|
|
|
|
Nokia Sues Apple Over iPad - The Atlantic
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 May 2010 | 3:34 am Apple iPhone Gaining on RIM BlackBerry, IDC Says - eWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 8 May 2010 | 3:13 am Diskless Booting For the Modern AgeAn anonymous reader writes "Ever wonder what happened to PXE? Intel's popular standard for diskless booting hasn't been updated since 1999, and has missed out on such revolutions as wireless Ethernet, cloud computing, and iSCSI. An open source project called Etherboot has been trying to drag PXE into the 21st century. One of their programmers explains how to set up diskless booting for your cloud, using copy-on-write to save space."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 8 May 2010 | 3:08 am Umbrella-Backed Seats - The Uncompleted Chair Offers More than a Back Rest (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I've always thought that the back of a chair was made for the lazy, and the Uncompleted Chair shows that it can be utilized for something more useful than simply a backrest. Designed...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 2:59 am Plastic Surgery Sculptures - The Marc Quinn Exhibition Takes Art to Insane Measures (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Within the Marc Quinn exhibition, "Allanah, Buck, Catman, Chelsea, Michael, Pamela and Thomas," McQuinn's well-known interest and fascination with body transformations is thoroughly...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 2:29 am Thailand censors more websites as protests persist (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 May 2010 | 2:20 am Epic Skater Lifestyle Vids - Adidas Originals "Rolling London" Follows around Pro Skaters (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) The Adidas Originals 'Rolling London' video is a great watch for a scenic tour of London and skateboarding fun. Four pro skaters joined Adidas for this lifestyle video and it looks...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 1:59 am Profile of creator of Sugru, the super fixum gunkWired UK has a nice profile of Jane ní Dhulchaointigh, the inventor behind Sugru, a polymer clay that dries to a dishwasher-safe plastic that you can use to fix pretty much anything. I've used it to fix cracked cups, suspend fossils from my walls, and repair cracked picture frames. Love it.Wired meets the woman behind Sugru (via Wonderland) (Image: Perry Curties/Wired UK) Source: Boing Boing | 8 May 2010 | 1:28 am Profile of creator of Sugru, the super fixum gunkWired UK has a nice profile of Jane n Dhulchaointigh, the inventor behind Sugru, a polymer clay that dries to a dishwasher-safe plastic that you can use to fix pretty much anything. I've used it to fix...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 1:28 am Cowhide Lighting - The Cow Skin Lamps by SDA Decoration Brings the Farm Home (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I never thought I would say this, but I'm loving these Cow Skin Lamps. A refreshing animal pattern for the home, they truly bring 'country chic to a whole new level,' as Trendir writes...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 1:21 am FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and futureThe FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the "Selective Output Control" technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater depending on what you're watching. And it sucks. As Dan Gillmor notes, "Fans of old TV science fiction will remember the Outer Limits. Given Hollywood's victory today at the FCC -- they'll be able to reach over the lines and disable functions on your TV -- the intro to the show takes on modern relevance." The FCC says that they're doing this because they believe that if they do so, the MPAA will start releasing first-run movies (the ones that are still in theaters) for TV. They say that Hollywood won't make these movies available unless they get Selectable Output Control because SOC will stop piracy. This is ridiculous. First, it's ridiculous because this can't ever stop piracy or get first-run movies into your living room. Even with SOC, the studios are not going to release high-value movies that are still in theatrical distribution for viewing in your house, where you could set up a tripod and high-quality camera (along with ideal lighting) in order to make your own camcordered copy and put it online. Now, the FCC could have solved this by saying that only movies that are in their first theatrical release run can have SOC turned on, but they didn't, because they knew that the MPAA was lying through its teeth about using SOC to enable the "new business model" of showing you first run movies in your home. Second, it's ridiculous because it's possible in the first place. The FCC (and the candy-ass consumer electronics companies) allowed for Selectable Output Control to be inserted into your devices even though they claimed all along that they would never allow it to be used. Read your Chekhov, people: the gun on the mantelpiece in act one will go off in act three. Allowing the MPAA to get SOC in your set-top box but "never planning on using it" is like buying a freezer full of chocolate ice-cream and never planning on eating it. If the CE companies and FCC wanted to prevent SOC from being used, the best way of doing that would be to not include it in devices in the first place. Finally, this is ridiculous because of what it's really for: ensuring that Hollywood gets control of all the features in your home's devices and computers. Here's how that works:
Now here's the really scary part:
U.S. Lets Hollywood Disable Home TV Outputs to Prevent Piracy
(Thanks, Adam and Dan!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 8 May 2010 | 1:12 am FCC hands Hollywood the keys to your PC, home theater and futureThe FCC has given Hollywood permission to activate the "Selective Output Control" technologies in your set-top box. These are hidden flags that allow the MPAA to deactivate parts of your home theater...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 1:12 am Life Mobile app lets you explore history (Appolicious)Appolicious - Life magazine may not be printed any longer, but that doesn’t mean its legendary photojournalism didn’t have an impact on history. Whether you previously read Life weekly or you’re seeing its photos for the first time Time Inc.’s new app, Life Mobile, for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, can help you explore the annals of history.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 May 2010 | 12:29 am Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion: stupendous essay Disney's original, 1969 Haunted Mansion opened in Disneyland's New Orleans Square, which made a certain sense -- all those stories of haints on the bayou made the Mansion a good fit for a New Orleans theme-area. But two years later, they opened the Walt Disney World Haunted Mansion in Florida's "Liberty Square," which was a slightly weirder fit (in Tokyo, they relocated it to Fantasyland; in Paris they put it in the western-themed Frontierland). The Passport to Dreams blog explains the fascinating process by which Liberty Square became home to the Mansion, and has a stellar critical look at why the Mansion captures our imagination: The question of time allows us to open the door on another question which is perhaps instructive about the darker recesses of this attraction. When I was younger and more literal-minded, the question of what I called the "continuity flaws" of the attraction bothered me to no end - when you're in the stretching gallery, for example, lightning flashes outside the windows, but later, in the Music Room, there's nothing but ominous clouds and moonlight. Later, at the conservatory, there's a foggy landscape, in the ballroom we have lightening again, then in the graveyard there's thick fog, rolling clouds and twinkling stars. All of these weather patterns, of course, are even stranger depending on the weather patterns outside the show building - in the real world - when you enter, but this further complication is usually swallowed up by the trancelike state inside the attraction, where it is perpetually night.History and the Haunted Mansion (via The Disney Blog)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 8 May 2010 | 12:25 am Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion: stupendous essayDisney's original, 1969 Haunted Mansion opened in Disneyland's New Orleans Square, which made a certain sense -- all those stories of haints on the bayou made the Mansion a good fit for a New Orleans...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 12:25 am Bible-Like Solar Yachts - Janne Leppanen's ARKKI Solar Trimaran is Noah's Arc Revamped (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The newest envisioned solar sailboat to hit the ocean is Janne Leppanen's ARKKI solar trimaran. The Trimaran, a boat based on the look and purpose of a catamaran, is adorned with solar...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 8 May 2010 | 12:21 am Wikipedia Offers a Book CreatorKilrah_il writes "Wikipedia recently added an option to create a book from your chosen entries: 'That's it, the book creator has gone live in the English Wikipedia! A few hours ago, the book creator has been made available to all users of the English Wikipedia. This feature, which allows all readers to create books from Wikipedia articles, has been until now only available to logged-in users. It has been available in other Wikipedias for a longer time, it's now available on the English Wikipedia, for all, without restrictions.' You can either download the book in PDF format for free or have it printed and sent to you via PediaPress with 10% of the total going to the Wikimedia Foundation."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 8 May 2010 | 12:11 am Reuters Galleries iPad app good, but could be much better (Appolicious)Appolicious - A companion app to Reuters News Pro for iPad, Reuters Galleries (free) is an excellent way to see the news in pictures and video. That is, if you can keep it open.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 8 May 2010 | 12:00 am Linux users twice as generous as Windows usersCrunching the numbers on the pay-what-you-like Humble Indie Bundle package, the Wolfire people noticed a curious thing: Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users. "So far, the average Mac user is donating 40% more, and the average Linux user is donating 100% more!" I've got a half-formed theory in my head that living in a world where people are generous and share makes you generous and sharing, while living in a world where people are stingy and proprietary makes you stingy and proprietary. This would be why Econ students play the Ultimatum Game more cruelly than civilians.Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 11:45 pm Linux users twice as generous as Windows usersCrunching the numbers on the pay-what-you-like Humble Indie Bundle package, the Wolfire people noticed a curious thing: Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users. "So far, the average Mac user...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 May 2010 | 11:45 pm Personal Garden Initiatives - The groOrganic Garden Project is Sprouting up in Communities (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) The groOrganic garden project consists of a team of professional gardeners that aim to seed healthy and sustainable lifestyles in communities in Southern California. Grocery stores...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 7 May 2010 | 11:21 pm ReadWriteWeb’s Mobile Summit And The Long Shadow Of Apple
Amid rows of baked goods and gallons of orange juice and coffee, developers and entrepreneurs gathered today at the Computer History Museum for ReadWriteWeb’s mobile summit. The meeting, organized as an “unconference,” created an adhoc setting for a candid discussion of mobile trends, including augmented reality, mobile video, location based services, the internet of things (sensor, RFID data), and native versus browser based apps. CEO of ReadWriteWeb, Richard MacManus, believes that the number one mobile trend is the internet of things, and the growing importance of sensors and how that data can be leveraged: “It’s when real world objects get connected to the internet via sensors or RFID tags… I just think there is going to be so much data going onto the web and what people do with that data and what developers create based on that data is going to be a huge trend.” It was a long day filled with dozens of group sessions and countless ideas, but there was a recurring theme that permeated many of my discussions: the long shadow of Apple (and often, other internet giants, like Google and Microsoft) and how it’s rivalries will impact the developer community. For example, the CEO of Redhook Wireless, Ted Morgan told us, “What you’re seeing is an amazing platform war between Apple and Google and those two companies are fighting to carve up the Internet…those two guys are going to dominate most of what happens and then everyone else tries to figure out either how to supply them, get bought by them or be the third player.” To get a better sampling, see video above (pardon the quality, it was all shot on my flip cam).      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 11:14 pm FEATURE-Spill could devastate U.S. Gulf Coast oyster reefs* Gulf home to last, largely intact oyster reef ecosystemSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 11:03 pm Sony expands Music Ticket+ program to Latin tours (Reuters)Reuters - Latin music fans will get song downloads and other bonus content along with their concert tickets this summer, as Sony Music Entertainment ramps up its "Music Ticket+" bundling program.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 9:47 pm Google Acquires BumpTop DesktopTuringTest writes "BumpTop, a company that provides a multi-touch physical desktop metaphor, has been acquired by Google and made to 'no longer be available for sale.' BumpTop provides a direct way to handle information through simple gestures. Some media see this acquisition as a movement by Google to position against the iPad. Will BumpTop be ported to Android?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 9:20 pm A 'Legit' Pirate Bay Makes Sense in Theory, If Not PracticeAn ambitious, embattled entrepreneur named Hans Pandeya in on a Quixotic quest to turn The Pirate Bay into a legit distributor of content even though he has no money to buy a domain the owners say isn't for sale. But his idea -- people who currently pay about $6 a month for an under-the-radar connection to the torrent service might pay a similar fee for a version of the site that was full of licensed content -- might not be so crazy after all.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 9:00 pm Concert promoters embrace new media for fan servicesAfter graduating last year with a degree in computer science from Sacramento (California) State University, 24-year-old Alex Rude decided to try his hand at iPhone application development...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 8:48 pm New Lindsay Lohan track leaks online (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 8:43 pm UPDATE 1-Teva, Baxter ordered to pay $500 mln in Hep C case* Teva says plans to contest verdict (Adds statement from Teva)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 7:27 pm Sergio: must-see HBO documentary on "a dream slain in Iraq"At 7:58pm last night, my friend Susannah emailed: Hey. If you want to get totally depressed, lose your faith in humanity, and confirm any feelings you have that great deeds do not go unpunished, watch the HBO documentary on Sérgio Vieira de Mello.As it happened, the film was about to start airing in exactly two minutes, and I did. She was right (have kleenex handy, I guarantee you'll cry), but bummers aside, there was an awful lot that made the film worth watching.
