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Google is done with Nexus One after current batch sells out - ZDNet (blog)
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jul 2010 | 4:02 am Old Spice smells like social media success - BusinessWeek
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jul 2010 | 3:02 am Zephyr Solar Plane Tops 7 Days Aloftchichilalescu writes "The UK-built Zephyr solar-powered plane has smashed the endurance record for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The craft took off from the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona at 1440 BST (0640 local time) last Friday and is still in the air. Maybe we can attach some netbooks, and extend the internet to the clouds."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 17 Jul 2010 | 2:53 am Apple chief says iPhone issues overblown (AFP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 17 Jul 2010 | 2:48 am Apple to give iPhone 4 buyers free bumpers, cases through Sept. 30 - San Jose Mercury News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 17 Jul 2010 | 1:42 am Motorola Says eFuse Doesn't Permanently Brick Phonesradicalpi writes "Motorola has responded to claims that eFuse is designed to brick your device if you attempt to mod it or install unauthorized bootloaders. Yes, the device will still not operate with unauthorized software, but it will only go into recovery mode until you reinstall the authorized software. According to Motorola: 'If a device attempts to boot with unapproved software, it will go into recovery mode, and can re-boot once approved software is re-installed.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:48 pm The iPhone 4 Antenna-gate Timeline (PC World)PC World - Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the stage today to answer the burning questions regarding the iPhone 4 death grip. Apple addressed most of the questions, stressing that the media has massively overblown the issue.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:20 pm iHome’s misleading yet useful charging system
So you look at whatever this abortion is an say to yourself “Wow! They connected an iPad to a Kindle or whatever and some kind of phone! These guys are geniuses!” Then you realize it’s just a charger and then you’re kind of annoyed.
Great, right? Right.
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:14 pm Weekend Giveaway: A Droid X from Rebtel
They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all–I’m not saying that–but they’re also touchy as heck. Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:02 pm Weekend Giveaway: A Droid X from Rebtel
They’re quite touchy about anything like that, especially my father. They’re nice and all–I’m not saying that–but they’re also touchy as heck. Besides, I’m not going to tell you my whole autobiography or anything. I’ll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last
Also just so you know I’ll be picking a winner at noon Eastern on Monday. Only comment once and include your email in the comment form but not in the comment body itself. It’s a Verizon phone and all that, so if you’re not in Verizon’s coverage area it probably won’t do you any good. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good phone. Also understand that I censored the first few paragraphs of one of the greatest American books of the 20th century because I knew there would be a bunch of folks who would get angry at me for saying swear words.
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 10:57 pm U.S. Venture Investment Nears Pre-Recession LevelsNEW YORK, July 17 /PRNewswire/ -- According to statistics from Dow Jones VentureSource, venture investors put $7.7 billion to work in 744 deals for U.S.-based companies during the second quarter of 2010. This is the highest quarterly total for capital invested since $8.4 billion was put into 699 deals during the third quarter of 2008. "Fueled by investors' need to keep current portfolio companies funded and to begin investing from new funds, venture capital financing had a strong quarter," said Jessica Canning, global research director for Dow Jones VentureSource. "Deal activity and capital invested in venture-backed companies is once again near levels seen before the start of the economic recession in 2008." The second quarter's deal count represents a 13% increase from the 656 deals closed during the same period last year, and capital raised is up 26% from the $6.1 billion invested in the year-ago period. IT Sees Highest Deal Count, But Healthcare Garners More Dollars Information Technology (IT) and Healthcare continued to be the strongest industries for deals closed and dollars invested though no clear leader emerged as IT garnered the largest proportion of deals but Healthcare claimed more dollars. Scott Austin, editor of Dow Jones VentureWire, said: "Venture investment in healthcare companies has gained momentum over the last several years, a trend that is likely to continue. One catalyst for recent growth is venture firms placing a premium on drug development companies nearing commercialization, requiring large sums to get their drugs through Phase III trials." Healthcare companies raised $2.7 billion for 201 deals, a 13% increase in capital raised from the $2.4 billion put into 189 deals during the second quarter of 2009. Within Healthcare, the Biopharmaceuticals sector continued to see the highest level of activity. Ninety-five Biopharmaceuticals deals raised $1.2 billion, a 30% increase in deals but slight drop in capital raised from the same period last year. In IT, 231 deals raised $1.9 billion, up from the second quarter of 2009, which saw 208 deals raise $1.6 billion. Software garnered the largest slice of capital as 156 deals raised $908 million, up from the 132 deals that raised $761 million in the second quarter of last year. Energy and Services Industries See Growth The Energy & Utilities industry garnered $1.1 billion for 26 deals during the second quarter. Deals were on par with the year-ago period, but capital raised jumped 86% thanks to a few large, later-stage deals. The Energy & Utilities industry claimed the nation's largest deal in the second quarter -- a $350 million round raised by Better Place, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that provides support infrastructure for electric vehicles. The Business and Consumer Services industries also saw growth. In Business and Financial Services, 117 deals raised $814 million, up from 96 deals that raised $707 million in the year-ago period. In Consumer Services, 120 deals raised $847 million, up from 89 deals that garnered $644 million during the second quarter of 2009. Investment in the Web-heavy Consumer Information Services sector, part of the Consumer Services industry, rose 45% as 92 deals raised $710 million. This sector also bucked the trend toward later-stage deals as 57% of Consumer Information Services deals were for seed- and early-stage rounds, making Consumer Services the only industry group with over half of investments going to early-stage deals. Later-Stage Deals Pick Up, Claim More Capital Later-stage deals accounted for 44% of the second quarter's deals and 62% of total capital raised. This is up from the 39% of deals and 56% of capital that later-stage deals claimed in the same period last year. Seed- and first-rounds accounted for 32% of deals and claimed 15% of capital raised during the most recent quarter, down from the same period last year when early-stage rounds accounted for 35% of deal activity and 19% of capital raised. The median deal size for the second quarter of 2010 was $4.9 million, down slightly from the $5 million seen in the same period last year. For information on Dow Jones VentureSource's research methodology, visit http://bit.ly/VSFAQs. For general information about Dow Jones VentureSource, visit http://www.dowjones.com/privatemarkets. Journalists can contact Kim Gagliardi at +1 603-864-8873 or kimberly.gagliardi@dowjones.com with questions or requests for more information. About Dow Jones Dow Jones & Company (www.dowjones.com) is a News Corporation company (Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA; ASX: NWS, NWSLV; www.newscorp.com) and a leading provider of global news and business information. Its principal products include The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, Dow Jones Factiva, Barron's and MarketWatch. Through its Local Media Group, Dow Jones operates community-based newspapers and Web sites. Dow Jones also provides news content to television and radio stations. SOURCE Dow Jones VentureSourceSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 10:01 pm Cognitive Dissonance Theory for Juggalos
A prankster who goes by the pseudonym of "Laszlo Thoth," one of the "scientist haters" who participated in an educational prank on a horde of Juggalos in San Francisco recently, shares this Guide to Cognitive Dissonance Theory for Insane Clown Posse fans. "It's actually a pretty good layperson's introduction to cognitive dissonance theory," he says, "with examples that most people (including juggalos) can relate to." Update: The person who submitted this to me to post on Boing Boing doesn't have much more of a sense of humor than the Insane Clown Posse band members who confronted and threatened the Noisebridge folks at the ICP show. "Laszlo Thoth" has removed the linked-to content from Google Docs because he was offended at my re-use of the term "scientist haters" below, a reference to the ridiculous put-down the pranksters received in person from ICP. He requested that I omit the phrase, and submitted a rewrite of my blog post he'd rather see me publish, and I declined. For funny people making fun of a funny song from a funny band, I'm dismayed at the total lack of humor. Apologies for the dead link.
 Source: Boing Boing | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:22 pm Cognitive Dissonance Theory for JuggalosA prankster who goes by the pseudonym of "Laszlo Thoth," one of the "scientist haters" who participated in an educational prank on a horde of Juggalos in San Francisco recently, shares this Guide to...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:22 pm Most accurate analogy ever for The Great Internet Commenting DilemmaWeingarten, preach it: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots." (via Joel Johnson)Source: Boing Boing | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:09 pm Most accurate analogy ever for The Great Internet Commenting DilemmaWeingarten, preach it: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:09 pm Apple offers free cases to all iPhone 4 ownersFROM APPLETELL - Apple’s not only giving away free cases to all iPhone 4 owners (and reimbursing those who already purchased one), but they’re even letting you pick the case. Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:54 pm 4chan "backtraced," reported to "cyberpolice" by mustachioed mad dadUpdate: video edited and re-uploaded to include *only* mad mustache dad's epic rant, without the 11 year old girl who is too young to know how unwise it is to webcam her woes, or mess with /b/. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:47 pm 4chan "backtraced," reported to "cyberpolice" by mustachioed mad dadUpdate: video edited and re-uploaded to include *only* mad mustache dad's epic rant, without the 11 year old girl who is too young to know how unwise it is to webcam her woes, or mess with /b/.
"I know! Who's emailin' and who's doin' it, and you've been reported to the state police and the cyber-police. And you better try one more thing and if you screw with my computer again, you'll be arrested. End of conversation! From her father."
I would like to learn more about these "backtraces" of which you speak, mustache dad. Know Your Meme explains, and Gawker posts less-funny background on the origins of this video, and the bullying involved. (thanks, SH-P!).
Facebook, Google to Battle Over Smarter Web? - PC World
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:40 pm Root DNS Zone Now DNSSEC Signedr00tyroot writes with news that slipped by yesterday, quoting from the Internet Systems Consortium's release: "ISC joined other key participants of the Internet technical community in celebrating the achievement of a significant milestone for the Domain Name System today as the root zone was digitally signed for the first time. This marked the deployment of the DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) at the top level of the DNS hierarchy and ushers the way forward for further roll-out of DNSSEC in the top level domains and DNS Service Providers."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:40 pm Best thing to come out of Antennagate? Apple's "antenna testing chamber" porn.Reporters who attended the "Antennagate" presser today in Cupertino were invited to tour the company's "$100 million antenna designing and test facilities." They're blinding us with science! Bonus: When...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:32 pm Best thing to come out of Antennagate? Apple's "antenna testing chamber" porn. Reporters who attended the "Antennagate" presser today in Cupertino were invited to tour the company's "$100 million antenna designing and test facilities." They're blinding us with science! Bonus: When I right-clicked to save this jpeg from the Apple website, I noticed that the original file name included the words "Stargate Chamber." The hell with your free bumpers, Mr. Jobs, I want one of these suckers! Related: Farhad Manjoo of Slate didn't go to the press conference, but he published a decidedly sour, not-impressed take on the day's Apple news. Wilson Rothman, formerly of Gizmodo and now of MSNBC, has a contrasting recap piece here. (HT: Glenn Fleishman)
Facebook, Google to Battle Over Smarter Web? (PC World)PC World - Google takes a step today toward locking horns with Facebook over creating a smarter Web. The Sultan of Search announced it has acquired Metaweb, a fledgling outfit that's been working on packaging information on the Internet so it can be searched and connected in more meaningful ways than nests of links.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:27 pm Facebook Co-Founder Favors Movie Version Of Events With Drinking And Sex
Perhaps not surprisingly, Moskovitz takes some exception to what was included in the movie versus what was left out. For example, he’s never even met the Winklevoss twins, who play heavily in the film’s plot. Instead, Moskovitz wishes the filmmakers would have included more of of the other people in each co-founders’ lives that supported them at the time. Yes, there’s a reason Moskovitz made Facebook and not movies. He also calls it “cool to see a dramatization of history.” But his money quote is this:
Moskovitz makes it seem as if he’s read both the book and the script of the film and takes exception to the attacks on CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Still, he thinks the trailer actually shows some of Zuckerberg’s more positive qualities. “At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is,” Moskovitz concludes. “And the Ad Board *does* owe him some recognition, dammit,” he jokes (a reference to the end of the trailer).
     
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:03 pm Activision has sunk $100 million into StarCraft II
[via 1up]
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:45 pm Barnes & Noble offers weekly promotion with free classicsSection: Computers, Gadgets / Other, ebooks, Web, Downloads
Barnes & Noble is running a promotion where users can download around 10 free eBooks every week. Basically, every set of approximately 10 classic eBooks will have a different main theme and will be available every week from now until September 14, 2010. All downloaded books can be read on the Nook, iPad, iPhone, PC, Mac, and BlackBerry. This week, the titles available for download include: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Little Women, Peter Pan, Secret Garden, Tarzan of the Apes, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Treasure Island, and Wind in the Willows. The main theme of these books are “Books That Made Us Love Reading.” Every Friday B&N will change the titles and future themes include fantasy, adventure, romance, and books that inspired movies. Not everyone wants to pay for eBooks, so it’s nice to see B&N offer this promotion to its users and actually use books that people know/want to read. Via [Barnes & Noble] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:40 pm Apple CEO on antenna problem: 'We aren't perfect' (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:38 pm Boing Boing Game Dev Challenge: The Winners!We are thrilled to announce the winners of the first ever Boing Boing "Games Inspired by Music" Competition, sponsored by Safari Books Online. The polls closed at midnight with Zachary Johnson's Infiltration...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:37 pm Boing Boing Game Dev Challenge: The Winners!We are thrilled to announce the winners of the first ever Boing Boing "Games Inspired by Music" Competition, sponsored by Safari Books Online. The polls closed at midnight with Zachary Johnson's Infiltration...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:37 pm Boing Boing Game Dev Challenge: The Winners!
We are thrilled to announce the winners of the first ever Boing Boing "Games Inspired by Music" Competition, sponsored by Safari Books Online. The polls closed at midnight with Zachary Johnson's Infiltration and Zachary Lewis's Space Junk nearly neck and neck. Space Junk took the grand prize with 249 votes, followed by Infiltration with 233 votes. Coming in third was Sean Monahan's Beat Boost! All three of these are instant old-school classics!
Mr. Lewis receives the grand prize of a year of access to Safari Books Online, a $515 value, and a fat prize pack from GAMA-GO, including a limited-edition art print, GAMA-GO book, Gama-Goon Statue, Sing-A-Long Tongs, and other goodies. Mr. Johnson and Mr. Monahan score three month subscriptions to Safari Books Online, valued at $128 each, and a grip of GAMA-GO goods like a Yeti Qee Keychain, Pocket Journal, and Hip-Hopsicles!
Thank you to everyone who took the time to create an entry! We're blown away by the effort and raw mutant creativity that went into these! And much appreciation to the chiptunes composers who inspired us with the bleeps and bloops. And thanks to all who played and voted! Finally, much appreciation to our partner Safari Books Online. We've wanted to hold a competition like this for a long time and we're grateful to them for helping us make it happen. For the foreseeable future, they're offering Boing Boing readers a special 15 day trial of Safari Books Online plus 15% discount for 12 months (new subscribers only) on a subscription. Check it out! And if this is all new to you, please visit the Boing Boing Arcade, featuring all the finalists in our contest. Shall we play a game?
Facebook's Founders Talk About the "Facebook Movie" (Mashable)Mashable - Facebook's co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moscovitz have both expressed some measure of disapproval where the highly anticipated film The Social Network is concerned.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:22 pm A Raging, Rambling Debate About Antennagate, Followed By A Fanboy InterventionI had a theory about today’s Apple iPhone 4 Press Extravagana. Apple was just too eager to get all the press that cares about Apple stuff into one room at the same time on one day’s notice. They were either going to (1) get Steve Jobs to hypnotize everyone with a reality distortion field “there is no problem” and have them walk out dazed and confused but with vague warm feelings towards Apple. Or (2) they gathered all the press to one place to simply kill them. It was 50/50 in my book. Apple went with no. 1, probably based on a coin flip. There were two key messages from the event. The first message is that there is no iPhone 4 antenna problem. All phones suffer from this, and the iPhone is a superior phone. The second message is that even though there is no problem Apple is going to give everyone a free bumper that will make the non existent problem go away.
We grabbed our own MG Siegler and Daring Fireball’s John Gruber when they returned to the office for a debriefing video. The uncut version is above. We did do some creative editing to get Gruber to say that the iPhone is the worst phone on the market, but he didn’t really say that, as you’ll see from the longer video above. Siegler and Gruber struggled repeatedly to apply logic to the debate and eventually threw up their hands in despair. But still they believe that Antennagate doesn’t exist, but that it is perfectly reasonable and generous for Apple to apply a fix (free bumper) to the non existent problem. At the end we just tried an intervention. It’s a first step towards recovery.      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:17 pm Australia's Healthscope considering two final bids -sourcesSYDNEY, July 17 (Reuters) - Australian hospital group Healthscope has received final takeover bids from private equity group Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co and a consortium of TPG [TPG.UL] and Carlyle...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:16 pm Auction off your Cease and Desist from LucasFilm for fun and profit
You probably don’t remember that last part, because I’m just telling you now. It’s up on eBay, as of this writing going for around $600. That’s one way to pay for your legal fees. I love that the letter starts off with “Gentlemen.” [via TechDirt]
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:12 pm Allure Energy Announces a Thermostat That Knows When You’re Coming Home
When you leave in the morning, the system calibrates your home’s thermostat so you don’t waste energy while you’re away. Likewise, it senses when you’re on your way back, returning the temperature to your perfect degree of cozy. “We are doing for home energy management what TiVo did for the VCR,” CEO Kevin Imes said in a statement. The technology could attract those who find programming their thermostat too much of a challenge or hassle. The company says the system could increase energy savings by up to 30%. Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:12 pm UPDATE 1-Telefonica, Televisa win in Mexico frequency tender* Bidding on 1710 to 2170 MHz range ongoing (Updates with Telefonica quote)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:08 pm YC-Funded PagerDuty Makes Sure Your Team Knows When A Server Goes Down
PagerDuty lets you set up and prioritize alerts for an entire team, with the ability to send SMS and voice messages along with the standard email alerts. And if a team member isn’t responding, the system can automatically escalate the alerts — for example, if an email isn’t answered quickly, an SMS could be sent a few minutes later, and so on. Another option is to start alerting other team members if someone isn’t responding. The service also lets you set up on-duty calendars, allowing you to alternate who you want to alert first depending on the date. PagerDuty isn’t the only solution for receiving alerts about your server status — just about all server status software offers email alerts; some offer SMS as well. And there are also plugins available for some open-source software that add some of these features. That said, the PagerDuty team says that it’s a pretty involved process to implement these features, and they have a few that the others dont. For one, they offer two-way SMS (you can respond to an SMS alert with a message saying you’re on the case). And it’s also SaaS, whereas other solutions generally involve uploading and installing the software yourself. Another SaaS service that offers some similar features is Wormly. The process for getting PagerDuty working with your system varies a bit depending on your setup. If you’re using Nagios (which is quite popular), PagerDuty offers a plugin that should work seamlessly. The service also recently launched an API feature that lets you use any service that can make an API call. And if that isn’t an option, you can just have your monitoring system send alert emails to PagerDuty, which can in turn send SMS/Voice alerts according to the rules you’ve set up. Pricing for PagerDuty runs $12 a month for a single user, and runs $300/month for a bigger team (there are also custom plans for large organizations). PagerDuty was founded by ex-Amazon employees, who say that as engineers they were using a similar system that was built in-house (they say that other large companies like Google have also built similar systems). They’re hoping to serve the large number of smaller businesses who could also benefit from less downtime, but don’t have the resources to build tools of their own.
Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:06 pm A Giant Plastic Island to Cure the Garbage PatchA group of architects have a radical new idea for cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch: turn it all into a giant island the size of Hawaii's Big Island.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:43 pm Best thing to come out of Antennagate? Apple's "antenna testing chamber" porn.Reporters who attended the "Antennagate" presser today in Cupertino were invited to tour the company's "$100 million antenna designing and test facilities." They're blinding us with science! Bonus: When...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:41 pm HTC Desire pricing leaked through source code?Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
Yesterday, we reported Telus would start selling the HTC Desire sometime in the near future. At the time, we did not know the pricing nor the availability of the highly anticipated Android device, but it seems pricing details have been uncovered through the source code. Normally, we would suspect the source code to tell us the official pricing, but since the pricing seems a tad excessive, the general consensus is that the numbers are placeholders and not the real deal. The pricing are as follows: one year for $499.95, two year for $399.95, and three year for $299.95. However, the reason we do not believe these prices is because the unlocked cost for the HTC Desire is $999.99. I don’t know about you, but I would never spend $1000 on an unlocked phone, and I doubt Telus is actually going to sell the HTC Desire for that high of a price. With that being said, the prices for various contracts are plausible, but hopefully we will hear official confirmation from Telus shortly. Via [MobileSyrup] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:37 pm Inside Apple's once-secret wireless lab (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - After Friday morningâs Apple press conference about the iPhone 4 and its antenna issues, Apple executives took a small group of journalists (11 all told, including myself) on a tour of the companyâs wireless-testing facilities. We were, the executives said, the first outsiders allowed into the area, a spot off-limits to most Apple employees. Even our escorts from Appleâs PR department said they hadnât been in there before.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:29 pm Exclusive: Facebook Will Announce 500 Million Users Next Week With "Facebook Stories" [BoomTown]
Facebook confirmed that it expects to announce its 500-millionth user next week, and will mark the occasion with new consumer marketing initiative called “Facebook Stories.” Last week, BoomTown got wind of the effort–which will center on a variety of life stories from users about the impact of the social networking site on their lives–and asked Facebook about it. The company said it was readying its launch for next week and put Randi Zuckerberg on the horn to tell me the story behind “Stories.” “As we anticipated our 500-million milestone, and we wanted to find a different way to announce and celebrate it.” said Zuckerberg, who has spearheaded the site’s creation, in an interview this afternoon. “In the past, it’s been all about the numbers and milestones and we realized we had never taken the opportunity to celebrate users.” Getting to the 500-million mark, though, is a big deal for the Silicon Valley-based Facebook, which has been growing wildly over the last several years across the globe. While the number has been widely expected to be announced soon, it will still be a big landmark in the history of the company. Thus, a Web site within Facebook that is a visualization of some of the many kinds of consumer stories the company has collected over the years, but never showed off. The stories will have two views–organized by by geographical location and by theme, such as “finding love,” “coping with grief” and “natural disasters.” Facebook has seeded the selection with about 200 text stories it has, asking users again for permission to feature them. But the point is to open the page up to all users to submit their tale in 420 characters, the same number as a status update on Facebook. The story can also be linked to the user’s profile. Users can also “Like” stories and the most popular will be featured. The site will also be optimized for the other devices, such as the Apple (AAPL) iPad and Amazon (AMZN) Kindle. The site was designed by two outside firms, social marketing company Involver and JESS3, a design, branding and data visualization firm. Zuckerberg, who said she would be adding her own story, said her favorite so far has been the story of a group that coalesced on Facebook to save an old theater in Kentucky. But she is hoping for a varied collection that will appeal to, well, the soon-to-be 500 million people on Facebook. “We really think by surfacing these stories, users can explain what Facebook is a lot better than we can,” said Zuckerberg. Before the launch of “Facebook Stories” next week, you can start the tale-telling now here, using a newly tweaked form, pictured below (click on it to make image larger):
Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:17 pm Inside Apple's Antenna Design Lab - Wired News
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:12 pm Inside Apple’s Antenna Design Lab
Led by Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer and antenna expert at Apple, the tour gave about 10 reporters and bloggers a peek at Apple’s custom-built wireless testing lab, which consists of several anechoic chambers to measure frequency of each device in various settings. The tour was held after a press conference, in which Steve Jobs attempted to mitigate a media thunderstorm surrounding the iPhone 4’s purportedly flawed antenna by offering free cases to customers. During the conference, Jobs reinforced his original position that every phone has reception issues when held in certain ways, and he said a flawed software algorithm was making the iPhone 4’s attenuation look worse than it actually was. Apple called the lab a “black” lab because it was a secret facility that even some employees were unaware of. The company made the lab’s existence public to show that Apple takes antenna design and wireless testing seriously. “This is the most advanced lab for doing RF studies that anyone in the world has,” said Phil Schiller, vice president of marketing at Apple. “The designs we do wouldn’t be possible without it.” Each test chamber is lined with blue pyramid-shaped styrofoam designed to absorb radio-frequency radiation. A robotic arm holding gadgets such as iPads and iPhones spins 360 degrees while a piece of analytics software (ironically running on Windows XP) visualizes the wireless activity of each device. Caballero said each gadget is run through a chamber for at least 24 hours.
In another test process Apple also has people sitting inside test chambers, holding a device for about 30 minutes while software analyzes its wireless performance to evaluate its interactions with the human body. Synthetic heads, hands and even feet (think Nike +) are used for some of these tests as well. Apple’s testing lab looks similar to Celecom’s cellphone radiation testing lab that Wired.com visited last year. Manufacturers who create wireless products must gain certification from an independent lab, which verifies that each device meets acceptable radiation standards set by the Federal Communications Commission. The difference with Apple is it built its own lab for the sake of having full, granular oversight on the design (and redesign) of its products. Prototypes go through several iterations and tests before they’re finalized into Apple products. (Of course, having its own lab also helps Apple better guard its secrets.) Before the iPhone 4 became an official product, prototypes of the device were tested in chambers for about two years until Apple settled on a design, Caballero said. “It’s not trivial to design antennas,” said Caballero, reminiscing on the days older antennas had a single frequency.
After “passive” testing of devices inside isolated chambers, eventually Apple engineers drive around a large van containing synthetic hands gripping gadgets, with a laptop in the back running wireless analytics software to determine how the devices perform in real-world settings. Sometimes humans sit in the car seats holding the devices, too. During the tour, Apple showed a van containing a table full of synthetic hands gripping iPhone 4 devices. “To do the most challenging design in the world, this is what we have to do,” said Bob Mansfield, Apple’s senior vice president of Macintosh hardware. “This is hardcore stuff.” Apple earlier today also posted a description and video of its test lab. See Also:
Photos courtesy of Apple 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:00 pm We Have Met Antennagate, And It Is Us
Well, that’s not true. But what Jobs called Antennagate at today’s press conference is more than just the design flaw in the iPhone 4 they insisted was a non-issue. It’s a design flaw with the entire way the issue was handled — by them and by us. The feeding frenzy around the iPhone 4 has been a months-long affair, for a combination of two reasons: one, that Apple has a unique position in tech coverage, and two, that controversy generates traffic. The result is outrage, confusion, expenditure, flamewars, and everything else that’s been happening online since the launch. Sorry about that. We’re not perfect.      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:55 pm We have met Antennagate, and it is us
Well, that’s not true. But what Jobs called Antennagate at today’s press conference is more than just the design flaw in the iPhone 4 they insisted was a non-issue. It’s a design flaw with the entire way the issue was handled — by them and by us. The feeding frenzy around the iPhone 4 has been a months-long affair, for a combination of two reasons: one, that Apple has a unique position in tech coverage, and two, that controversy generates traffic. The result is outrage, confusion, expenditure, flamewars, and everything else that’s been happening online since the launch. Sorry about that. We’re not perfect. See, as you may know, Apple enjoys a bit of a coverage bias here and elsewhere on the net. Why is that? You know why, for the most part: sexy products, charismatic leader, a whiff of elitism. They’re fun to write about and many people enjoy reading about them — that’s enough for us. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, when a design flaw, plain for all to see, was detected in what was heralded as the best smartphone ever to be released, the response in the tech community was mixed and misleading. I say mixed because Apple coverage seems to be opinionated for more than other coverage, anywhere you look on the net. There is very little emotion in reporting on HP or Palm — perhaps it is because, as MG suggests, Apple works hard on building an emotional bond with its customers, something which its detractors see and abhor. Whether that’s the case or not, Apple news is often delivered with a slant. And I say misleading because in some ways, how Antennagate (which I am going to stop referring to as such; “-gate” terms are overused) was reported exposed many of the weaknesses in the online reporting structure of which we are a small part. Let’s get into that. Apple’s ubiquity in web culture usually works in their favor: a press conference with a couple hundred people becomes an internet-wide festival of love and hate. Of course, part of that is their knowing how to put on a presentation, the value of which is something many companies deeply underestimate. Even when revealing the iPhone’s flaws and return rates, Steve treated it like he was revealing new flavors of candy. But the coverage is unstoppable and in a way, free. A major part of advertising is getting people talking about your product; with Apple, people are so primed to talk that all they have to do to advertise is show a picture with the name of the product. Considering Apple’s marketing reach, the excesses and Jobsian quips that do routinely set the internet on fire are mercifully few and far between. In the last few weeks, however, that self-same ubiquity has been Apple’s worst enemy. Imagine if everything you did propagated, memelike, to the farthest corners of the internet, where even the die-hard Apple hater must acknowledge every announcement, even if it’s just to criticize it (something I enjoy occasionally). After using that power judiciously and deliberately for years, the inevitable finally happened: they dropped the ball — and it dutifully propagated. When your failure becomes a meme, you’re cooked. For the record, these were my two contributions:
The signal drop heard ’round the world was followed by many more reports of launch issues. It was rough, and because of the way the internet has set itself up to instantly propagate exactly this kind of thing, soon people were hearing about iPhone 4 issues before they even knew there was an iPhone 4. The launch problems became a bigger story than the launch. Why? Because we liked it that way. The appetite for this kind of thing is bottomless. Reasons for interest include fanboyism, professional interest, idleness, schadenfreude, legitimate concern… there was something for everybody. Then Apple, knocked off-balance by their own unpreparedness, gave a response that simply made things worse. “Non-issue. Just avoid holding it in that way.” I can’t think of a response that could have garnered a more comprehensively varied response. Shock! Defensiveness! Rationalizing! Minimizing! The circus became a feeding frenzy. And then the official statement, in which they revealed that iPhones had been using a ridiculously inaccurate signal display for years, and that they were going to make the bars bigger? My god! So Apple was far from innocent in this whole affair, right up to the non-apology given by Steve today. Their only mistake, Steve implied, was a visual element that caused users to involuntarily ruin their own signal. Steve could talk his way out of a sunburn, as the saying goes, but not this time. Scott noted when we were chatting about this that according to Apple, the iPhone is unlike every other phone on the market — except when there is a problem, at which point it’s just like every other phone on the market. That said, I’m glad they decided to give out bumpers, and of course you can always return the phone for a full refund, so as far as I’m concerned, customers are completely provided for. Class-action lawsuits are pending but I wouldn’t hold out much hope for a settlement. But were we innocent? One could say we just did our jobs, and wrote up what was going on. We detailed it step by step. Was that the extent of our responsibilities, though? If it was, then Twitter did our job as well as we did, and maybe better. I wrote a while back: “Real time, real discussion, real reporting – choose two.” Looking back on all the coverage, there was a lot of real-time discussion, but almost no reporting at all. Some very valuable input came from Anandtech, when Anand systematically tested the attenuation caused by shorting the antenna, but by and large it was theories, counter-theories, rumors, and fabrications getting multiplied and amplified by blogs like this one. Even ostensibly reliable outlets in the old media posted garbage of every kind. Publishing rumors is, of course, a valuable part of the job, since many are true or end up resulting in interesting discussion. I’m glad we posted all the things we posted. But I also think Steve is right: this was a pretty serious mountain-molehill situation. The antenna problem is real, of course. How much of a problem it really is — that’s harder to say. Although I would normally say that it’s under-reported in those Apple statistics, that probably isn’t the case here. After all, this is probably one of the most widely-publicized product launches in history, partly because of the huge amount of attention given to this very flaw. If a user has an iPhone, they are almost certain to know of the issue. And if they know of it, they are almost certain to notice it when it happens. Although as Apple and others have noted, it mainly occurs in areas with marginal reception, so many people may find later that they are death grip sufferers and didn’t know it when they take a trip to the boonies. For this reason I’d suggest getting a case even if you don’t really need it where you live. But those numbers: half a percent of iPhone 4 users complaining? 1.7% return rate? Nearly identical call drops to 3GS? Out of 3 million users, that’s around 30,000 — not a trivial number by any means, but in retrospect, does it justify the international wave of mockery? It ain’t exactly Side Talkin, after all: 2.9 million people seem to be happy with their phones. The Point
What am I getting at here? Well, I think this whole debacle demonstrates the power of the Internet to report in the wrong way, as opposed to the Tiger Woods incident, which I think demonstrated the Internet’s strengths (though it also resulted in my writing the “Choose Two” article I mentioned). When the event is what matters (e.g. Tiger Woods crashing his car with his wife beating on the windows), and updates on the granularity of minutes are warranted, the Internet is the perfect medium. But by applying that toolset to something it is totally unsuited for, we found ourselves groping in a dark and crowded echo chamber, grasping at factual straws and thrusting them into the faces of everyone we encountered. How little it accomplished! Apple is temporarily humbled, but they would have been one way or another. But they have the benefit of being unfairly set upon, of being able to quote hundreds of articles spewing FUD and unconfirmed nonsense — after all this, they get to play the victim card! That’s the real Antennagate. Unfortunately, the solution is an impossible one. This is because the solution is discretion. Discretion and restraint are things that have more or less disappeared, since the benefits of being first and wrong outweigh the benefits of being late and right. The short-term benefits, I should say, in the form of traffic and popularity — very important metrics to the powers that be (advertisers and such). The long-term benefits of being a reliable source for news and analysis are becoming more and more difficult to discern, which is disturbing to me. Yet I still believe, and this whole thing has made me believe more, that perspective and discretion are as important as ever — and probably only as rare as they ever were to begin with. I’m not going to get all emotional on you here and say “oh no journalism is dying,” as if I know a thing about that, but let’s be honest: sometimes journalism can be pretty hard to find — even if you think you know where to look. There you have it. I just wanted to put my own lid on this whole iPhone 4 thing, with the conclusions I’ve drawn from it. If it came off like Apple apologia, I don’t think you read closely enough. The way the world reports and is reported is going through all kinds of transitions, and one day I think that this whole thing and other stories like it are on their way to becoming case studies in Mass Communications 101.
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:53 pm Did Apple, Jobs turn the page on 'Antennagate'? (Ben Patterson)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:39 pm Ikaros Spacecraft Successfully Propelled In SpaceAn anonymous reader writes "Japan's IKAROS spacecraft has already successfully deployed the first solar sail in space, but today it made the only first that really matters: it successfully captured the sun's rays with its 3,000-square-foot sail and used the energy to speed its way through space. Each photon of light exerts 0.0002 pounds of pressure on the 3,000-square-foot sail, and the steady stream of solar exposure has succeeded in propelling the nearly 700-pound drone."
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Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:36 pm Remains of the Day: State of the art (Macworld.com)Macworld.com - Thatâs it, the iPhone 4 antenna controversy is finally laid to rest, right? Right? Well, itâs laid to rest for this week anyway. Still, we canât be bothered with that malarkey when the world is so full of art! Thereâs the art of iPad novels, the art of FaceTime, and the dubious art of junk computer software. Take a stroll through this gallery of remainders for July 16, 2010.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:30 pm Graffiti for Android brings back the good ol’ daysSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
Have you ever used one of the old PDA’s based on Palm’s OS where you had to draw out every letter in order to get the device to register it? Basically, you had to “write” each letter using the stylus, and for many, it was a frustrating experience. With modern QWERTY keyboards and Swype, it’s hard to imagine ever having to use the Graffiti style of text-entry again. However, Access reminded us of Graffiti today as they released Graffiti for Android in the Android Market. Believe it or not, the comments on the app seem to be very positive. Right now, Graffiti for Android is version 1.02 and is available for free. For nostalgic reasons, I could see why people would like to use and try out Graffiti once again, but I can’t imagine Android smartphone users using it in place of their default QWERTY or Swype keyboard. But hey, maybe you’re a pro at Graffiti. Via [Palm Info Center] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:22 pm Google Now Selling its Last Shipment of Nexus Ones (PC World)PC World - Google, which broke mobile industry practice last year by offering the Nexus One smartphone for sale exclusively on its website, has received its last shipment of the device for online sale.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:50 pm The Gulf's Great Turtle Relocation ProjectAn anonymous reader writes "All along the Gulf Coast's beaches it's turtle-hatching season. Conservationists knew the poor hatchlings wouldn't have a chance if they swam out into the oily waters of the Gulf, so they came up with an incredibly ambitious plan: they would dig up 70,000 turtle eggs, carefully raise them in a climate-controlled hanger at the Kennedy Space Center, and release the hatchlings into the clean Atlantic waters off Florida's east coast. Now that project is well underway, and Discover Magazine has pictures of the first batch of hatchlings crawling towards the welcoming waves. But there's a chance all this do-gooding won't do any good. New Scientist found experts who argue that releasing them into the Atlantic rather than into the Gulf will screw up the turtles' navigation systems, which will prevent them from following their normal migratory routes."
