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Rulers of the Cloud: A Multi-Tenant Semantic Cloud is Forming & EMC Knows that Data MattersEMC is a large company focused on high performance storage for enterprises. It's offerings are closely aligned with the idea of extending infrastructure from virtualization to private cloud infrastructure...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Mar 2010 | 4:21 am Twitter looks beyond status updates - V3.co.uk
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 31 Mar 2010 | 4:16 am Prof Jones ''didn't hide clmate change data'' - Public Service
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 31 Mar 2010 | 4:09 am Google Service Disruption Bodes Ill for Chinese - ABC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 31 Mar 2010 | 4:01 am Google frets over Vietnam hacktivist botnet - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 31 Mar 2010 | 4:01 am Google service disruption bodes ill for Chinese
Source: Gizmodo | 31 Mar 2010 | 3:49 am Some Yahoo email accounts hacked in China, Taiwan
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 Telegraph.co.uk | Large Hadron Collider smashes protons, record Los Angeles Times The $10-billion structure at Geneva collides particles at three times previous energy levels. It hopes to find smaller particles and make other physics discoveries. Anja Niedringhaus / Associated Press The Large Hadron Collider in Geneva succeeded ... Mini-Big Bangs created in cosmos origins project Cern Scientists celebrate Large Hadron Collider success Ask a Nuclear Physicist: What Exactly Did the LHC Do Today? |
 Reuters | Some Yahoo email accounts hacked in China, Taiwan Reuters BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO, March 31 (Reuters) - Yahoo email accounts of some journalists and activists whose work relates to China were compromised in an attack discovered this week, days after Google announced it would ... Yahoo targeted in China cyber attacks E-mail Accounts of Foreign Journalists in China Hacked Journalists' E-Mails Hacked in China |
The rumors keep circulating. The latest came yesterday when the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was working on a CDMA version of the iPhone. To most people, that means one thing. No, not a Sprint version of the iPhone (though I suppose that’s possible too), a Verizon version of the iPhone.
The problem is that these rumors have been circulating almost as long as the actual iPhone itself. And the WSJ report isn’t exactly a slam dunk by only citing the ever-anonymous “people briefed by the company.” But, more so than ever, the timing does appear to be right for Apple to break its AT&T exclusivity.
First of all, this Verizon iPhone would not launch alongside the other new iPhone hardware due this Summer. The WSJ report has manufacturing on the CDMA iPhone ramping up in September, but also notes that the phones may not be available to consumers immediately. This means at the earliest, we’re looking at a Fall release, or possibly even a holiday release for the device (if not later depending on several factors). That means that AT&T would still get the supposed “iPhone HD” all to itself for several months at least.
Then you’d have to wonder if Apple would dare announce that it would be bringing the iPhone to other carriers “later this year” at its WWDC event (where it traditionally launches the new iPhone hardware)? If they did that, they risk people sitting out for several months, waiting for the Verizon version to hit before buying an iPhone. They’d be putting customers in a tight spot: do you upgrade to the sleek new hardware now, locking yourself into a new 2-year contract with AT&T? Or do you wait? If Apple in in fact planning a CDMA version of the iPhone, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t say anything about it at WWDC.
Apple is also giving AT&T a nice little present in the form of the iPad. While the version hitting stores this Saturday will not have 3G connectivity, the one coming at the end of April will. And yes, it will be exclusively provided by AT&T. There was some speculation leading up to the iPad launch that it may launch with Verizon connectivity, but the chances of Apple building a second CDMA version of the iPad anytime soon seem pretty slim at this point. Especially with AT&T giving them an unheard deal for customers: $15 for 250MB-a-month of data usage and $30 for unlimited data. As anyone with a 3G card will tell you, this is basically half-off of the normal data rates the carriers charge.
Apple is not stupid. They hear all of us bitching about AT&T’s sub-par service, and word is that they’re not too happy about it either. But the fact of the matter is that because of the exclusive agreement, AT&T is paying them a ridiculous fee for each iPhone solid — something to the tune of $600 a phone. At the end of the day, that equals billions of dollars in revenues for Apple. If Apple were to branch out to other carriers, this deal would likely have to be renegotiated because Verizon has some leverage as the nation’s largest carrier and probably won’t give Apple the same kind of deal.
So despite all of our bitching, Apple is only likely to move beyond exclusivity if it makes sense for the bottom line. That is, if Apple feels like the iPhone can’t grow any further in the U.S. under one carrier, they will extend it to others. Or, if Apple feels that Android is gaining too much momentum because it’s on several carriers, they will extend it to others. The latter appears to be starting to happen, while the former is still unclear. At one point, it was believed that Apple would wait out going to multiple carriers in the U.S. until the 4G networks (which will be a much more unified technology) were ready. But as the WSJ article states, delays in that process may have forced them to change their minds.
So perhaps Apple is dangling the iPad and early access to the iPhone HD as signs of good faith towards AT&T. Maybe they want the carrier to know that even though the time of exclusivity is coming to an end, they intend to give them certain perks in exchange for keeping the same terms of their current deal.
Imagine for a second that the iPhone is available on AT&T and Verizon — but AT&T gets access to the new hardware several months before Verizon. You might think most people would wait to buy the new iPhone, believing Verizon is the better network. But going forward, once Apple initially offloads a few million customers over to Verizon (which I don’t think is an unreasonable number for how many current iPhone owners would switch if given the option), some of AT&T’s horrific networks problems (which are related the the network being under too much strain) may be miraculously solved.
It seems like a win-win for everybody. Or at least Apple will paint it that way. And, as usual, they will be the real winner in the end.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tramatize your home! (via Vintage Ads)
By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
On Sunday night, a loud boom shook parts of Portland, Ore. — and drove residents onto Twitter and elsewhere on the Internet to figure out the cause.
On Twitter, people used the hashtag #pdxboom to relay news about the noise. And in a sign of the potential for using social media in emergencies, one resident soon set up a Google (GOOG) map that residents could use to indicate how loud the sound was in their area. Marshall Kirkpatrick at tech blog ReadWriteWeb has the story here and writes that “in just a few hours, a pattern emerged, with reports clustering around one city park.”
The Portland police cited “local blogging information” as one of the factors that led investigators to return to the area, where they found evidence of a large pipe bomb.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Wearing your unread email count on your chest
This gives Pac-Man a whole new twist
RCA’s AirPower has been repackaged to better hide the snake oil inside
Review: Nintendo DSi XL
Rugged Camera Roundup: The Movie
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
My 2011 Appropriations Requests (Thanks, Jeff from Tacoma!)As your Member of Congress, I am committed to doing everything I can to support the economic and community development important to the people of the First District---that means fighting for sound federal investments in our community that can grow our economy and create jobs.
This year, I am unveiling a new, transparent and open approach to how I receive, review and submit these federal funding requests: every requesting organization has been asked to make a short presentation, which has been recorded and posted online. This is in addition to extensive written materials they submit describing their funding request and how it will benefit Maine's first district. All of this information is particularly geared towards jobs retained or created and examining the long-term economic benefit of federal dollars. The videos and project descriptions will be posted on my website and the public is invited to comment on the projects.
I would love to hear what you think about these projects or this process.
(via Super Punch)
How "Christ, What an Asshole!" is the Answer to the New Yorker Magazine Caption Contest (via Making Light)
Over the last few months we’ve seen quite a few international startups that are looking to capitalize on the success of Groupon, the deal-a-day startup that has been getting quite a bit of buzz lately. Europe has already seen many similar sites, and tonight, Brazil is getting its due: Peixe Urbano (which means “Urban Fish” in Portuguese) has just launched to the public, offering daily deals to Brazil’s nearly 70 million Internet users.
