Source: Gizmodo | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:00 pm

MGM bid deadline passes, most bids yet to come

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - First-round bids for the debt-ridden MGM studio were due Friday afternoon, but most of the bids are expected to trickle in through the weekend, sources familiar with the matter...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:52 pm

MGM bid deadline passes, most bids yet to come

NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) - First-round bids for the debt-ridden MGM studio were due Friday afternoon, but most of the bids are expected to trickle in through the weekend, sources familiar with the matter...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:52 pm

AT&T Announces New "We Had to Because Verizon Did" Pricing Plans [Digital Daily]

When Verizon Wireless (VZ) announced in February of 2008 that it would offer unlimited mobile phone calls for a flat rate of $99.99 a month, it took AT&T (T) a matter of hours to craft a similar rate plan and issue an press release touting it. No surprise then that Verizon’s announcement this morning of a $69.99-a-month nationwide voice plan and a $89.99-a-month voice and text plan, was quickly followed by AT&T’s announcement of similar offerings. They are:

▪ Feature Phone customers may choose unlimited talk for $69.99. Family Talk customers (prices assume two lines) may choose unlimited talk for $119.99 per month.  Texting plans remain unchanged at $20 for unlimited plans for individuals and $30 for Family Talk plans.

▪ Quick Messaging Device customers may choose unlimited talk for $69.99 and Family Talk plans may choose unlimited talk for $119.99 per month (for two lines). These plans require a minimum of $20 per month for individual plans and $30 per month for Family Talk plans in texting and/or Web browsing packages for new and upgrading customers.

▪ All smartphone customers, including iPhone customers, may now buy unlimited voice and data for $99.99.  For smartphone customers with Family Talk plans (prices assume 2 smartphones), unlimited voice and data is now available for $179.99. Texting plans remain unchanged at $20 for unlimited plans for individuals, $30 for Family Talk Plans.

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:52 pm

AP Enterprise: US buyers must beware in China (AP)

AP - David Smith pushed a cart piled high with boxes of beads and other jewelry through a maze of shops at a wholesale market in southern China.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:47 pm

A Space Cannon That Might Actually Work

Unequivocal writes "Chalk another one up to Jules Verne. Physicist John Hunter is proposing a space cannon with a new design idea: it's mostly submerged. 'Many engineers have toyed with the [space cannon] concept, but nobody has came up with an actual project that may work. Hunter's idea is simple: Build a cannon near the equator, submerged in the ocean, hooked to a floating rig ... A system like this will cut launch costs from $5,000 per pound to only $250 per pound. It won't launch people into space because of the excessive acceleration, but those guys at the ISS can use it to order pizza and real ice cream.' Though it won't work on people, with launch costs that low, who cares?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:42 pm

Yes Reggie, Wii Netflix Without HD is a Problem - PC World

Nerdles (blog)

Yes Reggie, Wii Netflix Without HD is a Problem PC World Dear Nintendo, while I respect your president Reggie Fils-Aime's decision to shrug off the Wii's inability to do high-definition video as "no loss" in an interview with CNBC, I'm not sure you're taking the long view. And if recent HD usage survey ... Nintendo Wii wins December console warsTG Daily Nintendo dominates US December video game hardware salesAfterdawn.com Video game sales explode in industry's best month everCNET Gamasutra -Ars Technica -GameSpot all 262 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:38 pm

MightyMeeting Wins the Founder Showcase - Mobile Collaboration and Social Publishing Company Wins Top Pitch at TheFunded.com's Start-Up Pitch Event

Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:36 pm

MightyMeeting Wins the Founder Showcase - Mobile Collaboration and Social Publishing Company Wins Top Pitch at TheFunded.com's Start-Up Pitch Event

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- MightyMeeting, Inc.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:36 pm

Text-to-donate total exceeds $10m – I think we’re onto something

Chances are you've heard of the text-to-donate system set up by the Red Cross to provide relief to quake-devastated Haiti. It seems that the ease of donating and the immediacy of the disaster have prompted a response far beyond what the Red Cross anticipated. I can understand why: I used the system to donate $10 (not to toot my own horn), and found it as easy as dropping a quarter in a slot at the grocery store. So: good work everyone, and if you haven't donated yet, give it a shot or check out Google's catchall page for Haiti relief efforts. The success of this campaign raises some questions about the way this sort of thing should be handled by the telecoms. A $10 charge will appear on my T-Mobile bill, I'm assuming; they volunteered to support this effort, so I think that'll be the end of it, but now that I've gotten a taste of it, I want more. Not necessarily just for donations, but for mobile charging in general.

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:24 pm

Text-to-donate total exceeds $10m – I think we’re onto something

Chances are you’ve heard of the text-to-donate system set up by the Red Cross to provide relief to quake-devastated Haiti. It seems that the ease of donating and the immediacy of the disaster have prompted a response far beyond what the Red Cross anticipated. I can understand why: I used the system to donate $10 (not to toot my own horn), and found it as easy as dropping a quarter in a slot at the grocery store. So: good work everyone, and if you haven’t donated yet, give it a shot or check out Google’s catchall page for Haiti relief efforts.

The success of this campaign raises some questions about the way this sort of thing should be handled by the telecoms. A $10 charge will appear on my T-Mobile bill, I’m assuming; they volunteered to support this effort, so I think that’ll be the end of it, but now that I’ve gotten a taste of it, I want more. Not necessarily just for donations, but for mobile charging in general. I don’t mean to minimize the importance of the donations and things going on right now, but they bring up a few issues worth discussing.

The ease of payment is made possible by the fact that T-Mo already has my card and address. Making a donation was easy; wouldn’t it be just as easy for an online retailer to say “text 342856 with BILL to buy this item!” This would work better for single-serving sites or those with limited numbers of products, but still, it’d be nice. But that makes T-Mobile into an arbiter of normal transactions. The $10 I’ve donated to the Red Cross has been given to them, but it won’t be paid back to T-Mo until my monthly payment goes through. What if it were a $20 donation? or a $50 shoe purchase?

It would be good to have a system in place for this that is well-understood by consumers. Having an e-wallet of sorts, perhaps managed for an extra $5/month by your service provider or something, would be a great way to avoid having your credit card information spread over 10 or 15 sites. Easy pay systems are here and there, I know, but they’re far from mainstream yet — this donation rush might just be the thing that tips the scales, though. People might find, as I did, that it would be just as easy to buy as it was to donate. It’s something we’ll have to deal with sooner or later.

Of course, there are things like Square out there, but doesn’t Square strike you as a bit of a weird hybrid? It’ll last for a bit, but the marriage of the old card system with a new cardless system seems like a sideways step instead of a forwards one. The challenge will be to make a system that is secure, robust, and easily accessible from any phone.

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:23 pm

Haiti quake could not have been predicted: experts

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The catastrophic earthquake that struck Haiti could not have been predicted, experts said on Friday, but seismologists have made progress in identifying areas likely
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:20 pm

U.S. Wireless Carriers Fast Track Mobile Donations to Help Earthquake Victims in Haiti

DENVER, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Video and photos of the horrendous damage in Haiti moved U.S. citizens to act quickly and donate more than $10 million within 36 hours using their mobile phones to support the American Red Cross relief effort.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:10 pm

U.S. Wireless Carriers Fast Track Mobile Donations to Help Earthquake Victims in Haiti

Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:10 pm

Boeye’s OEM E900 reader, a cheaper Kindle DX

Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks

Sporting the exact (almost!) same specifications as the Kindle DX, the Boeye’s OEM E900 reader is a cheaper ebook reader, priced at only around $311. Although it lacks branding, you’ve got to agree that this 9.7” ebook reader (3G, WiFi, Bluetooth, an expandable microSD slot, and a whole slew of other features such as text-to-speech) is almost an exact replica of the Kindle DX, down to the button positions! For a much cheaper price, I might actually consider going for the Boeye E900. The only downside is that the minimum order quantity is 100 pieces. Any wholesalers reading this?

Product [Alibaba] Via [Engadget]

Full Story » | Written by Cheng Hung for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:02 pm

Yelp Enables Check-Ins On Its iPhone App; Foursquare, Gowalla Ousted As Mayors

When you think of the idea of “checking-in” at a venue in a mobile app, you likely think of Foursquare or Gowalla right now. The two gained significant momentum, funding, and users in the location space in 2009. But even with the growth, both services are still relatively small, neither much bigger than 200,000 users. That’s why much larger social networks like Facebook are perceived to be a potential risk to them. And one of those bigger networks has just entered the fray: Yelp.

With the latest version of its iPhone app (version 4) which will be released today in the App Store, Yelp is introducing a bunch of new features. But none is bigger than the new ability to check-in to venues. Considering there are some 1.25 million users of the Yelp iPhone app, with this update, Yelp will already become the largest network offering this functionality by far. And it’s not just check-ins. Yelp is also adding rewards for users who frequent certain venues, and a leaderboard. Yes, they’re also getting into the gaming element of location.

So does this spell doom for Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and the others? Maybe, but maybe not. No one is quite sure how well the concept of checking-in will work when tacked on to an existing social network. Yelp is a great one to try it though since it’s already based around venues. But the social connections on Yelp aren’t like more traditional social networks, so it will be interesting to see if with this feature, users start transferring their more traditional social graphs over to Yelp. From Yelp’s perspective, this is just another way to allow people to contribute to the service without having to write reviews or upload pictures, Yelp mobile product manager Eric Singley tells us. It also adds a new layer of credibility to those who do write reviews because other users can now potentially see that these users have been to the place they are reviewing numerous times.

And yes, the idea is to eventually allow Yelp users that check-in places to see certain deals offered up by the venues. Yelp already has this concept in place with their Sales and Special Offers program that’s about a year old. Already there are over 200,000 of these offers that businesses are serving up, I’m told. Yelp could easily turn this on for the new check-in feature as well, which Singley envisions happening. Perhaps most significantly, Singley doesn’t foresee Yelp using such a feature to augment their business model. While he wouldn’t entirely rule it out in the future, he noted that Yelp had no plans to change the idea of letting venues offer deals for free. This could potentially threaten the Foursquare and Gowalla business models. Right now, neither have paid arrangements with venues for the deals they offer, but eventually they were hoping to turn that on. If Yelp offers venues the ability to give customers coupons for free, it could get interesting.

Just as with Foursquare and Gowalla, Yelp users will be able to get Push Notifications when friends check-in somewhere. There will also be a check-in stream to show you where all your friends are. And as I alluded to, users who go to certain venues a lot will be rewarded with badges. At first, this is limited to a “Regular” badge, which you will get if you check-in somewhere twice in a 60 day span (though Singley notes this algorithm could be tweaked as needed). And this badge will appear next to your reviews on Yelp to let others know that you go there a lot. Singley also left open the possibility of other badges eventually. And while this is iPhone-only for now, the check-in data should be coming to the website in a couple of weeks, and then to the other mobile apps as well, I’m told.

But how the check-in battle will play out remains to be seen. First, we’ll have to see if the concept catches on with Yelp users. And that shouldn’t distract current the users from the wide range of other new features in the latest version of the iPhone app. In fact, “this is the biggest iPhone update we’ve ever done,” Singley says. So what else is new besides check-ins?

Yelp has finally added profiles to the app. You can now see and edit your Yelp profile just as you would on the website. This is an extension of the signing-in ability Yelp added in its last update. Also new is the ability to more easily find friends you may know. The Yelp app can use your iPhone’s address book, or your Facebook contacts if you’re hooked up with Facebook Connect.

Speaking of Facebook, you’ll now be able to share things more easily on that network, as well as on Twitter. This includes Quick Tips and the new check-ins. This could potentially help the Yelp app grow even bigger.

Finally, Yelp has updated the Monocle functionality. As you may recall, this is the augmented reality view of Yelp, and now it allows you to lay your phone horizontally to bring up a map overlay that will work with the iPhone’s compass. And with the new check-ins, you’ll also have an option to view where your friends are in this augmented reality view.

Overall, the look of the Yelp app has been updated too. And you can see in the screen shot at the top of this post, the main page now looks more like the Facebook app. It seems that a lot of apps are borrowing this design these days; LinkedIn did recently as well.

Just as it has always done, Yelp plans to test all of these new features on the iPhone first, then roll them out to the other mobile platforms. Of those, not surprisingly, Singley seems most excited about the Android platform.

With Yelp now in the check-in location game, maybe Google will be kicking itself for not scooping them up when they had the chance. After all, I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot of movement in terms of acquisitions in that field this year.

When the new Yelp app goes live (which should be shortly), you can find it here.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:00 pm

DEALTALK-UPDATE 2-Kraft's Rosenfeld seen raising Cadbury bid

* Rosenfeld under pressure whether or not deal is done (Adds Wall Street Journal report about Hershey to raise bid)
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:00 pm

It's Not The Photographer, It's The Camera!

I enjoy reading the high end DSLR discussion boards on the internet. Those gearheads go ape over minute differences in "chromatic aberration" and "barrel distortion". They peep at pixels in Photoshop to see if their lens is able to give them a sharp image blown up to the size of the side of a barn. But all they seem to ever shoot pictures of is brick walls and cans of soda at varying distances lined up on their dining room table!

I think if you are going to make a fetish over camera equipment, it should be junk store cameras, not DSLRs. There's something about a fifty year old scratched up plastic lens that makes magic happen. The proof is on exhibit at JunkStoreCameras.com.

Marcy Merrill, a professional photographer, has been accumulating cameras at swap meets and thrift stores and running rolls of film though them to see what comes out. She has captured some remarkably atmospheric images and each one is accompanied by a photo of the two dollar plastic camera that took it. Check it out...

Marcy Merrill's Junk Store Cameras

Source: Boing Boing | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:59 pm

Haiti: News roundup, new satellite images, tweets from the ground

• Ann Curry's report on NBC about the horrific suffering of children in Haiti, even the lucky ones who have been rescued and are receiving medical treatment. The video is hard to watch. (screengrab above: a child receiving surgery without anesthesia)

• Haiti Twitter information, compiled by the ATLAS program at the University of Colorado. Organizers suggest following a standard syntax, to make conversation and connecting more effective.

