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Common Sense Junction
Technology Blog Headlines

  1. The Best Things to Buy in September [Buying Guide]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:30 pm MDT

    Lots of stores are looking to make space for their big fall inventory push, and everything left over from summer is going cheap. Time to look into cars, appliances, holiday airfare, and other good buys in September. More »


  2. Chrome reaches second birthday, version 6 goes stable

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:25 pm MDT

    When Google launched its Chrome Web browser in 2008, it was clear that the product had considerable potential. Its emphasis on performance and a its intriguing minimalistic user interface attracted a lot of well-deserved attention. Today, exactly two years later, Chrome has over 80 million users, a 7.52 percent global market share (21.87 at Ars, making it the second most popular browser here behind Firefox), and is gradually creeping into the mainstream.

    It wasn't entirely clear at first if the browser would have real staying power or if it would be cast aside unfinished like so many of Google's other ambitious *cough*Wave*cough* experiments. But Google's commitment hasn't waned, and it's increasingly evident that the browser is an important part of Google's platform strategy and long-term aspirations for the future of the Web. To mark Chrome's second anniversary, Google has announced the official release of Chrome 6, a new major stable version of the browser.

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  3. Now Available [Now Available]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:20 pm MDT

    Several handy hand-held devices have become available for your purchasing pleasure. The Nykos Wand Wii remote, the Zoom H1 recorder, and the ErgoMotion mouse will all fit snugly in your palm to satisfy your various gadgetry needs. More »


  4. Samsung: Galaxy Tab has leg up on Apple iPad

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:05 pm MDT

    When Samsung debuted its Galaxy Tab on Thursday, it made a bold claim: the device is at least as good as today's dominant tablet, Apple's iPad.

  5. Ford Focus Electric to Have 100-mile Range, Active Liquid Cooling for Battery Pack

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:03 pm MDT

    Ford gives out some details on the Focus Electric's battery system

  6. Dress Your Kindle Up In One of Several New Outfits [Kindle]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:00 pm MDT

    Amazon is offering a whole slew of cases, covers, sleeves and skins for the new Kindle, including nice looking stuff from Diane von Furstenberg, Timbuk2, Belkin, BUILT, and, my favorite, LeSportsac. Who said ebooks couldn't be beautiful? [Amazon] More »


  7. Use Google Storage as a One-Time Cost, Lifetime Backup Solution [Online Storage]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:00 pm MDT

    You can get extra Gmail storage pretty cheaply from Google, but eagle-eyed reader gthing lets us know that you have read access to that storage even after you cancel your subscription. More »


  8. Meet Angry Birds the Next Big Entertainment Franchise (Video)

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:50 pm MDT

    I hear birds squawking in my sleep. I see green pigs dance in front of my eyes. Like millions, I am addicted to Angry Birds, the game. In this video, CEO Mikael Hed and executive Peter Vesterbacka share the secrets of capturing all our idle minutes.

  9. Best Mobile To-Do List Manager? [Hive Five Call For Contenders]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:45 pm MDT

    Computers have made to-do list management radically easier, but a to-do list that is anchored to your desk isn't a particularly effective one. This week we want to hear about your favorite mobile to-do list manager. More »


  10. New malware detects browser, shows fake malware warning page

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:35 pm MDT

    Microsoft is warning about a new piece of malware, Rogue:MSIL/Zeven, that auto-detects a user's browser and then imitates the relevant malware warning pages from Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome. The fake warning pages are very similar to the real thing; you have to look closely to realize they aren't the real thing. The ploy is a basic social engineering scheme, but in this case the malware authors are relying on the user's trust in their browser, a tactic that hasn't been seen before. 

    Beyond the warning pages, the actual malware looks like the real deal: it allows you to scan files, tells you when you're behind on your updates, and enables you to change your security and privacy settings. Performing a scan results in the product finding malicious files, but of course it cannot delete them unless you update, which requires paying for the full version. Attempting to buy the product will open an HTML window that provides a useless "Safe Browsing Mode" with high-strength encryption. To top it all off, the rogue antivirus webpage looks awfully similar to the Microsoft Security Essentials webpage; even the awards received by MSE and a link to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center have been copied.

    While the malware is a pretty good attempt, it's not perfect. The goal is to get the user to download and install something, shelling out some cash in the process, which neither of the three browser vendors would ever recommend. The Firefox warning page, meanwhile, has an obvious typo ("Get me our of here"). In addition, it's suspicious that a webpage is going out of its way to tell you it is protecting your purchase. It's also not hard to check that the supposedly detected files do not actually exist on the user's computer. All of these missteps should raise red flags immediately; having said that, we've still not before seen this level of detail and effort from the bad guys.

    Malware progress

    Just two years ago, a fake malware warning page and a fake antivirus looked like this:

    Now, we've got a much more believable malware warning that changes based on which of the top three browsers you are using (compare Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome):

    We have a full-blown webpage that tries to sell a fake antimalware product and rips off Microsoft's own offering:

    Finally, here's the fake antimalware product which uses various Microsoft security icons:

    Malware authors have come a long way recently and this latest effort is worrying because even informed users can easily be tricked by something like this. Thankfully, there's a universal rule that still applies: don't download something simply because a webpage says you should.

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  11. Logitech's New Long and Skinny Z305 and Wireless Z515 USB Laptop Speakers [Speakers]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:20 pm MDT

    A boombox your laptop is not, and speakers that are both portable and powerful are hard to come by. Depending on your needs, Logitech's Z305, a 360 degree sound bar, and Z515, a 50' wireless speaker, might do the trick. More »


  12. NASA planning mission to visit the sun

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:12 pm MDT

    Space agency hopes to send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere by 2018.

  13. Some Chicago Dentist Is Running 'Hillary for 2012' Ads in New Orleans [2012]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:02 pm MDT

    American politics makes such little sense nowadays that any random jumble of words you put together is likely to describe a real-world situation. For example: Some Chicago dentist is currently running "Hillary 2012" TV ads in New Orleans. It's true! More »


  14. Seriously, FCC, Get a Move On

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:00 pm MDT

    The FCC today released a new report, Internet Access Services, which gives the state of Internet in the US -- at the end of June 2009. The problem is that the report has data that is 14 months old, which makes it pretty much worthless.

  15. Remains of the Day: Spotting Android Scams and Malware [For What Its Worth]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:00 pm MDT

    A look at how to weed out crapware in the Android Market, losing the ugly stickers on laptops, and Spotify joins the Sonos ranks. More »


  16. Drumroll, please: the top Web scams of the decade

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:55 pm MDT

    "Men," said he, "must have corrupted nature a little, for they were not born wolves, and they have become wolves." —Voltaire, Candide

    One of the less pleasant aspects of our online Age of Anxiety is that most of us now get anonymous e-mails on a daily basis from people who, given their druthers, would rob us silly as fast as technologically possible. Of late, I've been getting a frenzy of bogus missives thanking me for the five thousand dollars or so worth of software, gadgets, self-help books, and lingerie I supposedly purchased on a famous online shopping service over the last five minutes.

    Of course, if this message was a mistake, I'm helpfully directed to an online form, where, upon disclosing my credit card data, someone will presumably clean my financial clock in nanoseconds.

    What fun. Good to know that there are so many people out there who care. But better to know what the most common scams look like. Here is security vendor Panda's new list of the biggest Web scams of the decade.

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  17. IETF: AT&T's Net neutrality claim is 'misleading'

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:53 pm MDT

    A few days after AT&T said its push toward "paid prioritization" of network traffic is backed by technical standards, the Internet's primary standards body disagrees.

  18. Here come 'Hurt Locker' file-sharing subpoenas

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:48 pm MDT

    Film's producers subpoena Qwest Communications for Denver man's records, apparently overcoming legal challenges in their pursuit of alleged file sharers.

  19. The fading iPod Classic

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:41 pm MDT

    The iPod helped Apple rise from the dead in the last decade. But the iPod Classic, the device that jump-started that resurrection, didn't get so much as a mention from Steve Jobs at Apple's iPod event on Wednesday.

  20. A Chrome Marble Floating In Deep Space [Astronomy]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:40 pm MDT

    It looks like a metal marble floating in space. Or the palantír of Orthanc, magically teleported from Middle Earth to 11,000 light years away, in the Cassiopeia constellation. But it's just a visual effect. This is the Bubble Nebula. More »


  21. Does Paris Hilton's Twitter Prove the Cocaine-Filled Purse Was Hers? [Busted]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:17 pm MDT

    When Las Vegas police found a bag of cocaine in her purse, Paris Hilton said the purse belonged to a friend. But earlier this summer, she tweeted a picture of her "new Chanel purse." Did Twitter just solve a crime? More »


  22. 4chan Decides to Do Something Nice For a Change

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:03 pm MDT

    The anarchic online community known as 4chan isn't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming -- it's mostly known for posting sophomoric humor and graphic sexual imagery. But today, someone decided the Internet should wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday.

  23. Will Mark Zuckerberg Finally Discuss His Mystery Ex-Girlfriend? [Secrets]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:03 pm MDT

    A former Washington Post reporter is said to writing a comprehensive profile of Mark Zuckerberg. Comprehensive enough, maybe, to include the old romantic entanglement Zuckerberg just fibbed about. Prepare to do a little more sweating, Mark. More »


  24. Hands-on: Twitter officially comes to the iPad

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:00 pm MDT

    When we interviewed Tweetie developer Loren Brichter in June, he made two things clear: 1) Tweetie (now branded simply as "Twitter" after the company was acquired by the microblogging service) would definitely be coming to the iPad, and 2) Loren was really looking forward to exploring the larger screen touch interface.

    Now, the official Twitter client for iPad is finally out in the form of a universal app. The team has clearly put some effort into utilizing parts of the multitouch experience in ways that third-party Twitter apps have not, and the app is certainly feature-rich. However, the interface can be confusing at times, and many of the features are not easily discoverable without some help.

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  25. True Time Tracker Lets You Know How You're Spending Your Time With Minimal Setup [Downloads]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:00 pm MDT

    Windows: Free app True Time Tracker is extremely simple: Just start it up, let it run in the background, and it will create numerous charts detailing what programs you run, what sites you visit and how much time you spend idle. More »


  26. A Simple Way to Attach Your iPad to Your Walls [Ipad]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 4:00 pm MDT

    The PadTab iPad wall mounting system is great. It's easy to set up, simple to remove, doesn't require much room, and lets you mount your iPad next to your toilet. No, really. That's what some of the promotional photos suggest: More »


  27. On Digg Today, Everything Went Better Than Expected

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:55 pm MDT

    The implosion of Digg is happening. It is an unstoppable conclusion to events that have been in motion since last week and will continue until the full

  28. Google's Schmidt mocked in Times Square ads

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:54 pm MDT

    Consumer Watchdog produced two cartoony ads slamming Google CEO Eric Schmidt as part of an effort to build support for a "do not track" list.

  29. Crowded web TV field awaits Apple

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:53 pm MDT

    With Wednesday's announcement that it will be revamping its web TV offerings, Apple has made its most serious push into an emerging, and increasingly crowded, field.

  30. Announcing the Mobilize Launchpad Finalists!

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:45 pm MDT

    Can I get a drumroll please? Or maybe just the trill of a thousand ringtones to celebrate the selection of our Mobilize 2010 Launchpad finalists? It’s hard to sift through the excitement around the mobile sector right now, so for the second year, GigaOM hopes to [...]

  31. What Happened To Wicked Lasers' Spyder III Pro Arctic Laser? [Lasers]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:42 pm MDT

    When we heard about Wicked Lasers' Spyder III Pro Arctic laser, an ultra powerful portable laser with a lightsaberesque design selling for only $200, it almost seemed too good to be true. Turns out it might have been. More »


  32. Facebook Blocked Ping's API Access Because Apple Didn't Have Authorization To Use It [Unconfirmed]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:41 pm MDT

    We've heard that Apple launched Ping without Facebook support because the two companies couldn't agree on some terms, but today AllThingsD explains that Apple actually ignored the fact that negotiations failed and incorporated Facebook's API—until Facebook blocked things. More »


  33. Skype 5.0 Beta 2 for Windows Brings 10-Way Video Calls [Updated with Video] [Updates]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:30 pm MDT

    Windows: Popular video chat client Skype released an update to its version 5 beta today, bringing a new interface and the long-awaited ability to participate in video chats with more than two people. More »


  34. Understanding Marin County's $30 million ERP failure

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:29 pm MDT

    Marin County voted to stop an ongoing SAP project, implicitly accepting that it wasted over $30 million on software and related implementation services from Deloitte Consulting.

  35. Barbers and security professionals

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:24 pm MDT

    In this guest editorial, security research professional Michal Zalewski argues that the government should stay away from compulsory certification and licensing in the security industry.

