The Times Erects a Paywall, Plays Double Or Quits

DCFC writes "News International, owners of The Times and The Sunday Times announced today that from June readers will be required to pay £1 per day or £2 per week to access content. Rupert Murdoch is delivering on his threat to make readers pay, and is trying out this experiment with the most important titles in his portfolio. No one knows if this will work — there is no consensus on whether it is a good or bad thing for the industry, but be very clear that if it succeeds every one of his competitors will follow. Murdoch has the luxury of a deep and wide business, so can push this harder than any company that has to rely upon one or two titles for revenue."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:42 am

Zain, Bharti deal could take months to close-TV

KUWAIT, March 27 (Reuters) - The closing of the deal between Kuwaiti telecom firm Zain and India's Bharti Airtel could take weeks or months, Zain's chairman was quoted as saying.
Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 Mar 2010 | 3:05 am

Microsoft Adopts SVG For Internet Explorer 9

An anonymous reader writes "SVG has been a published standard for almost a decade. Microsoft has had nothing to do with it, even while every other major browser adopted SVG as a supported format and interface. Just in the last few weeks, though, Microsoft has thrown a surprising amount of its weight behind SVG." This means for IE 9, but it's a start.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:48 am

Musiques Traditionelles du Burundi

This album from the legenday Ocora label is really one of my favorites on the planet. When I first heard these two girls sing I had to be actively convinced it wasn't just pieces of a tape recording...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:44 am

Musiques Traditionelles du Burundi

This album from the legenday Ocora label is really one of my favorites on the planet.

When I first heard these two girls sing I had to be actively convinced it wasn't just pieces of a tape recording that had been spliced together! (Ocora co-founder Pierre Schaeffer also pioneered the early tape-splicing music movement known as Musique Concrete, so I wasn't totally nuts):

Akaheze par deux jeune filles

I just wrote about the amazing ability of some birds to sing multiple notes at once. This woman's ability to switch rapidly between her head and chest voice is totally daring anyone to say humans couldn't defy all odds and learn to do it too:

Akazehe par une jeune fille

The liner notes for these songs say that this woman is using her lips as a reed. If you listen carefully, you can hear the switch over to her normal voice. It's a traditional kind of song for mourning:

Ubuhuha 1

Ubuhuha 2

Unfortunately, like many on Ocora, this album is exceedingly rare. Let this be another call for re-issues! The cover of the Musiques du Cameroun album is worth tracking down all on its own...

This post is part of a series about music that disorients the senses. I've found that some of the most amazing and jarring auditory illusions are not the usual scientifically distilled or synthesized ones, they're often found in folk music and made by people's voices. Of course, in a way, it makes perfect sense - the vocal chords are some of the most complex and advanced musical instruments in existence. They are ubiquitously available, and we've been experimenting with them for longer than any other sound-making implement.

Source: Boing Boing | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:44 am

Sony accuses Beyonce of piracy for putting her videos on YouTube

Sony Entertainment has shut down Beyonce's official YouTube site. Congrats to Sony Entertainment for wisely spending its legal dollars and working on behalf of its artists. Truly, you deserve many laws...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:33 am

Sony accuses Beyonce of piracy for putting her videos on YouTube

Sony Entertainment has shut down Beyonce's official YouTube site. Congrats to Sony Entertainment for wisely spending its legal dollars and working on behalf of its artists. Truly, you deserve many laws and secret treaties passed to protect your "business model" (how else could such a delicate flower survive the harsh realities of the real world?).

YouTube - beyonce's Channel (via Motherboard)

Source: Boing Boing | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:33 am

Pirate Radio documentary

Matt "Pirate's Dilemma" Mason teamed up with VICE/Palladium to shoot a short documentary on the current state of pirate radio in London (with an excursion to an old sea fort). Lots of climbing on roofs,...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:25 am

Pirate Radio documentary

Matt "Pirate's Dilemma" Mason teamed up with VICE/Palladium to shoot a short documentary on the current state of pirate radio in London (with an excursion to an old sea fort). Lots of climbing on roofs, setting up bootleg electronics in parking garages, loud music, and running away from radio cops. Nice work.

Exploration #6 - London Pirate Radio (Thanks, Matt!)

Source: Boing Boing | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:25 am

Homebrew Turing Machine

Mike Davey, a maker from Wisconsin, built a classic Turing Machine with a 1000 foot instruction tape that holds up to 10k. Though Turing's machine was just a thought experiment, the paper in which it...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:16 am

Homebrew Turing Machine

Mike Davey, a maker from Wisconsin, built a classic Turing Machine with a 1000 foot instruction tape that holds up to 10k. Though Turing's machine was just a thought experiment, the paper in which it is described has enough detail to create it in real life. The machining is absolutely lovely, and when it's in motion, it's a thing of beauty.

A Turing Machine (Mike Davey)

DIY Turing Machine (IEEE Spectrum))

(Thanks, Erico!)

Source: Boing Boing | 27 Mar 2010 | 12:16 am

Styles of Edo Wedding Fashion Show (Sponsor Love)

Tomorrow (Saturday) March 27 at 2pm SLT, Styles of Edo (a lovely sponsor to this blog) is holding a three year anniversary wedding fashion show, featuring top models like Mui Mukerji, Sabine Blackburn...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:31 pm

Austrian Alpine Aquaculture

There's been a lot of press about Aquaponics and sustainable fish farming cropping up lately, so I wanted to share this astonishingly beautiful example:

Sepp Holzer lives on a mountaintop in Austria, where he casually but thoughtfully manages a fish farm that provides all of his food, clean water, income, and electricity through nothing but a series of carefully placed pond systems. Gravity pulls the water from pond to pond, and little micro-organism-eating fish are gradually replaced by bigger and bigger predatory fish until he has clean water and full-sized trout! It's so simple it might seem like magic, but it's actually cooler than that.

You can watch another short profile about Holzer's paradise here, and go here to see Eco Film's entire series on Permaculture.


Source: Boing Boing | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:22 pm

Austrian Alpine Aquaculture

There's been a lot of press about Aquaponics and sustainable fish farming cropping up lately, so I wanted to share this astonishingly beautiful example: Sepp Holzer lives on a mountaintop in Austria,...
Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:22 pm

Steve Jobs spotted not hating Eric Schmidt - Register

Reuters UK (blog)

Steve Jobs spotted not hating Eric Schmidt Register The on-again, off-again relationship of Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt may be back on again. According to a Friday afternoon post posted from Gizmodo, the Apple and Google CEOs were spotted at a Palo Alto, California coffee shop - out front on the ... What We're Reading: Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt and Barbed WireOcala Apple's Steve Jobs Spotted Drinking Coffee with Google's Eric SchmidtTopNews United States Apple's Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt reconcile over coffeeApple Insider DailyTech -The Mac Observer -VentureBeat all 30 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:07 pm

Google leaving China: better late than never - CNET

Los Angeles Times

Google leaving China: better late than never CNET Amidst a sea of praise for Google's recent decision to stop censoring search results in China, Paul Thurrott wrote a piece on how we shouldn't celebrate Google's China decisions at all, calling its move "a cold-hearted business decision, ... Google Gets Little US Corporate Support in Internet Fight With ChinaNew York Times Google defies China, hacker heads to the clinkComputerworld Google's deals in doubt amid spat with BeijingFOXNews San Jose Mercury News -Washington Post -Wired News all 196 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:50 pm

Save Xbox 360 data to USB drives starting April 6, 2010

FROM GAMERTELL - The Xbox 360 update that will add USB storage device support is going to be released April 6, 2010. Microsoft and SanDisk will release Xbox 360 USB drives sometime in May, 2010.
MORE »

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:03 pm

Nvidia's GF100 Turns Into GeForce GTX 480 and 470

crazipper writes "After months of talking architecture and functionality, NVIDIA is finally going public with the performance of its $500 GeForce GTX 480 and $350 GeForce GTX 470 graphics cards, both derived from the company's first DirectX 11-capable GPU, GF100. Tom's Hardware just posted a comprehensive look at the new cards, including their power requirements and performance attributes. Two GTX 480s in SLI seem to scale impressively well—providing you have $1,000 dollars for graphics, a beefy power supply, and a case with lots of airflow."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Real-time search in more languages
As you've probably noticed, on our search results page for Google.com in English now includes a dynamic stream of real-time content from popular sites like Facebook, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, MySpace and Twitter. Since we launched real-time search, we've continued to make significant improvements in the relevance technology. As of today, real-time search is available in 40 languages. Now when you're visiting family in Puerto Rico, or if you speak German and live in Switzerland, you'll be able to see live updates from people on these popular sites as well as news headlines and blog posts published just seconds before.

