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Israeli Border Police Shoot US Student's Laptopzerothink writes "American student Lily Sussman, 21, upon entry into Israel from Taba (Egypt, Sinai) caught Israeli border police in grumpy mood — after two hours of questions and searching through her belongings they decided to put three bullets through her laptop. Explanation? 'I'm sorry but we had to blow up your laptop.' Haaretz also covered the story." All three bullets missed the hard disk.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Dec 2009 | 3:37 am Mobile Social Network Mozat Makes Waves In Asia, Raises Funding
The startup has also disclosed that it raised a Series A funding round led by JAFCO Asia earlier this year, although it didn’t disclose the size of the investment. Mozat is in the mobile social networking business, and markets free J2ME and Symbian clients, a Windows Mobile and an Android app. The company currently doesn’t offer custom apps for iPhone, BlackBerry or Palm WebOS devices (yet), but we should note Mozat targets consumers in regions where those are not nearly as popular as in most Western countries. Mozat is similar to apps like eBuddy and Nimbuzz, as it enables users to connect and communicate with friends on MSN, YAHOO, ICQ and AOL using a single application. It also boasts other tools like email, chat, photo sharing apps and games, which it distributes through a custom ‘Application Center’ which functions much like Apple’s App Store or the Android Market. Mozat’s main objective for 2010 is to sign up more mobile operators and ISPs in Asia and the Middle East in order to increase their foothold as the carriers in those regions prepare to roll out more powerful networks in the near future. Mozat was founded in Singapore back in 2003 by a group of Ph.D. scholars and professors of the National University of Singapore. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Dec 2009 | 3:29 am CrunchDeals: Holiday Usenet deals
Sorry for beating the Newsdemon horse, but I just noticed they had a few deals for bloggers, students, and other animals. Usenet is really nice. Bloggers get free months when someone buys a sub through them (we don’t partake in the deal) and students can get 25% off with a .EDU account. While we don’t condone the use of Usenet, it’s nice to know it’s there, like a nice old sweater.
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Dec 2009 | 3:25 am Haagen Dazs opens no-Indians-allowed store in DelhiThe inaugural Delhi outlet of Haagen Dazs (A Danish phrase that means, "Made in New Jersey," apparently) opened with a "no Indians allowed" policy. The sign on the door read, "Access restricted only to holders of international passports." After a public hue and cry, the franchise operator (who is Indian) dropped the policy and claimed it had never existed.Sorry, Indians not allowed
(Image: Times of India)
Evernote Launches Android AppEvernote, a Mountain View, Calif.-based company that makes my most often used cross-platform app called Evernote is all set to release the final version Android. The application will be available for download...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Dec 2009 | 3:00 am Morgan Stanley: Mobile Internet Market Will Be Twice The Size of Desktop InternetMorgan Stanley has released a couple of bulky documents about the mobile internet: 'The Mobile Internet Report,' a 424 page report which explores 8 major themes; and 'The Mobile Internet Report Key Themes,'...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Dec 2009 | 2:47 am Are Complex Games Doomed To Have Buggy Releases?An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting: "As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Dec 2009 | 2:40 am Protesters march on Copenhagen summit - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Dec 2009 | 2:23 am Create A Custom Notebook, Featuring Your Tweets. Seriously.
No joke. Here’s how it works: you go to the website, enter any username (make sure the owner’s tweet aren’t protected) and let the app browse through the account owner’s 320 latest tweets and automatically select some to populate the bottom sections of your notebook pages. While you wait for the tweets to get selected, you can enter a custom message on the cover of your notebook (max. 140 characters, of course). Once the app is done selecting, you’ll get to preview your custom 320-page notebook, tweets included, before you order. You have three color choices: white and turquoise, black and turquoise or plain white. The cost of the überpersonalized notebook is €12 (or $12), not including the shipping costs, which obviously differ from location to location. I wish there was an option to select your tweets manually, or have them fetched from the Favstar.fm site, although that would create unwelcome copyright issues. All in all, @TweetNotebook is a fun concept, which reminds me of Nick Douglas’ book Twitter Wit (which I enjoyed reading). Now let’s see if they can get some traction on Twitter. Update: also check out Tweetbookz and Tweetbook.in.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:50 am Cadbury pension fund insures 500 mln stg liabilitiesLONDON, Dec 16 (Reuters) - British confectioner Cadbury said on Wednesday it had insured 500 million pounds ($813 million) of pension liabilities in a deal allowing it to keep control of the scheme's...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:49 am Taiwan unveils super-tiny microchip (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:48 am 100-word fiction contest: Vote for the winner!Response to our 100-word fiction contest, "Found in Space," was overwelming: some 80,000 words of entries! Having gone through them as best we can, we've whittled it down to a handful of finalists. Forgive...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:40 am 100-word fiction contest: Vote for the winner!
Frankly, making decisions is hard. Whim guides our hand. So why don't you make the final decision? Read the finalists, then vote below on who gets the HP MediaSmart server. Poll closes in 24 hours. P.S. -- there are runner-up prizes, too!
By Drew826: "Daddy, look! It's winking at us!" A metallic mass glinted in the bright red sunlight, its irregular shape reflecting occassional pulses of light through the heavily tinted windows of a lunar transport shuttle, catching the eye of a young girl accompanying her father to work. As usual, the Luna School System was observing the semi-annual lunar eclipse by having students "shadow" their parents at work. "Shadow days" were perfect for spotting forgotten pieces of junk floating out in space, just beyond the shadow cast by the Earth. "Daddy, do you think it can see me? I winked back."
By acrocker: He knew that his owners loved him, but that was about it. Benny, a golden retriever, certainly wasn't clever enough to see the irony of his owners only putting up 'lost' signs a mile from his home while he was a great many orders of magnitude further away. Nor was he smart enough to know even the basics of the exotic physics that brought him here in .037 seconds. He didn't even know where here was, he just knew it looked a little like a place he could call home: green grass, lots of squirrels, three suns in the sky.
By Thought Grime: We'll go no more a-roving, the immortal words of Byron,
By Garry Cook: Reversing thrusters, gaze dropping to the object in his hand, the child glided to a stop in the entrance bay. When was the last time humans had touched these? Some might consider him a hero, as this could really turn things around for our race. Or it could lead us right back down the path we were on three centuries ago, when the population was ten billion, not ten thousand. An adrenaline rush chilled him to the bone. His grip faltered and the doors slid closed as it floated back into the ether, unsure if letting it go was intentional.
