Source: Gizmodo | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:53 pm

Still considering pre-ordering the Barnes & Noble Nook, be prepared to wait

Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks

Just in case you were thinking about placing a pre-order for the Barnes & Noble Nook, you may want to slow down a little bit because at this point there is virtually no chance of seeing one for Christmas. That is unless you find someone willing to sell theirs rip you off by charging a hefty premium.

But jokes aside, the Barnes & Noble pre-orders are now sitting with a shipping date of February 1, 2010. Yup, you can place your order today, and not even see the device for more than a full calendar month.

Of course, its easy to poke fun at Barnes & Noble about now, but I seem to remember pretty long stretches where the Amazon Kindle was just about impossible to get (again, without being ripped off) during those early days.

Product [Barnes & Noble] Via [Gizmodo]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:46 pm

Dell Mini 9 tries to burn down house

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Laptops

As a sit here with my laptop nearly burning my leg, it’s stories like this that scare me. A one year old Dell Mini proceeded to growl like an angry chihuahua as its owner unplugged it and placed in on the wooden floor. For only a few minutes the Mini would hiss, sizzle, and smoke leaving a hole in the casing and a scorch mark on the wooden floor. Its owner, a lady name Hannah, describes the event:

I heard a loud popping sound and the room immediately filled with smoke while the laptop hissed and sizzled. It died down, I pushed it with my foot, and it started hissing again. There is a large scorch mark on my floor. It goes without saying, I am glad the laptop was not on my couch …or in an airplane.

Lucky for Hannah, Dell paid for her to send her newly melted laptop back for inspection. They also sent her a brand new laptop with better specs. No cause of the battery malfunction has been determined.

Read [Geek.com]

Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:11 pm

Gadgets to Bring Holiday Cheer to Little Travelers [Personal Technology]

Along with many other people, I’ll spend hours flying with young children this holiday season to visit family and, like many parents, I’d do anything within reason to keep my young children busy on a crowded airplane.

I’m a big fan of old-fashioned analog activities—books and crayons—but they’re not enough when you’re cooped up for six hours on a plane. In advance of a cross-country flight on Wednesday, my two kids and I spent several days trying out the most versatile and convenient gadget—offering movies, games and other electronic media—for keeping us entertained.

We looked at Apple’s iPod Touch, a Sony (SNE) PSPgo and a Nintendo DSi. Sony and Nintendo have updated their PlayStation Portable and DS game players with features aimed at going beyond traditional gaming. Apple (AAPL) is been promoting the iPod touch’s game capabilities.

Nintendo has done a lot to push the boundaries of gaming, with the Wii and other products. But the $169.99 DSi isn’t the entertainment Swiss army knife the iPod Touch and PSPgo are. It doesn’t play movies, for example—a big minus for my 2-year-old son, who is too young to be patient with most games.

It’s still a fun game-player, though, with popular titles for young kids, including two that are big with my 6-year-old daughter: the Nintendogs virtual pet and Pokemon adventure games, which run about $30 a title. One big change Nintendo made to the DSi is the addition of two cameras that are used in fun games, like the ones that put a player’s photo alongside other characters. One simple camera application lets you distort and doodle on images.

Nintendo and Sony also have followed the lead of the App Store—Apple’s online clearinghouse for iPhone and iPod Touch software—by letting users download software directly to the DSi and PSPgo over a Wi-Fi connection. It is more convenient than keeping track of a lot of external game cartridges and discs. Compared with the more than 100,000 titles in the App Store, however, Nintendo’s DSi Shop is sparsely stocked. It had only two free applications and about 90 titles, mostly costing $2 to $8.

One free DSi titles, Flipnote Studio, was a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It let her create an electronic version of an old-fashioned flip book, where you animate sketches by flipping pages. The DSi has only 256 megabytes of built-in storage, good for about a dozen games, though users can expand that with a storage card.

With the $249.99 PSPgo, Sony got rid of the old proprietary disc format for movies and games used in older PSP models, replacing it with 16 gigabytes of built-in flash storage onto which users can download games, movies and other content. The change allowed Sony to make a sleeker device with controls that slide away under its crisp color display.

The iPod Touch is still slimmer and easier to tuck into a pocket. A model with eight gigabytes sells for $199, while one with 32 gigabytes sells for $299.

The PSPgo’s display is slightly wider than that on the iPod Touch, but isn’t touch-sensitive. Still, the PSPgo and iPod Touch are fine for watching movies. They’re more convenient on airplanes than fumbling with a laptop and DVDs. And users can wirelessly download movies and games onto the PSPgo from Sony’s online PlayStation Store. I found it faster, though, to do the transaction on my PC over a wired Internet connection, and load the material onto the PSPgo over a USB cable with Sony’s version of Apple’s iTunes application, called Media Go. Media Go runs only on Windows.

Prices for movies on the iTunes and PlayStation Stores were mostly the same at $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older ones. Rentals are $3.99. Both stores had a similar selection of new releases, but the PlayStation Store lacked some kid titles that were on iTunes, such as “Toy Story.” There is also a directory of free podcasts on iTunes that makes it easy to download free videos to the iPod Touch, including kid-friendly material such as NASA space-shuttle landings and “Sesame Street” clips.

Games for PSPgo tend to be more intricate than those for iPod Touch, but that comes at a price. While Sony sells cheaper games, many are in the $19 to $30 range. I liked an adventure game called “Little Big Planet” starring a character called Sack Boy—for $39.99.

That price is steep compared with all the inexpensive and free content on the App Store for the iPod Touch. My kids liked a lot of it: a free dress-up game called “Dress Chica” and a $1.99 snowball-fight game called “Grinchmas.” My son particularly loved a free, beautifully illustrated short book called “Voodoo Doll’s Halloween Story.” My 6-year-old spent hours with a free math-drills program.

I found the iPod Touch offers the best entertainment options for young kids at bargain prices. And that is a gift for parents.

Source: Gizmodo | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:04 pm

Will we see the famed Apple tablet next month? (Macworld.com)

Macworld.com - We don’t normally report on Apple gossip from rumor Websites, but when heavyweights like The Financial Times report on Apple news—even if it sounds a bit gossipy—we think it merits a mention.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:00 pm

The Best Robots of 2009

kkleiner writes "Singularity Hub has just unveiled its second annual roundup of the best robots of the year. In 2009 robots continued their advance towards world domination with several impressive breakouts in areas such as walking, automation, and agility, while still lacking in adaptability and reasoning ability. It will be several years until robots can gain the artificial intelligence that will truly make them remarkable, but in the meantime they are still pretty awesome."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:59 pm

Twitter buys Mixer Labs to map tweeting locations

Source: Gizmodo | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:40 pm

Madden Curse Update: Fitzgerald fighting it off

FROM GAMERTELL - Despite appearing on the Madden NFL 10 cover, Arizona star Larry Fitzgerald has had a healthy and productive season for the Cardinals.
MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:38 pm

Chegg Founder Raises Another $7.5 Million For Stealth Startup Kakai

It’s not often that you hear about a startup still in deep stealth that has over 40 employees and backing from some of the biggest names in the valley. But that’s exactly the case for Santa Clara-based Kakai, which was founded in May by Chegg founder Osman Rashid. The company has recently closed a $7.5 million Series B round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Josh Kopelman (First Round) and Ron Conway. Marc Andreessen will be joining Kakai’s board. This brings Kakai’s total funding to $9.35 million, after a $1.85 million Series A earlier this year led by Rashid himself and Mike Maples.

Very little is known about Kakai at this point. It was cofounded by Rashid and engineer Babur Habib, who has spent time working on both semiconductors and software at Intel, Philips, and Exponent. The company has been rumored to have something to do with electronic readers, but all reports are vague. I did manage to dig up the following from an old job listing, which seems to be in line with those rumors:

“Kakai is a stealth-mode start-up developing an innovative Linux-based, portable consumer electronics product (details available through non-disclosure agreement).”

Rashid isn’t talking. He does say, though, that we’ll likely be hearing much more from the company come late March. He also says the 40 person company is actively hiring top technical talent.

Don’t bother looking at Kakai’s homepage for more information. It has no details, and appears to have been designed to look as drab as possible.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:25 pm

Amazon Takes A Holiday Vacation, Takes Customers With It (Update)

Looks like Amazon has decided to go on holiday vacation early, and invited all of its customers to go along with it. Amazon and Amazon Web Services seem to be down, and people are noticing it.

This is bad news for any companies relying on Amazon’s cloud services. Many startups use Amazon Web Services to host files in the cloud including images and other key content. And it isn’t the first time this has happened (though its competition isn’t much better).

And, of course, those looking for extremely last minute holiday gifts are out of luck.

We’ve reached out to Amazon for comment, and we’ll update you on the status of Amazon.

Update: Amazon looks to be back up from here. Is it up for you?

Update 2 CNET is reporting that the problem stemmed from a large denial of service attack on Amazon’s DNS provider UltraDNS, which also affected other sites such as Salesforce and Walmart.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:15 pm

NASA and Space Station Alliance On Shaky Ground

coondoggie writes "Even as the latest shift of astronauts arrived at the International Space Station, challenges with the orbital outpost on the ground are threatening its future. Those challenges include the pending retirement of the space shuttle but also the way NASA and the ISS are managed. A report issued this week by the Government Accountability Office said NASA faces several significant issues that may impede efforts to maximize utilization of all ISS research facilities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:10 pm

Nooks in time for Christmas! (if you pre-ordered it two months ago)

Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks, Household, Lifestyle

Earlier in the week, it was reported that some people who pre-ordered their Nooks would not receive them by Christmas even though they were supposed to get them by November 30th. To compensate, Barnes and Noble guaranteed at least a $100 online gift card if they didn’t receive their Nook by then. Well now it seems they have some better news. If you pre-ordered your Nook and were given a pre-holiday ship date, you will receive your Nook by Christmas.

