100 million in new funding, after already have raised $55 million.

This has given it a $1 billion valuation, despite negligible revenue.

And, that valuation effectively stated that the innovative company was pretty much putting itself out of play to be acquired and very interested in forging its own destiny.

Both Google and Microsoft execs have contemplated the idea of buying Twitter in the past, although no serious talks ever moved forward.

If they both strike a data deals with Twitter, they will get the next best thing–an ability to offer all the information disseminated on Twitter in search results.

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:48 am

Panasonic Cites Hurdles for 3-D Television [Voices]

By Daisuke Wakabayashi, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Even as the electronics industry pushes televisions for watching three-dimensional videos as a future growth area, Panasonic Corp. (PC) acknowledged that it will be challenging to get consumers to upgrade to 3-D sets so soon after many purchased new flat-screen TVs.

The electronics company also said it is sourcing more components from places where the currency is tied to the U.S. dollar to offset the strength of the Japanese yen, which it said was putting the company at a disadvantage to rivals, particularly from South Korea.

Japanese electronics makers, along with South Korean rivals Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics Inc., see 3-D as the next major technological breakthrough to spur sales of televisions and Blu-ray players, similar to how high-definition video helped to drum up demand for LCD and plasma TVs.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am

Carphone Warehouse reports sales growth (AFP)

AFP - The Carphone Warehouse Group, the British mobile phone retailer and Internet provider, reported sales growth for its second quarter on Thursday.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:35 am

Google Flu Trends expands to 16 additional countries

If you're like us, you're probably thinking a lot about how this year's flu season might affect you and your community. To help you out, we at Google.org are excited to announce the expansion of Google Flu Trends to 16 additional countries, including much of Europe. We've also made the site available in 37 languages. Flu is a global threat, affecting millions worldwide each year, so we're pleased to make this tool available in more regions and languages.

Last November, we launched Google Flu Trends in the United States after finding a close relationship between how many people search for flu-related topics and how many people actually have flu symptoms. By tracking the popularity of certain Google search queries, we are able to estimate the level of flu, in near real-time. While some traditional flu surveillance systems may take days or weeks to collect and release data, Google search queries can be counted immediately. Google Flu Trends provides an additional surveillance tool that may help public health officials and the public make more informed decisions about preparing for the flu season.

In the past year, we've expanded our coverage to include Mexico, New Zealand and Australia and have continued to see a good correspondence between our estimates and official flu activity data. In fact, our analysis of last season shows that Google Flu Trends had a close 0.92 correlation with official U.S. flu data.

An important aspect of Google Flu Trends is that we filter out terms that may be popular because people hear about them in the news. What we do not use in the models is a term like [swine flu] since people are more likely to type that into Google because they want to know more information about it, given the news headlines, and not because they actually have H1N1 or swine flu. For more information about how we built this model, take a peek at this video:

If you visit Google Flu Trends for the U.S., you'll notice that the flu season is starting early this year. For tips on how to stay healthy this season, please visit our friends at the U.S. CDC and the ECDC.

Posted by Matt Mohebbi and Dan Vanderkam, Software Engineers

Source: The Official Google Blog | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:30 am

Pharma Drops Search Advertising After FDA Warning [Voices]

By Rich Thomaselli, Contributor, Ad Age

Pharmaceutical companies, fearful of running afoul of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s marketing guidelines, have virtually abandoned search ad marketing in the wake of the FDA’s online ad crackdown earlier this year.

According to a study from web metrics measurement firm ComScore, paid search ads by pharmaceutical companies dropped a whopping 84% between March 26 of this year and the end of June.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:05 am

Why Apple is betting on Light Peak with Intel: a love story [Voices]

By Daniel Eran Dilger, Blogger, Roughly Drafted Magazine

Despite Apple’s investments in developing its own custom ARM microchips in place of using Intel’s Atom mobile processors, the company has reached out to Intel as a partner to drive the adoption of the new Light Peak specification for optical cabling. A look at Apple’s historical use of ports explains why it is doing this.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am

Lawyer's Unemployment Benefits Yanked Over $1 A Day From Blog [Voices]

