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You don't know tech: The InfoWorld news quiz (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Stop us if you've heard this one: Steve Jobs unveiled the latest in the iPhone series this week, and despite more advance publicity than Apple ever intended, thanks to some nosy bloggers, Jobs still managed to pull off a few surprises.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 am Google's Bing mimicry was big "fail" - Inquirer
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:45 am FBI to probe AT&T security breach - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:42 am South Korean Rocket Launch Ends in Failure - DailyTech
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:38 am Murata develops world’s first waterproof, ultra-thin piezoelectric speakers
Kyoto-based Murata has developed the world’s first piezoelectric speaker that not only is waterproof but also ultra-thin (0.9mm). The devices are meant to be mainly used with mobile phones, which makes sense, given that almost 25% of the 50 latest cell phones released (on the Japanese market, at least) are actually waterproof. Needless to say, Murata IPX7-compliant speakers, dubbed VSLBG1914E1400-T0, can be used for other mobile devices as well – for example, cameras, portable music players or mobile TVs. Murata says they boosted sound quality by doing away with conventional waterproof sheets that cover sound output holes in similar products. The company also says not using those sheets helps pushing production costs down, too. Buyers can already order samples for $2.73 each, with Murata planning to churn out one million units monthly from now on.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:21 am Adobe fixes 'critical' Flash flaw - BBC News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:58 am Australian Gov't Seeks To Record Citizens' Web HistoriesAn anonymous reader writes "If you thought the Australian Government's internet filter project was bad, think again. They have a new project — they are examining a policy that would require all internet service providers to log users' web browsing history and email data such as who all emails were sent to and from. And that's just the start. Telephone calls, mobile phone calls, even internet telephony. It's all in there. Looks like 1984 was a pretty prophetic book." Several readers also point to ZDNet's coverage.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:58 am Motorola plans iPhone 4 killer by year-end - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:14 am Readings: Cash, Lehman, Oil, Bonds, Bears, Goldman, etc.U.S. Firms Hold Most Cash Since 1952 (Source) Wagering in the Gulf (Source) Lehman E-Mails That Say 'Stupid' Didn't Stay 'Just Between Us' (Source) Some home truths on oil for a president...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:06 am HTC EVO 4G performance capped at 30fps
Users over at XDA are reporting that the framerate of the device seems to be capped at 30fps in both 2D and 3D modes. I say “capped” because a device with these kinds of specs should be hitting much higher framerates. For instance, the considerably slower Hero hits an (anecdotal) average of 54 fps when flitting about the home screen. What’s worse, is that when a Froyo build is flashed, not only does the 30fps cap remain, but while the phone is booting, the bootscreen animation hits 60fps. So, the big question remains: who’s to blame? Google/Android or HTC? And, while I’m pointing fingers, what about Sprint? Or Dick Cheney? I’ve probably gone too far, but the issue remains a mystery. A bug has been filed at Google Code — just in case it is an Android issue — so feel free to star it so that it gets the Android Dev Team’s attention (just don’t comment on it; I hate it when people do that). Given XDA’s previous track record, no doubt they’ll find a solution soon, but whether or not an official solution is implemented will have to be seen. You can bet your best chicken that we’ll let you know when and if it does, though. [via Engadget]
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:51 am Twitter buys analytics company - BusinessWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:43 am 32% of Gen Y Okay With Calling in Sick Via Text MessageAccording to a new survey by TextPlus, college kids and recent grads (18-24 years old) use text messaging (inapropriately) in the workplace to communicate: -- 11% think it's appropriate to ask for a raise...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:36 am comScore Says Bing And Yahoo Gained Market Share In May. Or Have They?
Audience measurement firm comScore has released its May 2010 U.S. Search Data report, and it shows continued market share gains for Yahoo and Microsoft. Yahoo and Bing/MSN each added approximately 60 bps and 30 bps to 18.3% and 12.1%, respectively. Google is down, claims comScore, declining approximately 70 bps for the second consecutive month to 63.7%. But that’s not the whole story, and investors need to caution when interpreting the data as presented by comScore, say analysts. Gleacher & Company’s Broadpoint.AmTech puts it this way:
J.P. Morgan has this to say about the reported numbers:
We’ve detailed how Yahoo has boosted its search market share with these ‘tricks’ last month. When adjusted, backing out Yahoo and Bing/MSN’s use of contextual shortcuts and image slide-shows from both May and April, Broadpoint.AmTech estimates that Yahoo’s share actually declined roughly 30 bps month over month in May to 16.6%, while Microsoft Sites’ share was flat at approximately 10.8%. Google, after a small data collection adjustment to the April data (namely a change in how Google handles searches with typos), appears to have gained roughly 30 bps of share in May to 66.4%, says Broadpoint.AmTech. However, Google’s domestic core search market share was 63.7% in May, down slightly from 64.4% in April, J.P. Morgan claims. According to the reported data, total US core search volume increased 11.2% year over year in May, an acceleration from 5.3% growth in April, adds J.P. Morgan. However, adjusting for the impact of user interface changes, the firm estimates search volume was up roughly 7%.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:22 am Report: Fujitsu and Toshiba to merge cell phone operations
Big news from the cell phone industry today: Two of Japan's top handset makers, namely Fujitsu and Toshiba, are in talks to merge their cell phone operations within this year. According to the Nikkei ("Japan's Wall Street Journal" and usually a reliable source), negotiations already reached the "final stage".
The joint venture, if it happens, will create Japan's second largest cell phone maker (with a combined 18.7% domestic market share), following Sharp (26.1%). Fujitsu (the current No. 3 among Japan's handset makers with over 5 million handsets shipped in 2009) is expected to become the main stakeholder in the joint venture. Toshiba is the eighth biggest (1.28 million units).
Read the rest on MobileCrunch.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:21 am Googler criticized for disclosing Windows-related flaw - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:15 am Online Privacy Follies Hit Home: BoomTown Was One of Those Exposed in the AT&T iPad Snafu [BoomTown]Yesterday, it was revealed that AT&T–which usually and deservedly catches flack for its appalling dropping of voice calls–got caught up in a thorny security debacle related to the Apple iPad. According to a report initially posted on Gawker Media’s Valleywag site, the telecom giant had a flaw that allowed a group of computer experts to expose the email addresses and identity numbers of 114,000 owners of the popular tablet device.
Including mine. That would be my personal one from Comcast (CMCSK), which you can see here in an obscured list of others–including some prominent officials in government. AT&T (T) had my email, because it was used to sign up for mobile service for the Apple (AAPL) iPad’s 3G version, automatically appearing during registration. Now the Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into the AT&T breach, according to an article in The Wall Street Journal, in what seems to be an early probe. Oooh, the Feds are involved now. I wish I could say it will make a difference. Because it won’t. In fact, coming on the heels of privacy controversies at Facebook and Google (GOOG), it’s just another log on the digital fire that has been burning up privacy for a very long time now. And now more than ever, part of a massive confluence of trends, including: Consumers more interested than ever in sharing information about themselves in order to make ever better social networking connections online; a plethora of innovative devices–mostly mobile–and Internet tools available to seamlessly and easily allow those consumers to do so; and, perhaps most of all, Internet companies intent on hoovering up as much information as possible, in order to garner more consumers and sell it to advertisers. In large part, this is all well and good, creating a range of valuable and entertaining services at little or no cost and making the computing experience more personal and relevant. Because of that, I have to admit I was less tweaked than I thought I would be, although I wish I were not. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose email was also compromised, expressed the feeling best. “It shouldn’t be pretty hard to figure out my email address,” he was quoted in the Journal article. “To me, it wasn’t that big a deal.” That’s because all of us are thinking less that such information is private or will remain that way for long. See this handy chart below from the Journal about how the iPads were hacked so easily and you get the picture quickly.
And, indeed, I am one of those who puts a great deal of information about myself out there for many to see, from my email on Facebook to my locations on Foursquare to my thoughts on Twitter to photos and videos everywhere. That said, like others, I have also begun to rethink some of it, recently removing my phone number and other personal information less easy to find from Facebook and other places I have stashed it in plain sight. Of course, I also know retrieving much of it is now a lost cause, like trying to unmix cream poured into coffee. Still, companies, especially those entrusted with this information, should not be quite to sanguine as consumers have become. I still haven’t heard from AT&T yet, for example, which is somewhat irksome since the company has known about the issue for days now. And, as each of these incidents occurs, you get the feeling of execs either too obtuse or thoughtless or, yes, cynical to make this a priority. They should, since the avalanche of information being made available will only increase, with possibly dire circumstances to come if not handled well. Hollywood actress Joan Crawford had it right in a famous quote: “Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.” Substitute “Digital living” for love and it’s the very same message. Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:15 am Report: Fujitsu and Toshiba to merge cell phone operations
The joint venture, if it happens, will create Japan’s second largest cell phone maker (with a combined 18.7% domestic market share), following Sharp (26.1%). Fujitsu (the current No. 3 among Japan’s handset makers with over 5 million handsets shipped in 2009) is expected to become the main stakeholder in the joint venture. Toshiba is the eighth biggest (1.28 million units). The motivation for the move is clear: all of Japan’s once proud handset makers are in big trouble, being under pressure from the success of foreign-made smartphones entering their once closed home market and facing a rapidly shrinking domestic customer base. As in the deal between Casio, NEC and Hitachi (which all merged their cell phone operations on June 1 to become NEC Casio Mobile), Fujitsu and Toshiba hope to reduce costs and boost competitiveness. I wouldn’t be too surprised to see both companies announcing international expansion plans (as NEC Casio Mobile already did) soon.
