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Sony aiming for black as annual loss shrinks (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 4:07 am A quick hands-on with the LG Ally
I think it’s safe to say that the stand-out feature of this phone is that it has a QWERTY keyboard, so if the keyboard is a dud, the phone would be significantly less compelling. Well, I’m happy to say that Phone Arena give it the thumbs up, calling it a “pleasant surprise” that’s more comfortable than the DROID’s keyboard. If you’re keen to know more, Phone Arena have a few more photos of the device as well as some sample camera shots. They will also have a review up soon, so go give ‘em some love.
Source: MobileCrunch | 13 May 2010 | 4:06 am Talk Of Microsoft Office's Demise Is Premature - Forbes
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 4:00 am What the mobile patent fight is all about (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - The fierce battle for the smartphone market, in which more and more users are moving their Internet access and application usage, has resulted in a morass of patent lawsuits, with multitouch gesture capabilities a primary point of contention among Apple, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, and others.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 4:00 am UPDATE 2-BP says oil spill costs $450 million so farLONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - British oil major BP said the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had cost it $450 million so far, an increase of $100 million on the figure reported earlier this week.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 3:59 am The One Minute Hack: DIY Suction-Cup iPhone StandThe DIY Suction-Cup iPhone Stand is so simple it doesn’t really need a one-and-a-half-minute video to show you how to make it. Heck, it probably doesn’t even need a picture: the thing is so simple the name alone is description enough. But because the inventor, Max Rudberg, has such a great accent, we’re running it anyway: Simple, right? A pair of those unreliable picture-hook suction-cups that always unstick themselves after an hour or two, with the wire hook removed from one and added to the other. This augmented cup then sucks onto the smooth back of your iPhone (or any other gadget with a smooth rear) and the wire feet keep it standing at an angle. That’s it, and all for just $3. We’re not sure why the “market” for handmade stands and cases has exploded since the iPad launched, but we’re happy to see all the cheap innovation. Perhaps its because so many people have just dropped $500+ on a gadget they didn’t think they needed, and all the extra money is going on sweet new apps. DIY Suction Cup iPhone Stand [YouTube. Thanks, Max!] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 13 May 2010 | 3:45 am Cosmic Log: Space pioneers fight policy - msnbc.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 3:43 am Exam Board Deletes C and PHP From CompSci A-LevelsVitaminB52 writes "A-level computer science students will no longer be taught C, C#, or PHP from next year following a decision to withdraw the languages by the largest UK exam board. Schools teaching the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance's (AQA) COMP1 syllabus have been asked to use one of its other approved languages — Java, Pascal/Delphi, Python 2.6, Python 3.1, Visual Basic 6, and VB.Net 2008. Pascal/Delphi is 'highly recommended' by the exam board because it is stable and was designed to teach programming and problem-solving."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 May 2010 | 3:40 am HTC sues Apple again - Inquirer
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 3:37 am Fujitsu teases 3D desktop PC with built-in 3D camera
Another day, another 3D-related tech news item from Japan. This time, it’s a 3D-powered desktop PC Fujitsu is currently demoing at a two-day company event (Fujitsu Forum [JP]) in Tokyo. It’s not only able to display 3D images but also has a 3D camera built-in (just above the display). Technical details are scarce at this point, but the camera can shoot both pictures and videos in 3D. Fujitsu says they are focusing on making the all-in-one PC and the camera as easy to use as possible (according to the company, even small children will be able to handle the hardware). Glasses will be a must for viewing the 3D images.
According to Fujitsu, the hardware is completely finished, and the company is now thinking about how and when to begin commercializing the PC. Last month, NEC already announced plans to start shipping their first 3D desktops in Japan later this year. I’ll try to go to the Fujitsu event tomorrow to make a video or two myself. Via PC Watch [JP]
Source: CrunchGear | 13 May 2010 | 3:21 am RPT-Czech Unipetrol sees demand rising slowlyPRAGUE, May 13 (Reuters) - Demand for refinery and petrochemical products is rising but at a slow pace, Czech downstream oil group Unipetrol said on Thursday.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 3:14 am UPDATE 1-Deals of the day -- mergers and acquisitions(Adds Ford Motor, Tullett Prebon, Astaire Securities; updates SAP AG)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 3:12 am LimeWire induces infringement, Judge rules - Register
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 3:03 am VanceInfo Reports Record Results for the First Quarter 2010BEIJING, May 13 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- VanceInfo Technologies Inc. (NYSE: VIT) ("VanceInfo" or the "Company"), an IT service provider and one of the leading offshore software development companies in China, today reported its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2010. First Quarter 2010 Financial and Operating Highlights -- Net revenues in the first quarter of 2010 increased to $44.3 million, up 47.3 % from $30.1 million in the first quarter of 2009. -- Operating income in the first quarter of 2010 was $7.1 million, up 64.0% from the first quarter of 2009.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 May 2010 | 3:00 am Facebook And Twitter Are On A Collision Course. And We’re In The Middle.
In the tech world, Facebook is Sam, Twitter is Tommy, and Grace is all of us, the Internet users. Facebook and Twitter both want us, and we’re watching them morph before our eyes. Convoluted metaphor aside, what I’m trying to say is that Twitter and Facebook are becoming more like one another. I think this obvious fact is getting lost in the latest Facebook privacy debacle. Just imagine if Facebook had been more like Twitter from the start — which is to say, open (with your data). We wouldn’t be having this privacy debate right now. Sure, you could argue that Facebook would never have grown to a network of nearly 500 million users. But Twitter is already at 100 million (and counting) built on top of its public sharing model. I think I’ve read just about every post about Facebook and privacy over the past couple of weeks. They seem to range from Scoble’s manic “let’s end privacy” to Calacanis’ equally off-the-rails “let’s end Zuckerberg.” In between we have our own Paul Carr saying Facebook privacy isn’t dead because it never existed. Wired’s Ryan Singel saying Facebook privacy is dead because Zuckerberg is now a rogee agent. And GigaOm’s Mathew Ingram saying Facebook privacy is only half dead, or half alive, or… it’s complicated. For my money, Inside Facebook’s Eric Eldon has the best detailed analysis of what’s actually going on. And yes, it is complicated. It’s complicated because Facebook is trying to become Twitter. Everyone has joked about this for a while — ever since the Status Update became the focus of the profile, and the News Feed became a stream of faces — but it’s actually happening. The difference is that Facebook has a lot — a lot — more data than Twitter. Forget 140 character limits, we’re talking gigabytes upon gigabytes of photos, videos, games, etc. And, of course, a lot of this data started out as private — by which I don’t actually mean “private,” but rather “protected.” Facebook believes, for better or worse, that moving from a model where much of the data is protected to one where it’s public is the future of the Internet. Twitter has had that vision from the start. By default, everything is public, but you can choose to protect your account (which only a small percentage of users actually do). For the record, I think Facebook is right. I think their execution of this transition has been pretty poor. And I think their privacy settings are a tangled disgrace (can’t we just do this?). But I think they have the right idea. I also don’t believe that Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg are inherently evil beings setting out to rip away our privacy and ruin us. Is some of what they do motivated by the need to make money? Of course. Is most of it? Maybe. But I also believe that a lot of people at that company do want to put out the best product imaginable. Facebook has a unique opportunity to fundamentally change the web over the next several years. Some people hate this idea, some are more open to it. But it’s going to happen. We’re in a time period where users are more open to using closed systems (see what I did there?). That will shift eventually, and I think Facebook knows that. And that’s why they’re opening up, and sinking their talons (their data) into the very fabric of the web, to try to hang on for the long haul. If you actually do believe Facebook and/or Zuckerberg are evil, close your Facebook account right now. Seriously. Don’t write a blog post about wanting to do it. Don’t tweet about it. Don’t (humorously) leave a Facebook status update about it. Just do it. Immediately. There, see how easy that was? And if you really believe that, why didn’t you do that before? Of course, most people won’t be deleting their Facebook accounts (even the ones who say they will). History (and by that, I mean the past few years) has shown us time and time again that users love to complain loudly about Facebook changes. Boycotts are threatened, moves to competitors are suggested, plenty of lawsuits are thrown around. And yet, Facebook endures. No, it thrives. Is this a particularly heated debate? Yes. But it too will blow over. Facebook, as they tend to do, only seem to make matters harder on themselves. Right now, they’re scrambling around trying to come up with a way to calm everyone down. Elliot Schrage’s overly long, overly vanilla, overly everything, New York Time’s Q&A didn’t do the job. It may have made things worse. Sometimes I wonder if Facebook acted more like Apple — that is, simply not respond to pretty much anything — if controversies would go away even quicker. Instead, they have to have an all-hands meeting tomorrow to group-think their way out of this fiasco. Good luck with that. My answer would be the simplest one: stay the course. You’ve already ripped off the Band-Aid, don’t try to put it back on again to rip it off slowly. That will just be more painful. The key stat that Facebook should be watching is also simple: users. While everyone on the web may seem to be bitching, unless user growth stalls, does it really matter? The company has clearly already made its decision to morph into Twitter. (But a bigger Twitter on steroids.) Delaying that transition now only seems to suggest they may think it’s not the right one. At this point, that may be the biggest mistake of all. Social networks don’t lose because they cause controversy. They lose because they fail to innovate. Because they fail to stay ahead of the curve. Twitter is ahead of the curve. Sure, it may not seem like it as a simplistic social network in which you share 140-character blurbs. But they have the right foundation (whereas Facebook does not — yet). At its root, Twitter is pretty much the opposite of Facebook. When it started out, I find it hard to believe that anyone (even creator Jack Dorsey) believed it would one day morph into the future of social networking. At the time, it was simply a way to share status messages. It was a bit like sending a post card, or a text message. It was simple, short, and sweet. And then it caught on. And that’s why Twitter is faced with the opposite problem that Facebook has. They have the open foundation down, but now they have to build the house above it with all of the valuable data. Whereas at first you could only do a few things on Twitter: send a public message, send a direct message, reply to someone, etc. Now you can do a bunch of things. Retweet a message, add users to lists, search, etc. And Twitter is about to get more robust. With Annotations, Twitter will all of a sudden have several more layers of information. If you think about it, this isn’t all that different from some of what Facebook has. Say you tweet about liking a movie — with Annotations enabled, Twitter will easily be able to tell that you’re talking about a movie, and which movie. This is essentially the same as you hitting the Facebook Like button