Turning a Cell Phone Into a Microscope

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Today Meet Virtual Goods Expert Susan Wu in Second Life!

Modern Warfare 2 gearing up for massive launch - The Money Times

guardian.co.uk

Modern Warfare 2 gearing up for massive launch The Money Times New York, November 8 -- With holiday season around the corner, Activision Blizzard Inc. is gearing up to launch “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2”, touted to be the best video game of the year. ... Modern Warfare 2 - PC Player Concerns Won't Deter SalesFatman Games Digital stores will not sell Modern Warfare 2 due to SteamworksAfterdawn.com War Game Aims for Record SalesLos Angeles Business Journal Wall Street Journal -AFP -Gamasutra all 123 news articles »

Tudou: A Push Towards Mobile Video and Profits

Tudou: A Push Towards Mobile Video and Profits

Executives from Tudou—one of two companies left fighting it out to be the YouTube of China—were in San Francisco earlier this week to meet with investors and do a little schmoozing.

I met up with CEO Gary Wang and COO Sam Lai, who already raised some $85 million from Granite Global Ventures and General Catalyst Partners, and they swore they weren’t here trying to raise more cash. That’s a bit of a shock. Last we wrote about Tudou and its arch-competitor YouKu, they were burning through hundreds of millions between them trying to find what YouTube still hasn’t: A way for online advertising to pay for video’s outrageous broadband costs.

But more on Tudou’s financial prospects in a moment. One of the more interesting things we talked about was the company’s new push into mobile. Last week, Tudou won a deal to be the online video channel for China Mobile. Other than one-upping YouKu, who Wang says lost the deal, this doesn’t mean a huge amount yet. So far video can only run on high-end phones and much of China can’t even get 2G access, let alone 3G. And those who can have to pony up a pricey 150 RMB a year. While many game companies have reached massive new audiences via mobile, the people watching Tudou’s videos on their cell phones are likely the same affluent audience the company is already reaching.

But Tudou sees that changing in a few years for four reasons. One, China Mobile is investing some 58 billion RMB to build out 3G capacity in the country this year and will match that investment next year, hoping to catch up to other countries soon.

Two, phones are changing. Taiwan chip company MTK is developing chipsets that allow very low-end phones the ability to download and upload video. Low-cost MTK chips already supplies chips for roughly one-third of the Chinese handset market, Wang says.

Three, concurrent with the connectivity roll out and the dramatic step- up in what a crappy feature phone can do, data plans are plummeting in price. Lai says China Mobile is planning video-subscription plans that offer unlimited uploading and downloading of video for the equivalent of 75 cents a month. That’ll break user generated video in China wide open.

And lastly, in China people are replacing their handsets roughly every nine months. That means all of these changes could ripple out faster than if they required, day, a PC upgrade cycle to complete.

Forget YouTube running on an iPhone as the model—if Tudou’s plan plays out this could mean huge things for video in China, India, Africa and any other emerging market where basic mobile handset adoption and access is widespread but laptop-Internet usage lags. User generated video, gonzo journalism, and self-expression on this kind of scale will make Tweeting about the Iranian election (even if the merit of that can be debatable) look like a prehistoric version of social media-helping-social-good.

And of course, in many countries monetizing over mobile is easier than monetizing over the Web, because mobile minutes—whether pre-paid or subscription based—are essentially becoming currency for people without credit cards.

Tudou sees mobile video starting to take off in 2010, growing rapidly in 2011, and in 2012 generating enough actual revenues to equal what it makes in traditional online advertising.

So, what about those online ads? Wang had vowed when we last talked that the company would prove profitability without raising more money. There are two ways to do this: Sell more ads and clamp down on broadband. To stay alive Tudou, and some of its competitors, have had to do something most Valley companies would find unimaginable: Restrict how many people can view their site. By just making its broadband pipe bigger, Tudou, YouKu or a new competitor could double views in short order—but it’d be bled dry financially in the process. Proof? Since we last talked, Wang says he’s doubled bandwidth and was at capacity again in two weeks.

To add to the costs, Wang is running around Asia doing content deals to add professionally produced, non-pirated content to the 30 million pieces of video inventory Tudou has already. In fact, next year, he expects to spend more on content deals than on broadband. He says these deals are small compared to what gets done between the Valley and Hollywood. A hot new show (think an “Entourage” of Asia) may cost the equivalent of $200,000 US dollars for a two-year run, while a popular, but older show (think a “Friends” of Asia) would cost just $200 in US dollars for a two-year run.

Meanwhile, Tudou is producing a ton of original content including a TMZ-style entertainment news show and a “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” style reality show it co-produced with Nokia. Reality TV is a natural for producing lean content for a mostly TV-entertainment-starved nation. The Nokia show cost some $500,000 in US dollars to produce and thirty million uniques tuned in for the six live shows, where contestants could use friends or search engines on their Nokia N97s to help get the answers. A 20-year old girl won 1 million RMB at the end. In fact, it’s original content like that that helped Tudou win the China Mobile deal over competitors, Wang says. (No one wants to get dragged into a copyright war who doesn’t have to.)

It may seem a lot for one company to take on, but that’s the Internet business in China. Since so much of what we’d consider “old” media is developing at the same time, it’s a total land-grab free-for-all when it comes to content and information.

That’s the cost side. Wang said that revenues are increasing 40% per quarter, but admitted it was a small base. Total advertising revenues in China are small for the market: about $15 billion-$20 billion in US dollars. Half of that goes to TV, and a tiny 6% or so goes to online, Wang says. It’s at most $100 million in US dollars the country is carving up. (This could explain why sales of virtual goods are such a hot market.) He’s hoping to break even next year.

To put it mildly, between broadband costs, content deals, pioneering a new advertising segment in a young ad market, and now moving video to mobile, this is not an easy business. There’s a reason that out of thousands of YouTube copy cats, YouKu and Tudou are the only big ones that have survived, by most people’s estimations.

But unlike when I wrote my post last May, there seems enough traction that someone can survive in China’s online video business—whether it’s Tudou, YouKu, or a competing site launched by an existing Chinese Internet giant like Tencent or Sina. And that’s good news for the country’s 200 million Internet users.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

W. Africa's last giraffes make surprising comeback

Checking Gold’s Hotness

Lulu Introduces DRM

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Car-thief steals car to drive to car-theft arraignment

Toronto Star copyeditor edits memo announcing the elimination of copyeditor jobs

Toronto Star copyeditor edits memo announcing the elimination of copyeditor jobs

This is very funny stuff, but having looked at the markup, I have to say that I would ask for a different copyeditor in future. A lot of these edits ("avoid simplistic qualifiers" for "very") fall under the heading of "creative disagreement" not "helpful suggestion" or "correction." I've generally benefitted from copyeditors who know the difference, but on the rare occasion where I've had to deal with a couple hundred pages of redlines by a copyeditor who thought that he was my co-author, it's been quite a struggle.

Disgruntled Star Editor Takes Constructive Revenge (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)


Source: Boing Boing | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:25 pm

'World-mode' iPhone due next year, says fanboi rumor - Register

UberGizmo (blog)

'World-mode' iPhone due next year, says fanboi rumor Register The Jobsian cult is hard at work on a "world-mode" iPhone capable of tapping both CDMA and GSM/UMTS wireless networks, according to the fanboi rumor mill. Citing a report from investment research firm OTR Global - which cites unnamed sources in the ... Apple said to be working on 'world-mode' iPhoneCNET News Apple Readies 'World Mode' iPhone, Report SaysPC World Verizon to pick up the iPhone in Q3 2010?IntoMobile (blog) Wired News -TheCelebrityCafe.com -Apple Insider all 33 news articles »

Japan eyes solar station in space as new energy source

iPhone disappoints in China launch: analysts (AFP)

AFP - The official launch of Apple's iPhone in China has been disappointing at best for mobile operator China Unicom, with the grey market still booming and competitors offering worthy alternatives, experts say.

Advertisers face resistance to on-line tracking

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 9:15 pm

"Modern Warfare 2" strikes on Tuesday (AFP)

AFP - "Modern Warfare 2" strikes on Tuesday in a worldwide assault eagerly anticipated by lovers of the blockbuster role-playing battle videogame franchise.

ReadWriteWeb Events Guide, 7 November 2009

NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how ‘citizen journalists’ can’t handle the truth

I’d probably feel slightly smug, if I didn’t feel so sick.

Smug that after two weeks of me suggesting that social media might not be an unequivocally Good Thing in terms of privacy and human decency, the news has delivered the perfect example to support my view.

Unfortunately it’s hard to feel smug – hard to feel anything but sadness and nausea – when thirteen innocent people are dead.

I’m talking, of course, about Thursday’s Fort Hood shootings. Better informed and more sensitive commentators than I have written about the massacre itself and what it means for the US army, and in particular for the thousands of Muslim soldiers currently fighting – and dying – for this country. How do you even begin to process the idea of an American soldier shouting the takbir, before mowing down his comrades in arms? On American soil? At the home base of the Combat Warrior Stress Reset program? Yes, that’s definitely one for the experts to parse.

And yet, the first news and analysis out of the base didn’t come from the experts. Nor did it come from the 24-hour news media, or even from dedicated military blogs – but rather from the Twitter account of one Tearah Moore, a soldier from Linden, Michigan who is based at Fort Hood, having recently returned from Iraq.