I urge everyone reading this blog post to catch the documentary when it re-airs this Sunday (or DVR it, or do what you gotta do, but see it). A few reviews: Boston Globe, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and the one you can't miss is from John Burns at the New York Times. He was based in the Times' Baghdad bureau in 2003, and was present at the bombing in which Sergio and scores of other people were killed. Trailer here, and embedded above. Documentary Blog has a great interview with the film's director, Greg Barker, who also directed the award-winning Ghosts of Rwanda. Indiewire has a great interview with Barker here. A snip: What I found heartbreaking is that Sergio assumed the Bush Administration--having begged him to go Iraq--actually wanted him to draw on his 30+ years of conflict resolution, and he set about trying to end the occupation as soon as possible. Instead, he found himself accused by the growing insurgency as being a tool of the Americans...until on August 19, 2003, Sergio himself became the target.The film is based on the Samantha Power book Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World. Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 7:20 pm Pentagon bars reporters from Gitmo trial for reporting already-public informationThe Pentagon will not allow four journalists to cover the trial of Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr because they are said to have reported the name of a military interrogator who testified Thursday "that he tried to frighten Khadr with the possibility of being raped in prison." The name of that interrogator had already been widely reported in the Canadian press.Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 7:04 pm New Coffee Shop Series From Verizon Wireless Highlights Bay Area Music and the Latest TechnologySource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 6:49 pm Google @ Intel ISEF 2010On Monday, several thousand high school students will descend on San Jose for this year’s Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). A project of the Society for Science & the Public, Intel ISEF brings together more than 1,500 high school students from over 50 countries to showcase and discuss their research and compete for millions of dollars in prizes. We’re particularly excited about this event because this year Google is the Premier Sponsor and Silicon Valley Host of the event.We’re getting ready to launch an action-packed week of events and activities that celebrate the accomplishments of the Intel ISEF finalists and the role that technology plays in the future of science. Our schedule includes:
Posted by Josh Weaver, ISEF alum and Tech Lead for Street View    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 7 May 2010 | 6:32 pm Funny/Not funny: Volvo’s crash avoidance feature fails during demo
Check out the video over at Wired UK.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 6:18 pm FCC Allows Blocking of Set-Top Box Outputsbth write with this excerpt of an AP story as carried by Yahoo: "Federal regulators are endorsing Hollywood's efforts to let cable and satellite TV companies turn off output connections on the back of set-top boxes to prevent illegal copying of movies. ... In its decision Friday, the agency stressed that its waiver includes several important conditions, including limits on how long studios can use the blocking technology. The FCC said the technology cannot be used on a particular movie once it is out on DVD or Blu-ray, or after 90 days from the time it is first used on that movie, whichever comes first."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 6:17 pm CORRECTED - UPDATE 1-J&J CEO calls drug recalls a "disappointment"NEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Johnson & Johnson Chief Executive Bill Weldon told consumers in an open letter published on Friday on the drugmaker's blog that the recent recalls of some of its medicines...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 6:16 pm Some Palin Facebook fans unhappy with endorsement (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 6:15 pm UPDATE 2-Lions Gate loses appeal on 'poison pill'* Canadian regulators had invalidated company poison pillSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 6:12 pm Yet another Facebook privacy risk: emails Facebook sends leak user IP address
We've been covering the mounting privacy violation woes for Facebook users here on Boing Boing in recent weeks—here's another issue to be aware of. Facebook base64-encodes your IP address in every emailed event that you interact with. Matt C. at Binary Intelligence Blog explains that Facebook's automated email notifications (which go out when, say, a friend comments on your status or sends you a message) appear to contain the IP address of the user who caused that Facebook email to be sent: The email headers contain a line similar to:As Matt points out in the blog post, this may not be the most onerous of Facebook's privacy problems, and it's certainly not the only one. But no good purpose for users is served by leaking user IPs, and there are many good reasons not to. Facebook, get your shit together for chrissakes. (binint.com, thanks Jake Appelbaum / IMAGE: Facebook, a Creative Commons-licensed photo from the Flickr stream of Franco Bouly)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 6:06 pm Teva, Baxter ordered to pay $500 mln in Hep C caseNEW YORK, May 7 (Reuters) - Teva Pharmaceutical Industries and Baxter Healthcare Services on Friday were ordered to pay a combined $500 million in punitive damages to a Nevada man who contracted Hepatitis...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 6:03 pm HTC applies for thin-film speaker patent
But what’s a device that’s never had, and likely never will have, any bass? Yes, every mobile phone ever made.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 6:02 pm Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO to Speak at Key Industry Events in JapanSAN FRANCISCO, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, is scheduled to speak at key IT industry events in Japan this month. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO) Benioff is scheduled to speak at the following events: Cloud Computing Expo Japan Tokyo, Japan Wednesday May 12th, 10:30 a.m.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 6:01 pm Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO to Speak at Key Industry Events in JapanSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 6:01 pm Speaker/ Overhead Light Combo Is a Brilliant IdeaLights that spew sound and photons? Klipsch has you covered.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Speaker/ Overhead Light Combo Is a Brilliant IdeaLights that spew sound and photons? Klipsch has you covered.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 7 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Penn State Football Pumps Up the VolumeIn football, you can't run a play if no one can hear the quarterback. How Penn State University will use the science of acoustics -- and 107,000 screaming fans -- for an unprecedented gridiron advantage.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 6:00 pm HTC applies for thin-film speaker patent
The method they’re attempting to patent is a way of easily mass-producing electret loudspeakers and integrating them with, one assumes, a phone chassis. They get more into the actual theoretical implementation in a separate patent. Sure, why not? [via WMPowerUser]
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 5:59 pm OmniVision to Host Teleconference on Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2010 Financial ResultsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 5:53 pm OmniVision to Host Teleconference on Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2010 Financial ResultsSANTA CLARA, Calif., May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- OmniVision Technologies, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 5:53 pm This week in search 5/7/10This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.This week was a big one for search. We announced a number of new enhancements: A new look for Google By now, you've probably noticed Google has a fresh look and feel. This week, we announced a new contextually relevant left-hand panel on the search results page that brings together all of the most relevant search tools and refinements for your particular query. It makes navigation quick and easy — you can seamlessly jump to and from different types of results, from Books to Images to News, or dig deeper by narrowing down results by time or topic. The new “Something different” feature at the bottom of the left-hand panel helps you find other topics that are related to your query, broadening the possibilities for your search. In addition to this new navigation, we also slightly changed our logo, which is now brighter, simpler and overall more modern. Ultimately, this latest evolution of Google makes it much easier to pinpoint more precisely what you’re looking for. We hope you're as excited as we are about these new changes! Sites with images feature Having more information upfront can be helpful in choosing the best webpages to visit, particularly when you're searching sites rich with images. So this week, we introduced a new way to view search results for sites with lots of images. Each result will now include a strip of images from the website, so you can get a better preview of what each page has to offer. To enable this new feature, simply do your image-focused query on Google, click on "more search tools" in the left-hand navigation, and then click on "sites with images." You'll notice the search results page completely transforms. Example searches: [orchids] and [salt ponds]  Translate with Google Goggles We launched Google Goggles in December as a new way to search by sight, with your mobile phone's camera. From identifying landmarks, books, artwork — even wine bottle labels — Goggles is an interesting tool for expressing your queries beyond just text. This week, we released a new version of Goggles with translation capabilities built in. To use it, point your phone's camera at a foreign word or phrase and use the "region of interest button" to draw a box around specific words. After Goggles detects the text, select the source and destination languages and press the "translate" button. To use this, you'll need Google Goggles v1.1 on an Android device that's running version 1.6 and higher. We hope that you enjoy the features we launched this week, and that they make your search experience even better. Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management, Search   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 7 May 2010 | 5:52 pm Google Apps highlights – 5/7/2010This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.We've been busy over the last few weeks with improvements to make Google Apps more useful, whether you use Google Apps at work, at school or at home. Improvements to comments in Buzz We’ve been making continuous improvements to Buzz, including a few changes to comments over recent weeks. We added new options so you can have comments delivered directly to your inbox for conversations that you’re interested in. You can also comment back by replying to the message in your inbox. Also new, when a conversation you started has run its course, “Close comments” will prevent people from adding new comments.  Copy sheets from one spreadsheet to another We’re continuing to improve on the new documents and spreadsheets editors that we introduced a few weeks ago. On Wednesday we launched the ability to copy sheets across spreadsheets when you don’t want to duplicate an entire spreadsheet. Just click the “Copy to...” option in the sheet options menu.  More Google applications coming for Google Apps customers Yesterday we shared the news that many more Google applications are coming later this year to businesses, schools and organizations using Google Apps. Coworkers will be able to publish their organization’s blog on Blogger, share project images with Picasa Web Albums, track industry news in Google Reader, advertise online with AdWords and much more, all without switching back and forth between multiple accounts. Read the details on the Google Enterprise Blog.  Administrative reset of end-user sign-in cookies Google Apps customers also now have the ability to reset sign-in cookies for an end-user from the administrative control panel to help prevent unauthorized access to Google Apps. This security feature can come in handy when a user loses a laptop or mobile phone. That user’s active Google Apps browser sessions are immediately signed out, and will require new authentication with the user’s username and password.  Who’s gone Google? Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and organizations have started using Google Apps since our last update, including Morehouse College, Kenyon College, Shenandoah University and the University of Rhode Island. LiquidConcrete, an industrial materials firm in Seattle, also shared a great story about going Google. Not only do they use Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar, they also rely on Smartsheet — available from the Apps Marketplace — for project management. Now they’re able to track their inventory, manage the order-to-ship process and much more in the cloud, for a fraction of the cost of alternative solutions. I hope you're making the most of these new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends, family, coworkers or classmates. For more details and updates from the Apps team, head on over to the Google Apps Blog. Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 7 May 2010 | 5:42 pm UPDATE 2-U.S. lawmaker seeks details on Tylenol recall* Lawmaker wants information on FDA authority (Adds lawmaker comments, background)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 7 May 2010 | 5:37 pm New Bionic Arms Are Strong, Sensitive, Human-Friendly
Robotics and prosthetics designers have been making great advances in the power, sensitivity and humanity of their creations. Case in point: The i-Limb Pulse is a new bionic arm that allows users to handle heavy objects or delicate items, as well as customize the grips to fit their needs. With a design similar to Darth Vader’s bionic hand, this is one tough prosthetic device. The maker, Touch Bionics, claims this prosthetic hand can handle more than 200 pounds, if your biceps are up to it. When grabbing an object, it can apply additional force by using a pulsing effect. “This effect is generated by sending rapid, high-frequency electronic pulses to the finger motors, driving them to close more securely around an object,” the company explains on its website. The i-Limb Pulse is customizable with software. Doctors and users can tweak i-Limb Pulse’s behavior, programming it with specific grip patterns to fit the customer’s needs. They then beam the new patterns to the hand with Bluetooth. It comes in two sizes, to accommodate both genders. But a number of details have not been disclosed, including the price and artificial-skin options, which were available for the previous model. Which, by the way, wasn’t exactly shabby. The I-Limb Hand was the first fully-functional artificial hand commercially available to people who needed a hand, according to Touch Bionics. Time magazine named it one of top 50 inventions of 2008 (to be fair, that list also included Dimitrij Ovtcharov’s new ping-pong serve). According to Touch Bionics, i-Limb Hand has been fitted to more than 1,200 patients. We’re not sure the same amount of commercial success will follow another interesting robotic arm concept that hit us in the past few days: an arm modeled after an elephant’s trunk. Although its name includes the word “bionic,” the Bionic Handling Assistant is more of an industrial-level robotics device — and still not available for sale — but the makers, Festo, say it will offer a safe and flexible way to move stuff around. Because contact between humans and current industrial robots can be hazardous, BHA’s human-friendly trunk retracts on contact (or so the company claims). As such, it would be a safer way to transfer things in hospitals or at home. The idea of a robotic arm that looks like a trunk so it doesn’t violently murder you might sound silly. But a recent study by three German scientists showed that robotic arms could, in fact, violently murder you. (Photo: Touch Bionics) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 5:30 pm Vibration Killing Enterprise Disk Performance?An anonymous reader writes "Is vibration killing disk performance? ZDnet reports on research that a carbon fiber anti-vibration rack increased random read performance by 56% to 246% and random write [performance] by 34% to 88%. Vibration is a known disk problem, but this is one of the few attempts to quantify its impact — which looks to be much greater than suspected."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 5:30 pm Box to contain oil leak touches down on Gulf floor (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 5:25 pm YC-Funded Nowmov: Sit Back, Relax, And Watch An Endless Stream Of YouTube Videos
Nowmov’s site is very, very simple, at least from the user’s perspective. As soon as you browse to Nowmov.com, the site will begin playing a YouTube video. Move your mouse and you’ll see a basic set of controls that let you pause the video, jump to the next clip, and share the video you’re watching with friends (the site supports keyboard commands, so you can just tap your arrow keys to jump between clips). But for the most part, you shouldn’t really need these controls — the whole point of Nowmov is that you can lay back as if you were watching TV, without having to figure out what you want to watch next. Nowmov uses some trickery on the frontend to reduce loading times, so even when you do decide to skip to the next clip there isn’t a jarring pause. Nowmov decides which videos to play by analyzing the Twitter public timeline and looking for commonly shared YouTube links (in the future, the site plans to use other sources to gauge popularity, and will also draw video from sites other than YouTube). For now the site isn’t doing any personalized recommendations — it constantly updates its playlist and uses cookies to ensure that you don’t see the same clip twice, but there isn’t an algorithm that learns which videos you like. That will change in a future version, when the site plans to produce personalized channels of content (think of it as a Pandora for videos). The team has quite a bit of experience with video. Two of the company’s co-founders — Thomas Pun and James Black — were longtime Apple engineers working on video encoding and processing; the third, David Kelso, was a technical founder at two startups before this. There’s definitely a need for this, but Nowmov isn’t the first startup that’s trying to solve it. ffwd has also tried to turn Internet video into a channel-surfing experience, and Magma is focused on video curation, though it isn’t really a ’lean-back’ site. And YouTube is always trying to bolster its own recommendation algorithms to keep people watching. Interesting sidenote: Ashton Kutcher is actually directly responsible for this site existing; the Nowmov guys were considering working on another idea until Kutcher told Y Combinator founders Paul Graham and Jessica Livingston that he wanted something like this. Kutcher decided to invest in and advise the startup, and Nowmov became a reality. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 5:15 pm FCC allows blocking of set-top box outputs (AP)AP - Federal regulators are endorsing Hollywood's efforts to let cable and satellite TV companies turn off output connections on the back of set-top boxes to prevent illegal copying of movies.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 5:15 pm Hey gang, Gulf Oil Spill has its very own official BP/US gov. Facebook page!What's the only thing that could possibly make the catastrophic Gulf oil spill any worse? Facebook! Here's a Facebook page launched by the joint U.S. and BP spill response team. So, what, we're supposed to hit the "Like" button? Related: BP's on Twitter. (via Tara)Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 5:11 pm Verizon Wireless Delivers $1.2 Million Check to Complete $1.5 Million Pledge to National Law Enforcement MuseumWASHINGTON, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Verizon Wireless delivered the final installment of a $1.5 million grant to the National Law Enforcement Museum.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 5:11 pm Report: Facebook Location Coming In A Few Weeks. But Is It Foursquare Or Twitter?
