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Motorola to Answer iPhone 4 with 2GHz Android Phone - eWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 12 Jun 2010 | 3:07 am New cyberattacks in SKorea; sites suffer no damage (AP)AP - Two South Korean government websites were struck by the second cyberattack in a week, but suffered no major damage, the government said Saturday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Jun 2010 | 3:02 am Border Patrol Agents recruiting textersU.S. Border Patrol agents are asking residents, campers, hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts to send anonymous text messages to report suspicious people they come across in the lightly populated area...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 3:01 am Flying Chick Crowns - The Mareunrol's Collection is Nestled Between Victorian and Modern Life (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The latest Mareunrol's collection by Latvian designers Marite Mastina and Rolands Peterkops is anchored by dark and dusty colors. The most innovative addition to the Mareunrol's collection...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 2:30 am Crimson Blood Handbags - Vogue Paris July 2010 Editorial Will Send You into a Convulsion (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Vogue Paris July 2010 spread features some bags that could make a girl convulse with anticipation. Models Karmen Pedaru, Constance Joblonski and Elena Melnik show of some of this...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am James Grant on the Dollar, Gold, and the DeficitSource: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:58 am Viral Video: Larry and Sergey Buzz You Up, While Zuckerberg Is Board [BoomTown]
How in the world did BoomTown miss these very funny new puppets from 1938 Media of the Google (GOOG) Co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook. In the first below, the search giant twins are channeling the terrific old “Pumping Up with Hans & Franz”" television skit on “Saturday Night Live,” while needling Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs over the Wi-Fi troubles at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this week. And in the second, Zuckerberg talks privacy as played by a two-by-four with a curly perm, doing a little bit from “Rainman.” Enjoy: Source: All Things Digital | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:55 am Blow-Up Shower Curtains - This Pushy Shower Curtain Makes Showering Difficult (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) This is indeed a shower curtain -- a 'pushy' shower curtain at that. The idea behind the pushy shower curtain is to actually raise awareness about water waste. The designer, Elisabeth...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:35 am Why Video Calling Is a Wasted Feature In the UKAn anonymous reader writes "Technology affects the way we live but sociocultural influences also dictate what technology we absorb into our day-to-day lives. Take video calling on the iPhone 4 for example; it was pitched as an impressive feature, but will people adopt it? According to one British writer, the UK is unlikely to start making lots of video calls because it's awkward and, well, not very British. 'It's not the way we look when we say them, but the way we say them in order to inject the most bile into a negative statement. Or, on our more enthusiastic days, finding the most wryly witty way to say something while indicating that you couldn't really care less about it. This is the reason we've taken so well to Twitter and are better at watching than creating YouTube videos, to put it in sweepingly generic Internet terms.'"
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Source: Slashdot | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:30 am Street Fashiontography - Astrid Munoz Harper's Bazzar Russia June 2010 is Effortless (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) Old school street style is finally making an appearance in fashion and in the Astrid Munoz Harper's Bazzar June 2010 editorial this model makes it look like child play. As if being...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:05 am Mobile phones get us out in the real worldIn this essay for Vodafone's now defunct receiver, Science Ficition author Paul Levinson argues that the mobile phone is a tool that can get us out in the real world. Which we can then ignore as we keep...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 1:03 am Dripping Glass Lights - 'Furore LAMP' by Lima De Lezando is Not Your Typical Lamp (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) I have never before seen a lamp like the 'Furore Lamp' by Lima De Lezando. This lamp is made out of seven little steel-glass lamps that is connected into one big lamp. The design is...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 12:45 am Reporting on the Gulf oil spill from your cell phoneAs the Gulf oil spill spreads, news about it is coming from all kinds of places -- including regular people with cell phones. CNN reports on the ways that citizens can participate in "crowdsourced" reporting...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 12:30 am Bars Turn to Texting to Warn of Rowdy PatronsBar owners and the police in Portland have started a text messaging system to alert one another when a patron is removed from a bar, is overly belligerent or is seen fighting. The texts will include the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 12 Jun 2010 | 12:24 am FBI Investigating iPad E-Mail Leaks (PC World)PC World - The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has opened an investigation into the leak of an estimated 114,000 Apple iPad user e-mail addresses.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 12 Jun 2010 | 12:20 am Facebook: Calacanis Is Lying
Facebook engineer Mike Vernal left a comment on our original post this morning. Facebook VP of Communications Elliot Schrage then emailed us, pointing us to the comment. I’ll copy of those messages below, but first let’s recap what Calacanis said. In his email (to Zuckerberg and Sandberg) Calacanis wrote, “Seems my personal Facebook got turned back on by a 3rd party service that logged into it.” After we printed that (with his permission), he later clarified, “the third party sites didn’t turn it back on… i needed to login to a 3rd party site that i used FB connect on (i think last week)… might have been an iphone app, i can’t remember. so then my account goes back on and all the connected services start flooding it.“ Obviously, the second statement contradicts the first, but this is sort of confusing stuff for any user. Maybe Calacanis just stated it poorly the first time. But both explanations are impossible according to Facebook. According to them, the only way Calacanis’ profile was still active was if he logged into his account and explicitly asked for it not to be deleted. Here’s what Vernal wrote in the comment (I’ve highlighted the key parts):
In other words, Facebook is saying that the only way a user would be able to log in to another site with Facebook information is if they actually cancelled their deletion request. This directly contradicts what Calacanis said to us in his clarification. Meanwhile, Schrage wrote to us (I’ve highlighted the key parts):
This last sentence directly contradicts Calacanis’ original statement. So either way, Facebook is effectively saying that Calacanis is lying. They’re saying that there’s no way a third-party site could have kept his account active. And there’s no way he could have kept it active by logging into a third-party site (through Connect) without him explicitly canceling his deletion request first. Just to make sure, we understood exactly what they were saying, we wrote back to Schrage, “wow. you sure about this? once this is out it can’t go back in.” He has yet to respond — and he’s usually very good about that. So we’ll take that as a “yes.” The key part of this is: “In this situation, we’ve investigated” — so Facebook specifically looked into what happened with Calacanis’ account before making that statement. They humorously (and for legal purposes, no doubt) say “in theory” — but they’re actually saying that they looked into it, and Calacanis (or someone with access to his account) cancelled the deletion process. We’ve notified Calacanis of Facebook’s statement and will obviously update when if hear back.      
Source: TechCrunch | 12 Jun 2010 | 12:02 am Apple Hits 10,000 iPad Apps — Store Doubled In The Past Six Weeks
If you go to the App Store app on the iPad and click on the “Release Date” area, you can see the total for yourself. Along the top of that area, it will read “1 – 12 of xxxx” — “xxxx” being the current number of apps that are built to run on the iPad. Back at the end of April, it was reported that Apple was approaching 5,000 iPad apps (actually, they were past that number at the time). That means that in about six weeks, the iPad App Store has doubled in size. Given the iPad’s stellar sales, this is hardly a surprise. Recently though, a number of developers have noted a long-than-usual wait time for app approvals. One is Reeder, an awesome iPad feed reading app (which was just approved after waiting for a couple weeks). One reason for the delay is likely that Apple is trying to get iOS 4-compatible apps approved in time for the launch of that OS (and the new iPhone 4) in a couple of weeks.      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:03 pm Pentagon Seeking Out Wikileaks Founder Julian Assangeclustro writes "The Pentagon is desperately seeking the 'cooperation' of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, in order to stop him from releasing over 250,000 pages of confidential foreign policy documents. The documents were allegedly provided to Assange by Bradley Manning, the same solider who leaked a video showing a US Army helicopter killing unarmed civilians and international press correspondents."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 10:48 pm Sprint to start throttling data speeds?Section: Communications, Cellular Providers
A few months ago, T-Mobile announced that rather than charging extra for data above the 5 GB cap,or just cutting it off, it would start throttling the speeds. That way, if you use a lot of data it would just slow down a bit instead of charging you more or cutting you off completely. A document that Engadget obtained seems to indicate that this summer Sprint will be doing the same. Engadget also point out that in the contract for the EVO 4G, it says that Sprint can limit speeds at any time without notice. Sounds like a big indication that this could be coming. The change would mean that those 4G speeds might be as useful for tethering a lot of devices if you plan on using a lot of data. Although, it doesn’t mean the data will be throttled all that much. It’s just a rumor for now, but it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it were to happen. One thing is definite, though: even throttling speeds on the EVO 4G would be better than AT&T charging $45 for 2GB a month with tethering. Read [Engadget] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:29 pm Online video sites embrace live concert streamsDENVER (Billboard) - The visceral experience of attending a concert can never be fully replicated online. But live music is making its way to the Internet with increasing frequency,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:11 pm Online video sites embrace live concert streams (Reuters)Reuters - The visceral experience of attending a concert can never be fully replicated online. But live music is making its way to the Internet with increasing frequency, bringing with it new opportunities for fans, artists and rights-holders alike.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:11 pm Google Says Wi-Fi Sweep Was Legal - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:52 pm Wirefly offering the Motorola Droid for freeSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones  One of the hottest Android smartphones on the Verizon network is being offered for free by Wirefly assuming you sign up for a new two year contract. Even though Verizon has started pushing the HTC Droid Incredible more than the Motorola Droid, the Moto Droid is still a very solid phone. If Sanjay Jha could produce more Droids to sell, he would. Unfortunately, Wirefly’s deal is only good through the weekend, so if you are eligible for an upgrade with Verizon, or want to sign with Verizon, you may want to take advantage of this sweet offer. Verizon currently offers the Motorola Droid for $149 with a new two year contract. Check it out [Wirefly] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:19 pm Renewable Energy To Power Aussie SKAschliz writes "New solar and geothermal energy facilities are being built in Australia to provide sustainable energy for the region's Square Kilometer Array (SKA) bid. The Australian Government yesterday announced A$47.3m in funding for a full-scale, hybrid solar and diesel plant for the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) at the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, and geothermal energy facilities for the Pawsey High-Performance Computing Centre, where data from SKA radio telescopes would be processed. ASKAP is part of the Australasian bid to host the $2.5 billion Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which involves 20 countries and will investigate galaxy evolution, dark matter, and the existence of life. IBM expects the whole of the SKA to produce an exabyte of data per day."
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:55 pm Gawker Says FBI Seeks Documents - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:48 pm Report: FTC will investigate Apple - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:30 pm UPDATE 2-U.S. panel probes marketing of Wyeth transplant drug* Lawmaker also asks if company targeted black patients (Adds Pfizer says will cooperate with inquiry)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:27 pm Report: FTC to investigate Apple mobile practices (AP)AP - The Federal Trade Commission will open an investigation to determine if Apple Inc.'s mobile software business practices are squashing competitors, according to a report published Friday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:05 pm KlearKase announces new splashproof Kindle caseSection: Gadgets / Other, ebooks  C’mon, admit it. You know you’ve thought about taking your Kindle to your local community pool to show off your unyielding resolve for reading. The new KlearKase (announced a day after the M-Edge Guardian case) will be priced at $39.99. The Guardian is almost three times the weight and costs twice as much as the KlearKase model. This one is a no-brainer folks.
