Previously:

• Mark Pescovitz photo show in Indianapolis - Boing Boing
• Boston: photo show featuring Mark Pescovitz - Boing Boing
• Mark Pescovitz photo - Boing Boing

Source: Gizmodo | 26 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

Hacker McKinnon To Be Extradited To US

Vainglorious Coward writes "When UK hacker and Asperger's sufferer Gray McKinnon lost the judicial review of his case it seemed likely that he would be extradited to the US to face charges of hacking almost a hundred systems causing $700,000 worth of damage. Today the UK home secretary rejected his last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition adding that 'his extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith.' McKinnon's relatives are expressing concerns for his health, with his lawyer going so far as to claim that extradition would make the 43-year-old's death 'virtually certain.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2009 | 3:58 pm

Stop, or I'll shout stop again!

British legislators have created new crimes at a rate of one a day since 1997.


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Nov 2009 | 3:39 pm

Be A Cheap Geek With These Black Friday Online Hardware Deals

Source: Gizmodo | 26 Nov 2009 | 3:00 pm

Dumbing Down Programming?

RunRevKev writes "The unveiling of Revolution 4.0 has sparked a debate on ZDNet about whether programming is being dumbed down. The new version of the software uses an English-syntax that requires 90 per cent less code than traditional languages. A descendant of Apple's Hypercard, Rev 4 is set to '...empower people who would never have attempted programming to create successful applications.' ZDNet report that "One might reasonably hope that this product inspires students in the appropriate way and gets them more interested in programming.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Gizmodo | 26 Nov 2009 | 2:30 pm

Air America

This is pretty stunning, and quite beautiful in its own way. Aaron Koblin, a graphic artist and game designer has produced a remarkable animation, built using real data, of a 24-hour stretch of commercial air travel into, out of, and ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Nov 2009 | 2:14 pm

Virtual Museum of the European Roots launched on the Internet

A unique "Virtual Museum of the European Roots" will be launched next Thursday at an international conference in Rome. Accessible through their web site ( http://www.europeanvirtualmuseum.net), the virtual museum allows visitors to admire prehistoric art masterpieces in full 3D power. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Nov 2009 | 1:34 pm

Sony Bravia 46-Inch HDTV (PC World)

PC World - Wal-Mart has a 46-inch HDTV, the Sony Bravia KDL-46S504, on sale for $798. This 1080p HDTV features a 60Hz refresh rate and a 20,000:1 contrast ratio. It also has three HDMI inputs, and is Bravia Link compatible. The lowest price we found for the KDL-46S504 on PriceGrabber was $1200 at Crutchfield, so you'd save about $400.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

Apple Newton vs. Apple iPhone

An anonymous reader writes "CNET UK has written a head-to-head piece entitled Apple Newton vs Apple iPhone. Despite the Newton being released some 10 years ago, and despite the iPhone being a phone, not a tablet, the site's editors believe the Newton is the more innovative of the two Apple products. The two devices were tied over four rounds, but in the 'Special Powers' element, where the iPhone was praised for its iPod capability, the Newton countered with its ability to play MP3s, connect to iTunes and 'its ability to work as a phone' because 'Blam! Not even the iPhone can do that.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2009 | 1:29 pm

The smartbook patent trolls are selling a $3000 netbook

Remember those dudes who are trying to troll on their “smartbook” trademark and are asking bloggers and media not to use the term? Well, they’re selling a 2001 euro netbook. Granted it’s studed in crystals and comes with a bottle of champers, but WTF?

Apparently not content in leading as the world most reviled netbook maker, Smartbook AG is offering this hot mess as a holiday promoition. Best of all, it’s really a horrible netbook:

Thus the “Smartbook Zenide” in the variant of “Crystal” in a limited edition of 20 pieces For the price of cheap 2001, – EUR (in words: Euro two thousand and one), then there is also a bottle of champagne and an expensive suitcase. The fact that it is commonplace for a cheap netbook-from China, but this changes nothing.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Nov 2009 | 1:21 pm

Palm and Sprint Investigate Data Loss

Section: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones

Palm and Sprint are working together to try and find the reason some customers are experiencing data loss when switching between Palm’s two WebOS phones, the Pre and the new Pixi. Unlike previous Palm devices which synced to Palm Desktop on the user’s computer, the new WebOS devices sync to an online “Palm Profile”.  Ideally this results in a copy of the user’s data (calendar, contacts, and memos) residing on the website and one on the device. However some users are discovering that when they attempt to switch devices or sync to a replacement one, some or all of their data is missing.

“We are seeing a small number of customers who have experienced issues transferring their Palm Profile information to another Palm webOS device,” the company said. “Palm and Sprint are working closely together to support these customers to successfully transfer their information to the new device.” Palm said in a statement.

The incident brings to mind the great Sidekick outage of 2009 which happened last month. Thousands of customers lost their data when a server failed. Such incidents have made many question the wisdom of trusting a cloud based solution for back ups.

If you have a Palm WebOS device and are wary of trusting your data to Palm Profile, you can set it to sync to Outlook, Google, or Yahoo instead.

Read [PCWorld]

Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2009 | 1:05 pm

Why Google Wave Sucks, And Why You Will Use It Anyway

This guest post was written by Martin Seibert, a German Internet media consultant.

Google Wave is a hot topic at the moment. The ambitious group collaboration and micro-messaging platform started rolling out in beta via an initial batch of 100,000 invitations two months ago. Many people still want invitations. Among those who’ve tried it, some criticize it, some praise it. For now it has a lot of usability problems that are described below. Yes, you should look at Google Wave. But there is no need to desperately long for an invitation yet.

Nevertheless, this post outlines how you’ll probably use Google Wave in the future and also gives you advice on how to implement it in your company or your team of coworkers. It also reveals some big usability problems in the current version. Those issues aside, I would like to show you the advantages of the “wave” once again and describe some cool use cases that might make you love it at some point in the future.