By David K. Randall, Staff Reporter, Forbes

Does writing a blog constitute work? That appears to be the position of the New York State Department of Labor, which recently declared a laid-off attorney ineligible for unemployment benefits because she was bringing in $1.30 a day from blog ads.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:03 am

Google's Better iPhone [Voices]

By Douglas Rushkoff, Contributing Writer, The Daily Beast

I feel a large dose of schadenfreude whenever iPhone users get dropped in the middle of their calls with me. Somehow, the failings of the overtaxed AT&T network (through which all iPhones must connect) make me feel better about staying with a cheaper, less feature-rich phone on a more reliable network.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am

Design Starting For Matter-Antimatter Collider

couch_warrior writes "The Register is carrying a story on the early design efforts for the next generation of high-energy particle accelerators. They will be linear, and will collide matter and antimatter in the form of electrons and positrons. The obvious question will be: once we have a matter-antimatter reactor, how long till we have warp drive, and will the Vulcans show up for a sneak-peak?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am

Texas Instruments, C.G. Development and Quanta Microsystems deliver complete solution to support RF4CE development

DALLAS, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN), C.G. Development Ltd. and Quanta Microsystems, Inc. today announced a complete, easy-to-use RF4CE development platform for advanced RF remote control applications.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am

Daily Crunch: Rain of Pumpkins Edition

Enormous pumpkin cannon fires squash at 600MPH for up to a mile
The Windows 7 Launch Party packs ship out to hosts
In the mood for French clowns running around pretending to use cellphones?
The Mountain Goats get a Colbert Bump and, interestingly, it creates a unique music marketing opportunity
Cocaine. There’s an app for that.

Source: CrunchGear | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am

Westell's ConferencePlus(TM) Launches Flat Rate Audio and Web Conferencing Package Featuring Microsoft(R) Office Live Meeting

SCHAUMBURG, Ill., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Conference Plus, Inc. (ConferencePlus(TM)), a subsidiary of Westell Technologies, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am

Changing focus leads Dell to close NC plant (AP)

AP - A massive Dell Inc. computer assembly plant once seen as a job generator worthy of the promise of more than $300 million in state and local inducements will go dark in four months, a victim of new corporate calculations and changing customer tastes.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:56 am

Justice Dept probing IBM's computer market conduct (AP)

AP - The Justice Department is looking into allegations that IBM Corp. has abused its dominant position in the market for mainframe computers, the data-crunching heavy lifters of the computing world that IBM introduced in the 1960s and which are now used to process some of the most sensitive data in banking, government and health care.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:55 am

UMC Reports Sales for September 2009

TAIPEI, Taiwan, Oct.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:50 am

Japan court acquits file-share software creator (AFP)

AFP - A Japanese high court on Thursday acquitted the creator of a popular file-sharing software program of copyright violations, overturning an earlier conviction.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:31 am

SCM Microsystems: New CHIPDRIVE(R) Time Recording 6.0 Available

SANTA ANA, Calif. and ISMANING, Germany, Oct. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SCM Microsystems, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:30 am

Awaiting a puff of moon dust - Los Angeles Times

guardian.co.uk

Awaiting a puff of moon dust
Los Angeles Times
Earthlings' eyes will be riveted skyward Friday morning as NASA crashes a rocket into a crater to look for ice. By John Johnson Jr. In the predawn hours Friday, while those on the West Coast still snooze, a rocket is scheduled to punch a 13-foot-deep ...
NASA rocket on crash course with moonSan Francisco Chronicle
Observatories gear up for Friday lunar crashmsnbc.com
Target: One of the moon's 'wettest spots'USA Today
The Associated Press -ZDNet -Register
all 407 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:25 am

Elephant gives birth

This video of an elephant giving birth gets a little intense at the moment of actual delivery and immediately thereafter, but it also made my heart swell in my chest. There is something just goddamned wonderful about mammal and avian reproduction (insects and bacteria not so much), and it's not just the insanely awesome sight of the baby elephant clambering to its feet and grinning like a holy fool.

Not sure what the narration's like (it's 5AM here in London and everyone's asleep, so I'm on mute), but the visuals are a strong and healing tonic.

