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Sony to challenge Apple in Japan with e-reader (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 May 2010 | 4:06 am AT&T to raise early termination fee for smartphone customers - The Star-Ledger - NJ.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 May 2010 | 4:05 am Barnes and Noble E-Reader Now on iPad
Barnes & Noble has released its e-reader software for the iPad, adding yet another way to buy and read e-books. It’s as slick as we’ve come to expect, but suffers from several minor flaws and one fatal problem: Unlike iBooks, where you can buy easily and seamlessly from with the application, the B&N reader boots you out to a website, just like Amazon’s Kindle App. The app is available only in the US App Store, but as it is free you can create a US iTunes account and grab it anyway. That way you can try out sample books and also download free e-books (credit required, although not for samples), of which there are surprisingly many (mostly romance and Star Wars novels). Once you have completed the transaction in your browser, you step back to the app and hit refresh. The books are quickly downloaded to the iPad. I briefly tried out the reading interface, and it is adequate. There is a good range of fonts, you can highlight and make notes on text, although you can’t search your notes, and you can define words in the built-in dictionary as well as Google and Wikipedia (you’ll be asked if you want to launch the search in Safari first). The page turns are slick, and thankfully they leave out the page-turn animations that are so distracting in iBooks. The problem is when you flip to landscape format to read. Instead of splitting the text across two pages to take advantage of the big screen, the app just goes wide. There appears to be no way to fix this, so upright reading is recommended. BN eReader for iPad (it’s full, ugly name) is a competent reader, and it’s free. If you already own a Nook, I’d recommend it. Otherwise, there doesn’t seem much point. BN eReader for iPad [Barnes and Noble. Thanks, Brittany!] See Also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 27 May 2010 | 4:01 am Predators Pick Body Parts for Balanced DietHunger pangs probably guide meat-eating animals, including humans, to choose certain body parts of their prey over others.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 May 2010 | 3:33 am New Leaf Launches New WebsiteOLD TAPPAN, N.J., May 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- New Leaf Brands, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: NLEF), "The Official Beverage of Taste(TM)," announced today the launch of its new, vibrant and consumer-friendly website, www.newleafbrands.com.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 May 2010 | 3:20 am Day of the Dead Pin-Ups - The Pin Up Parlour Will Get You Skeletized for Your Photoshoot (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Toronto-based photography studio The Pin Up Parlour offers all kinds of sassy photo sessions, but the most eye-catching one by far are the Day of the Dead Pin-Ups. Seriously, what...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 2:53 am UK Newspaper Web Sites To Become Nearly Invisiblesmooth wombat writes "Various web sites have tried to make readers pay for access to select parts of their sites. Now, in a bid to counter what he claims is theft of his material, Rupert Murdoch's Times and Sunday Times web sites will become essentially invisible to web users. Except for their homepages, no stories will show up on Google. Starting in late June, Google and other search engines will be prevented from indexing and linking to stories. Registered users will still get free access until the cut off date."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 May 2010 | 2:52 am Brawny Mars Robots Will Launch a New Wave of ExplorationFuture Mars robotic explorers will be ever more robust and longer living.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 May 2010 | 2:46 am Crazy True Story Sites - 'You Wont Believe What Happened' Lets you Laugh at Outrageous Real Stories(TrendHunter.com) Created along the same lines as 'Texts From Last Night' and 'F My Life', the 'You Wont Believe What Happened' site delivers a platform for telling the world your outrageous and true...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 2:33 am Weird Exoplanet Orbits Could Prevent Alien LifeNew simulations presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Miami indicate that Earth-like exoplanets in star systems with weird planetary orbits will have a tough time supporting life.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 27 May 2010 | 2:29 am New World Survey: Which Second Life Program Deserves To Win the Linden Prize for Impacting the Real World?The Lindens recently announced the ten finalists for their Linden Prize, which awards USD$10,000 to the Second Life project which "improves the way people work, learn, and communicate in their daily lives...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 2:25 am Angelic Field Paintings - Joanna Sierko-Filipowska's Art Depicts Heavenly Acres (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The artwork created by Joanna Sierko-Filipowska takes us to a place that is deep within our imagination and thoughts. Joanna Sierko-Filipowska is a Polish artist and is blessed with...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 2:13 am First Man infected with computer virusIn the future, we could all become walking computer viruses, according to Reading scientist Mark Gasson. Gasson is supposedly the first human being to be infected with a computer virus. [The BBC via boingboing]...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 2:00 am NWN in Japanese: iPadiPad...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:58 am Apple now bigger than Microsoft (again)The latest share price changes have pushed the total value of Apple past its rival Microsoft for the first time since 1989. The BBC reports. Apple has to look back to late 1989 to see the last time...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:55 am Pakistan lifts ban on YouTube, blocks 1,200 web pages (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 May 2010 | 1:55 am Cocktail Party Cutlery - Finger Food Spoons Let You Elegantly Enjoy Snacks(TrendHunter.com) Finger Food Spoons are perhaps the greatest innovation when it comes to food handling. You no longer need to worry about sullying your fingers, or potentially your ensemble, as these...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:53 am FCC says consumers are 'bill shocked'According to an FCC survey, one in six customers have been shocked by unexpected cell phone charges. [via News.com] The agency conducted a survey of roughly 3,000 Americans and found that about 30 million...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:51 am Image-conscious youth rein in social networking (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 27 May 2010 | 1:49 am Viral Video: Bret Michaels' Rosy Thorn on "Idol" [BoomTown]
BoomTown is not much of a fan of Bret Michaels, but it was still nice to see the singer and reality star in good form on television talent show “American Idol” last night after a spate of troubling health issues. Michaels was hospitalized for a brain hemorrhage a month ago and, just last week, was back there due to a “warning stroke.” Heart surgery is to come next. Still, he managed to belt out “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” a hit song from his band Poison, which he sang with finalist Casey James. Enjoy the video: Source: All Things Digital | 27 May 2010 | 1:46 am May The Force Be With Your BreakfastBy Chris Scott Barr Pancakes rank pretty high on my list of favorite breakfast foods. They’re cheap, easy to make, and you can have some fun with them. When I was a kid it was always fun trying to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:43 am NEC to ship Blu-ray powered 3D PC in Japan next month
Valuestar N VN790/BS – that’s the name of the 3D PC that NEC today announced [JP] for the Japanese market. The company’s faster than expected: just last month, NEC teased such a machine in Tokyo, saying it’s likely to ship by October 2010. But Japan will get the PC as early as next month. And it appears to be a pretty cool machine. Buyers will get a 20-inch 3D screen with 1,600×900 resolution and a Blu-ray drive to view content (images and video) stored in that format in 3D. NEC says for DVDs, users will be able to switch between 2D and 3D. Needless to say, the machine accepts 3D content in other forms, too (3D pictures from Fujifilm’s 3D camera, for camera).
Spec-wise, NEC throws in a Intel Mobile Core CPU (no details yet), 4GB RAM (8GB max.), a 1TB HDD, 3W×2ch speakers, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit as the OS. The main unit is sized at 490×362×169mm and weighs 8.6kg. The PC also comes with a pair of glasses (an extra pair will set you back $67), a remote control, an integrated TV tuner, and a wireless keyboard.
NEC plans to start shipping the 3D set at the end of next month (price: $2,450). The company hasn’t said anything yet about international sales plans.
Source: CrunchGear | 27 May 2010 | 1:21 am Mass Effect To Invade the Big ScreenUgLyPuNk writes "This could be a good thing or a bad thing: EA has just confirmed that they're making Mass Effect into a movie. The franchise has been acquired by Legendary Pictures, who are best known for their co-productions of The Dark Knight, Clash of the Titans, 300, Watchmen and, um, The Hangover, as part of their co-financing agreement with Warner Bros."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 27 May 2010 | 1:19 am Wired's iPad App: Finally Here, Still a Work in Progress - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 27 May 2010 | 1:09 am China Telecom May Want In on Apple Action [Voices]By Lorraine Luk, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal China Telecom, China’s largest fixed-line operator, appears to be changing its position about possibly offering Apple (AAPL) products in the near future. Chief Executive Wang Xiaochu said at a press conference Tuesday that the company is evaluating market response for Apple’s iPad tablet computer before it holds any talks with the U.S. consumer electronics company. Previously, Wang has said the company isn’t interested in offering Apple’s popular iPhone because of high costs and stiff competition to secure the rights to sell the device in China. But Tuesday Wang said: “If there’s demand from customers, we welcome any creative new device. Our focus is to bring convenience and enjoyment to our customers. Since iPad has just been launched, it takes time for us to evaluate the product. Both of us [China Telecom and Apple] have to evaluate the market situation in China to see how large the market demand would be. It will determine whether we have any interest in any cooperation.” China Telecom’s more open approach toward Apple products signifies intensifying competition in the Chinese telecom market. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 27 May 2010 | 1:00 am PC World to Open New Tottenham SuperstoreLONDON, May 27 /PRNewswire/ -- PC World is to open a new Superstore in Tottenham on 28th May 2010. The opening has created 7 new jobs, with staff from the local area appointed to work in store providing first class customer service and expert technology advice.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 May 2010 | 1:00 am PC World to Open New Tottenham SuperstoreSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:00 am Zetafax 2010 Provides Swift Support for Microsoft Office 2010LONDON, May 27 /PRNewswire/ -- (http://www.myprgenie.com) -- Equisys today announced availability of Zetafax 2010, the latest version of its award winning fax server software.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 27 May 2010 | 1:00 am Zetafax 2010 Provides Swift Support for Microsoft Office 2010Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 May 2010 | 1:00 am Pakistan partially lifts block on YouTube: officialISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan has partially unblocked the popular video sharing website YouTube, but links to "sacrilegious or profane material" will remain restricted, a top government...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 27 May 2010 | 12:25 am MACH to Speak, Chair Panel at WiMAX Forum Global CongressLUXEMBOURG, May 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- MACH, the leading provider of hub-based mobile communications exchange solutions, http://mach.com announced that Tue From Hermansen, Director, Next Generation Solutions, will deliver a presentation on WiMAX roaming, entitled 'The WiMAX Roaming Business Case,' on 16th June, 2010 during the WiMAX Forum Global Congress 2010, to be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In addition, Ramon Castillo, MACH Technical Product Manager, has been selected to chair the subsequent panel discussion entitled 'What will WiMAX Roaming Look Like? Collaborating to Realise the Global Ambition of the WiMAX Proposition.' "While WiMAX provides an important evolutionary step in 4G mobile communications, it also presents challenges for successful deployment for communications service providers because of the inherent complexity involved in implementing WiMAX roaming," said Tue From Hermansen.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 11:59 pm MACH to Speak, Chair Panel at WiMAX Forum Global CongressSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 11:59 pm Foxconn hit by 10th jumping death (Reuters)Reuters - An employee of iPhone-maker Foxconn jumped to his death late on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported, the tenth suspected suicide this year at the high-tech company's huge production base in southern China.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 11:53 pm Sudden Demand For Logicians On Wall StreetAn anonymous reader writes "In an unexpected development for the depressed market for mathematical logicians, Wall Street has begun quietly and aggressively recruiting proof theorists and recursion theorists for their expertise in applying ordinal notations and ordinal collapsing functions to high-frequency algorithmic trading. Ordinal notations, which specify sequences of ordinal numbers of ever increasing complexity, are being used by elite trading operations to parameterize families of trading strategies of breathtaking sophistication. The monetary advantage of the current strategy is rapidly exhausted after a lifetime of approximately four seconds–an eternity for a machine, but barely enough time for a human to begin to comprehend what happened. The algorithm then switches to another trading strategy of higher ordinal rank, and uses this for a few seconds on one or more electronic exchanges, and so on, while opponent algorithms attempt the same maneuvers, risking billions of dollars in the process."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 11:46 pm Chapter, Verse on E-Bookstores - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 11:31 pm Gay Fetish Hook-Up Website Recon.com Officially Launches Kinky iPhone(TM) app at International Mr. Leather 2010Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 11:23 pm Gay Fetish Hook-Up Website Recon.com Officially Launches Kinky iPhone(TM) app at International Mr. Leather 2010CHICAGO, May 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Recon.com, the world's largest gay fetish dating website, today officially launched its much anticipated iPhone(TM) app at International Mr.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 11:23 pm Chinese court hears novelist's Google lawsuitA Chinese novelist's lawsuit against Google over its online library is going ahead in court after settlement talks failed. Mian Mian _ known for lurid tales of sex, drugs and nightlife _Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 11:19 pm Chinese court hears novelist's Google lawsuit (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 11:19 pm Acision Extends Relationship with VimpelComREADING, England, May 27, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- - Acision Delivers Enhanced Mobile Data Services to a Key Growth Market Acision, a world leader in mobile data, today announced that it will be extending its relationship with VimpelCom, with the upgrade of the Acision SMSC, Acision Central Management System and Acision Business Tools. VimpelCom, a leading international provider of telecommunications services operating in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and South-East Asia, will be able to offer enhanced mobile messaging and data services to its 51 million subscribers in Russia, while future-proofing its infrastructure for new data services and ensuring profitability. Having worked with VimpelCom for the past six years, Acision will upgrade the operator's messaging infrastructure to an all IP environment, allowing unlimited and flexible capacity for messaging growth with lower total cost of ownership.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 11:00 pm Acision Extends Relationship with VimpelComSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 11:00 pm Man Infects Himself with (Computer) Virus (PC World)PC World - We are one step closer to the future: a British scientist has become the first human being to contract a computer virus.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 10:45 pm Latest Foxconn suicide comes after visit by bossA young man became the 10th worker to jump to his death at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in southern China, just hours after the company's chairman toured the plant that makes iPods...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 10:41 pm Latest Foxconn suicide comes after visit by boss (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 10:41 pm UPDATE 1-Khazanah's $835mln Parkway offer pits it against Fortis* Khazanah offers S$1.18 bln to up stake in Parkway to 51.5%Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 10:37 pm TABLE-SCORPION OFFSHORE 3-month resultsMay 27 (Reuters) - 3 months to March 31 2010: Scorpion Offshore Ltd (Millions of USD unless otherwise stated)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 26 May 2010 | 10:30 pm Hurricanes Can Snap Oil Pipelines in the GulfCould there be multiple leaks slowly oozing oil into the Gulf, undetected, at this very moment?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 10:27 pm Summary Box: Youth cautious about image online (AP)AP - YOUNG WISDOM: A new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project adds to the evidence that young people might be more cautious than their elders when it comes to managing their reputation and privacy on social networking sites.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 10:05 pm B&N launches a Nook iPad app