Refinements for local searches
Whether you're looking for info close to home or while you're traveling, it's now easier to find things to do in the cities you're searching for on Google. Now when you search for a city name, we'll show you popular query refinements for places in those cities. We've found that people like to explore several places during a trip, so when we show one point of interest, we'll also show you related points of interest. For instance, if you're looking for food or a place to stay, you'll also see some of the top category and neighborhood refinements to help you choose a place. This new feature will be rolling out over the next couple days for 200 U.S. cities, and in the coming weeks we'll expand coverage to more cities internationally.

Example searches: [maui], [pikes place market] and [restaurants berkeley california]


Lists in Bookmarks
This week we introduced lists in Google Bookmarks, an experimental feature that helps you easily share sites with friends. With lists, you can sort and categorize your Google Bookmarks or starred search results. Once you've created a list, you can share it with specific friends or make it publicly visible and searchable (lists are private by default). Based on the content of your list, we'll also generate suggestions for related links, so you can discover more helpful info related to a list you're already building. We’re launching lists as an experimental feature, and it is available at www.google.com/bookmarks or by clicking the "Starred results" link on your search results page. From there, select the links you want to share and click “Copy to list.”

Example lists: [welcome to lists] and [seattle sites]


Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more search improvements next week.

Posted by Ben Gomes, Distinguished Engineer

Previously:

• New Rochelle school board mutilates books to protect children ...
• US-funded health search-engine censors all results for searches on ...
• Last week's web-censorship proposal shows that supporters of every ...
• Banned Books Week and "most challenged titles" of 2008!
• MPAA to Obama: censor the Internet, kick people off the Internet ...

“Our tipster saw em and snapped these shots, and noted that the cafe is owned and operated by former Google chef Charlie Ayers,” Gizmodo reports. “Overheard from the conversation were two lines by Jobs. Enthusiastically, ‘They’re going to see it all eventually so who cares how they get it.’ Which seemed to be about Web content, said the tipster. And, ‘Let’s go discuss this somewhere more private,’ after they noticed the crowd gathering around.”

Of course, drawing a crowd may have been part of the purpose of the meeting in the first place. Perhaps the pair wanted to be seen together, though the meeting might have been a difficult one for Jobs to stomach if reports of his feelings towards Schmidt are accurate. As CNBC’s Jim Goldman said a few weeks back, “Steve Jobs simply hates Eric Schmidt right now” (see video below).

[Image credits: Gizmodo / MGM]

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:37 pm

Arrest in Girl’s Murder Highlights Sex Offender Myth

It was a horrible crime against a young child that made headlines around the world: A seven-year-old girl named Somer Thompson vanished while walking home from school one day in October 2009. Her parents suspected the worst—partly because of high-profile ...
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:33 pm

Our DIY Electric Beetle Runs!

At long last, our '67 V-Dub rolls silently out of the garage under its own power.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:29 pm

Check the Hype — There's No Such Thing as 'Cyber'

When you hear the word "cyber," watch out. Someone's probably trying to scare you.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:16 pm

Google Apps highlights — 3/26/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

We've been busy over the last couple weeks launching updates to make Google Apps more useful, whether you use Google Apps at work, at school or at home.

Smart Rescheduler Lab in Google Calendar
If you’ve ever tried to schedule time with a group of people who have packed agendas, you know how hard it can be to find a good meeting time that works for everyone. With the Smart Rescheduler, Google Calendar can sift through the details for you. When you need to reschedule an appointment, Smart Rescheduler quickly compares people’s calendars and ranks potential meeting times based on criteria like attendees, schedule complexity, conference rooms, and time zones. You can enable Smart Rescheduler by going to “Labs” under “Settings” in Google Calendar.


Suspicious account activity alerts
To help keep Gmail users and the data in their accounts safer, on Wednesday we launched a new security feature to alert you if our systems detect suspicious activity in your account. When something unusual is identified, you’ll see a warning notification near the top of your inbox. You can choose to view a log of recent activity, and if it looks like your account has been compromised, you can change your password immediately. (And while we’re on the topic of security, we encourage you to brush up on our tips to keep your account safer.) We know that security is also a top priority for businesses and schools, and we plan to bring this feature to Google Apps customers once we have gathered and incorporated their feedback.


Contact delegation
Businesses using Google Apps can use a feature called email delegation, which lets employees appoint delegates who are allowed to read, send and manage email on their behalf. For example, this allows executive assistants to handle email for their managers. As of last Monday, delegates can also access and manage contacts. Now, a delegate can pick contacts from the manager’s contact list when composing a message on behalf of the manager, and keep the manager’s contacts up-to-date.

Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange
Millions of companies and schools have switched to Google Apps, and we hope to help millions more “go Google” in the near future. To make the transition as smooth as possible, we’ve released Google Apps Migration for Microsoft® Exchange, a server-to-server migration utility that brings email, contacts and calendar data from a legacy Microsoft® Exchange system to Google Apps. This makes the transition more seamless for employees, faculty and students. When they sign in to Google Apps, they’ll see the messages, contact information and calendar appointments from the old system right in Gmail and Google Calendar.

Who’s gone Google?
The number of businesses and other organizations using Google Apps continues to shoot up, and we hit another big milestone by crossing the 25 million user mark. Among those are the 7,000 employees at Konica Minolta, who are using Google Apps to help the company move fast and be more productive.

We’re excited to welcome another string of schools and universities too, including the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and the College of William and Mary. Marshall University has a particularly great story: their technology group challenged themselves to deploy Google Apps to over 50,000 students in less than 24 hours – quite a feat when it typically takes large organizations months or even years to make major technology changes. We hope Marshall’s nimble approach inspires others to make the switch!

I hope you're enjoying the latest round of new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends and family, with colleagues or with classmates. And don’t forget, you can always check the Google Apps Blog for more details and the latest news in this area.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
Source: The Official Google Blog | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:11 pm

Almost Famous: Chris Messina of Google [Voices]

By Drake Martinet, Intern, All Things Digital

In a feature of “Almost Famous” we’ve dubbed “Need to Know,” All Things Digital talks with top players inside tech companies–much as we talk to emerging and innovative entrepreneurs–who are perhaps not as prominent as their influence suggests, but who should be.

This week: We took a trip to a little company called Google (GOOG) to talk with Chris Messina, Google’s open Web advocate. Openness? Google? We couldn’t pass this up.

Who: Chris Messina

What: Open Web advocate

Why: Chris has been in early on all kinds of pioneering open Web projects. He helped run Spread Firefox–Mozilla’s community marketing effort–co-founded the BarCamp user-generated un-conferences, and single-handedly invented the Twitter hashtag: #. No joke. He just made the move to the search giant.

Where: Factory Joe (blog); @chrismessina (Twitter); Googleplex (analog place)

Who Else: Open standards are Messina’s forte, but he’s been preaching the gospel of openness to many Google teams.

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Five Stats You Won’t Find in His Facebook Profile:

Worst Job: You know, I’ve led a pretty padded life, but I guess my worst one was when I was a janitor in a print shop while living in Switzerland. I was living in an attic in this tiny town to attend this Swiss design school–which I didn’t like at all–and this is how I made my meager living while there.

Has a Geek Crush on: I first started learning Web design by reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s book. There are lots, though. More related to the stuff I’m doing now, I think John Panzer is a big unsung hero, he’s the one pushing the Salmon stuff (Google’s open comment project) forward.

Gadget of the Moment: I still love my first-generation Apple (AAPL) iPhone. It doesn’t have 3G and it’s slow as molasses, but I really like the form factor, the metallic finish, everything. It also allows you to take screenshots, which is the one thing really missing from Android.

Biggest Difference Being at Google: Even more email, if you can believe it.

Design Geekiness: My favorite font ever is Pennsylvania by Christian Schwartz. I also like Bello, Flama and Tungsten.

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Bio in 140 Characters

Born an New Hampshire, he trained as a communication designer at Carnegie Mellon. He left for California and has been into the open Web ever since.

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The Five Questions

What does being an open Web advocate at Google mean? Does it feel like you are working for “The Man”?

Generally what I’m doing here is a lot like what I used to do, actually. I have contact with a lot of different developer teams, and I talk to them about how they can use open standards in their work. Right now though, mostly I’m working on Google Buzz, doing developer relations and helping design the Buzz APIs. We’re trying to create these technologies based on stuff from the grassroots communities where these things already exist, as opposed to inventing our own standards. We document everything on the Google code site and then we just talk about it. It’s a little bit of an evangelism role, in the sense that we have to go out and be a part of the community and be a router for information back into Google.