By femaletrouble3: Finally: contact. Humanity's ultimate question was answered. A metallic sphere, roughly 3m in diameter, polished to a mirror. Nondescript otherwise except for an iridescent arrow indicating a recessed palm-sized red button. The StarFreighter HMS Darwin approached the sphere and gently brought it aboard. The harbinger was "weighted", photographed and measured while the various crews of the armada impatiently paced and speculated. Eventually came the day where the only thing left to do was push the palm-sized red button. ... It took the light from the explosion four years to reach Earth.
By toryhoke: 10 INPUT "Please enter your username: ", U$
By Andvaranaut: He rose. First slowly, then a little faster. His feet detached slightly from the ground, and then -- as if rushed forward by a colossal slingshot -- he began flying. At 0.99c, things seem weird, collapsing and color-shifting at whim; but he was not distracted. Mars came zooming past. A myriad asteroids. Jupiter. Enceladus. C'mon. Neptune. Almost there. There it was: Voyager I, glorious in its shine. Farthest human object ever made. Makes your head spin. He could almost touch it, that Sagan golden record in the cold of space...
By ueannossioba: The first kiss was careful, tentative, almost as if Will Robinson was testing the unknown temperature of one of his mother's meals. But Mom and Dad were long gone, as was Sis and the Major. For years it had just been the two of them and his growing curiosity. Now, at an age when he was nearly too old to be an object of desire, Dr. Smith had finally succumbed to the younger man's clumsy seduction. Far off, in a dusty corner of the Jupiter 2, the barely functioning positronic brain of a long forgotten robot processed one word: danger.
By justi121883: I don't know how long I stared at that cow. I think she must have escaped from the farm down the hall. It was after midnight on the third-deck workspace and I was alone. She lumbered in and tore a frond from my hydroponic fern. Then she leaned into my desk and it tipped into the air like a ship. I watched in disbelief, paralyzed, as my monitor crashed to the floor. Before, she was just another cow in a spaceship. But now she made history: she was the first ever cow in a spaceship to go on stampede. He opened his eyes, and it all was gone.
By sanborn: We drifted over Greenland, in the old polar orbit. I spread myself thin, enjoying the cold of space. I could tell she was looking for something. "What is it?" I asked. She didn't answer. Then we passed out of the Earth's umbra, changing from icy cold darkness to glaring sunlight. Suddenly, there was a glint of light. "I see it!" she cried, propelling herself forward. It was a small stainless-steel capsule in orbit, filled with dust. She formed herself around it. "What do you want with that old thing?" I asked. "You wouldn't understand," she said. "It was my body."
Whose story gets the gear?(opinion)
Australia tax office seeks hard line on private equityMELBOURNE, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Australia's tax office proposed tough rules on Wednesday for taxing gains on private equity investments, sparking a call from the industry for the government to step in to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:33 am Falling Prices Starting to Hit Electronics Retailers [Voices]By Miguel Bustillo and Mary Ellen Lloyd, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal Shoppers are stocking up on consumer electronics, but rapidly falling prices for televisions, computers and other gadgets are adding to the woes of recession-scarred retailers. Industry bellwether Best Buy Co. said Tuesday that revenues grew and earnings quadrupled for its third quarter ending in November, citing higher sales of inexpensive netbook computers and smaller flat-panel televisions. But even Best Buy (BBY), the nation’s largest electronics chain by sales, is feeling the pinch of gadget deflation. The Richfield, Minn., retailer warned that its fourth-quarter profits as a percentage of revenue could disappoint because buyers are gravitating to less expensive electronics that offer slim profits. Its shares tumbled 8.5 percent, or $3.84, to $41.53 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange trading, after hitting a 52-week high on Monday. Read the rest of this post on the original site
Source: Gizmodo | 16 Dec 2009 | 1:18 am YouTube's top 2009 videos feature eclectic cast
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 BBC News | Facebook Suggests You Lie, Break Its Own Terms Of Service To Keep Your Privacy Washington Post Here's a new one. As Facebook continues to grapple with the negative press over its privacy overhaul, it's now suggesting a new way to protect your personal information: lie about it. At least, that's what Barry Schnitt, Facebook's Director of ... Facebook testing tool to push updates onto Twitter On Privacy, Google and Facebook Are Much The Same Facebook Privacy Updates Open Security Holes, Experts Say |
Maybe it’s just my own subdued design aesthetic that makes me think so, but putting my coffee down on this royal rainbow and hearing a melodic little tonk just sounds like a bad way to start the morning. I guess I’m just a bit of a Grinch. Get it for your kids but hide the hammers.
 Geeky gadgets | Bing Gets an iphone App PC World Those who want a little less Google on their iphones will soon be able to put a lot more Bing on their handsets. Microsoft is prepping a Bing iphone app for immediate release via Apple's App Store to give iphone users a Google alternative. ... Microsoft's Bing app debuts on iPhone Do you want Bing for iphone? There's an app for that Google may increase potential for libel by including Tweets in search results |
Remember when using z’s on the end of plural words instead of s’s was edgy and revolutionary? Well, apparently no one told Beat Kangz Electronics that that time has passed. Misguided syntax choices aside, Beat Kangz has just announced the release of their new Beat Thang music production system. Not only does it look like a piece of Covenant technology, it comes in either software form or with its own dedicated hardware.
The software itself is pretty powerful. Plenty of stock audio to mash-up as well as the ability to record samples from nearly any source. Mic in, line in, generally if it can come into your computer, it can come into Beat Thang. You also have a 16-track MIDI sequencer and a smattering of digital effects to pick from. You can export all of your beats as .wav files for playback on any other platform. It also plays well on both Mac and PC platforms.
The hardware though, is where the real magic is. The battery gives you 6 hours of music-making time without a laptop, letting you sequence beats wherever you feel the need. Your bathroom, the plane, the campus library perhaps. You have all of the same capabilities of the software, as well the ability to import any beats you make and continue to edit them. Two back panel has an XLR mic in, 2 1/4″ outputs, 2 headphone outputs, MIDI ins and outs, USB, and 2 SDcard slots, making this a pretty versatile stand-alone sampler.
You can find these out in the world early 2010 with the software stand-alone price at $149 and the hardware running for $999.
The leaks continue to hit the web about the Nexus One, aka "The Google Phone." Here's the latest: The booting up of the device on video. Enjoy.
Also, here's apparently the official logo.
Microsoft’s feisty little search service, Bing, has finally made an iPhone app, which is now up at the Apple iTunes app store.
Bing planned to show off the free application at a party thrown by its mobile team in San Francisco tonight, but BoomTown found it live on the site much earlier.
Information about the new app is also now on Microsoft’s Bing blog here.
