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NASA moon bombing in search of water far from dazzling - IBTimes
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:22 am New Michael Jackson single debuts online (AP)AP - Michael Jackson has returned to the airwaves with a new song — the first from an upcoming documentary on the troubled superstar.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:22 am Windows 7 boots fast enough for normal people - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:20 am China bans foreign investment in online games industrySHANGHAI (Reuters) - China has banned foreign investment into its lucrative online games industry in an effort to tighten control over its virtual worlds.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:14 am China bans foreign investment in online games industry (Reuters)Reuters - China has banned foreign investment into its lucrative online games industry in an effort to tighten control over its virtual worlds.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:14 am Information That Can Save Lives, Your Own Included. There's An App For That.This is one mobile application I think everyone should have installed. And be recommended by them to all of their friends and relatives to boot. Meet iMobile Care, a potential life-saver that you can...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am Information That Can Save Lives, Your Own Included. There’s An App For That.
Meet iMobile Care, a potential life-saver that you can carry around in your pocket. Launched at the beginning of this month, the app is primarily a reference guide that lets you obtain essential information about medical conditions and situations quickly and easily. The tool allows users to get a visual and textual explanation of how deliver aid and care during emergencies and events such as accidents, bites and stings, choking, injuries, poisoning, burns, and many other critical situations. But billed as a mere mobile first aid guide even by its own makers, it’s actually much more than that. And I’m not saying that because you can make fart noises with it (you can’t), but because iMobile Care also boasts a number of location and personalization features that could well make the difference between life or death for yourself in the situations described above. I purchased and installed the iPhone app, which allows me to have the app automatically pinpoint my location if I choose to configure it that way. In addition, I can provide additional, optional data like my blood type, address, primary contact in case of emergency, any medication I use, allergies I have, and more. As you can see in the screenshot above, the app lets you call your local emergency number – which it automatically fetches as soon as you set your country – and access your camera or photo library in just one click. This can prove very useful e.g. in case of a car accident where you can provide much more information about the situation with one image than with a thousand words (and much faster too). You can also sound an SOS alert from your phone in case of distress, and provide additional information for when you switch it on, all of which you can store in advance to make sure you don’t lose time explaining your situation (provided you’re even capable to do so at that point). Here’s an example of how that might work:
VisionSync, the company behind the app, is careful enough to clearly state it doesn’t substitute for care that well-trained first aid personnel can deliver and that it works best for users who have gone through the various conditions and situations located on the iMobile Care app prior to them actually occurring. We should probably also point out that the company’s privacy policy shows that they cannot guarantee the absolute privacy of the data you provide, which can include confidential information like medical history, conditions, medications, and location. I purchased the app and I’m willing to take that risk because I think the advantages outweigh the potential disadvantages, but you may feel different about that. iMobile Care is available for the iPhone ($2.99 – iTunes link) and smartphones running Android. Support for Blackberry devices and Windows Mobile-equipped phones will be added in the near future. Cheesy video with more screenshots: Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0 
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:01 am STMicroelectronics Innovates High-Accuracy Motion Sensor for Smarter Vehicle ElectronicsAcceleration sensor measures movement with high accuracy over the whole automotive temperature range to enable vehicle self-adjusting features, advanced safety and security, and...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Apple versus Microsoft: The top 20 stolen ideas of the OS wars (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Although Mac fanboys and Windows zealots don't like to admit it, the fact is that both Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard contain features that originated in the other OS. Some features were stolen so long ago that they've become part of the computing landscape, and it's difficult to remember who invented what.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Celebrate the 'Spirit of BACARDI' With the Launch of a New Global Multi-Media Ad CampaignPassion and Pioneering Spirit Unites Friends for Great Times MIAMI, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- BACARDI, the world's favorite rum, is unveiling today a new global...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Experian CheetahMail Relevance Tour Shares Customer Engagement Strategies With Marketing Leaders Across the U.S.More than 300 brand leaders and industry experts assemble in five major cities for Experian CheetahMail's largest Relevance Tour to date NEW YORK, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ --...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am ShoreTel to Report First Quarter Fiscal Year 2010 ResultsSUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ShoreTel, Inc. (Nasdaq: SHOR), the leading provider of brilliantly simple IP phone systems with fully integrated Unified...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5 launch : the market, the actors, what's new - The Digital NewsRoom
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:58 am CC-friendly folk festival goes totally freeOpen source banjo maven Patrick Costello writes, We have been hosting folk musician retreats for the last couple of years here in Crisfield, Maryland. The idea is to bring musicians together in a funky...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:50 am CC-friendly folk festival goes totally freeOpen source banjo maven Patrick Costello writes,
The Crisfield Folk Musicians Retreat 2010
(Attentive readers will remember that Patrick had been legally and painfully deaf for some time, and recently had corrective surgery via a BAHA implant; he adds, "My Baha implant is amazing. I can hear! For the past month I have been wandering around like a little kid listening to birds and crickets. Most of all I can hear my instruments again. It has been so wonderful being able to just kick back with my guitar and play without struggling to make out the sounds or having to hunch over and rest my teeth on the upper bout. My father caught the activation of the device on video. I have a hard time watching the bit where I hear my guitar for the first time in years. Technology is just grand!)
Previously:
 Source: Boing Boing | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:50 am UPDATE 3-Tengzhong seeks approval for Hummer buy; hurdles seen* Exploring China production base aimed at domestic marketSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:40 am Microsoft sees no silver lining in Sidekick server snafu - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:32 am Oracle plays up promise of Sun take-over (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:31 am Airvana to Participate in Inaugural Femto Forum UMTS Femtocell PlugfestInteroperability Testing will Highlight Growing Adoption of New 3GPP Femtocell Standard CHELMSFORD, Mass., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am Telanetix to Present at the Security Research Associates Growth Stock Conference in New York on October 19thBELLEVUE, Wash, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Telanetix, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: TNXI), a leading communications solutions provider offering next generation voice services...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am Yanzhou Coal resubmits application for Felix buyHONG KONG, Oct 12 (Reuters) - China's Yanzhou Coal Mining Co Ltd said on Monday that it has resubmitted its application for the purchase of Felix Resources Ltd to the regulatory authority of Australia...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:23 am Iran sees possible Total deal worth $7.5-8 blnTEHRAN, Oct 12 (Reuters) - A senior Iranian energy official said on Monday the value of a possible new liquefied natural gas deal with France's Total would amount to $7.5 billion to $8 billion, state...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:20 am Trapeze Networks Announces World's First Centrally-Managed Enterprise-Class 802.11n Outdoor APPLEASANTON, Calif., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Trapeze Networks, a Belden Brand (NYSE: BDC), today introduces the world's first centrally-managed, enterprise-class outdoor 802.11n access point.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am Google Wave And The Dawn Of Passive-Aggressive Communication
The Wall Street Journal has a long article about this today, noting “The End of the Email Era.” But most of that article is spent focusing on how Twitter and Facebook, which is to say, status updates and the streams, are replacing our need for much of what email has provided in the past. Only very briefly do they mention Wave. And I think that overlooks something. For many of us, email is simply not cutting it the way that it used to. It’s a sedentary beast in a fast-moving web. It uses old principles for management, and this is leading to overload. I think the key statement in the WSJ is this:
That’s absolutely true. But that also implies that we want some sort of always-on communication connection. I don’t think that’s the case. I think we want the option to communicate in real-time at will, but also the ability to communicate at our leisure at times. I would consider this to be a desire for a “passive-agressive” method of communication. Perhaps it would be better stated as a “passive/active” method of communication, but passive-aggressive sounds better, so we’ll go with that. I would consider email to be a passive form of communication. I don’t mean that you don’t respond to it, I mean that you don’t have to respond to it right away. Instant messaging is at the other end of the spectrum. If used correctly, it’s supposed to be an “aggressive” or “active” form of communication in which you respond immediately. Twitter is very passive because the use of it is such that people don’t even necessarily expect a response of any kind, even if they point a message at you. Facebook is a mixture of all of those things (more on that below). Google Wave is attempting to be a passive-agressive form of communication. You can actively (aggressively) engage in threads in real-time, or you can sit back and let messages come to you at your leisure (passively). Having used the product for a few months now, and after using it quite a bit more actively with my friends these past few days, I really think that Wave is onto something with this method of communication. I would argue that Google Wave’s new message alert system needs to be somewhat reworked or re-imagined, but I do think the desire to blend passive and agressive methods of communicating is there.