Elephant Birth - The Dramatic Struggle for Life (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:20 am

Berlusconi's immunity-for-me law overturned

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's law that grants him immunity from prosecution has been overturned. Berlusconi, a media tycoon who uses his control over the press to stay in office (I've met dozens of Italian activists who uttered the improbable phrase, "Thank God for Rupert Murdoch, Berlusconi can't bully him," which should give you an idea of what sort of person he is), passed the immunity law, arguing that he couldn't govern effectively if he could be sued or criminally prosecuted for wrongdoing. Several pending lawsuits will now go forward.

The appeal to the Constitutional Court was launched by prosecutors including those from the Mills case.
They contended that immunity put Mr Berlusconi above the law and needed to be reversed.
Mr Berlusconi argued that immunity allowed him to govern without being "distracted" by the judiciary.
This is the second time Italy's highest court has thrown out Mr Berlusconi's bid for immunity, after an earlier attempt in 2004 failed.
Of the Constitutional Court's 15 members, five are selected by the president, five by the judiciary, and five by parliament.
They voted 9-6 to in favour of lifting Mr Berlusconi's immunity, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy says from Rome.

Berlusconi immunity law overruled (Thanks, Pico!)

(Image: The Economist)

Previously:

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:18 am

Free speech lawsuit against Vancouver Olympic rules

Shawn sez, "The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is aiding two activists in suing the City of Vancouver over a 2010 Olympic bylaw which may encroach on free speech and violate Canada's Charter of Rights."

With David Eby of The B.C. Civil Liberties Association representing them, Chris Shaw, a UBC professor of ophthalmology, neuroscientist (and Vancouver Observer blogger), and The Olympic Resistance Network's Alissa Westergard-Thorp,announced this morning that they have filed a statement of claim against the City of Vancouver in the Supreme Court of BC. Their lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of an Olympic bylaw limiting free speech during the 2010 Winter Games that was passed by council in July, Eby told reporters this morning.
The BBCLA, with plaintiffs Shaw and Westergard-Thorp, claim their rights to free speech and freedom of movement will be denied once the Winter Games by-laws passed by city council take effect. They say the bylaws, commonly referred to as the omnibus bylaws, will infringe their Charter rights and are unconstitutional....
The bylaw includes a passage entitled "prohibitions regarding city land," which includes a clause that will almost surely trigger a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge. Clause 4B makes it illegal during the Winter Games without authorization to:
"(a) bring onto city land any
(i) weapon,
(ii) object, including any rock, stick, or glass or metal bottle useable as a weapon, except for crutches or a cane that a person who is elderly or disabled uses as a mobility aid,
(iii) large object, including any bag, or luggage that exceeds 23 x 40 x 55 centimetres;
(iv) voice amplification equipment including any megaphone,
(v) motorized vehicle, except for a motorized wheel chair or scooter that a person who is elderly or disabled uses as a mobility aid,
(vi) anything that makes noise that interferes with the enjoyment of entertainment on city land by other persons,
(vii) distribute any advertising material or install or carry any sign unless licensed to do so by the city."
Protest signs usually are made using sticks, often are larger than subsection (iii) allows (as are puppets and other protest devices), demonstrations almost always employ megaphones or other voice amplification devices, and can well "interfere with the enjoyment" of the Olympic spectacle by who chose to be so offended. Protesters often pass out leaflets as well. Thus, any of the dozens of protests I've attended over the last few years would easily be in violation of five of seven subsections.

BCCLA Files Lawsuit Against City For Violation of Charter Rights, VO Blogger Chris Shaw Key Plaintiff (Thanks, Shawn!)

(Image: Support the 2010 Games, a Creative Commons Attribution image from Silly Gweilo's Flickr stream)

Previously:

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:18 am

Cartoonist draws mug-shot of his burglar

Tony sez, "Caricaturist Bill 'Weg' Green has made a career of capturing faces, and his skills helped lead to the capture of the man who broke into his home."

"I thought (the drawing) might be a stick figure or something like that."
Seconds later, Mr Green -- who still works daily drawing private, AFL and other corporate caricatures, as well as running a gallery -- provided a detailed drawing of the burglar's face.
"It was amazing, the likeness was just fantastic," Senior Constable Roche said.
Fifteen minutes later, Croydon police picked up the burglar for an unrelated crime.

