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Secret copyright treaty debated in DC: must-see videoThe drive to ram through the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is ramping up, with the next meeting set for the end of this month in Mexico. ACTA is an unprecedented copyright treaty (unprecedented in that it reaches farther than previous copyright treaties, and that it is being negotiated behind closed doors, without any public input or oversight) that will force copyright policing duties on Internet companies (vastly increasing the cost of hosting "user-generated content"); create new penalties for infringement (including Draconian penalties such as disconnection from the Internet on accusations of infringement); and require countries to search hard-drives, personal media players, and other personal data at their borders. Last month, Google's DC office hosted a public debate on ACTA, with Steven J. Metalitz, a lawyer and lobbyist representing the International Intellectual Property Alliance; Jamie Love, an activist with Knowledge Ecology International; Jonathan Band, a lawyer representing a coalition of library groups and a variety of tech and Internet companies and Ryan Clough from Silicon Valley Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's office; moderated by Washington Post consumer technology columnist Rob Pegoraro. The video runs to 90 minutes. I don't get a lot of 90-minute chunks of time in my life, but I made time for this. It was one of the most spirited -- even heated -- debates I've heard on the subject, and it got into substantive questions of law, jurisdiction, economics and ethics. It was especially interesting to hear Metalitz, the main mouthpiece for the private corporate interests behind this proposal, attempt to defend both the proposal and the secrecy behind it. Two recurring points that Metalitz raised were that the secrecy in the treaty was a requirement of foreign negotiating partners, and the US's hands were tied; and that the treaty wouldn't require any of the "advanced" nations to change their law (he repeated the oft-heard unfounded slur that Canada is a rogue nation when it comes to copyright law). Both of these points are simply wrong. The country demanding that ACTA be kept secret is the good old US of A, whose strategy for this is being driven by former entertainment industry lawyers who have found new homes as senior officials in the Obama government (the Democrats are terrible on copyright, sadly -- we can thank Bill Clinton for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act). These lawyers are Metalitz's old pals, his colleagues in the decades he's spent winning special privileges and public subsidy for his rich clients. Even more ridiculous is the claim that ACTA won't require any changes to law (if that was true, why bother with it?). As the EU's Commissioner-designate for the Internal Market stated, ACTA will trump the democratic law made by elected governments, requiring changes that are created in smoke-filled rooms that only corporate bigwigs get access to. ACTA is a profoundly undemocratic undertaking, as is amply demonstrated in the debate in this video. K-street lobbyists, corporate execs, and other movers and shakers know everything that's going on in the ACTA negotiations, but the public is frozen out of the debate. And as Jamie Love points out, public access to other copyright negotiations -- such as those at WIPO -- have fundamentally changed their directions, because the public doesn't want expensive gags and handcuffs put on the Internet in order to bolster the entertainment industry's profits. Watch this video. It may be the most productive 90 minutes you spend today.
Google D.C. Talk: ACTA - The Global Treaty That Could Reshape The Internet (via Michael Geist)
Previously:
 Source: Boing Boing | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:25 am Kodak sues Apple, RIM over patent infringements - Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:05 am Google search engine's future in China is unclear (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:01 am Thanko’s Spy Button Camera gets an upgrade
Tokyo-based USB gadget maker Thanko gave us a video camera button last July, which was basically a mini camera for your shirt or jacket that could be used for secretly recording video. And today the company started selling the second version [JP] of the Spy Button Camera whose main new feature is the sound recording function. So now you have a device that shoots video (AVIs in 720 x 480 and at 30fps) and JPEGs (in 1,280 x 1,024), but which also lets you store sounds. The Spy Button Camera weighs 20g and is powered by a lithium-ion battery that lets you shoot up to 70 minutes of video. As the device has no internal memory, you’ll need to get a microSD card for it (cards holding up to 16GB are supported).
All the material you recorded can be transferred to your PC via USB, but only Windows XP/Vista and 7 machines are supported. The new camera doesn’t have a remote control anymore, meaning you have to push a button on the device itself to start the recording (see picture above).
Thanko already started selling the Spy Button Camera on their Japanese website (price: $55 including six buttons). If you live outside Japan, you can ask import/export specialist Geek Stuff 4 U if they can get one for you.
Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am Nexus One Upgrade Price Slashed - Techtree.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:00 am Google satellite images highlight devastation in Haiti - The Money Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:58 am Airport Access IDs Hacked In Germanyteqo writes "Hackers belonging to the Chaos Computer Club have allegedly cloned digital security ID cards for some German airports successfully which then allowed them access to all airport areas. According to the Spiegel Online article (transgoogleation here), they used a 200 Euro RFID reader to scan a valid security ID card, and since the scanner was able to pretend to be that card, used it to forge that valid ID. Even the airport authorities say that the involved system from 1992 might be outdated, but I guess it might be deployed elsewhere anyways."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:50 am Twitter's Answer To Facebook ConnectTwitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed. In a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:47 am Twitter’s Answer To Facebook Connect
Facebook Connect was first announced in May 2008 (Google and MySpace announced similar projects at the same time). Facebook Connect became generally available later in 2008, and it hasn’t looked back since. Today, Facebook says 80,000 websites have added Facebook Connect, and 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook connect on these third party websites each month. For many sites, like our own CrunchBase, it’s the only way to create an account and log in. Facebook Connect is attractive to a lot of smaller sites simply because it’s so easy to implement. They’ve created a number of widgets that bring Facebook features directly to third party sites, and integration is easy. You can find some of these here on TechCrunch. Last year Twitter released simply buttons to let users on third party sites sign in to Twitter and identify themselves (we use it in our commenting system). The new Twitter product will allow sites to authenticate users, pull data and then publish back to Twitter, we’ve heard. All of these features exist today via the Twitter API, but the slick Facebook Connect-like packaging and easy-to-use widgets don’t exist yet. Twitter is also taking an open, standards based approach. They use OAuth, for example, for authentication and data sharing. Facebook uses proprietary protocols for Facebook Connect. We’ll update as we hear more. But our understanding is that Twitter has been working with a handful of publishers and will likely announce the new product shortly. Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Source: Gizmodo | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:47 am Mystery Behind Solar System's Giant Ribbon Solved?A comparison between the observation of the IBEX "ribbon" (left) and a Heerikhuisen et al. simulation of what the ribbon should look like considering an interstellar magnetic field (right). Credit: NASA/IBEX/Heerikhuisen et al. Last year, NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:39 am China says ways to resolve Google issue, U.S. cautious (Reuters)Reuters - China sought on Friday to play down a threat by Google Inc to quit the country on hacking and censorship concerns, saying any decision by the Internet search giant would not affect U.S. trade ties.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:34 am Viral Video: The Long NBC Late-Night Nightmare Continues! (Well, for NBC, Not for Us!) [BoomTown]
Oh, it goes from bad to worse and to much, much funnier. Here are a few new online videos about NBC’s best drama in years: The wrestling over its late-night lineup. It looks like “The Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien is likely to be gone soon, chin-checked out by former host Jay Leno, whose 10 pm show on the GE (GE)–and soon to be Comcast (CMCSK)–broadcast television network bit. But O’Brien is biting back harder, as you will see, along with “The Late Show” legend David Letterman on CBS (CBS), who is moving into viciously hysterical against Leno, whom he seems to dislike. Here are some of their latest videos: [Photo courtesy of Mike Mitchell] Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:22 am Google row will not affect trade ties with US: China (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:09 am How eBuddy’s Mobile Monetization Strategy Helped It Turn A Profit
The company, backed by $11.5 million in venture capital from Lowland Capital Partners and Prime Technology Ventures, markets a Web-based social network and instant messaging aggregator that enables people to sign in to their service once and stay connected to people through various platforms in one single interface where all of them are centralized. It also offers a number of ways for people to use the service on their mobile phones, through a mobile web service, a Java-based messenger client and applications for iPhone and Android. (Keep reading if you want to try their premium iPhone app for free, by the way) Rueb informs me that the J2ME client in particular has seen phenomenal success, recently surpassing 50 million downloads. The free app is currently the most downloaded program as registered on GetJar, a one-stop shop for mobile applications, with more than 36.7 million installations (up from 10 million in March 2009). Its iPhone applications (a free one and a premium one that goes for $4.99) are also quite popular: in total, the apps have been downloaded 3 million times since their debut in the App Store. The free version was released in July 2009, the paid app late November 2009. eBuddy expected between 4% and 8% of its free app users to convert to the paid application, and says it is indeed currently hovering around a 6% conversion rate. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that its revenue from the premium app is thus about $900k, or $600k if you take into account Apple’s 30% cut. Conceivably, adding the revenue from ads on its free app, eBuddy is raking in around $1 million from its iPhone applications alone. If you’re keen on giving the premium app a whirl for yourself: the first 1,000 users who purchase eBuddy Pro from the U.S. App Store and follow the instructions on this promotion page will receive an iTunes gift card worth $5, i.e. the price of the app. In total, eBuddy has attracted about 100 million unique users, of which about a quarter uses the service at least once every month. These are heavy users: on average, 14 billion messages get sent via eBuddy per month. And don’t think all of them are using their cellphones: eBuddy’s Web application has seen 50% growth year over year, says Rueb. Still, its strategy of having a feature-limited, ad-supported app in Apple’s App Store alongside a paid premium one with more bells and whistles, has resulted in close to 50% of the company’s revenues now coming from its slew of mobile products. Advertising accounts for about 60% of that income, and 40% comes from app sales today. Rueb declined to share revenue numbers in greater detail, but said that the company has now been profitable on a net income basis for the past four months and is cash-flow positive, which means its mobile monetization strategy is clearly working out well for them. A bit of good news for BlackBerry users, finally: eBuddy expects to (finally) ship a custom client for the platform in the next couple of months. Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors
Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:05 am How eBuddy's Mobile Monetization Strategy Helped It Turn A ProfitFor the past four months, Amsterdam-based eBuddy has turned a profit, CEO Jan-Joost Rueb tells me, by offering advertising-supported services for free in combination with sales of a premium iPhone application...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:05 am Chinese Web Users Plan Tech Workarounds [Voices]By Sky Canaves and Loretta Chao, Reporters, The Wall Street Journal For Google Inc. (GOOG) users in China, the big question isn’t whether the Internet giant retreats from China, but if Beijing retaliates by blocking Google’s international search site. If Beijing decides to put the site on the other side of the “Great Firewall,” as the country’s system of Internet controls is informally known, college student Shi Yuchen has a workaround already planned. She’ll simply fanqiang, or “scale the wall.” “No matter what, I will continue to use [Google] by applying some ’scaling the wall’ tools,” Ms. Shi says. To help people like Ms. Shi, a small but influential number of tech-savvy Chinese have been schooling their fellow citizens on how to gain access to blocked sites. A search for the term fanqiang on Google or Baidu Inc., China’s largest search engine, turns up dozens of Web sites with instructions on how to get around the country’s Internet restrictions. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:00 am Almost Famous: Harold Smith IV of OWLE [Voices]By Drake Martinet, Intern, All Things Digital A feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about. This week: We we had a Skype visit with, asked some questions of and gathered a few pertinent stats about Harold Smith, IV and OWLE: Optical Widget for Life Enhancement, a super-beefy accessory for the Apple (AAPL) iPhone that attempts to bridge the gap between a camera on a phone and professional camcorder.