  36. White space broadband to be finalized (at last) this month

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:21 pm MDT

    "White spaces" broadband has been in hibernation—the rules governing unlicensed use in empty TV channels have never been finalized, and therefore no devices have yet appeared. This despite the fact that the idea was approved under previous FCC Chairman Kevin Martin in 2008.

    That's about to change at last. At its next open meeting on September 23, the FCC will vote on the "TV White Spaces Second Memorandum Opinion and Order" that will "create opportunities for investment and innovation in advanced WiFi technologies and a variety of broadband services by finalizing provisions for unlicensed wireless devices to operate in unused parts of TV spectrum."

    The tech is ready to go; trial deployments have already been rolled out successfully. But lingering issues, including the question of who would administer an Internet-connected geolocation database that would help prevent interference, have kept the rules from becoming final.

    We're looking forward to see what designers and engineers come up with once the tech is open to widespread deployment.

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  37. The Ugly Carpets of Vegas are Hideously Clever Social Engineering at Work [Imagecache]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:20 pm MDT

    Something this horrific can't possibly be an accident. I mean, it takes genius to come up with something so offensive to the eye. Sure enough, the crazily appalling carpets that adorn Vegas casinos are designed to keep you gambling. More »


  38. Ringtone Creation Stripped From iTunes 10 [ITunes]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:12 pm MDT

    For reasons unknown, it appears Apple has removed from iTunes 10 the ability to create ringtones out of your songs for $0.99. The feature is still intact in previous versions of iTunes. [Mac Life] More »


  39. Facebook to enable remote logouts

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:10 pm MDT

    Facebook said it will add one central control to log out other devices. This feature, which will appear in the security section under "Account Security," is rolling out "gradually."

  40. How Do You Manage Your Browser Tabs? [Ask The Readers]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:00 pm MDT

    With so many web sites to see and pages to visit, it's easy to have an unmanageable number of tabs open in your web browser. So how do you keep that number down and your tabs under control? More »


  41. LEDs Dethrone Compact Fluorescents as King of Eco-Friendly Lightbulbs

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:55 pm MDT

    The next generation of eco-friendly lightbulbs Dan Saelinger

    Never mind that twisty compact fluo­rescent. The new energy-efficient way to light your home is with LEDs. An upcoming crop of bulbs draw 12 watts or less, edging out a typical fluorescent, and they have a more conventional shape, contain no mercury, and last at least 25,000 hours, three times as long.

    They're among the first LED bulbs as bright as a classic 60-watt incandescent (about 800 lumens), and they address past problems with LEDs, such as bluish light, overheated chips and too-concentrated beams. Launch the gallery to find out how they'll do it, all within a 130-year-old form.


    Click to launch the photo gallery



  42. Skype 5.0 Windows Beta Has 10-Way Video Calling! [Skype]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:49 pm MDT

    Skype's latest Windows-only 5.0 beta 2 doubles their five-way video calling to ten. TEN. How does ten-way video calling look? Like this. If you add two. We could only get eight, and four of them was me. More »


  43. iPod touch Is Close, But Still No Contract-Free iPhone

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:43 pm MDT

    Apple found a way to cram a large number of iPhone 4 features in the new iPod touch: retina display, two cameras with FaceTime support, and the A4 chip. So it's just like a contract-free iPhone 4 without voice right? Wrong on at least three counts.

  44. MIT's Self-Assembling Solar Cells Recycle Themselves Repeatedly, Just Like Plant Cells [Republished]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:40 pm MDT

    Plants are extremely efficient converters of light into energy, setting the bar for researchers creating photovoltaic cells. A team of MIT scientists believe they've created a synthetic chloroplast that can be broken down and reassembled repeatedly, restoring sun-damaged solar cells. More »


  45. Audit finds PG&E smart meters accurate

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:32 pm MDT

    However, the utility's customer service is faulty, according to an independent review of the controversial yet pioneering smart-meter program.

  46. Facebook adds new remote log-out security feature

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:30 pm MDT

    Facebook users who log in from multiple devices will soon have a way to make sure they are only logged in on the computer they are currently using.

  47. KoHive is a Shared Virtual Workspace for Brainstorming, Filesharing, and More [Collaboration]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:30 pm MDT

    KoHive is a virtual workspace you access through your web browser. It's easy to create multiple "hives" for different projects, share files, communicate in real time, and aggregate content from across the web. More »


  48. Acer comes back down to earth, Dell rises

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:17 pm MDT

    Fastest-growing PC company of the last few years stumbles during the second quarter. Observers say it has to do with Acer's reliance on notebook sales as desktops gain.

  49. More evidence that light at night ups cancer risk

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:15 pm MDT

    New research out of the University of Haifa shows a clear link between light at night and cancer in mice, with the suppression of melatonin playing a key role.

  50. The Model Who Had His Ear Bitten Off by a Drag Queen Lost His Ear Again [Update]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:11 pm MDT

    Remember Ronnie Brown, the model who lost an ear to a drag queen in a vicious bar brawl three weeks ago? Doctors initially reattached Brown's ear following the incident. But the procedure didn't work and his ear fell off again. More »


  51. Samsung: Our Galaxy tablet better than iPad

    → CNN.com - Technology | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:05 pm MDT

    When Samsung debuted its Galaxy Tab on Thursday, it made a bold claim: the device is at least as good as today's dominant tablet, Apple's iPad.


  52. RECALL: Toshiba Satellite T135, T135D and Satellite Pro T130 notebooks

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:04 pm MDT

    Important information for Toshiba Satellite T135, T135D and Satellite Pro T130 owners - The US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Health Canada announced a recall following over 100 cases of...

  53. The Basic Guide to Troubleshooting Common Windows PC Problems [Troubleshooting]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:00 pm MDT

    Your Windows PC might be designed to make your life easier, but they often have a non-stop list of problems. Today we'll walk through some of the more common problems and how to troubleshoot them. More »


  54. A Heat-Seeking, Automated Nerf Sentry Gun [Nerf]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:00 pm MDT

    Nerf guns these days are very scary. They have reloadable magazines and fire automatically and look like they could provide a suitable defense during an alien invasion. But how to render one even scarier? Make it heat-seeking. Video, please: More »


  55. Virginia governor calls for IT outage review on Northrup Grumman's tab

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:59 pm MDT

    Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said Thursday the state will order an independent review of its information technology outage that stretched on for a week and shelved key agencies. Northrop...

  56. Toshiba recalls 41,000 laptops for overheating

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:53 pm MDT

    The Consumer Product Safety Commission says 129 cases of Toshiba Satellite laptops melting from overheating have been reported, but no major injuries.

  57. Apple's Ping seems half-baked at launch

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:48 pm MDT

    A scanty selection of artists to follow and missed opportunities to encourage user interaction are among the early problems.

  58. Does Cisco buying Skype make sense?

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:46 pm MDT

    If you ever watched the later seasons of 24, you'll recall that Jack and his buddies at the Counter Terrorist Unit were always using Cisco Telepresence for video-conferencing. That was no...

  59. Digg Exec: Sorry About the Bugs, But Glad You Care!

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:41 pm MDT

    Digg VP of Product Management Keval Desai finally got a chance to breathe today. He put a positive spin on recent events, telling us that Digg is not proud of recent problems, but it's excited that its new platform allows the company to iterate quickly.

  60. Canon 4K Concept Camera: Please Be Real One Day [Canon]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:39 pm MDT

    I really hope Canon makes this concept compact 4k camera one day, even if Canon says it'll never come out just like this. It's like the looming future of cameras sculpted in black plastic, a photon blaster-cum-camera. More »


  61. If Apple's Ping Is Social, Then Where's My Facebook Friends? | Fast Company

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:34 pm MDT

    First off, how does one find "People" on Ping? When downloading iTunes 10, Apple suggests on its website: "Find even more music fans with a quick search, by sending email invites

  62. Gadget makers show their stuff in Berlin (roundup)

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:31 pm MDT

    At the huge IFA consumer electronics show, the big names in tech show off their newest wares, including an Android-based tablet from Samsung and a cloud-based music service from Sony.

  63. Merge Firefox's Bookmark and Navigation Toolbars to Save Space [Firefox Tip]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:30 pm MDT

    We already know Firefox isn't the most pixel-friendly browser, and bookmark bars make it even worse. Reader Marand shows us an easy way to save space without losing quick acess to your bookmarks. More »


  64. Could The Big Bang Theory Be Wrong?

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:27 pm MDT

    A physicist has new ideas about the origins of our universe, possibly rendering the Big Babng theory obsolete!

  65. Apple's trouble with TV

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:27 pm MDT

    Apple TV has been a persistent loser from a company that usually only tolerates winners. It's clear that Apple wants to do something "in the living room," but damned if it can figure out exactly what that is. Yesterday, Apple took another run at this thing, announcing an "all-new" Apple TV.

    As with any new electronic gadget, I must be of two minds about the new Apple TV. The first, most difficult question is, will the new Apple TV be a successful product for Apple? The second question is easier: is this a product I want to buy for myself?

    Read the rest of this article...

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  66. A Story About Woz and Jobs, Actual Partners in Crime [TrueCrime]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:20 pm MDT

    When Steve Jobs singled out Steve Wozniak as his "partner in crime" at yesterday's event, he wasn't just speaking figuratively. Here's Woz recounting the time he, Jobs, and the infamous Captain Crunch got picked up by the police for phreaking. More »


  67. Ultimate Ears churns out budget-minded and very expensive noise-canceling headsets

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:01 pm MDT

    Ultimate Ears and Capitol Studios have teamed up to produce their new In-Ear Reference Monitors. But with this one's price tags, only professionals in the music industry need apply.

  68. Gadget Deals of the Day [Dealzmodo]

    → Gizmodo | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:00 pm MDT

    Can you smell what #dealz is cookin'? We've got some great bargains on a 13.3" Core i3 HP Laptop, a nice 14MP Samsung HZ30W, and we're storing that food in a free Ziploc Container. Mmmm, tasty.
    More »


  69. An Office in the Forest: The Workspaces of SelgasCano [Featured Workspace]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 1:00 pm MDT

    If you've ever dreamed of a woodland view out your window the offices of Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano might just be your dream office—complete with open styling, copious sunlight, and the best view this side of a tree house. More »


  70. HP Will Pay $2.4 Billion for 3PAR

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:56 pm MDT

    UPDATED: For months at length, Fremont, Calif.-based storage company, 3PAR could barely get above $10 a share. And then a couple of weeks ago, Dell changed that with a $18 a share offer to buy the company. Now, HP is offering $33 a share.

  71. Ohio Wal-Marts Have Carefully Segregated Book Departments [We Hate Your State]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:54 pm MDT

    Ah, another adventure into Race In America. And into Ohio. According to an Akron Beacon Journal columnist, many of the Wal-Mart superstores in the area have a specific section to which all books by and about black people are relegated. More »


  72. TR Dojo: Disable Solve PC Issues notification in Windows 7

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:51 pm MDT

    Bill Detwiler shows you how to make the Windows 7 "Solve PC Issues" notifications a little less annoying or disable them all together.

  73. AMD issuing budget-friendly DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:37 pm MDT

    AMD has announced that it is planning to roll out a budget-conscious DisplayPort-to-DVI adapter that should make using ATI Eyefinity technology more affordable.

  74. Apple's trouble with TV

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:34 pm MDT

    Apple TV has been a persistent loser from a company that usually only tolerates winners. It's clear that Apple wants to do something "in the living room," but damned if it can figure out exactly what that is. Yesterday, Apple took another run at this thing, announcing an "all-new" Apple TV. As with any new electronic gadget, I must be of two minds about the new Apple TV. The first, most difficult question is, will the new Apple TV be a successful product for Apple? The second question is easier: is this a product I want to buy for myself? Read the comments on this post

  75. How to Always Get to the Airport On Time [Travel Tip]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:30 pm MDT

    While there are better places to be than sitting at your gate, running from the clutches of airport security to make your flight is no fun either. Here's a guide for showing up at your gate with James Bond timing. More »


  76. New USB Speakers Store Unused Power to Augment Audio from Portable Amps

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:29 pm MDT

    NXT's USB Speaker Tech NXT's speakers (left) employ the companies novel audio amplifier module (right) to get the most out of USB-powered sound. NXT

    Most of us keep our music on our computers and our computers are increasingly mobile, but there's a disconnect between the ability to store large amounts of music on a laptop and the portability of said laptop: laptop speakers aren't worth playing music on. But a clever engineering fix by British company NXT has changed all that, conjuring big sound out of small, portable speakers powered by nothing more than a USB outlet.

