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Apple claims 'huge' loss over iPhone leak - Computerworld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 May 2010 | 4:06 am Mobile Summit Keynote, Plus Photo Highlights From The DayEarlier this month I presented the keynote at the ReadWriteWeb Mobile Summit, on the topic of Mobile trends in 2010 and beyond. The presentation, delivered at the beautiful Computer History Museum in Mountain...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 4:03 am Google Refreshes Android Market Website – It Inexplicably Still Lacks Search
We’re not 100% sure when it popped up first, but Google has seemingly updated the Android Market website. Don’t pee your pants just yet – they’ve apparently merely shuffled some things around along with other layout changes. Still no search, still no way to download apps OTA, still no statistics of any kind. On the bright side, the interface is more straightforward than it used to be. You can see a screenshot of the ‘old’ UI in this post, in which Jason Kincaid rightly calls for an Android Market desktop client – as you can tell the new website makes it a tad easier to browse different categories for both free and paid apps. Google being Google, I’m really surprised the new website still lacks search functionality. I mean, it’s fine that you can look up apps from your Android phone, but what if you don’t happen to have it on you? There’s no way to check if there’s a Skype or Facebook client for Android by browsing the Market website, unless you happen to stumble upon them in the listings of featured, top free or top paid apps. Granted, they are clear about the Android Market website serving as a showcase of apps only right at the top of the new website, but that doesn’t explain why they choose not to make it more useful. Good thing there are sites like Cyrket and AndroLib to do what Google apparently can’t or won’t: make a decent website for people who’d like to peruse the Android marketplace. (Thanks to Charly Omer for the heads up) Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 May 2010 | 4:03 am Don't Kid Yourself, Mobile Ad Companies: Apple Really Does Want to Lock Up the App Market [MediaMemo]
Recently, though, I’ve talked to some mobile ad companies who are more hopeful. They think Apple will let them compete with its iAd platform in a fair fight. Maybe they’re saying that because they have to appear optimistic. Maybe they really believe it. But I think they’re wrong. I think Apple intends to own the ad market for its app ecosystem. A refresher: No one says Steve Jobs is formally preventing rival ad networks from selling ads within the 200,000-plus apps his gadgets support. But the language in the developer agreement for Apple’s new mobile operating system reads as if the company is effectively crippling competitors, by making it hard for them to target ads and track their performance. That ability, which requires transmitting data from iPhones and iPads to third parties, is standard in Web advertising. But Jobs’ agreement seems to either rule it out altogether, or require “opt-in” approval from consumers. Which is almost like ruling it out. The optimistic mobile ad folks, who I talked to on background, think things won’t be so dire. They make a couple arguments to support their “we’ll be OK” reasoning. 1) “We’re talked to people at Apple, and they’re hinting that we’ll be OK. Or that at the very least, things haven’t been settled yet.” The problem with those arguments: 1) At a different company, you could argue that a developer agreement is just legalese, not a strategy. But Steve Jobs seems to takes his developer agreements quite seriously. Remember when it looked like he was using a clause in the new contract to kick Adobe (ADBE) and Flash in the teeth? Turns out he really was trying to kick Adobe and Flash in the teeth. 2) Sure, Jobs could generate more money for himself, and his developers, by opening up his platform to outside ad networks. But you could make the same “open it up” argument about his app store, and that’s not happening. Instead, Apple insists on approving every app, by hand. And Apple insists on approving the tools developers use to build their apps. f you want build for a platform that lets in every app, Jobs argues, head over to Google’s (GOOG) Android. They’ll even let you use Flash. Not convinced? Check out the first thing Jobs wrote to Gawker’s Ryan Tate over the weekend*. Apple, Jobs said, was offering “freedom from programs that steal your private data“. I’m almost certain that Jobs is talking about apps and ad targeting there. And sources tell me Apple (AAPL) is defending its policies to federal regulators with the same argument: We’re doing this to protect our users’ privacy. And perhaps that really is Apple’s primary intent. But it looks like the effect is the same no matter what their motive is — it’s going to be very hard for outside ad companies to sell ads inside Apple’s apps. *I believe, but don’t know, that the Jobs-Tate exchange is authentic. [Image credit: stp243] Source: All Things Digital | 17 May 2010 | 4:00 am 5 low-risk, high-reward experiments for IT (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - The division of labor at most companies is clear: Business development divines the big ideas, and IT toils to turn these concepts into workable software. And yet as far as IT's stature in the organization is concerned, this flow of ideas can no longer be in one direction and one direction only. In fact, the IT department that willfully assumes the role of order-taker is increasingly at risk of being outsourced.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 May 2010 | 4:00 am Stealthy ThinkTank Photo-Bags Expand to Fit Everything
