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Kodak launches Slice touchscreen camera
The cutely named Slice is a seemingly typical P&S camera, albeit with a 14MP sensor and the previously mentioned touchscreen interface. It’ll shoot 720p 30 FPS video, features image stabilization and a lithium ion battery, just like the other cameras in this market segment. Kodak really isn’t doing anything new with the Slice, however I will have to admit I do like the look of the little guy. The price may be a bit of a problem though, it’s going to MSRP for $350 which might be a bit steep for the casual purchaser. Expect to see the Kodak Slice at your favorite electronics retailer sometime in April 2010. From the press release:
Source: CrunchGear | 6 Jan 2010 | 3:30 am US software firm sues China for $2.2 bln (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Jan 2010 | 3:11 am Office Work Ethic In the IT Industry?An anonymous reader writes "As a recent graduate entering industry for the first time at a large software and hardware company, I have been shocked at what seems to be a low standard of work ethic and professionalism at my place of employment, especially in this poor economy. For example, at my company, the large majority of developers seem to each individually waste — no exaggeration — hours of time on the clock every day talking about football, making personal phone calls, gossiping, taking long lunches, or browsing the Internet (including, yes, Slashdot!). Even some of our subcontractors waste time in this manner. Being the 'new guy,' I get stuck with much of the weekend and after-hours grunt work when we inevitably miss deadlines or produce poor code. I'm not in any position to go around telling others to use their time more efficiently. Management seems to tolerate it. I would like to ask Slashdot what methods others have used to deal with office environments such as this. Is my situation unique or is it common across the industry?"Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 6 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am Andy Rubin Has Some Steve Jobs In Him
Andy Rubin, pictured above surrounded by press after the Nexus One event today, is the guy who founded Android and sold it to Google in 2005. And he’s starting to remind me a little of another product fanatic, Steve Jobs. Everyone knows about Jobs’ amazing ability to build hit products and disrupt entire industries. I wrote extensively about this in What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?. Jobs is all about the product. Every last detail. And it shows. He’s disrupted the mobile phone, music, film and television industries, and we haven’t even mentioned the Macs yet. But Jobs is also notoriously touchy and difficult to work with. He demands perfection and doesn’t really work well with others. And Jobs is distrustful of the press. Apple’s PR group is mostly there to not return calls. We forgive him all that, of course. Because he’s changing the world, and forces competitors to do better just to try to keep up. The world, particularly the tech world, is a far more colorful place because of Jobs. There is no one at Apple who has the product vision to push that company forward once he steps down. He’s the Alexander the Great of today’s tech world. And he’s also able to captivate a crowd when he’s on stage. Rubin isn’t Steve Jobs. He doesn’t have the product track record that Jobs has (no one in the world does). And Rubin is shy on stage – he doesn’t make any real effort to win over the crowd. There was no “and one last thing” line at today’s Nexus One launch by Rubin. Only Steve Jobs can really pull that off. But Rubin is a product fanatic in the same way that Jobs is. The NY Times did a good overview of Rubin in 2005. One line about Rubin, a former Apple engineer and cofounder of WebTV and Danger, stuck with me from that article: “Mr. Rubin is a proven member of an earlier group of engineers-turned-entrepreneurs who have a passion for building complete digital systems.” I’ll say. A lot of credit for the Nexus One goes to his senior team, particularly Mario Queiroz and Erick Tseng (two people Google put on stage today). But the vision for the Nexus One was all Rubin, we keep hearing from people at Google. And he wouldn’t compromise, even after it was clear Google would miss their original deadline of shipping the Nexus One in time for the 2009 holiday rush. “Rubin kept saying it has to be thinner,” mumbled one tired team member to me after the event, “so we made it thinner.” He has incredible power within the Android group at Google, and even VPs at Google there make sure not to cross him. People who work with him have told me of his amazing attention to detail and his unbending demands that a product be perfect before it goes out the door. A lot of that shows in the Nexus One, Google’s first complete end to end hardware and software system. Rubin has many of the same personality traits as Jobs. He’s a product visionary and fanatic who likes the dictatorial style of product development. He’s not great with people, and doesn’t deal well with the press. At today’s Nexus One event you could see his barely contained frustration at the questions fired off at him during the Q&A session. “I’m just not going to say anything else about that” was one quip he fired off after a reporter kept asking the same question over and over. Jobs, of course, doesn’t do Q&As. And that’s just fine with me. I don’t care if the people we cover are likable, or like me. Being affable or loquacious isn’t a job requirement for Awesome Product Guy. You just have to have a strong vision, be unwilling to bend, and have the means of following through with that product to launch. Like Jobs, Rubin has known failure. He’s even been fired from his own company, Danger. But like Jobs, he went on to bigger and better things. For Jobs it was NeXT and Pixar, then back at Apple. For Rubin, it was Android. Is the Nexus One as disruptive as the iPhone? No. Apple started this party and the Nexus One is part of that same revolution. But it’s disruptive in different ways, and its openness (and paring with Google Voice) is pretty exciting. And I get the feeling that his team is just getting started with this whole Android thing. Ten years from now we’ll look back. Rubin may just be another exec at another big company. Or he may be something more. Heck, he may even be running Apple. His personality would fit right in. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 6 Jan 2010 | 2:27 am [ CES 2010 ] ASUS CrosslinkCES is very much about showing off the latest and greatest in technology. However, sometimes it gives us the chance for a hands-on look at things that might already be on the market. One such item is the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 2:15 am The Mobile Advertising Industry Is Worth At Least $1 Billion NowFollowing Googles purchase of AdMob and news that Apple is buying Quattro Wireless, the mobile advertising industry has passed the $1 billion in valuewhich is quite the accomplishment given that the total...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 2:07 am [CES2010] Hannspree Polar Bear TVBy Evan Ackerman It’s a 19″, 720p, $299 polar bear TV that you can buy in March from Hannspree. It’s designed to “raise awareness” about polar bears, and is just the first...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 2:05 am EA: Tiger's Still in the Game [Voices]By Nick Wingfield, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal For weeks, Electronic Arts (ERTS) has said it has no plans to ditch its association with Tiger Woods, even as the professional golfer’s other sponsors began bailing out on him after allegations of his infidelities. This week, EA again said it will stick with Mr. Woods and plans to release an online game featuring the golfer that it will open for public testing later this month. In a blog post Monday, EA Sports president Peter Moore said the videogame publisher, unlike other companies that sponsored the golfer, didn’t form a relationship with Mr. Woods in 1997 so “he could act as an arm’s length endorser.” Mr. Moore said EA partnered with Mr. Woods, whose likeness and name are featured in EA’s golf videogames, because it strives to make authentic sports simulation games. “By his own admission, he’s made some mistakes off the course,” Mr. Moore wrote. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 2:00 am Google's online store, and what it means for the US wireless industry.According to arstechnica, the most significant part of Google's Nexus One announcement, is their online store. In short, what Google announced today wasn't just the Nexus One, but the world's first...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:59 am [CES2010] Peregrine Glove Lets You Get Handsy With Your GamesBy Evan Ackerman Professional gamers know: optimizing control inputs means maximizing damage, and maximizing damage is the most important thing that there is in life. The Peregrine gaming glove contains...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:46 am Steampunk Mystery Game Launched in SL's New BabbageThis atmospheric machinima from Loki Pico is the teaser for a murder mystery adventure game set in New Babbage, the steampunk town. Called "Shadow of the 13" (official website here), which nicely integrates...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:43 am Toshiba works on instant voice translation software for cell phones
It makes a lot of sense, but it seems to be hard to realize: Using the cell phone for instant voice translation of basic sentences whenever you're in a foreign country. But Toshiba is one of the companies working on this, and apparently they're almost ready to offer a decent solution.
Their translation software, in its current iteration, enables cell phones to interpret between English, Chinese and Japanese. Toshiba says that the database, used on their TG01 "smartphone" (pictured on the left), for example, boasts a database of 30,000 words spoken in each of these languages. Toshiba optimized existing PC software for use in cell phones, which obviously have less processing power.
Source: CrunchGear | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:40 am Trulia's Pete Flint Chats About Everything (Except Google Interest!) [BoomTown]
Last night, Trulia sent me a small pile of information about the fast-growth year the real estate search and information site had in 2009, despite the near-complete collapse of the U.S. housing market. You can read all the stats below in Trulia’s press release–62.3 million unique monthly visitors, visits up 45 percent, page views up 105 percent and one million inquiries sent by home buyers to real estate agents via the San Francisco start-up, which was founded in 2005 by CEO Pete Flint and COO Sami Inkinen. BoomTown also had a short chit-chat interview about the site’s prospects for the coming year with Flint, whose last success was being part of the team that sold travel site lastminute.com to Travelocity for $1.1 billion in 2005. “We want to be the first billion-dollar real estate site,” he said, referring to Trulia’s valuation and not its annual revenue. Currently, Trulia seems to be valued at about $150 million, having raised $33 million overall, with investors that include high-profile Silicon Valley venture firms Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital. Getting from here to there is definitely going to be a long slog, but Flint said that the “mass of confusion about real estate” will be a key factor in growing the site’s traffic and engagement over time. Trulia allows people to search for a range of data about homes for sale in particular zip codes or cities nationwide. Its business and that of its competitors is largely based on advertising, selling subscription services and lead generation.
