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Hipster Parenting Site Babble Launches Facebook App We recently wrote about Babble, a magazine and parenting community site aimed at urban hipsters, after the startup raised $1 million in funding from Greycroft Partners. Spun off from sex and dating community Nerve Media, Babble takes a more modern view on parenting, aimed at a younger generation of parents who live in cities, equally share parenting duties (or at least make an effort) and use the internet to access information. It is the same demographic that the magazine Cookie is going after, except it tries to appeal to the Dads as well. Babble’s new Facebook app, called “Connected by Kids,” allows parents to create Facebook profiles for their children, as well as groups for schools, softball teams, and friends. The virtue of the app is that it allows users to share photos and updates with family friends without sharing them publicly. Babble’s CEO Rufus Griscom told me that many parents don;t care to share intimate pictures of their children with their entire friend base on Facebook. Babble’s app lets users create a mini-social network within Facebook. The site has steadily been growing in traffic, and now is seeing around 3.5 million unique users per month. The Facebook app should only help contribute more traffic to the site. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:30 am Hipster Parenting Site Babble Launches Facebook AppWe recently wrote about Babble, a magazine and parenting community site aimed at urban hipsters, after the startup raised $1 million in funding from Greycroft Partners. Spun off from sex and dating...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:30 am Google Phone In January, Unlocked, Thinner Than iPhone - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:27 am Google Phone In January, Unlocked, Thinner Than iPhone
At last, the Googlephone has appeared. Forget the Droid, the G1 and all those other Android wannabees. Google will begin to sell its own reference Android 2.1 handset, designed by Google,made by hardware partner HTC, and called the Nexus One. The phone will be sold online by Google itself. The Nexus One will, crucially, be sold unlocked, giving Google complete control over the hardware and software with no pesky carrier interference. Even the iPhone, which has had almost unprecedented autonomy in its functionality is still constrained by carriers: AT&T’s anti-tethering paranoia is a good example. Although not yet officially announced, Google has coyly admitted that the phone is real and will be on sale early in the new year. In fact, it has provided the handset to its employees in order to test it out in the wild. The Google Mobile Blog explains, somewhat cryptically:
The phone is already in use. Nerdy John Gruber of Daring Fireball found this user agent string in his site’s logs:
It makes sense to identify yourself as Mobile Safari, if only to get proper mobile Webkit pages served to you. Characteristically, and in contrast to Apple’s secrecy, photos of the Googlephone are already being posted openly by Googlers, or being handed to their friends. The picture above, posted on Twitpic by blogger Cory O’Brien, shows the handset (taken on an iPhone and with a BlackBerry in the background). According to O’Brien, “Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android”. The hardware specs are also leaking. Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch says that the Nexus will run on Qualcomm’s speedy Snapdragon chip, sport an OLED display, be thinner than the iPhone (with no physical keyboard) and feature two microphones along with a “weirdly large” camera. Those hoping to get an iPhone-caliber phone on Verizon are out of luck. The Nexus will be a GSM phone, which means T-Mobile and AT&T in the US. Worse, if you do opt for AT&T, your data connection could be EDGE-only. Gruber again, from Twitter.
According to the Media Memo blog at the Wall Street Journal, the choice to use GSM was prompted by Verizon’s refusal to carry the Nexus. Verizon already sells the Android-based Droid, but this odd decision looks like a repeat of the one made when the carrier turned down the iPhone. This may turn out to be a Zune-like move, where Microsoft alienated hardware makers by ignoring PlaysForSure in favor of its own new DRM scheme. Or the Nexus could be a light that burns twice as bright as all the existing confusion of Android handsets combined, thus building a brand that can rival the iPhone. Either way, we won’t have to wait for long to see. The Nexus should be on sale in early January, and if these last two days are any indication, then Googlers will have “leaked” all the hardware and software well before the launch. An Android dogfood diet for the holidays [Google Mobile Blog] Photo credit: Cory O’Brien 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:20 am ID Thief Tries To Get Witnesses Whackedadeelarshad82 writes "Pavel Valkovich of Sherman Oaks, CA has pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder, admitting that he attempted to hire hit-men to kill witnesses working with Federal authorities in their investigation of Valkovich's ID theft activities and subsequent crimes. According to the Justice Department: '...Valkovich and others had stolen personal identifying information and used that information to transfer funds from victims' bank accounts to PayPal accounts.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:13 am EU signals it warms to Oracle-Sun deal (Reuters)Reuters - EU regulators signaled on Monday they could clear Oracle Corp's $7 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems after the U.S. software company promised measures to ease competition concerns.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:06 am EU signals it warms to Oracle-Sun dealBRUSSELS (Reuters) - EU regulators signaled on Monday they could clear Oracle Corp's $7 billion takeover of Sun Microsystems after the U.S. software company promised measures to ease...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:06 am Google Goggles blocked over privacy concernsAn internet service launched last week by Google to help cameraphone users to identify strangers in the street has been blocked because of alarm over its threat to personal privacy, reports The Independent...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:01 am Fugitive hides from arrest warrant by working at the DHSTahaya Buchanan, an American fugitive who'd been on the run for more than two years, dodging a national arrest warrant for insurance fraud, has spent her years underground gainfully employed by the Department of Homeland Security.Fugitive Located Inside Homeland Security Department Office
Previously:
 Source: Boing Boing | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:01 am Location's Social ParadoxThere's an absolute eruption of activity around location-based services right now. Companies are getting funded left and right, new ones are popping up daily, and certain ones are seemingly starting to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am Location’s Social Paradox
A few weeks ago, our own Jason Kincaid wrote a post about how Facebook is poised to take over the geolocation space. In it, he makes a number of good points, but there’s one that’s particularly interesting to me. “At most, there are probably a few dozen people who you’d like to share your location with,” he writes. Overall, that’s likely true to a varying degree depending on who you are, but it points to a larger problem I’m starting to notice with these location services: The more people you follow on them, the less useful the service is. This is location’s social paradox. I’ve written before that location is the missing link between social networks and the real world, and I absolutely believe that’s true. But the way most of these location-based services are built right now, they are becoming an unmanageable mush of finding the location of the people you actually care about. Perhaps the most popular of these networks right now, Foursquare, is a perfect example of this. When I was following 20 people on the service, it was very useful. When I was following 50, it was still useful, but there was some clutter. Now, at around 250 people, I find myself scrolling through my stream just to find certain people that I actually want to know their location. I cannot even imagine what Scoble does with the 1,700+ people he follows. Of course, this problem is entirely my own fault. If I don’t want to know where someone is, I shouldn’t follow them. But there are two problems with this. First, there are some people that I would like to follow some of the time, like if we’re all in a different city at a conference together. Or maybe if I’m just bored and looking for something to do on a particular night. Second, and more importantly, today’s social networks carry a social pressure to accept many people that request your friendship. Again, of course you don’t have to, but not doing so can often be misconstrued as a slight on that person. Bigger picture: Today’s social networks are predicated on the idea of “more.” The more friends you have on these networks, the more social you are, the better you are at the service, the bigger ego you get, more, more, more. None of that is true, but the perception (as it is with most things in the world) is that more is better. With these location-based social networks, more is actually worse, and that’s awkward. There are a number of things that these networks could do to alleviate some of these lesser issues. One would be to create friend groups, like Facebook and now Twitter offer, to filter friends. Another would be to offer a “mute” button, like Brizzly offers for Twitter users that you don’t want to unfollow, but don’t want to see in your stream all the time. But one of Foursquare’s strengths is that it’s very simple right now. It’s all about checking-in to places and seeing a stream of your friends’ check-ins. If you start to add layers to that, you become the mess of rules and settings that Facebook has become. And because the concept of location-based social networking is still so new and potentially scary to people, I would argue that it’s imperative that Foursquare and these other services do keep it as simple as possible for now.
