AFP - Internet giant Google has issued a public apology to Chinese writers and admitted that it scanned books under Chinese copyright for its Google Books digital library project.
An anonymous reader writes "Scientists from the Scripps Research Institute have shown for the first time that 'lifeless' organic substances with no genetic material — prions similar to those believed responsible for Mad Cow disease and similar, rare conditions in humans — are capable of evolving just like higher forms of life. The discovery could reshape the definition of life and have revolutionary impacts on how certain diseases are treated."
A very lengthy but disapointing article from The Economist on mobile phones. Usage, facts, figures... Everything but the kitchen sink. Too much yet too little. Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Jan 2010 | 1:09 am
AFP - A pocket-size laser projector and a set-top box which delivers Web content to your television were named among the best products in an annual competition as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) prepared to wrap up here on Sunday.
margaret writes "The New York Times has an interactive Web app where you can map the popularity of various Netflix titles by neighborhood, in a dozen different cities. Invasion of privacy or harmless voyeuristic fun? Either way, it's pretty interesting."
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg told a live audience yesterday that if he were to create Facebook again today, user information would by default be public, not private as it was for years until the company... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 10:25 pm
Bart Nagel photo My dear pal and bOING bOING Digital contributor Terre Thaemlitz is a transgenre / transgender computer musician who makes challenging electroacoustic music, glitchy folktronica,... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 10:20 pm
My dear pal and bOING bOING Digital contributorTerre Thaemlitz is a transgenre / transgender computer musician who makes challenging electroacoustic music, glitchy folktronica, and deep house. But even as it makes your ass shake, Terre's work tears into heavy issues like gender identity, the human/machine interface, consumer culture, and queer politics. Terre moved from San Francisco to Tokyo almost ten years ago, so I was especially thrilled when I opened up this week's San Francisco Bay Guardian and saw a long rave review of his recent album, Midtown 120 Blues. Released by Mule Music, Midtown 120 Blues is the first full length album from DJ Sprinkles, Terre's alias when he spun at New York City underground gay clubs in the 1980s. (You can get tastes of the tracks here.) From the SFBG:
The intellectual rigor of Thaemlitz's music doesn't compromise its pleasure. Most of Midtown 120 Blues' tracks hover around the 10-minute range, and none are vocal tracks. As a producer, Thaemlitz has explored as broad a range of styles as anyone, from ambient on the Instinct label (Tranquilizer, 1994, and Soil, 1995) to electroacoustic experiments on the Mille Plateaux label, but the dominating sound here is deep house. With sustained, liquid jazz chords stretching out over an unhurried 4/4 pulse and expertly manipulated flute samples, "Brenda's $20 Dilemma" is headphone music that, while not formally ambient, inspires reverie rather than dancing.
More stylistically consistent than any other release Thaemlitz has had a hand in so far, Midtown topped dance music Web zine Resident Advisor's 2009 album poll -- something one imagines Thaemlitz might not be too comfortable with. Thaemlitz doesn't offer political messages for listeners to parse, preferring to insert ambiguities in the process of production itself. His 2000 release Fagjazz (Comatonse) is, as he described in an interview with the Advocate, about "the illusion of an acoustic improvisational jazz moment," arrived at through careful sequencing and zero instrumental virtuosity. Deep house's debt to jazz suggests one of many routes connecting these otherwise distinct projects. In attempting to corral all of the different positions Thaemlitz has occupied as a producer and DJ, we come around to the recognition that his true project is pushing against naturalizing claims about origins.
PC World - Athletic shoe maker Adidas launched the latest version of its miCoach training gadgets in the U.S. alongside the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week in the hope of enticing people to use the system to meet their New Year's goals. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2010 | 10:10 pm
While CES is lots of running around, and lots of working, it is hard not to have fun while attending. One of the most exciting parts, at least for the geek in me is that I can check out all of these products that I may not have a chance to see otherwise.
And one of those items was the Zune Originals, of course they were the Zune HD models, and I have to say that they looked super sharp in real life. Almost makes me want to sell my current Zune HD and pick up an Original.
But in addition, the Zune booth was actually pretty neat to check out, they were highlighting the Zune dock, Xbox integration, the Zune software and the players.
A special thanks goes out to Energizer for supplying the Gadgetell crew with Energi To Go battery packs, which allowed us to keep our gadgets charged on the run and focus more on finding good stuff at CES and not having to worry about sitting next to a power outlet. For more information on the Energi To Go battery packs you can visit EnergiToGo.com or visit them on Twitter at @energitogo.
AFP - Danish toy maker Lego is seeking to build a presence in the world of multiplayer online games with the release of a new videogame called Lego Universe.
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Japanese schoolchildren often hold hanseikai, or "reflection talks," to discuss what they did wrong during a play or a sports meet. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 8:46 pm
theodp writes "The Vintage Ad Browser takes you back to the days when Google conjured up images of Barney Google (1948). When the hip music player was a Walkman (1982). When Osborne meant state-of-the-art in computing (1982). When Big Picture TV meant 12" (1948). When compact camera referred to a Pocket Instamatic (1972). And when wireless meant getting phone calls 300 feet from the house (1982)."
mjn writes "Computational media researcher Nick Montfort traces the murky origins of Zork's name. It's well known that the word was used in MIT hacker jargon around that time, but how did it get there? Candidates are the term 'zorch' from late 1950s DIY electronics slang, the use of the term as a placeholder in some early 1970s textbooks, the typo a QWERTY user would get if he typed 'work' on an AZERTY keyboard, and several uses in obscure sci-fi. No solid answers so far, though, as there are problems with many of the possible explanations that would have made MIT hackers unlikely to have run across them at the right time."
Facebook and Zynga were among the winners at the Crunchies 2009 awards, held last evening in San Francisco’s Herbst Theater. The third annual award ceremony that is co-hosted by TechCrunch, VentureBeat... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 8:14 pm
PC World - The newest entry in the quest for new models of making money in news media is Fizwoz, an online marketplace for citizen journalists who want to sell their work to the highest bidder -- many of them major media companies. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2010 | 8:01 pm
PC World - Our crack staff of editors hit Las Vegas this week to cover the annual Consumer Electronics Show. We braved bedbugs, bad PR people, long taxi lines, and greasy convention-center food, all to find the hottest new gadgets and gear. We saw 3D HDTVs, tiny iPhone accessories, and tablets, tablets, and more tablets. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2010 | 7:30 pm
MSI demoed a concept product called the Projector PC at the CES. It is a full featured PC that is combined with a projector capable of projecting up to 60 inches of full HD video. It is capable of directly projecting onto a screen or wall, and if used with an attachable stand, it can even project onto the ceiling, giving you a whole new level of movie experience. The mobility of this PC, combined with a HD-capable projector might just make this device a very popular entertainment station.
While the whole idea of a Projector PC is very tempting, bear in mind that it is just a concept product. It may or may not hit the shelves, depending on the decisions of the guys at MSI. I personally hope that this product will be given some consideration.
A special thanks goes out to Energizer for supplying the Gadgetell crew with Energi To Go battery packs, which allowed us to keep our gadgets charged on the run and focus more on finding good stuff at CES and not having to worry about sitting next to a power outlet. For more information on the Energi To Go battery packs you can visit EnergiToGo.com or visit them on Twitter at @energitogo.
Jake Von Slatt has posted some photos of a ridiculously neat-o steampunk wedding cake that was prepared for a television show about brides-to-be with very particular ideas about the themes for their... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:22 pm
Jake Von Slatt has posted some photos of a ridiculously neat-o steampunk wedding cake that was prepared for a television show about brides-to-be with very particular ideas about the themes for their wedding cakes. There's a photo of an equally awesome goth-cake at the same link.
