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Paid iPhone apps stay popular for longer, says studyPaid-for iPhone apps remain at the top of Apple's App Store rankings for longer than free apps, according to new stats published by app store analytics firm Distimo. The most popular free apps remain...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 4:52 am Developing for the iPhone OS: App Store vs. Web Apps - Computerworld
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:58 am Guestbook from the Merril Collection, Toronto's science fiction reference libraryMore scenes from a book-tour: last night I wrapped up this leg of the tour (I'll be back in the US at the end of June for American Library Association and Copynight in DC, as well as an appearance at...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:48 am Guestbook from the Merril Collection, Toronto's science fiction reference library More scenes from a book-tour: last night I wrapped up this leg of the tour (I'll be back in the US at the end of June for American Library Association and Copynight in DC, as well as an appearance at Red Emma's, co-sponsored by Baltimore Node). The final stop was my hometown, Toronto, at the Merril Collection, the largest public science fiction reference collection in the world (it was stupendous, with a huge crowd of friends old and new). Which brings me to this photo. The Merril has a beautiful guestbook with signatures from the members of the public and the science fiction luminaries who visited over the years. When we visited it as a class in 1983 (a transformational event in my life), we all signed the guestbook. Last night, I had a long peruse through the book (lingering over the signatures from the likes of Theodore Sturgeon!) and found this page, with the names of all my school-chums from grade 7. Also note the signature from "Timmy" Wu, who now goes by Tim Wu, and is the excellent writer and thinker who (among other things), came up with the term "Net Neutrality." The guestbook is nearly full after several decades, and about to be replaced with a new, equally lovely hand-made number. If you're in Toronto, be sure to visit the Merril and ask to see it (as well as the rest of the wonderful collection). They also archive all my manuscripts (along with many other writers'), along with lots of other really fascinating material.
Merril Collection guestbook page, my 1983 visit, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.JPG
Anger at texting during concert leads to arrestA man from Kapahulu, a small neighborhood right next to Waikiki, Hawaii, upset at a 19-year-old woman for continuously text messaging during a concert, was arrested after he took the woman's cell phone,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:28 am Inadvertent Tetris in everyday life"Tetris Tetris everywhere" is a Flickr set by L-Plate Big Cheese, documenting everyday objects that appear to be caught in the midst of a heavy round of tetrising. Tetris Tetris everywhere (via Kottke)...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:17 am Inadvertent Tetris in everyday life "Tetris Tetris everywhere" is a Flickr set by L-Plate Big Cheese, documenting everyday objects that appear to be caught in the midst of a heavy round of tetrising. Tetris Tetris everywhere (via Kottke) (Image: Tetris Billboard | Vietnam, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jesuspresley's photostream)
 Source: Boing Boing | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:17 am World's tiniest open source violin Inspired by this XKCD strip, MaskedRetriever created a model for "the world's tinest open source violin," which you can use to offer mock sympathy to people who didn't listen when you warned them of the dangers of proprietary software and who've now been bitten on the ass by it. Erik fabbed it and it's playing even now. Speaking of which: recently, a librarian friend was telling me that her collection had gotten an extra staffer that they'd been begging for for more than 20 years, but that they weren't allowed to teach this new person anything about cataloguing. That's because their site license for their proprietary cataloging software requires that they pay for another seat for every person in the department who is qualified to catalog, and they can't afford another seat.
Tiny Open Violin by Erik
(via Make)
World's tiniest open source violinInspired by this XKCD strip, MaskedRetriever created a model for "the world's tinest open source violin," which you can use to offer mock sympathy to people who didn't listen when you warned them of...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:13 am UK Gov't Spending Details Now Onlinekrou writes "The UK government has released a treasure trove of public spending data in an effort to lift what Prime Minister David Cameron calls the government's 'cloak of secrecy.' 'The first two tranches of data are from 2008/09 and 2009/10. The Combined Online Information System (Coins) includes what departments were authorised to spend, what they actually spent and what they are forecast to spend in future.' Since the government admits that 'some degree of technical competence' will be needed to use the files, they have asked the Open Knowledge Foundation to help make it 'more accessible,' and have also promised 'more accessible formats' by August. The datasets can be downloaded from data.gov.uk." And on a similarly happy note, reader mccalli writes "Bletchley Park's archive is to be digitised and put online. It seems HP made an offer to help out with scanners and expertise, and the result is that these texts will be made available to all."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:08 am Everyone on TV reads the same newspaper Everybody on TV and in movies reads the same newspaper, it seems. And they've been reading that standard newspaper prop for decades. At a guess: paranoid studio lawyers don't want to use real newspapers because they think that they might get a copyright complaint from the paper (despite this incidental use being clearly fair use), so they insist that set-dressers all use the same prop that's fully rights-cleared.
Katus Crossoverek (újság)
(via Waxy)
Everyone on TV reads the same newspaperEverybody on TV and in movies reads the same newspaper, it seems. And they've been reading that standard newspaper prop for decades. At a guess: paranoid studio lawyers don't want to use real newspapers...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:07 am Fish oil and snake oilWriting in The Guardian, Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre debunks a story published in sister paper The Observer about the supposed benefits of fish oil. Not only were the study and its results badly misreported (it wasn't even a study on fish-oil, but rather on Omega-3 fatty acids), but it constitutes part of a larger pattern of bad reporting that ultimately benefits dietary supplement vendors who make insane, unsubstantiated claims about their products' benefits.Fish oil in the Observer: the return of a $2bn friend (Image: Fish oil caps, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from spcummings's photostream)
Source: Boing Boing | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am Fish oil and snake oilWriting in The Guardian, Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre debunks a story published in sister paper The Observer about the supposed benefits of fish oil. Not only were the study and its results badly misreported...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 3:00 am Transportation, Travel and the Built EnvironmentInteresting MIT presentation on transportation, travel and the built environment. Zegras observes that fundamentally, people do not desire travel .... they wish to have accessibility. Travel is a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 2:28 am Hyper-Documentation Art - 'A Series of Walks' Questions Our Love Affair with Technology (VIDEO)(TrendHunter.com) Nahanaeli Schelling, a recent graduate from NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program, is putting her degree to good use with her thesis project entitled 'A Series of Walks/A Series...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 2:01 am Black tide takes heavy toll among Louisiana pelicansThe animal rescuer opened the pelican's beak and slipped his hand inside to remove stubborn blobs of oil coating the mandible, a seemingly small step in the desperate fight against a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 1:16 am Birds frozen in oil: image of a desperate summer"They get me. It's just inherently sad," said Nils Warnock, a wildlife recovery specialist. "You see this bird totally covered in oil and all you can see are those eyes looking at you...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 1:15 am Reef Restoration Plans - Coral Transplantation Could be the Solution to Damaged Oil Spill Reefs (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Scientists believe that coral transplantation could be a cheap and easy solution for damaged and destroyed coral reefs from disasters like the BP oil spill. Dr. Graham Forrester led...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 5 Jun 2010 | 1:11 am Visual Network Simulator To Teach Basic Networking?unteer writes "I am a US Peace Corps volunteer currently teaching a computer technician course at a technical college in Kenya. My students have all completed the Kenyan equivalent of high school and have been accepted into a program where they give a year of nation-building non-military service in return for a technical education. My students' course load includes an introduction to computer networking, and this is where my problem lies. Do any of you know of a visual network simulator that can create an interactive network map that allows me, the instructor, to manipulate various components of a network, including the physical media, routing configuration, and which applications are being used to submit data? An example would be to have a visual of the differences between mail traffic and web traffic, and be able to show how the configuration of a wireless network might be different from a wired network. I know this may seem silly, but visuals of all this are critical to getting ideas across. It doesn't even have to be technically accurate, but rather just pictorially accurate, possibly just labeling the various components correctly. Also, it would be highly preferable if it ran on Linux, as I teach using FOSS only."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:59 pm India's Ranbaxy UK unit recalls painkiller-paperMUMBAI, June 5 (Reuters) - The British unit of Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy is recalling all unused stock of a batch of a nerve pain treatment after failing to update mandatory safety information, the DNA...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:38 pm Exec for buyer of AIG Taiwan unit quits China post-SCMPHONG KONG, June 5 (Reuters) - A top executive of the group that is trying to buy AIG's Taiwan life insurance unit for $2.2 billion has quit a Chinese political role to ease pressure from Taiwan regulators,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:13 pm Edan's psych-hip-hop Echo PartyI'm digging this acid-drenched hip-hop cut-up video from Edan, the producer/DJ behind 2005's much-loved Beauty and the Beat. It's a chunk of "Echo Party," a half-hour track made from warped and tweaked samples of Traffic Entertainment Group's classic catalog of hip hop, funk, disco, and soul. The vinyl is limited to 1,000 copies, each with a hand-stamped cover. A CD version is also available from Amazon and other outlets. (via Dose Nation) Source: Boing Boing | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:53 pm MBK Partners in talks to bid for S.Korea KEB -WSJSEOUL, June 5 (Reuters) - Private equity house MBK Partners is in the early stages of talks to make a possible bid for Lone Star's 51 percent stake in Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) , valued at around $3.6...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:50 pm Google to Turn WiFi Data Over to Germany, France and Spain - eWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:46 pm Flotilla raid goes viral as Israel floods YouTube (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:29 pm Appletell reviews the Griffin A-Frame tabletop stand for iPadFROM APPLETELL - There are many reasons why you’d want an accessory to hold your iPad, instead of keeping it in hand. Griffin thinks they have the answer with their simple and elegant A Frame. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:00 pm NHTSA Complaint Database Oozes Personal DataEWNiedermeyer writes "Are your name, address, date of birth, driver's license number and Social Security number publicly available online? If you've been involved in an accident, they might be and you would never know. The Department of Transportation's National Highway Safety Administration solicits defect complaints from the public, which are hosted on NHTSA's public database. There are about 792,000 of these complaints currently online, and as the video at the link proves, many of them are improperly redacted. As a result, the most personal information imaginable is available to anyone who takes the time to troll the database. This is a clear violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, and NHTSA needs to shut down the database until it can control the personal data stored there."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 8:55 pm SpaceX fans and foes speak out - msnbc.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 8:23 pm Malaysia's Petronas to trim foreign explorations-paperKUALA LUMPUR, June 5 (Reuters) - Malaysia's state oil firm Petronas [PETR.UL] wants to trim overseas exploration and set aside more resources for oil fields at home, the Star newspaper said on Saturday,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 8:12 pm Pelicans, Back From Brink of Extinction, Face Oil Threat - New York Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:30 pm Get a discount to the Humanity+ SummitRebecca says:H+ has kindly extended a discount code for readers of Boing Boing. When you register, use the following code -- FRIENDSOFBOINGBOING. Here's a link to a video stream of the H+ Summit.
