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Sesame Street meets Pakistani "Sufiyan English" film theme8ate sez: "An incredible mash-up from Pakistan. Grover and friends do some shaking to a 'Sufiyan English' song from a 1970s Pakistani film." The Song of Wonder (Dama Dam Mast Qalandar) - M. Ashraf feat. Ahmed Rushdi (Thanks, 8ate!)  Source: Boing Boing | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:03 am Sesame Street meets Pakistani "Sufiyan English" film theme8ate sez: "An incredible mash-up from Pakistan. Grover and friends do some shaking to a 'Sufiyan English' song from a 1970s Pakistani film." The Song of Wonder (Dama Dam Mast Qalandar) - M. Ashraf...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:03 am HTTPS Everywhere: Firefox plugin that switches on crypto whenever it's available
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Onion Router (TOR) project have teamed up to release a new privacy-enhancing Firefox plugin called HTTPS Everywhere. It was inspired by Google's new encrypted search engine, and it ensures that whenever you visit a site that accepts encrypted connections, your browser switches into encrypted mode, hiding your traffic from snoops on your local network and at your ISP. HTTPS Everywhere covers Google search, Wikipedia, Twitter, Identi.ca, Facebook, EFF, Tor, Scroogle, DuckDuckGo, Ixquick and other smaller search engines. It's still in beta (what isn't?) but I've been running it all morning with no negative side effects.
Encrypt the Web with the HTTPS Everywhere Firefox Extension (Thanks, Hugh!)
Source: Boing Boing | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:00 am HTTPS Everywhere: Firefox plugin that switches on crypto whenever it's availableThe Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Onion Router (TOR) project have teamed up to release a new privacy-enhancing Firefox plugin called HTTPS Everywhere. It was inspired by Google's new encrypted...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:00 am Ikaros: Photos of solar-powered “Space Yacht” in outer space
We first blogged about Ikaros, a solar powered “space yacht” developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), in September last year. The idea was to use solar photons to propel satellites in outer space to boost energy-efficiency. That yacht was eventually launched on May 21, and now we have the first pictures of Ikaros moving through outer space. The spacecraft had its sail stored inside when it was launched before unfurling the sail when it reached outer space. It sent the pictures you can see above and below to Earth using a tiny camera (6cm in height and diameter) that’s separated from the craft.
The polymer sail, which is the first of its kind, is just 0.0075mm thick and is partly covered with amorphous silicon solar cells (the cells provide more than 50% of the power needed overall). The JAXA expects Ikaros to travel through outer space for about six months.
Source: CrunchGear | 18 Jun 2010 | 4:00 am FCC moves to assert authority over broadband - TG Daily
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:56 am Thanko sells digital camera/binoculars hybrid
Tokyo’s most famous gadget maker, Thanko, has another hit product in its portfolio, the UDGZDC8M [JP]. For reasons unknown, the infamous company decided it’s time to give the world a combination of binoculars and an 8MP digital camera. And people living outside Japan can get it, too.
The device features 4x digital zoom (8x for the binoculars), an SD/MMC slot (16GB max.), an 1.5-inch TFT LCD, and – of course – a USB 1.1 port (this is a Thanko product after all). Videos (AVI) can be shot in QVGA quality (320×240 at 30fps), which is the best you can expect (resolution of pictures: 4,032×3,024).
Source: CrunchGear | 18 Jun 2010 | 3:03 am Architectural Surrealism - 'The Surreal House' at The Barbican Explores Two Unlikely Themes (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Barbican is currently running 'The Surreal House,' an art and photography exhibition. Jane Alison, senior curator at The Barbican, said that this is "the first time an exhibition...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:40 am Twitter a hit in Japan as millions 'mumble' online (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:25 am Open Forum: What Are You Doing With *Your* Supply and Demand of Linden Dollars?The value of the Linden Dollar has spiked sharply in the last 48 hours, so much so that Linden Lab has posted an announcement seeking to reassure Residents that the internal economy is still robust. The...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:24 am New CR-Z is awfully sporty for a hybrid - USA Today
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:12 am Escaped Dino Ads - The Calgary Zoo 'Dinosaurs Alive' Exhibit Campaign is Scary (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Calgary Zoo 'Dinosaurs Alive' campaign will definitely have you shaking in your bones. Produced by advertising agency Trigger, which is based in Calgary, Canada, this print campaign...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:10 am NetSuite Event to Highlight Power of the Cloud to Transform EMEA-Based Professional Services FirmsLONDON and SAN MATEO, Calif., June 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NetSuite Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 Jun 2010 | 2:00 am Verizon May Introduce Tiered Pricing - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:59 am Thailand Shuts Down 43,000 More WebsitesAn anonymous reader writes "Bangkok Post reports that the Thai government has now shut down over 43,000 websites deemed defamatory to the royal institution. Thai ISPs are warned to cooperate 'voluntarily' or lose their license. This is in addition to 17,000+ that were recently blocked for 'national security,' including both Facebook and Twitter accounts."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:59 am Maze Fashion Shows - The Streamed Jil Sander Men Spring/Summer 2010 Collection (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Jil Sander Men Spring/Summer 2010 collection was streamed online for the entire blogosphere to see on Thursday, June 17, at Pitto Uomo in Florence. The runway show was set in a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:50 am Nintendo 3DS Impressions: Cool With Caveat - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:47 am Win A CoolIT ECO Advanced Liquid Cooling System!By Chris Scott Barr Back in April we brought you a review of the CoolIT ECO Advanced Liquid Cooling system. It’s a great solution for those wanting to dive into liquid cooling for the first time...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:21 am Splitfish Dual SFX Frag Pro ReviewThis post is syndicated with permission from GamerFront.net Earlier this week we received in the Dual SFX Frag Pro from Splitfish. This time instead of having two separate “chucks” (like the...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:20 am Potato Chip Sushi - The Pringles Rice Infusions Campaign is Tempting (GALLERY)(TrendHunter.com) The Pringles Rice Infusions ads above certainly make this new product look like one enticing treat for any chip lover. The Pringles Rice Infusions are exactly what you think they are--rice...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:20 am Colbert's response to NY Times banning the (silly) word "tweet"Stephen Colber objects to the New York Times ban of the word "Tweet" (silly) on The Colbert Report. The BBC quoting NY Times standards editor, Philip B. Corbett: "Some social-media fans may disagree,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:07 am Label Interactive's 'Game Table,' iPad Board Games and Virtual Cards, Free for Father's Day WeekendDANBURY, Conn., June 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Label Interactive, a leading innovator in interactive design and game development, today announced that Game Table for the Apple iPad will be available on the Apple App Store for free this weekend.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:05 am In China, Labor Movement Enabled by Technology [Voices]By David Barboza and Keith Bradsher, Reporters, New York Times Wielding cellphones and keyboards, members of China’s emerging labor movement so far seem to be outwitting official censors in an effort to build broad support for what they say is a war against greedy corporations and their local government allies. And it might not be possible if the Chinese government had not made a concerted effort in the last decade to shrink the country’s digital divide by lowering the cost of mobile phone and Internet service in this country–a modernization campaign that has given China the world’s biggest Internet population (400 million) and allowed even the poorest of the poor to log onto the Internet and air their labor grievances. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:01 am Inside Gatorade’s Social Media Command Center [Voices]By Adam Ostrow, Blogger, Mashable, Social Media In the realm of marketing, Gatorade is probably best known for splashy commercials featuring some of the world’s most famous athletes. However, a new effort behind the scenes of the PepsiCo (PEP)-owned sports drink maker is putting social media quite literally at the center of the way Gatorade approaches marketing. The company recently created the Gatorade Mission Control Center inside of its Chicago headquarters, a room that sits in the middle of the marketing department and could best be thought of as a war room for monitoring the brand in real-time across social media. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am A Few Lessons Learned From Teaching Online Journalism [Voices]By Mark Berkey-Gerard, Teacher and Blogger, Campfire Journalism As I shift to my summer schedule after my second year of teaching online journalism to undergraduates, I wanted to take note of a few general lessons I’ve learned. Most of these are things I came to through trial-and-error, often with instruction from my students. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am Who's Winning the World Cup? Online, It's Nike [Voices]By Jennifer Valentino-DeVries, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal The real games at the World Cup might be on the soccer field—or “pitch,” if you’re being proper—but there’s also a World Cup competition of sorts on the Web, especially where advertisers are concerned. Among brands that are advertising around the World Cup, Nike is running away (horrible pun intended) with the online attention, according to several Internet and social-media trackers. A Nielsen study released Friday found that Nike had about 30 percent of the World Cup “buzz” among brands on blogs, message boards and social-networking sites—a coup for a company that isn’t a partner or official sponsor of the World Cup or of FIFA, soccer’s governing body. FIFA has been trying to limit the visibility of companies that haven’t paid the hefty price for official sponsorships, the Journal reported this week. But although the organization can restrict advertising around venues, there’s little it can do online. Poor FIFA partner Adidas had about 14 percent of the online mentions, followed by Coca-Cola and Sony (SNE) at about 12 percent each. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am Reasonable People Disagree About Connectivity [Voices]By Jacob Gordon, Contributor, Good Text messages at the breakfast table, conference calls on family vacations, emails from bed, Facebook in class. Is technology’s power to connect bringing us closer or rending us apart? Dalton Conley and Natalie Jeremijenko are experts with different views. Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am The Son of Gutenberg [Voices]By Marion Maneker, Contributor, The Big Money A year ago, Justin Halpern was an underemployed comedy writer who had to move back into his parents’ home in San Diego. Today, he has 1.4 million Twitter followers, the No. 1 book on the New York Times (NYT) nonfiction best-seller list, and a CBS (CBS) sitcom starring William Shatner. All it took was writing down quotes from his father that he tweets out as “Shit My Dad Says.” Read the rest of this post on the original site » Source: All Things Digital | 18 Jun 2010 | 1:00 am The 3-Dimensional Transcription FilmTranscription: a mechanism controlled in time and spaceTranscription involves about fifty regulatory molecules that interact with each other to begin reading the gene at the right place and the right time. The slightest irregularity of one of these molecules disturbs the transcription. An understanding of the initiation and regulation mechanisms is essential in order to understand gene expression. The structural biology researchers at IGBMC are studying molecular structures to gain a better understanding of how they function. Patrick Schultz's team is particularly focusing on the architecture of the molecules involved in transcription and attempting to decode the mechanisms of their interactions.An 'image-by-image' analysisAn analysis of the transcription complexes by electron cryomicroscopy allows a molecule to be observed in a hydrated state close to its natural state. Each photograph, taken using a microscope, shows thousands of specimens of the same molecule from different angles and at different instants in their reaction cycle. The statistical analysis of these images performed by Patrick Schultz's team revealed different conformations in three dimensions, which correspond to different stages of transcription initiation. 'We performed image-by-image sequencing and made a film of the initial stages of transcription,' says Schultz.Watch the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPUvtneNxIkThe factor TFIID, the main player in the transcription processPatrick Schultz's team is interested in a complex protein that acts as an assembly platform in the initiation phase of transcription: the factor TFIID. Through interaction with the activator Rap1, bound upstream from the gene to be transcribed, it is attracted to the DNA and binds onto it. Combined with another factor, TFIIA, it changes conformation and allows the RNA polymerase to initiate transcription. The original aspect of this mechanism is based on the formation of a DNA loop, which allows the RNA polymerase to be positioned exactly at the start of the sequence of the gene to be transcribed.The structure of the transcription factor TFIID obtained after image analysis is represented in yellow on an electron cryomicroscopy image background, showing the frozen hydrated molecules in dark grey. The transcription activator Rap1 (red) interacts with the factor TFIIA (blue) and contributes to forming a DNA loop (green).What is electron cryomicroscopy?Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:57 am Physicists Help Biologists To Understand Protein FoldingPhysicists at UC Santa Barbara have created a microscopic device to assist biologists in making very fast molecular measurements that aid the understanding of protein folding. This development may help elucidate biological processes associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:55 am Dental Pulp Cells For Stem Cell BankingDefined sets of factors can reprogram human cells to induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. However, many types of human cells are not easily accessible to minimally invasive procedures.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:53 am Experiment Turns Up The Heat On Natural Selection, Reveals New Details Of An Evolutionary MechanismScientists watch as E.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:27 am Broadcom Announces Intention to Acquire Innovision Research & Technology PLCSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:06 am Broadcom Announces Intention to Acquire Innovision Research & Technology PLCIRVINE, Calif., June 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Broadcom Corporation (Nasdaq: BRCM), a global leader in semiconductors for wired and wireless communications, today announced its subsidiary, Broadcom International Ltd., has agreed to terms with the board of Innovision Research & Technology PLC, (a company listed on the Alternative Investment Market of the London Stock Exchange: INN), to make an all-cash offer to acquire all of the issued and to be issued shares of Innovision.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:06 am Ariely's UPSIDE OF IRRATIONALITY: using irrational cognitive blindspots to your advantage
Behavioral economist Dan Ariely's The Upside of Irrationality is the followup to his wildly successful (and wonderful) Predictably Irrational, a book summarizing his many years of ground-breaking research on the ways in which people reliably behave in ways that run contrary to their best interests (something that flies in the face of neoclassical economic orthodoxy).