If you’ve been waiting to get the Nook experience on your iPad, your wait is over. Barnes&Noble just announced the availability of their Nook app, available free from the App Store. Nook is behind in the race to ereader hegemony so they’ve decided to add a few iPad specific including eight different fonts, customizable line spacing and margins, different font sizes, and themes. In short, B&N reps said, “It’s a giant canvas.” The app has two book “views:” grid – showing all of the covers and split which shows details of the book on a split screen with the cover. You can also lend books to friends by shooting emails to contacts using the built-in contact book interaction. The app supports in-book search, bookmarks, and syncs among devices. It also supports ePub formats. They also said the Android App is arriving this summer. Click through to read the full release.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 10:01 pm May 27, 1931: Wind Tunnel Lets Airplanes 'Fly' on GroundThe world's first full-scale wind tunnel opens at Langley Field in Virginia. It will remain in service for 78 years.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 10:00 pm Rescuing Hostages: How a Crack Commando Team WorksAn ex-Marine and a former SEAL walk us through what it takes -- from the equipment to the tactics -- to free hostages held by armed men.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 10:00 pm For Atlantis, a Flight Path to Retirement - New York Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 9:58 pm Bombardier beetle: Up close, in actionThis is a great, clear video showing the defense mechanism of a wonderful, little creature. The bombardier beetle is a catch-all name for 500-odd related species of beetle that have a nifty, chemical-warfare defense mechanism built into their rear ends. Basically, the beetles can make their own hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide, store it in their abdomens and, when threatened, mix the two chemicals to create a potent, heat-generating reaction that forces a boiling, vile-smelling liquid out of the beetle —and into the face of whatever was bothering it. I was first introduced to the bombardier beetle in high school biology class. See, I went to fundamentalist Baptist high school, and the bombardier beetle is often trotted out as an example of something so complex, that it couldn't have possibly evolved. (I was also given the impression that this was just one, single type of beetle, rather than an array of varying, related beetles that produce and expel chemicals in slightly different ways. But that's not really the worst of the misleading and inaccurate things I learned in that biology class. Textbooks from Bob Jones University Press. I wish now that I still had the thing to scan pages.) Anyway, I was told that "evolutionists" had no answer for how the bombardier beetle could have evolved. Naturally, that turns out to be bunk. As does much of what I was taught about how the beetle works. TalkOrigins explains the reality of both pretty well. With references! More fascinating, to me anyway, is the way the bombardier beetle actually fits with the predictions made by evolutionary theory:
Bombardier beetles on Wikipedia
 Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 9:20 pm Facebook CEO announces revamped privacy settings - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 9:06 pm Lifelock Worries After Employee Data Leaked To Webitwbennett writes "Last week, Phoenix New Times reporter Ray Stein revealed that LifeLock CEO Todd Davis (who famously published his Social Security number in LifeLock ads) had been the victim of identity theft, at least 13 times. This week, LifeLock made it clear that they're not so cavalier with their employees' personal data. The company asked the New Times to remove from its Web site a police report containing a redacted Social Security number, date of birth, address, and phone number of Lifelock employee Tamika Jones. In an interview, Stein said that the fact that LifeLock had to call and ask for the document to be removed reflected badly on Lifelock's service. 'I think this shows clearly that they know that it's got potential problems.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 9:00 pm A perfect marvel of vacuous malice More scenes from a book-tour. Today I had the extreme pleasure and honor of being one of three authors who presented at the Book Expo America Children's Book and Author Breakfast, along with Mitali Perkins and Richard Peck. The session was chaired by Sarah Ferguson, the British Royal who, in addition to writing kids' books, was also recently the center of a pay-for-influence scandal broken by a British tabloid. Afterwards, we all went over to the trade-show floor to sign books, and, as you might expect, Ferguson was mobbed by aggressive paparazzi. From my vantage point, it looked like they were being incredibly obnoxious, and the enterprising gentleman pictured here actually came over, barged into the queue for my signing, and stuck his telephoto lens between me and the person whose book I was signing so he could get pics of Fergie. When I told him that this was obnoxious, he was affronted and argumentative. I know that being jerky and shameless go with the territory when we're talking about paps, but just look at the shit-eating grin on display here. It is truly a marvel of perfect vacuous malice. Or, as they say in the New Yorker: "Christ, what an asshole." Luckily, that was the only sour note in an otherwise brilliant day, during which I met vast numbers of Boing Boing readers. Many thanks to all of you who came up and introduced yourselves! I hope to see more of you at my remaining NYC stops: powerhouse Books, (May 27, 7:30PM) and McNally Jackson (May 28, 7PM).
Next up: Toronto, where I'll be at the Merril Collection on June 4. 1938 Graham: the sharknose automobile I'm at a loss to explain why every car made doesn't look exactly like this. Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 8:24 pm Medical advice for head-bangersThe British Medical Journal investigates the health risks from head-banging and recommends protective gear and "adult-oriented rock":Head and neck injury risks in heavy metal: head bangers stuck between rock and a hard bass (via JWZ) (Image: Headbanging without the face, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jessebikman's photostream) Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 8:23 pm RIT's Future of Reading Conference, June 9-12, Rochester, NYLiz Lawley writes to tell us about the Future of Reading Conference at RIT: "This three-day symposium at RIT June 9-12, 2010 will be organized around a central question: How will reading change in the next decade? With a target audience of 300-500 participants, the conference will feature provocative and challenging presentations by experts in writing systems, content creation, vision and cognition, typography, visual media, and display technology. Speakers at this conference include Margaret Atwood, Chris Anderson, and Massimo Vignelli. Should be a very cool event, with lots of discussion surrounding the technologies of books and reading."
RIT Future of Reading Conference
(Thanks, Liz! Canada's own PATRIOT ActMichael Geist sez, "The Canadian government quietly introduced its own Patriot Act yesterday, with privacy law reforms that are marketed as improving the current law but represent a major step backward. The bill would block organizations for disclosing disclosures to law enforcement to the affected individuals and it would give businesses broad new rights over workplace privacy."In return, there is a new security breach disclosure provision, but the requirements are very weak when compared with similar laws found elsewhere. In fact, with no penalties for failure to notify security breaches, the provisions may do more harm than good since Canadians will expect to receive notifications in the event of a breach, but companies may err on the side of not notifying (given the very high threshold discussed below) safe in the knowledge that there are no financial penalties for failing to do so." C-29: The Anti-Privacy Privacy Bill
Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 8:18 pm Yahoo Investor Day Exec Presentations in Living Color: Collect Them All! [BoomTown]
If you did not have the fortitude to listen to Yahoo’s annual investor day, which took place much of today at its Silicon Valley HQ, you can read all about it from the five detailed decks presented by top execs. For your viewing pleasure, BoomTown has embedded them all below, so you too can pretend you are a gullible, oops, canny, Wall Street analyst or institutional investor and starting formulating some theories about the future of Yahoo (YHOO). To its credit, what I heard of the presentation–by phone, since the media was barred from the event itself and the video was messed up–was pretty well done, if a little too kitchen-sinky (as in, here’s everything!). The day did feature sharp performances from peppy new Chief Products Officer Blake Irving (he voted with his feet, apparently, on coming to Yahoo) and head social dude Cody Simms. Here’s Irving’s slides on products, as well as from: Scott Burke, VP of Data and Analytics, with the numbers; Mark Morrissey, SVP of Search Alliance Transition, on the nascent partnership deal with Microsoft (MSFT); Hilary Schneider, EVP of Yahoo Americas, on advertising; and Tim Morse, CFO, on moolah. Enjoy: Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 8:17 pm Halii Kai at Waikoloa Managed by Castle is Ranked as One of World's Best Properties on Expedia(R) Insiders' Select(TM) ListHONOLULU, May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Expedia® travelers have ranked Halii Kai at Waikoloa among the world's best resorts on this year's Expedia Insiders' Select(TM) list.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 7:54 pm Glaxo Open Sources Malaria Drug Search Datasmellsofbikes writes "Glaxo Smith Klein, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical company, is putting thousands of possible malaria-treating drugs into the public domain in a move that the Wall Street Journal calls a 'Linux approach' to pharmaceutical screening. Andrew Witty, who is described as the boss of GSK, says the company thinks it is 'imperative to earn the trust of society, not just by meeting expectations but by exceeding them.' Of course, synthesis or discovery of new chemicals is cheap compared to efficacy and qualification studies, but this is a refreshing change from not handing out *any* information until after everything is patented."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 7:20 pm The Chapter And Verse on E-Bookstores [Personal Technology]As books go digital, much of the focus has been on which gadgets offer the best approximation of old-fashioned paper and ink on a screen. But there’s another choice that’s just as important for readers to weigh before they make the leap to e-books: which e-bookstore to frequent. Reading devices like the iPad, Kindle and Nook will come and go, but you’ll likely want your e-book collection to stick around. Yet unlike music, commercial e-books from the leading online stores come with restrictions that complicate your ability to move your collection from one device to the next. It’s as if old-fashioned books were designed to fit on one particular style of bookshelves. What happens when you remodel? [ See post to watch video ] Much of this problem stems from the publishing industry, which has demanded that e-bookstores embed digital rights management software in most best sellers to keep them from being stolen and swapped, free, online. The music labels once asked the same from digital-music retailers, but eventually agreed to open up. The e-bookstores share in the blame. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), Apple Inc. (AAPL), Barnes & Noble Inc. (BKS) and Sony Corp. (SNE) all want you to buy their own gadgets and to continue buying e-books from their stores. For example, purchases from Apple’s new iBooks store can be read only on Apple’s own iPad (and soon the iPhone). Even though Apple said it would support an industry standard format called ePub for iBooks, in practice your iBooks purchases remain locked on Apple’s virtual bookshelf. (So I hope iBooks customers like Apple’s light-brown wood paneling.)  Browsing Amazon.com on the Kindle Many of the biggest e-book providers fall short of putting readers fully in charge of their own digital-book collections, but they have begun to unveil their own solutions for moving your e-books around. Amazon, which jump-started the shift to e-books with its Kindle, lets customers read its e-books through apps on at least six kinds of devices. Amazon custom-built the free apps for gadgets that include the iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, PC, Mac and (later this summer) devices running Google’s (GOOG) Android software. If a device has an Internet connection, the apps automatically load Amazon e-book purchases from the company’s website, saving you the fuss of keeping track of files and transferring them between gadgets with cables. In many ways, this is more convenient than the way we manage our digital-music collections by manually adding and deleting files from iPods through a computer. Amazon’s apps are slick and work on many of the most popular devices today, but Amazon buyers should know that they’re likely stuck using the retailer’s software forever. While Amazon says it plans to keep making apps for more devices, the list of potential devices for reading grows longer every day. Moreover, Amazon sells its e-books in a proprietary format, so there’s no way to open those files on another device without an Amazon app or without resorting to cumbersome (and potentially illegal) third-party conversion software.  The Nook with Barnes & Noble store Barnes & Noble, too, adopted an Internet-connected app approach, providing a seamless way to shift its e-books between the Nook, PC, Mac, BlackBerry, iPhone, WindowsMobile for the HTC HD2 and soon iPad. Barnes & Noble has been integrating its e-bookstore into niche e-reading devices, like those by Plastic Logic, Irex and Pandigital. It also, uniquely, offers you the chance to “loan” some e-book purchases to a friend for 14 days. But its bookstore requires a somewhat annoying step: Each time you download a book to a new device, you must enter your name and the credit-card number that was used to buy the book in order to unfasten the digital lock on the book. Beyond the apps, Sony, Barnes & Noble and Apple and a few smaller e-bookstores all promised they’d put their weight behind the industry standard format ePub, which is the e-book version of music’s Mp3 and can be read by almost every reading device (except the Kindle). That sounds great in theory, but in practice, the ePub files either can’t be transferred or doing so is cumbersome. The problem is each company adds digital rights management software to an ePub book. A copy of “Moby Dick” I bought from iBooks delivered just blank pages when I opened it on the Nook. A Barnes & Noble e-book produced an error message in Sony’s PC ePub reading software. Barnes & Noble says its books will be compatible with devices like the Sony Reader after a software upgrade.  An iPad showing Apple’s iBooks store. There were two notable exceptions: Purchases from Sony’s e-bookstore and a Borders Group (BGP)-backed store called Kobo could open on the Nook and other ePub-reading devices if I used a free program from Adobe (ADBE) called Digital Editions to transfer it. That’s a nice insurance policy but the process is far more complicated than it should be. There may yet be a third way. Google, which plans to launch an e-bookstore later this year, says customers will be able to access its books through apps on popular devices and through a Web browser on any device—including a phone or computer. Google’s argument is that we shouldn’t lock ourselves into one bookstore if it is going to offer titles that are dependent on special apps or devices. Google’s existing free out-of-copyright books service works under this same general premise, but it isn’t yet ready for prime time. It requires you to always be online to read a book and its pages aren’t well formatted for reading on small screens or mobile devices. Google executives say they will fix both issues when the commercial service launches. For now, the e-bookstore choice comes down to which compromises readers are willing to accept. Anybody who just wants a simple way to carry digital books around might be happy with an app-based approach. But readers intent on building an e-library may want to either invest in an ePub-based collection, or hold off until the industry figures out a better solution. Walter S. Mossberg will return June 10. Write to Geoffrey A. Fowler at geoffrey.fowler@wsj.com Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 7:14 pm Mixed Signs On the State of IT Educationsnydeq writes "Advice Line's Bob Lewis comments on the mixed state of IT education in the US, which sees some students graduating with computer-related degrees despite never having written a line of code. And while some institutions are emphasizing the value of teamwork in their curricula, an approach that fosters specialization in lieu of uniform standards, others are simply advertising their 'success rates' in graduating students. 'Education is a marketplace, and if you have the money and want to buy, you can find someone willing to sell,' Lewis writes. In other words, 'If you want a degree that indicates you know something about computers without having to actually know very much about computers, you can get one.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 7:10 pm TSMC Announces 0.18-Micron Automotive Grade Embedded Flash IPHSINCHU, Taiwan, R.O.C., May 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ --Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 6:50 pm And The Winner Of TechCrunch Disrupt Is… Soluto!