• A collection point for amateur radio communications data related to the quake is here.

• A Scottish nurse in Haiti blogs about the toll of frequent, ongoing aftershocks:

The Haitian staff are showing signs of stress. Many of us here are experiencing loss of appetite, nausea and headaches. The constant movement of the ground makes our buildings sway and that is causing motion sickness, as well as high levels of anxiety. The children are fairing remarkably well.

• The tweeting Carrier USS Carl Vinson (@CVN70) will serve as a 'floating airport' for Haiti relief operation.

• New satellite maps of Haiti coming in: "Damage evaluation map based on satellite data over the Port-au-Prince area of Haiti, following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and several aftershocks that hit the Caribbean nation on 12 January. Map based on data from CNES's SPOT-5, JAXA's ALOS and the U.S.-based GeoEye-1 satellites; processed by SERTIT. " Click for full-size.

• Dan Harris, ABC News: "Saw my first real bout of looting in #haiti today. People are openly and increasingly worried re social unrest here."

• Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" blog has two posts with incredible, powerful photographs from Haiti over the past few days. Here is part one, here is part two.

• The New York Times' "The Lede" blog is an excellent source for ongoing analysis and news updates. Also, see this interactive map, using satellite imaging data from GeoEye, which shows the capital city before and after the earthquake.

• Danger Room: tweets from the front line of Haiti relief.

• At night, Port au Prince is lit by burning tires.

• Some 300,000 people have already been displaced by the disaster.

• When Haitian Ministers Take a 50 Percent Cut of Aide Money It's Called
"Corruption," When NGOs Skim 50 Percent It's Called "Overhead": Crushing Haiti, Now as Always

• Our Role in Haiti's Plight, by Peter Hallward

• Democracy Now: US Policy in Haiti Over Decades "Lays the Foundation for Why Impact of Natural Disaster Is So Severe"

• Op-Ed, New York Times: A Country Without a Net / Tracy Kidder

• Haiti's largest jail collapsed in the earthquake, and all the inmates fled, according to a UN report.

• Catherine Lainé (Boing Boing Video interview with her in Haiti) tweets, "Things you can do: Call your congressman/senator re: cancelling Haiti's debt. The country will need every penny to rebuild."

• Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine published this excellent video op-ed today: Mini Doctrine on Haiti.

(Some links in this post via Ned Sublette, Todd Lappin, Kristie LuStout, Brad King)

Source: Boing Boing | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:58 pm

Interview: We Talk To The Lead Developer Of Plex Media Center For Mac OS X

As far as XBMC forks go, Boxee certainly appears to have the most heat. It has VC money pouring in, flashy deals with content providers, and you'll soon be able to buy a dedicated D-Link box to more easily use it on your TV. But Boxee isn't the only XBMC-based media center that's worth your time. It's not even the first XBMC fork to go out and make a name for itself. Plex, which is exclusive to Mac OS X, was Boxee before Boxee was cool. I recently talked to the lead developer, Elan Feingold, to get a better understand of what Plex is, what it does, and where it's going. Needless to say, if you're running Mac OS X, you ought to give it a shot. It's good.

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:56 pm

MLK's FBI Files May Soon See Daylight

On Monday, Jan. 18, 2010, the United States will commemorate the achievements of civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr. While today we look at King with great respect and admiration, any student of history will know that this wasn't ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:55 pm

Why Counter-Terrorism Is In Shambles

Early last week several questions were submitted to former CIA analyst Ray McGovern about the sad state of counter-terrorism in the United States, and he has answered frankly and in-depth. In addition, McGovern solicited former FBI attorney/special agent Coleen Rowley to review his answers and provide her own comments. Ray's biggest tip to the intelligence community was to "HOLD ACCOUNTABLE THOSE RESPONSIBLE. More 'reform' is the last thing we need. Sorry, but we DO have to look back. The most effective step would be to release the CIA Inspector General report on intelligence community performance prior to 9/11. That investigation was run by, and its report was prepared by an honest man, it turns out. It was immediately suppressed by then-Acting DCI John McLaughlin — another Tenet clone — and McLaughin's successors as director, Porter Goss, Michael Hayden, and now Leon Panetta."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:53 pm

Despite iPods and Walkmen, Rates of Hearing Loss Dropping

Hearing impairment rates have actually dropped for adult Americans, according to a new long-term study, despite the rise of rock 'n' roll and earbuds.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:42 pm

Haiti Earthquake Update: AIDG's Catherine Lainé, live from Haiti (BB Video)

Watch on YouTube | Download MP4 | Dotsub (with foreign language translations)

In this episode of Boing Boing Video, I speak with Haitian-American blogger and sustainable tech development activist Catherine Lainé (photo at left from earlier this year). She was working in Haiti when the catastrophic earthquake struck earlier this week. Catherine spoke to us via Skype video from Cap-Haïtien, where she is working out of a space shared with AIDG (Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group) and a kindred nonprofit known as SOIL.

A number of her family members live in Haiti. At the time of this interview, all were safely accounted for, except for her brother, who resides in the devastated capital city of Port-au-Prince. He is currently still missing. Catherine is trying to get into the city to locate him, as I publish this blog post.

Among the observations she shares: aid groups are running out of body bags, and corpses are piling up so fast that the morgues have no space. The internet is a vital form of communication, as are cellphones—when they work—and she is seeing people in Haiti using social networking services as a means to try and locate missing loved ones within Haiti. The environment is so chaotic and roads so badly damaged that even in-country, mobile technology and web-based social networking services like Facebook are playing a vital role in the reconnection process. Don't assume that because Haiti is so poor, nobody's using the internet. She says cell service has been spotty, with certain carriers performing better than others. She connected to us using WIMAX, and the degree to which that service has performed during the disaster makes her a real believer in the promise of that particular wireless technology.

Edited video transcript after the jump (recorded at 1130pm ET on Jan. 14, 2010), along with Catherine's suggestions on how to help.

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BOING BOING: Where are you right now?

CATHERINE LAINÉ: About 100km outside the capital, about a six hour drive given the current road conditions.

BB: What has the connectivity been like since the quake hit?

CATHERINE: Pretty difficult. Everyone got on the phone at the same time to talk to their families, one of the major cellphone companies here—their towers collapsed. But communications are normalizing, and I've heard from relatives via cellphone today.

BB: How do you go about trying to find someone there, given all of the chaos, and how difficult it is to get from one place to another with damaged roads?

CATHERINE: People are relying a lot on cellphone calls. Travel within the country is extremely difficult. I'm hearing a lot of people using social networks, posting pictures of lost loved ones on Facebook or CNNn's ireport site. Right now it seems that the internet is one of the more resilient forms of communication.

It's surreal. People are used to hearing about Haiti as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and because of this the idea that some of these people in Haiti are using internet-based technology to find loved ones might be surprising. But I'm shocked and happy that companies like Access Haiti are able to keep their services up and operational. WIMAX has been trying to get off the ground in US cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, and I'm definitely a bigger fan of that technology now in terms of disaster coping, after this experience.

Most of the cell providers are down. One of the largest companies is an Irish company, Digicell. Typically they're among the best service in the country and their engineers are having such a difficult time coping. Voilá, another popular mobile provider, is just barely starting to get calls through, it's a shock when phone calls get through, it's like magic when the phone rings right now.

BB: What are AIDG and other sustainability NGOs that you collaborate with focusing efforts on right now?

CATHERINE: We're coordinating with civil engineers to come to the capital and do risk assessment. One thing we're going to try and do is help with translation and logistical support, helping to coordinate the incoming volunteers from various organizations, to help put people coming in from outside to work in the most effective ways possible, because we are very familiar with the country and with the needs here. So, a lot of coordination help.

BB: What do people need to understand about this current crisis that they don't understand?

CATHERINE: I think one of the things people forget about natural disasters is that after the immediate disaster falls out of the news, the need is still there. When they're opening their hearts right now, they also need to think about a long term giving strategy. Put it in your Google calendar, and give again in a year. When the reconstruction starts, we're going to need another outpouring. Reconstruction is a long process and we're going to need their help for a long time.

People need to realize it's not going to turn around overnight, but that they should not lose hope for Haiti.

BB: Many watching this may not be familiar with Haiti. When we hear about Haiti we think about this poor country cursed with a history of violence and natural disasters. What would you say to someone who thinks of Haiti as a problem?

CATHERINE: People need to think about the way they frame news stories... referring to Haiti all the time as "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere," it's just an example of journalistic laziness. In any story, there is a backstory that doesn't sell papers, that doesn't get traffic. The story we hear about Haiti is always about its poverty, and not about its beauty.

What's so heartbreaking about this particular tragedy is that just when Haiti is at this point of such hope, Bill Clinton running the Clinton Global Initiative and saying this is the time in history when Haiti has the biggest chance for positive change... people don't know that, the typical person in America hasn't seen the amazing richness and beauty of the country.

My family's here, so it's hard for me not to come here, but the energy, the language, the people... the first time I came here was in 2006, and it felt like coming home. It's like Marmite, you love it or you hate it. Once Haiti gets under your skin it's there for life.

I think it's good that more Haitian-Americans are reporting about the news, in this news cycle. They can give a different sense about the country than someone who's just going there for the first time and is not of the culture. There's a sense of a different tone with which people talk about Haiti, a different flavor who are either from Haiti or have had experience in developing countries, they have a different understanding. When people talk about Haiti, there are a lot of arts and culture in different parts of the country.

Haiti isn't just a basket case. I think people need to understand the other social, economic, and political factors that have conspired to make Haiti the way it is right now. You need to think about those to understand why Haiti has come to the point it is right now. Haiti has not become almost a failed state by accident.

For instance, consider the difference in how the Carter and Reagan administrations dealt with human rights during the Duvalier regime. During the Carter administration, the rights of journalists and activists in Haiti were respected a little more because of the pressure from the US. But when Reagan took office, that all changed because of America's focus on "fighting Communism," and journalists and human rights workers here felt the pressure immediately. Haiti does not exist in a vacuum.

BB: Catherine, are there some final thoughts you'd like to leave our viewers with?

CATHERINE: Being here, it's been incredible to see the outpouring of support and emotion that people have put forth... If there is any good thing you can get... from a disaster like this.... it's that people can be.... so kind and generous. [pauses, in tears.] I would say more, but...

There are so many bodies on the street, the morgues are full, the Red Cross has run out of body bags... just the thought of all the people who are still buried under the rubble... right now, it is overwhelming.

---

Catherine suggests that those who wish to help the
people of Haiti consider donating to the following organizations:

• The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG)

• Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)

• Partners In Health (PIH)

• YELE

• Food For The Poor

(Image of Catherine Lainé courtesy whiteafrican; special thanks to Boing Boing Video editor Eric Mittleman)

Source: Boing Boing | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:39 pm

Ever wondered what an image would sound like?

We found an interesting little blurb about a software program that converts images into music. Specifically, it “converts the RGB, Red, Green, and Blue, values of every pixel of an image and plays a 3 note harmony based on the RGB values. It reads the pixels from top left to bottom right playing a song a long the way.” According to señor willburns1 on his blog (link), “most of the time it seems like set a child loose on a piano but it is sometimes pretty cool.”

Intrigued, I thought I’d spice up this Friday afternoon with audio created from some of my favorite images, but alas! it was not to be. It seems there’s a patent on this technology, and Kenji Kojima, the creator of RGB MusicLab, was told to stop:

Dear people,
I was informed that I had to remove RGB MusicLab from the web site from a person who had a patent that enabling the interpretation of color as music. I have never heard it was a patent and believed it belonged to all humankind. However I have to obey the US law.

Kenji Kojima

Some samples are still online, if MIDI is your thing.

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:30 pm

Mathletes appreciate the Pi shower curtain

You’ve been adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing all day long. The sweat gathers in the arm pit region of your short-sleeve button-down work shirt. Your pocket protector feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. Only 15 minutes to go and you can hop in your Subaru, drive home, and take a nice, long shower. If only there was a shower curtain to reflect your status as one of the world’s most elite mathletes.

Now there is.

Available at ThinkGeek.com for $30, the Pi Shower Curtain showcases the Pi logo from afar (you have a tattoo of it, of course) and, upon closer inspection, contains the first 4,600 digits of the sexiest number in the history of numbers.

Pi Shower Curtain [ThinkGeek.com]

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:30 pm

K2's Eco Pop Snowboard Designed With Ladies in Mind

Most women's snowboards are just diminutive versions of sticks for dudes but painted pink. Not the K2 Eco Pop.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:30 pm

K2's Eco Pop Snowboard Designed With Ladies in Mind

Most women's snowboards are just diminutive versions of sticks for dudes but painted pink. Not the K2 Eco Pop.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:30 pm

Intel's Impressive Q4 Beat Triggers…Major Tech Selloff? [Voices]

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

Intel (INTC) last night reported Q4 results that were, by any measure, well above expectations. Q4 revenue was up 28 percent year-over-year, and EPS beat by a dime, even before backing out the company’s one-time payment to settle its litigation with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). The big beat figured to set up the market to rally this morning; but as it often does, the market has defied expectations, and tech stocks are selling off big time.