Upside of Irrationality is a mostly successful attempt to transform the scientific critique of the "rational consumer" principal into practical advice for living a better life. "Mostly successful" only because some of our habitual irrationality is fundamentally insurmountable -- there's almost nothing we can do to mitigate it. But even when Ariely fails to deliver easy-to-follow advice for improving our lives, he still does deliver the same thought-provoking, fascinating experimental evidence for irrationality itself. For example, the sections on online dating (the return on your investment in an online dating service is so poor that you might as well not bother) and charitable giving (it's nearly impossible to feel the visceral sympathy for a million sufferers in some terrible genocide that you feel for a man choking to death at the next table) are both engrossing and well-written, but the advice that Ariely gives on both amounts to, "Be aware that you're apt to make a bad decision in these situations." On the other hand, there are sections in which the science of irrationality is readily converted into practical techniques for living better, and these really shine. My favorite is the section on adaptation, that is, the way in which both terrible pain and incredible delights fade down to a kind of baseline normal over time. Ariely points out that adaptation can be slowed or even prevented through intermittent exposure to the underlying stimulus -- that is, if you take a break, the emotional sensation comes back with nearly full force. Here's where our intuitive response is really wrong: we have a tendency to indulge our pleasures without respite, and to take frequent breaks from those things that make us miserable. This is exactly backwards. If you want to maximize your pleasure -- a great dessert, the delight of furnishing your first real apartment after graduation, a wonderful new relationship -- you should trickle it into your life, with frequent breaks for your adaptive response to diminish. If you want to minimize your pain -- an unpleasant chore, an awful trip -- you should continue straight through without a break, because every time you stop, your adaptive response resets and you experience the discomfort anew. Also outstanding is the section on motivation in the workplace, and the way in which imbuing work-tasks with even a little meaning can make them much easier to complete and much more satisfying. There are several pieces of good, practical information here, all couched in Ariely's breezy, easy to read style. Even if Ariely's research doesn't always neatly translate into simple heuristics, he's such an interesting writer and thinker that I'll read anything he writes. Source: Boing Boing | 18 Jun 2010 | 12:00 am Does The iPad Change Everything? Publishers Chime InWe’ve fiercely debated the merits of the iPad (here and here and here and here) and whether Apple’s “magical” device will transform the mass market. The question, of course, is not whether the iPad is the leader in the tablet market but whether the iPad will become the iPod of its market. And if the iPad is indeed the iPod, how does that shape the digital strategy of publishers? At the Big Money Untethered conference in New York this Thursday, a cluster of top publishers including Donald Graham (CEO, Washington Post), Carolyn Reidy (CEO, Simon Schuster), Vivian Schiller (CEO, NPR) and Sarah Chubb (President, Conde Nast Digital), gathered to answer those questions and evaluate the explosive tablet market (according to Forrester Research, there will be 59 million tablets in use by 2015). We pitched a simple question to the panelists, does the iPad change everything and how is it transforming their business? Their answers in the video above. Excerpts : Vivian Schiller, CEO, NPR It’s definitely a transformative device…[iPad] is the most distributed, well known tablet, there’s no question other manufacturers will come in with other variations of the tablet but the idea of this new form factor is a really exciting one. And for us, the way that it’s transforming our business is we have created an application for the iPhone, excuse me for the iPad, there’s too many i’s out there! That is really designed specifically for the form factor of the tablet…and it is designed for the size and scale of the iPad…it’s been tremedously popular we’ve had over 350,000 downloads so far and there are only 2 million iPads in circulation. So what is that 1 in 6? I would never bet against Apple. Carolyn Reidy, CEO Simon & Schuster I would say that it has transformed our industry because it is the first reader that has enabled us to combine text with video…It’s the first thing that will enable us to do children books, to make digital children books, to make enhanced e-books, and to actually make a combination of video and reading book that is not an app. In our world it’s very difficult to do an app it gets lost…the audience for a book is not the size for most of these apps that sell hundreds of thousands. Jacob Weisberg, Chairman, The Slate Group I think when the history of the era is written, it’s the Kindle that will be seen as the breakthrough device…even though it’s already been superseded in many ways by the iPad…It was really the Kindle that ushered in the post-Gutenberg and showed that a printed book was no longer necessarily the best way to read a book. The iPad is a great toy…Everybody wants one, but the question is, is everyone going to need one?…In the short to medium term, I think the iPad is going to be very dominant…but long term I’m not sure I would bet on it as the dominant device because I think Apple does have the tendency to make the same mistake again and again, which is that it likes closed systems….It doesn’t like the messiness of the internet but unfortunately messiness is part of what makes the internet the internet. Sarah Chubb, President, Conde Nast Digital I think that the iPad is transformative because it’s changing how consumers think about the mobile web and how they think about content consumption… To me it’s not really about the iPad itself, it’s about consumers seeing that they can do things differently and enjoying it which will make them do it more…Even just one year from now, we’re going to look back on it and many, many things will have changed as a result of that.      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:45 pm IBM's Question-Answering System "Watson" Revisitedreligious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:05 pm Behold the arcade museum; a geekgasm waiting to happen
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:00 pm OnLive takes videogames into the Internet 'cloud' (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:50 pm Microsoft Could Succeed in Tablet Space Despite iPad Popularity - eWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:31 pm Hitler finds out about the BP Oil Spill
Video link. Creepy trivial fact: the spill started on Hitler's 121st birthday. A quick YouTube search for "Hitler BP oil spill" yields quite a few of these. (via Current TV, thanks @fjfonseca) June 18, 1908: Prescient Letter Creates Concept of TVA short letter to the journal Nature guides the future of television.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm What's Inside Worcestershire Sauce? Fermented Surf for Your TurfYou may know about the anchovies, garlic and onion -- but what about the devil's dung? The secret spice in L&P's sauce reeks like rotting garlic but tastes oniony when cooked.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:00 pm Photo set: The Dell Streak vs the HTC EVO 4G
Anyway, I happened to have an EVO 4G with me and I must say that the Dell Streak makes it look like normal-sized phone. There is a large difference in the overall size even though the screen size is only .7-inches larger. It’s as thin as the Evo, but it still feels a bit too large to be a phone. However, that thought might be premature as it might be something you need to use to appreciate. The whole package feels solid, refined and wonderful. It’s clearly not for everyone given its large size, but a lot of people will probably love it. Click through for photos.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:45 pm Disney, Pixar, and BP present "Finding Nemo 2: Escape from Oilglobs" There's a whole series of 'em at EL BLOG DE CHIBIBOTO. I'll (crudely) translate the first paragraph of the accompanying blog post, which is in Spanish: As we watch our planet continue dying, thanks to one of the largest ecological catastrophes in the world, because a most terrible oil spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico. And now that the new movie Toy Story 3 is coming, it occurred to me to put forth some ideas for a sequel to Finding Nemo. I hope that these ideas inspire the writers at Pixar.(This is a parody, this is not real / via Sean Meredith) Source: Boing Boing | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:37 pm Y Combinator Gives A Crash Course On What It’s Like To ‘Work At A Startup’
Graham says that the two main things that prospective employees should be gauging are fun and money. You obviously want to maximize both, and the startup end of the job market is the “bargain”, because you can have fun and make a lot of money. Assuming, of course, you pick the right startup. The second thing you need to figure out, Graham says, is whether or not the startup lifestyle is really for you. In general, he’s found that startup founders who join a large company after being acquired aren’t as happy in their new home as they were when they were running the show. The reason? Bureaucracy. There are meetings and you have to ask for permission to get things done — things that aren’t issues at most startups. Graham says that some people (and all founders) are like that. But others aren’t. The way to tell, he says, is to ask yourself if you like the prospect of having (and implementing) many ideas at work, in which case a startup is probably the place for you. If you don’t think having ideas are a part of the job, then he says you’re probably better suited for corporate culture. The next step is figuring out which startup you want to work at. Graham says this is actually a lot like being an investor, the difference being that investors are giving startups their time and money, while you’re giving them your work. So how do you tell which startups are promising? The secret, Graham says, is to look at the founders — even if they have an unsexy company or domain, if you have great founders, the company is more likely to go on to great things. Alright, so you’ve found a great startup — can you expect to make a lot of money? This varies a lot, depending on how early you’re joining. Graham says that if you’ve found a startup that you want to join, you should do it quickly, because things can change fast (and the amount of equity you can expect can drop precipitously). He relayed an anecdote about a company Yahoo was thinking about acquiring for $1 billion a few years ago. After mulling it over for a few months, Yahoo agreed to pay $1 billion, at which point the company told them they’d grown and now wanted $2 billion (the unnamed company sounds a whole lot like Facebook). Moral of the story: don’t sit around thinking about things too long when startups are involved. As for how much equity you can expect, Graham says that at the high-end, for a one-founder company with no employees, you may be able to get 50%. From there, things drop quickly — if you’re talking to a company with two founders and angel funding, you may be able to get 5-10%. Post series A, it’s hard to get more than 1%. The trade-off here is risk — most companies never get to their Series A. Ultimately, Graham says that when you’re joining a startup, you’re looking for a company that is undervalued for the stage it is at, and that’s most likely to eventually IPO. Of course, that’s all easier said than done. The event then switched to pitch mode, when over thirty startups gave a whirlwind series of presentations telling the audience why they should join them (it was like a speed dating job fair for startups).
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:31 pm "The Cove" documentary to be shown online in Japan (Reuters)Reuters - Controversial documentary film "The Cove," which deals with the grizzly business of dolphin hunting, will be made available to Japanese viewers online via a popular video sharing website.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:20 pm Chocolates shaped like astronauts
London chocolatier Artisan du Chocolat made these and other space-themed chocolates to celebrate astronomy after an astronaut supposedly took some of the shop's sweets with her to the International Space Station. Very cute!
via Design Yearbook via NotCot Shock result means Dr. Wagner, Jr. will be on the cover of AAA: Heroés del Ring
Dr. Wagner, Jr. will be on the cover of AAA: Heroés del Ring. I know this because I saw him win a lucha libre match on the E3 show floor a few hours ago. It’s actually a surprising result, Dr. Wagner, Jr. being on the cover. You’d think they would have wanted La Parka on the cover being that he’s more well-known here in the U.S. Fun match, too—you could really tell the luchadores were working hard for the crowd. Konnan was there doing play-by-play commentary.
I mean, outside of busting out the Macarena while playing Dance Central, this was probably the best part of E3.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:00 pm Review: Toy Story 3
The story is simple: Andy, the toys’ owner, is leaving for college. His toys, resigning themselves to a life in the attic, prep themselves for the coming change but, instead of the must and heat of the rafters, they end up in a garbage truck. Only Woody is going with Andy to college, and when he sees his friends in danger he runs to save them. The tale winds through a day care center overrun by misfit toys, the home of a little girl who owns a gruff toy unicorn and a sad clown, and then to the very maw of heck itself – the incinerator at the city dump. All of this is tinged with the sadness of growing up and leaving behind things you loved as well as hope for better things to come. Each movie Pixar makes pushes the state of the art further. In this movie, they simulate the motion of millions of pieces of chopped garbage, no mean feat. I can only imagine the render farms for this film. These CG animated movies are, in a sense, a genre into themselves and should be compared to each other in this way. Nothing in this movie is quite as poignant as some of the scenes in Wall-E or Up, but all of this movie was better than any of the other yuck-fests out there, excepting, perhaps, the first Shrek and Kung-Fu Panda. As for age appropriateness, I’d say kids over four or so – or mature toddlers – can handle most of the themes and situations. The final scene is particularly scary and brings up a number of metaphysical questions about existence and death that parents may not be ready to explore. My own four-year-old son asked “What that big fire thing was in the end” and I explained it to him in terms of Dantean visions of Hellfire through the ages and the banality of existence when compared to the horrors that await us in the holocaust of endless entropy. Just kidding. I told him it was a place where the burn trash. Toy Story 3 is a quieter movie with a dark streak running through it. Adults will catch this dark streak and tear up at Andy’s departure and at the anger of some of the abandoned toys. Kids will love it for the adventure that the earlier movies lacked. In all, it’s a summer movie worth taking in at least once.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:48 pm Rockford Fosgate introduces new Punch Plug PP15MMi earbudsSection: Audio, Accessories, Headphones, Portable Audio, Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Smartphones
If you are going to lay down a lot of money for the latest Apple product or smartphone, it is important to have nice headphones or earbuds that can match the quality of the product. The new Punch Plugs PP15MMi The microphone allows users to speak on the phone, switch the song, increase/decrease the volume, and pause the current song. The Punch Plugs PP15MMi sport 15mm dynamic drivers in order to provide superior audio quality. As you can tell from the picture above, it comes in a sleek black logo with the red logo printed on the outside of the earbud. Unfortunately, these sleek new earbuds do not come cheap, as they are priced at $129. The Punch Plugs PP15MMi are set to be available for retail starting in early July. Read [Rockford Fosgate] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:37 pm Take control of your Xbox 360 with the X-Link remote
The X-Link uses your typical IR style control, for both the Xbox and any other device you happen to program into it. X-Link is designed as a learning remote, with dedicated buttons for Y, X, A, B, as well as Start, Back, and and other controls for the DVD and other features. The X-Link supports over 400 brands of televisions, 200 Satellite receivers, 100 cable receivers, 50 DVR’s, and 200 home theater surround sound systems. The X-Link is available now from most retail outlets, for an MSRP of $29.95.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:30 pm Legend of Vuvuzelda
This is not real yet, either. Created by Joe Sabia Source: Boing Boing | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:29 pm China Intelligent Lighting and Electronics, Inc. Announces Pricing of Public Offering of Common StockHUIZHOU, China, June 17 /PRNewswire-Asia-FirstCall/ -- China Intelligent Lighting and Electronics, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:28 pm China Intelligent Lighting and Electronics, Inc. Announces Pricing of Public Offering of Common StockSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:28 pm Sizing up the iPhone 4 for shutterbugs - Ars Technica
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:24 pm Apple’s Gaming Future is Full Steam Ahead
Remember back when anti-mac fanboys use to say that “the Mac doesn’t have gaming, it’s not 1337”. Then Apple entered the gaming world as a noob, and now look, OS X is running Steam. It got off to a pretty good start, but recently Valve’s Rob Barris said that ATI, NVIDIA and Apple are working hard to increase performance even further. “Performance is going to improve as drivers are updated,” said Barris and he expects “modest improvements in short term and larger ones in longer term”. As far as when, he asserted, “No, I can’t put dates on them.” It’s great to know that Apple’s gaming focus isn’t just into the iOS platform. I can’t wait for Counter Strike, Team Fortress and Portal to download.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:19 pm Hourtime Episode 27: The HM3 and getting stabbed
Theme music by Rick Barr
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:05 pm Falsehoods Programmers Believe About NamesJamie points out this interesting article about how hard it is for programmers to get names right. Since software ultimately is used by and for humans, and we humans are pretty tightly linked to our names (whatever the language, spelling, or orthography), this is a big deal. This piece notes some of the ways that names get mishandled, and suggests rules of thumb (in the form of anti-suggestions) to encourage programmers to handle names more gracefully.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:57 pm HUZO Announces Launch of HUZO.comSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:48 pm Justices Allow Search of Work-Issued Pager - New York Times
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:37 pm More investigation of Apple’s A4 reveals it to be a plain old highly advanced chip
The money shot of EETimes’ analysis of the chip is their sum-up at the end:
If you’re interested in the topic, the full article is interesting and quite readable, so give it a read. So: the A4 is an excellent, optimized, and perfectly capable chip, but the discussion pretty much ends there. It’s stock parts with a custom layout (though part choice is an important factor), but fanboys spouting the idea that Apple is doing something momentous in the semiconductor industry will need to be silenced. As I said in my previous article, give credit where credit’s due: to ARM and the other hardware manufacturers for all the research put into developing these parts, and to Apple for curating a slimmed-down and powerful system-on-a-chip and designing excellent software that makes the best of it. Now let us never speak of it again. Until the A5.