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:14 am ReflexDock Pro Easily Connects Your iPhone And TVBy Chris Scott Barr Having the ability to watch videos on your iPhone seems great, except for one small issue. The screen. I don’t care to watch anything of great length on mine, because staring...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:01 am Google’s 3-D Images of the World Cup Stadiums [Voices]By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Ahead of the World Cup this year, Google (GOOG) sent a Street View team to map as much of South Africa as possible in preparation for a massive influx of visitors. And this week the Internet giant introduced some of the fruits of its labor, including 360-degree pictures from the country’s soccer stadiums and maps with information on some of South Africa’s most important sights. To get shots from inside the buildings, Google used what it calls the Street View Trike — a bulky tricycle with cameras mounted on it. The video of the tricycle in use shows a sometimes-tired looking employee pedaling through the stadiums; he’s not moving quickly, but he makes sure to wear a helmet. Users can check out close-ups of the pitch and get a view from inside and outside the buildings. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am Maze PenBy Andrew Liszewski Sometimes passing the time by playing games on your laptop or smartphone at work or school is considered unproductive by the powers that be. But you know what’s never frowned...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:58 am 15 Funky Ice Cream Flavors - From Bacon Ice Cream to Viagara Ice Cream (CLUSTER)(TrendHunter.com) Break away from the boring with these funky ice cream flavors. Summer is here, and that means it's socially acceptable to eat ice cream, and a lot of it. These funky ice cream flavors...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:51 am Helping The Brain's Messengers Get From A To BA first view of shape-shifting movements in membrane transporters; hailed as a breakthrough in understanding membrane transport, research may lead to better treatments for depression and substance abuseSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:50 am Biologists Identify Genes Regulating Sleeping And FeedingIn the quest to better understand how the brain chooses between competing behaviors necessary for survival, scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and New York University have isolated two genes in the fruit fly Drosophila that work together to mediate the need to sleep and the need to eat.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:48 am With Fungi On Their Side, Rice Plants Grow To Be BigBy tinkering with a type of fungus that lives in association with plant roots, researchers have found a way to increase the growth of rice by an impressive margin.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:47 am Biologists Isolate Genes That Regulate The Sleep-Feeding ConflictA team of biologists has isolated genes that regulate the sleep-feeding conflict.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:43 am Waste Steel In The Gulf Of MexicoThe huge tonnages of waste steel from decommissioned offshore oil and gas structures represents a serious problem for operators looking to recoup losses and avoid environmental harm.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:40 am Professor To Present Vision For A Zero-Carbon FutureA University of Nottingham professor is to outline his vision for a UK powered completely by renewable energy by 2030 in an open lecture taking place later this month.Professor Seamus Garvey, of the University’s Department of Mechanical, Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, will speak on the potential of vast floating offshore ‘energy farms’ off the UK coastline, which could produce ‘green’ electricity at a fraction of the cost of its nearest competitors.Professor Garvey said: “Imagine for a moment that renewable energy was the cheapest way to source power and that this power could be dispatched on demand.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:37 am Automaker Facebook Reveals - The 2011 Explorer Will be Unveiled on the Ford Facebook Page (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Ford is set to make history when they unveil their highly anticipated 2011 explorer on the Ford Facebook page. Normally a car as highly anticipated as this has its debut at an auto...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:20 am Collagen Manufactured From Transgenic Tobacco Plants At Hebrew UniversityA scientist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's Robert H.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:19 am Children's Testimony May Be Influenced By Co-WitnessesLegal consequencesThus, the thesis shows that the children were influenced to make two types of memory error: addition of false details and omission of true details. Both these types of memory error may have serious legal consequences.'If a witness reports false details the investigation may be led in the wrong direction, and ultimately this may even result in the wrong person being convicted. On the other hand, if a witness leaves out or falsely denies a correct detail, crucial aspects may be neglected, and the case might never reach closure', says Roos af Hjelmsäter.Roos af Hjelmsäter points out that since eyewitness testimony is the most common type of evidence in criminal cases, it is important to study factors that may affect the reliability of eyewitness testimony. It is also important to consider what type of event and information the testimony concerns. Roos af Hjelmsäter studied different types of information and found large differences depending on the type of detail the children were asked about.'Previous research has often concluded that children are both unreliable as witnesses and easy to influence. However, my thesis shows that when children report about central aspects of a personally experienced event, their reports can indeed be quite reliable', says Roos af Hjelmsäter.Positive effectsSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:12 am CC-licensed book on learning games programming for kidsAl Sweigart sez, I've written a book that teaches programming to kids (and beginner adults) that I thought might interest you. The book is Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python and it is available...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:04 am CC-licensed book on learning games programming for kidsAl Sweigart sez,Buy Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python on Amazon Teach yourself how to program by making computer games! (download and information) (Thanks, Al!)  Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:04 am So Far, Fish Appear To Be Healthy After Fly Ash SpillFish exposed to fly ash at the site of the Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill are faring better than some expected, researchers have learned.Oak Ridge National Laboratory in collaboration with TVA has found that while small amounts of some contaminants from the December 2008 fly ash spill have been taken up by fish in the Clinch and Emory rivers, to-date, the fish collected downstream from the spill appear healthy relative to fish from unimpacted sites."We are looking to see if there has been an effect on overall fish health and reproductive condition, and so far, such effects have not been evident," said Mark Peterson, leader of ORNL Environmental Sciences Division's Ecological Assessment Team and the Aquatic Ecology Laboratory.After the spill deposited 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash into the Emory River and an embayment adjacent to the Kingston Fossil Plant, the public was concerned that the ash and associated chemicals, particularly arsenic and selenium, could be a health hazard to local residents and also to fish and wildlife.Likewise, Peterson and a team of ecologists in ESD, including Marshall Adams, Mark Greeley and John Smith, were interested in seeing whether trace components of the ash — such as selenium, which has been found to be toxic to fish and wildlife in large amounts — would be found in insect and fish populations immediately following the spill and for some time after the spill.A team led by Adams was able to get into the field quickly and collected fish as early as February 2009 at sites both downstream and upstream from the spill.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:02 am Second Straight Rocket Failure For South Koreaeldavojohn writes "South Korea suffered its second straight setback today as its Naro-1 rocket carrying a scientific satellite exploded. The rocket produced a bright flash during stage-one ignition as the ground crews lost contact with it. South Korea paired with Russia to produce the Naro-1 and was looking to both relieve its dependence on other nations to put its satellites in orbit and compete with the space programs of China, India, and Japan. Following a failure on August 25, 2009, this marks the second failed attempt for Naro Space Center to launch a Naro-1 rocket. It appears the old adage revolving around the complexities of 'rocket science' remains valid."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:01 am Ripcord Panorama Cameras - The Lomography Spinner Takes 360 Degree Photos in One Rip (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Take 360 degree photos the way they were meant to be taken with the Lomography Spinner. This camera takes full panoramic photos with just a tug of the ripcord, making it useful for...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:50 pm An adobe photo-shopFrom the department of unsourced photographic Internet literalisms, an adobe photo-shop. Adobe Photoshop, Literally Best Superbowl photo ever Funny doctored science fair photos Funny Will Elder photo...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:47 pm An adobe photo-shop From the department of unsourced photographic Internet literalisms, an adobe photo-shop. Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:47 pm Motorola CEO Announces 2GHz Smartphone by End of 2010 (PC World)PC World - Mobile phone makers are scrambling to come up with a response to Apple's iPhone 4, which was just announced Monday (though we knew it was coming considerably before the announcement)--and it looks like Motorola may have come up with a pretty good one: a 2GHz smartphone by the end of the year.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:30 pm Knock-Off Tributes - The LF McQueen 'Tribute' Armadillo Shoe Reminisces the Late Designer (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) This LF McQueen 'Tribute' Armadillo shoe was designed as a tribute to the late designer. Its high heel, lobster claw-like features definitely resemble the original McQueen shoes. The...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:20 pm T-Mobile jumps to the front of the line to get iPhone, maybe - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:14 pm FACTBOX-Who is EMI's Guy Hands?June 11 (Reuters) - Guy Hands briefly embraced punk while at university. Three decades on, Britain's king of securitisation paid 4 billion pounds for EMI in a deal that now epitomises the culture of hubris...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:01 pm FACTBOX-Abbey Road studios -- recording historyJune 11 (Reuters) - One of EMI's most famous properties is not a musician or a band but the Abbey Road recording studios, immortalised by the 1969 Beatles album of the same name. Last February, sources...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:01 pm Google Seeks Consolidation of Wi-Fi Snooping Cases (PC World)PC World - Peppered with lawsuits over its collection of Web traffic data from wireless networks, Google wants all the cases consolidated into one, and for that single case to be heard by a court near its Mountain View, California, headquarters.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:00 pm SPECIAL REPORT-Guy Hands, Citigroup and the fight for EMI* Boss Guy Hands has rejected offers to sell music companySource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:59 pm UPDATE 1-PepsiCo cancels tender for Thai bottler Serm Suk* Shares down 2.5 percent after cancellation (Adds detail)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:44 pm Kosmix Unleashes Its Realtime Tweetbeat On The World Cup
The problem with Twitter is that it is too noisy. Filtering the signal from the noise is still too burdensome. The founders of search engine Kosmix think they have an answer with a new product called Tweetbeat, which they are unleashing in a preview version designed specifically to filter all the Tweets about the World Cup soccer tournament. Tweetbeat ingests the entire firehose of 65 million Tweets a day, and spits out only those about the World Cup which are it deems to be the most popular and important. It tries to capture everything from news to teams, players and fan shout-outs. What’s more impressive, though, is that along the left-hand side are flag icons of 32 teams. When you click on a flag, you see Tweets only about that team. You can follow only Brazil, England, Nigeria, or whatever team makes you want to cover yourself with body paint. The name of the team or “World Cup” doesn’t even have to be in the Tweet. Tweetbeat recognizes individual player names such as Cole or Maradona, nicknames, teams, even stadiums, and it delivers all of these Twets in realtime. A slider at the top allows you to adjust the speed at which the stream flows down the page. Next week, Tweetbeat will be available as an iPhone app and desktop widget, and sites like MySpace plan to use the data in their own widgets. Some early findings from the day before the first game begins (of English-only Tweets):
Under the hood, Kosmix is applying its core semantic search technology to Twitter’s firehose of Tweets to categorize them instantly. Kosmix has created a taxonomy of the Web which spans more than 10 million topics and their relationships. It doesn’t rely on hashtags or keywords, but on relationships, influence, and trending clusters. Kosmix co-founder Anand Rajaraman explains:
He calls this influence score “Krank.” Kosmix is applying these techniques right now to the World Cup teams and players as a showscase of what its technology can do, but later this summer it will release a full version of Tweetbeat across all topics.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:40 pm UPDATE 1-Caterpillar, Navistar near $586 mln China truck tie* Caterpillar, Navistar near $586 mln China truck/engine tieSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:33 pm M.Stanley says subsidiary buys Parkway sharesSINGAPORE, June 11 (Reuters) - UK-based FrontPoint Management LLP, a unit of Morgan Stanley , has bought 75,000 shares of Parkway Holdings , Asia's biggest listed hospital operator, for S$3.83 a share...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:23 pm Hunter S. Thompson leaves voicemail for an A/V dealerThe late, great Hunter S. Thompson leaves a voicemail for an AV dealer expressing how pleased he is with their service. NSFW Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:04 pm LED-Illuminated LCD TVs Are Power Sippers With Smoking PicturesNew LED-illuminated LCD TVs use a lot less juice than old-school sets. Even better, they're super bright and razor slim. We'll take four.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm LED-Illuminated LCD TVs Are Power Sippers With Smoking PicturesNew LED-illuminated LCD TVs use a lot less juice than old-school sets. Even better, they're super bright and razor slim. We'll take four.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm June 11, 1910: Cousteau, Champion of the Wine-Dark SeaToday's the centennial of the birth of Jacques-Yves Cousteau, a man with an ocean of promise fulfilled.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm Japanese Manga Newspapers Report Current Events in Graphic DetailManga No Shimbun draws on the comic book format to cover actual news in Japan -- from foreign policy to pop culture to murder trials -- as a way to capture the interest of young people.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm Study: Shrinking glaciers to spark food shortagesNearly 60 million people living around the Himalayas will suffer food shortages in the coming decades as glaciers shrink and the water sources for crops dry up, a study said Thursday. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 9:55 pm FBI Investigating iPad E-Mail LeaksCWmike writes "The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into the leak of an estimated 114,000 Apple iPad user e-mail addresses. Hackers belonging to a group called Goatse obtained the e-mail addresses after uncovering a web application on AT&T's website that returned an iPad user's e-mail address when it was sent specially written queries. After writing an automated script to repeatedly query the site, they downloaded the addresses, and then handed them over to Gawker.com. Now the FBI is trying to figure out whether this was a crime. US law prohibits the unauthorized accessing of computers, but it is unclear whether the script that the Goatse group used violated the law, said Jennifer Granick, civil liberties director with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. 'The question is, when you do an automated test like this, [are you] getting any type of unauthorized access or not,' she said. If it turns out the data in question was not misused, it is unlikely that federal prosecutors will press charges, she added."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:56 pm Video Gallery: A Cousteau Centennial - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:55 pm Caterpillar, Navistar near $586 mln China truck tie-sourceSHANGHAI, June 11 (Reuters) - Caterpillar Inc and Navistar International Corp are finalising a 4 billion yuan ($586 million) truck and engine manufacturing tie-up with China's Jianghuai Automobile ,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:47 pm PepsiCo cancels tender for Thai bottler Serm SukBANGKOK, June 11 (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc and Thai partner Strategic Beverages (Thailand) have cancelled a tender offer to buy all the shares in Thailand's Serm Suk PCL they did not already own, Serm...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:38 pm Apple Begins Urging Developers To Get Their iOS 4 Apps In For Launch
Today, Apple has begun emailing iPhone app developers to let them know they’re now accepting iOS 4-compatible apps in the App Store. Just as it does each time before a new OS launches (such as earlier this year with the iPad OS, which was iPhone OS 3.2 — yes, it’s a little confusing), Apple wants to make sure it has apps to show off when the new OS hits on June 21 (three days before the iPhone 4 launch). And this launch is important because it brings the ability for third-party applications to run in the background for the first time. Earlier today, Pocket-lint noted that “massive delays” were expected for multitasking apps. But there were two major problems with this report. First, it seemed to suggest that the iPhone 4 was the key to multitasking. In fact, it is iOS 4 that brings the ability to multitask, and it brings it to the iPhone 3GS and latest generation iPod touch as well. More importantly, they noted that “in our initial testing, only Apple apps, like the Clock, Mail and Safari, can multitask. That’s it!” Um, that’s because there are no third-party apps available yet that have this built in. That’s exactly why Apple is sending out emails that they’re going to start accepting them now. Here’s my favorite line from the Pocket-lint story, “When we spoke to a number of developers, that aren’t keen to be named in this article for fear of backlash from Apple, they all confirmed to Pocket-lint that, for any app to take advantage of the new multitasking features, it will have to be updated.” Uh, yes. That’s exactly what Apple has been saying all along. I’m not sure what backlash a developer would face for pointing that out. FUD aside, developers can begin submitting these iOS 4-compatible apps now. And from what I’ve heard from developers, it’s not that hard to do. In fact, a number of them got apps up and running in time to work on the demo units Apple made available after the WWDC keynote address on Monday. For example, here’s Pandora running in the background. Foursquare was working as well, as were other apps. But it’s not all good news for developers. When Apple makes a call for these new, specific applications, they usually shove other ones aside to make sure the can approve these special ones in time for a launch. We saw this with the iPad launch. Based on what we’re hearing from some developers now, it appears that regular (non-iOS 4) apps are seeing approval wait times that are longer than normal already. [Thanks Noah]      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:32 pm Android smartphones quickly becoming in high demandSection: Communications, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
Take the HTC Droid Incredible on the Verizon network. As reported by Gadgetell earlier in the week, sales are as strong, if not stronger than ever. The Incredible, just like the Evo, is being sold faster than they are being made. Android is being adopted by every carrier in the states including AT&T and LG which are more typically known for the iPhone and Windows Mobile phones respectively. Android’s app store is growing every day; gaining new developers, including your’s truly, all the time. Thought it’s market share is around 10%, I can’t see that staying still in the future. The only thing that could really slow down that growth would be if the iPhone were to become available on more carriers. Fortunately (or unfortunately), this doesn’t seem to be gaining much ground as we have had rumors of a Verizon iPhone forever and now there are new claims of a T-Mobile iPhone. Personally, if AT&T’s network can’t handle the iPhone, I don’t know how T-Mobile is supposed to. Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:21 pm AU Optronics Confident Justice Will PrevailHSINCHU, Taiwan, June 10 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- AU Optronics Corp. ("AUO" or "Company") today issued the following statement regarding the United States Department of Justice's ("DOJ") action towards AUO, AUO's US subsidiary and six personnel including the Vice Chairman Mr.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:14 pm AU Optronics Confident Justice Will PrevailSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:14 pm 4 Feasible Oil-Spill Ideas from the PublicBP has solicited more than 80,000 ideas from the public on how to stop the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Many of them are being tested in the field right now.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:02 pm Samsung Electronics Achieves First-Pass 32nm Silicon Success Using Synopsys Galaxy Implementation PlatformMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Synopsys, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:00 pm The Best Fitness Tech (PC World)PC World - With personal trainers producing YouTube fitness videos, iPod Nanos sporting pedometers, and yogis practicing tree pose using the Wii Fit--technology has become one of the best ways to set and maintain fitness goals. We consulted sports professionals, fitness enthusiasts, and tech companies to find the latest and most interesting hardware, software, and Websites that you can use to get in shape and stay the course.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:00 pm WordPress Gives Us The VIP Treatment, Goes Down On Us Again
The cause of the downtime is still being determined; we’re waiting for more details from WordPress.com, the hosted blogging platform that is home to over 10 million blogs. We’re hosted under their VIP program, as are other large sites like GigaOm and some of CNN’s blogs. As far as we can tell, all 10+ million blogs hosted by WordPress were affected by the downtime. Needless to say, we’re pretty upset. WordPress has a fairly reliable track record overall, but it was only a few months ago that WordPress suffered their worst downtime in four years, when all hosted blogs were down for around 110 minutes. At the time, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg wrote on the company’s blog that he hoped “it will be much longer than four years before we face a problem like this again”. It’s been less than four months. We’re awaiting further details from the WordPress team (we expect they’ll have an update on their official blog shortly). Update: Mullenweg responded in the comments below with some more details:
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 7:35 pm Tegra-Based Android Devices To Get Space MMO Vendetta OnlineIncarnate-VO writes "Guild Software, makers of the multi-platform space MMO Vendetta Online, is apparently rolling a native Android port, intended for use on upcoming smartbooks and tablets powered by Nvidia's second-generation Tegra. More information on the port at the Android FAQ page on the Vendetta Online website."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 7:35 pm Adobe sees a brighter future for Flash: 53% of smartphones to use it by 2012Section: Communications, Smartphones, Computers, Software / Applications
Flash has gotten a lot of heat lately from Apple as it has been banned by them as a developmental solution for iPhone OS. And with iPhone OS having the second largest market share in the smartphone market only to Blackberry, it is hard to see Flash on the rise. But something that could easily explain it is the growth of Android and the birth of Android 2.2, Froyo. Google has always put the customer first and with this new Flash-fiasco, Google has made the world publicly aware of its situation on Flash and HTML5 by heavily supporting both of them. It can be assumed then, that as long as Flash doesn’t cause too many problems on their phones, that every Android build after 2.2 will have flash support. So as Android grows, so does Flash. And since, unlike iPhone OS, their is an Android OS phone for every one of your personalities, Android is slated to grow much more than iPhone. Anup Murarka, director of technology strategy states that, “You’re going to see Flash not only on Android. Consumers will see devices from Palm, Research in Motion Ltd’s Blackberry, Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft (MSFT.O) Windows Phone 7 support the full Flash Player.” So if Blackberry continues to keep its share, you can easily see atleast 50% of phones to support flash by 2012. Read [Reuters] Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 7:15 pm After Attacks, Adobe Fixes Flash Bug (PC World)PC World - Less than a week after fielding reports that hackers were targeting a bug in its Flash Player software, Adobe Systems has rushed out a fix for the problem.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:50 pm The Enduring World of Jacques CousteauOn the 100th anniversary of his birth, a tribute to Jacques-Yves Cousteau.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:38 pm To do in LA tonight: Flux screening, and Jonas Odell's "Tussilago"
If you're in Los Angeles this evening, don't miss this month's installation of the Flux screening party at the Hammer Museum in West LA. Jonas Odell's Tussilago will have its LA Premiere at the event. A still is above, and the trailer follows after the jump. The program will feature a mini-retrospective of the work by celebrated Swedish animator Jonas Odell, including his award-winning videos for Goldfrapp and Franz Ferdinand and the Los Angeles premiere of Tussilago, Odell's animated short that tells the story of West German terrorists in the 1970s.Details here. Trailer for Tussilago follows...
Related: Cartoon Brew has a post about Tussilago here. Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:31 pm BP disaster update: 40,000 barrels a day, kill the birds, and a Rolling Stone bombshell• Video: "A controlled burn of an oil slick 10 miles from the Deepwater Horizon drill site. A controlled burn, or in-situ burn, is one method to eliminate crude oil in a very small area at sea. U.S. Coast Guard video by Chief Petty Officer Robert Laura." (via Constant Siege) • "Researchers have doubled estimates of how much oil has been spewing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, reporting Thursday that up to 40,000 barrels (1.7 million gallons) a day may have escaped for weeks." • Remember those heart-wrenching photographs of birds drenched in oil so thick their forms became unrecognizable? Animal biologists who have experience dealing with wildlife caught up in oil spills say euthanasia is kinder than the slow, painful death that inevitably awaits. "According to serious studies, the middle-term survival rate of oil-soaked birds is under 1 percent. We, therefore, oppose cleaning birds." (Dangerous Minds) • Rolling Stone: "The spill, the scandal and the president: The inside story of how Obama failed to crack down on the corruption of the Bush years - and let the world's most dangerous oil company get away with murder."
Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:30 pm Suspected Wikileaks Source Described Crisis of Conscience Leading to LeaksSuspected Army leaker Bradley Manning says it all began when he saw 15 detainees taken by the Iraqi Federal Police for printing "anti-Iraq literature" that turned out to be a scholarly critique of the prime minister. "Everything started slipping after that. I saw things differently."