ThinkTank, the master of shifting photo-gear, is better known for its TARDIS-like airline carry-on cases than for smaller bags. The new Retrospective series may change that. The Retrospective bags are stealth bags. The “pinestone” colored bags are especially normal-looking, fashioned from a mottled gray fabric that manages not to scream out its camera-holding nature, although the even the black ones are less conspicuous than ThinkTank’s own Urban Disguise series (which are in fact camera bags disguised as camera bags). The soft-sided shoulder bags come in three sizes and will hold a big DSLR body and lens along with space for a few more lenses. Because they are soft, there is a lot more flexibility as to how you cram in your gear. The layout, though, makes quick lens-changes pretty easy: the lenses are kept upright for grabbing quickly. The bit I like most, though, is the pair of expandable nylon pockets on each end. These are not padded, and they are big enough to slide in a strobe or compact camera where they can be secured by a Velcro flap. You also get either one or two DSLR body-sized pockets on the front, depending on the model you buy The main section, too, is Velcro’d closed, but you can silence the ripping sound with some covering flaps. This is a fairly common feature these days, also found in Crumpler bags. There are also a pair of lens-changer bags, so you can carry you SLR on a strap and just carry the spare lenses over your shoulder. These have a bunch of small accessory pockets, too. These days I keep most of my kit in a Kata backpack or in separate pouches ready to be thrown into any old bag. The expandable nature of these bags, though, has got me considering yet another addition to my already embarrassingly large bag collection. ThinkTank Retrospective 20 [ThinkTank. Thanks, Mr.Hobby!] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 May 2010 | 3:56 am Atlantis to make first spacewalk - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 May 2010 | 3:44 am Tawkon Releases BlackBerry Radiation App, Visits Apple To Discuss Rejection
Tawkon, whose cellular radiation measurement iPhone app was initially rejected by Apple, is today announcing availability of an app with identical functionality for BlackBerry. From our initial review of Tawkon:
Tawkon for BlackBerry is available for download today, at a cost of $9.99. The biggest difference between the iPhone version and the Blackberry version, is that the latter is able to run in the background. All calls are automatically monitored without the user needing to proactively engage Tawkon (as was the case for the iPhone app we reviewed). Once running, a small icon on the main screen provides constant indication of the current radiation level. A green icon means all is fine and a yellow indicates a moderate radiation level. A red icon means there’s a high level of radiation, in which case the Tawkon app will prompt to use precautionary measures such as to distance the phone from your body while making a call. TechCrunch’s initial review of Tawkon created a wave of interest for the iPhone app, along with additional frustration at Apple’s rejection of it. It seems this did not go unnoticed by the good folks at 1 Infinite Loop, who reached out to the Tawkon team and invited them in to the HQ. Gil Friedlander, Tawkon’s CEO, gave us his impressions:
You can help Takwon makes a stronger case to Apple, by joining their petition, here.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 May 2010 | 3:27 am The 'Quiet Zone': Hunting that Radio Noise (Part 2)Cell phones and microwaves aren't the only devices to give off radio waves, the electronics in radio telescopes themselves can hamper observations if you're not careful.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 May 2010 | 3:19 am Google Nexus One Might be Sold Globally Soon - Techtree.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 May 2010 | 3:15 am Linux 2.6.34 Releaseddiegocg writes "Linux 2.6.34 has been released. This version adds two new filesystem, the distributed filesystem Ceph and LogFS, a filesystem for flash devices. Other features are a driver for almost-native KVM network performance, the VMware balloon driver, the 'kprobes jump' optimization for dynamic probes, new perf features (the 'perf lock' tool, cross-platform analysis support), several Btrfs improvements, RCU lockdep, Generalized TTL Security Mechanism (RFC 5082) and private VLAN proxy arp (RFC 3069) support, asynchronous suspend/resume, several new drivers and many other small improvements. See the full changelog here."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 May 2010 | 3:10 am Are We Alone in the Universe? (Invited Radio Show)Last week I was invited on a CRI English radio show to talk about all things extraterrestrial. Seth Shostak (SETI Institute) and Douglas C. Lin (Peking University) were also there to give an expert opinion.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 May 2010 | 3:09 am New 35mm ƒ1.4 Lens from Leica Costs More than Your Car
Leica has added a 35mm ƒ1.5 rangefinder lens to its digital M-series lineup. Previously, the only electronic 35mm to be had was the rather slow ƒ2.5 model, hardly the kind of fast lens that we expect to use on these compact, go-anywhere bodies. On the other hand, that lens came from the “budget” Summarit-M range, all of which had the same maximum aperture of ƒ2.5 and lacked any aspherical lens elements. That older 35mm lens can be had for $1,700 street. The new Leica Summilux-M 35 mm ƒ1.4 ASPH adds back in all these luxury elements and will cost $5,000. It also comes bundled with a metal lens hood which costs $150 when sold alone. Leica lenses aren’t about the specs. You’ll find no image stabilization here, nor even a zoom (zooms wouldn’t even work well with a rangefinder. The closest you’ll get is a three-way, multi-telephoto setup). They’re about the engineering, the image quality and the hand-made-ness of each lens the company turns out. The only concession to modernity is hidden inside. These lenses have a 6-bit encoding in them which tells the camera which model it is. This lens will probably be as stunning as any from Leica, and well done to Leica for getting back to what it does best: making lenses. It’s M-series bodies are increasingly irrelevant, if well made, but the lenses, which will work on any Leica film camera (or Micro Four Thirds camera with an adapter) are possibly still the best lenses you can buy. Available July. Summilux product page [Leica via Leica Rumors] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 May 2010 | 2:59 am Last Week's Top Five New World Notes PostsSecond Life goes to Cannes via a new movie called R U There. Run full 3D Second Life from your iPad? Well, kinda sorta. Survey results for question to SL content creators: Did you go into virtual business...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 2:48 am Apple's iPhone replaces Blackberry for some bankers (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 May 2010 | 2:42 am Photo gallery: Japan’s KDDI shows summer cell phone line-up
Japan's second biggest mobile company KDDI today unveiled [JP] the 10 cell phones of their new line-up for this summer. The first of these models, the majority of which are waterproof (which seems to indicate a new trend in Japan's cell phone industry), will be rolled out in Japan as early as at the end of this month.