The Bing app’s description at the iTunes Store says, “Make decisions and get where you need to go with Bing. See the Bing daily image and related trivia on the home screen. Search maps or the Web with your voice–even say an address. Use Image Search and flick through previews. Download Bing today to find stuff nearby and get there fast.”
A Bing PR email noted that key features of the app include a daily image from Bing.com; easy-to-access voice search; tips and tricks on the homepage; “Locate Me” functionality; and the ability to add pushpins, save locations and show multiple locations on a single map.
It’s all a sweet little irony, since Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) have been frenemies over the years.
But bowing to the power of the iPhone as the premier smartphone out there, Bing has to be on its ubiquitous platform if it wants to compete with Google (GOOG) and others in the mobile arena.
In related news, according to November data from comScore (SCOR), Bing’s market share rose to 10 percent. The growth is coming, apparently, from Microsoft’s new search partner, Yahoo (YHOO), rather than from Google.
Before all the hell-has-frozen-over jokes let loose, it should be noted that Microsoft already has some apps for the iPhone, such as the one for its Seadragon photo app, a Tag Reader app and various manual book apps.
And, while others have made apps that allow Microsoft’s popular software to work on the Apple device, it has yet to release one of its own, although sources said the company is working on them.
Microsoft has already made Bing apps for Windows phones, the BlackBerry from Research in Motion (RIMM), the Sidekick and select BREW-based devices on Verizon (VZ), as well as Bing mobile from a browser.
Company execs recently showed off a spate of innovations for Bing, including new mobile features, but not in an iPhone app.
But no matter how you look at it, the iPhone app is the big time.
Here are more screenshots of the app:
The leaks continue to hit the web about the Nexus One, aka "The Google Phone." Here's the latest: The booting up of the device on video. Enjoy.
Also, here's apparently the official logo.
Medical imaging is an interesting field. There are things like fMRI, PET scans, CAT scans, radioactive dye traces, and a million other different techniques — but they’re usually so limited and specific (as extraordinary as they are) that there’s always a need for a new one. In this case it’s soft X-ray tomography, a variant on the more familiar CAT scan.
Normal X-rays penetrate too effectively for them to be used on individual cells; the amount of interference provided by the cell is simply not enough to detect and create an image from. So they use soft X-rays, which have a slightly longer wavelength than the kind used on a broken arm. A new technique developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has enabled soft X-ray images to be taken quickly and sequentially, and then assembled into a 3D model of the subject.
It’s not “live” like an fMRI, and it doesn’t provide the detail one finds in electron microscopy, but obviously it’s very useful. I doubt any of us will ever run into one of these machines in real life, but it’s cool to know they exist.
[via Reddit]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FROM GAMERTELL - Walmart’s sale ad for December 20-24, 2009 offers some last minute sales on gift items. Select Wii games will be reduced to $40 and 8gb iPod nanos will come with $50 iTunes gift cards.
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Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
There’s a good chance that if you wanted to see the Caprica pilot, you already did. It’s been available on DVD and torrent sites for a while now. But the hour and half extended cut version is also now on Hulu. Hit the Read More link to watch the pilot of Syfy’s upcoming series after the jump. Be warned though, the opening scene is kind of NSFW.
By Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
DoubleTwist, the media management software created by Jon Lech Johansen–a.k.a. “DVD Jon”–is teaming up with Amazon.com (AMZN) in its bid to create an alternative to Apple’s (AAPL) iTunes.
Start-up DoubleTwist makes software designed to help users of devices other than Apple products, such as BlackBerry and Android phones, to organize and keep track of their music. Starting immediately, the DoubleTwist software will now let people buy music files from Amazon’s MP3 store in a more seamless fashion that replicates the iTunes experience by essentially integrating the Amazon store right into their software.
After signing into their Amazon accounts, people will now be able to browse songs, listen to previews and buy songs with just a few clicks. Sometimes Amazon is even cheaper than iTunes. For example, Lady Gaga’s “The Fame Monster” album costs $5 on Amazon, but $7.99 on iTunes (where it also comes with an extra remix song and digital booklet).
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Many people, including close friends and family of mine, hate joke bands. I understand the sentiment. Music has an almost sacred ability to break through left-brained chatter, reconnect you to the present and to emotional truth, and lift your spirits-- so it seems almost profane to turn the whole thing into a joke-- to drag it back into the domain of distancing, cleverness, and the inauthentic. But some joke bands have meant a lot to me, and I sincerely love them-- with The Surf Punks and The Upper Crust at the top of the list.
The Surf Punks were primary stars of my teen years. One of my favorite concert experiences ever was seeing them with my friends Ed and Peter at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, probably around 1982. They set up an entire beach scene on stage, complete with a lifeguard station. For their finale, guitarist Drew Steele donned an emergency life vest, stood in a kiddie pool, and let drummer Dennis Dragon (who also played on his brother's The Captain and Tennille albums) poured the following over his head: maple syrup, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, marshmallow Fluff, and several boxes of breakfast cereal. Now, that's entertainment! Steele then took the life vest off and threw it into the crowd, and Ed caught it. I believe that this {price-, worth-}less piece of rock history still resides in a paper bag in the back of a closet at Ed's parent's house. Here is a short taste of Surf Punk magic, a video for their 40-second song "New Lead Guitar."
The Upper Crust, champions of faux-aristocratic "roque music," played songs like "Monarchy In The U.S.A." wearing breeches, stockings, and powdered wigs. If you know the AC/DC song "Big Balls" then you have a sense for what the Upper Crust's songs are like-- but the Crust develops the concept further. They put on a fantastic show which I enjoyed at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco about 10 years ago, but I missed seeing them with original member Lord Rockingham, who had left the band to write speeches for Bill Clinton. Here is a video of their rousing "Let Them Eat Roque" (2:48). Enjoy!
Deleted. Y'all are right. There are way too many errors in there and I didn't pay nearly enough attention to ferreting them out before I decided to post. My bad.
As penance, I offer you this image of a Scutigera coleoptrata being eaten by a Venus fly trap. It's no unicorn, but it does a good job of summing up my failure nicely.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO BLOGGERS WHO ARE WRONG ON THE INTERNET
Image comes from Plant Systematics Resources site of San Diego State University.
 The Money Times | Study: 15 percent of teens have gotten 'sext' messages CNET News Editors' note: The original headline on this story was changed at 4:19 PST to more accurately reflect the story. Remember when we were all crying about the fact that AT&T delayed the rollout of multimedia messaging on the iPhone? ... Study: 15 Percent of US Teens Have Received 'Sexts' Nearly 1 in 3 older teens gets 'sexting' messages Sexting teens |
The amount of storage available on laptop-sized 2.5 inch drives seem to be continually increasing to almost ridiculous amounts given the size. With those increases in storage we’ve also seen a great decrease in the cost per gigabyte. The only way to really go anywhere in the external drive market with these drives is to make the storage size the least important factor.
