Sorry, everybody who bought a Zune HD! You screwed up. It won’t be a part of the XNA Game Studio 4.0 party—meaning it won’t play those new mobile Xbox Live games for Windows Phone 7—unlike the Zune HD2. More »

We’ve remarked in the past that TiVo is slowly dying and the latest numbers from the company aren’t making us any more optimistic: More »

Everyone likes watching the Oscars at a party, and we’re having our very own! It’s going to be here in the comments section. You’re invited to come talk trash about Hollywood. Why? Because we like you, we really like you. More »

We’ve come across plenty of robots that were controlled by phones before, but usually those phones were being controlled by human hands. Some California hackers, however, are building bots that put Android to work for their robo-brainpower. More »

Apple’s lawsuit against HTC made one thing clear: Steve. Jobs. Will. Cut You. And with all the patents they’ve got? Nobody’s safe. Here’s who’s next on the subpoena warpath: More »

She said she met hockey star Wayne Gretzky during the recent final game for the Gold Medal in hockey at the Olympics, and she recalled how he said that he doesn’t skate to where the puck is, but where it will be. The same applies for anticipating cyber attacks.

Under President Obama, protection of the nation’s cyber infrastructure is viewed as both an issue of national and economic security, Napolitano said in a speech at the RSA security conference in San Francisco today. Her speech follows one yesterday by Howard Schmidt, the new White House national cybersecurity coordinator.

“We don’t live in a static world,” she said. “We have to evolve to deal with the threats.”

The federal government’s goal is to protect cyberspace, making it safe and secure and encouraging cyber security knowledge and innovation. It is working with private industries to protect infrastructure of the Internet that is owned by both federal and private parties.

One project is Einstein, an effort to protect federal agencies. Basic protection has been added under Einstein, but now the government is moving on to the idea of preventing attacks before they can happen. The effort mirrors attempts to anticipate terrorist attacks to head off the cyber equivalent of 9/11.

Napolitano said that the government is also reviewing the resiliency of networks to make sure that, if there are attacks, they can’t take down all of the network and that recovery can be quick. She said the collaborative work is happening, but was short on the details.

“We want to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security has the legal authority and financial resources to act and retain the top talent that it needs,” she said. “We have to make the system writ large, safe and secure.”

She asked the conference attendees to redouble efforts to increase security and improve their products so that the security is automatic and the reaction to attacks can happen at Internet speed. She wants the industry to make interoperable products and privacy-enhancing authentication. And she called for the industry to increase public awareness and set up a competition to do so. The DHS National Cyber Challenge contest closes on April 30 and details are on the DHS web site. The investment in this educational campaign will be big; Napolitano compared it to the scale of campaigns to stop smoking and prevent forest fires via Smoky the Bear.

People: Janet Napolitano

Bourne Energy’s BPP-2 puts a 30-pound, 500-watt generating hydroelectric plant on your back. That’s like being able to walk around with 60 solar panels. And when civilization finally collapses, I’ll be dragging mine to an as yet undisclosed location. More »

The DVE Immersion room might well be the most impressive holographic telepresence setup for sharing 3D Powerpoint presentations ever (better than anything you could buy), but their promo video feels like it was produced by OCP in Robocop. More »

So it seemed appropriate that his son, one of Canada’s great musical artists, was expected to be among the performers Sunday night for the closing ceremonies of the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver.

It was the night of the full moon, which rose over North America like a celestial hockey puck after Canada won the hockey gold medal by defeating the United States, 3-2, on a goal in sudden-death overtime by Sidney Crosby.

Sudden-death is the appropriate term for Crosby, a skilled opportunist who plays with a lethal instinct.

He materializes from the edge of action like a wraith in the mist. The best team barely won Sunday and Crosby was its best player.

His wrist shot between the pads of Ryan Miller ended a clean, hard match of exquisite ebb and flow that elevated the profile of the sport and enhanced its appeal.

Crosby showed tears and a big smile before getting his gold medal and skating with the Canadian flag. “Hockey’s in really good shape,” he told NBC.

It sure was on this day and in this tournament, the best feature of an entertaining Olympics, a natural team competition that felt legitimate compared to some of the newer stunt sports contrived to showcase acrobatic daredevils for American audiences.

In two weeks of competition, the silver-medal Americans were better than expected; the Russians were far worse. The Slovaks were impressive; the bronze-medal Finns were hard to figure.

And thanks to NBC for staying with the entire post-game scene Sunday and not breaking for any commercials.

For the most part, its telecasts this time around showed respect for the sport and a new awareness of which camera angles work well and which ones do not.

One quibble about Sunday’s telecast was the intrusion of sounds from unseen replays that leaked onto the live audio several times.

You could hear them even over the non-stop chatter of Ed Olczyk, who knows a lot about hockey but rarely comes to the end of a sentence or a thought.