Flint (pictured here) said Trulia execs started focusing on revenue about 18 months and should achieve profitability by the middle of this year, after which it was “poised for significant profitability.” To goose that in 2010, Flint said the site would focus on three key areas: Expanding local content, such as blogs and information about the local community; mobile apps; and, perhaps most importantly, launching a rentals offering. “We are not about checking out what a neighbor’s house looks like, but on buyer intent and monetization,” said Flint, taking a not-so-veiled swipe at Trulia’s clearest competitor–the larger and more funded Zillow, located in the Seattle area. Still, while he predicted that the overall real estate market would remain flat over the next few years, he noted that it was probably a winners-take-all game for the big and innovative niche sites like Trulia and Zillow. Flint added that he doubted big Internet giants could easily compete, since their focus was so dispersed. And, thus, he would not comment on my recent report that Google (GOOG) and Trulia have been “in on-again, off-again acquisition talks…rumors about Google’s interest in the real estate search market–and specifically in Trulia–have been rebounding around Silicon Valley for the last year.” “We are going to focus on being a big independent company,” said Flint. Guess those talks are off-again. In the meantime, here is the Trulia press release:
Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:38 am Cameron: Smoking in Avatar a Critique of Gamers [Voices]By Gus Mastrapa, Contributor, Game|Life, Wired.com Anti-smoking watchdogs are up in arms about Sigourney Weaver’s character lighting up in the movie Avatar, but James Cameron says that her character’s cigarette habit was a critique of videogamers. In Sunday’s New York Times (NYT), the director defended himself against critics, saying that Weaver’s character Grace Augustine was never meant to be a role model for young people. In fact, he said, her smoking was meant to be a commentary on the character’s obsession with climbing into her blue meat puppet. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:38 am Jabra launches two new bluetooth devices at CES
The Jabra Extreme Bluetooth headset reportedly blocks background noise up to 24 db using dual microphones and a special DSP system. Previous headsets from Jabra only filtered 12 db, making the new Extreme twice as good at blocking noise. The new headset should be available this month for an MSRP of $79.99. The Jabra Cruiser speakerphone uses the same dual microphone “Noise Blackout” technology, only in a speakerphone system. The device also provides a caller ID announcement so you know who’s calling when you are behind the wheel. The Jabra Cruiser is also available this month, with an MSRP of $99.99. From the press releases:
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Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:37 am iPhone-Controlled Helicopter With AR Gamesandylim writes "Parrot has unveiled a remote-controlled helicopter that boasts augmented reality games. The helicopter is controlled using an iPhone or iPod Touch's accelerometer and touchscreen. There's a camera on the front of the helicopter, which you can use to navigate and to play augmented reality games, including a game that involves fighting a gigantic robot."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:37 am [CES 2010] On The Ground At CES 2010 What's Buzzin' ?By David Ponce So here we are in North America’s largest convention, and we’re getting ready to die, one footstep at a time to bring you news on the hottest tech for 2010. CES proper doesn’t...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:33 am Jabra launches two new bluetooth devices at CES Good news for Jabra fans; they just announced two new Bluetooth devices at CES. For the traditional headset wearer we've got the Jabra Extreme, and for the speakerphone fan we've got the Cruiser Bluetooth speakerphone. Both devices use Jabra's new Noise Blackout technology, to cut down on the background noise issues.
Source: CrunchGear | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:30 am The Googlephone - there's more where that came from - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:30 am As AdWords Ads Get Images, What’s Deemed Family Safe? [Voices]By Barry Schwartz, News Editor, Search Engine Land Last week, I was surprised to find an image of a woman in a thong within a Google (GOOG) search ad. I asked Google if such ads were acceptable, and Google told me they were. These images came from product extensions that were showing up in the search results for a while now. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:27 am Toshiba works on instant voice translation software for cell phones
It makes a lot of sense, but it seems to be hard to realize: Using the cell phone for instant voice translation of basic sentences whenever you’re in a foreign country. But Toshiba is one of the companies working on this, and apparently they’re almost ready to offer a decent solution. Their translation software, in its current iteration, enables cell phones to interpret between English, Chinese and Japanese. Toshiba says that the database, used on their TG01 “smartphone” (pictured above), for example, boasts a database of 30,000 words spoken in each of these languages. Toshiba optimized existing PC software for use in cell phones, which obviously have less processing power. All that users need to do is to speak into the phone in any of the three languages, let the handset analyze what you said, translate the sentence and say it out loud in the language desired, using the inflections of a native speaker. The solution doesn’t require users to be online, which is ideal for tourists traveling in foreign countries. Toshiba says they had exactly this target group in mind when developing the software, claiming it’s able to cover around 70% of simple travel-related conversations. The company aims at offering a practical version of the software within this year. Via The Nikkei [registration required, paid subscription] Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: MobileCrunch | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:18 am Sony Won't Support Its Own Movie For An Oscar Over Misplaced Piracy Fears [Voices]By Mike Masnick, Editor, Techdirt One of Jack Valenti’s final battles while still in charge of the MPAA was his silly, misguided war on DVD screeners. Screeners are copies of the movie (on DVD, obviously) that are sent out to people to view (to “screen”) for awards shows and the like. Valenti freaked out that since these screeners went out before the official DVDs were out, they would lead to people uploading them online, creating a piracy problem. Read the rest of this post on the original site
Source: Gizmodo | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:16 am LED Flashlight Brings Power and Light to Geeks
LAS VEGAS — Walk into a Costco and $20 LED flashlights line the aisles. To turn it into a product that’s at least ten times more expensive requires some engineering. The result is the mPower Illuminator– a sleek, expensive emergency flashlight that’s packs 180 lumens into a palm-sized product. With its brushed titanium and chrome finish, the Illuminator is a good-looking enough device. After all, it has been designed by the Porsche design studio. LEDs are increasingly replacing old-fashioned bulbs in flashlights because they consume lower power and can offer brighter light. The mPower Illuminator tries to go beyond that. It has a USB port on the side so you can charge a cellphone or a GPS system off it. The flashlight weighs 9.2 oz and comes with two batteries: a C123 three-volt lithium battery and a custom reserve battery that has a shelf life of 20 years. The reserve battery can be activated with the twist of a knob and provides enough power for two hours of continuous use. If you don’t balk at price, the Illuminator could be a nice gift for a geek who wants only the best, even if it is for a emergency light with a custom battery that might never be called on. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:14 am 2009: Year Of The Smartphone — Kinda [Voices]By Charles S. Golvin, Contributor, Forrester Blog We’ve just gotten data back from our most recent US Omnibus Survey, fielded in October and November of 2009, and it provides a snapshot of the US mobile phone market pretty darn close to the end of 2009. Before examining the data, it’s important to note that the term smartphone, while widely used, doesn’t benefit from a uniform, industry-wide definition. For Forrester, a smartphone is a mobile phone or connected handheld device that uses a high-level operating system, including iPhone OS, BlackBerry OS, Windows Mobile, PalmOS, WebOS, Symbian, and any flavor of Linux including Android. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:12 am [CES2010] Asus NX90 Laptop Has Two Touchpads, Still Missing OneBy Evan Ackerman I’m not entirely sure that more equals better when it comes to touchpads, but Asus seems to think so, and at their CES press conference today they were showing off their NX90, a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:11 am Air travel iPhone apps guide travellers through new security proceduresThe Independent reviews several useful Air travel apps for iPhone to guide travellers through new security procedures. Featured left, the Homeland Security News Reader app tha tracks news coming out...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:09 am Will Nexus One Be a Hit? Maybe. But Not Every Google Launch Lands Well [Digital Daily]Google has finally rolled out a slick-looking mobile phone called the Nexus One–not just a phone but a superphone! But it hasn’t just confined its ambitions to mere hardware and software design. It also wants to reinvent the way the mobile business works. Heady stuff, but then again Google (GOOG) has already reinvented other industries (ask the old search engines) and is helping to reorder other ones (ask any newspaper publisher these days). The flip side: The Silicon Valley search giant does launch lots of other stuff too, but many of those products are now on the shelf of dusty tech curios. Below are a few of the choicest nuggets in our next slideshow. Some are first-place finishers, while others had to be killed off and turned into mulch for Google’s organic garden. Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:05 am Android or iPhone? Wrong Question [Voices]By Bill Gurley, Partner, Benchmark Capital In a recent New York Times (NYT) article, Kathryn Huberty, a Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst was quoted suggesting that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone is the key catalyst for an important new technology trend. “Applications make the smartphone trend a revolutionary trend – one we haven’t seen in consumer technology for many years.” This argument rings true in that the “after iPhone” smartphone market is dramatically more interesting than the “pre-iPhone” smartphone market. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:02 am Viliv makes the N5 and S10 Blade official