    Most audio amplifiers - the kind you plug into the wall - maintain a voltage of about 32 volts. That means when the music gets loud, the amp can deliver the required punch. Laptops, which must use power sparingly to preserve their portability, don't pack nearly the wallop; a USB 2.0 port produces a maximum 5.25 volts to external devices, making it impossible to power larger, high quality speakers from a laptop.

    Some engineering trickery from NXT circumvents these problems by relying on the simple premise that the USB can deliver 5.25 volts all the time, even though music is not all crescendos. During quiet passages, a pair of capacitors stores unused voltage coming from the USB. The speakers monitor the music signal a few milliseconds ahead of amplification so they can release that stored up power when the interlude is over and the heavy guitar/drum combo us unleashed.

    Of course, this technology is a replacement for weaker bus-powered, desktop-style speakers; pretty much any high-quality stereo speaker has an AC adapter. And the power storage is limited; the extended version of Freebird could run the capacitors out of juice, causing the volume to fall. But NXT says they've tested the speakers on a variety of musical styles with consistent success. If they can get some consumer electronics firms to hear them, the technology could be on the market by next year.

    [New Scientist]



  77. Asus partners with Amimon for WiCast EW2000 PC to TV connection

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:28 pm MDT

    Asus has handpicked Amimon to work on its upcoming WiCast EW2000 kit that will connect PCs to TVs via USB and HDMI.

  78. Sign Up to Test Full Google Service Integration with Google Apps [Google Apps]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:20 pm MDT

    In May Google announced that Apps users will get all Google Services; this week, certain Google Apps users (including some of us at Lifehacker) have been receiving invitations to test full-featured Google services with their Google Apps account. Want to take the plunge? You can find the signup form here. [Wired] More »


  79. AOL vs. Yahoo: A Tale of Two Search Deals

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:19 pm MDT

    As AOL renews its existing search partnership with Google for five years, and expands the terms of the deal to include mobile advertising and a YouTube distribution agreement, Yahoo announces that it has lost a lucrative search-advertising deal with NHN, South Korea's largest search engine company.

  80. Sponsor post: Sponsor post: CrowdConf: 1st Annual Conference on the Future of Distributed Work

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:18 pm MDT

    CrowdConf: 1st Annual Conference on the Future of Distributed Work Oct. 4, 2010, San Francisco, Calif. at the St. Regis Hotel We bring together researchers, technologists, outsourcing experts, legal scholars, and artists to discuss the rapidly democratizing and flattening of the global labor market. The event includes a [...]

  81. The mystery of the disappearing Facebook-Ping integration

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:12 pm MDT

    On Wednesday, Apple said users of its music social network could find friends via Facebook. But the feature has vanished, apparently over a tiff between the companies.

  82. Microsoft: Silverlight still has a future in an HTML 5 world

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:06 pm MDT

    Should Web developers target Internet Explorer 9 or Silverlight when creating new Web and mobile applications? One Microsoft exec takes a new stab at an answer.

  83. Philips and O'Neill team up on quartet of durable headphones

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:06 pm MDT

    Philips and O'Neill have partnered up to design a quartet of headphones that blend durability and comfort, with a splash of style for good measure.

  84. Brokers try to pre-empt insurance exchanges

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:02 pm MDT

    These are choices in the market. Coverage for your health, or catastrophic coverage. They are not the same thing.

  85. Archive Gallery: 138 Years of Architectural Landmarks

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:00 pm MDT

    The Pentagon, 1943
    PopSci's first looks at the Empire State Building, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more

    We've heard it said that Rome wasn't built in a day. And while Popular Science isn't old enough to have witnessed the Colosseum going up, we have covered in our pages some of the 20th century's most important architectural achievements rise from nothing but a dream and a blueprint.

    We've combed the archives to gather some of our most important first looks at the buildings and structures that went on to define skylines around the world.


    Click to launch the photo gallery

    Considering the extent to which suspension bridges, skyscrapers, and towering monuments have become symbols of human progression, it's hard to believe that just a hundred, even fifty years ago, our most beloved landmarks only existed as blueprints dreamed up by earnest young engineers. Mount Rushmore had no faces on it. Commuters in San Francisco still rode ferries across the Bay. So-called towering skyscrapers rose only thirty floors.

    In 1927, when New York's 57-story Woolworth Building was still the world's tallest high-rise, we continued to ponder the mechanics of installing elevators for high-rises. "Forty thousand people within four walls!" we exclaimed. "Edison and others warn us against threatening chaos."

    At times, the process of planning and construction did involve a lot of chaos. Hundreds of workers died while building the Hoover Dam. Even Mount Rushmore's main sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, didn't live to see his masterpiece completed.

    Needless to say, finishing projects was no easy feat, so we combed our archives to see how engineers turned empty lots, untended fields, and undisturbed bedrock into the past century's most iconic man-made structures.

    Launch the gallery for PopSci's first looks at the Empire State Building, the Pentagon, and more.



  86. Act Like You're Teaching to Avoid Sloppy Work [Mind Hacks]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 12:00 pm MDT

    If you find that you tend to rush certain jobs to the point of sloppiness, reader Tanner Bush has an easy solution: pretend like you're teaching someone else, and you'll slow down. More »


  87. Hands-on with iTunes Ping, sans Facebook Connect

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:59 am MDT

    Because we all need another social network in our lives, Apple introduced "Ping" as part of iTunes 10 during its big media event this week. Described by Steve Jobs as "Twitter and Facebook meet iTunes," Ping aims to let the already-existing (and quite massive) audience of iTunes users friend each other, stay up-to-date on their friends' musical tastes, and like/comment on things found around iTunes.

    Getting started with Ping is fairly easy, although it takes some time to figure out how to do all the things you would want to do with the service. Ping requires iTunes 10 and is not turned on by default—it looks as if Apple is trying to head off complaints about privacy by making users turn it on themselves. Once you install iTunes 10, you can click on "Ping" in the everything-is-now-gray left-hand sidebar to get started.

    Read the rest of this article...

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  88. Crowded web TV field awaits Apple

    → CNN.com - Technology | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:53 am MDT

    With Wednesday's announcement that it will be revamping its web TV offerings, Apple has made its most serious push into an emerging, and increasingly crowded, field.


  89. Survey: E-mail eats up your time off

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:51 am MDT

    Outlook add-in maker Xobni finds Americans and Britons are having trouble getting away from the workplace because of the reach e-mail has into their lives.

  90. Samsung Introduces Its 7-Inch Tablet to Rival iPad

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:50 am MDT

    Samsung has announced the launch of a tablet that could become the first major Android-powered challenger to the Apple iPad.

  91. Panasonic intros 8GB and 16GB UHS-I SDHC memory cards

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:47 am MDT

    Earlier this year, the SD Association announced the new UHS-I specification. Now, Panasonic has answered the call and rolled out its own 8GB and 16GB UHS-I SDHC memory cards.

  92. Steam Mover Relocates Applications to Free Up Space on Your Primary Drive [Downloads]

    → Lifehacker | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:45 am MDT

    Windows only: If your primary hard drive just isn't large enough to hold all the software you need on a day-to-day basis, then Steam Mover is the perfect tool for the job—assuming you have another storage drive handy. More »


  93. 50 Sources for Design Inspiration | Designs Mag

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:41 am MDT

    These are the 50 most useful design related blogs which I have subscribed for daily design inspiration. As I always search for good stuff related to design or web design to get updated with the latest trends related to design and to check out the latest tools, design software updates, tutorials, resources, freebies, downloads, plugins etc. Just thought to share my design inspiration sites or blogs with you all.

  94. Samsung HMX-T10 HD camcorder debuts with 20-degree slanted lens

    → Resources | ZDNet | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:38 am MDT

    IFA 2010 is well under way in Berlin with a slew of new gadgets out and about, including this new Samsung HMX-T10 HD camcorder, which features a unique 20-degree slanted lens.

  95. Focus EV to use liquid thermal battery control

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:35 am MDT

    Car will take its battery pack temperature, then automatically cool or warm it to optimal temperature range before charging or engaging the battery.

  96. Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:33 am MDT



  97. String Theory Finally Does Something Useful | Wired Science | Wired.com

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:28 am MDT

    String theory has finally made a prediction that can be tested with experiments -- but in a completely unexpected realm of physics. The theory has long

  98. Motor City getting in on electric fever

    → CNET News.com | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:28 am MDT

    Coulomb Technologies installs free public electric-charging station in downtown Detroit as part of ChargePoint America program to encourage EV adoption.

  99. The Top 100 Web Sites of 2010

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:26 am MDT

    Here are our picks for the hottest Web sites and Web trends of the year, plus some old favorites to enjoy.

  100. Today is the Day We Honor Beverly Hills 90210 [Nostalgia]

    → Gawker: top | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:19 am MDT

    Due to a happy accident of the calendar, today is 9/02/10, and diehard fans are using it as an excuse to celebrate the quintessential '90s drama, Beverly Hills 90210. It's time we have our own discussion about the show. More »


  101. Twitter for iPad Review: Ahead of the Pack

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:15 am MDT

    The folks at Twitter took their time releasing an app for the iPad, but it was time well spent. Having used more Twitter apps than I can count on multiple platforms, this iPad version is better than any of them for following the Twitterverse.

  102. The Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:08 am MDT

    Windows 7 was released about 10 months ago and it currently has a market share of 20%. Here is the Windows 7 Guide: From Newbies To Pros.

  103. PSP Go straightens tie, knocks on death's door

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:08 am MDT

    Playing games on the PSP Go was one of the most annoying experiences possible in a job that can be full of annoying experiences; if it takes you hours to play a game on a portable system out of the box there is something tragically wrong with your product. After only a year on the market, it looks like Sony's experiment in digital distribution is on its last legs.

    Finding any sort of sales information on the system for the US has been difficult, although Media Create does track the hardware sales for Japan... and its performance has been abysmal. The PSP has long come in last place in the US sales numbers, and breaking that number down between the PSP and PSP Go doesn't give Sony the possibility of a happy ending.

    We called a local GameStop to see what they were offering for trade-in credit on the hardware. Even though you can still buy the PSP Go for $250, the trade-in value was only $50. Just to rub salt in the wound, the latest model of the standard PSP will get you $80 in trade-in credit, and is eligible for a $20 promotional bump. The PSP Go is specifically exempt from that offer.

    No, PSP Go. Not yours.

    Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is coming to the PSP on September 7 and should be one of the platform's largest releases this year. The bad news? Square Enix currently has no plans to release the game on the PlayStation Network; the company doesn't seem to care about missing out on digital sales, which means PSP Go owners will not be able to play the game. Sony leaves decisions about digital sales up to the publishers, and there is no way to tell in advance whether a game will be made available to Go owners.

    There's nothing wrong with the idea of a gaming system with no physical media—Apple seems to be doing just fine in the gaming space without requiring carts or discs—but Sony's implementation has been disastrous. It may be a while before any company has the gonads to step up and take another crack at the idea.

    Read the comments on this post




  104. MIT's Self-Assembling Solar Cells Recycle Themselves Repeatedly, Just Like Plant Cells

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 11:00 am MDT

    MIT's Test Cell Patrick Gillooly, MIT

    Plants are extremely efficient converters of light into energy, more or less setting the bar for researchers creating photovoltaic cells that convert sunlight into electricity. As such, researchers are constantly trying to mimic the tricks that millions of years of evolution and development have taught to plant biology. Now, a team of MIT scientists believe they've done it, creating a synthetic, self-assembling chloroplast that can be broken down and reassembled repeatedly, restoring solar cells that are damaged by the sun.

    While the leaves on a tree appear to be as static as the PV cells on a solar panel, they're not; sunlight is actually quite destructive, and to counter this effect leaves rapidly recycle their proteins as often as every 45 minutes when in direct summer sunlight. This rapid repair mechanism allows plants to take full advantage of the sun's bountiful energy without losing efficiency over time.

    To recreate this unique regenerative ability, the MIT team devised a novel set of self-assembling molecules that use photons to shake electrons loose in the form of electricity. The system contains seven different compounds, including carbon nanotubes that provide structure and a means to conduct the electricity away from the cells, synthetic phospholipids that form discs that also provide structural support, and other molecules that self-assemble into "reaction centers" that actually interact with the incoming photons to release electrons.

    Under certain conditions, the compounds assemble themselves into uniform structures suitable for harvesting solar energy. But in the presence of a surfactant (similar to the stuff used to disperse oil during oil spills) the structures break down into a solution of nanotubes, phospholipids, and other constituent molecules. By pushing the solution through a membrane to remove the surfactant, the elements once again assemble into working, rejuvenated solar cells undamaged by their prior exposure to the sun.

    The cells are work at 40 percent efficiency, and researchers think with some tweaks they could push that efficiency much higher. And because they don't degrade over time - just give ‘em a quick shake with the surfactant and they're essentially brand new - the tech could be the next big step forward for solar technology.