And while there is the option to reply to emails by chat if that person is online, there’s no real integration between the email message and the IM message, they exist as two totally separate things. It seems like we’re at the point now where that shouldn’t have be the case. Others, like Yahoo Mail, are now trying to tack-on status updates and the stream to email services too. The result is a Frankenstein-like service. Facebook is another interesting example in that, as I mentioned, it combines all of these elements: Email, IM, status updates, and a stream. But the connection between all of these things in that system is loose at best. From a unified communications standpoint, Facebook is really kind of a mess. There are whispers of changes, and I hope that’s true, but I’m not holding my breath for a service with 300 million users to do something new and drastic that will alienate a certain (probably large) percentage of its base. That’s why Wave is interesting. It’s backed by a huge company, Google, but it’s not trying to shove this upon all of its Gmail users. Instead, they’re going to slowly roll this out and see how users end up using it. And maybe more importantly, they want to see how developers start using it. And that’s really a key that a lot of early users are overlooking. Right now, when people hear “Google Wave,” everyone seems to want to place emphasis on the “Google” part of it. But the truth is that the grand goal of the team behind the project is to emphasize “Wave” as both a platform and a new communication standard. Whether Google Wave succeeds is really irrelevant. More important is if the idea of Wave does. Again, the idea of passive-aggressive communication. Wave, the Google web-based client, will only ever appeal to a certain number of users. Does anyone really think that Twitter would be where it is today if they only had twitter.com? No. Wave desktop apps, and mobile apps, internal company Waves, and public Waves; it’s the platform, not the product, that’s interesting. Or, more to the point, it’s the key communication idea behind it. [photo: flickr/matheus sanchez] Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:59 am Google Wave And The Dawn Of Passive-Aggressive CommunicationWe're now a little over a week into the extended roll-out of the preview build of Google Wave. This is an important time for the service because many people can now finally start using it as they eventually...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:59 am Fujitsu develops autonomous gofer robot for the office
No pictures for this yet, but after conquering nursing homes, schools and hospitals, Japan’s robots are finally ready to get into office spaces, too. Fujitsu’s new and yet to be named gofer robot is an all-round talent, designed to be used mainly during office hours. It can move among the staff and actually gets work done as well. The Fujitsu robot is jointly developed with major Japanese furniture maker Okamura and a team of university researchers. It’s being described as cylindrical, 120cm tall, it weighs 60kg and has a diameter of 62cm. After feeding it with a given office’s layout, it can move around the office by itself (at 1.2m per second) and stops whenever it comes as close as 10cm to a person or object. The robo gofer is equipped with a camera and a set of sensors so it can avoid obstacles. Needless to say it’s connected to the web and features an LCD touch screen so that human colleagues can quickly search for stuff on Google, for example. Fujitsu also thought of a shelf space in the robot’s body so you can make it carry letters or copier paper from one colleague to the other. Via Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription]
Source: CrunchGear | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:43 am Image Recognition Neural Networks, Open Sourcedsevarac writes "The latest release of Java Neural Network Framework Neuroph v2.3 comes with ready-to-use image recognition support. It provides GUI tool for training multi layer perceptrons for image recognition, and easy to use API to deploy these neural networks in end-user applications. This image recognition approach has been successfully used by DotA AutoScript tool, and now it is released as open source. With this Java library basic image recognition can be performed in just few lines of code. The developers have published a howto article and an online demo which can be used to train image recognition neural networks online."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:37 am KDDI pairs a mobile phone with a robotJapanese 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. The robot, called Polaris,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:10 am Web Ads Hidden Under Cloak of Invisibility [Voices]By Emily Steel, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Kraft Foods (KFT), Greyhound Lines and Capital One Financial (CFO) have bought some strange ads on the Internet lately. What’s so strange about them is that they’re invisible. The companies might not have known about their invisible display ads—the kind that are supposed to appear alongside content on Web pages—if not for Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies Internet advertising. Mr. Edelman says his research shows that all three marketers, and many others, have fallen victim to Web sites that use such ads as a way to sell more ad space than they have. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am Ness Technologies Launches Two Systems That Help Fight Terror and Crime in Urban Areas, at ISDEFHACKENSACK, New Jersey, October 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Ness Technologies (NASDAQ: NSTC and TASE: NSTC), a global provider of information technology services and solutions, today announced the launch of two systems that help fight terror and crime in urban areas, at ISDEF - Israel Defense, the international army and police exhibition, being held October 12-14, 2009, in Tel Aviv, Israel.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am Nine Things I Learned About Second Life Last Week...One in three survey takers say they feel pressured to virtually consume. Yoko Ono brings her "Imagine" sculpture into Second Life. Virtual worlds for enterprise forecast to be multi-billion dollar business...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:41 am Cell-phone Simulator Helps Coordinate an OutfitChoosing and buying clothes via a cell phone is getting easier in Japan with the launch of a new service called EZ MyStyling launched by Mobile carrier KDDI that allows shoppers to simulate an outfit...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:23 am Funai And Nippon's New Laser Projector Recognizes Finger Movements On The Projected ImageBy Andrew Liszewski Well here’s an interesting advancement in projector technology. Funai and Nippon were showing off a jointly-developed micro projector at CEATEC last week that allows users to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:20 am Relevance Over TimeWhen email was first created in 1965 it was used as a method to communicate between time-shared mainframe computers. Email has rapidly evolved since then, with the evolution of rich desktop clients, corporate...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:09 am Relevance Over Time
A chronological system for indexing information breaks down quickly once the amount of information received reaches a certain critical point. Active users of email constantly moan about the information overload they experience, and the information is only a load because it is difficult to sort through and manage in modern systems. According to the cognitive theory of choice complexity, that feeling of load multiplies with each incremental increase in choices and decisions having to be made. In the email world this leads to a complete breakdown, and the trend of email bankruptcy (deleting all email and starting again). Chronological order became more common on the web as social networks, such as the Facebook, blogs, feeds, feed readers, FriendFeed and services such as Twitter designed around the same paradigm – leading to most recent being most important. Some call it real-time, others call it information overload. A default view of chronological order presents a natural barrier to the number of information sources that can be managed effectively (Scoble somehow broke the barrier, he is an exception). With only a few dozen feeds, a hundred or so emails a day and following one hundred or so people on Twitter, I find myself constantly behind and not being able to manage. When I am reading these sources, I find myself simply scanning for what is most relevant and most important – for eg. I will quickly reply to an email from a co-worker, while leaving others to slowly creep into the abyss of my archive. Chronological order needs to be abandoned in favor of relevance. Without relevance, our ability to manage large sets of information is inefficient. The technology for relevance exist today, for eg. spam filters are able to tell us what we definitely don’t want to read. Real world information retrieval and organization is based on relevance, either what somebody else believes is relevant to us, or what we decide is relevant. Newspaper stories are not laid out in the order that events took place and libraries do not catalog their books in the order they were published. Web applications that present relevance over chronological have proven to be popular. Techmeme hacked RSS, and instead of reading 50 feeds I can have Techmeme read 20,000 for me. Community-powered sites such as HackerNews are similar, they float up the latest content based on what a like-minded community finds interesting. The TiVo hacked television by taking chronological out of the picture and applying relevance. Email applications have attempted to hack what is essentially relevance into the traditional chronological order. Old desktop email clients introduced folders and filters. Gmail introduced labels, adding a star to a thread and grouping multiple emails into a thread. Yahoo Mail attempts to highlight emails that it believes are from people close or important to you. I hand over a lot of information to the applications that I use every day, but I am getting nothing in return (other than ads that creep me out). Every time I click a ‘like’, or I re-tweet, or I bookmark a page, or I spend time reading a post, that information can be stored somewhere and used to figure out what information is most important to me. I would happily exchange that part of my privacy for the ability to save a few hours each day and the pain of having to personally sort through all this information. The ingredients for a personalized aggregator of all information exist today. A working solution would allow me to funnel far more data into my stream, and to not only discover more, but become more efficient. The second by second and minute by minute chronological order paradigm is broken, and like QWERTY, is a legacy from a world where systems were not smart enough to determine relevancy and real networks did not exist. Original backwards post here Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:09 am Get The New Star Trek Movie On A Limited Edition Flash DriveBy Andrew Liszewski I’ll spare you my thoughts on the new Star Trek film, given this isn’t a movie-review site, and I seem to stand in the minority with my opinions, but if you were a fan of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:09 am Hey Media Company, Buy BNO News. Now. Really. [Voices]By Rafat Ali, Editor and Founder, Paidcontent.org By now, there’s no need to repeat the backstory of Breaking News Online to the news junkies among us, especially those of us on Twitter and iPhone. If you do need the background, here’s the story. I was never a follower on Twitter, but I have been using its iPhone app ever since it launched in July. And with the new 1.1 version of the app, it has become even better with customization. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:05 am What The Associated Press is saying to Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo [Voices]By Zachary M. Seward, Assistant Editor, Nieman Journalism Lab “I’m not saying Google’s an enemy, all right?” the chief executive of The Associated Press, Tom Curley, was telling a few people in Hong Kong on Tuesday. “I’m saying they were brilliant, and we didn’t, collectively, license as aggressively as we could have. So now there’s this moment, and the two of them are competing.” He meant Google and Microsoft. “So where does that take us?” Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am Telephone Company Is Arm of Government, Feds Admit in Spy Suit [Voices]By Ryan Singel, Staff Writer, Wired The Department of Justice has finally admitted it in court papers: The nation’s telecom companies are an arm of the government — at least when it comes to secret spying. Fortunately, a judge says that relationship isn’t enough to squash a rights group’s open records request for communications between the nation’s telecoms and the feds. The Electronic Frontier Foundation wanted to see what role telecom lobbying of the Justice Department played when the government began its year-long, and ultimately successful, push to win retroactive immunity for AT&T and others being sued for unlawfully spying on American citizens. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:03 am Training to Climb an Everest of Digital Data [Voices]By Ashlee Vance, Reporter, New York Times It is a rare criticism of elite American university students that they do not think big enough. But that is exactly the complaint from some of the largest technology companies and the federal government. At the heart of this criticism is data. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am Why Startups Shouldn’t Have to Pay to Pitch Angel Investors [Voices]By Jason Calacanis, Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com When confronted with an abuse of power, an injustice or a scam I’ve developed a really effective technique: I blog, tweet and whine about it passionately for as long as possible. Basically, I do this until people get sick of me (some of you reading this have at various times told me this–I’m sorry!). I’ve learned over the years that this process is wildly effective in the long-term and has the added bonus of being great therapy. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am Microsoft/Danger. Enough Said. [Digital Daily]
Microsoft (MSFT) hasn’t yet said what caused the failure, though some speculate it was a bungled storage area network upgrade performed without backup. Nor has the company said why it doesn’t have a copy of Sidekick user data (I’ve asked Microsoft for comment and will update here if and when one is offered). There’s likely a reasonable explanation for the service disruption and server failure, but it’s hard to imagine one for unrecoverable data loss. Danger should have had a redundant backups of user data. It should have had off-site tape backups. Clearly, it didn’t have these, or if it did, they were abysmally unreliable. Either way, this is an ugly embarrassment for Danger and Microsoft and one that will probably cost them the trust of Sidekick users. Sadly, Danger seems to have lived up to its name. Source: All Things Digital | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am CrunchGear Week in Review: Still Life with Gadgets Edition
Time For Gadgets! Episode 1
Source: CrunchGear | 12 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am Concept phones Gallery on Le MondeFrench daily Le Monde has an amazing gallery of concept phones last Friday. Below are are my two favorites: The soap phone, it's washable. The fold-a-phone. So thin, you can fold it like paper...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Oct 2009 | 12:58 am Arm Uses Laptops to Protect Mobile Phone Turf From Intel (PC World)PC World - Arm Holdings is positioning its chips as the main processors in the low-end laptop market, but does not expect these chips to account for a significant part of its revenue, an executive said on Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Oct 2009 | 12:50 am Giorgio Armani designs Samsung's GT-V7650 smart phone - TopNews United States
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Oct 2009 | 12:17 am Big Things from Small Business - Which Inspires You?
It's down to the wire with three finalists vying for the winning nod. And who provides that winning nod? You do! Your votes will determine which of these three hard working small businesses will receive $100,000 in grant and marketing support from American Express. Read through the inspiring stories of these three finalists - a telecommunications company, a paint and hardware store and an organic baby food company - and cast your vote for the most inspiring story. It means a lot and can make a real difference to one inspirational small business.
Vote today! My generation: How Indie Game Makers are Embracing Controlled Chaos
One of the highlights of this year's Austin GDC was a session by game design veteran Greg Costikyan on the 'blight or bane' of randomness in games -- a wide-ranging talk that covered the history and delicate balance of luck or chance in games, and their interplay with the idea of skill.
Of particular note were his final slides on algorithmic content: randomly or procedurally generated games, starting, of course, with the genre-defining early computer RPG Rogue, a game highly dependent on luck but also one of near infinite variety with each successive playthrough.
The idea is one that's been prevalent throughout videogame history, but it's also one that's most recently and notably being embraced by indies for its exploit-ability in adding 'cheap' (once your algorithms have been perfected) content and replayability on a tight budget and tiny team.
Derek Yu's Spelunky (at top) is easily the best example, and where all discussion of the indie embrace of procedural generation needs to start. Taking the Rogue formula and applying it to the 8-bit platformer genre, Spelunky's enduring power and charm (having been finessed for nearly a year, and only just now hitting its 1.0 release) is its ability to create "situations" rather than rote level layouts. Though your only goal is 'simpy' to reach an exit at the bottom of each generated cave, without the benefit of memorization (think of how easily, 25 years later, you can now anticipate each impending Goomba and pitfall in World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros.) every new twist in Spelunky is a fresh test of more overarching skills: arrow-traps lining the walls of your next drop, a giant spider hovering near a precious gem, a distressed damsel crying for help at the bottom of a snake pit.