Here is the full statement:

We’re happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010.

So even though it seemed like it would never come, the time has finally come, for some of you…

Read [Engadget]

Source: Gizmodo | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:05 pm

Now Playing: Cheap-and-Schlocky Blockbuster Ripoffs

From Transmorphers to The Da Vinci Treasure, filmmakers at the Asylum remake big-budget blockbusters in their own cheap, fast, unnervingly earnest way. And in 2009 they had $5 million in revenue to show for it.

Source: Gizmodo | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 pm

5 Legal Cases That Defined Music in 2009

Over the last decade, there's been a whole lotta shaking going on in the music business, thanks to technology. The courts are often asked to make the disruption stop, and 2009 was no exception.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 pm

With Microsoft's New Interface, You Are the Joystick

Microsoft's new Xbox 360 controller is no controller at all. Codenamed Project Natal, the interface uses a depth sensor, mikes and a lo-res camera to read your gestures.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 pm

Hip-Hop's Wale Tweets His Beats

Olubolwale Victor Folarin, aka Wale, lures fans with free mixtapes, 24/7 updates on Twitter and viral videos. He tinkered with his hip hop opus Attention Deficit for two long years after it was "done."

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:00 pm

Google Nexus One details fully emerge

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Google

According to Engadget, some new important details have surfaced about the highly anticipated Google Nexus One phone.  First off, it is said to be available by invite only, so it will probably be hard to obtain at first.  The phone could be available as early as January 5th, and it is rumored to become available via T-Mobile at some point in the future. 

In terms of specs, there were a few images leaked covering nearly all the specs about the Nexus One, and it is shaping up to be a pretty hot phone.  There will be 4GB of memory on board in the form of microSD card, and it can be expandable up to 32GB, also there is 512MB of RAM and ROM.  It features a large 3.7 inch touch screen, operates on Google Android 2.1, supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 5MP camera with flash, digital compass, and accelerometer. It can download at 7.2 Mbps and upload at 2Mbps.  It uses a 3.5mm headphone jack so it can support conventional headphones, has only a few physical keys and a trackball, and it supports many audio and video formats.  No word yet on battery life for the device. 

It will be interesting to see how many more details about the phone such as pricing and availability come available in the next few weeks.  But in terms of specs, the phone is pretty solid. 

Via [Engadget]

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:28 pm

Vonage Offers Unlimited Int'l Calling for iPhone, Blackberry (PC World)

PC World - Vonage now offers an unlimited $24.99-a-month international calling plan for iPhone and BlackBerry users, the company said Wednesday. The new "Vonage World Mobile" VoIP service competes with a $12.95-a-month service from Skype.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:26 pm

Introducing… The 27-inch iLemon

Regular readers will know my affinity for Apple products. In general, they’re high quality, and I’m willing to pay a bit more for that. But a lemon is a lemon, regardless of who it’s made by, and must be labeled as such. These new 27-inch iMacs? Lemons.

In case you haven’t heard yet, the screens on these massive things are failing left and right. Granted, not all of them seem to be affected, but 110 pages worth of support questions/rants on Apple’s Support page for the issue tells me the problem is pretty widespread. That’s 1,640 replies, so far. And that thread has been viewed an incredible 264,630 times. The next closest recent page with that many views has 26,852 — and guess what? It’s also about a problem with the 27-inch iMac screen.

Two days ago, Apple issued a fix for the issue. The only problem? The fix doesn’t appear to work.

It did look like the fix was working for a little while, but today I’m back with the same constant flickering and random screen shutoffs that have plagued many of us. It basically makes the machine unusable. The support board is already filling up with users who applied the fix and still have the same problem. And, in fact, the only other TechCrunch writer with the new 27-inch iMac also has had the same issue and the fix hasn’t worked for him either.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Apple was delaying further shipments of the 27-inch iMacs until it could get to the bottom of the screen issue. Many believed the fix two days ago was the solution, but it’s not. And so Apple appears to have a very big problem on its hands, literally. If I have to send this bad boy back, it will be the second time I’ve done so. The first time, it shipped to me with a crack in the screen. A problem which is also not an isolated one.

Perhaps you read about how the FDA delayed the replacement one because it thought it was a piece of fruit. I was mad, but I shouldn’t have been. The truth is, these new iMacs are a piece of fruit. They’re lemons.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:20 pm

Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes $1 salary in 2009 (AP)

AP - Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs was paid his customary $1 annual salary in 2009, but Apple's strength through a rough economic climate returned the value of his personal holdings in the company to pre-meltdown levels.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:08 pm

Girl Gamers More Hardcore Than Guys

TheClockworkSoul writes "Scientific American reports on a study published this month in the Journal of Communication, which found that women who engage in a role-playing game online actually commit more time on average than the male players do. The authors surveyed 7,000 players logged in to EverQuest II (PDF), and found that the average age of the gamers surveyed was 31, and that playing time tended to increase with age. Interestingly, however, the female gamers not only tended to log more time online (29 hours per week versus 25 for the males), but were also more likely to lie about how much they really play."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:42 pm

BlackBerry users beset by second outage in a week (AP)

AP - When Corey Marshall's Blackberry mysteriously stopped sending and receiving messages, he realized all too clearly just how much he depends on the device: He had no way of contacting his friends because he never bothers to exchange phone numbers with anyone anymore.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:39 pm

Microsoft side-steps recent court ruling

Section: Computers, Software / Applications

Microsoft recently lost a court appeal to a Toronto based company i4i. The terms of this loss stated that Microsoft must stop selling Office 2007 after January 11th because Microsoft infringed on some XML handling algorithm.

Luckily, since the appeal began, Microsoft started preparing for the future and began work on making the required fixes to Office 2007. The removed feature was the support for reading custom-generated XML within DOCX, DOCM and pure XML files. Office will still be able to open files with this code inside but it will no longer be displayed to comply with the infringement claims. And since these terms apply only to software sold after January 11th, it is unlikely that a patch will be released. Also, Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2010 are not subject to those terms because they didn’t implement the technology at the height of i4i’s lawsuit.

Unfortunately, Microsoft will still have to pay the $290 million in damages to i4i as was reported Tuesday but they likely will be seeking to reverse that verdict. Microsoft claims to fight this verdict to levels as high as the US Supreme Court.

Read [Electronista]

Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:30 pm

Twitter: Now One Acquisition Closer to Improved Stalking! [BoomTown]

Full disclosure: BoomTown is several hours into the spiked eggnog here at All Things Digital Worldwide HQ, so our headlines are 100 percent spikier!

All joking aside and without much blabbery from me, you can read the entire blog post below from Twitter on a new purchase.

The microblogging service (oops, information network!) just acquired Mixer Labs, maker of GeoAPI, which helps developers build location-based services.

Thus, Mixer will help Twitter in the geo-location arena–now a hot pocket of hype and, to be fair, innovation. Mixer also has TownMe, a local information Web site.

Twitter declined to reveal the price it paid for Mixer Labs, but this looks a lot like a basic talent hire that many Web companies do.

Thus, Mixer will join Twitter at its new San Francisco offices (you can see my tour of its new HQ here, which I posted yesterday).

As Twitter CEO Evan Williams wrote:

“We want to know What’s happening?, and more precisely, Where is it happening? As a dramatic example, twittering ‘Earthquake!’ alone is not as informative as ‘Earthquake!’ coupled with your current location.”

If I feel the earth move under my feet, I can feel assured that I can be found by rescuers under the rubble, now that Mixer is there to help.

As I said: Blame the eggnog!

Here is the blog post:

Mixing It Up at 795 Folsom St

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

In August, we previewed expanded location support for developers. Last month we launched our Geotagging API with support from several of the top Twitter clients. When current location is added to tweets, new and valuable services emerge–everything from breaking news to finding friends or local businesses can be dramatically enhanced. Our efforts in this area have just begun. Today, we’re excited to announce a major new step into the location-aware future. Twitter has acquired Mixer Labs, creators of GeoAPI.

The Mixer Labs crew has been working on harnessing the power of local information for a couple years and just recently launched GeoAPI, a comprehensive service for helping developers build geolocation-aware applications. As of today, they’re part of Twitter and will be working to combine the contextual relevance of location to tweets. We want to know What’s happening?, and more precisely, Where is it happening? As a dramatic example, twittering “Earthquake!” alone is not as informative as “Earthquake!” coupled with your current location.

We will be looking at how to integrate the work Mixer Labs has done with the Twitter API in useful ways that give developers behind geo-enabled apps like Birdfeed, Seesmic Web, Foursquare, Gowalla, Twidroid, Twittelator Pro and other powerful new possibilities. We look forward to building features together that will make Twitter even more interesting and relevant to your daily life, no matter where you are. Please join us in welcoming this fine new crew to Twitter Headquarters–795 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA.

Posted by @Ev at 2:00 PM

Source: All Things Digital | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:21 pm

FT: The iPhone's "App" Battle [Voices]

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily

The Financial Times has decided Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone doesn’t have the monopoly on smartphone programs any more, even though it practically invented the category, and even though the iTunes App store has 100,000 programs for the iPhone and counting.