Another service, Gowalla, also has Push Notifications, which are useful. But that service is less built around the friend stream idea, and it’s much worse if you try to use it for that. Not only do see friends who are in other cities in your main stream (with no indication of what city they’re in), but you are forced to see all your pending friend requests at the top of that list. I’m currently scrolling through dozens of them just to get to the main stream. I could either accept or ignore them all, but I don’t want to. Again, social pressure. In some ways, this is a good problem to have. If users are starting to feel overwhelmed because they have too many friends on your network, it means there are a good number of people actually using it. For most people, Foursquare and Gowalla aren’t there quite yet. But if they keep growing, they will be. And in some other ways this is reminiscent of Twitter when it was younger. Many users started following a lot of people before feeling overwhelmed by the constant flow of updates from people you might not care about so much. But Twitter evolved rapidly from the “What are you doing?” mundane updates, to be more of a multi-layered broadcast service. It’s hard to imagine these location-based services being able to transform in a way that makes them naturally more compatible with having a large group of people you follow. Remember too that Twitter is an asymmetrical network (you can follow others without them having to follow you), while Foursquare and the like are symmetrical (you have to accept and follow them in return). This will always limit the “socialness” of your service, but it seems to be a requirement giving the privacy implications of location (though another location network, BrightKite, recently moved to be more asymmetric). Ultimately, I think if these location-based networks are to survive (and not just get taken over as a feature of Facebook), they’re going to have to shift the mentality that all social networks have to have huge, tightly wound social graphs. Facebook used to be of that mindset to a certain extent, but as we’ve all seen recently, they’re trying to extend their social graph in a major way now. The good news is that the business models forming around these networks don’t require your social graph to be huge. But at the same time, it may be difficult to convince people about the vitality of your network if it doesn’t have a ton of inner-site traffic, which is obviously easier to achieve is everyone is friends with one another and clicking on their pages. Maybe it’s about convincing people that real world “social” is more valuable than social networking “social.” And that the number of friends you have on these networks is increasingly just a useless ego-metric. But it’s a hard sell because deep within our collective psyche, more is always better. [photo: flickr/arenamontanos] Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 14 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am CrunchGear Giveaway: Monster Miles Davis Headphone PackBoobledee ooh ooh woo woo ha lala! We're coming at you with a fancy Monster Miles Davis Headphone pack. The kit includes Monster Miles Davis Tribute Jazz In-Ear Headphones, three albums, and a sassy print...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:57 am CrunchGear Giveaway: Monster Miles Davis Headphone Pack Boobledee ooh ooh woo woo ha lala! We're coming at you with a fancy Monster Miles Davis Headphone pack. The kit includes Monster Miles Davis Tribute Jazz In-Ear Headphones, three albums, and a sassy print.
Take the A train past the jump to figure out how to win.
Source: Gizmodo | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:46 am Imagine there is inter-species robot love
It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only a Chinese Thomas the Tank Engine knock-off. Imagine no possessions except for Optimus Prime. And then mate the two robots to get baby Thomas. Yeah. WTF. Listen: I have no idea what is going on here or why this was sent over our transom, but the thought that there are people out there who dedicate their lives to trying to mate transforming robot toys is worth a post. Happy Monday.
Source: CrunchGear | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:23 am TeliaSonera opens world's first LTE networks - Reuters
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 14 Dec 2009 | 2:12 am Exclusive on engadget: first Google Phone / Nexus One photosengadget has the first official pictures of the Google Phone/the Nexus One. Check it out.Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:54 am Maybe Googlers Eat Their Own Dog Food, But Will It Be Tasty to Anyone Else? [BoomTown]Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.
Leave it to Google to compare its most aggressive new product to date to one that often includes meat by-products, bone meal, brewer’s rice, corn syrup and–yum!–”dried animal digest.” But that’s exactly how the Silicon Valley search giant chose to describe their new Nexus One smartphone in a blog post on Saturday. As in eat their own product! Get it? Titled: “An Android dogfood diet for the holidays,” it read, in part:
While Google (GOOG) did not cite the phone by name in its online missive, a number of sources told BoomTown that the sleek-looking, brown-grey touchscreen device was given to employees at its weekly all-hands meeting on Friday afternoon at the Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, Calif. and across the world, ensconced in a white box with the name right on the top. While the bajillions of Google employees given their early holiday gift were told not to tweet about it or share any information, that’s precisely what they soon did, declaring it delicious. The Twitter feed, so to speak, that ensued quickly got noticed by the blogosphere–first on Friday night by TechCrunch, which also first wrote about the “Google Phone” last month. (The Wall Street Journal followed up with the name of the phone and other details on Saturday.) And that exactly what Google execs meant to happen, of course, by slowly unleashing the Nexus One on the public. Why? Well, so as to test the waters, presumably, after finding somewhat of a tepid reception, so far, from big wireless carriers, who might provide service for it.
