KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - Russia expects to extend the life of the International Space Station beyond 2015, although Moscow must bear the brunt of flights after the United States retires Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am
Expanding on the T-Mobile data loss mentioned in an update to an earlier story, reader stigmato writes 'T-Mobile's popular Sidekick brand of devices and their users are facing a data loss crisis. According to the T-Mobile community forums, Microsoft/Danger has suffered a catastrophic server failure that has resulted in the loss of all personal data not stored on the phones. They are advising users not to turn off their phones, reset them or let the batteries die in them for fear of losing what data remains on the devices. Microsoft/Danger has stated that they cannot recover the data but are still trying. Already people are clamoring for a lawsuit. Should we continue to trust cloud computing content providers with our personal information? Perhaps they should have used ZFS or btrfs for their servers ...'
75 million phones running the Android operating system will be sold in 2012, says research firm Gartner, which if right, would eventually make it the second most popular mobile OS after Symbian.
This makes sense, because the operating system is free (unlike Windows Mobile), and it gives mobile carriers and handset manufacturers who aren’t Apple and RIM (the closed off guys) the ability to create a smartphone that someone may actually want to use. I’ve switched to Android now based largely on deep integration with Google Voice. And that is despite the fact that Android is still just an infant. Version 1.5, which most people are using, has an imperfect user interface and is somewhat laggy on today’s hardware.
But hold on. There’s just one problem. Android, an open source operating system, must avoid the fate of J2ME, an open source mobile applications platform. Open source is great, until everyone splinters off into their own world. That’s what happened to J2ME, and a number of frustrated Android developers are now saying that there is a risk Android will follow the same path.
New Android devices are being announced and shipped in bunches. HTC, Samsung, Dell, Verizon and others have phones on the way. Each has different hardware, and different software, than the others.
We’ve spoken with a number of high profile Android application developers. All of them, without exception, have told me they are extremely frustrated with Android right now. For the iPhone, they build once and maintain the code base. On Android, they built once for v.1.5, but are getting far less installs than the iPhone.
And now they’re faced with a landslide of new handsets, some running v.1.6 and some courageous souls even running android v.2.0. All those manufacturers/carriers are racing to release their phones by the 2009 holiday season, and want to ensure the hot applications will work on their phones. And here’s the problem – in almost every case, we hear, there are bugs and more serious problems with the apps.
There are whispers of backwards and forwards compatibility issues as well, making the problem even worse.
More than one developer has told us that this isn’t just a matter of debugging their existing application to ensure that it works on the various handsets. They say they’re going to have to build and maintain separate code for various Android devices. Some devices seem to have left out key libraries that are forcing significant recoding efforts, for example. With others, it’s more of a mystery.
Imagine if Windows developers had to build different versions of their applications for different PC manufacturers. Or even different versions for various models by a single manufacturer. That’s what some Android developers are saying they are facing now.
Some manufacturers/carriers are opting out of the Android marketplace altogether, and only allowing custom applications on the phone. These devices can still use the Android robot logo, which is creative commons, but they aren’t able to use the Android text logo, which requires that they pass a compatibility test suite.
Developers are frustrated. And consumers will be confused when their “Android” phone won’t let them download their favorite third party applications.
When Steve Ballmer said open operating systems are hard, he wasn’t kidding. And Google, which is currently building two separate operating systems (Android and Chrome OS) doesn’t have 30 years of experience in getting it right.
But Wait…Keeping the Cart Behind The Horse
First of all, the compatibility between versions issue may be overblown. The reported problems have been limited to an Android developer contest, where developers were building on v.1.5 and being reviewed on v.1.6. We haven’t heard of any major app developers complaining of backwards or forward compatibility problems. Also, I’ve now upgraded my phone from 1.5 to 1.6, and every application continues to work fine.
The bigger issue of a general splintering of Android cross-partner may also be overblown. As I said above, the carriers are rushing to get devices to market by end of year, and they are pushing developers to ensure that their apps work. In most cases the test devices developers get aren’t running final software, and so the final devices at launch may not have these problems.
The real test will come in a month or so when sales of multiple devices running v.1.6 of Android ramp up. If apps are running bug-free cross-device without tons of developer frustration, Android may be looking good. But if developers are forced to create and maintain multiple versions of their apps for various devices, Android may be in trouble. The whole idea of Android is to let app developers build once and let users install on any Android device. Right now, it’s not a certainty that will happen.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
75 million phones running the Android operating system will be sold in 2012, says research firm Gartner, making it the second most popular mobile OS after Symbian. This makes sense, because the operating... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 2:21 am
I'm packing up my Wacom Cintiq, some Pigma Micron markers, a whack of paper and my camera... and I'm off to the ReadWrite Real-Time Web Summit on Thursday in Mountain View. (Full disclosure: Oh, god, where... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 2:10 am
BANGKOK, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL has halted operations in a part of its Bongkot natural gas field in the Gulf of Thailand for temporary repairs, parent firm PTT... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 2:08 am
I'll be in Brighton, England next Saturday, Oct 17 for a Battle of Ideas event entitled "The Future of Collaboration: Sharing and Work in the Networked Age." I'll be on a panel with Michael Bull from the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 1:21 am
I'll be in Brighton, England next Saturday, Oct 17 for a Battle of Ideas event entitled "The Future of Collaboration: Sharing and Work in the Networked Age." I'll be on a panel with Michael Bull from the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 1:21 am
I'll be in Brighton, England next Saturday, Oct 17 for a Battle of Ideas event entitled "The Future of Collaboration: Sharing and Work in the Networked Age." I'll be on a panel with Michael Bull from the University of Sussex and Nico Macdonald, chaired by Robert Clowes of Brighton Salon. It's at 8PM in the Jubilee Library and tickets are £7.50 (£5 concessions). Hope to see you there! (I'll also be doing a London Battle of Ideas event on Oct 31, "Rethinking Privacy in an age of Disclosure and Sharing")
The 21st century looks set to be age of online collaboration. While old forms of community and solidarity have waned, leaving us apparently more fragmented and individualised, the social web enables many of us to work, play and organise with others in ways previously unimaginable. Technologies like Flickr, Delicious and Wikipedia evidence new means of sharing information and working together. Many suggest these technologies will have far-reaching social implications, and even presage a new form of production and work outside the market system. While traditional free market capitalism is compromised by the worldwide recession, the world wide web is said to promise an exciting alternative. Wired's Kevin Kelly suggests we are entering a new collectivist epoch, a 'New Socialism'. Technology guru Howard Rheingold sees these developments as disruptive, and will change the way people 'meet, mate, work, fight, buy, sell'. Charles Leadbeater, author of We-Think, sees the new means of networked collaboration as presaging a new production model: 'Mass Innovation rather than Mass Production'.
phantomfive writes "In Iowa and Scotland there are reports of a type of cloud not yet recognized by the World Meteorological Foundation. It seems the cloud does not match any of the clouds in the International Cloud Atlas, and thus there is a campaign underway to have it included. Some have said the clouds look like Armageddon has arrived."
Winning CCTV products, digital photo frames, GPS, in-car entertainment, mobile phones, portable media and portable PCs to be showcased at China Sourcing Fair: Electronics & Components, Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am
The Arizona Republic is plumbing new lows, quoting "psychics" as though they were experts on the future: Consider the way the story starts. The word "apparently" is a tip-off that the piece is based... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 11:36 pm
The Arizona Republic is plumbing new lows, quoting "psychics" as though they were experts on the future:
Consider the way the story starts. The word "apparently" is a tip-off that the piece is based on no actual data. Who's the source for this alleged mini-flood of new customers? Why, the people selling the product. Makes sense to me: In I-can-see-into-the-future territory, we can just take their word for it.
Not a single customer is quoted. We hear only from the people who are claiming to be getting this influx of new customers. Can't the newspaper find even one client?
Look. Newspapers run astrology columns -- something I'd ban if I ran a paper, period -- with no disclaimers that there is no scientific basis for what these planet- and star-gazers tell us. But the astrology columns run, typically, near the comics, which is the fiction section of the daily paper.
No newspaper, as far as I know, gives its pages over to self-described psychics. Yet the Republic's story quotes several, along with the astrologers, with a straight face.
The Arizona Republic is plumbing new lows, quoting "psychics" as though they were experts on the future: Consider the way the story starts. The word "apparently" is a tip-off that the piece is based on... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 11:36 pm
Type design legend John Berry writes in about his upcoming panel on Web font embedding: "It's all about getting new fonts onto a web page, so the content doesn't all end up in default Times or Arial... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 11:03 pm
Type design legend John Berry writes in about his upcoming panel on Web font embedding: "It's all about getting new fonts onto a web page, so the content doesn't all end up in default Times or Arial. After a wide-ranging but inconclusive panel on web fonts at TypeCon in July, this time around some of the browser makers will be represented -- and the focus will widen to include *how* fonts are used on the web. "
I hope the put this on the web afterward!
Where: Typ09, the 2009 ATypI conference, Mexico City
When: 26-30 October (web-fonts program on Thursday, 29 October, at Anáhuac University campus)
Type design legend John Berry writes in about his upcoming panel on Web font embedding: "It's all about getting new fonts onto a web page, so the content doesn't all end up in default Times or Arial. After... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 11:03 pm
KOROLYOV, Russia (Reuters) - A Russian Soyuz space capsule carrying billionaire Canadian Guy Laliberte and a Russian-American crew landed in Kazakhstan Sunday. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 11:00 pm
My neighbor down the street, Chris Daggett, is running for governor as an independent in New Jersey. Yeah, sure, an independent won’t ever make it in this contentious, party-run state. But tonight... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 10:57 pm
Usain Bolt Image by Richard Giles, used under a Creative Commons license. Earlier this week I blogged about a threatening cease and desist letter that Australian photographer Richard Giles received from... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 10:30 pm
The big story today is about Microsoft subsidiary Danger losing all T-Mobile Sidekick customer data from their servers. Danger is the company noted for the T-Mobile Sidekick, the revolution in cloud mobile, and most memorably, almost everybody living in 90210 having to get new phone numbers because of Paris Hilton. Valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers received a notice today from the company updating them on the “data disruption” problem. The good news is that data is no longer being disrupted. The bad news is that there is no data left to be disrupted.
This latest large-scale publicized data loss will surely lead to managers everywhere forwarding a link to the story to their IT departments asking “what are we doing so that this doesn’t happen to us.” It will lead to the issue of data loss and backups being written about ad naseum by technology pundits. Research companies will rub their hands together as they prepare new 80 page whitepapers with titles such as “How Companies Who Pay Us Money Can Prevent Your Data Being Lost” (complete with FDA “may cause drowsiness” warning label on the cover). Consultants will flock to their customers, pat them on the head, and reassure them that everything is ok because their project specification powerpoint shows that they included two of everything (and charged for it).