Several of the more bearish Intel analysts noted this morning that the company’s impressive Q4 gross margin–64.7 percent, up 7 points sequentially and 12 points year over year–may be as good as it gets. Auriga analyst Daniel Berenbaum this morning wrote in a research note that “gross margin arguably peaked for the cycle in Q4, which could prove a headwind for the stock.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:25 pm

Dirt-Cheap Notebook Also Able-Bodied Superstar

After experimenting with humongous all-in-one notebooks, Lenovo returns to its roots with an inexpensive, go-anywhere, do-anything, multitasking machine.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:25 pm

Dirt-Cheap Notebook Also Able-Bodied Superstar

After experimenting with humongous all-in-one notebooks, Lenovo returns to its roots with an inexpensive, go-anywhere, do-anything, multitasking machine.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:25 pm

Yes Reggie, Wii Netflix Without HD is a Problem (PC World)

PC World - Dear Nintendo, while I respect your president Reggie Fils-Aime's decision to shrug off the Wii's inability to do high-definition video as "no loss" in an interview with CNBC, I'm not sure you're taking the long view.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:19 pm

Friday News Feedbag Info for January 15th, 2010

If this is your first exposure to the Friday News Feedbag...we're glad to have you in the club. Welcome to Feedbag Nation, which stems from our weekly science news podcast that you can subscribe to here on iTunes and chat ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:15 pm

Yahoo: “The Open Web is not a rose garden.”

Apparently, Yahoo didn’t like the bad press it was getting following its decision to shutter its own Shopping API and instead strike a deal with PriceGrabber to use their data. Neal Sample, Yahoo’s Vice President of Open Strategy has a rather passionate post today on the Yahoo Developer Network Blog responding to the criticism of the news. Among the key quotes:

• “I’ve read the commentary here on the blog and out in the blogosphere. I’ve also read some of the speculation about what this means — and it’s dead wrong.”
• “Yahoo!’s commitment to developers and to open platforms is not going away. Not at all.”
• “As Yahoo! continues to refocus and rewire, businesses change and priorities shift. Strong leaders make tough decisions all the time.”
• “The Open Web is not a rose garden. You know that.”

I dunno. I’m sure Sample believes everything he’s saying, but it’s hard for the rest of the web to believe it when Yahoo keeps shutting down services left and right while outsourcing other core aspects. He makes the case that the Shopping API is “an isolated consequence of a strategic partnership that will improve the Yahoo! shopping experience for consumers.” But that doesn’t speak to the countless other services Yahoo has had to shut down (or is thinking about shutting down). Sure, they may have to do it to make ends meet, but it might be better to be more communicative up front rather than telling us what we “know” after the fact.

Sample does acknowledge that Yahoo has to get better about communicating changes like this (and promises his team will going forward), but come on, this has been going on for several months. The only thing surprising about all of this is that Yahoo seems surprised that people are pissed off. Maybe instead of pouring money into a cycling team, Yahoo should have put resources into the Shopping API, which some developers clearly loved.

The fact of the matter is that the Open Web should be what we (meaning everyone on the web) make of it. The thing that isn’t a rose garden is Yahoo right now. That’s too bad. But that’s no one’s fault but Yahoo’s.

[photo: flickr/informatique]

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:13 pm

China plays down Google dispute but U.S. concerned (Reuters)

Reuters - China sought on Friday to play down a threat by Google Inc to quit the country on hacking and censorship concerns, but the United States said it will formally express concern over the cyber attacks the Internet search giant said originated in China.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:11 pm

ESA Wants ISS Extended To 2020

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that the European Space Agency's (ESA) Director General Jean-Jacques Dordain says that uncertainty is undermining the best use of the ISS and that only guaranteeing the ISS's longevity would cause more scientists to come forward to run experiments on the orbiting laboratory. 'I am convinced that stopping the station in 2015 would be a mistake because we cannot attract the best scientists if we are telling them today "you are welcome on the space station but you'd better be quick because in 2015 we close the shop,'' says Dordain. One of the biggest issues holding up an agreement on station-life extension is the human spaceflight review ordered by US President Barack Obama and the future of US participation in the ISS is intimately tied to the outcome of that review. Dordain says that no one partner in the ISS project could unilaterally call an end to the platform and that a meeting would be held in Japan later in the year where he hoped the partners could get some clarity going forward."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:11 pm

Google's Nexus One vs. the Droid: Two Phones Dissected - PC World

Globe and Mail

Google's Nexus One vs. the Droid: Two Phones Dissected PC World Motorola can add one more item onto its list of Droid slogans: Droid does have more expensive hardware than the Nexus One. But only by a small margin. A new teardown analysis finds Motorola's flagship Android device has $179.11 worth of components ... Woz: Google's Nexus One is my favorite gadgetCNET Nexus One prices drop amidst reports of slow salesV3.co.uk Google Cuts Nexus One Price For Some T-Mobile SubscribersWall Street Journal ABC News -BusinessWeek -Apple Insider all 642 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:05 pm

Making It Easier To Save Energy

Fraunhofer scientists are developing programs that help show at a glance how much energy devices are consuming.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:03 pm

DIY Lens Cap Saver Is Ingeniously Inventive

If you take photos with anything other than a little point and shoot, you will have, once in your life, lost a lens cap. Shortly afterwards, you would have found out that a simple plastic disk can be sold for almost $20 (or even $40).

This stung, you will be particularly pleased with this little hack from Benny Johansson. It’s a lens cap saver, and unlike the annoying commercial products which dangle the cap from a cord stuck to the camera body, this one is elegant, functional and free.

The holder consists of two parts. First, you cut a hook from an old shampoo bottle and slide it onto the camera’s neck-strap. Next, you drill a couple holes in the edge of the cap itself and thread through a short elastic cord. Now, when you take off the cap you can hang it by this little elastic loop. Benny has thoughtfully provided a PDF template so you can cut the hook to make a snug enough fit.

A further improvement can be made if you only ever use one lens, or have a fixed lens on the camera. You still hang the cap from the plastic hook, but the cord can be permanently attached twixt cap and camera as an extra safety measure.

We prefer the version without the “cute” animal faces, and as soon as I get home from the Wired office, where they won’t let me near the scissors, I shall be making a couple.

SkottiRotta Lens cap holder [Benvelo via DIY Photography]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:02 pm

Cox to launch wireless network in March

Section: Communications, Mobile

Cox Communications has announced that it will launch its 3G wireless network in March. Initially it will use Sprint’s infrastructure but will eventually run on Cox’s own. It will be available in three markets to begin with and eventually expand. Users in Orange County, California, Omaha, Nebraska and Hampton Roads, Virginia will be able to purchase the service on its own or bundled with a cable, phone and internet service. No word yet on rates.

Cox’s competitors Time Warner, Comcast and Brighthouse Networks are planning to launch their own networks using the ClearWire WiMax network. The launch of these networks is one of the reasons the FCC briefly consider taking spectrum away from broadcasters and giving it to broadband providers, who insist more spectrum and bandwidth are needed to support the publics growing hunger for wireless services. The plan was shelved after protests from over the air broadcasters and instead a system is being planned that would let a broadcaster voluntarily offer their spectrum to the highest bidder.

Read [PCWorld]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:59 pm

Text Message Donations To Haiti Cross $10 Million; Companies Commit Immediate Funds

Yesterday, we noted that $5 million had be raised in donations for Haiti though text messaging in the U.S. alone. Today, that number surpassed $10 million, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced. Perhaps more importantly, some of the big players involved in the donations are making moves to make sure the money gets to Haiti faster.

As some people noted in the comments yesterday, there had been talk of 90 day delays for this money donated via text to be released to the various organizations helping out in Haiti. Since then, a number of the companies have committed to giving the money immediately. Verizon, for example, is giving its share (of the then $9 million), $2.98 million, immediately to the American Red Cross. Sprint, meanwhile, is giving 80% of the $1.2 million it has raised so far immediately. AT&T has apparently raised the most so far with $4.2 million (of the larger $10 million) and is also thinking about ways to get the money to Haiti faster.

All of this money has been raised with the help of mGive simply by people using their cellphones to text HAITI to the number 90999. Doing so will automatically donate $10 to the Red Cross, which will be added on to your bill at the end of the month. But that’s not the only way to give over text message. Here’s a list of many of the ways to text to help Haiti:

• Text HAITI to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross
• Text HAITI to 25383 to donate $5 to International Rescue Committee
• Text HAITI to 45678 to donate $5 to the Salvation Army in Canada
• Text YELE to 501501 to donation $5 to Yele
• Text RELIEF to 30644 to get automatically connected to Catholic Relief Services and donate money with your credit card
• Text HAITI to 864833 to donate $5 to The United Way
• Text CERF to 90999 to donate $5 to The United Nations Foundation
• Text DISASTER to 90999 to donate $10 to Compassion International

[photo: flickr/ydhsu]

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:52 pm

Cablevision Extends Free Calling To Haiti

BETHPAGE, N.Y., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cablevision Systems Corp.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:45 pm

Industry Corruption, Shoddy Construction Likely Contributed To Haiti Quake Devastation

The death toll in the massive 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:40 pm

Ubuntu 10.04 Alpha 2 vs. Early Fedora 13 Benchmarks

Given that early benchmarks of the Lucid Lynx were less than encouraging, Phoronix decided to take the latest alpha out for a spin and has set it side-by-side with an early look at Fedora 13. "Overall, there are both positive and negative performance changes for Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Alpha 2 in relation to Ubuntu 9.10. Most of the negative regressions are attributed to the EXT4 file-system losing some of its performance charm. With using a pre-alpha snapshot of Fedora 13 and the benchmark results just being provided for reference purposes, we will hold off on looking into greater detail at this next Red Hat Linux update until it matures."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:40 pm

Excess DNA Damage Found In Cells Of Patients With Friedreich's Ataxia

Biomarkers, new treatments possible for Friedreich's ataxiaElevated levels of DNA damage have for the first time been found in the cellular mitochondria and nuclei of patients with the inherited, progressive nervous system disease called Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA), says a multicenter research team led by an expert from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI).
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:38 pm

Fox Chase Researchers Find New Method Of Fixing Broken Proteins To Treat Genetic Diseases

Proteosome inhibitors can rescue mutant proteins without altering the DNA of mutant genesResearchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have demonstrated how it could be possible to treat genetic diseases by enhancing the natural ability of cells to restore their own mutant proteins.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:35 pm

Mound of Ash Reveals Shrine to Zeus

An altar dedicated to the king of the gods was used for ritual ceremonies by the ancient Greeks.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:35 pm

Novel Mouse Model Of Demyelinating Disorder

In the February 1st issue of G&D, Dr.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:33 pm

Interview: We talk to the lead developer of Plex Media Center for Mac OS X: It was doing Boxee-like stuff before Boxee was cool

Plex’s main menu, shown with the optional Aeon skin

As far as XBMC forks go, Boxee certainly appears to have the most heat. It has VC money pouring in, flashy deals with content providers, and you’ll soon be able to buy a dedicated D-Link box to more easily use it on your TV. But Boxee isn’t the only XBMC-based media center that’s worth your time. It’s not even the first XBMC fork to go out and make a name for itself. Plex, which is exclusive to Mac OS X, was Boxee before Boxee was cool. I recently talked to the lead developer, Elan Feingold, to get a better understand of what Plex is, what it does, and where it’s going. Needless to say, if you’re running Mac OS X, you ought to give it a shot. It’s good.

Plex is a media center that’s based on XBMC, which began its life as Xbox Media Player, a media center that ran on hacked Microsoft Xboxes. Xbox Media Player was first released in 2002, and was far and away the most feature-rich media center of its time. As the project matured—and the project was in no way endorsed or supposed by Microsoft—it became XBMC, of which Plex (and Boxee and MediaPortal and Voddler, to name a few forks) is based upon.

In other words, every time you praise Boxee (or Plex, or any other XBMC-derived media center), keep in mind how it all started: a hobbyist project designed to play and organize videos, music, and photos on hacked Xboxes. (You may even want to go further back and give credit to the developers of mplayer and FFmpeg, the two core, open source “engines” that powered Xbox Media Player from Day One.) Let’s give credit where credit is due, is all.

With that, here’s my conversation with Elan. Hopefully it’s illuminating.

CrunchGear: What is Plex? How would you describe it to a total computer novice? Did you ever use XBMC/XBMP for the Xbox1?

Elan Feingold: Plex is a media center, which is to say it’s a program which gives you a “ten foot interface” for your media. You sit on the couch, drink beer, and view your videos, photos, and play music. It came out of the desire to get the XBMC code running on a more powerful machine that could handle higher resolution media, and the perfect platform seemed to be the Mac (especially with the Mini’s awesome form factor). I used XBMC for a few years on an old XBox (which is now sitting in my garage gathering mold) and loved it.

CG: When did development begin? How many people are on the development team? What’s your relationship with the XBMC guys?

Elan: The XBMC code was first downloaded to attempt to build it on the Mac in December 2007. My wife was out of town and I was bored, basically. Currently we have about five developers working on the different aspects of Plex. When I posted a progress report with screenshots about progress on the Mac port, I was contacted by the XBMC team, and brought on their team. Over the next few months, I made some early releases of the port, which I’d called “OSXBMC”. However, it became clear pretty early on that I had different goals and vision for the project than the XBMC team did, so we ended up forking the code to become Plex not too long afterwards.

CG: Oh man, I remember OSXBMC! I remember the day it became Plex, too.

Elan: Do you remember all the shit I got about the name?

CG: Meh, people are haters.

Elan: You can’t please everyone.

CG: Right.

Elan: That [the OSXBMC time period] was a pretty hard time emotionally for me, just because of all the work i was doing on the code and all the strife and vitriol.

CG: Wow, OK. Now I have to ask do you (or the team) make any money off Plex? (How many mugs did you sell?) Or is this a labor-of-love sort of thing?

Elan: We have a donate link [the top-right hand corner] that people have been very generous with, but it’s not much more than is needed to cover servers, services, equipment, etc. I think we’ve sold a dozen or so mugs! So for now this has been very much a labor of love for us all.

CG: Gotcha. Now is Plex *just* a labor of love, or do you guys one day hope to make a few dollars for yourselves?

Elan: Don’t get me wrong, we’d all love to be doing this full-time and getting paid for it.

CG: You guys seem to have more of an “indie” feel to you than Boxee does.

Elan: I have been known to sport trendy facial hair.

CG: What a phenomenal response.

Elan: But that’s exactly the word we like to use to describe ourselves, “indie.”