This is not meant to be one of those bulky cases that keep your cell phone from fitting in your pocket according to Bob Mckenzie, CEO of KlearKase LLC. The KlearKase is designed to be left on all the time while preventing unnecessary dirt, scratches and other mishaps from affecting your precious Kindle. The KlearKase will be available later this month on Amazon and pre-orders will be available next week. Read [Business Wire] Via [Engadget] Full Story » | Written by Tarun Kunwar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:02 pm Why Did Jupiter Flash?Last week, two amateur astronomers saw a flash on Jupiter. It was assumed to be an impact of a comet or asteroid, but is there another explanation?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 6:49 pm Researchers Develop Prototype for Ultra-HD Display (PC World)PC World - NHK's (Nippon Hoso Kyokai) Science and Technical Research Laboratories have unveiled their latest Ultra HD plasma display, one-fourth of a Super Hi-Vision display they hope will ultimately replace today's HDTV technology.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 6:04 pm Walmart to sell the iPhone 4 on June 24Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones  In an attempt to make the latest iPhone available in more areas, Apple has authorized Radio Shack, Best Buy, and AT&T stores to carry the iPhone 4. Also included in that group is Walmart who will be carrying the latest Apple smartphone on June 24, better known as official iPhone 4 launch day. This is significant for a couple of reasons. The more options customers have in terms of places to purchase the iPhone, the better for Apple. It also shows Apple reaching out to electronic retail stores and allowing more to sell their products on launch day. Not every town has an Apple store or AT&T retailer store nearby, but I’m sure most towns have at least one of the aforementioned retailers nearby. Of course, no word on how many units Walmart will be stocking on launch day, so I would try to get to Walmart early if you do not want to pre-order the iPhone. Just try not to get stampeded by an iPhone-hungry crowd at Walmart. Via [CNET] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:59 pm ITER Fusion Reactor Enters Existential Crisisdeglr6328 writes "The long beleaguered experimental magnetic confinement fusion reactor ITER is currently in what some are calling the worst crisis of its 25 year history. Still existing only on the paper of thousands of proposed design documents, latest cost estimates for the superconducting behemoth are soaring to nearly 20 billion USD — roughly twice the estimates of as recently as a few years ago. Anti-nuclear environmentalist organizations have seized upon the moment as an opportunity to use the current global economic crisis as a means to push for permanently killing the project. If ITER is not built, the prospect of magnetic confinement fusion as a technique to reach thermonuclear breakeven and ignition in the laboratory would be in serious question. Meanwhile, the largest laser-driven inertial confinement fusion project, the National Ignition Facility, has demonstrated the ability to use self-generated plasma optical gratings to control capsule implosion symmetry with high finesse, and is on schedule to achieve ignition and potentially high gain before the end of the year."
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:42 pm Netlist, Inc. Reports Inducement Grants Pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)IRVINE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Netlist, Inc. (NASDAQ: NLST) today announced, as required by NASDAQ Listing Rule 5635(c)(4), that it has made certain stock option grants to new employees.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:38 pm Netlist, Inc. Reports Inducement Grants Pursuant to Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:38 pm Twitter warns of possible World Cup traffic-related outages (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:35 pm FTC to Investigate Apple's Conduct in Mobile-App Market [Voices]By Thomas Catan, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal The U.S. Federal Trade Commission will investigate whether Apple’s business practices harm competition in the market for software used on mobile devices, people familiar with the situation said. For weeks, the FTC has been engaged in negotiations with the U.S. Justice Department over which agency would review allegations by companies that say they’re being shut-out of one of the most important emerging computing platforms. Adobe Systems has been engaged in a public feud with Apple over its decision to ban Adobe’s Flash video technology from its mobile devices. This week, Apple also drew complaints from Google Inc. for imposing new rules on developers that could bar Google and other rivals from selling ads inside Apple’s iPhone and iPad applications. Apple has also banned software developers from using other companies’ tools to develop software for its devices. Read the rest of this story on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:32 pm Orange’s combination PC and guitar amp gets specs and price
The OPC is being put out by Orange, for a reason only they can fathom. It was announced a couple months back but it’s now got final specs and a price. I was hoping for something a little more beefy: it’s sporting a truly budget CPU from last year, a Pentium E5400. Why, when Core i3s can be had for peanuts? Why, I ask you? Probably because this is really more of a mega-budget PC built into an amp, not the other way around. The GPU, an integrated GeForce 9300, confirms that. Sure it’s got plenty of RAM and all the ports you need, but running Windows 7 on it, even if you’re just doing audio editing, is going to be a chore. The final blow: it costs $1500. To be fair, Orange amps aren’t cheap, and that’s probably 80% of the price right there. Plus you’re getting a bunch of audio software included, which can be used to modify guitar inputs on the fly. Nice, but is it worth the money? It’s hard to say. I like the 1/4″ jacks, but will I really want to be using such a low-spec system to edit my music? It’s a decision you’ll have to make for yourself, Mr. I’m-considering-buying-a-$1500-amp-and-computer. [via Crave]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:30 pm IPO VIEW-U.S. taxpayers could profit on pre-owned GM* GM IPO as soon as Q4, registration seen as soon as JulySource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:10 pm UPDATE 2-Documents show J&J bought Motrin before recall* Congressional committee questions J&J's cooperationSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:09 pm Amazing Twitter World Cup mash-up needs to be seen right now
Whew! Day One of the World Cup is now behind us, and I wanted to take a moment to point y’all in a particularly awesome direction. The Guardian, one of my recommend sites from yesterday’s catch-all post, has a truly amazing Twitter mash-up that needs to be seen to be believed. What it does is analyze tweets that occur during a game, then it creates a dynamic chart that corresponds to said tweets. For example, when South Africa scored the opening goal of the tournament, which is borderline poetic, Twitter blew up with tweets containing the word “goal.” Hence this screenshot. An entire game’s worth of tweets takes about a minute to cycle through so consider this a fun, quick way to see how the Twitterverse reacts to each match. Will Twitter survive the onslaught of “USA” tweets tomorrow? Now there’s a question!
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:00 pm Hulu Founding CTO Eric Feng Leaving For KPCB, Al Gore
Feng and Hulu CEO Jason Kilar just announced the news on the Hulu blog. The news comes at a time when the future of Hulu is uncertain. Reports increasingly point to the service turning to a premium subscription model, with an increased focus on providing content to devices like the iPad and Xbox. The messaging around the departure is that this was simply a great opportunity for Feng and didn’t have anything to do with Hulu’s current status, but it’s hard to take that entirely at face value. Here’s an excerpt from the Hulu blog post:
Here’s an email Feng just sent to some friends who don’t work at Hulu:
     
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:51 pm New York Times Bans Use of Word "Tweet"An anonymous reader writes "New York Times standards editor Phil Corbett has had enough of his journalists' sloppy writing. Their offense? Using the 'inherently silly' word 'tweet' 18 times in the last month. In an internal memo obtained by theawl.com, he orders his writers to use alternatives, such as '"use Twitter" ... or "a Twitter update."' He admits that ' ... new technology terms sprout and spread faster than ever. And we don't want to seem paleolithic. But we favor established usage and ordinary words ...' After all, he points out, ' ... another service may elbow Twitter aside next year, and "tweet" may fade into oblivion.' Of course, it is also possible that social media sites will elbow paleolithic media into oblivion, and Mr. Corbett will no longer have to worry about word use." While this sounds like it could as well be an Onion story, the memo is being widely reported.
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Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:50 pm We are sponsoring a party & want you to come! Its Monday June 21st at the Katwalk Bar & Lounge in NYSection: Gadgets / Other, Features
To register and see more information about the tweetup please go to: http://twtvite.com/lineshowstweetup/1 Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:46 pm US trade body to look into HTC complaint against Apple (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:37 pm The Kung Fu Kid (and why it's OK the new movie isn't called that)
I was seven when this photograph was taken of me attempting Daniel-San's crane technique in the sand. It must have been around this age that Karate Kid jump-kicked its way into my subconscious, sketching an outline for my life and my own incarnation of the American Dream: Focus your chi, beat up your enemies, win the trophy.
The new Karate Kid happens to feature Kung Fu. Although some have a problem with that literal misnomer (Karate is not the same martial art form as Kung Fu), I believe this apparent discrepancy speaks to deeper, common roots and philosophies shared by all martial arts. I'm cool with it. I have three favorite films that parallel with important phases of my life. The most recent phase pairs up with Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa, a period piece about the cost of glory, the strength of quiet character, and teamwork for the sake of common good. You could say this film defines the part of my life working at Gizmodo, developing it into a large group effort. In my twenties and teenage years, Enter the Dragon taught me about the confidence a young Chinese man could have. With his Jeet Kune Do style of abandoning the confinement of style, Bruce Lee taught me to take what is best and avoid being bound to traditional limitations, and rigid, old sets of rules. The film that pairs up with the earliest phase of my life is the original Karate Kid, about the dream of a young man's life-- and for me, naturally, the early dreams of my own life. In a decade glutted with Van Damme films, this was the most human of contemporary martial arts movies. Apart from lacking Van Damme, it also, thankfully, lacked the overdramatized emotional displays common in classic Kung Fu films. We see fear and adrenaline on Daniel-San's face and in his body language in combat; we see his awkwardness when he flirts with the cheerleader; we see his embarrassment when he is thrown into sand by the Cobra Kai; we see his bruises and injuries after scuffles. All of these human shortcomings makes that little plastic Valley Karate tournament trophy so much more shiny, and his sweetheart's love more sweet, in the end. Sure, the fight choreography is great, but the story itself is greater for any young man who has found solace in the dojo, as I did. I met my first bully when I went to school in Hong Kong for a year, not long after seeing Karate Kid for the first time. The bully was a big, 9-year-old Australian. He picked on me constantly for being friends with a sweet 8-year-old California girl. I took karate, but no one taught me how to correctly tie the belt on my oversized uniform. My pants fell off at every punch in one sequence we practiced. The Australian giant had one last laugh before I flew back to America when the school year ended. There was no victory, only surrender. I did not practice karate again until my teenage years, but my return to the discipline happened just in time, saving me from hormone-driven angst after I scarfed a bunch of Advil in a mock suicide/heartbreak maneuver. After hitting that ibuprofen bottom, I started up some Tae Kwon Do with my friends Mike and Pete. I wasn't gifted as an athlete or student, but it was pretty clear from the start that kicking and punching were what I did best. Within a few weeks I could kick tops of doorstops with vertical sidekicks and full splits. We lifted weights, took classes, watched tapes and taught each other Kung Fu, Judo, Jujitsu and Shotokan Karate on cheap foam mats. My height and weight were identical to those of Bruce Lee. Unlike Daniel-San, I will admit that I did not always my gifts exclusively for self-defense. But in an environment of widespread juvenile vengeance and pride, each of my strikes seemed fair at the time. The first person I ever punched was Shawnee Alexandri. You couldn't call him a bully, but he was an antagonistic motormouth. After asking him countless times to shut up, I gave him a right cross and put him in a headlock in the school weight room. Everyone turned around, surprised. I was surprised, too: at how pliant the human face could be when it swung around on a human neck, and how much being jacked-up on adrenaline made me lose fine motor skills. As long as you don't hit teeth or the top of the head, you will not get hurt. The captain of the football team told me it was "kind of a good punch" before the room returned to normal. That move must have seemed shocking to onlookers, coming from a skinny little honor class geek with broken glasses. I had just broken high school cliché rules (and quite nearly some of Shawnee's teeth). Before graduation, I would go on to threaten to drop-kick the captain of the football team for picking on my little brother, and would slide-tackle the school bully during gym class for kicking my shins one too many times. Anyone who picked on me once never picked on me again. I never got in trouble, because kids in smart people classes just didn't get detention. Most importantly, I'd worked out the self-pity and when I clenched my fist, I felt a spark of self-worth. I believed I could will myself to overcome problems in life. Just like the Karate Kid. I went through college in an an unspectacular way. I went to a mediocre school, got mediocre grades, and had a mediocre time. I picked up a few skills but practiced nothing. I expected to grow up, but it didn't happen. I got fat. Like Daniel-San, I picked up my East Coast roots and moved to California. I found a gym, the Fairtex Muay Thai school in San Francisco run by boxers from Bangkok who had all come from poverty and risen to championships (the recruiters only recruit the poor, because, like Mike Tyson, they fight harder.) When I was laid off after the first internet bubble burst, all of the people who were fired alongside me were upset. Some cried. I could only think of the gym. I worked full-time there, mopping floors. In a few months I was training, teaching and sparring almost every day, and I remember how content I was sitting under a skylight drenched from the routine of exercise, about to start teaching class. I remember thinking to myself, "I will never be more happy than I am right now." And although I have been happier, life was never more simple. The head instructors were all gentle, strong, hilariously perverted, and generous with their knowledge. They, unlike the Americans at the gym, weren't there because they were afraid of life. For them, this wasn't therapy to work out aggressive tendencies. They did this because they had the skill, and because they began with no better options in life. They were Mr. Miyagis who would grab your nuts when you weren't paying attention in order to teach you