Google has, of course, talked to them all, because its plan to market the phone depends on cooperation and not disputation with the big telcos. So far, no one but T-Mobile–the U.S. subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (DT) that already sells four phones using Google’s Android operating system software–has taken the kibble to be part of a new way of selling mobile devices that the search joint will be trying, according to MediaMemo. “But, for sure, Google doesn’t intend to sell its new ‘Nexus One’ phone the typical way, sources familiar with the company’s plans say. Instead, it envisions a scenario where customers who buy the handset on a separate Web site are then provided with another list that lets them pick a carrier, menu-style.” Google needs cooperation here, because most phones are sold “locked,” which means they work only on the carriers you buy them from. (Sort of like making you join a forced march, but with dropped calls.) Thus, Google is also trying to create a phone tasty enough for consumers to demand that wireless networks provide it to them, unlocked and with competitive bidding for service. That prospect is probably not so yummy to the telcos, because they still mostly operate like Soviet ministries, except not nearly as flexible. The question is: If Google is successful in forcing the wireless giant from their practice of handing over whatever thin gruel they choose to dish up to consumers, will it result in better phones for all? Or will Google’s experiment be just that and result in another innovative but failed attempt to change the woeful cell system in the U.S., ending up as another Android phone that still lags behind the Apple (AAPL) iPhone. We’ll all soon see, but not yet, according to Google, which also coined the disturbing term, “dogfooding,” in its hey-everyone-look-at-me-but-don’t-see blog post. “Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.” My dog, Cosmo, is waiting expectantly by his empty bowl. Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:34 am Berlusconi Attacked With Flying Object (But He's Not The First)On Sunday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was attacked and injured during a political rally in Milan. The embattled politician sustained two broken teeth, a fractured nose and cuts after a member of the crowd hurled a scale model of ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:31 am NASA to Launch Telescope to Map Universe - CBS News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:31 am Protecting CRM Customer Data Requires Vigilance (NewsFactor)NewsFactor - Keeping CRM customer data secure isn't a one-size-fits-all task. Indeed, tackling security issues around CRM data demands close examination of vendors as well as internal and external threats -- and it's a vital part of customer relationship management.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:22 am 'Monster' iceberg shedding hundreds of offshootsAn island-sized iceberg is breaking up as it drifts closer to Australia, producing hundreds of smaller slabs spread over a massive area of ocean, experts said Monday. The...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:21 am Picture of Google's Experimental Handset Appears on Twitter (PC World)PC World - A picture of an experimental Android handset given out to Google employees had blogs buzzing over the weekend amid signs that the company could offer a Google-branded smartphone next year.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:10 am Google, Facebook, and Our Privacy: We're All In Denial [Voices]By Scott M. Fulton III, Contributor, Beta News What does it mean to have a “right to privacy?” We have a right to vote, and too few of us use it. I heard it explained to me once, a human right is like a vegetable garden. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:05 am Inside The Lives Of Amazon.com Warehouse Employees: Long Hours, Long Walks, And Heavy Lifting (PHOTOS) [Voices]By Bianca Bosker, Contributor, Huffington Post What goes on behind the scenes at a giant online retailer like Amazon.com (AMZN)? A job posting for openings at Amazon.com’s largest “fulfillment center” in Coffeyville, Kansas offers a glimpse into the working lives of Amazon employees in charge of filling holiday orders at the online seller’s offline warehouses. Hoping to find people to help with the rush of holiday shopping, Amazon posted an add to to Express soliciting people to “come work the holiday season with Amazon.com at their largest fulfillment center” and noting that every year, Amazon.com “searches for over 1,000 smart, friendly and dedicated people with a strong work ethic.” Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:04 am Love Is Fleeting. A Text Message Is Forever. [Voices]By William Saletan, Writer, Slate.com Back in the old days, if you loved somebody far away, the only way you could communicate was by letter. That wasn’t so great, for three reasons. First, it was slow. Second, you couldn’t hear or see her. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:03 am Online, Offline, No Line [Voices]By Adam Cohen, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal The dot-com bubble might seem like a distant memory after the recent financial crisis, but around the world, the Internet continues to fuel hopes for innovation, wealth and economic expansion. That’s why the Internet has sparked something of an arms race between the U.S. and Europe over the past decade, with governments vying to expand its availability and use, hoping that the next technology billionaires spring from somewhere outside of Silicon Valley. In Europe, politicians have tried to engineer catch-up programs to rival U.S. dominance of the Internet. France and Germany jointly started Quaero in 2005, a state-funded search engine designed to rival Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and Microsoft (MSFT) offerings. European Union governments keep a particularly close eye on Internet usage and have been pushing to make Web access available in all corners of the bloc. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:03 am Twitter Tapping [Voices]By New York Times Editorial The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:02 am Aid agencies 'must use new tools'The UN Foundation/Vodafone Foundation Partnership new report, New Technologies in Emergencies and Conflicts: The Role of Information and Social Networks, looks at innovation in the use of technology along...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:01 am Nexus Is a Perfect Name for the Trekkies of Google! (The Video Proof!) [BoomTown]Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.
Nexus? Well, it does sound futurey and all, but it got BoomTown to wondering how Google’s geektastic engineers settled on the name for their not-so-secret new smartphone, which is called the Nexus One. The codename for the project was Passion and Google (GOOG) used a series of fattening pastry monikers for the various updates to its Android software, the operating system for the phones, such as Donut, Eclair and Flan. So why Nexus for the Silicon Valley search giant? By dictionary definition, the choice of the world “nexus” does seem entirely appropriate. From the Latin for “binding,” it is defined simply as: “A means of connection; tie; link; a connected series or group; the core or center, as of a matter or situation; Cell Biology: a specialized area of the cell membrane involved in intercellular communication and adhesion.”
