MOVIOLA@29fps

A New Capital of Call Centers

2011-11-26T11:34:00.001+08:00

More Filipinos — about 400,000 — than Indians now spend their nights talking to mostly American consumers, industry officials said, as companies like AT&T, JPMorgan Chase and Expedia have hired call centers here, or built their own. The jobs have come from the United States, Europe and, to some extent, India as outsourcers followed their clients to the Philippines.

Digital Film Making Workshop Poster

2011-11-25T20:23:00.001+08:00

Waving Goodbye

2011-11-25T20:12:00.001+08:00

Dear Wavers,

More than a year ago, we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.
If you would like to continue using Wave, there are a number of open source projects, including Apache Wave. There is also an open source project called Walkaround that includes an experimental feature that lets you import all your Waves from Google. This feature will also work until the Wave service is turned off on April 30, 2012.
For more details, please see our help center.

Yours sincerely,
The Wave Team

© 2011 Google Inc. 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043
You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Wave account.

What I learned from Steve Jobs

2011-10-09T20:00:00.003+08:00

Many people have explained what one can learn from Steve Jobs. Guy Kawasaki was there with Jobs, launching the Macintosh and absorbing everything he could from Jobs' singular collection of talents. Here's Kawasaki's list of the top 12 lessons he learned from Steve Jobs

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20117575-37/what-i-learned-from-steve-jobs/?tag=cnetRiver

Steve Jobs Eulogy by “Last True Hacker” Goes Too Far

2011-10-09T09:28:00.001+08:00

The reaction to Steve Jobs’s death from most members of the technology establishment — including Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and the founders of Google — has been dignified, heartfelt and respectful.

Those adjectives do not apply to the reaction of Richard M.Stallman, the leader of the free software movement and the so-called “last true hacker,” who responded in a different way.http://on.mash.to/npVi5i

'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says

2011-10-08T22:47:00.001+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
This is a prepared text of the Commencement address delivered by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, on June 12, 2005.

Xerox PARC, Apple, and the truth about innovation

2011-10-08T15:23:00.000+08:00

In late 1979, a twenty-four-year-old entrepreneur paid a visit to a research center in Silicon Valley called Xerox parc. He was the co-founder of a small computer startup down the road, in Cupertino. His name was Steve Jobs.

Xerox parc was the innovation arm of the Xerox Corporation. It was, and remains, on Coyote Hill Road, in Palo Alto, nestled in the foothills on the edge of town, in a long, low concrete building, with enormous terraces looking out over the jewels of Silicon Valley. To the northwest was Stanford University’s Hoover Tower. To the north was Hewlett-Packard’s sprawling campus. All around were scores of the other chip designers, software firms, venture capitalists, and hardware-makers. A visitor to parc, taking in that view, could easily imagine that it was the computer world’s castle, lording over the valley below—and, at the time, this wasn’t far from the truth. In 1970, Xerox had assembled the world’s greatest computer engineers and programmers, and for the next ten years they had an unparalleled run of innovation and invention. If you were obsessed with the future in the seventies, you were obsessed with Xerox parc—which was why the young Steve Jobs had driven to Coyote Hill Road.

HOW STEVE JOBS CHANGED

2011-10-08T15:18:00.002+08:00

As seemingly everyone on the planet knows, Steve Jobs’s defining quality was perfectionism. The development of the Macintosh, for instance, took more than three years, because of Jobs’s obsession with detail. He nixed the idea of an internal fan, because he thought it was noisy and clumsy. And he wanted his engineers to redesign the Mac’s motherboard, just because it looked inelegant. At NeXT, the company Jobs started after being nudged out of Apple, in 1985, he drove his hardware team crazy in order to make a computer that was a sleek, gorgeous magnesium cube. After his return to Apple, in 1997, he got personally involved with things like how many screws there were in a laptop case. It took six months until he was happy with the way that scroll bars in OS X worked. Jobs believed that, for an object to resonate with consumers, every piece of it had to be right, even the ones you couldn’t see

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/talk/financial/2011/10/17/111017ta_talk_surowiecki#ixzz1aAkakTur

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies OCTOBER 6, 2011 | ISSUE 47•40

2011-10-07T21:30:00.000+08:00

CUPERTINO, CA—Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Computers and the only American in the country who had any clue what the fuck he was doing, died Wednesday at the age of 56. "We haven't just lost a great innovator, leader, and businessman, we've literally lost the only person in this country who actually had his shit together and knew what the hell was going on," a statement from President Barack Obama read in part, adding that Jobs will be remembered both for the life-changing products he created and for the fact that he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen. "This is a dark time for our country, because the reality is none of the 300 million or so Americans who remain can actually get anything done or make things happen. Those days are over." Obama added that if anyone could fill the void left by Jobs it would probably be himself, but said that at this point he honestly doesn’t have the slightest notion what he’s doing anymore.

2011-09-30T21:55:00.001+08:00

Facebook has gone a half step to putting the Poke out of its misery — but I don’t see why they don’t kill it off completely. Would we really miss it?
Last week, when launching the new Facebook subscribe button, the social network hid the much-maligned “Poke” button behind a settings menu, making it pretty unlikely that visitors to your profile page will see it.
Guess what: Facebook users didn’t notice.

Read More

2011-09-29T22:24:00.001+08:00

the RETURN!

google+

2011-07-09T05:59:00.002+08:00

I started using google+, hoping it would be a better social networking site than Facebook.

Hey!

2011-04-27T05:53:00.000+08:00

Don't lose HOPE!
Enjoy the CHAOS!

Five myths about Facebook

2010-10-10T21:12:00.001+08:00

By David Kirkpatrick
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Movies often have Web sites, but it's not so often that Web sites have movies. Facebook, of course, is not just any Web site; in the 6 1/2 years since founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg started the social networking service in his Harvard dorm room, it has acquired 500 million active users worldwide. It may be the fastest-growing company in history. And now, yes, it is the inspiration for a movie, "The Social Network," opening Oct. 1. Even before Hollywood got involved, however, Facebook was the subject of quite a bit of lore -- not all of it true.

read more: The Washington Post

Meet WebP, Google’s New Image Format

2010-10-02T07:44:00.001+08:00

WebP has much in common with JPEG, the most widely used of the web’s image formats. Like JPEG, the new format is intended to be used for photos on web pages, and like JPEG, the photos in a WebP image are compressed using lossy technology. The images will continue to reduce in quality the more you compress them.

Read More http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/meet-webp-googles-new-image-format/#ixzz119bsB93X

DIASPORA

2010-09-17T16:54:00.002+08:00

You might remember Diaspora, that plucky Facebook rival, conceived by four NYU students, that actual prioritizes your privacy. As promised, they've released the project code, along with a tantalizing preview of how the site's going to look: familiar, but not.

Some quick context: the core idea behind Diaspora is that each user will have their own encrypted, customizable "node" on the Diaspora network. Your personal data live on your computer instead of a centralized hub. Ergo, privacy!

more at: GIZMODO

and ars technica

blogblogblogblogblog

2010-09-12T09:25:00.000+08:00

Dear Facebook friends: I'm sorry, but I had to kill you | Tech Broiler | ZDNet.com

2010-04-24T22:03:00.000+08:00

Dear Facebook friends: I'm sorry, but I had to kill you | Tech Broiler
| ZDNet.com

Farewell, Keyboard - Generation I Will Grow Up on Touchscreens

2010-04-08T03:48:00.001+08:00

The analysts at Gartner must have been fairly impressed with the Apple iPad because their latest research report predicts that over 50% of the computers purchased for children will have touchscreens by 2015. In this case, Gartner defines children as those under the age of 15 or, as we like to call them, "Generation I." (This is the new, hipper terminology for children of the 2000's once dubbed "Generation Z" or "digital natives.") They're the ones born into a world where computers and cellphones are introduced as baby toys, where the iPod has always existed and where everyone they know can be found on Facebook. And now, it seems, they're going to grow up with computers in an entirely different way, too.

LINK:RWW

iRefuse: Why I Am Not Buying an iPad (Yet)

2010-04-04T09:32:00.000+08:00

I'm secretly hoping that, if I whine about it enough, someone else will buy it for me.

Read more: Tuned In at Time.com

Apple iPad launch day

2010-04-04T08:25:00.001+08:00

Blow by blow coverage with pics: cNET News

Apple's iPad: One Small Step for Tablets, One Giant Leap for Personal Computers

2010-04-03T16:31:00.001+08:00

On the eve of the launch of Apple's iPad, I am thinking of Ed Roberts. He never became a household name, but as the man behind the Altair computer — a kit for lunatic tech hobbyists released in 1975 — he was responsible for launching the microcomputer era.

When nearly everyone in technology thought that computers would forever be restricted to big institutions, Roberts envisioned the machines as tools of empowerment. "If I were to give you an army of 10,000 people, could you build a pyramid?" he said. "A computer gives the average person, a high school freshman, the power to do things in a week that all the mathematicians who ever lived until 30 years ago couldn't do."

Roberts hired two obscure young would-be entrepreneurs to write a version of the BASIC computer language for the Altair. Recently I was talking to one of them — Bill Gates, who managed to turn that adventure into a company called Microsoft — about Roberts. "He's not doing that well," Gates said. "So I wrote a letter to him about what a great guy he is, and I hope he's doing well."

Ed Roberts died April 1, just as the revolution he kicked off was about to enter its next phase. On Saturday, Apple will begin selling the iPad, a book-sized tablet dominated by a bright LCD touch-controlled screen.

The zeitgeist excitement needle on this gadget has moved past Hula Hoop and Lady Gaga levels, and is approaching zones previously occupied only by the Beatles and the birth-control pill. Can a one-and-a-half-pound slab possibly live up to this massive hype?

Read more: Wired.com

iPad Is the Future

2010-04-02T15:50:00.001+08:00

Normal people don't like today's computers. Most loathe them because they can't fully understand their absurd complexity and arcane conventions. That's why the iPad will kill today's computers, just like the latter killed computers running with punchcards and command lines.

more: GIZMODO

How the Tablet Will Change the World

2010-04-01T12:26:00.002+08:00

Everyone who jammed into the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco on January 27, 2010, knew what they were there for: Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ introduction of a thin, always-on tablet device that would let people browse the Web, read books, send email, watch movies, and play games. It was also no surprise that the 1.5-pound iPad resembled an iPhone, right down to the single black button nestled below the bright 10-inch screen. But about an hour into the presentation, Apple showed something unexpected — something that not many people even noticed. In addition to the lean-back sorts of activities one expects from a tablet (demonstrated by Jobs while relaxing in a comfy black armchair), there was a surprising pitch for the iPad as a lean-forward device, one that runs a revamped version of Apple’s iWork productivity apps. In many ways, Jobs claimed, the iPad would be better than pricier laptops and desktops as a tool for high-end word processing and spreadsheets. If anyone missed the point, Apple’s design guru Jonathan Ive gushed in a promotional video that the iPad wasn’t just a cool new way to gobble up media — it was blazing a path to the future of computing.

Read More at: Wired

The Death of The Web Browser

2010-03-28T05:15:00.000+08:00

Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of silence please. It is time for us to start preparing for a death: the death of the web browser.

Read More!

10 Ways Social Media Will Change In 2010

2009-12-23T05:27:00.000+08:00

This time last year, I wrote about the 10 ways social media will change 2009, and while all predictions have materialized or are on their way, it has only become clear in recent months how significant of a change we've seen this year. 2009 will go down as the year in which the shroud of uncertainty was lifted off of social media and mainstream adoption began at the speed of light. Barack Obama's campaign proved that social media can mobilize millions into action, and Iran's election protests demonstrated its importance to the freedom of speech.