Today's startups, entrepreneurs and investors live and die by what seem like a series of holy proverbs. "Release early, release often" is perhaps one of the most poignant phrases when considering product... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:22 pm
(TrendHunter.com) For the day of January 9th, these are the Top 20 trends, which include Chanel Tattoos, Laugh-Inducing Protests and Straw and Hemp Homes. The rankings are based on hundreds of thousands... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:20 pm
(TrendHunter.com) Everyone could use a bit of encouragement here and there. Pylones (pronounced p-lones)-USA, has created an innovative way of inspiring individuals throughout the course of their every... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:10 pm
High-C writes "With apologies to Futuristic Sex Robotz, the future is here, and her name is Roxxxy. Truecompanion.com has revealed their answer to the Real Doll, and it looks nice. The site is short on details, pictures, pricing info, but wow." NOTE: some of the above links are not work-safe, for many values of work. I stopped by this exhibit today at the AVN Expo (not officially a part of CES, but by curious coincidence scheduled to coincide; the old saw that porn drives tech isn't without merit). Roxxxy, though, was rather unsexily posed on a couch, not moving a bit — downright creepy, in fact.
Video link. Simple steps for brewing a right proper cup o' joe. It's really the "handsorting" step that trips up the less sophisticated coffee drinkers, but then, failure to prime one's coffee filters... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:01 pm
Video link. Simple steps for brewing a right proper cup o' joe. It's really the "handsorting" step that trips up the less sophisticated coffee drinkers, but then, failure to prime one's coffee filters is also a common mistake. (via Kyle Glanville)
(TrendHunter.com) The colorful silk scarves in the gallery above were made out of old Indian saris and hand sewn together. The sari scarves, created by Green Sewn, are a great way to stay warm this winter... Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm
FaceVsion recently revealed a HD webcam for Skype, called the TouchCam N1. It comes in two flavors, one with dual unidirectional mics, and another without mics. The webcam features a H.264 video compression chip that assists in streaming 720p HD video. Streaming HD videos across the net requires you to have at least an 800 kBps connection (especially upload) in order to smoothly stream HD videos.)
The TouchCam N1 is expected to be released next month. It is priced at $99 with dual unidirectional mics, and $69 without mics.
Today, Panasonic was showing off their no-set-box-needed Skype calling feature coming in Viera HDTVs. Panasonic has cooked in WiFi as well as cool apps such as Pandora, Netflix and yes, Skype. The result is interesting.
Requiring only a camera accessory (Panasonic uses one with 4 cameras so users can be farther away from the camera), Skype calling looks to be very simple, even for the non-techie folks. A simple selection of the Skype app from the Viera menu and a few clicks later and the call was made. On the receiving end, a Skype “s” logo bubble bounced around in the bottom right hand corner of the screen alerting viewers that an incoming call is available.
If you’ve used Skype, you know image quality and frame rate isn’t really impressive. Imagine that full-screen on an 42” HDTV. The result was a little off-putting but overall for what it accomplishes, its amazing.
At CES a couple HDTV manufacturers were showing off on-board apps on the TV like Panasonic and Vizio. Pandora, Facebook and Netflix were the usual suspects but Twitter seemed to be gaining ground here as well. Bringing the net to the TV is a trend we’d like to see continue. If only they brought Flash 10 for sites like hulu.com, we’d have something big to talk about.
As is, the Panasonic Skype demo was decent. We wonder how many customers will take advantage of it though.
The third annual Crunchies Awards last night were a smashing success, bringing together entrepreneurs, investors, startups, and other members of the tech community to honor the top in their class and enjoy an evening with friends. Thanks to everyone who attended the ceremony and the afterparty across the street at San Francisco’s City Hall, and we hope to see you all next year. We’ve got plenty of photos of the festivities, some of which we’ve embedded below. And there are many, many more photos available at the Crunchies 2009 Flickr Stream.
An anonymous reader writes "After only one year of development Jonathan Thomas has released version 1.0 of his impressive NLE for Linux. Based on the MLT Framework, OpenShot Video Editor has taken less time to reach this stage of development than any other Linux NLE. Dan Dennedy of Kino fame has also lent a helping hand ensuring that OpenShot has the stability and proven back-end that is needed in such a project."
I decided to take a gander through the car audio section of the show and was met with quite possibly some of the most grandiose automobiles I have ever been within 5 feet of. Despite the purpose of these vehicles being to showcase the audio systems these companies can create, flashing lights and bright colors seemed to be the attention getting method of choice. Although, more often than not, I heard Soulja Boy being passed as music. Gross. Anyway, the image descriptions will tell you exactly why these constructs made the most ridiculous list.
So if you’re living anywhere outside the US, you’re sitting on an electric bike right now. It seems we’re the only country in which electric-assist bikes like this haven’t caught on. Maybe it’s because of our obsession with gigantic, gas-guzzling SUVs we never use for their intended purpose. But I digress. The fact is that other countries have found electric bikes practical in pretty good volume for some time now, and we’re late to the game. But Sanyo thinks the time has come for us to zoom around in future-bikes.
We got a bunch of feet-on time with the eneloop bike, and we all found it a blast to ride. Although it does have a “step-through” design that’s present on female bikes where I’m from, it’s a decent looking thing, and will come in a carbon fiber version soon as well.
The eneloop bike adjusts its boost depending on how hard you pedal and what mode you’re in. If you google the thing, you’ll find all the specs — battery size and all that. It’s been around for a while now but it’s just now starting to be pushed on our shores. It’ll cost you $2300 at the moment, which is pretty serious cash, but you can consider it an alternative to a scooter or used car, depending on your needs.
At first looks, the Sony Dash is a fancy picture frame. But when you get down to it, the Dash is what every geek and non-geek will want on their bed-side table.
The 7-inch touch screen will give you access to over 1,000 internet applications thanks to Chubby to provide weather, traffic, sports, social networking, movies, games and other applications. This also includes everyone’s favorite streaming service, Pandora. It will be able to connect via Wifi to provide you with the day’s weather along with a calendar and clock.
The Dash has the ability to wake you up by the music you like to hear, then be taken to the office and placed flat on the desk and provide you with the information you want to see throughout the day.
Currently only at CES, we can expect the Dash to retail for $199.
A special thanks goes out to Energizer for supplying the Gadgetell crew with Energi To Go battery packs, which allowed us to keep our gadgets charged on the run and focus more on finding good stuff at CES and not having to worry about sitting next to a power outlet. For more information on the Energi To Go battery packs you can visit EnergiToGo.com or visit them on Twitter at @energitogo.
David Gerard writes "Zed Shaw writes an impassioned plea to programmers: Programmers Need To Learn Statistics Or I Will Kill Them All. Quoting: 'I go insane when I hear programmers talking about statistics like they know s*** when it's clearly obvious they do not. I've been studying it for years and years and still don't think I know anything. ... I have taken a bunch of math classes, studied statistics in grad school, learned the R language, and read tons of books on the subject. Despite all of this I'm not at all confident in my understanding of such a vast topic. What I can do is apply the techniques to common problems I encounter at work. My favorite problem to attack with the statistics wolverine is performance measurement and tuning. All of this leads to a curse since none of my colleagues have any clue about what they don't understand. I'll propose a measurement technique and they'll scoff at it. I try to show them how to properly graph a run chart and they're indignant. I question their metrics and they try to back it up with lame attempts at statistical reasoning. I really can't blame them since they were probably told in college that logic and reason are superior to evidence and observation.'"
We found a pair of these previously announced Sennheiser headphones here at CES and got a hands-on demo for you guys.
The short version: They have a rugged, solid feel and great sound quality. A bit pricey, but if you are an avid outdoorsman, you won’t go wrong with these.
There are four models in the series. All have a reported frequency response of 18Hz – 20kHz, maximum output of 120 dB (save the MX which peaks at 118 dB), and 16 Ω’s of impedance. The kevlar-reinforced cable is a bit short, which cuts down on the amount of bounce while you’re running. You can add a cable extension if you want, which also gives you an in-line remote with volume control and a shirt clip. The headphones can supposedly withstand temperatures of up to (or down to, in this case) -10 degrees Centigrade. Unfortunately, no one at CES was showcasing a super walk-in freezer, so I wasn’t able to give these headphones a proper test. Nor was there a sauna company, so their sweat-proof claim is untested as well.