Gardening For Dummies: SproutRobot Sends You Seeds And Tells You When To Plant Them
Fortunately, there’s a new startup called SproutRobot that’s looking to clear things up for the masses: you tell it what you want to grow, and it sends you high quality seeds, automatic email updates instructing you when to plant them, and a guide to handling everything else. To get started, you tell SproutRobot your zip code. From there you’re given two options: you can elect to either sign up for a free email version of the service, which tells you when to plant your seeds but doesn’t actually send you any (in other words you have to go to the store and buy seeds yourself). Or you can sign up for the premium option, which runs from $20/year for three varieties of seeds to $70/year for ten types of seeds. Eventually you’re asked to choose what you want to grow. Again, this is pretty straightforward. If you want carrots, you click the box next to carrots — there aren’t a dozen kinds of each vegetable to confuse you. There are around thirty types of fruit and vegetable seeds available, covering everything from beets to winter squash. All seeds are from Seeds of Change and are certified organic. Once you’ve signed up, SproutRobot will send you bags of seeds at the appropriate time, and will tell you exactly when to plant them based on your local weather patterns. Erik Pukinskis, who heads the one-man company, says that this is based on the last five years of weather data, and that he hopes to include current weather conditions as a factor too. This would allow SproutRobot to shift planting dates if there was, say, an unusually dry month or cold snap. The site still has a ways to go. It does tell you when to do things like plant your seeds or transplant your broccoli (whatever that means). But when you click on the online directions, the site sometimes kicks you to a different website, like eHow. Sure, these pages appear to have the proper directions, but this information should probably be included on SproutRobot itself. Pukinskis says that printed instructions are included with the seeds themselves in comic-form, and he’d like to eventually have SproutRobot cover every single step of the growing process. One thing to note: Pukinskis says that the site is still in beta, and it may have a few quirks and slowdowns. He also says that SproutRobot is still perfecting the planting calendar (he noted that some users growing tomatoes were told to plant them a bit too late), though all paid users have their calendars checked by hand to ensure accuracy.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:20 pm Sprint's Evo 4G is first mobile phone to make video chat possible - Los Angeles Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:11 pm MStanley to advise Parkway on Khazanah's takeover bidSINGAPORE, June 5 (Reuters) - Singapore healthcare firm Parkway Holdings said late on Friday it had appointed Morgan Stanley to advise shareholders on a $835 million partial takeover bid by Malaysia's...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:07 pm WiMax Forum Upbeat Despite Defections (PC World)PC World - The WiMax Forum has closed one office in the past several months and lost as many as 100 members, but it is not concerned about the 4G technology losing its footing as many mobile operators commit to using LTE (Long-Term Evolution) networks instead.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:00 pm Appletell reviews Pulse News Reader for iPadFROM APPLETELL - If you’ve been waiting for the sleekest and coolest news reader app for your iPad, it has finally arrived. Pulse News Reader redefines the way you consume news feeds on a mobile device. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:00 pm Hackers plant viruses in Windows smartphone games (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:48 pm What Google Chrome Might Look Like On An iPad
The iPad offers a great web browsing experience — maybe the best on any device (assuming you don’t want to go to a site that uses Flash). But it could still be better. For example, it would be nice to have actual tabs, rather than the bogus window system the iPad uses. That system makes sense on the iPhone where there isn’t much screen real estate, but there’s plenty on the iPad. Undoubtedly it’s a memory issue just as much as anything else, but it’s one of the things designer Markus Schmeiduch was thinking about when he decided to do some mock-ups of how Google Chrome might run on an iPad. Schmeiduch acknowledges that due to the restrictions on JavaScript engines, Chrome for the iPad is not likely to be a reality anytime soon (not to mention the relationship between Apple and Google at the moment), but that hasn’t stopped him from dreaming. On top of real tabs, his Chrome for iPad gives us Google cloud-synced bookmarks, gestures, and even some Chrome OS features. Obviously, Apple let the Opera browser on the iPhone recently, so they’re some indication they’re not opposed to competition on the platform for Safari. But you almost have to wonder if they let Opera on the iPhone simply because it’s not very good (and yet would still appease people). Chrome, especially with any Chrome OS features, would likely be a different story. Still, Schmeiduch’s mock-ups are interesting. Check some of them out below. You should also go here for full-sized renders and look at them on the iPad to see exactly how it would look.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:45 pm Hallmark recalls "Black Holes" birthday card after racism claimThere's an illustrious history of people who hear what they want to hear when it comes to the cheap sound chips in toys. But this time it's gone orbital! A space-themed Hoops and Yoyo card--containing a low-quality sample of the phrase "Black Holes"--is intentionally racist, the NAACP told ABC News: "Whores, not holes. The 'r' is in there ... It sounds like a group of children laughing and joking about blackness, again." [ABC]Source: Boing Boing | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:30 pm Activists Worry About a New 'Green Dam' in Vietnam (PC World)PC World - Human rights activists are worried that new software mandated by Vietnamese authorities may lead to an Internet clampdown in the country's largest city.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:30 pm Ballmer Bites Back, Disses the iPad - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:04 pm Hands-On With Dell's Streak Android Deviceadeelarshad82 writes "Dell Streak, the Android-based 5-inch tablet (which has also been called out as a smartphone) is set to ship starting in July, both from a US carrier and direct on Dell.com for $500. Even though Dell has not disclosed the name of the carrier, some experts believe that it will be AT&T because the Streak is a 3G GSM 850/1900 device and AT&T is the only major US carrier that supports those frequency bands. According to a hands-on, Streak is a sharp-looking device with a black front and candy-apple red back that unfortunately shows fingerprints easily. On the upside, Streak's curved body is comfortable to hold. Streak runs a customized version of Android 1.6, but Android aficionados will have to get used to the unusual button layout. Its 800x480-pixel screen makes images look tight, and web pages will benefit from the horizontal resolution. The 1 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the same as in the HTC Incredible and Sprint EVO 4G, functions snappily. There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a VGA camera for video calling on the front, and a MicroSD memory card slot under the back cover."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:48 pm Oracle to Lay off More Sun Workers (PC World)PC World - Oracle is making further job cuts related to its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, primarily in Europe and Asia, the company said in a regulatory filing Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:40 pm UPDATE 4-Brokerage giant LPL Financial files for IPO(Adds analyst comment, details on private equity buyout, CEO)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:34 pm Remains of the Day: Ballmer keeps on trucking (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer fires back at Apple CEO Steve Jobs for some hot Steve-on-Steve action, Moscone prepares for Appleâs show; and Stephen Colbert has some strong words for intellectual property thieves. Join us in the remainders for June 4, 2010âif you dare!Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:30 pm WWDC Preview: Will Jobs Unveil Apple's Next Big Thing? - ChannelWeb
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:29 pm With all eyes on WWDC, AT&T makes some changes to their plans and lineup. Again.
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:24 pm With all eyes on WWDC, AT&T makes some changes to their plans and lineup. Again.
BGR is saying the departing 3G model will be replaced with a $99 3GS soon after the new iPhone is out. And the New York Times is reporting that AT&T has gone ahead allowed customers to just buy – not have in hand – the iPad 3G and retain the right to select the unlimited 3G data plan – for a very limited time. To be precise, you have until June 6 at 11:59pm to get the iPad on unlimited 3G. Run, you fool! [via 9to5Mac]
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:24 pm 8th Annual SD Times 100 Award Marks 8th Year ComponentOne is Named a WinnerSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:20 pm Facebook Privacy? No Sweat - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:16 pm IT Job Growth Outpaces Employment Gains in Overall Private-Sector Job MarketSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:07 pm IT Job Growth Outpaces Employment Gains in Overall Private-Sector Job MarketFor complete May 2010 IT Index please visit: http://images.magnetmail.net/images/clients/naccb/attach/indexmay.pdfSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:07 pm McDonalds, Cadmium, and Thermo Electron Niton GunsAn anonymous reader writes, snipping from a story at NPR: "'How did the Consumer Products Safety Commission find out that cadmium, a toxic metal, was present on millions of Shrek drinking glasses now being recalled by McDonald's? Well, an anonymous person with access to some pretty slick testing equipment tipped off Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) about the problem. Her office confirmed that somebody using a Thermo Electron Niton XRF testing gun found a lot of cadmium, sometimes used in yellow pigments, on the surface of the glasses. The source overnighted glasses to Speier's office last week, which then turned over the test results and specimens to the CPSC. ... By law, no more than 75 parts per million of cadmium is supposed to be present in paint on kids toys. Speier's office said the amount found on the glasses was quite a bit higher than that.' Seems like the answer to a previous question about at-home science — this blogger seems to have been one of the anonymous sources."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:03 pm Audible quietly launches beta Android appSection: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile  With phones like the newly-released EVO 4G and the Nexus One, Android has slowly been making it much easier to switch from the iPhone. There have always been things that the iPhone had that Android phones lacked. Some apps still aren’t available for both, and Android doesn’t have nearly as many games. For some, however, a single audiobook service has been the reason for not switching over. Audible is a popular way to buy audiobooks without having to buy the expensive CDs or cassettes. Until now, because of the service’s DRM, users haven’t been able to use Audible on Android devices. Audible has finally solved that problem by releasing a beta Android app. The app links to your Audible account and allows you to download and listen to any audiobooks purchased through that account. You don’t have to wait for the full download to complete before listening, though which is a nice touch. If you don’t want to download the audiobooks onto your smartphone, side-loading it also available. The app also features Audible news and trophies. There are levels that are unlocked the more you listen to audiobooks, and a collection of 18 trophies such as “Weekend Warrior” and “Audible Obsessed.” There are no explanations for how to unlock the trophies, but maybe those and more trophies will come with future releases. To get the app you need to allow your phone to install apps outside of the Market (sorry Backflip owners), and join the Audible for Android Beta Google Group. Since the app is in beta, it might not be exactly stable, but that doesn’t mean it’s not usable. The solution isn’t nearly as easy as using the same music app as on the iPhone, but any chance to get Audible books on Android is a welcome one. Read [Lifehacker] Image from [Android Central] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:02 pm Yahoo Wants HuffPo Badly
Yahoo is clearly positioning itself to become a stronger player in the online content game, as evidenced by its recent acquisition of Associated Content. But we are hearing that the real prize they want is the Huffington Post. The two companies are currently in negotiations over a deep content partnership, according to sources close to the situation. There are also rumblings that Yahoo wants to buy the Huffington Post outright, but it may be too expensive. In any case, the Huffington Post seems to be more interested in doing a content deal than selling. Yahoo needs high quality articles and videos, and the Huffington Post needs more traffic and pageviews. A content deal could conceivably include articles, videos, and advertising integrated across Yahoo News and other Yahoo properties. Who knows, maybe that deal could lead to something else. There are many ties between the two companies. Huffington Post CEO Eric Hippeau sits on Yahoo’s board, and president Greg Coleman used to be head of sales at Yahoo. The Huffington Post is killing it right now. It is the biggest blog on the planet, with 26 million unique visitors worldwide in April, according to comScore. It is already bigger than NYTimes.com. The HuffPo has expanded well beyond politics to cover more than 20 different news categories, and it is embracing social networks as a way to drive pageviews through sharing. It is even experimenting with badges and other game mechanics to reward loyal readers and sharers. If content is once again becoming king, online media companies need a lot of it and they need it to be good. An acquisition by Yahoo would accelerate the HuffPo’s growth, while at the same time give Yahoo a strong anchor for its content business. Sources with knowledge of the HuffPo’s thinking insist it is not for sale. But everything is for sale at the right price. Buying the Huffington Post would not be cheap. When it last raised $25 million in December, 2008, that round gave the company a $125 million valuation. It would want multiples of that now. The company is on track to generate $60 million in revenues next year and $100 million in 2012. It still has cash in the bank, and could turn profitable by early next year. If you figure an acquisition multiple of 6X or 7X next year’s revenues, Yahoo would have to pay at least $360 million for HuffPo today, or much more a year from now. If Yahoo wants to focus on being a media company, there are worse things it could do than buy HuffPo. But is it really worth that much? A content deal lets Yahoo dip its toes in the water and find out. Photo credit: Flickr/NeoGaboX      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:56 pm What AT&T's Limited Data Plan Means for You - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:46 pm Oracle cutting more Sun jobs (AP)AP - Oracle Corp. is cutting more jobs as part of its takeover of slumping computer-server maker Sun Microsystems.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:39 pm Zuckerberg's "Facebook Illuminati" hoodie, deconstructed
Using press photos of the Facebook CEO wearing his now-infamous mystery garment, the intrepid reporters at SF Weekly have cobbled together this graphic of Mark Zuckerberg's "illuminati hoodie," in which he sweated profusely this week during an embarassing interview at tech conference All Things D. What does it all mean? Meet the Ozone Trace, a mouse pad from the sky
Attention to detail is a quality that most people can live without. Even most companies lack it. However, there are some times when you see a new product that just takes detail to the next level. If you can appreciate such craft, then check out this mouse pad from Ozone called the Trace. They have found a way to take something simple, such as a mouse pad, and create a model that tops its class. It’s designed with gamers in mind or whoever is serious enough to use a mouse pad this extreme. This pad has four layers to provide the plushest feel:
Starting from a rubber base, they add a plastic shell – for weight and structure followed by an “air-filled matrix structure made of polyurethane,” (i.e. foam rubber) topped by a heat-treated micro textured cloth, which “offers the smoothest feel and the softest flow.” Wow. Now that’s a kick-ass mouse pad — you know, if you like this kind of thing.