Complete line-up over at MobileCrunch.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 May 2010 | 2:32 am Photo gallery: Japan’s KDDI shows summer cell phone line-up
Here’s the complete line-up: Hitachi beskey
Casio Exilim CA005
Sony Ericsson Cybershot S003
Sharp AQUOS Shot SH008
Toshiba REGZA Phone T004
Sony Ericsson BRAVIA Phone S004
Sharp SOLAR PHONE SH007
Sanyo SA002
Kyocera Kantan Keitai K005
Pantech Kantan Keitai-S PT001
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 May 2010 | 2:30 am YouTube hits 2 bn daily downloads - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 May 2010 | 2:17 am FacebookSearch collates embarrassing Facebook posts - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 May 2010 | 2:08 am Call of Duty Cameras - The Camera Red Dot Sight Turns Your Canon into a Hand Cannon (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Photography just got awesome, thanks to the camera red dot sight. A red dot sight is an attachment typically used to make aiming down the barrel of guns (both real and virtual) easier...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 2:00 am EU's Kroes says China 'Great Firewall' a WTO issue (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 May 2010 | 1:49 am 10 Odd Parenting Tactics - From Plushie Spy Cams to Parenthood Exploitation Kits (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) There are plenty of odd parenting tactics out there and this cluster features the cream of the crop. Depicting everything from bad parenting photoblogs to presidential parenting styles,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:35 am 'Color A Sound' Art Installation Turns An Overhead Projector Into A MusicboxBy Andrew Liszewski Built and programmed by Blair Neal as an art installation, ‘Color A Sound’ uses an overhead projector and a long roll of transparency to create a sort of manual jukebox...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:35 am UPDATE 1-Man Group buys GLG PartnersLONDON, May 17 (Reuters) - Hedge fund firm Man Group PLC has agreed a deal to buy rival GLG Partners giving it a much needed boost in efforts to break the U.S. and creating a new giant in an industry...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:23 am Robot “I-Fairy” leads nuptials at wedding in Japan (videos)
The Tokyo-based firm says the wedding, which took place in Tokyo’s Hibiya Park in front of 50 guests, was the first of its kind. It’s weird, but this all makes a bit more sense when taking into account that bride Satoko Inoue (36) actually is a Kokoro employee and that husband Tomohiro Shibato (42) is a professor of robotics at the Nara Institute of Science and Technology in central Japan. I-Fairy stands 1.5m tall, actually gave instructions like “You can lift the bride’s veil now” and theatrically moved its arms during the ceremony (it has 18 joints in its arms alone), all remote-controlled by a human being (a friend of the newlyweds) in the background. Kokoro actually sells the robot to anyone who is willing to pay $68,000 for it (there’s even an English-language sales brochure [PDF] for the I-Fairy). The company is well-known for making super-realistic humanoids. Here’s a video shot by the Associated Press: Here’s another video from Japanese robot news site Robonable: Picture credit: Reuters
Source: CrunchGear | 17 May 2010 | 1:21 am Warm Up Next To The Fireplace On Your Own Wampa RugBy Chris Scott Barr We geeks tend to decorate our houses in a different manner than most people. For instance, my dining room houses a pool table and arcade cabinet, rather than a regular table and chairs...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:15 am UPDATE 3-UK's Prudential prices cash call, to woo investors* Revenue synergies of $800 million pre-tax during 2013Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:09 am 20 Must-Have Headbands - From Hairbands With Ears to Romantic Rose Headpieces (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) These must-have headbands will not only keep your hair out of your face, but they will also transform any dull or drab outfit into a revamped fashion masterpiece! While some of these...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:05 am Nichii Gakkan Co -2009/10 parent resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:02 am Nichii Gakkan Co -2009/10 group resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:02 am Booyah Moolah: Social Gaming Company Behind MyTown Gets $20 Million in Funding [BoomTown]
A mobile social game company called Booyah, best known for its MyTown iPhone app, announced that it has raised $20 million, mostly from Accel Partners. The giant round is one of many doled out recently for social start-ups, such as Groupon, in which Accel also invested. Accel’s Jim Breyer will also join Booyah’s board. The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has raised $9 million in venture funding until now, mostly from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ $100 million iFund, as well as DAG Ventures. Both are participating in the new round. Made up of a team of gaming industry veterans, especially from Blizzard Entertainment, which is now part of Activision Blizzard, Booyah has been on a roll, reaching two million users for MyTown. MyTown, which is about to come out with a new version, is one of the most popular location-based social games on the Apple (AAPL) mobile devices. That compares with other social check-in services, such as Foursquare (just over one million) and Gowalla (250,000). MyTown is slightly different than these services, though, focusing on gaming in its check-ins and virtual goods versus a more discovery element. Here’s the official press release from Booyah:
Source: All Things Digital | 17 May 2010 | 1:01 am TABLE-Seed Co -2009/10 parent resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:01 am TABLE-Seed Co -2009/10 group resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:01 am When the Customer Is in the Neighborhood [Voices]By Diana Ransom, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Restaurant promotion is going high-tech. Franchise restaurants have long tried to drum up business on the local level with newspaper ads and with mass mailings of coupons and other promotional offers. But now franchisers have a host of new ways to drive business to individual stores, thanks largely to the explosion in recent years of technologies that recognize a user’s location. Among others: Burger King Holdings Inc. (BKC) is test-marketing an iPhone application that helps users find its restaurants and view local deals, and Quizno’s Corp. and Applebee’s International Inc. are readying similar apps. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 17 May 2010 | 1:00 am TABLE-Zeria Pharm -2009/10 parent resultsRESULTS RESULTS Sales 47.86 46.67Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:00 am TABLE-Zeria Pharm -2009/10 group resultsYear ended Year ended Year to Six months toSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:00 am Booyah: Accel Picks a Location Startup and Gives It $20MBooyah, which makes the location-based mobile gaming app MyTown, has raised $20 million in a round led by Accel Partners and including Kleiner Perkins and DAG Ventures. The company also added Accel's Jim...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 1:00 am CrunchGear Week in Review: Satellite Buzz Edition
Here are some stories from last week on CrunchGear: Portal corporate training program a huge success
Source: CrunchGear | 17 May 2010 | 1:00 am Booyah Raises $20 Million From Accel, Expects 6 Million Users By The End Of This Summer
Booyah is the not-so-little location based engine that could. The company behind MyTown has raised $20 million in new funding from a group of investors led by Accel (current investors, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and DAG Ventures, also participated in this round). Accel’s Jim Breyer, a board member of Wal-Mart, Dell and Facebook, will join Booyah’s board. (According to a source close to the deal, the valuation was sizable but definitely under $120 million.) For months, the location based market has been dominated by Foursquare drama, as Dennis Crowley’s “well-oiled machine” (his words), attracts buyers, adds users and snaps up high-profile partnerships, like its recent deal with NBC. In terms of hype, Booyah has taken a backseat to Foursquare’s billion-dollar-shine but Booyah is chugging along quite nicely. The company has now raised $29.5 million since 2008 and MyTown has more than 2.1 million users, according to CEO Keith Lee. While Foursquare has yet to reach that milestone, Booyah is preparing for serious acceleration. Lee says Booyah will hit 6 million users by the end of this summer across MyTown and its future products(!).