Big companies seem to have their own agendas and needs to be met, and what I’m realizing now is that a lot of times, they also don’t have time or a way to go out and find the places where these needs are and these tools are already being developed. There are a lot of people who are really hungry for this information, but maybe just didn’t know where to go.

So how do you see Google Buzz as a part of the social Web landscape, now that you’ve been on the inside?

We approached it from a “pieces that are loosely joined” perspective so that we can spit out smaller communities that are self-sufficient, rather than one big monolithic project like Facebook Connect. We built Buzz so that Google can be one place that hosts the underlying technologies, but the capabilities can be spread and used by anyone who wants that social functionality.

The goal is to create a much larger social Web that is dispersed, as opposed to another monolithic silo that sort of sucks in a lot of activity and doesn’t let anything out. Facebook is just the most recent silo, there have been lots in the past. AOL (AOL). Prodigy. A lot of times they don’t mean to be that, but it just happens.

How do you see the competing philosophies of openness and proprietary technology and information at play on the social Web?

I think the way that I look at it is that facilitating choice is actually a good way to ensure you remain competitive. Also, right now, the social Web is in such infancy that competing on what is available now seems so premature. I’d rather see us spend the next five or 10 years building out the social Web so that we have good standards for identity, good standards for authentication and open ways to bring your friends with you to any site on the Web.

Because we’ve never had this social data before, there’s this mentality that it’s solid gold, and we should be hoarding it keeping it from everyone and only letting out little bits. In reality, I think markets work best when there is a flow of data. If I can’t take my data out of one network and move it into another, like I can move credit card balances from one to the other, then I think we are inhibiting the types of things we should be building, which will be much richer.

I already sign into 10 Google products a day with the same account. Is my Google account going to become more like Facebook Connect?

Well, the technology is there, but it’s more a question of motivation. It’s actually a problem I’ve been working on for the last two or three years. The first question is, how do you provide choice to people when they want to log in (what do you ask for)? The other question is, why would they use any one service or other, given the choice?

Facebook has solved that problem by just eliminating the choice. You just choose Facebook Connect, click a button, and it will be fine. And it works pretty well.

A barrier for us is that our tools are built on standards like openID and OAuth that were designed by people who cared a lot more about privacy. As a result of that, a technology based on openID doesn’t automatically come with all the social data that make modern applications work. We are actually working with Facebook on this problem, because it turns out the hardest thing to figure out is just what to put on the user interface–how do you quickly ask people what they’d like to share? We want to avoid making Web sites look like the side of a Nascar.

Google’s push into mobile is based on open standards. How do you see that proliferating??

You know, even the iPhone is actually just a platform that interacts with a bunch of open standards and accepted systems. It relies on 3G, sends email, SMS, takes pictures that are compressed and connects to other devices via Bluetooth–they are all open standards and protocols that have enabled these great tools. I think people are going to want more. I’m intrigued by Android, and it, plus the devices it runs on, are really getting there.

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The In Living Color Interview

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:09 pm

Seiko Instruments Smart Label Printers Cleaned Quickly and Effectively

AUBURN, Maine, March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Consistently printing clear and crisp labels requires the proper cleaning maintenance of any thermal printer.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:03 pm

Samsung Galaxy S Phone Processor Packs a Punch

With its large screen and the latest version of Android operating system, Samsung’s newly announced Galaxy S phone is part of a new generation of Android ’superphones’ that are set to launch this year.

But Galaxy S is ahead of its rivals at least when it comes to one aspect of computing power. The Galaxy S has the fastest graphics processing unit of any Android phone, according to back-of-the-envelope calculations by AndroidandMe. The Galaxy S’ processor is at least three times faster than a comparable 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, says the website.

Samsung announced the Galaxy S phone at the CTIA conference in Las Vegas earlier this week. The Galaxy S has a 4-inch AMOLED screen, the latest Android 2.1 operating system, 5-megapixel camera, and Wi-Fi support. Separately, Sprint and HTC announced the first 4G Android smartphone.

The Galaxy S’ 1 GHz chip can process 90 million triangles per second, while the Snapdragon platform can reportedly handle 22 million triangles per second, says AndroidandMe. Samsung’s latest chip pairs an ARM Cortex A8 core with a powerful GPU–the excitingly named PowerVR SGX540–turning the combo into a computing monster.

AndroidandMe has also done a GPU comparison for some of the leading smartphones. The Motorola Droid’s Texas Instrument chip can handle 7 million triangles per second, while the iPHone 3G S which has a 600 MHz Cortex-A8 with PowerVR SGX535 GPU can clock up to 28 million triangles a second–all of which shows the Samsung Galaxy S has the bragging rights for now.

See Also:

• Indie Coder Proves Android Apps Can Make Money, Too
• Android’s Rapid Growth Has Some Developers Worried
• Android Phone Grows Up, Becomes Brain for Real Robot
• Google Debuts Android-Powered Nexus One ‘Superphone’

Photo: Samsung Galaxy S

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:55 pm

What Happens When Apple Passes Microsoft In Value? Yes, When.

Apple’s stock is up over $3 today, pushing it past the $230-a-share mark. Microsoft’s is down $0.25, pushing it below the $30-a-share mark. While this discrepancy is huge on the surface, it doesn’t mean all that much because there are many, many more outstanding shares of Microsoft stock out there on the market (ten times more, in fact). That’s why Microsoft’s market cap is higher than Apple’s, despite the individual stock price difference. But that market cap gap is closing. Quickly.

Apple looks poised to get within $50 billion of Microsoft market cap any day now. Currently, Apple’s market cap is $208.76 billion, while Microsoft’s is $261.01 billion. And while $50 billion may seem like a huge chasm, consider that since December 31, 2009, just a few months ago, Apple has added about $20 billion to its market cap, while Microsoft has lost about $10 billion. Again, the gap is closing, quickly.

Things are even more insane when you look at the data from a decade ago. Back then, Microsoft’s market cap was nearly $590 billion. It was the most valuable company in the world — by far (#2, GE, was over $100 billion behind). Apple, meanwhile, had a market cap of just $16 billion at the time. It was the 339th most valuable company in the world, two spots behind Volkswagen.

Those were, of course, different times. Aside from that 2000 spike, Microsoft’s stock and value has remained largely stagnant. For example, it 1999, its market cap was $271 billion — $10 billion more than it is today. Apple, meanwhile, didn’t make the list that year. But with a stock price around $10 at that time, it was likely worth around $5 billion. But that’s the point. Aside from a dip during the stock market collapse at the end of 2008, Apple stock has been skyrocketing. In the past 10 years, it’s up over 500%. In that same time frame, Microsoft’s stock is down nearly 50% (again from those early 2000 numbers). Apple has soared past HP, Oracle, IBM, and most recently, Google, to move into the top five most valuable companies in the U.S.

And again, that’s at a stock price of $230. And that’s before the iPad has even launched. Certainly, you could argue that if the device isn’t a complete blow-out hit, the stock will take a hit (and probably a fairly big one). But if it is a hit (and early pre-sales numbers suggest it may well be), the stock has just as good of a chance to soar further. In fact, several financial analysts are already upping the sales price target into the stratosphere. Credit Suisse, for example, set it to $300 today.

Now, I’m generally wary of anything coming from analysts, but let’s just say Apple did hit $300-a-share. Remember, their performance the past few quarters has been stellar, and there is no reason to think that will stop, even without considering the iPad. So at $300-a-share, assuming the number of shares remains fairly constant, Apple would be worth $270 billion. Yes, ahead of Microsoft (assuming their market cap remains the same over that time).

If that happens (and again, I venture to say it will happen), Apple fanboys will go through the roof. Never mind that last quarter, Microsoft still made more revenue than Apple ($19 billion versus $15 billion) and posted almost exactly double the profit ($6.6 billion versus $3.3 billion — though, thanks in large part to early Windows 7 sales). The perception is that Apple has been hitting home runs the past several years, while Microsoft has been largely stagnant with some big strikeouts (Vista).

To mix in another sports analogy, Apple, it seems, simply picked the right time to back the right horse: mobile. As executives have been saying recently, Apple now considers itself a mobile devices company, because most of their money comes from there (they include laptops in that category). Microsoft, meanwhile, is just about the furthest thing from a mobile devices company. The only device they make themselves is the Zune, and their mobile software Windows Mobile, well, really dropped the ball the past decade. They’re now trying to capture some of that Apple mobile magic with Windows Phone 7 Series, and projects like the Pink phone and the Courier.

Here’s the real problem for Microsoft though. If Apple does in fact pass Microsoft in market cap, I can see CEO Steve Ballmer losing it, and that could steal his focus away from what should still be considered his real enemy: Google. It is Google, after all, that is directly attacking the core Microsoft brands, Office and Windows, where the company makes practically all of its money. Google Apps and Chrome OS are meant to do two things: Kill Office and kill Windows.