Backups are a hard sell. Most of us don’t want to think about things going wrong (or put more colloquially, shit hitting the fan). Spending your Saturday afternoon staring at a progress meter that seems to be moving backwards is the polar opposite of fun. If there was a brainwave study of people in the process of backing up data, it would probably show no activity at all (but they could use the results to help calibrate the machines). Furthering the point of no interest, Google trends shows that while the volume of news stories about backups and data loss is increasing over time, volume from people searching about it is proportionately decreasing. We are only shaken out of this slumber briefly when there is an incident such as the one at Danger this week.
Like the death of a celebrity from a drug overdose, publicized data loss incidents remind us that we should probably do something about taking better care of our data. But we usually don’t, because we quickly remind ourselves that backups are boring as hell, and that it’s shark week on Discovery. Our previously well thought out backup and recovery plans are expunged as we scan the perimeter of the clinic for the shortest fence to jump over and bolt back to freedom.
Those who are organized and backup their data usually discover the later, larger, part of the problem – restoring from a backup: Where did I put the backup? It’s an old copy. That file I was just working on isn’t there. It was never actually backing up. No software I use can read this stupid fucking format, etc. For most of us, by backing up, we are only setting ourselves up for a bigger failure down the road.
If you read almost any technology website or newspaper, you could be forgiven for thinking that “The Cloud” solves everything. When “The Cloud” is proposed as a solution to any problem most nod in agreement, not wanting to appear out of the loop by asking what the hell it even means. It certainly isn’t a solution to backups – as Sidekick users found out today, and ironically, as 7,500 users of online backup provider Carbonite found out after the company lost their backups (Carbonite can take some comfort in that they now rank very well for ‘data loss’ in search engines because of the incident. What do they say about bad publicity?).
In the Danger case, it appears from initial speculation that the data was lost because they attempted to upgrade a storage array without backing it up first. Here is a case of smart and rational people who do this for a living at one of the best companies in the world, and they didn’t even bother making a backup – so what hope do we have? Relying on the cloud as a backup didn’t work, because somebody forgot to backup the backup. Roman poet Juvenal foreshadowed this very problem when he wrote “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (at least I think he did, hard to tell because there was no word for “backup” back then).
Storage technology does a reasonable job of keeping data intact, considering that it is only a spilt Red Bull away from not functioning at all. The methods used to store data are vulnerable to simple things such as a magnet, and we live on one of those (hint: The Earth). We have become far too reliant on something that is inherently unreliable.
Every systems administrator has at some point in their life experienced the sickening feeling of realizing that they have lost data – and do not have a backup. It is so common that Eminem even wrote a song about it (Lose Yourself, about a sysadmin who when realizing he didn’t have a backup decides it is time for another career (replace ‘music’ with ‘man tar‘ in the lyrics for the full effect)). The sick feeling that all sysadmins have felt after losing data is because of the pressure and responsibility of the situation, sysadmins run the technology, and we expect technology to solve this problem.
The solution may be to do nothing, certainly not to panic. The biggest problem is that we hoard data. We produce more data and information than we ever have, and we are all vain enough to believe that the data we create is so fantastic that it should live on for eternity. Losing the contact list on your phone shouldn’t be a problem – you should know who your friends are anyway. If you are losing sleep because you can’t find an old email you wrote, you likely have deeper issues to address.
Technology has spoiled us to the point where we feel nostalgic when we lose data that didn’t really matter in the first place. If it did matter, a primal instinct would have driven us to do more to preserve, rather than rely on a sleep deprived sysadmin on the other side of the country. If you didn’t care enough to take care of it yourself, then you didn’t really need it. It is our misguided expectation of technology that causes us to panic when we lose data. The only people who have a larger incentive to preserve your data are those who are using it to target an advertisement at you, or sell you something.
Not only is a lot of this data not important, but do we really want to keep it? I certainly would not want a full account of everything I did in my youth sitting on a server somewhere. I am also certain that we do not want the record of our as a society time being documented and discovered by future civilizations based on Twitter messages.
Data experiences its own form of natural selection. What is important will survive, the remainder will thankfully fade away.
Crunch Network: CrunchGeardrool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
ericatcw writes "Driven by increased crackdowns on BitTorrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, software pirates are fast moving their warez to file-hosting Web sites like RapidShare, reports Computerworld. According to anti-piracy vendor V.I. Labs, 100% of the warez in its survey were available on RapidShare, which, according to Alexa, is already one of the 20 largest sites in the world. V.I. Labs' CEO predicts file-hosting sites such as RapidShare will supplant BitTorrent, as the former appear better protected legally."
With all the hoopla lately about the Nobel Peace prize, you might have missed the fact that there was another Nobel prize given away this week: the Nobel Prize In Physics. This significantly geekier prize was actually awarded to two separate inventions, both of which are extremely significant.
So here’s how it breaks down. Two separate prizes were given out, and the winners will split the award (but probably not the medal). The first winner was Charles K. Kao, the man who is responsible for some of the most groundbreaking developments in the use of fiber optics in communication. So essentially, he made it possible for me to be doing the job that I’m doing today.
The other half of the prize was awarded to two co-recipients, Willard Boyle and George Smith. These two gentlemen worked at Bell Labs in the late 1960’s, and were responsible for developing the CCD device, which is of course used in digital cameras and other devices. The award was given to Boyle and Smith not because of the CCD’s use in digital cameras, but for it’s use in medical devices and research, and not necessarily for it’s use in taking your family vacation shots.
So there you have it. While the Peace prize may have been a controversial choice, I doubt anyone would have issue with who received the Physics prize.
In one of those wonderful ironies of scheduling that make columnists weep with joy, Larry Dignan spent yesterday at a Yahoo! hack day in New York.
This is the same Larry Dignan who is Editor in Chief of ZDNet, which is the same ZDNet that yesterday published a blog post accusing Yahoo of passing the names and email addresses of thousands – sorry, hundreds of thousands - of bloggers to the Iranian authorities during the country’s recent election.
Poor old Larry. One can only imagine the warmth with which he was greeted when he arrived at Yahoo’s event. “Hey Larry!” his hosts may perhaps have said “go fuck yourself.” And their suggestion wouldn’t be entirely unfair, given that the story – written by ‘lawyer and technology writer’ Richard Koman, was a steaming pile of horseshit.
How much horseshit? Let’s break it down, just for giggles. Koman’s unnamed source for the story was a guy who had translated an Iranian blog post written in Farsi. The post – which, let’s say it again, was written in Farsi, which Koman doesn’t speak – was published on the blog of an avowedly anti-government Iranian student group. In the original post, which Koman quoted without a secondary source or an independent translation, it was claimed that Yahoo’s Malaysian subsidiary had passed on the information after access to their Iranian site was blocked by Tehran. Yahoo doesn’t have an Iranian site, nor does it have a base of operations in Malaysia. Neither Koman nor anyone else at ZDNet bothered to put the allegations to Yahoo before publishing a story which Koman admitted he hadn’t got entirely “buttoned down”.
I emailed Larry to find out what on earth went wrong. Is there even a jot of editorial oversight on ZDNet’s blogs? I asked him. Didn’t the fact that the sole source for the story was someone who had translated an avowedly biased blog written in Farsi by students in opposition to the Iranian government give him or any other ZDNet editor pause?
In response, Larry was candid in the way that only a man who has spent the day at a hack day organised by people he’d accused of sentencing two hundred thousand Iranians to death can be….
“Our bloggers publish on their own schedule and post themselves. We backread posts and sometimes read them in advance, but generally we trust our bloggers will follow journalistic principles. And many of them have years of experience and are experts in their fields. In five years of ZDNet blogging we have had few issues of shoddy journalism within our blog network. We trust the bloggers we select to use good judgment and alert us to any potential problems. This was an gross error from a seasoned blogger, and we should have been more on top of it.”
Earlier this year TechCrunch published a story titled ‘Did Last.fm just hand over listener data to the RIAA?‘ (Spoiler alert: no). In the story, we – by which I mean, not me – quoted an apparently rock solid (and English speaking) source who claimed that Last had been tricked by parent-company CBS into passing on a whole bunch of listener information to the recording industry. An outcry promptly ensued, especially after TechCrunch’s source disappeared without trace and both Last.fm and CBS issued categorical denials. A source at CBS was quoted by Ars Technica describing our – which is to say not my – story as “irresponsible journalism” while Last’s Richard Jones went even further in a blog post headed ‘Techcrunch are full of shit.’
Despite doing our best to verify the story, including roping in additional sources, we – which is to say, not me – were left with some egg on our faces. At the time, I was still writing for the Guardian where I wrote a couple of brilliantly insightful columns about the incident, including one in which I lectured TechCrunch – and by extension all bloggers – on how writing on a blog doesn’t excuse you from the rules of journalism 101.
Specifically I offered some lessons that professional blogs might want to carry over from old media. Stop allowing bloggers to post their own stories without passing them first through an editor. Don’t publish a story accusing a company of malpractice without first giving them a chance to deny it. That kind of thing. And yet, eight months on, ZDNet still operates a policy – as does TechCrunch (mostly), as did the Telegraph when I wrote for them – where ‘trusted’ bloggers can post stories without so much as a gramme of editorial oversight, and without anyone ensuring that the subject of the story has been contacted for comment.
Enough.
Trusting the common sense of your writers is all well and good – but when it comes to breaking news, where journalistic adrenaline is at its highest and everyone is paranoid about being scooped by a competitor, that common sense can too easily become the first casualty. Journalists get caught up in the moment; we get excited and we post stupid crap from a foreign language student blog and call it news. And then within half a minute – bloggers being what they are – the news gets repeated and repeated until it becomes fact. Fact that can affect share prices or ruin lives. This is the reality of the blogosphere, where Churchill’s remark: that “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on” is more true, and more potentially damaging, than at any time in history.
I was going to reply with all of this to Larry, to tell him about our – which is to say not my – run in with CBS and to sympathise with him over how easy it is for this kind of thing to happen. He’d had a bad day after all, and he didn’t need anyone making it worse. But then I clicked ‘reply’, saw Larry’s email address and experienced one of those wonderful moments of serendipity that make columnists weep with joy. Because seeing Larry’s email address reminded me which company owns ZDNet. That company…?
CBS.
Did CBS just accuse Yahoo of handing over user data to the Iranians? Oh yes they fucking did. Thank you baby Jesus.
I thought for a moment whether it was mean to gloat. Whether it was unfair to write a post reminding CBS of their “irresponsible journalism” remark. Wouldn’t that just be mean? Shouldn’t I at least give Larry a chance to respond to the irony? Perhaps I should check with my editor before posting – yunno, make sure I’ve got everything buttoned down.
And then I remembered. I’m a blogger. And that’s just not how we do things.
Click.
Post.