When Major Nidal Malik Hasan began his killing spree, commanders immediately put the base into lock-down in accordance with military procedure. Movements in and out were severely restricted, as was the flow of information to the news media. Official statements from army spokesperson Lt. Gen. Robert Cone were the only way for reporters to find out what was happening, while other base personnel focused on treating the wounded, and ensuring the threat had been dealt with. Or at least that’s what the commanders thought was happening. In reality Ms Moore’s was tweeting minute-by-minute reports from inside the hospital where the wounded were being taken for treatment.

Reports like (in no particular order)…

[T]hey just brought a CART full of boxes w/transplant parts in them. Not good not good. #fthood

Ok we just saw a soldier on a stretcher w/2 armed guards walking by He didnt look like he was in great condition.

Maj Malik A Hassan. He shouldn’t have died. He should be in the worst suffering of his life. It’s too fair for him to just die. Bastard!

A FUCKING MAJOR? Are you kidding me? A MAJ! For those of ut hat don’t know, Army MAJ have pretty serious rank. Dick

Someone just started shooting in Commanche 4 which is on post housing. What are these people thinking?!?

The poor guy that got shot in the balls http://twitpic.com/oejh5

That last twitpic link was particularly amazing: it showed a cameraphone image – of a wounded soldier arriving at the hospital on a gurney – taken by Moore from inside the hospital. Unsurprisingly, Moore’s – coverage was quickly picked up by bloggers and mainstream media outlets alike, something that she actively encouraged by tweeting to friends that they should pass her phone number to the press so she could tell them the truth, rather than the speculative bullshit that was hitting the wires.

There was just one problem: Moore’s information was bullshit too.

As we now know, Major Hassan was not killed, but rather captured alive. Reports of a second – or third – shooter also now appear to be inaccurate. Whether someone was shot “in the balls” hasn’t been publicly confirmed and, for the sake the of the victim’s privacy, let’s hope it never is – but the point is that many of Moore’s eye-witness reports weren’t worth the bits they were written on. They had no value whatsoever, except as entertainment and tragi-porn.

Two weeks ago, I wrote here about how the ‘real time web’ is turning all of us into inhuman egotists. How we’re increasingly seeing people at the scenes of major accidents grabbing their cellphones to capture the dramatic events and share them with their friends, rather than calling 911. Last week I went even further with my doom-mongering, suggesting that the trend of adding people’s homes to Foursquare without permission was indicative of a generation that prioritised their own fun over the privacy of their friends.

In the actions of Tearah Moore at Fort Hood, we have the perfect example of both kinds of selfishness.

There surely can’t be a human being left in the civilised world who doesn’t know that cellphones should be switched off in hospitals, and yet not only did Moore leave hers on but she actually used it to photograph patients, and broadcast the images to the world. Just think about that for a second. Rather than offering to help the wounded, or getting the hell out of the way of those trying to do their jobs, Moore actually pointed a cell-phone at a wounded soldier, uploaded it to twitpic and added a caption saying that the victim “got shot in the balls”.

Her behaviour had nothing to do with getting the word out; it wasn’t about preventing harm to others, but rather a simple case of – as I said two weeks ago – “look at me looking at this.” (I don’t know about you, but if I spotted someone taking a picture of one of my friends or relatives in a hospital then they would probably need a hospital bed of their own. “Tell me, Ms Moore, exactly how did the iPhone end up in your lower intestine?”)

Perhaps fittingly, I posted some of these thoughts on Twitter yesterday, as events were still unfolding. Many people agreed with me – replying with links to the specific military codes that cover what information solidiers can share, and the HIPAA which deals with patient privacy. But plenty of others felt that by criticising Moore I was advocating censorship.

As one reply put it, sarcastically: “Yes indeed, let’s moderate twitter and vet all tweets…” Others pointed out that it was just this kind of photography and ‘citizen journalism’ that ensured that the truth got out during the Iranian elections. What about the global outrage at seeing the famous YouTube video of Neda Agha Soltan, shown dying after being shot by (alledgedly) pro-government agents?

Yes – what of it?

For all of our talk about “the world watching”, what good did social media actually do for the people of Iran? Did the footage out of the country actually change the outcome of the elections? No. Despite a slew of YouTube videos and a couple of thousand foreign Twitter users turning their avatar green and pretending to be in Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still in power. It’s astonishing, really. Despite how successful ten million actual voters marching through Washington, London and other major cities in 2003 were in stopping the invasion of Iraq, a bit of entirely virtual cyber-posturing by foreigners didn’t lead to real change in Iran.

And so it was at Fort Hood. For all the sound and fury, citizen journalism once again did nothing but spread misinformation at a time when thousands people with family at the base would have been freaking out already, and breach the privacy of those who had been killed or wounded. We learned not a single new fact, nor was a single life saved.

What’s most alarming about Moore’s behaviour is that she probably thought she was doing the right thing. Certainly, looking at her MySpace page and her Twitter account (before the army finally forced her to lock it down) we see the portrait of a patriot. Someone who clearly cares a great deal about others, and who – despite the rhetorical question “remind me why I joined the army again” on her profile – is proud to serve her country. In tweeting from the scene, and calling out the media for not reporting the rumours from inside the base, I’m sure she genuinely believed she was helping get the real truth out, and making an actual difference.

And that’s precisely the problem: none of us think we’re being selfish or egotistic when we tweet something, or post a video on YouTube or check-in using someone’s address on Foursquare. It’s just what we do now, no matter whether we’re heading out for dinner or witnessing a massacre on an Army base. Like Lord of the Flies, or the Stanford Prison Experiment, as long as we’re all losing our perspective at the same time – which, as a generation growing up with social media we are – then we don’t realise that our humanity is leaking away until its too late.

As I’ve already said – and I’m even starting to bore myself now – the answer isn’t censorship (which won’t work), but rather in our social evolution catching up with the state of technology. We need to get back to a point as a society where – without thinking – we put our humanity before our ego. With that in mind, and in the hope of hurrying the process along slightly, I’m going to draw these three nay-saying columns to a close, not with yet another appeal to the better nature of social media addicts but rather with two videos that everyone should watch.

The first is a clip from This American Life which I stumbled across on the blog of the comedy writer, Graham Linehan (Father Ted, The IT Crowd). It’s a thing of beauty. And absolutely terrifying. Just watch it.

The second video is much less heartwarming, but far more terrifying – because it’s entirely real. So real in fact, that I don’t want to embed it here. I want you to make a conscious decision to click through and watch it. It’s the video of the final moments of Neda Agha Soltan’s life.

Even if you’ve seen the footage before, you should watch it again. But this time bear in mind the following: the cameraman was not a professional reporter, but rather an ordinary person, just like the victim. And what did he do when he saw a young girl bleeding to death? Did he run for help, or try to assist in stemming the bleeding? No he didn’t.

Instead he pointed his camera at her and recorded her suffering, moving in closer to her face for her agonising final seconds. For all of our talk of citizen journalism, and getting the truth out, the last thing that terrified girl saw before she closed her eyes for the final time was some guy pointing a cameraphone at her. “Look at me, looking at her, looking back at me.”

Here’s the link.

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NSFW: After Fort Hood, another example of how 'citizen journalists' can't handle the truth

Video: First footage of EA Sports MMA

I’m over here watching the Strikeforce show on CBS and there’s ads for EA Sports MMA all over the place. So I’m like, “hmm, maybe EA Sports has posted the trailer to its Web site yet?”

Yes. Yes it has.

Let the record show that I beat Sherdog and all the gaming sites I usually visit to this news. Go me~!

Test of 16 Anti-Virus Products Says None Rates "Very Good"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Horrible Things" Slink Back Into Zynga

“Horrible Things” Slink Back Into Zynga

Just five days ago Zynga CEO Mark Pincus said mobile subscriptions, among other scammy offers, would be removed from Zynga’s popular Facebook and MySpace games. “We have also removed all mobile ads until we see any that offer clear user value,” he said.

So we were surprised yesterday to see a screen shot clearly showing a mobile subscription ad in a post on InsideSocialGames about the launch of a new Zynga game, FishVille.

I went to the game to check myself, but those mobile ads weren’t there. I assumed they had quickly been taken down, or there was some other reasonable explanation.

They weren’t taken down though. Or rather, they were, but just for me. Other users were still seeing the same mobile ads. And the filtering was clearly directed at me, since I logged in on the same IP address with a friends account and saw the ads. I held a laptop showing the ads up next to my screen that didn’t show the ads and took a picture:

Is Zynga intentionally blocking ads to journalists and bloggers that have criticized them for the practice, while leaving them up for everyone else? More on that in a minute.

The ads, which have now been removed after I emailed Zynga, are exactly the same as before, and they are the main reason I started the whole series of posts on social games – see our ScamVille post and related updates.

These ads clearly violate Facebook’s terms and conditions. They don’t state on the offer page that the user is required to enter into a $10 – $20/month mobile subscription, and there is no opt in by the user before entering in personal information. And they also violate the rules in other minor ways, like having auto-playing video and audio in the ads.