Source: CrunchGear | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:30 pm Pocket Vuvuzela: Make Some NoiseSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:30 pm Hammacher Schlemmer camcorder shoots 3D video for only $600Section: Video, Portable Video
Hammacher Schlemmer is looking to bring 3D to the masses with what could be the first 3D camcorder. The camcorder is capable of shooting both 3D movies and images, though with dual 3MP cameras, the video is only going to 640 x 480. With a 4 GB SD card, which isn’t included in the price, you can shoot 4 hours of 3D videos. However, you can really only shoot two hours at a time as the camcorder (which seems to lack a name) can only last for two hours on a single charge which takes six hours. The good news is that, like the Nintendo 3DS, the camcorder’s video doesn’t requie glasses when views on the included 7-inch media player. The idea of 3D video for everyone sounds nice, but Hammacher Schlemmer’s camcorder might no be the way to go. Until the screen technology behind the media player and the Nintendo 3DS can be applied to larger screens, it’s probably a good idea to just wait. 3D is expensive for everyone, and has a lot of opponents. Also, 640 x 480 video isn’t exactly the greatest and it still costs $600. If you really want to feel like James Cameron, it might be a good investment, but otherwise, 2D is still perfectly fine. Read [Wired] Full Story » | Written by Shawn Ingram for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:29 pm AT&T Will Count Micro-Cell Usage Towards Your Data Cap
As you recall, AT&T’s MicroCell is being marketed as a way to repair bad connectivity in areas with little or no AT&T reception including, but not limited to, basements, attics, Manhattan, and San Francisco. It essentially piggy backs on your own home network to provide data service and voice to your phone.      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:21 pm AT&T will count Micro-Cell usage towards your data cap
As you recall, AT&T’s MicroCell is being marketed as a way to repair bad connectivity in areas with little or no AT&T reception including, but not limited to, basements, attics, Manhattan, and San Francisco. It essentially piggy backs on your own home network to provide data service and voice to your phone. However, AT&T will still charge data used while in range of the Micro-Cell against your no longer unlimited data cap. This means that you’re essentially allowing AT&T to drop a cell antenna into your house, paying $150 for the privilege, and they get to use your data infrastructure to get voice and data back to their own fiber networks.
So basically you’re paying AT&T for the privilege of using your phone. Straight up. While we all know your phone, like hair, is a privilege and not a right, this move again smacks of giving up. Microcells have been around for years, AT&T finally got around to selling them, and they’re basically riding the goodwill of an army of iPhone users who would actually like to use their phones in enclosed areas like their garage workshops, places of business, and some parts of North and South Dakota as well as most of Morgantown, West Virginia. Again, call it splitting hairs, but this move is cold comfort to those who have been suffering with bad reception since 2007.
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:19 pm Facebook '09 revenue neared $800 million (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:10 pm Layers of Atmosphere Seen From SpaceEver wonder where the troposphere and stratosphere is? Take a look at this stunning photo from the space station to see atmospheric layering in all its beauty.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:08 pm OnLive gaming service now available for Mac (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - âOnLive can run on most PCsâbut on all Macs,â boasted Steve Perlman, founder and CEO of OnLive. On Thursday, the cloud-based gaming service launched for the Mac and Windows, thereby enabling thousands of players to stream high-end games to their computers like never before.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:01 pm Win A Ticket To See Arrington Spar With ‘Facebook Effect’ Author David Kirkpatrick
Want to go? We’ve got four free tickets to give away. If you want a shot at one, click the handy ‘Like’ buttons below to become fans of TechCrunch and The Facebook Effect, then leave us a comment below saying why you want to go. Feel free to suggest questions for Michael to ask David (though obviously he’ll ultimately ask what he wants). The event will take place in San Francisco on June 23, with check-in starting at 5:15 PM. For full details (or if you want to buy tickets), check out this page. We’ll pick the winners tomorrow at 5 PM — make sure to use a valid Email address (or Facebook Connect) for your comment so we can contact you should you win. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:58 pm New Sony VAIO Y and Z series feature Share My ConnectionSection: Computers, Laptops, Networking, Wireless
Similar to MiFi, the new Sony VAIO laptops in the Y and Z series support a feature known as Share My Connection which acts like a personal WiFi hotspot. Select models within these two new series allow for five different devices to connect via WiFi to “Share My Connection” in the Sony VAIO laptop. Devices that can connect via Share My Connection include PCs, other laptops, smartphones, cameras, etc. The secure connection ensures data privacy when connected on the portable network. When traveling, connecting to the web is essential and using something like SMC might save you a lot of money. In terms of laptop specs, the Z series features a 13.1 inch LED screen, optional Blu-ray player, and weighs only 3 pounds. The Y series comes with a slightly bigger screen - 13.3 inches. And since the Y series is designed for teenagers and young adults, it comes in five different colors (purple violet, fuchsia pink, pear green, teal blue and black), and will be available right before school starts again. Sony is currently taking pre-orders online and at select retailers. The Y series will cost $770, while the high-end Z series will cost $1950. Read [Sony] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:17 pm Twitter ‘OAuthcalypse’ Moved To August Thanks To The World Cup
Twitter Platform Team leader Raffi Krikorian writes:
Twitter developers were supposed to move over to OAuth by June 30. Twitter notified developers that it would be moving to oAuth and shutting off basic authorization. All third-party developers are need to to make the switch over to oAuth, as they won’t be able to use basic authentication, which allows users to hand over their username and password to a third party. oAuth is considered to be more secure because it allows you to connect to a third-party app without having to give out your password and username. As you can see the countdown to the oAuthcalypse has also been updated. Twitter has been facing increased downtime over the past week thanks to increased usage of the network because of record usage numbers with the World Cup. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:13 pm Microsoft's New Web Apps Will Have Your Head in the CloudMS finally puts out a web-based version of its office software. But can it compete with Google Docs? It's not actually designed to. We'll explain.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Feds Start Move to Re-impose Rules on ISPsThe FCC is seeking to regain its power to keep ISPs in line, by undoing a decision from the Bush era, but it's running into opposition from the ISPs and free-market groups.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Ode to Joysticks: Most Exhaustive Videogame Exhibit EverWith 20,000 artifacts on hand, you can bet that a lot of, ahem, research is going on to piece together an exhibit at the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Microsoft's New Web Apps Will Have Your Head in the CloudMS finally puts out a web-based version of its office software. But can it compete with Google Docs? It's not actually designed to. We'll explain.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm Alt Text: Starbucks Goes From Coffee Purveyor to Content ProviderNow that the cafe chain is developing its own in-store entertainment for users of its free Wi-Fi service, it's time to peer into this walled garden and ponder the many wonders that might flourish inside.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:00 pm E3 2010: Sony announces Playstation Move release dates, prices, bundlesFROM GAMERTELL - Pricing and release details for the Playstation Move motion controller and its respective bundles were announced at Sony’s E3 2010 press conference on June 15, 2010. Click through for a complete rundown… Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:49 pm Lockheed Martin CEO Defines New Reality, Commits to AffordabilitySource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:45 pm Exception Day 1 Processing to Become a Reality by CONIX Systems, Inc. and Data Support Systems (DSS)MANCHESTER, Vt., June 17 /PRNewswire/ -- CONIX Systems, Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:36 pm Exception Day 1 Processing to Become a Reality by CONIX Systems, Inc. and Data Support Systems (DSS)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:36 pm UPDATE 1-SunTrust continues to review options on RidgeWorthNEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - SunTrust Banks Inc said on Thursday it continues to review its strategic options for portions of the institutional management businesses of its RidgeWorth Capital Management...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:35 pm CLIQ and Backflip users to get 2.1 this year (but where’s 2.2?)
And what’s with the “by Motorola” thing on every mention of the Droid? Is that really necessary? At any rate, we’ll let you know when these go live, or if they change. [via Gizmodo]
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:31 pm Flock Switches To Chromium For New BetaAn anonymous reader writes "Flock, the social networking browser, has moved from Firefox open source code to Chromium in its latest beta. The new Flock is essentially a combination of Chrome and TweetDeck, as you can sign in to Twitter and Facebook accounts and look at a single feed that incorporates updates from both. Currently, the beta is only available on Windows, but a Mac version is slated for later this year."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:30 pm Remains of the Day: iPhone rumors never say die (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - Iâve risen from my own ashes to bring you todayâs remaindersâthanks to head honcho Jason Snell for ably filling in while I battled the WWDC plagueâso donât say I never did nothinâ for you. The iPhone is packed full of RAM, Oprahâs got a surprise for her staffers, and you can now carry the soothing tones of Steve Jobs in your pocketâas if you didnât already. Itâs June 17, 2010 and here are the remainders.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:30 pm Qatar fund set to buy Canary Wharf -paperLONDON, June 18 (Reuters) - Qatar's sovereign wealth fund is set to take over Songbird Estates , owner and manager of much of Canary Wharf, as the Gulf state expands its growing London property portfolio,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:14 pm Tish Shute - Augmented Reality, ARWave, and the industry
Tish Shute is a visual effects designer, technologist, and social
ethnographer. She explores the world of augmented reality through her
blog, Ugotrade, featuring interviews
with many of the leading minds in the emerging AR industry. She
recently co-chaired the Augmented Reality Event
2010 in Santa Clara, Ca., recognized as the first major augmented
reality conference.
I recently asked her some questions about her background and interests in AR, the ARE2010 event, the Google Wave Federation protocol, and the possible future of augmented reality... Would you tell us a bit about your background? How did you become so interested in Augmented Reality? My interest in augmented reality began with doing visual effects for film and television. We used robotically controlled cameras, and models, to create augmentations for movies with multi-pass photography back then. There are several key people involved in the emerging industry of augmented reality today that have a background in special effects, flight simulation, theme park rides, and virtual reality. This work is part of the family of technologies that includes augmented reality and virtual reality. But Bruce Sterling nails it when he says,"VR is the gothic sister of AR." I have a lot of enthusiasm for the young AR industry, partly, because, I feel we have shrugged off virtual reality's fatal flaw - all that over the top expensive equipment we had to flog with it. My current interest is in social augmented experiences. This not a vision of a AR that requires AR goggles. Goggles may actually detract from the social augmented experience, by isolating the user. In his keynote at ARE2010, Bruce pointed out, "if you get the head mounted goggles, your gothic sister, virtual reality, is going to come out of her coffin."
Source: Boing Boing | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:11 pm Whipsaw's Creation, the Eton Scorpion Radio, Featured in the Pasadena Museum of California Art's New Exhibition California Design Biennial: Action/ReactionSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:10 pm AT&T announces the Samsung Captivate, better known as the Galaxy SSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  AT&T might finally have an Android phone worth buying. The carrier has been better known to rely mostly on the iPhone to sell its data plans to, but now, the Samsung Captivate is here to represent the rest of the mobile world. The Samsung Captivate’s specifications might sound a little familiar if you were to read them: 4-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 16GB of internal storage and Android 2.1 OS. Well that is because the Captivate IS the Galaxy S that we have been hearing about and was released this past week in Europe. While AT&T has been the first to announce it, rumors are still flying about that there will be multiple carriers for this phone. We have covered two of such rumors with Sprint and T-Mobile. But other sources such as Noah Kravitz from Phonedog are insisting that we should still expect the Galaxy to start being announced by other carriers.