More recently, Nexus Prime is one of the original 13 Transformers, according to the Transformers Wiki: “Nexus Prime was created to guard Rarified Energon by Primus shortly after he assumed his planet form. At an unknown point in time, this Transformer was broken into five other robots: Skyfall, Landquake, Breakaway, Topspin, and Heatwave. He is sometimes, unfortunately, known as Nexus Maximus.” (Well, as long as it’s not some women-hating, gay-bashing phone like the Droid!) Nexus Prime is also a city on Second Life, based on “popular futuristic cyberpunk themes,” says the Second Life Wikia. Apparently, it is now decimated. Nix that, then! Thus, BoomTown is voting for the explanation from “Star Trek: Generations,” the 1994 sequel whose plot centered on the mysterious Nexus. In the movie, Captain James T. Kirk is christening the Enterprise-B, but instead gets sucked up into a mysterious energy ribbon and disappears. About 70 years later, Captain Jean-Luc Picard tangles with a mad genius named Soran, who plans to kill badillions of folks in order to get back into the Nexus, where apparently all your deepest desires are fulfilled in a perfect and timeless world. Picard also gets drawn in too and let’s just guess whom he meets there in order to save the day? It’s such a dreamy version of a mobile phone–a place where the Nexus One never never lose the signal like the AT&T (T) network always does for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone! Given my iPhone suffered 87 dropped calls last week alone in New York and San Francisco, I can stargaze, can’t I? And while we are waiting for the Googlers to drag this wireless drama out for a while longer, until we get our mitts on the actual device, please enjoy the video of the trailer for “Generations”: Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:01 am Now Is It Facebook’s Microsoft Moment? [Voices]By Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-chief, Search Engine Land I came close to killing my Facebook account this week. As I delved even deeper to the supposed privacy I have or don’t have on the service, I wondered why on earth I even have an account at all. And I kept thinking of Anil Dash’s post earlier this year, Google’s (GOOG) Microsoft (MSFT) Moment. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 14 Dec 2009 | 1:01 am Branchr Advertising Launches New Ad Network, CPMForest
Today, Branchr Advertising is announcing a new ad network called CPMForest. The new network focuses on using a CPM model for billing, which the company has not offered until now. CPMForest is designed to appeal to a very broad market: while websites with low traffic are often rejected from CPM based networks, CPMForest aims to remove this barrier allowing all sites onboard regardless of their size. CPMForest uses custom technology to analyze websites and display relevant, contextually targeted advertisements in a fraction of a second. CPMForest is available beginning today in a limited release, but will officially open up the ad network in 2010 to all advertisers. CPMForest is currently taking on board medium-to-large scale advertisers and ad partners for its full launch. CPMForest’s CPM is regularly between $0.10 and $3.50. In August Branchr Advertising acquired CRM tool Atomplan, which is running as its own product right now. There are a lot of other options for CPM advertising solutions, including Adagency1, Adpepper, AdSmart, Adtegrity, Banner Connect and others, so CPMForest is jumping into a crowded market. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:58 am Branchr Advertising Launches New Ad Network, CPMForestToday, Branchr Advertising is announcing a new ad network called CPMForest. The new network focuses on using a CPM model for billing, which the company has not offered until now. CPMForest is designed...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:58 am With a New Phone, Google May Challenge AppleGoogle plans to begin selling its unlocked smartphone early next year, a move that could challenge Apples leadership in the market. The New York Times reports. Googles new touch-screen Android phone,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:57 am The WatchKomrade show takes on the Buran StingrayI’ve been lax in my coverage of Russian watches lately. Most Russians do not have, how you say, very high quality but they have lots of features and plenty of style. This “style,” if you want to call it that, came about in WWII and is very similar to the old-timey Cartier Pasha. Those bars are to keep the crystal from blowing up under water. This watch has an ETA 7750 movement modified to remove the chrono parts. Apparently this watch was made in Switzerland, a move by Buran to lend a little credibility to their brand. If you’re in the market for a watch, take a look at the Russians.
Source: CrunchGear | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:46 am RPT-UPDATE 1-Reliance Comm selling FLAG, US business -sources* Reliance seeks around $3 bln for FLAG, other units-sourcesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:42 am RPT-UPDATE 1-Reliance Comm selling FLAG, US business -sources* Reliance seeks around $3 bln for FLAG, other units-sourcesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:42 am UPDATE 2-Cadbury upbeat in defence against Kraft bid* Looks for double-digit percentage growth in dividendsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:32 am MySpace Continues To Get Trashed Over Imeem Shutdown
It’s been nearly a week since MySpace Music closed its acquisition of some of the assets of music service Imeem and redirected imeem.com to music.myspace.com. MySpace took a lot of heat for the sudden shutdown of the Imeem service, particularly the API. But the fact is that MySpace didn’t shut the Imeem service down. Imeem’s creditors and the music labels did. If MySpace hadn’t done the deal Imeem would have shut down anyway. The company was just out of cash and options, and the wheels had come off the car. For the most part the press now gets that MySpace had very little to do with the shutdown, and has settled down.
It’s not exactly the warms hug MySpace probably thought they’d receive when they stepped in and saved as much of the Imeem service as they could. And with the benefit of hindsight some basic communication to Imeem users other than the shock of a redirect to MySpace Music might have been a good idea. Like an email to users telling them what was happening, for example. But the result is the same. The demise of Imeem had nothing to do with MySpace, and whatever parts of the service do live on will only do so because MySpace stepped in to buy some of Imeem’s assets. The hard part, of course, is getting that message to those 16 million pissed off users. Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Source: TechCrunch | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:26 am MySpace Continues To Get Trashed Over Imeem ShutdownIt's been nearly a week since MySpace Music closed its acquisition of some of the assets of music service Imeem and redirected imeem.com to music.myspace.com. MySpace took a lot of heat for the sudden...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:26 am P2P Sharing Being Blocked Around the World, Where Next?Last week, we told you about peer-to-peer and torrent file-sharing sites were being systematically shut down all over China. Not too long before that, we let you know about file-sharing being monitored...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:24 am RPT-EU sees satisfactory outcome for Oracle/Sun dealBRUSSELS, Dec 14 (Reuters) - EU regulators said on Monday that their review of Oracle's plan to buy Sun Microsystems will have a "satisfactory" result after the U.S. software company unveiled measures...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:22 am Office 2003 Bug Locks Owners OutI Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Microsoft Office 2003 bug is locking people out of their own files, specifically those protected with Microsoft's Rights Management Service. Microsoft has a TechNet bulletin on the issue with a fix. It looks like they screwed up and let a certificate expire. There's no information on when the replacement certificate will expire, though, or what will happen when it does."