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PC World - As mobile phones add more features and more users connect with social media, the cell phone becomes a more important part of people's lives. Japanese carrier KDDI has developed a robot companion that seeks to bridge the gap between a phone and its user and a prototype was shown at this week's Ceatec expo near Tokyo. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:50 pm
Rachel Maddow did a segment on her always-superb show tonight about Ralph Lauren's recent bogus legal threats against various blogs -- including this one. Those DMCAs sent by lawyers for Lauren demanded the removal of a badly photoshopped ad which morphed a model into a lollipop-headed stick figure. The Rachel Maddow Show segment is embedded above, and is also here: Photoshop of Horrors.
Hugh Pickens writes Weston Kosova writes in Newsweek that Rupert Murdoch gave an impassioned speech to media executives in Beijing decrying that search engines — in particular Google — are stealing from him, because Google links to his stories but doesn't pay News Corp. to do so. 'The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,' Murdoch says. 'But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators — the people in this hall — who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph.' But if Murdoch really thinks Google is stealing from him, and if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.'"
Macworld.com - The sequel to the popular Twitter client app Tweetie has just found its way onto the App Store. And after spending a little hands-on time with it, I think even old Tweetie users will want to drop another $3 on this completely rewritten app. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:05 pm
Shanghai International Convention Center Opens its Doors to Developers Looking for Networking, Learning and Inspiration in the Expansive Asian Game Market SHANGHAI, Oct. 10 Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:00 pm
I’m toying with the idea of doing ten-minute episodic reviews videos where I can showcase several gadgets in one fell swoop and throw in some nonsense for good measure. So here it is, the first episode of Time For Gadgets!
That exclamation point is part of the title since gadgets should be exciting and whimsical.
Here’s a list of the items featured in this episode…
Trip Glasses feature two red LED lights and a sound generator that pulsate patterns of rapidly blinking light and binaural-type audio tones with the promise that “they allow you to safely meditate, hallucinate, trip out and generally relax with your eyes gently closed.”
And guess what? They actually work. You probably won’t full-on hallucinate, but you’ll definitely see weird shapes and all in all, it’s a pretty relaxing experience. The sequence runs for 14 minutes and then the glasses automatically shut off.
If you like the arcade version of Big Buck Hunter, you will absolutely love this $40 home version. It plugs directly into your TV and appears to be an almost exact replica of the arcade machine. The gun is a little on the disappointing side – it doesn’t feel too sturdy and the pump action doesn’t have nearly as much travel as the full-size game, but everything else is there.
The TV version adds a red on-screen aiming cursor, which I found to be a tad distracting. If you train yourself to ignore the cursor, though, things get a bit easier.
A simple mini-USB car charger that also features flip-out prongs for use in a standard wall jack – nice for traveling, though $35 seems a bit expensive.
The best all-around iPhone case I’ve found to date, the HardCase Plus completely envelops your iPhone in protection without adding too much extra bulk. I’m petrified of damaging the screen on my iPhone, so the fact that this case actually covers the screen without hindering any of the touch-centric features is amazing.
The MoGo Talk is quite a feat of engineering. It’s a slim, hard-backed iPhone case with a built-in Bluetooth headset that folds down to 5mm thin. When you want to use the headset, just pop it out of the case and flip out the earpiece. There’s a tiny microUSB port built into the case, too, so you can recharge the headset easily.
Sound quality is good and you’ll get around four hours of talk time. The flexible earbud blocks out ambient noise pretty well, too.
Seat Buddy is a hands-free rubber housing for your iPhone that allows you to hang the device from a seat-back tray table on an airplane. It’s a dead-simple solution to the nagging problem of having to hold your iPhone or iPod touch upright for an entire movie.
A full HD camcorder stuffed in a compact, attractive package. The HMX-R10 does up to 1080i at 60 frames per second, or 1080p at 30 frames per second. Video quality is really sharp for such a small and relatively inexpensive camcorder, although footage has a tendency to pixelate and tear if you whip the camera from side to side too quickly. Standard handheld and tripod footage looks great, though.
The camcorder really needs a built-in hand strap that spans the entire side of the device. Instead, you get a little leather wrist strap that attaches to the back right corner of the camera. The lack of a full hand strap makes the camera really hard to use one-handed.
Just a quick hands-on showcasing some of the features of the Archos 5 Internet Tablet. I’ll be doing a full review later. For now, you can also read some first impressions of the device.
theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."
It wasn't long ago that we heard about the imminent demise of one of the net's most infamous and venerable sites: Geocities. At the time, we could see the pendulum hanging from the rafters, but earlier this week it was set a-swinging and the site will die quietly and gallantly on October 26th. Of course, while the sites will no longer be accessible at Geocities itself, they will be preserved in our hearts — and on the Internet Archive, of course.
But merely being not deleted is hardly an honor fit for one the original pillars of the internet. Although we (and you) created a modest tribute, it deserves more, being one of the primary crucibles (or petri dishes, depending on your point of view) for internet culture. Enter Internet Archaeology, a site established in order to "explore, recover, archive and showcase the graphic artifacts found within earlier Internet Culture." Artifacts is the perfect word, isn't it? And as eye-searing as many of them are, there is a kind of transcendent quality in them to the sympathetic eye, and the site is dedicated to preserving that.
It wasn’t long ago that we heard about the imminent demise of one of the net’s most infamous and venerable sites: Geocities. At the time, we could see the pendulum hanging from the rafters, but earlier this week it was set a-swinging and the site will die quietly and gallantly on October 26th. Of course, while the sites will no longer be accessible at Geocities itself, they will be preserved in our hearts — and on the Internet Archive, of course.
But merely being not deleted is hardly an honor fit for one the original pillars of the internet. Although we (and you) created a modest tribute, it deserves more, being one of the primary crucibles (or petri dishes, depending on your point of view) for internet culture. Enter Internet Archaeology, a site established in order to “explore, recover, archive and showcase the graphic artifacts found within earlier Internet Culture.” Artifacts is the perfect word, isn’t it? And as eye-searing as many of them are, there is a kind of transcendent quality in them to the sympathetic eye, and the site is dedicated to preserving that.
Spend a few minutes browsing through the already-impressive catalog of images (or catch highlights in the blog) and you begin to be rather a connoisseur in them, and to give a certain grudging regard. After all, making those 3D text animated GIFs was no cake walk in pre-millennium days.
There is, of course, a community aspect, where anyone can upload and share their internet oddities, provided they’re SFW and relatively small (it looks like). Entire pages are hosted as well, from outright craziness (my favorites) to sci-fi web rings to personal pages left for dead. These standouts represent the prehistoric relatives of our modern blogs and forums, so tread lightly on these, their graves. There are even original works recontextualizing (never thought I’d use that word without irony) the content in… well, in ways.
The creator, New Yorker Ryder Ripps, noted that the total space being used by Geocities pages was perhaps as little as 3TB. Of course, when you put that in GIF terms, that’s a huge amount of content.
While panning for gold in the twilight of Geocities is an important job, the intent of Internet Archaeology isn’t just to be a bucket for animated GIFs. The Internet Archive has already saved them from oblivion. The difference is that IA is curated in a serious way; the object is to capture the quintessence of the period by providing the most telling samples. If any readers have been to (and comprehended — the one does not follow the other) The Museum of Jurassic Technology, they might sense a similarity. Singly, each “exhibit,” as we may as well term these gifs, pages, and collections, is hardly worth a second look. But together, like the Wonder Twins or Planeteers, they are able to create something greater: a synthesis of the mindsets in this incredibly important, yet sadly garish and bizarre, period of internet history.
Oh, and for those of you following the contest:
RENDERED
Wow. T-Mobile and Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, has just announced that they've likely lost all user data that was being stored on Microsoft's servers due to a server failure. That means that any contacts, photos, calendars, or to-do lists that haven't been locally backed up are gone. Apparently if you don't turn off your Sidekick and make sure its battery doesn't run out you can salvage what's currently stored on the device, otherwise you're out of luck: Microsoft/Danger is describing the likelihood of recovering the data from their servers as "extremely low".
T-Mobile Sidekick users have been suffering from a major outage all week, and that issue apparently hasn't been resolved either.
The ecologist who found his wedding ring Lisa Katayama writes: "When Aleki Taumoepeau, a 42-year old ecologist, dropped his wedding ring in the murky waters of a New Zealand ... he was determined to find it at all costs"
BBVideo: SYNESTHESIA, a film by Jonathan Fowler. Boing Boing Video presents a remix of "Synesthesia," a documentary directed by Jonathan Fowler, about people whose senses blend, or mix. For instance: a synesthete might see colors when listening to music, or taste flavors when hearing a spoken word.
Why Halo makes me want to lay down and die Margaret Robertson on Halo's oneiric call to adventure: "Halo is a place where I feel peaceful. It's partly, I grant you, the pistol in my hand and the rocket-launcher on my back, both of which take the stress out of day-to-day life."
storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."
Wow. T-Mobile and Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, has just announced that they’ve likely lost all user data that was being stored on Microsoft’s servers due to a server failure. That means that any contacts, photos, calendars, or to-do lists that haven’t been locally backed up are gone. Apparently if you don’t turn off your Sidekick and make sure its battery doesn’t run out you can salvage what’s currently stored on the device, otherwise you’re out of luck: Microsoft/Danger is describing the likelihood of recovering the data from their servers as “extremely low”.
T-Mobile Sidekick users have been suffering from a major outage all week, and that issue apparently hasn’t been resolved either.
This goes beyond FAIL, face-palm, or any of the other internet memes we’ve come to associate with incompetence. The fact that T-Mobile and/or Microsoft Danger don’t have a redundant backup is simply inexcusable, especially given the fact that the Sidekick is totally reliant on the cloud because it doesn’t store its data locally. Microsoft acquired Danger for $500 million in February 2008.
Update:: There is some speculation that this was not actually caused by a server meltdown, but by Danger’s failure to make a backup before a Storage Area Network upgrade that was botched.
The full letter to customers is below.
T-MOBILE AND MICROSOFT/DANGER STATUS UPDATE ON SIDEKICK DATA DISRUPTION
Dear valued T-Mobile Sidekick customers:
T-Mobile and the Sidekick data services provider, Danger, a subsidiary of Microsoft, are reaching out to express our apologies regarding the recent Sidekick data service disruption. We appreciate your patience as Microsoft/Danger continues to work on maintaining platform stability, and restoring all services for our Sidekick customers.
Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger. That said, our teams continue to work around-the-clock in hopes of discovering some way to recover this information. However, the likelihood of a successful outcome is extremely low. As such, we wanted to share this news with you and offer some tips and suggestions to help you rebuild your personal content. You can find these tips at the T-Mobile Sidekick Forums (http://www.t-mobile.com/sidekick ). We encourage you to visit the Forums on a regular basis to access the latest updates as well as FAQs regarding this service disruption.