None of these situations are ever presented the same way or in the same sequence twice, nor are their solutions any less unique, and each failure presents a learning opportunity that feels as rewarding as each victory (particularly in how it avoids the Groundhog Day frustrations of butting up against identical deaths). Play Yu's free PC release of the game and you'll understand instantly, and prep yourself for the 2010 release of the Xbox Live Arcade version.
Adam Saltsman's embrace of these ideas goes even deeper: his decision not to include GUI level-editing utilities in his recent free Flixel Flash engine was meant to encourage new developers to experiment with script-based procedural techniques, starting with his own game Fathom (and Flixel demo game Mode).
Where that's shined most brightly, though, is in his Experimental Gameplay contribution Canabalt (just recently released for the iPhone). Stripped down even further than Spelunky, Canabalt is one-button economy over-top procedural play. Your only interaction in Canabalt is to jump from roof to algorithmically-heightened and extended roof in a break-neck escape from a situation unspecified, giving the game a laser-focus on speed and reaction time.
It's that simplicity and variety that's made it not only one of the most compulsive indie games of the year, but also the near-instant viral hit it's now become (alongside Saltsman's smart social network promotions).
Finally, procedure meets sandbox in Farbs' Captain Forever, the least overtly or recognizably generated game of the three, but no less infinitely replayable, as signified by its title.
Your goal in the game? Merely to act and excel as a star pilot -- and by 'you' I mean 'you': Forever's best fourth-wall-breaking trick is to use your PC's webcam to project your own face as a ghostly reflection on its low-bit display, visible primarily on direct-hit enemy explosions, which places you directly inside your ship's cockpit even as you sit slumped at your MacBook.
To progress further into its infinite universe, Forever lets you procure scrap from demolished ships to build your own ever-more-fearsome craft, which elicits a further push-pull by generating both more powerful foes with higher-grade shields and weapons, and easier prey as you lose your own components in firefights.
Still in pre-release, you can donate to Farbs to get an early look into the infinite space of his generated space, and, as with the other games above, become a firm believer in the church of procedural gaming.Source: Boing Boing | 12 Oct 2009 | 12:03 am Crop Art Is For Everyone!
See, it says so right there on the sign. Crop art is exactly what it sounds like: Art made with crops. Generally speaking, that means everything from crop circles to grape-vine wreaths. But we're talking about a very specific kind of crop art. One seldom seen outside the surreal confines of the Minnesota State Fair. This crop art is all about seeds--thousands of them--glued together to form an image. Right now, you're thinking about preschool macaroni pictures, aren't you? Don't. Real crop art is much more challenging. 
Everything you see here is seeds. Artists like Kimberly Cope--the Minneapolitan responsible for this punny little number, which references the grand Fair tradition of serving anything and everything fried and on a stick--painstakingly glue the seeds to a masonite backer board. It's an artistic technique that stems from historical attempts to display crops for show. You wanted something aesthetically pleasing, but you also wanted to show off the quality of the crops themselves. "It's telling that these pieces are displayed in the horticulture building, alongside the blue-ribbon corn and flax," says Colleen Sheehy, director of the Plains Art Museum and the author of Seed Queen, a book about crop art and the woman who revolutionized the medium. 
These are all the different types of seeds that make up Conan. You see the teeny canola seeds and quinoa? You put those on individually with a toothpick, Sheehan says. Unsurprisingly, that kind of work doesn't have particularly widespread appeal. When Sheehan was researching a book about Lillian Colton--the mother of modern Minnesota crop art--she contacted every state fair in the U.S., looking for similar competitions. Nobody had one. "You will see some crop art in other states, mixed into a different category, like in arts and crafts," she says. "But Minnesota is really the only place where this isn't just nostalgic and cute. It's still a live art here. It's still evolving." (Ms. Cope, by the way, deserves some sort of award for most puns shoehorned into a State Fair art entry.) 
Lillian Colton deserves the credit for keeping crop art alive in Minnesota. This Abe Lincoln--again, all seeds, including the background--is one of hers. Colton first entered the crop art competition in 1966, the second year of its existence as a special category. Back then, Sheehy says, people were using the seeds like stitches of thread. You'd have a big, blank background with seeds forming some abstract shapes or mimicking old-fashioned embroidery samplers. Colton (truly, a Happy Mutant before her time) went in an entirely different direction. At the 1967 fair, she unveiled her first portrait, using seeds like drops of paint to create texture, depth and shadow. "She really blew it open by showing you could do any subject matter," Sheehy says. "And the virtuosity she introduced by using the really tiny seeds, it raised the bar with obsessive quality in the art." 
Colton, as the kids say, brought it. She entered a new portrait every year, and it eventually got to the point where the judges may as well have printed her name on the blue ribbons in advance. Thus, did the backlash begin. It started with subject matter. Colton's portraits, innovative as they were, were very Lawrence Welk, culturally speaking. You got your presidents. You got your un-controversial movie stars. You got your Jesus. In response, younger Minnesotans started turning up with portraits of Bob Marley and Che. 
Which leads us to this snappy little number from the 2009 Fair. One of the first reasons I got curious about Minnesota crop art was its tradition of political commentary, often featuring a strong lefty bent--a somewhat unexpected tendency for a state fair art competition involving commodity crops. It's quite a bit different from Lillian Colton's polite portraiture, but Sheehy says the credit goes to Colton all the same. "Even to those who reacted against her, she was really the standard people measured themselves against. Good and bad she sent crop art in a lot of different directions and made it seem alive and viable," Sheehy says. "What you see here today is more interesting, artistically, than anything over in the fine art building." 
For the record, the liberal bias of modern crop artists does attract its own dissent. No, I'm not sure why Nancy Reagan has a parrot. Or why Barbara Bush was left out. 
And the competition isn't all about politics. 
The competitors also aren't all Minnesotan. There is a category for would-be seed kings and queens who live out of state. The most out-of-state of all the out-of-staters, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, is Zambian artist Obrien Shipeka. Shipeka has long worked with seed art and entered this portrait of his little sister after a U.S. Embassy public affairs officer told him about the Minnesota State Fair. Unique to Shipeka's work is the technique of roasting seeds--in this case, millet--to alter their color. The innovation helped earn him the 2009 overall Best in Show, the out-of-state blue ribbon and a $40 prize. To put the prize in perspective, Shipeka just made about as much as a Zambian security guard could expect to earn in a year, according to the 2002 Economic and Social Development Research Project of the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection.
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:40 pm LG Presents Solar Powered E-BookMikeChino writes "At first glance, e-readers offer a great set of benefits over paper-bound books – they’re light, versatile, and a great alternative to lugging around a tote full of dead tree tomes on your next trip. However these new reading mediums have one glaring fault – can you imaging the frustration of running out of juice mid-sentence and halfway through Infinite Jest? LG’s new solar e-book aims to address this issue by harnessing the sun's rays to power its display. The device features a 10 centimeter wide thin-film photovoltaic panel that can power the reader for a full day's worth of reading after 4-5 hours spent sitting in the sun."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:31 pm Hallowe'en is safeOn the news that Bobtown, Pennsylvania has outlawed Hallowe'en to "keep kids safe," Lenore "Free Range Kids" Skenazy points out that there has never been a single substantiated incident of a kid being sickened, hurt or killed by doctored candy handed out during trick-or-treating in the history of America. Ever.
Goodbye Halloween, Hello "Safety" (Image: Me as a pirate, Hallowe'en 1975, Toronto, Canada -- photo by Gordon Doctorow)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:05 pm The Newly Launched Free-Credit-Reports.com to Put an End to All Your Credit Score WorriesHOLLYWOOD, Fla., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Launch of Free-Credit-Reports.com is surely a boon for the people looking forward to some useful information and advice on the credit front. The website is being presented to the users in a new and never-before-seen format.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:00 pm Big Entertainment's century-long technophobic bingeNice work from Ars Technica's Nate Anderson on the ways that entertainment companies have spent the past century decrying new technology, claiming that it would destroy copyright, from the record player to the xerox machine to the VCR to DTV to Napster.100 years of Big Content fearing technology--in its own words Source: Boing Boing | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:53 pm Blackra1n jailbreaks iPhone OS 3.1.2 - CNET News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:37 pm Finding Your Co-Founders
The number one question you all asked after reading my last blog post about starting a business from scratch was “how do I find my co-founders?” Great question – let’s start with a bit of self reflection: Close your eyes and visualize your group of closest friends. Now, think specifically about how tall (or short) they all are. Great, now ask yourself “are all of them roughly the same height?” I’ll bet most of them are – you included. And therein lies the problem in finding co-founders for that startup you’re dying to launch. It’s most comfortable to hang out with people like ourselves, but those are exactly the folks you probably don’t want to co-found a startup with. Seems a bit unintuitive, right? I’ll explain. The best founding team for a startup is a group of two or three people who have synergistic – not overlapping – skills. Note that it’s also important your goals and passions be similar. If one of you wants to sell fast and the other wants to build a billion dollar business, that’ll make for pretty serious friction down the road. So too would a team where one person’s more interested in enterprise startups while the other person’s passion lies in consumer experiences. With that out of the way, however, it’s critical that you look for people with complementary skills to your own. In consumer internet, that usually means one front-end user-facing developer, one back-end server-side developer, and ultimately a business person (details will come in a later post). The reality though, is that we tend to hang out with people who are just like us. Remember that story I told about the three business school students telling me about their tech startup, leaving me to wonder who’d actually build the product? I see that all too frequently – from business folks and techies alike. It’s just easier to hang out with people in your same classes at school, or your same group at work. If you happen to be in school now, you’re in the most fertile place possible to meet your co-founders. Take advantage of it! How’d I meet Elaine and Sandy? Mutual friends from school. How about some other teams? Larry and Sergey from Google met at Stanford. So did Jerry and David from Yahoo!. The Plaxo founders also met in school, which is also where Mark from Facebook met his co-founders. Having trouble meeting folks you think would be good co-founders? Here are a couple ideas: 1. Join student groups relevant to your interests. If you’re a business major – go check out the Engineering Society’s monthly meeting. If you’re in the CS department, I’ll bet the business school students would kill to meet you at the next Entrepreneurship Club meeting. 2. If your school doesn’t already have a student group designed to foster collaboration between groups of students with the skills necessary to get a startup rolling, start one! BASES at Stanford is a great model to follow. It brings together students from both the undergraduate and graduate levels, across disciplines such as design, computer science and business. Ok, so most folks reading this are probably out of school. Fortunately, there are a number of examples of successful founding teams that met outside of school. Chad and Steve from YouTube met while working at PayPal. Sean and Shawn from Napster met in an IRC channel. Cisco was a husband and wife team. It helps to be in school, but it’s not an absolute requirement. A few practical ideas applicable to everyone, in school or not: 1. Get out there and find activities that attract diverse groups of people. In Silicon Valley, rock climbing’s a current hot spot for startup folks. So is ultimate frisbee. There’s at least one weekly ultimate frisbee game I’m aware of that’s chock-full of people from the startup industry, on both the business and tech sides. 2. Ask your friends for intros to people in an area you’re trying to learn about. Chances are someone in your group of techies knows someone business oriented. The first folks you meet may not be a fit, but keep asking for referrals and you’ll get there. 