Read [AT&T] Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:08 pm Wait, A Hollywood Exec Actually Making Sense With Regard To Movie Rentals And The Web?
If I’m correctly reading what Paramount Home Entertainment President Dennis Maguire told the LA Times, I don’t think so. After rival studios Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, and 20th Century Fox all signed deals with both Netflix and Redbox to put a 28-day window on new DVD releases before they could be available for rent, Paramount is going the other way. They have signed a deal with Redbox to make the films available to rent same day they come out for purchase — you know, the way things have always been done. Why is Paramount taking such an old school stance? Because they actually did some tests and realized these stupid windows will do nothing to help them sell more DVDs. Imagine that. And it’s not just that — giving new releases to services like Redbox have actually helped Paramount make more money. Here’s the two key quotes from Maguire:
Eureka! Of course, I’ve been saying both of those things for months after I first heard about the idiotic 28-day window. But a few of the Hollywood studios reached out to essentially say that I was wrong. Or to try and explain their rationale by suggesting this wasn’t just about trying to regain the DVD sales figures they’re bleeding. Now I can just direct them to Paramount which actually did a test (for almost a year), and came to the same conclusion. While Maguire doesn’t actually say the word “piracy,” we all know what he means by: “Those people who want to rent are going to figure out ways to rent.” At least part of that is addressing the “rent for free” crowd, as in, steal. Further, the idea that restricting movie rentals for 28 days would lead to more sales (what this is really all about) is asinine. I’ll repeat my stance: the vast majority of people haven’t stopped buying DVDs because you can rent them — they’ve stopped buying them because most are simply not worth owning. The new methods of distribution have simply highlighted that fact. But it’s too late to put the cat back in the bag now. Paramount, rather than attempting to drive backwards to take miles off the odometer, is actually thinking ahead. Why not strike a deal with Redbox that they will actually make them some money off of from new release films, rather than praying you can force people to start buying DVDs again? Ingenious. Nice work, Paramount. [image: Paramount Pictures]      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:56 pm Swype for Android and other top apps the week (Appolicious)Appolicious - With the World Cup in full swing and the world waiting anxiously for the new iPhone 4, many of the popular Android apps this week are centered around entertainment. Nothing wrong with that; it’s the middle of the summer and it’s time to kick back.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:53 pm iPhone 4 doubles your RAM (doubling of fun not confirmed)
The extra RAM also helps with all the usual things, which we need not mention here. So — that’s one more feature to add to the next iPad version checklist. Higher resolution, front-facing camera, and now, more RAM. Sounds like a holiday update to me!
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:51 pm Build Your Own Tablet for $400
Liquidware, an open source hardware company, is selling a $400 tablet starter kit. The DIY tablet targets developers who want to create a tablet of their dreams or write specialized software applications. “The Beagle tablet is a portable modular open source handheld computer,” says Justin Huynh, director of product development at Liquidware. “It’s all about customizability and embedded development.” The tablet kit contains a 4.3-inch OLED touchscreen that mounts directly on a BeagleBoard. The BeagleBoard is a single board computer from Texas Instruments that comes with a 1-GHz processor. There’s also a battery module and a 4-GB pre-formatted SD card to boot Angstrom Linux. But users can also run the Android operating system on it, says Huynh. “Everything is modular and snaps on or mounts directly on a board so you have a very compact tablet-like device,” he says. Since Apple iPad’s debut in April, tablets’ popularity has surged. Apple sold 2 million iPads in just 60 days of the product’s launch. That has left other companies scrambling to introduce tablets of their own. Both Samsung and Research In Motion have tablets in development. In the U.K., Dell has already introduced its first tablet called Streak, a 5-inch PSP-sized device that can also make phone calls. But those gadgets have little appeal for tinkerers, says Huynh. “With the iPad, you would have a hard time hacking it to read from a specialized sensor such as a temperature sensor or add your own custom hardware,” he says. “The Beagle tablet is all about innovation.” Since the Beagle tablet doesn’t have any storage beyond the SD card, it is extremely lightweight, weighing just about 8 ounces. Users can increase the size of the SD card or plug in an external hard drive or a solid-state disk through the on-board USB port. The battery life of the Beagle tablet can vary from three hours to six hours depending on the application, says Hyunh. The Beagle tablet is a lot of work since you would have to load everything from an OS to different applications. But once you get it going, it could be a better conversation starter than the iPad. See Also:
Photo: Liquidware 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:50 pm Build Your Own Tablet for $400Sure, won't be as sleek as the iPad but for DIY enthusiasts, open source hardware company Liquidware releases a tablet kit that comes with a 4.3-inch OLED screen and a BeagleBoard processor.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:50 pm Build Your Own Tablet for $400Sure, won't be as sleek as the iPad but for DIY enthusiasts, open source hardware company Liquidware releases a tablet kit that comes with a 4.3-inch OLED screen and a BeagleBoard processor.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:50 pm Harry Reid Pushes Nevada As "Saudi Arabia of Geothermal Energy"An anonymous reader writes "Of all the 'mainstream' forms of renewable energy, it seems that geothermal power is always left in the shadows compared to solar and wind power. However, that looks set to change with news that the US Department of Energy will fund geothermal projects in northwestern Nevada and southeast Oregon. With funds from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the DOE has stated a 'conditional commitment' to provide a partial guarantee for a rumored $98.5 million loan to the Nevada Geothermal Power Company (NGP). According to US Senator Harry Reid, 'Northern Nevada is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal energy.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:46 pm In Walked Blog: WordPress Hits 3.0 With 'Thelonious'The open source blogging platform WordPress has received an update. Version 3.0, nicknamed Thelonious, has a number of new features sure to please site administrators as well as regular bloggers.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:45 pm Western Governors University Enlists Students to Create TV CommercialSource: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:43 pm Verizon's Droid X: Everything There Is To Know - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:37 pm Immortal jellyfish Photo from Peter Schuchert's incredible Hydrozoa Directory The Turritopsis nutricula is known as the "immortal jellyfish" because even once sexually mature, it can revert back to its polypoid stage, its first life stage. And then rinse and repeat. Again and again. From Mother Nature Network: Because they are able to bypass death, the number of individuals is spiking. They're now found in oceans around the globe rather than just in their native Caribbean waters. "We are looking at a worldwide silent invasion," says Dr. Maria Miglietta of the Smithsonian Tropical Marine Institute."The world's only immortal animal" (Thanks, Andrea Mangini!) Source: Boing Boing | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:36 pm Camcorder Lets You Shoot Home Videos in 3-DA 3-D camcorder will now set you back just $600. Hammacher Schlemmer has started selling what it claims is the first 3-D video-recording device for home users.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:30 pm Camcorder Lets You Shoot Home Videos in 3-DA 3-D camcorder will now set you back just $600. Hammacher Schlemmer has started selling what it claims is the first 3-D video-recording device for home users.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:30 pm Review: Wicked Weaponry Trumps Characters in 'Jonah Hex' Ghost WesternThe latest comics-inspired movie dangles plenty of action and eye candy but fails to deliver the cinematic goods when it comes to wit, humor and character development. It's an uneven adaptation with quality actors turning in surprising lackluster performances.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:30 pm Rdio Fairly Rocks (The Complete Review)
Earlier this month, the founders of Skype (and Joost and Kazaa) soft-launched their latest startup, an online music subscription and download service called Rdio. It is still invite-only, but I’ve been testing it out for the last few days. My initial take: Until Apple launches iTunes as a jukebox in the cloud, it could learn a few things from Rdio. While the new music streaming and download service has many shortcomings, it points to how digital music should be consumed on the Web and mobile devices. Rdio is literally an online jukebox with 5 million songs which you can stream in full. It competes with Rhapsody and Spotify (which is not yet launched in the U.S.). You pay $5 a month for Web-only access, and $10 a month to access the service on a mobile phone through Android, Blackberry, or iPhone apps. Curiously, Apple won’t approve the latest update to the iPhone app. Finally, there is a small desktop AIR app that lets you go through your songs and sync to iTunes. One of the first things you do when you sign up for Rdio is match up your iTunes song library to the service, where it is stored in your collection. All of the songs which Rdio can match are available in your collection for streaming. One thing Rdio has over the original Joost video service at launch is that it is coming out of the gate with great licensing deals. I’d say it matched between 70 and 80 percent of my iTunes songs. All the major label artists are there, but it is missing some key indie bands like The Pixies and Vampire Weekend. Over time, these gaps should disappear.
Any album or song on Rdio can also be added to your Collection, which has a handy bubble visualization showing the artists you play the most as the biggest bubbles. There is a list view as well. The Collection serves as a way to bookmark the songs you own or like the most. But there are other ways to find and organize songs, including search, album charts, recommendations, and playlists. Rdio has a social layer built into every part of the service. Which brings us to the other thing you do immediately when you sign up: find friends and people to follow. The reason you want to jump-start your collection with what is already in your iTunes (or Windows Media Player) library is so that other people can see what kind of music you listen to.
It is possible to find your Twitter or Facebook friends who are also on Rdio and follow them for starters (warning: you may be horrified at what your Internet friends actually listen to). You can create your own playlists or listen to other people’s playlists. Each song and album also has stats showing how many times it’s been played, as well as the number of listeners, reviews, collections, and playlists it is associated with. If you click on a stat, it shows you the underlying people, playlists, or collections, which is another way to find people to follow or playlists to subscribe to.
Once you start following people that helps you find new music. The home page of Rdio highlights albums in heavy rotation among your music network (so don’t follow someone with crap taste in music just because you are Twitter buddies). You can also toggle to see just the music you’ve been playing a lot recently, or the songs popular across all of Rdio. Below the heavy rotation is the recent activity stream from you and your network on Rdio—songs played, added to collections, playlists created, etc. It is basically organized as a music stream. But unlike the text-only streams on Twitter, Rdio uses the album covers to make browsing the stream a more visual experience. Of course, when you click on an album cover, you get to listen to the stream as well. Rdio also uses your collection and listening history to recommend new music to you based on what other people with similar music taste seem to like. For each recommendation, Rdio will tell you the artist in your collection or listening history it matches.
As I mentioned, Rdio isn’t perfect. The navigation takes some getting used to. For one thing, there is no easy way to get back to the main home page. I found myself resorting to clicking on the Rdio logo at the top left for lack of a home button. From the homepage dashboard there are quick links to your collection, playlists, people you follow, and reviews (if you are into that). There are also links to your “queue” (which is a less formal type of playlist where you can just dump songs and albums you want to play continuously). The fact that there is both a queue and playlists seems redundant. That is, until you launch the desktop AIR app. All it does is play songs from your queue and ones you’ve purchased (MP3 downloads cost $0.99 to $1.29). It can’t access your playlists, search, or any of the social features. The iPhone app is a more fully featured. It’s got your collection (which overlaps with the songs in your iPod app), playlists, search, and iTunes syncing. The social features are also missing, but perhaps that is what is in the yet-to-be-approved update. The idea of being able to choose from 5 million songs to stream to a device in your pocket is a powerful one. My jukebox in the sky should be accessible anywhere I am. But would I pay $10 a month for that? I don’t know. That is 12 albums a year, and I don’t buy that many albums anymore. But I would pay $5 a month for the Web-only version. That seems to me to be the right price point. The way I would price it is if a Web-only subscriber ends up buying more than six albums a year on top of that Rdio should upgrade them for free to the mobile access plan. After all, the point of having so many songs at your fingertips with social recommendations built into the service is so that it is easier to discover great music. If Rdio helps me discover new songs I love with little or no effort, I would happily pay extra to own them as downloads. Ultimately, the music industry needs to look at free or low-cost streaming services as a discovery mechanism which leads to album and ticket sales. Rdio is a good first step in that direction.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:22 pm Ranking Soccer Players By Following the Bouncing Ballsciencehabit excerpts from an interesting report on statistics for soccer, in the stats-obsessed world of sports: "Only a handful of soccer ranking systems exist, most of which rely on limited information: the number of goals scored in a match, the number of goals assisted, and some indices of a match's difficulty and importance. ... So researchers turned to an unlikely source: social networks. Applying the kinds of mathematical techniques used to map Facebook friends and other networks, the team created software that can trace the ball's flow from player to player. As the program follows the ball, it assigns points for precise passing and for passes that ultimately lead to a shot at the goal. Whether the shot succeeds doesn't matter. Only the ball's flow toward the goal and each player's role in getting it there factors into the program's point system, which then calculates a skill index for each team and player."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:22 pm 4 Questions If Nintendo's 3DS Allows Game Installs (PC World)PC World - It sounds like Nintendo's new 3DS handheld will offer optional software installs, a feature available for some time on Sony's PSP, but unavailable to DS owners.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:19 pm Google Urged To Let Personal Data Fade Awayjee4all writes with this excerpt from E-week: "Researchers say personal information should 'degrade' — becoming less specific over time — to protect users' privacy. Rather than amassing personal data and holding on to it as long as legally possible, companies such as Google should allow the data to degrade over time, according to researchers. In an interview with the BBC this week, Dutch researcher Harold van Heerde discussed his work on the idea of allowing data to becomes less specific over time. Letting the specifics gradually disappear could protect consumer privacy while also meeting the needs of service providers, he said."