Today, it is impossible to separate social media from the online world. Facebook reached 350 million users last month -- 70% of whom are outside the US -- and it accounts for 25% of the Web's traffic, according to Pew nearly one in five people on the web use Twitter or some other service to check status messages, and 94% of enterprises plan to maintain or increase their investment in enterprise social media tools. The social media conversation is no longer considered a Web 2.0 fad -- it is taking place in homes, small businesses and corporate boardrooms, and extending its reach into the nonprofit, education and health sectors. From feeling excitement, novelty, bewilderment, and overwhelmed, a growing number of people now speak of social media as simply another channel or tactic.

So what will social Web bring next? What will "being connected" mean? What will the next experience be for the 2 two billion people who are connected to the Internet? Here are 10 ways what we've called social media will evolve in 2010.

2010 Predictions

2009-12-23T05:15:00.000+08:00

Every year the ReadWriteWeb team tries its hand at predicting the future. Looking back at our 2009 predictions, we got some wrong (I predicted that Facebook would sign up to OpenSocial) but others turned out to be on the money. I correctly guessed that the usual suspects would remain unacquired in '09 - Digg, Twitter, Technorati - but that FriendFeed would get bought. OK, so I guessed that Google would be the buyer. But close enough!

Without further ado, here are our predictions for 2010.

Free Software Fanatics

2009-12-13T08:27:00.001+08:00

Over at Desktop Linux Reviews, I recently wrote a review of Mandriva Linux 2010. For the review I picked the "free" version of Mandriva Linux, which meant it had no proprietary applications or codecs installed.

In the review, I wrote this:

For this review I picked the Mandriva Linux 2010 (Free) version. This version contains 100% free software and weighs in at a chunky 4.3GB when you download it. Now please understand that I am not a "free software fanatic" type at all. I have no problem using distros that have some proprietary software blended into them but I like to use one that doesn't have that stuff every once in a while.
My use of the term "free software fanatic" really rubbed one of my readers the wrong way, and he responded with this, er, rather blunt reply:

read more of this article by Jim Lynch

Will a fragmented media lead to a flowering of culture?

2009-11-30T05:56:00.000+08:00

“I’m not sure if we think about society, or that society thinks us,” that’s what I heard Malcolm Muggeridge say, when I was about 10 years old.

Malcolm Muggeridge was a British journalist and philosopher and I often saw him on British TV when I was growing up, talking about serious subjects.

That quote has stuck with me because it says something about us, it says that we are part of a society, and that we are a part of its messages. And society’s messages and its thinking is done through media.

Today, we have more media, in more forms, at anytime of the day — than at anytime in our history. Wow. What’s that going to do to us?

more

The 'Wild And Wooly' World Of Bulletin Boards

2009-11-22T06:39:00.002+08:00

These days, if you want to find a fling, a friend or a cheap used sofa, you might check out Craigslist. But decades before Craig Newmark posted his first list, computer users all over the country were connecting through electronic bulletin boards.

Bulletin board systems — or BBS — were born in Chicago in 1978. Eventually, there were more than 100,000 of them across the country, a precursor of today's World Wide Web.

Tom Jennings was one of the earliest users, back in the 1970s. He describes BBS as sort of like a corkboard at the supermarket entrance. "You know, you've got a barbecue for sale? You put a 3-by-5 card with a description and your phone number, and you tack it to the wall," Jennings says. "And there's a whole collection of these things. It's a form of social commerce."

more at NPR

How To Save The Internet

2009-11-02T10:24:00.000+08:00

I had the good fortune of receiving an advance copy of Ken Auletta’s forthcoming book “Googled, The End of the World as We Know It“. It’s a fascinating read, one that raises a whole set of interesting dichotomies related to Google and their business practices.

Contrast the fact that the Google business drives open and free access to data and intellectual property, so that the world becomes part of their corpus of data – yet they tightly guard their own IP in regards to how to navigate that data. Contrast that users and publishers who gave Google the insights to filter and search data are the ones who are then taxed to access that data set. Contrast Google’s move into layers beyond web sites (e.g., operating systems, web browsers) with their apparent belief that they won’t have issues stemming from walled gardens and tying. In Google we have a company that believes “Don’t be evil” is sufficient a promise for their users to trust their intentions, yet it is a company that have never articulated what they think is evil and what is not (Google.cn, anyone?).

read more...

Hasta la Vista, baby: Ars reviews Windows 7

2009-11-01T18:10:00.001+08:00

With much fanfare and even a few parties, Windows 7 has arrived. In this extensive review, Peter Bright dives deep into Microsoft's new OS offering to see what's new, what's still the same, and whether it's worth upgrading.

READ!!!

The Troubles of Korea’s Influential Economic Pundit

2009-11-01T09:20:00.002+08:00

Until the day he was outed, the most influential commentator on South Korea’s economy lived the life of a nobody. Park Dae-Sung owned a small apartment in a middle-class neighborhood of Seoul and freelanced part-time at a telecom company. Thirty years old, he still hoped to earn a four-year degree in economics. In the mornings, he would bicycle to the public library to study for the university entrance exam. His standard uniform was slacks, loafers, and wrinkle-free button-down shirts, as though he were going to work in an office. But with his slightly chubby moon face, glasses, and neatly parted hair, he easily blended in among the rows of students. While they worked through school assignments, he immersed himself in the text of his chosen profession.

In the evenings, Park would go online, frittering away the hours like millions of other geeks. He often played the simulation game Capitalism II, where he’d assume the role of a blue-chip investor, closing million-dollar deals and speculating on skyscrapers. Nothing that he did earned him any attention.

Then, in March 2008, Park opened an account on South Korea’s popular Daum Agora forum. Here, he decided, he would call himself Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, and write exclusively on economics, drawing on both public reports and his years in the stacks poring over Adam Smith and Joseph Stiglitz. Affecting the effortless command of a seasoned investor, he strove to project the authority that had eluded him in real life. The world economy is in the midst of collapse, he warned, so pay your debts and stock up on noodles and drinkable water. He made pronouncements on when to buy or sell a home, exchange Korean won for dollars, and pull out of the financial markets altogether.

more...

25 Redesigned Logos of 2009

2009-10-24T10:09:00.001+08:00

see more at graphicDesignBlog

Don’t Let the PC Become a Dinosaur

2009-10-18T11:14:00.000+08:00

Everything today is connected. And that may be bad news for that PC sitting on your desk or the high-powered laptop that you tote around on business trips. In an increasingly connected world, where data is just a server request away, the PC needs an overhaul to stay relevant, so that it isn’t merely a hub for all of your digital devices, but it’s also a contributor to the web and an intelligent orchestrator of the home network.

Last week, I read a story about broadband deployments in Africa that quoted an Ericsson executive saying that broadband should be a basic right, available to everyone to access at any time. Of course, any equipment vendor would say that, but it also happens to be true. Ericsson cites research by ConsumerLab, involving 5,000 Internet users in five countries, of which 82 percent reported using the Internet several times a day. Half of the respondents said having high-speed Internet everywhere was important, while 48 percent agreed a computer without Internet had no value.

more at GIGAOM

Child porn fears scupper airport ‘nude X-ray’ scans

2009-10-18T07:49:00.001+08:00

Airport security chiefs have been banned from subjecting children to a controversial new X-ray scanner that produces ‘naked’ pictures of passengers because of legal warnings the images may break child pornography laws.

The full-body scanner, which can spot weapons and explosives hidden under clothing, was launched with great fanfare at Manchester Airport last week.

read more

What problems does Google Wave solve?

2009-10-18T07:22:00.001+08:00

There are countless pundits and other tech gurus describing Google Wave as a disappointment, lately. Most of that seems to come from the fact that nobody seems to get what Wave is for. So they compare it to social media.

Is Wave the next Twitter? Nope. Is it the next Facebook? Nope. Is it going to replace Instant Messengers? Possibly, in some circumstances, but not any time soon.

I believe this is partly Google’s fault: they released Wave to geeks and hackers and social media folks first. But Wave is not a geek/hacker tool, or a social media tool, it’s a corporate tool that solves work problems (more on that later). On the other hand, they never claimed it would be a Facebook replacement or a Twitter killer. Google calls wave an “online tool for real-time communication and collaboration”. The way Google should have advertised Wave is: “it solves the problems with email”.

read more

Geocities, In Memoriam

2009-08-22T23:57:00.001+08:00

On October 26, Yahoo will pull the plug on the online community web hosting site Geocities. Though it is mostly remembered as a hideous, antiquated, pre-internet boom startup, it was one of the most popular websites of the 1990s. The community-policed “cities” allowed users to create individualized web pages, and was, in some ways, a precursor to the more modern corporate-owned online communities like MySpace, Facebook, and Blogger. “The demise of GeoCities is not just the disappearance of a gif-riddled online ghost town,” Phoebe Connelly writes for the American Prospect, “it's the death of a pioneering online community.”

Now that the website is shutting down, groups like the Internet Archive are scrambling to preserve the information that GeoCities once held. The struggle reminds users, according to Connelly, “that just because something is published on the Internet doesn't mean it will last forever.” And when the information is published on a corporate-owned website, the choice isn’t really up to you.

Source: The American Prospect via UTNE

Google's 'chief Internet evangelist' Cerf sees bigger, faster Web

2009-02-08T09:30:00.003+08:00

By Troy Wolverton
Mercury News

Widely known as one of the fathers of the Internet, Cerf 30 years ago helped develop the system by which data is still sent through the network. Since then, he has done everything from connecting the first commercial service to the Internet to serving as chairman of a key Internet governing body to helping promote an update to the Internet's underlying technology.

Now, as Google's chief Internet evangelist, Cerf's job is to keep up with the latest Internet technologies so his company can use them to build new services.

His role at Google comes as the company is under growing scrutiny and controversy. Among other issues, Internet service providers have complained that Google is essentially getting a free ride on their networks, since data going to and from the company's servers accounts for a substantial portion of all Internet traffic.

Slated to speak at San Jose's Temple Emanu-El on Tuesday night, Cerf spoke with the Mercury News this week about the evolution of the network, security on the Internet and Google's battle with the service providers. Here is an edited transcript of the interview:

What will Obama do with Churchill's bust?

2009-01-25T07:23:00.000+08:00

The task of redecorating the Oval Office includes remembering and re-imagining trans-Atlantic relations

One of the first jobs of an American president is to redecorate the Oval Office. Each new president is expected to update the furniture, replace the carpet, repaint the walls and woodwork as well as add some new paintings. There are also the sculptures, usually three or four. So when he moves in today, President Barack Obama will have to decide what to do with a bronze bust of Winston Churchill.

The bust is on loan from the British government and was installed by his predecessor, President George W Bush in 2001. Bush explains it in an official White House tour video [my transcript]: "my friend the prime minister of Great Britain heard me say that I greatly admired Winston Churchill and so he saw to it that the government loaned me this and I am most honored to have this Jacob Epstein bust of Winston Churchill. I like Churchill because he was a great war leader. He was resolute, he was tough, he knew what he believed, and he had a fabulous sense of humor. And in this job, believe me, you've gotta have a sense of humor. Otherwise it makes for the days awfully long and for the nights awfully short." (Predictably, the video inspired a spoof.)

Officially, Her Majesty's government loaned the bust to Bush for the duration of his term. At the end of this month, the bust can therefore go back to the Government Art Collection on Cockspur Street. But there is little to prevent Obama from retaining the sculpture, just like there was little that prevented him from retaining Bush's Defense Secretary and several other "holdover" officials.

Downing Street, always ready to cultivate Britain's "special relationship" with America, would probably happily extend the loan to another four to eight years. After all, no figure in the world better symbolizes the "special relationship" than Churchill. In his last Lord Mayor's Banquet Speech, Prime Minister Gordon Brown explained it yet again: "Winston Churchill described the joint inheritance of Britain and America as not just a shared history but a shared belief in the great principles of freedom, and the rights of man - of what Barack Obama described in his election night speech as the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."

Will Obama keep his Churchill? Obama's speech writers would certainly appreciate it. In the United States, the signifier "Churchill" is as positively evaluated as "Obama" in the United Kingdom right now. As Christopher Hitchens observes, in America, Churchill "occupies an unrivaled place in the common stock of reference, ranging from the mock-heroic to the downright kitsch." The man voted the Greatest Briton in a 2002, argues Hitchens, "can be quoted even more safely than Lincoln in that he was never a member of any American faction."