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:30 pm Mixed Reception To AT&T's New Data Pricing SchemeSeveral readers have sent in followups to Wednesday's news that AT&T was eliminating its unlimited data plan. Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics defends the new plan, writing, "Imagine, for a moment, if we bought electricity the way we buy data in this country. Every month, you would pay a fixed amount of money (say, $120), and then you would use as much electricity as you wanted, with an incentive to use as much as you could. That brings price stability to the end user, but it's a horrible way to manage electricity load." Others point out that this will likely engender more scrutiny from regulatory agencies and watchdog groups. A Computerworld article says that one way or the other, AT&T's decision is a huge deal for the mobile computing industry, influencing not only how other carriers look at data rates, but how content providers and advertisers will need to start thinking about a data budget if they want consumers to keep visiting their sites. AT&T, responding to criticism, has decided to allow iPad buyers to use the old, unlimited plan as long as they order before June 7, and Gizmodo has raised the question of "rollover bytes."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:17 pm BP's spill plan: they knew where it would go, that ecology would never recover, "No toxicity studies" on dispersants
Karen Dalton Beninato at neworleans.com writes, I have obtained a copy of the almost-600-page BP Regional Oil Spill Response Plan for the Gulf of Mexico as of June, 2009, thanks to an insider. Some material has been redacted, but these are the three main takeaways from an initial read. The name of the well has been redacted, but if it's not Deepwater Horizon, then there's another rig still out there pumping oil and aimed at Plaquemines Parish.The three big takeaways, excerpted from Beninato's blog post: 1) In the worst case discharge scenario (on chart below), an oil leak was expected to come ashore with highest probability in Plaquemines Parish within 30 daysLink to 583-page, 17 megabyte PDF (publicintelligence.net) Source: Boing Boing | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:14 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of May 30, 2010Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Altera Announces Participation in UBS ConferenceSAN JOSE, Calif., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Altera Corporation (Nasdaq: ALTR) today announced that it will participate in the 2010 UBS Global Technology and Services Conference in New York City. Altera's presentation is scheduled for Tuesday, June 8th at 3:30pm ET.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm No Secrets: WikiLeaks Founder's Mission for Total TransparencyJulian Assange runs WikiLeaks, the controversial whistleblowing website, from undisclosed locations with the help of a volunteer intelligence network — and he has governments and banks on the defensive. Read more from Wired's sister publication, The New Yorker.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Aquaria Goes Open SourceA post on the Wolfire blog yesterday announced that the source code for Aquaria has now been released. Aquaria, an action-adventure, underwater sidescroller from Bit Blot, was part of the Humble Indie Bundle, which was so successful that the developers of four games pledged to release them as open source. This marks the final release, following Lugaru, Gish, and Penumbra: Overture. The source code is available from a Mercurial repository.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:58 pm Mysterious “Freeman” picture tickles Half-Life fans’ Valve-strings
Maybe not the same exactly, but wouldn’t that be a Valve thing to do? Spring Episode 3 on us with no warning, and tie it in directly to Portal 2 as a bundle? This cover, or folder, or whatever it is, if it’s real, definitely makes this a possibility. Or maybe it’s something completely unrelated. Or fake. But you see the G-Man on there? Verrry subtle. Something Valve might do. Or just someone who knows what they think Valve might do. As some have noted, it’s not a very Valve-esque typeface. Update: Supposedly someone emailed Gabe Newell and received the response “It isn’t ep 3.”
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:52 pm Microsoft shutters Bing shopping rebate program (AP)AP - Microsoft is shutting down a program that gave online shoppers rebates when they found items through Bing search.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:39 pm SEC Filing Suggests Zynga Paid At Least $20.5 Million For Challenge Games
It’s a safe assumption that the filing indicates that Zynga paid at least $20.5 million for Challenge Games. But there could have been additional cash involved, which would not be disclosed in this filing. Challenge Games, which is now Zynga Austin, launched in 2007 to focus on immersive Web game development built on a virtual goods business model. Backed by Sequoia Capital and Globespan Capital Partners, Challenge Games develops a number of social games including Warstorm, a collectible card game set in a fantasy universe, and Ponzi, a tycoon game. The company previously raised $14.5 million in funding. Zynga is steadily building up its gaming empire through acquisitions and deals with major networks and web giants. Last week, Zynga signed a deal with Yahoo to feature its games throughout Yahoo’s network, which puts Zynga’s games in front of Yahoo’s 600 million users. The previous week, Zynga acquired Chines gaming company XPD Media and struck a branding deal with 7-Eleven. And the social gaming giant struck a five-year partnership with Facebook. Zynga has a large war chest. The company just raised $180 million in funding from Digital Sky Technologies, Tiger Global, Institutional Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz in December. And Zynga is a profit machine, with yearly revenue estimated to be around $600 million. One estimate shows that Zynga is pulling in $15 million in profit per month. With that sort of cash on hand, $20 million-plus is chump change. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:36 pm Boxcar Brings Push Notification Management To The iPad — And Goes Completely Free
Boxcar for the iPad brings all the previous iPhone goodness, and then some. First of all, rather than charging to add support for various services (through in-app purchasing), developer Jonathan George has decided to make the entire experience free. This means that you can add Twitter notifications, Facebook notifications, email notifications — everything, for free. It’s now simply ad-supported. If you want to turn off the ads, it’s $4.99 (a one-time purchase). Also new is the revamped look and feel of the app. George has made the app itself feel more like the Messages app you find on the iPhone. Notifications are broken up into types, and when you click on any of those, you’re taken to a list of the notifications that appear in colorful chat bubbles. Just as with the iPhone version, you can be notified of the notifications through sounds, badging of the Boxcar icon, and pop up messages (or a combination of all three). The new Boxcar 3.0 is universal (it will work on both the iPad and iPhone). Find it here.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:35 pm Yahoo Faces Questions After Discovery Of Comment ReplicationAn anonymous reader writes "Someone noticed that certain Associated Press stories on Yahoo seem to be appending old comments to new stories in a way that was highly misleading (suggesting new stories had a lot more interest than they really did). The initial theory was that this was some sort of nefarious scam, potentially by Yahoo and the AP. However, Mike Masnick at Techdirt dug into the details and found evidence that it's more about incompetence in the way Yahoo built its comment system, combined with the way that the AP pushes and rotates its articles to partner sites."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:35 pm Fanboy Meets Fangirl: Cupidtino Launches
The site is essentially like any dating site, except with a few Apple-flavored features. It allows you to attach photos and list the basics about yourself, including “when you became a Mac” and a list of the gadgets you own. To express interest in someone you can “Mac him” (or her), which is like a poke; message the person; or meet the individual at the nearest Apple store. All joking aside, Cupidtino is a bit of a letdown in some ways. Yes, it’s craftily formatted to look like and feel like the Apple site, complete with Apple icons and the background, which has a hint of light pink to it. But the UI is a little clunky. The profile pictures are too large and you have to scroll down the page to get any substantial information about the person who you are checking out. But I guess Apple lovers won’t care really because they really just want to check out the photos of others fan boys and girls. While in private beta, the site was able to get a little traction amongst users. Currently, there are nearly 600 men listed on the site. Unfortunately, the site has not been able to attract many fangirls, and only lists 100 profiles of women. And something tells me this ratio of men to women on the site won’t change too much.      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 3:27 pm Will iPhone 4G Match Rivals' Bigger Touchscreens? (NewsFactor)NewsFactor - With Apple likely to launch its new iPhone 4G at next week's Worldwide Developer's Conference, as the company has done for the past three summers, speculation is rampant about what new features might emerge that haven't been seen in two leaked prototypes.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:57 pm Self-publishing turning book world on its ear (Christopher Null)Christopher Null - Say you’ve spent the last year painstakingly writing a book, and now you are ready to offer it to the world. What do you do?Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:57 pm WebM Licensing Problems Resolvedbreser writes "The WebM licensing problems have been resolved. The copyright license is straight BSD now, and the patent license is separate and has no impact on the copyright license. Quoting Chris DiBona: 'As it was originally written, if a patent action was brought against Google, the patent license terminated. This provision itself is not unusual in an OSS license, and similar provisions exist in the 2nd Apache License and in version 3 of the GPL. The twist was that ours terminated "any" rights and not just rights to the patents, which made our license GPLv3 and GPLv2 incompatible. Also, in doing this, we effectively created a potentially new open source copyright license, something we are loath to do. Using patent language borrowed from both the Apache and GPLv3 patent clauses, in this new iteration of the patent clause we've decoupled patents from copyright, thus preserving the pure BSD nature of the copyright license. This means we are no longer creating a new open source copyright license, and the patent grant can exist on its own.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:51 pm Jetstar Airways offers iPads for rentSection: Computers, Mobile Computers
Apple iPads have become the most loved travel companions since their release several months ago. Now the Australian-based airline Jetstar has decided to offer rentals of iPads to passengers on flights 90 minutes or longer. I would imagine that passengers who do rent these, for $10 Australian, will have free reign to apps and of course games galore. That coupled with in-flight wifi could be a killer combo that will no doubt have people looking away from the in-flight movie and focused on the iPad. Read [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:49 pm The OS X 10.7 Cat Is Out There, But Purring Quietly Leading Up To WWDC
As MacRumors points out today, use of OS X 10.7 within Apple has clearly been on the rise the past few months. I decided to check the TechCrunch logs, and sure enough, we’re seeing the same thing. Hits from the “Intel 10.7″ identifier in Google Analytics started coming in October of last year and they’ve been growing ever since. In the past 30 days, we’ve seen a roughly 25% increase (from the previous 30 days) in visits. That said, the jump from March to April was much greater (nearly 100%). Apple is clearly expanding the work on the new OS, but is it ready to be unveiled? Back in December of last year, Daring Fireball’s John Gruber suggested that OS X 10.7 was on pace to be unveiled at WWDC this year. But he revised that stance in April of this year, saying that work on iPhone OS 4 has taken the front seat and that we may not see OS X 10.7 until WWDC in 2011. With the iPad outselling the Mac, the new iPhone coming out, and the full-on assault from Google Android, it’s undoubtedly true that the emphasis is on iPhone OS. Still, it has been a full two years since OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was stealthily unveiled at WWDC (but less than a year since it was actually released). The schedule for WWDC this year shows a major emphasis for iPhone OS as well, and a relatively lighter OS X emphasis. This again seems to suggest no OS X 10.7 at WWDC, unless Apple is purposefully making it seem like there will be no OS X news this year. We also don’t yet know what big cat nickname OS X 10.7 will get. Lion? Lynx? Cougar?
[photo: flickr/Harlequeen]      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:47 pm New iPad Options For Comics Fans
Comic book fans with iPads: You have two new reasons to get excited today. A new application, Comic Viewer, has just been approved in the App Store. And today’s update of the popular e-reading app Stanza enables it to work on the iPad — and, more importantly, to display comics. Comic Viewer comes at a reasonable price of $5, compared to the $8 you have to spit out for Comic Zeal, another comic-reading app. Still, that’s five bucks more than you’ll be spending on either the Marvel or Comics apps, which are currently free. Comic Viewer, developed by the same guys who made the popular Kevin Smith iPhone app, has most of the features found in other comic book readers: The ability to load it up with CBR and CBZ scans, transfer files via iTunes file sharing, and read in landscape mode. The problem is that the application doesn’t offer anything radically new or better to distinguish it from the competition. It doesn’t have Comic Zeal’s over-the-air syncing ability, or Comics’ bubble-by-bubble navigation. Worse yet, it’s less than polished. You can pinch to zoom in, which makes reading the text easier, but then you can’t scroll or pan around the screen. You have to zoom out if you want to move onto the next image. It does a solid job of displaying content in landscape mode, unlike Comic Zeal, which mostly fails to recognize double spreads. But you can’t zoom in at all while in landscape mode, making it virtually impossible to use. A neat feature is an integrated web browser used to download content. That’s much less annoying than, say, the Kindle app, which launches Safari to browse the Amazon store. So how does Stanza fare? Stanza is a popular e-reading app on the iPhone, and its appearance on the iPad should get us all excited. Just like most document-handling apps, you can use iTunes to transfer your files and load up your comics selection onto it. Though not primarily a comic book reader, it does a good job of displaying CBR and CBZ files. In fact, it might be the snappiest of all the comics apps out there. Comic Viewer and Stanza join a growing selection of comics readers on the iPad. Yet there isn’t a clear leader of the pack. Comics and Marvel, built on the same Comixology platform, make digital comics look beautiful, but they suffer from a limited selection and lack of flexibility. Other readers are far from perfect, with annoying little flaws often hindering the reading experience. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the Panelfly app, due to come out this summer. (Photo: Comic Viewer, Denvog.com) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:32 pm Lord of the Rings Online To Go Free-To-Playdarkwing_bmf sends word of Turbine's announcement that Lord of the Rings Online will become a free-to-play game this fall. 'The move is another validation of the free-to-play business model, where gamers can play for free and pay real money for virtual goods such as better weapons or decorative gear for their game characters. The business model has been popular in Asia but only recently took off in the US. This move shows the pressure is building on game publishers to shift to the new business model or face declining audiences.' According to a post on the official website, LotRO's micro-transaction system will be "very similar" to how Turbine's DDO store works, and current subscribers will maintain all of their privileges.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:32 pm ATA Announces Preliminary Results for the Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2010NEW YORK, June 4 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- ATA Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm Grease Recycling Geeks OutComputer experts are using mobile technology and a predictive software program to maximize travel time and fuel.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:22 pm Defentect Group, Inc. Launches DefenCall, the First Personal Panic Button Application of Its Kind for SmartPhone UsersNORWALK, Conn., June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Defentect Group, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: DFTC), a developer and provider of rapid response software solutions for the threat detection industry, announced today the launch of its newest product, DefenCall.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:15 pm Android to get a Playstation emulator thanks to ZodTTD
We like ZodTTD. He’s a dude who just gets stuff done. Back in the early days of iPhone jailbreaking, he found his niche in building emulators for the platform; within months, he’d ported over pocket friendly versions of the SNES, Genesis, N64, Playstation, while somehow finding time to build things like an iPhone version of the VLC media player. Now, after much demand by his fans, he’s building things for Android. His first project? An as-of-yet unnamed Playstation emulator. Read the rest at MobileCrunch >>
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:13 pm China’s Gigantic, Kitschy Future: Inside the Shanghai World Expo<< previous image | next image >>
SHANGHAI, China — Billed as bigger than the Beijing Olympics, the latest and largest world’s fair doesn’t disappoint when it comes to scale, in every mind-boggling respect. The Shanghai World Expo 2010, which opened May 1, cost an estimated $55 billion (some sources say up to $95 billion) to get off the ground. It sits on 2 square miles of prime Shanghai real estate, straddling the Huangpu River, making it the biggest world’s fair in the 159-year history of such events. More than 18,000 families and 270 factories were moved to make room for the expo, the construction of which stretched over seven years — all for an event lasting six months. Organizers estimate that it will be visited by 70 to 100 million people before it closes Oct. 31, with daily crowds of 400,000 or more. That’s an enormous number of people, and you notice it instantly, from the queues to get into the expo to the crowds on the concourses and pavilions inside. Getting inside the popular European and American pavilions means waiting for an hour or longer outside in 80- to 90-degree heat and high humidity. The dominating $220 million Chinese pavilion is already fully booked for the months of May and June, so unless you’re a VIP with special reservation, you can’t get in at all. In the past, there would’ve been no question as to whether queuing up for hours was worth it. That’s because what was there would change the future: Fax machines, microscopes, industrial processes, and even the superhighway system all made their first public appearances at world’s fairs. The Shanghai World Expo 2010 comes up short in that respect. Apart from stunning architectural spaces, there’s nothing new, exciting, or controversial on display — a far cry from say, the 1939 world’s fair. This expo isn’t so much a world’s fair as a China one, with other countries and global corporations exhibiting as curiosities for the people of a rapidly developing country to see. Only an estimated 5 percent of visitors will be from overseas. For millions of Chinese visitors, the event is a first real contact with the outside world. If so, it’s an ambitious one. Above: HaibaoNo Pavilion of the Future worth its salt would be complete without sci-fi space imagery. Here’s the official expo mascot, Haibao, clad in a space suit and breathing apparatus. The pavilion exhibits ideas about future cities, including one in space for Haibao to suit up in. Photo: Juha Saarinen/Wired.com
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:10 pm Android to get a Playstation emulator thanks to ZodTTD
We like ZodTTD. He’s a dude who just gets stuff done. Back in the early days of iPhone jailbreaking, he found his niche in building emulators for the platform; within months, he’d ported over pocket friendly versions of the SNES, Genesis, N64, Playstation, while somehow finding time to build things like an iPhone version of the VLC media player. Now, after much demand by his fans, he’s building things for Android. His first project? An as-of-yet unnamed Playstation emulator.