Who: Harold Smith IV What: CEO and Co-founder Why: After early prototypes and iPhoneDevCamp, Harold patented a product that uses off-the-shelf lenses and microphones, coupled with nearly a pound of custom-machined aluminum to stabilize and supercharge videos iPhones take. Harold and his team just finished churning out the first 500 OWLE Bubos (Bubo is the model name), which shipped at the end of 2009. Where: wantowle.com (Web site); @wantowle (Twitter); Scottsdale, Ariz. (analog place). Who else: A Japanese company called Factron makes a case called a “Quattro” that has detachable lenses, although similarities are thin. The OWLE is a one-of-a-kind product at this point, but Harold sees competition on the horizon as video apps improve. Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook ProfileWorst Job: I worked at Taste of Chicago, a hot dog shop. I guess it was my first experience in the truth of what goes on behind the scenes at a restaurant. This one day, I spilled a bucket of diced tomatoes on the floor, and my manager just kicked them back into the bucket and put it back on the counter. I didn’t last very long. Has a Geek Crush On: Jim Jannard, he founded Red, the digital cinema camera company. Basically, he just saw a need and a product that didn’t exist yet and he just made it. That’s basically what we are trying to do. Gadget of the Moment: You are gonna laugh because it’s so simple. I got this iPhone battery from Tumi for Christmas. It’s great. It holds five full charges and recharges the phone in two hours. Wishes There Was an App For: Well, I really want to have more control over iPhone video. There’s no reason why we can’t have control over white balance, selective focus and everything. I mean, it’s all digital, and we have the tools. Truthfully though, I’d really love to play Halo on my iPhone in augmented reality. That’s coming. Fails At: Spelling and grammar. I rely on the Internet to fix my mistakes. I think it would be the greatest prank ever to turn off all the spelling and grammar check in the world for one day to see how we all really type. Bio in 140 CharactersSplit his early years between Scottsdale & San Francisco. Couldn’t decide on a college major. Sold software, sold vitamins, invented OWLE. The Five QuestionsGive us the short history of how you decided the iPhone needed to be better at shooting video. It all started with my day job at Natural Partners, a vitamin distribution company. They wanted to use video to reach customers in a way that competitors weren’t, so they started doing a Web TV show. We got into broadcasting trade shows live and wanted a mobile camera. The Nokia (NOK) N95 had just come out and Qik [online mobile streaming service] was around. I ended up building a rig to make live broadcasting with the N95 better. It just looked awful; all brackets and tape. When the iPhone came out, it was so thin and nice, I wanted to build something nice for it. That was the first OWLE prototype. What exactly is the OWLE now? Well, the OWLE Bubo is the current model. It is a custom-machined piece of billet aluminum, anodized black. We tried a lot of different sizes, and we settled on a version that weighs 0.9 pounds. You want it to be heavy enough so that you get stability without being a pain to carry around. The second component is the lens that it comes with. The body itself has 37-millimeter threading, the largest standard when it comes to camcorder lenses. These are things you can get at Best Buy (BBY), as add-ons for your camcorder. The lens even comes in two parts, and the first stage can be used alone for close-up shots. It also has an add-on microphone from Vericorder, so that you can hear what’s going on in front of the phone while it’s in the OWLE. You get the whole thing for $129.99 Where do you hope people will be seeing these for sale in the future? Well, we just launched a new Web site last week, and we are already filling orders from that. Right now, we are based out of a distribution center in Scottsdale, so we are filling orders ourselves today, but we could ramp up very quickly to larger order fulfillment. In my last job, I was running a $6-million-a-year e-commerce site, so when we are ready to ramp up, that’s my world, I’m ready for that. We just struck a deal with ThinkGeek.com, so you can buy an OWLE there right now. Nothing is official yet, but we are currently in talks with Apple about selling OWLEs in Apple stores. That would be the dream location, I guess. Picard or Kirk? Picard for sure, I mean that’s what I grew up on–that was the touch-screen stuff. That was my first real exposure to touch screens and HD video. It wasn’t shot in HD or anything, but Captain Picard would stand there, and there was that huge screen in full quality with a Klingon on it or something. We were there watching it on our little CRT televisions. That was the future. That’s what I thought when I first got an iPhone. I mean, it was a tricorder, that was “Star Trek”. I’m still waiting for my transporter. Whats the OWLE story that beats them all? Well, we just got this video from our marketing team–I’m not sure we’re going to release it. It’s basically of the team taking an OWLE Bubo with an iPhone inside and throwing it off a building like five times. The iPhone was, like, totally fine, but we don’t want to endorse people chucking their iPhones like that. The In Living Color Interview[ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:59 am NAMM: A Mad Professor of the Stompbox Goes Open Source
ANAHEIM, California — The Willy Wonka of guitar pedal builders is giving away the keys to his kingdom. Zachary Vex, the mastermind behind the handcrafted and hand-painted Z.Vex line of boutique guitar effect pedals, has decided to release his designs to the public. His newest device, a new pedal called the Inventobox, allows anyone to hack his creations however they choose. Z.Vex pedals are coveted by collectors for their mystique and funky vibe and as much as their squealing, crunchy and sometimes alien-sounding tones. They run the gamut from fuzz and distortion to wah-wahs and ring modulators. The pedals, with their sparkling, brightly painted cases and bizarre names, are considered high-end curios — they cost between $250 and $500 each. They are Even though Vex’s pedal designs win accolades from guitar gods like Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis and My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields, some customers aren’t totally satisfied with what they get. “Some people who buy the Fuzz Factory find it too bright,” Vex says, referring to his most popular model, a fuzz pedal for the guitar. “So, I wanted to give them an opportunity to open it up and do whatever they want to it.” Vex is debuting the hacker-friendly Inventobox here at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) show, the industry’s premiere tradeshow where all the latest gear is trotted out. The Inventobox will be out in April. It’s basically a DIY hacking kit that lets intrepid Z.Vex fans mess around with his designs, altering the circuits and creating their own variations on his pedals. $400 gets you the Inventobox kit that contains a pedal with a blank circut board, a set of modules that reproduce three signature Z.Vex sounds — the Fuzz Factory, the Super Hard-On and his Marshall-style tone stack — plus all the wires, tools and spare parts needed to put them all together. There’s also a $300 version that comes without the modules so users can build their own circuits. Pedal enthusiasts are known tinkerers. They gather online at sites like DIYStompboxes and Build Your Own Clone to trade schematics and debate over the finer points of stompbox design. You can buy a DIY pedal kit for around $80, so at $300, the Z.Vex Inventobox may seem a little rich. But you get a full 16 knobs to twiddle, plus a peek inside the mind of one of the acknowledged masters of high-end stopboxes. Vex envisions hackers will use the Inventobox, which ships in April, both for tweaking his designs and for developing their own pedals. The modules can be chained together, so people can layer multiple tone circuits on top of one another inside a single pedal.