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Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:50 pm Kumar Says Competition Has `Caught Up' to Apple IPhone: Video - Washington Post
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:47 pm Hulu Plus on the PS3 and iPad can’t give free content away
Let’s start with the PS3: not only will users have to pay $9.95 a month for Hulu Plus, they’ll also have to pay $50 per year for the requisite PlayStation Plus membership if they want Hulu Plus right now. After all that, users paying for the service aren’t able to watch the free content via their PS3. This is of course the free content on the web that non-paying Hulu users can see any time they want on the web. Sony has stated that Hulu Plus will eventually be available to all their users in near future. It’s unclear at this time if that means that Hulu Plus subscribers wouldn’t have to pay the $50 for a PlayStation Plus membership or not. iPad users have experienced the same issue. Content viewable for free on the web is unavailable via the Hulu Plus client. Apparently it comes down to licensing: Hulu doesn’t have the rights to include some of the shows available for free on the web via their premium product. No doubt this is something the lawyers will work out later, but for right now it kind of sucks for the people who are paying for Hulu Plus. It’s also kind of funny. “You can’t have it.” “Why?” “Because it’s free.” Shades of Abbott and Costello. [via Electronista]
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:45 pm Report: Apple, Google, and RIM all considered buying Palm (Christopher Null)Christopher Null - Now that Palm has become snugly ensconced in the bosom of Hewlett-Packard, HP is well on its way to using Palm’s new WebOS to create phones, PDAs, tablets, and more — in fact, it’s canceled or postponed plans to use both Android and Windows in various mobile products. It’s betting that heavily on WebOS.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:44 pm More on how Gizmodo got its gear back in the "iPhone Warrant" kerfuffleFollowing up on news from earlier today: Ryan Singel of Wired News tweets, "Gizmodo outs its iPhone 4G source in return for getting editor's computers back from cops. That's fearless journalism." From...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:39 pm More on how Gizmodo got its gear back in the "iPhone Warrant" kerfuffleFollowing up on news from earlier today: Ryan Singel of Wired News tweets, "Gizmodo outs its iPhone 4G source in return for getting editor's computers back from cops. That's fearless journalism." From the Wired News piece: "Asked if Gizmodo will provide police with the names of its sources, [San Mateo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Stephen] Wagstaff replied only that they have agreed with [Gizmodo's] defense attorney [Thomas] Nolan that anything beyond the computer documents -- such as what went on around the story, or what his client's motives might have been -- would be answered by Nolan, not Chen or Gizmodo." Oddly, though, other outlets reported that it was Wired News, not Gizmodo, that outed Gizmodo's source.Source: Boing Boing | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:39 pm More on how Gizmodo got its gear back in the "iPhone Warrant" kerfuffleFollowing up on news from earlier today: Ryan Singel of Wired News tweets, "Gizmodo outs its iPhone 4G source in return for getting editor's computers back from cops. That's fearless journalism." From...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:39 pm UPDATE 2-Slim, Azcarraga sell stakes in Mexican airline* Indigo Partners LLC, one of new partners (Recasts with Volaris announcement, adds details on deal)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:37 pm What Now for the Gulf Oil Gusher?Now that the Gulf oil spill is capped, we answer some pressing questions about what to expect next.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:26 pm HTC Droid Incredible rooted courtesy of unrevokedSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones
The recently launched Motorola Droid X and the unofficial Motorola Droid 2 may be hard to root, but the good folks over at unrevoked managed to root the HTC Droid Incredible. Don’t worry, the process is fairly simple and should work flawlessly. If you want to root your HTC Droid Incredible, check out the link below and follow the directions. Via [unrevoked] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:19 pm Spacesuits of yesteryear, from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection Over at Gizmodo there's a wonderful image gallery from the book Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection, by author Amanda Young and photographer Mark Avino. Incidentally, this particular image reminds me of a frame from Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen. "Milk in the batter, milk in the batter! We bake cakes like nothing's the matter!"
Smithsonian's Spacesuits: Number One On The Runway (Gizmodo)
Spacesuits of yesteryear, from Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum CollectionOver at Gizmodo there's a wonderful image gallery from the book Spacesuits: The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Collection, by author Amanda Young and photographer Mark Avino. Incidentally,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNBlogTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:16 pm Apple: iPhone 4 drops more calls than iPhone 3GSGripes from some people about the iPhone 4's antenna design have overshadowed many buyers' comments that the newest smart phone from Apple Inc. gets far better reception than previous...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:14 pm WESUPPORTARIZONA.COM is Your #1 Internet Source for Current Illegal Immigration News, Arizona State and Federal Government ResourcesLONG BEACH, Calif., July 16 /PRNewswire/ -- WESUPPORTARIZONA.COM is based in Southern California and is your number one source for Arizona Senate Bill 1070 and related illegal immigration news and opinions. Senate Bill 1070 and our federal immigration laws were written to ensure that US citizens' security and rights are protected. The time is now to get involved, so we call on all Americans to voice your support for Arizona through www.wesupportarizona.com. We have several exciting events being planned, including a "Support Arizona Rally" in Orange County, California this summer, date and time TBA. Please show your support by purchasing merchandise - 20% of the net proceeds are pledged to benefit Arizona law enforcement and Border Patrol charities. Sign up and use the various links on our website to voice your support, share your opinion via our blog section, contact your state and national political leaders and keep up to date on recent illegal immigration news.Purchase merchandise to help Arizona law enforcement charities provide for the families of fallen officers. If you would like to get involved and support our efforts, please submit your request to info@wesupportarizona.com. Members of the media can contact the editor directly via telephone or email. To advertise on our site please submit your request via email and include your complete contact information.Respectfully, WESUPPORTARIZONA.COM SOURCE WESUPPORTARIZONA.COMSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:07 pm UPDATE 1-Epocrates files for $75 mln IPOJuly 16 (Reuters) - Clinical information provider Epocrates Inc filed with U.S. regulators on Friday to raise up to $75 million through an initial public offering of common stock.Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:06 pm Germany To Test Actively-Cooled SpacecraftFleaPlus writes "The German Aerospace Center is planning to launch a novel reusable spacecraft in 2011, incorporating flat, damage-resistant tiles. Nitrogen will be pumped through the porous tiles, creating a protective gas layer that actively cools and shields the hottest parts of the spacecraft from the searing heat of reentry. The €12.5M unmanned 'SHEFEX II' project is a major technological step toward the team's eventual goal of a reusable space glider, which will be cheaper and easier to build than NASA's space shuttle."
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Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:06 pm So Hot Right Now: Top 10 Gadgetell posts for the week of July 11, 2010Section: Haven’t caught all of the Gadgetell news this week? Here’s your chance to catch up on this week’s top 10 articles!
Full Story » | Written by NEWS for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:00 pm Handmade knife chipped from fiber optic glass
There are still people out there that practice the art (and I do mean art) of knapping; one such artist created this knife from fiber optic glass, and offers them for sale on his web site. Personally, I doubt I would ever use such a knife for fear of breaking it, but it does make an amazing display piece. If you want one, it’ll cost you $165 – a small price to pay considering the amount of time it must have taken to hand make this knife from a piece of glass. Remember, one mistake, and you have to start over. [via Make]
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:00 pm Apple's iPhone 4 case giveaway at a glanceQ: Why is Apple doing this? A: The iPhone 4 was redesigned. A steel band that runs around the phone acts as its antenna. Some people say calls disconnect when they accidentally cover a...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:59 pm Telefonica, Televisa win in Mexico frequency tenderMEXICO CITY, July 16 (Reuters) - Spain's Telefonica, tycoon Ricardo Salinas and broadcasting heavyweight Televisa made ($230 million) in winning bids to acquire wireless frequencies in one of two tenders,...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:50 pm Game of Life in HTML 5
Joseph Mansfield created an HTML 5 implementation of John Conway's Game of Life, the classic cellular automaton first devised in 1970. Conway's Game of Life in HTML 5 (via Technoccult)
Source: Boing Boing | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:39 pm Solar drone stays aloft for record 7 days: companyAn ultra-light unmanned aircraft powered by solar energy and designed for military surveillance and other uses has stayed in the air a record seven days, its manufacturer said Friday. ...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:38 pm Wine 1.2 ReleasedDavid Gerard writes "Stuck with that one Windows app you can't get rid of? Rejoice — Wine 1.2 is officially released! Apart from running pretty much any Windows application on Unix better than 1.0 (from 2008), major new features include 64-bit support, bi-directional text, and translation into thirty languages. And, of course, DirectX 9 is well-supported and DirectX 10 is getting better. Packages should hit the distros over the weekend, or you can get the source now."
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Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:36 pm FACTBOX-Oilfield services Q2 impact of Gulf/Mexico disasterJuly 16 (Reuters) - The second quarter was far worse for companies that rent offshore rigs to oil companies than for firms that provide services for them while drilling, since rig contractors have nowhere...Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:34 pm Google to no longer stock Nexus Ones
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:26 pm Can Drones Really Get National Airspace Access?coondoggie writes "There is a push by a variety of proponents to give unmanned aircraft more free rein in US airspace, but safety is a major hitch in that effort. The Federal Aviation Administration said this week that data from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which flies unmanned systems on border patrols, shows a total of 5,688 flight hours from Fiscal Year 2006 to July 13, 2010. The CBP accident rate is 52.7 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. This accident rate is more than seven times the general aviation accident rate (7.11 accidents/100,000 flight hours) and 353 times the commercial aviation accident rate (0.149 accidents/100,000 flight hours)." An FAA executive noted that an "accident" refers to a situation in which "the aircraft has done something unplanned or unexpected and violates an airspace regulation."
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Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:18 pm UPDATE 1-Ecopetrol, KNOC to invest $120 mln in Peru* Investment to reach $120 million (Adds details and quotes)Source: RSS feed - channel BNewsTech | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:17 pm “Vibration-Powered Generating Battery” is a AA that makes its own power
At first I thought these were like the “parametric generators” we saw back in March, but those harvest ambient harmonics. These batteries from Brother are designed to be shaken, not hummed at. You’ve probably seen the flashlights that you can shake for a few minutes in order to get half an hour of light (they’re called Faraday flashlights, interestingly). Very handy — and smart, in that the power generator is the size of the flashlight itself and not contained within the battery. With kinetic harvesting, the more movement, the more space, the more force, the better. These things seem to work the same way, but because they have to put so much more in a small space, the power they can generate and store is necessarily lower. Occasional draws of 100mW seem to be the limit for now, which pretty much puts this in the “clicker” category. Well, good. I hate changing the batteries in clickers. [via Obsessable]
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:15 pm Gizmodo to Cooperate With Probe Into Lost iPhone Prototype [Voices]By Shira Ovide, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal Gizmodo said it has reached an agreement with California authorities over access to some computer and other material related to an investigation of how the technology website obtained a prototype of the new Apple Inc. (AAPL) iPhone months before its release. In April, Gizmodo published details and video of the new iPhone 4 model. The website said it paid to obtain the phone, which was allegedly left behind in a bar by an Apple employee. The San Mateo County, Calif., district attorney’s office opened an investigation into whether crimes were committed in how the iPhone 4 details got out. Gizmodo and its parent company, Gawker Media LLC, had been resisting efforts by the district attorney’s office to search computers and other equipment seized from the home of Jason Chen, the Gizmodo editor who wrote about the iPhone prototype. Gawker had said that it was inappropriate for law-enforcement officials to seize materials from a news organization just with a search warrant, which news organizations can’t challenge in court. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:09 pm Google to no longer stock Nexus Ones
While Google will no longer sell the phone, it will still be available from Vodafone in the UK and KI in Korea. But it won’t be available here North America from any official channels. Google tried something different with the Nexus One by cutting out the carrier and selling the handset directly to the consumer like it’s commonly done abroad. But we here in the states live in a subsidized cell phone market. We created this model and will probably die by it, too. Oh well. At least we know the very best cell phones will always be $200 or less.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:06 pm Apple, Google and RIM were all involved in acquiring PalmSection: Business News, Apple, Communications, Cellular Providers, Mobile, Web, Google
Basically, Apple was interested in Palm’s vast patent holdings and their physical keyboard technology. However, funding webOS while continuing to build Apple’s own iOS might prove counterproductive in the long run. An Apple acquisition of Palm wouldn’t make too much sense so it looks like Apple was never completely all in and committed to Palm. Google was only involved with Palm because Apple was involved with Palm. Similar to Apple, Google was interested in Palm’s intellectual property, but never did pursue the acquisition. According to the source, RIM should have been the one to seal the deal because the BlackBerry manufacturer had the highest initial bid, but HP one upped them. After that, RIM refused to increase their bid making HP the winner with a $1.2 billion purchase. It’s interesting to see how many players were involved with Palm and almost surprising that Apple and Google were major players. Hopefully HP will do something amazing with the webOS such as flexible displays! Read [BusinessInsider] Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:06 pm CreatueCast: Fried Egg JellyfishOn the latest episode of CreatureCast, from Casey Dunn's evolutionary biology lab at Brown University, we meet the Fried Egg Jellyfish and learn about "some of the dramas that play out on jellyfish stages." Sophia Tintori interviewed Trisha Towanda, and animated and edited the video. The music is by Amil Byleckie. From the episode description: In the vast ocean, without walls and far from the floor, jellyfish can become drifting islands of activity. Creatures from far and wide will congregate on them to act out the ups and downs of life and death. Jellyfish have symbiotic relationships with living things of all sizes, from fish and shrimp that feed off them or off the pieces of food left between their tentacles, to single-celled photosynthesizing organisms that take shelter inside the cytoplasm of the jellyfish’s cells.CreatureCast- Jellyfish Theater
Source: Boing Boing | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:04 pm Micromem Technologies Inc. Provides an Update on Executed Manufacturing and Supply Agreements and Ongoing Business InitiativesTORONTO and NEW YORK, July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Micromem Technologies Inc., (Micromem, the "Company") (OTC BB: MMTIF, CNSX: MRM) and its wholly-owned subsidiary, Micromem Applied Sensor Technologies, Inc. (MAST) (www.mastinc.com), provide the following update on executed manufacturing and supply agreements and other business initiatives that were outlined and discussed in our March, 2010 press release. 1. The Company has delivered all material required to complete the final phase of the Unotron Incorporated certification testing. The certification process and timetable is managed by the licensing authorities. Once completed, the Company will be positioned to sell these certified units under the terms of the agreement previously struck with its contracted customer. 2. Management continues to negotiate a business development agreement with BAE. A further update to the shareholders is subject to a mutually agreed upon press release by the two companies. 3. Micromem has filed a submission to obtain FDA 510(k) clearance for the medical device which incorporates our magnetic sensors for an adjunctive screening indication in the breast. The review process depends in large part on the type and amount of additional information FDA requests regarding the device, if any, and how quickly Micromem can provide the requested information. To date Micromem has supplied all additional material requested. As previously announced FDA's clearance of a 510(k) notice for the device would authorize the device to be marketed for the listed indications in the United States. 4. Norwegian EM Technology (NEMT) continues to test our magnetic device in conjunction with its software design for exploration purposes. Management's discussions and negotiations with NEMT are proceeding and test results continue to come back better than expected. 5. Development work continues on both our mining and our oil sensor prototypes as part of our client/product pipeline. 6. The Company continues to invest in its IP as its business development initiatives have evolved and provide future opportunities. 7. As previously disclosed the parent company of NanoOpto recently announced that its NanoOpto operations will be discontinued. Management is currently working with the parent company to find an alternative source for its concentrator development. 8. Whereas Micromem anticipated that it would be positioned to report revenues from the initiatives described in points (1) and (3) above by March 31 St as reported in December 2009, its expectations at this stage are that these revenue opportunities will be realized in 2010 as the delays in commercialization have been due to production logistics and required regulatory approvals. MRAM Update: Micromem's MRAM is a viable technology and its current applications on Gallium Arsenide continue to be niche uses in specific fields. Micromem has elected to focus on the near term business opportunities brought on by the sensor development that evolved in conjunction with the MRAIVI work, hence the creation of Micromem Applied Sensor Technologies (MAST). Micromem will continue to work on its MRAM with interested parties to utilize the current design or enhance the device for more mainstream applications including the use of Silicon as a main substrate. None of the company's previously announced Joint Development Agreements contemplate the use of the MRAM as a component where we have committed the sensor technology. Micromem will provide further updates on these developments as they occur. About Micromem and MASTInc MASTInc is a wholly owned U.S.-based subsidiary of Micromem Technologies Inc., a publicly traded (OTC BB: MMTIF, CNSX: MRM) company. MASTInc responsibly analyzes the specific industry sectors to create intelligent game-changing applications that address unmet market needs. By leveraging its expertise and experience with sophisticated magnetic sensor applications, MASTInc successfully powers the development and implementation of innovative solutions for healthcare/biomedical, natural resource exploration, government, information technology, manufacturing, and other industries. Visit www.micromeminc.com www.mastinc.com. Safe Harbor Statement This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, assumptions and uncertainties that could cause the Company's actual results to differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. In particular, factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward looking statements include: our inability to obtain additional financing on acceptable terms; risk that our products and services will not gain widespread market acceptance; continued consumer adoption of digital technology; inability to compete with others who provide comparable products; the failure of our technology; the infringement of our technology with proprietary rights of third parties; inability to respond to consumer and technological demands; inability to replace significant customers; seasonal nature of our business; and other risks detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and are not guarantees of future performance. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. When used in this document, the words "believe," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "project," "plan," "should," "intend," "may," "will," "would," "potential," and similar expressions may be used to identify forward-looking statements. The CNSX or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release that has been prepared by management. Listing: NASD OTC-Bulletin Board - Symbol: MMTIF CNSX - Symbol: MRM Shares issued: 93,294,704 SEC File No: 0-26005 SOURCE Micromem Technologies Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 3:00 pm Breaking: French Government Still Can’t Get France.fr live
This is more than a mild embarrassment for France’s senior government official overseeing the Internet, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet. When the site launched she tweeted out “Lancement aujourd’hui du portail officiel de la France dans le monde” (“Today’s launch of official website of France in the world”). She’s been rather quiet since then. We’ll let you know if/when the French government is able to make the site live. If the country’s experience with building aircraft carriers is any indication of their ability to build websites, we should see it limping along sometime in 2013. Bonus link: click the flag. Update: Huh. they did manage to change the site is down message though. It used to say it was a victim of its own success, or something similar. Now it says, roughly “The team France.fr regret not being able to help you find the gate of France. We are currently facing a problem configuring our servers. We have undertaken an audit of all systems to allow us to reopen as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and very quick!”      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:48 pm Justin Bieber's "Baby" the Most-Watched YouTube Video Ever, So Far [Voices]By Beth Callaghan The 16-year-old’s video has been watched 246 million times and has been trading places at the top spot on YouTube for the last 24 hours or so with Lady GaGa’s “Bad Romance.” In a tweet to the “Beliebers,” his hard-core fans, Bieber had this to say: “i started on youtube so the support…well i just need to say thank u” Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:47 pm TechCrunch Friday Giveaway: We Don’t Want This Xbox, So You Can Have It
There’s also a bunch of additional stuff that came with it, we’ll send all that to you, too (see photo below). Here’s how you can win: Just “like” (fan) the TechCrunch Facebook page and/or the TechCrunch Google Buzz page and then do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #crunch hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why this device must be yours. Anyone in the world is eligible, as long as you can receive delivered packages. And we’ll throw in a TechCrunch tshirt. The contest ends at noon California time tomorrow (Saturday). Please only tweet the message once, anyone tweeting repeatedly will be disqualified. We’ll randomly select a winner tomorrow afternoon and contact you for more details.
