Free TV on the iPad: Lots of "Lost", But No CSI, Simpsons or 30 Rock [MediaMemo]

Want to watch free TV shows on your iPad? Hope you like ABC’s programs.

The network is the only one of the four broadcasters that’s putting much programing on Apple’s device at launch on Saturday.  As previously reported, the Disney (DIS) unit is offering about 20 of its shows, like “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy”, for free via a new app.

But that’s about it. Come Saturday, CBS will only be streaming full episodes of “Survivor” at its iPad-friendly site. And News Corp.’s Fox (NWS) and GE’s NBC (GE) aren’t streaming any full-length shows at all. If you want to watch CSI, the Simpsons or 30 Rock on your Web browser this weekend, you’ll need to use something other than an iPad.

CBS says it will offer more shows over time, but NBC and Fox aren’t even promising that. When the Hulu app arrives, those two networks’ shows will be available there — but under current plans, they’ll only be available to paying subscribers.

The holdouts’ logic is that the iPad is a mobile device. And while the networks are basically ok with streaming their stuff for free on the Web, they think that mobile is a different ballgame, and one they can charge for.

But if that’s the reasoning, why is ABC — which joined up with Hulu a year ago — putting up its stuff for free on the iPad? The fact that Apple (AAPL) boss Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest single shareholder can’t be the only reason.

ABC may be able to thread the needle here because it is only making its shows available via wifi streaming, not over AT&T’s (T) network. But that kind of “windowing” is going to seem awfully arbitrary to most causal users, and those are the ones both Apple and the networks are supposed to be targeting here. So something’s going to have to give. Stay tuned.

Source: All Things Digital | 2 Apr 2010 | 4:00 am

You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz (InfoWorld)

InfoWorld - For citizens of the Internet, April Fools Day is like Christmas and Mardi Gras rolled into one -- and this year's batch of hoaxes did not disappoint. But there was also some real news this week, most (but not all) of it about the impending arrival of Apple's iPad. Are you clued in enough to tell the real news from the fake? Prove it by acing our quiz. Give yourself 10 points for each correct answer. No foolin'. Now begin.
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 2 Apr 2010 | 4:00 am

Hands on with the iPad: First impressions - BusinessWeek

The Hindu

Hands on with the iPad: First impressions BusinessWeek Macworld took possession of an iPad Thursday morning, and for the last few hours we've been poring over it, taking photos and screen shots, trying out accessories, and tapping through every app on the device. ... Box.net for iPad Solves File-Transfer TroublesWired News Doing the iPad Math: Utility + Price + DesireNew York Times Must-Have iPad Apps for Business ProfessionalsPC World VentureBeat -Washington Post -Tuscaloosa News all 2,212 news articles »

Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:20 am

Box.net for iPad Solves File-Transfer Troubles

Online storage and backup services like Dropbox and Box.net are about to get a whole lot more useful with the advent of the iPad. These services mirror directories on your computer, putting a copy in the “cloud”. This is great as a safe, offline backup for your data. It also means that you can access it from anywhere.

One of the big questions about the iPad is how we will get our files on and off. The official way is to drag files into iTunes, where apps capable of handling files will have a special storage area. Another way is email: send a file to yourself and tap on the attachment in mail. A list of apps that can open the file will pop up.

Or you could use something like Box.net’s new iPad app. The free app (Box.net subscription required) connects to your online document repository and lets you browse and preview the files right in the app. The two-pane, Mail-like interface gives a list of files on the left and the preview on the right. Box.net is really aimed at collaboration between teams, and you can edit and comment on each other’s files (with permission). But as the free version of the service gives you a gig of storage and the iPad and iPhone apps are also free, it might be worth signing up just for the easy transfer of files.

We imagine that there will be plenty of solutions like this, and hopefully Box.net will add an “open with” command, too. This would really make the app useful, like Windows Explorer or the Finder.

Box.net for iPad [iTunes via Macworld]

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:16 am

Microsoft Fuzzing Botnet Finds 1,800 Office Bugs

CWmike writes "Microsoft uncovered more than 1,800 bugs in Office 2010 by tapping into the unused computing horsepower of idling PCs, a company security engineer said on Wednesday. Office developers found the bugs by running millions of 'fuzzing' tests, a practice employed by both software developers and security researchers, that searches for flaws by inserting data into file format parsers to see where programs fail by crashing. 'We found and fixed about 1,800 bugs in Office 2010's code," said Tom Gallagher, senior security test lead with Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing group, who last week co-hosted a presentation on Microsoft's fuzzing efforts at the CanSecWest security conference. 'While a large number, it's important to note that that doesn't mean we found 1,800 security issues. We also want to fix things that are not security concerns.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Source: Slashdot | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:09 am

For the Nintendo 3DS? Sharp’s unveils glasses-free 3D touchscreen

Glasses-free 3D displays for mobile devices are nothing new. Hitachi, for example, started selling a 3D-enabled handset [JP] in Japan as early as last year. The Hitachi product didn’t make much of a splash, but Sharp’s new parallax barrier-based 3D display for mobile devices (which the company announced today) appears to be pretty cool.

The panel Sharp showcased at a press conference in Tokyo for the first time is extremely thin, can switch between regular 2-D and 3-D modes, doesn’t require glasses for viewing images in 3D, and will be available with or without touchscreen capabilities. It features a screen size of 3.4 inches, 480 x 854 resolution, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1, and 500 cd/m2 brightness (Sharp claims the image quality is the best in the industry).

Here’s how the 3D effect works (from the press release):

This parallax barrier, which has a series of vertical slits, is incorporated into an ordinary LCD to control the path of light reaching the right and left eyes, thus creating a sense of depth.

Sharp says their screens will be used for cameras and cell phones, but there is a chance the upcoming Nintendo 3DS will have them, too. This is pure speculation, of course, but Sharp has been providing LCD displays for the Nintendo DS since 2004 (Hitachi joined one year later) – so there is a close relationship between both companies.

Sharp plans to sell both types of the 3D display (touchscreen and conventional) from the first half of fiscal 2010.

Source: CrunchGear | 2 Apr 2010 | 3:01 am

Sharp shows 3-D displays for mobile devices (AP)

AP - Sharp's latest 3-D displays deliver bright, clear imagery without the cumbersome glasses usually required for such technology. Now the bad news: They only work on a 3-inch (7.5-centimeter) screen held one foot (30 centimeters) from the viewer's face.

Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 2 Apr 2010 | 2:58 am

Finally, One Place Joojoo Beats the iPad

Josh Topolsky, head of the Engadget blogging machine, has gotten his hands on the JooJoo tablet for an un-boxing and first hands-on. The machine itself looks to be as clunky and doomed as we expected (flipping from portrait to landscape mode with the accelerometer results in a jarring, non-animated transition, for example), but the $500 tablet has one rather fetching aspect: the box.

One of the aspects of Apple’s products that is usually better than the competition is the packaging. In recent years it has become minimal but still thoughtful, but in the days of the original iPod it was jaw-dropping gorgeous, with each element, down to the earbud sponges, encased in sci-fi silvery plastic envelopes. JooJoo, the tablet that sold just 90 pre-orders, manages to out-Apple Apple.

The simple white cardboard box has some rather striking typography, similar to Helvetica but with a modified “j” (if you know what this font is, let us know in the comments). The whole thing comes over as very classy. As iPhone developer Neven Morgan points out, it looks a lot like the old packaging for Ilford photo paper.

Still, we doubt a fancy box will save the JooJoo from obscurity, but at least those of you who do buy one just for its historical value will have something pretty to keep on the shelf.

JooJoo Unboxing [Engadget]

Inexplicably, the joojoo box looks pretty sharp [Neven Mrgan’s Tumbl]

Photo: Engadget

Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 2 Apr 2010 | 2:46 am

US reviewers rave over Apple iPad

Verizon cuts Palm Pre, Pixi Plus prices (AP)

AP - Verizon Wireless is cutting the prices for Palm's Pre Plus and Pixi Plus smart phones and offering free access to a Wi-Fi service that lets the phones deliver Internet access to other kinds of devices — such as Apple's iPad.

The Elements for iPad: Hands-on review

My initial hands-on review of the iPad for Boing Boing mentioned The Elements, one of a handful of apps built specifically for iPad available for review prior to Saturday's public launch. After spending some quality time with the app, I can say The Elements is my favorite at this very early stage. We've covered previous iterations of Theodore Gray's gorgeous periodic table series before -- books, posters, puzzles, but it's as if all of that was a sketch, and this app the real intended execution of his project. The Elements transforms a familiar scientific reference into a dazzling, living book that delights the eye and tickles the neurons. It really does hint at the possibilities promised by Apple for iPad: a device that makes it possible to merge book, game, entertainment, reference app, internet search, and who knows what else in a new and pleasingly hands-on way.

After the jump, many more screengrabs, and a video of the device playing Tom Lehrer's Elements Song, an awesome little geek easter egg accessible from within the Elements for iPad.

Video links (Boing Boing Video / YouTube):

The Elements for iPad: The Elements Song

iPad: The Elements, a first look from Boing Boing

The app will sell for $13.99, and was developed for Touchpress by John Cromie of Skylark Associates in Ireland, with some coding also by Gray. Nick Mann, who took most of the rotation photographs, using Canon cameras and lenses (Gray says they shot so many stills in the course of developing the project's image base, more than a quarter million, they wore out several sets of shutters).

The basic idea is this: view the entire periodic table on launch. Select an element, see some data, and a "movie" of a representation of that element. Advance to a second page, and see touch-spinnable icons of more real-world representations of that element. Select one of those, and you get a detail view which can also be presented in 3D, viewable with glasses sold separately (at $4.95). Each element's detail view allows you to connect to Wolfram Alpha for live data: for instance, look up the current price of gold, or scan the thermodynamic properties of antimony. The connection speed on that feature feels a little pokey in this early edition.

The app was developed in great haste, without much lead time provided by Apple. Given the speed involved in development, the end result really is impressive: stable, fast, and a joy to meander around in. Gray imagines other forms of interaction with elements for future editions, but there's plenty to work with even in version 1.0.1.

The Elements for iPad: Hands-on review

Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review

Video and screengrabs in this post: a first hands-on experience of the free Marvel Comics app for iPad, produced with Comixology (who produced a popular iPhone app). Word is that more than 500 titles will be available through the application at time of launch on Saturday. The pre-launch copy of the application I'm testing shows many titles offered at $1.99, and a number of selections also available for free. All the Marvel classics are here: Avengers, X-Men, Hulk, Spider Man, IronMan, Captain America, and a number of newer titles. User interface details of note: the ability to finger-flip through, page by page; scrollable bar of thumbs for all pages at the bottom of the page view, so you can skip ahead easily; double-click to zoom into an individual frame and finger-flip forward to advance frame by frame instead of page by page.