There’s an image at the bottom of the post showing just the mobile offers that were up on Zynga’s games until earlier today when we asked them about this. All of these violate Facebook’s existing terms, and any normal human being would consider them scams. And none of these should be there given Zynga’s promise to take down all mobile offers.

Since most people have never experienced one of these ads to understand just what we’re talking about, I made a video. After ten minutes I had been asked to subscribe to 5 or 6 separate mobile subscriptions, had been asked for my birthday, and had been asked to enter in my email address. Even after all that I hadn’t earned the originally promised coins, and abandoned the effort (getting users to abandon these offers part way through is its own business model, referred to as “breakage”). Here’s the video:

What’s disheartening to me isn’t that Zynga put the mobile ads back up, or even that appear to have selectively blocked me so that I don’t personally see the ads. Their motivations are quite clear. What’s really disappointing is that Facebook, even after promising to enforce their rules, continues to just turn a blind eye to this stuff. I know Facebook hates the negative press, but I am really starting to think that they couldn’t care less about their users getting scammed.

In the last few days the industry really started to make the right moves and I thought this was a problem that would soon be solved. But then I realized that as much users hate being scammed, and as much as the press is willing to put the pressure on (both Time and Newsweek are pointing the finger at Facebook), there may just be too much money at stake for any meaningful self regulation to occur.

We await official comments from Zynga and Facebook.

Update: From Zynga “We asked all offer provider networks to remove the mobile category. Upon learning today that one provider was still showing 6 ads, we asked them to remove these too. They told us they hadn’t realized this was still in their testing queue and immediately removed them.”

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

Video conferencing coming to Google Talk

Section: Video, Communications, Web, Web Apps, Google

Google is once again looking to expand the features of Google Talk, and the latest will make it more of a conferencing tool as opposed to something simply used to chat with a friend. In other words, it looks like Google Talk will be getting more professional features.

According to a recent report in the SFGate;

“This [current Gmail capability] is the first step in a much broader set of features we hope to roll out over the next six to 12 months around video [and voice] chat capabilities,” said Rishi Chandra, a Google Apps product manager. “It’s a great opportunity for us to push that space along.”

All things considered, this sort of makes sense. After all Google is just about everywhere, and this will add one more reason for a business to take advantage of Google Apps for your domain. Of course, I am also cringing at the same time because assuming this roles out to regular Gmail users as well as Google Apps users it could be a nightmare for some. Personally, it would seem as if I can now look forward to having multiple screaming children (as opposed to one) coming from my daughters room even when she is home alone. Thanks Google, I think.

Read [SFGate]  Via [Google Operating System]

Think The Droid Launch Was A Let Down? Not So Fast. - Washington Post

Ghacks Technology News

Think The Droid Launch Was A Let Down? Not So Fast. Washington Post Yesterday I detailed my quest to find the throngs of Droid fans who had woken up at the crack of dawn to grab a place in line before Verizon unleashed the phone to the masses. Yet despite reports of lines elsewhere, I failed ? the Verizon store in Palo ... No Droid For Me, iPhone Is The PC Of SmartphonesPC World Verizon's Motorola Droid may not entice existing iPhone usersTopNews United States Droid Launch Surprises Verizon Employees - iPhone Comparisons AboundFatman Games eWeek -PC Magazine -Wall Street Journal all 149 news articles »

69adget’s Top 7 Ways to Stay Warm this Winter [NSFW]

Cold, miserable winters are about the best time to create some heat with a loved one… or yourself. If you’re picturing a bear skin rug and roaring fire, well, things have come a long way. We’re talking about couples toys and technology to keep things spicy, even in the coldest weather.

Warm Up
Everyone knows that sex is all about foreplay. (Guys, we know this, right?) Rather than going zero to 60 in ten minutes, incorporate some fun winter toys to get you and your partner in the mood.

Massage Oil Heater
Channel your inner 70’s porn star with the Pure Gel Bottle Warmer and avoid a “this is going to be cold” Dr.’s office moment. This baby even warms multiple bottles so you can bust out different flavored lubes or massage oils based on your beau’s preferences.

Philips Warm Sensual Massager
If your date didn’t run screaming when he or she saw the heated oil contraption, it’s fair game to whip out the Philips Warm Sensual Massager for him or her. Even if it seems lame, there’s nothing that gets you in the mood more than a massage. Hands down. What makes this vibrating massager different is the fact that it heats up and is specifically designed for couples use. It even comes with some cheesetastic LED candles for “setting the mood.” Hot.

The Main Event
When you’re ready for the main event, trust these toys to keep your session extra hot.

Durex Play Warming Lube
The winter is the perfect time for some heated lube. Durex Play Warming Lube is designed to heat up with your own body temperature and get hotter with contact to heighten sensation. This lube is something that your lady will primarily feel, but don’t worry guys you will feel it too, like warm apple pie. Thankfully, it’s completely edible and the heat intensifies when you blow on it. Some people may complain that it’s too hot, but I say if you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen!

The Hot Rod Heated Vibrator
No matter how realistic your vibrator may be, the one thing that’s always missing is the sensation of body heat that you get from a partner –Sigh- Thank you Hot Rod Heated Vibrator for providing us with a heated vibrator complete with realistic skin sleeve that makes using it comparable to the real thing. You really never need a date again.

Vibrating Heated Nipple Clamps
For the truly daring, give these Vibrating Heated Nipples Clamps a try. Apparently nipple clamps are designed for men or women to stimulate your nipples, leaving your hands free to do other things. Will the vibration and sensation be enough to keep your headlights beaming and warm?! Give it a try and see.

Cool Down & Clean Up
If the pre-show and main event left you feeling dirty, jump in the shower for some post game clean up. Because what’s better than a warm hot shower on a cold winter day…

Suction Cup Shower Handcuffs
These Suction Cup Shower Handcuffs offer couples that dominatrix moment in the tub or shower. The cuffs are made of sturdy neoprene and Velcro with industrial strength suction cups that can easily adhere to a shower door or wall tiles. What flat surface you attach them to out of the shower is none of our business.

Vibrating Sponge
Because obviously a regular loofa isn’t going to suffice this winter, grab a vibrating sponge to surprise your extra dirty lover. This vibrating sponge looks and feels like a normal sponge, but is sooo much more. Waterproof with a bullet vibrator hidden deep within, the sponge even has a hand strap for maximum control. Soap up and get dirty! This device is also a great if your love making session didn’t quite do it and you need to step away for some much needed alone time.

For more about the latest sex toys and technology, check out 69adget.com

North Carolina Students Sweep Regional Finals of Nation's Premier High School Science Competition for Research in Biochemistry and Computer Science

Apple TV 3.0.1 update addresses disappearing content issue (Macworld.com)

Zoomquilt II: Flash zoom-through painting

WIPO Commitee Presentations Show Nuanced View of Copyright

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Think The Droid Launch Was A Let Down? Not So Fast.

Yesterday I detailed my quest to find the throngs of Droid fans who had woken up at the crack of dawn to grab a place in line before Verizon unleashed the phone to the masses. Yet despite reports of lines elsewhere, I failed — the Verizon store in Palo Alto was a ghost town, as was the Best Buy down the street. Some commenters took my story and similar reports as an indication that the Droid’s launch had bombed, doomed to play out the same fate of the numerous supposed ‘iPhone killers’ before it. It looks like they may be wrong — that store sold over 70 Droids yesterday, according to one of its employees.

Today I returned to the Verizon store where yesterday’s quest began, looking to get my hands on one of the nifty docking stations that turns your Droid into a desktop clock/multimedia station. And while I expected a handful of other customers to be in the store, I was taken aback by just how crowded it was — each of the registers was busy ringing up a customer while others waited their turn, three people were standing in line just to touch the demo Droid unit, and I had to put my name on the list to talk to someone. When I asked one of the employees if they were selling a lot of Droids, his somewhat breathless response was “Yeah, a lot. Over 70 yesterday, we got a shipment of another 100 in today.” Oh, and they were out of both the dock I had come for and spare batteries. Maybe the lack of an early morning line wasn’t so damning after all.

Obviously this store represents a single data point, but so did my story yesterday. Here’s some more evidence that Droid might be doing pretty well, after all: last night Pandora CTO Tom Conrad tweeted,

“Just saw Pandora’s Android install numbers for the day. Wow! There may not be lines, but Droids are very much among us – and running Pandora”.

We followed up for more details, and while Conrad declined to give any exact stats for now, he did say that Pandora’s download rate tripled, going on to say “We were doing well on Android before though, so the increase is pretty amazing.”

If you’re an Android dev, let us know in the comments if you’ve seen a boost too. And if you’ve passed your local Verizon store, let us know how busy it was.