Founder Julio Vasconcellos concedes that Peixe Urbano has many similarities to Groupon — it sends users one great deal per day (generally offering 50-90% off) via Email, Twitter, or Facebook. And, like Groupon, a certain number of people have to sign up for the deal before it “activates”, which gives users an incentive to tell their friends. But Vasconcellos says that he and co-founder Alex Tabor have made some key changes to better adapt the new site to Brazilian culture.
While both founders are from Brazil, they decided to do some market research to get a more accurate measure of how they should diverge from Groupon’s model. Their conclusions: first, Vasconcellos says that Brazilians tend to favor spontaneous activities as opposed to discounts or gift cards with a six month expiration, so Peixe Urbano will include more time-sensitive deals, like cheap tickets for next-day shows or happy hour at the local restaurant. Second, Vasconcellos says that Brazilians tend to be less excited about sharing coupons and sales with their friends (they may be frowned upon socially), so Peixe Urbano is positioning itself as a site to discover cool hidden gems in your city, with the added bonus of saving some money in the process.
Other international Groupon-like we’ve covered include Snippa(UK), Daily Deal(Germany), and CityDeal(Germany). And there are plenty more — the UK alone has at least a half dozen Groupon clones.
The authors' responses are (in my opinion) extremely interesting. Major motivations for making work freely available include "to increase visibility," "to increase sales," and "it's a moral obligation." All of the authors were glad that they had made they work available for free, and most reported that they thought it had increased the reach of their work. Nobody perceived that sales had decreased as a result.Hilton also just published his dissertation, ―Freely Ye Have Received, Freely Give (Matthew 10:8): How Giving Away Religious Digital Books Influences the Print Sales of Those Books, which tracked sales of backlist religious titles before and after their ebook release.
During the ten weeks of the study the books were downloaded 102,556 times. Collectively, the books sold 68 more copies in the ten weeks they were online for free versus the ten previous weeks. This was an increase in sales of 26%. Over the same period of time in 2008, sales of these same books decreased by 38%. Furthermore, a study of comparison titles that were not put online for free found that sales of comparison books decreased both in 2008 and 2009...(Thanks, John!)
 Ars Technica | US tech coalition calls for new online privacy law BBC News US technology firms and privacy groups have called for an overhaul of privacy laws, saying the government has too much access to private online data. Google, eBay and others have launched the Digital Due Process coalition, ... Obama faces major online privacy test Why ECPA Should Make You Think Twice about the Cloud Google, Microsoft push to overhaul online privacy law |
France Telecom / Orange is partnering with OpenX to launch Orange Ad Market, a brand new online advertising marketplace tailored to the European digital industry.
Orange Ad Market will be operated by Orange and powered by OpenX in exchange for a share on every transaction that is made through the platform. The marketplace will allow all classes of buyers to compete for targeted impressions in real-time auctions and help sellers of online display advertising inventory from all over the globe maximize revenue.
The partnership between Orange and OpenX spans multiple years and is mutually exclusive to all regions Orange operates in.
Like a hornet’s nest, the home router sits undisturbed by those who know better than to touch it. This antenna-enhanced box sends data to and from desktops, laptops, smart phones and TiVos (TIVO) throughout the house. Its indicator lights glow, signaling all is well with the network.
But setting it up can be a major ordeal. People beg their techie friends for help. Some sit for hours on the phone with customer support. A few brave souls muddle through a sea of acronyms and secure codes in an attempt to install the router. Once it is set up, many are afraid to change its settings for fear of disrupting it and losing Internet connectivity.
Enter Valet (TheValet.com), a new wireless router designed for people who are tired of being intimidated by a blinking box. Valet is designed by the people who brought us the Flip video camcorders, the ultra simple handhelds with ultra simple software that just work. And it comes from Cisco (CSCO), which also owns Linksys—a router brand that people know and trust.
I’ve been using Valet for the past week, but it took me only 10 minutes, from start to finish, to get it going, thanks to a simple USB key that plugs into the computer and sets everything up in the background in less than five minutes. I tried it on a Windows 7 PC running and on an iMac, as well as on mobile devices, including a BlackBerry, Palm (PALM) Pre and the HTC HD2. The Valet is available Wednesday for $100 on Amazon.com (AMZN), TheValet.com and Staples (SPLS) stores. Over the next two weeks, it will be sold at Best Buy (BBY), Target (TGT) and Wal-Mart (WMT). There’s also the $150 Valet Plus, with a Wi-Fi range about 20% greater than the Valet.
I ran into a bug while trying to install the Valet software on a Mac: I plugged in the USB key but its built-in software didn’t install and I got a message telling me that Valet wasn’t able to set up on my computer. A Cisco representative said this was a rare Mac bug that will be fixed over this week and next week.
Along with its simple setup, Valet automatically creates a guest network to go with the main network so visitors can log onto a household’s Wi-Fi—either with or without a password, depending on settings—and not gain access to files shared within that network. The Valet software has parental controls that make it a cinch to set up restrictions like blocking certain Web sites or cutting off Internet access after a certain time on school nights or weekends.
The Valet isn’t the first router to enable parental controls and guest-network access. Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) $179 AirPort Extreme Base Station allows users to set up guest networks. Likewise, Netgear’s (NTGR) six most recently introduced routers, priced from $70 to $190, offer guest networks and parental controls. But just as the Flip camera’s built-in software simplified the process of editing, uploading and sharing home videos, the Valet’s software makes networking approachable for anyone—regardless of technical skill.
The Valet comes in a box with a USB Easy Setup Key, wireless router, Ethernet cable and power adapter (the last two are hidden under the box’s interior packaging). Instructions on the box told me to plug the USB key into a PC or Mac. Then on-screen directions popped up, instructing me to plug the Valet router into the wall with the power adapter and then into my home’s modem using the Ethernet cable. I selected the “connect” option on the computer screen, and four minutes later, the network was set up.
The device’s software, called Cisco Connect, is divided into four categories: Computers & Devices, Parental Controls, Guest Access and Settings. With these, I could quickly see how many devices were connected to my network and learn the name and password for the guest network if I forgot it. (Valet networks have pre-set, randomly selected names and passwords that people can easily change. My network’s default name was RubyPanda and its password was mango62—both simple word/number combinations that are easy to remember.) If the guest network is password-protected, guests have to enter that password on a Web browser page, like at a hotel. This could be confusing for people used to entering network passwords at the operating-system level, right as they select the Wi-Fi network. A Cisco representative said using a Web browser page is a more consistent way of entering passwords and it saves people from having to answer questions they may not be able to answer if they’re logging onto the main network, like the name of the “WPA key.”
If people get stuck during setup, which happened with me when I ran into the Mac bug, a screen immediately displays a customer-service number for Valet that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I spoke to a woman who tried several troubleshooting methods, but she didn’t know about Valet’s rare Mac bug. Once a computer is set up with the Valet network, the USB key can be taken to other computers to update them with the same network passwords and settings.
Using the parental controls couldn’t have been easier. After a password is set up, Web content can be blocked at a teen or child level on some or all devices. Specific sites can be blocked, and when I blocked Facebook on a connected Mac, it wouldn’t open on that computer without the parent password. Time restrictions on Internet usage can be set up here, with different settings for school nights and weekends.
Though the $100 Cisco Valet is more than twice as expensive as some wireless routers, its built-in software puts great emphasis on simplicity and ease of use, and turns setting up and using a a home network into an unusually pleasant experience.
Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.
Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com
Well, it looks like XFX packaging is going to be a little more secure then the stuff that Amazon uses. You’ll have to be careful leaving the store with this stuff, XFX appears to be packaging their version of the ATI HD 5970 in a replica of a H&K P90. Catchy, but hopefully they don’t lose any customers to gunfire.