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:30 pm FBI begins probe into AT&T iPad security breach (Reuters)Reuters - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened a probe into a security breach of Apple Inc's iPad that exposed personal information of AT&T Inc customers, including those of several high-ranking government officials.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:13 pm Motorola plans to release a 2GHz monster smartphoneSection: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
On Wednesday, Jha announced that Motorola was taking on the task of putting a 2Ghz processor inside of a smartphone. Now is this even possible? First of all, even Apple’s own A4 chip is set at a frequency of 1Ghz. And at this point in time, the most common processor that we see in the most snappy of phones today is the Snapdragon 1Ghz processor which you find in the Evo and Nexus One. Qualcomm, another very high-end chip manufacturer has boasted speeds of up to 1.5GHz but has never broke the 2GHz barrier. Secondly, will consumers even want this speed? If you are even remotely aware of hardware, you know that powerful processors suck on battery life. With no new battery technology coming soon, this device will no doubt have to have one heck of a power source to even make it through the day. Despite these hurdles, 2GHz is encroaching on laptop-level speeds. If Motorola can pull this off, there is no doubt that the limits of computing will be reset and the bar for every phone after it will be higher than we have seen before. Read [Conceivably Tech] Via [Wired GadgetLab] Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:03 pm Update: WWDC Keynote WiFi glitch may have been due to pre-release iPhone 4 driversOver at Ars Technica, Glenn Fleishman updates his theory of what may have gone wrong on-stage during Steve Jobs' WWDC keynote, when he attempted to connect the new iPhone to wireless internet:After examining the video from the event and discussing it with two veteran Wi-Fi gurus, it seems almost certain that the MiFi was only part of the problem. A flaw in the pre-release iPhone 4 iOS was clearly another element. Apple's public relations confirmed receipt of a request for comment, but none was forthcoming. Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:01 pm Video Gallery: A Cousteau CentennialOn his hundredth birthday, five vintage videos highlight the life of Cousteau: inventor, adventurer, scientist, and advocate for treating the oceans with care.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Alt Text: 5 Directors Take on 'The Hobbit' (and Fail)With Guillermo Del Toro grabbing his hat back out of the precious ring, it's up to one of these acclaimed auteurs to take the helm and bring J.R.R. Tolkien's beloved book to the big screen. Brace for impact, Middle-earth.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Comcast’s Tunerfish Debuts To The Public With HBO’s True Blood Series
Comcast’s Tunerfish is opening to the public today; and debuting a deal with HBO for their show True Blood. Tunerfish, which was demoed at TechCrunch Disrupt a few weeks ago, was incubated by the Plaxo team (Comcast acquired Plaxo in 2008) and is led by former Plaxo VP of Marketing John McCrea. Tunerfish allows people to share with a single click what they are watching, on their social network(s) of choice in real time. Much like Twitter does for tweets, Tunerfish also displays which TV shows are trending among your friends (in the last hour, 24 hours, etc.), which gives users a way to discover shows they are not yet familiar with. The site also encourages people to check-in to shows on both its web-based app and iPhone app, much like you would in Foursquare or Gowalla. Using Tunerfish, True Blood’s fans will have the opportunity to earn “Truebie” and “Maker” badges by Tweeting on the site while they watch and influencing their friends to do the same. Tunerfish will use these check-ins to determine and reward loyal fans with the badges. HBO’s is also launching a True Blood Twitter Microsite, which allows True Blood fans to Tweet and access live conversations about new episodes while watching them on TV. Called Bloodcopy.com, the site will feature weekly Twitter “hosts” that will live Tweet during each episode initiating conversations, interacting with fans and facilitating giveaways. The microsite was built using Twitter’s @anywhere technology. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:58 pm IDrive Online Backup Launches IDrive for WordPressCALABASAS, Calif., June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Pro Softnet Corporation, a leader in the Storage-as-a-Service, Online Backup and Storage market, today announced release of IDrive for WordPress. "We have one goal - to provide online backup for every major device and platform.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:54 pm German Researchers Show Off a Gesture-Based Interfacesmitty777 writes "The folks at the Potsdam University have developed a user interface based completely on hand gestures. A small(ish) device worn around the neck is used to track the hand position, allowing the user to draw, type, or gesture in the air. You think it looks ridiculous when you can't tell that folks are talking on a cell phone? Imagine a bus full of people gesturing in thin air. Also, don't forget to turn this thing off, or it will look like your cat was walking on your keyboard." Update: 06/11 00:54 GMT by T : This informative comment (kudos!) adds links to a video demonstration and the researcher's own site.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:50 pm Motorola Droid 2 gets some proper spy shots (and spy video!)
Take that keyboard-only shot of the Droid 2 we saw last week, and the blurry face shot we saw yesterday. Put’em together. What do you get? Proper, mostly blur-free spyshots of the next Droid, keyboard and all. In addition to unearthing these shots, the folks over at Droid-Life also managed to pull together some specs. What they’re hearing so far:
Alas, it has its caveats: It seems to be running Motoblur — which, depending on your stance, could be a good or bad thing. There’s no front facing camera, which is quickly becoming a pretty standard feature on higher-end smartphones. Finally, unlike the still-only-rumored Shadow, there’s no HDMI output. All in all, it doesn’t seem like a massive departure from the original Droid, but more of a marginal improvement with some much welcome polish. If nothing else, them getting rid of the terrible D-Pad makes it all worth it. Droid-Life also got their hands on the nifty little clip below, showing the Droid 2 booting to life — but unfortunately, that’s where it ends. For a few more shots, head over toDroid-Life .
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:22 pm E3 2010: Exspect bringing Joystick Junkies peripherals and accessoriesFROM GAMERTELL - If you’re looking for Xbox 360 and DSi accessories, check out Exspect and Joystick Junkies new line of peripherals and accessories. They’re making their debut at E3 2010. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:14 pm Adobe's Lightroom 3 Lets Amateur Photographers Edit Like the ProsWhen you need to photo edit like a big boy, cast aside the iPhoto and Windows Live crap, and go with grown up software like Lightroom 3.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:00 pm Adobe Goes To Flash 10.1, Forgoes Security Fix For 10An anonymous reader writes "The recent critical zero-day security flaw in Flash 10 may have fast-tracked the release of Flash 10.1 today. Adobe 10.1 boasts the much anticipated H.264 hardware acceleration. Except for Linux and Mac OS (PDF): 'Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs.' Your humble anonymous reporter, who is using Fedora Linux with a ATI IGP 340M, is very pleased that the developers of the OSS drivers have provided hardware acceleration for my GPU ('glxinfo : direct rendering: Yes,' 'OpenGL renderer string: Mesa DRI R100 (RS200 4337) 20090101 NO-TCL DRI2'), but even if Adobe did provide hardware acceleration for H.264 on Linux, they wouldn't provide it for me because they disable it for GPUs with SGI in the Client vendor string. Adobe 10.1, with all its goodness, now gives me around 95% CPU usage as opposed to about 75% with the previous release. Good times. I anticipate my Windows friends will have a much better experience."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:00 pm Adobe's Lightroom 3 Lets Amateur Photographers Edit Like the ProsWhen you need to photo edit like a big boy, cast aside the iPhoto and Windows Live crap, and go with grown up software like Lightroom 3.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:00 pm Tomorrow, There Will Be More Than 350 TechCrunch Birthday Parties Everywhere
Tomorrow, TechCrunch turns five years old. We’ve grown up with the Web over that time from a one-man hobby in Michael’s home to an expanding media outfit of almost two dozen full-time staff around the world. Since all of you won’t fit in our new offices in San Francisco (as much as we’d like to invite you, especially the commenters on MG’s posts), we thought why not let readers throw their own parties around the world. A couple weeks ago, with the launch of Meetups Everywhere at our Disrupt conference in New York, we started with about 50 Meetups. Quickly, that grew to 150, then 250, and now the number is at more than 350 TechCrunch Meetups from Bangalore and Jakarta to Johannesburg and Miami Beach. More than 4,000 readers will be celebrating with us, and you can join them. Check out the nearest city with a TechCrunch Meetup, or create your own. The biggest Meetup right now is in American Fork, Utah, with 372 people all going to a BBQ, followed by San Francisco (333), New York (164), and Bangalore, India (137). Come meet me at the one in New York City, or TechCrunch Europe editor Mike Butcher in the UK. These Meetups are more about you, and how much the Web has changed in the past five years, than it is about us. Just think about it. Five years ago, Facebook hadn’t yet graduated from colleges. YouTube, Twitter, and Foursquare didn’t even exist. TechCrunch was writing about Web 2.0 startups, but now we don’t even use that term anymore because the entire Web has absorbed those concepts. It is social, programmable, and increasingly mobile. Every site with an API is a potential platform that can be mashed up to create new sites and apps. That’s just the way it is. If you are an organizer of one of the 350+ Meetups, thank you. Here are some things you can do. Take plenty of photos and videos, and upload them to Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, or YouTube. Tag everything #tcmeetup. Stream live video from your meetup, you can set up a free channel on Livestream, and we will be streaming on the New York City party on this TCMeetup channel. Get people on video answering these questions, and we’ll pull together the best answers in a highlight video:
     
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:56 pm B52 Media, Bookmarks.com Buy Single Letter Domain E.CO For $81,000
Moments ago, a rare single letter domain name was auctioned off live over the Internet. The domain name is E.CO, and it was sold through Sedo for $81,000, as reported by several industry blogs. All proceeds from the first .CO domain auction goes to a charity of the buyers’ choice. The seller, .CO Internet, which operates the .CO top-level domain, will soon be announcing the winners of the auction, but we’ve learned the names of the buyers ahead of time. Lonnie Borck from B52 Media and Uri Kerbel from Bookmarks.com have both won the charity domain auction, and are keeping the name of the charity they’ll be donating the money to private. The E.CO auction was held live at this week’s Internet Week conference in New York City. The last hour of bidding, which concluded at 4:10 pm Eastern Time, was also simulcast at both the Internet Retailer (Chicago) and TRAFFIC (Vancouver) shows. We’re told over 10 countries were represented, and over twenty people bid on the domain name – a record number for any single domain auction. Visit e.co to learn more about the auction. The successful auction marks a second interesting event for .CO Internet – just yesterday Twitter debuted a new service with the name t.co. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:55 pm Cakes that look like meat The OC Weekly has scoured Flickr for proud bakers' photos of their convincingly meat-like cakes and confections, assembling the best in a gallery called "Food Disguised As Other Food." Shown here: TV dinner cupcakes by gillianwallisbrett. Food Disguised As Other Food (Thanks, Vickie!) Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:51 pm Reminder: Windows XP to be discontinued for netbooks on October 22Section: Computers, Netbooks, Software / Applications