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:20 am UPDATE 1-S.Korea Interpark bids for Unitas' Korean retailer* Interpark shares close down, underperforming broader marketSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:01 am UPDATE 1-S.Korea Interpark bids for Unitas' Korean retailer* Interpark shares close down, underperforming broader marketSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 14 Dec 2009 | 12:01 am UPDATE 1-Oracle submits MySQL proposals ahead of EC deadlineDec 14 (Reuters) - Oracle Corp , facing a regulatory deadline from the European Commission, announced on Monday a series of measures to help pave its way towards completing its $7 billion acquisition of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2009 | 11:55 pm UPDATE 1-Oracle submits MySQL proposals ahead of EC deadlineDec 14 (Reuters) - Oracle Corp , facing a regulatory deadline from the European Commission, announced on Monday a series of measures to help pave its way towards completing its $7 billion acquisition of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 Dec 2009 | 11:55 pm WWIII propaganda posters for sale, 25% to EFF Brian sez, "Back in June, Boing Boing posted when I first made the digital versions of the WWIII Posters. Now three of them are on sale on my site (listed), with 25% of the proceeds going towards the EFF!" WWIII Propaganda Poster (Thanks Brian!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Dec 2009 | 11:26 pm Open Colour Standard: free/open alternative to PantoneGinger Coons writes in about the Open Colour Standard, "an effort to create a new colour standard to help free/open source graphics programs bridge the gap between screen and print."From the article: "What we have, then, is a venerable, widely supported, but largely inflexible and very expensive de facto standard. It has a huge impact on both print and digital media, not to mention the clothes you wear, the color you paint your living room, even the specific shades used to define healthy dirt or high-grade orange juice. It is, in short, a bloated monopoly eating up more and more of the color market... If [Open Colour Standard] works, this effort could open up spot color, make open-source software more viable for pre-press, and maybe even inspire a little kitchen table chemistry. Most importantly, it would take the cross-platform treatment of color out of the hands of a private company and put it where it belongs, with users." Open Color Standard (Thanks, Ginger!) (Image: untitled photo, licensed Creative Commons Attribution, from iboy_daniel's photostream)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Dec 2009 | 11:11 pm Google to produce, sell own "Nexus One" phones: report (Reuters)Reuters - Google Inc plans to sell its own cellphone direct to consumers as soon as next year, bypassing wireless operators in a rare strategic move, the Wall Street Journal cited sources as saying on Saturday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Dec 2009 | 11:02 pm Adventures in Ex Ante Crowdfunded Securities LawI'm thrilled at the success of Kickstarter and Spot.Us, which partly fulfill a longtime dream scheme of mine. These sites are primary sources of great stuff, and you should check them out if you aren't already familiar with them. The idea behind both is to help people raise funds for ideas that they want to pursue; Kickstarter is designed for any personal projects, and Spot.Us supports journalism. Donors can get a little something in return through these sites if the projects they fund come to fruition, like a signed copy of a book that's produced (Kickstarter), or reimbursement in credit if a news organization buys the story (Spot.Us). But what if a crowdfunding site could offer donors a piece of the action, not just some thank-you goodies? That's what I would want, and I don't think I'm alone. I want investors for my schemes, not patrons, and if people support me to do something that flies, it would only please me to give them a cut. Technically, launching something like this wouldn't be too difficult. The Spot.Us code, written in Ruby, is public domain and already uses an accounting system with a Paypal merchant account. The Spot.Us interface is close to what an investment-enabled version would need, and the main tough technical piece would be to add a digital signature scheme for the contracts. I met with Spot.Us founder David Cohn a few weeks ago, and he estimated that once the details about the user experience were all figured out, an appropriately-modified adaptation of the Spot.Us code could be up and running in a few months. But then I started talking about the scheme with lawyers, including Boingboing counsel Rob Rader, who has been extremely helpful. The legal terminology for my notion, it turns out, is "patronage-plus ex ante crowdfunding," at least in a recent article by Tim Kappel in the Loyola of Los Angeles Entertainment Law Review The short answer is, such a site would probably be illegal under U.S. federal securities law. "Securities" are defined as any investment whose return is dependent upon the effort of others. It's a one paragraph definition, very broad, hard to get around, and there's no de minimis dollar cutoff below which the regulations stop. A lemonade stand venture could be subject to SEC regulation. Securities regulations don't apply if the investors are genuinely active in the day-to-day management of the venture-- but it isn't enough to just give them access to a project wiki and consider their suggestions; you must demonstrate that they are all critical to the venture's success. So much for that loophole. Another possibility is the SEC's "Private Placement Exemption" under Regulation D, which allows unregulated investments if the number of investors is limited. Specifically, you can sell shares to at most 35 regular individuals (and an unlimited number of accredited investors, i.e. various institutions, plus people who have a net worth exceeding $1 million, an annual income over $200K, or a personal trust exceeding $5 million). But Regulation D also prohibits any "general solicitation or general advertising" to let people know about the venture. The only published announcements of such investments are the cryptic "tombstone ads" that you sometimes see in the print versions of the Wall Street Journal or New York Times business section. These ads, which AFAIK have never been published online-only (although this might be possible) must be very limited in their disclosure. It might be OK to say "Paul Spinrad offers shares in a graphic novel based on the life of Elliot Smith" but that's about it. The announcement can't include anything that makes Kickstarter and Spot.Us so fun to browse through-- no details of the project, no wish lists, no video clips of people saying, "I'm so excited about this project-- it's got great indie film potential-- all I need is 4 months time and a round-trip ticket to Portland!" Another possible loophole is to keep offerings entirely intra-state, in which case the SEC lets a state's "blue sky" laws and regulatory apparatus control them. But this would just mean swapping the California Department of Corporations (for example) for the SEC, with similarly expensive legal and registration costs, and similar restrictions on disclosure. It doesn't make sense to have to spend $50,000 to be able to legally raise $5000. Attorney Jay Parkhill gets into some of these same issues in his 2007 blog post,"The World Isn't Ready For Crowdsourced Securities Offerings." Yet another approach, which no lawyer could ever condone, is to make the whole thing run under a honor system. This was the premise behind my 2003 website, Premises, Premises, which now lies on the vast dustheap of failed website experiments. Under this scenario, offerers would set their payback terms as a promise, but would be unfettered legally from just keeping all the money they might make using others' investments. The only "teeth" would be that everyone would know what they did, with an electronic trail to prove it, and would presumably consider them assholes until they made amends. Community reputation based enforcement has succeeded in resolving disputes outside of legal channels in the past. But such a system is unsuitable for serious investment. So my question now is, how can we make this legal? I want to pursue this. For example, how does one go about changing securities law to establish a de minimis exception for total offerings-- say, less than $10,000 and individual investment less than $100. This is chump change for the SEC, and they shouldn't waste their time worrying about activities at that level. Aren't there other laws that protect naive investors from being cheated out of their last $100? If I can Kickstart up the funding for some lawyer-time to draft a such a bill, who in Congress might sponsor it? The legislation would help artsy types and grassroots ventures, while also lifting financial regulations and oversight-- so it sounds like a candidate for bipartisan support! It's a stimulus bill, it's an investment in American ingenuity, it's "new thinking," it helps the little guy! Meanwhile, I can try to talk to people at the SEC-- I'm happy to just call their listed phone number and see if I can explain my way in to someone who might actually help, but does anyone in boingboing-land know someone who works at the SEC, who might be interested in this? If you want updates on this quest, please email me! I don't want to include my email address here, but it's pretty easy to find.