We don’t know a whole lot about the HD 5970 yet, but if the buzz is true it’ll be the fastest single GPU card available on the market. NVidia holds the current title for the fastest GPU solution. Hopefully the brains at ATI will come up with something to challenge NVidia on that front as well. Of course, the new cards aren’t available for sale yet, but you can pretty much assume they’re going to run about $100 more then the “standard” HD 5970 cards.
[via Tom's Hardware]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
If you’re like me, you get a little.. obsessive about checking your email. Wouldn’t want to miss that important message after all. So when I see a project like the email count t-shirt, I start to get a little twitchy. It looks like it could be a DIY project, but I’m not sure I have the necessary skills. Like sewing.
Made by couple of hackers using an Arduino Lilypad and a bluetooth dongle, the shirt will show your current unread email count on your chest. Of course, it’s not commercially available, but you can look here for the details on how they made it.
[via Make]
Back in fall 2008, when the App Store was less than 100 days old, I wrote about an incredibly trippy and innovative application called RjDj (iTunes link). The app is a bit hard to describe, but it essentially takes audio or motion input from your iPhone, passes it through a variety of filters, and outputs music that’s customized to your surroundings (you really need to try it for yourself to see what it’s like). Now, RjDj is taking its application to the next level: the company has released a new desktop app called RJC1000 that allows Mac users to easily build their own reactive music for use on any of RjDj’s growing roster of applications.
To take a step back, when you use RjDj, you listen to what’s called a “Scene” — a combination of filters that determine what your reactive music sounds like. A Scene can pay attention to your iPhone’s microphone, accelerometer (so it can ‘hear’ motion), and even your GPS position. It then interprets those inputs to generate a dynamic music soundtrack. Scenes can vary a lot, ranging from pleasant rain drops to psychedelic audio warping that loops back everything you hear endlessly. With the RJC1000 app, you can customize Scenes to make them sound exactly like you want them to. You can get a feel for how this works in the YouTube video below.
I explored the RJC1000 app to try building my own sound Scene, and quickly came to the conclusion that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Fortunately that didn’t really matter — after dragging a few effects from the list of options onto the main sound board, I found myself listening to something best described as an auditory mix of running water, crickets, bongo drums, and a swarm of butterflies. I’m sure someone with more patience and skill could come up with something significantly more pleasant.
Alongside the new application, RjDj is launching the RjDj Network, which allows reactive musicians (this genre is called “reactive music”) to sell their creations to anyone using the RjDj iPhone application, via in-app purchases. RjDj is taking a 50% rev share of any Scenes sold. The company will also be launching an iPad application on April 3 called RJ Voyager that allows for playback of any Scenes from the RjDj Network, and also let users tweak Scenes on the fly, editing the effects they want playing as their music is generated in real-time.
RjDj founder Michael Breidenbruecker says that developers and musicians have previously been able to create their own Scenes using Pure Data, but that most of them found it too abstract to use (the screenshots I looked at were pretty daunting). The RJC1000 application uses the Pure Data DSP framework, but makes it significantly easier to build a Scene. He says that beyond the iPad app, RjDj has other applications in the works that will support Scenes from the RjDj network.
I like Amazon’s “frustration free” packaging. When I ordered my copy of Command & Conquer 4, it came in that easy to open package, and it makes sense: why put a dvd in a box with a bag of air, and waste all that shipping? Would I trust a hard drive to that packaging? No way in hell.
Apparently Amazon thought it’d be ok though, because they’ve been sending out hard drives using the packaging. The bad news is, the packaging may be frustration free, but dying hard drives aren’t. Purchasers were reporting to Amazon that the drives were either DOA, or dying off shortly after arriving. Amazon has since quit using the convenient shipping packaging. Moral of the story: be careful what you decide the have packaged for your convenience.
[via Gadget Lab]
The price of early adoption is well-known. Just talk to all the people about to receive iPads… in six months, when they release the iPad Video. Electric cars have it just as bad. The EV1 was aborted, the Tesla is expensive as hell, and pretty much everything else has such low production numbers that you could call them limited editions.
The Nissan Leaf and the Chevy Volt are the front-runners for the first generation of popular, affordable electrics. The Volt’s predicted price is somewhere around $32,500… not exactly a bargain buy. But Nissan just revealed that the price of its electric will be a comparably reasonable $25,000.
You’ll need to buy the $2200 ($1100 after gov’t rebate) charge adapter (oy, accessories) with the Leaf, and at 100 miles per charge, it can’t go quite as far as the plug-in hybrid Volt, but for city driving, the Leaf could be the easy choice. If you’re counting the pennies, you should consider what electricity costs in your area — here in Seattle we’ll probably have public charge stations, and our electricity is dirt cheap to boot, but we’re an exception. The charge should cost “less than $3″ according to Nissan, which puts it a ways in front of gas (assuming $3 and 30mi per gallon), but only time will tell whether the 100mi/charge estimate really works, and whether the car is any good to begin with for that matter.
I look forward to finding out. I wonder if it will make a UFO noise?
 The Guardian | Now, Even NASA Is Involved in Toyota Crisis Wall Street Journal US regulators on Tuesday announced a broad investigation into automotive computer systems and software, which have come under scrutiny because of sudden acceleration and other reports involving some Toyota Motor Corp. cars. ... NASA Scientists to Test Toyota Electronics Fox News Poll: Most Parents Would Let Their Kids Ride in a Toyota Dual Investigations of Unintended Acceleration Launched |
Back in September of last year, Starbucks made it possible to pay for your daily caffeine hit with their Starbucks Card Mobile iPhone app. The entire concept is pretty simple: punch in your Starbucks Card info, verify some details, and BAM! The iPhone app becomes the gift card, presenting a secure QR code for the Barista to scan when it comes time to pay up.
Here’s the catch: out of Starbucks’ roughly 74 billion locations, only a few have started accepting the mobile payment system. As in very few. As in sixteen. Until today!
Starbucks has just announced that they’re now taking iPhone app payments in over 1,000 Target stores nationwide, increasing the number of test locations by well over 6,000% overnight. Now go, go and pay for your fix of the ol’ brown drank without ever worrying about silly nonsense like wallets and cash ever again. (Be sure to check the store locator first to make sure your local Target spot is participating in the roll-out.)
When Steve Jobs tells the technology industry to get in line, it gets in line pretty quick. All the initial hair-pulling and angst surrounding Apple’s decision to not support Flash on the iPad is already mattering less and less. At least for video, most of the major online video platforms such as Brightcove and Ooyala are supporting HTML5 playback in the iPad browser. YouTube might eventually get there as well.
Now Kyte is jumping on the HTML5 bandwagon. Kyte videos will stream in an HTML5 player in the iPad browser using the same embed code that triggers a Flash player on other computers. But Kyte is also going to release a software developer kit (SDK) in the next couple weeks which will let its media partners create apps specifically for the iPad. The SDK will also let them create versions of the same apps for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. This will replace the iPhone framework Kyte released last year.
The SDK will customize apps for the larger screen of the iPad, allowing for a larger video player and more room for chat and show guides. In the mockup above from Om Records, you can see how there is more room for the various elements of the app on the iPad.
Kyte’s main customers are media brands, music bands, and brands such as ABC, Fox News, MTV, Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys, and Calvin Klein who want to publish videos to their Websites and mobile apps all from the same system. Kyte’s new Apple “universal” SDK will allow developers to create apps for both the iPhone and the iPad, and send out the correct version depending in the user’s device. They can also charge once and deliver different versions of the app to multiple Apple devices.
The maze he’s been running around in for 30 years must be the size of the solar system! And the dots — Asteroids? Another connection! And the ghosts — Space Ghosts! My god, it all makes sense!