It’s not exactly fair to compare Foursquare and Booyah, Foursquare focuses on social utility, Booyah focuses on gaming, but both are trying to unlock the power of the check-in and create a massive user base. Booyah, via MyTown, is trying to merge a virtual gaming world with the real world. Users can check-in to real world locations to unlock virtual rewards, they can also “purchase” their favorite properties, collect rent from others and update their properties. Like Foursquare, you can see where your friends are checking-in and pick up local deals. Lee says MyTown and its unnamed, new products (he was tight-lipped on details but expect major announcements in the next few weeks) will build on that base with a host of new features that will increase the value of the check-in experience. Lee talked in abstracts, but he is interested in adding layers of information on top of the basic GPS check-in: “it’s about validating the activity you do in the real world— a check-in only takes you 70% there.” Booyah is interested in unlocking the information surrounding a check-in through QR codes, bar code scanning, the Facebook Open Graph, etc. For example, instead of just checking into your gym, imagine if you could easily transmit information about your workout, or if you’re at a store, automatically telling your friends what items you like. It’s not clear how these new tools will be implemented but they obviously represent a huge opportunity for Booyah and others, if properly executed. If MyTown, or one of Booyah’s mystery projects, became a popular retail/shopping tool, Booyah would amass valuable consumer data and possibly new monetization opportunities. On the subject of monetization, Lee would not disclose whether Booyah was in the black, but revenues are indeed rising. Earlier this month, MyTown was averaging 6.7 million virtual item impressions per day, now it’s averaging 8.3 million a day (or 250 million a month). Why does that matter? The popularity of paid virtual goods, which account for 1/3 of MyTown’s revenues, is fueling growth— although the MyTown iPhone app is free it’s a frequent member of Apple’s Top 50 grossing list thanks to the large volume of virtual purchases. Booyah is also making money from paid partnerships with large clients like H&M and the Travel Channel. Lee says he’s quickly shoveling money back into the company, to expand their product, prepare for the move into foreign markets and to grow the staff. He says a major portion of the new funds will be used to hire the right talent— expect Booyah to nearly double its staff from 24 to 40 by the end of this year.      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 May 2010 | 12:58 am Lundbeck reports positive results for escitalopramCOPENHAGEN, May 17 (Reuters) - Danish drugmaker Lundbeck said a study with anti-depressant escitalopram in Japan yielded positive results, and its partner Mochida aimed to file for approval no later...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 12:48 am Healing Canine Couture - Therapy Pet Jackets Facilitate Hot and Cold Compress Packs (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Pet owners know that when their animal companions grow old or are healing from an injury soothing warmth or comforting cool can be a big help. Therapy Pet Jackets allow pet owners to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 12:45 am UPDATE 1-Netcare H1 earnings up, increases capexJOHANNESBURG, May 17 (Reuters) - Africa's largest hospital group Netcare Ltd on Monday reported a 28 percent rise in first-half earnings and increased its capital spending on a favourable outlook for...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2010 | 12:42 am Resonance iPod Dock Is Vaguely Reminiscent Of SomethingBy Andrew Liszewski I guess if you’re an iPod/iPhone accessory maker, the easiest way to make your product appeal to the Apple crowd is to basically rip-off the design of another Apple product. In...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2010 | 12:24 am Wikimedia Confusion Swirls In Wake of Porn ChargesContridictory stories are circulating after Fox News's pursuing of Wikimedia Foundation for hosting pornography reportedly resulted in Jimmy Wales personally removing some pornographic material from its servers, then giving up his special editing privileges under pressure. Fox News reported that Wikimedia is "in chaos"; this report was picked up by VentureBeat and others. Wales denies that there is any chaos (any more than usual that is) at Wikimedia. The Fox News report apparently relied on a single unnamed source, and Wales said "They don't even bother to contact me before publishing nonsense." The background: on April 27 Fox News published an exclusive report about porn on Wikimedia servers, then followed up by contacting organizations that had donated to Wikimedia to ask them what they thought about it. In the aftermath, Wales took a position in support of purging porn from Wikimedia Commons. This all started when estranged Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger contacted the FBI with an allegation of child porn on Wikipedia.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 May 2010 | 12:02 am LG Display banks on e-reader growth (Reuters)Reuters - SEOUL (Reuters) -The global electronic book market will grow almost 80 percent this year, aided by Apple's iPad, but devices with limited multimedia functions will remain a mainstream segment thanks to consumers seeking a serious reading experience, LG Display said on Monday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 May 2010 | 11:53 pm Free games lure new players including women, elderly (Reuters)Reuters - The video game industry has weathered the economic slowdown better than most industries, but there could be a reason -- free games with new figures showing up to a third of gamers don't pay to play.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 May 2010 | 11:50 pm Why Does Jetsetter Stand Apart from the Group Buying Crowd? It Solves a Big Problem
And no, consumer reviews don’t solve it. I recently stayed at a top rated hotel on Trip Advisor that was one of the worst customer service experiences I’ve had in the last year. And given that I spent about 30 weeks in hotels in the last year, that’s saying something. Among other issues, the hotel-in-question “accidentally” charged me nearly $700 mid-stay, let alone my final bill was supposed to be under $200. It took hours out of each day to resolve. The hotel wound up refunding us, but the trip was already ruined. That’s what makes booking a hotel online such a risky proposition: A bad flight you can forget, but a hotel necessarily sticks with you during a trip, making or breaking it. A good flight is more of a commodity product, defined by price and route and, of course, being on time the day of travel. And aisle seat is an aisle seat, and a window seat is a window seat. There’s a shared vernacular of what things mean for that period in the sky, even across international carriers. On a domestic flight in China, the flight attendants required that everyone do calisthenics half way through to prevent bloodclots, but we still got the same beverage cart, same reclining seats, same overhead bins and same bathrooms I’d get on a United flight to New York With hotels there are a host of intangible variables, and that makes booking a core problem of trust. I’ve stayed in more than 20 hotels in the last year. In almost all cases, a personal recommendation from someone I trust has scored me the best experience, anything booked online or with an agent has been acceptable to bad—no matter what the photos looked like online. Finally, one site seems to have solved a piece of the problem: Jetsetter. Yes it’s part of the much-written-about Gilt Groupe. But while most of the group-buying trend is about convenience and saving money, for me Jetsetter actually solves a core problem. Not only do a get a great discount on top properties, this is the first online travel site where I actually trust the recommendations. While mass-market travel sites compete on bigger inventory and “virtual room tours,” Jetsetter comes the closest to replicating what happens in the real world: They are picky. They curate the best properties. The pictures are visually stunning enough that browsing the site is actually fun. (Have you ever said that about, say, Hotels.com?) Someone has clearly stayed at each property and writes up the unvarnished good and the unvarnished bad. And of course, being part of Gilt, it has great deals. Most the hotels I have looked at or booked through Jetsetter hovered around or under $200 a night for some amazing $300-$400/night properties. So curating itself is a big part of why I trust Jetsetter, but equally as important is that the site, so far, curates incredibly well, at least according to my preferences. Just using the site a few months, Jetsetter has offered specials by three of my all-time favorite hotels: The Opposite House in Beijing (above), The Sonoma Mission Inn in Wine Country and The Royal Palms in Phoenix. It’s as if the site is reading my mind—the pinnacle of a good user experience. I’ve stayed at all three of these hotels and the room, food, customer service and amenities were all impeccable. I was already planning to go back to the Opposite House in May, but thanks to Jetsetter I got a great rate. As for The Somona Mission Inn and the Royal Palms, I had stayed at both in the last few years as part of speaking gigs where my rate was included in my fee. I never thought go back, even though I enjoyed the experience because the rates were out of my normal writer-salary price range. But the Sonoma Mission Inn for less than $200 a night is suddenly a do-able weekend getaway. What’s more: Because Jetsetter has picked three of the best hotels out of the 40 or so I’ve stayed at in the past few years, I just trust its recommendation on nearly any property they show me in a way that I don’t on any other site. Like a friend, I feel like we have the same taste. The clear problem here is scale. Right now, Jetsetter can’t solve all my travel problems because of what makes them great: They are picky and rely on special sales. It’s a site that I may only book through a few times a year mostly for weird cases when their specials happen to overlap with my schedule (in the case of the Opposite House) or when I have a week off for a Holiday and want to go somewhere but don’t quite know where (in the case of the Sonoma Mission Inn) or if I know I need to get to, say, New York for work at some point, but exactly when is flexible. A Jetsetter customer doesn’t have to spend a lot—most of these properties aren’t much more than a basic Marriott or Hilton Express and what you get is frequently over-the-top amazing. But you do have to be a frequent, spontaneous or somewhat random traveler to use the site consistently. My fear is that Jetsetter will try to be a site for everyone, instead of continuing to do what it has done so well: Curate, editorialize and get stellar deals on truly amazing properties. This is the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0—the market is big enough you don’t have to be all things to all people, you can serve a part of the population better than anyone else and win. I would rather the site didn’t solve all of my travel problems, and solve a few this well than become a high-end Hotels.com for the masses. Please, Jetsetter, don’t follow the classic Web playbook and grow so big you strangle something great. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 May 2010 | 11:10 pm Stars help raise over $1.5M for Tenn. flood relief (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 May 2010 | 11:06 pm Set-Top Box Maker Roku in Multiyear Deal to Stream UFC Bouts - BusinessWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 May 2010 | 10:43 pm Dio obitSad news! Dio died. Source: Boing Boing | 16 May 2010 | 10:24 pm Dear Phoenix Mars Lander, Will You Rise From The Dead?For five days, NASA will give the Phoenix Mars Lander one last chance to phone home.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 10:19 pm JJ Interview"You don't really feel like you've sold your soul to Apple until you buy one of their routers." [The Setup]Source: Boing Boing | 16 May 2010 | 10:08 pm AT&T Creates Advanced Enterprise Mobility Solutions Group to Focus on Applications and Solutions for Workplaces of All SizesDALLAS, May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AT&T* today said it is creating a new group within its Business Solutions unit to accelerate the delivery of advanced mobile applications and solutions for traditional and emerging devices to businesses, governments and organizations of all sizes globally.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 May 2010 | 10:01 pm Formula Systems Reports First Quarter Results for 2010OR-YEUDA, Israel, May 17, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Formula Systems (1985) Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 May 2010 | 10:01 pm Android Comes of Age at Google Developer Conference
In 2008, when Google organized its first developers’ conference, it gave attendees the first phones to run Android, its open source mobile operating system. Now three years later, Android is one of the fastest-growing mobile platforms. Even though Google recently announced plans to close the web store for its Nexus One phone, Android itself is still going strong. In the first quarter of the year, a gaggle of Android-based phones grabbed 28 percent of the smartphone market in the United States, trailing Research In Motion’s BlackBerry devices (36 percent) and ahead of Apple’s iPhone OS (21 percent), according to research firm The NPD Group. It’s a stunning growth curve for an independent platform that seemed to emerge out of nowhere. And it has turned Google’s developer event into one of the hottest tickets in town with developers begging for passes to it on Craigslist and eBay. An Android developer told Wired.com that his company paid $1,600 for a $100 ticket to the conference — with an agreement that any swag handed out will be given to the ticket seller. “The biggest difference with this conference compared to earlier ones is the sheer amount of interest in the platform,” says Harry Tormey, software engineer at Snaptic, which makes a note-taking app for both Android phones and the iPhone. “It will be interesting to get a feel for where things are going in the mobile space.” At the Google I/O event May 18 and 19 in San Francisco, Google will likely focus attention on its Chrome browser and operating system, which will run on everything from netbooks to set-top TV boxes. But Android will be a key part of the picture. Android developers say they are looking to hear from Google about how to make Android apps better, make money off the platform and deal with the problem of fragmentation with many versions of the OS available on phones currently. “Android has been so successful so fast and they are iterating quickly,” says Gregg Fiddes, vice-president of sales and business development for Quickoffice, which makes mobile-productivity software. “When you are dealing with custom SDKs that makes it a big challenge.” Fiddes says his company will be looking for direction from Google on how to cast a wide net with an Android app so it can support a range of devices. “It’s a tough balancing act,” he says. “OEMs want to differentiate