    [Eurekalert]



  105. T-Mobile G2 to Pack Android 2.2 Froyo, Qualcomm "Scorpion" CPU

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:52 am MDT

    Unfortunately this Scorpion doesn't pack much sting

  106. Android Devs Wait Patiently For Profitable Future

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:30 am MDT

    Apple's iOS platform has paid out more than a billion dollars to third-party developers through the iTunes App Store, but such success is yet to be found in Google's Android Market. Developers tell Bloomberg they still have "high hopes" that Android revenues will come in time.

  107. Samsung fires first Android-powered salvo at iPad with Galaxy Tab

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:30 am MDT

    Apple became the biggest fish in the very small touchscreen tablet pond when it launched the iPad this past spring. But more fish will arrive starting mid-month when Samsung launches its Galaxy Tab mobile device in Europe (US and Asia will get it "in the coming months"). After being rumored and teased for weeks, Samsung officially unveiled its entry into the burgeoning market at the IFA show in Germany on Thursday.

    The Samsung Galaxy Tab is a 7" widescreen touch tablet powered by Android 2.2. The Tab will use the same TouchWiz UI used on Samsung's line of Galaxy S smartphones, which gives it a very iOS-like look and feel. Also following the iPad's lead, the device has a metal back, black bezel, bottom speakers, and even a 30-pin connector.

    Read the rest of this article...

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  108. Human-Like Brain Found in Worm

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:25 am MDT

    For the first time, a structure comparable to our cerebral cortex has been found in an invertebrate -- a humble marine ragworm.

  109. New Explosion Rips Through Gulf of Mexico

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:25 am MDT

    No one was killed, but the rig was on fire.

  110. Oil Rig Explodes in the Gulf of Mexico (Again)

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:04 am MDT

    Miss the good old days of daily oil disaster news? Worry not, for another oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded this morning, leaving all 13 crew members in the water but - according to initial reports - all are alive and only one is injured. The rig is owned by Mariner Energy (somewhere a BP exec is breathing again) and is not currently producing, according to the Coast Guard. Updated. Details are sketchy right now, but rescuers are en route to the site about 80 miles south of the central Louisiana coast. We'll update as this one develops.

    Update: Reuters is reporting that the Coast Guard has spotted a one-nautical-mile by 100-foot oil sheen in the water at the site of the rig explosion. The fire has been contained, but the flames have not yet been completely extinguished.

    Update: USA Today now reports that the initial claim of an oil sheen by Mariner Energy cannot be confirmed by the Coast Guard, and that an aerial flyover by Mariner personnel could not locate the oil sheen reported earlier. In other good news, the fire aboard the oil platform has now been extinguished.

    [NYT]



  111. Scammers using fake copyright infringement notices for profit

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 10:03 am MDT

    HADOPI, meet the internautes. The French "high authority" that oversees the country's three strikes anti-P2P file-sharing campaign is now being used by spammers and scammers who attempt to trick people out of their cash by accusing them of copyright violations.

    The e-mails have appeared in recent days, purporting to come from France's Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet (HADOPI). This is the government group that will accept file-sharing complaints from movie and music rightsholders, then issue sanctions and fines to users, with Internet disconnection and blacklisting the ultimate penalty.

    Scammers hope to capitalize on the publicity surrounding HADOPI, which has pledged to start sending out its first warning letters soon. The e-mails purport to come from HADOPI, charging that the recipient was detected sharing files, and they direct the user to website to make a payment.

    "As expected, this is classic Internet," said HADOPI's Secretary General Éric Walter to Agence France Press yesterday. He advised recipients to exercise caution and not to turn over bank details or personal information.

    Read the comments on this post




  112. In Demonstration, Laser-Powered UAV Charged From the Ground Stays Aloft For Hours

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:58 am MDT

    LaserMotive's Laser-Powered Helo New Scientist

    An unmanned aerial surveillance drone is only as good as its power source, and as such many technologies are being considered that could drastically extend the duration of drone missions - for instance, DARPA's Vulture program has helped develop a giant solar plane that, theoretically, could fly for five years straight. But Seattle-based LaserMotive thinks laser power is the answer, and to prove it they recently kept a tiny 22-gram helicopter aloft for hours by beaming power to it via a laser.

    LaserMotive knows a thing or two about turning laser power into mechanical energy; last year the firm beamed energy to a robot that climbed nearly 3,000 feet up a cable suspended form a helicopter, a feat impressive enough to win $900,000 from NASA. Now LaserMotive is demonstrating that similar ground-based lasers could beam energy to either fixed-wing or hovering rotary-wing UAVs high in the sky, keeping batteries topped up with juice so that they never have to land, with flight durations limited only by the durability of the aircraft's motors.

    Take the tiny laser-powered helicopter. LaserMotive kept the aircraft aloft for six hours at last week's AUVSI Unmanned Systems Conference in Denver using a 7-centimeter beam of near-infrared laser that automatically tracked the helicopter as it moved up and down. The helicopter eventually failed, but only when the motor gave out. The laser never stopped beaming energy.

    Better motor tech could lead to unmanned systems that fly missions that last days or weeks, powered by ground based energy beams that keep them running indefinitely. Portable UAV systems could allow troops operating at forward operating bases to send small surveillance platforms skyward to hover overhead, giving them an eye in the sky over their temporary quarters. Troops on the move could feasibly keep drones aloft above their convoys, powered from lasers mounted on the vehicles.

    Of course, we could also just use lasers to blast UAVs out of the sky.


    [New Scientist]



  113. Ping, Facebook Break Up: It Happened Last Night

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:50 am MDT

    At one time, Apple and Facebook were best friends forever. It was rumored that Facebook would form the underpinning of what is now Ping. No more -- apparently the two companies are not working on Ping together, and consumers are the ones who pay the price.

  114. FCC Expected to Delay Net Neutrality Ruling Until After Elections

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:44 am MDT

    No proposals expected until after November

  115. IOS 4.1 is coming next week.Dont Touch

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:43 am MDT

    Mr Steve Jobs have announced in apple 1st septemeber special event that new firmware 4.1 will be released next week for iPhone 4,3gs and 3g.so if you want to keep your phone jailbroken then dont even think to go near it untill further notice and developers have confirmed that this new iOS update will fix the jailbreak hole and baseband has been updated so for users who rely on carrier unlock will lose this unlock

  116. Start-up company aims to harness the full potential of producing electricity from waste heat

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:25 am MDT

    (PhysOrg.com) -- Matt Scullin co-founded Alphabet Energy just one year ago, but already the CEO has ambitions of turning the San Francisco-based start-up company into the 'Intel of waste heat.' By harnessing the waste heat emitted by power plants, industrial furnaces, and cars, Alphabet Energy envisions ...

  117. Feature: Compromising Twitter's OAuth security system

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:25 am MDT

    Twitter officially disabled Basic authentication this week, the final step in the company's transition to mandatory OAuth authentication. Sadly, Twitter's extremely poor implementation of the OAuth standard offers a textbook example of how to do it wrong. This article will explore some of the problems with Twitter's OAuth implementation and some potential pitfalls inherent to the standard. I will also show you how I managed to compromise the secret OAuth key in Twitter's very own official client application for Android.

    OAuth is an emerging authentication standard that is being adopted by a growing number of social networking services. It defines a key exchange mechanism that allows users to grant a third-party application access to their account without having to provide that application with their credentials. It also allows users to selectively revoke an application's access to their account.

    Read the rest of this article...

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  118. Wagering on warfare: Black Ops multiplayer revealed

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 9:00 am MDT

    Even though it's set to hit PCs and consoles in a little over a month, there has been little in the way of multiplayer details for the Treyarch-developed Call of Duty: Black Ops. This all changed yesterday when Activision held a press event in Los Angeles to reveal the multiplayer gameplay: COD fans can expect bots, enhanced customization, and a new currency that can be used both to upgrade equipment and to gamble in competitive play.

    Read the rest of this article...

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  119. Fundamental Physics Laws Change Depending on When and Where You Are, New Study Says

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:57 am MDT

    The Early Universe A computer model of the universe at an age of about 2 billion years. Gravity causes the primordial matter to arrange itself in thin filaments. ESO

    A particularly mind-bending (and controversial) physics paper surfaced in the past week that should make you feel pretty special. It seems the laws of physics can change after all, and it just so happens they're uniquely suited for us right here, right now.

    The paper, recently submitted to Physical Review Letters and posted to the physics arXiv, suggests the fine structure constant is not actually constant at all. This could mean that if we were in a different place or time period, atoms would not stay together and nothing - neither planets nor people - could exist.

    A team led by John Webb at the University of New South Wales, Australia, has been studying whether the fine structure constant, otherwise known as alpha, changes over time. Alpha is a special number that essentially describes the strength of the electromagnetic force. The famous physicist Richard Feynman called its value "one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics." If it is not 1/137.036, things fall apart.

    If alpha was different in the past, the universe might have looked different, too, which could be determined by looking at distant interstellar gases and how they absorb light. Observations by Webb and others at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii suggest that this is exactly the case - over time, alpha has changed ever so slightly.

    Competing studies did not find the same result, however, so this is still a controversial idea. But it's a fair bet Webb's follow-up is even more tendentious: He says alpha also changes over space. According to his theory, we're smack in the Goldilocks zone, where alpha is exactly the right value to make matter possible.

    This paper happened because Webb and his team wanted to reexamine their Keck findings, which suggested alpha was a tiny bit smaller about 9 billion years in the past. They went to the Very Large Observatory in Chile to check it out, and were shocked by what they saw: the further they looked, the bigger alpha got. The discrepancy is even stranger given the two telescopes' positions: they are in two different hemispheres, so they look in two different directions.

    So, to recap: in one direction, alpha was once smaller; in exactly the opposite direction, it was once bigger. This implies that alpha continuously varies throughout space. As Technology Review's physics blog puts it, that's a mind-blowing result. If it's true and can be verified, it could mean the universe is much larger than what we can see, and that the laws of physics vary within it.

    It would not be possible for our type of life to exist in a place where alpha were any different. So here's to here and now.

    [The Economist]



  120. The Case for Apple's 'Ping' Social Network

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:31 am MDT

    Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced today that his company is hopping on the social network bandwagon with a service, called Ping, that will connect music fans, musicians, and their friends and followers. Jobs describes Ping -- which will be available on Apple mobile devices, but not through web browsers -- as "Facebook and Twitter meet iTunes."

  121. Your Library is Dying

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:26 am MDT

    The shape of information science is changing more radically and rapidly than ever, and our libraries can’t keep up.

  122. BuzzFeed Opens Up Access to Its Viral Dashboard

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:23 am MDT

    BuzzFeed, which tracks online topics that have gone viral, is offering a version of the analytics dashboard that the site uses to monitor the spread of these Internet "memes" to any website, brand or publisher that wants to track the popularity of their online content.

  123. Advertise with Mashable

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:21 am MDT

    Will Mashable really just get to the frontpage? You'd need to see this article promoted to find out.

  124. Steve Jobs Accuses Google of Lying About Android Activations

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:16 am MDT

    Jobs: "We think we are ahead of everyone"; Google says CEO of Apple's claims are inaccurate

  125. A Plastic Revolution: de Rothschild Sails the Plastiki

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 8:06 am MDT

    The Plastiki is no average boat. It is made up of 12,500 plastic bottles salvaged from the garbage bins of San Francisco. Onboard there are solar panels, wind turbines and a hydroponic vertical garden.

  126. Future Mars Colonists Could Learn To Terraform By Studying Darwin's Methods

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:57 am MDT

    Ascension Island Charles Darwin's artificial forest captures moisture from clouds that drift over the volcanic peaks on Ascension Island. Google Earth

    The father of evolution apparently played God with a tropical ecosystem 160 years ago, and the results could inform future experiments to terraform Mars, botanists say.

    The BBC recounts how Charles Darwin helped build an artificial forest on Ascension Island, one of his subjects of study from his trips on the HMS Beagle. Today, the island is home to species of plants that would not naturally co-exist. Darwin and his friends put them there, and nearly two centuries later, their grand experiment is living proof that we can transform natural environments.

    Originally used as an outpost to keep an eye on Napoleon in exile, Ascension Island, between South America and Africa, was a busy Atlantic waystation in Darwin's day. It had meager fresh water supplies, however, so Darwin and his botanist friend, Joseph Hooker, set out to change things.

    The BBC interviews Darwin biographer David Catling, a professor at the University of Washington-Seattle, who says he believes Darwin decided to build a lush "Little England" on the volcanic island after visiting it in 1836.

    Darwin's friend Hooker explored Ascension a few years later, and in 1847, Darwin convinced Hooker to get his father -- director of the Kew Gardens -- to send trees, hoping they would capture rain, prevent erosion and reduce evaporation.