Weg makes a mug of a robber (Thanks, Tony!)

(Image: Craig Abraham)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:18 am

Why ad-blockers, ad-skippers and other user-control technologies are legal

EFF's Fred von Lohmann explains with a great deal of clarity and precision why MediaFire is out of its mind to send legal threats over a Firefox plugin, SkipScreen, that auto-clicks through its ad-screens. It comes down to this: your browser is your browser, and you can auto-click, rewrite, block, display or manipulate what shows up on your screen as much as you like and it's no one's business but your own.

Yes, Boing Boing is ad-supported and yes, SkipScreen is an ad-blocker. So what? We're not dumb enough to think that just because we've decided to earn our living from ads means that you have to give up your rights to control what's on your screen. That's what principle is: what you believe in even when it's not convenient.

MediaFire's arguments to the contrary are entirely misguided. First, they suggest that SkipScreen somehow lets users "steal bandwidth." That's wrong on the facts: SkipScreen just automates the exact process that the user would otherwise have to do themselves in order download a file. No "extra downloads," no additional bandwidth for MediaFire. Second, MediaFire argues that the use of SkipScreen violates MediaFire's "acceptable use policy." That's wrong on the law: users who follow a link to a MediaFire download never click-through or otherwise agree to any "acceptable use policy," so there's no contract here that prohibits a user from using whatever browser she likes (including whatever plug-ins she likes) to download a file.
Sure, MediaFire probably would prefer that we all sit, transfixed, while they display ads for us, just like certain Hollywood executives wish we would never leave the couch or hit FFWD when commercials run during our favorite TV shows, and certain websites wish they could ban Firefox ad-blockers. Fortunately, there's nothing in the law that says that by simply visiting a website, I give up the right to control my desktop.

It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:17 am

How badly designed reputation systems create in-game mafias

Randy Farmer's short essay "The Dollhouse Mafia, or 'Don't Display Negative Karma'" explores the well-known problem in reputation systems in which users abandon accounts that get negative feedback, and shows just how bad the consequences of this design can turn out to be.

That feature was fine as far as it went, but unlike other social networks, The Sims Online allowed users to declare other users untrustworthy too. The face of an untrustworthy user appeared circled in bright red among all the trustworthy faces in a user's hub.
It didn't take long for a group calling itself the Sims Mafia to figure out how to use this mechanic to shake down new users when they arrived in the game. The dialog would go something like this:
"Hi! I see from your hub that you're new to the area. Give me all your Simoleans or my friends and I will make it impossible to rent a house."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm a member of the Sims Mafia, and we will all mark you as untrustworthy, turning your hub solid red (with no more room for green), and no one will play with you. You have five minutes to comply. If you think I'm kidding, look at your hub-three of us have already marked you red. Don't worry, we'll turn it green when you pay..."
If you think this is a fun game, think again-a typical response to this shakedown was for the user to decide that the game wasn't worth $10 a month. Playing dollhouse doesn't usually involve gangsters.

The Dollhouse Mafia, or "Don't Display Negative Karma" (via Raph)

Source: Boing Boing | 8 Oct 2009 | 12:12 am

Jugaad: India's duct-tape ingenuity

Dave sez, "I'm an American who blogs about life in New Delhi. I recently published an essay about 'jugaad': the semi-untranslatable practice and philosophy of jerry-rigging that is one of the prides of India. Once you look for jugaad in India, you see it everywhere: water pumps converted into cars, wrappers converted into rope, and so on. This essay also explores the broader implications of a culture that embraces jugaad. Jugaad is how so many people can survive with such stoic patience in conditions that would drive Americans like me crazy. "

No two jugaad vehicles are the same, because each one is an improvised solution using unlikely parts. These vehicles are the purest representation of this spirit of ingenuity, and everyone we spoke to swelled with pride at India's capacity for jugaad. "We are like that only," my boss Murali would tell me when describing solutions to situations that would send most goras scurrying for the nearest five-star hotel.
The variety of solutions to seemingly intractable problems we saw supported this patriotic esteem: motorcycles chopped in half and welded to carts to create centaur goods haulers. The way families would fit mother, father, and three kids onto a single scooter. The clever repurposing of used water bottles as cooking oil containers. Rope spun from discarded foil packets. Cricket wickets made from precariously balanced stacks of rocks. And, as Anurag sardonically pointed out in a political statement I don't understand but assume to be insightfully hilarious, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government: a duct-taped coalition of thirteen political parties.
As one blogger put it when describing those diesel water pump trucks, "these vehicles reflect the true spirit of innovation in rural India."

jugaad (Thanks, Dave!)

