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Sharks Circling the Galleon GalleonOne of my favorite bits of bloodthirsty Wall Street behavior is the feeding frenzy when a hedge fund goes down. The first thing everyone does is check the fund's known positions, figure out where the fund...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:40 am Apple's Profit Climbs 47% as Sales Gain - Ocala
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:36 am Windows 7 Released Early In UKCNETNate writes "UK customers have been reporting that they received their copies of Windows 7 in the mail today. Currently the British postal service is threatening industrial action over pay, and planned walkouts may result in Windows 7 not being delivered on its release date. It is understood that Microsoft has agreed to let some retailers send out copies early to avoid disappointment, and to make the UK the first country in the world to have Windows 7 in customers' hands."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:16 am A look at what's new in Windows 7 - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:04 am Nasa rocket's slow trip to launch pad - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Rise of the Machines: Why Demand Media is Worth More Than the New York Times [MediaMemo]
That’s the worrisome conclusion you can draw from Dan Roth’s excellent profile of Demand Media in the new issue of Wired. The piece is well-worth reading, but here’s the very short version: Demand has figured out how to generate a massive stream of low-cost stories designed to extract the maximum dollars from Google’s (GOOG) advertisers. The company has plenty of competitors who do similar stuff — like Associated Content, Mahalo, and the Times’ own About.com — but Demand’s secret sauce is an algorithm that helps it figure out the most valuable stories to assign, based on search terms and keyword prices. Which leads to stories like “Where can I donate a car in Dallas?“ Demand currently produces about 4,000 new stories a month, paying the freelancers who create them between $15 and $20 a piece. But CEO Richard Rosenblatt wants to up that to a million per year. At that point, Roth notes, “the payouts could easily hit $200 million a year, less than a third of what The New York Times shells out in wages and benefits to produce its roughly 5,000 articles a month.” Which is why Demand is constantly floated as a potential acquisition candidate for the likes of Yahoo (YHOO), at price tags of $1.5 billion or more. Investors, who bid up Times stock a bit after the company announced plans to cut its newsroom headcount by 8%, currently value the publisher at $1.3 billion. All of that make you queasy? Then you’re going to hate reading paragraphs like this:
I think there’s an equally worrisome story — worrisome, that is, from the admittedly self-interested perspective of content creators like myself — about the pressure from advertisers, armed with their own technology, to push the value of online content down even further. But we’ll save that for later. One downer a day is plenty. Want to know what the face of new media looks like? Here’s a 2008 interview Kara Swisher conducted with the preternaturally peppy Rosenblatt: [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Windows 7 on multicore: How much faster? (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system is receiving raves in its pre-release testing.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Oct 2009 | 4:00 am Halo 3: ODST and PlayStation 3 steal September sales - Neoseeker
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:59 am Apple’s Sauce: $34 Billion In Cash, Stock Peaks, And Mysterious Shipping Anomalies
Apple now has $34 billion in cash in the bank. Apple watchers will also know that they have no debt. So what are they going to do with all this money? That’s $10 billion more than they had a year ago, and this past quarter alone, they added about $3 billion to the pile. Apple keeps saying that it will use the cash for “preservation of capital,” which is a fancy way of saying that they’ll be take little risk and keep it close. That’s more cash than Microsoft has, and for some comparison, $34 billion is $10 billion more than the overall market cap of Yahoo. It’s also about $1.5 billion more than the market cap of eBay, and $4 billion more than the market cap of Dell. It’s almost exactly the same as the market cap of News Corp. Apple’s stock could open tomorrow at or near its all-time high. Let me repeat that, all-time high. You probably haven’t heard that too often over the past year, but it’s true. Apple’s all-time high is $202.96 a share, which it reached on Dec. 27, 2007, nearly 2 years ago. Today, after earnings were released, the stock shot up over 7%, pushing it past $203 a share. It has since settled a bit lower, but it’s not out of the question that the stock could hit the mark again tomorrow during regular trading hours. Apple’s stock price has more than doubled over the past 7 months alone. Sales of the iPod touch were up 100% year over year. This is especially impressive considering two things. First, overall iPod sales were down, once again. Second, despite indications that they would, Apple did not add a camera to the iPod touch during that line’s refresh a few months ago. Instead, the iPod nano got the camera, but it would seem that the iPod touch is still the hot sibling in the family. OS X Snow Leopard came out of the gates twice as fast as OS X Leopard. This really shouldn’t be all that surprising, considering the upgrade costs just $30. Still, impressive. Half billion apps downloaded in the last quarter alone. We already knew the big 2 billion app download milestone was hit, but Apple clearly stated that a full half billion of those came just in the past three months. That’s huge. Portable sales were up 35% year over year. Apple didn’t want to seem to talk about its desktops at all when it came to the Mac business (which had its best quarter ever). Instead, it’s very clear that notebook sales are the driving force (nearly 3/4th of Mac sales now). Of course, some new iMacs, which may launch as soon as tomorrow, could help balance the sales a bit more. China is getting the iPhone on October 30, but Korea should get it this quarter as well. Obviously China is a huge key to the Apple’s plan for international success, but getting the iPhone in Korea won’t hurt either. Apple COO Tim Cook made a quick reference to the unlocked iPhone issue in Asia, and noted that the company is excited to finally be able to meet a demand that is clearly there. Apple has some new products coming that have relatively low margins and cost a lot on to ship in. The obvious guess here would be Apple’s tablet. But the latest rumors had the thing being announced in January, but not shipping until closer to mid 2010 — neither of which are fiscal year Q1 (which ends December 31). Instead, the lower margins could well be related to new iMacs and MacBooks that have been rumored to be cheaper. But the more interesting bit comes from Cook’s wording about why Apple spending more on shipping: “In general, we spend more in freight in Q1, but this increase is larger than usual. I’m sorry, I can’t be specific on the product, but it’s an abnormal sequential increase.” That would seem to suggest a new type of product outside the ones it already offers, like the iMac and MacBook, which it has, of course, shipped in the past. Could the tablet come early? It seems unlikely, but something is causing Apple to worry about out-of-the-ordinary shipping costs. Apple has until Q1 2011 to use the new accounting rules. The changes allow Apple to count money made of off its so-called “subscription” devices, the iPhone and the Apple TV, immediately, rather than spreading the money over a 2-year period. While they were approved in September, Apple is still debating on when to start using them, and will not for Q1 2010. Cook noted that Apple was “pleased” with this new rule. [photo: flickr/stu_spivak] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily. 
Source: TechCrunch | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:52 am FACTBOX-The MPS Group - What did Adecco buy?Oct 20 (Reuters) - Adecco , the world's largest staffing company, has bought American rival MPS Group for $1.3 billion, boosting its position in the high-margin professional staffing business. [ID:nBNG199799]...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:52 am Micro-blog About Your Love Life Much? Head Over To Relatious. Please.
In particular, the amount of coffees one has in the morning, what he or she is having for lunch, which airport terminal they’re currently waiting for a plane in and why their relationships are complicated are often of little interest to people following you on Twitter, besides maybe your parents. (Yes, I plead guilty too) But the latter category of tweets now at least have a dedicated home with the launch of Relatious, a micro-blogging community site for people who enjoy sharing every little detail about their love and/or sex lives. This excerpt from the news release captures the essence of the site:
So there you have it. It’s Twitter, but for relationship chatter, although I’m a bit unsure how to plan to stop people from talking about whatever they feel like. Oh, and messages can be 400 characters, not 140. Oh, and you can share information anonymously, which means the message will still appear in the public feed but without your account attached to it. Other than that it’s just like any basic social network, with the ability to comment on messages, ‘like’ them, assign categories to your own Relatious messages and share any public one with others on Twitter or Facebook. Little more to add about the service, except that it was built and funded by a team of entrepreneurs who’ve sold Internet startups in the past and asked to remain anonymous for now. One thing is sure: they’re funny. Just check the copy on the ‘About us’ page and the last e-mail address on that page to see what I mean.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:51 am UPDATE 3-Adecco boosts professional staffing in $1.3 bln buy* Launches 900 mln Sfr mandatory convertible bonds offeringSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:44 am Review Logitech Gaming Headset G330This post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net If you play PC games with other people online, there’s a good chance that you use some sort of voice chat. When playing WoW, our entire...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:35 am Astronomers spy 32 new exoplanets - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:35 am UPDATE 2-Vodacom sees H1 profit down due to impairment chargeJOHANNESBURG, Oct 20 (Reuters) - South Africa's biggest mobile operator Vodacom expects to post a drop in first-half profit, mainly due to a 3.2 billion rand ($438 million) impairment charge arising from...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am Industry's Highest Capacity PCI Express 3.0 Controller IP Core From Denali Software Adopted by CrayBest-in-Class Solutions Speed Design-to-Silicon Success of PCI Express Technology SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- href="http://www.denali.com/">Denali...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:30 am The Three Ways to Make Money FastFrom a due diligence report on Galleon (excerpted in the FT), here are the three ways to make money with hedge funds. It's sort of amusing, in a bleakly comedic kind of way -- especially the first paragraph:"You...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:24 am Apple smashes forecasts, stock hits record (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:22 am Jonathan Worth tries out a copy-friendly photography business-experimentJonathan Worth is a talented commercial photographer (he shot me for a feature in Popular Science a few years back) who was recently asked for his shots by National Portrait Gallery in London, and asked if he could come and take my pic for it, offering to give me the right to use the resulting print for publicity, book jackets and so on. The National Portrait Gallery's crazy copyright stance sparked an interesting conversation about copyright with Jonathan (who also shot some killer photos!) and in the end, he agreed to license the photos he took of me for the exhibition under a very liberal Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, one of the most liberal licenses, allowing for both commercial uses and remixes.
This got us to talking about how producers of images and other works that are well-known digitally can use that familiarity to sell physical objects (I give away my books as ebooks to sell the print books), and Jonathan decided to try an experiment, producing 111 prints of the iconic image (without the Flickr notes!). I kicked in the 111-page initial manuscript printing of my forthcoming (April 2010) young adult novel For the Win, which I had just finished a week before. I had printed ten copies of the manuscript to pass around, and I had one copy left, and so I signed every page and handed it off to Jonathan.