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

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 4:30 pm

Simple, Cost-Effective, Multiroom Audio?

jimicus writes "I'd like a multiroom audio system but I'm thoroughly confused by the options available — and the difference in prices is huge. For instance, Philips have a wireless system which starts at around £280 — and Russound have a product which comes in around £1,000. I've already got all my music as MP3s and it lives on a NAS box — I don't really want to repeat that process. I also have a perfectly capable amp and speakers in my living room, so I don't really need anything else there. Whatever I go for has to pass the wife test — so something which requires a separate amp, speakers and PC in each room and requires a keyboard to control is right out. I don't mind spending a little money but I don't really want to find that every little extra thing adds up to £thousands. Has anyone else dealt with a similar problem? How did you solve it?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

BlueBeat vs. Beatles: 3 Things We've Learned (PC World)

PC World - It appears that audacious online retailer BlueBeat won't be selling Beatles tunes anytime soon. The little-known website had been hawking Fab Four tracks for 25 cents apiece until a federal court in Los Angeles slapped the site with a temporary restraining order this week.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Nov 2009 | 3:48 pm

Rubiks Cube-based real-life pixel art suggests too much time on someone’s hands

Sometimes, the medium is the message. In this case, the medium is Rubiks Cubes. The message is that there’s an Irish guy named John Quigley who has too much free time. I mean, I suppose you could say the same of many artists, but this is some seriously time-consuming stuff. And while it’s impressive, it seems rather… algorithmic, doesn’t it? I notice there are no original compositions.

I guess it’s a hobby. Better than mine, anyway (crying and punching my pillow, if you’re wondering).

[via Technabob]

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 3:30 pm

Apple Has No Sense Of Humor. Luckily, Google Does.

Last month, Apple rejected the Someecards iPhone app because it contained satirical comedy about public figures. After attempting to make their case and getting stonewalled, Someecards eventually gave into Apple and removed the offending cards which made fun of Hitler and Roman Polanski, among others. Apple swiftly approved the app and all was well.

Well, not exactly.

Apparently, Apple contacted Someecards a couple days ago because of some new content in the app — Someecards pushes new cards into the app just as it does on its site. There was one in particular that Apple did not find amusing, and wanted clarification on: A card making fun of President Obama Halloween costumes. It’s fairly easy to see why Apple wanted some clarification, the card involves race. Here’s what it says: “Just double-checking that your Obama costume will involve a mask and not shoe polish.”

Fans of Someecards will know that they use these types of provocative jokes all the time. The intent, it would seem, is not to be racist, but to use a joke to make a statement about race. “It’s kind of hard to explain humor, but I basically said it was making fun of racist behavior,” Someecards co-founder Duncan Mitchell tells us that he told Apple.

It is hard to explain humor. You either get a joke, or you do not. Apple, it seems, does not. “They said that they thought we could both agree we should remove the card. I said that we probably wouldn’t both agree that we should remove the card, but that we would remove it if they said we had to,” Mitchell says. “They said we had to.”

Anyone who has ever talked to just about any spokesperson at Apple will immediately relate to what Mitchell is saying. If Apple contacts you about something, they’re really contacting you to make you do what they want. If you don’t, there is often the threat of repercussions of some sort. In Someecards case, it would have meant pulling the app from the App Store.

As I’ve said many times, the App Store is Apple’s store, they can choose to do what they want with it. The problem is that Apple is perplexingly hypocritical when it comes to what apps get rejected and what apps get accepted. For example, apps that feature interactive Asian upskirt shots are fine. So are apps called Asian Boobs which feature young Asian women wearing next to nothing in sexually provocative poses. Also apparently fine is Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler’s famous work.

For whatever reason, Apple has decided that anything having to do with making fun of public figures is prohibited. Though satire is protected in this country, it’s apparently not okay in Apple law. Apple literally has no sense of humor when it comes to that. But guess who does? Google.

In a seemingly coincidental bit of timing, Mitchell says that Google contacted him just hours after his call with Apple. They were calling to see if he’d be interested in making the app for Android. Their big selling points? “They pitched us on all the cool new phones that were coming out, and they also wanted to stress that they wouldn’t censor the app,” Mitchell tells us (emphasis mine).

Google, it seems, has a much better sense of humor than Apple. And they’re definitely playing their cards right in attempting to set up Android’s Market as a more open alternative to Apple’s App Store. With over 100,000 apps now, the App Store is a juggernaut that keeps on growing. But it would be a mistake to believe this growth will continue on in perpetuity no matter what. Apple should be careful about pissing off developers (which it has done plenty of times already) when an alternative like Android is finally gaining some momentum.

Regular readers will know that unlike a couple of my colleagues, I’m firmly an iPhone guy. Despite the advances that competitors are making, I still truly believe it is hands-down the best mobile device out there. But, as I hope you’d expect, I’m not above calling out Apple’s bullshit when I see it — as I do, very often, with regard to the App Store.

I simply believe they are making a mistake with the way they’re trying to contain this environment. At first, it made sense from Apple’s perspective because the company is all about controlling the user experience. But as the App Store continues to grow, the app approval model be harder and harder to maintain. What happens when we get to a million apps in the App Store? What about 5 million? Is Apple prepared to hire thousands of people simply to approve apps? The more they hire and the more apps that keep coming in, we’re going to continue seeing more and more screw-ups and hypocrisy. And developers are going to grow more and more frustrated. This situation is simply not tenable.

Lighten up on your heavy-handed rules, Apple. And just lighten up in general.

[photo: flickr/swami stream]

CrunchBase Information

Apple

Google

Someecards

iPhone

Android

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

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Nov 2009 | 3:21 pm

Apple Rushes Out Apple TV Update To Cure Disappearing Content

Last week, Apple released its new 3.0 software for the Apple TV. Unfortunately, it looks like it came with a pretty big bug in tow: Disappearing content.

Here’s the problem in Apple’s words:

There is an issue with Apple TV software version 3.0 that can possibly cause your content to disappear after a period of time. All customers running Apple TV software version 3.0 should immediately restart their Apple TV and then upgrade to Apple TV software version 3.0.1.

Today, Apple has sent an email to all Apple TV owners advising them to immediately upgrade to the new 3.0.1 software to cure this issue. Obviously, you’ll want to do this as an Apple TV with no content is pretty much useless.

The new Apple TV 3.0 software has been generally well-received, though many feel it doesn’t go far enough to allow for content such as streaming web video. The UI has been improved, but it’s still hard to search for content without using an iPhone or iPod touch as the remote. The new Apple Remote works with the device, but it’s pretty much as useless as the white one in many ways.

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Apple TV

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Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Nov 2009 | 3:19 pm

New Zelda for Wii probably not coming until 2011

It’s not that we want to rush Nintendo in the creation of their next opus, but it might have been nice to have it in 2010. Perhaps the biggest of the “big three” Nintendo franchise games in the works (along with Super Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid: Other M) is “tracking” for 2010 but Nintendo isn’t committed to the year. I’m guessing they’re not going to push for a holiday 2010 release, but may have preorders available then so they can get in on the season.

The good news is that Mario and Metroid are on schedule for 2010 releases. Is this the year I buy a Wii? I don’t know, with these crazy 360 deals and the PS3 Slim out there, it’s still a real toss-up for me.

Plus, I’m very, very poor.

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

OpenOffice unveils the 18 button OpenOfficeMouse, will retail for $75

Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards

OpenOffice, in partnership with WarMouse have unveiled the OpenOfficeMouse. And with that, after I realized that this was not a joke of a product, and after I finished gazing at the uglier than necessary design, I then realized that this is most likely overkill for most users.

That said, the OpenOfficeMouse has a whopping 18 buttons, each of which are user programmable. To begin with, I am not sure I could even remember half of that amount. But I am sure that someone will find that appealing.

Still, aside from the 18 buttons, the OpenOfficeMouse also has a clickable scroll wheel, an analog Xbox 360-style joystick and 512k of built-in flash memory. Bottom line, they are touting this mouse as being able to take care of all your needs for everything from launching desktop applications, using OpenOffice and even playing World of Warcraft.

Of course, all that power comes with a price, which in this case is $74.99. As of now, nothing has been announced in terms of when you will be able to make a purchase, but on the positive side that should give you some time to save up the necessary cash. And despite my poking fun, in a strange way I am kind of interested in trying one of these out.

Read [OpenOffice Mouse]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Nov 2009 | 2:50 pm

Comic Books Improve Early Childhood Literacy

Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that Professor Carol Tilley, a professor of library and information science at the University of Illinois, says that comics are just as sophisticated as other forms of reading, children benefit from reading them at least as much as they do from reading other kinds of books, and that there is evidence that comics increase children's vocabulary and instill a love of reading. 'A lot of the criticism of comics and comic books come from people who think that kids are just looking at the pictures and not putting them together with the words,' says Tilley. 'But you could easily make some of the same criticisms of picture books – that kids are just looking at pictures, and not at the words.' Tilley says that some of the condescension toward comics as a medium may come from the connotations that the name itself evokes but that the distinct comic book aesthetic — frames, thought and speech bubbles, motion lines, to name a few — has been co-opted by children's books, creating a hybrid format."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

Statoil says Snoehvit LNG production restarted

OSLO, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Norway's Statoil has restarted gas production at a liquefaction plant serving its Snoehvit gas field in the Arctic after a three-month maintenance shutdown, the company said on...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 2:26 pm

Apple Readies 'World Mode' iPhone, Report Says (PC World)

PC World - A new report from OTR Global says Apple plans to release a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone in the third quarter of 2010. If true, the new iPhone will play nice with Verizon's network and spell an end to AT&T's exclusivity contract in the U.S. -- which is already slated to end sometime next year.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Nov 2009 | 2:22 pm

SnapNames: Apologies Shouldn’t Be Conditional, Especially When You Steal From Customers

Earlier this week the domain name industry was rocked by a shill bidding scandal at SnapNames. The company made the right early moves by admitting the problem and promising refunds, plus interest, to customers. Now, though, they are forcing customers to release them from liability to get the refund. We think this this is a mistake.