That’s what LaCie is doing with its new Rikiki drives. The drives lay claim to being the most compact on the market. The drives are only 110 mm long, and 13.5 mm tall, covered entirely with brushed aluminum. The drives come complete with USB Boost software to make them 33% faster on Windows computers, as well as simple backup software. The Rikiki starts at 250 GB of storage for $75, which isn’t a bad price by any means.
The new LaCie drives do look nice, and won’t attract fingerprints like the Western Digital Passport, another popular 2.5 inch external. However, with the small size and brushed aluminum, you could be sacrificing storage space for the price. It is all a personal choice, but a WD drive can run $80 for 320 GB, 70 GB more for only $5 more. That doesn’t make the LaCie any less desirable, though. For a nice looking drive that can easily be thrown into a bag, requires only a USB connection and can store more data than an average netbook, $75 is not a bad asking price. Of course, the Rikiki does go up to 640 GB, which will double the price to $150, or a median of 500 GB for $110, all with the same compact size.
Read [LaCie]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
AP - Adobe Systems Inc. said Tuesday that although it booked a loss in the fiscal fourth quarter, consumer demand improved and allowed the maker of Photoshop and Flash software to post an optimistic outlook for the current period.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Some AT&T customers are taking Fake Steve (who is, in reality, Newsweek’s Dan Lyons pretending to be Steve Jobs) seriously. The satirical blogger on Monday encouraged his readers to take part of Operation Chokehold — a plan to overload the AT&T network with ruthless, bandwidth-sucking activities.
On Friday, December 18, at noon Pacific time, we will attempt to overwhelm the AT&T data network and bring it to its knees. The goal is to have every iPhone user (or as many as we can) turn on a data intensive app and run that app for one solid hour. Send the message to AT&T that we are sick of their substandard network and sick of their abusive comments. The idea is we’ll create a digital flash mob. We’re calling it in Operation Chokehold. Join us and speak truth to power!
Fake Steve’s post was in response to statements made last week by AT&T executive Ralph de la Vega, who said 3 percent of smartphones were using 40 percent of the bandwidth of its network capacity. He added that the company would find ways to persuade heavy users to reduce activity and that the company could impose caps on data usage, which would put an end to our all-you-can-eat data plans.
Of course, everything on that blog should be considered a joke. However, Cult of Mac’s Leander Kahney notes that comments on Twitter, forums and Facebook suggest people are actually planning to participate in Operation Chokehold.
AT&T has provided an official response, dismissing the act an irresponsible media stunt.
“We understand that Fakesteve.net is primarily a satirical forum, but there is nothing amusing about advocating that customers attempt to deliberately degrade service on a network that provides critical communications services for more than 80 million customers,” a spokesman said in a statement. “We know that the vast majority of customers will see this action for what it is: an irresponsible and pointless scheme to draw attention to a blog.”
AT&T doubts that the protest will have much of an effect on the network, as the number of participants may be diminutive. So far the Facebook page for Operation Chokehold has about 300 members.
See Also:
Well, if you were planning on spending Christmas Eve monitoring the sales of your iPhone app, better make new plans. Apple’s shutting down iTunes Connect, which developers use to manage and track their apps, starting December 23rd. It’ll be back up on the 29th. Chances are you already know this if you’re a dev, but hey.
Doesn’t seem a very nice thing to do, but maybe Apple just wants you to enjoy the holidays. (Thanks, Jason)
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
I was at Columbia the same time that Barack Obama was there-- he was a senior when I was a freshman-- and although I never met him, I would guess that we have a formative experience in common: Saul Mendlovitz's "Approaches To A Just World Order" class.
Some upperclassmen pals whom I sang with clued me into this class, which had a cult following on campus. It was a huge lecture course out of the Political Science department, but people from all majors took it-- and that's how Professor Mendlovitz wanted it. The class was basically about solving great problems on a global scale, formulating optimal world governance-- in other words, Saving The World. Mendlovitz openly described his class as indoctrination, and he often repeated this point: You young people, sitting in this room, are the leaders of tomorrow. You will inherit the world some day, and you will be able to change it and make it better. So aim high-- agree that this is what you want to do, know that you can, conspire to make it happen, and stay true to your vision.
It was an absolute thrill for me to hear this message, and it has stayed with me ever since. Star professor Mendlovitz, on 5-year loan from the University of Chicago, was also a great lecturer. He combined tall, grey gravitas with idealistic zeal and a great sense of humor. He obviously loved being around young people.
The poli sci majors who dug deeper became involved with the World Order Models Project, co-founded by Mendlovitz and Princeton professor Richard Falk. I remember looking through the WOMP books and seeing things like diagrams of what the layout and seating scheme should be for a world governance chamber-- like the UN's General Assembly chamber, but presumably better. Things like this seemed a little wanky, but they didn't put me off from the underlying ideals.
Around the same time, I was also immersing myself in the ideas of Fundamentalist zinester Jack Chick (and others) who viewed world government as the great plot of the Anti-Christ, signaling the End Times. But this didn't seem like a good thing to bring up in class.
Anyway, it was a wonderful, inspiring class. I have not lost the hope that it instilled in me, and listening to Obama's words has several times made me think, "Wow-- he must have taken Mendlovitz, too! Mendlovitz was right!"
Installing a multiroom stereo system can involve drilling holes in walls, running wires throughout the house and spending a lot of money. And after all that, the stereo still won’t have access to as much music as your computer. This week, I tested an alternative to the traditional stereo system that lets you control digitally delivered music in multiple rooms without spending a lot of money.
I tested Sonos Inc.’s $399 ZonePlayer S5 (Sonos.com/S5), an all-in-one system that plays music off of your Windows PC or Mac, including music files on the computer, content from Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, local radio stations, Sirius Internet radio, Napster and Rhapsody. The S5 plugs directly into your router and a wall outlet, and a simple software program installs on your computer, working as a desktop remote control. It can work in concert with other S5s or other Sonos products to create a multiroom system around your house. And a free iPhone or iPod Touch app facilitates full remote control of multiple systems.
Since 2005, Sonos has offered high-end audio systems that permit people to listen to their digital music in multiple rooms on stereo systems with straightforward setups and simple remote controls. But its past products were relatively costly and required users to provide an existing stereo setup, powered speakers or a device (like a Bose Wave Radio) that allowed adding components via an auxiliary line-in.
