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The Cost of SuccessLife in Beijing's Cellars

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 18:36:00 -0800

As speculators and increasing demand drive up Beijing's real estate prices, those who cannot afford the rent are going underground -- literally. Hundreds of cellars and air-raid shelters are being rented out as living spaces in the Chinese capital.

For 27-year-old Dong Ying, Beijing is a city of dreams. Two years ago, the sports teacher relocated from a small city in the north-eastern province of Heilongjiang to the Chinese metropolis. Here, she hoped, her wishes for a more interesting life would be fulfilled.

Since then she goes from fitness club to fitness club every day, working as a trainer. She pedals, she bends and straightens and basically ensures that the affluent city residents stay in shape. To reach her students, she spends four hours each day travelling on the city's subway.

She earns around 3,000 yuan (around €350 or $450) per month, a sum she would never have earned doing similar work in her hometown. And here she can enjoy the big city. "I am happy," says the young woman, who is wearing a pink Nike sports shirt. "I love my work, and I feel free."

Going Underground

But there is a severe flaw in her Beijing lifestyle. Dong Ying lives, literally, underground. The only accommodation she can afford is a tiny room in the cellar of an apartment building. Every month she pays the equivalent of €52 ($68) for the room, around 15 percent of her income. Other tenants must live even further down, on the cellar's second level, where the rent is even cheaper.

A bed, a small cupboard and a desk just fit into Dong Ying's barren room. A communal toilet and bathroom are at the end of the hallway. Anyone living here must eat out every day because any kind of kitchen is prohibited for safety reasons. Still, Dong Ying can find something positive to say about her home: "The house management is OK. The corridor is clean."

Dong Ying is one of hundreds of thousands of Chinese sentenced to a life underground -- migrant workers, job seekers, street vendors. All those who can't afford life above ground in Beijing are forced to look below.

Dong Ying's room is one of around a hundred similar dwellings under a modern apartment block on the outskirts of the Beijing district of Chaoyang. While the wealthier residents enter the building, then go right or left to an elevator, the underground dwellers head past a cellar for bicycle storage, and then downstairs. There's no emergency exit.

Running Out of Options

Generally it's not the people living in the apartments above who rent out their cellar spaces: It tends to be apartment managers who put the unused spaces to work. In doing so, they tread close to breaking rental laws. Some even rent out official air-raid shelters -- which is actually totally prohibited.

The demand for underground accommodation may even rise in the near future. The Beijing city administration recently gave permission to level dozens of outlying villages in order to make room for new living and business areas.

Thousands of migrant workers live in those villages, often in primitive conditions. The citizens of Beijing call them the "ant people" because of the way they live on top of one another. Demolishing the villages will leave them with few options. They will either find accommodation farther outside the city, or, if they want to live close to their workplaces, they will have to go underground.

Beijing's officials pride themselves on the fact that the city has no slums like those in, say, Nairobi or Bangkok. The areas of brick hovels without so much as a toilet, which used to shape the cityscape in many districts, have begun to vanish. What the city fathers don't admit, though, is a still-unresolved problem -- that many millions cannot afford a normal apartment in Beijing. The city's housing market in some ways symbolizes the new communist China -- a society in which the gap between rich and poor continues to widen.

On average, apartments in Beijing rent for the equivalent of €350 per month, about as much as Dong Ying earns. And prices are rising. At the start of the year, tenants paid around €314. A year earlier, it was €266.

Speculating on Real Estate

One reason for the high prices is that demand outstrips supply. There are relatively few apartments available for rent in Beijing. Over two-thirds are privately owned, of which a large share were in the past sold cheaply by authorities or factories to their employees.

Social housing, moveover, has only begun to develop. Last year 8,000 rental properties were built for those on minimal incomes, and this year there should be 10,000 -- a mere drop in the ocean for Beijing.

Even those with enough money to buy their own homes are not necessarily fortunate. New housing developments keep springing up, and the amount of new property available is growing, but prices have also shot sky-high in the past few months. Buyers are currently paying €2,546 per square meter on average.

For rich Chinese, like the wealthy coal barons from the Shanxi province, Beijing apartments are investments worthy of speculation, like stock market shares or gold. These speculators don't think about renting the apartments out. They simply aim for properties with rising prices, so they can sell them on and turn a profit.

Recently experts have talked about a real estate bubble which threatens to burst. As discontentment grows among those citizens who earn good money but still can't afford their own apartments, the Chinese government wants to curb speculation with new taxes and rules.

'We Can All Live Together as a Family'

Wang Xueping, 30, is light-years away from owning her own apartment. At the moment she's trying to push her baby carriage out of the basement of Building 9 in the Jiqing Li residential complex in central Beijing. Two months ago, she and the child moved from Jilin province in northeastern China to join her husband, who's been driving cabs in Beijing for three years.

Now all three of them live in a cellar room that is 10 square meters (108 square feet) in size. "The main thing is that we can all live together, as a family," Wang Xueping says.

Meanwhile, fitness trainer Dong Ying has had good luck. She's moved cellars, into a room with a small shaft that allows a little daylight in. And she has a new boyfriend, who has just bought himself a new apartment. If they get married, Dong Ying's days underground will end.

via

Water purification made simpler

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 02:13:00 -0800

Filtration systems used in homes in the developing world, says Kristen Jellison, can be made smaller and less expensive.

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Inside a growing number of homes in the developing world, sand and biological organisms are collaborating to decontaminate drinking water.

Arranged in barrels of concrete or plastic, these biosand water filtration systems (BSFs) remove 95 to 99 percent of the bacteria, viruses, worms and particles contained in rain or surface water. A layer of microorganisms at the top of the sand bed consumes biological and other organic contaminants, while the sand below removes contaminants that cause cloudiness and odor.

A BSF can produce several dozen liters of clean water in an hour. But it can weigh several hundred pounds and cost up to $30, an expense some families in developing countries cannot afford.

Kristen Jellison and her students are trying to build a BSF that is smaller than the standard system, but just as effective.

"Smaller, lighter BSFs," says Jellison, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, "would be cheaper, easier to transport and available to a broader global market. Preliminary research has shown the potential for smaller systems to remove most disease-causing organisms, except possibly viruses."

Jellison, who is affiliated with the university's STEPS (Science, Technology, Environment, Policy and Society) initiative, has devoted most of her career to improving drinking water. As a co-adviser to Lehigh's chapter of Engineers Without Borders, she helped lead efforts to design and build a 20,000-gallon water-storage tank and chlorination system in Pueblo Nuevo, Honduras.

With support from NSF and the Philadelphia Water Department, she has spent five years studying the parasite Cryptosporidium parvum and its transport and fate in water bodies. The parasite is found in multiple hosts, is difficult to eradicate, and can be deadly to people with compromised immune systems.

In an effort to identify possible sources of Cryptosporidium contamination in the Philadelphia watershed, Jellison studies the DNA of various species using a technique called polymerase chain reaction (PCR). She also studies the impact on Cryptosporidium of biofilms, the slimy layers of microorganisms that form on rocks, pipes and other surfaces in water.

Jellison's group is conducting experiments on BSFs of various sizes, including systems that fit inside two- and five-gallon plastic pails. (The typical BSF is 3 feet high.) The group will change the depth of the sand column, add rusty nails to several pails (in an effort to increase virus removal), and alter other parameters.

"BSFs were developed in the 1980s," says Jellison. "This is the most comprehensive study to date to characterize the efficiency of different filter types."

Provided by Lehigh University

Are we becoming more stupid? Human brain has been 'shrinking for the last 20,000 years'

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 01:28:00 -0800

It's not something we'd like to admit, but it seems the human race may actually be becoming increasingly dumb.

Man's brain has been gradually shrinking over the last 20,000 years, according to a new report.

This decrease in size follows two million years during which the human cranium steadily grew in size, and it's happened all over the world, to both sexes and every race.

Old big head: A 3D image replica of a 28,000-year-old skull found in France shows it was 20 per cent larger than ours

'Over the past 20,000 years, the average volume of the human male brain has decreased from 1,500 cubic centimetres to 1,350 cubic centimetres, losing a chunk the size of a tennis ball,' Kathleen McAuliffe writes in Discover magazine.

'The female brain has shrunk by about the same proportion.'

She was reporting on comments made by Dr John Hawks, an anthropologist from the University of Wisconsin, who argues that the fact the size of the human brain is decreasing doesn't necessarily mean our intelligence is in decline as well.

Some paleontologists agree with this diagnosis, that our brains may have become smaller in size, but increasingly efficient.

But others believe that man has indeed become steadily more stupid as he has evolved.

Several theories have been advanced to explain the mystery of the shrinking brain. One is that big heads were necessary to survive Upper Paleolithic life, which involved cold, outdoor activities.

A second theory is that skulls developed to cope with a chewy diet of rabbits, reindeer, foxes and horses.

As our food has become easier to eat, so our heads have stopped growing, according to supporters of this theory.

Other experts say that with high infant mortality, only the toughest survived - and the toughest tended to have big heads. Therefore a gradually decreasing infant mortality rate has led to a proportionate decrease in the size of our brains.

A recent study conducted by David Geary and Drew Bailey, cognitive scientists at the University of Missouri, explored how cranial size changed as humans adapted to an increasingly complex social environment between 1.9million and 10,000 years ago.

They found that when population density was low, such as during the majority of our evolution, the cranium increased in size. But when a certain area's population changed from sparse to dense, our cranium size decreased.

They concluded that as increasingly complex societies emerged, the brain grew smaller because people didn't have to be as smart to stay alive.

But Dr Geary warns against stereotyping our ancestors as being more intelligent than us.

He said: 'Practically speaking, our ancestors were not our intellectual or creative equals because they lacked the same kind of cultural support.

'The rise of agriculture and modern cities based on economic specialisation has allowed the very brightest people to focus their efforts on the sciences, the arts and other fields.

'Their ancient counterparts didn't have that infrastructure to support them. It took all their efforts just to get through life.'

Dr Hawks, on the other hand, believes that the decrease in the size of our brains may actually show we are getting more intelligent.

The brain, he says, uses up to 20 per cent of all the fuel we consume. Therefore a bigger brain will require more energy and take longer to develop.

Dr Hawks notes that a boom in the human population between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago led to an unusual advantageous mutation to take place.

He believes this could have resulted in the brain becoming more streamlined, our neurochemistry shifting to boost the capacity of our brains.

But it seems the size of our brains could be on the increase again.

A recent study by anthropologist Richard Jantz of the University of Tennessee found that our brain size is on the increase again.

He measured and compared the craniums of Americans of African and European descent from late colonial times to the 20th century and found that our brain size is on the move again.

The smartphones that are too clever for their owners

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 01:23:00 -0800

With hundreds of thousands of 'apps' available, smartphones allow users to do anything from checking their bank balance to booking a flight.

But 71 per cent of owners use them simply to make a call, text or check Facebook, research shows.

In fact, the study revealed that a typical person exploits only 10 per cent of their phone's functions.

Too many apps: Research reveals that people still mainly use their phones for making calls or texting, despite thousands of apps

The survey – of 2,000 users – also found more than half had felt pressured to get the latest or most popular smartphone, such as Apple's iPhone4 or a BlackBerry.

The devices, which will be the top gadget on Christmas lists this year, are really pocket computers. As well as the capacity for the downloadable programs known as 'apps', they can browse the internet and send and receive emails.

The research by Envirofone, which recycles mobiles, estimates there are 11million smartphones in the UK.

While there are many useful apps offering train information or sat-nav functions, others are bizarre.

A Zippo lighter app displays an animated picture to wave at concerts, while Annoy-a-teen plays a high-pitched sound that only teenagers are supposed to be able to hear.

Jon Butler, of Envirofone, said: 'The latest phones have become status symbols which look flash but aren't fully utilised.

Facebook worldwide friendships mapped

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 01:19:00 -0800

As we all know, people all over the world use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family. You meet someone. You friend him or her on Facebook to keep in touch. These friendships began within universities, but today there are friendships that connect countries. Facebook engineering intern Paul Butler visualizes these connections:

I defined weights for each pair of cities as a function of the Euclidean distance between them and the number of friends between them. Then I plotted lines between the pairs by weight, so that pairs of cities with the most friendships between them were drawn on top of the others. I used a color ramp from black to blue to white, with each line's color depending on its weight. I also transformed some of the lines to wrap around the image, rather than spanning more than halfway around the world.

In other words, for each pair of countries with a friend in one country and a friend in the other, a line was drawn. The more friends and distance between two countries, the brighter the lines on a black-blue-white color scale. The "stronger" connections were drawn on top, so they are more visually prominent.

It might remind you of Chris Harrison's maps that show interconnectedness via router configurations.

In areas of high density it looks more or less like population density. Or even more interesting, you can compare the above section to Ben Fry's All Streets, which maps all the roads in the United States. Physical connections look a lot like digital connections.

Most interesting though, I think, are not the places that are lit up, but the relatively dark ones, where Facebook has yet to reach. There are still huge sections of complete black:

Check out the high-resolution version and more details on the process here. One interesting note for the R fanboys. This was done in your favorite open-source stat software for computing and graphics.

Estonia's Entry Expands Euro Into Former Soviet Union

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 01:13:00 -0800

Estonia entered the euro area with "no glitches" in banking and retail, shrugging off the sovereign debt crisis rippling through Europe to extend the currency block into the former Soviet Union.

Wedged between Russia and Latvia on the Baltic Sea, Estonia is the 17th country to switch to the currency. Gross domestic product of 14 billion euros ($19 billion) makes it the second- smallest euro economy after Malta.

"The New Year came exactly like the Estonian central bank and its partners had planned," deputy central bank Governor Rein Minka told a news conference in Tallinn, the capital, today. "There were no glitches with adopting the euro or with technical systems. The new money reached all the places it was supposed to."

As Europe grapples with the financial crisis, Estonia may be the last addition to the euro club for several years. Lithuania and Latvia, the next in line, aim to adopt the currency in 2014, while bigger eastern countries have shied away from setting target dates.

"For Estonia, the choice is to be inside the club, among the decision makers, or stay outside of the club," Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told reporters yesterday in Tallinn, the nation's capital. "We prefer to act as club members."

'Successfully Introduced'

The euro "has been successfully introduced in Estonia," the European Central Bank said in a statement on its website today.

Automated teller machines and card payments at Estonia's four largest banks, which account for more than 90 percent of the market, are working "smoothly", the Estonian central bank and Finance Ministry said in a statement distributed before news conference at 1 p.m. local time.

"It seems the Estonian society is taking to currency changeover calmly," Riho Unt, the head of the Estonian Banking Association and the chief executive officer of the Estonian unit of Stockholm-based SEB AB, said at the news conference. "There were no queues when we opened offices today. Only about 10,000 transactions have been made at the ATM's, which is very little, and less than 0.5 percent of euro cash has been withdrawn from teller machines."

Estonia, with debt estimated by the European Union at 8 percent of GDP for 2010, will be the nation with the most sound fiscal position in a currency bloc plagued by budget woes that forced Greece and Ireland to seek European and International Monetary Fund aid.

'Difficult Times'

"I hope other countries will notice that we met the euro- entry terms despite difficult times and this will improve Estonia's reputation," student Kaspar Nuut, 24, said yesterday in central Tallinn, as crowds gathered for the celebrations featuring a midnight fireworks display. "We would have had to adopt the euro anyway, so better sooner rather than later."

Estonia's central bank chief, Andres Lipstok, 53, will join the European Central Bank's policy-setting council, taking part in his first interest-rate vote on Jan. 13 in Frankfurt.

Some 85 million euro coins featuring a map of Estonia and 12 million bank notes went into circulation today, according to the central bank, starting a two-week phasing out of the national currency, the kroon. One euro buys 15.6466 krooni.

"I definitely support euro adoption as it will make traveling easier when all of Europe has the same currency," Ivi Normet, a 45-year-old civil servant, said. "I hope it will also benefit other aspects of life in Estonia."

Western Anchor

The 1.3 million Estonians have little experience of monetary autonomy. In June 1992, less than a year after gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Estonia shifted from the Russian ruble to a national currency that it immediately pegged to the German mark. The exchange rate was locked to the euro when the first 11 countries began using it in 1999.

Estonia in 2004 was in the initial wave of eastern European countries to join the EU, seeking a western anchor as an insurance policy against Russia.

"Estonia's entry means that over 330 million Europeans now carry euro notes and coins in their pockets," European Commission President Jose Barroso said yesterday in a statement. "It is a strong signal of the attraction and stability that the euro brings."

Economic growth averaged 7.2 percent between 1995 and the onset of the global financial crisis in 2007. Reliant on foreign investment, Estonia was hit harder than most in the global slump, with the economy shrinking 5.1 percent in 2008 and 13.9 percent in 2009, the sharpest contraction since its transition to a market economy at the beginning of 1990s.

Targets

Estonia's path to adopting the currency was marred by high inflation. Consumer prices soared 10.6 percent in 2008, missing one of the five economic tests for euro entry. The other targets are for deficits, debt, long-term interest rates and exchange- rate stability.

While the deficit, at 2.8 percent of GDP in 2008, was under the euro's 3 percent limit, the government kept up the austerity drive. Tax increases, spending cuts and higher dividend collection from state-owned companies whittled the shortfall to an estimated 1 percent in 2010.

Unlike in Latvia or Lithuania, Estonia's neighbors along the Baltic coast, the belt-tightening didn't provoke public unrest. Growth rebounded to 2.4 percent in 2010 and will reach 4.4 percent next year, the EU predicts.

Euro Support

"The Estonian government early in the crisis realized that it provides a great window of opportunity," said Andres Kasekamp, a politics professor at Tartu University. "The austerity and cuts in the public sector were necessary anyhow, but to make it more palatable, the government created a vision that these cuts are in the name of joining the euro."

Backing for the euro ebbed to 52 percent in December from a record 54 percent in November, according to a government- sponsored poll of 501 people with a margin of error of 4 percent. The decline, stemming from concerns over sovereign debt crisis and nostalgia for the soon-to-be abolished kroon, was still "surprisingly small," Tea Varrak, the chancellor of the Finance Ministry, said at the news conference today.

By contrast, support for the single currency is plunging in Germany, which designed the euro as the successor to the deutsche mark. Some 49 percent of Germans want to bring back the mark and 41 percent want to keep the euro, according to a Bild newspaper poll last month.

"This really is a coin with two sides," said Tiiu Braman, a 65-year-old pensioner in Tallinn. "Of course the kroon is very important to us historically and beautiful and so on, but we probably can't make it without the euro. Still, everyday life will be a bit more complicated for a while."

To contact the reporter on this story: Ott Ummelas in Tallinn at oummelas@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Willy Morris at wmorris@bloomberg.net

via

US most vulnerable to climate change among world's wealthy nations

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 00:25:00 -0800

Jeremy Hance

While the US has done little to mitigate climate change, a new report by humanitarian research organization DARA and the Climate Vulnerable Forum states that of all industrialized nations the US will face the most harm from a warming world. Together with Spain, the US's vulnerability to climate change has been listed as High by the newly releasedClimate Vulnerability Monitor.

"Whilst it is the poorest, most vulnerable nations on earth that will bear the brunt of the climate crisis, the industrialized world is not immune from its impact either. Countries such as the United States will suffer the greatest economic losses from climate change so it is clearly in their own interest to act now to address these impacts, and to mitigate climate change," said DARA Trustee and adviser to the report, José María Figueres, in a press release. Figueres is also a former President of Costa Rica.

According to the report, climate change impacts will cost the US around 40 billion dollars a year by 2030, more than any other nation in the world.

The US is particularly sensitive to desertification, rising sea levels, and extreme weather. (via)

America's health reform A waste of breath

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Sun, 2 Jan 2011 00:13:00 -0800

IT IS tempting to dismiss the bipartisan health-reform summit convened by Barack Obama on Thursday February 25th as a colossal waste of time. After all, the gabfest involving senior Congressional leaders from both parties lasted well over six hours, with no tangible results. Neither side moved one jot on any issue of substance and not one vote is likely to have changed on either side as a result of the summit.
And yet, the televised gathering was not pointless. For one thing, the sight of America's leading politicians sitting together amiably for an entire day to discuss a matter as inflammatory as health reform (think "death panels") was itself heartening. Surprisingly, given the bitter partisan wrangling of late, they did so in a manner that was mostly civil and substantive. Towards the end of the long day, Joe Barton, a House Republican from Texas, even declared that he had never seen "so many members of the House and Senate behave so well for so long before so many television cameras."
From the Republican point of view, the event accomplished two important things. First, Mr Obama was unable to outwit and outcharm them on camera, as he had done brilliantly during a televised exchange with House Republicans in late January. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner, their stridently partisan leaders in the Senate and the House, wisely allowed other Republicans —more charismatic and competent, it must be noted—to do most of the talking. That allowed them to say no to Mr Obama's plans without appearing, as is often the accusation with Republicans, merely the "Party of No". Mr McConnell even admitted afterwards that "I would not call it a waste of time."

The event went less well for Mr Obama. After a year of dithering, he unveiled his own grand plan for reforming health care on the eve of the summit. This scheme closely resembles a health-reform bill passed by the Senate just before Christmas (the House passed a substantially different version earlier, and the two bills now need to be reconciled into a final health law). The big question before the summit was whether Mr Obama would really be open to modifying his plan to embrace Republican ideas, or whether the event was merely a sham.
In the event, Mr Obama appeared to make some progress on bipartisanship. He listened intently to Republican ideas—except the oft-repeated one to scrap Democratic efforts and just "start over"—and was often seen scribbling notes. At the end of the summit, he reviewed a number of areas where he believed the two parties had similar goals, and he asked the Republicans to think of ways to bridge the divide on them. Among those ripe for co-operation, he declared, were tort reform, inter-state competition in health insurance, the creation of insurance exchanges and tackling fraud in Medicare (a government health scheme for the elderly).
This is not likely to herald the start of a new, incremental and heart-warmingly bipartisan approach to health reform, however. For one thing, Republicans made it clear that they are not willing to do anything to help Mr Obama pass health reform quickly. Mr Obama, for his part, made plain that he was willing to entertain Republican notions only as add-ons to his existing bill, not as an entirely new approach.
Rumours swirled during the summit that if Mr Obama's big plan (which aims to extend health insurance to some 30m uninsured punters) fails to pass, he may then put forward a less ambitious scheme covering only half that number. But Kathleen Sebelius, the administration's health secretary, denied this after the summit. Mr Obama himself rejected the incremental approach. He insisted, with some justification, that "baby steps" will not work because the pieces of the health-reform puzzle are tightly interlinked.
If so, that leaves Mr Obama with only one course of action: to push through some version of his health plan without Republican votes. It will be very difficult with only Democratic votes, given that moderates and progressives in his own caucus have misgivings. Ramming a sweeping health law through Congress on a highly partisan basis using procedural wheezes, Republicans repeatedly warned, will prove unpopular. Despite those obstacles, though, Mr Obama now seems ready for battle.
That points to the biggest reason to think the summit was not a waste of time: it made clear that Mr Obama, after months of sitting on the sidelines, now has steel in his spine. If Republicans do not come up with a reasonable set of compromise measures over the next few weeks to add to his plan, he says that he intends to forge ahead anyway. The final verdict, he insisted, will come from the voters: "We've got to go ahead and make some decisions, and then that's what elections are for."

RIM thought iPhone was impossible in 2007 | Electronista

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 06:55:00 -0800

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RIM thought iPhone was impossible in 2007 | Electronista

via www.electronista.com on 12/28/10

RIM had a complete internal panic when Apple unveiled the iPhone in 2007, a former employee revealed this weekend. The BlackBerry maker is now known to have held multiple all-hands meetings on January 10 that year, a day after the iPhone was on stage, and to have made outlandish claims about its features. Apple was effectively accused of lying as it was supposedly impossible that a device could have such a large touchscreen but still get a usable lifespan away from a power outlet.

The iPhone "couldn't do what [Apple was] demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life," Shacknews poster Kentor heard from his former colleagues of the time. "Imagine their surprise [at RIM] when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it."

Friends who were Microsoft employees at the time were also said to have had a similar reaction.

He further added that RIM, as well as Motorola, Nokia, Palm and other early pioneers, lost ground partly because of a self-defeating attitude. RIM in particular assumed from the start that smartphones would be outgrowths of its pagers and that there would never be enough battery life or wireless technology for more functions. It started growing beyond this view before the iPhone shipped, but the OS foundation until recently was based on the early assumption.

The remarks confirm a widely held belief that BlackBerry Storm development started only after the iPhone was made public rather than having been in development at all before. RIM didn't have its first touchscreen phone until the Storm shipped in late 2008, almost two years after the iPhone's unveiling, and didn't have multi-touch support or a fully accurate web browser until the Torch arrived just this past summer. Apple is now gradually overtaking RIM in market share and is being quickly joined by Android, which now makes up the majority of Verizon sales just a year after the BlackBerry was the carrier's top earner.

RIM may be poised for a comeback as it has promised an aggressive 2011 roadmap, but virtually all of what it will do outside of the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is a mystery.

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Zynga’s CityVille Now More Than 25 Percent Bigger Than FarmVille

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 06:32:00 -0800

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Zynga’s CityVille Now More Than 25 Percent Bigger Than FarmVille

via TechCrunch by Robin Wauters on 12/28/10

We knew Zynga's Facebook game CityVille was a hit if the company ever had one (and it's had several already) but the growth that it is displaying is simply mind-blowing.

We'll kick off by pointing out that the game was released on December 2, 2010, which is less than a month ago.

The company subsequently reported that in the game's first 24 hours on Facebook, over 290,000 people had already played CityVille. A few days later: 3 million daily active users. And while you turned your eyes away from the screen for a few minutes: bang, 6 million active users.

Last week, the Sim City-esque game logged about 61.7 million monthly active users, effectively eclipsing its other hit game, FarmVille. Today, CityVille is at close to 72.5 million monthly active users, which means that it has already outgrown FarmVille (which boasts roughly 57,4 million monthly active users) by more than 25 percent.

CityVille isn't just the biggest game on Facebook, it's now the biggest game on Facebook with one hell of a margin.

For the record: we got the number straight from the application pages, as AppData's stats on monthly active users appear to be a tad outdated at the time of writing.

And just for the heck of it, here are the current usage stats for the other "Ville" games:

FrontierVille: 30,468,070 monthly active users
PetVille: 8,394,142 monthly active users
YoVille: 6,232,611 monthly active users
FishVille: 4,969,283 monthly active users

No wonder Google investor John Doerr famously said Zynga is probably his VC firm's best investment to date. Its growth is simply astounding.

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Zynga

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Moot On 4Chan User Survey: “It’s Total Garbage.”

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:51:00 -0800

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Moot On 4Chan User Survey: “It’s Total Garbage.”

via TechCrunch by Alexia Tsotsis on 12/27/10

Over the weekend, a interesting demographic survey of over 6000 4Chan users made the rounds of 4Chan, Reddit and Hacker News. While if anyone is going to skew a survey it's 4Chan users, the Google document with the responses given a lot of Internet ink, lauded for being "bracingly honest."

I emailed 4Chan founder moot a.k.a Christopher Poole to get his take on what one commenter called "One of the best representations of the youth in the 21st century." "It's total garbage," Poole responded.

When asked if this was yet another example of media trolling (remember TIME's "Person Of The Year 2009″?), Poole clarified "It's 'real' in the sense that a random user conducted it and I imagine he collected responses on 4chan. But the questions, answers, sample, method used, etc aren't exactly scientific. It should be taken with a massive grain of salt."

4Chan user genkouhande, who set up the ongoing poll as a project on December 24th, tells TechCrunch that while all surveys do have error, he's confident with the results, having included test responses like "Age: Over 59," "Started masturbating: Over 18," and "Time spent on 4Chan: 24+" to help trap the trolls. "As more people answered the survey the results seemed to be less chaotic and have now been pretty typical," he said.

Poole tells us that 4Chan itself does not collect any sort of demographic data and that there are no plans to conduct any sort of official OKCupid-type survey, "Kind of defeats the point of an anonymous message board, doesn't it?" Heh.

You can view the full results or take the survey yourself here.

CrunchBase Information

4chan

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Rare Gyrfalcons Fly Again After Smuggling Bust

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:50:00 -0800

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Rare Gyrfalcons Fly Again After Smuggling Bust

via TreeHugger on 12/27/10

Photos via IFAW 'Tis the season for heart-warming stories. This one is about eight endangered gyrfalcons, who were recently released back to the wild after being seized by customs officials in Moscow. The birds were found "swaddled in cloth, hooded and packed four to a box," according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

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Octo-Mom Faces Eviction In 2011

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:50:00 -0800

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Octo-Mom Faces Eviction In 2011

via Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton by Perez Hilton on 12/27/10

What an awful way to start the New Year! Really, really sad.

Back in October, we reported that Amer Haddadin, the man who owns Octo-Mom Nadya Suleman's house, was gearing up to take action against her for not paying the MAJOR debt she owes to him.

Since Octo-Mom still hasn't made the effort to pay up on the $450,000 balloon payment that she owes Haddadin, it looks like he's decided to officially start eviction proceedings against her if she doesn't take care of the entire payment.

If Suleman is unable to pay off her loan by Dec 31, Haddadin plans to sue her and start up eviction proceedings on January 3rd.

This story gets worse and worse. We hope she's able to work something out quickly, although we can't imagine what!

[Image via WENN.]

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Pink And Hubby's New Place

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:49:00 -0800

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Pink And Hubby's New Place

via Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton by Perez Hilton on 12/27/10

Check out the photos (below) of Pink's new place with hubby Carey Hart.

Looks like her new home in Malibu was listed for $11,850,000. It's 6,800 square feet, with 6 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms.

Verrry nice, Pink! Should be a wonderful place to raise that little baby boy or girl of yours!

What do U think of Pink's new place?

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Swifty Loves Gwyn Like A Big Sissy!

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 01:49:00 -0800

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Swifty Loves Gwyn Like A Big Sissy!

via Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton by Perez Hilton on 12/27/10

Cute!

It was previously reported (and confirmed by the hostess) that Gwyneth Paltrow threw a private dinner party for Taylor Swift and Jake Gyllenhaal at her home in Primrose Hill when they were all in London recently. Now, we hear Taylor loves Gwyn so much, she thinks of her as the sister she never had!

A friend of Swifty tells sources that she's always wanted a sister and "fell in love with Gwyneth" when she opened her home to her. The pal adds:

"She met Gwyneth through her musician husband, Chris Martin, and has formed a great friendship. They email and call each other all the time. They talk a lot about music, performing and acting but they also talk about normal stuff like boys and dates."

How nice! Maybe the two could record a country song, since Gwyneth is all into that now?!

[Image via WENN.]

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Ne-Yo Wants To Collaborate With Chezza

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:58:00 -0800

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Ne-Yo Wants To Collaborate With Chezza

via Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton by Perez Hilton on 12/27/10

We'd LOVE to hear what these two would produce together!

Ne-Yo recently revealed that he's looking forward to Cheryl Cole's upcoming move to the US, because he wants to collaborate on some music with the singer!

He explains:

"Me and Cheryl talked about working together earlier but our schedules never worked out. America is a tough market, but as long as she has the right material Cheryl can do it."

We agree! And you have a lot of artists standing behind you 100%, bb!

America is going to LOVE you!

What do U think?? Do U want to see Ne-Yo and Chezza make sweet music together??

[Images via WENN.]

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Simon's Exes Ruined His Xmas

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 00:57:00 -0800

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Simon's Exes Ruined His Xmas

via Celebrity gossip juicy celebrity rumors Hollywood gossip blog from Perez Hilton by Perez Hilton on 12/27/10

Looks like Simon Cowell did NOT have a happy holiday this year.

According to The Daily Star, Simon's fiancee Mezhgan Hussainy spent the holiday arguing with Cowell's former lovers Jackie St. Clair and Sinitta.

Here's what a source had to say about it:

"They are spoiling his holiday with their constant bitchy sniping. He's had a hectic year and was looking forward to some relaxing time in the sun but these daft women are ruining it for him.

There's been plenty of sniping and they have come close to clawing each other's eyes out. It's all back-biting and bitchy comments.

There have been plenty of fireworks. The trouble is they are all like children desperately trying to be the centre of attention with Simon and they hate competing for his time."

Sorry to hear it, Simon! Hopefully they can call a temporary truce ~~or just ignore each other~~ so U can have a better New Year's!

[Image via WENN.]

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10 Useful Dreamweaver Tips For Beginners

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 06:56:00 -0800

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10 Useful Dreamweaver Tips For Beginners

via hongkiat.com by hongkiat on 12/27/10

A Dreamweaver user will definitely reckon what a powerhouse it is. Packed with tonnes of features, options and debatably one among the most well known IDE (Integrated Development Environment) in today's market. It may not meet the criteria that some developers demanded however, Dreamweaver undeniably provides a decent range of development, collaborating and coding tools. These options and tools are hidden under layers of regrettable less intuitive menus, which is why we are providing tutorials in today's post.

We will show you some of the most powerful functions of Dreamweaver to assist your access them quickly, along with many other helpful tricks that will lubricate you development time and improve your code quality significantly. Full list after jump.

1. Dynamic View with "Live View"

We already know that DW offers a static view of our open files, but what about "dynamic views" of an application such as WordPress?

First, we need to tell DW what settings to use to present our"dynamic views" correctly. To do this, select HTTP Request Settings from the View > Live View Options menu, then enter the GET or POST parameters you need to view your application correctly.

Then by switching to Live View in DW, it replaces the old Design View pane with a live, pixel-perfect WebKit rendering of your page; complete with live Javascript, DOM manipulations, database queries, server-side code, and rendered CSS, rather than the placeholder icons you see in Design View.

2. "Code Navigator" is DW's Firebug

Taking it a step further is all about the Code Navigator and when in the Live View window, ALT-clicking (Command-Option-clicking for Mac) anywhere in the window, instantly presents the code that rendered that item. Similar to what you might currently see in Firefox/Firebug.

3. Freezing JavaScript

Due to the dynamic nature of Ajax, many times we need to interact with a page where certain items are not rendered or available on first page load. These are items that are injected into the page some time after page load. Here's an example:

You might want to change the styling of a tool tip that is implemented entirely in JavaScript. Before today, you'd have to methodically search your way through your scripts to find what was being created and where.

Instead, try this:

Render your page in Live View, then hit F6 to Freeze JavaScript at any time, allowing you to target and dissect the code relating to any dynamic item in the page.

4. Live View's Next Best Friend – "Live Code"

When using Live View, you can also turn on Live Code. Live Code will update your code as you hover, click and interact with elements and items in the Live View window!

5. Automatic JavaScript Completion

Dreamweaver comes with an intelligent javascript code completion. Attach your favorite library in the HEAD (for our example, we'll use Prototype), start scripting, and Dreamweaver's code completion will automatically present Prototype's built-in functions, along with the standard DOM functions. Pretty slick!

6. Beautify Codes On The Fly

Does your code page look like unorganized, messy lines of code? Use the Apply Source Formatting feature and reformat it exactly to your preferences. To quickly clean them up, click the Format Source Code icon at the bottom of the Coding toolbar (Edit > Toolbars > Coding) and select Code Format Settings to set your preferred formatting.

You can also access the formatting option from Commands > Apply Source Formatting or only apply it to a select block of code by selecting the Apply Source Formatting to Selection option.

7. Get widgety

Just click the Extend Dreamweaver icon (it looks like a gear) in your Application Bar and select Browse for Web Widgets. This will take you to the Adobe Exchange where you can find additional widgets from vendors such as Yahoo!, JQuery, and many others.

8. Subversion & Dreamweaver

And yes, Dreamweaver does support Subversion (SVN). For developers who uses SVN to maintain revision control of their project, this could be a good news. Dreamweaver developer Andrew Voltmer discuss how you can use Subversions with Dreamweaver.

9. No More Redundant Styles

Many people use Dreamweaver as a way to update content visually, like a word processor. Before Dreamweaver CS4, this could result in redundant CSS rules like .class1, .class2, and so on. In Dreamweaver CS4, just switch your Property Inspector to HTML mode (click the HTML icon on the left of the Inspector) and you'll say goodbye to all that redundant CSS, inserting only appropriate HTML markup.

10. Form Validation made easy

Want to validate your form fields, but worried that you'll have to rebuild from scratch? No worries. Simply select an existing form element, such as a text field, and apply a Spry Validation widget from the Insert > Spry menu. Then control validation requirements such as minimum or maximum characters directly from the Property inspector.

Bonus: 3 more

11. Access Related Files Easily

When you open an HTML or PHP file, you will now see a row of dependent file names, such as CSS, Javascript and even included files for PHP, at the top of the document window. You can easily switch to these files, make changes and save them, all without even opening them up. When you click any file in the Related Files bar you will see its source in Code view and the parent page in Design view. Or use Code Navigator to quickly access CSS source code that affects your current selection.

12. Check browsers compatibility

Open the document you want to check for compatibility; from the same menu bar where Code / Split / Design views are accessed, look to the far right for 'Check Page' button.

Clicking it will expand a drop down menu, select 'Check Browser Compatibility'. The Browser Compatibility results window will show at the bottom of the window with any issues that you need to address.

Note: This will NOT check new versions of IE on Mac! To select which browsers to use for testing, select Check Page > Settings from the menu.

13. Preview PHP Pages

Dreamweaver allows you to run and preview PHP codes within the software. Here's how to get it setup.

Getting started

First, select Site -> New Site from the top navigation.
You'll see both the Basic and Advanced Site Definition option tabs. Let's proceed by selecting the Advanced Site Definition tab.
Enter a folder name for the site in the appropriate box (for this example we'll use "myphp" as the folder name).
Create another folder named "images" by entering its name in the 'Default Images Folder' field.
Under the Local Info, input the following values in the fields:
- Site Name: the name of the site. To be used in Dreamweaver only
- Local root folder: This is the name of the site you will be working in. Be sure to name sites in a way to minimize conflicts, or confusing names.
- Default Images folder: This is optional, but it's advised to create it now as most sites will use images to some extent. This is where DW will 'look' to insert images in your documents during the coding phase.
- Links Relative to: This defines how document linking in Dreamweaver will be handled. You can select either Document or Root. The differences between the two are:
  - Document Relative – Will insert a path relative to the file you are working and the item being linked to.
  - Root Relative – Uses / which causes the document/file to be linked in relation to the ROOT folder.
  - Another alternative is to add some configuration to the server configuration files. Being a more advanced task, we'll just stick to using Document-relative for now.
- HTTP address: enter the site root folder for your project
- Case-sensitive links: Dreamweaver will check if any file in the project can have Case-sensitive issue when uploading to the server. Notifications will be shown when you use: Site -> Check Links Sitewide. You can leave it checked if you want. I personally don't leave it checked as I always name files in lowercase. Uppercase letter is not recommended.
- Cache: Check Enable cache.
In the Remote Info page, either setup your FTP or other access to a remote server or leave the Access to None.
In the Testing Server page select the option that relates to the file type/system you will be testing.
Version Control will not be used for this example so you may leave it blank unless familiar with it.
Cloaking allows you to place .psd, .fla, and other source files within your sites folder and DW will disregard them when uploading/updating your site.
Design Notes are ideal for a web design team as it retains note on changes made to the files. It's checked by default and fine for us to use this way.
Leave File View Column, Contribute, and Templates as default.
The Spry page simply points to the Spry assets folder which is automatically included with Dreamweaver. There's no need to change this. Once every setting is finished, click OK.

Preview PHP in Dreamweaver

Now open a PHP file and make the needed changes to it. To view this file in Dreamweaver simply press F12 and the results will show in your default browser. You can change which browser is used in Edit -> Preferences -> Preview in Browser. This allows a faster edit-to-preview time, eliminates the need to type long URLs into your browser bar or to use another server software to render the PHP files, all of which save time!

That's all. Happy Dreamweaver'ing :-)

(bellefoong)

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Beautiful Images

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 08:11:00 -0800

submitted by alsp 18 days ago (via thefairest.info)

Some really stunning images, check out number 4

The Evolution of Desktops: from 1984 to the present

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:27:00 -0700

A couple of days ago I did a little experiment with the previous (and first!) entry of this blog with the objective of collecting some statistical information about people like me, who are avid readers of nerdly news, and in particular of trying to measure the famous slashdot effect and compare it with its analogous from other sites. The blog entry made its way to the front page of Slashdot, Digg and their spanish clones: Barrapunto and Meneame, generating around 140,000 combined visits that were logged using Google Analytics. This time I want to share the results with you.

Duration

The article was on Slashdot's front page for about 20.5 hours (from August 13^th, 2:30PM until August 14^th, 11:00AM). As you can see below, most of the visits took place on monday morning. After leaving the front page of Slashdot and Digg the daily visits were reduced from 81,300 to 17,000 and surely will continue dropping as fast as they grew.

	Sunday	Monday
Visits:	42,813	81,316
Visits/hour:	4,505	7,390
Visits/minute:	75	123

Bandwidth

A first visit to the page produce a transfer of arround 720kB, with that and the number of new visitors can we figure out how much data (approximately) was transferred during that time.


Sunday:	28.7GB
Monday:	54,6GB
Total:	83.3GB

Where do all those geeks come from?

People came from all over the world, in fact from 157 different countries. Most stories in Slashdot/Digg reach every corner of the world!


North America:	77,634 visits
Europe:	41,159 visits
Oceania:	6,443 visits
Asia:	5,423 visits
Hispanic America:	5,350 visits
Africa:	724 visits


USA:	67,752 visits
Canada:	9,882 visits
UK:	9,336 visits
Spain:	7,577 visits
Australia:	5,209 visits
Germany:	3,770 visits
Netherlands:	2,413 visits
Sweden:	2,014 visits
Brazil:	2,008 visits

Languages


English:	116,853 visits
Spanish:	7,402 visits
German:	1,975 visits
French:	1,763 visits
Japanese:	1,758 visits
Dutch:	1,465 visits
Portuguese:	1,351 visits

The Referrers

I didn't imagine such big difference between the traffic from Slashdot and from Digg.


Slashdot:	75,753 visits
Digg:	18,087 visits
Barrapunto:	3,767 visits
Metafilter:	3,271 visits
I-am-bored.com:	1,627 visits
Slo-Tech:	1,589 visits
del.icio.us:	1,582 visits
Meneame:	1,538 visits

Firefox & the geeks!

Almost 2/3 of the people were using the Firefox browser, who said Internet Explorer is the most popular browser? Well, not among us :)


Firefox:	63%
Internet Explorer:	20%

OSs

Unfortunately Linux is still not so popular as Firefox, even among the geeks.


Windows:	72%
Macintosh:	14%
Linux:	13%

Combo: OS - Browser

Screen Resolution


Resolution:	1280x1024 and 1024x768
Color Depth	32 bit

Plugins


Flash:	96,6%
Java:	96%

Connection Speed


Dialup:	9%

Do geeks click on Ads?

Finally for all of you wondering what you can get (besides a burning web-server) from being slashdotted, here are the numbers. You are not going to become rich, but perhaps you have more luck than this guy.


Page Impressions:	154,243
Clicks:	454
Dollars:	$134

Apple creates iTunes free TV Show page

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:25:00 -0700

Apple creates a new page in its iTunes Music Store with some free TV Shows listed, free to download. This offer is exclusive only in US iTunes Music Store.

Apple has been pretty generous doling out free videos on the iTunes Music Store (at least to those of us in the United States), but they made it a bit challenging to find all the sweet, sweet gratis content. Enter the new Free Downloads page (iTunes link), it is your one stop shop for all the free videos currently available for download from iTunes.

Sweet.

read more | digg story

Dell to recall 4 million batteries

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:25:00 -0700

The recall affects certain Inspiron, Latitude and Precision mobile workstation units shipped between April 2004 and July 18, 2006.

update Dell and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission plan to recall 4.1 million notebook batteries on Tuesday, a company representative confirmed Monday.

The recall affects certain Inspiron, Latitude and Precision mobile workstations and XPS units shipped between April 2004 and July 18, 2006. Sony manufactured the batteries that are being recalled, the representative said. Click here to see photos of recalled batteries.

If they have one of the affected units, consumers are advised to eject the battery from the notebook after powering down and continue using the notebook with its AC power adapter, the CPSC said. Dell has so far received six reports of overheating units that caused property damage, but no injuries.

Dell has faced several issues this year related to exploding or flaming notebooks, and wants to ensure the safety of its customers, the representative said. The 4.1 million units is a subset of the 22 million units shipped during that time frame, he said. Dell said it doesn't expect the cost of the recall to materially affect its earnings. The company reports earnings for the previous quarter this Thursday.

At the moment, this looks like the largest battery recall in the history of the electronics industry, said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "The scale of it is phenomenal."

Sony will help pay the costs associated with the recall of 4.1 million batteries the company supplied to Dell, said Rick Clancy, a Sony spokesman.

"We are supporting Dell's recall," Clancy said. "There will be financial assistance and we are sharing engineering data and both doing further research." He declined to specify exactly how much assistance Sony would provide.

Customers will be able to go to a Dell Web site or to the Consumer Product Safety Commission site to determine if they need a new battery. Dell also plans to launch a toll-free number, 1-866-342-0011, for people affected by the situation, IDC analyst Richard Shim said.

"It's a huge deal," Shim said, particularly for Dell customers with employees in remote locations or traveling. "If you have people all over the field, then you're asking folks to send in the batteries and run off just AC (alternating current power) until they can get new batteries shipped out to them."

Dell had only six incidents over millions of units, Shim said, but it's "a dangerous situation."

What causes the problem?
Lithium ion batteries have two to three times the energy density of nickel-cadmium and nickel-metal hydride batteries and four times the energy density of lead-acid batteries. Higher energy density translates to longer battery life. Lithium ion batteries are used in consumer electronics and notebooks, which only require a limited amount of energy. Hybrid cars and power tools, however, generally use more traditional batteries, in part because of the risk of explosion.
Dell battery packs

The problems Dell is having stem from impurities within the anode and cathode of the battery, said Kay, who was briefed on the problems by Dell executives. Over time, those impurities, usually tiny pieces of metal, can work their way to the edge of the anode or cathode and rupture the isolator that sits between the two, he said. Once that happens, you get a short circuit and possibly a fire.

In cell phones, lithium ion batteries can overheat because of a short circuit. If the temperature rises slowly, the battery case may melt. If it rises rapidly, however, enough pressure may be generated to create a small explosion in a lithium ion battery. Consumers have suffered severe burns as a result of these failures. The chemical reaction that produces energy in a lithium ion battery is considered quite violent.

Several companies, including Valence Technology and PowerGenix, are working on safer lithium ion batteries or batteries which rely on different chemicals.

"The timing of this does buy Dell goodwill with customers and potential customers," said Sam Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis. The first pictures of exploding laptops were posted in June, and the company has moved fairly quickly to investigate whether or not the problems were isolated or more widespread, he said.
Models in the hot seat

Dell plans to announce a recall of 4.1 million batteries worldwide on Tuesday. Here's a list of the affected models.

It's possible that other PC vendors are using the Sony batteries in their products, Kay said. Dell executives told Kay that the company was one of the first to begin using this type of battery, and that they think other problems will crop up down the road for other PC companies.

But even if two companies use the same batteries, they don't necessarily design the technology that connects the battery to the notebook in the same way, Kay said. For example, Lenovo's notebooks use software that's designed to shut down the battery if it notices a problem and they charge the batteries more slowly than others in the industry, a company representative said. A Dell representative was unable to comment on the specifc technology it uses to enclose its batteries.

Sony's lithium ion cells can be found in the battery packs used by other manufacturers, but at this point Sony and those manufacturers have not seen the same level of problems that affected the Dell notebooks with Sony's technology, Clancy said. "We are in close communication with our customers, and as appropriate we will work with them and the CPSC if needed," he said.

A Lenovo representative said the company has not seen an unusual pattern of problems with its notebook batteries, although no PC company is immune to battery issues from time to time. Lynn Fox, an Apple Computer spokeswoman, said, "We are currently investigating whether batteries that have been supplied to Apple for our current and previous notebook lines meet our high standards for battery safety and performance." Representatives for Hewlett-Packard and Gateway were not immediately available to comment.

CNET News.com's Stephen Shankland contributed to this report.

read more | digg story

Digg Adds Video Thumbnails

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:20:00 -0700

Starting today, all newly submitted videos from YouTube and Google will include static thumbnail previews. Support for Yahoo! videos is coming soon.

Starting today, all newly submitted videos from YouTube and Google will include static thumbnail previews. Support for Yahoo! videos is coming soon.

If you're a video hosting provider and would like digg to include thumbnail support for your videos, email us at support at digg.com, and we'll do our best to add you.

Enjoy,

Kevin

posted by Kevin Rose at 2:21 PM

read more | digg story

A new way to test your bandwidth (and it looks pretty cool too!)

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:20:00 -0700

The site allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.

Applications that test bandwidth speeds have been around for years, but Speedtest.net takes the concept a step further.

The site allows you to select servers to ping from around the country on an interactive map and graphically displays connections as they travel with varying speeds along the way. It also lets you store results of tests for your computer and sort them by date, time, speed and distance.

Finally, Speedtest provides a simple way to share your results with others--taking the practice of monitoring bandwidth into the Web 2.0 realm.
Posted by Mike Yamamoto

read more | digg story

Movie Download Service Sued Over Spyware

noreply@blogger.com (forcode) — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 08:19:00 -0700

Washington State has sued the owners of the Movieland.com, alleging that the company used spyware to strong-arm users into signing up for its paid movie download service. Consumers who downloaded Movieland.com's free 3-day trial software were eventually hit with frequent pop-up ads informing them that they were legally obliged to buy the product.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service Tue Aug 15, 10:00 AM ET

The state of Washington has sued the owners of the Movieland.com, alleging that the company used spyware to strong-arm users into signing up for its paid movie download service.
ADVERTISEMENT

Consumers who dowloaded Movieland.com's free three-day trial software would eventually be hit with frequent pop-up ads informing them that they were legally obliged to purchase the product, said Paula Selis, an assistant attorney general with the state. The tactics forced some consumers to give in and pay between $20 and $100 for the service, she said.

Washington State, and other organizations like the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the Better Business Bureau have received thousands of consumer complaints about Movieland.com, dating back to the end of 2005, Selis added.

"We sued them because we were getting complaints from consumers who felt that they were being harassed and held over a barrel for payments that they didn't agree to make," she said.
Company, Two Officials Named

The suit was filed yesterday in King County Superior Court in Seattle. It charges Movieland.com's parent company, Digital Enterprises, of West Hills, California, with violating the state's antispyware and consumer protection laws. Two company officials are also named in the suit: Easton Herd, and Andrew Garroni, both of Los Angeles.

Garroni and Herd's companies operated a number of video download services, including Moviepass.tv and Popcorn.net, the Washington Attorney General's office said.

Though the company's free trial software does advise users that they will be obliged to purchase a monthly license if they do not cancel, this notice does not sufficiently explain what will happen if the software is installed, Selis said.

Movieland.com's Web site offers downloads saying, "No Spyware," "Virus Free," and "No Extra Charge."

The company did not return a call seeking comment for this story.

Movieland.com is the second company to be sued under Washington's 2005 Computer Spyware Act. In January the Attorney General's office sued Secure Computer of White Plains, New York, alleging that its Spyware Cleaner software failed to work as advertised. That litigation is ongoing, Selis said.

read more | digg story