Good politics is not the only reason for Obama to retain the bust. Last year, the New England Historic Genealogical Society discovered that Obama is in fact related to Churchill. (The researchers also found that Obama is a ninth cousin of Brad Pitt and a distant relative to five former U.S. presidents, including George W Bush.) So why not keep a bust of a distant family member which happens to be a great war leader that most Americans love?

As it is often the case, family history cuts both ways. In Kenya, the land of Obama's father, the signifier "Churchill" carries nothing but negative connotations. Several times in his long political career, Churchill was responsible for Britain's empire, which until 1963 included Kenya. It was his government which in 1952 declared the so-called Kenya Emergency - an attempt to quash a rebellion against colonial rule known as Mau Mau. For the next eight years, suspected rebels were routinely detained, tortured, hanged and shot. According to Caroline Elkins, the colonial soldiers killed between fifteen and twenty thousand Kenyans in combat, while up to one hundred thousand perished in the detention camps. One of those who endured torture in a British prison was Hussein Onyango Obama, US president's Kenyan grandfather. Traces of this story can be found in Obama's memoir Dreams from my Father as well as in a few interviews; much more is sure to come. For now, it behooves us to remember it when Obama sends his Churchill packing. The time for the Anglo-American "special relationship" to move beyond Churchill is long overdue.

Srdjan Vucetic is Dillard Fellow in International Studies at Pembroke College, Cambridge

New study details how junk mailers still make money

2008-12-25T15:23:00.000+08:00

A new study details how spammers – the bane of our email inboxes – still make pots of money, despite only receiving a response to one in every 12,500,000 emails they spam out.

The study, by a team of seven computer scientists from University of California, Berkeley and UC, San Diego (UCSD) infiltrated the Storm network, which uses hijacked home PCs to relay much of the junk email you spend your days wading through while wondering 'who the hell responds to this stuff?'

Well. Now you know. One gullible idiot in 12,500,000 recipients. Or thereabouts.

Spam the spammers

"The best way to measure spam is to be a spammer," claims the study. And they certainly picked the right network to hijack, with the Storm network having over one million machines under its control at one point.

Using 'proxy bots' the team of researchers managed to control 75,869 hijacked machines to conduct their own fake spam campaigns.

The researchers used two of the most popular ploys currently used by spammers – firstly offering a fake pharmacy site and, secondly, offering a herbal Viagra-style remedy to boost libido.

"After 26 days, and almost 350 million email messages, only 28 sales resulted," says the research paper.

Yet even with this apparently abysmal response rate of less than 0.00001 per cent, the researchers still estimate that the controllers of a network the size of Storm are still bringing in about $7,000 (£4,430) a day or $3.5m (£2.21m) over a year.

Both baffling and incredibly annoying, we're sure you will agree. For some actual useful and helpful information head over to TechRadar's recent 50 websites you will wonder how you lived without feature.

techradar.com

50 websites you'll wonder how you lived without

2008-12-25T15:21:00.000+08:00

Essential sites to add to your bookmarks today

When it comes to the Internet, we're creatures of habit – Google for search, Hotmail for email, Twitter to stay in touch and maybe the BBC's website for news.

This means that we use only a handful of favourite sites, leaving the rest of the Internet unvisited. Let's put that right. By the time you've finished reading, we promise that your list of bookmarked sites will have ballooned and you'll be getting more from your surfing.

Go there!

Barack Obama’s Online Databases Know When You Are Sleeping

2008-12-25T09:02:00.000+08:00

Millions of people came together online during the 2008 election, working to get Barack Obama elected president. They donated money, made phone calls from the internet database, organized meetings, and blogged on the candidate’s website. And now, Barack Obama knows about all of them.

Many gave up their information willingly, volunteering their emails to sign up for MyBarackObama.com’s cutting-edge web 2.0 functionality or yielding their cell phone numbers to receive text messages with the latest campaign updates. The campaign’s army of volunteers also took to the phones and to the streets, asking people for information on their political leanings and issues important to them. According to Technology Review, the Democratic National Committee acquired some 223 million pieces of data on potential voters in the final two months before the election.

That information isn’t going away when Obama moves into the White House. People used to joke that the Republican Party was so successful at “microtargeting,” and knowing about potential voters, that they knew what kind pizza that each voters liked. Now, “GOP's data-gathering efforts look like the work of amateurs,” James Grimmelmann writes for the New Republic.

Some have suggested that Obama could use his databases to lobby Congress on legislation and motivate people to contact their representatives. “ Just one problem,” Karl Rove wrote last month in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal. “It's illegal. There are statutory prohibitions on the White House from using tax dollars to directly lobby Congress by unleashing emails, calls and visits.”

The Obama administration could use its massive trove of information for other, more nefarious purposes. “It turns out that the Obama campaign's use of the data is almost completely unregulated,” Grimmelmann writes. MyBarackObama.com’s watery privacy policy states that the campaign can “make personal information available to organizations with similar political viewpoints and objectives, in furtherance of our own political objectives,” leaving the door open for information sharing between the campaign and the NSA, the FBI, or even marketing companies.

The likelihood of the Obama administration selling its databases for money, or even sharing it with the NSA, seems slim. “The Obama campaign has the means and the opportunity to violate your privacy,” Grimmelmann writes, “but it doesn't have much of a motive.” The FBI and the NSA already have the necessary means to get that kind of information, and the Obama team wouldn’t want their databases compromised by outside influences.

The stronger likelihood, according to Gillian Reagan writing for the New York Observer, is that the Obama campaign will continue on its web 2.0 course. The President-elect has already started releasing videos over YouTube, and has added a “Join the Discussion” feature to their Change.gov website, allowing people to weigh in on issues important to them. According to Reagan, there’s been talk of creating automatically generated voter profiles, with information on people’s personal voting districts and allowing them to easily connect to their elected representatives.

Tech experts are hoping that “Mr. Obama can convince the public to channel the energy wasted on inconsequential Internet tendencies into getting involved in government,” Regan writes. They could leverage their existing information to facilitate a greater connection between the government and other citizens, as long as other issues, including health care, the economy, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, don’t get in the way first.

Best of Giz Explains 2008: Stuff You Absolutely Need To Know

2008-12-25T08:09:00.003+08:00

I hope you guys learned as much reading Giz Explains this year as I did writing them. Here are the best, the ones explaining stuff you absolutely must know.

by matt buchanan

Go There!

9 Year Old Girl Becomes the Youngest Microsoft Certified Professional

2008-12-24T11:31:00.002+08:00

Today's crushing blow to our self confidence comes to us from India, where a 9 year old girl has become the youngest person to ever pass a Microsoft Certified Professional examination.

Naturally, this isn't the first time the girl has been in the spotlight for her talents. Thanks to her extraordinary memory, she has been breaking records since she was three—an age when most of us were concerned with toys and pooping our pants.

Link at Gizmodo

Google Ad

2008-12-16T21:28:00.001+08:00

Kidney selling now being done online in RP

2008-12-13T07:23:00.001+08:00

Filipinos are now selling their kidneys and other organs online. Medical experts reported yesterday that syndicates are now using online marketing, offering organs to prospective foreign and local buyers.

Dr. Benita Padilla of the National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) said online organ selling has become rampant in the country despite the ban on organ trafficking.“If you will check the websites, there are numerous kidney-for-sale advertisements. This form of online advertising should be prohibited,” Padilla said.

A 34-year-old Filipino from Manila, who claims to be financially distressed, is among those offering one of his “healthy” kidneys for sale on the website Pinoyambisyoso.com.

But Padilla admitted that Filipinos are not the only ones selling their organs on the Internet as people of other nationalities, like Colombians, are doing the same.

According to Padilla, organ trafficking is a common problem in the Philippines and other countries where poor people are forced to sell their organs to get some money.

She said the worldwide shortage of available organs for transplantation has encouraged commercial trafficking of human organs, particularly among living unrelated donors.

Dr. Alberto Chua of the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Hospital noted that 51 percent or 536 of the total kidney transplant recipients last year were foreigners.

Many depressed areas in the country – including Baseco, Tondo, Caloocan, Novaliches, Montalban, Carmona, Quezon, Camarines Norte, Masbate, Samar, Surigao, Agusan, Zamboanga, Davao and North Cotabato – have been identified as hot spots for kidney and organ trading.

To curb the rampant organ selling in the country, the Department of Health (DOH) has banned kidney transplants on foreigners utilizing living donors.

While the ban has resulted in a 50 percent drop in kidney transplants in the country this year, Chua said there is still much to be done to prevent organ selling among Filipinos.

After the imposition of the ban, Padilla said kidney transplants were performed on foreigners who came to the country with living donors.

“We were told that the donors were the relatives of the foreigners but we cannot be sure because other people from poor countries are also selling their organs,” Padilla said.

By Mayen Jaymalin for The Philippine Star

Start-Up Founders: Take Your Spouse on a Date

2008-12-12T20:39:00.000+08:00

Web entrepreneurs who refer to their start-ups as their second family, take note: Friday is the second annual Spouse 2.0 Day, dedicated to the significant others of start-up founders.

To celebrate, founders are asked to buy their significant others a gift, then post to their blogs or Twitter streams about it, using the “Spouse 2.0″ tag. The stories will be collected on the project’s Web site.

“Because of the long hours that traditionally come with running an Internet start-up business, everything else seems to get pushed aside, like friends, family,” said Ashley Angell, one of the event’s organizers. “When you’re sending e-mails from bed at 2 in the morning, which invariably all start-up founders do, they get neglected and put up with an awful lot of stuff.” Leaving the BlackBerry outside the bedroom is an option on Spouse 2.0 Day.

Mr. Angell and Chris Saad, who are also co-founders of Faraday Media, created the event last year, around the time that Mr. Angell’s wife of seven years, Julie-Anne, started referring to Faraday as “the other woman,” he said.

“It is a way to recognize that no matter how difficult it is to have an Internet start-up, it’s also difficult being a partner of an Internet start-up founder,” said Mr. Angell, speaking on the phone while his 5-year-old son played with Legos and talked to him in the background.

Spouse 2.0 Day’s slogan is: “The day to think about those running your other start-up.”

“Your family at home is essentially a start-up as well — you have a relationship you need to build on, you have a whole bunch of projects from kids to mortgages,” Mr. Saad said. “They’re both equally important.”

The founders do not know how many entrepreneurs participated last year, but the event has generated 4,250 references in Google. They said they expected it to be much bigger this year.

Mr. Angell gave his wife, who loves to cook, a Jamie Oliver cookbook for Spouse 2.0 Day last year. “This year, I’m thinking a classic dinner date and a movie,” he said.

Mr. Saad, on the other hand, will spend Spouse 2.0 Day alone (or, more likely, at work), “probably because I haven’t taken time out” from work to spend with significant others, he joked.

Firefox 3: 8 Untold Secrets

2008-12-09T22:13:00.001+08:00

The latest version of Mozilla's popular open-source browser enjoyed one of the most successful launches in software history, with a record-setting 8.2 million downloads the first day it was available.

With the ability to drastically expand the browser's functions using plug-in extensions and Greasemonkey scripts, many of Firefox 3's built-in features are overlooked. Here are eight handy things you can do with Firefox, ranging from tiny tweaks to hugely powerful capabilities, all with nary an extension to install.

Reveal!

Intel develops fast, cheap optical links on silicon

2008-12-08T20:50:00.002+08:00

Intel is claiming "world record" performance in optical communications using silicon photonics, in a development announced in the journal Nature Photonics.
Intel silicon photonics

Silicon photonics-based photo dectors are used to send and receive optical information, particularly in very high-bandwidth applications like supercomputers. Intel says silicon photonics is essential for "ultra-fast transfer of data (in) future computers powered by many processor cores."