The ZonePlayer S5 is Sonos’s first product that works right out of the box and doesn’t require additional pieces. It took me very little time to set up and, once set up, sounded great. Music fans will want to know that it has five speakers powered by five dedicated digital amplifiers, two tweeters, two midrange drivers and a subwoofer. Discreet buttons on the top of the S5 can be pressed to mute, raise or lower volume.
Sonos’s $99 ZoneBridge accessory frees the ZonePlayer S5 from being wired to a router. Most people will need to buy one of these because they don’t have their routers set up in the same rooms where they want to keep their ZonePlayer S5s. The ZoneBridge is what it sounds like: It can bridge a connection between your home network and one or multiple ZonePlayer S5s—or other Sonos products. There’s no limit to the number of Sonos products that can work with one ZoneBridge.
Last year, Sonos created a free app for Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPod Touch that, as of a recent release last month, works just like the standalone $349 Sonos Controller 200, a touch-screen remote control. Using either the free app or the Sonos Controller, people can control music on multiple ZonePlayers and on other Sonos devices. For example, from my iPod Touch, I can mute one ZonePlayer and crank up the volume on another; I can skim through and play a list of Billboard Chart hits from Napster or listen to one of my personalized stations on Pandora.
If you’re like me, you don’t like bothering with plugs as you move electronics around your house. Even though the ZonePlayer S5 has a built-in handle and can easily be moved around (it weighs only about nine pounds), it will need its AC adapter cord wherever it goes. And the ZonePlayer S5 doesn’t have a dedicated iPod dock. Sure, you could buy a cord to plug an iPod into the auxiliary port on the back of the ZonePlayer, but that’s not the same as a dock.
Competitors, such as Bose Corp.’s $270 SoundDock Series II, work as speakers and iPod docks. The Bose can’t sync with other SoundDocks, as Sonos products are made to do, nor can it wirelessly play music from the hard drive of a nearby Windows PC or Mac. But as long as an iPod Touch or iPhone is loaded with free apps from Pandora or Last.fm, it can be placed in the SoundDock to play Internet radio through this system. And Bose’s $360 SoundDock Portable works plugged in or for over three hours on rechargeable batteries, making it easier to move around the house.
It took me less than 10 minutes to set up two ZonePlayer S5s, one ZoneBridge and a Sonos Controller 200 remote control in three different rooms. The ZoneBridge is just 1½ inches tall and its surface measures about the area of a piece of toast. It plugs directly into a router so the S5s can work anywhere within the Wi-Fi network, though they still must each be plugged into a power outlet.
I installed Sonos’s setup software, which came on a disc with the ZonePlayer S5, on a Dell (DELL) XPS One running Windows 7. When prompted, I followed on-screen instructions that explained how to press a button on each ZonePlayer S5, the ZoneBridge and the remote to wirelessly link them to my system. An indicator light on the S5 and ZoneBridge changed from blinking to solid to signify the connection.
Free 30-day trials of Sirius Internet Radio, Napster and Rhapsody come with the ZonePlayer S5, and the software is smart enough to set everything up in one step so users can start listening without first filling out any forms (like email address, name etc.). If users don’t have accounts with Internet radio sites Pandora and Last.fm, they must go to those sites to create accounts online.
I entered my Pandora Internet radio user name and password on the computer, and my saved radio stations appeared on the computer screen. These personalized stations also showed up on the Sonos Controller’s colorful touch screen, as well as in the Sonos Controller app on the iPhone. And Pandora’s thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons also work on these portable remotes, so my musical preferences were saved in my account as I selected each to indicate whether or not I liked a song.
I played all sorts of content from the Web directly on my ZonePlayer S5s: hip-hop from Jay-Z, Ella Fitzgerald jazz, classical Christmas songs sung by the York Minster Choir, my local NPR station and tracks from Shakira’s new “She Wolf” album. I also listened to music from my computer’s hard drive.
The Sonos ZonePlayer S5 lets you build a stereo system that can be wirelessly spread around with help from the company’s $99 ZoneBridge. And, as is the case with all Sonos products, the setup process is fantastically simple. Now that the iPhone and iPod Touch can use a free remote-control app that works just as well as the Sonos Controller 200, these players are even more accessible.
Edited by Walter S. Mossberg
Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
![Screen shot 2009-12-15 at [ December 15 ] 2.24.28 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Screen-shot-2009-12-15-at-December-15-2.24.28-PM.png "Screen shot 2009-12-15 at [ December 15 ] 2.24.28 PM")
You know whats nerdier than contrasting the merits of the iPhone versus those of the Motorola Droid (twice)? Pitting the two phones against each other in a sound effect remix battle. You know what’s even nerdier than that? Absolutely nothing.
The folks over at Indaba Music have challenged their users to strive for that pinnacle of nerddom in an all out remix competition they’re calling Phone Wars. The results are… surprisingly pleasing.
There’s only one concrete rule of the competition: each entry must include at least one system sound effect from either the iPhone or the Droid. Most of the tracks — especially those currently leading the competition — use multiple. The current leader, Aurelien STRIDE’s Droid Hip Hop Mix, uses the the Droid’s “Ta-da” and “Beatbox” ringtones, with the infamous “DROOOOID” startup/notification sound thrown in for good measure.
Through some act of craziness on Indaba’s part, we’re not able to embed our favorite tracks. Here’s a list of just a few that are worth checking out:
Be sure to check out all of the submissions, and let us know in the comments if you find any other gems in there.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
FROM GAMERTELL - Ric Turner created a fully playable Christmas Light Hero display for Christmas 2009. You can pick up a guitar controller and play through “Cliffs of Dover” by watching the lights streaming on the garage door.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 Reuters | Strong Sales May Delay Apple imacs InformationWeek Apple's two-week delay in shipping 27-inch imacs could be due to the product's success, said NPD Group. By Antone Gonsalves Stronger-than-expected Mac desktop sales could be behind Apple's two-week delay in shipping 27-inch imacs. ... Apple's iMacs Delayed, But Why? Apple apologizes for imac delays Apple Contrite About iMac Delays |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Some smart students at MIT have figured out how to turn a typical LCD into a low-cost, 3-D gestural computing system.
Users can touch the screen to activate controls on the display but as soon as they lift their finger off the screen, the system can interpret their gestures in the third dimension, too. In effect, it turns the whole display into a giant sensor capable of telling where your hands are and how far away from the screen they are.
“The goal with this is to be able to incorporate the gestural display into a thin LCD device like a cell phone and to be able to do it without wearing gloves or anything like that,” says Matthew Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Media Lab who helped develop the system. MIT, which will present the idea at the Siggraph conference on Dec. 19.
The latest gestural interface system is interesting because it has the potential to be produced commercially, says Daniel Wigdor, a user experience architect for Microsoft.