In addition, we plan to communicate with you on Monday (Oct. 12) the status of the remaining issues caused by the service disruption, including the data recovery efforts and the Download Catalog restoration which we are continuing to resolve. We also will communicate any additional tips or suggestions that may help in restoring your content.
We recognize the magnitude of this inconvenience. Our primary efforts have been focused on restoring our customers’ personal content. We also are considering additional measures for those of you who have lost your content to help reinforce how valuable you are as a T-Mobile customer.
We continue to advise customers to NOT reset their device by removing the battery or letting their battery drain completely, as any personal content that currently resides on your device will be lost.
Once again, T-Mobile and Microsoft/Danger regret any and all inconvenience this matter has caused.
AFP - Just hours after Friday's annual lighting of the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, a virtual version of the tribute to late Beatle John Lennon opened in online world Second Life.
A third man has been convicted in the killing of a PC World magazine editor during a home invasion robbery. A jury found 25-year-old Montrell Hall guilty Friday of murder, robbery and... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 3:35 pm
FROM GAMERTELL - Haven’t caught all of the Gamertell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles (no peer pressure or anything)... MORE »
A couple days ago we wrote a nice, healthy rant about the awful state of television controls. Now Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh (also known as Queen Elizabeth’s husband), has joined the cause. Speaking to Britain’s Channel 4, the duke went on a rant of his own again the complexity of modern television operation. I’m not saying for sure that he reads TechCrunch, but I’m saying he definitely should be, it’s apparently right up his alley.
The reason for the interview was that it’s the 50th anniversary of the Prince Philip Designers Prize, an award given by Britain’s Design Council to celebrate elegant design. When asked if the state of design was deteriorating in some ways, the duke agrees and immediately starts his rant against television design (about 6:50 in to the video below).
Some of the best bits of the interview aren’t in the video, but are highlighted in the BBC article about it. At one point, the duke says, “To work out how to operate a TV set you practically have to make love to the thing.” And speaking specifically about remote controls, he says, “And why can’t you have a handset that people who are not 10 years old can actually read?” My thoughts exactly in noting that remote controls these days are Fisher Price-like.
Overall, it’s an interesting discussion about the move away from exceptional design and towards more functional and in some cases, convoluted design, especially in technology. What I want to know is, if the the 88-year-old Duke of Edinburgh understands that modern television controls are awful, why don’t the cable companies who are now largely in control of the interaction between you and the television?
The answer is that they do, but they just don’t care. And by most accounts the situation is much worse in the U.S. than in Britain because here the FCC has seemingly decided that they’re fine with a lack of competition in the marketplace.
High-C writes "Dr. Christopher James of the University of Southampton has demonstrated what is being termed 'Brain to Brain' communication. In binary, no less. In essence, one person imagined a binary number, which was picked up by an EEG and transmitted via the net to another PC. The received signal was displayed on LEDs flashing at two different frequencies. The receiver's EEG correctly deciphered the string, resulting in a 1:1 transmission of binary data via thought. The throughput isn't great so far, at .14 bits per second, but it's an incredibly geeky proof-of-concept all the same."
As African policy makers demand compensation for the effects of climate change at a forum in Burkina Faso's capital, the country's farmers fight a daily struggle to halt the advancing... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 2:28 pm
I removed IE from the desktop, taskbar, Start Menu, and even hid the icon in Windows Explorer. I then installed Firefox and Chrome and renamed them both "Internet." But yet somehow my mother-in-law still found a way to use Internet Explorer and wonders why her computer runs like poo. Oh, and she wants to keep all of the toolbars. She uses them.
Ralph Steadman and Tim Robbins in studio, recording for upcoming production of Paris Records' The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, 2009.
Photo courtesy Paris Records
Ethan Persoff wrote an article in the Evergreen Review this month about Paris Records, which, he says, has "produced some of the more interesting records of the last 25 years," including William Burroughs' Dead City Radio, Terry Southern's Give Me Your Hump!, and Allen Ginsberg's Lion For Real.
This is the first published account of the label's entire 25 year history. The article also has news and photos of previously unannounced album The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved starring Ralph Steadman as himself and Tim Robbins as Hunter Thompson. Produced by Hal Willner and Michael Minzer. Due in late 2009 or spring 2010.
"Other bonuses include two free mp3s of very rare out of print material: Ginsberg singing William Blake and Kathy Acker's Savage's School for Girls. Plus video of Burroughs on Saturday Night Live and many photos."
Here's an interview with leather artisan Kara Ginther, who carves Brook's leather bike saddles.
"I'll never forget how nervous I was to make that first cut into the gorgeous seat. Carving leather leaves little room for error; not only can you ruin the design, but with one slip of the blade you can render an object useless!"
Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says:
Down on his luck, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. (aka "David Seville") bought a tape recorder capable of speeding up voices with his last $200. He quickly knocked out a Christmas demo titled "The Chipmunk Song" and took it to record executives Simon "Sy" Waronker, Theodore "Ted" Keep and Alvin "Al" Bennett at Liberty Records. The label was close to bankruptcy, but Bagdasarian convinced them that they might as well press Chipmunk singles with the leftover vinyl pucks and labels in their warehouse rather than just turn the unused stock over to the bank when the business went under. Production commenced and in just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts, becoming one of the best selling singles of all time. Bagdasarian won two Grammy Awards, Liberty Records was saved from bankruptcy, and the Chipmunks became a household name with children all over the world.
FROM APPLETELL - Tweetie 2, the brand new Twitter client from Atebits, adds many new features and a great, clean user interface, but update will run you $2.99; no free upgrade here. MORE »
Some content may not be suitable for all audiences.
Kim Kardashian’s done it. Paris Hilton’s done it. Ron Jeremy invented it. And Screech perfected it. Now it’s your turn to jump on the bandwagon because nothing takes your career to the next level quite like a sex tape!
Why Make A Sex Tape?
Ohhh the sex tape. Kinky. Homemade. Easy to make. The sex tape is not only for nostalgia, but also for learning purposes, because you can remember the night no matter how much alcohol you drank, savor your performance, and improve upon it. Hey, you might even become famous. Besides, nothing is as hot as watching yourself in action.
The Equipment: What You’ll Need
You can make an impromptu sex tape with as much as a camera phone in a bathroom stall. But if you’re looking to make this tape up to par with your family favorite DVDs, you need to take the time to prep: you’ll need a real HD camcorder like the Sony HDR-CX12 with Night Shot mode for that professional look and feel and HD makeup for porn star quality perfection. Men, the makeup applies to you too – think about baring it all below the belt in HD and tell me you don’t want makeup. If you’re in the moment and the mood strikes without proper time to set-up, you may want to consider a mini camera that you can grab on-the-fly for some serious close ups. Handheld cameras like the Sanyo VPC-WH1 HD Waterproof Camcorder (waterproof is so essential) or the ever popular Flip are portable so you’ll be prepared to capture whatever surprises your session brings.
Choosing & Setting the Mood
Setting up your DIY sex studio is probably the most difficult aspect of your homemade sex tape. Are you into fantasy role playing? Is this a shower video? Amateur action on the couch? No matter where you decide to film, there are a few basic steps you can take when setting up the scene to ensure maximum cinematic greatness. Your apartment could definitely use some mood lighting, and with the Color Light DVD all you do is pop it in your DVD player and let the mood enhancing colors do the rest. You can also enhance your standard bed or couch a la 1970’s with the Magic Fingers system that upgrades standard inanimate objects with a super powered vibrating motor. Always a crowd pleaser.
Perform Like a Porn Star but Remember Camera Angles You need to consider the angles that the camera will capture. If you set-up the camera at the foot of your bed, chances are that your video will be up close and personal with your backside. And I promise you that it will not be a flattering movie you will want to watch over and over. Especially if you’re a dude. Instead, place the camera to the side of your bed at an angle to capture all the sideways, upside down, and inside out action. To help you out, check out this bendable Joby Tripod for hands free video capture.
Be Inspired – Best Free Porn Sites
Watch a few amateur pornos, check out a few websites, and get inspired with your partner. Aside from getting your libido started, these videos will help inspire you for your lights, camera, action moment. Check out sites like PornoTube or RedTube for short clips or even movies to help get you in the mood.
Sharing Your Video Is Caring
Don’t forget that sharing is caring! If you took your video on your cell phone, e-mail NSFW clips to your boo to remind him or her how exceptional you really are. Or if you choose a camcorder to film your video, make sure you choose a camera with easy transfer to your computer and TV. If you want to keep your video private you could enlist the help of an Iron Key encrypted Flash Drive. If you only want to share footage with specific people online, try Vimeo, a service that offers HD quality video and password protection. However, if you choose to share your video with the world (which you obviously should), try uploading videos first to YouTube for maximum exposure. Chances are that the video will get banned so you should also upload to YouTube’s x-rated cousin YouPorn. Similar sites include Spankwire, Pornotube, and RedTube. Hey, why not have a viewing party and display your flick on that big screen TV in your living room? Just remember to close the blinds first!
For more about the latest sex toys and technology, check out www.69adget.com
Etylowy writes "Over the years I have repaired my own, family, and friends' PCs many, many times. While in most cases it turned out to be restoring system after malware/user/Windows made a mess, or simple cases of 'follow the smell of smoke and molten plastic,' there were some nasty ones where the computer mostly works. By 'mostly,' I mean: you can boot it up, it might even work for a while, but will crash way too often to blame it all on Microsoft — what do you do then? Once you strip it off any extra hardware (which with today's motherboards, with pretty much everything integrated, might not be an option) you are left with CPU, motherboard, graphics card, RAM and HDD. You can test HDD, you can run memtest86+ to check RAM, but how do you go about testing CPU, motherboard and graphics card trio to find which is to blame? Replacing them one by one isn't really an option. Do you know any software that would help the way memtest helps with RAM?"
Sometimes life’s irony smacks you in the face. Sometimes BoomTown smacks you with it instead. Early in the week, Kara logged a post that had a healthy dose of tech sector history. While Bill Gates may get a bad wrap for “borrowing” from Woz and Jobs in the early days of Microsoft (MSFT), all the Apple(APPL) tablet Fanboys,and Fangirls to be fair, should at least give him a tip of their hipsterey hats. For he, Kara reminded us, was the original tablet evangelist. After reminiscing about the halcyon days of Gates, Kara caught up with Adam Bosworth. The former head of Google Health just launched Keas, a health care site that offers personalized “care plans” and a set of tools to help users keep healthy. BoomTown dug into real-time search late in the week and came up with a story about Twitter’s recent independent talks with both Microsoft and Google; just the latest signal that Twitter intends to remain an independent player on the web.