The development is significant because it is based on silicon--a readily available, low-cost material used in semicondutor chips today--and outperforms more exotic, pricier materials. To date, Silicon photonics technology, using complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) techniques, has suffered from performance shortcomings.

"This research result is another example of how silicon can be used to create very high-performing optical devices," Mario Paniccia, an Intel Fellow and director of the company's Photonics Technology Lab, said in a statement. The development can be used not only in optical communications but areas such as sensing, imaging, quantum cryptography, and biological applications, Paniccia said.

A team led by Intel researchers created a silicon-based Avalanche Photodiode (APD) to achieve a "gain-bandwidth product" of 340 GHz. Intel claims this is "the best result ever measured for this key APD performance metric" and allows lower-cost optical links running at data rates of 40Gbps or higher.

The research was jointly funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Numonyx, a flash memory chipmaker, provided manufacturing and process development.

Originally posted at Nanotech - The Circuits Blog
cNet News

Facebook Users Targeted by Koobface Virus

2008-12-07T08:26:00.003+08:00

Facebook users are under attack by the Koobface computer virus, which infects computers through the social network's messaging system. Once the virus has been downloaded, it uses e-mail contacts to spread to other PC's.

Those receiving an e-mail from the virus are prompted to download a bogus update of Adobe System's Flash media player.

If the software is downloaded, the virus uses search engines (Google, Yahoo) to send users to other contaminated sites. The virus also searches computers for personal information, such as stored credit card numbers and passwords.

Read More:
MyFox
Interbet News
North Country Gazette

2008-12-06T12:55:00.000+08:00

How Gadgets Helped Mumbai Attackers

2008-12-02T05:21:00.003+08:00

[Photo: AP; plugged in: CA, Giz]
The Mumbai terrorists used an array of commercial technologies -- from Blackberries to GPS navigators to anonymous e-mail accounts -- to pull off their heinous attacks.

For years, terrorists and insurgents around the world have used off-the-shelf hardware and software to stay ahead of bigger, better-funded authorities. In 2007, former U.S. Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid complained that, with their Radio Shack stockpile of communications gear, "this enemy is better networked than we are." The strikes that killed at least 174 appears to be another example of how wired today's "global guerrillas" can be.

As they approached Mumbai by boat, the terrorists "steered the vessel using GPS equipment," according to the Daily Mail. A satellite phone was later found aboard.

Once the coordinated attacks began, the terrorists were on their cell phones constantly. They used BlackBerries "to monitor international reaction to the atrocities, and to check on the police response via the internet," the Courier Mail reports.

The gunmen were able to trawl the internet for information after cable television feeds to the two luxury hotels and office block were cut by the authorities.

The men looked beyond the instant updates of the Indian media to find worldwide reaction to the events in Mumbai, and to keep abreast of the movements of the soldiers sent to stop them.

Outside of Leopold's Cafe, "one of the gunmen seemed to be talking on a mobile phone even as he used his other hand to fire off rounds," an eyewitness told The New York Times.

The terror group then took credit for the bloodshed with a series of e-mails to local media. They used a "remailer" service to mask their identities; earlier attacks were claimed from cyber cafes.

Wired

Facebook Aims to Extend Its Reach Across the Web

2008-12-02T04:54:00.005+08:00

PALO ALTO, Calif. — Facebook, the Internet’s largest social network, wants to let you take your friends with you as you travel the Web. But having been burned by privacy concerns in the last year, it plans to keep close tabs on those outings.

Facebook Connect, as the company’s new feature is called, allows its members to log onto other Web sites using their Facebook identification and see their friends’ activities on those sites. Like Beacon, the controversial advertising program that Facebook introduced and then withdrew last year after it raised a hullabaloo over privacy, Connect also gives members the opportunity to broadcast their actions on those sites to their friends on Facebook.

In the next few weeks, a number of prominent Web sites will weave this service into their pages, including those of the Discovery Channel and The San Francisco Chronicle, the social news site Digg, the genealogy network Geni and the online video hub Hulu.

Facebook Connect is representative of some surprising new thinking in Silicon Valley. Instead of trying to hoard information about their users, the Internet giants have all announced plans to share at least some of that data so people do not have to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites.

Supporters of this idea say such programs will help with the emergence of a new “social Web,” because chatter among friends will infiltrate even sites that have been entirely unsociable thus far.

For example, a person might alert his Facebook friends to the fact that he is watching a video on CBS.com and invite them to join him there to watch together and discuss the video as it plays.

“Everyone is looking for ways to make their Web sites more social,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. “They can build their own social capabilities, but what will be more useful for them is building on top of a social system that people are already wedded to.”

MySpace, Yahoo and Google have all announced similar programs this year, using common standards that will allow other Web sites to reduce the work needed to embrace each identity system. Facebook, which is using its own data-sharing technology, is slightly ahead of its rivals.

The New York Times

TechCrunch

Avoid Air Travel Delays

2008-12-01T08:16:00.000+08:00

Without questions, air travel delays are out of control. Because there is no denying the need for safety (please don't stop the safety checks on my account), we must explore other solutions for a problem that will only get worse during the holidays.

First and foremost, DO NOT BLAME THE MESSENGER FOR THE MESSAGE. What this means is that the airport staff and airline attendants can not change the situation that you're in. Trust me, airline attendants, of all people, don't want to have to be at work any longer than required. Forget the stories you've heard of free upgrades, free flights, free stays in a four star hotel. Sure it might happen but don't expect that as soon as your flight is delayed or canceled, the airline will beg your ultimate forgiveness by showering you with consolation prizes. So, please don't berate, assault, castigate, rebuke, or otherwise attempt to belittle the gate attendant. Instead, here are a few tips and resources from around the web that can help ease the pain of modern day air travel, often by preemptively avoiding the situation altogether.

Go there!

Election Postmortem: Technology and the Press

2008-11-30T14:28:00.002+08:00

Don’t fetishize technology!

The 2008 presidential campaign found the political press embracing technology and interactivity like never before. (Or, at least, attempting to do so.) During the primaries, number-crunching delegate counters appeared on numerous news sites. Reporters and bloggers hopped on board the Twitter train while covering the Democratic and Republican national conventions. CNN’s color-coded “squiggly lines” tried to communicate how undecided voters were reacting in real time to the presidential debates. On election night, a holographic will.i.am showed up on CNN doing a body wave for Anderson Cooper.

Examine this smorgasbord of selections, and there emerges a mantra for the press: Don’t fetishize technology. We know it’s tempting to utilize gadgets for their own sake, particularly when you can (and/or feel you should). But as we saw throughout

the election cycle, if technology didn’t help to make the journalism better, it didn’t quite matter what gadget, gizmo or pixel-magic was thrown into the pot: you ended up regretting the hologr—I mean, it.

What follows are some tech takeaways for the political press—reminders of why some stuff worked to great journalistic effect, and why other, more misguided attempts didn’t. Many of these takeaways are obvious, but perhaps in the examination process we can deduce how technology can best serve journalism, instead of the other way around.

Go to article:
By Jane Kim for Columbia Journalism Review

Information Overload Is Bad News

2008-11-30T14:09:00.002+08:00

“Overload!”, the Columbia Journalism Review’s current cover story, is every bit as overwhelming as its subject.

In a lengthy, thorough explication, Bree Nordenson lays out the results of a study commissioned by the Associated Press to track the news consumption of young adults around the world. The gist of the findings is grim, but hardly surprising: There’s more information out there than ever before, and this is not a good thing. “The American public is no better informed now than it has been during less information-rich times,” Nordenson writes.

Or, in numerical terms: “Two hundred and ten billion e-mails are sent each day. Say goodbye to the gigabyte and hello to the exabyte, five of which are worth 37,000 Libraries of Congress. In 2006 alone, the world produced 161 exabytes of digital data, the equivalent of three million times the information contained in all the books ever written.”

The way information, particularly news, is disseminated has been revolutionized, for better and worse, by the internet. Context has disappeared; data usually travels in a chaotic tsunami and arrives “unbundled” and often indecipherable. “These days, news comes at us in a flood of unrelated snippets,” Nordenson writes.

The rest of the article examines a number of different trends affecting the current state of news consumption: the limits of human attention, the role of media in democracy, and the new role of journalism. The piece does end on a relatively optimistic note, however; the final section, titled “Why Journalism Won’t Disappear,” contains this easier-said-than-done prescription: "If news organizations decide to rethink their role and give consumers the context and coherence they want and need in an age of overload, they may just achieve the financial stability they’ve been scrambling for, even as they recapture their public-service mission before it slips away."

Utne

The Angelina Jolie of cell phones

2008-11-30T08:18:00.003+08:00

FIRST announced in February, Sony Ericsson’s new Xperia X1 has been generating considerable buzz on the Net and around geek tables at the coffee shops, and speculation and anticipation have reached near fever-pitch levels that even Apple acolytes have been discussing the Sony Ericsson phone.

Well, it’s finally here. Officially released in the Philippines just a couple of days ago, we’re happy to report we got our hands on an X1 a month ago and have been able to put it through its paces to see if the hype was warranted.

read more:
By Adel Gabot
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Wi-Fi while you fly

2008-11-29T11:09:00.002+08:00

Imagine sending e-mails, browsing blogs, and booking your next trip with ease while soaring above the clouds. CNET's Kara Tsuboi tests out Virgin America's new in-flight Wi-Fi service and concludes that we'll no longer be able to slack off during a business trip again.

Cnet.com

Mumbai attacks find space in US media

2008-11-28T21:48:00.002+08:00

An Indian soldier takes aim at the Taj Mahal hotel where suspected militants remained holed up during an assault in Mumbai, India, on Nov. 28, 2008
Altaf Qadri / AP

It's sign of just how connected the world is. On November 26, the Americans woke up to reports of an expected terror attack on the New York subways. And within a few hours, they were living through a terror attack in Mumbai through the television networks that have been doing live coverage of the news -- minute by minute.

It's Thanksgiving in the US today, which is comparable to Diwali in India. On most Thanksgiving Eves, one would see prerecorded programs as most Americans and even many employees of the news networks would be preparing to or already have left for the Thanksgiving weekend.

But this time, US newspapers had the Mumbai attacks story on their front pages. Minutes after the attack, a user using the name John Kenny started the first Wikipedia entry on the subject.

Most US newspapers and networks are following their own investigations into who the Deccan Mujahideen are. The American press is using its own international and terrorism experts to compare the Mumbai terror to known Al-Qaida modus operandi since in a post 9/11 world, the Al-Qaida is recognisable in any language.

This is not seen as an internal Indian problem because an attack in one part of the world reverberates to American shores.

NDTV.com

First Views From Inside the Taj via TIME

The information flow from Mumbai via Cnet.com

Hundreds wait at Verizon stores for BlackBerry Storm

2008-11-23T14:12:00.001+08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of people lined up at some Verizon Wireless stores on Friday to buy the BlackBerry Storm, the first touch-screen phone from Research In Motion that aims to compete with Apple's iPhone.

More than 200 people had waited at a Verizon store in mid-town Manhattan early in the morning, many of whom were turned away after it ran out of the new phones less than an hour after opening at 8 a.m. The angry customers caused a ruckus and police came to restore order.

Verizon said hundreds of others were in lines outside its stores up and down the U.S. east coast, but added that it had "plenty of phones" and would keep getting more shipments. It declined to give specifics on inventory levels.

More at Reuters
cNet Review

After iPhone, consumers seek handsome gadgets

2008-11-23T14:06:00.002+08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Fed up with ugly routers and clunky hard drives, a growing number of consumers are looking for well-designed gadgets that complement decor instead of cluttering desktops and clashing with furniture.

Many credit Apple Inc's iPhone, with its strikingly simple forms, for raising the bar on expectations for good design in consumer electronics.

And while art and design professionals say that gadgets like mobile phones and personal computers are becoming increasingly well-designed, they also say many electronic products still need to work on their appearance.