Introduction to Google Wave

If you don’t know the wave yet, you might want to see this movie:

Advantages of Google Wave

• Innovative interface
  The user interface of Google Wave breaks new ground and yet is not unfamiliar as its layout resembles the inbox of your mail application. The timeline that lets you recap how the wave has evolved and changed since your last visit is something that even wikis don’t have today—a feature that will surely be copied extensively in the future due to its intuitive usability.
• Waves activate participants to contribute
  Furthermore, the user interface motivates further contributions to the wave. This is an excellent way to convince a lot of people to participate.
• Real-time collaboration
  It is a completely new experience to actually see your friends, colleagues and contacts type in and change content in real time. No other application apart from a few client-side chat tools currently offers such a service via a web interface. If you’re a tech geek, you’ll love that part of Google Wave. It is a powerful innovation when it comes to real-time communication and collaboration. It is competing with the well-known comforts of email, wikis and chat, but in a lot of use cases, I think Wave will win.

What is Google Wave good for?

Brainstorming, early concept creation and discussion is what I see Google Wave being used for extensively in the near future. It can also serve as a multi-user note-taking platform for meetings and sessions in your company or university. If you want to organize an event collaboratively, Google Wave will most likely replace wikis. That’s a punch in the gut for all creators of wiki software.  These are just the most obvious uses.  As more people use Google Wave and become comfortable with it, they will begin using it in entirely new ways.  The real-time communications it makes possible will override its weak points because of the greater efficiency it allows for any group trying to work together.  One day the wave is gonna rock! But that is not today.

Google Wave is overly complex (Steve Rubel)

Robert Scoble put it this way: “This service is way overhyped and as people start to use it they will realize it brings the worst of email and IM together: unproductivity.”

What he means is shown in this video I have put on YouTube:

If you look at the public waves being updated at a speed that none of us can follow, you will understand how especially non-tech-savvy users will find it overly complex. I hear them say: “I just don’t want to know all this stuff.”

Even if “all this stuff” is relevant content from your teammates, you’ll have to filter and sort it all out to make it manageable. I believe it’s possible, but Google Wave users will have to learn how to do it.

The interface after login with an open wave

Disadvantages and usability problems

• Missing revisions with rollbacks
  There is no professional revisioning system in place yet. If somebody messes up your wave and you want to undo it, you’re in for an unpleasant surprise: You have to do it manually. So folks, please do not delete too much content on waves.
• No permanent hiding of replies yet
  At the same time, Google Wave does not offer a way to permanently hide replies. Result? The main text in the wave is disturbed by images, boxes, colors and text from all participants. This can become a real mess and might even prevent you from reading the important content. The Google Wave team should definitely address this.
  (Look at the screenshot above and see how nice the small “+” sign fits in. That should be the default.)
• Why can’t I invite everybody yet? Closed preview kills value
  Right now Google Wave is not suitable for real usage as too few people have an account. If you can’t invite everybody, the value of a wave decreases dramatically.
• Where are notifications for updates of the waves I follow?
  There are no means of monitoring waves. This is Google Wave’s biggest weakness.  I don’t get an email, Gtalk alert, or any other notification in the communication systems I already use today when there is new activity in a wave.  As I am still heavily using RSS feeds (in contrast to other TechCrunch authors—by the way, almost 4 million TechCrunch readers use RSS feeds as well), I’d love an RSS feed of the waves I want to keep an eye on. Unfortunately, this isn’t yet an option.
• Too slow for a real chat
  For a real chat, Google Wave is much too slow. The performance of live transmissions varies from good to very poor and back without any understandable pattern. Today, you’ll want to keep using Skype or Jabber clients for chatting. I expect this to change, once we see local implementations of Google Wave in companies. Most of the server power can then go to the companies’ employees, clients and partners.
• Google Wave is unstable
  If there are peeks, Google Wave seems to have trouble with the load of lots of users. Here is a screenshot that I see way to often.
  
• Portability: no exporting of waves possible yet
  There isn’t an export feature to my beloved wiki yet. I’d love to have the wave content “natively” (not as an embed) in my Confluence, Foswiki (TWiki), XWiki, Mindtouch, DokuWiki or MediaWiki whenever I want it. To Google and wiki vendors: please give us that kind of portability.
• Google accounts should not be required
  Why do I need a Google Account to participate in a wave? That is a big problem if you want to engage with clients and non-tech-savvy users.
• Who is really online?
  Google Wave tries to display who is online by showing a green dot on the profile picture, but it’s not reliable yet. In fact, I’ve even seen people writing content who were identified as being offline.
• Remember: don’t share confidential information in waves
  As soon as you invite somebody to a wave, he can access it forever. If the discussion reveals secrets you don’t want to share with all participants, you’re out of luck: there is no way to get anybody out of the wave. The only chance you have is to create a new wave from the existing one. If you don’t want to do that, you’d better keep confidential information out.
• No markup editing like in wikis
  There is no source code view in Google Wave that you would want to use as an experienced wiki user to control what appears and how.
• Waves lack readable URLs
  Waves already have permanent URLs. But how readable is this? “https://wave.google.com/wave/#minimized:nav,minimized:contact,minimized:search,restored:wave:googlewave.com!w%252Be-cg7PN0A.1″. The Google Wave team will have to come up with more readable versions that are short and self-explanatory. This one should instead read: “https://wave.google.com/wave/google-wave-learnings-advantages-usecases-and-usability-flaws/252Be-cg7PN0A/fullscreen/”

To-do’s for you to use Google Wave in your company

The following list to be a bit premature. As one cannot install Google Wave yet, this is just a checklist to help you prepare for it.

1. Technology

• Server infrastructure and a good sysadmin: You will clearly need a server and a skilled admin to set up a Google Wave server, if you want to use it in your company. If you want a lot of employees, partners and clients to use it, you should prepare to invest in good hardware to make the real-time experience a good one. Up until now no one has been allowed to install the preview version of Google Wave. This means that nobody knows how difficult or easy it will be to install it and how easy it will be to connect it with other public wave servers. Still, it should be helpful to have a sysadmin around who knows what he is doing.
• HTML5-compatible browsers: Google Wave is an HTML5 application. If your company still works on Internet Explorer 6 or below, you will not be able to use Google Wave flawlessly. Therefore, make sure all participants have access to up-to-date browsers.
• Fast web connection: A decent web connection for both servers and clients is highly recommended to have a good real-time communication experience.
• Firewall configuration: Your admin should know how to configure your firewall so that your Google Wave server can communicate with the world.