At one point, during the medal ceremonies, the play-by-play man, Mike Emrick, had to gently suggest that it would be good to listen to the public address announcer. Olczyk finally took the hint.

And then there were the flowers and the medals and the flag and the red Mounties and “O Canada!” in a big arena singing scene that seemed sacramental, like a ritual in a cathedral.

It was quite the way to end a game, a tournament and an Olympics. No, the American hockey players did not quite win, despite a clutch comeback, but it is hard to call them losers.

Both teams merit praise. In the words of the Joni Mitchell song from the opening ceremonies, you could appreciate “both sides now” and salute them for a terrific conclusion.

More on Hockey

It’s possible that you’ve been reading reports of Microsoft’s body-sensing Project Natal with some skepticism, wondering, “how well can this cockamamie setup possibly work?” Well, going by this video of it perfectly tracking a guy breakdancing, pretty damn well. More »

[Hope you enjoyed your snow day today, New York, like these people trudging through Bryant Park today. Monday it's back to the office—through the slush. Image via Getty] More »

“You could take immediate delivery of a new 2010 Tesla Roadster or Roadster Sport,” it says in my inbox, “with a three year, 30,000 mile contract and with monthly payments as low as $1,658. At the end of the term, you’ll be able to purchase the groundbreaking Roadster or pay a fee and walk away.”

Don’t forget to budget for insurance, sure to be high on a two-seater with 248 horsepower behind the driver’s head. The Tesla Roadster rockets from zero to 60 miles per hour in less than four seconds. Insurance actuaries hate that.

Not to brag, but I took a test ride in a prototype in 2006. The car feels safe despite its speed, thanks to a linear torque curve and a high PRM limit that prevents the usual gear-shifting jerkiness of gasoline-powered high-performance cars. The Tesla accelerates smoothly all the way from standstill to well beyond legal speed limits. In first gear.

If the price is still to high for you, hang on. The company plans to sell a $50,000 BMW-esque sedan next year.

Companies: Tesla Motors

The average global consumer now spends more than five and half hours on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, up from 3 hours in December 2008. In correlation, the overall traffic to social networking sites by unique visitors increased as well.

The majority of time spent online by consumers was dedicated to social networks and blogs, with online games and instant messaging close behind. The statistics looked at global consumers, but they refer to only a select group of countries, including U.S., U.K., Australia, Brazil, Japan, Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.

The U.S. saw tremendous growth percentages. Minutes spent on social networks and blogs increased 210 percent, while the average time per person increased 143 percent. The growth is attributed to two main social networking sites, Facebook and Twitter, which increased 200 percent and 36 percent in December 2009. Other social networking sites Myspace, LinkedIn and Classmates all saw decreases in site visitors.

The increased time spent on social networking sites is good news for the host of companies looking to help marketers manage and optimize social media campaigns targeted at these users. Companies like HootSuite and Sway offer marketers platforms to target, track and interact with social users. And, according to a recent MIT and Microsoft Research report, more than 50 percent of them asks for recommendations and opinions from their networks. While the respondents were mainly Microsoft employees, one might conclude that if more consumers are spending time on social networks looking for recommendations and opinions, this could be an optimal time for companies to have a presence and affect buying habits.

The New York Times dubbed an entire group of formerly middle class Americans “the new poor,” warning that millions may be out of work for years. More than at any time since the Great Depression, people are experiencing an overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness. I know. I was one of them. I seriously considered taking my own life less than two years ago because I was caught in a personal financial meltdown, which prompted me to think I was worth more dead than alive. I knew that my life insurance would provide my family with something that I could not — economic stability and security.

I chose not to end my life, but rather to chronicle my journey from darkness into the light in an intimate journal, which later became my book, The Last Day of My Life. I asked myself one simple question: what would I do if I have only twenty-four hours to live? I thought about what I would value most, and it turned out to have nothing to do with the number on my bank statement, but rather the people in my life and the relationships I had forged. I wrote about friendship, love, forgiveness, apology, compassion, tenacity, and all those intangibles, which make up the tapestry of a rich, fulfilling life.

These are unsettling times. We read about banks receiving government bailouts because they are “too big to fail” only to post record profits less than a year later. We suspect little incentive for those same banks to renegotiate upside down mortgages because they can reclaim foreclosed properties for pennies on the dollar only to profit on the sale of those homes. Credit card companies charge 29% interest on outstanding balances for money they themselves can borrow from the treasury at near 0%. The stock market plummets, wiping out retirement accounts and life savings, and prompting sweeping job cuts. Of course people feel a sense of hopelessness. Who can blame them?