but Google wants to standardize it, so we are hoping Google will offer some clues on how to strike a balance.” Developers also say they hope to get a closer look at the latest version of Android 2.2, aka “Froyo,” which is expected to have features such as tethering (so you can use your phone as a wireless modem) and the ability to turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Turning on the cool factor for appsThe growth of the Android platform highlights the gap between Android apps and iPhone apps, say developers. The 38,000 or so apps available in the Android market may seem small compared to the more than 200,000 available in the Apple app store. The quantity argument aside, Android apps have a problem, say Tormey. “One of the big weaknesses of the Android platform versus the iPhone is that the apps don’t look as sexy as the iPhone ones,” says Tormey. That’s because multimedia capabilities on the Android platform are not sophisticated as the iPhone, he says. For instance, support for OpenAL, a 3-D audio API, is available on the iPhone but not on Android. OpenAL is popular among game developers who use it for sound positioning in a program. It’s also easier to get started as an iPhone developer. “If you want to make a simple app its much easier to do so on the iPhone than Android,” says Tormey. “The documentation on Android is not as good as with the iPhone, which offers a lot more examples to developers.” Tormey hopes at its developer conference, Google will offer sessions on the multimedia capabilities of the phone and how Android developers can bring the “wow” factor to their creations. “The UI interactions can be complex and I hope Google will show clever ways to make the Android interface simple,” agrees Zhao Lu, senior software engineer at Orange Labs, who will be attending the event for the first time. Lu is working on a voice application for the Android platform that lets users add status updates and location to their voice greetings. “On the iPhone, the user interface is really elegant and beautiful. Android is catching up, but, in general, there’s a way to go.” Developers also say they are looking to hear more about the partnership between Adobe and Google. Adobe is expected to show Flash Player 10.1 running on Android phones. And with the ongoing spat between Adobe and Apple, the presence of Flash might turn out to be the most juicy part of the show. Google I/O takes place Wednesday, May 19 and Thursday, May 20 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Watch for coverage on Webmonkey, here on Gadget Lab and across Wired.com. See Also:
Photo: (laihiu/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Five Years In, YouTube Is Now Streaming Two Billion Views Per Day
To help commemorate the occasion, YouTube is also launching a new channel of videos called “My YouTube Story”, which includes a collection of clips featuring people around the world talking about how YouTube has changed their lives. The initial batch of clips were filmed by documentary filmmaker Stephen Higgins, and some of them are quite touching. YouTube users can upload their own video stories as well; YouTube will be plotting these videos on a global map, and will also offer an interactive timeline of clips. We should point out that YouTube announced it had passed 1 billion views a day in October 2009, but that number was probably a bit lower than the actual figure — we had reported that it had crossed 1.2 billion views a day the previous June. YouTube has also compiled some stats and timelines as it reflects on its first five years. Here are the site’s most current stats:
Here are some other goodies YouTube is sharing: The First YouTube Homepage, 2005 A Brief History of YouTube Key Milestones First video uploaded to the site (April 2005) Product Milestones Top 5 Most Viewed Videos of all time Top 5 Most Subscribed Partners
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Android Comes of Age at Google Developer ConferenceThree years after Google introduced its Android operating system, developers are excited about what might come from the Google I/O conference. Some are paying big bucks to score admission the company's sold-out event.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm May 17, 1902: Ancient Antikythera Calculating Mechanism DiscoveredIt's more than 2,000 years old, and it's taken more than a century to decipher it.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Maximum Rocknroll: Kick-Ass Photos From Iconic Punk MagA pillar of the alternative music scene, Maximum Rocknroll releases its first photography issue, full of blood, sweat and beer.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Robotic Pancreas: One Man's Quest to Put Diabetics on AutopilotWhen Jeff Brewer, co-founder of two early internet juggernauts, learned his son had diabetes, he became advocate-in-chief for bringing to market a fully automated, self-regulating artificial organ that would release just the right amount of insulin at just the right time.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Android Comes of Age at Google Developer ConferenceThree years after Google introduced its Android operating system, developers are excited about what might come from the Google I/O conference. Some are paying big bucks to score admission the company's sold-out event.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Using Augmented Reality To Treat Cockroach PhobiaRichDiesal writes "In this blog post, I describe a new use for augmented reality — treating people for cockroach phobia. A recent paper in the academic journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking discusses a system where people suffering from cockroach phobia sit at a desk with a virtual reality headset. The headset has a camera on the front so that patients see the desk they're sitting at — but covered in cockroaches. In the study, researchers managed to elicit a fear response to virtual cockroaches similar to what would be experienced with real cockroaches. Sounds like a little slice of hell to me."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 May 2010 | 9:51 pm The New York Times finally arrives on Android (Appolicious)Appolicious - With The New York Times being among the first to adopt mobile devices for news delivery, Apple products and Amazon's Kindle took precedence. Now that the Android platform has proven its desire to stick around for a while, big brands are starting to take notice.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 May 2010 | 9:01 pm Getting Started Contributing Back To Open Sourcemarkfreeman writes "The one burning need I have felt over the last year was to get involved with open source as a contributor. I have wanted to help with documentation, advocacy, and most of all, with programming. Here's the story of how I got started, thanks to openhatch.org (which calls itself 'an open source involvement engine') and how you can too."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 May 2010 | 8:50 pm Seattle tries to shut down burlesque wrestling show Lucha VaVoom
Marlow sez, "The City of Seattle Dept of Licensing is trying to shut down the Lucha VaVoom burlesque and wrestling show because they consider it professional sport instead of performance art, theatre and burlesque. So far the wrestlers have complied with their fees, their blood tests and the physical exams required of the DOL - the DOL are treating this show not as theater but real fighting like MMA, boxing, etc ... plus they are shaking down the show for a portion of their door. They shut down this kind of theater in Seattle in the past, claiming it's a real sport, when in fact it's often choreographed. Tonight's show is also threatened."