how to pay attention. It ended quickly. One June, three years into this part of my life, I had the perfect exhibition match. I could feel where every punch and kick were coming from, and I kept complete composure. I was far from the best, but I felt that day I'd reached the level I wanted to reach. A few weeks later, I witnessed the owner of the gym get shot while chasing down a plain-looking guy who backed into his parked car out in the alley behind the gym. That plain-looking guy happened to be a serious criminal who'd skipped parole meetings for a year. I tried to give the gym owner CPR, but as they took his body off the street, wrapped in my t-shirt (I remember it had a phoenix logo), something changed inside. I didn't want to live by the sword anymore. Two days later, the murderer shot himself in a standoff with police after a widely publicized manhunt, and round-the-clock media coverage. The gym closed. I thought I could approach something more meditative. I took some Aikido classes to learn how to draw the sword and cut, but I didn't have the heart for it now. I had to leave it, and everyone in that world, behind. I no longer believed it was the way. I broke my leg in a motorcycle accident and although the metal rod in my left tibia makes the bone stronger, every time I kicked the ankle went numb. I was finished. I began focusing instead on writing. It's been years since I've practiced martial arts. But having studied a few different types, I guess you could say everything I do is done with as much martial spirit as I can muster. From the way I think, or move, from cooking to writing to running Gizmodo, to surfing, I have practiced enough that the best and worst lessons have become part of who I am. When something runs this deep, and when you've observed and practiced more than a few types of martial arts, its hard to understand why some people on the internet would raise such a fuss over the new Karate Kid movie being focused around Kung Fu instead of Karate. Muay Thai is a brutal art. It involves knees, shins, elbows, and gloves on the fists. In the old days, I was told, fighters would dip their taped fists into broken glass-- but today, it's more of a graceful and tough sport. There are rules: no eye gouges or groin kicks. Its square stance and blocks are mostly meant to deflect round strikes from the sides or quick jabs to the face and body-- and because of that, you could say Muay Thai has a weakness to strong spinning back kicks. They aren't an official part of Muay Thai, but no one winces when you do them because it is not as cultish of a sport as other more traditional martial arts. Still, a Muay Thai practitioner wouldn't necessarily know how to use or defend against these kicks. I know this because of my experience in other martial arts. And I know this because of Jongsanan Fairtex. Jongsanan Fairtex's nickname is "the wooden man." He was one of the most decorated fighters in the gym, and was ranked by some publications in Thailand as one of the top 10 fighters of all time. If I remember correctly, his record was 98-28-0, and he's best known for a match referred to as "the elbow fight", where he and his opponent traded elbow smashes to each other's crowns repeatedly, with neither man going down. One of Jongsanan's moves, which he'd throw in every couple of fights when he knew his opponent was on his heels or the ropes, was the spinning back kick. It was sometimes effective, but it's also demoralizing to see your opponent break a rule of Muay Thai and turn his back to you. As a master, Jonsanan knew when to break the rule of the system and throw some jazz into the equation. So, with Jongsanan in mind: Okay, the title of the "new" Karate Kid title may be a misnomer in the literal sense. But I don't consider the title a mistake. Some may argue that the filmmakers are demonstrating cultural insensitivity to Chinese and Japanese martial artists. But I believe the Karate/Kung Fu discrepancy can also be interpreted as masterful perception. Because a master, like Bruce Lee or Jongsanan, knows that at the core, there is no real difference between any of the martial arts. In fact, this is the very sort of provincial distinction Bruce Lee fought against throughout his life. All martial arts operate on the same fundamentals, more or less. Each has a different emphasis on legs, feet, hard crushing or soft flowing styles, feints and slips or direct blocks. Each art has strengths and weaknesses. But the principles within each art are the same: efficient movement, focused minds, and strong spirits. When you understand that, there's no sense in fussing with the rules just for the sake of the rules. Was Jongsanan, one of the defining fighters of this last 100 years, not doing Muay Thai when he did spin kicks? Or did he just reinvent Muay Thai when he threw that move in, during a few of his fights? The correct title of the martial art in question hardly matters when your enemy is sprawled at your feet, knocked out by an attack with no name. The Karate Kid, released as The Kung Fu Kid in China and Japan, opens today in theaters.  Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:29 pm It’s time to settle lawsuits and chew bubble gum – and I’m all out of bubble gum
Could this mean we’ll see this on even more vaporware lists? I thought Episode 3 and the Phantom game console were going to be pretty much king of the hill now. It’s a comeback!
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:27 pm Join The TechCrunch Birthday Party NOW
Just in case you haven’t heard, TechCrunch is turning the big 5 today. In honor of this celebration there will be 363 meetups with more than 4,440 people across 79 countries, including Australia, China, Israel, Malaysia and Romania. Here, at the TechCrunch headquarters in our new San Francisco office, we will be holding our own birthday bash, complete with cakes, tacos, an assortment of beverages and of course, a livestream. We will stream our event from 5:35 pm to 7:00 pm, featuring interviews with our guests and members of the TechCrunch family. Watch here. You can also check out our New York meetup here, featuring our co-editor Erick Schonfeld. Update: Closing time. Birthday cake consumed, favorite TechCrunch stories exchanged, but alas, all good things must come to an end. We’ve taken down the feed. Until the 6th!      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:22 pm ATCi Designs and Delivers Fly Away Broadcast System for World CupSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:08 pm Open Data and a Critical CitizenryLast week we discussed news that the UK government had released a treasure trove of public spending data. Charles Arthur, the Guardian's technology editor, wrote at the time how crucial it was for citizens to find ways to examine and interpret the data; otherwise it would be useless. Now, an anonymous reader sends in a response from open data activist David Eaves, who takes it a step further. He writes, "We need a data-literate citizenry, not just a small elite of hackers and policy wonks. And the best way to cultivate that broad-based literacy is not to release in small or measured quantities, but to flood us with data. To provide thousands of niches that will interest people in learning, playing and working with open data. ... It is worth remembering: We didn’t build libraries for an already literate citizenry. We built libraries to help citizens become literate. Today we build open data portals not because we have a data or public policy literate citizenry, we build them so that citizens may become literate in data, visualization, coding and public policy."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:04 pm Philip Zimbardo on "The Secret Powers of Time"In this wonderfully animated video, Professor Philip Zimbardo (of the famed Stanford Prison Experiment) "conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world." (Thanks, Katie!) Twitter Can't Promise It Will Stay Up During the World Cup [MediaMemo]All those World Cup tweets you saw today? They’re not going to stop. And if they increase dramatically, well…Twitter can’t make any promises. That info comes at the bottom of a new blog post the service put up explaining its downtime problems this past week. If you’re technically savvy, it might be meaningful for you. (My caveman translation attempt: Twitter say internal network bad. Twitter sorry. Twitter fix.) But this is the part you’ll want to think about if you’re planning on tweeting about Wayne Rooney’s temper tomorrow:
As Twitter notes, the fail whale shows up much less frequently than it used to. And the World Cup is a really, really big deal. So your inclination should probably be to cut the service some slack–and you certainly can’t demand a refund. But if it breaks down at a particularly crucial time, you’re still going to want to give Twitter a red card. Or worse. Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of June 06, 2010Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Eyes-on with Sony’s new 3D TVs reveals image issues
Make no mistake, active shutter glasses can work just fine in other situations, but it’s a technology that demands extreme precision, as evidenced by the continual revision of the components. Timing trouble on the level of microseconds can result in ghosting, double vision, and other issues, and it seems that the units HD Guru got to look at weren’t quite up to snuff. It seems that even a slight tilt of the head resulted in double vision, and a red or blue shift depending on which way you tilt. Lord! Imagine if you had to sit straight as an arrow through a whole movie! I’ll hold off for now, thanks. [via Gizmodo]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Awaiting Holidays' Electronics (and Sales) - New York Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm Save Up to 50% on APPCON(TM) 2010 Registration During June SpecialLAS VEGAS, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- For a limited time only, organizers of APPCON(TM) 2010 are offering prospective attendees a chance to save up to half-off the conference registration and pre-event package fees for the world's only mobile App-centric forum.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 4:00 pm An Off-Switch for Cancer?Thanks to plant genetics, a scientist thinks he may have discovered a way to turn cancer off.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:58 pm UPDATE 1-U.S. panel probes marketing of Wyeth transplant drug* Lawmaker also asks if company targeted black patientsSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:55 pm Washington Post Journalist confronts his hoardingMichael S. Rosenwald of the Washington Post wrote a a brave piece about coming to terms with his hoarding condition.Later, I would learn from Frost that I keep my stuff on tables and in piles because having everything in plain sight provides comfort and, in a sense, a form of organized disorganization. If I can see it, I know it's there. That was the practical explanation. But as the students questioned me -- about the pleasure I feel acquiring stuff, the anxiety I feel tossing it -- I sensed that there was something deeper, more philosophical. And it was this: All of the stuff I pile up is a sort of second body, my twin. I am Michael Rosenwald, and those piles -- the books, magazines, fountain pens, inks, newspapers, everything -- are also me. The more I have of it, the more I am me. Up there in front of the class, I was beginning to confuse myself, and then I felt as if I might cry.The mess he made: A life-long slob decides it's time to get organized Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:48 pm Natalee Holloway: Serial Killer Victim?Was missing American teenager Natalee Holloway murdered by a serial killer? Possibly.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:46 pm Help Dad Avoid These Top 5 Health RisksSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:42 pm To do in LA: Gary Baseman's characters come to life at La Brea Tar Pits
24 of artist Gary Baseman's characters, including the ChouChous and the Tar Pit Girls, will perform and engage with crowds at the La Brea Tar Pits park and the LACMA museum in Los Angeles this Saturday: Choreographed by Sarah Elgart, and featuring a song by Carina Round, this dynamic experience will create new and alternative memories of one of LA's major landmark areas. Creating an atmosphere of whimsy and wonder, attendees who join the jollity by dancing or playing will receive limited-edition sashes with original art by Gary Baseman.Saturday, June 12, 2010, at the La Brea Tar Pits Park, Los Angeles, Performances: 12 pm, 1 pm, and 3 pm (with vignettes in between and until 4 pm). It's free! More info here. Video follows...
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:41 pm Transocean, US Justice Dept resolve liability spatWASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - Transocean Ltd has resolved its spat with the Obama administration over the oil drilling company's attempt to limit its liability in the Gulf of Mexico spill, according...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:38 pm Windows Phone 7 marketplace will be a porn free zoneSection: Communications, Mobile  Microsoft has officially announced new polices for their Windows Phone 7 Marketplace. Their newly published application certification requirements state that there will be no pornographic, or “sexually suggestive” content allowed in the marketplace. Microsoft is being smart about things in order to avoid making the same mistakes as Apple did earlier this year. Here’s the scoop:
In non-porn related news, developers will have to pay a $99 annual membership with a 70/30 split similar to the Apple store and five free applications. The marketplace will however offer various types of trial modes.
Via [Gizmodo] Full Story » | Written by Tarun Kunwar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:38 pm Motorola and Research In Motion settle dispute (AP)AP - Handset makers Motorola Inc. and Research In Motion Ltd. said Friday they have settled a patent complaint over mobile technology that Motorola brought to the U.S. International Trade Commission earlier this year.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:36 pm YouTube Teams With IGN To Broadcast E3, Continues To Ramp Up Live Streaming
YouTube will be live streaming the main press conferences (Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft) and content from IGN’s E3 booth which will include game demos and interviews. All of this will be available on the channel YouTube.com/E3. IGN has of course been covering E3 for as long as I can remember. But this is new territory for YouTube, which has been gradually ramping up its live streaming efforts in the last year or so. YouTube live streams used to primarily focus on political events, but it’s since streamed a handful of concerts, the Tiger Woods press conference, and the Indian Premier League’s cricket tournament. We also recently found evidence of a live stream button available on some YouTube accounts, though the shot in question was of CitizenTube which regularly broadcasts livestreams. Still, Max Haot, the CEO of Livestream, felt that the button was “strong evidence” that YouTube was planning to launch a live streaming feature. I’ll be surprised if YouTube launches a live streaming option for individuals in the near future (it would be a huge liability). But clearly the site isn’t afraid of working with trusted partners, and I expect we’ll continue to see more deals like this one. Update: It’s also worth pointing out that Ustream will be broadcasting content from E3 through partnerships with G4 and 1UP. Their channel is ustream.tv/e3.      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:35 pm Sega To Bring Dreamcast Titles to PSN, Xbox LiveSega announced yesterday that it plans to bring back a number of popular Dreamcast games, updating them and releasing them for download on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live. Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi will come first, with further announcements expected after E3. "Both of the games will be based on the Dreamcast originals, but will be updated with high-definition graphics, surround sound, online leaderboards, and Achievement and Trophy support." Kotaku has a list of other titles they hope to see — what game(s) would you like Sega to bring back?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:33 pm Like algae? Love lamps? Please read.