Which brings me to Vancouver. Last week, the Winter Olympics outperformed American Idol in the television ratings. It is the first time in six years that the Idol juggernaut has been successfully challenged. Does it say something about where we are as a country? I think so. Maybe people need a little good news, something uplifting that they can believe in. It’s refreshing to see that the “good guys” can finish first, not through market manipulation, but through years of honest, hard work, sacrifice and dedication. After all, aren’t those the values we were taught this country was built on in the first place?

We cheered as Lindsey Vonn skied to gold in the women’s downhill despite having a badly bruised and swollen right shin. We marveled at Shaun White’s back-to-back Olympic domination of the half pipe snowboarding event. But it was not just the American victories that captivated us. Chinese figure skating partners and married couple Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo, lived in separate dormitories as they trained for their Olympic challenge. Despite being the oldest pair in the competition at 31 and 36, they dominated the event. We applauded Canadian freestyle skier Alex Bilodeau as he won Canada’s first-ever gold medal on home soil. Bilodeau inspired us, not only with his win, but by speaking so lovingly of his older brother with cerebral palsy, who had inspired him to train and to compete.

Like many of those athletes, we all expect to fall on occasion, sometimes even getting injured. But if we get up, dust ourselves off and persevere, we want to believe that it is possible to end up on that podium, or certainly, at least to finish the race with our dignity and respect intact. That’s what we see every night in Vancouver that gives us reason to have renewed faith. I think most people are satisfied with that. Not with the guarantee of victory, but just a fair chance of making it to the end of the race.

More on Financial Crisis

Yesterday’s acquisition of mobile e-mail startup reMail by Google marked yet another home run for Buchheit, who came up with the search giant’s “Don’t be evil” slogan. He was also an early investor in both Appjet, which was also acquired by Google in December, and Mint, which was bought by Intuit for $170 million in September. Then, of course, Buchheit’s own company FriendFeed was bought by Facebook in a talent acquisition in August.

Mint founder Aaron Patzer credited Buchheit with helping him think about the appropriate software architecture for his consumer finance site.

“He pushed us to prioritize performance and search speed and helped us to find ways to scale Mint successfully,” Patzer said.

reMail chief executive Gabor Cselle said Buchheit helped him hone his product down to its core essentials. Buchheit himself is a strong advocate of keeping products simple and focused.

“Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh endured my slide deck on our multi-step plan for global email domination, and pointed out that instead I should build something small, simple, and useful. It worked,” Cselle wrote in a blog post announcing the reMail acquisition yesterday.

More on Real Estate

The New York based startup offers what it calls “zero waste advertising.” In other words, it optimizes the distribution of in-stream ads (basically commercials that run before, after, or during the video) and interactive ads so that companies maximize their reach to the audience that they’re looking for. In fact, TidalTV says that if its network allow your ad to reach the audience that you want, you get your money back. It’s also looking to expand to “all video delivery platforms,” not just the web.

That sounds like a different model from the one TidalTV was pitching when it raised its $15 million two years ago. Back then, it said it would offer “the best in professionally produced, branded programming,” but it seems like video ad startups are doing better than video websites — for example, BrightRoll recently told us that its ads reach 53 million people each month, and more importantly that it has been profitable for the last 12 months.

The new funding comes from Comcast Interactive Ventures and existing investors New Enterprise Associates and Valhalla Partners.

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As a big chunk of Team Engadget makes its way around the nooks and crannies of Barcelona, we have this zinger of a podcast for you. Full of insights about the very near future, there is simply no better place to learn about what will probably happen in the next few days at Mobile World Congress than Engadget Podcast 183. Enjoy!

Hosts: Nilay Patel, Paul Miller, Chris Ziegler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: SkyLabrynth – Lollipop Chipdub

Hear the podcast

03:05 – Dell Mini 5: we have it (update: new pics and video!)
10:02 – Garmin-Asus nuvifone A50 runs Android, knows where you are turn-by-turn
15:15 – Motorola details Android 2.1 update for Droid
15:30 – Motorola ‘jumped the gun’ with details of Droid’s Android 2.1 update
19:38 – Intel to be part of Nokia’s MWC press conference — a new Booklet, or something more?
27:15 – HTC Legend breaks cover on KPN’s site for March launch
28:48 – HTC Bravo spotted again, looking as real as ever
30:53 – Motorola Devour launching somewhere on February 25th, everywhere on March 15th
31:40 – Microsoft’s MWC digs come together, ‘Ready, Set’ is the theme (and Steve Ballmer’s hosting)
47:30 – Sony Ericsson
48:25 – Verizon / Skype Press Conference
49:15 – Samsung Wave launching Bada onto its very first handset at MWC
52:15 – South Korean iPhone users turn to sausages as a cold weather ‘meat stylus’

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Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @reckless @engadget

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Engadget Podcast 183: MWC Preview – 02.13.2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The roof of one of the small jets hangars at Dulles International…