“Research systems in the past put thousands of dollars worth of camera equipment around the room to detect gestures and show it to users,” he says. “What’s exciting about MIT’s latest system is that it is starting to move towards a form factor where you can actually imagine a deployment.”
Gesture recognition is the area of user interface research that tries to translate movement of the hand into on-screen commands. The idea is to simplify the way we interact with computers and make the process more natural. That means you could wave your hand to scroll pages, or just point a finger at the screen to drag windows around.
MIT has become a hotbed for researchers working in the area of gestural computing. Last year, an MIT researcher showed a wearable gesture interface called the ‘SixthSense’ that recognizes basic hand movements.
But most existing systems involve expensive cameras or require you to wear different-colored tracking tags on your fingers. Some systems use small cameras that can be embedded into the display to capture gestural information. But even with embedded cameras, the drawback is that the cameras are offset from the center of the screen and won’t work well at short distances. They also can’t switch effortlessly between gestural commands (waving your hands in the air) and touchscreen commands (actually touching the screen).
The latest MIT system uses an array of optical sensors that are arranged right behind a grid of liquid crystals, similar to those used in LCD displays. The sensors can capture the image of a finger when it is pressed against the screen. But as the finger moves away the image gets blurred.
By displacing the layer of optical sensors slightly relative to the liquid crystals array, the researchers can modulate the light reaching the sensors and use it capture depth information, among other things.
In this case, the liquid crystals serve as a lens and help generate a black-and-white pattern that lets light through to the sensors. That pattern alternates rapidly with whatever the image that the LCD is displaying, so the viewer doesn’t notice the pattern.
The pattern also allows the system to decode the images better, capturing the same depth information that a pinhole array would, but doing it much more quickly, say the MIT researchers.
The idea is so novel that MIT researchers haven’t been able to get LCDs with built-in optical sensors to test, though they say companies such as Sharp and Planar have plans to produce them soon.
For now, Hirsch and his colleagues at MIT have mocked up a display in the lab to run their experiments. The mockup uses a camera that is placed some distance from the screen to record the images that pass through the blocks of black-and-white squares.
The bi-directional screens from MIT can be manufactured in a thin, portable package that requires few additional components compared with LCD screens already in production, says MIT. (See video below for an explanation of how it works.)
Despite the ease of production, it will be five to ten years before such a system could make it into the hands of consumers, cautions Microsoft’s Wigdor. Even with the hardware in hand, it’ll take at least that long before companies like Microsoft make software that can make use of gestures.
“The software experience for gestural interface systems is unexplored in the commercial space,” says Wigdor.
Photo/Video: MIT
FROM GAMERTELL - Between December 18, 2009 and January 7, 2010, every Big Mac sold at McDonalds will include a Big Mac Thrill Card. The Big Mac Thrill Card features one of eight different Avatar images and gives people access to three Avatar themed online games.
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 Globe and Mail | Microsoft cops to webcode theft Register Microsoft has admitted that its new Chinese microblogging service used webcode pilfered from a similar service popular elsewhere in Asia. On Monday, as reported by The Reg, Asian microblogging site Plurk accused Microsoft China of pilfering its code ... Microsoft pulls China blog site amid code-theft charges Plurk Accuses Microsoft of Code, Design Theft Accused of plucking Plurk, Microsoft pulls microblog service |
 guardian.co.uk | Stephen Covey's New Habit Hurts His e-Readers PC World Stephen R. Covey gave his followers a good "7 Habits" lesson today, inking a deal that gives Amazon exclusive e-book rights to his business bestsellers. Covey teaches the value of "win-win" to his students, but in this case only Covey ... Best-selling author sells book rights to Amazon Amazon wins exclusive deal for Stephen Covey e-books Amazon Announces Kindle for Mac, Taking Signups for Availability |
Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Netbooks
In what I can only imagine as being something along the lines of ‘you get what you pay for’ CherryPal has announced a $99 netbook. The netbook is going by the name of Africa, its the CherryPal Africa and just like the low price the specs are equally low.
To begin with, it is powered by a 400MHz processor and is sporting a 7-inch display with a resolution of 800 x 480. Additionally it has 256MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage and will come with either Linux or Windows CE installed. Yup, Windows CE, you are not even getting the now outdated XP. And to top that off, you will get a lithium battery that is said to give upwards of four hours of use time.
But on the positive side, “everyone who has tried it has absolutely loved it!” Of course, that is according to their own press release. Now, if the specs have not yet scared you away and you are still looking to make a purchase then hit the product link below and visit the CherryPal Store.
Product [CherryPal] Read [PR Newswire] Via [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
I’ve been pretty pumped about Swype’s ultra-speedy alternative typing solution for touchscreen devices ever since it first debuted at TechCrunch50 2008. My excitement only grew when it finally made its way to a handset, the Omnia II, just last month – but as I’m not the biggest fan of the OS that powers that device, my thumbs were left twiddling until an Android port was released.
Earlier this morning, I got my hands-on a pre-release copy of just that: Swype for Android. So how is it? In a word: Great.
If you’re unfamiliar with Swype, here’s how it works: rather than typing words by tapping letter-by-letter, you swipe (swipe, Swype – Get it?) your finger (or a stylus) through the letters of each word. If you wanted to spell “DOG”, for example, you’d put your thumb down on D, slide it over to O, down to G, and then release. You don’t have to be perfectly accurate – in fact, you can be pretty sloppy and Swype will still figure out what you mean. If it’s not positive which word you meant, it’ll present a list of possible options. After a very very slight learning curve, Swype promises to be considerably faster than the standard hunt-and-peck keyboard input method.
Notes & Impressions:
Overall, Swype for Android seems like an absolutely rock solid alternative to the standard Android keyboard. For devices without physical keyboards (like the HTC Magic, Droid Eris, Samsung Behold, etc.), this really ought to be something that’s included out-of-the-box.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
FROM APPLETELL - The Tenqa SP-109 is an excellent introduction to that market, handily allowing the separation of your music source from the speakers on which you listen to it.
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What does Microsoft have up its sleeve to reverse Windows Mobile’s declining market share? We won’t find out until late next year.
Windows Mobile 7 has “been put back until late next year but it is definitely coming,” according to Phil Moore, UK head of mobility of Microsoft.
“You’re going to see a lot more on Windows Mobile 7,” Moore was quoted in an article by NetworkWorld. “Giving the enterprise users and consumers what they want will be part of Windows Mobile 7. You’ll get flexibility on a much easier touch UI.”