The concept, which in all seriousness I like very much, was made possible by a recent discovery: a small current can be pulled from photosynthesizing algae, as long as they are healthy and provided with the necessities. Those are: sun and CO2. In the Latro Lamp, the sun provides the sun, obviously, and you provide the CO2 by exhaling into it every once in a while. In this way the little buggers are kept happy and a battery is slowly charged by their excess energy. Unfortunately, the concept is strictly sci-fi for now: the research project cited as making this possible was tapping each algae cell individually with a nanoelectrode, a technique that is completely unfeasible for implementing on a macro scale. At least, for the next couple years. When nanobots can be manufactured quickly and easily enough (perhaps by themselves) to sell on a consumer level like this, you can bet we’ll see way more impressive applications than a green lamp, though. [via Designboom and Inhabitat]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:30 pm Survey: 2020 Vision of Computing Mostly Cloudy [Digital Daily]
That’s the conclusion of a new survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project that found a majority of tech-savvy folks believe they won’t be doing nearly so much work on the desktop a decade from now. Seventy-one percent of the 900 “technology experts and stakeholders” Pew interviewed agreed with the following statement:
Given the growing enthusiasm for cloud-based social networking services (Twitter, Facebook), cloud-based entertainment services (Hulu, YouTube, Pandora) and cloud-based productivity suites (Zoho, Google Docs and the latest version of Microsoft Office), this doesn’t seem like a particularly aggressive prediction. Clearly, though, there are some obstacles to be overcome. Privacy and security are, and will continue to be, big issues here, as is bandwidth. But once they’re resolved, the division between “cloud computing” and “computing” as we think of it today will likely be gone, as Google’s (GOOG) chief economist, Hal Varian notes. “In the future we will neither know, nor care where our data resides,” he said. “In fact, our data will be distributed in the cloud, where it can be accessed any time, any place, on any device, by any authorized user.” Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:30 pm Flash Floods Wash Over ArkansasThe flooding swept through campsites and has so far claimed 16 lives.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:26 pm The iPhone, Net Neutrality and the FCC [Voices]By Andy Kessler, Co-founder, Velocity Capital Management AT&T’s (T) Picturephone, shown at the 1964 World’s Fair, was a huge flop. Apple’s (AAPL) new iPhone 4, announced this week, has a front-facing camera for video chats. It might succeed, except that AT&T isn’t providing enough bandwidth capacity. First, the company won’t allow two-way video to work over its data network. Second, AT&T just made bandwidth-intensive video expensive by dropping iPhone and iPad’s $30 per month unlimited data plans and replacing them with a two-tiered plan of $15 a month for under 200 megabyte usage or $25 for two gigs. Not that I have a problem with AT&T charging me or the two percent of its customers who are heavy data users. I can always sign up with a competitor. Oh, wait. There are none. AT&T has an exclusive contract with Apple. AT&T can easily build out enough capacity to handle heavy data users. But it may be playing a game of chess with the FCC over its attempt to impose “network neutrality” rules. The FCC (plus Google and friends) wants all users to have free rein to do what they want on the Internet and smart phones. AT&T just wants users to pay for excess bandwidth. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:25 pm A helpful reminder for modern life
This public service announcement brought to you by the hardwood floor sander my husband and I are currently renting. But I feel the sentiment has a wide range of applications. Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:23 pm ITC to probe Apple for HTC patent infringementWASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. trade panel will investigate allegations made by HTC Corp that Apple infringes its technology, as HTC seeks to win a ban on the U.S. sale of iPhones, iPads andSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:19 pm The Beginnings of Encrypted Computing In the Cloudeldavojohn writes "A method of computing from a 2009 paper allows the computing of data without ever decrypting it. With cloud computing on the rise, this may be the holy grail of keeping private data private in the cloud. It's called Fully Homomorphic Encryption, and if you've got the computer science/mathematics chops you can read the thesis (PDF). After reworking it and simplifying it, researchers have moved it away from being true, fully homomorphic encryption, but it is now a little closer to being ready for cloud usage. The problem is that the more operations performed on your encrypted data, the more likely it has become 'dirty' or corrupted. To combat this, Gentry developed a way to periodically clean the data by making it self-correcting. The article notes that although this isn't prepared for use in reliable systems, it is a quick jump to implementation just one year after the paper was published — earlier encryption papers would take as much as half a decade until they were implemented at all."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:17 pm BP disaster update: BP spills coffee, birds "cooking" to death in Gulf oil, June 12 protest• BP Spills Coffee.• Those gulf birds are effectively cooked alive in the oil. As you know, a bird has a natural repellent in its feathers that keeps the water out. That's a little area -- a little cushion -- that keeps it cool. Well, this oil here gets on those feathers, and they lose that little insulation. And then, when you have this oil at 100+ degrees, the bird experts say, it begins to literally cook the birds.• Don't know much about this, but here it is: Worldwide BP Protest Day - 12 June 2010 • Should you eat shrimp from the gulf? (Good Magazine, and I don't care what they say, I won't be.) • NOAA: Freqently asked questions about Hurricanes and the Oil Spill. (PDF Link) • Image: from a second heartbreaking Boston Globe "Big Picture" series on the spreading devastation, "A sea turtle is mired in oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on Grand Terre Island, Louisiana June 8, 2010. (REUTERS/Lee Celano)." Full series here. (via Constant Siege)
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:15 pm Rogers to Host 2Q10 Earnings Analyst Teleconference July 27, 2010TORONTO, June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Rogers Communications Inc., ("Rogers") Canada's leading diversified communications and media company, plans to release its second quarter 2010 financial results before North American markets open the morning of Tuesday, July 27, 2010.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:11 pm Google helps build trade case over Web censorship (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:09 pm Buffalo Head Falls, Traps Man In His Recliner ChairWater buffaloes can be formidable beasts in the wild, but they may also do damage even when dead and mounted on a wall, as one poor Floridian learned today.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:04 pm Men, Not Women, More Prone to Relationship WoesContrary to popular belief, new research shows men are more susceptible to relationship ups and downs.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:03 pm EA Sports Active satisfies American ACSM’s active lifestyle guidelinesFROM GAMERTELL - Have fun, get fit? Yes! Use Sports Active to firm up your jiggly parts in the comfort of your living room. See, games are good for you… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:01 pm You Know Where Else It’s Hard To Delete Your Account? Mahalo
Seriously, try to figure it out. You won’t be able to because apparently there is no option to do it on the site itself. In fact, according to these two pages you have to email someone at Mahalo to do it. At least Facebook has a (albeit hidden) button! You know what else you apparently can’t do from Mahalo? Get your data out. This is another thing Calacanis has been bitching about nonstop for the past several weeks. Though it’s undoubtedly much more complicated than he makes it out to be on Facebook, it shouldn’t be nearly as hard to get your social data out of Mahalo. And yet, unless I’m missing it, there is no big export button (which he has called for Facebook to create) there either. While we’re on the subject, what’s with all the Facebook integration on Mahalo? There’s a giant Facebook Connect login at the top of every page — and each page features one-button sharing to Facebook. If Calacanis is so against it, shouldn’t he put his startup where his mouth is?
     
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:01 pm North Korea: The new outsourcing capital?
Is North Korea the next Silicon Valley? PC World seems to think so, with a story that explains how the country is the new hotspot for outsourcing (among other IT initiatives). Apparently North Korea is the pound-for-pound best place for IT talent in the world. That is, you won’t find a country with a better, more educated collection of computer programmers and engineers, software designers and the like in such close quarters. The deal is that North Korea kick-started its work with IT in the 1990s, especially so after Kim Jong Il decreed, “My people! Please learn how to use computers!” (He may have said that a bit more eloquently.) Of course, because of various sanctions, American companies aren’t allowed to take advantage of North Korea’s talent. And while other countries may not have explicit restrictions against the country, there’s still a sort of stigma attached to doing business with the North Koreans. Pretty interesting. Not like, stop everything you’re doing interesting, but worth a quick once-over.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm Majesco Entertainment Announces Departure of Gui KaryoEDISON, N.J., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Majesco Entertainment (Nasdaq: COOL), an innovative publisher of video games for the mass market, today announced that Gui Karyo, Executive Vice President of Operations, will be leaving the Company at the end of June to explore new opportunities.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm Consumer Watchdog Backs Call for Congressional Hearing on Google's WiSpy SnoopingSANTA MONICA, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer Watchdog today praised three Congressmen for releasing Google's purported explanation of its three-year WiSpy snooping and endorsed a call for a Congressional hearing about the incident.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:52 pm Blowback: 'True Blood' Vampires Make Raunchy ReturnHBO's hot Southern bloodsuckers return for a third season with a fresh blast of sex, gore and the supernatural. Will you bite?
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:48 pm Google vs. Microsoft, IPad Bug, IPhone 4 - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:45 pm Earliest Beehives Discovered in Ancient IsraelArchaeologists in Israel made a sweet discovery: they unearthed the earliest known beekeeping farm.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:43 pm New policy for changing gender on US passportTransgender individuals who want to change their gender listed on their US passport no longer must be post-op. However, the application still requires a doctor's note. From CNN:The doctor's certification must confirm only that the passport applicant has undergone treatment for gender transition. Limited-validity passports for applicants who are in the process of gender transition also will be available under the policy."Surgery no longer a requirement for changing gender on passport" (Thanks, Rachel Hatch!) Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:34 pm Droid Xtreme (or X, or Shadow, or whatever it’s called) caught on camera yet again.
Man – is Motorola just giving out new, unannounced handsets to everyone they see carrying a camera? Between the Droid Xtreme, and the Droid 2, the number of leaks is starting to get silly. With that said, keep’em coming! Today’s latest batch of leaked goods comes in the form of gloriously sharp shots of the Droid 2’s keyboard-less brother, the Droid Xtreme.
These shots, first obtained by the folks over at Gadget University, also came with a handful of specs. If it all rings true, the Droid Xtreme ought to come packing a 4.3″ screen, HDMI Out, Android 2.1, a brand spankin’ new version of Motoblur, and a 750Mhz OMAP processor — and as the pictures so blatantly proclaim, this one’s headed for Verizon. So, Android fans: here we are, halfway through the year — who owns your heart right now? Droid Xtreme? Droid 2? Evo 4G? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:33 pm Concept Video Shows Tablet That Only Ultra-Geeks Could LoveThink Apple's iPad is crippled? So do a lot of people -- including industrial designer Yigit Cinar, who created a 3-D mockup of his ideal tablet computer. Hint: It's got 3 USB ports.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:32 pm Concept Video Shows Tablet That Only Ultra-Geeks Could LoveThink Apple's iPad is crippled? So do a lot of people -- including industrial designer Yigit Cinar, who created a 3-D mockup of his ideal tablet computer. Hint: It's got 3 USB ports.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:32 pm MA High School Forces All Students To Buy MacBooksAn anonymous reader sends in this excerpt from the Salem News: "A new program at Beverly High will equip every student with a new laptop computer to prepare kids for a high-tech future. But there's a catch. The money for the $900 Apple MacBooks will come out of parents' pockets. 'You're kidding me,' parent Jenn Parisella said when she found out she'd have to buy her sophomore daughter, Sky, a new computer. 'She has a laptop. Why would I buy her another laptop?' Sky has a Dell. Come September 2011, every student will need an Apple. They'll bring it to class and use it for homework. Superintendent James Hayes sees the technology as an essential move to prepare kids for the future. The School Committee approved the move last year, and Hayes said he's getting the news out now so families can prepare. 'We have one platform,' Hayes said. 'And that's going to be the Mac.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:31 pm Huawei’s E585 portable 3G router is like a MiFi with an OLED screen
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm Huawei’s E585 portable 3G router is like a MiFi with an OLED screen
It’s only available in the UK right now (via 3 for ~$75 w/plan) but I get the feeling we’ll be seeing similar devices soon, if not this one specifically. I mean, how nice would it be to have a little network monitor with signal, total data transferred, battery, and whatever else you like on there? The only issue is that, even being an OLED, that display might drain the battery a bit. Why not a tiny e-ink display like the one on this hard drive? It only needs to update every 10 seconds, or every minute, or whenever you press a button. Someone: make that. [via Electronista]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm Apple seeks iOS-4-ready, multitasking-enabled apps (Ben Patterson)Ben Patterson - A little more than a week ahead of the expected release of the latest version of the iPhone OS, Apple is opening the floodgates to applications that take advantage of the latest iOS 4 features. Topping the list, of course: multitasking.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm Dogster And Catster Go To The Groomer, Come Out With Freshly Curated Fur
When it comes to social sites on the Internet, Dogster and Catster have to be doing something right — they’ve been profitable for the past three years. But that doesn’t mean they should just sit back and not tweak the sites at all to offer a better user experience, and they know it. That’s why both sites have undergone a complete refresh. In what CEO Ted Rheingold is calling basically a “full reboot,” the logo, layout, taglines, and even the services have all been revamped. For those unaware of the obvious, Dogster is a social network for dog owners, while Catster is a social network for cat owners. But Rheingold started realizing that people weren’t just coming for the social aspects of the sites, they were coming for information and services. So this revamp puts an emphasis in those areas. It’s a mixture of community created content and professional content. “Community services are great for adding tons of content, but not for organizing it,” Rheingold says. And with so many people coming to the site from search engines, they often get confused when they get there. So the two sites are now much more curated. Those running the sites look for the best information provided from the community and mix it with the best professional information they have to put up. Rheingold feels this mixture is the best way to do it because, “people don’t like trusting what they read on the internet from other people — often, they like experts. But experts usually have an angle though so people don’t always trust them either.” In fact, he thinks this mixture will be the future of all community content sites. On top of the refresh, Dogster and Catster have a few new partnerships they’ve entered into. The first is a long-term strategic partnership with Petfinder.com. You can now search for and bookmark adoptable dogs and cats via the adoption areas on Dogster and Catster. And those that decide to adopt will be pointed to Dogster and Catster as a way to keep getting information about their new pets.