on an IMDb movie page. Or adding the movie to your list of favorites manually. While I’m not sure that Twitter even realizes how it will use this new information yet, the point is that they will be gathering it. And it’s similar to the information Facebook has long held. It’s the kind of information marketers dream about. It’s the kind of information you build businesses around. But even with Annotations, Facebook will be far ahead of Twitter in things such as pictures and movies. But is it really? Twitter has supported pictures and movies from early on, they just support it through their ecosystem. This saves them the burden of having to open massive datacenters for content that isn’t easily monetizable at this time. And yet, if they want to add the ability to store pictures on their own and bake it into Twitter itself, they can easily do that at any point. And you better believe they will if they think it’s worth it. Right now, the main reason it seems to be worth it is social graph lock-in. But as I noted earlier, Twitter isn’t having any problem gaining users without that. Games are another area where Facebook has Twitter beat. But as we’re seeing now, with Zynga, there’s also downsides to this model. Instead, Twitter again relies on the ecosystem for this type of thing. This gives Facebook a huge advantage in time spent on the service, but Facebook’s key to monetizing this, Facebook Credits, has yet to roll out. Still, with games on the site, it will be a lot easier for them to roll out a payment platform than it would be for Twitter to. I suspect we may see some movement from Twitter in that regard in the next year or two. With geo, Twitter beat Facebook to the market by several months. While Twitter has no formal check-in functionality, and it looks like Facebook will, both are likely to compete as a key way to federate out other services’ location data. Twitter’s new @anywhere platform is their answer to Facebook Connect, but Facebook is already moving beyond that with the new Open Graph elements. Twitter is going to need to iterate this quickly to catch up. So while it may not appear so on the surface, Twitter actually stacks up fairly well against the much-larger Facebook going forward. Again, this is largely thanks to their inadvertently correct foundation. And yet, Twitter has another kind of problem. While Facebook is on the receiving end of a huge amount of blacklash with regard to privacy, Twitter runs the risk of backlash with regard to complexity. Facebook is a horribly complex service. It’s much more complex than it should be. Most of this is due to an awful jumble of confusing settings (like the privacy ones). But users put up with this because they always have. While Facebook has gotten more complex over time, it has been a gradual build-up. Twitter, by comparison, is still very simple. But because of this simplicity, it’s addition of complexity is also much more noticeable. There has already been backlash about the new-style Retweets. Just as with backlash against Facebook, the Retweet backlash appears to have blown over at Twitter, and many people seem to be using the feature. But there will be more backlash as more features come. Twitter also features intense backlash when they release things that compete with their ecosystem. Because Twitter has relied so much on the ecosystem during their growth, now that Twitter is actually adding features, the ecosystem is understandably wary. Twitter bought its own iPhone app. Twitter made its own Android app. Twitter is hinting at new features that will rival third-party clients. If you’ve been a developer in the Twitter ecosystem for a while, this is scary stuff. In a perfect world, I’d prefer to see Twitter keep things as simple as possible. But I know that’s not reality. Because they too are a business. And they too want to be the main place where people share on the web. They want 500 million users, and they want more data. They want to be Facebook — but more public. And Facebook wants to be Twitter — but with more data. Lost The other day, Twitter’s Top Tweets feature shared a tweet, “Facebook is the people you went to school with. Twitter is the people you wished you went to school with.” That’s funny, but it’s not really true anymore. Both are now working towards a middle ground where they’re the school itself. It’s the Facebook-ification of Twitter. And the Twitter-ification of Facebook. And it’s happening before our eyes. Expect a lot of bitching to continue in the future. For fans of ABC’s show Lost, it reminds me of two other brothers.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 13 May 2010 | 2:58 am China Mobile expresses interest in iPad (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 2:56 am Exclusive: Google To Add Tethering, Wifi Hotspot To Android 2.2 Froyo
Google added a plastic desert sculpture of a frozen yogurt outside of their Android building today (here’s Eclair, the last version), indicating the imminent arrival of the next version of the Android operating system, Android 2.2, AKA Froyo. In addition to full Flash support and a whopper of a speed improvement, we’ve just confirmed something that’s even more stunning. Froyo will have built in USB tethering so you can share your data connection with your laptop, something Apple and AT&T still haven’t managed to allow in the U.S. And even better: you can turn your Android phone into a portable wifi hotspot as well. You can see the tethering and wifi hotspot features in the screenshots above. One thing that isn’t clear from the information we’ve received is whether carriers can turn this feature off, or even charge for it, unless they break away from the standard Android build. This is, of course, terrific news for Android users. I still believe Android phones, paired with Google Voice, are the closest thing to mobile nirvana to date. With tethering and wifi hotspot features, Apple and others have some serious catching up to do. Expect Froyo to officially launch no later that the Google I/O event next week. And we’ll have Vic Gundotra, Google’s VP responsible for product management and marketing for mobile products, on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt the week after next. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 13 May 2010 | 2:46 am Does Access To Technology Cause Happiness?Research by BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT shows that access to technology can provide feelings of well-being. 35,000 people from all over the planet were interviewed for the study. Ownership...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:42 am Synopsys Collaborates with SMIC to Deliver USB Logo-Certified DesignWare USB 2.0 nanoPHY in SMIC's 65 Nanometer LL Process TechnologyMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and SHANGHAI, May 13 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Synopsys, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 May 2010 | 2:30 am UPDATE 3-Tullett suitor walks away, shares slide* Revenue down 12 pct to 312 mln stg in four months to AprilSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:27 am Sinochem oil trade chief to become CNOOC VP -sourcesBEIJING, May 13 (Reuters) - State-run oil and chemicals trader Sinochem Corp's vice-president Li Hui will become vice-president of China National Offshore Oil Co (CNOOC), industry officials told Reuters...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:26 am New Hardware Models Highlight Nintendo's No-Transfer PolicyAn article at Wired discusses the difficulties involved in transferring games that were purchased and downloaded online when users replace their Wii or DSi. "Neither the Wii nor Nintendo’s portable DSi consoles have an upgrade path for downloadable content, since games are tied not to user accounts but to specific machines. It’s impossible for a user to copy content from an old console to a new one. Even some Wii owners whose machines have malfunctioned said it was difficult, or impossible, to get Nintendo to transfer the software licenses at its headquarters." One gamer, who bought the recently released black Wii console, explained that she got Nintendo to transfer her games, but needed to "mail both of her Wii consoles to Nintendo, and wait two weeks," hardly a convenient solution.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 May 2010 | 2:26 am UPDATE 1-KazMunaiGas EP Q1 net income down 52 percentALMATY, May 13 (Reuters) - Kazakh oil producer KazMunaiGas Exploration and Production posted a 52 percent fall in first-quarter net income to 51.7 billon kazakh tenge ($352 million).Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:11 am UPDATE 2-Polish TVN sees mild TV ad recovery in 2010(Releads with forecast, adds CEO, analyst comments, shares)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:08 am TABLE-Mitsuuroko -2009/10 group forecastCONSOLIDATED EARNINGS ESTIMATES (in billions of yen unless specified)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:01 am Luxe Tribal Neckware - Lanvin FW10 Collection Features Heavily Embellished Neck Pieces (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The luxe tribal neckware from the Lanvin FW10 collection fuses primitive motifs with fine jewelry craftmanship, reinvigorating a tired cliche. Juxtaposing shiny talons with feathers,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 2:00 am Join the .tel Treasure Hunt and Discover the World!LONDON, May 13, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- A weekly adventure story following the exploits of Emma, Ben and David, characters from Telnic's (http://telnic.tel) award-winning advert already seen by millions of people worldwide, will be launched on Friday 14th May.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 May 2010 | 1:59 am Another next generation iPhone 'found in Vietnam' (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 1:57 am Saylor Advertising -2009/10 parent resultsYear ended Year ended Year toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:55 am Saylor Advertising -2009/10 group resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:55 am LucyPhone Listens to Hold Music So You Dont Have ToThe New York Times has written up the Lucy Phone, a service that listens to Hold Music so you don't have to. Heres how it works: Head to the Lucy Phone site and either search for name of the company...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:50 am *RU There*: Feature Film About Second Life, Gaming, and Living Digitally Selected for the Legendary Cannes Film Festival This Year!A movie about Second Life and gaming is screening at this year's prestigious Cannes Film Festival, which opens today. The name of the film is R U There, a Dutch/French production partly shot in Taipei,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:32 am Mandala Art - Mixed Media Fine Artist Diane Fergurson Explores the Flow of Energy (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Diane Fergurson, a mixed media fine artist, has created a fabulous series of fine art paintings depicting and exploring the concept of the center, the mandala, being connected to the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:30 am Survey: What's Your Second Life Avatar Type?A new survey about the kind of avatar you most resemble in Second Life: Online Surveys & Market Research Thanks to Damien Fate, for suggesting the idea, and to Marianne McCann, who created the great...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:24 am "Kill Your Facebook Page" Backlash Gains Speed - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 1:20 am Is Amazon Peeking Over Kindle Users' Shoulders? [Voices]By Bob Sullivan, Reporter, MSNBC As the battle of e-book readers heats up, Amazon (AMZN) is trying to beat the competition by continually adding new features to its Kindle product. But some privacy experts say that one Kindle gizmo tucked into a new software upgrade goes too far. Readers of old-fashioned dead-tree books often like to underline or highlight passages they find particularly meaningful, or scribble notes for later reference. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:19 am UK Court Finds Company Liable For Software Defectsnormsky writes "A software company's stipulation that it couldn't be held accountable for the poor performance of its software was unfair and could not be enforced, the High Court has said. 'Pursuant to the Sale of Goods Act 1979, a term is to be implied into the contract that Entirety would be fit for the purpose for which it was bought, namely that the system would increase revenue and occupancy levels and would allow quicker check-in and check-out, including accurately processing groups and making changes to group reservations while preserving the accuracy of the system. I am satisfied that Entirety was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold,' his Honor Judge Toulmin wrote."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 13 May 2010 | 1:18 am Viral Video: Hot Summer Movie Trailers in One Place [BoomTown]