    Beginning in 1850 and continuing each year, ships brought an assortment of plants from botanical gardens in Europe, South Africa and Argentina, the BBC says. By the late 1870s, eucalyptus, Norfolk Island pine, bamboo, and banana had taken hold.

    Today, Ascension is home to a cloud forest that would have taken millions of years to evolve naturally, according to Dave Wilkinson, an ecologist at Liverpool John Moores University in the UK.

    It's proof that humans can build a fully functioning ecosystem simply through trial and error, he said. As the BBC reports, the same principle could be used in future Mars colonies: "Rather than trying to improve an environment by force, the best approach might be to work with life to help it find its own way."

    Intelligent design, indeed.



  127. Ethanol Blends Increasingly Common: Want Pure Gasoline?

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:32 am MDT

    The next time you fill up, think about this: What you think of as gasoline might not be gasoline. At least not entirely.

  128. Chevrolet Volt Production Kicks Off November 11

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:31 am MDT

    Dealers will find out how many they will get on November 17

  129. iPad is for grandparents, not just geeks

    → CNN.com - Technology | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:22 am MDT

    Apple's iPad tablet isn't just for geeks, yuppies, and rich people. It's also for grandparents.


  130. Vlingo Adds Voice Check-ins to Foursquare

    → GigaOM | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:17 am MDT

    Vlingo today added voice support to Foursquare on Android handsets, allowing Foursquare users to check in, find friends and send shouts through speech-to-text. Vlingo users can also update their social status in both Facebook and Twitter by using the Vlingo widget and speaking their update.

  131. Samsung Galaxy Tab Android Tablet Gets Official

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:01 am MDT

    Another MID competitor offers Apple's iPad a run for its money

  132. Lorelle’s Mind Blowing WordPress Plugins

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 2 Sep 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    Lorelle VanFossen has published a recap of her Mind Blowing WordPress Plugins session given on August 29th at OpenCamp in Addison, TX. To Lorelle, “a mind blowing WordPress Plugin is one that breaks the rules. It is unique and original in its implementation, and pushes WordPress. It might not be a Plugin that everyone must

  133. In Japan, the Walkman Is More Popular Than the iPod

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:52 am MDT

    More than 30 years on, sales of Sony Corp.'s MP3-playing version of the Walkman topped Apple Inc.’s ubiquitous iPod here in August for the first time since BCN began compiling the survey in November 2001.

  134. Adult texters catching up to teens

    → CNN.com - Technology | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:49 am MDT

    Grown-ups don't text as much as teens -- at least not yet. A new survey suggests they may be catching up.


  135. Risk of Marijuana's 'gateway effect' Overblown, Research Shows

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 6:17 am MDT

    New Research from the University of New Hampshire shows the gateway effect of marijuana is overblown.

  136. An ISP that knows nothing of "data hogs"

    → Ars Technica | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:50 am MDT

    Pop quiz—which US Internet service provider made the following statement about a network upgrade?

    During the construction of this network we have given a lot of thought... to the business model in the US, and how we could do things in a different and more interesting way. The natural model when you have a simple duopoly capturing the majority of the market is segmentation: maximize ARPU [average revenue per user] by artificially limiting service in order to drive additional monthly spending. But fundamentally this is the wrong model for a service provider like us, and we have looked to Europe for inspiration. The model pioneered by Iliad under the Free brand is a better fit, both for us and for our customers.

    As the marginal cost of providing more bandwidth or less, and providing POTS voice or not are both minimal, we have adopted a simple flat rate model instead of the more typical US model of "$5 more goes faster"... I believe that removing the artificial limits on speed, and including home phone with the product are both very exciting.

    Yeah... it wasn't one of the major ISPs. Instead, it was Sonic.net, California's largest indie ISP. The company has been in business since 1994, but the FCC's eventual decision to deregulate wholesale broadband services put the company in a tough spot, where it couldn't access the highest-speed components of the network at a competitive price. So Sonic.net has been building out its own "facilities-based" network around San Francisco, though it still requires access to the telco-controlled copper local loop to a customer's home.

    The new network, called Fusion, allows Sonic.net to offer ADSL2+ service along with its own telephone service (this isn't VoIP, but actual POTS). The company currently sells one offering to residential users through Fusion: for $50 a month, they get uncapped ADSL that runs as fast as their line can handle (up to 20Mbps) along with free nationwide phone service. Users who want more bandwidth can order up a second telephone line and "bond" the two for speeds of up to 40Mbps by simply paying another $50.

    Sonic.net CEO Dane Jasper explained his unorthodox approach to selling broadband in a discussion this week with Benoit Felten, a Yankee Group broadband analyst, on Felten's private blog. Felten, who's based in Europe, notes that the US market "is often considered to be a static duopoly," but he points to initiatives from ISPs like Sonic.net as refreshing alternatives.

    "In an era where the buzzwords about broadband and the internet seem to be caps and hogs," he notes, "it's reassuring and exciting to see someone trying to buck the trend and offer what customers want as opposed to what he thinks customers should get."

    Read the comments on this post




  137. New Microfluidic Device Helps to Understand Human Immune System

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:13 am MDT

    Device aimed to help researchers understand the immune system's response to injury

  138. 5 Tips To Make Your Blog Explode | Copy Paste

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 5:00 am MDT

    some interesting tips to get success with your blog and some handy tips to promote your blog

  139. Google Launches Blog Finder for Any Topic

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 2 Sep 2010 | 3:58 am MDT



  140. Gamescom Convention 2010 Ends with a Promise to Draw More Global Video Game Fans

    → digg.com: Top News | 2 Sep 2010 | 2:51 am MDT

    Recently concluded Gamescom convention 2010 was a great success as over 254,000 guests had attended the largest video games trade fair of the Europe. The annual fair houses a world platform to showcase latest trends and developments occurring around the video games industry. The 2010 edition of the fair, organized in Cologne from Aug 18 to Aug 22, was attended by 505 global-exhibitors who allowed visitors to sample out their exotic products. Children were also seen playing Nintendo DS dressed as Mario at the exhibition stands of the grand video games gala. After the successful premiere, this year we managed to make Gamescom even larger and more international, as well as welcome both more exhibitors and more visitors, said Oliver Kuhrt, managing director of Koelnmesse, the exhibition center where Gamescom takes place. The amount of positive feedback from the industry, trade and private visitors as well as the media shows us that gamescom 2010 was a completely successful event. In 2009, 459 exhibitors had attended the convention to entertain 245,000 visitors. This years fair visibly had expanded its horizon in terms of visitors and exhibitors. Such wide acceptability of the fair reflects the growing popularity of video games in our society. Seeing the enthusiasms on the faces of the visitors, it can surely be predicted that the Gamescom convention 2011, scheduled to take place from August 17 to 21, will be able to draw more than 275,000 visitors and 540 exhibitors. All most all the bigwigs of the video games industry were present in the convention to unveil their hot products to the potential buyers. Developers and publishers present there clearly indicated what might be arriving in the coming days to control tomorrows video games. For example, Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Dragon Age 2 are the two awesome video games that the convention told would arrive in early 2011. Call of Duty: Black Ops, Civilization V, Medal of Honor, Gran Turismo 5, and FIFA 11, etc. were some of the great presentations of the fair that caught people awestruck on the beauty and complexity of the video games. Gran Turismo 5, the PlayStation 3 based racing title from Polyphony Digital and Sony, was adjudged as the best video game of the Gamescom 2010. Other award winning games of the convention include Guild Wars 2, Crysis 2, the PlayStation Move, Super Scribblenauts, and Kirbys Epic Yarn, etc. Image credit: ps3.pspfreak

  141. Feature: Thomas Edison's plot to hijack the movie industry

    → Ars Technica | 1 Sep 2010 | 10:30 pm MDT

    It was a dark and stormy night on December 18, 1908. Okay—maybe it wasn't so dark and stormy. But it should have been, because that was the night Thomas Edison tried to hijack the motion picture industry.

    "With his beetle brows, long wispy hair, and beatific look, Edison might have seemed the addled inventor," writes the historian Neil Gabler, "but he was a shrewd businessman and a fearsome adversary who was never loath to take credit for any invention, whether he was responsible or not."

    Read the rest of this article...

    Read the comments on this post




  142. Twitter Launches iPad App With Focus on Consumption

    → GigaOM | 1 Sep 2010 | 9:59 pm MDT

    Twitter is launching the first native app it's built from scratch tonight: Twitter for iPad. Aimed at fostering content consumption, the app is designed for new users and power users alike. The iPad app indicates the direction all Twitter-designed apps will be heading

  143. Windows Phone 7 Hits RTM

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:53 pm MDT

    Windows Phone 7 reaches critical milestone

  144. Apple shines up TV, iPod lines

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:52 pm MDT

    A reworked line of iPods and a new, drastically cheaper, version of Apple TV are on the way.

  145. More of the Gulf is Reopened for Fishing as Oil Spill Disperses

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:40 pm MDT

    Commercial fisherman are back to work

  146. Brain exercises may slow cognitive decline initially, but speed up dementia later

    → digg.com: Top News | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:32 pm MDT

    New research shows that mentally stimulating activities such as crossword puzzles, reading and listening to the radio may, at first, slow the decline of thinking skills but speed up dementia later in old age.

  147. Windows 7 Family Pack Makes a Return

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:26 pm MDT

    $150 Windows 7 Family Pack returns -- for a limited time

  148. Apple introduces new Apple TV and iPods

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:32 pm MDT

    Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced a revamped Apple TV device, a new iPod line, an iTunes social network and updates to the operating system for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the iPad at Apple's highly anticipated product launch event on Wednesday.

  149. Youth in Asian Countries Forgetting How to Write

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:23 pm MDT

    "Character Amnesia" result of computer-culture surge.

  150. Plan for nationwide free wireless broadband finally shot down

    → Ars Technica | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:10 pm MDT

    For four years the Federal Communications Commission tossed the idea around like a beach ball: a coast-to-coast free wireless service across the low end of the 2GHz "AWS-3" band. The service would pay for itself via advertisements and by selling commercial access to various portions of the license area. The company that proposed the plan, M2Z Networks, would commit to building out the project in a decade, and pay five percent of its annual revenue to the United States Treasury.

    But on Wednesday M2Z informed the press that the FCC has told the company and its backers that the Commission is dropping the concept, and that is so:

    "We gave careful and thorough consideration to the proposal, but ultimately determined that this was not the best policy outcome," Ruth Milkman, chief of the FCC's Wireless Bureau told us. "We remain vigilant in our efforts to facilitate the universal deployment and adoption of broadband, especially through the much-needed reform to the Universal Service Fund."

    Read the rest of this article...

    Read the comments on this post




  151. Search for “Cloud Computing” - Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 1 Sep 2010 | 6:06 pm MDT



  152. Sprint Adds 4G Coverage in Three Cities, T-Mobile Adds 3.5G to Nine Cities

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 4:11 pm MDT

    Next gen coverage is reaching more users

  153. As East Coast Braces For Hurricane Earl, NASA Watches From Above

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 1 Sep 2010 | 3:21 pm MDT

    Hurricane Earl A view of Hurricane Earl's eye, taken from the International Space Station. At the time Earl was centered just north of the Virgin Islands. NASA

    East Coast residents are bracing for this monster, headed their way with 125-mph winds, as a fleet of NASA satellites and airplanes monitors its evolution.

    As of Wednesday morning, Hurricane Earl was a Category 3 storm, but an especially large one. Storm-force winds extend 200 miles from its eye, seen above in a photo snapped from the International Space Station.

    NASA scientists are flying airplanes into this swirling mass, measuring the hurricane's wind speeds, precipitation and more. As part of NASA's GRIP program - Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes - a NASA DC-8 flew through Earl's eye six times as the hurricane intensified from a Category 2 to a Category 4 storm.

    Meanwhile, an ISS crew member used a digital camera with a 50mm lens to take the above photo, from a much safer distance.



  154. Sony revamps e-readers -- and hikes prices

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 1 Sep 2010 | 3:15 pm MDT

    Sony updated its line of e-readers Wednesday, a move that brought a touchscreen to its cheapest version but also hiked its price by almost $30.

  155. DARPA's Cyber Insider Threat Program Is the Agency's Great Hope for Ending Leaks

    → Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now | 1 Sep 2010 | 2:27 pm MDT

    Protecting Military Networks Thinking about WikiLeaking? Think again. U.S. Navy

    The recent WikiLeaks exposure was a huge black eye for the U.S. Department of Defense, supposedly one of the more secure state organizations we have working for us. Its impact clearly wasn't lost on the Pentagon, whose blue sky research arm has launched a new project designed to ferret out malicious behavior on DoD networks. Named CINDER - Cyber INsiDER Threat - the project is designed not to sniff out people, but adversarial actions as they happen.