2. Organization

• Define the goal of the wave and make sure everybody understands the purpose and the content of your wave. If you don’t, a lot of “side-noise” will arise.
• Create wave guidelines: You should set up guidelines for your wave participants to make sure they understand what the wave is for.
• On-boarding: Make sure that everybody you want to work with has a Google Wave account. (I know, this is quite difficult today. And that’s why Google Wave isn’t that useful yet.)
• What application is to be used? Differentiate the systems in your company so that everybody understands when to use emails, wikis, chats, databases and when to use Google Wave. How to set them apart? I don’t know.  This will emerge organically.
• Give Google Wave a purpose: Make sure people understand how to use Google Wave. You don’t want them to turn it down before even testing it thoroughly. That is especially true for the non-geek users.
• Not too many wavers on one wave: You should beware of inviting too many people because you can’t kick them out afterwards.

3. Culture

• Do not delete content without permission: My brother had created a new wave to evaluate Google Wave. We were all filling in texts, comments and arguments. Within a very short period of time, a really cool document had evolved, and I thought: “you should make this a blog post.” So I started to restructure it, changed arguments and content into text, and deleted the comments afterwards. The bashing and flaming that triggered from people who were angry with me for killing their content was enormous.
• Make rules and copyright clear: After I had restructured our wave and taken all the bashing for deleting the obsolete comments, the first participants asked if they could use the content in their blogs. We became aware of the as-yet unanswered question: “Who owns a wave? Who may do what with it? Who is allowed to use its content?” Make sure to clarify this in advance with your coworkers.
• Be aware of the complexity: The basic use and advantage of Google Wave should be clear to your employees once you roll out Google Wave. If the purpose is not clear, its complexity will quickly drive away many of your colleagues. Good luck trying to convince them to come back.
• Get ready for live feedback stress: A special problem in a wave is that you get answers to what you write while you’re still writing it. Every other means of communication leaves room to formulate and write your message first. In Google Wave the stress of a personal meeting with live communication can occur. (See the video above if you don’t know what I mean.)
• For now, consider only inviting geeks: Today, nobody can really control documents in waves, and there’s no real revision yet. And waves change a lot. Therefore, it’s better to invite people who can give good feedback. The more wavers, the more complex a wave will become.

Overall evaluation and outlook

If you criticize Google Wave, you should keep in mind that it is a “preview” now. It’s not a beta, and it’s not a final release. The Google Wave team has set out to create “email as it should be in 2010″. And from what I see, they have a good chance of doing so, but 2010 is less than two months away. However, I am willing to bet that this piece of software will eventually overcome Robert Scoble’s criticism.

For professional collaboration, I still recommend the wikis mentioned above. But if you’re into real-time collaboration, Google Wave will eventually be your choice. Just make sure to bring advanced web skills.

Sources
A lot of the content for this blog post was created in a wave. As no one knows who owns the content in a wave, I would like to list all who participated: mseibert (That’s me!), jseibert, eicker, bfri, Silke, Sam, Gerrit, Ton, Paul

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:55 pm

First-Ever Minimal Cell Blueprint More Complex Than Expected

EMBL and CRG scientists reveal what a self-sufficient cell can't do withoutWhat are the bare essentials of life, the indispensable ingredients required to produce a cell that can survive on its own? Can we describe the molecular anatomy of a cell, and understand how an entire organism functions as a system? These are just some of the questions that scientists in a partnership between the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Centre de Regulacio Genòmica (CRG) in Barcelona, Spain, set out to address. In three papers published back-to-back today in Science, they provide the first comprehensive picture of a minimal cell, based on an extensive quantitative study of the biology of the bacterium that causes atypical pneumonia, Mycoplasma pneumoniae. The study uncovers fascinating novelties relevant to bacterial biology and shows that even the simplest of cells is more complex than expected.Mycoplasma pneumoniae is a small, single-cell bacterium that causes atypical pneumonia in humans. It is also one of the smallest prokaryotes – organisms whose cells have no nucleus – that don't depend on a host's cellular machinery to reproduce. This is why the six research groups which set out to characterize a minimal cell in a project headed by scientists Peer Bork, Anne-Claude Gavin and Luis Serrano chose M. pneumoniae as a model: it is complex enough to survive on its own, but small and, theoretically, simple enough to represent a minimal cell – and to enable a global analysis.A network of research groups at EMBL's Structural and Computational Biology Unit and CRG's EMBL-CRG Systems Biology Partnership Unit approached the bacterium at three different levels. One team of scientists described M. pneumoniae's transcriptome, identifying all the RNA molecules, or transcripts, produced from its DNA, under various environmental conditions. Another defined all the metabolic reactions that occurred in it, collectively known as its metabolome, under the same conditions. A third team identified every multi-protein complex the bacterium produced, thus characterizing its proteome organization."At all three levels, we found M. pneumoniae was more complex than we expected", says Luis Serrano, co-initiator of the project at EMBL and now head of the Systems Biology Department at CRG.When studying both its proteome and its metabolome, the scientists found many molecules were multifunctional, with metabolic enzymes catalyzing multiple reactions, and other proteins each taking part in more than one protein complex. They also found that M. pneumoniae couples biological processes in space and time, with the pieces of cellular machinery involved in two consecutive steps in a biological process often being assembled together.Remarkably, the regulation of this bacterium's transcriptome is much more similar to that of eukaryotes – organisms whose cells have a nucleus – than previously thought. As in eukaryotes, a large proportion of the transcripts produced from M. pneumoniae's DNA are not translated into proteins. And although its genes are arranged in groups as is typical of bacteria, M. pneumoniae doesn't always transcribe all the genes in a group together, but can selectively express or repress individual genes within each group.Unlike that of other, larger, bacteria, M. pneumoniae's metabolism doesn't appear to be geared towards multiplying as quickly as possible, perhaps because of its pathogenic lifestyle. Another surprise was the fact that, although it has a very small genome, this bacterium is incredibly flexible and readily adjusts its metabolism to drastic changes in environmental conditions. This adaptability and its underlying regulatory mechanisms mean M. pneumoniae has the potential to evolve quickly, and all the above are features it also shares with other, more evolved organisms."The key lies in these shared features", explains Anne-Claude Gavin, an EMBL group leader who headed the study of the bacterium's proteome: "Those are the things that not even the simplest organism can do without and that have remained untouched by millions of years of evolution – the bare essentials of life".This study required a wide range of expertise, to understand M. pneumoniae's molecular organization at such different scales and integrate all the resulting information into a comprehensive picture of how the whole organism functions as a system – an approach called systems biology."Within EMBL's Structural and Computational Biology Unit we have a unique combination of methods, and we pooled them all together for this project", says Peer Bork, joint head of the unit, co-initiator of the project, and responsible for the computational analysis. "In partnership with the CRG group we thus could build a complete overall picture based on detailed studies at very different levels." Bork was recently awarded the Royal Society and Académie des Sciences Microsoft Award for the advancement of science using computational methods. Serrano was recently awarded a European Research Council Senior grant. ---Image Caption: This image represents the integration of genomic, metabolic, proteomic, structural and cellular information about Mycoplasma pnemoniae in this project: one layer of an Electron Tomography scan of a bottle-shaped M. pneumoniae cell (grey) is overlaid with a schematic representation of this bacterium's metabolism, comprising 189 enzymatic reactions, where blue indicates interactions between proteins encoded in genes from the same functional unit. Apart from these expected interactions, the scientists found that, surprisingly, many proteins are multifunctional. For instance, there were various unexpected physical interactions (yellow lines) between proteins and the subunits that form the ribosome, which is depicted as an Electron microscopy image (yellow). Credit: Takuji Yamada /EMBL
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:32 pm