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Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:59 pm Droid X finds itself on Verizon Wireless websiteSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile
We all knew it was coming. With the release of the Motorola Droid X coming next week, Verizon has decided to give the new superphone a page of its own. Other than the sounds of heavy machinery and epic animations, there is nothing but a picture of a phone, and some of its specs surrounding it. And of course, the taunting “Coming Soon” text that makes even the least of geeks a little anxious to see it in person. If you are interested in purchasing the new smartphone you can sign up for email updates. You can check out the Droid X page here.
Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:57 pm State Legislators Concerned by FCC's New Internet Regulation StrategyWASHINGTON, June 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's largest non-partisan individual member organization of state legislators, expresses serious concerns over new federal bureaucratic plans to regulate Internet space.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:57 pm May The Force–And Safety Goggles–Be With You [Voices]By Miguel Gonzalez Jr., Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Since Luke Skywalker first picked up a light saber in 1977, we’ve dreamed of wielding the laser sword made famous in the “Star Wars” movies–“an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.” And while the technology isn’t quite there yet, we’re getting closer. For around $200, Shanghai-based WickedLasers.com will ship you its latest laser device, known as the Spyder III Pro Arctic and looking suspiciously like the beloved science-fiction weapon. Using a blue-laser diode taken from a powerful film projector, the Spyder III emits a 445-nanometer wavelength beam of up to one watt in power. Or, as the WickedLasers site explains: “Don’t let the Arctic name fool you, this laser possesses the most burning capabilities of any portable laser in existence. That’s why it’s also the most dangerous laser ever created.” With Father’s Day right around the corner, the “most dangerous laser ever created” may sound like the perfect gift for the supervillain who has everything (though more powerful lasers exist for industrial and research purposes). But remember that every young Jedi must endure an exhaustive training montage sequence before going to town on his enemies with a light saber. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:45 pm iPhone 4 Has More RAM Than iPad
The iPhone 4 is an even bigger upgrade than you thought. When Steve Jobs introduces new iPhones, he skips talking about memory capacity and processor speeds: The idea is that this is an automatic computer that just works. But you’d think he would’ve at least bragged that the iPhone 4 has significantly more memory than previous iPhones and even the iPad. Our friend Arnold Kim of MacRumors has verified that the iPhone 4 contains 512 MB of RAM, up from 256 MB in the current iPhone 3GS and the iPad. It turns out that Apple mentioned this during a session with developers at last week’s Worldwide Developers Conference. The session (#147) is downloadable for free for registered Apple developers. 512 MB of RAM would explain why the new iMovie app only works on the iPhone 4. It would also suggest that multitasking (coming with iOS 4) and general usability will be much smoother on an iPhone 4 compared to Apple’s other mobile offerings. So let’s run down the list: a memory increase, the higher-resolution (960-by-640-pixel) display, a slimmer profile, a front-facing video camera, a 5-megapixel camera and 802.11N Wi-Fi. These are all improvements that make buying a current iPhone 3GS, even at its discounted rate, look like a sucker’s deal. No wonder Apple received 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders on day one. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:44 pm Renaissance Learning, Inc. to Report Second Quarter 2010 Financial Results on July 19, 2010WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wis., June 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Renaissance Learning(TM), Inc., (Nasdaq: RLRN), a leading provider of technology to support personalized practice, differentiated instruction, and progress monitoring in reading, math, and writing for pre-K-12 schools and districts, today announced plans to release second quarter 2010 financial results on Monday, July 19, 2010 at 4:00 p.m.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:40 pm Alliance for Digital Equality Statement on Federal Communications Commission Announcement of NOI on the Reclassification of BroadbandATLANTA, June 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Julius H.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:31 pm 100 Million iPhone Owners by End of 2011? Maybe Once the Pre-Order Issues Are Sorted Out. [Digital Daily]
Adding new purchases to that, Huberty figures Apple (AAPL) will sell at least 42 million iPhones in calendar year 2010, assuming a 30 percent upgrade rate for existing customers. If the rate hits 50 percent, sales will grow to 48 million. In 2011, Huberty expects another 19 million upgrades. Result: “We see the iPhone installed base rising from approximately 30M subscribers at the end of 2009 to over 100M by the end of 2011,” says Huberty. “We believe there are several key drivers of iPhone upgrades including: 1) Redesigned hardware with many new important features, 2) ‘Stickiness’ of the installed base due to App store and iTunes, 3) 57% of U.S. installed base is not fully upgradeable to iOS4 (i.e. no multitasking), 4) Early upgrade incentives from AT&T and 5) Maturation of the installed base. We would also point to AT&T’s introduction of tiered data pricing (that potentially reduces iPhone total cost of ownership by 20%+) as a possible driver of the strong initial pre-order activity.” Source: All Things Digital | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:30 pm In The Midst Of Microsoft’s Office 2010 Launch, Google Upgrades Sharing For Docs
Google is now giving users more clear cut options for sharing documents: private; anyone with a link; or public on the web. All documents start out as private, with the creator as the sole administrator. You can then share your document by setting it as “Anyone with the link,” which allows anyone who knows the web address or URL of that doc to view it. You can set your document as ‘public on the web,’ which allows anyone to find the document on the web. Google says that Public docs are automatically indexed by search engines so they may appear in search results. Google is also enhancing the visibility options for docs, making it fairly clear to the administrator which document is set to private, semi-private or public. The options now appear next to every doc title and in the docs list. You can also see the full list of editors and viewers by clicking on the ‘visibility option’ next to the doc’s title or on the Share button. And Google has improved the sharing interface and allows you to reset any link you’ve shared, so that you can move a document back to private even if you’ve shared the document. It’s probably wise that Google has improved its sharing options, considering that Microsoft is now attacking Google in the cloud with the web-version of Office 2010. It should be interesting to see if the use of Word will gain traction in the cloud as Office 2010 is rolled out more widely.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:26 pm Will tablets surpass netbooks in two years? (Christopher Null)Christopher Null - The tablet revolution is just getting underway — Forrester Research estimates that 6 percent of computer sales this year will be in the tablet format — but watch out: By 2012, the firm figures, tablets will be outselling netbooks/mini-PCs, gobbling up 18 percent of the market.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:16 pm MySpace Co-President Jason Hirschhorn Leaves [MediaMemo]
TechCrunch reported the move this afternoon, and I’ve confirmed it with my own sources, who tell me Hirschhorn does not have a new job lined up. Here’s Hirschhorn’s version of the announcement, via Twitter:
And here’s a statement from Jon Miller, the News Corp. (NWS) exec tasked with turning around the once-dominant site:
And finally, HIrschhorn’s goodbye note to his staff:
Hirschhorn’s departure isn’t a total shock: It’s hard to find an example of any company, anywhere, that has really worked with more than one person in charge. And Hirschhorn always seemed like an uneasy fit at MySpace, though his mood seemed to improve when former boss Owen Van Natta was moved out earlier this year. I’m told that he’s leaving on much more amicable terms than Van Natta and may end up working with Miller on some other News Corp. digital projects. Still, despite Hirschhorn and Miller’s sunny description of MySpace, it is very much a troubled, money-losing asset. Former rival Facebook eclipsed it in audience, dollars and mojo long ago. And an ad deal with Google (GOOG), which generated the bulk of its revenue for years, is expiring very soon. The most charitable description of MySpace would be a “work in progress,” which is the phrase News Corp. COO Chase Carey likes to use, over and over. The good news for Hirschhorn’s former co-worker Jones: If he can show any positive result at all, the glory will be all his. Here’s a March interview Kara Swisher conducted with two men, in which they explain that things aren’t as bad as they seem: [ See post to watch video ] Source: All Things Digital | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:15 pm Deformable Liquid Mirrors For Adaptive Opticseldavojohn writes "Want to make a great concave mirror for your telescope? Put a drop of mercury in a bowl and spin the bowl. The mercury will spread out to a concave reflective surface smoother than anything we can make with plain old glass right now. The key problem in this situation is that the bowl will always have to point straight up. MIT's Technology Review is analyzing a team's success in combating problems with bringing liquid mirrors into the practical applications of astronomy. To fight the gravity requirement, the team used a ferromagnetic liquid coated with a metal-like film and very strong magnetic fields to distort the surface of that liquid as they needed. But this introduces new non-linear problems of control when trying to sync up several of these mirrors similar to how traditional glass telescopes use multiple hexagonal mirrors mounted on actuators. The team has fought past so many of these problems plaguing liquid mirrors that they produced a proof of concept liquid mirror just five centimeters across with 91 actuators cycling at one kilohertz and the ability to linearize the response of the liquid. And with that, liquid mirrors take a giant leap closer to practicality."
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Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:12 pm Thoughts on augmented realities
CC-licensed photo from robinmochi's Flickr stream
Augmented Reality is definitely trending up the Hype Cycle in a big way. The past year has seen explosive growth in this nascent field buoyed by the rise of gps-enabled, cloud-aware smart phones. The marketing hype has, of course, been even more resounding, like a wailing chorus of virtual vuvuzelas trumpeting the next great wave of advertising (I couldn't resist). But beneath the hype and the fluff is a thriving community of innovators & designers working to weave this technology into the very fabric of our lives. As a quick review, augmented reality is a context-aware UI layer rendered over a camera stream or other transparent interface. This is typically mediated by geo-location, orientation, physical markers (those funky UPC-like symbols), and visual recognition. In this manner AR is able to reveal visually the hidden data shadow of our world, like showing you the nearest coffee shops or details about the air quality in your city. The mobile device gets info about where you are and what direction you're facing, goes to the cloud to look up data appropriate for the vicinity, then renders it over the camera stream in a way that updates as you move. A whole industry has been born around this premise, dragging in images, annotations, and data to overlay on the camera stream of our mobiles. But the really interesting stuff is yet to come. As standardization issues, hardware issues, and numerous UI design challenges sort out in the next couple of years, concurrent with the development of AR-specific devices, our interaction with visualized data will become more and more specialized and appropriate to our individual needs. The clutter of markups that currently plagues many AR apps will be attenuated by algorithms that know our interests and affinities and block out the elements we wish to avoid. Just like Amazon makes recommendations based on your click & purchase history, AR apps will screen out the noise and provide us only with the data we need. When paired with the massive deployment of embedded sensors AR becomes a lightweight visualization layer for interfacing with the instrumented world. Civic workers could see underground cables and pipelines. Homeowners could see real-time energy & network use. Police and early responders could post visual warnings cordoning streets and alerting to hazards. Ecologists could determine water & air quality at-a-glance. Ecosystems begin to have a voice, communicating soil contamination to observers. Public facilities like park benches, utility poles, and street signs could hold annotations & links created by community members, made public or gated by in-group permissions. Geographic social annotations could mark up our cities with tags and content. Virtual worlds might break out of the box and overlay on the physical plane. The environment suddenly becomes much richer - and potentially much nosier - with a flood of information. Augmented reality promises to exteriorize the cloud, drawing it out across the world canvas and making visible our social fabric. But it doesn't promise to mediate or regulate that content. We risk myopia, disconnection, visual occlusion, fragmented realities, reinforced tribalism. Consider the seemingly-inevitable future where eyewear mediates a cloud-aware augmented interface with the world. Perhaps you opt to obscure ethnicities or anyone not connected to the net. Ghettos look much nicer when painted over with high-res colors and dancing sprites. The world you experience is really only shared by the other people running your default layer set. Maybe you see paycheck information or health records or political affinities of those you pass, measuring up the once-private lives of your community. Perhaps the most popular layers are hacked to display swastikas or porn or spam swarms or simply to black out your view in the middle of the morning commute. How does the layered world enable crime, gang affinities, and political or religious extremism? What inevitable inequities might arise between those able to purchase such access and those condemned to the dark poverty of quiet disconnection? Do the wealthy become even more enhanced & capable compared to the underclass? And what are the risks of getting lost in the virtual glitz? Are there considerations for how these augmented realities will bring us closer to the natural world in which we're embedded? And just what is "real" or "natural" anymore? As connected social computing devices get smaller & smaller and nearer & nearer to us, the weight of the cloud gets lighter. We carry around immense computational power and almost immediate access to the global repository of information. The mobile phone will eventually pair with head's-up eyewear displays just as more and more people avoid catastrophic disease & injury through the aid of embedded brain-computer interfaces. As computation moves next to and into our bodies, the cloud is breaking out of the screen and washing onto our world. We grow more augmented with computation while our environment is getting smarter and more aware and increasingly able to communicate with us. It may very well be that in 5, 10, 20 years the world is a much more visual, dynamic, and communicative place than we can even imagine.