CG: OK, well one of the big Boxee features is that you can have all sorts of apps on it. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Plex has had that for a little while. In fact, XBMC on the Xbox had little apps you could install, Shoutcast radio, X-Link Kai. Basically, Boxee didn’t invent the idea of media center apps, which I sorta feel is the perception out there…

Elan: Yeah, we’ve had the equivalent feature for over a year now. We have over 130 “apps.” They are easier to write than their Boxee counterparts, or their XBMC counterparts for that matter. We actually had our “app store,” called the Plex Media Server, running before Boxee came out with their “app box” or whatever it’s called.

CG: So how much coding knowhow would it take to develop a Plex app? What are some of the more succesful ones?

Elan: Basically, you need to know a bit of Python, which is very easy to learn. You can write a Plex app in as little as 10-15 lines of code, since we have a really great framework for writing them, which ws developed by James Clarke, one of our main developers. Our most popular ones are Apple Movies Trailers, You Tube, Hulu, Netflix, MTV Music Videos, BBC iPlayer, Vimeo. We’ve had over one million app downloads so far.

CG: Now do you guys run into any issues with those guys (Hulu, Netflix, etc.)? I seem to recall Boxee and Hulu going back and forth for a while.

Elan: Yeah, so Netflix and Hulu have been polar opposites. We’ve had lots of friendly chats with Netflix and have a great relationship with them. We are listed in their app gallery as an official Netflix approved app. With Hulu our relationship has been a bit less congenial. They’ve taken quite a few direct actions to attempt to break our support for their site. Which i really appreciate, as it helped us make our support for those sorts of sites much, much more robust. And I’m flattered, they once named a div in their HTML “PL” which i assume stood for “Plex” (since it was trying to break us).

CG: That’s great. Well, not great, you know what I mean. Do you have those sorts of problems with any other content providers?

Elan: Most other content providers (such as Spotify, lots of other Swedish providers) really like being on our platform. Many have approached us, even offering support. Amusingly it seems to depend on the country. For some reason Swedish content providers really seems to like Plex, and, funny fact, Sweden has the highest per-capita of Plex users in the world.

CG: How does the U.S. rank? Do you have stats like, “We have 100 downloads from Texas, 400 from Paris, etc.”?

Elan: I’d have to find the report, but in the top 10 certainly, no thanks to the content providers!

CG: Do you talk to the Boxee guys at all? Have they tried to hire away one of your devs (or you) with offers of sweet VC money?

Elan: Funny story, I actually cooked dinner for Avner Ronen when he came out to Maui to see me. Besides that, I don’t think he’s approached any of our team. I made him a really spicy green Thai curry, and we had a friendly chat.

CG: Let’s talk Boxee box for a bit. Let’s say Netgear approached you guys about making a Boxee box-like box, would it be something you’d consider?

Elan: We’re not convinced that people want yet another box. That said, we do realize that the Mac Mini at $600 is too expensive to get the number of eyeballs we want.

CG: And the Apple TV is still too underpowered to run it properly right?

Elan: So we’re committed to getting Plex to people more cheaply, just not with a piece of hardware. Yeah, I think the Apple TV is not a viable platform. It’s underpowered and closed.

CG: The Apple TV hasn’t done too well either, compared to other Apple products.

Elan: There’s been some buzz with XBMC lately with their support of a Broadcom chip that can do HD decoding, but you have to take apart your Apple TV and install the chip, which we don’t think many people who don’t live in their parents’ basement are going to do.

CG: Exactly, I was that kid, modding Xboxes, staying up all night trying to figure things like that out.

Elan: Yep, I started off life as an electrical engineer, so I was that kid too.

CG: So what would you say is the ideal Plex setup right now? I used to run a long HDMI cable from my iMac to my TV, then plug the iMac into a cheap 5.1 rig. Obviously not everyone is going to do that…

Elan: If you can afford it, the new Mac Minis are awesome: quiet, small, play HD content perfectly. That plus a surround receiver and you’re set. But yeah, people do use their laptops and iMacs as well. Fifty percent of our users use a Mac Mini, 20 percent use MacBook Pro, 12 percent use MacBook, 11 percent use iMac, 3 percent use Hackintosh. And apparently five of them use an XServe.

CG: That’s great, some guy at a server farm watching movies during the night shift. Now is Plex going for the “average guy” right now, or more the power user?

Elan: Plex is going for the average media-saavy consumer, and we realize that we have quite a bit of work left to make it easier to use. We don’t want to dumb it down as much as, say, Front Row, but right now there are two many sharp edges you can hurt yourself on.

CG: Like a new user interface you mean? Or that Plex is too Swiss Army Knife-y?

Elan: Like an evolved user interface, yes. One of the things that software projects have to keep in mind is that adding a feature adds a non-zero support cost. We don’t think having more features is necessarily better or more compelling, except to a small minority of people.

CG: Yeah, I’m one of those people who’d rather see software do one thing well than do 100 things not so well.

Elan: Precisely, and open source projects are notoriously bad at that.

CG: Yeah they are. So are you developing a new UI now, or is that something you have on your checklist of things to do in the future?

Elan: We’re in the process of evolving the current interface, we’ve spent quite a bit of time mocking things up, even building Flash interfaces to usability-test them.

CG: Oh, before I forget, do you have an official Twitter account? Twitter is all the rage, so I hear.

Elan: @Plexapp

CG: Excellent. So what’s next for Plex, just continued development?

Elan: Well, we’ve been hard at work on the Plex/Nine series.

CG: Will there be anything as dramatic as the Plex Media Server again? That sorta came out of nowhere.

Elan: Yes, you’re going to see a very interesting new Plex feature within the next couple of months.

CG: Excellent. Any hints?

Elan: Also with the Plex/Nine series will come the new Library system for managing your local content. It’s built from the ground up to kick ass.

CG: I was just gonna ask, built by you guys?

Elan: The new library system is built 100% by us, yes. So it should be an exciting year for Plex, I think, between the new Library, evolved user interface, and this surprise new feature.

CG: Very cool. What else do you do besides Plex?

Elan: I’m a freelance software consultant during the day. It’s only at night when I change into my shirt with the giant “P” in front.

CG: When can we expect Plex/Nine?

Elan: That seems to be the question everyone is asking!

CG: Like a rough estimate, or you can say “when it’s ready!”

Elan: I would say that you’ll see pieces emerge over the next few months. We’ll be releasing different bits and pieces over time. We’ll have the stable Plex/Eight series, and then we’ll begin introducing some of the new features into the Plex/Nine releases for people to play with. One of our main focuses has always been stability, which is why there have been five releases so far of the stable Plex/Eight series, with a focus on bug fixes.

CG: Has Apple ever contacted you guys? Maybe just to say, “Hey, cool app, guys.”

Elan: We have never heard from them, although a number of people who work in Apple retail stores have commented, “I recommend Plex to customers!” But nothing from Apple corporate to even acknowledge our existence. That’s fine with us, we’ve always tried to stay on its good side by not releasing Plex for a hacked Apple TV, etc.

CG: Have you given any thought to an iPhone App, like a fancy remote control or something?

Elan: Well, there are a few remotes out there already for the iPhone that support Plex. They seem to work pretty well.

CG: Oh, I don’t have an iPhone so I wasn’t sure.

Elan: You don’t have an iPhone? How can that possibly be?

CG: No sir!

Elan: How can you live? Oh, right, New York City. If you want to actually make phone calls the iPhone doesn’t work too well there I hear.

CG: It really doesn’t. It’s pretty shocking. A piece of junk Verizon phone sounds better. OK then, I have World of Warcraft to play so I’ll let you go. I’m not kidding, either.

Elan: Goodbye, and thanks!

Plex runs on Intel Macs running Leopard or higher. You can follow its development on Twitter, Facebook, or on its blog.

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:30 pm

Point, Shoot, Reserve: OCLC brings library information to RedLaser

The Online Computer Library Center is one of those quiet organizations making a huge difference in the world. They don’t attract a lot of attention to themselves, normally, and much of what they do is plumbing that helps other organizations. They’ve recently partnered with Occipital, creators of the iPhone barcode scanning app RedLaser, to bring access to their enormous database of books to your iPhone. Just how big is OCLC’s database? It indexes “more than 165,000,000 books at more than 75,000 libraries in 112 countries.” That represents “more than 5,000 years of human history in a single, searchable database” — that’s a lot of books! Now you can snap a picture of a book’s barcode, and within moments find out whether your local library has that book in stock, and whether it’s currently checked out or sitting on the shelf. Yay technology!

We borrowed a relatively obscure book about Europe’s perception of Google (not exactly a Best Seller), Google and the Myth of Universal Knowledge: A View from Europe by Jean-Noel Jeanneney, translated from French by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Within seconds of snapping a quick photo of the bar code on the back of the book, “RedLaser” told us we could buy the book at dozens of online stores for $0.75 to $31.17 and that we’d find it in the Worthington Libraries and the Capital University Law Library.

WorldCat, the OCLC database, is also available for Android and other mobile devices.

As an unrelated aside, I know a few folks who work at OCLC, and my friend Michael has, in my opinion, the coolest job title evar: Manager, Dewey Decimal System.

Via NBC4i.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:30 pm

Rumor: iPhone Boot Camp Listserv Confirms January 27th Event?

This just came in through the tip line purporting to know for certain that the iSlate event will happen at the Yerba Buena Center in San Fran on January 27th, just as others have reported. The agenda should include a new SDK (probably iPhone/iSlate 4.0) and that most iPhone apps presumably run on the iSlate.

In addition to the introduction of the iTablet hardware recent rumors have said that a new software development kit for iPhone OS 4.0 could be revealed at the presentation.Tthe new kit may includes a "simulator" that allows developers to adapt their iPhone applications for different screen sizes and resolutions i.e. the iTablet, or whatever it is called:-)

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:29 pm

Play N Trade Offers Only Video Game Opportunity at Franchise Expo South

SAN CLEMENTE, Calif., Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:29 pm

Rumor: iPhone Boot Camp listserv confirms January 27th event?

This just came in through the tip line purporting to know for certain that the iSlate event will happen at the Yerba Buena Center in San Fran on January 27th, just as others have reported. The agenda should include a new SDK (probably iPhone/iSlate 4.0) and that most iPhone apps presumably run on the iSlate.

n addition to the introduction of the iTablet hardware recent rumors have said that a new software development kit for iPhone OS 4.0 could be revealed at the presentation.Tthe new kit may includes a “simulator” that allows developers to adapt their iPhone applications for different screen sizes and resolutions i.e. the iTablet, or whatever it is called:-)

True? False? I have a line in at the boot camp folks but presumably devs would be the first to know what’s up. This could also be a big old shot in the dark by the Boot Camp people. We’ll soon see.

Meet-up Page

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:27 pm

Why Mice Develop 'Knots' While Exploring A New Environment

During exploration of a new environment, mice establish "knots" – preferred places visited sporadically and marked by the performance of twists and turns, according to a new study by Israel and Canada-based researchers.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:27 pm

NXP Semiconductors Announces Live Webinar: Understanding the Risk Factors Associated with Repetitive Avalanche in Power MOSFETs

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:27 pm

Adding Up the Explanations For ACTA's "Shameful Secret"

Several sources are reporting on a Google event this week that attempted to bring some transparency to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that has so far been treated like a "shameful secret." Unfortunately, not many concrete details were uncovered, so Ars tried to lay out why there has been so much secrecy, especially from an administration that has been preaching transparency. "The reason for that was obvious: there's little of substance that's known about the treaty, and those lawyers in the room and on the panel who had seen one small part of it were under a nondisclosure agreement. In most contexts, the lack of any hard information might lead to a discussion of mind-numbing generality and irrelevance, but this transparency talk was quite fascinating—in large part because one of the most influential copyright lobbyists in Washington was on the panel attempting to make his case. [...] [MPAA/RIAA Champion Steven] Metalitz took on three other panelists and a moderator, all of whom were less than sympathetic to his positions, and he made the lengthiest case for both ACTA and its secrecy that we have ever heard. It was also surprisingly unconvincing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:25 pm

RadioShack Partners With Lance Armstrong and LIVESTRONG to Aid Haiti Quake Victims

FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- RadioShack Corporation (NYSE: RSH) will partner with seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and LIVESTRONG (the Lance Armstrong Foundation) by pledging to raise funds for Haiti earthquake relief.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:24 pm

Nixle Encourages Residents Nationwide to Sign Up for Authenticated Information From Local Police Departments Regarding the Haitian Earthquake

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire/ -- To protect against Internet fraud and ensure Haiti earthquake relief donations reach the intended destinations, the FBI released an in-depth alert yesterday on how U.S. residents can safely help Haitians through contributions.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:23 pm

3 Esophageal Cancer Cell Lines Commonly Used In Research Prove To Be From Other Cancers

Three frequently used human esophageal adenocarcinoma cell lines used for research were confirmed as being from other tumor types, according to a brief communication published online January 14 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Two of the cell lines have been used in 11 U.S.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:22 pm

Zimbra Customers Applaud VMware Acquisition (PC World)

PC World - Zimbra customers, on an emotional roller-coaster ride since it was acquired by Yahoo, welcome VMware's plans to buy the open-source e-mail, calendar and collaboration software vendor.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:20 pm

Googlephone No Match for Kafkaesque Carriers

Wired magazine's Steven Levy wonders whether Google's Nexus One phone has a chance to break carriers' strangleholds on U.S. consumers.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:15 pm

Googlephone No Match for Kafkaesque Carriers

Wired magazine's Steven Levy wonders whether Google's Nexus One phone has a chance to break carriers' strangleholds on U.S. consumers.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:15 pm

Plug-Watch: Cute Power Cube, The Best Adapter Yet?

Power plugs. You hate them, I’m obsessed with and fascinated by them, so here’s something for both of us. The Cute Cube not only looks great, it solves pretty much all the annoyances of a multi-socket adapter.