ShaDenSu of DigitalDisbeliever got a sneak peek of Zod’s product earlier this week. According to her, Zod is collaborating with the author of the already well established NESoid/GameBoid emulators on the project, providing a pretty stable codebase for the stuff that ZodTTD brings to the table. As you might’ve guessed, the PSX emulator requires some pretty beefy hardware. ZodTTD says it’s already running at a faster clip on the Nexus One than it is on the iPhone, and more optimizations are going to be made before release — but if your handset’s not packing a Cortex A8 or Snapdragon processor, don’t expect a reasonable framerate. It’s not ready for release just yet, and, as far as I know, it’s ETA is.. well, whenever it’s done. It’s okay to drool in the mean time, though — trust me, you’re not the only one. [Via NeverKnowTech]
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:10 pm Gallery: China's Gigantic, Kitschy Future — Inside the Shanghai World ExpoIt'd take a week to see it all, but here are some of the best parts.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:10 pm Rogers Communications to Participate at Upcoming Investor ConferenceTORONTO, June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Rogers Communications will be participating in the RBC Technology, Media and Communications Conference being held in New York City, June 9 and 10, 2010.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:05 pm CrunchDeals: Ten percent off game accessories at NewEgg this week
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:00 pm Sony’s eye-tracking glasses prototype knows what you’re looking at
Thanks a lot, Sony.
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:00 pm How to Build a Rocket Car Powered by Mentos and Coke
Everyone knows you can use Mentos and Diet Coke to make fizzy fountains that shoot soda as much as 30 feet in the air. Now, two guys have harnessed that power for human transportation, with a rocket car powered by Mentos and Coke. Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz are the guys behind the famous video of a Mentos-and-Diet Coke, Bellagio-style fountain, which they estimate has been seen by more than 120 million people. Four years later, they’re back with a rocket car powered by nothing but Mentos and Coke Zero. The video, which debuted this week, shows the duo’s efforts to set a land-speed and distance record for a vehicle powered by nothing but erupting, minty, fizzy soda. The video was directed by Rob Cohen (director of The Fast and the Furious). Two dimensions not enough? There’s even a 3-D rocket car video you can watch on YouTube, if you have a pair of red-and-cyan 3-D glasses. Wired sat down with Grobe and Voltz shortly after a recent performance at Maker Faire to find out how they built their 900-pound vehicle. It contains 108 2-liter bottles of Coke Zero, 648 Mentos, an elaborate-looking system of PVC pipes and pistons, and a complicated rig for dropping all those mint candies into all those bottles at the same time. In this exclusive Wired.com video, the duo explain how they made the magic happen. As for the switch from Diet Coke to Coke Zero? The two explained that Coke, which is one of their sponsors, wanted to tout the newer diet soda instead of the old one. In fact, almost any kind of soda works, though they say diet sodas work a bit better. The one thing to keep in mind: You want warm soda for the maximum effect; a Coke right out of the fridge won’t fizz nearly enough. These guys should know: Since their 2006 video launched, Grobe and Voltz have managed to make a living staging Mentos-and-Coke performances and other events. For more Mentos-and-Coke videos, including outtakes from the filming of the latest video, check out the pair’s website, Eepybird.com. Video: Wired.com. Produced by Annaliza Savage, camera by Michael Lennon, edited by Fernando Cardoso. 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:57 pm Rocket Car Runs on Mentos and CokeIn this Wired.com video, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz explain how they channeled the power of 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos into a rocket-propelled vehicle.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:57 pm Rocket Car Runs on Mentos and CokeIn this Wired.com video, Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz explain how they channeled the power of 108 bottles of Coke Zero and 648 Mentos into a rocket-propelled vehicle.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:57 pm SpaceX Falcon Rocket FliesSpaceX, the darling of commercial space advocates and whipping boy of its foes, defied the odds Friday and sent a new rocket into orbit, a stunning achievement considering the company had to quickly recover from a trio of setbacks earlier ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:52 pm Space X Achieves Earth OrbitFalcon 9 lifts off without a hitch, and man does it look cool doing so.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:40 pm Who’s on Crack in tech: iPhone 4 editionSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile, Features, Originals, Columns, Who's On Crack  Here we are on the precipice of another iPhone announcement, an annual announcement so big they can’t show it live n HD quality. If they did, the internet would crash for days straight until BP showed up with some awesome-ly named solution to stop the flow of video. The hype machine was helped with a bunch of gun-jumpers this week who’ve clearly been on the rock so long, they’ve become paranoid of little black helicopters, vans parked outside and even particular fruit in the bowl. Let’s get to the whirlwind of drugs:
AT&T devalues data, or are they valuing it?Tiers. Forget the all-you-can-eat buffet (which really isn’t if you’ve ever tried to push it as say your local all-you-can-eat eater - they throw you out pretty quick). AT&T has moved to a tiered system where they are hoping to stem unlimited usage. If they sucker you in on the cheapest plan, you’ll have an incentive not to use so much 3G data (namely a $15 fee for 200MB more data). It’s a little less offensive (by $5) if you bust the 2GB cap but knowing you have a ceiling is all they are trying to achieve here. 2% of AT&T users, if tricked into jumping onto the tiered system, are in the cross-hairs. You torrent loving-music streaming-video munching bunch are ruining it for the whole party. Or are you driving innovation to make the networks faster, the machines capable of more and the world a better place. I frankly have lost which side of this argument I am on: shutting down these freaks or letting them run amok and let the companies and tech catch up.
Verizon iPhone is red all overI’ll be so happy when there finally is a Verizon iPhone - not because I’ll switch carriers and get one, because we can finally stop talking about it. Is it coming, is exclusivity over, how will that impact the carriers and their data network? Will things get immediately worse on Verizon? Will things get immediately better on AT&T? These thoughts hound bloggers and keep them up during the day. AT&T’s jumping in front of the iPhone party next week is one of two things: 1. getting in front of the announcement so AT&T is not the big downer (no more unlimited) of the event or 2. Our plans are cheaper than Verizon’s iPhone plan. Can any other motive be so strong as to force this kind of play? Apple loves to haul partners up on stage - it makes them look like they’ve got billions of Facebook friends. So why push AT&T off the stage, especially when it will make the overall purchase of your new iPhone less expensive - a good thing right? Imagine Steve on stage, iPhone HD (or whatever they are calling this thing) is the least expensive iPhone ever - starting at just $45 a month with data! Imagine the techorati on their feet yelling accolades, throwing spring bouquets on stage, women baring their chests…it’s a love fest scene out of the 60s. Why kill that happy moment? Verizon iPhone baby, that’s why. Apple has been peeved with AT&T for some time, in other countries Apple doesn’t have these issues as the device is sold on multiple carriers in a market. Android is rolling fast and heavy like a gold-adorn 80’s rapper, Apple’s got to get more phones out there and they are poised to do it - the only thing holding them back is AT&T. So is AT&T on edge about this? Our Tarun Kunwar provides exhibit B: “if you hadn’t heard the news yesterday, AT&T’s Executive Response Team replied to e-mails from customer Giorgio Galante’s with threats to cease and desist all services.” For emailing the CEO. AT&T’s backpedal response: an AT&T senior VP apologized to Galante citing that the rep who called him was “not having the best of days today.” Translation: “we are frickin’ days away from an announcement that is going to slice our stock, send customers running from the hills to our competitor and you want to whine about your one iPhone problem? Dude, we’ve got millions of iPhone problems.” Sure Verizon has gone on record to say no, but don’t they kinda have to until the announcement?
Vietnam-Gizmodo-gateCan these two really be grouped together? I say yes. Let’s start with Vietnam - we’ve seen more of this device than of the back of Steve Job’s head. Video after video, image after image, I am already bored with the hardware part of next week’s announcement and it hasn’t even started or probably even been finalized. Why have we seen so much and why Vietnam? The internet is everywhere, Apple knows this. By dropping off a few phones, Apple can leak the phone without making it look like they are doing it. (plus the labor rates for video creation are so much lower in Vietnam than other parts of the world - they are getting the leak accomplished at a great price). These are not accidents, these are purposeful leaks to show us something to keep our eyes away from things like real 4G and the Sprint EVO. Now on to the little tech blog Gizmodo: Apple gets caught playing with new devices stateside. Apple gets really mad, like when you lost your Dad’s favorite screw driver, and overreacts a bit. I can hear, “we control the message, dammit, not some kid with a computer,” booming through the halls at Apple HQ. ” We’ve just paid these Vietnamese guys to leak this stuff, our hands should be clean.” This would of course be followed up by, “it’s too hot in here for a mock turtleneck. Quick, someone get me a frickin Dickie in here, and kill operation Global Warming.”
Apple’s update patternThe iPhone first gen didn’t need to be anything more than it was: a breakthrough in mass attraction. Then comes the made-for-masses 3G that got a lot of folks to pony up - lower price, 3G speeds, all the original iPhone goodness in an easier to love fashion. Then came the 3GS, more of a refinement than an upgrade while Apple burned time for all the 3Gers 2 year contract to be up. Now comes the 4th generation. We all expect a full redesign on hardware, a fun update to the OS bringing all kinds of crazy things that we’ll probably love at first but then yearn for the old days when the phone was much simpler. This is the model that Apple aims to get everyone to upgrade to, so it’s got to be full of surprises. And not just the leaked hardware. The last WWDC left me feeling ho-hum: nothing much to see here, little “wow”. Most of us were still burning our last year of a contract before we can upgrade on the cheap. I all but guarantee (Gadgetell doesn’t let me guarantee anything anymore since that whole blender incident) that we’ll leave the live blog with goose-bumps and a bad case of gadget-fever. This is a big one for Apple. It looks like tethering (non-jailbreak) is legit. Front facing camera? Maybe. On the Sprint “Now Network”? Who knows. All I can say is Apple (and it’s leakers) have lulled us into a false sense of “we know it all”, just as they planned. And you bet it’s planned. That’s when we have a “wow” moment, and Apple is very good at creating those. And we’ll all be just as surprised as you are. Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:37 pm Coming Soon: A Foldable iPad?A new way to grow copper nanowires in water could revolutionize the nanotech industry.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:34 pm Faster Forward: Microsoft ends Bing cashback rebates - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:33 pm Motorola ousted as top US handset seller (Korea rising!)