Today’s think piece by FT writer Joseph Menn, of the Silicon Valley bureau, says that Google’s (GOOG) Android operating system now has 20,000 programs and counting, so “it’s no longer about quantity” of programs for phones, “it’s about quality,” Menn concludes. He quotes venture capitalists who assert it takes less than $5,000 to port a program from the iPhone to another operating system.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:20 pm

Wait! Nook arriving for Christmas after all - CNET News

PC World

Wait! Nook arriving for Christmas after all CNET News Customers who placed early orders for Barnes & Noble's Nook e-readers will get them in time for Christmas, the company said Wednesday, despite its statements to the contrary a few days ago. Barnes & Noble: "Just kidding on that latest ... Barnes & Noble's Nooks to Be Delivered by ChristmasWall Street Journal Barnes & Noble says preordered Nooks sent on timeReuters Report: Barnes & Noble Says Nooks Will be Delivered by ChristmasFOXBusiness InformationWeek -ChannelWeb -Los Angeles Times all 164 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:15 pm

Planet of the Apps: A Handheld Revolution - coming soon to CNBC

FROM APPLETELL - CNBC is going to air “Planet of the Apps: A Handheld Revolution”—a one-hour documentary that aims to portray how the iPhone have changed lives.
MORE »

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:10 pm

FTC taking closer look at Google's AdMob purchase (AP)

AP - U.S. antitrust regulators are taking a closer look at Google Inc.'s proposed $750 million purchase of mobile phone marketer AdMob, the latest sign of greater government vigilance as Google tries to expand its advertising empire.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:08 pm

23AndMe Completes $27.8 Million Series B Round

Personal genomics startup 23andMe has recently raised another $14.2 million to close out its $27.8 million Series B round, according to regulatory filings with the SEC. The filing indicates that the new funding is an amendment to the company’s previously reported raise of $11 million in May, which was followed by an additional $2.6 million in June. We’ve reached out to 23andMe to confirm the funding amount, and to also determine if there are any new investors. Update: 23andMe have confirmed that they’ve raised funding, but have not yet confirmed the amount.

The last few months have been rocky for the company. In September, co-founder Linda Avey left 23andMe to start a foundation dedicated to studying Alzheimer’s disease. In late October, the company laid off a substantial chunk of its workforce, but declined to comment on how many people were affected.

23andMe is one of the first personal genomics companies, allowing customers to have portions of their DNA analyzed for around $400 (there are a few different products available). After completing a test, customers can log into the site to get reports on their genetic makeup, including a listing of some diseases they may be at risk for.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Source: TechCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:08 pm

FCC Planning To Wrest TV Spectrum For Mobile Broadband (Investor's Business Daily)

Investor's Business Daily - The Federal Communications Commission's upcoming national broadband plan could bring big changes to how wireless airwaves get doled out -- changes that may run against the wishes of the two biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 4:05 pm

Best Filesystem For External Back-Up Drives?

rufey writes "I've recently embarked on a project to rip my DVD and CD collection to a pair of external USB drives. One drive will be used on a daily basis to access the rips of music and DVDs, as well as store backups of all of my other data. The second drive will be a copy of the first drive, to be synced up on a monthly basis and kept at a different location. The USB drives that I purchased for this are 1 TB in size and came pre-formatted with FAT32. While I can access this filesystem from all of my Windows and Linux machines, there are some limitations." Read on for the rest, and offer your advice on the best filesystem for this application.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:55 pm

Amazon Kindle Vulnerable To DRM Hack - ChannelWeb

BBC News

Amazon Kindle Vulnerable To DRM Hack ChannelWeb Amazon's Kindle e-reader is not as invulnerable as previously thought after hackers found a way to circumvent the device's Digital Rights Management protection and transfer e-books to other devices. ... Hackers claim to crack Kindle copyright armorCNET News Hackers Claim Victory in Cracking Amazon Kindle DRMPC World Amazon Kindle hacked, e-book DRM crackedAfterdawn.com BBC News -Atlantic Online -TG Daily all 133 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:50 pm

Reset Your Windows XP Password

Lose your Windows login password, and you're left with one very expensive doorstop. Learn to go around the operating system and reset your password manually.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:45 pm

Panasonic battery could power your home for a week

Section: Gadgets / Other, Green, Household, Lifestyle, Miscellaneous

Panasonic recently acquired an over 50% stake in Sanyo and one of the cool things they inherited from it is the opportunity/technology to manufacture a lithium-ion battery that could store enough power to keep your household running for a week, according to Panasonic. So for all you green-folks here ya go.

This battery stores the power generated by your solar panels or fuel cells, allowing you to keep watching your favorite shows into the night. Users will also be able to monitor electricity usage on a TV display; so you know when someone in your house is wasting electricity.

Fumio Otsubo, president of Panasonic, stressed that Panasonic and Sanyo have already tested such a battery. Otsubo stated, “We’re positioned closest [among firms] to realizing CO2 emission-free daily life.” Working together, Panasonic plans to speed up the development of such a battery.

Otsubo also stated that they will announce its basic ideas with regards to reorganizing the two firms’ growth strategies and overlapping product lines—such as large household appliances—on Jan. 8. More specific details will come in May.

Read [Physorg]

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:41 pm

Insurgents Intercepting Predator Video? No Problem

Sometimes mediocre encryption is better than strong encryption, and sometimes no encryption is better still.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Iraqi, and possibly also Afghan, militants are using commercial software to eavesdrop on U.S. Predators, other unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and even piloted planes. The systems weren't "hacked" -- the insurgents can’t control them -- but because the downlink is unencrypted, they can watch the same video stream as the coalition troops on the ground.

The naive reaction is to ridicule the military. Encryption is so easy that HDTVs do it -- just a software routine and you're done -- and the Pentagon has known about this flaw since Bosnia in the 1990s. But encrypting the data is the easiest part; key management is the hard part. Each UAV needs to share a key with the ground station. These keys have to be produced, guarded, transported, used and then destroyed. And the equipment, both the Predators and the ground terminals, needs to be classified and controlled, and all the users need security clearance.

The command and control channel is, and always has been, encrypted -- because that's both more important and easier to manage. UAVs are flown by airmen sitting at comfortable desks on U.S. military bases, where key management is simpler. But the video feed is different. It needs to be available to all sorts of people, of varying nationalities and security clearances, on a variety of field terminals, in a variety of geographical areas, in all sorts of conditions -- with everything constantly changing. Key management in this environment would be a nightmare.

Additionally, how valuable is this video downlink is to the enemy? The primary fear seems to be that the militants watch the video, notice their compound being surveilled and flee before the missiles hit. Or notice a bunch of Marines walking through a recognizable area and attack them. This might make a great movie scene, but it's not very realistic. Without context, and just by peeking at random video streams, the risk caused by eavesdropping is low.

Contrast this with the additional risks if you encrypt: A soldier in the field doesn't have access to the real-time video because of a key management failure; a UAV can't be quickly deployed to a new area because the keys aren't in place; we can't share the video information with our allies because we can't give them the keys; most soldiers can't use this technology because they don't have the right clearances. Given this risk analysis, not encrypting the video is almost certainly the right decision.

There is another option, though. During the Cold War, the NSA's primary adversary was Soviet intelligence, and it developed its crypto solutions accordingly. Even though that level of security makes no sense in Bosnia, and certainly not in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is what the NSA had to offer. If you encrypt, they said, you have to do it "right."

The problem is, the world has changed. Today's insurgent adversaries don't have KGB-level intelligence gathering or cryptanalytic capabilities. At the same time, computer and network data gathering has become much cheaper and easier, so they have technical capabilities the Soviets could only dream of. Defending against these sorts of adversaries doesn't require military-grade encryption only where it counts; it requires commercial-grade encryption everywhere possible.

This sort of solution would require the NSA to develop a whole new level of lightweight commercial-grade security systems for military applications — not just office-data "Sensitive but Unclassified" or "For Official Use Only" classifications. It would require the NSA to allow keys to be handed to uncleared UAV operators, and perhaps read over insecure phone lines and stored in people's back pockets. It would require the sort of ad hoc key management systems you find in internet protocols, or in DRM systems. It wouldn't be anywhere near perfect, but it would be more commensurate with the actual threats.

And it would help defend against a completely different threat facing the Pentagon: The PR threat. Regardless of whether the people responsible made the right security decision when they rushed the Predator into production, or when they convinced themselves that local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, or when they forgot to update their Bosnia-era threat analysis to account for advances in technology, the story is now being played out in the press. The Pentagon is getting beaten up because it's not protecting against the threat — because it's easy to make a sound bite where the threat sounds really dire. And now it has to defend against the perceived threat to the troops, regardless of whether the defense actually protects the troops or not. Reminds me of the TSA, actually.

So the military is now committed to encrypting the video ... eventually. The next generation Predators, called Reapers -- Who names this stuff? Second-grade boys? -- will have the same weakness. Maybe we’ll have encrypted video by 2010, or 2014, but I don't think that's even remotely possible unless the NSA relaxes its key management and classification requirements and embraces a lightweight, less secure encryption solution for these sorts of situations. The real failure here is the failure of the Cold War security model to deal with today's threats.

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Bruce Schneier is chief security technology officer of BT. His new book is Schneier on Security.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:34 pm

Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (Coxibs) Interfere With Aspirin's Clotting Ability -- Ben-Gurion U.