Building Real Security With Virtual Worlds

Advances in computerized modeling and prediction of group behavior, together with improvements in video game graphics, are making possible virtual worlds in which defense analysts can explore and predict results of many different possible military and policy actions, say computer science researchers at the University of Maryland in a commentary published in the November 27 issue of the journal "Science.""Defense analysts can understand the repercussions of their proposed recommendations for policy options or military actions by interacting with a virtual world environment....They can propose a policy option and walk skeptical commanders through a virtual world where the commander can literally 'see' how things might play out.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:29 pm

Ecological Speciation By Sexual Selection On Good Genes

Is speciation adaptive?Darwin suggested that the action of natural selection can produce new species, but 150 years after the publication of his famous book, 'On the Origin of Species', debate still continues on the mechanisms of speciation.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:26 pm

FreeBSD 8.0 Released

An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8 stable release. Some of the highlights: Xen DomU support, network stack virtualization, stack-smashing protection, TTY layer rewrite, much improved ZFS v13, a new USB stack, multicast updates including IGMPv3, vimage — a new virtualization container, Fedora 10 Linux binary compatibility to run Linux software such as Flash 10 and others, trusted BSD MAC (Mandatory Access Control), and rewritten NFS client/server introducing NFSv4. Inclusion of improved device mmap() extensions will allow the technical implementation of a 64-bit Nvidia display driver for the x86-64 platform. The GNOME desktop environment has been upgraded to 2.26.3, KDE to 4.3.1, and Firefox to 3.5.5. There is also an in-depth look at the new features and major architectural changes in FreeBSD 8.0, including a screenshot tour, upgrade instructions are posted here. You can grab the latest version from FreeBSD from the mirrors (main ftp server) or via BitTorrent. Please consider making a donation and help us to spread the word by tweeting and blogging about the drive and release."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:19 pm

New Guidelines For Broadcasters On User-Generated Content

For the first time guidelines are to be published on how broadcasters around the world can encourage audiences to produce better quality user-generated content and to improve media and information literacy.The new guidelines will also enable the public to become more media and information literate.Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO said of the guidelines launched today: "UNESCO and CBA joined forces to encourage broadcasters, particularly from the developing countries, to interact with their viewers and listeners to enhance the quality of the User-Generated Content (UGC) through improved Media and Information Literacy (MIL) of their audiences and, more specifically, UGC producers".The guidelines, suggested and funded by UNESCO and commissioned by the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association (CBA), provide guidance on how to encourage a greater diversity of material from a wider range of voices - material that serves both the public duty and commercial needs of broadcasters and the viewing and democratic needs of the audience.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 12:18 pm

Sidebar Delivers Personalized Mobile Apps And Content To Android

We recently wrote about Sidebar, an app that wants to help smartphone users with the process of finding the perfect apps for their phones. Sidebar is debuting its first app and guess what? It’s not an iPhone app-it’s an Android app! While Sidebar’s Android app is built for all Google-powered Android phones, the app has been configured specially for the newly released Verizon Droid. Android users can download the app here.

Sidebar will ask you a series of demographic questions (gender, age, location) and a series of questions to determine your interests and content preferences (i.e. what type of news do you prefer, do you play online games, what types of outdoor activities are you interested in). Once Sidebar figures out a rough sketch of who you are, the app will begin to recommend mobile content to you. Content consists of videos, games, music, apps, ringtones, podcasts, promotions, news articles. The app will load no more than 12 content recommendations per day, which will last for 24 hours until the next batch of recs are sent to you. Recommendations include a short synopsis of the app or content and a screenshot or image. If you like the rec, you can save it and and download or access it later.

While the Android Market no doubt needs an improvement, its promising that nifty apps like Sidebar are coming to the Android before hopping on the iPhone train. We’ve seen Sobees and Seesmic take a similar approach. Because the iPhone market is so saturated, it could make sense for developers to perhaps gain a following from other smartphone users, and perfect their iPhone offerings in the meantime.

Sidebar seems like a compelling app for an Android user. Although the number of apps on the Android Market doesn’t yet reach the magnitude of content on Apple’s App Store, there still is a value in receiving customized recommendations for mobile content. Android’s app store features top paid and free apps, but doesn’t have an in-depth personalized recommendation feature that competes with Sidebar. And the app suggests other types of mobile content, like ringtones, videos, news and more.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 11:30 am

European Launch Of 'Oceans' Supported By ESA

Oceans cover nearly three-quarters of Earth's surface, yet they remain the least explored territories of our planet.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 11:20 am

Developers Unveil New Robotic Creations At Robot Exhibition

New robotic developments in Japan can cook snacks, play with your kids, model clothes, and search for disaster victims, AFP reported.This year’s International Robot Exhibition kicked off this week in Japan, where developers are showing off the latest robo-inventions from 192 companies and 64 organizations from at home and abroad.One of the highlights of the exhibition is the industrial robot "Motoman" from Yaskawa Electric Corp., which fully cooked a Japanese pancake, called an okonomiyaki, on a sizzling hotplate."It is delicious.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am