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:29 pm Gene Related To Aging Plays Role In Stem Cell DifferentiationA gene shown to play a role in the aging process appears to play a role in the regulation of the differentiation of embryonic stem cells, according to researchers from the Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Department of Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University.In the study, published online in the journal Aging Cell, the researchers identified a protein interaction that controls the silencing of Oct4, a key transcription factor that is critical to ensuring that embryonic stem cells remain pluripotent.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:23 pm TechAmerica Orange County Unveils 2010 High-Tech Innovation Awards WinnersOrganization recognizes the top contributors to local innovation and global competition IRVINE, Calif., June 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- TechAmerica today announced the winners of its 17th Annual High-Tech Innovation Awards.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:19 pm Fox Chase Clinical Trial Tests First Of Its Kind AntibodyMM-111 antibody uses HER2 target to reach and block HER3Patients with HER2-positive cancers can have dramatic responses to HER2-targeted drugs but eventually develop resistance to the agents.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:18 pm PSA: The new Sprint Hero update blocks rooting.. and that might be all it does
Alongside the announcement that the EVO 4G’s first OTA update was already available, Sprint casually mentioned that an update was also available for their HTC Hero. Sweet! Updates! Surely this patch fixes some of the issues (shorter battery life, roaming oddities, etc) that Hero owners have been having since the move to 2.1, right? Not exactly. In fact, the only “fix” this thing packs might not be a very welcome one.
According to early reports, the only change that users are seeing with this update is that the previously established rooting method has been blocked. (Rooting, by the way, is the act of unlocking otherwise restricted administrative privileges for the phone, allowing the user to do stuff like install custom builds of the operating system, run custom themes, etc.) Sprint may very well be doing this with good intentions; this process used for rooting is, technically, a security exploit, which Sprint may feel they’re patching out of the kindness of their hearts. On the other hand, it’s an exploit which requires a pretty damned good amount of effort on the user’s part — to my knowledge, it’s not exactly something that could be exploited by a malicious app that sneaks its way onto the App Market. What say you, reader? What’s done is done, of course, but it’s worth discussing: was this a lame move by Sprint? I’ll go ahead and start the countdown until the next root method is discovered, but I wouldn’t expect it to be running very long.
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:18 pm Video: Deus Ex: Human Revolution trailer is actually quite good (but where’s the in-game footage?)The mere idea of Deus Ex: Human Revolution (aka Deus Ex 3) annoys me more than anything else, but having seen this trailer… yes, I will have to reconsider my position. Truly a fine, fine trailer. Well done, Squeenix.
There’s one small problem with the trailer: we see zero actual in-game footage. Whoever directed the trailer and whoever composed the music should get a free box of Thin Mints (the best cookies on the planet, of course) because it very much nails the feel of Deus Ex. Cautiously optimistic.
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:15 pm 'Taxi Service' to Space Pads Looking More FeasibleA company already has a couple inflatable habitats in orbit. And soon a space taxi service could help you get there.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:12 pm Coral Transplantation The Simple And Cheap Solution To Reef RestorationIt is a question asked by marine scientists from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Barrier Reef; how best to restore coral reefs and marine habitat once it has been damaged or even killed? Now research published in Restoration Ecology reveals how 'transplantation' may be a cheap and simple solution that can be used by conservation volunteers to repair damaged reefs.The research was carried out by Dr Graham Forrester, from the University of Rhode Island, who led a team of scientists, students and local residents to try and restore a dead, but once vibrant reef, at White Bay in the British Virgin Islands.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:08 pm Porn is the key to 3D HDTV expansionFROM GAMERTELL - Japan will produce the world’s first adult films specifically for 3D televisions. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm Caught on Tape: Cricket SexThe day-to-day lives of field crickets, captured on 250,000 hours of surveillance footage, provide a glimpse into how well studies in the lab match up with life in the wild.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm Pliocene Cyprinids From Kunlun Pass Basin, Northeastern Tibetan PlateauThrough studying the newly-found cyprinid fish fossils, Wang and Chang have shown that the existence of comparatively rich waters in the Kunlun Pass Basin on the southern slope of the East Kunlun Mountain (at 4769 m above sea level) and possible connections between the water systems on north and south sides of the East Kunlun Mountain during the Pliocene.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:59 pm Joint Source-Channel Encoding/Decoding Techniques For Reliable CommunicationsJoint source-channel coding/decoding (JSCC/JSCD) techniques have become state-of-the-art and one of the challenging research subjects in the spatial communication area.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:57 pm DMP Brings About New Design Space For Virtualization TechnologyProfessors Wang and Luo and their group in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, Peking University (PKU), have recently introduced a new memory virtualization technique called Dynamic Memory Paravirtualization (DMP).Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:55 pm Chaotic Laser Brings Out Higher Precision OTDRProfessor Wang Yun Cai and his student Wang An Bang reported a new concept of optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) based on a chaotic light correlation method. This will be useful for precise fault location in fiber links with high-density events.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:53 pm A Community-Centric Approach To Automated Service CompositionIn recent years, the Internet has been evolving from a primarily publication platform to a user participatory platform.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:51 pm Ziff Davis Acquired By Former Time Digital Exec Vivek Shah And Great Hill Partners
Ziff Davis operates nine properties including PCMag.com, ExtremeTech, GearLog, GoodCleanTech, DL.tv, AppScout, CrankyGeeks, Smart Device Central and TechSaver.com, which the company says reach over 7 million users per month. As a seasoned digital media exec, Shah might be able to breathe life back into the publisher. Shah has an impressive background in media, as helping create CNNMoney.com, overseeing Time.com and SI.com, and also serving as the president of Fortune and Money magazines. The release indicates that Shah is particularly interested in Ziff Davis Labs, a computer testing lab that produces reviews of gadgets, similar to Consumer Reports. We had the opportunity to speak to Shah, who told us that there’s a tremendous opportunity in producing content that helps users make buying decisions. “There’s a huge potential in purchasing intent here,” says Shah. He also says there’s a huge opportunity in bringing editorial content to tablet devices and intends to take Ziff Davis’ content in that direction. Shah also confirmed to us that the transaction was valued under $150 million. Unfortunately, thanks to the imploding print and magazine business, Ziff Davis Media has had to move more towards a digital model and succumbed to layoffs. This acquisition by a seasoned digital exec may help bring fresh ideas, new revenue streams and potential turnaround a floundering company.      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:50 pm Sprint HTC EVO 4G gets its first OTA update, fixes microSD issues
Surprise! Sprint’s not going to let any silly microSD card bugs taint the day of their big EVO 4G launch. Just hours after Sprint shops around the country started pushing EVO 4Gs to hungry customers, the carrier has issued its first OTA update for this device. Before you get too excited: it’s a pretty minor one, being that its sole purpose is to fix the microSD card issues that were reported earlier today. Whenever you’re ready to get your itty-bitty-update on, just follow Sprint’s steps below:
Update: Like the Hero’s update, it looks like this update might block the only current known rooting method.
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:49 pm Artist releases album on a single microchip
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:45 pm Apple's HTML5 Showcase Less About Web Standards, More About AppleApple's new HTML5 demo page is intended to show the power of the emerging web standard, but the company’s approach misses the point.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:40 pm Twitter Has Basically Doubled In Staff In The Past 6 Months
At some point last week, Twitter zoomed past 200 employees. The official count is now 205, according to head of communications Sean Garrett. That’s nothing compared to Twitter’s rivals such as Facebook and Google, but what’s impressive is that Twitter has basically doubled in size (in terms of staff) in the past 6 months alone. Twitter had 110 employees at the start of 2010 — and just 22 employees at the start of 2009. And that rapid growth is likely to continue. Twitter has just taken over a second floor in the building they chose to be their new headquarters late last year. With that room, don’t be surprised if they double in size again in the next six months. With the monetization effort fully underway, look for a lot of business development people to be brought in. Twitter is also still using an effective way to recruit new employees: Twitter. They @jointheflock account has over 6,600 followers and routinely tweets out things showing how cool it is to work at Twitter — like Conan O’Brien stopping by, and their new Zen room and art gallery on the new floor. Below find some pictures of the new office space compliments of the @twitteroffice Flickr account.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:39 pm The Biomechanics Of InformationGoing more miles per gallon with your brainThe hunting strategy of a slender fish from the Amazon is giving researchers more insight into how to balance the metabolic cost of information with the metabolic cost of moving around to get that information.A new study from Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science answers the question: In behaviors in which you have to move to get information, when should the animal spend more energy on locomotion versus spending more energy on getting more information?The study is published by the journal PLoS Computational Biology.Malcolm MacIver, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of biomedical engineering at McCormick, led a team that analyzed the hunting behavior of the weakly electric black ghost knifefish, native to the Amazon.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:38 pm How the iPad Blew My Chances at a New Romance
At a mixer a couple of weeks ago, a young geek glanced at my name tag and said, “You’re the ultimate Facebook stalker, aren’t you?” He was referring to a story that I broke with Wired.com’s Threat Level team, in which we followed clues on social networking sites to unmask Brian Hogan, the finder of the iPhone prototype sold to Gizmodo. “Stalker” contains nothing but negative connotations, but in the internet world, we all do it: We use Facebook to search for potential new hires, significant others and even old acquaintances. But even though I came to terms with being called a stalker, I don’t deserve the name. I’m just not stealthy enough. That became clear last Friday. A government census taker rang my doorbell for the second time in a couple of weeks. I didn’t answer the door (I was sleeping), but I ran into her an hour later as I was leaving my building. To my surprise, she turned out to be pretty cute: Petite, dark hair, tanned, a laid-back personality — just my type. So when I got back home from the bar, I did just about what anyone would do: I looked her up on Facebook. I already had her name, from the note she left on my door after her first visit, which I left ignored under a refrigerator magnet. I launched the Facebook app on my iPad and looked up her profile: Art student, 20 years old, favorite music: Ghettochild. (No idea who that is.) And then came the fumble: While trying to tap her photo, I hit “Add Friend” instead. With that simple slip of a finger, my cover was blown. “SH*T!” I typed to my friend Rose in an IM. “I was Facebook stalking my census taker and I just sent her a friend request by accident! What do I do?!?!” After laughing at me for a few minutes, Rose made a suggestion. “I think it’d be creepy if you just said nothing,” she said, “and I think girls find honesty endearing.” So I wrote the census taker a quick message: hey um, i was facebook stalking you and accidentally added you. this is embarrassing. anyway, sorry for snubbing you on the census. glad you caught me on the way out! And the next morning she sent me a reply: hahaha that’s great, no problem! thanks for cooperating! The thought crossed my mind to ask her out to lunch, but upon further inspection of her profile I saw that her favorite TV shows were Glee, The Rachel Maddow Show and Will and Grace. So I realized she wasn’t my type after all (nor was I hers). It would’ve been too awkward at this point anyway. And no, she didn’t accept my friend request. Morals of the story: The iPad is too easy to use — to a fault. And you shouldn’t Facebook-stalk someone after a night of drinking. Brian X. Chen is writing a book about the always-connected mobile future titled Always On, due for release in spring 2011. He’s already considering pitching his next book: How to Die Alone. 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:37 pm How the iPad Blew My Chances at a New RomanceA tragic comedy involving the iPad, Facebook and failed romance.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:37 pm How the iPad Blew My Chances at a New RomanceA tragic comedy involving the iPad, Facebook and failed romance.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:37 pm Become A Music Mogul: Hitmaker From NoiseToys Hits The App Store
Last week at TechCrunch Disrupt, music startup NoiseToys launched with a demo of its iPhone app, Hitmaker. The app is now available in the iTunes store as a free download. This was one of my favorite products to launch at Disrupt, even though the company never made it past the first round. Hitmaker makes a game out of discovering and promoting music. You get $500,000 in play money with which to “buy” real songs, which then change in value depending on how popular they become on the Web, in iTunes, and in the game. The idea is that you want to buy low when nobody knows about a song and sell high when it goes when it goes mainstream. You can pick songs from your own iTunes library, the top ranked songs on iTunes, the Hype Machine, or Last.FM, or the most-liked and most-recommended songs from Facebook. (It lets you login via Facebook Connect). Once you pick the songs you think are going to make it big, you then can start acting like a music mogul by promoting the songs to your friends in the game, on Facebook, or via email. You can post links to the songs on your Facebook Wall or target only certain friends. The more popular the songs in your portfolio become, the more they are worth. They also earn virtual royalties. The songs only play 30 second clips, but you can buy them on iTunes, which is sort of the point. The app would be more powerful if you could listen to an entire song and create streaming playlists. My other pet peeve is that when you try to promote a song on Facebook, it doesn’t play in Facebook, not even the clip. Instead it just inserts a link to iTunes, which isn’t the best way to share a song on Facebook. It would be better if your Facebook friends could listen to it inline and then decide whether they want to link off to iTunes or not. But the app is somewhat addictive even in its current form. The founders got the underlying game mechanics right, which is half the battle. Everyone always likes to brag about how great their taste in music is and how they were listening to R.E.M. or U2 before anyone else knew who they were. Well, now there’s a way to keep score. Like UJAM, another TC Disrupt startup that nearly stole the show, I am glad to see some new thinking being applied to the music industry. During rehearsals for Disrupt, both Mike and I thought NoiseToys would make it to the final five. Below is a video I took during rehearsals on my iPhone after the demo when the three Stanford-grad founders talked about their backgrounds. Co-founder Vivek Agarawal wrote one of the tracks in the movie Slumdog Millionaire (“Jai Ho”), while Mehul Trivedi worked at Apple on OpenAL (part of the Core Audio on the iPhone) and Shalin Mantri studied social influence at Stanford.      