Sure, Apple’s OS X competes with Windows, but Apple is clearly never going to license out its OS (after a disastrous attempt to do so in the 1990s when Steve Jobs was away), so its market share can only ever be as big as people buying expensive Apple machines. Apple simply cares more about profits and controlling the high end of the market, then going directly after Windows.

And actually, if both were smart and could bury the hatchet, Microsoft and Apple might be wise to team up. Google is now clearly an enemy for both of them. (Which is a bit odd, considering that it used to be Apple and Google teaming up in a major way to take on the shared rival, Microsoft.) If Microsoft really wants to compete in search, for example, their best move may be to strike a deal with Apple to become the default on the iPhone (and iPad).

But I’m worried such rational thinking will go out the window if Apple passes Microsoft in market cap. And internal bickering at Microsoft will stop them from gaining focus. Or, rather, when Apple passes Microsoft in market cap.

The trajectory of the two stocks in recent years:

And here’s a chart for a little overall perspective on stock prices:

Silicon Alley Insider also recently made a nice chart of the market cap battle between the two:

[image: 20th Century Fox]

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:49 pm

King Technologies, Inc. and NEC Corporation of America Sign an Agreement Which Appoints King Technologies, Inc. as an Authorized Stocking Distribution Center for Certain NEC Products

TRENTON, Tenn., March 26 /PRNewswire/ -- King Technologies is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with NEC Corporation of America. This agreement appoints King as an Authorized Distribution Center for NEC's Ultra Business Sales Division wholesale products.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:49 pm

Facebook Foreshadows New Features With Privacy Policy Tweaks

Facebook introduced some changes to its privacy policy today in advance of new features which will be rolling out soon, perhaps during its f8 developer conference next month. Some of the changes foreshadow new features dealing with location, taking advantage of the expanded “Everyone” settings, syncing contacts on your mobile phone with your Facebook contacts, and sharing your personal data with select Facebook Connect partners.

The most significant change seems like it could allow third-party sites to automatically sign you into Facebook Connect just based on your browser cookies. Another change sets up new location features. Facebook previously added some location language to its privacy policy back in October, but it’s now tweaked it again. It looks like not only will it be possible to associate a specific location with status updates, photo uploads, and other posts, but Facebook will also make it possible to add a geo-component Facebook pages, such as one for a store or a restaurant. So a link to a fan page for a store could also carry with it where it is located.

The other changes make it clearer what it means when you share your status updates and posts with “everyone” and who can find that information. It also makes a distinction between your ability to control who can access information on your personal page versus stuff you share on public pages.

There is also a change which talks about syncing your Facebook contacts with those on your mobile phone, another indication of how serious Facebook is about its mobile efforts.

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:34 pm

Facebook’s Plan To Automatically Share Your Data With Sites You Never Signed Up For

In anticipation of a slew of new features that will be launching at f8, today Facebook announced that it was once again making changes to its privacy policy (you can see our post outlining these changes here). One of the biggest changes that Facebook is making involves applications and third-party websites. We’ve been hearing whispers from multiple sources about these changes, and the announcement all but confirms what Facebook is planning to do. In short, it sounds like Facebook is going to be automatically opting users into a reduced form of Facebook Connect on certain third party sites — a bold change that may well unnerve users, at least at first. Here’s how Facebook is describing the change in its blog post:

Today, when you use applications such as games on Facebook.com or choose to connect to Facebook on sites across the web, you are able to find and interact with your friends. These applications require a small set of basic information about you in order to provide a relevant experience. After feedback from many of you, we announced in August that we were moving toward a model that gives you clearer controls over what data is shared with applications and websites when you choose to use them.

In the proposed privacy policy, we’ve also explained the possibility of working with some partner websites that we pre-approve to offer a more personalized experience at the moment you visit the site. In such instances, we would only introduce this feature with a small, select group of partners and we would also offer new controls.

So what does that mean? We’ve heard that select Facebook partners will now be able to look for your existing Facebook cookie to identify you, even if you never opted into Facebook Connect on the site you’re visiting. Using that, the third party site will be able to display your friends and other key information. It’s possible that these sites will also be able to display any data you’ve shared with ‘everyone‘, which is of course now the default option on Facebook.

Facebook’s draft privacy policy states that you’ll be able to opt-out of these sites, and you’ll also be able to opt-out of these ‘pre-approved’ experiences entirely. But by default, you’re all in. How convenient.

Here’s the langauge from the draft privacy policy itself. Note that the ‘About Platform’ page does not yet include a list of approved partners:

Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and Applications. In order to provide you with useful social experiences off of Facebook, we occasionally need to provide General Information about you to pre-approved third party websites and applications that use Platform at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to Facebook). Similarly, when one of your friends visits a pre-approved website or application, it will receive General Information about you so you and your friend can be connected on that website as well (if you also have an account with that website). In these cases we require these websites and applications to go through an approval process, and to enter into separate agreements designed to protect your privacy. For example, these agreements include provisions relating to the access and deletion of your General Information, along with your ability to opt-out of the experience being offered. You can also remove any pre-approved website or application you have visited here [add link], or block all pre-approved websites and applications from getting your General Information when you visit them here [add link]. In addition, if you log out of Facebook before visiting a pre-approved application or website, it will not be able to access your information. You can see a complete list of pre-approved websites on our About Platform page.

Here’s how Facebook defines the term ‘General Information’:

The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. We may also make information about the location of your computer or access device and your age available to applications and websites in order to help them implement appropriate security measures and control the distribution of age-appropriate content.

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:34 pm

Sprint LG Rumor Touch finally going on sale on March 28th

Man oh man! Remember the LG Rumor Touch? The touchscreen feature phone Sprint announced all the way back at CES in early January? If you’d had asked me yesterday when this thing was going to launch, my response would have been a blank stare followed by “Holy crap, that hasn’t launched yet?”

Sure enough, it hasn’t – but it’s just about to. Sprint’s cutting it pretty close, but it looks like they’ll just baaaarely make it within the first quarter launch window they promised at the beginning.

Sprint has just announced that the Rumor Touch will be hittin’ the e-shelves of their online store come March 28th. It won’t hit the meatspace stores until April 4th (which isn’t part of the “first quarter” – but we’ll forgive’m). It’ll be available in blue at first, with red and purple color options launching on April 18th.

When the LG Rumor Touch was first announced, no price was disclosed. We guessed that it’d be somewhere between $100 and $150 — and we were right. The Rumor Touch will set you back $129 on a 2-year contract, with a $50 mail-in rebate knocking the price down to $79.99 for anyone who remembers to actually mail it in.

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:33 pm

iPad Boot Camp [Voices]

By Nitrozac and Snaggy

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:30 pm

Apple: Credit Suisse Pounds the Table, Ups Target to $300 [Voices]

By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s

Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope this morning repeated his Outperform rating on Apple (AAPL), lifting his price target on the shares to $300, from $275.

“As we approach the end of Apple’s March quarter, we believe it is now clear that the company is running well ahead of our previous expectations and consensus,” he writes. “While upside is often the norm for Apple, we are still surprised by the current strength, as we believe Apple is now running well ahead of expectations in all of its key business segments during what is typically a seasonally ’sloppy’ quarter.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:30 pm

Google Receives More Than 600 Community Requests For Broadband Network

Yesterday, we wrote about the great lengths many cities and towns were taking to catch the attention of Google, in the hope that the search giant would choose their community for its experimental fiber network. The broadband network would be completely free for the chosen city (only the consumers using the services will be charged) and the 1Gb/sec fiber would be roughly 100 times faster than what most Americans get today for Internet speeds. Google’s plan is to reach anywhere from 50,000 to 500,000 people with this experiment. City mayors did everything under the sun to try to appeal to Google, including jumping into freezing lakes and shark tanks and even renaming a city “Google.” The deadline to apply to be one of Google’s guinea pigs ends today and according to a blog post, Google has received more than 600 applications from communities and towns across the U.S.

That’s an impressive number and the application process still isn’t over with four more hours to go until the deadline. Google asked that interested municipalities fill out a Request for Information (RFI) to help determine the best community for the experiment. Google estimated that each form/request from cities would take around 4 hours to complete. Individuals and citizens can also submit letters of support for cities; Google says that over 190,000 letters have been submitted over the past month.

The next step, says Google, is to review all of the city applications and individual letters of support, perform site visits, consult with third-party organizations as well has communicate with local officials in cities of interest. A final city/town is expected to be announced by the end of the year.