SnapNames acquires expiring domain names from registries and then auctions them off to interested buyers. When everything goes well people are happy. SnapNames gets a good return on investment, and the domains go to the buyer who values them the highest.

But it turns out things most certainly have not gone well. Since 2005 a substantial number of domain auctions had shill bidding by a SnapNames employee.

This isn’t run of the mill eBay shill bidding. On eBay a seller may try to participate in the auction to drive overall bidding higher. But for the most part pricing doesn’t get out of control because most stuff sold on eBay isn’t particularly unique and price boundaries are well established.

What happened at SnapNames is much worse. The company is the seller and has the most to gain by shill bidding. And the company is also in control of all auction information. Sometimes an auction may have two bidders, with one bidder putting in a maximum bid of $100,000 (yes, they go this high sometimes). Another may bid just $10,000, and so the winning buyer would just pay some small amount over $10k. From SnapNames perspective that isn’t a $10k gain. It’s a $90k loss.

So SnapNames “fixed” the problem. An executive with the company simply bid on those domains. He could bid up to, say, $90,000 with full certainty that he wouldn’t be burdened with actually winning the auction and having to pay up. SnapNames made lots of extra money. And if the top bidder backed out and the executive accidentally won, SnapNames was secretly reimbursing him on the back end. Zero risk.

SnapNames said only about 5% of total auctions were affected, but this is misleading. The top domains make up a substantial proportion of total revenue. So that 5% could easily have accounted for, say, much more than 50% of revenue. SnapNames was careful not to disclose the total dollar amounts involved, or even what percentage of overall auction revenue was affected.

That was their first mistake. Not being open and honest.

Now they’re demanding that customers sign an agreement waiving any rights they may have to sue SnapNames in exchange for the refund. That’s a big problem – some customers are complaining that auction data has been erased from their accounts, so they don’t even really know how much they were affected. And SnapNames isn’t making any promises that the reimbursement offers are complete. Once a customer signs the release, even if the settlement amount was calculated incorrectly, they have no further recourse against the company.

A typical comment from a customer: ““Please be prepared to provide detailed information and data regarding your bidding and purchase activity to the extent that it differs from the information we have provided to you.”Pretty hard to do since Snap took down a large portion of bid history!”

SnapNames is making exactly the wrong moves here. They need to return this money to customers immediately with no conditions attached. And they need to provide full and accurate reports to those customers along with the refund. Anything short of that is just shady.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 1:45 pm

No Droid For Me, iPhone Is The PC Of Smartphones (PC World)

PC World - There is no piece of technological wizardry that I want so much as a Droid. Yet, I have decided to hold onto my iPhone. Why? Because the iPhone is the PC of smartphones.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Nov 2009 | 1:44 pm

How Google Uses Linux

postfail writes 'lwn.net coverage of the 2009 Linux Kernel Summit includes a recap of a presentation by Google engineers on how they use Linux. According to the article, a team of 30 Google engineers is rebasing to the mainline kernel every 17 months, presently carrying 1208 patches to 2.6.26 and inserting almost 300,000 lines of code; roughly 25% of those patches are backports of newer features.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Nov 2009 | 1:39 pm

IBM’s Steve Mills on RealTime

As we prepare for our next RealTime CrunchUp on November 20th in San Francisco, we're seeing if anything an acceleration of the phenomenon known as RealTime. Startups, cloud platform vendors, the open standards community, and virtually every software and hardware category are being refreshed and reinvented in the new model. And while there are many familiar players talking and to some degree walking the RealTime walk, some have been busy for years building and deploying the fundamentals of this "overnight success." A few weeks ago, I traveled to Las Vegas to attend IBM's Information On Demand conference, and took the opportunity to sit down with Big Blue's Steve Mills, Senior Vice President and Group Executive of the IBM Software Group. In English that adds up to Steve being The Man at the helm of IBM's embrace of Web Services, with the software group accounting for one quarter of IBM's $100 billion business. While others have partied down on Web 2.0 and its various social themes in perhaps a more outward facing way, it turns out IBM is very focused in the same areas, albeit with an eye toward leveraging its deep relationships with the enterprise. If raw information accounts for the lion's share of useful data, IBM's investment in analytics and "mining the nuggets" suggests the company's history of eating its own dog food with early realtime technologies like Notes and Sametime will bear fruit as IBM begins to share its best practices with customers. But what of the TwitterSphere, the social media stream of micromessages?

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

Weekend Update 11.07.09–Big Trouble in Little China Edition [Digital Daily]

Big news often comes in small packages and BoomTown was all over the little moves that meant big stories this week. Kara covered a massive redesign of Microsoft’s MSN homepage that follows the old car-racing-mantra-turned-Web-design ethos: Add power and lightness. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when BoomTown covered the end of the Skype ruckus. All is forgiven, and all it took was a sizable stake in the company and seats on the board. Kara rounded things out by running a quick post about a spankin’ new feature from AllThingsD: Every Friday, the just launched “Almost Famous” will cover interesting start-ups through the eyes of their chief geeks. Kara’s all about geek love.

Digital Daily isn’t usually big into bean-counting, but this week the numbers were where it was happening. The first sales figures came back from Apple’s iPhone launch in China, and the numbers weren’t good. As of pub time for the post, only 5,000 iPhones had been (legitimately) purchased. If the Chinese numbers were a picture of modesty, the App Store’s numbers were parading through Time Square in an orange jumpsuit singing Eddie Grant’s “Electric Avenue.” The two-year-old App store’s epic popularity has pushed its already outsized download numbers past the two-billion mark. Not to be outdone with unprecedented flash, Google (GOOG) violated its own nonrule late in the week and ran a semi-ad on the Google homepage. You say ad, they say synergy, but at the end of the day it was a direct promo for Motorola’s (MOT) new Droid, which runs on Google’s Android platform.

MediaMemo started the week off right with a fresh bite from Apple (AAPL). Peter covered the revamp of Apple TV, which will now be offered for $30 a month. News from News Corp. was no surprise this week, when MediaMemo brought us the story that the media empire (and AllThingsD’s uber-parent company) was doing fine as long as you only pay attention to cable and movies. Broadcast and print? Eh, not so much. Finally, Peter asked a few probing questions of Google CEO Eric Schmidt in regard to his company’s suspicious addition of a “blog” tag attached to some Google News postings. Schmidt speculated, but the ultimate answer wasn’t, as he suggested, because of your mother.

Deep in his Personal Technology bunker, at an undisclosed location somewhere in rural Maryland, Walt got to take a crack at the new Motorola Droid this week, and his response was, well, very positive. He praised the Droid’s exceptional battery life and call clarity, even if the touchscreen wasn’t quite up to the iPhone bar. All in all, he said it was a win for Verizon (VZ) and the Google’s mobile OS.

Mossberg’s Mailbox continues to fill with questions about the speculative Apple tablet. Walt offered some other sage advice about making the Windows 7 switch with 64 bits, and what to do with all that grief over the death of Microsoft’s (MSFT) Outlook Express.

Katie was sweatin’ to the newbies this week, with an energetic review of Fitbit, a wireless fob for tracking calories and exercise stats. The Bluetooth headset-sized clip attaches to your waistband and uploads your activities to the Fitbit Web interface, where you can track how many calories you did or didn’t burn. You can also add water consumed and calories eaten. The Fitbit has been shipping since September, but won’t appear on retail shelves until after the holidays. No word yet on if it will include a “Cheesecake Factory” tab to the interface so as to allow for calorie counts that require exponents.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 1:15 pm

Obama lion helps raise money for conservation in Kenya

A life-sized lion statue with US President Barack Obama's face painted on it has helped raise some 170,000 dollars (114,000 euros) for lion conservation in Kenya, the auctioneer said...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 12:53 pm

Paul Vixie On What DNS Is Not

CowboyRobot writes "Paul Vixie (AboveNet, ARIN, ISC, MAPS, PAIX) has a fresh rant titled What DNS Is Not about the abuses of the Domain Name Server system. 'What DNS is not is a mapping service or a mechanism for delivering policy-based information. DNS was designed to express facts, not policies. Because it works so well and is ubiquitous, however, it's all too common for entrepreneurs to see it as a greenfield opportunity ... a few years ago VeriSign, which operates the .COM domain under contract to ICANN, added a "wild card" to the top of the .COM zone (*.COM) so that its authoritative name servers would no longer generate NXDOMAIN responses. Instead they generated responses containing the address of SiteFinder's Web site — an advertising server.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Nov 2009 | 12:30 pm

Canada's Talisman strikes oil in Peru - president

LIMA, Nov 7 (Reuters) - Canada's Talisman Energy Inc has found light crude in an exploration bloc in northern Peru, President Alan Garcia said on Saturday, days after he announced a large natural gas find...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 12:29 pm

Miami University Dedicates New Home of Farmer School of Business

Design and Technology Create a Distinctive Learning Environment and One of the Country's Most Advanced Management Education Facilities OXFORD, Ohio, Nov. 7 /PRNewswire/ --...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pm

Don’t forget to see Fedor knock out Rogers, both of EA Sports MMA, tonight

Consider this a friendly reminder. Tonight at 9pm ET on CBS (in the U.S.; I’m sure there will be plenty of streams, though, which you can find on your own) two of the big stars from EA’s upcoming EA Sports MMA video game will hit each other very hard. Fedor Emelianenko, the big Russian guy who could well be the best MMA fighter of all time (or is that Sakuraba?), will fight Brett Rogers, of whom I know nothing.