Who doesn’t love a good movie trailer–so, what about all of them? Thus, as the summer blockbuster season kicks off, here’s a bunch of them in one place. I am leaving out “Iron Man 2″ since it opened last week, but check out some preview videos of other much anticipated movies. Robin Hood (May 14):The A-Team (May 14):MacGruber (May 21):Sex and the City 2 (May 27):Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (May 28):The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (June 30):The Last Airbender (July 2):Inception (July 16):Eat, Pray, Love (August 16):Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:14 am Apple Building Facebook Into iPhone OSThe San Francisco Chronicle reporting hearsay from a reliable source, claims that Apple is building Facebook features into the latest version of its iPhone software. Our source tells us that Apple is...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:12 am From Hopes and Dreams to The Real Thing [Voices]By Fred Wilson, Principal, Union Square Ventures Companies start out as hopes and dreams and stay there for at least a little while. Even after the product has been launched and users are jumping aboard, the company is still in hopes and dreams mode. But eventually one of three things happens to a company; it goes out of business, it gets sold, or it becomes a real business. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:04 am The Big Game, Zuckerberg and Overplaying your Hand [Voices]By Jason Calacanis, Founder and CEO, Mahalo.com Last Wednesday, 10AM, Las Vegas. The South Point Hotel and Casino, a couple of miles off the strip. The Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:03 am Apple-Verizon Political Calculus, 2010 Edition [Voices]By John Gruber, Editor, Daring Fireball Regarding Verizon’s (VZ) announcement of a supposed forthcoming Android iPad-alike tablet, MG Siegler wrote: The big question is: will it get ugly enough that Apple (AAPL) will re-up with AT&T (T) and forget about a Verizon iPhone? Or maybe they have already, which is why McAdam would make such a pro-Googl (GOOG) statement? Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:02 am How the Web is Changing the Way We Eat [Voices]By Sara Breselor, Contributor, Salon.com Every now and then, a trend takes a mysterious turn. Here we are, in the midst of an era in which portion sizes have been growing steadily for decades, and suddenly, small plates are making a comeback. As USA Today writer Bruce Horovitz pointed out last week, bite-size menu options are a hot new thing at casual chain restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen and Houlihan’s. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:01 am Painting Silicon Valley a New Shade of Green [Voices]By Pui-Wing Tam, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Silicon Valley is trying to become a hub for clean technology—companies that specialize in alternative energy or energy-efficient products. Helping to lead the shift are local venture capitalists such as Vinod Khosla. The 55-year-old, who co-founded Sun Microsystems Inc. (JAVA) and was a partner at venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, now runs his own firm investing in clean-tech companies. Last September, Mr. Khosla announced that his firm, Khosla Ventures, had raised two new funds that totaled more than $1 billion, giving him ammunition to nurture clean-technology start-ups. In a recent conversation at his offices on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park—widely known as venture-capital row—Mr. Khosla discussed the competition to be the nation’s clean-tech center, how Silicon Valley stacks up in that race, and what green products he uses himself. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 13 May 2010 | 1:00 am Multipurpose SUVs - The Marussia F2 is a Practical, Utilitarian Vehicle (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Marussia F2 has been unveiled at the CSTB-2010 exhibition in Russia. The car is being described as the most practical, multipurpose and multifunctional car ever designed by Marussia...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 1:00 am Policy Leader BroadHop to Showcase Breakthrough Applications for its Quantum Network Suite at TM Forum's Management WorldDENVER, May 13 /PRNewswire/ -- BroadHop, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 May 2010 | 1:00 am HTC EVO 4G Arrives June 4 for $200 - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 12:55 am Steam Client for Mac Arrives with Free Portal Game - Techtree.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 13 May 2010 | 12:50 am Music biz wins big in LimeWire copyright case (Reuters)Reuters - The music industry has landed a major punch in its fight against LimeWire, one of the oldest file-sharing networks on the Internet.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 12:48 am Microsoft launches new Office, duels Google online (Reuters)Reuters - Microsoft Corp launched an updated version of its Office software on Wednesday, aiming to keep its grip on the hugely profitable business application market while countering the challenge of free online alternatives from Google Inc.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 12:45 am MobileMe Mail beta adds server rules, interface tweaks (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - Apple late on Wednesday announced a new beta program for the mail component of its MobileMe internet service. The new beta offers new interface views, server-based mail rules, SSL-based security, and improved performance, according to the company.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 12:41 am DIY Supertrikes - Tim Cotterill's Self-Made Road Rocket Rides Like a Rocket(TrendHunter.com) Tim Cotterill's self-made 'Road Rocket' is a unique trike that really rides like a rocket. This five meter long, monster-sized trike has a maximum speed of 200 mph and weighs 1225kg...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 12:40 am Big record labels win LimeWire copyright case (Reuters)Reuters - The makers of file-sharing software LimeWire are liable to 13 major record companies that accused the service of infringing their music copyrights, a Manhattan federal judge has ruled.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 13 May 2010 | 12:34 am Identive Group Announces First Quarter 2010 ResultsSANTA ANA, Calif. and ISMANING, Germany, May 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SCM Microsystems, Inc. d.b.a.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 13 May 2010 | 12:30 am The Pain and Beauty of China's "Earthquake Marriages"China is playing matchmaker with survivors of a quake that claimed tens of thousands of lives in 2008.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 12:20 am Household Debt Around the WorldFrom a new report, a look at household debt levels around the world. Interestingly, Canada leads the way in a bad sense in one measure.Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 13 May 2010 | 12:12 am Walrus Attacks Ducks in Rare FootageA BBC natural history unit film crew captures rare footage of a walrus attacking a floating flock of sea ducks.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 13 May 2010 | 12:04 am Sapiens Reports 11% Revenue Growth in Q1 2010CARY, North Carolina, May 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sapiens International Corporation N.V.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 May 2010 | 11:47 pm Read all 'Core i5. Core i7' posts in Business Tech - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 May 2010 | 11:46 pm Adam Sandler taking "Pixels" to big screen (Reuters)Reuters - "Pixels," the much-buzzed-about short film featuring 1980s video game characters attacking New York City, is heading for the big-screen.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 May 2010 | 11:11 pm Land lines becoming extinct? 25% of Americans think so File this one under "well, duh!". Researchers working for the NCHS "discovered" something that has been covered for years: more and more people are canceling their land lines, and just using cell phones.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 10:40 pm Land lines becoming extinct? 25% of Americans think so
The researchers gathered data from 21,000 households during the second half of 2009 and discovered what’s been common knowledge for years. Apparently one in four American homes only have wireless telephones, which is an increase of almost 2% over the first half of 2009. That means that roughly 52 million people live in households with only wireless telephones. The report was published on the CDC website, and honestly I think this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone. The only people I know of that still have landlines either need them for a fax machine or are of a certain generation. [via Reuters]
Source: MobileCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 10:30 pm Court Grants RIAA Summary Judgment Motions vs. LimewireNewYorkCountryLawyer writes "District Court Judge Kimba Wood has granted some of the RIAA's key summary judgment motions in Arista Records v. Lime Group. In her 59-page decision (PDF), she found Lime Group itself, as well as its CEO and a separate company, liable for intentionally inducing Limewire users to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights. The decision was not a final judgment, so it is not appealable. Additionally, it denied summary judgment on certain issues, and did not address any possible damages."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 10:10 pm Google-Backed SCVNGR Takes On Foursquare, Looks To Boost Fun With ‘Challenges’
To mark the launch of this new consumer-facing side of SCVNGR, the startup has launched new applications for iPhone and Android (you can grab the iPhone app here, and a QR code for the Android app is here) (it’s US-only for now). If you’ve used Foursquare or Gowalla before, the applications should look pretty familiar at first — you can ‘check-in’ to any of the 20 million venues in the SCVNGR database and see what your friends are up to. But there’s a key difference: SCVNGR revolves around interactive ‘challenges’, which users are prompted to complete when they visit a venue. These can range from simple things, like the act of checking-in at a venue or taking a goofy photo with a store mannequin, to much richer experiences, depending on how creative the business gets. SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch acknowledges that this is already a crowded space with some very well-funded competitors, but he believes that this ‘challenge’ angle will be enough to differentiate SCVNGR from the rest of the pack. He explains that the value of a check-in on a service like Foursquare tends to be very transient in nature — if you see that check-in an hour or two after it was created, there’s a good chance it is no longer relevant, as the user may well have moved on to their next destination. Challenges, Priebatsch believes, have a much longer shelf life.
Challenges can be created by anyone, including both business owners and their customers (you could also create challenges at a non-business venue like a park if you wanted to). Screening and flagging systems are in place to ensure that there aren’t any inappropriate challenges. And while most challenges will be created from phones, businesses that want to create challenges at multiple locations at once (like a restaurant chain), will be able to do so using SCVNGR’s enterprise tools. In some ways SCVNGR is late to the game — aside from Foursquare, there are plenty of other competitors, including Loopt, Gowalla, Brightkite, and probably Facebook in the near future, and all of them are going to be vying for attention from local businesses. Every venue in SCVNGR’s database will come with three basic challenges (one of which is a basic check-in), but it will only be fun if users and businesses start putting the time in to make engaging, creative challenges. In this sense, there’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem. All of that said, I like that SCVNGR is setting out to offer a more engaging experience than Foursquare and Gowalla, which I got bored of pretty quickly (yes, I know plenty of people are totally addicted to them — I just find the gaming elements of these services to be superficial). I suspect the popularity of SCVNGR will be tied to how widespread challenges are, and, more important, how fun they are. Likewise, SCVNGR is going to have to incent users to play the game by getting businesses to offer rewards and coupons for completing their challenges (show them the money). Some gamers will keep jumping on to SCVNGR because it’s fun, but the service needs a carrot to dangle in front of users to get them hooked. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 10:00 pm May 13, 1935: Enter the Parking MeterIt's the 75th anniversary of the parking meter. Aren't you just overwhelmed with joy?