Digital Daily never disappoints in the headline department and OMFG, this week was no exception. John pulled some juicy nuggets out of CTIA’s semiannual wireless survey, including a staggering figure that Americans exchange 4.1 billion text messages per day. Google Voice made the top stories again, thanks to a group of House members asked the FCC to investigate the service. Digital Daily rounded out he week with comments from Qualcomm (QCOM) CEO Paul Jacobs in the cacophony that is the net neutrality debate. With a dazzling turn-of-phrase, Jacobs supported the idea of “traffic shaping”, or, giving network managers the keys to their net-neutrality handcuffs.
Three time zones away at Media Memo, Peter didn’t seem sure whether it was a sadder week for music sales, or music in general. Music industry sales are still in a slump. What may be worse, however, is that their slump was only slowed by MJ and The Beatles, neither of whom seem like pillars for viable growth. Amid music’s slump, there may be a ray of hop in video land. Media Memo reported that Network TV buster YouTube seems to be learning how to play nice with the other kids, and offer certain content producers a way to channel some revenue back to their own coffers. The momentary bright spot for media quickly evaporated when it came time to talk about print. Peter followed the story of Condé Nast’s multiple magazine closings. Its always a sad day when there are fewer beautifully composed pictures of cookies in the world.
Rounding out the week, Walt released the anticipated review of Windows 7, and proclaimed it good enough to help you get rid of that lingering Vista hangover. With installation times averaging about 45 minutes and lots of neat new features, Windows 7 may just be good enough to make you feel like having a party. Mossberg’s mailbox was peppered with several Windows 7 RSVPs. Walk issued his usual sage advice about switching to Windows 7, as well as a quickie about personal finance software. The Mossberg Solution covered a set of new point and shoot cameras, each with a striking party piece. Katie reviewed the Samsung Dualview TL225, which features a second screen on the front of the camera for convenient self portraits, and the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj, which features an actual projector right inside the camera. Both cameras earned praise for ingenuity, with the caveat that those new features come with an extra price tag.
Check back early and often. There’s always room for AllthingsD.
It is beneficial to purchase electronics whenever good deals are available, therefore it is important to search the web for the best possible deal on that new laptop, or HDTV. But don’t worry, we did the search for you. Today, Gadgetell has a few deals ranging from laptops, video games, HDTVs, to an Electricity Usage Monitor.
Acer Laptop
The first deal for this weekend is the Acer AS1410 11.6-inch notebook PC on sale for $429 with free shipping. The notebook can be purchased from BuyDig and ships within 1-2 business days. In terms of RAM, it sports 2GB DDR2 SDRAM, features a 250GB 5400RPM hard drive, 11.6 inch LED screen, Intel Core 2 Solo Processor, and operates on Windows Vista Home Premium. It is available in a Sapphire Blue color.
HP Laptop
The second laptop deal for today is the HP HDX 18t laptop series, which sells from HP.com. It normally sells for $1450, but comes with a $550 off coupon code which brings the price down to $899. The laptop features 4GB SDRAM, 500GB hard drive, webcam, microphone, fingerprint reader, an 18.4 inch HD screen, Blu-ray player, and a one year warranty. In order to receive the $550 off, enter in NBT548571 at the checkout. Be warned that the promotion may end at any time.
Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition
Our video game deal for today is Fallout 3: Game of The Year Edition, which is available for pre-order on Amazon. The Xbox 360 game has a list price of $59.99, but it is on sale for $43. It will officially be available on October 13.
Panasonic HDTV
Our HDTV deal comes from TigerDirect and it is the Panasonic TCP46U1 Viera 46” Plasma HDTV. It normally sells for $1,199.99, but it is on sale for $799 after $400 instant savings, however, shipping and handling costs $99. The 46 inch HDTV features full 1080p resolution. It will continue to be available for this price until supplies run out.
Electricity Usage Monitor
Our last deal for today is the P3 International Kill A Watt, from SuperMediaStore. As the name implies, it helps reduce your electricity bills because it identifies electronics that use a lot of energy even when the device is powered off. Knowing which outlets are still being used even when the device is powered off will reduce your bill, since you will be able to unplug it. Normally $30, it is on sale for $19. Supermediastore offers free shipping if you purchase $25 worth of goods.
Please visit again next week for more deals in technology!
Grab your favorite sugary cereal and pull up a seat. It's time for Saturday Morning Science Experiment! This week, we're finding out what happens to a gummi bear (i.e., sucrose) when it's dropped into molten potassium chlorate.
Got a video you want to see on Saturday Morning Science Experiment? Drop me an email, I'm taking suggestions.
Gummi bear thumbnail photo courtesy Flickr user Furryscaly, via CC.
This week's story on the Escape Pod sf podcast is Marc Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe," a grimly comic, apocalyptic story about paralegals with a secret cable-access show who find themselves caring for (and kidnapping) a brainwashed war-veteran who's been turned into a human weapon. It's a marvellous story and a great reading (the story was originally published on The Infinite Matrix). Astute readers will remember Marc as a former guestblogger, a wildly imaginative sf writer, and the games-writer behind such Valve titles as Half-Life.
The plan must have come to Rog fully formed that first morning, as he stepped off the elevator into the lobby of Szilliken Sharpenwright and saw the old soldier newly stationed there in his omnichair between the potted silk ferns and the coffee tables.
"Oh. My. God. I am in love."
Megan, her arms loaded with Rog-House props and paraphernalia she hadn't had time to ditch yet, said, "You say that an awful lot for someone who styles himself completely asexual. Not to mention atheistic."
"There's no conflict! He's completely post-human!"
Darren Ginter writes "A group of Samba v4 developers recently spent a week in Redmond to work with Microsoft on Active Directory interoperability(?!). The result? Windows Server will now join, trust and replicate a Samba-based Active Directory using Microsoft-native protocols. Although Samba v4 is still in the alpha stages, this is a huge step for open source. Or it could be a trap."
Note: The topless Asian man in this slightly NSFW video that’s dancing around with his Ne Geo collection is not Peter Ha. I asked him if it was any of his family members but he didn’t find the joke funny. Ah well.
Pickens writes "Farhad Manjoo has a provocative story at Slate asserting that while the iPhone has prompted millions of people to join AT&T, it has also hurt the company's image because all of those customers use their phones too much, and AT&T's network is getting crushed by the demand. The typical smartphone customer consumes about 40 to 80 megabytes of wireless capacity a month, while the typical iPhone customer uses 400 MB a month. As more people sign up, local cell towers get more congested, and your own phone performs worse. He says the problem is that a customer who uses 1 MB a month pays the same amount as someone who uses 1,000 MB, and the solution is tiered pricing. 'Of course, users would cry bloody murder at first,' writes Manjoo. 'I'd call on AT&T to create automatic tiers — everyone would start out on the $10/100 MB plan each month, and your price would go up automatically as your usage passes each 100 MB tier.' He says the key to implementing the policy is transparency, and that the iPhone should have an indicator like the battery bar that changes color as you pass each monthly tier. 'Some iPhone fans will argue that metered pricing would kill the magic of Apple's phone — that sense of liberation one feels at being able to access the Internet from anywhere, at any time. The trouble is, for many of us, AT&T's overcrowded network has already killed that sense, and now our usual dealings with Apple's phone are tinged with annoyance.'"
Editor’s note: This guest post was written by Paul Sloan, a journalist who’s worked for Business 2.0, Fortune, NPR, and CNN. His writing can now be found on Playing The Angles.
I didn’t really want to strip to my underwear on a street in broad daylight and sing Bob Seger’s Old Time Rock and Roll a lá Tom Cruise in Risky Business. But when I agreed to come on this trip for a very unusual entrepreneur’s adventure, I told myself that I’d play along. And this, apparently, was part of the drill.
At least, that’s the way this gang of Internet entrepreneurs like to have fun. I had agreed to attend a four-day themed conference as a way of gaining insight into the minds of an often-misunderstood group of multi-millionaire moneymakers, most of whom are Web marketers. There was the dude who sucks cash from Internet merchants by plying the affiliate trade. There was the personal trainer who teaches other muscle bums how to market themselves (annual revenue, a steroidal $3.7 million and swelling) And there was the twenty-something wunderkind from Austin, Texas, who’s minting his own fortune selling how-to info; whether its down-market like hot-dog vending or importing toothpaste from China, he’ll tell you how to make your dreams come true.
If this is starting to sound like a late-night infomercial, what can I say? Wait, there’s more!! The truth is, hanging day and night with a bunch of guys who are among the best in the world at Internet marketing can have that affect on you. Suddenly, everything looks like a sure-fire business opportunity.
So back to this 1980s-themed road rally, treasure hunt, business conference they were throwing for themselves. Of course this club has a consultant-sounding name: Maverick Business Adventures. To get in, you have to be doing $1 million-plus in revenue a year and pass a reference review to make sure you’re a good fit. Then you pony up $7,500 to become a member. It’s extra for each of these trips—$12,500 for the one I was on.
To a lot of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, these guys are not really entrepreneurs. They get lumped in with the myriad get-rich-hucksters who prowl the Web. But I think they get this rap because they’re just super-good at what they do. They’re successful and that breeds envy—especially because they’re often one-man shops and so don’t have to share their riches with tranches of angels and other VC hangers on.
In fact, these hard-nosed businessmen feel equally judgmental of the VC-backed masses in their corporate parks and glass-walled conference rooms. Why, they argue, would anyone accept VC funding and give away a portion of his business when he can start minting cash for little investment? “Guys that take funding, buy nice cars and throw company parties,” remarked one Maverick. “We call that ‘playing business.’”
One thing is for sure: Mavericks like to party in a way I have not seen in the Valley. (Sorry Arrington. I know I dubbed you a party animal in that Business 2.0 cover story a few years back, a characterization for which I took some heat, but these guys got you beat). They also have an uncanny ability to act like complete jackasses with utter disregard to the fact that they’re acting like complete jackasses. I sort of like that.
In the case of the road rally I was on, that was part of the point. Each day we paired off into teams and were given a set of missions and riddles to tackle en route to our next destination. Day 1 launched from the Ritz Carlton in Marina del Rey. We had a breakfast discussion with John Paul DeJoria, the billionaire founder of Paul Mitchell Hair Care, and then we pulled names from a pile to pick our rides for the day. The lineup included a Ferrari 430 Coupe, a Lamborghini Gallardo Convertible, an Aston Martin Vantage Convertible, and a 69 Cadillac Deville Convertible. Sweet vehicles all around.
I wasn’t a paying member, so I got whichever car had a back seat. In the Caddy I hopped.