I think that this is just too cool for words. Jonathan's a professional shooter who's also an artist, and the portrait shots are fantastic enough. But he's also experimenting with new business-models for photography that leverage, rather than fight, the Internet. I don't receive any of the money from this -- Jonathan did the work and sank in the capital, so it's his reward to reap. Etsy: Photographs by Jonathan Worth
Blog: Giving things away Pt II
Jonathan Worth tries out a copy-friendly photography business-experimentJonathan Worth is a talented commercial photographer (he shot me for a feature in Popular Science a few years back) who was recently asked for his shots by National Portrait Gallery in London, and asked...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:22 am UPDATE 2-GM, Opel Trust signal Magna on track to win Opel* Opel Trust chairman sees no need to restart sale processSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:12 am With Fresh Funding And A Hollywood PR Firm, Will Ad.ly Define Twitter Advertising?I'm still not sure if the Twitter stream is the right place to be for advertising, but with the way the company set out to make it easy for developers to build upon their platform with open APIs, it's...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:11 am With Fresh Funding And A Hollywood PR Firm, Will Ad.ly Define Twitter Advertising?
One of the companies that is dabbling with advertising on Twitter – even if Biz & co seem to be reluctant to do some serious testing of their own – is Ad.ly, an LA-based startup that launched about a month ago. In essence, Ad.ly aims to link up high-profile advertisers with celebrities on Twitter and distribute links to marketing campaigns through the celebs’ tweet streams with full disclosure. The model is pretty straightforward: the celebrity (or publisher) gets a lot of cash in return for a couple of messages that are under 140 characters, and Ad.ly takes its cut. As my colleague Leena Rao wrote upon Ad.ly’s launch:
That’s a lot of money for tweets, so time will tell if it’s a sustainable model, if celebrities keep signing up and using the service and if Ad.ly will be able to pay their promised dues. But some investors are bullish on the potential, at least. Yesterday, GRP Partners’ Mark Suster wrote an interesting blog post on the topic of VC seed funding. In the post, Suster reveals that GRP Partners, where he is a General Partner, has just closed a $500,000 seed round for Ad.ly and that he’d be interested in leading or joining follow-up VC financing rounds if the startup keeps performing well. A couple of weeks ago, Ad.ly even hired a West Hollywood PR and marketing firm called Entertainment Fusion Group to be its ‘Agency of Record’; EFG will help the fledgling company with public relations and talent procurement. Since it’s deeply embedded in the entertainment industry, the firm should help Ad.ly get some exposure within the circle of movie stars and other celebrities. So what gives? Has Ad.ly, with its focus on high-profile advertising partners and celeb Twitter users with a large number of followers, cracked the nut of Twitter advertising? Impossible to say without seeing some numbers, but it appears to be striking a chord or two. Not that Ad.ly is the only one trying to capitalize on Twitter’s growth and celebrities’ massive audience. SponsoredTweets (from IZEA) does much of the same, and then there’s ExecTweets, a cooperation between Microsoft and Federated Media. Others, like Be-A-Magpie and Twittad, have their sights set on the long tail of Twitter. Whether you think of it as stream pollution or an innovation social media monetization, Twitter advertising is here to stay, for better or worse. And you can rest assured many of these ad networks are going to run a profitable business way before Twitter does. The flip side of that coin is of course the fact that all of rely on the Twitter platform, so if they prosper or perish is partly Twitter’s call. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:11 am Oil price rise driven by fundamentals - BP CEOLONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - BP Group Chief Executive Tony Hayward said on Tuesday the oil price rise was being driven by the fundamentals of supply and demand.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:04 am UPDATE 1-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitionsOct 20 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 0900 GMT on Tuesday.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:04 am UPDATE 1-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitionsOct 20 (Reuters) - The following bids, mergers, acquisitions and disposals involving European, U.S. and Asian companies were reported by 0900 GMT on Tuesday.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:04 am China Mobile Q3 net profit rises 2.8 pctBEIJING, Oct 20 (Reuters) - China Mobile reported a disappointing quarterly profit, up 2.8 percent from a year earlier, underscoring rising pressure from a costly 3G rollout, intensifying competition...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am Ask a Nobel Laureate on YouTubeSTOCKHOLM, October 20 /PRNewswire/ -- YouTube viewers worldwide have the unique opportunity to "Ask a Nobel Laureate" a question on the official Nobel Prize YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/thenobelprize).Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am Ask a Nobel Laureate on YouTubeSTOCKHOLM, October 20 /PRNewswire/ -- YouTube viewers worldwide have the unique opportunity to "Ask a Nobel Laureate" a question on the official Nobel Prize...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am RSA Executives Offer Seven Guiding Principles To Maximize Megatrends Redefining the Information Security IndustryLONDON, Oct.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am inPulse BlackBerry Accessory Could Be The Dick Tracy Watch We've Always WantedBy Chris Scott Barr Ever since Dick Tracy, people have been wanting phones on their wrist. We’ve seen various, albeit poor implementations of this very thing, but nothing that feels right. One of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:42 am Japan’s 11 newest cell phones from KDDI au (photo gallery)
Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au showed their new cell phones [JP] for this winter. The first of the eleven models will be available in Japan as early as this month.
Complete line-up after the jump.
Source: CrunchGear | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:24 am Sharepoint Social Features May Be Sufficient for the Enterprise UserAt the end of his keynote on Monday at Sharepoint 2009, an interviewer asked Steve Ballmer about social computing. He recounted a story about a friend of his, a CEO for a Fortune 50 company. Ballmer said...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:18 am No Dedicated Servers For CoD: Modern Warfare 2An anonymous reader writes "Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling (aka fourzerotwo), in an interview with BashandSlash.com on October 17th, announced that one of the mainstays of PC multiplayer gaming, dedicated servers, won't be in IW's upcoming sequel to Call of Duty 4. Instead, players will use the unknown 'IW Net' for matchmaking purposes. No dedicated servers means no player mods, no player maps, no organized competitive play, no clan servers, etc., and strips away what makes PC gaming different from console gaming. Many vocal gamers have canceled their pre-orders, and a petition to reverse this decision is already past 86,000 signatures."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:18 am Tweet Ad Network Ad.ly FundedLA-based Ad.ly, which has developed in-stream advertising on Twitter, has raised $500K. The round came from GRP Partners. Ad.ly monetizes Twitter feeds from people who have 7 figure followers, as well...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:16 am Japan gets 11 new cell phones: KDDI’s full winter line-up (photo gallery)
Japan’s second biggest mobile phone carrier KDDI au showed their new cell phones [JP] for this winter. The first of the eleven models will be available in Japan as early as this month. Here’s the complete line-up:
Casio EXILIM Keitai CA004
Sharp AQUOS SHOT SH006
Sony Ericsson BRAVIA Phone U1
Sony Ericsson URBANO BARONE
Toshiba T003
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: MobileCrunch | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:12 am Barnes & Noble Reader Out Tuesday [Voices]By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal A new electronic book reader is expected Tuesday from book seller Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) that will challenge readers from Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) and Sony Corp. (SNE) with a color touch-screen and $259 price, according to a planned ad for the device. The price for the reader, called the Nook, matches that of Amazon’s Kindle. The Kindle controls about 60 percent of the burgeoning e-book market, according to Forrester Research. Details of the reader appear in a full-page advertisement viewed by The Wall Street Journal in the New York Times Book Review section dated Sunday, Oct. 25. The advertisement says the Nook will enable its owners to “Lend eBooks to friends.” A spokeswoman for Barnes & Noble declined to comment. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am New Oriental Announces Results for the First Fiscal Quarter Ended August 31, 2009BEIJING, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- New Oriental Education and Technology Group Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am GSMA Research Shows Off-Grid Charging Solutions for Mobile Phones to Power US $2.3bn Market OpportunityLONDON, October 20 /PRNewswire/ -- - Nearly 500 Million Mobile Users - More Than 10% of Global Subscribers - in Emerging Markets Will Benefit A new report released today from the GSMA, entitled Charging Choices, has revealed a US$2.3 billion* opportunity for mobile operators through the provision of off-grid charging solutions such as solar phones or external solar chargers in emerging markets.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am MuseAmi Funded For Music ToolsMuseAmi out of Princeton, NJ has raised $1.5M in new VC funding. It had taken seed funding from Mohr Davidow Ventures. The startup is led by a CEO with zero experience managing a company. For the past...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:58 am Psychedelic Alice in Wonderland calendar Book-design legend John Coulthart has a superb new psychedelic Alice in Wonderland calendar: "Everyone is familiar with Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit but, as I've noted before, themes from, and allusions to, the Alice books run through British psychedelia to an even greater degree. The Beatles put Lewis Carroll in their pantheon of influences on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, and Wonderland's atmosphere of Victorian surrealism chimed perfectly with a resurgence of interest in Victorian art and design. So at the end of September, mulling over ideas, I picked up one of my Lewis Carroll volumes and looked at the chapter list: 12 chapters...12 months...I could do a psychedelic Alice in Wonderland!" Psychedelic Wonderland: the 2010 calendar (Thanks, Jeff!)