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:58 pm How Monsanto owns and manipulates the world's food supplySteve Silberman sends us "A major AP expose of how Monsanto uses secret licensing agreements for its genetically manipulated crops to squeeze smaller seed companies, lock out competition, and keep food prices high.".AP INVESTIGATION: Monsanto seed biz role revealed (Thanks, Steve!) (Image: Monsanto == Satan, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from illustir's photostream)
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Source: Boing Boing | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:57 pm Hollywood hopes an ensemble cast boosts Blu-ray (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:49 pm Kindle for iphone App Now Available From App Store In More Than 60 Countries - Earthtimes (press release)
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:47 pm Japanese department store offers robots that look like their buyers
We all knew this day would come and we all knew this would happen first in Japan. And local department store chain operator Sogo & Seibu is ready to make it possible: You can soon buy robots who look exactly like you. Right, life-size humanoids. The company isn’t that sure about its idea though as it plans to offer just two robots for the time being. Sogo & Seibu says they’ll start accepting orders in all of their department stores in Japan as soon as early next month. But if there are three or more people interested in getting a robotic doppelgänger, buyers will be chosen by lot. The robots are made of silicone and will be able to move their upper body. In addition, they’ll be able to “speak” to some extent (with your recorded voice, needless to say). The robots will go on sale for $225,000 each. They’ll be manufactured by Kokoro, a company that caused a minor sensation with their realistic Androids that gave directions to visitors during the Aichi Expo in 2005. One of their robots appeared in a Japanese TV commercial last year. The picture above shows one of these “Actroids”, but the final design of the department store robos is unknown at this point. Sogo & Seibu’s PR stunt is part of the highly competitive sales promotion campaigns Japanese stores come up with for the winter holidays. Via Sankei News [JP]
Source: CrunchGear | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:41 pm Flying Spaghetti Monster holiday treats Castewar sez, "A clever chap named Joel turned a batch of holiday cookie treats into a yummy celebration of all things spagehetti-y and monstery. Drool." Flying Spaghetti Monster holiday treats! (Thanks, Castewar!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:37 pm Dear AT&T: If your network is so great, why don’t you marry it? The Gruber does it again. In a point by point analysis of Randall Stross' article about AT&T not really sucking and actually being great, he points out a few valuable concepts. First, if the iPhone sucks so much on AT&T's network, why hasn't AT&T made Apple fix it? Unless AT&T is so afraid of Steve Jobs' hit squad that it refuses to point out that it needs better hardware, I think this is all AT&T.
Source: CrunchGear | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:37 pm A review of the iMac 27" Core 2 Duo: yep, it's still an iMac - Ars Technica
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:36 pm Dear AT&T: If your network is so great, why don’t you marry it?
AT&T fell over itself to get behind the news that their chairman wanted to educate consumers about proper wireless data use instead of improving the network. I have only ever had issues with AT&T in New York. I just started getting dropped calls like a MoFo and it’s abundantly clear it’s AT&T’s fault. In fact, I carried my iPhone all over the world, even to China, and it worked a treat. Feel free to blame the phone, but I blame the network. As I said before: mobile data will be the default, not the exception. Maybe Wi-Max will help us on our quest but soon there will be no wires going into the house in the vast majority of cases. Instead, data will come over the air. If AT&T isn’t ready for this, then it’s their problem, not Apple’s, Nokia’s, or HTC’s. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:33 pm Nexus One, The Google Phone, Captured In The Wild (Pictures) Apparently, Googlers aren't supposed to be tweeting the details of the Google Phone, but they have no problem tweeting about how awesome it is. And they also apparently have no problem showing it off. And not surprisingly, pictures of the device are starting to hit the web. Without further ado, this is it.
Cory O'Brien, a San Francisco-based blogger, got his hands on one tonight and tweeted out that picture. He also notes that, "Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android."
Source: CrunchGear | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:27 pm Dec. 14, 1996: Kingston's Holiday Bonus Shows Workers the MoneyWhat'd you get this year? A party? A turkey? How about $130,000 — and these were tech workers, not bamboozling bankers or anything. Kingston Technology, thanks for the memories.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm James Cameron's New 3-D Epic Could Change Film ForeverTwelve years after Titanic, director James Cameron is back with Avatar, a $250 million 3-D interplanetary epic.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm Inventing Effects to Create the Avatar UniverseGo behind the scenes to get a look at Avatar's groundbreaking special effects and the tech that made them possible.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm Baby-by-Number: Parents' New Obsession With DataWe track our packages, our flights, our pizzas -- and now our kids. From iPhone apps that record every diaper, bottle and nap to electronic toys that track how kids play, a host of new products let parents keep tabs on nearly every aspect of their children's lives. Is that a good thing?
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm Avatar Pushes the Limits of Visual EffectsWired contributing editor Joshua Davis discusses the extensive process that led to the development of James Cameron's intergalactic space epic, Avatar.
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Dec 2009 | 10:00 pm Restaurants Sue Vendor for Unsecured Card ProcessorSeveral restaurants breached by a Romanian hacker file a class-action suit against the maker of a point-of-sale system on grounds that the system wasn't secure.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:44 pm Israeli ISPs Caught Interfering With P2P TrafficFuzzzy writes "For a long time, people have suspected that Israeli ISPs are blocking or delaying P2P traffic. However, no hard evidence was provided, and the ISPs denied any interference. Today Ynetnews published a report on comprehensive research that for the first time proves those suspicions. Using Glasnost and Switzerland, an Internet attorney / blogger found evidence of deep packet inspection and deliberate delays. From the article: 'Since 2007 Ynet has received complaints according to which Israeli ISPs block P2P traffic. Those were brought to the media and were dismissed by the ISPs. Our findings were that there is direct and deliberate interference in P2P traffic by at least two out of the three major ISPs and that this interference exists by both P2P caching and P2P blocking.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:24 pm Now Shipping - Patton's EFM Equipment for Carriers and EnterprisesGAITHERSBURG, Md., Dec.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:01 pm DemandTec Appoints Michael Bromme Senior Vice President of Worldwide SalesSAN MATEO, Calif., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- DemandTec, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:01 pm Meet "Antonio"- A New Italian DinosaurToday I'd like to introduce you to "Antonio," a remarkable dinosaur that represents a new species, Tethyshodros insularis, described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. (Reconstruction of Tethyshadros (artwork by Lukas Panzarin) based on the fossil nicknamed “Antonio.") According ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 9:00 pm EU considering limiting media player output to 85dB
First, they have better things to do. I know the “children are starving in Africa” argument is a tired one, so let’s be a little more specific. If you’re willing to spend so much time and money on such a silly issue, why not spend some time and money on securing consumer goods against hackers and botnets? Or organizing a task force to take down spammers? Second, if consumers are turning up the volume so high that it damages their ears, that’s their problem. Yes, it really is. Third, even if they do succeed in legislating a maximum output level from the players, the market will circumvent it instantaneously. I guarantee that if this legislation goes through, within a month or two of the first compliant players coming out, there will be tiny amps available to put on your headphone cords that simply increase the volume of the sound. And new headphones would have them integrated. This legislation will probably go through, though I’d guess 100dB will be the number they choose, just because it’s big and round. Once that’s done, a very slight adjustment to gain in headphones will make things exactly as they were today. Luckily there’s someone sane who will hopefully intervene in the proceedings: Martin Callanan, who is on the Committee considering the legislation. He says:
Thank you, Martin.