There’s actual a reasonably interesting story vis-à–vis video games and mixed martial arts. A few years ago, UFC approached EA with the idea of making a video game. UFC declined, saying that it didn’t consider MMA to be a real sport, which, let’s just say, really upset UFC president Dana White.

UFC later signed a deal with THQ to make the video game, which has been both a critical and commercial success.

The success of THQ’s game is said to have sparked EA’s interest in making its own MMA game. EA then started signing fighters to a deal, before announcing that Strikeforce would be the game’s main promotion.

So yeah, I’ll be watching Fedor tear apart Rogers tonight. If only it were easier to place bets online from the U.S!

I am spending the day watching old Fedor fights, courtesy of alt.binaries.mma. Hopefully Mr. Emelianenko comes out to that Era song again, and not some generic rock nonsense.

The beauty of this post is that maybe six of you have any idea of what I’m talking about.

Source: Gizmodo | 7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 pm

Apple Store Announces Reserve and Pick Up Program - PC World

stv.tv

Apple Store Announces Reserve and Pick Up Program PC World For you pre-Thanksgiving shoppers, the Apple retail store on Friday announced a way to get a jump on your holiday list. The Reserve And Pick Up option will let you choose hardware products online and to collect them between December 15 and 24. ... Louvre plays home to Apple's first French storeReuters Apple's Broadway store to open Saturday, Nov. 14Apple Insider The opening of a retail store near the Louvre draws huge crowds in ParisCNNMoney.com The Mac Observer -TidBITS -Web in France Magazine all 72 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:50 am

Taiwan breeders see big profits in rare shrimps

Taiwanese breeders said Saturday they are hoping to make huge profits from a rare species of ornamental shrimp after a pair sold for 8,500 US dollars at auction. The "Black King Kong"...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:37 am

Babies Begin Learning Language In the Womb

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports findings from a new study which suggest that infants begin picking up elements of what will be their first language in the womb, long before their first babble or coo, and are able to memorize sounds from the external world by the last trimester of pregnancy, with a particular sensitivity to melody contour in both music and language. Newborns prefer their mother's voice over other voices and perceive the emotional content of messages conveyed via intonation contours in maternal speech (a.k.a. 'motherese'). 'The dramatic finding of this study is that not only are human neonates capable of producing different cry melodies, but they prefer to produce those melody patterns that are typical for the ambient language they have heard during their fetal life, within the last trimester of gestation,' said Kathleen Wermke of the University of Würzburg in Germany. Wermke's team recorded and analyzed the cries of 60 healthy newborns, 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 born into German-speaking families, when they were three to five days old. The recordings of 2,500 cries as mothers changed babies' diapers, readied babies for feeding or otherwise interacted with the youngsters show an extremely early impact of native language, with analysis revealing clear differences in the shape of the newborns' cry melodies, based on their mother tongue."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:24 am

Foxit eSlick reader gets an update, now with EPUB support and a virtual keyboard

Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks

The Foxit eSlick reader was originally announced back in mid-December of last year, and since then it seems to have blended into the ever growing collection of available ebook readers. That said, the eSlick was just recently given a firmware update, and a nice one at that.

And that update is offering at least one really nice addition—the support for the EPUB and eReader formats.

So far, Foxit has not yet begun shipping any new units with the updated firmware, but it is believed that the next round of eSlick readers to ship will do so with the updated firmware. Current users can also download and update by visiting the Foxit Software website.

Additionally, the new firmware has also added a touch keyboard that will allow readers to unlock files that are password protected.

Read [Yahoo! Finance]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:22 am

Russian rockets shipped for French Guiana launch

The first Russian rockets to be fired into space next year from a space centre in distant South America were Saturday to begin the long voyage to the launch site from Saint Petersburg. ...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:19 am

Zune HD firmware updated to 4.3: Nothing major

Own a Zune HD like Devin and I, the two hippest cats here at CrunchGear? Best to connect it to your PC right now so you can upgrade its firmware to version 4.3. Go, now!

Straight from the Zune message board:

Zune HD firmware update: Today we released the v4.3 firmware update for Zune HD players; this update adds support for upcoming 3d games and applications, as well as an auto-suggest feature for better text input, and other minor improvements. Enjoy!

Let it be known that I have installed zero applications on my Zune HD. I didn’t even know applications existed for the thing until a colleague over at Laptop Magazine pointed it out to me at a meeting several weeks ago. Simple apps, like Weather and whatnot.

I think a hands-on would be appropriate when Microsoft launches, I don’t know, a Twitter or Facebook app, if it ever does.

Flickr

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Nov 2009 | 11:02 am

Software cos. eye key patent case in Supreme Court (AP)

AP - With the technology industry looking on, the Supreme Court on Monday will explore what types of inventions should be eligible for a patent in a pivotal case that could undermine such legal protections for software.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 Nov 2009 | 10:27 am

Visually Impaired Gamer Sues Sony

An anonymous reader writes "A visually impaired gamer has sued Sony because game products allegedly violate the Americans With Disabilities Act. 'According to the suit, Sony ignored repeated requests through postal mail and e-mail to come up with reasonable modifications to its games to make them more accessible.' This suit seems to be a combination of National Federation of the Blind v. Target, which complained of inaccessibility to the visually disabled (which settled for $6 million) and Martin v. PGA Tour, Inc., where the US Supreme Court ruled a disabled golfer was entitled to a golf cart where one was not already allowed as a reasonable accommodation. If the plaintiff wins, Sony will have to make 'reasonable accommodations' which are not an 'undue financial burden.' In my humble opinion, providing access for the disabled is not only the right thing to do but it will generate more profit for Sony."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 7 Nov 2009 | 10:21 am

Services Made Flesh: 10 Weird – and Not So Weird – “Avatar” Gadgets

The dawn of the 21st century brought us a problem: we had lots of data, but no real way to bring that data into the real world. We could feasibly lug laptops and phones around, but did they ever do exactly what we needed them to do? Don’t answer that. Manufacturers, in their wisdom, decided to do something about it and so devices like the Peek - for email - and the CueCat - for nothing - were born. Here's a look at ten "avatar" gadgets, gadgets that brought a web service into the real world, for better or worse. Twitterpeek - We should be nicer to the Twitterpeek. This standalone device, designed specifically for Twittering, mirroring our own obsession with the microblogging service and, if anything, we willed it into existence with our collective desires for always on Twitter. Does it work? Eh. Is it a good idea? Eh. Is it for us? Probably not, but what do I know?

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am

Services made flesh: 10 weird – and not so weird – “avatar” gadgets

The dawn of the 21st century brought us a problem: we had lots of data, but no real way to bring that data into the real world. We could feasibly lug laptops and phones around, but did they ever do exactly what we needed them to do? Don’t answer that.

Manufacturers, in their wisdom, decided to do something about it and so devices like the Peek – for email – and the CueCat – for nothing – were born. Here’s a look at ten ‘avatar’ gadgets, gadgets that brought a web service into the real world, for better or worse.

Twitterpeek – We should be nicer to the Twitterpeek. This standalone device, designed specifically for Twittering, mirroring our own obsession with the microblogging service and, if anything, we willed it into existence with our collective desires for always-on Twitter. Does it work? Eh. Is it a good idea? Eh. Is it for us? Probably not, but what do I know?

Peek Pronto – Now this makes a little more sense. The Peek Pronto is an email-only device. It’s great for business owners who want to give on-the-go email access to their employees without spending hundreds on monthly cellphone charges. The company, in fact, is reaching profitability so all our bellyaching isn’t hurting the company’s bottom line. The Peek Pronto costs $299 for unlimited email, a pretty good deal.

Kindle – The one real success story in this list. Kindles bring Amazon’s electronic book store to a hand-held device. It’s so popular, in fact, that everyone and their dog is getting in on the act. It’s an avatar device simply because it enables offline access to Amazon content.

Nook – This is supposed to be the Kindle on steroids. This is odd because B&N isn’t quite the name synonymous with online book-selling so what they’ve done is a double-reverse Lutz avatarization of their product. They created a device to showcase their web offerings and are now tooling up web offerings for the device.

Zipit – I popped over to the Zipit website and discovered that they’re actually still making these things! Zipit is basically an IM/SMS-only device that costs $49 and lets you send IMs, listen to music, and look at pictures over Wi-Fi. It’s for kids, obviously, and after the initial purchase it costs $29 a year for unlimited text messages and IM messaging. Kind of a good idea if you want to keep your wee ones from dumping a few grand on SMS messages.

IMfree – Now this is a blast from the past: the IMFree. It’s basically like the Zipit, but primitive. It is probably one of the first avatar devices out there with an actual useful purpose.

Augmented Reality Toys – Augmented reality creates ‘holograms’ on your PC screen when your webcam sees a special bar code. This is sort of a reverse-avatar situation where the physical device unlocks on-screen content. Expect to see more of these but Avatar seems to be going whole-hog on these.