[via 1up]
 Washington Post | AT&T Prepares Network For Battle Wall Street Journal With a new version of the iPhone in the works, the clock is ticking for AT&T Inc. to get its much-criticized network ready for the looming battle. The carrier has taken a beating from consumers who have complained about poor coverage in ... Report: AT&T helped Apple with iPhone issues Apple Partners Thrilled About Possible Verizon iPhone Apple tweaked iPhones to lessen strain on AT&T network - report |
If you’ll pardon the pun, SimpleGeo has positioned itself well.
With a frenzy of activity surrounding location-based services, more and more startups are launching ideas that rely heavily on location. But implementing location is still a relatively complicated process. And that’s where SimpleGeo comes in.
We’ve written about the service a number of times over the past several months. Basically, they provide the infrastructure and tools to allow other services to add location elements with ease. In fact, since they launched in beta late last year, they already have some 5,000 developers on board using their service. And tomorrow at the Where 2.0 conference in San Jose, CA, they’re opening up their platform for all to use.
Alongside the launch, SimpleGeo is introducing two new products: the SimpleGeo Marketplace and the SimpleGeo Storage Engine. The Marketplace will make it easy for developers to see a range of different geodata and pick what they want to use. This store allows developers to get in touch with the geodata providers who are serving up the data (names you know like Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc).
The Storage Engine is a cloud-based system to allow developers to store location and do queries on it. Think of it as Amazon S3 for geodata.
So how much does it cost to use SimpleGeo? It’s free for up to a million calls, after that it’s $399 for 2 million calls (and additional support), $2,499 for 10 million calls, and $9,999 for 30 million calls. The pricing model is based on how much you’d need to pay for an engineer to handle that much data. Seeing as SimpleGeo curates this data and provides the servers needed for it, it will be a big value to most companies.
DeCarta, ESRI, Localeze, MetaCarta, Quova, Stamen Design, and Weather Decision Technologies are a few of the big partnerships SimpleGeo recently signed. There was also a Skyhook Wireless deal that went live during SXSW. And you’ve probably heard of some of the startups already using SimpleGeo, such as StickyBits and BumpRadar.
Since its $1.5 million seed funding in November, SimpleGeo has been hiring like crazy and hopes to open a San Francisco branch soon (they’re currently based in Boulder, CO).
And despite the launch, SimpleGeo’s work is far from done. The plan is to launch a couple new features in relative short order, co-founder Matt Galligan tells us. One is called “Pushpin” which will let developers send in a coordinate and get back all sorts of data from SimpleGeo such as country, state, city, neighborhood, zip code, etc. And using other data, you could get the names of buildings on college campuses, for example, Galligan says.
Another new feature called “Polygon” will let developers send in the name of an area such as “The Mission” in San Francisco, and SimpleGeo will return a list of everything in that area.
Look for SimpleGeo’s new website and new admin interface to launch tomorrow after Galligan takes at Where 2.0 around noon PT. You’ll be able to sign up to get in on the location action at that time. Then you can go build your own version of this.
[photo: flickr/bruce tuten]
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Short version: Nintendo’s new DSi XL is aimed squarely at the older generation of casual gamers. People that appreciate something that’s a little easier to read. The people who wear their reading glasses while they sit down for their morning glass of fiber and read their copy of the AARP Journal. And heaven help me, I like it.
Features:
Pros:
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I like Nintendo’s portable gaming consoles. I had a Game Boy, Game Boy Color, DS phat, and a DS Lite, but I never saw the point in the DSi. So when Nintendo sent me a DSi XL to review, I was pleasantly surprised by the functionality. Would I buy a DSi XL to replace my DS Lite? Probably not – but I do like the DSi XL, and would recommend it to someone looking to get into portable gaming.
Build quality is as you would expect it to be. Nintendo knows these things are going to be knocked around, and build them so they can take it. The unit I was sent is the bronze color, with the majority of the device having a matte finish. The top of the cover, however, is glossy and picks up finger prints. Not fingerprints like you’d see on a PSP but they are present.
I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here as far as reviewing the DSi functionality. Yeah, it’s a DSi, only bigger. It’s designed for the older crowd that play those little $10 blackjack games from Radio Shack, and if they market it properly it’ll be huge. I have large hands. I like the DSi XL because I like the larger form factor, and the larger screens. My wife isn’t as much of a fan. She’s got smaller hands and found that the DSi XL made her left hand start to cramp after playing Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for about 30 minutes. I saw another review mention issues with screen clarity. I definitely didn’t notice this issue. I love playing RTS games like Civilization Revolution, and if the screen was fuzzy I’d definitely notice it. The screen was crisp and clear, and it didn’t feel like the games were designed for a smaller display at all, which was one of the things I was concerned about when I first read about the DSi XL.
Should you buy a DSi XL? Sure, if you don’t already have a DSi. I’d just suggest that you check one out at your local game shoppe first to be sure that the size won’t be an issue. Is it a reasonable upgrade from the DS or DS Lite? Absolutely. Should you buy one for your mom for Mother’s Day? Only if you are a huge geek and you’re sure she’ll like it.
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Cartoonist Rube Goldberg got famous drawing fanciful, bizarrely complex, jury-rigged contraptions to accomplish simple tasks.
Not content with imagining these things, modern Rube Goldberg machine makers put such machines together in real life (or in virtual worlds) so you can actually see them go. There’s even a contest for the best.
A team of aspiring educators won the 2010 National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest on March 27 with a complicated homage to ancient Egypt that took 120 discrete mechanical and electronic steps to accomplish one simple task: Dispensing a bit of hand sanitizer. The video above shows how the students, from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, beat out dozens of other teams to win the prize.
But while the Rube Goldberg Machine Contest has been going on for 23 years, it’s hardly the only place to find such outlandish devices. The internet is full of videos showing Rube Goldberg machines (or Heath Robinson contraptions, as the English call them), from impromptu assemblages to painstakingly engineered constructions.
In the following pages we’ll show you a few of the best.
For more on the National Rube Goldberg Machine Contest, check out this gallery of Rube Goldberg machine photos published by Wired in 2007.
There was a wee bit of chaos amongst iPhone jailbreakers after this morning’s iTunes 9.1 update hit. Seemingly out of nowhere, “tethered” jailbreaks (the slightly-less-convenient type necessary for newer iPhones) stopped working. Panic!
Fortunately, the endlessly resourceful army behind the jailbreaking effort has already isolated the problem, and a fix is in the works.
Shortly after the first reports came out that tethered jailbreaks had gone awry, it was determined that the issue was isolated to folks running the jailbreak on Windows. This lead the jailbreak brains straight to the source of the issue: one of the .DLL files required for the hack had been changed. The nature of the change makes it seem likely that the temporary jailbreak-breakage was more of a side effect than a deliberate move by Apple.
While it wasn’t clear at first just how straightforward a fix would be, iPhone hacking team iH8Sn0w (the same team that initially discovered what had gone wrong) has announced that a “quick fix” has been discovered, and is already in the works. It “will require a few hours to code” (and presumably, a few hours to test), so be on the lookout for a patch in the next day or two.
By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Some of the biggest names in the tech world–including Microsoft (MSFT), Google (GOOG), Intel (INTC) and AT&T (T)–are pushing for more stringent regulations on government ability to access electronic communications.
The push, which also is backed by groups such as the ACLU and Americans for Tax Reform, is not expected to result in congressional action this year, organizers acknowledge. But the heavyweights behind the effort have drawn attention, and House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said he would lead efforts to consider reform.
The law in question, known as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, was enacted in 1986 and extended restrictions on government wiretaps to data transmissions as well as phone calls. The act also regulates privacy in stored data, but those limits are not as stringent, particularly since the Patriot act eased restrictions on access by law enforcement.