Read [WindowsTeamBlog] Full Story » | Written by Greg Billetdeaux for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:50 pm Thumbtack.com, the Fastest Growing Marketplace for Local Services, Announces Broad Investor Support From Who's Who of Silicon ValleySAN FRANCISCO, June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Thumbtack (www.thumbtack.com) announced the closing of a $1.2 million round of financing today.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:48 pm Google reverts to Spartan look after photos flop (AP)AP - Google's home page has gone back to basics after users griped about a promotional stunt that wrapped colorful photos around the Internet's most popular search engine.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:33 pm FBI Opens Probe of iPad Breach [Voices]By Spencer E. Ante, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal The Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into the security breach in AT&T Inc.’s (T) website that exposed the email addresses of some iPad owners. “The FBI is aware of these possible computer intrusions and has opened an investigation,” said Katherine Schweit, an FBI spokeswoman. Ms. Schweit said the FBI opened the investigation Thursday but it will not comment on what it is looking at. “It’s very early in the investigation,” she said. AT&T, the sole U.S. provider of wireless service for the Apple Inc. (AAPL) tablets, acknowledged Wednesday that a security flaw in its website made it possible for iPad users’ email addresses to be exposed. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:29 pm World Cup Kicks Off With Green KitsWhen Team USA plays in the 2010 FIFA World Cup, they'll be sporting high-performance kits made from recycled plastic bottles. For this international month-long competition, green is the goal.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:28 pm How a "mad viking" saved a crime-ridden park in San FranciscoThere's some good information about square-foot gardening in this neat video about Peter Vaernet, the "Mad Viking" who turned a beautiful 7-acre park from a crime nest into a terrific multi-use community area. Vaernet said one of the ways he got rid of the criminal element was by bringing lots of women and children into the park. The criminals were too embarrassed to behave badly in front of women and children, he explained, so they went away. Meet the "Mad Viking," Peter Vaernet. He almost single-handedly saved one of San Francisco's least known pocket parks from a scourge of drug abuse, blood sport and murder.Victory of the Mad Viking, San Francisco Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:28 pm Time gives the iPad a second goSteve Jobs gave us a little sneak peak at Time’s upcoming iPad app during the iPhone 4 keynote. Here’s a full video demo. It’s the future — and very ambitious one at that. Time definitely improved on the current iPad app. Too bad it’s still $5 an “issue.” [All Things Digital via Gizmodo]
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:20 pm Designing for a More Readable WebWant to keep people from firing up Safari Reader on your website? Learn some design best practices from the pros for formatting your pages for maximum readability on tablets, phones and on the good ol' desktop.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:18 pm NY: Networking site Tagged.com ignored abuse rules (AP)AP - Child pornography was allowed to remain on social-networking site Tagged.com for nearly two months after undercover investigators posed as users and reported the content to the site's administrators, the state attorney general's office charged Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:17 pm Japan Successfully Deploys First Solar Sail In SpaceAn anonymous reader writes "This morning the Japanese space agency, JAXA, successfully unfurled a solar sail in space for the first time. Solar sails offer the best hope for deep space exploration because they eliminate the need to carry fuel. The Japanese spacecraft IKAROS created centripetal force by spinning, allowing it to launch the 0.0003-inch-thick sail. While deployment is a challenge in a zero-gravity environment, spacecraft — unlike airplanes — don't have to contend with drag, so with each photon that hits the sail helps the spacecraft gather speed."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:16 pm FBI opens probe into hack of AT&T website (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:12 pm FBI investigating AT&T iPad security breach (AP)AP - The FBI said Thursday that it is investigating a data breach at AT&T that exposed the e-mail addresses of more than 114,000 owners of the Apple iPad, including government officials.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:12 pm Auction of creationist museum's curiosities
Georgia's creationist natural history museum, The Gallery of Creation, is liquidating its entire astounding collection of curiosities in an auction June 25 and 26. Internet bidding available through Higgenbotham Auctioneers! Just a few of the amazing items include: Auction: Gallery of Creation (via Morbid Anatomy) Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:05 pm Lost in the garden Pac-Man T-shirtFROM GAMERTELL - This shirt shows just the tops of Pac-Man and the ghosts’ heads as they are reimagined from the original bird’s-eye view. Check it out… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:03 pm Cheat With Science: The Keys to Catching the Wedding BouquetThere's a science to nabbing those flowers in mid-flight. Study like an outfielder does when after those fly balls -- or end up alone.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Sharks Have Math SkillsThese apex predators use mathematical strategies when they're on the hunt for food.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:59 pm ExpertFlyer Goes 'One-on-One' with Cheapflights.comNEW YORK, June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- ExpertFlyer.com, the premier air travel information tool offering complete and efficient ways to access the ever changing details of worldwide air travel information, has posted an interview with Meredith Hanrahan, Chief Travel Officer at Cheapflights, to its One-on-One blog at http://blog.expertflyer.com.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:56 pm Recent Sales Hint That Tape For Storage Is Far From Deadhightechchick writes "Staples' business-to-business sales of backup tape for storage are experiencing a bit of a revival. What's next, a return to dumb terminals and mainframes (a la cloud computing)?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:50 pm Google kills Bing-like image background Google has always been known for experimenting with its homepage. Adjusting the colors slightly, rearrangements, etc. But last night Google made one of the larger changes we had seen in a while with background images. Of course, on first sight, these background images resembled those of Bing.com, Google’s closest competitor and the morning welcomed the changes with an onslaught of nay-sayers who cried plagiarism. Despite the fact that I quite enjoyed the change, Google has officially killed the experiment just hours after it began. For those who still enjoyed the change you can still have it if you look at the bottom left of your screen when you visit Google.
Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:47 pm Judge Rejects SCO's Motion For a New TrialAn anonymous reader writes "A judge has rejected SCO's motion for a new trial in the company's dispute over UNIX intellectual property ownership. The ruling validates a verdict that was issued in April by a jury who determined that Novell, and not SCO, is the rightful owner of the UNIX SVRX copyrights. This means SCO cannot continue to pursue its litigation against IBM and other Linux users. 'There was substantial evidence that Novell made an intentional decision to retain ownership of the copyrights,' the judge wrote in his decision. 'The Court finds that the verdict is not clearly, decidedly, or overwhelmingly against the weight of the evidence. Therefore, SCO is not entitled to a new trial.'"
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Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:29 pm Missed D8?: Here It All Is in a Five-Minute, Time-Lapse Photography Video [BoomTown]
While we’re posting all the interview videos from the eighth D: All Things Digital conference over the next weeks, they don’t have that you-were-in-the-audience quality. So, here is a time-lapse video that was taken of the conference, held recently at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., that shows it all in under five minutes. A camera was running 24/7 in the main ballroom of the event, snapping a picture every five minutes. There was also one taking a picture every five seconds, although it takes a little more than an hour to watch. Time did fly at D8, especially given that we spend all year prepping for it, but not quite this quickly. You can also see the stage action more slowly in the full-session videos of the interviews with Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Enjoy: Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:27 pm OPERA Finds a Tau NeutrinoBig news emerged last week from the OPERA experiment at Gran Sasso National Laboratory: researchers there made the first direct observation of one of the rarest events in high-energy physics: a specific kind of neutrino oscillation, in which one type ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:23 pm Adobe Rolls Out AIR 2, Flash Player 10.1 [Digital Daily]AIR 2 is finally here. Thursday afternoon, Adobe (ADBE) quietly rolled out the latest update of its cross-platform runtime environment, one the company touts as the most significant since its original release two years ago. Using AIR 2, developers can build standalone applications for the desktop from Flash, Flex, HTML and AJAX for devices running a variety of operating systems: Windows, Mac, Linux and soon, Android. Also given a final release today: Flash Player 10.1, which boasts some much needed H.264 hardware acceleration–just not for Macs. Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:20 pm Global Payments Announces Year-End Earnings on July 27, 2010ATLANTA, June 10, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN), a leader in payment processing services, will release year-end financial results for fiscal year 2010 after the market closes on July 27, 2010.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:11 pm /C O R R E C T I O N -- Harris Corporation/In the news release, Harris Corporation CEO Howard L. Lance to Speak at the Deutsche Bank Securities 2010 Industrials Services Conference, issued 10-Jun-2010 by Harris Corporation over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that Howard L.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:07 pm Flickr Hooks Up With Facebook for Photo-Sharing LoveFurthering the integration of Yahoo and Facebook, photo sharing site Flickr now lets you post your new photos directly to Facebook.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm Appletell reviews Mophie Juice Pack Air for iPod touchFROM APPLETELL - Mophie has come out with a battery pack for the iPod touch that they claim will double the battery life of your device. Does it? Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:50 pm Vast Geographic Differences Found In Drug Spending Under MedicareUniversity of Pittsburgh study finds higher spending on prescription drugs not offset by lower spending on other medical servicesWidespread geographic variations exist in drug spending among Medicare beneficiaries, with some regions spending twice as much as others, according to a University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health study.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:48 pm The Evolution of Time Magazine's iPad App: Here's What's Next [MediaMemo]Time Magazine’s first iPad app was a rush job. Time Warner’s (TWX) magazine unit called the development process “Project Noah,” because the staff got it up and running in 40 days. So it’s going to keep adding bells and whistles over time. Here’s a look at where it’s headed, via a video Time Inc. showed off at a panel discussion this morning. About half the features in this clip–embedded video, that cool table-of-contents feature with geographic hotspots, chat, sharing–don’t exist yet, but will eventually, the publisher says. Compare and contrast to the promotional video for the first iteration of the magazine, launched with Apple’s (AAPL) iPad in early April. Future tense: Present tense: If you’re someone who balked at the app’s price when it debuted, you’ll continue to be bummed out, as it’s staying at $5 per issue for now. But I’d guess that when Time rolls out subscriptions later this year, it will offer a 52-week bundle at something like $35. Meanwhile, you can expect other features to crop up on Condé Nast’s well-received Wired app in the coming months, too. Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:46 pm New Declassification Process To Open 400 Million Pages of Recordslinzeal writes "The newly minted National Declassification Center has been tasked by President Obama with eliminating the backlog of more than 400 million pages of classified records that are more than 25 years old by the end of 2013. The National Archives has prepared a draft prioritization plan to guide its declassification activities, and has invited public input on the plan. A public forum on the subject will be held on June 23. This may be a bonanza for the community of historians and intelligence buffs who have been left without significant source material to work with, in some cases since WWII, especially in terms of any information on cryptography, image analysis, and espionage."
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Source: Slashdot | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:43 pm How To Make The Most Of The World Cup: Apps, Web Sites, Podcasts and More! Let's get down to business. The World Cup begins tomorrow, June 11, 2010. The tournament kicks off with hosts South Africa against Mexico at 9:30am ET/6:30am PT on ESPN in the U.S. (International readers: you'll have to consult your local listings.) Consider this post a general how-to on making the most of the tournament. Mobile Apps, helpful Web sites, podcasts, etc. Woo~!