Another relationship involves Yext, which allows Dogster and Catster members to find the best vets in their area. Rheingold notes that Yext does such a good job with services like this that it just made much more sense to partner with them rather than try to do their own thing. Finally, Dogster and Catster are some of the first partners to use Hunch’s new decision-making widgets. “The goal here is to present the lowest barrier to engagement for a persone with questions while still offering someone customized help,” Rheingold says, noting that even users without profiles can get access to great information this way. Another new thing Dogster and Catster are trying is engagement emails. Rheingold realizes that a lot of people visit sites but then don’t go back for whatever reason, so this is a way to keep them involved with information they may care about. For example, if Dogster/Catster knows you got a puppy or kitten six months ago, they might now send you an email to give you some information that you should know for animals that age. Rheingold notes that they have a million registered users but advertisers don’t care so much about that — they just care about engagement. And this is a way to keep people engaged. Rheingold also notes that Dogster and Catster are seeing about 4 percent of all of their traffic coming from the iPhone now. That’s much more than he ever expected, and that was another reason why they wanted to redesign the site. Everything is much better suited for a smaller screen now, he notes. Mule Design were the ones who worked on the redesign. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:28 pm Tiffen Announces New Photo fx Ultra For Apple® iPadHAUPPAUGE, N.Y., June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The Tiffen Company, a leading manufacturer of award winning accessories for the still imaging, motion picture and broadcast markets, today announced that Photo fx Ultra, the anticipated version of Photo fx, its award winning photo enhancement app, is now available for the Apple iPad.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:27 pm Motorola Droid 2 - they’ve fixed the keyboard!Section: Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Mobile
According to Droid Life, this is the Motorola Droid 2. In this first look, it seems clear Motorola heard the user comments on the keyboard and have made some significant changes. The rest of the phone stays true to the iconic Droid. Let’s start with that keyboard. Gone is the gold D-pad that so shamefully little use. The keys appear to be raised more than the original and we’d bet have a much better click than the original. Without the D-pad, the keys are realigned and it looks to be a much better layout. Some specs didn’t change: screen size and the camera megapixel (at 5MP). But some specs did, such as the processor, it gets a boost from 550mHz to 750mHz., Android 2.1 looks to be installed with a new, less intrusive version of MOTOBLUR. Also new is what appears to be official WiFi tethering. It seems unclear if all the talk of Moto’s 2GHz processor could find a home in the Droid 2. Of course, no word if this tipster is showing a bound-for-US device or one for Europe. Read: [Droid Life] Image credit: Droid Life Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:25 pm Verizon Wireless Expanding Skype To Feature Phones - InformationWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:24 pm Weekend Giveaway: An HTC Incredible from Skyfire
This is an international contest, so get cracking.      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:14 pm Arbinet Corporation Announces One-for-Four Reverse Stock SplitHERNDON, Va., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arbinet Corporation (Nasdaq: ARBX), a leading provider of telecommunications services to fixed and mobile operators, today announced it filed a certificate of amendment to implement a one-for-four reverse stock split of the Company's common stock.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:11 pm Apple: As Regulators Poke Around, Should Investors Be Worried? [Voices]By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily Apple (AAPL) has attracted attention from regulators over a couple of recent moves which negatively affect the businesses of various competitors. This week, Google (GOOG) complained that Apple’s new rules on sharing iPhone and iPad user data with advertisers unfairly advantages the company’s own iAd service over rivals like Google’s AdMob–and the government is reportedly looking into the issue. There’s also continued grumbling over the company’s decision not to support the Adobe (ADBE) Flash standard on the iPhone/iPad platform, and the Feds are apparently looking at that issue, as well. Stifel Nicloas analyst Rebecca Arbogast reviewed the situation in a research note this morning, and finds that Apple has justifications in both cases that support its policies. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:07 pm Top 5 Songs From Wired.com's Crowdsourced Music ExperimentWired.com's music crowdsourcing experiment sounds like a success. Listen to the top five songs made by the crowd using our staff writer's bassline among other materials.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:07 pm Privacy in Peril: Lawyers, Nations Clamor for Google Wi-Fi DataA privacy paradox comes to fruition: How many eyeballs, in the name of privacy, will eventually see the data that likely includes snippets of e-mail, web surfing, documents and other private data Google downloaded across the globe?
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:06 pm Google Voice Desktop App Launch Delayed, May Be Scrapped
We confirmed that the application had been rewritten and was being tested internally at Google in April. Some Google employees continue to use the app, we’ve confirmed. But don’t expect it to launch publicly any time soon, we’ve heard from multiple sources. Why? an internal religious debate about desktop software. Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin don’t want Google to be in the business of creating software outside of the browser, say our sources. And that’s consistent with Google’s product launches over the last several years. Of course it ignores the efforts that Google is putting into developing their own Chrome browser, Chrome operating system and Android operating system, as well as a variety of mobile apps – all are software that installs on computers or mobile devices. But there may be a hard line when it comes to pure desktop apps like Google Voice. So the team has been sent back to the drawing board to try to make a workable soft phone that will work entirely within the browser using HTML 5. Possible? Nope, not today, and not at scale, say our sources. Skype tried for years to create a browser based version of the service and never launched. The biggest problem is around proper integration with the microphone, it’s just really hard to get good sound quality with HTML 5 today. In a year or two that may change. But users don’t want to wait a year. For now they can get a Skype phone number for €50/year and forward Google Voice to that. But you can’t call out of Skype using your Google Voice phone number (Update: strike that, see comments below – you can set Skype called ID to your Google Voice number), and that cost is fairly expensive for a soft phone. I say rules are made to be broken, and this is one of them. Release the client, Google. We want it. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:05 pm Giant Planet Nine Times the Mass of Jupiter Foundcremeglace writes "In the late 1990s, astronomers noticed a distinct warp in the disk of dust and gas orbiting a young star some 60 light-years from Earth. Now, using new analytical tools, researchers have discovered a giant planet lurking within the dusty haze. About nine times as massive as Jupiter and composed mainly of gas, the planet is only a few million years old, proving that such enormous planetary bodies can form rapidly." What's amazing about this is that the images taken of the star clearly show the planet first on one side of the star, and then the other, several years later.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:05 pm Weekend Giveaway: An HTC Incredible from Skyfire
You know you want it. You know you need it: A Droid Incredible running on Verizon of your very own. How can you get one? Well, our friends at Skyfire totally want to give you one. Click through for more information.
To win, just comment. We’ll pick one lucky winner. Comment only once – duplicate comments or commenters – even comments from the same IP address – will be thrown out. We’ll pick a winner on Monday at 9am Eastern. They’ll ship the Incredible anywhere in the world, but you’ll only be able to use it in the US of A.
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:00 pm Wikileaks to Ex-Hacker: Manning's Not a 'Spy'Wikileaks founder Julian Assange asks for cooperation from the ex-hacker who turned in a suspected Army leaker, Bradley Manning. "It would be helpful if you described Mr. Manning, as a 'whistleblower.'"
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 2:00 pm Interview: Gamertell talks to The Mafia Boss’ creator, Larbi BelrhitiFROM GAMERTELL - Gamertell talks to The Mafia Boss’ creatir, Larbi Belrhiti, to try and learn exactly why the game is so dern addictive… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:52 pm Stargate Universe season finale trailer and teaserWe’ve made it. We’ve made it to the end of the Stargate Universe’s first season and it’s finally starting to look like the Stargate of old. I have high hopes for tonight’s finale, too. Hopefully I’m not let down like I was with Warehouse 13’s final episode. Trailer up top and teaser after the jump. [via GateWorld]
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:50 pm Hey LA: come see Bit.Trip devs Gaijin at Giant Robot June 14th
Tomorrow I'll be headed out for week at the yearly-roman-orgy-of-videogames that is E3, and while it's not quite the indie tour-de-force of GDC, there will be a good enough number in town to make for some interesting times.
Case in point: before the expo properly begins, games-culture shop Attract Mode, Giant Robot and upstart non-profit LA Game Space will be partnering to do a free, public live event with Gaijin Games, creators of yesterday's top recommended game, Bit.Trip Runner.
The Bit.Trippers will be having their games projected onto Giant Robot's GR2 building itself -- as all games should be -- and GR.eats (their accompanying restaurant) will be offering a special Bit.Trip menu, as well.
So, you should come out! It's probably going to be pretty amazing. It'll all be taking place Monday, June 14th, from 7:30-10pm at GR2, 2062 Sawtelle Blvd, and will mark the first of a new bi-monthly series of similar 'Game Night's.
More information is available via Attract Mode and Gaijin Games. See you there!
Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:36 pm Best Buy’s @Gamer print mag hitting in-store newsstands this month
My question is how we are supposed to reconcile ourselves with the fact that they are selling the same games they’re reviewing? The objectivity of games reviewers is already being called into question in cases where the writers have nothing more to sell than pageviews to advertisers (though the advertisers may put out the games), so I suspect there may be a good faith barrier to overcome before Best Buy will sell many of these mags. Especially at $6 per issue. If the magazine is designed as a loss leader, a gateway product for buying more expensive items like games and so on (with the exclusive coupons), they should be letting it go for significantly less than what competing magazines are charging. That’s just my opinion, though. The truth is the magazine has yet to hit the shelves, and it’s totally possible that the contents and coupons inside will be worth the $6 or $20/year. They do after all have real writers and editors, and the people in charge (Future) of the magazine also run quite a few worthwhile publications. We’ll do a follow-up as soon as we get our hands on one of the issues. Update: Future US and Best Buy wanted to address some of the issues I brought up. They assure me that the editorial team is totally separate from Best Buy, which is reassuring. Although they won’t be offering full reviews so much as recommendations of the best games out there. This raises a different issue, of course: what value does the magazine have other than in coupons if it is mainly offering summary and generalized recommendation? Perhaps customers will find adequate value in the money-saving offers inside, but that depends a lot on the offers themselves. If you’re a frequent Best Buy shopper, though, you might be able to save quite a bit with the combined offers from a year’s worth of issues. Also, it’s a mostly-monthly publication, with 10 issues a year; the July/Aug and Feb/March are combined issues. A factual mistake on my part. Here’s the full press release:
Source: CrunchGear | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:25 pm Viglen Selects Netlist's HyperCloud Memory for HPC ApplicationsIRVINE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Netlist, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:22 pm Painted ukuleles in the Boing Boing Bazaar
Shelley Rickey (who made a great cigar box ukulele) has a store in the Makers Marker that sells ukulele-related merchandise, including some great hand painted instruments. This beautiful uke was customized by the wonderful Marc Kolle. Marc is an illustrator often featured in prominent newspapers, magazines and web-media. We are very proud to have him as part of ‘The Jumping Flea Market Team’. The Jumping Flea Market
Rdio Silence: Apple Delays iPhone App Update For Reasons Unknown
Last week at the D8 conference, and again at Apple’s WWDC event, chief exec Steve Jobs said there was nothing inherently wrong with Apple’s review procedures for new and updated iPhone applications. Specifically, Jobs stated several times on both occasions that 95% of all incoming apps get approved for the App Store in seven days. Those that don’t, he added, tend to violate some ground rules: crashing often, using unpublished APIs, defaming real people, or by advertising an app differently than what it actually does. That may well be, but it makes the isolated cases where all those exceptions don’t apply stick out like a sore thumb. We hear Apple’s review process is actually getting slower again for some developers. Cases in point: Appsfire, which we wrote about yesterday, Reeder (which has a great iPad version of its iPhone app waiting to get approved) and now, freshly launched music subscription service Rdio. Rdio, with backing from well known European entrepreneurs Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom of Skype, Kazaa and Joost fame, was soft-launched in the United States last week to much fanfare. But as we noted in December 2009, their iPhone app has been in the App Store for much longer than that (though unusable for most anyone). I’ve been trying out the service and the iPhone app since last week’s launch, and expect to do a full review real soon. In short, I think it’s phenomenal. It stacks up against Spotify any day, and I think we’ll be hearing a lot about this startup in the coming years. Only problem so far is, their iPhone app doesn’t really function all that well, and the company has acknowledged this on their Twitter feed in the past. I’ve spoken to a number of people close to the company about this, and from what I can gather they submitted an updated app with a couple of bug fixes weeks ago, but Apple is making the review process a long-winded road for them with little or no communication. No one from Rdio will officially confirm this to me (yet), but from what I understand there’s a sneaking suspicion that what is holding Apple back isn’t actually the app, but the music service that it channels. Of course, we haven’t yet seen what Apple is going to do with its iTunes-in-the-cloud service (rest assured that it’s coming, though) so this is all speculation. But what if they don’t really like what Rdio is doing because they see it as direct competition? Does that mean Rdio for iPhone, and by extension other jukebox-in-the-cloud services like Spotify and Rhapsody stand a chance of being “Google Voice’d” out of the App Store because the functionality is similar to a service Apple will provide in-house? That would certainly explain the delay.      
Source: TechCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:06 pm Concept Video Shows Tablet That Only Ultra-Geeks Could Love
Unlike others, he actually sketched out a vision of his ideal tablet computer. Using Autodesk Maya, Adobe Photoshop and Macromedia Flash, he created a 3-D rendering and then produced a video showing exactly what he’d like his tablet to have. “I am following news on tablets, but not one of them did exactly satisfy my needs,” Cinar said. “So I decided to put my skills in use to design the tablet of my dreams.” Multiple USB ports? Check. HDMI port? Of course. Removable battery? Naturally. Where he gets really innovative, though, is in a removable “hand module” with a 2.3-inch color screen, which can be clipped to his belt or strapped onto his armband, serving as an MP3 player and remote control for the tablet that would be, presumably, tucked safely in his backpack. Cinar would like HP to build this device, with a digitizer screen (not a touchpad, apparently) by Wacom, and Google’s Chrome OS running the show. Taken together, it’s a package that only a true geek could love. But in features, if not elegance, it certainly surpasses not only the iPad, but also the upcoming Dell Streak, HP Slate and countless other tablets. Of course, it’s all a complete fantasy. “Expecting the giants of the market to team up to create an all-inclusive product like this seems a bit utopian,” conceded Cinar. But if the iPad’s limitations infuriate you, Dell’s slowness frustrates you, and HP’s lack of clue baffles you, then Cinar’s mockup might soothe your troubled mind.
See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm Is This the Motorola Droid 2?A new version of the Motorola Droid phone may be in the works.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm Is This the Motorola Droid 2?A new version of the Motorola Droid phone may be in the works.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 1:00 pm Editor's Picks: Teleportation, Dumb Dogs and MoreAbove, you'll see some of the top images of the week. Click on each one to explore the story behind it. If you were away this week and didn't catch the latest Discovery News content, here is my list of ...Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:49 pm Steven Pinker: "Tech rots your brain" hysteria is stupid
Supposedly, the use of technology is making it harder for human beings to focus and get things done. As somebody whose focusing and self-management skills have been drastically improved in recent years, thanks to technology (Shout-out to the nice folks at Daylite! Thanks, Twitter, for improving my focus and on-the-spot analysis during conference lectures! DEVONthink PRO, you rock at helping me manage information and think big-picture!), I was already pretty skeptical about this assertion. Seems that I have no less an authority than Steven Pinker backing up my skepticism.
New York Times: Mind over Mass Media Image courtesy Flickr user Hljod.Huskona, via CC. Source: Boing Boing | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:48 pm How The Wrong Genes Are RepressedThe mechanism by which 'polycomb' proteins critical for embyronic stem cell function and fate are targeted to DNA has been identified by UCL scientists.The discovery, which has implications for the fields of stem cell and tissue engineering, is detailed in research published today in the journal Molecular Cell.A key feature of stem cells is the suppression of genes that when later switched on lead to the differentiation of the cells into specific mature cell types, such as neurons or immune cells.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:47 pm Yes, yes, Walmart will have the iPhone 4 at launch
It sounds like Best Buy and Radio Shack will likely have the device on hand, too — but availability might be limited. I’d call your local store and ask.
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:45 pm New Online Map Shows Network Of Protection For North America's Marine EcosystemsDifferent levels of protection in North America's marine ecoregionsIn meeting the extraordinary challenge of protecting North America's rich and fragile marine ecosystems, the map shows the important strides Canada, Mexico and the United States have made in establishing protected areas. However, challenges remain to ensure that adequate protection and management extends throughout all ecoregions. Although some ecoregions have limited number of protected areas the Alaskan/Fjordland Pacific ecoregion, for example, has protected areas covering almost 80 percent of the ecoregion. Likewise, the Northern Gulf of Mexico ecoregion has more than 250 protected areas.Map tools and resources for teachers, students and othersSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:43 pm A High-Resolution Asian Monsoon Record From 16.2 To 7.3 Thousand Years Before PresentResearch at the School of Geographical Sciences, Southwest University (SWU) in Chongqing, China-Research, has demonstrated that the record of the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) covers the last deglaciation and the early Holocene (from 16.2 to 7.3 ka BP), with an average oxygen isotope resolution of 9 years (issue 53, May 2010 of SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences).Understanding the factors responsible for past climatic changes is a key to understand future climate change.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:41 pm Google Chrome Working on Extension-Syncing FeatureGoogle is experimenting with extension-syncing in its Chrome browser. The system will make sure the same extensions are installed on every copy of Chrome you use.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:40 pm Model Explains Rapid Transition Toward Division of Labor In Biological EvolutionThe transition from colonies of individual cells to multicellular organisms can be achieved relatively rapidly, within one million generations, according to a new mathematical model, published June 10 in the open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, that simplifies our understanding of this process.Biological organisms are highly complex and are comprised of many different parts that function together to ensure the survival and reproduction of the whole.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:38 pm Exclusive: Twitter's Next Moneymaker–"Promoted Trends" [MediaMemo]
Twitter is beginning to roll out its ad platform, which allows advertisers to insert messages into users’ streams. But the microblogging service already has an idea for a new product: Selling some of the real estate dedicated to its “trending” feature, where it highlights topics Twitter users are chattering about. Twitter is describing the product to advertisers as “Promoted Trends,” an extension of the “Promoted Tweets” program announced in April. The messaging service has been talking about it in vague terms and has yet to test it. But the basic gist seems to be this: Advertisers will be able to insert their own terms into the list of trends Twitter displays on users’ homepages (see image below; click to enlarge) and on its login page. Clicking on a term would call up a Twitter search results page, which would feature the associated advertiser’s “promoted tweet” at the top of the results. Advertisers who have heard Twitter talk about the product say the service imagines charging “tens of thousands of dollars” a day for exclusive placement rights. If Twitter moves forward with the plan, it’s going to need to iron out some details: For instance, will every one of Twitter’s 190 million users see the same promoted trend? Or will the service figure out how to filter them? Just as important: Can Twitter ensure that its trending topics aren’t cluttered with spam? The service has been trying to tackle this by tweaking the algorithm it uses to generate trending topics, which is why there’s a lot less Justin Bieber in its results than there used to be. But it can still stand some work–can anyone tell me what “CALA BOCA GALAVO” is, and why I should care?
In any case, it’s early. Here’s Twitter’s position, conveyed via PR boss Sean Garrett:
All of this makes plenty of sense. Twitter spent a long time trying not to become a media company, but it is certainly headed that way now: Twitter attracts users’ attention with content and then rents out access to those users’ eyeballs. So if you’re going with that model, no reason not to go all the way. Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:33 pm Seasoned Profs Prepare Students For Advanced LearningBut students' evaluations reward immediate gratificationHighly credentialed and experienced professors are better at preparing students for long-term academic success than their less-experienced counterparts, but that ability isn't necessarily reflected in their students' teaching evaluations.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:30 pm Nintendo 3DS Details Appear on Chinese Blog
Now, a Chinese blog has posted details of what it says is Nintendo’s next-gen DS, and gaming blog Kotaku has worked up those notes into a pretty rendering. “The effect of the [3D] screen is amazing,” the blogger wrote, as translated by Kotaku. The details come from someone who claims to have access to the 3DS development kit, Kotaku says. According to the report, the lower screen is the same size as the current Nintendo DS, but the upper screen is much bigger (and in 3-D, naturally). Is this the real deal, or just another wayward rumor? We’ll probably find out next week, when Nintendo takes the stage at E3 Expo, which starts Tuesday in Los Angeles. Tune in to Wired’s GameLife blog next week for the full details, where Chris Kohler and crew will be liveblogging Nintendo’s keynote, as well as providing full coverage of announcements from Sony, Microsoft and other companies. Image credit: Kotaku 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:27 pm Fern's Evolution Gives Arsenic Tolerance That May Clean Toxic LandIsolating a gene that allows a type of fern to tolerate high levels of arsenic, Purdue University researchers hope to use the finding to create plants that can clean up soils and waters contaminated by the toxic metal.The fern Pteris vittata can tolerate 100 to 1,000 times more arsenic than other plants.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:21 pm Stretching Single Molecules Allows Precision Studies Of Interacting ElectronsWith controlled stretching of molecules, Cornell researchers have demonstrated that single-molecule devices can serve as powerful new tools for fundamental science experiments.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:17 pm Japan's "Falcon" Spacecraft Returns—Asteroid Dust On Board? - National Geographic
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:13 pm Video: HTC EVO 4G vs Razors, Pennys, and Screws
So, for one reason or another, you’ve gotta send your HTC EVO 4G in to Sprint for an exchange. What do you do? A) Wrap the EVO in the finest cloth you can find, ushering it gently into its shipping crate, or You can probably guess where this is going. Hint: We probably wouldn’t write a post about option A. AndroidForums-goer Roman G. had to ship his new HTC EVO 4G back to Sprint due to a small screen defect (not, by the way, related to this testing), and decided to take the opportunity to see just how well the device’s screen held up to things you might generally have in your pocket, like pennies, screws, and razor blades. People keep razor blades in their pockets, right? We won’t ruin the results for you — check out the whole test on video down below. [Thanks K.!]