Among the missions my team conquered was that Risky Business dance (I treated it like skinny dipping in a 50-degree body of water: close your eyes, don’t think, get it over with), convincing a couple of bikini-clad women on a beach to run slow motion, Baywatch style, and serenading a stranger with an ’80s love ballad. (Thank you teammate Chip for handling that one)
We would have won that day, but, alas, the ‘69 Caddy gave up. Somewhere about an hour south of Big Sur, the exhaust we’d been inhaling all morning turned into more of a burning smell, smoke began billowing and….she was dead. (Note to organizers: Give the embedded journalist a car you think will make the drive.)
Maverick is the brainchild of Yanik Silver, a who in all the press about him is simply referred to as an Internet entrepreneur and self-made millionaire. A short and stocky 36-year-old, Silver’s demeanor is so laid back it seems hard to believe he works, which, come to think of it, probably helps his pitch when he’s selling courses on how to achieve easy Internet riches.
He began selling medical equipment for his dad’s company in Baltimore at age 14. He did that through college and beyond. To boost his sales, he taught himself to write snappy copy and began taking out direct-response ads.
In 1998 he sold a $900 course to teach cosmetic surgeons how to market themselves—before he had even written the course. Then one night in 1999—near the end of Web 1.0 bubble—Silver awoke at 3 a.m. with an idea for writing templates for sales letters and selling them on the Internet. He launched “Instant Sales Letters,” and within a few months he was pulling in $10,000 a month from this single product. People were impressed. So he cranked out a how-to product called “Instant Internet Riches.” Suddenly, at Internet speed, an industry guru was born.
Yanik Silver with John Paul DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell
Silver started Maverick Business Adventures almost two years ago for people like himself: People who want to do crazy stuff, party, bond, swap ideas, meet big-shot entrepreneurs, help each others’ business ventures and spread the word to young people that they don’t have to grow up and work for the man. (At our stop in San Francisco, the Mavericks ran a business-idea workshop with high school kids and Silver awarded the winning team an Ed McMahon-sized check for $500 to get started; he didn’t ask for equity).
By Maverick standards, my trip was mellow. Silver has taken groups of Mavericks—they prefer the Sarah Palin pronunciation, Meeavreek—scuba diving at Iceland’s Silfra Ravine, on zero gravity flights, and off-road racing with Jesse James, the West Coast Choppers dude. In April they spent three days on Richard Branson’s Necker Island, brainstorming and partying with the ultimate entrepreneurial adventure-seeker. My group did get to ride in a Zeppelin out of Moffett Federal Airfield in Sunnyvale, CA, and there were jokes about dropping crap onto Larry and Sergey’s Boeing 767, which was parked below.
The final day’s missions included some doozies, such as inciting a group on a form of public transportation to join in a sing-along of a 1980s song (Thank you shameless tourists on the bus for attempting “Roxanne” with us, and thank you judges for not checking that it was released in 1978). And although my partner and I missed a 100-pointer when the cop I asked to outline my body with chalk on the sidewalk refused because he was dealing with an unruly troublemaker, we nailed all the big missions.
The upshot: With a total of 4,450 points, I won the whole event, beating all 17 competitors except Silver, who topped my score by 25 points but who, like the family members of radio station employees, wasn’t eligible to win.
Oh, crap, now I’m one of them, only without the bank account.
If you’re Palm you’re hoping that Pre owners love their phones so much that they cherish and protect them for always. So when a guy who owns a Palm Pre drops it in his beer just to see what happens, you can’t be too happy. It just doesn’t say a whole lot about how much a person values a phone when they drop it into a mug of beer.
On the upside, it stays on for about a minute before giving up the ghost. Compare that to the possibly real video directly below it of an iPhone 3GS that was dropped in a pool and kept recording video.
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WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Reingold is pleased to announce it has been awarded a contract valued at more than $200,000, along with HUBZone subcontractor DJA &... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 10:25 am
For the first time, climate scientists from across the country have successfully incorporated the nitrogen cycle into global simulations for climate change, questioning previous assumptions regarding carbon feedback and potentially helping to refine model forecasts about global warming.The results of the experiment at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and at the National Center for Atmospheric Research are published in the current issue of Biogeosciences. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 10:23 am
FROM GAMERTELL - Backing up the gameplay to Spore Hero is an original score composed by Winifred Phillips but is the soundtrack enjoyable without a game to play it with? Read on… MORE »
Open source software is our era's version of the French scientific salon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young men (mostly men) would gather at the feet of elder scientists to learn the truth of the day. In Revolutionary France it was philosophy and natural science they studied and in the open source forums of the past decades it was discussions of the finer points of kernels, interrupts, and elegant coding. Purveyors of open source software have gone on to create an international network of crack programmers who all bear the same battle scars and have reveled in the same successes.
But they always want more. They want the desktop. Not content to run the plumbing of the Internet and to control the firmware on almost every scientific device in the world, open source proponents believe it is their birthright to supplant Windows on the desktop or, barring that, at least gain mind share in the average home computer.
Open source software is our era’s version of the French scientific salon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young men (mostly men) would gather at the feet of elder scientists to learn the truth of the day. In Revolutionary France it was philosophy and natural science they studied and in the open source forums of the past decades it was discussions of the finer points of kernels, interrupts, and elegant coding. Purveyors of open source software have gone on to create an international network of crack programmers who all bear the same battle scars and have reveled in the same successes.
But they always want more. They want the desktop. Not content to run the plumbing of the Internet and to control the firmware on almost every scientific device in the world, open source proponents believe it is their birthright to supplant Windows on the desktop or, barring that, at least gain mind share in the average home computer.
They never will. Ubuntu is lovely. KDE is great. Debian is the bomb. Even OS X is pretty hot stuff. But none of them will ever take the desktop. That’s because the desktop is dying and they have already taken the second – soon-to-be central screen – the cellphone and that’s more than enough. Open source is now mobile.
Unfortunately, open source purists won’t like how their handiwork will be storming the world. First, there’s Android. It will be the dominant smartphone OS by the middle of next decade. It is stable, attractively priced (free), and easy to pour into any mobile mold. Android of late has been splintering and it will be interesting to see how the different UI overlays and even different compiled libraries will evolve over time but once China builds out their Ophone platform, essentially a Chinese branch of Android, expect a huge change in the smart- and feature-phone market. But it’s still corporate, right?
Add Chrome OS to this picture and you essentially have the gamut of form factors covered. But Chrome doesn’t belong on desktops and, thanks to netbooks, it would have to stay there. A free OS from Google is much more enticing to a certain audience, once they’ve been convinced of the device’s quality, than a Microsoft Taxed copy of Windows. So even if its corporate software, it doesn’t matter. It’s still open source.
Open source advocates, like old Nirvana fans, especially won’t like the selling out of free software concepts when it comes to the marketing in app and media stores. Everyone a around “open source” concepts including Palm saying they’re opening up their Apps Store in odd ways and Symbian is paying lip service to open while taking its own sweet time. Android will eclipse and potentially destroy these efforts, and, like die-hard fans seeing Kurt and Krist on MTV, this causes some open source advocates to tremble with rage, point one quivering finger, and mouth “Sell out.” Most of this is marketing bluster but, in fact, it is the only way these folks see of gaining traction. Who runs these companies? Old Linux hackers. They know the best way to get people to buy drinks is to offer free wings.
But fear not. All those decades of kernel hacking are not for nought. Open source has taught entire generations that anything is possible with a little code. These new developers understand the innate elegance of UIs, the value of user experience tweaks, and the tinkerers drive to constantly improve. They will beat Microsoft, at least on the mobile front, and by the time anyone notices they’ll own the majority of the small screens in the world.
They’ll never rule the desktop, but they can rule the real estate around the desktop, a greater prize indeed.
France has captured a worker at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) for alleged connections with al-Qaeda, officials announced.The 32-year-old man was one of two brothers apprehended in the town of Vienne on Thursday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 9:21 am
A few weeks ago, in response to proposed Net Neutrality rules, AT&T sent a letter to the FCC asking the commission to look into Google Voice. AT&T argued that Google Voice should be subject to the same telecom rules it follows if AT&T has to be subject to Net Neutrality. It still seems like a strange jump in logic on AT&T’s part, but that doesn’t mean the argument didn’t get the FCC’s attention.
The FCC has now said that it will be investigating Google’s policy on Google Voice. Specifically, the FCC is interested in how Google handles phone calls to rural areas, 900 numbers, or any number that is expensive to call. For telecoms there is a rule that says they must connect every phone call possible. Google Voice, however, does not seem to follow that rule, and that might end up being an issue. Google is arguing that since it is not fully a VoIP service, nor a true phone service, it should not have to follow those rules. The way the rules seem to work now, Google’s argument could be correct, or at least in a gray area.
What makes this, as well as other recent news, interesting is the amount of FCC involvement we are seeing recently. In the past few months we’ve seen the FCC look into Google Voice not making it into the App Store, Net Neutrality, and now Google Voice as a service. With net neutrality, it is obvious that the commission is on the side of consumers, and it will be interesting to see how this new issue unfolds (the first has far too much finger pointing for anyone to “win” that one, it seems). It’s hard to say if these actions are good or bad as a whole, but at the very least, it’s nice to know the FCC is trying to take on important, pertinent issues.
The HP Envy 15 Beats Edition is noice. Look at that beast. You have to respect the matte black on black styling. Apple fanboys can’t say anything about this edition of the HP Envy looking like their MBPs. The Beats Edition looks better. Too bad it suffers from all the downfalls found in the Envy series and carries a $500 premium. At least it comes with the Beats headphones.
Exact specifications aren’t listed just yet, but it’s likely that HP will pack this special edition with the same Core i7, Mobility Radeon HD 4830 system found in the standard Envy 15. This model has the same October 22nd shipping date, but will carry a $2,299 price tag. Worth the extra coin? Hip-hop wannabes probably think so.