Read More of this at Reuters

Bay Area Cities Agree to Power Electric Cars

2008-11-23T10:36:00.001+08:00

Mayors in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday announced a series of initiatives aimed at making the region the electric vehicle capital of the U.S. by 2012.

The cities of San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland will partner with Palo-Alto based Better Place to increase the availability of electric car services and provide incentives for investment in the technology, city representatives said Thursday.

Better Place, a venture-backed company designed to reduce demands on petroleum through infrastructure favoring electric cars, plans to invest up to $1 billion in the project by 2012. Network planning and permitting will begin in January 2009, and infrastructure deployment will start in 2010. Better Place has completed similar projects in Israel, Denmark and Australia, but the Bay Area effort will be its first U.S. project.

"We believe the successful solution includes a confluence of leadership involving California's strength in technology and innovation coupled with Michigan's automotive manufacturing might, with the right policy and national project leadership from Washington," Shai Agassi, the founder and chief executive of Better Place, said in a statement.

"Our aim is to make the Bay Area — and eventually California — the electric vehicle capital of the U.S.," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said at a Thursday press conference.

Newsom, as well as San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, announced a nine-point plan to promote the adoption of electric cars.

Starting in January, the three cities will work to provide: expedited permitting and installation of electric vehicle (EV) charging outlets at homes, businesses, parking lots, and other buildings; incentives for employers to provide EV charging systems in their workplace; government programs to promote EV purchases; programs for bulk orders from city and state governments.

The mayors will also work to identify and secure a suitable standard (110V) for electric outlets to be in every government building in 2009; and work on a roll-out plan for placement of 220V EV charging equipment throughout each city including city parking lots and curbside parking.

"This type of public-private partnership is exactly what I envisioned when we created the first ever low-carbon fuel standard and when the state enacted the zero emissions vehicle program," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"Promoting the use of electric vehicles will help forward our nation's goals to achieve energy independence, to protect the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and to boost the economy by providing jobs in an emerging manufacturing sector," said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who represents the Bay Area.

The cities will also work with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and Association of Bay Area Governments, as well as many private sector partners, including the members of the Bay Area Council and Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

PC Magazine via yahooNEWS

Now, Brevity Is the Soul of Office Interaction

2008-11-23T10:20:00.000+08:00

ONE hundred forty characters — the exact length of this sentence — is turning out to be just right for business communications of all kinds.

Whether sharing project updates with colleagues or reaching out to customers, workers are communicating in a new medium that keeps messages very short. Commonly called microblogging, it started as a way to share personal information with friends and family. But micromessages are gaining ground at work, becoming popular for both internal and external exchanges.

Read more at The New York Times Business Section

Art, music, gossip - it's (virtually) all there in my parallel universe

2008-11-23T09:37:00.000+08:00

The world is poised for a virtual revolution on an unprecedented scale. In a week of Second Life divorces and World of Warcraft mania Victor Keegan says a new generation of even easier-to-use cyber worlds is upon us.

guardian.co.uk,

50 Visionaries Who Are Changing Your World

2008-11-23T09:32:00.000+08:00

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”
—Audre Lorde, writer and activist

“The dreamers are the saviors of the world.”
—James Allen, writer

“Only he who can see the invisible can do the impossible.”
—Frank Gaines, mayor, Berkeley, California, 1939–1943

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.”
—Howard Aiken, computing pioneer

Utne

Even Google scales back on holiday fun

2008-11-22T21:21:00.001+08:00

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Internet search giant Google Inc is known for hosting the most extravagant holiday parties in Silicon Valley, often drawing crowds of over 10,000 and prompting some employees to post ads for party dates on classifieds Website Craigslist.

But even Google has decided to scale back its holiday celebrations this year due to a global economic downturn and an ever-expanding workforce that had grown to 20,000 in October, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Silicon Valley has few reasons to celebrate this year as companies, including Hewlett Packard Co, Yahoo Inc, Sun Microsystems Inc and Applied Materials Inc, have cut over 140,000 jobs in the last few months because of the bleak economy, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas consulting group.

Google has fared better than most tech companies, but departments at the Internet company will have smaller events this year to encourage camaraderie between employees and celebrate more economically, said the source. Team holiday activities will include spending an afternoon volunteering followed by evening social activities such as dinner parties and museum outings in San Francisco.

This is a striking difference from previous years, when Google holiday parties included ice sculptures of the company's logo, virtual reality video game stations, karaoke booths, sushi buffets and burlesque dancers.

Last year a party crowd of 10,000 spread throughout the Shoreline Amphitheater, near Google headquarters in Mountain View, California, said workers -- called Googlers. A handful used the Web to find dates.

But this year only one looked for a companion in a recent search on Craigslist.

Google declined to comment on this year's change

Reuters via yahootech

Gmail Themes. That’s Totally Ninja.

2008-11-20T05:37:00.001+08:00

Apparently a lucky few Gmail users had a “Themes” tab pop up under settings. No longer do you have to suffer through the boring-if-functional standard Gmail interface for the 16 hours a day that you keep the page loaded. Try “Ninja” instead.

Techcrunch

Microsoft Kills OneCare to Offer Freebie; So Long, Norton

2008-11-20T05:14:00.000+08:00

RIP: McAfee, Symantec, and Trend Micro -- at least in the consumer market.

Microsoft has announced it'll discontinue the retail version of its Windows Live OneCare security suite, effective June 30, 2009, and offer "Morro," a free, stripped-down anti-malware app instead.

This is good news for Windows users everywhere, particularly those in emerging markets, where antivirus and antispyware usage is quite low. For folks in the developed world, Morro means the end of bloated security software and annual protection fees -- usually $20 to $50 -- that keep viruses, spyware, rootkits, Trojans, and other online offenders at bay. Morro will be available in mid-2009 as a free download for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

The biggest losers here are the major security software developers, including McAfee; Symantec, maker of the Norton line; and Trend Micro. For years they've run a profitable business selling antimalware programs to consumers, but now that market is essentially dead. Good riddance, I say. These programs were resource hogs-each year getting bigger, slower, more bloated, and adding system utilities and other add-ons that had nothing to do with security. (To be fair, some of these tools, such as Norton Antivirus, have slimmed down recently.)

Security should be a core feature of any operating system. Microsoft, whatever its true intentions, is doing the right thing here. I'm not saying that Morro will be perfect -- no security software is -- but it'll probably be good enough for most home and many small business users. Redmond has too much at stake here to put out a garbage security app. Apple's been gaining market share, in large part due to the Mac's ability to deliver a relatively malware-free experience.

Of course, McAfee and Norton fans will still be able to use their security suites, although I'm not sure why they'd want to. And free alternatives like AVG Anti-Virus programs will still be around, at least for awhile.

PCWorld

Google Hosts 10 Million Historic Time-Life Photos

2008-11-19T21:51:00.000+08:00

Google announced today that they're now hosting around 10 million photos from the LIFE photo archives on Google Image search. You can search the photos—which range from the 1750s to present day—directly from the LIFE photo archive start page, or you can simply include source:life with any Google Image search query. If you give it a spin, share some of your favorite photos in the comments.

Lifehacker

Nov. 19, 1981: Marcos Regime Puts the Kibosh on Games

2008-11-19T20:57:00.001+08:00

1981: Citing their socially destructive effects, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos bans videogames in his country. Filipinos are given two weeks to hand over or destroy their game consoles.
Marcos was no stranger to imposing draconian solutions. The Philippines lived under martial law throughout the 1970s, Marcos' way of dealing with the increasingly radical elements — a restive university population and a resurgent Communist movement, mainly — that grew in opposition to his corrupt regime.
In this case, though, he was responding to pressure from parents and educators, who claimed that games such as Space Invaders and Asteroids were a "destructive social enemy, the electrical bandit" that was weakening the moral fiber of the young and turning them into a generation of obsessives.
While ample evidence exists — including testimonials from game players themselves — to support the argument that excessive videogaming can be both highly addictive and behavior altering, it's probably safe to characterize Marcos' reaction as a tad heavy-handed. It was not without its supporters, however, nor was the Philippines the only country to impose restrictions on videogames. Marcos' outright ban on all videogames, though, was unique at the time, at least in the so-called free world.
Just this year, Afghanistan's Islamic government proposed an absolute ban on videogames, while also considering the outlawing of dog- and bird-fighting, and billiards.
In the West, the violent content that is the central feature of so many games continues to prompt various restrictions. In the United States, for example, individual states have imposed sales restrictions on games deemed too violent or sexually explicit for younger gamers.
The videogame industry has been encouraged to be self-policing, and a ratings system exists, similar to what the movie industry uses. But enforcement is difficult, and the industry's policing efforts — in the face of such enormous profitability — have been half-hearted at best.

Wired

Exit Center Stage

2008-11-18T21:41:00.003+08:00

5 reasons why Jerry Yang is done at Yahoo
Jerry Yang out as Yahoo CEO
Jerry Yang's goodbye letter to Yahoo

Articles from Valleywag

The Possibilities of White Space

2008-11-16T19:28:00.001+08:00

When television broadcasting goes all-digital in February, a range of old TV frequencies known as “white space” will be up for grabs, and technology pioneers like Google’s Larry Page have been lobbying the FCC to dedicate that spectrum to free internet and other public communication.

But the National Association of Broadcasters, mobile phone companies, and other entities who stand to profit from private, pay-based communication have been fighting white space liberation.

Until last week, that is, when the FCC ruled to open white space to unlicensed use (pdf), scoring a huge victory for Page’s camp. This essentially means that online communication will be faster and available to more people, especially rural and low-income users. It will also likely result in cheaper offerings from internet, cable, and cell phone service providers as competition in those markets intensifies.

Jeff Jarvis outlines these and other benefits of public white space at his blog BuzzMachine. (“Note this historic moment,” he writes. “I’m praising the FCC.”) He argues that the internet is no longer a merely a privilege, but a right: “Access to the internet—and open, broadband internet that is neither censored nor filtered by government or business—should be seen, similarly, as a necessity and thus a right. Just as we judge nations by their literacy, we should now judge them by their connectedness.”

Jarvis also does a good job of explaining white space and its benefits in non-wonky terms, focusing on the ways it will benefit education, government, and society at large.

Utne.com

Making the Internet safe for kids

2008-11-16T08:56:00.003+08:00

When you first look at it, KidZui seems a bit like a kiddified Flock, a Web browser with social networking rolled in. Children using Windows or Macs can find their favorite YouTube videos, rate content using tags, and share opinions, all from a colorful interface with big buttons and clear, clean labeling.

Billing itself as "the Internet for kids," it turns out that KidZui is anything but a standard kids' browser, and what makes it so unique is precisely why it's such a safe tool for children to use.

KidZui is a closed system of pre-approved content, and although it seems to function like a browser, there's no way to use it to access the Internet directly. Instead, all the content that's available from KidZui has been approved by a group of editors. These moonlighting parents, teachers, and retired teachers started from a database built by a spider that checked dmoz directories across the Internet--similar to how Yahoo searches the Web. From there, they looked at each video, image, and Web site that KidZui lets children see, and then added the safe ones to an age-delineated whitelist. Four-year-olds, for example, can not see content that 10-year-olds can.

Cnet Download Blog Review

Download KidZui

What Obama’s Victory Means for Technology

2008-11-14T22:06:00.002+08:00

Though it received little attention in the campaign, technology policy has been on Obama’s presidential agenda for some time.

Almost a year ago, Obama revealed his plan to create a new cabinet position for a Chief Technology Officer, who “will ensure that our government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies, and services for the 21st century,” according to Obama’s new web site, Change.gov. Wired’s speculative laundry list of candidates for the post includes everyone from Google CEO Eric Schmidt to Dr. Evil.

Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and techPresident, tells Information Week that, “If someone of the caliber of Eric Schmidt were to be asked to serve this country in the White House, I think you would see a far quicker adoption of policies that not only help the tech industry but help the tech industry help the country and the world.”