ASellerTool and other bar code scanners – Devices like this abomination promise to allow offline pricing of various items like wine, books, and media. Useful for flea markets and the obsessive.

Wikireader – Dream: Hey! Why don’t we stuff an ever-changing information source on a device! Let’s call it the Wikireader! We’ll be rich!
Reality: This thing is a waste of plastic.

Cuecat – The winner of the dumbest avatar device is the Cuecat, a silly bar code reader that was supposed to bring online content to magazines. You’d plug in your Cuecat and scan magazines as you read them. Sadly, even back in 1999, reading your magazines by your PC was a bit silly. The company went belly up and now the Cuecat is remembered as one of the most ridiculous examples of dot-com hubris ever.

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

Hallmark’s Christmas 2009 Galaga arcade cabinet ornament

FROM GAMERTELL - This year’s gamer-themed ornament is a miniaturized reproduction of the Galaga arcade cabinet complete with mini buttons, mini joystick, lights and sounds…
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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Nov 2009 | 9:32 am

Beatles Albums Removed From Download Site BlueBeat - eWeek

Ars Technica

Beatles Albums Removed From Download Site BlueBeat eWeek Get back to where you once belonged: Judge approves a temporary restraining order for digital music site BlueBeat.com over sale of Beatles songs. The Internet music site BlueBeat.com, which bills itself as trying to "stop the insanity of overpriced ... Beatles catalog is temporarily banned from music website BlueBeatLos Angeles Times Judge stops 2 Web sites from selling Beatles songsThe Associated Press Judge To BlueBeat: You Can't Do ThatMediapost.com CNET News -CDInsight -PC Magazine all 776 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Nov 2009 | 9:19 am

The Font Kingdom: Search, Explore, Create, and Download Fonts for Free

Being a blogger, I often find design elements on the web for my posts or my blog in general. It’s becoming a very common experience for bloggers to know a thing or two about web design. I’m guessing it is the web that taught us to be quasi-designers by offering us lots of easy-to-use tools that help us create just about everything we need: photo-editing, widgets, logos, buttons, and yes, fonts as well. Fonts are a big focus of the Web2.0 era—they are now bigger, cleaner and smoother, especially when it comes to logos.

Can you imagine Techcrunch’s logo looking like this? It’s all dependent on font choice. (in case you were wondering BTW, Twitter’s font is mostly Pico created by Maniackers Design)

Regardless of the fact that the web makes it easy for everyone to be more creative (i.e., logo above), it becomes a paradise for designers themselves who seek new tools & inspiration. So whether you’re a professional graphic designer, or an amateur web publisher this list of font tools might come in handy (eventually).

myFontbook is an online font viewer and manager based on the font available on your computer. It allows you to organize your font collection and gives you all the tools you need to do so. Once you open the demo, myFontbook will render all the fonts in your computer, and display them together in an easy to view mode. While all the files are actually open, it makes it easier to browse through them and see the fonts in several sizes. You can also make lists of fonts, tag & favorite the fonts that you like best. The font viewer renders your entire font library super fast. Just compare the rendering time to other font management tools. And there’s nothing to install—it works from your browser. If you want to save all your activities for later use, you’ll need to register. But don’t worry, it’s free.

With BetterFonts, an online font database, you can quickly preview and download thousands of fonts. Navigate the massive collection by alphabetic order or browse the fonts by their categories. You can change the preview text of your desirable font and instantly download it for free. Although the site provides an impressive list of fonts, for the quality ones you’ll need to pay. But they have a deal of a 500-font package for $2.77. Please note that there’s no preview of the font list in advance—which might be a risky deal if you want something in particular (but then again, it’s cheap).

Most of us usually use only one font (probably Arial), ’cause unless you’re a designer, you don’t give much thought to fonts. But hey, there’s a world of fonts out there that is just waiting for exploration, and FFonts is a good site to start with. FFonts has a huge font library and it allows you to navigate easily, and download any font for free. All the fonts on the site are listed on the left side menu for easy access, and clicking on a font gives you information plus a satisfying preview of the font. Overall, the site hosts more than 10,000 fonts!

If you don’t find anything you like, and are still looking for that special font to make an appearance, you are more than welcome to create it yourself with FontStruct. Sign into the service and with FontStruct’s font-building tool & editor, you’ll be able to create fonts constructed out of geometrical shapes, which are arranged in a grid pattern, like tiles or bricks. Once you’re done building, FontStruct generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready to use in any Mac or Windows application.

You can share your creations with the world or save it for yourself, but FontStruct actually encourages you to share your fonts with others, this is why they’ve created a gallery where people can share and discuss fonts, and download them for free. A quick look at the community taught me there is a lot of going on there—definitely worth the visit if fonts interest to you.

Fawnt is also one of the largest free fonts archives on the web today. With a pleasant design and an easy to use navigator, you are one step away from finding the perfect font. Browse the fonts by category or alphabetically, or use the search function. All the fonts have large and customizable previews, and character maps. Be aware though that while all of the fonts in Fawnt are free, they might have some restrictions. Some may be free for personal use, others for commercial. When you visit a font link make sure to browse the page for any fine print or usage terms.

With 62,000 fonts, Myfonts has the world’s largest font database. Not only can you search for fonts, explore everything in their gallery, and download the fonts to your computer, you can also find fonts based on a picture with their service WhatTheFont. Simply upload a file, or specify a URL, and myFonts will find the font used in the picture you uploaded (or at least, give you some close alternatives to this font). If you’re a designer, I’m sure you can see how important a service like this can be to the industry.

myFonts recently released a great iPhone app that does the same thing and helps you find a font while on-the-go. You can snap a photo with the app, and save it to your gallery. For iPod users, you are asked to upload a file from your iPhone gallery, then myFonts will process and optimize the photos and provide you with the font’s details.

Finally, it allows you to receive or send the results by email. For a free & direct download click here.

Another free iPhone app is FontGenie – The app displays all available fonts on your iPhone and allows you to keep track of ever-changing font families and their font types.

A super cool idea is to actually create a font with your own handwriting, so you’ll be able to insert it wherever you need to place your signature on the web. Luckily, Fontcapture took the idea and made it possible, which means you can create your handwriting font right now if you want to, all you need is a printer and a scanner.

How it works: First, you need to download the font template, print it, fill it in with your own handwriting, scan it and upload it to the site. Then you’ll be able to preview and download the new font to your font library, located on your computer.

Abstract Fonts is not very different than the other font directories suggested here but it has a very convenient interface. Abstract Fonts lets you type in text to view font examples, opens a unique menu for each font which summarizes the information you need to know about that font, see the character map, and display users’ comments. Abstract also gives you the ability to see similar fonts, which I think is an absolutely brilliant addition.

Last but not least, here’s something to look for in the future:

Typekit, a new font editor will offer designers more control over fonts on the web.

Today, almost all Web fonts are protected by copyright, and very few of them allow for linking via CSS or redistribution on the web. Typekit has been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only font linking license.

Typekit will give you access to their protected library of high-quality fonts. You’ll just need to add a line of JavaScript to your markup, tell Typekit what fonts you want to use, and then craft your pages the way you always have. Except now, you’ll be able to use real fonts.

There’s still not enough information about this new service but based on the above, Typekit might definitely change web design. Unfortunately, the site is in closed beta (invitation only) so designers make sure you sign up for an invite. Meanwhile, check out the full list of fonts already available at Typekit. Also, Typekit has some interesting investors: Evan Williams, Ron Conway, Caterina Fake and True Ventures.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Source: TechCrunch | 7 Nov 2009 | 9:07 am

Ants Friendly To Some Trees, But Not Others

Tree-dwelling ants generally live in harmony with their arboreal hosts.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:51 am

What MP3 player should I buy?

I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.

Who'd got a suggestion? I'm looking for something:

• * small (Nano-sized or smaller),

• * low-capacity (8GB is fine, all I use it for is podcasts),

• * chargeable and connectable with a standard USB cable,

• * reasonably rugged,

• * with an LCD,

• * capable of marking some files as podcasts or audiobooks and remembering where you stopped playing them, and,

• * most importantly, I'm looking for something that can be connected to a set of lanyard headphones like these

I don't care if it has WiFi or Bluetooth, or if it plays games, or if it has a "store" on the net that lets me get music for it directly. I just want a chunk of solid-state storage with a headphone jack and a decent menuing system and headphones I can wear around my neck so that they don't get tangled in things.

Suggestions? Feed the comments, below (don't send email, I'm taking a break from it for the weekend).


Source: Boing Boing | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:28 am

What MP3 player should I buy?

I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.

Who'd got a suggestion? I'm looking for something:

• * small (Nano-sized or smaller),

• * low-capacity (8GB is fine, all I use it for is podcasts),

• * chargeable and connectable with a standard USB cable,

• * reasonably rugged,

• * with an LCD,

• * capable of marking some files as podcasts or audiobooks and remembering where you stopped playing them, and,

• * most importantly, I'm looking for something that can be connected to a set of lanyard headphones like these

I don't care if it has WiFi or Bluetooth, or if it plays games, or if it has a "store" on the net that lets me get music for it directly. I just want a chunk of solid-state storage with a headphone jack and a decent menuing system and headphones I can wear around my neck so that they don't get tangled in things.