Apple Asks Judge To Shutter Psystar's Clone Unit

CWmike writes "Apple wants a federal judge to shut down Psystar's Mac clone operation and order the company to pay more than $2.1 million in damages, according to court documents. The move was the first by Apple since US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that Psystar violated Apple's copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it installed Mac OS X on clones it sold. Alsup's Nov. 13 order, which granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and quashed Psystar's similar request, was a crushing blow to the Florida company's legal campaign. In a motion filed Monday, Apple asked Alsup to grant a permanent injunction that would force Psystar to stop selling any computer bundled with Mac OS X; using, selling or even owning software that lets it crack Apple's OS encryption key to trick Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware; and 'inducing, aiding or inducing others in infringing Apple's copyright.'" Groklaw has summarized Apple's request as well, and noted that Apple has also filed a motion to dismiss Psystar's litigation in Florida (or transfer it to California, where the above injunction was filed).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2009 | 11:02 am

Wikileaks Releases Half Million Text Messages Sent On 9/11 - AHN

BBC News

Wikileaks Releases Half Million Text Messages Sent On 9/11 AHN Washington, DC (AHN) - Wikileaks has released half a million text messages sent via pagers nationwide during a 24-hour period on Sept. 11, 2001. The intercepts include messages from the Pentagon, the NYPD and other government agencies. ... wikileaks Posts Alleged 9/11 Pager MessagesGothamist Website Wikileaks publishes '9/11 messages'BBC News Activist group posting 573000 9/11 pager messagesThe Associated Press CNN -The Money Times -Wired News all 561 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Nov 2009 | 10:50 am

Rogers Purchasing 3.2 Million Shares of Cogeco Cable Inc. and 1.6 Million Shares of Cogeco Inc.

TORONTO, Nov. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Rogers Communications Inc. announced today that it has entered into agreements to purchase 3,200,000 subordinate voting shares of Cogeco Cable Inc. and 1,623,500 subordinate voting shares of Cogeco Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 10:37 am

Toshiba Employee Arrested For Selling Software To Break Copy Limits

JoshuaInNippon writes "A Toshiba employee in western Japan has been arrested on charges of copyright violations for selling software online that breaks copying limits on certain Japanese digital TV recording and playback devices. The software specifically overrides limits on a program called 'dubbing10,' which is used in devices sold by companies such as Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. It is believed that the man generated thousands of dollars worth of earnings for himself by selling to at least 712 people, including one teenager who then resold the software to another 240 people. This is the first disclosed case in Japan of someone being arrested for selling such limit-removal software for digital TV recording. Since it sounds like he has already admitted to selling it (although he denies creating it), and due to the generally high conviction rate of those arrested by Japanese police, his future does not look so bright at the moment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 26 Nov 2009 | 10:10 am

Top 10 iPhone Apps for Hobbyists - PC World

dBTechno

Top 10 iPhone Apps for Hobbyists PC World Grilling. Bird watching. Shopping. Whatever your downtime passion, there's an app for that. Here's a look at ten intriguing options to help you recharge. Let's face it: we've been working hard at our jobs lately — that is, if we're lucky enough to ... Bringing Big Smiles to iPhone ShutterbugsNew York Times New Site Logs iphone App Store RejectionsPC Magazine ebay: Our Mobile Users Will Spend More Than $500 Million On Goods This YearWashington Post CNET News -ABC News -Register all 232 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Nov 2009 | 10:01 am

On the claimed prices of cellphones

Cellular carriers claim that their contracts offset heavy subsidies on handsets. They claim they'd love to sell phones contract-free at retail--you're just not interested. But there's a problem with this story: these "full price" handsets are grossly overpriced, suggesting that they want consumers in the contract rat trap after all. As hard as it is to prove, discount handsets often reveal the absurdity of list pricing. For example, Motorola's Renew, free with a 2-year agreement, is listed as $160 full-price at T-Mobile. Amazon has it for $70 unlocked, however, and Manufacturer Motorola charges just $50.

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:55 am

Thanksgiving 2009 Mashup: The games (and game products) we’re most thankful for

FROM GAMERTELL - As a special, tasty treat for this holiday, here’s a look at the games and game products Gamertell (and Appletell and Gadgetell) writers and editors are most thankful for…
MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:31 am

Mystery Buyer Coughs Up $1.5 Million For Russia.com

The domain name russia.com has been purchased by an undisclosed buyer for $1.5 million through marketplace Sedo, reports Yakov Sadchikov over on the Quintura blog.

Currently an online guide for travelers who would like to visit the country, Russia.com is an operation of Paley Media, a Seattle, WA-based consultancy firm that runs the show for many a country domain name, including Algeria.com, Scotland.com, Nepal.com and Ukraine.com. The domain names are themselves owned by NewMedia Holdings, a company that registered the domain name russia.com back in 1995.

It’s unclear why NewMedia / Paley Media decided to offload the high-value domain name, but I reckon one million and a half dollars is a fair price for a website that currently attracts a mere 9,000 unique visitors per month according to Compete. On the other hand, Korea.com was sold earlier this year for a reported $5 million.

We recently wrote about dominance of number of .com domains and also noted that .com domain registrations were starting to turn around again after a poor 2008. It looks like values of .com domains may be rising again: insurance broker Insure.com just sold its name and corresponding website for a whopping $16 million last month.

Other large domain purchases this year include the sale of Candy.com for $3 million, Toys-R-Us’ acquisition of Toys.com for $5.1 million, the sale of Fly.com to Travelzoo for $1.8 million, and the sale of Ad.com for $1.4 million.

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Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:19 am

Parts Of India Experiencing Desertification

Deforestation and overgrazing are among the factors being blamed for turning almost a quarter of India into desert, according to a study published this week.The study's authors report that northern and western India are the hardest hit, as shown by satellite mapping.The study, published by the Space Applications Center and the Current Science journal states, "There has been a long-pending need for desertification/land degradation status mapping of the entire country based on scientific methods."Researchers added that over 200 million acres (80 million hectares) were under desertification - areas already considered desert or under threat.India accounts for 2.4 percent of the world's land mass, yet it supports roughly 16.7 percent of global population, as well as 18 percent of its cattle."There is tremendous pressure on our land-based natural resources," it said.Other causes taken into account were "changes in the frequency and amount of rainfall, water and wind erosion, as well as harmful agricultural practices."A total of 32 percent of India was described by the study as undergoing "land degradation." The states where this is most pronounced are Rajasthan, Kashmir, Gujarat and Maharashtra.Other research, conducted by consulting firm McKinsey and Co., shows that water needs throughout India would double by the year 2030.India's large agricultural sector, driven by demand for rice and other crops, is expected to consume some 53 trillion cubic feet (1.5 trillion cubic meters) of water by 2030.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am

Gadgetell Roundup: The tech we are thankful for

Section: Gadgets / Other

It is hard to argue that there are more important things in life to be thankful for, such as friends, family and your health. But lets face it, despite having those we are still geeks and for better or worse that means we are thankful in our own way for the tech we see and get to use each and every day.