Today, they have a new story that, to be honest, seems more like a recap of yesterday’s, but with less of a focus on McDonald’s. According to their sources, Facebook will start allowing users to update their status messages with their location as soon as late May — yes, a few weeks away. What’s still not clear from all of this is if this location ability will be more like Foursquare or more like Twitter? What I mean by that is, Foursquare is predicated around the idea of checking-in to a specific venue (as are Gowalla, Loopt, and others). Twitter, meanwhile, allows you to tag a tweet with your location — not really a check-in. To me, this Facebook location system sounds more like the latter. That said, when tied in with the aforementioned McDonald’s app (and apps that other brands will undoubtedly build), the Facebook location plan could turn into more of a Foursquare-like one. We’ve heard that Facebook has been toying with a lot of potential ideas, including federating check-ins from Foursquare and Gowalla. There’s also been talk that they’ve been thinking about acquiring companies like Loopt and Foursquare (though they supposedly cooled on both of those ideas). And there’s something else to consider. While Facebook may indeed be allowing location-tagging in status updates, it could open these up to other apps besides just the ones brands build. For example, you could use Foursquare to update your status and put your location in this new location field — just as it works on Twitter right now. Again, this would be the federated model. Given what Facebook has been doing in recent weeks with its Open Graph initiative, on the face of it, this seems like the most obvious solution. Facebook doesn’t want to destroy startups, they want all startups to use them as a central point to distribute their services. They want to seize control of information on the Internet (not necessarily in an evil way). Plus, with all the recent privacy concerns about Facebook, launching an inclusive location service seems like possibly the worst idea in the world. AdAge wonders if they would make it opt-in or opt-out — if it were opt-out I think the blogosphere would explode. When I reached out to Foursquare for comment about Facebook’s supposed May location launch, co-founder Dennis Crowley gave me the vague, “First i’ve heard of it… looking fwd to seeing what they launch.“ Facebook, meanwhile, gave me even less; “We don’t have anything to share around timing. We’ll keep you posted when we do,” a spokesperson said in an emailed message. I don’t doubt AdAge is on the right trail with the status update location feature, I just think they’re sources may be limited in their scope (as you might expect focusing on the marketing side of things) of what Facebook is planning. I wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook’s location play is more of a challenge to Twitter — which is supposedly thinking about adding place information as well. If I were Foursquare (or Gowalla, etc) I might be more afraid of what it sounds like Google is doing with Latitude. They’re supposedly going to add the check-in feature — and Latitude is built-in to the Maps application on all Android phones. They’re now growing by 30% each month, and already have 3 million active users (3 times what Foursquare has). It’s easy to be wary of the enemy you can see. But it’s the one you can’t that could pose the real threat.      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 5:04 pm Quick PSA: Eyjafjallajökull is erupting again
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 5:00 pm Facebook's Gone Rogue; It's Time for an Open AlternativeFacebook's latest moves shows the company cares more about dominating the web than treating its users respectfully. It's time the web come up with an open alternative to return control to users.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 5:00 pm Baby Star Blows a Bubble, Force-Feeding a Stellar 'Goliath'The Herschel Space Observatory has spotted a young star blasting a cavity out of a nebula. The resulting 'bubble' is sparking the birth of more stars, one of them with the potential to grow into a stellar 'Goliath'.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 4:52 pm Calling All Yahoos–Or Are They Calling Demand Media? [BoomTown]The temperature is rising between Yahoo and Demand Media as several execs have or are expected to move from the Internet giant to the social media start-up. In March, Demand pulled off a major coup by hiring Yahoo’s head of U.S. advertising sales, Joanne Bradford. Today, Bradford’s program manager, Sarah Northern, resigned from the Silicon Valley company and said she is heading to the Santa Monica, Calif.-based Demand.
More significantly and also today, Erika Nardini (pictured here), VP of brand packaging at Yahoo (YHOO), announced to her staff that she is leaving the company, and she is widely expected to go to Demand too. When called by BoomTown, a Yahoo spokesman confirmed Nardini’s departure. In a statement Yahoo said: “Erika Nardini, VP of Yahoo! packaging group, has resigned from Yahoo!. On an interim basis, Mollie Spilman, Yahoo!’s senior vice president of B2B marketing, will assume Erika’s responsibilities and continue to run B2B marketing. Mollie will continue to drive the strong momentum we have in packaging, and how we service and deliver innovation to our customers and partners. We thank Erika for her contributions to Yahoo! and wish her success in the future.” Nardini, who is well-liked by the sales force, was hired at Yahoo by Bradford; both are former ad execs at Microsoft (MSFT). Sources at Yahoo said top execs are furious at what they consider a raid on talent by Demand. But Bradford is legally disallowed to poach execs, and sources within the ranks said many were seeking the jobs without prompting. Actually, such movement is quite typical at Internet companies, especially if a top exec like Bradford leaves. Often, many move after the initial departure and usually to the same company. Yahoo is currently on the hunt for a replacement for Bradford, a search being led by Spencer Stuart’s Jim Citrin. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 4:52 pm Climate Change and the Integrity of Scienceblau tips news of an open letter from 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, decrying the "recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general and on climate scientists in particular." The letter lays out the basics of the scientific method, and explains how certainly highly-regarded theories — such as the big bang, evolution, and Earth's origin — are commonly accepted due to the strength of the evidence supporting them, though "fame still awaits anyone who could show these theories to be wrong." It goes on to "call for an end to McCarthy-like threats of criminal prosecution against our colleagues based on innuendo and guilt by association, the harassment of scientists by politicians seeking distractions to avoid taking action, and the outright lies being spread about them." According to the Guardian, the letter "originated with a number of NAS members who were frustrated at the misinformation being spread by climate deniers and the assaults on scientists by some policy-makers who hope to delay or avoid making policy decisions and are hiding behind the recent controversy around emails and minor errors in the IPCC."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 4:43 pm Julius Caesar of the Internet - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 4:41 pm 2010: Another "Year of The Smartphone" [Digital Daily]
A spectacular gain, which far outpaced the 21.7 percent growth of the broader mobile market. And the fact that it follows a 38 percent surge in the fourth quarter, historically the strongest quarter of the year, makes it all the more impressive. So which smartphone manufacturers benefited most from this spike in growth? None more than Apple (AAPL). The company saw sales of its iPhone rise 131.6 percent year-over-year for a 16.1 percent share of the global smartphone market. Motorola (MOT) and HTC, too, experienced dramatic increases in sales. Motorola’s rose 91.7 percent for a market share of 4.2 percent; HTC’s rose 73.3 percent for a 4.8 percent share (see table below; click to enlarge).