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Android sales strong, but market for apps lags - San Francisco Chronicle
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 May 2010 | 9:58 pm Reverse engineering the perfect (or worst) TED talkWant to write a TED talk that everybody loves? Whatever you do, don't cite the New York Times—but feel free to fake intellectual capacity through liberal use of "Etc, etc", and do use lots of lavender in your slides. Sebastian Wernicke, an engagement manager at Oliver Wyman and former bioinformatics researcher, did a statistical analysis of all the publicly available TED talks and used it to create tedPAD—a TED talk generator that draws on the common phrases & keywords from popular talks to help you create the perfect TED presentation. Or, alternately, there's tedPAD Black, which does the opposite. Here's my tedPAD Black talk:
Via Flowing Data  Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 9:51 pm How moleskines should be filled
Check out the rest of Irina Vinnik's portfolio at Behance, and her website. You can apparently buy a book with her artwork in it (machtrans), but goodness knows how to find it outside of Russia!
Me, I buy $10 notepads and then fill them with grocery lists and reminders to wash the dogs.Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 9:12 pm Verizon CEO: 'We're Working With Google on a Tablet' - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 May 2010 | 9:03 pm Mozilla CEO John Lilly announces departureSection: Business News, Web, Web Browsers
A transition of this magnitude cannot afford any hiccups as the browser wars continue to heat up. Mozilla must keep the pressure on as market share continues to be stolen from Internet Explorer and Google’s Chrome regularly gaining fans touting render speed and being light on CPU usage. And one must not forget Opera who has cracked the invisible Apple app store barrier making their browser the first alternative to Safari on the iPhone. Who needs marketing budget when can reach 16 million users in one swipe? Read [John Lilly Blog]
Full Story » | Written by Aaron Thacker for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 8:49 pm Comcast develops cable controlling iPad appSection: Apple, Video, Accessories, Video Providers, Computers, Mobile Computers Today Comcast unveiled their latest and greatest to enhance the customer experience by introducing the web-based Xfinity Remote iPad app. The application turns your iPad into a giant remote giving you complete control over all content available through Comcast’s programming. Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts demoed the product with G4’s Kevin Pereira showing how the app connects to your cable box via any Wifi (or network) environment and links directly to your account. Once activated, functionality extends the ability to change channels, remotely set DVR recordings, a full keyboard search and new to the genre feature that allows you to invite your friends to watch what you are watching. Comcast is dubbing the application a “social remote” giving users ability to comment back and forth on the iPad while watching content live. Although the Xfinity Remote App has yet to be released to the wild, Comcast expects the iPad app to be available to the iPad-wielding public later this year. Read [Comcast] Full Story » | Written by Aaron Thacker for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 8:11 pm Stanford Robot Car Capable of Slide Parkingkkleiner writes "Stanford's Junior, the robot car that took second place at DARPA's Grand Challenge in 2007, has learned how to perform a tire-squealing 180-degree spin into a skin-tight parking space. Similar to a James Bond action scene, the maneuver is impressive and would be extremely difficult for a human to pull off. We won't be handing the keys over to robot cars anytime soon, but Stanford shows us that at least for some driving tasks robot cars can already meet or even exceed human ability."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 8:10 pm Greatest and filthiest Muppet mashupsHere's a collection of ten inappropriate and wonderful Muppet mashups -- I'm very fond of this Muppet Treasure Island/Sex Pistols "Frigging in the Rigging" mashup. Top 10 Muppet Mashups/Re-Cuts (Thanks, Brian!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 8:05 pm Diaspora, The Open Facebook Alternative, Soars Past $50,000 In Micro-Funding
The New York Times profiled the NY-based project yesterday, noting that the team of four NYU students gave themselves 39 days to raise $10,000 through the online fundrasing site, Kickstarter. As NYT notes, they shot past that goal in a mere 12 days. As of yesterday afternoon, they were at $23,676 in funding. Today, just one day later, that total stands at an amazing $58,315. And they still have 20 days of fundraising to go. Anytime anything doubles in one day, it’s impressive, but even more impressive about Diaspora’s fundraising is that it’s all being done through micro-funding on Kickstarter. So far, some 1,625 people have donated the $58,000. The minimum pledge is $1, but so far, the most amount of people have pledged $25 (638 pledges), with $5 coming in second place (334 pledges). Over 100 people have given over $50, and 5 people have even given over $1,000 (with 2 of those giving over $2,000). And they’re drawing some big names to the fundraising drive. VC Fred Wilson just donated an undisclosed amount. And yesterday, TWiT’s Leo Laporte donated as well. The movement is gaining steam quickly. In fact, in just the time I’ve taken to write this post, the funding has surged another $3,000. Whether Diaspora succeeds or not, of course, is an entirely different story. The coding for the project (which aims to have everyone control their own social network on their own machines, though there will be a WordPress.com-like solution as well) won’t begin until this summer. But with controversy around Facebook at a fever pitch, these kids sure picked the right time to start the project. Again, they have 20 more days of fund raising to go. $100,000 seems a lock (probably even in the next few days), and don’t be shocked if they get close to a million dollars through this micro-funding when all is said and done. And if they need more than that — I’m sure investors like Fred Wilson will be happy to talk.
[thanks Tim] Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 8:04 pm Cigarette Butts Make Steel StrongerThe toxic chemicals found in smoked cigarette butts make steel far more resistant to corrosion.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 7:53 pm What Happened To: Tiger Electronic’s Game.com handheld game system (aka Game Com)FROM GAMERTELL - Tiger Electronic’s Game.com handheld game system had many great things going for it and yet it failed. So what the @#$%^! happened? Read on… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 7:35 pm Sprint set to unleash HTC Evo 4G (Ben Patterson)Ben Patterson - Set to be the first Android phone in the U.S. with support for Sprint's nascent, high-speed WiMax network, the HTC Evo 4G — complete with a jumbo-sized 4.3-inch display, video chat, and HD video recording — is coming to a Sprint store near you early next month.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 May 2010 | 7:24 pm Android coming to a car near you!Section: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Gadgets / Other, GPS/Navigation, Transportation, Web, Google  Android… Probably the most widely used and versatile operating system that exists right now. Its most obvious habitats are smartphones but their domain stretches much farther. Android can be found in netbooks, tablets, and a microwave. Now, we can potentially add one more to that list, cars. Popular car enthusiast magazine Motor Trend states that General Motors will be working with Google to make its OnStar system more competitive with Ford’s Sync system. This collaboration would allow users to sync their Android-based smartphones with their cars allowing for more hands-free technology. The article goes on to state one of the downsides of this potential merger. Google would basically render GM’s OnStar turn-by-turn navigation useless because Android has its own GPS navigation system. I’m starting to see a trend here. Google put its software into phones, then we see the Nexus One. Google put its software into tablets, and now we hear rumors of a Verizon/Google tablet. Now, Google might put its software into cars. Could that mean we could one day purchase a smart-car-esque vehicle in Android Green off of cars.google.com? Read [Motor Trend] Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 7:03 pm Gathering Vitals of Your So-Called Scattered Life [Personal Technology]The important records of most people’s lives are too often hard to find when you need them. Some are on paper, scattered in folders, drawers or boxes in homes and offices. Others are in digital files on one or more computers. For years, there have been software programs and Web sites that try to corral portions of this information. Some of these digital products offer to organize your online IDs and passwords. Others focus on financial, health, or other information. [ See post to watch video ] But a couple of relatively new products aim to digitally collect your important data in all these categories in one easy-to-access place: either on your computer or on the Web. One is Orggit, launched last fall by a Chicago-based company called Morgan Street Document Systems. The other is InformationSafe, launched in January by New York company Ascend Partnerships. Orggit, available at orggit.com, costs $50 a year. InformationSafe, available at infosafe.com, is $50 for a desktop version or $50 a year for a Web version. A backup service for the desktop version of InformationSafe is $30 a year. I’ve been testing both, and found each fairly easy to use and potentially very valuable, especially as your life gets more complicated. It’s a real bonus to be able to find everything in one place, even scanned paper documents. Both products work on either Windows PCs or Macs. They also share some important downsides. As you might expect, they are only effective if you take the time and effort to enter all your information, from passwords to credit-card information to all the medications you take, and more. That can be a chore, even though both products try to make it easier with predefined templates for each type of data. Another downside: security. Anything stored digitally, especially online, is vulnerable to criminal hackers. Both products offer multiple log-in plans, not just passwords but things like photos or important dates in your life that you must identify. Both also use a tough form of encryption typically favored by the government and banks. But there are no guarantees. On this issue, InformationSafe has the edge. While it offers a Web-based version, it also comes in a version that exists only on your local computer, or on a removable drive. The company says this local version is chosen by 80% of its users. Orggit is purely Web-based, and can be accessed from any computer or from Orggit’s nicely designed free iPhone app. InformationSafe’s desktop version is less convenient, because it can’t be accessed remotely. But it’s more secure. Still, even data stored only on a local computer or drive can be compromised by a determined hacker who targets it when the machine is online, or if it is lost or stolen and falls into the wrong hands.  Orggit’s iPhone app You could use InformationSafe on a PC that you never connect to the Internet, but you’d be unable to use the company’s optional backup service and could lose everything if the hard disk fails, unless you faithfully back it up locally. Each product is divided into logical sections, such as finance, health, insurance, passwords, and so forth. Orggit has a simpler layout, with colorful icons and a quicker, easier way to download reports on what’s in your wallet and on your health data. InformationSafe has many more canned templates, but you can enter almost anything into Orggit as well. Each allows you to type in your information using the templates, or to upload digital or scanned documents, such as a living will or the image of a driver’s license. Each also allows you to type notes on everything you store. Orggit has a special health feature InformationSafe lacks. Once you sign up, you get a physical wallet card with a toll-free number that can be called by emergency or medical personnel to gain access to your vital medical information. This phone number also is displayed in the iPhone app. Also, Orggit allows you to store separate sets of information for up to 10 family members or other people, who can share some or all of their information with each other. InformationSafe allows the entry of information about other people, but it is basically designed for a single user; and sharing, while possible, is more limited. InformationSafe has a more staid look and feel, but it isn’t hard to navigate. However, its local and Web versions aren’t connected, are purchased separately and don’t synchronize with each other even if you have both. You can get Web backup of the local version for a fee, but this backup isn’t visible from the Web. The company says it is working on this feature. If you’re comfortable with digital storage, these two products offer an effective way to organize the details of your life. Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free of charge, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com. Source: All Things Digital | 12 May 2010 | 7:03 pm 'N' Versus 'G' Wi-Fi [Mossberg's Mailbox]Q: I’m wondering about wireless specs for a laptop. I suspect the “n” version of Wi-Fi is best but “g” is adequate. Any advice would be appreciated. A. It depends on how and where you intend to use your laptop’s wireless connectivity. The “n” version of Wi-Fi can be much faster than “g” and can have much greater range. However, the speed difference won’t matter much if your sole use is connecting to the Internet with a typical home or public hotspot service, since the maximum speed of these services is almost always well below “g” and “n” capabilities. But if you are streaming video at home or backing up large files wirelessly among computers and networked hard disks on a home network, you’d be much better off with “n,” assuming all devices involved support it. The same goes for range. In a small apartment, it likely won’t matter. In a large home, it could. Q: I’m thinking about getting the updated Apple MacBook Pro 13′ with the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. I very much like size and weight of this laptop, but is it wise these days to invest in an Intel Core 2 Duo instead of the newer Intel chips? I mainly need it for “Office Work” (email, Internet, Word, Excel, etc.). A. As I said in my recent PC buyer’s guide, Intel’s newest processors can give you extra speed for demanding scenarios and then ratchet down to save battery life under simpler situations. But there’s nothing wrong with the older Core 2 Duo, or competing processors from AMD (AMD), for mainstream tasks. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a laptop with a Core 2 Duo for the kind of tasks you anticipate, or even heavier use. As for battery life, Apple (AAPL) rates the Mac model you’re considering at up to 10 hours of use between charges. In my harsh battery test, it got 7 hours. In normal use, I’d guess it would easily exceed 8 hours. You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com. Source: All Things Digital | 12 May 2010 | 7:02 pm Review: Cadence Wrist Rocket digital sports watch
It’s the display that’s worth noting on the Wrist Rocket, it’s very easy to read, despite the fact that it’s curved slightly at the top and bottom. I’m particularly impressed with the dot-matrix style LCD, it really makes the Wrist Rocket stand out from the other watches in this market segment. Over all the Cadence Wrist Rocket digital watch is just your standard LCD sports watch, but the large case, unique styling, and the $49.99 price make it a good value. I’m wearing one right now and I’ve really grown to like it. In fact, I like it so much that I want to share one with you! Cadence was kind enough to agree to give one away to our readers, so if you want to win one, just leave a comment at the bottom and you’ll get your chance. Make sure you leave your email address so I can get in touch with you if you do win (we’ll only use it for this). The contest will run until Monday, May 17th at noon eastern time so make sure you enter before then. Update: I forgot to mention, with apologies to our readers not in the US. You must be a US resident to win.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 6:30 pm Samsung E60 and E61 set for a July UK releaseSection: Gadgets / Other, ebooks  For all of our British readers out there (I’m talking to you House) Samsung has announced its new E60 and E61 e-readers set for a July release. The sliding E60 and QWERTY equipped E61 do have one nice feature—Wi-Fi capability. This will allow users to both download and share content such as books and newspapers with other devices. In addition, both models will come with e-paper display similar to real paper and a nifty electromagnetic resonance (EMR) stylus which will prevent mistypes caused by wandering hands. This will allow users to make notes and/or make drawings with minimal frustration. Probably the neatest feature about these readers is that they can read books to you if don’t feel like straining your eyes. It’s these kinds of devices that make me want to read more often. Now if I could only get off of this computer… Via [Engadget] Full Story » | Written by Tarun Kunwar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 6:28 pm John Carmack To Cut Space Tourism Prices 50%An anonymous reader writes "Looks like John Carmack, through Armadillo Aerospace, will be battling Burt Rutan and Richard Branson to make space travel affordable. From the article: 'Space Adventures is going to use an Armadillo Technologies rocket to launch amateur astronauts 62 miles into the sky. Nothing new, except that they will do it at half the price of Virgin Galactic's ticket, and in a real rocket!' Perhaps I'll visit space, after all."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 6:03 pm Burning Question: How Much Will This Switch to 3-D Cost Me?Your shiny new flatscreen may be too flat and your Blu-ray player too antiquated to handle 3-D. How will you handle spending $2,000-plus to revamp your home theater?
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 12 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Burning Question: How Much Will This Switch to 3-D Cost Me?Your shiny new flatscreen may be too flat and your Blu-ray player too antiquated to handle 3-D. How will you handle spending $2,000-plus to revamp your home theater?
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 6:00 pm NBA-Branded Headphones Slam-Dunk Style, Air-Ball SoundLove the NBA? Love nice looking headphones? Don't care too much about audio fidelity? We've got a set of noise cans for you.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Weird Clouds Look Even Better From SpaceClouds can make some crazy shapes, and some of them look even crazier from space. This gallery has some of the best cloud formations on Earth as seen by astronauts and satellites.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 6:00 pm NBA-Branded Headphones Slam-Dunk Style, Air-Ball SoundLove the NBA? Love nice looking headphones? Don't care too much about audio fidelity? We've got a set of noise cans for you.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 12 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Supermassive Black Hole Is Thrown Out of GalaxyDarkKnightRadick writes "An undergrad student at the University of Utrecht, Marianne Heida, has found evidence of a supermassive black hole being tossed out of its galaxy. According to the article, the black hole — which has a mass equivalent to one billion suns — is possibly the culmination of two galaxies merging (or colliding, depending on how you like to look at it) and their black holes merging, creating one supermassive beast. The black hole was found using the Chandra Source Catalog (from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory). The direction of the expulsion is also possibly indicative of the direction of rotation of the two black holes as they circled each other before merging."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 5:50 pm Desperate man in electronics store toilet tweets for paper
naika_tei is a Twitter user and anime song DJ in Tokyo. Last week, he found himself stranded in the third floor toilet of an electronics store in Akihabara with a soiled ass and no toilet paper. So he sent out this tweet: "[Urgently needed] toilet paper in the 3rd floor toilet of Akiba Yodobashi." Five minutes later, he sent another desperate tweet. 18 minutes later, he sends another tweet saying: "The toilet paper arrived safely! Thank you very much!" Hooray for helpful Twitter followers! via Foolish Gadgets Rogue Stars, Non-Constant Constants... Holes in Space? Our Universe is Rebelling!It's hard to keep up with the Universe these days. What with all these bullied stars, rampant black holes and wobbly physics, it's little wonder astronomers always look surprised.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 5:38 pm Sprint HTC EVO 4G coming June 4th; new plans detailed
Pricing is set at $199.99 with new contract (after you get that $100 rebate, anyway), no doubt significantly more without one. The plan they’re pushing for it will be $69.99 plus $10 for “premium data,” making a total of $80 before taxes — that includes unlimited texts and 450 minutes, plus unlimited mobile-to-mobile. In addition to this, you’ll be able to spend $30 extra (joy!) to use your phone as a mobile hotspot for up to 8 people at a time. Makes your plan pretty expensive, but if you’re already shelling out for a mobile dongle, this might actually be a better deal. When Greg checked it out, he liked it and couldn’t really find anything wrong with it. Check out his initial hands on here.
Source: MobileCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 5:37 pm Google says Office 2010 is a hassle, expensive and unproductive?Section: Computers, Software / Applications
Google points to leveraging currently installed version of Office (all the way back to 2003) by making those programs “better” by allowing cloud storage and sharing as well as real-time collaboration in the coming months. Users can continue using programs that feel comfortable to them while behind the scenes, these docs are protected in Google’s online vault. Google touts the ability to store any file type in it’s cloud. Google is offering a try-before-you-buy test to convince would-be users. Are you considering change over? Read: [Google Enterprise Blog]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 5:18 pm HOWTO Make a Admiral Ackbar paper-bag puppet Our pal Bonnie Burton has a new book out, the The Star Wars Craft Book. It includes this swell cephalodic puppet: "By reusing a paper lunch bag, you're recycling while making a cool puppet of Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi. Have fun making other character bag puppets from the Star Wars universe." Admiral Sackbar Puppet Craft (Thanks, Bonnie!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 5:03 pm Why Chinese women astronauts must be married before going to spaceChina has a rule that all its space-going astronauts, male and female, must be married. The logic behind this — specifically for women — was explained in a March Time Magazine article:The reasoning behind the prerequisite, according to officials, is that spaceflight could potentially harm the women's fertility. "It's out of the consideration of being responsible for the female pilots," Xu Xianrong, director of the PLA's Clinical Aerospace Medicine Center in Beijing and a member of the selection panel, told the official government news agency Xinhua. "Though there is little evidence on how the space experience will affect the female constitution, we have to be extra cautious, because this is a first for China." Ensuring that the female astronauts have already reproduced, he said, will guarantee that their family planning is not disrupted. But at least one authority, Zhang Jianqi, former deputy commander of the country's manned space program, has stated that the requirement stands because married women are more physically and psychologically mature.Why does China require that its astronauts be married? [CS Monitor] Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 5:03 pm DIY: Put your P&S digital camera into something a bit more classyThis is an interesting DIY project, and it makes sense aesthetically. Take the insides of your point and shoot camera, and put them inside of a classic film camera. A worthwhile project for sure, but rather difficult. Be aware, it’s kind of difficult to call this a DIY, as the video is not in english. Luckily we have Google Translate, and the author also made a web page. [via Hack A Day]
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 5:00 pm What an underwater oil leak looks likeThis footage was taken at the Deepwater Horizon site on May 11. The Joint Investigation Committee says that you're looking at both oil and gas coming out of the broken pipe. Bit of conjecture on my part: I think what we might be seeing here is a methane gas bubble briefly interrupting the flow of oil, which is pretty eerie to watch, given that this was also the cause of the explosion that lead to the oil spill in the first place. Tom the Dancing Bug: Super-Fun-Pak-Comix
Another installment of Tom the Dancing Bug! The full strip is after the jump. And be sure to check out Ruben's work in print: Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories (Andrews McMeel, 2004); All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats (NBM Publishing, 1997); and Tom the Dancing Bug (HarperCollins, 1992).