Previously:
 Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am Psychedelic Alice in Wonderland calendarBook-design legend John Coulthart has a superb new psychedelic Alice in Wonderland calendar: "Everyone is familiar with Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit but, as I've noted before, themes from, and allusions...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:45 am Apple Gets A Little More Serious About Using Twitter
Back in March, the company started tweeting from its first official Twitter account, iTunesTrailers. They even went so far as the highlight the account on their Apple.com Trailers page. Thanks to the suggested users list, that account now has well over 1 million followers and they’re probably seeing a not entirely insignificant amount of traffic coming from there. And now they’ve added a few more accounts: These are all new accounts. A couple of them have just over 1,000 followers, but the other two have under 100, and haven’t tweeted yet. But it would seem that Apple wants to promote all of them now, as it has created a customized background for each account’s Twitter page, highlighting the other accounts (and its Facebook iTunes Fan Page, as well). One account you’ll notice that Apple does not have though, is twitter.com/apple. That account has one tweet, from March 16, which reads, “I love apples.” That hardly seems like something Apple the company would say, and the account points to a Gmail account in its profile, which would seem to suggest they may be interested in selling it. But with just one Tweet in 7 months, Twitter is probably within its rights to simply close the account and give it to Apple, if the company wanted it. (As a sidenote, there is also a Twitter account with the name “appleinc“, but it’s currently protected.) Obviously, Apple added a bit of social media to iTunes 9 recently, by including the ability to share items on both Facebook and Twitter. But the effort is half-hearted as best. It’s not like you can share what you’re listening to, just what you’re thinking about buying, or just bought. Apple has always marched to its own drumbeat, so it seems unlikely that we’ll see Apple corporate tweeting the way that people at Google, Yahoo, and even Microsoft do, but these new accounts could signify a slight thawing of the ice. After all, we do know that Apple does like Twitter.
[via Ian Dodsworth] Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:42 am AUO Unveils Flexible E-Paper TechnologyHSINCHU, Taiwan, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Dedicated to the development of green innovation, AU Optronics Corp.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:13 am EFF fundraiser/Pioneer Awards Ceremony Oct 22 , San Francisco Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Join the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Thursday October 22nd at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco in a fundraiser honoring the 2009 Pioneer Award winners. Awarded every year since 1992, the Pioneer Awards recognize leaders who are extending freedom and innovation on the electronic frontier. This year's winners include hardware hacker Limor 'Ladyada' Fried, e-voting security researcher Harri Hursti, and public domain advocate Carl Malamud. EFF will also present a 2009 Cooperative Computing Award to Mersenne Research, Inc., Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, for finding a record breaking prime number. Tickets are $60." I am a previous Pioneer Award recipient and was doubly honored this year to be a Pioneer Judge. Congrats to all the winners on their much-deserved honor!
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:06 am Smartphone smackdown: Motorola Droid vs. iphone 3GS - San Francisco Chronicle
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:05 am The Death of a Studio [Voices]By Keith Stuart, Writer, Guardian.co.uk games blog Earlier this year, games publisher Midway collapsed, plunging the staff of its Newcastle studio into a desperate struggle to find a buyer. They failed. This is what happened next… Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter [Voices]By Steven Levy, Writer, Wired Magazine Last August, the people who putatively run Twitter — the small crew that three years ago launched the world’s fastest-growing communications medium — announced a relatively minor change in the way the site functions. The tweak would have a small effect on retweeting, the convention by which Twitter users repost someone else’s informative or amusing message to their own Twitter followers. Retweets start with RT, for “retweet,” and usually cite the first author by user ID. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:03 am Face-to-Face Socializing Starts With a Mobile Post [Voices]By Jenna Wortham, Reporter, New York Times Twitter and Facebook ask users to answer the question: What are you doing right now? But for many urbanites in their 20s and 30s, two other questions are just as important: Where are you, and can I come join you? Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:02 am What Lit Mag McSweeney’s Could Teach News Orgs About the iPhone [Voices]By Mac Slocum, Contributor, Nieman Journalism Lab You’d think selling subscriptions within iPhone applications would appeal to media companies: It’s a model that promises recurring revenue streams, and it matches up nicely with the way they’ve always done business in print. But surprisingly few have jumped at the opportunity; most news organizations seem to be sticking with traditional one-off apps — some paid, most not. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am Illinois Students Develop Valuable Work-Force and Academic Skills Using Cutting-Edge Software Tools Donated by MicrosoftREDMOND, Wash. and CHICAGO, Oct.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am Daily Crunch: Weather Report Edition
In Communist Russia, air force makes snow fall on outskirts of town
Source: CrunchGear | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am RSA and Trend Micro Team Up to Increase the Ability to Stop Online AttacksLONDON, Oct.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 1:00 am My DIY publishing experiment, WITH A LITTLE HELPPublisher's Weekly just announced (on the cover, no less!) my forthcoming DIY short-story collection, With a Little Help, a print-on-demand book that explores pretty much every "freemium" model for turning a free, well-known digital object into a bunch of highly sought and profitable physical objects. There's four different covers on the print book, a hand-bound limited hardcover whose end-papers come from the paper ephemera of various writer-friends; a free audiobook read aloud by voice actor/writers and a for-pay CD-on-demand of the same thing; a donation campaign, and even a one-of-a-kind super-premium chance to commission a new story for the book for $10,000. All the financials for the book will be disclosed online and bound into the books on a monthly basis.Here's the pitch: the book is called With a Little Help. It's a short story collection, and like my last two collections, it's a book of reprints from various magazines and other places (with one exception, more about which later). Like my other collections, it will be available for free on the day it is released. And like my last collection, Overclocked, it won't have a traditional publisher.Doctorow's Project: With a Little Help Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:52 am XKCD v airport security
In today's XKCD strip, "Bag Check," Randall explores the limits of reason in dealing with airport security.
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:45 am Mercedes Lackey embraces fanfic and Creative CommonsChris sez, "Mercedes Lackey's agent, who also represents a 'persuasive little gnome' named Cory Doctorow, has been talked around to the Creative Commons point of view. Hence, Misty has announced she is going to permit fanfic as long as it is released under a Creative Commons license (presumably a noncommercial one, though she does not explicitly spell this out on the site)."Misty Lackey's work is well-loved by fanfic writers; this allows them to come in from the cold and produce their work (which celebrates her work) without fear of legal reprisals. Good move all around (and my agent, Russ Galen, is a smart cookie!). What this means is: NO, you cannot make money on it. NO, you cannot self-publish a fanfiction novel of Valdemar (or any of my other stuff) and try and sell it on Amazon. And NO, I still am not going to read it, because I am already so far behind on my research reading I barely have time to read that.News: Concerning Fanfiction: (Thanks, Chris!) Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:33 am FCC study: open access and competition produce better broadbandDavid Weinberger sez, "The Berkman Center, under the guidance of Yochai Benkler, has produced for the FCC a 200-page report on broadband around the world. The report is now open for public comment. In an interview on the Berkman site, Benkler gives the "take-away":I think there are two pieces of news that will be most salient for people as they look at this report. The first is a response to the question: 'how are we [the U.S.] doing?', and the answer is that we're overall middle-of-the-pack, no better. The second responds to the question: 'What policies and practices worked for countries that have done well?', and the answer to that is: there is good evidence to support the proposition that a family of policies called 'open access,' that encourage competition, played an important role.PDF: Next Generation Connectivity: A review of broadband Internet transitions and policy from around the world (Thanks, David!) Source: Boing Boing | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:30 am Spiral staircase built around a 75' treeA reader writes, "A man on Hornby Island, BC built a spiral staircase around a 75-foot cedar tree. He put a platform on the top to get a view of the ocean. This video shows what it's like to climb up and then down the staircase."
My Dad's Treehouse Apple, Others Hit With Lawsuit On Ethernet Patentsbth nods an AppleInsider story on a patent troll who has gotten hold of fundamental Ethernet patents and is wielding them broadly. Three guesses which US Appeals Court the lawsuit was filed in. "A Texas company has targeted a number of technology companies, including Apple, in a new lawsuit regarding a handful of computer networking patents issued in the 1990s. ... 3Com Corporation was granted four patents from 1994 to 1998 pertaining to network adapters. Two deal with the automatic initiation of data transmission, and one addresses 'host indication optimization.' ... The company's Web site states that U.S. Ethernet Innovations was founded 'to continue 3Com Corporation's successful licensing program related to a portfolio of foundational patents in Ethernet technology.' A press release from the company states that it is the 'owner of the fundamental Ethernet technology developed and sold by 3Com Corporation in the 1990s,' suggesting it purchased the patents. ... In addition to Apple, the lawsuit names Acer, ASUS, Dell, Fujitsu, Gateway, Hewlett Packard, Sony, and Toshiba as defendants."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:23 am Autonomy Corporation Plc Announces Results for the Third Quarter and Nine Months Ended September 30, 2009CAMBRIDGE, England, October 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- - Record Q3 Results With Strong Organic Growth; Highest Q3 Revenues And Profits in Autonomy's History; Q3 Revenues Up 51%; Q3 Profit Before Tax (Adjusted)* Up 20% To $64.3 Million - Autonomy's Third Quarter Conference Call Will be Available Live at http://www.autonomy.com on October 20, 2009, at 9:30 a.m.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:09 am Joikusoft Announces JoikuBoost; World's First Multiplexing WiFi Tethering Software for SmartphonesLONDON, October 20 /PRNewswire/ -- Joikusoft, the creator of the world's most popular WiFi Tethering software JoikuSpot (http://www.joiku.com), today announced a new innovative software solution called JoikuBoost (http://www.joikuboost.com), which enhances the mobile internet connection speed of JoikuBoost-enabled devices.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 20 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Android Avalanche: A Complete List Of The Android Phones So Far Google CEO Erick Schmidt stated emphatically during Google's most recent earnings call that "Android adoption is about to explode." We agree - despite developer hiccups, Android is about to have its moment in the sun. An avalanche of new devices are hitting worldwide markets, and some of them are serious contenders.
Our bet is that the upcoming Motorola Droid will be the breakout winner from this batch of phones. But here's the complete list of officially announced Android phones, as well as stuff that's just rumored at this point. Bookmark this post, and keep a lookout for updates.
Here are the Android contenders:
Source: CrunchGear | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:56 pm DropCam: A Fire-And-Forget Webcam Monitoring System From the Programmer of Xobni
Welcome to the era of completely computer-less webcams. We tried the Avaak Vue a few weeks ago with mixed results but this new system, called Dropcam, looks more useful for homes and small businesses.
The kit allows for multiple cameras to be connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet or WiFi. You simply set it up, plug it in, and start streaming. The system records video at 320x240 pixels at 15 frames/sec. The cameras weigh 3 ounces and are about an inch thick.