With that here is a little roundup of the tech that we Gadgetell writers have become thankful for. And when you are done reading and/or poking fun at our unsavory love of tech and gadgets feel free to leave a comment letting us know what tech you are thankful for.

First up is our very own associate editor JG Mason:

I am thankful for developers.  My iPhone would be a quasi-useless brick without the ability to play cool games, geocache, navigate on sea and land, be my go to calculator, etc.

I am thankful for the convenience of every stupid whim I get, there is usually an app, as trendy as it sounds, for that.  Thanks for making our tech so darn compelling. 

Moving on, we have Sue Walsh, who seems to have taken a slightly more professional approach:

I am thankful for my Blackberry Tour which keeps me connected and for my computer which allows me to make a living!

Also joining us is the newest member of our team, Andrew Kameka:

I’m thankful for smartphones, specifically my T-Mobile G1. It doesn’t take pictures as well as my Canon or play music as well as my iPod, but it’s an on-the-go replacement for both. Combined with the ability to communicate, connect to the web, and take advantage of thousands of apps, smartphones have made my life so much simpler. I know it sounds cheesy, but the world’s a touch away thanks to this handy device.

Next up, we have Shawn Ingram, who seems to be sharing in the same line of though as I am with his love of netbooks:

Believe it or not, I’m thankful for for netbooks.  I rarely leave my dorm without my Eee PC 901.  I love the fact that it can do almost all the things I need to do (notes, email, Internet browsing), and how easy it is to change the OS.  Also, the small size which makes it so nobody else asks to borrow it for more than five minutes.

Next up is long time Gadgetell contributor, Natesh Sood, who is also giving thanks to a cell phone:

My LG enV 3 cell phone.  It is quite an upgrade over my previous phone, which was your basic flip phone.  The external keypad is very easy to text T9 style on, and it opens up to reveal a full QWERTY keyboard with a larger screen for fast texting. The battery life is decent, and it takes 3.0 MP pictures, which is definitely tops among competitor phones. 

And finally, we have myself. Like I mentioned, Shawn and I seem to have been thinking alike. My item, well items are my Eee PC 1000H and my Sprint branded MiFi. And although I am thankful for, at the same time it should be described as a love hate relationship. I love my Eee PC because I can work from anywhere, and I often do because I get tired of staring at the same four walls in my home office. But at the same time that means my netbook is generally never more than a few feet away, which often leads to me working when I should be relaxing. And as far as the MiFi is concerned, I think that goes without saying, but what can a geek really be more thankful for—connectivity. This device gives me a personal hotspot for up to five other devices where ever I may be.

And with that, the Gadgetell team is going to be taking it a little easy today and spending some time with the other items (family) they are thankful for. Me, I am heading out for a nice long run in an attempt at pre-burning some of those extra calories I plan on taking in later this afternoon.

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Sanyo develops solar cell that’s thinner than hair

Sanyo is in the news today, and again it’s about the company’s green tech power. The company today announced [JP] it will do everything to become Japan’s top player in the domestic solar industry by 2012 and eventually one of the top three solar companies on a global level. At the same time, the Nikkei reports [registration required, paid subscription] that Sanyo has succeeded in developing a solar cell that’s thinner than a human hair.

The company says it will benefit greatly from a new feed-in tariff program by the Japanese government introduced this month for green energy firms. Another factor for Sanyo’s self-confidence should be the speed with which it innovates. Their new prototype solar cell is just 58 micrometers thick, about one-fourth of most solar cells currently out there. (Sorry, there’s no picture available yet)

It’s made of two types of silicon whose structure Sanyo optimized to achieve a conversion efficiency of 22%. It’s said to be as bendable as paper, meaning it can be used for a variety of purposes, for example on uneven surfaces.

Sanyo says this technology might help reduce prices by as much as 25% when compared to solar cells available today. The company wants to commercialize the solar cells by 2020.

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

Wikipedia In Need Of Editors?

A recent university study showed that Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, "lost" some 49,000 of its volunteer editors in the first three months of this year.BBC compared this figure to a loss of 4,900 over the same period last year.Felipe Ortega, from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, carried out the research and said that if the trend continues, it could spell problems for the site."If the negative trend is maintained for too much time, say one or two years, eventually the project could enter a problematic phase," Ortega stated.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 8:50 am

Corel Buys Out Corel

Apologies for the confusing headline, but I couldn’t resist.

This morning, long-time software maker Corel Corporation turned over full ownership to Corel Holdings, a limited partnership controlled by an affiliate of Vector Capital, majority investor of the company behind many familiar software programs like WordPerfect, CorelDRAW, WinZip, Paint Shop Pro and WinDVD (most of them obtained through acquisition of smaller software firms).

The LP of the private equity investment firm, which already owned approximately 68% of the Corel Corporation, announced this morning that it has successfully completed its tender offer to purchase all outstanding common shares of the company, evidently not including those owned by Corel Holdings and its affiliates. The shares were purchased, in cash, at a unit price of $4.00, excluding interest and less applicable withholding taxes. Painful, because Vector had already offered to buy the company for $11 per share in March 2008.

With benefit of hindsight, Corel should have probably accepted that offer, of course.

Corel Holdings is now commencing an offering period of its tender offer to acquire all remaining common shares of Corel Corporation, which will expire at December 4, 2009.

Vector Capital assumed control over Corel Corp for a reported $133 million in 2003. The VC firm subsequently moved to take the company public in 2006, but retained majority ownership. The partial spin-off wasn’t much of a hit: Corel initially priced its IPO at $18 to $20 and later revised that to $16. But the company saw shares open at $15.36, and it has never once traded above that price (as is often the case when stocks open at a lower price point than initially set). Shares currently change hands for about one quarter of the opening price.