Read the rest of this post on the original site
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The new 1001PX from Asus isn’t particularly noteworthy spec-wise. 250GB hard drive, 1.66GHz Atom processor… you know the drill. But it’s got a matte screen! I really don’t understand why people want these glossy screens so bad. Just give me the option, whether it’s cheaper or more expensive — I’m tired of staring into a mirror-like surface whenever I’m trying to write. Now, if they could just put this on the much-sexier 1005PR…
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The second half of SGU’s first season starts this Friday. We already know it should be a good one thanks to the MGM teaser showing off that ugly baddie. But some crazy fans might hold off until June 13 when the Blu-ray is released sans all the commericals and probably with high-quality picture and sound. But that’s not me.
Nope, I’ll be there, 24 oz Coors Light in hand ready for some fresh Stargate action on Friday about 30 minutes after it starts. So my TiVo can build a nice little buffer I can fast-forward, you know. And then I’ll probably buy the Blu-ray, too.
For most blind computer users, surfing the internet or catching up on e-mail means reading just one line at a time, because commercially available braille displays can’t show full pages of text.
Researchers from North Carolina State University now say they have devised a display that would allow visually challenged users to read a full page at a time — and at a much lower cost than existing displays.
“We have developed a low-cost, compact, full-page braille display that is fast and can be used in PDAs, cellphones and even GPS systems,” says Dr. Peichun Yang, one of the researchers working on the project, who is himself blind.
A full-page display is better because it allows readers to skip paragraphs and read the parts they want, instead of forcing them to go over it line by line. Full-page display also presents more information in a shorter time.
Braille characters, developed by Louis Braille in 1821, are created by a pattern of raised dots. Alphabets, punctuation and numerals are represented in cells. Each cell is made of six dots arranged in a 2×3 dot matrix. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form the characters.
“Braille is very significant, and statistically about 90 percent of blind people who have a job can read braille,” says Dr. Yang. “It’s a very important part of their ability to read.”
Braille displays on the market now use piezo-ceramics, in which a 2-inch-long lever forces up the dots, explains Dr Yang. “It’s expensive and limiting,” he says.
As a result, a typical braille display today has just one line of 80 cells, and can cost up to $8,000.
Instead, Dr Yang and his team developed a new way to create the raised dots. Each cell in their display uses what is called a “hydraulic and latching mechanism.”
“The mechanism can offer a large displacement and fast response time simultaneously, which is the key to a good commercial braille display,” says Dr. Yang.
A four-line display developed using the new system could be around $1,000, and fullscreen displays could come later.
Here’s how Dr. Yang’s technology works. Picture each cell as a rectangular cavity that is filled with liquid. The top and bottom have a small opening that is sealed with a flexible diaphragm. There are four bendable actuators made of electroactive polymers — which means they change shape when voltage is applied — on each side.
By manipulating the voltage, two facing polymers can be made to displace the fluid housed within them. This pushes the fluid up towards the top, raising the dot. Once the dots are raised, a latching mechanism would support the weight being applied by a person’s fingers as the dots are read. A refreshable braille dot has a response time of around 30 milliseconds.
Dr. Yang and his team hope to create prototype displays within a year, and if successful they can be commercially produced.
See Also:
Photo: Braille sign at the Port Museum ( reinvented/Flickr)
Ian J. Kahn of antiquarian booksellers Lux Mentis got a hold of some extremely rare books by Leonard Baskin, who is best known as a sculptor. Link to a large-size scan of the image in this post, and here's a larger gallery. The collection will be on display at an upcoming antiquarian book fair in NYC, April 9-11.
Source: Boing Boing | 30 Mar 2010 | 4:45 pm
FROM GAMERTELL - Mexico and Latin America will receive a special Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker bundle. It will come with a camouflage PSP-3000, instead of a Spirited Green PSP-3000 like the one included with the North American bundle.
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“SCO’s seemingly endless legal campaign over the copyrights to Unix may finally be over. On Tuesday afternoon, a federal jury found that Novell owns the rights to the operating system, foiling SCO’s plan to seek millions of dollars in licensing fees from companies it accused of illegally distributing its proprietary Unix code with the Linux OS.
Great news for the open-source community and for the long-suffering Novell (NOVL), which has been battling SCO for quite some time now.
“Novell is very pleased with the jury’s decision confirming Novell’s ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux,” the company said in a statement. “Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front.”
Which is great, because SCO, while obviously struck low by today’s verdict, evidently intends to forge on with its suit against IBM (IBM), which it also claims misappropriated Unix and built it into Linux. Former U.S. District Judge Edward Cahn, the trustee for SCO’s bankruptcy, told the Salt Lake Tribune that the jury decision will not dissuade it from pursuing its lawsuit against Big Blue. Said Cahn: “The copyright claims are gone, but we have other claims based on contracts.”
Astonishing. As I wrote of SCO back in 2004:
“There’s a scene at the end of Martin Scorsese’s remake of ‘Cape Fear’ in which villain Max Cady, having been shot, stabbed, burned and beaten, continues to threaten his victims even as he’s drowning, handcuffed to a sinking houseboat. I think of that scene every time I read that SCO has filed another motion in its ill-starred copyright infringement suits.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Over the past few months, Automattic’s popular blog platform WordPress.com has taken an in-depth look at their blogging ecosystem, and realized that one of the major pain points for the 12.1 million users who self-host their WordPress blogs is security and restoration. WordPress.com backs up all of the blogs that it hosts, but those users who self-host their WordPress-powered blogs need to download outside plugins, such as this one, or use backup services like Mozy or Backupify to protect their data and content. Today Automattic is changing that with the launch of its own blog protection and restoration service for self-hosted blogs, called VaultPress.
Currently in private beta, VaultPress is a plugin users can download that acts as a backup service for your blog. Not only will the software help keep your blog up and running, but it will also soon monitor your site to alert you if their is suspicious activity or a hacking. Alternatively, VaultPress will eventually update your blog with security hot-fixes automatically. VaultPress will be a paid service and will probably be in the ballpark range of $15 to 20 per month, according to Automattic VP of User Growth Paul Kim. At first VaultPress will be extended on an invitation only basis and will eventually be open to the public in the near future.
While users can still use outside services or WordPress community plugins, VaultPress will be the only WordPress.com branded offering. And the plugin is tightly woven into WordPress.com infrastructure, promising greater operability, says Kim.
Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg says VaultPress is one of the most advanced technologies that he’s seen interact with WordPress. The vision of the service is to ensure that every piece of content on WordPress-powered blogs and sites are safe, with WordPress-aware, real-time, multi-cloud backups.
VaultPress as a product makes sense for WordPress.com and frankly, I’m surprised that the blogging platform didn’t roll this out earlier.
Disclosure: TechCrunch uses the VIP hosted version of WordPress.com.
FROM APPLETELL - If your tastes in practical jokes is more oriented towards the digital than the physical, these applications can help you to get your prank on.
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These Paypal documents from the JooJoo/Techcrunch lawsuit show that only 90 preorders for the $500 device, roughly $44k worth, were made. This is what happens when you launch a tablet the same month as Apple, at the same price.
And 15 of those turned into cancellations (which were hard to do, we hear.) That doesn’t seem like it’s enough money to cover legal fees or kick production into high gear. I’m going to reiterate our stance: It seems like a great device, but you should wait for things to shake out before putting down more money. And remember, this costs as much as an iPad.
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The iPhone is great, but it’s small. The iPad is bigger; you can cradle it, like a lap harp. Behold, Air Harp!
If fart apps are what the iPhone is all about, Air Harp is what the iPad is all about. You can sit there, with the device in you lap, and simply strum. You get 2 octaves (15 strings) of tones in G Major.
There are no shortage of musical instrument apps for the iPhone and iPod touch (Smule makes some great ones), but apps where you need to strum are tricky because the screen is so small. The iPad corrects that. I can’t wait for the first air guitar iPad apps (and the corresponding lawsuits when people start dropping them en masse).
Watch Air Harp in action below. Developer touchGrove promises that it’s coming soon. I’m going to assume the iPad they’re using in the demo is fake, since Apple has those on complete lockdown still until Saturday.