(Image: Jugaad in action, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Chromatic Aberration's Flickr stream)

Source: Boing Boing | 7 Oct 2009 | 11:39 pm

Google Forces Web Standards Issue Using Sexy Buttons

google-webkit-buttons

Google made a very minor but significant change to their search homepage earlier this week. While everybody else was distracted by the barcode logo, a few Chrome and Safari users may have noticed that the search buttons now have a certain zing to them, a new and pretty look, with slightly rounded corners, a border around them and a cool looking gradient.

Now, before you think or say, “baa baa techcrunch why is this a story Google change their button baa baa iphone twitter” (or something like that), what is important here is not what they did, it is how they did it.

To achieve sexy buttons, Google has implemented CSS features that are currently not part of any standard and are only supported by Webkit based browsers (ie. Chrome and Safari). To experience sexy buttons on Google, you will need the Google browser (or that other one). The two specific features that are being used to enable sexy buttons are -webkit-border-radius and -webkit-gradient. Both were implemented by Webkit developers as new CSS features over a year ago – and it is hard to argue against their usefulness (where would we be today without rounded corners?).

Browser developers are resorting to going their own way with implementing new features because the standardization process is nothing short of a clusterfuck. In 1996, back in the wild west days of the web, the CSS1 recommendation was published – but the two major browser maker at the time were at each others throats and didn’t pay much attention to it. It only took another two years to get the next version, CSS2, to recommendation status. It was this version, and more importantly, support from the browser makers, that spurred the widespread adoption of CSS and the separation of markup from style on the websites. The first drafts for CSS3 was published in 2001 – and today, a full 8 years later, it is still a work in progress as nobody seems to be able to agree to anything again.

This has spurred the various browser developers to press ahead with their own plans, some of which, such as gradients and rounded corners, can be found in browsers today. These browser-specific bleeding-edge features have always been there, for example, XMLHttpRequest, the core component to Ajax, started a a proprietary extension to IE 5.0. Some of these features live on, some die, and some become part of the standard (or more correctly, a standard).

By implementing currently non-standard features on their homepage, Google are sending out a strong message on what they believe the new standard features should be, and not coincidently, it is the features that their own browser implements and supports. This is not the first time Google has sent a wrecking-ball into the standards process. Google Gears was launched long before Chrome as a way to implement proposed HTML5 standards, such as offline caching, into browsers (see my NextGenWeb series from last year). It was born out of frustration for the slow and beurocratic standardization process – something that Google couldn’t afford to wait for as their web applications could not advance further without a non-aligned platform to build them on.

A large part of the anti-trust case against Microsoft was that with combined desktop, browser and server market dominance the company could abuse that position to make the web a Microsoft web by implementing Microsoft-only features. Google are using their dominance to force an issue that has been stalled for far too long – but the difference is that they are using their force for potentially a greater good (I hope). The theoretical Microsoft web would have been “this website only supports Internet Explorer”, whereas with Google so far we have “this website is a lot better, and has sexy buttons, if you use Chrome (which btw is open source)”.

Update: I originally referred to -webkit-rounded-corners which should be -webkit-border-radius. I blame Web 2.0.