     
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:34 pm Google Acquires Metawebeldavojohn writes "A startup called Metaweb (looks like an ontological, entity-based approach to Web 2.0 tagging) has been acquired by Google. You can find out what they're about from a super marketing fluff video they put together. The neat thing about Metaweb is that the database of entities it has is free. Will Google be able to make Metaweb work on their omniscient scale, or was this just Google making sure a startup doesn't become yet another player in search?"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:33 pm Sea-Level Rise Will Be Worse for Some, We Just Don't Know WhoDepending on how wind patterns change, climate change could mean either quick inundation or more beach space for different coastlines.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:30 pm Yelp’s Android App Approaching One Million Downloads
Yelp has one of the most popular apps on the iPhone, but its Android app is catching on too. Launched last December, the app is approaching one million downloads and activity on the app is picking up like crazy due to a recent upgrade that adds the ability to check into Yelp locations and Tweet them out or share them on Facebook. The number of active users is growing 50 percent week over week, according to Yelp. Across all mobile phones (iPhone, Blackberry, Android), Yelp has 2.5 million active users a month. The vast majority of those are still on the iPhone. And while, this is only a small fraction (7 percent) of the 34 million monthly unique visitors going to the Website, mobile users account for 27 percent of Yelp’s local searches. CEO Jeremy Stoppleman tells me that mobile is Yelps’ “fastest area of growth.” With 2.5 million active mobile app users, Yelp has slightly more mobile users than Foursquare, and it is definitely moving into Foursquare’s territory with its check-ins and recent addition of badges, dukedoms, and kingdoms. And while you can broadcast your check-ins to Twitter or Facebook, Yelp does not let you check into Foursquare from its apps. The game mechanics are definitely driving usage, but one thing you can’t do on Yelp’s mobile apps is post reviews! “It would just be annoying if the average review had punctuation errors and was obviously written on the phone,” explains Stoppleman, “so we added quick tips instead.” I predict he will have to bend and let mobile reviews take over. I’ll be sure to ask him about his stance at our Social Currency Crunchup on July 30, where Stoppleman will be speaking along with Google VP John Hanke (who heads up Google Places, Maps, earth, and local search).      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:28 pm A video tour of Apple’s wireless test chambers
Source: CrunchGear | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:15 pm Wired forecast the iPad's existence in 1999
It appears that Wired Magazine predicted that Apple would create "a wireless handheld dubbed the iPad" in its April, 1999 issue.
via @betsymason
Skype Mysteriously Vanishes From The iPhone App Store (Updated)
Update: Skype says that this is due to the fact that they just uploaded a new version of Skype for iPhone 4.0 which had “some difficulties” and that they’re working to fix it:
Update 2: Alright, looks like it’s back. Thanks to Will Shanklin for the tip Information provided by CrunchBase      
Source: TechCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:10 pm Guzzle for iPhone
I asked Marca Tatem why they chose to use a dedicated app instead of a touch-friendly mobile website.
According to Tatem, “With the Guzzle iPhone app, you’re always two taps away from getting fresh information.” If you’re a news junkie, check it out. It’s ninety nine cents in the App Store.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 2:00 pm Motorola Droid X Already Sold Out - Brighthand
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:58 pm Verizon & T-Mobile suprise customers with junkwareSection: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones, Mobile  How disappointing. Now we can all agree that Android has taken Microsoft’s place in the classic open vs. closed battle. We all know that feeling of booting up that nice new computer straight from the store and finding about 37 programs already installed “For Your Convenience.” You know the Norton, AOL, Quicken power package that swarms your computer before the first boot? Well that’s how Droid X and Samsung Vibrant owners should be feeling right now. After buying their shiny new phones from the Verizon or T-Mobile store, they boot into Android and find several apps already pre-installed. Droid X owners will be delighted to see a Need For Speed: Shift demo, Skype (free for 15 days), and my personal favorite, the Blockbuster application. The Blockbuster application is particularly nasty considering it can not be uninstalled through the application manager. Meanwhile Vibrant owners can expect “Avatar” the movie (although that’s not particularly a bad thing), a 30 day trial for a live video surfer MobiTV, a link to install The Sims 3, an outdated Kindle app, a trial for Gogo Inflight Internet and a Slacker. T-Mobile is particularly tricky. Because they blend in a lot of the junk with well known and loved applications like Kindle and Slacker radio. For crying out loud. If I’m willing to shell out $200 on a phone and regularly pay you a ridiculously high fee for 2 years, can I please avoid the junkware? That’s low blow Verizon. And I’ve got my eye on you T-Mobile. Read [L.A. Times]
Full Story » | Written by Hunter Clarke for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:58 pm Wired Gadget Lab Podcast: 3-D Phones, iPhone Flaws and More
In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, we discuss the top stories from the world of gadgets. First up: new technology to bring 3-D to your cellphone’s screen. It’s not quite fully-baked yet, but as Priya Ganapati reported earlier this week, cellphone manufacturers are already looking into technology that will enable cellphones to sport 3-D displays that don’t require special glasses, much like the Nintendo 3DS screen. Reports continue to pour in about reception problems with the iPhone 4’s antenna design. We think it’s time Apple fessed up to the problem and fixed it, already. (Note: This podcast was recorded before Apple’s Friday press conference, at which the company admitted to the problem — sort of — and offered free cases to all iPhone 4 customers.) In addition, Gadget Lab’s Dylan Tweney and Brian X. Chen show off two new headsets: The $60 Jabra Halo and the $80 Nox Audio Specialist. And then we tackle a few reader questions about 3-D displays, how not to hold an iPhone, and the future of digital tablets. Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast via iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our mugs, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds. See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:55 pm Jobs Feels Like He's Been Through a Tear-Down [Digital Daily]“We love our customers,” said Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs several times during today’s iPhone 4 news conference. But the tech media and its coverage of the antenna issue? Jobs made it clear with some pointed comments that there’s no love lost there: “If you’ve read the media coverage you’d think, Jesus, at least half of our customers have called in to complain,” he exclaimed.
Asked about a Bloomberg article asserting that a top Apple engineer had warned of antenna design problems, Jobs shot back, “Yeah, that was a total crock. We challenge them to come up with any evidence to prove it.… I talked to Rubin [the engineer mentioned in the article] and he says it’s total bullshit from his point of view as well.” Another question mentioned a New York Times story that suggested a “latent software issue” could be at fault, to which iOS head Scott Forstall replied, “That’s patently false,” and Jobs added, “One of many such statements we’ve seen over the past week.” Jobs sounded not only disgusted but a bit disheartened as well. “One thing I’ve learned is that when there’s a successful organization, people want to tear it down….It’s happening to Google now. Google’s a great company, but people are tearing them down. What’s the purpose in that?…Would they rather that we were a Korean company and not an American one?…Sometimes I feel that these Web sites in search of eyeballs don’t know what they leave in their wake….We’ve been around for how many years? Don’t we have the trust from the press that we will address issues like this when they arise? I didn’t see that this week….Now we weren’t innocents in this, but the reaction to this based on the data we have has been so overblown that to digest it and determine what we can do better is going to take us some time.” Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:53 pm X-Ray Burst Temporarily Blinds NASA SatelliteRedEaredSlider writes with news that a recently-detected gamma-ray burst, originating roughly five billion light-years away, was powerful enough to temporarily blind NASA's Swift satellite. Phil Plait has an interesting writeup on the event. Quoting: "Swift, normally easily able to handle the X-ray load from these explosions, was overwhelmed, and actually shut down temporarily when software detected that the cameras onboard might get damaged by the flood of light. That’s never happened before. The burst was so bright in X-rays it put other GRBs to shame: slamming Swift with 143,000 X-ray photons per second, it was 5 times brighter than the previous record holder, and nearly 200 times as bright as a typical GRB! Weirdly, it didn’t look out of the ordinary in visible light."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:50 pm A recap of the Apple eventSection: Apple, Communications, Accessories, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Smartphones  Now that the Apple event is over, it’s time to check out everything Steve Jobs said regarding the iPhone 4 and Apple. Throughout the keynote presentation, Jobs mentioned that Apple is an engineering company, they love their customers, and no smartphone is perfect. Jobs was also quick to call the Bloomberg report, that claimed someone at Apple raised the antenna issue during the design phase, “total ########.” With that aside, the iPhone 4 sold over 3 million times since its launch three weeks ago. It has the highest customer satisfaction of any iPhone or smartphone. Apple has been looking into the antennagate problem for 22 days now and has discovered interesting data. Phones such as the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia II each show reception issues when held a certain way. He probably chose those three phones because they operate on different OS’s and he wanted to show every smartphone faces some sort of reception issue. Now, apparently only 0.55% of all iPhone users called AppleCare to actually complain about reception issues. The iPhone 3GS had a return rate of 6% and the iPhone 4 has a return rate of 1.7%. In Jobs’ eyes, these are pretty telling numbers, especially considering the iPhone 4 has such a large hardware defect. In terms of data from AT&T, the iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per 100 than the 3GS. Since Apple cares about every customer, even the very small minority who called to complain about reception issues, they rolled out iOS 4.0.1 which is going to change the formula used to display signal strength on the iPhone. In addition, Apple will be providing every customer with a free case. For iPhone 4 owners outside of the United States, Apple will be extending the free case offer to you as well. In terms of the proximity sensor issue, Apple is ironing out the kinks and should have a software update that tackles the sensor problem soon. The elusive white iPhone is going to start shipping at the end of the month. Hopefully Apple sticks to this statement, because some prospective Apple customers really want the white iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 is going to launch in 17 additional countries on July 30, with the exception of South Korea. Countries include Austrailia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Spain Sweden, and Switzerland. Overall, Apple acknowledges the reception issue as one plaguing only a few users, but will offer every user a free case as a reparation. For additional coverage, be sure to check out Appletell. Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:37 pm Gawker Media Deals Its Way Out of iPhone Search WarrantProsecutors withdraw a controversial search warrant against Gizmodo and one of its editors over the site's iPhone 4G scoop. Gawker Media strikes a deal to get the warrant withdrawn.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:30 pm Times Case for Gov Regulation of Google Search Is WeakThe New York Times editorial board calls for Google to show its secret sauce to the government, but fails to make its case. The money's not in the rankings, at least not the way the Times thinks it is.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:30 pm Chemists Grow Crystals With A Twist -- And UntwistChemists from New York University and Russia's St. Petersburg State University have created crystals that can twist and untwist, pointing to a much more varied process of crystal growth than previously thought. Their work, which appears in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, may explain some of the properties of high-polymers, which are used in clothing and liquid crystal displays, among other consumer products.Crystal growth has traditionally been viewed as a collection of individual atoms, molecules, or small clusters adding to a larger block that remains in a fixed translational relationship to the rest.But the NYU and St. Petersburg State University chemists discovered a wholly new phenomenon for growth— a crystal that continually changes its shape as it grows.To do this, the researchers focused on crystals from hippuric acid—a derivative of the amino acid glycine. As molecules were added to the end of fine crystalline needles, stresses built up at the tips of the crystals and resulted in a helical twist—much like DNA's double helix. The process was reversed when crystals thickened from the opposite end of the growing tip—that is, the crystals stiffened, thereby undoing the twisted formations. This is because the elasticity of the crystals decreases as they become thicker, thus "squeezing out" the deformations that were induced at the growing tip."This competition between twisting and untwisting creates needles with a rainbow of colors, which is a characteristic of tightly wound helices, as well as ribbons that have become completely untwisted," said Bart Kahr, one of the study's co-authors and a professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry, explaining the crystals' appearance. "This is a very strange and new perspective on crystal growth.""This dynamic has not been observed before and points to a much more active process of crystal growth than we had anticipated," added Kahr, also part of NYU's Molecular Design Institute.---On the Net:New York UniversityJournal of the American Chemical SocietySource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:27 pm Chump Dump: Get Rid Of “Friends” On Twitter
The somewhat irreverent concept is both funny and serious; gain points for ceasing to follow people on twitter. The app recalls Crispin Porter’s Whopper Sacrifice campaign for unfriending people on Facebook, but has a much purer and utilitarian result in mind—clean up the list of people you follow on Twitter using game mechanics, actual metrics and crowdsourced conversation. As funny or rebellious as the app seems on the surface, when you get down to it, its goal is functionally sound and it gets people to ask the real question “why am I following this chump on Twitter?”
Ultimately, I think an app like this could actually add more relationship value and reputation status to your Twitter stream if you are not actively analyzing the people you follow. Or, you know…you could just have fun dumping people too. You can also see the list of “dumped chumps” using their Chumpdar (like as in radar) mashup . Pretty funny. Check out Dan’s own description of the app in the video below and while you’re at it, I would recommend checking out some of the other products over at the Big Kitty Labs website, like ParsePlz or HashParty. These guys seem to be thinkers with solid design chops and a great sense of humor!
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:25 pm Steve Jobs confirms: Android outselling iPhone - Fortune
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:24 pm Video: Eric Savitz on the iPhone 4 Press Conference [Digital Daily]Eric Savitz from Barron’s Tech Trader Daily gives his first impressions following Apple’s press conference regarding “Antennagate.” From outside the corporate headquarters in Cupertino, he describes Apple’s explanations for the perceived iPhone 4 antenna reception issues. [ See post to watch video ] You’ll want to turn the audio up. It was very noisy following the event, so the audio isn’t ideal. Sorry!
Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:22 pm Apple Offering Free Cases For iPhone 4 CustomersApple Inc. addressed concerns over its new iPhone 4 device’s signal issues at a press conference held at its headquarters in California on Friday. Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that Apple will give away free protective cases to iPhone 4 buyers in order to alleviate a problem in which holding the phone with a bare hand can muffle the wireless signal. Jobs said that people who have already purchased the $29 "Bumper" cases will be refunded. He began the press conference saying "We're not perfect," but pointed out that the flaw dramatized in the new iPhone 4 exists in other popular smartphones as well. He played a video showing BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Droid Eris and Samsung Omnia II all dropping signal when gripped a specific way. "This is life in the smartphone world. Phones aren't perfect. Most every smartphone we tested behaved like this," he said, referring to the controversy as "Antennagate."Jobs said the iPhone 4's antenna issue is not widespread, and that only 0.55 percent of the customers who have purchased the device have called Apple's support line to complain. He also pointed out that the iPhone 4 has sold three million devices since its launch and that only 1.7 percent have been returned. The previous generation, iPhone 3GS, saw 6 percent returns during the same period of its release. "We're not feeling right now that we have a giant problem we need to fix," Jobs said. "This has been blown so out of proportion that it's incredible. I know it's fun to have a story, but it's less fun when you're on the other end of it."Jobs did apologize to customers who had less-than-perfect experiences with the new device. "We're going to do whatever it takes to make them happy and if we can't make them happy we're going to give them a full refund and say we're really sorry we inconvenienced you, and we're going to do better next time," the CEO said.Ed Brown, who sells accessories for Apple products from a table set up on the street outside an Apple store in New York, told The Associated Press that he has had customers come hunting for iPhone 4 cases because they have heard of the antenna problem. However, he said that they are not mad at Apple. ---On the Net:Apple Inc.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:20 pm Scientists Identify Nature's Insect RepellentsIn the battle between insect predators and their prey, chemical signals called kairomones serve as an early-warning system. Pervasively emitted by the predators, the compounds are detected by their prey, and can even trigger adaptations, such a change in body size or armor, that help protect the prey. But as widespread as kairomones are in the insect world, their chemical identity has remained largely unknown. New research by Rockefeller University's Joel E. Cohen and colleagues at the University of Haifa in Israel has identified two compounds emitted by mosquito predators that make the mosquitoes less inclined to lay eggs in pools of water. The findings, published in the July issue of Ecology Letters, may provide new environmentally friendly tactics for repelling and controlling disease-carrying insects.Many animals use chemicals to communicate with each other. Pheromones, which influence social and reproductive behaviors within a particular species, are probably the best known and studied. Kairomones are produced by an individual of one species and received by an individual of a different species, with the receiving species often benefiting at the expense of the donor.Cohen and his Israeli colleagues focused on the interaction between two insect species found in temporary pools of the Mediterranean and the Middle East: larvae of the mosquito C. longiareolata and its predator, the backswimmer N. maculata. When the arriving female mosquitoes detect a chemical emitted by the backswimmer, they are less likely to lay eggs in that pool.To reproduce conditions of temporary pools in the field, the researchers used aged tap water with fish food added as a source of nutrients. Individual backswimmers were then placed in vials containing samples of the temporary pools, and air samples were collected from the headspace within the vials. The researchers used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze the chemicals emitted by the backswimmers.Cohen and his colleagues identified two chemicals, hydrocarbons called n-heneicosane and n-tricosane, which repelled egg-laying by mosquitoes at the concentrations of those compounds found in nature. Together, the two chemicals had an additive effect.Since the mosquitoes can detect the backswimmer's kairomones from above the water's surface, predator-released kairomones can reduce the mosquito's immediate risk of predation, says Cohen. But they also increase the female mosquito's chance of dying from other causes before she finds a pool safe for her to lay her eggs in."That's why we think these chemicals could be a useful part of a strategy to control the population size of mosquitoes," says Cohen, who is the Abby Mauzé Rockefeller Professor and head of the Laboratory of Populations. "We started this work from very basic curiosity about how food webs and predator-prey interactions work, but we now see unexpected practical applications. These newly identified compounds, and others that remain to be discovered, might be effective in controlling populations of disease-carrying insects. It's far too soon to say, but there's the possibility of an advance in the battle against infectious disease."---On the Net:Rockefeller UniversityEcology LettersSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:14 pm Jobs: Nobody's Perfect (But We're Very Close) [Digital Daily]
One of Steve Jobs’s major points in addressing the iPhone 4 flap today was the universality of the problem. Any phone on any platform might show signal attenuation when held in a particular way, he said. So yes, there’s a problem–smartphones have weak spots. But in contrast to the media fuss, he said, it’s not a problem for the vast majority of iPhone 4 owners, and he rolled out some numbers to back it up. AppleCare stats show only 0.55 percent of owners have called about reception or antenna issues. The return rate on the iPhone 4 is 1.7 percent, less than a third of the rate for the iPhone 3GS. Jobs did acknowledge that the new model dropped more calls than its predecessor–by less than one call per hundred. Other numbers from the news conference:
Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:12 pm Gene Makes Some Drink More When Other Boozers Are AroundPeople who inherit a particular gene variant that tweaks the brain's reward system are especially likely to drink a lot of alcohol in the company of heavy-boozing peers.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:10 pm Redundant Genetic Instructions In 'Junk DNA' Support Healthy DevelopmentSeemingly redundant portions of the fruit fly genome may not be so redundant after allNew findings from a Princeton-led team of researchers suggest that repeated instructional regions in the flies' DNA may contribute to normal development under less-than-ideal growth conditions by making sure that genes are turned on and off at the appropriate times. If similar regions are found in humans, they may hold important clues to understanding developmental disorders.The research results, published in the July 22 issue of the journal Nature, add to the growing body of evidence that so-called "junk DNA" is anything but rubbish. The term "junk DNA" is commonly used to describe the portion of the genome that doesn't contain genes, which are pieces of DNA that code for the production of proteins and other molecules that have specific functions. The noncoding region is often surprisingly large; in humans, some 98 percent of the genome merits "junk" status. But according to David Stern, a Princeton professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, scientists increasingly believe "junk DNA" is crucial for turning the information encoded in genes into useful products."Over the past 10 to 20 years, research has shown that instructional regions outside the protein-coding region are important for regulating when genes are turned on and off," said Stern, the senior scientist on the paper. "Now we're finding that additional copies of these genetic instructions are important for maintaining stable gene function even in a variable environment, so that genes produce the right output for organisms to develop normally."Stern, along with Nicolás Frankel, a postdoctoral research fellow at Princeton, and their collaborators focused their attention on instructional regions called enhancers. These regions play an important role in the process by which information encoded in genes is used to direct the synthesis of the proteins that make an organism what it is -- be it a fly, a mouse or a human."To interpret and fully understand the genome, we need to think of it from an ecological and evolutionary perspective," Stern said. "Its purpose is to produce a healthy organism in a variable environment, so a good portion of it has evolved to deal with contingencies that organisms will experience in the real world."When enhancers were first discovered, scientists believed that they always were located in close proximity to the target genes that they regulate. Distances in DNA are measured in base pairs, which are the building blocks that make up the DNA molecule (for comparison, the entire fruit fly genome contains about 130 million base pairs, while the human genome has more than 3 billion). Until recently, enhancers were thought always to exist within about 1,000 base pairs from their target genes.But in 2008, the University of California-Berkeley's Michael Levine reported the discovery of secondary enhancers for a particular fruit fly gene that were located much farther away from the target genes and from the previously discovered enhancers that were located adjacent to the gene.Levine's team called the apparently redundant copies in distant genetic realms "shadow enhancers" and hypothesized that they might serve to make sure that genes are expressed normally, even if development is disturbed. Factors that might induce developmental disturbances include environmental conditions, such as extreme temperatures, and internal factors, such as mutations in other genes.Stern and his team put Levine's hypothesis to the test by studying a fruit fly gene that codes for the production of tiny hair-like projections on the insect's body, which are called trichomes. The gene, known as shavenbaby, takes its name from the fact that flies with a mutated copy of the gene are nearly hairless. Stern previously led a research effort that identified three primary enhancers for shavenbaby. In the new research, his team discovered two shadow enhancers for shavenbaby, located more than 50,000 base pairs away from the gene.In their experiments, the researchers deleted these two shadow enhancers, leaving the primary enhancers in place, and observed developing fly embryos under a range of temperature conditions. At optimal temperatures for fruit fly development -- around 25 degrees Celsius, or a comfortable 77 degrees Fahrenheit -- the embryos without shadow enhancers had only very slight defects in their trichomes. But the results were very different when the researchers observed embryos that developed at temperatures close to the extremes at which developing fruit flies can survive -- 17 degrees Celsius, or 63 degrees Fahrenheit, on the low end and 32 degrees Celsius, or 90 degrees Fahrenheit, at the upper limit. These flies without shadow enhancers developed with severe deficiencies in the number of trichomes produced."These results indicate that the genetic instructions that seemed dependable at optimal temperatures were just not up to the task in other conditions," Stern said.To test internal factors affecting developmental deficiencies, the team also investigated what would happen if the secondary enhancers for the shavenbaby gene were removed from fruit fly embryos that had a mutation in another gene involved in trichome development. They found that trichome formation in the mutants was significantly more impaired when the shadow enhancers were absent. Along with the findings of the temperature experiment, the results support the hypothesis that shadow enhancers make developing embryos more robust to both environmental and genetic variation.The work has important implications for the design of future experiments, which are often conducted in the lab under ideal conditions for the growth of the study organisms. While conducive for proper development, these experimental set-ups may mask the significant role shadow enhancers play to ensure normal development. Future studies of development could explore less optimal settings."Backup regulatory DNAs, also called shadow enhancers, ensure the reliable activities of essential genes such as shavenbaby even under adverse conditions, such as increases in temperature," Levine said. "If Dr. Stern and his associates had not examined the activities of shavenbaby under such conditions, then the shadow enhancers might have been missed since they are not needed when fruit flies are grown at optimal culturing conditions in the laboratory."To date, shadow enhancers have been discovered for numerous genes in fruit flies and mice. Many scientists, including Stern and Levine, believe similarly redundant instructional regions are pervasive in the human genome. If this is found to be true, it could have important implications for understanding a wide range of developmental disorders and explaining why some people with certain genetic mutations develop a given condition while others do not. The presence of shadow enhancers could be one of the determining factors in this "genetic lottery."---On the Net:Princeton UniversityNatureSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:09 pm Tecnalia Investigates Ecological Cement That Cuts CO2 Emissions By Up To 100%The Tecnalia Construction Unit, within the framework of its commitment to sustainability, has developed a new generation of environmentally-friendly cements that enable cutting direct CO2 emissions to the atmosphere by up to 100%.The development of the new ecological cement, as well as the techniques for enhancing its mechanical properties using nanotechnology, has lead to the obtention of two patents, whose ownership is shared between Tecnalia and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).In drawing up these products, the Nanomaterials in Construction Team (NANOC) at Tecnalia substituted limestone as the raw material by solid waste from thermal power stations. Thanks to this new production technique, a threefold objective has been achieved: carrying out efficient management of waste through recycling (it is estimated that through 2010 some 800 million tons of solid waste will be generated by power stations, 50% of which will go to the waste dump), thus contributing to the preservation of the natural resources of the planet and avoiding the direct emission to the atmosphere of greenhouse effect gases through eliminating the limestone burning process.Likewise, the technology developed by Tecnalia-Construction enables reducing the energy demand of the cement synthesis process by approximately 50%.Traditional processThe traditional process of manufacturing cements involves the calcination of limestone, resulting in the over-exploitation of a non- renewable natural resource and the emission of huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. Moreover, the current cement synthesis process involves high consumption of energy which, depending on the source used, leads to an additional increase in the contaminant emissions. As a consequence, it is calculated that 5% of the total emissions of CO2 worldwide comes from the cement industry.The new generation of ecological cements developed by Tecnalia-Construcción is a revolution in the current model of production which will significantly contribute to ameliorate the harmful effects on the environment of the activity of the cement industry. This project is within the remit of Tecnalia’s objective to contribute to the development of innovative technology for an economy based on sustainable development. ---On the Net:Basque ResearchSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:04 pm AMD: After Hours Gains Gone; Focus Turns To Processor Delay [Voices]By Eric Savitz, Blogger and Columnist, Barron’s, Tech Trader Daily Well, the new era of good feeling for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) shares didn’t last very long. AMD spikes in after hours trading after the company posted better-than-expected revenues and profits for the second quarter, the stock has reversed and is trading meaningfully lower this morning, as attention turns to a noteworthy production delays for a much-anticipated “Fusion” chip code-named Llano that combines a microprocessor with a graphics processor. While the results initially looked like a carbon-copy of the strong results from Intel (INTC) earlier in the week, AMD once again proves to be a stickier story than many investors would like. Read the rest of this post on the original site Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:03 pm Quick rant @ Verizon: How about providing the customer service number when OTA activation fails?
Then this message plays, “I’m sorry. We are unable to program your phone at this time. Please call customer service from a landline phone and a representative will be happy to assist you.” Alright, But what’s the number? So I dig through all the little booklets and documentation that comes with the phone. It’s not there. On the shipping reciept? Nope. Of course I found it next on the website but that’s not the point. How hard would it be to put the damn phone number in the message? That’s all I want. Just an extra five seconds on the message with the option to replay the number if necessary. That’s all. Thank you for your time. You may now return to obsessing over the iPhone 4 antenna crap.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 1:03 pm Scientists Mount A 'Sting Operation' In Thailand To Tackle A Devastating Pest OutbreakBiological control of a South American insect invader expected to protect the incomes of millions of cassava farmers across Southeast AsiaIn the start of a carefully crafted emergency campaign to thwart a pest outbreak that is wreaking havoc on Thailand's vital cassava production, agricultural researchers will release a quarter of a million parasitic wasps in the northeastern part of the country.Thailand's cassava industry alone accounts for more than 60 percent of global exports of this tropical root crop, which is critical for food security and economic growth in many developing countries. About 5 million growers across Southeast Asia supply cassava to domestic and foreign processing industries, which convert the roots to animal feed and biofuels and also extract starch from them for use in a wide variety of food and other products.Thailand's Department of Agriculture is expected to officially start the release of Anagyrus lopezi (the wasp's scientific name) as a form of biological control in the country's northeastern province of Khon Kaen on Saturday (17 July), following two small scale releases to evaluate environmental impact.“Cassava is an important crop for small-scale farmers in our country, so there’s no time to lose in applying the fastest, most reliable solution available, said Amporn Winotai, who is a senior entomologist for Thailand’s Department of Agriculture."Cassava is a crucial crop in Thailand, generating more than US$1 billion of income for farmers each year, and more again to industry," said Tin Maung Aye, a cassava agronomist with the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT by its Spanish acronym). "Reductions of that magnitude translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses, especially if the pest is allowed to spread further."The pest is the cassava mealybug, known to scientists as Phenacoccus manihoti. Originally from South America, it feeds only on cassava, sucking sap from the plants and causing them to shrivel. Also a South American native, cassava was carried by Portuguese traders to Africa and Asia, where it thrived in the absence of the insect pests that inhabit its home territory.But eventually, the mealybug and others caught up with cassava, devastating crops first in sub-Saharan Africa and now in Southeast Asia. The spread of cassava mealybug to about 200,000 hectares has been confirmed in eastern and northeastern Thailand, where the pest is causing yield losses as high as 50 percent. Since the country's cassava industry generates more than US$1.5 billion of income each year—and the overall Thai cassava industry is worth US$ 3bn-- reductions of that magnitude could translate into hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses, especially if the pest is allowed to spread further.In mounting the emergency campaign, Thai scientists consulted with two organizations – the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) branch in Benin and the Colombia-based CIAT, Both centers are supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR).IITA, CIAT and various partner organizations curbed mealybug attacks on Africa's cassava crop during the 1980s through a highly successful biocontrol campaign, which staved off a major food security catastrophe, according to IITA entomologist Georg Goergen, who hand-carried a colony of the 500 wasps from Benin to Bangkok last year to start the testing and mass rearing.Identifying the cassava mealybug species in Thailand was at first complicated, the Thai Department of Agriculture’s Winotai said, by its resemblance to another closely related mealybug species, P. madeirensis, which is probably also from South America but poses no threat to cassava.Within a year after confirming the presence of the cassava mealybug, P. manihoti, the Thai Department of Agriculture had arranged for importation of the pest's most effective natural enemy, following strict quarantine procedures, and then carried out controlled testing and mass multiplication ready for a possible release.Early on, researchers discarded the option of containing the mealybug in Thailand with pesticides. "Applying chemicals on such a large scale would be environmental vandalism," said Tony Bellotti, a CIAT entomologist, who has spent 35 years investigating cassava pests. "Sending in the wasps is a proven way to kill the cassava mealybugs quickly and effectively. Think of them as a kind of eco-friendly SWAT team."Measuring less than 2 millimeters in length, the A. lopezi wasp has already shown itself to be a formidable natural enemy of the cassava mealybug in South America and sub-Saharan Africa. Even when infestations are low, female wasps are able to detect and home-in on their prey, injecting their eggs into the mealybugs. The pest population is then gradually reduced, as the wasp larvae grow and as adult females feed on the host insect. The wasps pose no threat to humans, animals, or other insects.The wasp proved so effective in sub-Saharan Africa that Hans Herren, the scientist who led the biocontrol effort there, was awarded the World Food Prize in 1995. The collaborative effort also earned IITA and CIAT the CGIAR's 1990 King Baudouin Award, which recognizes outstanding contributions to developing country agriculture. The economic benefits resulting from biocontrol of the cassava mealybug in Africa exceeded the cost of the research by a factor of at least 200.CIAT scientists are investigating reports that that the cassava mealybug has already spread to Cambodia, Burma, Laos and Vietnam. Bellotti expects that it will soon reach other parts of Southeast Asia as well, including southern China, and eventually to Indonesia and the Philippines."It's going to be an international game of cat-and-mouse," he said. "As the cassava mealybug finds its way to new countries and regions, we can send in the wasps." In the long term, Bellotti explained, scientists will also need to develop cassava crops with genetic resistance to mealybugs as part of integrated pest management strategies. To be most effective, biocontrol must be combined with more resilient cassava varieties and better crop management."Cassava production in Southeast Asia has enjoyed an extended honeymoon, relatively free of major pest and disease outbreaks," Bellotti continued. "But now it's over. And the mealybug isn't the only cassava pest out there. Mites and whiteflies, for example, are also extremely damaging and there are some worrying diseases as well.""Thailand's rapid response to stop the cassava mealybug plague shows international agricultural research at its best," said Ruben Echeverria, director general of CIAT. "This is why it's so important for developing countries to have strong research programs working closely with the international centers like CIAT and IITA."---On the Net:CIATSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:49 pm Firefox Home for iPhone now available in the App StoreSection: Apple, Communications, Smartphones, Mobile, Web, Web Browsers