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:35 pm Sony begins pre-sale of 3D TVs; Got $5,000?Section: Video, Accessories, DVD/DVR/Blu-ray, HDTV
“3D is revolutionizing the entertainment industry and only Sony is involved in every stage of the ecosystem,” said Chris Fawcett, vice president of Sony’s television business. “Leveraging deep 3D expertise from the company’s theatrical and professional groups, Sony products are optimized to offer the best possible 3D home entertainment experience.” In all, Sony will have 19 3D capable BRAVIA® HDTVs, Blu-ray Disc players and theater systems, and audio/video components. 19 sounds like an overload but Sony explains each has it’s own niche balancing price and performance. How is Sony bringing 3D to you? It’s the glasses. Sony 3D capable BRAVIA HDTVs will use glasses with active shutters to create the 3D effect. The line up maxes out with a 60” full HD (1920 x 1080) for $5,000. Some of the models feature built in sync transmitter while other models will offer this as an option; other models will be 3D ready, requiring the sync transmitter and shutter glasses to be purchased separately for 3D. Press release: [Virtual Press Office] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:33 pm Do the feds have a case against Apple? - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:33 pm Harris Corporation CEO Howard L. Lance to Speak at the Deutsche Bank Securities 2010 Industrials Services ConferenceMELBOURNE, Fla., June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Howard L.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:23 pm Google TV Matters More Than You Think, Forrester Contends [Voices]By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily Google TV could change the way people watch television. Really. Forrester (FORR) analyst James McQuivey asserts in a blog post today that Google TV has a chance to succeed at redefining the consumer television experience in a way in which Apple (AAPL) TV, Roku, Vudu, Boxee and various other combatants have not been able to do. “I have been amazed at how little people understand what’s really going on here,” he writes. “Google TV is a bigger deal than you think.” McQuivey asserts that TV matters “in a way that nothing else does,” driving $70 billion a year in advertising and a comparable amount in cable and satellite TV fees, plus another $25 billion in consumer electronics sales. He also points out that viewers watch TV on average 4.5 hours a day. Google’s (GOOG) goal: to get a chunk of the giant pot of TV ad money. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:19 pm Soweto Gospel ChoirThe Soweto Gospel Choir will perform at the opening ceremony for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, the first time the World Cup will be hosted by an African nation. (Play the video at left to hear them perform "The Lion Sleeps Tonight.") The Choir is featured on the South Africa compilation released by Putumayo World Music, which features a dozen artists representing a variety of genres including Afrojazz, mbaqanga, and township jive. From an interview with the Soweto Gospel Choir at the Putumayo site:Buy "Putumayo Presents South Africa" (Amazon.com) South Africa Artist Spotlight: Interview with the Soweto Gospel Choir and Masauko Chipembere of Blk Sonshine (Putumayo.com) Source: Boing Boing | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:15 pm Of course Men in Black III will be in 3Dand Will Smith says he is going to make it look goooood. I actually believe him for some strange reason.
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:15 pm uBreakiFix Ready to Repair iPhone 4JACKSONVILLE, Fla., June 10 /PRNewswire/ -- With the announcement of the iPhone 4 this week, uBreakiFix readies itself to repair the newest Apple device.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:12 pm Synopsys Acquires High-level Synthesis Technology from Synfora, Inc.MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 10 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Synopsys, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:10 pm Kevin Rose To Leave Diggnation
The show has been “aired” since July 1, 2005 and regularly attracts 200,000 or more viewers. It is the most popular show on Revision3, although new shows like Penn Point are starting to bring in real mainstream talent. Why is he leaving? We’re speculating, but his new job as CEO of Digg may be keeping him too busy to make time for the show. Or maybe it’s just that after five years he ready to focus on something new. It’s not clear if cohost Alex Albrecht is staying with the show, or if it will simply shut down. Update: Rose says via Twitter that he will leave the show at the end of this year. Update 2: Revision 3 says Kevin will be there at least through the end of the year (perhaps they think they can change Kevin’s mind): “Every year we sit down and think about what the next year of Diggnation should be. Those decisions have not yet been made, however Kevin and Alex will remain hosting the show through at least 2010 . We will also be announcing an exciting new video project of Kevin’s on Revision3 in the coming months.”      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 2:00 pm HP to buy HyperSpace and HyperCore assets from Phoenix
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:49 pm Appletell reviews Gowalla for iPadFROM APPLETELL - Gowalla for iPad brings all the good features of its iPhone app to the larger screen real-estate of the iPad, and offers a great interface with some nice functionality. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:48 pm A Look Behind The ‘Words With Friends’ iPhone Gaming Phenomenon
The premise of ‘Words‘ is simple: you fire it up and are playing a Scrabble-like word game against one of your friends in seconds. There’s no single player mode — the entire experience is built around multiplayer. And that formula has proven to be golden: the app now has over 1.6 million daily active users who average a full hour of playing every day. It has been on Apple’s top grossing list for four months running and serves over 1.5 billion ad impressions every month. Between the freemium ad-supported app and the paid version (which sells for $2.99), the game is making quite a bit of money, though the brothers wouldn’t get into specifics.
Newtoy got its start after Microsoft decided to shut down Ensemble Studios, which was developing a now-defunct game for the Xbox 360 called Halo Wars. The brothers, who were Ensemble employees, were asked to keep working on the game anyway but they declined and decided to start their own indie studio. Newtoy was founded in September 2008 and shipped Chess With Friends that November. The game was pretty straightforward, allowing you to invite your friends to play an asynchronous chess game (you make a move, they make their move at their convenience, and so on). At the time I said that the app “longed for push“, because users had to manually check in on the game themselves to see if it was their turn — they couldn’t get the push alerts that iPhone users receive today. Chess With Friends did fairly well by 2008 standards, but it was hardly the hit that ‘Words‘ later went on to become. Still, it was popular enough that the Newtoy team had to devote more time than they would have liked to ensure their servers could keep up with demand. Their followup game was put on the back burner. Finally, in July 2009, the studio released Words With Friends. At the time they had no idea it would become a hit — they took a small $200K seed round from friends and family and started working on an ngmoco title called We Rule (which they didn’t own full rights to) to make sure they could keep paying the bills. As they worked on We Rule, Words With Friends did fairly well but wasn’t exactly surging. And then John Mayer happened. On October 5 2009, Mayer tweeted that Words With Friends “is the new Twitter” (the Newtoy guys say they didn’t have anything to do with it). The application promptly surged in popularity, and has since ridden on its inherent virality to grow to where it is today — as more players signed up, they’d tell their friends to join so that they could play each other (remember, the game is multi-player only). The Bettners say that the application had already started to hit an inflection point in growth before the Mayer tweet, but there’s no doubt that he gave it a major push in the right direction. The ‘With Friends’ series has now seen 6.5 million downloads.
Of course, Words With Friends was hardly the first such word game on the market, so how did it catch on? The Bettners chalk this up to the user experience. Whereas the official Scrabble iPhone app forced users to trudge through a few menus before they could access its multiplayer features, Words puts your multiplayer games front-and-center. You can boot up the app and be in a game in just a few seconds, which the Bettners say is key. Success has come with a few hurdles, though, namely that Newtoy has to deal with a massive number of moves every day (players have cumulatively made over 1 billion moves). In some ways, this has held Newtoy back. Anyone who has played Words With Friends can probably tell you that adding friends in the game is a pain — instead of hooking into Facebook Connect, users have to manually type in their friends’ aliases, which is the sort of mechanic you might have expected a few years ago but feels woefully out of date now. There’s no Facebook application or web presence of any kind, so you have to make all of your moves from an iPhone or iPad. And the game isn’t available on any other mobile platforms like Android. When I pointed out these shortcomings to the brothers, they repeatedly responded “We know! We’re working on it!”. I couldn’t get a hard timeframe out of them, but it sounds like Facebook Connect will be coming first, followed by some kind of web app, with an Android version at some point in the not particularly near future (lame). But the brothers also point out that Apple is planning to release GameCenter, a social gaming network that is being built directly into iOS, which should be even easier to use than Facebook Connect. Looking forward, the Bettners say that they have more games in the works as part of the ‘With Friends’ franchise, and they’ll be able to nudge their current userbase toward the new apps. When I pushed for more details on these games they declined, explaining that they’re “sort of like Apple when it comes to new games”. I think they’ve still got a ways to go when it comes to secrecy though — I doubt Apple would have agreed to talk with me in the first place. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:45 pm 16-Year-Old Sailor Feared Lost at SeaThe parents of a 16-year-old girl who was attempting an around-the-world solo sailing trip and who now is feared lost at sea have posted an update on the rescue effort to reach their daughter. Laurence and Marianne Sunderland say that ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:29 pm Rock Band 3 will teach you how to play a 25-key keyboard
Rock Band 3 is going to teach you something actually useful: playing-for-real. Harmonix is giving gamers a 25-key midi keyboard to use with the new Rock Band 3. It takes gaming to a new level. You can learn real songs, and play quite well, right from you TV. If this works it could modernize the way people learn piano. Project director Daniel Sussman said they wanted to recapture the fun “that really started this whole phenomenon in the first place.” I’m not much of a gamer, but I am keen on learning the keyboard, so this is perfect for me. Now the question is..was this the original goal of the original Guitar Hero? 83 new songs are to be released with the new version. Also due for the release are two new guitars that will be “advanced.” You better get practicing if you plan to beat the neighborhood family of super-Rock-Band-players. [via Gizmodo]
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:24 pm Revolutionary War Document Found on Teacher's BookshelfSome schools may hang on to textbooks or other learning materials well past their shelf life. However, it looks like a fourth-grade teacher at a school in Peabody, Mass., has just stumbled upon a document that's not even from the ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:20 pm Buy an iPhone 3GS in the last month or so? You might not be totally boned. [Update: Confirmed]
Update: We’ve just confirmed this with AT&T. You needed a phone. Just about everyone with an Internet connection was telling you that a new iPhone was coming in June — but what do they know? You went ahead and bought an iPhone 3GS. June 7th rolls along, and Steve takes the stage to proudly proclaim that the iPhone 4 is the best thing ever made in the history of ever. They might not say it, but you hear it in the undertones: Your 3GS is no longer magical. Plus, it’s cheaper now! Well, shoot. Don’t panic! It looks like AT&T might be cutting recent 3GS purchasers some slack.
According to a memo acquired by ModMyi, anyone who bought an iPhone 3GS between May 7th and June 7th of 2010 can return the 3GS (at its original, pre-drop price) and snatch up an iPhone 4 in exchange, paying whatever price difference there may be. If you instead opt to keep your 3GS and just want some cash back, that seems to be an option as well. If you bought the 3GS between May 7th and May 14th, you’ve got until June 14th to ask for some monies; if you bought it any time between May 14th and June 7th, you’ve got 30 days from the date of purchase. 16GB 3GS late-adopters will get 50 bucks back, while 32GB 3GS late-adopters will get $100. The text of the memo:
Update: We’ve just confirmed this with AT&T. Switching from a 3GS to a 4 is a bit complicated; you’ll need to go to the original store you purchased it at, pre-order the iPhone 4, and then make the return/switch when you pick up your iPhone 4 on June 21st.