[photo: flickr/geebee2007]
Hurray, it’s cat and mouse time again! iTunes 9.1 was just released, and it looks like Apple has taken yet another step (or two) in their endless fight against jailbreaking.
Take this with a grain of salt for the time being, but we’re hearing a lot of early reports that jailbroken devices will not sync with this latest iTunes release.
Update: This also appears to be breaking some “tethered” jailbreaks – that is, jailbreaks that need to be hooked up to a computer each and every time the device is turned on. Unfortunately, this includes the most popular jailbreak application, blackra1n. We’re still looking for more confirmation.
Update #2: Reports are all over the place. Some folks are having no problems getting their jailbroken iPhones to sync up, while others are having no luck at all. Some are reporting that a computer reboot cleared things up. It’s likely that whether or not it will work for you will depend on how you jailbroke, and what modem firmware is running on your iPhone. Tread with caution until this clears up.
Update #3: iPhone hacker ih8snow says the new-found troubles with blackra1n are all Windows-oriented, with the OS X version still working fine. Blackra1n hooks into a Windows .DLL file to find some of the things it needs, and said .DLL has changed. OS X users should be fine.
Drop us a comment and let us know if syncing is working with your jailbroken device.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
iTunes 9.1 just went live. I'm digging through to see what's new in this version, but iTunes just updated to 9.1. It seems you actually have to go to the Apple.com/itunes site to download it because my System Update and the Update Software command in iTunes didn't catch it.
As we suspected, it's very iPad oriented with the following list of updates:
What's new in iTunes 9.1 iTunes 9.1 comes with several new features and improvements, including: • Sync with iPad to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on the go • Organize and sync books you've downloaded from iBooks on iPad or added to your iTunes library • Rename, rearrange, or remove Genius MixesMore details after the jump.
Section: Computers, Netbooks, Software / Applications, Web, Web Apps
Jolicloud, the netbook operating system has returned once again with some improvements, new features and updates.
To begin with, Jolicloud has announced that they have left the beta stage, and entered what they are calling the “Pre-Final” stage. Personally that sounds a little beta like to me, but names aside, it looks like this release comes with a few goodies to include a new desktop mode as well as HTML5 ready web app platform.
The desktop switcher mode will allow you to choose between the netbook friendly app launcher that we have seen up to this point and a regular desktop mode. Personally, the regular desktop mode does not sound all that appealing on a 10-inch netbook, but I suppose if you are running Jolicloud on something larger it could be nice. It was also noted that if you are installing Jolicloud on a 11 inch (or larger) display you will get the desktop mode by default.
Additionally, a few other goodies such as bug fixes were made as well as a new network manager that has added support for more than 100 new 3G cards.
Current Jolicloud users will be able to update to the Pre-Final release by a simply “Update All” in their My Jolicoud account, and new users will be able to download and install the latest version.
Read [Jolicoud] and [Jolicloud] Via [Twitter @jolicloud] and [Twitter @jolicloud]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily
Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst today launched coverage of both Palm (PALM) and Research in Motion (RIMM).
Read the rest of this post on the original site
iPad owners will receive one major OS upgrade for free, but subsequent OS upgrades will cost a fee, according to documentation posted by Apple.
Apple on Monday began seeding the Golden Master version of its iPhone OS 3.2 software development kit to developers, which will be the version of the OS that ships on the iPad, according to MacRumors’ Arnold Kim. Apple also posted the iPad licensing agreement to its server. A clause in the agreement reveals that iPad customers will get a free download of the major OS following the one that shipped with the product, and after that, subsequent major OS upgrades will come at a cost:
Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free. For example, if your iPad originally shipped with iPad 3.x software, Apple would provide you with any iPad OS software updates it might release up to and including the iPad 4.x software release. Such updates and releases may not necessarily include all of the new software features that Apple releases for newer iPad models.
That implies that for first-generation iPad customers, iPhone OS 4.0 will be a free download, but versions that follow — 5.0, 6.0 and so on, will cost a fee.
The iPad’s upgrade policy would fall in the middle of the upgrade policies for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. iPod Touch owners had to pay a $10 fee when they upgraded to iPhone OS 2.0 and iPhone OS 3.0. iPhone customers, however, receive OS upgrades for free. Apple has cited legal accounting requirements when explaining the reasoning behind the iPod Touch’s policy.
iPad Documentation File [.ipd]
Updated 1 p.m. PT to correct a misinterpretation of the policy. Wired.com regrets the error.
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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
The Palm Pre Plus has reached the low, low price of free. Albeit if for just a limited time. The offer of a free Palm Pre Plus is currently available by way of Walmart Wireless and is set to expire as of March 31. Which basically means you have today and tomorrow before the price will go back up to normal. And yes, this price does require the mandatory two year agreement.
Otherwise, the two other online wireless retailers that I have been checking almost daily—Wirefly and Amazon still have the Pre Plus priced at $39.99 and $29.99 respectively.
Product [Walmart Wireless]
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Just as the iPad is about to hit stores, the tech community is already buzzing with excitement about Apple’s next big release: the fourth-generation iPhone, rumored for a summer announcement.
In the illustration above, Graham Bower of MacPredictions.com has already produced a mockup of an imaginary fourth-generation iPhone with changes he’d like to see in the next upgrade. His illustration portrays an iPhone with a front-face camera and an aluminum unibody enclosure matching the aesthetic of Apple’s MacBook Pros and upcoming iPad.
Perhaps Apple’s next iPhone could look something like Bower’s illustration. The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported that Apple was preparing to release a new iPhone this summer (which we’ve all come to expect, since Apple has released each of its iPhones in summers of years past).
In response to WSJ’s report, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, who has accurately leaked some Apple rumors in the past, listed features he’s heard will appear in the next iPhone: an A4-family CPU system-on-a-chip, a 960-by-640 resolution display, a second front-facing camera and third-party multitasking in iPhone OS 4.
Via Cult of Mac
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Section: Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile
Playing 3rd string, BlackBerry now has a LinkedIn app, right behind the iPhone and Palm’s webOS. No more do BlackBerry users need to rely on the mobile site, the app will allow users to access messages and all the social networking fun that LinkedIn provides. The App is available now.
“With the addition of the application for BlackBerry to our broader suite of mobile applications, LinkedIn is available to more business people than any other professional network in the world,” said Adam Nash, vice president of search and platform products, LinkedIn. “This is an important step in our strategy to deliver business productivity tools to our members wherever their work takes them.”
The app requires BlackBerry 4.3 or above but adds full integration with native BlackBerry apps requires 4.6 or higher. That translates to availability on the Bold, Tour and Curve series of smartphones. The app is free.
Read: [LinkedIn Blog]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
If you’re planning on buying an iPad when it goes on sale this Saturday, you have some deciding to do. Unlike the iPhone, there are six different versions of the iPad, ranging in price from $500 to $830.
The three models shipping this weekend are Wi-Fi only, while another three — shipping late April — include both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.
Your first decision is between those two fundamental differences: Wi-Fi only, or 3G plus Wi-Fi? After you decide which route to take, from there you need to pick a storage capacity: 16 GB, 32 GB or 64 GB.
For a lot of us, the decision is complicated by the fact that we already own an iPhone or iPod Touch — or another smartphone, for that matter.
So let’s break it down for you.
Let’s face it: in its current state, the iPad is primarily a device you’ll use to veg out on your couch for watching movies, listening to music and playing games.
A lot of these media-consumption activities are going to work just fine offline, so even in places where you’re without Wi-Fi, you shouldn’t feel completely deprived.
For the majority of users, Wi-Fi will probably be sufficient, assuming you have a wireless network set up in your home. (Even AT&T seems to believe that the iPad is mostly going to be a Wi-Fi-driven device.)