3. Join / attend local organizations designed to foster introductions between folks interested in startups. SVASE or Founder Dating in Silicon Valley, First Tuesday in London and Hackers and Founders in New York all come to mind. 4. Team with co-workers at your current job or that internship you did last summer. Just make sure to not violate any non-competes, etc, in the process! Generally speaking, as long as you’re not working on a project your employer would reasonably want to own, you’re probably ok. Of course, do not use any of your employer’s resources. A great friend of mine is scheming, right now, with a co-worker on their next great startup. One’s a PM and the other’s an engineer. I’m sure some of you are thinking “that’s all great – but I live in the middle of nowhere and none of those resources are available to me.” To be blunt, find a way to move to Silicon Valley. Other cities like New York, Boston, Seattle, LA and Austin TX also have pretty strong startup communities. However, nowhere has as many real estate agents, lawyers, accountants, landlords, employees, co-founders, mentors, and VCs all steeped in startup culture as does Silicon Valley. The ecosystem is just hard to beat. The result is that you’ll be exposed to many more people who can help you get started. In my case, I grew up in Connecticut and spent a fair amount of time in New York – all the while trying to start companies, relatively unsuccessfully. Friends in Silicon Valley kept telling me to move out there for all the reasons I mentioned above. I finally found my ticket in the form of admission to business school in the valley. Find your ticket. The hardest part of starting from scratch is finding the right co-founders. Ideas, comparatively, are easy. You may spend three years finding your co-founders while you’ll come up with a solid idea every 3 months or so. Luckily, once you settle into a great founding team you’ll be able to execute much faster on that killer idea you all come up with – beating those ten other folks who came up with the same idea at the same time. Remember, the ultimate goal is to create a founding team that can, within its own skill set, get a working prototype out the door. This means you need to find folks with skills that compensate for your weaknesses. Co-founding a startup is like getting into a marriage – picking the right people is critical. In later posts I’ll get more specific on how to figure out if the folks you’re meeting are the right people to work with, and also how to deal with issues like splitting equity and paying yourselves before raising funding. Feel free to follow me on Twitter to get notifications of later posts on this topic, both here and on the Meebo Blog. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:31 pm Review: LoveHoney’s Sqweel
So. This is the Sqweel. It is, in a nutshell, a cunnilingus simulator. It consists of a motor, a wheel of pink tongue-like appendages, and a casing. You can close it up and it make it look like a hockey puck for easy transport and you can take it apart for cleaning. It is, if you haven’t gathered, a jam for the ladies. It has three settings, slow, medium, and high, and my test subject found low to be the most she could take. The little tongues flick merrily away at whatever you point them to but sometimes they get caught up in the foliage, if you catch my meaning. My advice is to stay well shorn and use a bit of lubricant. Effectiveness? I’d give it a 7 out of 10 where this is pretty much a 10 for her and watching Cops with me is a 1. We were not able to reach the point of orgasm with this device, but that may be her particular physiology. It is also slightly effective on the male member and can be used, in conjunction with a complex tubing system, as a method to lick many stamps at once. Bottom Line
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:01 pm U.S. Census Bureau Daily Feature for Oct. 12WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:01 pm AT&T U-verse Arrives in JacksonJACKSON, Miss., Oct. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Residents in Jackson now have a new choice for their television and communications services, powered by the most advanced technology.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:01 pm Tricked-Out Golf Carts Swarm Florida CommunitiesIt's a brutally hot morning here at the Villages, one of the biggest retirement communities on the planet. But the saunalike central Florida weather doesn't slow down the 77,000 seniors who call this place home. On the nine softball fields around the development, smack-talking eightysomethings try to leg out a base hit. Graceful swimmers slice through the water in glittering pools. Near the Bait Shop bar in one of the immaculate town squares, line dancers shimmy in unison. Villagers play hard. And they drive ... well, they drive kinda slow. Because the ride of choice at the Villages isn't a Lincoln or a Cadillac. It's a golf cart. The diminutive vehicles are the primary mode of transportation for daily life here. Residents can drive them just about everywhere they need to go. They whiz along 87 miles of trails, from the Walmart to the town squares, from the hospital to the archery range. When they have to cross the six-lane US 27/US 441 highway, no sweat—they take the specially built golf cart overpass. "We don't like to call them our golf carts," a retiree named Warren Cromer tells me. "They're our second car." 
Tony Colangelo, owner of the Villages Golf Cart Man.
Photo: Andrew Hetherington Second cars with massive upgrades. Villagers have tricked out their carts to look like 1930s roadsters, fire trucks, and stretch limos. The hottest ride in town is currently a canary-yellow imitation of a Hummer H3 with alligator interior, undercarriage lighting, and a 1,400-watt stereo. The most obsessed drivers have spent upwards of $20,000 pimping their rides: Villagers trade up for bigger tires, swap computer codes to overclock their batteries, and hack their motors to bypass built-in speed caps. Standard carts typically top out at around 20 miles per hour, but a little tweaking can boost that to as much as 40. Retirees who want ever more speed (and who still have their driver's licenses) can buy so-called neighborhood electric vehicles, a burgeoning class of electric cars that are street-legal in at least 45 states. At a strip mall dealership called the Villages Golf Cart Man, owner Tony Colangelo takes me out back to show me a cherry-red NEV called the LC3 that I'll be driving during my stay here. "Pretty sweet, huh?" Colangelo says. My Lilliputian chariot boasts beige zip-down doors, chrome-capped 12-inch wheels, and a sloping front end with tiny round headlamps. It looks like a sidekick for Herbie the Love Bug. If you ever wondered what the world would look like if we all ditched our cars, visit the Villages. Designed from the ground up as a golf cart community, it has developed into something even more compelling: a town where cars don't isolate people from each other, but rather bring them together. With a flick of a button on the LC3 dash, I whisk quietly out of the dealership's parking lot and into the electric future. Before the golf cart, there was golf. Lots and lots of golf. "Free golf for the rest of your life" is the marketing slogan here, and residents get unlimited access to 24 nine-hole "executive courses," with thoroughbred names like Churchill Greens, Pimlico, and Truman. The first courses were built as a way to lure retirees to the small trailer park that Villages CEO Gary Morse's father bought here in the early 1980s. As the aging snowbirds flocked down for the free golf, the community grew around one founding principle: Everything would be accessible by golf cart. 
The hottest ride in town is a canary-yellow imitation of a Hummer H3 with a 1,400-watt stereo.
Photo: Andrew Hetherington Today, the serpentine golf cart trails dominate the Villages. On a full charge, carts can cover about 45 miles, more than enough to handle a day's worth of leisure. Just about everything a retiree could need is contained within the 40 square miles of the community. Each neighborhood—or Village—is clustered around a recreational center, golf course, and pool. And it's just a short ride to one of the 12 fishing lakes or 85 horseshoe pits or 115 bocce courts. After a vigorous day of recreation, Villagers cart over to one of the two town squares for a night of drinks and live music. When I join the herd for happy hour at the nautical-themed Lake Sumter Landing Market Square, I find rows and rows of gleaming golf carts parked along the curbs. It's like something out of Disney World or The Truman Show—meticulously engineered and brilliantly detailed, all the way down to the harmonies of "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore" wafting from the speakers overhead. The town would be easy to ridicule if not for the fact that the residents love it. For them, it's perfect. The cart-friendly design stretches far beyond this hub. Trails lead directly from the Villages to big chains like Target, Staples, and Starbucks, which line the nearby highways. Instead of parking lots crammed with minivans or SUVs, I see fleets of golf carts, often parked two or three to a spot. This laid-back EV lifestyle is spreading. Other communities around the country—from the retirement enclave of Sun City, Arizona, to the all-ages suburb of Peachtree City, Georgia—are expanding and marketing themselves as cart towns. The secret to a successful community, says Peachtree City's David Rast, is "getting the path system in before or as part of the development." Integrated into the fabric of a community, the carts cease to be icons of decrepitude and instead become a defining vessel, an icon of a new life. "It becomes more than transportation for a lot of people," says Gary Lester, VP of community relations for the Villages. "It's who they are as a community." Indeed, it creates community. "If your neighbor is in his yard," Lester says, "you can't drive by in your golf cart without waving and saying hello." 
Art Plant hacked his Boston Red Sox-themed cart with a custom 10-to-1 gear ratio.
Photo: Andrew Hetherington Joe Kobar, a peppy 68-year-old retired shop teacher from Scranton, Pennsylvania, is up early and ready to run errands in his EV cart: "Time to go to Walmart!" Kobar belongs to the geeky underworld of Villagers who are spending their leisure years modifying their carts to look and behave more like cars. Kobar's current project is a maroon and gold-trimmed replica of a 1934 Ford street rod. The $17,000 vehicle is authentically rendered, including a chassis that's been stretched 8 inches to match the body style of the original Ford. The names of Joe and his wife, Janet, are painted in gold lettering on the hood. Kobar put his shop-class skills to use by adding a plywood enclosure on the back of the cart to house an extra battery. That power supply feeds regular 110-volt electrical outlets, allowing Kobar to plug in a Breeze Easy cooling fan during the summer (in lieu of air-conditioning) and a string of halogen lights during the holidays. "The kids just love it," he says. Kobar has neat white hair and is wearing dark shorts, sandals, and a Hawaiian shirt festooned with sailboats. On a typical day, the Kobars might drive their cart to the health club, then spin over to the golf course or the air-gun range. The afternoon agenda might include a trip to the grocery store, where they load up the compartment under the hood with ice cream. "Being in one of these is like riding a motorcycle or a skateboard," he says. "Every time you're in it, you feel a little bit more free." The Kobars belong to the Villages' equivalent of a Harley gang—the Streetrod Club, a collection of 500 residents who share a taste for tricked-out rides. A few years ago the group anchored a chain of 3,321 carts, setting a record for the world's longest golf club parade. Club member Art Plant, a lanky retired math teacher and statistician, drives a Boston Red Sox-themed cart with a custom 10-to-1 gear ratio to boost his performance on the hills. A satellite radio receiver on the dash provides the in-cart entertainment. Just one problem: Some of the grannies tooling around in modified rides are technically breaking the law. Because not everyone in the Villages is satisfied with bumpin' speakers and a custom paint job. Some are tweaking their rides to boost speed as well. According to Florida statute, hacking a cart to go faster than 20 mph changes the legal definition of the vehicle. The local cops aren't driving around checking under everyone's hood, but they will issue speeding tickets when an overclocked hot-rodder races by. "We try our best with our manpower," says Laurie Davis, a lieutenant with the Lady Lake Police Department. Inquire at service shops around town and most mechanics say they turn away wannabe speed demons. "I don't go anywhere near it," says Colangelo at the Villages Golf Cart Man. But quietly, a scruffy service technician at one garage schooled me in the options. "I can have this doing 35, 36, 40 miles per hour," he says. For $400 to $600, you can get bigger gears—adding another 5 to 6 miles per hour. A bigger engine will get you another few miles per hour. Larger tires, like the 12-inch fatties on my ride, can boost it a couple more. Unfortunately, safety rarely keeps up with speed. And it doesn't help matters that drivers don't need a license to operate a standard cart. Dylan Galbreath, a local deputy near the Villages who also runs a 24-hour golf cart emergency-service company, tells me, "There are people who have DUIs who can't drive a car but drive a golf cart instead." Some folks move to the Villages because they've lost their licenses in other cities or states and don't want to give up their freedom of mobility. "I met an elderly woman who had an eye condition and couldn't pass the vision test, and that's why she moved here," one resident tells me. "We've got a club member who has MS," Kobar says. "They wouldn't renew his license, so he comes down here and drives." 