As we wrote yesterday, Google plan is designed to compliment the U.S. government’s ten year broadband plan, which among other goals, wants to subsidize broadband connections in rural areas, and bring 1-gigabit connections to every community in the U.S. But there are a number of flaws with the government’s strategy, namely that the plans aren’t ambitious enough. For example, under the new plan, some 85% of homes covered would have no choice when it comes to a provider, possibly locking users into higher prices because of a lack of competition.

So at then end of the day, Google represents a small beacon of hope in that it could provide a concrete example for other communities or broadband providers to follow. And while Google’s initial plan involves a fiber network at a very, very small scale, if all goes well, Google could end up expanding the project nationally.

Google will be posting the final application numbers tonight. We’ll update this post with the final tally.

Photo by Mike Bergen (AidJoy.org for the City of Greenville)

Source: TechCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:30 pm

What's It Like to Fly the Space Shuttle? We Find Out

Pilot and reporter Jason Paur takes you on a simulated space shuttle flight.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:30 pm

Bullet-Point Preview: Nintendo’s DSi Xl handheld game system

FROM GAMERTELL - You saw the unboxing photos, now here’s an easy-to-digest, bullet-point list of initial reactions to the new Nintendo DSi XL.
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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:14 pm

Hacker Sentenced to 20 Years for Breach of Payment Processor

Convicted credit card hacker Albert Gonzalez gets 20 years for his role in breaching Heartland Payment Systems, 7-Eleven and other companies. The sentence, concurrent with his earlier 20-year sentence for other hacks, means his stint in the slammer is the same.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:10 pm

A Palliative for Palm [Digital Daily]

Today brought with it some much needed good news for Palm: A contrarian upgrade on its shares from research outfit BMO Capital. In a note to clients this morning, analyst Tim Long upgraded his rating on Palm to market perform from underperform, though he maintained a $4 target on the stock.

Why?

After the vicious beating the market has given Palm (PALM) these past few months, the company’s stock–down a gruesome 75 percent since October–already well reflects its woes and the challenges it faces. And it’s still conceivable that the company may end up an acquisition target. So there’s that as well.

“We continue to view Palm as one of the share losers in the high-growth Smartphone segment,” Long wrote. “In our view, the company is too small to compete and the internally developed WebOS operating system is no longer a major differentiator. The end game for Palm is most likely to combine with a large OEM that wants to own its operating system and can leverage its brand and distribution platform.”

FURTHER READING:

• Good Luck Competing on the iPhone’s Home Turf, Palm
• Exercise in Futility? Palm Pre Plus, Pixi Plus Headed to AT&T
• Palm: Pssst. Wanna Buy 1.15 Million Smartphones?
• Palm Pileup: Weak Smartphone Sales and a Gruesome Q4 Forecast
• Could Be Worse, Could Be Raining: Palm’s AT&T Launch Delayed?
• Could WebOS Licensing Be Palm’s Salvation?
• Palm’s Salvation? Less Push, More Pull.
• And if Palm’s Project JumpStart Doesn’t Work Out, There’s Always “Project Defibrillator”
• Double Face-Palm: Analysts React to Palm’s Lowered Guidance
• Time to Start Looking for a Buyer, Palm?
• 2010: Year of the Palm? Maybe Not…
• Analyst: Palm May Be Acquired in the Next Two Years

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 1:00 pm

CTIA 2010 Wrap-up: Android, Android, Android

Bags have been packed, poker chips have been cashed, and planes have been boarded – and with that, the mobile-focused CTIA 2010 convention in Las Vegas has come to a close.

Each time an event like this blows through town, tech heads do their best to distract themselves from their hangovers by writing monstrous posts on which platform or technology “won” the show. When it comes to CTIA 2010, the winner is clear cut and undisputed: Android. They could have called this year’s show “Android Week” and no one would have questioned it.

When we said Android went “undisputed” above, we meant it in the literal sense. Windows Phone 7 handsets are still too early in development to come out and play. Palm was only showing the AT&T versions of the Pixi Plus and Pre Plus, which they’d announced in the days leading up to the show. BlackBerry’s biggest news was that their new Twitter client is launching on March 31st. Apple didn’t even show up — not that anyone expected them to, given that these deafeningly noisy shows aren’t exactly their style.

Meanwhile, Android launched on no less than five major handsets:

• Samsung Galaxy S – The Galaxy S is big, beautiful, and bright as all hell. Really — I can’t imagine a screen brighter than this one, a 4.0″ Super AMOLED screen made by Samsung themselves. I’m fairly confident that it could be used as an impromptu flash grenade, need be. The 1Ghz CPU and 5.0 megapixel camera don’t hurt, either. See our hands-on here.
• Motorola i1 – Motorola has finally managed to make a rugged, push-to-talk phone that doesn’t look like a rugged push-to-talk phone. There’s no absurd bulk here, and no monstrous antenna. We haven’t put this one through the paces yet – but if Mike Rowe says it can take a beating, we’ll believe it. (Fun Fact: Motorola demonstrated the durability of this phone at a private press event by having people play shuffleboard with it)
• Kyocera Zio – The big selling point of the Kyocera isn’t necessarily its specs – it’s the price it brings them in at. At a price coming in somewhere between $169 and $220 — without contract, mind you — Kyocera has managed to stuff in a 3.5″ 800×480, 3.2 megapixel camera, stereo bluetooth, and the same 600mhz processor as the Motorola Devour. Look for this one to launch on Cricket later this year.
• AT&T Dell Aero - Essentially a reskinned version of the Dell Mini 3i that launched in China last year, the Dell Aero is AT&T’s second Android phone, Dell’s first Android phone in the US, and purportedly the lightest Android phone to date. We spotted this one on the showfloor — but unfortunately, Dell wouldn’t let anyone turn it on.
• Sprint EVO 4G – if we had to declare one handset the winner of the show, it’d be this one. We fell in love with this one months ago, when it was known around the rumormill as the HTC Supersonic. Sprint chose to go all out with their first WiMax phone, and it has paid off; with a 4.3″ 800×480 screen, 1Ghz CPU, 1GB of internal storage, 802.11b/g, HDMI-out, and the ability to act as a WiMax-powered WiFi router for up to 8 devices, the EVO 4G is now the Android handset to beat. See our hands on here.

Other news from the show:

• Samsung finally learned to stop spoiling their announcements early
• BlueAnt announced a text-message-to-speech app for Android, along with their first rugged Bluetooth headset, the T1.
• Sprint announced 7 more cities that will get WiMax this year, bringing the total up to 15.
• AT&T finally announced pricing details for their broadband-powered signal booster, the 3G MicroCell.
• Skype launched their app for Verizon Android/BlackBerry handsets, allowing users to make Skype calls over Verizon’s data network without gobbling up their minutes

That’s all, folks. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go throw my life savings at a man standing behind a green felt table and hope for the best. Wish me luck!

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:52 pm

Are Religious Beliefs The Basis Of Paleolithic Art?

New times for western artBetween 1880 and 1900 the conception of art changed in western society. Anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of Art started to consider other possibilities. Artistic theory and practice that was being made in Europe changed with postimpressionism, the appearance of Art Nouveau or the generalization of photography; in addition, with the mass arrival to museums of the metropolis of artistic pieces from non-Greco-Latin cultures and "primitive arts" of the colonies. "All this produced a transformation in the concept of art itself", pointed out the expert."At this time, the conception of the origins and the nature of art that the westerners and scientists had at the time was redefined. From then on Paleolithic art was reinterpreted in a symbolic-religious key, at the time when the age of parietal art was accepted", concludes the researcher.References: Eduardo Palacio-Perez, "Cave art and the theory of art: the origins of the religious interpretation of Paleolithic Graphics Expression" Oxford Journal of Archaeology 29(1): 1-14 febrero de 2010 ---Image Caption: A horse was painted on the polychrome ceiling of the cave of Altamira. This is from the Magdalenian era. Credit: Paleolithic arts in northern Spain: photo VR database 2003.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:50 pm

Lab-Quality Booze Detector Fits in a Suitcase

A new briefcase-sized booze detector provides laboratory-level precision in detecting how much alcohol is in a given mysterious beverage. The latest in a long line of distinguished alcoholmeters may be useful for frat-party punch and distilleries in developing nations.

Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:46 pm

Computer Game Operated By Eye Movements

University students have developed a computer game that is operated by eye movements, which could allow people with severe physical disabilities to become 'gamers' for the first time, they announce today.The students, from Imperial College London, have adapted an open source game called 'Pong', where a player moves a bat to hit a ball as it bounces around the screen.
Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:45 pm

U.S. Army Gets Pumped to Use Apple Gear, Apps

The touchscreen Apple phone that you use to listen to music, text friends and play games could soon be used by the Army to track foes, train soldiers and plan attacks.