So, I've seen this shoe, back in 2007 in LA. The idea that it's a "sport" show is ridiculous on its face - it's a kind of extended comedy act with a lot of pratfalls and video and so forth (incidentally, it's also very good). Lucha VaVoom (Thanks, Marlow!)
Previously:
Source: Boing Boing | 16 May 2010 | 8:37 pm CA Technologies' McCracken: Cloud Computing and Virtualization at the Heart of Business TransformationLAS VEGAS, May 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CA WORLD -- In his keynote address at CA World 2010, Bill McCracken, chief executive officer of CA Technologies (Nasdaq: CA), told 7,000 attendees that the technology industry is at an inflection point, and that business will embrace virtualization and cloud computing in order to remain competitive. "When economic conditions, technology advances, and customer needs align, transformation happens," said McCracken.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 May 2010 | 7:00 pm Wikimedia's Wales gives up some top-level controls - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 May 2010 | 6:57 pm Giant Underwater "Plumes" of Oil Discovered in GulfScientists have found evidence suggesting the spill is far larger than official estimates.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 May 2010 | 6:48 pm Texas Schools Board Rewriting US Historysuraj.sun picked up a Guardian (UK) piece on the Texas school board and their quest to remake US education in a pro-American, Christian, free enterprise mode. We've been keeping an eye on this story for some time, as it will have an impact far beyond Texas. From the Guardian: "The board is to vote on a sweeping purge of alleged liberal bias in Texas school textbooks in favor of what Dunbar says really matters: a belief in America as a nation chosen by God as a beacon to the world, and free enterprise as the cornerstone of liberty and democracy. ... Those corrections have prompted a blizzard of accusations of rewriting history and indoctrinating children by promoting rightwing views on religion, economics and guns while diminishing the science of evolution, the civil rights movement and the horrors of slavery. ... Several changes include sidelining Thomas Jefferson, who favored separation of church and state, while introducing a new focus on the 'significant contributions' of pro-slavery Confederate leaders during the civil war. ... Study of Sir Isaac Newton is dropped in favor of examining scientific advances through military technology."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 May 2010 | 6:38 pm NSFW: Leave Britney Alone! (Where by Britney I mean Steve, Mark and Jimbo)
For Jobs, the rebellion is opening up across several flanks: from once-loyal partners like Adobe bitter over Apple’s decision not to support Flash to once-loyal journalists penning op-eds about heavy-handed treatment of the fourth estate and blanket censorship of adult content on the iPad. For Zuckerberg, as I wrote last week, it’s the continuing user-generated outcry over privacy. For Wales it’s an alleged mutiny by wiki editors over his decision to unilaterally delete hardcore pornography from Wikipedia. In each case the specifics are different but the thrust is the same: having built hugely successful and popular companies in their own image, some of technology’s leading visionaries are coming under attack from the people who were once their biggest allies. It’s worth pointing out that, for all their ferocity, the attacks are having little noticeable effect on the performance of the companies concerned: all three continue to go from strength to strength. But clearly for the founders themselves there’s a real impact. Last Tuesday, it was reported (although later denied) that Wales has voluntarily surrendered almost all of his editing privileges over Wikipedia, reducing his status to that of a junior editor. For his part, the normally unflappable Jobs has taken to protracted and snippy late night exchanges with a Valleywag writer who asked “If Dylan was [sic] 20 today, how would he feel about your company?” Zuckerberg’s suffering, meanwhile, is positively Alighierian: with leaked email exchanges and a Hollywood movie conspiring to destroy any last vestiges of privacy that the 26-year-old enjoys. I suspect all three have stopped reading their Google News alerts. Now don’t get me wrong, I like a bit of schadenfreude as much as the next failure, but as I listen to the growing chorus of disapproval at some of technology’s most iconic founders I can’t help but feel uneasy. No matter what Danah – sorry – danah Boyd – sorry – boyd – might say, Facebook isn’t a public utility, and nor should it be treated as such. (The test by the way for if X is a utility: if the sentence ‘Millions of children in Africa have no access to x’ doesn’t sound like a headline from the Onion. Try it with electricity, water and Facebook. See?) No matter what some bloggers might think about the First Amendment implications of banning porn, Steve Jobs is not an arm of the US government. Likewise Jimmy Wales’ democratic powers are safely confined to the space between the words Aardvark and Zyxt – is it really a pseudo-constitutional scandal for him to delete a bit of porn? The problem here is one of perspective. We hardcore internet users might do well to realise that, just because we spend our days trawling TechCrunch and TechMeme and Hacker News doesn’t mean that the wider world shares our belief that privacy settings for photos we’ve chosen to post online, Flash on the iPad or our God-given right to see erections on Wikipedia are the most important issues in the world today. And why should they? By and large, Jobs, Zuckerberg and Wales are going about their lawful business, providing fun digital toys that we could easily survive without, but choose not to. The second problem is one of entitlement. Just because the founders of web and technology companies are inherently more accessible to us than other CEOs (see Jobs replying to emails or Jimmy Wales’ and Mark Zuckerberg’s frequent conference appearances) doesn’t mean that they are any more answerable to us. The respective visions of Jobs, Zuck and Wales have created companies that we gladly use every day in our millions. What right do we have to tell them that their vision is suddenly wrong, just because it happens to clash with our own? As Mike Arrington wrote on Wednesday in relation to Digg, it’s simply not the obligation of an entrepreneur to make decisions based on what the