The cube has, naturally, six sockets, with the cable trailing unobtrusively from a corner. This alone is enough to make the Tetris-puzzle of modern gadget-plugging a lot easier, with all six plugs staying out of each other’s way. The (literal) twist, and the detail that probably won the prestigious Red Dot design award all on its own, is that the sockets swivel in their, uh, sockets. This means that those awkwardly shaped transformers can be spun away from each other instead of blocking an essential hole.

Good for home, to be sure, but even better on the road. The easiest way to power a lot of gadgets in a foreign country is a power strip, needing only one international adapter to hook it up. The Cute Cube is small enough to toss in a suitcase.

It appears that the Cube has yet to find a manufacturer, but when it does I shall buy one. It’s certainly a lot safer than my current (ahem) solution, which consists of chopping off the plug and pushing the bare wires into the outlet with matchsticks.

Cute Cube [Red Dot via Oh Gizmo!]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:10 pm

So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of January 10, 2010

Section:

Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week?  Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!

• Seen at CES 2010: World’s largest Droid
  ” The Nexus One may be currently be the biggest Android release ever but this Droid is the biggest. Period. I passed Motorola on my way to Microsoft’s booth and I’m glad I did. Motorola had a couple rather large Droid’s on…” MORE »
• CES 2010: Three big winners
  ” CES 2010 is an enigma.  For the Gadgetell crew, there wasn’t a clear winning product.  One thing we can agree was three companies owned this show, all without actually having a booth.  Those three companies are Netflix,…” MORE »
• CES Hands On: Asus Eee PC T101MT
  ” For once the Eee PC naming scheme makes a bit of sense.  The Eee PC T101MT is a 10-inch netbook that doubles as a multitouch tablet.  Asus has it on display here at CES, and I was able to…” MORE »
• CES 2010 Hands on: Verizon branded Palm Plus
  ” As much as it pains me to say, one of the bigger stories coming from CES this year was the Palm Pre Plus (and Pixi Plus) that will be soon heading to Verizon Wireless. And…” MORE »
• Monster releases yet another pair of headphones at CES
  ”  Monster is going crazy with all the announcements this week.  However, most of the announcements in terms of headphones have been earbuds, with not much said about standard headphones.  That has changed, however, as Monster had added even more…” MORE »
• Asus NX90Jq: the most ridiculous laptop you’ll see at CES this year
  ” For most people, when they think about laptops, portability is a big factor.  You want to be able to move your laptop without having to carry it in some huge bag, or worry about breaking yourself or the laptop.  For some…” MORE »
• CES 2010: Hands on with the MSI Wind U135 netbook
  ” Roaming the show floor, and also being in the market for a new netbook, I have been paying a little extra special attention to some of the newer models to hit the show…” MORE »
• CES 2010: Hands on with the Asus Eee PC 1005P and 1005PE
  ” Another netbook that I spent some time messing around with this morning was the Eee PC 1005P and the Eee PC 1005PE, both of which were on display in the Asus…” MORE »
• Album: the portable photo frame, soon to play video
  ” Albumteam has finally done something that has taken far too long to a company to realize: make a decent digital photo album that can leave the coffee table.  Album accomplishes just that, it’s a 7-inch portable digital photo frame.  It also is…” MORE »
• Intel’s giant board of Internet cubes
  ”  What you see here is a large board from Intel’s booth at CES.  All those cubes are actually representative of news stories from across the Internet.  The cubes could represent anything from news stories pulled from aggregators, Flickr photos,…” MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

Smartbook trademark owners not as specifically intelligent as their product

For some odd reason Slashgear has been using the term smartbook in their posts, a portmanteau that is, arguably, about as descriptive as “sandwichbacon” or “cleverob/gyn” in that it conflates two terms in with the suggestion that other members of its own classification are not equally sandwich-oriented, clever, or smart. While we will forgive them this slip, they just got a fax from the law firm in Germany tasked with protecting this term in the market.

Seriously, Smartbook AG: nobody gives two piffles about the smartbook name. It won’t catch on and your legal wrangling just puts a bad taste in people’s mouths when they hear about it. If I were you I’d pack it up. All this makes you look like foolishponces.

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

LifeLinks Offers Haitian Creole Interpretation at $1 a Minute to Anyone Affected by the Disaster

NEW YORK, Jan.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:00 pm

AT&T Matches Verizon With $69.99 Unlimited Voice Plans. iPhone Not Included (But Also Cheaper).

As you may have heard, Verizon made some headlines today by unveiling new, cheaper plans to its customers. Specifically, they cut the price of their unlimited voice plans by $29 down to $69.99. As some noted, this looked to be a way to undercut its biggest rival, AT&T. Not surprisingly, AT&T is now matching that offer.

AT&T customers with “feature phones” will now have the option to get unlimited voice minutes for $69.99 a month. Text message plans will remain $20 a month for unlimited usage, so they’re matching Verizon’s $89.99 unlimited voice + text offering too. But wait, before you get all excited, you should note that “feature phones” do not include the iPhone. That is apparently a “smartphone” which is different in AT&T’s eyes (and Verizon’s for that matter). Smartphone owners will have the option to get unlimited voice plus data for $99.99, which is still a nice discount over previous unlimited iPhone plans which ran $129.99.

But what really sucks with these “unlimited” voice and data plans for the iPhone is that you’ll still have to pay $20 on top of that if you want unlimited texting too. So that’s $119.99 for truly unlimited iPhone usage. Again, cheaper than it was, but come on, why can’t we include text messaging? Because the carriers would make a lot less money without that rip-off pricing in play, that’s why.

These new plans go into effect this coming Monday, January 18. Existing customers will also be able to alter their plans without any sort of penalty, including no contract extensions, which is great.

Here are the full details of AT&T’s changes which were just announced:

DALLAS, Jan. 15, 2010 – AT&T* today announced new unlimited plans across all devices –including its industry-leading lineup of smartphones — to provide more value and choice for customers who want to talk, text and surf on the nation’s fastest 3G network.

“With more than twice the number of smartphone customers as our nearest competitor, we are committed to offering great value and choice for customers who want to talk, text and surf on the nation’s fastest 3G network,” said Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO, AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets. “Our new plans reflect customers’ continuing desire to do more with their phones – including talking and browsing the Web at the same time.  Plus these new plans make it even more attractive to choose AT&T which already offers customers the best 3G experience and the industry’s most popular and innovative devices.”

The new plans, which will be available beginning Monday, Jan. 18, can be ordered at AT&T’s 2,200 company-owned retail stores and kiosks, through convenient online service at www.att.com, or at one of the thousands of authorized AT&T retail locations.

• Feature Phone customers may choose unlimited talk for $69.99. Family Talk customers (prices assume two lines) may choose unlimited talk for $119.99 per month.  Texting plans remain unchanged at $20 for unlimited plans for individuals and $30 for Family Talk plans.

• Quick Messaging Device customers may choose unlimited talk for $69.99 and Family Talk plans may choose unlimited talk for $119.99 per month (for two lines). These plans require a minimum of $20 per month for individual plans and $30 per month for Family Talk plans in texting and/or Web browsing packages for new and upgrading customers.

• All smartphone customers, including iPhone customers, may now buy unlimited voice and data for $99.99.  For smartphone customers with Family Talk plans (prices assume 2 smartphones), unlimited voice and data is now available for $179.99. Texting plans remain unchanged at $20 for unlimited plans for individuals, $30 for Family Talk Plans.

Beginning Monday, existing AT&T customers can change to any of the new plans without penalty or contract extension with the online account management tool at www.att.com/wireless.

For customers who do not choose an unlimited voice plan, AT&T offers Rollover, which lets customers keep the minutes they don’t use.  In addition, AT&T offers A-List, which offers unlimited calling to up to 10 domestic phone numbers.

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:57 pm

Boost your system performance with an $80 Kingston SSDNow V 30GB Flash Drive

Section: Peripherals, Storage

For only $80, you can get a Kingston SSDNow V 30GB Flash Drive that will boost your system performance. Boasting speeds of up to 180MB/sec. read speed and 50MB/sec. write speed, it is a surefire way of decreasing your boot time or even your software startup time. SSDs are known to be better in terms of performance (and also a little pricier!), compared to their optical hard drives counterpart. The price is $80 after rebates, and it’s coming in February for $110 without the promotional rebates

Press Release [Kingston] Via [Gizmodo]

Full Story » | Written by Cheng Hung for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:48 pm

U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China's Going to Listen. [Digital Daily]

The Google-China debacle has finally spilled over into Sino-American relations. The U.S. State Department said today that it plans to demand a Chinese government investigation into the cyberattacks on Google’s (GOOG) computers, which the company claims originated in China.

“We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early this week,” said State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley. “It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it.”

What they plan to do about it?

Not much, if yesterday’s comments from Beijing are any indication. Consider this report from Xinhua News, the official press agency of Chinese government:

… cyber attacks are a commonplace issue across the globe even if countries have been making every effort to combat hackers.

On Tuesday, China’s largest Internet search engine Baidu, which is also Google’s major rival in the Chinese market, suffered an hacker attack that paralyzed its website for more than three hours.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer has said that “There are attacks every day …We’re attacked every day from all parts of the world and I think everybody else is too. We didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”

So it’s far-fetched to blame China as a scapegoat for cyber attacks just because Google said something about that.

In addition, it’s quite natural for a multinational company to shift its market strategy or even pull out business from a certain area.

Since Google.cn was launched in January 2006, it has seen a continuous rise in its market share in China. But it is still unlikely for Google to rock Baidu’s status quo as a superpower in the Chinese search market.

Baidu and Google took 63.9 percent and 31.1 percent of shares, respectively, of China’s Internet search market in the third quarter last year, according to data from Analysys International, a leading advisor on technology, media and telecom industry in China.

While Google’s global share is over 90 percent, according to web analytics company Stat Counter.

Till now, Google’s real intentions to quit China are still not clear.

There is no sense blowing things out of proportion and turning a business issue into a political or diplomatic dispute.

Above all, Google’s decision is no bigger than a corporate action, no matter where the company comes from or how powerful it is.

Clearly, Beijing has no plans to compromise–at this point, anyway.

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm

5 Reasons to Ditch Your Digital SLR

There’s a new camera category in town. It’s EVIL, and it’s going to kick your DSLR’s ass. EVIL stands for Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens, and is our favorite acronym for cameras like the Olympus Pen, the Lumix GF1 and the Samsung NX10. These small, mirrorless, finderless cameras can fit in a pocket and outperform bulky DSLRs. Here’s why your next camera will probably be EVIL.

They’re Small

DSLRs are bulky. Their design comes from the film days when the only way to see the exact image that would hit the film was to divert the light coming through the lens with a mirror and send it to a viewfinder. This mirror meant the body needed to be deep, and the lenses — further away from the film than those in a mirrorless rangefinder — were also bigger.

Now we can see what the sensor sees either on a screen, or through an electronic finder. With the mirror gone, the body can be a lot smaller, just like a compact digicam. This means you can carry it with you everywhere, fit it in a jacket pocket and be ready for *that* picture, wherever you are.

They Take Great Pictures

The trick with the new EVIL cams is that they have large sensors. In the case of the Samsung NX10, this sensor is the same size as you’d find in a DSLR, and the others use the Micro Four Thirds format, a sensor which is half the size of a 35mm frame, but a lot bigger than the pinkie-nail-sized sensor in a typical compact. This gives the high image quality and low-light sensitivity of a DSLR. And because they have large sensors, the depth of field is shallower, and you can throw a distracting background out of focus.

For most people, that is more than good enough.

You Can Change Lenses

Let’s be honest. If you’re not a pro, you probably bought your fancy DSLR, fixed on the kit zoom lens, and that was it. You probably spend 90 percent, if not all of your time, shooting with this on your camera.

With an EVIL camera, you can do this too. It’s more likely though, given the tiny pocket-sized lenses for these cameras, that you will actually carry them with you. Better still, with an adapter you can use all your current DSLR lenses on the newer, smaller body.

They’re Fast

Compacts have lost out to DSLRs by being slow. Slow to power up, slow to zoom and slow to actually respond to your trigger finger. EVIL cameras have fixed this, and are as responsive as any entry-level DSLR. Watch out which model you go for, though. The current generation still has some trouble focusing as fast as a bigger camera, although some models, like the Panasonic GF1, have this nailed.

They Don’t Scream “Look at Me”

With a smaller camera, you can blend in. With an EVIL camera, you can blend in and still get great shots. This combination of size and quality was the reason the Leica M series was the camera of choice for both street shooters and war reporters, from Henri Cartier Bresson to Sebastião Salgado. And because there is no mirror to flip, they’re quiet, too.

The Con

As a new category, the EVIL is still relatively expensive, and you’ll pay as much for a body and lens as you would for a prosumer level DSLR. For many, even pros, the size difference alone is enough to justify this. For everyone else, you could wait until the likes of Canon and Nikon inevitably enter this sector. Then prices will start to fall, and things will get really interesting.

Unless you have a specific use that these cameras can’t meet, or you need the very highest level of performance only a Canon 1D or Nikon D3 can bring, you have no reason to buy a DSLR. Instead, consider being EVIL. You might like it.