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 4:57 pm Researchers Create Logic Circuits From DNAseparsons writes "Researchers at Duke University recently used DNA to craft tiny chips used in computers and electronic circuits. By mixing DNA snippets with other molecules and exposing them to light, researchers created self-assembling, DNA-based logic circuits. Once perfected the tech could serve as an endlessly abundant, cheap alternative to silicon semiconductors. Chris Dwyer, lead researcher on the project, says that one grad student using DNA to make self-assembling circuits could produce more logic circuits in one day than the global silicon chip industry can create in an entire month!"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 4:56 pm Comcast Shows Off an iPad Remote, Promises to Show Off iPad Shows, Too [MediaMemo]The heads of the big TV companies are in Los Angeles this week, and all of them are making an effort to publicly embrace the brave new world of video. Not freaked out by it at all, okay? Here’s Comcast CEO Brian Roberts, for instance, showing off a forthcoming iPad app that allows you to program and control your TV remotely. Looks cool. And while I think there’s actually a limited-use case for programming your TV while you’re out of your house, the ability to search for shows on the app should be better than the crappy experience you get from your remote and set-top box. So you’ll likely get more use out of this thing when you’re actually sitting on your couch in front of your TV. Note that the app won’t allow you to actually watch shows on your iPad, but Roberts says that’s coming, too. Comcast (CMCSA) officials say the company has plans to allow cable subscribers to pull down whatever’s available via the company’s Fancast video portal to the Apple (AAPL) gadget. Haven’t heard yet about timing and other details (3G versus Wi-Fi-only, etc.), and there will probably be some roadblocks. It’s unlikely, for instance, that you’ll get the Hulu feed that Fancast has, since Hulu plans to charge for access on the iPad. But people seem very happy with the ABC iPad app, so if Comcast can deliver something similar, it should expect some pats on the back. Meanwhile, Time Warner (TWX) used the cable industry’s annual convention to announce that it has expanded its “TV Everywhere” program–people who pay for TV get access to the same shows on the Web–to include subscribers to Verizon’s (VZ) Fios TV service. That makes sense inasmuch as Time Warner’s HBO picked Verizon as the first carrier partner for its HBO Go service a few months back. The thread here is consistent: Cable providers and cable programmers want the world to know they’re happy to give you all the Web you want–as long subscribers keep paying their monthly bills and getting a bundle of TV channels in return. If we ever get to the world where you can start buying individual channels–doesn’t matter if they’re on TV or the Web–then all bets are off and TV economics get radically reshuffled. But we’re not getting there anytime soon, and I’m not convinced we ever will. Source: All Things Digital | 12 May 2010 | 4:38 pm Gadgetell Review: Sony Walkman NWZ-W252 Water Resistant MP3 PlayerSection: Audio, Headphones, Portable Audio, Reviews, Features, Originals  What is being reviewed?
Sony Walkman NWZ-W252 Water Resistant MP3 Player, which currently retails for $59.95. The specs
In The Box
My thoughtsSony recently launched a new “cord-free” W series Walkman, and lucky for us they were kind enough to send over a unit for review. So lets start with this, I agreed to do the review, but honestly was not all that sure how much I would like the style on a personal level. Without trying to give a huge spoiler, lets just say I was pleasantly surprised and have since become a fan of this style of MP3 player. I would say I had the obvious fear in that it would not fit properly, which would cause the Walkman to slip around and/or fall while I was running. Needless to say that even with the high Florida humidity and some sweating the Walkman stayed in place. As for wear and comfort, the W series Walkman ships with three sets of earbuds which allow for somewhat of a custom fit. In terms of explaining the setup, its almost like wearing a Bluetooth headset in each ear with a wire tight behind your head. In other words, you may not win any style points, but somehow it was refreshing to not have to worry about a headphone cable dangling. Of course, that is not to say the Walkman is bad looking, but we all know how we make fun of those who wear Bluetooth headsets. Controlling the Walkman took a little getting used to, but the controls are fairly easy once you get familiar. They are split between both ear pieces with the volume up/down and play/pause on the left side with the shuffle and all switcher on the right side. Given I run on public roads the volume was the most important and with a button for up and a button for down it became simple enough. Sound quality was very good, and was more than acceptable for a variety of music types as well as spoken work audio podcasts. The earbuds fit nicely in the ear, and were able to offer that very good quality in the quiet of my house as well as on the road with cars and wind noise. Stepping back for a moment and touching on the setup process, overall, it was fairly simple. Basically all you need to do is connect your Walkman to your computer with the included USB cable and click the setup.exe file. From there its just a matter of following the steps. And then after the initial setup process was taken care of, transferring audio files can be done with Windows Media Player (version 11 or 12). iTunes using Content Transfer or by dragging and dropping using Windows Explorer. My preference was in number three, dragging and dropping. The bottom lineI have used the Walkman W series for about two weeks now and can easily see it becoming a regular part of my running gear. I also would not hesitate to recommend this style of MP3 player, or more specifically the W series WZ-W252 Walkman. Plus, there is still something that strikes me as cool by having a Sony Walkman, even if its not quite the same as what I had back in the 80’s. Product [Sony Style]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 4:33 pm German court mandates passwords on all Wi-Fi – or face a fine
The fine wouldn’t be large (€100/~$125) but the fact that it’s there at all is kind of backwards. Free and open internet access is a controversial subject, mainly because of the increasing number of crimes possible online, and the easy means of anonymizing access. There are privacy concerns here, and legitimate security and copyright ones as well — far more than a criminal court (deciding a single claim by one musician against one user) has power to decide over. The ruling has been made, but I doubt it will stand for long. A more nuanced law will have to address this — one establishing a reasonable level of protection for your network, or levels of “complicity” should more or less serious crimes be enacted through your connection. In the meantime, our German readers would do well to set a password on their home network, just to be safe. I doubt a task force will be going around knocking on your doors, like they did in Mumbai, but you can never be too careful. [via TechDirt]
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 4:30 pm Voice Mobility Adds to Board of DirectorsVANCOUVER, May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Voice Mobility International, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 May 2010 | 4:16 pm Coming Up From The Favelas: Brazil’s Slumdog Entrepreneurs
Sadly—unlike nearly everything else on the over-the-top CSI franchise—the depiction of the favelas wasn’t an exaggeration. It’s essentially a war zone between drug kingpins and often-corrupt police officers, and many life-long Rio residents have never entered one. One in five people living in Rio’s slums have lost a family member to the drug war—and nearly as many blame the police as they do the drug dealers, according to Janice Perlman’s research in the excellent book “Democratic Brazil Revisited.” It was a staggering lesson in the different types of poverty in the emerging world. While it’s hard to match the lack of infrastructure like water and sewage systems in an Indian slum, there’s little that can compare to the violence of a Rio favela. So it was understandable, as I entered a Rio favela a few weeks ago that my guides kept impressing on me that a year ago I couldn’t under any circumstances have come here. One year ago, a cab wouldn’t have taken me here. One year ago, no one would even deliver pizza here. What’s changed in a year? Specifically, the city is doing something about the problem, embarking on a project of “pacification.” As it was explained to me, newly-trained, SWAT-style cops take each favela back, driving out the drug dealers, by any means necessary, in a recognition that the situation isn’t just a bad neighborhood, it’s an urban war-zone. Being new to the force, these police officers have a clean slate with the residents of the favela, and so are able to continue to protect it, keeping the peace. So far, eight favelas have been pacified. Residents I spoke with talked about the relief of being out from under the daily violence: Suddenly they can be a part of the city. But many are still wary. “This is the best I’ve seen the community in a long time, but I’m still scared,” said Nivea Mendes of the pacified favela Babilonia. “Very few people trust the government. They are just out for an election. I’m still skeptical.” Put another way, even though they’re physically gone, the drug dealers still have power in these neighborhoods—for now. There’s another tactical problem with pacification that never would have occurred to me: For more than ten years a non-profit organization called CDI has been giving favela residents a different kind of freedom, setting up computer labs and offering training in everything from basic computer services to IT skills. CDI has built more than 800 community centers in thirteen countries giving more than 1.3 million people access to the Web, the bulk in Brazil and many for the first time. There’s an emphasis on sustainability—each community center charges for Web access and courses, but the rates are affordable for even the poorest Brazilians, as little as a couple of dollars per course. There’s also an emphasis on personal sustainability, with most people using the labs to learn marketable skills, write resumes and hunt for jobs. (Mendes runs the computer center in Babilonia; her picture is at the top of the post.) The labs are run by someone in the community, and each class is required to take on a civic project using technology and the Web. One favela had a problem with rats, so some The exciting thing is the correlation with entrepreneurship and these labs. It’s not just the skills they learn, it’s a sense of empowerment that comes from technology. When I first started traveling for this book, I expected to find tons of entrepreneurs who’d grown up in slums, but in most countries that hasn’t been the case. Sure, there are plenty of examples of “entrepreneurship” in the purest subsistence-level form—traders, hustlers, drivers, tire shops and the like. But residents have told me the day-to-day struggle of life is so overwhelming, that the idea of starting a high-growth company is tantamount to colonizing the moon. In Brazil, though, I’ve met several entrepreneurs who came from slums, two of which I wrote about in this post and another in this one. Like great entrepreneurs anywhere, these guys are the exceptions. But clearly, there is something about even the hardest life in Brazil that still allows people to dream big. And, increasingly, technology and companies like CDI play a big role in this. Each of these entrepreneurs trace back the early days of his company to tinkering and, essentially, hacking; one with computers, one with planes and advertising and one with bureaucracy. Computers, mobile and the Internet are the best canvases to hack and allow that hacking to have a bigger impact. I’ve written about this kind of computer outreach into slums in India as well with NIIT’s Hole-in-the-Wall program and the proliferation of mobile phones and services , and I’ve also written about the serious investment Rwanda is making in bringing technology to its poorest citizens. But a lot of people are dubious about how much good this does people who, on the surface, have bigger problems. I recently finished reading a book called “In Spite of the Gods: The Rise of Modern India,” that rather sarcastically mocked the idea that emerging markets should invest in technology in poor areas when there are more immediate needs like food, water and employment. The author, Edward Luce, has lived in India and admittedly spent far more time there His first 140-character story was about her situation and the community—usually mired in their own day-to-day struggle—rallied around her, paying her medical bills, convincing her that her life mattered. She said, through a translator with babies crying in the background of her one-room home, that things are better now. The community has dozens of stories like this: The woman who had blood cancer and needed donors, the little girl born with a hole in her heart and her parents couldn’t afford Frankly, Luce’s attitude is why rich people shouldn’t be the ones making the decisions about what poor people need. It’s haughty to assume technology is the domain of only the privileged or that it is even used the same way by people living in dramatically different circumstances. The Internet gives people a voice and when you’re rich maybe you take that for granted. But in the slums of Brazil and India, I’ve literally seen it save lives.      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 4:15 pm TechCrunch Disrupt: The Facebook And iPad Panels
First, Fortune Magazine senior editor David Kirkpatrick will join us to talk about his new book, The Facebook Effect (see excerpts here). He’ll be interviewed by Founders Fund partner and former Facebook President Sean Parker. There will be lots to talk about with the recent (and developing) privacy uproar and social gaming revolts. Second, New York Times columnist David Carr will be on stage to talk about the disruptive potential of the iPad in media. Carr has been on the Charlie Rose show twice recently to discuss the iPad and is an unabashed fan of the device. Joining him will be Norm Pearlstine, the Chief Content Officer of Bloomberg, and Eric Hippeau, the CEO of Huffington Post. See all of the amazing TechCrunch Disrupt speakers and experts here. We also plan to add an audience member to each panel, so you can be a part of the discussion, too. And yes, we’ll add your picture and bio to the speakers page after the event, too. If you want to attend Disrupt, now is the time to buy your ticket. The event will likely be sold out shortly. Get a ticket here. And a few more of our sponsor-flavored updates: we’re happy to announce .CO is on board as a partner, and giving us our very own .CO URL to show off the Startup Battlefield Companies. Also, Intuit will be showing off its App Center for small businesses at Disrupt, which we wrote about on the Disrupt blog. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 4:07 pm A study in cow dynamics
Why does a herd of cows stand or lay down at the same time? Researchers at Clarkson University in New York have worked out a mathematical model to explain the workings behind collective behavior in bovines. "OK, cool. But, seriously," you may ask, "is that really important?" Actually, yeah.