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:08 pm DROID DOES Pretty Damn Well [Digital Daily]
“(Droid) sales are going extremely well,” Jha said today. “If I could build more I’d sell more.” Evidently, Motorola (MOT) is facing the same component shortages these days that delayed HTC’s Droid Incredible. One other point worth noting here in the aftermath of Apple’s iPhone 4 and FaceTime video-calling announcements earlier this week: Jha said Motorola plans to launch two to four smartphones that support mobile videoconferencing before the end of the year, though he has “never been a great believer” in the feature. Wonder if the new devices will support Apple’s (AAPL) FaceTime standard. Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:01 pm Shrinks Diagnose Darth Vader's Inner DemonsAnakin Skywalker, the boy who became Darth Vader, suffered from borderline personality disorder, according to a new study.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm The Teknines Nine Millimeter Earphones are only for the hardcore
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 12:48 pm The Guardian case from M-Edge is a life jacket for the Kindle
Whenever I head to the community pool, I usually take a book to read. It works well to hide my wandering eyes, but also gives me something to look at when I would otherwise be ‘distracted’. Recently I have seen a few Kindles floating around at the pool, great idea, but I couldn’t see taking that expensive device any further than my front porch. That’s the same thing M-Edge thought when creating the Guardian case for the Amazon Kindle. This case coming in at $80, is not cheap, but it’s a waterproof case for your Kindle and it’s going to protect something that costs $260. Another thing that’s cool about it is that it floats. Internal air chambers keep your Kindle bobbing in case aggressive play begins. Wired makes a note that you can’t get access to the power button, so if you have the device auto-turnoff, you’ll have to open the case to turn it back on. Nonetheless, if you consider yourself a rough user of the kindle then maybe you need to pick one up. [via Gizmodo]
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 12:30 pm WickedLasers Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser burns all comers
Holy wow. I saw this thing this morning but I forgot about it. Then Kyle at Giz pointed out that this laser – made from diodes out of a Casio slim projector – costs only $200 and can burn almost anything. Now I’m interested. We’ve done reviews of WickedLaser products in the past but this looks like a doozy. While something like the Photonic Disruptor is pretty exciting, this laser blasts out one full Watt and is 4000% brighter than WL’s other burners.
They made it by pulling the diode out of a Casio Slim Green projector. You can read about how they did it here if you’re so inclined. Scary stuff.
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 12:01 pm Baby Planet Grew Up QuicklyThis newly discovered object suggests planets form much faster than once thought.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 12:01 pm How to make the most of the World Cup: Apps, Web sites, podcasts and more!
Let’s get down to business. The World Cup begins tomorrow, June 11, 2010. The tournament kicks off with hosts South Africa against Mexico at 9:30am ET/6:30am PT on ESPN in the U.S. (International readers: you’ll have to consult your local listings.) Consider this post a general how-to on making the most of the tournament. Mobile Apps, helpful Web sites, podcasts, etc. Woo~! TV Helpful Web sites Two ProTips: Try Roja Directa and Iraq Goals. If you’re stuck in the office when a big game is going on, go to either of those sites and you’ll find links to live-streams of all the games. Are these sites legal? I don’t know and I don’t care, and neither should you. As far as “fantasy” World Cup goes, I’m using ESPN’s deal. Both the simple brackets and the full-on fantasy game. I’m basically doing them to play along with Ron and Fez on Sirius XM. I’ve never done “fantasy” sports before and I don’t plan to make it a habit. It seriously took a good 45 minutes picking my team. Mobile Apps Goal.com’s App [iTunes link, but also available for Android]. It’s basically all of Goal.com (which I believe is the largest soccer site out there) on your phone. Live scores, post-game reports, etc. Totally free, so go crazy. This is the one I’ll be using at E3, I imagine. NYC Soccer Game Finder. This App [iTunes link] points New Yorkers in the direction of places (bars and the like) that are showing the games. It’s for the iPhone and iPod touch (though I imagine it’s a bit more practical for the iPhone, so you can walk around the city and still be able to look stuff up). And not for nothing, but Nevada Smiths is still the premiere bar in New York to watch the sport. It’ll probably be crowded so get their early if you plan on going. Also: make sure you are, in fact, 21 or older. It’s not like the old days (World Cup 2006) when I could waltz in at noon and buy Stella after Stella at the ripe old age of 19/20. The Man now cards for real, so fair warning. I only picked out two here because, you know, I don’t have all day to list 8 million Apps. Just search “world cup” on the App Store and the Android Market and you should be cool. I looked at a bunch of them are they’re all sorta the same: live scores and the like. Radio/Podcasts The Guardian has a podcast, World Cup Daily, that will absolutely be worth downloading. It’s free. World Football Daily is another great podcast that will be bringing the thunder during the tournament. It’s not free, but it’s only $5 per month: just buy one less fancy drink at Starbucks this month and you’ll be all set. Conclusion I am freaking out. It’s finally here! AAAHHH~! Oh, also: if you know of any other sites or whatever feel free to drop a line down below.
Source: CrunchGear | 10 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm Next Motorola Android Phone Could Feature 2-GHz Processor
Motorola and HTC are leading the development of some of the best Android phones available today. Now, Motorola hopes to raise the stakes in the Android race with its reported plans to introduce a super phone. Motorola could debut an Android device this year with a 2-GHz processor, based on Motorola chief Sanjay Jha’s remarks at an event in Chicago Wednesday, says Conceivably Tech. The device, if it makes to market, could have twice as much the processing power as the latest smartphones. A faster processor could mean higher quality graphics, games and better video chat, a feature that’s becoming increasingly popular among handset makers. But where Motorola will get its monster mobile chip is not clear. None of the major chip makers have said anything so far about a 2-Ghz phone processor — which makes us wonder if Motorola’s dream will be realized this year. Most smartphones today, including the Google Nexus One, the HTC Evo and the HTC Incredible use the 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. Apple has its own A4 processor that’s capable of up to 1 GHz speed. Earlier this month, Qualcomm said it is getting ready to introduce dual-CPU chipsets with chip speeds of 1.2 GHz and 1.5 GHz. Qualcomm is unlikely to go beyond that this year. Nvidia’s next-generation Tegra set uses a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, which again can go up to 1 GHz. Technically, the ARM A9 chip can go up to 2 GHz but we haven’t seen any implementations, so far, that reach that mark. So where will Motorola find its dream chips in enough volume to make the fastest smartphone of the year? Separately, Motorola also said video conferencing will be a big feature for its new devices. In a bid to compete with the video conferencing feature on the iPhone 4 and HTC’s Evo 4G, Motorola says it plans to offer its own video conferencing software on two to four new handsets later this year. Jha didn’t mention any specific models but said upcoming phones will have front-facing cameras for video chat. Photo: Motorola Milestone (gillyberlin/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:49 am Next Motorola Android Phone Could Feature 2-GHz ProcessorMotorola says it wants to launch an Android phone this year with a 2-GHz processor. If the device makes it to market, it will have twice the processing speed of the latest smartphones.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:49 am Kara Visits the Big Apple Geeks (Plus Martha and Arianna!) [BoomTown]
This week, BoomTown took a big jet plane east to check out the doings during Internet Week in New York, as well as to moderate a keynote panel at the Digitas Digital Content NewFront with media moguls Martha Stewart of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO) and Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post. While still exhausted from the D: All Things Digital conference last week, how could I turn down such a pairing? I could not! No surprise, the two delivered a rocking show for the large crowd, including Stewart saying she would be all digital if she were starting out today and Huffington noting that she did not kill newspapers. Here are video interviews I did with both before the panel, as well as some shots from a party Gawker Media threw at its lower Manhattan HQ for Internet Week, including a short chat with its terminally hyper CEO, Nick Denton. Enjoy: [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 11:13 am Sprint 4G lights up in Los Angeles, but only temporarily
Got an EVO 4G? Live in Los Angeles? Get ready! It’s Easter Egg huntin’ time! Early yesterday, reports started trickling in that Sprint had fired up 4G service in Los Angeles — but here’s the catch: it wasn’t working in all of Los Angeles, or even consistently in the same spots.
As it turns out, Sprint’s just test firing things right now. They’re booting up a 4G tower here, a 4G tower there — but once they’ve ran their tests, they’re turning (most of) them back off. With that said, get to hunting! If you’ve got an EVO, you’re paying the $10 a month for 4G anyway — might as well get some use out of it, right? Let us know if you find any 4G zones down in the comments below, so we can all rush over and bask in the radio waves of the future.