Source: TechCrunch | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:47 pm DropCam: Another fire-and-forget camera system
The kit allows for multiple cameras to be connected to the Internet via wired Ethernet or WiFi. You simply set it up, plug it in, and start streaming. The system records video at 320×240 pixels at 15 frames/sec. The cameras weigh 3 ounces and are about an inch thick. The camera, unlike the Vue, must be plugged into a power outlet, a potentially limiting factor for some installations. However, that is the only cable it needs when you have it connected via Wi-Fi. The basic camera costs $239 which includes a six month subscription to DropCam’s service. After that service costs $9 per month.They are also running private betas for a Baby service for watching kids during the day and even at night in low light as well as a more DVR-oriented Pro service for business complete with activity sensing systems. The system has built-in notification systems and they’re working on upgrading the system to support notifications via email and text message. It has 100 hours of rolling DVR capability per camera, ensuring you don’t miss a thing. The company is seed funded primarily by Mitch Kapor, 15 Angels (Bessemer’s angel group), and Bay Partners. They are shipping the product right now. The founder, Greg Duffy, was the 2nd employee and Principal Software Engineer of Xobni. The company’s co-founder is Aamir Virani, also an ex-Xobni employee.
Source: CrunchGear | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:43 pm Beatles help boost music videogame biz - Reuters
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:42 pm Beatles help boost music videogame biz (Reuters)Reuters - The music game genre experienced a much-needed lift in September on the backs of new releases "The Beatles: Rock Band" and "Guitar Hero 5."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:41 pm The New Twitter Hole That Probably Isn’t
What, you say? Those sound like some bizarre things for a seasoned politician to be tweeting about? Yeah, I had the same thought. So I did a bit more digging, and as it turns out those tweets didn’t come from Bill Clinton at all, at least not the real one. Instead, they came from someone who was masquerading as Bill Clinton at some time in the past, when they were cached by Google. But now they can all be found under the Twitter account NotBillClinton. Here’s the full text of those tweets:
Not so damning after all. As for the other accounts mentioned in the Times article, I suspect that Google is displaying tweets from them, but only messages that were sent before they were made private. For some more evidence, I reached out to Britekite’s Jonathon Linner (who is mentioned in the LA Times post), who says that he did in fact change his account to private only in the last month or so. The fact that these messages are all cached still poses a problem — make the mistake of setting your account public for a while and you may have no way to ever pull that data back in — but it doesn’t look like Google has special access to these tweets. We’ve reached out to Twitter to confirm that Google does not actually have these so-called keys to the city. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:29 pm Happy Birthday, Devin
Source: CrunchGear | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:28 pm Android Avalanche: A Complete List Of The Android Phones So Far
Our bet is that the upcoming Motorola Droid will be the breakout winner from this batch of phones. But here’s the complete list of officially announced Android phones, as well as stuff that’s just rumored at this point. Bookmark this post, and keep a lookout for updates. Here are the Android contenders: HTC Dream/T-Mobile G1
HTC Magic/T-Mobile MyTouch 3G
HTC Hero/T-Mobile G2 Touch/Sprint HTC Hero
Huawei U8230/ Pulse
Samsung Galaxy
HTC Tattoo
Motorola CLIQ
Motorola Droid
Samsung Moment/InstinctQ
Motorola Heron/Iron Man
Acer A1/Liquid
Samsung Behold 2
ARCHOS Phone Tablet
Dell mini i3
Lenovo O1
LG Etna
HTC Lancaster
Sony Ericsson Xperia X3
Motorola Calgary
Philips V808
HTC Click
Samsung Bigfoot
HTC Dragon
Samsung Galaxy Lite/Samsung Spica
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 19 Oct 2009 | 11:07 pm The Flurry Alarm Clock is a luddite’s Chumby
You know the Chumby, right? It’s that bedside clock/alarm/radio/YouTube & Flickr open source thingamabob. It’s hella cool, but it’s also kind of complicated for the non-techy and requires WiFi to work. I say blah to that! Really the only extra info you need to know in the morning besides the time is the weather anyway. That’s where the Flurry Alarm Clock from Ambient Devices comes in. This little alarm clock sports the standard alarm clock functions, but adds weather info to the mix. The AccuWeather 2-day forecast is piped in via Ambient’s free InfoCast wireless network. This means that you really could give this as a Christmas gift to your technically-challenged mother and she could use all of it’s functions with ease. I mean, look at it, there’s nothing complicated or overwhelming about it. But there’s one little thing, it’s $129 at Best Buy, which means your mom probably won’t get one for Christmas.
Source: Gizmodo | 19 Oct 2009 | 10:40 pm The Barnes & Noble Nook Reader To Be Revealed and Available Tomorrow for $259 That's no fun. Barnes & Noble was probably expecting to get all the attention tomorrow with its fancy-pants press conference, but the Wall Street Journal had to go ruin all the fun by letting the Nook ebook reader out of the bag today. Yeah, that's the name. Nook.
Source: TechCrunch | 19 Oct 2009 | 10:37 pm Mega Man Drum Kit = Awesome
What are you doing reading the text?! Look at the picture! It’s a frakkin’ Mega Man drum kit! Those rings light up and everything! This thing is almost as cool as those Star Wars guitars back in 2002. [VIDEO]
Source: CrunchGear | 19 Oct 2009 | 10:32 pm A New Robotic Hand That Can "Feel"Dyne09 writes "The BBC is running a video report about a group of Swiss and Italian scientists who have created the 'Smart Hand,' a robotic hand with forty sensors that 'connect directly to the brain.' Though fuzzy on the details, the report says the hand provides sensor feedback to a willing test subject, a 22-year-old man who lost his hand to cancer three years ago. How long until we have access to Star Wars-esque robotic limbs?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 19 Oct 2009 | 10:03 pm Investors lap up Apple's 47 percent profit jump
|
 Washington Post | Top tech firms back net-neutrality rules Washington Post A number of Silicon Valley titans and early technologists of the Web on Monday urged the Federal Communications Commission to move forward with new rules to prevent Internet providers from favoring one application over another. ... Amazon, Facebook, and Google back FCC on Net neutrality Big names support net neutrality Facebook, Twitter support U.S. FCC's Web rules |
Jive, the maker of a all-in-one social enterprise software, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital. Jive previously raised $15 million in Series A funding from Sequoia in August of 2007.
Modeled to offer Facebook-like features to enterprises, Jive combines computing with social collaboration. Its suite of applications help businesses collaborate on a variety of tasks, including holding discussions, sharing documents, blogging, running polls, and social networking features and more. Jive says it will will use the funding for product development, to “expand its partner ecosystem,” and grow its sales and customer support teams. The company, which is profitable, recently launched integration with Microsoft SharePoint, letting Jive users easily access data and content from the CMS into Jive’s software.
Last year, the startup released new versions of its Clearspace software in April and acquired Jotlet. This year, the software company integrated Jive’s software into a complete package and also recently incoroprated social media monitoring into its platform. Jive’s competitors include NewsGator and Socialtext.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
IBM is enhancing its VMControl software for managing data centers to give enterprise users a single point of control across multiple types of IT systems and virtualization technologies. Combined with IBM's Tivoli software, VMControl allows for combinations of physical and virtual IBM servers to be managed as a single entity, called "system pooling."
IBM says this approach optimizes virtualization by helping corporate data centers simplify management functions and better share and prioritize use of critical resources such as CPU, memory and storage. Having centralized control over virtualized environments lets companies manage large amounts of information and processing resources and then parcel them out to applications when and where they're needed.
One word: Shameful.
So, no surprise that Yahoo (YHOO), which is trying mightily to burnish its image worldwide, quickly apologized for the presence of women lap dancers onstage at its Open Hack Day in Taiwan last weekend.
In a post on its Yahoo Developer Network blog tonight, titled “Sorry,” YDN head Chris Yeh wrote:
All,
I wanted to acknowledge the public reaction generated by the images of female dancers at our Taiwan Open Hack Day this past weekend. Our hack events are designed to give developers an opportunity to learn about our APIs and technologies. As many folks have rightly pointed out, the “Hack Girls” aspect of our Taiwan Hack Day is not reflective of that spirit or purpose. And it’s certainly not the message we want to send about our values here at Yahoo!. Hack Days are about making everyone feel welcome, including women coders and technologists.
This incident is regrettable and we apologize to anyone that we have offended. Rest assured, it won’t happen again.
Best,
Chris Yeh
Head of YDN
twitter: @ydn
email: cyeh at yahoo-inc dot com
Ironically, in a post listing the winners and details of of the Open Hack event, at which Yahoo invited outside developers to brainstorm, Yahoo’s Erik Eldridge noted earlier today (italics are mine):
“This was our second visit to Taiwan, and we were really looking forward to coming back to see the passionate Taiwanese developers.”
Ouch. Worse still, top Yahoo execs–such as Taiwan CTO Joy Chan, Asia head Rose Tsou and Chief Technologist Sam Pullara, all pictured here with another Yahoo exec, Peter Lin–were in attendance at the event, although it is not clear if any of them attended the lap-dance performance. (Yahoo PR is checking on that now for me.)
Like the image above, here are some more pictures of the lap dancers from a Flickr video, posted by Sam Willison, which has since been made private (click on the images to make them, um, larger):
And, rut-roh, here is a link to some more, even shorter-skirted photos on Flickr.
But, perhaps worst of all, this kind of thing is not new for Yahoo’s hack events in Taiwan, at least, where there seems to be some history of this sort of Pussycat-Dolls-meets-geeks tone.
It is not clear why all the thumpa-thumpa music and dancing gals did not engender complaints last year, although I am guessing the nerd lap action sent over the top.
In any case, here are four videos from the event in 2008 of even more gyrating ladies, which you can contrast with a video from Yahoo’s New York event on Oct. 12 of this year:
(If you want to know what a lap dance is, by the way, try Yahoo Answers!)
We've been following artist Shepard Fairey's work here on Boing Boing for some time now. A disclaimer, first: I love his work, we have mutual friends, he strikes me as a stand-up guy. Last year, Pesco was among the first to blog the Obama "Hope" poster which quickly grew far more popular than anyone anticipated. The iconic artwork spawned street cottage industries worldwide, and became an official element in the presidential campaign.