Source: CrunchGear | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:01 am TSMC Helps LSI Reduce Leakage 25 Percent on Next Generation ProductSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am ReelSurfer: A White Label Solution For Video Search
When you’re looking for a specific movie clip, it can often be hard to find exactly what you’re looking for on sites like YouTube, which don’t let you search for keywords generated from dialog spoken during a video. That’s where ReelSurfer comes in. The startup processes long-form video and turns it into short, relevant segments that are easy to watch and search through. With this technology, ReelSurfer aims to increase the value of online content by allowing users to find the 30 second segment they really want to watch, and then save, share and buy the content. Unlike TechCrunch50 company AnyClip, which also offers extensive video search, ReelSurfer is a white label solution. ReelSurfer has multiple solutions for different use cases, including a product that allows you to create a centralized online database for your University. ReelSurfer can archive footage like teacher lectures, making it easy to access and search for future reference. ReelSurfer also comes with its own custom encoder making it easy to download the video to Mac or Windows after the fact. The company’s advisory board includes Bill Fay (Executive Producer of Independence Day, The Hangover, and 300 and President of Production at Legendary Pictures) and Carl Rosendahl (Founder of PDI, which sold to DreamWorks). The company hasn’t raised any money, and is already cash-flow positive. Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: TechCrunch | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:59 am ReelSurfer: A White Label Solution For Video SearchWhen you're looking for a specific movie clip, it can often be hard to find exactly what you're looking for on sites like YouTube, which don't let you search for keywords generated from dialog spoken...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:59 am Hands-On With Entourage Netbook, E-reader Combo
LAS VEGAS — The Entourage eDGe is an unusual device. With two screens that fold together like a book, the eDGe promises to be an electronic book reader and a netbook at the same time so users can switch from reading on the black-and-white E Ink screen to the adjacent LCD screen to send emails, browse and watch videos. The eDGE, which was announced in October, made its debut at a preview event for the Consumer Electronics show Tuesday. “Consumers can get everything they want in one device now,” says Doug Atkinson, vice-president of marketing and business development for Entourage Systems. It’s a nifty idea that Entourage seems to have pulled off well. At 3 lbs, the device feels surprisingly light weight and is well engineered. Under the hood, it runs Google’s Android operating system. The eDGe has an ARM processor, 4 GB storage, an SD card slot, 3-megapixel camera and two USB ports.
The left half of the eDGe has a 9.7-inch e-paper display that can display books in the PDF and EPUB format. At first glance, it looks similar to the large screen Kindle DX but offers more features. You can make notes on it using the stylus though what you will end up with is a crude scrawl that looks like the drawing of a four-year old–but it is legible. There’s also a highlight button that lets you mark specific portions of the text and save it for reference later. The eDGE lets you scroll through a library of books on the LCD color screen and search for strings that are displayed in the e-reader on the other side.
The 10.1-inch LCD touchscreen can play video or browse the internet. It comes with Wi-Fi connectivity and offers optional access to 3G networks. The capacitive touchscreen lacks the same level of smoothness that the iPhone has but is still good enough. On a panel at the edge of the screen are four buttons: back, rotate, home and menu. A tab at the bottom of the screen offers more options such as the digital e-book store, browser, email and an icon for other apps. Click the menu button and it pulls up an onscreen keyboard that can get you surfing.
The pivoting dual screens means the eDGe has the dexterity of a contortion artist. The two screens can be folded back so the device looks like a large notepad with the displays facing the user or folded up like a book. It can also be maneuvered into the standard notebook format. The eDGe is an audacious idea that Entourage Systems seems like it can deliver. Priced at $490, the device is expected to be available next month. Sure, it is a little rough around the edges–it feels slow at times and the touch screen could be better–but for now its brimming with potential.
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com 
Source: Gizmodo | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:56 am Sony Japan to roll out a limited edition PSP and a new PS3 bundle
Gamers who’ve always wanted to own a PSP in pink, here’s your chance: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today announced [JP] exactly that, a limited edition of their handheld system in so-called blossom pink. Needless to say that technically, this pink PSP 3000 isn’t different from a standard model.
The new PSP will hit Japanese stores on March 4 as part of Sony’s spring product line-up (price: $180).
Sony also made an announcement regarding the PS3 today: Michael Jackson is huge in Japan, and he used to have strong ties with the company. The Michael Jackson documentary This Is It, for example, has been distributed worldwide by Sony Pictures Entertainment. And Japan’s Jacko fans can soon lay their hands on a special PS3 bundle [JP] that includes a Blu-ray of said documentary. Priced at $350, the “Michael Jackson – This Is It Special Pack” will be available in Japan starting January 27.
Source: Gizmodo | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:27 am Seaweed chokes Australia's Great Barrier ReefAustralian natural wonder the Great Barrier Reef is overgrown in places by seaweed in what could be a worrying indication of the health of the coral structure, scientists said on Wednesday.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:19 am Report: Ballmer to Unveil Tablet Computer Before Apple (PC World)PC World - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will announce a multimedia tablet computer on Wednesday to be made by Hewlett-Packard, according to a news report, just as hype about a rumored similar device from Apple peaks.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:10 am CES 2010: Hands-On With the Lenovo Skylight Smartbook
Dubbed the Skylight, Lenovo’s smartbook is one of the freshest looking products showcased so far at CES. It’s a groovy notbook (a netbook that tries oh-so-hard to not be called a netbook, but in essence still is one) with an extremely thin form factor, rounded edges, a 10-inch screen and an ARM-based processor.
I had some hands-on time with the Skylight, and I really enjoyed the feel of its light weight (less than two pounds) and polished body. The curved corners give it a more modern look. The keyboard? So-so for a netbook this small, though I’ve reviewed netbooks with better keyboards closer to full size, such as the HP Mini 5101. The trackpad is solid — wider and better than the MSI Wind’s cramp inducer. A somewhat quirky feature is a flip-out compartment above the keyboard, which contains a USB port. Ideally, you’d want to stick a fat drive there with a couple of gigs of storage, like the one shown in the photo above. Keep in mind the idea of this netbook is to do most of your computing in the cloud, so you’ll have a chance to be creative with how you wish to store your data. Most of your space is probably going to be allocated to the OS and a few crucial native apps. Some more specs:
Note the OS — a Lenovo build of Linux. I’ve never been a big fan of Linux, but I’m sure plenty of Red Hat fans will find the Skylight intriguing. Will the Skylight deliver on its promises? We’ll put this baby through benchmark and battery testing once we get a review unit in the lab. For now, I have mostly positive early impressions. Overall, the Skylight is a breath of fresh air compared to the rather monotonous netbook product category — a slew of mini notes that typically come equipped with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, a 10-inch screen, and, and — …snore…
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 6 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am DISH Network(R) Introduces TV Everywhere(TM)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Jan 2010 | 11:58 pm Y2.01KAfter our recent discussion of decimal/hexadecimal confusion at the turn of 2010, alphadogg writes in with a Network World survey of wider problems caused by the date change. "A decade after the Y2K crisis, date changes still pose technology problems, making some security software upgrades difficult and locking millions of bank ATM users out of their accounts. Chips used in bank cards to identify account numbers could not read the year 2010 properly, making it impossible for ATMs and point of sale machines in Germany to read debit cards of 30 million people since New Year's Day, according to published reports. The workaround is to reprogram the machines so the chips don't have to deal with the number. In Australia, point-of-sales machines skipped ahead to 2016 rather than 2010 at midnight Dec. 31, rendering them unusable by retailers, some of whom reported thousands of dollars in lost sales. Meanwhile Symantec's network-access control software that is supposed to check whether spam and virus definitions have been updated recently enough fails because of this 2010 problem."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 5 Jan 2010 | 11:54 pm AQR Capital set to launch seventh mutual fund-WSJJan 6 (Reuters) - U.S. money management firm AQR Capital Management, which relies heavily on computer models to select investments, will launch its seventh mutual fund on Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Jan 2010 | 11:48 pm UPDATE 1-HTC's weak Q4 points to tougher days ahead* Weighed down by falling prices and increasing competitionSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Jan 2010 | 11:47 pm Sensia: Internet Radio Gets Colorful New Face
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 San Francisco Chronicle (blog) | HP Adds Touchscreen to Mini Netbook PC World Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday revamped its line of Mini netbooks, also introducing its first model with a touchscreen that supports multitouch finger input. The Mini 5102 netbook comes with a 10.1-inch screen that supports ... Hands On: HP Mini 210 Netbook HP unveils new PCs HP Announces Touch Sensitive Minis And Netbooks |
Rumor has it the much anticipated Apple tablet will be a blown-up iPhone with a 10-inch screen. While we wait for that fabled device (presumably in late January), take a gander at Lenovo’s S10-3t — a 10-inch part-time netbook, part-time tablet running Windows 7.