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:50 am Adobe: Flash on 53 Percent of All Smartphones Shipping in 2012 [Digital Daily]
In an interview with Reuters, Anup Murarka, director of technical marketing for mobile and devices at Adobe (ADBE), claims 53 percent of all smartphones shipping in 2012 will support Flash, Jobs and his Thoughts on Flash polemic be damned. For comparison, industry analysts expect 200 million smartphones to ship this year, 10 percent of them Flash-capable. In 2012, smartphone sales are expect to hit 300 million, and if Adobe does manage to get a respectable version of Flash on more than half of them, it will indeed have something to crow about. “You’re going to see Flash not only on [Google's] Android. Consumers will see devices from Palm (PALM), Research in Motion Ltd’s (RIMM) Blackberry, Nokia’s (NOK) Symbian and Microsoft (MSFT) Windows Phone 7 support the full Flash Player,” Murarka said. “Maybe we don’t get to the iPhone or iPad. If anything, we’re seeing continued growth in the install base and the usage of Flash and we see that continuing to grow.” But that’s today, when HTML5 is still a nascent standard. With its adoption being hastened aggressively by Apple (AAPL), the situation could be very different in two years. Source: All Things Digital | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:30 am Shock: Students using mobile phones to cheat
There was a report on the local news here yesterday about students using their mobile phones to cheat in school. My first reaction was, yeah, duh. Kids have been cheating in school since the beginning of time. The tools they use to cheat isn’t all that interesting. Whether it’s writing answers on the palm of their hand, filling a graphic calculator with programs to automatically perform physics equations, using Google on their iPhone to check Wikipedia, or simply whispering to the kid behind them, students cheat. Not exactly breaking news there. The report centered around a 19-year-old college student who said, yeah, I cheat all the time using my phone, no big deal. If the teacher doesn’t catch me, who cares? I’m just one kid in a city of millions trying to get a slightly higher grade on a test. Another student said something along the lines of, well, people lie and cheat all the time, so why can’t I? Athletes use performance-enhancing drugs, big corporations cook the books and reside in offshore tax havens, banks make loans to people they know will never be able pay back, etc. There’s next to no honesty in any sector of life, so why shouldn’t I try to take every advantage possible? The beauty of the report is, if there were any students who didn’t think of running to Google during a history test (which I would find hard to believe), now they know. “Oh, so that’s who was the Union commander during the Battle of Antietam. Thanks, Internet!” There’s a few ways to beat mobile phone cheating. One is simply to ban phones from the classroom. Will there be a few people who sneak them in? Yes, of course, but if the majority abide by the ban, then the minority who ignore the ban will be easier to catch. You could also, say, buy (or build, I suppose) a cell phone jammer. They’re not hard to find, only cost a few hundred dollars, and would prevent the use of mobile Internet access. (Cell phone jamming may actually be illegal, so best to check on your local laws and such if you don’t want The Man on your case.) In conclusion: cheating students will cheat, whether with a phone or with a scrap of paper. You can either ask students to be honest (but why should they?) or enclose your classroom inside a Faraday Cage. Or you can just resign yourself to the reality of the situation…
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 10:00 am 3X3 Recumbent Trike for Scary Bearded Children
Trikes are for kids and recumbents are for, well, Gore-Tex-clad hippies with too much facial hair. So the nightmarish rider of this machine, called the Trimtab, would be a bearded child with a taste for real-ale. Shiver. Worse than its terrifying young pilot, this tricycle has no handlebars. That’s right, the single most important part of the vehicle has been removed from this concept student project, and steering is instead done by leaning (if you have ever ridden a tricycle, you’ll know that leaning isn’t a good idea). What if you really need to make a turn? There are a pair of hydraulic “steering assist levers” to help you out in sticky situations. From there, it goes downhill. The rear wheels are electrically-assisted, the pedals drive the front wheel, a huge acrylic canopy adds weight and reduces vision and an accessory bar provides a mounting point for the rear-view mirrors and flag-antennae so beloved of the recumbent-riding beardo. The saving feature? A flatbed storage area at the back, presumably for carrying various whole-foods and the aforementioned dark beer back to the camp-site. As urban transport this unwieldy, impossible to store machine is clearly not up to the job. But you know what? Put this thing on a steep, curving hillside and throw it around with your body-weight and it starts to look hella-fun. Trimtab 3X3 [Coroflot via Bicycle Design] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 9:46 am Review: T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide
Features:
Pros:
Cons:
T-Mobile has been on an Android roll lately. With a number of great devices – including the Granddaddy, the G1, and the older uncle, the MyTouch, the company essentially owns the Android space, at least in terms of handset availability. Obviously other folks – ahem Evo cough Droid – own the mindshare, but T-Mo is plugging away like a champ. The introduction of the MyTouch Slide gives Blackberry and, more importantly, Sidekick lovers something to lust after. The device, which looks like the standard MyTouch 3G, slides down to reveal a small but usable keyboard. The Good Otherwise, you’re looking at a stock Android 2.1 install without all of the HTC Sense UI nonsense. Call quality was strong and I had good reception in Las Vegas and Brooklyn. Your results may vary. Battery life is strong. It lasts about 18 hours with minimal usage and about 7 hours of heavy browsing and calls. It also has a unique and useful voice control function very similar to the iOS voice command system. The phone also has a full-sized headphone jack, which is a mitzvah. The Bad In terms of usability, the phone bogs down a bit when usage gets too heavy. The unique contacts carousel is cool, but when there are other things processing in the background the animations start to slow down. Bottom Line Who is this for? It’s for folks who miss their Sidekick and want a keyboard for messaging. The MyTouch 3G Slide’s processor won’t win the blue ribbon at the County Fair, but it is an impressive bit of cellphone.
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 9:24 am O2 Cuts Unlimited iPhone Data to Just 1GB in UK
The confusion of tariffs shows that you’ll have to pay a minimum of £45 ($65) to get even this amount of data. Weirdly, pay-as-you-go customers get a pretty good deal: buy a minimum of £10 credit and you’ll get 500MB of data thrown in. We wonder why telcos are crippling iPhone data like this? Perhaps they are shocked by the amount of bandwidth iPhone customers consume? More likely its just a way to use the new iPhone 4, the most desirable iPhone upgrade in a few years, as a way to squeeze us for more cash. Expect to see this kind of nonsense repeated around the world as more tariffs are announced. At least in the UK there will be some choice for disgruntled O2 customers. The final UK carrier, 3, has just announced that it will sell the iPhone, bringing the total carrier count up to five. iPhone 4 Pay Monthly Tariffs [O2] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:48 am S. Korea Rocket Explodes After Lift OffEngineers lost all contact with the rocket less than three minutes after blast-off.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:44 am LG will launch 20 Android phones this year
Today, LG announced that it will launch not 5, not 10, but 20 Android handsets by the end of this year. 20. They didn’t stipulate which markets would get how many, or even outline any new phones in the works, but we can expect an Android flood from Korea. Clearly, LG want to up their position as the third biggest handset maker in the world (number 2 in the US). At least their not doing it by creating their own wacko OS. [Via Unwired View]
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:41 am Feed Papervore: Paper-Shredding Coffee-Table is Hungry!
You can guess what the Papervore does simply by reading its name. But what you probably can’t ascertain, even when looking at the picture, is that this paper-shredder is also a coffee-table. A $2,000 coffee-table. It is a wonderful diversion for the living room. Made by Voos in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the Papervore is made from bent, powder-coated aluminum, oak, mahogany and acrylic. Imagine stacking up your junk mail (and bills, of course) on the side and idly cranking them through the shredder’s jaws as you watch TV. Be careful if you invite any guests to your home, though. First, never leave them alone with valuable coffee-table books. And more importantly, don’t ever let them smoke near this Claes Oldenburgian creation. The resulting inferno would definitely spoil your dinner party. Perhaps somebody makes a fire-extinguisher themed table lamp? Papervore [Voos (warning: Flash) via Oh Gizmo!] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 8:02 am Droid Incredible finally rooted for real… kinda
Have no fear! Your root is here! …kind of. Over at the XDA forums, two HTC Incredibles have indeed been rooted, but the process is not consistently repeatable, and actually involves luck and good timing. Needless to say, the creators of the root — the Unrevoked Team — are working hard at making this step a) repeatable, and b) easier. But progress is progress, and this is a wonderful glimmer of hope for the ROM-tweaking Incredible crowd. Interested? You can head on over to the Unrevoked Team’s wiki to get the full instructions, but, if I were you… I probably wouldn’t try it out just yet. That’s just me, though. We’ll keep you posted as more details arise. [via Android Central]
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 7:54 am iPhone 4’s screen may be tough, but don’t think that it’s shatter proof
So, I’m sure you were pleased when Apple showed off how tough the new screen on the upcoming iPhone 4 was. I mean, they bent it like 30 degrees, fer cryin’ out loud! That’s like a million more degrees than the previous screen could bend, right? But what they didn’t show you was how it handled being dropped from waist height onto the ground. Three times. It took iFix your i to do that, and I’ve got some bad news: it didn’t survive. Of course bending tension is different to the shock of a drop, but also to blame is the different bezel on the iPhone 4. Y’see, on previous iPhones, the glass was counter-sunk so that it was flush with the bezel. On the iPhone 4, however, the glass sticks out a bit, so the bezel offers no protection. Drop this phone on the wrong angle, and it’s game over, just like all the other iPhones. Moral of this story: buy yourself a protective case. And don’t play with butter. [via Slashgear]
Source: MobileCrunch | 10 Jun 2010 | 7:09 am Hack Enables 720p Video on Google Nexus OneOne of the problems with buying a cutting-edge Android phone is that it only has a few minutes of fame before a newer, better handset comes along. Fortunately, there is also a great hacker community to at least partially fix up your old hardware for you. If you have a rooted (already hacked) Nexus One, you can now switch the camera up to record 720p HD video, much better than the current 720×480 that comes as standard. The video above shows the rather shaky results, recorded on the Nexus One and sent up to YouTube. Depending on how far you have already modded your Nexus One, this could be pretty easy. You need to be running CyanogenMod, a heavily tweaked version of the Android OS (version CM5.0.8test3) and then you need to download a file and install it. You’ll find the instructions and links over on the XDA Developers Forum linked below. Two caveats: this won’t work with the latest Android 2.2 OS, Froyo, and you should be very sure that you’re happy downloading OS modifications from an unknown source. Finally 720p encoding for Nexus One [XDA Forums via Android Police] See Also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:53 am Steam: Macs Better than PCs for Gaming
Some interesting facts have popped up from Steam since it switched on its gaming service for Macs last month. After reading through the Steam Hardware Survey for May 2010, Steam forum member (and Mac user) 09rmbrown concluded that the Mac hardware being used for gaming is more powerful than the connected PCs. The figures say that Macs have more RAM on average – 4GB over the 2GB found on most PCs – and that 90% of Mac users are running dual-core processors, only 55% of PC users are doing the same. This is likely because only the owners of newer, hi-end Macs have bothered to sign up for Steam: after all, nobody buys a Mac for gaming, right? And PC users get to download and play the whole, huge range of the Steam catalog, while Mac users still just have access to a handful of titles. There’s one place where the Mac still fails terribly. You won’t be surprised to find out where: graphics hardware. The most popular card is the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, the integrated graphics chip found in many consumer Macs. I have that in my year-old unibody MacBook, and while it does the job, it’s hardly cutting edge. Still, being able to play any decent game on my Mac is still such a novelty I’ll put up with the problems. Plus, I can always just go buy a console and do it properly. Steam Hardware Survey [Steam Store] Mac Hardware Vs PC — Mac Are More Powerful [Steam Forums via Engadget] See Also: 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 6:02 am Generation Gap: Mac Classic iPad Dock
Dremel plus iPad plus Mac Classic equals the most amazing iPad stand yet. Over at Site Hirac, you’ll find this carefully hollowed out Macintosh Classic. The screen has been removed and a large slot cut into the left side into which the iPad can be slid. The most surprising part is that the iPad screen is so close in size to that of this old desktop machine. Did we really work on such tiny monitors? The mod isn’t perfect, however. Right now, after jiggling the iPad into place, you cannot reach the home button (or any of the buttons) and there is no way to charge the iPad or sync it with iTunes.
It’s a shame that the Apple Bluetooth keyboard doesn’t have a home button like the iPad keyboard dock: that would make this pretty much perfect. Even nerdier would be to run a Mac Classic emulator on another (hidden) Mac and use the excellent Air Display to mirror the screen to the iPad. Pad try to build their own stand – Macintosh iPad Stand [Site Hirac via Technabob and Cult of Mac] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 10 Jun 2010 | 5:06 am
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