A new study conducted at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that Celebrex and other anti-inflammatory coxib medications may counter the positive effects of aspirin in preventing blood clots.The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), indicates that people who are taking aspirin and coxibs together are in fact inhibiting the aspirin's effectiveness in preventing heart attacks and strokes."This finding strongly suggests that humans who are consuming coxibs and a low dose of aspirin simultaneously are exposed to a greater risk of cardiovascular events," said Professor Gilad Rimon, Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel.In the past decade, a new group of anti-inflammatory drugs, coxibs, which include Celebrex and Arcoxia was developed to treat arthritis as well as other pain.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:29 pm

Columbia Scientists Discover 2 Genes That Drive Aggressive Brain Cancers

Discovery made using new systems biology method, which enabled the scientists to pinpoint the genes from a mass of dataA team of Columbia scientists have discovered two genes that, when simultaneously activated, are responsible for the most aggressive forms of human brain cancer.This finding was made possible by the assembly of the first comprehensive network of molecular interactions that determine the behavior of these cancer cells, a map so complex and elusive that, until now, it could not be constructed. The discovery may lead to completely novel strategies to diagnose and treat these incurable tumors.The findings will be published in an advanced online edition of Nature on Dec. 23, 2009, by a team of Columbia scientists led by Antonio Iavarone, M.D., associate professor of neurology in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Andrea Califano, Ph.D., director of the Columbia Initiative in Systems Biology.The researchers studied a type of human malignancy, called glioblastoma multiforme, which is among the most lethal because it rapidly invades the normal brain producing inoperable brain tumors. Recently, glioblastoma claimed the life of Senator Edward Kennedy only sixteen months after diagnosis.Before this study, cancer researchers had little idea why glioblastoma is so aggressive. "We now know that two genes – C/EPB and Stat3 – are the disease's master 'control knobs'," said Dr. Iavarone. "When simultaneously activated, they work together to turn on hundreds of other genes that transform brain cells into highly aggressive, migratory cells."The two genes are active in about 60 percent of all glioblastoma patients and help identify poor-prognosis patients. All patients in the study whose tumors showed activation of both factors died within 140 weeks after diagnosis, while one half of the patients without these factors were still alive."The finding means that suppressing both genes simultaneously, using a combination of drugs, may be a powerful therapeutic approach for these patients, for whom no satisfactory treatment exists," said Dr. Califano.This approach, called combination therapy, is supported by this study since silencing both genes in human glioblastoma cells completely blocked their ability to form tumors when injected in a mouse. Based on these results, the Columbia scientists received a grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to develop drugs specifically aimed at these genes.Two Genes Uncovered with a Systems Biology Approach
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:23 pm

The most awesome end-of-the-year top 10

From swarms of ginormous trilobites to Ida-the-over-hyped-ancient-lemur, National Geographic counts down the Top 10 Dinosaur and Fossil Finds of 2009.

Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:15 pm

Genuitec looks to battle IBM Jazz with ALM product rollout (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - Genuitec released earlier this month version 3.0 of its Pulse software lifecycle management product and is suggesting it as a possible enterprise-level replacement for IBM's Jazz application lifecycle management technologies.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:14 pm

AT&T Wins Gizmodo 3G Bandwidth Test

ink writes "Gizmodo has completed a 12-city test of 3G cellular bandwidth speed. Verizon won four of the twelve, however AT&T scored higher with six: 'Let's get this straight right away: We didn't test dropped voice calls, we didn't test customer service, and we didn't test map coverage by wandering around in the boonies. We tested the ability of the networks to deliver 3G data in and around cities, including both concrete canyons and picket-fenced 'burbs. And while every 3G network gave us troubles on occasion, AT&T's wasn't measurably more or less reliable than Verizon's.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:03 pm

RIM blames outage on BlackBerry Messenger flaws

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile

RIM is blaming the 8 hour service outage users suffered yesterday on two bugs in the latest update to the popular Blackberry Messenger application. BBM allows Blackberry users to chat with one another via instant messaging and in chat rooms. The details of the bugs aren’t clear but RIM released this statement:

“Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure,” spokesman Jamie Ernst said by email. “RIM has taken corrective action to restore service. RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14 to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue,” wrote Ernst in his email. “RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.”

The statement should be welcome news to Blackberry users who have complained that the company’s communication with customers is poor at best. Service appears to have been fully restored and running normally. Users still experiencing problems are advised to do a battery pull and resend their service books.

Read [Toronto Star]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:01 pm

Tech outshines market; home sales stifle Dow, S&P (Reuters)

Reuters - Technology shares rose on Wednesday after solid earnings from Micron Technology and Red Hat, but an unexpected drop in new home sales kept a lid on the broader market's gains.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Bring a Wet Cell Phone Back From the Dead

Your mobile phone is built to go pretty much everywhere you go, except in the water. You’ll need to dry the sucker out as fast as you can if you want to save your contacts. Learn to make a wet cell phone ring again.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Bring a Wet Cell Phone Back From the Dead

Your mobile phone is built to go pretty much everywhere you go, except in the water. You’ll need to dry the sucker out as fast as you can if you want to save your contacts. Learn to make a wet cell phone ring again.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Irvine Sensors Releases FY09 Results

COSTA MESA, Calif., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Irvine Sensors Corporation (Nasdaq: IRSN) today reported operating results for fiscal 2009, the 52 weeks ended September 27, 2009.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 3:00 pm

Scientists Chart Velocity Of Climate Change

New study finds that the average ecosystem will need to shift about a quarter mile per year to keep pace with global climate changeFrom beetles to barnacles, pikas to pine warblers, many species are already on the move in response to shifting climate regimes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:58 pm

Broken Genomes Behind Breast Cancers

Genome rearrangements in 24 breast cancersThe first detailed search of breast cancer genomes to uncover genomic rearrangements is published today.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:54 pm

Synergistic Interaction Enhances Pathogenesis Of Parkinson's Disease

Scientists have identified a synergistic interaction that disrupts normal intracellular transport mechanisms and leads to the accumulation of neuron-damaging clumps of protein associated with Parkinson's disease (PD), a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by a specific loss of neurons in the midbrain and brainstem.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:52 pm

Subtle Change Dramatically Reduces Pathogenic Potential Of Huntington's Protein

Scientists have identified a key molecular switch that may drive the onset of Huntington's disease (HD), an incurable neurodegenerative disorder that leads to severe disruptions in muscle coordination and cognitive function.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:50 pm

UCSB Scientists Discover How The Brain Encodes Memories At A Cellular Level

Scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a major discovery in how the brain encodes memories.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:47 pm

Barnes & Noble Will Ship Around 60,000 Nooks This Year

A lot more people have ordered the Barnes & Noble Nook, first announced on October 20, than the company expected (despite getting panned by the officialreviewers). The company had Foxconn, their ODM, build far fewer of them than they should have. The original plan was to ship pre-orders by November 30 but that date was pushed back to December 7. It took a mere month for the entire order process to break down. Now a small number of pre-orders still haven’t arrived and most brick and mortar stores are sold out and even then they were only available in “higher volume” stores on December 7.

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:44 pm

Review: Aerial7 Sound Disk Beanie headphone-hat

Short Version: The audio is only passable (at least at speed) and the fit questionable, but hey, these do just what they set out to do: put some headphones in a decent hat.

Feels a little weird to plaster my face all over the front page like that, but hats without heads in them are even less photogenic than I am.

Features:

• Several styles to choose from (this review is for “Cotton T Black”)
• In-line mic for iPhone/Blackberry
• Low-profile headphone drivers
• Regular 3.5mm jack

Pros:

• Hey, they work
• Hat is decent quality, fairly warm
• Easy to set up and remove (handy for washing)

Cons:

• Sound quality not so good
• White cable not so hot against black hat, or going to non-iPod device
• Tight fit can make headphones press against ears too hard

Full Review:

I have to say that when I first tried these out, biking about a mile over to the Central District, I was pretty disappointed. I found the fit too tight and the sound tinny. But a friend tried the hat on and pronounced it perfectly comfortable, and on the way back I played a different playlist and found that they really didn’t sound so bad after all. I mean, let’s be honest here. You’re going to be walking, running, biking, or skiing while listening to these, and if you can make out the lyrics over the wind rush, that’s better than nothing. And while they weren’t beating my eardrums with their bass or allowing me to marvel and their crisp highs, they did sound clear enough once I got the alignment right.

The hat itself is a plain cotton, quite decently made, with a red patterned interior that showed as a sort of rim. It fit snugly — almost too snugly for me, but I tend to prefer looser knit caps. Why I didn’t review a knit one is beyond me. But this one was a bit tall and narrow for me; it fully covered my ears and still had a little poof at the top. Not Smurf levels of poof, but enough that I felt I had to pat it down. I wore it during a cold snap a while ago here in Seattle and it did all right, though it took forever to dry out when I got rained on.

The headphones themselves are touted as having a flat design, which is true, but then again so do most headphones once you take the padding off. Yeah, there’s no padding on them at all except for the millimeter-thin material making up the inner lining of the headphone pockets in the hat. That can be pretty rough on your ears if you have a helmet pushing on them or if they’re just not aligned over your ears just right. In the next generation of this product I’d really appreciate a little bit of padding in the headphone pocket.

The sound is what you’d expect from a plain pair of traditional headphones — something you’d pick up at a drugstore for $15-20. They’re loud enough if you want to push them and I didn’t hear a lot of distortion, but there wasn’t too much clarity either. But the fact is I could hear my music perfectly well while zooming around on my bike, so really, mission accomplished there. I’m not expecting a high-fidelity audio experience while trucking down to the coffee shop.

Conclusion: I think $60 is a little steep for what they’re offering. However, if you do spend a lot of time on the slopes, for instance, or riding your bike around, and want to listen to music or talk on the phone, this is definitely a simple and workable solution. I’d go with the knit version, though.

Product Page

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:40 pm

On2 Announces Further Adjournment of Special Meeting of Stockholders until Wednesday, February 17, 2010

CLIFTON PARK, N.Y., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- On2 Technologies, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:40 pm

Adidas Turns the Sneaker Into an Augmented Reality Device

Can’t find your Nintendo DS? Try one of the new Adidas sneakers instead.

Adidas has created a virtual 3-D world that can be accessed using an upcoming line of five men’s sneakers in an idea that ties into one of the technology trends of the year: augmented reality.

“The foundation of augmented reality lies in adding a layer to the real world,” says Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for Adidas Originals. “That’s what we have done. We have taken a real world item and added a fantastic virtual world on top of that”

All users have to do is go to the Adidas site and hold up their sneaker, which has a code embedded in its tongue, in front of their computer webcam. A virtual world then pops out in front of them and they can navigate it using their sneaker as a controller.

“We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach,” says Barbour. “The neighborhood is displayed on a two dimensional computer screen, but you can use your shoe to control the angle and depth of view and zoom in and out, giving a 3-D sense of perspective.”