Corel Corp earlier this week justified the offer to take the company private, saying that complete ownership is necessary to inject capital quickly and avert a default on its loans. The company, once a fierce rival to Microsoft on the productivity software playing field, had been on the ropes for quite some time now. Corel was required to keep its total debt level below 2.75 times its trailing 12-month EBITDA, but on Monday indicated that it expected to fail that test this month.

The economic downturn sure rocked this company, established in 1985, very hard. Let’s see how it will fare now that it’s under Vector’s wings in its entirety again.

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Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 8:18 am

Acer: Windows 7 Helping PC Sales

According to Acer, last month's Windows 7 launch has been good for year-end PC sales.Taiwan-based Acer is the considered to be the No.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:57 am

Black Friday deals for Mac and iPhone software (Macworld.com)

Macworld.com - Thursday is Thanksgiving, the holiday season is upon us, and Black Friday is coming, well, Friday. And you know what that means—discounts. Before you go out and brave the throngs of shoppers crowding the malls, have a look at some Mac and iPhone software discounts that you can take advantage of right from the comfort of your home.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:32 am

DFJ-Backed Clixtr Marries Photos With Location, Launches Website

Clixtr, a startup that first presented itself to a wide audience at this year’s TechCrunch50 Conference (our take), kicked off things with a relatively limited offering – a paid iPhone app – but is now upping its game with the launch of an accompanying location-aware photo sharing website.

It’s also dropping the price of its iPhone application to zero, so if you and the rest of the family will be taking pictures today over Thanksgiving dinner, take notice.

The fledgling company, founded by MIT and Stanford grads, aims to turn smartphones into what they refer to as ’smartcameras’ or ’social cameras’. The basic idea behind the service is that when you’re at an event, be it a birthday party at your home or at a massive rock concert, photos from multiple people attending could be turned into one single, centralized photo album for all to enjoy.

To make this work, even when pictures are taken by people you do not know, Clixtr uses location as the tying factor. The app essentially combines the capabilities of the iPhone’s camera and built-in GPS to geo-tag photos and determine when photos are being taken at the same location. Clixtr thus enables users to automagically create instant, location-aware, group photo albums in real-time (lots of buzzwords there, but that’s the way it works).

Before, Clixtr users could only add photos to albums using the now free iPhone application (which cost $2.99 at launch), but with the launch of the corresponding website at Clixtr.com anyone can now contribute to the group albums. Since the application can also detect which other events are happening around you based on where you’re taking photos, Clixtr can double as a discovery engine for other happenings going on around you.

No word on if and when the company plans to extend its service to include other smartphone platforms.

Clixtr founder and CEO Fergus Hurley waved goodbye to his PhD program in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT to incorporate the startup back in 2008, and went on to raise an undisclosed amount of seed financing from Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson in March 2009.

What’s your take?

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Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:21 am

Microsoft’s Dance With Newspapers Continues

We’ve been doing some more digging on the definitive moves by Microsoft to woo newspapers over to Bing and away from Google, a story we broke two weeks ago.

Since then there have been some follow-up by various media outlets, notably the Financial Times this week which confirmed that Microsoft had had discussions with News Corp to “de-index” its news websites from Google.

Who approached who first? The FT said the impetus came from News Corp, although our information is that Microsoft is also talking to a range of newspaper publishers in Europe as well, such as German publishers like Axel Springer.

So here is what our sources are coming up with.

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Source: TechCrunch | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:06 am

'Deep Retrofits' Can Cut Home Energy Bills In Half

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced plans to conduct a series of deep energy retrofit research projects with the potential to improve the energy efficiency in selected homes by as much as 30 to 50 percent.The projects will be supported by up to $1.4 million from the Department of Energy's Building America Program, which has received additional funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.Deep energy retrofits are renovations to existing structures that use the latest in energy-efficient materials and technologies and result in significant energy reductions.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:01 am

Happy Thanksgiving 2009 from Gadgetell

Section: Gadgets / Other

We here at Gadgetell just wanted to take a moment and wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. And of course what that also means is that our coverage will be a little lighter than usual because we are going to be spending some quality time with family and stuffing our faces.

Happy Thanksgiving, and we look forward to rejoining with all of you tomorrow.

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

Top Ten Reasons to Shop on drugstore.com This Black Friday

BELLEVUE, Wash., Nov. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- drugstore.com, inc. (Nasdaq: DSCM), a leading online retailer of health, beauty, vision, and pharmacy products unveils its biggest holiday gift selection ever with its Black Friday sale starting at midnight tonight.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

Himfr Evaluates LG's New Multi-Functional Vacuum Cleaner

BEIJING, Nov.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 7:00 am

FedEx's cellular sensor-package for your important shipments

Senseaware is FedEx's cellular-connected sensor-package. Drop it in your super-important packages (they're targeting it at people who ship human organs around) (Matthew from FedEx sez, "We're not targeting shipping of organs. It's life sciences. So that's pharma, medical devices/equipment, diagnostic kits and samples.") and for $120/month it will tell you everything about that package -- where it is at this very second, whether it's been dropped, how hot/cold it is, and so on. Science fiction plot-device ahoy! Also, check out the awesomely jargony product description from the press-release:

Available in the spring of 2010, SenseAware is an open, highly adaptive and easy-to-use sensor information sharing platform. It is a multi-modal solution that will serve customers who desire near real-time visibility and insight into their shipments. SenseAware will provide business decision makers the ability to quickly and easily collaborate on many types of information data across their global supply chain.

SenseAware is permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration to be used during flight on FedEx aircraft and will allow customers to monitor in-transit conditions during ground transportation.

A SenseAware device riding with a FedEx shipment can provide the following information:

* Precise temperature readings
* A shipment's exact location
* When a shipment is opened or if the contents have been exposed to light
* Real-time alerts and analytics between trusted parties regarding the above vital signs of a shipment

SenseAware powered by FedEx

(via OhGizmo)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Nov 2009 | 6:49 am

PaPeRo: NEC’s cute helper robot

As a huge conglomerate, NEC is active in a lot of areas. But unknown to many people outside Japan, the company is quite aggressive in the robotics field, too. Their PaPeRo, a cute helper robot, for example, has been around since 1997 already. And now, just in time for a robot exhibition that currently takes place in Tokyo, the company shows an updated version of the little guy.