The difference in the models are in the design styles. The OMX are pictured above, and go over your ears. I wasn’t able to get a good fit with them, due to my glasses. The MX and CX in-ears are shown to the left, with only the CX actually going into your ear-canal. The “ear-fin” secures the earbuds against the inside of your ear. It works, but it’s not the most comfortable configuration. The PMX, below, is a neckband design, and in my opinion, the most secure fitting and comfortable of all four.
The audio quality across all four is great all around. If you jog often, and utilize your media player while you do so, these headphones are a good investment. Provided you have the 80 to 120 bucks for them.
The offer carried a price, though: It was a lower-rung job than the one Becker had lost. He had to uproot his family from Wisconsin to Nevada. And, like many formerly jobless people who... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 3:59 pm
An anonymous reader writes "I purchased Rebel EFI in support of Psystar's crusade back in October. Just 3 short months later, I have no support. I found this out when I upgraded my hard drive and installed Snow Leopard using Rebel EFI. The program can no longer 'phone home' to activate or download/install drivers. This is a direct contradiction to Psystar's promise posted on their website: 'Psystar will continue to support all of its existing customers of hardware and software through this transitional period. Warranties on hardware will continue to be honored as long the customer has a valid warranty. Rebel EFI support for existing customers, as always, will remain exclusively available through email and the built-in ticket interface.' Has anyone else run into this issue? It has been 9 days with no response from Psystar by e-mail or phone."
The Eee Keyboard has been floating around since about last CES. According to PC Mag, it is now slated to ship next month for $500 to $600. It’s on display here at CES. I got a chance to play around with the device, though only on the small screen, there was a larger screen connected to one unit, but the large display wasn’t working when I was there. The small screen did have some apps to play around with, though.
The screen itself was capacitive, and was quite responsive. I was able to get around without very much lag not matter what screen. From the small screen just about everything is accessible: all types of media, web apps, a few games, file directory, a few dedicated apps and even the full Windows XP desktop. The Windows desktop didn’t display in its entirety, but moving a finger to the edge of the screen panned in that direction. It wasn’t a great experience, but it doesn’t seem like the Eee keyboard’s tiny screen was meant for any sort of trip into the Windows desktop.
The typing on the keyboard wasn’t bad, about what you’d expect from any Eee machine with the chiclet-style keyboard. Based on my limited experience, it doesn’t seem anything mind-blowing aside from the fact that it’s an entire netbook/nettop built into a keyboard. But, if that novelty it worth $500 to you, go for it when it apparently launches next month.
A special thanks goes out to Energizer for supplying the Gadgetell crew with Energi To Go battery packs, which allowed us to keep our gadgets charged on the run and focus more on finding good stuff at CES and not having to worry about sitting next to a power outlet. For more information on the Energi To Go battery packs you can visit EnergiToGo.com or visit them on Twitter at @energitogo.
Only a few days ago, the AllThingsDigital team left home freshly pressed, pockets full of cash (or at least as full as journalist’s pockets get these days) and ready to take on the geek horde at CES 2010 in Las Vegas. They had big plans but in the end even a copy of Eric Boyd’s How to Count Cards Like an MIT Freshman could not save them. They did do a heck of a lot of reporting on CES though. At least they could bring back some news, if not new Ferraris from the dealership at the Wynn.
BoomTown is no stranger to Vegas, so Kara got settled in quick and spent day one all over the strip watching presentations and fiddling with gadgets of all sorts. She caught up with Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Steve Ballmer after he rocked his keynote just a little too hard and the power went out. I guess maybe he shouldn’t have turned that tablet prototype all the way up to 11. Kara caught the scoop on Electus’ Ben Silverman and his new deal with Yahoo. It seems the Internet portal has brought him on to “produce content” for its new you-centric efforts. Yahoo (YHOO) is hanging its hopes on Silverman who had success in his early career producing for TV. Kara even got the other side of the deal, catching up with Jimmy Pitaro, who heads Yahoo’s Vertical Audiences Experience, and SVP of North American Revenue Joanne Bradford. Kara hasn’t’ actually made it back to the West Coast yet, so we’ll keep you posted on when she resurfaces. Vegas can be a cruel mistress.
John was a CES coverage juggernaut this week, churning out post after post or indispensable, up to the minute CES nerdery. Early in the festivities, Intel (INTC) opened the door on their newest family of Core processors. With model names like i3 and i5, and with a feature called “Turbo,” you know they have to be good. The real story is that the release of these chips puts Intel a solid year ahead of expected releases from AMD (AMD). Though there were no reported sightings of any iSlates, John did deliver a little nugget from the CES rumor mill about their manufacture. Analysts are expecting the device to have an aluminum chassis when it may or may not be shown to the world at an unconfirmed Apple event Jan. 27th. John was our correspondent in the audience at AllThingsDigital’sMini D event at CES. While there were posts aplenty, it was comments from Palm (PALM) CEO Jon Rubinstein that have been making the rounds on the internet. Everyone was a little surprised when Rubinstein claimed never to have used an iPhone. Weekend Update has used a Pixi and we might just believe him.
Peter was in full effect at CES this week, trolling around CES with his sizable entourage. Ok, maybe the Media Memo groupies aren’t that numerous, but Peter was a reporting rock star none the less. In advance of his on stage interview with Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings, Peter wrote about the deal inked between the rental giant and Warner Bros. that would delay rental of new DVD releases in exchange for more streamable content. In a quick breather from CES news, Peter reported that Google’s (GOOG) Eric Schmidt and some other Technorati are dining with Secretary Clinton at the State Department earlier in the week. No word on which reality TV stars would be crashing that party. Media Memo rounded out the week with a post about Hearst’s effort to save their sinking ship. It turns out when the ship is in trouble, you turn to a Skiff for help. The newspaper giant has reportedly plowed $35 million into the nautically-named e-reader and Peter brought us a sneak peek.
Our very own Mr. and Ms. CES (Walt and Katie) may come home with blisters and a bad case of “qwerty thumb” after handling so many new gadgets this week. The Personal Technology column was all about Google’s Nexus One, the latest super smartphone from everyone’s favorite search giant. Walt’s review was a mixed bag for the Nexus One, which got high marks for advancing the Android platform forward, for forcing the other super smartphone giants to up the ante on their cameras and for some of it’s cool Google-connected features. He wasn’t as upbeat on the menu-driven interface of the phone, and also had qualms about the four hard-wired buttons. The battery life for some features also wasn’t as competitive as it might have been.
Katie spent some pre-CES time investigating the so called mega-zoom digital camera offerings from Nikon, Panasonic and Casio. These in-between cameras aren’t quite as cumbersome as DSLRs, but offer serious zooming capabilities with lots of other pro level features. Katie fell in love with the higher picture quality and flexibility, even if these cameras were a little bulkier than the smartphone she’d been using for her photo needs previously. All in all though, she gave the class of cameras high marks and said they were a great next step for people looking to take their pictures a little further.
Weekend Update has to get going. Its our job to prepare the ibuprofen, cold medicine, ice, bandages, crutches and bail money that may be needed by the staff as they make their way back from CES. Stay tuned through the weekend for a few more tech revelations, and please try not to play your stereo too loud if you’re driving near our Noe Valley HQ this week. Hangovers after a gadget binge are the worst.
MartinSchou writes "At this year's CES it seems that everybody and their cousin are talking about tablets, slates or smartbooks. This year, however, might be the year of Linux — if not on the desktop, then at least on your other computing devices. Amongst this years top contenders are slates running nVidia's Tegra 2 chipset, boasting 10+ hours worth of 1080p playback, with entries from Quanta, Mobinnova, ASUS, MSI and Boxee (though this is a media computer). Notion Ink have brought their Adam slate, complete with a Pixel Qi transreflective, multi-touch capable screen."
PC World - Couldn't get to Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show this year? Not quite getting that on-the-scene feel from video, slide shows and text reports? Take a look through the eyes of Sean Clark, a software engineer from MP3Car who is constantly streaming whatever he sees at the show. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 9 Jan 2010 | 3:25 pm
At the Startup Debut event earlier on at CES, we got to check out this great, and practical, new guitar component called Evertune. It’s a bridge that keeps your guitar tuned at whatever you put it at, but not using freaky electronics. I thought it had to involve microservos and such, but no:
The EverTune bridge feeds your guitar strings into an adaptive spring-tensioner inside the guitar body. As each string or tuner posts loosens, the springs compensate, maintaining exactly the tension you set the first time you tuned the guitar, no matter how hard or how often you play.
Good for those of us who take an hour to tune our guitars because we don’t know what we’re doing at all. I am a little suspicious, however: if it’s such a simple principle and essentially has no downside, can it really have not occurred to anyone yet to create it? I mean, it is self-evident that no one has, but I wonder if there’s a dark side to the product they’re not telling us about.
Their FAQ is pretty comprehensive, though, and assures the reader that there will be no real change in tone and you can bend it like you would any other guitar. They’ve also got better pictures of the guts; I accidentally set my camera to EV-2 so they came out a little dark.
Earlier this week we saw the launch of the Google Nexus One, the second very high profile Android launch in as many months. And, as should be expected, the phone is drawing numerous comparisons to the iPhone — it seems you can’t find a related review, blog post, or tweet that isn’t gauging the device based on how it compares to Apple’s juggernaut. That’s as it should be. But for anyone considering making the jump to Android, you need to keep one thing in mind: many of these early adopters have been using their iPhones non-stop for years. And it takes days, if not weeks, to unlearn your iPhone habits and judge Android on its own merits.
Imagine if you took a longtime Windows user and sat them in front of a Mac for a couple days. They’d probably complain about superficial things like the change in mouse acceleration and the “unintuitive” button placement (the Close button is on the opposite side of the window). It’s not until a week or two after you start using a Mac as your primary computer that you overcome these issues and begin to fully grasp some of the benefits it offers. No, it may not be for you, but there’s really no way you can tell for sure without taking the plunge and using one as your primary computer. It’s the same way with Android.
I know, because I had the same experience when I made the leap from the iPhone to Android a few months ago. When I got my Droid, I was initially very pleased with it: the screen is amazing and the device flies. But as the luster wore off, I began to have my doubts. I couldn’t figure out how to access options that should have been readily visible. Menus weren’t where they should have been. All in all, Android made me feel stupid, because much of what I had learned about using the iPhone — habits that had become nearly instinct — no longer applied.
A week or so later, it clicked. When I want an option that isn’t already visible, I hit the dedicated ‘Menu’ button just beneath the screen. Need to jump to a previous screen in an app or the web browser? Hit the dedicated ‘Back’ button. In some ways, these are actually better than the soft buttons located in iPhone apps, because they’re always in the same place. It also saves some screen real estate. Using them has become totally second nature to me. But they aren’t the reason why I’ve decided I prefer Android over the iPhone.
Which brings me to the things that have turned me into a full-time Android user. Gmail on Android kicks the pants off of the iPhone’s Email client — something that I’m not the only person to notice. As someone who does a lot of Emailing, that makes a huge difference to me. Google Voice integration is fantastic. The ability to run multiple applications at the same time is a breath of fresh air. Those three things were enough to seal the deal.
Had I only used an Android device for a few days, these aforementioned pros may have been overshadowed by the fact that the phone felt so unfamiliar. Or I may have been turned off by one of the things Android gets wrong, like that there’s no way to update multiple applications at the same time and the default music player is remarkably ugly. But when it comes to using the phone in real life on a day-to-day basis, those problems aren’t enough to outweigh the productivity benefits Android offers me.
And, really, that’s my point. Many of these iPhone users who are testing out Android for the first time tend to get hung up on things that feel unfamiliar, or are griping about issues that will only affect them once in a blue moon. No, Android isn’t as pretty as the iPhone, and there are plenty of things it doesn’t do as well as it could. But until you’ve taken the plunge to see what lies beneath its less-polished exterior, you haven’t really seen what it has to offer.
Let’s have a round of applause for Sharp, which could be the only TV manufacturer here that isn’t freaking out over 3D. (Not that it, too, doesn’t have 3D TVs on its roster, but it doesn’t treat them as the be-all, end-all.) Instead, Sharp made the brave decision to try something different, which, you’ll recall, adds yellow to the usual threesome of red, green, and blue pixels.
Now, how successful this end up being, who knows? Cameras still only record using red, blue, and green, and it’s quite a bit harder to explain to people why the addition of the yellow pixel could be more substantial, and “better,” than WOW 3D COOL~!.
Other TV manufacturers? It’s all 3D, all the time. Monkey see, monkey do.
The beauty of 3D is that 1) it’s not new 2) it’s never been effective before 3) it’s riddled with potential problems. The most obvious concerns people who already wear glasses. (Sixty-eight percent of Americans who required vision correction wear glasses, according to some random site that I’m taking as Gospel.) Why would I want to wear a second pair of glasses on top of my regular glasses? It’s not very elegant, now is it? And then each of these TVs will require their own glasses. That means if you own Company A’s TV but your neighbors have a TV from Company B, you won’t be able to wear your glasses while visiting their house.
Never mind that there’s not a whole lot quality 3D content out there. (Not every movie or TV show is directed by James Cameron.) It’s a quick, easy-to-market gimmick that not a single journalist/blogger/person I’ve spoken to here has been impressed by.
So yeah, I just wanted to highlight Sharp’s go-our-own-way attitude. I have no idea if it’ll work out in the end, but it’s worth noting again.
Our buddies over at Phonescoop spotted a handset running a copy of the as-of-yet unreleased Windows Mobile 6.5.3 floating around at CES, and were nice enough to snap some footage for everyone not living in the Las Vegas Convention Center this week. They run through just about everything 6.5.3 has to offer, from the new finger-friendly UI to the brand new, seemingly much improved onscreen keyboard; if Windows Mobile is your thing, be sure to check it out.
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CES always seems shorter than it really is. We’ve been here in Vegas since Tuesday, reporting live on almost everything of any importance, and we’re all goofy and tired. I usually hate CES. It’s a long slog through endless halls and repetitive meetings that go over what has already been gone over. But this year was different.
This year’s CES was strangely subdued yet refreshing. CE companies have stopped the genitalia-waving associated with speeds, sizes, and megapixels and have started producing products with considerably more finesse. The devices we saw were well-designed and featured a number of clever UI tricks that can turn an average iPod dock into a thoughtful device designed for a specific purpose and person.
Manufacturers have figured out that numbers on products don’t sell. Features sell, and I’m talking about top-line features, not the details. Consumers have been bombarded with speeds and feeds for so long that they’re now noise. TV manufacturers, for example, have stopped fighting about screen size and have started focusing on how to convince millions of viewers to switch to a 3D-ready Blu-Ray/TV combo. That’s going to be a tough fight and it won’t behoove them to mention very much about HDMI interoperability and refresh rate. Instead, they are creating compelling reasons to upgrade including on-screen, open widget and streaming systems as well as cool new energy saving techniques.
The products this year are touchy feelie. Say what you want about cynical manufacturers “going green” but there is a focus on design and durability over high tech. Perhaps its a reaction to the economy – there’s no R&D budget – or maybe it’s a reaction to a skittish consumer who doesn’t want throwaway tech. Regardless, I like where this is going.
Thankfully, Razer is finally getting into the console market. In addition to the Onza controller we told you about yesterday, Razer is also launching a wireless gaming headset to use with your Xbox 360.
The Chimaera definitely brings something to the table, it’s wireless of course, and supports full 5.1 sound just like your Xbox. Since this is considered to be a professional level headset, it also will allow you to daisy-chain several headsets together at one time so your entire team at the lan party can maintain communication. MSRP is $129.99, and they will be available worldwide. The one we saw at CES was a mock-up though, so I wouldn’t expect it soon.
From the press release:
Razer Chimaera Professional Gaming Headset for Xbox 360
The Razer Chimaera Professional Gaming Headset for Xbox 360 is designed to provide sharp sound quality that optimizes the gaming experience with crisp, roaring sound from a 5.1 Channel Virtual Surround Sound system. Although the majority of games are encoded with the full 5.1 surround sound, most gaming headsets are only equipped to offer stereo-grade sound, while the Razer Chimaera offers the full range of sound, enhancing the entire Xbox experience. A Daisy-Chain solution allows multiple Razer base stations to be connected to create a direct, private communication channel for in-game team conversations. The circumaural design of the headset allows for optimum noise isolation for long-hours of comfortable gameplay without any outside interruptions.
Razer Chimaera Professional Gaming Headset for Xbox 360
COST: US $129.99; Europe €109.99
Jelli, which launched last year, is a user-controlled online streaming service – sort of a Digg for streaming music, or a group-controlled Pandora. Listeners vote songs up or down to create and alter the playlist.
Today they’re announcing an important business development deal – an actual radio station, Live 105 in San Francisco, will be using Jelli to set their playlists every weekday. Starting this Monday, every weekday from 8 pm to midnight, Jelli takes over.
Users don’t just vote songs up and down. They also get a limited number of Rockets and Bombs to move music more definitively up and down the list. And the chat area gets lively.
Bad news for those radio DJs.
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Earthquakes and Twitter go way back. One of the first true signs of the service’s power was when an earthquake would happen somewhere in the world and people in those areas would jump on Twitter to talk about it in real time. So it makes sense that someone would set up an account simply to auto-tweet when quakes happen.
David Shamma has created the @sfusgs account to automatically tweet with USGS data when a new earthquake hits in the Bay Area. More interestingly, the tweets take advantage of Twitter’s new geolocation API, so if you’re using a third-party app that supports location, you can see the quakes on a map. Each tweet also includes the time of the quake, the depth at which it took place, how far it was from San Francisco, and a link back to the USGS site with more info.
As you’re probably aware, the San Francisco Bay Area is a pretty active place for earthquakes, so an account like this is useful. For example, the latest tweet was from just this morning, when a minor 2.5 magnitude quake hit the area following a larger one a couple days ago. Any quake over this 2.5 magnitude threshold gets tweeted out, according to Shamma.
There have been other accounts set up to do similar things in the past, for example, @sfquake, but that account has been dormant for over 2 years. Plus, that included none of the geolocation tweet data, which is useful.
And while the @sfusgs account may be taking data from the USGS and putting it in its own Twitter stream, the USGS itself is actually going the other way. The service noted yesterday that it would begin leveraging Twitter data to help with its reports. From their release:
In this exploratory effort, the USGS is developing a system that gathers real-time, earthquake-related messages from the social networking site Twitter and applies place, time, and key word filtering to gather geo-located accounts of shaking. This approach provides rapid first-impression narratives and, potentially, photos from people at the hazard’s location. The potential for earthquake detection in populated but sparsely seismicly-instrumented regions is also being investigated.
Twitter and earthquakes; the love affair continues.
I know you must be thinking about now “why does Intel need to get into the ebook reader market?” Don’t worry, what you’re seeing isn’t an ebook reader at all. The Intel Reader is actually a device that’s supposed to make it easier to read. It achieves this by taking a picture of any text, and reading it back to the user. See, not an ebook reader. The idea behind the Intel Reader is to help out those who can’t read: the blind, dyslexic, and others who would benefit from listening to text rather than struggling to read it. There is a stand that comes with the device so users can hold open a book to have it scanned more easily than holding the device and the open book at the same time.
A special thanks goes out to Energizer for supplying the Gadgetell crew with Energi To Go battery packs, which allowed us to keep our gadgets charged on the run and focus more on finding good stuff at CES and not having to worry about sitting next to a power outlet. For more information on the Energi To Go battery packs you can visit EnergiToGo.com or visit them on Twitter at @energitogo.
alphadogg writes "The group developing a standard for wireless charging expects to complete its first specification within six months, opening the door for makers of cell phones, digital cameras and other devices to bring compatible products to market. Wireless charging lets consumers place gadgets on a mat that plugs into a wall outlet, and have the devices recharge automatically without needing to plug in each one. Apart from the gee-whiz factor, it's supposed to make life more convenient by letting people walk into their home or office, toss their gadgets onto a mat to recharge and forget about them."
It’s still not ready for its “official” launch, but Firefox Mobile just took one big ol’ step closer to the big day with the launch of Release Candidate 2. As with the past few releases, this one’s only available for Maemo device. Don’t got Nokia’s latest greatest tablet? Don’t sweat it — you can still play with it by way of emulation.
We didn’t expect too much more to be packed into this release, but we were pleasantly surprised. They’ve bumped the rendering engine up to Gecko 1.9.2, which just so happens to be the same engine that will power the upcoming release of full-blown Firefox 3.6. Perhaps most important for those waiting to dabble, they’ve also fixed a pretty nasty bug that kept things from running smoothly on the Nokia N900.
If you’ve got a Maemo-powered tablet, you can download the release at https://www.mozilla.com/en-US/m/. Stuck without a tablet to tap at? You can also find it for Windows here, Mac OS X here, and good ol’ Linux here.
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Why do nightclub bouncers think they’re above the law? I attended a Divx party at some place called Moon at the Palms Hotel in Las Vegas for CES. (Divx actually has some neat stuff on the way, but that’s a matter for another day.) Like always, I had my camera, a Canon DSLR, hanging around my neck. This, having a camera, wasn’t an issue at the Divx party, which ended at 11:00pm, but it most certainly became an issue a few hours later. Photographers take note!
Following the Divx party, which was 100 percent okie dokie, another one started up. People were welcome to stay at Moon just that it was no longer a Divx event. I think the new party had something to do with the Adult Video Awards or whatever. With this new party, apparently, came new rules, rules that were not made clear to attendees who had stayed over from Divx. The rule that got me in hot water: no cameras allowed.
So I’m walking around the venue and decide to take some photos of these young ladies who were dancing. Harmless, so I thought. I take my photo and a rather large bouncer, comparable in size and statue to Chief from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, RIPS THE CAMERA RIGHT OUT OF MY HANDS. I think my initial reaction was, “umm… what did I do?” The bouncer says something like, “There’s no fucking cameras allowed in here. Come the fuck with me.” Really aggressive language for no real reason. So he leads me (well, orders me to follow him) to the back of the venue where another big guy orders me to show him the photos I took. Not knowing any better, and really not trying to make a scene—it’s pretty damn scary to have two guys significantly larger than you bullying you around, so cooperation is the name of the game—I show him the photos. I tell them things like, “Nobody told me cameras weren’t allowed. If someone had told me of course I would have put it in my bag.” Of course, that’s greeted with, “Shut the fuck up and just stand against the fucking wall.” Someone else enters the scene and takes my drivers license. Needless to say I’m freaking out internally. I’m not exactly in the business of purposely trying to stir up trouble.
Some time goes by, like around 10 to 15 minutes of me just standing against the wall trying to explain to these people that there were no signs posted, no announcements made or whatever that cameras weren’t allowed anymore. At the end of this ordeal I’m asked to leave the venue and was escorted outside. Again, everything was super aggressive on their end, when all I’m trying to do is figure out what was going on.
My questions: are bouncers allowed to violently snatch a camera out of your hands while using all sorts of threatening language? Are bouncers allowed to demand to see all the photos that are stored on a memory card? I’m guessing not, but you try articulating that to a bunch of huge men who are in the business of scaring the shit out of you for no particular reason. As far as I know, the bouncers absolutely can ask you to put the camera away or, if they deem fit, ask you to leave. (At which point, I still believe you can refuse to leave, but then you’d be trespassing and the police would be called. Clearly I have no interest in getting the police involved, or getting punched in the face by some huge guy.)
Needless to say, I shan’t be going to Moon or the Palms again. (Who knows, maybe I’m now on some sort of “do not allow” list.) Let my mistake be a lesson for y’all.
Men have often dreamed it, but it hasn’t become a reality until today: the sex robot. The technology was developed by Douglas Hines of True Companion, an electrical engineer and computer scientist who formerly worked in the artificial intelligence lab at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Roxxxy, the sexy bot, is a completely anatomically correct and customizable companion (from features to hair color) that exhibits different personalities and responds to touch.
Depending on your mood, you can assign the robot different personalities such as Frigid Farrah or Mature Martha, who will respond differently based on the personality you choose. For example, if you hold Mature Martha’s hand, she may say “I love holding hands,” whereas if you touch Frigid Farrah she may say “What are you going to do with that hand?”
The coolest part about the robot is that you can build your own custom personality based on your preference or tweak an existing personality. Once you develop a personality you really like, members can share it with friends on True Companion’s website. The website sync also makes the robot compatible for updates and new features or sexy quirks such as a robot that responds to a S&M safety word. More like a social networking site, True Companion’s site will have a monthly fee.
The 2 1/2 year project was estimated to cost around 1 million dollars and the robot itself will cost from $7,000 to $9,000 depending on the level of customization you choose. New robots are in the works that will build upon this internal computing model and incorporate more movement. The male version, Rocky, available as a gay robot or a heterosexual robot is currently being developed.
True Companion claims that the robot isn’t solely used for sex but is rather a life partner or mate for those who can’t find or don’t want the real thing. According to True Companion’s Web site, she “can carry on a discussion and expresses her love to you and be your loving friend. She can talk to you, listen to you and feel your touch.” Well, Roxxxy certainly won’t make you put the seat down.
Lingo, the maker of talking and multi-lanaguage translators, have debuted more then 15 different translators at CES. The units announced ranging from models with six languages, all the way to 52 languages — prices range from $19.95 to $299.
Lingo has versions of it’s translator for students well, the WorldMate 6 goes for $19.95, and includes 30,000 words, and 720 phrases in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. It also has one touch language icons featuring the country flags, which allow users to switch easily between languages.
WorldMate 6 also offers a QWERTY style keyboard, which also displays local time, the date, a currency converter, a calculator and Learn & Save.
There are multiple versions that you can find on Lingo’s site.
Wired.com dons Bluetooth headsets that sport designs inspired by movies like 'Star Trek' and 'Cheech and Chong: Up in Smoke.' Some models have slightly less pop-culture relevance -- like a dog licking its own genitals.
Wired.com dons Bluetooth headsets that sport designs inspired by movies like 'Star Trek' and 'Cheech and Chong: Up in Smoke.' Some models have slightly less pop-culture relevance -- like a dog licking its own genitals.
Wired.com tries two new headphones from Beats by Dr. Dre. Heartbeats, designed from sketches by Lady Gaga, can plug into your cellphone (answer calls if you want to interrupt your music). We also like the price of the lightweight Solo model.
Wired.com tries two new headphones from Beats by Dr. Dre. Heartbeats, designed from sketches by Lady Gaga, can plug into your cellphone (answer calls if you want to interrupt your music). We also like the price of the lightweight Solo model.
Wired.com uses Plastic Logic's Que, a touchscreen e-reader that's optimized for newspapers, magazines and blogs, but grabs books or websites too. It promises more features than many other e-readers on the market.
Wired.com uses Plastic Logic's Que, a touchscreen e-reader that's optimized for newspapers, magazines and blogs, but grabs books or websites too. It promises more features than many other e-readers on the market.
Wired.com checks out the Liquid Image dive mask with LED flashlights that illuminate the depths for an HD camera. It records 720p HD video and 5-MP stills, a microSD card holds up to 900 minutes of footage and the rig can go more than 40 meters down.
Wired.com checks out the Liquid Image dive mask with LED flashlights that illuminate the depths for an HD camera. It records 720p HD video and 5-MP stills, a microSD card holds up to 900 minutes of footage and the rig can go more than 40 meters down.
Check out this great trailer for the upcoming film on the glass pipe art movement. Filmmaker M. Slinger looks at the movement's roots, the political problems the artists face, and some remarkable examples of the form.
Wired.com plays with the RCX4 Star Striker remote-control plane. Resembling a miniature Jedi Starfighter, this RC plane has four motors, weighs 6 ounces and uses a 3.7-volt battery.
Wired.com plays with the RCX4 Star Striker remote-control plane. Resembling a miniature Jedi Starfighter, this RC plane has four motors, weighs 6 ounces and uses a 3.7-volt battery.
China was never going to accept outside reviews in Copenhagen of its efforts to slow greenhouse gas emissions, a top official said Saturday, after critics accused Beijing of blocking the... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 11:41 am
E-commerce has become a vast ecosystem that pumps billions upon billions of dollars through the web and easily connects consumers what their objects of desire at a single click. On the backend of e-commerce sites, there is plenty of opportunity for tech giants and startups to help power retailers’ online storefronts. Google,IBM, Microsoft and many others offer various technologies to help online retailers seamlessly sell their products on the web. One notable startup in the space, Shopify, which provides a turnkey e-commerce technology that lets anyone create a storefront online, has acquiredMNDCreative, the developers of StoreSync, a mobile e-commerce management platform. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Unsurprisingly, Shopify’s acquisition of StoreSync aims to help expand its existing offerings onto mobile devices. StoreSync will be available exclusively to Shopfiy customers, and will be integrated tightly with its web platform.
StoreSync mobile application lets users tap into online store sales statistics, order processing, shipment status and product and customer information from an iPhone. Shopify’s web-based platform allows anyone to set up a store in moments, add items to sell, upload images, add tags and group items, and integrate PayPal or other credit card processor for payments. Storefronts and shopping carts can be customized and the platform assures security for all transactions. The startup has a staggered price range for various offerings starting at $24 per month.
The acquisition makes sense for Shopify; retailers will need to have mobile access to their e-commerce information and StoreSync provides this technology in a simple and efficient way. However, it will be interesting if the company will soon roll out functionality for the Android.
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We saw MagicJack’s femtocell design live in their suite and came away dazzled and slightly bemused. The device itself is far from finished – it’s basically just a PCB right now – but the concept is compelling. For about the price of the MagicJack ($40 or whatever) you stream your cellphone calls through their device, bypassing the cell carriers completely. Will it work? Sure. It’s essentially like a cell booster in a package about as big as a deck of cards.
As far as I can tell carriers have little to say regarding the technology. You obviously don’t get data streaming over these devices but you do get voice. Watch the video for a bit more detail.
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There has been quite a bit of talk about Hearst's Skiff ereader and we got a hands-on last night before the show closed. The device is about as big as a Kindle DX (11.5-inch display and a very thin bezel) but quite thin (.25-inches). They use a metal board spun-coated with e-ink instead of a glass sheet for the screen, which will definitely prevent the heartbreak of shattered ereaders for the next generation of readers. It uses Sprint’s 3G network.
However, I doubt seriously you or I will ever add a Skiff device to our arsenals this year or any year. Here's why.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Internet search engine Google Inc is becoming a "giant monopoly" like Microsoft and could face legal action if it does not become more transparent, Germany's justice... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 10:33 am
In my recent post on how stealth mode is a bad idea, I advised entrepreneurs to come out of their shells. To build marketable products, you need feedback from customers, potential investors/partners and business advisers. And the veil of secrecy which comes with being in stealth mode blocks this feedback. But there is a flip-side that I want to make entrepreneurs more aware of: It is a tough world out there and some big and small competitors will deliberately or accidentally steal your ideas. A few of these players are predators much like the beasts of Pandora. So there needs to be a balance. You need to air your ideas, but use every available mechanism to protect yourself. When you do come under attack, run as fast as you can or fight like hell.
I’m going to explain all this through three examples. But first, I’ll cover the basics about patents.
A patent gives the holder the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling their invention. So the idea becomes like a piece of land, and patenting the idea before someone else does is like buying that land. Patents can be valuable when done right, but most are not. The vast majority of the patents out there are worth less than the paper they are printed on because they are obscure inventions with little real world relevance or they are filed in a way that they do not provide any protection. I’ve written about this for BusinessWeek and you can read some more tips on patenting here.
The problem is that even when you have a good patent, it can be very costly to enforce. Take the case of Amit Jaipuria, founder of GizaPage, which is based in Bangalore, India. Amit believes he owns the second patent in the world in the social networking space (the first being the “six degrees” Weinreich patent which was bought by LinkedIn in 2002-03). In early 2000 (well before Friendster, Myspace, Facebook and Twitter came into existence), he had an idea for creating an online social network for professional networking. He filed a provisional patent in India and then started the process for filing in the U.S on July 11, 2001. Five years and three “non-final rejections” by the US Patent Office (USPTO) later, Amit was granted Patent 7047202 in May 2006 titled “Method and apparatus for optimizing networking potential using a secured system for an online community”.
By this time, the social networking space had evolved and Amit was convinced he was sitting on a goldmine. So, Amit headed to Silicon Valley with the patent and a PowerPoint presentation to raise funding for a play in the social networking space. His hope was to raise venture capital based on the intellectual property (IP) he owned. However, since the patent had not been licensed by anyone, the VCs didn’t bite. And he couldn’t get any law firm to take his case on full contingency (they wanted him to share part of their costs – and he couldn’t afford this). He decided to auction the patent through OceanTomo (which specializes in selling IP). Unfortunately, he put in a reserve for $3 million for it and the bidding stopped at around $2.5 million. Since the patent did not reach the reserve, it did not sell that day. However immediately after that, Amit was contacted by all the major social networks. One of them even offered a hybrid arrangement with a cash and stock sale. During these negotiations, someone anonymously challenged the patent with a claim of prior art. This claim asserted that evidence existed showing a similar patent or IP pre-dated Amit’s patent. The challenge muddied the waters and all the social networks walked away from the deal.
After subsequent reexaminations Amit got a final decision on his patent in early 2009. The USPTO narrowed Amit’s claims due to the evidence of prior art cited in the appeal. But other claims related to key social networking features were granted as part of the narrowed patent. Amit feels these features are unique to the industry and can cover key potential areas for feature expansion. The patent is valid until 2020 and Amit is happy he has his patent. With limited resources and a focus on building his new venture, Amit hopes that he will be able to monetize his patent sometime in the future.
The moral of Amit’s story is simple. Even if you have a patent, you probably will have trouble defending it because large entities can outgun you in court and risk-averse lawyers are generally unwilling to take dicey cases for small clients on a contingency basis. In other words, a patent is really nice on your wall but it may not give you magical powers to negotiate deals with tech titans.
There are many other cases where an entrepreneur thinks they are first with a great idea but don’t really have anything a patent can defend. Such is the case with Kent Fuselier, an indie record label owner and entrepreneur who sought to launch a reality TV programming business that relied on a Facebook fan group to generate content and vote on ideas and winners and losers. He called his business “The Texas Producer”. Kent sent out promo packets and several days later Simon Fuller, a co-creator of the TV blockbuster “American Idol” announced he was launching a similar program. Kent was beside himself and worried that this new entry with a huge backer would steal his thunder.
So Kent emailed me to ask for advice on how he can defend his IP. I am answering him here. Simply, you can’t defend that kind of IP and you need to run like hell to stay ahead of Simon Fuller and his crew if you hope to make your business work. Getting a patent on a piece of technology is hard enough but convincing a court of law that a television show concept is some form of IP is nearly impossible. Why? Because prior art of some sort is everywhere. Somewhere, someone probably discussed or nearly launched a similar concept.
Which leads me to the second part of my advice. Namely, a small company that wants to go toe-to-toe with a Goliath and win should rely on its speed and nimbleness. For Simon Fuller to get his program launched and running, it will likely take months of work and meeting after meeting after meeting. Kent can launch his program as fast as he wants to. Major networks are impossible to crack for new shows even for experienced producers, let alone those with no major national television credits. But perhaps Kent can garner a large enough Web audience that can turn his program into a viable business in its own right or even into a program that the major national content producers find appealing. So run, Kent, run and don’t look back at any IP violations, real or perceived.
In the rare instance when an entrepreneur has a very clear case and has a decent amount of resources to start a legal battle against a Goliath, the message to all the entrepreneurial David’s in the world is this. Forget about standard hand-to-hand combat or even hopes of niceties and use that slingshot right from the get go. If you are going to sue a big company, make sure they know it and you can bring it in a way that causes them real pain. Line up a crackerjack attorney. Make it clear you are in this game for the duration, even if it means selling your pet hamster and mortgaging your house. Big companies like picking on easy targets but once a corporate lawyer gets a whiff of a real fight in a case where they are likely to lose, the big corporate lawyer as often as not does the math and realizes settling on your terms might not be such a bad thing.
Three years back I wrote about Kivin Varghese, founder of BrandPort, in a BusinessWeek article on the perils of partnering. Kivin had a brilliant idea. He would pay people to watch advertisements on their handsets or on their television. His unique twist on the pay-to-view model got the attention of big name TV advertisers like Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola, and L’Oréal. Kivin also managed to get in the door to talk to Virgin Mobile USA, a huge potential partner.
The bigwigs at Virgin told Kivin they loved his idea and asked to see his technology and model in detail. They wanted to partner together to build a service that would give their mobile users free minutes for watching ads through the BrandPort process. His negotiations were going well until he woke up one day to read in the New York Times that Virgin Mobile had launched a new product called Sugar Mama – which was exactly like his product. When Kivin protested, they essentially told him to “buzz off”. That morning, Kivin called me to ask for advice. He explained “I had a good non-disclosure agreement, we marked things confidential, had pending patents. I did everything right. A startup that relies on deals with partners as a core part of their business model (like mine) has no choice but to reveal everything about the innovation in order to convince them it’ll be a big revenue boost for them. If I held anything back, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the deal.”
My advice was to fight for what was right and show no mercy. And that is what he did. Reluctantly.
After over a year of litigation and probably spending millions of dollars, Virgin settled the dispute. Kivin won his case and got them to license his technology so there were limits on what they could do with it. But my guess is that Kivin failed to reap any significant income. The settlement likely covered his attorneys fees but not much more. (Kivin is under non-disclosure and won’t comment. This is what I have inferred from our discussions before he signed the agreement and settled the case).
Kivin would talk about his experience, however. What does he regret? He was too soft early on, and it wasn’t until the last bit of the case that he was able to bring on a strong litigation team. His thoughts on what he learned: If you are going to fight back, fight back hard and right from the start. If you want to fight back, get an attack dog attorney with big IP litigation chops, don’t go cheap. Be prepared to pay them big bucks for your case because good lawyers are expensive but worth it. And be prepared to risk everything. And I’ll add one more – competitors know that he is no pushover and will think twice before doing this again.
So, to summarize, you need to be cautious in your dealings with the world. Don’t mindlessly “bear all”. You should file patents, but these patents provide less protection than you might think. Even if you have a great patent, you will need to fight hard to defend it and will need a good lawyer. In some spaces, you simply can’t get patents even for great, original ideas. Your only recourse is to be faster and better than newer, bigger competitors. Finally, if you do feel you’ve been ripped off, then pull no punches and go for blood.
Editor’s note: Guest writer Vivek Wadhwa is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University. Follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwa.
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LAS VEGAS, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- At the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) today, Xilinx, Inc. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2010 | 10:00 am
To be honest, I don't really care which is the better smartphone (or super-duper phone): the iPhone 3GS, the Motorola Droid, HTC's Droid Eris, Google's Nexus One, Nokia's N900 or the Palm Pre.
It's just great to witness this seemingly never-ending advancements in mobile technology, both on a hardware and software level, and to see increased competition drive innovation at such rapid pace. Just compare the market today to five years ago, and you can't help but be amazed by how far we've come - I still remember my epic struggles to get my previous phone (HTC S710 with Windows Mobile) to do half of what I really wanted it to.
In short: if all phone manufacturers keep on pumping out better phones, I'm a happy camper (for the record: I'm still very pleased with my iPhone 3GS as my primary device).
But comparisons will be comparisons, and MOTO Development Group this morning announced the results of its DIY touchscreen analysis, based on some touchy testing of the capacitive screens of the Nexus One, the iPhone, the Motorola Droid and HTC's Droid Eris.
It’s just great to witness this seemingly never-ending advancements in mobile technology, both on a hardware and software level, and to see increased competition drive innovation at such rapid pace. Just compare the market today to five years ago, and you can’t help but be amazed by how far we’ve come – I still remember my epic struggles to get my previous phone (HTC S710 with Windows Mobile) to do half of what I really wanted it to.
In short: if all phone manufacturers keep on pumping out better phones, I’m a happy camper (for the record: I’m still very pleased with my iPhone 3GS as my primary device).
But comparisons will be comparisons, and MOTO Development Group this morning announced the results of its DIY touchscreen analysis, based on some touchy testing of the capacitive screens of the Nexus One, the iPhone, the Motorola Droid and HTC’s Droid Eris.
MOTO has a lot of experience developing products that use capacitive touch, and its team members have put their fingers on a good number of smartphones over the past few years. After using DIY techniques to test touchscreen performance (see video below) in combination with more sophisticated testing tools, MOTO has concluded that not all touch-screens are created equal. And that the iPhone’s screen performs slightly better than that of its rivals.
Below is a visualization of the test results, based on MOTO’s drawing of straight diagonal lines across the screen using both light and medium pressure of the fingers. And in its own words why the iPhone has a slight edge over the Nexus One, Droid and Droid Eris:
The iPhone’s touch sensor showed the most linear tracking with the least amount of stair-stepping. The Droid Eris and Nexus One tied for second with only faint wiggling – but actually performed best at the edge of the screen. Last in the line-up was the Motorola Droid, which demonstrated significant wavy artifacts or “stair-stepping.”
Are you happy with your smartphone’s touchscreen performance?
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Geolocation technology reveals worsening North Sea conditions could be increasing Atlantic puffin mortalityA recent increase in winter mortality in Atlantic puffins could be due to worsening conditions within the North Sea, according to new findings published in the scientific journal Marine Biology. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:50 am
A three-judge federal appeals court panel questioned on Friday whether the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the authority to impose "net neutrality" requirements on Comcast Corp., the nation’s largest cable TV and broadband Internet provider.The hearing involved a legal dispute between the FCC and Comcast over the agency’s push to draft rules that would require Internet providers to give equal treatment to all data transmitted across their networks. The FCC’s rules aim to prevent Internet providers from exploiting their control of the market for high-speed Internet access. The panel is expected to issue a final ruling this spring. If it rules against the FCC, it could potentially undermine the agency’s ability to impose such rules on any broadband companies.Friday's oral arguments focused on Comcast's challenge of a 2008 FCC order prohibiting the cable operator from blocking its broadband subscribers from using the online file-sharing technology BitTorrent. Republican Kevin Martin, the FCC chairman at the time, based the agency’s order on a set of net-neutrality principles the agency adopted in 2005 that sought to prevent broadband providers from favoring or discriminating against certain types of Internet traffic. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:32 am
The Japanese have come up with an electric bicycle to give riders an almost effortless ride, while being environmentally friendly. Electric bicycle giant Sanyo believes that people in the U.S. would greatly benefit from the bike, even if they are used to just driving cars. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2010 | 6:20 am
BUCHAREST, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Thousands of Romanians queued outside a Bucharest hospital to take anti-flu shots on Saturday, spurred into action by the death of a television actor. Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 5:53 am
LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) - British gaming group Gala Coral, laden with debts of 2.5 billion pounds, has asked for three waivers from senior debt holders including a request to delay publishing its annual... Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 9 Jan 2010 | 5:41 am
Google continues to broaden it business focus, now seeking permission to buy and resell electricity.The search company has created a subsidiary called Google Energy and has applied to become an electricity marketer from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 9 Jan 2010 | 5:00 am
Men have often dreamed it, but it hasn’t become a reality until today: the sex robot. The technology was developed by Douglas Hines of True Companion, an electrical engineer and computer scientist who formerly worked in the artificial intelligence lab at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Roxxxy, the sexy bot, is a completely anatomically correct and customizable companion (from features to hair color) that exhibits different personalities and responds to touch.
There has been quite a bit of talk about Hearst's Skiff ereader and we got a hands-on last night before the show closed. The device is about as big as a Kindle DX (11.5-inch display and a very thin bezel) but quite thin (.25-inches). They use a metal board spun-coated with e-ink instead of a glass sheet for the screen, which will definitely prevent the heartbreak of shattered ereaders for the next generation of readers. It uses Sprint’s 3G network.
However, I doubt seriously you or I will ever add a Skiff device to our arsenals this year or any year. Here's why.
In my recent post on how stealth mode is a bad idea, I advised entrepreneurs to come out of their shells. To build marketable products, you need feedback from customers, potential investors/partners and business advisers. And the veil of secrecy which comes with being in stealth mode blocks this feedback. But there is a flip-side that I want to make entrepreneurs more aware of: It is a tough world out there and some big and small competitors will deliberately or accidentally steal your ideas. A few of these players are predators much like the beasts of Pandora. So there needs to be a balance. You need to air your ideas, but use every available mechanism to protect yourself. When you do come under attack, run as fast as you can or fight like hell.
There are many other cases where an entrepreneur thinks they are first with a great idea but don’t really have anything a patent can defend. Such is the case with Kent Fuselier, an indie record label owner and entrepreneur who sought to launch a reality TV programming business that relied on a Facebook fan group to generate content and vote on ideas and winners and losers. He called his business “The Texas Producer”. Kent sent out promo packets and several days later Simon Fuller, a co-creator of the TV blockbuster “American Idol” announced he was launching a similar program. Kent was beside himself and worried that this new entry with a huge backer would steal his thunder.
In the rare instance when an entrepreneur has a very clear case and has a decent amount of resources to start a legal battle against a Goliath, the message to all the entrepreneurial David’s in the world is this. Forget about standard hand-to-hand combat or even hopes of niceties and use that slingshot right from the get go. If you are going to sue a big company, make sure they know it and you can bring it in a way that causes them real pain. Line up a crackerjack attorney. Make it clear you are in this game for the duration, even if it means selling your pet hamster and mortgaging your house. Big companies like picking on easy targets but once a corporate lawyer gets a whiff of a real fight in a case where they are likely to lose, the big corporate lawyer as often as not does the math and realizes settling on your terms might not be such a bad thing.
To be honest, I don't really care which is the better smartphone (or super-duper phone): the iPhone 3GS, the Motorola Droid, HTC's Droid Eris, Google's Nexus One, Nokia's N900 or the Palm Pre.
It's just great to witness this seemingly never-ending advancements in mobile technology, both on a hardware and software level, and to see increased competition drive innovation at such rapid pace. Just compare the market today to five years ago, and you can't help but be amazed by how far we've come - I still remember my epic struggles to get my previous phone (HTC S710 with Windows Mobile) to do half of what I really wanted it to.
In short: if all phone manufacturers keep on pumping out better phones, I'm a happy camper (for the record: I'm still very pleased with my iPhone 3GS as my primary device).
But comparisons will be comparisons, and MOTO Development Group this morning announced the results of its DIY touchscreen analysis, based on some touchy testing of the capacitive screens of the Nexus One, the iPhone, the Motorola Droid and HTC's Droid Eris.
While CES is lots of running around, and lots of working, it is hard not to have fun while attending. One of the most exciting parts, at least for the geek in me is that I can check out all of these products that I may not have a chance to see otherwise. 
The third annual Crunchies Awards last night were a 
Good for those of us who take an hour to tune our guitars because we don’t know what we’re doing at all. I am a little suspicious, however: if it’s such a simple principle and essentially has no downside, can it really have not occurred to anyone yet to create it? I mean, it is self-evident that no one has, but I wonder if there’s a dark side to the product they’re not telling us about.
Earlier this week we saw the launch of the Google 
Thankfully, Razer is finally getting into the console market. In addition to the 
Earthquakes and Twitter go way back. One of the first true 
![Screen shot 2010-01-09 at [ January 9 ] 12.34.16 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-09-at-January-9-12.34.16-PM-630x376.png "Screen shot 2010-01-09 at [ January 9 ] 12.34.16 PM")