Technology Review: First mathematical model of cow behavior Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 4:04 pm John J. Byrne Elected to Overstock.com Board of DirectorsSALT LAKE CITY, May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Overstock.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: OSTK) announced that John J. "Jack" Byrne was elected to the Board of Directors by the company's stockholders at the annual meeting of stockholders held today. Mr.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 May 2010 | 4:00 pm Broadcom to Present at Upcoming ConferencesIRVINE, Calif., May 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, will be presenting at the following second quarter 2010 conferences: 38th Annual JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference on Tuesday, May 18, 2010.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 May 2010 | 4:00 pm Hollysys Automation Technologies Reports Unaudited Financial Results for the Fiscal Year 2010 Third Quarter Ended March 31, 2010BEIJING, May 12 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- Hollysys Automation Technologies, Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 12 May 2010 | 4:00 pm Can you afford the new iPhone 4?Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
Last year, AT&T allowed users with August, September and October full upgrade dates to do so in June during the iPhone 3GS launch, so there is some precedent for this. In the past, AT&T has played catch-up while this year, they look to be out in front of it. This subsidy lowers the price for users willing to agree to a two year contract. Some users, like me, have seen the upgrade dates change based on the device. I opened 3 accounts with three different phones and each has a unique date I can qualify for a full upgrade. One device has been changed to June 20th as well, a welcome surprise. Of course, even with the subsidy, it is unclear just how much the phone will be. Using history as a guide, we saw the 3GS launch at $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB. The 3G prices were lowered to just $99. I’d suspect given the lack of super new functions that we’ll see a consistent pricing scheme. Read: [MobileCrunch]
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 3:58 pm Hello Google Apps, hello real collaborationThis is the latest post in an ongoing series about Small Business and resources for entrepreneurs. Previous posts have covered how Google AdWords and Google Places can help business owners use technology to drive success. -Ed.I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that don’t have the budget or the resources to invest in and maintain technology. That’s why I love telling them about Google Apps — a suite of web-based office tools — and how it can help move their businesses forward. I always find that it’s easier for small businesses to understand the benefits of Google Apps when one of our customers tells the story for us. So I’ve asked Stephen Culp, Founder and Chairman of Chattanooga, TN-based Smart Furniture and CEO of Delegator, to share his experiences with Google Apps, and how he took a company that started out in a Stanford professor’s garage and made it a success. (Sound familiar?) We’ll continue the conversation with Stephen and other Google Apps customers at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce America’s Small Business Summit next week in Washington, D.C. As the founder of three companies, an attorney, Naval Reserve Officer and former Peace Corps volunteer, I’m a believer in an entrepreneurial approach to virtually everything. Smart Furniture, for example, started back in 1998 in a Stanford professor’s garage, with a new business model called “Design on Demand®” that allows furniture and interiors for homes and offices to be customized for you, and more importantly, by you, all on the web.Posted by Tom Oliveri, Director, Google Apps and Enterprise    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 12 May 2010 | 3:53 pm More on the sex lives of ancient humans
The saga continues. (Are you feeling like science is forcing you to think about your grandma and grandad doing it yet?) It looks like ancient humans were getting busy with more related species than just neanderthals, according to a story up on New Scientist. The evidence: A genetic study of modern humans that shows Indo-Pacific populations picked up a rather sudden windfall of genetic diversity about 40,000 years ago. Physical evidence—tools, bones, whathaveyou—points to neanderthals favoring more northerly latitudes, so the "donors" in this case are likely to be an entirely different species: Homo erectus, maybe, or the shorter (but less dirty-sounding) Homo floresiensis. As some of you have pointed out, there's a bit of a "duh" feeling surrounding the whole, "OMG humans got it on with other human-y beings!" thing. The excitement coming from these announcements isn't so much because nobody ever thought of it before, but more because we hadn't previously had such direct evidence. As any episode of "Cheaters" can demonstrate, it's one thing to think some hanky-panky probably happened, and quite another to have the results of a paternity test in hand (relatively speaking). Like you, I'm also pretty fascinated by the implications this has for speciation within the human family tree. The definition of species isn't a hard and bright line between closely related animals, and, while ability to have babies is a criteria, it's not the only one. I want to know how these new discoveries are reshaping who we think of as fully human. I also want to know why we've had such a spate of related stories (stories of the same species?) in the past couple of months. Before I go asking around, though, I wanted to see what other questions y'all had. What do you want to know about neanderthal-human relations, ancient human species, and the research thereof? Leave a comment here. I can't promise all your questions will be answered, but I will use some of them. You're a fine looking great ape, won't you back that ass up? Image courtesy Flickr user cliff1066, via CC. Source: Boing Boing | 12 May 2010 | 3:50 pm Peppermint OS One ReviewJimLynch writes "I've covered a lot of remastered versions of Ubuntu since DLR launched. But, every once in a while, I bump into one that is particularly interesting to review. Peppermint OS One is definitely in that category. Peppermint OS One is a web-centric Ubuntu remaster that passes up common desktop applications like OpenOffice.org in favor of web-based alternatives such as Google Docs. And it doesn't stop with office applications either; Peppermint OS One integrates video sites like YouTube and Hulu right into the desktop experience."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 3:48 pm The HTC Complaint Against Apple Has Nothing To Do With How You Use Your Fingers
When HTC announced earlier today that it is countersuing Apple for patent infringement in response to Apple’s earlier patent lawsuit, it failed to mention which patents it is using to fight back. Well, now we have the official complaint (embedded below)> And despite a propaganda video claiming that HTC changed the way we use our fingers in 2007, its complaint has nothing to do with multitouch gestures. The five patents it dug up to strike back at Apple are much more boring than that. They cover ways to access the phone directory on a mobile phone and power management. The five patents in question are: Patent No. 6,999,800, “Method for power management of a smart phone” The last patent, No. 7,716,505, was just issued yesterday. HTC Patent Complaint Against Apple      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 3:32 pm SAP To Acquire Sybase For $5.8 Billion To Compete With Oracle Enterprise software giant SAP is acquiring fellow business software company Sybase for $5.8 billion in an all-cash offer. SAP is reportedly buying Sybase in an effort to compete with Oracle, which grew its business when it bought Sun Microsystems last year for $7.4 billion. The transaction is expected to close during the third quarter of 2010.
Sybase competes with Oracle in providing data software to businesses. Last year, Sybase and SAP announced a partnership to connect SAP’s enterprise software with Sybase's mobile platform. 