Source: TechCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:34 pm Aquatic Life Declines At Early Stages Of Urban DevelopmentThe number of native fish and aquatic insects, especially those that are pollution sensitive, declines in urban and suburban streams at low levels of development — levels often considered protective for stream communities, according to a new study by the U.S.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:32 pm Video: Snoop Dogg, David Beckham re-create Star Wars cantina scene for World Cup funsiesIn the interest of killing two minutes of your time: the famous Star Wars cantina scene, as remixed by Adidas. Yes, that’s Snoop Dogg wielding a lightsaber. You youngsters may not know this, but Snoop Dogg used to be a legit gangsta. Now? /me whistles cantina song The premise is that all these people—I spy Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, Frank Beckenbauer, Daft Punk, and that guy from “Freaks and Geeks”—are visiting the cantina to see the World Cup. I think Daft Punk needs to use the Millennium Falcon or something. Again, believe it or not, I’ve not seen the original trilogy. Please don’t tar and feather me for that. My question is, what are these guys watching? World Cup players have been dropping like flies. Players set to miss the tournament include: Michael Essian, Didier Drogba, Rio Ferdinand, Andrea Pirlo, maybe even USA’s own Jozy Altidore. It’s seriously like that Simpsons episode when all the star baseball players mysteriously vanished, expect now players are getting injured left and right. God help us if Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo get hurt… via Nowhere Else
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:30 pm Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet revealed on Twitter [Image]Section: Communications, Mobile, Computers, Mobile Computers ![Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet revealed on Twitter [Image]](http://admintell.napco.com/ee/images/uploads/gadgetell/samsung_tab_600.jpg) Samsung has recently taken to Twitter and offered up a nice image of the Samsung Tab tablet. Overall it looks pretty nice, but there are still few details that are know. So far we can tell you that it has a 7-inch display, which at least in the picture seems to be pretty nice. Otherwise, it will be running Android with the TouchWiz user interface. The one question I have is in regards to the phone icon, really, on a 7-inch device. Imagine the strange looks you are going to get when holding that up to your head.
Read [Twitter @SamsungBlogSA]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:23 pm Editor's Picks: Alien Artifacts, Amelia Earhart, Space Taxis and MoreAbove, you'll see some of the top images of the week. Click on each one to explore the story behind it. If you didn't get a chance to catch all the latest Discovery News content this week, then be sure ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:20 pm Sprint keeps it green, announces the eco-friendly Samsung Restore
EVO 4G? Pah! Why get a 4.3″ inch screen’d, 1 Ghz CPU’d monster of a phone when you can get Sprint’s brand new Samsung Restore? Sure, it might be a bit less ridiculously powerful — but it’s eco-friendly!
Made up of 27% recycled materials and 84% recyclable once you’re done with it, the Restore is Sprint’s second Samsung phone to sport their Eco-Logo badge (with the first one being the Reclaim). Its packaging is 100% recyclable, and the charger is Energy Star Compliant to boot. We’ve still got our doubts about this whole strategy — but on the upside, it seems Samsung’s at least trying to address some of our complaints. We complained last time about how counterproductive it seemed to ship a “green” phone with a 5 useless pamphlets and a big ol’ paper manual; this time around, they’ve put all those bits online instead.
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:19 pm Big Fuel Savings Are Possible, But It Will Cost UsCurrent technology can cut automotive fuel use by up to 50 percent, but it won't be cheap. See what your options are if you want to up your efficiency quotient.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:17 pm Easyjet Unveils System To Help Against Ash CloudsLow-cost airline Easyjet has unveiled a system that it says will allow airlines to safely fly around ash clouds. The system involves infrared technology that allows pilots to see the damaging particles up to 62 miles ahead.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:11 pm D8 Video: AOL Kicks Off Google/Microsoft Search Sweepstakes [D8 Conference]AOL’s search deal with Google (GOOG) expires at the end of the year. But Tim Armstrong has only just started the formal process of talking to Google, Microsoft (MSFT) and some mysterious other players about getting a new deal. Who else could provide AOL with search services beyond the two obvious players? Got me. But watch the AOL (AOL) boss discuss his plans with Kara Swisher at D8: [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:10 pm The First International Virtual Event for Future MBA Students from Asia to Meet Global Business Schools Launched by UBM Asia, Created by UBM StudiosCHICAGO, June 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The MBAwired APAC virtual event is the first truly international event for future MBA students from Asia to meet global business schools.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm How to Make a Soda Fountain With Mentos and Coke BottleYou've seen those explosive fountains of soda on YouTube, Letterman, Mythbusters and in a Weezer video. Learn how to do it yourself in your own backyard.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm Gasp! AT&T stops selling the iPhone 3G because they’re “Out Of Stock”
The horror! Days after the Apple Store pulled sales of the iPhone 3G from their online market, AT&T has disclosed to employees the iPhone 3G is now “Out of Stock”. Employees are being told to direct customers to the iPhone 3GS. The fact that Apple’s WWDC, the birth place of all new iPhones, goes down in 3 days is, of course, a complete coincidence. The memo, as obtained by BoyGenius:
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:58 am The Logitech Harmony Link for Google TV gets detailed
Google TV is all about blurring the lines between the web and TV — and ads of course. Logitech is playing a key role in this project by providing the oh-so-important remote interface, and the just-detailed Logitech Harmony Link goes way behind anything currently available. Logitech has a long history in this field and is the right company for the job. The peripheral maker acquired Harmony Remotes a few years back and built a strong universal remote brand centered around a system that make programming universal remotes dead simple. Harmony Remotes are about the best universal remotes for the money. Logitech Harmony Link is a bit different, though. It’s not a traditional IR blaster or even a remote, but rather hardware built into Logitech’s Google TV companion box that can read nearly any IR command and send it out to the appropriate set-top box or AV receiver. Since Google TV is always connected to the cloud, Logitech will be able to constantly push new device control schemes when they become available. The system also builds in support for Android and iDevices. Free apps will turn phones into virtual remotes with all the bells and whistles found on Logitech’s high-end models. But we already knew that. The platform will be open to developers, but to what extent is not yet known. It’s likely targeted primarily to home automation companies and other remote makers to allow the Google TV access to their devices as well. Both Google and Logitech are offering this all-knowing platform with a large degree of openness and seemingly wants everyone to come play. Details are likely to continue filtering out until Google TV launches at least this blog post sheds a little light on how devices will talk to each other.
Source: CrunchGear | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:58 am HTC Pushes Out Fix for Evo 4G Storage Glitch
HTC and Sprint are moving fast to fix a storage card-related bug that left some early users of the Evo 4G smartphone frustrated. As Wired reported Thursday, a problem with the 8-GB MicroSD card that ships with the HTC Evo returned error messages to some people when they tried using the phone’s camera app. The bug also prevented some people from saving files and documents to the card. HTC has started pushing out a software fix to current and new Evo users, the same day the phone goes on sale at all Sprint stores. HTC spokesman Keith Nowak confirmed that the updates started streaming out Friday morning so “anyone who currently has an HTC EVO 4G and people who are lining up to buy it today should not experience the issue.” HTC and Google gave about 5,000 of the devices to attendees at Google’s developer conference two weeks ago, which is how many early users discovered the problem. The Evo has been a much anticipated phone because of its position as the first 4G smartphone. HTC and Sprint unveiled the Evo in May. The feature-packed gadget has a huge 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1-GHz Snapdragon processor, a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video conferencing and a 8-megapixel camera for shooting photos and videos. (Evo’s MicroSD card has been manufactured by SanDisk.) Evo runs the 2.1 version of the Android operating system, and costs $200 with a two-year contract. Despite poor battery life, the phone has gathered positive reviews. See Also:
Photo: (closari/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:56 am Wired Explains: Everything You Need to Know About 4G Wireless
If your smartphone seems more like a slowphone, hang in there. The next generation of wireless technologies, known as 4G, promises blazing-fast data transmission speeds. The first 4G handset, Sprint’s HTC Evo, hits U.S. retail stores Friday, making this a good time to answer your questions about the fast wireless technology behind the Evo. 4G is just getting started, and even Sprint’s network is only available in a handful of cities. But in just about two years, 4G could be almost everywhere. All major U.S. wireless carriers are working on upgrading their systems to 4G — though we would prefer if some, like AT&T, got their 3G networks working properly in the meantime. So what goodness will 4G bring to the world and should you hold your breath for it? Read on for our quick guide to all those burning questions about 4G. Got more questions? Ask them in the comments, and we’ll update this post with answers. What is 4G? 4G is a loose term for the fourth generation of cellular communications, offering speeds that are about 10 times faster than they are on current third-generation, or 3G, networks. Its higher data speeds could make smartphones much more comparable to PCs, giving them better multimedia and gaming capabilities. What are the different 4G technologies? Just as in the 3G world, 4G technologies fork into two broad camps: LTE and WiMax. They’re not aligned with the old GSM vs CDMA split, though. This time, AT&T and Verizon are moving towards LTE, while Sprint has thrown its weight behind WiMax. There’s quite a bit of debate on whether LTE and WiMax meet all the technical requirements to be classified 4G technologies. The International Telecommunications Union suggests that WiMax, the standard that Sprint calls 4G, is actually part of the 3G family, though Sprint markets WiMax as 4G and its speeds are comparable to current LTE speeds. WiMax has its roots in the wireless broadband access industry and is supported by IEEE, while the LTE standard has been created by a consortium of mobile companies. WiMax requires a new network to be built whereas LTE is an evolution of existing CDMA/HSPA networks. How fast will 4G be? The maximum theoretical data transfer with 3G technology is 2 Mbps. But in practice, you won’t get more than 500 Kbps to 1.5 Mbps, depending on your carrier, the location of the cell tower, congestion, etc. 4G ups the game. WiMax can offer peak download data speeds of up to 6 Mbps and up to 1 Mbps for uploading data. WiMax rival LTE says it can do much better. It has peak download speeds of 100 Mbps and can support uploads at the rate of up to 50 Mbps. But remember, these are theoretical speeds conjured by lab rats. Add a million devices on the network, downloading Comedy Central clips on Flash-enabled phones, video chatting, streaming the next chapter in the Saw movie franchise and uploading parodies of the latest Lady Gaga release, and those speeds will drop. For a better idea of what you can expect with your 4G device, take a look at what tests on the Sprint WiMax and Verizon LTE 4G networks have shown. PC World reports that the HTC EVO 4G phone never broke the 3 Mbps mark in its tests of the phone nationwide. And Verizon’s tests showed in the real world, its download speeds ranged from 5 Mbps to 12 Mbps and with upload speeds of 2 Mbps to 5 Mbps. I want 4G now. Where can I get it? About 36 U.S. cities including Seattle, Baltimore, Chicago and Dallas already have 4G coverage from Sprint. There are still some big names like San Francisco and New York missing from the list, but Sprint says 4G will arrive there by the end of the year. You can check out the detailed list of the cities that have 4G coverage on Sprint’s site. Do I need a new phone to take advantage of 4G? Yes, you will need a new phone. The first 4G smartphone is the HTC Evo, a device running Google’s Android operating system, which launches today. HTC Evo is a gorgeous device with a 4.3-inch touchscreen, two cameras, GPS navigation, HDMI output and mobile hot-spot capability. The phone costs $200 with a two-year contract. Sprint is also charging an extra $10 a month, in addition to its standard data plans, as a service fee to access the 4G network. If you don’t have 4G connectivity where you live, you can still use the phone with existing 3G networks. Meanwhile, Samsung is creating a 4G phone for MetroPCS. The excitingly named phone SCH-r900 will have a 624-MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, a 3.2-inch display, and Windows Mobile 6.1 operating system. There’s been an iPhone 3G, iPhone 3G S. So is an iPhone 4G next? Sure, Apple can add the 4G tag to its next iPhone if it wants to, and “iPhone 4G” is how the company has referred to its next-generation smartphone in legal documents. But we doubt that it will have 4G network connectivity — unless Apple’s creating a phone exclusive to Sprint. What are the 4G plans of the major U.S. carriers? AT&T: The carrier plans to start trials of its 4G network later this year. AT&T will make the most of its LTE deployments in 2011. But even that may not be enough to free us from the tyranny of capped data consumption and gaping holes in its coverage. Verizon: In 2009, Verizon tested its 4G wireless service in Boston and Seattle. Verizon said it plans to start offering the service commercially this year in about 30 cities so it can cover about 100 million users. By 2013, Verizon hopes to have the 4G service available nationwide. Sprint: Sprint is leading the 4G charge with the network already available in at least 36 cities. By the end of the year, most major cities will be covered by Sprint’s 4G network. T-Mobile: T-Mobile is in no hurry to get to 4G. Maybe because it first needs to get its 3G network in order. The wireless carrier is still talking about upgrading its 3G network to 3.5 G or HSPA+. HSPA+ will come to Los Angeles and other major cities in the United States this year, says T-Mobile. 4G is clearly a long way away. MetroPCS: The first LTE 4G phone could come from MetroPCS, which is working with Samsung on the device. MetroPCS plans to start its 4G service later this year in cities such as Las Vegas. Give me some background: What’s the history here and how did we get to 4G? Cellular systems have evolved in four major phases or generations. The first generation, or 1G, technology was analog and transmitted voice calls only. The second generation, or 2G, introduced digital transmissions and offered the first support for data, although the focus was still on voice calling. Second-generation phones are based on one of two standards: GSM (used by T-Mobile, AT&T, and most overseas carriers) and CDMA (used by Verizon and Sprint). In either case, average data speed on a 2G network is around 9.6 Kbps, about the same as a ’90s-era modems. The intermediate “2.5G” level is where things get a little fuzzy. In the GSM camp, a standard called GPRS, which offered better data transmission capabilities, came to be known as 2.5G. GPRS has evolved into the EDGE networks (up to 400-kbps data speeds) still used by many phones today. As for the CDMA universe, 2.5G is referred to as 1XRTT, or just 1X. In the real world, it is known as EVDO and promises download speeds ranging from 600 kbps to 1.4 Mbps. There’s been some debate on what constitutes 3G. Broadly speaking, 3G is defined not by the underlying technology, but by its speed: up to 2 Mbps. Verizon and Sprint’s 3G systems are referred to as EVDO, while AT&T and T-Mobile use HSDPA. A further level, known as HSDPA+ or Turbo 3G, can support download speeds of up to 14 Mbps. The next step is 4G. I want all the details, the nitty-gritty behind the two 4G standards. How do they differ? LTE or Long Term Evolution, is a standard evolved by a group called the 3rd Generation Partnership Project. It is an all-IP network based upon the same core protocol of the internet, TCP/IP. Both LTE and WiMax use the principle of Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access, which conceptually has been around since the 1960s. OFDMA is based on the idea of frequency-division multiplexing, which is a method to transmit multiple data streams over a channel. In case of OFDMA, a digital data stream that needs to be transmitted is split into multiple pieces, each of which is modulated onto a separate carrier. These sub-carriers are combined together at the end. The difference between LTE and WiMax lies in how they handle the channel for processing data. WiMax processes all the information in a wide channel. In case of Clearwire’s implementation of WiMax, that means the about two-thirds of the channel is used for downloads, while a third is used to upload data. LTE splits the channel into two parts using frequency-division multiplexing, so the download and upload speeds are better balanced. Just say it. Is WiMax better or LTE? Peanut butter or chocolate? Lost or The Wire? Havaianas or Birkenstocks? There’s no easy answer. It depends on where you are and what you can get access to. If you want 4G now, WiMax is pretty much your only choice. It’s also an open standard supported by IEEE. And it is less expensive for service providers to upgrade their equipment to than LTE. But LTE is coming and almost all the major U.S. carriers, except Sprint, will be supporting it. So ultimately, LTE might win in the long run. See Also:
Photo: Jeff Kubina/Flickr 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:50 am Wired Explains: Everything You Need to Know About 4G WirelessAs the first 4G smartphone, the HTC Evo, goes on sale today, it's time to brush up on your 4G knowledge. Our FAQ explains what's 4G, how it is different and where can you get it.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:50 am Wired Explains: Everything You Need to Know About 4G WirelessAs the first 4G smartphone, the HTC Evo, goes on sale today, it's time to brush up on your 4G knowledge. Our FAQ explains what's 4G, how it is different and where can you get it.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:50 am Online Videos Becoming Increasingly PopularAccording to a survey released Thursday, over half of U.S. adults have watched video online and comedy clips have replaced news as the most popular video on the Internet.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:42 am D8 Video: Ford CEO Alan Mulally Tells Jason Calacanis Why We're Not Going to Drive Electric Cars Anytime Soon [D8 Conference]Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis loves his Tesla. So why can’t the rest of us drive an electric car, too? Ford CEO Alan Mulally fielded the question in the final panel of the D8 conference today. Bonus question for our readers: Since Calacanis won’t tell us how much his Tesla cost, can anyone hazard a guess? [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:39 am CGI to Present at RBC Capital Markets' 2010 Technology, Media & Communications Conference on June 9 in New York CityStock Market Symbols GIB.A (TSX) GIB (NYSE) www.cgi.com/newsroom MONTREAL, June 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Michael E. Roach, President and CEO of CGI Group Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:30 am Kazaa and Skype founders launch music streaming serviceSection: Web, Online Music/Video  Those of use in the US are still waiting for some sort of premium music streaming service. Spotify constantly delays release for one reason or another. MOG still lacks a smartphone app of any kind, though iPhone and Android apps are coming. Other services like Slacker and Pandora aren’t as useful when you want to listen to a specific song or album. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis are launching their own service to help us out. The service is called Rdio, and is currently in invite-only status. Unlike Spotify, there doesn’t look to be any sort of free model with Rdio. The service will cost either $5 or $10 per month depending on how you want to use it. The cheaper plan will gain you access to the full catalog of songs on your desktop while the $10 model will allow users to streaming music to their smartphones. Rdio will have apps for the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms, and an Android app that is said to be released “very soon.” Rdio hopes to bring something different by adding in social networking integration. It will feature simple integration with Facebook and Twitter, as well as add it’s own social elements. Users will be able to see what songs their friends are streaming and downloading from the service, which could help with discovering new music. Of course, Rdio will have another way to discover new music by letting users download a small app that will analyze their current iTunes or Windows Media Player history to determine what music they listen to and determine what they may like. Unlike Spotify, Rdio is planning on an International release by the end of the year, but is starting in the US first. It has a deal with all the major labels, so finding music will not be an issue at all. No idea yet when the service will be open to more users, though hopefully it will be soon. It may even be able to beat Spotify to the US, which is now looking for fall release in the US. Read [Rdio] Via [TechCrunch] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 11:12 am Hello from the HiveplexI’ve always thought that beehives are organized similarly to how we do things here at Google. Bees have a flat management structure and they adapt quickly and change roles throughout their career (nurse, guard, foragers, quality control, etc.) depending on demands. And the bees that collect nectar from the forager bees at the entrance to the hive also scrutinize it for quality. If it’s not high enough, they send the foragers back out to get a fresh start... it reminds me a bit of a Google code review!If Google’s a beehive, then I’m what you might call a forager. I work on the culinary team and we strive to serve food that’s produced locally and grown in a sustainable manner. But we wanted to take the effort to the next level. So, with help from the Marin Bee Company, we’ve installed four hives of bees to help us be as self-sufficient as possible. The four hives—collectively known as the Hiveplex, of course—are each painted in one of Google’s colors. We’ve placed them close to large areas of wild flowers on our campus, far enough away that anyone who isn’t fond of bees can easily avoid them, but close enough that anyone who wants to can walk over and watch them at work. Many Googlers have signed up to contribute to beekeeping and honey extraction efforts, and, come the harvest in the fall, we’ll round the season off with a series of cooking classes and candle-making sessions for all those who have signed up to help. With this project, we’re also hoping to raise awareness of impact of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—a phenomenon in which worker bees abandon the hive for reasons that aren’t fully understood. This has has become a cause of global concern and in some parts of the world more than 50 percent of the hives have been found abandoned. This has grave implications for us all as bees are responsible for pollinating approximately 70 percent of the fruit and vegetables we eat. The loss of bees has serious consequences for plants, wildlife and human survival. (You can read more here.) To see our newest colleagues at work, check out the album below. Someday we might create a Buzz account for our bees so you can all track their progress and follow our bee keeping activities—but we promise not to drone on. Posted by Marc Rasic, Executive Chef    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:57 am Lose Weight the Marmot WayA new study identified a molecule that makes hibernating marmots hungry. Scientists wonder if this same molecule be manipulated to change hunger patterns in humans too.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:53 am What AT&T’s Limited Data Plans Mean for You
The new tiered pricing structure gives AT&T customers the following options:
For some, these changes stink. For others, it won’t affect their lives much. Which plan is right for you? Let’s break down the options. Current AT&T smartphone usersIn a poll Wired.com conducted Wednesday, 73 percent of 11,000 survey takers reported data usage under 2 GB. A Consumer Reports study also found that the average iPhone user consumes 273 MB of data per month, while a measly 4 percent consume an average of 1 GB per month. It’s safe to say that the majority of customers can confidently subscribe to the 2-GB plan. Keep in mind you have the option to jump between the two limited plans — so, if you find you’re using less than 200 MB, you can switch to that $15 plan instead. If you haven’t checked out your average usage to determine where you stand, follow the steps laid out in our poll article Wednesday. Data “hogs”As for the remaining 27 percent of our survey takers who reported data usage exceeding 2 GB: If you’re already on AT&T, stick with your current unlimited plan. AT&T designed these plans to deal with data hogs, just as AT&T’s Ralph De La Vega warned last year. If you opt for the 2-GB plan, you’re going to be paying at least $35 per month ($25 plus $10 for each extra GB), or possibly much more if your usage goes into many gigabytes. If you’re not yet an AT&T customer and you plan to gorge a ton of data, you have the option to adjust your behavior to avoid excessive fees by handling more of your data-heavy tasks over Wi-Fi rather than 3G. Or stick with your current carrier. 3G iPad ownersThe changes in data plans are most frustrating for 3G iPad customers. The device launched in April with an option to buy unlimited data with no contract commitment for just $30 a month. If you’ve already activated your account with unlimited data, you can continue using it, but here’s the kicker: If you choose not to use 3G data for a single month, you’re booted out of that unlimited plan forever. So essentially AT&T is bullying you into activating unlimited every month if you want to keep using it. Still, as with smartphones, your course of action depends on your average data usage. The iPad is a tad too new to gather hard data for average usage, but currently we think the device is being used more in living rooms over Wi-Fi connections. So the 2-GB cap might not be too stifling for most iPad customers. We recommend against the 200 MB plan for iPad customers. The apps and media you stream to the iPad will be bigger in file size than those of a smartphone, so 200 MB can be exceeded easily, even if you only use 3G lightly. Better to pay the $25 for 2 GB rather than $30 after exceeding the 200-MB cap. If you’re a rebellious 3G iPad customer who also owns a smartphone, you have the option of paying nothing at all for iPad data. Jailbreaking the iPhone enables you to tether it to the iPad, and there are likely similar utilities for other AT&T smartphones, as well. However, keep in mind that jailbreaking an iPhone can void your warranty, and Apple has claimed hacking the handset results in security and performance issues. Tethering customersAT&T’s tethering option is indisputably a raw deal. After paying $25 for 2 GB of data, you have to drop an extra $20 each month just to activate tethering. What’s lame is that that extra $20 doesn’t give you an extra data plan; you’re pulling from the same data as your overall usage even when untethered. As GDGT’s Ryan Block said, it’s as if Comcast charged you an extra $20 a month to use your Wi-Fi router. If you’re really eager to use your phone as a wireless modem, you’re going to be adding upward of $45 a month to your wireless bill. If you’re cringing at the idea, there are alternatives to tethering: Standalone devices such as Verizon’s Mi-Fi and Sprint’s Overdrive will give you a portable Wi-Fi hotspot you can take anywhere. But then you’re talking about a separate data contract with another carrier. Going forwardThe tech industry is making a big move into “cloud” computing, where data is stored on the internet instead of on your own devices. Apple is rumored to be planning a reboot of iTunes that involves streaming media. Therefore, it’s conceivable that data usage will increase as more of our media is stored online, but it’s unclear just how much. For music, LA Times writer Mark Milian points out that you’d need to stream about four hours of Pandora every day to hit that 2-gig monthly limit. (That’s quite a lot of tunes over a month.) But Wired’s Eliot Van Buskirk on Wednesday noted that many cloud services, such as Rhapsody and Spotify, allow you to also store songs for offline listening. Streaming video is poised to play a bigger role in the near future, with phones such as the HTC Evo 4G and the next-gen iPhone (if the final product is mostly the same as the prototype) sporting front-facing cameras. And let’s not forget about already-popular services like Netflix streaming or YouTube. People who are especially interested in streaming video are going to be the biggest victims. (If you’re a current video-savvy customer with an unlimited plan, don’t ever leave it.) Still, even as networks become faster and coverage increases, we think in the next five to 10 years people are going to prefer handling their media in a combination of offline and online environments — not only because networks are consistently imperfect, but also for reasons such as privacy and native performance. Whenever a company takes something away from you, it inevitably amounts to outrage. But in the near term, we think most will enjoy the benefit of paying less for just the right amount of data, while heavier data users pay more. See Also:
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:13 am Sprint has “no current plans” to increase data plan pricesSection: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
The actual email thread is in the image below, but the good news came in the first sentence of the reply, which read;
Read [Engadget]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 4 Jun 2010 | 10:09 am Pixelated Grill for Close-Up Cooking
Remember the novelty “executive toy” of the 1980s, the panel of pins that could be squished onto hands, faces or any other object and the metal rods would form a 3D portrait in steel pixels? Well, this concept KitchenAid “Variable Grill” is something very similar, although you’d never want to push your face into it. The grill is of the hinged type, and the top surface has 140 separate elements, or heat-pixels, if you will. Each pixel has a glass top which actually touches the food, and a heating element which sits behind it, providing the BTUs. Because every heat-pixel moves independently, they can settle onto the surface of the food and the elements are all the same distance from the surface. Thhe glass stopping the elements from actually touching it. It’s ingenious, but the rendering is a little on the long-and-thin side: wouldn’t a square be better? I also wonder if the heat would really cook any more evenly than a normal grill, if well attended by simply turning the target food often. These kinds of grills could be considered slightly gimmicky, and don’t achieve much that you couldn’t do with a broiler or a cast-iron grill=pan. On the other hand, George Forman hasn’t done too bad in the same market so perhaps the designer, Roberto Bertran, is on to something. KitchenAid Variable Grill [Yanko] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:51 am HP not out of the WebOS smartphone business after all
He said:
Don’t forget those WebOS printers, either. Those are coming soon as well.