In a statement this week, the Army said that key members of its staff visited Apple headquarters on March 5 to take a tour of its laboratories and to discuss the use of Apple gear — including the iPad, iPhone, iPod, iMac, and MacBook — in Army business and battlefield operations.

“We’re continuing to leverage commercial technology for battlefield uses; we can’t ignore that kind of existing knowledge,” said Nick Justice, commanding general of the Army’s research, development and engineering command. “Our job, as stewards of the taxpayer’s dollar, is to adopt and adapt appropriate commercial technology and offer the best possible solution to the warfighter.”

The Army said the purpose of the meeting was to support an initiative titled “Connecting Soldiers to Digital Applications,” to assess how handhelds and apps can be used in a tactical environment by a warfighter.

If the Army does implement Apple’s consumer products into its operations, it would be an interesting shift for the tech industry. Traditionally, the Army has exclusive access to cutting-edge technology years before a consumer rendition of it hits the commercial market. In this case, it would be the other way around.

In the past year, we’ve already seen a few examples of military apps for the iPhone. In December, for example, military contractor Raytheon announced an app that can be used to track the locations of friends and foes on real-time maps. Raytheon also previewed an air-traffic simulator to help train air-traffic controllers, which sounds an awful lot like the popular game Flight Control.

Press release [U.S. Army]

Via DaringFireball

See Also:

• Military Could Use iPhones to Track Friends, Enemies in War …
• Gun-Mount and Sniper Software for iPod Touch
• New Use for Your iPhone: Controlling Drones
• A Combat Zone iPhone? Soldiers Have an App for That

Photo: U.S. Army

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:31 pm

Netflix Service Starts Rolling Out on Nintendo ... - PC Magazine

MTV.com (blog)

Netflix Service Starts Rolling Out on Nintendo ... PC Magazine Netflix has started to ship the discs required to stream over the Wii to some of its customers, the company announced Thursday. Netflix is sending the discs to only a small group of people and will use their feedback to "ensure that ... TechBytes: Netflix on WiiABC News Netflix starts sending streaming discs for WiiUSA Today Netflix Shipping Discs To Allow Wii StreamingHot Hardware Tech Jackal -Top Tech Reviews -Destructoid all 106 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:29 pm

Nexxus TalkStyle Pro Bluetooth headset now available and sporting an Apple Bluetooth headset styling

Section: Communications, Accessories, Mobile

Bluetooth headsets are a dime-a-dozen at this point, and I am sure that coming up with a unique design is getting hard, but this latest Nexxus TalkStyle Pro Bluetooth headset has come forward sporting a design that is reminiscent of the Apple Bluetooth headset. Personally I liked that headset, so this comes as good news. Of course, the headset is not available in the US. As of now, it is listed for sale with MobileFun with shipping to Europe. That said, and assuming I could purchase this model, the price is right—only £14.99.

In terms of features, and aside from the Apple Bluetooth headset styling, the TalkStyle Pro will allow for up to 3 hours of talk time, 50 hours on standby, is Bluetooth 2.1 and supports voice dialing. Additionally, the headset is small and light coming in at 2.1 x 0.5 x 0.2 inches and weighing in at 0.23 ounces. Additionally, the headset also ships with an ear hook as well as a handy little USB charger.

Product [MobileFun] Via [IntoMobile]

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

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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:05 pm

Smart Phones Go Mass Market in 2010, J.P. Morgan Says [Voices]

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

In a major call on the handset and telecom equipment sectors, J.P. Morgan analyst Rod Hall this morning declared that 2010 is the first year for “true mass-market adoption” of smart phones. While pricing is likely to drop, he says that price elasticity is high, which “bodes well for industry health.” In particular, he is bullish on “competitors that integrate hardware and software.” (Like Apple, a company not directly addressed in his report.)

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Source: All Things Digital | 26 Mar 2010 | 12:00 pm

Rodents Becoming Smarter Thanks to Us

Pet rodents display more intelligence than their wild relatives, probably as a result of living with us.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:50 am

EPA Proposes Veto of Permit for Major Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mine - New York Times

The Washington Independent

EPA Proposes Veto of Permit for Major Mountaintop-Removal Coal Mine New York Times US EPA proposed a veto today of the Clean Water Act permit issued for one of Central Appalachia's largest mountaintop-removal coal mines. A blog about energy, the environment and the bottom line. ... EPA moves to stop W.Va. coal mine that was issued federal permitWashington Post Fate of W.Va. mine could be same for Wise Co.TriCities.com US EPA Proposes to Veto Arch Coal's Permit for MineBusinessWeek TopNews United States -Kansas City Star -WSAZ-TV all 87 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:22 am

Rumor: Sprint Hero getting Android 2.1 on April 9th?

We’ve known for a few weeks now that the Sprint HTC Hero would probably be getting the bumpgrade up to Android 2.1 sometime in April — but really, was anyone expecting the launch window rumor to stay that vague?

Phandroid just dug up this alleged internal Sprint memo, detailing a “maintenance release” coming to the HTC Hero on April 9th. While “maintenance release” makes it sound like something trivial, that’s probably not the case. Sprint tends to be pretty intense about certification, spending weeks testing out updates before they release them. It seems pretty unlikely that they’d release a minor update just days before the major update to 2.1.

Go ahead, Sprint Hero owners: sit on the edge of your seat. If this all plays out right, you probably won’t be there much longer.

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:08 am

Next steps for our experimental fiber network

Since we announced our plans to build experimental, ultra high-speed broadband networks, the response from communities and individuals has been tremendous and creative. With just a few hours left before our submission deadline, we've received more than 600 community responses to our request for information (RFI), and more than 190,000 responses from individuals (we'll post an update with the final numbers later tonight). We've seen cities rename themselves, great YouTube videos, public rallies and hundreds of grassroots Facebook groups come to life, all with the goal of bringing ultra high-speed broadband to their communities.


We're thrilled to see this kind of excitement, and we want to humbly thank each and every community and individual for taking the time to participate. This enthusiasm is much bigger than Google and our experimental network. If one message has come through loud and clear, it's this: people across the country are hungry for better and faster Internet access.

So what's next? Over the coming months, we'll be reviewing the responses to determine where to build. As we narrow down our choices, we'll be conducting site visits, meeting with local officials and consulting with third-party organizations. Based on a rigorous review of the data, we will announce our target community or communities by the end of the year.

Of course, we're not going to be able to build in every interested community — our plan is to reach a total of at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people with this experiment. Wherever we decide to build, we hope to learn lessons that will help improve Internet access everywhere. After all, you shouldn't have to jump into frozen lakes and shark tanks to get ultra high-speed broadband.

Thanks again to all the communities and citizens that submitted a response. We feel the love, and we're honored by your interest.

Update at 5:26pm: The response deadline has now passed. We've received more than 1,100 community responses and more than 194,000 responses from individuals. This map displays where the responses were concentrated as of 1:30pm PT. Each small dot represents a government response, and each large dot represents locations where more than 1,000 residents submitted a nomination. We plan to share a complete list of government responses and an updated map soon.


Posted by James Kelly, Product Manager
Source: The Official Google Blog | 26 Mar 2010 | 11:00 am

Warhammer movie now has a (voice) cast

FROM GAMERTELL - Rumors of a Warhammer 40000 movie have been circulating for a while. Now it looks like it just might happen…
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Source: Gadgetell | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:51 am

iPhone Hacker Thinks He’s Cracked the iPad, Too

George Hotz, famously known as the first hacker to unlock the iPhone, says he’s done it again. The whiz kid on Thursday evening said he had cooked up a new hack for all iPhone OS devices, and he’s betting it will work on the iPad, too.

When the hack is released (Hotz won’t disclose a release date), it should be as simple to use as Blackra1n, Hotz’s one-click solution to jailbreak current iPhones, he said.

“It is completely untethered, works on all current tethered models (ipt2, 3gs, ipt3), and will probably work on iPad too,” Hotz said in his blog post.

It’s plausible to believe that an iPhone OS jailbreak will also work for the iPad. While the iPad will support apps that are exclusive to the device, its OS shares the same DNA as the iPhone’s.

Hackers use the term “jailbreaking” to describe the act of overriding the iPhone’s restrictions to install unauthorized software on the device. Jailbreaking is the first step an iPhone owner must take in order to later unlock the handset, enabling it to work with a SIM card from any carrier.

Wired.com in November 2009 profiled Hotz, along with the community of hackers persistently issuing jailbreaks and mods to fight against Apple’s tight control of its iPhone. The community also distributes unauthorized iPhone apps in a few underground app stores, the most popular of which is Cydia.