Without further ado, the runner-up is UJAM. And the winner is… Soluto. The Israeli-based startup offers something that millions of people want — no, need: a way to make their computers run better. One thing that’s interesting about this company versus most of the others in the competition is that they’ve created native software. It monitors your PC to find the things that are likely most annoying to users. For example, it tracks down printing problems, crashy apps, resource hogs — all the good stuff. That alone is interesting. But more interesting is that it offers up solutions for how you can fix your computer issues. And the data they’re (anonymously) collecting about PC problems should be useful across a range of industries and services.
Quite simply: if Soluto can convince the millions of frustrated PC users to use their software, they could transform the industry. Or, disrupt it. The company has previously raised $8 million over two rounds, but has been in beta until now. Other award winners tonight include: Must-have technology: LiveIntent Biggest New York disruptor: Betterment Most promising media concept: LiveMatrix Congratulations Soluto! And congratulations to all the finalists. Each will undoubtedly prove to be disruptive in their own way. Soluto will be the first company to get the TechCrunch Disrupt Cup. In the Fall, they will hand it off to the next winner. We look forward to seeing you all in San Francisco in September. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 6:03 pm CHINICT: China’s biggest tech conference, streaming right here on TechCrunch
The full agenda can be found here. The live stream is right here…      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 6:02 pm Art, Madness and Electronics at Maker Faire 2010<< previous image | next image >>
SAN MATEO, California — You’re too old for the science fair, the county fair has too much manure, and Burning Man is far, far away in a hot, dusty desert. What you need, my geeky friend, is Maker Faire: A two-day reinvention of the world as it would look if 10-year-old nerds were running everything. Lego, robots, crazy bicycles, electronics, flaming things, and a giant rocket: These are just some of the attractions of the annual event held here last weekend on the outskirts of Silicon Valley. Take a look at some highlights as seen through the lens of Wired photographer Jim Merithew. And if you want to check out the Maker Faire yourself, it’s not too late: Regional Maker Faires will be held in Detroit July 31 and Aug. 1 of this year and in New York Sept. 25 and 26. Above: CyclesPedal-powered transportation was a big theme at this year’s Maker Faire, with many fanciful vehicles propelled by bicycle cranks and chains. Some were chopped or otherwise modified bicycles, while others — like this lofty four-wheeled contraption — were more elaborate conveyances. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Having Sex: It's All in Your HeadThe next time lil' Johnny asks about the birds and the bees, give a lesson in biochemistry: "It starts in the ventral tegmentum and ends in the nucleus accumbens ..."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 6:00 pm Photo Gallery: Art, Madness and Electronics at Maker Faire 2010Maker Faire in San Mateo, California, is a two-day reinvention of the world as it would look if 10-year-old nerds ran everything.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 6:00 pm 7 Key Turning Points That Made Apple No. 1<< previous image | next image >>
Apple has been through some extreme ups and downs, but today the corporation climbed to an all-time high. Apple surpassed longtime rival Microsoft in market capitalization, making the Cupertino, California, company the most valuable technology company in the world, for the moment, at least. The milestone is even more remarkable given Apple’s single-digit share of the computer market. Microsoft, by contrast, runs on about 90 percent of the world’s PCs. Steve Jobs should feel vindicated. After being fired from his own company in the 1980s, the company gradually became less and less relevant, its market share dwindling and its innovative edge dulled. Now, over a decade after his return as Apple CEO, Jobs — once viewed as an opportunistic entrepreneur who would never have the chops to run a really big company — is the king of the tech industry. From the first iMac to the revolutionary iPad, what follows is a list of key turning points that took Apple from an also-ran into a champion. Above: Jobs Returns, 1996A nearly bankrupt Apple Computer welcomed back its ousted founder Jobs in 1996. Apple purchased Jobs’ startup, NeXT, to help build a new, Unix-based operating system — but the real prize was Jobs himself. A year later, Jobs replaced Gil Amelio as CEO to retake the helm. With the help of some financial backing from rival Bill Gates, the return of Jobs marked the beginning of Apple’s gradual recovery. Photo: Gil Amelio, left, and Steve Jobs appear together at the MacWorld exposition in San Francisco on January 7, 1997 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 5:54 pm 7 Key Turning Points That Made Apple No. 1Revisit the key historic moments that contribute to Apple attaining the mantle of the most valuable tech company in the world.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 5:54 pm Apple Surpasses Microsoft In Market Capitalizationje ne sais quoi writes "Today Apple surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization, a metric of the perceived worth of a company. At around 2:30 pm EST, the total number of Apple shares were worth $227 billion, whereas Microsoft's were worth $226 billion. Both companies' stock ended the day in the red, and have dropped in value since the Greek crisis began, but Apple's share price has been falling less quickly. Of American companies, only Exxon-Mobil has a higher market cap at this point at $278 billion. According to the article: 'This changing of the guard caps one of the most stunning turnarounds in business history, as Apple had been given up for dead only a decade earlier. But the rapidly rising value attached to Apple by investors also heralds a cultural shift: Consumer tastes have overtaken the needs of business as the leading force shaping technology.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 5:34 pm Mercedes Uses iPads to Speed Deals, End Cubicle Culture [Voices]By Jeff Bennett, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal There is always that moment in the car dealership when the customer, seated in the potential new purchase, is pulled from the vehicle and led to a cubicle only to sit and watch as information is slowly entered on a desktop computer. A new approach, being tested by Daimler AG’s (DAI) Mercedes-Benz dealerships starting this week, aims to keep shoppers near the car rather than in a cubicle by letting dealers access information from Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iPad. Mercedes-Benz Financial, which provides loans and leases, will equip 40 dealerships with an iPad loaded with its MB Advantage application. Dealers can use the application to see the latest discounts and begin the credit application process. “We wanted to bring the mobile revolution into the dealership,” Andreas Hinrichs, vice president of marketing, said in an interview. “The iPad is consumer centric but there is a business side to it as well.” Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 5:30 pm Facebook's New Privacy Settings an Improvement Over the Old–Which Isn’t Saying Much [Digital Daily]
There was this from the Progress & Freedom Foundation: “By giving users powerful new tools to further protect their privacy, Facebook has employed a potent weapon to deal with marketplace apprehensions: self-regulation.” This from Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York: “Facebook has heard the call of its users and realizes that much greater privacy protections are needed. This is a significant first step that Facebook deserves credit for.” This from the ACLU: “After months of privacy-failing moves, Facebook is finally friending privacy again….While it’s true that users have more control than they did yesterday, there are still important steps that must be taken.” And, finally, this from the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “The changes are pretty good, though more is needed.” Consensus, then, seems to be that the privacy settings Facebook introduced today are an improvement over the old. That said, it’s important to remember that the old were sorely lacking, that the new were introduced under duress and that they DON’T do one thing that critics have been clamoring for: Make the highest privacy settings the default. Which is really pretty weak, when you think about it, as Jeffrey Chester at the Center for Digital Democracy notes:
Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 5:20 pm Did methane hydrates cause Deepwater Horizon explosion?
Last fall, I told you about methane hydrates—solid, ice-like lumps that form when molecules of methane are encased in a tasty candy shell of water molecules, kept at low temperatures and under high pressure. These deposits are common in the Gulf of Mexico, and they're now playing a role in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The formation of methane hydrate crystals was responsible for dooming efforts to cap the broken, bleeding well with a containment dome. And there's some speculation that methane hydrates might have caused the blast that touched off the whole disaster. Remember, the hydrates are essentially compressed gas. And while they can sit, stable and safe, at the bottom of the ocean, changes in temperature or pressure can quickly launch an explosive breakdown. While hydrates have been considered as a source of energy, themselves, they're a big concern for oil drilling in deep waters where the hydrates can form fast enough that you can watch them plug up a test tube in less than 10 minutes. The Deepwater Horizon was drilling in a region known for methane hydrate formation—less than 20 miles from a similar site where researchers are studying methane hydrates. An expert with access to BP's internal documents told Science that there are signs the Deepwater Horizon was having problem with hydrates before the deadly explosion happened.
Science: Did Pesky Hydrates Trigger the Blowout? Longer analysis explaining the evidence in-depth at The Guardian Image taken by Ian MacDonald, via Samantha Joye. Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 5:17 pm Time Warner Cable Resists Mass BitTorrent LawsuitTime Warner Cable and attorneys suing thousands of accused independent-film-copyright scofflaws are engaged in a pitched legal battle over the ISP's reluctance to identify account holders whose IP addresses were linked to infringing BitTorrent files.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 5:06 pm Watch efforts to stop the oil spill live and submit your ideasAs millions of gallons of oil pour into the Gulf of Mexico from the BP oil leak, ideas for stopping the leak and cleaning up the aftermath are needed. Today BP began their “top kill” procedure, which will attempt to send mud and cement into the well to block the flowing oil. You can watch what’s happening through a live stream of the leak on PBS NewsHour’s YouTube channel, the Google Oil Spill crisis response page or below.You can submit your ideas on the best way to stop and clean up the oil spill via Google Moderator by 2:00 p.m. PT on Thursday, May 27. Posted by Meryl Stone, Product Marketing Manager, Google.org    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 26 May 2010 | 5:01 pm Need of High Fidelity But Low on Cash? Try This Wireless SoundbarWhen you want to cut the wires and rock out, try a speakerbar like the Model 20 from Boston.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 5:00 pm Need of High Fidelity But Low on Cash? Try This Wireless SoundbarWhen you want to cut the wires and rock out, try a speakerbar like the Model 20 from Boston.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 May 2010 | 5:00 pm Massive GPS upgrade under way (Christopher Null)Christopher Null - It’s no longer a novelty for geeks: GPS has become a ubiquitous part of the business and cultural landscape, an essential tool for millions of travelers (guilty!) who find themselves in a strange land with the most ridiculous of maps and zero sense of direction. Today, GPS is part of nearly every smartphone and is increasingly bundled right into all manner of products ranging from cars to cameras.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 4:50 pm For Automated Testing, Better Alternatives To DOS Batch Files?An anonymous reader writes "I am working on a project that would allow our customers to test out sending different PCL commands to LAN printers. My initial thought was that a DOS batch file will allow users to select some simple options, send the tests to printers, and even generate a small web page which, when launched from the batch file, will provide email feedback on the tool. This all worked. To spice it up I added some ANSI color commands to the menus, though the implementation of that may prove tricky without resorting to .COM files or forcing the load of the ansi.sys via the command.com shortcut. And this implementation goes against my initial idea that I want the entire thing to be contained in a standalone batch file. My questions are: Is there a better option for this? Are DOS Batch files too 1990s to be taken seriously in 2010? The application needs to (1) be simple (2) be easy to update (3) be able to send PCL commands to LAN-attached printers and (4) allow email feedback. I don't know what other programming language would allow this and be as simple. I tend to think that I have found the best tool for the job but if you have another idea let me know. Call me crazy but I love DOS."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 4:35 pm Facebook adjusts privacy controls after complaints (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 26 May 2010 | 4:23 pm The Force is delicious with icing on topFROM GAMERTELL - Looking to buy some Star Wars cookies? Stop being lazy and make your own. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 4:19 pm Startup Battlefield Round 3: The Final Disruption
The judges:
MM: One question. What percentage of AP’s rev. is derived from Co-op?
Dives deep into Windows kernel. Starting with PCs, to eliminate things that are annoying/frustrating.
QS: Are you an application or a company? Is there a strategy where you coopt other guys and offer your platform.
UJAM      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 4:18 pm Exclusive: The Helio Ocean 3 that could have been
Yesterday was a sad day for me, albeit one that was a long time coming. Yesterday, Helio, a wireless MVNO co-operated by EarthLink and South Korea’s SK Telecom, let out its final death cry. As I predicted in March, Virgin Mobile, who had acquired the failing company just two years prior, was pulling the plug on the post-paid side of their service that Helio had become. The lights were dimmed, the blinds were closed, and accounts were terminated. Just like that, Helio was dead. As a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. On a whim one weekend, long before I became a writer here, I founded a community called Heliocity — which, as you could probably guess by now, was focused on Helio. It was a pretty tightly knit group of 10 thousand-or-so of the geekiest geeks you’ll ever meet, hacking at — and nerding out over — every Helio phone we could get our hands on. That community got me into blogging, which took me to all sorts of industry events, where I in turn met all the people who eventually lead me to my job here at TechCrunch. To celebrate this nostalgia and recognize the rather cool company that once was, I present: the Helio Ocean 3. This is the phone that was to be Helio’s savior; this is their unfinished magnum opus. Prior to today, it was a myth; no one outside of the company had seen it, and the number of people within the company who had seen it could be counted on two hands. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 4:16 pm Video: Sean Parker And David Kirkpatrick Talk Facebook Privacy, Justin Timberlake
It was a good day for the chat, considering that Facebook just unveiled its new privacy controls. They talked about privacy for quite a bit, but it wasn’t all privacy. They also talked about a number of other things — including Parker’s take on Justin Timberlake playing him in the upcoming Facebook film, The Social Network. We’ve decided to post the entire talk below (sorry, it starts out with a ComScore presentation — feel free to skip about 8 minutes in). Enjoy. Watch live streaming video from disrupt at livestream.com
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 4:15 pm Exclusive: The Helio Ocean 3 That Could Have Been
Yesterday was a sad day for me, albeit one that was a long time coming. Yesterday, Helio, a wireless MVNO co-operated by EarthLink and South Korea’s SK Telecom, let out its final death cry. As I predicted in March, Virgin Mobile, who had acquired the failing company just two years prior, was pulling the plug on the post-paid side of their service that Helio had become. The lights were dimmed, the blinds were closed, and accounts were terminated. Just like that, Helio was dead. As a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. On a whim one weekend, long before I became a writer here, I founded a community called Heliocity — which, as you could probably guess by now, was focused on Helio. It was a pretty tightly knit group of 10 thousand-or-so of the geekiest geeks you’ll ever meet, hacking at — and nerding out over — every Helio phone we could get our hands on. That community got me into blogging, which took me to all sorts of industry events, where I in turn met all the people who eventually lead me to my job here at TechCrunch. To celebrate this nostalgia and recognize the rather cool company that once was, I present: the Helio Ocean 3. This is the phone that was to be Helio’s savior; this is their unfinished magnum opus. Prior to today, it was a myth; no one outside of the company had seen it, and the number of people within the company who had seen it could be counted on two hands. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 4:13 pm Sneak Preview For Coming KDE SC 4.5omlx writes "KDE SC 4.5 is in feature freeze right now. Therefore, I decided to share some early screenshots with you. In general there are no major changes; it's all about polishing and fixing bugs. There are a lot of under-the-hood changes in libs, which as end users we cannot see. KDE SC will be released in August 2010." Note: you can also try out a beta of the release now, if you'd like.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 4:11 pm Exclusive: The Helio Ocean 3 that could have been
Yesterday was a sad day for me, albeit one that was a long time coming. Yesterday, Helio, a wireless MVNO co-operated by EarthLink and South Korea’s SK Telecom, let out its final death cry. As I predicted in March, Virgin Mobile, who had acquired the failing company just two years prior, was pulling the plug on the post-paid side of their service that Helio had become. The lights were dimmed, the blinds were closed, and accounts were terminated. Just like that, Helio was dead. As a small (yet lovely) chunk of our MobileCrunch readers may know, Helio was of some importance to me. On a whim one weekend, long before I became a writer here, I founded a community called Heliocity — which, as you could probably guess by now, was focused on Helio. It was a pretty tightly knit group of 10 thousand-or-so of the geekiest geeks you’ll ever meet, hacking at — and nerding out over — every Helio phone we could get our hands on. That community got me into blogging, which took me to all sorts of industry events, where I in turn met all the people who eventually lead me to my job here at TechCrunch. To celebrate this nostalgia and recognize the rather cool company that once was, I present: the Helio Ocean 3. This is the phone that was to be Helio’s savior; this is their unfinished magnum opus. Prior to today, it was a myth; no one outside of the company had seen it, and the number of people within the company who had seen it could be counted on two hands. The History:First, a bit of history. (If you just want the details of the device itself, hop down to the bullet points below) In May of 2007, the original Ocean was released. It was — by all standards at the time — a pretty fantastic phone. It was a phone that you wanted to show off. A phone your friends asked about. A phone you felt cool using. Ask any gadget blogger about the Ocean; chances are, they’ll wistfully stare off into the sunset, a single tear rolling down their cheek.