Moving on though, the Firefox Home app will give you access to items including your Firefox desktop history, bookmarks and any open tabs. Basically, your desktop version of Firefox syncs with the cloud, which in turn gives you the access while on the go from your iPhone (or iPod touch). A nice plus for when you have a few tabs open and have to run out for a while. Of course, that ends up meaning you are likely to take work with you sometimes. In all, the setup appears to be fairly simple. Make sure Firefox is installed on your computer and then install the Firefox Sync add-on. After that you can install the app on your iPhone or iPod touch and then enter your account info on your computer and iPhone and you should be in-sync moving forward. Read [Mozilla Blog] App [Firefox Home (App Store link)] Full Story » | Written by Robert Nelson for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article » Source: Gadgetell | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:49 pm New Study Charts Effects of Each Degree of WarmingExperts bring new focus to human impacts on climate and warn of changes that will last for many generations.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:42 pm Gizmodo to Cooperate With Probe Into Lost iPhone Prototype - Wall Street Journal
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:33 pm Geoneutrinos Could Help Predict EarthquakesScientists have detected "geo-neutrinos" deep within the Earth's interior, using a giant underground detector as a kind of "telescope," commonly used to detect solar and cosmic neutrinos.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:32 pm Refining A Cosmic ClockParticle accelerator research helps narrow down the age of our galaxyPhysicists will soon have a better measure of the age of our galaxy, thanks to experiments described in a trio of papers appearing in the journal Physical Review C. The papers report on experiments at the CERN neutron time-of-flight (n_TOF) facility and the Karlsruhe Van de Graaff accelerator that clarify the processes that affect the abundance of the element osmium-187. The element is created when rhenium-187 decays. Because rhenium-187 was produced in the first stellar explosions after the birth of the galaxy, measuring the amounts of rhenium-187 and osmium-187 we observe today can provide an estimate of the galaxy's age. In effect, the elements act as a cosmic clock that started ticking when the galaxy was born.Unfortunately, there are various processes that can affect the amounts of osmium we measure. Uncertainties in our understanding of those processes have limited the accuracy of the cosmic clock to more than a billion years. The CERN and Karlsruhe experiments involve firing pulses of neutrons into an osmium target to determine how frequently the element is likely to capture neutrons and convert to another material. The data the researchers collected has reduced uncertainties in the rhenium-osmium cosmic clock to less than a billion years, allowing a better estimate of our roughly 14 billion year old galaxy.---On the Net:American Physical SocietyPhysical Review CSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:31 pm Alexander the Great Killed by Toxic Bacteria?The Styx River, the legendary portal to the underworld, harbors a deadly bacteria that may have ended Alexander's life.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:30 pm Toyota, Tesla Resurrect the Electric RAV4EV advocates experience deja vu as one of the best electrics ever built makes a comeback.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:28 pm /C O R R E C T I O N -- VocalTec Communications Ltd./In the news release, VocalTec and YMAX/magicJack Announce Merger, issued 16-Jul-2010 by VocalTec Communications Ltd. over PR Newswire, we are advised by the company that the first paragraph, fourth sentence, should read, "The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value of at least $17.50 on Monday, July 19th, 2010 on a stock split adjusted basis." rather than "The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value at least $17.50." In addition, third paragraph, first sentence should now end with "2008." instead of "2009." as originally issued inadvertently. The complete, corrected release follows: VocalTec and YMAX/magicJack Announce Merger Combined company has the use of over 30 patents or patents pending YMAX/magicJack and VocalTec to advance lead on voice on everything SIP platform including free phone numbers, contacts on network, and free domestic local and long distance NETANYA, Israel and WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VocalTec Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: VOCL), the inventor of VOIP including the softphone, and YMAX Corp., the creator of magicJack and other products and services have successfully merged and will be traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol (NasdaqGM (Global Markets): CALL). VocalTec stock will seize to be trading using the symbol (NasdaqCM:VOCL) after close of business today July, 16th 2010. It will commence trading using the symbol (Nasdaq: CALL) on Monday, July 19th, 2010. The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value of at least $17.50 on Monday, July 19th, 2010 on a stock split adjusted basis. The previous holders of VocalTec will have 1,173,294 shares of common stock following the merger. VocalTec expects to have revenues ranging from $110 million to $125 million this year. With over $40 million cash/securities on hand and no debt, VocalTec expects to show a profit in the current quarter. For additional information on this announcement we recommend that investors read the entire press release and the VocalTec (Nasdaq: VOCL) press release describing the stock split and review the form 6-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we expect to be filed on or before Monday, July 19th, 2010, described below. The combined companies have the use of over 30 patents, some dating to when VocalTec invented VOIP. In the current legal world we live in, this protection is crucial. The company believes that its patents, technology, and inventions are prior art to other existing patents and may also expose patent invalidity. The combination of patents and softphone/softswitch technology were the primary drivers of the merger. The combined company is much stronger now. YMAX brings the success of the magicJack in the form of brand equity, distribution and advertising across many outlets and over 6,500,000 magicJacks sold since 2008. The largest reaching CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in the United States in terms of area codes available and certification in number of states, it has its own chip development and application server/softswitch company. VocalTec also adds softswitch, application servers and the softphone to the mix. The combined company will have cost reductions through different synergies. VocalTec's advantages over its competitors, including Skype, include: A softphone, sharing a user's favorite numbers, available across many platforms:A computer A computer with a magicJack connected enabling the use of a regular telephone (corded or portable) with the ability to be the second line in a house or the primary number A computer with a femtocell-enabled magicJack allowing calls from a user's cell phone to go through a home computer and achieving superior call quality in your house while saving valuable cellular plan minutes (to be available later this year)Via mobile applications on iPhone® and iPad(TM) mobile digital devices and mobile devices running the Android(TM) and Blackberry® mobile technology platforms (beta versions today, formal release in Q4 of 2010)Free phone numbers given out to all our customers and easily dialed from any telephoneFree telephone services for magicJack to magicJack callsFree telephone calls from our softphone users to anybody in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin IslandsUnderlying network carrying these calls is a dedicated telephone network with over 130 very powerful servers, session border controllers and application servers. This network has proven to have 99.99% uptime in the last yearFree voicemail, directory assistance, and local and long distance calling in the U.S. and CanadaUser contacts stored on our network so where ever they might use the softphone, the contact list will be downloaded to the appWe believe we have the best VOIP call quality using in the U.S.magicJack received the 2009 Most Innovative Product of the Year award from RadioShack®The ease of use of the magicJack and softphones particularly when travelingIdo Gur, who will remain in charge of VocalTec's Israeli operations, states, "I am excited about the potential to become the worldwide, leading provider of VOIP and softphone applications using SIP. I strongly believe that the synergies enabled by this business combination will allow us to achieve this target. I trust the leadership and of Dan Borislow to make this a reality." Following the merger, a total of 11,736,189 shares are outstanding. The company has included a discussion of future operating results in the press release in connection with its announcement of the merger. The company does not intend to update these statements or provide additional future guidance. The company encourages potential investors to read the Form 6-K filed in connection with the merger and available at www.sec.gov. This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, contained in this press release, including statements about our enterprise value, estimated value per share strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenues, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management, are forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, among other things: changes to our business resulting from increased competition; any operational or cultural difficulties associated with the integration of the businesses of VocalTec and YMax; potential adverse reactions or changes to business relationships resulting from the announcement or completion of the merger; unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the merger; the ability of the combined company to achieve the estimated potential synergies or the longer time it may take, and increased costs required, to achieve those synergies; our ability to develop, introduce and market innovative products, services and applications; our customer turnover rate and our customer acceptance rate; changes in general economic, business, political and regulatory conditions; availability and costs associated with operating our network; potential liability resulting from pending or future litigation, or from changes in the laws, regulations or policies; the degree of legal protection afforded to our products; changes in the composition or restructuring of us or our subsidiaries and the successful completion of acquisitions, divestitures and joint venture activities; and the various other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of the Form 6-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such factors, among others, could have a material adverse effect upon our business, results of operations and financial condition. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Skype(TM), associated trademarks and logos and the "S" symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited. iPhone® and iPad(TM) are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Android(TM) is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Permissions http://www.google.com/permissions/index.html . The Trademark BlackBerry® is owned by Research In Motion Limited and is registered in the United States and may be pending or registered in other countries. VocalTec, YMAX and magicJack are not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorized by Research In Motion Limited. RadioShack® and The Shack® are registered trademarks of RadioShack Corporation. SOURCE VocalTec Communications Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:23 pm Shhh! Google Buys Metaweb to Boost Search Results [MediaMemo]Here’s some actual tech news that slid out during Apple’s (AAPL) “There’s no Antennagate” event: Google (GOOG) announced that it had bought Metaweb Technologies, which it described as a start-up that “maintains an open database of things in the world.” Deeper explanation here, but the short version is that Google is suggesting that Metaweb will help it improve and refine search results. Metaweb was founded in 2005. Investors include Benchmark Capital, Goldman Sachs (GS), and eBay (EBAY) founder Pierre Omidyar. No purchase price was disclosed, but investors will need to see a decent-sized check in order to get a return: The company has raised at least $57 million in its five-year tenure. (Thanks, Atul!) Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:18 pm Red Sea Coral Species Under ThreatScientists say that a species of coral in the Red Sea could stop growing by 2070 if current warming trends continue. A team of researchers said they used 3D technology to find that the rate of growth of Diploastrea heliopara declined by 30 percent since 1998. They found that rising sea surface temperatures were already "driving dramatic changes" in the growth rate of the important reef-building organism. Co-author Anne Cohen, a research specialist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), said the team was able to measure the decline in growth by examining core samples from coral skeletons. "The coral is an animal, and the colony made up of millions of tiny, little animals - and they together build this huge thing that is seven meters in diameter," she told BBC News."As they are growing, they are building this calcium carbonate skeleton that the animal is basically leaving behind. If you cut through a colony, only the very top layer is actually living - the rest of it is all dead.""What is really cool is that everything that the colony has experienced in its life, which can be very long - these colonies can live four or five hundred years - is recorded in the skeleton," Cohen said."It is recorded in annual growth bands, so we know exactly the year in which certain things happened."The researchers collected biopsies from six colonies, which were then put under a computerized tomography (CT) scanner to be examined. "The scan reveals variations in density in calcium carbonate because the growth rings are caused by changes in density; what the CT scanner is effectively doing is revealing the annual growth bands for us, which you cannot see with the naked eye," Cohen said.WHOI used the technique because many of the corals had very complicated skeleton growth patterns, which were too complex to examine using 2D images. The researchers were able to see how much the coral had grown in any given year by building up a profile of the growth bands. "We can also work out the density of the band, which tells us how much calcium carbonate the coral has put down," Cohen told BBC."We say in our paper that the upper growth rate has decreased by 30%, and the amount of calcium carbonate produced has decreased by 20% since 1998."The team compared coral growth with sea surface temperature (SST) record by using precise chronology provided by the CT scans. There was a critical temperature of 86.9 degrees Fahrenheit, above that the growth rate "basically plummeted.""So we have identified a threshold temperature for growth," said Cohen.The team calculated that the coral would "cease calcifying together by 2070" by using future climate change scenarios. However, the researchers said this timescale was likely to be conservative. "One reason why we say this is because we think the corals will bleach long before this," Cohen told BBC."They are going to lose their symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) long before they stop calcifying, and many of these corals will die at that point."However, she pointed out that the paper only considered the impact of rising SST on one species from the 250 or so in the Red Sea. "It is a very important species - a dominant reef-building species - but it is only one species," she said."I expect that there are corals that are doing much worse than this species, but there might be others that are doing better in terms of thermal tolerance.""Before we can talk about what the coral reefs are doing to do in the future, we really need more information about more species," she observed.The researchers plan to carry out similar studies on more species. Cohen said they collected samples from another dominant reef-building species, which they were planning to examine in the next few months. The findings were reported in the journal Science.---Image 1: Diploastrea heliopora in its natural habitat in the Red Sea. The coral's growth has slowed considerably in the last 10 years. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)Image 2: Neal E. Cantin and Anne L. Cohen examine a Red Sea coral specimen just outside the hollow tube of a CT scanner. (Photo by Tom Kleindinst, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)Image 3: CT scan reveals two high-density (light-shaded) bands in the skeleton of the D. heliopora coral, which coincide with high sea-surface temperature anomalies in 1998 and 2001. (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution/Science Magazine)---On the Net:Woods Hole Oceanographic InstitutionScienceSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:15 pm Robotic Legs Help Paraplegics Walk AgainTwo New Zealand inventors have produced the world's first robotic legs to help paraplegics walk again. The bionic legs were road-tested publicly for the first time Thursday by 23-year-old Hayden Allen who was told five years ago that he would never walk again after a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed from the chest down. Allen said the experience of being able to stand up and walk with the robotic legs was fantastic and he felt like a normal human being again. "It will be a big benefit from a social aspect, being able to talk to someone at the same eye level," he told reporters.Engineers Richard Little and Robert Living, the inventors of the legs, came up with the idea seven years ago and spent $7.1 million developing it. The 84-pound joy-stick operated legs, known as "Rex", was inspired by the movie "Aliens" in which the character Ripley climbs into a robotic exoskeleton to fight an alien. Rex is "a realistic standing and walking alternative to wheelchairs," the inventors said on their website Rexbionics.com. "It enables the user to climb up and down stairs, sit, stand, and step backwards, sideways and forwards -- providing the opportunity for people in wheelchairs who want to walk, to do just that."Rex is priced at $150,000 and is currently only available in New Zealand. However, the inventors said it would be internationally next year. Rex Bionics believes demand will be stronger than supply for the next few years and they have already had enquiries suggesting people will pay up to $250,000 for the legs.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:07 pm Real-Life Superheroes Gear Up With Ninja Throwing Stars, Ax Handles, 'Stun Knuckles'They may not have powers. But these makeshift Avengers are ready to do some good, with the help on some pretty nasty weaponry.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 12:07 pm IT Employment Sees Continued Growth Despite Anemic Overall Job MarketALEXANDRIA, Va., July 16 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The number of information technology jobs continued to grow at a greater rate than in the overall job market, according to a monthly index of IT jobs developed and published by TechServe Alliance, a collaboration of IT services firms, clients, consultants and suppliers. In June, the number of IT jobs grew 3,600 to 3,864,700 after increasing 9,200 in May. Where the number of IT jobs in June 2010 was almost 0.7% higher than in June 2009, the overall private-sector job growth was still in negative territory---down 0.4% from the previous year. "We are encouraged that the IT sector continues to outperform the overall job market," said Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. "While growth in the IT sector moderated in June, it remains up on a year-over-year basis." "While macroeconomic trends always have the potential to derail the growth trajectory of IT employment, we remain heartened by the 6 consecutive months of growth to-date," observed Roberts. For complete June 2010 IT Index please visit: http://www.techservealliance.org/pressroom/documents/IndexreleaseJune2010.pdf ABOUT TechServe Alliance TechServe Alliance is a collaboration of IT services firms, clients, consultants and suppliers dedicated to advancing excellence and ethics within the IT services industry. Hundreds of IT staffing, IT solutions and IT consulting firms and tens of thousands of affiliated professionals, count on TechServe Alliance to keep their leadership informed, engaged and connected. TechServe Alliance serves as the voice of the industry before the policymakers and the national and trade press. By providing access to the knowledge and best practices of an entire industry and tapping the "collective scale" of hundreds of companies, TechServe Alliance supports its members in the efficient delivery of best-in-class IT services for clients and exceptional professional opportunities for every IT consultant. SOURCE TechServe AllianceSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:55 am Steve Jobs: “We’re Not Perfect.”