Then, the Associated Press (the same DRM-happy copyright bullies who threaten their own affiliates and try to shake down bloggers over 5-word excerpts) threatened Fairey over claims the poster was based on an AP photo, and violated their copyright. Fairey and his supporters fought back. They argued the poster was permitted under the concept of fair use because the artwork was significantly changed from the reference photo. Additionally, they added, the poster was not based on the specific photo the AP claimed -- but on a different image that required more cropping and alteration, further supporting the fair use argument.
On Friday, that high-profile case took a turn nobody expected that I did not anticipate. Fairey confessed to having made false statements to a federal judge about exactly which AP photo he used. He also admitted having fabricated evidence. Snip from his statement:
The new filings state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used as a reference and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images. I sincerely apologize for my lapse in judgment and I take full responsibility for my actions which were mine alone. I am taking every step to correct the information and I regret I did not come forward sooner.The attorneys representing Fairey will soon step down. Nobody knows what will happen in the case. The question of which photo was used was a minor, tangential issue before -- but Friday's revelation is not minor. As David Kravetz says in his account at Wired News, "Everybody agrees the case is now tainted and that Fairey's courthouse actions could undermine his case, even if he did not commit copyright infringement." But for those who believe in the merits of the original fair use argument, there is still hope.
Read Kravets' story (some interesting links between this case and that of the BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy), and check out Marquette University professor Bruce Boyden's blog post here. Here's Shepard's mea culpa. Here's the AP's statement - and a note on that: I found it odd that many news organizations were sourcing that statement and a subsequent report from the AP as if they were regular wire service items, without regard for the fact that the AP is also a plaintiff in the case, and therefore inherently biased.
(click for larger image). Sweet baby Jesus and biscuits, I can't hardly believe my eyes. Above, the truly awesome cover of a 1980 issue of Wild Mook, one of many fanzines produced in the early 1980s by the late Haruo Mizuno. "Mook" refers to a type of publication that's kind of halfway between a magazine and a book. Matt Alt (who I reached out to for comment in this BB post today) says
[Mizuno was] so obsessed with American cops that he actually managed to talk the NYPD and LAPD into letting him ride along with officers. This amazing book is but one of dozens he authored on the topic. None sum up the Japanese fascination with the American power aesthetic as much as this fetish-like pastiche of uniform, hamburgers, weapons, and mountains of french fries, though.More on Matt's blog. Man, if anyone out there has a copy of Wild Mook, please scan it and share online. I want a hard copy so bad!
Such art direction, too! I mean, just look at the pile of fast food surrounding the cop (or model) on the cover, above. I count six Big Macs, a couple Filet-o-Fishes, 5 metric craploads of fries, and at least one jumbo gordito taco supremo with guacamole.
He is RESTING HIS BILLY CLUB ON THE FRIES. The billy club may actually be PROTECTING THE FRIES. And there's that steely gaze in his eyes... as if to say, "You touch my hamburger, punk, and it'll be your last."
Below, scanned covers from two other issues.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you bought a 2009 model GM car, you may have had the option to add a certain OnStar service. You may or may not have felt it necessary to drop the extra cash on something you may use very infrequently, but at least one car owner is happy they took the plunge. A carjacker with a shotgun took over a Mr. Jose Ruiz’s Tahoe and zoomed off, though he was shortly being pursued by police. Ruiz, however, wasn’t too worried, as he had an OnStar up his sleeve.
A quick call later and OnStar was informing the pursuing vehicles that the car would be stopping soon. They pressed a button, the gas pedal was disconnected, and the car coasted to a stop. After a short foot race, the guy was apprehended and the car returned.
That’s all well and good, but isn’t the potential for abuse pretty high? And in a Minority Report/Enemy of the State/The Net situation, even Will Smith wouldn’t be able to get out of there scot-free.
[via Reddit]
With the Adamo XPS getting all the play recently, Dell quietly updated the Desire model with a slight performance boost. The original model, apparently named Desire, now rocks a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600 CPU, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, 256GB SSD, and of course, Windows 7 Home Premium. Chances are Dell was sitting on this update until it could ship Windows 7 with it. Thankfully, the updates come at no additional charge as the Desire still sports the same $2,299 price tag. Now, back to you’re regularly scheduled Adamo XPS coverage.
Reuters - U2 and YouTube have teamed up to broadcast a live stream of the band's Los Angeles-area concert this weekend via its YouTube channel.
AFP - An IBM executive arrested in connection with an insider trading case has been placed on temporary leave of absence, the US computer giant said.
It’s not enough that they make ramen, juggle, and play catch — now robot arms need to play with their food? This robot arm on the right is teasing the one on the left. Want a Fanta? You can’t have one! Your feeble manipulator navigates this six-pack in vain.
These feats are child’s play for a robot designed for precision maneuvers. Just picture this, now: instead of a six-pack, it’s navigating the smoking rubble of one of humanity’s underground hiding places — you know, after the Robocalypse. A fraction of a second after it bursts into the room, it inputs the locations of all the faces, programs a path for its rapid-fire laser cannon, and…. boom, headshots.
By Yukari Iwatani Kane, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
If iPhone app developers have one complaint about Apple’s (AAPL) App Store, it’s that the approval process for apps isn’t transparent enough. Apps have been known to be rejected, or worse, sent into a black hole without an explanation.
Some apps that one might think would be rejected are approved, while others that seem like no-brainers aren’t.
While the Cupertino, Calif., company has made some improvements, such as speeding up the approval process, it’s clear to developers Jon Myers and Chuck Hootman that Apple continues to work in mysterious ways–though they’re not complaining this time.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
In a shift that is sure to be much commented on by the advertising industry, Yahoo has tapped Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to take the lead for creative, advertising, digital marketing and strategic planning efforts.
The San Francisco-based Goodby, which is owned by the Omnicom Group (OMC), is known for its innovative ideas and has done such memorable campaigns as the Slowsky turtles for Comcast (CMCSA), the weird folk of Emerald Nuts, owned by Diamond Foods (DMND)–as well as campaigns for tech companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Adobe Systems (ADBE) and Netflix (NFLX).
Also, of course, the terrifically memorable “Got Milk?” campaign.
Perhaps a “Got Yahoo?” campaign is in the future?
Until now, the top job of goosing Yahoo’s tarnished brand, as part of a recently launched $100 million marketing push, has been helmed by Ogilvy & Mather, a unit of the WPP Group (WPPGY).
While Goodby will lead on creative initiatives worldwide, Ogilvy will remain in the mix, Integrated Marketing and Brand Management SVP Penny Baldwin told BoomTown in an interview this afternoon, focusing on international marketing efforts, including all upcoming brand launches in France, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Brazil and Indonesia.
And, via it Neo and Mindshare units, Yahoo said, Ogilvy will also run all of our media buying for the Internet giant globally.
Yahoo (YHOO) is also keeping strategic branding firm Landor & Associates.
Goodby, Ogilvy and Landor will apparently form a Brand Advisory Board at Yahoo, run by Baldwin.
Baldwin stressed that the move was a broadening of its outside marketing advisers and was not a replacement of Ogilvy, or any indication that the current new marketing campaign needed to change.
She said internal reports on the effectiveness of overall big theme of “It’s Y!ou,” launched last month, have been strong.
Nonetheless, Baldwin added that the new agency is sure to bring more ideas to the mix in the massive effort, which has included television, print, outdoor and online ads.
And, she noted, the location of Goodby’s HQ in San Francisco, not far from Yahoo’s Sunnyvale digs was also a plus.
“Goodby has the caliber to serve worldwide needs,” said Baldwin. “And with the way the Web moves so fast, we thought it was also important to have deep resources locally.”
Up next, she added: to “root our brand strategy with more hard-hitting” messages about Yahoo.
“This is far more than just an advertising effort,” said Baldwin of Yahoo’s efforts to revitalize itself in the eyes of consumers–and, while she did not say so, to the digerati of Silicon Valley. “This is a business transformation.”
Here is Baldwin’s boss, Yahoo CMO Elisa Steele talking about the company’s marketing efforts of late in a video interview with Nicki Dugan on its Yodel Anecdotal blog in a new feature called Yodelcast (sorry, Nicki, but it is simply too professional and unjiggly for BoomTown’s seal of approval):
And here are two examples of Goodby’s creatives–Comcast’s Slowskys and Robert Goulet for Emerald Nuts:
FROM GAMERTELL - Want to save a few bucks on your next Wii purchase? You might have to head to Sam’s Club…
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FROM APPLETELL - Droid, a new phone emerging in the mobile marketplace through a cooperative effort with Verizon and Motorola, is turning out to cause quite a ruckus as the first true iPhone competitor.
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AP - After six straight months of double-digit declines, U.S. video game sales finally saw an improvement in September.
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Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks, Lifestyle
The ebook reader market certainly looks to be heating up quite a bit as of late. There’s the new international version of the Kindle 2, Plastic Logic teasing us with a new reader, Sony’s new readers and tomorrow’s Barnes & Noble announcement among others. Today, we can add another name to that list: Spring Design. Spring Design looks to have beaten B&N’s announcement by a day, announcing a device similar to the bookstore’s rumored ebook reader.
Spring Design’s new design brings two screen to an ebook reader and not in the notebook fashion like Asus’ design. The Spring Design device, Alex, will feature a 6” e-ink display for reading large blocks of text. It will also feature a 3.5” LCD touchscreen below that screen that will be used for functions such as web browsing. The bottom screen will be powered by Android. The device will have Wi-Fi as well as a 3G data connection, though no carrier is named yet. All we know so far is the name of the device, its features and design.
Spring Design’s Alex looks to bring an interesting dynamic to ebook readers. Sure, the battery life on it might not be as great as an e-ink only device, but that’s a small price to pay. There’s a number of possible ways the two displays can interact, and it makes for a device that can have a keyboard for searching without having the ugliness of having to have a physical keyboard. Spring Design has said that this isn’t the B&N ebook reader, which is supposed to have similar features to the Alex, and yet be cheaper than the Kindle. If this is where ebook readers are going, I might just have to go out and buy one soon.