Joe and Janet Kobar with their modded cart.
Photo: Andrew Hetherington At one point during my visit to the Villages, I zip past a spot where last year a woman was thrown from her cart and died. Seat belts are not required in non-street-legal carts; in fact, they're not even installed. Some carters put them in anyway, but most people I talk with would rather go without for fear of getting trapped. (Because of the lack of nearby emergency care, crash victims have to be airlifted out of town for help.) The larger neighborhood electric vehicles are designed to be safer. In addition to requiring insurance and registration, the rides sport a windshield, brake lights, seat belts, a horn, reflectors, a parking brake, turn signals, and a VIN. The safer they are, the more retirees will drive them. And the more seniors drive them, the more the general population will too, says Nick Cappa, a spokesperson for Global Electric Motorcars, a major manufacturer of NEVs. He calls retirement communities the key to fueling awareness and adoption. "Other drivers are more apt to purchase an NEV after seeing retirees using them," Cappa says, "and then cities are more willing to create infrastructure that supports their use." What's more, though the NEV classification has existed for a decade, dealers and analysts report growing demand of late. The US government's recent stimulus package offers NEV buyers a $2,500 tax credit (a third to half the cost of the vehicle). The branch of the Department of Energy that tracks electric vehicles estimates there are 75,000 NEVs on US roads. But their use is limited, because few communities were designed with these vehicles in mind. And without proper infrastructure, NEV drivers can feel vulnerable. Despite the miles of golf trails in the Villages, there are some areas that require carts and cars to share the road—a fearsome proposition, as I discovered. On one road, all that separated me from passing cars was the thin white line of a diamond lane. When I made a wrong turn on a roundabout, an SUV left me choking on its dust. It's 9 am in the Villages—practically midday for the chipper residents who often rise at four—as I drive my LC3 down to the Colony Cottage. I'm due for a quick primer in pickleball—sort of a Ping-Pong/tennis hybrid. I arrive to find dozens of fit retirees dashing around the courts, the ubiquitous row of shiny EVs parked outside. 
Few communities were designed with NEVs in mind and lack the infrastructure to keep NEV drivers safe.
Photo: Andrew Hetherington There will be more carts fighting for space here soon. While the rest of the country wallows in the recession, homes are still being built and sold in the Villages at a rapid clip. The population of the community is expected to hit 100,000 by 2014. The Villages embodies what environmentalists have been waiting decades for—a glossy future powered by electric vehicles. The slightly messy reality, though, is that it's not powered by pristine futuremobiles but by gaudy, overclocked golf carts. But the lesson of the Villages isn't just about the vehicles we're driving—it's about where we're driving them. The future of transportation should be focused on the quick jaunts that make up most of our day-to-day driving. The Villages is for people who've lived long enough to know that what they want now is a warm breeze in a quiet, open ride—going fast enough to hit both the golf course and the Walmart in the same afternoon but slow enough to take in the scenery along the way. As my octogenarian opponent deftly whacks the pickleball past my reach, I look up to catch a glimpse of the future on the horizon. It's a gray-haired guy with a backward cap, cruising in his cart past a brand-new community center. A golden retriever stands on the passenger seat, tail wagging, and an American flag is displayed proudly right where the gas tank should be. Contributing editor David Kushner (david@davidkushner.com) wrote about Russia's cosmonaut training facility in issue 16.09.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm Oct. 12, 1928: Iron Lung, Savior to a GenerationThe iron lung arrives just as there's a spike in poliomyelitis cases, a disease that could affect its victim's ability to breathe normally. Talk about good timing.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm DomePod Serves a Stiff Shot of Java on the RoadMessier than your parents' divorce but certainly cheaper, the HandPresso DomePod portable espresso maker relies on your elbow grease to come up with 16 bars of pressure. Great concept, even if the result is a bit bitter.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 pm Linux Games For Non-Gamers?Nethead writes "Due to some down-time, I'm looking for some Linux games to pass the time. I've been playing BattleMaster, a PHP web game but it's only two turns a day, and I'd like something a bit faster. I've not really played PC games since the Doom era so I'm really out of touch here. I don't have a real gamer box, just a simple video card. What do Slashdotters think I should try? A simple FPS or some type of networked game would do. What's out there for Linux?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:19 pm Anyone want a one way trip to Saturn’s moon Titan? Respond to this Craigslist ad if so.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:10 pm Perot Systems to Acquire BearingPoint China ConsultingPLANO, Texas and BEIJING, Oct. 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER) today announced that it will acquire BearingPoint Management Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:30 pm Review: Best New iPod and iPhone AppStore Games
With the recent iPod Touch update Apple has positioned and marketed the device as a new type of mobile gaming platform. Games have always been some of the best selling applications in the AppStore for both the iPod Touch and the iPhone. A recent advertisement for the iPod Touch carries the slogan “The Funnest iPod Ever” and features a number of games. We decided to try out and review each of the games featured in the ad and rate the ‘fun factor’ ourselves. The Apple mobile devices have become decent gaming machines, with some of the newer games providing in-depth 3D environments and absorbing gameplay. We found a number of games that were extremely well developed and addictive, as good and better than most of the dedicated mobile gaming devices available on the market today. We previously reviewed the best iPhone Apps so far this year. The following is our review of 12 of the new iPod Touch and iPhone games featured and highlighted in the recent Apple campaign. If you have found any cool and fun new games for the iPod Touch or iPhone, or you have a particular favorite game, let us know in the comments. We’ve also added an Appsfire widget with all the apps at the bottom of the post. Top GunTechCrunch Rating: Download: Rated 9+; $1.99
The game features 10 missions, each one increasing in difficulty as you progress. The controls are balanced and the game is well designed for the most part. The graphics were crisp, and there was no frame lag when I played. It did seem odd though that the game had no throttle control: you are unable to speed up nor slow down, which meant I couldn’t use my favorite Top Gun quote, “You’re gonna do what,?!” while playing. The lack of a multiplayer mode keeps me from giving it a higher ranking, but for two bucks, you can’t really go wrong. Playing to Danger Zone adds another star to the rating, it just pumps me up everytime. Real RacingTechCrunch Rating: Download: Rated 4+; $6.99
Overall, this game is amazing. The graphics are awesome, the gameplay is crisp, and you can even post your best races straight to youtube! The only thing that seems to be missing is a non-local multiplayer so that you can challenge anyone around the world, but the upsides far outweigh this point. Definitely worth the $6.99. F.A.S.TTechCrunch Rating:
With multiplayer mode you are able to fight one-on-one with a friend over WiFi or bluetooth. With WiFi, you can indulge in more advance multiplayer modes that allow you to team up with a friend against another team, or go all-out in a free for all mode. The controls are much more advanced than in Top Gun, and as a simulator it is much more accurate (blackout from high G-forces, etc.). The overall response rate is excellent. The 99c price makes it cheap, and there are plenty of extras to be purchased within the game such as extra planes (13 available in total). A classic game and a favorite of ours. Monster Trucks NitroTechCrunch Rating: Download: Rated 4+; $0.99
Unfortunately, I finished quite quickly and realized that there was no replay value to it other than simply going for all Gold medals. Also, there was no real sense of speed even when I used the Nitro. The graphics are decent, the framerate is adequate, and the multiple camera angles add a neat aspect to this game. However, the amount of content is definitely the shortcoming in this game and keeps it from a better rating. 3D Rollercoaster RushTechCrunch Rating: Download: Rated 4+; $4.99; Limited Free Version
Being able to race the game designer’s time and demolish it is pretty satisfying, but I would still like a multiplayer function if I’m going to be shelling my hard earned(ish) cash. Overall, the $4.99 is a bit steep compared to other games, but worth it. At a slightly lower price, it would definitely be a 5-star ‘must have’ game. Try out the free version first to find out if you enjoy the game. Touch Hockey: FS5TechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $0.99; Limited Free Version
The only problem is that in single-player mode the AI is way too easy, so unless you have a friend to play against over WiFi, the game becomes very boring very quickly. The only difference between the free version and paid version is the removal of ads, which for most won’t justify the purchase price as the ads are not very intrusive. Homerun Battle 3DTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $4.99
My only gripe is how, when playing alone, the computer can throw six 80 MPH fastballs in a row, and then come with a 104 MPH slider. That’s ridiculous. Other than that, this game is a must have for anyone looking for a casual and fun game. Tiger Woods PGA Tour by EA SportsTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $4.99
The game offers actual PGA courses to play on, different difficulty levels, and upgradeable equipment and abilities. The graphics are as good as they get, the gameplay is on par with any other game out there, and replay value is high, especially for fans of golf. An online multiplayer would have seen this game receive an off-the-charts rating, and I hope we see that feature soon. This game is definitely a must have for anyone with either an iPhone or an iPod Touch. Slope RiderTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $2.99; Limited Free Version
There is no multiplayer, and the only way to gauge how good you are is to check the global leaderboard. For this game, I would definitely recommend saving your three dollars for one of the other games on this list, and just downloading the free version. Aqua Moto RacingTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $3.99; Limited Free Version
While this game doesn’t have true multiplayer functionality, it does offer ghost mode. Ghost mode lets you race against the times of those who have made the global leaderboard. While this game isn’t on par with some of the other stellar apps on this list, it is definitely worth the free test drive, especially for those nostalgic for the old Wave Race. Finger FoosTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; FREE
It is a very very poor version of Touch Hockey: FS5, but does have the benefit of allowing more players to compete at once. It is a free game, so try it out yourselves to find out just how terrible it is and how misleading the ads can be. 2XL SupercrosTechCrunch Rating: AppStore: Rated 4+; $7.99; Limited Free Version
The controls take a little while to get used to, but once you get them, the game is a lot of fun. And if you don’t like the preset controls, no worries, as the game has eight different control configurations. This is another must have for any game enthusiast. Best of all, it has a free version to test-drive. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 6:29 pm Faith and Belief: Richard Dawkins evolves his arguments - Los Angeles Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Oct 2009 | 6:02 pm The HTC Hero is now available from Sprint, just an FYI
Sprint isn’t doing itself any favors recently by breaking retail’s first rule: Customers are dumb, so don’t give them choices. But now at Sprint, consumers must decide between the Palm Pre, the BlackBerry Tour, and $179 (after $100 MIR & 2-year agreement) the Android-powered HTC Hero. I mean, they’re making it awful hard on customers these days by offering more than one must-have phone. It’s so much easier to choose a phone down at the AT&T store because your options are only the iPhone 3G or the iPhone 3GS. And Verizon only has the BlackBerry Tour. But damn, Sprint has three of the hottest phones with the Android-packing Samsung Moment and Palm Pixi coming out real soon too. Come on, Sprint, stop embarrassing AT&T and VZW with all the cool phones you have. No one likes a show-off.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:59 pm The Underutilized Power Of The Video Demo To Explain What The Hell You Actually Do