    To quote DARPA's request for industry solicitations: "The goal of CINDER will be to greatly increase the accuracy, rate and speed with which insider threats are detected and impede the ability of adversaries to operate undetected within government and military interest networks."

    The philosophy driving CINDER is the idea that singular actions by an insider with malicious intent aren't noticeable as malicious - say, the downloading of a sensitive document from a DoD server or the searching for information on a particular topic. But the larger adversary mission should be noticeable when compared to normal mission activities. By monitoring strings of actions rather than isolated events, CINDER is expected to pinpoint system users who may be up to something malicious.

    CINDER assumes that insiders are operating within the Pentagon's most sensitive networks, so rather than focus on keeping outside threats out, it will be designed to weed out those already inside. As Danger Room points out, it seems like a recipe for false positives, but DARPA seems to think a properly-designed CINDER will be able to distinguish between normal and malicious mission contexts.

    We'll see. In the meantime, while DARPA works CINDER into serviceable shape, the DoD is expected to roll out a new cyber strategy by year's end to hopefully curtail the kinds of massive leaks and cyber breaches that have been the embarrassment of the Pentagon lately.

    [FedBizOpps via Danger Room]



  156. Paste Magazine Is Dead [Great Magazine Die-off]

    → Gawker: top | 1 Sep 2010 | 12:32 pm MDT

    We heard earlier today that Paste Magazine was in imminent danger of folding. Looks like it's already happened. More »


  157. Apple Announces $99 Tiny Apple TV, 99¢ TV Show Rentals, iTunes Social Network Ping

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 12:23 pm MDT

    Steve Jobs has plenty to say, hopes to convert new customers and help TV studios "see the light"

  158. Apple Introduces New iPods

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 11:39 am MDT

    Apple updates its popular media player lineup

  159. Ramadan 2010 - The Big Picture

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 1 Sep 2010 | 11:22 am MDT



  160. 9/01/2010 Daily Hardware Reviews

    → DailyTech Main News Feed | 1 Sep 2010 | 10:24 am MDT

    DailyTech's roundup of hardware reviews from around the web for Wednesday

  161. Employee Found Dead at American Apparel HQ [Exclusive]

    → Gawker: top | 1 Sep 2010 | 9:37 am MDT

    American Apparel just can't catch a break. An employee was found dead at the company's downtown Los Angeles headquarters yesterday, adding yet another misfortune to the clothing retailer's ever-growing list of public relations woes. More »


  162. Investment research | Front Page - BoomBustBlog Research Opinion Hits the Mainstream Media, Sort Of… August 31st, 2010 by

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 1 Sep 2010 | 8:45 am MDT



  163. WordPress Plugin Releases for 09/01

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 1 Sep 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    New plugins Facebook Like for Tags converts a standard Facebook Like button from a one-time sharing feature to a one-on-one relationship for ongoing updates and sharing based on tags (keywords) or categories defined by you, the blogger/author. LBAK Google Checkout is aimed mainly at small projects that just want to sell a few things on

  164. Why all smartphones are $199

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 1 Sep 2010 | 5:41 am MDT

    A hot new smartphone can be Incredible, Vibrant, Epic or just "eh," but no matter how it stacks up, it's a safe bet that it will start selling at $199.

  165. Top Blogs on Twitter - Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget, and more ...

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 1 Sep 2010 | 2:05 am MDT



  166. Calvin Klein's Underwear Model Boyfriend Also Starred in Gay Porn [Xxx]

    → Gawker: top | 31 Aug 2010 | 9:50 pm MDT

    If the pictures of Calvin Klein's 20-year-old boyfriend we showed you earlier weren't revealing enough, don't worry. You can see more of him in some of the gay porn that he made. Don't worry, we're keeping it safe for work. More »


  167. Government appeals court ruling blocking stem-cell research funding

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 31 Aug 2010 | 9:00 pm MDT

    The Justice Department, as promised, moved Tuesday to block a court ruling preventing use of government funds for embryonic stem cell research.

  168. Top 100 Blogs - 1 to 25 - Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 31 Aug 2010 | 7:55 pm MDT



  169. Can Apple maintain the iPod's relevance?

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 31 Aug 2010 | 1:51 pm MDT

    Long before the iPhone, the iPod was the device that helped transform Apple from computer company into a consumer electronics company.

  170. Real Housewives of New Jersey Reunion, Pt. 1: Release the Giudice! [Recaps]

    → Gawker: top | 31 Aug 2010 | 11:14 am MDT

    So last night began our two-part journey into Andy Cohen's underworld, a place of shadows and screams, of strange rhombus coffee tables and tearing, thrashing ghouls. Andy Cohen's underworld is located at the Borgata in Atlantic City, naturally. More »


  171. Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 31 Aug 2010 | 8:39 am MDT

    Pesquisa de blogs e da blogosfera

  172. The staggering pace of technology

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 31 Aug 2010 | 7:38 am MDT

    I have more transistors than neurons. So do you. That's something worth caring about, because it signals the advance of a weird new world that most of us aren't prepared for. Yet we'd better get ready, for the world of the Syfy channel is looking startlingly plausible.

  173. WordPress Mobile Apps for Android and BlackBerry Updated

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 31 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    The WordPress mobile apps for Android and BlackBerry have both been updated with some shiny new features, like a new comment notification system and improved VideoPress integration. There’s no word yet on an update to the iOS mobile app, but the team still has its eyes set on making this one a major bug-fixing release.

  174. Day 5: Twitter, Global Impact and the Future Of Blogging - SOTB 2009 - Technorati Blogging

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 31 Aug 2010 | 6:46 am MDT



  175. Technorati's State of the Blogosphere - Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 31 Aug 2010 | 6:45 am MDT



  176. 4chan on the Hunt for Puppy-Throwing Girl [The Internets]

    → Gawker: top | 31 Aug 2010 | 2:15 am MDT

    On Monday, this graphic video of an unknown girl throwing puppies into a river appeared online, much to the consternation of internet-using animal-lovers everywhere. But don't fret: The weirdos and agitators of 4chan's /b/ are hot on the trail. More »


  177. Who's Who on the New Cast of Dancing With the Stars [Guides]

    → Gawker: top | 30 Aug 2010 | 9:48 pm MDT

    Dancing With the Stars, ABC's reality competition about alleged celebrities, who dance, has announced the cast for its 11th season, which premieres in late September. But who are these "stars"? And what, exactly, are they "famous" for? More »


  178. Clearwire unveils pay-as-you-go 4G

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 30 Aug 2010 | 2:25 pm MDT

    Clearwire on Monday unveiled "Rover," a pay-as-you-go 4G network that it hopes will attract new users to its flailing and unprofitable mobile broadband service.

  179. Introducing Wikileakileaks: Your Source for Wikileaks-Related Leaks [Launches]

    → Gawker: top | 30 Aug 2010 | 1:46 pm MDT

    Secret-sharing website Wikileaks.org's tagline is "We open governments." But the organization itself is about as open as North Korea. That's why we've launched Wikileakileaks.org: your source for Wikileaks-related secrets, documents and rumors! More »


  180. Mad Men: Naked Ambition [Recaps]

    → Gawker: top | 30 Aug 2010 | 12:06 pm MDT

    The sweet smell of success hung in the air when Don Draper won a Clio award on Mad Men. However the stink of ambition was also ubiquitous and the things people will do to get ahead were frightening. More »


  181. 2 die after Indonesian volcano erupts again

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 30 Aug 2010 | 11:44 am MDT

    Two people have died and more than 30,000 were displaced when a long-dormant volcano in Indonesia erupted again on Monday, officials said.

  182. WordPress Theme Releases for 08/30

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 30 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    Bombax is a nicely crafted theme with 5 different color schemes and configurable options such as right or left or holy grail or no sidebar, magazine style or traditional style, custom header, and custom background. Lukoo is a simple and stylish theme based around the color green. Modernist is a beautifully built yet transparent theme.

  183. Green - Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 30 Aug 2010 | 4:48 am MDT



  184. All the Emmy Winners and What We Think About Them [Beautiful Awards]

    → Gawker: top | 29 Aug 2010 | 10:47 pm MDT

    After all the hype, the Emmys are over. We know all the winners, saw all the dresses, and experienced all the surprises. It was fun but, man, does this show need a lot of work. More »


  185. My Profile - Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 29 Aug 2010 | 8:42 am MDT



  186. Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 29 Aug 2010 | 7:20 am MDT



  187. WordPress and the Fatal Memory Error

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 29 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    Remember the old days when your computer would crash because you were running too many applications simultaneously? Well, you might be surprised to know that WordPress can fall victim to the very same thing. You see, your server may be packed with 4 GB of RAM, but that doesn’t mean that all 4 GB have

  188. Super Seo Tips: How To Add Your Blogs To Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 29 Aug 2010 | 6:05 am MDT

    http://technorati.com/blogs/your~blog~name.com

  189. Just shot this clip (#qik) htt…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 29 Aug 2010 | 4:19 am MDT

    Just shot this clip (#qik) http://qik.ly/CJebu

  190. WordPress Plugin Releases for 08/28

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 28 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    New plugins Custom sidebars allows you to create your own widgetized areas and custom sidebars, and select what sidebars to use for each post or page. LBAK User Tracking is a fully featured, page by page tracking plugin for your blog. Simple SEO lets you optimize your web site or blog by changing the title

  191. Technorati

    → Delicious/tag/technorati | 27 Aug 2010 | 8:21 pm MDT



  192. Why you need a 'zombie apocalypse' phone

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 27 Aug 2010 | 6:37 pm MDT

    You know it will happen someday: Zombies are chasing you down the street, groaning for your blood. You've been holed up for a week, and there's spotty cell service. It sure would be handy to request an emergency ammo drop from the black-helicopter guys.

  193. Should You Remove Post Dates from Your WordPress Blog?

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 27 Aug 2010 | 5:24 pm MDT

    You may be wondering why anyone would want to do this. Think about it, you probably have hundreds of articles that you wrote years ago and when those same articles appear on Google search engine results, the dates appear next to the description.  You might think that this is great, users searching the web should

  194. Energy use is way down - but wind surges

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 27 Aug 2010 | 1:51 pm MDT

    Energy use in the United States fell nearly 5% last year, marking the largest annual drop on record, according to an analysis of federal data by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

  195. Report: Older users flocking to Facebook, Twitter

    → Science and Technology: News & Videos about Science and Technology - CNN.com | 27 Aug 2010 | 1:21 pm MDT

    Nancy Ehrlich was nearing 50 and frustrated, teaching at her small Pennsylvania town's elementary school with colleagues who didn't share her love of technology.

  196. Put Down the Electronics and Back Away

    → digg.com: Top News | 27 Aug 2010 | 8:37 am MDT

    I know, it's TechStuff, so I should be telling you to pick up the electronics, right? According to a study at the University of California, San Francisco quoted by Matt Richtel of The New York Times, rats engaged with new experiences go through periods of intense brain activity. But the rats don't actually process what they've experienced and learn from that experience until they stop and have the chance to think about it. Richtel said the researchers believe the same may be true for people as well.

  197. Choose Your Panels for SXSW 2011

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 27 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    The SXSW staff wants to hear your feedback on the proposed panels for SXSW 2011. Your votes on the proposed panels will account for 30% of the final vote, so start voting today! Currently, there are ten WordPress-related panel proposals awaiting your feedback: Beyond Blogging: WordPress is a CMS Don’t Be Ashamed to Use WordPress

  198. I thought we’d lost 3 months w…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 26 Aug 2010 | 10:37 am MDT

    I thought we’d lost 3 months worth of photos from a hard drive.Turns out they were hiding in different folder.Taking the hint&backing up2DVD

  199. WordPress Theme Releases for 08/26

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 26 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    Albizia is a dark theme with 5 different color schemes and configurable options such as right or left or holy grail or no sidebar, magazine style or traditional style, custom header, and custom background. Columbus comes with a very clean and elegant design and some really great premium-like features. Modern Wood features a beautiful dark

  200. @PockeTwit Just out of interes…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 26 Aug 2010 | 4:17 am MDT

    @PockeTwit Just out of interest, have u checked how TwitterTools(a WordPress plugin)has handled changeover to OAuth?( http://bit.ly/cSz6Z3 ) Search Terms That Led To This Postpocketwit oauth (1)

  201. Sunspot Photo is Most Detailed Ever (pic)

    → digg.com: Top News | 25 Aug 2010 | 7:44 am MDT

    ...