Read [Spring Design]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 DailyTech | Mozilla Restores Blocked Microsoft Extension For Firefox InformationWeek A controversial Firefox extension is working again after being blocked as a security risk over the weekend. By Thomas Claburn Mozilla reversed its decision to block a Microsoft extension for Firefox that was disabled last week because the software was ... Mozilla Blocks Add-ons from Microsoft Because of Vulnerability Mozilla Unblocks Microsoft's Firefox Plugin Mozilla disables, reinstates Microsoft plugin for Firefox |
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FROM GAMERTELL - Home Shopping Network hosts obviously didn’t pay attention to Nintendo’s statement that the Wii remote and accessories should probably be secured before play, as a host sends a tennis racket accessory careening into a TV during a live broadcast.
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By Rebecca Blumenstein, Managing Editor, WSJ.com
Intel Corp.’s (INTC) chief executive said the company had no advance warning or knowledge about the insider-trading investigation into Galleon Group, which has implicated an Intel executive.
“No one in our legal department or management knows anything about this,” said Paul Otellini, chief executive of the chip giant, in an interview at The Wall Street Journal’s headquarters in New York.
An executive in Intel’s treasury department, Rajiv Goel, is one of those facing conspiracy and securities-fraud criminal charges, as well as civil insider-trading charges, in the investigation into Galleon, a hedge fund at the center of the biggest insider-trading case in decades.
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Section: Communications, Accessories, Smartphones, Mobile
BlackBerry is quickly transitioning from being solely a top of the line business tool to a must have consumer device as well. In what may be an attempt to capitalize on that and appeal to geeks everywhere as well, RIM has announced it’s developing a BlackBerry watch.
The new device, pictured above courtesy of Crackberry, features a large OLED screen and long battery life. It’s designed by RIM to compliment, not replace, a traditional BlackBerry. The screen will display notifications of incoming messages along with a brief preview, presumably to allow you to decide if you want to whip your Berry out and answer. Okay, it’s not as if checking your Berry itself is such a task, but still it’s a cool looking gadget. So far a release date and price are unknown.
I never understood why BlackBerry users affectionately call it the CrackBerry until I got my own in August. This thing is an amazing device and yes, it truly is addictive. There’s just something about having what for all intents and purposes is a tiny laptop that fits in your pocket. Having email, social networking, weather, breaking news, sports scores, live TV, streaming radio, YouTube, IM, and the web along with organizational features and of course, a phone, at your fingertips is just irresistible, and there are millions like me who agree.
Okay my fellow BlackBerry fans, what do you think? Is this destined to be the next must have accessory or will it be a dud? Let me know what you think!
Read [Crackberry.com]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
It was inevitable: The phenomenally popular rhythm game Rock Band has jammed into the phenomenally popular iPhone. Indeed, the mobile version shows loyalty to the console title, delivering elegant graphics, flashy animations and, of course, a store to purchase more tunes. But the iPhone game is loyal to a fault, because the Rock Band experience just doesn’t translate very well onto the handset’s touchscreen interface. Plus, it’s too expensive.
Rock Band for iPhone retains the interface in which colorful “notes” scroll down a screen, requiring you to match them once they reach the bottom. In the iPhone version, you tap the respective color for a note to play it — same gameplay for each of the four instruments: lead guitar, bass guitar, drums and microphone. You heard right: even for the microphone you’re tapping notes to sing; you don’t actually get to sing into the iPhone’s microphone (which seems like a missed opportunity).
The gameplay sounds easy, but those skinny, rectangular bars representing the notes are pretty difficult to see on the iPhone’s screen as opposed to a large television. It’ll take some time — lots of missed notes and failed “performances” — getting used to the game, and bottom line, it just isn’t that fun. (Disclosure: I speak from the perspective of a Rock Band enthusiast who plays expert mode on all the instruments for the PlayStation 3 game.)
Playing guitar is especially rough. In the console version, there are many incidents where you must hold multiple frets and strum to play a chord. The iPhone’s touchscreen is too small for these gestures. It creates an ergonomically awkward experience, which isn’t anything like the joy of shredding a plastic guitar for the console system.
And then there’s price. The Rock Band Music Store (right) sells songs in packs of 2 for $1. For the console version, tracks costs $2 a piece, which seems like a reasonable amount to pay to entertain a living room full of guests. But $0.50 per track to tap around to songs on your iPhone? Over time, including the cost of the game ($10), you could be spending a pretty hefty amount.
The result of Rock Band for iPhone unfortunately appears to be the case where a big software developer (Electronic Arts) believes its game is so popular that it needn’t be modified much in order to attract mobile customers. We think it needs some adjustments in gameplay and pricing to be a compelling iPhone game. Currently it’s no. 3 in Apple’s list of Top Grossing apps in the App Store, but we doubt this will stay popular over a long term.
We’re willing to bet most iPhone customers will stick with Tap Tap Revenge, which demonstrates a smarter understanding of how to create an enjoyable rhythm game for the iPhone. For notes, rather than squint-inducing rectangles, Tap Tap Revenge displays glowing dots, which are much easier to see and tap on the iPhone’s touchscreen. The latest version, Tap Tap Revenge 3, is priced at a reasonable $1 and introduces a music store charging 50 cents per track as well.
Update: Corrected an error about song pricing for Rock Band.
Product Page [Electronic Arts]
See Also:
Do you regularly beat your cell phone’s screen in with a hammer? Well, friend, you’re in… wait, you don’t do that? Crap. Lets start again.
Do you know someone who regularly beats their cell phone’s screen in with a hammer? Well, give them a call, because we’ve got good — nope? No one comes to mind? Guh.
Can you imagine someone who regularly beats their cell phone’s screen in with a hammer? Yes? Great. Boy, do we have good news for them! A video was uploaded over the weekend portraying someone (presumably someone in Samsung’s R&D labs) going at a couple of handset screens with a hammer. The only one to walk away unscathed? Samsung’s 20 micrometer thick flexible OLED screen.
Sure, this specific test is a bit impractical – but if that’s one less component we have to worry about breaking, we’re happy. We’ll be back – we’re going to go look for a hammer.
[Via SamsungHub]
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
There’s a bit of a paradox at work here. If you shoot a lot of video on your iPhone, a tripod mount might be quite convenient. On the other hand, if you shoot a lot of video, why the hell are you using an iPhone to do it?
While I do like photography accessories, and threaded things in general, I’m not sure I can fully approve of this case. It’s bulky for one thing, ruining the sleek profile of the device, and the benefits of having a 1/4″ threaded mount on it are dubious. And lastly, why is the mount on the edge of the device? If you’re using a little portable tripod (like that pictured), 80% of the weight is going to be hanging off one end. Not dangerous at all!
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
It was a few weeks back that AT&T officially announced the Windows Mobile based HTC Tilt 2 and as of today that handset is now available for purchase.
The Tilt 2, which is a Windows Mobile 6.5 handset will set you back $299.99, which comes after a $50 mail in rebate. In other words, expect to pay $349.99 on the day of purchase and then wait for that last $50 to come in the mail. Additionally, that price also requires a two-year agreement.
Feature wise the Tilt 2 offers a WVGA display, a full slide-out (from the side) QWERTY keyboard, a 3.2-megapixel camera with 4x zoom, Bluetooth, 3G and a full HTML browser.
Basically, if you are an AT&T customer and also a fan of Windows Mobile then the HTC Tilt 2 may be worthy of consideration.
Product [AT&T]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle
Livescribe, producer of the Pulse smartpen that can record writing as well as audio (voice) is expanding its line to include a pair of pens with different memory options as well as a business-focused pro pack bundle. In the battle to replace pen and paper, the Pulse pen is an impressive tool that should be on students wish lists this holiday season.
The Pulse pen’s big draw for me is the ability to search through your notes. Once uploaded to your computer, your notes become so much more valuable as the software identifies the words and allows you to search through them. The audio can also be cued up and matched to your notes so you can review the salient points instead of tangents professors have a tendency to ramble on about for hours.
The Pulse Smartpen line up will now feature two models with memory of 2 GB and 4 GB. Priced at $169 and $199, the pens come with special paper that allow special functions and desktop software to upload the data from the pen. The 4 GB version is capable of recording 400 hours of audio. Tough professors don’t stand a chance against the Pulse Pen.
For $249, the Pro Pack bundle paints the 4 GB pen black, includes a stand up charger and premium leather case. The full line up is available now. The Pulse Smartpen is available from the company, Target, Best Buy, Apple Stores, and Staples.
Product page: [livescribe] via [Venture Beat]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
In one of the boldest attacks on Apple’s iPhone so far, Verizon unveiled a TV commercial and website over the weekend that touted Droid, a new smartphone from Motorola, as a device that does everything the iPhone doesn’t.
Verizon’s “iDon’t” TV commercial and website (warning: Flash-centric site) displays a series of statements aimed directly at the iPhone, such as ‘iDon’t have a real keyboard, iDon’t customize, iDon’t allow open development,” but without naming the iPhone directly. (You can watch the Droid ad on YouTube, or scroll down to see the video here.)
The ad took industry watchers and analysts by surprise.
“It is very unusual in advertising to spend most of your time talking about your rivals,” says Tero Kuittinen, a senior analyst at MKM Partners. “The downside is that people will do exactly what Verizon has advised them to, which is to make direct comparisons between the Droid and iPhone.”
But, he added, “that may not always work out in Droid’s favor.”
The Droid, formerly codenamed ‘Sholes’ and also referred to at times with the codename ‘Tao,’ is an upcoming Android-based smartphone from Motorola. Droid is expected to have a 3.7-inch screen, a 5-megapixel camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, and access to the Android app market. It will also be the first phone to use the Android 2.0 operating system, aka “Eclair.”
It’s Motorola’s second Android-based phone. Last month, the company launched Cliq, its first Android phone on T-Mobile’s network. Droid will be Verizon’s first Android device and is expected to be available at the end of next month.
Verizon’s ad campaign for the Droid is the first official mention of the phone on the company’s network. But the carrier’s move to criticize the iPhone so openly and so early has left industry watchers such as Chandan Sarkar, an analyst with Auriga, a New York-based research and trading firm, puzzled.