Photo: Jon Snyder

See Also:

• Panasonic Micro Four Thirds 'Rangefinder' With Leica Lenses
• Digital Pen
• CES 2010: Samsung Joins Rangefinder Fray With Large-Sensor NX10
• Hands-On With Panasonic's Leica-Lite GF1

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm

5 Reasons to Ditch Your Digital SLR

A new kind of camera has many of an SLR's advantages while offering smaller size and lighter weight: The Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens, or EVIL camera. Here's why you want one.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm

5 Reasons to Ditch Your Digital SLR

A new kind of camera has many of an SLR's advantages while offering smaller size and lighter weight: The Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens, or EVIL camera. Here's why you want one.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:45 pm

How To Get a Job At a Mega-Corp

Barence writes "'With the economic hangover starting to wear off, the technology giants are once again recruiting in earnest. Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have vacancies on their websites, and now could be the perfect time to land a job at one of computing's biggest hitters.' PC Pro talked to people inside Microsoft, Apple, and Google to discover how to track down the best jobs, and what it takes to get through the arduous selection and interview processes." With lots of experience both within and without, what other words of wisdom can be offered to those wishing to break into a mega-corp?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:43 pm

Emergency Housing From Converted Shipping Containers

Resources to solve the housing crisis in Haiti may already be on hand.Some Clemson University researchers have been experimenting with ways to convert shipping containers into emergency housing in the hurricane-prone Caribbean, where a surplus of the sturdy boxes often sits in port yards.Pernille Christensen, a research associate in the Richard H.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:40 pm

Googlephone No Match for Kafkaesque Carriers, Steven Levy Finds

Here is my dream: I go to the Verizon Wireless store with Franz Kafka. I tell the friendly salesperson that I want to upgrade my wife’s cellphone. She looks up my information.

Kafka follows the exchange intently.

She explains to me that there are three numbers on my account, two of them phones and one of them a mobile broadband line. Each one has a contract with different termination time. My wife’s phone is not yet eligible for a discounted price on a new phone. But we can get a discount on a phone. if we extend the contract of the broadband line for two more years. Depending on the phone I choose, the prices vary, but all of them require the filing of baffling rebate forms. If I don’t like this I can end the contract. But ending a contract before the term expires will invoke a penalty that wipes out all discounts and puts me deep in the red.

At the rate our phones either die or need upgrading, my family will be bound to Verizon until well after the heat death of the universe.

“What if I buy the phone full-price?” I ask. “Do I pay the same rates, even though I’m not getting a discount for the phone?”

Yes. Same rates, even though I’m no longer amortizing a phone. By the way, she adds, the terms of the contract have changed, and my data charges have gone up.

And Kafka says: “This sucks.”

The sad part of this dream is that I didn’t make it up, except for the Kafka part. Cellphone carrier contracts are beyond broken — they’re breaking us. Even as Apple has helped open up our smartphones to outside software providers, we are still prisoners of a business model that keeps us indentured to Verizon, chained to AT&T, shackled to Sprint every time we buy a phone that seems cheap on the day we buy it, but costs us much more over time.

Enter Google. When the company first announced it was making a mobile operating system called Android, the idea was that it would supply the system to manufacturers and networks, just like Microsoft does with Windows and computers.

But now Google is selling its own phone, called Nexus One. Andy Rubin, who heads up Android, says that the big reason Google is doing this is that the search giant is just as unhappy as we are with the way phones are sold. So Google is selling the Nexus unlocked, direct on its website. It costs $520 without a contract. It works on any network that takes a GSM SIM card. You find your carrier after the purchase.

As Kafka would have said, “Wunderbar!”

But hold on. At launch, the only carrier supporting the Nexus was T-Mobile, which was offering a two-year contract in exchange for a discount on the phone. Gee, that sounds familiar.

For Google’s idea to work, the Verizons, T-Mobiles, Sprints and AT&Ts of the would have to compete vigorously to sign up the people who buy unlocked Nexus Ones and are looking for a carrier. This assumes that those carriers will want anything to do with customers who refuse to enter into contracts that are — to put it plainly — Kafkaesque.

I hope that they do want that business, and that they offer dirt-cheap, no-obligation plans for people who buy expensive, unsubsidized phones.

Does the Google gambit have the carriers shaking in their spectrums? My guess is no. Verizon and the rest don’t have to worry about a mass exodus to Google’s unlocked phones, because they have already locked their customers into those virtually perpetual contracts — the same endless contracts that Google wants to put an end to.

In my dream, Franz Kafka is laughing.

See Also:

• Google Nexus One Leaves Customers Sour
• Review: Google’s Sexy Nexus One Pushes Android to New Limits
• Video: Hands-On With Google’s Nexus One
• Analysis: Yawn, Google Announces iPhone Clone
• Google Debuts Android-Powered Nexus One 'Superphone'

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:38 pm

Appletell reviews SkinIt skins for iPhone, iPod and MacBook

FROM APPLETELL - Consider SkinIt skins tattoos for your electronic devices, albeit without the pain and ultimate embarrassment and regret. Well, depending upon your selected design, I guess.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:35 pm

FTC Not Sure How to Enforce Blogger Disclosure Rules [Voices]

By Marisa Taylor, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

The Federal Trade Commission is still trying to define how it will enforce new disclosure guidelines for bloggers who may have received free products from the companies they cover, according to northeast regional director Leonard Gordon.

“If the consumer wouldn’t understand that the endorser, whether it’s a celebrity or a mommy blogger, is being paid…to talk about the product, that’s something that we’re concerned about, because we think consumers are being misled,” said Mr. Gordon in a panel discussion on Thursday.

He said the blogosphere “went a little crazy with visions of storm troopers taking down suburban houses and seizing the computers of mommy bloggers,” but that the FTC has no plans to enforce the rules so aggressively.

Instead, he said, the agency wants to focus on people who are being paid to make plugs for products in “non-traditional contexts” such as tweeting. In particular, they’ll go after companies that make claims that aren’t true or can’t be substantiated, essentially the same mission of the FTC in holding companies accountable offline.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:32 pm

AT&T Announces New Unlimited Plans

Feature Phone customers may choose unlimited talk for $69.99. Family Talk customers (prices assume two lines) may choose unlimited talk for $119.99 per month. Texting plans remain unchanged at $20 for unlimited plans for individuals and $30 for Family Talk plans.Quick Messaging Device customers may choose unlimited talk and text for $89.99 per month. Quick Messaging Device customers with Family Talk plans may choose unlimited talk and text for $149.99 per month (for two lines). These prices include a required minimum of $20 per month for individual plans and $30 per month for Family Talk plans in texting and/or Web browsing plans for new and upgrading customers. All smartphone
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:32 pm

First look: Inkia MID500 5-inch slate computer

The Inkia MID500 just hit my desk and I have to show it off. Well, it’s kind of my job. I’ll publish a full review in a week or so, but for now, click through for a video hands-on and my initial pros and cons about the $349 5-inch tablet computer.

Pros

• Small enough to fit in the front pocket of jeans
• Bright screen
• Dedicated right and left mouse buttons on front bezel
• Rounded edges makes it easy to hold
• Can handle standard YouTube videos
• Only $350 at Dynamism

Cons

• Looks cheap
• Feels cheap
• The edges of the screen bleed when the LCD is pressed even slightly
• Very loud fan – louder than the fan in my 17-inch notebook
• Stock on-screen keyboard requires stylus
• Cannot handle Hulu or HD YouTube videos

Source: CrunchGear | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:25 pm

Skype, Wireless Companies Fight to Shape Net Neutrality Regs

As the FCC grows closer to issuing controversial new controls on ISPs (including your phone company), large tech companies attempt to tweak them with filings to the FCC. Oddly, Google and Verizon tell the feds they actually agree on a few things.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:24 pm

MySpace Music Resurrects Imeem Playlists

Last month, MySpace finally completed its deal to acquire troubled music startup Imeem. Unfortunately for imeem fans, the bank shut the service down as soon as the deal was completed, redirecting them to a MySpace Music splash screen. MySpace was subsequently trashed by outraged users who wanted their playlists back. Today, they’re getting what they asked for: MySpace has just sent out an Email to imeem users, informing them that they’ll be able to restore their playlists using a new import tool. We’ve confirmed with MySpace that the feature is now live.

The process is simple: users enter their imeem Email address, hit “Import Playlists”, and will find their imeem playlists restored under the “My Music” section of MySpace Music. The playlists will behave as normal MySpace playlists do, but will be labeled to indicate that they originated from imeem. The process should be seamless for most users, but there are a few caveats: MySpace won’t be able to restore songs where there are differences between the imeem and MySpace music license catalogs. MySpace says this won’t be an issue for most songs, but didn’t have an exact percentage for how much of the catalogs overlap.

It’s worth pointing out again that MySpace didn’t really have anything to do with the shutdown of imeem — it would have shut down anyway as its licences expired and money ran out. We’re hearing this actually took quite a bit of work from MySpace’s end, as they had to pair up thousands of songs to prepare for the import process.

Here’s the Email message being sent to imeem users:

We’re happy to share that we’ve recreated your imeem playlists on MySpace Music. We spent a lot of time and effort to make a home for your music on our platform. Beginning today you’ll be able to access your playlists. Here’s how:

1) Access your playlist by clicking here: http://www.myspace.com/music/import-playlists. You will need to be logged into MySpace. Click here to login or signup for MySpace.

2) Enter your imeem e-mail address.

3) Click import and we will retrieve your playlists.

4) Upon completion, your playlists will be stored in “My Music,” our playlist management tool. All playlists can be identified by the name “import_[yourplaylistname]”

This process isn’t perfect and while we expect most of your content to have migrated from imeem to MySpace Music, we appreciate your understanding if any discrepancies between the two music catalogs affected your individual playlists.

If you have questions, please visit http://faq.myspace.com/app/home.

Thanks,
The MySpace Music Team

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

Source: TechCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:08 pm

Review: 'Book of Eli' Caps Wasteland Saga With a Twist

While its post-apocalyptic setting might seem familiar, this action flick rises above with a memorable story line and solid acting. Denzel Washington cuts to the quick as a deadpan death-dealer on a mission to redeem the world.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:03 pm

Vevo Bounces Back From a Rough Start With 20 Million Streams a Day [MediaMemo]

Remember Vevo, the “Hulu for music video” service that launched with a lot of fanfare, then earned a ton of lousy press for an error-filled launch?

It has fixed its tech problems and is doing just fine, thank you very much. Vevo says it is generating around 20 million video views a day, which puts it on track to generate some 600 million views a month.

Some context: ComScore (SCOR) says that Hulu itself generates some 900,000 video views in the U.S, making it the second biggest video site after YouTube. And Viacom (VIA), the current No. 3, generates 500,000 views.

If you want to compare apples to apples, though, you have to cut Vevo’s 600 million down to 300 million since about half its views come from outside the U.S. Still, that’s enough to qualify Vevo for eighth place in comScore’s rankings, placing it above AOL (AOL) and CBS (CBS).

And when comScore’s December video numbers are released at the end of this month, Vevo’s numbers will come in below 300 million since it didn’t launch until Dec. 9 and because comScore’s numbers are usually lower than any site’s internal numbers.

Still, that’s a lot of eyeballs, and it’s more than the joint venture between Sony (SNE), Vivendi’s Universal Music Group and Abu Dhabi Media Company expected. But the fact that Vevo began with a huge audience, rocky start and all, shouldn’t be a surprise.

In fact, I said so last month. No need to type it twice:

While everyone has rightly been flocking to Vevo.com itself for a look-see, it’s not the most important Web site for the joint venture. That would be YouTube, where most Vevo users are actually going to encounter–and watch–Vevo videos, without even knowing that they’re watching a Vevo video.

To be clear: When Google’s (GOOG) video site agreed to help Universal Music Group (and later Sony) launch a new hub for music videos, it didn’t mean it would be sending its users away from YouTube.

When you read about Vevo launching with 400 million video views in the first month, understand that the majority of those aren’t coming from the new site but from YouTubers who are watching music clips the same way they always do, on YouTube. But Vevo will get credit for those eyeballs and any ad dollars they generate.

That is: If you’re watching a Ke$ha video on YouTube, there’s a good chance you’re watching a Vevo video.

So. Next question. Can Vevo turn all those views into dollars?

We’ll see. CEO Rio Caraeff tells me his sales group continues to bring in high-profile advertisers–the latest, last week, was Procter & Gamble (PG)–and has been able to get between $25 and $30 for every 1,000 impressions. That’s a whole lot better than videos traditionally earned on YouTube, and as good as some TV shows.

But it’s relatively easy to announce that you’re selling your initial batch of inventory at a high rate. It’s much harder to sustain that over time. So it’s hard to read too much into those numbers just yet.

In the meantime, the site is going to get much bigger in the near future.

For one thing, it should start showing videos from EMI Music Group within a few weeks, which means that it will have clips from three of the four big music labels. Warner Music Group (WMG), the lone holdout, has its own deal with YouTube.

And in March, Vevo should start syndicating its clips to other big properties, starting with CBS and AOL, meaning it will have plenty more eyeballs to sell. The challenge will be proving that the JV’s thesis–music videos alone are attractive to advertisers–is worth the effort.

Meanwhile, here’s a primer on Ke$ha, whom I didn’t know about until the other day. She is apparently big with the kids these days.

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:02 pm

'Astonishing' Ancient Amazon Civilization Discovery Detailed

Recently, new satellite imagery detected a hidden kingdom in the Amazon that had eluded explorers for nearly 500 years. An aerial picture of traces of earthworks built by a lost Amazonian civilisation. Denise Schaan Some called it El Dorado, others, ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:50 pm

Egalitarian Science: The Open Dinosaur Project

If you're interested in trying your hand at scientific publication, you might want to check out the Open Dinosaur Project. The venture harnesses the research powers of a crowd in order to compile a database of dinosaur limb bone measurements. ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:48 pm

Resistive screens are dead: HTC now selling a stylus for capacitive screens

When it comes to touchscreens, you just can’t beat the feeling of a nice, high-quality capacitive screen. If you’ve been using an iPhone, Motorola Droid, or any one of many capacitive smartphones made in the past few years, try to hunt down one with a resistive screen; the difference is almost shocking. Touches to a capacitive touchscreen are registered with the lightest tap, while moving things around on a resistive screen requires you to press down so hard that people probably think you’re angry at it.

Of course, resistive screens have their benefits; namely, they play friendly with styluses. As predictive text gets better, this isn’t too big of a deal for English speakers – we only have so many characters to deal with. But for the many languages of the world in which there are simply too many characters to squeeze into any sort of usable user interface, character recognition is the only option. As a result, a stylus — and thus a resistive screen — is a must. HTC wants to combine the best of both worlds, and have just launched a stylus that plays friendly with capacitive screens.