After starting out with a light-hearted YouTube video about “Antennagate” at the Apple press conference going on right now to address the issue (read our livenotes), CEO Steve Jobs came onstage with a mea culpa: “You know . . . we’re not perfect.” In fact, Apple knew about the issue shortly after the first phones were shipped, and the company has been working on the problem for 22 days. “It doesnt seem like a good thing if you can touch your phone in a certain way and it loses signal,” acknowledges Jobs. Even so, he is quick to point out that 3 million iPhone 4s have been sold in just a few weeks. And, repeating a pervious Apple talking point, he says it is not an issue that is unique to the iPhone 4.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:46 am Jobs: A Free Case For Every iPhone 4 User
Jobs says that everyone who buys an iPhone 4 through September will get a case for free. He also noted that anyone who has already bought an iPhone 4 will get one for free. And if anyone has already bought one of Apple’s bumpers, Apple will refund the cost.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:46 am Ancient Marsupial Skulls Unearthed In CaveScientists have discovered a cave housing 15-million-year-old fossils of prehistoric marsupials in the Outback. The researchers unearthed 26 skulls from an extinct, wombat-like marsupial called Nimbadon lavarackorum, which is an odd sheep sized creature with giant claws. The findings were reported this week in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. "It's extraordinarily exciting for us," said University of New South Wales paleontologist Mike Archer, co-author of the article. "It's given us a window into the past of Australia that we simply didn't even have a pigeonhole into before. It's an extra insight into some of the strangest animals you could possibly imagine."The scientists have been digging at the site since 1990 and discovered the first of the Nimbadon skulls in 1993. They said they were amazed at how many fossils they found and how well preserved they were. Paleontologist Karen Black, who led the research team, said that discovering such a large cluster suggests that the animals may have traveled in herds like modern-day kangaroos. It remains a mystery how the animals ended up there. One theory is that they accidentally plunged into the cave through an opening obscured by vegetation and either died from the fall, or became trapped and later perished. The skulls included babies still in their mother's pouches, allowing the researchers to study how the animals developed. The scientists found that bones at the front of the face developed quite quickly, which would have allowed the baby to suckle from its mother at an extremely young age. Black told The Associated Press (AP) that those findings suggest the Nimbadon babies developed similarly to how kangaroos develop today. The Nimbadon also has something in common with koalas. Black said the fossils revealed the creatures had large claws, which may have been used to climb trees. Paleontologist Liz Reed of Flinders University in South Australia said the discovery of the fossils is very significant. "To find a complete specimen like that and so many from an age range is quite unique," Reed, who was not affiliated with the study, told AP. "It allows us to say something about behavior and growth and a whole bunch of things that we wouldn't normally be able to do."Image credit: Karen Black---On the Net:Journal of Vertebrate PaleontologyUniversity of New South WalesSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:45 am Apple's iPhone 4 Solution: Free Cases For Everyone! [Digital Daily]
Steve Jobs says the iPhone 4 really doesn’t have a reception problem, and the Apple CEO used his press conference to make his case. [Read John Paczkowski's liveblog of the event here.] But he says Apple does have a perception problem. His solution is that every iPhone 4 customer will get a free case, with a refund for those customers who’ve already purchased them. Beyond that, if you’re still unhappy with your iPhone 4, there’s always the buyer’s remorse program. They’ll even waive the restocking fee. Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:43 am Apple: White iPhone 4 Will Ship At The End Of July
Anyone remember how there were two iPhone 4 models announced at the last Stevenote? A black one and a white one, right? But we’re three weeks into the iPhone 4’s life and only the black model is available. Mr. Apple himself just stated at the end of the iPhone 4’s antenna talk that’s going to change by the end of the month. So far users have been modding their black iPhone’s with white OEM parts found various places on line. This of course isn’t Apple-sanctioned but some people really wanted the white model. The real question however is if the white model will ship with any internal enhancements to better counter the antenna problem. There has been talk that some sort of internal bumper could help and perhaps Apple delayed the already-late white iPhone 4s just so they could better engineer a solution. We’ll find out at the end of the month.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:41 am VocalTec Announces 1-for-5 Reverse Stock SplitNETANYA, Israel, July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VocalTec Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: VOCL), the inventor of VOIP and the softphone, today announced a 1-for-5 reverse split of its share capital. The reverse split results in every five issued and outstanding ordinary shares being exchanged for one issued and outstanding ordinary share; the par value of the company's ordinary shares being multiplied by five; and the total number of shares underlying outstanding options and warrants being divided by five, with the exercise price per share under such options and warrants being multiplied by five. The reverse split will reduce the total number of outstanding shares and shares underlying outstanding options and warrants from 5,866,470 and 4,566,160, respectively, to 1,173,294 and 913,232, respectively. Any fractional share of 0.50 or more resulting from the foregoing reverse stock split will be rounded up to the nearest whole number and any fractional share of less than 0.50 resulting from the foregoing reverse stock split will be rounded up to the nearest whole number. Please refer to the company's press release relating to the merger of the company with YMax Corporation. SOURCE VocalTec Communications Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:40 am VocalTec and YMAX/magicJack Announce MergerNETANYA, Israel and WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- VocalTec Communications Ltd. (Nasdaq: VOCL), the inventor of VOIP including the softphone, and YMAX Corp., the creator of magicJack and other products and services have successfully merged and will be traded on the Nasdaq under the symbol (NasdaqGM (Global Markets): CALL). VocalTec stock will seize to be trading using the symbol (NasdaqCM:VOCL) after close of business today July, 16th 2010. It will commence trading using the symbol (Nasdaq: CALL) on Monday, July 19th, 2010. The parties believe that the combined company has an enterprise value of $245 million and a per share value at least $17.50. The previous holders of VocalTec will have 1,173,294 shares of common stock following the merger. VocalTec expects to have revenues ranging from $110 million to $125 million this year. With over $40 million cash/securities on hand and no debt, VocalTec expects to show a profit in the current quarter. For additional information on this announcement we recommend that investors read the entire press release and the VocalTec (Nasdaq: VOCL) press release describing the stock split and review the form 6-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that we expect to be filed on or before Monday, July 19th, 2010, described below. The combined companies have the use of over 30 patents, some dating to when VocalTec invented VOIP. In the current legal world we live in, this protection is crucial. The company believes that its patents, technology, and inventions are prior art to other existing patents and may also expose patent invalidity. The combination of patents and softphone/softswitch technology were the primary drivers of the merger. The combined company is much stronger now. YMAX brings the success of the magicJack in the form of brand equity, distribution and advertising across many outlets and over 6,500,000 magicJacks sold since 2009. The largest reaching CLEC (Competitive Local Exchange Carrier) in the United States in terms of area codes available and certification in number of states, it has its own chip development and application server/softswitch company. VocalTec also adds softswitch, application servers and the softphone to the mix. The combined company will have cost reductions through different synergies. VocalTec's advantages over its competitors, including Skype, include: A softphone, sharing a user's favorite numbers, available across many platforms:A computer A computer with a magicJack connected enabling the use of a regular telephone (corded or portable) with the ability to be the second line in a house or the primary number A computer with a femtocell-enabled magicJack allowing calls from a user's cell phone to go through a home computer and achieving superior call quality in your house while saving valuable cellular plan minutes (to be available later this year)Via mobile applications on iPhone® and iPad(TM) mobile digital devices and mobile devices running the Android(TM) and Blackberry® mobile technology platforms (beta versions today, formal release in Q4 of 2010)Free phone numbers given out to all our customers and easily dialed from any telephoneFree telephone services for magicJack to magicJack callsFree telephone calls from our softphone users to anybody in the U.S., Canada, Puerto Rico and Virgin IslandsUnderlying network carrying these calls is a dedicated telephone network with over 130 very powerful servers, session border controllers and application servers. This network has proven to have 99.99% uptime in the last yearFree voicemail, directory assistance, and local and long distance calling in the U.S. and CanadaUser contacts stored on our network so where ever they might use the softphone, the contact list will be downloaded to the appWe believe we have the best VOIP call quality using in the U.S.magicJack received the 2009 Most Innovative Product of the Year award from RadioShack®The ease of use of the magicJack and softphones particularly when travelingIdo Gur, who will remain in charge of VocalTec's Israeli operations, states, "I am excited about the potential to become the worldwide, leading provider of VOIP and softphone applications using SIP. I strongly believe that the synergies enabled by this business combination will allow us to achieve this target. I trust the leadership and of Dan Borislow to make this a reality." Following the merger, a total of 11,736,189 shares are outstanding. The company has included a discussion of future operating results in the press release in connection with its announcement of the merger. The company does not intend to update these statements or provide additional future guidance. The company encourages potential investors to read the Form 6-K filed in connection with the merger and available at www.sec.gov. This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, contained in this press release, including statements about our enterprise value, estimated value per share strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenues, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management, are forward-looking statements. Many factors could cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements that may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These factors include, among other things: changes to our business resulting from increased competition; any operational or cultural difficulties associated with the integration of the businesses of VocalTec and YMax; potential adverse reactions or changes to business relationships resulting from the announcement or completion of the merger; unexpected costs, charges or expenses resulting from the merger; the ability of the combined company to achieve the estimated potential synergies or the longer time it may take, and increased costs required, to achieve those synergies; our ability to develop, introduce and market innovative products, services and applications; our customer turnover rate and our customer acceptance rate; changes in general economic, business, political and regulatory conditions; availability and costs associated with operating our network; potential liability resulting from pending or future litigation, or from changes in the laws, regulations or policies; the degree of legal protection afforded to our products; changes in the composition or restructuring of us or our subsidiaries and the successful completion of acquisitions, divestitures and joint venture activities; and the various other factors discussed in the "Risk Factors" section of the Form 6-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such factors, among others, could have a material adverse effect upon our business, results of operations and financial condition. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Skype(TM), associated trademarks and logos and the "S" symbol are trademarks of Skype Limited. iPhone® and iPad(TM) are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Android(TM) is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Permissions http://www.google.com/permissions/index.html . The Trademark BlackBerry® is owned by Research In Motion Limited and is registered in the United States and may be pending or registered in other countries. VocalTec, YMAX and magicJack are not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorized by Research In Motion Limited. RadioShack® and The Shack® are registered trademarks of RadioShack Corporation. SOURCE VocalTec Communications Ltd.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:40 am Deeper understanding with MetawebOver time we’ve improved search by deepening our understanding of queries and web pages. The web isn’t merely words—it’s information about things in the real world, and understanding the relationships between real-world entities can help us deliver relevant information more quickly. Today, we’ve acquired Metaweb, a company that maintains an open database of things in the world. Working together we want to improve search and make the web richer and more meaningful for everyone.With efforts like rich snippets and the search answers feature, we’re just beginning to apply our understanding of the web to make search better. Type [barack obama birthday] in the search box and see the answer right at the top of the page. Or search for [events in San Jose] and see a list of specific events and dates. We can offer this kind of experience because we understand facts about real people and real events out in the world. But what about [colleges on the west coast with tuition under $30,000] or [actors over 40 who have won at least one oscar]? These are hard questions, and we’ve acquired Metaweb because we believe working together we’ll be able to provide better answers. In addition to our ideas for search, we’re also excited about the possibilities for Freebase, Metaweb’s free and open database of over 12 million things, including movies, books, TV shows, celebrities, locations, companies and more. Google and Metaweb plan to maintain Freebase as a free and open database for the world. Better yet, we plan to contribute to and further develop Freebase and would be delighted if other web companies use and contribute to the data. We believe that by improving Freebase, it will be a tremendous resource to make the web richer for everyone. And to the extent the web becomes a better place, this is good for webmasters and good for users. We look forward to working with the talented Metaweb team. We’ll be sure to share details on our progress in the coming months. In the meantime, if you’re interested to learn more about Metaweb’s technology, we encourage you to read their post and do check out the helpful video there. Posted by Jack Menzel, Director of Product Management    
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:38 am Hey! Did You Know a Lot of People Used Twitter During the World Cup? [MediaMemo]Given that much of the Web is watching live coverage of Steve Jobs’s “We don’t really have a problem with the iPhone 4″ press conference, this seems like an excellent time to deliver news you have to talk about but don’t want people to read. But that’s not what Twitter is doing: Instead, it has put out a blog post, timed exactly to the start of the Apple (AAPL) event, that discusses…the fact that a lot of people used Twitter during the World Cup. Which we knew. That’s one of the reasons the service worked particularly poorly during the last 30 days, right? In any case, Twitter doesn’t mention downtime or any other service issue in the post. But if you want fill in some blanks, you can see this as Twitter’s “hey don’t blame us for the last 30 days” explanation, in a passive-aggressive way. If you were so inclined. But you’re not, right? Anyway, the post does include this really cool infographic (click to enlarge), which demonstrates that…a lot of people used Twitter during the World Cup.
And now you know! Source: All Things Digital | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:26 am Video game sales slump as Xbox 360 sales surge - msnbc.com
Source: Sci/Tech - Google News | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:25 am SpaceShipTwo Makes First Flight With Crew AboardThe spacecraft makes a dress rehearsal for the all-important first glide flight.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:24 am Firefox Home Syncs Your Faves to Your iPhoneMozilla's new Firefox Home app for the iPhone and iPod Touch is now available for download. It's not a full version of Firefox, but it gives you access to your Firefox bookmarks and history while you're on your iPhone.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:24 am Apple’s Answer to Antennagate: Free iPhone 4 Cases
CUPERTINO, California — Apple CEO Steve Jobs kicked off a press conference Friday at his company’s headquarters with an unusual admission of fallibility. “We’re not perfect. We know that. You know that. And [our] phones aren’t perfect either,” Jobs told the assembled crowd of about 90 journalists and bloggers, addressing widely-reported problems with the iPhone 4’s antenna. “We’ve been working our butts off to understand what the real problems are,” Jobs added, referring to the problem as “Antennagate.” However, those hoping for a recall or redesign of the iPhone 4 were disappointed. To address problems with the iPhone 4’s reception, Jobs offered customers their choice of a free case. Protective cases have been shown to eliminate the reception problems, which are caused when a user’s fingers or hand make an electrical connection between the phone’s two external antennas. Customers who already bought a case will be able to get a refund of the purchase price, Jobs said. The offer will be available on Apple.com starting next week through September 30. He also reiterated the company’s 30-day return policy, which is unchanged. In addition, Jobs said the company was working to resolve some bugs with the iPhone 4’s proximity sensor, which have resulted in people inadvertently muting or hanging up calls. And he said the delayed white version of the iPhone 4 would be available July 30. Jobs stated that the company has invested $100 million in building a state of the art antenna testing facility, and cited test results showing that other cellphones, such as the HTC Droid Eris and Research in Motion BlackBerry Bold 9700, suffer from similar problems as the iPhone 4 when gripped tightly. He stated that just 0.55% of iPhone 4 customers have called the company’s customer support line to complain about antenna problems, and that just 1.7 percent of iPhone 4s were returned by their customers. By comparison, he said, the iPhone 3GS return rates were 6 percent. “When we look at this data, it’s very hard to escape the conclusion that there is a problem, but that that problem is affecting a very small percentage of users,” Jobs stated. In addition, Jobs reiterated that the company’s latest software update has addressed a problem with the way the iPhone displays its signal-strength bars, and that a hardware redesign would not be needed. Negative press about the iPhone 4 spiraled out of control after Consumer Reports said it could not recommend the device because of its faulty antenna. A recall was never very likely, given the costs and potential damage to its brand. (For comparison, take a look at five of the most brutal product recalls in recent history.) When the iPhone 4 hit stores June 24, numerous anecdotal reports spread across the web with customers claiming that covering the lower-left gap of the phone caused a significant drop in reception, as signified by cellular bars. In a letter to customers, Apple said the reception loss was an optical illusion caused by a software algorithm that was making the cellular bars exaggerate the iPhone 4’s signal strength. Later, a few bloggers and Consumer Reports replicated the problem with testing and concluded that the iPhone 4’s external antenna design was more susceptible to signal degradation (when held the “wrong” way) compared to other phones. That conclusion compelled Consumer Reports to tag it with an ugly “can’t recommend” to the iPhone 4 — giving a big black eye to Apple, whose products traditionally earn high ratings from reviewers across the board. Duly, Apple’s stock dropped nearly 8 percent Wednesday morning. When Apple invited members of the press to the event, it only said the topic was “iPhone 4″ and gave no further details. Some journalists had predicted that Apple would reinforce its stance that the device’s antenna issues are related to software, not hardware, which would eliminate the need for a recall. Photo: Apple CEO Steve Jobs addresses journalists at the company's "Antennagate" press conference. Photo by Brian X. Chen/Wired.com. 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:13 am Google Apps highlights – 7/16/2010This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.Over the last couple of weeks we rolled out some nice updates in Gmail, improved on Google forms, added new mobile device security features and celebrated many new applications recently added to the Apps Marketplace. Enjoy! Rich text signatures in Gmail You’ve been able to add plain text signatures to your messages in Gmail for some time, but last Thursday we stepped it up a notch by adding rich text signatures, one of our most requested features. Now you can create signatures with different fonts, font sizes, font colors, links and images. The feature also supports different signatures for different custom “From:” addresses that you’ve configured. Head over to the “Settings” page in Gmail to get started.  HTML5 features in Gmail on Safari Gmail has recently added some new interactive features, like drag-and-drop attachments and images, and new windows that “outlive” your original Gmail window. These features are possible thanks to HTML5, but until this week, Safari users have been left out. All of that changed on Monday, and users of Safari 5 can now enjoy these helpful HTML5 features, too. Simpler page navigation in Google forms With Google forms (part of Google Docs), you can quickly create and send surveys to your contacts or publish surveys on the web. We started out offering simple one-page forms, but last week we made some big improvements to our logic branching capabilities. Now you can easily create multi-page surveys that adapt depending on how people answer your questions. Try it out for yourself in the form-based choose your own adventure game that we built.  More security controls for mobile devices Businesses and schools using Google Apps often want the ability to centrally manage mobile devices that their users connect to Google Apps, and on Tuesday we rolled out several new device management capabilities. Organizations can now require devices to use data encryption, auto-wipe devices after a certain number of failed password attempts, require device passwords to be changed periodically and more.  Apps Tuesday: 10 new additions to the Apps Marketplace Some technology companies burden IT departments with software patches and fixes every month, but our cloud computing approach means that customers get improvements automatically with Google Apps. In addition to all the new features built by Google, this month we added 10 new applications from third-party software companies to the Apps Marketplace. Third-party apps integrate seamlessly with Google Apps and can be activated by administrators with just a couple clicks. Who’s gone Google? More and more organizations are getting with the times and switching to Google Apps. Today we welcome Vektrex, Rypple, XAOP, Limbach Facility Services, Riley Chartered Accounts and tens of thousands of other businesses worldwide that have moved to the cloud with Google since my last update here. More universities are preparing to reopen their doors in the fall with new campus technology tools, too. We’re excited to have University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts, Universitat de Girona in Spain and The College of St. Scholastica join us! I hope you're making the most of these new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends, family, coworkers or classmates. For more details and updates from the Apps team, head on over to the Google Apps Blog. Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager   
 Source: The Official Google Blog | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:12 am Report Names IBM #1 in Global Middleware Software MarketARMONK, N.Y., July 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that industry analyst firm International Data Corporation (IDC) has ranked it the worldwide leader in the middleware software market. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO ) (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090416/IBMLOGO ) According to IDC, IBM was the leading worldwide application deployment software vendor with 31.9 percent market share based on revenue, nearly double that of its closest competitor. The study revealed that IBM's middleware business grew 4.7 percent year over year, more than double the rate of the overall market, which grew at 2.2 percent to more than $14.8 billion. This marks the tenth consecutive year that IDC has named IBM as the market share leader in the worldwide application deployment software market. Besides its overall lead, according to IDC, IBM holds the number one market share position in key submarkets -- Application Server Software Platforms and Integration and Process Automation Middleware -- where investments by companies in their software infrastructures are growing faster then the overall IT market. For example, the Process Automation Middleware segment grew at 4.8 percent in 2009. IBM was named the number one vendor in Process Automation Middleware with a 16 percent share and growing at more than 16.5 percent in 2009. Process automation software enables companies to remove costly inefficiencies, boost productivity, ensure compliance and manage processes more effectively According to IDC, IBM continued to lead in other fast-growing areas including Enterprise Service Bus/Connectivity, Event Driven Middleware and Other Application Server Middleware. In addition, Lombardi Software, which was acquired by IBM last year, was recognized by IDC for its growth and innovations. The IDC study, Worldwide Application Deployment Software 2009 Vendor Shares (IDC #223504) examines the application deployment software market and submarkets for 2005-2009. For more information on IBM middleware visit: http://www.ibm.com/software/websphere IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, WebSphere, SmartSOA, Smarter Planet and the planet icon are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation, registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. For a current list of IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml All other company, product or service names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of others. Statements concerning IBM's future development plans and schedules are made for planning purposes only, and are subject to change or withdrawal without notice. Reseller prices may vary. Contact: Chris Rubsamen IBM Media Relations (914) 319-8156 rubsamen@us.ibm.com SOURCE IBMSource: RedOrbit News - Technology | 16 Jul 2010 | 11:00 am Fact: Almost everything suffers from the Death Grip
While I agree that the Death Grip problem is a problem, it’s not a huge problem. It’s only become a huge problem because millions of people are obsessively fondling their iPhones this month and noticing every little thing while perhaps 100,000 people in the US are fondling their Galaxy S phones, if that. The problem, then, is in perception. This schadenfreude is, while misplaced, highly apt and Apple is apparently trying to remedy it as we speak. Will they succeed? We shall see.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 10:37 am June Was Earth’s Warmest Month On RecordThe U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Thursday that last month was the hottest June ever recorded on Earth. According to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature data also showed that the January-June and April-June periods were the warmest on record, which go back as far as 1880. The combined average for global land and ocean temperatures in June was 61.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which are 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees Fahrenheit. According to NOAA, temperatures warmer than average spread throughout the globe in recent months, more dominantly in areas like Peru, the central and eastern U.S. and in eastern and western Asia. Cooler-than-average conditions took place in Scandinavia, southern China and the U.S. northwest. According to the Beijing Climate Center, Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang and Jilin experienced their warmest June since it started taking records in 1951.According to Spain's meteorological service, June was the coolest the country has felt in 13 years. Global ocean surface temperatures average 0.97 degrees above last century's average of 61.5 degrees Fahrenheit. NOAA said that the Atlantic Ocean saw the most pronounced warmth. The average land surface temperature for June was 1.93 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the 20th century average of 55.9 degrees Fahrenheit. Sea surface temperatures were declining throughout the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which is in line with the behavior during the end of El Nino. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center forecast that La Nina conditions, where ocean waters in the east-central equatorial Pacific are unusually cool, would likely take place during the northern hemisphere summer this year.---On the Net:NOAA ReleaseSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 10:20 am One Sperm Gene For All AnimalsWhat do squirrels, corals, beetles and man have in common? Sperm.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 10:19 am Electro Grill Stokes Our Hearts, Exceeds ExpectationsWhat's to like about a grill that uses electricity to heat food? Turns out, plenty.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:30 am Electro Grill Stokes Our Hearts, Exceeds ExpectationsWhat's to like about a grill that uses electricity to heat food? Turns out, plenty.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:30 am Apple, Beware: The 5 Most Brutal Product RecallsEnding nearly a month of speculation, the wizard of Cupertino or one of his designees will emerge from behind the curtain this afternoon to say something about the Apple iPhone 4. Will it be free bumper cases for iPhone 4 owners? Or could it be the full recall that many consider unlikely? Here are five recalls that would make any company shudder.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:26 am 2010 on Track to Be Warmest On RecordThe record-breaking highs we're feeling now could soon become the norm.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:20 am Amid Media Meltdown, Apple Holds iPhone 4 Press Conference
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:14 am Super Mario Kart Board-Game. Or Is that ‘Bored-Game’?