The “t” stands for tablet, and that’s because this 10-inch netbook (aka notbook) features a swivel touchscreen that can be rotated for use as a tablet. According to Lenovo, it’s the first convertible tablet using capacitive touchscreen — the same multitouch technology used on the iPhone.
Previous convertible tablets used resistive touchscreens, which required you to firmly press down on the screen or control it with a stylus. Those didn’t succeed in the mainstream. They suffered from a durability issue: The convertible tablet form factor had a weak spot vulnerable to firm presses. The S10-3t should eliminate that problem (unless you insist on jabbing the screen with a brutal amount of force.)
But I wouldn’t bet capacitive touch would redeem the convertible-tablet category. I had some hands-on time with the S10-3t, and I didn’t have very positive first impressions. During a video shoot demonstrating the tablet, the software was glitchy and required two reboots. (These are considered outtakes, so they won’t make it to the final cut of the video.) Particularly, the software — a Lenovo-modified version of Windows 7 — freaked out when I was rotating the touchscreen to use it as a tablet. But when I got it up and running, the touch sensitivity was certainly pleasant and sensitive like the iPhone (or Droid or whatever) experience.
Lenovo included its own custom software to navigate the device in tablet mode. However, you’d have to manually launch individual tablet-based apps in order to take advantage of the tablet UI. I wished that it would automatically detect when it was in tablet mode and launch the tablet-based UI immediately and seamlessly when it was rotated. A geek can dream, can’t he?
When used as a netbook, the S10-3t is solid. It has a nice, full-sized keyboard and a comfortable trackpad. And generally, I’m just loving the way Windows 7 looks and runs on new netbooks. It imbues these trendy devices with a more modern aesthetic and a snappier feel.
The S10-3t is shipping later this year with a $500 price tag. Good news if all you’re looking for is a netbook: A non-swivel-touchscreen version of the S10-3t, the S10-3, costs $330.
More photos below the jump, courtesy of Wired.com’s Jon Snyder.
See Also:
Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
AP - The once-cuddly relationship between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. is morphing into a prickly power struggle as the ambitions and ideas of the technology trendsetters increasingly collide.
File syncing and storage startup Zumodrive has landed a deal with Hewlett-Packard to power the technology giant’s newly announced CloudDrive on all HP Mini netbooks beginning in January 2010. HP CloudDrive, which will be powered on the backend by ZumoDrive, will allows netbook consumers to quickly and easily access their music, documents and other content onto their netbooks even if their media libraries are larger than their available on-device storage. Read our initial reviews of ZumoDrive here.
ZumoDrive, which spawned from Y Combinator startup Zecter, has a different take on file syncing. Similar to other services, ZumoDrive. which was built specifically for netbooks, tablets and other devices with low amounts of storage, creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But service has a twist-ZumoDrive tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them.
The startup also launched a new version which lets users to access their music playlists, photo albums and document folders on any device. ZumoDrive mimics a standard hard drive but saves content in the cloud and then streams it to each device instead of saving local copies, making it the killer app for the netbook and other devices with limited storage. Its iPhone app lets users sync their content to their phone without having to deal with local storage capacity issues. And the service has also been upgraded to integrate well with media applications, like iTunes, so users can play entire music libraries saved in ZumoDrive on multiple devices without manually syncing content.
The Zumodrive-powered HP CloudDrive features the ability to stream music, videos and photos to iTunes, iPhoto, Picasa and Windows Media Player, offline access, mobile acces via the iPhone app, folder linking, playlist syncing, file sharing and tired storage options.
This is a pretty big coup for the bootstrapped Zumodrive, which just raised $1.5 million in funding last year. Zecter previously launched a product called Versionate, an office-wiki product, that we first covered in July 2007. We wrote about them again a year ago. ZumoDrive faces competition from Dropbox, SugarSync, and Box.net.
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We just wrote about gWallet’s secret weapon, gLTV, that hopes to legitimatize the virtual currency monetization world, following the reports that OfferPal, and others have been scamming (a.k.a. “Scamville”) users of virtual games on social networks. gLTV is a new metric that gives publishers analytics on how they can measure and increase their lifetime value of users on their applications. gWallet says gLTV uses info about individual users to demonstrate specifically how it can increase the lifetime value of a user based on prior usage and transaction history
Today, gWallet is announcing its first integrated video offering that already has quite a few well-known brands signed on. Disney, Best Buy, K-Mart, Nestle, Coke, and The History Channel are all using gWallet’s video campaigns on social networks. gWallet says that the 10 brands who participated in the campaigns during December eeceived unprecedented viewer engagement and conversion, while publishers, which include Facebook app developer MobScience, leveraging gWallet’s platform saw a sizeable increase in revenue. gWallet also used Tube Mogul to power the video and analytics on its video campaigns.
gWallet contends that video content is drawing visitors to review and complete more offers. In one week, gWallet reports that its campaigns received over 480,000 views and over 1 million minutes of total viewing time with user engagement averaging more than 2 minutes per video campaign. Publishers that deployed gWallet videos noted that revenue increased up to 600 percent.
Gwallet says that social media advertising, and virtual currency offers in particular, have the potential to be a positive brand engagement experience where users spend minutes rather than seconds engaging with this content and messaging. The startup’s CEO Gurbaksh Chahal has told us previously that unlike its competitors in the space, gWallet has a full-time direct sales force that corresponds between high quality brands and agencies and game developers to ensure legitimacy.
There’s no doubt this a lucrative (and competitive) space and TechCrunch’s efforts to expose Scamville has made a lasting impact on both game developers like Zynga and social networks, including Facebook, MySpace and others to provide legitimate offers. Not only has gWallet been able to sign up a number of big-name brands, but the results of the campaigns are promising. The startup, which recently raised $10.5 million in funding, works directly with brands directly as opposed to adopting an affiliate leads model. It’s still early, but it looks like gWallet may be on its way to becoming the beacon of legitimate offers in the virtual currency world.
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Virgin America (the airline on which you can watch Boing Boing Video on a dedicated in-flight TV channel) tomorrow launches "Operation Chihuahua." Mr. Maximus, shown here, is one of the spokesdogs. "With the massive overpopulation of Chihuahuas in California we have partnered with the SF ACC, ASPCA and SFO to fly some needy pups to loving new adoptive homes on the East Coast," says a human at the airline. Moar info, and full-size pic.Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Above, as Gandalf. niccageaseveryone.blogspot.com: a blog "founded on the belief that everything in life would be better with a little more Nic Cage, the most unique and versatile actor of his generation." (image in this post p-shopped by Colin Bridgeman, blog via George Ruiz)
Source: Boing Boing | 5 Jan 2010 | 9:10 pm
FROM GAMERTELL - This year’s International CES once again includes a section set aside specifically for game companies. Here’s a list of the Gaming Showcase exhibitors section at CES 2010…
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 Washington Post | Washington policy leaders set to mingle at CES in Las Vegas Washington Post Workers set up a booth at the International Consumer Electronics Show, which begins Thursday. (Paul Sakuma/associated Press) By Cecilia Kang That will be one of the notable themes at the International Consumer Electronics Show that begins Thursday in ... CES 2010 preview Las Vegas braces for 110000 at Consumer Electronics Show CES Preview: Laptops and 3D TV May Dominate Show |
Google’s event today was supposed to be about one device, the Nexus One. Instead, we heard a lot of: “more devices,” more manufacturers,” “more carriers,” “this is just the beginning.” Today was not about one device, it was about Google’s first step in helping to reshape the mobile landscape in the U.S. And thanks to the groundwork laid by Apple, it just might work.
Think about your cellphone and cellular service five years ago. Both were likely horrible. But you were content in your misery, because you didn’t know any better. Then came the iPhone. It was a mobile device that was so good, people were willing to ditch their existing service providers en masse (I did) to go to the only one that had it: AT&T. And while you might think that would be a big plus for AT&T, it actually shifted a massive amount of industry power to Apple. They had the device that everyone wanted. And they used that leverage to renegotiate their exclusive deal with AT&T to pay out a huge amount of money for each device sold.
Sure, there were hot selling mobile devices before it — the Motorola RAZR, for example, was the best selling phone for many years in a row — but the iPhone had two advantages: 1) Thanks to Apple’s complete control over the device, including, maybe most importantly, its software, they created a user experience that the RAZR never could. 2) Thanks to the App Store, there is some amount of lock-in to the device because users are spending a ton of money on apps and if they switch phones, those all go away.
With the iPhone, Apple has created a device that all the other U.S. carriers lust after. And that, in turn, has allowed Google to come along with Android. When the G1 launched a little over a year ago, it was the first of many devices to be heralded as a “iPhone killer.” It wasn’t. But Google didn’t care about that. All that mattered to them at the time was getting their foot in the door of an industry that they, like Apple, had not at all been a part of leading up to that first device. It worked. The carriers were so desperate for an “iPhone killer” that they seemed willing and ready to negotiate with Google to get as many devices out there as possible to ride the Internet-enabled smartphone tsunami that the iPhone earthquake started.
As time went on, and Apple’s exclusivity with AT&T remained intact, Google honed their skills, and improved their software. Their manufacturing partners got better too, culminating in Motorola’s Droid, released late last year. Also not an “iPhone killer,” as I wrote that the time, that device too, was never about that from Google’s perspective (though it was from Verizon’s). It was about continuing to inundate the market with their devices and gain partnerships. With some 20 Android devices now out there, the time was right for what Google did today, which is launch their own agenda to blow up mobile industry as we know it in the U.S.
Now, that may sound a bit extreme, but just look at what Google did today. They launched an unlocked phone that you can buy directly from them. Now, this first device may not have much of an impact because it’s too expensive ($529.00) for its limitations (it will only fully work on T-Mobile in the U.S.), but it’s a first step. More importantly, look at the page pictured below. Is there any question what Google is doing here? They’re taking the traditional mobile model in this country, where you first choose your carrier, and then choose your phone, and turning it upside down. It’s what Apple started with the iPhone. But Google goes farther, because they already have multiple carriers (in this case, T-Mobile and Verizon, coming this Spring).
So why on Earth are the carriers playing ball with this? Well, they really don’t have a choice. Every carrier not named AT&T does not have the iPhone, but wants it. Since they can’t have it (not yet, anyways), they’ll settle for the next best thing, which are now more clearly than ever these Android devices. Google, of course, controls those — and increasingly so, now that they’re dictating hardware specs and features to manufacturers.
And who did Google have on stage today at the event? Two CEOs of two manufacturers: HTC and Motorola. Google has these guys in their pockets because it’s not like they’re going to team up with Apple to make a device (Motorola tried, and failed). And other partners, like Microsoft, are proving to be less than ideal in an iPhone world. So with the manufacturers on its side, Google has all the leverage it needs over the carriers. And that’s why we’re seeing them fall in line with the new mobile world order. So far, it is just T-Mobile and Verizon in the U.S., but Google alluded to the fact that they’re talking to the other ones as well. That means Sprint and likely even AT&T, for the inevitable day that they do lose the iPhone exclusivity.
It’s not hard to imagine going to a website for a phone one day in the near future and seeing a list of all the carriers. And it will be even less of an issue when CDMA and GSM are replaced by LTE, which will allow for more universal devices. Google set this in motion today. And it’s a model Apple is likely to follow when the iPhone gets to more U.S. carriers. Undoubtedly, the other big players, BlackBerry and maybe even Palm would like to do this too, but they haven’t had either the leverage, or the gall, to stand up to the carriers in this country the way Apple and Google have. Maybe they will in the future. But to the victors go the spoils.
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Last month I met a musician named Chuck Wild (formerly of Missing Persons). He currently makes ultrachill ambient music via his company Liquid Mind. He calls it "musical healthcare" designed to induce sleep, reduce anxiety, etc. We talked a bit about the New Age vibe that accompanies a lot of the genre, and I asked if there was any hard data to back up various health claims. Chuck mentioned that there's actually been a resurgence in empirical studies on the evidence-based positive effects of music therapy.I did a little research, and it turns out this is indeed the case. The item that was most intriguing for me personally came out last month. German researchers Hidehiko Okamoto, Henning Stracke, Christo Pantev and Wolfgang Stoll reported that altering commercially available music improved the symptoms of tinnitus. That's good news for any of us who might have spent a little too much time wearing headphones or hanging out in loud clubs or sitting next to computers with loud fans. They found that test subjects who listened to music "notched" to dial out frequencies in the range of their tinnitus often had improvement after a year, compared to a control group. They believe tinnitus may be a refactoring of the auditory cortex due in part to lateral inhibition.
Liquid Mind VIII: Sleep
Study: Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness and tinnitus-related auditory cortex activity
Source: Boing Boing | 5 Jan 2010 | 8:09 pm
These crazy Klipsch LightSpeakers are designed to add music to any room. You can plug them into standard light cans or even slap them into your Ikea lamp. The ultrabright LED beams through a front diffuser grill and then you can connect the speakers – in left or right channels – wirelessly to any stereo.
From the press release:
Klipsch to Illuminate Audio Industry with New LightSpeaker
Energy-saving product uniquely combines brilliant LED lighting and wireless ambient soundINDIANAPOLIS, IN (January 5, 2010) — Klipsch, a leading global speaker manufacturer, has been named the U.S. distributor and licensee of what is possibly the most innovative design to hit the audio industry in recent years. Winner of a 2010 CES Innovations Award, the patented Klipsch® LightSpeaker®, developed by Kadence Designs LLC., is the first product to combine efficient LED lighting and wireless ambient sound into a single unit that installs like a light bulb.
“Today’s consumers are overloaded with complex technologies, and the LightSpeaker is designed to enrich their lives without complication,” said Klipsch president Paul Jacobs. It offers brilliant light, reduces energy costs and creates a multi-room ambient music system in mere minutes. There’s no wiring, no retrofitting and no software to deal with.”
The LightSpeaker, which comes complete with a dimmable LED bulb and full-range speaker, fits 5- and 6-inch recessed light fixtures with a standard Edison socket. Upcoming accessories will allow the LightSpeaker to accommodate hanging light fixtures as well as floor and table lamps.
The speaker uses a 20 watt high-performance, low-distortion digital amplifier to deliver energy efficient sound. Furthermore, the LightSpeaker’s 2.5-inch wide dispersion driver uses digital signal processing to optimize high- and low-frequency output for a full spectrum of sound.
In order to deliver music wirelessly, the LightSpeaker relies on a standalone transmitter. A music source, such as a laptop, iPod or CD player, connects to the transmitter and it wirelessly sends the sound to the LightSpeaker. The transmitter’s 2.4GHz wireless technology accommodates up to eight LightSpeakers, equaling stereo sound in multiple rooms. You can connect two music sources to the transmitter, as well as establish two separate listening zones. The transmitter or remote will control the sources, zones, lighting levels and volume.
The LED bulb is rated for 40,000 hours of use and can last over 15 years. It also reduces daily lighting expenses by 80 percent, using 10 watts to produce light that’s bright enough to replace up to a 65 watt bulb. Unlike incandescent bulbs, the LightSpeaker LED bulb contains no mercury or halogen gases and produces almost no heat.
Ed Haase, president of Kadence Designs and acoustics engineer by trade, led the team responsible for developing the LightSpeaker. “We chose Klipsch to be our U.S. distributor because it’s a name in audio you can trust,” he says. “The brand has been around for over 60 years and finds continuous success because of its commitment to innovation and quality.”
According to Jacobs, Klipsch is completely thrilled about this opportunity. “The LightSpeaker is just an amazing product,” he notes. “It’s also exciting to work with Ed because he’s considered a legend in the custom installation business, having been one of the original co-founders of SpeakerCraft.”
A bundled package, consisting of two LightSpeakers, a transmitter, radio frequency remote, mini jack to RCA plug cable, lenses and trim, retails for $599. Single LightSpeakers are also available for $249 each. Klipsch will begin selling the LightSpeaker on klipsch.com later this month, with broader distribution slated for March.
“A LightSpeaker package eventually pays for itself, through savings on professional installation, separate audio components and energy consumption,” concluded Jacobs. “Plus you can take it with you if you move.”
We’ll be streaming a huge amount from the show floor once it opens up Thursday, but we’ll also be broadcasting desultorily during tomorrow’s big press preview day. Just keep a tab open and check in; scheduled broadcasts will be shown in the “upcoming” banner, and you’ll be able to watch old clips as well, once we stop being live.
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Read more of this story at Slashdot.
AFP - Google has unveiled its new Nexus One smartphone in a direct challenge to heavyweight Apple's iPhone handsets.