A month later, the iPhone was released. If any one thing put a bullet through Helio’s head, it was this. Everything the Ocean had to offer, the iPhone did it better. Helio recognized this, and tried hard to combat it (going as far as launching a direct “Ocean vs iPhone” campaign, heavily tailored to show the Ocean’s strengths) — but it was no use. Almost over night, the iPhone became a fashion statement. Where as Helio had managed to convince around 200,000 people of their “coolness” in 2 years, the iPhone convinced 1 million people in 3 months. By the time the iPhone was announced and available, Helio was already knee-deep in building the Ocean’s successor, the aptly named Ocean 2… and it paled in comparison to the new contender. It was too late to turn back; Helio was bleeding cash, and just needed to make any sort of movement to convince people they were still alive. Virgin Mobile acquired Helio and, after some delay, released the Ocean 2. Flash back a few months, before the Virgin Mobile acquisition. Helio had learned its lesson: if they were going to fight this fight, they had to throw down the gloves and do it right. As the Ocean 2 was reaching the end of its development cycle (many months before its release), work on the Ocean 3 — a massive stray from anything the company had done before — began. Funds were scrounged, executive changes were made, and their last ditch effort began.
The Ocean 3:
Alas, this was an unwinnable fight. While a spectacular handset in theory, it was a distant dream. It quickly became clear that taking this handset from the prototype stage to anything resembling a worthwhile contender in the now exploding mobile space would have cost millions — and those were millions that no one involved was willing to spend. SK Telecom began looking for a buyer, and found one in Virgin Mobile. The project was canned along with most of the remaining employees, followed two years later by the entire operation. G’night, Helio – you were good to me.
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 4:03 pm Atos Origin Partners With Lighthouse Systems to Strengthen Manufacturing Operations Management ExcellenceHOUSTON and FAIRPORT, N.Y., May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Atos Origin, an international information technology services company, and Lighthouse Systems, one of the world's leading developers of factory information systems known as Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), today announced the formation of a new implementation partnership which enables Atos Origin to choose Lighthouse Systems Shopfloor - Online MES - as a scalable solution for their North American clients.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 3:52 pm Video Gamers Have Power Over Their DreamsPonca City, We love you writes "Live Science reports that researchers say playing video games before bedtime may give gamers an unusual level of awareness and control in their dreams which could provide an edge when fighting nightmares or even mental trauma. 'If you're spending hours a day in a virtual reality, if nothing else it's practice,' says Jayne Gackenbach, a psychologist at Grant MacEwan University in Canada who says that hard core gamers represent the leading edge of immersion in virtual worlds that increasingly has come to define a large part of contemporary entertainment and communication. 'Gamers are used to controlling their game environments, so that can translate into dreams.' One intriguing theory holds that dreams are a sort of threat simulation where nightmares help organisms hone their skills in a protective environment, and ideally prepare organisms for a real-life situation. To test that theory, Gackenbach conducted a study using independent assessments that coded threat levels in after-dream reports and found that gamers experienced less or even reversed threat simulation (in which the dreamer became the threatening presence), with fewer aggression dreams overall. In other words, a scary nightmare scenario turned into something 'fun' for a gamer."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 26 May 2010 | 3:50 pm Bacteria Living in 'Cloud Cities' May Control Rain and Snow PatternsPlant-eating bacteria can fly up into clouds and influence the weather. The big question is by how much.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 3:49 pm Why Fund-Raising Proved Difficult for Jack Dorsey's Start-Up [Voices]By Ty McMahan, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal When Jack Dorsey hit the fund-raising trail last year for his most recent start-up, Square Inc., he had no trouble finding venture capitalists to take him to lunch. After all, he co-founded one of the most buzzed-about Web start-ups, Twitter Inc., so investors wanted in on Dorsey’s next idea. That sounds great to most entrepreneurs, but Dorsey said that made things difficult. As he took investor meetings in both Silicon Valley and New York–25 in a two week period–he kept walking away with the same question. “Were they interested in [my] background or the business?” Dorsey said Wednesday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in New York. Perhaps differing from some of the other young companies out raising capital, Dorsey said he welcomed a negative response. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 3:46 pm CompX Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend and Results of Annual Stockholder MeetingDALLAS, May 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CompX International Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 26 May 2010 | 3:30 pm CrunchGear’s Maker Bar at TechCrunch Disrupt: Assembling MP3 Players From Scratch The time: Day 3 of TechCrunch Disrupt. The place: CrunchGear's Maker Bar. Given all the attention focused on Chinese factory conditions lately, we thought it would be interesting to have conference attendees (and sponsors and startup guys) assemble some basic MP3 players from the components an assembly line worker in China is likely to use. No soldering, though, we used ready PCBs (to the disgust of some). I managed to put one together in just under two minutes — it's harder than it looks. Sorry about the noise in the background, that would be the compressed-air-powered stabber-bot nearby. Why I picked a place like that to shoot a video is a mystery to you and me.
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 3:23 pm Bach and Allard Both Leave Microsoft — Coincidence? - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 3:18 pm Wirehog, Zuckerberg’s Side Project That Almost Killed Facebook
That’s how Sean Parker fondly looks back at Wirehog. According to him and author David Kirkpatrick it was a side-project that Mark Zuckerberg found equally as interesting as Facebook itself. According to both of them, it was also the thing that almost killed Facebook. The two made the revelation today on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York. Both were on the stage with our own Michael Arrington to talk about the state of Facebook, as well as Kirkpatrick’s new book about its history, The Facebook Effect. So what was Wirehog? It was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing service that hooked up to Facebook. When it launched in 2004, it was Zuckerberg thinking ahead of his time, Parker says. It was an app that worked on top of Facebook. This was well before f8, before the Platform. It existed until early 2006 when, according to Kirkpatrick, it died “because Sean killed it.“ Parker, of course, had a history with file sharing services — he was one of the founders of Napster. About Wirehog, Parker says it was “a great idea, if it were legal.” “I had seen that movie before. We would have killed the baby in the cradle.” You can read more about Wirehog on Wikipedia, or check out Kirkpartrick’s book when it goes on sale — he goes more into it.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 3:09 pm Everquest running on a Motorola Droid [Video]Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile, Gaming, Games, Portable Though I was never a big gamer, Everquest did end up sucking me in for quite a while. Which later spilled over to World of Warcraft. Ok, so maybe there have been times that I could classify myself as a closet gamer, but never so much as though I would have hoped to be able to play a desktop designed MMO on a mobile phone. That said its still really neat to see that someone was able to get Everquest up and running on a Motorola Droid. Watch [YouTube] Via [MobileCrunch]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 3:03 pm The Science of Horror-Flick ScreamsFilmmakers use chaotic, unpredictable sounds to evoke particular emotions, say researchers who have assessed screams and other outbursts from more than 100 movies.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 3:00 pm FCC Says 30M Americans Experience Mobile 'Bill Shock' - PC Magazine
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 2:59 pm CrunchGear’s maker bar at TechCrunch Disrupt: assembling MP3 players from scratch
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 2:46 pm New proposal would require identification to buy prepaid cellphones - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 2:44 pm The Best Of The Best #TCDisrupt Hackers Show Off Their Creations
The TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon saw over 300 hackers battling through the night, fueled by pizza and caffeine. Three projects were selected and the people that hacked those together got a free pass to the conference, and more importantly some stage time alongside the five Startup Battlefield finalists. Future Mario (from the Eyewriter guys) is an application that allows you to play Super Mario Brothers with your voice, by blinking your eyes, and by tracking actual eye movement.
Twitter Demographics mashes up tweets with geolocation and demographic data. So if you search for a specific keyword using the service, you can see the percentage of users who tweeted about the keyword within certain income ranges and even by political party. Worst Phone Ever searches for baseband crashes on your desktop, uploads them, and saves them to a database. The results are tabulated and added to the total, eventually leading to a detailed class-action lawsuit. We’ll have the video of all three presentations up soon. Tell all your friends.      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 2:44 pm CrunchGear hits the big time: Our “Getting things built” panel at #tcdisruptIf you haven’t been watching Disrupt today, you’ve missed out. The best panel ever? Ours. I talked to Liam Casey, Adam Hocherman, Chris Hawker, and Bre Pettis about open source hardware, manufacturing, and entrepreneurship in the manufacturing space. I won’t spoil anything for you, but I recommend you watch it.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 2:36 pm Congratulations to Aadith Moorthy, the 2010 National Geographic Bee ChampionTswana is a Bantu language spoken by the largest ethnic group in what landlocked country?The production of yerbe maté, a tea made from an evergreen plant, is important to the economy of Misiones. This providence is located in which country that borders Paraguay? The Øresund Bridge, opened in 2000, connects Copenhagen, Denmark with what Swedish city? The largest city in northern Haiti was renamed following Haiti’s independence from France. What is the present-day name of this city? Aadith Moorthy tackled these and other questions to win this year’s National Geographic Bee held today in Washington, D.C. While he missed his first question of the day, he didn’t let that get get in his way. His win is the culmination of many months of preparation and local competitions that began last fall at schools across the country. Aadith is a 13-year-old 8th grader from Palm Harbor, Florida and attends the Palm Land Middle School. When not studying geography, he is a South Indian classical (Carnatic) music concert singer. At the beginning of the final round, he gave the audience a taste of his talent when Alex Trebek, the host of the Bee, asked him to sing on the spot. We’re proud that Google is this year’s sponsor of the National Geographic Bee. This contest exemplifies the importance of being geographically literate and showcases just how well these students understand the world around them. This skill-set will be a vital asset as they continue their education and careers. As you can tell from the questions above, it’s not just a matter of memorizing state and country capitals! I had the great opportunity to speak at both the preliminary and championship rounds of the Bee and was impressed by the dedication of the teachers who made special efforts to train their school finalists and the depth of knowledge of the students. This is contest with important implications for their future lives and careers. We’re excited to follow all of the 54 finalists to see where in the world they land.  Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 26 May 2010 | 2:31 pm fidipidi: a Facebook app for sending real greeting cards
The first 15,000 people to sign up for fidipidi can use the code 1stCardFree to get their first card created and sent for free! For a variety of silly reasons I don’t really use Facebook, let alone any Facebook apps, so I can’t provide a real testimonial here. If Facebook is your kind of thing, this might be a good app to try.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 2:30 pm Art.sy Wins The TechCrunch Rookie Disruptor Award
Raymie Stata, Chief Architect at Yahoo, just handed an award he himself decided to dub the TechCrunch Rookie Disruptor Award to an amazing startup that didn’t make it to the finals. Taking home the award is Art.sy – the picture above shows founder Carter Cleveland. From our review (also check out the video of their presentation):
Congratulations Art.sy! Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 2:28 pm Image: Katamari's Prince, bronz'd
Nine pounds and eight inches of an amazing, everlasting version of Katamari Damacy's Prince carrying the weight of his world, created as Mark 'everfalling' Ellis's Academy of Art University Sculpture 1 class project. See more pictures of the process here.
Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 2:23 pm Travel, before it was awful The biggest airlines are imposing "peak travel surcharges" this summer. In other words, they're going to raise fees without admitting they're raising fees: Hey, it's not a $30 price hike. It's a surcharge! This comes on the heels of checked-baggage fees, blanket fees, extra fees for window and aisle seats, and "snack packs" priced at exorbitant markups. Hotels in Las Vegas and elsewhere, meanwhile, are imposing "resort fees" for the use of facilities (in other words, raising room rates without admitting they're raising room rates). The chiseling dishonesty of these tactics rankles, and every one feels like another nail in the coffin of travel as something liberating and pleasurable. And in that light, Taschen's new clip book 20th-Century Travel: 100 Years of Globe-Trotting Ads just feels sad. Who really wants to be reminded that, as Flavorwire puts it, there was a time in recent memory "when Amtrak and even Greyhound were classy, airplanes had lounges, and Conrad Hilton wanted to build a hotel on the moon"? Who wants to dive into the lavish design and vivid four-color art of a time when travel was an adventure, something average people looked forward to all year long, something memories were made of? Not me. I'll just be here in my middle seat, thanks, clutching my $12 pillow and crying. (Illustration via TravelHistory.org)Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 2:14 pm Video of pretty jellyfishQUEST on KQED Public Media has a nice video about jellyfish (and jelly kin) research. Visit the site for a high-res video. They are otherworldly creatures that glow in the dark, without brains or bones, some more than 100 feet long. And they live just off California's coast. Join two top marine biologists who have devoted their careers to unlocking the mysteries of jellyfish and alien-like siphonophores.Amazing Jellies Source: Boing Boing | 26 May 2010 | 2:12 pm Effectology recreates the Dr. Who themeIf you’ve ever watched old-timey Dr. Who, you probably wondered how they made the music for that series. It’s simple, really:
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 2:07 pm Apple Passes Microsoft as World's Largest Tech CompanyWith a market cap of more than $240 billion, Apple becomes the largest technology company in the world. Not bad for a company that most people thought was all but defunct 10 years ago.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 2:05 pm Sean Parker: Credits Poised To Make Up 1/3 Of Facebook’s Income In The Next 12 Months
The question asked what Facebook’s next big source of revenue would be? Parker, who was the founding President of Facebook, still works closely with the company as he’s a major shareholder. He noted that Facebook PR might not like his answer too much, but he decided to give it anyway: the Credit system. Parker believes that the Facebook Credit system (that is, its payment platform), or any other things Facebook uses as a “tax and toll” on the Platform, will become a third of Facebook’s income in the next 12 months. In other words, he thinks it’s going to explode. And it very well could. One of the main reasons it is believed that there were tensions between Zynga and Facebook is because Facebook was starting to push its Credits system, which gives Facebook a 30% cut of the in-game money Zynga earns. The two sides recently reached an agreement which is believed to keep Facebook’s cut the same, but gives Zynga a significant discount on advertising on Facebook. If virtual currency and goods are nearly a $100 million (revenue) a year business (last year) for Zynga, that’s a lot of money for Facebook. And that’s only going to grow — and likely fast if Parker is right.      
Source: TechCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 2:04 pm Bullet-Point Preview: Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movieFROM GAMERTELL - Want a sneak peek at the upcoming prince of Persia movie without any (real) spoilers)? Want it in a nifty, easy-to-read bullet-point list? Then Gamertell shall abide… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 1:58 pm Watch the Entire Electric-Motorcycle Grand Prix Right HereFrom the drop of the flag to the podium press conference, we've got it all. There's a highlights reel for those with ADD.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 1:58 pm Zynga Plus Yahoo Equals Life After Facebook - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 1:54 pm And…Boom: Apple Worth More Than Microsoft [Digital Daily]
As I write this Apple (AAPL) shares are trading at $244.87, giving it a market capitalization of $223.1 billion. Meanwhile, shares of Microsoft (MSFT) are trading at $24.79 and the company’s market cap sits at $217.78 billion (see table below; click to enlarge).
And so Cupertino has finally surpassed Redmond in total value. The only American company with a market cap greater than Apple is Exxon Mobil (XOM). A remarkable and somewhat ironic milestone considering it was Microsoft that breathed new life into a struggling Apple back in 1997 with a $150 million investment in the company. What was it Bill Gates said at the time? “We think Apple makes a huge contribution in the computer industry. And we think it’s going to be a lot of fun helping out.” Good times. UPDATE: Apple closed the day well ahead of Microsoft. Its market cap: $222.07 billion; Microsoft’s: $219.18 billion. PREVIOUSLY: Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 1:45 pm Kylo TV browser Connects to Hulu, Offers $50 Mouse Accessory
Web browser Kylo, which claims to improve the experience of watching online video from a PC on the TV, is getting an upgrade with new features that should make couch potatoes and web video enthusiasts happy. Kylo users can now launch the browser from a plug-in created for Windows Media Center and connect to Hulu through the browser — though how long that feature will stay alive is anyone’s guess. Kylo’s creator Hillcrest Labs has also halved to $50 the price of its bangle-shaped Wiimote-like Loop pointer mouse that can be used to wirelessly click browser icons on the screen. Hillcrest introduced the Kylo in March as a free Mozilla-based browser specifically designed to be viewed from a distance in the living room. Kylo works with both PCs and Macs but is not meant to replace Internet Explorer, Safari or Firefox on PCs, says HillCrest. And unlike other media players or Web sites, Kylo is not a walled garden, but a browser that can take users anywhere they want to go on the internet. Google’s recently announced set-top and streaming web media software Google TV has revived interest in ways users can access web content including video and TV shows on the large screen in their living room. Companies such as Boxee, Roku, Netgear and Apple offer media players that aggregate web videos, photos and meld it with TV shows from broadcasters and serve it up through an easy-to-use interface. But a big challenge for all these companies has been cracking Hulu. Boxee and other companies have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with Hulu to offer the service through their streaming media players. Boxee, for instance, has been regularly blocked by Hulu though it is available currently through the software. Hillcrest Labs says it is talking to Hulu to ensure Kylo watchers can have uninterrupted access. “We know that one feature that is likely to attract attention is the capability for advanced users to configure the Kylo browser to access Hulu,” says Dan Simpkins co-founder of Hillcrest Labs in a statement. “Our hope is that a respectful dialog with Hulu will encourage them to consider changing their policies.” But even if Hulu blocks Kylo, the browser is counting on a few new features to keep its users hooked. Kylo will have an auto-hide control bar which is useful for video sites that do not offer full screen mode. It lets watchers maximize viewing space. Kylo now also has a print from TV browser options for computers linked via ethernet or Wi-Fi to a networked printer. See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 1:44 pm Y’all spent 4.8 million hours playing Google Pac-Man
Good job, everyone. Research firm Rescuetime says y’all spent (wasted?) 4.8 million hours playing Pac-Man on the Google homepage since its launch last week. If we convert those lost man-hours to dollars and cents, then you can say the U.S. economy has lost slightly more than $120 million because of Pac-Man. Thanks to the game, the average visitor to the Google homepage spent 36 extra seconds on the site than usual. That sounds about right: I did a quick game and spent no more than one minute chasing ghosts. CNET mentions that many people had trouble turning off the game, so that may account for some of the time accounted for in the survey. That prompts me to ask how many people actually type www.google.com into their address bar, or even click a bookmark icon on their bookmark bar? Like, I though the normal thing now was to simply search from your browser’s built-in search bar? In any event, the game will forever be available on google.com/pacman.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 1:30 pm Food Worries Linked to Weight Gain, Problem PregnancyWomen who worry about getting enough food are almost three times as likely to develop pregnancy-induced diabetes, researchers say.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 1:28 pm If You're Going to Plagiarize Your Commencement Speech, Don't Lift It From YouTube [MediaMemo]Axiom that everyone ought to know by now: The Web makes it really easy to steal other people’s work. But the Web also makes it easy to get caught. This week’s example involves Patton Oswalt, who is a really great comedian, and Brian Corman, a valedictorian at Columbia University. It’s hard to understand how Corman thought he could get away with lifting one of Oswalt’s routines for a speech he delivered at his May 17 graduation. But YouTube makes it very clear that this is precisely what happened. Corman: Oswalt (in two parts): I’m not sure who sussed this one out, but it may have been True/Slant columnist Michael Roston. In any case, the story ends sort of nicely. Both Columbia and Corman apologized to Oswalt yesterday, and if you watch the official version of the speech on Google’s video site (GOOG), you’ll note that an apology/disclaimer pops up when Corman begins to speak. Sort of cool, actually. Speaking of cool, here’s one of my favorite Oswalt bits. Also not suitable for commencement speeches (or for work, if swearing isn’t cool in your office): Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 1:11 pm Apple, Dell and HP to Investigate Suicides at Asian Supplier
Apple, Dell and HP are investigating their overseas partner Foxconn, a Chinese component maker that has seen several employee suicides in the past year. Labor activists have accused Foxconn of instituting sweatshop-like work conditions for its employees, compelling nine workers to kill themselves to escape their harsh routines. Apple, Dell and HP have announced that they are in contact with Foxconn to examine the work conditions. “We’re in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously,” said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman, in a statement to Bloomberg. “A team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.” Foxconn’s harsh work conditions have been especially high-profile because it is known for producing components for the phenomenally popular iPhone, among products for companies other than Apple. However, labor issues have been prevalent across Asian suppliers for years. Many Asian-supply workers and labor-rights activists have cited sweatshop-like conditions such as hourly wages below a dollar, violations of work hours and firings without notice. The most sensational story about Foxconn to date involved an employee committing suicide over the loss of a prototype fourth-generation iPhone after allegedly being bullied by the company’s security officers. The New York Times launched an independent investigation, in which a reporter’s translator faced physical threats from a Foxconn security officer while questioning the victim’s family. The ninth Foxconn death occurred Tuesday with a 19-year-old’s apparent suicide — just one week after the company’s eighth employee suicide. To offer a first-hand account of Foxconn, reporter Liu Zhiyi of the Chinese paper Southern Weekend went undercover as an employee at the factory. She reported that workers were stuck in grueling, repetitive jobs and working long hours for minimal pay. In response to the scrutiny surrounding Foxconn, billionaire Terry Gou, founder of Hon Hai (aka Foxconn Technology Group), this week opened a tour of the factory to journalists. “We expect our suppliers to employ the same high standards we do in our own facilities,” a Dell spokesman said in a statement. “We enforce these standards through a variety of tools, including the Electronics Industry code of conduct, business reviews with suppliers, self-assessments and audits.” HP has also said it is investigating “the Foxconn practices that may be associated with these tragic events.” Photo: Bert van Dilk/Flickr See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 1:05 pm Lacoste Supports Icon That Made It FamousMichael Lacoste, the heir of the French clothing giant known for its iconic crocodile logo, traveled to Colombia recently to meet with an endangered baby Orinoco crocodile that was raised in captivity.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 1:05 pm A Sneak Peek at Facebook's Drastically Simplified Privacy Settings [Voices]By Nitrozac and Snaggy
Source: All Things Digital | 26 May 2010 | 1:00 pm Verizon BlackBerry Bold 9650 expected to come available soonSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  According to some recently leaked internal screenshots, it looks like Verizon has begun training the employees on the ins & outs of the BlackBerry Bold 9650 (aka the Tour with Wi-Fi). Unfortunately at this point there is still nothing official coming from Verizon. But on the positive side, the Bold 9650 is going to come pre-packaged with a 2GB microSD card. In all seriousness though, the Bold 9650 looks to be a nice handset and should make a welcomed addition to the Verizon lineup. In the meantime, sit tight and wait for some official release details as they are now expected to come sooner than later. Read [The BlackBerry Zone]  Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 12:49 pm Amateur Astronomers Track Military's Secret Mini-ShuttleAmateur astronomers have glimpsed beneath a cloak of secrecy shrouding the military's miniature robotic space shuttle, which was launched last month on a trial run.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 12:36 pm NASA Satellites Keep Watch On Gulf Current Near SpillImage Caption: NASA satellite altimetry data are being used in combination with data from other satellites to track changes in a huge warm ocean current in the Gulf of Mexico that could transport oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig far away from the Gulf. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of ColoradoSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 12:30 pm The World's First CarnivoresA newly described 500-million-year-old carnivore has researchers wondering: what was the world's first meat eater?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 12:30 pm Google Chrome OS Not Ready for Primetime Yet - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 26 May 2010 | 12:27 pm 500 Million-year-old Squid-like Carnivore Mystery SolvedA study by researchers at the University of Toronto and the Royal Ontario Museum sheds new light on a previously unclassifiable 500 million-year-old squid-like carnivore known as Nectocaris pteryx.“We think that this extremely rare creature is an early ancestor of squids, octopuses, and other cephalopods”, says Martin Smith of U of T’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and the Department of Natural History at the ROM. “This is significant because it means that primitive cephalopods were around much earlier than we thought, and offers a reinterpretation of the long-held origins of this important group of marine animals.”The new interpretation became possible with the discovery of 91 new fossils that were collected by the ROM from the famous Burgess Shale site (Yoho National Park) in the UNESCO World Heritage Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, British Columbia over the past three decades, and examined by PhD student Martin Smith along with U of T EEB and Geology assistant professor and ROM palaeontologist Jean-Bernard Caron.“Previously, all knowledge of Nectocaris came from a lone specimen described in 1976. Due to the ambiguous characteristics evident on that specimen, Nectocaris has remained unclassified until now,” says Smith, lead author of the study published this week in Nature.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 12:26 pm AT&T allegedly tells employees of iPhone 4 coming in June
Two of the three iPhones released thus far have been launched in June. WWDC, where Apple generally announces iPhones 2-3 weeks before they’re shipping, starts on June 7th. If you had to guess, when would you wager that the new iPhone was coming? If you said “June”, awesome — you’re probably right, and click on after the jump to find out more. If you said “October”… well, I’m not quite sure what to say to that.
According to BGR, AT&T HQ has internally confirmed to certain employees that there will be an iPhone launch next month, with the device hitting the shelves before the month is out. According to their tipster, “it won’t even be late June.” Sure, it’s vague. Sure, you probably could have guessed as much, or thrown a dart in the dark and nailed it. But this is the good word of a random, unidentifiable AT&T employee who could very well be talking out of their arse, dammit — and we respect that word in this house.