Here’s a sad truth: a lot of reporters really are quite lazy. Not in the sense that they don’t want to find and cover a cool new company (in which case they should consider a new career path), but in that they don’t like to spend time wading through marketing material trying to figure out what your company actually does. After all, we’ve got inboxes stuffed with pitches from companies vying for coverage. If it takes more than a minute or two to figure out what problem you’re trying to solve, we’re probably more likely to simply skip to the next message than to try to make sense of your feature set. Consumers are even lazier. If you don’t have some kind of bite-sized hook that introduces them to your product, there’s a good chance they’ll stare quizzically at the screen, shrug their shoulders, and head back to Google to find something else that fixes their problem. Walls of descriptive text definitely are not the answer. Images can help, but they can also become overwhelming. Video, especially in an age when people are so used to consuming it online, is often a good solution. But just making a video isn’t enough – you need to make sure that the video actually conveys what the hell you actually do. This is apparently much harder than it sounds, because I’ve seen plenty of video demos loaded with screenshots, walkthroughs, and pretty graphics but still leave me scratching my head. The truth is, you don’t need a single screenshot to make an effective video. You just need to show how people will actually use what you’ve built, not a sales pitch. Take Dropbox for example. I use the service every day and love it, but every time I try to describe it in a sentence I’m left with something that makes me retch a bit — “intuitive and deeply integrated file synchronization service” just doesn’t come close to capturing just how damn cool Dropbox really is. Apparently the Dropbox team didn’t have much luck describing themselves in text either, so they’ve gone another route: visit their homepage, and you’ll see a polished, easy-to-follow video demo front and center that perfectly describes what the service actually does. Dropbox has made one mistake though: they don’t offer a way to embed their great demo video anywhere else (someone else did upload it to YouTube though, so I’ve embedded it below). Some bloggers, including myself, are more than happy to embed a video walkthrough in posts, provided it isn’t overly self promotional. There are plenty of other examples of companies using video demos to great effect. Head over to Apple’s iPhone site and you’ll notice that they offer video walkthroughs for basically everything the phone can do. Google now regularly uses video walkthroughs to introduce many of their new products and features, though they don’t always do a great job — this video demo created by a third party did a better job explaining Wave than anything Google has made. Of course, a video demo isn’t absolutely essential to your site’s success. Just look at Mint, which was just acquired for $170 million by Intuit. There’s nary a video in sight, and — at the risking of sounding like a complete fool given its huge acquisition price — I find Mint’s 20+ pages outlining its feature set and why people should use the service to be positively daunting. Twitter’s page doesn’t include a video (though I think it badly needs one). And Facebook just says that it’s a service that “helps you connect and share with the people in your life”, which would set my bullshit meter off the charts if it appeared in any startup pitch. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:58 pm FCC inquiry wants to know: Is Google Voice a phone service? - USA Today
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:36 pm Tough choices for feds giving out broadband money (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Oct 2009 | 5:11 pm First European Commander of the ISSRobGoldsmith writes 'ESA astronaut Frank De Winne became the first European commander of the International Space Station this morning with the departure of Russian cosmonaut Gennady Padalka who had filled this role since April. De Winne is the first non-American and non-Russian to take on this role. Watch the videos and view images here.'Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:57 pm Jailbreak everything (well, only iPhone 3.1.2 firmware) with blackra1n
Also, the secret word for today is FORDS. Just thought you might like to know.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 4:00 pm Mitch Horowitz: Goodbye, farewell, and Henry WallaceBoing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers. Friends, It has been a pleasure to be a part of the Boing Boing nation as a guest blogger these past two weeks. I hope to stay in contact online and to meet some of you at various gigs around the country, including at the Esalen Institute, where Erik Davis and I will be delivering a weekend workshop on February 19-21 titled "The Occult in America: An Adventure in Arcane History." You can also see me next Friday at 9 p.m. EST on a Dateline NBC special about Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.While I was writing Occult America, the figure I came to most admire was Henry A. Wallace (1888-1965), Franklin Roosevelt's secretary of agriculture and second vice president. Wallace was not only a successful businessman (founder of Pioneer Hi-Bred) and an innovative politician (his policies saved thousands of family farms during the Great Depression), but he was also a genuine searcher into cosmic realms, freely exploring Theosophy, Tibetan Buddhism, astrology, Native American shamanism, and various strands of mysticism. His name may be largely forgotten, but he was a model of how to live with purpose. I wish you farewell with two of Wallace's statements: Selected Works of Henry A. Wallace Henry A. Wallace Country Life Center Source: Boing Boing | 11 Oct 2009 | 3:51 pm Gigantic Air Gun To Blast Cargo Into OrbitHugh Pickens writes: "The New Scientist reports that with a hat tip to Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon , physicist John Hunter has outlined the design of a gigantic gun that could slash the cost of putting cargo into orbit. At the Space Investment Summit in Boston last week, Hunter described the design for a 1.1-kilometer-long gun that he says could launch 450-kilogram payloads at 6 kilometers per second. A small rocket engine would then boost the projectile into low-Earth orbit. The gun would cost $500 million to build, says Hunter, but individual launch costs would be lower than current methods. 'We think it's at least a factor of 10 cheaper than anything else,' Hunter says. The gun is based on the SHARP (Super High Altitude Research Project) light gas gun Hunter helped to build in the 1990s while at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California. With a barrel 47 meters long, it used compressed hydrogen gas to fire projectiles weighing a few kilograms at speeds of up to 3 kilometers per second."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 3:00 pm Ted Dziuba Says, "I Don't Code In My Free Time"theodp writes "When he gets some free time away from his gigs at startup Milo and The Register, you won't catch Ted Dziuba doing any recreational programming. And he wouldn't want to work for a company that doesn't hire those who don't code in their spare time. 'You know what's more awesome than spending my Saturday afternoon learning Haskell by hacking away at a few Project Euler problems?' asks Dziuba. 'F***, ANYTHING.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 2:00 pm DRM preventing some European PSPgo owners from claiming their PSPgo RewardsFROM GAMERTELL - DRM is keeping PSPgo owners who downloaded their three free PSPgo Rewards games to their PS3s, then transferred them to their PSPgos, from playing the games. Sony is working on a solution and recommends directly downloading games to PSPgos.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm Platform Independent C++ OS Library?quench writes "Hello! I have been away from Windows and Linux application software for 5 years or so, doingly mainly C-like embedded C++ programming. Now, I am about to start a project emulating embedded hardware on Windows. Been there, doing #ifdef WIN32 and #ifdef LINUX stuff, don't really want to go there any more. What I actually need is a platform independent lib covering Windows and Linux variants to handle sockets, IPC and threads abstractions. And a rock solid but simple embedded database to emulate flash memory. My reflex said, go for ACE and Berkeley-DB. Tell me, am I out of time? Am I missing something new and trendy, easier to use and better? Did time stand still?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm Saturday Morning Science Experiment: The Gummi Bear Gets ItGrab 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.
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 12:30 pm Swarm — a New Approach To Distributed ComputationAn anonymous reader writes "Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet, has been working on a new open source project called Swarm. The concept is to allow a computer program to be distributed across multiple computers in a manner almost completely transparent to the programmer. The system observes the program executing and figures out how the workload should be distributed for maximum efficiency. Swarm is implemented in Scala. Its at an early-prototype stage, and Ian has created a good 36 minute video explaining the concept and the current implementation."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 12:13 pm Gamertell Review: Sony’s PSPgo handheld game systemFROM GAMERTELL - One Gamertell writer puts his money on the line to find out if the PSP Go is really the Frankenstein-esque outcast people are claiming it to be…
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm Searchtastic Throws Its Hat Into The Twitter Search Engine Ring There are a plethora of startups that are trying to harness and improve upon Twitter’s real-time search functionality, including Collecta, One Riot, Scoopler and TwitterTroll. The simple fact is that there is considerable value for users in searching Tweets, and even the big guns like Microsoft and Google are beginning to wake up to this. Today, Searchtastic, which bills itself as “smart Twitter search,” is launching its own Twitter search engine. Like other Twitter search sites, Searchtastic lets you search Tweets for a particular keyword or hashtag. What makes the search engine interesting is the ability to pull up Tweets from weeks or months ago, which Twitter’s own search engine doesn’t allow you to do. Twitter’s search currently lets you see Tweets from a week and a half back (which varies). The other main feature of Searchtastic is the ability to search Tweets from a particular user. And the interface lets you add and delete search terms fairly easily. And speaking of the interface, Searchtastic definitely leaves little to be desired. But the startup says that it will be adding new features and improvements in the next few weeks, so hopefully that will include a redesign. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:48 am The Problem of Shards, Servers, and Queues In MMOsAn editorial at GamesIndustry takes a look at a couple of problems many MMOs have failed to solve as the genre has evolved over the last decade: log-in queues and a split player base. The most recent example is Aion, which launched in Europe and North America a few weeks ago. Players on some of the game's servers had to deal with lengthy queues until enough people left the starting areas and spread throughout the game. To NCSoft's credit, the queues are mostly gone already, and it wasn't simply launching with too few servers that was the problem (nor was simply launching more servers a perfect solution, as Warhammer proved). In fact, several servers had no queues at all, but many players had set their sights on the more popular ones — a problem facing other MMOs as well. At this point, it becomes a matter of programming — how can the developers for these MMOs build the networking aspect of the game such that more hardware can easily be allocated when it's needed, and also make it easier for people to play together without the restriction of different shards or servers? EVE Online has done well with a single game universe, but it's not clear how far that model can scale upwards.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:15 am Are DVDs Nearing the End? (PC World)PC World - Watchers of streaming video trends are buzzing after a remark by Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in a Montley Fool podcast that DVDs may lose their number one spot for the company's video distribution after two years.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:13 am Eye-Fi to launch wireless SD cards in the UKSection: Video, Portable Video, Imaging, Accessories, Digital Cameras, Web, Websites, Online Music/Video
There are three different models that will begin selling on October 19: the Eye-Fi Home Video, the Eye-Fi Share Video and the Eye-Fi Pro. As soon as the camera is within a Wi-Fi network, it can begin uploading pictures to either your computer’s hard drive, or the Internet. Take a look at the comparison chart below for a quick outline of differences and similarities. Basically, the Eye-Fi Home Video can upload photos and videos directly to your computer without the need of a USB connection, however, it cannot upload directly to the Internet. It will be on sale for 49.99 Euros. The Eye-Fi Share Video allows for direct upload to your hard drive, but it also allows for direct upload to photo/video sharing websites including Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Picasa and MobileMe. Since this model has more capabilities, it will be a little bit more expensive at 69.99 Euros. The last model is the Eye-Fi Pro which can do everything already listed for the other SD cards and features lifetime geotagging services, plus the ability to upload RAW images. It will sell for 119.99 Euros. All SD cards feature 4GB of storage and are Mac and PC compatible. Having the ability to upload images right away (or as soon as a Wi-Fi connection is available) will definitely increase productivity time since you will not have to waste time for images to upload. I’m sure many British will take advantage of these unique products. Read [Eye-Fi]  Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:04 am Around 500,000 people watch England-Ukraine online (because that was the only way to watch it)
England lost to Ukraine yesterday, thus sullying Fabio Capello’s 100 percent World Cup qualifying campaign record. While I understand that CrunchGear is quite popular in England—we get so much fan mail from Stoke!—I also understand that many of our American readers have no idea what I’m talking about, much less do they care. Au contraire, mes amis, for there is something that might interest you: the result of the online-only broadcast experiment. A toast, then, to the 500,000 or so people who watched the game. You’ll recall that no “traditional” broadcaster wanted the show the game because, well, to be honest, it was a rather pointless one, seeing as though England has already qualified for next year’s World Cup. Why bother paying through the nose for a game that means nothing, and that not too many fans would bother watching? That’s the logic, at least. So in stepped Perform, which specializes in Streaming Stuff. Perform itself said there were “no issues” with the broadcast, but you’ll have trouble convincing someone that watching a stream on your laptop can replicate the experience of watching on your big screen TV, or at the pub, or, well, at the game itself! So yeah, if you consider ~500,000 people a success, then it was one. If not, just enjoy your Sunday. In other World Cup news, man alive was that Argentina-Peru match dramatic! And yes: I watched it on an illegal P2P stream. Oh noes!