It’s the new year, and time for some new stuff from Lenovo. The laptop manufacturer announced their latest and greatest recently, the new ThinkPad X100e and the ThinkPad Edge (amongst others).
The ThinkPad X100e is one of Lenovo’s new ultra-portable line, running on either an AMD Neo or Turion CPU. It features a full size keyboard, ships with Windows 7, and is available in red or black. The X100e should be available now, starting at $449.
Additionally, Lenovo announced the release of the ThinkPad Edge, also available with the Turion or Neo chipset, and featuring a 13, 14, or 15 inch screen. The Edge system are said to be extremely energy efficient, and will reportedly run for up to 8 hours between charges. The 13-inch version is available now, with the larger screens coming out in 2Q1010.
Lenovo also made some changes to their ThinkPad T series. The T410 and T510 are the latest versions of their business line, and the only real news about these systems is their use of the new Intel CPUs, the Arrandale. These new systems will be available with the Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors. The T410 and T510 will start at $999, and will be available starting on the 7th. We’ll see if we can get some more information out of Lenovo when we visit them at their booth.
There’s some hotter stuff (the tablet-y U1 for instance) but we’ll cover those separately as the week progresses.
Speakers galore tonight. The Luna5 iPod dock sounds pretty good but looks great. That big weird thing on top is the speaker itself and it blasts out quite a bit of noise when you need it to. More pics after the jump.
Edifier surprisued us with a set of cool portable speakers in a tube that you can carry with you anywhere you go. The kit comes with a carry case and power adapter.
Edifier MP300 Plus – The portable audio system for IT LIFESTYLE
Winner of the internationally acclaimed 2009 red dot design award for best product design, the Edifier new MP300 Plus is a sophisticated and cost-effective portable audio system that delivers high quality sound to any notebook, PC and MP3 player.
Complete with a 9W subwoofer for extended bass response and two spherical speakers with metal weave speaker grills, the Edifier MP300 Plus simply plugs into any notebook, PC or MP3 player to deliver users a maximum listening experience, incomparable to competitors on the market.
Sealed with the red dot design award for 2009, the Edifier MP300 Plus is recognised for its high quality design and innovation in terms of form and function. The competition is the largest and most recognized design award in the world with 11,000 product submissions from 61 countries.
The Edifier MP300 Plus is size efficient and is available in matt black or brushed silver, making it perfect for small living spaces and practical for almost any décor. The system also comes with a protective carry case, making it ideal for travelers, businesspeople and storage purposes.
Edifier MP300 Plus features include:
Bass-ported and brush finished 9W subwoofer
Spherical speakers with metal weave speaker grill
Padded and compact carry case
Universal 100-240V power supply
Simple to use satellite mounted controls for on / off and volume functions
Colours: matt black and brushed silver
Weight: approximately 1.5kg
Video above: A venti-sized model of the Nexus One. "This version is available for $600,000, and you have to be a giant to use it." More at Search Engine Land.
Flashlights are a dime a dozen but this one is special. The MPower flashlight, which comes in black and silver, uses a standard battery and a special 20-year shelf-life chemical battery that can save you in a pinch.
The real draw, however, is the odd little USB port on the side. When you set it to USB mode you can charge any USB-powered device. It’s surprisingly clever and even more impressive now that we’ve seen it in the flesh.
Billshrink has put together one of their handy charts comparing the total cost of the Google Nexus One, including the device cost plus carrier fees. The verdict? On the high end the Nexus One costs $2,580 over 24 months. The iPhone weighs in at an impressive $3780, almost 50% more.
The reason are AT&T’s iPhone plans v. the T-Mobile plan. Unlimited voice, data and text messages runs $100 on T-Mobile, and $150 for AT&T.
The chart, which also compares the Nexus One to the Palm Pre and Motorola Droid, is below.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
By Scott Austin, Lead Editor, Venture Capital Dispatch
Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) is king of the “oughts,” at least when it comes to acquisitions of venture-backed companies.
According to statistics compiled by venture industry tracker VentureSource, the networking company acquired 48 venture-backed companies from 2000 to 2009, by far the most of any company, despite a notable drop in activity the past two years. International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) also gave venture capitalists plenty to cheer about in the decade, placing second with 35 deals, while Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) finished third with 30.
Cisco topped the annual venture-backed acquirer list three times–2000, 2004 and 2007–but made only two deals each in 2008 and 2009, tying for fourth both of those years.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
California-based Zero Motorcycles has taken $5.56M in a Series A add-on according to an SEC filing, filed today. Investors in this round were not disclosed. The company previously raised $5M in April of 2008, bringing their total funding to just over $10.6M. Formerly Electricross, Zero Motorcycles specializes in high performance electric street and dirt bikes–the Tesla of the motorcycle industry so to speak.
CEO Gene Banman tells us the purpose of the funding is to “expand the business.” He declined to expand upon that statement. Given the emerging sector and the influx of competitors, it seems Zero is simply trying to stay ahead of the curve.
The bikes build by Zero are quite impressive. They are zero emissions vehicles, completely non-toxic, silent, almost 100% recyclable, and get the equivalent of 455 miles per gallon. Due to these accolades, Zero bikes are eligible for a 10% Federal tax credit thanks to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Unfortunately, The range (60 miles) and top speed (60 MPH) on a complete four hour charge, leave much to be desired.
While the bikes themselves are reportedly silent, Zero has been making quite the roar in the press as of late. They stated their intention to be a part of the 2010 TTXGP, a grand prix for electric vehicles, with a motorcycle based off of their street bike, the Model S (pictured above). In October of last year, Zero voluntarily recalled 200 of their dirt bikes due to a safety hazard arising when the throttle of the bike would stick, causing unexpected acceleration.
It will be interesting to see how these bikes continue to do in comparison to traditional bikes given that gas powered motorcycles are capable of much higher speeds and distance. However, if Tesla’s recent profitability is any indication of the high performance electric-vehicle sector in general, then Zero could well be on its way to success. Continued investment in the company can’t hurt either.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Manufacturers market lightweight, miniature netbooks as the ideal product for “road warriors.” But what do you call customers who buy beefy notebooks for gaming? Geek warriors?
Whatever you call them, Asus R.O.G. G73Jh is a serious portable gaming machine. Unveiled at CES, the notebook is equipped with the quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (like the one seen in Apple’s awesome new 27-inch iMac) and the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 chipset. It features a 17-inch display, a 1-TB hard drive and 8-channel high-definition audio, and support for up to 8GB RAM.
Asus highlighted its cooling system for the notebook — a new rear venting design that also reduces noise levels (pictured below.)
Priced at $1,700, the G73Jh will be available early second quarter of this year, according to Asus.
Photos: Asus
 U.S. News & World Report | Hubble snaps galaxies at birth USA Today WASHINGTON — Hubble astronomers unveiled a panoramic view Tuesday of the universe's youngest galaxies, offering the earliest look yet at the puny predecessors to our own Milky Way. Galaxies are the islands of stars filling the ... Earliest Known Galaxies Spied in Deep Hubble Picture Hubble Takes Earliest Snapshot of Infant Universe Hubble captures universe's earliest galaxies |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Just caught the trailer for the remake of Clash of the Titans. But something's... missing...
Fixed.
As geo social networks gain some traction, we are beginning to see novel forms of marketing and advertisements triggered by people’s location. On Foursquare, for instance, you can get a discount if you check into a restaurant or even get a free meal if you become the mayor. GowallaIncase messenger bags, computer backpacks, and iPhone sleeves. Collect all the badges and you get a chance to win a real Incase product.
Gowalla is doing the promotion in partnership with Incase. Apple has nothing to do with it, but because the location of Apple Stores is known, Gowalla can trigger the promotional badges whenever someone enters a store. The badges serve as a virtual product placement. The hope is obviously to raise awareness of Incase products at the point of purchase. “Our experimental goal is simply to encourage people to visit a real world location where they can actually find and sample the Incase products,” says Gowalla founder Josh Williams.
It is very much an experiment, which is in keeping with Gowalla’s focus on virtual goods. In this case, there is a link between the virtual goods and real-world goods. Gowalla will be tracking impressions, check-ins, number of badges collected and other metrics to figure out how best to charge for such promotions in the future. It seems that one easy way to charge is to tie a coupon to each virtual good and then simply track purchases. Or maybe if you collect all the badges, then you get a discount.
But there’s a line between cool virtual goods and spammy ads. The key is to keep it fun and make it seem like a game.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Gabe Delahaye says, "You've probably seen the Avatar makeup tutorial going around these days on YouTube. Well, we have created one for the FELLAS with comedian Joe Mande." It's super epic.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Two touch pads are better than one! Wait, what?