But nonetheless there’s a strong argument for choosing one of the 3G-equipped models. If you travel often, you’ll inevitably find yourself in a hotel lobby or restaurant that doesn’t have Wi-Fi, and at that point the lack of 3G could be irritating.
Also, if you commute for work, you’ll probably enjoy a 3G connection for those times when you’re on the train or bus — assuming you can get a signal from AT&T in those spots. On top of that, the 3G model of the iPad includes GPS, while the Wi-Fi-only version does not, making it a more capable traveling device.
3G will cost you more, of course. Each 3G model costs $130 more than the corresponding Wi-Fi counterpart with the same storage.
What makes the 3G option especially intriguing for the iPad is there’s no contract. It’s all month-to-month, and you only buy a plan when you need one: $15 a month for 250 MB or $30 a month for unlimited data. During the months when you’re not traveling, you can simply turn the 3G service off.
In short, if you’re a very mobile person, the 3G model probably suits you best. If you’re a homebody, you’ll be happy with the Wi-Fi version.
If you take the Wi-Fi route, you’re probably going to be using the iPad mostly in your living room for consuming media such as movies, music and graphic-intensive games — all of which will be stored on the iPad’s flash drive. For that reason, larger storage should be more important for Wi-Fi only customers. We’d recommend either going with the 32-GB or 64-GB model for Wi-Fi-only models, as you’ll fill up 16 gigs pretty fast.
If you go with 3G, you’ll have the flexibility of accessing your digital life through the cloud in addition to the iPad drive itself anywhere you go. So for the 3G route, storage is a bit less important. If you don’t have a lot of music or movies, a 16-GB model with cloud-based apps, such as Dropbox or Pandora, could very well suffice.
(One could argue that you can access your data through the cloud with a Wi-Fi-only device as well, but we’d say it’s inconvenient to live in the cloud without a constant internet connection.)
With all that said, we strongly favor the 32-GB model for 3G, because its feature set strikes a chord for those with a healthy balance of work and play.
We’d argue that the 64-GB iPad 3G is a bit too expensive ($830) and impractical. The 64-GB iPad 3G model is best designed for media-obsessed workaholics — a pretty small group of users.
If you already have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, a good question to ask is whether an iPad will fit in to your life at all. The truth is the iPad is so new that it hasn’t proven to become a necessity for anyone, and if you’re using an iPhone, you might find it fulfills most of a tablet’s potential functions already.
Also unknown is the degree to which the iPad will play nicely with your iPhone — in particular, whether it’ll be possible to tether the iPhone to the iPad, which would eliminate the need to spend more money on a 3G model and its associated monthly fees.
Steve Jobs said in an e-mail to a customer that tethering an iPhone to an iPad would not be doable, but we doubt that’s completely true, if you’re willing to take a few risks. There’s a good chance the iPad will be jailbroken (i.e., hacked) as soon as it’s released, so a tethering workaround seems probable — though be aware that jailbreaking can void your warranty.
If you own an iPhone, our advice would be to wait a few weeks to see if a tethering solution emerges before deciding between the 3G or Wi-Fi model.
And if you own an iPod Touch, which was cleverly touted by Jobs as an “iPhone with training wheels,” then the iPad 3G is a good opportunity to graduate to the cloud. The best part is that you won’t need to commit to a hefty monthly contract like you would with an iPhone, so an iPad 3G is all the more appealing.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
As smartphones like the iPhone and Android take over the mobile Web, the amount of data traffic going over cellular networks is expected to grow 40-fold over the next five years. UK firm Coda Research Consultancy forecasts that in the U.S. alone mobile handset data traffic will grow from 8 terabytes/month this year to 327 terabytes/month in 2015. That amounts to a 117 percent compound annual growth rate.
A lot of that data will come in the form of mobile Web browsing, with the biggest contributor expected to be mobile video. By 2015, mobile video will account for 68.5 percent of all mobile data usage in the U.S. (or 224 terabytes/month). Coda estimates that 95 million mobile handset subscribers in the U.S. will be watching video on their phones in five years out of a total of 158 million mobile internet users.
I hadn’t realized it until just this second, but it’s been way, way too long since we’ve seen a monstrous carrier leak. I suppose after the heavily-detailed data dumps from the likes of AT&T and T-Mobile in 2009, the carriers have been tightening their grip. Fortunately, that hasn’t kept what looks to be the majority of Cricket’s 2010 product line up from leaking out.
The juiciest bit of info in the leaked slide deck (which, by the way, was obtained by those lovely gentlemen over at PhoneArena) is easily the pricing/launch target details for the Android-powered Kyocera Zio, which we first heard about at CTIA.
What’s in the leaked deck:
So, what do you think of Cricket’s 2010 line-up? Let us know below.
Man, it’s a big day for ol’ Red when it comes to software updates. All signs are indicating that the near-mythical Android 2.1 update for the Droid is beginning to trickle out right this second, and now they’ve announced that the BlackBerry Tour 9630 is getting bumped up to OS 5.0.
It doesn’t look like there’s going to be any OTA update route, as Verizon is suggesting that everyone heads to the Tour support page to get the upgrade juices flowin’.
So what’s new? Here’s everything Verizon thought worth mentioning:
Camera − Smoother operation in both camera and video applications.
Calling
− Improved Bluetooth® functionality for last number dialed.
− Enhanced functionality for Voice Activated Dialing in both French
and English.
− Improved missed call log now shows missed Call Waiting calls.
− Upgraded Call Waiting caller ID and call timer.
Messaging
− Improved functionality for reading, sending, forwarding, and
deleting SMS messages.
− Corrected in-box display when device is used with a holster.
Media
− Better video streaming functionality.
− Enhanced display for MMS messages containing both video
and text.
− Improved multitasking ability while streaming and downloading
videos from www.youtube.com.
Basic operations
− Improved operation during charging.
− Simplified key-lock functionality. A password is no longer needed
unless a security timeout has occurred.
− Improved GPS connectivity when using third-party
mapping applications.
− Push to Talk–capable.
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
People say. Perhaps a gaggle of people. Perhaps three? I am not sure how many persons it takes to make “people” but the Wall Street Journal says “people” have told them there will be a Verizon iPhone this time. Yes, yes, we’ve heard this all before. The Journal also included an odd quote.
“There has been lots of incorrect speculation on CDMA iPhones for a long time. We haven’t seen one yet and only Apple knows when that might occur.”—From an AT&T spokesperson.
Um, I am no lawyer but if you have an exclusive agreement with Apple that says only you get sell the iPhone wouldn’t you have an inkling of when Apple is going to make a CDMA version? I mean, AT&T has a hand in when that will happen and to pretend Apple is calling all the shots is silly. It takes two to tango.
What if AT&T has decided to end the exclusivity to help stem consumer backlash from network problems in big markets? Perhaps AT&T bigwhigs said, “enough is enough, this gadget is wreaking havoc on our network and we’re making someone else rich to do that?” Only if AT&T had already ended the exclusive arrangement would Apple have complete control on when they might build a Verizon version. Has that happened?
“One person familiar with the situation said Pegatron (who purportedly is supposed to be supplying the CDMA version) is scheduled to start mass producing CDMA iPhones in September. Other people said, however, that the schedule could change and the phone may not be available to consumers immediately after production begins.”
That’s pretty questionable. Apple has been very pleased with its simple release structure, getting phones ready for the complete holiday season and focusing on iPods for the holidays release. It would be surprising for AT&T to end it’s exclusivity right before the holidays and not tie it to the original launch date.
Sadly again, a Verizon iPhone is totally questionable. Interestingly, I just spoke with someone yesterday who was lamenting to me that their Verizon Droid Eris just isn’t on par with the iPhone. I told her, in iPhone rumors, hope springs eternal.