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 12:23 pm Sony: 3D will really shine once the games start hitting it off
“Not a fan of 3D movies? Wait till you play 3D games, that’s when the technology will really shine.” Not an exact quote, but that’s the spirit of what Sony Computer Entertainment Europe President Andrew House said in a recent interview. The idea is that, OK, 3D movies may be just sorta there, but it’s sitting there and playing something like WipeOut HD in 3D where you’ll really gain an appreciation for the medium. Having played several games in 3D at various events over the past few months, allow me to say this: meh. At no point did I play a game in 3D where I reacted like Homer’s mother seeing Joe Namath’s sideburns. That is, at no point did I go, “HOLY SMOKES THIS IS LIFE-CHANGING.” Neat? Sure, it’s neat, but if I never play another 3D game it won’t be so big a deal. Then again, we’re still pretty early in the transition 3D. Perhaps in a few years developers will have figured out how to make the most of the technology. First-gen graphics are always a little wonky. Specific to the PS3, well, we still have to wait for 3D TVs to be affordable enough to start showing up in your local Wal-Mart. We’re a little while away from that yet. I keep seeing the stat that HDTVs are still only in something like 50 percent of homes in the U.S. Considering that unemployment is still quite high, I don’t know if now is the time to depend on people to shell out $2,000 for a TV when they just bought a TV a few years ago… via Bit-Tech
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 12:15 pm Scientists Identify Virulent New Strains Of Ug99 Stem RustGathered in St. Petersburg, world's top wheat experts report progress toward replacing 5 percent of vulnerable fields in nations at risk; effort called vital for preventing hungerFour new mutations of Ug99, a strain of a deadly wheat pathogen known as stem rust, have overcome existing sources of genetic resistance developed to safeguard the world's wheat crop. Leading wheat experts from Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, who are in St. Petersburg, Russia for a global wheat event organized by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, said the evolving pathogen may pose an even greater threat to global wheat production than the original Ug99.The new "races" have acquired the ability to defeat two of the most important stem rust-resistant genes, which are widely used in most of the world's wheat breeding programs."With the new mutations we are seeing, countries cannot afford to wait until rust 'bites' them," said Dr. Ravi Singh, distinguished senior scientist in plant genetics and pathology with the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT). "The variant of Ug99 identified in Kenya, for example, went from first detection in trace amounts in one year to epidemic proportions the next year.""Already, most of the varieties planted in the wheat fields of the world are vulnerable to the original form of Ug99. We will now have to make sure that every new wheat variety we release has iron-clad resistance to both Ug99 and the new races," said Singh.The reddish-brown, wind-borne fungus known as Ug99 has decimated up to 80 percent of Kenyan farmers' wheat during several cropping seasons, and scientists estimate that 90 percent of the wheat varieties around the world lack sufficient resistance to the original Ug99. Starting five years ago, in response to evidence of Ug99's virulence, researchers expanded breeding programs and collaborated with each other in a kind of "shuttle breeding diplomacy" to identify wheat varieties that could resist the new strain. But the new mutations—identified last year in South Africa—will make wheat crops more vulnerable as pathogens now will find new wind trajectories for migration.First discovered in Uganda in 1999, the original Ug99 has also been found in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Yemen and Iran; a Global Cereal Rust Monitoring System, housed at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), suggests it is on the march toward South Asia and beyond. Its trajectory and evolution are of particular concern to the major wheat-growing areas of Southern and Eastern Africa, the Central Asian Republics, the Caucasus, the Indian subcontinent, South America, Australia and North America."We do not have as much information as we would like on the aggressiveness of the pathogen," said David Hodson, Head of the GIS Unit at FAO. "The original race, Ug99, does not seem to have increased as much as originally feared, given its highly virulent nature. But the new variants pose a grave challenge that we are addressing in collaborations around the world."The wheat rust pathogen enters the stems of a wheat plant and destroys the vascular tissue. There are three rusts that pose threats to wheat, but stem rust, of which Ug99 is a variant, is the most feared. It causes plants to fall over and can lead to the loss of an entire harvest. The introduction of one variant in just one part of the world can cause enormous losses, according to the scientists.Hodson noted that wheat scientists and farmers alike are now mobilizing to identify and fight the virulent new forms of Ug99. Scientists at the meeting in St. Petersburg, hosted by the N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, said they are staying a few steps ahead of the rapidly evolving pathogen. They note that collaborative research and breeding programs are producing promising new lines that exhibit excellent defenses against Ug99 and its "daughter" stem rust strains."We are ready," said Dr. Mahmoud Solh, Director General of the Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). "Wheat rust researchers around the world have united in an unprecedented collaboration to monitor the spread of wheat rust, find new sources of rust resistance from wild relatives of wheat, and deploy varieties with durable resistance." But the burning question, according to Dr. Solh and his colleagues, is whether policymakers will provide the sustained support needed to remain prepared for future challenges."Wheat is the primary source of calories for millions of people worldwide, and accounts for around 30 percent of global grain production and 44 percent of cereals used as food," said Dr. Solh. "Globally, wheat provides nearly 55 percent of the carbohydrates and 20 percent of the food calories we consume every day."The last major stem rust epidemic swept across North America's wheat fields in the early 1950s, when the disease destroyed as much as 40 percent of the continent's spring wheat crop. The crisis gave birth to a new form of international cooperation among wheat scientists worldwide. Spearheaded by Nobel Laureate wheat scientist Norman Borlaug, the initiative developed wheat varieties that resisted stem rust for more than four decades."The problem is that once they get to an epidemic level, they are very hard to stop," Singh said. "In a raging epidemic, even chemicals are of limited use."Ironically, the very success of their work eventually led to complacency; in the 1990s, for instance, just before the discovery of Ug99, the United States had only one scientist with expertise in stem rust. Before his death last year, Borlaug drew the world's attention to the threat the emerging pathogen poses to world food security, and warned of its newfound ability to overcome the resistance that had kept stem rust at bay for more than 40 years.And now virulent mutations of Ug99 have appeared in South Africa, according to new research presented in St. Petersburg."My greenhouse work showed that from a collection of 129 South African commercial cultivars and advanced breeding lines tested, 47 percent are susceptible in the seedling stage to one or both of the new stem rust races," said study author Zak Pretorius, Professor of Plant Pathology at the University of the Free State, South Africa.Pretorius said that while most of the plants will have adult immunity, as they have additional genes to protect them, "it does point to the vulnerability of our best materials to the Ug99 race group in terms of commonly used resistance genes.""Ug99 has exposed how vulnerable the global wheat crop is," said Robert Park, wheat pathologist at the Plant Breeding Institute of the University of Sydney. "We found that there's very little in terms of good resistance in farmers' fields. But we cannot expect the problem to be solved in five years. Ug99 research, monitoring and breeding is an ongoing effort—an arms race that must be supported by sustained funding."Stem rust race Ug99 and its derivatives are serious threats to global wheat production in Asia and Africa. If not checked through effective research, seed production, and distribution of resistant varieties, Ug99 may become another cause of food shortages in many countries. The best strategy to protect wheat from the menace of race Ug99 is replacement of susceptible varieties with new high-yielding, resistant varieties.Two CGIAR centers (CIMMYT and ICARDA), in collaboration with national research centers of countries under threat, have developed high-yielding Ug99-resistant varieties that are now being multiplied and distributed with the financial assistance of USAID in the most threatened areas.Iran is the furthest along in producing seed, and Egypt in introducing it, but most of the countries considered at risk "will be producing at least 5 percent quality seed of their national potential seed market for wheat in the crop cycle 2010-11," according to CIMMYT scientist Arun Kumar Joshi, who presented his findings on the outcomes of first efforts to introduce new varieties throughout North Africa, the Middle East and Afghanistan. The objective is to have sufficient seed of resistant lines to plant at least 5 percent of the entire wheat area by 2012."If achieved, this will be a major step towards food security," said Joshi. He and his colleagues note in their paper the urgency of the project to replace wheat throughout the vulnerable region. "Given favorable conditions [Ug99] threatens to spread into other wheat-producing regions of Africa and Asia, and potentially, the entire world. The threat is particularly acute in South Asia, which produces 20 percent of world wheat for a population of 1.4 billion people."Wealthy farmers have chemical tools for dealing with wheat rust, but according to Joshi, chemical control is costly and unaffordable for most resource-poor farmers, whereas the direct costs of growing resistant varieties in the developing world are close to zero."Cultivation of resistant wheat varieties has reduced chemical use across about two-thirds of the 215 million hectares sown with wheat worldwide," said Joshi. "In contrast, the cost of fungicide use for controlling rust diseases in Australia in 2008 is estimated at USD8/ha, plus the cost of applying the chemicals."The scientists gathering in St. Petersburg note that the unprecedented effort to combat Ug99 has important benefits for global wheat production overall. The researchers reported widespread outbreaks of a new strain of stripe, or yellow rust, in Central, West Asia, North Africa (CWANA) and the Caucasus (CAC) region, "which is expected to cause billions of dollars in crop losses, and disrupt regional government's food security plans through loss of yield," said Solh. He said that ICARDA scientists were working with regional partners to deploy new resistance genes for stripe rust. He also noted that there are existing resistant varieties which could be more widely adopted."The focus of the global Ug99 research team is far broader than Ug99 alone," said Ronnie Coffman, Director of the Durable Rust Resistance in Wheat Project at Cornell University. "The primary goal is to secure the world's wheat crop and make poor wheat farmers less vulnerable to crop diseases and other emerging constraints, such as drought and the other effects of climate change."Every region of the world is represented at the meeting in St. Petersburg, which was organized by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, a group led by, among others, CIMMYT, the Syria-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Cornell University, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Both CIMMYT and ICARDA are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). (For a complete list of the executive committee of the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, please see: http://globalrust.org/traction/permalink/about24.)---Image 1: Four new mutations of Ug99, a strain of a deadly wheat pathogen known as stem rust, have overcome existing sources of genetic resistance developed to safeguard the world’s wheat crop. Leading wheat experts from Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas, who are in St. Petersburg, Russia for a global wheat event organized by the Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, said the evolving pathogen may pose an even greater threat to global wheat production than the original Ug99. Credit: Photo courtesy of Petr Kosina, the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT)Image 2: Wheat in farmers' fields are destroyed by stem rust. Credit: BGRISource: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 12:13 pm Yeast Make Plant Hormone That Speeds InfectionIn a paper in the journal Genetics, a research team at Worcester Polytechnic Institute reports that yeast produce a hormone previously known to be made by plants, and that the hormone can trigger fungal cells to become more infectiousIn their ongoing studies of how yeast (fungi) can infect a host and cause disease, a research team at the Life Sciences and Bioengineering Center at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has made an unexpected discovery. They found that yeast produce a hormone previously known to be made by plants, and that the presence of that hormone in sufficient quantity within the yeast's immediate environment triggers the fungal cells to become more infectious.The WPI research team led by Reeta Prusty Rao, PhD, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology, working in collaboration with Jennifer Normanly, PhD, associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, reported their findings in the paper "Aberrant synthesis of indole-3-acetic acid in Saccharomyces cerevisiae triggers morphogenic transition, a virulence trait of dimorphic pathogenic fungi" published in the May 2010 issue of the journal Genetics. The paper was featured in the "highlights" section of the journal, where the editors called it a "surprising finding.""This is a well-known plant hormone. In fact, it was first described in plants by Charles Darwin in 1880," Prusty Rao said. "So we were surprised to see it made in yeast, and to see its impact on virulence traits of fungi that cause disease in people."Commonly called baker's yeast or brewer's yeast, the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae (S. cerevisiae) does not cause human disease. It is, however, a model system for studying other fungi like Candida albicans (C. albicans) that do cause diseases like thrush and vaginal yeast infections, which affect millions of people each year and are not easily cleared by the handful of anti-fungal drugs currently available. While most fungal infections do not cause serious harm, if one spreads to the bloodstream it can be deadly. Hospitalized patients with catheters or central intravenous lines are at risk, as the fungi can grow on those devices and enter the body. Because of the lack of an effective treatment, the mortality rate for some systemic fungal infections is nearly 45 percent. Prusty Rao's lab explores the basic biology of yeast to better understand the processes of fungal infections and to identify potential targets for new drug development.Before fungi begin to infect a host, they first undergo a dramatic physical change and grow filaments that look like twigs on a leafless tree. The hormone indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) regulates how plants grow, causing them to extend shoots towards sunlight. Previous work by Prusty Rao and others has shown that yeast take-up IAA from the environment to stimulate the growth of filaments. In the current study, Prusty Rao's team found that yeast also produce IAA themselves and secrete it into the environment around them. In this manner, the ongoing secretion and uptake of IAA presumably becomes a feedback loop giving the yeast information about the number of yeast nearby. If there are many yeast secreting IAA, then there is more in the environment to take up.Furthermore, Prusty Rao's team found that when the concentration of IAA reached a certain threshold, the fungus began to change shape and grow filaments (see figure), providing "strong support" for a connection between the yeasts' production of IAA and fungal infection."If there is just one yeast cell sitting under your toe nail, then it won't be a problem—but if there are a thousand yeast cells there, then they can begin to filament and cause infection," Prusty Rao noted. "We believe the data show that IAA plays a role in the yeast's ability to know when there are sufficient numbers of them in close enough proximity to try and infect a host, be it a plant or a person."---Image Caption: Reeta Prusty Rao, assistant professor of biology and biotechnology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, examines plates on which samples of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae are growing. Credit: Patrick O'ConnorSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 12:04 pm Magic Exercise Pill Ahead?The more we exercise, the better able we are to burn fat, a finding that could ultimately lead to a pill that could mimic the effects of exercise.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 12:00 pm Are Electronic Medical Records Safe?By 2014, every American will have an electronic medical record associated with their healthcare, but who's making sure that information will be secure?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 26 May 2010 | 11:56 am Google Nexus One Starts Popping Up in Retail Stores
After Google shut down web sales of the Nexus One earlier this month, the company is moving swiftly to seed retail stores with the HTC-designed smartphone. I wireless, a T-mobile affiliate will sell the Nexus One at its 250 stores mostly in the Midwest. But in stores, the Nexus One will be pretty pricey. The device is expected to be available for $300, after a $50 mail-in rebate, and with a T-Mobile contract. That is higher than the $180 Google had priced the Nexus One at in its web store. It’s the price that Google and customers must pay for the privilege of getting their hands on Nexus One before committing to buy the device. Google introduced the HTC-designed Nexus One in January as a phone that would initially be available on T-Mobile’s network. But instead of being sold through T-Mobile stores, the search giant said it would sell Nexus Ones through its web site and handle customer support itself. Though innovative and clever, the strategy didn’t resonate with consumers. Nexus One’s online store failed to catch on. Potential customers found they just couldn’t find a Nexus One in the real-world to play with, unless they knew a friend who already had the device. “While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not,” wrote Andy Rubin, vice-president of engineering and Android czar at Google in a blog post. “It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters.” The idea also gave rise to customer service complaints early on in the device’s life. Customers complained about the poor tech support from Google–the company didn’t offer a telephone help line for weeks, instead asking people to send in e-mails. Now Google seems to be taking the first steps towards getting Nexus Ones to stores. The high price tag on the device at retail, though, dampens our enthusiasm. But if Google can strike deals with Best Buy or other big electronics retail chains, it could offer the Nexus One in store for the same price as it was on the web. See Also:
Photo: (Johncatral/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 11:40 am DeHood Launches a Foursquare meets Twitter meets Yelp meets Ning for iPhone
DeHood, sponsors here at TechCrunch Disrupt, wants to crush that problem. Founded by Babak Hedayati, DeHood is a social network for neighborhoods. They are kind of like a one-stop local social network on iPhone (app available here). The goal is to be a one-stop shop for all the local social networking you need to do.