That’s a main feature on Asus’s quirky NX90J, an all-in-one notebook with a polished aluminum finish, a high-definition 18-inch display, a Core i7 processor, a Blu-ray drive, surround sound and support for dual hard drives among other dreamy features.
Who knows why we would want two touch pads, though. Asus will begin shipping the NX90J in fall 2010. The notebook starts at $2,500.
See Also:
Photo: Asus
 NEWS.com.au | World Domination Boils Down to Apple vs. Google PC World Google's Nexus One phone and Apple's (alleged) iSlate tablet are merely the beginning of a long battle for world domination. If anything has become clear over the last six months it's that people are chomping at the bit for a new kind of device, ... Apple Plans to Unveil Tablet Apple's tablet will use Verizon's 3G network, sources say Apple Tablet Is Coming, Whether We Need It or Not |
Michael Kinsley, writing in The Atlantic, takes some 1,800 words to argue that newspaper stories are too long, and that Internet stories “get to the point.”
Robert MacMillan, writing for Reuters, takes almost 700 words to argue that there’s a lot of lousy and long writing on the Internet, too.
They’re both right! And both worth reading! And this post is 64 words long.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
FROM GAMERTELL - Penguin United will be introducing its Eagle-Eye Converter adaptor, which will allow PS3 owners to use a keyboard and mouse to play games, at CES 2010.
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Section: Computers, Gadgets / Other, Lifestyle, Peripherals, Displays/Projectors, Trade Shows, CES
Light Blue Optics has just announced their product called the ‘Light Touch’, which is a laser-based projector that turns virtually any flat surface into an interactive touchscreen! It works somewhat like a laser keyboard, except that the Light Touch projects coloured images.
The Light Touch is capable of projecting WVGA sized, auto-focusing images via its proprietory holographic laser projection technology (HLP), and it detects for touch using an infra-red sensing system. It also features WiFi and Bluetooth, allowing internet connectivity and the use of various bluetooth devices. Although the on-board memory is only 2GB, it has a microSD card slot that supports up to 32GB. The reported battery life is 2 hours. The practical applications of this device is absolutely mind blowing. Look out for the product launch (invite-only) at the CES 2010 tomorrow.
Read [BusinessWire] Via [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Cheng Hung for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Author Ann M. Martin is writing a prequel to the Baby-Sitters Club—that classic late 80s, early 90s book series that taught pre-teen girls such important lessons as how to spot the symptoms of juvenile diabetes, what carob is, and why people who dress like color-blind lunatics are cooler than you. Shamefully, I am excited and (thanks to the auto-checkout machines at the library) will probably end up reading it. Please Ann M. Martin, be more gentle with my childhood than George Lucas was.
Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops, Netbooks
This morning, Lenovo kicked off the smartbook category with its 10-inch Skylight. The first smartbook utilizes a 1GHz Snapdragonprocessor that allows it to do impressive things when compared to an Atom processor. This thing is smaller than many smartphones, weighs less than 2 pounds, can keep going for about 10 hours, and play HD video while in a web browser. Big news for what looks like a netbook.
The Skylight uses a Linux-based operating system that is heavily focused on internet use. It has 20GB of built in storage with up to 2GB of internet storage. Skylight’s desktop is focused on these web based gadgets that will bring you straight to sites such as YouTube, Amazon MP3, or Facebook.
Right now, the price is set at $499. But AT&T might lower the price when combined with a data plan. Whatever the cost, Lenovo plans to begin shipping in April.
Read [Electronista]
Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Apple may have the Jesus phone, but today Google rolled out its own “superphone.”
Google unveiled its Nexus One touchscreen handset during a private press-only event at its headquarters here Tuesday. Developed in partnership with hardware manufacturer HTC, the Nexus One is Google’s first branded entry into the smartphone market.
The Nexus One runs the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, allowing for several forward-thinking features. Nexus One users can rely on speech anywhere on the phone where text can be input — users can speak their e-mails, text messages, tweets and web searches. The phone also uses dual-microphone noise cancellation for improved voice quality and speech recognition, and has a vastly improved user interface which incorporates widgets that can pull in live data feeds from web services like Facebook.
“The Nexus One is where web meets phone,” says Google vice president of Android project management Mario Queiroz, pictured above. “It’s an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile phones. It belongs in an emerging category of devices which we call superphones.”
The phone will retail for $180 with a 2-year contract with T-Mobile, but will also be available for $530 unlocked (spot on with the latest speculation). It ships today and is available for purchase immediately at Google’s new online store. The Nexus One will be available on Verizon and Vodaphone networks this spring, Google says.
Google’s Nexus One will not only have to compete against other web-enabled handheld devices like the iPhone and Palm Pre, but also other Android phones such as the Motorola Droid. By releasing its own phone, Google puts itself in direct competition with other members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a consortium of mobile hardware and software developers and carriers, all of whom have been working on Google’s Linux-based Android operating system. It could represent a tricky balance for the company to maintain.
The handset itself is sleek and gorgeous. It’s housed in a thin exterior case less than half an inch (11.5 mm) thick, and it weighs only 4.5 ounces (130 grams). The Nexus One also boasts some impressive hardware. It features a zippy 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, which Google says enables the phone to seamlessly run multiple applications at once. A trackball allows users to navigate the interface, and also uses different colored lights to send various alerts — such as a new call or e-mail message. It also sports a 3.7-inch touchscreen AMOLED display with a native resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, a 5-megapixel camera, 512 MB of RAM and ROM, and a microSD slot that’s expandable up to 32 GB of storage (it ships with a 4-GB card). It has a compass and an accelerometer, and light and proximity sensors allow the device to save power by dimming or shutting off the screen. A metal plate on back is designed for personal engraving. There is no hardware keyboard.
Although the Nexus One was only officially unveiled Tuesday, the debut has been highly anticipated for weeks, as Google had all but announced it was on the way. The company gave a pre-release version of the phone to all of its employees just before the holidays, and posted a message to its mobile blog about the “dogfooding” process of testing a new mobile device.
The Nexus One runs Android 2.1, the latest version of Google’s free mobile operating system, and the phone relies on the new software for several key enhancements. For example, every single text field on the device is voice-enabled.
“The evolution we’ve seen around voice recognition in the past year or two has just been phenomenal,” says Google senior product manager Erick Tseng, referring to the company’s Google Voice app and the voice commands on the Google Droid.
“We wanted to take it to the next level.”
Tseng demoed the voice applications, which were impressive. And while the speech-to-text translation was quite zippy, Tseng noted it will continue to learn more and continue to improve with every spoken command.
Other new Android apps demoed on the Nexus One including a weather app that lets you see weather predictions minute-by-minute throughout the day, and a new photo gallery application that re-sizes photos as you scroll through them, or skews the photos when phone is tilted to give the illusion of depth. Google’s Queiroz noted that all members of the OHA will have access to the 2.1 software once it is released in a matter of days.
Google’s new online store is, in some ways, bigger news than the phone itself. It allows the company to interact directly with consumers, just as Apple does. It lets users buy phones with or without service, which also lets Google do an end-run around carriers.
In an ironic twist, Motorola had been invited to the event, but CEO Sanjay Jha got stuck in traffic and arrived nearly an hour and a half late. Jha claimed Motorola was not concerned about Google putting its weight behind a competitor’s product.
“This expansion of the ecosystem is healthy for both of us,” Jha says.
The phone seems pointedly designed to move the United States towards a more European-style model, where consumers buy unlocked phones at a higher, unsubsidized price. The company made point to note this repeatedly during the Q&A session with journalists that followed the demos.
In a move perhaps designed to appease other members of the OHA, the company noted it will link to the Droid and other devices from its web store, and will add Google branding to “any great product.” However, it noted that it’s only going to look at products that succeed both in terms of simplicity and performance.
“It’s not our intention to flood the web store,” said Queiroz.
Google vice president of engineering for mobile Andy Rubin, who has headed up Google’s Android project since its inception, joined the team for the Q&A session.
Rubin left the door open to releasing a free, ad-supported version in the future.
“The first baby step here is: Let’s get an online story going,” he says, “and let’s figure out what they best way to enhance it in the future.”
In response to questions about his previous assertions that Google was not building its own phone, Rubin slyly asked the press to look closely at his previous comments.
“I said Google won’t build hardware,” he says.
Photo: Robert Galbraith/Reuters
See also
Gadget Lab’s Google Nexus One Preview
Rumor: Google Nexus One $530 Unlocked, $180 With Plan
Android Gets a Better Browser: Now With More HTML5
Meet Android, the Google Phone’s Robot Brain
Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Laptops
Lenovo has announced a device that we can look forward to seeing in Vegas these next couple of days. It’s titled the IdeaPad U1 Hybrid and it tries to satisfy the needs of an indecisive person in the midst of this tablet “revolution.”