Read: [Wall Street Journal]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Hey you! The one holding your breath until the Verizon Droid gets Android 2.1! Exhale. Inhale.
After a surprise delay of about two weeks, it looks like Android 2.1 is finally hitting the Motorola Droid today.
Those crazy cats over at Engadget have got their mittens all up on an internal e-mail which says pretty flat out that the update roll-out will begin today. 1,000 people should be getting it right around now, with 9,000 more getting it by the time the night is over. As long as frogs don’t start falling from the sky and dogs don’t start wearing shoes as a result of this update, Verizon will kick it out to everyone else by Thursday night.
Of course, there will probably be a manual update method available for all the anxious folks within the next few hours.
Section: Web, Online Music/Video
Spotify, the popular European music streaming service has taken what seems like an eternity to get to the United States. For those unaware, Spotify is a freemium music streaming service with a design that makes it seem more like iTunes than Pandora or Slacker. The service is ad supported, with the ads being taken out for 10 pounds a month, and has music from all major labels. The service, however, has been available only a select European countries since it was released.
According to a recent Bloomberg report, however, we could see Spotify in the states by the third quarter of 2010. The company is currently buying up servers and looking into licensing deals with American ISPs and cell phone networks. Along with the US release, Spotify is looking into expanding its smartphone app offerings. Currently the company has apps on Android, Symbian and iPhone devices. In the works are apps for BlackBerry and “Palm Inc., smartphones” which presumably means WebOS.
Spotify coming to the US is certainly a big deal, something that many have been waiting for since the launch of the service in October 2008. Of course, there is always the chance the release could be pushed back, though “third quarter” seems to be a decently large window for launch. It has the potential to help curb piracy in the US, as long as users are willing to sit through ads every few songs. That is, of course, assuming we can get the same freemium deal our friends overseas have. Even if we don’t get it, Spotify seems like a service that would be worth paying about $10 a month, or possibly even closer to $15 given the exchange rates.
Read [Bloomberg] Via [Download Squad]
Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Apple has finally made its $29 iPad camera connection kit available fro pre-order. The kit consists of two little plastic dongles which hook into the iPad’s dock port. On has an SD card reader on the other end, the other has a plain old USB port for plugging the camera in direct.
If you order it now, you won’t get it until the end of April. You may also be a little upset by the price. But some of you may remember another, very similar little dongle Apple made way back in 2005: The iPod Camera Connector. This device, almost identical to the new USB version, cost $29 on its own. Adjusted for inflation, that comes to $31.59, which makes it over double the price (you get two widgets in the new kit).
Will the old dongle work with the new iPad? We won’t know until somebody who still has an old one lying around tries it out, but we’d guess that this is simply the same product relaunched. Finally, a word of advice: If you shoot RAW photographs, you may not want to order this kit just yet. The iPad supports the RAW format, but until Apple publishes a list of supported RAW cameras, you’d better just wait.
iPad Camera Connection Kit [Apple]
FROM GAMERTELL - The freebie weekend will allow DirecTV subscribed to try the otherwise subscription-based Game Lounge in its entirety…
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According to UK milk-merchant Cravendale, over 300,000 tonnes (364,000 tons) of milk are tossed out every year because people cannot tell whether it is sour or not. A new milk jug tests the white stuff for you and gives a readout on its LCD display: “fresh” or “sour”.
The jug is simple. As milk sours, it becomes more acidic. A sensor in the bottom of the jug detects the drop in pH and sounds the alarm. This gives people a reliable measure of the milk’s freshness, and will supposedly stop so much milk being poured down the sink every year. The blog post, from Cravendale’s site, is thinly veiled publicity, but offers some interesting tidbits about milk. For instance, Cravendale’s own brand is filtered as well as pasteurized for a truly mind-boggling 21 days of (unopened) freshness.
Then again, milk is scary stuff anyway. If you’re happy to drink the fatty white liquid secreted by lactating mammals, then you’ll probably be happy to suck down anything. Seriously, if God had meant us to drink milk, he wouldn’t have invented cheese. For those still stuck at the cow’s udder, though, this resource-saving jug is just the thing.
Revealed: A Magic Milk Jug [Cravendale via Oh Gizmo!]
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Section: Web, Web Apps, Websites, Google
Google Talk already supports file transfers in its downloadable desktop app, and it will soon be available to other instant messaging pipelines. Today updated chat in iGoogle and orkut chat to support file transfer between users. Clicking the “Actions” menu and then selecting “Send a file” will make it possible to share files with a friend without requiring any additional download.
In the blog post announcing this new feature, Google also revealed that this feature will soon be supported in Gmail chat. As someone who uses Gtalk mainly through the downloadable app, I don’t have much use for this feature; however, I know that a number of people mainly use Gtalk through their Gmail account in the browser, so this is something many people will definitely keep an eye on. Let’s hope Gmail support comes soon.
Read [Official Google Blog]
Full Story » | Written by Andrew Kameka for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Whereas Sharp decided to cautiously embrace Android, Toshiba still seems to be firmly in the Windows camp. After releasing the “iPhone killer TG01” on WinMo 6.5 last year, the company announced another Windows Mobile-based cell phone in Japan today (Toshiba is one of Microsoft’s official “Mobile Partners”, after all).
Toshiba’s K01 will be marketed as the ISO02 in Japan [JP] and is a Windows 6.5.3 phone, to be more exact.
These are the main features:
The K01 was showcased earlier this year at the Mobile World Congress, cleared the FCC yesterday and is announced in Japan for June. We’ve listed up early features as early as one year ago.
This monstrosity, owned by bike collector Richard Loncraine, is a modern take on the penny-farthing bike (or P-Far, as the Bike Snob would call it). The bike looks to be very well made, but also rather unstable: your legs go between the handlebars, which have a very long and awkward-looking stem, and your weight is directly over the rear wheel – no wheelies here.
The bike, built on a modified track frame (check the track-ends on the rear) is also a fixed-gear (at least we hope so, as there are no brakes on it) and has no toe-clips on the pedals. Even with such a low gear-ratio this thing would be hard to stop without just putting your feet down, Fred Flintstone-style.
I’d like to take it for a spin, though (away from busy roads). And if it is actually stable enough to ride, it also has the advantage of being the size of an already-folded folding bike.
P-Far [Tokyo Fixed Gear/Flickr via Bike Hugger]
Photo: Tokyo Fixed Gear/Flickr
FROM GAMERTELL - Nvidia’s new graphics processors will be available in mid-April 2010 and custom computer builder Maingear has announced the ways its computers will improve with the new tech…
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A lot of people will be buying the iPad keyboard dock to make it easier to write long pieces on the device. But what if you already have a Bluetooth keyboard that’ll work just fine with the iPad? You could buy the standalone dock, we guess. You could prop the iPad inelegantly up against a pile of old-fashioned books (you won’t be needing them now you have the “magical” iPad, right?). Or you could drop some dollars on the BookArc for iPad.
The BookArc is from TwelveSouth, which also makes an arc for the MacBook. The BookArc is made from a swooping sheet of aluminum and is lined with silicone for a snug and scratch-free fit. It has one big advantage over the Apple docks: you can use it in vertical or horizontal orientations, although if you decide to plug it in you’ll have a cable snaking around. There is also a cut-out for the home-button, but if, as we expect, the escape key is mapped to the home button, then it won’t be needed.
The BookArc for iPad still has no launch date or price, but as a guide, the larger MacBook version is $50.
TwelveSouth previews BookArc for iPad [iLounge]
There's just one Android phone currently available in Japan, one of the biggest mobile markets in the world. But the HTC Magic, which Japan's biggest telco, NTT Docomo, started distributing last summer, will soon be joined by the Sharp IS01 [JP] - which is not really a "smartphone", but rather being marketed as an MID or "smartbook" instead.
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