Over the next few months, Adidas plans to introduce three augmented reality games developed by game developer xForm into the virtual neighborhood. The sneakers will then serve not only as the key to get in, but also act as the controller for the games. Among those available will be a skateboard game, where the sneaker acts as the controller to navigate the virtual city’s alleys, a Star Wars-like game with the sneaker and a music-based game.

The shoes with the augmented reality codes will cost between $65 and $95 and will be available starting February.

Sure, a large part of this is a marketing gimmick and Adidas is not the only company to try out augmented reality in its products. But that doesn’t take away from that this is an idea that makes an ordinary physical object fun and injects some technological pizzaz to it.

See Also:

• If You’re Not Seeing Data, You’re Not Seeing
• At the Dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry
• Augmented Reality Ghost Hunting Creeps Into App Store
• John Mayer’s Augmented Reality Video Puts Fans in Picture …

Photo: Adidas

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:29 pm

Skeptics Question OLPC's Focus With $75 Tablet - PC World

DailyTech

Skeptics Question OLPC's Focus With $75 Tablet PC World Skeptics are criticizing the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child for losing its educational focus by designing unrealistic hardware at a price point that cannot be achieved. OLPC and The Fuse Project on Tuesday unveiled the ... OLPC XO-3: An impossible $75 fantasy tabletCNET News FuseProject touts $75 concept tabletTG Daily OLPC Unveils Roadmap, Plans Tablet for 2012PC Magazine DailyTech -Wired News -BBC News all 107 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:21 pm

Approaching January, Apple Tablet Rumors Run Wild

Apple plans to demonstrate its touchscreen tablet at a January event, multiple independent reports suggest.

Sources have told Financial Times, Business Insider and Boy Genius Report different pieces of information that, when added together, indicate Apple is preparing a special event to show off the tablet next month.

The most detailed report comes from Financial Times, whose sources claim Apple will hold an event Tuesday, Jan. 26 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco — a venue where Apple has held its previous iPod events. The topic of the event is unknown, but Financial Times speculates it will center on the tablet.

The Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer cites a “plugged-in source in the mobile industry” who said Apple has contacted select developers to ready a higher-resolution version of their apps for a demonstration of the tablet in January.

Wired.com contacted seven developers of popular iPhone apps, who each said they had not received such a note regarding screen resolution from Apple.

One major iPhone developer, Raven Zachary of Small Society, told Wired.com he had to “ignore media requests pertaining to Apple rumors or confidentiality.” (Small Society helped develop the popular Zipcar iPhone app, which was demonstrated at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June.)

Boy Genius Report cites an “amazingly accurate” source who is confident that there will be a 7-inch model of the Apple tablet. The vast majority of rumor reports regarding the tablet have described the product as a 10-inch version of the iPhone or iPod Touch. Boy Genius Report’s source hints that there may be two models. The source also said the tablet would be announced January.

In September, Wired.com compiled a roundup of multiple rumor reports regarding an Apple tablet. The consensus was that Apple was preparing a 10-inch touchscreen tablet running the iPhone OS. Several anonymous sources have said the product will have a strong focus on competing with e-book readers such as the Amazon Kindle.

The most credible report to date came from iLounge in late September, whose source said Apple was aiming to announce a touchscreen tablet no later than Jan. 19. iLounge established a solid track record after accurately leaking iPod models prior to their launch. Opposing Boy Genius Report, iLounge’s source said in September that a 7-inch tablet had been tested but was judged to be too small, so the latest version had a 10.7-inch screen.

Apple did not immediately respond to Wired.com’s request for comment regarding the event.

See Also:

• Video Demonstrates Wired’s Concept iTablet App
• Insider Spills Rumored Apple Tablet Details to Gizmodo
• Everything We Know About Apple’s Touchscreen Tablet
• In-App Sales and iTablet: The Killer Combo to Save Publishing

Photo: A mock-up illustration of an imaginary Apple tablet by Stephen Lewis Simmonds

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:17 pm

Approaching January, Apple Tablet Rumors Run Wild

Multiple independent reports claim Apple is preparing a January event to announce its highly anticipated touchscreen tablet.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:17 pm

Modernizing The Treatment Of Sexual Dysfunction In Men

Modern, couple-oriented treatment for male sexual dysfunction takes the psychosocial aspects of sex into account, as well as focusing on the purely physical aspects of the problem.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:16 pm

Amazon still offering pre-Christmas delivery on the Kindle

Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks

If you are still on the lookout for a last minute Christmas gift and are determined to have it arrive on time and do so without leaving your house then you may want to consider the Kindle.

It seems that for at least the next (as of this posting) 7 hours and 25 minutes, Amazon will be offering free one-day shipping on the Kindle. Which means that it will arrive in time for Christmas morning surprise.

Product [Amazon]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:13 pm

TDS and U.S. Cellular to Present at CITI's 20th Annual Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference

CHICAGO, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. (NYSE: TDS; TDS.S) and United States Cellular Corporation (NYSE: USM) will be presenting together at Citi's 20th Annual Entertainment, Media and Telecommunications Conference in San Francisco on Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:12 pm

VLC Team Announces Video Editor In the Works

eldavojohn writes "Despite news that VLC might not have anyone to work on the Mac release, Lifehacker brings word of a video editor that the VLC team is working on dubbed VideoLAN Media Creator. It hasn't been released yet (git clone git://github.com/VLMC/vlmc.git) but a pre-release is due out soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:11 pm

Yale Researchers Reveal Secrets Of Duck Sex: It's All Screwed Up

Female ducks have evolved an intriguing way to avoid becoming impregnated by undesirable but aggressive males endowed with large corkscrew-shaped penises: vaginas with clockwise spirals that thwart oppositely spiraled males.More details of this evolutionary battle of the sexes fought at the level of genitalia are described by Yale researchers in the December 23 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B."In species where forced copulation is common, males have evolved longer penises, but females have coevolved convoluted vaginas with dead-end cul-de-sacs and spirals in the opposite direction of the male penis," said Patricia L.R.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:01 pm

Communications Systems, Inc. Adopts Shareholder Rights Plan

MINNETONKA, Minn., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Communications Systems, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 2:00 pm

Final Moments Of Bee Landing Tactics Revealed

Landing is tricky: hit the ground too fast and you will crash and burn; too slow and you may stall and fall. Bees manage their approach by monitoring the speed of images moving across their eyes.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:55 pm

How to sue Microsoft - and win - CNNMoney.com

CBC.ca

How to sue Microsoft - and win CNNMoney.com TORONTO (CNNMoney.com) -- For a tiny Toronto software manufacturer nestled in the city's grimy garment district, winning a $290 million court judgment against Microsoft is more than ... Microsoft Word Gets FaceliftInformationWeek Microsoft updates Word to comply with court orderAfterdawn.com Microsoft yanks Custom XML from Word, offers patch to OEMsComputerworld PC World -Register -CNET News all 1,191 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:53 pm

Buy a Kindle, get free one-day shipping

Just saying… [Amazon]

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:45 pm

Crane Co. to Acquire Merrimac Industries

STAMFORD, Conn. and WEST CALDWELL, N.J., Dec. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Crane Co. (NYSE: CR), a diversified manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products, and Merrimac Industries, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:42 pm

OLPC Unveils Plans For Tablets By 2012

adeelarshad82 writes "The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative outlined its product roadmap for the next three years, a plan that includes the release of tablet-based OLPC by 2012. During the next three years, OLPC plans on releasing two laptops, the first two years' priced around $200 and $150 respectively, before launching a tablet in 2011 for less than $100."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:19 pm

Nexus One specs leaked, limited launch date revealed?

Google's semi-secret Nexus One handset has been more or less exhaustively leaked at this point, with very few cats left to let out of the bag. The only two major points left were the tech specs and the release date - and now, even those have made their way out.

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:07 pm

Nexus One specs leaked, limited launch date revealed?

Google’s semi-secret Nexus One handset has been more or less exhaustively leaked at this point, with very few cats left to let out of the bag. The only two major points left were the tech specs and the release date – and now, even those have made their way out.

Our friends over at Engadget just had a chat with someone who could spill the beans – and spill they did. Not only did they share the above spec sheet, but they also mentioned that Google’s planning on selling the Nexus One on an invite-only basis come January 5th.

What exactly that entails, we’ve got no idea. Who gets an invite? Certainly not Google employees – they already have the handsets. Long time Google app users? Members of the Android development community? Dudes named Greg who write about cell phones on the Internet all day? Either way, we just Google opens up sales to everyone before too long.

Highlight-worthy Specs:

• 3.7″ WVGA AMOLED Screen – Should be mind-blowingly gorgeous
• 119mm tall, 59.8 mm wide, 11.5mm thick – A hair thinner than the iPhone 3GS
• 512 MB RAM and 512 MB rom, with up to 32GB storage via microSD (4 GB comes in the box)
• HSPA 900 / 1700 / 2100 – It’ll work on EDGE on both T-Mo and AT&T, but 3G will be T-mobile only
• 802.11n Wi-Fi
• 5 Megapixel camera with Autofocus and Flash
• Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

Source: MobileCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:05 pm

UFC targets online piracy. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go all RIAA on us.

It’s been a running theme for the past few years, and as more and more people get faster Internet connections, and as video compression technology continues to improve, we’re going to be hearing a lot more about it. I refer, of course (of course!), to illegal streams of live sporting events. Whether you’re firing up TVAnts on Sunday to watch Arsenal take on Aston Villa, or trolling USTREAM for a live feed of WWE’s Royal Rumble, or looking for MMA-TV to watch this month’s UFC pay-per-view, you are, in fact, breaking the law. Not only are you breaking the law, but you may even be taking money away from the companies/teams/sports you purport to support. But is that all there is to it?