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:59 pm The Al Gore InterviewLast week, former United States Vice President Al Gore met with Discovery News’ Kieran Mulvaney and Lori Cuthbert in New York. He discussed his new book, Our Choice, and the Copenhagen climate summit. Here is the full transcript: Discovery News: ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:37 pm Talking with Al GoreFormer United States Vice President Al Gore says that he "chooses to be optimistic" about the climate change negotiations presently underway in Copenhagen, and that, depending on how the meeting resolves this week, "there’s an excellent chance that we will ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:35 pm French Military Contributes To Thunderbird 3fredboboss sends news about Mozilla's email client Thunderbird 3, whose release we noted last week. "Thunderbird 3 contains code from the French military, which decided the open source product was more secure than Microsoft's rival Outlook. The French government is beginning to move to other open source software, including Linux instead of Windows and OpenOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Thunderbird 3 used some of the code from TrustedBird, a generalized and co-branded version of Thunderbird with security extensions built by the French military."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:12 pm Toys R Us offering gift cards when you buy games, iPod nanoFROM GAMERTELL - Toys R Us is offering gift cards if you buy games or an iPod nano, according to the December 13-19, 2009 sales circular. There are also discounts on video game accessories and peripherals. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:02 pm Google Pals Up With T-Mobile to Push Its "Nexus One" Phone [MediaMemo]
Google plans to sell its new phone on its own Web site, without getting a wireless carrier to subsidize the handset. But that doesn’t mean it won’t also work with a carrier: The search giant intends to launch its touchscreen phone next year with the help of T-Mobile, say sources familiar with its plans. Traditionally in the U.S., consumers buy phones directly from carriers, who eat some or all of the cost of the handsets–which sometimes amounts to hundreds of dollars–in exchange for signing up customers to often controversial multi-year contracts. Whether or not Google will subsidize the cost of the phone–via advertising, for example–is unclear. But, for sure, Google doesn’t intend to sell its new “Nexus One” phone the typical way, sources familiar with the company’s plans say. Instead, it envisions a scenario where customers who buy the handset on a separate Web site are then provided with another list that lets them pick a carrier, menu-style. Google (GOOG) has approached multiple carriers about supporting its new phone, which it has designed itself and will be produced by Taiwan’s HTC, offering this selling scenario, sources say. HTC, by the way, built the T-Mobile’s G1 phone, the first Android-powered one. But, so far, only T-Mobile has agreed to consider it and actively help push the phone via various distribution channels and support infrastructure, I’m told. The “Nexus One” handset uses GSM technology, which means that in the U.S., only mobile customers who use AT&T (T) or T-Mobile’s networks could use the “unlocked” phone anyway. But, sources say Google’s decision to use GSM came only, because Verizon Wireless (VZ), which uses the rival CDMA technology, has so far declined to help Google push the new phone. Sources also added that Google–which is keen to change the way mobile devices are sold in the U.S. especially–would still prefer to cooperate with telecom giants in selling phones rather than fighting them. A T-Mobile spokesman declined to comment, as did one from Google. T-Mobile’s plan to work with Google shouldn’t be a huge surprise, given that the U.S. subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom (DT) already sells four phones that use Google’s Android platform. Then again, Verizon is currently spending lots of money promoting an Android phone of its own–the Droid–produced in conjunction with Motorola (MOT). AT&T (T), which is the exclusive seller of the Apple (APPL) iPhone, is another story, having no Android phone in the works and having tussled with Google in the past. Source: All Things Digital | 13 Dec 2009 | 7:01 pm Google employees testing new mobile device
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 New Zealand Herald | Social network searches could be a hacker's dream USA Today The race to include up-to-the-minute postings from popular social networks atop search results from Google, Microsoft Bing and Yahoo Search should trigger a boon — for spammers and cybercriminals. ... Mozilla Executive Promoting Bing Caps Microsoft's Week Week in review: Getting real with Google, Yahoo Yahoo Faces Off Against Google In Search War With Microsoft Funds |
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No need to scour the interwebs for hot gaming news, Gamertell‘s already done that for you! Here’s a look at this week’s top stories…
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisorAntonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result...
"Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities... There were signs that some banks were rescued that way." Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
"That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was," he said.
(Image: Money, Money, Money, a Creative Commons Attribution image from borman818's photostream)
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Google
The Google Phone that has surfaced on technology sites across the web, including our own, has been given a name. The name is confirmed to be the Nexus One, which makes me hope that this isn’t a one time deal.
Some of the Google related details include:
There has been no price details, nor any more specific specs than it will run Android 2.1 at first, has a touch screen, has a trackball, no physical keyboard, an animated desktop wallpaper, and will be produced by HTC.
This also means that this phone is separate from the HTC Bravo/Passion which is what the Google Phone was first speculated to be though it will resemble it. But oh well, this just means more phones for us. Plus, we will be able to use this phone with any phone service so us people who don’t have AT&T, which seems to always get the “cool” phones, will be in luck.
Read [Mashable]
Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
The rent-a-cops at Yarl's Wood told the Anglican church's leading expert on Father Christmas (dressed in a Santa costume) that he couldn't enter the centre to give the children presents. They also blocked the canon theologian at Westminster Abbey. Then they cancelled a later scheduled visit with detained families at the centre.
And the whole mess is on video.
Anglican 'Santa' barred from giving gifts to children at detainee centreBut when the Anglican church's leading expert on Father Christmas, dressed as St Nicholas himself, arrived with one of Britain's most distinguished clerics to distribute presents to children held at the Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre in Bedfordshire, things took a turn straight out of Dickens.
An unedifying standoff developed that saw the security personnel who guard the perimeter fence prevent St Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the imprisoned, from delivering £300 worth of presents donated by congregations of several London churches.
In a red robe and long white beard, clutching a bishop's mitre and crook, St Nick - in real life, the Rev Canon James Rosenthal, a world authority on St Nicholas of Myra, the inspiration for Father Christmas - gently protested that he was not a security threat, but to no avail.