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:11 pm XKL's DarkStar(TM) DRA Fiber Optic Amplification System on Display at NANOG 49 in San Francisco on June 14thKIRKLAND, Wash., June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- XKL, LLC, a leading-edge provider of enterprise fiber optic networking equipment, announced today that the new DarkStar DRA amplification system will be on display at NANOG's "Beer & Gear" event on June 14th, 2010 in San Francisco.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:07 pm Adobe Answers Critics With Flash Player UpgradeAdobe releases an upgrade to its Flash Player that adds some new capabilities and seeks to solve its much-maligned performance and security issues.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 12:00 pm And if You Have Any Questions About Your New iPhone 4, Just Ask Our Radio Shack Geniuses [Digital Daily]
Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:55 am New York Times Bans the Word "Tweet" [Voices]By Choire Sicha, Co-proprietor, The Awl Phil Corbett, the latest standards editor at the Times (maybe the greatest job in the world?), has issued a proclamation! Yesterday, the following memo went out, asking writers to abstain from the invented past-tense and other weird iterations of the magical noun-verb “Twitter.” Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:33 am Talking With the Feisty Newsweek Tumblr Writer [Voices]By Chris Rovzar, Senior Editor for Online, New York Magazine Since late last month, when it was announced that Newsweek was going to go on the auction block, the magazine has received advice and criticism (seemingly more of the latter) from all corners of the Internet. Columnists, bloggers, and even Jon Stewart have weighed in on what the magazine should do, and what it and editor Jon Meacham allegedly did wrong to get the title where it is today. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:32 am Is This the Motorola Droid 2?
Motorola is removing the copper-colored rectangular trackpad on the keyboard, says the Droid Life blog, which posted the unconfirmed details today. The trackpad had drawn criticism for not being responsive enough. Droid 2 is likely to launch with the Android 2.1 operating system (upgradable to the latest version Android 2.2 aka FroYo) and have the same 3.7-inch display as its predecessor. Droid 2 will have a 750-MHz OMAP processor, an upgrade over the 550-MHz processor in the current version of the phone, says Droid Life. Motorola released the Droid in November as a device available exclusively on the Verizon network. The phone has become a best-seller. Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha said earlier this week that the device is still selling well. “If I could build more I’d sell more,” he told Reuters. But since the original Droid’s release, other Android smartphones such as the Google Nexus One, the HTC Evo 4G and Incredible have eclipsed the Droid in terms of features. These phones have a better processor, at 1 GHz. The HTC Evo has dual cameras (an 8-megapixel camera and a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera) and an HDMI port among other things. Earlier this week, Apple announced its iPhone 4, featuring a stunning display and video chat. The Droid 2 won’t entirely catch up to these devices. The refreshed version is still likely to have a 5-megapixel camera and no video-chat capability. But as incremental as the upgrades seem, it’s good to see Motorola not let the device languish after its launch. Image courtesy Droid Life See Also:
Photo: Droid Life 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:30 am Mango Financial, Inc. Adds High-Yield Savings to Low-Fee Lineup, Pays 5.1% APYMIAMI and AUSTIN, Texas, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Unbanked consumers who choose Mango's low-fee services to manage their money will soon be able to put the money they save to work with a new high-yield savings program - earning an Annual Percentage Yield of 5.1 percent(1) - the company plans to introduce this month.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:14 am Flashy Game Hardware, Not Consoles, Will Dominate E3With Xbox 360 and PlayStation3 getting a little long in the tooth, Microsoft and Sony look to inject new life with add-on controllers that will change the way we play. Meanwhile, Nintendo continues its innovation drive with its new pint-size 3-D portable.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:13 am Blazing the online safety trailWhen I was in middle school, computer class was spent learning the basics of “keyboarding” and rushing to finish the lesson so I could get back to my journey on the Oregon Trail. My main goal was to survive the river crossings, maintain enough buffalo meat to sustain my family and arrive safely in California with my entire fake family still alive.Today, many schools are teaching their first graders the basic computer skills I was learning at 13. Teens have always been the quickest adopters of new technology, as parents and teachers struggle to keep up and equip teens to make good decisions online. When I visited Dunne Technology Academy in South Chicago earlier this week, most of the students were getting ready for their summer break, but we paused for a bit to talk about what they’re doing online. The majority of these tech-savvy teens had all encountered cyberbullying at some point, had seen pictures and information on profiles they thought were inappropriate, and had had someone try to trick them through a phishing scam. We spent the day discussing ways to avoid being scammed, how to create an online profile that can be an asset rather than a liability, and actions you can take if you’re being bullied, harassed or see inappropriate content. Most students seemed to understand that their online identity and their “real world” self were one and the same, and that they have choices in managing their content and reputation online. We agreed that by applying the rules of good citizenship online, the Internet would be a safer and more enjoyable experience for everyone. So while teens have more difficult choices online today than to ford or to ferry the river in Oregon Trail, we can prepare them to make smart decisions online. Check out the educational materials from our Digital Literacy Tour in our Google For Educators site at www.google.com/educators/digitalliteracy.html.  Posted by Mandy Albanese, Online Safety team    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 11 Jun 2010 | 11:00 am 'I Can't Believe What I'm Confessing to You': The Wikileaks ChatsOn May 21, 22-year-old Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning initiates a series of online chats with former hacker Adrian Lamo. The online conversation results in Manning's arrest on suspicion of leaking classified documents and videos to Wikileaks. Here are unedited excerpts from those logs.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 10:50 am How Crude Oil Can Harm YouCrude oil is a complex mixture of chemicals that can affect your brain, skin, lungs and nervous system.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 10:34 am The Odd Development of Saturn's Baby MoonsSaturn's icy moonlets orbiting close to the gas giant are an odd bunch. They shouldn't exist -- pulverized by extreme tidal forces. Now astronomers think they are there because they're young. Very, very young.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 11 Jun 2010 | 10:32 am Senate Upholds Greenhouse Gas RulesOn Thursday, the U.S. Senate narrowly beat back an effort by President Barack Obama's Republican enemies to curb the U.S. government's power to regulate greenhouse gas emissions tied to global warming.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:50 am Humpback Washes Ashore On New York BeachPark officials said Thursday that a 30-foot-long dead humpback whale washed ashore near Jones Beach State Park.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:35 am Blogger Template Designer now available to everyoneIn March, we launched the Blogger Template Designer on Blogger in Draft, our experimental playground where you can try out the latest features Blogger has to offer. Today we’re excited to announce that the Blogger Template Designer has graduated from Blogger in Draft and is now available to everyone by default.Blogger Template Designer is a way for you to easily customize the look of your blog without knowing any HTML or CSS. You can select from a variety of templates, images, colors and column layouts to make your blog an expression of you. See our post on Blogger Buzz for the highlights on this new tool. You can try the Template Designer on your blog now by going to the “Design” menu, then selecting “Template Designer.” Even if you don’t have a blog — or weren’t planning to redecorate the one you have — you can try out the Blogger Template Designer and play around with potential designs. If you like one, you can apply it to a new blog or to an existing blog. If you want to learn more on how the Blogger Template Designer can help you create your own unique blog designs, watch our video and check out the Blogger Buzz blog. Posted by Chang Kim, Blogger Product Manager   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:30 am New MiFi with OLED Display
The MiFi personal hotspot is a great little box, allowing you to share a 3G data connection between several wireless devices. In use, though, it can be something of a pain. You have to log in to the router via a browser just to check battery life, for instance, and the different colored flashing lights are confusing (I can never remember which is which). Huawei has solved all these problems with its new MiFi E585. The personal Wi-Fi hotspot does the same as the old MiFi, only it adds a monochrome OLED display to the mix. This will show you the battery status, connection speed (3G, EDGE, GPRS) and even the amount of data you have used. There is also a browser-based dashboard if you need to get deeper into the settings, but most of what you need is right there. The new router will be available from carrier 3 in the UK for just £50 ($73) on pay-as-you-go plans, and presumably less with a contract. It has not yet appeared on the 3 MiFi page, but the press release says it will be on sale in July. Three Huawei E585 MiFi-style 3G router packs OLED display [Slashgear] MiFi [3] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 9:00 am 'Rock Band 3' controllers from Mad Catz priced out - USA Today
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:49 am Beautiful Minimal Bike Basket Built Into Handlebars
This bike basket is so sleek and minimal you could probably bolt it to your fixed-gear bike and nobody would even notice. I’m kidding, of course, but it’s certainly a great-looking way to add carrying capacity to a bike without racks and other screw-on extras. The Bike Porter, from Copenhagen Parts, is a combination of handlebars and front basket. Made from 6061 aluminum alloy, it is a swap-in replacement for your existing handlebar (as long as you have a two-piece stem) and puts the load where it is most stable, over the front wheel. As stable as you can get without low-slung panniers, anyway. The folks at Copenhagen Parts recommend a maximum load of 15Kg, or 33-pounds, although if you have a decent stem and fit on properly you should be fine with more. As a clean and simple place to throw your day-bag or to carry your shopping, this looks ideal. Prices will vary (in the UK is is £155 or $226) and the basket should be hitting US dealers in July. Comes in six colors, including gaudy gold. Bike Porter [Copenhagen Parts via Urban Velo and Sparrow Distribution] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:31 am FIFA.com and Google team up to help fans celebrate the 2010 FIFA World Cup™The 2010 FIFA World Cup has kicked off in South Africa. During the month-long tournament, millions of fans around the world will follow the games.To mark the event, FIFA.com, the world’s official football website, and Google have collaborated on a range of online features to help supporters keep track of how each team is doing throughout the tournament. Whether you’re searching for FIFA World Cup news or want to voice your opinion on a player’s performance, we have a number of ways for fans to stay on top of the action: Follow your team while browsing the Internet: stay up-to-date when you’re online with the FIFA.com Chrome extension. Get a live feed of FIFA World Cup results, news and match statistics and if you’re supporting a particular team, personalise the gadget for alerts of goals scored by your team as they happen. See the latest scores and schedules in search results: search for [world cup], [world cup spain], [world cup group g] and more, and you’ll see live scores, latest results and match schedules at the top of your search results. You’ll find quick links to game recaps, live updates, standings and team profiles on FIFA.com. Follow the tournament on your personalised home page: get all the latest information on FIFA World Cup teams, players and matches streamed to your very own home page with the iGoogle Gadget. If you want to know more about where all the action is happening, click on the ‘venues’ tab to take a closer look at the stadiums. Get a feel for what it’s like to be there: FIFA.com and South African Tourism have used Google Maps to add information about the host cities, stadiums and attractions, giving people easy access to these sights with Street View and 3D views: maps.google.com/exploresouthafrica You can get access to all of these features from FIFA.com and Google by visiting google.com/worldcup Good luck to all, and may the best team win! Posted by Yonca Brunini, Marketing Director   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:19 am 40,000 Barrels Of Oil Spilling Each Day Into GulfImage Caption: A controlled burn of oil from the Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill sends towers of fire hundreds of feet into the air over the Gulf of Mexico June 9. Coast Guard Photo by Petty Officer First Class John Masson.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2010 | 8:12 am Custom Carved Leather Brooks Saddles
What could be fancier than a posh leather Brooks saddle? A custom Brooks saddle, of course, and that’s just what you can get from Kara Ginther, leather carver extraordinaire. Kara will take your leather seat and customize it by etching out your own design and/or coloring it with latex paint. The herringbone design above was commissioned for the Tweed Run London (a bunch of people dressing up and going on a bike ride as if they were in Portland) and will cost you £250 ($365). The other is a custom job for Topanga Creek Bicycles, and is one of a whole gallery of amazing designs over on Kara’s Flickr pages. $365 might seem a lot, but in this case it could be a bargain, as it includes the saddle. Kara’s prices run from $100 for a small one-inch-square motif up to $345 for a full-body design. On top of that you’ll need to send in your own saddle. I love these things, although I’d have to think long and hard before committing: A Brooks saddle can last you your whole life, so getting it carved is almost as big a decision as getting a tattoo. What design would I get? Space Invaders, of course! Custom Carved Saddles [Karen Ginther Leather via Bikehugger] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:52 am Kicking around search trends for the World CupIf you’re a certain type of sports fan, you’ve been waiting four years to get to June 11, 2010—the kick-off of the World Cup and 30 days of football (soccer to some of us) madness, with 64 matches played by 32 teams from around the world.As we’ve done before, we took a look at the search data using tools like Google Insights for Search—as well as some internal resources—to see what we could uncover about the upcoming tournament and its global audience. Search patterns can truly reflect the “pulse” of the world, and we found that the pulse of World Cup fever is beating strong as millions of fans hold tight to the hope that their team will make history as the 2010 champion. It’s often said that football is a global sport, and that’s certainly true in search. Searches for [world cup 2010], [copa mundial] and [월드 컵] are all spiking, although overall World Cup buzz seems to be off to a slower start in 2010 than in the months leading up to the 2006 tournament, based on global trends for queries like [world cup] and [fifa world cup]. India is the #1 country searching for [fifa world cup schedule], [fifa 2010 schedule] and similar queries. And as the match-up between anglophone rivals England and USA approaches, searches for [england world cup] continue to far surpass interest in [usa world cup]. Most of us will be watching the matches on TV in pubs and living rooms, but a few lucky spectators will get to watch in person in South Africa. Searches for [world cup tickets] peaked in mid-April, and have since declined. But whether home or abroad, we’re all searching for the best way to show support for our team. Searches for [world cup decoration] have risen, and a glimpse at the Dutch shows queries for [oranje versiering] (“orange decoration”; orange is the Netherland’s national color) and [orange] have risen sharply for the last three months, as they have in 2006 and 2008 for the World Cup and European Cup. All eyes—and hopes—are now hanging on the football stars who will be dribbling, passing and scoring for their countries. In search, the winning player is already clear: Cristiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese team captain and talented forward. But many others are also being closely watched, especially the handful of players who have been injured in the days leading up to the start of the tournament. Queries on the Ivory Coast’s [drogba], England’s [rooney], Germany’s [ballack] and Italy's [pirlo] have all spiked in this fashion. And the Netherlands is apparently far more concerned about Arjen Robben's injury than their national elections. In the days leading up to the June 9 elections, between four and five times as many searches were done for [robben] than either of the two popular candidates [wilders] or [balkenende]. We’ll be back throughout the next month to highlight more search trends from the World Cup. In the meantime, you can explore trends on your own using Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, or see what topics other fans are discussing with the "Updates" mode and other search tools in the left panel of your Google search results page. Posted by Jaime Forman-Lau, Consumer Operations Strategist   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:30 am NEC Demonstrates World’s Brightest LED Projector
NEC has shown off the “world’s brightest” LED projector, which pumps out an eye-burning 2,000 lumens from its hefty body. It manages this by simply adding more red, green and blue LEDs to increase light output. But even this doesn’t outshine the other kinds of projectors we normally buy. LCD and DLP projectors can get brighter, and NEC plans to match the 3,000 to 4,000 lumens commonly found on home machines. This actual device will never make its way outside of the lab, or at least outside trade-shows like InfoComm 2010 in Vegas where it is being shown off, but we suspect the tech will trickle down into other products eventually. More impressive than the brightness thrown out is the wide color gamut displayed. According to NEC, it can display 98% of the colors in the Adobe RGB color-space, compared to the more usual 60%. This should make a big difference. We hope NEC uses this tech in a consumer product. LEDs don’t burn out, break down or get hot. They just sip power, shine light and sit there quietly. That’s exactly the kind of projector I want in my new bachelor pad setup, which will be beaming movies onto the bedroom ceiling (true, and not what you think). NEC Unveils ‘World’s Brightest’ LED-based Projector [Tech-On] Photo: Tech-On 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:17 am Friday Poll: Which Google stunt would grab you? - CNET
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 11 Jun 2010 | 7:02 am Awwww RIM and Motorola kissed and made up
Is it Christmas?