“Given the tone of the commercials, it might risk upsetting Apple,” Sarkar says.
Verizon could also risk disappointing consumers later with the Droid because of the high expectations that it has set.
Sarkar says that it is clear that Verizon is betting on the Android OS as a way to fight Apple’s rise in the smartphone market.
“The question for Verizon is not whether Droid will be worth it, but whether Android will be worth it,” Sarkar says. “Verizon doesn’t have to hit a home run in the first wave but they want to establish a strong beachhead against Apple.”
Droid won’t be a run-of-the-mill Android phone, the two analysts interviewed by Wired.com say. Verizon has worked closely with Google and Motorola to develop the device, Sarkar says. Verizon may also be working with Google to develop applications for its LTE network (also known as 4G), he says.
Verizon might risk damaging its relationship with Apple. Though AT&T has a five-year exclusive contract, starting June 2007, to offer the iPhone in the U.S., Verizon has been seen as trying to get the device on its network. Apple also is reportedly working on a tablet that it might launch in partnership with a telecom carrier. Verizon is one of the contenders for that device.
“Verizon wants to send a message that they are not desperate for the iPhone and they have alternatives to the iPhone,” Kuittinen says. “But this kind of in-your-face attack is more than what anyone, including Apple, may have expected.”
See Also:
Photo: Leaked pic of the Motorola Droid/Boy Genius Report
Remember August 2009? It was a simpler time; a time before the nation had to worry that whatever was on the news was just the result of giving a 6-year old and his dastardly parents a big-ass balloon. Right around that time, word got out that RIM was cracking away at a Bluetooth watch for the BlackBerry line, only to disappear off the radar entirely – until today.
CrackBerry, proving their prowess amongst BlackBerry blogs, has verified that the project is as real as can be and brought the pudding to prove it. They’ve got not one, but two renders of the (surprisingly basic looking) device, along with a handful of details:
So what do you think – whether you’re a BlackBerry owner or not, would you rock a Bluetooth wrist accessory?
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According to MarketWatch, Sprint Nextel, the number three US wireless carrier, has agreed to buyout yet another of its affiliates, iPCS. Having just recently finalized a deal to acquire Virgin Mobile USA, Sprint is looking to further shore up its customer base with the addition of iPCS’ 700,000 subscribers. Not to mention, the acquisition will mark the end of long and drawn out legal battles with iPCS and should save Sprint Nextel some $30 million/year starting in 2010.
Sprint is no stranger to gobbling up its own affiliates. As of 2005, Sprint had 10 wireless affiliates across the US. During that same year, Sprint Nextel acquired three of them: US Unwired, Gulf Coast Wireless, and IWO Holdings. In early 2006, Sprint gobbled up the largest of its affiliates, Alamosa PCS, and has since gone on to buy out Ubiquitel, Enterprise, and Northern PCS leaving only three standing (iPCS, Shentel, and Swiftel) until today.
The proposed deal to acquire Midwest-based iPCS has Sprint shelling out $831 million in cash and assumed debt. More specifically, Sprint Nextel will pay $24/share in cash for all the common stock of iPCS, a 34% premium over the closing price of iPCS on Oct. 16. Sprint will also assume about $405 million in iPCS debt.
Luckily for current iPCS customers, because they are already using a Sprint-branded service, they shouldn’t (in theory) notice any disruption in their service during the transition. For more, give the official press release a once-over.
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Section: Computers, Software / Applications
A public beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 is being released next month. This is another way to build momentum for the release of the productivity software after July’s limited preview of the programs. Features of the new MS Office include screenshot captures, background removal tools, Jump Lists, numerous templates and web based Office applications.
The final release for MS Office 2010 will be sometime next year. Microsoft will also include Microsoft Office 2010 already pre-installed on computers released by major manufacturers. The Starter version will include basic versions of Word and Excel. You can also upgrade by purchasing a license card from an electronics retailer, such as Best Buy.
The announcement came in conjunction with the upcoming release of Sharepoint 2010. Sharepoint 2010 is a type of portal software and also has plans to be available in beta next month. Sharepoint will be a collaboration tool that can streamline communication when paired with Office 2010.
Read: [eWeek]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
They say the best things come in small packages – and in this case, one of the things we’re looking forward to most over the next few months, Sony Ericsson’s Android-powered XPERIA X3, has come forward in a tiny, tiny picture. Yeah, don’t bother clicking that image over to the right. There is no larger version.
It’s essentially a thumbnail, but we’ll take it. We’ve seen a few photos come out of the woodworks claiming to contain the X3, but each has been blurrier, darker, and generally crappier than the last. This shot, though a bit on the small end, is the first to show the device in any sort of detail.
The specs for this thing have already trickled out long ago, so we’re all pretty confident it’ll rock an 8-megapixel camera, 1ghz Snapdragon processor, all packed behind a big ol’ 4″ capacitive touch screen. There’s also a really good chance it’ll be the first handset to tote Sony Ericsson’s super-slick Android UI, “Rachel” – but unfortunately, the spy photographer didn’t think to grab a shot of that.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Fresh off its weekend of new found fame and glory, Verizon’s upcoming Android 2.0 device, the Motorola Droid, appears to have found its way into the hands of the Boy Genius.
Ever since Google announced its mobile OS, Android, I’ve been waiting for someone (er, some company) to have the wherewithal to use this seemingly perfect gadget name – Droid. For anyone who has a special place in their heart for the original Star Wars trilogy, the word ‘droid’ conjures up happy memories of an angsty teen riding into Mos Eisley with his new mentor and a couple of droids: “These aren’t the droids you are looking for,” explains the all-wise Obi Wan to some Stormtroopers. Fortunately for VZW/MOTO, this is the droid (an officially licensed TM from Lucasfilms) that many a consumer has been looking for…or so it seems.
Not only are we glad to see the old code-names, Sholes and Tao, kicked to the curb, but we’re pretty excited to see some more real, live shots of the MOTO Droid. But first, a one-sentence summary of BGR’s impressions: fastest, thinnest QWERTY, and most exciting Android phone ever. Now for a few pics:
For more, head on over to BGR’s photo gallery.
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 CNET News | Gartner: Loosen up on social networks, security CNET News That's how analysts advised Gartner Symposium attendees here Monday, arguing that corporate computing departments shouldn't block social networking and that security shouldn't completely lock down communications with the outside ... Gartner Sees Slight Rebound In 2010 IT Spending, Offers Budgeting Advice Gartner: IT spending growth next year Gartner Says 2009 Global IT Spending Decline Worst Ever |
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Assuming we can believe this latest leaked screenshot, then it looks like we are going to see the Blackberry Storm 2 launch with MiFi capabilities. The details are coming courtesy of a screen capture from the Verizon Infomanager system and appear to show that the “Totally New Storm2” will be launching on October 21 and featuring the capability that many have come to love in the MiFi.
Unfortunately, this little detail, despite being exciting is nothing more than a capture from an internal Verizon system, which means that despite good intentions and the real possibility—things could change or simply be entirely inaccurate.
Anyway time will tell on this one, but assuming for a minute that it is real and the Storm 2 will also feature an internal MiFi, this could be something to watch. Maybe not enough to convince anyone to purchase a BlackBerry, but maybe enough to convince other manufacturers that this is a feature that many would want. To me it seems a logical step moving past regular tethering functionality, of course many smartphones do not truly allow you to tether now.
Via [CrackBerry Forums]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Over the weekend, Verizon taunted the iPhone with television ads featuring the phrase “iDon’t” followed by a series of things the iPhone on rival network AT&T can’t do. This morning, we are treated to an early hands-on of the phone to perhaps confirm some of the ads claims. The ad encourages viewers to visit droiddoes.com, presumably where they’d find a phone from Verizon that can do those things. I still have to pinch myself that they are this excited about a Motorola phone.
The Motorola Droid, a touchscreen phone with slide out QWERTY keyboard is the new hope for a home run on the Verizon network. Boy Genius got some hands-on time and gushed at the phones amazing speed, beautiful screen, thin lines and ease of use. To sum it up:
“the Droid, even in its non-final form, is the most impressive phone we’ve used since the iPhone. It’s positively amazing”
Verizon’s TV spot points out some of the iPhone flaws: no simultaneous apps, no night images, no real keyboard, no open development, etc. Verizon’s website touts the things Droid does: high definition, multitasking, speech recognition, video, tunes, 10,000 apps and more. The tactic is interesting in pointing out the differences. While I’d rather see Droid stand on its own, Verizon is under pressure from the iPhone, so they succumb to the Instinct-like comparisons.
It seems Google had a bigger hand in this phone than perhaps most Android phones. It seems Verizon brought Google in directly to work with Motorola down to Google calling out specs of the phone for total optimization. The Droid does not have the Blur skin that Motorola is so proud of, rather it runs Android 2.0.
While the hands-on was on a pre production device, we believe the high points of the phone will remain unchanged. This is going to be a important device on the Verizon network.
Read [Boy Genius Report] and [droiddoes]
Image credit: Boy Genius Report
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
I know. More bike lights. My excuse is that winter is a-coming and any way of getting cyclists to brighten up their rides is a good one.
Today’s bike lamp product is the Dosun J-1 Safety Pedal (or “Safty” pedal, as it is proudly spelled on the unnavigable Flash-site), a replacement platform pedal with a light inside. The pair of old-school rubber pedals each has a small LED bank powered by the spinning motion of the axles inside (or the spinning of the pedals themselves. It’s all relative, as they say), and thirty seconds of spinning fills the capacitors for ninety seconds of flashing, enough to get you through all but the most harrowing traffic-light track-stands.
The lights are embedded in the corners in each pedal, front and back, but because they are all red you might have legal trouble in some countries where the forward facing light should be white. They’re also all-but waterproof and have the added bonus that you could put them on a single-speed hipster-bike and not spoil the clean lines (there are no provisions for toe-clips so fixed-gear riders should stay away). $40.