For more of my explorations of this subject check out my articles
Breaking
Open the Cloud: Heads in an Augmented World and Cognition & Computation: Augmented Reality Meets Brain-Computer Interface. Micromem Technologies Inc. Interim Filings and Completion of Private PlacementsTORONTO, June 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Micromem Technologies Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm Celestica recognizes suppliers with its 2009 Total Cost of Ownership Supplier AwardsTORONTO, June 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Celestica Inc. (NYSE, TSX: CLS), a global leader in the delivery of end-to-end product lifecycle solutions, today announced the winners of its 2009 Total Cost of Ownership (TCOOTM) Supplier Awards.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:00 pm WordPress 3.0 Blogging Software Released (PC World)PC World - A new version of the popular open-source blogging software WordPress has been posted, the cadre of volunteers behind the software announced on Thursday.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:50 pm Nokia E73 Mode now available with T-Mobile, priced at $69.99 on-contractSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  T-Mobile has recently unveiled the Nokia E73 Mode. The E73 Mode offers features such as 2.4 inch QVGA display at 320 x 240, full hardware QWERTY keyboard, 3G, Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, a 3.5mm headphone jack and 5 megapixel camera with flash, digital zoom and video recording. Plus, you will also find Ovi Maps which comes touting free turn-by-turn directions. In short, buy a phone and get a GPS. In terms of pricing, expect to pay $69.99 on a two-year agreement. Though, its worth mentioning that the $69.99 price comes AFTER a $50 mail-in-rebate, which means you need to be prepared to shell out $119.99 at the time of purchase. Otherwise, you can also go contract free for $299.99 Finally, the Nokia E73 Mode is currently available. Product [T-Mobile] Via [Twitter @TMobile_USA]
Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:48 pm Ancient Egypt's Pharaohs Dated Using PlantsArchaeologists finally have a clear timeline for the ruling dynasties of ancient Egypt thanks to carbon dating.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:45 pm QOTD: But There Will Be in November When Kinect Officially Goes on Sale … [Digital Daily]QOTD: But There Will Be in November When Kinect Officially Goes on Sale … [Digital Daily]
Source: All Things Digital | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm FCC Vote Marks Effort To Take Greater Control of the WebGovTechGuy writes "The FCC voted today to open an inquiry into how the broadband industry is regulated, the first step in a controversial attempt to assert greater regulatory control over Internet service providers. In a 3-2 vote the Democratic members of the Commission voted to move forward with the FCC's proposal to reclassify broadband as a telecom service, increasing the regulation it is subject to. The move also has large implications for net neutrality, which FCC Commissioner Julius Genachowski has made a focus under his watch."
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Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:30 pm Samsung Android Phone Captivates AT&T
The phone is part of Samsung’s Galaxy S family of devices, and has an OLED screen, 1 GHz Samsung Hummingbird processor and a 5-megapixel camera with 720p video recording capability. The device also has a feature called Samsung Social hub that integrates the user’s social networking services, messages, email, calendars and contacts, similar to what Motorola does with its MotoBlur user interface. This will be AT&T’s fifth Android phone and fulfills the promise that the company made at the beginning of the year to have at least five Android devices on its network in 2010. So far, Motorola’s Backflip and an unsubsidized version of Google’s Nexus One are available on AT&T. Earlier this week, AT&T announced the HTC Aria, a mid-range Android smartphone. The wireless carrier has said earlier it also plans to offer Dell’s first smartphone, Aero, this summer. The Captivate is the first Android smartphone from Samsung on AT&T’s network. The phone has an MP3 player and offers up to 32 GB of storage for music and video. AT&T hasn’t disclosed pricing or shipping date for the device. See Also:
Photo: Samsung Captivate/AT&T 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:28 pm Scientist Predicts Human Extinction In 100 YearsA professor of microbiology believes that humans will be wiped out in a few decades.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:25 pm MySpace Co-President Jason Hirschhorn Out
Well, you know what they say about assumptions. Tomorrow MySpace will announce the departure of Jason Hirschhorn, we’ve heard from multiple sources inside and outside of MySpace. And we’ve also heard that Jones will be named CEO sometime soon, although likely not tomorrow. The two were promoted to co-presidents in February when previous CEO Owen Van Natta was fired. Van Natta held the CEO spot for less than a year – he was hired to replace founding CEO Chris DeWolfe in April 2009. Yes, it’s been musical chairs at MySpace. Or, a less charitable description: rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The company hasn’t just lost the cultural significance of being the top social network – a title they lost to Facebook long ago. They are also losing page views and users at a rapid clip. MySpace Music is hemorrhaging money to the labels. And their lucrative search deal with Google is ending in two weeks, and the company has yet to announce how they’ll replace that revenue. For all those reasons and more, I’ve argued passionately that MySpace needs to be spun off into a private company. They can’t please News Corp. and find a way to win with users at the same time. Publicly Jones says he disagrees. Who knows what he thinks privately. Update: Statement by Jon Miller, Digital Chief for News Corp.:
     
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:21 pm Meijer’s Gaming Week deals, giveawayFROM GAMERTELL - Throughout E3 2010 week (June 14-18, 2010), Meijer is offering deals on select games, game console purchases and a game console giveaway. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:10 pm BP's Hayward Vows To Make Things RightBP boss Tony Hayward said on Thursday that the British energy giant would repair the economic and environmental devastation that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has caused. "I know that only actions and results, not mere words ultimately can give you the confidence you seek.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 2:05 pm Scientist Uses Geological Observatories To Monitor The Health Of SoilsFindings released during the annual Goldschmidt Conference at the University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleHumans need plants to survive, and plants need soil.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:51 pm WordPress 3.0 Is Now Available
Among the features listed in the official blog post: a default theme called Twenty Ten (the old default was looking quite dated), a lighter interface, and 1,217 bug fixes. Theming has gotten quite a bit of attention, with APIs that make it easier for theme designers to allow for customized menus, post types, headings, backgrounds, and more. Another big change is the fusing of WordPress Multi User (MU) and the core WordPress install. WordPress MU is a fork of WordPress that allows for one install to administer multiple (even millions) of blogs, but until now it was separate from ‘regular’ WordPress. Now you’ll get the functionality of both from the same install. One other interesting point: the WordPress blog notes that the team is going to “take a release cycle off” to focus on the things “around WordPress” as opposed to the platform itself. From the post:
Here’s a video showcasing some of 3.0′s new features: For a look at how WordPress has evolved, check out our post detailing WordPress 2.0, which we covered back in December 2005. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:49 pm Storing Carbon Dioxide Deep Underground In Rock FormFindings released during the annual Goldschmidt Conference at the University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleAs carbon dioxide continues to burgeon in the atmosphere causing the Earth's climate to warm, scientists are trying to find ways to remove the excess gas from the atmosphere and store it where it can cause no trouble.Sigurdur Gislason of the University of Iceland has been studying the possibility of sequestration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in basalt and presented his findings today to several thousand geochemists from around the world at the Goldschmidt Conference hosted by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.Carbon sequestration is currently the most promising way to reduce greenhouse gases.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:44 pm Bluecherry Releases GPL'd MPEG-4 Driverazop writes "Today Bluecherry released a GPL'd driver for its multiple-input MPEG-4 hardware compression cards. The driver supports audio and video capture from 4-, 8-, and 16-channel single-card encoders using the Video4Linux and ALSA APIs. More information about the driver and its features can be found on Bluecherry's development blog and on Ben Collins' personal blog. Bluecherry is the first Linux software company to release a complete driver based on Linux kernel APIs (Video4Linux and ALSA) for multiple-input hardware-compressed MPEG-4 capture cards under the GPL. The cards are designed for security applications (digital video recording), but other applications could potentially make use of the compressed streams and Video4Linux API integration. An H.264 version is 'in the works.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:43 pm Using Bacteria In Oil Wells To Convert Oil To Natural GasFindings released during the annual Goldschmidt Conference at the University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleSome bacteria destroy oil.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:41 pm Oxygen Cutoff Prior to Freezing Enhances SurvivalWhen animals are severely deprived of oxygen prior to exposure to near-freezing temperatures, they can enter a state of suspended animation.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:33 pm iPhone 4 + Glitchy Launch = Huge Demand Anyway
Apple has taken orders for more than half a million next-gen iPhones despite numerous website errors and two AT&T security glitches exposing customers’ personal data. Now that’s impressive. Many customers itching for an iPhone 4 this week reported server failures when they attempted to pre-order the handset. In some instances, customers were even erroneously logged into other people’s accounts through AT&T’s website. Acknowledging the security glitch, AT&T temporarily suspended iPhone 4 preorders to resolve the problem. The AT&T website error was the second embarrassing security snafu for the telecom company in a week. After the other one, the FBI launched an investigation into a security hole that exposed personal data on more than 100,000 3G iPad owners. Hackers revealed the exploit in an exclusive story reported by Gawker. Still, despite recurring failures and frustrations, Apple and AT&T received 600,000 pre-orders of the iPhone 4, anyway. For context, Apple needed a month to sell 1 million units of its other flagship product, the iPad. “It’s clear there’s extremely strong demand for this phone, and it’s hard to even think of another phone that was introduced with so many pre-orders,” said Michael Gartenberg, a partner of Altimeter. “This was from consumers who have never seen or touched the device — people who are willing to buy it essentially sight unseen.” “That means there’s a tremendous trust in Apple and Apple products that consumers have, which competitors don’t have and need to figure out how to get,” he added. In addition to the iPhone 4’s new features — a higher-resolution display, a video-conferencing camera and a brandnew glass form factor — it was probably the sensational story behind leaking the iPhone 4 that helped drive its popularity, Gartenberg said. Apple introduced the iPhone in 2007, and despite the handset’s early imperfections, it has snowballed into a phenomenal success that many tech companies are attempting to replicate. Google’s Android platform is Apple’s fiercest competitor: 100,000 Android devices are being activated each day, according to Google. Yet the determination seen among iPhone fanatics remains unparalleled even by Google. “Stayed up past midnight to order on Apple.com,” iPhone customer Scott Schwartz said in Wired.com’s forums. “FAIL. Tried to call the sales number. Dropped calls. (Ironic, since I was calling with iPhone/AT&T). Too many calls, got hung up on. FAIL. Tried at 20-minute intervals for hours in the morning at AT&T and Apple. FAIL. FAIL. Heard about Apple Store App. Downloaded it. Used it. Reserved phone in 60 seconds. WIN. I think this deployment deserves a big banner on a carrier that says ‘Mission Accomplished.’” “After four hours of attempts to use both the Apple and AT&T websites I was unable to pre-order my handsets,” wrote Wired.com reader Ryan Lieber in an e-mail, who said he eventually drove to an AT&T store multiple times to preorder the iPhone 4. “We got back to the store around 6:45. The system goes down right in front of us. We wait for 90 minutes at the counter just to swipe the credit card. But it’s done.” Apple and AT&T said iPhone 4 pre-orders exceeded their expectations: Pre-order sales were 10 times higher than the first day of pre-orders for the third-generation iPhone. It’s believable that they couldn’t anticipate such a demand. But let’s not forget that this is the fourth iPhone, and previous iPhone launches were botched by Apple and AT&T as well, with issues such as activation failures and a shoddy pre-order system. Clearly, none of these headaches can take away from the shiny allure of Apple’s iPhone. Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:32 pm iPhone 4 + Glitchy Launch = Huge Demand AnywayDespite a flurry of server errors and security screw-ups, 600,000 eager customers pre-order the iPhone 4, anyway.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:30 pm AT&T cost Apple 1 million iPhone 4s in lost sales?Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile, Features
Every timed out connection, every 404 error, every “site down for maintenance” cost Apple and AT&T money, as customers moved in to snap up the latest addition the uber-successful iPhone line. According to Apple, over 600,000 iPhone 4s were sold to the patient, early or just plain lucky customers. If the pre-sale had not been botched, how many more iPhone 4s would have sold? It’s a serious question and one we bet Apple is asking. Looking at the chart above, note that some figures are for opening weekend and some are pre sales, as they were for the iPhone 4 so it’s not all immediately comparable. From personal experience, I can tell you I and a bunch in my social circle, skipped the 3GS version as it just seemed a superfluous upgrade. iPhone 4 changed that for me, and apparently a bunch of other folks. AT&T says 13 million customers came ‘a knocking, checking their upgrade options. It is not clear if that’s unique or maybe 600,000 doing multiple attempts? AT&T said, “In addition to unprecedented pre-order sales, yesterday there were more than 13 million visits to AT&T’s website where customers can check to see if they are eligible to upgrade to a new phone; that number is about 3-times higher than the previous record for eligibility upgrade checks in one day.” Parsing that quote out, the seem to say 13 million folks checked their eligibility but could be read as the site att.com had 13 million visits. Go figure. 600,000 is a very small fraction of 13 million. If you take a generic (and probably flawed) conversion rate for electronics to be 1.2%, that’s 1.5 million iPhone 4 sold with the process working like magic. Apple and AT&T scored less than half that. That says, opening weekend (assuming there is stock) could sell another million iPhone 4s to loyal fans. However, if the pre-sale debacle was the last straw for some AT&T customers, the new Droid could look a lot more appetizing if only to escape to a competing network. What do you think? Did AT&T cost Apple a bundle of iPhones or is this on Apple too? Let us know in the comments. Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:21 pm HTC threatens handset hackers with legal action for distributing ROMs
Leaks happen — especially in the mobile world. There are just too many people involved in the process of creating a mobile device to keep things under wraps. Take any given new phone’s OS installation package (known as its “ROM”), for example; when something is as easily copied and distributed as any other piece of software, it’s bound to find its way out eventually. When these ROMs pop up on developer/hacker forums, it’s generally no big deal — in most cases, the manufacturer doesn’t notice or, if they do, don’t bother to do anything about it. Once someone makes an effort to gather up all these ROMs and distribute them from one unified outlet, however, things get hairy. Such is the case for the popular HTC ROM distribution site Shipped-ROMs, who allegedly just received a Cease & Desist order straight from the desk of HTC’s Legal Counsel.