Motorola and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion have just jointly announced that they have entered into a settlement and licensing agreement that ends all outstanding worldwide litigation between the two companies.
The financial terms of the agreement include an up-front payment and ongoing royalties to Motorola. Further terms and conditions of the agreement will remain confidential.
Source: MobileCrunch | 11 Jun 2010 | 6:50 am Independent App Stores Take On Google’s Android Market
Google’s official Android app store is getting some competition as upstart, independent challengers create their own app stores to lure users with the promise of more freedom, better access to apps and increased revenue. But it’s all kosher because, unlike Apple, Google allows for multiple app stores to exist on the Android operating system. A new Android app store called AndSpot plans to coax developers and users to try an alternative Android app store with better search and app-recommendation features. “Google’s Android Market is slow and not as user friendly as it can be,” says Ash Kheramand, one of the co-founders of AndSpot. ”You don’t leave the Market thinking ‘this is great.’ Instead you are thinking, this is slow, clunky, and if you are a developer, ‘my app is not getting much exposure.’” Over the next few weeks, Kheradmand and his co-founder Faisal Abid are hoping to unveil a snazzy new app store that they say will have better design and a better way to discover apps. “We want to bring a level of personalization to the marketplace,” says Kheradmand. AndSpot is currently in private beta with its features available only to a small group of developers and users. (Two hundred Gadget Lab readers can check out Andspot using the invite code: WIRED3R5TY.) Andspot is not the only one trying to take on the official Google app store. Larger publishers such as Handango and GetJar have distributed a number of apps through their stores across multiple platforms — though on the iPhone they just publish individual apps. But now smaller Android exclusive startups such as Andspot, SlideMe and AndAppStore are getting into the fray. Why develop just an app when you can build an app store, they say. Similar to the official Google app store, these startups are hoping to become a central distribution platform for developers who want to get their apps out. The difference, they say, is they will go where Android Market has failed to tread. “It’s all about promising more attention for apps,” says Vincent Hoogsteder, co-founder and CEO of Distimo, an apps analytics company. “If you are a developer targeting a specific market, it is easier to put your app in a store focusing on that, instead of losing yourself in the Android Market. If you are a consumer, then the idea is to help you find better apps.” Google launched Android, an open, free, mobile operating system, in 2008. And like Apple, which pioneered the app-store idea, the Android OS also allows independent software applications through its Android Market. But that’s where the comparison ends. Apple approves every app that makes it to its App Store. And it allows for just one app store, the Apple App Store. Rejects from Apple’s app store have the option of going to an underground store called Cydia. But Cydia apps are available to only jailbroken iPhones. Google hopes to avoid that with Android. Multiple app stores can exist on the Android phone and apps don’t have to be approved before they hit the official Android app store.
“There are 50,000 apps in the Android Market, while your phone lists only 50 apps at a time,” says Hoogsteder. “You are seeing just a fraction of what’s out there.” That’s why many new Android app stores such as AndroLib and AppBrain have focused on being meta-stores, places that aggregate and let you search Android apps. But to actually download the apps, users have to go to the Android Market. AndSpot and SlideMe are a step ahead. They are trying to convince enough developers to publish apps directly to their stores, in addition to offering them on the official Google Market. So users who have SlideMe or AndSpot will never have to go to the Android Market, if they don’t want to. Developers don’t have to make any changes to their apps intended for the Google Android Market before they list it on AndSpot or SlideMe. SlideMe, which launched in April 2008, doesn’t take a cut of the revenue from app sales. When apps are sold through its store, SlideMe subtracts a payment-processing fee required by the credit card company (which usually is about 3.5 percent) and any applicable tax, and lets developers keep the rest. Apple and Google both allow developers to keep just 70 percent of the revenue they get from their sales. Instead, SlideMe makes money by licensing its entire app store to gadget manufacturers. That also means SlideMe’s app store will come pre-loaded on a phone similar to Google’s Android Market. Last year, SlideMe landed its first deal with Vodafone Egypt to pre-load its app store on the HTC Magic. The SlideMe app store will also be on Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X10 phones sold in the Middle East. “Not all manufacturers can comply with the requirements of Google, so Google can’t give them the app store,” says Christopoulos. “That’s why SlideMe can be on more than just phones. We are thinking netbooks and in-car infotainment systems.” AndSpot says, for now, it plans to offer developers an 80 percent cut of the revenues from its app store. But Kheradmand is not sure AndSpot can sustain the pace. “We are operating on very thin margins here,” he says. Offering developers more revenue by finding ways to make money off their apps is key to the survival of these independent app stores. Google’s Android Market lags behind its peers when it comes to paid apps. Distimo’s analytics show almost 75 percent of apps in the Apple App Store are paid, compared to just under 43 percent in the Android Market. Only nine countries are allowed to distribute Android paid apps currently because of Google checkout restrictions, points out Hoogsteder. Consumers from only 13 countries can get access to paid content. That cuts out a lot of international developers and users, says Christopoulos. For instance, a Polish developer created a game called Speed Forge 3D that couldn’t be sold through the Android app store in many countries because of restrictions around Google Checkout. The app is listed on SlideMe for approximately $3. SlideMe will also focus on localized apps and tailor its app store by country. “You might be from a country in the Middle East and not speak English. We can help you find apps in your local language,” says Christopoulos. AndSpot says both users and developers will find the independent Android-focused app stores a sweet deal. “Users will go where the apps are, and developers will be attracted because they have nothing to lose,” says Kheradmand. See Also:
Photo: (modenadude/Flickr) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am Independent App Stores Take On Google's Android MarketAndroid allows developers to not just build apps but to get even more ambitious. Some are building app stores itself to take on Google's "official" Android Market.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 11 Jun 2010 | 6:00 am Mystery Charger Glows Like iPhone Battery Icon
This external iPhone battery is something of a conundrum. Called the Icon, it is designed to look just like the iPhone battery-charging icon, and it comes covered with electro-luminescent film to make it glow like its virtual counterpart (the animated GIF is presented below in all its flashing, oversized, layout-breaking glory). The confusion sets in when you try to buy the thing. There is no price, and there are no real product shots, but there are very accurate specs listed, including dimensions (72 × 46 × 16 mm), an official-looking Works with iPhone badge and a breakdown of how much extra juice you get (three hours 3G talk-time, seven hours on 2G). In fact, this product appears to be available in stores in Asia: China, Hong King and Singapore all have stockists, but I can’t find the device. The final part of the puzzle is that the tip-off for the Icon came from Radhika Seth at Yanko Design, a site which normally specializes in concept designs, not real shipping products. The mystery shall continue until one of our intrepid readers in Asia manages to spot one of these in the wild. If you do, mail us a picture. The Icon Battery Pack for iPhone [Essential TPE via Yanko. Thanks, Radhika!]
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:49 am Digital Movie Clapboard for iPad Replaces $1,350 Uni-Tasker
Above you see two time slates, essential movie tools which let you identify each shot and sync audio and video with the familiar clap action. The one on the left is the Deneke TS-3, a 2.35-pound dedicated slate that costs $1,350 (the cheapest Deneke makes). On the right you see the new Movie Slate clapboard app for the iPad. It costs $20, and weighs 1.5-pounds when installed. Now, I’m no expert in clapboards, but Alex Lindsay, movie-maker, ex-ILM effects guy and MacBreak Weekly regular, is. Here’s his Tweet on the subject: “Digital Slate on an iPad… Deneke should to scared… very scared…” The slate seems to do everything the Denekes do, and more. You can use it as a digital slate (write information on it to quickly ID your shots later) using the iPad keyboard and also store lists of frequently used settings. You can sync time-codes between iPads and iPhones running the software, as well as sync with the cameras’ time-codes. Good use is made of the iPad’s built-in functions, too. For instance, the shot log will use the GPS to geotag the takes, you can shake-to-clap and you can of course email the lists to yourself in HTML, CSV tab-delimited or Final Cut XML formats. If I was in the movie business, this would be a great excuse to buy an iPad and still save hundreds of bucks. I’m not in the industry, though, and I already have an iPad, but I’m still tempted just because it looks so cool. Maybe I could use it on my home movies? Movie Slate [iTunes] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 11 Jun 2010 | 5:19 am
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Well, this is getting more interesting. This morning, 
During his keynote address at WWDC on Monday, Apple CEO 
Hulu’s founding CTO 
A Tweetup has been scheduled on June 21 in New York, to kick off CEA Line Shows event in New York City—and we are an event sponsor.
Next week, the world’s leading video game makers and throngs of fans and press will unite for E3, which is generally regarded as the most prominent annual gaming-focused news event. And this year, fans will be able to watch live, thanks to a live stream that’s being broadcast through a partnership between YouTube and gaming portal 
By 2020, the transition from desktop to cloud will be largely complete and we’ll all view the former as we view the latter today–an adjunct to our primary workspace.
With regard to his recent spat with Facebook we don’t 
You know you want it. You know you need it: A 
When 
We heard about @Gamer, Best Buy’s planned in-store games magazine, 
Live too far from the city to make a trip to your “local” AT&T or Apple store? Fear not, my suburban brethren, for your favorite superstore (unless you’re a Big K guy) 
Early adopters planning to buy an iPhone 4 the day it goes on sale will have their choice of sidewalks on which to camp out. In addition to Apple (AAPL), AT&T (T), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Best Buy (BBY) stores–all disclosed in Apple’s June 7 
A new version of Motorola’s Droid phone could be in the works — one that improves on the device’s keyboard and increases its computing power.