DeHood launches today with a plethora of features and functionality. Users can share what their doing in the local area via a feature called “local buzz.” It’s essentially a location-based Twitter feed of what’s going on in your local area. You can also stay in touch with your friends and other people in the neighborhood and “check in” to venues when you’re in a local area. Another feature is that you can view a map of the neighborhood and see what shops are nearby. There’s a website version, which has a lot of the same functionality, but the app primarily lives on mobile. The company is funded by the founder, Babak Hedayati, a serial entrepreneur, and he’s hired a large team of seasoned startup veterans to help him with DeHood. The key challenge for DeHood will obviously be gaining traction in a crowded space. It has been beta tested with a limited number of users and is only launching today, so time will tell whether Babak and team can figure out the secret sauce of user adoption.
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 11:37 am Wines turn to web to sell cheapSection: Web, Web 2.0 / Social Networking, Websites
Two sites - one goal: deals on good wine. Big deals, quite often over half off the best price on the web. Both sites offer links to ratings and reviews while offering it’s own take on the wines at hand and both use social networking like Twitter and Facebook to keep their messages flowing. The first site is Cinderella Wine, the daily deal arm of the uber-popular Wine Library. The site offers free shipping on 4 bottles of wine, which is a killer deal in itself. The reviews are posted in a very transparent way and because of the relationship with Wine Library, the deals go pretty fast. Commenting is encourage and gets pretty interesting as it draws on opinions from such a wide base. Bottom line: great site, good deals. The second site I’ll draw your attention to is CellarThief. This site offers something similar for wine buyers: they offer 3 bottles at a killer deal for a very limited time. Shipping is just $5 for a 3 bottle order which is reasonable. Prices on these bottles tend to be a bit more than just $10 off, they are frequently more than half off. In addition to providing the wines score and quote from the review (if available) they offer their own take on the wine, which is nice. What’s more, they have an Earth-friendly conscious: “So, for every bottle of wine we sell we donate water so good folks around the world can have the benefit of clean water. As we sell more, we donate more. And, if we sell out of a wine the Bounty is awarded and we donate even more!” Bottom line: great deals, good site and they turn the wine into water so everybody wins. Now there are a couple of catches. You must live in a state that allows alcohol to be shipped to you. Delivery man are required to see ID before handing over your booze. Shipping discounts typically require a multi-bottle purchase. A lot of styrofoam is used in packaging your wine so it doesn’t get to you in a soggy box. Here is the list of states currently allowing wines to be shipped to: (from CellarThief): “Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut (not all zip codes), District of Columbia, Florida (not all zip codes), Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire (not all zip codes), New Mexico, New York, North Carolina (not all zip codes), North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Washington. If your state is not on this list we urge you to help in the fight to allow the shipping of wine to your state by going to www.freethegrapes.org” Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 11:36 am Google Chrome OS Not Ready for Primetime YetDevices running Chrome OS likely won't appear next week at Computex, the trade shows for PC makers. Google's Chrome operating system is just not ready.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 May 2010 | 11:30 am Greenpeace says Nintendo is the worst company on Earth, tells Dell to clean up its act
Greenpeace’s relentless march toward reminding us that we’re killing the planet continues. The organization released its annual “Who’s Green?” list yesterday, and Nokia and Sony Ericsson get A+ marks, while Lenovo and Nintendo are, apparently, the dregs of society. Also on the wrong side of Greenpeace: Dell. The Texas-based company found itself on the wrong end of a rather impressive Greenpeace action yesterday. Oh, dear… Greenpeace’s main issue with Dell is that the company promised, some time ago, to eliminate certain toxic chemicals from its manufacturing processes. Dell hasn’t honored its promise, said Greenpeace, so out comes the giant yellow scroll on the Dell building in Round Rock, TX. It should be noted that no company is 100 percent green yet in the eyes of Greenpeace. Nokia is the closest with a score of 7.5/10. The very worst? Nintendo with a score of 1.8/10. Microsoft gets a 3.3/10 and Apple gets a 4.9/10. The entire report is available for you to read here [PDF alert!]. Better make some tea beforehand: it’s a long one.
Source: CrunchGear | 26 May 2010 | 11:15 am Swarming Locusts Have Bigger BrainsImage 1: Portrait of a Desert locust in the swarming gregarious phase, with a schematic view of the brain within the head (the brain image was obtained by computer-assisted microscopy). Image credits: Swidbert R. Ott (brain image and composition) and Tom Fayle (locust portrait), both University of Cambridge. Image 2: A solitarious male Desert locust (left) facing a gregarious male (right) of the same species. Shown above them are their brains as revealed by computer-assisted microscopy. The solitarious locust is slightly larger and has disproportionately large eyes, yet the swarming gregarious locust has the bigger brain. The brains also have very different proportions: in gregarious locusts, the central part of the brain (shown in solid yellow) is disproportionally larger than the optic lobes (shown in translucent yellow), which process the visual information provided by the eyes. Image credits: Swidbert R. Ott (brain images and composition) and Tom Fayle (locust portraits), both University of Cambridge. Image 3: A solitarious male Desert locust (left) facing a gregarious male (right) of the same species. In the swarming gregarious phase, locusts are smaller on average, and have disproportionately smaller eyes and shorter antennae. The postural differences shown by the two animals are characteristic, with solitarious locusts typically walking with a creeping gait close to the substrate, and gregarious locusts having a more upright carriage. Image credits: Tom Fayle, University of Cambridge.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 11:00 am HTC Evo 4G to get an HDMI dock
We’ll start with the bad news: according to some early stage testing done by PCMag, the HDMI output on the HTC Evo might kinda-sorta suck. While they haven’t quite pinned down the source of their woes, various TVs are all showing various issues. On the upside: it looks like the HTC Evo is getting a fancy-pants micro-HDMI docking port, making it super easy to blast content onto your TV without having stray cables everywhere.
Them crazy cats over at AndroidAndMe scrounged up the shot above. That image up top contains just about everything we know so far: HTC EVO Docking Station! Coming Soon! No pricing or availability details beyond “soon” unfortunately — but seeing as the EVO 4G isn’t.. you know, available yet, there probably aren’t too many people dying to buy this. Except for I/O attendees, of course.
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 10:54 am BlackBerry Pearl 3G with AWS makes a pit-stop with the FCCSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  Another variant of the BlackBerry Pearl 3G has recently stopped by the FCC. This time the model is touting support for the 1700mHz band which means T-Mobile here in the US. Otherwise, its a standard type of FCC listing, the handset was identified as the T-Mo P3G 148 and was shown as both the 20-key Pearl 9100 and the 14-key Pearl 9105. Still, we have no official announcement on when this may be available with T-Mobile. Not to mention the AT&T compatible version that passed the FCC a few weeks back is still unannounced. I guess the only good news coming from this is that the potential for a T-Mobile BlackBerry Pearl 3G is there. Read [FCC] Via [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 10:25 am The 2010 Doodle 4 Google winner: Makenzie Melton’s Rainforest HabitatYour millions of online votes helped us pick the winners of this year's Doodle 4 Google competition. Today, we're pleased to announce the results.Congratulations to Makenzie Melton, a third grader at El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools in El Dorado Springs, Missouri. Her winning design, entitled "Rainforest Habitat,” expressed her concern that "the rainforest is in danger and it is not fair to the plants and animals.” Makenzie’s design triumphed over more than 33,000 student submissions from all over the country. Makenzie’s colored-pencil creation beautifully embodied this year’s theme.  Makenzie received a $15,000 college scholarship, a netbook computer and a $25,000 technology grant for a new computer lab at her school. Her doodle will also be featured on the Google.com homepage tomorrow, May 27, for millions of people to enjoy all across the country. Our congratulations also go out to other three national finalists. They were selected as having the best doodle in their grade groups by the online public vote, and each student will receive a netbook computer: Grades 4-6 Raymundo Marquez, Grade 6, of Nellie Mae Glass Elementary, Eagle Pass, Texas for his doodle entitled "Save Our Rainforest." The background of Raymundo’s work depicts deforestation and the effects it can have on our land. He says, “we will eventually have less oxygen and clean air. We need to unite to protect not just our lives, but the lives of all the rare and beautiful plants and animals that live there.” Grades 7-9 Vance Viggiano, Grade 7, Heritage Home School Academy, Long Valley, New Jersey, for his doodle entitled "The Love of Art." Vance says, “If I could do anything, I would... enrich the world with an intense passion for art and the everlasting joy it provides. Art embodies the creator's expression, and offers exquisite exuberance towards both the artist and the viewers, also serving to soothe an ailing soul in distress.” Grades 10-12 Bevan Schiffli, Grade 11, Highlands School, Highlands, North Carolina, for her doodle entitled "Branch Out." Bevan says, “My doodle expresses my desire to understand other views and cultures. I want to branch out to gain a strong sense of the world; not only in one perspective, but many. My wish is to show people my experiences through a pursuit of art/design in my future career.” Our four winners were announced at an event today at the Google New York office and were celebrated at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where we also unveiled an exhibit of the 40 regional winners that will be on view until August 15, 2010. The finalists were treated to a day in New York City, including doodle classes with our doodle team and the opportunity to meet some of this year’s expert jurors who helped judge this year’s final doodles around the theme “If I Could Do Anything, I Would..." Judges at today’s event were well known artists and animators from Disney, the Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates and Peanuts gang, Barbie/Matell and the Sesame Street Workshop. A special thanks to all those who voted and helped us select this year's winner. Thank you to all those creative kids out there who submitted entries — and the teachers and principals who work so hard to get their students recognized. We hope you'll doodle with us next year! Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products and User Experience   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 26 May 2010 | 10:10 am Air Traffic Poised To Become Major Factor In Global WarmingThe first new projections of future aircraft emissions in 10 years predicts that carbon dioxide and other gases from air traffic will become a significant source of global warming as they double or triple by 2050.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 10:04 am BookLover app: an app for book lovers
I find it hard to justify the use of a dedicated application for making what is essentially a list of things: the built in note taking application on the iPhone works just fine for that purpose, for me. The addition of cover art is neat, and being able to drag-and-drop books on the virtual bookshelf to organize them is handy if you have a large list of books pending to be read. I don’t, which is why the plain old Notes app is fine. If you’re a bibliophile, give BookLover a shot.