They’re certainly not the first to do it (POGO has had a stylus that plays friendly with iPhones for a long while now), but this is the first time we’ve seen a company of HTC’s magnitude get into the space. HTC pumps out a whole lot of handsets each year – if they’re doing this in preparation of bailing on resistive screens once and for all, this may very well mark the death of resistive touch screens in the mobile space.

The stylus is only being sold as a stand alone item for now, at the grand price of $28 bucks. With that said, don’t be too surprised if HTC starts including these in the box sometime in the near future, if only for the sake of us with big ol’ meaty digits.

[Engadget Via Phonescoop]

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:45 pm

Who’s on Crack: CES 2010 edition

Section: Communications, Computers, Gadgets / Other, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack

You’ve got the big show and an awful lot of folks feeling like it is all on the line.  That is going to lead to some of them looking for a shortcut, something that will keep the intensity up while glossing over the magnitude of it all.  10% unemployment rate will drive many of the rats that have a job to do some pretty stupendous things.  And get on crack.  Here is what I learned in Vegas.

• Gaga for gadgets?
• Monster for Monster
• From CES 2011: 3M gets one-upped
• Gadgetell goes Zune

Gaga over gadgets

Lady Gaga seemed to be everywhere at CES.  From chillaxin with Monster Cables to claiming the corner office with Kodak, she left her mark on the show.  Is she really that hot right now?

The Monster deal makes sense to me; they do celeb versions all the time, Gaga’s is no difference (minus the RED tie-in, props there).  But Kodak?  They appointed her Creative Director of Special Products.  Will she’ll occupy the office between Marketing Especial Hombre Eric Estrada and EVP of Stuff You Kinda Forgot Was There Tito Jackson?  To my knowledge Kodak hasn’t appointed Estrada or Jackson to these posts but it seem arbitrary to stop with Gaga.

I am not sure I want products designed by Gaga.  I mean, I don’t want Justin Timberlake adjusting the brakes on my car any more than I want Flavor Flavor designing my next set of skiis.  I am sure Kodak has a better excuse than just marketing.  Right?

Monster is so hot right now

One cool thing about CES is the social aspect.  This year, CES brought Gadgetell, Appletell and Gamertell writers together to cover the multifaceted show.  Bring blogging geeks together and we’ll typically talk about a range of stuff and find lots of common ground.  Not so with Jake Gaecke.

Jake’s an Appletell writer, so off the bat you know he’s got fanboi in his blood.  But seriously, we couldn’t have a conversation that didn’t involve him brining Monster up.  It didn’t matter whether we were talking about tablets, atomic testing, or the food served: he swung the conversation back to Monster.  Monster, Monster, Monster.

We tried to shock it out of his system with things like, “Jake, I just read Steve Jobs is retiring this year,” or “Apple is never ever releasing a tablet.”  He wouldn’t bite, he just kept going by telling us how much better our lives would be with Monster headphones.  If Monster is reading, and I am sure you’re not, please contact Jake to get him a sample set of headphones.

CES 2011 prediction: 3M gets one-upped

Our Shawn Ingram told us about 3Ms touchscreen: “What sets the 3M monitor apart from most other multitouch displays is the fact that it supports up to 10 points of interaction at the same time.  That was you can have every finger on both hands moving independently and have to PC recognize each one of them.”

Our prediction is next year a host of companys from China will try to one-up 3Ms toy.  They’ll crank it to 11.

Gadgetell <3's Zune

You’ll notice we didn’t do many booth tours on the site, opting for personal in depth coverage.  There were a few notable exceptions and Microsoft’s Zune is one of them.  One of the most polarizing gadgets going, you probably won’t see too many Zune booth tours on the web.  Why is that?  Cause Robert Nelson, our editor, is a Zuney toon.

The man loves Zune.  Loves the touchscreen version, loves the subscription and loves being the only one in a a 100 mile radius with one.  So he fought the crowds of the always packed Microsoft booth complex and brought you these images.  Lovely stuff, right?

Is Robert on the list because he loves the Zune?  Nah.  Is it the booth tour in a year of no real booth tours?  Nah.  Is it just for the fact that he’ll admit to loving the Zune?  I am not saying.

 

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:39 pm

This week in search 1/15/10

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

From mobile search to books, the first days of 2010 have brought some exciting new innovations. But most importantly, the global community rallied online to help support victims of the tragic earthquake in Haiti.

Searching to support Haiti
On January 12th, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, causing massive devastation. Throughout the week, we saw queries from Google users searching for information, resources and ways they could help. In fact, on January 12th, 4 of our 5 fastest rising queries were related to the earthquake. And it's not too late to help join in on the recovery efforts mobilizing around the world — a donation can help rebuild lives and communities. For more information on ways you can help, visit Google's Crisis Response page. Google has also pledged to help organizations provide relief with a donation of $1 million. Our hearts go out to the people of Haiti and their families.

Flu Trends
Back in 2008, we launched Google Flu Trends, which uses aggregated Google search data to estimate flu activity. Over time, we've found that certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity. This week we were excited to announce that we're taking flu trends one step further, with city level flu estimates in 121 cities in the U.S. With flu season upon us, Flu Trends is now an even greater resource that can help provide early detection of flu activity. Find out more about our announcement here.

Near Me Now for mobile
Need to find a nearby restaurant, coffee shop or bar on the fly — or maybe an ATM or bank? This past week, we launched "Near Me Now" on Google.com in the U.S. for Android-powered devices and iPhone. By using your phone's location information, searching for nearby places is now easier and faster. With just a few clicks you can easily check out customer reviews, quickly jump to a map to help you get there or call the business. For more information about this exciting launch, check out this post from the mobile team.

Optimized search suggestions using your location
Typing your query into a search box on a phone can sometimes be slow and difficult. Now, when using your Android-powered device or iPhone in the U.S., searching with Google just got a whole lot better. You'll now see customized search suggestions based on your current or last location. For example, if you are in Boston, a query beginning with "R-E" will return a suggestion for "Red Sox" among others. For more information on how to ensure that this new feature is enabled on your phone, check out the mobile team's announcement.

Samsung E-Reader
At last week's annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, hundreds of exciting products were announced. In partnership with Google, Samsung launched two e-reader devices that make it very easy to read any of Google's million-plus public domain books. Two models were launched: the E6, with a six-inch screen, and the E101, with a 10-inch display.

Thanks for reading, and as always, we'll see you back here next week.

Posted by Gabriel Stricker, Director Global Communications & Public Affairs
Source: The Official Google Blog | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:34 pm

Steadicam Rig for iPhone Is the Real Deal

You know all those lame old camera stabilizers for the iPhone, the ones that promise you “steadicam” shooting? Well, you can forget them. Tiffen, the people who make the real
Steadicam, now offer a little iPhone version. It’s called the Steadicam Smoothee.

The holder works like the big Steadicam rigs used in the movie industry (and also just like the $14 home-made Steadicam
). It puts the iPhone 3GS on a mount which sits atop a dangling counterbalance and pivots on a handle. This counterweight, although just 25 ounces in total, damps any wobbles and allows the iPhone’s video camera to capture the swooping, shake-free shots we all love.

The quick release mounting case into which the iPhone settles can be removed and sat atop a table or screwed onto a tripod. Tiffen haven’t yet announced a price for the Smoothee, but you can be sure it will cost less than, say the Steadicam Ultra 2C, which will set you back $50,000.

Steadicam Smoothee [Tiffen]

See Also:

• Homemade Steadicam Almost as Good as Real Thing
• Shaky-Cam: DIY Bike Tripod

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:16 pm

NASA Listens for Sign Mars Phoenix Survived Winter

NASA's popular Mars Phoenix lander shut down in November 2008. Now, with Martian spring coming, the agency is trying to make contact with the craft, even though it's unlikely it survived the cold and ice of winter.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:10 pm

Work, Play, Sleep: Weekend Science

Friday is (finally) here, and while the weekend may be mostly about fun and games for many, there is real science behind it, too. First, the obvious: People feel better when the weekend arrives. If you're anything like me, your ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:04 pm

3G GSM crypto hacked

Bloops. Researchers have figured out how to crack 128-but UMTS 3G technology, thereby putting almost all modern phones in danger. The paper, found here basically describes a 2-hour process and is more a proof-of-concept than anything else. However, it could be used to listen to conversations after the fact.

As you’ll recall, old-fashioned G.S.M. was hacked a few weeks ago and with 3G down for the count there’s not much left to hide behind except good old security by obscurity. That said, I suggest we all learn Navaho like in Windtalkers.

via Giz

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:54 pm

Meteorologists as Climate Change Deniers?

A recent piece in the Columbia Journalism Review (http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/hot_air.php) examined the rise in global warming denial among the ranks of TV meteorologists. It's not just that the climate change deniers (as clunky a label as you'll find) claim that the ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:52 pm

Autopia WTF? Detroit Auto Show Caption Contest

Toyota's FT-EV II looks like an Imperial stormtrooper helmet. But it's the interior that's really weird. Write the best caption and win a prize.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:50 pm

Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Set Children's Reading Skills On Negative Course

A landmark study from the University of British Columbia finds that the neighborhoods in which children reside at kindergarten predict their reading comprehension skills seven years later.The study, published this week in the journal Health & Place, finds children who live in neighborhoods with higher rates of poverty show reduced scores on standardized tests seven years later – regardless of the child's place of residence in Grade 7.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:41 pm

Taking the Slow Boat From China. [Voices]

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:40 pm

Sprint Samsung Moment updated for anyone willing to leave their house

Remember the good ol’ days of being a cell phone owner? Back when you could probably name every color your screen could display, 2G data connections were mind blowing, and gettin’ your firmware flashed meant taking a trip to the good ol’ neighborhood carrier outlet? Yeah – we’re back to that.

Sprint’s making a throw back to that last practice of yesteryear, with the release of a firmware update for the Samsung Moment. Awesome! Everyone loves new software! Here’s the catch: you can only get the update if you’re willing to cruise on over to a Sprint store and get your handset flashed manually.

What’s that you say? Android is supposed to be capable of over-the-air updates? Yeah, you’re right. It could be that part of this specific upgrade just doesn’t play friendly with the OTA system, or it could be that Sprint isn’t armed with the infrastructure to get it done for this specific handset; whatever the reason, I’d be willing to bet it isn’t something that Sprint is happy about.

The new update brings AGPS improvements (allowing in-door positioning), updates to a handful of the built-in Sprint apps, a few little bug fixes, and an increase in battery performance. If all that sounds worthwhile to you (the battery performance improvement would sell me on it all by itself), head on over to the nearest Sprint store. Be sure to tell them to read MobileCrunch (and send us pictures of fun new stuff!) while you’re there.

[Via AndroidCentral]

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:39 pm

CES 2010 Hands-on: Sony Bloggie camcorder with 360-degree lens

Section: Video, Portable Video, Trade Shows, CES

CES seemed to be done as far as I was concerned. That’s how I felt until I looked at my Kodak Zi8 and remembered the first product to truly impress me at the massive tech exhibit - the Sony Bloggie line of digital camcorders. I purchased my Zi8 specifically for capturing video at CES and had a case of buyer’s remorse as soon as Sony took the leash off Bloggie. The camera is half the size of my current camcorder, records in 1080p H.264 or MP4 for faster upload and conversion times for YouTube, support for SDHC/SD/Memory Stick, and best of all, a panoramic add-on that supplies a super-widescreen. 

The Sony Bloggie comes in two forms: the fixed-lense MHS-CHM5, which doesn’t support the add-on, and the positionable-lens MHS-PM5 that support the 360-degree camera add-on. Both products are on-sale at Sony Style or Amazon and other retailers. Below is a hands-on video of the $169 Bloggie MHS-PM5.

 

 

Full Story » | Written by Andrew Kameka for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Source: Gadgetell | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:21 pm

Bike High-Wire Lets You Fly Above the Streets

Kolelinia is a high-wire for bikes, a skinny, suspended cycle-lane which lets riders glide over traffic, flying above the streets. It is amazing sci-fi, and is either a brilliant, forward thinking idea or the most ridiculously stupid traffic scheme yet concocted.

The Kolelinia consists of two parts, both suspended high above the street. The first part is a gutter in which you ride, a half-tube channel that keeps your wheels from falling off the thin track. The second part is a guide cable that runs alongside the rider at handlebar height. You attach a tethering device to your handlebar and it runs along the able like a safety line on a boat, with a neat mechanism to let it pass right over the supporting poles. In theory, this should work.

The Kolelinia isn’t meant to be a full length bike route. Instead, it is a way to pass problem junctions, or to offer a high-rise tourist route. But the flaws are many. First, if you have ever ridden your bike too close to the curb, almost touching the sidewalk, you’ll know that the bike feels very unstable. You need a little wiggle room to the right in order to turn left — the bike needs to be tilted slightly underneath you to shift the center of gravity into the turn. The restrictive gutter wouldn’t allow this.

Second, your handlebar is also fixed, another wobble-inducing nightmare. And if you do hop the track, or if you just freak out and fall off your bike, you will be headed quickly road-ward as the bike dangles above. A safety cable would stop you actually hitting the pavement, but I can think of easier ways to spend a commute.

We suspect that the scheme is doomed. Not that we don’t like it. Flying over cars would be awesome. Is’s just that this doesn’t appear to be the way to do it. A real flying bike on the other hand…

Kolelinia sky-bike lane [Kolelinia via Urban Velo]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:13 pm

Intel’s Q4 Blowout [Digital Daily]

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pm

Wallet-Emptying Moleskine Multi-Pack. Verdict? Gorgeous

The people behind Moleskine, not content with the $20 they manage to get in exchange for a blank notebook, have come up with a new money-making scheme, a way to part us poor, fashionable fools with even more of our cash.