Obama has also pledged steadfast support for net neutrality, digitizing medical records, and expanding broadband access. Information Week calls him the “first presidential candidate to unveil a wide-reaching and in-depth technology agenda.” However, there are potential downsides of an Obama presidency for technology, writes CNet. For instance, “For technology firms, a substantial downside—and one that's difficult to overstate—is how hostile a solidly Democratic Congress and White House could be toward free trade.”

Links from Utne.com
Venture Beat
Cnet

Of heartbeats and headphones

2008-11-11T22:01:00.004+08:00

The following article is excerpted from MacUser.com

The threat posed to your pacemaker by your iPod may have been downplayed by no less than the Food and Drug Administration, but that doesn’t mean that you can go listen to your music willy-nilly. The player itself might be harmless, but perhaps you’re forgetting about that most dangerous of accessories—the headphone.

Not silent... but deadly!

According to a researcher at the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston, the magnets in headphones can affect pacemakers or implanted defibrillators.(Note that the risk is posed by headphones and not digital music players in general or the iPod in particular, as some inattentive headline writers would suggest.)

Before you toss out your potentially deadly heaphones, note this particular detail about the Medical Device Safety Institute report: for headphones to affect pacemakers, they need to be held very close to the device in question—namely, right over the heart. So, in other words, don’t keep your earbuds in your front shirt pocket.

“I certainly don’t think people should overreact to this information,” [said study leader Dr. William Maisel] but it’s smart to keep small electronics at least a few inches from implanted medical devices, and not let someone wearing headphones lean against your chest if you have one, he said.

“The headphone interaction applies whether or not the headphones are plugged in to the music player and whether or not the music player is on or off,” he added.

So there you have it—if you’ve got a pair of headphones, exercise some degree of caution with where you keep your earbuds, but don’t let the news put a stop to your tunes.

by Dan Moren, Macworld.com

Famous tech myths that just won't die

2008-11-09T07:25:00.002+08:00

Have you heard this story?

One day, Bill Gates was standing on a street corner, watching the clouds roll by. Absentmindedly, he dropped a $1,000 bill out of his pocket. A bystander noticed and said, "Are you going to pick that up?"

"No, why would I do that?" Gates responded gruffly, and walked away.

OK, fact or fiction?

While my version adds a little color, it's still just a fable.

You can mix and match the details, but the essence of the myth -- which I'll define as anything grossly inaccurate yet widely regarded as true -- is still there.

It's part fantasy, part fabrication, but wholly inaccurate.

Tech myths come in all shapes and sizes: Some contain a morsel of truth, but many of them are so wildly preposterous that it's hard to imagine anyone taking them seriously.

"A myth generally exists to explain the worldview of a group of people," says Rob Enderle, a consumer analyst. "This means its intent is to convey an idea but not necessarily the whole truth, and given it's conveyed largely from person to person, the initial story can change a great deal."

At the risk of perpetuating Internet-sized myths even more, here are some of the most famous examples of myths, along with some debunking and comments from those in the know.

Read more at ComputerWorld

and the follow-up of this article by:John Brandon

Three Simple Start-Ups Hoping to Change the World

2008-11-08T09:45:00.001+08:00

At Launch Pad, the elevator pitch session of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, half a dozen entrepreneurs pitched their companies Thursday to a panel of venture capitalists and the audience. The theme was “Web meets world” — the ways in which stuff we do online connects to stuff we do in the real world.

Here are three of the most interesting start-ups:

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER AND BRAD STONE
for The New York Times

How Obama Will Use Web 2.0 For Change

2008-11-08T09:35:00.002+08:00

President-elect Barack Obama's harnessing of Web 2.0 technologies enabled his rise to power, and his administration will continue to use them to stay in touch with constituents. That's the contention made by political leaders on the third day of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco.

Read:
This
and This
and This!

The Top Ten Reasons iTunes Sucks

2008-11-06T21:38:00.002+08:00

ITunes sucks. There, we said it. Apple’s once very handy jukebox and music library manager has morphed into an unusable piece of crap that’s not even an app anymore, it’s just a kiosk for the iTunes Store.
We’ve got nothing against most Apple products. We like OS X, so much in fact that we hacked it onto an EeePC, where it works smashingly well — or at least well enough until Apple joins the netbook market.
But when it comes to music players, Apple’s is one of the worst. Here are the top ten things that suck about iTunes

By Scott Gilbertson for monkey_bites

Geek Dad

2008-11-06T21:23:00.003+08:00

5 Signs President-Elect Obama Is a Geek

Barack Obama wins presidency, making history

2008-11-05T21:15:00.000+08:00

The Democrat breaks the ultimate U.S. racial barrier with his defeat of Republican John McCain.

By Mark Z. Barabak
November 05, 2008

Barack Obama, the son of a father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, was elected the nation’s 44th president Tuesday, breaking the ultimate racial barrier to become the first African American to claim the country’s highest office.

A nation that was founded by slave owners and seared by civil war and generations of racial strife delivered a smashing electoral college victory to the 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, who forged a broad, multiracial, multiethnic coalition. His victory was a leap in the march toward equality: When Obama was born, people with his skin color could not even vote in parts of America, and many were killed for trying.

Obama was winning in every state his party carried four years ago, including Pennsylvania, which McCain had worked vigorously to pry from the Democratic column. Obama was also making significant inroads into Republican turf, carrying Ohio and Virginia, the latter voting Democratic for the first time in more than 40 years. He was also winning the swing states of New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico, which backed President Bush in 2004.

The major TV networks and the Associated Press called the race for Obama within minutes of the polls closing, sparking a raucous celebration in Chicago, where hundreds of thousands of celebrants gathered in Grant Park along the city’s waterfront.

Giant video screens at the scene were tuned to CNN. Each time the network projected a state as an Obama win, the crowd erupted in cheers. The battleground states produced the loudest roars – first Pennsylvania, then New Hampshire, then Ohio, then, finally, victory.

Moments later, the Obama campaign announced that McCain had called the president-elect to concede.

Voters also handed Obama a fortified congressional majority, as Democrats picked up several seats in the Senate and in the House. The party knocked off at least two GOP incumbents, including North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole.

McCain, burdened by his party’s toxic image, prevailed in a band of states that comprise a shrinking Republican base, mainly in the South, the Plains and parts of the interior West.

In winning the White House, Obama to a large degree remade the electorate: About one in 10 of those casting ballots Tuesday were doing so for the first time. Though that number was about the same as four years ago, most of the newcomers were under age 30, about a fifth were black and a fifth were Latino. That was greater than their share of the overall population, and those groups voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

Overall, he won large majorities of women, black and Latino voters. Although he lost among white voters, Obama narrowed the margin significantly from 2004.

For most voters, the sagging economy was the topmost concern – a dynamic that played strongly to the Democrat’s favor. Six in 10 voters said the economy was the most important issue facing the nation, according to exit polls – far more than cited energy, Iraq, terrorism or healthcare.

Voters flocked to the polls in record numbers Tuesday, continuing a pattern of electoral exuberance that started in the primary season. There were scattered voting problems reported throughout the day, including long lines, malfunctioning voting machines and mislaid ballots.

But there was nothing like Florida’s infamous “butterfly ballot” fiasco, which sent the 2000 presidential contest into several weeks of overtime before the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in to settle the race.

Mostly, there was patience, good cheer, and for many, pride in taking part in a slice of history, whatever the result; had he won, McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would have been the first woman to serve as vice president.

Lines began forming across the country before the sun had risen, with queues starting at 4 a.m. in New York City. The outcome across most of the Democratic-leaning Northeast was never in doubt, but many felt it was their responsibility – and privilege – to vote.

“I needed to cast my own ballot today, not just because it’s my duty as a citizen but because for once it feels like it counts,” said Eric Schwartz, 36, a computer specialist on New York’s Upper West Side. “It’s a more global feeling. Like I needed to make a mark on a day when things matter. Today, everyone matters.”

In Arlington, Va., Takia Williams, 25 and African-American, wrestled with her frustrated 2-year-old, who wanted to play on the slide in the back seat of their car. But nothing could dampen Williams’ spirits after casting a ballot for Obama. “I couldn’t wait to vote,” she said.

Obama will be one of the youngest presidents in American history, the first born outside the continental United States (in Hawaii) and only the third to move directly from the U.S. Senate to the White House.

He burst on the national political scene just over four years ago, with an electrifying keynote address to the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Obama’s soaring speech previewed themes he would reprise in his presidential bid, including a call to end the partisanship symbolized by a country divided into Republican red and Democratic blue.

Months after that address, Obama won his U.S. Senate seat, and there was immediate talk of a run for president. The speculation, however, vastly understated the challenge facing Obama, who by his own admission entered the crowded Democratic field as a decided underdog. His victory over New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton after a long, contentious primary season was in itself one of the great political upsets of all time.

Contrary to the wisdom at the time, the battle did not sap but rather strengthened Obama. He built campaign organizations in traditionally Republican states, like Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Indiana, that came into play in the fall thanks to the groundwork laid in the spring.

Obama also became a better, more substantive candidate and a much stronger debater, which served him well in his three matchups with McCain. Obama’s unflappable performance on stage and steady response to the Wall Street meltdown helped allay voter concerns about his judgment, maturity and readiness to assume office, undercutting what was perhaps McCain’s strongest argument against the freshman lawmaker.

For all the wild celebration in Chicago, there were quieter moments that captured the full weight of history.

Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, a veteran of protests in Selma, Birmingham and other racial flash-points, was among hundreds of black Atlantans who crowded the pews for an election-watch party at the Rev. Martin Luther King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. When CNN called the state of Pennsylvania, an early harbinger, Young pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed away tears

mark.barabak@latimes.com

Barabak is a Times staff writer.

CNN goes Star Wars, debuts live holograms

2008-11-05T21:04:00.002+08:00

Chicago (IL) – This year’s presidential election made history in several ways and it appeared that news networks were also in a competition to show off the most elaborate technology to explain polls and other election events. It all started with fancy Surface tables and a “Magic Wall”, but if there was one technology that completely stood out form everything else, it was certainly CNN’s holograms.

Change was the theme of the presidential election and if you looked closely you could see change in many places, not just from a political viewpoint. Comparing this just concluded election with previous elections is also especially stunning from a technological view. Remember the famous white board of NBC’s Tim Russert, who unfortunately could not live to experience the final phase of this election?

Many of us still remember his trademark white board that clarified key data in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections – but there was no white board this time around. Touchscreens, Surface tables and a much hyped magic wall dominated the election coverage whenever any data of data needed to be visualized and put into perspective. CNN pulled another trick out of its hat on Tuesday, demonstrating a hologram technology that allowed the company to virtually “beam” a person from a distant location into the studio to talk with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper.

That person (CNN’s Jessica Yellin and singer Will.I.am had the honor of being the first persons to testdrive the technology) was located in a tent with dozens of HD cameras that shot video of the person from any angle and transmitted that video to the CNN studio, where the image of that person was rebuilt.

The effect, of course, was that there seemed to be a more natural conversation between two people rather than between a host and a person on a screen. The benefit for the viewer may be questionable, but CNN claimed that the hologram allowed the audience to listen more clearly to an interviewed person, since that person was in a closed tent, and not somewhere in the middle of hundreds (or thousands) of screaming people. Sure, you could have put that person also in front of a simple camera and provided video in a more traditional way. But it was, of course, a technology presentation that secured CNN the prize for the most elaborate election coverage technology.