The new PaPerRo R500 stands 38cm tall and weighs 6.5kg. It can perform about 200 different operations, for example holding simple conversations with humans. NEC equipped the robot with special face recognition software so that PaPeRo can identify up to 30 different people and change his behavior depending on who he’s speaking to.

Powered by a lithium-ion battery, PaPeRo can work for around 100 minutes before having to return to the recharging station, which you can see on the picture above (he does this automatically).

NEC plans to lease out the robots to anyone interested for $600 per month soon – but only in Japan.

Via Robot Watch [JP]

Source: CrunchGear | 26 Nov 2009 | 6:41 am

When Camouflage Is A Plant's Best Protection

A rare woodland plant uses 'cryptic coloration' to hide from its predatorsIt is well known that some animal species use camouflage to hide from predators. Individuals that are able to blend in to their surroundings and avoid being eaten are able to survive longer, reproduce, and thus increase their fitness (pass along their genes to the next generation) compared to those who stand out more. This may seem like a good strategy, and fairly common in the animal kingdom, but who ever heard of a plant doing the same thing?In plants, the use of coloration or pigmentation as a vital component of acquiring food (e.g., photosynthesis) or as a means of attracting pollinators (e.g., flowers) has been well studied. However, variation in pigmentation as a means of escaping predation has received little attention. In the December issue of the American Journal of Botany, Matthew Klooster from Harvard University and colleagues empirically investigated whether the dried bracts on a rare woodland plant, Monotropsis odorata, might serve a similar purpose as the stripes on a tiger or the grey coloration of the wings of the peppered moth, namely to hide (http://www.amjbot.org/cgi/reprint/ajb.0900124v1)."Monotropsis odorata is a fascinating plant species, as it relies exclusively upon mycorrhizal fungus, that associates with its roots, for all of the resources it needs to live," notes Klooster. "Because this plant no longer requires photosynthetic pigmentation (i.e., green coloration) to produce its own energy, it is free to adopt a broader range of possibilities in coloration, much like fungi or animals."Using a large population of Monotropsis odorata, Klooster and colleagues experimentally removed the dried bracts that cover the 3- to 5-cm tall stems and flower buds of these woodland plants. The bracts are a brown color that resembles the leaf litter from which the reproductive stems emerge and cover the pinkish-purple colored buds and deep purple stems. When Klooster and colleagues measured the reflectance pattern of the different plant parts, they indeed found that the bracts functioned as camouflage, making the plant blend in with its surroundings; the bract reflectance pattern closely resembled that of the leaf litter, and both differed from that of the reproductive stem and flowers hidden underneath the bracts. Furthermore, they experimentally demonstrated that this camouflage actually worked to hide the plant from its predators and increased its fitness. Individuals with intact bracts suffered only a quarter of the herbivore damage and produced a higher percentage of mature fruits compared to those whose bracts were removed."It has long been shown that animals use cryptic coloration (camouflage) as a defense mechanism to visually match a component of their natural environment, which facilitates predator avoidance," Klooster said. "We have now experimentally demonstrated that plants have evolved a similar strategy to avoid their herbivores."Drying its bracts early to hide its reproductive parts is a good strategy when the stems are exposed to predators for long periods of time: all the other species in the subfamily Monotropoideae have colorful fleshy bracts and are reproductively active for only a quarter of the length of time. Somewhat paradoxically however Monotropsis odorata actually relies on animals for pollination and seed dispersal. How does it accomplish this when it is disguised as dead leaf material and is able to hide so well? The authors hypothesize that the flowers emit highly fragrant odors that serve to attract pollinators and seed dispersal agents; indeed they observed bumble bees finding and pollinating many reproductive stems that were entirely hidden by the leaf litter itself.---Image Caption: As a myco-heterotroph, M. odorata obtains carbon resources from associated mycorrhizal fungi and has a highly reduced vegetative morphology consisting of an underground root mass that produces one to many diminutive reproductive stems (3.5–6 cm in height). Upon emerging from the soil in the late fall, reproductive stems and immature buds are light lavender in color and covered by fleshy bracts and sepals. However, over the course of the subsequent winter months, bracts and sepals become scarious, drying to a light brown. Reproductive stems, encased in dried bracts and sepals, mature early the following spring and upon anthesis, flowers become fragrant (like baking cloves) and are pollinated by Bombus spp. Fruit set ensues over the subsequent 8–10 weeks, with pungently fragrant fruits attracting animals for seed dispersal. Monotropsis odorata is notoriously difficult to locate in the wild, likely owing to the dried bracts and sepals that cover reproductive stems and flowers, rendering them inconspicuous against the ambient pine and oak leaf litter among which they grow. Manipulations of reproductive stems have shown that these cryptic vegetative bracts conceal more conspicuously colored floral and stem tissues and significantly reduce floral herbivory, leading to higher fruit set, a component of plant reproductive fitness. This finding offers strong support to a growing body of literature documenting the ecological dynamics of plant defensive coloration. Credit: Photo credit: Matthew R. Klooster.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 6:38 am

kgb 542542 Text Answer Service Can Help You Get The Best Deals on Black Friday With 'kgb Price Checker'

NEW YORK Nov.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

Yet-to-be-Created Business put up for Sale on Ebay!

LONDON, November 26 /PRNewswire/ -- On Thursday 26th November 2009, at 11.59 AM GMT, a yet to be created business was listed for sale on Ebay.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Nov 2009 | 5:40 am

Implants Track Endangered Orangutans

Veterinarians have been tracking three orangutans they implanted with tiny transmitters as part of efforts to protect the endangered primates once they reintroduce them to the wild, a Malaysian official said Monday.French and Austrian veterinarians worked with the Wildlife Department in eastern Sabah state on Borneo island to implant specially designed coin-sized transmitters in the necks of the orangutans for the first time ever in September, said Senthilvel Nathan, the department's chief field veterinarian.Laurentuis Ambu, wildlife department head in Sabah state on Borneo, says, "These are rescued orangutans.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Nov 2009 | 5:20 am

Wooden orrery

I love this simple wooden orrery from Muji's gift lineup. Sadly, their ecommerce-fu is about as terrible as it gets, but if you're near a Muji store, it's £16 well-spent.

Wooden Solar System

(Thanks, Alice!)

Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 26 Nov 2009 | 2:01 am