Lorenzo Fertitta, the co-owner of UFC (the more famous Dana White is the company’s president), recently went to Capitol Hill to discuss the problems facing UFC with respect to online piracy. He told the House Judiciary Committee that some 140,000 people watched UFC 106, the company’s November pay-per-view event headline by Tito Ortiz vs. Forrest Grifin, online using various streaming sites. UFC had identified 271 unauthorized streams, which is where the 140,000-person estimate comes from. Surely there were more streams that UFC didn’t find—how can you patrol the entire Internet?—and the numbers don’t include non-live viewership. You know, BitTorrent and the like. I can’t help but think that they are people out there who avoid reading UFC results until they are able to download a torrent the next day.

You’ll recall that WWE started going after illegal online streams earlier this year. The thing is, WWE claimed, quite like Fertitta here, that online streams were damaging its bottom line. That’s not necessarily the case. The very first pay-per-view that WWE actively patrolled illegal streams for, June’s The Bash, was among the least purchased pay-per-views of the year. If we were to follow WWE’s logic, that buyrates (the number of people who buy a pay-per-view) would increase once the streams were eliminated, well, then The Bash would have done better than the previous pay-per-view, May’s Extreme Rules. It didn’t: The Bash did 178,000 buys to Extreme Rules’ 213,000.

(I would suggest that the best way for WWE to improve its bottom line is to improve its product and not blame externalities like illegal online streams. You cannot expect people to continue to buy pay-per-view events or watch the TV shows when the talent roster is stale, bland, and woefully misused (see: pushes starting and stopping to the point of destroying a wrestler’s future credibility); when storylines make little to no sense, even accounting for the suspension of disbelief required to watch pro wrestling in the first place; when comedy, and I use the word lightly, becomes the focal point of each and every show at the expense of, I don’t know, wrestling (see: The Little People’s Court and the Tiger Woods gag from last Monday’s Raw–what does Tiger Woods’ current pickle have to do with WWE?); when guest hosts, who have no business being on its television, act as if they’re “above” the crowd and people watching at home (insulting the audience isn’t exactly a good idea) or refer to non-existent events like “SummerFest”; when a wrestler who co-headlined the biggest WreslteMania ever (buyrate-wise) dies and not a single word is mentioned on television. I could go on but that would be boring. The point is, WWE isn’t very good these days and illegal streams have nothing to do with that.)

All of this assumes, of course, that people viewing illegal online streams are inherently lost customers. That’s the same argument the RIAA tried to make, and look where it got those guys. Believe it or not, but people do exist who have zero intention of purchasing a pay-per-view. If the stream goes down they’re not going to call their cable company to buy the event, but rather will go about their business as if nothing happened. You don’t have to worry about these guys: pay-per-views could cost $2 and they still wouldn’t buy ‘em

Here’s how I look at it: you have to figure that the people who are watching these illegal streams are younger people. What 50-year-old man is going to sit down and figure out how to forward his router’s ports so that some Chinese-made P2P application works properly? Piracy is a young person’s game. Now, if you’re UFC or WWE you can look at this as they currently look at it, which is to freak out and yell, You’re stealing our money! Or, you can look at it like this: let’s assume some 15-year-old kid is tooling around on a message board in one window with a UFC stream in another window. This kid doesn’t have $50 per month to pay for UFC pay-per-views, and maybe his parents wouldn’t let him buy one in the first place. So rather than eliminating this kid’s exposure to your product, why not bank on the fact that, in a few years when this kid has a proper job and can afford to buy things, he’ll throw some of his new-found discretionary income your way? “Oh man, I remember UFC from a few years back. I used to love that shit. Let me order a pizza and invite my friends over so we can watch the fight tonight on my huge TV.”

Does anybody in these organizations think like that?

Yes, I understand that that’s an unorthodox way of looking at things, but what great company or organization didn’t think “outside of the box” every once in a while? Again, to make the music industry comparison, they tried to sue everyone under the sun to bring things back to the way they were. That clearly didn’t happen, and it only served to harm the music industy’s image in the eyes of the public.

So to the UFC and WWE I say this: chill out. You don’t want to end up like the music industry, especially when you (well, mainly the UFC) have the potential to be absolutely huge. Don’t mess it up by overreacting to your piracy problem.

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 1:00 pm

USB Hourglass random number generator

USB Hourglass from alwynallan on Vimeo.

Over at Make: Online, John Park posted this video of a gadget that generates random numbers by watching sand fall through an hourglass.

It watches falling sand in an hourglass with an optical sensor. That data is sent via the Arduino USB output to the PC where it's analyzed. This entropy is useful for all your random number needs. My favorite part: when the hourglass runs dry a servo motor flips it over and it starts again.

USB Hourglass random number generator


Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:58 pm

Creepy old print ad for cleanser

A disturbing ad from days of yore. (Via Vintage Ads)


Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:57 pm

Micro-Fluff: "Truly the most amazing material you ever saw"

This man owes his livelihood to Micro-Fluff. Shouldn't you consider a career in Micro-Fluff, too? (Via Mostly Forbidden Zone)


Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:55 pm

Stir natural peanut butter easily

You know how a jar of natural peanut butter separates into two layers: a rock hard layer of solid peanut particles on the bottom, and a liquid layer of oil that splashes onto the kitchen counter and your clothes when you try to stir the two layers together? John Falk Kelly didn't like it when that happened, so he came up with a way to mix peanut butter easily. From Wired's How-To Wiki:

When you buy a jar of all-natural peanut butter, don't stick it in the pantry. Park it on top of the refrigerator, upside down. Once a day, when you walk by it, say "hello peanut butter", and flip it over.

When you're ready to open it and stir it up, it will be half mixed for you (and not hardened into a frustrating marble block).

He says he was so pleased with the results, that filed a patent on it: U.S. Patent # 6,325,533.

I'm thinking someone could make a version of this that used some of the same circuitry and components in the hourglass random number generator project I posted earlier today. The jar of peanut butter would go where the hourglass is. The gadget could either sense the opacity of the oil and flip it when it was no longer translucent, or it could just flip it once or twice a day.

Stir natural peanut butter easily


Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:53 pm

Senate Rejects Bulk Imports of Medicine from Canada, but Personal Importation Remains a Popular Option for U.S. Citizens

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- In the midst of President Obama's push for health care reform, the Senate rejected a plan to allow American pharmacies and drug wholesalers to import federally approved drugs from abroad.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:52 pm

Motorola to show “whats next” at CES

The rumor mill has been cranking way too hard over Motorola as of late for us to feel confident in taking a stab at what they may launch, but Motorola has just more or less confirmed that they'll be launching something at CES. Got any guesses as to what it is? Drop it in the comments. We'll come back on January 7th, run through all of them, and pick someone at random from those who got it right and send them a box of fun stuff we've got laying around the office.

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:49 pm

Motorola to show “whats next” at CES

The rumor mill has been cranking way too hard over Motorola as of late for us to feel confident in taking a stab at what they may launch, but Motorola has just more or less confirmed that they’ll be launching something at CES.

Got any guesses as to what it is? Drop it in the comments. We’ll come back on January 7th, run through all of them, and pick someone at random from those who got it right and send them a box of fun stuff we’ve got laying around the office.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:47 pm

Bionic Eye 'Sees' Daylight

The development of a bionic eye that will restore vision to someone who is completely blind is a step closer after the research team working on the project detected signals in the brain from electrodes implanted in the retina of a living eye.The project, led by Associate Professor Michael Ibbotson from The Vision Centre and The Australian National University, has been investigating how artificial electrical signals can be converted into meaningful biological signals in the eye.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:40 pm

Obama Plan Buckles Under Pharma Lobby; Plan to Import Low-Cost Medicines Derails

WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Dec. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- On Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:36 pm

NASDAQ OMX Named Outstanding Data Provider by SIIA Financial Information Services Division

Inaugural Award Recognizes Strong Customer Service and Communication WASHINGTON, Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:32 pm

The next logical step for both bacon and popcorn is bacon-flavored popcorn

You like bacon? Who doesn’t?! Howsabout popcorn? Yes? If you find yourself short on time every day, perhaps you could combine bacon and popcorn by using BaconPop. Each bag is filled “with delicious, buttery, bacontastic popcorn,” according to ThinkGeek.

“Damn your tempations, Aamoth!” you scream. “I only eat Kosher food! I can’t eat bacon!” Well this has no actual bacon in it, just bacon flavoring. Although BaconPop NOW WITH REAL BACON CHUNKS! might be the next, next logical step for both bacon and popcorn.

Five dollars gets you three microwaveable bags and a whole lot of weird looks at work as you moan with delight inside your cubicle.

BaconPop – Bacon Flavored Popcorn [ThinkGeek.com]

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:30 pm

Infosys Technologies to Announce Third Quarter Results on January 12, 2010

BANGALORE, India and FREMONT, Calif., Dec.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:27 pm

Google Nexus One hands-on - CNET News

Sydney Morning Herald

Google Nexus One hands-on CNET News Thanks to a clandestine meeting with a source, I got a chance to play with and try out the Nexus One. It's basically, from my time with it, Google's Droid killer. It's thin, it's fast, it's better in every way. ... Google's Nexus One Details: What We Know So FarPC World Google Applications May Reach 150000 in 2010 Amid Apple ChaseBusinessWeek Googlephone Nexus One leaks more newsRegister Apple Insider -The Mac Observer -TopNews United States all 259 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 23 Dec 2009 | 12:16 pm

Video: Borderlands’ second DLC expansion

Play Borderlands. You’ll love it and the fact that Gearbox Software keeps releasing modest-sized expansions rocks. The last one, Dr. Ned’s Zombie Island, provided me with a weekend of fun and the next one previewed above, looks just as great. So sit back and watch the teaser trailer for Mad Moxxi’s Underdome Riot. Then go play Borderlands.

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 11:40 am

BlackBerry Users See the Fail Whale Twice in Week

The cult of the BlackBerry phone is based on the device’s ability to bring e-mails to users faster than they can click through them.