Regular readers will not be surprised at my excited delight when I saw this Super Mario Kart board-game. Laid out in the shape of a race-track from the old classic SNES game, what could be more fun than shooting green turtle-shells at the stupid cheating Princess, only this time in the real world? Everything, it turns out. While the premise is a great one, it fails in execution. The idea is that two players each have a separate, parallel track around the board, and around this track you must shimmy and coax your “kart” (a plastic ball). First to the finish-line wins. The video of the game in action (non-embeddable, linked below) shows it to be way duller than that description makes it sound. First, there are far too many non-kart like tracks. It comes down, pretty much, to bashing buttons to make the ball hop to the next section. Second, it would have been way more fun, nostalgia-wise, to recreate an actual track from the game. Instead, we get a mish-mash of sections from the Rainbow Road, Ghost Valley and Donut Plains. The only really authentic element is the soundtrack, which has FX from the original, right down to the squealing tire sound when you get hit with no stars. The game is on show at the Tokyo Toy Show 2010, so it’s unlikely that it will ever see the shores of the West. Good thing too. I’ll stick to my happy little emulated world. Mario Kart and Super Mario Bross [sic] board game [Akihabara News via Oh Gizmo] See Also:
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Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 9:08 am Small Fish Exploits Forbidding EnvironmentJellyfish moved into the oceans off the coast of southwest Africa when the sardine population crashed. Now another small fish is living in the oxygen-depleted zone part-time and turning the once ecologically dead-end jellyfish into dinner, according to an international team of scientists."Originally there were sardines in the area but over fishing caused the sardine population to collapse in the 1960s and 1970s," said Victoria A. Braithwaite, professor of fisheries and biology, Penn State. "The sardines never recovered and jellyfish became a huge and serious problem, eating what the sardines had eaten."Jellyfish are considered a dead end food source because, while they eat lots of small fish and other sea creatures, they have few predators. However, the research team found that the bearded goby, Sufflogobius bibarbatus, a 4-to-6-inch long, 1.5 inch-wide fish, eats jellyfish. Larger fish like hake and mackerel, sea mammals like sea lions and porpoises, and sea birds, like gannets and gulls, eat gobies, putting jellyfish back into the food cycle."We don't know if they are eating dead jellyfish from the bottom, or if they are coming up to oxygen-filled layers to eat jellyfish, but they are eating jellyfish," said Braithwaite.Even stranger than a jellyfish diet is the gobies' use of the dead zone in the area. One reason there were so many sardines and now so many jellyfish is a large area of up-welling water off the southwest coast of Africa from Namibia to South Africa. This deep cold water brings with it large amounts of nutrients. When plankton voraciously eat the nutrients, their populations increase massively. Excess nutrients and dead plankton then fall to the ocean floor."A horrible toxic sludge forms, and very few things can live in it except for some bacteria and nematodes," said Braithwaite. "Somehow the gobies can withstand the toxic environment, but we don't know exactly how they are doing it."Remarkably, the gobies cope without oxygen for hours at a time while they rest on the muddy seabed but remain alert."When we touch them with a rod, they show rapid escape responses," said Braithwaite.Gobies can stay in the anoxic or oxygen-depleted area for at least 10 to 12 hours at a time. The researchers suggest they may be able to remain there even longer. The mud is not just lacking oxygen, but the bacteria that live there use sulfur for energy and produce high levels of hydrogen sulfide, a toxic gas. The researchers report the results of their study in today's (July) 16 issue of Science."Normally, other animals cope with anoxia by anaerobic respiration, which causes a build up in lactate," said Braithwaite. "But something else is going on in these gobies as the lactate build up declines after an hour or so without oxygen. Our next step is to look to see what they are doing to cope with anoxia."For the goby, the anoxic, toxic mud is a perfect hiding place because no predators are willing to enter that environment. The gobies, however, are happy fish in the mud."It is a win-win situation where the gobies are using a resource that is usually a dead end in the ocean, the jellyfish," said Braithwaite. "And they are using the toxic mud as a refuge. Together this seems to explain why their population is growing despite the fact that they are now being the main prey species in this unusual ecosystem." Other researchers on the project were Anne C. Utne-Palm, Anne G.V. Salvanes, Matthias Hundt and Karin Pittman, University of Bergen, Norway; Bronwen Currie, National Marine Information and Research Centre, Namibia; Stein Kaartvedt, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia; Göran E. Nilsson, Jonathan A. W. Stecyk, Guro K. Sandvik, Ida G. Lund, Rønnaug A.U. Strandabø and Thor A. Klevjer, University of Oslo, Norway; Megan van der Bank, Bradley Flynn and Mark J. Gibbons, University of Western Cape, South Africa; Andrew K. Sweetman, Norwegian Institute for Water Research, Bergen, Norway; Volker Brüchert, Stockholm University, Sweden; and Kathleen R. Peard, Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Namibia.The South African Research Council and the Research Council of Norway supported this work.---Image Caption: This is a bearded Goby from the ocean off the southwest coast of Africa. Credit: Victoria Braithwaite; Penn State---On the Net:Penn StateScienceSource: RedOrbit News - Science | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:57 am Video: Army Tests 'HULC' Super-Strength Gear, No Gamma Rays AllowedLockheed has developed an exoskeleton that gives the wearer super-strength. But is it agile enough for the Army to take it to war? Tests start ASAP.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:26 am Firefox on the iPhone, Kinda
Mozilla’s Firefox Home iPhone and iPad app has been approved by Apple and is ready to grab from the App Store. Yes, you read right. Firefox is ready to use on iOS devices, but it’s not quite what you might think. Firefox Home is not a full browser — indeed, the Mozilla Foundation has no plans to make its own rendering engine for the iPhone. Instead, it’s primarily a way to sync your Firefox desktop browser history, bookmarks and open tabs to your iPhone. You can use it as a browser, but instead of Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine it uses the same speedy, built-in, Webkit engine as Safari. It also takes a lot more setting-up than the built-in solution. To sync bookmarks with desktop Safari, you just check a box in iTunes. By contrast, to get Firefox Home working you need to follow a ten-step plan, involving installing sync plugins into desktop Firefox, making up passwords and inventing a “secret phrase”. Worse, you get this caveat in the instructions: “Note: The initial sync may take up to 24 hours.” Once you have managed that, everything is automatic, and the iPhone app refreshes every time it is launched. It could be very handy for quickly moving the web-page you are viewing over to your iPad, but otherwise it seems kind of clunky. Still, it is at least free, unlike Safari. Wait. No. What? Read more about Firefox on Wired.com’s Webmonkey blog. How to set up Firefox Home on your iPhone [Mozilla] Firefox Home [iTunes] See Also:
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Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:16 am A Formula for the Perfect Handshake?Help is finally here for people who are overcome with nerves when faced with this age-old custom.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:10 am Live from Apple’s iPhone 4 Press Conference
In a bit of a last-minute surprise, Apple has called a press conference at their Cupertino headquarters. Only one thing’s for sure: it’s about the iPhone 4, and presumably about the iPhone 4’s antenna issues. So what’s going to happen: a mass recall? Probably not. Free bumper cases from everyone? Perhaps. We all have our theories, but nothing’s concrete until it comes out of the mouth of Jobs himself — and when it does, we’ll be there reporting it live. Join us?
The press conference begins at 10 a.m. Pacific (that’s 11 A.M Mountain/1 P.M Eastern), so bookmark this page and tune back in then. Traffic and WiFi overlords permitting, we may go live a bit early for some pre-show commentary and photos from the scene.
Source: MobileCrunch | 16 Jul 2010 | 8:00 am How-To: Gorillapod Doubles as Awesome iPad StandAfter publicly declaring a search for the perfect iPad stand yesterday, Gadget Lab’s benevolent dictator Dylan Tweney put this question out over Twitter: “@mistercharlie Think you could use a Gorillapod as an iPad stand?”. I rushed to grab my trusty Joby Gorilla Mobile, pausing only to set down a bottle of cold German beer.
Source: Wired: Gadgets | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:46 am Powerful Cosmic Blast Breaks RecordsThe burst of X-rays was so strong that it temporarily blinded a NASA satellite.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:15 am How-To: Gorillapod Doubles as Awesome iPad Stand
After publicly declaring a search for the perfect iPad stand yesterday, Gadget Lab’s benevolent dictator Dylan Tweney put this question out over Twitter: “@mistercharlie Think you could use a Gorillapod as an iPad stand?” I rushed to grab my trusty Joby Gorilla Mobile, pausing only to set down a bottle of cold German beer. Blinking as I moved out of the bright sun and into the cool dark interior of Gadget Lab’s Berlin outpost, I bent the jointed tripod into shape …
The result is best summed up by my reply: “Dylan, you’re a genius. Tested and it works great. 2 legs curled to hold iPad, one pushed out back as a stand. Steady.” Further testing and photographing this morning led to some deeper insights. As you can see from the pictures, the stand is fashioned from the smallest of Joby’s grab-anything tripods, meant for compact cameras and cellphones. Two legs are splayed and bent up at the tips to hook the iPad’s bottom edge. The head — in this case the tripod screw — is bent back to stop scratching, although removing the screw or replacing it with the soft suction-cup attachment would also work. The third leg is bent back to balance the whole thing.
I’m amazed how well it works. The Gorillapod is sturdy enough to hold the iPad at any angle, in both portrait and landscape orientations. In normal use — typing and tapping — it is rock solid, but you can also push the iPad back to adjust the angle. For proper typing, you need to lean it back a little further. This is best done by flattening the front legs a little and curling the back leg up to meet the head, like a scorpion’s tail, providing extra support and a narrower angle. You’ll need to do some jiggling to get it rock-steady.
Because all you see at the front is the two feet curling up, it is minimally intrusive. And it even works in bed, letting you prop up the iPad on the mattress to watch a movie. Best of all, the Gorillapod folds up tiny, and is worth carrying along with you anyway because of its multitasking abilities. To see how it did in our testing (grimly hanging on to the basket of a bike while it supported a Canon G9 shooting video), follow the link below. If you already have one, this could be the best iPad stand yet: It’s effectively free. If you don’t, it’ll cost you $30. Product page [Joby] See Also:
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 7:12 am Bee Venom Can Improve Brain FunctionHoney bee venom may be the key to treating diseases like muscular dystrophy, dementia and depression.Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:34 am Giant Four-Man ‘Bike’ Could Crush Cars
No matter how frustrated a cyclist gets at badly-behaving drivers, there’s nothing they can really do against two-tons of glass and steel piloted by an idiot. But if you and a few friends happen to be riding the BigDog, a four-wheel, four-man-powered behemoth of a “bicycle”, you could crush drivers and their vehicles like the Hulk crushes… well, like the Hulk crushes everything. The giant bike, made by Tom Wilson, is a “wonderfully impractical assemblage of bicycle, go-cart, and golf-cart pieces and parts, drainage pipe, steel tubing, and patio chairs.” Tom is not from the home of bike smugness, Portland, but from the equally appropriate Detroit. His big-wheeled, traffic-stomping creation will be rolling around the Maker Faire Detroit on July 31 and August 1 this year, so you might even be able to get a ride. In the meantime, head over to the Makezine blog and read the interview with Tom. Maker Faire Detroit: BigDog interview [Makezine] See Also: Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.. 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 6:27 am Vibration-Powered Batteries Charge Themselves
What’s the first application you think of when I say the phrase “vibration-powered self-generating battery”? Me too, but let’s keep this clean. The faux-batteries are from Brother Industries, and inside the AA and AAA-sized shells you’ll find a capacitor and an electromagnetic induction generator. Shaking them will charge the capacitor enough to juice low-power gadgets. The example given is remote control, which needs around 40 to 100mW of power. The battery can put out up to 180mW, so while you won’t be using these to power a camera-flash, a quick shake to get the TV remote going again would work just great. In fact, you could just build this in to a remote and forget the batteries altogether. Ok, so I couldn’t stay clean for the entire post. As one commenter on the Gizmodo post about these batteries points out, pop a few of these inside a vibrator and boom! You have perpetual motion. Vibration-powered Generators Replace AA, AAA Batteries [Tech-On via Giz] See Also:
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Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 5:39 am Geek Artist Making $50 Caricatures Over FaceTime
That’s just what Dave Lanham, artist extraordinaire and designer at the Icon Factory (the people behind Twitterific and a lot more besides) is doing. Dave is holding FaceTime calls with his iPhone 4 and drawing the portrait of the person at the other end. The hi-resolution Retina display no doubt helps him to see deep into your soul. The fun started when Dave broke his foot and was left lounging around the house. His friend Gio Gutierrez (right) volunteered for a portrait and then things just got bigger and bigger. Dave is charging $50 per portrait, which you can then use as your online personality (or print on a T-Shirt, we guess, if you are really narcissistic). The demand is likely to be huge, so even if you can’t get on his list, you should check out Dave’s website, which has time-lapse videos of his work being made. FaceTime Portraits [Dave Lanham on Flickr] @dlanham [Twitter] Dave’s website home-page [Dave Lanham] Picture credit Dave Lanham (Under Creative Commons) 
Source: Wired: Gadget Lab | 16 Jul 2010 | 4:41 am
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If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, an what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of stuff, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. In the first place, that stuff bores me, and in the second place, my parents would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them. 
By now everyone has seen the 
Anyone not in a hypnotic daze will clearly see the conflict between the two statements. If there is no problem, no fix is needed. If a fix is needed, by definition there was a problem. Jobs never did address the disparity in the Q&A session following the presentation.
Two days ago I wrote about a 
Server downtime is a fact of life for most web administrators, and there’s no shortage of products and software that make it easy to monitor when something has gone awry. Of course, an inbox full of urgent emails telling you your server is frying isn’t too helpful when you’re sound asleep.That’s where 
So 
Flint (and glass) knapping is no longer practiced on a large scale, but it used to be the primary method of making weapons for primitive cultures. In this day and age of course, it’s easy to go to the sporting goods store and pick up a quality steel knife, but it wasn’t always so. 
The Nexus One’s time is about to expire. Google will soon no longer stock its self-branded Android handset and just received its last shipment of handsets. It was good while it lasted. Even though the Nexus One never really caught on outside of the close-knit Android community, it was a killer handset and might still be one of the top three available.
Believe it or not, but a few major companies were involved with trying to acquire Palm - not just HP. A source familiar with the negotiations revealed to BusinessInsider that Apple, Google, and RIM were all contenders in the Palm sweepstakes. 
This is odd. Skype, which has offered an iPhone application for quite a while and recently 
It looks like Apple has approved the 
Today at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino, CEO Steve Jobs took the stage to address the iPhone 4 antenna issue. First he rattled of some numbers to show how small the problem actually is. But he also acknowledged that some people are having problems — and they want everyone to be happy. So what are they doing? Free bumpers and cases (as 
Does your Twitter/Facebook/IM avatar suck? The answer is likely to be a resounding “probably”. You need a custom caricature, and being a proper geek, you should get it not from the dodgy street-artist with the portfolio of sample “work” downloaded from the internet, but over the actual internet.