Source: Gizmodo | 11 Oct 2009 | 11:00 am Cirque du Soleil founder, station fliers, return to Earth - CNET News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:21 am Commercial Fuel From Algae Still Years Awaychrnb sends along this quote from a report at Reuters: "Filling your vehicle's tank with fuel made from algae is still as much as a decade away, as the emerging industry faces a series of hurdles to find an economical way to make the biofuel commercially. Estimates on a timeline for a commercial product, and profits, vary from two to 10 years or more. Executives and industry players who gathered at the Algae Biomass Summit this week in San Diego said they need to push for breakthroughs along the entire chain — from identifying the best organisms to developing efficient harvesting methods. ... So far on the list: finding the right strain of algae among thousands of species that will produce high yields; designing systems where the desired algae can multiply and other species don't invade and disrupt the process; and extracting its oils without degrading other parts of the algae that can be made into side products and sold as well."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:01 am Hot gaming news for the week of 10-04-2009Section:  No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you! Here’s a look at this week’s top stories…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Oct 2009 | 10:00 am Sidekick owners get the bad news, your data has been lostSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
That same statement went on to say that;
While some (myself included) may poke fun at the Sidekick in today’s smartphone market, this incident should cause anyone who uses a cloud or web based service to sit up and pay attention. I will admit that at first I thought nothing about the Sidekick data loss, because I do not use a Sidekick. But then I remembered that the data that was lost was technically “in the cloud.” That triggered something in my cloud-loving-mind, this incident may not have affected me, but if this happened with another company it very well could have affected me. What this did give me was a nice reminder, which I will pass on to you. Make sure you are backing up all of your data. This of course goes for your cloud based apps, but should also be applied to any data that you have stored locally on your network. Again—backup, backup, backup, and then when you finish, make sure you backup. Granted, that last statement may be a little overkill, but in short, you should never fully trust a cloud or web based service. After all, the Sidekick is a major platform, one that is owned by Danger/Microsoft and I would imagine that most would have thought the data was safe. Finally, below you can read the full announcement that was posted in the T-Mobile Support Forums. Read [T-Mobile Support Forums]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am TechCrunch/CrunchGear Meetup Taipei: 6 Taiwanese tech startups demo their services
Asus, Acer, HTC or BenQ: Taiwan is well-known as a significant player in the global electronics industry, but it's safe to say the Taiwanese web landscape is still a black box for many of us. Taiwan ranks 10th in Asia in terms of Internet population, with around 15 million people currently online. Add to this an online ad market that grew by 14.9% to $208 million in 2009, and you have a fairly attractive Internet market overall.
The country does have promising tech start-ups with a global focus, some of which I talked with earlier this week during a (private) trip to Taipei. The TechCrunch/Crunchgear meetup on Monday, organized together with partner and co-organizer Chili Consulting (a local innovation strategy firm), was a blast. Over 120 people attended the meetup despite of a typhoon that traveled through Taiwan that day (we actually had to stop registration after a few hours due to space restrictions). Taipei- and San Jose-based hardware maker IPEVO sponsored the event.
A total of six Taiwan-based startups were given the chance to pitch their services (all are available in English) to the audience. Here’s a rundown on all of these companies.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:21 am BOOM! Top Apple news for the week of 10-04-2009Section:  We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:12 am China says rich countries undercut climate talks - Reuters
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Oct 2009 | 8:08 am Comcast Enlists Subscribers To Fight BotnetsComcast Corp is seeking help from its subscribers in fighting the armies of "botnets" that devour bandwidth by sending spam and facilitating cybercrime.The company began testing a service this week with subscribers in Denver, who will now receive pop-up messages from Comcast if their computers appear to have been hijacked by a botnet.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:45 am TechCrunch/CrunchGear Meetup Taipei: 6 Taiwanese Startups Demo Their Services
As in many parts of Asia, the 800-pound gorilla in the web arena is Yahoo: The company established Yahoo Taiwan as early as 2000 after a buy-out and acquired Wretch, a wildly popular platform for blogging and sharing media, in 2007. Today, these two sites are the biggest in the country, with Facebook following as the No. 3 (Facebook now has 3.9 million users in Taiwan).
A total of six Taiwan-based startups were given the chance to pitch their services (all are available in English) to the audience. Here’s a rundown on all of these companies. Startup 1: If a friend sees a user-tagged Gucci bag in an album photo, for example, the Swagly widget will show details of the bag and where the friend can buy it (Swagly works with a slew of American retailers by integrating with Commission Junction and LinkShare). In the case of a click or sell-through, Swagly shares the revenue with the publisher and the user who tagged the product. Startup 2: You can then drag and drop any kind of file into the DragNTalk pane and go through your slides just like you do in Powerpoint, for example. The application lets you take snapshots of materials that are available in unsupported formats to be able to share these, too. Listeners can view the presentation you give in their browser windows. DragNTalk is currently available as a trial edition, with a USB-powered wallet-size wireless router supporting the application in the works (people connecting through the Wi-Fi network spawned by the router will then be able to see the presentations automatically). Startup 3: The six applications Ragic currently offers are free to use for a limited time and are as easy to use as Excel. The company earns money by charging customers on a monthly basis (just like Salesforce in the form of a Platform as a Service model) and selling OEM licenses to web design companies. Startup 4: Startup 5: Startup 6: Each blog is displayed as an icon in a customizable grid-view. Click on the icon to view the blog in a full browser window where you’ll find a YusReader bar at the top. You can choose the blog you want to read via a drop-down menu and quickly browse through the articles from that blog by scrolling up and down with your mouse. Event sponsor: IPEVO’s current product line includes the best-selling So20 Wifi phone for Skype and the Kaleido R7, a digital frame that features a unique pivoting display design and comes bundled with EyeStage software to wirelessly stream Flickr, Picasa, Facebook and other Internet contents from a PC or Mac to the frame. Available in late October, the Point 2 View USB Camera (pictured below) is a 2.0 Megapixel, PC & Mac compatible webcam that sits on a versatile swing-arm stand. Many thanks to all attendees, demo companies, co-organizer Chili Consulting and sponsor IPEVO. xie xie! You can find many more pictures of the event here (courtesy of Chili Consulting). Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:20 am T-Mobile has begun sending out BlackBerry Bold 2 launch invitationsSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Read [BGR]  Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Oct 2009 | 7:18 am Type design experts, browser makers, take another crack at webfontsType 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 they put this on the web afterward!
Where: Typ09, the 2009 ATypI conference, Mexico City
Web fonts: the talk of Typ09
(Thanks, John!) Obama, Does It Take Winning A Nobel To Get An Email From You? What #Obamashould Do.