But that could become history. BlackBerry users faced a service outage Tuesday evening — the second time in less than a week — that made e-mail, text messages and web services such as Twitter and Facebook inaccessible.

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion restored the service Wednesday morning and blamed it on a glitch in its instant messaging program called the BlackBerry messenger.

“Based on preliminary analysis, it appears a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure,” said RIM in a statement.

The company has provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging all users to upgrade to this latest version.

The service interruptions could hit BlackBerry’s reputation and cause some customers to consider alternatives.

RIM has sold about 75 million BlackBerrys worldwide. But it faces stiff competition from rivals such as as Apple with the iPhone, HTC and Motorola — which recently released the Droid. BlackBerry users have to still contend with a browser that’s decidedly 1990s in its look, poor maps, an anemic app store — 2,000 apps to the iPhone’s 100,000.

Meanwhile, outages on the RIM network seem to be getting more frequent. BlackBerry users faced similar problems accessing their e-mail last Thursday. Which raises the question, exactly what kind of backup systems does RIM have? So far, RIM has chosen not to answer that.

Still concerns over the BlackBerry’s recent failures may be “overblown,” writes Shaw Wu, an analyst with brokerage firm Kaufman Bros in a research note to his clients.

“RIM’s fundamental advantages, including its push network technology and ownership of core hardware and software, [are] underestimated,” says Wu. “Our long-standing view is that Apple remains RIM’s only true competitor, but we believe there is plenty of room for both to succeed.”

Still RIM’s stumbles can only help Apple pull ahead.

See Also:

• Research In Motion Woos BlackBerry Developers
• Obama: My BlackBerry Is Coming With Me
• Review: RIM BlackBerry Storm
• First Look: Redfly Dumb Terminal for BlackBerry
• BlackBerry Gets the Exclusive Official Craigslist App

Photo: (Lymstylez/Flickr)

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 11:35 am

BlackBerry Users See the Fail Whale Twice in Week

BlackBerry users faced a service outage that made e-mail, text messages and web services such as Twitter and Facebook inaccessible on their devices.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 23 Dec 2009 | 11:35 am

Pragmatism not idealism: Molleindustria's Every Day The Same Dream

Like a mostly monochromatic mix of Jason Rohrer's memento mori game Passage and Nintendo's Zelda entry Majora's Mask, Every Day The Same Dream -- the latest game from Faith Fighter and McDonald's Videogame creator Molleindustria -- plays at issues of lives led in quiet, soul-sapping desperation by forcing you to subvert your own easy routines. Created in less than a week as an "Art Game" entry for the ongoing Experimental Gameplay Project (the same that's spawned Canabalt, MinMe and, in its original form, the prototype for World of Goo), Same Dream is as stylish as it is somber, even if it is punctuated by brief bursts of hopefulness and player-led humor. I won't spoil the ending (except to say that it's not half as powerful as the final lead-up to it) -- and yes, it does have an ending -- but it comes fully loaded with a gut-punch for anyone who has been or is currently a wage-slave office drone, and is already a pretty clear frontrunner for the indie release of the week. Play it online here, or download a PC and Mac version by scrolling to the bottom.


Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 11:28 am

Animals, Plants Forced to Migrate to Keep Pace with Climate

How far will species have to travel to escape climate change? Depends on where they live now.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 11:05 am

2009 in transit

Treehugger has a slideshow of the best and worst ideas in sustainable transportation from 2009. But, instead of debating the varying merits of this or that electric car, they've left cars out entirely, in favor of planes, trains, bikes and boats. Bikes get the most play here, and there are some innovative ideas—like cargo bikes and bike highways. Treehugger is mostly talking about their use in places like Copenhagen, but I love how Minneapolis' system of limited-access bike trails makes bike travel and commuting faster, easier and more enjoyable. (They're even plowed in winter!)

I do with the slideshow had focused less on the bikes, and more on mass transit and shipping. Mass transportation is a key component in just about every plan for lowering greenhouse gas emissions, but it doesn't get nearly as much attention as every random attempt to revamp the personal car. There is, however, some interesting stuff about high-speed trains and early developments in alternative-fuel aviation.

Treehugger: Best and Worst of 2009: The Year in Bikes, Trains, Planes and Boats

Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 10:48 am

Nook shipping update: Pre-ordered Nooks should arrive before Santa

I have some good news and some bad news for those waiting for their Nooks to be delivered. The good news is I just got word from a B&N VP that if your Nook initially had a pre-Christmas delivery date, it will be there in time for Christmas morning. But this also means that you’re not going to get that $100 BN.com gift card. Sorry. But at least your significant other will be unwrapping a Nook instead of a lame IOW certificate.

Also, new orders will not ship out until February 1, 2010 so you may want to hold on to your money a bit longer. Your local B&N store might get a few in before then.

B&N’s full statement is after the jump.

“We’re happy to report that all customers who pre-ordered nooks and were given a pre-holiday estimated shipping date will be sent their nooks in time to receive them by Christmas. As you know, there’s been an overwhelmingly positive response and unprecedented demand since Barnes & Noble announced its new eBook reader on October 20th. Customer demand continues to be strong and new orders will be fulfilled beginning February 1, 2010. “

Source: CrunchGear | 23 Dec 2009 | 10:01 am

How many times do you have to be burned by BlackBerry to consider your options?

What’s the phrase? Oh, yeah: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. BlackBerry went down yesterday across North and South America. Users couldn’t send or receive e-mail, and some complained that they couldn’t connect to the Internet. It’s the second time in a week that BlackBerry has failed. Considering how important the service is to some people—I dare you to go to Wall Street and not see everyone using the device—you really do wonder: how long will people tolerate this shoddy service? It also raises the related question of, How wise is it to rely on “the cloud” to host all of your important data? Surely you wouldn’t leave “mission critical” information in the hands of someone else, someone who’s unsettling opaque when it comes to explaining outages?

Before we get into this, here’s RIM statement about this latest bit of downtime:

A service interruption occurred Tuesday that affected BlackBerry customers in the Americas. Message delivery was delayed or intermittent during the service interruption. Phone service and SMS services on BlackBerry smartphones were unaffected. Root cause is currently under review, but based on preliminary analysis, it currently appears that the issue stemmed from a flaw in two recently released versions of BlackBerry Messenger (versions 5.0.0.55 and 5.0.0.56) that caused an unanticipated database issue within the BlackBerry infrastructure. RIM has taken corrective action to restore service.

RIM has also provided a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (version 5.0.0.57) and is encouraging anyone who downloaded or upgraded BlackBerry Messenger since December 14th to upgrade to this latest version which resolves the issue. RIM continues to monitor its systems to maintain normal service levels and apologizes for any inconvenience to customers.

I’ve never had an important thing to do in my life (clearly), so I’ve never really needed the BlackBerry’s always-on e-mail capability. I’ve never had a job on the line, or a fancy business account at stake, at that beck and call of RIM’s servers. So I read these “BlackBerry down~!” stories like you read international news: interesting to a degree, but nothing that’s going to upset the carefully choreographed rhythm of my day.

That’s not to say I don’t rely on services that I have zero control over. I use Gmail for both personal and professional (if that’s the word to use!) e-mail. If a tornado rips through Google’s servers I’m pretty much doomed. I play World of Warcraft for many, many hours per week. If Blizzard’s servers mysteriously vanished my playtime would have all been in vain. I listen to music now on Spotify (in fact, I haven’t downloaded an album in several months because of Spotify). What happens if aliens invade, shooting a death ray at the Spotify servers? There’s goes my music “collection”!

The point is, it’s hard not to run into, and use on a daily basis, services that you have very little control over. How many people do you know who run their own e-mail server? Who has backups of all the photos they store on Flickr or Facebook?

I know it’s not the same, but this latest BlackBerry outage does highlight my concern with everything moving to “the cloud.” Like I said, I haven’t downloaded an album in months because of Spotify, but what if the record labels suddenly decide to revoke their support? How is that any more wise than buying a cheap hard drive then stuffing it with MP3s and FLACs? Then buy a backup hard drive.

I guess this makes a cloud skeptic. (Incidentally, while my fellow CrunchGear writers will be at CES clutching to their phone to see their Google Calendar schedule, at the mercy of the wireless networks in Las Vegas, I’ll be walking around with a pen and a piece of paper stuffed into my wallet with a list of all of my meetings. A piece of paper won’t crash, and if AT&T dies in Las Vegas that week, and I fully expect that it will given all the iPhones that will be crawling up and down The Strip, I’ll be skipping along with everything I need in my pocket. It’s sorta like Steampunk, just not stupid.)

So as RIM gets BlackBerry up and running (to be fair, everything looks to be running just fine as of this writing), you do wonder how long people will continue to passively allow this to happen to them. What are you going to do the next time an outage happens, tweet your displeasure to the world? Provided Twitter itself isn’t down, of course.

Flickr

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:47 am

Teeny Tiny EV Practically Free

Oklahoma residents have a fun choice to make before year-end: get a micro-mini electric vehicle for under $900 or invest the money in some other alt transport. Like a bike. Federal and state tax credits in Oklahoma pushed down the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 9:24 am

XO-3 Concept: A Crazy-Thin Tablet OLPC for Just $75

One Laptop Per Child, or OLPC, or the XO, was a flop however you look at it. Instead of just making a cheap, basic machine that could tough it out in its target third-world market, Nicholas Negroponte’s supposedly $100 laptop instead chose to both patronize and confuse with an over-simplified interface. At the same time, as the price rose and dates slipped by, the Rise of the Atom put cheap netbooks within reach of anyone with a few hundred bucks.

Now, Nick’s back, with the XO-3. The new hardware (read: vaporware) will come in the familiar green and white livery, only this time it’s a tablet (surprise, right?). The XO-3 will be showing its 800Mhz, 8.5-by-11-inch face in 2010, when hopefully the technology will exist to build what is essentially a giant iPod Touch for just $75.