The Inventobox itself is modular. Multiple units of the 16-knob boxes can be strung together to create pedals with 32, 48 or 64 knobs — or even more. It also has a built-in worklight and a set of braces that prop up the circuit board so you can move the wires around and still be able to switch the pedal on and off. At some point, Vex’s explanation of everything the Inventobox is capable of went over our heads like a post-graduate Calculus lecture. Rest assured, though, it’s a pedal hacker’s dream come true. Vex says he intends to eventually publish each of his designs for free on the internet, giving away the schematics and the instructions on how to assemble the circuits for every last one of his signature pedals. He is also creating an iPhone app that will let you purchase new pedal modules as they become available and view the published schematics. “I’m going to be giving away all my secrets,” he says. “People are already hacking my pedals anyway, posting my designs on the various forums. So, I don’t care what they do to them.”
See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:35 am Germany-buyers support A400M, but not at any priceBERLIN, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The countries that have ordered the A400M transporter plane are sticking to the project "but not at any price", a German Defence Ministry spokesman said on Friday.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:29 am NAMM: Korg’s Wavedrum Adds a New Beat to Your Next Hippie Jam
ANAHEIM, California — All you Trustafarians have a cool new tech gadget to show off at your next drum circle. The original Korg Wavedrum was released in 1994, but Korg has updated the old favorite for the 21st century. The company is showing off its new version of the device at the NAMM Show industry exhibition here. It’s available now for about $600. The synthetic drum pad is about the size of a fat frisbee. It’s small and light enough to sit in your lap, where you can play it with your hands, or you can mount it on a regular drum stand and tap on it with drumsticks, mallets or brushes. A set of controls along the top lets you dial in literally thousands of percussion sounds, both natural and synthetic — the demo unit I played at the Korg expo booth came with a double-sided sheet listing all the sounds in tiny, 10-point type. The Wavedrum is most impressive when it’s mimicking common hand drums. Turn it into a djembe or conga and the different parts of the “skin” respond as you’d expect a real drum to. The drum head has a satisfying spring to it, and you can bend the pitch by pressing down on the head while you beat it. Just like a real drum, the rim makes different noises when you hit it in different places. I also tried it with sticks, assigning a snare sound to the skin and a kick drum sound to the rim. In this mode, it produced a natural bleed like a true cocktail drum kit — a hard hit on the kick drum makes the snare reverberate, and vice versa. When you move into synthetic territory, it gets a little silly. The Wavedrum lets you blend melodic synths sounds in with your natural drum textures, so it sounds like a robot is singing along to your beats. There are truly wacked settings that are entirely synthetic-sounding, as well, so you can play Moog-like basslines by striking different areas of the skin. There are also about 100 built-in techno grooves and patterns you can play along to. The Wavedrum is less elegant when it tries to mock more esoteric percussion sounds. I tried the settings for caxixi (a Brazilian shaker), some different tambourines, a Balinese gamelan and an African balafon. All of them sounded pretty cheesy. You’re better off sticking to the basics. The Wavedrum requires an amp and a power source, obviously, so it won’t be replacing the real drum you carry to the park on Sundays. But it’s a pretty wicked electronic instrument. If you bring this thing to Burning Man, I bet everyone would want to try it. Don’t forget your hand sanitizer. See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:27 am China tries to limit Google dispute fallout (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:27 am UPDATE 2-Strong Xmas sales lift Pets at Home sale prospects* Four private equity bids in of over 800 mln stg - sourcesSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:26 am New M.I.A. Song “Space Odyssey” An Attack on “New York Times” [Voices]By Daniel Kreps, Writer, Rolling Stone The video M.I.A. posted on her Twitter earlier this week is in fact a newly recorded track called “Space Odyssey” that the Kala singer-rapper quickly wrote and recorded as an angry response to a New York Times (NYT) story, the artist’s publicist tells The Fader. “Space Odyssey,” produced by M.I.A. and Rusko, will likely appear on M.I.A.’s upcoming third album. Earlier this week, the Times published an article called “The 31 Places to Go in 2010″ that listed Sri Lanka at Number One. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:26 am Texting and Tweeting Becoming Key to Haitian Earthquake Relief Efforts [Voices]By Al Tompkins, Faculty, Poynter Institute The Red Cross wants donors to text “Haiti” to the short code 90999 and donate $10. Small online donations are becoming increasingly important to relief agencies that want to get rolling fast. They also give donors the advantage of not having to pay postage. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:21 am NAMM: This Ain’t Your Brother’s Portastudio
ANAHEIM, California — The Tascam 424 Portastudio, an old machine from the 1980s which enabled musicians to overdub multiple tracks onto regular cassette tapes, was an essential piece of gear for just about every guitar player or budding songwriter. Now Tascam has injected new life into the bedroom studio with the new Tascam DP-008. The all-digital eight track, which the company is showing off at the NAMM Show here this week, is the big brother to Tascam’s four-track DP-004 that arrived in 2009. The Portastudio line has traditionally filled the “sketchpad” niche — a tool for workshopping songs before moving on to a real studio or a more versatile environment like ProTools. True to form, Tascam has kept things simple, but it has also given this little box (which sells for about $300) enough trimmings to serve as the hub of a true home studio. The DP-008 has jacks for plugging in a guitar or any line-level instrument, like a synth or a computer, as well as XLR inputs that provide phantom power, so you can record with just about any microphones. It also has a pair of decent-sounding mics built in, so if you’re strapped for cash, you can just set it on the table in front of you and sing or strum into it. You can record up to two tracks at once, so you can record one person in stereo, or two people can lay down two parts at once. Full bands wanting to record more than two parts simultaneously will have to compensate. The whole interface is mostly controlled by an array of small buttons which can get a bit confusing to navigate (Tascams have always taken a bit of time to learn), but the addition of a jog wheel makes cueing up songs simple enough. The little box doesn’t have the practice-friendly features of other Tascam products, like the ability to assign loops you can jam over. Also, unlike most other Tascam recorders, the DP-008 won’t record MP3, only 16-bit CD-quality audio. However, it uses SD cards, so you can just swap in a new card if you have more ideas than storage. There are some tools to give your home recordings extra polish, like built-in reverb and a seven-stage EQ. There’s also a footswitch jack that controls punch-ins, so you can record overdubs on the fly by stomping your foot. And maybe the best feature: it takes AA batteries — leave the wall wart at home and carry the DP-008 to the practice space, the roof, the forest or wherever you need to go to summon the spirits. See also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:21 am Kindle In Classroom Hurts Blind Students, DOJ Warns [Voices]By Grant Gross, Contributor, Computer World Three U.S. universities will stop promoting the use of Amazon.com’s (AMZN) Kindle DX e-book reader in classrooms after complaints that the device doesn’t give blind students equal access to information. Settlements with Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Pace University in New York City and Reed College in Portland, Oregon, were announced Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Justice. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:18 am Now, The Great Facebook Security Giveaway …Literally [Voices]By Carmi Levy Facebook wants to be your new security maven. Go ahead. Have a good laugh. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:14 am PMC Telecom Announces Expansion of Cordless Phones RangeSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:10 am Welcome to DarkMarket – Global One-Stop Shop For Cybercrime and Banking Fraud [Voices]By Caroline Davies, Reporter, guardian.co.uk To the casual observer, there was little to distinguish the Java Bean internet cafe in Wembley from the hundreds of others dotted around the capital. But to surveillance officers staking it out month after month, this unremarkable venue was the key to busting a remarkable and sophisticated network of cyber criminals. From the bank of computers inside, a former pizza bar worker ran an international cyber “supermarket” selling stolen credit card and account details costing the banking industry tens of millions. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:09 am Daily Crunch: Picnic Edition
Here’s what you might have missed yesterday: New Japanese toy: Endless chocolate bar breaker
Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am Hackers Helping Haiti: Find or Organize a Hackathon Near YouIn an ongoing effort to help the poorest country in the Americas survive and recover from a devastating earthquake, hackers around the world are participating in CrisisCamp Hackathons this Saturday, January...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am VillageEDOCS Continues Push with MessageVision Platform (MVP) as a ServiceSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am Chris Pavlovski Jumps Aboard Next Giant LeapSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:00 am UPDATE 1-Pearson confirms IDS reviewing strategic optionsLONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - British publishing group Pearson confirmed that financial market data provider Interactive Data Corp (IDC) , in which it is the majority shareholder, is considering its strategic...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:54 am Wii Hardware Upgrade Won't Happen SoonAs high-definition graphics become more and more entrenched in this generation of game consoles, Nintendo has had to deal with constant speculation about a new version of the Wii that would increase its capabilities. Today, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime bluntly denied that a hardware revision was imminent, saying, "We are confident the Wii home entertainment console has a very long life in front of it." He added, "In terms of what the future holds, we've gone on record to say that the next step for Nintendo in home consoles will not be to simply make it HD, but to add more and more capability, and we'll do that when we've totally tapped out all of the experiences for the existing Wii. And we're nowhere near doing that yet."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Gizmodo | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:40 am Identive Group Adopts New Stock SymbolsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:30 am Complexity ruins dietsI'm unsurprised but vindicated to read of this research from the Max Planck Institute and Indiana U that says that diets are more apt to succeed when they are simple -- complexity kills. I think this is why Atkins worked so well for me (80 lbs in about a year): low-carbing is just easy to do, all you really need to do is stop eating high-carb food:Sticking to Diets Is About More Than Willpower -- Complexity Matters (Image: lunch, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from malias' photostream)