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:17 am Google Apps highlights – 6/4/2010This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.Over the last couple of weeks we continued to improve the new versions of Google documents and spreadsheets, introduced some features to Gmail and made it easier for businesses and schools to switch to Google Apps. Advanced sorting in Google spreadsheets We added some powerful data sorting controls to the new version of Google spreadsheets. Rather than sorting an entire worksheet by values in a single column, you can now sort any range of cells and sort by the contents of multiple columns.  Formula highlighting in Google spreadsheets We also made it easier to write formulas in the new version of Google spreadsheets by adding visual indicators to show which cells a particular formula references. These color-coded highlights will help you keep track of your formulas at a glance. This feature works with Google Chrome, Safari and Internet Explorer; Firefox support is coming soon.  Improvements to Google documents The new version of Google documents also got a few upgrades last week, including improvements to make finding content in your documents, applying text styles and linking to sections within your documents with bookmarks faster and easier.  “Move Icon Column” now in Gmail Labs Our set of experimental Gmail features has a new addition: the “Move Icon Column” Lab. This Labs feature moves the icons for messages with attachments, chats and calendar invitations from the right side of your inbox to the left, keeping those icons next to your stars. You can enable this feature and many others from the Labs tab under Gmail Settings.  “Reshare” in Google Buzz As of last week, Google Buzz lets you reshare posts that you find interesting without having to copy and paste the original content. Just click the new “Reshare” link beneath public buzz posts, type up anything you want to add and click “Post.” You can choose to reshare publicly on the web or privately to a select group.  Google Apps Migration for Microsoft Outlook® We offer an array of migration tools to help businesses and schools move email, calendar and contacts data from their old systems to Google’s cloud. Customers have used these utilities to migrate more than 2 billion email messages to Google’s cloud, and last week we introduced the new Google Apps Migration tool for Microsoft Outlook®. This is a new end-user tool that moves email, calendar and contact data from Outlook® profiles, PST files and Exchange accounts to Google Apps.  Who’s gone Google? In the spirit of National Small Business Week, we recently profiled a few small businesses doing big things with Google Apps. Revenue Spark is using Google Apps to build up a global presence to help bring green technology products to market. Yola counts on Google Apps to help their business grow fluidly as they bring on more software developers and business employees around the world. Smart Furniture turned to Google Apps to free up precious resources, improve productivity and remove barriers to growth. These are just a few of the millions of businesses that have gone Google. If your company has a story to share, add yourself to the map! We continue to see more and more schools beginning to use Google Apps as well. A warm welcome to Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, SUNY Oswego, Elon University, Anderson University and Oxford Brookes University. Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 4 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am Prototype Bike-Helmet Stinks When Damaged
With a rather ingenious piece of engineering, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials have come up with a way to force you to replace a damaged crash helmet: Make it stink. A bike helmet is designed to absorb any impact meant for your head. Like your head, it will break when given a good enough whack, and also like your head, it won’t really work properly afterwards. The new Fraunhofer design mixes malodorous chemical capsules into the helmet’s shell. When the plastic is damaged, the oils are released and your head starts to smell like a hobo’s crotch. The use of smelly chemicals to alert us to danger isn’t new: the gas that we use to cook is odorless and therefore undetectable without added smell. The Fraunhofer researchers haven’t specified the actual aroma they might use, but I favor something rank. If your lid starts to smell like roses, it is a warning easily ignored. If, however, it makes your noggin emit a hum that makes a dog’s breath seem like a fresh spring breeze then you will be shamed into buying a replacement. Crash helmet with a useful smell [Physorg via DVICE] Photo: Fraunhofer IWM 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 8:58 am Protein Drinks Packing a Poisonous Wallop?Consumer Reports found worrisome levels of three heavy metals in mass marketed protein drinks.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 8:53 am D8 Video: Does Serious Journalism Have to Be a Charity Case? [D8 Conference]Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt runs away from the concept of journalism. ProPublic’s Paul Steiger embraces it. But he says he can’t figure out to provide serious, in-depth reporting without help from foundations and wealthy donors — just like clinics, and orchestras and art museums. [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:46 am Stanza for iPad Adds Comic-Book Support
Today, Stanza was updated to version 3.0, and will now work on the iPad. Seasoned Stanza users will be comforted that little has changed in the book-browsing and reading interface: it is still as slick and customizable as ever, and you can still add your favorite third-party book repositories. In fact, in use it really just feels like a big, non-pixelated version of the iPhone app. But there are some pretty cool new features, too. First is support for comic-books and PDFs. Yes, you can now read any of your CBR, CBZ or DjVu scans in Stanza (on both iPad and iPhone). It isn’t a great comic-book reader, but it gets the job done, and it’s fast. This feature is also why you are reading this post right now instead of my top four iPad comic-book apps, which will now be a top five and appear on Monday. You can also get files into Stanza via iTunes, just as you can with any other document-based apps. Better is that any e-books you may already have in Stanza can be gotten out and copied to your computer (perhaps for later use with iBooks). At a stroke, this makes our guide on rescuing books from Stanza redundant, although you may still like to use it to clean up your metadata. Stanza 3.0 also reports itself correctly to the iPad OS, telling it that it is ready to open EPUB files. This lets you open books direct from the web or found elsewhere on the iPad, such as in email attachments or inside Dropbox. The king is back! It might not be as pretty as iBooks, but in terms of features and flexibility, Stanza thrashes Apple’s offering. Free, available now. Stanza [iTunes] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:30 am Hubble Watches Restless Star ClusterAstronomers at the Max-Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and the University of Cologne waited ten years to catch stars in the Milky Way's densest cluster moving enough to measure.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:24 am Cap Over Ruptured Well Appears to Be WorkingRemote-controlled submarines installed the cap in BP's most recent attempt to contain the oil leak.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 7:01 am Animal-Human Hybrids Banned in Some StatesIn the new movie "Splice," a human-animal hybrid terrorizes people. In real life, scientists argue mixing human and animal cells could save lives.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:46 am D8 Video: EBay CEO John Donahoe on Digital Wallets, iPhone Apps and the iPad [D8 Conference]According to eBay CEO John Donahoe more people will be buying things with their cell phones than their wallets within the next two to three years. During his D8 interview this week, Donahoe said devices are increasingly becoming part of the shopping experience. And in support of that claim, he said the company’s iPhone app was responsible for $600 million in volume last year. He also described Apple’s (AAPL) iPad as offering a better eBay (EBAY) experience than the Web. Video below. [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 4 Jun 2010 | 6:36 am Dual-Screen Tablet Maker Hopes to Reinvent TextbookA new dual-screen tablet is designed for college students to display textbooks in color and without any scrolling. It's from Chegg, the same company that's popular among students for textbook rentals.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 4 Jun 2010 | 5:00 am Sprint officially kicks off sales of the HTC EVO 4G
“History will be made across the nation as anxious customers get their hands on America’s first 3G/4G wireless phone, HTC EVO 4G, packed with industry-leading features.” A little over the top right there, but anyway: you can now purchase the HTC EVO 4G at Sprint.com, Sprint retail stores, at RadioShack, Best Buy and Walmart. The device sells for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new line activation or upgrade. Sales of the Android 2.1-powered dual-mode 3G/4G handset with 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip, a 4.3-inch display, 8 megapixel camera, personal WiFi hotspot feature and front and rear cameras commence now, but they are limited to five per customer. With the battery life on this thing, we recommend you get all five of them, just to make sure. We kid, we kid. A little. Check out Matt’s MobileCrunch review and MG Siegler’s TechCrunch review. And go through our tips and tricks to learn how you can squeeze a bit more battery life out of this phone. It’s the only annoyance keeping it from being the Best Android Handset To Date™. Update: more on two-way video chat on the EVO 4G, powered by Qik Video, and the pricing here.
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 4:11 am Premature leak of the day: Sony Ericsson 5-inch Android QWERTY phone
However, 5 inches does make it a bit of a beast, moving the device squarely into too-big-to-be-a-phone-too-small-to-be-a-tablet territory… but look at that keyboard! It looks totally typeable! The sleuthy photographer (translated link) says that it is running Android 2.1, with no current plans for Froyo, but, as it’s a very early prototype, both the software and the body may very well change. Obviously, there is no news on release dates (let alone pricing), but you can rest assured that as more leaks surface, we’ll be typin’ em up, just for you. [via Engadget]
Source: MobileCrunch | 4 Jun 2010 | 2:51 am
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If this had been a trial to detect whether omega-3 improves performance, it would be laughably small: a dozen children in each group. While small studies aren't entirely useless, as amateurs often claim, you do have a very small number of observations to work from, so your study is much more prone to error from the simple play of chance. A study with 11 children in each arm could conceivably detect an effect, but only if the fish oil caused a gigantic and unambiguous improvement in all the children who got it, and none on placebo improved.
Humanity+ 
It’s official, AT&T has 
Gaming giant 
As a Push Notification addict, 
We wrote about the 
Apple’s WWDC event kicks off on Monday with a keynote by CEO Steve Jobs (we’ll be there). There, he’s widely expected to unveil the next generation iPhone, and well as show off more of the new iPhone OS 4.0 software. But this keynote will be a bit odd because the leaked iPhone prototype has already revealed the next generation iPhone, so Jobs may have to do a bit more to wow the crowd. Speculation about what else could be coming is already well underway: iTunes in the cloud? Free MobileMe? A new Apple TV? And then there’s the OS X 10.7 question.
Emailing a company CEO seems to be the trendy thing to do lately. That said, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has recently received and replied to an email regarding data plan pricing. Of course, as you have most likely already guessed—its in relation to the recent changes with AT&T. Still, Dan Hesse had some good news to pass on. 
We’d all but given up on Stanza, our favorite iPhone e-reading app ever reaching the iPad. It seemed that Amazon had bought out Stanza only to kill it and reduce competition for its own Kindle for iPad. It turns out we were wrong.