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 3:30 pm The best Lost rant on the Internet
**Major spoilers ahead** His best point,
Oh but there’s more — five points in all. Give it a read.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 3:30 pm With 500 Apps Out There, Foursquare Unveils App Gallery, Talks Nabisco Rumors
Like Twitter before it, and Facebook before that, Foursquare is gaining some momentum as a platform. There are now some 500 apps out there, co-founder Dennis Crowley tells us. Or at least, he thinks there are that many based on the number of registered tokens out there. Truth be told, even Foursquare only knows of about 100 or so of them first-hand. And that’s why they’re launching a new App Gallery today to help surface all of them. The new gallery, found here, is a bit sparse at the moment. Foursquare is only highlight 10 apps to show a proof of concept for how the gallery will work. They’re asking all developers to submit their app through this page (or use this link) so they can showcase all the various apps built on top of Foursquare. Along the top of this page, Foursquare will feature four apps in a nice, auto-rotating big box. Below that, they’ll have a box showing sets of six apps that you can page through. Or you can select different app categories such as “Mobile,” “Websites,” “Games,” and others. Along the right-hand side there is also a list of the most recently added apps. Users of Apple’s App Store will find the layout fairly familiar. Apps themselves also have their own pages in the App Gallery. For example, here’s the page for Mob Zombies, an iPhone games that is built on top of Foursquare. Apps get descriptions and screenshots. The pagers also feature Facebook’s new Like button to easily share. And, of course, there’s a big button to “Try this application.” Foursquare has some good timing. Their app gallery launches just as some developers are starting to get annoyed with rival Gowalla’s limited API. As for Foursquare’s API, the work continues. “We’re actively working with developers to define v2 of our API,” Crowley tells us. Naturally, I also asked Crowley about the acquisition rumors. He notes that just in time for TechCrunch Disrupt (where he’ll be speaking), they’ll be “ready to annouce that we got acquired… by Nabisco!,” Crowley jokes. “We’re rebranding as TriscuitSquare. It’s gonna be SICK.” Funny guy.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 3:24 pm Thieves Flood Victims' Phones With Calls to Loot Bank AccountsThieves have been using telephone denial-of-service attacks in their schemes to steal money from victims' bank accounts.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 3:17 pm Apple Has Lost 3 iPhones. Is It Losing Control, Too?
Apple has lost not one, but three prototype iPhones in the past year. That’s a perplexing development for a company that is famously tight with security. A leaked fourth-generation iPhone popped up in Vietnam this week, with a detailed video and teardown photos that show the ins and outs of the hardware. That video follows an iPhone lost in March, and put on display by Gizmodo in April. And there may be a third iPhone prototype out there somewhere — the one whose disappearance reportedly led a Chinese worker to commit suicide in 2009. Three lost prototypes would be a big deal at any company, but they’re especially unusual for Apple, which operates on a level of secrecy comparable to the CIA, taking extreme measures to prevent leaks. Former employees have said workers in product-testing rooms are required to cover up gadgets they’re working on with black cloaks, and they must flip a red warning switch when prototypes are unmasked to tell everyone to be extra careful. The company is known to even spread disinformation to its own employees about product plans to track down leakers, according to The New York Times. So what gives with the repeat leaks of the most anticipated handset of the year? With the case of the Gizmodo iPhone, the answer is obvious: An engineer field-testing the next-gen iPhone left his prototype in a bar. We’re guessing that Apple’s field-testing program has been severely curtailed since that happened. But the other two iPhones overseas point to a bigger problem for Apple: The bigger the company gets, the more partners it must work with, and the less Apple has control over the whole process. More disconcerting is the rumor that the Vietnamese man may have bought the prototype for $4,000 from the black market. Gizmodo paid $5,000 for the lost iPhone in California. These transactions raise questions of whether Apple’s partners — or unscrupulous people with access to those partners — might create a business out of pilfering and leaking products. It also makes you wonder how much of this goes on unpublicized. Perhaps companies who produce knockoffs have had their hands on a next-gen iPhone prototype for months, or perhaps one of these will make their way to a major competitor like HTC. This is getting pretty ugly, and we can’t imagine Apple is going to sit still. But what can they do? Leander Kahney, former Wired.com news editor and owner of the Cult of Mac blog, said he spoke to a private eye about how trade secrets leak. In 2008, the characteristics about the second-generation iPhone were leaked because the suppliers creating the plastic cases likely had connections to those creating third-party protective cases for the iPhone, Kahney said. (They are all in the plastics industry, after all.) In that scenario, Apple would simply have to fire the unfaithful supplier. In the case of the Vietnam iPhone, Kahney said he believes this was an act of corporate espionage. However, MacRumors’ Arnold Kim told Wired.com he disagreed, because if a spy stole a phone, he or she would probably keep it quiet rather than sell it to a publication. Whatever the case may be, Apple is likely tracking down the people who ended up with the latest prototype to determine where it was sold, and ultimately, who sold it. “It’s a major problem for them and a major leak,” Kahney said. “Intelligence about what components they’re using is extremely valuable. The economic stakes are huge.” See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 12 May 2010 | 3:07 pm Steam offers Portal for free until the 24th: The first hit is freeGood news for Mac and PC gamers, Steam is making Portal free! Admittedly it’s for a limited time, but it’ll give you the chance to try one of the most popular titles that Valve has ever come out with. And this deal is not a lie. How do you get it, you ask? Sure you did, I heard you. Just go here and push on the giant red button. It’s as easy as that. Then it won’t matter if you are a PC user or a Mac user, you’ll get to discover the joy that is GlaDOS.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Comcast’s new iPad remote app looks pretty solid
The familiar format of channels organized vertically and bubbles signifying shows is a format that goes back decades, and what it lacks in flair it definitely makes up in practicality. I like that the channels have their logos, too — that’s a nice touch and helps familiarize users with the brand. I don’t have an iPad yet (I’m waiting for the iPad HD that will be announced this holiday season in time for Christmas pre-orders), nor do I have a TV or cable, but if I did, I’d be using the hell out of this app.
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Apple Has Lost 3 iPhones. Is It Losing Control?The loss of yet another iPhone prototype illustrates Apple's challenges of working with multiple partners.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm FBI To Prosecute "Money Mules"An anonymous reader writes "A top FBI official said today that the agency is planning a law enforcement sweep against so-called 'money mules,' individuals willingly or unwittingly roped into helping organized computer crooks launder money stolen through online banking fraud, writes Krebsonsecurity.com. The author says he has interviewed more than 150 money mules, and find most fit into one of two camps: the not-so-bright, and those who suspect something's not right, but do it anyway. From the story: 'I find most mules fit into the latter group, and you can usually tell because these individuals often will admit to having set up a new account for the job separate from where they keep their meager savings or checking. When pressed as to why they did this, if they're honest most will say they weren't sure about the whole arrangement and wanted to protect their investments just in case their employers turned out to be less-than-honest.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Apple Has Lost 3 iPhones. Is It Losing Control?The loss of yet another iPhone prototype illustrates Apple's challenges of working with multiple partners.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Ticketfly Promises Lower Fees Than TicketmasterThe merged Live Nation/Ticketmaster behemoth faces some competition from a young upstart called TicketFly. It has snagged one of the nation's top venues and hopes to grab more by capitalizing on music promoters' fear of the nation's dominant ticketing company-cum-promoter. Service fees are lower, but they still exist, and you might not want to know why.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 12 May 2010 | 3:00 pm Rumor: Pegatron Tapped For CDMA IPhone Manufacture
Again, this is complete conjecture and Digitimes is often use to seed and power pump and dump scams, so we need to take things with a grain of salt. Generally, however, there is a grave confluence of “rumors” pointing to a potential Verizon iPhone but, as Sascha Segan, noted Verizon iPhone bear, tweeted yesterday, “Tomorrow you could be hit by a bus. And you’d have a lame phone. BC you were waiting for that Verizon IPhone.”      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 May 2010 | 2:57 pm Rumor: Pegatron tapped for CDMA iPhone manufacture
Again, this is complete conjecture and Digitimes is often use to seed and power pump and dump scams, so we need to take things with a grain of salt. Generally, however, there is a grave confluence of “rumors” pointing to a potential Verizon iPhone but, as Sascha Segan, noted Verizon iPhone bear, tweeted yesterday, “Tomorrow you could be hit by a bus. And you’d have a lame phone. BC you were waiting for that Verizon IPhone.” The rumor has more to do with Pegatron’s entering the “Butterfly Era” if increased shipments but there are some vague points made about the CDMA iPhone contract. More as we get it. [Thanks, Winston!]
Source: CrunchGear | 12 May 2010 | 2:53 pm Netflix now streaming HD quality movies to Macs and PC’sSection: Video, HDTV, Video Providers  Netflix has recently confirmed that they have begun streaming HD quality movies to Mac and PC computers. As of now, and according to Netflix estimates, about half of the available HD titles are ready to be streamed to a computer. If you are getting ready to watch a movie and feel the need to have it in HD, finding one is simple. All you need to do is find the movie you want to watch and then hover over the title and look for “HD available” in the format section. Otherwise, you can continue to watch and enjoy non-HD titles on your personal computer. Via [Hacking Netflix] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 12 May 2010 | 2:49 pm HTC Countersues Apple, Claims Apple Is Infringing On Five Patents HTC has just announced that it is suing Apple for violating five of its patents, and is asking the US International Trade Commission to "halt the importation and sale of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod in the United States". The move comes in response to a suit Apple filed against HTC in March that listed over 20 patents HTC is allegedly violating with its Android devices.
From HTC's press release:
Seattle – May 12, 2010 – HTC Corporation today took legal action against Apple Inc., filing a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) to halt the importation and sale of the iPhone, iPad and iPod in the United States. |
In Jim Sheridan’s 2009 film 
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The Cadence Wrist Rocket is a digital sports watch, with a bit of a twist on the standard square design. It’s everything you expect in a sports watch; it’s water resistant, has a stopwatch, countdown timer, an alarm, and a resin body and strap. It’s quite a large watch, but that’s not really a bad thing because that makes the display easy to read.
Google is making a push for users considering the upgrade to Office 2010 now that the beta version is set to expire. Google’s been encroaching into Office territory for sometime now and continues to make inroads with it’s Google Docs suite of applications. Google’s latest push points out the fears of many IT admins looking at the expense and effort the upgrade will take; even as many IT budgets are still on life support from significant cuts thanks to a slowed economy.
AT&T is reportedly moving up when it’s users can qualify for a full subsidy to June 20th. The world expects a new iPhone in June and it looks like AT&T is getting it’s house in order to pave the way for loyal iPhone customers to upgrade to the latest and greatest without hassle. Some users have seen their expected 2 year wait reduced significantly.
The 
We have recently learned that the 