crowd demands. In fact it’s ludicrous to think that a business which has attracted millions of fans thanks to a founder’s singular vision should suddenly start taking their orders from those fans. The whole point of a visionary is that they can see things that others can’t; if thousands of users think they know what path a visionary should take then that path is inherently the wrong one. I may disagree with Steve Jobs’ approach to pornography on the iPad (I do), or with Zuckerberg’s high-handed approach to privacy (I do) or with Jimmy Wales’ spontaneous clean-up operation to avoid bad press (I don’t, actually) but provided they remain within the law, I will shrug my shoulders to the death in defence of their right to do what they think best. If they continue to make the right calls, their companies will continue to grow, and if they make the wrong ones, then they will fail. Until there’s any meaningful sign of the latter happening to Apple, Wikipedia or Facebook we – the journalists, the bloggers, the Twitterers and the shrill activists – should probably put away our guillotines and consider that maybe, just maybe, when it comes to their businesses, these visionaries know what they’re doing.      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 May 2010 | 6:31 pm Jimmy Wales: Fox News Is Wrong, No Shake Up
Contrary to several reports, Wikipedia’s Founder Jimmy Wales is not relinquishing his editorial control of Wikipedia and its related projects. On Friday, Fox News reported that “a shakeup is underway at the top levels of Wikipedia…Wales is no longer able to delete files, remove administrators, assign projects or edit any content, sources say. Essentially, they say, he has gone from having free reign over the content and people involved in the websites to having the same capabilities of a low-level administrator.” The report was picked up by Venturebeat and CNET. An interesting story— except it’s not true according to Jimmy Wales in an e-mail on Sunday. Wales says the Fox News reporter hasn’t even tried to contact him to discuss the alleged “shakeup.” Ouch. Contrary to Fox News’ report of “chaos” at Wikipedia (the article cites an unidentified source close to the company), Wales says everything is fine. Well, relatively speaking, Wikipedia is still on the defense after Fox News released a report in late April, accusing the site of knowingly distributing child pornography. The article cites former co-founder Larry Sanger (left Wikipedia in 2002), who wrote a letter to the FBI “outlining his concerns and identifying two specific Wikimedia Commons categories he believes violate federal obscenity law.” Wikipedia responded with a statement, defending its editors and its commitment to actively patrol the site: “If and when we are informed by law enforcement agencies of illegal content that has not already been removed through self-policing, we will take quick action to delete it.” I’ll update with more information soon. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 May 2010 | 5:58 pm 4G wireless technology slowly starts out in Scandinavia (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 May 2010 | 5:22 pm Top 10 Gamertell posts for the week of May 9, 2010FROM GAMERTELL - Haven’t caught all of the Gamertell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles.. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 May 2010 | 5:00 pm LimeWire Likely To Shut Down Soonsuraj.sun quotes from a CNET story: "A federal court judge has likely dealt a death blow to LimeWire, one of the most popular and oldest file-sharing systems, according to legal experts. On Wednesday... US District Judge Kimba Wood granted summary judgment in favor of the... [RIAA], which filed a copyright lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006. In her decision, Wood ruled Lime Group, parent of LimeWire software maker Lime Wire, and founder Mark Gorton committed copyright infringement, induced copyright infringement, and engaged in unfair competition. 'It is obviously a fairly fatal decision for them,' said [an industry defense lawyer]. 'If they don't shut down, the other side will likely make a request for an injunction and there's nothing left but to go on to calculating damages.'" The article notes that LimeWire is used by nearly 60 percent of the people who download songs.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 May 2010 | 4:25 pm ProKarma and abc Consulting Join Forces to Create a Preeminent Global IT Services Organization"For ProKarma, the merger offers a two-fold benefit. First, incorporating abc Consulting's SAP expertise into our portfolio enhances our SAP capabilities and gives us the ability to have a single point of support for ProKarma's current and future SAP customers," said Vivek Kumar, president and CEO, ProKarma, Inc. "In addition, we can now serve our clients around the clock from six service delivery centers in the US, Argentina and India."Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 May 2010 | 4:02 pm William Goldman's Captain Marvel screenplayZack sez, "William Goldman is one of the most legendary screenwriters in Hollywood, winning Oscars for BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID and ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN. In 2003, he wrote a screenplay for New Line adapting the classic comic book character Captain Marvel (aka 'Shazam!'). His screenplay was ultimately unused, but a PDF of the script is downloadable at the site MyPDFScripts.com (which also features a ton of other unproduced screenplay, including Oliver Stone's take on Alfred Bester's THE DEMOLISHED MAN and Nick Cave's GLADIATOR 2)."
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It’s hard to believe, but it’s been five years since YouTube launched and changed the way people share video online (it was 
There’s the unmistakable smell of revolution in the air this week. And if I were Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg or Jimmy ‘Jimbo’ Wales I’d be keeping an eye out for angry French peasants dragging guillotines.
According to Variety, two-time Oscar-winner William Goldman (Dreamcatcher) will script the big-screen version of Shazam! for New Line Cinema and producer Michael E. Uslan. The trade paper says the film will debut in either Christmas 2004 or summer 2005. No director has been hired yet.
Daily deal service 
This guest post was written by Alex Ahlund, the former CEO of 
I'm sure you've heard by now, that Bangkok / Thailand is 
GRAND MASTER:
