oakland police funeral

On Thursday, entertainment trade publication Variety reported that an executive from film studio Lionsgate said the Wii could be equipped to stream movies as early as this year.


Are movies next?

(Credit: GameSpot)"The thing that is clearly a force in digital are the game devices," Curt Marvis, president of digital media for Lionsgate, told Variety. "I think when we see the Wii come into the market with the ability to stream movies, which I think is maybe going to happen as soon as this year, oakland police funeral I think that's going to be a big marketplace for digital distribution."

A Nintendo representative said the company doesn't comment on rumor or speculation.

The major film studios are fans of game consoles. People are used to thinking of the boxes as entertainment devices. The devices are connected to televisions so they own choice living room real estate.

3 day potty training

SAN FRANCISCO--Memristors are arguably the most important thing HP Labs is working on--it could fundamentally change the memory chip industry--but its director has no problem talking about it openly. 3 day potty training

While most hardcore research on future products is kept under heavy guard until it can be patented, HP Labs is insisting that forward-thinking technology research has to be done collaboratively and (mostly) in the open.

HP Labs underwent a major overhaul a year ago, shortly after bringing in new director Prith Banerjee. He whittled down the vast number of projects his researchers were devoted to, and laid out eight very specific areas of focus. Banerjee also impressed upon HP scientists the importance of working with both government researchers and universities to collaborate on future projects, like memristors.


An atomic force microscope view of a circuit with 17 memristors.

(Credit: J.J. Yang/HP Labs)A year later, HP Labs is now ready to discuss specific projects it is pursuing with partners at universities around the world, and in some cases with government funding. They will be officially released Monday in HP Labs' Annual Report. All of the selected projects are beyond near-term products set to debut from HP, but are usually three to seven years out, according to Rich Friedrich, director of the Open Innovation Office at HP. Forty-five professors from 35 worldwide academic institutions are involved.

The application for the projects ranges from cool consumer tech like the "Multimodal Command-and-Control By Integrating Two-Handed Gestures and Speech" collaboration with academics in India and New York to looking at new ways of harnessing information for commercial enterprise like "Workload Management for an Operational Business Intelligence Supercomputer" under research by a German professor.

It's unusual for large IT companies to work so closely with those outside of the company's own labs, 3 day potty training and more so for them to announce exactly which projects they'll be tackling.

"These are very hard problems," Banerjee said to a gathering of reporters Friday morning. He insists that his way is the only way to make significant progress in what is clearly a global market for innovation: "We can't build everything ourselves."

But all of this takes money, and when the economy is in turmoil, it's easy to imagine that anything that doesn't impact a company's bottom line immediately might be de-emphasized. Banerjee insists that is not the case at HP. While the HP Labs' annual budget of $150 million pales in comparison to HP's total research-and-development funding allotment of $3.5 billion, CEO Mark Hurd is "very supportive" of the Labs group, Banerjee said.

The Open Innovation Office has seen that firsthand. "We have more money this year than last year, 3 day potty training even though the economy is tough," Friedrich said, because HP sees that the collaborative research "is the pipeline of growth for the company."

dana carvey

Muziik is a new free music service--started by a 15-year-old and his dad--that uses music from YouTube clips. CNET News intern Erik Palm talks to reporter Greg Sandoval about how it works and what some of the obstacles could be.

Plus, the mother of another 15-year-old boy has sued Apple because her son's 16GB iPod Touch allegedly blew up in his pants pocket, dana carvey leaving him burned.

dylan ratigan

This is a story about Jerry Jalava, a Finnish software developer who lost part of his finger in a motorcycle accident last July. According to his friend, Henri Bergius, when the surgeon assigned to work on Jalava's prosthetic finger discovered his hacking history, he made a clever suggestion: incorporate a USB key into the new digit.

The prosthetic finger contains a 2GB USB key, and Jalava also loaded it with Billix distribution, CouchDBX, and Ajatus to run off the drive, throwing even more geek cred into the mix.

When Jalava needs the drive, he simply pulls it off his left hand, plugs it in, and comes back to pick it up after the transfers are finished. dylan ratigan That dispels any parallels to that scene in "Robocop" when he uses the giant spike that comes out of his hand to transfer data from the OCP criminal database to the computer in his head.

Check out more pictures of Jalava's cybernetic finger in the slideshow below, and be sure to listen to Thursday's episode of The 404 Podcast to hear 30 jokes in a row about what would happen if this were to go on another part of the body.

a new way forward

The authors of the latest variant of the Conficker worm are upping the ante against security vendors who are working to stop the spread and threat of the persistent program.

Conficker.C shuts down security services, a new way forward blocks computers from connecting to security Web sites, and downloads a Trojan. It also is programmed to begin connecting to 50,000 different domains on April 1 to receive updated copies or other malware, as opposed to connecting to 250 domains a day as previous versions are doing, Ben Greenbaum, senior research manager for Symantec Security Response, said on Friday.

The authors of the code are "strengthening their hold on their collection of infected machines at the same time they are attempting to strengthen their ability to control those machines by moving to 50,000 domains," he said.

A self-described "cabal" of companies, including Microsoft, Symantec, and a host of domain registration providers, have been trying to thwart the efforts of Conficker by pre-registering and locking up the domain names being used by the worm to distribute updates.

Now that Conficker.C is targeting 50,000 domains, the group has its work cut out for it, Greenbaum said. Regardless, "it's unknown at this point whether (boosting the domains) is an effective sidestep around the cabal's actions," he said.

The worm, also called Kido or Downadup, was first detected in November and is believed to have infected more than 10,000 computers. The first two versions exploit a vulnerability that Microsoft patched in October.

The second variant, Conficker.B, was detected last month. It added the ability to spread through network shares and via removable storage devices, like USB drives, through the AutoRun function in Windows.

Among the domains targeted by Conficker was that of Southwest Airlines, which was expected to see an increase in traffic from the botnet on Friday, Sophos said last week. However, a Southwest spokesman said there had been no impact to the site from any additional traffic as a result of Conficker.

Experts are urging computer users to apply the Microsoft patch and update their antivirus software. And this week,a new way forward Enigma Software Group and BitDefender announced free Conficker removal tools.

Conficker has proved to be such a nuisance that Microsoft has even offered a $250,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the Conficker case.

wkyt

There is now a lot more about Mars to view in Google Earth than there was just a month ago.

Google announced Friday a major update to show more details of Mars both in its history and the present day. Originally the 3D maps of Mars were available with the release of Google Earth 5.0, just a little more than a month ago. The update shows how our knowledge of Mars, wkyt and our study of astronomy, has evolved over time.

According to Google, the new update allows us to travel back in time to see the antique maps originally drawn by astronomers Giovanni Schiaparelli, Percival Lowell, and others. It also show present-day Mars with a "Live from Mars" layer, which is a continuous stream of the latest imagery, including those from NASA's THEMIS camera aboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft.

Users can have the feel of flying along with Odyssey as well as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to see what the two crafts have been observing lately and where they are headed next.

Without having used the original release of Mars 3D map, I tried the new update and loved it. After selecting Mars from the toolbar in Google Earth, I could do a 3D flight around the Red Planet.

The new update now makes the surface of Mars covered with informational layers, imagery, and terrain. I could also zoom in and out, wkyt change the camera view, or click on icon to read more about certain locations and events, most of which I didn't know that they exist before.

indicted

Killzone 2 is being celebrated by video game journalists as one of the greatest first-person shooters ever released, but the game--which takes place on Planet Helghan as war erupts all over the world--is catching some fire of its own here on Earth, around Toronto.

According to a report in The Star, indicted a Toronto newspaper, Pauline Johnson Junior Public School officials e-mailed Sony Canada after seeing more than 300 Killzone 2 ads placed on bus shelters near their school. Citing poor placement and suspect images, the officials demanded Sony remove the ads immediately out of concern for students.

"My kids, who come from a lot of different countries, who have to experience violence, who basically come here to seek shelter and safety, that's the stuff they don't need to see," Davis Mirza, a fourth and fifth grade teacher at the school, told The Star.

According to Mirza, the ads featured a "menacing head with glowing eyes" that was wearing a mask with a breathing tube as a war zone "like Iraq" was depicted behind the figure. Citing Sony's responsibility to the community, Mirza told The Star that he was upset the company wasn't doing its part to "promote any kind of community renewal or even responsibility."

Once Sony Canada received the e-mail, the ads were taken down immediately, company officials told The Star, and from now on, it will establish an advertising-free radius around schools. Sony representatives didn't indicate how far that radius would reach, but the company wants to be "sensitive to community concerns."

The idea of moving ads away from schools is probably a smart decision on the part of Sony and every other video game developer that doesn't want to upset an entire community. School officials have a point when they complain about violent video game ads around kids who aren't even old enough to buy them and Sony did the right thing by bringing the ads down and in effect, indicted admitting it was wrong.

But if Sony will start creating an advertising barrier around schools, how far away should it be? Some might say that one mile is far enough, since most kids will be on the bus by then. Others might say the advertisements can be placed within a few hundred yards from a school.

How far should violent video game ads be kept from schools?
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Polldaddy.comEither way, Sony has made the pledge to keep violent video game ads away from schools. But developing the proper radius might be difficult, since there are so many schools in most communities, leaving only certain areas available to ads. And then there's the likelihood that ads placed in these areas won't be effective because they won't be viewed by the target demographic. After all, the ads in the bus shelters were placed there for a reason: kids would see them and want the game.

While I applaud Sony for taking the ads down over community unrest, I wonder how it plans to implement its advertising-free zones, since a standard distance probably won't work around every school. indicted In fact, I'm not even sure what a fair distance would be. Does Sony know something we don't?

In trying to do good, I wonder if Sony has hindered its ability to effectively advertise.

Do you have a good idea of how far Sony should keep violent video game ads away from schools? Vote in the poll here and let us know

vince shlomi

The Symbian Foundation committed itself to an aggressive operating release schedule Friday, promising a new version of the open-source OS every six months for the next several years.

Symbian is the world's most widely used smartphone operating system, but it has been losing ground to rivals like Apple, vince shlomi Research in Motion, and Microsoft in recent months. Last year Nokia, formerly Symbian's largest shareholder, decided to revive its growth by unifying the software and releasing it under an open-source license as part of a foundation of companies.

That plan is rounding into shape, according to Symbian's David Wood. The first unified release created under the Foundation, known as Symbian^2, is expected to be "functionally complete" by the middle of this year and "hardened" (debugged) by the end of the year, meaning that devices bearing the new software could start to appear as the year closes.


Symbian is setting an aggressive schedule for making improvments to the Symbian OS.

(Credit: Symbian)
Symbian^3 is scheduled to reach functional completion around the same time, with a hardened version on tap for the middle of 2010. That means Symbian and its partners plan to make frequent updates to software, which could make it much easier to react to changing trends in how people use smartphones.

Symbian developers will start by unifying development behind the S60 user interface, relieving Symbian developers from having to choose between three distinct user interfaces. But the group is going to have to come up with something that tops--or at least matches--some of the newer projects to hit the scene, vince shlomi such as Palm's webOS, as well as something that captures the imagination of the public.

capricorn one

Facebook users just don't seem to be as young as they used to be. And they're going to the social-networking site a lot more often.

A new report from traffic tracker Hitwise shows that U.S. visits to Facebook grew 149 percent in February compared with the same month a year earlier. That pushed Facebook's market share among folks in the United States visiting social-networking Web sites to 36 percent last month, capricorn one versus 14 percent in February 2008.

Facebook stayed in second place, but it's gaining ground against the No. 1 site. In February, MySpace accounted for 52 percent of U.S. visits to social-networking sites, but that's down 28 percent from its year-earlier market share of 73 percent.

kron 4

Apple got people talking this week on topics ranging from the merits (and demerits) of the tiny new buttonless iPod Shuffle to predictions about what it has in store for an upcoming iPhone 3.0 event.

Technology watchers--particularly those focused on trends in gadgetry--put on a collective smile Tuesday morning when Apple announced its latest version of the iPod Shuffle.

The grin wasn't necessarily out of excitement for the new Shuffle, which is smaller than a AA battery and also recites song titles, kron 4 artists, and playlist names to help with navigation despite the lack of any screen on the device. It was more likely the recollection of that far-fetched but increasingly poignant spoof iPod Flea video that stormed the blogosphere several years ago. In the video by Photoshop maven Scott Kelby, the iPod Flea--bearing a striking resemblance to a Tic Tac mint--pokes fun at Apple's shrinking music players and the related accessory industry. That video came before a similar "Saturday Night Live" skit featuring Steve Jobs presenting the iPod "pequeno" followed by the invisible "invisa."

Photos: The wee little Shuffle
And here we are: the new iPod isn't quite mint-sized, but it does look much like a stick of minty gum. It immediately took some heat for being too small, shunning compatibility with third-party headphones without a special adapter, and for the fact that it doesn't have a screen or even any buttons. Some have come to the new Shuffle's defense, but one CNET contributor even went as far as calling it a disaster. Although that same writer, David Carnoy, later came around and realized that the real story may be that the Shuffle's "VoiceOver" feature is a precursor to Apple launching an entire new voice interface for its whole line of mobile products.

Despite taking some flak, the Shuffle's new interface did generate a lot of interest. Upon getting their hands on it, blog iFixIt immediately tore it apart to see what was inside. And CNET's Donald Bell gave it a generally favorable review.


But the Shuffle isn't the only thing Apple had up its sleeve this week. It also got people buzzing about what's next when it announced on Wednesday a March 17 invitation-only event to discuss a new iPhone SDK and an updated version of the iPhone software.

CNET News' Tom Krazit says this could explain why the company has been slow to offer renewals for current SDK licenses, as it might be requiring developers to sign a whole new agreement. While the software will be the main attraction, developers will be closely watching for details about how the new SDK will affect their businesses.

On the software front, judging by the comments about the event, iPhone users are looking for Apple to finally bring cut-and-paste capability to the device. Of all the advancements Apple has planned for the iPhone 3.0 software, that's probably the one users are hoping for the most. Click here for more of Krazit's take on what to expect from iPhone 3.0.

And in other product news, Krazit sorts through some of the Apple tablet and Netbook rumors and ponders the possibility the company is looking at a future e-book store or reader.

Also from Apple this week came the release of iTunes 8.1, which adds support for the newly released iPod Shuffles, along with some security fixes, promised new Genius features, and support for CD imports to iTunes Plus. Security-wise, the update includes a fix for a vulnerability that could lead to theft of usernames and passwords if a podcast containing malware were subscribed to.

Microsoft
Microsoft did a lot of looking ahead this week. kron 4 Microsoft won't say how many people are running its cloud operating system, Windows Azure, but the numbers are growing. Senior Director Steven Martin said they are "approving more and more developers every day." And while much of the mainstream tech world is still getting its head around what exactly Azure will be, some software companies are already digging in and writing Azure code. Since it was announced in October, Microsoft hasn't said much about Azure. But expect more details at next week's Mix conference in Las Vegas.

On the desktop side, Redmond says it's done some work to make sure Windows 7 can run on Netbooks, the fashionable PCs du jour. It will offer a low-cost version of Windows 7 that can be run on less expensive Netbooks; that would obviously mean less profits. However, Microsoft thinks the line between traditional laptops and Netbooks will soon blur, and people will demand more performance in a smaller container, meaning there is still a future for a more full-blown version of Windows 7 in that field.

With Windows 7, it's also making an effort to "rescue" some apps that wouldn't run on Windows Vista, by making sure they will run on Windows 7. A few of the now-Windows-friendly programs include the Spanish-language IKEA Home Kitchen Planner, a German version of QuickTime, and the Arabic program Khalifa Cartoon Characters Creator.

Microsoft divulged a few new details--primarily of interest to developers--about its upcoming Windows Marketplace. The online store will sell apps that run on Windows Mobile devices and is expected to launch later this year.

The software maker will charge developers $99 a year to register, plus $99 for each application they submit to get a program into the app store. Developers who choose to charge for their programs will keep 70 percent of the proceeds, the same percentage Apple pays its App Store developers and slightly less than Research In Motion has said it will give for its forthcoming store.

Microsoft also added to its mouse and keyboard lines with its unusually shaped Arc Mouse--and there's nary a beige one in the bunch. It also stepped into a new realm in hardware with its Notebook Cooling Base, an inch-thick stand with a built-in fan that keeps the temperature of a laptop down.

Also of note
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival, which kicked off Friday in Austin, Texas, has seen explosive growth...Palm still hasn't said how much the upcoming Pre will cost, but we now know that the phone's service will be priced in line with Sprint's other smartphone services...AOL named a former Google exec as its new CEO...IBM took the wraps off a bevy of technologies with a distinctively social-network flavor...Obama's CIO has temporarily stepped down after FBI raids ex-employer...Facebook rolled out a new Twitter-like home page...Steve Wozniak got called a "Teletubby going mad" on "Dancing with the Stars" and then suffered a foot fracture...Google launched Google Voice, kron 4 a sort of middleman for phone calls that, among other things, automatically transcribed voice mails.

amanda knox

Not everyone is as lucky as we are to work adjacent to a hotel with a fresh supply of taxicabs pulling up to its curb. When you're stuck without a ride, cab-calling applications can make ordering a taxi through local companies a surer, safer thing than throwing yourself in the middle of a darkened street and flailing your arms wildly.

A recent application we've looked at, RideCharge for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile (www.ridecharge.com from the mobile browser), not only lets you order a cab from your phone without placing a call,amanda knox but it also has you enter a credit card payment when the ride is complete--tip, too. To round out the service, RideCharge e-mails a a receipt to print for your records, or for an expense report.


iPhone's RideCharge application, Taxi Magic, doesn't have cashless payment yet.

(Credit: CNET)Adding mobile payment to the cab-calling concept gives RideCharge additional layers of service and convenience. On a GPS-enabled phone, you'll receive notifications when your cab is dispatched and can track its progress to your destination. You just have to be comfortable paying with your phone, and paying RideCharge a convenience surcharge per ride--$1.50 for a taxi or shuttle and $3 for a limo or sedan, like the kind business travelers might take to the airport.

Yet quite a few scenarios for these business travelers, and regular Janes and Joes, would obviate the need to ever use RideCharge. Most hotels, for instance, have taxi ranks or concierge services that will flag you a ride. If you're somewhere stationary, you could easily spare the extra minute to call a dispatcher from a free listings application or Web site. However, RideCharge will have its uses for pedestrians struggling to find a cab, and for those who would rather use a sure thing than search, or who would rather type than talk.

For Apple fans, RideCharge also offers a far sexier version for iPhone and iPod Touch. Called Taxi Magic, the free application also lets you ping a cab company for a pick-up in about 30 U.S. cities and track the cab's progress, but doesn't yet have an integrated mobile payment function--which means no surcharge for now. If there's no partnered taxi company to take your order, amanda knox the application lists phone numbers you can call from the iPhone.

job listing

Not everyone is as lucky as we are to work adjacent to a hotel with a fresh supply of taxicabs pulling up to its curb. When you're stuck without a ride, cab-calling applications can make ordering a taxi through local companies a surer, job listing safer thing than throwing yourself in the middle of a darkened street and flailing your arms wildly.

A recent application we've looked at, RideCharge for BlackBerry and Windows Mobile (www.ridecharge.com from the mobile browser), not only lets you order a cab from your phone without placing a call, but it also has you enter a credit card payment when the ride is complete--tip, too. To round out the service, RideCharge e-mails a a receipt to print for your records, or for an expense report.


iPhone's RideCharge application, Taxi Magic, doesn't have cashless payment yet.

(Credit: CNET)Adding mobile payment to the cab-calling concept gives RideCharge additional layers of service and convenience. On a GPS-enabled phone, you'll receive notifications when your cab is dispatched and can track its progress to your destination. You just have to be comfortable paying with your phone, and paying RideCharge a convenience surcharge per ride--$1.50 for a taxi or shuttle and $3 for a limo or sedan, like the kind business travelers might take to the airport.

Yet quite a few scenarios for these business travelers, and regular Janes and Joes, would obviate the need to ever use RideCharge. Most hotels, for instance, have taxi ranks or concierge services that will flag you a ride. If you're somewhere stationary, you could easily spare the extra minute to call a dispatcher from a free listings application or Web site. However, RideCharge will have its uses for pedestrians struggling to find a cab, job listing and for those who would rather use a sure thing than search, or who would rather type than talk.

For Apple fans, RideCharge also offers a far sexier version for iPhone and iPod Touch. Called Taxi Magic, the free application also lets you ping a cab company for a pick-up in about 30 U.S. cities and track the cab's progress, but doesn't yet have an integrated mobile payment function--which means no surcharge for now. If there's no partnered taxi company to take your order, the application lists phone numbers you can call from the iPhone.

tom izzo

Apple developers have been having a tough time renewing their iPhone development licenses, according to reports. For them, tom izzo the company had some good news Friday: the licensing for all developers has been extended to July 11--one year after the opening of the iTunes App Store.

Additionally, Apple announced that licensing renewals will begin in May, a full 60 days prior to the developer program expiration date. Developers got the news in an e-mail.

william rast

If you like Google Reader, but would prefer to keep it from taking up an oh-so-important tab in your browser, you'll definitely like GReader Popup. This experimental Firefox extension pulls up a version of Google Reader that sits atop any page you have open. You can plow through feeds using all the usual keyboard shortcuts you would in Google Reader. william rast Then, when done, you simply click the icon in the bottom right hand corner of your browser and it goes away.

No fuss, no tab switching, and most importantly--more real estate in your browser for extra tabs.

It's a wonderfully simple tool, and built off the same idea behind GCal Popup, which does the same thing but for Google Calendar. With both installed you can hop to specific Google apps from any page, using the bottom part of your browser like an application launcher, or by learning the two-button keyboard shortcut that pulls it up.

My one qualm is that it does a hit or miss job at resizing Google Reader to fit your browser. I had parts of the interface cut off, even when running it on a 1600x1050 screen. If you're trying it out on a small laptop or Netbook this can be a deal-killer.

willie aames

I arrived at the Austin Convention Center 45 minutes before the start of a talk on Friday afternoon that I was hoping to catch, "The Ecosystem of News" led by Outside.in founder Steven Johnson. Unfortunately, willie aames that wasn't enough time: the line-waiting time was clocking in at around an hour.

By the time I made it over to the room where Johnson's talk was being held, the room was full and no one else was being allowed in. There was no simulcast. (Luckily, my colleague Daniel Terdiman was there to see what Johnson had to say.)

The conference that's arguably the biggest must-attend for the digitally edgy has a check-in process that was painfully analog; I've been to plenty of big tech-industry trade shows and I've never waited for that long in line. Granted, with the number of concerts and film screenings that are part of the two other South by Southwest extravaganzas (SXSW Music and SXSW Film) are a big draw, and SXSW is consequently more likely to have to deal with people making counterfeit badges and sneaking into events than, say, the Web 2.0 Expo. And to be fair, SXSW Film attendees were waiting in the same line as those for SXSWi.

But still. You don't want the biggest topic of conversation at Day 1's after-parties to be the fact that it took an hour just to check in. Here's my suggestion for SXSWi 2010: Have a contest to revolutionize the conference check-in process. It's going to be especially crucial if SXSWi continues to grow. There are so many creative minds that come to this event every year; there would certainly be some interesting ideas.

eri yoshida

AUSTIN, Texas--The future of news is not breadlines for journalists, a lack of reporting on politicians' scandals, and a dearth of coverage of what's really going on behind the lines of wars around the world.

In fact, a surprisingly optimistic author Steven Johnson said Friday during his talk, "The Ecosystem of News," at the South by Southwest Interactive festival (SXSWi), there's actually a bright future for news and the best hope for a vibrant, effective,eri yoshida and worthwhile news-gathering community is to look back at the model set over the last decade or so in technology journalism.


Steven Johnson
These days, there's no shortage of signs that the news business is collapsing in on itself, unable to develop a modern business model, and confused by how to tackle the threats posed by online classified sites like Craigslist and amateur bloggers posting news items obsessively and continuously.

And where many see these signs pessimistically as proof that the news business as we know it is dead, Johnson, whose books include "The Invention of Air" and "Emergence," sees the same fate as a good thing. After all, he suggested, why cling to failed systems when new ones that are rising to meet the needs of the future are emerging all on their own?

Johnson began his talk by framing what he called "old growth media," the traditional combination of newspapers, magazines, and television news. He recalled how, when he was in college in the late 1980s, he used to stalk his local bookstore around the same time every month, eager for the latest issue of Macworld.

Back in those days, he said, the best way to get the most recent news about what Apple was up to was to read periodicals like Macworld. Yet, with the long lead times of monthly magazines, that latest news was always several months late, Johnson said. Later, when things like CompuServe came along, he was able to compress the timeframe for getting the most up-to-date Apple news to a few days by downloading the most recent issue of Macweek.

And then along came the Web, and sites like MacInTouch.com, Apple's first site, rumor blogs, and fan sites, Johnson said, which made it finally possible to get the latest Mac news in near real-time. "Now the lag is seconds," Johnson said, "thanks to people liveblogging every passing phrase from a Steve Jobs speech."

Today, he said, many people are panicking as newspapers fail left and right, and as they see the likelihood that as a result, the crucial newsgathering role played by professional journalists will disappear with their dying employers. Yet the example set in technology journalism should give such pessimists something to feel good about, Johnson said.

And just because the impressive advances in newsgathering on the Web were seen first in technology journalism doesn't mean they won't spread to more mainstream--read: important--topics like local government, crime, and so forth.

"The Web...just has a tendency to cover technology first," Johnson said, "because the first people to use the Web were much more interested in technology than" things like school board meetings.

The point? That the model is established, and that for consumers of news, the example set in technology news should be cause for optimism, even if not for the health of the traditional news business. And the proof? Johnson pointed to politics, and the coverage of presidential campaigns.

He said that the first campaign he followed closely was in 1992. His main sources for the most up-to-date news were TV shows like CNN's "Crossfire" and magazines like Newsweek, The New Republic, and The New Yorker. At the same time, he said he watched each of that year's debates religiously and stayed up late to devour the post-game analysis on networks like CNN.

And while all of those outlets still existed during the 2008 election (except "Crossfire"), eri yoshida someone sticking to them last fall would have been hopelessly out of the loop compared to the millions of people who were obsessively glued to the Internet, which was delivering an unbelievable amount of coverage of all kinds about the election.

Johnson talked about how blogs like TalkingPointsMemo.com, HuffingtonPost.com, FiveThirtyEight.com, DailyKos, and Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish--one could determine his political bent by the sites he mentioned--served up a steady flow of breaking news and in-depth analysis never before possible during a presidential election. Add that to the fact that he could watch the debates with "a thousand virtual friends Twittering away with me" and the fact that as many as 8 million people watched President Obama's famous race speech on YouTube, and it's obvious that the political news ecosystem, like that of technology, has found a way to move past the antiquated models of just a few years ago.

"What's happening with technology and politics is happening elsewhere as well," Johnson said, "just on a different timetable."

Local news, once the lifeblood of newspapers, is unlikely to be so in the future. Papers like The New York Times can no longer afford to cover neighborhood stories that interest a small subsection of a much larger readership. Yet, it's those very issues that are of most interest to the people in those neighborhoods, Johnson said.

"Most of what we care about in our local lives is in the long tail," he said, referring to the ability of the Web to bring news about the smallest events to those who want it. And, of course, even the Times itself is now starting to cover neighborhoods with blogs.

"Five years from now, if someone gets mugged within a half-mile of my house," Johnson said, "and I don't get an e-mail alert about it within half an hour, it'll be a sign that something is broken."

And as more and more of this long tail-type of news is covered by those other than professional journalists, Johnson argued, it might well free up those professionals to work on the very kinds of stories that people worry they won't be able to do in the future: war coverage, investigations, and the like.

The key, then, will be for the traditional publications to serve the role of public gatekeepers, or filterers of the flood of information coming in from the amateur Web. And that, Johnson suggested, would be a natural task for the editors of institutions known for their authority: newspapers and TV news networks. And while the readership of physical newspapers has plummeted, the numbers for those publications' online sites has risen dramatically, eri yoshida proving that the audience is still there.

In the end, however, it will be the entire ecosystem of news that will bring the full value to news consumers. It will be social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, which can serve as link circulators, as well as large group filters like Digg and, yes, professional journalists and editors. All together, the news will get covered, Johnson said.

The problem is that what should have been a 10-year ecosystem evolution for the news business has been forced into a much more compressed timeframe by today's financial exigencies. And this sense of panic has caused us, as a society, to lose sight of what, in Johnson's view, is a very positive long-term change.

breville citrus press

On Tuesday, Microsoft released a patch for a hole in Windows 2000 and Server 2003 and 2008 that could allow an attacker to redirect network traffic to a malicious site that has been set to serve as a proxy.

The vulnerability, rated important by Microsoft, allows IT managers to set a Windows Proxy Auto-Discovery, or WPAD, entry in the DNS. breville citrus press If IE or Firefox are configured to "automatically detect settings," the browser will connect to the proxy machine.

This is a useful feature for corporations that want to set up their own proxy server for monitoring employee Web use and for security purposes. But it also could allow for a man-in-the-middle type of attack if an outsider were able to set the WPAD entry through a dynamic DNS update so that the traffic is diverted to a malicious IP address.

The patch solves the problem for systems with no WPAD entry in the DNS, by blocking future queries for WPAD. But for systems with a WPAD entry, the patch does nothing.

IT managers who install the patch could be given a false sense of security that any compromised systems have been fixed, said Tyler Reguly, senior security research engineer at nCircle, who contacted Microsoft and wrote a blog post about his concerns the same night Microsoft released its update.

In a blog post the following day, Reguly said a Microsoft representative told him the company chose to leave existing WPAD entries untouched because it is not possible to differentiate legitimate WPAD entries from ones loaded by an attacker.

But Microsoft could at least have included a pop-up message in that instance, warning users that the DNS has a WPAD entry, and maybe even ask if they want to keep it or block it, Reguly said.

"I understand the need to preserve functionality, but not at the cost of sweeping security issues under the rug," he wrote.

In response to the concerns, Microsoft issued a more detailed technical note on the update on Friday that said the company didn't want to impair functionality and chose not to risk breaking any administrator configurations in the possibility that the WPAD was not legitimate, even if it means an attack would continue to be effective.

"This is indeed not a scenario the security update, or any security update released by Microsoft aims to address," the Microsoft note says. "Security updates are intended to help protect the system against future exploitation, and don't aim to undo any attack that has taken place in the past."

The note then provides instructions for how an administrator can validate the IP address assigned to the WPAD entry in the DNS.

In a telephone interview with CNET News late on Friday, breville citrus press Reguly remained disappointed with how Microsoft implemented its fix for the problem.

"They could have done things to mitigate the fact that they chose function over security," he said. "They also could have modified DNS so you couldn't do dynamic updates with WPAD."

ralph wilson

When President Clinton signed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act into law 11 years ago, he predicted it will "protect from digital piracy the copyright industries that comprise the leading export of the United States."

The DMCA turned out to be much broader than that. ralph wilson This week, an e-book Web site said Amazon.com invoked the 1998 law to prevent books from some non-Amazon sources from working on its Kindle reader.

Amazon sent a legal notice to MobileRead.com complaining that information relating to a computer utility written in the Python programming language "constitutes a violation" of the DMCA, according to a copy of the warning letter that the site posted. MobileRead.com is an e-book news and community site.

MobileRead.com forum moderator Alexander Turcic said in a post on Thursday that although he did not believe the program violated the law, the site would "voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it." Turcic said that, contrary to Amazon's claim, his site never "hosted" the software.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The author of the software in question, titled Kindlepid.py, is listed as Igor Skochinsky, a hardware hacker who performed a remarkable analysis of the Kindle and described in December 2007 how he was able to gain access to the device.

It's unclear why Amazon waited so long to respond with a legal threat, and why the company targeted MobileRead.com: Skochinsky's original blog post about Kindlepid.py is dated December 2007, and the copy of the Kindlepid.py software hosted at the Googlepages.com Web-page posting site is still available for download at http://skochinsky.googlepages.com/azw-0.2.zip.

Kindlepid.py and a related piece of accompanying Python code don't allow piracy. Rather, they accomplish something akin to the opposite: they allow legally purchased books from other e-book stores to be used on the Kindle. (Amazon owns MobiPocket, one of those stores. Another would be OverDrive.com, which counts schools and libraries as customers.)

In theory, at least, this could threaten Amazon's business model, which provides wireless connectivity through Sprint's EV-DO cellular data network and covers the cost through items purchased from the Amazon Kindle Store. Kindle customers can also e-mail themselves documents to be converted at 10 cents per conversion.

A copy of a MobileRead.com wiki page--now empty--saved in Google's cache says Kindlepid.py allows you to "obtain books from sites that use DRM (Digital Rights Management - encryption) on their books for specific devices. ralph wilson This includes book sellers and public libraries." It provides instructions on how to install and use the software.

MobileRead.com readers with Kindles were not pleased with Amazon. "What this script does is make the Kindle more useful," wrote one reader. "With Amazon using the DMCA to get rid of this, they are alienating their customers and causing prospective customers to purchase a different device."

And the Kindlefix.py code is already being mirrored, including in a post on Slashdot.org.

Section 1201 of the DMCA says: "No person shall... offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology... is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

One exception to the DMCA's general rule, however, comes a few paragraphs later. It says circumvention is permissible for "interoperability" of computer programs, with interoperability defined as the "ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged."

If Amazon were to press its case against Kindlefix.py, another legal claim could involve reverse engineering, which is prohibited by the Kindle terms of use. They say users may not "circumvent any of the functions or protections of the Device or Software or any mechanisms operatively linked to the Software, ralph wilson including, but not limited to, augmenting or substituting any digital rights management functionality of the Device or Software."

irving r levine

I've always been a little suspicious of the Scout movement.

The uniforms. The slightly too correct and frightfully ancient hairstyles of some of the senior members. The Scout Promise that gets boys to promise: "To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, irving r levine and morally straight." And gets every girl to declare she will: "respect myself and others, respect authority, use resources wisely, make the world a better place, and be a sister to every Girl Scout."

Now these strangely clothed beings have gone a little too far. They have trampled upon Wild Freeborn.

Wild Freeborn is not some secluded territory in the depths of North Carolina. Wild Freeborn is an 8-year-old Girl Scout from the depths of North Carolina.

Her task in these economically difficult times was to sell 12,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Enough, surely, to cause a significant depletion in the population of North Carolina. But let's not inflate that.

Because Wild Freeborn decided to use a little wild, free enterprise. She went to her Dad--no, not Axl, but Bryan--and asked him to help her achieve this monstrous goal. Bryan is a Web designer. Bryan loves his daughter.

So her helped her make a YouTube video in which she coined the memorable line: "Buy cookies--they're yummy."

She sold 700 boxes (at $3.50 each, in case you were wondering).


Creating tomorrow? Tomorrow being 1962, perhaps.

(Credit: CC Aka Kath)
Of course, there was just one tiny, strangely dressed problem: The Girl Scouts of the USA. Specifically, the fact that the group bans Internet sales.

A representative for the Girl Scouts, Denise Pesich, told NBC's "Today" show: "We want to make sure that whatever the girl is doing is integrated into the program that she's studying. We want to make sure we are in the development stages of a technological platform that will integrate it and be fair and equitable for all girls. But more importantly, it's girl safety at its core."

Pesich acknowledged that she had no fears for Wild's safety because her father was overseeing her effort but insisted she couldn't guarantee it would be the same with all children.

Haven't you ever seen little girls selling cookies with no adults in sight? I certainly have.

Bryan Freeborn believes he and Wild were doing nothing wrong as they were limiting their orders to buyers in their immediate area, irving r levine so that they could deliver them personally.

"The whole intent was to help my daughter meet her goals, utilizing up-to-date marketing principles," he told the morally straight Matt Lauer of NBC.

But up-to-date is surely not a phrase one could readily attach to all of these scouty people. So now Wild Freeborn is faced with having to sell 12,000 boxes of cookies the old-fashioned way: standing outside supermarkets, staying physically strong, remaining mentally awake, and annoying people into submission. Can this really be "using resources wisely"?

foxy knoxy

The Linux Foundation's "We're Linux" ad campaign has entered its final hours, with submissions due at midnight Sunday Pacific time.

The Linux Foundation has received more than 40 user-generated video submissions that I and the other judges will begin reviewing next week. foxy knoxy The winner will be announced April 8.

To learn a bit more about the Linux Foundation's motivations in starting the contest, I spoke with Amanda McPherson, vice president of marketing and developer programs at the Linux Foundation and a founding member of its management team.

Q: The Linux Foundation has built a reputation for connecting closely with developers and the rest of the community, for growing and helping to coordinate the Linux ecosystem. But why run a video contest?

McPherson: The Apple and Windows advertising campaigns have gotten a lot of attention. In fact, during football season I couldn't get away from either of those campaigns. I was expanding our online community tools and realized that we should let the community express their passion for Linux through video.

Of course, we don't have the budget to produce TV-quality advertisements, and in fact we wouldn't take that top-down approach even if we could, but through the contest the community has the power to showcase Linux in their own voice. And it's so natural. Linux is user-generated technology. Why shouldn't Linux also be promoted by the community?

What has the response been so far?

McPherson: I was not prepared for how interesting, varied, and thoughtful a response we'd get. The contest has produced more fascinating content than I ever expected. That being said, these are clearly user-generated, meaning you won't find a lot of professional, polished videos so far. And, yes, some are certainly better than others, but that is part of the fun.

Importantly, each one, no matter how "unique," represents the diversity of the community. Part of that uniqueness derives from the international flavor of many of the submissions. We've received videos from France, Venezuela, and Malaysia, among other countries.

Regardless of the country, the sincerity and extra effort shines through in every video. There is great use of music, including the blues, attempts at 3D animations, and decent touches of humor to top it off.

I can't wait to see them....Is there still time to submit a video?

McPherson: There's still time, but not much: submit your videos by midnight Sunday.

Once you do, be sure to get out the vote. foxy knoxy You and the other judges will begin reviewing the videos next week, but community votes and the number of times each video has been viewed will have major influence in determining the winner. One video has already been viewed 15,000 times.

What do laggards need to do to participate?

McPherson: The "We're Linux" contest runs until midnight Pacific Time this Sunday, March 15...so it's coming down to the wire, but there's still a little time to get in an entry.

It's pretty simple to do. All you have to do is create a video that explains why Linux is great. Lest you feel overwhelmed, we're not looking for entries of "Lawrence of Arabia" duration: it needs to be under a minute.

For example, you could do a parody of the "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" ads, but that is just one possibility. In fact, most have not gone that route. I'll leave it to you and to the voting community to see for yourselves just how creative the Linux community can be.

It's a contest, so there must be a prize beyond egoboo. Yes?

Yes. The winner will receive a free trip to Tokyo, Japan, to participate in the Linux Foundation Japan Linux Symposium in October 2009.

Just as not everyone is a Linux developer,foxy knoxy not everyone is necessarily a filmmaker either. No problem. For those that can't can't contribute a video, we hope they'll enjoy the work of those that have, and will vote. That's what makes community tick.

whitestone bridge

Baseball season is almost under way. So it's time we all get online and start forming our fantasy leagues. Perennial favorite sites from ESPN, Yahoo, and MLB.com will probably top the list for most people when they decide which service to use, but more goes into fantasy baseball than simply signing up for leagues. whitestone bridge What about stats? Did you forget about the news? Did you happen to remember scouting tools?

Hear are the rest of the sites you need.


Step 1: Form the league
There are a number of fine league-building services out there, but if you want to have the best experience, stick to these selected few:

CBS Sports Not only is CBS Sports' Fantasy Baseball league free, it provides real-time scoring, live chat so you can talk with buddies during the game, and adequate player news and stats to help you make more informed decisions. I've used it a few times over the past five years and find it to be easy to use and high-powered for a private or public league. Disclosure: CBS Sports and CNET are owned by the same parent company: CBS.


ESPN Fantasy Baseball provides an easy-to-use interface.

(Credit: Don Reisinger/CNET)ESPN Fantasy Baseball I've also used ESPN's fantasy sports services for years, and I've been impressed with how much they offer. Leagues are free, player news and stats come straight from ESPN, one of the best sources for sports news, and managing your team couldn't be easier. But ESPN's penchant for charging for extra scouting help and more in-depth player information is annoying.

MLB.com If you want the most basic offering for your fantasy baseball league, you'll probably want to use Major League Baseball's service. It's free and makes it easy to set up a league. But I'm generally unimpressed with its stat tracking, and managing a team isn't nearly as easy as it is in competing services. whitestone bridge It's a well-known fantasy site, but it's not the best.

Yahoo Sports Yahoo was one of the first companies to start fantasy leagues. More than a decade later, it's still providing an outstanding experience. All the leagues are free, player information is always up-to-date and reliable, and the service's stat tracking is second to none. Yahoo does charge some hefty fees for access to a draft kit ($9.99) and a scouting report ($14.99), but it's still a great service.

bo burnham

Sometimes our best intentions give way to our worst, for a wide variety of reasons. This is as true of corporate amalgamations of individuals as it is of those individuals on their own, and it's as true for open-source companies as it is for proprietary companies.bo burnham

Community is the tonic that keeps corporate aspirations in line, just as community helps to keep individuals walking the straight and narrow of societal norms. As The Economist recently highlighted, new research suggests that "having a crowd around often makes things better."

In other words, while we normally point to crowds as motivations for mob violence and such, it may be that crowds more often have a pacifying than an inflammatory effect on explosive situations.

For open-source companies increasingly experimenting with models that flavor open-source code with proprietary complements, it's imperative that we guard against backsliding into the lock-in of the past proprietary decades. The way to ensure this is to spend as much time cultivating community as we do devising commercial add-ons to our otherwise open-source products.

There's safety in community. Safety from the company's best intentions getting clouded by its worst. Safety for customers.

I've written before that I think a transparent distinction and delivery of an open-source core and proprietary add-ons can be beneficial to one's community. Most open-source businesses will find it hard to scale on a support-only revenue diet and given that big customers want their vendors to scale to reduce their investment risk, bo burnham a conflict erupts that is much easier to manage with a hybrid approach.

But community is critical to ensuring the company doesn't devote so much of its development resources to the proprietary bits that the core gets forgotten or, that if it does, the community can thrive in the company's absence. A crowd can help avert violence. In open source, it can also help prevent good intentions going bad.

true mom confessions

"Daily Show" host Jon Stewart ran a clip of stock commentator Jim Cramer, in which Cramer explained how to manipulate the markets, true mom confessions including Apple's shares.

Stewart showed the clip on Thursday during the now-infamous interview of Cramer. Here is the full clip for your enjoyment/depression/entertainment.

billy donovan

It might just be another weekend for you, but it is another 48 hours toward the quickstep of his life for Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Those who have become intimately entwined (and there's not enough of you--more on that in a short while) with the Woz's quixotic quest for glory on "Dancing with the Stars" will know that he has experienced a week sent by Satan. billy donovan

The judges on the show poo-pooed his cha-cha. Then he discovered that his foot had given way to the pressure and fractured.

Still, you will be delighted to hear that the Woz may have bent a little, but he is not broken. In the latest missive published on his Facebook Support Group page, the Woz reveals that there has been sweating (a lot of sweating, if last week's show is anything to go by) but no Segwaying.

The Woz said: "I'm avoiding Segways somewhat." Which may be good for both his foot and his image. More importantly, he is rehearsing his quickstep beyond the drying ability of any antiperspirant.

"Basically, my foot is getting better each day. I didn't need a single stop to ice the foot the last 2 days and I only stop practice to dry off and rest my body," he wrote. The pain is on the inside of the foot, rather than the bottom, which is, apparently, extremely good news.

It seems the Woz has become wirelessly connected to his artistic side: "My attitude is changing. I'm trying less to look at my steps from inside me, and more from how I look to someone on the outside. It's a major shift in how I visualize what I'm doing. It helps me smile at the audience more."


Karina Smirnoff and Steve Wozniak--who could resist?

(Credit: ABC)
He is also hobnobbing with the stars. Denise Richards (whose did a fine interpretation of a prey-less praying mantis last week) has become a friend. He's even had dinner with Melissa SomethingOrOther, the former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who was dumped by the Bachelor. billy donovan (Yes, "Dancing with the Stars" is her third reality show.)

Finally, the Woz reveals that he will be walking his professional partner, Karina Smirnoff, down the aisle at her forthcoming wedding to Denise Richards' professional partner, Maksim Chmerkovskiy.

Now here's the thing. With all of this wild excitement, with all of this journeying into vast unchartered and uncha-cha'd territory, how is it that the tech world seems not be participating in the Woz's journey? His Facebook Support Group numbers barely 2,000.

This compares rather unfavorably with, for example, the Nameless Group against All Offensive Groups--which numbers 74,165. Or even Melissa SomethingOrOther's No. 1 Official Fan Club, which enjoys 3,560 devotees.

It is also but a speck in the firmament compared to the 1,428,142 who have committed themselves to "I Don't Care How Comfortable Crocs Are, You Look Like A Dumbass."

How is it that the tech world is so singularly failing to socially network with the Woz's blood, sweat and, um, sweat? His second appearance will air on Monday night. Voting occurs immediately after the show. The Woz is counting on you to be there for him.

josh blue

I just read that in-game advertising company IGA Worldwide is struggling. Obviously the economic downturn isn't helping anyone. josh blue But video games have stayed strong and as more games use Internet connections for new content, one would expect such a company to be doing well.

It appears that if IGA falters it may be its own fault, having made some bad deals for upfront payments. But that's only part of the story. The bigger issue is that in-game advertising is not like other mediums and requires the industry as a whole to mature.

The current problem is that every in-game advertisement is a custom project. You can't just pop in text or graphics as you do with an ad network such as Google or Yahoo and have it appear correctly in a video game.

Even if games use the same engine, it doesn't mean that the developers have implemented everything the same way. Unlike Flash or Java games, you are dealing with a vast array of different technologies (3D and trapezoids and such) that are not common in other advertising scenarios.

Let's assume that the technology problems can be solved. What are some of the business issues facing in-game advertising?


Lack of standards. The ad buyer working off a spreadsheet sticks to what they know and will slot their ads into places that they know will work (for better or worse).
Few success stories. The biggest success story to date is the Obama campaign's usage of ads in Madden and other select games
Lack of vendor options. josh blue It's bad enough that there are only a few big game publishers left. Forced customized ads that aren't dynamically changeable makes the whole the process less appealing. At least with a banner ad you can move between networks.

willie aames

AUSTIN, Texas--By now, the story of how Twitter exploded onto the scene at the 2007 South by Southwest festival is legend in technology circles.

But here at SXSW 2009, the notion of the perfect match among community, service, and event seems flipped on its head.willie aames Many people are discovering that a monumental oversaturation of tweets is reversing the value that Twitter offered at SXSW 2007 and SXSW 2008 for finding friends and great parties.

At SXSW, the standard is for everyone to include the tag "#sxsw" in their tweets. For example, on Friday, I was looking for sources for a different story and tweeted, "If you are launching an iPhone app at #sxsw, or know someone who is, please let me know. Thanks!"

That's a great convention because it allows anyone wanting to know what's going on to search Twitter for posts using any search term important to them. That has proven useful for people wanting to find out what's going on after earthquakes, the Mumbai terrorist attacks, the Hudson River airplane crash, and many other events. At SXSW in 2007 and 2008, this was a big part of how people navigated their experiences.

At a conference with scores of panels and seemingly just as many parties, being able to determine what's worthwhile is crucial for people trying to get the most out of their time here.

This year because of the conference's impressive growth and Twitter's broader mainstream appeal, it has become almost impossible to find the same value as in the past. I did a search for the "#sxsw" tag on Saturday afternoon and found that there had been 392 tweets with the term in just the previous 10 minutes. That number mushroomed to more than 1,500 in the previous hour.


There were nearly 400 tweets using the #sxsw tag in just 10 minutes during the SXSW conference on Saturday afternoon.

(Credit: Twitter)While those numbers demonstrate that people here are without question using Twitter like never before, it also means that it's never been harder to find what you're looking for amid the flood of posts about the panels, barbecue, Web celebrity spottings, and deep thoughts about social media.

This has forced people accustomed to relying on simple Twitter searches to get creative to find the nuggets they need.

"I've been purposefully putting the ("#sxsw") tag...to as many things as I can, even just going to my hotel," said David Kadavy, a user-interface designer from Chicago. "I started looking (for the tag) at first. But there was just so much of it that I started just looking (for) the people I'm following and filtering for the (tag)."

That's fine for people who are sitting at a computer, but many people using Twitter at SXSW do so on mobile phones.willie aames And being the cutting edge of the digerati set, the most common device in evidence here is the iPhone. But Kadavy said he hadn't found a way to do the kind of filtered search he wanted, and as a result, seemed hard-pressed to accomplish what he'd need to while on the go.

Some at the conference have found themselves being aware of the oversaturation dynamic and have been trying to reduce the number of tagged tweets, hoping to cut down on the flow.

"I was definitely guilty yesterday," said Andie Grace, a senior staffer with the Burning Man organization. "I grabbed my phone to tweet that I was grabbing my luggage (at the airport)....But I stopped myself from Twittering and I thought if everybody did this, it's going to be useless. So I stopped myself because I would like to search and see what panels my friends are finding interesting and where they're planning to be."

To be sure, there are plenty of ways people can see what their friends are tweeting. But the never-ending flow of tweets with the "#sxsw" tag are forcing attendees to find alternatives.

That, of course, has presented opportunities to other services to gain the kind of passionate users that Twitter engendered during SXSW 2007 and SXSW 2008. In fact, some services are even incorporating Twitter, creating a way to get the best of both worlds.

"I just got (to SXSW) but have been watching from afar, and it did seem a little crowded," said Mario Anima, the director of online community at Current.com. "It seems like (a lot of) people are also using Brightkite and Foursquare to keep in touch."

Anima said that Foursquare, a brand-new service from the team that created--and then sold to Google--Dodgeball, is particularly useful for navigating SXSW because it allows people to post updates about what they're doing and where they're going that are then incorporated into their Twitter feeds. That way, their Twitter followers can see what they're doing without also being a Foursquare member.

Of course, SXSW 2009 may well prove to be where Foursquare itself explodes, a la Twitter in 2007. The service was under wraps until just a few days ago, and its iPhone application was added to Apple's App Store just in time for the conference.

Using this method to see what your friends are up to at SXSW, Anima said, frees people to use Twitter for broader purposes. For example, he said, it means that instead of trying to find within the "#sxsw" search flood what friends are doing, users can look for trends, like what people are saying are good panels.

Even that method might be overly cumbersome,willie aames however, given the hundreds, or thousands, of tweets being sent each hour at the conference.

To Laura Roeder, a consultant from Venice Beach, Calif., there's another solution altogether.

She said that she's been following SXSW Baby, a blog and Twitter account where the best of SXSW is being aggregated, allowing followers to restrict the information overflow.

apple ipod 30gb video

Kayak has a new iPhone application that gives mobile users the same travel search tools found on its Web site. The company is pitching it as a way for passengers who have been stranded at an airport to quickly find and book another flight. I look at it as a better way to navigate travel sites that do not play well with the iPhone's sometimes finicky browser, apple ipod 30gb video which is nice since Kayak simply pulls all the results together in one place.

At first blush, power users of the site may find the application a bit lacking, but the advanced features lay hidden. For instance, it does not let you filter how many travelers are in your party, or what airlines you'd like to search from. You can, however set these options after the initial search has been done. The same can be done when searching for hotels to narrow down the results by the hotel's star rating. Ideally it would be nice to set these filters ahead of the search, as it could speed things up if you're on a spotty data connection.

Once you've found a ticket you want to buy there are only two ways to do it: either calling up the airline, or buying it through Kayak.com in Safari. This second option is where things really break down since you have to deal with the carrier's interface, which is neither iPhone-friendly, nor a part of the Kayak application. This is too bad since the application could do some handy things like save your credit card information, and turn your newly purchased flight into a calendar event to stick into your phone's calendar.

On the flip-side of that, the app includes one of Kayak's most useful features--its trends reporting. Here, you can tell it what travel route you're contemplating and it shows you what pricing has been like over the past month, and what it predicts it will be in the next two weeks. In my case this got me waiting a week to buy a ticket for an upcoming trip.

There's also a handy listing of each carrier's telephone number in case you need to speak to a human. This is great if you don't feel like looking it up.apple ipod 30gb video Included is how many people had searched for flights through that carrier during the past week, which is cute but somewhat useless.

One thing that's sorely missing, and what I hope will be included in a future version is a built-in calendar. For now you have to pick dates from a simple drop-down menu, which is great if you know exactly when you're traveling, but when brainstorming a potential trip it's nice to see the days of the week. Luckily, at the time I was near my desktop computer to give Outlook a quick check, but you're clearly not going to have that when out and about.

vvs laxman

St. Patrick's Day is a popular day for "celebrations" and realizing that, Boost Mobile has those who want to party covered. According to the company, it will offer the #TAXI feature on all Boost Mobile phones free of charge on St. Patrick's Day. Upon dialing #-8-2-9-4, Boost Mobile users will be connected automatically to the first available cab company in their area.vvs laxman The feature will work in over 2,000 Boost Mobile network coverage areas. The service will only be free Tuesday.

Mint.com, an online personal finance service, announced Monday that it added its 1 millionth user Sunday. According to the company, it was able to add 1 million users in just 18 months, making it the first personal finance service to add that many users in the period. Mint is now tracking over $50 billion in transactions and $15 billion in assets.

Visual search company, Quintura, announced Monday that it has secured context-based search visualization patents to ensure it has the most "interactive" search service on the Web. The company hopes that it will be the competitive advantage it needs going forward.

TweetDeck, a desktop Twitter app, has launched version 0.24, which includes "the first elements of Facebook integration." According to the company, users will be able to see friend status updates, which are updated automatically each month and they will also be able to post messages to Twitter or Facebook within the Tweet window. The release isn't available for everyone, but it will be rolled out once it's tested. So far,vvs laxman there is no timetable for that release.

People search site, 123people, has expanded into new markets, including Switzerland, France, and Spain. It's now also available in six languages, including, English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Catalan. The new versions of the site are available now.

pootie tang

Google has begun showing ads on search results at its Picasa site for sharing photos, part of its gradual expansion of advertising across its numerous Web properties.

Pages for photos and galleries doesn't show ads, but search results do for some people. The ads are located in a yellow-tinted "sponsored links" section above the photo results for some in the United States. (See screenshot below.)

"As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, pootie tang and to help users find new and better ways of getting the information they're looking for, we are currently showing text ads on the search results pages for Picasa Web Albums. This experiment is only visible to a small number of U.S.-based users," the company said in a statement. The ad experiment has been running for "a few weeks," Google said.

Google, trying to increase profitability, has been spreading ads to sites that previously lacked them. Among them: Google Finance, Google News, image search, Google Maps, and Google Earth.

bruce almighty

Security experts warned on Monday of a new insidious e-mail scam that features false information about a bomb explosion in the recipient's hometown and leads to a malicious Web site.

The subject lines include "Take Care!" and "Are you and your friends in good health?" The e-mail includes a link to what looks like a news article on a Reuters page about the bombing. But the Web page and the news are fake,bruce almighty according to e-mail security provider Marshal8e6 and antivirus firm Sophos.

The scammers are using IP address geolocation techniques to figure out what city the recipient lives in and are localizing the fake bomb news to that location.

Meanwhile, clicking on the fake Reuters video page leads to malicious Waledac code being downloaded on the computer, the security firms said.

Earlier this year, the Waledac worm tricked people with fake Valentine's e-mails.

The fake page circulating now also includes Wikipedia and Google search links as "Related Links" at the bottom in an attempt to make the page look legitimate. However, missing words in the text of the story and poor grammar are giveaways that the page is fake.

easter

SpiralFrog, a pioneer in offering ad-supported music downloads, is at a crossroads as management is in danger of losing control of the company.

According to multiple sources, including current and former employees, the company's founder and chairman, easter Joe Mohen, has told associates and friends that he may be forced to hand the company over to investors. The sources also said that Mohen has said a shutdown of the Web site could occur as early as next week. Mohen told CNET News he was unable to comment, citing poor cell phone coverage at his location.

New York-based SpiralFrog made a splash in August 2006 by attempting to give away music that would be paid for through advertising. A licensing deal with Universal Music Group, the largest of the top four music companies, immediately gave the site credibility. Media outlets such as The New York Times, Reuters, and USA Today speculated about whether SpiralFrog's business model was the answer to the music industry's problems.

One person close to Mohen said that even if a management change did occur, SpiralFrog could continue to exist depending on what investors decided to do. One of the largest investors is Connecticut-based 3V, according to the sources. Representatives of the company were not immediately available for comment.

What led to the most recent turmoil at SpiralFrog is still unclear. The company has long been plagued by management turnover, a lack of confidence in the company's business model by top music labels, and a lack of interest from music fans.

SpiralFrog has also wrestled with debt. easter In a September 2007 story, CNET News wrote that SpiralFrog had burned through most of its available cash--having spent more than $4 million before even launching the site. Mohen began funding operations by borrowing money, according to public documents.

The company's debt load came up again this year when Digital Music News reported that SpiralFrog was "running out of cash" and that "barring a serious event, Spiralfrog will have to wind it down."

robert stewart

Piper Jaffray has analyzed a month's worth of NPD Group data on Apple's Mac sales during February, and is projecting that Apple will sell between 2 million and 2.2 million Macs during the first calendar quarter of the year, which ends in a couple of weeks.robert stewart That's the same number it was working with based on January's NPD figures, and the estimates would range from a 13 percent decline to 4 percent decline compared to Mac shipments in Apple's first fiscal quarter of 2008.

Two offsetting events occurred during in February. On the bad side, Mac sales in February were down 16 percent compared to the same month last year, according to NPD. February was a brutal month for consumers as the stock market plunged, and Piper believes Apple also faced a tough comparison in that the MacBook Air began shipping last February.

On the good side, Apple's new iMacs, Mac Minis, and Mac Pros that are now shipping were not included in Piper's earlier analysis, and should help offset February's decline. Apple's desktop group was a source of weakness in an otherwise strong first fiscal quarter, and although desktops aren't strong for anybody these days the new systems appear to have been well-received by consumers.

Piper says the financial community as a whole is expecting Apple to post about 2.2 million Mac shipments in the quarter, which would be a 4 percent decline and the first quarter Mac shipments have declined year-over-year in a long time. robert stewart So, in their thinking, the situation could be a lot worse: if Apple makes the Wall Street estimates the fallout could be minimal because of the overall poor health of the economy, even though Mac growth has come to a halt.

alameda fire

With about $30 billion in cash to spend, John Chambers is not in any mood to walk on eggshells. And so it is that with Monday's bold announcement to offer its own server hardware, Cisco's CEO is taking on Hewlett-Packard and IBM,alameda fire among others. Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Jon Oltsik puts the news in perspective

heiman

In an ironic twist, Kevin Mitnick, a social engineering master who went to jail for impersonating others to get information to access computer networks without authorization, couldn't access his own Facebook account for weeks because administrators at the social networking site didn't believe he was who he said he was.

"It has frustrated me to no end. heiman I used to be very influential at proving I was someone else. And now I can't even prove I'm the real Kevin Mitnick. It's kind of sad," Mitnick said, chuckling in a telephone interview on Monday.

Shortly after the interview, Facebook fixed the problem after being notified by CNET News.

Mitnick, who has been using Facebook for about two years, said he realized there was a problem February 22 when he couldn't access his account. He sent them an e-mail asking what the problem was and was informed that he had violated the site's terms of use by registering with a fake name.

So Mitnick sent them an e-mail from his corporate e-mail account at Mitnick Security Consulting to help prove he was the real Mitnick and not any of the imposters behind the six dozen or so other "Kevin Mitnick" accounts on Facebook.

Facebook's response? They don't accept e-mail from an account other than the one that was used to register at Facebook, which they had already rejected as authentication when they disabled his account. Since then, they had refused to respond to his pleas until Monday.

"I've been going around in circles," Mitnick said. "It's really pissing me off."

Asked for comment, heiman Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said: "We are very aggressive in fostering and enforcing our real name culture and sometimes we make mistakes. But it's rare, and it's been fixed."

At least his last name isn't Yoda, Christmas, or Batman.

nicole steinwedell

AUSTIN, Texas--Given that you can't walk more than a couple feet at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) festival here without stumbling into someone tapping away on one iPhone application or another,nicole steinwedell it's easy to forget that just a year ago, there was no such thing as an official iPhone "app."

But now, of course, iPhone apps are one of the hottest technology segments of all. And since SXSWi is ground zero for cutting edge social media and the people who are often the earliest adopters of such technology, a series of companies have used the conference as the launching pad for their own apps for Apple's ubiquitous smartphone.

That the companies--FourSquare, Audioboo, Playfish, Whrrl, and Facebook--chose to launch their apps here is noteworthy, not least because it's well-documented that Apple isn't particularly interested in app developers' deadlines, and for the most part, any success that those developers do have in getting their apps out in time for events seems to be a whole lot of luck.

That's not to say, however, that Apple is entirely unconcerned with developers' needs. In some cases, knowing people inside the company seems to help. But still, after talking to some of the people behind the apps launching here, it appears that the best chance a company has in getting an app out in time for something like SXSWi is getting started on the project well in advance.


FourSquare managed to get its iPhone app up on Apple's App Store the night before SXSW began.

(Credit: FourSquare)Over the last few years at this tech-centric conference, Twitter has been the most used social media tool, with thousands of geeks spending incredible amounts of time typing out 140-character updates on what they're doing, where they're going, what interesting panel they're in, or where wine video blogger Gary Vaynerchuk is giving out cases and cases of wine.

This year, however, many have found that there is a serious case of Twitter overload, and so people have been looking for alternative solutions to getting word out to their friends about what's important to them at the moment. And that's why it was so important to the founders of FourSquare, a brand-new social media service, that their iPhone app be available to SXSWi attendees.

"We were getting worried about" the app not being launched in time for SXSWi, said Naveen Selvadurai, a co-founder of FourSquare,nicole steinwedell adding that he and his partner, Dennis Crowley, felt that "if it didn't go live at SXSW, it would be a bit of a disaster because everyone would have to use SMS."

And that, of course, would have been its own nightmare for FourSquare given that AT&T's service--which is what iPhone users are relying on--has been spotty at best. Fortunately, the FourSquare app did go live at 11 p.m. last Thursday night, just hours before SXSW officially opened.

But Selvadurai said that there simply had been no way to know ahead of time whether the app would be added to the App Store in time for the conference. He and his team had submitted it to Apple on March 1, and then had heard very little about its status.



Audioboo had its iPhone app rejected twice in advance of SXSW but eventually managed to get it approved by calling on friends at Apple.

(Credit: Audioboo)
"You send it in and you just wait to hear back," Selvadurai said. "We were on the phone with them, asking about the status. 'What else can we do?' They said it's in their team's hands, and that there's nothing else they can do" to give better insight into the app's destiny.

"It's both frustrating and very professional at the same time," he said. "And I've heard that about Apple. They don't let too much information get out."

Apple did not respond to a request for comment about its policies regarding iPhone apps and the App Store.

For Mark Rock, the founder of a British company called Audioboo, getting his iPhone app out in time for SXSWi was also a major priority. The app, which is essentially the mobile front-end for the company's social audio blogging platform, and which is intended to be the "YouTube for the spoken word," launched Friday morning, the first day of the conference, said Rock.

But it was not always certain that it would be ready in time. Rock said that the app had actually been rejected twice by Apple, first for using a kind of button that Apple doesn't approve of, and then because Apple discovered that it was possible to record and broadcast swear words with the app.

"We got around that by doing a bit of moderation," said Rock. And finally, he said, the app was approved, and in time for SXSWi, nicole steinwedell because Audioboo "had some high-level contacts at Apple Europe."


Facebook launched its Facebook Connect service for the iPhone on Saturday at SXSW.

(Credit: Facebook)Facebook makes news on the iPhone
Though SXSWi isn't known primarily as a venue for making news, Facebook certainly stole some headlines on Saturday with the announcement of its Facebook Connect for the iPhone. The service now makes it possible for participating partners to connect friends through their own iPhone apps. So, for example, users of the popular Urbanspoon app--which helps people find restaurants in specific local areas--can rate and share their thoughts on diners and such through Facebook directly on their iPhones.

Games are also a big part of the Facebook Connect program, and so one of the apps that launched at SXSWi was "Who has the Biggest Brain?" from Playfish. The game, which had already been popular as a regular Facebook application, now allows people to compete against each other using their iPhones.

And, lastly, Whrrl also used SXSWi as the logical venue for launching its own iPhone app, which is also part of the Facebook Connect ecosystem. Designed to let people "capture (their) experiences as they happen and organizes them into a lasting story for everyone in (their) life to share in and enjoy."

For these companies, getting the apps out in time for the conference was crucial, given that this small area in downtown Austin is completely saturated with many of the world's leading social media innovators and early adopters. Where better to get an app off the ground and build a huge amount of buzz with a minimum amount of effort?


Another app that is part of the Facebook Connect program is from Whrrl, a social notification service.

(Credit: Whrrl)And the downside of missing the deadline? A loss of that free buzz, something that could only be replicated at a very small number of other events.

So what was FourSquare's backup plan?

Selvadurai said that even if people hadn't been able to get the app, they could still have used the service on the mobile Web on the iPhone, nicole steinwedell though that obviously would have been a less-than-ideal situation. And, short of that, they could have used text messages to interact with the service, and their friends.

Fortunately for FourSquare, that wasn't necessary, at least not as the primary option.

"We got super lucky," said FourSquare's Selvadurai, "that it was approved and that it would go live."

kensington stone

Mozilla had planned to release its new "Shiretoko" version of Firefox in early 2009, but with the scale of changes made to the open-source browser,kensington stone a date halfway through the year now looks more realistic.

After releasing Firefox 3.1 beta 3 last week, the organization behind the browser said a fourth beta is planned--and with the new version number 3.5.

"There are no plans for a Beta 5 at this time, and after Beta 4 we'll be looking to move to a release candidate," said Firefox director Mike Beltzner in a statement. "Of course, we stand by our commitment to ship software when it's ready."

So when might the final version of Firefox 3.5 be ready, with at least two more test versions planned? Mozilla evangelist Chris Blizzard offered a loose schedule in a Twitter post Friday. "Firefox 3.5 will be out once we do one more beta and some release candidates. No dates, but probably 2-3 months or so," Blizzard said.

It's always difficult to draw the line between freezing features to concentrate on stabilizing software and extending development time to add a bit more technology to the new version; Mozilla decided the latter path was the better one.

"The increase in version number is proposed due to the sheer volume of work, which makes Shiretoko feel like much more than a small, incremental improvement over Firefox 3: TraceMonkey, video tag and player support, improvements to user controls over data privacy, significant improvements in the web layout and rendering platform, and much more," Beltzner said in an earlier blog post about the Firefox version number change.

The browser wars are in full force,kensington stone with Microsoft on the cusp of releasing the new Internet Explorer 8, Apple offering a beta of Safari 4, Opera trying to offer faster downloads and faster JavaScript in its product, and Google, the 800-pound Internet Gorilla, offering Chrome.

Changes in Firefox 3.5 include faster execution of Web-based JavaScript programs, a private browsing mode, native support for the JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) technology for exchanging data between servers and browsers, and built-in audio and video abilities for bypassing Flash or other multimedia technologies.

sherri coale

Updated at 5:20 a.m. PDT with Phil Schiller keynote info.

When it was first announced that Steve Jobs was taking a leave of absence I was interviewed for an ABC affiliate about the prospects of Apple without Jobs. What would happen? Would he be missed? Was Apple vulnerable?

Sadly, I can't say that I came up with any earth-shattering sound bites. sherri coale I said Apple would be fine in the short run; it had a roster full of talented executives, including a rock-star head designer (Jonathan Ive), and that the company's product road map was planned out into the future--presumably with Jobs' stamp of approval.

That said, no one could replace Steve Jobs, pitcher extraordinaire, a Sandy Koufax on the marketing mound, if there ever was one.


Reality distortion field: To Air is human.

(Credit: Wikimedia Commons)The fact is, no one can create a reality distortion field like Jobs. And ultimately, I said, that's what Apple would miss most, especially after Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, hadn't done much to inspire the faithful with his ho-hum keynote speech at MacWorld 2009.

However, little did I know that Jobs' absence would be felt so acutely in the release of the company's latest products, though I probably wouldn't categorize the new Mac Mini, updated iMacs, and third-generation iPod Shuffle as premium releases for Apple.

While the new releases may be a step up from Apple TV, which just hasn't been able to find a broad audience, they're not the iPod Nano or a new MacBook or iPhone OS 3.0. But what's a little disconcerting is how the products, particularly the Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle, landed with a bit a thud. Sure, they got a ton of publicity--and publicity is good--but a lot of it ranged from neutral to negative.

You have to wonder whether if Jobs had been had been on the mound, they would have gotten a better reception. Sure, the good tech pundits are supposed to ignore the marketing hype and deliver the unvarnished truth, but when Jobs presents, there's often a halo effect on the products.sherri coale When he pitches, the story is not only about the products but also about the performance itself.

It's true that Apple often releases updates to product lines without any sort of event to back the release up. But you can't help but imagine what the Shuffle release would have been like if Jobs had put his spin on it.

The product would have the same flaws. However, after he got through accentuating its strengths, the flaws might not seem so great. Or they might not seem like flaws at all! That's the beauty of the reality distortion field--and a good changeup.

So how does Sony fit into all of this? Sony is also known for having beautifully designed products. But it's hit a few slumps in the past few years, and one of its big problems is not having a Jobs-like pitchman (or pitchwoman) to give those products the spin they need--and deserve.

Take the Vaio P series, the sleek little Netbook that came out not too long ago. After Jobs' performance introducing the MacBook Air, I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with the Sony Vaio P series.

Of course, Jobs wouldn't have named it the P series (come on, Sony, you can do better than that). But the point is, if you'd slapped an Apple logo over the Sony logo, given it a new name, and had Jobs roll it out, I'd bet it would be the top-selling notebook on the market today.

I'm not sure if a Jobs pitch for the Sony Reader would have been enough to keep it out in front of the Kindle, which was released after Sony's e-book reader. But you can see that Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos has studied the master and has learned a thing or two about launching tech products (and he knows that the back-end service is just as important as the product itself).

On the surface, Bezos isn't a particularly good presenter, but the combination of his charisma and the charmingly robotic quirkiness of his delivery makes the whole thing work. Yes, the Kindle 2 is a good product, sherri coale but without Amazon's Apple-style marketing campaign, it wouldn't be doing nearly as well as it is.

As for Apple's future, the easy thing to say is that it's still quite bright--with or without Jobs (read Tom Krazit's post on Apple's sales numbers). But we'd be wrong to underestimate the power of the reality distortion field. Good products only get you so far.

final four

If you're a Flickr user who delights in the simplicity of using TwitPic to take pictures in various mobile Twitter applications, you'll dig TwitPickr. This simple tool lets you republish any shots you've sent to TwitPic over to your Flickr account.

To begin, you simply drop in your Twitter username and it pulls up all the shots you've posted to TwitPic. final four Then you just check off the ones you want to publish to your Flickr photostream and it copies them over in one click.

As a future feature I'd love to automatically have photos from Twitpic sent over to Flickr. Until that happens, the easiest way to send to both is to save your special e-mail posting address from each service, then send the photo to both using your phone's MMS or e-mail client. However, this method defeats the purpose of using TwitPickr in the first place, since TwitPic posting is built into so many of today's mobile Twitter apps.

the mumps

Amid the recession and layoffs, there are some glimpses of employment hope and opportunities to help you make informed decisions on what technology to spend money.

Sony Electronics and Comcast announced Sunday that they have partnered to open a unique retail experience in Philadelphia.the mumps The store is named Sony Style Comcast Labs and will serve as a place where consumers can learn about emerging technologies and experience new digital devices.

The co-branded retail store and technology lab, which opened to the public March 16, showcases the latest innovative products and services from both companies and previews future Comcast technology, products, and services.


A Sony Style retail store

(Credit: Gizdomo)Examples of future technologies that Comcast unveiled to Philadelphia consumers for the first time include "The Future of High-Speed Internet" and "The Future of Home Phone Service."

The former offers the experience of Internet surfing and downloading at 100Mbps, about 20 times faster than regular existing cable connection. To put this in perspective, at this speed you can use up Comcast's 250GB ration in about 40 hours.

The latter, on the other hand, shows of what you can do with the future enhanced cordless telephones. Obviously, they can do a lot more than just place calls; they also handle e-mails, IM, text messaging, and access to Yellow Pages.

As for Sony, the new Sony Style Comcast Labs feature the best of Sony's electronics. Sony's current showcase includes Bravia HD LCD televisions, Vaio PCs, dSLR and Cyber-shot digital cameras, the mumps Handycam camcorders, and PSP and PlayStation 3 game consoles. Emerging technologies such as organic light-emitting diode TVs are also shown.

Comcast will also showcase all of its products and services from voice to video and Internet, and it will demonstrate how they work together seamlessly for the consumer.

eastbound and down episode 7

Amid the recession and layoffs, there are some glimpses of employment hope and opportunities to help you make informed decisions on what technology to spend money.

Sony Electronics and Comcast announced Sunday that they have partnered to open a unique retail experience in Philadelphia.eastbound and down episode 7 The store is named Sony Style Comcast Labs and will serve as a place where consumers can learn about emerging technologies and experience new digital devices.

The co-branded retail store and technology lab, which opened to the public March 16, showcases the latest innovative products and services from both companies and previews future Comcast technology, products, and services.


A Sony Style retail store

(Credit: Gizdomo)Examples of future technologies that Comcast unveiled to Philadelphia consumers for the first time include "The Future of High-Speed Internet" and "The Future of Home Phone Service."

The former offers the experience of Internet surfing and downloading at 100Mbps, about 20 times faster than regular existing cable connection. To put this in perspective, at this speed you can use up Comcast's 250GB ration in about 40 hours.

The latter, on the other hand, shows of what you can do with the future enhanced cordless telephones. Obviously, they can do a lot more than just place calls; they also handle e-mails, IM, text messaging, eastbound and down episode 7 and access to Yellow Pages.

As for Sony, the new Sony Style Comcast Labs feature the best of Sony's electronics. Sony's current showcase includes Bravia HD LCD televisions, Vaio PCs, dSLR and Cyber-shot digital cameras, Handycam camcorders, and PSP and PlayStation 3 game consoles. Emerging technologies such as organic light-emitting diode TVs are also shown.

Comcast will also showcase all of its products and services from voice to video and Internet, and it will demonstrate how they work together seamlessly for the consumer.