LONDON (Reuters) - The world's book trade meets in Frankfurt next week on the brink of a long-feared transformation of the industry for which few are well prepared. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 9:10 am
FROM APPLETELL - There are at least three apps in my list this week that are actually worth money, but you can have them for free. Quick, to the list, before they change their minds! MORE »
Canadian space tourist and circus billionaire Guy Laliberte mixed star power, science lectures, music and poetry in hosting a show from the International Space Station that was broadcast on Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:16 am
Macworld.com - Did everyone have fun at their Windows Mobile 6.5 launch parties this week? What do you mean you didnât have one?! Well, youâll be happy to know that Windows 7 launch parties can now ruin Mac usersâ weekends, if not their entire lives. And another week, another prediction of doom for the iPhone. Ho-hum. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Oct 2009 | 8:10 am
The College of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, is making major new commitments to advance research and education in sustainable, green chemistry.The college has appointed Alexis T. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:56 am
Underwater robotic gliders help reveal why massive oceanic expanses are losing virtually all of their marine life every summerEvery summer since 2002, Oregon's coastal waters have been invaded by massive low-oxygen zones, commonly known as "dead zones," that become so oxygen-starved that most animals flee, die or suffer severe stress. In order to determine how and why these dead zones form, scientists must continually monitor conditions in affected waters, which may cover hundreds or even thousands of square miles.But how can scientists possibly wrap their monitoring instruments around such huge swaths of the sea? Not by relying solely on traditional instruments, which are deployed by ships and crews at a cost of $20,000 per day, need favorable weather conditions, and can only operate for limited time periods at a stretch.WORKHORSES OF THE WATERTo overcome the shortcomings of traditional instruments, a research team co-led by Jack Barth and Kipp Shearman of Oregon State University (OSU) and funded by the National Science Foundation has been deploying unmanned robotic gliders throughout Oregon's coastal waters since 2006. Each of these gliders is programmed to patrol the seas nonstop on its own for up to three weeks at a time—all the while measuring the water's oxygen concentration, temperature, salinity, density, chlorophyll content, and other variables that reflect its ecological health.Each glider may dive down to maximum depths of 200 meters below the surface. But "every six hours, each glider must pop back up to the surface and call in to a computer at our lab via satellite phone and send home the data," says Barth. By providing around-the-clock, real-time data on subsurface ocean properties that would otherwise be unobtainable, "OSU's gliders are opening up a whole new window on the world beneath the ocean surface, just as satellites opened up a whole new window on the ocean's surface years ago," says Barth.Covering about a half a nautical mile per hour (0.5 knots), each OSU glider takes about five days to travel a 45 mile transect offshore and back.So far, OSU's fleet of gliders has cumulatively traveled more than 25,000 horizontal kilometers, which is equal to traveling about 70 percent of the way around the globe.Built at a total cost of about $100,000, each glider saves more than $300,000 over traditional monitoring equipment in a three week research session. Plus, "the gliders never get tired or seasick," says Barth. And they deftly maneuver through Oregon's coastal waters, despite the high waves, fast currents, uneven sea bottoms, and rocky outcrops.A SMALL, ELITE FLEETAt any given time, the OSU team may have up to four gliders patrolling Oregon's coastal waters and an additional glider patrolling a dead zone located in Chile's coastal waters. The OSU team's gliders are among a small but growing number of gliders currently being used in marine research.VALUABLE DATAHow is the OSU team's glider-based research improving our understanding of Oregon's dead zones? For one thing, the gliders have helped the team document the existence, locations and dimensions of many low-oxygen zones, including a record-breaker that approached the Oregon coast in 2006; that dead zone covered more than 1,158 square miles—about the size of Rhode Island.In addition, the OSU team's glider-based research is building on previous research on the causes of dead zones that was conducted by another research team co-led by Barth. That research revealed that: 1) Oregon's coastal dead zones are formed by wind-driven upwellings of low-oxygen waters that naturally occur in deep, offshore waters; and 2) these low-oxygen waters may be expanding towards shore because of changes in wind and oceanic circulation patterns. Barth suspects that these wind and circulation changes are, in turn, caused by climate change. Nevertheless, the relationship between climate change and Oregon's dead zones remains debatable.To more definitively nail down the immediate and underlying causes of Oregon's coastal dead zones, the OSU team will continue to use the gliders to track the movements and biological characteristics of low-oxygen waters in coming years. The team will then correlate resulting data with wind and circulation patterns and longer-term climatic changes. In addition, the OSU team hopes that its glider-based research will eventually help them generate something akin to underwater weather reports for Oregon's coastal waters. These reports would include predictions of whether, where and when dead zones would be expected to form each summer.HIGH-TECH ON THE HIGH SEASMeasuring about seven feet long, weighing about 100 pounds and painted a bright shade of yellow, each glider resembles a mini-torpedo. The OSU research team minimizes the chances of contact between the gliders and fishermen by keeping the gliders at depth and out of the paths of boats for most of their missions. In addition, the researchers have explained to local fishermen how to recognize the gliders, the importance of leaving the gliders in the water without interrupting their missions, and the benefits to all ocean users of their glider-based research.Each glider is equipped with two computers, several oceanographic sensors, communications equipment, and batteries for power. But rather than being driven by propellers that may only operate for a day or two at a time, the gliders are driven by buoyancy changes that require relatively little energy consumption: To rise, a glider expels water and thereby increases its buoyancy; conversely, to sink, a glider draws in water and thereby decreases its buoyancy. The glider's vertical motion is translated into forward motion by small wings on its sides. "Each glider operates much like a sailplane in the atmosphere," says Barth.GLIDING INTO THE FUTURE"There will always be a need for ships in marine research," says Barth. "But there will come a time when gliders are deployed throughout the world's oceans because they are tremendously cost-efficient and can crank out critical data 24/7 that scientists need in order to address ecological problems ranging from climate change to dead zones. These gliders are indeed the future of marine research."Written by Lily Whiteman ---Image Caption: An Oregon State University (OSU) glider sits on the deck of Elakha, an OSU research vessel. Each glider may operate independently for up to about three weeks at a time, no matter how bad the weather may get. Credit: Tristan Peery, OSU Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:42 am
Scientists work to explain why massive "dead zones" have been invading the Pacific Northwest's near-shore waters since 2002Yet another ecological scourge may earn a place on the ever-lengthening list of problems potentially caused by climate change: the formation of some so-called "dead zones"—huge expanses of ocean that lose virtually all of their marine life at depth during the summer.Possible connections between climate change and the relatively recent formation of dead zones in the Pacific Northwest's coastal waters are currently being studied by a research team that is funded by the National Science Foundation and co-led by Jack Barth of Oregon State University (OSU) and Francis Chan of OSU. (Jane Lubchenco, who is currently on leave from OSU while serving as the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also previously co-led the team.)WORLDWIDE DEAD ZONESThe Earth currently has more than 400 oceanic dead zones, with the count doubling every decade. A single dead zone may cover tens of thousands of square miles.Dead zones form where microscopic plants, known as phytoplankton, are fertilized by excess nutrients, such as fertilizers and sewage, that are generated by human activities and dumped into the ocean by rivers, or more rarely, where they are fertilized by naturally occurring nutrients. The result: blooms of organic matter that ultimately decompose through processes that rob the ocean of life-sustaining oxygen. Animals that fail to flee dead zones either suffocate or suffer severe stress.LOSING OXYGEN NATURALLYOne of the Earth's relatively few naturally formed dead zones has long been seasonally perched in the deep waters of the continental shelf far from the coast of the Pacific Northwest. This low-oxygen, or "hypoxic," zone has apparently historically remained stationary and is believed to be caused by large-scale processes that are unrelated to human activities or local winds.But in the summer, northerly summer winds work together with the Earth's rotation to push oxygenated surface water offshore; this coastal water is replaced by low-oxygen but nutrient-rich waters from the depths of the continental shelf in a process known as upwelling. (See illustration.) Once this nutrient-rich water reaches the ocean's sunlit layers, it fertilizes blooms of phytoplankton.Resulting phytoplankton blooms feed the food chain and thereby help make the Pacific Northwest one of the nation's most productive fisheries. But the decomposition of unconsumed, sunken phytoplankton promotes the formation of deep pools of low-oxygen water.Periods of upwelling-favorable northerly winds may be interrupted by relatively short periods of southerly winds during the summer and by longer periods during the fall. These southerly winds work together with the Earth's rotation to drive oxygenated surface waters back towards the shore and to drive low-oxygen bottom waters away from the shore in a process known as downwelling. Periods of strong downwelling have traditionally occurred frequently enough to flush the low-oxygen pools from the continental shelf, and thereby prevent them from expanding all the way to the shore. LEAVING NORMALBut underwater surveys conducted by the research team of waters off the Pacific Northwest have identified the following new phenomenon:* Pools of low-oxygen water have expanded from the continental shelf to near-shore waters off Oregon and Washington every summer since 2002; the close proximity of these dead zones to the shore had never been reported before that year.* Coastal dead zones have been more hypoxic than the low-oxygen pools located on the continental shelf, with some coastal areas periodically completely stripped of their oxygen.* Areas of hypoxia that have seasonally dotted the Pacific Northwest coast, "have been connected to one another by a ribbon of low-oxygen water that runs along the coastal sea floor," says Barth.So far, the most hypoxic year for the Pacific Northwest was 2006, when the research team discovered a dead zone off Newport, Oregon that sprawled over almost 1,200 square miles, and pressed so close to the shore that "a baseball hit from Highway 101 during the summer could land in it," says Barth. Covering up to 80 percent of the water column and lasting for an unusually long time (four months), "this dead zone transformed a teeming habitat into a fish-free zone that was carpeted with dead crabs, worms, severely stressed anemones and sea stars, and what looked like potentially noxious bacterial mats," says Barth.THE SUMMER OF 2009During the summer of 2009, dead zones characterized by severe hypoxia formed near the seashore on the mid-to-inner shelf in Oregon's coastal waters; they were about average in size and duration. Barth says, "we also saw the now-classic ribbon of low dissolved oxygen water near the seafloor extending along the coast. "However, no zero-oxygen areas like those that formed in 2006 were observed.ANSWERS MAY BE BLOWING IN THE WINDWhy have low-oxygen waters been regularly expanding into coastal waters? The research team's findings indicate that this phenomenon is potentially related to:* Reductions in the oxygen content of low-oxygen water that upwells from the continental shelf.