First impression: I like it. Scrolling is intuitive, brisk, and elegant. I'm amazed at how smooth. The store interface makes sense to anyone familiar with iTunes and App store. Flipping and reading, one luminous full-color page at a time, I do not miss paper. When zooming deeper into single frames, to scroll frame-by-frame, transitions (with "animated" option selected) feel almost cinematic— but sometimes zoomed-in art is not as crisp and high-res as I'd like (it varies by title). Unless I'm missing something, no way to view two pages at a time, as you might with a paper comic. I didn't miss that detail, but others might. And some comics were designed and drawn by the artist with that view option in mind. I'll be interested to see how the app and the content available for it evolve.

Video walkthrough link. (YouTube / Boing Boing Video)

More screenshots taken from a review unit in hand, after the jump, with page-by-page browsing from an Iron Man title written by Warren Ellis.

Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review

Taiwan's HTC says Apple suit not affecting operations (Reuters)

Video: If you don’t laugh at this, you might want to go get checked

There is absolutely nothing that needs to be said about this video. Oh, except for this: wear headphones. Don’t want to wake the baby.

[via Reddit]

Reviews praise Apple iPad battery life, ease of use (Reuters)

Reuters - Apple Inc's iPad scored well on battery life and ease of use in its first reviews, but it will not obliterate the laptop computer market yet, according to The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

Set Your Mouse Upon A Mat Crafted From Solid Steel

The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again? [Voices]

By Stephen Fry, Contributor, Time Magazine

It is a gorgeous spring day when I arrive at the coolest address in the universe: 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, Calif., where Apple (AAPL) has been headquartered since 1993. The campus, for such they call it, is enormous yet not big enough to contain Apple’s current rate of expansion. An additional site is being designed and built.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

The Cell Phone Bill of Rights [Voices]

By Farhad Manjoo, Technology Columnist, Slate.com

I’ve been thinking a lot about terrible cell phone service lately. That’s partly because I live in San Francisco and own an iPhone—which means that my phone is always conking out at some inopportune time. It’s also been on my mind because I’m participating in a forum this week, hosted by Slate and the New America Foundation, looking at our nation’s awful mobile service.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

A New First In Mobile: Data Traffic Outstripped Voice Traffic Last Year [Voices]

By Tricia Duryee, Contributor, Moconews

Mobile data has been growing at a fast clip since the iPhone went on sale almost three years ago. But with the introduction of many more data-focused devices, the industry continues to break records.

In a report released today, telecom consultant Chetan Sharma tallied up the financial statements of carriers from around the world to get a comprehensive look exactly what happened last year.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Anonymity brings out the worst instincts [Voices]

By Leonard Pitts Jr., Columnist, Miami Herald

It must have seemed like a great idea at the time.

There was this new medium, the Internet, and newspapers were posting stories on it, and someone decided to create a forum where readers could discuss and debate what they just read. It must have seemed an inspiration kissed by the spirit of Jefferson: a free public space where each of us could have his or her say.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Is Digital Media Worse for the Environment Than Print? [Voices]

By Don Carli, Contributor, Mediashift

Public opinion polls show that concern about the environment rises and falls based on the state of the economy and other factors, but concern about the negative impacts associated with using paper and printing continues to rise. Nothing captures the essence of these feelings more vividly than the signature line appearing at the foot of more and more emails: “Please consider the environment before printing this email.”

This seemingly well-intentioned call to action, as well as others like “Sign up for paperless billing, help the environment and save trees” confront consumers with a false dilemma and present a forced choice that may have unintended consequences.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Verizon Offers Deals to Move Palm Phones [Voices]

By Roger Cheng, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

Verizon Wireless (VZ) must be getting desperate to move those Palm (PALM) smart phones.

The wireless carrier has cut the price of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, on top of an existing buy one, get one free promotion.

But wait, there’s more. Purchasing a phone means getting free access to the mobile hotspot feature, which normally would cost $40 on top of your normal smart phone bill.

Basically, it means you have a free wireless modem that can generate a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot and connect five other devices to the Internet. The hotspot has a limit of 5 gigabytes per month, but that’s plenty if you’re casually surfing the Web when you’re on the road. You get the free feature for as long as you keep your phone and plan.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Cellphone fines, a new evenue stream to cities and counties

Time lapse of Mark Ryden's Incarnation painting

Time lapse of Mark Ryden's Incarnation painting

I'm interested in finding out the different ways people create art, and this four-minute time lapse of Mark Ryden painting Incarnation is fascinating.


Source: Boing Boing | 2 Apr 2010 | 12:25 am

Apple's iPad is a touch of genius

Remember The Periodic Table of Elements series of books we featured here at Boing Boing? There's an iPad version ($13.99 in the app store, screenshots here), and it's dazzling — it makes science feel like magic in your hands. I called the guy behind The Elements, Theo Gray, and asked him to put into words the UI magic that iPad makes possible for creators of books, games, news, and productivity tools.

"The Elements on iPad is not a game, not an app, not a TV show. It's a book. But it's Harry Potter's book. This is the version you check out from the Hogwarts library. Everything in it is alive in some way."

Indeed, the elements in this periodic table seem very much alive. The obvious way to examine static objects — say, a lump of gold (number 79) or an ingot of cast antimony (number 51) is to rotate them, to spin the specimen with your fingertips. And that's exactly what you do here. You can view them in 3D if you wish, with 3D glasses you buy separately online. Tap here, and live data from Wolfram Alpha pops up (the thermodynamic properties of molybednum, perhaps, or the current price of platinum). Some elements are presented with little video clips you can play, too.

When you get a chance, compare it to the tiny screen of an iPhone or Droid, or the less responsive touchscreens of an all-in-one desktop PC such as HP's TouchSmart: it's a completely different experience.

"A stereo 3D video of a static object that you can rotate in real time," Theo says over the phone. "Honestly, I'm not sure where you go from there. Smellovision? Not a whole lot more you can do."

The Elements presentation for iPad (those spinning samples of elements you twirl with your fingertip) makes use of openGL textures, compressing visual data in a way that can be compressed in the graphics chip, so the data can be read without hogging CPU resources. By making use of hardware native to iPad, you can can "play" a spin forwards and backwards with no hiccups or performance lags -- even spin 3, 4, 5, 10 views of an element at a time. This ain't Flash video over WiFi, folks. You'll feel sad going back to chokey http embeds.

Each app for iPad can't be more than 2 gigs in compressed archive form (a limitation imposed by the zip compression standard at work here, not something of Apple's own design). Data-dense applications like The Elements buck right up against that limit, but future iterations (this and others that go live Saturday were developed with great haste) will likely take advantage of the ability to do background downloading to supplement data.

Tapping and swirling my way through iBooks (the store includes free, public domain titles in addition to the $9.99-$12.99 bestsellers), and iPad native apps provided at launch such as the spectacular, game-changing Marvel Comics app (crisp, lucid art, the ability to navigate frame-by-frame, rendering spoilers down the page obsolete), the Epicurious recipe browser, and the news browsing app by Reuters (free app in which video is, again, a seamless delight), the idea hits. This is what we wanted e-books to be all along. Rich, nimble, and dense with image and sound and navigability, right there inside the flow of the story. And this is what we wanted the web to feel like all along. We just want it to work, and we don't want to be aware of the delivery method while we're enjoying what's delivered.

Theo's been thinking about all of this, too. "The Kindle is a great device, and I own several," Theo says. "But the concept of an e-book has always been that it's like PDF. Imagine if the web standard was PDF instead of html, if everyone's web pages consisted of what you can do in PDF? That would be a really boring world. I hate to see ebooks as being pigeonholed as these static, PDFlike things, in which the biggest 'a-ha' you can have is an exciting pageturning animation, or search. What could an ebook be? Let's draw a line in the sand out in the future and say, this is the greatest aspiration, if the limitations of code and hardware were no object."

Draw that imaginary line in the sand, and you've sketched out iPad.

Manic, nonstop use revealed a number of things: battery life is better than I anticipated. I got a full day of constant internet-connected use (it did not leave my hands) on one charge. More than 12 hours, with heavy video and gaming, and screen cranked up to full brightness.

Orientation lock is great for when I'm sharing YouTube clips on the couch with family, or web browsing in bed. It fits well in my lap for tweeting when eating during lunch break, and it's easy to wipe off a stray mayo glop and get right back to updating the world on the details of my sandwich (using Twitterific for iPad, a free app which does what it promises on the tin). When we began developing the Boing Boing iPad presentation, we used a simulator and tapped into a lot of jQuery, thinking that snazzy transitional animations would delight. They didn't: it worked great on the Mac simulator, but were sluggish on iPad, so we aborted and went simple. When you're redesigning a site for iPad, you start to think in terms of a visually rich 'zine, not a website. Given Boing Boing's 'zine roots (25 years and counting since the first Xeroxed copy), the close of that evolutionary circle is something that makes me smile.

Familiar Mac fundamentals like Calendar, Keynote, Pages, and Numbers are presented thoughtfully with the kinetic and tactile specifics of iPad in mind. Pinch-zoom the preview image for a photo album you've saved, and watch the contents scatter out accross the screen, so you can be reminded of the shots you've stored inside.

Gaming possibilities are profound. Accelerometer-driven games like the Real Racing HD iPad app ($9.99) available at first release thrill in a new way, like when I first held a Wii. There's something about tilting and steering and braking with a device you hold in your hands, just like a steering wheel, that's so much more viscerally pleasing than a big old shelf-bound console.

The on-screen QWERTY keyboard is more finger-sized than iPhone (obviously, the screen's larger when either in portrait or landscape) but I didn't find myself using the device for lots of text input (email, blog post composing) without the aid of the keyboard dock— pretty much exactly like the standard Mac keyboard. No, there's no camera, but it doesn't seem like as much of a big deal as when I heard that news back at the January unveiling. iPad is more about experiencing media, and light sharing, than heavy-duty media production.

That said, I can imagine traveling with iPad instead of a netbook, with that keyboard dock in tow if I really need to do heavy text input.

Maybe the most exciting thing about iPad is the apps that aren't here yet. The book-film-game hybrid someone will bust out in a year, redefining the experience of each, and suggesting some new nouns and verbs in the process. Or an augmented reality lens from NASA that lets you hold the thing up to the sky and pinpoint where the ISS is, next to what constellation, read the names and see the faces of the crew members, check how those fuel cells are holding up.

I like it a lot. But it's the things I never knew it made possible — to be revealed or not in the coming months — that will determine whether I love it.

Apple's iPad is a touch of genius

Indian Census To Collect Fingerprints, Photos

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iDuck Wireless Speaker

We Just Tested Twitter’s @anywhere Platform (Screenshots)

During his keynote at SXSW last month, Twitter CEO Evan Wiliams announced an upcoming new platform called @anywhere, which would allow third party sites to integrate Twitter features (he also showed off some of the partners who would be featuring the platform, which you can see in the image at right). Twitter didn’t give a launch date for when sites would start integrating the new platform, but it looks like we’ve just come across the first site to feature @anywhere. Meet Eggboiling.com.

The site, which will almost certainly be pulled down soon after this post is published, is clearly a testing environment for @anywhere, but it’s currently open to the public. Update: Twitter has taken the site down. It features the following (all shown in the screenshots below): various variable states; a button to ‘Connect With Twitter’; buttons to follow twitter users @jack, @biz, and @ev; a test hovercard that allows me to see @wendyverse’s latest tweets and follow counts at a glance, and a test box that lets me tweet. It isn’t particularly easy on the eyes, but it works well enough.

Hitting “Connect to Twitter” pulled in my Twitter profile photo and gave me the option to log out. Clicking on each of the ‘follow’ buttons appropriately changed the status from “Follow @jack” to “Following @jack” the next time I refreshed the page. (it just showed ‘pending’ until I refreshed). And sending a tweet from the tweet box worked properly (it says that my tweet was sent via Egg Boiling).

If you’re fast, you may be able to try it out for yourself.

Before logging in

OAuth to login

Connected to Twitter (but before image/logout link have loaded)

GYST Transition Bags And Packs Provide A Clean Place To Stand And Change

Cyber Agent -2009/10 group forecast

MySpace removes link to SoCal child sex predator (AP)

AP - The social networking site MySpace said Thursday that it removed the profile of a registered sex offender who is charged with murdering a 17-year-old girl.

U.S.-Russian crew blasts off to space station

Web site of China-based journalist club attacked (AP)

China journalist club shuts website after attack

No plug-ins. No Flash. Just an HTML5 port of the Quake II game engine. More »

When we mentioned Marvel's comic app, we wondered about how you move through panels and actually read comics. Thanks to BoingBoing's hands-on of the app, we now have an answer in video form. Yes, it's got me drooling. [Boing Boing] More »

Source: Gizmodo | 1 Apr 2010 | 10:26 pm

Facebook To Launch ‘Relationships’ At f8, Teams With Zynga To Spur Romance Through Gaming

Later this month Facebook is holding its f8 conference, where it will be launching a slew of new features (we’ve already broken the news on quite a few of them). Tonight, the company has written a blog post announcing what is perhaps the most ambitious and creepy of them all: Facebook is looking to get into the dating game, and it’s turning to Zynga for help.

The gist of the new product? Dubbed ‘Relationships’, Facebook is going to soon offer a section of the site dedicated to helping users meet potential romantic partners. To do that, the company has been working with Zynga over the last four months to develop games that “synthesize romance and foster relationships through social gaming mechanics”, helping users flirt and get to know each other using Farmville-like games to help break the ice.

In the post, Facebook says that it will look at the profiles of your previous boyfriends/girlfriends to determine the personality traits you’re attracted to most, and that it will also use advanced photographic analysis to figure out your preferred facial structure and body type. In an attempt to quell privacy concerns before they begin, Facebook notes that all of this is done automatically, and that at no point are employees allowed to view these reports on your innermost psyche. How reassuring.

The site appears to be broken up into three sections: at the top is a section for ‘Flirts’, which displays the Facebook friends you’ve been interacting with most. In a move certain to cause riots, Facebook is now allowing users to keep tabs on how many times each of their friends has visited their profile. Facebook claims that this will make it easier to figure out who is lusting after you, and that “shadier” visitors will simply learn not to be so creepy. Below this is a section for games and lessons. These appear to be the Zynga-designed apps, which cover everything from flirting to lessons on hygiene.

Finally, there’s a ‘Recent Dates’ section. It’s unclear exactly what this is for, but there’s a Facebook-branded baseball diamond that apparently prompts users to share “how far” they got on their recent dates to their friends’ News Feeds. Given how much these definitions have shifted over the years, this could get messy.

The 6.8 Project

Perhaps most interesting is the fact that the new Relationships feature belongs to a new (and somewhat sinister sounding) ongoing initiative that Facebook is internally calling The 6.8 Project. The name, which is an allusion to Earth’s total population of 6.8 billion people, is meant to symbolize Facebook’s goal of connecting everyone on the planet. The concern is that that may not be enough.

Facebook has grown so quickly over the last few years that the company is worried that its long-term expansion potential over the next decade is limited. At its current growth rate, Facebook will have saturated the market of Internet-using humans in seven years. So — to put things bluntly — they’re looking to encourage current users to procreate, though they’ve only said as much with cutesy euphemisms.

Facebook wouldn’t comment on its future plans for the 6.8 Project, but we hear that the company intends to launch a ‘Babybook’ directory for children up for adoption, and there are also discussions about lowering Facebook’s minimum age to five years old.

Excerpt from Facebook’s Blog:

“Over the last six years, Facebook has been embraced by over 400 million people around the world — and we’re still growing. During that time, our engineers have managed to overcome some truly monumental hurdles, empowering friends and families to share their photos, videos, and thoughts with the people they care about.

But there’s still one fundamental human need that we haven’t yet been able to take care of, and ironically enough it’s the primary reason people log on to Facebook every day. It goes by many names: Love. Romance. Great White Buffalo. Call it what you will, it’s something that all of us are looking for. We hope to help you find it with Facebook Relationships.

We look forward to sharing more details about the new feature at this month’s f8 conference. With Relationships, we’re going to take your friendships to the next level.

Robot folds laundry

The robot begins by picking up a randomly dropped towel from a table, goes through a sequence of vision-based re-grasps and manipulations-- partially in the air, partially on the table--and finally stacks the folded towel in a target location. The reliability and robustness of our algorithm enables for the first time a robot with general purpose manipulators to reliably and fully-autonomously fold previously unseen towels, demonstrating success on all 50 out of 50 single-towel trials as well as on a pile of 5 towels.

Scott Brown on Why Hollywood Should Avoid Gadget Close-Ups

Alt Text: 'Supertaskers' and Other Cellphone Oddities

April 2, 1973: Lexis Launches Computerized Legal Searching

Gut Check: Pixar Tech Lets Docs See in 3-D

Miami Medical: New CBS drama premieres this Friday, April 2

I don't usually watch medical dramas, but my friends Craig and Liz are writers on a new show for CBS called Miami Medical, so Carla and I were able to watch a few episodes in advance. It's a compelling, gory, intense, hour-long drama about a team of trauma facility surgeons in -- you guessed it -- Miami. (It's based on Ryder Trauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital.) After three episodes we are hooked.

Trauma facilities are different than emergency rooms. If you're injured and about to die, you want to be taken to a trauma center, which is staffed by surgeons ready to save your life. Emergency rooms don't have surgeons, they have doctors who evaluate patients and decide whether or not to send them to a surgeon.

When a big accident happens in a city -- a fire, an explosion, a train wreck -- things can get crazy very quickly in a trauma center, and Miami Medical throws you in the middle of the frantic life-or-death atmosphere. I'm not a doctor and I've fortunately never been in a trauma center, but Craig tells me the creators of the show went to great lengths to make sure the procedures, jargon, and equipment are accurate. All the instrumentation is real -- in fact, the consulting surgeon, Dr. Zach Lutsky, has even used the equipment in a few instances to examine cast and crew members.

Daily Kos interviewed the show's co-creator, Jeffrey Lieber, who provided a list of some of the nasty accidents viewers can look forward to in the premiere season: "an alligator attack, a  man falling through a ceiling, a gunman in the break room, a man with a pole through his torso, medical care analogized into a common deli sandwich, a loving daughter... who isn't really, a man rolled into the trauma suite with 8,000 dollars strapped to his chest, and an in-hospital stabbing and a 'Do Not Resuscitate' notice tattooed to the middle of someone's chest."

Lana Parrilla (2nd from left in above photo), who was in the weirdly compelling one-season flop Swingtown, is the standout actor in the show.

The first episode of Miami Medical airs this Friday, April 2 on CBS at 10PM ET/9PM CT.


Source: Boing Boing | 1 Apr 2010 | 9:58 pm

Toshiba to make sub-25nm flash memory: Nikkei

NYTimes Request Correction/Removal Of Our Post. We Decline.

A NYTimes communications person emailed to ask us to correct or take down our post earlier today about the debut of their new iPad application, which they’re calling “The New York Times on the iPad.” The post, they say, contains “extremely old information that is inaccurate” and requests that we correct or take down the post.

The post, of course, is a fake. It’s the third of our April Fools jokes and while we knew it would be the most subtle, we didn’t realize that pretty much no one at all would get the message. So I’ll explain, but just a little.

If you compare the post to the article linked from the post (there’s just one link in the whole post), you’ll notice that it is identical to the 1996 NYTimes article announcing their website. The only changes we made were to replace “Web Site” with “iPad App” and “Word Wide Web” with “iPad.”

And the amazing thing is the story still works. With just a couple more tweaks, like updating the executives in the article, this actually could be a launch post for the NYTimes on the iPad. In fact it works so well that the NYTimes didn’t get the point. One NYTimes writer even happily retweeted the post. So you see, the more things change, the more things stay the same. The World Wide Web didn’t save the New York Times. And neither will the iPad.

Spansion Moves Closer to Successful Conclusion to Chapter 11 Reorganization

Spansion Moves Closer to Successful Conclusion to Chapter 11 Reorganization

Ed Roberts, Personal Computer Pioneer, 1941-2010

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Google Shows How HTML5 Can Run Quake In The Browser

A lot of attention lately has been put on the video capabilities of HTML5 browsers, since the iPad doesn’t support Flash. It turns out not to really matter that much because most online video platforms are now drinking the HTML5 Kool-Aid. But what about other things that Flash does well, like games? Well, HTML5 might be a more powerful game engine than most peopel think.

To show off what is possible with HTML5 in the browser, some of the engineers on the Google Web Toolkit team created an HTML5 port of the classic first-person shooter game Quake II. Check it out in the video above. It is based on an open-sourced Java port of Quake called Jake2. A post on the Google Code blog explains how they did it:

We started with the existing Jake2 Java port of the Quake II engine, then used the Google Web Toolkit (along with WebGL, WebSockets, and a lot of refactoring) to cross-compile it into Javascript. You can see the results in the video above — we were honestly a bit surprised when we saw it pushing over 30 frames per second on our laptops (your mileage may vary)!

It works only on “modern browsers such as Safari and Chrome” and you can find the code here. I haven’t had a chance to try it out. If you can get it to work, tell us what you think in comments. I really hope this isn’t April Fool’s joke.

Dragon Dictation. On the iPad. For free!

We’ve been yelling at our gadgets for years to get them to work. And with Dragon NaturallySpeaking software from Nuance, they might actually listen. The mobile version, Dragon Dictation, has been available in the Apple apps store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It got upgraded to version 1.3 today, meaning iPad support. Oh yeah, it’s also free.

Essentially, if you can type it in, you can use Dragon Dictation to, well, dictate it in instead. The “Notes” feature allows you to draft documents, e-mails, world domination plans, etc. It will also work in either portrait or landscape mode.

It won’t be free forever, so go get it soon.

PRESS DIGEST - Thai newspapers - April 2

The iPad: Apple’s Trojan Horse

The iPad: Apple’s Trojan Horse

Something struck me about Apple’s handling of the iPad launch this week. Instead of countless nerds spouting off in early reviews, only a few major tech press folks got early samples. Instead, the iPad showed up in a show the missus and I watch, Modern Family.*

That’s right: instead of an overfed talking-head tech reporter pawing over the iPad on morning TV, the iPad got prime-time coverage in a sitcom. Think about the last computer company to get that kind of screen time. Only Microsoft, in their abysmal product placement in Family Guy comes to mind. But in Modern Family the iPad was a major plot point. While I’m sure Apple paid a pretty penny for the exposure, I don’t doubt the folks at ABC would have put the product in for free had Apple asked.

But this shows a very important turning point in Apple marketing. The company, in short, sees the iPad as a mass market phenomenon without peer and is treating it as such. And the iPad, in turn, will become the tool that pushes Apple even deeper into the home.

The iPhone convinced millions of people that Apple makes nice phones. The iPad, in turn, will convince millions of people that Apple makes nice computers. Whereas the “halo effect” that the iPhone was supposed to have on the rest of Apple’s wares – laptops and iMacs and the line – isn’t quite apparent except in Apple’s impressive revenues, I suspect the iPad is going to push people over the hump. While you can get away with booting up craggy old Windows on your craggy old Dell while mucking about in iPhone’s sylvan glades, you’re less likely to appreciate your old laptop when its sitting alongside a device that looks like a cross between a robotic communion wafer and something out of Star Trek.

To describe this metaphorically, (and this is a horrible metaphor) think of the iPhone as a bicycle made by BMW. No one is going to upgrade to a Ford car if you’re only used to their bikes but if Ford starts to sell, say, something like an inexpensive Smart car or nice motorcycle with a little more power and all that BMW “magic,” there’s a good chance they’ll buy a Z-Series next time they’re looking at cars.

So the reason you’re not seeing geeks like us with iPads this week is simple – the iPad isn’t for geeks like us. While time will tell if this is a correct assessment, I’m almost betting on it.

UPDATE – I found some things to add. First, Apple has 91% market share in “premium PCs,” which is huge. But in lower-end PCs Windows still rules. Now what happens when a sub-$700 Apple ends up in millions of homes. Much more market share and a real halo effect across the market.

*It’s seriously a really good program. Christopher LLoyd (Frasier and Wings) produces it. I thought it would be dumb at first too. Try it.

Blippy Does An End Run, Harnesses Gmail OAuth To Re-Enable Amazon Support

Early this year, Blippy, the highly controversial startup that lets you share your credit card and online purchases with your friends, ran into some trouble with Amazon.com. Namely, Amazon told Blippy to stop pulling in user purchase information, and to go back and erase all existing data they’d already sucked in. Today, Blippy users have regained the ability to share their Amazon purchases, but this time, Blippy doesn’t need Amazon’s permission.

The new Amazon integration requires users to grant Blippy access to their Gmail accounts via OAuth (this only works with Gmail, though the site says it plans to support other email services soon). After linking your Gmail to Blippy, the service will automatically scan your account for Amazon receipts, which it will use to display the items you’ve purchased in your Blippy feed. When I asked Blippy co-founder Philip Kaplan if they had Amazon’s approval, he said they didn’t ask for it, and they weren’t sure they needed it, either.

The addition of Gmail OAuth support could mean big things for Blippy. Because Blippy now has a relatively secure way to access your Gmail, it can add support for a plethora of online vendors who may not offer an API. Likewise, Blippy could use the same method to do end runs around services that don’t want Blippy tracking purchases in the first place.

To be clear, OAuth is no magic bullet for keeping your data secure — you’re essentially giving Blippy the ability to monitor your Email. But users are already handing over their login credentials for plenty of services to Blippy, which is potentially an even worse security issue (with OAuth, they don’t actually store your password).

Thanks to Mark Hendrickson for the tip

Integrated headlight and taillights, yet this bike helmet looks cooler than mine

Do your kids hate wearing helmets because the one you got for them at K-Mart is not very “cool”? I’ll bet they won’t mind wearing this Lazer Urbanize Bicycle Helmet. At $100 a pop, these helmets certainly aren’t cheap, but you can’t put a price on safety, right? As more people take up biking to work through car-filled streets, stylish safety gear like this is going to be in high demand.

This helmet features built-in lights in the front and back not only to help you see the road better, but also you make it easier for drivers to see you. Of course, if that’s still not good enough for you, you might want to look into the Superskin. The Lazer Urbanizer also comes in pink, green, blue, black, and “espresso.”

[Via The Awesomer]

Interesting short on London pirate radio stations

You know what’s even crazier than this? Numbers stations. These guys have nothing on the Conet Project.

FreshPlanet Debuts With An iPad Game, Plus $1.5 Million From Clavier And French Angels

If you are going to launch a gaming startup this week, you might as well make your first game for the iPad. FreshPlanet is a stealthy startup looking to make its public debut with the launch of an educational game for children, Red Fish, on the iPad (iTunes link).

FreshPlanet is based in New York City and founded by two serial entrepreneur French brothers, Mathieu and Romain Nouzareth. It recently raised a $1.5 million Series A from Jeff Clavier’s SofTech VC and a bunch of French angel investors including Jacques Antoine Granjon (founder of Ventes-privees), Xavier Niel (founder of French ISP Free.fr), and Oleg Tscheltzoff (founder of Fotolia) via CapISF. Mathieu and Romain previously founded online game distribution service Boonty (sold t French company Nexway) and casual gaming site Cafe.com.

Red Fish is based on a popular French kid’s learning Website called Poisson Rouge. FreshPlanet licensed the game and developed a version specifically for the iPad to start. There is no iPhone version. “The big screen is much more interesting for us,” says Romain.

Red Fish teaches kids between 3 and 7 to count, read, spell, and even compose music all using the iPad’s engaging touchscreen. The app is free and comes with 12 different activities, but to unlock the rest (there are 50 total) will cost $9.99. You can watch a demo of the app in the video below. It gives you a good sense of how the iPad can become an educational game platform. Kids love touchscreens (mine are always fooling with my iPhone), and big touchscreens with games designed for them could prove irresistible.

FreshPlanet is also testing a music quiz game on Facebook, and plans to design games for both Facebook, the iPad, and the iPhone.

Twitter Tweaks Search, A Few Popular Tweets Now At The Top Of Results

As you may have noticed when Twitter introduced its new homepage a few days ago, Twitter has a new feature that allows them to group together popular tweets. They say this is done algorithmically, and have an account to capture them all here. Now they’re just turned on this feature on for Twitter search, and its API.

As you can see in the search.twitter.com page (but not yet on Twitter.com’s own search), there are three pinned popular tweets at the top of the results (Twitter notes that it could be less than three, but that three is the max right now). Below each of these, you can see the number of times the tweet was retweeted, giving some indication of why it’s popular.

A message today sent from developer advocate Taylor Singletary to the Twitter development and API Google Groups lets everyone know about the change. He also seems to reveal the keys behind the popularity algorithm:

With this new project, we want to make real-time search even more valuable by surfacing the best tweets about a particular topic, by considering recency, but also the interactions on a tweet. This means analyzing the author’s profile, as well as the number times the tweet has been retweeted, favorited, replied, and more. It’s an evolving algorithm that we’ll be iterating on & tuning until practically the end of time.

Further, this search change is coming to the API too. Singletary says this feature will be opt-in for developers during this current phase. But it sounds like eventually this will be a standard part of the search API (that undoubtedly developers can choose to leave out if they want to). Here’s how the results will break down for those who do opt-in:

• mixed – receive both “popular tweets” and most recent tweets for the query. This is the equivalent of the future default behavior.
• popular – receive only “popular tweets” for the query.
• recent – receive only recent results for the query. This is the equivalent of the behavior you’ve come to expect until present

To make this new feature work, each tweet now has a new bit of metadata letting the search query know if it’s “popular” or “recent.” Singletary also notes that in the future other metadata layers may be added to further augment results.

That seems like a pretty interesting way to make Twitter search more useful and less filled with spam.

Update: Twitter has now added popular results to Twitter.com as well. Check out the screenshots below — it’s less obvious than search.twitter.com but the metadata is there.

[thanks Alex]

DPReview’s Canon T2i review arrives

I’ve been looking forward to this camera for quite a while, and although I’ll be reviewing it later, it won’t be quite to the level of DPReview’s 30-page monster. Flagship cameras like this one get the royal treatment from the big photo sites, and the T2i is nothing if not a flagship camera.

Their extensive testing (I’m getting so used to their little props in the comparison pictures) reveals pretty much what we all knew: most of the cameras at this price point (Nikon D5000, Pentax K-x) are so close in everyday performance that choice comes down to feature set and preference. The T2i (known as the 550D elsewhere) wins out here and there, though the camera it beats most handily is its predecessor, the T1i/500D.

I’m planning on replacing my XSi with a T2i once the price comes down a bit (that is, if the 60D doesn’t tempt me too much), and this review here mainly serves to show that there are no serious new problems with the line. Now hurry up, Canon, I need to get this thing reviewed!

Microsoft request for patent suit review is nixed (AP)

UPDATE 1-Edwards Lifesciences says wins patent case

Moog releases Auto De-tune. We get our sanity back

Thank the audio gods. Today marks the greatest day in musical history. Well okay, not the greatest, but maybe right behind the release of the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill. This glorious day is the day Moog’s MF-401 Auto De-tune unit starts shipping out. Now we can finally stop putting up with this.

The device uses Moog’s new Authentic Vocal Imperfection™ technology to remove any vocal modifications on a track. No longer will pop songs sound like they were recorded by a group of frenzied chipmunks on helium.

The parameters are fully adjustable, everything from warble rate, deviation range, emotive overload. It even has caterwaul rotary controls. There are also a number of preset settings including:

• Drunk as a Sailor
• Seattle sensitive alternative warble
• Where did all the green room beer go?
• Original Star Trek cast member attempts to make pop music
• My vocal monitor is blown, so Soundman, please mix me REALLY low
• Mrs. Miller
• Too punk rock to turn down your !#$%&*!! stage volume
• Cat in an alley under a full moon
• Tone Def
• Florence Foster Jenkins

The MF-401 goes on sale today at $799.00. But can you really put a price on staying sane?

Definitely the best April Fool’s bit I’ve seen all day.

via [SynthGear]

Bringing the iPad to the People [Voices]

By Katherine Boehret

Though Apple’s (AAPL) iPad doesn’t go on sale until Saturday, AllThingsD’s own Katie Boehret carried one to downtown Washington, D.C., to get people’s first impressions of the device.

First pre-production Volt rolls off the line

Things are looking good for the Volt. Chevy said that the first pre-production Volt rolled off the line yesterday. Of course, that doesn’t mean that you can buy one yet, but it’s still a pretty huge deal. For the future!

When a pre-production car comes off the line, it’s typically used for quality control purposes, and to ensure that the manufacturer is set up for the actually production run. Hopefully this means that we’ll see the Volt sooner, rather then later.

[via TreeHugger]

Guvera Limited Signs Licensing Agreement With ASCAP

Europe's Space Agency Wants To Do What NASA Can't

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

China's War on Natural Disasters

10 Apps We’re Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day

Apple fans have two time-sucking activities to look forward to this weekend: playing with the iPad for the very first time and trying out brand-new tablet apps.

The first wave of iPad reviews describe a device that is simple, easy to use and visually stunning. But for our part, what we’re looking forward to most is the apps. In that, we’re not alone: Many developers are equally excited.

“We’re on the verge of a major milestone in computing,” said Marco Arment, lead developer at Tumblr. Arment’s iPad app, Instapaper, is coming out Saturday. “We’re going to look back on this week the same way we look back at the week before the iPhone launched, when we were all using awful flip-phones. This week is the end of the dark age of mainstream computing, and Saturday begins the enlightenment.”

What follows is a list of 10 of the most intriguing iPad apps and games that we’ve scouted out,and which will be releasing with Apple’s tablet on Saturday.

The Elements

Sure, the iPad has its iBooks app, and that’s fine if you like words — plain, poorly formatted, non–graphically enhanced EPUB words — but book publishers like Touch Press are inventing the future of books through their own apps. The Elements is a guide to the periodic table that’s been enhanced with 3-D objects, video clips and live data from Wolfram Alpha. “This is the version you check out from the Hogwarts library,” creator Theo Gray told BoingBoing. “Everything in it is alive in some way.” Or, if you’re a Neal Stephenson fan, it’s like the Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer from The Diamond Age. Books like this are a geek’s dream, and we hope we see a lot more like it. The Elements costs $14 (and uses up 2 GB of storage). Download Link

Top photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

10 Damn-Near Perfect Cars, Picked by You

10 Apps We're Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day

10 Apps We're Excited to Try on iPad Launch Day

Here’s the latest A-Team trailer and you must watch it

I was going to work in “I pitty the fool” phrase into that headline but you’ve already been subject to enough lame jokes seeing as it’s April Fool’s Day. But seriously, you must watch this trailer. Tits is the only word to properly describe it. [via Giz]

Behind The Scenes Of YouTube’s ASCII Prank

Today, millions of people around the world were introduced to TEXTp, a new video display format created by YouTube that converts the site’s videos into a flurry of ASCII characters. The new format, which was implemented as a cost-saving measure, is saving YouTube $1 per second of content watched in bandwidth costs.

Of course, TEXTp is just the latest April Fools prank to come from YouTube (past pranks have included Rick Rolling all of its users and flipping the site upside down). Yesterday, I had a chance to sit down with some of the people behind this year’s prank. Along with explaining how they actually got these ASCII-ized videos working, they also detailed YouTube’s process for figuring out which pranks get shown to the world. Be sure to check out our full list of other April Fools jokes here.

So how did YouTube convert all of its videos to streaming lines of text? The company leveraged a piece of its existing and seemingly unrelated technology: their 3D video player. Engineer Peter Bradshaw, who is behind the site’s 3D viewer, says that fellow engineer Blake Livingston adapted his work with Adobe’s Pixel Bender (which is used to achieve the 3D effect) to convert the videos into ASCII.

Billy Biggs, another software engineer at YouTube (who claims pranks are his full time job), also played a key role in the project. Bradshaw initially hacked the effect together in one evening, but it took around three weeks for the prank team to get that ‘last 10%’ done.

The pranksters say that the idea had actually been circling at YouTube for over a year, and that there were many other pranks proposed. In fact, each YouTube employee is invited to submit their idea in the months leading up to April 1. To choose which one is actually deployed to users, YouTube uses Google’s Moderator tool. After voting concludes, a smaller panel made up of engineers, product managers, and PR reps congregates to figure out which ideas are feasible (and won’t offend anyone).

The prank team didn’t take this too lightly, either: as I left the the conference room yesterday afternoon, the team was still tweaking TEXTp, trying to hone in on the optimal font size and color palette while waging a war against the letter ‘M’, which had the nasty habit of showing up too often.

If ASCII art is your thing, you may also be interested in ASCIImeo, an ASCIIized version of Vimeo.

Apple touts 'iPad ready' sites - CNET

Globe and Mail

Apple touts 'iPad ready' sites CNET Amid heightened anticipation for the launch of its iPad tablet device on Saturday, Apple on Thursday made available numerous iPad-ready applications and began listing Web sites that have been optimized and enhanced for compatibility ... Apple Promotes 'iPad-Ready' Websites Ditching FlashWired News Apple Blesses iPad-Ready Web SitesInformationWeek Reader questions about Apple iPad, answeredUSA Today PC Magazine -PC World -The Mac Observer all 398 news articles »

Judge Chin Says He Will Cut the Google Book Settlement

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ClearOne Announces Breakthrough Pricing for the VoIP MAX(R) IP Product Line

The App Store Is Now Completely iPad-Crazy Like The Rest Of Us

Have you been doing various searches or combing through the pages the full iPad app directory since those apps started going live earlier? Well stop — because Apple has just completely revamped the App Store to be iPad-centric.

As you can see in the screenshot above, the front page of the App Store is now dominated by iPad apps. Yes, the iPad apps that 99.99% of the world cannot use yet because no one outside of a select few testers has the actual device. But that isn’t stopping Apple from promoting the hell out of these apps. And it’s working — at least for me. I’ve already bought a ton of them, and I don’t have an iPad yet.

Humorously, Apple is promoting a bunch of apps that it has asked developers to create embargoes for, for the press. Earlier today, Apple moved that embargo time up from Saturday morning (the actual iPad launch) to tomorrow morning, undoubtedly because they knew they’d be rolling these App Store changes live. Still, Apple is already showing a ton of embargoed apps on its “New & Noteworthy,” “What’s Hot,” and “Staff Favorites” areas. As you can see, Apple has added a button to toggle between iPhone and iPad apps for each area (as well as the charts portion).

Oh, and all of the featured areas on the main App Store page are currently iPad apps too except for the one App Store on Facebook promotion. This includes the main banner area which is shuffling through iPad apps such as Labyrinth 2, ABC’s streaming app, OmniGraffle, the WSJ app, and Apple’s own iWork apps.

A few other iPad apps Apple is featuring include the Netflix app (yes, it’s real), Epicurious, and the Pandora app.

And now we wait for someone to jailbreak the iPad

Whether you’re excited about the iPad or not, you really have to admit that it’s a beautiful piece of hardware. What people disagree about is whether it’s worth having around, what with Apple’s chokehold on content and the limited inputs. Hell yeah, it is! But for flicking my way through word documents, watching scaled-down HD content in mono, and designing presentations? Nah.

It’s not until one of the thousands of hackers out there, with teeth sharpened on jailbroken iPhone apps, gets their iPad and cracks the mother wide open, that we’re going to have the real fun. And I have reason to believe that’s going to happen mighty fast.

Why do you think Apple neglected to include USB slots and an SD card slot? Because obviously they want you to buy the pre-approved games and apps from the App Store. Sure, those will be nice. Tower defense games are going to be fun as hell, and I’m looking forward to the big Diablo-esque dungeon crawler that’s surely in development. But brother, I want to play me some arcade games! I want a custom file browser, and support for obscure video formats! I want unfettered access to the device I just paid $500 for!

The single input is the big issue, but the dock is essentially a USB-to-iPad cable. Sync everything over that, even — dare I dream — driver support for multiple wireless controllers? I’m thinking how perfect this thing is for couch or travel gaming — but I’ll be damned if I’m going to limit myself to the App Store. Bring on the DOS emulators. Bring on dual-boot with Chrome OS.

The limitations are very few. With the iPhone, it still had to function as an iPhone — adding forbidden functionality on top of that was difficult and broke often. But the iPad is far less tethered to its OS, and I get the feeling that’s going to result in a bonanza for people willing to hack it.

See, here’s the thing. It’s not just that the iPad is a great device. You may or may not think it is; personally, I think it’s incomplete and compromised by Apple’s control fetish. If I pay $500 for this thing, I’m not buying an Apple product, I’m buying a beautiful touchscreen device that has hackers and developers the world over drooling over the possibilities. You may dislike that it’s the Applest Apple product ever to come out, but you can’t argue with the numbers being sold and the hardware itself. Decent CPU, discrete GPU, responsive touchscreen, familiar resolution — it’s a tablet computer, whether Apple wants to let you use it as one or not. I don’t know about you guys, but in my world, the consumer decides what the device is for, and the iPad is a great place to prove it.

XKCD Deploys Command Line Interface

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For Amazon, Arrival of the iPad Opens Door to More e-Book Sales - Wall Street Journal

The Hindu

For Amazon, Arrival of the iPad Opens Door to More e-Book Sales Wall Street Journal Electronic books are expected to be a major selling point for Apple Inc.'s iPad, which goes on sale Saturday. But competitors, particularly Amazon.com Inc., could end up as major e-book providers for the ... Revolutionary or Evolutionary? What Xconomy Readers Are Saying About the iPadXconomy With The iPad's Arrival, Is The Kindle Suddenly Too Expensive?PC World Analyst: Amazon should cut Kindle price for iPad launchCNET eWeek -TopNews United States -San Diego Union Tribune all 923 news articles »

Tyco International Adjusts Record Date for Quarterly Dividend

Star Wars: The Old Republic Sarlacc Enforcer Class Unveiled

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anixter International Inc. and Anixter Inc. Announce Expiration and Final Results of Cash Tender Offer

Cthulhu the Musical, Tentacular, Tentacular!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apple Promotes ‘iPad-Ready’ Websites Ditching Flash

Apple’s campaign against Adobe Flash has become explicit. The company on Thursday published a website of “iPad-ready websites,” listing sites that support “the latest web standards — including HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript.”

Clearly Apple believes Flash is an outdated standard. Apple has reportedly been urging web developers to use HTML5 for video playback rather than Flash. Noticeably, HTML5 appears 10 times on the “iPad-ready websites” page.

Websites on-board the iPad-ready boat include The New York Times, CNN, Reuters the White House and others.

Apple’s lack of Flash support for the iPhone has been a paramount complaint among critics who believe they’re missing out on a big chunk of the web. Apple’s persistent lack of Flash support for the iPad reinforces the corporation’s vision of a future where Flash is left behind.

But as simple as it may sound to ditch a format in exchange for another, Wired.com’s Webmonkey editor Michael Calore points out that ditching Flash for HTML5 would be complex for the web as a whole. (HTML5 is technically not a format, after all.) He points out that there’s no agreed upon video format for HTML5, and support varies greatly from browser to browser.

“Not to be overly critical of Apple — anyone pushing for open web standards deserves kudos — but the company seems more deeply concerned with digging Flash’s grave than it does with promoting semantic markup,” Calore wrote.

Read more of Calore’s views on this topic over at Webmonkey.

See Also:

• Apple Video Shows iPad Flash Support, But Don’t Believe It …
• Ten Things Missing From the iPad
• The Key to Apple’s iPad? Uh-Oh, It’s Magic
• Adobe Plays the Porn Card in Flash Campaign Against iPad

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

As the Wormhole Turns: 'Fringe' Flashes Back to Parallel Universe

Kindle's Killer App: A Price Cut [Digital Daily]

Remarking on the iPad iBooks application in January, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, “Amazon’s done a great job of pioneering [e-book] functionality with the Kindle. We’re going to stand on their shoulders and go a little further.”

It was a backhanded compliment, but also a threat. What will Amazon (AMZN) do if Apple (AAPL) delivers on it, as early reviews of the iPad suggest it might? If the iPad succeeds in capturing e-reader mindshare, and the market decides the iPad is indeed a direct competitor to Kindle, how should the retailer respond?

Simple: With a price cut. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster suggests that Amazon drop Kindle’s price to $149 from $259, which seems reasonable (manufacturing costs permitting).

By widening the pricing gap between the two devices, Amazon might temper the maybe-I-should-just-spend-the-extra-money-and-get-the-iPad hesitancy that, let’s face it, a lot of potential Kindle buyers are probably already experiencing.

At $149, the Kindle as single-purpose reading device is a pretty compelling proposition, particularly given the selection advantage the Kindle store has over the iBook store. At $259, it starts to become “half the money I need to buy an iPad.”

Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross working on "Atlas Shrugged" sequel

Google's 5 Funniest April Fools' Jokes - PC World

Globe and Mail

Google's 5 Funniest April Fools' Jokes PC World The Internet has made April Fools' infinitely more amusing -- and if there's one company that loves to get in on the hijinks, it's Google. Google's April Fools' Day jokes have become the stuff of legend. Sometimes the gags are good enough to trick you; ... Google Renames Itself Topeka (Just for a Day)BusinessWeek April Fool! Google calls itself 'Topeka' for dayThe Associated Press Global Promotion Given to Topeka by GoogleTopNews United States Kansas City Star -ABC News -Washburn Review all 1,023 news articles »

The sex lives of Victorian ladies: More fun than you might have thought

Historians at Stanford have uncovered the earliest known survey of sexual behavior. Similar in style to the more-famous Kinsey Reports, the survey began in 1892 and focused exclusively on women. While more than half of the subjects said they'd known nothing about sex before marriage—about what you'd expect thanks to Victorian stereotypes—almost all of them seemed to be making up for lost time, both actively desiring and enjoying sex, even those who thought they probably oughtn't.

Teabonics

Emergency safety for planet Earth

What should we do in case of climate emergency?

Science writer Eli Kintisch, a colleague of mine and a swell guy, has written a book about the controversy and science surrounding geoengineering—the increasingly less-fringe idea of using technology to manipulate away the effects of climate change. He's put together a clever, little Flash-based guide that explains some of the basics of geoengineering in the style of an airplane safety instruction card. I'm trying, and sadly failing, to come up with a witty joke about returning tables to the upright, locked position. But don't let my shame stop you from checking this out.

Eli's book, Hack the Planet, comes out on Earth Day. I just started reading an advance copy, and, so far, it's every bit as fascinating as I'd hoped.

Postgres Project To Go NoSQL

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

iPad buyers remorse?  2 questions that keep me from buying one

Section: Communications, Mobile, Computers, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Laptops, Netbooks, Wireless

Today’s news cycle is all about the iPad.  It’s release this weekend has everyone excited.  Reviews are in form the old guard and they seem positive but not knock-your-socks-off “wow”.  There are two questions that need to be answered in my mind before I’ll commit and they are worth thinking about if you’ve held off pre-ordering.

Question 1: price drop?

With the original iPhone, we saw a price drop very quickly as Apple realized price was going to be a real factor in moving large amounts of smartphones.  The subsequent drop in price was greeted with rage from folks who paid more and Apple relented with a store credit, placating the masses.  Could the iPad face the same price drop?

Described by PC Mag as “An expensive niche product.”  USA Today describes it as, ” the antithesis of the cheap underpowered netbook computers”.  Clearly it’s not cheap, but is it cheap enough to get masses to buy?  If not, will we see a drop where later adapters benefit?

Question 2: refresh?

One of the common themes in reviews of the iPad is the lack of a video camera.  To many of us, the unit screams for video chat.  Adding this feature isn’t a software update, it’s a hardware one. 

From Mossberg’s review: “If you need to create or edit giant spreadsheets or long documents, or you have elaborate systems for organizing email, or need to perform video chats, the iPad isn’t going to cut it as your go-to device.”

So the question then becomes, what is the update cycle?  Will it follow iPods and refresh before the holidays?  Or will it stick to the iPhone model and launch following generations yearly based on the original launch date?  To me, the iPad is a very consumer-oriented device, much like an iPod and might fit in with the holiday launch cycle.  The case could be made it’s more about computing and as such should follow the Mac launch cycle.

If I am right (and trust me, it’s rare), that would mean we could see a hardware refresh that might include a camera as early as September.  I would hold off buying if that were the case.  But besides Apple, who’s to know?

I am sure Robert or Kirk from Appletell would interject at this point and tell me I’m an idiot for not getting one now.  Loving Apple and perhaps all of tech for that matter is about embracing a lack of future-proofing and going with the cutting edge. 

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

tekGIANTS, Inc. Announces the Launch Party Event of Their New Product HIVE Virtual Enterprise

Comet That Killed Mammoths Could Strike Again

SIIA Education Division Announces Postsecondary Sector Board Members for 2010

Garage Startup Develops "Personal Computer"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Video: Tortoises Learn From Each Other

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Appeals Court Ruling Favors eBay in Tiffany Case [Voices]

By Chad Bray, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal

A federal appeals court here handed eBay Inc. (EBAY) a victory Thursday, upholding the dismissal of trademark-infringement claims by jeweler Tiffany & Co. (TIF) over the sale of counterfeit merchandise on the online auctioneer’s Web site.

In an opinion Thursday, the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision that eBay can’t be held libel for trademark infringement for the sale of counterfeit items if it takes steps to remove infringing listings and isn’t willfully blind to such sales.

“…We are disposed to think, and the record suggests, that private market forces give eBay and those operating similar businesses a strong incentive to minimize the counterfeit goods sold on their Web sites,” wrote U.S. Circuit Judge Robert D. Sack.

“EBay received many complaints from users claiming to have been duped into buying counterfeit Tiffany products sold on eBay. The risk of alienating these users gives eBay a reason to identify and remove counterfeit listings. Indeed, it has spent millions of dollars in that effort,” Judge Sack added.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

AT&T employees rumored to be receiving “practice” Palm Pre Pluses today

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile

Following up nicely with the recent FCC sightings of the AT&T compatible Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus, we now have a report that AT&T employees will be receiving some practice Palm Pre Pluses. Of course, just because of the day I tend to read this a little skepticism. That said, and assuming this is true, it looks like AT&T stores will be getting the units as of today. They do however come with a pretty strict, and very believable set of rules which include noting that the device is for practice only and can be used in “Virtual Training Sessions and OFF sales floor.” It must also be kept in a “secure place.” As of now, these practice units are being described as having no SKU, and will not be included in the store inventory. But on the bright side, once these “virtual training sessions” have been completed, the units can then be moved out of the secure location and into a place where customers can play. All signs point to a soon-to-be-available Pre Plus and Pixi Plus with AT&T.

Read [Engadget]

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

Is the iPad Green?

Verizon's Fiber-Optic-Powered FiOS Services Available to More Than 70,000 Homes and Small Businesses in Orange County - at Attractive Discounts

Salesforce.com Vice President of Investor Relations to Present at Deutsche Bank Hosted Investor Lunch

How to Create the Perfect Presentation

Andes Rise Was Gradual, Not Abrupt

GameFly iPhone App finally gets proper Game Queue management support

I’m a fan of GameFly. As a hardcore gamer (as in I spend too much time doing it, not as in I’m particularly good) who gets bored of games quick, it just makes economic sense. That’s why when GameFly announced their GameCenter iPhone app last October, I just about ate my pants in excitement. That’s what people do when they’re excited, right? Eat their pants?

Unfortunately, my buzz was killed pretty quick: as it turned out, GameFly’s iPhone app didn’t allow you to actually.. you know, use GameFly. While it had a bunch of fun game info and screenshots, you couldn’t add or remove games from your shipping queue (or as GameFly calls it, your GameQ.)

The fans clamored, so they threw in a workaround of sorts in an early update: users could access their GameQ, but it was really just an embedded version of the GameFly mobile site. Where’s the fun in that?

In an update released today, GameFly has gone and made things right. GameQ management is now built-in through proper, native code, along with a handful of other new features:

* Personalize games and news for your platforms
* Similar games recommendations for each title
* Share games you add to your Q with friends
* Improved UI for browsing games and news
* More game trailers with higher quality

What do you think? Any other GameFly members out their eating their pants right now?

iPad and Netflix app - a killer pair?

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Netbooks, Wireless

I am pretty sure you hate reading tech blogs on 4/1, as much as I hate writing on this day.  File this one under, “stuff I want to believe but am scared to.”  Gizmodo is reporting, as well as other sites, that Netflix will offer up an iPad app that allows movie streaming.  As with all Netflix streaming, there is no charge - it’s all part of your monthly service from the company.

Netflix still hasn’t offered up an official app for the iPhone, but is said to be behind this one.  With the recent influx of Netflix on “x” such as the upcoming Windows Phone 7 Series OS, it isn’t that far out of what we might expect.  Is it too good to be true?

The app would allow Netflix customers to stream from the company’s instant view movie selection.  While on WiFi or on 3G, users can stream movies until their hearts content or the 11-hour plus battery dies.  Netflix’s selection of streaming movies isn’t huge yet, but seems to be growing at a good clip.  My kids use it daily.

Could this be the app that tips the scale to get you to buy one?  For me, it just might.

Read: [Gizmodo]

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

iPad Apps Begin Appearing in iTunes App Store

Saturday marks the official grand opening of the iPad App Store, as well as the launch of the iPad, but some iPad apps are already showing up in iTunes.

An “iPad apps” section is showing up in some iTunes search results. When you type “Flight Control” in iTunes search, for example, a separate “iPad Apps” section appears beneath containing Flight Control HD, which was made for iPad.

There doesn’t appear to be a complete list of iPad apps yet, but website App Advice has already obtained a leaked list of the iPad apps that will release on Saturday.

A hat tip goes to Jeff Scott of iPhone app review site 148Apps for passing along this tip.

Update 1:30 p.m. PT: A complete list of iPad apps is accessible.

See Also:

• Video Gives a Glimpse of What’s Inside iPad App Store
• The Wired Tablet App: A Video Demonstration
• App Advice Posts Gallery of 1300 iPad Apps
• Roundup: The First Reviews of Apple’s iPad
• iPad Developers Code Their Apps in the Dark

The iPad’s Killer Feature Summed Up by One Word: Multiplayer.

The web is abuzz about the iPad again and frankly, I’m stoked. There are a lot of things about the new Apple tablet that are interesting, from couch computing to a portable media player. But the feature I’m most excited about is Multiplayer.

Multiplayer what? Multiplayer games, multiplayer browsing, multiplayer video viewing, multiplayer productivity apps. Say that five times fast.

The iPhone is the powerful application platform, which enables developers to build awesome touch-enabled apps on the OS. The problem is the iPhone is way too small for more than one person to use at a time. A tablet computer the size of the iPad completely changes that, and enables full-fledged multiplayer experiences like you’ve never seen.

You’ll see people walking around with a portable electronic board game. Set the iPad down on a coffee table and start playing Chess. Take it in the plane and watch a movie with your girlfriend. Lay it down on your desk and draw on a two-person white board. The iPad will be the perfect size for these activities, and a whole new crop of applications will come about from the new screen size. The iPad will be like the Microsoft Surface, except portable and without the $10,000 price tag. This video of the Windows 7 touch interface might give you a good idea of what’s possible on the iPad.

Multiplayer on iPhone is already an amazing experience. Apps like Words with Friends and Tap Tap Revenge have shown both online (Words) and local (Tap Tap) multiplayer can work. But the iPad blows this out of the water by enabling a rich, local multiplayer experience on a canvas that developers can really leverage.

While at GDC, I met with many game developers who all pointed to this feature as the one they’re most excited about. It was amazing how many developers were already building iPad-specific experiences and it multiplayer was a common theme in that experience.

Multiplayer will also be a killer marketing feature for Apple. At a previous employer, I extensively studied how Apple managed to successfully market the iPod and one word summed up the whole thing: ubiquity. Apple managed to make it seem like the iPod was everywhere; that everyone had one and those that didn’t have one wanted one. The same thing was true with their marketing efforts on the iPhone.

Multiplayer on the iPad is going to quadruple that effect. You’ll see people at restaurants, at work, and even at house parties sit down and use the iPad collaboratively. It will be incredible to see all the use cases that developers find for iPad applications.

iPad apps begin to go live in the App Store

Oh, Apple! You dirty, dirty tease.

Two days before the iPad itself hits the shelves, its apps have begun to go on sale in the App Store.

Why is this happening, you ask? Well, as it turns out, Apple asked developers to set the release date to a few days before the iPad launch. We can’t say for sure exactly why they did that, but we’re assuming it was to avoid last minute hiccups. We expected Apple to have some sort of magical invisibility toggle set on all of these apps – but given that we’re looking at the listings for Scrabble, Omnigraffle, the New York Times, and a bunch of other iPhone apps right this second, we’re guessing that’s not the case.

There’s no (public facing) official iPad directory just yet, so you’ll have to punch things manually into search if you’re trying to dig things up. Fortunately, the guys over at AppAdvice have already done most of the work for you, unearthing a few thousand iPad apps by way of the iTunes API. Check out their big list here. Update: A bunch of people have also found this one right within iTunes

Developers who want to keep their app a secret until the big day are being asked to change their release date to Saturday.

Global Anomalies Linked to Larg ... - PC Magazine

Times Online

Global Anomalies Linked to Larg ... PC Magazine A rash of observed anomalies has rattled observers around the globe, as researchers feared that the bizarre behaviors could be linked to European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN)'s operation of the Large Hadron Collider. ... Science in the public view: A good gambleCNET Large Hadron Collider rewards scientists watching at CaltechLos Angeles Times CERN tackles glitches, pushes new science frontierReuters Wall Street Journal -msnbc.com -Register all 1,776 news articles »

Early Thoughts on iPad Visualized Through Word Cloud

You could spend all day reading early reviews of the iPad, or you could just take a glimpse at the word cloud above to quickly gather what people are saying. Generated with Wordle, the cloud contains the most repeated words from each of the eight iPad reviews that were posted last night. (We removed the words Apple, iPad, apps and new for the sake of eliminating some redundancies.)

Priced between $500 and $830, the iPad hits stores Saturday. Stay tuned here on Gadget Lab over the weekend for more in-depth coverage of the device.

See Also:

• Personal Thoughts About the iPhone 3G, Visualized Through Cloud …
• Roundup: The First Reviews of Apple’s iPad
• Five Essential iPad Accessories
• Ten Things Missing From the iPad
• The Wired Tablet App: A Video Demonstration

Switch Discovered for Plants' Alarm System

Study: Leaders are Better at the Edges

Secrets to Bringing Dehydrated Plants Back to Life

Scientists Address 'Wrinkles' In Transparent Film Development

Saving Lives In Dorm Fires

Acoustic Imaging Of The Ocean Now In Broadband

Science in the Muslim World

Model Your Town Competition: Cast your vote!

Verizon slashes Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus Mobile Hotspot service pricing, its now FREE

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile

It looks like Verizon may be trying to make the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus a little more appealing. We have been seeing the price come down over the past few weeks with various third party retailers, and even on sale a few times with Verizon directly. But this deal is a little different from the rest. The pricing of the phones seem to have remained the same at $149.99 and $79.99 for the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus respectively, however the price of the Mobile Hotspot add on service has been lowered. And by lowered I mean it has been slashed, all the way from $40 to $0.

Of course, yes its April Fools day and we should not believe anything we see online. That is why I have included two screenshots (see below). Otherwise, PreCentral is reporting that Verizon has also lowered the pricing of the phones to $49.99 and $29.99. That said, I cannot see, nor verify those prices. [Update] The Verizon website has now confirmed $49.99 and $29.99 pricing on the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. Price drop is official.

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

New Twitter For BlackBerry Beta client leaked

Didn’t manage to squeeze your way into our Twitter for BlackBerry Beta code giveaway? Got into the Beta, but just want to be on the absolute cutting edge? Either way, you’re set. A new Beta version of the client has just leaked out, making RIM’s mediocre Twitter client slightly less mediocre.

Made available by the lovely folks over at BBTweeps (and brought to our attention by the also-lovely folks at CrackBerry), the new Beta should work for anyone running BlackBerry OS 4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.7.1, or 5.0 — in other words, just about everyone.

The new goods in this Beta:

• Profile editing
• Click profile pictures to enlarge them
• Faster performance by way of data caching
• Twitter List viewing and creation
• Font settings
• You can now disable the navigation bar, and remove the update box from the app’s homescreen.

It’s still got a ways to go before it’s competing with the likes of Seesmic and TweetGenius – but progress is progress, right?

You can find all the over-the-air download links here.

Video: iPad Weather App Gets Hardcore

Apple reportedly scrapped its Weather app from the iPad because it looked and felt weird on a bigger screen. So leave it to third-party developers to fill in the hole.

In the video above, developer Vimov shows off its iPad app Weather HD, which will give you a little more than you need — detailed 3D animations of various weather conditions along with a temperature reading — when all you want to know is if it’s raining tomorrow. But hey, what else would you do with all that screen?

Priced at $1, Weather HD will be available in the App Store when the iPad goes on sale Saturday.

See Also:

• Video Gives a Glimpse of What's Inside iPad App Store
• The Wired Tablet App: A Video Demonstration
• IPad Apps Could Put Apple in Charge of the News
• iPad Developers Code Their Apps in the Dark
• Amazon Shows Off Kindle for iPad
• 5 Apps We Can't Wait to See on the iPad

AT&T capable Palm Pre Plus gets the required FCC approval

Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile

The Palm Pixi Plus recently made its appearance with the FCC, and today it looks like that time has come for its sibling, the Pre Plus. As usual, the listing did not reveal any new goodies. Basically what we have is an image of the FCC label as well the model number, which was P101UNA. In otherwords, the P101 is for the Palm Pre and the UNA stands for UMTS and North America. In short, the Palm Pre Plus has been given the seal of approval for the North American 3G bands, which means its one step closer to seeing an AT&T release.

Via [PreCentral]

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

Why We Are Obsessed With the iPad

Yes, the iPad has fewer features than a comparably priced netbook. Yes, it’s tied to an app store controlled by a single company that has proven to be both capricious and prudish in the kinds of content it approves. And yes, it won’t run Adobe Flash, instantly crippling many websites.

But the iPad is an important device just the same, because it’s simple and it’s fast.

Early reviews of the iPad confirm my experience using the device during Apple’s press event two months ago: there’s something seriously different about Apple’s tablet.

That difference can be summarized in two words: It disappears.

It’s basically a screen. There’s a home button, and some buttons on the side that you don’t pay much attention to while you’re using it.

On the iPad, websites look pretty much the same as they do on my computer display, with one important exception: They fill the screen. Instead of living inside a box with a URL bar and a bunch of buttons alongside other boxes and applications, content takes over the device. There’s almost no noticeable interface.

On top of that, the screen is the most responsive touchscreen display I’ve ever had my hands on. Put your finger down on a page and wiggle it around, and the page follows your finger exactly, and instantly.

Those two facts — the lack of interface and the instant responsiveness — lend a psychological concreteness to whatever you’re looking at. You’re not just looking at Wired.com through a browser, you’re holding Wired.com in your hands.

Ditto for photos, calendar entries, e-mail messages and even video: You feel as though you’re holding the actual pictures, calendar pages, messages and movies.

It’s a subtle difference and, rationally speaking, it is irrelevant to the content that appears beneath the glass face of the LCD. You get exactly the same words and pictures (but not, of course, any Flash video or animations.) But it’s a profoundly different feeling for the human on this side of the glass. It makes the content feel more immediate, more real and more “in the world.”

Over time, that’s going to make profound changes to THE way web designers create and deploy their sites, to the way we think about “online content,” and to the way we think about computers.

In fact, it’s the beginning of the end for computers as technology. Technology, after all, is stuff that doesn’t work yet, as Douglas Adams observed a decade ago. Once it starts working all the time — like chairs or electricity — you stop thinking about it as technology and start taking it for granted.

The iPad promises much, and we have yet to find out if it lives up to its expectations. Make no mistake: Once we have unfettered access to the device, we will be testing the iPad thoroughly to find out where, and how, it breaks down, and we’ll report the results here.

But if it works as well as promised, the iPad could be the first computer that people will be able to take for granted. And that’s why, like many people who live and breathe technology, we’re both excited by it — and a little bit scared of it.

Photo: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

Wired tech in real time: Follow Dylan Tweney and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

See Also:

• The New Media Mall: What I’ll Be Expecting From the Apple iPad
• Wired.com Buyer’s Guide: Choose the Right iPad
• Five Essential iPad Accessories
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• 13 of the Brightest Tech Minds Sound Off on the Rise of the Tablet
• Hands-On With the Apple iPad
• What the iPad Means for the Future of Computing

Videos: iPad Unboxed, Reviewed

If you’re sick of reading about the iPad, take a gander at some videos posted by reviewers. Stephen Fry of Time has posted an unboxing video of the iPad (above) which shows off some of its accessories. And PCMag has published a neat video review of the iPad (below) giving a walkthrough of the device.

The iPad is set to release Saturday. Read Wired.com’s buyer’s guide if you’re mulling over which of the six models to purchase.

PCMag: Apple iPad video review from PCMag.com Reviews on Vimeo.

Via MacRumors

Verizon Palm Pre and Pixi Plus price slashed, Mobile Hotspot goes free

Be still, my pounding heart! In what is quite possibly the worst day to choose to do so (we promise its not a joke!), Verizon has just lopped a ton of cash off the entry fee for the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus. Better yet, they just made Mobile Hotspot, the add-on service that turns your Pre Plus/Pixi Plus into a 3G-powered WiFi hotspot for up to 5 devices, completely free.

Free! As in $0 a month! The Mobile Hotspot feature used to cost $40 a month. That’s $480 bucks a year in free features that Verizon is now giving to Pre Plus/Pixi Plus owners.

And as for the devices themselves: The Pre Plus has been cut down to $49.99 (from $149.99 at launch) and the Pre Plus is down at $29.99 (from $99.99 at launch). These devices are now amongst the cheapest Verizon offers, on the same price tier as a bunch of feature phones. Lets see here: a crummy LG Cosmos for $29.99, or a Pixi Plus? No contest.

[Source: Engadget]

Verizon Practically Giving Away Palm Phones - PC Magazine

Geeky gadgets

Verizon Practically Giving Away Palm Phones PC Magazine Wow. Verizon Wireless slashed prices on their Palm WebOS devices today, knocking the price of the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus to unheard-of levels. Verizon reduced the price of the Pre Plus down to $49 for two;and the Pixi Plus down to $29 ... Verizon Drops Pricing on Palm's webOS DevicesPhone Scoop Verizon Slashes Prices on Palm Pre Plus and Pixi PlusBrighthand Verizon slashes Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus prices, Mobile Hotspot service now ...VentureBeat I4U -FierceWireless -Auburn Citizen all 258 news articles »

First MeeGo builds are here, sans User Experience

Section: Communications, Smartphones, Computers, Netbooks, Software / Applications

With everyone focusing on the iPad that comes in a few days, MeeGo has decided to launch the first build of the new effort.  MeeGo is the project that combines Maemo and Moblin from Nokia and Intel.  It combines the two Linux projects and makes one system that is meant to work on both smartphone and netbooks as well as MIDs and just about any other device possible.

Today being the first build release, MeeGo is right now targeted at developers for testing.  The code is available for the Nokia N900, Atom-based netbooks and Atom-based smartphones.  To help reinforce the fact that this is meant for developers, and not to be used as a main OS, this build of MeeGo comes with no User Experience as it is not yet public.  Instead, booting MeeGo from a flash drive would boot straight into the terminal.

The fact that the first MeeGo builds lack the UX is depressing, though makes sense as the project is still early.  However, releasing just a terminal booting image of a netbook/mobile OS this close to the iPad’s launch may not be the best idea.  Yes, MeeGo will be interesting when we can use it without having to rely on the terminal, and yes, it is always nice to work with open source software.  Why even attempt to announce anything this close to the iPad launch, though?  Despite the qualms some if not many of us have with the App Store, the iPad is a power that will silence other news.  Guess that makes a good case for why the UX for MeeGo isn’t public yet, wait until we’ve all at least touched the iPad before showing is off.

Read [MeeGo]

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

Peach DNA Unraveled

Is Cyber Bullying Illegal?

Simon Singh's 'resounding victory' raises hope of libel reform - The Guardian

Telegraph.co.uk

Simon Singh's 'resounding victory' raises hope of libel reform The Guardian A leading science writer has won a "resounding victory" in the court of appeal over a libel battle which has become a catalyst for the reform of English libel laws, which critics claim stifle scientific debate. Today's decision will strengthen the ... Science writer Simon Singh wins libel appealBBC News Vilification Appeal Won by Science Writer Simon SinghTopNews United States Science libel verdict is a forceful blow in defence of freedom of speechTimes Online Ars Technica -The Associated Press -Telegraph.co.uk all 240 news articles »

New Tools For Nanoscience

Gadgetell Roundup: Apple iPad reviews

Section: Apple, Computers, Mobile Computers

It looks like the embargo has been lifted on the Apple iPad, and that means the first hands-on reviews have been posted. Overall the reviews seem to be positive and did not really spill anything all that surprising. But at the same time, they are worthy of a read if for nothing more than it will tide us over till Saturday when the regular folks will be able to get their hands on.

David Pogue, New York Times

And the techies are right about another thing: the iPad is not a laptop. It’s not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it — books, music, video, photos, Web, e-mail and so on. For most people, manipulating these digital materials directly by touching them is a completely new experience — and a deeply satisfying one.

Walt Mossberg, The Wall Street Journal

All in all, however, the iPad is an advance in making more-sophisticated computing possible via a simple touch interface on a slender, light device. Only time will tell if it’s a real challenger to the laptop and netbook.

Edward C. Baig, USA Today

Apple has pretty much nailed it with this first iPad, though there’s certainly room for improvement. Nearly three years after making a splash with the iPhone, Apple has delivered another impressive product that largely lives up to the hype.

PC Magazine

A difficult-to-pinpoint target customer and a few pesky omissions are overshadowed by the excellent overall experience you get with Apple’s iPad. And it sets the bar high for competing products in this nascent Internet tablet category.

chron TechBlog

I had high expectations for the iPad, and it has met or exceeded most of them.

Boing Boing

I like it a lot. But it’s the things I never knew it made possible — to be revealed or not in the coming months — that will determine whether I love it.

ABC News via Silicon Alley Insider

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

App Advice Posts Gallery of 1,300 iPad Apps

Speaking of leaked iPad Apps, App Advice, the App Store listing site, has managed to put together a gallery of 1,350 application that will be available to download on iPad launch day.

The list is pulled in from Apple’s servers, which seem to be hosting these app description pages but withholding them still from the iTunes Store proper. Depressingly, flicking through the pages brings on the same feeling of disappointment you get when browsing through the dross in the current App Store.

In fact, with a few exceptions (like the Brushes app shown off at the iPad launch, and hopefully Instapaper), you can bet that pretty much every one of the iPad apps available at launch will be little more than existing iPhone apps recompiled to work on the iPad without pixel doubling. That’s because the developers of quality applications know that they need to rethink the whole design of their products for the new machine, which is proving to be more than just a “big iPod Touch”. Still, if you feel like getting yourself down, fire up Pink Floyd’s The Wall in iTunes and head over to take a look.

The IPad Apps Are Coming! [App Advice via Giz]

Video game pioneer Ralph Baer inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame

FROM GAMERTELL - One of the founding fathers of the video game industry is getting his due as an inductee in the Inventors Hall of Fame…
MORE »

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

Windows 7 Mobile gets ported to the iPhone via a custom theme

Blasphemy? Maybe, but it seems to run great. Unfortunately the creator — woocash-kun on DeviantArt — states he’s not ready to release it to the public and wants to keep it to himself for the time being. That’s blasphemy. The Internet is about sharing and caring, pal. Now let us all have your creation so we can pass it off as our own because we’re clearly too lazy and/or dumb to make it ourself. [via WMPoweruser]

Roundup: The First Reviews of Apple's iPad

TechCrunch a little sour for April Fools Day. F.U.J.J!

Section: Computers, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Networking, Wireless

The self adjusting touchscreen module, or F.U.J.J for short, is TechCrunch’s latest invention to replace its wrongfully stolen CrunchPad. Coming in at just $50, it is a sound replacement for just about any tablet device. And best of all, it’s a DIY project that your kids can even help with!

In all seriousness, it’s a cute video starring Mike Arrington, the original creator of the CrunchPad, himself where he subtly tells everyone his frustration with losing his pride and joy. It comes as a great April Fools Joke and even if the product was still fake, if they really put this up for sale I’m sure they’d make more than the $44,000 the JooJoo did. Through it all, though, I think TechCrunch might have managed to come out on the high side in this fight even if they don’t win back the rights.

As previously thought, the JooJoo got stomped on by the iPad. Selling around 90 pre-orders for the JooJoo and still managing to miss three or four deadlines, the latest being March 29th, the JooJoo turned out to be a flop. TechCrunch should stop while they’re ahead and let Fusion Garage take the fall for the device instead of attempting to get it back only to get measly sales as a side-effect.

It was a great idea; it would have been amazing had it come out 6-7 months ago and it would probably be seeing the large sales the iPad is getting already. But they waited.

Happy April Fools Day everyone, even if it is a bit early(or late) where you live.

Read[TechCrunch]

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

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