  202. WordPress Support Forum All-stars

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 25 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    WordPress is a powerful blogging platform with a large community volunteering its time to provide support to users in the WordPress Support Forums. Last week, the WordPress Support Forums mailing list presented nominations for the top active support forum volunteers. These volunteers were nominated for being active on the support forums within the last month

  203. Top 10 Least Environmentally Friendly Government Subsidies

    → digg.com: Top News | 24 Aug 2010 | 9:02 pm MDT

    Urban sprawl, pollution, over-consumption, deforestation…like it or not, U.S. taxpayers are still paying for all of these things to occur in America. Despite recent investments in green jobs and technology, an array of government subsidies pay big dirty industries like oil, coal and factory farms to destroy the environment in every way possible.

  204. 300,000 Biggest Websites, Visualized With Their Icons

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 24 Aug 2010 | 5:41 pm MDT

    The 300,000 Biggest Websites, Visualized With Their Icons: Gizmodo had an interesting post today about a chart/image that contains the favicons of the 300,000 most trafficked websites on the Interwebs. I thought the interactive version was interesting and found Weblog Tools Collection completely hidden right under the lower left corner of the Blogger icon. The

  205. The Largest Hailstone Ever Recorded In The United States!

    → digg.com: Top News | 24 Aug 2010 | 5:10 pm MDT

    "Even after melting, the stone [produced from the thunderstorm that struck Vivian, South Dakota, U.S. of A., on 23 July 2010] still measured 8.0 inches in diameter and weighed nearly 2 pounds (1 pound, 15 ounces) with a circumference of 18.62 inches." Photo credit: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

  206. Observatory Snaps the Most Detailed Pic of a Sunspot Ever

    → digg.com: Top News | 24 Aug 2010 | 4:27 pm MDT

    The image was captured with Big Bear’s New Solar Telescope a brand new instrument with a resolution of just 50 miles on the sun’s surface.

  207. New microbe discovered eating oil spill in Gulf

    → digg.com: Top News | 24 Aug 2010 | 3:57 pm MDT

    A newly discovered type of oil-eating microbe is suddenly flourishing in the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists discovered the new microbe while studying the underwater dispersion of millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf following the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

  208. Wind, Molten Salt Storage Solar May Power Australia by 2020

    → digg.com: Top News | 24 Aug 2010 | 2:31 pm MDT

    A report from Beyond Zero Emissions asserts that Australia's energy needs can be fully met by renewable sources within 10 years with technologies that are already available, with 40% coming from wind generation, and 60% from large-scale Concentrating Solar Thermal with molten salt storage.

  209. Our good friend Javier’s site …

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 24 Aug 2010 | 1:12 pm MDT

    Our good friend Javier’s site is almost in place. More info to follow. PockeTwit is partially broken,can tweet but not read others.OAuth req

  210. Apologies 4 lack of posts rece…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 24 Aug 2010 | 7:01 am MDT

    Apologies 4 lack of posts recently. Here is a picture of Anna enjoying her tea, with Ira slightly out of the frame http://twitpic.com/2hqu63

  211. WordPress Plugin Releases for 08/24

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 24 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    New plugins Back List adds Whitelist and Blacklist options for Trackbacks and Pingbacks as well as the option to auto-accept Trackbacks from your own blog. IP Ban returns ‘Page Not Found’ 404 error message for IP’s visiting your blog specified in the IP Ban option on the Discussion Options page. Press This Reloaded provides the

  212. Regarding Plugin and Theme Digests

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 23 Aug 2010 | 4:00 am MDT

    You’ve just spent countless hours on your latest and greatest WordPress plugin and theme, and you want the world to know about it. Well, we want to help! I’m sure that you’ve all noticed the plugin and theme digests published here every other day, and it’s not too difficult to be a part of them.

  213. WordPress Theme Releases for 08/22

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 22 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    BT Extended is a spruced newspaper style theme, with a clean sleek white look built on Thematic framework & grid system. DocOut Black will improve your search engine results by giving your web pages a search engine friendly document outline. Leather is a unique and texture rich design with featured images and a simple options

  214. Vote for Blog Action Day 2010′s Topic

    → Weblog Tools Collection | 21 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    October 15th is less than two months away and Change.org wants you to vote on this year’s Blog Action Day topic. Currently, the selection includes the following topics, but they will continue to take suggestions until the poll closes. Water: The UN recently declared water to be a human right, but millions around the world

  215. Handago took 7 days 2tell us t…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 19 Aug 2010 | 6:05 am MDT

    Handago took 7 days 2tell us that Ira’s Acer E200 wasn’t in stock,despite billing us.Also need 2contact co. that replaced screen on my phone

  216. Palestinians learn about the H…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 19 Aug 2010 | 5:16 am MDT

    Palestinians learn about the Holocaust in Israel http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_8559/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=VJHIu41J

  217. NE1 know what is going on in A…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 14 Aug 2010 | 3:34 am MDT

    NE1 know what is going on in Astana Park 2day?Will look on the way 2 the English lesson.Wonder if I can change time due 2 Galactica marathon

  218. Ugh!! Just came across my blog…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 13 Aug 2010 | 9:31 am MDT

    Ugh!! Just came across my blog’s front page. Typing up some lesson plans then putting Anna to bed, but will tidy the site up later/tomorrow.

  219. RT @RescuedHQ: “ONLY 2 WEEKS T…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 12 Aug 2010 | 7:35 am MDT

    RT @RescuedHQ: “ONLY 2 WEEKS TO GO TO THE RESCUED LAUNCH PARTY!!! BRISBANES FRESHEST CLUB NIGHT http://www.rescued.com.au for more info..”

  220. Käwap Restaurant For Another Birthday Celebration

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 11 Aug 2010 | 7:00 am MDT

    Another post where I’ve taken a few individual tweets and tidied them into one entry. 11th August was my mother-in-law’s birthday, the day after Ira and my wedding anniversary. We headed on downstairs to the new Azerbaijani restaurant located on the ground floor of our building. We hadn’t tried it before, and there was no [...]

  221. Searching For Help

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 11 Aug 2010 | 1:11 am MDT

    Some friends joke I’m always on my phone when out and about. Most of the time I am taking a photo or video to put on the blog, or checking the phone’s GPS has locked on to our location, so I can post a map of the area later on. However, sometimes it is useful [...]

  222. At Assorti with for a meal wit…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 10 Aug 2010 | 7:36 am MDT

    At Assorti with for a meal with Anna and Irina. Our anniversary today. Nine years! Ira’s Mum’s birthday tomorrow. http://twitpic.com/2debyp The pizza was lovely, the portion size of the fluorescent green garlic bread was very generous, however it could have done with a bit more actual garlic flavour to it. They have a high chair [...]

  223. Last tweet was a shot entering…

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 8 Aug 2010 | 1:36 pm MDT

    Continuing with tidying up the multiple tweets into a few posts, this is the last of the phone camera shots from our weekend in Petropavlovsk. Anna is trying to get a peek at something on the table, whilst we were waiting for everyone to arrive. The food was mostly OK, and one waiter was most [...]

  224. Petropavlovsk Photos

    → ChrisMerriman.com | 7 Aug 2010 | 1:52 am MDT

    This is the area around Aunty Sveta’s place in Petropavlovsk (I think the government now wants it to be called Petropavl, but most people I spoke to still add the ovsk. This area of Kazakhstan is very close to Russia, so it is possible that the renaming is an attempt to make it sound more [...]

  225. Toys R Us Invites You To Save -$10 [Sale Fail]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:53 pm MST

    We love when Toys R Us does this. Ah, yes. "While supplies last." Hurry, people. Hurry.

    (Thanks, Keith!)



  226. Sushi "Tuna" Might Be Endangered, Dangerous, Or Fake [Busted]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 2:00 pm MST

    Biologists testing DNA code identification technology discovered that the tuna they ordered at sushi restaurants was actually hazardous or fake fish, or even an endangered species.

    According to Wired, the biologists visited 31 restaurants in Denver and Manhattan to evaluate technology that analyzes the DNA code of fish, and upload the info to a fish database called FISH-BOL.

    Instead of tuna, they got escloar, a fish that causes "bizarre episodes of diarrhea, accompanied by a waxy intestinal discharge." Other restaurants misrepresented what fish they were serving, and a few even served endangered southern bluefin.

    Sushi DNA Tests Reveal Fraud [Wired]
    For the nerd-inclined, you can read their scientific report here.
    (Photo: LC1331)

    RELATED:
    Fishy Selling Practices At Kansas City Restaurants: 85% Of The Fish On The Menu Is Not The Fish On The Menu
    You Red Snapper Sushi Is Likely Fake



  227. CPSC Links Chinese Drywall To Home Corrosion [Smells Like A Rotten Egg]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:55 pm MST

    The CPSC announced findings linking Chinese drywall to reports of home corrosion, and a possible link between the sulfuric gas emitting from them and health problems.

    Chinese Drywall Linked to Corrosion in Homes [NYT]
    Drywall Information Center [CPSC] (Photo: yugenro)



  228. Animated Map Of Rising US Unemployment Since 2007 [Graphics]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:46 pm MST

    It's like watching a slow-motion video of cirrhosis of the lung.

    The Decline: Geography of a Recession, by Latoya Egwuekwe [American Observer via Boing Boing]



  229. Watch Out For Changes To Your Flight Itinerary [Travel Plans]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:38 pm MST

    Alexandros received an update from Orbitz about his trip and realized that United had changed the time of his flight. For various reasons he couldn't make the new time, so he was lucky to have caught it—not to mention he could have missed the flight entirely had he not seen the change.

    Orbitz sent me an email to remind me of an upcoming trip. What they and United Airlines failed to mention was that the flight had been rescheduled. It now departed 40 minutes prior to the originally scheduled time. I immediately called Orbitz to find my rights with United as far as getting to the airport in time.

    I live outside of DC and do not have a car. As such, I booked the flight so I could take public transportation, rather than take a $50+ taxi ride. The 9:00 flight would the the very latest I could leave and still make it to the airport. Thus, those 40 minutes made the world of difference.

    Orbitz said they could contact the airline for me to see what could happen. After being on hold for a few minutes, Orbitz informed me they could rebook me on another flight. This is where United decided to continue to make everything worse. They tried to book me on a flight that would change my air travel time from 2.5 hours (direct) to 6.5 hours (1 connection). I then suggested they give me a flight that leaves from the other airport in DC that would drop the time down to 5.5 hours. I will be carrying food so time is of the essence. It was a different initial flight, but the connecting flight would be the same. United said this change was not available to me. I kept insisting for a further explanation. After they refused to give it to me a few times, they finally caved in.

    While in the process of trying to book me on the flight, the Orbitz representative kept coming back on the line saying they were still in the process. After being on the phone for 53 minutes, I asked her to just call me back. Oribtz was wonderful in calling me back promptly. The only problem is she came back saying United wanted $33 to change the flight since it would be leaving in a different airport. The reasoning was based on the change in the ticket price. I refused and suggested they pay for my taxi instead. Orbitz is still having trouble negotiating with United to even pay for the taxi. I will send an update as it becomes available.

    In this whole ordeal, Carmela from Orbitz has been very patient and courteous. She has also been wonderful at calling me back. I hope she can help me work everything out.

    A little while later, Alexandros wrote back in with an update:

    United decided not to charge me the fee and gave me the flight. It is very strange to me that they would have tried in the first place. I was very patient with Orbitz in the whole process and was even willing to more than double my travel time. It would have been much easier for me if United just paid for my taxi. I was trying to be flexible to ensure I reached my destination. United made the whole process difficult and stressful.

    The moral of this story: stay up-to-date on your flight information, and be prepared to spend some time fixing any problems the carrier might cause; with any luck, and a helpful CSR, your perseverance will pay off.

    (Photo: Simon_sees)



  230. Buzzword: Teeth Bleachorexia "Can a person ... []

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 1:03 pm MST

    Buzzword: Teeth Bleachorexia "Can a person overdo it by wearing teeth whitening strips or trays too often? The American Dental Association thinks so." [Consumer Reports Health]



  231. Police Drop Theft Charges Against Pub Non-Tippers [Good News]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:51 pm MST

    Police in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, are withdrawing charges against the two college students who refused to tip at a pub last month, says The Morning Call.

    The Northampton County District Attorney, John Morganelli, first found out about the arrests in the news, and made a recommendation last week that the charges be dropped. "I had recommended that the case be withdrawn, but that ultimately was a decision of the Bethlehem Police Department," he told the paper.

    The manager of the pub sounded a bit surprised at the news:

    Lehigh Pub manager William Sheehan said Monday it was "news to him" that the charges were being withdrawn.

    He read a comment he said was written by the pub's attorney.

    "We do not agree with the facts as presented in the press last week," Sheehan said. "This is the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Bethlehem Police Department, not Lehigh Pub, and we will defer to them as the legal process plays out."

    One issue that was brought up last week, and is mentioned in this article again, is that the gratuity worked out to about 22% of the bill, and not the 18% that the pub claimed. Whether that's explained by error, greed, or some detail that hasn't yet been revealed, it's a good example of why you should always calculate the tip yourself and make sure it matches what's on the final bill.