Little is known about Windows Mobile 7, although previous leaks indicate the OS will incorporate iPhone-like touch gestures. The OS was originally slated for a 2009 release, but it was delayed, and Windows Mobile 6.5, a minor upgrade, was released as a placeholder.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been surprisingly honest when speaking about Windows Mobile. Ballmer admitted Windows Mobile 6.5 was “not the full release [Microsoft] wanted.” Ballmer has also said Windows Mobile 7 must do much better than its predecessor.
And so we wait.
See Also:
FROM APPLETELL - According to AdWeekMedia, Apple has come out on top of 2 of the 33 “Best of 2000s” awards that stretch across four categories, including media, agency, creative, and brand.
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Apps are the hit of 2009. Possessing the ability to turn your mobile device into anything from a gaming system to a GPS navigation device to a wine connoisseur, apps are everything to a phone OS. Android rolled past the 20,000 app total and now rests at 20,003.
Though Apple still reigns supreme in total app count, 100,000; Google’s Android OS seems to be on roll with big releases on major carriers. The Verizon Droid by Motorola is seen by many as the flagship Android phone, that is until the Nexus One by Google in a partnership with HTC comes along. Google looks intent on making Android as big a player as the mighty iPhone.
The 20,000 app mark shows that developers are showing an interest in the platform. Research over at AndroLib says almost 38% of available apps are paid. Paid apps are a good thing for an OS as it encourages developers to code for an OS with the incentive of earning dollars. The more popular an OS, the more developers will code for it and it becomes a self-sustaining system.
Verizon’s deal with Google to bring the Droid onto the market clearly helps Android. Phones featuring the Android OS are expected on AT&T in the near future as the carrier widens it’s already impressive smartphone offering.
Read: [AndroLib]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
When the rumor mill was still churning in full force over the Xperia X2, one thing seemed to be popping up fairly consistently: a January 2010 launch date. It seemed pretty solid.
When Sony Ericsson made the handset official, however, they proclaimed that it wouldn’t ship in 2010, but sometime in the fourth quarter of 2009. Fingers were crossed, and breaths were held – alas, it’s not going to happen.
In what is either a big fit of miscommunication or a nasty coincidence, Sony Ericsson has just disclosed that the Windows Mobile 6.5-powered XPERIA X2 will ship in January 2010 after all. There’s still no word on a release date for the Android-powered XPERIA X10, but it’s looking like Sony Ericsson will be launching the two handsets in quick succession – just like we said they would.
[Via Brighthand]
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Just in case you happened to be looking for a geeky way to countdown to the New Year, you may want to head on over to Google.com and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button.
Yup, Google has once again given us a little easter egg of sorts. Once you hit the button, you will see the time appear in big blue numbers below. This of course, is showing the amount of seconds left in 2009. Happy New Year.
Read [Twitter @fluorescentinca] Via [Smarterware]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
That didn’t take long. Last week the Google Phone was just another unfounded Internet rumor, but now that the Nexus One is out in the wild and its exclusive Android 2.1 build has been ported to the Droid. It’s of course just as buggy as other Android releases ported to unsupported devices so you should probably hold up a bit before you dive into the installation. Oh, and you’ll lose that sweet Droid start-up sound too if you install 2.1. Video demo after the break.
[Sholes.info via EngdadgetMobile]
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
US citizen Lily Sussman took a vacation in Israel, to visit extended family there and see the sights — all the usual tourist things. On the way in, though, the security forces got rather serious.
After pulling her aside for questioning, reading her journal and even flicking through her camera to check the photos (hint: don’t take snaps of “graffiti, which read “Fuck” scrawled next to the Jewish star of David”), she was left alone. An announcement was made over the airport speakers, which Lily remembers as something like “do not to be alarmed by gunshots because the Israeli security needs to blow up suspicious passenger luggage.”
In fact they didn’t blow anything up. Instead, they put three bullets through the MacBook, gave it back to the now rather upset Lily and let her be on her way. The security forces didn’t even ask for her password.
The amazing part is that not a single piece of information was destroyed: The bullets miraculously missed the MacBook’s hard drive. And despite the holes rent on the casing, the body of the MacBook has kept together quite well. If it worked, it would be the ultimate case-mod. So what should we take away from this incident? Back up your files. If your computer gets shot by airport security, you may not be as lucky.
I’m sorry but we blew up your laptop [Lily Sussman’s Blog]
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
While we have certainly seen quite a bit of the Android-based Nexus One over the past few days there is one important item that has to happen before it will reach the hands of the public—stop by and get a certification from the FCC. And thankfully, it looks like that has happened, and with it comes just a few details about the phone itself.
As we already knew, the phone is being manufactured by HTC, Additionally, it is also carrying the model name of PB99100 with the codename of NEXUSONE. The other part here is that it has been confirmed to have support for HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 and quadband EDGE, which in reality means it will have support for T-Mobile 3G. In other words, that is a little bit of bad news for anyone hoping to see this land with, or at least support AT&T 3G. Other details from the FCC listing include the more basic such as the support for microSD cards, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g.
Finally, just in case looking at the FCC label was not as exciting as you had hoped, we also have a short video of the boot animation from the Nexus One. I have to say, it does look pretty familiar, at least in terms of coloring.
Read [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Toshiba has just announced the availability of a new embedded NAND flash memory chip, which can hold up to 64GB of data. These are the chips that sit inside the iPhone and iPod Touch.
One reason that the iPod Touch usually has more memory than the iPhone is that, despite its skinny form, there is more room inside. Consequently, the Touch can fit in two chips where the iPhone only has space for one. This new release from Toshiba, then, means that the iPhone could double-up on storage and the iPod Touch could again leap ahead.
Of course, pricing of these chips will have a lot to do with when Apple actually starts to buy them. This, in combination with the now well-established launch schedule of iPhones in the summer and iPods in the Autumn means that we might be waiting a while. On the other hand, if Apple goes ahead with a camera-equipped Touch as expected, we may get a New Year surprise.
One thing we are sure of is that the days of the hard-drive based iPod Classic are now numbered.
Toshiba Launches Highest Density Embedded NAND Flash Memory Modules [Toshiba]
The Jelfin Mouse is a desktop blob, a ball-shaped mouse with a soft gel covering. It is also “designed to fit your hand perfectly”, and “the World’s first ball-shaped computer mouse covered in gel”*. It is, in short, the most pointless peripheral we have ever seen.
The USB mouse comes in an array of pastel hues, and looks like it could actually be some kind of ergonomic innovation, perhaps grabbed with the hand upright as you might hold a gun. In reality, the soft-touch ball is just a tall mouse, and probably about as comfortable to drape your digits over as a tall bike is to throw your leg over.