The Hologram was also used to build other 3D models – such as the Capitol, to visualize Senate seats. From a technology perspective, this was, without doubt, very impressive.

tgDaily.com

Far beyond the clouds

2008-11-04T06:05:00.002+08:00

Cloud computing is Internet-based ("cloud") development and use of computer technology ("computing"). The cloud is a metaphor for the Internet (based on how it is depicted in computer network diagrams) and is an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it conceals.[1] It is a style of computing in which IT-related capabilities are provided “as a service”,[2] allowing users to access technology-enabled services from the Internet ("in the cloud")[3] without knowledge of, expertise with, or control over the technology infrastructure that supports them.[4] According to a 2008 paper published by IEEE Internet Computing "Cloud Computing is a paradigm in which information is permanently stored in servers on the Internet and cached temporarily on clients that include desktops, entertainment centers, table computers, notebooks, wall computers, handhelds, sensors, monitors, etc."[5]
Cloud computing is a general concept that incorporates software as a service (SaaS), Web 2.0 and other recent, well-known technology trends, in which the common theme is reliance on the Internet for satisfying the computing needs of the users. For example, Google Apps provides common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

WIKIPEDIA

Preview: iBangle, Tunes for Your Wrist

2008-11-02T20:13:00.002+08:00

Designer Gopinath Prasana has concocted this wireless MP3 player that would keep your tunes handy, no hands required. And despite the girly name, it looks pretty unisex.

The prototype metal bracelet has a blue inner band that fills with air for a snug fit and a multi-touch track pad for easy navigation.

Nothing to keep you from discreetly turning it up or down in front of your boss.

Cult of Mac

The Safety Gap

2008-11-02T07:18:00.002+08:00

In the belly of an industrial district south of Lyon, France, just past a sulfurous oil refinery and a synthetic vanilla plant, sits a run-down, eight-story factory that makes aspirin, the first pharmaceutical blockbuster. The Lyon factory is the last of its kind. No other major facility in Europe or the United States makes generic aspirin anymore. The market has been taken over by low-cost Chinese producers. Even Bayer, the German company that created aspirin in the 1890s and has fought for more than a century to distinguish its product as the most trustworthy one, now has backup supplies from China.

The Lyon plant is owned by a French chemical giant named Rhodia that has been making aspirin since 1908 and still accounts for more than 25 percent of the world’s aspirin market. But now a century after its entry into the business, the company intends to quit making aspirin altogether. The plant was last renovated in 1992, and it would need an upgrade to continue operating, an investment the company can no longer justify in what has become a cutthroat business. In fact, Rhodia is closing another factory about 40 miles to the south. This one makes the painkiller acetaminophen, which is found in Tylenol. It, too, is the last such facility in Western Europe.

In some ways, this is a nonevent. European factories close; Chinese ones open. Consumers like their commodities cheap, in the case of aspirin as with everything else. China now produces about two-thirds of all aspirin and is poised to become the world’s sole global supplier in the not-too-distant future. But are the Chinese factories safe? Who knows? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency and other competent government regulators rarely, if ever, inspect them. (By contrast, Rhodia’s plant was last inspected by the F.D.A. in July and is routinely inspected by one country or another.) Companies that import Chinese pharmaceutical ingredients, including aspirin, are required to test the supplies before using them, and some send private inspectors to China to ensure that suppliers use adequate controls. No pharmaceutical maker wants its name to become synonymous with disaster, and the vast majority of drugs that are consumed in the United States are safe. But some industry executives told me that price sensitivity in the generics industry makes it more difficult to fully vet their low-cost suppliers.

In China, where thousands of drug manufacturers sell products in the local markets, profit margins are razor thin, and counterfeiting and contamination are common. In 2002, the Pharmaceutical Association, a Chinese trade group, estimated that as much as 8 percent of over-the-counter drugs sold in China are counterfeit. Contaminated products extend beyond drugs, as was made tragically clear this fall when four Chinese babies died and 53,000 were sickened by melamine, a toxic chemical illegally added to watered-down baby formula to artificially increase the protein count and fool quality tests.

Though no melamine-tainted baby formula from China was found in the United States, it has shown up in other countries. This is the latest in a series of food- and drug-safety scandals. China has in recent years exported poisonous toothpaste, deadly dog food, toys made with lead paint and tainted fish. In one infamous example this spring, Chinese manufacturers substituted a cheap fake for the dried pig intestines used to make the drug heparin, which is given to dialysis and surgery patients to prevent blood clotting. As deaths among those taking the drug mounted, the F.D.A. discovered the taint and banned the contaminated drug. In the end, 81 people may have died from allergic reactions, and tens of thousands around the world were exposed to danger. F.D.A. officials admitted that the agency should never have approved the Chinese-made heparin for sale in the United States; the agency, it turned out, had never inspected the Chinese plant making it.

More at The New York Times

The pros and cons of netbooks

2008-11-01T18:36:00.002+08:00

Yeah, what's the deal with all the netbooks?

If you're unfamiliar with the devices, here's the pitch: You get a small, cheap laptop with a basic set of features, limited performance, and often a small hard drive (or an even smaller amount of flash storage). Some netbooks run Windows (usually XP), some don't. And that's the sell. The emphasis: cheap.

Prices typically range from about $300 to $500, but there are exceptions on either side. As with standard laptops, the more you pay, the more you get... but at some point you get into the realm of those regular laptops, and the appeal of the netbook fades considerably.

There are numerous pros and cons to the netbook phenomenon that should impact your decision whether to buy one. First, some pros: They're cheap. Oh, I mentioned that. But they're also very portable and generally more rugged than you'd expect, which makes them great for people looking for a second laptop to use as a "getaway" computer. Just toss it in your bag and head out for that adventure weekend. If it gets lost, stolen, or broken, you're out a much smaller investment than if it had been your $2,000 Mac that you dropped into a ravine.

Now for the flipside. Netbooks are, again, cheap. To get prices down, sacrifices must be made. That means dog-slow processors, no graphics ability, (usually) no optical drive, and minimal RAM. Netbooks won't work as an emergency DVD player for the kids. Battery life is often poor (with a few exceptions). Many netbooks look more like toys than real laptops, so they aren't appropriate for business users. And the smaller the keyboard gets, the harder it is to type. On machines with an 8.9-inch screen (the smallest and typical standard among netbooks), touch-typing is pretty much impossible. Then there's the OS issue. While some netbooks run Windows, many run Linux. Whether that's a pro or con depends on your opinion of Microsoft, but many users dislike having to learn a new operating system and instead prefer the familiarity of Windows.

Should you buy one? Tough question, but I highly recommend that if you do, you consider a model with a 10-inch screen, which will give you a less cramped experience on both the eyes and the fingers (thanks to the bigger keyboard). My two favorite models: The Asus Eee PC 1000H and the new Lenovo IdeaPad S10, both with 10.2-inch screens and Windows XP. Both are available for under $500. The Eee has much longer battery life (but weighs half a pound more), while the IdeaPad has better performance and a larger hard drive. Take your pick.

Christopher Null: The Working Guy

56 Arrested in DarkMarket Sting, Says FBI

2008-10-19T21:14:00.004+08:00

The FBI on Friday boasted that its two-year long undercover operation against users of the crime forum DarkMarket netted 56 arrests worldwide and prevented $70 million in economic losses, publicly acknowledging the sting for the first time.

"In today's world of rapidly expanding technology, where cybercrimes are perpetrated instantly from anywhere in the world, law enforcement needs to be flexible and creative in our efforts to target these criminals," said FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry in a statement. "By joining forces with our international law enforcement counterparts, we have been, and will continue to be, successful in arresting those individuals and dismantling these forums."

British police say they've arrested five DarkMarket users in recent days, and 11 since the sting began in late 2006. The other arrests have been in Turkey, Germany and the United States, according to the FBI. Spokesman Brian Hale said the feds won't be going into more detail. "We have released all the information in that release that we're publicly going to discuss at this point in time," said Hale.

DarkMarket allowed buyers and sellers of stolen identities and credit card data to meet and do business in an entrepreneurial, peer-reviewed environment. It had 2,500 users at its peak, according to the FBI.

Documents uncovered by a German radio network on Monday first revealed that DarkMarket had been secretly run by an FBI cybercrime agent for the last two years, until its voluntary shutdown earlier this month. The leader of the site, know online as Master Splynter, was in fact FBI cybercrime agent J. Keith Mularski, part of an elite seven-agent cybercrime unit based at the National Cyber Forensics Training Alliance in Pittsburgh.

DarkMarket members believed the site was operated from Eastern Europe, despite a 2006 warning from uber-hacker Max Ray Butler, known then as Iceman and Aphex. Butler cracked the site's server and announced that he'd caught Master Splynter logging in from the NCFTA's office on the banks of the Monongahela River. Butler ran a site of his own, and the warning was generally dismissed as inter-forum rivalry. " even when Butler was arrested in San Francisco last year on credit card fraud charges, and shipped to Pittsburgh for prosecution.

It remains unclear whether Mularski took over the identity of a real cyberscammer, or if Master Splynter was his invention from the start. Either way, the agent created a convincing persona for his undercover identity, sometimes publicly bemoaning arrests for which he was secretly responsible. When he announced the site's closure last month, he blamed increasing law enforcement attention.

To convey the flavor of Mularsi's performance, the full text of his September 16 DarkMarket closure announcement follows.

Good day, respected and dear forum members.

It is time to tell you the bad news - the forum should be closed. Yes, I really mean close..... there are lots of reasons for it, and I have given this a lot of hard thought.

First of all, recent events have proven that even in our best efforts to expel and deactivate the accounts of suspected LE, reporters, and security agents, it is obvious that we haven't been entirely successful. Over the last year we have lost a lot of the Admins of the forums: Iceman on Cardersmarket; JiLsi and Matrix001 disappeared, and now, ChaO on DM. It is apparent that this forum, which has been around almost three years, is attracting too much attention from a lot of the world services (agents of FBI, SS, and Interpol.) I guess it was only time before this would happen. It is very unfortunate that we have come to this situation, because I think we've done a great job in eliminating the rippers of the world, and we have established DM as the premier English speaking forum for conducting business. Such is life..... when you are on top.... people try to bring you down.

Although we have eliminated the rippers, it obvious that the Special Services and Security fucks are still here lurking in our ranks. They continue to gather evidence on us. They read our posts, they talk with our vendors, they look to see who are the active members of the forum. These Special Services are gathering evidence on us and sending requests to our native countries to find out information on us. It would be too long and cumbersome, not to mention fruitless, to try to keep the forum up and try to do a complete purge of suspected people. For we have been attempting this for the last year. Obviously, the effort is futile. It is time to start fresh.

To quote and paraphrase King Arthur of Carder Planet; How clever can we be? We use many proxies and socks, however Special Services can find our VPN even in the most darkest corners of the world. All of us are just people and all of us can make mistakes. Iceman, ChaO and Maksik are prime examples. We can forget to switch on the VPN, get frustrated with inconsistent proxies, or accidently give out Identifying informaiton. It is not a secret that FBI employees go to the ISPs and get logs and history logs. Because of it they can catch anyone, it is just the matter of time and will. We don’t hold the logs on our site but who knows, maybe cops are taking IPs of all people who connect to forum on the area where our server with site is located. They can start processing of the most often occurring IPs (sub-nets of the C class) and the following scenario all of us know.

I myself would rather go out like King Arthur than Iceman. Whereas Iceman decided that all he would do was change his nick to Aphex, and continue to run CM, King Arthur closed Carder Planet and faded into the night. History has shown that Iceman made a fatal mistake, I will not make the same.

Because of this, I've discussed the situation with the Admins. Should we keep the forum up longer, or should we close it? This has not been an easy decision for me, because I have spent many long hours working on this forum and trying to make it the best it could be. I've thought about selling the forum. However DM has been my soul. How do you sell your soul? I have weighed the pros and cons, and it has to be closed. It is what it is. All good things come to an end.

Hosting is paid through Oct 4th, so the forum will function until then, and after that it will close.

I send out my regards all members

And for all the police and security fucktards..... well... fuck you all.....

MS.

Read the article at wired.com

Japanese banking crisis

2008-10-18T16:11:00.001+08:00

News update:

Following the problems in the sub-prime lending market in America and the run on Northern Rock in?the UK, uncertainty has now also hit Japan.

In the last 7 days Origami Bank has folded, Sumo Bank has gone belly up and Bonsai Bank announced plans to cut some of its branches.