Still, the market leaders remained the same: A 56.9 percent surge in sales gave Nokia (NOK) the top spot in the market with a 39.3 percent share and the 45.2 percent increase Research in Motion (RIMM) enjoyed landed it in the number two spot with a 19.4 percent share. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 4:40 pm Treat Your Mom Right! [Voices]By Nitrozac and Snaggy
Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 4:39 pm Gadgets of days gone by: the round-up
The workhorses of the week were the HP DeskJet 500 and the Super Nintendo, both of which found many current fans among our readers. Simplicity and good construction go a long way towards legendary status (the Game Boy shares these merits as well). With cameras, quite a lot has changed (and for the better), but the memories Matt captured to floppies on his Mavica will remain forever (now that they’re on YouTube), and the Kodak DC50 reminds us of the days when Kodak made more than just sensors. The Palm III and Newton Messagepad recalled for Scott and John days of productivity gone by, when your address book wasn’t also your handheld games device, phone, and television. Nicholas rifled through a box of VHS tapes to our infinite amusement, and I can’t be the only person who is hypnotized by the ability of the Samsung Trace to spin endlessly on its face. Greg eulogizes the hulking Sega Nomad, which you may have mistaken for a live black bear prowling the streets back when
We’ve collected all these, and plan to add more, under the Days Gone By tag, so keep an eye on it. The fun thing about old gadgets like this is that you’re always finding and remembering new ones. I’d have included the old amber-screened computer I used to play tic-tac-toe on (a Hercules, I think), but I’ll save that for another time (perhaps a slow news day). Hope you enjoyed this little series.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 4:30 pm Gadgets Of Days Gone By: The Round-Up
     
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 4:30 pm FCC Lets Hollywood Turn Off Your Output JacksThe Federal Communications Commission grants Hollywood the right to disable analog outputs on consumer devices. The control move is intended to let Hollywood prevent piracy, yet allow consumers to watch just-released films at home using on-demand.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 4:14 pm What's Causing The Apple iPad 3G Shortage? - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 4:13 pm What's Causing The Apple iPad 3G Shortage? (PC World)PC World - If you're planning to trot down to your local Apple Store this weekend and buy a shiny new iPad 3G, don't bother. Apple's retail outlets across the U.S. have already sold out of the 3G models, which went on sale just last week.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 4:08 pm Bedbugs: not just for poor people anymoreA highly icky New York Magazine article explores the bedbug boom in New York City. Once the monopoly of impoverished tenement dwellers, these sociable parasites are now freely enjoyed by highfalutin' types on the Upper East Side. Of the many interesting factoids in the story, a reminder that the highly toxic chemical DDT was really pretty great at keeping bedbugs at bay in decades past.Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 4:05 pm China Security & Surveillance Technology, Inc. Announces Amendments to Pre-Effective S-3 Registration StatementSHENZHEN, China, May 7 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- China Security & Surveillance Technology, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 4:05 pm Ahmedinejad: Bin Laden is in Washington, DCDuring an—I'm sorry, hilarious—ABC News interview with George Stephanopolous, Iranian President and noted nutcase Mahmoud Ahmedinejad answered questions about the possibility Osama Bin Laden was hiding in Iran with a reply conspiracy theorists will chew on for ages: "He was an old colleague of your president George Bush (...) I believe he is in Washington, DC."Source: Boing Boing | 7 May 2010 | 4:03 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of May 02, 2010Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 4:00 pm Amazon selling Dreamcasts again
It could be a great way to spend $89. Games are widely available at second hand stores and here’s a fun fact, the Dreamcast doesn’t need any modding or cracking to play pirated games. All you need to do is download them and burn ‘em on to a CD. So yeah, it’s totes worth $89 in my opinion. Jet Set Radio and NFL 2K2 agree.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 4:00 pm Symantec Study Mischaracterizes Linux Spam (PC World)PC World - The latest MessageLabs Intelligence Report from Symantec Hosted Services is filled with interesting and useful information regarding the current state of malware and e-mail borne threats as well as the trends over time. Of particular interest to me is the assertion in the report that "any given Linux machine is five times more likely to be sending spam than any given Windows machine."Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 7 May 2010 | 3:57 pm Scribd Ditches Flash in Favor of HTML5 - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 3:56 pm The Scale Anticipation Fallacy [Voices]By Ben Horowitz, Co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz The other day, I was talking to a couple friends of mine, one a VC and the other a CEO. During the meeting, we were discussing one of the executives at the CEO’s company. The executive in question performs exceptionally, but lacks experience managing at larger scale. My friend the VC innocently advised the CEO to carefully consider whether the executive would scale to meet the company’s needs in the future. I responded swiftly, aggressively, and loudly saying, “That’s a horrible idea and makes no sense at all.” Both of my friends startled at my outburst. Normally, I am disciplined enough to refrain from letting my feelings pass straight through my mouth without stopping at my brain for review. Why the outburst? Here is my answer. As CEO, you must constantly evaluate all of the members of your team. However, evaluating people against the future needs of the company based on a theoretical view of how they will perform is counterproductive for the following reasons: So, if you don’t prejudge people’s ability to scale, how do you make the judgment? You should evaluate your team at least once a quarter on all dimensions. Two keys can help you avoid the scale anticipation trap:
In summary, predicting whether or not an executive can scale corrupts your ability to manage, is unfair, and doesn’t work. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 3:55 pm Here's Your Chance to Drive a Chevrolet VoltWired.com and General Motors invite you to drive the Chevrolet Volt at Milford Proving Ground and see where and how it was developed.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 3:48 pm Facebook's Anti-Privacy Backlash Gains Ground - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 3:47 pm New Evidence Presented For Ancient Fossils In Mars Rocksazoblue passes along a story in the Washington Post, which begins: "NASA's Mars Meteorite Research Team reopened a 14-year-old controversy on extraterrestrial life last week, reaffirming and offering support for its widely challenged assertion that a 4-billion-year-old meteorite that landed thousands of years ago on Antarctica shows evidence of microscopic life on Mars. In addition to presenting research that they said disproved some of their critics, the scientists reported that additional Martian meteorites appear to house distinct and identifiable microbial fossils that point even more strongly to the existence of life. 'We feel more confident than ever that Mars probably once was, and maybe still is, home to life,' team leader David McKay said at a NASA-sponsored conference on astrobiology."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 3:47 pm Video game maps: even bigger edition
And then you have the space simulators like X3 and EVE Online, which, taking place as they do in space, have somewhat of an advantage over the land-based genres. But the real question really isn’t one of raw space so much as the actual size of the game world. While you may traverse hundreds or even millions of miles in MMORPGs and space simulators, the bulk of that terrain is practically empty. Compare this to, say, Grand Theft Auto 4, where every block is packed with detail and personality, although the game area is technically limited to perhaps 10 square miles. I expect this won’t be the last of these maps to come out, for certainly some joker will place these enormous maps on even more enormous map of all the universe, as represented in Homeworld or Elite. And while we’re on the topic of space and scale, now is a good time to remind you of that awesome spaceship chart from a while back. Put them together and you can really put things in perspective. [via Reddit, where they are disputing Nightfall's size]
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 3:30 pm Microsoft Shows Off Future Product Techadeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft opened a portion of its fifth TechFair to Silicon Valley residents, demonstrating more than 15 technologies, which included everything from real-time translation to mobile-to-mobile networking to improved image stitching. The top two that really stood out were the translating telephone, which actually used no 'telephone' at all — it was a test to discover how well Microsoft's speech algorithms could interpret speech, translate it, and then speak the translation using text-to-speech algorithms — and Manual Deskterity, a new paradigm for a user interface; a right-handed user's left hand, for example, can be used for coarse manipulations of objects, while the right can be used for fine manipulation, such as with a pen. It sounds a bit simplistic, at least at this stage. Since one of the charters of Microsoft Research is that the work should eventually be moved to product teams, there's a good chance that the prototypes will eventually be made available to the public at large."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 3:29 pm Secrets of Iron Man's New SuitsWhat types of armor will Tony Stark be wearing in Iron Man 2? A special effects master who worked on the superhero sequel hits you with hardware updates on Iron Man, War Machine and Justin Hammer's death-dealing drones.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 3:25 pm Gadgets of days gone by: Sega Nomad
This week at CrunchGear, we’re looking back at some of our favorite gadgets from the not-so-distant past — old phones, computers, media players, toys… those devices that still stand out in our memories despite their obsolescence. Feel free to contribute some of your own nostalgia. I was always a Sega kid. Not exclusively, mind you — I never saw fit to swear my loyalty to plumber nor hedgehog. Still, I was always that kid. The one who swore that Lion King was better on the Genesis than it was on the SNES, even if the former did sort of look like over-dithered garbage. The one who told all his friends how awesome the Sega Mega Mouse would be, even when there wasn’t really any reason for it to exist. The one who waited in line for a Sega CD. When they announced the Sega Nomad — a handheld, battery-powered Sega Genesis — I just about flipped my lid. The year was 1995, and handheld gaming was in a state of stagnancy. The best on-the-go system the world had seen thus far, the Gameboy, was coming up on its 6th year of life and offered up a color palette ranging from “Grey” to “Sort-of-greenish-grey”. Its successor, the Gameboy Color, was still 3 years off. In a flash that came years ahead of its time, the Nomad was born. The Nomad did everything that other one didn’t. The screen displayed color (eighty different colors at one time, no less!) in a time when such a feat was tiptoeing the edge of sorcery. It had a backlight, allowing me to play — get this — in the dark. And the bit that I still find awesome to this day: it ran the same cartridges as its not-so-portable home-based brethren, the Genesis. Alas, it failed pretty miserably, and not without reason. Worse than its size, and by far the issue that killed the entire concept, was the battery life. Now remember: this was 1995. Cheap, rechargeable lithium ion batteries strong enough to power a 7.67Mhz (Yep, Mhz. Seven of them.) processor and a 3″ display? Yeah right, space man. This thing demanded no less than six AA batteries at a time, and it chewed through them like a kid tearing into his first halloween candy. The “Low Battery” LED was more of an indication as to whether or not the thing was turned on. It was by no means without its faults, but I loved it all the same. And to the kid who “accidentally” knocked my Nomad off the table and shattered the screen back in Elementary school: I still think you’re an asshole.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 3:10 pm Linux Users Donate Twice As Much As Windows Users, On AveragesammyF70 writes "The Wolfire/Humble Indie Bundle real time statistics have been updated to show the average amount donated per platform. It looks like Linux users donate twice as much, on average, as Windows users. You can see some graphs on the Wolfire blog."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 3:05 pm Iwata: Nintendo 3DS’s 3D functionality can be turned off
Speaking to Forbes magazine, the Nintendo president cited health concerns among other things in the decision to make 3-D optional. Of course, as we know, the console will be back compatible with DS games, so maybe that’s all he’s referring to. At any rate we’ll find out at E3 in June. We’ll be live at the announcement and hopefully will get hands-on, so stay tuned. [via Go Nintendo]
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 3:00 pm inTEST Corporation Executive Chairman to Establish Stock Trading Program for Sale of SharesCHERRY HILL, N.J., May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- inTEST Corporation (Nasdaq: INTT) today announced that Alyn R.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 3:00 pm The Software Side of Flight-Testing Boeing's 787We hang out with the IT nerds at Boeing's flight-test help desk.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. Schedules First Quarter 2010 Earnings Release on Monday, May 17, 2010SHANGHAI, May 7 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Spreadtrum Communications, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Photo: Icelandic Volcano Begins Erupting AgainThe unpronounceable Icelandic volcano that began erupting March 20 and grounded flights across Europe has begun acting up again. Uh-oh!
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Borders Offers Kobo E-Reader - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 2:58 pm iPad International Release Expected On May 28On Friday Apple announced that May 28 would be the date that the iPad will go on sale in the international market. The touchscreen portable tablet has already sold over a million units since its U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 2:55 pm Twitter To Get So Buck On Its Own Wine Tonight
We will sell no wine before its time. Well, it’s time. Twitter headquarters has just been delivered two huge barrels of Fledgling Wine — the wine label it created in partnership with San Francisco-based winery Crushpad. I have a feeling the “tea time” that Twitter does every Friday might be a little crazier this week. It may be time to get buck. In all seriousness though, Fledgling Wine is a fun endeavor Twitter undertook for a good cause. $5 from each $20 bottle goes to Room to Read, a non-profit to educate children around the world. The wine isn’t scheduled to be bottled until August of this year, so I’m going to assume this is an early batch that Crushpad sent to Twitter for them to try out. Again, buck. Twitter employee Troy Holden captured the barrels on camera and naturally tweeted the picture out. This is the slightly classier version of the Facebook keg. Twitter: I’ll be over around 5ish. Everyone else: you can still buy the wine (bottles or cases) here.
[photo: twitpic/troy] Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 2:54 pm The Founder Institute Launches In Boston, Now Incubating Startups In 10 Cities
Mentors for the Boston outpost include Phil Libin, CEO, Evernote; Craig Kanarick, Cofounder of Razorfish; and Jordan Greenhall, Founder of DivX. The Founder Institute will join fellow startup incubator, TechStars, which opened a outpost in Boston last year. Y Combinator used to have a presence in the city but shifted to being in Silicon Valley year round last January. Founder Institute is also offering any TechCrunch reader that applies by the early admissions deadline on May 23rd in Boston a chance to to win one WiFi 32 GB iPad. Click here to apply, and write “TechCrunch” in the field asking, “How did you hear about the Institute?” Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 2:50 pm Law Professors Developing Patent License For FOSSJulie188 writes with this quote from a Networkworld article: "Two law professors from UC Berkeley have come up with a novel idea to protect open source developers from patent bullies. They call it the Defensive Patent License. They hope the DPL can address the objections FOSS developers have with patents the way the GPL addressed them for copyright. The DPL is similar to the concept of a defensive patent pool, but is not the same. The DPL is a bit more radical. It requires a bigger commitment from its members than the typical toe-in-the-water kind of pool, says Jason Schultz, former staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'The perception is that bigger companies only commit their least-effective, least-important patents to a patent pool,' he says. Schultz isn't pointing fingers at any particular pool. However critics of IBM's open source patent pledge often said it didn't cover the patents most relevant to the FOSS community."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 7 May 2010 | 2:49 pm Gurobi Announces Gurobi Optimizer 3.0 SoftwareHOUSTON, May 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Gurobi Optimization today announced the release of Gurobi Optimizer 3.0, cutting the time to solve the toughest scheduling and resource allocation problems.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 2:42 pm Geek The Beatles: 'Let It Be' Recombined Reality BitesThe twin releases, 40 years ago, of The Beatles album and documentary signaled the end of the band's extremely influential and creative run. A look at Let It Be's lasting impact on pop culture.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 2:36 pm Will Algeria use technology to win the World Cup?