But making an impossibly cheap entertainment device for developing countries (for what else is a tablet but a handheld media-center? Certainly not a functional computer or Microsoft’s earlier tablet PC efforts would have been successful) is not the only mission of the OLPC group. Negroponte told Engadget that there will be an OLPC 1.5 appearing in January, a $200 update to the current hardware, and an OLPC 1.75 in 2011, which will make good on the dual-screen promise first teased in May this year.

We’d love to see all of these devices, but CG mockups and philanthropic promises aren’t the same as real, shipping hardware. Still, the picture do look good.

The $75 Future Computer [Forbes]

OLPC shows off absurdly thin XO-3 concept tablet for 2012 [Engadget]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 8:22 am

Duck Sex: Competition between sexes leads to crazy anatomy

Eversion in air: from blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom from Carl Zimmer on Vimeo.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is a duck penis. Science blogger Ed Yong has a great article up today about these freaky, corkscrew behemoths and the equally freaky, labyrinthine duck vaginas. A researcher from Yale has been studying both, and thinks these rather baroque naughty bits evolved in competition with one another, as female ducks tried to evade rape (or, rather, impregnation by a rapist) and male ducks tried to get around those barriers.

The shape of the female duck's vagina is a physical barrier that prevents the male from launching forth his ballistic penis to its fullest extent. It won't stop a drake from ejaculating (and those in Brennan's trials always did), but it does limit how far the semen is deposited along the vaginal tract. Not all males are hit equally hard by these defences. Those that the female actually wants to mate with have an easier time. If she's into a male, she strikes a pose that signals her receptiveness, keeping her body level and lifting her tail feathers high. She repeatedly contracts the walls of her genital tract, relaxing them for long enough for favoured suitors to achieve full penetration.

Males who try to force themselves upon her receive no such help and have to cope with vigorous struggling. The female may not be able to resist such advances, but her convoluted vagina gives her ultimate control over where the sperm of her current partner ends up. The fact that only 3% of duck offspring are born of forced matings suggests that females are indeed winning this battle of the sexes.

Not Exactly Rocket Science: Ballistic Penises and Corkscrew Vaginas (There's more video!)

Source: Boing Boing | 23 Dec 2009 | 8:20 am

Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Track Santa and his sleigh with NORAD

Sipping warm cider, watching the snow fall, unwrapping gifts — these holiday traditions always seem to produce many of the year's sweetest memories. Several years ago, we added another holiday tradition to our list — helping NORAD keep tabs on Santa every Christmas Eve.

NORAD's Santa-tracking dates back to 1955, when a Sears and Roebuck magazine ad in Colorado Springs accidentally directed readers to call NORAD instead of the "Talk-to-Santa" hotline they were advertising. Embracing the holiday spirit, the folks at NORAD provided callers with Santa's location according to their radar and have tracked his journey ever since. Many years later, in 2004, the same holiday spirit inspired us to use Google Earth — it was called "Keyhole Earth Viewer" back then — to display Santa's voyage around the world on Christmas Eve. We hosted the entire tracker on a single machine and were excited to have an audience of 25,000 following St. Nick's flight with us that night.

Our scrappy Santa tracker has come a long way since 2004. We added "Santa-cam" videos for select locations around the world, 3D SketchUp models of Santa's sleigh and his North Pole home, the official feed of Santa's location from NORAD headquarters and several other improvements. With more technical resources to support this richer experience, and the wonderful efforts of our Santa-tracking team, 2008 was the biggest year ever for NORAD Tracks Santa — more than eight million people tuned in to track Santa last Christmas Eve.



As soon as he returned to North Pole last year, Santa and his elves began planning for his 2009 flight — and we were no different. We thought hard about the different ways we could improve the Santa tracker and after a year of planning, we think this year's will be the best one yet. As usual, we'll display Santa's location, according to NORAD, in Google Maps and Google Earth at www.noradsanta.org. But we've made a few improvements to make tracking Santa even easier. Namely, we'll display Santa's journey with the Google Earth plug-in, directly on the NORAD Tracks Santa site, instead of using the Google Earth client. As a result, you'll be able to follow Santa in Google Earth's immersive, 3D environment directly within your web browser. For more information about the plugin and why we chose to use this tool to track Santa, have a look at our post on the Google Geo Developers Blog.

We're also excited about the many different ways you can keep track of Santa's location this Christmas Eve. Like last year, Santa will be trackable by visiting m.noradsanta.org on a mobile device, or searching for "Santa" on Google Maps for Mobile, available for most mobile phones (read more on the Google Mobile Blog). Santa's location will also be updated on Twitter with @noradsanta and you can keep up with news about Santa's flight with our real-time search feature.

To track Santa, visit www.noradsanta.org starting at 2am ET on Christmas Eve. There, you'll see a Google Map that will display Santa's location over the course of the day. To visualize Santa in Google Earth, just click "Track Santa in Google Earth" and you'll see St. Nick flying through Google Earth in your browser. If you don't have the Earth plug-in, click here — it will be installed automatically when you download Google Earth 5.1.

We hope you enjoy tracking Santa with us this year. And on behalf of everyone at Google — happy holidays and have a happy new year!

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP Engineering and Bruno Bowden, Senior Software Engineer
Source: The Official Google Blog | 23 Dec 2009 | 8:13 am

Hunting Alien Worlds

In this special interview, Travis Barman, an astronomer who seeks out exoplanets, discusses the historic night when his Keck Observatory team directly imaged an alien solar system for the first time.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:58 am

Top Earth Stories: No. 7 - The Great Species Shuffle

[Editor's note: Get the entire Decade's Top 10 Earth Stories list here] If the 1990s saw the popularization of the poster animal -- the most majestic or cuddly of at-risk species -- then the past decade saw conservation interest democratized. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:41 am

Forget the Remote; Control TV By Waving Your Hand

No need to worry about losing the remote with new touchless technology.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 7:25 am

Gallery: Evolution of the (Awful) Apple Mouse

Apple might have been the first to put a mouse and a commercially available computer together in one seamless package, but in its 25-year life, the Mac mouse hasn’t really improved. In fact, with its RSI-inducing, carpal-tunnel-worrying new Magic Mouse, it could be said that the current iteration is the worst yet.

Above you see the two ends of the timespan: the original M0100 mouse from 1984 and, climbing up on top like a drunken husband, this year’s Magic Mouse. The photo, taken by Flickrer Raneko, is part of a group of shots detailing the low and lower points of Apple’s mouse history. Yes, the hated hockey-puck is in there:

The shots are wonderful, so head over to check out the full set. If nothing else, the showcasing of these lovely designs reminds us of the otherwise false claim laid on Apple gear — that it is all about form over function. In the case of mice, this is true, and the irony is that even the most fanatical of Apple gear-heads probably has a Microsoft or Logitech mouse on his desktop.

Photos: Raneko/Flickr under a Creative Commons license

See Also:

• Eek! A Two-Button Mac Mouse?
• Apple Magic Mouse
• 18-Button Open Office Mouse Makes A Keyboard Look Minimal

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:51 am

Ancient Tree (Almost) Older Than Dirt

An unassuming tree in southern California has overcome the test of time by surviving for more than 13,000 years.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:40 am

Toast Printer For Batch-Baking Breakfasts

This toast ‘printer’ doesn’t actually leave any design on your bread other than the delicious bloom of brown crispness that is the Maillard reaction. Instead, you stack slices like sheets of office paper and the machine feeds them through one by one, dropping tasty toast onto the breakfast table.

The concept, from Othmar Mühlebach, is a new twist on an old design. Anyone unlucky enough to have worked the breakfast shift in a hotel kitchen will recognize the continuous toaster, which would slowly run bread through a hot box on a metal conveyor, plopping crispy slices out the other end.

This old design has several advantages, including the toasting of multiple slices simultaneously (or simultoast, as it should be known) and the low exit, which means minimal toastal damage compared to the death-defying, crumb-scattering drop from Mühlebach’s design.

Still, his looks better, and gains further from not having a stubbled, hungover commis-chef next to it smearing gobs of heat-separated margarine onto the pristine slices: “Cough! Splutter! Sniff.” C’mon, chef. Wash your hands!

Printing Your Toast [Othmar Mühlebach via Design Boom]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 6:03 am

Nook Software-Only ‘Jailbreak’ Already Available

The Nook hacking frenzy seems to be as active as the first wild days of iPhone cracking, with new news arriving all the time. Now owners of the Barnes & Noble e-reader can “jailbreak” the device without having to open it up.

Previously, to gain full root access to the internals of the Nook’s Android operating system meant grabbing a screwdriver and physically popping out the internal microSD card on which the OS resides. Now, thanks to a tiny 7.5k download, you can do all the dirty work from the comfort of your computer’s file browser.

The file, called bravo_update.dat, comes in the soft-root package, and can be downloaded from the currently bandwidth-buffeted nookDevs site. All you do is pop another microSD card into the external slot, copy across the file via USB cable and eject. Switch the Nook off and on, immediately holding down both page-turn buttons.

This forces the Nook to run a firmware updater which does what the hardware hack did before (change a word in the operating system’s init.rc file). Now, after grabbing the Google Android developers kit to run on your computer, you are good to hack.

Needless to say, this will probably void your warranty, but it should work with all versions of the Nook firmware, including the two-day-old v1.1.0. The nookDevs team is also working on adding Nook-friendly software: first up should be an email application, coming in the next few days.

nookDevs root enabler for nook [nookDevs]

See Also:

• Nook E-Reader Gets Hacked to Run Apps, Browser
• Nook Torn Open, Hacked, Rooted
• Barnes & Noble Improves Nook With Firmware Update

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 23 Dec 2009 | 5:20 am