Yesterday, it was announced that Karaoke Bank is up for sale and will likely go for a song, while today shares in Kamikaze Bank were suspended after they nose-dived.

While Samurai Bank is soldiering on following sharp cutbacks, Ninja Bank is reported to have taken a hit, but they remain in the black.

Furthermore, 500 staff at Karate Bank got the chop and analysts report that there is something fishy going on at Sushi Bank where it is feared that staff may get a raw deal... :-)

Meet MAC, RP’s first anti-terror robot

2008-10-15T21:46:00.001+08:00

After months of fine-tuning, the country’s very first Filipino-made bomb disposal robot was presented to the public yesterday as the latest member of the Makati City police force.

Made of aluminum, fiberglass, and engineering plastic, the two feet tall machine was officially named MAC (Mechanical Anti-terrorist Concept) and conferred the rank of Police Inspector, equivalent to captain in the military.

With the “Mission Impossible” theme song playing in the background and despite unfavorable weather conditions, MAC was made to examine and retrieve an explosive device that was brought to a bomb disruptor and safely detonated.

MAC’s ability to approach anything or anyone was also showcased when it was made to bring a cellular phone to a supposed hostage-taker in order to give the police and the suspect a way to communicate.

And just like any modern-day hero with the reputation of being a super agent like Ian Fleming’s James Bond, Makati City’s mechanical friend charmed his way into the hearts of women, who gave him red roses which allowed him to demonstrate how his mechanical hands can grip and hold almost anything.

MAC was developed by engineering professors and students of the Mapua Institute of Technology as the country’s first and so far most reliable bomb disposal robot.

Makati City Police chief Senior Superintendent Gilbert Cruz told The STAR how the robot was conceptualized, and revealed that it might just earn the Philippines a prize in an international robotics competition.

“Inspector MAC and eight Mapua professors and students will be going to China for the contest scheduled October 16 to 21,” Cruz told The STAR in an interview.

According to him, the competition will feature various computer-developed machines and the Philippines will be in it, hopefully to win.

Cruz said Mapua’s brightest minds headed by engineer John Judilla created the bomb disposal robot which will keep policemen out of harm’s way each time they respond to a bomb emergency.

Inspector MAC can be controlled either by attached wires or by remote control, depending on the situation.

“Now, should there be bomb threats, we can conduct bomb disposal operations from a safe distance. We can send MAC instead of sending officers to manually do the job,” Cruz said.

The machine’s current features include griper, drive, field vision, and back vision cameras with night vision capability and the ability to move at a maximum speed of 15 kilometers per hour.

Cruz said Inspector MAC can also test air toxicity levels in case of a chemical explosion.

He took pride in the fact that the robot, which runs on motorcycle batteries, was assembled using locally available materials.

Considering how Makati City receives an average of one bomb threat a week, Inspector MAC is being considered as the Makati City Police’s pride and humble contribution to the continuing fight against terrorism.

Mayor Jejomar Binay commended Cruz for the department’s innovativeness and constant enhancement of its capabilities to maintain peace and order in the city.

“The city government lauds the Makati Police for using advancements in technology in deterring crime. The introduction of the MAC Robot will surely boost the city’s preparedness in keeping the populace safe,” Binay said.

By Michael Punongbayan for
philstar.com

Flash Cookies, a Little-Known Privacy Threat

2008-10-15T05:36:00.001+08:00

Wiini recommends a blog posting exploring Flash cookies, a little-known threat to privacy, and how you can get control of them. 98% of browsers have Macromedia Flash Player installed, and the cookies it enables have some interesting properties. They have no expiration date; they store 100 KB of data by default, with an unlimited maximum; they can't be deleted by your browser; and they send previous visit information and history, by default, without your permission. I was amazed at some of the sites, not visited in a year or more, that still had Flash cookies on my machine. Here's the user-unfriendly GUI for deleting them, one at a time, each one requiring confirmation.

Via Slashdot

Golden Age of Trains in Black and White

2008-10-15T05:17:00.002+08:00

Photographer Jim Shaughnessy first turned his lens on trains in 1946 at age 13. Over the following 20 years, he chased trains around New England and Canada, documenting the fall of steam engines and the rise of diesel locomotives — all in gorgeous black and white.

Shaughnessy approaches the machines with a documentary eye, with art as a welcome byproduct. His extensive body of work includes some of the most important historical photographs of locomotives from the era.

Still an avid train photographer, Shaughnessy lives in his hometown of Troy, New York, a formerly bustling railroad hub that shrank as railway use dwindled. Wired.com talked with him about his photography and his fascination with trains. Click through the gallery to read the interview and see selections from Shaughnessy's upcoming book, The Call of Trains, to be released Nov. 3.

Via Wired.com

The Synthetic Smell of Success

2008-10-14T21:46:00.001+08:00

Engineers at MIT have developed a way to produce smell receptors in a lab, reports ScienceDaily. This might not seem like big news, but scientists have been trying to develop this kind of technology for years. Developing artificial smell sensors could help law enforcement officials replace drug- and bomb-sniffing dogs, which take extensive time and money to train, with artificial noses. Also, considering that diseases including diabetes, asthma, and certain types of cancer have a particular smell, the technology could be used to make early, potentially life-saving diagnoses.

The iPhone Hotel: Check In, Tune Out, Room Service

2008-10-13T21:48:00.002+08:00

A California Inn is dubbing itself the world’s first “iPhone hotel.” When guests check into the Malibu Beach Inn, they’re asked if they have an iPhone or iPod Touch. If guests have got the gear, hotel staff loads an app called “Hotel Evolution” from Hollywood software firm Runtriz, to the device. If they don’t, they’re given a 16gb iPod Touch (with the application pre-loaded) to use during their stay.

Guests punch in room number plus security code for access to hotel services: order room service, set a wake up call, request dry cleaning, extra blankets or replace forgotten toothbrushes, check your messages or set your room to “Do Not Disturb.” Shopping, eating and cavorting info for the area is on tap, too. Cost to the hotel is about $10 per room, no word on whether the cost is passed on to guests.

Feeling a bit like an over-Botoxed actress on this one, I’d like to get excited, you know, move some facial muscles, but just can’t.

First, because the usual hotel Flintstone phone service, paper “do not disturb” sign and flesh-and-bones concierge do just fine most of the time. And the fact that most people travel with electronic gear — cell phone, mp3 player, pda, computer, watch — means that stuff like the wake-up call function isn’t all that necessary. The idea of a loaner iPod Touch is cool but you just know it’d be left in a cab, stolen, get stepped on or something. Then what?

It’ll be more interesting if it were to catch on and be widely available abroad, where lost-in-translation mishaps are the order of the day or for foreigners in the U.S. in a bunch of other languages to avoid that problem of not understanding what was just mumbled at you from across the counter.

So, what do you think, is the iPhone Hotel future perfect or conditional?

Via Washington Post
Through The Cult of Mac

The End of Web 2.0, Beginning of Web Infinity

2008-10-12T20:22:00.001+08:00

As our economy sours, more and more nervous technologists are writing off Web 2.0 as dead. We believe web 2.0 (whatever it really means) isn’t on the decline, the economy is. The web is evolving. In fact, there’s no sign it will ever stop.

There are plenty of reasons to cast fingers upwards and claim the sky looks a lot closer than it did yesterday. The economy is in big trouble. An unprecedented $700 billion bailout by the government failed to quell a stock market crash. Those scarred by the dot-com crash of 2001 and 2002 are starting to see the signs of another bubble popping.

Read more this article By Scott Loganbill
at monkey_bites

The IT Profession: 2010

2008-10-11T22:38:00.001+08:00

Here's a glimpse of what experts think the IT field will look like in four years -- and some tips for getting prepared.
In four short years, the current class of college freshmen will be scouting for jobs. In four short years, a significant percentage of the working population will reach retirement age. In four short years, the makeup of the U.S. Congress and the White House will have changed.

Four years can flit by in the blink of an eye, yet much is sure to happen in that time that will impact the IT field.

Will you be ready?

We chose to thumb-tack this IT careers report on calendar year 2010. Experts predict major shifts in the IT profession by then: Boomer retirements will be in full swing, the next wave of college grads will be hitting the job market, and the line between IT departments and business units will be even more blurred. And then there's the expanding role of outsourcing, the ongoing H-1B visa debates in Congress, and the unabating merger and acquisition activity consolidating industries and IT staffs.

Our recent survey of 1,137 IT professionals shows a workforce worried about that future: Respondents cited outsourcing and the difficulty of keeping skills up to date as the two biggest threats to their jobs and careers. Yet they are willing to adapt to master that future: 91% said they would learn a new technical skill to help ensure prolonged employment.

Here's a certainty: IT workers will have to adapt to stay employed in 2010. Among other things, this special report aims to help you place your career bets, show you which skills will be hot and teach you how to turn globalization to your advantage.

So, will you be ready?

Ellen Fanning is special projects editor at Computerworld. She can be reached at ellen_fanning@computerworld.com.

The Anxiety Index

2008-10-11T17:59:00.005+08:00

How a cross section of pedestrians stopped outside Grand Central are weathering the financial crisis.

NYMag.com

11 troubled Web companies

2008-10-11T10:53:00.000+08:00

"We are going to lose some good companies." That's the warning cry from investors in tech these days.
Some we won't miss, of course: the lame, me-too, or single-featured "products" masquerading as businesses. But be prepared. Some Web 2.0 start-ups that are well-loved by many are in serious danger of falling off the cliff.

Here, in no particular order, are 11 online services companies that could face a similar fate. Several of them are 2008 Webware 100 winners. Like I said, popularity isn't enough.

See List at cnet.com

Google Maps launched in RP

2008-10-10T05:08:00.001+08:00

GLOBAL INTERNET giant Google has launched its Google Map Maker application in the Philippines, which will provide a detailed map of the Philippines for locals, tourists and potential investors.

With the launch, the Philippines will be the first Southeast Asian nation where the application is available. "The Philippines has a challenging topography featuring a diverse landscape and many remote, unexplored regions," Google said in a statement.

Google Map Maker will let local users locate, draw, label and accurately render existing tourist destinations and create maps of uncharted areas, making these visible to tourists and investors for the first time on the Google Map Web site. The maps will include street names, house numbers, parks, forest areas and other geographical features.

"This capability provides new commercial opportunities for local residents and businesses based on information provided by local users," the company said. "Google Map Maker is all about leveraging the knowledge of local experts found in every neighborhood and in every town and city," it said. It added that since map data is collected from people who have first-hand knowledge of the area, the information becomes more meaningful and relevant to users.

Palawan is a an example of a beautiful Philippine location with limited online visibility, out-of-date maps, and many uncharted areas. Google Map Maker is expected to have far-reaching implications on the country’s agricultural and environmental landscape as well. Detailed geographical information can be used to identify arable land, route irrigation, and in extreme cases, ensure accessibility to areas suffering from natural and man-made calamities.

— Paolo Luis G. Montecillo
for BusinessWorld

Anatomy of Facebook's Facelift

2008-10-08T22:38:00.002+08:00

Despite criticism of new design, social network sticks to its guns.

October 7, 2008
By David Southgate

You would think that Facebook had just stepped on the toes of its 110 million users worldwide, judging by the reaction to the social network's recent redesign.

From the outcry, the new Facebook design, rolled out Sept. 10, upset both critics and millions of users. But it may not matter to Facebook's business model, even though millions still say they are dissatisfied with the new look.

The votes rolled in during the testing phase prior to launch in July of this year when Facebook invited users to toggle between the new Facebook and the old one. Over the next six weeks, some 40 million people joined the testing, with 10 million of them voting to switch back to the original design. After the new Facebook launched on Sept. 10, users were in full revolt.

In response to the new Facebook, nearly 10 million irked Facebook users have joined a dozen protest groups. Members of the largest protest group, "1,000,000 Against the new Facebook," now some 3 million users, are even calling for a boycott of the site during the weekend of October 18.

Read More at InternetNews