Will technology defeat The Three Lions (that’s England, or course) at the World Cup this year? Maybe, but then again, maybe the injuries to Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole, and Wayne Bridge will have a role to play as well. There’s a fun story in the Daily Telegraph that details Algeria’s plan to use technology to defeat England at the World Cup, which begins on June 11. Incidentally, Algeria and England, along with Slovenia, are in Team USA’s group, so put on your Uncle Same t-shirts and get ready to chant USA! USA! till your throat it sore. The deal is that Algeria will use some sort of super secret software to break down its Group C opponents. The software was created by Algerian expatriates. That’s called trivia.
I have no idea what this software could be, maybe something like ProZone? (ProZone is used by nearly every team to analyse their players’ performance.) Maybe something like, “The English striker [Wayne Rooney] has learned how to head the ball this year. Therefore we need, during England set-pieces and corners, we need our tallest players to mark him.” Need I remind you that the World Cup is merely five weeks away. The European leagues should wrap up this weekend, then we’re in full-on World Cup mode. Totally psyched.
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 2:30 pm Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. to Participate at the 38th Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom ConferenceCHICAGO, May 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Orbitz Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: OWW) announced today that it will participate in the 38th Annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference in Boston, Massachusetts on Monday, May 17, 2010.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 2:30 pm Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Being Played Out Live On Twitter And Foursquare. Awesome.
I can almost hear Ben Stein saying it right now. “Bueller?… Bueller?… Bueller?“ It’s been almost 25 years since Ferris Bueller took his day off from school. And yet, the legend lives on today thanks to Twitter and Foursquare. An account, @ferris_bueller_, started tweeting yesterday afternoon, noting, “Ugh… school’s really getting me down. less than an hour to go.” Bueller apparently went home and was quiet on Twitter until about 7 hours ago when he tweeted, “Really don’t feel like going to school today… Think I have a plan” If you’ve seen the movie, you know what happens from here. If not, watch it now and starting following the account, the day is still ongoing — they’re at the baseball game right now. This is a great idea all around. And whoever is behind it not only set up an account for Ferris, but for other key cast members as well, like Sloane Peterson (Ferris’ girlfriend), Jeanie Bueller (Ferris’ sister), yes, even Mr. Rooney — though Cameron is notably absent. Still, the length to which this role playing goes is impressive. And it’s not just Twitter. The Ferris account is also checking in at various places using Foursquare too. Here’s Ferris checking into to Wrigley Field to watch the aforementioned baseball game. Foursquare’s new rules that allow for fake check-ins but not to reward them points is obviously working here. This is awesome. So awesome. But someone set up an account for Cameron please. Update: Success! Here’s Cameron (no tweets yet) and Abe Froman too! Update 2: Apparently there’s a badge you can earn on Foursquare by visiting some locations from the movie thanks to Explore Chicago. The fake Bueller account has not gotten the badge yet. Update 3: And sadly, hours later it’s over — appropriately with this tweet: “You’re still here? It’s over. Go home…. Go.“
     
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 2:26 pm Canon 5D Mark II used to film entire season finale episode of HouseSection: Video, Imaging, Digital Cameras
When you think Hollywood, you imagine big name actors, an exquisite fashion sense and some bulky recording cameras right? Well you can forget about those old fashioned video cameras as the cool kids in Tinseltown are using D-SLR’s to film their shows these days. This year’s season finale of House was recorded entirely with Canon’s superb 5D Mark II. The show’s director, Greg Yaitanes, even opened up for a Q & A discussing the ins and outs of the filming process via Twitter. Yaitanes said that the ease of use in tight spaces, focusing qualities and futuristic feel were all factors that made filming with a D-SLR a success. As a proud owner of a Canon Rebel T1i, I couldn’t be more delighted with this decision. The season finale of House (season 6) is set for a May 17th air date. Whatever case House is handling come the finale, I’m pretty sure it won’t have anything to do with lupus. Read [PetaPixel] Full Story » | Written by Tarun for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 2:15 pm Google Apps For Education Now Has 8 Million Users In the wake UC Davis' announcement that the school was ending an Apps pilot for faculty because of privacy concerns, Google is celebrating a milestone. As of today, 8 million students, faculty and staff at educational institutions around the world are using Google Apps. Google says that the U.S. has about 16 million college students total, so the productivity suite is steadily gaining its piece of the pie.
In total, Google has around 25 million Apps users, so education makes up a generous slice of the suite's userbase. Google has made a strong push to recruit educational institutions to use Google Apps, launching a new centralized site targeted towards recruiting educational institutions. It makes sense; not only is it a huge market for the productivity suite, but schools and colleges are where many people get trained, start relying on, and form brand allegiances to productivity apps.
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 2:14 pm We Demand Steam Rentals, Now! Hey PC game publishers, want to know how you can eliminate piracy? Give us the option of renting the games! We were discussing in the chat room a little while ago how fantastically awesome it would be to be able to rent games from Steam. Allow me to explain.
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 2:05 pm NetEase.com to Report First Quarter 2010 Financial Results on May 19, 2010BEIJING, May 7 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- NetEase.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTES) announced today that it will report its financial results for the first quarter 2010 on Wednesday, May 19, 2010, after the close of the U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 7 May 2010 | 2:01 pm We demand Steam rentals, now!
We were discussing in the chat room a little while ago how fantastically awesome it would be to be able to rent games from Steam. Allow me to explain. First, the mechanics. Sorta like how Steam already has free weekends for certain multi-player games, Steam (or whatever service) would sell weekend passes. You pay, say, $10, and you have from Friday at 5pm until Monday at 9am (or whatever) to play the game. Given how short single-player campaigns are these days, that’s more than enough time to beat a game. I mean, how long did it take to beat Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2? A few hours at best. (That says something about game design, too, but that’s a discussion for another day.) So, you play a little bit when you get home from work/school on Friday, kill several hours on Saturday, then wrap up any loose ends on Sunday. Or however you want to break up the weekend. The point is, for $10 you get the entire single-player game for a few days. It’s really not too different from the good old days of going to Blockbuster Video on a Friday after school, renting a game, then beating it that weekend. This mainly speaks to single-player games or single-player campaigns. Maybe if you want multi-player functionality you’d pay an extra $2 or whatever. Second, the theory. You can rent movies and TV shows from iTunes, right? Then why not games? Is there anything inherent to games that should preclude us from being able to rent them? I mean, and not to sound like a nerd or whatever, but outside of publishers’ greed, what other reason could there be? Perhaps publishers know full well that they’re making games that take no more than 7 or 8 hours to complete, so if you let people rent them they’d never buy them. It’s not like with the movies where people go to the theater one month, then six months later they can rent the movie on Netflix. So many there’s a business reason there, I don’t know. That’s for someone else to figure out. But here’s something that may interest publishers: would giving people the ability to rent a single-player game or single-player campaign cut down on piracy? Why would you jump through all the hoops to pirate a video game, waste all that time hoping a torrent checks out or whatever, when you can pay a lousy $10, get the game, and have some good, clean fun? Steam rentals now!
Source: CrunchGear | 7 May 2010 | 2:00 pm Sprint: Android 2.1 for Hero and Moment “to be available in Q2″ (Read: Not Today.)
Hurray! The Sprint Hero is getting Android 2.1 on May 7th! Wait, no it’s not! Sprint has never named a specific date on which their Hero and Moment handsets would be getting Android 2.1, beyond a tweet promising them sometime in the second quarter. A few signs were pointing to a launch today — but that was completely unofficial hearsay. That hasn’t stopped Sprint customers from completely flipping out, though. In an official statement to the community, a Sprint forum admin had this to say:
Alright. So, still no specific dates. Just further confirmation that it’ll be available “in Q2″, which, by the way, is more than halfway over. It’s probably better that they don’t give dates: much of the update process is in the hands of HTC and Samsung. Sprint gets the update packages from the manufacturer, then sends them through a rather intense testing process. If they find a bug, they send it back — rinse, lather, repeat. A few Sprint customers, however, are having none of it:
Well, at least they said thanks.
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 1:55 pm Schools are (almost) out for summer...and in for Apps(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog) It’s pretty cool to see adoption growing even as the school year wraps up, because it means more freshmen get to come to campus and dive into using Google Apps for email and collaboration next fall. Some of the new schools in this bunch are Morehouse, University of Rhode Island, University of Nevada Las Vegas, the Metropolitan State College of Denver and North Carolina State University. These colleges and universities join thousands of others that have gone Google, some of which you can see on this map. According to the Campus Computing survey, more than 80 percent of schools in the U.S. have moved to cloud computing or are considering it, and of those almost 60 percent choose Google Apps, so these new schools have plenty of company. With this kind of growth, we expect a lot of quick change. Some schools choose Apps for students (UC Davis), and some migrate their faculty and staff, either with or after student deployments (like Boise State University). Some schools deploy for alumni (like Notre Dame) and some pilot Apps rollouts with their graduate schools (like Howard University). We always support pilots as they help schools check out how their productivity, or even server costs, can change with group collaboration and web-based tools and often lead to broader deployments down the line. Universities (like Googlers!) are experts at trying a lot of things and sticking with what works for them. As Apps for Edu heads toward its fourth birthday we expect we’ll see schools continue to develop personalized plans for piloting, deployment and of course, use. One cool example is from Temple University, which designated April Google Apps month and built a Google site to help students and faculty learn more about the tools and get their feedback. Often schools will find that something that works for them, and continue to build from there. For example, after Vanderbilt University successfully deployed Google Apps for their students, they decided they wanted to improve search on their site, too — so they also rolled out Google Site Search. To hear more from Vanderbilt about how and why they did this, tune in to our webinar on Wednesday, May 12 (you can register here). Google Apps and search tools helped Vandy save $750,000 annually, and the student population is all about collaborating in the cloud: the student government takes meeting notes on Docs and also shares a campus-wide activity calendar. That’s Commodore efficiency at its best. Even though our summer break won’t necessarily consist of exotic travel, summer school, or pool-side relaxation, we’ll keep busy working with schools as they deploy Google Apps. So, if you’ve done something neat at your school to “go Google”, we’d love to hear about it. Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps Edu Team   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 7 May 2010 | 1:49 pm Birth Control Pill Turns 50Many young women today use "the pill" to treat acne, improve mood and, of course, prevent pregnancy.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 1:45 pm DNA Frees Innocent Man, But What About Eyewitnesses?An innocent man was recently freed by DNA testing; but what about the people who saw him do it?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 1:29 pm Crews Lower Dome In Attempt To Stem SpillImage Caption: NASA's Aqua satellite flew over the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, May 4, at 18:50 UTC, or 2:50 p.m. EDT. The Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured this visible-light image. The bulk of the spill appears as a dull gray area southeast of the Mississippi Delta. Credit: NASA/Goddard/MODIS Rapid Response TeamSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 1:20 pm Exclusive: AOL Hires Microsoft Exec Alex Gounares as CTO [BoomTown]
According to sources close to the situation, AOL has hired Alex Gounares (pictured here) as its CTO. Gounares’s departure was announced internally at Microsoft (MSFT) today, where he is corporate VP of Advertising Research and Development and CTO for the software giant’s Online Services division. According to his bio at Microsoft, Gounares had previously been “corporate vice president for Corporate Strategy, where he was responsible for helping set the overall strategic direction for the company. Before that, Gounares spent three years as the technology assistant to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, and he also was responsible for helping formulate and drive the technical strategy for the company.” Sources said he will be moving back east to take on the job at AOL (AOL). He will replace Ted Cahall, who left AOL in late January. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 1:08 pm BlackBerry’s got a tablet? iPad competitor or pretender?Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Computers, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Wireless
There are many that might appreciate a larger screen that brings the security and functionality of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server to a touchable, portable, even lovable form factor like a tablet. With BlackBerry’s success in the corporate marketplace, it might just be a winner. A winner, if that is where RIM, maker of BlackBerry products, were considering this market. However, the rumor mill says it is looking at a consumer focused tablet. Huh? A consumer focus tablet would move away from RIM’s core strength (BES) and push them to compete on entertainment, a realm that BlackBerry’s can’t seem to master (see Storm and Storm II for reference). Could a consumer device take hold?