According to HTC, Shipped-ROMs is stepping out of line by “illegal copying … HTC¡¦s original art work.” Do they use “art work” literally (as in the visuals)? Or are they ambiguously using the term to classify all of their code and other work as art? Who knows. One way or another, HTC is pissed. If nothing else, you’ve got to praise HTC for their speed: the site, operated by the increasingly well-known hardware hacker Conflipper, is only about a month old. More impressive than HTC’s speed, however, is the site’s: in that month, they’ve managed to accumulate ROMs for just about every HTC handset imaginable, from antiques like the MDA Compact to the just-friggin’-lanched HTC Aria. So, who does one root for? On one hand, these ROMs allow the hacking community to “cook” up their own custom installs for the hardcore crowd, often unlocking or adding in features that the manufacturer didn’t — and rarely, if ever, do these leaks result in anything malicious trickling down to the end user. On the other, these ROMs are jam-packed with HTC’s intellectual property, which they’ve got some duty to protect. In the end, I’ll always be rooting for the little guy. My time with a number of HTC devices has been vastly improved by the efforts of the faceless geniuses in the hacking community. If HTC decides to make a misguided effort to stop the hacking community that satiates their poweruser’s thirsts, so be it — but this is the wrong way to go about it. C&D’ing one site won’t do a damn thing; these ROMs will be up on another site (or a torrent tracker, or any one of a bajillion other distribution methods) in the blink of an eye. It’s the classic Napster problem; in making a fuss about these ROMs, you’ve just alerted a bunch of people to their existence. Oh well. The full text of the C&D can be read at Shipped-Roms. Conflipper says he’ll “do what he can” to keep the site online, but things aren’t looking too good.
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:14 pm Camcorder Lets You Shoot Home Videos in 3-D
Hammacher Schlemmer has started selling what it claims is the first camcorder to shoot 3-D video and let users see the resulting content on the device’s screen, without the need for any special glasses. With help from a 4-GB SD card, the $600 camcorder can store up to four hours of video or 2,000 3-D still images. Don’t expect high-quality video though. The camcorder’s two lenses have to work with a 3-megapixel image sensor. The videos are recorded in 640 x 480 pixel resolution as AVI files. The camcorder can also take standard 2-D movies and pictures. With the success of films such as Avatar and Up, the 3-D format has made a big comeback this year. Major TV makers including Sony, Panasonic and Mitsubishi are offering large-screen 3-D TVs, even as broadcasters such as ESPN and Discovery prepare 3-D programming. But it’s amateur content that could be the real catalyst for 3-D’s popularity. Already, some DIYers are rigging cameras and using software tricks to produce 3-D short films, postcards and home videos. Maker Faire had a section this year showcasing 3-D photographs and video from amateurs and professionals. YouTube started offering a 3-D display option for videos on the site last July. To create a 3-D image, you need to connect two cameras together, so each shoots the same scene from a slightly different perspective. Software helps synchronize the two sets of images. With some help from 3-D glasses, the brain can be tricked into perceiving depth in these images. There are also ways to offer 3-D–capable small screens that don’t require viewing glasses. So far, DIYers have hooked together standard Canon cameras, iPod Nanos and Flip camcorders to create a home-brewed 3-D camera. Consumer-electronics companies are now trying to step in to offer off-the-shelf gadgets. Last year, Fuji released the first 3-D point-and-shoot digital camera, a $600 gadget that, for now, is largely available only in Japan. Earlier this week, Nintendo announced the 3DS portable that allows you to take 3-D photos and play 3-D games with it. Hammacher Schlemmer’s 3-D camcorder doesn’t require glasses to watch 3-D videos. It includes a media player with a 7-inch screen, speakers and a headphone jack that can display the 3-D content off the device’s storage card. The battery life of the camcorder, though, seems disappointing. It offers just two hours of operation from a six-hour charge. See Also:
Photo: Hammacher Schlemmer 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 1:12 pm How to Dispose of a Dead Whale (Dynamite Optional)A dead whale on the beach raises two questions: What do we do with it? And how long until it explodes?Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:57 pm Like this wouldn’t happen: AT&T canceling orders made “in error”
Here’s the email Matthew got today:
Matthew writes:
AT&T wrote back, saying to us:
Anyone else seeing these messages?
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:37 pm Mississippi River Hydrology May Help Reduce Oil OnshoreScientists tracking wetland characteristics find potential good newsThe Gulf of Mexico: what role will the Mississippi River play in oil washing ashore and into delta wetlands?One of the spill's greatest environmental threats is to Louisiana's wetlands, scientists believe.But there may be good news ahead.Scientists affiliated with the National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics (NCED), a National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center headquartered at the University of Minnesota, are using long-term field plots in Louisiana's Wax Lake Delta to measure the baseline conditions of, and track the effects of the oil spill on, coastal Louisiana wetlands.Robert Twilley and Guerry Holm of Louisiana State University (LSU) are investigating the degree to which two delta wetland characteristics may help mitigate oil contamination.Fresh water head, as it's called, the slope of the water's surface from a river delta to the sea, and residence time of river-mouth wetlands, the time it takes water to move through a wetland at a river's mouth, are important to understanding how delta wetlands will respond to the oil spill, say the researchers."Since the Mississippi River is currently at a relatively high stage, we expect the river's high volume of freshwater to act as a hydrologic barrier, keeping oil from moving into the Wax Lake Delta from the sea," says Twilley.Twilley and Holm are performing baseline and damage assessments on the plants and soils of, and comparing oil degradation processes in, freshwater and saltwater Louisiana wetlands."The Mississippi River's 'plumbing' provides a potential benefit to reducing the movement of oil onshore from shelf waters," says Twilley.The Mississippi's flow has been altered for flood control to protect people and infrastructure in this working delta.River diversion structures--concrete gates built within the levees of the river--may be operated, however, to allow water to flow to specific coastal basins and floodways, says Twilley, "as a way to provide controlled floods."The operational features of this system "downriver to the control structure near Venice, Louisiana," he says, "may provide a second line of defense against oil washing in."But any strategy using Mississippi River hydrology must be one of clear options and tradeoffs, says H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF's Division of Earth Sciences, which funds NCED."As the river stage falls and protection diminishes," says Lane, "it becomes a question of how best to distribute this freshwater resource to defend the coast from the movement of oil onshore."The answer, Twilley says, lies in the delicate balance of river, coastal and Gulf of Mexico processes "that must work in concert to benefit the incredible 'ecosystem services' this region provides to the nation."Louisiana wetlands "play a vital role in protecting New Orleans from hurricane damage, providing habitat for wildlife, supporting economically important fisheries, and maintaining water quality," says Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, director of NCED."We must look at all options for protecting them for the future."In addition to his NCED and LSU affiliations, Twilley is the recipient of an NSF rapid response oil spill grant.---Image 1: Mississippi River hydrology may hold a possible answer for protecting fragile Gulf wetlands. Credit: USGSImage 2: Scientists Robert Twilley and Guerry Holm are studying wetlands in Louisiana's Wax Lake Delta. Credit: Doug EdmondsSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 17 Jun 2010 | 12:35 pm New Soccer Stat Method Determines Best PlayersSoccer has been difficult to break into statistics, but researchers devise a way to objectively determine the best players.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:47 am Half of All Android Phones Now Sport Android 2.1
Android 2.1 aka Eclair is eclipsing other flavors of the Google-designed operating system to become the dominant version on Android phones. 50 percent of Android phones now run Android 2.1, compared to about 37 percent a month ago and 27 percent in April. The rest of Android devices are split between almost evenly between Android 1.5, aka Cupcake, and Android 1.6, or Donut. The data comes from Android Developers, the official Android developers’ community website, and is based on operating system data reported by devices accessing the Android Market during a 2-week period ending June 16. The rapid rise of the Android 2.1 indicates that the fractured nature of the platform–a major concern among Android developers and users–may no longer be an issue by the end of the year. In the 16 months since the first Android phone hit the market, Google has made four major upgrades to the operating system. So far, smartphone makers seemed to be unable to keep up with that pace. Android smartphones running different versions of the OS also make it more expensive for developers to create apps since they have to ensure it runs on multiple versions. But in the last few months, companies such as Motorola and HTC have been steadily updating the operating systems on their older phones. For instance, HTC confirmed Thursday that it will upgrade the Android 1.5-powered HTC Hero to 2.1 by the end of the month. Meanwhile, Google Nexus One, Motorola Droid and HTC Incredible users among others can look forward to the next Android update called Android 2.2 or FroYo. FroYo updates will flow this summer. See Also:
Data: Android Developers 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:41 am How to Silence Obnoxious, Deafening VuvuzelaTired of the incessant buzzing of vuvuzelas on World Cup broadcasts? Here are some tips for reducing -- or eliminating -- the annoying drone.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:40 am Oops! HTC Droid Incredible takes snapshots of sites you visit, hangs on to them after a hard reset
Thinking of selling your Droid Incredible? If you’re a mob-boss, peruser of the freaky-deaky, or someone who visits websites with sensitive data on their handset, you might want to hold off. Turns out, the Droid Incredible is snapping shots of the sites you visit for use with the built-in Bookmarks widget. That, in itself, isn’t a big deal; there are a dozen traces of every website you visit on just about any device, mobile or not. The unfortunate part is just how hard it is to get rid of these ones. “What’s the big deal?” you say. “Just do a factory reset!” Yep – that would generally work. Unfortunately.. that’s not the case here. Dump your history? They stick around. Factory reset? They stick around. As a reader at BGR has discovered, the only way to get rid of these itty bitty snapshots in time is to go in and manually delete them, requiring both a knowledge of their existence and a pinch of technical know-how. This could be a lot worse, of course; it’s not like HTC is sending these screenshots off to some secret agency, and this is almost certainly something that can be fixed in an OTA update. Think of it as not being able to wipe the history in your browser, and treat your device accordingly until a fix comes around. You don’t really want the person buying your phone to know about your Hello Kitty “fan-art” fascination, do you?
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:33 am Easier sharing in Google DocsToday, I rarely work on documents in isolation. I share docs with teammates for feedback, help them with their design docs and presentations and regularly make my files available to all of Google.When using applications to collaborate with others, it's important to have control over your data and how it's shared. With Google Docs, you've always been able to share documents with individuals and groups. Today, we're making it even easier with a new simplified interface that make it even easier to share and see who has access to your files. For an overview of what's new, take a look at this video: Documents, spreadsheets and presentations can now be identified as “Private,” “Anyone with a link” or “Public on the web.” As before, all docs start out as private by default.  These new visibility options appear as a link next to the title of every doc. Clicking this link or the “Share” button takes you straight to the new interface where you can see who has access, manage sharing access and invite others to share the doc. These improvements have started to roll out and should be available to everyone in the next week. If you’re interested in learning more about these changes and other new sharing features, check out our post on the Google Docs blog. If you’re using Google Apps for your school or business, our post on the Enterprise Blog covers how you can share docs more easily within your organization. Posted by Vikki Chou, Software Engineer    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:33 am Deforestation Triggers Malaria Outbreaks in BrazilScientists discovered that a 4.2 percent change in deforestation of the Amazon yields a 48 percent increase in malaria outbreaks in Brazil.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:09 am Kinect and Move: A Motion-Controlled Death Match - PC Magazine
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 11:01 am Sharks and Other Gulf Spill Victims Congregate at CoastsSharks, dolphins and other marine dwellers are fleeing the Gulf oil spill, heading to beaches and other coastal areas.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:43 am AT&T announces the Samsung Captivate, their version of the Galaxy S Android superphone
Remember a few months back, we used our super-Internet-sleuthing abilities to break the news that AT&T would eventually be getting a Android handset that was oh-so-similar to the just announced Samsung Galaxy S? Say hello to the phone in question, now known as the Samsung Captivate.
They’ve overhauled the body pretty significantly (oddly, making it look vaguely like a BlackBerry Storm), but the guts are all there. 4″ AMOLED screen? Check. 5 MP Camera? Check. 1GHZ CPU, Swype, and 16GB of onboard memory? If you assumed I was going to say “Check, check, and check!”.. well, you’re right. Check. Check. Aaaaaaaand check. Alas, AT&T’s not exactly being forward with the shipping details. They’re presumably not going to ship this anytime in June, given that they’ve got that other thing to worry about for the next few weeks — but as soon as we hear a date, we’ll let you know. (Side note to AT&T: If you inexplicably cripple this one like you did with the Backflip and the Aria, I will sing songs of my disappointment from the tallest mountain. That, or I’ll write a really angry blog post about it on the Internet and call it a day.)
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:39 am Antibiotics Breeding 'Super Bugs' in Sharks, FishTop predators from Belize to Massachusetts carry drug-resistant forms of bacteria. They could be passing it back to humans on our dinner plates.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:39 am Verizon makes the Droid X official a few days earlier than expected
The Android arena is a tough one to play in, man. One manufacturer might have the baddest handset on the block one week, only to have the competition release a superior monster-of-a-phone a week later. The rate at which these things are being cranked out doesn’t give the carriers — or their customer — any time to figure heads from tails. If we had to guess, we’d say that mandatory haste is a big part of the reason why Verizon just went ahead and confirmed the existence of the Droid X just days prior to an upcoming Droid press event.