Any users of Mac OS 9 will be excited to hear that the Jelfin lists your computers as compatible (just like any other plain-Jane USB mouse). Other awesome features include three buttons and a scroll wheel. $35, and obviously destined for the $5 bargain bin at your local megamart. Box includes “travel can”.
Jelfin Mouse [Jelfin]
*Jelfin obviously hasn’t seen my hacked Fleshlight.
 CTV.ca | Al Gore shoots self, climate summit in foot TG Daily Oh dear. Saint Al Gore, the man who invented both the internet and anthropogenic global warming and made himself obscenely rich in the process, has banged yet another nail into the rickety coffin of the ... Al Gore's melting Arctic claim unites scientist and sceptic alike Gore: Polar ice may vanish in 5-7 years Al sparks ice storm |
The Nexus One aka Googlephone has been probed by hacker Android 1 at the These Are The Droids blog. By dumping the ROM file to disk and combing through its contents, the hardware could be determined by the software libraries which refer to them.
The main chip seems to be the Snapdragon from Qualcomm, which would explain the fast, snappy performance described by CNET and Buzz Out Loud’s Jason Howell, speaking on the This Week in Tech podcast. The Nexus also has an accelerometer, a proximity/light sensor, a magnetic compass, and a combination Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/FM radio. There is also reference to a pair of stereo speakers, although their hardware existence is unconfirmed.
In short, it has everything that it need to compete with the iPhone on hardware, and the Android software is improving fast. What we really want to know, though, is the resolution of the screen, which Howell describes as “super sharp”, the specs of the camera and most importantly, the battery life. Give another day and we’ll probably know that, too.
Nexus One Hardware Running List [These Are The Droids]
Photo: Cory O’Brien
See Also:
The Keystick is less a folding keyboard than a stacking keyboard. The overlapping sections slide over one another to turn a small, oblong bar of plastic into a ridged keyboard, complete with neat pop-out USB dongle to plug into your computer.
Unless you are using a keyboard-ally challenged netbook, we wonder who would actually need a portable keyboard these days — pretty much any laptop has a perfectly good one, and if you’re docking the notebook to a desktop setup at the office, you can just use a real, full-sized keyboard.
This one certainly looks great, though, apart from the weird retro sci-fi text along the bottom (None Bacteria Project refers to the use of personal keyboards and not an anti-germ coating). You can’t buy it, as the Keystick is a concept design. A quick note to designers Yoonsang Kim and Eunsung Park: make one that can hook up to my iPod Touch. I’d buy one of those in a second.
Folding Fan Is A Keyboard [Yanko via Oh Gizmo]
Rest assured that 2010 is going to be a big year for the Android operating system, with many new handsets finding their way to stores around the world (including Google’s own phone) and an increasing number of developers building tools, games and the likes for the fast-growing platform.
One way of noticing that the OS is poised for a big breakthrough at the expense of Windows Mobile, Symbian and other operating systems designed to run on various mobile devices, is the number of applications already available for download in the platform’s own application store, Android Market.
While Google doesn’t disclose publicly how many apps are available for installation, AndroLib has been chronicling the publication of all free and paid apps since Android was introduced, so it’s the closest thing to getting a confirmed number at this point.
Lo and behold, that number hit the 20,000 milestone just moments ago, a little over 5 months since it reached 10,000 apps. And as you can tell from the pie graph below, close to 38% of these apps are paid, while 62% of the apps cost as much as the license fee handset manufacturers need to fork over to Google for use of the Android OS.
This may pale in comparison to the number of applications available for the iPhone / iPod Touch (100,000), but the real battle for mobile OS dominion isn’t fought between Google and Apple, who are increasingly distancing themselves from more established players in terms of mobile Web usage and together are creating a whole new mobile advertising micro-economy.
Evidently, the number of applications available for download are only part of the story, but the numbers AndroLib has collected most certainly indicates that the Android Market is maturing fast. Just look at the growth curve in the first graph and the increasing amount of new applications that are published in Android Market every month in the second.
My guess Android Market will be serving 50,000 apps as early as Q2 2010.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
People have been inventing non-lethal and “humane” mousetraps for years. Some are worse than the traditional cheese and sprung-steel spine-snapper. The sticky-board, for example, which is supposed to immobilize the rodent but instead presents you with a live mouse staring pleadingly, all four of his legs chewed through in a desperate attempt to escape.
The Better Mousetrap doesn’t bother with innovation. It just throws a lot of tech at the same old trap we have known for years. Designed and built by tinkerer Jake Easton, the machine is deliberately over the top in its operation. Power it up with a key and watch the pressure-meter leap to attention. When the mouse comes in to nibble the cheese, the “Detect” light flicks on and, moments later, the bar snaps down delivering a vertebrae-shattering crunch of force (102-pounds). The build photos show the crazy attention to detail: This polished aluminum case isn’t just pretty on the outside — take a look inside and you’ll see something as neat and carefully designed as the interior of a Mac Pro.
Is this trap humane? No. Efficient? Not really. Is it an awesome, shiny, mouse-murdering machine? Hell yes!
The specs:
Pneumatic Cylinder: 1/2” Bore with 3/4” Stroke
Air Pressure (Max): 60 PSI
Strike Force at 40 PSI: 102 lbs
Key Lock Switch and Manual Hammer Override
Visual Monitoring: Power, PSI, and Armed - Detect - Fire
Case Construction: 6061 0.25” Polished Aluminum
Inputs: 12VDC and Air Line
Dimensions: 12” x 6” x 2.5”
Weight: 5.5 Pounds
Better Mousetrap [Telovation via the Giz]
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I immediately called Ramit. "You are an international traveler, and you have a passport, so you can go in", I said. Ramit's response was instant: I tried to enter but they said you are not allowed for you don't have an international passport.
Response to our 100-word fiction contest, "
After 17 months of litigation, the hammer has finally fallen on Psystar. The US District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday granted 
Digital memory aid and note taking service 
Audio-Technica announced a new pair of active noise canceling headphones today; the ATH-ANC1 QuietPoint. Designed to absorb 85% of ambient noise, the new headphones are intended for use in airplanes or while traveling.
Yep, it’s still happening. You can still become a millionaire on the iPhone without a marketing budget and a brand name. 
The cumulative devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar was such that a stack of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (26 zeros) two dollar bills (if they were printed) in the peak hyperinflation would have be needed to equal in value what a single original Zimbabwe two-dollar bill of 1978 had been worth. Such a pile of bills literally would be light years high, stretching from the Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy.
John called SFPD, went down to the police station in person and filed a report (case 091-062-114), and after several followup phone calls over the next few weeks was told:
Michael sez, "As a followup to our 
We’ve got more details on the 
Since the dawn of 
Booq (