Product page [Dosun via Urban Velo]
See Also:
It used to be that “convergence” meant putting two different (but hopefully complementary) devices into the same case. Scratch that. This still happens today, as proved by the Alex, a long box with an e-book reader in one end and an Android-powered cellular device in the other. The dual-screen device, from a company called Spring Design, is like a Pop-Tart with jelly in one end and baloney in the other.
The Alex (we have no idea about that name) aims to strike a balance between the full-color, fully responsive LCD screen at the bottom, used for web surfing, and the e-ink panel above, used for reading books. The idea is that once you have found what you like, you can send it upstairs and kill the battery-guzzling color part, reading the content on the eye and battery friendly e-ink screen. It also goes the other way, with links in the e-ink display opening pictures and video in the color one. This is called “dynamic hyperlinked multimedia information” and was sent through time to the Spring research labs from 1995.
Aside from the ugly design (and that damned name) it’s a fine idea, let down by one thing. Most of us have a cellphone already, or at least some kind of portable device that can both browse the web and save longer articles to the Instapaper service, which lets you hit a bookmark to convert articles into text and read them later, on a web browser, the iphone, or even have them emailed to your Kindle.
The other problem with two screens (despite the inevitable hit to battery life) is that the Alex is big, as in long and tall. We’d much rather have a bigger, single e-paper screen. As it is you get 6-inch e-ink display and a 3-inch color display. To rephrase, you get a Kindle and an iPhone screen in one, only without all the extra functions.
Spring says it “has been working with major book stores, newspapers and publishers over the past two years.” Remember the hot rumor that a Barnes and Noble device would be showing up soon and feature two screens, one color and one of electronic ink? This could well be it. One thing that is certain is that this won’t be the last goofy e-book design. We have a long way to go before natural selection gives us a design as perfect as the paper book itself. Price and launch date to be announced.
Product page [Spring Design. Thanks, Eric!]
We love this human-powered reading chair by Rochus Jacob, which powers an OLED lamp with the rocking motion of the reader beneath, keeping your pages illuminated by night and storing excess jiggle-energy in batteries by day.
How does the Murakami Chair work? “Advanced nano-dynamo technology which is built in to the skids of the chair.” Quite. This is probably the reason that the chair is just a concept design rather than a real, working product. Still, when Jacob manages to find a hardware store that will sell him a few pounds of stick-on nano-dynamos, expect to see this in stores. Until that time, suck it up learn to deal with a few cables already.
Project page [Design Boom]
“Butterfingers”, they called us. “Slippery Sam.” “Ol’ Johnny Drop-a-Lot.”
Fine, we said. Names can’t hurt us.
How can you not love a pitch that starts like that, especially when it’s from the folks at Photojojo, who have brought us all manner of cheap and smart photography gadgets over the years? And double-especially when the pitch is not for a product at all, but for a rather professional-looking DIY project. This time, its a hand strap for your camera.
To summarize: Neck straps are secure and keep the camera handy, but they are horribly uncomfortable (especially with heavy cameras) and they can get in the way.
Over-the-shoulder straps, like the R-Strap from Black Rapid, are much more useful, but cost a lot.
Finally, hand straps are a great idea, keeping the camera secure in your hand without trailing a tail of canvas behind them. The problem is price and quality, and I have never found one that works right.
Photojojo shows you how to make your own. The ingredients consist of a 1-inch nylon strap, a plastic buckle, a bolt that fits the tripod bush and a key-ring. You’ll also need a lighter or a match, but I’ll let you ready for yourself to find out what for (hint: it’s not a celebratory Cuban cigar).
I shall be making one of these. In fact, I think I have everything I need in the junk box. Go check it out.
Product page [Photojojo]
An invitation has shown up online that hints at a new professional Canon DSLR, the 1D Mark 4. The 1D Mark III that it would replace is Canon’s oddball pro-level 1.3x crop-frame sensor DSLR (Canon has two different crop-frames in addition to its full-frame models, 1.3x and 1.6x).
Rumors say that Canon will be following current fashion and the new body will have a high ISO capability for low-light shooting, around 16 megapixels (which would be odd given Canon’s recent admission that more isn’t better by dropping the G11’s pixel count compared to the previous G10), and of course HD video.
These predictions are really pretty easy to make if you pay any attention to the DSLR market. What we have no idea about is the price, a place where the big battles are currently being fought. The rumors say $5000. Given that the previous MkIII launched at $4000, and that Nikon’s best camera, the D3s, can be had for $5000, that could be a little steep.
Canon 1D Mark IV Coming Tuesday, Oct. 20… [Photography Bay]
The Kindle starts shipping internationally today. That’s exciting for some folks, as we were waiting until the Kindle debuted to buy our first e-book reader. But the launch hides many disappointments, as well as some significant advantages. Here’s a rundown of what you need to know about Kindle International.
This is the big change inside that will let the Kindle work outside the United States. It is powered by AT&T (the other Kindles use Sprint’s CDMA network which is pretty much U.S.-only). U.S. owners going abroad will be able to download new books or magazine subscriptions while away (very handy for travel guides), and international Kindle owners will of course be able to use the Whispernet service to buy books.
But as we’ve mentioned before, despite having an always-on internet connection, most countries outside the United States will get the neither the “experimental” web browser nor access to blogs (this means Amazon’s for-pay blog delivery). Some countries, including Mexico and Japan, will get the web, but still no blogs. And sure, the Kindle’s browser is pretty poor, but hey, what about Wikipedia? The Kindle was supposed to be the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, right?
And roaming U.S. owners don’t get away with this, either. You’ll have to pay an extra $2 for international delivery.
The hardware is embarrassingly U.S.-centric. In fact, this is putting it lightly. The “International” Kindle will sport a U.S. power adapter (reports say even that is a lucky break, and Australians have to make do with a USB charger only) and also, according to several of our readers, a U.S.-layout keyboard. As Gadget Lab commenter SimonBP asks, “Is this really an international product or just a legit gray export?”
And don’t even get us started on the pricing, which is in U.S. dollars but still varies from place to place.
In the United States, Amazon is fighting for the right not to charge sales tax on its physical orders, the excuse being that it delivers (usually) from out-of-state and that the buyer is responsible for declaring taxable purchases (yeah, right).
Internationally, on delivery of bits and bytes, tax is being levied. The amount of import tax varies from country to country, and Amazon, presumably because it has to, charges you upfront. By contrast, many physical goods which a friend of mine imports from the United States by post never get taxed.
Hopefully subject to change soon, the Kindle for iPhone application is not yet available outside the U.S. store. It’s highly probable that it has been held up by Apple’s approval process, but then perhaps Amazon should have submitted it earlier.
This is one of the Kindle’s most compelling features. You can read the book on the e-ink screen but when you are, say, waiting on line in a store or want to read in bed with the lights out, you can fire up the iPhone app and carry on from where you left off. Hurry up, Amazon.
Right now, the Kindle Store sells only English-language books. This is bad enough in the United States where Spanish is the first language of many, but internationally this is a huge problem. We guess that as the Kindle uptake grows, more publishers will add books in other languages, but right now the international market is limited to English-speakers.
On the other hand, for people like me living abroad, this is a great feature. I can now buy a wider range of English books than I can from local Spanish bookshops, cheaper and instantly. Previously the best option was Amazon, but the delivery charges killed the value, and I had to wait for days or weeks to get the order.
This is common to all Kindles, and to almost all e-books you can buy, but it’s worth a mention. If you think a Kindle can replace your paper books, you are dead wrong. DRM means you can’t trade in the books at a second-hand book store, or sell them at all. Nor can you lend them, which is what I do with most of my dead-tree books.
And worst of all, Amazon can pull the books of your device at any time, thanks to the always-connected nature of the Kindle (as demonstrated with almost unbelievable irony in the case of Orwell’s 1984 getting recalled).
Still, I have one on order, and it should arrive Wednesday. I also have the desktop version of the excellent iPhone e-reader Stanza, which will convert any text or PDF and add it to the Kindle, free, using USB, thus avoiding the $1-per-megabyte transfer fee.
Did I mention that fee already? Amazon charges $100 per gigabyte to transfer your own documents via its wireless network. Clearly the e-book market will need to go through the same pain as the movie and music industries before we customers finally get what we want.
Photo credit: troyh/Flickr (Yes, we know it’s the Kindle v1 but the picture is awesome anyway).
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The big, obvious take away from 
I follow a lot of people on 
I’m still not sure if the 
Casio EXILIM Keitai CA003
Sharp AQUOS SHOT SH003
Sharp AQUOS SHOT SH004
Sharp AQUOS SHOT SH005
Sony Ericsson S002
Kyocera SA001
While the various forms of social media are becoming increasingly important to brands, Apple is one company that hasn’t exactly rushed to get involved. Sure, they have a few accounts here and there, but they’re not exactly Google, with 
Earlier this evening the LA Times Tech Blog ran a 
Right now Devin is probably doing Everclear shots and dancing the Macarena with an old woman in a pantsuit because it’s his birthday! That’s right, our own 
Google CEO 
Status: G1 launched October 22nd, 2008. Available internationally.
Status: HTC Magic Launched May 1, 2009; MyTouch 3G launched July 8, 2009. Available through T-Mobile and Vodafone
Status: HTC Hero Launched July 24th for Orange UK. T-Mobile G2 Touch Launched July 29th.
Status: Available in T-Mobile UK
Status: Launched in July; Available on European Carriers
Status: Launched October 8th on Vodaphone
Status: Available October 19th, 2009 on T-Mobile and Orange UK
Status: Rumored to be available October 31st on Verizon
Status: Available November 1st from Sprint
Status: Rumored to be available in November from AT&T
Status: Rumored to be launched in November
Status: Rumored to be available during Holidays 2009
Status: Rumored to be available in January
Status: Upcoming on China Mobile
Status: Upcoming on China Mobile
Status: Upcoming on Vodafone
Status: Rumored on AT&T (possibly canceled)
Status: Rumored
Status: Rumored on Verizon
Status: Rumored
Status: Rumored
Status: Rumored on T-Mobile USA
Status: Rumored on T-Mobile USA
Status: Rumored