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 10:00 am Galaxy S available in Asia come June, Froyo comes later
Well, I’m happy that you’re so sure of yourself, but I’m even happier that the Galaxy S ticks all of your boxes AND will be released sometime in June! But calm down a sec, mmmkay? There is something more I need to tell you. First of all, the June release is for Asia only at this point. Second of all, the price won’t be cheap: 1098 Singaporean dollars, to be exact (which is about 780 US dollars). Steep, considering a very similar HTC Desire runs for S$898, but reasonable, considering this is the only Android phone with a Super AMOLED screen. Also, while a date hasn’t yet been announced, Amazon.de do have the device up for pre-order for a very similar €649 (790 US dollars), so all you eager Europeans will be able to join the party soon, too. All this comes on top of the news from CNET that the device will receive that tastiest of Android desserts, Froyo, sometime in the near future. Great news all ’round, really. [via Engadget]
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 9:43 am New Species Of Plant-Eating Dinosaur DescribedImage 1: A rendering of Jeyawati rugoculus. Artwork by Lukas PanzarinImage 2: The skull bones and vertebrate discovered in 1996.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 9:35 am Lensbaby Control Freak Puts You in Charge
Lensbaby has popped out another new reality-distorting lens, this time for photographers who are a little too fussy about the technical side of things (you know who you are). Aptly named the Control Freak, the new lens has the familiar twisting front end which gives the trademark Lensbaby look – a single sharp spot placed wherever you like in the frame with surrounded by blur – but it also lets you lock it down for more, well, control. It works like this: You push and pull the front section to get your subject in focus, and then twist to move the sweet-spot. When you’re done, hit the focus lock and everything is clamped down. Now you can twist the little swizzle-sticks to fine-tune the tilt effect and rotate the fine-focusing ring to get things just-so. While the purpose of this lens is close-up and studio work (it will focus as near as nine-inches), where this level of control is useful, the fact that you can shoot freeform when the locks are off means it can double as a regular Lensbaby. It is even compatible with the Lensbaby Optic Swap system, so you can swap in the fisheye or soft-focus optics. The Control Freak has a 50mm ƒ2 double-element lens, and comes with mounts for pretty much any modern camera system, including Micro Four Thirds. It will cost you $350, and is available now. Control Freak [Lensbaby. Thanks, Jessica!] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 9:26 am Expecting a color Kindle? How about a $99 one?Section: Gadgets / Other, ebooks
But that is just not what happened. Instead, we get quite the opposite. Jeff Bezos had this to say about a color Kindle: I’ve seen it “in the laboratory,” but it’s “not ready for prime time production” and a color screen Kindle is “a long way out.” So if a color screen Kindle is way out on the horizon, how can the device compete with the likes of an iPad and the coming onslaught of other tablets? The answer is cut it back. Dave Zatz, of Zatz Not Funny, agrees, ” In fact, I’d further simplify their e-reader line by dropping 3G connectivity – which increases the cost of entry, both in terms of hardware and ongoing cellular service. So let’s go WiFi-only.” By competing on price, Amazon can keep focused on selling books - what they know best. At $99 the purchase becomes more invisible and users would be focused, and rightly so, on book purchases. By going where Apple just can’t follow, Amazon can keep the Kindle moving and keep it the best selling Amazon product. Read: [Zatz Not Funny] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 9:14 am New Species Of Invertebrates Discovered In The AntarcticThe four gorgonea of Atka BayThe other four species discovered in the area of the South Georgia islands and in Atka bay in the Antarctic region –Thouarella bayeri, Thouarella sardana, Thouarella undulata, and Thouarella andeep- are made up of, like the others of their kind, eight rows of scales that cover the surface of the polyp."The differences are found in the ramification pattern of the colonies, in the layout of the polyps in the branches and in the shape and ornamentation of the scales of the polyp", Zapata-Guardiola indicates.This second investigation, published in the journal Scientia Marina, has revealed the presence of incidental opercular scales on the polyps of the gorgonea, located in an inner cycle, and already observed in 1908 by the Japanese Kinoshita. This could indicate that the number of scales has been reduced during its evolution. However, "up until now they hadn't been observed again in any other species of the genus", the biologist points out.Oceanographic campaignsThe six new species have been collected using sampling techniques for benthic fauna thanks to the Agassiz net –one of the most commonly used trawling methods for analyzing communities that live on the sea bed- during the LAMPOS, ANDEEP-SYSTCO and BENDEX campaigns on board the Polarstern ship.The LAMPOS campaign, carried out between 3 April and 5 May 2002, made it possible to strengthen cooperation between Latin American and European scientists, and to study the relationship between biogeography and the evolution of benthic fauna between the region of Magallanes and the Antarctic peninsula.The BENDEX campaign, carried out between 17 November 2003 and 18 January 2004, made it possible to discover how benthic fauna is affected by the alterations and disruptions of the icebergs.The ANDEEP-SYSTCO campaign, of 28 November 2007 to 4 February 2008, undertook to study the benthic biodiversity of the depths of the Antarctic Ocean, the history of colonizations and patterns of recent communities, and systematic coupling. On this expedition, nine new Antarctic species were also discovered. References:Zapata-Guardiola, Rebeca; López-González, Pablo J. "Two new gorgonian genera (Octocorallia: Primnoidae) from Southern Ocean waters". Polar Biology 33(3): 313-320, marzo de 2010.Zapata-Guardiola, Rebeca; López-González, Pablo J. "Four new species of Thouarella (Anthozoa: Octocorallia: Primnoidae) from Antarctic waters". Scientia Marina 74(1): 131-146, marzo de 2010. ---Image Caption: Austasensis Tauroprimnoa (A) and Digitogorgia kuekenthali (B) species. Credit: Zapata-Guardiola y López-González.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 9:14 am AT&T’s second Android Handset, HTC Aria, launching in June
AT&T have previously announced that there will be 5 Android handsets launching in 2010, and we now have word that the first of these 5 (the second in their history) will be the HTC Aria. Phone Dog say that the new device will be announced at an event on June 7 (no, not that event), which is… strange. So far, the only shots of the device have come from its time at the FCC, and, sadly, there is hardly any info on specs. So far we know it rocks Android 2.1 with Sense UI, a full QWERTY keyboard, and… that’s it. It is rumoured, however, to be a competitor to the Incredible, Nexus One, and (dare I say) EVO 4G, so let’s hope AT&T/HTC deliver something impressive. It still remains to be seen if AT&T will continue their peculiar stance of disabling non-Market installation of apps (as seen on the Motorola Backflip), but we’re allowed to dream, right? [via Phone Arena]
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 8:54 am 20th Century One Of Driest For Northwest AfricaImage 1: Ramzi Touchan of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research takes a core from an Altas cedar, also known as Cedrus atlantica, in Morocco. Credit: Photo courtesy of R. Touchan, University of Arizona.Image 2: The prolonged drought in northwest Africa from 1999-2002 killed many Atlas cedar trees. This photo is from a site in Algeria where tree-ring researcher Ramzi Touchan took samples to develop a drought history of the region. The trees, also known as Cedrus atlantica, are native to the Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa. Credit: Photo courtesy of R. Touchan, University of Arizona.Image 3: Ramzi Touchan of the University of Arizona's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research teaches students techniques for taking tree-ring cores during his field work in Algeria. Credit: Photo courtesy of R. Touchan, University of Arizona.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 26 May 2010 | 8:42 am Did you know that Gadgetell is on Twitter?Section: Features, Gadgetell Announcements  As the title of the post asks; Did you know that Gadgetell is on Twitter? If so, thanks for following along, and if not, well now is as good a time as any to become a follower. As of now the Twitter feed is highlighting all of our posts, which will give you a nice alternative as compared to using only an RSS reader. Personally, I like to follow sites on Twitter as it keeps all my fun stuff (friends and hobbies) in one central location. Moving into the future though, we do hope to begin offering a little more in terms of coverage on the Twitter feed. At this point its hard to say exactly what, but we do foresee some special event coverage when the time comes up and maybe, just maybe a special giveaway for the Twitter followers. Anyway, as it stands we are at 898 followers, and well, I would love to see that break 1000. So what you are waiting for, click this link and begin following Gadgetell on Twitter. Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 8:00 am Samsung LiMo-powered i8330 leaks, to be called Vodafone H2
The specs so far seem decent, with a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor, an 800×480 Super AMOLED screen, 8MP autofocus + flash camera with HD video recording, and the usual GPS, and WiFi, as well as a touch of HSDPA. Now, if you’ve got a thing for obscure phone OSes, then this phone could be the thing for you, but with so many tasty Android handsets around, even the most obsessive of Linux fans will surely find more joy elsewhere. Admittedly, the phone does build a strong bridge over the uncanny valley that divides higher-end feature phones from feature-laden smart phones, so there could be an interested market for it… if the price is right. Samsung Firmwares (the site that provided the leaked images) say that the device should see a release sometime before the World Cup (June 11th), so Europeans can expect it soon. No word on prices or a US release just yet. [via Slash Gear]
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 7:53 am Spankin’ new shot of the Motorola Shadow emerges, along with contradictory specs
This time around there is no wacky story accompanying the leak, but this is the first shot of the device that hasn’t been directly front-facing (you can clearly see the HDMI connector on the side there), so at least that’s interesting. Sadly, this Shadow looks nothing like the totally rad render that appeared back in April (I can’t see any slide out keyboard, let alone a sweet-lookin’ grey/white one), so that’s a bit disappointing. Maybe April’s render will appear as something other than the Shadow, but for now: sad face. Here’s something a little fishy, though: the leak yesterday claimed that the device had a 4.3″ screen, 16 gigs of internal storage, Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, and an 8MP camera. Today’s leak, however, claims a 4.1″ screen, 8 gigs internal storage, a Texas Instruments OMAP 3630 (720MHz ARM Cortex A8) processor, along with the same 8MP camera. So… pick which leak best suits you, or, if you’re feeling adventurous, even combine the two leaks to create some kind of wünderphone. The choice is yours. [via Unwired View]
Source: MobileCrunch | 26 May 2010 | 7:02 am Verizon temporarily pulled Droid Incredible, then brought it back with 2GB microSD card includedSection: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  Yesterday afternoon the Droid Incredible was mysteriously removed from the Verizon website, and panic among the geek crowd ensued. That said, the phone has since returned to an available-to-be-purchased status and according to Verizon, the removal was due to an update with the SKU. It seems that they are now offering a 2GB microSD card along with purchase. Of course, they had already been doing that, though previously it was noted as being only as a “limited introductory offer.” Still, with or without the 2GB card included, which is nice by the way, you are still going to be waiting for an Incredible as the current “will be shipped by” date is now up to June 16th. Product [Verizon Wireless] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 6:51 am HDMI Dock for Sprint EVO ‘Coming Soon’
The HTC EVO, “America’s first 4G Android Phone”, is getting an HDMI dock. The dock, which will let you hook up the cellphone to watch hi-def video the same way you hook up an iPhone to play music, will be on sale “soon” in Best Buy. Don’t get too excited, though. The folks at PC Mag were “quite disappointed with the HDMI experience on the Sprint EVO 4G” when they tested the output straight through the cable: A Viewsonic TV only saw the a 480p signal instead of the EVO’s actual 720p output, and an H.264 clip watched on a Samsung TV “displayed horrible artifacting in any scene with much movement.” Ouch. Still, if you plan on watching a lot of video piped from the EVO to the big screen, a dock is certainly convenient. The price is to be confirmed, but as a cable alone will cost $17 up, don’t expect it to be cheap. Micro HDMI dock for Sprint EVO coming to Best Buy [Android and Me via Engadget] Hands On: HTC EVO 4G’s HDMI Cable [PC Mag] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 6:24 am App Turns iPad into Second Monitor for Mac
A new application called Air Display will let you use your iPad as an external display for your Mac. Coupled with a 13-inch MacBook, this adds around half the screen again to your work area. The connection is made over Wi-Fi, and you need a small helper application on your Mac. How well does it work? I tested it out. The app costs $10, which is either expensive (it does just one thing) or incredibly cheap ($10 for a monitor). Once downloaded, you follow the on-screen instructions for installing the helper app on the Mac, a simple and standard process. One reboot later and you’re ready. To use it, you just launch Air Display on the iPad and then choose it in a drop down list that is now in your Mac’s menubar. It shows up as a normal external monitor in the Display’s section of the Mac’s system preferences, and you can drag it around in the “arrangement” tab just like you could with a real monitor. Here’s my setup (the iPad is the little one at the bottom):
Because this works over the air (both machines need to be on the same Wi-Fi network), there is some lag. Watching videos on the iPad screen is choppy, and if you drag a window across it then there is a delay and the image pixellates somewhat. Once it is settled, though, after a second or so, the image is as clear as you’d expect. Better, in fact, as the iPad has a pretty high-resolution screen. The touch screen works, although you can mouse into the space as well. Touching is a little freaky, as multi-touch gestures don’t work. If you quit the app to do something else, the Mac resets back to a single screen, but if you get push-notifications they pop up on the iPad as normal, and you can tap to dismiss as normal. It’s pretty neat. You wouldn’t want to use this for anything motion-intensive, but as a place to keep your Twitter and IM clients, or even as an extra screen for something like Photoshop Lightroom, it is ideal. Plus, if you have you Mac laptop with you, you probably have the iPad too, and you don’t even have to pack a cable. Available now, Windows version coming soon. Air Display [iTunes] Introducing Air Display [Avatron] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 6:05 am Steve Jobs Reinvents the CEO With E-Mail Campaign
Most Fortune 500 CEOs are about as accessible as Kim Jong Il, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been breaking the mold. He’s sent terse e-mail replies to more than a dozen customer inquiries — and one journalist — in the past few months. It’s not that he’s become unusually friendly. Rather, the legendary entrepreneur is carefully reinventing his role as CEO. Jobs typically shies away from the public spotlight, but with these e-mails he has been transforming his public persona into that of a leader who’s well-connected with his followers, as opposed to a man running a business, says Brian Solis, a new-media branding and public relations expert. “What he is trying to do is strategically pick the right people that are going to literally spread his word verbatim,” Solis said. “With just one e-mail he’s able to talk to the entire world.” Historically, Jobs has been selective about the media outlets he communicates with. His favorites tend to be The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. And in the past, there have been a few occasions where Jobs sent short e-mails in response to customers’ questions, but around the time the iPad launched, the CEO began shooting out e-mails to customers almost every week. Like any normal human being, Jobs may simply be eager to talk about his beloved pet projects. But even if that’s true, there’s a strategy behind Jobs’ e-mail spree, said Steve Rubel, a senior vice president of Edelman Digital, the world’s largest independent PR firm. Rubel explained that Apple is one of the only companies to operate with a centralized “command-and-control model.” Because Apple is not in a position to communicate with tools such as Twitter or Facebook, Jobs’ e-mails are proving an effective means to address an enormous community of consumers. “They’re more open than the way they were before,” Rubel said. “I wouldn’t define Apple as open, but more open. There’s a big difference.” Jobs’ out-of-the-blue responsiveness couldn’t have come at a better time. For the past year-and-a-half, Apple has frequently been the target of negative press, thanks to its controversial App Store. And its recent legal tangle with Gizmodo over a lost iPhone prototype has inspired even mainstream comedians Jon Stewart and Ellen Degeneris to mock Apple for its increasingly nefarious public image. Therefore, Jobs could very well be stepping in to take control when Apple needs it most. Rubel added that it was unlikely Jobs’ PR team was helping him draft his e-mails, because they come off as very frank and human. “They’re off the cuff, but he’s a marketing genius, though,” Rubel said. “He’s responding to the right e-mails at the right time, based on what he thinks is right.” Solis explained that by responding to e-mails, Jobs is demonstrating Apple’s nimbleness by showing the company is paying attention to the world’s needs, even at a CEO level. Jobs is responding to questions to steer perceptions by setting the record straight, Solis said. One example was his response to a customer seething over Apple’s delayed launch of the iPad overseas, alleging that Apple was “pulling the wool over the rest of the world’s eyes.” “Are you nuts?” Jobs wrote. “We are doing the best we can. We need enough units to have a responsible and great launch.” And a second more recent example was Jobs’ heated e-mail exchange with Gawker blogger Ryan Tate, who accused Apple of destroying digital freedom with the iPad and the App Store’s stringent rules. “Freedom of programs that steal your data,” Jobs countered in his response. “Freedom from programs that trash your battery. Freedom from porn. Yep, freedom.” Such fortifying statements can act as a “slap in the back of the head” for inquirers, Solis said. Last, Solis believes Apple is trying to make one message especially clear: Jobs is back, even though his medical leave last year had some analysts making grim predictions. Also, Jobs could be stepping in to mitigate some public relations issues relating especially to the controversial App Store, Solis said. “I think part of him feels that during his absence, he felt Apple lost some of its footing during that time with public relations,” Solis said. “Because of some of the challenges, he’s taking the lead.” It’s unlikely many other CEOs could execute Jobs’ strategy, Rubel said, but he and Solis both agreed that Mark Zuckerberg might very well pull it off. The Facebook CEO recently responded to a blogger’s e-mail about the social network’s privacy flaws, which he also addressed in a guest column printed by The Washington Post. “Leaders are going to have to shed the filters they once hid behind, one of them being public relations, in order to lead,” Solis said. “That’s what people are looking for them to do. Facebook and Steve Jobs are leading communities into places they’ve never been before.” “Zuckerberg and Facebook already have lots of people out there speaking in very credible ways about them,” Rubel added. “They have their blog, their Twitter account, they already are open.” Jobs did not respond to an e-mail requesting comment on his e-mail comments. See Also:
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 26 May 2010 | 6:00 am Steve Jobs Reinvents the CEO With E-Mail CampaignSteve Jobs' recent e-mail spree is part of a deliberate strategy to reinvent his role as CEO, public relations gurus agree.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 26 May 2010 | 6:00 am 16GB iPhone 3GS now only $97 at WalMartFROM APPLETELL - WalMart continues its aggressive “rollback” pricing with its lowest iPhone price offer yet. Starting today, the 16GB iPhone 3GS is selling new for only $97. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 26 May 2010 | 5:56 am
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Main outcome measures: Head Injury Criterion and Neck Injury Criterion were derived for head banging styles and both popular heavy metal songs and easy listening music controls.
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Announcing 
Today at 
“We put a bullet in that thing.”
Today at 
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