Previously:
Source: Gizmodo | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:20 am Google-China standoff sheds light on global Net intrigue - USA Today
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:14 am MySpace Reshuffles Its Music Label
That’s sure to be good news for the label’s artists, which include Pennywise and Nico Vega. The label has also previously featured a handful of artists who were eventually promoted to the main Interscope label, including Kate Voegele and Mickey Avalon. However, while the current artists are safe, we’re hearing that the direction of the label and its future structure are still up in the air. When MySpace Records launched, MySpace planned to leverage its then-recent acquisition by News Corp to turn the label into a jumping off point for hot new bands (former CEO Chris DeWolfe was quoted as saying they’d get the bands into Fox movies and TV shows). Obviously it hasn’t performed as well as everyone hoped, but MySpace has still managed to help kickstart the careers of quite a few well known bands. Likewise, its MySpace Music site continues to perform well despite MySpace’s slowdown in other areas. Information provided by CrunchBase
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Source: Gizmodo | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am Dishwasher door as self-cleaning toddler workspaceAnother sweet ParentHacks tip, from reader Chrissy -- I love the elegance of realizing that the dishwasher door, when opened, is a self-cleaning, toddler-height food-prep area: Stumbled across this...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:50 pm Dishwasher door as self-cleaning toddler workspaceAnother sweet ParentHacks tip, from reader Chrissy -- I love the elegance of realizing that the dishwasher door, when opened, is a self-cleaning, toddler-height food-prep area:Let little kids "help" with cooking by placing the mixing bowl on the open dishwasher door (Image: Dishwasher, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from brownpau's photostream)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:50 pm WHO To Investigate Handling of Swine Flu Information, Vaccine Orderskrou writes "With swine flu fading in the UK (projected winter deaths of 65,000 have been downgraded to 1,000, and new cases are decreasing) the UK government has been left with millions of unused vaccines, and (unlike its contract with Baxter) no clear break-clause to get out of its contract with GlaxoSmithKlein. Although the amount paid for vaccines has not been disclosed, it likely cost the UK government several hundred million pounds. Other governments are also in a similar position: the US ordered 251 million doses of the vaccine, and France and Germany are aiming to cut back on their orders considerably. To say that the case for the pandemic has been over-estimated appears to be an understatement. Now, the WHO has announced that it is to investigate whether or not it bowed to pressure from drugs companies to overplay the threat." (Continues, below.)Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:44 pm Grotesque and lovely animatronicsRoboticist film-maker John Nolan's gallery of animatronic creations is a treasure-trove of wonderful, grotesque creations in states of partial undress. www.johnnolanfilms.com: gallery of photos (via...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:20 pm Grotesque and lovely animatronics Roboticist film-maker John Nolan's gallery of animatronic creations is a treasure-trove of wonderful, grotesque creations in states of partial undress. www.johnnolanfilms.com: gallery of photos (via JWZ)
Previously:
Source: Gizmodo | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:20 pm Lamps decorated with writhing heaps of glazed action figures
UK artist Ryan McElhinney paints and lacquers mountains of toy plastic dolls and action figures around lamps in bizarre tableaux that look like scenes out of Bosch paintings.
(via Crib Candy)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:15 pm Lamps decorated with writhing heaps of glazed action figuresUK artist Ryan McElhinney paints and lacquers mountains of toy plastic dolls and action figures around lamps in bizarre tableaux that look like scenes out of Bosch paintings. Ryan McElhinney Toy Lamp...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:15 pm Trinkets in trash after cadmium warning (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:12 pm Jonathan Lethem's Perkus Tooth comes to Second Life for an interviewWagner James Au sez, "Jonathan Lethem's latest novel Chronic City includes a virtual world inspired by Second Life, so fittingly, this Sunday Lethem is promoting his book *in* Second Life on the Copper...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:07 pm Jonathan Lethem's Perkus Tooth comes to Second Life for an interview
Wagner James Au sez, "Jonathan Lethem's latest novel Chronic City includes a virtual world inspired by Second Life, so fittingly, this Sunday Lethem is promoting his book *in* Second Life on the Copper Robot show, using an avatar named PerkusTooth Riddler, based on the character Perkus Tooth from the book. If you don't have an SL account you can watch on the web ."
Copper Robot: Novelist Jonathan Lethem
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:07 pm Tiny still-lives in toilet-paper tubes Artist Anastassia Elias builds miniature dioramae inside of toilet-paper tubes, using paper of the same color to create little dimensional scenes from life. Empty-loo-roll-day is always fun around our place, the cue to get out the stickers and markers and decorate the empty tube with Poesy, then run around the house playing kazoo or telescope. Maybe we'll level up to tiny still lives in a couple of years. Anastassia Elias - Illustrations collages dessins peintures - Galerie (via Neatorama)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:02 pm December was the best month ever for video game sales
Boring as all these statistics are, the bottom line is people spent a whole lot of money on video games last month. The previous record was set in December of 2008, which was the first time that sales went over $5 billion. The Wii did the best, which is surprising since everyone pretty much wrote it off as being stalled out. Next up was the PS3, but it only beat out the Xbox 360 by a very small margin. The PS3’s unexpected comeback is credited to the launch of the PS3 Slim back in October, which has revitalized sales of the console. [Via Cnet]
Source: CrunchGear | 14 Jan 2010 | 11:00 pm NewsCred Relaunches, Looks To Become “Ning For Newspapers”
Using the site is simple: you choose the title of your new virtual paper, then specify which topics you’re interested in following. The site includes a number of categories to choose from, including tech and politics, but you can also generate one based on a keyword if you’d like. Once you’ve chosen your topics, NewsCred will generate a virtual newspaper containing the latest stories from each area. Stories are drawn from popular relevant news sites and blogs, and you can specify a RSS feed if it isn’t in the NewsCred directory. Along the left side of the screen is a list of sections that you can jump through, much as you would in a physical paper. There are a handful of sample sites you can test for yourself, like this one on Mobile News, Celebrity Gossip, and Manchester United.
We’ve seen news aggregators before, but NewsCred has a few options that are less common. For one, the site allows you to write editorials, which can be incorporated into the front page (or the topic specific sections). And the site will soon offer a premium version called NewsCred Pro, which is designed to help you further customize and even monetize the papers you’ve built. With NewsCred Pro, you can host your paper at a personal domain, run your own advertising on the page, eliminate NewsCred branding, and further customize the layout and newspaper template. Together, these features could allow you to build a Huffington Post-style news hub, complete with your own opinion pieces, focused on whatever topic you wanted. NewsCred has done a nice job putting their custom papers together, and most of the site looks very well done (though I did find some poor results as I searched for topics to add). But the new space it is entering is going to be competitive. For one, homepage sites like iGoogle allow users to include news feed widgets. And there are sites that are more directly competitive, like Meehive, the Kosmix-powered custom news site (covered here). That said, NewsCred may be able to build a business helping users build their own niche news portals, the same way Ning appeals to users building custom social networks. NewsCred closed a seed round of funding last year from private investors in the US, UK, and Switzerland, as well as “one of the large Silicon Valley VC firms” (the company won’t disclose the names of their investors).
Information provided by CrunchBase
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Source: Gizmodo | 14 Jan 2010 | 10:40 pm Doomsday Clock set back by a minute - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 14 Jan 2010 | 10:22 pm Intel outlook points to PC industry recovery
|
 CNET | Biz Break: Apple lawyer: Don't offer $100K 'bounty' for tablet... San Jose Mercury News Today: An Apple lawyer tells a tech Web site that it has "crossed the line by offering a bounty" for proof of a rumored tablet computer. Intel reports better-than-expected earnings for its latest quarter. ... Apple lawyer smacks Gawker with Mac tablet hint Apple lawyer confirms tablet existence? Apple tells Gawker to knock off hunt for rumored tablet |
AFP - NPD Group reported that US sales of videogame hardware and software hit 5.53 billion dollars in December, setting a new monthly record and giving a blockbuster end to a lackluster year.
The tombs of at least a dozen pyramid construction workers have been found in Egypt, near Giza. Egyptologists would like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that the pyramids were not built by slaves.
People are continually looking for new pieces of information. We go to school, read articles on a variety of subjects, have free websites such as Wikipedia, and use search answer engines such as Aardvark and Quora for the sole purpose of quenching our never-ending thirst for knowledge. But how do you find and access wanted information which people are unwilling to divulge, at least for free, except to their closest confidants? Enter GenApple, an information brokerage company who hopes that their website will help to facilitate the exchange of such knowledge. By creating a marketplace for information, GenApple, just entering public beta, hopes that those who would normally withhold certain privy information will be more reticent to disclose it when monetarily incentivized.
Those with information to sell can create a listing similar to one you would find on any classifieds page. Postings are listed on the website immediately after submission. When creating a listing, the seller has the ability to hide any or all of his personal information which he used during sign-up: all that will show is the username. Conversely, he can show all of his information if he thinks it will aid in the process of a buyer purchasing his information. Potential buyers are able to post listings as well in the “I want to know” section. Here, buyers can state the kind of information they want, along with how much they are willing to pay for said information. GenApple also allows people to create free listings, where users can give away specialized knowledge for free. The knowledge is entered into an information vault for future use and can be any type of text entry or data file. GenApple creates their revenue by taking a commission on the final sale price.
The anonymity of sellers, coupled with the fear of fraud may be an issue for some, and as such, GenApple provides a slew of buyer protection features. They have a standard feedback system where users can rate a seller, and also have a feature where sellers can put forth a veracity statement. GenApple operates under a brokerage business model (they host the listings and process payments) in order to instill trust in the listings being offered. In doing so, GenApple has the ability to hold payment to the seller if the buyer is not satisfied. If a buyer is not fully satisfied with the purchase, they can submit a ticket to GenApple who will then make a final decision as to whether fraud was committed or not and will act accordingly.
Given the nature of this idea, GenApple will surely run into a couple of roadblocks down the road. The most obvious one, is that of insider trading. GenApple explicitly states in the terms of service that the exchange of insider information is illegal, but when has that stopped anybody? To counter this, GenApple has the authority to delete any suspicious postings and will cooperate fully with any government officials if the problem does come about. Additionally, only two employees at GenApple monitor listings. As they reach critical mass, they may find that personally overlooking the listings will be too great a burden for humans to do no matter the number of staff. To help with this, users are able to flag postings, but they will surely need a better system when they grow.
GenApple’s idea is novel and shows promise. If they are able to continually protect buyers as the company grows then they could be successful. We’d give them some more pointers, but why give away such valuable information for free?
The company is self-funded and operates out of an office in Minnesota.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Here’s one of the easier projects I’ve seen on Make in a while. Take an Ikea “Ivar” ladder, lay it on the floor, and use it as a camera dolly. Just the thing for shooting video, I could have used one of these while we were in Vegas. The best part about this project? It’s cheap. You’re looking at roughly $30 worth of parts to build this.
It’s pretty simple; take an Ivar shelving side unit, a piece of plywood, some rollerblade wheels, assorted nuts and bolts, some skateboard grip tape, and you are rolling (no pun intended). Assembly is pretty self explanatory from the pictures, and the end result is a smooth rolling camera dolly that’s light, easy to transport, and cheap. Check out some sample video from the builder, and then go build one yourself.
[Via Make]
 G4 TV (blog) | Video game industry sees US sales rise 4% in December Los Angeles Times The increase from a year earlier comes on strong sales of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. But the month's results fail to counter an otherwise gloomy 2009. By Alex Pham and Ben Fritz The video game industry eked out a 4% ... Films and television to be streamed through Wii consoles Videogame, Console Revenue Rose 4% December NPD: Wii dominates and predictions fail |
We can all agree it’s a nice phone, but customer service problems and reception issues have made the Nexus One’s launch a little rocky. It seems that people don’t feel they’re getting their $379 worth, and Google, apparently sympathizes. They’ve lowered the upgrade price (non-unlocked, non-new-contract) by a hundred bucks and will be sending out $100 rebate forms to those among you who paid the first amount. This is basically Google giving the rest of us puppy dog eyes, and we all know you can’t stay mad at Google for… aw! So cute!
[via Engadget]
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
It doesn't get any better than this. (Thanks, Amy!)
Source: Boing Boing | 14 Jan 2010 | 8:04 pm
Sir — let me shake you by the hand. There. This is a most marvelous accomplishment. Most pleasing. What’s that you say — it’s not in production yet? The devil! Good day, sir!
…I SAID GOOD DAY!
[via Gizmodo]
 TopNews United States | Digital Rights Group Pushes FCC to Protect Net Neutrality PC World The organization has established a special Web page -- Real Net Neutrality -- designed to collect signatures on a letter urging the FCC to reconsider and eliminate language that would require ISPs "to act as copyright cops. ... RIAA: Net neutrality shouldn't inhibit antipiracy Internet Rules Shouldn't Apply to Wireless, Trade Group Says RIAA urges FCC to adopt “flexible” net neutrality regulations |
One of the reasons text messaging is so popular is because it’s so simple. Anyone with just about any kind of mobile device can do it. And that’s why it was ingenious when the Obama administration set up a special number and got the major U.S. carriers on board to allow people to very easily donate $10 to the Red Cross to help with the disastrous situation in Haiti following a major earthquake. So far, that program has raised over $5 million from over a half million different mobile phone users, someone from the U.S. State Department confirmed today.
As of the last update, the number stands at $5.2 million. Of that, more than half have apparently come from AT&T users ($2.63 million), the company told us today. If you’re still interested, simply text HAITI to the number 90999. A $10 charge will be attached to your next cellphone bill.
AT&T shared their data today after I reached out over some confusion about whether the company was actually profiting from this fundraiser. Yesterday, in a hurry to get the program going, the service was still charging users for sending this text messages, apparently. But when they realized that, they made them all free, and went back and retroactively removed any charges users may have gotten by texting for the cause. Nice move.
This texting drive, being run through mGive, a non-profit working with the Red Cross, is also leveraging Twitter and Facebook to help get the word out there. Donations are said to be coming in to the tune of $200,000 each hour, so they’re very likely coming close to $6 million raised at this point. Impressive stuff.
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The Sixpack is a minimal wire rack with a singular purpose: carrying bottles. It is also worryingly close in form to the terrible, home-made twisted-coat-hanger candle-holders you get every year for Christmas from your cheapskate, hippy cousin.
The blurb:”It’s perfect for those BYO dinner outings where a normal 6 pack gets destroyed after you rip out one beer.”
That might be so, although I’d suggest that once you have brought the beer to the party, you won’t be going anywhere else until the beer is finished. Also, check the design. Tilt that sucker a little too much to either side and you lose half your stash immediately as three bottles slide out and smash.
We could forgive these foibles if only extra utility had been added. Surely, with everything from surf shorts to bike wrenches
to the bases of other beer bottles having built-in bottle openers, then an actual beer-carrier should have a cap-removing notch on it somewhere. But no, the design hasn’t been thought through. It’s almost as if somebody actually drank all the beer while they were working on it.
The Sixpack, from Dutch designer Oooms, is thankfully still just a flawed concept, and not yet a flawed product.
Sixpack bottle rack [Oooms via Noquedanblogs]
The readers of this blog are probably far to well-informed to take part in the “electromagnetic allergy” FUD and NIMBYism. I’m sure it’s clear to you guys that we’re all saturated with various forms of radiation all the time, and having a radio tower by your house isn’t likely to do anything other than mess with your reception. But the residents of Craigavon, a town in Northern Ireland South Africa, seem to think otherwise. In fact, they directly attributed lack of sleep, headaches, rashes, and a whole swath of vague complaints to a wireless broadband tower set up by iBurst.
The usual ignorance and hysteria, yes, but here’s the fun part. After confirming that the residents had been having the same symptoms over the last couple months, iBurst revealed that the tower had been turned off the entire time. I would have liked to see their faces.
iBurst CEO Jannie van Zyl says:
At this point it became apparent that the tower can, in no way, be the cause of the symptoms, as it was already switched off for many weeks, yet the residents still saw symptoms that come and go according to their proximity to the area.
The mind is a powerful thing. It can produce psychosomatic rashes, worry you into insomnia, and I don’t know if the Craigavon residents know this, but it can also be filled with knowledge so you don’t go through life as dumb as a chicken.
[via Reddit]
I just wanted to put a little attaboy in here for Google. The quake in Haiti will of course prompt a humanitarian response, and accurate aerial imagery will help get it to where it needs to be most. Helicopters are probably occupied ferrying passengers and supplies, so I'd imagine few can be spared for reconnaissance; satellite imagery is the best way to go for a snapshot of the area, and Google contracted GeoEye to shoot some shots for just that purpose.
Check out Google's Haiti relief and imagery page here. It's good to note every once in a while that the technology we take for granted can actually be used for things other than finding the nearest coffee shop. This kind of quick and helpful response (thanks as well to the mobile companies and their texting donations) is heartening.
If you want to help, and I know you do, then text HAITI to 90999 to donate ten bucks to the Red Cross.
MySpace is obviously a social network, but in terms of being talked about these days on the social web it has lost a lot of steam in recent years. To help with that, they’re bringing in Sean Percival to be the service’s new Director of Content Socialization.
Percival, who was apparently one of the first 3,000 people to ever sign up for MySpace, had previously been consulting for the company and has written a book about what he’ll now be preaching: MySpace Marketing: Creating a Social Network to Boom Your Business. He’ll report to Angela Courtin, the Senior Vice President of Marketing, Entertainment & Content for MySpace, and will work with the editorial and content teams to try to help kickstart talk about the service on the web.
Percival, who lives in LA, is also known for starting the Southern California tech/gossip blog Lalawag. Previously, he’s worked at Mahalo, Docstoc, and Tsavo, under Mike Jones who is now the COO of MySpace. Jones was MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta’s first hire when he took over that role last year.
As he notes on his blog, this is a good week for Percival, he also just announced that his wife is pregnant. Read more about Percival’s new gig on the MySpace Blog.
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Every so often, some company comes along and tries to get us to change how we type, or what kind of keyboard we use. The MiniGuru is the latest example of this phenomena, using programmable keys and macros to produce a functional keyboard with a tiny footprint.
It’s a known fact that a touch typist is faster if they keep their fingers on the “home row”, and this is the concept that the MiniGuru builds on. There might be a problem when you try and use the modifier keys to use things like arrow keys, or the function keys – it could become counter-productive. I’m not saying that it wouldn’t work, but honestly the amount of time required to learn how to use the new keyboard may make it rather pointless. I could see this being useful for an HTPC or other type of hobbyist application though.
If you want to try one, the MiniGuru will be available sometime this fall, with no word on the cost.
[Via Gizmodo]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
So there is this podcast, Fear the Boot, and I accidentally stole their logo for this post involving boots. The resulting ruckus on that post’s comment thread is currently out of control and I am truly sorry that I unleashed this cancer on all of you, my dear, dear readers.
That said, go ahead and listen to these guys. The podcast is top notch and the guys have real voices for radio. They want you to come to their Con, for one thing and they also want you to listen to their podcast here. Like China, these people are rapacious and will stop at nothing to comment about “werebears.” To that end I encourage you to give into their meagre demands.
By day, the Airstash is a common, ordinary USB card reader. But by night, it dons the mantle of wireless connectivity, taking to the streets and sharing pictures an images in an ad-hoc, daredevil manner.
The Airstash looks much like a regular card reader, with a USB plug on one end and an SD card-shaped hole in the other. In between you can find a tiny, battery powered 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi router. Slot in a card and it can be reached wirelessly through the web browser of any Wi-Fi enabled computer or phone.
The design is simple, but the uses are manifold. You could use this to wirelessly copy photos from card to computer, but that, apart from saving you a USB port, is a little boring. What about carrying an extra 32GB of movies and music that can be streamed from the built-in server direct to your iPhone? Or creating a fully functional wireless network for sharing, well, anything? Because it uses vanilla Wi-Fi, it works with anything. And because it uses USB, it charges when you plug it into a spare port.
The product was shown last week at CES, and right now has neither a price or a shipping date (”available soon” is the only hint on the product page). If it is cheap, and if the battery in such a tiny case can last long enough to be useful, then this could be a very useful toy. And if it is given away at next
year’s CES in the same fashion as pen drives were at this year’s show, we’ll be very happy indeed.
Airstash product page [Airstash via Oh Gizmo!]
I just wanted to put a little attaboy in here for Google. The quake in Haiti will of course prompt a humanitarian response, and accurate aerial imagery will help get it to where it needs to be most. Helicopters are probably occupied ferrying passengers and supplies, so I’d imagine few can be spared for reconnaissance; satellite imagery is the best way to go for a snapshot of the area, and Google contracted GeoEye to shoot some shots for just that purpose.
Check out Google’s Haiti relief and imagery page here. It’s good to note every once in a while that the technology we take for granted can actually be used for things other than finding the nearest coffee shop. This kind of quick and helpful response (thanks as well to the mobile companies and their texting donations) is heartening.
If you want to help, and I know you do, then text HAITI to 90999 to donate ten bucks to the Red Cross.
Social finance company Cake Financial has just been acquired by E*Trade. The company launched in 2007 at the first TechCrunch50 conference (when it was still TechCrunch40). Cake Financial has just posted a note to its homepage announcing the deal and to inform users that the site will no longer exist as an independent service. Instead, its features will be incorporated into E*Trade’s website.
We’re hearing that there was a bidding war for Cake, and that The Motley Fool was also in the running. CEO Steven Carpenter declined to comment on the details of the deal.
We’ve included the full text of the notice below:
To All Members and Users of Cake Financial-
I am excited to announce that as of today, Cake Financial is now a proud part of E*Trade Financial Corporation and aspects of the Cake service will be incorporated into the E*Trade website. As of January 14, 2010, the Cake Financial website will cease operation as an independent service. We are honored to be a part of the E*trade family and believe that E*trade can make the vision we had for all investors a reality.
I want to assure you that in the course of this transition, the financial information in your Cake account and the private data you’ve shared on Cake is safe. Your information is encrypted and will be deleted and destroyed. For those of you that paid for either Cake Premium or Cake Comparison, you will be reimbursed fully.
Since launching Cake in September 2007 as one of the first class of TechCrunch40 companies, the team has worked tirelessly to give investors the proper clarity into their portfolios to ensure they were achieving the best returns possible. This past summer, we launched an industry-leading recommendation service so that average investors like you and me could get the same kind of insights those with multi-million dollar portfolios receive.
On behalf of everyone that worked on Cake, thank you for your loyalty and patronage over the past two years. I wish you peace and prosperity in the coming year and beyond.
Cake launched with the ability to let users share their current investment portfolios with their peers, and built out quite a few other features in the following two years, like the Cakedex social stock index. Last August, it launched a new premium service designed to serve as an automated investment advisor.
It’s worth pointing out that the acquisition appears to center on Cake’s team and technology rather than its user base — rather than absorbing Cake’s users into E*Trade, the notice above states that user data will be deleted and destroyed, with premium users getting reimbursements.
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Matt: The color display is psychedelic, man.
Devin: Featuring the hit game “Super Mario Tweakers”
Dave: “In that moment, Steve realized that buying a game system off of e-bay wasn’t the best idea in the world”
Nicholas: Screw Leno
[via imgur]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
For the past several weeks I’ve only used one web browser: Google Chrome for Mac. Sure, it’s still in beta, but it’s fast and generally bug-free. That said, there have still be a couple of annoying issues. One was that there was no extension support (aside from Chromium builds), but that changed last week in the Chrome for Mac dev build. The other was that you could not manage your bookmarks. That changed today.
The latest dev channel release of Chrome for Mac, 4.0.295.0, released today, brings with it a bookmark manager for the first time. While you’ve been able to import bookmarks from Safari for a while, you had no way to manage them. Basically, it meant that you had to use Safari to manage them and to make the change in Chrome, go into your file system, delete the Chrome bookmarks file, and re-import anytime you wanted to make a change. With this new Bookmark Manager, Chrome for Mac is now at full systems go for me. Yes, it’s still missing a few other features such as full-screen mode and application shortcuts, but for day-to-day usage, it’s solid.
Google is calling this first crack at a bookmark manager “rudimentary,” but I’m using it now and it has just about everything I need: drag and drop, copy and paste, click-to-edit, and delete. There is still one minor thing missing: the ability to manage the “Other Bookmarks” area.
Along with the Bookmark Manager addition, Google fixed several bugs that caused crashes in Chrome for Mac, and added another nice feature: a multi-touch way to open new tabs. If you hold command and do a three-finger swipe on a MacBook (or two-finger swipe on the Magic Mouse), Chrome will open a new tab with your previous or next page from the one you are currently on. To open the previous page in a new tab, you hold command and swipe left. To open the next page, you hold control and swipe right. It’s actually pretty useful.
Again, these changes are only in the dev channel build of Chrome for Mac right now, which you can find here. But you can expect them to trickle up to the beta channel shortly.
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Microsoft sees no need for a “new approach to China,” though rival Google has adopted one that has generated quite a response. In an interview with CNBC today, CEO Steve Ballmer said his company has no plans to cease operations in China or take a moral stand on the Chinese government’s attitude toward free speech. Said Ballmer: “We’ve been quite clear that we are going to operate in China [and] we’re going to abide by the law.”
Asked earlier in the day by Reuters if Microsoft (MSFT) had plans to pull its business out of China, Ballmer answered, “No….I don’t understand how that helps anything. I don’t understand how that helps us and I don’t understand how that helps China.”
Of course, Microsoft has quite a bit more at stake in China than Google (GOOG)–all those pirated copies of Windows, for example.
Hidden among the barcode readers, music players and games in the marketplace for Android software may be apps that could steal your online banking credentials or infect your phone.
Google removed about 1 percent of the apps posted to the Android Market last year, according to a 2009 filing Google made to the FTC (.pdf). While most of those apps were removed because of user complaints about adult content or copyright violations, two apps attempted to gain access to users’ financial information, according to InformationWeek.
“I am surprised it is that much,” says Artem Petakov, co-founder and CTO of WorkSmart Labs, which offers the Cardiotrainer app, referring to the number of apps removed. “I assumed the user reporting and flagging was working better than that.”
The possibility of malicious apps in the Android Market has some developers wondering if Google needs to police the marketplace better. It has also raised questions about the impact of these security holes on consumer confidence and app marketing by developers.
Google launched the free, open source Android OS with the T-Mobile G1 phone in October 2008. Unlike Apple, which tightly controls the submission and the review process for its App Store, Google has taken a much more open approach with the Android Market. Developers don’t have to wait for Google’s approval to get an app into the store. Instead, the search giant and Android creator is counting on users flagging suspicious or malicious apps.
Last month, two credit unions posted a warning to their customers about a rogue app that uses phishing techniques to gain access to a user’s banking credentials. Once Google was notified, it moved quickly to remove the app along with about 50 others written by the hacker.
Android Market’s malware-related challenges are not surprising, says Patrick Mork, vice-president of marketing for GetJar, a company that has a catalog of 60,000 apps and runs its own app stores for phones.
“Whenever you have an app store, you always have a challenge with people putting inappropriate content or not following guidelines,” says Mork. “It’s part of the trade, what it takes to run a retail operation.”
What Google needs is better monitoring systems and a greater emphasis on ensuring a vibrant yet safe marketplace.
“The most immediate thing they could do is to tighten up their content policing mechanisms,” says Mork. “They could add more staff to review apps in greater depth.”
Google declined to disclose how many employees it has policing the Android Market.
Android OS could make changes to its user interface to educate consumers who are downloading apps as to the kind of permissions the app has, says Petakov.
Google has a strong interest in keeping the Android Market clean and free. If consumers are spooked or worried about safety of the apps from the Android Market, it could lead to fewer app downloads. That in turn could eat away at developer support for the fledgling operating system.
“Running an operating system and running a retail store front are two different things,” says Mork. “Consumer confidence is very important in the latter.”
Still, the developers that Wired.com spoke to were clear that Android’s open model needs to continue.
“We have benefited so much from the instant posting of our app,” says Petakov. WorkSmart Labs releases a version of their app every two weeks. “I prefer this over the iPhone model.”
See Also:
Photo: p_kirn/Flickr
By Geoffrey A. Fowler, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
As reports of the devastation and death toll in Haiti continue to rise, some tech companies are rolling out efforts to help. While the earthquake destroyed even the most basic infrastructure in some parts of the country, there are places where Internet is available–and, of course, it has also turned into a tool for raising money and awareness elsewhere around the world.
Here are a few of the efforts.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
 SAMAA TV | Some Facebook users push Haiti message limit msnbc.com Some Facebook users who are trying to find or communicate with missing family members in Haiti may find themselves out of luck on the social networking site if they send too many messages. ... Tech Industry Rallies for Haiti Relief Efforts Haiti Earthquake: Love and Support Through Facebook and the Internet Tech Lends a Hand in Haiti |
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you’re an Android handset owner who happens to double as a Rhapsody customer, you might have spent the last few months feeling like you’ve been left out in the cold; more specifically, you might be a bit chuffed that the iPhone has a Rhapsody application while Android phones don’t.
We’d heard tales that Rhapsody was all set to launch for Android by the end of 2009, but, as anyone with a calendar could tell you, that just didn’t happen. It may be a bit later than we expected, but Rhapsody took their first big step into the Android-waters just minutes ago by launching the Rhapsody for Android Beta program.
They’re not making it available on the Android Market just yet — but beyond that, it looks like they’re only limiting testing to those who: A) Are Rhapsody-to-go members (there’s a free 7 day trial – don’t forget to cancel!), and B) know the proper URL. Speaking of which, you can find the Rhapsody for Android Beta download at: http://www.rhapsody.com/android/download. The Android app appears to give you access to Rhapsody’s 8-million-plus catalog of on-demand music, along with features like Rhapsody Radio.
Remember, of course: this is beta software, so it’s not without its flaws. Amongst the known bugs so far: folks rocking HTC Heros or Nexus Ones might see a few freezes here and there, tracks may end a bit abruptly while streaming over a 3G connection, and there’s an issue with purchasing MP3s while the handset is connected to a computer via USB. If sketchy bugs freak you out, stay away for a while; otherwise, dive on in.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
![Screen shot 2010-01-14 at [ January 14 ] 12.21.41 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Screen-shot-2010-01-14-at-January-14-12.21.41-PM.png "Screen shot 2010-01-14 at [ January 14 ] 12.21.41 PM")
Uh oh, Motorola Droid – you better look out! The Nexus One is going to cut you — Wait, no, that’s not right. The Nexus One is going to snag one of your flagship features. I always get those two mixed up.
Google didn’t make any mention of accessories when they were launching the Nexus One, but the proof is in the pudding – and by pudding, I mean this Google support document.
You can use Car Home whether or not you have a Nexus One car dock (coming soon).
There’s just about no room for interpretation there – but what about other accessories? A gent over at the Nexus One Forum asked about the availability of “docking station, car dock, or other accessories”, and got this response from a Googler:
The docking stations for Nexus One are not available at this time. Stay tuned though, they should be available soon.
While the helpful responder may very well have been talking about the same car docks mentioned in the support documentation, the original question distinctly separated “docking stations” and “car docks” into two categories. The guys over at Slashgear are assuming that this means desktop docking stations are on the way soon – and you know what? We’ll have to agree.
We first saw the car dock and docking station mentioned in some pre-release product page leaks. At least according to those leaks, the docking station would set you back $39.99, while the car docking station would come in at $49.99.
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LAS VEGAS — Piggybacking on the hype of 2009’s biggest blockbuster Avatar, major TV manufacturers are placing a big bet on 3-D video with special high-end televisions slated for commercial release this year.
Donning dorky glasses, Consumer Electronics Show attendees crowded into the booths of Sony, Panasonic, LG, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Samsung last week to gaze into the big-screen 3-D TVs on display. Wired.com toured the show floor to compile a photographic montage of the biggest 3-D TVs we could find.
Video companies are optimistic that 3-D TV will be huge this year. But would you buy one? Would you be into the idea of wearing ugly glasses to watch a 3-D football game after a long day of work?
Before you contemplate the answer, it’s important to gain a clear understanding of what specifically defines a 3-D TV and what you need for a full experience. The 3-D TVs at CES all varied in different ways, but most of them shared some fundamentals. In order to display a full-frame image in 3-D, you need an extremely high frame rate, so usually the TV must be capable of a 240-Hz refresh rate. The TV also needs to support HDMI 1.4, the latest generation of HDMI, which will transmit the massive amount of data necessary to process and display 3-D images.
Most 3-D TVs also include a transmitter that can synchronize with the 3-D glasses. The transmitter, usually in the middle of the TV, synchronizes with active-shutter glasses so that the glasses’ lenses show and hide the left and right images at the proper frequency (120 Hz for each eye). The result: Each eye sees the image meant for it, and the onscreen image appears to pop out in 3-D. So don’t forget you’ll have to purchase extra pairs of 3-D glasses for each person who wants to watch the show. Pricing for these glasses has yet to be determined, but is probably in the $100 to $300 range, according to one company we queried (Mitsubishi). That can really add up if you want to host a movie night or a 3-D Olympics party with a large group.
As for content, you’ll need a 3-D-capable Blu-ray player or, some day, cable box. Manufacturers are quick to brag about whether their Blu-ray players can output 3-D properly, so just google the model of your player. (If you have a PlayStation 3 or a DirectTV box, you’re in luck: These devices will gain 3-D capability through firmware upgrades, according to their respective manufacturers.) Then you’ll have to buy special Blu-ray discs that are explicitly labeled to use the same 3-D tech as your TV and glasses. So far there’s only one 3-D Blu-ray disc available: Monsters and Aliens, which Dreamworks released with great fanfare last week. (There are other 3-D Blu-ray discs available, but they use the old blue-and-red glasses 3-D technology, which doesn’t look nearly as good.)
For television, you’ll have to wait for the video industry to pump out more 3-D content on cable channels. ESPN and Discovery, for example, have already established partnerships with Sony to create 3-D content; these channels probably won’t launch until 2011.
With all that said, manufacturers are confident that consumers will come along for the 3-D ride sooner or later. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that 4 million 3-D TV sets will be sold in 2010, most of them in the fourth quarter.
To check out the future of 3-D, take the plunge into our photo collection of 3-D TVs from CES, courtesy of Wired.com photographer Jon Snyder. No glasses are required.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Gravity Ruler is a low-tech, lightweight solution to overweight luggage, a bungee-cord and weighing scale in one.
Recently, a one-two punch from the airlines has meant that the weight of your carry-on luggage is rather important. First, you need to pay for any checked bags. Second, if your hand-luggage weighs too much, you have to check it. It’s a great way for the budget carriers to scam a few extra bucks out of their already suffering customers.
So you need to keep the carry-on under the limit, but of course you don’t want to carry a scale which just adds more weight to your luggage. Enter the Gravity Ruler, an elastic bungee cord inside a plastic tube. The cord is marked with orange ribbon, and the tube is calibrated in kilos. You thread it through the handle of your suitcase and lift. As the bungee stretches, it lines up with the marks on the non-stretching tube, giving an instant readout of the weight. It weighs almost nothing and is small and bendy enough to slide into even the most overstuffed of bags.
The designer, Marcella Maltese, made a limited run of 35 Gravity Rulers and sold them all in an hour. Here’s hoping that she gets these to a proper manufacturer. Alternatively, you could travel on Europe’s Easyjet, whose in-cabin weight limit is described thus: If you can lift it into the overhead locker, you can bring it on.
Gravity Ruler [Marcella Maltese via Core77]
Richard sez, "For the discerning mad scientist: the list of items up for auction by the University of Delaware from a former Chrysler plant in Newark, Delaware. The university bought the plant after it closed, and apparently got the contents as well. The coolest items are probably the 6 axis robot arms, some still in line along assembly lines. There appears to be all kinds of milling equipment as well as other mysterious devices of unsure provenance. I am sure a machine expert would be able to make sense of all of it. The place is acres large (ed: literally -- 3 million sqft), so I bet there are plenty of robot arms to go around.
Oh to be an independently wealthy mad scientist with a large laboratory, perhaps under an extinct volcano, for this stuff. I suppose if there are any makers in the area they might want to check it out."
Former Assets of Chrysler / University of Delaware -
3 Million Sq. Ft. Automotive Fabrication, Assembly Plant & Distribution Center
(Thanks, Richard!)
There are hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of D.I.Y articles on the internet, some more useful than others. I read maybe a dozen or so a day, solely for the sake of expanding my knowledge bank of obscure solutions. Every once in a while, one sprouts up that is just so damned simple, so face-palmingly obvious, that it makes me feel downright stupid for not thinking of it.
This is one of those.
The trick is simple. Armed with nothing but a pint glass, you can make the sound coming out of your iPhone (any smartphone should work, really – the iPhone works especially well because the speaker is on the bottom) about twice as loud. Does it sound beautiful? No. Is it a replacement for even the cheapest of speakers out there? Nope! But if you ever find yourself in a bind — like needing to blast a conference call just a wee bit louder — this little trick just might get you out of it. Check out the video below for an example.
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This is the Miniguru, from Guru Board, and it’s the smartest keyboard we have seen in years. We’re stuck with the keyboard, probably forever, so the Guru Board folks have stripped it to its basics and tried to make it faster and easier to use.
The premise is that you keep your hands in one place, with your fingers always on the home row. To this end, the number pad has been removed, and a nipple has been added just like you’d find on a Thinkpad notebook keyboard, so you can mouse around without a mouse or trackpad. Even the cursor arrows have disappeared, moved to be easier to use.
The Miniguru works like this: two “swirl” keys, on either side of the spacebar, change the mode of the entire keyboard. Pressing one with your thumb, for instance, flips the keys into a navigation mode where the i,j,k and l keys work as cursors, with other oft-used functions close to hand. To free up these thumb-keys, the alt keys have been shifted next to the swirls (in the same place as they are on a Mac keyboard) and the ctrl key has been shifted to replace the useless, almost universally hated Caps Lock key.
If you’re thinking that you’ll need to learn a new way of typing, you’re right. Mac users especially will have a lot of muscle memory baked into the Command key shortcuts they use every day. To this end, Miniguru has a clever approach to reprogramming the keyboard layout. Any changes made using the configuration software (and you can change pretty much everything) are saved to the keyboard’s own firmware. This means that whatever computer you plug it into, it will act just as you set it to.
This keyboard-for-life philosophy continues to the construction. When it is available (in the last quarter of this year), it’ll have proper mechanical keys. The keycaps will come in a choice of “clicky, tactile or linear” responses. You can also customize the colors of the caps, the tray and the nipple, along with a choice of vertical or horizontal “return” key.
How much will it be? We don’t know. The price will be announced when the product is ready to ship. As someone who already has too many keyboards at home, I can’t wait.
Miniguru Product page [Guru Board via the Giz]
See Also:
Jake Bronstein of Zoomdoggle sent me a bunch of Buckyballs and for the last few days my daughters and I have been playing with them during meals and in front of the TV. They're addictive.
Each box contains 216 Buckyballs, arranged in a 6 x 6 x 6 cube. They stick together because they're magnets. The magnets are strong enough that you can make a chain with all 216 balls that won't break when you dangle it. They are so strong in fact, that my thumb is a little bruised from the effort it takes to pull the balls apart.
The fun part about Buckyballs is the way they balls arrange themselves when you stick them together. The balls have a preference for certain crystalline structures. There seems to be a huge variety of structures the balls like to arrange themselves into, as you can see in the video above. (Learn other tricks with Buckyballs.) When I play with them, I feel like my hands are a nanotechnology machine sticking atoms together.
My current goal is to stack them back together into the 6 x 6 x 6 cube, but I haven't been able to figure out how to do it. I know that there are some YouTube videos that show how to do it, but I'm going to try to figure it out on my own.
(Disclosure: I'm an unpaid adviser to Zoomdoggle.)
Buckyballs on Amazon
Source: Boing Boing Gadgets | 14 Jan 2010 | 12:08 pm
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A rather clever programmer has managed to get the iPhone to run interactive apps created using Adobe’s Flash platform. And because it works inside the Safari browser, it isn’t subject to the dictatorial rules of Apple’s App Store.
The software is called Gordon, and it doesn’t actually allow Flash itself to work on the iPhone. Instead, Gordon is a JavaScript runtime written by Tobias Schneider which allows the browser to play and display .swf files (the Shockwave Flash file extension). A runtime is a collection of software that allows the running of code inside it. A helpful analogy is a software emulator for a games console which allows you to play the actual code of, say, Super Mario World on your PC.
Does this mean that the iPhone now supports Flash? Not really. You can’t just visit any site that has Flash, because the hack only works on sites that have installed it. Developers would need to add this runtime to each instance of Flash on their sites (although calling the runtime only requires a few lines of code).
And while the open source project is available to all, it still doesn’t solve one of Flash’s biggest problems. These SWF files still hog the CPU. One demo, a simple vector graphic of a tiger, throws my desktop browser up to around 100 percent CPU usage.
Still, the hack potentially opens the door to a new class of interactive, animated mobile websites. While many web developers rely on Flash to accomplish things that can’t easily be done in HTML, those Flash apps won’t run on the iPhone. And while the lack of Flash support has been one of the most persistent criticisms of the iPhone platform, Apple has done nothing to rectify the problem. Adobe’s workaround, announced in October, has been to offer developers a way of converting Flash apps to iPhone apps, but that wouldn’t support Flash within the web browser, and those apps are still subject to Apple’s approval before they’re available.
You can see it in action yourself by heading over to this Gordon demonstration page (which works in both Mobile Safari, on your iPhone or any desktop browser). On a new iPod Touch, the animations run just fine, and as the runtime is directly displaying the SWF files it should also work with video.
Could we ever see a browser in the App Store which would let us view any Flash content this way? It’s very doubtful, due to Apple’s ban on anything which can run interpretive code.
Also, when naming the project, Tobias doesn’t seem to have considered the search terms required to google it: Flash Gordon. Or maybe that’s the joke?
Gordon demos [Paul Irish]
Gordon project code [Github/Tobias Schneider]
So there you are, on your way home after purchasing the brand new smart phone you’ve been wanting for weeks. You’re reading the specs on the side; “Supports microSD cards up to 32 Gigabytes”, it boasts. “32 Gigabytes? That’s like a million!” you think to yourself as you pull up your handset’s browser. You hop on the Googlenets with your heart set on snapping up one of these 32GB cards to call your own. You check Amazon, Tiger Direct, New Egg.. and.. there’s nothing.
We’ve been hearing about these 32GB cards for months now, but no one (at least as far as I know, and I’ve looked pretty hard) has managed to get them to productions. That’s all about to change next month, thanks to good ol’ Samsung.
They’re not releasing any pricing info just yet, but Samsung is claiming that the mass production of their 32GB microSD line is all set to start in February. Sample units are already floating about for compatibility/quality testing sake.
Also worth noting, Samsung has also disclosed that they’ve been building 64GB moviNAND chips (in other words, ultra-slim, low-power 64 gigabyte drives that can be built into mobile devices by the manufacturer) since December 2009. If there’s an Omnia III anywhere on Samsung’s horizon, you can be pretty dang sure it’s going to pack a whopping 64 gigs inside.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
Are you rocking a Nokia N900 yet? If you hail from the US, probably not — they do sell’em here, but the carrier-folk (read: T-Mobile) have yet to put it on their shelves. If you plan on buying one in the near future, however, be happy: it just got a wee bit better.
In its second software update this week, the Nokia N900 packs a bunch of small but worthwhile goodies. They’ve tucked in Exchange 2003 support, global address lookup, a UI overhaul for the Ovi Maps application, and performance tweaks all around.
So how do you get it? Sit tight – it’ll come to you over-the-air sometime soon, and you’ll be prodded to confirm the update when it’s ready. If you’re the anxious type you might be able to nab it a bit early with the Nokia Software Updater, but I can’t promise that.
Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies
John sez, "I've been making using dismantled typewriter components. Each edition is made by sticking the sheet metal pieces to a magnetic plate then inking and printing like a woodblock."
typeset
(Thanks, John!)
Section: Web, Websites, Google
In the never ending search engine wars, the December numbers are in thanks to Nielsen Reports. Nielsen tallies the total number of searches as a provider. Decembers results? Google jumped 1.9% over their November stat while Bing suffered a loss.
As you can see from the spreadsheet, Google led all search engines, followed by Yahoo!. The combination of Windows Live, MSN and Bing brought up #3. AOL, Ask, and MyWeb round out anything above 1%.
So what happened in December to Bing? Why did users not entrust their holiday searches to the upstart? Has Bing’s cashback program lost its luster? Even the addition of the Bing iPhone app did not help stem the losses.
Read: [Nielsen Wire]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
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Twitter is preparing to launch a new set of tools that will let third party websites easily integrate Twitter features directly into their web sites and services, multiple sources have confirmed. In a nutshell, this is their response to the massively popular Facebook Connect.
For the past four months, Amsterdam-based 
"For people on a more complex diet that involves keeping track of quantities and items eaten, their subjective impression of the difficulty of the diet can lead them to give up on it," reported Peter Todd, professor in IU's Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.
Stumbled across this idea by accident this week when my four year-old wanted to help with the cooking. She's kind of a wild stirrer and flour has a tendency to end up all over so I was feeling resistant to having her help. The dishwasher happened to be open and I got the idea to just set to bowl on top of the open dishwasher door. It was just the right height for her to help add ingredients and stir, and the pile of flour and sugar that usually ends up on the counter ended up on the dishwasher instead, making clean up as easy as closing the door :) It was definitely one of those "how did it take me so long to think of this?!" sort of moments.
Looks like the recession is helping at least one industry. NPD Group reported that the video game industry turned in $5.53 billion dollars in sales for December, topping the results from last year by 4 percent!