Then as St Nicholas, accompanied by the Rev Professor Nicholas Sagovsky, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey, attempted to bless the gifts, the increasingly angry security guards called the police. The resulting ill-tempered and surreal impasse between church and state was videotaped by asylum seeker support groups and could become an internet viral hit.
Old media loves nothing quite so much as writing about their own impending death. And we always enjoy adding our own two cents – the AP not knowing what YouTube is, the NYTimes guys reading TechCrunch every day, etc.
Speaking broadly, I like what Reuters, Rupert Murdoch and Eric Schmidt are saying: the industry is in crisis, and the daring innovators will prevail. Personally, I still think the best way forward for the best journalists, if not the brands they currently work for, is to leave those brands and do their own thing.
But as one of the innovators in the last go round, I think there’s a much bigger problem lurking on the horizon than a bunch of blogs and aggregators disrupting old media business models that needed disrupting anyway. The rise of fast food content is upon us, and it’s going to get ugly.
Old media frets over blogs and aggregators that summarize content and link back to the original source. They can’t make a business in that world, they say, so they run the other way and try to find a way to protect and charge for content.
These are the cavemen, or whoever, who were afraid of fire when it was discovered because it burned, or was too technologically advanced to really understand. The smart guys used it to cook their meat and keep them warm, and multiplied.
For our part, we throw a party when someone “steals” our content and links back to us. High fives all around the office. At least there’s some small nod in our direction. And the aggregators like TechMeme can figure out who broke the news. Page views are lost, but reputation is gained.
But for every link there are dozens of sites that outright steal our content with no attribution. Not just spam blogs, even the NYTimes does it. This isn’t a copyright issue – the stories are rewritten by actual people. But it’s far cheaper to simply take the news and rewrite it – if you can get away with it – than to hire people who do actual journalism. Over time, it becomes a competitive tax that is difficult to bear.
But even then, companies like ours can find a way to compete.
So what really scares me? It’s the rise of fast food content that will surely, over time, destroy the mom and pop operations that hand craft their content today. It’s the rise of cheap, disposable content on a mass scale, force fed to us by the portals and search engines.
On one end you have AOL and their Toyota Strategy of building thousand of niche content sites via the work of cast-offs from old media. That leads to a whole lot of really, really crappy content being highlighted right on the massive AOL home page. This article, for example, is just horrendous. One of AOL’s own blogs trashes the company’s spinoff, rambles for miles without any real point, and adds a huge factual error to top things off (”the company is losing money”). Hiring a bunch of people who couldn’t keep their old media jobs and don’t have the stomach to go out on their own and then slapping little or no editorial oversight onto these masses of sub-par journalists leads to an inevitable conclusion – cheap, crappy content. And that crappy content is given a massive audience on the AOL portal.
On the other end you have Demand Media and companies like it. See Wired’s “Demand Media and the Fast, Disposable, and Profitable as Hell Media Model.” The company is paying bottom dollar to create “4,000 videos and articles” a day, based only on what’s hot on search engines. They push SEO juice to this content, which is made as quickly and cheaply as possible, and pray for traffic. It works like a charm, apparently.
These models create a race to the bottom situation, where anyone who spends time and effort on their content is pushed out of business.
We’re not there yet, but I see it coming. And just as old media is complaining about us, look for us to start complaining about the new jerks.
My advice to readers is just this – get ready for it, because you’ll be reading McDonalds five times a day in the near future. My advice to content creators is more subtle. Figure out an even more disruptive way to win, or die. Or just give up on making money doing what you do. If you write for passion, not dollars, you’ll still have fun. Even if everything you write is immediately ripped off without attribution, and the search engines don’t give you the attention they used to. You may have to continue your hobby in the evening and get a real job, of course. But everyone has to face reality sometimes.
Forget fair and unfair, right and wrong. This is simply happening. The disruptors are getting disrupted, and everyone has to adapt to it or face the consequences. Hand crafted content is dead. Long live fast food content, it’s here to stay.
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We may not cover Apple 24x7… but we know someone who does! Here’s a few of this week’s hottest from Appletell to get you started…
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 CBC.ca | Intense Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight National Geographic Late tonight is the peak of the year's most prolific annual cosmic fireworks show—the Geminid meteor shower (Geminids picture). The meteor shower has been growing in intensity in recent decades and should be an even better holiday treat than usual this ... Annual Geminids meteor shower lights up night sky 'Gem' of a meteor shower underway 2009 Geminid Meteor Shower Peaks Tonight |
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Buchanan had been indicted in New Jersey for insurance fraud in 2007, and a warrant for her arrest was issued that December and was posted to the National Crime Information Center in January 2008. New Jersey prosecutor Michael Morris said they believed Buchanan had been working for Homeland Security in New Jersey in 2007, and might have been transferred to the department's immigration office in Georgia at some point during the investigation.
There’s an absolute eruption of activity around location-based services right now. Companies are getting funded 
Right now, Foursquare actually does two things to try and help with the issue of social overwhelming. First, it shows you only the friends that are in the same city that you are currently in first (it recently added friends in other cities to the bottom of the stream). Second, on the iPhone, it offers Push Notifications on a user-by-user basis. This can be very helpful to tailor location-seeing needs, but it doesn’t alter the app in anyway, and when you visit it, you still see the full stream with everyone. Neither of these solve the social paradox issue.
Imeem’s 16 million monthly visitors apparently haven’t gotten the message, though, and every couple of minutes one of them fires off a frustrated message on Twitter. One example just a few minutes ago, in the image above: “Imeem, one of the best music sites, died, destroyed by MySpace.” 
It's like Pantone's spot colour standard [ed: a widely used proprietary system for describing "spot" colors -- that is, colors that need special inks to print. Pantone distributes both the inks and books of color swatches. Designers pick colors out of the book and the printer loads the extra ink into her apparatus at print time], but not necessarily in opposition to it. Just different.
Monsanto's methods are spelled out in a series of confidential commercial licensing agreements obtained by the AP. The contracts, as long as 30 pages, include basic terms for the selling of engineered crops resistant to Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, along with shorter supplementary agreements that address new Monsanto traits or other contract amendments...
Randall Stross writes that 
A number of companies are pursuing AOL’s 
Those Googlers are apparently having quite a bit of fun with their new 
An easy to use digital camera that automatically uploads pictures to various websites without using a USB cable, a memory card reader or Eye-Fi? If that's something you've always wanted, the Cerevo Cam, made by Tokyo-based startup 
Day two of Le Web and I’m hard at work: perched on the edge of a gigantic bed in the speakers’ lounge, having an important meeting with my friend Andy. Our agenda: trying to come up with amusing ways to fuck with Daniel Ek of 