Hotz told Wired.com in a phone interview that he might release the hack when the iPad launches next week. But he said he would wait to see what the rest of the hacking community does first. He said he expects the Dev-Team, another group of iPhone hackers (that Hotz was formerly part of), to have figured out the same exploit.

“We’ll see what the rest of the scene does,” Hotz said. “Maybe I’ll release it [during the iPad launch].”

A video of the new iPhone jailbreak in action is below the jump.

Updated noon PT with a statement from Hotz.

See Also:

• Jailbreakers Battle Apple for Control of iPhone
• BlackRa1n Plus Blacksn0w: Unlock Any iPhone in Seconds
• iPhone Freed From AT&T; Some Soldering Required
• Geohot Trades Hacked iPhone for Crazy Expensive Sports Car
• Geohot Sneaks Out iPhone 3GS Jailbreak Early

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 10:45 am

Splitting Cyclone Spotted on Neptune

If the violent conditions observed so far are any indication, this weekend's weather forecast for Neptune can't be good.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 9:50 am

Asian Pollution Could Impact Entire World

Pollution originating in Asia is being lifted into the stratosphere during monsoon season, where it then circles around the globe for several years, according to a new National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) study released on Thursday.According to a press release put out on March 25 by the National Science Foundation (NSF), one of the sponsors of the study, the research team used satellite observations and computer modeling to demonstrate how summer circulation patterns force the air upwards, depositing carbon, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants 20 to 25 miles into the atmosphere.After several years, it will either descend back towards the surface, or dissipate.Researchers suggest that the increased industrialization of Asian countries, including China, could increase the concentration of pollution in the stratosphere.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 9:40 am

Mexico's Shrimp Certification Withdrawn To Protect Sea Turtles

Mexico’s certification to export shrimp to the United States has been suspended because its trawls lack required protections for endangered sea turtles, the State Department said on Thursday.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:57 am

Keeping Cattle Cool And Stress-free

Identifying the causes of heat stress in cattle and finding ways to manage it are the goals of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists and cooperators who are helping producers deal with this significant production problem.Heat stress can have serious consequences.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:48 am

MIT: The Sound And The Query

Why do questions take the form they do? An MIT linguist explains how the noises we make help to shape the sentences we speak.In linguistic terms, a question is largely the re-ordering of a statement. Shuffle the words around, make a couple of other changes, and “John rode a horse” becomes “What did John ride?”Linguists call this re-arranging of words “wh-movement,” due to the wh-words used in questions (who, when, and so on) and they believe it occurs in two forms. English displays what linguists call “overt wh-movement,” in which word order is shuffled heavily, since many questions begin with wh-words. (There are exceptions: “John rode a what?”) But some languages, like Japanese, deploy “covert wh-movement,” in which word order remains largely intact as a statement becomes a question, and the wh-words appear in a variety of locations.But what determines which of these options a given language uses? In a new book, “Uttering Trees,” MIT linguistics professor Norvin Richards asserts that if we carefully study prosody — the way the pitch of our voices goes up and down — we can determine which kind of wh-movement any language will employ. In turn, Richards believes, this suggests that for all languages, the sound pattern in sentences is more integral to the syntax — the processes and principles that govern the structure of sentences — than scholars have generally thought.“If you were to ask a syntactician why English forms its questions one way and Japanese forms its questions another way, there isn’t really an answer,” says Richards. “But I’m shooting for a deeper explanation in the book. And the idea is that there’s a universal principle explaining the prosody we observe when we ask questions.”If the pattern Richards has detected holds up, it could persuade more linguists that the relationship between sound and syntax is a necessity, not a contingency. “If what I’m saying is right,” Richards says, “then I think that as the syntax begins to build the sentence structure, it’s also making a rough draft of the prosody.” That could alter linguists’ views about how the rules of language are laid down, and provide more evidence for the notion of Universal Grammar, the idea that an innate facility for language helps shape the form of languages globally.Sound systemThere are actually two distinct essays in “Uttering Trees,” published this month by MIT Press. (The title refers to the tree-like sentence diagrams linguists use.) The first essay analyzes how similar elements of sentences must be separated for the sake of comprehension, while the second develops Richards’ thesis about sound and questions, surveying English, Japanese, Basque, Bengali, Tagalog, French, Portugese, and more. To get a flavor for his work, consider this second issue.Recordings of Japanese spoken in Tokyo, when charted by the frequency of the speaker’s voice, show that the statement “Naoya-ga nanika-o nomiya-de nonda” (“Naoya drank something at the bar”) maintains a rising-and-falling pitch pattern. But in the question, “Naoya-ga nani-o nomiya-de nonda no?” (“What did Naoya drink at the bar?”), the words “nomiya-de nonda” have a low, flat frequency, interrupting the rising-and-falling pattern. This flat intonation falls between the wh-word, “nani-o,” and the question-indicating complementizer, “no,” at the end of the sentence.“There’s this prosodic phenomenon,” says Richards. “You get a big pitched peak on the wh-word, then people mutter, so the prosody is kind of flat between the wh-word and the complementizer, then it goes back up. People squash these words so that they’re lower than they would be in the corresponding statement. We have nice phonetic evidence that they’re creating a prosodic domain that starts with the wh-word and ends with the question mark.”So while there are two kinds of wh-movement, Richards proposes that every language ends up like Japanese, in the sense that wh-words and complementizers exist in a single prosodic domain.  In some languages, including Japanese, this is accomplished by direct changes in the prosody, while, others, like English, require a greater transportation of wh-words, so they can be located in the same prosodic domain as question marks.  But if we can locate the question mark and understand how prosody is organized, Richards argues, we can predict where the wh-word will be situated in every tongue — which provides evidence for the common foundations of all languages. In Bengali, Richards has found, the sentence, “ora Suneche ke abe” (“They have heard who will come”) shifts into a question as, “ora ke abe Suneche?” (“Who have they heard will come?”). In this case, “ke” serves as the wh-word, with the relevant prosodic domain lying between it and the closing question indicator.Colleagues have praised “Uttering Trees.” Answering questions by e-mail, Elena Anagnostopoulou, a professor of linguistics at the University of Crete, says Richards “asks a question that has rarely been addressed before, namely why some languages have overt and others covert wh-movement,” and defends his thesis “very convincingly.” The book, she believes, lays out a “novel research agenda, where new proposals are raised and the proposals are highly predictive.” The predictive aspect of Richards’ theory is precisely what will be tested by future research. For all the languages he samples, scores more await evaluation in terms of wh-movement. For now, though, Richards’ idea is sound.Written By Peter Dizikes, MIT News Office---Image Caption:  MIT linguistics professor Norvin Richards stands in front of a tree-like sentence diagram often used by linguists. Photo: Patrick Gillooly
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:33 am

Plants Control Food Chain From The Bottom Up

Forget top-to-bottom only. New Cornell University evolutionary biology research shows how plants at the bottom of the food chain have evolved mechanisms that influence ecosystem dynamics as well.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:10 am

Safer Nuclear Reactors Could Result From Los Alamos Research

‘Loading-unloading’ effect of grain boundaries key to repair of irradiated metalSelf-repairing materials within nuclear reactors may one day become a reality as a result of research by Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists.In a paper appearing yesterday in the journal Science, Los Alamos researchers report a surprising mechanism that allows nanocrystalline materials to heal themselves after suffering radiation-induced damage.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 8:04 am

Fan-Made WebOS Commercial Beats Palm’s Efforts

This fantastic ad for the WebOS comes not from Palm, a company which has proven itself unable to make a compelling commercial for the Pre, but from a fan.

Heiko Thies is the fellow behind this video spot, which manages to be both exciting and slightly edgy. It also totally makes me want to buy a Pre.

The ad does what an ad should, especially when it is for a product as cool and capable as the Pre: It shows the phone in action. The jerky handheld camera is great, too, somehow setting it apart from the superslick iPhone ads.

We expect the shaky-cam made rotoscoping the animations tricky, though. It comes over like a cross between Minority Report and District 9, both great films already.

If Palm aired commercials like these — instead of the creepy lady commercials they ran last year — the company might have a chance of capturing the hearts and minds of geeks everywhere. Of course, it might have to do a few more things to stay alive, as early adopter and Epicenter editor John C. Abell argued last week.

Nice work, Heiko. I’m off to watch it again right now. Palm: Hire this guy right now.

Fan-made ad for Palm webOS by ThiesFX [YouTube via Mashable]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:47 am

Fan-Made Commercial Puts Palm's Best Efforts to Shame

Heiko Thies is such a fan of Palm's WebOS that he made a commercial for it — and it's far better than anything Palm itself has aired.

Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:47 am

Plants Can Grow Quickly Or Ward Off Hungry Insects, But Not Both

Findings could be useful in development of pest-resistant cropsThere's a war occurring each day in our backyards – plant versus plant-eating insect versus insect-eating insect.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:34 am

SweetSpotter Tracks Your Head, Keeps You in Stereo Heaven

SweetSpotter is a quite ingenious application that adjusts the output of your stereo setup so you are always in the “sweet spot” using nothing but your webcam and some clever trickery.

The problem: Every pair of speakers has a sweet spot floating between and in front of them. If you plant your head (and therefore your ears) in this spot, you get the full stereo effect. With well made music, and good enough speakers, you will perceive voices and instruments placed in 3D space, or a “sound-stage”. Move out of this spot and the magic disappears in a 2D puff of noise.

Install SweetSpotter and you’ll always be in the right place. The software, from Sebastian Merchel and Stephan Groth at the Technische Universität Dresden, uses your computer’s webcam combined with face-detection to track your head. Armed with this information, SweetSpotter adjusts the volume and delay of each channel making sure the sound reaches your ears at the right time to maintain the effect.

Of course, it is limited to a computer with a webcam, but for laptop-listening why not fire it up? If you are running any flavor of Windows since XP, you can grab a free download and try it out. Or, of course, you could just put on some headphones.

SweetSpotter [TU Dresden via Engadget]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:16 am

WHOI To Help Search For Air France Flight 447

Image Caption: Three REMUS 6000 vehicles will be utilized in the search for the wreckage of Air France Flight 447. The vehicles will use side scan sonar to map the ocean floor in long overlapping lanes, using a survey process known as “mowing the lawn.” After the data from large-scale surveys are analyzed and smaller fields of interest are identified, the REMUS 6000s can then gather more detailed, up-close images on subsequent dives using their high-resolution cameras. (Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:16 am

World War II Plane Found Near Oregon Coast

Loggers came across the wreckage of a Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, but it's not clear how it got there.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 7:10 am

Blueprint For 'Artificial Leaf' Mimics Mother Nature

Image Caption: This is part of the recipe for an artificial leaf, which draws on Mother Nature's secrets, and could use sunlight and water to produce fuel. Credit: Tongxiang Fan, Ph.D.
Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:44 am

Bionic Arm Moved by Thought

Electrodes and a computer translates biological nerve signals into computerized signals that control electric motors in a bionic arm and hand.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:35 am

Star Wars Lightsaber Bookends

What better way to show your contempt for the mail-order set of “classics” on your bookshelf than burning through their hearts with a Lightsaber? After all, if you’re never going to read Moby Dick or Ulysses, you might at least make them useful.

Now you can, with the glowing Lightsaber book-ends from the Star Wars shop. The Lightsaber doesn’t really spear through the books, although judging from the photos it does turn at least part of them into a clammy mess of scrambled egg. That’s not quite fair: the photos show a prototype, so the final shipping version should look (hopefully) a little more like molten metal, and the light part will glow via battery-powered lamps.

No amount of the Force will help you keep track of your place in the books however. Now, at least, you can say “This is not the page I’m looking for.” $50, ships March 31st. Move along.

Exclusive Illuminated Lightsaber Bookends [Star Wars Shop. Thanks, Jon!]

See Also:

• Star Wars
• TIE Fighter Kite and Other Star Wars Inflatables
• Star Wars Fan Shows Off Drivable Landspeeder
• Tauntaun Sleeping Bag
• Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite Desk
• Darth Vader Clock Radio
• Darth Vader Hot Air Balloon: Fully Operational
• Darth Toaster: May The (Break) Fast Be With You

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:17 am

It is morning in America: GeoHot tells of untethered jailbreak that could work on iPad

Web video star GeoHot just did a quick demo of his untethered iPhone/iPod Touch jailbreak. That’s right – you just have to put something on your device – and not directly connect it to your computer – and it will jailbreak that heck out of it in a few minutes. It’s just like the old days when you could download an image on the original iPhone and suddenly jailbreak it.

While the video doesn’t explain anything, it’s nice to see America’s youth busily attending to the major issues of the day, especially if that issue is jailbreaking the iPad when it comes out next week.

The jailbreak is all software based, and is as simple to use as blackra1n. It is completely untethered, works on all current tethered models(ipt2, 3gs, ipt3), and will probably work on iPad too.

He also notes that we should sit on our hands for now and not expect a release date. Why? Because he’s Geohot, that’s why, and his word is bond.

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 6:15 am

iBooks Store Loaded with Project Gutenberg Titles at Launch

When Apple opens up its iBooks Store for business on the iPad, the shelves will be fully stocked. According to a screen-shot posted at iPhone software blog App Advice, iBooks will contain many free, public-domain titles from Project Gutenberg.

Project Gutenberg takes out-of-copyright texts and, using an army of volunteers, turns them into free e-books. You can download them, print them or read them on a range of applications already on the iPhone: Stanza can pull directly from the catalog, and the very pretty Eucalyptus is nothing but Gutenberg titles, rendered in lovely, paper-like detail.

It makes a lot of sense for Apple to load up on these free titles, although we don’t expect the full range of 30,000 books to be available at launch. All Project Gutenberg titles are in plain text format, with only a subset in the iBooks-native EPUB format. Conversion is simple, but we’re certain Apple is checking each one to make sure it’s up to standard.

And yes, we know you could download, convert and import the books yourself, but with iBooks, the App Store and the iTunes Store, one-click simplicity is kind of the point.

iPad iBooks Features The Gutenberg Project Catalog [App Advice]

See Also:

• Stanza v2.0: The iPhone's Best E-Reader Just Got Better
• Apple Relents, Adds 'Pornographic' E-Book Reader to App Store …
• Wired's 20 Favorite iPhone Apps of 2009
• IBooks
• Apple iPad Raises the Stakes for E-Readers
• Apple's Tablet E-Book App Rips off Indie Dev's Creation

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:56 am

Cheap Pocket Video Camera Shoots for Hours

I’m oddly drawn to devices like the uCorder, wearable video-cameras which measure their shooting time in chunks of a day rather than minutes. At first it seems vain and boring, or even a little creepy, to shoot your own point-of-view for hours at a time, but I’d bet that once you got your hands on one, all kinds of great projects would suggest themselves.

The uCorder comes in two flavors: 1GB and a 2GB, for $80 or $100, both of which shoot 640 x 480 VGA video. As both come with an SD-card slot, through which can be added an extra 8GB, we see little point in buying the $100 uCorder (although it does double as a webcam). Fully loaded, you can get seven hours of footage from a small, light package that will clip into a front pocket, hang around your neck or mount onto a helmet.

The movies are in AVI format, and you import them by plugging the camera into a USB port and dragging the files across. The camera also charges via USB. The most obvious use is sports, or at least non-contact sports. Here in Barcelona last weekend we held a Europe-wide bike polo tournament (yes, it was awesome, and we won). A couple of these cameras on players in the final would mix nicely with all the crowd-shot video.

One rather disturbing example from the uCorder site is a crotch-level bowling-cam: the camera is hanging from the players belt to film the pins tumbling. You could also just set the thing running after you leave the house and be sure you’ll capture something interesting enough to cut out and keep. And because it is a standalone device, you don’t have to worry about killing your cellphone’s battery. Creepy? Maybe. Fun? Hell yes.

uCorder Cameras [uCorder. Thanks, Mike!]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:26 am

Why Do People Swear?

When the Vice President dropped the f-bomb this week, he sparked a flurry of controversy, but researchers point out cussing has been around for centuries.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:13 am

Stealing Electricity from Algae

Why bother producing power when we can simply take it?
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 5:00 am

Vertu to sell 4 golden cell phones in Japan (price: $215,000 each)

Nokia pulled out of Japan, one of the world's biggest mobile markets, as early as November 2008. But because this country is quite wealthy, the Finnish company decided to conquer Japan with their luxury brand Vertu [JP], starting operations in September 2009. Initially the plan was to market handsets priced between $16,000 and $50,000. But today Vertu Japan announced a "golden" handset with a price tag of 20 million yen (it's made-in-Japan gold lacquerwork, to be more exact). That's $215,000, with the price including free domestic calls. Buyers will be able to choose between four equally priced models: Kinko (pictured above), Kikusui, Nanten and Daigo (pictured below). The different designs stand for the different seasons of the year.

Source: MobileCrunch | 26 Mar 2010 | 3:29 am

Bumblebees Have Supersonic Color Vision

Bees' color vision clocks in as the fastest in the animal world.
Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 Mar 2010 | 2:45 am