A grand product deserves a grand name, and the $40 Moleskine 2010 Color A Month Daily Planner Volant Box Set
delivers. It consists of twelve of the softcover Volant notebooks, tiny, slim pamphlets of just 54 pages each which normally come in sets of two, delivered in a box also equipped with all the stickers and bookmarks the obsessive organizer could want.

As you can see from the opening lines of this post, I fully intended to mock this overpriced wad of paper and thin, smooth, perfectly textured card, but I can’t. The strong stationery fetish that all geeks harbor within themselves has been drawn out and now I want to buy this full set, even though I almost never set pen to paper anymore. Just look at those colors!

I’ll leave quietly now, while I still have a little pride left intact. I’ll see you all over at the Amazon Moleskine Store. Yes, there’s an Amazon Moleskine Store.

Moleskine 2010 Color A Month Daily Planner [Moleskine]

See Also:

• How To Turn an iPhone into a Moleskine Book
• Laser Etched Moleskine Are Reassuringly Expensive
• Moleskine External Hard Drive Enclosure
• Moleskine PDA and Smartphone…

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:55 am

Solar eclipse seen in Africa and Asia - Washington Post

Reuters

Solar eclipse seen in Africa and Asia Washington Post Thousands of people observed an annular solar eclipse on Friday, Jan. 15, as the eclipse passed half the earth, through parts of Africa and Asia. The solar eclipse, shown through a multiple exposure photograph, lasted more than 11 minutes during it's ... Rationalists have their day in the sunThe Hindu Scientists, sun-watchers gather to watch ring eclipseMonsters and Critics.com Sun Eclipsed: Ring Round the MoonNew York Times (blog) Christian Science Monitor -Times of India -Wall Street Journal (blog) all 902 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:52 am

NASA finds cocaine in Space Shuttle hangar - Register

New York Daily News

NASA finds cocaine in Space Shuttle hangar Register NASA is trying to sniff out which employee brought a baggy of cocaine into the hangar that houses Space Shuttle Discovery at Kennedy Space Center in Florida this week. The space agency is preparing the shuttle for a launch to the International Space ... Cocaine Discovery Prompts NASA Safety RevieweWeek Safety panel sides with Ares I rocketFlorida Today NASA Finds Cocaine Near Space Shuttle DiscoveryAHN msnbc.com -The Press Association -Dayton Daily News all 630 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:51 am

Chinese EV Promises Crazy Mileage

With the Detroit Auto Show in full swing, this week a Chinese company touted a new all-electric vehicle that gets 205 miles on a single charge and is set to hit the U.S. market later this year. The Shenzhen-based company ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:48 am

Oink Admin Beats File Sharing Charges

The administrator of an invite-only file sharing site with 200,000 members is cleared by a British jury of criminal charges for facilitating copyright infringement.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:20 am

Patent Reveals Possible Groundbreaking Multi-Touch Features for Apple’s iSlate

Now that everyone knows the iSlate is real, the question is: what the hell is this thing going to be like? How will it work? What will wow us about the iSlate that we never really expected?

A tipster just dug up some great details about a new multi-touch gestures that may help answer these questions [CrunchGear summarized many other cool gestures here]. Obviously, we don’t know if Apple will use this technology, but patents from a company they previously acquired, Fingerworks, reveal two patents that might apply to the new Apple Tablet.

The first one enables you to write on a touchscreen in the same way that you would a piece of paper.

You clench your fist and pinch your thumb and index finger together like you’re holding a pen (see image above). Now, if you press your hand down to the tablet with this position, you can now write like you would on a piece of paper. Of course, it might be weird at first: you’ll probably hate the fact that you don’t have anything in your fingers, but we all thought the same thing about not having a keyboard. I’ll take the wait-and-see approach: if this does land itself on the iTablet, it’s definitely something I could see myself using. From the patent itself:

[0129] FIG. 15 is a proximity image of a right hand in a pen grip configuration. The thumb 201 and index fingertip 202 are pinched together as if they were holding a pen but in this case they are touching the surface instead. Actually the thumb and index finger appear the same here as in FIG. 14. However, the middle 203, ring 204, and pinky 205 fingers are curled under as if making a fist, so the knuckles from the top of the fingers actually touch the surface instead of the finger tips. The curling under of the knuckles actually places them behind the pinched thumb 201 and index fingertip 202 very close to the palm heels 206, 207. The knuckles also appear larger than the curled fingertips of FIG. 14 but the same size as the flattened fingertips in FIG. 13. These differences in size and arrangement will be measured by the pen grip detector 17 to distinguish this pen grip configuration from the closed and flattened hand configurations.

Another patent enables the touchscreen to identify if you are typing or if you just happen to have your hand on the screen. Similar to the way the iPhone detects that you are holding your phone up to your face to talk, this may be a small feature that goes a long way towards improving usability of the iSlate.

[0295] The typing recognition process described above thus allows the multi-touch surface to ergonomically emulate both the typing and hand resting capabilities of a standard mechanical keyboard. Crisp taps or impulsive presses on the surface generate key symbols as soon as the finger is released or decision diamond 792 verifies the impulse has peaked, ensuring prompt feedback to the user. Fingers intended to rest on the surface generate no keys as long as they are members of a synchronized finger press or release subset or are placed on the surface gently and remain there along with other fingers for a second or two. Once resting, fingers can be lifted and tapped or impulsively pressed on the surface to generate key symbols without having to lift other resting fingers. Typematic is initiated ether by impulsively pressing and maintaining distinguishable force on a key, or by holding a finger on a key while other fingers on the hand are lifted. Glancing motions of single fingers as they tap key regions are easily tolerated since most cursor manipulation must be initiated by synchronized slides of two or more fingers.

There is good reason to believe that Apple will be introducing a new language of touchscreen technology with the launch of the iSlate. The pen technology definitely has potential, and we’re excited to see whether it is implemented.

All of the information above comes from the US Patent website at http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=Fingerworks.AS.&OS=AN/Fingerworks&RS=AN/Fingerworks.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:18 am

Apple Has Hired an M&A Specialist? What’s Adobe's Market Cap, Again? [Digital Daily]

“We have almost $25 billion safely in the bank and zero debt. This provides us tremendous stability and the ability to invest our way through this downturn. This is what we did during the last downturn–we increased R&D investments and created some of our best new products and businesses, like the Apple retail stores, for one. This downturn may also present some extraordinary opportunities for companies that have the cash to take advantage of them, like Apple does.”

— Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Oct. 21, 2008

Apple made its first acquisition on March 2, 1988, with the purchase of Network Innovations. Since then, Apple has bought just 23 more companies (see table; click to enlarge), including Quattro Wireless, which it purchased for $275 million. Which isn’t all that many for a company with $23 billion in the bank (as a point of comparison, Google has acquired 11 companies in the last 18 months alone).

But that may soon change, because Cupertino finally has a dedicated acquisitions specialist, Adrian Perica. According to BusinessWeek, the former Goldman Sachs (GS) banker, who was brought in after Apple reportedly lost AdMob to Google (GOOG), is believed to have quarterbacked the company’s purchase of music site Lala in December and Quattro Wireless earlier this month.

Both were executed uncharacteristically quickly for Apple, which suggests that the company’s lackadaisical, ad hoc approach to M&A has been recast to make it, necessarily, more nimble. Said one Silicon Valley banker: “[Apple has] always gone slow on M&A, but that’s changing.”

Perhaps it’s a good time for that long-rumored merger with Adobe (ADBE). Then again, it’s probably never a good time for something like that.

Source: All Things Digital | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:14 am

World Record texting speed broken – but can you really call this texting?

Look, I don’t want to sound like a baby or anything, so a huge congrats to Pedro Matias of Portugal for breakin’ the texting speed World Record. Congrats out to our pair of ladies from the US for their performance as well – walking home with 2nd place $20,000 heavier is nothing to laugh at.

What is laughable, however, is the way the contest was set up.

Watch the video below, and check out the handsets they’re using; see the QWERTY keyboards? We’re big fans of QWERTY keyboards on handsets around these parts and all — but like our buddies over at Engadget, we just don’t think you can call that “texting” in the competitive sense. This is just typing on a smaller keyboard. Where’s the limit? If I hook up a Bluetooth keyboard to my smartphone, is it still texting as long as I send an SMS?

Shenanigans. Yeah, I said it.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:09 am

Fate of Haiti's Zoo and Animals Remains Uncertain

The fate of Haiti's zoo, endangered species and other animals in the Caribbean country remains uncertain at present, with U.S. animal and veterinary organizations attempting to gather information while also standing by to allow rescuers to focus on human victims ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:37 am

Tylenol Recall Expands Due to Moldy Odor

If the bottle of Tylenol in your medicine cabinet smells funny, just throw it out.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:56 am

Microscopic Worms Being Made Even Deadlier

How the worms protect cropsWhen the worm, called H. bacteriophora finds an insect in the soil, it crawls inside and, Adams says, “barfs up” special bacteria that had hitched a ride with the worm. The bacteria quickly kill the insect and spread, and the worm gobbles up the bacteria and reproduces. The bacteria and baby worms eat what’s left of the bug, and then head off together in search of another insect host.Plants and other insects, such as bees, are spared, and the worms are not toxic to humans. The bacteria are only deadly when introduced inside the insect, not when ingested, and can’t survive in soil or water. So they are only a threat to the insects targeted by the worm, which include the Japanese beetle, many species of weevils, the Colorado potato beetle, cucumber beetles and many others. These pests can wreak havoc on citrus trees, turfgrass, potatoes, and many other crops.The worms occur naturally in concentrations too small to be effective at eradicating pests. So farmers can purchase bulk quantities of nematodes mass produced in huge fermentation tanks and spread them through irrigation. Producing deadly nematodes by the barrel is the problem.Lab-grown worms wimp outPrevious research has shown that the worms are less deadly to insects when grown away from their natural habitat. After a few generations, they don’t reproduce or find hosts as well, they have a tougher time tolerating heat and they aren’t as toxic to the bugs they do find.“We wanted to know the genetic mechanisms that were responsible for these changes, so we did a series of experiments to look at differences in gene expression between the killers and the wimps,” said Adams.The team examined all of the expressed genes of an inbred line (wimps) of worms and their original parental line (killers). They found differences in the expression of 1,185 genes, including those involved with metabolism, virulence and longevity.“We show that even very small changes in the relative expression of these genes can produce large changes in wimpiness,” Adams said.Now scientists can take steps to improve the quality of worms shipped to farmers. But that’s not what has Adams most excited about this work.Even broader application“The research also shows that many of the genes involved in the killer/wimp traits in these worms are unique to worms that are nasty parasites of plants, humans and other animal friends,” Adams says.Some of these genes they identified play fundamental roles in host-parasite interactions, such as virulence and the suppression of host defense systems. That means the products of these genes could be promising targets for pharmaceuticals.Other interventions could prevent disease by disrupting and altering the functions of these genes – taking what was learned about how the bug-killing nematodes evolved to became less deadly and leading harmful parasites down the same road.Student contributions serve as launching padTwo undergrads generated the “wimpy” line of worms for the study, which required experiments to prove that the genetic deterioration came about because of inbreeding and not other potential genetic causes. They are the first authors on another paper about this that has been submitted for publication.John Chaston, featured here for his work on nematodes in Antarctica, is now a National Science Foundation fellow pursing a Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin.Adler Dillman is now at Caltech, studying how genes influence behavior under world renowned worm geneticist Paul Sternberg, also a co-author on the paper. By the time he graduated from BYU, Dillman had presented research at nine scientific conferences.“Dr. Adams' attitude is unique among undergraduate professors in that he encourages students to study the primary literature and then to approach him with particular studies or questions that they find interesting,” Dillman said. “He then helps you turn that interest into a research program. Working for him was the best thing that happened to me as an undergraduate.”Other coauthors on the paper are: BYU’s Chin-Yo Lin, Ohio State’s Xiaodong Bai and Parwinder Grewal, Michigan State’s Todd Ciche, the USDA’s David Shapiro-Ilan; and Rutgers’ Anwar Bilgrami and Randy Gaugler.---Image 1: In this image from an electron microscope, the tiny slivers are bacteria carried by a nematode - these germs are what actually kill the insects the nematodes infest. Image 2: In this magnified image, tiny nematode worms escape from the head of a pesky moth larva they killed, serving as a natural insecticide.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:51 am

Apple Attorney Attacks Tablet Bounty - InformationWeek

AFP

Apple Attorney Attacks Tablet Bounty InformationWeek An Apple lawyer has demanded that tech industry gossip site Valleywag end an offer to pay $100000 to anyone who brings the site the long-anticipated Apple tablet computer. Michael Spillner of the Silicon Valley, Calif., ... Gag Prize Awarded in Apple Tablet Scavenger Hunt: Proof at Last?PC World Apple Halts Tablet Bounty with Legal NoticePC Magazine Apple Sends Out Lawyers over Tablet Photo Bounty OffereWeek The Mac Observer -CNET -Digitaltrends.com all 120 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:44 am

Verizon breaks out lower-priced unlimited voice plans, keeps smartphone plans the same

Good ol’ VZW just released details about its new unlimited plans and AT&T should probably take notes. The voice-only plan dropped from $99 to only $69 and the voice/text plans is now only $89 instead of $119. The same plans are available on a pre-paid basis for only $5 more per month. The new, lower-priced plans are available today, and just like all of Verizon’s services, current customers can switch to these plans even if they are under contract with another rate plan.

Data packages were also revised, but not nearly as much. The $9.99 for 25MB data package is now available for all VZW 3G multimedia phones. Previously, this plan was only available with select featurephones, but not anymore. Now anyone but smartphone users can opt for that package.

Speaking of smartphones, Verizon didn’t touch the $29.99 per month plan. It’s still the same and probably not going to drop anytime soon. That’s going to be Verizon’s bread and butter as the carrier launches more and more Android and Blackberry devices.

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

Source: MobileCrunch | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:09 am