Further mucking up the picture, the Street was quoted as saying RIM was looking to an Android-powered tablet to be released later in the year. RIM’s put a lot into the BlackBerry OS and I don’t seem them jumping ship to offer a me-too Android tablet that will surely flood the market come the holiday shopping season. I am not sure how this makes sense to anyone. Anyone see a way for RIM to do something exciting here? Let us know in the comments. Read: [Crackberry]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 1:05 pm Zynga Gunning Up (And Lawyering Up) For War Against Facebook With Zynga Live
Some of the frustration goes back to last year’s limitations on messaging users. But a much bigger concern now is Facebook’s force feeding of Facebook Credits as the only payment platform that Zynga and others can use. Facebook takes a massive feee – 30% – for Credits, and the big publishers like Zynga see it as little more than a protection racket. To make matters worse, say sources, Facebook is trying to get Zynga to agree to a long term deal where Zynga remains primarily on the Facebook platform. During negotiations Facebook has taken some steps to punish Zynga, such as shutting off notifications for Farmville and other games, and Facebook has threatened, say multiple sources, to simply shut some of Zynga’s games down permanently. Zynga has already taken steps to distance itself from Facebook in the event of a breakup, such as launching Farmville at Farmville.com. And they have been extra aggressive about trying to get users’ email addresses so that they can communicate with them off of Facebook. On Thursday evening at 5 pm, we’ve confirmed, Zynga CEO Mark Pincus held an all hands meeting to tell employees that they may need to prepare for a break with Facebook. We received this email from one anonymous source, and we’ve confirmed it is largely accurate:
If Zynga does pull away from Facebook, I’d imagine they’d still let users log in via Facebook’s open graph as well as third party solutions from Twitter and perhaps MySpace. But Zynga would remain in control of their own platform and they certainly wouldn’t be forced to pay a 30% tax to Facebook for Facebook Credits. Will this happen soon? “It could be tomorrow, it could be in six months,” says one source. Zynga declined to comment on this story. We’ve reached out to Facebook. Update: Facebook’s statement: “We have conversations with our large developers all the time and we don’t typically comment on specific discussions. But generally, our priority is to ensure a quality experience for Facebook users while fostering an innovative and dynamic environment that offers meaningful opportunities for all developers on Facebook Platform.” Information provided by CrunchBase Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 12:59 pm Gorillas, Elephants And Logging In CongoThe Wildlife Conservation Society announced the results of the first-ever evaluation of a large, "landscape-wide" conservation approach to protect globally important populations of elephants and great apes.The study looked at wildlife populations in northern Republic of Congo over a mosaic of land-use types, including a national park, a community-managed reserve, and various logging concessions.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 12:55 pm A Dating Site for Apple Fans Only [Voices]By Lauren Goode, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Do iPods make your heart patter? Do MacBooks make you swoon? Has a heated Flash vs. HMTL5 debate ever resulted in a significant other sleeping on the couch? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, Cupidtino.com–a play on the words Cupid and Cupertino, the city in California where Apple (AAPL) is based–may lead you to iLove when the dating site launches in June. Currently available in beta, Cupidtino.com is described as “a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common–personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, taste, and of course a love for technology.” Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 12:37 pm Video: iPhone + Android + Windows Mobile = Beautiful MusicTake one iPhone, one Android handset, and one Windows Mobile handset. Strap’em to a piece of wood, run a bunch of cable to a speaker. Code up a custom instrument jamming interface for each platform. What do you get? The littlest one-man-band in all the lands. Something about this video makes me feel kind of dirty. Anyone else? Check out the artist’s own page on the project here. [Via Giz]
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 12:26 pm Calling All Plastic-Loving MicrobesIn marine environments, there are particular types of microbes that love plastic. They're all over the stuff, happily binding to it and forming coatings. This spring, intrepid scientists are testing samples from an estuary in Northern England to see what ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 12:22 pm Peruvian Tectonic Plates Move By Earthquakes And Non-seismic SlipJust a few years ago, Dan Farber happened to be doing field work in Peru with students when the 8.0 Pisco earthquake struck.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 12:17 pm Security Cameras: Who's Watching You?As the investigation into the failed Times Square bombing revealed, security cameras are everywhere. But studies show they may not be so effective.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 12:15 pm Samsung releases Bada SDK to developers – will anyone care?
And so it begins: Samsung has just released the first build of the SDK for Bada, their built-in-house Smartphone platform. The SDK comes complete with it’s own user interface creation tool, debugger, simulator, and API set. Alas, it’s currently Windows-only. Developers are one of the most key ingredients to whether or not a platform succeeds. Developers flocked to the iPhone, and seem to finally be warming up to Android. Just about every other platform, however, seems to be having a hard time pulling developers into their camp. Will devs embrace Bada?
Probably not – at least not for the time being. While Samsung has plans to launch a number of Bada phones around the world, they’ve yet to formally announce plans for any outside of the Wave — and they haven’t even confirmed the Wave is coming to the US. Apple brought a massive market all using one device, with an SDK born out of a foundation (Cocoa) that has been in the works for decades. Google’s Android offers up a constantly expanding armory of handsets that carriers are willing to dump massive ad budgets into as their answer to the iPhone. If Samsung wants to garner the interest of developers, they’re going to have to figure out (and proudly proclaim) what they bring to the table. [Via Phonescoop]
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 12:14 pm Editor Gets Android Running on an iPhoneHacking your netbook to run OS X? That’s so 2008. Modding your iPhone to make it run Android? Now you’re talking. PCWorld’s David Wang has been documenting his progress porting the full Android OS onto an iPhone 3G. With the Approid (OK, I just made that name up) he can now connect to Wi-Fi, browse the web and send and receive SMS texts. He can also run Android Market apps, as long as they don’t require audio support. After Wang gets audio support up and running, he plans to post the binaries and instructions for anyone to turn their iPhones into Appdroids. The point? Maybe there isn’t one, other than simply the joy of accomplishing a difficult technical hack. Indeed, the iPhone isn’t the only phone being hacked this way. Recently, Wired.com reported on DIYers modding Windows Mobile handsets to run Android. Connor Roberts, a software engineer, posted a step-by-step tutorial on running the Android OS on the HTC Touch. According to people who have run the mod, the process was extremely easy. Now that the computer category is blending in with mobile, with ever-more-powerful processors and operating systems, we’ll likely see modders and DIY types focusing their attention on smartphones and tablets. This would be a logical trend succeeding the Hackintosh era. In past years, many curious DIYers, including Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel and yours truly, have experimented with installing the Mac OS on non-Apple PCs. Perhaps at some point we’ll see someone cram the iPhone OS onto a different piece of hardware, such as the Nexus One. See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 12:13 pm Unholy Vacuum-Mop Hybrid Is Devilish to DirtVacuum and mop combine in the finest pairing since peanut butter met chocolate, but not as versatile.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 7 May 2010 | 12:00 pm Rumor: HTC EVO 4G to be $200 on-contract & $600 off-contractSection: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile  The HTC EVO 4G is the hot new Android phone that plenty of people are getting excited about. Still it has not been released, and at this time we still have no official word in terms of pricing. Of course that has not stopped the Internet from creating some unofficial pricing. In this case the details come by way of a PreCentral forum poster, bnceo, who claims to have been told that the EVO 4G would be priced at $600 off contract. That and, Radio Shack would be running a special months long promo highlighting the EVO 4G. Via [Gizmodo] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 11:52 am Older Mothers Outnumber Teen Moms: SurveyI'm finally in vogue! More women in the United States are waiting longer now to have children than ever before, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. I had my child when I was 41, a full ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 11:42 am BoomTown Prediction: Chasing Away the Mice (And Keyboards Too) [BoomTown]
The Washington Post, where I once toiled, asked me to do a short piece recently for a spring-cleaning feature in its Outlook section. It was titled “Twelve Things the World Should Toss Out,” and the candidates nominated by others include: Harvard Law School’s Elizabeth Warren nixing fine print, feminist blogger Jessica Valenti dumping virginity, political whisperer Karl Rove hating exit polls and actor and activist Ed Begley Jr. giving the heave-ho to lawns. BoomTown’s choice: The physical computer keyboard and its partner-in-carpal-tunnel-syndrome, the mouse. You can vote here on which is the most useless of the suggestions. Here’s the piece, which–before you go all technical on me–I wrote on an Apple (AAPL) iPad with a virtual keyboard and touchscreen. And frankly, if I could have my blog posts downloaded directly from my noggin, it would be okay by me:
Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 11:30 am Why We Don’t Need to Worry About Space InvadersI’m not losing any sleep worrying about awaking one morning to see and alien mothership hovering over Washington D.C.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 11:02 am Reports of netbook sales death greatly exaggerated, says analyst - Computerworld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 10:53 am Why the Cable Guys Should Stop Worrying and Learn to Love the FCC [MediaMemo]
That’s the counsel from Barclays analyst James Ratcliffe, who thinks concern about FCC head Julius Genachowski’s “third way” proposal is overblown. Genachowski’s plan–in short, he wants the power to regulate broadband, but promises not to really regulate broadband–shouldn’t have surprised the market. Because that’s basically what he’s been saying for some time. But yesterday cable stocks like Comcast (CMCSA) and Time Warner Cable (TWC) tanked (before everything else tanked) on his most recent pronouncements. Relax, says Ratcliffe. He thinks the “network neutrality” framework Genachowski wants to install won’t “limit broadband providers from doing anything they reasonably could have expected to do anyway.” And he spells out exactly what Genachowski wants the power to enforce:
Sure, the cable guys would like to see less of this, not more. But the cable guys have always had to work with government regulation–the only question is how much and what kind. Most important in Ratcliffe’s eyes is that, “just and reasonable” pricing clause aside, Genachowski is specifically not looking for the ability to regulate rates. The cable guys’ worry: What if Genachowski changes his mind–or if one of his successors does? Maybe Genachowski can allay some fears next month when he’s onstage at the D8 conference. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 10:51 am Who’s on Crack in tech: 5.7.10Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers, Mobile Computers, Hardware, Wireless, Gadgets / Other, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack
AT&T loyal Palm fanatics finally get their day in the sun.And that is about how long any kind of joy will last about AT&T offering the Palm Pre at a rumored $150. If you look around, you can find the phone for much, much less, heck even free. How does AT&T believe they can sell this phone, without a free mobile hotspot (that is the bee’s knees in my opinion)?? Answer? Drugs. Lots of drugs. It seems AT&T is operating under the assumption that they are on the cutting edge with the Pre Plus. Adding a word to the name and removing a button is lazy updating and we’ve seen this device for a year now. Time for some changes. End result: AT&T isn’t ordering too many of these from Palm. The device has become a bit like a ‘72 Pinto left on the car lot after all these years. “Why are you trying to sell me last year’s phone?” says Mr. Consumer, “I want something new.” Why is AT&T doing this? Does it fear the lineup isn’t smartphone friendly enough? This smacks of a me-too move in the worst way, worse (leaving network quality issues aside) because the phone becomes more valuable on Verizon - highlighting data network fears. Even our Palm Pre Plus - toting Editor Robert Nelson says, “ah, AT&T, somehow I think you are going to be on the losing end of the Palm Pre Plus.”
KIN killed by VerizonYou can get away with sub par devices, if the price is right. Unfortunately, Verizon borked that one right and good by making the data charge a full one at $30 destroying what we expected would have been a new niche. I suspect the meeting went like this: MS: We’ve got this idea - we will create a new niche in between dumb and smart phones. We call it KIN.” Nothing like a swift Verizon knee to the MS crotch. Putting a full charge for Data on these sub-par devices is going to sink them faster than an overweight rock. With Android’s apps, a $50 iPhone, and the lack of advertising support behind KIN, who in their right mind would pick these up? Kids on dope, maybe.
Death to MS Courier means our future shoes will likely suckOur Hunter Clarke wrote up a great opinion piece on what he believes the market, nay, the world lost when MS decided to ax the project. Says Clarke, “The Courier’s death was a disappointment not only for the consumer, but for the market itself. The Courier resembled competition. It resembled the very fire that the market needed to push out a remarkable device.” Clarke goes on to state the difference between the iPad and the Courier is consume vs create and it’s a valid point. You can try to make the iPad stretch into creation but run afoul pretty quick. The Courier, in contrast, was all about creation for creatives. In the footwear business. Where sketching, swatching, and journaling still happens. The rest of us won’t miss a thing. Stylus are relics of a broken past and have no business in todays touch-centric universe. There is more than enough competition headed for the iPad in the next 3 months than there should be. Android, webOS and even Windows (chuckle) will push the iPad to do more. The market will live on. And besides, Microsoft wouldn’t have launched this thing inside of a year. And when they did, Verizon would have borked their data charge anyway.
The best part of Nelson’s post? The last line: “...mine has been sitting on the corner of my desk untouched since I picked up an iPad this past Friday.” Snap. Zing. Hey-Ohhh! The iPad continues to capture the imagination of users who have seemingly no issue shelling out a couple of hundred dollars more for an iPad plus connectivity charges. The casual reader now weighs a Kindle vs. an almost infinitely changeable (via apps) device that is the iPad. All over the US, stories are told of how families are falling in love with the iPad and now it seems, Amazon’s response is to become more like the iPad by broadening it’s feature list. Sure the update did more than just add Facebook and Twitter; but the addition of these two in particular is interesting. Did Amazon risk confusing it’s loyal customers and potential ones by moving out of “just books”? Will the Kindle 3 be an iPad copy? Or will it become the Palm Pilot of the 2000s; an artifact that was fun at the time but got steamrolled by something else. Damn, I miss my Palm Pilot.
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 10:50 am 'Dome' Lowered Into Sea to Cap Oil LeakThe 100-ton dome is designed to funnel leaking oil from the Gulf up to a containment vessel for reprocessing.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 10:31 am Scientists Defend ‘Climategate’ IncidentOver 250 scientists in the U.S. defended climate change research on Thursday against "political assaults," while at the same time warning that any delay in tackling the issue heightens the risk of a planet-wide catastrophe.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 10:00 am As Silicon Valley Infighting Gets Ever Nastier, Let's Be Careful Out There [BoomTown]
Last week, BoomTown was in Washington, D.C., my old stomping grounds for 15 years, from attending Georgetown University as an undergraduate to covering the beginnings of the Internet at the Washington Post. I miss a lot of things about living there, but most definitely not the poisonous political partisanship that you get sucked into from the minute you arrive. Most recently, for example, it was ugly battles over financial reform, some tough remarks by President Barack Obama toward the GOP and–I swear–the “controversy” over some airbrushing of House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi on a magazine cover. In other words, it does not take much for the denizens there to descend into the mud-slinging swamp the city was built on. But it’s almost a relief to be in D.C. rather than in California, given how increasingly hostile the atmosphere is getting as a range of companies wrestle over a range of issues both key and trivial. The hostilities especially center on the three main powers of Silicon Valley today: Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL) and Facebook. And, specifically, the conflicts include Apple versus Google and Adobe (ADBE) and HTC and the First Amendment; Google versus Apple and Facebook and Microsoft (MSFT) and the Federal Trade Commission and–oh, yes–China; and Facebook versus Google and Twitter and anyone who gets in the way of its Manifest Destiny of Like-buttoning the Web. Even Yahoo (YHOO) is entering the fray, with CEO Carol Bartz taking please-don’t-forget-us shots at Google and Facebook recently. The Apple shooting match with Adobe over its Flash video technology is perhaps the most riveting, especially because it is the computer giant’s CEO, Steve Jobs, personally and relentlessly conducting the assault. Jobs called Adobe technology shoddy, Adobe execs called Jobs controlling, the blogosphere erupted.
While issues around the use of Flash are a lot more complex, of course, they illustrate just how much the digital sector is at a critical inflection point. That’s especially true as the game moves from the laptop/desktop, Web-centric world to one more social, mobile and focused on innovative new devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This means the potential for a shift in power, obviously–which, in turn, means more wrangling among and between the digital powers-that-be. It’s the top of mind as the next D: All Things Digital conference approaches in less than a month. In our eighth foray out, there have never been more overt power struggles among the various players who will be onstage. Last year, in our opening essay for D7, titled “Welcome to Web 3.0,” we made a prediction. “So what’s the seminal development that’s ushering in the era of Web 3.0? It’s the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services,” we wrote, specifically referencing the growing popularity of Apple’s iPod and iPhone as the harbingers of this important trend. We continued: “But this is not just about one company, one platform or even one form factor. No, this new phenomenon is about handheld computers from many companies, with software platforms and distribution mechanisms tightly tied to cloud-based services, whether they are multi-player games, e-commerce offerings or corporate databases.” Looking back over the last year, we think we got it pretty right, as companies of all kinds and in all arenas raced to be part of the social, mobile, cloud-centered action. This fusion and, really, collision of key trends will be at the heart of what we’ll be focusing on at D8 as the major companies in tech and media try to figure out how consumers want to conduct their digital lives going forward and with what devices. And inevitably, that has begun to cause some major rifts among and between the powers that be throughout tech and media. It’s clear to us that a major realignment of consumer expectations and desires is taking place, along with a fundamental shift in how we all relate to computing. Still, with all the changes, it’s important to keep a respectful tone, which seems to have gotten a bit lost of late, especially now when every tiny shift and disagreement enters the digital echo chamber and quickly moves from loud to strident. Such noise inevitably makes the whole competitive necessity of Silicon Valley–which is one of its greatest assets, of course–seem tinny and small, much like what you hear out of Washington all the time. One of the reasons I moved out West was that it always seemed that–whatever the rivalry or wrangling–Silicon Valley was much better than that. So even though healthy and robust competition is what makes it all work in tech, as Sergeant Esterhaus of “Hill Street Blues” used to say in the trademark phrase, which you can see in this video, “Let’s be careful out there”: [T-shirt photo courtesy of Zazzle] Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 9:50 am Nokia's New Focus Is Mobile Services? Sure It's Not Lawsuits Against Apple? [Digital Daily]
Filed in Federal District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin, the suit alleges that Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone and iPad 3G infringe on five Nokia (NOK) patents related to enhanced speech and data transmission, the use of positioning data in applications, and innovations in antenna configurations. “Nokia has been the leading developer of many key technologies in mobile devices,” said Paul Melin, general manager, Patent Licensing at Nokia. “We have taken this step to protect the results of our pioneering development and to put an end to continued unlawful use of Nokia’s innovation.” Nokia first sued Apple in October 2009, claiming the iPhone violated 10 of its patents covering various wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption technologies. Then, in December, Nokia filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission alleging that Apple infringes its patents “in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players and computers.” Shortly thereafter, the company sued Apple in U.S. District Court in Delaware, making similar allegations. Apple declined comment, but counterclaims Apple filed against Nokia last December offer a bit of insight into what its thinking on the matter might be.
Five dollars and a dusty old Nokia 1100 says this thing settles out of court. Source: All Things Digital | 7 May 2010 | 9:42 am Check out the new BlackBerry USB power plug—its not white, but still kind of Apple-likeSection: Communications, Accessories, Smartphones, Mobile  What can you say? Its a power plug and it is for BlackBerry smartphones. Still, its nicer than the larger one you would currently get, plus its shiny and shiny objects somehow seem more fun. But seriously, this is the new USB wall charger from BlackBerry and it will begin shipping first with the Pearl 3G and then later with future BlackBerry phones. Via [CrackBerry]   Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 9:38 am Report: Facebook, McDonald's Team on Geolocation - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 7 May 2010 | 9:37 am Ecologist Fights For PhosphorusNSF-supported ecologist James Elser is internationally recognized as an expert on phosphorus in biology and ecology, and his research could help to change society’s views on phosphorus use and conservationEarth Day is celebrated by more than 1 billion people worldwide, but before 1969, it was a nascent idea seeking fertile ground (so to speak). This makes one wonder how a scientific concept, for example, conservation of a chemical element, can be transformed into a broader movement.The question has been very much on the mind of Arizona State University (ASU) professor James Elser. An ecologist with an internationally recognized passion for the elements, Elser is one of three architects of the ASU Sustainable Phosphorus Initiative, and he's looking to create societal change.However, much like Earth Day, this ambition started small: Just a thought about phosphorus (known by the elemental designation P)--albeit a thought that generated an internal rush as it cut through Elser's idea bank like the dorsal fin of a shark cutting through the ocean."The concept of P scarcity came at me in that way," Elser said. "For the last 25 years, I've been working on phosphorus limitation of everything: bacteria, daphnia, phytoplankton, plants, cancer, evolution--everything. But, I was surprised I had never thought about whether P limitation could operate at the level of human society--that it could constrain our food production or cause societal problems, famine, food security, national security issues."An element affecting national security? In fact, phosphorus has been operating at the level of human society for some time. Phosphorus is key to the development of bones, teeth and our DNA. It is also a key component of fertilizer, as critical to agriculture as water. Farmers use millions of tons of phosphorus on their fields every year, much of which eventually goes down the drain (literally).So how can society be limited by our supply of phosphorus? What most people don't understand, Elser said, is that phosphorus is mined. The great majority used in intensive agriculture is in fertilizers, and essentially, all of that phosphorus comes from mines.About 90 percent of the geological reserves of phosphorus are located in only five localities: Morocco and the Western Sahara, China, South Africa, Jordan and the United States--and real questions are emerging about what reserves actually remain.For comparison, members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)--12 countries--control more than 75 percent of the proven world crude oil reserves."Morocco is poised to be the Saudi Arabia of phosphorous," Elser quipped. "I started looking deeper into the issues with my ASU colleagues," he said. Mark Edwards, an ASU agribusiness expert, and Daniel Childers, an ASU phosphorus biogeochemist, were arriving at similar concerns: A small number of mines, limited reserves, rising prices, food riots, agricultural collapse and famine. "Mark said he couldn't sleep for three weeks after he made the connection," Elser related. "Recently, we met in Dan's classroom, in a town hall setting, where we encouraged students to get involved," Elser recalled. "We told them, 'If you want to have an impact on an important issue, get in on it early. At the cutting edge, you can shape things and make a difference, simply because right now, there are maybe only 30 people in the world asking these questions about P scarcity and looking for solutions.'"Elser should know. Supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) funding over the last 20 years, his career has allowed him, in collaboration with others, to become an international expert on phosphorous in biology and ecology, and to pioneer a broader understanding via his development of the theory of biological stoichiometry, the study of balance of energy and multiple chemical elements in living systems."It is because of this work that I have enough credibility to stand up and say that phosphorus scarcity is something important that we need to work on," Elser said."Scientists need to look at the worldwide picture of phosphorus distribution. We can sequence the entire genomes of species, but no one can really say how much economically extractable phosphorous reserve exists!" Elser adds. "That's not very reassuring."So is phosphorus running out? ASU has taken these concerns seriously, and the university provided the seed money for the launch of the Sustainable P Initiative. The launch was aptly timed for Earth Day, April 22, at the Arizona Science Center in Phoenix. Elser, Childers and Edwards were scheduled to step on a very public stage for the first time to discuss the issues and to build collaborations with farmers, educators, engineers, designers and civic leaders on green agriculture, wastewater reclamation, resource economics and long-term sustainability."We need to be asking how we can achieve sustainable phosphorus by closing the phosphorus cycle in human and agricultural waste streams. Our hope for this launch is that we can, and our students can, not only help better define the problems, but turn an idea into creative solution building with the community," Elser said.By Margaret Coulombe, Arizona State University---Image Caption: Amy Barnes, a National Science Foundation (NSF) fellow and graduate student in materials science, makes phosphorus-rich phosphate glass to use with her doctoral research work studying the interaction between microbes and minerals. Phosphate glass is different from the glass that's in windows and is built around sand or silica. Glass surfaces can substitute for mineral surfaces in experimental procedures. Credit: Photo by Caner Durucan; courtesy Amy BarnesSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 9:17 am Wiimote-Controlled SNES Emulator on iPadWhat could possibly be better than playing the SNES classic, Super Mario Kart? Playing it on your iPad, of course. Or Super Mario World. Or pretty much any of Nintendo’s amazing games for the Best Console Ever™. This is possible already with a jailbroken device, or even a stock iPad, should you be a developer who can sign his own software and install it. But the problem with all games on the iDevices, be they official App Store games or pirated ROMs running in hacked emulators is that they are controlled via the touch screen. This works surprisingly well, but is never going to be as good as using a proper joypad, especially on fast-moving, button-mashing titles. Enter the newest iteration of snes4iphone, the $6 SNES emulator from our good friend ZodTTD. The app now works with a Wiimote, wirelessly, so you can control Mario as God (aka Shigeru Miyamoto) intended: with lots of plastic buttons. Maybe it’s my age, or my inability to play any game made after the year 2000, but I have a crazy soft-spot for the SNES, and this new hack my be enough to get me a-jail-breakin’. Of course, what we really need is an official SNES emulator, but that won’t happen until right after Apple lets Adobe put Flash on the iPhone. Video of Jailbroken iPad Running SNES Emulator [Touch Arcade via TUAW] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 8:50 am Headless Statue Hints at Tomb of Cleopatra: HawassDr. Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, tells Discovery News why the findings at Taposiris Magna (today called Abusir) are important.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 8:47 am Ancient Leaves Help Understanding Of Future ClimatePotential climate change caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide might be better understood by examining fossil plant remains from millions of years ago, according to biogeochemists.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 8:45 am Biological Passport Nabs Cheating CyclistsThe new tool measures blood and body chemistry over time and appears to finally be putting a dent in sports doping.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 7 May 2010 | 8:42 am Gamertell Review: Iron Man 2 (the movie)FROM GAMERTELL - Marvel’s shiny toy of the silver screen proves to be quite an enjoyable movie even if a little tarnished in parts. Click through to find out why you should get the big bucket of corn and plan to park your keaster in the seat for this one… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 8:25 am Hormone Suppression Could Help Stressed PoplarPeople aren’t the only living things that suffer from stress. Trees must deal with stress too. It can come from a lack of water or too much water, from scarcity of a needed nutrient, from pollution or a changing climate.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 8:24 am IPad Ships Internationally May 28th
Apple has finally decided when customers outside the US will be able to buy an iPad. The wonder device will ship in Canada, Australia and much of Europe on May 28th. You can pre-order yours from May 10th. The press release is spartan. No mention is made of which model will be shipping, so we will assume that both the iPad and iPad 3G will be available from launch. Neither have prices been decided, although obviously those will have to be made public on the 10th in order for people to pay. The recent economic troubles in Greece may affect the pricing: The Euro has crashed against the US dollar, meaning that Apple may want to jack up prices to keep its margins. Here’s the full list of countries in which the iPad will be available: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK. The iPad will be spreading further across the globe in July, with launches planned in Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong, Ireland, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore. The country-specific Apple Store pages have not yet been updated to reflect this announcement. We wonder just how “available” the iPad will be. When the iPhone first came to Spain, it was almost impossible to find for weeks, despite crazy-high prices. Me? I’m just hoping my contact in New York can stay sober for long enough to send one over to me. iPad Available in Nine More Countries on May 28 [Apple] See Also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 7:30 am Palm Pre Plus coming to AT&T on May 16th [Almost Official]Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Anyway, it looks like those waiting will be able to pick up a Palm Pre Plus with AT&T on May 16th. Still, we wait to see what the price will be, because with all of the slashing that Verizon has been doing as of late, this may end up being a hard sell for AT&T. Lets hope, for the sake of Palm that they are competitive. In addition, AT&T is giving access to the 20,000 plus available Hotspot locations, but somehow that does not seem to be an even offer when compared to the free 3G mobile hotspot app that you get with Verizon. Ah, AT&T, somehow I think you are going to be on the losing end of the Palm Pre Plus. Via [Engadget]  Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 7:18 am IPad Camera Connection Kit Supports External Hard DrivesUsing Apple’s Camera Connection Kit, it is possible to hook up a USB hard drive to your iPad and read files. The catch is that you’ll need to jailbreak the iPad first. Maxwell Shay, iPad owner and now iPad hacker, offers a rather involved but straightforward walk-through on his blog. First, you need to use the Spirit jailbreak to open up the iPad and allow third-party apps to be installed. Then you need to grab an application called iFile (available in the Cydia application repository on your jailbroken iPad for $4, with a free trial), along with the “Nano” terminal text editor. After that, you’ll need to be confident of your command line skills, as you’ll be using SSH and editing PLIST files. The step-by-step instructions will get you through. Then you need to hook up the USB drive. The iPad’s port will not power it, so you’ll need a desktop version with a power adapter, or a Y-cable that will let you plug the drive into the iPAd and a second, powered, USB port (your iPad charger, for example). Maxwell demoes his hack using the iPad PDF viewer Goodreader, available in the real App Store, but any file-browsing app should see the contents of the drive. From there, you can browse and open files, as well as copy them to the iPad’s internal storage. You probably don’t want to do this on the go, due to the limitations of plugging the drive into a power source, but if you want to grab a bunch of photos or movies from a friend’s home, for example, this hack will let you copy them for take-away. That overpriced Camera Connection Kit is starting to look a lot more useful. In fact, although Maxwell doesn’t try it, this hack should also let you use the SD card reader from the same kit for arbitrary file storage, not just for photos and videos. How to Mount External FAT32 and HFS Hard Drives [Time More via Engadget] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 6:56 am What Happened To: The Sega NomadFROM GAMERTELL - The Sega Nomad seemed like a good idea. So what could’ve gone wrong with it? Read to find out what happened to this short lived and ill-fated handheld… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 7 May 2010 | 6:07 am AT&T will release the Palm Pre Plus and the 3G MicroCell on May 16
Now, the last time we heard that AT&T were gonna play sweet with Palm, the Pre Plus was planned to go for $149.99 after a mail-in rebate. A lot has happened since then, so I think it would probably be foolish for AT&T to continue at that price point, but we’ll have to wait until they make an official announcement before we know for sure. Engadget broke the news with a screen shot from an equipment brief showing the nation-wide launch date, and say that the tipster also told them that the 3G Microcell will also launch on the same day. So if you’ve been plagued by poor reception, your saviour will be here in a little over a week. Good times, good times.
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 5:52 am MiFi to Get App Store
Novatel’s little MiFi, the personal 3G router that turns a cell-signal into a Wi-Fi hotspot, is about to jump on the App Store train. Applications for the device will be sold by PocketGear, which is billing itself as an iTunes-like store, but is really just a big website that sells software for smartphones. The MiFi is a surprise winner in the iPad accessory market. Many people are opting for the portable router over a 3G iPad. Sure, you almost always need to sign up for a monthly plan, but you can share the connection with any of your devices, from laptop to iPod. So what can we expect? The press release is vague, with nuggets like this: “[I]ts onboard Web server enables the MiFi to connect to remote data locations, retrieve data and present it to the user either online or offline.” That web-server will enable things like BitTorrent clients, download management (continuing to pull down content even when you power-down your computer) and even logging your position using GPS, so you could geo-tag your photos later. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen “apps” on the MiFi. Back in March, Novatel added a media-server to the device, allowing you to stream movies from the MiFi’s microSD card to, say, an iPod Touch. This was courtesy of a firmware update, though, rather than a purchased application. The launch date of the new store is as yet unannounced. One thing we do know, though, is that that the $130 premium for the 3G iPad might be better spent elsewhere. MiFi App Store Press release [PR Newswire. Thanks, Kevin!] See Also:
Photo: Charlie Sorrel 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 5:33 am Some Of Us Have Genetic Ties To The NeanderthalAccording to a genetic study, researchers have found that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred, most likely at the time when early humans first began to migrate from Africa.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 7 May 2010 | 5:00 am Video: Android running on the iPhone… 3G!
Needless to say, all of us here at McCrunchables thought it was pretty freakin awesome. Well, you know what’s awesomer? Android running on an iPhone 3G! That’s right, the buy-that-man-a-beer hacker responsible for the 2G Android port, David Wang, has managed to get Android running on the iPhone 3G. The 3G version isn’t as complete as the 2G version was when it was shown to the world, but it’s nearly there. Right now it’s missing audio support, but it should only be a few days away. In the mean time, you can browse the web, send/receive text messages, and use any apps that don’t require audio. Well, just as soon as it’s made available, that is. David himself has said that the necessary instructions and binaries will be available “in a few days”, so keep your eyes on his blog for the announcement. If you’re interested (and you should be, coz this it’s awesome) David has written an article for PC World about the current status of the project. But enough from me, check out the video embedded below! [via Engadget]
Source: MobileCrunch | 7 May 2010 | 4:51 am Olympus Pen EP-2, Now in Retro-Tastic Silver
Much of the appeal of the original Olympus Digital Pen, the EP-1, was in its design. The metal body was a retro-classic, and went a long way to balancing out the camera’s flaws. So when the EP-2 arrived clad in boring black, it looked both pedestrian and clunky. Worse, it didn’t fix the slow autofocus or low-res screen of the original. Now, with a new silver version, the EP-2 has at last regained its looks. Should you buy this instead of an EP-1? No. Not unless you want to use an electronic viewfinder, or plug in an external microphone. The only real hardware difference between the Pens one and two is the electronic socket behind the hot-shoe, into which these accessories can be plugged. The new colorway comes to the west next week, and will sell for €800 ($1,000) in a kit with the Zuiko Digital ED 14-24mm ƒ3.5-5.6 lens. PEN E-P2 now available in stylish silver [DP Review] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 4:30 am Ricoh P10: A 10-Megapixel Zoom Lens
Ricoh has announced the new P10 lens/sensor module for its weird GXR camera. The GXR, you will remember, is little more than a shell with some buttons and a screen. The lenses come with their own matched sensor and plug in as an entire unit. This one has a 28-300mm (35mm equivalent) range paired with a 10MP backlit CMOS sensor. It will capture RAW images and shoot 720p video. The aperture range runs ƒ3.5-5.6 and there is image stabilization built in. There are a few ways to look at the GXR. You could view it as a way to perfectly match sensor and lens, using a smaller sensor in a long telephoto, say, for better magnification. This is doubtless the line Ricoh is pushing. You could also see it as a technological millstone: Where lens tech is mature, and a good piece of glass will outlast you, sensors are still improving fast. Tying the two together is a great way to spend a lot of money on future upgrades. We do like Ricoh’s innovation, though. As well as this new lens (to be available in summer 2010), the company has shown off a range of planned add-ons, including a remote-controlled waterproof unit, a GPS add-on, a printer and a projector. None of these is coming to market soon – Ricoh says it is concentrating on expanding the range of lenses – but it shows some clever thinking. Ricoh unveils P10 28-300mm [DP Review] See Also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 7 May 2010 | 4:12 am
|
"I was making things with silicone sealants and sawdust, and started using the leftovers around the house," she says at her east London base. "I modified a knife handle to make it more comfortable. My boyfriend said, 'Imagine if everyone could do that -- like with stiff jam-jar lids.'
Sergio was a riveting, tragic, and beautifully-crafted film about the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights 
We’ve seen thin-film speakers around, but generally they make for pretty poor replacements for regular speakers. I mean, think about it: for bass frequencies, something actually has to move, like, an inch back and forth. I don’t care what kind of promises these gadgets make about turning your wall into a speaker, they’re just going to be completely missing out on a whole segment of sound.
Yesterday, 
I miss the days when everybody had a different music player. Before the iPod took over, we all had our own solutions: a brilliant 
On the heels of 
Had enough of how great the iPad is? Itching for some news that restores your faith in your trusty BlackBerry. Well this could be it: rumor has it BlackBerry’s been working/thinking/considering building a tablet.
The relationship between 
Nokia might not be able mount a reasonable challenge to Apple in the smartphone market, but it can certainly mount one in court. The company escalated its legal battle with the iPhone maker this morning, lodging a fourth patent-infringement complaint against it. 
It looks like that 