* Prolonged and intensified upwelling along the continental shelf that has, in turn, been caused by periodic increases in the strength of northerly, upwelling-favorable winds and decreases in the frequency of southerly, downwelling-favorable winds.During periods of prolonged upwelling, each successive wave of upwelling fertilizes more phytoplankton blooms. As these blooms decay, the continental shelf's low-oxygen waters expand, lose more oxygen and move closer to shore.The more prolonged and intense the downwelling-favorable winds and resulting upwelling are, the more severe the hypoxia becomes. Hence, the highly hypoxic year of 2006 was dominated by particularly strong upwelling-favorable northerly winds, particularly infrequent downwelling-favorable southerly winds and particularly large accumulations of phytoplankton. By contrast, the summer of 2009 was marked by periods of southerly downwelling-favorable winds that helped dissipate low oxygen conditions. "Therefore, the hypoxia of 2009 was neither as extreme nor as long-lasting as that of 2006.UNDERLYING CAUSESWhat is the underlying cause of the decreases in the oxygen content of subsurface offshore waters and changes in coastal winds? One theory points to large-scale cyclic changes in oceanic circulation and atmospheric conditions that have hit the Pacific Northwest every 10 to 20 years. But Barth says evidence that these phenomena are unrelated to one another includes the lack of agreement in the timing of the development of coastal dead zones and the timing of these cyclic changes, which are evidenced in available records covering the last 50 years.Rather, Barth favors an alternative theory; he suspects that climate change is driving down the oxygen content of subsurface offshore waters and altering coastal winds. This theory is supported by agreement between the predicted effects of climate change and the very types of changes in oceanic and atmospheric conditions and decreases in the oxygen content of deep water that are currently observed in the Pacific Northwest. (Climate change may reduce the oxygen content of deep water by warming surface waters, and thereby insulating deeper waters from contact with the atmosphere, where oxygen originates.)Nevertheless, the relationship between climate change and coastal dead zones remains debatable. What's more, Barth says that whether and where dead zones appear in any particular year partly depends on the daily weather, which is difficult to predict.So the research team continues to study winds, ocean circulation, and the timing and locations of coastal dead zones in order "to collect enough statistics over time to determine whether climate change is, in fact, driving the formation of coastal dead zones," Barth says.DEAD ZONES AS SUMMER FIXTURESBarth says, "I wouldn't be surprised if coastal dead zones appear every summer from now on because oceanic and atmospheric conditions are now primed for their regular, repeated formation. He adds that "the real questions now are: How big will the dead zones be? How long will they last? And how often will oxygen levels plunge low enough to cause marine die-offs?" Written by Lily Whiteman---Image Caption: Birds feast on dead crabs that washed up on the beach after suffocating in the low-oxygen waters of a dead zone in 2004. Credit: Elizabeth Gates, courtesy of PISCO Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:36 am
The secret lives of some of Africa's iconic carnivores, including big cats, were revealed in a new study in Animal Conservation, on Oct. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:10 am
IODP Expedition 322 of the Nankai Trough Seismogenic Zone Experiment Stage 2 completeAn international group of scientists aboard the Deep-Sea Drilling Vessel CHIKYU, operated by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC) for the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), return from a 40-day scientific expedition off the shore of the Kii Peninsula, Japan on Oct. 10, 2009. Expedition 322, called "Subduction Inputs" in the multi-stage project, conducted drilling, logging and sampling beneath the ocean floor to investigate input material that will be transported to the seismogenic zone by the plate subduction system.The drilling operations were carried out at two sites in the Shikoku Basin, the back-arc basin of the Izu-Bonin volcanic chain where the Philippine Sea Plate dives down into the Nankai Trough at a rate of about 4 cm per year. At the first site C0011, scientists began coring from a depth of 340 meters below the seafloor. The coring, however, had to be abandoned at a depth of 881 meters because of damage of the drill bit. At the second site C0012, coring was carried out from depths 60 meters to 576 meters below the seafloor, and successfully collected the targeted sedimentary and basement rock samples.Dr. Michael Underwood, professor at University of Missouri, USA, and co-Chief Scientists of the expedition said, "We identified an interface of Miocene sediment and basement rock around 540 meters beneath the seafloor and successfully sampled basaltic pillow lava rocks that make up the basement." He added "These sedimentary and volcanic rocks in the lower part of Shikoku Basin are key intervals for generating large earthquake slip after they are transported to the seismogenic zone. Studying their petrological, geotechnical, frictional and hydrogeological properties prior to subduction is expected to contribute significantly to the understanding of rupture dynamics in the seismogenic zone."The science party included 26 onboard research specialists from international member countries. "Scientists observed, measured and analyzed geological samples by day and night working shifts in the onboard laboratories," said Dr. Saneatsu Saito from JAMSTEC who led research activities as another co-Chief Scientist. He explained the importance of the variety of data obtained, "The sand-rich volcanic sediments were confirmed in large quantity and may have been transported from the easterly located Izu-Bonin Arc about 5 to 11 million years ago. Other sandstones contain abundant minerals derived from land, implying the extensive supply of sand to the Shikoku Basin from the Japanese islands." Prof. Underwood added, "Analysis of pore water and hydrocarbon gases retrieved from the sedimentary layers above the basement indicates multiple sources and migration paths of fluids. These results have important implications for understanding the properties of fluids within the seismogenic zone."---Image Caption: Scientists on Exp. 322 retrieved sedimentary rock and basalt from the seismogenic zone. Credit: JAMSTEC/IODP Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Oct 2009 | 7:06 am
RIM has released an updated version of its popular messaging program. BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, which allows BlackBerry users to chat with each other in an instant messaging format, has received a slick makeover. Users now have the option of using an avatar, can share pics, and files up to 6MB in size. The app also features a new group chat feature, but the most interesting new thing about BBM 5.0 are the new bar codes. Now instead of sharing PINs or emails to connect, BB users need only snap a pic of each other’s bar codes. BBM 5.0 can translate the image and add you to each other’s contact lists. Another great new feature is the ability to back up your BBM information locally and/or remotely.
I just downloaded BBM 5.0 for my Tour and it is a huge improvement over previous versions. The avatars and ability to use color add life and interest to the app. The group feature is a lot of fun and they are easy to start, join and invite people to, and it also lets you organize events.
Some people have reported that their BlackBerrys bricked when they installed the update, but most of them seem to have been running hybrid or leaked OSes. I have the most recent official one and had no problems, but just in case it would be a good idea to back up your data and 3rd party apps before installing it. The update can be found at BlackBerry App World and is only available as an OTA download.
Reuters - India is set to become a global leader in technology services as software companies move up in the value chain, while the weak dollar has hurt the U.S. economic recovery, the Chairman and CEO of business publisher Forbes said on Saturday.
The world's book trade meets in Frankfurt, Germany next week as the industry stands on the cusp of a long-feared transformation for which many are unprepared.Electronic readers such as Amazon’s kindle, book-sized screens that grab and display text from the Internet, are set to enter the mass market with a huge surge in sales this holiday shopping season.The shift has book publishers facing declining revenues as sales of discs, papers and books are replaced by less costly or free digitally distributed content. The phenomenon is similar to what the music and newspaper industries have experienced in recent years.However, "publishers are distracting themselves by fretting over the price of eBooks, withholding eBook releases so as not to cannibalize hardcover book sales, and watching helplessly as their businesses erode," Reuters quoted Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman Epps as saying this week.Forrester estimates 3 million e-readers will be sold in the U.S. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Oct 2009 | 6:23 am
Videogamers will soon be playing the famous music game "Rock Band" on Apple's globally popular iPhone. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Oct 2009 | 5:55 am
RIM has released an updated version of its popular messaging program. BlackBerry Messenger 5.0, which allows BlackBerry users to chat with each other in an instant messaging format, has received a slick makeover. Users now have the option of using an avatar, can share pics, and files up to 6MB in size. The app also features a new group chat feature, but the most interesting new thing about BBM 5.0 are the new bar codes. Now instead of sharing PINs or emails to connect, BB users need only snap a pic of each other’s bar codes. BBM 5.0 can translate the image and add you to each other’s contact lists. Another great new feature is the ability to back up your BBM information locally and/or remotely.
Reuters - India is set to become a global leader in technology services as software companies move up in the value chain, while the weak dollar has hurt the U.S. economic recovery, the Chairman and CEO of business publisher Forbes said on Saturday.
The 21st century looks set to be age of online collaboration. While old forms of community and solidarity have waned, leaving us apparently more fragmented and individualised, the social web enables many of us to work, play and organise with others in ways previously unimaginable. Technologies like Flickr, Delicious and Wikipedia evidence new means of sharing information and working together. Many suggest these technologies will have far-reaching social implications, and even presage a new form of production and work outside the market system. While traditional free market capitalism is compromised by the worldwide recession, the world wide web is said to promise an exciting alternative. Wired's Kevin Kelly suggests we are entering a new collectivist epoch, a 'New Socialism'. Technology guru Howard Rheingold sees these developments as disruptive, and will change the way people 'meet, mate, work, fight, buy, sell'. Charles Leadbeater, author of We-Think, sees the new means of networked collaboration as presaging a new production model: 'Mass Innovation rather than Mass Production'.
With all the 
In one of those wonderful ironies of scheduling that make columnists weep with joy, Larry Dignan spent yesterday at a Yahoo! hack day in New York.
It wasn't long ago that we heard about the 
But merely being not deleted is hardly an honor fit for one the original pillars of the internet. Although we (and you) created 
Wow. T-Mobile and Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, has just announced that they've likely lost all user data that was being stored on Microsoft's servers due to a server failure. That means that any contacts, photos, calendars, or to-do lists that haven't been locally backed up are gone. Apparently if you don't turn off your Sidekick and make sure its battery doesn't run out you can salvage what's currently stored on the device, otherwise you're out of luck: Microsoft/Danger is describing the likelihood of recovering the data from their servers as "extremely low".
T-Mobile Sidekick users have been 
Wow. T-Mobile and Danger, the Microsoft-owned subsidiary that makes the Sidekick, has just announced that they’ve likely lost all user data that was being stored on Microsoft’s servers due to a server failure. That means that any contacts, photos, calendars, or to-do lists that haven’t been locally backed up are gone. Apparently if you don’t turn off your Sidekick and make sure its battery doesn’t run out you can salvage what’s currently stored on the device, otherwise you’re out of luck: Microsoft/Danger is describing the likelihood of recovering the data from their servers as “extremely low”.
A couple days ago we wrote 
I removed IE from the desktop, taskbar, Start Menu, and even hid the icon in Windows Explorer. I then installed Firefox and Chrome and renamed them both "Internet." But yet somehow my mother-in-law still found a way to use Internet Explorer and wonders why her computer runs like poo. Oh, and she wants to keep all of the toolbars. She uses them.
Sometimes life’s irony smacks you in the face. Sometimes BoomTown smacks you with it instead. Early in the week, Kara logged a post that had a healthy dose of tech sector history. While Bill Gates may get a bad wrap for “borrowing” from Woz and Jobs in the early days of Microsoft (MSFT), all the Apple(APPL) tablet Fanboys,and Fangirls to be fair, should at least give him a tip of their hipsterey hats. For he, Kara reminded us, was the 
hour south of Big Sur, the exhaust we’d been inhaling all morning turned into more of a burning smell, smoke began billowing and….she was dead. (Note to organizers: Give the embedded journalist a car you think will make the drive.)
Yanik Silver with John Paul DeJoria, founder of Paul Mitchell
If you’re Palm you’re hoping that Pre owners love their phones so much that they cherish and protect them for always. So when a guy who owns a Palm Pre 
Open source software is our era's version of the French scientific salon. In the 18th and 19th centuries, young men (mostly men) would gather at the feet of elder scientists to learn the truth of the day. In Revolutionary France it was philosophy and natural science they studied and in the open source forums of the past decades it was discussions of the finer points of kernels, interrupts, and elegant coding. Purveyors of open source software have gone on to create an international network of crack programmers who all bear the same battle scars and have reveled in the same successes.
But they always want more. They want the desktop. Not content to run the plumbing of the Internet and to control the firmware on almost every scientific device in the world, open source proponents believe it is their birthright to supplant Windows on the desktop or, barring that, at least gain mind share in the average home computer. 
A few weeks ago, in response to proposed Net Neutrality rules, 