The Droid X, which Verizon’s touting as “The Next Generation of Does” (the last word of which, by the way, I always read as “adult female deers”. ROBO-DEER, ACTIVATE!”), can pretty much be considering Verizon’s rebuttal to Sprint’s EVO 4G. Packing a big ol’ 4.3″ screen (the resolution of which is currently in question, though it’s likely the same 858×480 screen as the original Droid), an 8 megapixel camera with 720p video recording, and an 1GHZ ARMv7 processor, this phone easily snatches the flagship Android crown from the Droid Incredible — a title which the handset just got five weeks ago. Ah well. Still no word on that other addition to the Droid family, the keyboard-toting Droid 2. Might we see that at the June 23rd Droid event? Perhaps! We’ll be there to find out.
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:26 am Don’t pay more for memory - Stream it all via Pogoplug’s Android 2.0 appSection: Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Computers, Networking, Software / Applications, Peripherals, Storage  We are quickly reaching a point where a smartphone’s local memory might become irrelevant. Case in point: Pogoplug for Android 2.0. This new and nifty app allows Pogoplug users to stream media and files from their Pogoplug connected machines, freeing up local storage. The Pogoplug 2.0 Android app is available today. What is Pogoplug? Our Robert Nelson describes the unit, “it allows the user to hook up an external hard drive via a USB connection and then be able to access that content from anywhere you may be…Simply plug the device into the wall, plug in an Ethernet cable and external USB drive and you are all set. After than the data is accessible through Windows Explorer or the Mac Finder. Honestly, I cannot wait to get some hands-on time because it almost sounds like it is too easy.” With the new Android app, users can quickly search, find and stream music and video over their data connection. Users can upload images and videos right from their Android phones and easily share those via the Pogoplug app. Additionally, thanks to Pogoplugs ability to connect multiple USB drives, uses can search across all connected drives easily and quickly; even creating new folders on the fly. In a Gadgetell review, Iyaz Akhtar had this to say, “If you want a drop-dead easy way to access your files on the Internet, the Pogoplug is hard to beat. The web interface is powerful, yet simple.” Pogoplug is $129 available at Fry’s and Amazon. Product page: [Pogoplug] Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 17 Jun 2010 | 10:00 am Video Shows Fish Dying in Utah Chevron Oil SpillVideo shows fish dying in a recent Chevron oil spill in Utah.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:44 am Koss Celebrates With PortaPro 25th Anniversary Edition Headphones
Did you know that the insanely popular Koss PortaPro headphones have been around for 25 years? To celebrate, Koss has come up with the appropriately-named PortaPro 25th Anniversary Edition, a product that remarkably appears to improve on the classic original. The PortaPros are folding, lightweight headphones that sound great. Wired associate editor Joe Brown says they sound like electrostatic headphones. I say that they sound like something four times the price (just $50). There are problems, though. The PortaPros break easily and, despite a lifetime warranty, you’ll find yourself buying replacements. The weak points are the spot where the earpieces join to the band, and the cables and connections. In the Anniversary Edition, the cables are now corded, which should help. Another addition should make an even bigger difference. The Anniversary Edition brings beefier magnets: neodymium iron boron to be precise. This, combined with the “oxygen-free copper voice coils” will make the headphones louder. The very open design of the PortaPros makes it easy to drown out their sound in noisy places, so this is welcome. But the best part is that they lose the dorky light-blue earpieces, replacing them with cool black. I’m totally sold. I have used PortaPros for years, and love them, so I’m searching for a local dealer right now. Happy birthday, PortaPro! $80. PortaPro 25th Anniversary Edition [Koss via Uncrate] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:24 am Summer is here, and so is Google Commerce Search 2.0School is out for the summer, and that means it’s time for some swimsuit shopping, travel purchases and—before we know it—buying back-to-school supplies.To help retail sites get ready for the summer shopping season, today we’re launching Google Commerce Search 2.0 for retailers in the United States and United Kingdom. The new version of Google Commerce Search provides a better experience online for shoppers and greater control—with immediate ROI—for retailers. Google Commerce Search, first launched a little over six months ago, is an enterprise-grade website search solution hosted in Google’s cloud and designed specifically for online retailers. This second release includes a number of improvements:
As more consumers turn to online channels to purchase and research products, it’s important for your site to keep up with them using the best technology out there. So with summer just around the corner, make sure your sunscreen’s on, your beach blanket is ready and your e-commerce site is optimized with Google Commerce Search. Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 17 Jun 2010 | 9:01 am Apple Pushes Delivery of iPhone 4 Pre-Orders To July 14 - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:49 am How to Silence Obnoxious, Deafening VuvuzelaDo you hear that? The hideous, piercing dirge of a B-flat drone that is the unfortunate backdrop to every single World Cup match? It’s the vuvuzela, a stupid plastic trumpet that has infested the temple of the beautiful game with an incessant buzzing that is a cross between a traffic jam in Naples and a giant, booming mosquito. We’re going to tell you how to kill it. If you have never heard a vuvuzela in person, you won’t know quite how loud it is. I hear one every time Barcelona plays a game, and my neighbor expresses his over-excitement by forcing his asthmatic breath through the thunderous plastic horn. It is deafening. It literally makes my ears hurt, and it is the most annoying thing I have ever heard. Now imagine a football stadium filled with these things, and you have an idea of the fun going down in South Africa right now. At home, the problem is less severe, and we can do something about it. B-flat has a frequency of 466.164 hertz, which is unfortunately close to the frequency of human speech, and the main reason that the frequency isn’t more forcefully blocked at source by broadcasters. You can cut the drone almost entirely, though, by filtering at home, blocking 466 hertz along with other harmonics. The easiest way is to drop the 300 hertz bar on your TVs EQ, which is close enough to make a quick-and-dirty fix. If you have a more capable setup, like a home-theater receiver, or are prepared to run the audio through a computer, you can get even better results. First, use your EQ to drop the 466 hertz band by around 20 dB (remember to apply it to both channels). Then do the same for 235 hertz. This, as you see in the video above put together by LifeHacker, cuts out pretty much all of the incessant drone. If you’re using a surround-sound system, you might try turning down the left and right speakers, which broadcasters use for crowd noises, and turn up the volume of the center speaker, where commentators’ voices come from. You could, of course, employ the simplest and fastest filter on your TVs buzzing output: Hit the mute button. Vuvuzela filter [Surfpoeten] How to Remove Vuvuzelas From an Audio Recording [YouTube via Lifehacker] Can you block out the blare of vuvuzelas? [BBC] How to turn down the volume on those World Cup vuvuzelas [Consumer Reports] 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 8:44 am IFixit Breaks Into New Mac Mini, Takes Photos
IFixit is first on the scene yet again with a teardown of the new unibody Mac Mini. Kyle Wiens and crew popped into the Apple store and bought the non-server version of Apple’s tiny desktop Mac and opened it up. The results come up short of surprising, but do show the clever thinking that went into cramming everything inside the solid aluminum shell. The journey begins with popping off the plastic baseplate, an easy task involving a quick twist. RAM comes out easily (you can fit in up to 8GB) and then you get to the juicy bits. The fan has rubber damping on the screws and is set at an angle to fit it in. Kyle says that it won’t have much work to do as the Mac Mini fairly sips power, taking just 7 amps at 12 volts compared to the 27-inch iMac’s 25.8 amps at 12 volts (although it also has to power that giant screen). This is why the power brick has shrunk and disappeared inside the machine. The other neat touch is in the placement of the antennae, which are at either end of the rear plastic plate that holds the I/O ports. This is similar to the plastic window on the iPad 3G. Fully disassembled, the new Mac Mini looks almost as minimal (and pretty) as it does when whole. Thanks again iFixit, for saving all of us curious souls from having to void our warranty. More pictures below. Mac Mini Mid 2010 Teardown [iFixit. Thanks, Kyle!] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:53 am GPS Creates a Virtual Radar Map of CrowdsGPS technology can now be used to keep track of where visitors are going in a location like an amusement park.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 17 Jun 2010 | 7:10 am Revolutionary British Power-Plug Can be Yanked by its Cable
We all know you shouldn’t yank a plug out by its cable, but we all do it and until a MagSafe socket comes along this concept by Konstantinos Ladas is the best the paranoid Brits can hope for. So confident is Ladas of his design that he has even included a bobble mid-cord to help the weak-fingered to pull on it. The PVC housing apparently complies with strict UK regulations that specify a plug should either stay in place, unbroken, or pull free. This is to stop cracked housings from offering live wires to human fingers. Whatever. All I care about is being able to unplug an appliance without rooting around in the dark, inhaling carpet-dust as I blindly try to pry the correct plug from its socket. As I said, it’s a concept design, and alternate plug designs have a habit of never making it to market in Britain. Maybe, though, there could be room for a thriving, underground black market in alternative power products? I’d be right there. Let’s Yank A British Plug [Yanko] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 17 Jun 2010 | 6:44 am AT&T iPhone 4 Pre-Orders 'Temporarily Suspended' After 600K MeltdownBoth Apple and AT&T break down when taking orders for the iPhone 4, and we have a clue why. Apple sells 600,000 of the things in one day. You can still pre-order at Apple, but AT&T has "temporarily suspended" service orders.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 17 Jun 2010 | 5:45 am Video: Hands on with the Sony Ericsson Xperia X8
Are you longing for a little more than a few press shots and a photo of the various colours? Have I got a hands-on video? Yes! Yes I do! Well *technically* SE-First have the video, but I’ve embedded it for you at the end of this post! Be warned though… the music is weak. Looking for something a little more action-packed? A little more blow-you-away? I was listening to this at the time, and it worked ok. What music would have you put with it? Let me know. I’m curious. Anyway, if you’d like to see more of the phone, SE-First have a few more pictures, so go check ‘em out.
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 4:56 am Confirmed: Fujitsu and Toshiba to merge cell phone units, go international
We reported last week that two of Japan’s top cell phone makers, Fujitsu and Toshiba, were in talks to merge their cell phone businesses. And today, we have the rumor confirmed. Under the agreement, Toshiba will spin off its handset unit and Fujitsu is expected to take the majority stake in the joint venture (between a whopping 70 and 80%, according to reports in Japanese media). The integration is aimed at combining development, production, marketing and sales of cell phones. It will create Japan’s second largest cell phone maker (with a combined 18.7% domestic market share), following Sharp (26.1%). Fujitsu and Toshiba say that the joint venture will be launched as early as October 1 this year and that the goal is not only to catch up to Sharp domestically but also to enter Asia and markets elsewhere as soon as possible. These are understandable reasons. In Japan itself, both companies are facing increasing competition from the joint venture NEC, Casio, and Hitachi formed earlier this month and from the iPhone. Hit by the recession and a rapidly graying user base, shipments of handsets within Japan fell 12.3% year on year to a 12-year low of 31 million units in fiscal 2009. Historically, exports have been weak as well. Toshiba, for example, sells just 100,000 handsets yearly in Europe. The Fujitsu-Toshiba entity would not even command 1% of the global cell phone market if it launched today.
Source: MobileCrunch | 17 Jun 2010 | 3:56 am
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In an office complex in Rochester NY, there is a storeroom that looks like any other, except for one minor difference. This storeroom (to some) should be considered a temple to the power of the gaming. This storeroom lives inside the International Center for the History of Electronic Games, and contains over 20,000 different gaming related items. From an original Pong game, to the the latest Guitar Hero arcade version, the museum has pretty much everything you could want to see. 
Tonight at its headquarters in Mountain View, California, 
We don’t do many movie reviews here at CrunchGear, mostly because we’re into gadgets and movies are, in a way, the anti-thesis of the physical. Semantics aside, Toy Story 3 was great.
If you’re like me, you use your Xbox 360 to watch Netflix and other movies. It’s relatively painless, but the controller doesn’t exactly make the best remote for watching tv. Enter the X-Link, a universal remote control designed to work with the Xbox 360, as well as hundreds of other devices (since it is a universal remote control after all).
If there’s anything that the past year or so of movies, CES last January or the past week of E3 have taught us, it’s that 3D is apparently a big deal. We have 3D movies, TVs, sports, and now even handheld video game systems. However, until now there really hasn’t been much of a chance for most people to record anything in 3D.
Next week, the 
According to a note posted to developers, Twitter is 
Wait a second, what’s this? I must not be reading this correctly. An executive for a major Hollywood studio is actually making sense and speaking logically when talking about DVD rental windows and the web? This is a joke, right? A bargaining tactic?
Some time during WWDC, it was mentioned at a meeting that the new 
If you’re not sold on the iPad and are tired of waiting for tablets from other PC makers to show up, try getting your hands dirty with a tablet you can build on your own.
Apple will more than triple iPhone ownership in the next year and a half, giving it an installed base of 100 million people by the end of 2011. This according to Morgan Stanley (MS) analyst Katy Huberty, who theorizes that more than half of all current iPhone owners plan to upgrade to the iPhone 4. 
It’s probably not a coincidence that Google is making a significant upgrade to Docs the same week that Microsoft
AT&T’s is beefing up its Android portfolio with the addition of a new phone. Samsung Captivate, a smartphone with a 4-inch touchscreen and Android 2.1 operating system, will be the latest device to hop on AT&T’s network.
A new camcorder lets consumers play James Cameron at home by creating their own 3-D videos.
The time is probably due for MagSafe power-plugs. These plugs should detach safely and cleanly from the wall when you trip over them, not from the device itself. This would be even more useful in Britain where the three-pronged plugs, with their side-exiting cables, cannot be tugged from the wall no matter how hard you pull. Not intact, anyway.