Suggestions? Feed the comments, below (don't send email, I'm taking a break from it for the weekend).

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

Tiny jack-o-lanterns carved in seed-pods

Master haunt modeller Ray Keim sez, "After a little bit of experimentation and a lot of patience, I figured out how to carve Putka Pods [ed: small, pumpkin-like dried seeds] into extremely tiny jack-o-lanterns!"

Putka Pod Possibilities! (Thanks, Ray!)

Previously:

• World record for grape-o-lantern carving - Boing Boing
• Boing Boing: Jack O'Lantern photoshopping contest
• Multi-colored-LED Jack O'Lantern - Boing Boing
• Wil Wheaton's kid carves emoticon jack-o-lantern - Boing Boing
• Boing Boing: HOWTO make mechanized Dalek-o-lantern
• Boing Boing: Multi-colored-LED Jack O'Lantern

Source: Boing Boing | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:16 am

Asus delays the Eee Keyboard release

Section: Computers, Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards

The Eee Keyboard, a device that was first unveiled during CES 2009 and one that was expected to see a release last month has been officially delayed. That bit of bad news does however come with a little bit of good news though.

First things first, the keyboard has been delayed, and so far not canceled. According to the details, courtesy of the delay the keyboard will now have a slightly better set of specs.

Asus has stated that the keyboard will include a faster processor, a new operating system and a touchscreen that is capacitive. Unfortunately, when Asus was spilling the details on the upgraded specs they failed to mention a new release date. Hey, maybe we can check out the updated model on the CES show floor in January 2010—because Gadgetell will be there offering live coverage.

Finally, in an effort to end this post on a positive note, Asus did also mention that the keyboard is still on track for a $500 price point.

Via [Maximum PC]

Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:03 am

Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Surgery On a Beating Heart

And Now, Some Ripped-From-the-Headlines Context.....

First, why a beating heart? Traditionally, if you had a clogged artery on your heart and doctors wanted to sew in some "bypass" arteries to get around the sluggish ones, the surgeon would shut your heart down, using a heart and lung machine to pump your blood instead. Less than a decade ago, though, doctors started collecting evidence suggesting that being on the pump could, occasionally, lead to strokes, memory loss and personality issues. Off-pump, beating-heart, bypass surgery became an alternative.

I'd had this video planned for the last couple of weeks. But, on Thursday, a big study came out that suggests off-pump isn't as great as everyone was hoping it would be--nor was on-pump as bad as everyone was worried about. The New York Times explains it thusly:

In the study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2,203 patients were randomly assigned to have their bypass surgery on pump or off. Because the study was sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the patients were mostly men. A year later, those who had had off-pump surgery had poorer outcomes. Fewer bypasses stayed open and patients were more likely to have needed a repeat operation or to have had a heart attack or to have died. They were no less likely to have had strokes or difficulty thinking.

Older 'Pump' Heart Bypass is Best, A Study Finds, from the New York Times

Thumbnail image courtesy Flickr user Gustty, via CC

Source: Boing Boing | 7 Nov 2009 | 7:50 am

Danish anti-piracy group gives up

Christian sez, "Just now it has been announced in the press by the official Danish Anti-Piracy agency, Antipiratgruppen, that they are throwing in the towel and will seize their operations completely; to find and prosecute music copyright offenders. Here is a translation of the first published article in today's Danish press."

"We have to, because it is has been announced by the state court, that it takes very strong and concrete evidence to have these people prosecuted. We have simply not been able to establish the necessary evidence..."

An overview of Danish trials shows an extremely small possibility of getting sentenced - unless the the accused confesses. Four principal state court trials last year lead to three acquittals and only a single sentence for illegal file sharing. And this sentence only came into place because

"Out of the four cases we can establish, that the courts do not sentence owners of Internet connections simply because of technical identification of IP-adresses and technical recognition of files," they say.

Danish anti-piracy agency throw in the towel (Thanks, Christian!)


Source: Boing Boing | 7 Nov 2009 | 7:03 am

Seattle team wins $900000 in Space Elevator Games - The Associated Press

Times LIVE

Seattle team wins $900000 in Space Elevator Games The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — A Seattle team has collected a $900000 prize in a NASA-backed competition to develop the concept of an elevator to space — an idea spurred by science fiction novels. The team's robotic machine raced up more than 2950 feet of cable ... Space elevator team wins $900000 from NASAmsnbc.com Winner in Contest Involving Space ElevatorNew York Times Mini Space Elevator Races for $900K PrizeVoice of America Washington Post -Examiner.com all 930 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Nov 2009 | 7:02 am

Amazon steps up and matches Walmart’s Xbox 360 deal

Thank the gaming gods for retail competition. You know the Xbox 360 Walmart is running today, right? Yeah, Amazon is going to match it.

At 9:00 am EST and 3:00 pm EST Amazon will give you a a $100 promotional code when you purchase an Xbox 360 Arcade for $199. You better be sitting in front of your computer all signed in and ready to go before the two times though. The deal is good only for a limited quantity. [via Cheap Ass Gamer and Gizmodo]

Update: All done! All gone!

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Nov 2009 | 6:52 am

Free Apps roundup for November 6th, 2009

FROM APPLETELL - Another great week for freebies on the App Store. Lots of information, apps and games, which is good news if your weekend was going to be bland. Now it can be full of icons instead!
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Source: Gadgetell | 7 Nov 2009 | 6:11 am

Is Windows 7 a Panacea for Vista — or Pure Puffery? - PC World

TrustedReviews

Is Windows 7 a Panacea for Vista — or Pure Puffery? PC World On the drive into work this morning, I heard a pundit on the radio discussing the upcoming launch of Microsoft's latest OS, Windows 7. “People just aren't very excited about operating systems anymore,” he lamented. Indeed, they aren't, and especially ... Windows 7 tops Vista in early consumer sales by more than 200%Los Angeles Times Week in review: Microsoft getting lucky with 7?CNET News Microsoft Plans Fixes For 15 Security FlawsInformationWeek ChannelWeb -PC Magazine -BetaNews all 566 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 Nov 2009 | 6:01 am

The Back Burner: Things we didn’t post this week

A big thank you to everybody for filling our tips-at-crunchgear-dot-com inbox with wonderful, unique, and newsworthy items. Here are a few that we missed.

Dear Andrey,

Can I call you Andrey? That would be lovely, Andrey. Sometimes in this crazy world we call blogging, we forget to step back and take the time to enjoy some good old fashioned Church music from Russian singing groups.

We would actually love it if you could show up around holiday time. The only challenge will be that all of us who work here at CrunchGear live in different parts of the country, but if you could sing inside the chatroom that we use to communicate with each other on a daily basis, we would all be able to enjoy your Church music.

You would have to actually type the words out since it’s a text-based chatroom, but that’s never stopped anyone from a live singing performance before.

Hi Jennifer,

Um… thanks? We might enjoy some of those, yes. As far as uploading is concerned, do you want us to upload photos of our own recent trips or should we just upload photos of gadgets?

You guys sure look happy in that picture there. I think that little kid and I have the same green shirt! Jinx for shirts!

We meet again, Bossman.

You think I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here? You know damn well that I’ve got the (Dock Box) market cornered in these parts. Now you’re trying to shop the competition, eh? See how many (Dock Box) I have in stock and how much I’m selling them for, right? Then price your own (Dock Box) inventory accordingly, is that how it works Bossman?

You make me sick.

Click here to read previous Back Burner posts…

Source: CrunchGear | 7 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

Canadian Scientists Investigate Declining Salmon Numbers

Canada is looking into why less sockeye salmon swam back to the Fraser River on the Pacific Coast this summer than the number that was predicted by scientists.Prime Minister Stephen Harper revealed the inquiry Thursday, noting that the federal government was worried about the shrinking numbers.Scientists had envisaged that about 13 million sockeye salmon would return for mating season, but only about 1.4 million fish actually came back.The decline was detrimental to the commercial Fraser sockeye fishing season, and encouraged the government to figure out if federal officials have botched salmon stocks.Specifics over the inquiry were presented on Friday in Vancouver.Salmon has long been a touchy subject between Canada and the United States, with Canadian fishermen often blaming the U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 Nov 2009 | 4:25 am

WTO Faces Tough Call On Censorship Case

Internet censorship will be challenged at the World Trade Organization, as it can limit online trade and delivery services, a study says.A censorship case at the WTO could bring up dominion questions, as members can already censor for moral purposes, like prohibiting contact with child pornography websites.However, a WTO decision might restrict blanket censorship and force states to utilize specific filtering, says the study available on Thursday."Censorship is the most important non-tariff barrier to the provision of online services, and a case might clarify the circumstances in which different forms of censorship are WTO-consistent," stated the study, written by Brian Hindley and Hosuk Lee-Makiyama."Many WTO member states are legally obliged to permit an unrestricted supply of cross-border Internet services," they wrote.It is common for some countries to block the Internet for political or ethical reasons.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Nov 2009 | 4:23 am

Wal-Mart Challenges Target, Amazon In DVD Price War

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Nov 2009 | 4:05 am

Smart Meters Save Money, But Erode Privacy

Those new smart meters that Peco Energy Co.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 Nov 2009 | 3:50 am

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