As you can see from the above picture, the device serves mainly as a notebook. However, if you are feeling daring, the screen can detach from its base and serve as a tablet. What is really cool is that when the device is “docked” as a notebook its run by a CULV Intel Core 2 Duo processor and runs Windows 7 Home Premium.
However, once you transform into tablet mode, a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor 16GB SSD boots Lenovo’s customized Skylight Linux interface.
I’m kinda skeptical as to how this device will handle the OS switch. If you have to reboot every time you detach, that won’t fly with me. Essentially, you are booting two different computers when you power this device which can get tricky if done wrong. We will just have to wait and hopefully get a sneak peek during the next couple of days at CES.
Read [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
While it’s technically called the “Android Press Gathering,” we all know what’s coming. Today, Google is expected to formally unveil the Nexus One (the device which some have been referring to as the “Google Phone“). The long event taking place today is expected to have both a presentation as well as demonstrations. Follow our coverage below, live.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
![Screen shot 2010-01-05 at [ January 5 ] 9.45.51 AM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-05-at-January-5-9.45.51-AM-201x300.png "Screen shot 2010-01-05 at [ January 5 ] 9.45.51 AM")
Another year, another CES. Each year brings bigger, badder gadgets, and each year we put our nose-to-the-grindstone in hopes of bringing you guys the best coverage yet. We’re kicking things up a few notches this year; we’ve got more happy faces from the CrunchGear and MobileCrunch team roaming the halls of the Las Vegas Convention center than ever before — and this time, we’ll be bringing it to you live.
We’ll be posting up a storm as we normally would, but we’ll also have a live video feed (brought to you by the wonderful folks over at Livestream) going around the clock over at CrunchGear to give you guys at home a little peek into the madness that is the Consumer Electronics Show. Follow us during the day as we dig for the latest gadget gossip, and then during the night as we make the terrible combination of desert heat and hard alcohol.
With all that said, I’m off to the airport. While I’m up in the air, be sure to check out John Biggs’ predictions for What to expect from CES 2010.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
 Reuters | Skype-Equipped TVs to Ship from LG, Pan ... PC Magazine On Tuesday, Skype announced a partnership with Panasonic and LG to embed its software into new lines of Internet-connected TVs, which will allow users to chat from the comfort of their easy chairs. Skype also announced support for 720p ... Skype Upgrades Video For HDTV Skype to Offer HD Video Calling on Some New TVs Panasonic, LG To Feature Skype Technology In TVs This Year |
![Screen shot 2010-01-05 at [ January 5 ] 9.07.09 AM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-05-at-January-5-9.07.09-AM.png "Screen shot 2010-01-05 at [ January 5 ] 9.07.09 AM")
Looking to make sure they’re not entirely overshadowed by Google’s much hyped Nexus One announcement later today, Rogers Canada has squeaked out a last minute Android-related press release — fortunately for them, it’s a handset we’re still pretty excited about.
Rogers has announced that they’ll be carrying the Android-powered, custom-interfaced Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 by the second quarter of 2010. Not only will they be the first carrier in Canada to offer up the device, but they’re claiming that they’ll be the first in all of North America with it – bad news for us Statesfolk that were hoping to pick one up before April.
No word yet on pricing.
You can find all of our coverage on the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 here.
Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
FROM APPLETELL - iSights come standard on every new Mac except the Mac mini, but there are various reasons why you’d want to look elsewhere for your webcam needs.
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T-Mobile might have been a bit late off the plate in rolling out their 3G network compared to the competition, but that gave them one small advantage: foresight. By the time T-Mobile started setting up towers, the world was already well aware that the same technology that powered their 3.1 Megabit per second 3G network could be bumped all the way up to 21 Mbps without drastic overhauls.
They’ve taken one step toward that today, kicking the speed dial up to 7.2Mbps across their entire network. They’re the first carrier to be able to claim a 100% rollout of the doubled speed — even if it is largely because their 3G network is a wee bit smaller than all of their competitors. Good news for all you speed demons: they’re looking to drive it from 7.2Mbps to 21Mbps by mid-2010, with tests already underway in Philadelphia.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
We’ve seen companies try this before (with little success): the convertible tablet, aka a netbook with a swivel touchscreen that can be rotated for use as a tablet. Lenovo claims its convertible tablet, dubbed the S10-3t, is the first of its kind to use capacitive touchscreen technology.
Capacitive touch is a technology in which electrodes sense a user’s fingers on the X and Y axes, negating the need for a stylus. (It’s the same technology used in the iPhone’s touchscreen.) In the past, convertible tablets have used resistive touchscreens, which you’d have to press on firmly, often with a stylus. The S10-3t is designed for multi-finger interaction like the iPhone.
The specs are as follows:
Priced at $500, the S10-3t is shipping later this year. There’s also a normal netbook version (without the swivel touchscreen) called the S10-3, that will cost $330.
See Also:
Photo courtesy of Lenovo
What happens when you combine a smartphone with a netbook? You get what Lenovo calls a smartbook. The company on Tuesday announced its first smartbook product, the Skylight.
The Skylight is basically a “notbook” (i.e. a netbook that refuses to be labeled a netbook) incorporating some of the guts you’d normally see in a smartphone. It’s an ARM-based computer equipped with Qualcomm’s 1GHz Snapdragon processor and a 10-inch high-resolution screen. It features built-in Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, meaning Lenovo expects you’ll mainly use this product with an internet connection. Thus, the Skylight includes a 20GB flash drive as opposed to the traditional beefy hard disk drive; the notbook supports various external memory formats if you wish to expand on the storage.
Some more specs:
The Skylight will cost $500 and begin shipping later this year. Lenovo also plans to offer the Skylight through AT&T, which would likely involve carrier subsidy with a two-year data contract. A video demonstration of the Skylight can be found at Lenovo’s website.
See Also:
Photo courtesy of Lenovo
Section: Trade Shows, CES
As CES was approaching, I put quite a bit of thought into the gear that I would bring and use while covering the show. It had to be the right mix of being good for blogging, but also light enough to not hurt my shoulder from carrying my gear bag all day and night. With that, I took some time and though about past years and what I brought and what I actually used. That gave me what should be everything I need and nothing more. I went small and light and the above image (you can see the full larger version here) is hopefully going to be everything that I need. Of course, the one item missing from the picture was the camera, but I kind of needed that.
A few items are for entertainment, such as the Kindle and Zune HD which will be used on the plane. But then again, the Zune HD may come in handy while writing in the blogger lounge to help cut some of the outside noise.
So without further adieu and in no particular order, here is my gear list…
And a few extra goodies including my wallet and some cash which will most likely be used for coffee—and lots of it.
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
 Siliconrepublic.com | Apple ceding open-source app market to Google? CNET News Whether you're an open-source advocate or not, you likely run open-source applications on your laptop or desktop. From Firefox to VLC to Handbrake to Adium, some of the best applications for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux are open source. ... Stupid iPhone apps Apple App Store Tops 3 Billion Downloads New book features secrets from Apple Design Award winners |
Section: Gadgets / Other, Transportation, Trade Shows, CES
Cobra has jumped the gun on CES and announced their new line up which includes a touch screen radar detector. While illegal in some states, radar detectors do their best to keep drivers from law officer entanglements in the escalating radar arms race. Like most technology, these devices continue to shrink and become more useful.
The Cobra XRS 9970G features a full-Color, customizable, touchscreen ExtremeBright DataGrafix™ display. Cobra believes the hardest part about owning a radar detector was setting it up and selecting different options. The addition of the touchscreen is aimed at removing these frustration points allowing users to quickly and confidently select the options they seek and move on.
Beyond it’s 15 laser/radar bands alerting duties, this device features a GPS chip. Using the AURA database, the XRS 9970G will alert drivers to fixed traps such as traffic cameras, dangerous intersections and known speed traps, all based on GPS location.
The new Cobra XRS 9970G is roughly 5"x3"x2” and weighs a mere 6.5oz. The unit sells for $389, roughly the equivalent of one nasty speeding ticket.
Product page: [Cobra]
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FROM APPLETELL - A single rumor can easily be dismissed, but several rumors about the same product are hard to ignore. Will the Apple tablet arrive on January 27th?
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FROM APPLETELL - iHome has announced that it has earned three CES Innovation Honoree Awards in the categories of Audio Components, Personal Electronics and Home Appliances.
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Kodak pretty much started the point and shoot camera market, but they’ve been behind for a while as far as innovation goes. In fact, this is pretty much an attempt to catch up with Nikon, Canon, and the other manufacturers who are using a touchscreen interface.
As you’ve probably heard by now, this morning Google finally officially announced the first Google Phone: The 