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Source: Gizmodo | 7 Oct 2009 | 11:30 pm

Avatars To Have Business Dress Codes By 2013

nk497 writes "With businesses increasingly using digital tech like virtual worlds and Twitter, their staff will have to be given guidelines on how they 'dress' their avatars, according to analysts. 'As the use of virtual environments for business purposes grows, enterprises need to understand how employees are using avatars in ways that might affect the enterprise or the enterprise's reputation,' said James Lundy, managing vice president at Gartner, in a statement. 'We advise establishing codes of behavior that apply in any circumstance when an employee is acting as a company representative, whether in a real or virtual environment.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Oct 2009 | 11:25 pm

FCC's Genachowski reinforces call for rules on Internet neutrality - Los Angeles Times

Washington Post

FCC's Genachowski reinforces call for rules on Internet neutrality
Los Angeles Times
Reporting from San Diego - The nation's chief telecommunications regulator Wednesday reiterated the Obama administration's call for rules to ensure the free flow of Internet traffic, regardless of whether the data traveled over wired ...
FCC chairman warns of 'looming spectrum crisis'The Associated Press
FCC Chair Addresses Looming Spectrum CrisisPC World
FCC Looks to Add to Airwaves for WirelessWall Street Journal
ChannelWeb -CNET News -PC Magazine
all 646 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Oct 2009 | 11:21 pm

Faculte Streamlines Web-Based Video Presentations For Businesses

Faculte, a startup that presented at last month’s DEMO conference, is looking to help companies produce high-quality video presentations online, without having to deal with the uploading and editing hassles associated with desktop apps. The service can be used for any kind of presentation, but the company is primarily marketing towards businesses looking to create product demos, internal training videos, and customer support movies, among other things.

While there are obviously plenty of options out there for creating presentations, including PowerPoint and Apple’s Keynote, Faculte is looking to offer a solution that’s cloud-based so that presentations (called ‘broadcasts’ by the site) can be easily edited collaboratively. In this sense the app has more in common with online services like SlideRocket and 280slides, with video presentations as its main focus rather than slides.

Faculte broadcasts can include video content, narration, static images, powerpoint slides, and annotation. And unlike most video applications that force you to re-render your content whenever you make a change, Faculte lets you edit things on the fly (all of your edits will also apply to copies of the presentation that have been embedded elsewhere on the web). The service also has a heavy focus on helping businesses manage where their content is distributed — after creating a Faculte presentation, you can secure it with a password and track when it’s watched, and you can charge for access if you’re looking to monetize your content.

The broadcast creation process is pretty straightforward: building the presentation involves dragging and dropping your content — be it video, slides, or images — into the presentation timeline. You can take video from your computer’s webcam or upload your own, and can customize the look and feel of your presentation using templates. Nothing in the broadcast presentation process seems particularly unique, but that means it should be easier for most people to pick up and start using (you can see some of the broadcast creation features in action here).

The company offers its service for free for basic accounts, with premium accounts beginning at $50/month.

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Source: Gizmodo | 7 Oct 2009 | 11:00 pm

Satirical iPhone Apps? Not Cool. Upskirt iPhone Apps? Cool.

Screen shot 2009-10-07 at 9.34.13 PM A buddy pinged me tonight with the video below. It’s of an iPhone called Puff! that basically allows you to blow into the iPhone microphone or push your finger up the screen in order to get a Japanese girl’s skirt to blow up into the air, revealing her underwear. I’m watching this video, and thinking of my headline for this story. Here’s what I had: Well, Here’s An App You’ll Never See In The App Store.

The only problem? This app is in the App Store. As in it it right now, live. In the U.S. too! What the hell, Apple?

Let me just get this straight: A hilarious satirical app made by the Someecards guys cannot get approved because it contains cards that, for example, mock Hitler. But an upskirt app is just fine? That is so ridiculous.

Now, to be clear, this Puff! app contains no nudity, but I think we all know what this type of app is implying, and who this type of app specifically appeals to (hint: some may be found in this app). This app is rated 17+ for “frequent/intense sexual content or nudity” but Someecards app was also submitted with the same rating, but just for satire (so basically, language), and it was rejected.

Apple is either extremely hypocritical, asleep at the wheel again (remember Baby Shaker?), or both.

Look, I’m all for all kinds of apps getting into the App Store, including porn apps as long as they’re correctly rated. What I’m not for is Apple’s totally uneven rules for what apps get in and what don’t. And today has brought two perfect examples of that.

I still think it’s time to tear down the App Store wall. I just wonder how long it will take Apple to realize that they have to because the approval situation is untenable and ridiculous? Maybe when they hit a million apps in the App Store? 2 million? Until then we’ll just have to deal with this BS, I guess.

[thanks Sean]

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