Editor’s note: Below is an open letter to our President from guest author Edo Segal, a concerned web geek who cares about the future of our democracy. It is followed by a proposal and a new website for anyone who thinks they know what #obamashould do (cynics please skip post). Mr President, On the night of your acceptance speech, just before you walked on stage, “you” sent out an email saying “i will be in touch soon”—but you disappeared and all we were left with was the strange feeling you get when your older brother ditches you for his cooler friends. Does it take you winning a Nobel prize to get another direct letter from you? Where’s the attention? The yes-we-can attitude, making us feel we can be good again? It seems that since you made it to the Oval Office you have been too busy at work, and our relationship has really suffered. I recall that as the election results where announced, there was an epiphany that hit the pundits and us web folks at the same time. “He’s going to govern this way” we all thought. What we meant was that you will continue the evolution of direct democracy beyond using the Internet for fundraising, heralding a new age of direct access to the citizenry. A new age of democracy where the President has your email and can talk to you directly. An age without intermediaries and pollsters—just us and that cool guy who’s running the country. Regardless of our political views, almost everyone in this country was in awe of how you came to be in office and changed how elections are won forever. But for the readers of Techcrunch, the people who grease the wheels of our progress online, it feels like after the hangovers were over and you moved on to set up your transitional government, from that day, what was a highly effective and motivating direct relationship with your supporters, an emotional relationship that was predicated on a real connection evaporated. And what we were left with was the most effective spam bot in the world (Gmail doesn’t block it) . This is wrong in so many ways, let me count just a few: 1. Stop asking me for money: Why are you still asking me for money? I think I am not alone in being confused with the notion that you are still asking me for money after you were elected President (I know why you need it intellectually but not emotionally). I mean at this point, I feel like you should be paying me back with change and not billing me every week. I pay a big bill every April that should just about cover it. Using the “Network” purely as a means to raise money without the additional layers of engagement and relationship is offensive. We are the network. By just using email as a system to raise money you loose the soul of the connection you established with millions of people. 2. Your singular focus is distracting: While there has been much discussion about the administrations’ notion of taking on multiple fronts at the same time, the online channel recently has been fully saturated with a singular purpose of supporting the very important policy goal of universal healthcare. But in doing so, you have played into the hands of your opponents. The grind on Capitol Hill and the levels of complexity that are involved in making this happen, and the time it takes are not a recipe for engagement—they are a recipe for disaster. You are losing your audience and failing us on a major promise of direct democracy. When I explained my support for you at the very early stages of your campaign to bewildered people who didn’t see how it could be possible for you to win the Presidency, I articulated that regardless of the specific nuance of your policies, the fact you have the power to motivate people in this way is priceless. You demonstrated that you can build on top of the best practices of prior online campaigns (Dean). Delegation to really smart people culminated in the most effective campaign financing system in the history of democracy. But if you don’t keep watering the soil from which your support stems, that direct relationship, you will not be able to make the historic policy changes you seek. Your base is eroding as you focus all of your communication channels on a VERY heavy piece of legislation. Don’t spam us, engage us. 3. The promise: From the perspective of the history of media, the level of engagement you can generate through the Internet has typically been reserved for occasions of war and violence, for times of strife and conflict. Like the days of WWII when people huddled around their radios to hear the comforting voice of their leaders. Imagine applying the same level of engagement that won’t just fuel death destruction and line the pockets of the military industrial complex, but rather will power true change, growth and improve the quality of life for all people. This is within your grasp if you follow through and use the medium appropriately. Mr. President, beyond the content of your ideas, now is the time to extend the way you govern as we all heard you promise. Make us care again. Online engagement is the key to fostering the support you need to accomplish your policy goals. Engagement is the key to maintaining your base as you mount these vast campaigns. Getting the government to set up a network of Web 1.0 sites is a start, but we need much more. If you continue to spam us and recycle old speeches off a teleprompter into email (like you did with the Nobel eMail) you will lose your base, but if you step up to the challenge and continue to take risks and push the envelope in structural ways that only you can, your greatest legacy could be more than enacting historic legislation or winning a premature prize. It could be the very way our democratic process works and how we view government. Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. That is my letter to Obama, but it is not enough. The notion that we will evolve the very essence of democracy beyond the already achieved goal of changing campaign financing and moving power away from private interests is profound. I truly believe it may end up being the greatest piece of innovation we are collectively offering the world in the coming decades. But to make additional progress, you and I need to step up. If each of us contribute a bit of creative energy we can accelerate this evolution by a generation In the past, the main skills that effected political outcomes in the communications realm were polling, copy writing, speech writing, and directing and producing for radio and television. But today and in the future, the most potent creative skill-set is that of creating online connections. Yes, I’m talking about you. Our professional careers depend on our ability to create platforms that engage millions of people and constantly grow that level engagement. The readership of this blog constitutes the highest concentration of such competency on the planet. We spend our lives creating platforms that aim to engage millions of people. We get it, it’s tough for government to take risks and thus political innovation moves at a glacial pace. Maybe we can give the pols a hand, help speed things up a bit.
Rather than just rely on comments and the ill will of the trolls, I took a little initiative and with the help of the good people at iGeneration who volunteered their time to build Obamashould.org, a site for the community to contribute ideas to the President. Please spend a few minutes there and voice your opinions in a constructive way. Or just tweet your ideas with the hashtag #obamashould. The site will track retweets, and the ideas gathering more support will float to the top automatically. Its like an http://www.ideastorm.com/ meets tweetmeme.com and uservoice for our President. BTW, Mr. President, if you want the source code, it’s yours. If you are a developer and want to contribute to the project please join us. We will take the best ideas that surface to the top from there and get them built by the community. We may even launch some of them here on Techcrunch in a few months. Let me throw out some #obamashould’s to start the ball rolling. Click the YES re-tweet button if you support it! Idea 1: What you did to get us, you need to do to keep us. Keep a weekly Youtube post that gets emailed to the base. It feels like you are becoming hostage to the status quo of what presidential communications has always been. For both the Y Generation and many of us older folks, the notion of what constitutes presidential behavior is changing rapidly with your actions serving as the main catalyst. communications is when in fact you are the one that is supposed to re-invent it. It’s not a presidential address in the conventional sense of the word. Give us genuine direct talk over words tested with pollsters any day. A direct candid discussion about a given topic once a week that is not read off a teleprompter is priceless for the continual sense of a direct relationship. Just flick open your laptop in the oval office or in your study at night and talk to us. Have a small panel of trusted advisers review it, and if no serious red flags are raised post it and email it to us. The value of genuine conversation from a man with your insight will way overshadow the shortcomings offered in the prose. You will probably say things you will regret, but the damage done will be dwarfed by having a continued sense of renewed personal relationships with your citizens. If you do this, they will be there when you need them. Retweet to vote up or Comment Here Idea 2: Engage the people via email and ask them for their opinions, not just their money. Have a weekly poll question that is linked to social media (twitter, facebook), creating a viral engagement engine. In addition to the immediate policy objectives, you need to understand that such engagement is not only a means to an end, but an end in itself. Retweet to vote up or Comment Here Idea 3: Give $500 of your money to charitywater.com (Video) and send out an invite from their system to everyone on your mailing list to do the same. Tweet it, put it on facebook. Show people how they can use the web to effect positive change in the world and do good again. Why not? That single email will effect millions of lives around the globe. Giving changes people, help them give and start that chain reaction of good will. Use your power to promote things that have to do with generosity of spirit, not just hard core policy. This is a way to lead through example and not just talk in the abstract about the need for volunteerism. Your effect on the world cannot be reduced to a series of policy wins and losses. Different from prior Presidents making public their charity contributions, doing this via a digital medium is like clicking a button that activates a viral system and magnifies your contribution a million-fold over the web. Retweet to vote up or Comment Here What do you think #obamashould do? Go to www.obamashould.org and please contribute ideas now. If you want to join a vibrant open source community of people that are passionate about helping evolve democracy online, we need your help. Join us here. Guest author Edo Segal (@edosegal) has launched and sold several companies. In 2000 he founded eNow, a search engine for the Real-time Internet in an age that predated RSS as a popular medium. As such he has had a decade to think about its implications. He ultimately sold the company (renamed Relegence) to AOL in 2006 and today runs an Incubator/Investment vehicle called Futurity Ventures. He recently launched a new search engine for wisdom. Photo credit: Flickr/White House. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Oct 2009 | 6:13 am Book Industry Prepares For New Business ModelsThe world's book trade meets in Frankfurt, Germany this 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 | 11 Oct 2009 | 6:10 am
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This is one mobile application I think everyone should have installed. And be recommended by them to all of their friends and relatives to boot.
We’re now a little over a week into the 
We’ve been slowly building up to a system like this. Gmail has for a while offered users a nice blend of email and instant messaging on the same page. And while it is nice that there is also the option to archive all your chats for searching purposes later, there is no good way to say, see that you missed an IM if you have a computer with Gmail open at home while you’re away and checking it remotely. You also can’t check these easily via IMAP on your phone, and the like.
When email was first created in 1965 it was used as a method to communicate between time-shared mainframe computers. Email has rapidly evolved since then, with the evolution of rich desktop clients, corporate email systems and webmail. Despite the evolution in the core messaging system, and despite the explosion in use of email, the default method for accessing and viewing communications has remained the same: chronological order.
In the canon of Microsoft cock-ups, this may be the most humiliating: A server failure at the company’s Danger subsidiary has 
This is the second in a series of posts by by 
After watching Top Gun for the first time, who didn’t want to be a Navy Fighter Pilot – flying around shooting planes out of the sky to save your country, and being called awesome monikers like Maverick and Ice Man? With 
This is the closest an iPhone game has come to either 
The goal of Monster Trucks Nitro is to race down the eight different tracks as fast as you can while surmounting the obstacles which the game lays out. The game awards either a Bronze, Silver, or Gold medal depending on how fast you complete the races. Monster Trucks Nitro is a fun game and kept me engaged for a short while. 
Looking at the description of this game, I didn’t think there was any way this game could be worth the $4.99 price tag, so I downloaded and installed the free and restriction version to try it out. Within minutes of playing the free version, I was hooked, and immediately purchased the full version for $4.99. The graphics are awesome, and I have yet to get past all of the levels. The carts can go faster or slower through the use of the accelerometer and the stunts which you can perform are, as the description describes, “insane.” 
Playing this game brings back memories of being in an arcade and playing air hockey with my buddies. There really isn’t too much to say about Touch Hockey: FS5, as it is quite simple and intuitive. The gameplay is smooth and very responsive. The friends feature, where you can play a friend over WiFi, is very addictive. 
Homerun Battle 3D, previously known as Baseball Slugger, is a homerun. The batting controls are perfect and there is so much replay value with the online challenges. The graphics are clear and the stadium rendering excellent – it certainly looks and plays better than Wii Baseball. This has quickly become one of my favorite iPhone/iPod Touch games available today.
Like Tiger Woods, this game is a winner. It becomes apparently from early on that 
Based on the Mac game, Slope Rider was re-engineered to work on the iPhone/iPod Touch. While the game has crisp graphics and a good interface, there is nothing which truly stands out. You can either race via the alpine tracks, or do tricks via the freestyle courses. There are a multitude of tricks to master which are combined through the use of grabs, flips, and turns, which will in turn increase your points. 
If you blinked during the Apple commercial then you might not have seen this game. Aqua Moto Racing brings back memories of Nintendo 64’s Wave Race, which is definitely a good thing. There are 18 different tracks to race from, and you are able to race these in reversed mode as well, which adds to the replayability of the game. 
On the Apple Ad, Finger Foos seems really cool and fun, but it really isn’t – it is terrible. The game is ridiculously simple and requires absolutely no skill whatsoever. The technology behind it is slick as you can see in the commercial, but the game just isn’t very fun. 
If a game developer charges $8 for a game, it better be a very good one, especially since that price point is at the top end for games and it is the most expensive game on this list. 
During my time at TechCrunch I’ve seen thousands of startups and written about hundreds of them. I sure as hell don’t know all the secrets to building a successful company, but there are a few things I’ve seen that seem like surefire ways to ever-so-slightly grease the road to success. Here’s an easy one: make a video demo and prominently promote it somewhere where new visitors can find it. One that shows off the core function of your product without making people think they’re watching an ad or a pitch. And answer, as thoroughly as possible in 2-3 minutes, what it is that you’re bringing to the table.
Religion is a method whereby man reaches out toward God in an effort to find the spiritual power to express here on earth in a practical way the divine potentialities in himself and his fellow beings.
Eye-Fi has already launched their Eye-Fi SD cards in America, and on October 19, 2009, they will start selling their unique SD cards in the United Kingdom. They main difference between generic SD cards and the Eye-Fi units is the fact that the latter has the ability to wirelessly upload images and videos to your computer. Some models can even upload directly to photo sharing websites, such as Facebook and Flickr. 
If you have been following the recent 
Assuming we can believe this latest invitation, then it looks like the BlackBerry Bold 2 will have an official unveiling on T-Mobile on November 5. According to the recently leaked “Witness the unveiling…” invitation, T-Mobile will be holding the “T-Mobile Go Bolder Event” in New York on November 5. Additionally, there is also a similar but earlier event rumored to be taking place in LA on November 3. This of course falls in nicely with a rumored launch date of November 11. 