    "DA: Police to withdraw theft charges against non-tippers" [The Morning Call] (Thanks to Jason!)

    RELATED
    "College Students Arrested For Refusing To Pay Tip"
    (Photo: [puamelia])



  232. Are You Cutting Back On Tips This Season? [Saying Thanks]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:49 pm MST

    The end of the year is usually when you tip service providers, but if you're on a reduced budget then you're probably going to want to scale back this year. Here are some suggestions from etiquette experts contacted by Reuters.

    • If you've got the money, it's pretty rotten to scale back your tips simply because times are tough. Etiquette author Mary Mitchell says, "Don't use it as an excuse to save money then buy some Prada boots."
    • Mitchell also says to focus first on those you don't regularly tip, like housekeepers, personal trainers, babysitters, tutors, and doormen.
    • If you're not sure, try to find out whether the person can accept cash; some teachers can't, for example, and postal workers can accept gift cards of $20 or less. In cases where cash is a bad idea, try something hand made or a gift of some sort.
    • Don't go into debt to tip; set aside your total tipping amount before hand, then divide it up as necessary.
    • Try tipping earlier in the season, since your recipients may also be worrying about who to tip.
    • Try to pool your resources with others. For example, if you and your neighbors pitch in, you can give your doorman or building super a nicer tip.

    "Cutting holiday tips seen as chance to really say thank you" [Reuters]
    (Photo: caseywest)



  233. Don't Trust Best Buy Just Because The Open Box Item Is "Geek Squad Inspected" [Boxes Of Crap]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:35 pm MST

    Reader Adam bought an open box Blu-Ray player from Best Buy and didn't notice for 10 months that it was the wrong model. When he mentioned it to Best Buy they told him it was too late and there was nothing they could do because Adam might be just making it up.

    Adam says:

    On February 3, 2009 for 264.79 I purchased an open box Sony Blu-Ray S550 and have been more than satisfied with the player for over 10 months now. This past weekend I was making some adjustments to the sound settings and went to resync the player my TV when I noticed that the front of the player says S350. I checked the original box from the purchase and it says S550, I then checked the manual for the item and it too said S550. I was unable to check the original receipt since I could not locate it, but am willing to bet that it said S550 as well.

    I went to the store to speak with them about the issue and see if there was anything that could be done, I fully realize it has been 10 months but figured it was worth a shot. The manager of the home electronics department told me that there is nothing he can or will do about this since so much time has passed. I explained to him that I have no problem with returning the item and using the money towards towards the player I thought I was buying originally and paying the difference along with any discount he would be willing to give me.
    He again stated that there is no way for him to look into the matter because of the amount of time.

    I then asked him since he is unwilling to do anything about it, how something like this could have happened. He told me that although it is possible for the mistake to have occurred each open box sale is inspected by the Geek Squad and things like this do not occur very often and he is not going to be able to check what happened. I stated to him that this is somewhat of a common occurrence from the Geek Squad and that in the consumer world they do not have a very high confidence rating from people. He disagreed with me and said that the Geek Squad is in fact well regarded and has the highest marks in the industry for the work they perform.

    Realizing this was not going to go anywhere I asked him once more if there is anything that he can do, he once again said no. I finally told him there is something he can do, he can believe his customer and use some rational thought that since it was this long after I obviously did not become aware of the situation till now and I also did not take the player out and bring it with me, I only wanted to talk with them about what might be possible and that this is why Best Buy is losing customers to other stores because whether it is 1 day, 1 month, or 1 year after the fact, Best Buy should try to work with their customers to be sure they are fully satisfied with any purchase.

    His final words to me were "if we believed every person that came into the store with stories like this we would be out of business, because I have no way of looking into it and am not going to do anything about it."

    With that I left the store vowing to never purchase anything other than a DVD from Best Buy or a low cost item.

    Should I have checked the purchase at the time, absolutely, but I had never run in to an issue like this before and had purchased many items open box. I also refuse to believe that Best Buy could not scan the barcode on the box and see its history of original purchase and then return dates to check if it was done in a matter of days before I purchased it but he refused to investigate the issue at all.

    I ended up paying more for a used Blu-Ray than it was selling for new at the time.

    The lesson as always, check what you buy from them open box or anytime it says it was inspected by Geek Squad. Just to make myself feel better I sent off an EECB to Best Buy because if nothing else I wanted them to be aware that the store was having problems with its inspection of open box items.

    In all fairness, there's probably a limit to what they can do for you, but the idea that nothing can be done is a little silly. Our readers have gotten $50 gift certificates because someone at Best Buy was rude to them — so we're certain that they could have offered you something in order to keep your business.

    At this point, however, so many months down the road, your best bet might be to discuss this with your credit card company. We're not sure what they'll tell you, but it's worth a shot.

    Adam is absolutely right of course, that the moral of this story is to always carefully check your packages when shopping at Best Buy. Here's a post that will help keep this from happening to you.

    (Photo:epicharmus)



  234. Senator Wants Investigation Of Frequent Flyer Programs [Airlines]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 12:23 pm MST

    Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is calling for a probe of frequent flyer programs to determine whether they deliver the value that they promise. In particular, he wants the Department of Transportation to look into the issue of evaporating miles, a relatively new phenomenon brought introduced via expiration dates in recent years.

    "As the holiday travel season approaches, we cannot let airlines and credit card companies continue to fly off with hard-earned frequent flier miles," Schumer said in an announcement scheduled for Sunday. "When a consumer accumulates valuable frequent flier miles, they should not have to constantly worry that they are going to expire with little or no notification from the airline."

    [...]

    Frequent flier model programs began 20 years ago, most with no expiration dates for the benefits. In the last decade, airlines have created three-year windows for consumers to use the miles, Schumer said.

    The Air Transport Group, a industry trade group, defended its member companies by pointing out that "the system hasn't been targeted by regulators." Well, yeah. That's probably why Senator Schumer is raising the issue.

    "It's time to probe frequent-flier accounts, senator says" [USA Today]
    (Photo: Kossy@FINEDAYS)



  235. No Rebooking For People With H1N1 , So, You Know, Good Luck Flying [H1N1]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 11:59 am MST

    When I look at flight attendants I do not see mere mortals. I see heroic flying immune systems. When the zombificating superflu does eventually strike, those who survive will no doubt be ruled by former flight attendants and elementary school teachers. In the meantime, they'll somehow continue working in a "flying petri dish" as some airlines continue to refuse H1N1 as an excuse to rebook.

    People are reluctant to pay a fee to keep others healthy. From CNN:

    "When people come together, germs can come together too," said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

    "There are not that many studies about flu spreading on airplanes and trains, but anytime people are close together, there's a possibility of germs spreading."

    So it may be unsettling to discover that 51 percent of respondents in a recent online poll by TripAdvisor.com would fly while sick with the flu rather than pay a flight rebooking fee. About 2,300 people took part in the survey.

    Frequent fliers say the results are disturbing, but not surprising.

    "I do think that's an unfortunate attitude, because the airplane is like a petri dish in the sky," said Rene Foss, a flight attendant for 25 years and the spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants.

    "[But] people really are resistant to paying any extra fees."

    Of the airlines CNN looked into, only Delta let people rebook non-changeable fares with a doctor's note.

    Flying with the flu? Some may be tempted [CNN]
    (Photo:The Consumerist)



  236. Cheap Package Design Tricks People Into Dropping Motorola Droid On Floor [Cutting Corners]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 11:48 am MST

    The Motorola Droid is a sweet phone, but the box it comes in is a case study in bad package design. Where every other gadget these days comes in boxes with lids, or boxes designed to be opened in a specific manner, the Droid box can easily be opened so that the brand new phone falls to the floor.

    C.R. writes,

    I got my new Verizon Motorola Droid last week. But when I opened the box, the Droid fell to the floor. Apparently I had the box turned the wrong way. There is now a dent in my phone. It's not a major dent. The phone still works. But it's still not cool that because of a design flaw, I have to live with a damaged phone right from the get-go. I called Verizon to see if they would help, but they wouldn't do a thing. Since the phone is still in working condition, they would not replace it. I then inquired about that 30 day period where I could return the phone if I don't like it. She said that I could do that, but if the phone is physically damaged, I would be billed the full amount for the phone!!!


    He also sent us a link to a Droid owners' forum, where he posted his story and found others who had experienced the same. Here are some sample comments from that thread.

    This happened [to me] when the rep at the store opened it and I refused that one made him get me another.

    *
    This happened to me but the Verizon salesperson did it! It was Friday morning, her first droid sale ever and she opened the box upside down and the droid slammed into the side of the desk leaving little dents on each side of the screen.
    *
    This happened to me at the store when I bought it (actually before I bought it), and it hit the counter from about 2 inches high and proceeded towards the floor.
    *
    This happened to me too, but only 1-2" to my desk. Whoever put the box together is an idiot.
    *
    The customer rep did the same thing on mine!! luckily it just dropped on his keyboard

    "WARNING for new Motorola Droid users!" [DroidForums.net]



  237. Comments Off At 4pm [PSAs]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 11:10 am MST

    Comments will be shut off at 4pm eastern today for maintenance.



  238. Customer Finds Sears' Free Delivery Isn't So Free [Now You Sears, Now You Don'ts]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am MST

    Intrigued by a free delivery deal, Danielle ordered a dishwasher from Sears, but the retailer only reimbursed her $75 of the $81.19 fee.

    She explains:

    Just wondering if you've heard of this.

    I bought a dishwasher from Sears. They agreed to reimburse the $75 delivery fee since the item was over a certain amount. They charged me $75 plus $6.19 tax. I received the $75 but not the tax. Where does this "tax" money go? Shouldn't I be reimbursed for the total amount?

    Hope you can assist. I would like to escalate but I don't know how much time I can give this for $6.

    Danielle should contact Sears customer service and straighten this out. Has anyone else been overcharged for a so-called free service?

    (Photo: Meg Marco)



  239. Customer Finds Dead Mouse In Toyota [Stuart Little, Noooooo]

    → Consumerist | 23 Nov 2009 | 9:12 am MST

    Greg was replacing the speakers in his 2003 Camry and uncovered a stinky little tomb in the rear of the car. He thinks it must have happened at the plant, but I can't tell. Who wants to weigh in on whether the mouse tried to build a nest, or whether Toyota used mouse-enhanced stuffing on the assembly line? Oh, there are pics after the jump, but I made one of them less disturbing by adding a little sweater.

    About a month ago I decided to upgrade my Toyota Camry 03 Speakers from stock to JBL speakers. To go about this was no easy task. After disconnecting and fitting the new tweeters (the speakers closest to the front windshield) and the door speakers. I go about taking out the back seats, rear sidings, and carpeting in order to reach the speakers in the rear. At first, I wonder about a strong mildew smell lingering back there as I go about this task.

    As I reach for the harness on the right side I try to feel into some sort of insulation or stuffing in between the carpeting in the rear and plastic. Pulling out a chunk of stuffing to scour through feeling something like a harness, it made me question what I was holding. I see a dead mouse that I literally touched. I instantly dropped what I was holding and stood there in shock for a few minutes. You could say my heart raced and skipped as I grasp hold of what I just saw.

    A dead mouse was the last thing I would expect to find in the rear of my car. The area the mouse was in could not be easily accessed and I believe there was no way it would have gotten in the years I have owned this car. The mouse was perfectly preserved, dried out, and hollow like one of those museum animals, yet it stunk. The area the mouse was in was more or less perfectly enclosed as no air circulation enters the area. Enclosed, I have images that are not for the faint of heart.

    The odd thing is that the stuffing is only on the right side, there was none on the left side. I did remove all of the stuffing on the right side as it did not seem necessary to leave a putrid, foul pile of string and foam there. I still love my car despite this unfortunately find, the only explanation is from the Toyota factory in 2003 on the Toyota manufacturing line, a worker must have just grabbed a handful of insulation and stuck it in there not knowing there is a dead mouse among the stuffing. This has brought about the question whether in the future I should buy another Toyota Camry.

    The fact that the stuffing is only on one side makes me wonder whether the mouse tried to build a nest, but the way the mouse is packed into the stuffing makes it look like they came pre-assembled. But then, why stuff only one side of the car?

    Maybe you can ask Toyota to explain why the rear section would be stuffed that way, which will then at least help you determine whether the mouse was a factory add-on or an uninvited guest at some later point. Here's some contact info for Toyota:

    Toyota Motor Manufacturing North America
    25 Broadway, New York, NY
    (212) 785-2447‎

    Toyota Motor Sales USA Inc
    19001 S Western Ave Torrance, CA 90501-1196
    (310) 468-4000












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